The car shuddered to a halt, Daniel steadying his feet against the floorboards for balance, to deposit two men in frock coats and top hats at the corner. One more block and they would be at Sarah’s stop.
“You did the best you could by offering her someplace safe to go,” he said.
“The best for Anne would have been to drag her from that hovel, no matter how much she protested, and put her on the earliest train to anywhere several hundred miles distant from that Frank fellow.”
“He’s the sort who sounds like he’d hunt her down and make her pay for running off. China or India might not be far enough. All you’d gain by sending Miss Cavendish away is trouble for yourself.” He hadn’t rescued her from drowning to have some vengeful lover of one of her girls decide to wring her neck.
“I don’t care about trouble for me.”
“That is the problem with you, Miss Whittier.”
Her eyes narrowed. “We’ve already discussed this before.”
At the pond. He knew. He remembered.
His jaw twitched. “You need to take care of yourself if you want to help anybody. Be more careful.”
Sarah scoffed and tossed her head. “Don’t make it sound like you care about my health and well-being.”
He stared back at her. “You might not believe it, but I do care.” More than she could imagine or he liked.
Did she inhale suddenly? Blush a little? Hard to tell in the checkered shadow and light within the cable car.
“Then prove it,” she dared, her chin going up, any chance to see if she was flustered by his admission lost in her defiance. “Invest in the shop.”
“Maybe I will.”
Sarah laughed. “I would like to believe you, but I suspect that’ll never happen.”
Never say never, Sarah. “We’ve arrived at your stop.” He stood as the cable car glided to a halt.
Sarah scrambled to her feet. “Wait. Did you mean it? Might you invest in the shop?”
Daniel didn’t know what he had meant. Any more, his brain didn’t think clearly around her. “Let me help you down.”
He took Sarah’s arm and assisted her down the steps and onto the street. Daniel set a brisk pace but Sarah kept up.
“You weren’t serious. I knew it.” She frowned at him. “It doesn’t matter. We have our backers, so I don’t need your money. But what you could give me is Josiah’s house.”
“Not sure I can help you there.”
“Too many promises, Mr. Cady?” she asked, holding tight to her hat as she hurried alongside him.
“In general, I try not to make them, Miss Whittier.” Because promises are too often broken. I learned that lesson from you, Josiah. “Aside from the promise I made to Lily and Marguerite, that is.” And to his mother.
“It’s just as well. I rarely believe promises,” she responded, laughing lightly to mask what might have been unhappiness in her voice.
They reached the house. Ah Mong, perched on the topmost step, caught sight of them and jumped up. “Miss Sarah, you are home early.”
“I left the shop so we could go check on Anne. She didn’t come to work today.” Sarah turned to Daniel before climbing the steps. “Thank you for going with me to Anne’s and showing me home, but I’ll be perfectly fine from this point forward.”
“Do you want me to check on Miss Cavendish later this afternoon?” he asked. “The Occidental isn’t all that far from her house.”
“And risk having Frank return and find you, a strange man, in his house?” She looked at him like he was daft. “You’re the one who needs to be careful if you’re going to do something so foolish.”
“Not one of my better ideas, perhaps.”
“You’ve had a few interesting ones today.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, I have.”
She smiled. How bright her eyes were, sharp, intelligent, the tears and self-pity in them long gone. Abruptly, she raised up on her toes and kissed him, an innocent, feather-light brush across his cheek. The scent of rose water filled his senses. “Thank you. You didn’t need to claim you might invest in my business. More importantly, you didn’t need to help with Anne, and I’m grateful that you did. Thank you for being the sort of man Josiah would have been proud of.”
Before he could react, she spun about and bounded up the steps, skirts held high, sweeping through the front door without looking back.
Sarah stared up at the ceiling above her bed. Had she never noticed before the faint crack that meandered like the stream back in Ohio, a ragged line advancing from the corner toward the center of the room? Likely not, because tonight there was moonlight to compete with the purpling sky, a rare enough occurrence when usually fog descended like a veil to shroud the houses and trees and yellow hills. It was also a rare occurrence that she was sleepless and staring at the contents of her bedroom, fretting over Anne. Fretting over Daniel.
