Sweet Fire Page 12

  It was cold in the carriage now, although Lydia didn’t think the temperature had dropped at all. The chill she was feeling worked its way from the inside out, finally prickling her skin so that even pulling her cape more closely about her shoulders didn’t help. “Why tell me you went back there at all?” she asked. “I only told you to get rid of the gown, not to return it. I might never have known you were there.”

  “Yes, you would have. I dropped the gown on Ginny’s bed before I left. The reporter mentions it lying there in his description of the murder scene, but he doesn’t know what to make of it. It will be identified as Ginny’s gown, but only you and I know why it’s wet and soiled. Just as only you and I know which of us had it last.” He leaned forward now, resting his forearms on his knees as the carriage swayed gently over the Point Lobos toll road. “When I saw the account in the paper I realized you might see it as well. The conclusion you would leap to was too obvious for me to ignore. You must know this: I did not murder Ginny Flynt.”

  Lydia’s mouth was dry and her throat ached so that she could barely swallow. She wished it were darker so that she could not see Nathan’s face quite so clearly, not feel the cool silver eyes cornering her as if she were indeed the wolf’s prey. “Of course you didn’t,” she said at last.

  And her tone convinced neither one of them that she believed he wasn’t capable of it.

  The Cliff House was built six years earlier not far from the western end of Golden Gate Park. Overlooking the ocean and a white sand beach, the tavern was a popular place with many of San Francisco’s prominent citizens. Even the route to the Cliff house was considered a fashionable journey. The toll road was the sight of expensively tooled carriages making the circuit from the city to the Cliff House and back again. Style dictated that a Dalmatian dog follow the carriage, making the drive seem more of a procession than a mere pastime. A mile-and-a-quarter-long speedway ran parallel to Point Lobos for use by horseback riders who still preferred speed to being seen.

  Nathan and Lydia were seated in one corner of the tavern, and Nathan chose the chair at a right angle to Lydia instead of across the table from her. Her mood was quiet, more withdrawn than thoughtful. They spoke very little until their order was taken, and then only about the merits of the roast beef versus the lamb.

  Nathan drank cold beer from a pewter mug. “I admit I was surprised to find you ready this evening.”

  “That’s not a compliment, Mr. Hunter. I gave my word. And it’s only for this evening, isn’t it? I’m not obligated to go anywhere with you ever again.”

  “Nathan,” he said, reminding her. “My name is Nathan, Lydia.”

  That was that, she thought. He wasn’t going to respond to anything else she’d said. Did he want to see her again or not? Conversation with him was so much more difficult than with Brigham. She felt as if Nathan only ever said the smallest part of what he was thinking.

  “My mother didn’t want me to come with you tonight,” she said.

  He noted the slight elevation of Lydia’s chin, the subtle way she dared him respond with the directness of her gaze. “Your mother has every reason to be wary of someone like me,” he said.

  That was not what she expected him to say at all. Lydia’s eyes widened the smallest fraction. “She does?”

  “Of course she does. What do you really know about me?” When Lydia didn’t answer he went on. “My point precisely.”

  “My father likes you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  “But I don’t think he knows any more about you than I do,” she said.

  “Probably not. Is there something in particular I should tell you?”

  Lydia did not ask her question at that time as the beginning of their meal was served. The waiter brought thick slices of hot bread and large bowls of golden mushroom soup. Lydia dragged a spoon through her soup, letting the steam escape and allowing the buttered broth a moment to cool. Nathan didn’t wait and followed his first taste of the soup with a long swallow of beer. Lydia pretended she didn’t notice and Nathan, who knew that she had, was once again reminded of her breeding, of good manners which seemed as natural to her as breathing. The differences between them were enormous.

  “Where are you from?” Lydia asked. She took a slice of bread, buttered it, and gave it to Nathan, then did the same for herself.

  “Now that’s something you do know,” he said, beginning to wonder what effect the drinking had had on her memory. “I’m from London. I told you that last night.”

