The Widow's Secret

by Sara Mitchell

  He had discussed their ubiquitous presence with Jonathan Tanner, his assistant, who maintained a connection for Micah with both the Operative-in-Charge at the New York office, and Chief Hazen. All agreed that ignorance of the shadows remained Jocelyn’s best protection, so until now he hadn’t mentioned them.

  Jocelyn’s revelation changed everything.

  Restlessly, not for the first time Micah scanned the sea of humanity, praying nobody would think to look in the Bowery for the impeccable widow Bingham and her millionaire Southern beau. A hotbed of iniquity, the district bulged with concert saloons and bawdy houses. Garish street signs lured the unwary into a world of vice, while sharpers and hawkers and thieves preyed upon immigrants and rebellious sons of robber barons alike. Above this raucous humanity the El clattered day and night. Counterfeiters had flourished in the Bowery for over thirty years, though courtesy of the Service, arrests had dramatically dropped in the past few years as word spread: arrests led to convictions, which led to prison.

  Until his transfer to the nation’s capital, Micah had tracked down a number of suspects in the Bowery. In the process, he had discovered that even in this notorious district a flower or two like the tiny streetside café flourished among the weeds.

  With a frigid and unforgiving wind in their faces, after leaving the El he had ushered Jocelyn through the narrow doorway into Castelli’s. They managed to secure a small table in a back corner, which provided a modicum of privacy.

  But the intimacy Micah had hoped for had just been shattered by Jocelyn’s news.

  Benny Foggarty, in league with someone at the Brocks’?

  “Micah?”

  He managed a reassuring smile. “I heard you. I’m thinking. Sometimes it’s a laborious process.” Humor briefly lit her anxious eyes. “If you’ll finish your cider before it’s cold, and give me a few moments, we’ll talk, all right?”

  “All right.”

  Micah watched her shoulders droop, watched her hands wrap around the thick earthenware mug as though clinging to a buoy in a raging ocean. Every instinct clamored for him to hustle her as far away from the Brocks as possible.

  The fact that he was thinking like a suitor instead of an operative disturbed him on a profound level.

  “I need to share something with you,” he finally began, and steeled himself.

  “You have to leave, I know,” Jocelyn put in hurriedly. “It’s all right, Micah. I knew last night, when I saw Ben—” She blinked, then in a flurry of movement scooted her wooden chair closer to his. When she resumed speaking, the words emerged low and strained. “I’m concerned for you, Micah. It’s too risky for you to stay in New York any longer.”

  A boisterous family crowded into the front of the café. Red-cheeked and windblown, with waving hands and staccato Italian they greeted customers and the two serving girls in a wash of bonhomie that rippled through the room, except for one table in the far corner.

  “In fact—” Jocelyn gestured toward the family “—now would probably be the best time for you to leave. You can slip through that group who just arrived. I know you were making sure nobody followed us here, but hiding within a crowd also seems a prudent tactic. I’ll find my way back to the Brocks’ while you—”

  “Shh.” He clamped a firm hand over hers, stilling the restless movement of her fingers. “I’m beginning to think you’ve forgotten who’s the professional operative here.” Jocelyn’s expression didn’t change. Micah abandoned his feeble attempt at disguising anger with humor. “What have I ever done to make you think I could waltz away to save my own hide, and leave you undefended?”

  “Because you are the professional operative,” Jocelyn pointed out with infuriating logic. “You have an important job, a vital job, to ensure these villains are brought to justice. If something happens to you, they’ll be the ones waltzing away.”

  Outraged, he demanded, “And what about you?” She sat there in her elegant walking suit, the epitome of wealth, of privilege. Even her hat with its ridiculous netted veil marked her as a cultured, sophisticated woman. She didn’t belong here. He never should have brought her here. He should have taken her straight to Grand Central Terminal and sent her—Where? Eyes burning, he planted his palms on the table and leaned forward. “You plan to ‘find your way back’? Explain that Mr. MacKenzie’s a blackguard who abandoned you in the Bowery? In the first place, they wouldn’t believe you.” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “The Mr. MacKenzie they know would never dream of treating a lady in such a reprehensible manner, not when he’s made his intentions obvious.”

