"Yes, you do. You're going to go find that lovely girl, tell her how sorry you are and tell her how much you love her."
Zeke tensed at the suggestion. Observing him, Caddie smiled. "You said as much to Tessa and discovered it didn't kill you."
Zeke gave a reluctant grin. But it had been easier with Tessa. The reconciliation had been important to him, but not as it would be with Rory, putting his entire heart and soul on the line.
But there was no arguing with Caddie. As she saw him to the door and handed him his hat, she said, "When you've made it up with her, bring Aurora Rose round to see me. I want to welcome her to the family."
Zeke only nodded, the vision Caddie's words conjured far too agreeable to dwell upon. As he turned to go out the door, Caddie rested her hand upon his arm. Her parting smile was a little wistful.
"Whatever happens, John, don't be such a stranger, all right?"
For answer he deposited a brusque kiss on her cheek before he strode down the steps. He heard her delighted gasp of surprise, then she slowly closed the door, leaving him alone on the darkened street.
Alone? No. It was strange. There wasn't another soul out on the pavement, but he didn't feel alone. A soft smile played about his lips as he glanced back at his sister's townhouse, the welcoming light shining past the lace curtains and making him feel as if he had brought some of that warmth away with him.
Whistling a tuneless song, he leaned up against one of the gas street lamps and wondered if he should return to Rory's flat, if he had enough courage left to do any more soul-baring tonight. He was thinking of summoning a cab when the door to Caddie's townhouse suddenly swung back open.
To his astonishment, Tessa burst outside. She was trying to arrange her shawl as she went, but she was in such great haste she let the black wool trail over her shoulder. She glanced anxiously up and down the street and appeared relieved when she spotted Zeke by the lamppost.
"Johnnie. Wait!" she called.
He hadn't moved a muscle, but she came tearing down the front steps as though she expected him to disappear.
As she drew up breathlessly beside him, Zeke said, "What's all this, Tess? You couldn't bear to part with me or you decided you wanted to punch me in the nose after all?"
"N-no," she panted. "This isn't the time to be funny, John."
The lamplight haloed her pale features, and Zeke could see she was not smiling. Nor was the familiar glare present either. Rather her eyes were filled with an uncertainty, that same troubled look that had rendered him uncomfortable at the dinner table.
"I have something important to tell you, something I should have told you a long time ago."
She seemed so deadly solemn she was starting to scare the hell out of him. He waited, but she was unable to go on, to meet his questioning gaze. She hung her head.
He took hold of her hand to give it an encouraging squeeze and discovered her fingers were trembling.
"What is it, Tessa?" He joked to cover his own growing unease. "Did you pay some gypsy woman in the Village to put a curse on me?”
"Johnnie, please don't," she said hoarsely. "It's about the night Mama died."
That was one night Zeke could hardly bear to remember, let alone talk about. He let go of his sister's hand.
"Tessa, if you are going to heap old recriminations on my head, I wish for once you would spare me. I did try to get there sooner that night. I honestly did."
"I know that," she said in a small voice. "I guess I always realized that, but I was so upset for Mama. She needed so badly to talk to you before she died. She said if she didn't last until you came, she trusted me to tell you—"
"It's all right, Tessa," Zeke broke in, dreading that his sister might begin sobbing all over again, out in the middle of the sidewalk. And damn it all. He could feel his own eyes starting to smart. "Even though I didn't deserve it, I knew how loving, how forgiving Sadie could be. I can guess what she wanted to tell me."
"No, I don't think you can. You see she knew who your real family was."
Tessa's halting confession was so far from what he'd expected, her words slammed into his gut with the weight of a powerful fist.
"What?”
Tessa bit down upon her quivering lip. "I think Mama must have always known. She said the people at the orphanage told her when she adopted you."
Zeke was stunned to silence. Sadie had known all along who his real parents were and never told him? Sadie, the one person in all the world he had trusted ever to be honest, straightforward, had kept such a thing secret from him? Feelings of betrayal cut through him.
