A Touch of Camelot (28 page)

Cole intended to pay a visit to Mr. Taylor, and in so doing, he was aware that he might be walking directly into the lion's den. The problem was, he couldn't solicit any help from the authorities. He didn't have any evidence yet, and more importantly, he wasn't sure who he could trust. That was why it was best to wire the Agency first. While he doubted that Taylor would do him bodily harm in the middle of the day in his own residence, it was better to be safe than sorry. If something were to happen to him, it would be better if Fritz knew all of the facts. There would be somebody left to pick up the thread.

With that thought, Cole descended the front steps of the boardinghouse and headed south on Kearney toward the telegraph office.

*

Arthur handed the newspaper to Gwinnie, secretly pleased that he had been able to satisfy her curiosity. In a way, it made him feel better about some of the things he had said to her the day before.

Gwin sat on the corner of her bed as she read over the front page article. "And you're sure this is the one Cole seemed so interested in? The one about this Taylor fellow?"

"That's the one, all right. He even asked the newspaperman for directions to the guy's house."

Gwin shook her head as she spread the paper on the bed and turned the pages slowly, scanning the columns. "It doesn't make sense," she said after a few minutes. "I mean, who is this guy that Cole should be so interested in—" She stopped. "Arthur ... ooooh, Arthur ..."

"What?" Arthur felt a stab of concern. Her face had gone pale.

Gwin folded the paper in half and held it up for him to see. "Look at it." She tapped a thumbnail sketch no bigger than an advertisement, a political cartoon, featuring two main characters, a bug-eyed minister and a man in a top hat, positioned as snarling opponents in a boxing ring.

Arthur strained to read the caption, something about the politician named Taylor. "What?" he asked again, confused.

"The picture, Arthur. Look at the picture."

And he did. Edging closer, he squinted at the newspaper artist's crude caricature. "I don't understand."

"Who does he look like?"

"Which one? The one with big eyes or—" Then Arthur started to see it. He began to see what it was that she saw, and his stomach clenched up.

Gwin prodded him. "He looks like ..."

Arthur blinked hard, his vision suddenly misting over. "Silas!"

And it was true. How had he not seen it before? The artist's rendering was unflatteringly exaggerated, but the square line of his jaw, the shape of his eyes, and that tilted, "dare-you" smile was unmistakable. "It looks like Silas!"

Gwin stood. "He looks like Silas because he's Silas's brother. It's Sidney, Arthur. Sidney Pierce is Phineas Taylor."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Gwin had no trouble locating Phineas Taylor's home. The elaborate residence, set far back from the municipal sidewalk and encircled by a tall wrought-iron fence, stood over three stories tall. Its painted wooden exterior simulated marble stone to such an extent that it was impossible to tell the difference until one actually crossed onto the property.

Gwin paused at the end of a flagstone walk to observe a pair of ornamented turrets. They reminded her of a castle, a castle that might have once nestled in the fabled land of Camelot. Before she climbed the stone steps to the entrance, she passed an Oriental gardener, who tended a cluster of blooming rosebushes.

She raised her hand to a brass knocker, letting it fall twice before retreating a few steps. As she looked up to behold an elaborate stained-glass mosaic above the wide archway, she half-hoped there would be no answer to her summons.

She didn’t get her wish.

The monstrous door creaked open to reveal a lanky butler with a narrow mustache and thinning dark hair. "May I help you, miss?"

"I'm here to see Mr. Taylor."

The man inspected her unfashionably dressed figure, noting with disdain the green silk reticule that clashed with her daytime attire. "May I tell him who is calling?"

"Miss Pierce."

The butler stepped aside and opened the door wider for her to pass. "Very good, Miss Pierce. Won't you come in?"

Gwin found herself standing in a huge foyer, peering around the expressionless butler's shoulder to behold a majestic marble staircase. It was warm outside, but now, as the heavy wooden door swung shut behind her, it suddenly seemed cold.

