Madeline rose to her knees, a Valkyrie proud and sure, as she said, “You want a woman on whom to slake your lust, so you choose the one who has seen you less than a man. Are you proud you demonstrated your manhood on me, Brazos Sinclair? Are you reassured that you are no longer impotent?”
His mouth was a tight, angry slash across his face. At his sides, his fists clenched, then released, then clenched again. “You know, Madeline,” he said, his voice so full of studied indifference that she felt a slice of cold fear. “I don’t know whether to hit you or throw you back down on that mattress and show you just how unimpotent I am.”
Bravely, she lifted her chin. “Leave here, Brazos. It’s over. The marriage, the lies, the game.”
His granite gaze raked her nakedness. “Yeah, you’re right about that much.”
From the other bedroom came the sound of a child’s tearful cry. Brazos and Madeline both hurried to Rose. He reached the baby first, lifting her from the crib and laying her against his shoulder. He patted her back and crooned comfortingly as Madeline tucked the trailing end of the bed sheet securely around herself like a toga.
“Give her to me, Brazos,” she said, lifting her arms and trying vainly to disguise the trembling. “She needs me.” Brazos ignored her, and as Rose continued to whimper; he pressed a gentle kiss to her golden curls, then said, “Too bad she doesn’t have a mother to comfort her.”
“I am her mother,”
He looked her directly in the eye and whispered, “Bullshit.”
Madeline blinked back the tears that had suddenly pooled in her eyes. “Her mother died. I’m her mother now. That’s all you need to know. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”
“It damn sure does. I love the little squirt; I figure that gives me all the rights I need. Who is she, Madeline? Who are you?”
“She’s my daughter. Give her to me.”
She could see in his expression that a new thought had occurred. He watched her closely as he asked, “What about her father? Is this missing Emile her father?”
Madeline flinched. This was a subject she wished desperately to avoid. “Rose’s father is dead, too,” she snapped too loudly. The baby let out a wail.
Brazos swayed slowly back and forth, clicking his tongue and saying, “Shh, Miss Magic. It’s all right.” His gaze, however never left Madeline. When Rose had quieted again, he softly said, “I remember that day on the quay in Antwerp. You were desperate. You were running from him, weren’t you? That’s what the hurry to get out of Europe was all about.”
Memories rushed back, and she shook her head, denying both them and his words. In a harsh, angry whisper he said, “My God, woman, did you kidnap this poor child?”
“Think what you want,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “It matters not. I love Rose, Brazos. You know that, and you know I’d never do anything to hurt her. Never.” She held out her hands, steady this time. “Now, giver her to me. Sometimes she has nightmares, and she’ll need me close by.”
“Nightmares, huh. Well, I guess it’s a night for ‘em.” Gently, he returned the sleeping baby to her bed. Straightening, he looked at Madeline. Her heart plummeted as she witnessed the iron determination reflected in his eyes. “I guess she’s safe enough for now. I know that in your own way, you love her. Guard her well, Madeline, while you still can. I suspect your nightmares are only just beginning.”
At the door he paused and promised. “I’ll find my answers. I’ll discover who you stole her from. Rose deserves better than a mother who’s a thief.”
Softly, the door closed behind him.
STEAM ROSE from the horses’ nostrils like a cloud of cigar smoke with every blow. The air was wet with early morning fog that could chill a man to the marrow were the flames of anger not burning inside him. Mounted on a sturdy buckskin, Brazos ran no risk of being cold.
The tide lapped at hard-packed sand as Brazos and Tyler followed the edge of the surf toward the sparsely populated southern end of the island. Brazos rode hard, the exercise providing an outlet for the emotions he’d locked within himself during the endless, sleepless night just past. He’d spent long hours thinking and making decisions, and when he’d banged on his brother’s front door just after dawn, he’d known what course his actions must take.
And he hated it like hell.
Tyler reined in his horse and dismounted. An unbroken sand dollar lay at the edge of the surf, and he bent to pick it up. “A lady friend of mine collects these,” he explained apologetically when Brazos lifted a brow in inquiry.
