Bees in the Butterfly Garden (The Gilded Legacy)

by Maureen Lang

  Even as Meg had visions of her and Kate going right back out, the man followed them inside Kate’s flat. Then he closed the door, folded his arms, and stood before it like the guard he was.

  “This is outrageous!” Meg fumed at the man, her face only inches from his placid one. He stared past her with a gaze so steady it was as if she weren’t even there. “Not only are you guilty of kidnapping; you’re standing in the way of preventing a crime. I have every reason to believe Ian Maguire is being accosted this very moment, and you’re doing nothing to stop it! Have you no hint of conscience, no shadow of human decency?”

  Though the man clearly breathed a bit heavily—he was a bulky sort and likely expended a good deal of his energy jumping up on the hired coach, then pummeling the cabbie—he stood so still he might have thought himself invisible to anyone or anything around him.

  “It’s no use,” Kate said. “He won’t leave until he knows whatever happens to Ian is done and finished.”

  Meg wanted to scream, but all that came out was a garbled moan of pure frustration.

  Ian felt himself dragged. He tried picking up his feet, but like a drunkard’s, they wouldn’t obey. His brain was indeed confused and slow, though it wasn’t from anything he’d ingested. It was from his skull being slammed from side to side, then bashed against the brick wall behind a fish market.

  He thought he’d have the chance to defend himself. He thought he’d be able to get in at least one punch or have the wherewithal to raise his arms in defense. But the slug who’d accompanied Keys made sure that didn’t happen. He held Ian back while Keys battered him in a one-sided boxing round.

  And now they were dumping him. He had only one more hazy thought. If they threw him in the river, that was the end of him.

  “If Brewster thought for a moment I would help him now,” Meg said to Kate, seated across from her on the settee in her parlor, “he’ll know soon enough I’d rather turn him in than give him a whisper of information about the Pembertons.”

  Kate stole a quick glance the thug’s way, as if to remind Meg of their “guest.” “I’ve said all along it’s foolish for you to be involved in anything regarding the Pemberton gold,” she said. “Maybe now you’ll listen.”

  “Oh, I haven’t changed my mind. I’ve just decided whom I want to help, that’s all.”

  “And what if after today Ian is working with Brewster, just as Brewster wants?”

  Meg clamped her mouth shut. This was impossible!

  “The only thing that should happen now is for you to tell both of them, Ian and Brewster, that you want no part in looking for the Pemberton money. You know now that you’re risking your entire future. The rest of your life could be ruined because of this ridiculous scheme.”

  Meg was in no mood for a lecture. “Coming from someone who calls herself Lady Kate, I find your caution more than a little disingenuous.”

  “Believe me, I hated to introduce myself in such a way this afternoon! But I had no choice if I was to see you in that neighborhood.” She sighed, looking so worn that she seemed to have aged a few years in the past minutes of their confinement. “I was once known along Fifth Avenue as Lady Kate Weathersfield, so visiting there requires me to be her again.” Her gaze rose to Meg’s, this time defiantly. “I sit before you as proof that youthful mistakes can haunt a person the rest of her life.”

  “I’m sorry, Kate, but your life doesn’t seem so bad to me.” Meg raised one of her palms to indicate their surroundings. “You have a comfortable home, fine clothes, and apart from having my father’s death break your heart, what have you to complain about? Brewster doesn’t control you; he won’t control me, either.”

  “Perhaps. But guilt can be a heavy burden.” An impassioned plea filled her eyes. “Please, please, Meg. Bid the Pembertons good-bye and come back here to stay. We’ll carry on together, you and I. We can get away from Brewster and his ways. We could travel—anywhere we please. You’re bound to meet someone upstanding and honest if you only look in the right places.”

  Meg rose from her seat, but instead of nearing the man who’d stationed himself at the door, she went to the window that overlooked the street. Surely someone would show up soon to let them know it was over? What must Ian be facing this very moment? Her heart ached to know, fearing whatever pain he suffered was at least partially her fault. If she’d agreed to work with both of them from the start, perhaps she could have made sure Brewster had nothing to fear about being left out. Not that she wanted him to have any part of her cooperation now!

