“Uh, actually, he hasn’t.”
Sister Cecilia’s brow crinkled in confusion. “Maybe I should be more discreet then. But in all honesty, I don’t see why. None of it is secret, except for the mine’s location, and even Brazos doesn’t know that. I wouldn’t tell secrets, Madeline. I’m quite firm about it.”
Madeline lost all patience. She held up her hand and, when Sister Cecilia paused, asked, “Has Brazos been divorced?”
“Divorced! Oh, perish the thought. That would never do, never do. No, no, no. Brazos would never do something like that.” Madeline smiled grimly as Sister Cecilia explained, “Brazos is not divorced. He’s never been married.”
“So, he didn’t marry this Lana?”
“No. He went with Miguel—Father Miguel, I mean. I confess, at times it’s difficult to remember that the ornery little boy who put a live frog in the milk crock grew up to become a priest.”
Madeline couldn’t help smiling. She’d done the same thing at Mistress Poggi’s.
“Anyway,” Sister Cecilia continued, “they needed one more load because Father Miguel had decided to build an orphanage and they needed the funds. That’s when they got captured.”
“Captured?”
Sister Cecilia nodded. “Some of this part of the story is secret. I don’t even know it. If my twin does, he’s not telling. That always annoys me, too. Twins are supposed to share everything, but just because he’s a boy and I’m a girl—”
“Sister Cecilia!” Madeline exclaimed. “Please go on with your tale.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Actually, the story’s just about over. Brazos was held in this awful prison in Mexico for years. When he came home, he was different. Very different. Oh, on the outside he was the same, except for being so thin, but inside…” Her voice trailed off, and she shuddered. “I don’t know what happened. Brazos came home. Father Miguel never did.”
She was silent for a moment, her face slack with grief. Then she said, “Lana had waited for him, but by the time Brazos returned, Mason had the sweets for her. Brazos brought that Juanita woman home with him, and he and Lana called off the wedding. She married Mason a month later. They’re the ones who actually oversee the orphanage. You’ll get to meet them later. They went into town for supplies this morning, but will be back before dark.”
Wonderful, Madeline thought, I get to meet another of Brazos’s women. “They all remained friends?”
“Yes. Brazos really liked Mason, and Lana’s so kind, she even was friendly to that Spanish woman.”
“Juanita.” Madeline voiced another question that had nagged her for some time. “Brazos never married her?”
Sister Cecilia shook her head. “He told our brother Tyler—they’re closest, you know—that he’d never marry.” She gave Madeline a speculative glance. “Has he changed his mind?”
Madeline wasn’t about to go into that. Softly she asked, “How did he end up in Europe?”
Sister Cecilia shrugged. “I don’t know. For months, he worked on this orphanage, designing it, getting the supplies, and finally starting to build. But every few weeks, he’d take off. Just disappear. No one knew where he went. He told Tyler he needed to wander that he couldn’t bear the thought of remaining in one place. He said he’d never build a home.”
She sighed and sipped her lemonade. Sadness filled her voice as she continued, “Then one time, he never came back. Tyler and my parents finally received letters from him. From Italy! We couldn’t believe it.” Her smile was filled with tenderness as she gazed at her brother and added, “I’m so glad he’s come home. We’ve all been terribly worried.”
Madeline’s chest ached. He had wanted a home and a family, just like me. “My God,” she mused, eyeing her husband, “whatever did they do to him in that place called Perote?”
PEROTE PRISON, MEXICO
RATS TERRIFIED the woman who knelt between Damasso Salezan’s thighs. The prison commander had recognized her fear a week ago when he’d had her brought to the guard house to service him while he gazed out over his kingdom—the fortress, outbuildings, and surrounding battlements that fashioned the Castle of San Carlos, better known as the hellhole, Perote. A rodent had scurried across the floor eliciting a scream she’d previously denied him, even beneath his whip.
Since terror always heightened his pleasure, Salezan had arranged for today’s rendezvous to take place here, in the gloom of a sparsely lit dungeon. The rats grew larger in the pits of Perote, and more bold.
