Scarlet Lies (Author's Cut Edition): Historical Romance Read online

  "So that's where you heard of me. I wondered."

  "From Ralph Edderly, Howard Grayson, and Hank Robeson, also. Once I started asking I lost count of the number of times your name was mentioned. You worked for all those men?"

  Ryland nodded. "At one time or another since the end of the war."

  "What precisely does one call what you do?"

  He smiled at that. "It depends on the circumstances. The Rebs called me a spy; Yankees, a scout."

  "You're a Yankee?"

  "Didn't your keen sense of a man's character tell you that?"

  Abby chuckled appreciatively. "Impudent pup. Well, I suppose I'll have to let the matter of your unfortunate background pass. You're the man I've decided on, Yank or no."

  "I hope I have some say in the matter."

  She waved aside his comment with a graceful sweep of her hand. "Go on. You were saying..."

  Ryland took a sip of bourbon. "Well, mostly I just pick up the odd piece of information here and there, work it into some sort of whole, and present it to the person paying for it. I've investigated a few murders for the local authorities, and I spent a little time with the Pinkerton agency before I decided to go out of my own."

  "You found an embezzler for George Baker."

  "Yes. And recovered stolen jewelry for Robeson and Edderly."

  "You were very discreet, too. That jewelry was stolen from their mistresses, as I recall."

  "No comment."

  "Still very discreet," she murmured, a little disappointed that he wouldn't confirm her suspicions. "That counts for something. There is still some government work, isn't there?"

  "On occasion."

  "Not saying more than that, are you?"

  "No, ma'am—er—Miss Abby."

  Abby gave a short nod of approval and graced Ryland with the whisper of a smile. "Do you have any idea why I wanted to see you?"

  "After I received your note I made some inquiries. Discreet, of course."

  "Of course," she said dryly. "And what did you find out?"

  "Nothing to satisfy me. You've lived in New Orleans all your life, married Franklin Brookes when you were quite young, and—"

  "I was sixteen," she said with some asperity. "Old enough, thank you."

  "And had three sons and a daughter."

  "Much later," she added.

  "Your husband came from a banking family, and following tradition your sons took their posts in the bank when they came of age. David was killed during the war with Mexico, and Harrison died during an outbreak of typhoid fever. Neither had married and to my knowledge neither had any children. Randall wed Beth Anderson and had two sons, Chandler and Preston. He and Beth were killed in a carriage accident, and your grandsons eventually took charge of the bank."

  "If you had any idea of the anguish of outliving one's children, you would not present your information with so little regard to my feelings."

  Ryland felt every bit the insensitive idiot he had been. "I apologize. I wasn't thinking... it's been so long."

  "It is never long enough, but I'll accept your apology. Allow me, however, to continue. If this is the sort of thing you found out from others, then you wasted your time and theirs." Abby set her cup and saucer on the table between the two loveseats and folded her hands in her lap. "My husband died at Vicksburg. He was seventy-one then and filled with some scatterbrained notion that the South needed him no matter what his age. My grandsons were fighting also and there was no one to take charge of the financial interests of the bank. Franklin may have put his faith in the South, but he invested the bank's money in the North and overseas. Because of his foresight our family and investors came out of the war solvent. Naturally there was talk that Franklin had betrayed the glorious cause by not giving it every cent at his disposal. My husband simply didn't let his romantic streak interfere with his business sense. Ever."

  "And the talk stopped when your bank was able to help finance reconstruction with real Yankee dollars."

  "Exactly," she said with a measure of pride. "After Franklin died the bank needed someone to manage it—at least in theory. I knew as much about investing and finances as my husband, but I couldn't convince anyone at the bank."

  "So you married Patrick Gordon."

  "It seemed a prudent move at the time. Yankees controlled the city then. Under General Butler women who didn't show respect to the enemy were treated no better than streetwalkers. I needed someone to head the bank and deal with the government. Patrick was a good choice. He wanted my money and I wanted his Yankee connections."

