Sweet Fire

by Jo Goodman

  “Come in,” Nathan called. He was standing on the veranda when he heard Lydia’s knock. She had come straight from the school. She was carrying a satchel of books, her reticule, and an armload of papers. She dropped everything on the bed, laid her coat and hat on top, and went to the fireplace to warm her hands. Nathan came in from the veranda and sat behind her in an overstuffed brocade chair. His gaze wandered over her trim back and the curve of her hips. Her plain gray gown was severely cut, modest, and proper. He wondered if she was wearing the lacy drawers and batiste chemise he had purchased for her under it. Glancing at her hemline, Nathan tried to get a glimpse of her pantalets. He was fairly caught out when she turned around but he didn’t apologize or even pretend abashment. What he did was smile.

  Lydia’s heart started thumping again. “You haven’t told me why you’re here,” she said calmly, taking the chair opposite him.

  “You probably already know, Lydia. I’ve had time to think about your reaction when you came into Father Colgan’s office today. You never told me who you were expecting, but it’s become clear to me. You thought I was going to be Brig.”

  She nodded. “You’ve seen him then? He’s already at Ballaburn?”

  “No to both your questions. He hadn’t arrived when I left. Did you think he would go there?”

  “He said he would.”

  Nathan swore under his breath. He looked away from Lydia and into the fireplace. “I’d hoped to get here before you had to talk to him at all. Word reached Ballaburn a few days back that he was in Sydney. I was in the bush until last night or I would have come sooner.” He got up, poured himself a drink, and sat down again, this time on the arm of the chair. “How did he find you?”

  “I’m not certain,” Lydia said. “I don’t think it was very hard. I wasn’t really hiding from him. I know you said there was a chance he’d recover, but I suppose at the back of my mind, I really believed I killed him. When I saw him again...”

  Nathan finished for her. “You wished you had.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes closed briefly. “I’m not proud of it, but that’s what I wished.”

  To keep from reaching for Lydia, Nathan’s hand tightened around the glass he held. Keeping his voice carefully neutral, he asked, “How many times have you seen Brig?”

  “Three times. Twice at school, once here at the hotel. He got Henry to let him in my room.”

  “He what?”

  “It’s all right, Nathan. I’ve spoken to Henry since then. It won’t happen again.”

  “You’re right it won’t. You’re coming back to Ballaburn where I know you’ll be safe.”

  Lydia blinked at his harsh tone. “I’ll stay just where I am, thank you very much.”

  “This really isn’t open for discussion.” Nathan knocked back his drink and set his glass down. “I didn’t come here with that intention, but knowing what I do now there’s no better alternative. Irish told me that you think Brig’s a killer. If you believe that’s true, Lydia, then you need to be where I can protect you.”

  “If I believe it’s true?” she asked. “If? You must know the truth, Nathan. I think you’ve suspected for a long, long time, but your misplaced sense of loyalty to Brig has kept you silent. If you didn’t know him for what he was you wouldn’t want me back at Ballaburn, you wouldn’t have followed him to San Francisco, you wouldn’t have left me and Fa’amusami on the beach so you could question her father about another similar murder.”

  Nathan went to the French doors and stood with his back to them, his features blurring in the shadows. “I want you back at Ballaburn because I know Brig will continue to harass you anywhere else. I followed Brig to San Francisco because that was the only way I had a chance of getting the station for myself. And you don’t know what I talked to Fa’amusami’s father about because I never told you.”

  “Tell me now.”

  He shrugged. “Very well. I asked Fiame about a certain aphrodisiac I’d heard existed on the island. Do you know what an aphrodisiac is?”

  “Yes, but I don’t believe you.” It was hard not to put her cool hands to her burning cheeks. “You left just as Fa’amusami was talking about that young girl’s suicide.”

  “Coincidence.”

  Lydia went to the bed, routed through her satchel, and withdrew a blank sheet of paper. She gave it to Nathan. “Fold that,” she said. “What?”

