Sweet Fire Page 11

  It was only when the shadow of the Silver Lady Hotel fell across their carriage that Lydia felt a coldness. Brigham mistook the reason for her shiver and generously offered a blanket.

  “No, thank you,” she said, “but it might be nice if we go to the park now. It’s certain to be warmer there.”

  Brigham placed a blue plaid blanket over her legs anyway and secured the silken frog at the neck of her cape. His face was very close to hers, his breath warm and sweet. Then as he held her gaze, the smile left his green eyes momentarily, replaced by something more intimate, something nearer to passion than not. It was Lydia who turned away, a little frightened by the way he looked at her—and excited as well.

  She groped for something to say as he sat back against the padded leather seat. “We raised a great deal of money last evening,” she said.

  Brigham was smiling again, the curve of his lips knowing. She was not unaffected by him, he thought, and that was good. The thread of tension he’d tugged on a moment ago would keep her wondering, thinking about him long after he left her. He wanted her to think of him this evening when she was with Nathan. “I would have liked to have been the one to win the poker game,” he said. “For the pleasure of making the largest donation as well as for the pleasure of your company.”

  “You’re very kind, but surely you can see by my presence here that it wasn’t necessary. Mother says I shouldn’t have accepted the terms of the wager, but I…I found it a rather lovely gesture.” She surprised herself with her candid comment and glanced at him quickly to gauge his reaction. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m afraid I don’t think sometimes.”

  “Nonsense,” Brig said. “Your candor is refreshing. And, if I’m not mistaken, I believe there’s a flattering comment in there for me. Can I hope that not only weren’t you offended by my proposal, but also that you wish I’d won that hand?”

  Beneath the blanket Lydia’s fingers nervously plucked at her gown. She nodded in response to Brig’s question.

  His expression satisfied and confident as they entered Golden Gate Park, Brigham Moore spent what remained of the afternoon chipping away at Lydia’s heart.

  By the time they returned to the house, it was after four. Mindful of the hour and her need to get ready, Lydia did not invite Brigham in for tea. Though she thought he was disappointed, he didn’t press her, and his understanding lightened her heart all the more. She fairly ran up the walk to the house.

  Madeline was standing in the foyer and made no effort to disguise the fact that she had been waiting for Lydia’s return. “You were out,” she said accusingly.

  Lydia’s smile vanished. “You can see that I was.” She gave her cape to the butler and followed her mother into the front parlor. “Mr. Moore paid a call and I went riding with him. It was all perfectly respectable. He had a driver, the carriage was open, and our tour was most public. You can’t find fault with that, Mother. You did introduce him to me.”

  “And I’m regretting it.” Madeline’s face softened, her vibrant emerald eyes were grave, the blue flame in their depths all but extinguished. “Darling,” she entreated quietly, “don’t you think I want only the best for you? I admit that I thought I had judged his character correctly, but I’m not above making a mistake. In light of his interest in you and yours in him, I thought it would be wise to make some inquiries. While I was out this afternoon I did just that.

  “Has he told you, for instance, that although he’s from London, Australia’s been his home nearly a score of years? No, I can see by your face that he hasn’t. Don’t trouble yourself inventing excuses as to why he moved there. He was not a free settler. He was transported as punishment for stealing. He’s a criminal, Lydia.”

  Madeline watched Lydia as she moved to one of the overstuffed armchairs. Her daughter did not so much sit as she did crumple. “Perhaps it’s a curse passed from mother to daughter,” Madeline went on as Lydia’s complexion took on an ashen cast. “I remember being flattered by your father’s attentions, taken in by his handsome face and beautiful smile. I knew from—”

  “Please, Mother. You don’t have to repeat the story.” Lydia knew her mother was no longer referring to Samuel Chadwick. She was talking about Lydia’s true father, Marcus O’Malley, a convict from Australia who came to San Francisco in search of gold in ’49. He and others like him were called Sydney Ducks, a slur filled with contempt and loathing, but rarely said in their presence. The Sydney Ducks were wild and lawless, drunk on freedom and frustrated with dreams of gold that rarely materialized by digging mines and panning streams. They terrorized miners, shopkeepers, and women, moving about the city at night in gangs, looting stores and robbing casino patrons. “I understand how it was between you and Marcus,” Lydia said. “It will only give you pain to dredge it up.”

