A Most Unusual Match (18 page)

T
he poker face cracked at last. “
Mr. Langston,
” he repeated under his breath, shame and desperation blurring the chiseled features. For a taut moment he stood silently. “I suppose I deserve your repudiation, perhaps your hatred,” he finally said. “If I thought it would do any good, I'd tell you I'm sorry.” Watching her, he put a hand inside his silk waistcoat and withdrew two keys, one a skeleton key, the other a smaller brass key. “When Edgar and his assistant left this morning, he told me they'd return at sunset. I'm to finish hiding the last of the counterfeit bills inside the frames. They're hollow—he has them specially designed. Man's developed quite a little consortium for his secret life.”

Thea nodded, her mind almost as numb as her heart. “He's the man the Secret Service calls the Hotel Hustler, isn't he? He gives his paintings away to other guests, then uses one of his minions to steal them and retrieve the money. I don't know what happens after that.” She hadn't had the stomach to retrieve Devlin's report before she left StoneHill.

“I can tell you,” Richard said, a muscle tensing in his jaw. “By giving his paintings to guests, the bogus bills are
circulated all over the country, far away from Fane. After the bills are recovered and distributed the frames are sold. From what I've seen his minions are so well paid they'd never snitch on him. Besides, he's Edgar Fane. So…poof. No evidence. The fellow's slicker than macassar oil.”

And this was the man from whom she naively hoped to secure evidence on her own. What a stupid featherhead she'd been, not reading all the way through Devlin's reports. Thea grimly thrust aside the self-excoriation, the doubt.

“They've been trying to discover proof to arrest him. Well, I don't care if he is the son of one of the richest men in the country. I refuse to give up. There has to be a way and I'm going to figure it out.” Now more than ever, because not only her life, but Devlin's, depended on it. Perhaps Richard could—

“How do you know all this, Theodora? Are you—don't tell me the Secret Service is using
you,
a young woman? I never thought a government-sanctioned organization could stoop so low. Vigilantes, that's what they are. A pack of baying hounds.”

“You have no idea what those men do,” Thea retorted hotly. For heaven's sake, no wonder Devlin had been afraid to confess his identity. So this is what spiritual scourging felt like—having all your pretenses whipped across your soul until it bled out. Well, she would try to atone for some of both hers and Richard's misconceptions.

“I've spent the last year reviling the Secret Service. But I was wrong. So are you. This organization you sneer at was formed to keep our country safe from fiends like Edgar Fane. These men choose to give up all hope of a normal life to…to perform a service for our country. Oh, excuse me. You wouldn't understand that, would you?” Uglier accusations pushed their way up. A single
word—
forgive
—gave her the self-control to shove them aside.

“Those men put your grandfather in jail.”

“Only because Edgar Fane paid him with counterfeit bills,” Thea shot right back. “Fane's the villain here, not the Secret Service. So their operatives are human. Sometimes they make mistakes. And they have to live every day not only with the burden of their mistakes but with unjust accusations flung by people like you, and me, in order to bring cockroaches like Edgar Fane to justice. I've realized my error in judgment. Why can't you? You never should have agreed to help him, never!”

“If I refuse, he'll kill me, then find another way to get to you, Theodora.”

“Don't you think I know that?” she hissed, belatedly realizing her voice had risen to a near shout. “But he won't have a chance if he's arrested. Now you will be, as well, for aiding and abetting a monster disguised as a man.”

“I don't think it matters to me any longer,” Richard said tonelessly. “Theodora…I don't have to tell you this, but I will. He's been using Porphyry Press. If you leave now, you'll be able to tell the Secret Service the location for the engraving plates, the ink and counterfeiting fiber paper from England.” His mouth twisted. “He told me on the trip down, a smile on his face the whole time like he was merely sharing a joke. Well, the joke will be on him—if you leave now.”

“You could have found a way to send out this information. There's a telegraph in the office. I don't see a guard with a gun, watching your every move. Club boats go and come all the time.”

“I am watched, if I leave the clubhouse. I told you, you don't understand. He knows too much—I owe him.”
Beads of perspiration gathered on his brow. “I don't have a choice, Theodora.”

“You always have a choice to do the right thing. But you never have made that one, have you?”

In a swift move he snagged her wrist. “Here.” He dropped the two keys into the palm of her hand, then closed her fingers over them. His were damp and cold, yet steady as a rock. “The last of the Hustler bills are inside a cigar box in the trunk. I'll be along in twenty minutes, to stuff them in the frame before Fane returns. Either tonight or tomorrow he'll select one of the owners or guests to be the latest recipient of an Edgar Fane work of art. Then…” He stopped, exhaled a wearied sigh. “Every day I dragged the process out, hoping you'd show up. Wishing you wouldn't. This is your only opportunity. Take what you need and get out of here. Blast it, Theodora, don't look at me like that! He owns me now, I told you. But regardless of the sins I've committed, I don't want to see my daughter murdered.”

