by Michelle Cox
“Know of it. Never actually been there,” he said with a tilt of his head, “not ever having the ‘calling,’ shall we say, to become a priest.”
“Well, perhaps we could go and check it out. See if we can find her. What do you think?”
Clive paused, thinking. Four years was a long time not to have heard any news, and he unfortunately did not share Henrietta’s optimism that this woman might still be there. More than anything else, this had the flavor of someone who didn’t want to be found. Yet, he hated to dampen her spirits. “I suppose we could,” he said slowly, rubbing his chin. “But I’m not sure finding this Liesel is going to help matters. Seems to me, this Gunther has more of a problem of what to do with the child.”
“Oddly, that’s what my mother said. And Gunther agreed, poor man.”
“You’ve met him?” Clive asked, intrigued.
“Yes, he was at the Palmer Square house when I went today. Elsie brought him along.”
“What’s he like? Seem on the level?”
“Yes, actually. He’s rather nice. He speaks English very well. He was a teacher or a professor or something in Germany.”
Clive let out a deep breath. A German. Of course, it had to be a German just to make things more unpleasant, Clive thought disgustedly. He took another drink of his brandy. He knew it was wrong to continue to have a prejudice against Germans as a whole—but it was difficult after everything he had been through in the war, all the atrocities he had witnessed. As a detective on the force in Chicago, however, he had many times had to look past many things he hadn’t agreed with, and this was no different. He forced himself to put it in the background.
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “it seems we have our day planned out for us.”
“So, we’re going to do it?” Henrietta asked excitedly. “We’re actually going to go looking for her?”
“Why not?” Clive said, unable to deny her and hopeful that she might finally be on the mend.
“But what about this other case, this spiritualist case?” Henrietta asked. “Are you going to take that one as well?”
“That’s up to you.”
“It’s your agency,” Henrietta said, looking up at him.
“No, it’s our agency,” Clive corrected her.
A smile crossed Henrietta’s face. “Well, I suppose we shouldn’t let Frank down,” she said thoughtfully, “should we?”
“No,” he replied, wondering if she were teasing him. “Indeed not.”
“I’m not sure it will really lead to anything, but I think he really needs us, don’t you?” she asked innocently.
As much as he had been trying to hold back from touching her with any degree of intimacy these past weeks, Clive could not help but reach out and stroke her cheek with the back of his finger. “Must we talk of Davis?” he said, his voice thick. He was finding it hard to control his rising desire for her.
Henrietta’s brow furrowed. “Are you jealous?” she asked, her tone incredulous, but he thought he saw her old mirth hovering about her eyes. Clive pulled his attention from them to her very pink lips. He so badly wanted to taste them, to hold her, to cup her breasts in his hands, but she had rebuffed his advances a number of times now and he had no wish to be a brute—as his mother had so grossly put it—nor to break the fragile camaraderie that had sprouted between them just now. But she was seeming so much like her old self . . . even to the point, he could swear, of giving him that look of longing that she so often used when she wanted him to take her in his arms. But he didn’t want to be wrong . . .
Before he could decide how to proceed, however, she placed the tips of her fingers on his chest, sending an electric shock through him. She further surprised him by leaning forward and brushing her lips against his.
“Make love to me, Inspector,” she whispered, and he thought he might explode right then and there. Instantly, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her tenderly, then gradually with more pressure, the taste of her lips exciting him and making him want more.
“Oh God, Henrietta, I’ve wanted you so badly,” he said between kisses, his fingers eventually making their way to the buttons on her blouse.
“Yes, it’s been too long,” she said intoxicatingly. “Oh Clive,” she groaned, as his hands found their way under her brassiere while she undid his tie and opened his shirt, kissing his chest. He pulled back and, shaking a bit, shrugged out of his shirt and unfastened his belt as she slipped out of her skirt.
“Shall we go into the bedroom?” she whispered.
“No,” he said, pulling her toward the large couch perched in front of the fire. “I can’t wait that long.”
“This is quite risqué, Inspector,” Henrietta said with a delicious smile, as he pulled her down on top of him. Her auburn hair was splayed out against the pale skin of her bare shoulders. She looked like a heavenly vision to him. An angel. He took her face in his hands and kissed her.
“What if the servants come in?” she asked, breathlessly, through his kisses.
“I don’t care,” Clive said, moving to her neck.
“Oh Clive, I’ve missed this.” She arched her body toward him.
“The feeling’s mutual.” He grunted and shifted his body, rather skillfully, he thought, if he did say so, so that she’d be under him, a position he much preferred. He felt his heart speed up when he felt her arms roam his back now. God, he couldn’t get enough of her. He ran his hand down her thigh and back up again, stopping at the top of her stockings to insert his finger inside the lace at the top. He looked down into her eyes and kissed her again, softly, trying to slow this down. But when she bit his bottom lip, he felt a tremor roar through him. He instinctively moved his hand to her underthings, tugging at them until they were around her knees.
“Clive, don’t rip them; they’re new,” she panted.
“I’ll buy you some new ones,” he mumbled as his fingers slipped into the soft place between her legs, feeling the delicious warmth of her. She groaned, and he felt himself stiffen even more. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. Accordingly, he abandoned her lower regions and shifted his attention to her breasts instead, cupping them and kissing her stiff nipples.