  “I’d think of something. I’ll tell them we argued, and I left you.”

  “Well, you’re half right. We are arguing.” Shaking his head, Micah gently squeezed her rigid hand. “Jocelyn, trust me, please. Nothing is going to happen to me. But now more than ever, I’m concerned about you. You’ve played your part beautifully, not even a trained operative could have performed as well as you these past weeks. But now is not the time to change our script.”

  “I didn’t change the script, as you quaintly put it. Benny Foggarty did.”

  “I know.” Why, of all times, did Pinkerton’s have to require Alexander MacKay’s services elsewhere? “Remember when I told you that someone would always be watching over you, even when I wasn’t with you?”

  After a moment she gave a terse nod.

  “That person is a private detective who agreed to help us out. But two days ago his services were required elsewhere. Due to budgetary constraints…” In the past the words had left a perpetual sour taste in his mouth, but not fear. Not until today. He finished bluntly, “We don’t have the manpower to replace him.” He knew his assistant would take over for MacKay, but Jonathan’s reassignment would leave Micah himself unprotected…which would ultimately endanger Jocelyn even more. “Your only contact now is me.”

  “I thought,” Jocelyn said, “when you said someone would always be watching, that you were talking about God.”

  No other woman in his life could flabbergast Micah like Jocelyn Tremayne Bingham. She might as well have hopped on top of the table and belted out a ribald ditty. “God is always watching over you,” he acknowledged in a husky voice. “But I didn’t think you’d want to hear that, much less want to know that I pray for you—every day.”

  She turned away so he could not see her face, sitting with the absolute stillness that always wrenched his heart. It conveyed an arid isolation devoid of human contact as well as divine. Micah wanted to remind her how faith had preserved his sanity, and healed his own loneliness. But for some reason, each time the need to open himself up reached a boiling point, where words burned his tongue with blisters, something had restrained him.

  Micah rotated his head in a vain effort to relax. Not something, he reminded himself. Someone. Someone Whose timing was always perfect, Who deserved respect, and—regardless of Micah’s own inclination—patience.

  So once again he swallowed the words, and waited.

  Jocelyn turned back around. “I haven’t wanted anything to do with God,” she concurred wretchedly, “because it hurts too much. I know you don’t understand.”

  “You might be surprised by how much I understand.”

  He would have said more, but at that moment the jabbering family converged around the nearby tables, recently emptied, and commenced the noisy process of seating themselves. One of the women selected the chair a scant twelve inches from Micah. A baby was draped over her shoulder, swaddled in bright colored blankets. Jostled when his mother sat down, he groggily opened his eyes, lifted a wobbly head and stared straight at Micah. Drool spilled from the corner of a perfect rose-petal-pink mouth, which suddenly widened into a cherubic smile.

  Oh, God. Father…the pain…Would the pain ever cease tormenting him? Catching him off guard with its randomness, its cruelty? But God understands, he repeated to himself, as he had repeated over and over throughout the past six years. God Himself had endured the death of His Own Son.

&nb
sp; And gloried in His resurrection.

  It’s different, Lord. Somewhere buried within the pain, anger flashed, quick as sun glinting off a sword, then vanished. Oh, yes, he longed to shout the words, he understood more than she could possibly realize.

  But his throat was locked, and the hypocrisy of his own heart mocked him.

  Gradually, he realized someone had taken his hand, that someone was speaking into his ear, words whose meaning he could not decipher but whose sweetness soothed his soul. With an effort, he tore his gaze from the baby and found Jocelyn almost plastered against his side. Her lips brushed against his ear as she talked, and the soft syllables collected themselves into coherent sentences.

  “…and I know the sight of a baby can still awaken the sorrow, even after all these years. Micah? It’s all right. The woman’s handed the baby to someone at another table. Can you look at me instead? I…It hurts me to see your face, and know that…” When she realized she had finally gained his attention, she pulled back a little but did not release his hand.