  “Fold it. Go on. I want to prove something to myself, then I’ll prove it to you.”

  Nathan shook his head, bewildered, but did as she asked. He folded it once, patting the crease with his fingertips. “Again?” he asked. She nodded. He folded it several more times, each time patting the crease the same way, then gave the square back to Lydia. “Now what did that prove?”

  “The night I shot Brigham I went to your hotel room because I thought I was meeting you. Earlier that day I had been to Madame Simone’s salon. I bought some dresses, was measured for a few others, and went home with a couple of parcels. One of those parcels contained a note, from you, I thought. It was neatly folded, tightly creased, so much so that when I opened it I had to be careful not to tear the paper.” She opened the paper Nathan had folded for her with no such difficulty.

  “I had never seen your handwriting so I had nothing to compare it to. There was something else in the parcel that led me to believe I was dealing with you—a square of fabric from my yellow ballgown. Remember it? It’s the one I wore to my charity ball and later to the brothel in Portsmouth Square. I ruined it trying to deliver Charlotte’s baby.”

  “I remember. I gave you something of Ginny’s to wear.”

  She nodded. “Which you later returned to her.”

  “She was already dead then.”

  “I’m sure she was,” Lydia said flatly. “Did you see my yellow bloodstained gown anywhere in her room?”

  “It’s been a long time, Lydia. I don’t recall—”

  “Let me help you. I left it hanging over the back of the room’s only chair. Do you remember seeing it now? No? Allow me to help you again. The reason you didn’t see it is because it wasn’t there then. Ginny didn’t do anything with it because I would never have gotten a piece of it delivered to me weeks later. No, Ginny didn’t do anything with my gown—her killer did. My yellow ballgown was one of a kind, Nathan. The killer picked it up because it meant something to him; it placed me in Ginny’s room some time that night. He held on to it because he didn’t know how it might help him just then, but it was a kind of security against a day when things might not go his way.

  “That day came when I sent him jumping out of my bedroom window. His best friend warned me that I’d made an enemy, but I didn’t understand.” She drew in a breath and released it slowly. “So…so when I received the parcel and the note and the fabric I thought it was from you. I went to your hotel room with a check to buy you off and a gun to kill you if nothing else worked.

  Brigham met me at the door and I made it so easy for him to lie. I was already convinced you were the one I needed to be afraid of. Brig didn’t have to do or say much to make his presence there seem logical. By the time I realized he had no intention of letting me go, it was too late.

  “But there was something Brig did while we were talking that stayed with me, something that kept pointing to him as the author of the note had I been able to realize it then.” Lydia began folding the paper in her hands. Each crease was made by running her fingernails sharply over the fold. The sound of her nails on the paper raised gooseflesh on her arms, but she kept on folding. “I gave him the check that was made out to you, and this is what he did with it. I can’t stand that sound, Nathan. It makes me want to shiver and grit my teeth. But you see what it does to the paper, how pressed and neat the folds are? That was the condition of the note I received. You didn’t send it to me. Brig did. Brig had the gown, not you. Brig’s the killer, not you.”

  Flames licked at the logs in the fireplace. The stack shifted and crackled. Otherwise the room was oppressively silent.
Nathan stared at the folded piece of paper in Lydia’s hand, finally took it from her, and walked over to the fireplace and pitched it in. Fingers of fire traced its edges before it exploded into heat and light.

  “How long have you known?” he asked. He stood with his legs apart, gently rocking on the balls of his feet, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.

  “Not as long as you might think,” she said. “The realization didn’t happen until after I left Ballaburn, although once my memory returned I was troubled by the incident at the Silver Lady. I could never piece everything together.”

  “You never bothered asking.”

  “To what purpose? You told me once that you hadn’t murdered Ginny Flynt. You said the same about the murder that got you transported. You avoided my questions about your conversation with Fa’amusami’s father. If you had denied sending the note and fabric to me, I don’t know whether I would have believed you.”

  Nathan flinched at her honesty. “Is it part of the reason you were so anxious to leave Ballaburn?”

