Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahill 04] (23 page)

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BOOK: Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahill 04]
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“What happens if I don’t hand the money over to him on Tuesday? He might hurt the children!” Lucy cried frantically.
“Ssh,” Francesca said, clapping her hand over Lucy’s mouth. “Keep your voice down. Your family has a few very curious and bold snoops in their midst. Let me spend tomorrow trying to get to the bottom of this, before we become hysterical. It is not Tuesday yet.”
When she dropped her hand, Lucy said, more quietly, “Hart has money. Tons of it. He could hand me cash tomorrow.”
“And what will that accomplish? Lucy! I know you are terrified for Shoz and now for the children. But listen to me. Try to displace the fear so you can think clearly, and hear what I have to say! Caving in to Craddock’s blackmail attempt will only encourage him to come back for more—”
“You are right.”
“What?”
Lucy stared at her. Her eyes were wide; clearly her mind was spinning. “You are right,” she repeated. Her gaze had intensified, almost frighteningly. “We do need Calder.”
“What do you mean?” Francesca asked warily. She did not like the look in Lucy’s eyes, oh no. It was chilling.
“I am going to Calder. Not for money—for help.”
At first Francesca did not understand. “For help? What kind of help? How can—” She stopped.
“Would you ever … commit murder?”
“If someone I loved was in danger, I would commit murder to protect that person.”
Lucy was staring at her now, her eyes ruthlessly hard. Francesca locked gazes with her. “You want to go to Hart.”
“Yes.” Her face tightened. It had become almost unattractive.
At first, Francesca couldn’t breathe, much less speak. And then a red haze seemed to form over her eyes. She fought it. “I see. Because he will do the kind of dirty work you cannot? That you would not let Shoz or anyone else do?” How calm she sounded to her own ears when, inside of herself, she was hardly calm, as the fury began to build.
“Yes.”
Francesca inhaled, trembling. The explosion came. “How dare you!”
“Oh, I dare.” Lucy’s eyes blazed as she got up.
“You would ask Calder to what?
To get rid of Craddock?
Instead of going to the police, you would go to Calder, have him
remove
Craddock somehow?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“You would have him commit a criminal act—
murder
—for you?” She was shouting, shaking.
“There is no other choice!” Lucy shouted back.
“I will never allow it!” Francesca cried. She could not even think straight; all she knew was that she would never let Lucy use Calder in such a way. In that moment, she hated her new friend.
“I don’t believe I need your permission to ask my own brother for anything,” Lucy said coldly.
Francesca stared. Could she stop Calder from coming to Lucy’s aid—in such a frightful and wrong manner?
In a manner that might backfire, hurting him?
He would be a murderer.
“I take it I am interrupting?”
Francesca whirled as Hart stepped into the room.
His timing was simply uncanny. Francesca looked at him, overcome with dismay.
He stared carefully back and then turned to smile at Lucy. “The two of you are shouting—and causing some concern in the front hall.”
Francesca was horrified—had they been overheard? And what had Hart heard? Clearly Lucy was equally worried—frantically so. She ran up to her stepbrother. “Did they hear what we were arguing about?” She practically ripped off his sleeve.
He eyed Francesca again, his composure unshaken—unflappable. “The walls are thick, and no, I don’t believe the actual text of your argument was audible. But I did happen to overhear a sentence or two from this doorway. What is it that Francesca will not let you ask me?” His gaze moved to and locked on Francesca again.
She leaped forward, to his side. Had she been able to step directly between him and Lucy, she would have. “Calder, it’s so late! Shouldn’t you be on your way?” She smiled brightly, desperately, at him. “Isn’t Rourke ready to take Lucy back to the hotel?”
“A book, Francesca,” he said softly. Then, in a normal tone, “I am taking Lucy back to the Plaza. Rourke has been playing doctor again. He wishes to stop by the Channing residence and will take a cab.”
Francesca could only stare, consumed with dismay. Hart and Lucy alone in his carriage? She would beg him for his help, and Francesca would not be there to intervene.
She told herself that Hart would not rush out and murder
Craddock the moment Lucy asked him to. In fact, he would probably hire an assassin.
She was not relieved. Bloody images began to dance through her mind.
