Night Winds (16 page)

Shae nodded stiffly, embarrassed as always by attention to her art
. Then she gestured toward the bed.

Phillip sat down on it
. Shae hesitated for a moment, until exhaustion convinced her to ignore her misgivings and sit down as well.

“Before you start, is there someone we could trust to take a message?” Phillip asked.

“I’m afraid that I don’t know the neighbors, but I do have a velocipede stored out back. Maybe I could slip out later,” Shae said. “Now let me see this.”

Phillip peeled away the handkerchief and peered grimly at his wound
. “You might have been right about bandaging my mouth. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place.”

“Really
? From the little that I heard, I thought it might have been convictions. Here, let me have a look at that.” Shae helped him remove his jacket, which he accomplished with a groan. She draped it over one of the sofa’s overstuffed arms.

“I still can’t see it well enough
. Take off your shirt, too,” she ordered.

His gaze, dark and intent, sought hers and held it
. Shae could no more look away than the sea could escape the moon’s allure.

“The bullet only cut across it,” Phillip said after a pause just long enough to qualify as awkward
. “Let’s not get hysterical.”

“Who’s hysterical?” she snapped
. “Don’t you think we ought to see the damage? Or are you afraid of me? Do you think a ‘woman of m
y
type’ simply pounces upon any exposed male flesh?”

His laughter, the spark in those hazel eyes, made her unreasonably angry
. Damn his arrogance!

Even as the thought slid through her tired mind, Shae knew she was wrong
. But right now she didn’t give a tinker’s damn. She could be right later, or fair to him, at least. For now, she only wanted out of all this, this entanglement with problems other than her own, this preposterous attraction at the very worst of times.

“Come now, Dr. Payton
. Surely a man of your training knows this is necessary.”

His expression darkened
. “Not ‘Doctor,’ please, Shae. That portion of my life is over.”

At her nod, Phillip unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off
. The appeal of his bare chest, surprisingly well-muscled with its scant curls of dark hair, was barely offset by the bloody gash across the top of his left shoulder. Shae’s fingers ached to touch, to comfort him.

Or was other than compassion stirring in her
? She felt too aware of their closeness, of the fact that they were alone in a bedroom. Her imagination drew a ragged shudder from her body.

“It looks that bad?” Phillip asked.

She had never felt such relief to be misunderstood. With a quick bob of her head, she answered, “That’s going to be sore. Let me clean this and see if I can make an alum paste to stop the bleeding.”

She retrieved a bowl of water from the kitchen.Phillip hissed through his teeth as Shae began to clean the wound.

“I’m sorry. We could try witch hazel, or I’m certain that Claire had some laudanum.”

“Had?”

Shae nodded. “She died about a month ago. A cancer. Luciu
s
her husban
d
”

She couldn’t say it, couldn’t say that he’d died, too, just yesterday
. Not in this room, with the crushed porcelain dancer still lying on the floor. But Shae’s face betrayed her; her lips quivered like a baby’s, and in a moment the heavy seas inside her burst through the levee of control. She turned her head as if to hide her tears, as if the choked sounds in her throat could be anything but weeping.

His arms encircled her, and she was conscious of his bare flesh against her body, yet too miserable to focus on anything but grief
. For a few moments, at least. Then she carefully tucked in the shredded remnants of her emotions and pulled herself from his embrace.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded rusty, as if the outburst had taken place long, silent weeks ago
. “I should be helping you. You’ve been shot, for heaven’s sake.”

His hand reached out and stroked her hair just once before he drew away
. “Cut a bit. That’s all. I’ll be fine. Now tell me. I have a feeling whatever it is that’s troubling you is as bad as being shot at. What’s happened to your friend? The table’s down, there are shards all over, and the kitchen looks like someone left it in a hurry.”

She worked on his wound without speaking for a while, as she struggled to frame her fear in words, and to balance her family shame with a need for respite
. It had been so long since she’d had anyone to speak to openly that she wasn’t certain how to go about the task. She almost wished instead that she had a wound to show him, or that she could craft some symbol for him, an artifact of pain.

Yes, an artifact
. Once he was cleaned and bandaged, sitting before her as patient as a Buddha, she retrieved her carpetbag, withdrew the cameo, and showed him.

“This was my mother’s,” she explained.

He touched it reverently. “It’s lovely.”

“Someone left it for me yesterday
. Yesterday . . . but it seems so much longer. I think that Lucius did it, because my father fired him. He was our bookkeeper.”

“Why would he have it in the first place?” Phillip asked.

Shae shrugged. “I wanted t
o
I needed to ask that, but I couldn’t come here right away. There were so many questions, hard questions that I’ve been keeping inside for so long. I confronted Aunt Alberta first.”

“Judging from the one time that I met her, that couldn’t have been easy.”

“You’re right. She wouldn’t answer me. And then I saw these.” Shae pointed out the brown flecks in the filigree. “Do you thin
k
do you think they could be blood?”

Phillip stared hard, as if he were at least considering the possibility
. She felt weak with gratitude. For so long, she’d been dismissed by King, by Aunt Alberta, even by Ethan when it mattered.

“I can’t tell
. It could be, or it could be old dirt, even flecks of paint.”

Shae couldn’t look at him as she put her worst fear into words
. “I think he might have killed my mother.”

“This Lucius
? This
friend
?” Phillip asked.

She shook her head
. “My father.”

