Bees in the Butterfly Garden (7 page)

“His fortunes are . . . complicated, Meggie. They came from various sources.” She caught and held Meg’s gaze. “Not a single one, at least initially, was legal.”

Meg nearly laughed. “What are you saying? That he was a thief?”

Kate nodded.

“That
is
what you’re saying? He was . . . he
was
a thief?”

“Shh! Keep your voice down. He never wanted you to know—”

“And I doubt he can hear you now.”

“No, but Ian might, and he didn’t want me to tell you the truth. If it’s the only way to bring you some kind of peace with your father’s memory, then so be it. Your father wasn’t proud of the things he did, but it was the only thing he knew how to do and he did it well. You don’t remember—how could you?—when he partnered with his old friend Brewster. They conned their first mark together. It came too easily to both of them, but especially to your father because people have always been eager to trust him. With Brewster’s help, your father made enough money to present himself as a gentleman and pay Madame Marisse to keep you for years. He never stopped working. He had to earn enough to keep you there.”

The words swirled in Meg’s head until they made no sense at all. Her father with the smiling, guileless blue eyes . . . a thief.

She would have stood, paced, moved to relieve some of the nervous energy building inside her, but she had been left without a trace of strength. Her hand smoothed a small wrinkle on her gown, a gown made of the finest black silk money could buy.

Purchased with money stolen from someone else.

Something in her throat stabbed at her painfully—gall, anger. Shame.

But just as instantly, another moment of realization exploded inside her. So much made sense now. No wonder she’d always lusted after what she should not have—not material things, but things outside the rules, freedom to do as she pleased. No wonder she’d had to stuff aside every rebellious thought, eke out the perfect behavior expected of her. Rebellion was in her blood! She was more her father’s daughter than her mother’s, after all.

“How exactly did he get that money, then? What kind of ‘marks,’ as you call them?” Were people suffering because of her? Had he stolen from others who’d had to do without just so she could live a pampered life?

“I don’t think he would’ve wanted you to know details, Meggie. Just know that he had a reason to keep his life separate—and a secret—from you.”

Meg shook her head. “I need to know, Miss Kane. I need to know who he stole from, if he left anyone in desperate circumstances—because of me!”

“Oh! No! No, no, Meggie, not at all. Your father was the kindest, most generous man I’ve ever known. He was more apt to give to someone in need than take, believe me!”

“I’m sure whoever he stole from wouldn’t think so highly of him.”

“He only outsmarted people who could well afford to lose. He’s never even had a warrant out for his arrest, he was so careful.”

Another realization. “Is that why he refused to be seen at any of my concerts?” Meg whispered. “Because he cheated some of the same families I went to school with? Is that why he chose that school—because of the many
marks
connected to it?”

“Never intentionally, my dear. He wouldn’t have wanted it to touch you in any way. There was only one family from your school he might have risked targeting, but he never had the opportunity.”

“Which family was that?”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? I hardly remember, anyway. The fact is your father loved you. Surely you believe that now?”

Meg sighed. “I don’t know what to believe. I might have thought him an incompetent father, but at least I thought him an honest one.” That uncertain sigh was chased by a gasp. “You do know what this means, don’t you? If I thought I had few marital options before, they’ve narrowed all the more with what you say. What sort of future have I, except one my father forbade me to have? And, oh! If only I’d known all these years what a liability I’ve been to Madame Marisse’s. A whisper of this could mean the end of the school’s reputation. And it would be my fault!”

She stood, anger fueling her now, and stared at her father’s body. “No! Not mine. It would all be
your
fault! How could you?”

7

The path to the scaffold can be approached from many angles. General poaching, pickpocketing, impersonation of another with the sole purpose of stealing his pension are just a few crimes that, along with murder itself, demand the death penalty.

An Informal Look at the Penal Codes of London and New England

Ian set his gaze on Brewster. Upon Brewster’s arrival, there had been a gradual but noticeable shift, as if by unspoken request the men took literal sides on the porch. One half was filled with men who sided with Brewster, the other with men behind Ian himself.

He wondered if anyone else noticed that those who sided with Ian were the ones he knew still possessed a heart.

“Skipjack never had a part in the venture I’m planning,” Ian began.

“Then perhaps you ought to run the plans by me,” Brewster said, “if Skipjack didn’t have an eye on them.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.” The words rippled in the silence from one end of the veranda to the other.

“So it’s come to this already, has it?” The brogue Brewster took such pains to hide in the city sometimes showed itself among them. “The pooka wants to be me new partner; is that how it is now?”