  “I can bear my pain,” her mother said. “But I cannot bear yours. Brigham Moore can’t be trusted, Lydia. Don’t repeat the mistake I made with your father, believing he was different from the others. His criminal leanings were evident in the end. Your birth was proof of that.”

  Lydia crossed her arms in front of her middle, feeling Madeline’s words as a physical blow.

  “Do you want to suffer as I suffered? You are the greatest joy in my life, yet you were born of my greatest pain. You’re so vulnerable, Lydia. A man like Brigham Moore can sense that and take advantage of it. He would have you on his bed, under his—”

  From the doorway Samuel Chadwick spoke. “That’s enough, Madeline.”

  Madeline gave a start, surprised by Samuel’s entrance and his tone. “You’ve interrupted me, Samuel,” she said coolly. “I don’t know that you’ve heard enough to pass judgment on my conversation with Lydia.”

  “I heard enough,” he said tersely. “Leave her, Madeline. Surely even you can see that your warnings have done more harm than good.”

  “I’m not going any—”

  “Leave, Madeline,” Samuel said, grinding out the words now. His hands were thrust in the pockets of his dark gray jacket, but the shape of his fists was visible as a bulge in the line of the garment.

  Madeline looked as if she were going to object again, thought better of it, and glided out of the room, her chin high.

  Samuel did not even wait for his wife to leave. He went immediately to Lydia, sat at the ottoman in front of her and placed his hand on her shoulder as she slid to the floor and laid her head in his lap. Her sobs cut at his heart.

  “I should never h-have been born,” she stammered. “Every time M-Mother looks at me she remembers. She h-hates me. She must.”

  Samuel smoothed Lydia’s hair, patting her gently. “No, darling, she doesn’t hate you. Didn’t you hear? She said you are her greatest joy.” He marveled at his own ability to say the words so convincingly when he felt so little conviction. “Your mother doesn’t know how to express her own fears, Lydia, so she hurts you without meaning to. Anyway, you’re my greatest joy. Never doubt that.” She turned her head slightly and he saw the faint smile that could always touch his heart. He handed her a handkerchief as she sat up and leaned against the apron of the chair behind her. “I really only heard the last of your conversation with your mother. I suspect it was about Nathan Hunter. Madeline was furious about that wager business last night.”

  “No,” Lydia said, dabbing at her eyes. Her chin wobbled a bit as she forced a light-hearted mien. “We had that discussion at noon. This was about Mr. Moore. Mother’s discovered he’s English by way of Australia.”

  Samuel’s dark brows lifted slightly and he stroked his graying handlebar mustache. “A convict?” When Lydia nodded, Samuel asked, “But how could your mother know that? It’s not the sort of thing Mr. Moore would share as fodder for common knowledge. Unless, of course, there’s more to the story than Madeline told you.” Which was entirely likely, he thought. “Not everyone transported was guilty of murder, you know. Most of the men were there for crimes against property of a trifling nature. Not that I’m condoning theft, but it’s hard n
ot to be sympathetic to boys and men who were convicted for stealing umbrellas, lead from the tops of houses, or a pig or chicken to feed a starving family. Often it’s a sickness in society that leads men to make a livelihood of crime, not a sickness in the men’s souls.”

  “Do you think that may be the case with Mr. Moore?” she asked. “Mother did say he’d been in Australia almost twenty years. He would have been younger than me when he was transported. A child really.”

  “I don’t know. But you could do no worse than to ask him. He might be happy to unburden himself to you.”