  “No. Did it ever occur to you I didn’t ask because I was afraid to know the whole truth?”

  “You seem to have gone after it anyway.”

  She shook her head. “Not intentionally I didn’t. It took a room full of children all folding paper at the same time, making each crease with painstaking precision, setting my teeth on edge until I begged them to stop, to finally open my eyes. I clearly remembered the note, the way Brig toyed with the check later, and the way you folded a newspaper. I’d seen you do it several times, pressing the folds with your fingertips or using the side of your hand to flatten a crease. You never used your nails. I would remember.” Her light laughter sounded tinny and nervous to her own ears. “It would have led me to murder.”

  Nathan didn’t respond to her black humor. He continued to stare at the fire. He could feel Lydia approaching, but he didn’t turn. “In spite of what you think, I’ve never known with one hundred percent certainty. I’ve never had anything closely resembling proof. Coincidence does not equal proof, Lydia, and that’s all I had. I never knew how Brig got you to leave your home and show up at the Silver Lady until you mentioned rather offhandedly at Ballaburn that there was a note. Since I didn’t write it, I knew it was Brig. It was clear you still suspected me and I was too proud to tell you differently. This is the first I’ve ever heard about your ballgown. It’s the only piece of evidence I know that puts Brig in Ginny’s room. It doesn’t make him guilty, Lydia. It only puts him there.”

  “But—”

  “I know what you think. I think it, too. But I was the one transported for murder at fourteen. I’m the one with the record. A person doesn’t have to dig very deep to discover that the young woman’s murder in London bears a striking resemblance to Ginny Flynt’s murder. No matter what I suspected in San Francisco, I wouldn’t have turned on Brigham. Suspicion would have fallen very quickly on me. There’s little that I feel for Brig because of a misplaced sense of loyalty, as you called it. Most of what I do or don’t do is guided by a sense of self-preservation.”

  “When you’re not trying to protect others,” she said.

  He laughed dryly, without humor. “I’m hardly successful at it. You know of three murders: London, San Francisco, and Samoa. In Frisco Ginny’s suicide was accepted. Sometimes that happens. I know of two suicides here, one in Sydney about four years ago, and one in Melbourne in November two years back, just around Cup day, that were probably Brig’s work. I wasn’t successful in stopping them. In fact, I wonder if I didn’t somehow contribute to them. I’m always around when they happen, just close enough to be considered a suspect if I went to anyone with my information, but never close enough to stop it from happening. I never know when it’s going to happen or who the victim might be. The woman in London was the mistress of a powerful lord. Ginny and the woman in Sydney were both prostitutes. The woman in Melbourne was the widow of a convict Brig knew. Fiame assures me the Samoan girl was an innocent. She may have died simply for saying no to Brig.”

  “Does Brig know that you suspect him?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never said anything to him. It would be a challenge in his eyes.”

  Lydia sighed, her shoulders slumping. “God, what a horrible mess.”

  Nathan turned sharply and demanded, “Have you told Brig any of your suspicions?”

  Startled, Lydia took a step backward. She shook her head vigorously. “No. I’ve never said anything to him. He thinks I believe you had something to do with Ginny’s murder.”

  The tight coil of tension in Nathan’s abdomen unwound fractionally. “Good. Don’t ever let him know differently. That’s your best protection.” He paused. “That, and coming to Ballaburn with me.”

  Lydia didn’t say anything for a moment, marshaling her thoughts and her defenses. “Actually, Nathan, that’s related to what I was writing you about. I wish you had received any letter before coming here. You may have decided the trip was unnecessary.”

  “Oh?” She hadn’t said anything and already Nathan didn’t like where the conversation was heading.

  “I know I’ve said that I don’t want a divorce...”

  “And now you do?” His eyes had narrowed.

  “No…oh, no. I’ve been thinking that an annulment would be a better solution.”

  “The word ‘solution’ implies there’s a problem. I’d like to hear what the problem is.”