  She faced Kate, offering her attention again. “You talk as though I can have a normal life, Kate. I can’t. With my lineage I have no hope of marriage to anyone ‘upstanding,’ as you put it. I’m like you in that.”

  “Sit back down, will you, Meg? For a moment?”

  Meg did as she asked, though stiffly. Nothing Kate could say would change the truth.

  Kate’s face was solemn. “Marriage is holy in God’s eyes, a symbol of loyalty that mirrors God’s loyalty to us. It’s a union that will make one man and one woman better together than they can be apart. And although I loved your father in this way—just as he loved me—I’ve come to believe that our marriage might not have made us better for the rest of our lives.”

  She looked as if she was grateful to be sitting, as if she couldn’t bear herself on her own strength. Then she continued. “Together, your father and I represented a formidable couple. But there were too many years when our partnership was strong for the wrong reasons. For selfish reasons—to cheat people and to get something from them. God Himself only knows if somehow, someday, we might have slipped back to those ways.”

  In her eyes Meg saw a desperate unhappiness. “It’s what I worry most for you, if you were to work with Ian. Repeating the mistakes your father and I made. I think that’s why Brewster wants to ensure he won’t be left out. He sees the potential match you and Ian could be.”

  “Kate . . .” Meg wanted only to comfort her, but Kate quickly went on.

  “Please, Meg, think about what I’m saying. Won’t you? You’re trying to recapture a past with your father that can never be. And Ian is reaching for a future he can never have. One with enough money for him to feel secure—only it’s an empty hope because it will never be enough.”

  “No, Kate. You’re wrong. I’m not looking for a future with Ian. Not the way you had with my father.”

  “Aren’t you? Isn’t that what’s driven you to his defense today? Concern for him that makes you more than . . . whatever it is you thought you were? More than acquaintances, more than friends. No simple familial affection for you.”

  Meg didn’t want to listen to such talk, yet it was clear nothing stood in the way of her uncompromising fear for Ian’s welfare. Of course she cared about him! Resent him she had, nearly all her life. But the fact was she’d seen firsthand why her father had loved Ian. He was as flawed as her father had been—a thief. But he was also loyal and smart and capable of loving someone else. He’d loved her father; Meg had seen that in his grief.

  Just as noise outside Kate’s door began demanding her attention, Meg had one fleeting thought. Perhaps Kate saw more clearly what Meg didn’t want to admit: she was falling in love with Ian Maguire.

  24

  The coming destruction can never touch us, for we have built a strong refuge made of lies and deception.

  Isaiah 28:15

  Ian had to be dreaming. Or maybe he was dead. An angel ministered to him, her soothing voice a balm to his soul and her gentle touch cooling him wherever it landed.

  He struggled to sit, and the sharp jab—like a knife to his insides—called him back to his senses, at least enough to feel the entirety of his pain. Every inch from his face to his gut cried for attention as he looked through swollen eyelids to see who was helping him now.

  Meggie.

  He gave up all effort to sit, turning his face away as she reached with a white cloth to one of his brows. “Go away.”

  �
��And leave you here? I don’t think so. Now quit moving. I only ever failed in one subject at school, and that was nursing.”

  He lifted a hand, surprised at how much it hurt to do so—and not just in his arm, but from somewhere beneath that. Ineffectively, he brushed her hand away and looked beyond her, horrified to see they were in yet another alleyway, secluded from the street amid the stench of garbage. Without another breathing thing in sight.

  “What are you doing here? Are you alone?”

  “Keys came to Kate’s house to tell her where we could find you. He had such a smug look on his face, as if he wanted to show us what he’d done hadn’t cost him a scratch. Oh! How I wanted to claw his eyes out. Kate went for Pubjug, but I couldn’t wait. I came straight here. With this.”

