Laurie McBain

by Tears of Gold

  Mara listened to the joking, knowing Brendan was overdoing it as he sought to gather his wits about him. Neither of them believed that woman was not Molly. Mara cast a surreptitious look at the woman who sat talking with Jacques D’Arcy, their dark heads close together, and wondered worriedly what they were saying. Jacques D’Arcy, who bore a grudge against her, was the last person she wanted trading confidences with Molly.

  “You seem rather interested in the O’Flynns,” Jacques remarked casually, his eyes resting on María Velazquez’s face. Surprise, disbelief, dismay, and finally speculation had moved over her features. She was thoughtfully chewing her thumbnail as she turned to him.

  “So…they really are Brendan and Mara O’Flynn,” she said. Her husky voice trembled with underlying excitement. “What do you know about them, except that Brendan O’Flynn seems to be made of money? I can see that for myself,” she demanded as she saw Brendan order another bottle of champagne.

  Jacques shrugged, an ugly look crossing his face. “He certainly spends it like there was no tomorrow. I suppose it doesn’t matter to him though. Heard tell he found a chunk of gold worth a hundred thousand dollars or more and is now living like a king at the St. Francis. He gambles away thousands of dollars nightly, not seeming to care whether he wins or loses—losing more than winning most of the time, I might say.”

  “So Brendan’s rich,” Molly spoke softly, her eyes shining like black onyx.

  “Brendan?” Jacques asked curiously. “You know the gentleman?”

  Molly eyed the Frenchman with an enigmatic look. “María Velazquez, do you like the name?”

  “Nothing wrong with it,” Jacques said impatiently. “Even sounds exotic.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I made it up a couple of years ago,” Molly told him, laughing. “Did you know that Lola Montez, a personal friend of mine, was actually born in Ireland and her real name is Eliza Gilbert? And don’t you think that María Velazquez has more mystery to it than Molly O’Flynn?” she asked coyly.

  Jacques almost choked on his cheroot. “Who did you say?”

  “Molly O’Flynn,” she reiterated clearly, “Mrs. Brendan O’Flynn—at least until I ran out on him.”

  “Mon Dieu,” Jacques said beneath his breath.

  “Tell me,” Molly asked, suddenly remembering. “Is there a small boy with them by any chance?”

  Jacques grinned, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together as he added María’s relationship to the O’Flynns. “The boy Mara O’Flynn is mothering is your son, isn’t he?”

  Molly laughed harshly. “So Mara is still playing the role of the little mama? Well, if the brat’s around six or seven, then he’s most likely mine.”

  “Motherhood apparently didn’t agree with you, ma chérie,” Jacques remarked with a smirk.

  “I had other ideas at the time,” Molly replied vaguely, then added with a determined glint, “but I just might have different feelings about that now. Brendan always did have a weakness for me.”

  “What are you plotting, ma chérie?” Jacques asked suspiciously.

  Molly smiled unpleasantly. “Could be that rumor will soon have it that Brendan and his little sister abandoned me, stole my son from me, and left me destitute. I am still his wife, and I think public opinion would be on my side and demand I share in their wealth,” Molly speculated. “But I will only resort to that if Brendan shows any reluctance to take me back. I do not fear that happening, however, for I am more beautiful today than I was years ago when he loved me.”

  Jacques eyed her professionally, silently agreeing that she was a beautiful woman. She lacked the refinement of Mara O’Flynn, and already her looks were beginning to suffer. The skin around her eyes was puffy from late nights and heavy drinking, while the heavy dusting of powder and rouge did not hide the faint lines of age. The steady thickening of her voluptuous body would probably continue until she eventually became grotesque, Jacques speculated as he watched her spooning a rich dessert into her mouth.

  But for now, she needn’t worry. There was an earthy quality in her beauty, a certain bawdy suggestiveness about her that told a man he would get his money’s worth with her.

  “I wonder if they recognized me,” Molly asked thoughtfully. “I stared right into those damned gold eyes of Mara O’Flynn’s, but not a flicker of emotion or recognition crossed her face. Either she didn’t know me, or she’s turned into a damned fine actress,” Molly fumed, wondering just what her next move should be.