Ian refused to be irritated by the reference to childish stories of mischievous Irish fairies. Age had nothing to do with competence. “I have no plans to take Skipjack’s place as your partner.” Ian took a sip of the drink in his hand. Smooth and watered down to keep his head clear, but whiskey all the same. He’d skipped breakfast and lunch, so there was little left to stand in the whiskey’s path to Ian’s brain.

“If you’ve no thought to take his place, then things will remain as they’ve always been. As such, you might tell me what you have in mind before the doing of it.”

“Your partnership with Skipjack is dead, Brewster. It’ll be buried with him by this time tomorrow. And I’ve no plan to take up his half. What I do from now on I do of me own accord. I need no one’s approval.” Sometimes Ian’s own brogue had a way of surfacing.

If anyone so much as swallowed, Ian would have heard it—it was that quiet. Even the birds in the nearby wood that a moment ago had whistled and cooed suddenly fell silent.

Brewster swished the drink in his glass, a smooth movement that seemed to say Ian’s challenge hardly warranted a reply, let alone a counterchallenge.

“What you do on your own is up to you, Maguire.” He consumed the last of what remained in the glass, then neared a table to discard it, bringing him two steps closer to Ian. “But if you do it without my help, you take the risk for yourself. None of my men will be involved—before or after, no matter the outcome. No protection from me. Is that clear to you now?”

Ian’s lack of a response said enough.

“I needn’t refresh your memory, do I, Ian?” Brewster fairly whispered now that he was nearer. “I could have saved those men, all three of them, had they only come to me before their last attempt.”

No, Ian needn’t be reminded. The last time a handful of men had decided to break free of Brewster, they’d ended up ambushed by a competing gang; three of them hadn’t survived the street battle.

If the reminder was meant as a subtle threat, Ian was willing to call his bluff. Brewster might shed more blood than either Ian or John ever had, but there was no questioning his loyalty to John. Ian was willing to wager Brewster would no more bring him harm than he would Meggie.

There was only one real problem: how many men, without Brewster’s protection, would be willing to stray from his control?

Brewster left the porch, going to the carriage that waited for anyone who wanted to be taken back to the station.

As Ian expected, several other men left the porch as well. They wouldn’t all fit in the carriage with Brewster, and so they started to walk.

Ian faced those who remained: six. Fewer than he’d hoped, but nothing to scoff at—until he saw that one man was missing upon whom he’d been counting. The cop who played a pivotal role in his plan.

His gaze flew to the retreating men. All he saw was Keys’s back.

Ian had to force himself to hold steady his glass. His mind already raced, ineffectively trying to reassure him. There was still time to convince the man back to Ian’s way, and convince him he would.

Ian’s future depended on it.

8

To hearken one’s ear toward a conversation one hasn’t been invited to partake in is to prove oneself of the lowest moral character. If such a basic rule of manners might be compromised, what else might one do?

Madame Marisse’s Handbook for Young Ladies

Meg saw Maguire enter the large ballroom from the veranda, once again struck by his looks. His dark hair was in sharp contrast to the vivid blue of his eyes. Eyes so different from hers and her father’s, yet striking in their own way for their depth and darkness. And skin so healthy she wondered how it would feel to the touch—his wouldn’t be soft like hers, but surely it would not be rough, either.

She snapped her eyes away.

“You’d best allow me to handle telling him our plans,” Kate whispered before taking Meg’s hand in hers to lead her forward. “But not yet.”

Together they met Maguire at the first row of chairs in front of her father’s body. “Meggie will of course be staying for the funeral tomorrow afternoon.”

Maguire’s blue eyes showed a hint of surprise, then a bit of regret. The surprise was so fleeting she couldn’t be certain it had been there. He looked from Meg to her father, and once again his sadness was all she could see.

“Very well. Supper will be served soon, if you would like to rest or freshen yourself for that. I’ll show you to a room upstairs.”

“May I stay in my father’s room? Where he stayed while visiting here, that is?” Meg’s request surprised even herself. Yet she couldn’t deny a stubborn wish to know her father despite his failures, the same force that had brought her here to begin with. Somehow, learning he’d been a thief hadn’t quenched her thirst to know what her life might have been like had he allowed her even the slightest place in his.

“If you wish.”

“I’ll be staying as well, Ian,” Kate said, following them from the room. “But I’m sure you can accommodate both of us.”

Maguire didn’t respond, just walked ahead without looking back. Meg looked at the back of his handsome head, at the way his hair followed a perfect pattern: wavy in some spots, straight in others. Thick and so long that it touched the collars of his shirt and jacket.