  She held up the bottle containing whatever it was she used on his cuts and bruises, something that smelled not quite sweet and slightly antiseptic. That explained the coolness of her touch.

  “And she let you? Do you even know where you are? Dressed like that, you might as well flag down the nearest hoodlum.”

  “I have nothing to steal but the gloves Kate loaned to me. Now sit still and let me help you.”

  He shifted in one agonizing move to sit upright with his back to the brick wall, holding his side the whole time in the hope of keeping steady what was no doubt at least one broken rib. “It isn’t safe for you here, Meg.” He tried to stand, ignoring his dizziness and another shocking pinch in his ribs. He had to get her out of this neighborhood. “Let’s go.”

  “But you can’t walk like this! You were out cold a moment ago.”

  “Come on.”

  “What about Kate and Pubjug? They’ll come here looking for you.”

  “We’ll go to Kate’s. They’ll look there first.”

  “Ian—”

  He walked—wobbled—toward the street. Once there he knew he’d have to straighten up, not appear as weak as he felt. He brushed back his hair, and even that hurt. Meg must have cleaned away whatever blood had been on his face, because after a tentative scrub, he found it to be dry.

  Standing as tall as the pain in his upper side allowed, he took the one free hand she had—the other still held the dark little bottle—and placed it over his forearm.

  Assessing his whereabouts, he knew which direction to go. They’d be lucky to find a hansom cab in this neighborhood. More likely they’d have to walk the entire way to Kate’s.

  Meg wanted to hold Ian’s arm rather than the other way around, but each time she tried, he shifted so as to look as if he were escorting her and not needing help. She finally gave up, imagining his struggle was a greater effort than her own in letting him walk unaided.

  When she’d seen Ian crumpled and broken amid that garbage heap like a discarded mass of flesh and blood, her heart nearly stopped with fear that he was dead. But he’d flinched at her first touch, gentle though she’d meant it to be.

  At last, still walking, they reached a respectable neighborhood. It wasn’t long before a hansom cab could be hailed. She boarded first because Ian waited, but she could see the grip of pain on his face as he heaved himself to the seat opposite her.

  “I—I’m afraid I don’t have any money left,” she said, embarrassed to reveal her lack of forethought. “I took only enough from Kate’s bureau to pay the driver who brought me here.”

  Ian offered her a grim half smile. “I was beaten, Meg, not robbed.”

  It wasn’t long before they reached Kate’s apartment house. After Ian gingerly withdrew from a pocket enough money to pay the cabbie, Meg let him present himself once again as her escort. But inside the privacy of Kate’s hallway, she grabbed his arm and helped him up the stairs. He didn’t shrug off her help this time.

  Kate’s door was unlocked, and neither Meg nor Ian bothered to knock. Their entrance, however, drew the attention of Ada, Kate’s maid. She’d been conspicuously absent the entire time Brewster’s thug had detained Kate and Meg, although she now appeared instantly concerned at the sight of an obviously battered Ian.

  “Oh, sir! It’s bad, what they done to ya!” She grabbed his other arm, and between the two of them, Meg and Ada bore him through the parlor.

  “He’ll need to stay at least the night, Ada,” Meg said. “Let’s take him to the room I occupied when I was here.”

  In the hallway Ian attempted to pull away from them both, but Meg held tight all the way to the bedroom.

  “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Letting us help?” Meg said, seeing from Ian’s face he thought it was. “Ada, chip some ice out of the icebox, will you? And after that, perhaps some tea.”

  She was glad when the maid left them alone. Meg knew she didn’t have much time before Kate showed up, and there was something she needed to say without interruption.

  Helping Ian out of his jacket, she then piled the pillows behind him so he could sit more comfortably. Thankfully there was no sign of blood on his shirt except what had spattered from a broken lip and pummeled nose; most of the visible damage had been suffered by Ian’s face. One eye was already black, the other swollen.

  “Anything broken?” she asked.

