She squirmed to be free. “There isn’t any more. Mama was dying the night she told me. It wasn’t all clear. Please, Johnnie. You’re hurting me.”
It took a moment for her cry to penetrate his haze of confusion and anger. Abruptly he released her, his mind trying to cope with a barrage of information he had never sought. He had always told himself that he didn’t give a damn about knowing who his mother or father were. They had left him to die, hadn’t they? Then the hell with them. But these half-answers, half-truths were worse than knowing nothing at all.
Tessa rubbed her arms where he had gripped her. “You are making me sorry I told you. You’ve got a crazy look on your face, Johnnie.”
How did she expect him to look when she had just turned his world upside down? He said curtly, “Go back into the house, Tessa. You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.”
“By myself? Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer her, pacing off several impatient steps and scanning the street ahead for the approach of a hack. Of course there was never one around when needed. But it didn’t matter a damn. He would walk all the way to Fifth Avenue if he had to.
Tessa trailed after him, tugging at his sleeve. “Come back to the house, John. You’re scaring me.”
He pulled away from her, his lips set in a taut, angry smile. “You’ve no need to worry about me, Tess. I’ll be in no danger. I’m merely going to pay a late-night call upon my dear Aunt Cynthia.”
Twenty
Rarely did Cynthia Van Hallsburg throw open the doors of her white marble townhouse for entertaining. But when she did, her invitations were eagerly sought, her affairs very exclusive. The dinner party she had arranged for tonight, however, had become almost too exclusive. Half of those invited hadn’t put in an appearance, and the rest had only come out of vulgar curiosity. The whisperings had already begun. Mrs. Van Hallsburg was very much aware of that fact as she stood at the entryway to her best salon, but her icy composure revealed nothing of her dismay.
Her guests clustered in polite conversation by the piano, or by the red lacquered Japanese cabinet, or near the decorative sculpture designed by Karl Bitter. The chatter was low-key, well-bred except for the furtive glances occasionally directed toward their hostess.
The rumors were already thick about town, spurred on by the scurrilous articles being run in the New York World, written by that barbaric red-haired reporter friend of John Morrison’s.
It was all coming to pass just as she’d feared. Charle Decker’s clumsy plot had sparked off an intensive investigation. Not even her clever disposal of Charles had been enough to stop it. Sheshould have shot the fool years ago, not now when it was already too late.
She was obliged to admit she had been less than careful herself. A self-mocking smile touched her lips as she thought of the newspaper article that reported the little detail that threatened to undo her. Decker’s death appeared a most unlikely suicide, the paper said. His right hand had been found holding the gun, which made it quite awkward, considering he had been shot through the left side of the head.
She had put the gun in the wrong hand. It was enough to make one laugh, tripping herself up on a tiny detail like that. So clumsy, so careless. Yet that wouldn’t have been enough to cause her concern. It was that other report that did it, about someone claiming to have seen a woman slipping away from Decker’s house late that night.
No fingers were pointing her way yet, but she feared some sort of evidence might have been found connecting her to Charles’s illegal activities. The police had been making discreet inquiries about her bank accounts. She was fast coming under suspicion. She knew it, and, she feared from her guests’ uneasy behavior, so did everyone else.
It took all her rigid years of social training to keep her carriage erect, the smile frozen on her lips. She almost wished for once she could be ill-mannered enough to exhibit some of John Morrison’s bluntness.
“You’ve satisfied your vulgar curiosity!” she wanted to shriek at her guests. “Now get the hell out.”
No one was coming to arrest her tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow. But she had to face it. It could come to that. Time was running out. She was going to have to make some plans and soon.
Her anxious reflections were interrupted by the butler appearing at her elbow, forcing his back into a stiff bow.
“Should dinner be served yet, madam?” Chivers cast a dubious glance at the half-filled room.
“We may as well,” she murmured. “I doubt anyone else is coming.”
As the butler began to retreat, she called him back, adding in a whisper, “See that half of the settings are removed, the table rearranged.”
There was no sense in making her humiliation obvious. The butler appeared to understand, although he delivered his, “Very good, madam,” with a slight smirk.
The fellow had never dared show such insolence before, she thought with a frown. Likely he was already on the lookout for another post. She had spent a lifetime maintaining a proper distance from everyone, but now she sensed them all drifting from her, as inexorably as the ebb of the tide. It was hard to admit, but she found the sensation a little frightening.
She was about to encourage her guests to move into the dining room when she heard a thunderous summons at the front door. Perhaps she had not seen the last of the arrivals after all. Although she had never held up dinner this long before, she could afford to wait a few more minutes.
Lingering by the door, she prepared to greet the latecomer more graciously than she would have under ordinary circumstances. But she heard no approaching footsteps, only the unthinkable sound of raised voices in the front hall.
She excused herself and stepped down the corridor to see who had caused the disturbance. She drew up short. She shouldn’t have been surprised. No one would have the temerity to manhandle her butler other than John Morrison. He had the manservant all but pinned to one of the towering Corinthian pillars as he shoved his way past into the hall.
John was ill-dressed as always, his Prince Albert coat rumpled, the tight set of the fabric seeming scarcely enoughto contain all that masculine energy straining beneath. Dark strands of hair tumbled across his brow, his eyes darker still, flashing with anger. He was in one of his rages. Distasteful as she found such a display of emotion, she couldn’t suppress a tingle of excitement as well.
Morrison was like a slumbering volcano of power, raw and untamed. After their last, embarrassing scene, she had never wanted to see him again, yet now she was glad of the sight of him. Never had she been so fascinated by any man. Never had she hated anyone as much.
