by Laura Parker
“We?” Tyrone looked down at his seated friend, words falling like stones in a still pond, and the ripples flowing like liquid ice floes over Eduardo’s nerves. “You were planning to return to New Orleans in time to help me corner MacCloud?”
“Yes.” His letter had said otherwise but suddenly he realized that it was true. The only trouble was, he did not know what to do with Philadelphia. “The oath I swore over my parents’ grave won’t be fulfilled until we have MacCloud.”
“Until we kill MacCloud,” Tyrone amended. “We swore a blood oath because of MacCloud. Until he’s dead, your part of our bargain won’t be met.”
“You’ve never said why you want him, and you want him more than I do.”
Icy terrain, Tyrone’s face. “I never asked you what they did to you or your mother and father. You volunteered.”
Eduardo had learned a long time ago that there was a dead place in Tyrone, a place that was cold and black and empty. If he had ever had normal human feelings, they’d been driven out by pain and depravity far harsher than that he had known. For, despite the rage and pain and suffering, Eduardo had always wanted to be happy. Tyrone seemed a man who could not even conceive happiness, let alone desire it. That made being in alliance with him like living in a hole with a python. One never let him too close, or let him sense a weakness, or an unready moment. He had no doubt that, in spite of what they’d been through together, Tyrone would try to kill him if it came to a fight between them.
He rose slowly, his weight balanced lightly on the balls of his feet. “I am tired, Tyrone. We’ll talk again in the morning.”
“You’ll bring the bit—the girl?”
“No. This has nothing to do with her. Nothing.”
“I wonder if she’d say the same if I asked her?” Tyrone mused aloud as Eduardo walked to the door.
Eduardo turned around and for first time Tyrone saw the raw power and flat opaque savagery of the young man he had met in the Amazon jungles seven years earlier. It glared out at him now from those black eyes. “Leave her alone, Tyrone. We’ll get MacCloud.”
“I know we will,” Tyrone said when the door had shut behind Tavares. “You and I, with, perhaps, the girl as bait.”
Philadelphia sat up tensely in the middle of the bed as Eduardo paced the room. “What kind of friend breaks into a hotel room? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to face him again!”
Eduardo paused to send her a lovely protective smile. “Tyrone has an unusual sense of humor. He didn’t expect to find me occupied,” he lied. “I doubt he saw enough to remember you.”
She shook her head. “I only saw a glimpse of him but I know who he is. He’s the man who stopped me in the lobby yesterday afternoon. He has the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, noting that she drew herself in as he did so, pulling her legs up under her dressing gown and wrapping her arms about her knees. “What is wrong, menina? What did he say to you?”
She rested her head on her knees, making her hair slide forward to shield her stinging face. “He thought I was a whore. And now, after what he’s seen …”
Her muffled voice tugged at his heart but he didn’t try to comfort her. “He wouldn’t have seen a thing had he knocked.”
She lifted her head. “What does he want?”
For the first time since they’d met, Eduardo found he couldn’t look her in the eye. “He came to see me. It has nothing to do with you.” He rose from the bed and went to stand near the window. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. You carry letters with you, why?”
Philadelphia started. “I—How do you know that?”
He turned back to her. “You left them open on your dresser at Belle Mont. I confess, I looked at them. I thought you were writing Wharton.”
He was glad to see that his little confession took away the indignation that was forming on her face. “You thought I’d written Henry? Why?”
“Because I was jealous. But you haven’t answered my question. Why do you carry those letters? What do they mean to you?”
Philadelphia looked away first this time. It was the moment she’d been waiting for and yet dreading ever since they’d left Belle Mont. No, even before that, she had known that she might have to tell him the truth, but now, at least, she no longer suspected him of having some part in the mystery. “You know I think my father was deliberately ruined. I believe those letters contain clues to the identities of the men who did it. My lawyer said Father had secret partners in the business deals that led to the scandal. There are three letters. One was from a New York banker named Lancaster.”
She looked up expectantly and he nodded, saying, “We spoke of him on our way to Belle Mont. He is dead.”
“Yes,” she said carefully. “The second one is from a man named MacCloud. He lives in New Orleans. I think the letter he wrote my father was in reference to Lancaster’s death. I can’t prove it, of course, it’s just a feeling, the tone of the letter. It talks of present misfortune and spading over old graves.” She glanced at him. “It even mentions Brazil.”
“I read it.” His tone was neutral. “You seem to know a great deal.”
“I know nearly nothing. If the letters hadn’t been in my father’s hand the night he—he died, I would never have known about them.”
Eduardo frowned. “He was reading the letters just before he died?”
Philadelphia shook her head, trying to hold at bay the horrible memory of her father’s death. “He held them in one hand. In the other he held a pistol.”
“Did the pistol belong to your father?”
“The police said it did and our housekeeper confirmed it. I never knew that he had a gun, though I wasn’t very surprised. Being a banker he sometimes carried sums of money or important papers with him. I suppose it was for protection.”
“How did you get the letters?”
“I found him.” Philadelphia winced against the memory, resisting it. So much pain! The acrid smell of smoke. The stillness of her father’s body lying at an unnatural angle on the Turkish carpet. And the ugly bluish hole in his temple. She inhaled suddenly, shuddered, and gave a low moan.
