Читать книгу Reckless - Beth Henderson - Страница 10

Although the day had been sun filled, around midnight the damp chill turned into a cold rivulet of rain that coursed down the back of Garrett’s neck. He had been walking the city streets ever since Deegan left. It had taken but a moment to scribble his regrets to his host of the evening, sending a bellboy off with the message. He hadn’t bothered changing clothes, but had shrugged on, over his evening attire, the long vaquero’s duster he’d worn in Mexico, and added a battered, broad-brimmed slouch hat. His outward appearance blending with a thousand other men in San Francisco, Garrett trudged through the muddy streets, his mind far from his surroundings.

It had taken his solicitors in London months to find him. If he hadn’t become interested in the cattle ranch and contacted them, the firm of Hafner, Horrigan and Long would still be searching. He’d been carefully avoiding them for a long time, but now the ever-restless trace of his journey was at an end. Of necessity he would be in touch with the solicitors frequently, his travel plans limited by the thin binding lines of the telegraph that linked him to their office.

Garrett worked his way along Kearny Street, his footsteps aimless. According to the wire, his father had died six months ago. What had he been doing the day Stewart Blackhawk was interned in the family crypt? Garrett wondered. Had he been in South America yet, in the Amazon jungles? Or had he reached Mexico at that time? The memory of one carefree day was gone, no longer a time that he could pinpoint to a particular event or place.

Six months. The delay in reaching him served as a reprieve, no matter how short. Various business interests would supply the excuses he needed to delay a month, two at the most, then he would have to shoulder his responsibilities at Hawk’s Run once more.

He’d tried so hard to outrun them, to distance himself from both the good and the bad. And the whispers.

The rain was more mist than storm, making it a match to his mood. It dampened the streets as much as the wire had dampened his spirits. Coach lamps created glowing fingers of light on the glistening pavement and highlighted where puddles had begun to form in the depressions. The drizzle discouraged even the braver souls from walking the streets. Those men who did scurried for shelter quickly, heading into the warm, brightly lit doorways of various saloons and private gambling clubs, and the more dimly lit and even warmer parlors of the bordellos. A more perfect night for grieving was difficult to envision. If, that is, he could grieve for the man he suspected had not been his father.

Garrett’s legs ate the distance, taking him away from the city proper and into the shadowy lanes that comprised the Barbary Coast. Rain dripped from the bent brim of his hat, dampened the waxed length of his duster, and still he strode on as sure in each step as if he had a particular destination in mind.

His thoughts were thousands of miles away in another land. What were the Salopians saying of him in the local tavern now? he wondered.

Ever since his dark head had made its appearance among the fair-haired residents of Hawk’s Run, there had been rumors concerning his birth. A nursemaid had been dismissed for spreading the tale that he was an elfin child, a substitute left when the brownies stole the true golden-tressed heir. Despite the fact that black-haired ancestors were visibly present among the oldest of the portraits in the family gallery, the levelheaded gentry whispered that he was a bastard, the child Antonia Blackhawk had cuckolded her husband with as his own. Although he’d spent many a rainy afternoon staring at the paintings, Garrett had never recognized his own features among the host of dark ancestral faces.

Matters had not improved as he grew taller and broadened, his form that of a muscled athlete rather than of a fine-boned scholar like his diminutive father. Stewart Blackhawk had been an academician, brilliant when it came to translating ancient Greek poetry, inept and uninterested when it came to running his estate, cooly distant and silent when it came to Garrett’s doubts and questions concerning his birth.

With the family debts mounting, Garrett had left the halls of Cambridge and made his dark features a familiar sight in the meadows of Hawk’s Run. He had worked alongside the tenants for plantings, for harvests. Yet the whispers continued, reviving tales of wizardry that brought fertility back to tired fields.

In the City of London it was no different, for men there jokingly claimed he bewitched weak investments into profitable ventures. It was even said, more seriously, that he had blinded Stewart Blackhawk to the truth, for the man never commented on the validity of his eldest son’s birth, an oversight the grown Garrett recognized as neglect rather than belief. Sometime during his childhood, Garrett had begun believing the rumors himself simply because his father had never eased his son’s mind over his legitimacy.

Members of society read a wealth of mystery and intrigue into Stewart’s silence on the subject as well and whispered all the more. And so, assaulted by suspicion on all sides, Garrett had set out to be exactly what they termed him. He had adopted the qualities of a chameleon, changing with his environment, one moment the mystic who communed with supernatural folk, the next the arrogant upstart who flaunted the Blackhawk name.

