Heart of Lies

by Jill Marie Landis

  Hammond gave Tom a look that spoke volumes. “Let’s go over to our encampment and we’ll talk this out in private, Abbott.”

  “I’ll stay here and comfort Penelope,” Maddie volunteered.

  Since Maddie had a death grip on Penelope, Tom reached for Maddie’s arm and held on tight. “Come on. You’re both going with me.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The actors’ camp was comprised of four caravans drawn into a circle on open ground near the cemetery. A low fire burned in a central fire pit, casting light on gold-leafed advertisements painted on the wagon.

  Hammond Cutter’s hand shook as the actor reached up to slick back his hair. “Would you like a drink, Abbott? I’m in dire need.”

  “No, thanks.” What Tom wanted was to get Maddie and Penelope somewhere secure before they could give him the slip again. But he said he’d wait while Cutter went to get himself a drink.

  Tom watched the man enter his caravan. He didn’t trust Cutter not to take it upon himself to steal his star actress back.

  Across from him, the child pouted, glaring at Maddie, refusing to talk — a blessing to be sure. She looked none the worse for wear and had obviously been adequately treated or she wouldn’t be begging to stay on with the troupe.

  Tom tried to keep his gaze from straying to Maddie, but it wandered of its own accord. Now that they’d found Penelope, it wouldn’t be long before they were back in New Orleans, and he’d have to turn Maddie over to the police. He tried to forget about his reaction to seeing her in the shadowed light of the hotel dining room but found it impossible.

  Maddie hadn’t loosened her grip on the child and didn’t look like she was about to.

  Hammond Cutter reappeared as promised, carrying a tumbler full of whiskey.

  “So, Mr. Abbott, why should I believe you over Penny? It would be irresponsible of me to hand over a child to just anyone. Especially since she so vehemently protests. Have you proof to back up your claims?”

  Tom looked the man over. He was tall himself but Hammond was a good two inches taller, a commanding figure on stage.

  “You can wire Allan Pinkerton himself or you can telegraph Detective Frank Morgan of the New Orleans Metropolitan Police. But when you do, you should probably consider that it was highly irresponsible of you to put a child in your show without her family’s permission,” Tom warned. “I’d hazard a guess that you found her wandering around alone after she ran off near Clearwater?”

  “It’s none of your business where I found her.”

  “I found him,” Penelope hollered. “I asked him to help me get to Paducah and he said he would.”

  “I’m sure her father will make it his business to find out exactly where you found her and how long she was in your care,” Tom said.

  “I was planning an entire production around her.” Cutter nursed his drink.

  Hovering behind them, listening to the exchange, Arabella fumed. “You what?”

  Hammond Cutter held up his hand to silence her.

  “Sorry to ruin your plans,” Tom said. “I’ll be taking Penelope home where she belongs.”

  “I don’t belong with them. Her brothers stole me from my real family.” Penelope reached out, appealing to Cutter. Huge crocodile tears ran down her face. “My mama doesn’t want me anymore because I’m too much of a bother. Please, Mr. Cutter,” she sobbed, falling to her knees. “They stole me.”

  Cutter finished the whiskey before he turned back to Tom. “She’s really very convincing.”

  “Your audience thought so too,” Tom said. “We’ve wasted enough time here. I can be fairly convincing myself.” He reached for his waistband and drew out a bag of gold coins. “How about I reimburse you for your trouble, Cutter? Would that make it easier to part with her?”

  Cutter accepted twenty dollars to cover Penelope’s board and care. The child refused to go quietly until she was allowed to collect her clothes and shoes. Cutter let her keep her costume, and as Tom and Maddie led her away from the caravan campsite, there was much sniffling and foot dragging from the little milkmaid walking between them.

  “Where are we going?” Maddie wanted to know.

  Tom hadn’t thought past getting Penelope away from Cutter.

  “We’re leaving Baton Rouge,” he said.

  “Tonight? It’s too late. And what about my things?”