  “Mara O’Flynn is the cool one, ma chérie,” Jacques informed her as he eyed their table. Then, as he uncomfortably recognized the big blond man sitting with them, he suggested, “I think we should give careful thought to this rather interesting development and wait until tomorrow to act upon it. By then we should have come up with a workable plan.”

  “We?” Molly questioned caustically as she cast a doubtful look at the Frenchman. “I had no idea you’d been married to Brendan as well.”

  But Jacques ignored her sarcasm, his fingers rubbing along her thigh beneath the table as he replied suavely, “Mais oui, ma chérie. You will need someone you can trust, who can make sure the O’Flynns don’t cheat you once again. I am a very influential man in San Francisco. I could possibly be of service, should the O’Flynns become difficult about sharing their good fortune,” Jacques told her with a smile. It hinted that he almost wished they would.

  Molly ran her hand along his arm as she smiled softly up into his face. “I can see the value in having you as a partner, my love.”

  “I thought you might,” he said, his dark eyes lingering on the O’Flynns as they prepared to leave the restaurant. He couldn’t resist nodding his head in casual acknowledgment as he caught Mara O’Flynn’s eyes on him. She acted as though she had not seen him, looking away from his table without a sign of recognition on her beautiful face.

  ***

  “My God, Brendan,” Mara was saying the following morning when she joined Brendan for a late breakfast in his rooms at the St. Francis. “I can’t believe it. Molly. After all these years.”

  Brendan sipped his coffee, his face haggard and pale as he stared morosely at his plate of food before pushing it away disinterestedly. “To be sure, I never thought to be seein’ her face again.”

  “And with Jacques, of all people,” Mara frowned.

  “That fellow who was being rather forcibly ejected from Jenny’s by our mountain of a friend the day I arrived,” Brendan noted.

  “Yes, and he’s a treacherous cutthroat who isn’t likely to forgive and forget.”

  “And how is it, mavournin, that you should have an acquaintance with such a lack of character?” Brendan demanded.

  “I had to earn a living while you were looking for gold, didn’t I? He’s a gambler, and I was one of his faro dealers. We had a difference of opinion and I quit just shortly before you arrived.”

  “A difference of opinion, was it? The same old story I suppose. You played games with him and he turned nasty when repulsed?” Brendan speculated.

  Mara sighed in exasperation. “Please give me credit for having more sense than to tease someone like him. I never encouraged him, Brendan, never. I find him quite despicable. That’s why I quit working for him.”

  “Well, it’s still the same thing. He’s no friend of ours, and come to think of it, I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Brendan,” Mara said, deciding to voice an idea she’d thought about for some time now, “I’ve been wondering if we ought not to invest some of the money in a business or something like that. You know, we could even open a boardinghouse. Or maybe build our own hotel? What do you think, Brendan?” Mara asked hesitantly as she saw the incredulous look on Brendan’s handsome face.

  “My dear, your sense of humor is extraordinary. Of course, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming it was a joke. Can you imagine Brendan O’Flynn in trade? Why, the mere thought is preposterous. I suppose you’ll want me to open up a butcher’s shop, tie an apron arou
nd me waist, and hawk slabs of beef? Or perhaps open a laundry? Or even better, become a haberdasher.” Brendan looked at Mara, shaking his head in disbelief. “My dear, I really must get you back to London. These Americans with their peculiar class mixtures are really going to your head. Oh, dear me, I can even see the newspaper story now: ‘Mara O’Flynn, one-time famous actress who gave up the stage in favor of opening her own little hat shop, married a redheaded greengrocer and is raising a family of little carrot-tops of her own.’ Doesn’t sound too excitin’, mavournin. To be sure, it sounds damned dull,” Brendan told her with a pitying look.

  Mara stared down at her fingernails, Brendan’s cutting remarks touching her on the raw as she fell into a mortified silence.

  “Mavournin, knowin’ you the way I do,” Brendan continued, realizing he’d hurt her feelings, “you’d be bored within a fortnight without fine restaurants and fancy dress balls and the elegance of—” Brendan was interrupted by a firm knock on the door of his suite.

