Inside was as chaotic as he’d feared. He glanced about, and the snaking lines gave him the sinking feeling he would be waiting here all day. Damn. As if he had nothing better to do with his time. How could he check on the El Dorado, stuck here as he was?
Maxwell and the men laid out Tisdale like a corpse, though the man continued to breathe normally. Ethan stifled an impatient curse. If Tisdale were going to expire anyway, he could at least have the good grace to do it quickly.
Soon, however, Ethan spotted a familiar face, one that might be of some assistance. Phillip, who had unmistakably fallen back into the role of doctor, was carefully examining a young girl’s arm. Despite his own lack of training, Ethan could see the limb was badly broken.
“Phillip!” he called. In spite of what had transpired between them in the past few days, Ethan had supported Phillip when no one else would. For that he felt that he was owed at least some consideration.
Phillip’s gaze flicked upward, and Ethan would almost swear he saw the hazel eyes darken. Almost as if he’d guessed . . . No, of course he hadn’t. He was merely still angry over Rachel, and perhaps Shae as well.
“I need some help. It’s Raymond Tisdale!” Ethan called, in the hope that a physician’s concern might override other emotions.
“As soon as I can get there,” Phillip answered before turning back to help the girl.
Ethan checked his pocketwatch to hide his irritation. One would think, that out of regard for their past friendship, that Phillip wouldn’t keep him waiting. But he did, for nearly twenty minutes, as he helped total strangers. And poor ones, Ethan guessed, from the cut and fabric of their soiled clothing. He shouldn’t even have to stand here, in among these people.
Phillip interrupted Ethan’s observations of the sartorial mishaps of those less fortunate. “What happened to him?”
Before Ethan could answer, Phillip carefully ran his fingers across the old man’s scalp. He pulled up Tisdale’s eyelids and looked into the pupils.
“Bricks,” Ethan answered. “He was bringing his family to our home because his was badly flooding. Our west wing’s chimney came down on their carriage.”
Phillip looked up sharply.
“Rachel’s dead,” Ethan continued. “Her mother as well. It was quite horrible, quite gruesome.”
“Oh, Rachel.” Phillip shook his head. “I am sorry, sorry for them both.”
“And your familiy? Shae?” Ethan’s heart thumped faster with the question.
“Shae and I were in a house It broke up in the storm. I was fortunate to get out with my life. I I haven’t seen her since, but under the circumstances . . . I delude myself to think she may still live.” Phillip continued to examine Tisdale in silence for a while. For some reason Ethan couldn’t guess, he poked and prodded the man in several places.
When finally he spoke again, anger had overtaken the deep sadness in his voice. “My sisters are both here, Ethan, thanks to you. Your men’s mischief nearly killed Lydia. What I’d like to know is why.”
Ethan’s heart jumped and thudded even harder. “Are you insane? Why would I harm Lydia?”
“Why would you try to kill me?” Phillip leveled his dark gaze like the barrel of a gun. “We’ll talk about this later, when I’m not so indisposed and you’ve had an opportunity to compose an adequate lie. But I know. Rest assure, I know what you’ve done, and in due time, there’ll be a reckoning between us.”
Ethan struggled to maintain his composure. He was still reeling from the news that Shae was dead, and he’d like nothing better than to crush his former friend. Yet it wouldn’t do to provoke Phillip now, before he could safely deal with the problem. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Shae and Rachel are both gone. There’s no more now to come between us.”
“There’s been enough for a lifetime.”
Ethan began to fear the Phillip would strike him here, despite the crowd. But as he swallowed past a painful lump, Phillip shrugged on his professional demeanor like a well-made coat.
“Mr. Tisdale, I’m afraid, will soon join his family. His pupils have already dilated, and his reflexes are gone. Swelling in the brain there’s no one who could have helped him. I know the family is Episcopalian, but it couldn’t hurt to have Father Prescott say a few words.”
“How long?” Ethan asked.
“For the priest? I’ll see to it as soon as possible, but there are others dying. You’ve only to look around to see.”
