Night Winds (26 page)

“King!” Alberta continued
. “Listen to that. That fool mare’s run all the way to Mary’s room. She’ll crash right through a window! She’ll ruin Mary Shae’s things!”

Mary Shae
.
King ran his fingertips along the dark wood and lifted them. They came away bright red.

“I never meant to hurt her,” he mumbled to himself
. “I never meant to fire. The horse banged into me, an
d
”

“

Hurt her? What are you talking about?” his sister asked. “You never touched a hair on Glennis, no matter how much she deserved it.”

Alberta must have noticed the blood then, for he heard her gasp behind him
. As always, she masked her shock with quick denial. “Mary Shae wasn’t shot. You couldn’t have possibly hit either of them. You saw them both run out of here. Maybe the window cut one of them when it brok
e
or maybe it’s Delilah’s blood. Lord knows she might have hurt herself plowing through that stall door.”

“I hurt Mary,” King insisted
. To all else he was numb. “She’ll never believe I didn’t mean it. She’ll never believe another word I say.”

“Bad blood,” Alberta countered
. “I’ve told you all along, she has bad blood. The girl’s the spitting image of that slut you were so rash as to marry. We tried to save her from that blood, but it was no good. She’s Irish trash just like her mother.”

“No
! Mary’s as much mine as hers,” King roared. “You’ve only to look at her paintings or watch her crafting jewelry to know that. I won’t jus
t
I can’t just let her go.”

Alberta cocked her head toward the clatter of hooves drifting down the stairwell
. “I’d venture you’ll have an easier time getting that horse off the second floor than getting Mary Shae back here again. She’s gone, Samuel, and the sooner you face that, the better off you’ll be.”

Outside, a gust of wind sprayed more rainwater through the open door
. The drops that splattered on his face tasted of salt. Waves broke in the flooded street, as if it were the gulf itself.

King said nothing, but he knew Alberta was dead wrong
. Because he’d risk everything to bring his daughter home, to show her he still loved her. But how that chance would cost him, how it would cost both him and his daughter, once he told the truth. He bowed his head, thinking of the secret he had kept for six long years.

And thinking of the murderer that secret would destroy.

Ethan stared, brooding, into gusts of rain that formed silvery explosions along the high back of the west wing’s rooftop
. Today, there would be no solace aboard the
El Dorado
, though his hands ached to play rough line out, to curve his calluses against the smooth brass of the wheel.

Turning from the window, he strode toward the bar area built into his father’s study and poured himself a second bourbon.

“Bit early for all that, don’t you think?” Augustus Lowell, his father, frowned over the edge of the
Port Providence News
. His leather chair creaked as he adjusted his growing bulk in it. Other than the weight put on by a combination of rich food and his sixth decade, he still looked sharp and fi
t
likely to live well beyond the point when Ethan felt ready to inherit.

“You wanted me?” Ethan trie
d
and faile
d
to blunt the edge of irritation in his voice. He despised being summoned into Father’s study as if he were no more than a servant or an errant schoolboy. He poured twice as much bourbon as usual, partly to blunt his restlessness but mainly in reaction to his father’s comment.

“As the weather is keeping us both in this morning, I thought you’d like to chat about our national affairs
. Those dreadful savages, standing in the way of progress farther west, perhaps, or the idea of investing in a Montana copper mine. Or perhaps some
other
affair occupies your mind of late.” He folded the newspaper and laid it down, then stared across the desk. Augustus Lowell’s raised eyebrow added one last touch to what Ethan thought the perfect picture of paternal condescension. “I spoke with Raymond Tisdale at the Hammonds’ oyster party last evening. He seemed pleased that we’d be ‘in-laws’ soon. Not wanting to seem ill-informed about a matter of such importance, I managed to disguise my astonishment.”

“I’m going to marry Rachel.”

“I gathered as much. Rather sudden, isn’t it? And I take it from the swollen nose and black eyes that your friend, Phillip, was less than pleased about this new turn of events?”

Ethan recalled the humiliating scene at the apartment, Shae clawing at his face, then slamming his nose with the heel of her hand
. Not long afterward, dark circles began pooling beneath his gray eyes. Thinking of it made the well-appointed study feel hot and the air stagnant.

“That’s right
. He wasn’t,” Ethan managed. For that was true as well, and there was no need to let his father know that his most visible wounds were a woman’s handiwork.