  “I know that’s what you said. I had hoped you would be more honest this time, perhaps elaborate a little.”

  Nathan felt he was being led to a watering hole—and was going to discover the water was poisoned. His guard went up immediately. “I’m not certain what you mean.”

  She sighed, pausing in the act of lifting her spoon to her mouth, and glanced sideways at him. “Are you a digger?” she asked bluntly. A digger was an Australian, a term she had sometimes heard Madeline use to denigrate her real father. The brief hesitation as Nathan swallowed a bite of bread was all the confirmation that Lydia needed. “Never mind,” she said. “I can see you know what a digger is, which is almost as good as admitting you are one.”

  “Is it important?” he asked, knowing that it was.

  “It depends. Were you a free settler?”

  “What you’re really asking is if I’m a convict.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

  The waiter chose that moment to return with their main course: thin slices of rare roast beef, new potatoes, and golden carrots cut like pieces of eight. Lydia let him take her soup, her appetite waning rapidly as the knot in her stomach grew tighter.

  “Is it because of Ginny?” Nathan asked when they had privacy again. “Is that what’s brought on this inquiry?”

  Lydia had to steady herself. She did not want to think about Ginny. “You said yourself that I don’t know much about you. You even invited me to ask. If certain subjects were to be avoided, you should have said so at the beginning. I spent a pleasant afternoon with Brigham Moore only to arrive home and have my mother tell me he’s a convict. You never said you were really acquainted with Brigham, but neither did you deny it. In fact, you never addressed my question directly.”

  “Your point is...” Nathan prompted calmly.

  “A trained ear is not required to know that you and Mr. Moore come from the same place. The flattened vowels, the way you sometimes lift a sentence at the end to make it a question. At first I thought it was a little bit of Cockney, which it may be, but there’s something else there, too. So, I’m asking you again, are you a convict?”

  “Yes.”

  Madeline Chadwick stood with her back to the tall, arched window in Brigham Moore’s hotel room. Lamplight enriched the rich auburn color of her hair and lent her complexion warmth that was noticeably absent in the hard set of her mouth.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” she said to Brig. “If anyone has a right to be angry here, I do.”

  Her statement did nothing to lessen the tension in Brig’s square jaw or the flared angle of his nostrils. He gripped the tumbler he was holding in one hand so tightly that it could have shattered. He wouldn’t have felt it. His anger was a palpable thing and its target was Madeline. “I could kill you, you know,” he said softly. “I could put my hands around your throat and deny you your very next breath.”

  Madeline’s hand went to the hollow of her throat immediately, but she didn’t retreat. “Just the sort of thing I might expect a digger convict to say,” she said, dismissing his threat. “I knew what kind of man you were from the very first.”

  Brigham took a step toward her. His hold on the tumbler eased slightly. “And that’s what attracted you to me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Deny it all you want. It changes nothing.” His white-hot anger was fractionally cooled. He dropped the tumbler over the back of the armchair behind him and approached Madeli
ne, backing her against the window so that she could feel the fragility of the support behind her. “You told Lydia what I was because you were jealous.”

  “That’s not true, either. I told her because I don’t want you attending her. She’s too young for someone like you. Far too inexperienced. You’ll hurt her, and I won’t have that. Better she should know you for what you are now than to find out after she’s fallen in love.”

  “Is that the way it happened to you, Madeline?” he asked, his voice full of silky charm. “Are you certain you’re not confusing me with someone else?”

  “No,” she snapped. Abruptly she pushed at Brig and started past him. He grabbed her arm just above the elbow and squeezed hard. “Let me go,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Not until I tell you what I think, Madeline.” Brigham yanked her toward him, and when she stumbled, he jerked her upright. He thought she would not dignify his manhandling with a struggle and he was proved correct. She stood toe-to-toe with him, the clean, cool angular lines of her face raised to his. Madeline’s stance was frigid, aloof, but there was no mistaking that he had excited her interest. In the depths of her emerald eyes the blue flame pulsed.