Ethan shook his head. “I mean how long before he dies. I don’t mean to sound callous, but I’ve other matters to attend.”
“Go, then. One of my sisters will sit with him, and I wouldn’t want to keep a man of your ‘responsibilites’. Just be certain they don’t involve Ross Dawson or any of his cronies. Because if I find out you’re involved in anything even remotely suspicious, I don’t believe I have enough to lose to keep me from killing you.”
*
“Dear God,” Shae said as she gazed over the massive pile of wreckage. Tall as a three-story building, its length seemed nearly endless. A horse cart passed, heavily laden with dead bodies. Tears sprang to Shae’s eyes.
“I’ve been through some right bad blows, but I ain’t never seen the likes of this.” Harry glanced toward the houses that still stood, some just barely. “Where to, Miss? I’d like to see you home safe before I try to find whatever’s left of the wharfage.”
Shae struggled to get her bearings. So many landmarks had vanished that it took her several minutes to guess at their location.
A woman who’d been rushing past paused, stared at her curiously, then continued. Shae ignored her, less concerned than ever with decorum. She’d been fortunate when Harry found a trunk belonging to a half-grown cabin boy. Though his knee breeches and brown shirt were not appropriate for a lady, Shae was happy to have anything at all to wear. Walking into town, she’d seen many survivors, stripped nearly naked by the storm, who would give much for the clothing she now wore.
“This way, I think,” Shae told the sailor. “My family’s home is just a few blocks farther in.”
The thought of seeing her father frightened her, but she wanted to be certain nonetheless that he and her aunt had come through the storm safely. Perhaps, if she just reassured herself the house was standing, she could saddle Delilah and then ride to Villa Rosa.
That thought terrified her even more than the chance of encountering King. Again and again since this morning, she’d imagined climbing the stairs to that wide porch, asking Mrs. Kelso . . . and learning that Phillip Payton had been lost.
She swayed as dizziness and fear assailed her. Harry grabbed her arm to steady her.
“Come on, Missy. Like I said before, you need to chaw on this ship biscuit. Here, I brought some along with me. They’re teeth dullers, that’s for certain, but they’ll help to keep you on your feet.”
She nodded, grateful for his kindness, and accepted the pale cracker. It was hard and tasteless as a brick of dust, but she chewed and swallowed dutifully. They continued walking as she ate, though fallen trees and animal carcasses prevented them from taking the most direct route.
She stopped gnawing on the biscuit when they reached Austin Street. Fresh tears blurred her vision, and her throat grew far too tight to allow her to swallow. After several moments, she wiped her eyes with the back of her shirtsleeve and blinked, as if that action could somehow diminish what she saw.
Her housethe beautiful white townhouse yet stood, despite the leveled wreckage all around it. The roof was gone, however, as well as several walls. What remained resembled a hollow, jutting stump more than a home.
With recklessness borne of horror, she clambered over a twisted fallen oak’s exposed roots and raced toward the steps that would take her to the front porch, and beyond that, the door.
Except the steps were gone now, and the both floors’ porches sloped perilously, since the bases of the columns supporting them had been washed off their foundations. Glancing upward, she saw all the way ba
ck to the kitchen, where a huge sheet of wallpaper slid damply to the floor.
“Don’t you dare go in there, Missy!” Harry shouted as he caught up with her. “Whole bloody place could come down any minute.”
“But my father and my aunt could be inside!”
He shook his head. “It’s close to dark now. They’d be out already if they could. And if they can’t, then you don’t need to see ‘em.”
“I do, Harry. I have to know for certain!”
“Here, then. Let’s ask these blokes what’s what.”
As he turned toward the street, Shae heard a clatter from the ruined house. A clatter of footsteps, she was almost certain.
Glad for the mobility of her borrowed clothes, she quickly climbed onto the porch deck, then passed through the gap where the front door had once stood. She stepped carefully around huge shards of window glass.
The carpet was still damp and muddy; a fetid smell rose from it. Here and there, the receding waters had made a gift of an unbroken plate, a candlestick, but for the most part, their things were either gone or ruined. The new medallion-back sofa lay across the porch. Its white fabric had been stained a muddy brown, and a drowned gull’s wings were splayed across the cushions.
