Beguiled

by Laura Parker

  “I don’t know what you mean?”

  “Why, I mean yourself. You live under his roof. Oh yes, I had you followed. Telfour. Tyrone. It struck me as ironic that we’ve actually done business together, each in ignorance of the other’s true identity. I must say that I admire his taste in mistresses. He’ll want you back unharmed, and I surely intend to do just that, as soon as I’m safely out of his reach.”

  “Abducting me won’t protect you from him.”

  “I certainly hope you’re wrong.” He sounded genial, almost jovial. “I’ve sent him a note informing him that you’ll be returned when I’m satisfied that he hasn’t followed me. I—”

  A cry from the deck interrupted him, signaling readiness to cast off. “Ah, we’re ready. Excellent. It’s quite an enjoyable trip upriver this time of year.”

  When she did not respond to this, he turned and walked over to the cabin door. “You’ll be locked in. Otherwise, you may enjoy the freedom of the cabin. I suggest you rest. You’ve had an unpleasant shock.”

  She was a prisoner. Was Eduardo, also? “What about the other man, the one who accosted me first?”

  MacCloud’s brows rose. “Was there someone else? I didn’t hear about that. My, you have had a trying evening. I’ll be back to chat once we’ve left port. You must tell me how you learned so much about Wendell Hunt and his family. You had me going for a while, until I remembered that Wendell’s daughter has brown hair. Yours is blond. A tiny mistake but a telling one. Still, I do admire a good performance. When you’ve rested you may find it to your advantage to provide me with the same degree of hospitality you’ve shown Tyrone. Until later.”

  She heard the key turn in the lock but she still rose to check it after his footsteps died away. She had to steady herself as the paddle-wheel boat drifted sideways until the current caught it and the motion smoothed out. Fully alert now in the face of danger, she looked about the cabin for a means of escape. She had lost a shoe in the struggle and when she did not see it anywhere about she kicked off the remaining one.

  As she did so, she felt a sharp jab under her ribs on the right side. Exploring the area with her fingers, she found she had broken a stay in her corset. There were also tears in her sleeves and something that looked suspiciously like dried blood beneath her fingernails. With revulsion and satisfaction she realized she had offered her captors quite a fight.

  She went to a porthole and looked out but could not see anything on the riverside. The porthole on the dockside had been covered from the outside, and would not open. One thing was certain, she would not sit and wait patiently for MacCloud to return. She needed protection, a weapon of some kind.

  Ignoring her aching head, she went through the cupboards of the small cabin one by one, pulling out every item. The clothes belonged to a man. The implication of his last words suddenly came clear to her. They were MacCloud’s clothes. The hospitality he spoke of meant sharing his bed.

  Angrily, she tossed them about the room, emptying every space. She scattered papers as well, even the charts she found. It was a small defiance in the face of what lay ahead, but it bolstered her courage to be active. When she came at last to a locked drawer in the desk, she found a galley spoon and pried it open without a thought for what the consequences of her actions might be. With a jerk, she pulled the drawer open to reveal a velvet pouch.

  Even before she touched it, she knew the Blue Madonna was inside. After lifting it out very carefully, she balanced the weight in her palm as she carried it back to the bed where she sat down. Without opening the bag, she simply held it while wondering how something so lovely could be the cause of so much hatred and death.

  Because of the way light refracted through a piece of crystalline mineral many people had died, how many she would never know. Some had given their lives in hopes of protecting it, others had forfeited their lives in attempts to possess it. Her father was one of them.

  Philadelphia closed her eyes to bring in close the most painful revelations of her life. Had her father knowingly made an offer that would lead to bloodshed? How could she believe that? He had admired beauty in all its forms. Nothing delighted him more than a new object of exquisite design; be it a piece of jewelry, or a painting, or a chandelier. Things of legend drew his interest most. He had told her again and again how it had taken him ten years to track down the necklace containing Mei Ling’s pearls. He had boasted to her of how on each of his many trips to San Francisco he had offered a reward for even the tiniest scrap of information until, finally, that trail led him to a merchant in Chinatown who owned the pearls.