Torchlight flickered along cold stone walls, and Salezan watched the shadows as the woman took his sex into her mouth, whimpering in fear even as she stroked him with her tongue. Lust heated his blood, and his gaze unerringly found the pair of iron shackles hanging against the wall.
Sinclair and his priest. Nothing since them had brought near the delight.
Salezan’s hips pumped, and he used his whip on the woman’s back. Her screams echoed off the walls as he took his pleasure, his eyes shut tight, remembering another time, another woman, another prisoner. “Ah, bestia,” he said, sighing, “always you were the best.”
Later that afternoon, summoned by a call from the guard tower, Salezan watched the movement along the rocky road that wound its way toward the castle. A cloud of white dust billowed from the heels of a galloping horse, and as it drew closer he recognized the messenger Winston Poteet.
Salezan’s lips twitched in a faint smile when wood groaned and chains rattled with the lowering of the drawbridge. He watched as Poteet spoke with a guard and then looked up toward the tower. Their gazes met and held, and the newcomer’s slow nod answered the question that sizzled like lightning through the air between them.
Pleasure flooded him, a warm, heavy wave that stirred his loins in a manner that surpassed the sexual. It was power—food for his body and drink for a soul long claimed by the devil.
Poteet’s boots scuffed against the steps. Salezan turned toward the door and waited.
A plain man with sandy hair and light gray eyes, Winston Poteet was wanted for murder in Tennessee, Kansas, and Georgia, and for lesser crimes in a dozen other states. Salezan bought his allegiance with gold and by providing victims for his other, darker activities. For the past year, Poteet had supervised the search for Juanita and Brazos Sinclair.
“You have found her?” Salezan asked as Poteet’s shadow darkened the doorway.
The newcomer moved into the room. “Better than that, Captain. Sinclair has returned to Texas.”
Salezan’s eyes narrowed. “He is yours?”
“Not yet, but soon,” Poteet replied, sitting at a desk in the center of the room. He searched through drawers as he continued, “He and the brother who practices law in Galveston traveled together to their parent’s plantation. My men watched the house closely, but somehow the two brothers eluded them. We will find their trail, Governor. It is only a matter of time.”
“What incompetents do I employ!” Salezan railed. “How could they have lost Brazos Sinclair?”
“He’s smart, Governor;” Poteet replied with a shrug. He pulled a glass and a bottle from the desk drawer and said, “Sinclair sent brothers in all directions, and their features were so similar to his that each time, our men thought it was he leaving the plantation.”
“Fools! If that is so, how are you certain that it was Brazos Sinclair you followed in Galveston?”
“Because our man spotted it when Sinclair went swimming.”
“Saw what?” Salezan questioned impatiently.
“The armband.” Poteet grinned at the sudden fire lighting Salezan’s eyes. “Brazos Sinclair wore a band that flashed silver in the moonlight.”
“The bastard dares to wear it!” Salezan exclaimed, slapping the table and rattling the bottle and glass.
Poteet poured himself a drink of tequila as Salezan paced the room, musing, “He’s taking his brother to Juanita.”
“I don’t doubt it. But we’ll find him, Governor. We’ll find them both. I have men searching every conceiv
able place.”
Salezan nodded. “He is to be brought here.” The governor of Perote Prison lifted his arm and rubbed the spot once circled by a band of silver. “You will leave immediately—take the fastest ship. I want you to personally oversee this operation. Bring me Juanita and Brazos Sinclair. Unharmed.” His thoughts returned to the dungeon cell. “I’ve many plans for my runaways.”
MADELINE WAS sitting in a chair by the dining room window playing pat-a-cake with Rose when Lana and Mason Kennard returned to the orphanage. While observing the enthusiastic reunion of the auburn-haired beauty and her former fiancé, Madeline furtively reached out and swiped a spoon from the table. Before dinner was over, she’d stolen two spoons, a teacup, and a potato masher. It was her largest haul since arriving in Texas, and that in itself had her worried. She was a thief. She stole money and gold and jewels—not kitchen tools. What was wrong with her?