  "You still controlled the bank?"

  "Yes. Patrick knew he was in over his head, but what he did, he did well. Drank too much, though, and my grandsons, when they returned from the fighting, made no secret that he wasn't welcome. Chandler and Preston didn't number themselves among the mourners when Patrick had a few too many and fell down the stairs. Poor Patrick," she said, sighing. "I was fond of him, and the nights didn't seem so lonely then." Abby stiffened her spine and sat up a little straighter, not caring for the way her shoulders had started to sag under the weight of her memories.

  "You live here alone?"

  "I suppose you could say that. Oh, there are still the servants who make their home here, and my grandsons are in and out with irritating regularity."

  "Would it be one of them I saw at an upstairs window as I came into the courtyard?"

  "Probably. Chandler is here. He came on the pretext of looking for something or other in the attic, but I expect he wanted to look at you. He knows that I've asked you to come here. And why. In his place I would no doubt do the same. He wants to protect his interests, you understand?

  Ryland finished off his drink and set the tumbler down. "I'm afraid I don't."

  "No, you couldn't, could you. I haven't explained enough."

  "Then you don't require my services for some matter at the bank?"

  "Heavens no," she said, amazed the idea had occurred to her guest. "Chandler and Preston are managing things nicely. I still keep my hand in, though they wish I would keep it and my nose out." She chuckled. "No, there is nothing at the bank which concerns me. This is a family matter... a private matter. I want you to find my granddaughter, Mr. North."

  Ryland's surprise didn't stop him from echoing Abby's earlier statement. "Ryland, please. My friends call me Ry, but let's see how we go on from here."

  "I do like you, Ryland." she pronounced emphatically.

  Ryland's warm smile transformed his entire face, softening the hard masculine planes and crinkling the corners of his cinnamon-colored eyes. "Tell me about your granddaughter. This would be your daughter's daughter?"

  Abby nodded and betrayed her nervousness by folding and unfolding her fingers before she caught herself. "Yes, Linda's daughter. She was my youngest, the child of my middle years. Much younger than her brothers. Headstrong. Independent. And slightly impetuous."

  "Like her mother."

  "Like me," she agreed rather sadly. "I raised her to be the first two. The latter I'm afraid I showed her on more than one occasion. She married at twenty, older in years than I was at my wedding, but younger in so many ways that I was frightened for her. I tried to talk her out of the marriage, or at least to wait a little longer, but it was like spitting in the wind. She had her heart set on Michael Pendleton."

  "Of Brighton Oaks?" he asked, referring to one of the large plantations north of the city that had only partially been destroyed during the war and had since been rebuilt. "That Pendleton?"

  "Michael's younger brother manages the Oaks now. Yes, it's the same family. It's rightfully Michael's and would have been his if he had remained in the parish after his wedding." She sighed softly. "My objection to my son-in-law was that he was so—I'm not certain how to describe it—so unsettled. He never had an interest in running the Oaks. He was more inclined toward gambling. Cards or horses or which way some passerby would turn at the end of the block. It didn't matter. He was a dreamer but with no particular vision
." Abby rose and poured herself another cup of tea.

  "Linda adored him. She thought him wildly romantic, and perhaps he was." She shrugged. "It's a certainty that he didn't possess much in the way of common sense. Shortly after their wedding, gold was discovered in California. There was no talking Michael out of going and no talking Linda out of going with him. It was in forty-nine when they left, twenty-three years ago. I received two letters from my daughter. One written soon after they arrived in San Francisco, just to let me know she was safe. The second came about a year later, informing me that Michael was very ill, not expected to recover from the fever that swept the mining camp, and that she was pregnant. She never asked for help. I taught her pride, too," Abby said bitterly. "She didn't tell me how to reach her. No address. Nothing."

  "You looked for her though."

  "Indeed. Franklin and I hired a dozen different men to go to California and make inquiries. None of them met with any success. After almost seven years of trying, we gave up."