“We should go; it is late!” Lucy cried, glancing at Francesca. Her eyes were wild, the eyes of a desperate and frightened woman. In them was a warning that Francesca had better mind her own affairs. So quickly, then, their friendship had evaporated—Lucy was not going to let Francesca get in her way now.
“Francesca?” Hart’s silken voice washed over her in cashmere-soft waves.
She gripped his hand. Her mind raced. “What if I told you I wished to share a scotch with you, outside in the moonlight—alone?”
He started. “Are you thinking to seduce me in order to keep me from taking Lucy back?”
Of course he guessed her intentions. She didn’t bother to deny it. “Yes.”
He stared at her. Then, “That is very tempting, Francesca.”
She stared back, speechless.
“I don’t know why you are so frightened. But I can guess.” His expression changed, hardened. “This is clearly about Rick. Or Leigh Anne. As for what Lucy wishes of me, I have not a clue. Have no fear, Francesca. Your problems are not as overwhelming as you think they are. In the end, life has a way of leveling out the playing field.”
She was ready to cry. Now she had an image of Hart holding a smoking gun. It was followed by an image of him standing before a judge in a packed courtroom, the verdict:
guilty
.
“Chin up,” he murmured, and he leaned forward, about to kiss her cheek.
She started. He had never done more than kiss her hand; what was he doing?
At the last moment, he changed his mind, smiled with
some degree of self-derision, and about-faced. Lucy gave her another warning glance and ran out of the room behind him.
It remained horrifically cold. Francesca stepped out of the drive and onto Fifth Avenue, hugging her fur-lined coat to her. It did not help. She was shivering madly.
She was not about to go to bed, where she would never sleep. By now, Lucy had asked Hart to do the unthinkable. Francesca felt certain he had agreed. When he had told her he would commit murder for a person he loved, she had believed him because he had meant it. She had to stop him from murdering Craddock.
She looked up the avenue for a cab and at this late—or early——hour saw nothing except two private coaches. She began to shiver and shake. She would never find a cab, because to make matters worse, it was a Sunday night, which was a night most people uptown spent at home. She was going to have to walk.
It was only ten blocks, but ten of the coldest blocks in her life. A gusting wind from the north did not help matters. When Francesca paused outside of Hart’s door at No. 973 Fifth Avenue, she felt blue. There was no more feeling in her fingertips and toes.
She estimated it was half past midnight, so that the entire house should be asleep, except for a doorman. Her knock was promptly answered by Alfred. “Miss Cahill,” he said, as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
Francesca stepped quickly inside. “You are up late, Alfred.”
“I was about to say the same thing about you.” Alfred seemed rather fond of her, and she had stumbled upon Hart terribly drunk one afternoon and made him lock up all of his employer’s liquor. As Alfred had not been dismissed, clearly it had worked out. “Dear God, you are blue. Here, let me take that,” he said, reaching for her coat. If he was
shocked that she was calling in the wee hours of the morning, he gave no sign.
“I’ll keep it.” She hugged her coat to her body. “This is an emergency, Alfred. I must speak with Calder. If he is asleep, I must ask you to rouse him.”
Alfred smiled. “Mr. Hart never sleeps until one, sometimes two. Rather amazingly, he is up by five or six. He is in his library doing his paperwork, Miss Cahill.”
Francesca was surprised. There was so much she did not know about him, she realized. But she was relieved. Doing paperwork was innocuous enough. “He enjoys his businesses, then?”
“I believe so. There is always a negotiation that is crucial and in progress,” Alfred remarked, leading her down the front hall. “He has a meeting over breakfast at the Union Club this morning at seven,” he said.
Francesca avoided glancing at the beautiful adolescent girl with the dove as they passed it. “Is anybody else up and about?” she asked carefully.
“Everyone retired some time ago.” He seemed about to say more but checked himself.
They turned down a corridor with paintings lining the walls. There was a tapestry that seemed to be ancient, perhaps from the period of the Norman Conquest; she saw a Rembrandt, a Sargent, and an abstract that appeared to be nothing more than childish lines. Above it was a Titian. His collection was truly spectacular. Why would he want a portrait of her?
Alfred knocked on a pair of beautifully finished doors that were ajar. “Mr. Hart, sir,” he said quietly.
