Honor (23 page)

With a “woof” of surprise, the bigger man went crashing to earth like a felled redwood, clutching his middle and trying desperately to suck air into his lungs.

Savoring the sweet taste of victory, LaRouche hunkered down beside him. “I don’t hold with beating women.” He rose, his lip curled in a contemptuous sneer. “I would break a few of your ribs, but unlike your boys, I don’t kick a man when he’s down.”

He mounted his horse and rode away without looking back.

Honor didn’t awake until afternoon.

She opened her one good eye to find her host dressed and standing patiently at the foot of her bed. She wondered how long he had been watching with the quiet intensity that so unnerved her.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

It still hurt to talk, so she spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “A little better.”

“I’m right glad to hear that.”

“Where’s…Robert?”

“I sent him a telegram. He should be here in another hour.” LaRouche rounded the bed. “Since you can’t be moved, he can stay here until you get better. There’s plenty of room in this pile of stone, and it’s real quiet with the Delancys gone.”

The unguarded wistfulness in his voice made Honor blurt out, “You miss them?”

She caught him unawares, for his lean cheeks colored slightly. “’Course I do. They’re my friends.” Then he retreated into polite silence.

Honor took a deep breath. “Can’t impose.”

He gave her a superior masculine look. “You’re not going anywhere until you’re better, ma’am, so don’t even waste your breath arguing. I stopped by your office and told that clerk of yours what happened. He’s feeling right guilty that he left you alone, but he said he’ll hold the fort down until you get back.”

“Not his fault.” For the first time, Honor noticed the bruise on LaRouche’s left cheekbone. “What happened to you?”

“This?” He touched his cheek and winced. “Ran into a door.” His unwavering gaze defied her to contradict him.

“A door named Gordon?”

His mustache twitched as he suppressed a triumphant smile. “If you think I look bad, you should see the door.”

Heat infused Honor’s cheeks, for she didn’t want to be beholden to this man for anything. She certainly didn’t want him thrashing people on her behalf, no matter how richly they deserved it.

She looked at him. “Shouldn’t have.”

The laughter in his eyes faded. “I do regret not giving your husband first crack at him, and I hope he won’t hold it against me.”

Honor remembered Hubert Adcock in Pudding Weymouth’s class and wondered what Robert would do.

“Graham will press charges against you,” she said.

LaRouche widened his eyes innocently. “Poor Graham. I hear he was attacked by thieves while taking his morning ride in Central Park. Shame there were no witnesses.”

Frustrated and angry even as she was grateful to him, Honor shook her head. “Why did you do it?”

“Sometimes you don’t find justice in a courtroom, ma’am.”

Robert turned ashen when he first saw her.

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered. He sat by Honor’s bedside, grasped her hand, and pressed it to his cheek. He clenched his teeth to keep from breaking down. “LaRouche told me what happened. Thank God you’re alive.”

“LaRouche thinks Gordon Graham hired the thugs who did this.”

Robert released her hand and rose. “Damn it, Honor, if you hadn’t taken Mrs. Graham’s case, you never would have angered her husband and this never would have happened to you. A powerful man like Graham doesn’t like being crossed. What were you thinking of?”

His words hurt more than her bruises. Honor stared at him, aghast. “Are you saying that this is my fault? That I brought this on myself?” She took a deep breath. “Robert, how could you? My own husband!”

He took her hand, and she didn’t have the strength to pull away. “Don’t excite yourself, my dear. Of course it’s not your fault. I didn’t mean to imply that it was. You’re my wife. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Somehow his declarations rang hollow, and she knew he was just mouthing what she wanted to hear. She averted her head and closed her good eye. “Please leave. I’m tired.” She wanted him out of sight.

Robert kissed her on the cheek and left.

Lying there alone with her thoughts, Honor wondered why Nevada LaRouche had felt compelled to thrash his friend. Honor meant nothing to him. She was the outspoken, unconventional wife of one of his employees, nothing more. He could have looked the other way and denied Graham’s responsibility, thus keeping his friendship. But he had chosen to end it by siding with Honor.

The man frankly puzzled her; He had admitted to breaking the law on several occasions and had helped the Delancys escape to England. Yet Honor’s beating had outraged him and he had avenged her.

No man had defended her since Robert took on Hubert Adcock, but that seemed a lifetime ago.

Still, LaRouche was wrong about one point: justice could be found in a courtroom, as Gordon Graham would soon discover.

Chapter Twelve

“I’d like to see a mirror, please,” Honor said to her host.

Five days had passed since the brutal attack. Honor could now breathe deeply and smile without excruciating pain. Though she had risen to use the bathroom where, oddly enough, there wasn’t a mirror to be seen, she hadn’t the courage to face her reflection in the shiny faucets. Now she was ready.

Standing at the foot of the bed with his thumbs hooked in his belt and his weight resting on his right hip, Nevada LaRouche regarded her solemnly. “Not just yet.”

Honor managed a small smile to hide her self-consciousness at being alone in a bedchamber with a strange man. “Do I look that bad?”

He returned her smile. “Better, but I’d give it a few more days.”

She toyed with the lace running down the front of Catherine Delancy’s bed jacket. “I promise I won’t scream or swoon.”

“I don’t expect you would, ma’am, but you’d feel bad, and that might keep you from healing.”

To hide how much his gentle concern disconcerted her, Honor said lightly, “I’m sure I’ll be fine in no time, Mr. LaRouche, and out of your house once and for all.”

He removed his thumbs from his belt and straightened, looking oddly crestfallen.

“You’re no burden, Mrs. Davis. I’m right sorry if I’ve made you feel that way.”