  "Perhaps she didn't want to be found."

  "It would appear that way. And now she can't be."

  "She's dead?"

  "Yes. Some time ago."

  "How do you know?" asked Ryland.

  "I was going through Patrick's personal papers after he died and found a letter."

  Ryland's brows knitted. "Patrick's papers? Not Franklin's?"

  "Of course Patrick's," she snapped. "I'm not senile. I know whose papers I was going through. Anyway, Franklin wouldn't have hidden anything concerning our daughter from me. I still don't know why Patrick did. It wasn't like him to keep anything to himself. He probably thought it would upset me, and I admit that it did for a while."

  "What was the nature of the letter? Do you still have it?"

  "No, I don't have it any longer. There was a fire at the bank and Patrick's papers were among the things destroyed. But I remember the nature of it well enough. The letter was addressed to Franklin at the bank, but was written after Franklin had died. I suppose Patrick thought that as the president he had every right to open it. The author didn't bother to introduce himself, or sign the letter, but he made it clear in a few short paragraphs that he had known my daughter. He knew things about Linda's childhood that made it impossible for me to dismiss it as a flummery. He also wrote that she had died," she said barely above a whisper. "Brain fever, he said. Apparently she had talked of her past while she was ill and this man finally stumbled on the truth. His main purpose in writing was to relate that he was caring for my granddaughter and that he would be pleased to bring her east if Franklin would provide the passage money."

  "How long ago was this?"

  "Let's see... Patrick died in the summer of sixty-seven, so the letter arrive sometime before then."

  "A little over five years ago, then," said Ryland. "Was there any attempt to pay for passage?"

  "None that I'm aware of. I certainly didn't. I wasn't going to wire money to an account at the Bank of California without knowing who owned that account. I corresponded with the bank, but they wouldn't tell me anything. I didn't like it much, but I respected their right to keep a client's confidence. I hired another man to look into the matter for me. Paid his passage to California and his living expenses. He returned six months later with nothing to show for it." Her cup trembled slightly as she raised it to her lips and studied Ryland over its rim. Abby took a small sip, then set the saucer down firmly. "I want you to find my granddaughter." Her arm swept through the air, indicating not only the room, but the house as well. "This is her heritage. She has as much right to it as my grandsons. I want her to have it. I want to know Linda's daughter."

  Ryland stood and walked over to the fireplace, picked up the poker and idly pushed at the coals in the grate. "It's been a long time since that letter was written. That account is probably no longer in existence. The trail's been cold longer than it's ever been warm. You'll be throwing your money away."

  "I don't think so."

  "Why not, Miss Abby?"

  "Call it an old lady's whim."

  "I wouldn't."

  She smiled. "All right. The truth is that I've heard George Baker sing your praises quite a few times. The idea of trying to find my granddaughter again formed in my mind then. When I learned from Mr. Edderly that you were planning to travel to California of your own accord, I was convinced that it was fate."

  "I'm going to San Francisco on personal business."

  "Yes, I know. Your aunt and uncle have asked you to return."

  "Your inquiries were thorough," he said, a single brow arching upward.

  "Very. I didn't want to be disappointed again in the man I hired."

  "And?"

  "You're everything I was led to believe. Will you take the job?"

  Ryland replaced the poker and sat at Abby's side. "There are never any guarantees. I won't promise you that I'll find your granddaughter. What I will promise is that after I've dealt with family matters I'll do what I can."

  Because Abby was convinced that Ryland was capable of far more than most men she accepted his terms. She'd waited this long for news of her granddaughter; she could wait until Ryland handled his own affairs. "That will be fine," she said.

  Ryland nodded. "You haven't given me much information that will help me."

  "Seventeen. Seventy-one. Aught three."

  "Pardon?"

  "The account number at the Bank of California."

  Ryland was impressed that she had engraved it to memory.

