Something Borrowed

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  "I think she'll see me," Lee told him.

  "The lady isn't seeing anyone." The butler attempted to close the door in Lee's face, but Lee anticipated the move and stopped him.

  "Tell her I'm a representative from her late husband's bank. Tell her I've come to talk to her about some very large withdrawals made before and immediately after the senator's death." Lee reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a crisp white calling card with the words: Lee M. Gordon, Representative, Washington National Bank, printed on the front and handed it to the butler. "Oh, and be sure to tell her that if she refuses to see me, there will be a Senate investigation into alleged wrongdoings by the late Senator Warner Millen."

  "Very good, sir. Wait here." The butler accepted Lee's calling card and withdrew into the interior of the house, leaving Lee standing on the stoop with the front door wide open. He patted the pocket of his canvas duster. Inside the pocket was a red leather-bound journal—Caroline Millen's journal. Anne Greenbery had given it to Willis at dinner last night, and Willis had had the book delivered to Lee's room at the Madison Hotel right after dinner. Lee had spent the rest of the night reading it. He had napped, breakfasted with Willis to discuss the contents of the journal, and finally ridden out to Georgetown to talk to Caroline's mother. Willis was waiting in a carriage down the block in case Sarrazin made an appearance.

  Now, he stood listening as the British butler approached Mrs. Millen.

  "I refuse to see anyone, Powell. Send him away."

  "But, Madame, the gentleman says if you refuse to see him you will face a Senate investigation into your husband's, the late senator's, business and financial dealings."

  "Who is this man?" Mrs. Millen asked.

  "He says his name is Lee Gordon and that he's a representative from your husband's bank."

  "The bank? Don't keep him waiting, Powell. Send him in."

  Powell returned to the foyer and stiffly ushered Lee inside. "Madame will see you now."

  "So I heard," Lee replied with a grin as he removed his hat and followed the butler into the sitting room. Powell announced Lee, then retreated, as Mrs. Millen dismissed him.

  The butler left the sitting room doors open, but Lee took it upon himself to close them.

  "Mr. Gordon." Mrs. Millen rose from her chair behind her writing desk. She slipped her hand out of her skirt pocket and approached Lee as he finished pulling the doors closed.

  He turned to face her. He had seen Mrs. Millen from a distance at the senator's funeral but he hadn't gotten close enough to discern her features. And she wasn't at all what Lee expected. She was younger than he imagined and tiny, less than five feet tall, with blond hair and blue-green eyes.

  Dressed completely in black mourning and veil, Mrs. Millen resembled a younger, slimmer Queen Victoria. She was small in build and stature, but her voice was impressive. It was deep, well-modulated, and regal, and with a hint of Great Britain about it. Lee had the feeling she practiced her speech in front of her mirror, practiced ordering lesser beings around. She came to a halt in front of him and extended her hand for him to kiss. "I'm Cassandra Millen."

  Lee stared at her fingers shrouded in her black lace half-gloves and declined the role of subject. He didn't lift her hand to his lips, but shook it instead. "Lee Gordon."

  Cassandra Millen shot him a dirty look, turned, and walked back to her chair and seated herself. "I understand you've come from the bank about my late husband's account."

  "No, ma'am." Lee smiled his most charming smile.

  "But Powell said…"

  "I confess to misleading your butler, Mrs. Millen, in order to gain an audience with you."

  "What are you?" Mrs. Millen jumped to her feet. "Some reporter for some scandal sheet? Have you come here looking for a story?"

  "No, ma'am, I've come to tell you that I already know the story. I work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and David Alexander retained me to—"

  "Get out! How dare come into my house under false pretenses and mention that man's name?"

  "I dare because I know the truth about David Alexander and your daughter, Caroline. I know that there was nothing between them. I know that your daughter died giving birth to your grandchild—a daughter whose name was legally recorded as Lily Catherine Alexander on the seventh day of January, eighteen hundred seventy-one in a courthouse in a little town on the outskirts of Philadelphia. I know Lily's real father was a married Shakespearean actor named Tristan Darrow, and that Tristan Darrow had intimate relations with your daughter, Caroline, while he was traveling with a London touring company. I even know the times and places."