Tessa stole a nervous glance up at him. "Well? Aren't you going to say anything? Aren't you going to ask who—"
"I'd rather know why. Damn it, Tessa. Why didn't she tell me?"
"Mama was afraid of losing you. Your real family was wealthy and powerful. All the things you ever wanted. If you had known, you would have gone running off to them."
"To seek out people that let me be dumped in a trash can?" Zeke raked his hand back through his hair, in a gesture fraught with anger and bitterness. He thought that nothing could hurt more than the realization Sadie had lied to him, but something did—that she had apparently believed him capable of turning his back on all her loving kindness, seeking to belong to some cold-hearted bastards simply because they were rich. His pain was the more acute because of his fear that at some point in the shallowness of his youth, Sadie might have been right.
"And after Mama died," Tessa concluded in a voice half-guilty, half-defiant, "I never told you any of this—just out of spite."
"So tell me now. What's the name of these marvelous beings Sadie thought I would be so eager to desert you all for? The Astors? The Vanderbilts?"
"No, a family named Markham. They had this son named Stephen.” Tessa faltered when Zeke stared at her.
"Have you ever heard of them? I believe it was the maiden name of that friend of yours, Mrs Van something."
"I know who the Markhams are," Zeke said. His ears had been filled with enough gossip about the family, even from Mrs. Van H. herself. But Zeke could not credit that it had anything to do with him.
"Do you mean to stand there and tell me that Stephen Markham was my father?"
Tessa nodded unhappily.
"That’s crazy. From what Mrs. Van H. has told me about her brother, half the unwanted brats in New York could lay claim to being sired by him. What makes you so sure he was my father?"
"Because Mama said so. She even tried to find out more, who your mother was. She went to visit that Mrs. Van Hallsburg."
Zeke flinched. Another leveler. He hadn't been floored so many times since the last time he had put on gloves and stepped into the ring. "Sadie did? When?"
"A long time ago. I'm not sure. Mrs. Van Hallsburg admitted the part about her brother. She said your mother was some sort of an actress, but she wouldn't tell Mama more than that."
Zeke seized Tessa by the shoulders in a hard grasp. "You mean that Mrs. Van H. knew that I was her brother's son?"
"I guess so."
This was worse than madness. This was a nightmare. Images of Cynthia Van Hallsburg seared his mind, how she had behaved in his study that day, the blaze of unsettling passion in her eyes, her kiss. He could still imagine the brassy taste of it on his lips. He felt like he was going to be sick.
"None of this makes any sense." He gave Tessa a brusque shake. "Go on. Tell me the rest of it."
She squirmed to be free. "There isn't any more. Mama was dying the night she told me. It wasn't all clear. Please, Johnnie. You're hurting me."
It took a moment for her cry to penetrate his haze of confusion and anger. Abruptly he released her, his mind trying to cope with a barrage of information he had never sought. He had always told himself that he didn't give a damn about knowing who his mother or father were. They had left him to die, hadn't they? Then the hell with them. But these half-answers, half-truths were worse than knowing nothing at all.
Tessa r
ubbed her arms where he had gripped her. "You are making me sorry I told you. You've got a crazy look on your face, Johnnie."
How did she expect him to look when she had just turned his world upside down? He said curtly, "Go back into the house, Tessa. You shouldn't be out here by yourself."
"By myself? Where are you going?"
He didn't answer her, pacing off several impatient steps and scanning the street ahead for the approach of a hack. Of course there was never one around when needed. But it didn't matter a damn. He would walk all the way to Fifth Avenue if he had to.
Tessa trailed after him, tugging at his sleeve. "Come back to the house, John. You're scaring me."