“Father?” Her voice echoed against remaining walls and the underside of what had been her room. As she moved further in, she noticed Alberta’s bed dangling from a huge hole in the ceiling of the dining room. Her aunt’s heavy wardrobe lay on its back across the flattened rosewood table.
Had her aunt been in that bedroom when it had collapsed? “Aunt Alberta! Alberta Rowan!” Shae cried. Though no one answered, she once again heard clattering above her head.
Nervously, she peered up the stairs. Would they bear her weight or collapse and bring the whole house down around her ears? Or worse yet, atop her head.
But what other choice could she make than to try? Could she abandon the possibility that someone lived upstairs? Could she ask Harry, and endanger his life, to find out? Rejecting those choices, she stepped, very lightly, on the first of the twelve stairs.
*
Ethan hadn’t meant to walk in this direction, past the Rowan house. But out of some old habit, he turned down Austin Street on his way from the ruins of the bayside docks. He wished he’d thought earlier today to bring along a saddle horse to the infirmary. He’d been forced by the debris blocking many streets to use his feet instead of the large coach. His attempts to hire a mount had been met with disbelief. Every surviving horse that could be found was being pressed into the work of carting bodies to the dunes outside the city, where they could be identified.
Or at least that had been the first plan. Later, he’d overheard some men say that because of the numbers and the threat of pestilence, the dead could expect no better than the ignominy of mass cremation.
When he’d at last reached the area where he’d kept the El Dorado, he’d been stunned by the destruction. Blocks inland, he saw carcasses of fine yachts piled, crushed beneath the weight of filthy cargo scows and fishing vessels. The very docks were strewn among the mangled wrecks.
He’d walked the bayside area for hours, searching for some clue as to his own yacht’s fate. He thought of all the hours he’d spent aboard the boat, the many times he’d sailed her just to see the sunset or watch the dolphins leaping in his wake. When finally he found her, smashed against the solid structure of Raymond Tisdale’s bank, he nearly wept aloud. Though the bank yet stood, the El Dorado and the Tisdales were all gone.
Feeling more desolate than ever, he began walking toward the Rowan house. He knew that Shae was gone, but he wanted, one more time, to see the house where she had lived. He counted her loss nearly as painful as his yacht’s.
As he walked, he passed across muddy flats swept clean of any human habitation, then other neighborhoods, which for no apparent reason stood almost intact. It was in one of these where he saw Sal Madsen, who was helping a gang of men tie ropes around a milk cow’s carcass so it could be moved.
Ethan remembered Phillip’s warning to stay away from Dawson and his friends, the most dangerous of whom was Madsen. No, warning was the wrong word. Payton’s words had clearly marked a threat. He knew, or had guessed all of it. And Ethan no longer believed the man too weak to do anything about it.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he’d underestimated Phillip. Still, even Achilles had a weak spot. That Greek fellow, after all, had long ago proved that even a hero could be killed.
*
Shae heard Harry’s footsteps an instant before he grasped her upper arm. “You’re mad, aren’t you?” he asked. “Are you trying to get both of us killed?”
She shook her head, but more clacking upstairs attracted his attention.
“Do you hear it? Someone’s up there,” she said, shaking off his grip. “Stay here, please. Or better yet, go outside. I’m lighter, for one thing, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”
He rolled his eyes, a gesture that made him look even younger than her earlier guess of twenty years. “A fine, brave tale that would make for me new mates. You stay right here, Missy.”
He brushed past her and trotted up the stairs as fearlessly as if the house were carved of solid stone. Within moments, she heard the squeak of a door hinge, then his voice. “Well, I’ll be dipped in meal and fried in pig fat! You’ll want to see this, Missy! Be careful on those steps, but once you’re here I’ll wager you’ll agree the sight is worth the risk.”