  “Greed is a powerful lure,” Philadelphia said softly, repeating part of the legend her father had taught her. “The pearl fisher saw the greed shining in the warlord’s eyes, and knew that he had chosen the right lure.”

  She opened the pouch and slid the Blue Madonna into her lap. The stone lay dark and still upon her skirt, shades of rich blue color undulating beneath its surface as the cabin light played upon it. Those dark depths hid the mysterious face but could not mute the beauty of the perfect gem. This had been the lure, the forbidden prize her father could not resist owning.

  Pride was the warlord’s greatest sin. And so, the monster of the deep took him, a treacherous riptide that not even the warlord could defeat.

  In his selfish determination to own this jewel, her father had set in motion the riptide of events that had overtaken him in the end. His weakness had been the compulsive need to possess beautiful things, and he had traded on the weakness of greed in other men to obtain his goal. He could not have known the thieves would commit murder for his reward, but if MacCloud were to be believed, he had seen his own guilt when he first looked upon the gem. No wonder he could not keep it. Like the pearl fisher’s catch, the Blue Madonna had brought some men their hearts’ desire while others found destruction.

  She put the stone away, no longer able to bear the sight of it. She would never be persuaded that her father was an evil man. He had been too gentle in his life and too joyous in his sharing of his love of beauty with her. Yet she could accept that he had become reckless in his methods and that the crosscurrents of events had swamped his judgment in the end. Perhaps he had thought that by dying he was putting an end to it. Yet he could not have known that the final cost would be hers, that his legacy would cost her the loss of the only other man she had ever loved, Eduardo Tavares.

  She did not know how long she sat lost in that contemplation, perhaps she even dozed with her eyes open, but suddenly there came a series of cries, followed by gunfire. Booted footsteps pounded past her door as she heard MacCloud’s voice from above crying orders. The boat lurched, as though shoved by a giant hand, and then began to move again but more slowly, sluggishly.

  She leaped across the room to the door which she pounded with fists and stockinged feet as she added her cries to those of the men on board the steamboat. She was ignored for so long that she was shocked when, suddenly, she heard an answering shout from the other side of the door.

  “Stand back!” she heard a man cry, and jumped away just in time for the lock exploded as a bullet ripped into it. And then the door swung open and Tyrone stood framed there. “Come on!” he roared. “Eduardo’s waiting for us.”

  Clutching the velvet pouch, Philadelphia ran to him. He caught her in a hard embrace for an instant but then he pushed her out of the cabin ahead of him. “Go to the railing!” he shouted.

  As she headed for the rail, she saw that the boat was far from shore, and gaining more speed with every second.

  “Hurry up!” he urged as he came up behind her. “Eduardo’s going to blow the boiler.” He pushed her against the rail. “Climb over and jump!”

  She swung around on him, horrified. “I can’t swim!”

  The announcement distracted Tyrone long enough for her to take a backward step along the deck away from him. And then he saw a man move from the shadows behind her.

  Tyrone’s reflexes were slowed b
y the knowledge that Philadelphia stood between him and the man. He reached out to shove her out of harm’s way but the action put him at a disadvantage. The boatman fired on them even as she cleared his line of vision.

  Tyrone felt the bullet go into his left shoulder like a tongue of fire even as his own shot brought the man down. He heard Philadelphia scream as he staggered forward, then the first explosion shook the deck.

  “Over the side!” he roared and again pushed her up against the rail. “Jump, damn it!”

  Philadelphia clung to him as he threw a leg over the top of the railing but when he leaned forward to tumble headfirst into the river, she jerked free of his embrace, panicked beyond reason by the thought of that dark water closing over her head.

  A second explosion buckled the deck under her, and she fell to her knees, still clutching the pouch. Then she saw MacCloud coming toward her. He was shouting at her and pointing a gun. Behind him the world seemed to have caught fire. From the hole in the deck caused by the explosion in the boiler room below, flares of flame shot high into the nighttime sky.