He pulled away from her, his lips set in a taut, angry smile. "You've no need to worry about me, Tess. I'll be in no danger. I'm merely going to pay a late-night call upon my dear Aunt Cynthia."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Rarely did Cynthia Van Hallsburg throw open the doors of her white marble townhouse for entertaining. But when she did, her invitations were eagerly sought, her affairs very exclusive. The dinner party she had arranged for tonight, however, had become almost too exclusive. Half of those invited hadn't put in an appearance, and the rest had only come out of vulgar curiosity. The whisperings had already begun. Mrs. Van Hallsburg was very much aware of that fact as she stood at the entryway to her best salon, but her icy composure revealed nothing of her dismay.
Her guests clustered in polite conversation by the piano, or by the red lacquered Japanese cabinet, or near the decorative sculpture designed by Karl Bitter. The chatter was low-key, well-bred except for the furtive glances occasionally directed toward their hostess.
The rumors were already thick about town, spurred on by the scurrilous articles being run in the New York World, written by that barbaric red-haired reporter friend of John Morrison' s .
It was all coming to pass just as she'd feared. Charle Decker's clumsy plot had sparked off an intensive investigation. Not even her clever disposal of Charles had been enough to stop it. She should have shot the fool years ago, not now when it was already too late.
She was obliged to admit she had been less than careful herself. A self-mocking smile touched her lips as she thought of the newspaper article that reported the little detail that threatened to undo her. Decker's death appeared a most unlikely suicide, the paper said. His right hand had been found holding the gun, which made it quite awkward, considering he had been shot through the left side of the head.
She had put the gun in the wrong hand. It was enough to make one laugh, tripping herself up on a tiny detail like that. So clumsy, so careless. Yet that wouldn't have been enough to cause her concern. It was that other report that did it, about someone claiming to have seen a woman slipping away from Decker's house late that night.
No fingers were pointing her way yet, but she feared some sort of evidence might have been found connecting her to Charles's illegal activities. The police had been making discreet inquiries about her bank accounts. She was fast coming under suspicion. She knew it, and, she feared from her guests' uneasy behavior, so did everyone else.
It took all her rigid years of social training to keep her carriage erect, the smile frozen on her lips. She almost wished for once she could be ill-mannered enough to exhibit some of John Morrison's bluntness.
"You've satisfied your vulgar curiosity!" she wanted to shriek at her guests. "Now get the hell out."
No one was coming to arrest her tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow. But she had to face it. It could come to that. Time was running out. She was going to have to make some plans and soon.
Her anxious reflections were interrupted by the butler appearing at her elbow, forcing his back into a stiff bow.
"Should dinner be served yet, madam?" Chivers cast a dubious glance at the half-filled room.
"We may as well," she murmured. "I doubt anyone else is coming."
As the butler began to retreat, she called him back, adding in a whisper, "See that half of the settings are removed, the table rearranged."
There was no sense in making her humiliation obvi¬ous. The butler appeared to understand, although he delivered his "Very good, madam" with a slight smirk.
The fellow had never dared show such insolence before, she thought with a frown. Likely he was already on the lookout for another post. She had spent a lifetime maintaining a proper distance from everyone, but now she sensed them all drifting from her, as inexorably as the ebb of the tide. It was hard to admit, but she found the sensation a little frightening.
She was about to encourage her guests to move into the dining room when she heard a thunderous summons at the front door. Perhaps she had not seen the last of the arrivals after all. Although she had never held up dinner this long before, she could afford to wait a few more minutes.
Lingering by the door, she prepared to greet the latecomer more graciously than she would have under ordinary circumstances. But she heard no approaching footsteps, only the unthinkable sound of raised voices in the front hall.
She excused herself and stepped down the corridor to see who had caused the disturbance. She drew up short. She shouldn't have been surprised. No one would have the temerity to manhandle her butler other than John Morrison. He had the manservant all but pinned to one of the towering Corinthian pillars as he shoved his way past into the hall.
