Honor (22 page)

“He’s right about that,” Robert said with a teasing grin. “Your eyes captivated me from the moment I first saw you.”

She glared at him and continued, “‘—is sure to spellbind any judge and jury.’ Damn that Liam Flynn! He implies that I’ll win cases because of my looks, not my legal skills.”

Robert placed a comforting arm around her shoulders. “You knew this would happen, so get used to it.”

She sighed. “You’re right.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “I have some good news for you.”

“I’m delighted one of us does. What is it?”

“LaRouche is sending me and another lawyer to Philadelphia next week to conduct some very important business for him.”

Honor kissed him back. “That’s wonderful. He obviously thinks highly of your work. How long will you be gone?”

“Next Tuesday through Thursday. So, as much as I hate to leave you, you’ll be on your own.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll manage just fine.”

The following Tuesday, Honor decided to work late on a contract she was revising for another temperamental actor. Robert had left for Philadelphia just that morning, and Tilly was in New Jersey nursing her sick mother, so the prospect of going home to an empty apartment held no appeal. Since it was July and the balmy summer days were longer, she didn’t have to worry about going home in the dark.

At six o’clock she sent Elroy on his way and returned to her contract.

Fifteen minutes later she heard the door to the outer office open, followed by hesitant footsteps. Honor rose. “Elroy?”

No response.

She walked out of her office to find two men standing by Elroy’s desk. The burly one, who wore a loud yellow-and-black checked suit with a red tie and a horseshoe pin, reminded her of Man Mountain Mountford. His smaller companion looked like a ferret. Both reeked of fried onions, stale hair oil, and unwashed skin.

“May I help you?”

“You the lady lawyer?” the smaller man asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s all we need to know.”

They rushed at her.

Before Honor had time to think another coherent thought, the burly one stood behind her, pinioning her arms, leaving her helpless and defenseless against the smaller man. Honor didn’t need to ask what they wanted. She knew the instant she saw the smaller man raise his hand.

The first backhanded blow hit her jaw just hard enough for her teeth to cut the inside of her cheek and let her taste her own blood. The pain was beyond imagining. Honor cried out, but was still too shocked to struggle.

The second blow hit her other cheekbone, snapping her head back and causing her to see dancing stars. Her assailant hit her again. And again.

Her existence became defined by a red haze of pain. From far away she heard a frantic, tearful voice begging them to stop, please stop. Finally she could endure no more. She crawled away into a quiet, dark place deep in her mind and wove the blackness tight around her. The frantic pleas for mercy stopped.

After what seemed like an eternity but was in fact two minutes, they released her. Without support, her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor. Just when she thought her torment had ended, something slammed into her side and the world exploded before she slid into blissful unconsciousness.

Nevada LaRouche alighted from his carriage in front of Honor’s office building. With her husband away, he had decided to take a chance that she might be working late and would be amenable to joining him for dinner at Delmonico’s. He suspected that she might refuse, for she was still standoffish, but it was worth asking.

Just as he reached the entrance to the building, two men came hurrying out, brushed past him without so much as a by-your-leave, and headed down Broadway. Just the sight of them made the hair rise on the back of LaRouche’s neck.

Upstairs, he tried the outer door to Honor’s office, and when it opened readily, he smiled. So she was working late after all.

He stepped inside. Then he looked down and saw her.

A hunter’s instinct, finely honed in a savage time and place, overrode shock and rage. He froze and listened, sharp eyes darting into corners where an assailant could hide. His nostrils flared to catch the commingled odors of terror and excitement.

The two men. They were long gone by now, so it would be useless to give chase.

He looked at the woman lying facedown on the floor, and the hunter in him died.

“Damnation!” His rage almost choked him. He dropped down onto one knee and felt for a pulse in her neck. She was alive.

LaRouche eased her onto her back. He had seen unspeakable violence in his life, but when he saw what those two men had done to her…

As bad as Honor’s injuries looked, LaRouche knew that if the bastard had used brass knuckles or even a closed fist, he would have ensured that no one would ever again look at Honor Davis without cringing.

They hadn’t taken her locket or rifled through desk drawers, so robbery wasn’t their motive. No, she had been beaten with exquisite care by someone skilled enough to know how to warn without maiming.

LaRouche brushed a stray lock of disheveled black hair away from her-bruised cheek, then carefully lifted her in his arms and took her home.

The first sound Honor heard as she cautiously emerged from the dark, safe place in her mind was the low, anguished groan of an animal crazed with pain. With the return of her senses came the realization that the pitiful sound emanated from her.

She felt as if a horse had kicked her in the face. Or as if a man had struck her with the back of his hand.

Not a man, two men. She whimpered in terror and struggled to open her eyes. Only one obliged.

“Easy,” said a familiar drawl that sounded more ragged than soft. “You’re safe now. No one can hurt you anymore.”

She turned her head slowly toward the voice, felt a lightning bolt stab her ribs, and cried out. She found her own hand clasped firmly by warm fingers offering silent strength and courage. When the pain subsided, she opened her good eye again and saw Nevada LaRouche.

The soft glow from a lamp she couldn’t see cast the planes of his face in sharp relief. Concern warred with rage in his eyes.

“Sorry,” she whispered, forcing the word through sore, stiff lips puffed to twice their size. “Hurts.”

“Yell all you want if it makes you feel better.”

Where was Robert? Why was Nevada LaRouche being so solicitous when he knew she didn’t trust him? “Where am I?”

“My house—actually it’s Delancy’s—on Fifth Avenue. I brought you here because it was closer than your place, and I don’t trust hospitals.”