Her cheeks flared. She had kissed him. Nothing passionate at all. Just a brush against his cheek. A spontaneous act borne from gratitude that he’d been so kind to Anne and to her that afternoon. A kiss that had been nothing like the kisses, the embraces she had once shared—so very foolishly—with Edouard Marchand.
But enough of one to keep her from sleep.
Sarah punched her pillow and flipped onto her side. The wall opposite was no more calming than the ceiling. Her stomach rumbled. With Mrs. McGinnis absent at an opera at the Winter Garden—a treat from Sarah, who’d expected to spend the evening cajoling money out of the Linforths and their guests—Sarah had only managed to scrounge a cold plate of sandwich meats for dinner and now she was paying the price. She’d gone to bed early because she needed to sleep, not lie here staring at walls. Tomorrow, the worktables were set to arrive at the studio, and she would need all her energy. All of her focus to forget what had happened between her and Daniel that afternoon.
Daniel, again. She couldn’t keep her thoughts from him for long. He had become a part of her life, as stubbornly attached as a burr to a wool stocking. The look on his face when she’d kissed him . . . Sarah smiled into the moonlight. His look of wide-eyed shock had been the same as if she’d slapped him. Instead of merely brushing her lips against his face, skin softer than it had appeared, warmer than she had anticipated.
A sigh escaped. “Honestly, Sarah. You know better than this.” Better than to lose her heart to someone who would not hold it safe.
She shifted to turn onto her other side when a noise downstairs brought her upright in bed. Had Rufus cornered a mouse or gotten into the pantry? But the noise hadn’t come from the kitchen. Sarah heard the sound again, the creak of wood, the distant squeak of a hinge. Sounds made by a creature much heavier than either Rufus or a mouse. Maybe Mrs. McGinnis was home early from the Winter Garden opera.
But just in case . . .
Pulse racing, mouth dry, Sarah fumbled for Mrs. Brentwood’s nickel-plated derringer, stored in the bedside table. The first time she’d ever handled a gun had been when she was seven, and her neighbor had dared her to shoot the woodchucks burrowing beneath their barn. Never one to let a boy best her, she’d taken his father’s pistol—barely able to lift the gun—and shot. The kick had knocked her on her behind. The woodchuck had survived. A corner of the barn’s stone foundation hadn’t fared as well.
Sarah shimmied into her slippers and pulled on her red silk robe. Striking a match, Sarah lit a lantern. She eased open the bedroom door and stretched the light into the hallway.
“Mrs. McGinnis, is that you?” she called toward the curving flight of stairs across from her bedroom. No answer.
Lantern extended, Sarah started for the staircase. Every few steps, she paused and listened. All she could hear was the sound of her own blood rushing through her ears. Softly, she lowered first one slippered foot onto the entry hall carpet, then the other. She craned her neck to see down the length of the hall and the dining room beyond, then toward the parlor directly across from her. A faint pool of light lit the room’s Brussels carpet.
She cocked the pistol, praying she wouldn’t require more than the two bullets it contained, and tiptoed forward.
Within four steps, she saw him, his silhouette limned by the front bay window and the gas lamp that lit the street out front. He’d pulled the curtain aside to better see. A brute of a man, he was peering behind the secretary, looking ready to shove it aside. He hadn’t heard her or noticed the gleam of the lantern. But he would at any moment.
She raised the Remington. Her last thought before she pulled the trigger was that she was grateful he was a lot bigger than a woodchuck.
Fifteen
Wood splintered, the gun’s retort startling Sarah. The man spun about, his coat pocket catching the knob of the secretary’s drawer and yanking it to the ground, spilling stationery and steel pen nibs onto the carpet.
“Stop! I’ll shoot again!” she screamed.
He lunged for her and she jumped aside. Her hip smacked against the parlor table, sending the vase of roses in its center crashing. From behind, Sarah heard shouting, the gruff shriek of an angry Scottish woman bursting through the front door. Alarmed, the man bolted through the far archway that led into the dining room. The rear door slammed as he escaped into the garden.