  MacCloud was on her in an instant, grabbing her by the hair to drag her to her feet. “Give me that pouch!”

  She twisted away from him, kicking and swinging the heavy stone at him like a weapon. He yelped as the stone struck a painful blow to his temple but he did not let her go. He pulled viciously at her hair until she thought it would come out by the roots.

  “Damn bitch! Give it to me!” he growled close to her ear.

  Philadelphia gasped in pain and swung the pouch a second time, this time high over her head. “Let go or I’ll toss it overboard, I swear!” she cried.

  Suddenly cold metal pressed into her left temple. “Do that and I’ll kill you.”

  “MacCloud!”

  Philadelphia felt MacCloud stiffen, and she did as well for that voice was well known to her. Ignoring the threat of the barrel, she twisted around to see Eduardo standing on the deck ten feet from them.

  MacCloud released her hair to grab her about the neck, pulling her before him like a shield as he shoved his pistol into her already sore ribs. “Let me pass, or I’ll kill her!”

  Eduardo stared at him. “Then you’d give me no alternative but to kill you. Let her go, MacCloud, and I might just let you live!”

  MacCloud dragged Philadelphia back against the railing, calculating his chances if he were to jump overboard with her.

  Realizing what he meant to do, Philadelphia began to fight him, heedless of the danger presented by his pistol. “Don’t! I can’t swim! Don’t push me!”

  MacCloud smiled. “You hear that? The girl can’t swim! If I toss her in, she’ll drown. Back off.”

  “Go to hell!” came the answer.

  The third and biggest explosion knocked Philadelphia off her feet. For an instant she was airborne, pelted by the shattered bits of wood tossed up by the blast, and then she was falling through the flame and darkness. Finally the warm flood of the Mississippi closed over her head.

  She did not scream. She could not. The wet grip of the river was pulling her down and down and down into its oily blackness. Something snagged her skirt and she stopped sinking. With clawing hands she sought the surface, and air. The river water rushed past her face as the need to breathe became of overriding importance. She fought the urge until her lungs ached and her diaphragm began to convulse, and then she lost the battle.

  The first mouthful of water made her choke and then, miraculously, her head popped through the surface and the night air struck her face. She gulped it in, greedy for what she knew would likely be her last breath.

  Frantic not to be submerged again, she scrambled wildly to grab hold of something that bumped her shoulder in the darkness.

  “Easy, menina! You’re going to drown us both!”

  The warm friendly voice close by her ear had never been more welcome. She turned instinctively in the dark water to embrace Eduardo.

  She had not drowned! It seemed a miracle.

  Eduardo had saved her, dragging her from the muddy river. She did not remember much after that, only the sight of the conflagration of the steamboat that burned like a lantern on the black waters. And, a little later, the voices of those on shore who had come to aid in the rescue.

  It was now after dawn. She had awakened moments before and found herself once again in the bedroom she had slept in as Tyrone’s guest. Tyrone must be dead. She had seen the blood spreading across his shirtfront in those brief moments before he had plunged headfirst into the river. Her fault. She shut her eyes in anguish.

  “Menina?”

  Philadelphia turned her head to find Eduardo bending over her. Her joy was pure and bone deep, but it did not last. Looking up into his handsome face she remembered every moment of the past twenty-four hours, and how wrong she had been about him, about her father, about everything. Ashamed, she looked away.

  Eduardo reached out and gently slid a finger along her jawline. “What is this? Are you still angry with me?”

  “Oh no.” Philadelphia turned back to him, trying not to react to the mere brush of his fingertips along the upper swell of her breast. “I know the truth, Eduardo. Tyrone told me everything.”

  “Everything?” She heard no condemnation in his voice as he said, “What is that, I wonder?”

  “I know about the Blue Madonna. And your parents.” She nearly touched his hand when it stilled on her shoulder but refrained. She felt unworthy. “And about your scars. I—I am sorry, so so—” She could not finish for the constriction of emotion that suddenly swelled closed her throat.

