by Lisa Bingham
He regarded her sadly. “You deserve more.”
“I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me.”
He shook his head. “I should walk out that door.”
His words caused her to throw back the covers and rush across the room, wrapping her arms around his waist. “No. Stay with me. Give me what you can. Then, if you can’t offer me any more, I’ll go. Without a fuss.”
His fingers curled into her hair.
“Fiona—”
“Please!” She stared up at him. “Please.”
Not allowing him to reconsider, she pulled him across the room. Pushing him down upon the featherbed, she straddled his hips and placed desperate kisses across his chest, his jaw, his cheek. It didn’t matter that she had allowed him to see the way he’d broken her pride. All that mattered was that he’d agreed to offer her a few crumbs before he left her.
“All right.” The words were a mere puff of capitulation, but she heard them and smiled.
“You won’t live to regret your decision.”
“I know.” His fingers wove through her hair, and he said again, “I know.”
Then he drew her down for his kiss, leaving her with the consolation that at least she would have the comfort of his lovemaking.
Even if he denied her his unconditional love.
Chapter 14
Sunlight streamed through the hallway of the Grand Estate as Fiona let herself out and crept to the stairs.
She’d left Jacob sleeping in her bed. It was barely seven in the morning—a late sleep for Fiona, who was growing used to rising early for her “lessons.” But judging by the way Jacob lay sprawled across the bed, breathing so heavily as to approach a near snore, she didn’t think he would awaken soon to find her gone.
Fiona didn’t know what drove her to dress in her own skirt and blouse, to sweep her hair into a simple braid, and tiptoe down the rear stairs. She hadn’t changed her mind about all she had decided the prior night. She would continue to help Jacob in his endeavors to trap Darby Kensington. She would stay with him as long as he would allow her. She would love him for whatever time he deemed.
But this morning, as the harsh light seeped beneath the hems of the draperies, she’d found herself driven to remind herself of her roots, her real reasons for all she’d done.
“Miss?”
She’d descended only a few steps when the soft call came from behind. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that one of Jacob’s men had followed her. The same guard Jacob had ordered to keep her in line.
“I don’t believe you should be going anywhere,” he murmured.
Her hand slipped from where it had been concealed in her skirt, and she pointed the tiny derringer squarely between the man’s eyes.
“Leave me alone.” The words were blatant in their sincerity.
The young man—he couldn’t have been much more than eighteen—shrank away ever so slightly.
“But Miss—”
“Leave me alone.” Lifting her skirts, she raced down to the servants’ entrance and dodged into the morning heat.
Fiona didn’t pause to reconsider her actions. Jacob would be angry, there was no doubt of that. But tomorrow she would be leaving on the tourist train. She would be adopting the role that was somehow becoming more familiar to her than her own behavior. She had to see Mickaleen one more time. Just to reassure herself that her choices had not been entirely selfish.
The traffic this early in the day was surprisingly heavy. Although the wealthy might sleep in until the sun had climbed well into the sky, the working classes had been up for hours. Fiona was forced to fight her way through the bunches of men in their business suits, farmers with their suspenders and plaids, and women with shopping on their minds.
Fiona didn’t have the money to hire a carriage, so she walked the short distance to the Liberty Hotel. Her weariness pressed in upon her, making each step an ordeal, reminding her all too eloquently that she had not rested well the night before, but she continued nonetheless, refusing to be daunted.
There was some sort of commotion at the entrance, and a crowd had gathered by the front stoop. Pausing for only an instant, Fiona slipped through the alley to the delivery door. From there it took only a moment to find the staff staircase and climb the three flights to Mickaleen’s room.
As she eased into the hall, she hesitated. There was another large cluster of people who had banded together near the far end. They murmured softly to themselves, nodding gravely. Fiona thought she saw a man carrying a medical bag disappear down the opposite steps, shaking his head as he rounded the bend.
A slow dread began to drizzle through her veins. Her lungs constricted, making it difficult for her to draw breath.
Plunging her hand into her pocket, she clutched the key that she’d stolen from Jacob’s vest, the one engraved with the Liberty Hotel insignia. She waited, pressing the raised number into the pad of her thumb until the gaggle of onlookers had cleared. Her father’s guards must have momentarily left to help with whatever emergency had occurred, so now was her chance.
Her heart pounded as she moved toward the appropriate door. “Papa?”
There were no sounds on the other side—not that she was not completely surprised. Her father had grown used to lying abed in the mornings. After the life of hardship he’d endured, she couldn’t completely begrudge him that fact.
Slipping the key into the lock, she dodged inside, her eyes blinking to become used to the gloom. Evidently, she was not the only person who had received Jacob’s edict to leave the draperies closed.
“Papa?” she whispered again. There was no answer. Drat it all, her father was becoming increasingly hard of hearing, but she didn’t dare speak any louder for fear that Mickaleen’s guards would return and find her.
Tiptoeing to the window, she drew one of the draperies aside, hooking it to the stanchion embedded in the wall. Let Jacob chide them both if he found them basking in the sunlight. She needed to talk to her father, and she needed to see his reactions.
