“Tonight?”
“Tonight.” Micah strode out of Mrs. Tanner’s fussy little parlor down a narrow hall that led to Jonathan’s room. Jonathan had persuaded his aunt to donate the use of her deceased husband’s old rolltop desk—which could be locked—and soon after their arrival in New York, he and Micah maneuvered it into the privacy of Jonathan’s bedroom.
“Your aunt will be home from her quilting bee by seven, you told me,” he said after they’d closed and locked the door. “That gives us almost an hour.”
“Why not pull Mrs. Bingham out now, instead of sending off a telegram?”
He’d thought about it. Yessir, he’d thought about it long and hard. “Because we’re close enough to spit in their faces, but not close enough to handcuff ’em. She should be safe for another day or two, because I’ve been invited for dinner there tomorrow night. As I explained to Mrs. Bingham, they won’t risk forging a note, claiming illness or some other trumped-up reason for her not appearing.”
“Because you wouldn’t accept it, and ask…ah…pointed questions.”
“Precisely.” He added reluctantly, “On this end, however, I’m thinking it might be wise for you to use a telegraph office in another borough.”
“Don’t worry about me, Mr. MacKenzie,” he claimed with an insouciant grin. “Remember, I know how to be invisible. Besides, I can be to the Western Union in Queens in a quarter of an hour, sir.”
Grappling with a vague disquietude, Micah opened his mouth to make the suggestion an order, but hesitated. Jonathan needed to grow, needed to test his own skills as a trained operative, instead of following orders as Micah’s assistant. To become a man, his father used to tell him, you have to be given the opportunity to live with the consequences of your choices.
Jonathan unlocked the desk, rolled back the top, and from one of the slots deftly removed an unused telegram. “I’m ready whenever you are, sir.”
While Micah talked to his assistant, he simultaneously prayed that the choices he had made were not about to reap disastrous consequences.
After crossing the river, Micah alternated hansoms, two horsecars and a streetcar with four stops along the Third Avenue El, eventually wending his way back to the Brevoort Hotel. A little past ten o’clock he strolled into the lobby, whistling as though he hadn’t a care in the world. No strangers loitered in the public rooms, nor were any messages waiting. The desk clerk was the usual man, as were the bellhops who stood at attention and greeted him as he strode to the elevator. Hamish, the elderly elevator operator, assured him that no new guests had arrived that evening.
Marginally relieved, a few moments later Micah unlocked the door to his room and stepped inside, his gaze automatically sweeping the area. He had time only to notice the billowing curtains that covered the windows when he sensed movement in the shadows off to his left.
Even as he ducked and spun, something hard slammed against the back of his head. Lights exploded inside his skull before he hurtled into darkness.
Pleading fatigue from hers and Micah’s extended outing, Jocelyn told her aunt and uncle she would not be joining them for dinner at the Waldorf Hotel. Their protests only hardened her resolve, though Mr. Bingham’s disappointment stung her conscience, and her cousins surprised her with their sincerity. “You’re the only woman I know with a brain,” Virgil complained. Julius gave her a hangdog expression and mumbled that at least she never made sport of him. “Who else will I talk to?”
After they finally left, with Portia’s glacial disapproval still frosting the air, Jocelyn requested a supper tray and retreated to her room. She longed to eat in blissful silence, but Katya filled her tablet with questions and accusations and portents.
“Katya, please don’t badger me,” Jocelyn protested finally, torn between anger and tears. “Things have happened. I need to think.”
Not thinking when Borcks not know where are you and Mr. MacKenzie all day.
“Katya.” Jocelyn gestured silently toward the pair of ladies’ chairs in front of windows that overlooked the garden, where she and the maid sat every evening. The nook was also on the opposite side of the room from the door to the outside hall, so not even a servant with ears the size of an elephant would be able to overhear.
“You must listen to me,” she told Katya after they sat down. “Listen, and not interrupt until I’m through.”
The maid sucked in her cheeks, but after a moment she gave a stiff nod.
“Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk in the garden. And I saw the man Mr. MacKenzie has been searching for all these months. The one who was in Mr. Hepplewhite’s store that day.”
Katya’s eyes flooded with alarm, and a quiver shuddered through her sturdy frame.
“Seeing this man proves we were right—you and I—to come to New York. It means we can finally do something to help, Katya. I needed to tell Mr. MacKenzie, but I couldn’t risk sharing this information where the Brock servants—including the coachman—could overhear. That’s why we were gone for so long.”
Unbidden, the events of the day crashed around her; she fought to maintain a level tone of voice. “The man’s name is Benny. Benny Foggarty. Remember it, but don’t ever write it down in this house.” Through lips that felt like India rubber, she spelled the name out to help Katya remember it. “Can you see it inside your head?” she asked. The girl nodded. “He may or may not have recognized me,” Jocelyn plowed ahead, “but I’m more afraid Micah might be in danger.”
The sensation of panic intensified. Jocelyn closed her eyes and tried to imagine her favorite oak tree, but all her jumbled mind conjured up was the image of Micah’s face when they’d parted earlier. In the late-afternoon light, the strong bones appeared more finely drawn, the gray eyes dull as soot. He hadn’t wanted to leave her. Jocelyn insisted. Their parting had been awkward, the air rife with unspoken currents.
An internal nudge, like a puff of wind blowing against the locked door inside her heart, somehow discovered a crack and before she quite realized it Jocelyn found herself praying. Begging God to keep him safe.
Not for me, but for Micah. You took his wife and his son. Don’t let anything happen to him now. Surely divine justice as well as divine mercy would acknowledge the legitimacy of her plea. And perhaps since the prayer was not self-serving, it would engender a response.
Katya tugged her sleeve, and with a tremulous sigh Jocelyn opened her eyes.
What do we should do?
A lump formed in Jocelyn’s throat. “We’re going to do whatever we have to, in order to protect him. The Brocks are out for at least another three hours. With a little bit of luck and—” swallowing the lump, she added in a rusty whisper “—with a little bit of prayer, we’ll…do our part.”
She cleared her throat, for the first time catching a glimmer of understanding for how Micah must have felt. “We have the perfect opportunity to engage in a bit of sleuthing. Let me think. Um…I need you to watch and listen,” she began, struggling to organize her thoughts. “Stand guard outside doors. If you hear anyone, you let me know so we can scoot away before we’re caught in suspicious circumstances.”
A thunderous frown etched across the broad forehead. Not good plan. I can not talk. Can not run fast. Mr. MacKenzie won’t like.
“Well, it’s the only plan I can think of. I have to do something. Mr. MacKenzie needs proof. This is the first time in a month I’ve had the opportunity to search with minimal risk.” Jocelyn stood. “If you’d rather stay here in the room, fine. I’m not a trained operative, so certainly I’m not making this an order.” Turning, she headed for the huge closet. “Time is passing. I need to change out of this lounging wrapper and put on more suitable clothes, something a thief would wear.”
Darts of self-loathing swooped about like a flock of ravens as she tore off the wrapper, flinging it in a graceless heap onto a padded bench. No wonder Katya was repelled by Jocelyn’s suggestion. What decent soul would embrace the notion of pilfering through someone else’
s private sanctuaries? Her face felt hot as she recalled her childish prayer. God was good, perfect. If He hadn’t deigned to answer her prayers through all the years when she had tried to please Him, what on earth made her think He would respond to petitions from a woman who had become a sneak as well as a liar?
Chapter Sixteen
Moments later, Jocelyn was hastily buttoning a narrow pin-striped shirtwaist over her chemise when Katya appeared in the doorway. She thrust out her note, her eyes solemn.
I do not want you in danger. I do not want Mr. MacKenzie in danger. I do not know what to do. But I pray.