  “I want to go home,” Lydia said. “I miss my family. I haven’t heard anything from Mother or Papa. I can’t be certain they’ve even gotten my first letter.” None of what she said was a lie, yet Lydia did not feel the same urgency imparted in her tone.

  “You promised you would stay here for a year. Is this how you keep your word?”

  “I’m sorry, Nathan. I didn’t make that promise lightly. I really thought I could keep it.”

  “Why do you want an annulment? You could leave without it.”

  She frowned. “But then we’d still be married,” she said. “You wouldn’t be able to marry again.”

  “I don’t plan on marrying again.” He was watching her carefully, noting the way her eyes never held his for very long, the way they shifted to a point beyond his shoulder. “Do you?”

  “I’ve never thought about it,” she prevaricated.

  “You mean it’s not James Early or Henry Bell you’re running to?”

  “I’ve never lied about James. He’s a friend. I suppose he always will be. I never think seriously about marrying him.”

  “Henry?”

  “Henry Bell was a victim of my mother’s considerable charms. I never think of marrying him. Seriously or otherwise.”

  “Then an annulment hardly seems necessary. We’ll remain married until you’re certain you want another husband. You can write me in that event.”

  “You’re going to let me leave?” she asked incredulously. She had expected an argument similar to the one over the annulment.

  “I can’t really keep you here, can I? I can only make it difficult for you to go, and my ability to do that is limited when I’m in Ballaburn and you’re here. If you won’t come back to the station with me, then you can go to San Francisco.”

  “But you’ll lose Ballaburn.”

  “I’d lose it if we were granted an annulment, too. But this way I won’t lose you.”

  “Nathan, I don’t think—”

  He held up one hand. “Let me finish. I know you’ll be completely out of my reach, Lydia, but I’ll also know you’re still mine. As long as we’re married Brig can’t have you.”

  And therefore he can’t have Ballaburn, Lydia finished silently. She and Nathan had arrived at a similar conclusion though their approach to the problem was wildly different. She did not want Brig to have the station either, but it was Nathan’s safety she wanted to guarantee, not her own. The surest way for Brig to end their marriage was to make her a widow. An annulment was absolutely essential. “I’m not leaving Sydney without the dissolution o
f our marriage, Nathan.”

  “Then you’re coming with me to Ballaburn. I can make that happen.”

  Lydia’s chin lifted a notch. “What are you going to do? Bind and gag me? Toss me in a trunk? Because that’s what it will take to make me leave.”

  Nathan almost smiled at her dramatics. “I was thinking along the lines of cuffing you on that arrogant chin of yours and pitching you over the back of my horse. And if you think anyone will stop me, you still haven’t learned much about the way things are done here. You’re my wife, Lydia.”

  “I’m not your property!”

  “You’re exactly my property!”

  Lydia’s hands clenched at her sides. She could imagine herself slapping Nathan solidly on the cheek. The vision in her mind’s eye appalled and frightened her. Instead of striking out she sank heavily into the chair behind her, bowed her head, and stared at her shaking hands. “I’m afraid,” she said softly. “Nathan, I’m so afraid.”

  He dropped to his knees in front of her and took her hands in his. “Do you think I don’t know? Lydia? Look at me, Lydia.” She raised her eyes slightly. “When you thought I was Brig this afternoon you were all sharp-tongued and bluster, trying so hard to make him see that you weren’t intimidated. Perhaps it would have worked with Brigham, but it doesn’t have the same impact on me. I know he’s frightened you and you’ve already shown plenty of foolish courage by being with him at all. You know what we can’t prove. Brig’s a killer. It’s right that you should be scared of him.”

  “I’m not,” Lydia denied. “I’m not afraid of what he might do to me.” Her hands were trembling now. Nathan’s attempts at calming her were inadequate. “I’m afraid…I’m afraid of what...”

  “Lydia,” he said softly. “What else is there to be frightened of?”

  She took a calming breath, let it out slowly. Her smile was faint, meant to reassure. “Nothing,” she said. “You’re right, of course, there’s nothing else to fear.”