Lana Kennard did not appear to suffer from her ill-fated romance with Brazos Sinclair. In fact, she bloomed with love for her husband, Mason, who obviously returned the affection. Neither seemed uncomfortable with Brazos.
Madeline found the entire situation quite odd.
While the children busied themselves cleaning up after dinner the adults—Brazos included—sat on the front porch, drinking coffee.
Brazos was saying, “I found it to be quite a challenge, and my host was simply obsessed with the game. Every morning, just after sunup, he’d rap on my door and order me to meet him on the course. MacGarey was twice my age, and he could whack the feathers right out of the ball.” He grinned in remembrance. “I never did win. Bothered the hell out of me.”
Lana Kennard looked at Madeline and said, “The only thing Brazos hates worse than losing is not playing the game in the first place.”
Mason Kennard chuckled. “You say you brought a set of these clubs back with you?”
“Sure did. In fact, I have them with me now. You want to see them?”
Madeline was reminded of an eager puppy. At Mason’s nod, Brazos pushed off the porch rail and sauntered over toward the wagon. “You know, we might as well unload these bars while we’re at it. Y’all come help. It’d take me an hour to do it myself.”
Mason and the women followed Brazos, who proceeded to pry the lid off the coffin. Madeline looked around her. None of these people seemed surprised at his action. Curious, Madeline leaned over to peer into the casket. In the center laid out like a corpse on a blanket, were six wooden sticks, one of which was topped by a metal head.
But the clubs weren’t what captured Madeline’s attention. A murmured, “Oh, my,” escaped her lips at the sight. Stacked inside the coffin, one on top of the other around and underneath Brazos’s sticks, lay a fortune in gleaming silver bars. “Isn’t it beautiful?” Brazos asked.
He was holding up and referring to the metal-headed stick. The one he called a rut iron.
LYING IN BED that night, Madeline couldn’t make up her mind. She straddled the horns of a dilemma that would make a pair of longhorn cattle proud. She was a thief. She’d been stealing her entire life, providing herself with basic necessities and an occasional luxury or two. She took pride in her professional abilities. Once she’d even lifted something from a duke.
But as of late, she’d stolen spoons and kitchen utensils. She yanked her covers over her head and wailed, “What kind of thief steals potato mashers, for heaven’s sake?” None she’d claim as a friend, that’s for certain.
Then, as though it weren’t enough that she suffer from this crisis of self-identity, she had to go and discover that her soon-to-be-former husband carried around a fortune in silver bars. In a coffin. With his golf clubs. She blew a frustrated puff of breath, making a hill in the sheet above her head.
She sat upright and glared at her reflection in the mirror opposite the bed. As a professional, wasn’t she duty-bound to steal the silver from him? After all, no self-respecting thief would allow a bonanza like that to slip through his fingers. “I couldn’t hold my head up in a tavern full of good, lawbreaking highwaymen again.”
Admittedly, she didn’t know whether any place similar to the Harried Hound Tavern even existed in Texas. She’d learned many things there—how to pick pockets, how to shoot a pistol, how to throw a man twice her size. What would Gentleman Jack think if he saw her now, contemplating passing up a coffin load of silver bars. He’d be appalled, that’s what.
Gentleman Jack, or GJ as she called him, had been the closest thing to a father Madeline had ever had—until her breasts began to sprout, that is. GJ had been devastated to discover that she wasn’t a boy after all. He’d sent her back to the boarding house in search of a position, and although they’d kept in touch—he’d wanted the information she provided concerning the doings of society—things between them had irreparably changed. Still, he’d cried when she’d returned to the Harried Hound that final time. He’d claimed he would worry about her while she visited France.
If he were here now and saw how she was acting, he’d really be worried. She shuddered at the thought of the words GJ would use to blister the air.
Madeline plumped up her pillows and lay back down. The problem here was that she simply didn’t want to steal the silver. That treasure was for the orphans. So what if Brazos did have plenty more silver where that coffinload had come from? It didn’t change the fact that he’d toted this load all the way from wherever to leave it at St. Michaels Children’s Home.
But if she passed up this opportunity, did that mean she’d condemned herself to snatching potato mashers for the rest of her life? Was this some self-destructive trend?