  Mara glanced at Brendan. “Were you expecting someone?”

  “Not that I know of. Can’t remember issuing an invitation, but then, my women friends haven’t always waited for one when wanting to further the acquaintance,” Brendan said half-seriously as he reluctantly got up.

  Mara was glancing idly through one of the newspapers stacked on the end of the table when she heard voices and looked up to see Brendan sauntering back to the table followed by a female visitor.

  Up close Molly O’Flynn had indeed changed a great deal since the last time Mara had seen her. Mara shook her head, wondering in amazement how she could ever have idolized this coarse creature. Molly was dressed in a bright red taffeta gown trimmed with black bows and bunches of artificial flowers, the décolletage unsuitably low for a daytime dress and partially concealed by a fur stole draped across her shoulders. She had one hand tucked into a fur muff that matched the stole. In her other hand she was carrying a delicate fringed parasol of red taffeta that she spun like a pinwheel behind her shoulders.

  “Look who’s come to pay us a visit, mavournin,” Brendan said coldly. “The long-lost, and almost forgotten Molly.”

  “Never at a loss for words, are you, Brendan, my love?” Molly said acerbically. Then, remembering the reason for her visit, she smiled sweetly. She approached the table where Mara sat watching her. “My, my…how you have grown, Mara. I always predicted you would be a beauty someday,” she said grudgingly, her smile tight. Molly recognized a natural grace and elegance in Mara that she herself had not achieved.

  “Why have you come, Molly?” Brendan asked bluntly, pointedly not inviting her to join them at breakfast. He sat back down and picked up one of the newspapers, his look impatient. “Well?”

  Molly, laboring under the misconception that she still held Brendan’s love, looked down at him out of the corner of her eye, her lips curving provocatively. “Brendan, my love, is that all you’ve got to say to me after all these years? I’ve missed you dreadfully. You must believe me,” she cried as she fell to her knees before Brendan, her hands grasping and clutching at his. She stared beseechingly into his austere face.

  Mara stared in disbelief. If she hadn’t been so shocked by Molly’s reappearance, she would have laughed, for Molly always had been a terrible actress and still was as she overplayed her part once again, her gestures exaggerated and almost comical.

  “I was so young and foolish. I really didn’t know my own mind until I had left London, leaving my beloved husband alone, to raise our sweet child without a mother’s love. Oh, Brendan, I’ve been such a fool,” Molly spoke in a quivering voice, a hint of tears glistening in her eyes. She pulled a dainty handkerchief from her bodice and dabbed at her dry eyes. “I came back, looking for you, but you had left London, and I didn’t know where to look. I barely had enough money to live on, much less to search for you across Europe.”

  Molly bent her head in an attitude of repentance, twisting her handkerchief nervously in her hands as she waited for his reaction. As the silence lengthened, she felt the need to add more to her part. She gave a deep sob. “Oh, Brendan, when I saw your handsome face, I knew what I had been missing all these years. I knew that our love had not died, that it never could die. Brendan, I have been so alone, so in agony without you, my love. It is fate that we should find each other once again,” Molly cried, risking a glance from beneath the brim of her silk bonnet.

  The lacy handkerchief ripped between her hands as she saw the look of sardonic amusement on Brendan’s hardened features. Throwing back her head haughtily, she faced the O’Flynns. Never before had they been able to put her out of countenance, but now, as she saw the contempt they didn’t bother to conceal, she felt herself squirming. Her presence was being suffered politely, like a maid’s intrusion into a room where her betters were having a private discussion.

  “Try again, Molly m’dear,” Brendan told her unsympathetically. He casually lit a cigar, rudely blowing the smoke between them.

  Mara gave a silent sigh of relief. For a moment she had worried that Brendan might fall for that pack of lies and take Molly back, but Brendan had rid himself of her ghost.

  Molly glared at Brendan’s aloof countenance with a pang of regret. Not only was Brendan still handsome, he was now filthy rich.

  “I am still your wife, Brendan. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?” Molly demanded belligerently as she struggled to her feet. “Other people will not forget so easily when it gets around town that you stole my child from me, running off and leaving me destitute and in grave health.”