She frowned as she noted the empty, rumpled bed. Her father’s belongings had been flung over the only chair, and since his room was not so palatial as hers, there weren’t many other places where he could be.
“Papa?”
The word was uttered in vain. Unless he’d crawled under the bed, he wasn’t here.
Keen disappointment settled on her shoulders, nearly smothering her with its weight. She blinked at the tears that rose to her eyes. She’d so set her heart on a kind word, a bit of brogue that wasn’t her own.
Dejected, she walked toward the door. Her hand closed around the cool metal, but then she paused, not really knowing why. A chill skittered down her spine, and a horrible feeling of loss flooded her chest. She remembered the crowds at the front door, the people in the hall.
“Papa?” The word eased from her lips so softly, it was barely audible.
Trembling, she turned, seeing again the bed, the rumpled covers that appeared to have been pulled all to one side.
Her hands tightened into unconscious fists as she took a step, another, another. Rounding the corner, she first saw one bare foot, two pale legs, a tangled nightshirt.
“Oh, Papa,” she whispered, sinking to her knees. “Papa, no.”
But the blood-spattered head she drew onto her lap was stiff. The hand she touched was cold, so very cold.
“How could you just let her go like that?”
Jacob scowled at the young deputy he’d left in charge of following Fiona.
“She pulled a gun on me, sir.”
Jacob stabbed the youngster in the chest with his finger. “Boy, it’s time you learned that if you plan to be a lawman, there’s going to be a great many people who’ll be doing that in the future.”
With that, he signaled to Rusty. The two men rushed outside, mounted their horses, and led them as swiftly as they could through the press of traffic to the Liberty Hotel. As th
ey reined to a halt, the manager, who’d been standing on the boardwalk, hustled to meet them.
“I was just about to send word.” The man wrung his hands together. “Your men…”
“My men?” Jacob repeated in surprise. He’d been so intent upon retrieving Fiona that he’d forgotten there were other guards in place at this establishment.
“I’m so sorry. I know this is a terrible loss.”
Jacob looked at Rusty. His deputy had grown pale beneath his freckles.
“What happened?”
The manager wilted in open distress. “We don’t know. The maid… she found them early this morning. They’d been brutally murdered, then dragged into one of the linen closets.”
Jacob’s stomach churned.
“What about McFee?” he demanded through a throat that had suddenly grown tight.
“The gentleman in the room?” The manager became still. “I don’t know. We didn’t check.”
The words had barely been spoken when Jacob dismounted and brushed past him, dodging into the hotel and up the stairs. Racing down the hall, he came to an abrupt stop when he saw that the door had been left slightly ajar.
No. Dear heaven, no.
But even as he swung the portal wide, he knew what he would find there.
Fiona.
Her head was bowed, her hair gleaming in the sliver of sunlight that pierced a pair of mishung draperies. Her position behind the bed blocked most of his view, but as he walked forward, her clear dejection struck him to the core.
She didn’t know he was there. Not by a movement or a glance did she reveal that she had sensed his presence. He moved as quietly as he could, his eyes quickly surveying the scene, seeing with a lawman’s calculation what must have been a struggle, a struggle that had ended with Mickaleen McFee being bludgeoned over the head with the iron bar that lay on the floor.
“He had a bad heart.”
He started when Fiona suddenly spoke.
“He drank too much. He ate too well.”
Her fingers brushed at the curls that spilled untidily over her father’s forehead.
“I’d prepared myself for the fact that he would die in any one of those manners.”
Jacob knelt beside her. “Come with me. You shouldn’t be here.”
She didn’t move. “I only wanted to see him. Talk to him.”
“I know.” She had wanted to tell her father about him. Jacob knew that, knew it as surely as he knew that the sun rose and set each day.
“He was a good man. Deep inside. Where it counted. Even you would have to admit that.”
“Yes.”
Her chin suddenly trembled, her features crumpling. “Now I’m alone, Jacob. What am I going to do?”
Her naked misery wrenched at his heart. Gently, he lay Mickaleen’s head on the floor and drew her to her feet, wrapping her tightly in his arms. She trembled violently, like a wounded bird, her hands clutching at his back.
“I’m completely and utterly alone.”
Then she began to cry. Not soft gasps and wordless tears, but deep, heartfelt sobs that wrenched her entire body and threatened to shatter her in two.
Jacob pulled her as tightly to his body as he could, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Her grief was too raw, too real to be eased by anyone else.
Rusty stepped into the room. When he would have withdrawn, Jacob shook his head, gesturing with his eyes that his deputy should care for the body.
Signaling to another man who waited in the hall, the pair stepped quietly around the bed, wrapping Mickaleen in a blanket, then taking him outside and closing the door. It was at that moment that Jacob saw the crumpled piece of paper that had been pushed beneath the bed: the eight-sided star emblazoned with the letters SCJ.
His heart grew so heavy, he thought it would burst. His mouth filled with the acrid taste of guilt.
Krupp. Krupp had been here. He’d killed Mickaleen in an effort to hurt Jacob. And Jacob, in turn, had been the unwilling source of Fiona’s pain. By embroiling Fiona in his affairs, he had unwittingly drawn her into a pact for revenge made years before.
