“I’m here on legitimate business this time, Mr. Morrison. I came to cover your party for my society editor.” Duffy produced a small notepad and pencil from his inner breast pocket. He moistened the pencil tip with his tongue and affected to write. “Now what did Mrs. Van Hallsburg wear today—puce?”
Zeke glowered and snatched the pencil away. “Get out of here. Don’t you have anything better to do than hang about my house and bother me?”
“No.” Duffy grinned. “Like it or not, you are news, Mr. Morrison. The mysterious tycoon of Millionaire’s Row. You can’t just breeze into this town, buy up a whole block, build yourself a castle, and expect not to attract attention.”
Zeke sucked in his breath with an impatient hiss. He collared the reporter and propelled him back toward the door.
“Ow! Watch the coat, Morrison. I still owe money on it, and I already near split my pants climbing your fence.”
“You’re lucky I don’t split your head.”
“All right then. All right! I didn’t just come to cover the party. I was down at the police precinct and heard there was some sort of an accident out here—something about a balloon crash. Did you hire it for your party?”
“No. I don’t provide my guests with cheap circus entertainment.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with cheap entertainment? I like it.”
There had been a time in his life when Zeke would have agreed with him. That he had come across sounding like the kind of snob he despised only added to his annoyance.
As Zeke yanked open the massive front door, Duffy made one last desperate plea. “Aw, come on, Morrison. Do a fellow a favor. Give me a leg up in my career. Just one little interview.”
He tossed out a spate of breathless questions. “Is it true you made your money running a gambling establishment in Chicago? What about the rumor that you were once a New York boy? How about the gossip that you were involved with gangs on the East Side like the Dead Rabbits?”
“You’re going to be a dead duck if I ever catch you trespassing again.” Zeke started to shove him out, but Duffy clung to the door jamb.
“It’s raining buckets out there. You wouldn’t throw a fellow creature out into a storm, would you?”
Zeke would and did.
Duffy went flying, but managed to regain his balance before he fell. Turning back, he glanced toward Zeke, his grin undiminished by the rain beating down on his head.
“Never mind, Morrison. I’ll get my story somehow.”
Turning up his collar, Duffy bounded down the steps, his cheerful exuberance quite unimpaired. As irritated as he was, a half-smile escaped Zeke. Duffy might be as annoying as a green-head fly on a hot day, but brashness and persistence werequalities that Zeke had always admired, perhaps because he possessed a measure of both himself.
Zeke watched until he made sure that Duffy did actually exit from his property, going through the iron gate and down the street. He eased the door closed. Just as the latch clicked into place, he heard a cool feminine voice calling from behind him.
“John?”
He swiveled to observe the woman haloed in the light of the hall chandelier. Everyone else might be damp and disheveled, but Cynthia Van Hallsburg was still a vision of perfection in her silvery-blue frock, the color in tune with her white-blonde hair, the pale blue of her eyes. The Ice Goddess—that was the name the society columns had dubbed one who had long been a reigning beauty among New York’s upper set.
There was definitely winter in the stare that she now turned upon Zeke. “What is the matter now?”
“Nothing,” Zeke replied, coming away from the door. “I was merely convincing Mr. William Duffy that I am not at home to callers.”
“That reporter! I suppose this whole unfortunate affair will end up in the papers tomorrow. Exactly the sort of publicity one most deplores.”
“Oh, I don’t know. With a little digging, Duffy could find far worse things to print about me.”
Mrs. Van Hallsburg frowned. Zeke had learned early on in their acquaintance that the one sure way of ruffling her ice-like serenity was to hint that some elements in his past were less than sterling.
This time she chose to ignore his comment. “You should go in now and attempt to placate your guests. Some of them are still very upset and demanding their carriages be sent for.”
“Well, let them. I take no prisoners.”
When his quip caused her lips to thin, Zeke relented somewhat, adopting a milder tone. “I’m sorry the party got spoiled. I know you worked damned hard to help me bring it off. But you can hardly blame me for what happened.”
“I don’t hold you responsible for what happened, merely how you dealt with it. I think you could have found far better employment for those policemen than having them gorge themselves in your kitchen.”