  Mara gasped at the effrontery of the woman, drawing Molly’s attention to her. Molly’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she stared at Mara’s exquisite face and felt the hatred of envy through her.

  “I shall demand the return of my son. He should be with his mother,” she threatened. “You wouldn’t like that, would you, Mara? You think of him as yours, don’t you? Well, you’d better get used to the idea of being without him.”

  Brendan got to his feet. Mara was surprised to see his hands shaking with anger as he faced his one-time love, a murderous look in his dark eyes.

  “Don’t threaten us, Molly,” Brendan warned quietly. “You walked out on me and Paddy, and from that day forward you ceased to exist for me. So you might as well go on pretendin’ to be María Velazquez, because you’re nobody to me,” Brendan told her coldly. “And I’m not thinkin’ anyone in his right mind, after setting eyes on you, would believe that make-believe of yours, or allow an adulteress anywhere near a small boy. What you are is plain to see, and you’re no fit mother. Give up, Molly,” Brendan finished.

  “Brendan, please, I beg of you. Take me back, forgive me,” Molly cried in one last, desperate attempt to persuade him, her fingers closing over his arms like claws.

  Brendan shook off her clinging hands and stepped away from her, shaking his head in disgusted pity. “Don’t degrade yourself any more than you already have, Molly. I never could stomach beggars.”

  “Damn you to hell, Brendan O’Flynn!” Molly screamed, dropping her unlikely pose of humility. “Still the arrogant bastard pretending to be the fine gentleman? You’re from the same gutter as me, boyo, and don’t you be forgettin’ it, will ye now? I’ll be here to remind you, and before long people won’t be bowing and scraping as they rush to open doors for you—they’ll be shutting them in the face of Brendan O’Flynn, my fine lover.”

  Molly swaggered to the door, turning as she reached it, her hand poised above the door knob. “I’d think over that reconciliation, Brendan, me love. It just might cost you less now than ’twill later. ’Tis up to you, remember that.”

  “There always was just one role you could play to perfection, Molly, m’dear,” Brendan said. “And that was the one of the foul-mouthed whore who comes to grief in the last act.”

  An ugly sneer curled her lips as Molly turned with a swish of her skirts and opened the door without another look at Brendan. The sound of the slammed door almost deafened Mara and
Brendan as they silently stared at each other.

  Mara rubbed her cold hands together as she shivered in reaction, thinking how lucky they were she’d run out on them when she had. She’d turned vicious, Mara thought in revulsion as she remembered the brightly painted mouth that had uttered such horrible lies and accusations, her heavy, cloying perfume still lingering in the room even after she’d left.

  Mara got up and opened a window, breathing deeply of the cool air. As she turned back to the room, she became aware of Brendan slumped tiredly in his chair, his head resting heavily in his hand as he propped his elbow on the table.

  “Are you all right, Brendan?” He looked so pale, almost feverish.

  Brendan sighed. “I think seein’ Molly again after so many years has affected me more than I thought,” he explained with a half-smile that faded quickly. “Actually I feel like hell. I think I’ll lie down for a while, Mara. Maybe I’m just getting older and can’t take these late nights anymore,” he joked. As he reached the door, he paused. Glancing back at Mara with his old, devilish smile, he said curiously, “You know…I feel good about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I really told Molly off, didn’t I? I feel like I’ve exorcised that bitch for good and all after all these years. I said all the things I wanted to say seven years ago, only I didn’t have the chance then. Jaysus, but I feel good about that.”

  “To be sure, I was proud of you, Brendan,” Mara said softly, her eyes warm with understanding. For Mara had learned how a face could haunt you.

  Brendan shook his head in confusion. “You know, mavournin, a year ago you’d probably have come back at me with some sarcastic remark. You’ve changed in some way, Mara, and I don’t know quite what to make of it. But Molly was right about one thing. You have grown into a very beautiful young woman,” he said. He eyed her quizzically. “Maybe that’s the difference, mavournin, you’ve become a woman, haven’t ye now?”

  Mara nodded her head regretfully. “A woman, with a woman’s fears and heartaches. I’m all too human, Brendan, and I ache with the realization of it sometimes.”