"Please make yourself comfortable, Miss Pierce. I'll inform Mr. Taylor that you're here." The butler turned crisply and headed for the stairs.

Gwin watched the man ascend until he disappeared around the corner of a second-floor landing before she turned to take in her surroundings. She was startled to see what at first appeared to be a human figure standing not ten feet away from her on the other side of the staircase.

Upon closer examination, however, she realized it was nothing but an empty suit of armor, and it wasn't alone. Here and there, interspersed at various points in the entrance hall that bisected the first floor, she saw a number of similar figures posted by closed-off doorways. These served to complement an impressive collection of ancient weaponry and lush Renaissance-era paintings that hung on the walls. Apparently, Gwin's first impression of this place as a medieval castle was precisely what the owner intended.

As she began to move, the soft click of her heels against the gleaming marble floor followed her in the form of a hollow, all-surrounding echo. She observed rich gallery paneling on the walls and thick marble columns before tilting her head back to see the unstained roof timbers two stories overhead.
Oh, Mother, this might have been your Camelot ...

But it could never be Gwin's. She had discovered a touch of her own Camelot this morning, and that had been in Cole Shepherd's arms. Perhaps neither of them, mother nor daughter, were fated to attain the full measure of their dreams.

Gwin passed beneath a sparkling chandelier to examine more closely the armored figure she had first mistaken for a person lurking by the curved banister at the bottom of the staircase. A deep, masculine voice boomed behind and above her.

"A full suit of field armor. It was crafted in Germany sometime during the first quarter of the sixteenth century."

Gwin turned to see on the staircase a figure whose broad-shouldered stance and distinctive countenance brought a flood of memories crashing back to her. She was seeing a ghost. Silas. But not Silas. This man was younger, perhaps more handsome. His forehead was lower and his thick brown hair was several shades lighter than Silas's had been.
My father
, she thought, more than a little awed by the sight of him.

"That other one," the Silas-figure continued, pointing as he descended the stairs, "the one to your left, was known as parade armor. Notice the rich decoration, the elaborate scroll design, and the gilt ornamentation. It was probably made in Antwerp in the seventeenth century."

"They must be very expensive," Gwin said.

"Very. So are the weapons." As he reached the bottom step, he gestured to indicate the whole of the collection that lined the paneled walls.

Gwin's eyes swept over swords, daggers, shields, maces, war hammers, partisans—some of them silver, some gilt in gold, some set with precious stones. "Quite an arsenal. You don't happen to have a dungeon down below to go with all of this, do you?"

"Sorry. It seems the architect was deficient in that aspect of medieval design."

Gwin turned away to amble across the entrance hall to a sitting area by a marble fireplace. Furnished with two cushioned settees, Bentwood end tables, and a marble-topped center table, Gwin thought this was probably where a guest was to make himself comfortable while awaiting an audience with the lord of the manor. As for herself, she didn’t feel very comfortable at all.

Gwin kept her back to him as she spoke. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, you're Gwendolyn. You look like your mother."

"That's Guinevere."

"Guinevere?" For the first time, he sounded nonplussed, and Gwin felt an odd sense of gratification. "I suppose I just assumed—"

"Everyone assumes. Call me Gwin if you like." She looked up at a huge gilt-framed painting over the mantel. It depicted a violent battle scene featuring muscular half-men, half-equestrian creatures, many of them sweeping partially clad, screaming women off their feet.

"
Rape of the Lapith Daughters
," he said. "An episode from the Hercules legends."

"How charming," she commented flatly.

"You don't care for the décor?"

"It's certainly replete with history."

"Replete with myth, my dear, not history. Myth is a different matter altogether."

"Dreams, you mean."

"Perhaps," he said. "Dreams must manifest themselves in some way, I suppose, even among the most practical of souls."

"You deem yourself practical, do you?" Gwin asked, turning back to him.

"Eminently, my dear. Practical to a fault. As I suspect you may be, too."

Gwin bristled.
Practical to a fault.
Who was he to be analyzing her character? He might have fathered her, but he certainly hadn't been around to raise her.