“Oh, Clive, don’t stop,” she moaned. She moved her hands from his hair, where they had been delightfully entwined, down to his chest, and then lower still, taking him in hand so that he was in imminent danger of losing control completely. He kissed her hard, his hand returning to her warm spot until she was squirming under him and moaning. “Clive, please,” she begged.
She opened herself to him, and he eased himself in. She felt so deliciously good that he almost erupted right then, but he controlled himself by breathing deeply and pulling himself away from her lips. Once he had regained a small measure of control, he cupped her breasts, determined to please her. He began to slowly thrust, rubbing her nipples and kissing her neck until quickly and almost effortlessly, he brought her to a moaning climax, which was quickly followed by his own shuddering explosion.
Breathing heavily, he lay on top of her for a few glorious moments before he raised himself up and showered her face and neck and shoulders with tiny kisses.
“God, I love you, Henrietta,” he said through his kisses. “You mean everything to me, you know.” He looked into her eyes.
“I love you, too, Clive,” she said, panting slightly, a lazy smile crossing her face as she traced his jaw with her finger. “I’ve missed you.”
“That’s an understatement,” he mumbled.
Unexpectedly, she laughed, and he joined in. He felt light and almost giddy at the fact that they seemed back at the place they had been at the very beginning, only closer somehow, if that were possible.
He shifted his weight to squeeze beside her. “I was just thinking that—” he began, but broke off and became suddenly still. He could swear he heard something outside in the hallway. He froze, listening.
“What is it, Clive?” Henrietta stiffened and looked at him w
ith concern.
“Go away, Billings,” Clive said loudly toward the door, while Henrietta quickly reached for something to cover herself. He nearly laughed again when he saw that what she held was one of the embroidered pillows that had been earlier tossed to the floor in their haste.
“Very good, sir,” came Billings’s nasal drone from the other side of the door.
“How could you hear him?” Henrietta whispered.
“Years of growing up in this house, listening to Billings creep around,” he muttered. “Tell my mother we won’t be dining tonight,” he said, raising his voice to a shout again. “We’re indisposed!” He looked down at Henrietta and kissed one of her breasts. Henrietta stifled a laugh.
“Very good, sir.” There was a short pause. “Shall I have a tray sent up, sir?”
“Yes,” Clive shouted back. “With lots of champagne!” “Very good, sir.”
Clive heard him move away, and he relaxed, rubbing his fingers along her arm.
“This is very wicked of us, Clive. What about Bennett? Now your poor mother is going to have to entertain him on her own. Perhaps we really should go down.”
“Oh, she can handle him. Anyway, it was probably she who asked him to stay to dinner in the first place. Serves her right.”
“Well, make sure it’s not me who gets the blame,” she said, running her finger over his lips as he kissed the tips of them.
“Of course not, darling,” he said flippantly. “And anyway, we’re still newlyweds, after all. We’re allowed a bit of ‘indisposition,’ I should think.”
“Naughty!” she said, pinching him.
“Minx!” he shot back, kissing her again, his hand running down her leg. “I’ll just have to teach you a lesson . . .” he said, joy filling his heart that she was back.
“All right, then,” she responded with a sly smile. “Do.”
Chapter 6
Early the next morning, Clive and Henrietta bundled up into Clive’s Alfa Romeo and headed up Highway 41 toward St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. It was fortunate that Antonia had at least a periodic need to be driven about, thus thankfully requiring the services of poor Fritz, who might otherwise be left with precious little to do but to wash and polish the many cars of Alcott’s collection—all of which stood in mint condition in the garage, Antonia insisting that not one be sold, even after his untimely death.
Clive still steadfastly refused to be driven around by a chauffeur, unless he was going to a board meeting at Linley Standard, having reluctantly acknowledged that it would never do for the chairman of the board to arrive downtown in something so crass as a sports car, and that certain appearances must be maintained. Plus, being driven by Fritz in the Rolls to the few meetings at which his attendance was unavoidably required gave him time to read through the various reports he was supposed to have studied ahead of time in preparation. Bennett always briefed him, of course, but Clive liked to have his own sense of things if he could.
Clive and Henrietta had decided to tackle the German case first (as they were calling the Elsie-Gunther affair), it seeming the more urgent of the two, as the fate of a little girl was potentially hanging on its resolution. Henrietta, assuming it was a simple case of crossed wires, half expected to find Fraulein Klinkhammer this very morning, though Clive was annoyingly persistent, in Henrietta’s opinion, anyway, in taking a more pessimistic view, repeatedly saying that four years was a long time. Henrietta managed to ignore this, however, and was looking forward to telling Fraulein Klinkhammer that her child was indeed on these shores and in fact very near to her. Many times, she imagined the joy that would fill this poor woman’s face, and she felt an unexplained eagerness to give her this gift, to reunite the lost mother with her child. There was something noble, she couldn’t help but feel, in giving someone else the very thing she herself had been denied.