Eduardo embraced her quickly as she swayed forward over her knees, and he held her tightly. She cried hard and long. He didn’t try to stop her for he suspected that she had not cried this way since her father’s death. He remembered the scene she had created about her hair, and wondered if it had been an excuse tricked up by her mind to relieve the tension she had held inside her so long.
Finally, feeling her relax within his arms, he bent and kissed her, then lifted her up into his lap. As her arms slid about his neck he wondered how they would weather the next few days. He had told Tyrone as much of the truth as he knew, but he couldn’t trust Tyrone not to question Philadelphia himself. And if Tyrone did, what things might he tell her in order to pull some kind of confession from her?
Philadelphia pressed herself to him, welcoming his warmth and strength. “I have thought at times I would go mad with this secret I’ve kept,” she whispered into his ear. “I am glad at last to be able to tell it to someone, to you. You said you would help me unravel this mystery. I need that help now. This man MacCloud knows something, I’m sure of it! I want to go to New Orleans to see him.”
Eduardo stroked her soothingly from the nape of her neck down along the indentation of her spine to the fullness of her hips. “Menina, what do you hope to accomplish? Even if you are right, and this man MacCloud does know of some plot against your father, what can you do? You’ll never have the proof to bring the guilty to justice in the courts.”
She leaned back from him to see his face. “I want to know the truth. Don’t you understand how important that is?”
He tenderly brushed her hair back from her face, his voice patient. “What of this business of old graves? Is there no doubt in your mind that you may find answers you would rather not hear? Perhaps there is something in you
r father’s past which he would rather you never learned about.”
The truth was she did fear such a thing and because it frightened her so, she shoved him away. “Why do you keep saying that? Do you think I would believe anyone who spoke evil of my father? No, I won’t believe it!”
Eduardo sat back and grew very still. He could hear his grandmother’s voice very clearly in his mind but his own temper was routing it. “You’re wrong if you think wishing can make it so. Let it be, menina. You can’t change anything now.”
Resentment replaced despair and it felt good to have a direction for her agitated feelings, even if the target were Eduardo. “You didn’t know my father. I have thought until this minute that he would like you, that you would deal well together but I think now I was wrong. He wouldn’t approve of you.”
He grew very still, thinking back more than fourteen years to when he was twelve, and still believed in guardian angels, and how to satisfy her father’s greed, bandeirantes had robbed him of everything but his life. “Approve of me for what?”
She blushed, refusing to say the words, that she was thinking of her father’s reaction to him as a son-in-law. Eduardo had never mentioned marriage and the reminder augmented her resentment. She was furious that he was calm. “He wouldn’t approve of you keeping me as your mistress,” she flung at him.
“Yet you do not mind,” he countered.
She acted before she thought. Her arm snaked out, delivering a stinging slap that reverberated in the silence. Horrified, she reached out instinctively for him but he recoiled from her.
“Once is quite enough,” he said between his teeth and she jerked back her hand. “It has been a long and exhausted evening for you. Go to sleep, menina, before I throttle you.”
“Eduardo, I—” Philadelphia faltered before his obsidian stare. She’d never seen that look in his eyes before. It was rabid fury held in check but on so thin a tether that she could feel the sulfurous heat of it along her skin. “I am sorry.”
“Of course you are. Whenever we are at odds, you resort to formalities, Senhorita Hunt. If your precious virtue concerns you, you may turn the lock in the door tonight … and every night hereafter. I’ve never taken an unwilling woman. I prefer those who would lie naked on carpets for my pleasure. Good night.”
She did not stop him, she did not have the nerve. Instead, she flung herself upon her bed and cried long and hard, and though it was small compensation, it at least gave her emotional release.
“I’m certain that the waters from this spring will perk you right up, Mrs. Milazzo,” Mae Beecham said encouragingly as she entered the Congress Spring pavilion with her little party. They joined the throng of early-risers partaking of the daily ritual of “taking the waters.” “We positively dote on them, don’t we, Cassandra?”
“Yes, ma’am, we do,” Mrs. Beecham’s eldest daughter replied. “Sarah Ames says her megrims have disappeared since coming to Saratoga. You do look a bit piqued, if you don’t mind my saying so, Mrs. Milazzo. Two glasses will do wonders.”
Philadelphia smiled wanly at the mother and daughter. She did have an insistent pain in her temples. If they hadn’t arrived at her door at eight A.M., she would still be asleep, having completely forgotten the assignation. Four hours of sleep had done little to improve her mood. In fact, she was angrier now with Eduardo than she had been in the middle of the night.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Beecham said triumphantly as they reached the bar in turn. “Three glasses,” she said to one of the pump boys dressed in the regulation smock and matching beret. She watched him dip his ladle into the basin where the spring waters flowed fresh from the ground and fill each of three glasses. When he had set the glasses on the bar before her, she offered him a few coins and picked up the first and handed it expectantly to her guest.
Philadelphia accepted the glass and took a tentative sip. As the sulfurous-tinged water slipped down her throat, the violent urge to spit it out made her choke, and she sputtered, gasping for air.