Then she realized something she hadn’t considered before. He was her father’s
partner
, his protégé. That meant he could be only one thing: a thief.

She placed her hand on the wooden railing once they reached the stairs on the other side of the impressive, three-story center hallway. She needed the aid to steady her step.

How could she never have guessed, never even have suspected there was something nefarious in the way her father had withheld information about himself, about their family? Surely Madame Marisse had never suspected, or she wouldn’t have jeopardized her school by taking in Meg. Or had her father’s charm blinded Madame Marisse so much she didn’t care to know the truth?

No wonder Maguire found it easy to follow her father’s footsteps. One glance from those eyes and women probably just opened their purse strings, no questions asked. When he stopped at a bedroom door, Meg walked around him, leaving plenty of room, refusing to look into those eyes that had no doubt fooled many women before her.

The room that had been her father’s wasn’t as large as Maguire’s. Still, its accommodations were plush, with a generously sized bed . . . upon which lay that huge, slobbering dog. It greeted them with a whimper as it beat its tail against the bed.

“Off you go, Roscoe,” Maguire greeted with a friendly tone. “That’s a good boy.” Though the dog jumped from the bed, he came immediately to Meg in another attempt to get to know her better. She took a tentative step back, unsure how to act around an animal so large, even one she suspected might be friendly.

Maguire pulled Roscoe away and aimed him at the door. She was pleasantly surprised the dog did as directed, as if eager to be free of the bedroom.

Then Ian turned to Meg. “The bathroom is through that door, and there is another bedroom beyond that. You can stay in there, Kate.”

There was no reason for him to linger, yet he did. Rather than following the dog out, Maguire closed the gap between himself and Meg, stopping so close that she took another step back. Could he not tell she wished to keep a respectable distance between them?

He took one of her hands in his. “I think it’s all still a bit of a shock to you, Meggie. In time you’ll grieve your father properly because you’ll realize he was a good man. One who would have welcomed your love above all else.”

She pulled her hand from his, wanting to scoff at the pronouncement. A good man! Considering the source of the compliment, she disregarded it altogether.

But even as he walked from the room at last, Meg watched him. All these years she’d been made to follow every rule in existence, while Maguire—at her father’s side—had been allowed to break any one he chose.

The fourteen-year-old girl still inside suddenly wished she’d been able to switch places with him, if only for a day.

Ian finished his whiskey, this time undiluted. He shouldn’t have poured another, but it was too late now. He stared at John’s profile, half-expecting him to sit up and tell Ian the same thing he always said when anyone around him was tempted to drink too much.
No cheating. Life is what you make of it, so don’t miss it by getting drunk.

Surely he’d understand this time, though, and condone the escape Ian needed, if only temporarily. Having Meggie here wasn’t helping him with his grief at all; if anything, she made it worse. He’d thought they could mourn John’s loss together, but she didn’t even miss him! That much had been clear when Ian had looked into her eyes, the same eyes she’d inherited from her father. Ian swore they’d turned as gray as a winter sky when he’d tried coaxing a bit of mourning from her.

He shouldn’t be wasting time thinking of her. Instead, he would do as John had always done, at least before Kate and her new faith got to him. Ian would focus on the job at hand.

Dickson, specially employed at the bank for over a month now, fed Ian the information he needed on a regular basis. Floor plan, schedules, security measures, average number of banknotes, and—most importantly—the kind of safe the bank used. An exact replica of which Ian kept in the locked room upstairs right now. The unholy thing had been hard enough to get up there! Ian already knew where Dickson should drill the preliminary holes and was surer than ever he could be in and out in less than seven minutes.

Losing Keys could delay the date of the heist. The targeted bank was on Keys’s beat, and the last thing they needed was a real cop looking out for predawn activity along that stretch of city block. It would take months to get a replacement.

But the job meant more than ever now; Ian couldn’t fool himself into thinking otherwise. Nothing less than a quick success would set him free of the threat Brewster posed—not only to claim a portion of any job Ian cared to do, but to call on Ian’s talent wherever Brewster thought necessary. Ian couldn’t wait months for that freedom.

“Supper, sir.”

The pronouncement came from Ian’s most trusted servant, standing at the door closest to the dining room. Tupp, who acted as butler, valet, right-hand man, and trusted message runner.

Since Ian didn’t employ a single female servant, he took it on himself to go upstairs to let Meggie know dinner would be served.

He knocked softly on her door, wishing he wasn’t quite so eager for her to answer. Nothing had changed that boyhood secret hidden in his heart ever since setting eyes on Meggie nearly a decade ago. She hadn’t changed either, except to grow lovelier. She was still the image of perfection John had so lovingly placed on a pedestal, right from the start. It had proved impossible not to love her simply because John had.

