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

"I wish I'd known." He laughed shortly. "I'd have asked for it."

  "What if you find her and she refuses to return?"

  Ryland winked. "It will be a severe blow to my considerable masculine pride if I can't get a woman to accompany me across the country."

  Abby chuckled. "Are you always successful with my sex?"

  Ryland touched the scar at his temple. "No, Miss Abby, not always," he said softly. He bent over her and kissed the cheek she had raised expectantly before he took his leave of the drawing room.

  Ryland crossed the courtyard like a man in a hurry, resisting the temptation to look over his shoulder and up at the second-floor window. Once he was on the other side of the gate and beyond the sight of the house he slowed his gait considerably, decided against hailing a hansom cab, and took the most open route to the home he rented in the city. Less than ten minutes passed before his instincts were rewarded.

  "Mr. North!" A voice called to him from behind. "Wait! I want to speak with you!"

  Ryland turned slowly, tilting his head in question. The man he was facing was slightly out of breath but recovering quickly. He was rail thin, just filling out his severe business attire. His black hair was parted in the middle, framing eyes that were almost as dark. In one hand he carried a bowler; the other held a walking stick. When he wasn't harried, as he was now, Ryland thought he would probably have the quality of formalness that came across as stuffy. "I'm sorry," said Ryland. "Have we met?"

  "No. I'm Chandler Brookes." He transferred the walking stick to the hand that held his bowler and offered his right hand to Ryland. "You just came from a meeting with my grandmother."

  Ryland feigned surprise. "Of course!" He shook Chandler's hand. "Miss Abby's grandson." He noticed Chandler's nostrils flare in distaste at the informal address of his grandmother. He used her name again deliberately. "Miss Abby mentioned that you were in the house." He pointed down the street. "Do you mind if we walk? I have another appointment and I'd rather not be late."

  "Certainly." Chandler fell into step beside Ryland. "I want to talk about my grandmother, Mr. North."

  "She's a fine lady."

  "She is," Chandler agreed. "I hope you can understand why my brother and I don't want to see her hurt and disappointed again."

  "Oh? I don't think I follow."

  "I know why she asked to see you. Grandmother and I don't have secrets between us. She is still holding to the absurd conviction that my cousin is alive."

  "If you have evidence to the contrary you should share it with her."

  Chandler shook his head. "I don't have the evidence. What I have is common sense. Years ago, when she and Grandfather were looking for my aunt, there was nothing to be found. Now, on the basis of some letter, which, I might add, no one but Abby has seen, she believes her granddaughter is alive. It's a foolish notion on her part and one which I cannot support."

  Ryland appeared thoughtful. "Patrick Gordon saw the letter."

  "If he did, he never mentioned it to anyone. I know Abby says it was with his personal papers at the bank, but there's never been any proof. A fire destroyed Patrick's office before Grandmother could share what she had found."

  "You don't believe her?"

  "I believe she believes it. Frankly, Mr. North, I have to question my grandmother's mental competence. She's throwing away money on this scheme of hers."

  "Are you asking me to forget my business arrangement with her?"

  "Yes," he said firmly, a hint of pleading in his tone. "Yes, I am. You don't even have to tell her. I'll do that. I'll tell her that you came to see me at the bank, questioned me about a few things, and decided against looking for my cousin."

  Ryland stopped walking and indicated the white stucco house on his right. "This is where I leave you, Mr. Brookes."

  "Your home?"

  "Until Friday. That's when my train for California leaves."

  Chandler's thin face sagged. "Then you're still going through with this?"

  Ryland stopped short of telling Chandler that he was leaving Louisiana regardless of his arrangement with Abby. If Abby wanted her grandson to know, she could tell him in her own good time. "I'm going to California," he repeated.

  "Well, then," he said, his mouth thinning in a tight line of disapproval. "There's nothing more to say, is there?"

  "I should think not. Good day, Mr. Brookes." Ryland strode up the walk to his home, glancing at the street when he shut the front door. Chandler Brookes was already gone. Ryland shrugged, wondering what he could expect next.