  "Don't be lewd," she snapped.

  "I'm not being lewd, Mrs. Millen," Lee explained. "I'm being honest."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "I don't know anything about a Shakespearean actor. I only know that David Alexander took advantage of my child. Where did you come by this sordid information? Who told you this pack of lies?"

  "Caroline," Lee answered softly.

  "That's impossible. Caroline is dead."

  Lee pulled the journal out of his pocket.

  Mrs. Millen gasped.

  "Recognize this?" Lee asked. "It belonged to your daughter, Caroline. According to the inscription, you gave it to her for Christmas in the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and seventy. She recorded her thoughts and deeds every single day until the first week of June when you and Senator Millen sent her to stay with an acquaintance in that little town outside of Philadelphia."

  "Oh, my God," Cassandra breathed. "Where did you get that? And what do you plan to do with it? Blackmail me too?"

  "Caroline gave her journal to a friend for safekeeping. Your daughter recorded all the intimate details of her romance with Darrow and she was afraid you might come across the journal and read it."

  "I would never!"

  "She didn't feel she could take the chance. And her friend only agreed to part with the journal after your husband"— Lee chose his next words deliberately—"killed himself."

  "You must be mistaken," Cassandra Millen insisted. "My husband died of heart failure."

  "No, he didn't," Lee corrected her. "He died in his office of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. And we have people who will testify to having heard the shot and seen your husband's body."

  "Are you planning to smear the senator's good name and blackmail me with that information, as well?"

  "I don't intend to blackmail you at all, Mrs. Millen. I'm here to find the man who is blackmailing you, have him arrested, and locate your granddaughter."

  "Don't call her that!"

  "Why not?" Lee asked. "Lily Catherine is your granddaughter."

  "That child is a half-breed Indian." Cassandra replied derisively. "And no kin of mine."

  "Lily Catherine may bear David Alexander's last name, but she is not his child. Tristan Darrow is her father and your daughter was her mother," Lee pointed out. "That makes you her grandmother whether you choose to accept it or not."

  "I choose not to accept it," Mrs. Millen said. "I choose not to recognize that illegitimate spawn as part of my family."

  "I'm relieved to hear it," Lee answered. "Because I think an innocent child deserves better than to have an embittered, narrow-minded old woman for a grandmother."

  "I am not old."

  Lee thought it telling that the only insult Mrs. Millen reacted to was the reference to her age. "Then you refuse to claim Lily Catherine? Refuse to recognize her?"

  "Of course I do. And what business is it of yours anyway? Why do you want to know?"

  Lee smiled. "I'm asking on behalf of David Alexander and his wife, Tessa Roarke Alexander. They wish to adopt Lily Catherine as their own."

  "Whyever would they want to do that?" Cassandra Millen couldn't contain her curiosity. "Why does he want the child now? She won't inherit any of my money."

  "David Alexander isn't interested in your money. He's only interested in the welfare of the child that legally b
ears his name."

  "If he's so interested, why didn't he marry my daughter when the senator th…"

  "Threatened to ruin him?" Lee smiled at Mrs. Millen once again. "David didn't think he should be forced to pay for another man's sins. He didn't love your daughter. He barely knew her. And unlike you and the senator, David and Tessa don't care about Lily Catherine's origins. They only care about her welfare. David hates the idea that a child with his name will one day grow up to think her father abandoned her. He and Tessa feel Lily Catherine shouldn't be made to suffer for her parents' sins any more than David should have had to pay for Darrow's. They want her, and they'll give her a good home and a loving family." Lee paused, trying to gauge Cassandra Millen's reaction. Her face remained impassive. He couldn't tell if his appeal had made any impression at all.

  "I don't know where she is," Cassandra lied.

  "I think you do," Lee countered. "The senator paid his secretary, James Sarrazin, to provide a home for Lily. But Sarrazin got greedy and demanded more money than the senator was willing to pay. I think the senator stopped paying and Sarrazin threatened to reveal what he knew about the whole affair between Tristan Darrow and Caroline and how your husband had used his power and influence to defame David Alexander, to ruin his political aspirations and his Washington practice—and all because David Alexander refused to marry Caroline to prevent a scandal."

