Bees in the Butterfly Garden (13 page)

There stood Ian. Out of breath, a look of such distress on his face Meg was certain he’d been chased by the law.

“Ian! What is it? What’s the matter?” She looked beyond him, fully expecting a helmeted, club-wielding, blue-uniformed officer in his wake.

He closed the door, then let his gaze settle on Brewster. “
This
is the matter. What did he ask you to do, Meggie?”

Somehow the name wasn’t bothering her as much as it once did, knowing it only slipped out when he was distracted by something else.

“Why, nothing . . . specifically. We were only discussing possibilities. Whatever is the matter with that?”

Ian took Brewster’s hat from the table where it had been left, handing it to him. Brewster stood with far less suddenness than Meg had done, in no apparent hurry to accept his hat.

“This is no concern of yours, Maguire,” he said. “Meg is free to direct her own life, in any way she chooses.”

“Not if she wants to respect her father’s wishes. Get out, Brewster.”

“Ian! How could you be so rude? This isn’t even your home.”

Just then the door broke open again, causing Ian to buck out of the way. There stood Kate, a look of similar alarm on her face. Meg would have thought it funny if she weren’t so irritated with their obvious displays of overprotection. The last thing she needed was a pair of eager guardians to replace the school staff who had hounded her for the last fifteen years.

Brewster accepted his hat before Kate said a word. But not before sending Meg another wink and a glance at the card he’d left on the table between them.

Meg offered an embarrassed smile. “Thank you for your visit, Mr. Brewster. And my apologies for how it has ended.”

He bowed and tipped his hat. “No apology from you is necessary. If you want his confidence, lass, you might offer to help him with the bank job he’s planning. Good day to you all.”

The moment he left and closed the door behind him, Meg turned to Ian, wide-eyed. “Is it true? About the job you’re doing? It’s a bank? Can I help?”

He looked at her as if she’d taken leave of every shred of sense she’d been born with. “Forget everything he said to you, Meg. I mean everything.”

She glared at the two standing before her. “I don’t care what you think of Mr. Brewster. He was right about one thing: I’m free to direct my own life.”

They both made such instantaneously loud protests that she couldn’t understand either one of them. Ian put a hand to Kate’s elbow, and for the moment her objections quieted, letting Ian continue with his.

“Alwinus Brewster is anything except generous. If he offered you something, you can be assured it’s because he expected something in return.”

“He admitted that much. All he wants is access to the kind of people I’ve known all my life. Something I’ve been offering all along.”

“Yes, and he’ll swindle them or cheat them or use them without a single thought for where it leaves you in the end. Think, Meg! Do you really want all of New York society shunning you for the blight you could bring them? Or to go to jail as an accessory?”

“Why should anyone go to jail? You’ve lived your way of life for quite some time, and Mr. Brewster that much longer. I’d say he’s been at least as successful at evading the law as you’ve been. As my father was.”

“That’s only because New York is as corrupt as it is rich.”

Kate, who’d taken off her gloves, looked between the two of them. “Brewster may be able to keep you from jail if it suits his purpose, but it wouldn’t protect you from loss of any place in decent society.” She set aside her hat. “I’m going to the kitchen to see about lunch. Ian, I will give you exactly fifteen minutes to talk to Meg, and after that I’ll take my turn at it. Maybe together we can make some progress.”

“I’m honored to be a project worthy of your time,” Meg called after Kate.

Meg was glad Kate had left her alone with Ian. As much as she’d once been jealous over the time he’d spent with her father, she now saw Ian Maguire altogether differently. As exciting as it would be to work with Brewster, she had to admit she would much prefer cooperating with Ian.

And she’d decided just how she would convince him.

Smiling, she took her seat again on the sofa. “Mr. Brewster didn’t even take a sip of the tea, Ian, so if you’d like his cup . . .”

He plopped on the seat opposite her, shaking his head. “No. What I want is for you to agree that it’s a crazy idea for you to even consider working with that guy.”

“All right. I won’t work with him.”

The look on Ian’s face froze, until a grin started to form on his handsome mouth. He sat up straighter, leaning slightly forward. Then one skeptically dipped brow ruined the look. “Just like that?”

Meg sipped her own tea but, finding it cool, set it aside. She smiled again at Ian, having been around enough flirtatious girls to know the kind of smile that was most effective. “Not if I can work with you. As little as I knew about my father, I do know you were closer to him than Mr. Brewster could have been. I think my father would have been pleased if we worked together.”

“Oh no, he wouldn’t have. Not at all.”

“Well, he no longer has a say. In fact, even if he were alive, he wouldn’t have a say. He would know he never earned the right to think I’d listen to any of his advice. So. What do you say? Whatever plans Brewster might have had for the prime pickings of New York society can be had by you instead of him. Surely you’re as clever as he?”

He rubbed his palms on his knees, then stood, turning his back on her. Meg stood as well, surprised at how easy it was to play this game. She rounded the table, breaking every rule of etiquette by coming up behind Ian, standing far closer than she’d ever stood to a man, and putting a gentle hand on the back of his shoulder.

“Ian,” she whispered, “wouldn’t you like to work with me?”

He turned to her with a look torn between panic and interest. Then anger flashed in his dark-blue eyes. He didn’t back away, but she might have wished he had when he grabbed her by the arms in a less than romantic way.