“I can’t say I’m displeased by your choice
. The Tisdales are a fine family. Raymond is highly respected in the banking industry, and his wife is an accomplished hostess. Much more our sort of people than those Rowans.” Disdain soured his last two words, as if he were speaking of itinerant performers. He had often remarked that Mary Shae’s temperaments and talents made her more suitable to take her place within some Gypsy caravan than refined society. He found her father a man disposed to fawning in public and fuming in private, a contemptible pretender in his view.

“I’m certain you and Mother will find Rachel quite engaging.”

“Yes, yes, I’m certain that’s the case,” his father said distractedly, as if the woman herself meant little, as long as she and her family conformed to social expectations. “However, I admit I find your haste rather perplexing, and I’m especially discomfited by the thought that you may have taken what did not belong to you. A Lowell does not steal. And from a friend, no less. Despite his miscalculation with the Negro workers, I’ve always found Phillip Payton an upright and admirable young man, a positive influence against your more troublesome aspects.”

Ethan felt an angry churning in his stomach, which he tried to douse with a quick gulp of straight bourbon
. For as long as he’d known Phillip, his father had been impressed with his own former comrade, Lamar Payton’s, heir. Augustus Lowell claimed, loudly and often, that Lamar had never realized what a fine son he had sired.

Hearing it again made Ethan want to crawl into the nearest bottle, cork its mouth behind him, and float far from this city
. Maybe off to India, he thought, as he glanced toward the monsoon-like rains beyond the window.

“You’ll be pleased to know that Phillip and Shae are consoling each other admirably,” he reported.

“He’s not getting himself involved with her? Well, at least I’d warrant Phillip’s wise enough to realize the girl’s mistress material and not fit to take to wife. I would have thought, with your upbringing, you would have realized that as well. Female artists fall into the same category as those actresses and singers you’ve been known to fancy. Diversionary in nature, and ill-suited to the tasks of entertaining peers and raising heirs.”

Ethan thought that, all in all, he’d rather stand out in the tempest than listen to more of his father’s overblown opinions
. Didn’t the pompous ass know that every word he spoke against Shae inflamed his desire for her?

He thought back to a day last month when he’d taken Shae aboard the
El Dorado
. August’s heat hung like a veil above the mirrored surface of the water, and the sails fell slack for hours.

Staring at the gulf, Shae remarked, “I wonder how we’d look from down there, to a fish.”

Some minutes later, while he’d been trying his hand at fishing off the bow, the man he’d hired to help him with the rigging had shouted at a splash. Ethan dropped his pole and grabbed a nearby life ring. But Shae, rising, broke the surface and grinned at her unexpected mischief like a dolphin. Somehow, while treading water, she had managed to slip out of her petticoats. When she tossed the sodden mass onto the deck, Ethan wanted to pull his Irish mermaid from the gulf, to make love to her then and there.

But she’d never responded to him that way, never allowed him inside her on any level
. As he’d gazed into her sparkling green eyes, he sensed only her delight at what he suspected must be a painting taking shape within.

Now when he thought of her, he imagined a lovely, fragrant garden surrounded by a fence of filigree
. He could see her colors, smell them, but despite the barrier’s beauty, it stood impenetrable, an ornate defense with an imperceptible entrance.

Oh, and even now, what he would give to get inside!

He focused on his vision, then imagined Shae reaching inside her bodice, then drawing out a golden key depending from the most delicate of chains. She lifted it over her red-gold mane, and then she smiled a welcome and handed it to . . .

She handed it to Phillip
. Ethan watched him rush inside her garden, watched him embrace her with such passion that her clothing seemed to melt away.

But outside of the fence, he stood not alone
. Beside him, his father, also watching, rose from his park bench and applauded the obscene spectacle developing inside. Oleander petals fluttered out between the golden bars.

“Etha
n
you’re woolgathering in a cotton port, my boy.” His father’s admonition abruptly drew him to the present. “You weren’t listening.”

Ethan settled into a studded leather chair to watch the rain and lifted his half-empty tumbler
. “Dulls the hearing.”

“I suppose
. What I said was will you please help Mother entertain our guests?” Augustus hadn’t called his wife by her given name, Ophelia, in recent memory.

“What guests?”

“Those insufferably proud Cullens. Cullen sent ahead his half-drowned manservant to say the family was in need of solid shelter. If the Cullens feel their ‘castle’ might not stand against this weather, there could be more to this blow than the usual. Mother has set the staff to cooking, preparing sandwiches, and such. If I know her, she’ll invite in even the indigent if they appear to be in crisis. And she’s quite right, of course. We can’t very well have people drowning on our doorstep. You might tell her I’ll be down just after I prepare some inquiries about the mooring of our ships in port.”