My daughter.
A single punch of dizziness shoved against the side of Thea's face. The two keys bit into her palm, and she couldn't seem to draw enough air into her lungs. She could deny him until the day she drew her last breath, but here was an example of irrefutable truth: she was the daughter of Richard Langston.

“Theodora? What's the matter with you? I told you, you don't have much time—hey!” His arm shot out and steadied her when she lurched sideways.

“Give me a second,” she managed, closing her eyes, trying in vain to blot the memory of Edgar Fane, standing over her with gloating eyes while he described the sight of Cynthia Gorman's corpse. Trying as well to comprehend that the man in front of her had after thirty years acknowledged her existence. The vortex inside her darkened, increased in speed.

Not now, not now. After a year of thwarted plans she had been granted the means, and the opportunity to collect evidence against Edgar Fane. She needed to be Esther of the Bible, placed in a palace to save her people from an evil man; Samson, the mighty but flawed judge, who after his adulterous affair with Delilah had given his life to do the right thing.

All right, she was more like Samson than Esther. She hadn't honored God like she should, though after watching Devlin's transformation these past months she'd yearned to follow his example.
I want to honor You, now. I do. Search me and know my heart, Lord. Help me…I can't function with this vertigo. Only You can take this affliction from me.

Only You
…and she didn't deserve anything but the condemnation she'd shoveled over everyone and everything, including herself.

Richard's chilly hold on her arm tightened. “What's the matter with you?” he repeated. “Look, I gave you the keys and the information. I'm no good with fainting women. Don't do this missish swooning on me now.”

Even before her father finished speaking, the vertigo vanished. Blinking in astonishment, Thea opened her eyes, slowly glanced to the left, then the right. No symptoms.
No symptoms.

God had answered her prayer—instantly. She didn't deserve His mercy, didn't deserve the grace or the miracle or His favor, yet He'd granted her plea anyway, from a love no human mind could fathom. The atheists and naturalists and scientists simply didn't understand the fundamental tenet of the Christian faith—Jesus' loving sacrifice of Himself on the cross. For everyone, including Theodora Langston…liar, hater, abandoned child, wounded woman.

Beside her, Richard swore, pacing the floor and darting her baffled looks. But the internal glow of transformation continued to flow unabated through Thea. She saw for the first time the flawed man too weak to accept responsibility for a baby—but strong enough now to offer her the way to escape.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” she said, and briefly laid her hand over his wrist. “I have dizzy spells occasionally, particularly concerning Edgar Fane.” Ten minutes ago she would have excoriated her father for his part in the lifelong secret affliction. “But I'm fine now. I'm fine…Father. I'm not really a delicate flower, you know.”

“Good.” They studied each other and a freshet of peace flowed between them. Then her father cleared his throat, strode over to one of the doorways and peered out into the hall. “Now go along, do what you've come to do. “

“I will. He's going to be arrested, very soon, then we'll both be free of him.”
Thanks to You, Lord. All thanks to You.
Well…there was another father she needed to thank. After dropping the keys into her apron pocket, Thea gathered up the cleaning supplies and slipped beside Richard out into the hall. “Thank you for helping me,” she murmured. “Perhaps later, we can talk?”

The poker expression returned. “I doubt we'll have an opportunity.”

She paused. “We can make one.” The blackened corner dirtying her soul for her entire life was gone like the vertigo, whisked away in an unexpected act of divine housekeeping. “I'm not going to let him win, Father. And you're going to stay alive.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled; his shoulders straightened. Thea smiled at him, then set off for the stairs at the end of the hall.

H
is lips pressed into a thin slash, Devlin sent telegrams to Washington and Fred Lawlor, who had traveled down separately to monitor things across the Sound in Brunswick. Defeat was a dull ax, chopping away at Dev's neck. His only “success” thus far was his continued anonymity; when neither Mr. Grob, the Club superintendent, nor Miss Schuppan caught him inside the club office, he considered it mercy from God rather than proof of his own cleverness.

Task accomplished, he stepped back into the wide corridor, automatically noting a waiter entering the dining room, and at the other end of the hall a gentleman guest with his back to Devlin. The gentleman appeared to be speaking to an aproned cleaning woman whose face was blocked by his shoulders. None of them glanced Devlin's way.

He was still a shadow, unremarked upon and un known.