The simple words scattered like a shotgun blast the flock of ravens picking at her soul. For years Jocelyn had fought the habit of self-denigration, born from years of marriage to a man who could never love her. At last, she faced the dismal likelihood that Chadwick himself had been involved with the counterfeiting network. Perhaps the money he had bequeathed to her was as bogus as the marriage.
There was little she could do, other than try to find the truth—and protect the innocent.
“Dear Katya.” She sighed, then wrapped a comforting arm about the girl’s waist. “I’m sorry. I never should have brought you to New York. This is not fair to you. You’re right, my initial plan was silly. I’ve been thinking, and I’ve come up with something you can do that will be far more helpful to me, but also keeps you from danger.” Surely the prayers of this pure-hearted girl would fly straight to the Lord’s ear. Surely He would protect Katya, as well as Micah, a devout believer struggling to rid the country of evildoers.
Taking a deep breath, she continued, “Prepare my bed-chamber as you normally do, lay out my nightgown and bed robe. Then prepare a hot bath—very hot! Add my gardenia bath oil, so that the scent fills the air. If I come racing up the stairs, and shortly thereafter someone knocks on the door, you can say truthfully that I’m taking a bath. Because, as soon as I shed these clothes, I’ll jump into the tub. The gardenia odor adds credibility. That means,” she added with a half smile, “the person is more likely to assume I really have been taking a bath instead of roaming the house, because even though they don’t see me, they can smell my favorite scent.”
Katya still looked doubtful. Struggling against desperation, Jocelyn finished, “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. If I know you’ve done what I ask, I can better concentrate, which means I might find the proof we need a lot faster.”
Reluctantly, Katya nodded, then without so much as a two-word scribble, she headed for the bathroom.
Even to Jocelyn the plan sounded illogical, ill-conceived, ill-timed. Well, if she’d had more than an hour to prepare, she could have devised a better one.
If her heart didn’t ache, if her mind weren’t so conflicted, if her spirit didn’t cringe…
If she had never met Chadwick Bingham at White Sulphur Springs she wouldn’t be in this wretched imbroglio at all.
But then she would never have met Micah. Never known what it felt like to have a man embrace her with so much passion his body trembled. Never known how faith could help a person find her way through devastating loss. Never experienced the incandescent joy of hearing him tell her he loved her, of seeing it in his face.
God? Are you listening? I’m willing to believe in You again, because of Katya, but mostly because of Micah. Please be listening. I love him. I never thought I could love anyone, or that a man like Micah could love a woman like me. Don’t take this away from us. Please.
When she realized she’d once again tumbled back through the years, into beggary, her hands closed into tight fists. She dropped down onto the padded bench, then with a low groan wrapped her arms around herself in a symbolic effort to halt the whirlwind sucking her into its deadly maw. She had no right to pray such a prayer. No right to expect dispensation from the natural law of consequences.
The Almighty was Yahweh, the great I Am. God of the present and the future. But not the past.
Jocelyn remembered with bitter clarity the last time she had sought comfort, and hope, from the Bible. It was the night following Chadwick’s funeral, and, come morning, Jocelyn was informed without a shred of compassion that she would be dragged forcibly from the home she and Chadwick had shared if she wasn’t out before breakfast. Heartsick and wretched, she opened the small leather-bound Bible her mother had given her, the first time she had opened it in over three years, and turned to the Book of Romans, Chapter 8, its verses bursting with promise. Neither death, nor life…nor things present, nor things to come…shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ….
She remembered how she pored over the words a score of times. How with each reading, another layer of chill coated her soul like hoarfrost because in all those verses, not once did the apostle Paul mention the past. God would not change the past. Through grace, He apparently chose to forget it altogether, so that it wasn’t necessary for Him to change it.
Jocelyn, weak, flawed, helpless mortal that she was, could not forget. For the five and a half years of her marriage, she had guarded a corrosive secret, been subjected to public ridicule. For the next five years she had tried to run away, only to discover the futility of trying to hide from one’s past.
What kind of future could she offer a man for whom integrity was a way of life?