  "Numbers amuse me," she said, divining his thoughts. "I make associations. I was married in seventeen. Franklin was seventy-one when he died. And I had three sons. You have to remember there is a zero before the three. How you do that is your affair."

  Ryland laughed. "I'll write it down." He took out a pen and a pad of paper from his jacket pocket and jotted down the numbers.

  "Memory is safer."

  He shook his head. "Not mine. At least not for this sort of thing. I can tell you the lineage of the kings and queens of England, but don't press me for my aunt's birthday. I've missed it more times than I care to remember."

  "Lineages, eh? Sounds like some useless knowledge one acquires at university."

  "Harvard," he grinned. "Not long, though. Only a term. That ruckus at Fort Sumter gave me the excuse I was looking for to get out."

  "Just as well," she said, nodding her head regally. "Harvard wouldn't have sat well on your shoulders."

  "Now there's an argument I should have tried on my aunt and uncle." He held up the pad. "What's your granddaughter's name?"

  "I don't know. It was never mentioned."

  Ryland frowned. "Her age?"

  "She'd be about twenty-one or twenty-two now."

  His smile was rueful. "For some reason I was thinking of her as a child." He put the pad and pen away. "Surely she could contact you herself."

  "Yet she hasn't. It's up to you to find out why."

  "She could be dead."

  "I've thought of that. But you can understand that I want to know the truth no matter what it is."

  "Very well. So your daughter's name was Linda Pendleton and—"

  "Linda Brookes Pendleton."

  Ryland repeated her name and Abby's emphasis. "After her husband died how would have Linda tried to support herself?"

  The other man Abby had hired hadn't asked her anything about Linda. She was encouraged that Ryland would find something that had been overlooked. "Working as a seamstress, I suppose. She had a talent for embroidery work. Oh, she had other talents. She could sing and play the piano, too. Not that that would get her by in a mining camp."

  "No, there weren't any pianos in the camps."

  "Did she ever mention the name of Michael's claim or where it was located?"

  "No."

  Ryland patted the back of Abby's hand. "It's nothing. If he filed a claim I can find it. There will be a record of it. It will only take time, more or less, depending on the number of times it changed hands. Is there a portra
it? A miniature that I may look at?"

  "I gave the only miniature I had to the first man Franklin and I hired. And of course there were no photographs then, not when she left. But there is a portrait. The one over the fireplace is Linda."

  Ryland turned away from Abby and studied the portrait.

  "Are you going to make notes?" she asked curiously.

  "Numbers, not beautiful women, are my weakness."

  "She is lovely, isn't she?"

  Ryland heard the present tense but made no comment. It was difficult to accept that the vibrant young woman in the portrait was dead. Her hair was like honey, her skin fair, and her eyes a striking marine blue. The face was heart-shaped, soft, and winsome. She looked vulnerable, not headstrong and independent. Did Abby really know her daughter or did she believe what she wanted to believe? Ryland could imagine the Linda Brookes in the portrait following the wildly romantic Michael Pendleton to the ends of the earth. San Francisco must have seemed like it then. Ryland knew that it had seemed so to him. "Yes, very lovely," he said absently.

  "Do you think my granddaughter might look like Linda?"

  "There's that possibility." He came out of his reverie. "Would you have a portrait of Michael?"

  "No."

  "It's all right. I have a few days before my train is scheduled to leave. I'll go to Brighton Oaks and see if they have one. Where is your portrait?"

  "That thing? In the attic. It can come down when I'm gone. I take no pleasure in remembering how I used to look."

  "You're still a beautiful woman, Miss Abby," Ryland said sincerely.

  "Flatterer," she scoffed. "And a scoundrel, too, I’ll wager."

  "Undoubtedly." He stood, thrusting his hands in his pocket. "I'll wire you monthly of my progress... or lack of it."

  "How much money will you require?"

  "None. Not now, perhaps never. I'll expect ten thousand dollars if I can return your granddaughter to you safely." He saw that Abby didn't so much as blink at the amount he named.

  "I thought it would be more."