"As I mentioned before, you look very much like your mother," he said. "
Are
you very much like her?"

"I certainly hope not."

Sidney seemed to find this amusing. "Didn't you love your mother?"

"Sometimes. Did you?"

His lips curved into a sly smile. "Sometimes."

"I adored her when I was a child, but when I grew older—"

"Ah yes." Sidney bowed his head, still wearing that small, privately amused smile. "As you grew older, you realized that real life isn't a fairy tale, and things are not always as they appear to be."

"Yes. Or as they should be."

"Yes."

They stood for a long moment, each appraising the other, before Gwin spoke again. "She's dead, you know."

The smile faded. "I know."

Gwin continued cautiously. "And Silas—"

"It was in the papers."

"You knew."

"Yes."

Gwin had to fight down a new surge of anger. "Then, why didn't you—?"

Sidney spread both hands, palms up. "What would you expect me to do?"

Gwin opened her mouth to reply but came up short when she spotted a tiny web of skin at the juncture of his left ring finger and little finger, a familial deformity Silas had told her she had inherited from a grandfather she had never met. So, this really was her father. It was true. If she'd had even one last shred of doubt concerning her mother's veracity, it dissolved in that moment.

It took her a few seconds to find her voice. "But he was your brother."

"Yes, but that ended years ago. Did she tell you about it?"

Gwin nodded.

Sidney smiled, but there was little mirth in the expression. "We had nothing in common anymore. We were strangers, really."

"You had one thing in common."

"What was that?"

"Emmaline."

His pale eyes clouded. "For a short while, perhaps, but Silas and I parted ways a long time ago. I was sorry to read of his death, but there was nothing I could do after the fact."

Despite his impassive expression, Gwin sensed something cracking behind his façade, and she pressed further. "But perhaps there is something you can do."

Sidney started to move away from her. "If that's the reason you sought me out, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. I would suggest that you take your leave of San Francisco and never look back."

Gwin couldn’t control the anger that bubbled up inside of her. "He was your brother!"

Sidney stopped, but he didn't turn around. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked down at the floor. "I can understand your feelings, Gwin. He was your father, and naturally—"

"
You
are my father!"

Her exclamation echoed throughout the empty foyer, reverberating off marble columns and wooden beams until silence descended again.

Finally, he turned to face her. "That's impossible."

This last outburst had spent Gwin of her anger, at least for the moment. She was able to answer him in a normal tone of voice. "Why?"

"Where did you hear such a thing?"

"Emmaline."

Another mirthless smile crossed his face. "That explains it, doesn't it? I don't have to tell you that your mother was often given to prevarication."

"This was no lie."

"And what makes you think so?"

"She was already with child when she married Silas."

"Easily explained, my dear. She and Silas were sleeping together long before they married."

"No."

"But I saw them."

"No." Gwin felt strangely calm and sure of herself. She was gaining a foothold. He, she sensed, was beginning to lose his. Something had flickered in those pale blue eyes.
Doubt?

She pressed on. "You saw what she wanted you to see. It was her way of getting your attention. She knew she was pregnant."

The smile was gone from his face. "But I saw them together."

"Think about it. It was just like her, wasn't it? She tried to make you jealous, to trick you into marrying her."

Sidney didn't seem to hear her. His gaze had turned inward, focusing on his own memories of that time. He started to pace, and, for the first time since meeting the man, Gwin got the feeling she was catching a glimpse of what might lay behind the mask.

"You don't understand," he insisted. "I saw them. I saw them together."

"You are my father. She wasn't lying about that."

"No, that's not how it was."

Gwin dropped her reticule on a table and held up her left hand, spreading her fingers to display the tiny deformity she had inherited from him. She didn't need to say anything more.

He stopped pacing and stared. "Oh...damn that woman."

"No one else in the family has it, do they? No one but you and me."

"Why didn't she tell me?"

Gwin lowered her hand. "As a last resort, I suppose she would have, but you were already gone."