He had learned much in playing these parts. He’d discovered he was a natural deceiver, a man who could don the face of an actor, who could adapt to any situation and find something to claim as his own in every outcome.

Or he did most of the time, Garrett admitted silently. In Cairo his so-called powers had been impotent, and Sybil had paid the price for his pride. It had been a tragic and most humbling experience.

He had grown as a result, had learned that he hated what fate had made him. What fate was forcing him to become once more.

He was back to living a lie. The life he had enjoyed as a ragged Bohemian adventurer the past two years had disappeared, leaving in its place a man who of necessity must become the epitome of the unruffled British aristocrat.

In other words, he was going to be a bloody damn hyp-ocrite.

The rivulet inching down his neck grew more uncomfortable. After extended stays in Egypt, along the Equator, and in Sonora, he was used to the unrelenting rays of the sun and had forgotten the chilling trials of a cloud-ridden climate.

Rather than be miserable, Garrett decided in favor of shelter. The saloons of the Barbary Coast were somewhat drier than the streets, although they smelled worse. The company was more rowdy than convivial and the whiskey was vile enough to take paint off a house. It was better than being alone with his thoughts, and being with strangers meant, if he could not check them, at least he could keep those thoughts to himself.

He nearly changed his mind when he entered the nearest door. A combination of scents assaulted him, of which cheap whiskey, cheaper perfume, cigar smoke and sweat were the most recognizable. The whole was overlaid with the taint of mildew.

“Why, hello, handsome,” a woman greeted throatily. She sashayed up to him, hips swinging, breasts bobbing. Her smile was a smear of rouge, and her eyes were fanned with runny streaks of kohl. She posed briefly, one hand propped on a cocked hip. The garish purple of her gown was mirrored in bruised circles beneath her eyes. The smile she gave him was tired, and as falsely brilliant as her brassy-colored hair.

She could easily have been a reflection of his own soul—worn, tawdry and devoid of hope.

“Lookin’ fer a little fun tonight? Somethin’ ta warm yer blood?” she purred.

“A drink, I thought,” Garrett said, making no effort to hide the upper-crust edge of his accent. The need to hit something was strong, and past experience had shown that in a low-class saloon the sound of his accent alone increased the possibility of a brawl.

“A drink, is it?” a man’s voice demanded in a heavy Irish brogue. “Well, squire, ye’ve come to the right place.” A disheveled, extremely wet man launched himself away from the support of the door behind Garrett and staggered forward, making shooing gestures at the woman. “Get along with you, lass. The squire and me’s got business ta discuss.”

Miffed at his interference, the woman turned her shoulder to the newcomer. “Ya’ll remember me, won’t ya, handsome? I’ll be around when this boyo passes out.” She stared hard at the man who stood swaying at Garrett’s side. “He looks like the kind that always does,” she added in disdain before moving toward another prospective customer.

“Cheeky little tart,” the man growled after her retreating form. Beads of water had formed on the rim of his narrow-brimmed bowler. The shoulders of his suit coat were soaked through and the lapels were limply turned up in an effort to keep the rain from further dampening his wilted shirt collar. “Now then, squire. ‘Bout our business.” He pitched to the ide, stumbling over his own feet.

Garrett nearly staggered himself when the Irishman fell against him. “What business might that be?” he asked, steadying the man upright once more. “The return of my wallet and watch, perhaps?”

Rather than take offense at the accusation of theft, the man grinned widely. “Yer’ve been snaffled afore, have ye, squire?”

“By better men than you,” Garrett said. “Shall we adjourn to the bar and see which of us pays for the drinks with my purse?”

The man chuckled. “I like you, squire. ‘Struth. Oh, look will you, I’ve mussed the front of yer lovely coat.” He brushed hastily at Garrett’s duster, removing imaginary soot. “Perhaps I could put yer right of a special little brew. Highly recommend it.”

The barkeep probably did store a “special little brew” behind his counter guaranteed to knock a customer out, Garrett mused. If a man accepted, he would wake up at sea, shanghaied more efficiently than any man who’d ever been impressed by the Royal Navy.

“Whiskey,” he said when they reached the bar. “Neat.”

“I’ll have the same as me friend here,” the dripping man declared. While waiting to be served, he leaned back against the scarred bar top, the heel of one shoe hooked companionably on the brass foot rail, and grinned widely on one and all. His clothing created puddles on the floor, the runoff sending out small rills that fed into the spittoon channel beneath the bar rail.