Phillip looked stunned, yet relief flooded through her. She had finally put this terror into words and told someone
. It felt as though a glowing coal had burned inside her heart, and now she was passing it to Phillip. She was so relieved to be free of the secret’s heat, it took her several long moments to find her voice once more.

Phillip didn’t speak, as if he sensed she wasn’t finished
. Or as if he were too astonished to form words.

“When I finally got the courage to come see Lucius about the necklace this morning, he was gone,” she said
. “And then my father came here. He said that Lucius died last evening. King claimed he thought it was his heart.”

“Oh, Shae . . .”

“I was so upset. I accused my father of killing him because he sent me the cameo. Of killing Mother, too.”

“Good Lord
. What did he say?”

“He hit me . . . and then I ran away and went to Ethan
. I needed to find out how Lucius really died, and I needed help.” She dropped her gaze, ashamed of her decision. “I wanted to find you, but I was too frightene
d
too shy, I suppose. I know it must sound foolish, but I didn’t think I had another choice except to go to him.”

She didn’t protest as he wrapped his arms around her once again
. It felt so good to lean into his strength.

*

When a man was violently attacked, his mind did strange things. Phillip knew that from his brief career in medicine. He’d seen men do all sorts of foolish things just after being stitched up from a fight. Some grew belligerent, some pensive, others tearful. But he felt nothing but relief. Relief he had escaped with Shae, so he could help her to face this. As he held her, protectiveness surged through him, edged him past the burning pain.

“You’ll never have to go to him again,” he promised
. “To either Ethan or your father. I swear it.”

“You’re right
. I won’t.” She moved away from him and scooped the cameo into her hand, then wrapped her fingers around it tightly. “I’m going to find out what really happened. I’ll check first at the infirmary. I have to know how Lucius died. And if my father’s lying, I don’t care what becomes of me. I’m going to make him pay for taking Mother from me.”

“I’ll help you, Shae
. I promise.”

“You don’t have enough troubles of your own?”

He shrugged, a careless gesture that hurt enough to make his breath catch in his throat. When he recovered, he said, “You at least have some idea what to do with yours.”

“I might know, but I’m afraid
. I keep worrying about what might happen. Do you think about that, too? Do you even know who is out to kill you?”

He shook his head
. “I’ve been receiving unsigned threats. I didn’t take them seriously enough, it seems. As you probably guessed, whoever wrote them wants me to change my hiring practices.”

“What might happen if you don’t give in to them
? Next time, they might kill you, Phillip.”

He nodded, wishing she would change the subject
. He didn’t need her disapproval too. “I’m in this hole so deep now, I can’t even imagine what the sky might look like, much less how I could scramble out. Or even if I’d want to. I know I may have cost my fellow businessmen some money, and I know I’ve hurt the white dock workers’ pride, but I gave those men my word.”

“Those Negroes?”

“They are men,” Phillip corrected, “and I gave them my word.”

Her smile looked like admiration
. “Aha. I was right, then. This
is
about convictions, and I’m glad. But it’s about your life, too.”

“My life, my business, the well-being of my family
. Thank you for reminding me of all my worries.” Tiredly, he swung his feet onto the bed.

“Will you send for the police?”

He shook his head after remembering not to shrug this time. “Half of them would cheer the shooter, I’m afraid. The only people I’d like to get word to are my sisters. They’ll worry if they hear about this before I tell them.”

She leaned into his embrace, as if she belonged there
. For a long time, each drew strength from the other, as the warmth of early afternoon took its groggy toll. “Too dangerous to go out,” she explained, her cheek pressed to his chest.

The last thing he remembered hearing, before he fell asleep, was her voice.

“Phillip,” she whispered, sounding as sleepy as he felt. “Don’t you worry. I’ll help you, too. I promise.”

*

Lydia’s movements had the brittle edge they often did when she was nervous. She paced the floor, a habit borrowed from their brother.

This time, Justine didn’t move to comfort her
. Instead, she frowned over the letter she’d been writing Mother. She’d let the ink pool in the middle of the page.

“Mr. Frindly never sends a message unless something serious has happened
. He hasn’t seen Phillip all morning,” Lydia repeated. “You should have kept our brother here.”

Justine crumpled up the letter
. “How? Once he makes up his mind about something, who has ever convinced him to change it?”

“Father.”

“Father had to
die
to get Phillip to change his mind and run the business. I thought that method too extreme. Phillip’s hurt and angry. He wants to be alone, that’s all.” Justine rose, then hobbled over to the box where she was keeping Shae Rowan’s finch.

She loosened the string around the top and raised the cheesecloth to peek in
. The bird peered up at her, its head cocked, its orange-cheeked expression so comical she had to smile.

Phillip, please be with Shae now
, Justine hoped. Helping her was right, and doing right would bolster the part of him that Ethan and this controversy had defeated.

“What if he attacks Etha
n
or does something even worse?” Lydia’s hands, like the rest of her, could not be still. She kept patting at her hair, giving the impression of the world’s most fidgety coquette. “Maybe we should look for him. We could have Willie drive us.”

“And what would you propose we do if we should find him
? Drag him home like an errant toddler?”

“We could be certain he’s all right
. Then we’ll simply tell him we felt cooped up, and we were just out for a drive. Perhaps we’ll even see some of my alleged friends about.”

“And I could watch you grovel for an invitation that would never come.”