  The following day Ry rode out to Brighton Oaks to speak with Michael Pendleton's younger brother. David Pendleton had no objection to showing Ryland Michael's portrait but was not encouraging overall. Ryland had hoped that Michael had written his family in the same way Linda had written hers. David could not remember seeing a single letter from his brother since his departure. Ryland shrugged off his disappointment and returned home, wondering what other avenues of information he should attempt to explore.

  When he arrived home his housekeeper was in a clear state of agitation. "What is it, Mae?" he asked, watching her mumble beneath her breath as she took his dusty traveling coat and hat.

  "There's someone named Preston Brookes to see you. I told him you wouldn't be back for a time, but he insisted on waiting."

  "I see," Ryland said slowly. "Where is he?"

  "In your study."

  "How long has he been here?"

  "Two hours." Mae fidgeted nervously with her kerchief. "I didn't know what to do with him, Mr. North. He didn't want to drink or eat. Just kept smoking those awful cigars."

  Ryland smiled, patting Mae on the shoulder. "That's all right, Mae. I'm sure you did your best to entertain him. Don't give it another thought. I'll see Mr. Brookes right now, and you can think about my dinner." Seeing that Mae's mind was at ease, Ryland went to his study.

  Preston Brookes resembled his brother only superficially. There were similarities in coloring and bone structure, but where Chandler was whip thin and his features angular, Preston was broader, his face rounder and fuller. His barrel-like chest and thick neck gave an impression of heaviness, but Ryland saw nothing to indicate that his guest was anything but powerfully built. It would have been a mistake to suppose lethargy and self-indulgence were in any way connected with Preston Brookes.

  Ryland's body cut through the thin veil of cigar smoke as he crossed the room and extended his hand to his guest. "Mr. Brookes. I'm Ryland North." His fingers were crushed in Preston's grip, but Ryland pretended he didn't feel anything. "It must have been some urgency that brought you here and kept you waiting two hours. Please, won't you sit down? Something to drink?"

  "Nothing for me," Preston said, his voice deep and resonant. "And I prefer to stand. I've been sitting since I was shown in here." He pointed to the wide armchair beside Ryland's desk.

  Ryland was always suspicious of liars, but especially of those who lied for no reason that was immediately apparent. There was no impression in the seat of the armchair. The ashtray was on the other side of the desk and there was evidence of a trail of ashes on the carpet between the window and the sofa. Preston Brookes had been pacing the floor for most of the time he had been confined to the study and for reasons of his own did not want Ryland to suspect his agitation. Ryland kept his thoughts to himself. "What can I do for you?"

  Preston traced one wide sideburn with the back of his forefinger. "I've come about your business with my grandmother."

  That hardly surprised Ryland, since he could think of no other reason Preston Brookes would visit him. One brow rose in question.

  "Chandler told me you intend to take the job my grandmother offered."

  "I intend to go to California, yes."

  "You do not seem the sort of man who would chase illusions."

  "I like to think I'm not."

  "But that is precisely what my grandmother is asking you to do."

  "I'm not so certain. Abby is convinced your cousin is alive."


  Preston's hand dropped to his side, and he fumbled in his pocket for a cigar. Rather than lighting it he rolled it back and forth between his fingers, his dark eyes narrowing as he took measure of Ryland. "How much is my grandmother paying you?"

  "Ten thousand dollars." Ryland did not add that the money was his only when he returned Abby's granddaughter. It seemed neither Preston nor Chandler suspected his arrangement with Abby was different from her arrangement with the other men she had hired.

  "I'll double it."

  Ryland decided to feign ignorance of what Preston was really saying. "Double it? That won't be necessary. What Abby has offered is perfectly sufficient to cover my expenses."

  "You don't understand." He lit the cigar and inhaled deeply. "I will pay you twenty thousand dollars for not finding my cousin."

  "Your offer does much to explain why the last man Abby hired had no information for her. I take it he accepted your bribe."

  "It is not so much a bribe as a counteroffer. I don't care how you spend the money or what you do to occupy your time, but I don't want you to bring my cousin here—if she exists at all. Return to New Orleans in a time that you consider reasonable and explain to my grandmother that you were unable to discover anything. I will give you half the money now. The second half will be payable to you upon your return and upon the condition that you are able to convince my grandmother that further searches for my cousin are futile."