  “You told Lydia I was a convict because you thought I used you to get to her. You felt betrayed by my attentions to your daughter. You’re quick to say she’s young and inexperienced—and just as determined to keep her that way—because it helps you hide your years and your experience. You can’t bear the thought that I might want your daughter when you want me all to yourself.”

  His smile was not the careless boyish one he so often wore in public. The placement of his lips created a knowing look, one of calculation and design. “Remember how we met, Madeline? How long after I pulled you away from that falling stone wall did we end up here?” Her eyes darted away. “Look at me,” he ordered. “It was twenty minutes. You know how I know that? Because one day I timed the walk from Market Street to here. Twenty minutes to walk three blocks, climb four flights of stairs, and have you on my bed. We didn’t even undress. The ground rolled with an aftershock and you didn’t notice because your need for me was so great.”

  Madeline’s breathing was quick and shallow. Brig’s hand was at the small of her back, pressing her toward him. She could feel the hardness of his belly against her, knew the need he had in him now.

  “I must have said something in those first few minutes that made you suspect my origins, but once you did, you wanted me then and there. You would have been disappointed if it turned out I wasn’t a convict. Admit it.”

  “I admit to no such thing,” she said huskily.

  Brig’s head bent and his warm whiskey breath was like a kiss on Madeline’s face. “What is it that you like about us, I wonder,” he said softly, raising one hand to her breast. He felt it swell in his palm. “Ahh, Madeline, do you know, right now I don’t think it bloody well matters.” Taking her hand, he led her into the bedroom.

  Lydia set her fork down as the last vestige of her appetite vanished. He had admitted it. Nathan Hunter was a digger convict. She wanted to know what he had done and couldn’t ask the question. When he didn’t offer the information she asked, “How well do you know Brigham Moore?”

  “We’re old friends.”

  “I see.” Though she didn’t, not really.

  “We’re also partners. We have a stake in a gold mine and work a station together. That’s what you would call a farm, or perhaps a ranch, only it’s much larger than anything you have here. We raise jumbucks—sheep.” He leaned back in his chair. Under the table his legs brushed her gown as he crossed his ankles. He expected her to move away, or at least shift in response. She did neither.

  Something compelled him to goad her. “Sorry we’re not in chains any longer?”

  Her head jerked up. “No, I don’t think that. I’ve never thought that. Only...”

  “Only what?”

  “Only I was thinking I was wrong to judge you so harshly yesterday. I didn’t think you and Mr. Moore were so much alike.”

  “We’re not,” Nathan said. Then to ease the terseness of his words, he sat forward, nudged Lydia’s plate toward her, and urged her to eat. Rather than wait for her questions, Nathan spoke to control the conversation.

  “I followed Brig here on a business matter. I really can’t tell you more than it has to do with expanding our holdings and it’s perfectly legal. We don’t acknowledge one another publicly because we’re attempting to make the best deal we can as individuals.”

  “You’re selling something?”

  “No—buying. Or trying to. We’ve both expressed interest in a particular property and now we’re waiting to see which way the wind blows.”

  “Aren’t you afraid your dual interest will drive the price up?”

  “No. The owner doesn’t think much of the property in the first place.” He cut a sliver of roast beef and raised it to his mouth. “I met your father at the Silver Lady, just as I said I did, and he invited me some time later to your home.”

  “And Mr. Moore rescued my mother in the last shaker.”

  Nathan nodded, watching Lydia carefully as he chewed. “And she invited him.” He swallowed and speared a small potato. “It was sheer coincidence that we were there together, and if you recall, I made your acquaintance a little earlier that evening.”

  “It was only yesterday,” Lydia said, struck by that realization. “I’ve only known you since yesterday.” Her large, solemn eyes were drawn to Nathan’s strong, hard-edged profile as he laughed. He had a richer laugh than Brigham, more spontaneous for all that it was rare. And the thought bothered her because somehow it seemed a betrayal of Brig.