  He sighed. She was stalling.

  He nudged Penelope until she started walking again.

  “I don’t recall you bringing much.” He was far more concerned about where they were all going to spend the night.

  “The hotel gave me new clothes. And I’m owed money for the work I did over the past few days.”

  It was Tom’s turn to stop walking. He pictured Williams. “Exactly what did you do?”

  She squared her shoulders and kept walking. Penelope trudged along beside her. Tom caught up.

  “Do you still have my shotgun?”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Well, don’t forget it’s mine.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Yes,” Penelope piped up. “Who are you? And where are you taking us?”

  Tom sighed. It was going to be a long, long night. “Somewhere I can keep an eye on you both.”

  “I’m not staying with you,” Maddie said.

  He lowered his voice and leaned over Penelope. “Of course not. You’re only a kidnapper, not a loose woman.”

  With no idea where to go, he headed for the hotel so Maddie could collect her things. The cooks had long since finished for the night. A lone maid was mopping the floor. Steven Williams was waiting for them in the kitchen, seated on a barstool drawn up to the cooking table with his head propped on his hand. When they came through the back door, he tugged down the shirt cuffs beneath his jacket.

  “So you’ll be leaving, then?” Williams asked Tom.

  “I’ll be taking them back to New Orleans.”

  “You owe me my pay,” Maddie told the manager.

  Williams glanced at Tom and then focused on Maddie again. “You lied about who you were.”

  “I did no such thing. I told you my name.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were a kidnapper.” He sounded more disappointed than angry.

  Tom planted his hands on his hips and turned a hard gaze on Williams. “She did the work; now pay her what she’s owed. We’ve got to leave.”

  Williams excused himself to go to the office and collect Maddie’s pay. Tom shifted his attention to the open back door. Across the street on the river, not only was there a ferry, but a riverboat that had just docked. The floating palace was lit up like a sky full of Chinese fireworks. Music and gambling would go on all night long.

  Tom figured it was the only place he could ensure there was no escape until the boat docked in New Orleans. It was the safest place to keep Maddie and Penelope for the night.

  Williams hurried in, started to hand Maddie her money. Tom held out his hand. “She’s in my custody. I’ll be holding that for her.”

  Maddie started to protest, but Tom silenced her with a glance.

  “How’d you like the show?” Penelope asked Steven Williams.

  “The guests thought it was the best they’ve ever seen.”

  “All because of me,” the girl sniffed. “But now my illustrious career as a thespian has come to a close.”

  Tom waited outside Maddie’s door as she gathered her freshly laundered clothing, her saddlebag, and Penelope’s cape. Penelope had stopped arguing. No doubt, Maddie thought, the child was busy hatching another plan. Once they were settled, she would start thinking up one of her own. For now she’d have to content herself with irritating Tom Abbott as much as humanly possible.

  Tom followed her and Penelope out the back door. As soon as they cleared the hotel, he reached without warning for her saddlebag.

  “How dare you?”

  He flipped it open, pulled out her s
kinning knife, and cocked an eyebrow.

  “I guess I was lucky on the trail,” he said. “You could have filleted me in my sleep.”

  “I guess you were. How did you know it was there?”

  “Thank Miss Perkins here. She mentioned your affinity for muskrats, and I remembered the knife. Figured you’d have it with you.”

  He held up the lethal piece. Light from the riverboat danced along the blade.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t try to run when you had the chance,” he told her.

  She returned his stare. “I think you know why I didn’t. I’ve as big a stake in Miss Perkins as you do.”

  “Nanny says it’s rude to talk about people as if they aren’t around,” Penelope informed them.

  “We’ve one more stop.” Tom laid his hand on the child’s shoulder and led them two doors down to the hotel stable for guests. Money exchanged hands as he arranged for their horses to be delivered by barge to New Orleans.

  Then he headed for the river.

  “Where are we going?” Maddie demanded.