Garrett waited until they’d been served and his damp companion had unabashedly paid for the drinks from the wallet he’d lifted from Garrett’s pocket. “That’s the most atrocious accent I’ve ever heard,” he said.

“It’s dead to rights, my lad,” the other man vowed, his voice pitched low, the brogue abandoned. “Buzzed it from me da himself.”

Garrett studied the smoky glass the bartender had slid before him and the strong liquor within it. He wondered briefly if he’d been smart to follow the western creed of allowing a man his anonymity when it came to the past. Particularly when it came to the man who had become his traveling companion over the past few months. “Why are you following me, Dig?”

Another man pushed next to them and called for a bottle. Deegan shrugged back into character and reached for his own tumbler. “Tis a mortal sin fer a man to be forced to drink alone, squire.” He took a sip of his whiskey and grimaced. “Holy Saint Patrick! But that’s a fine elixir,” he declared hoarsely.

Since Deegan’s eyes had begun to water, Garrett ordered soda water before sampling his own shot.

Deegan toasted the other patron as he moved away from the bar, then turned back to Garrett. “If you had another friend handy I would have left you to your own bloody devices,” Deegan continued in an undertone. “But you don’t. That leaves you a choice. We can make a night of it in this charming little groggery or find a more appropriate setting to get soused. Either way you’re going to tell me what’s bothering you.” He held up a hand, halting any attempt Garrett might make at a rebuttal. “And don’t tell me it’s your dear old da’s demise.”

Garrett stared at the whiskey in his glass, considering his words. It would be so much easier to let Deegan remain nothing more than the companion of his Mexican adventures. With the loss of two heiresses in a single day, and dwindling finances, Galloway had his own problems.

In a corner a man shoved to his feet, angrily upsetting a table over his companions. A woman shrieked as one of the men leapt forward to seek revenge.

Garrett ignored the building melee, no longer in a mood for a fight. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggested. “I warn you, Dig, it’s an ugly tale. Melodrama at its worst.”

Manfully Deegan tossed off the rest of his whiskey. “I’m fortified,” he assured. “And who might the actors be?”

Garrett ducked in a reflexive move as a chair sailed across the room. “The cast includes myself, of course, my brother Ellery, and a beautiful innocent named Sybil Tilbury.”

Deegan signaled the bartender and tossed greenbacks onto the bar. “Two bottles of yer finest rotgut,” he said. ‘The squire’s spinnin’ me a fine tale as he sees me safely home. Were you wishin’ after the return of yer wallet, yer lordship? It seems to be a trifle empty.”

A dazzling parade moved past the window where the shadow crouched, dark clothing blending with the natural shadows in the garden. It was fortunate that the night was damp. It kept the revelers indoors and made observation so much easier.

The women in their jewel-colored gowns were unaware of the threat. The men in their onyx black suits never sensed the danger. They talked, flirted, danced, drank—unaware that another watched.

Gowns of watered silk, bedecked with lace, ruffles, ruching and ribbons, were on display, the carefully draped aprons caught up and drawn back into elaborate cascades that drew attention to a woman’s form. Trains trailed or were held outstretched to whirl with the steps of a dance. The elegant ebony tailcoats of the men moved in sync with the gowns, sailing with the rise and fall of the music, and occasionally a flash dazzled as lamplight caught the glitter of gold or silver threads woven into the pattern of a waistcoat. It was the moving, glowing fabrics that had life, not the people. Yet, at the moment, it was the people who held the watcher’s attention.

The stiffly starched fronts of the shirts held the prey at attention, and the corsets squeezed the soon-to-be bereft into improbable shapes. Weskits and waistlines strained across expanding torsos, clear evidence of the comfortable life-style enjoyed by the guests.

Candles and gas jets fought for prominence, creating pockets of alternating light and dark. The light was sought by women anxious to display a new bauble, a new gown, a new beau. The dark was the habitat of lovers, of stolen moments, of stolen caresses and murmured lies.

The shadow watched them all, carefully noting which of their jewels the ladies wore. The garnets of one guest were nice but could never compare to the bloodred rubies of another. The watery glint of aquamarines flashed by as a gallant swung his partner in an enthusiastic polka. A new debutante paused near the window, the light falling softly on her gently curved neck and the modest necklace of matched pearls that graced it. The possibilities were endless. It was so difficult to make a final choice. So delightful to plot the method by which to reap.

A man glanced out the window, his eyes seeming to meet those of the thief. He started away, looked back, then signaled to one of the waiters, motioning to the window.