  “Our brief acquaintance has been rather rich with experience, hasn’t it?”

  “Mm.” She felt a measure of her appetite returning and began to eat slowly. “How long will you stay in California?”

  “Until I secure the property.”

  “Or until Brig secures it,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Or until Brig secures it.”

  Brig stretched lazily, smoothed the crown of Madeline’s hair, and then eased himself out from under her. Her long, elegantly curved legs were reluctant to give him up. He patted her naked behind and finally pinched her in order to get her to move. Reaching over her, he grabbed one corner of the sheet and dragged it across their bodies.

  Madeline thought he meant to cover them both. She made a tiny sound of protest at the back of her throat when Brig threw his legs over the side of the bed, hitched the sheet around his waist, and padded into the sitting room. He returned with a glass of red wine.

  “Nothing for me?” Madeline asked, pouting.

  “I had planned to share.”

  “That’s all right then.” She sat up and fashioned a modest garment for herself out of the fringed coverlet. When she looked up from her task it was to find Brig watching her. Heat had returned to the dark center of his eyes. “Yes?” she said, her voice sultry. She raised her arms behind her and lifted her hair, held it up as if cooling her nape then let it fall in a silky red cloud about her shoulders.

  “Did you ever think, Madeline, that perhaps a man courts your daughter as an excuse to be close to you?” he asked. “My God, you have nothing to fear from her.”

  “Is it true of you? Is that why you made that insane wager?”

  “What do you think?” He sat on the bed and extended the glass of wine after he sipped from it. He turned it so Madeline’s lips touched in the same place his had. When he withdrew the glass there was a drop of red wine on her mouth. He touched it with his tongue and the kiss began from there.

  When Nathan and Lydia left the Cliff House it was after nine. A swirling wind brought nettles of salt air from the Pacific and sand from the white beach below them. At the horizon the stars alone distinguished the sky from the water. The sound of the tide was a steady roar in their ears and there was a discordant cry above it, a cacophony of sound Nathan could not identify.

  “
Sea lions,” Lydia told him.

  Nathan recalled seeing them in the daytime, basking in the sun on the rocks below. They were not any more beautiful than the sounds they made, but their antics were entertaining.

  “Are there sea lions in Australia?” she asked.

  “I’ve never seen them.” They were standing near the edge of the cliff. Wind swept under Lydia’s short cape and billowed the skirt of her gown. Nathan wondered what her reaction would be if he were to turn her slightly, draw her closer to his body, and shelter her against the wind. When he did turn her it was to escort her to their carriage. She accepted his arm naturally and he was again reminded of her graceful bearing as they walked across the pebble drive. “We have a queer sort of animal called a platypus, though. It lives in the ocean. Ever heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s got something of the shape of one of your sea lions, but it has a large flat bill and webbed feet like a duck, a beaver’s tail, and hair on its hide like a bear. It lays eggs like a turtle and feeds its pups with mother’s milk.”

  She looked at him sideways, her glance suspicious. “You’re making that up.”

  “I couldn’t,” he said. “Could you?”

  Laughing, she shook her head. “What a strange and wonderful place it must be.”

  “It’s hard and bleak is what it is.” His description was reflected in his voice. “Only the men are more unforgiving than the land they live on. You’d do well to remember that, Liddy.”

  It was all she thought about during the long silent ride back to Nob Hill. Nathan Hunter was an enigma. Just at the moment she found herself enjoying his company, he said or did something that made her wary of his attentions. His conversation was like his dancing: filled with fits and starts, drawing her close, and then pushing her abruptly away.

  When they arrived at Lydia’s home it was she who suggested a walk through the gardens and down to the pond. She was embarrassed as Nathan checked his pocket watch. Did he have to be so obvious about wanting to leave her?