She mounted the stairs more slowly, for a fresh wave of dizziness accompanied her effort. Once she reached the top, the sight of the dimming sky above her and a large fracture in the hall floor near Alberta’s room convinced her caution was still needed.
She stepped through the open doorway of her room and sucked in a startled breath. For there, with her head held high and ears tipped forward, stood Delilah, who quickly whinnied her a greeting. Her golden hide was caked with mud; her white mane and tail were clumped, but as far as Shae could see, her fine, blooded mare had not a mark of violence on her.
The horse clumped forward, then thrust her velvet nose and snorted into Shae’s offered hand.
“Meet Delilah,” Shae told Harry, “the most exasperating beast in all creation. I’m glad to see you, girl.”
Despite her introduction, she patted the mare with real affection.
“She may be what you say, but she’s got horse sense a plenty to come up here for shelter.”
Shae nodded her agreement. “Horse sense or not, she won’t be easy to get down. I still can’t imagine why she’s here, but not my family. Did you learn anything from those two men?”
Harry shook his head. “Those poor blokes’re just out looking for their own, the same as you are. They didn’t know a thing about your people. Why don’t you go out where it’s safer, and I’ll see about getting the horse down those steps.”
The moment he reached for the mare’s halter, Delilah laid back both ears and snapped. Harry yowled and clamped a hand down on the inside of one forearm. “You stupid jackass! With creatures like you about, it’s no small wonder I took to the sea!”
“Are you bleeding?” Shae asked.
He peeked beneath the hand that he had pressed to the bite. “No. Nothing but a bad pinch though not for lack of trying.”
He glared at Delilah as if he’d like to bite her back.
“Do you have another of those biscuits?” Shae asked. Her hand and bruises throbbed, and she felt as if she’d like to sleep for an entire month. She couldn’t wait all night on Harry, who appeared to know little about horses.
He absent-mindedly took one from his pocket and handed it to her, while he studied the mare intently. “Now off with you, Missy. This ain’t a lady’s matter.”
Shae place the hard bread on her flattened palm. Ignoring Harry, she kept her voice low and soothing. “Come, Delilah. We’ll find you hay and water.”
Delilah snorted at it, and her ears pricked forward. When she tried to take the
food, Shae stepped closer to the door. The mare followed behind her.
The horse stretched her neck toward the proferred biscuit and followed along like a trained dog. The floorboards in the hallway groaned ominously beneath the mare’s weight, and Shae glanced nervously toward the crack she’d spotted when she first came upstairs. Did she only imagine it, or had it grown even larger?
The mare moved to the edge of the stairwell before she stopped, ears flattened. Harry tried to push her from behind.
“No!” Shae warned, but it was too late.
Delilah’s rear quarters lifted, and she kicked out viciously. Seizing the opportunity, Shae snatched the mare’s halter and yanked with all her strength. The horse, with her weight balanced only on her front quarters, stumbled forward. As she lost her footing, Delilah had no choice but to trot swiftly down the stairs.
Once there, the mare leapt into the parlor and bucked emphatically, as if to show her disapproval of her method of descent.
“Are you hurt?” Shae called from her seat at the bottom of the staircase. She’d been fortunate to avoid a trampling as she fell.
“Only me pride. And you?”
She stood gingerly, and braced herself against the wall. “I don’t know why, but no, I’m not. Just tired.”
They had far less trouble coaxing Delilah down the porch steps, for once the mare saw earth, she seemed eager to set her hooves on it once more. Despite Shae’s uncertainty about Phillip and her family, she felt like cheering when they reached the muddy yard.
And then she spotted Ethan, staring open-mouthed. He ran toward her, arms outstretched.
Shae recoiled, avoiding his embrace.
“Please,” he begged.
Harry looked confused. “This ain’t your beau then, Missy?”
“No.” Her voice froze over, like a winter pond from her Philadelphia home. “Ethan Lowell is nothing to me.”
“Mr. Lowell, is it?” Harry asked, obviously excited. “What a stroke of fortune. I’m from one o’ your ships, The Marlin. She’s beached down the peninsula, about three hours’ walk. I was just about to go an’ find your offices.”
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