  “Even if he was a convict,” she said, “he appears to have done well for himself, don’t you think? Why, just look at the money he lost last night in your game.” For a moment she was hopeful, envisioning Brigham Moore as a reformed criminal. A frown drew down the corners of her full mouth and knitted her brows. She worried her lower lip. “His money might have been stolen. I hadn’t thought of that before. What if he’s—”

  “Now you’re letting your imagination run and there’s no good that can come of it.” Samuel leaned toward Lydia and placed a light kiss on her furrowed brow. “Stop looking so fierce, darling. Smile. Unless I mistake the time, you should be preparing for your evening with Mr. Hunter.”

  Instead of smiling, Lydia’s frown deepened. “But Mother doesn’t—”

  “Let me worry about your mother.”

  “Then you think it was all right to accept the wager?”

  “Of course. Madeline is making too much of it. It was made with complete respect for you, and even though Mr. Moore didn’t win, Nathan is a good man.” He laughed lightly, tapping Lydia on the end of her pared nose. “I admit I was looking forward to taking you to the Cliff House this evening, but some things were not meant to be. Still, who’d have thought they would both beat my full house?”

  “Perhaps they cheated.”

  “In that case, Lydia, you’d do well to be terribly flattered. The only thing to be gained was your company.”

  “My money,” she countered.

  “Now you sound like your mother. You place much too much importance on your fortune and not nearly enough on the other reasons a man would be interested in you.”

  Lydia did not fish for compliments. She simply looked at Samuel uncomprehendingly.

  “You’re beautiful, Daughter,” he said sincerely. “A man can see it in your eyes.”

  He meant to be kind, Lydia thought, but he was talking about her on the inside. She longed to hear someone say she was beautiful on the outside, even if it was her own prejudiced-in-her-favor father.

  Lydia took her time getting ready for Nathan Hunter. Instead of the quick dip and scrub she had had upon waking, Lydia soaked in scented rose water and allowed Pei Ling to manicure her nails. She ate a light repast that her maid prepared to tide her over until her late dinner with Nathan. She accepted Pei Ling’s choice of a gown, thinking it was the least of all the evils in her wardrobe. The color was good for her, an ivory that accentuated the deep blue of her eyes and complemented her complexion, but the gown suffered from many of the same flaws as the yellow one: too much ornamentation in unflattering places, a draped skirt that made her waist look thick, and puffed sleeves that made her seem uncommonly broad in her upper arms. The total effect was one of disproportion. Lydia’s critical examination in the mirror, minutes before she went downstairs to meet Nathan, focused on each flaw. Most troubling, she thought, was that her appearance mattered at all to her. It was Nathan Hunter who was waiting for her, not Brigham Moore.

  “Here she is now,” Samuel said, holding out his hand to Lydia as she entered the library. “And how lovely she looks. Don’t you think so, Nathan?”

  Lydia wanted to turn and run. Instead, she forced a smile, pretending to believe what Samuel said and what Nathan was going to say.

  “I thought blue might be your color,” said Nathan, purposely evoking remembrance of things past, “but I may have judged too quickly. Ivory suits you beautifully.”

  The compliment and the deliberate reference to last evening brought a flush to Lydia’s face. He had a way of talking to her which breeched her defenses. Immediately she was annoyed with herself for believing anything he said, or wanting to.

  The evening was clear and cool. The sun had dropped over the horizon hours ago, but dusk still lingered. Nathan covered Lydia’s shoulders with the short satin cape she handed him. The beaded embroidery was cool beneath his fingers and his hands lingered on her shoulders for a moment. The inquiring glance she shot him over her shoulder made him realize what he was doing. He dropped his hands, and after bidding goodbye to Samuel Chadwick, Nathan escorted Lydia to the waiting carriage. The liveried driver gave them a jaunty salute with his whip and a tilt of his head.

  Lydia sensed a change in Nathan’s mood once they were alone and underway. “If you would rather not go,” she said, “we could have the driver stop now before we’re completely down the hill.”

  Nathan didn’t answer immediately. The blue-gray light filtering into the carriage was adequate to observe Lydia’s face, and there was nothing in her features to suggest she was troubled. Which meant she didn’t know.