Leather creaked softly as Brazos swung from the saddle. “Better than collecting diamonds, I suppose.”
As the sun climbed higher in the sky, burning off the fog and toasting the air, the two men walked their horses in companionable silence. Then Tyler ruined the peace by saying, “I’ve been amazingly patient up till now, little brother, but I think it’s time you told me a bit about this marriage of yours.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been working up to it.” He grimaced and said, “My dear, former wife, Madeline.” Her name tasted bitter on his tongue. “Tyler, I discovered last night that my sweet little bride stole that baby from its father. I want to hire someone to investigate Madeline Christophe, and I’m gonna need your help.”
Tyler dug his boots into the sand. “A kidnapper! I don’t believe it.” A slow, anxious look dawned across his face. “Tell me it isn’t true, brother. She seemed like such a nice young woman.”
“Yeah, she’s nice, all right,” Brazos drawled. “Kinda like the oleander bushes blooming here around town. Nice, pretty, soft blossoms—makes you want to pick ‘em. Smell ‘em.” He sneered as he added, “Give the oleander a taste, though, and its poison will kill you deader’n hell.”
His brow wrinkled in worry, Tyler quizzed, “Brazos, are you certain of this? I spent some time with her in my office. She was so very congenial, under difficult circumstances, I might add. Ladylike, sincere, and she certainly seemed to dote on that baby.” He shook his head. “No, it can’t be. Besides, the girl looks just like your Madeline.”
“She’s not my Madeline!”
Tyler took off his hat, scratched his head, and winced as he said, “Well, actually…”
Brazos shot him a sharp glance. “Actually what?”
Shoving his hat back onto his head, Tyler resumed walking. Briskly. Brazos frowned as he caught up with his brother. “Ty, is there some sort of problem here? I’m dead set on hiring a man to look into this, so there’s no sense trying to talk me out of it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I can hire someone for you,” Tyler said, waving his hand. “That’s nothing.”
“Well, what is it? I can tell you’ve something stuck in your craw.”
Both brothers stared at Tyler’s horse when he snorted. Tyler stroked the roan gelding’s nose, then asked, “How do you know Madeline kidnapped that child? What did she do, come right out and tell you?”
“In a manner of speaking, yeah.”
“What did she say?”
“Actually, she kinda yelped.” He noted his brother’s confusion, but decided enough had been said on the subject. After all, a fella shared only so much about his personal life, and Brazos had already confessed to having been married to a kidnapper. Tyler didn’t need to know any more.
Brazos tossed Tyler his horse’s reins and strode back up the beach, where a slender piece of driftwood lay. He lifted the tree branch and shook it, testing its weight. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small leather ball. Setting the ball upon the sand, he eyed a long scrub some fifty yards up the beach. “Listen, Tyler I’m wanting this information as fast as I can get it. What kind of time would you expect we’d be looking at, sending to Europe for it and all?” He took a swing at the ball. When it hooked right of the bush, he grimaced and started walking. “It purely worries me to think of a father somewhere grieving over his lost baby.”
Tyler followed him. “It’ll take some time, Brazos. I’d say fiv
e, six months at the earliest. But I’ll get started on it first thing. Well, second thing. I’ve something important to see to first.”
Brazos stood over the ball, preparing to roll it toward his target, and shook his head. “Nothing’s more important than this, Tyler.”
Tyler shut his mouth, started to speak, then abruptly shut it.
“Ty?”
He replied in a rush. “What are you doing with that stick?”
“This is great, Tyler. I’ve discovered the best game.” Brazos lifted the ball from the sand and handed it to his brother saying, “You’re gonna have to play it with me. I met an old Scot who spoke of nothing else. He taught me the game on a course on the west coast of France, a place called Pau. In my trunks, I have a set of the sticks you use to play the game with—those and three dozen of these balls. Spent a pretty penny on the balls, too.”
Tyler studied the smooth leather sphere. “I’ve never known another man so obsessed with toys,” he mused.