The drive started out quietly, Henrietta taking an unexpected pleasure in watching the scenery pass by as Clive expertly drove, his pipe gripped between his teeth. She had never been this far north before and wondered, as the many villages and tiny towns slipped past, what it would be like to live in such a rural setting. She didn’t think she would like it, she decided; she was too much of a city girl. This had more the flavor of Elsie to it. Winnetka was as far north as she wanted to go, though Highbury, she admitted, was growing on her. As was the eccentric, privileged life she had taken up with Clive, despite her early misgivings and their early trials.
“Shouldn’t be too much farther,” Clive said, breaking in on her thoughts, as they finally turned off the highway onto Route 176. “According to Fritz, the seminary’s on this road, a little ways past Libertyville. So keep your eyes open.”
“Are you sure?” Henrietta asked, looking out the window at the farms passing by. “It looks like we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, why don’t you check the map, then,” Clive suggested archly, nodding at the map that lay on the seat between them.
Henrietta did not have much experience reading maps, but she decided she would try. She picked it up and began to unfold it—gingerly, when it became apparent that its pages were brittle. “This looks a little old,” she said, attempting to further open the map without tearing it.
“It is unfortunately. It’s Fritz’s, of course. Hopelessly ancient. Most of his maps are from before the bloody war, I imagine,” he said, removing his pipe momentarily. “I would have purchased a new one if I’d had time. Still, I’m sure it will do the trick. The seminary isn’t marked, but it’s supposed to be somewhere between Libertyville and Mundelein by a big lake—hence the name—so look for that.”
“You know, it’s no wonder that Gunther and Fraulein Klinkhammer couldn’t find each other,” Henrietta said as she worked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s Mundelein the town, Mundelein the seminary, and Mundelein College in Chicago. It really lacks imagination, don’t you think?”
Clive let out a little chuckle. “Yes, I suppose you could say that.”
Henrietta studied the map, now finally unfolded, in front of her. “Actually,” she said after a moment, “I don’t see Mundelein at all.” She traced the road that was 176 west across the page with her finger. “After Libertyville is a town called AREA, it looks like. Written in capital letters.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot about that,” Clive said, slowing down now that they had entered Libertyville proper. Henrietta looked out the windows and thought it looked rather quaint. She wished they had time to stop and maybe walk through some of the shops.
“According to Fritz, there was some sort of business school out here,” Clive went on. “The founder was a quack who persuaded the town to change its name to match the school’s motto, which was AREA.”
“Area?”
“Apparently, it stands for ability, reliability, endurance, and action.”
“Are you teasing me?”
“No!” Clive said with a grin. “Unless Fritz was teasing me. Anyway, the school folded, and Cardinal Mundelein arranged for the church to buy it and all the surrounding land to expand their seminary. So the town changed its name again.”
“Well, I suppose they knew what side their bread was buttered on,” Henrietta said practically.
Clive laughed out loud. “Darling, wherever do you come up with these rustic turns of phrase? Someone might easily confuse you with a peasant. You really should make up your mind which you’re to be.”
Henrietta wanted to laugh herself, but she managed to contain it. “I’ll let you know,” she instead answered with an easy smile, looking out the window again. “Whatever the case,” she said, turning back to him, “this Cardinal Mundelein is obviously very popular.”
“Well, I don’t think popular is quite the right word, but he’s certainly influential. He’s a decent enough chap, I’ll give him that.”
“You’ve met him?” Henrietta asked, intrigued.
“At a dinner party or two. Never really h
ad a conversation beyond the usual niceties, however. Someone else always wanted his ear more than me.”
Henrietta’s stomach churned just a little. It still stunned her sometimes to think about the prominence the Howards had in Chicago and beyond. She looked out the window again. They had already passed through Libertyville and were headed into what looked like a forest. The trees on either side of the road were quite dense.
“Wait a minute!” she said, a stray thought creeping into her mind. “You knew Cardinal Mundelein all this time? You could have perhaps used that connection to get Elsie into Mundelein . . .”
“Ha!” Clive said with a short laugh. “It seems to me,” he said looking over at her, his eyebrow raised, “that Elsie did rather well on her own. Getting in, that is,” he added.
“But you didn’t even think to ask!”
“Well, I did have a few other things on my mind, darling. Such as my father’s murder,” he said wryly. “And how quick you are to use the family connections. To think how innocent you were just a short time ago. Shame, really. And here I was—sure you weren’t a gold digger,” he teased.
“Well, here I was—sure you weren’t a cradle robber.”
“Henrietta!” he exclaimed, laughing. “How could you suggest such a thing?” He shifted the car into a lower gear.
“Why are we slowing down?” she asked, looking around.
“According to this thing,” he said, jabbing his pipe at the map she still held, “it should be right around here, in the woods itself.”
Henrietta looked back at the map. “Yes, you’re right.”
Clive rolled the car to a stop. “As a matter of fact, I think we’ve found it.”
To the right of the road stood a tall wrought-iron archway, presiding over a narrow lane that stretched as far back into the woods as they could see. “St. Mary of the Lake Seminary” was woven into the metal arch, the letters painted gold, with elaborately curved black metal vines winding their way through the black iron bars. There was no gate at all, as if anyone were free to enter or leave at any time.