“Miss Sarah!” Mrs. McGinnis sprinted to her side. “Was that a gunshot?”
The room whirled around her like a top skipping across an uneven floor. Sarah gripped the table’s edge to steady herself.
“Thank heavens you’re here, Mrs. McGinnis.” She’d shot the derringer. In her house. At the intruder who had returned for Josiah’s treasure. The image of his face, lit by the lantern for a second before she fired, swam in her vision. Where had she seen him before?
Mrs. McGinnis ran her hands over Sarah’s arms, inspecting her for damage. “Are you hurt, lass?”
“No. Just a bit shaky.” A fresh wave of dizziness surged and Sarah inhaled. Carefully, she set the gun, still clenched in her hand, and the lantern on the parlor table.
“You need some tea.” Tea always fixed everything, to Mrs. McGinnis’s way of thinking.
“Thank you for coming home early, by the way.”
“Thank the good Lord that not e’en the famed Miss Ethel Lynton could hold my attention tonight! Dornt like opera. Bah.” She righted the vase, stuffing the roses back into it. “Let me fetch some towels to clean up this spill.”
The housekeeper hastened off, flourishing a string of choice Scottish words like a master craftsman, flinging some of them at Rufus when he scampered beneath her feet. Sarah pulled in another lengthy breath and looked over at the secretary. A ragged hole gaped in the wood. She had missed the intruder but ruined the piece of furniture. She was no better a shot than she’d been at seven, apparently.
“Miss Sarah?” Ah Mong scuttled in from the dining room, his thin-soled black sandals slapping on the floor. “I heard a gun. Are you well?”
“I am unharmed, Ah Mong. And a terrible shot, it appears.” She could joke, now that her heart was no longer in her throat. After the threat was gone.
“I saw the man. He ran by me and climbed over the wall.” The boy shuffled his feet. “I am sorry. I was asleep and did not stop him.”
“It’s all right.” Although her knees were knocking something fierce.
“There you are, ye daft boy. And it’s about time.” Mrs. McGinnis thrust towels into his arms. “Here, there’s water everywhere. Clean it up so Miss Sarah can rest and have some tea and calm her wee nerves.”
A trail of dark spots along the floor caught Sarah’s eye. She bent down and swiped one with her finger. Sticky red liquid. Not so bad a shot, after all.
“Blood, Miss Sarah?” the housekeeper asked. She stepped close to peer over Sarah’s shoulder. Ah Mong exhaled a murmur of Chinese.
Sarah wiped her finger on one of the towels. “The bullet must have grazed the man.”
“Serves him right.” Mrs. McGinnis clucked scornfully. “Back at yer chore, Ah Mong.” She swiped the towel from Sarah’s grasp to blot the drips of blood from the rug.
“I think I’ve seen him before, Mrs. McGinnis.”
“Was he large as a bear and near as hairy?” She dabbed the towel across the floor, tracking the trail of crimson.
Sarah followed her as the path wended its way into the dining room. “You might describe him that way.”
Mrs. McGinnis grunted. “That’s our intruder then. Nae that I thought otherwise. Come back to look again.”
“For Josiah’s treasure,” she whispered. Suddenly cold, Sarah folded her robe around her waist.
Mrs. McGinnis obliterated the final speck of blood and stood. “I thought you agreed there is nae treasure, Miss Sarah.”
Sarah shivered into the thin silk. “He thinks there is.”
In the end, that was all that mattered.
“I have come to speak with you, Mr. Cady, on behalf of the other girls.” Minnie, bolt upright on the Occidental’s dining room chair and hands folded upon her lap, enunciated each word with the precise clarity of a displeased governess.
“Miss Tobin, you might be more comfortable this morning if you accepted a cup of coffee from the waiter.” Daniel inclined his head in the direction of the boy, at his post between two of the dining room’s draped windows.
“I don’t wish to be more comfortable, Mr. Cady.”
“You don’t mind if I drink my coffee, do you?” She’d marched through the dining room that morning like an army general, collecting in her wake her fair share of whispered comments, none of them likely complimentary. Not to a girl so clearly a member of the working class and daring to breach the sanctity of the Occidental Hotel, all cut glass and velvet furnishings. “It’s at its best when it’s still hot.”