Francesca had already stepped up behind Alfred, so she could gaze inside. Hart was sitting behind a huge desk that was probably eighty-odd inches long; legs as thick as her torso and beautifully sculpted in swirls supported it. The top was leather, she thought, but as most of the desk was covered with folders, files, and papers, it was hard to say. He had been sitting with his elbows on the desk, hands clasped, forehead on his hands. Francesca knew she was catching him in
an extremely private moment—she could imagine what he was contemplating. Oddly, her heart leaped in the most erratic way.
He straightened and looked up. Their gazes locked. He shot to his feet. Papers fell to the floor. “Francesca?”
He was wearing his white dress shirt, which was open to the middle of his chest. The bow tie he’d worn earlier dangled about his collar. He still had on his black evening pants, but he’d removed the cummerbund. She somehow smiled, not the easiest task. “I hope that is an ‘I am pleased to see Francesca’ ‘Francesca?’ and not a ‘do not disturb me’ one.” Her smile seemed to fail her. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing strong, muscular forearms. Of course, she already knew that his hands were large and strong. But now, with him dressed so simply, she saw how broad his chest and shoulders were, how lean his waist, how narrow his hips. And she could not help noticing that his thighs, which were very muscular, strained against the expensive wool of his pants.
And he smiled, recovering. “I am always pleased to see you,” he said in his lazy drawl—as if he had not just knocked over his papers like an awkward schoolboy. He stepped out from behind his desk, glancing at a huge antique bronze clock, set on another desk, this one small and for show and beneath a window. “It’s half past midnight,” he said. “The neighbors will talk.”
She had to smile, because he had no neighbors.
He smiled back, but his gaze was inordinately watchful now. “Alfred? Bring us two brandies—the Louis Quatorze.”
“I won’t be that long,” she said, oddly nervous now.
He smiled and it filled his dark eyes. “If you like scotch, you will like brandy, especially this brandy, which is from a very private and restricted reserve.”
Alfred smiled far too widely for a servant, then backed out of the room, closing the doors behind him. The sound was oddly final.
“I suppose I could experiment with a brandy,” Francesca said, more nervous now than before. An hour ago, she could
think of nothing else but convincing Hart not to do the unthinkable. Now, she despaired. Why hadn’t she waited until the early morning to confront him in his den?
He suddenly grinned. “Frankly, I imagine that there shall come a day when you will wish to experiment in many ways,” he said.
“What does that mean?” She stiffened, suddenly wondering what his master suite was like and, more specifically, his bed.
“You have been caged up like all proper young women. I think that you have one wing out of the cage, Francesca, and nothing will stop you from flying freely now.”
She stared. Her heart turned over, hard. “Conventions are tiresome, and even ridiculous, at times,” she agreed. “And unfair—as women must follow one set of rules, men another.”
“I happen to agree with you completely,” he murmured, settling one hip on the edge of his desk.
“Hart. We have to talk,” she said, finding his posture far too provocative.
“So now it is ‘Hart.’ You do know that whenever you are angry or upset with me—or nervous—‘Calder’ gets left by the wayside and I become ‘Hart.’”
“I’m upset,” she said. Their gazes held, and she simply had no wish to look away. “Very upset.”
“You were very upset an hour ago,” he agreed, his gaze intent upon her face.
“What happened when you left? Did Lucy …” She stopped. “What did she say?”
He reached out and caught her left hand. “She told me everything,” he said softly, while Francesca stiffened. Then he reeled her toward him. “You are so worried, Francesca.”
She stared at him. With him sitting on his desk while she stood, they were almost eye-to-eye and nose-to-nose. “Why are you smiling? What did she tell you? And then what happened!” she cried.
“And to think that last night I assumed it was Rick you
were worried about.” He smiled, and he was obviously pleased.
“Do not be boorish, now!” She tried to shake her hand free of his, and when she failed, he let it go. She straightened, asking, “Did she ask you to …” She stopped.
Her gaze had moved past his left shoulder. Sitting in the center of his desk, amid his papers and files, was a gleaming black gun.
“What’s that?”
He stood, glanced behind him. With no apparent urgency, he walked around his desk and slipped the gun into a drawer. She watched him lock it. And he looked up.
His eyes were so dark and so grim—Francesca wasn’t sure she had ever seen him this way. She had been frozen; now she came to life. She raced around the desk and grabbed his shirt with her good hand, her bandaged hand on his chest.
