Alanna (When Hearts Dare Series Book 2) (7 page)

The woman’s chest expanded with the intake of her mighty breath. “I want you to stay away from my daughter.”

“Not a problem.” He waited. No change in stance, no change of expression.

“You heard me, Mr. Wolf.” With the raising of her voice, she took an aggressive step forward, her knuckles white where she gripped her parasol.

Could any woman appear more ridiculous? She reminded him of a giant bumblebee in her outlandish black and yellow sideways-striped frock and matching hat. The companion parasol—her stinger—she’d treated as a lance. In some strange way, compassion for the blustering woman rolled through him. While her every movement, every word, was intended to reject, bully and threaten, he saw her belligerence only as a great weakness.

He spoke softly, in a slow, deliberate tone. “You are afraid of me, Mrs. Malone. How is that? I have been more than courteous to you and your family. I have barely spoken to your daughter. To be truthful, I doubt she would recognize me in the street should we meet after this sailing.” Now, wasn’t that a lie?

He leaned forward, as if to step away from the fireplace.

She jumped back.

He returned to leaning his shoulder against the mantel and folded his arms over his chest to give her more space. “What’s gone on to cause you to feel so threatened by me?”

The woman turned her back to him, crossed over to a porthole, and stared out. She stood as far from him as possible without leaving the room entirely.

“My daughter is engaged to be married. To a wonderful family . . . er . . . man. We do not want your interference.”

“You do not have my interference, madam.”

What seemed an interminably long period of silence followed, but in fact, only seconds had passed, according to the mantel clock’s soft ticking. “What makes you think I am interfering with your daughter’s life?”

She turned to face him. He caught the slight quivering of the hem of her garment. Once again, he could sense the onset of a maddening confusion within her. And he knew why. He’d made certain she could not pinpoint some
one
thing
, anything
to toss in his face.

Her lips moved briefly before she sputtered. “Surely, if you hadn’t practically saved our lives with your treatment for seasickness, Mr. Malone would be on my side in a flash. He would see you for the man you truly are.”

Wolf should have been amused, but shards of ice formed in his gut. “And what kind of man am I?”

“You . . . you . . . you are not fit for my daughter.”

Despite his growing disgust, he couldn’t help himself. “You do not know me, or my circumstances. By what measure have you come to judge me so harshly?”

“By . . . by your very own words, Mr. Wolf. You told us you were a small child when your parents abandoned you in despicable Missouri.”

“And?”

“
And?
” Mrs. Malone’s flaming cheeks and drawn mouth told Wolf she had moved past any shred of courtesy she might extend him. “You are nothing more than an adult street urchin.”

“A what?” Not only had his gut grown stone-cold, his heart had joined in.

“A . . . a ragamuffin. And a border ruffian at that,” she sputtered.

This time his heart felt a sharp stab of pain. “Mrs. Malone,” he began slowly, deliberately. “Not everyone raised in Missouri is an uncivilized border ruffian. I can assure you there are people residing there who are as sophisticated, as wealthy, and as philanthropic as the best in Boston. But are you actually telling me that if your daughter fell in love with a wealthy, self-made man who just happened to have spent a childhood fending for himself, that he would not be fit for her?”

“Are you a wealthy, self-made man, Mr. Wolf?”

“I wouldn’t call myself
wealthy
, but—”

“Well, there you are.” She made a move to exit. “Once a street urchin, always a no-good.”

A couple of long strides, and he stood in front of her, blocking her exit. She came to an abrupt halt to keep from running into him. A flicker of fear shot through the coldness in her eyes.

“A few questions, Mrs. Malone, and then I’ll see you out.”

The woman’s jaw slackened. Nonetheless, she boldly lifted her chin and met his hard gaze straight on.

“As you wish.” Any attempt to sound strong and forceful failed—her voice wavered.

His words emanated from deep within his chest, barely above a murmur, as he kept his emotions contained. “If you were ever to come across a ragamuffin, would you give him warm clothing on a cold winter’s night?”

Mrs. Malone’s hand lurched to her throat.

“And if a street urchin were ever to invade your home looking for food, would you have him arrested? Shot? Or would you see his roguishness as redeemable, and set yourself to give him the guidance he never received in his youth?”

The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and she looked over his shoulder to the door, as if she was about to force her escape.

“Perhaps,” he continued, “our conversation should take a different direction here. Perhaps, I should be telling
you
to advise your daughter to stay away from
me
.”

She gasped.

He moved to help the woman out the door, his hand held gently against her elbow. “One more thing, Mrs. Malone.”

She turned back and paused in the doorway, confusion written all over her face.

He winked. “We might want to keep this little clandestine meeting to ourselves.”