After a time, she became aware that she was curled up inside her closet like a frightened child, instead of a grown woman who had spent a decade spitting in the eye of public opinion. Coward, she reproached herself without heat. The enervating episodes, usually triggered by awareness of her own helplessness, came upon her less frequently. She had finally learned they would pass, taking the frightened child with them as her natural stubbornness reasserted itself.
Standing, she inhaled deeply, then finished dressing in a single petticoat beneath a plain gored walking skirt, with its higher hem at the ankle. Instead of shoes or boots, however, she shoved her feet into a pair of evening slippers whose soft soles were more conducive for sneaking about.
After waving to Katya, she eased the bedroom door closed and hurried down the hallway to the wide staircase. Moments later, silent as a feather duster, she turned the ornate handle of the door to Aunt Portia’s third-floor office and stepped over the threshold.
Fifteen guilt-riddled minutes later she left the office empty-handed, her nose still twitching from the heavy rose scent that clung in the air, a persistent reminder of her aunt. She had searched the writing desk, tables with drawers, even fluttered the pages of two editions of Harper’s New Monthly magazine tossed carelessly on a side table. Cracking the safe was out of the question. Portia Brock was shrewd enough not to leave incriminating evidence lying about for someone like her duplicitous niece-in-law to find.
Besides, though her aunt might be guilty of the sin of narcissism, Jocelyn had never truly suspected Portia Brock of being a criminal.
She fared no better on the main level in the library, nor Uncle Brock’s surprisingly messy study, nor the family parlor, nor even in the obsessively neat butler’s pantry. Twice she was afraid that despite his rumbling snores, Palmer had spotted her from his post in the main hall’s vestibule.
Over three-quarters of an hour had passed.
Dry-mouthed but determined, Jocelyn reluctantly headed back upstairs to the family bedrooms, with some vague idea of searching for another escritoire, hopefully one with incriminating correspondence inside one of its drawers.
However, she was losing the war with her conscience as well as her courage. After all her bluster, all her pronouncements about civic responsibility, she was forced to admit that she did not possess a stern enough constitution to be an undercover operative. On the other hand, perhaps Micah, and the entire Secret Service, were mistaken about the Brocks.
Don’t forget Benny Foggarty.
Mouth set, Jocelyn opened the door to Rupert Bingham’s suite and marched inside.
Several fruitless moments later, she was a handful of paces from the door when it opened, and the val
et froze in startled surprise.
Jocelyn’s mind went sheet blank. “I—I wanted to leave Mr. Bingham a personal note,” she stammered at last. “I know he’s leaving first thing in the morning. He’s been so kind to me…but I discovered I’d accidentally left the note in my bedroom. I was about to return to my room to fetch it.”
“Certainly, madam,” he replied courteously. Gray-haired and glum as an old hound, the valet showed not even a flicker of curiosity after the first instant. Of course, Jocelyn had learned within a week of her marriage to Chadwick that servants were considered movable pieces of furniture, without voice or feelings. “You may leave it in the secretary.” He pointed an arthritic finger in its direction. “Mr. Bingham never locks it. I’ll inform him upon his return, so he won’t overlook your note.”
“Thank you, Ames.”
Without batting an eye, the valet proceeded into the room, and went about his duties.
She couldn’t do this—her nerves were practically clawing her insides to shreds. If another servant appeared in the oppressive gloom of this silent mansion Jocelyn might disgrace herself by shrieking like a steam kettle.
Micah was depending on her.
If no evidence could be found, he would be forced to take more drastic measures because he would not give up. If she hadn’t learned anything else over these past months, she had come to know—and admire—Micah’s unswerving dedication to his profession.
I won’t let you down, Micah, she promised him silently, garnering strength from somewhere deep inside her soul, from the dried-up stalks of faith in God, and in herself, a faith she barely remembered. She loved Micah enough not only to leave him, but to complete her part in his mission, regardless of her screeching nerves.
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