Though Ethan doubted his father would leave his study while the Cullens were visiting, he promised to relay the message
. When he left, however, instead of going to his mother, he climbed the steps to the third floor. The vivid images of Shae had left him more unsettled than ever. He needed something more extreme than liquor to purge her from his consciousness.

Luck was with him, and he managed to catch Sally, the upstairs maid’s assistant, in his bedroom changing sheets
. After favoring him with a coquettish smile, she bent to smooth a rumple. Her rear end looked appealing, even within the confines of her stark black uniform.

He closed the door.

“Oh!” she gasped in feigned horror. “I’ve been warned against this very situation. Miss Hatter thinks you’re quite the predator.”

Ethan wrinkled his nose at the thought of the shrewish head upstairs maid
. “The old hag’s only bitter because when she runs around my bed, I won’t chase her.”

Sally’s lashes fluttered like gold moths’ wings. “If you chased me, I might not run.”

Ethan took her statement as an invitation.

Soon, the girl’s pretty, heart-shaped face glowed pink with his flattery, and even her small breasts took up her blush
. A few minutes later, her honey-colored hair splayed across his pillow. She laughed and said she hadn’t counted on making up the bed anew so soon. At only sixteen, she apparently found bedding her employer’s son fit some wild delusion of advancement. She said she’d been thinking of it for some time.

But his victory felt hollow, and the blood he shed, when he so roughly took the fool
ish maid's virginity, bought no one redemption. No redemption for the girl he’d used, and no release for him, for the memory of Shae rose to the surface, her slim, near-bare legs kicking expanding ripples on the glassy surface of a windless gulf.

*

The unkempt condition of Claire Oliver’s front garden was at last shielded from the prying eyes of disapproving neighbors. The yard she’d once so prized lay beneath the same relentless waters that covered far more manicured lawns. For the street had grown into a gray-brown waterway, one widening with each wave that pounded past the gulf beach, blocks away.

The wind had picked up somewhat, deepening Shae’s dread
. As bad as the storm was now, she sensed the worst now slamming toward them.

Phillip had to shout beside her ear to make himself heard above the pounding rain and howling winds
. “I’ll take the horses around to the back. Current’s too strong to leave them in the street. I’ll be right in to help you.”

“I’ll hurry, too!” Shae promised.

She waded from the carriag
e
now up past its axles and leaking over the floorboard
s
toward the front door, while wavelets broke over porch’s leading edge. Glancing back toward Phillip, she saw that the gray saddle horse tied behind the carriage was rapidly losing its battle against panic. Its eyes rolled so that even from this distance, Shae could see the white rims, and it squealed and struggled desperately against its bonds. The team of sorrels that led the rig began prancing nervously as well, as if the other horse’s fear was a contagion.

Phillip had his hands full with the animals
. She knew she couldn’t count on him to help. She’d have to move quickly to retrieve the dog, the jewelry, and her mother’s portrai
t
which she hoped to save despite the deluge.

Even as she climbed onto the porch, the water quickly rose
. Within minutes, Shae realized, the flood would rush into the house. Clutching her wounded hand against her chest, she strode toward the front door.

With a shriek, she jerked back suddenly, quickly shuffling her feet
. Fortunately, the trio of snakes that had found refuge on the raised porch reacted to their meeting with even less enthusiasm. The brown-banded copperheads slithered off the porch into the water, presumably to swim to some less-populated higher ground.

Her mother had once remarked on Ireland’s lack of snakes
. To Shae that sounded like one of the country’s greatest selling points. This flooding would stir up every copperhead and water moccasin on the peninsula.

A larger wave struck the porch and broke over the wood railing
. As Shae opened the door, foamy water cascaded into the small house’s parlor.

Its leading edge soaked the blue carpet, already stained with a dark puddle of blood
. Beside it, Jasper lay on his side, a dime-sized, red hole on his forehead, his paws splayed in an awkward attitude of death.

The hole between the dog’s eyes doubtless matched the one through her own palm
. Lifting that hand toward her mouth, Shae sobbed anew. Dear Lord. Jasper had only been a little dog. Why would her father want to kill him?

She thought again of kneeling in the grass by her front walk, weeping over her dead finches
. Then her mind spun further back, to the day her father coldly informed her that her mother had “run off.” Old tears and old pain, rekindled by this latest outrage.