  “Know what?” Micah finally managed to unlock his clenched jaw muscles enough to ask. Like a dying man he clutched Jocelyn’s fingers. Instead of a tiny head with a tuft of downy black hair, he tried to focus on Jocelyn’s dainty, aquiline nose beneath the annoying veil. But this time the pain would not be silenced. “How could you possibly know what it’s like to lose your own child, and every time you see a baby, to remember how your own looked, waxen and still….”

  Her eyelids flinched, but she did not retreat. “I can’t know your pain, Micah. Nor can you know mine. How could you possibly understand what it’s like to be a woman who will never experience the joy of having a child at all? Who is scorned and pitied because she’s barren, and who’ll never know whether or not it’s true.”

  With a jerk Micah hauled himself back from the quagmire of self-pity. “Jocelyn, forgive me. I had no right to say what I did.” He turned his chair so that his broad shoulders shielded them both from the rest of the patrons. Glancing down, he saw that he was still holding her hand, probably crushing it. “I’m sorry,” he murmured as he began massaging her fingers one by one. “Like you, I have dark spells. Charred spots on my soul, I call them. They flare up less frequently than they used to, but I never know when one’s going to scald my throat.” His voice thickened. “Babies, and small children…they’re precious, innocent. Gifts from God. Most of the time these days I can celebrate new life. Sometimes…” A long breath shuddered through him. “But I do know it’s difficult, to keep trusting Him when—I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  “I am, too.” She lifted her free hand and rested it on the bunched muscles of his forearm. “All these years, I’ve felt as if I’d been locked inside a cage and abandoned. So I raged against life. Blamed God for all the pain I’d had to endure when all I’d ever done was try to be a good person. Then I saw…I saw…” She stammered a bit before finishing in a rush, “When that baby smiled at you, I saw your face. And listening to you just now, I think you’re still fighting to free yourself from your own cage, aren’t you? When we first met—for the second time—your faith angered me. You were so sure of yourself, sure in your faith. Even when you told me about your wife and son, you still blindly believed God cared about you. I didn’t want to like you, Micah.”

  For some reason the last confession lit star points inside him that twinkled in the darkness. “I never would have guessed. Now you know a struggling sinner lurks behind the self-assured believer.” He thought she smiled, but the lighting was dim, their corner shadowed.

  Then she said hesitantly, “I think my anger’s fading a bit. I’m…I think I’m confused, instead of angry. Does that relieve you?”

  If she sensed a mustard seed’s width of his feelings she would not use a word like relieved. He brushed his index finger against a fold of the veil. “Jocelyn…will you shove this thing out of the way? I want to see your face clearly.”

  “What? But it’s transparent. I can see….” Shaking her head, without further protest she lifted the veil from inside the high collar of her shirtwaist and pulled it over the brim of her hat. “It is a frivolous bit of fashion, isn’t it? But I like the hat itself. The feather makes me smile, because the first time Katya saw it, she asked me if ostriches were really green.”

  The babble of voices crescendoed around them; pungent odors of fresh baked bread and garlic and oregano permeated the air; faces of half a dozen nationalities flickered through Micah’s vision in a kaleidoscope of skin tones. But the only one who could light up the darkest recesses of his mind was a creamy-white face lavishly dusted with cinnamon freckles. “You’re beautiful. Even when you didn’t like me very much, I still thought you were one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known. I wish I’d met you before your wedding day.”

  He was shaken when a single tear pearled in the corner of her eye. “Would it be a terrible sin to confess how many times over the past few weeks I struggled with that thought myself?”

  “It’s not terrible, nor even a sin, firefly.” He wanted to kiss the tear, then the eyes and the mouth trying not to tremble. “I’ve never judged you, Jocelyn. And Chadwick has been dead for a long time.”

  “Other people have not been so generous.”

  “Would I be right if I suggested that while he was alive, your husband was one of them?” he asked gently.