The shadow melted away moments before two men with lanterns arrived to comb the garden for intruders. The thief waited just out of sight, enjoying the chase. Fools, that’s what they all were. It was so easy to play this game.

“You see anything?” one of the searchers called out.

“Hell, no. I think Stokes was seeing things. Had a bit too much champagne punch, if you ask me.”

“I don’t know. Claims he saw someone peering in from the bushes.”

“A cat most like.”

The shadow waited. So it had been Elmer Stokes who had raised the alarm. He would pay for that. What bauble had his wife worn? Had it been the jade or the fire opals? Did it matter? The victim had been chosen.

The parlor door barely closed behind Wyn before Hilde-garde Hartleby tossed aside the latest copy of Demorest’s Monthly Magazine and gazed excitedly on the folded newspaper in her guest’s hand.

“Not another robbery!” she breathed, sinking dramatically back onto the sofa, one hand pressed to the string of jet beads that lay against her breast. “What was it this time?”

Wyn tossed her friend the news sheet and reached up to unpin her plumed walking hat. “Don’t you mean who?”she asked.

Hildy refrained from reading the story. “Let’s make it a game,” she urged. “If I know what was taken, I wager I’ll know the who.”

Wyn unbuttoned her light coat and tossed it casually over the back of a chair. Since the pernicious state of Hil-dy’s finances made it impossible to pay wages, she had lost both housekeeper and housemaid. Those friends who came to visit the young widow quickly learned to make themselves at home.

“You must admit, Wyn, there is no one who knows the contents of the jewel boxes of our set better than I do,” Hildy insisted. Her soft brown hair was arranged in playful curls that spilled from a knot at the crown of her head. Despite the deep mourning color of her gown, there was nothing mournful about the flush of excitement in Hildy’s cheeks as she leaned forward in anticipation. “I used to make lists of my favorites and give them to Oswin hoping that he would visit the same jewelers,” she admitted. “If anyone can match the pieces with the person, it’s me.”

“All right,” Wyn agreed, reclaiming the newspaper and settling into the deeply cushioned chair across from her friend. They had played together in the school yard as children, and had attended their first ball arm in arm. Young men had clustered around them both, vying for favors. As inseparable as they had always been, Wyn had still been stunned at the news Hildy had whispered one evening soon after their presentation. She had promised her hand to Oswin Hartleby, a wealthy man nearly forty years her senior. “But, why?” Wyn had demanded. “Because I’m tired of being just comfortable,” Hildy answered. “I want to be rich.” Her wish had been granted, if only for a handful of years.

Wyn scanned the newspaper until she found the story about the most recent theft She had come to visit Hildy nearly every day since her bereavement, making an effort to cheer her friend’s lonely hours. Hildy had always been a social gadfly and the constraints of widowhood had depressed her nearly as much as the loss of the Hartleby fortune.

“Here it is.” Wyn rustled the paper, making a production of refolding it. “The thief walked off with opals,” she announced.

“Hmm.” Hildy tapped a finger against her lips in thought. “Cordelia Earlywine or Olympia Stokes.”

“There’s more.”

“More?” Hildy’s eyes widened with pleasure. They were a deep sapphire blue and surrounded by long, curling lashes.

“Diamond cravat pin, diamond shirt studs.”

Hildy jumped in her seat. “Stokes!” she shouted.

“If it were possible,” Wyn said as she tossed the newspaper aside, “I’d wager on your ability to pinpoint the robber’s victims using nothing more than a description of the missing jewelry.”

“Perhaps there is a future for me with one of those detective agencies,” Hildy suggested. “Do you think Mr. Pinkerton would hire me?”

“Only if you could name the thief as easily as you do the victim,” Wyn answered.

Hildy sighed. “Well, that I can’t do. If I could I’d have my diamonds back.” Petulantly she leaned back into the cushions of the sofa, apparently no longer interested in the robbery now that the latest victim had been identified. “Have you heard from Pierce?”

Wyn stretched her feet out, studying the toes of her shoes where they peeked from beneath the dark green pleats that trimmed the hem of her skirt. Her brother had been in Boston a month and in that time she’d received two letters, both assuring her that her money was being put to excellent use. Earlier that day a telegram had arrived. “He’s on his way back. The liner is nearly finished. We sail in three weeks.”

Hildy bounded back up, squealing with excitement before sobering once more. “Oh, but, Wyn! Whatever shall I wear? I refuse to traipse around in funeral black. Oswin has been dead three months, which is quite long enough to mourn him in my opinion. I have resolved to travel in half-mourning.”