A discomfiting squiggle crawled along the back of Devlin's neck. Pausing, he risked another glimpse down the corridor, where the cleaning woman was now walking away. Something about her posture—or was it the tilt of her head and the glimpse of brown hair?—reminded
him of Thea.
Not again,
he thought morosely. Over the past week his pulse had spiked several times for the same reason. Annoyed with the propensity to imbue every woman he passed with Theodora's traits, Devlin headed for the doors leading to the piazza. He had risked his professional reputation and his future to ensure that his fiancée remained safely ensconced at StoneHill, almost a thousand miles away. Missing her was automatic, like breathing, both of which he ignored. He could wallow in loneliness later, because until he received a reply to either telegram Devlin Stone needed to hide behind the persona of an unremarkable stable hand named Daniel Smith.

It was a little past four in the afternoon; he exited the clubhouse onto the piazza and stood for a moment in the shadows, wrestling with the disquietude. No operative achieved sought-after results one hundred percent of the time; Devlin could accept his inability to secure proof that Edgar Fane was the Hotel Hustler. What he could not accept was his failure to protect the woman he loved. With Fane alive and free, Thea could never be safe, never stop wondering. The vertigo attacks, in abeyance for the past few months, might return.

When Devlin confessed his profession as an operative she might never forgive him.

She might repudiate him altogether.

Inevitably, Edgar Fane would discover her whereabouts.

I made the choice to trust You, Lord. But…do I have to lose the woman I love to prove my faith?

Luminous streaks of gold-and-orange-tipped red painted the western sky, signaling the end of another day. From the direction of the marshes, he heard the plaintive honking of geese and, down Old Plantation Road, the distant voices of members, returning from their day's outing. As the sound
of hooves and carriage wheels drew closer, Dev decided to head on over to the stables. Might yet hear something about Fane he could at least pass along to headquarters for the next operative assigned to the case.

A pair of buckboard carriages rolled into view, jammed with several women as well as men, most of them carrying shotguns. In the first carriage, tongues lolling, a pair of hunting dogs peered between the driver's legs. And behind the driver lounged Edgar Fane, looking smug and relaxed in his Norfolk jacket, yellow sweater and knee breeches. His personal assistant Simpson sat beside him. The carriages passed by, heading for the covered porch around the corner.

Instinct took over. Hands stuffed in his pockets, whistling a tune and shuffling his feet in the sandy soil, Dev leisurely followed. When he reached the hunting party, people were still mingling, talking about the day. Mr. Grob had joined the group, a deferential smile showing beneath his handlebar mustache. He congratulated the man who bagged an eight-point buck and a woman who had nabbed half a dozen quail, commiserated with those who had returned empty-handed, including it seemed Edgar Fane.

“I'm no good with guns,” Edgar said with good-natured aplomb. “No doubt
un
masculine of me, but I prefer to potter with a paintbrush.”

“I'm so dreadfully sorry to hear you're leaving us,” one of the women gushed. “Next week, was it? And so soon after your arrival. You will return, I hope?”

“Alas, ‘downward the voices of Duty call, to toil and be mixed with the main,'” Edgar responded, with a flourish kissing the back of her hand. “Incomparable words from Sidney Lanier's poem, written for the marshes of this incomparable island sanctuary.” He glanced at his
expressionless secretary. “Simpson, that last painting I completed day before yesterday? I think you should present it to Mrs. Butler tonight after dinner.”

“Yes, Mr. Fane,” Simpson replied stolidly while Mrs. Butler squealed with delight.

Using the buckboard carriages for a screen, Dev maneuvered closer. After nodding to the colored driver standing beside the horse, he knelt to pretend to retie the laces of his work boots.

“…and sorry Mr. Langston couldn't join us today….”

“…worse than I, at the sport of hunting…prefers taking risks with a deck of cards…likely still in the card room….”

So the man Dev had glimpsed at the end of the hall had been Richard Langston, Thea's father. Apparently he was trusted enough, or cowed enough, to be left to his own devices while Edgar Fane enjoyed the island amenities. Dev filed both tidbits of information away.

The unwelcome news of Fane's apparently imminent departure would have to be investigated with—

“'Scuse me, suh? You be the new stableman what's got a dab hand with horses, right?”

Devlin's head whipped around to the driver, whose eyes flared in alarm. Dev offered a placatory smile.
Stay in character,
he reminded himself as he straightened. “I am,” he said. “You're…Wiggins, isn't it?”

The driver nodded, pulling off his hat to run a hand over his head of kinky gray hair. “Would you mind looking at Brownie's right leg? He was favoring it just now. Might be nothin' but seeing as how you was walking by, thought I'd ask.”

Dev throttled the frustration and approached the lightly sweating gelding harnessed on the right side of the team. After a rapid but thorough examination of all four legs,
he showed Wiggins two fragments of oyster shell. “Likely these were the culprits—one was lodged in the central cleft of the foot on the right foreleg, but there was also a smaller piece in the left hind sole. The shoes are still properly nailed, so I don't think he'll suffer from lameness, but I'd let him rest for a day or two, just to be safe. Good man for noticing.” With a final pat on Brownie's neck, he surveyed the dwindling crowd still clustered around Edgar Fane.