She exhaled with a
whoosh
and nodded.

“And let’s keep one other secret, shall we?”

“What . . . what’s that?” she stammered.

Waywardness engulfed him until it tilted the corners of his mouth. “Perhaps what you perceived to be a problem did not actually exist. But perhaps you managed to create one in the wake of your own fears.”

Her eyes rounded, and her pudgy, ring-encrusted fingers crept to the base of her throat.

He leaned casually against the doorjamb, crossed his arms over his chest, one closed fist still filled with beads. “Because, you see, warning me to stay away from anything”—his voice came low and mischievous—“even so much as a piece of apple pie, is like waving a red cape in front of this street urchin’s bullheaded face. Good day, madam.”

He shut the door after the woman was well out of sight, and whistled lightly as he sauntered over to the table where he’d left the ginger tea bag. His thoughts ran curious now as to what the dinner hour might hold.

As he reached for the bag, his hand brushed against the whiskey glass, sending it shattering against the coal grate. “Ah, hell.”

He deposited the beads into the bag, and then bent to clean up the broken glass glittering under the sun’s rays streaming through the porthole. An idea seized him. He paused with his hand in midair and studied a shard of the thick, beveled glass through the shaft of light. Turning it to one angle, then another, his idea took full form. He grinned. “Well, thank you, Mrs. Bumblebee, for your ill-mannered visit.”

“Forgot to give this to you last night.” Malone dumped a silver card case in front of Wolf just as the galley boy was about to set a dinner plate before him. With a deft sweep of the galley boy’s arm, the plate came to rest in front of Malone instead.

The server continued his duties without missing a beat. Wolf nodded at him. “I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” Malone responded without looking up, busy oversalting his potatoes. “It’s for coming to my family’s aid during the storm.”

Thompson lowered his head and shoved his fork into his mouth. Wolf grinned, picked up the case and studied the ornate engraving. The galley boy slid another filled plate silently into place under Wolf’s hands.

He set the case aside. “Silversmiths are renowned in the Orient, are they not?”

While Malone erupted into a lengthy dissertation regarding the finely crafted goods coming from that part of the world, Wolf picked up his fork and ate. A nod now and then was all he needed to enjoy his meal.

Eventually, his attention drifted to Alanna. He stared boldly into her cool, blue eyes and decided her silent observation reminded him of some of the Chinese men he’d befriended back in San Francisco. She was no longer a blank page. Slowly, but surely, the pages were filling in—the slowness of the soul’s writing only added to her intrigue.

A subdued Mrs. Malone kept herself engaged in quiet conversation with Thompson. Stung by her own stinger? He doubted he would ever be able to think of her as anything other than Mrs. Bumblebee again. Her gown tonight wasn’t bad, but the load of jewelry attached to any available appendage—wrists, neck, ears, clothing—astonished him. A wonder she could lift her fork. Christ, what god-awful taste that woman possessed. So, she’d given up some of her fight, had she? Here he’d sharpened his wits the entire afternoon, had come to dinner fully armed. At least the odd family kept the damnable trip from boring him to death.

He turned his gaze on Alanna again. Wouldn’t there be an uproar if he leaned over the table and kissed those plump, moist lips?

Her brow arched.

He arched one of his right back. “I recollect that you have a fiancé, Miss Malone. Would it be rude of me to ask you if you’ve set the wedding date?” His eyes drank her in, paused where the lace of her dress separated and cast shadows about the base of her neck. The pulse at the soft hollow of her throat beat like the breast of a hummingbird. If he set his mouth right there . . .

Her eyes danced with a vivid light. “No date has been set.” Her silken voice floated through the air and landed on his ears like a soft breeze.

He wanted to laugh aloud for the sheer pleasure of her presence. “Why, Miss Malone, and here I was beginning to think you’d never fully recovered from your bout with seasickness, you were so quiet. If that had been the case, well then, I would have had to return your father’s gift. I’m pleased you finally accepted my offer to ease your illness.”

Alanna appraised him with a keen eye. “You seem to have some curious information. What makes you think I refused help in the beginning?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Pretty easy figuring. Your father normally becomes ill at the outset of a trip, and since you’ve sailed with him since your childhood and are not prone to taking ill while on the seas, I suspect you tried to overcome it on your own.”

Malone’s head bobbed up and down, and he shook a finger at Alanna, who appeared slightly amused. “You have our stubborn daughter pegged, Mr. Wolf.”

“Oh, it’s not so much stubbornness,” Mrs. Malone piped in. “She thinks she can control anything and everything with that mind of hers.” She gave a sidelong glance at her husband. “And you know exactly how she came to be that way, Mr. Malone.”

