“Zeke,” he complained. “Why can’t you ever call me Zeke? You know I prefer it.”
“And I have asked you more than once to call me Cynthia.”
“It seems neither of us is destined to get what we want.” He studied the face of the woman pressed so close to him. The merest hint of lines appeared at the corners of Mrs. VanHallsburg’s eyes. The lovely widow’s age was one of the best-kept secrets in New York.
Zeke knew she was at least ten years older than him, and he had seen his thirtieth birthday last week. Still, she was undeniably beautiful, her figure quite good. He wondered why he didn’t have any of the normal masculine impulses toward her.
He had never once thought of trying to take her to bed. While she fascinated him, something about her repulsed him as well. Perhaps it was her eyes. They were as brilliant as gemstones and almost as hard.
He caught her hands and eased her away from him. “I always thought you were after something more than my smiles, Mrs. Van H. What’s in all this for you? You’re not the sort of woman whose friendship comes without a price. But you don’t need my money. Van Hallsburg left you loaded. Yet I can’t see what else I have to offer you.”
“My dear John, you’re so cynical and so modest as well. Let us just say that I regard you as an unbroken stallion, wild and rugged, but a thoroughbred for all that. As I have told you before, you remind me—perhaps too much—of my brother, Stephen. You even look like?—”
She checked what she had been about to say, turning away from him. A shadow crossed her features, a brief second of rare vulnerability.
Zeke knew little about Mrs. Van Hallsburg’s older brother other than that the man had met an untimely death several years ago. The lady did not mention him often.
“You must miss your brother a great deal,” Zeke said awkwardly. He had never been good at consoling other people in their grief.
“Miss my brother?” Mrs. Van Hallsburg echoed the words as though surprised by them. “Yes, I suppose I was rather fond of Stephen.”
Zeke had never heard affection expressed so coldly. As though she realized that she sounded heartless, she hastened to explain, “Stephen could try one’s patience to the limits. He was a complete devil with women, you know.”
She gave a brittle laugh. “Actresses! Dance hall girls. He couldn’t keep away from them. It was my great dread he would actually marry one of the low creatures.”
“That would have been unfortunate, I suppose.”
“I would have known how to deal with it.” She said this so quietly, but something in her manner chilled Zeke’s blood.
She appeared to regret having confided even this much about her brother.
“Enough of these morbid reminiscences,” she said. “I had best return to the drawing room, and try to convince everyone that the next party given at Morrison’s Castle won’t be quite so enervating.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Van H., but I should tend to that myself. You have done more than enough for me already.”
“I don’t mind,” she said, moving toward the door and opening it. “Just as long as you do one thing for me, John.”
“And what might that be?”
Mrs. Van Hallsburg paused on the threshold to glance back at him. “Make sure you get rid of that circus girl.”
Although she smiled when she said it, something in her arctic tones almost made the low-keyed words sound like a warning.
As evening overtook the city, the rain finally stopped. All of Zeke’s guests had at last taken their leave, most with polite smiles, some even with a weak jest, but Zeke doubted that many of them would be eager to come back again. At the moment, he felt too tired to care.
When he saw Cynthia Van Hallsburg off in her carriage, he breathed a sigh of deep relief. He and the lady had parted onamicable enough terms, but Zeke had deliberately held himself aloof.
Maybe it was time to start putting more distance between himself and the lady. Mrs. Van H. was the sort of female who could cage a man, body, mind and soul. Zeke had avoided many traps of that kind, although he conceded Mrs. Van H. was more clever than most. He wished he understood more clearly her motives for befriending him. The conversation they had had in his study continued to disturb him.
Make sure you get rid of that circus girl, John.
He didn’t take kindly to receiving orders from anyone, especially one that smacked faintly of a threat. Yet he was probably making too much of the remark. Likely Mrs. Van H. had been exercising a woman’s infernal prerogative. Didn’t they always have to get in the last word?
Mrs. Van H. had been right in one respect. He was going to have to do something about Miss Kavanaugh. When he noticed Wellington ambling toward the kitchen, likely intent upon securing his own supper now that the hubbub had died, Zeke flagged the man down. “Where is that little gal from the circus? Has she come down yet?”
“Why, no, sir. I put her into your room.”
“My room!”