Her eyes, which were a very nice brown though not as fine as Sarah’s, surveyed him scornfully. “If you have the stomach to eat breakfast and drink coffee while plotting to take away all that Miss Sarah has worked so hard for, then I won’t stop you.”
“I might have figured that’s why you’d come.” He didn’t really have much of an appetite, not while she was so clearly angry with him, but he sipped from the coffee anyway and lifted his fork as though he might eat. Which he doubted he would.
“I am . . . the other girls and me, we are thankful that you went to help Miss Sarah with Anne yesterday.” Her glance dipped to his untouched bacon and eggs, a heaping plateful. He suspected she never saw that much food on her plate for breakfast. He would push it over to her side of the table if he thought she wouldn’t be insulted. “Anne has it bad with her man. So you can understand how important the shop is to her and to all of us. We can’t lose it.”
Daniel tapped the fork tines against the edge of the china plate. He didn’t need a doe-eyed young woman making him feel guiltier than he already did. “Miss Whittier has told me she has financial backing from various supporters. She seems certain they’ll come to her rescue if things . . . don’t go as well as she hopes.”
“Like you getting the house Mr. Josiah left her and everything else?” She blinked, but her eyes were dry. She was a tough one. Other women might have started to cry by now. Maybe every woman associated with Miss Sarah Whittier was as steely as she was. “I don’t know about those folks and if they’ll rescue poor Miss Sarah, so you’ve got to let her have her inheritance. Or at least a goodly portion of it.”
“The amount poor Miss Sarah gets isn’t up to me, Miss Tobin. It’ll be up to the probate judge.”
Minnie rapped a fist against the edge of the table. “Mr. Cady!” A matron, severe in dark purple and blue stripes, shot her a disapproving glance. Embarrassed, Minnie lowered her voice. “Mr. Cady, you can always write a check, can’t you?”
Daniel set down his fork and sat back. “Miss Tobin, I’m sure Miss Whittier would be gratified to know you’re here, speaking up for her. But I have responsibilities back in Chicago and their names are Lily and Marguerite.”
Minnie stared at him. “You have daughters?”
“No. I have twin sister
s. They’re ten. They were born a year before my father . . .” Abandoned them? Decided gold was more important than family? “Before my father came out West. They don’t remember him. All they know is life has been hard, especially once we—and everybody else—realized Josiah wouldn’t be coming back to provide for us.” Resentment is a cancer, Daniel. Don’t let it eat you alive. You have to forgive him. Forgive him. That was what his mother would have him do, forgiveness coming a whole lot easier for Grace Cady than it ever would for her son.
“What are they like?” Minnie asked.
“They’re like two girls.” Daniel drank some coffee. It had cooled, and a ground stuck in his teeth. “Why are you interested?”
She smiled wistfully. “I don’t have any sisters.”
“Well, they’re funny at times, serious others. Sweet and pretty, with shining dark hair. Shy.” He didn’t add that the reason for their shyness was because they were too aware they were gossiped about. The unwanted daughters of a no-good gold miner. The granddaughters of a railroad tycoon who’d prefer to pretend they didn’t exist so as not to mar his lustrous status among the Chicago elite.
He smiled briefly at Minnie, in case the cancerous resentment showed too sternly on his face. “They slipped flowers into my bag before I left Chicago. Undoubtedly plundered from the Grays’ garden. They’re friends of ours who are watching the girls while I’ve been searching for Josiah. Our mother passed on in October.” He inhaled slowly, the pain of her loss still fresh enough to make it hard to breathe. “I didn’t find the flowers until about a week later, crushed and desiccated, scattering petals over my spare cotton socks. The girls love flowers. No surprise, I guess, given their names.” Which had been his father’s idea, he’d always been told. Give them two sweet names and then run off.
“Do they like dolls? My neighbor’s little girl likes dolls. I always wanted a doll, but . . .” Minnie shrugged away her disappointment.
Josiah's Treasure Page 15