“Blame me, will you?” Malone shoved more potatoes into his mouth.

Alanna laughed softly.

One corner of Wolf’s mouth kicked up. “It’s nice to see you can laugh at yourself.”

“To do otherwise would be a sign of false pride,” Alanna responded.

There was something decidedly different about her self-possession. He couldn’t figure it out, but it made his pulse jump. “Isn’t stubbornness pride, as well?”

She tilted her glass of sherry and turned it around with both hands, gazing into its liquid depths. The beginning of a secret smile tipped the corners of her mouth. Slowly, as she spoke, she lifted the glass to her lips, her eyes rising to meet Wolf’s. “Everything has its opposite,
Wolf
. Stubbornness is merely patience turned upside down.”

A heart-stopping emotion Wolf could not put into words raced through him. His lips parted to assist his suddenly shallow breathing. For a brief moment, he was no longer aware of his body. Nor was he aware of the room, or anyone else in it.

“Miss Malone.” He took a breath past the tightness in his chest. “Even if everything has its opposite, wouldn’t stubbornness still be false pride?”

“Then what of patience?” She ran the tip of her finger slowly around the edge of the wineglass.

Stop that!
His head buzzed and his groin tightened at the slow, circular movement of her supple finger. “Mmm, isn’t patience something connected with our spirit nature?”

“Oh.” Alanna looked Wolf squarely in the eye, lifted her finger from the edge of the glass and licked its tip. “The man doth read.”

Mrs. Malone broke the spell with her shrill voice. “See how she makes her own rules?”

So, her mother had missed nothing.

With a hard scowl at Wolf, Mrs. Malone turned toward Thompson. “Keeps me on edge, the girl does.”

Thompson nodded. “Since I’ve known her.” When he winked at Mrs. Malone, his was a face filled with mirth. Her mother’s was the opposite.

“Do you plan to remain in Boston, Mr. Wolf?” Malone asked while slurping his sherry.

“No, only tending to some business, then back to St. Joe. Are you and Mrs. Malone originally from Ireland?”

“We are Scots-Irish, sir!” Malone’s defensive bellow brought even Julia’s head up to knock against Wolf’s leg.

He appraised the man’s livid response with cool detachment. “Sorry, I would never intentionally—”

“Quite all right, quite all right.” Malone waved his fork in the air, and then brought it down to use it as a pointer for emphasis. “There’s a big difference, you know. We are not those poor Irish Catholic immigrants. We came with a good deal of wealth, and before the deluge of Ireland’s poor—”

“And we are no longer Catholic. We are
Unitarian
,” Mrs. Malone put in with a firm nod to her head.

Malone flashed her a blazing look. She hushed.

Wolf clearly understood Malone’s circumstances. Not only was the man fighting to fit in to Boston society, the belligerent oaf most likely had not fit in while in Ireland either, no matter his financial worth. How the hell had these two managed to raise someone as enigmatic as Alanna?

“We came here long ago,” Malone went on. “1830 to be exact. Right before Christmas.”

A jolt ran through Wolf.
Holy God—1830. The same year my mother was killed.
“You came directly to Boston?” He shifted his gaze to his sherry, not wanting Alanna to read him.

Mrs. Malone chimed in, suddenly eager to talk. “Heavens, yes. What a trip. And me heavy with child. As much with child as a woman could ever be. Across the choppy Atlantic we came.”

In only a moment, the energy in the room had shifted, and the Malones unconsciously slipped into old speech patterns. The sudden pounding of blood in Wolf’s ears, the cotton in his throat, nearly undid him.

Old feelings burst to the surface in a blur of red rage. An urgency to rush the conversation, and garner all the information he could, grated at him. He shot a nervous glance at Thompson, whose demeanor appeared guarded.

Wolf turned his attention back on Mrs. Malone. “Tell me about your experience.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and spoke quietly. “I can’t comprehend risking a trip across the sea with you in a tender state. Whatever prompted such an action, if I may be so bold?”

Malone answered for her, his chest puffed. “We wanted our child born in America, we did. And that was our Alanna here. Born on baby Jesus’s birthday, she was. Well, on the eve of it. That’s why we named her Mary.”

Wolf’s eyes shot up from his glass, straight to Alanna’s. His mind screamed. That was the night before his mother was murdered!

He fought his churning gut. He swallowed his sherry, forced himself to breathe deeply and gain a modicum of control. He turned directly to his adversary. “I’m sorry if I appear rude, Mrs. Malone. As I said, your sailing the Atlantic in such a delicate condition and in the middle of winter . . . well, I’m astonished. Did you know anyone in Boston to help you get settled, help you with your newborn?”
Damn it, did you know my parents?