Brazos glanced up at a pair of screeching gulls. “This isn’t a toy. It’s a sport. Like fox hunting in England, only nothing dies. He grabbed the ball, set it on the sand, and took a wide swing at it with his stick. It sailed up and over the top of a dune. He started after it.
“Brazos, about the woman,” Tyler said, climbing the dunes behind his brother. “Do you remember when we were kids and went to visit Cousin Reece out in Pine Bluff?” Brazos nodded. Tyler kicked at a tuft of grass, helping to search for the ball, and continued, “You recall the church social, when you were suppose to take Mama’s pecan pie down and enter it in the contest, only you made it about halfway to church before deciding to eat it instead?”
“There’s my ball.” Brazos pointed toward a bare spot some twenty yards away. As they walked, he said, “I ate the whole thing—made me sicker than a big dog. Can’t stomach pecan pie to this day.” He sighed with disgust. “Damn, she curved to the right again. I wonder why.”
They reached the ball, and Tyler laid his hand on Brazos’s arm. “Do you remember what you told Pa when he asked you why you did it?”
“Before or after the woodshed?”
“Before.”
Brazos frowned thoughtfully as he drew lines in the sand with his stick. “I remember now. He gave me an extra set of lickin’s because I told him I’d done it just to stir up trouble.” A slow smile of remembrance inched across his face. “Couldn’t sit down for three days.”
Tyler took the stick from Brazos’s hand and gave a whack at the ball. It missed a pelican by inches, then landed in the gulf. Tyler tossed down the stick. “Stupid game, chasing after a ball with a stick. What do you call it.”
“Golf,” Brazos replied.
“I guess all the other four letter words were taken.” Tyler watched the ruined ball wash ashore and confessed, “Brazos, I’m afraid that last night I indulged a craving for pecan pie.”
Brazos gave him a sidelong look. “What did you say?”
“No harm done, really,” Tyler hastened to say, pasting a sickly grin on his face. “I can take care of the matter just as soon as we get back to town.” He ran nervous fingers through his hair. “I thought she was a nice woman, you see. Didn’t know she was a kidnapper. Thought to pay you back for that mess you caused me with Lilah May McPherson.” Nothing his brother’s granite expression, Tyler added prayerfully, “Please, Brazos, tell me you didn’t bed her last night.”
Brazos shut his eyes. Tyler didn’t file the damned papers. Nightmares, hell. Looks as if one of his own just reached up and bit him square on the…“I’m going swimming.” He began to peel of his shirt.
“Brazos, you can’t go swimming. It can’t be more than sixty-five degrees out here. You’ll freeze.”
“Better that than decking you again, dear brother. That’s what I’d really like to do.” Stripped naked, Brazos made a running dive into the surf. He swam with long, even strokes until the water’s chill melted the hot rush of anger from his body and his mind went back to work.
Standing waist-deep, he stared out to sea as he wiped water away from his salt-numbed lips and considered his predicament. He was still married to Madeline Christophe. “Hell,” he muttered, “I’m even more married to her than I was yesterday.” Memories of their passionate lovemaking flickered across his brain. Determinedly, he buried them, just as he had a hundred times over the long night recently ended.
Vaguely aware that Tyler called his name, Brazos watched the white, foamy breakers and repeated aloud, “I’m still married to Madeline Christophe.”
Then he realized that, under the circumstances, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Brazos smiled grimly as he left the water. Tyler met him at surf’s edge with his clothes, saying, “You did it, didn’t you? You bedded her. And because of my interference, the Sinclair family will have its first divorce. Oh, hell, Brazos, I’m so damned sorry.”
Brazos took one look at his brother’s hangdog face and laughed. Tyler looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Buck up, brother,” Brazos said, grabbing his garments. “It’s not as bad as you think. In fact, you’ve actually done me a good turn.”
“Excuse me?” Tyler blinked. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me. What is it you are saying, that you’re happy being married to a kidnapper?”
“Yep.” Having used his shirt as a towel, Brazos slung it over his shoulder and pulled on his pants. “You see, Tyler, though you managed it quite by accident, you’ve offered me a solution to one of the problems that might have upset my plan.”