  “We’re not going to stay on the riverboat, are we?” Penelope slowed down, forcing them both to match her stride.

  “We are,” Tom said. “The crew will be instructed not to let either of you anywhere near the gangplank.”

  Maddie stared at the floating palace. Reflection from the lights on board danced on the surface of the water. Music drifted out into the night. Huge crystal chandeliers hung in the grand central rooms on both decks.

  “Expensive jail,” she mumbled, recalling the money Abbott had given Hammond Cutter. How much was he carrying?

  “My papa would never take us on a steamboat. He says if the engines don’t explode, then they are just as likely to run into things in the river. Why, my papa would just have a fit if he knew you were taking me aboard a steamboat. He says they aren’t worth the time it takes to make them. The construction is terrible.”

  Maddie sighed. Tom turned to her. “How old is this child?”

  “I’m almost nine.” Penelope smiled.

  “More like twenty-nine,” he mumbled.

  Maddie couldn’t agree more but she wasn’t about to let him know it.

  CHAPTER 18

  They boarded the Memphis Palace, and Maddie couldn’t help but stare as they climbed the stairs to their rooms. The ship’s opulence was something out of another world.

  She and Penelope were to share a small stateroom. Tom’s cabin was right next door. He warned her he had asked the captain to inform the crew that Penelope made a habit of running off and that Maddie was in his custody. No matter what either of them said or did, they would not be allowed to leave without him when they docked.

  Penelope went into their room first. Maddie stopped just outside the door.

  “What makes you think I’d try to run?” she asked Tom.

  “For one thing, you’re headed for jail, and I’m thinking that two-thousand-dollar reward is so tempting. You’d risk taking the girl home to collect.”

  Penelope was her pot of gold. Maddie wasn’t going anywhere without her. They both knew it.

  He left them alone in their room, and as soon as the door closed, Penelope wilted. She dropped her bundle on the nearest of the two narrow beds and sat beside it. Her eyes were huge, innocent, and full of bewilderment.

  “Is he really taking me home, Madeline?”

  For the first time she looked and sounded eight years old and very fragile.

  Maddie set her own things on the opposite bed. She hesitated a moment before she sat down beside Penelope, tempted to put her arm around the little girl’s sagging shoulders.

  “He’s really taking you home,” she said softly. “He’s taking me to jail.”

  “What about those bad men? The ones who kidnapped me. Won’t they be mad?”

  Maddie wanted to deny that the twins were bad men, but couldn’t. She was no better. “They can’t hurt you anymore.”

  Penelope flopped back on the bed. “I sure hope seeing me doesn’t upset Mama.”

  “She misses you terribly.”

  “How can you be sure?” Penelope looked as if she wanted desperately to believe it.

  Maddie swallowed hard and hid sudden tears. “I bet all she really wants right now is to hug you and feel you in her arms again.”

  Penelope looked doubtful. “Maybe so. She sure misses that baby, and we hadn’t even gotten used to having him around.” She sighed heavily and peered up at Maddie through her lashes. “I heard Papa tell Nanny that it would be better for Mama if I wasn’t underfoot.”

  Maddie was certain Mr. Perkins regretted ever speaking those words.

  “Is that why you didn’t try to get home? Because you thought your papa wanted you in Paducah?”

  “Yes.” Penelope stared at the ceiling and hummed for a minute, thinking. Then she sat up.

  “Your father wants you home, believe me.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “No.”

  “You sure that Mr. Abbott isn’t your friend?”

  “Definitely not.”

  Penelope persisted. “Are you sweet on him?”

  “Heavens, no.” Maddie shook her head.

  “I think you are.”

  “You think wrong.” She frowned. She couldn’t resist asking, “What makes you say so?”

  Penelope shrugged. “You look at him like you’re mad at him, but not really. Not deep down. Like when he dragged us onto this boat. You acted like you didn’t want to be here with him, but I can tell you do. You watch him when you think he’s not looking.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “What if we got away? You could take me to Paducah, to my real aunt’s place, and then you wouldn’t have to go to jail.”