  A long sigh shuddered through her. Then, searching his face with the wariness of a shy animal, she nodded. “Chadwick was a tortured soul. I was never able to help him, no matter how hard I tried to be a good wife.” She paused. “I know you didn’t want me to come to New York at all, but I knew I could help. I needed to help, not only you, but the Secret Service. Since Chadwick’s death I’ve never done anything to make a difference. Instead of Doing Good Works, or Being a Good Steward like Miss Isabella, the headmistress of a school I attended, used to tell us, I’ve tried very hard these past five years to make myself invisible. I’m not a very nice person, Micah.”

  “Katya would disagree. So do I.”

  She made a face, the ever-restless hands turning her empty mug around in aimless circles.

  One day, Micah promised himself, he and Jocelyn were going to have a serious conversation about her attitudes. “Fortunately for you, this is not the time to point out how wrong-headed you are,” he began.

  She swatted his arm.

  His reserved, distrustful widow had consoled him in public, and now she was swatting his forearm. The starlight inside him spread all the way to his fingertips, banishing completely the old griefs.

  No matter what the personal cost, whatever sacrifice was demanded of him, Micah would protect this woman. “Jocelyn, will you do something for me?”

  “Depends on what you want me to do.”

  He’d known all along she was also a smart woman. “Would you let me escort you across to Jersey City right now? Put you on a train to Washington? I’ll send a telegram to Chief Hazen. You’ll be met, probably by him. You’d be safe.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Even in the flickering gaslight he could see the dark color swarm up her cheeks. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the red hair burst into flames. “If you think for one minute you can manipulate the circumstances to remove me from this case, you’re not thinking at all, Micah MacKenzie!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Because she couldn’t very well flounce out in high dudgeon, Jocelyn scooted her chair all the way back into the corner and ignored the man across from her. The wretch. She’d shared a deeply private piece of herself, and all he could think about was ridding himself of her presence as expeditiously as possible?

  Then he leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table with a total disregard for manners. “I’m not thinking at all,” he agreed. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I wasn’t trying to manipulate you, I assure you. My preeminent concern is and always has been your safety.”

  His candor mollified her bruised feelings. “Thank you. The feeling’s mutual. I
will certainly consider taking a train to Washington—if you accompany me. But I’d much rather we both stay here. I’m sure Chief Hazen would agree.” Her winsome look merely precipitated an ironic lift of Micah’s brow; her flirting skills had corroded over the years. Dropping all artifice, she added, “There’s a possibility Benny wouldn’t remember me. We were in each other’s company less than five minutes, that day in Mr. Hepplewhite’s store. You, on the other hand…”

  “Are not a stunning woman with remarkable red hair, who made a scene in a store in the middle of downtown Richmond. A half-dozen customers were still talking about you and your encounter with Benny a week later. So, Jocelyn…if Benny saw you last night, you can be sure he recognized you as the woman in Clocks & Watches. His presence at the Brocks’ confirms to me that you were not randomly chosen as a dupe, but were in fact his designated target.”

  Dry-mouthed, Jocelyn inhaled an unsteady breath. “Why? How could he have known? My uncle’s letter didn’t arrive until—” She choked off the rest of the sentence, unable to voice the obvious.

  Micah seemed to hesitate, as though he were searching for the right words. Like a swarm of red ants, nerves stung Jocelyn’s limbs so that even a burst of laughter across the room made her jump. “Your position as the prodigal niece might be irretrievably compromised,” he finished, the deep voice gentle.

  “Why was I allowed out of the house to go for a drive with you?”

  “They wouldn’t risk questions, particularly from an infatuated man who wouldn’t be fobbed off by some feeble excuse of other plans or ill health. Nor would they want the servants to gossip.”

  “Katya!” Alarmed, Jocelyn half rose, consumed with guilt.

  “Easy, there. As long as we maintain our roles, Katya should be safe. Your instincts are sound, Jocelyn. I trust them…which, in case you haven’t noticed, is why I’m agreeing with you instead of yielding to my protective instincts.”