“What plan?”
Brazos explained as they headed back toward the horses. “I came home to take care of Salezan. Before I can do that, though, I need to rescue Juanita from Cousin Jeffrey and hide her in a place no one would think to look.”
“What’s that have to do with your being married?”
Brazos gave the buckskin a pat on the neck, then swung into the saddle. “Mr. and Mrs. Brazos Sinclair are members of the Colonization Society of Texas. La Réunion has a lot of strange rules, but I’ve never seen or heard anything that would prevent a family member from comin’ along for a visit.”
As Tyler mounted his horse, a glimmer of understanding stole across his face. “You mean—“
Brazos nodded. “I’m going to need your help, Ty. Any reason you couldn’t leave Galveston for a bit?”
“Well, no. What do you want me to do?”
“Our sister mentioned in her last letter that St. Michael’s money cache is running light. Since I’m headed in that direction, I figure to take a wagonload with me. While I’m fetching the silver I’d like you to go to Cousin Jeffrey’s and gather up—” He paused and rubbed his hand across his chin. “Let’s see, shall we call her a cousin? Yes, that sounds good. You carry Cousin Juanita along to Anderson, and I’ll meet you there.”
“Anderson. That’s just on the far side of the forest region north of Houston, isn’t it?”
Brazos nodded and continued, “The colonists will pass that way on the trail to La Réunion. I intend for us to join the wagon train at that point.”
“Hell, Brazos, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea after all.” Tyler took off his hat and twirled it on a finger, frowning at it. “If Salezan’s men have spotted you here in Galveston, we could end up leading them right to the silver and Juanita.”
Brazos reached out and grabbed Tyler’s hat. Tossing it at him, Brazos said, “Leave it on your head, brother; you’re letting the sun bake your brain. I want Salezan to know I’m back. In fact, before we leave Anderson, I plan to send him a letter—a personal invitation to leave his lair and meet me here in Texas.”
“Letter?” Tyler asked. Then realization dawned in his expression. “The location of the silver mine.”
“Yep.”
“I don’t know, Brazos.” Tyler shook his head. “Wouldn’t it be better for Juanita to remain with Cousin Jeffrey until you’ve killed Salezan?”
“Probably. But knowing Nita, since she doesn’t like livi
ng where she’s at, she’s liable to up and do something dumb. I think she’ll enjoy being with the Europeans. They’re cultured folk, and Nita loves to talk music and art and that sort of business.” The buckskin snorted as Brazos nudged her into a walk.
“Well, you know her better than I,” Tyler answered, following his brother. “But what about Salezan’s men? Don’t underestimate them, Brazos. They might be following us this very moment.”
“Good. See, Tyler, later this morning, you and I will make a quite public departure from Galveston as we head home to visit with the family. I figure we can spend a week or so at Magnolia Bend, and that’ll give the colonists time to get a good start north. Then, the family can create some sort of diversion, and you and I can sneak away from the plantation and go about our separate tasks.”
“It might work,” Tyler said, slowly nodding. “Family resemblance the way it is, strangers have a hard time telling us apart. If we work it right, Salezan’s men might think we’re still at Magnolia Bend long after we’ve left.”
“We’ll time it so we’ll be a day or two ahead of the Europeans,” Brazos continued. “While I really don’t think there’ll be any trouble, having your gun along the trail will make the plan just that much safer.”
Tyler pulled a piece of straw from his horse’s mane as he asked, “What about the colonists? Aren’t you afraid Salezan’s men might follow them?”
“Why would they? There’d be no reason to. Before we leave Galveston, I’ll make a public break with the Réunionists by telling a few of the island’s busybodies that the marriage between Madeline Christophe and Brazos Sinclair has been annulled. I’ll make sure they know I only used the woman to gain passage home from Europe. If Salezan has men here, they’ll be bound to hear that kind of gossip. They won’t follow the Phalansterians from Galveston.”
Capture The Night Page 16