He didn’t need to tell her she was lying in a strange bed, wearing a stranger’s soft, comfortable nightgown that smelled faintly of lemon verbena. Catherine Delancy’s, perhaps, left behind when she fled to England? Honor was in too much pain to wonder who had undressed her or to consider the propriety of being in a bachelor gentleman’s house, no matter what the circumstances.

He said, “It’s nearly midnight, so why don’t you try to sleep? We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Can’t sleep.”

He guessed why, for his features smoldered with anger for a moment before he brought it under relentless control. “The doctor left laudanum.”

“Later.” Suddenly a horrifying thought almost sent her sitting upright. “My face!”

“Hush,” he murmured again, his hands moving up and down her arms lightly as if he were gentling a restive horse. “I know your face hurts like hell and it looks even worse, but the doctor said it’s just bruised. Your jaw and your nose aren’t broken, and none of your teeth were knocked out or loosened. You have a couple of broken ribs where the bastard must have kicked you, but the doc said you’re not bleeding inside and he taped them up. You’ll be fine before you know it.”

She heard his unspoken words: you’re damned lucky.

The shocking realization that someone had deliberately hurt her washed over Honor in waves, making her shiver uncontrollably. Though she hated to display weakness to this man, helpless tears ran down her cheeks.

Still gripping her hand, LaRouche reached over to a night table to retrieve a handkerchief. He dabbed her tears away with surprising gentleness.

“Did two men do this to you? A big fellow in a checked coat and a little one who looked like a weasel?” he said, his voice strangely gruff.

She shuddered violently, as if her assailants had suddenly materialized at the foot of her bed. “How did you know?”

“They were coming out of your building just as I was going in.”

“Why were you there?”

A ghost of a smile played about his mouth, though it never reached his cold, remote eyes. “I thought you’d be working late, so I stopped by to invite you to supper at Delmonico’s.”

She tried to shift to a more comfortable position, and another spasm of pain hit her ribs. Later she would wonder about this dinner invitation, but right now all she felt was gratitude that he had happened by when he did. Otherwise no one would have found her until morning.

“Thank you.” When the spasm passed, she said, “Those men…hired?”

“I’d stake my life on it,” he replied. He scowled. “I think we both know who hired them.”

Honor shuddered. “No witnesses. Can’t prove it.”

“No, I don’t reckon we can.” He straightened and looked down at her. “I’ll send a telegram to your husband tomorrow morning and get him back here on the next train. Right now you need to sleep and let your body heal.”

Honor watched him pour some laudanum from a brown stoppered bottle into a glass. He gently slid his left hand beneath her head to lift and support it, and held the rim of the glass carefully to her lips so she could swallow. The liquid opiate stung the cuts in her mouth, but she grimaced and drank it all down like an obedient child, seeking blissful oblivion.

Then she closed her eyes. Sensing a benevolent, protective presence watching over her like a guardian angel, she allowed herself to drift off into a safe, dreamless sleep.

Once Honor was asleep, LaRouche stalked out of the room. He closed the door and leaned heavily against it, breathing deeply until he could control his murderous rage.

He went out to the stable, with its dark, comforting smell of hay and horses, and began brushing Comanche, his chestnut gelding, who regarded his master out of reproachful, sleepy eyes, but snuffled softly through his nose in welcome and submitted to the grooming.

LaRouche brushed the horse’s neck with long, firm strokes until his anger subsided. Damon Delancy had always kidded him about wearing out a horse’s hide, but LaRouche figured that grooming his horse was a productive outlet for whatever ate at his insides. His horse got a glossy coat, and someone stayed alive.

He thought of the woman in the guest room and rested his forehead against Comanche’s neck for a moment.

“Why in God’s name did they have to do that to her?” At least he had been able to help her. Sybilla had died alone, knowing that the man she loved would never come.

He brushed and brushed and brushed, then returned to the house to doze in a chair by Honor’s bedside while she slept soundly, one hand curled between her breasts where her locket usually hung. Whenever some noise disturbed him and he jerked awake, he would look at her poor battered face and his heart would ache for her. Brave woman.

At daybreak he saddled Comanche and headed for Central Park, where he knew he would find Gordon Graham taking his usual morning ride.

The treed area of the park was deserted at this ungodly hour, save for a few hardy souls pretending they were riding through the wilderness. LaRouche found a secluded spot near a big oak tree, where there would be no witnesses, and waited. Five minutes later Graham came riding down the path right on time.

He stopped his horse when he saw LaRouche, but said nothing, obviously remembering their confrontation at the opera.

LaRouche stared at the other man, searching for any sign of guilt or remorse, but all he saw was a face as guileless as a choirboy’s.

You heartless bastard, he thought.

“Morning, Gordon,” he said amiably, deciding that the element of surprise would give him a distinct advantage over the bigger, heavier man. “Fine morning for a ride, isn’t it? Not a soul around.”

“Just one two-faced son of a bitch,” Graham replied.

LaRouche wanted to inflict on Graham every punishment his boys had inflicted on Honor Davis. Pay him back blow for blow.

He touched his heel to Comanche’s side and rode forward as if to move past him. When he was within reach, he pulled up his horse and his fist shot out, hitting a startled Graham hard in the mouth, unbalancing him so that he tumbled out of the saddle.

LaRouche dismounted, rubbed his skinned knuckles, and waited for the other man to haul himself to his feet. Then he hit him again, harder. First a split lip, now a black eye. This time Graham was ready for him. He recoiled from the blow with a grunt, but came back swinging. LaRouche didn’t move fast enough, and pain exploded in one side of his face. He ruthlessly pushed the discomfort aside with practiced ease and drove his fist as hard as he could into Graham’s stomach.