  Nathan loosened one of the buttons on his jacket and reached inside to the vest pocket. He pulled out a slip of paper and held it out to Lydia. He was flattered when disappointment flashed briefly across her face. “It’s not the wager,” he said, correcting her assumption.

  She took the paper, recognizing it now as a newspaper clipping. Pride demanded that she had never thought it was anything else. “I didn’t think it was,” she denied. “However, I can’t read this here. It’s too dark. Is it so important?”

  “I think it is. It’s from the Police Gazette.”

  “Mother doesn’t allow that paper in our house,” she said primly. “Most of what they report is lurid, sensationalist twaddle.”

  “So it is…some of it.” He took the article back and tucked it away. “This isn’t. A prostitute was murdered late last night. Very late. Which is why it didn’t make the morning editions of a paper you might have read.”

  “I have no idea why you’re telling me this.”

  “Her name was Virginia Flynt.” Nathan watched Lydia carefully, saw her confusion, then knew the absolute moment of her understanding as her mouth parted slightly and her eyes widened. She stared at him unblinkingly.

  “Ginny.”

  “Yes…Ginny.”

  “But how? When?”

  Nathan’s palms turned up in a gesture of confusion, and he leaned back against the velvet upholstery. “Sometime after I last left her with Charlotte and the baby and sometime before I returned last night with the gown you borrowed.”

  “She was dead then? You saw her?”

  “I think I was probably the first to discover her body.” Because the blood was so fresh, he remembered, and her flesh was still warm. He did not tell Lydia these things, but he saw in her expression a certain understanding. Her imagination had filled in the gaps.

  In her lap, Lydia’s hands were trembling. Ginny. Ginny dead. Murdered. Why would anyone want to hurt Ginny? “You alerted the others? Went for the police?”

  “No.”

  “No? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t expect you to.” And he couldn’t explain. How could she possibly understand what had gone through his mind when he’d seen Ginny’s slashed wrists, the rope burns the wounds could not quite hide, a suicide that wasn’t one at all. It mightn’t have been Ginny he saw, but another woman all together, in another place, at an earlier time. Nathan had reacted with less presence of mind than he had at fourteen. He had so much more to lose now, and that thought guided his actions more than common sense.

  The entry hall of Ida Bailey’s brothel had been deserted when he came in. He did not find that unusual given the lateness of the hour. Even prostitutes eventually retired for the night, and he abandoned the idea that he might find some small comfort in the arms and thighs of a whore. He did look aroun
d for someone, but in the end no one saw him climb the stairs to Ginny’s room to return the gown. He had rapped lightly on her door, and when there wasn’t an answer he assumed she was on the floor above, keeping vigil in Charlotte’s room. Opening the door quietly, he had walked in…and seen her.

  She was dead. He knew it immediately. There was too much blood for it to be otherwise. The long, angry slashes on her wrists were fatal ones, yet Nathan found himself touching her, feeling for a pulse, some meager sign of beating life, before he allowed himself the luxury of panic.

  There were voices on the stairs then, either above or below him—he couldn’t tell—and the door to Ginny’s room was not completely closed now. In mere seconds someone might come upon him, and their conclusion would be the obvious one. Dropping the borrowed gown, Nathan threw open the window sash and unhesitatingly made his second leap of the night.

  He might have broken his neck, or at least injured an arm or leg, but the full hedgerow below him cushioned his fall. He walked away with nothing more serious than a few scratches on the back of his hands.

  “No one except you knows I was there,” he told her. “Not yet. Perhaps you can understand why I would rather not be connected with any of this. Being linked to a murder—anyone’s murder—will play hell with my business alliances.”

  “And that’s important to you.”

  “As your reputation is to you. If you tell anyone I was there, I’ll be forced to tell them the whole of our evening.”

  Lydia blanched. “All right,” she said finally. “But Ida may say something.”

  “Ida Bailey has herself to protect—her business and her reputation. She’s not going to say a word about her customers or anyone else who visited her house that night—including both of us. You saw for yourself how indifferent she was to Charlotte’s death. I expect Ginny’s murder is being observed with only slightly less callousness.”