Deciding she would prefer to delay hearing how Hildy intended to finance a new wardrobe, Wyn tried changing the subject. “Did you write to Rachel?”

Three years before, Hildy’s sister had made the coup of the social season by marrying Sir Alston Loftus and moving to his ancestral home in England.

“Oh, Rachel and Lofty will be expecting us,” Hildy assured, casually unconcerned. “I told them in my letter that we’d be on our way before they could reply, but there’s a standing invitation. Now…” She resettled on the couch, her expression changing to one of serious intent as she reached for the magazine she’d abandoned earlier. “I’ve been thinking,” Hildy said, and quickly leafed to the fashion section. “Oswin only left me the use of the house, so I can’t sell it, but his will wasn’t as specific about the furnishings. If I sell off the heavier pieces, I should be able to get at least a decent start on a new wardrobe. Enough to travel with at any rate.”

“What if the Hartlebys object?” Wyn asked.

“I won’t tell them,” Hildy said, dismissing her late husband’s middle-aged offspring. “Will you be using your dressmaker before we leave? What do you think of this pannier overskirt? Too overdone?”

Resigning herself to the planning of her friend’s ward-robe, Wyn moved over next to Hildy on the sofa and was soon discussing the merits of bunting for a lightweight excursion costume.

Pinkerton operative Magnus Finley hung back as his suspect paused at the corner to let a freight wagon rumble by. It wouldn’t do to be discovered. It had taken weeks of intensive field investigation and paperwork to get the case to this point He couldn’t afford to lose it all now through a careless step.

The dray passed, the horses trudging on down the street, hooves dropping in weary thuds. The driver’s face was as long as those of his team, his expression just as dull. He made no effort to hurry the animals but sat hunched forward, his hat pushed to the back of his head, the reins dangling in his hands.

The suspect waited until the wagon was well past before attempting the street. Magnus continued following without crossing. He was fairly sure of the final destination. He’d dogged the same footsteps along this same path for a week now as the suspect spent a good deal of money. The largess manifested appeared to indicate that the jewels had been sold rather successfully.

Which was extremely odd since none of the known fences in the city claimed to be aware of a recent sale.

If the thief had found a buyer, it wasn’t just the Stokes woman’s opals that had changed hands. The Hartleby diamonds were still unaccounted for, as were sets of various other precious and semiprecious gems.

Numerous operatives had been put on the job as one robbery followed another. Clients ranging from weeping widows to blustering businessmen had descended on the Pinkerton office demanding results. The local police had not reclaimed the jewels nor had they indicated progress in learning the thief’s identity. But Finley thought he’d discovered a vital clue. Until he could prove his suspicions, he was playing his cards close to his vest.

The suspect entered the expected doorway, the shop of a valise and trunk maker. Finley settled in the mouth of an adjacent alley. He knew from experience that it would be an hour or more before his quarry left.

The door swung open and closed a little later as a young boy emerged, hastily pulling on a sack coat and donning a cloth cap. He gave a quick glance up and down the roadway before heading toward Market Street.

Finley snapped open his pocket watch and consulted it He began to think about dinner, considering various restaurants where he could eat and still keep one eye on the person he trailed. There had been no deviation in the suspect’s schedule in the seven days Finley had been on the job.

A cab rattled up, the wheels clattering noisily, the horse’s hooves striking the pavement sharply. The boy from the shop hopped down from the back of the vehicle and dashed inside. Moments later he returned, struggling with a small trunk. The shop door swung open again as Finley’s suspect and the shop owner emerged and stood watching as the baggage was wrestled aboard.

The boy tugged on the brim of his cloth cap when a coin exchanged hands. The suspect took a warm leave of the luggage maker then murmured a direction to the cab driver and climbed into the interior. After his employer, returned to his work, the shop boy remained gazing after the retreating vehicle, a look of longing in his face.

Caught without transportation to follow, Finley went in search of information. He crossed the road, staring down the way as the cab rounded a corner neatly and was lost from sight. “Somebody’s in a might hurry,” he remarked to the boy.

“Train ta catch,” the youngster said wistfully.

“Wonder where to?” Finley mused. “Sacramento, I’ll bet”

“Further,” the boy insisted. “Headin’ ta the East ta get on a ship.”

Finley shrugged as if in wonder and moved on. He’d barely put the corner of a building between himself and the boy when he took off at a run.