“Oh, getting help was no problem. There were so many out there who needed work. But no, Mr. Wolf, we knew no one. And didn’t for a long while, because of what happened. I would have given my right arm to move back to Ireland then and there. But Mr. Malone refused.”

A chill snaked down Wolf’s spine. “What do you mean? What happened?”

Malone rapped his knuckles on the table and scowled at his wife. “Oh, now you’ll be leaving that morose stuff alone for once. We were enjoying ourselves, we were.”

“Well, he
asked
.” Mrs. Malone’s volume, as well as her back, went up. “It would be rude of me to ignore him.”

Wolf was too close to learning something—he couldn’t allow her to stop chattering. He switched from sherry to whiskey. The burn of it down his throat seemed somehow more comforting. “Now you’ve piqued my curiosity. Tell you what, why don’t you finish your story, and afterward, we’ll turn your husband loose on the telescope again.”

Mrs. Malone tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. “We had barely moved our things into a home we’d purchased sight unseen, when our Alanna came into the world. The very next night—Christmas, mind you—a woman was horribly murdered.” Her eyes widened and her voice grew secretive. “Not two hundred yards from our front door.”

The rush of blood to Wolf’s head nearly deafened him. He willed his body and mind into silence. “Was she murdered in the street, then?”

“No, no.” Mrs. Malone waved her hand about. “She was murdered right in her own home.” There was no stopping the woman now. She rattled on like a train without a brakeman.

The long-familiar story that had stalked the corridors of Wolf’s lonely heart prowled once more. The band of pain encircling his chest nearly defeated his calm, but he had to get whatever information he could. “What of the woman’s husband?”

“Oh, poor thing.” Mrs. Malone pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the corner of one eye. “We moved to another home soon after, but I’m told he returned to Boston a couple of months later. To nothing.
Ab-so-lute-ly
nothing. Can you imagine? Well, I wanted to leave America, I tell you. I was so young, and I was lonely for my family back in Ireland. Not to mention I was so very frightened. Why, Mr. Malone wouldn’t allow me out the front door for the longest time. He hired men to guard our home.”

“As did every other husband who could afford to do so,” Malone put in.

His wife waved her hand again, her breath coming in great heaves. “He was afraid whoever took the boy would come after our baby. I tell you, there wasn’t a house with a small child in it that wasn’t guarded day and night. We had a special guardian for Alanna. He’s still with her to this day. Back in Boston, that is.”

Wolf concentrated harder on the whiskey in his glass. “Was there any speculation as to what happened to the child?”

“At first, everyone thought the boy was placed in hiding for his own protection,” Mrs. Malone answered. “There was a rumor amongst the servants that he might have seen who murdered his mother. However, his father returned in mid-February, but the boy never did.”

Wolf’s gut churned like the sea beneath the ship. His father had come back after all?

Mrs. Malone continued. “Everyone pretty much guessed after awhile that the boy had been done in. Either that, or taken and sold to those awful Turks as a slave boy.”

“Oh, Mother.” Alanna’s voice was calm, but her attention remained riveted on Wolf.

He downed his whiskey.

“Well, those kinds of things
do
happen.” Her mother shook her finger in her daughter’s face. “And don’t you forget it.” She finished her thought with her chin in the air. “My daughter thinks nothing could
ever
happen to
her
. Thinks she’s invincible.”

Wolf shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. “Perhaps the boy joined his father later, after everything quieted down.”

“I don’t think so,” Malone said. “Too much time had passed before the father arrived. His neighbors told me the man lived and breathed for his family, and that for nearly two years after the murder, they watched as he went back and forth to work. Nowhere else, mind you.”

A new kind of misery taunted Wolf—his father had remained at the house for two damn years without coming for his only child. “Did he ever remarry?”

“Oh no,
tch
,
tch
. They said he kept a light on in the boy’s bedroom window, in case he found his way home. Gossips said he finally gave up on ever seeing his son again, sold the house, and moved on.”

Sadness flooded Wolf, and then bile rose in his throat. He fought to keep his voice clear. “Did anyone ever hear what became of the man?”

“Somebody said he went off and joined the Royal Troops, the Brits you know. Went to India and got himself killed over there.”

Christ! Thunder roared through Wolf. A sharp pain sliced his temples.

Mrs. Malone sighed. “I saw his wife the day before the murder. Right out my own window, I did. Prettiest thing you could ever lay eyes on, and just as sweet as could be, so they tell me. Oh, she had the loveliest hair, all chestnut and shiny. Her child seemed a dear thing, as well. He had a mop of blond hair that puffed up like a dandelion gone to seed.”