  "But Caroline named her child Lily Catherine Alexander anyway. We had the name recorded. As far as the law is concerned, it's her legal name."

  "But there was no marriage."

  "The marriage didn't matter. Caroline knew she was dying. She begged us to record the last name as Alexander. The only thing that mattered was that her child not be branded a bastard." Cassandra began to cry. "Caroline wanted to name her little girl Lily Cassandra after me, but I refused. She named her Lily Catherine instead. The senator didn't want to put Alexander down. He was afraid someone would find out that he had paid to have a marriage license between David and Caroline forged and legally recorded, so the birth would be legitimate."

  "There is a forged marriage certificate?" Lee hadn't known that. "Who did it?"

  "I don't know. Mr. Sarrazin hired someone to do it."

  "Who has it?"

  "My husband did have it, but it disappeared from his safe," Mrs. Millen told him. "Sarrazin took it. He used it to blackmail the senator for money, and when my husband died, Sarrazin used it to blackmail me."

  "And you have no idea who forged the marriage document?"

  "No. Only that Mr. Sarrazin had known the man for years. He said they worked together on occasion," Cassandra admitted.

  "Thank you." Lee grabbed his hat.

  "What are you going to do now that I've told you?" she asked.

  "I'm going to go get Lily Catherine if you'll tell me where she is—which orphanage she's in."

  "She's not in an orphanage. She never was. Lily Catherine has been living with James Sarrazin's mother in a row house in Philadelphia since the day of her birth. Mr. Sarrazin arranged everything. That's one of the reasons he felt he could blackmail us."

  "But David Alexander thought…"

  "The story about the orphanage was a ruse my husband told Mr. Alexander to discourage him from trying to find the little girl."

  Lee took a sheaf of papers out of his suit pocket. "This is a legal document drawn up by David Alexander stating that you agree to relinquish all claim to the child known as Lily Catherine Alexander."

  "I don't think that will be necessary," Cassandra Millen said softly.

  "David asked me to have you sign it."

  She nodded, then stood up, drew herself up to her full height, took the papers from Lee, walked over to her writing desk and opened the lid. She retrieved a pen from inside the desk, then signed her name to the papers with a flourish. She handed the papers back to Lee. "What now? What are you going to do to me? What about the possibility of a senate investigation?"

  "I don't know, Mrs. Millen. That's up to your late husband's colleagues."

  "Can't you make sure the Senate doesn't start probing into Warner's business? Can't you use your influence?"

  "I don't have any influence, Mrs. Millen. I'm just a detective." Lee turned to leave. Cassandra Millen followed him out of the room, down the hall, through the foyer to the front door.

  "If a senate committee should investigate, and if you're called to testify, what will you tell the committee about the senator's role in all this? What about our good name and our reputation? What will you tell them about me?"

  "I don't think there is anything I could tell the good people of Washington about you and the senator that they don't already know," Lee said. "But if I'm called to testify, Mrs. Millen, I'll tell the truth. The pure, unadulterated truth about this whole sordid affair." Lee tipped his hat to her and turned away. He made it down five steps before she spoke.

  "I was afraid you'd say that."

  Something in her tone of voice warned him. Lee turned back to face her. The glow of the porch lamps beside the front door glinted off the silver gun barrel.

  Seconds later, he felt a burning pain in his side as Cassandra Millen shot him. Lee pressed a hand to his side and staggered backward down the last step. Closing his eyes against the pain, he flinched at the sound of another shot and waited for more pain. It never came.

  Lee opened his eyes.

  Cassandra Millen lay dead on the porch with the gun still clutched in her hand.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "Lee!" Willis jumped out of the carriage at the sound of the shot and ran the half block to the Millen house. He found Lee lying on the bottom step.

  Mrs. Millen was lying on the stoop. The butler stood in the open doorway. "She's dead, sir," he said as Willis started toward the senator's wife.