  “A rib, maybe,” he said. Then he put a hand to his jaw, opening and closing his mouth without wincing. Afterward he ran his thumb and forefinger along his nose. “Nothing else. I got off easy. Keys must have some leftover affection for me after all.”

  Meg huffed. “It doesn’t look like it to me.” She sat along the edge of the narrow bed and, ignoring the slightly alarmed look appearing on his bruised face, took one of his hands in hers. “I know it was Brewster who ordered this done to you, Ian. I want you to know I’ll never, ever cooperate with him.” She’d meant to stop there, but something made her want to do more. Maybe it was nothing more than thoughts Kate had inspired. Maybe what she felt at that moment wasn’t any more real than that. But she leaned closer to kiss the side of his face, on a spot free of either bruising or any remnant of blood.

  His lopsided grin was just enough to restart a trickle of blood from one of his wounds. He must have felt it because he lifted his sleeve to wipe it away. “You think you have a choice about working with me instead of Brewster?”

  She gasped. “He would never do to me what he’s done to you! My father was his friend.”

  “Yes, friendship holds so much value for people like Brewster.” Ian looked away. “And Keys.”

  “There must be some way for us to be free of him.”

  Ian turned his gaze back to hers. One eye was bloodshot, but both were still blue as ever as he narrowed them her way. In contrast to the hardness in his gaze, he raised one of his hands to allow a finger to gently trace her lips.

  “You leave that to me.”

  25

  Cleverness and ingenuity should be employed in such things as hostessing, gift giving, and the manner in which one offers a compliment. Ingenuity should not be applied in fashion, home décor, or prying. In such things as the former two, it is usually best not to step too far outside the accepted norms, and there is of course no excuse for prying, clever or otherwise.

  Madame Marisse’s Handbook for Young Ladies

  It was almost the dinner hour by the time Meg returned via a hired carriage with Kate respectably at her side. Their story of a drive along the Hudson seemed readily received, enhanced by tales of how quickly time had flown while their laughter and conversation were nonstop.

  Although Kate did refuse an invitation to dinner, citing another obligation, she promised to return the next day, when she would be pleased to dine with them.

  Meg knew Kate was anything but eager to keep up her performance as Lady Weathersfield. But she’d agreed even before stepping foot back inside the Pemberton mansion to return at least once more, to let Meg know how Ian was recovering. Until his bruises eased, Meg knew she could have no contact with Ian “Vandermey.”

  Keeping up appearances of being carefree proved a heftier assignment than Meg imagined. Each of her thoughts was invaded by an image of
Ian, mauled and bloodied. She was more determined than ever to succeed in the plan she’d offered to him—because she knew Ian would think of a way to use it against Brewster. Somehow.

  Between her lack of sleep and nervous aftershocks from the day before, Meg decided she would skip yet again a ride to the park the following afternoon. Her new determination made her regret all the time she’d wasted thus far. So she feigned a headache and waved off Claire and Evie as they left for their daily romp to Central Park, adding that she wanted to be sure she’d be home if Kate came by earlier than promised the day before.

  Once alone, she took immediate advantage of the time. Although Nelson had invited her to use any room she chose, she found herself treading carefully to Mr. Pemberton’s office. She didn’t bother trying the door from the library, expecting it still to be locked.

  Instead she went to the foyer, tiptoeing down the private hall. Only to find this door locked as well.

  So much for an open invitation into any room of the house.

  Perhaps she could still investigate an idea that had piqued her interest in the last few days. She faced the wall at the very end of the hall, measuring six steps past the door. Was that the same distance to the end of the house, where the high windows allowed light to fill the room? It seemed the office stretched farther than the distance between the door and the boundary of this hall.

  Meg turned, aligning herself with the edge of the wall and counting off her footsteps to the foyer, to the very edge of the front door. If there was some kind of secret room in that office—someplace Nelson might have been hidden when she’d first discovered the crucifixion painting, in the very corner Evie had glanced toward when mentioning their blessings—then it stood to reason the distance from the outside end of the house would be different from what it appeared in this hallway.