His fingers tightened in her hair. She wasn’t safe. She wouldn’t be safe until he got her out of Chicago.
She sobbed, her whole body shaking, and he felt remorse spear through his heart. In one mindless act of vengeance, she had lost her entire family. How could he ever make that up to her?
Scooping her into his arms, he carried her to the door. He didn’t know what he should do, he didn’t know what could be done. But he would take her away from this place. From the reminder of all she had lost.
“We need more time! Things have fallen apart on us, and we don’t have the luxury of putting them together again!”
Rusty shrugged as Jacob continued to pace the sitting room of the Ambassador Suite. “The governor’s assistant has been apprised of the situation, but Carruthers hopes that the attempt to capture Kensington will continue as planned.”
Jacob stared at his deputy in amazement. “Has he lost his mind completely? Fiona’s father has just been killed. Does Carruthers think that she’s going to be able to step onto that train and act as if nothing has happened?”
Rusty held up his hands. “I told him, but he wasn’t willing to listen. He wants you on that train tomorrow morning. I have a feeling he’s hoping that by getting you and Fiona out of the city, the raids by Krupp and his cohorts will ease, giving city officials a chance to track the Star Council down.”
“Dammit, man. You and I know—”
“Shh!”
“Shh!”
Alma and Amelia Beasley dodged from the bedroom, closing the door behind them and taking the position of a human wall.
“I must ask you to lower your voices!” Alma whispered vehemently.
Jacob immediately flushed in contrition. “How is she?”
“She’s fallen asleep,” Amelia whispered, tiptoeing across the room to place an empty cup next to the silver tea service. “I think the rest will do her good, but…” she made a tsk-ing sound. “Poor dear.”
Jacob’s gaze bounced from one old woman to the next in pure helplessness. He’d had no experiences in the past to help him react to these situations. He was a man of force, one accustomed to marching into trouble full-steam. He didn’t know how to ease a woman’s broken heart. He only knew that he had to do something.
“Both of you appear tired,” he said to the sisters. “Why don’t you go get something to eat, take a nap if you wish? I’ll watch her this afternoon.”
“But—”
Alma placed a restraining hand on her sister’s arm. “That would be greatly appreciated, I’m sure.”
Nodding, Jacob hesitated for a moment, then moved to the door.
“What should I tell Carruthers?” Rusty asked.
“Tell him… tell him…” Jacob sighed. “Tell him to go to hell.”
He closed himself in the bedroom, leaving Rusty and the Beasleys to stare awkwardly at one another. Muttering to himself, Rusty stomped from the suite. Alma peered thoughtfully at the door he’d left ajar.
“More tea, Alma?”
Alma barely heard her. Moving slowly, she closed the portal, her forehead creasing.
“Alma?”
“Jacob needs more time. He’s so worried about Fiona.”
Amelia eyed her open-mouthed, clearly astonished by the abrupt change in conversation.
She pointed in Amelia’s direction. “You and I both know that Judge Krupp and his vigilante group are responsible for this.”
Amelia set the cup of tea she’d prepared for herself on the table. “You saw it too?”
“The note Jacob was staring at most of the day.”
“An eight-pointed star.”
“One engraved with the letters SCJ.”
Amelia laced her hands together in distress. “That business with the Star Council of Justice was nasty five years ago.”
“We both know that Jacob was the one responsible for seeing Stone and Krupp imprisoned.”
“Revenge,” Amelia whispered.
“Exactly. Those men are trying to trap Jacob in their little schemes, and they’ve dragged an innocent woman along for the ride.”
“So what are we going to do?”
Alma’s brow creased in thought. “We’ve got to find a way to get those two on that tourist train and out of Chicago. I have great faith in the lawmen chasing Krupp. Given a little time, they’ll find him.”
“But Fiona isn’t in any state to get on a train and pose as a genteel gambler.”
Alma began to pace, her lips pursing. “She will if we can give her a little time to recover, to gather her props beneath her, as it were.”
“Once we explain that Jacob is in danger, she would agree to help.”
Alma stared at her sister in surprise.
“Alma, she loves the boy! She would do anything to help him.”
“Why, Amelia, I didn’t think you’d noticed.”
“Not noticed? How can one be ignorant to love?”
“Quite.”
The two women strolled to the window, both deep in thought.
“So what we need is some time. If we could only delay the journey.”
“Kensington is leaving tomorrow morning. The clerk we asked yesterday evening confirmed that fact.”
“Hmm.” Alma tapped her fingernail on the window pane. “Then we’ll just have to see to it that he is delayed as well.”
“But how?”
Alma thought for a moment, then straightened her shoulders to military attention. “Get your things, Amelia. I’ve got an idea.”
“Do you think we should?”
“Have we any other choice?”
Alma and Amelia Beasley stood on the mud-clumped boardwalk leading to Wilson’s Mining Supply Company. Less than a quarter of an hour had passed since they’d eavesdropped on Jacob Grey and decided to lend their own aid.
“Well, no.”
“Then I think we should follow our original plan.”