  Ryland was thoughtful. "I imagine this has something to do with an inheritance that would be split three ways rather than two."

  "I imagine my reasons are none of your business." Ashes dropped on the carpet, and Preston ground them in with the toe of his shoe. "Do you accept?"

  "Your brother was concerned that Abby was throwing her money away, that she was doomed to be disappointed and hurt by the results of my search. Does Chandler know you're willing to pay me twice the amount to see that, in effect, those things happen?"

  "That would be between my brother and myself. I'll only ask one more time, Mr. North. Will you accept my offer?"

  "If I don't? What happens then?"

  "Nothing. I've done what I can and you're free to do whatever you wish."

  Ryland wondered if that was true or if he could expect that Preston Brookes would try to stop his search in a more effective, more permanent manner. The latter seemed a likely possibility and it was one that Ryland was not going to ignore. "I don't think I want your money, Mr. Brookes. Your grandmother made some inquiries into the nature of my character. You would have been wise to do the same."

  "Every man has a price," Preston said seriously.

  "Your mistake was to measure mine in terms of money, Mr. Brookes." Ryland saw that his guest gave no indication of surprise, disappointment, or anger. Preston Brookes stubbed out his cigar, took his bowler from the desktop, and bid Ryland good day.

  When Ryland was alone in his study he walked over to the window and drew back the drape just enough to give him a view of Preston Brookes walking away from the house. The banker glanced over his shoulder once, his scowl plainly visible, then continued on his way. Ryland chuckled to himself. Abby's grandson had been quite serious in his offer and, when he thought himself unobserved, was clearly upset by Ryland's refusal.

  Ryland withdrew from the window and sat behind the chair at his desk. He stretched out, cradling the back of his head in his palms, a slight smile raising the corners of his mouth. He admitted he was intrigued by Preston's bribe, just as he had by Chandler's obvious attempt to get him to stop the search before it had begun. Prior to talking to either man Ryland hadn't had much hope of finding Abby's granddaughter. But the idea that no one other than Abby wanted her found caused Ryland to believe that perhaps his chances were better than he had first thought. Certainly Preston Brookes was concerned enough that something would turn up. But what? Ryland wondered. Proof that Abby's granddaughter was alive? Or, and Ryland thought this second possibility more likely, proof that she was dead?

  Chapter 4

  Ryland favored his right leg as he walked down the narrow aisle separating the rows of train seats. He took the first vacant seat he found with a window view and tossed his coat and a basket of food on the empty seat beside him, hoping that someone would think it occupied and at least part of his journey would be undisturbed.

  Extending his right leg in front of him gingerly, Ryland leaned back in the uncomfortable wooden seat and closed his eyes, for all intents and purposes appearing to be asleep and therefore inaccessible to the passengers still noisily boarding the train.

  It was his own damn fault, he thought miserably. He had been careless. Following his meeting with Preston Brookes in his home he had watched his back for three days. Once he was on the northbound train for St. Louis he hadn't given Preston or his brother another thought. That had turned out to be a mistake. Ryland's brief overnight stay in St. Louis, as he waited for his connection to Omaha, had not been without excitement. While he was renewing an acquaintance with a particularly lovely woman in an establishment known only as Kate's, his hotel room was being broken into. When Ryland returned in the early hours of the morning, looking forward to a little rest before leaving, he had to dodge a knife that was waiting for him the moment he stepped through the door. Ryland wrenched his knee as he leaped away and drew his gun. The intruder made another thrust, the sharp edge of his blade caught the moonlight through the curtainless window, and Ryland fired.

  When the sheriff left several hours later after determining that Ryland shot in self-defense, Ryland was bone weary, sick about the throbbing ache in his knee, and damn angry he had killed the man without knowing who sent him to the hotel room in the first place. Suspicions, which rested squarely on either Preston or Chandler Brookes, were not enough. Ryland wanted facts, and unfortunately they had disappeared with the untimely but unavoidable death of his assailant.