“Would you mind coming along to the stable with me?” Wiggins asked. “I can drive a carriage fine, but my knees give out on me when I have to stoop down.” Anxiously he searched Devlin's set features. “You won't tell, will you? Me and the missus, we get to stay here year-round now, and I'd hate to be let go.”

“Your secret's safe with me.” Torn, Devlin hesitated, but Fane was already extricating himself from the group to “freshen up before dinner.”

Suppressing a sigh, Dev told Wiggins he'd be glad to take care of Brownie.

Some ten minutes later, while gently cleaning the horse's feet with a hoof pick, the squiggle of unease he'd felt earlier returned to irritate his brain. He remembered the cleaning woman with more clarity, remembered her turning away from the man to walk toward the staircase.
It was the walk,
he abruptly realized. That walk…the first day he'd followed Thea down the steps of the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, memorizing her unique blend of femininity and firm assurance… Would a servant, a cleaning woman hired to mop floors and dust furniture, walk like a woman of purpose, of power?

And why would Richard Langston converse with a servant at all?
What if Theodora weaseled the truth from her grandfather—and was playing another part?
If instead of a wealthy socialite with a titled fiancé, like Devlin
she'd somehow slipped onto Jekyll Island in the guise of a servant?

Devlin had come to know his beloved and her propensity for impulsiveness very well indeed. For a fraught second he rested his forehead against Brownie's shoulder and absorbed what instinct already knew. He might have been within shouting distance of the woman whose courage far outweighed common sense. Never mind the wishes and elaborate schemes of the man desperate to keep her far away from Jekyll Island.

God, Thea's here, isn't she?
And for some reason God hadn't alerted Devlin until now.

Urgency rolled through him, thundering its intensity; tail swishing, Brownie's skin quivered beneath Dev's hands. He automatically calmed the animal before obeying the insistent hum of warning.

Five minutes later he headed back to the clubhouse.

 

Thea heard the voices in the hallway. Fear exploded inside her stomach, but she managed to close and lock the trunk, stuff the last of the counterfeit bills in a hidden pocket of her skirt, then gather up her cleaning supplies. Several more bills were hidden beneath the rags at the bottom of the bucket. By the time Edgar appeared in the doorway, a scowl on his face and a shotgun balanced in the crook of his elbow, she was on the other side of the room, feather-dusting a lamp.

“What the devil are you doing here? The rooms were supposed to have been cleaned this morning.”

“
Scusi, signore,
” Thea bobbed a clumsy curtsey and with her face averted, aimed her feet for the opened door. “
Io somo finito. Lascio.
I finish. Leave now.”

Fingers slippery with fear, greasy nausea filling her
throat, she had almost managed to gain the hallway when she sensed him looming behind her.

“One moment, girl.”

Servants would never disobey such a command; if Thea ran, his suspicions would be aroused enough to chase after her. Yet if she obeyed his order, when he saw her face he would most certainly recognize Miss Pickford.
Into the lion's den,
Thea thought. Squaring her shoulders, she turned around.

“You!”
Triumph flared in eyes gone hard and bright as polished black marbles. “So. My little plot worked. I thought it would, though you cut it close, my dear. Later, you'll have to share where you've been hiding all these months. For now, have you enjoyed the reunion with your long-lost father?”

Thea raised her chin. “What difference does it make? You never should have used him as bait. You might think you've outmaneuvered us all, but this time, Edgar Fane, you'll be the one in a jail cell. Not me, or my grandfather. Or my…my father.” The bundle of rags wouldn't faze him, but if she threw the bucket, screamed to draw attention…

“Ah, then you have spoken to him. Sorry to have missed the exchange.” He whipped out an arm, yanked the bucket out of her hand and tossed it through the doorway behind him. When the clatter ceased he resumed talking as calmly as though he'd plucked a dead leaf from his sleeve.

“Definitely didn't inherit your father's poker face, did you? Good thing I left my shotgun in the room. Of course, your weapon of choice is words. You verbally cut a man to the size of a mouse—one of your less-attractive traits, my dear Theodora.” He made a tsking sound and shook his head. “Poor Richard. Did you eviscerate him like you did me at Saratoga? I might feel sorry for him, except he
handed you the keys to my kingdom. Too bad. I was going to let
him
go.”

More voices echoed up the stairwell; seconds later a couple with three children crowded into view, a confusion of noise and movement with the children racing between Thea and Edgar, calling to one another while a flushed nanny scurried after them. The couple stopped to speak to Edgar, forcing his attention.

Thea dropped the rest of the cleaning supplies, gathered her skirts in fistfuls of fabric, and ran for her life down the staircase.