  His dark eyes seemed to draw her in, to offer deepest comfort. “You have nothing to be sorry for, menina.”

  How kind he was, she thought, and strong and good. How would she ever be able to live without him? “I know my father was responsible for what happened to your family. You—” Her voice broke once more but she continued when she saw pity enter his expression. “You were right to hate him.”

  He touched her face again but she flinched. He dropped his hand. “Menina, it never had anything to do with us. You must believe me.”

  She shook her head miserably. “You can’t mean that. I know how I feel. I think I hate him a little myself.” She tried not to cry but the tears seemed to have a will of their own, freeing themselves one by one to slide over the curves of her cheeks. “I want to go back to Chicago. Alone.”

  “Would you have me follow you as I followed you around the city yesterday? I don’t think so.”

  She looked up at him again. “You followed me?”

  “You didn’t think I’d leave you unprotected with Tyrone, did you? After I left your bed I waited in the alley until daybreak, when I saw you coming down the stairs. I wondered where you were going at dawn so I followed you.” He smiled. “Mass, menina? And, later, why did you go the exchange?”

  “I went to see MacCloud.”

  “Mac—? Deus! How did you find him?”

  “He goes by the name Angus MacHugh. But how did you know where to find me? I thought the blow to your head might have killed you.”

  Eduardo ran a hand roughly through his black curls. “This head has suffered worse. Tyrone found me staggering in the alley soon after you were taken.” He smiled a dimple into being. “We weren’t very polite to the messenger who brought the ransom note. He told us enough for us to guess MacCloud’s strategy. A riverboat is not hard to catch when two men are rowing with a purpose.”

  His expression sobered. “The note did not say you were with MacCloud. Tyrone went to kill MacCloud while I scuttled the boat. Deus! We might have killed you as well.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. Did he—drown?”

  “We aren’t certain, a fact that has done nothing for Tyrone’s present mood, let me tell you.”

  She sat up in surprise. “Tyrone’s alive?”

  He reached out for her but she again recoiled. Frowning, he deliberately placed his hands on her shou
lders and held her firmly. “Gently, menina. It would take more than one bullet to bring Tyrone down. He’s in pain and half-drunk on whiskey, but then he’s never been one to revel in his pleasures. I had to threaten to tie him to his bed to keep him from riding north along the river, just in case MacCloud survived to crawl away in the darkness.”

  “I told MacCloud about Tyrone,” Philadelphia said dully. “I would have been responsible if he had died.”

  He cursed and shook her none-too-gently. “Deus! You are more burdened by your conscience than any saint.” And then he pulled her close, folding her within his hard embrace so that she was forced to rest her head against his chest.

  She heard his heartbeat beneath her ear and inhaled the unique masculine scent of his skin. Every ounce of her body reacted to his touch, to the safety and security presented by his physical reality. In this moment, there was nothing else she would ever have asked of life. Why then could she not hang on to it, she thought in quiet desperation.

  Eduardo sensed her despair, understood her pain better than she realized. But he was also jubilant because he knew that pain passes, and behind it there is always the possibility for joy.

  After a few moments longer, he pushed her a little away so that she could see his smile. “You performed a miracle last night, menina. I could not believe my eyes when I opened the muddy sack you’d been clutching when I pulled you from the river.” His dark eyes were jewel bright. “You found the Blue Madonna!”

  Philadelphia absorbed the delight in his expression with gratitude. “It is the piece my father had stolen from your village.”

  “Absolutely. I have not seen it since I was twelve years old but no one who has seen it once could forget it. Since there had been no word about it in the last fourteen years, I assumed it had been lost or broken into smaller stones. I had given up hope of ever seeing it again.”

  She tried to shrug off his hands, wanting to find a way to retreat from him but he merely slid them down her arms to rest them in the bends of her elbows. Seeking refuge from his gaze, she looked down at the strong brown fingers curved over her paler skin. “MacCloud had it all those years. I’m glad I could save it for you. It is little enough recompense for all you have suffered.”