She couldn’t steal from orphans. Just as she couldn’t take from her fellow La Réunion colonists. Unless a treasure worth more than a coffinload of silver came her way and soon, one she could heist with a clear conscience, she would be forced to admit that she wasn’t who she’d always thought herself to be.
“And if I’m not a thief,” Madeline said to the quiet room, “then who am I?”
She wasn’t Rose’s mother. She wasn’t really Brazos’s wife. She was no one’s daughter no one’s sister; she wasn’t even Rose’s aunt—she couldn’t be under the circumstances. She was no one’s lover.
Well, except in her dreams.
BRAZOS WAS downstairs polishing off a glass of buttermilk when Lana entered the kitchen. She took one look at him and shook her head. “You have crumbs on your face, Brazos. If you’re going to steal the cookies, you should at least wipe away the evidence.”
“Caught me again, didn’t you, Lana,” he replied, adopting a fake guilty expression as he brushed away the specks of sugar.
The smile melted from her face, and in a serious tone, she said, “No, Brazos, I never caught you at all.” She crossed the kitchen and withdrew a cup from the cabinet. Holding it out, she nodded toward the buttermilk.
He filled the cup, saying, “You’re lucky you didn’t. I’d have made a horrible husband. You know that, don’t you, Lana?”
“I wouldn’t say horrible, just not right for me. Not after…” Her voice trailed off, and she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. Sitting at the table, she sipped her milk. “I’m happy. Mason and I are happy. We have a good life here at St. Michael’s.”
Brazos straddled a chair opposite her. “I’m glad for you, honey. You deserve it.” She swirled the butter milk around in her cup, and Brazos felt a tenderness swell inside him. Lana Kennard was a good woman. He’d made the right decision by not holding her to her promise. “You look as if somethin’ is on your mind. What is it?”
Her tongue circled her lip, a habit he recognized as nervousness. Then she said, “Mason and I are expecting a baby.”
The smile hovering on his lips froze. Pain plucked at his heart like a scavenger’s talons. He closed his eyes and fought it, seeking and finding the empty place inside himself. Yet, emotion enough lingered to acid a rasp to his voice as he said, “Congratulations.”
A sheen of tears floated in Lana’s eyes. “Bra
zos, I remember our dreams. I know how much you wanted children and the house—we spent all that time planning. It breaks my heart to know you’ve suffered so much, and I feel guilty that Mason and I are so happy while you—”
“Shh, honey.” Brazos reached across the table and clasped her hand. “I’m fine, and you don’t have a damn thing to feel guilty about. Hell, Lana, you waited for me all that time, even though Mason was silly in love with you. And it was my decision to end our engagement. You would have tied yourself to a crazy man if I had let you.”
The tears had spilled from her eyes and now trailed down her face. “Brazos, you’re not crazy. You are a wonderful man. Look at what you’ve done for the children, for me and Mason. You gave us St. Michael’s.”
An icy chill stole through him. He stood abruptly, saying, “No, Lana, Miguel is responsible for St. Michael’s. I don’t want you or Mason or anyone to ever forget that.”
“But, Brazos, you—”
“Don’t.” He couldn’t bear to discuss it. First Lana and her baby, then Miguel. They were middle-of-the- night memories that all but laid him low. “Don’t,” he repeated softly.
She wiped at her tears and nodded.
Brazos raked his fingers through his hair and scowled. “Now, quit crying. It’s bound to be bad for the baby.”
“Yes, Brazos.”
Hell, she looks pitiful sitting there crying, Brazos thought. He strode across the room and lifted the lid of the earthen jar containing the molasses cookies. Pulling out two, he returned to the table and offered one to Lana along with his handkerchief. “Here, honey, make use of these. We’ve got to cheer you up, or Mason’ll be down those stairs looking for something to punch. I may be bigger than he is, but he always did fight dirty.”
Lana smiled. “I’ll never forget the day he knocked you flat. It took a good three weeks for your black eye to heal.”
“I was only eight years old,” Brazos replied defensively. “Boys heal more slowly than men.”
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