She paced across the room, thrusting her hands deep into the pockets of her cloak. “I didn’t think my investments were in jeopardy until you made this stupid blunder. I told you that I would take care of Mr. Addison, and manage Mr. Morrison as well. You should have waited, Charles.”
“Ha!” Fortified by the brandy coursing through his veins, Decker grew reckless. “You’ve never been much good at managing the men in your life. It’s well known that old Van Hallsburg had more chambermaids in his bed than he had making it. And as for your brother, Stephen, his peccadilloes are legend.”
She whipped back to face him. “Take care what you say about my brother, Charles.”
He should have held his tongue, but he took a certain satisfaction at chipping away some of her icy facade. It soothed the wounds she had dealt to his self-esteem.
“Not the cleverest boy, your brother, Stephen,” he said. “Always fancying himself in love with some opera girl. I’ve heardtell half the orphanages in New York are populated with his bastards.”
“You are changing the subject, Charles. This has nothing to do with your present folly. Your current state of panic has rendered you very undependable, in fact quite a liability to me.”
A liability to her? That was rich, considering it had been he who had included her in the scheme of buying up property cheap on the East Side, forming a lucrative chain of brothels and gaming salons, using his political influence to protect the operations. She would have been nowhere without him. He knew full well how her brother, Stephen, had squandered all the family money, how old Van Hallsburg had never been as wealthy as everyone supposed.
“What are you trying to tell me, Cynthia?” he demanded. “That you want to dissolve our partnership?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I wish.”
“That’s fine with me. I’ll buy you out, write you a check this very night.” Yanking open the desk drawer, he drew forth his checkbook. His hands were shaking so badly with suppressed fury, he nearly dumped over the inkstand as he dipped his pen into it.
“But it’s going to be at a price I name,” he warned. As he started to write the check, he hesitated. He was acting out of anger and wounded pride. The partnership they had shared was one of such long duration and so lucrative, he couldn’t believe she would let it end this way.
When she glided up behind him, he thought she meant to reach down to his hand, guiding the pen over the check and stop him.
But she only murmured, “No, Charles. I fear it is I who must decide the price.”
He started to look up and felt something cold and hard, pressed against his temple. Before he could move or cry out, a loud report echoed through the room.
Decker’s head jerked back. He sagged in his chair, a trickle of crimson spilling down his cheek, his eyes frozen in an expression of surprise.
Cynthia Van Hallsburg didn’t spare him a glance. She stared down at the smoking derringer in her hand and her lips thinned with annoyance.
She had gotten blood on her gloves.
Fifteen
The late afternoon sun streaming through the windows of Grand Central Station made little impression on the throng of people bent on embarking on the passenger trains. Locomotives whistling, brakes hissing, the clatter of voices and rushing feet all combined to make an overpowering din. In such an atmosphere of confusion, Zeke and Rory attracted little attention as they descended off the morning train from Jersey.
Her hair bound up in a kerchief, Rory wore a faded cotton dress, one of Annie’s that had shrunk but still fit Rory like sackcloth. In appearance, Rory knew that she was unremarkable, just another weary traveler from coach class. Zeke too was dressed with simplicity—a plain white shirt, denim trousers, his face shielded by a much-battered felt hat that Annie had once fished from the sea.
Why then did Rory feel as if everyone were staring at them? Nervously, she ducked her head when a policeman strolled toward them. The blue-coated officer veered aside at the last moment, lingering to trade some joke with one of the clerks at the ticket window. Rory exhaled her breath in a tremulous sigh
“Stop looking so guilty.” Zeke’s voice rumbled close to her ear. “It’s me the coppers are after, not you.”
Linking his arm through hers, he guided her away from the platform, laughing aloud at the furtive way she made her way through the crowded station. Rory tossed him a glance simmering with resentment. How could he be so nonchalant about all this? Her tension had been mounting ever since they left the security of Annie’s cottage, growing stronger as they drew closer and closer to New York.
In Zeke’s broad grin, she could see the traces of the street urchin he had once been, enjoying playing cat and mouse games with the police. But she was on tenterhooks, afraid that Zeke risked being shot on sight if they encountered any more policemen of O’Connell’s ilk. When she and Zeke emerged from the station onto the busy street, her heart gave an anxious thud. But it was the same as on the train platform. Pedestrians shoved past them, more concerned with tending to their own affairs than looking too close into the face of any stranger.
The day was warm, and Rory felt circles of perspiration forming beneath her arms. Her throat felt dry, and when a drugstore across the street caught her eye, she thought wistfully of a cherry phosphate.
“I don’t suppose you have any money left of what Anchor Annie loaned us?” she asked Zeke.
“Just enough for fare for the horsecar. And what do you mean ‘loaned?’ While you lay abed this morning, my lady, I was up earning that money, cleaning fish for that old sea hag. I’ll never be able to face a plate of mackerel again.”
Rory laughed in spite of herself and felt better for it, some of her tension easing.
“I’m glad you think it’s so funny. I probably even smell like fish.”
Zeke raised his arm, taking a cautious sniff at his sleeve. But he smelled just fine, Rory thought, redolent with the clean tang of Annie’s soap and his own more elusive musky, masculine scent. He looked just fine too. That weathered hat didn’t quite shadow his clean-shaven jaw, or the dark eyes, which sparkled bright and alert. The denims, a fraction too small, hugged the taut lines of his muscular thighs. The warmth of the day had caused him to open his shirt at the neck, revealing a healthy expanse of tanned flesh. He seemed to possess amazing powers of recuperation. If he still felt any discomfort from his wound or the beating he’d taken, he didn’t show it. His shoulders squared in that familiar pugnacious manner, he appeared ready to take on the world.