But the Meggie on that pedestal had been little more than a figment of John’s imagination—worse, she’d become a figment of Ian’s. Today proved he knew nothing of her and that he would do well not to try knowing her any better.

He tapped again but received no answer. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep. He should go downstairs, instruct the cook to hold dinner until later. But his own stomach—empty but for the whiskey sloshing about—demanded some kind of sustenance. He’d been mostly ignoring food since finding John in this very room.

Ian tried the doorknob, and it twisted easily at his touch. He’d never had a sister, hadn’t lived with a woman since the day his mother died on the boat from Ireland more than a dozen years ago. Even so, Ian knew the last thing he ought to do was open this door.

He pushed it out of the way—only to find the room empty.

Quiet voices through the bathroom joining this room to the next drew Ian’s attention. Instantly his heart bludgeoned the walls of his chest. Why had he left her alone with Kate, of all people?

In three long strides he was at the bathroom threshold, but there he stopped, thankful that he’d somehow managed to make no noise despite his panic. If by some miracle Kate had kept silent about Skipjack, there was no need for Ian to blurt the truth in a groundless accusation.

Without a trace of compunction, he leaned in to hear what they said.

“Did that man—Brewster—know my mother, too?”

“Oh yes. John told me it was Brewster who rescued her from homelessness after her first husband died. I think she must have been quite something to turn her back on everything she knew—her family, her homeland, every friend in the world—for the man she loved. And he was just a footman. She could have married a man of high standing.”

“But he died, this footman she ran off with to marry?”

“Your father said after your mother’s first husband was killed in a carriage accident, she intended to return to England and beg her family’s forgiveness. But she met Brewster, and he offered to help her—without reciprocation, if you know what I mean. Of course, Brewster was married back then, but he never did anything without expecting something in return. From what I learned, Brewster’s wife and your mother became great friends. After they both died—Brewster’s wife in childbirth—it was one more thing that Brewster and John shared. Their grief.”

Ian knew that much was true. He leaned comfortably against the doorjamb.

“So my father and Brewster have been friends for a long time, and my parents met because of him.”

“Yes, that’s right. Speaking from personal experience, once your father fell in love with your mother, it was only a matter of time before she returned the feeling. He’s impossible to resist.”

“Do you think they loved each other truly, Kate?”

“Of course! It’s entirely possible to fall in love more than once. Your father proved that when he fell in love with me.”

“Then perhaps you’ll fall in love again too.”

Ian couldn’t see them from where he stood behind the door; he only heard a light laugh, and it twisted him inside. That they could sit and talk so amiably, even laugh, when John was downstairs waiting to be buried—it made him sick.

He might have turned, found his way quietly back out to the hall to tap on Kate’s door, but Meggie was talking again and he couldn’t help listening.

“I know so little of either of my parents. I might at least know my father through you, Kate.”

Ian knew Kate would be all too eager to answer that entreaty. This conversation had gone on long enough. Too long, in fact. He burst through the bathroom, every sensible thought, any hope of caution or calm, banished by hot, whiskey-enhanced anger.

“I think you know enough about your father, Meggie. That he took care of you all these years because he loved you.”

Both women sprang to their feet, and some small, rational part of him was glad to see they hadn’t adjusted any uncomfortable clothing for an intended nap but had been sitting on the two chairs in front of the window overlooking the river. They might summon enough anger over the interruption to match his, but at least embarrassment over a loosened corset wouldn’t add more fuel on their side.

“How dare you!” Meggie scolded, her cheeks flushed, blue eyes glaring. “No gentleman would listen at the door. You, sir, are most certainly no gentleman.”

To his private disgrace, he had to struggle to remain standing stiff and tall after his sudden entrance. His head was spinning. “I never claimed to be one.”

She stood not two feet from him, her face less lovely while looking at him with such contempt. “You smell of alcohol.”

“What of it? If you possessed the shadow of a daughter’s heart, you, too, might turn to comfort where it could be found.”

“He was more a father to you than he ever was to me! Why shouldn’t you mourn him more than I? I’ll only miss his pocketbook because that’s all I ever knew of him!”

How he wanted to shake her for renouncing John, but he’d never touched a woman in anger in all his life and wasn’t about to start now. And then his anger suddenly deflated. She was right. How could she have loved him, when all John had allowed between them was a figment of both their imaginations? The real tragedy was that the figment she’d created of John hadn’t been nearly as appealing as the one John had created of her.

Anger dissipated, Ian turned away. “I came to announce dinner.”