  Willis turned back to Lee and half-lifted him from the step. "Christ," Willis muttered beneath his breath as he felt Lee's warm blood seeping through the layers of his clothing. Willis pressed his ear to Lee's chest, then breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the steady thump of his heart. He tore open Lee's jacket, waistcoat, and shirt, trying to locate and gauge the severity of Lee's wound. "You were just supposed to talk to her. What happened?"

  Lee opened his eyes and gritted his teeth against the pain. "She shot me."

  Willis glanced over his shoulder at the butler, silently asking for confirmation.

  Powell nodded his head. "It happened just as Mr. Gordon said. Madame shot him, then turned the gun on herself."

  Lee sucked in a breath as he tried to look down at the wound. "How bad is it?"

  "I can't tell," Willis answered. "You're bleeding like a stuck pig. We've got to get you to a hospital."

  "No hospital," Lee said. He had seen enough army hospitals during the war to have a permanent loathing of the stench and suffering of the surgeon's workplace. "Take me to the hotel." He struggled to get to his feet.

  "What about Mrs. Millen?" the butler asked.

  "Police." Lee bit out. "Send someone for the police."

  "But there will be scandal," the butler replied, appalled by the idea.

  "What does it matter?" Willis asked. "She's dead, Millen's dead, and their daughter is dead—there is nobody left to be affected by a scandal." He turned his attention back to Lee. "Can you make it to the carriage?"

  Lee shook his head.

  "Then wait here. I'll be right back."

  "Lily Catherine," Lee whispered, grabbing at Willis's coat. "I know where she is. We've got to go after her."

  Willis shook his head. "You're not going anywhere except to a doctor."

  Lee woke up three days later in the Washington Hospital ward. Daniel Willis sat in a chair by his side. "I told you no hospitals."

  "Yeah, well, the Madison Hotel has a no-admittance policy for gunshot victims. It seems they can't run the risk of having people die in their establishment."

  "What day is it?" Lee rubbed his aching head. There was a knot the size o
f a hen's egg at the base of his skull.

  "Tuesday, the sixth," Willis answered.

  "I slept for three days?" Damn! Mary's birthday was the tenth of May and Lee didn't intend to miss it. He had big plans for her twenty-ninth birthday celebration and he still had to pick up the presents he'd ordered. But he had to finish his business with Willis before he could get Mary's gifts.

  "You hit your head on the steps when you fell. You suffered a concussion, but the doctor says that with plenty of rest, you'll be fine."

  "What about Mrs. Millen?"

  Willis shook his head. "Suicide."

  Lee winced. "The journal?" It had been in the pocket of his duster when he fell. He could only hope his blood hadn't made it illegible.

  "It's fine. Most of your blood was absorbed by the drawers." Willis chuckled. "And I've been waiting for three days to ask you what you were doing with a pair of ladies' underwear and two hair ribbons in your coat pocket!"

  "My wife's," Lee replied as if his explanation answered Willis's question or satisfied the younger man's curiosity. He hated the thought that Mary's lacy drawers and his two favors had been stained by his blood.

  "Oh. I didn't know you were married." Willis shrugged his shoulders. "Well, the sisters managed to get out most of the blood. They're not as white as they once were, but your wife's under… clothing… is serviceable once again."

  "Ribbons?" He grunted the question as he pushed himself up against the pillows and flipped back the covers.

  "They were laundered as well. They turned out fine. I think the sisters put everything back where they found it."

  "Sarrazin?"

  Willis shook his head again. "No sign of him yet, but we have men watching the Millen House and the senator's office. And I still have men checking the orphanages in and around Philadelphia for Lily Catherine."

  "Forget the orphanages." Lee struggled out of bed.

  "You shouldn't be up. You lost a lot of blood," Willis told him. "And you're damn lucky to be alive. A few inches higher or lower and she might have killed you."

  Lee glanced down at the neatly bandaged place in his side. He was stiff and sore and his muscles ached from three days of inactivity, but the burning pain in his side had faded to a dull ache and Lee figured that meant that the bullet hadn't lodged in his body or done serious damage. "Did they get the bullet out?"