“You haven’t,” she said hurriedly. “You and your staff have been kindness itself to me. But it’s time my husband and I stopped imposing on your generous hospitality.” Robert especially, who spoke of nothing but the marble floors, the mahogany furniture, and the army of servants at his beck and call.

“You’re not imposing,” LaRouche said. “You’re staying until you heal, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

Honor’s gaze slid over to a carved rose on the bedpost. “I don’t know what to say.”

He flashed her a wide white smile. “Lawyers aren’t often at a loss for words, are they?” He consulted his pocket watch. “Time for me to go to the office.”

LaRouche wished her a good day and left.

Alone, Honor lay back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling. Since the assault, she had seen another side to Nevada LaRouche, an unexpected sensitivity so at odds with his untamed personality. He had taken her to his home and cared for her. He had avenged her by fighting Gordon Graham. Several nights ago, when he thought she was sleeping, he had quietly removed both the mirror over the dressing table and the one near the bathroom sink just so she wouldn’t glimpse her battered face.

“You’re a man of many surprises,” she said to no one in particular as she rose carefully and took a few tentative steps across the room.

She wondered if Nevada LaRouche would ever demand that his wife lie for him or violate her principles so as not to offend someone powerful.

Such heretical thoughts made her feel disloyal to her own husband, but they refused to remain submerged and floated to the top of her consciousness. Robert had asked her to keep her profession a secret from his employers. Robert had discouraged her from handling Lillie Troy’s suit and Genevra Graham’s divorce because he was afraid of offending someone and hurting his own career. What had stripped the veil of illusion from her eyes once and for all was his thoughtless and unforgivable intimation that if she hadn’t angered Gordon Graham, she wouldn’t have been beaten.

Honor stopped before a window overlooking Fifth Avenue and caught her reflection in the glass. “Not bad, Honor old girl,” she mused when she saw the pattern of fading purple and yellow bruises. “He needn’t have removed the mirrors.”

Still, she appreciated the gesture.

Nevada LaRouche tried to concentrate on the cablegrams from London spread across his desk, but Honor Davis continued to haunt him.

He put up his feet on the desk, leaned back in the swivel chair, laced his hands behind his head, and stared into space. That exasperating woman had insinuated herself into his thoughts from the moment she had boldly strode into his office with the news that Lillie Troy intended to sue him. He had a weakness for strong, courageous women with high principles, and he hadn’t met one like Honor Davis since Sybilla.

LaRouche sighed. Damn shame she was another man’s wife. He had never poached on another man’s preserve, and he wasn’t about to start now. It wasn’t right.

No sooner did he take his feet off the desk than a knock sounded on the door. When he bade the caller enter and his worried-looking assistant appeared, LaRouche sensed trouble brewing. “Something wrong, Goddard?”

“Yes, sir,” Goddard replied. “We lost the refinery. Cavanaugh outbid us.”

LaRouche sat back in his chair. “That’s impossible. Our bid was more than generous. No one could have possibly topped us.”

“Well, Cavanaugh did, but not by much.”

“Damn!” LaRouche rose and paced around the room. “He couldn’t have.”

“I’m afraid he did, sir.”

LaRouche stopped. “He’s always so cautious.”

“Not this time.” Goddard opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it.

LaRouche looked at him. “If you have something to say, spit it out before you choke on it.”

Goddard said, “It’s almost as if he knew what our bid would be.”

LaRouche went still. “Are you saying that you think Cavanaugh had inside information?”

“I can’t prove it yet, but yes, I do.”

“Do you have any suspects?”

“Not yet.”

“When you do, let me know.”

Goddard gave a worried bob of his head and left.

LaRouche swore under his breath. So someone in his own company, a trusted employee, had been supplying information to competitors. Delancy had been counting on this refinery deal going through, and he wasn’t going to be pleased to hear that it hadn’t.

LaRouche smiled grimly to himself. At least such a crisis would keep his mind off the intriguing Honor Davis.

As the days passed and July slid effortlessly into August, Honor’s fading bruises finally disappeared and she was able to get back to work on
Graham v. Graham.

Since Gordon Graham had already forcefully demonstrated to Honor what his wealth and power could do, she remained nervous and on edge, wondering just what he would do next to thwart his wife’s plan to divorce him. Pay his mistress to disappear? No, Elroy reported that the lovely Araminta deGrey remained a defiant resident of the Spanish Flats, though she surely knew by now that she would be named correspondent in court. Would Graham bribe the night attendant and the tenants who were willing to swear that they had seen him entering and leaving Miss deGrey’s apartment in the evening? Elroy said they all claimed no one had approached them about changing their stories, and they were still willing to testify.

He obviously thought Honor could not prove that his wife had grounds to divorce him. When she met his lawyer, she knew why.

Honor felt the eyes of a dozen clerks following her as she walked to Salem Frick’s office.

“So that’s the lady lawyer everyone’s talking about,” one of them said, making no attempt to keep from being overheard.

“She is a stunner,” another said.

“Looks won’t save her,” a third added. “When the boss gets through with her, she’ll know why they call him Frick the Prick.”

The clerks snickered openly, and Honor felt her cheeks grow hot, but she kept her head held high and her back ramrod straight as she ran their gauntlet of stares.

Her burning face cooled by the time she was shown into Frick’s private office, a cavernous, lavishly appointed room at least ten times the size of Honor’s.

The very best money can buy, she thought.

“Mrs. Davis to see you, Mr. Frick,” the male secretary announced.

“Send her in.”

When the secretary nodded and left, Honor saw one man seated behind a mahogany desk wider than Nevada LaRouche’s and another seated in a leather club chair. When he turned, Honor saw that it was none other than Gordon Graham.