“Please.
Please do not do this!”
He slid his own palm over her back. “Calm down. The sky is not falling—yet.”
“I can’t calm down,” she gasped. And even though she was afraid, terribly so, his gesture felt like a caress. “Why was that gun on your desk?”
“Francesca, unlike you, I am a very deliberate person. I
never
act on impulse. I was considering my options,” he said. He still seemed unshaken, but no trace of his trademark amusement could be seen. “Lucy is being blackmailed,” he continued calmly. “This fellow Craddock has recently threatened her children. And you and now I are the only ones who know.” He added, “First thing tomorrow, she and the children are moving into this house, where they will be safe.”
“You are so calm,” Francesca remarked rigidly. “How can you be so calm?”
“Calm? A woman I consider my sister is suffering greatly. My calm is only surface-deep.”
She was hardly reassured. And as their eyes held, she sensed but did not see a huge well of anger within him. It was so contained, so controlled. “This is out of control,” she whispered. “I begged her on Saturday to go to Bragg.”
“I am not sure that going to the police is the best thing
to do,” he said. “There may not be any love lost between Rick and me, but even I should pity him were he put in a position of having to arrest his own brother-in-law.”
Francesca wet her lips. “So what is the answer?”
“Craddock’s demise would help,” Hart said as calmly.
“I knew it!” Francesca cried, her fists now clenched. Had she ever been this angry? “She dared to ask you to remove Calder, didn’t she? She hasn’t told her husband a word—God forbid he should be the one to commit murder—but you, you she does not hesitate to go to!”
“Yes, she asked me to remove Craddock.” He could not seem to stop studying her.
“How could she!”
“Easily. We grew up together, Francesca. We share no blood, but we share a family—and a history. In a way, she is my sister, and there are times when I almost forget that we do not share a single drop of blood.”
Francesca found herself grabbing his hands. “What did you say? Did you tell her you would do it?”
His hands tightened on hers in return; their gazes held. “Francesca, Lucy is in trouble. Who will help her if I do not? Frankly, she should have told Shoz. He would have ended this little matter before it ever began. But she didn’t. And he is in Texas—we are here. If I do not help her, who will?”
“There is still the police. There is still Bragg. The one thing about him, he will see that there is justice—”
“Her husband was wrongfully incarcerated once,” Hart said, interrupting. “I know you are a supreme romantic, but justice is a rare and capricious thing, Francesca. I am afraid for Shoz as well. I am afraid that, no matter the record of his life these past twelve years, Lucy may be right. If Craddock is blackmailing Lucy, Shoz has something to hide. Are you telling me that you think Rick would sweep this under the rug … if Shoz is guilty?”
“I think there would be a way to prove him innocent!”
“As I said, you are a terrible and hopeless romantic,” he said softly.
His tone was almost tender, but she could hardly remark
that now. “So the answer is to
murder
Craddock?”
He stared. “That is one answer,” he finally said.
“I am begging you, Hart, begging you not to do this! Please, Hart, please, do not compromise yourself this way! What Lucy is asking of you is wrong. It is that simple. Murder is wrong!” she cried.
“So that is the extent of your concern? You wish to protect a convicted and violent felon from an illegal fate? A fate which, I might add, he does deserve?” He watched her carefully now.
“No,” she said huskily, watching him as closely, “that is the least of my concerns.” And she spoke the truth. Once, not so long ago, she would have been incredulous and disbelieving if anyone had ever suggested she might be thinking in the way that she now was. How strange life was.
He waited.
She breathed hard. “What if you can’t get away with it? What if you are the one to be tried and convicted in the end?”
His gaze moved from her eyes, wandered over her face, then came back to her eyes. “I am flattered, Francesca,” he said, with no mockery at all.
“This is not about flattery! Do you wish to be a sacrificial lamb?”
His gaze narrowed. It was brilliant with intensity now. “Actually, I have no intention of ever standing trial for any crime, my dear. How much do you care, Francesca?”
“Oh, stop it! Of course I care—or I wouldn’t be here! There has to be another way, Calder; there simply has to be!” Oddly, the tears she had refused to allow to well for the past hour suddenly came, blurring her vision. She almost felt as if her own life were at stake.

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