“Stop! I know what you’re doing. You can’t work with me, Meg, or learn any of the things my way of life can teach you. If your father were alive, he’d have my hide. . . .”

Instead of accepting his words, she saw only his struggle, and it was to that she appealed.

“Ian.” His name came so smoothly to her lips, so naturally. She’d meant only to use it the same way she’d used the coquette’s smile a moment ago. And yet she found herself enjoying the entreaty more than she’d expected. It felt so perfectly right.

Suddenly it wasn’t so much control she felt as . . . a lack of it.

This is madness.

And heaven.

It wasn’t the first time Ian had imagined taking Meggie into his arms, but even as he knew that was precisely what he was about to do, Ian knew in some small and still shrinking part of his mind that it was the last thing he should be doing.

She was clearly using him to get her way, manipulating him to suit her own naive wishes.

But he didn’t care.

His lips came down on hers gently, increasing in pressure when he found what he fully expected—complete and utter surrender.

“Ian.” His name came off her lips again, breathless, happy, like no other sound he’d heard. She put her hands on either side of his face, her eyes as light as ever and full of eagerness. “This changes everything, doesn’t it? We’ll be partners now?”

He wanted to promise her anything but knew that in a few moments, when he wasn’t quite so foolishly dizzy and giddy, he’d have to follow through on whatever he said in reply.

“I . . . can’t.” Never were two words more difficult for him to say. But once said, they gave him strength—strength enough to pull himself out of her all-too-willing arms.

This was Meggie. Meggie, whom John had placed on so high a pedestal that it couldn’t be Ian who made a mere woman of her.

She folded her arms again, but this time it was as if she were hugging rather than defending herself. “I don’t understand. Didn’t you want to kiss me?”

“Oh, I wanted to, all right.” No sense lying; she wouldn’t believe him anyway, when the kiss had already revealed the truth. “But there’s something you ought to know about me, Meg. I only trifle with women.”

She loosed her arms to put a hand to her forehead. “What does that mean?”

“I never allow myself emotional involvement—but I often take advantage of favors sent my way. I don’t lie to women with promises of undying devotion.”

“How honorable.” Ice couldn’t be colder.

“I never pretended to be honorable. If you’re bound and determined to get involved in your father’s way of life, I can’t stop you. But I’m not going to make a fallen woman of you too. I won’t help you there.”

Her shoulders stiffened as if shrugging off the embarrassment of a rejection. Rejection! If only she knew every word he’d just spoken was a lie. All she had to do at this moment was come near him again, and any noble intentions would be immediately forgotten. He’d dreamed of her for too many years to be strong for very long.

“All right. No personal entanglements. You’ve said you can’t stop me from taking up my father’s way of life, so at least that’s understood.”

He shook his head at her assumption, risking all good sense and grabbing her again, this time by the shoulders. “Think, Meg! This isn’t just one decision. You’re making a hundred decisions right here and now. A thousand. If you go through with this plan to use the Pembertons or help steal their gold, every decision you make—every day—will be based on what you decide right now. Every word you speak, every action you take, will be a result of this decision.”

“I’ve made up my mind. So in what way do you want to be partners?”

A gasp from the threshold drew Ian’s attention. Kate stood there, her mouth agape. “What are you saying? Partners in what?”

“Yes, let’s discuss my options, shall we?” Meg clasped her hands in front of her as if she were about to make an oration, obviously not at all vexed by Kate’s disapproval or Ian’s reluctance.

Her voice, though, was a bit too eager to push that kiss behind them in favor of this new, business-only partnership. Something Ian wasn’t quite ready to do.

“What are you discussing?” Kate demanded. “What sort of partnership? This is absurd; you both know it.”

A tap at the door sounded just as Meg started speaking. “I know no such thing. Shall I answer that?”

But Ian was already moving toward the door, and he opened it wide. A boy stood there, one hand holding out a note and the other displaying an empty palm. Ian slipped him a coin as he accepted the envelope.

He turned to Meg, looking anything but pleased. It took no more than a glance at the expensive linen envelope, emblazoned with a
P
, to know from whom the note had come.

Meg met his frown with a triumphant smile before she even opened it.

This note was as good as gold—as good as the Pemberton gold. Her past was behind her and the future ahead. The note made it so.

Written in the same perfect script Meg herself had learned, she read the words from Claire Pemberton.

My parents’ departure for Europe has delayed my response to your interesting and most unexpected note. What a delightful gift it would be for Mother if upon her return awaited the garden she always hoped you would design. So yes, do come, Meg. At once. Please let me know if you need transportation and I’ll send a carriage for you.

Meg refolded it into the envelope, then looked at the waiting faces before her.

“My invitation has been offered. I’m to come at once.”

“At once?” Kate repeated. “Surely there’s no hurry. You’ve just lost your father!”

Tapping the edge of the envelope with her forefinger, Meg shook her head. “Actually I’ll be keeping that to myself. Claire never met my father. No one but the Hibbit sisters knows that my father recently passed, and they’re far away in Connecticut with little connection to any of the families here in New York, at least throughout the summer. I intend keeping my father’s death to myself.”

“But why would you deny such a thing?” Kate cried. “It’s like denouncing your father!”