“It takes a bit of getting used to,” Mrs. Beecham said calmly. “It is medicinal, after all. A little bit of sugar wouldn’t go amiss, I sometimes think, but we are all adults and know how to do what’s good for us. It’s best when swallowed straight down.”
Philadelphia balked at the motherly advice as she stared doubtfully at the clear liquid. The water was slightly effervescent and smelled faintly of rotten eggs. Who could possibly down the contents of a glass in one swallow?
As she looked up to express those doubts she was amazed to see mother and daughter swallowing the noxious water with relish. In fact, as she gazed about, the inhabitants of the pavilion seemed to actually be enjoying imbibing the famous water. Under the ornate roof with its fretted and arabesqued ceiling, inlaid floors, and tall stained-glass windows of rainbow hue, the entire company was pleasantly jovial and good-spirited. No thanks to the water, she was certain.
“Signora Milazzo.”
She turned too quickly, before she had a chance to brace herself, and met unprepared the glacial gaze of the man called Tyrone.
“Good morning, signora.” His gaze swept insolently over her. “I trust you slept well, after your strenuous evening.” The greeting was conventional, but a malicious amusement glinted in his eyes, and she knew he was remembering how he’d seen her lying naked on the carpet beside Eduardo.
A black wave of mortification rolled over her. The glass slipped from her nerveless fingers, splashed the contents down her front, then shattered on the floor.
“Oh my! You’ve had an accident,” she heard Mrs. Beecham exclaim from what seemed a great distance. From farther away she heard Cassandra’s cry of alarm, and then a hard merciless hand was gripping her arm, the pain a counterbalance to her acute embarrassment.
“Allow me,” Tyrone said, and he brushed the moisture from her bodice with a handkerchief. It was an insulting, shockingly intimate thing for him to do and she heard the Beechams’ indrawn breaths of surprise, but she was helpless to defend herself.
“That’s better,” he said and whipped the handkerchief back into his breast pocket. “A little accident. Nothing of value was damaged.” He glanced at Mrs. Beecham for the first time. “The waters don’t seem to agree with my cousin. If you’ll excuse us, I’ll just see her back to her rooms.”
“Cousin? Well in that case … I’m sure … if you think that’s best, Mr….” Mrs. Beecham’s voice trailed off as she sent Philadelphia a questioning glance. “Are you certain you’re quite all right, my dear?”
“Yes,” Philadelphia said in a fear-parched voice. “I’m fine. It’s the water.” She tried to pull away from Tyrone but his grip was so strong that her attempt made no impression on it.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Cousin, for your weakness,” Tyrone said in a steely tone. “I’m certain they’ll understand if you need to lean on me. Take my arm.”
It was a command but with it he also offered her a modicum of pride. Besides, she suspected that if she did not walk out on his arm he would drag her out by her own. She set a nerveless hand on his arm, shivering at the coiled strength she felt beneath his coat sleeve. She tried to find some comfort in the fact that he was Eduardo’s friend, but she didn’t know how much he knew about them or if he knew the truth, that they weren’t married.
“Morning, ladies,” she heard him say as he began to lead her away. She did not know exactly what she said to them, only that she mumbled some courtesy. The thing uppermost in her mind was to escape them before he insulted her in front of them.
She walked out into the morning air, and the fresh breeze blew away a little of the choking fear. At least she knew she was not going to further embarrass herself, but the presence of the tall forbidding man beside her kept every muscle locked in tense anxiety, waiting for his next words. When he finally spoke they had walked nearly two blocks away from the Congress Spring pavilion.
“We’ll stop here.” He indicated a nearby park bench.
/> She balked. “I don’t wish to sit. I want to go back to my rooms.”
The austere lines of his face altered. “I thought you’d prefer a public conversation, Miss Hunt, but I never turn down a lady’s invitation to her rooms.” His laughter was dry as dust when she quickly turned toward the bench.
Her knees trembling, Philadelphia crossed the dewy grass in near panic. He knew who she was! Had Eduardo told him? Even so, what could this man possibly want with her?
She sank down onto the bench and watched warily as he leisurely strolled over to her. He was tall with long bones strapped by whipcord muscle. There was a rangy edginess to him, as though he was accustomed to watching his back or wearing a gun belt like a cowboy. Chicago had its fair share of them in town during each cattle-drive season. She’d seen daguerreotypes of them in the papers, gun belts slung low over hard narrow hips. Yet this man was much more predatory. The realization struck her; Tyrone looked like a gunslinger.
He did not sit but propped a booted foot on the bench seat beside her and rested his folded arms on his bent knee so that he leaned over her. He did not need this attitude of intimidation. His blinding stare, throwing into relief his weathered bronzed skin and dark hair, was enough. Under other circumstances, she might have thought him attractive but at the moment she felt like a prisoner before sentencing, and every compelling thing about him drew only the response of fear.
“I’ve always admired Eduardo’s taste in women. You are an amazingly beautiful exception.”
Staring straight ahead, Philadelphia swallowed the double-edged insult. Knife thrusts. She had been wrong to think he would merely sit in judgment. It was to be an execution.