John was ill-dressed as always, his Prince Albert coat rumpled, the tight set of the fabric seeming scarcely enough to contain all that masculine energy straining beneath. Dark strands of hair tumbled across his brow, his eyes darker still, flashing with anger. He was in one of his rages. Distasteful as she found such a display of emotion, she couldn't suppress a tingle of excitement as well.
Morrison was like a slumbering volcano of power, raw and untamed. After their last, embarrassing scene, she had never wanted to see him again, yet now she was glad of the sight of him. Never had she been so fascinated by any man. Never had she hated anyone as much.
Although quaking, her butler continued to insist, "Madam Van Hallsburg is not available this evening."
"Then she'd better get available," Zeke said crudely. "Fast."
The butler had made a dive to summon some footmen to his aid when she intervened. "It's all right, Chivers. You may admit Mr. Morrison."
It was an unnecessary command, for Zeke's head had snapped around at the sound of her voice. He came charging in her direction.
"Good evening, John," she said, maintaining a calm that for once she didn't feel. "I thought that I had at least taught you not to attend a party when you haven't been invited."
"Your party be damned. I want to talk to you."
This wasn't one of his usual blustering rages. His mouth was taut with some suppressed emotion, his eyes hard, accusing. She felt a prickling of, if not apprehension, at least of warning.
"We were just sitting down to dine, but I suppose I could spare you a few minutes." She turned, beckoning for him to follow her.
She led him into one of the house's smaller parlors much favored by her late husband for its dark furnishings and gloom-ridden atmosphere. She seldom bothered with the chamber, so consequently the air in the room was stale. Even the lamp she lit did little to dispel the darkness.
Zeke became a little more subdued. Whether it was owing to the funereal aspect of the room, or to Mrs. Van H.'s customary chilly demeanor, he couldn't have said. He had been carried to her doorstep by a fever pitch of emotion. But now face-to-face with the elegant, self-possessed woman, what Tessa had told him seemed incredible.
He waved aside her offer of a drink. Refusing to be seated, he paced in front of the hearth, no longer so certain where to begin.
"What is so urgent, John?" She favored him with a brittle smile. "Surely it cannot be that you have come to your senses over that little circus girl, that you have been reconsidering what I offered you?"
"No!" The mere reminder of her offer sent a shudder of revulsion through him, especially as he considered the possibi
lity that what Tessa had told him was true.
"I only came here because I need some questions answered, questions about some information I received."
She looked wary, but at the same time almost resigned. "I see. You must have been talking to your friend Mr. Duffy."
"Duffy? What the hell has he got to do with this?"
"Why, I thought-. Then I am afraid I don't understand."
"I've come to you about something my sister told me."
Zeke could find no way to approach the matter subtly. In his usual blunt manner, he laid out for Mrs. Van Hallsburg everything that Tessa had said. She listened in silence, with no more reaction than a flicker of an eyelash. She made no effort to confirm or deny any of it.
"Well, is it true?" Zeke demanded. "Did my mother ever come to see you?"
"Your mother? Oh, you mean that dowdy little Italian woman."
"I mean Sadie Marceone."
When she still showed no inclination to reply, he barked, "Answer me, damn it."
"There is no need for you to be coarse, John. I have every intention of answering you." She shrugged. "Yes, your Mrs. Marceone called upon me. But don't expect me to remember all the details. It was a long time ago, just after she adopted you."
Her lip curled. "Those ridiculous people from the orphanage sent her to me, and after my father had paid them a goodly sum to keep quiet about your ancestry. I warned him it wouldn't work. As far as I know, there is only one effective way of silencing people."
Zeke stared at her, chilled not so much by her words as her manner. She was confessing it was all true, just like that, as calmly as though these facts of his life held no more meaning than reading off the social register.
"Then you are admitting you've always known about me—who I was?"
"My family managed to follow your progress, even when you ran away from the orphanage."
Did they? Zeke thought with a surge of bitterness. They had known when he had slept in the gutters, pawed through garbage in search of something to eat, fled for his life from the blades of some street gang. She had known.
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