  “I think it’s time you got some sleep.” Maddie didn’t dare tell the girl that all she’d been thinking about was escaping Abbott.

  Penelope sighed. “I’m pretty tired. Acting sure takes it out of you.”

  Despite the fact that all of her plans had gone awry, Maddie found herself smiling. “Does it?”

  “Yes. You have to project. That means you have to shout at the top of your lungs. At least that’s what Mr. Cutter says. He thinks I have a bright future on the stage.” She drooped again. “At least I did.”

  “Maybe you should tell your parents how much you like performing.”

  “Oh, I don’t think they’d be too happy to hear that I want to be a world-famous actress like Arabella the Magnificent.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, for one thing, I heard Mama tell Papa that she knew all about his penchant for actresses, and she wasn’t about to ever let him forget his promise to keep his eyes from wandering the way they had back in New York. There was just something about the way she said actresses that made me pretty sure she doesn’t like them.”

  Maddie was certain the child had perfectly imitated her mother, right down to the inflection in Mrs. Perkins’s voice when she warned her husband away from actresses.

  “You’ll just have to see how they feel about it when you get home.”

  “I’ll have to bide my time, you mean?”

  “Yes. Bide your time.”

  Penelope got up and started to unfold her clothing, and Maddie decided they should both get some sleep. She poured water from a tall pitcher into a washbowl on a stand between their beds while Penelope carefully set her clothes on a bench.

  Moistening a washrag, Maddie walked over to Penelope. The child raised her face so that Maddie could gently wash off the stage makeup. Then she took the diamond comb out of Penelope’s hair and set it carefully on the washstand.

  “Let’s not forget this tomorrow.” She didn’t mention Tom Abbott had found its mate.

  When Maddie moved her own clothes, she found the red hooded cape rolled inside the bundle and handed it to Penelope.

  “My cape! I love this cape.” The child hugged it close. Then she looked at the garment and frowned. “How did you get thi
s? I gave it to a little girl named Betty days and days ago.”

  “Believe it or not, I ran across Betty in the bayou. She was wearing it and I thought she was you.”

  “So that’s how you found me.”

  “She confessed she snuck you into her grandfather’s wagon.” Maddie washed off her own face, took her hairbrush out of her saddlebag, and remembered that Tom had her skinning knife. Her anger flared as she brushed out her hair and plaited it into one long, thick braid.

  Penelope insisted on chattering.

  “When the old man’s wagon stopped in a place called Parkville, I slipped out and started walking. I found a shortcut around the back of town and no one saw me. A little ways up the road I saw Mr. Cutter’s camp, and when I read those advertisements on the sides of his wagons, I asked him for a job. He told me to audition. I had to read a piece of a play off a scrap of paper and act it out. It was the most fun I ever had in my life. He gave me the job right on the spot.”

  “He didn’t ask about your family?”

  She hung her head. “I told him I was an orphan trying to get to my aunt’s on my own. I said, ‘If you’re headed to Kentucky, then count me in.’ “

  “What did he say?”

  She looked up again, all smiles, hooked her thumbs under her arms, and puffed out her chest the way Maddie had seen Cutter do at the hotel. “He said, ‘Why little lady, if you’ll perform all the way to Kentucky, then that’s where we’re headed.’”

  Maddie found herself laughing for the first time in a long while, but her humor was short-lived. “You’d best get out of your clothes and climb into bed,” she said.

  “At least all my clothes are clean,” Penelope said, stripping down to her shift before she slipped under the covers. The fall night air held an unaccustomed chill.

  “Arabella made one of the stage hands wash my dress. She said I smelled like a rancid old sheep.”

  Maddie figured she’d spent most of her own childhood smelling like a rancid old sheep.

  “I hated her,” Penelope said. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s not Arabella the Magnificent. She’s Arabella the Awful.”