  Ryland placed his hand over his injured knee, preparing for the train's jolt, when he heard the engineer blow the warning whistle. The back of his head hit the edge of the hardwood seat, and he grimaced. Train travel to Sacramento might be weeks, even months faster than taking a ship, but it had nothing on a ship when it came to comfort. At least it didn't when one wasn't traveling first class. Ryland had considered it. Money wasn't the problem. Being waylaid by every gambler who thought he was a fair mark was. Ryland wanted time to think, not to become engaged in a card game of dubious honesty. That was always dangerous, and Ryland wasn't willing to risk anything that could stop him from going home.

  Home was San Francisco. No longer the site of hastily erected tents scattered on a hillside, Frisco was a huge, sprawling city that could scarcely contain the energy of its citizens. Ryland had been a citizen. One of its first. In 1848, when he was seven and the first echoes of the gold strike at Sutter's Mill were being heard in the east, Ryland's father and uncle packed up their families and made the hazardous journey from Philadelphia to California by ship. Ryland's mother was the first fatality on the journey, dying of yellow fever during the crossing at Panama. His younger brother was the second, succumbing to the same fever only days after his mother had died. But there was another fever that frightened Ryland more. Gold fever. And his father had it. Losing his wife and youngest son merely intensified Winston North's desire to strike gold, and Ryland stood by helplessly, watching his father sink into a melancholy that only talk of mining and making a rich claim could relieve.

  Ryland was never quite sure when his aunt and uncle had taken him under their wing, but as his father slipped further and further away, Robert and Louise North drew Ryland closer. Having no children of their own, Ryland slipped easily into a role that was more than nephew, yet, as long as his father lived, could never fill the void of son.

  Within a year of coming to California, Winston North was dead, murdered defending a claim from jumpers. Ryland, hiding among the rocks only forty feet away, had witnessed the confrontation and run a hundred yards along the riverbank to get his uncle. By the time they returned
Winston was dead, his gun still in his hand, and the two claim jumpers were sifting through the pan that lay at his feet. One of them stood, holding a nugget up to the sunlight for inspection. Robert North placed a bullet squarely between his eyes. The other man, not knowing where the shot came from, fled the scene.

  Ryland liked to think his father had known the value of what he found before he died. The claim that Winston had found and Robert North later filed in Ryland's name eventually yielded a half million in gold.

  By 1853 the Winston mine was played out, but Robert had invested the money wisely, no small feat in a city with a rapacious appetite for emptying the pockets of the miners who built it. The cost of mining equipment was enormous, the price of food, drink, and clothing even more so. Robert, who felt that one mine was enough for any family, opened a dry goods store on Montgomery Street that sold supplies to other miners, and made money hand over fist.

  There was an addition to the North family in those early years. Louise had a son. Ryland sulked for months, fearing his place in the family was lost as Louise's belly swelled beneath her gown. But Ryland's jealousy vanished when Louise placed the baby in Ryland's arms and announced in her soft, melodious voice that she was twice blessed with two fine sons. Andrew, or Drew, as Ryland insisted on calling him, was never out of Ryland's sight for long. He took his responsibilities as older brother seriously, allowing Drew to dog his steps, pester him with questions, and generally worship him.

  Drew was eight when Robert and Louise pressed Ryland into going east to complete his education. For his part Ryland was completely satisfied with the schooling Louise had provided him, but convincing his aunt and uncle was another matter. Not that he had tried very hard. He would have walked up and down Telegraph Hill on his hands if Robert and Louise had asked. They were the only people whose opinion mattered to him, and the years of separation had not diminished his feelings.

  Perhaps if they had been able to foretell the future they would not have been quite so adamant about Harvard, but when Ryland left the rumblings of war seemed no more than the hot-air ramblings of disgruntled Southerners and frenzied abolitionists. Ryland wrote to Robert and Louise of his enlistment after the fact so there could be no changing his mind. Throughout the war Ryland often thought the only thing keeping him sane was the weekly letter he sent to his aunt and uncle. No matter where he was he made the time to write, to let them know that he had survived a battle or survived the dysentery. Because he traveled so frequently as a Union scout, Louise's letters would often miss him, but he saved every one he received. Most of his comrades thought they were love letters, and Ryland never disabused them of the notion. In a way, they were.