Flora's Wish (42 page)

L
ucas removed his pocket watch to check the time. Exactly nine minutes. He leaned against the carved column adjacent to Flora's bedchamber door and closed his eyes. How had it all come to this?

Flora Brimm was a Pinkerton agent's worst nightmare, the type of woman who would niggle her way into his thoughts at the oddest moments, work her way into his heart, and all the while irritate him beyond description.

The fellow he'd seen spying on them from what he assumed was the back stairs once again poked his head out of the door. Looking around, he obviously did not see Lucas partially hidden behind the column, for the man skulked forward within reach of his hand.

Only when Lucas grabbed him did the man's eyes go wide. “Oh, sir, you startled me,” he protested. “I only just wondered if you might need assistance before you turned in for the night.”

“Is that so?” He gestured to the opposite end of the hall. “Then you took a wrong turn. My bedchamber is that way.”

“Yes, s-sir,” he stammered. “I suppose I was misinformed on which room you would be using.”

Lucy opened Flora's door and shut it quickly as she hurried past without acknowledging either of the men. Lucas released the valet and then watched both of them disappear down the back stairs.

“All right, Miss Brimm. Your time is up.” Once again he removed the watch from his vest pocket to check the time. Eleven minutes. He paused and then knocked. “Flora, you've had an extra minute. Please do not try my patience any further.”

When she did not answer, Lucas reached into his hat and connected his listening device. Pressing one end of the tube against the door, he held the other near his ear.

Nothing.

He tried the knob. Locked.

And then a thought occurred.

“No she didn't!” he muttered as he raced down the back stairs two at a time. Emerging into the servant's hall, he looked around for the first uniformed employee he could find.

“You!” he called to a footman. “Where is the nearest back door?”

“This way, sir.” The man quickly led Lucas through the kitchen and past a cluster of maids folding laundry. A moment later, he emerged into the thick night air.

“Thanks,” he called as he hurried around the corner of the building to find the approximate place where Flora might have climbed out of the window. And there she was above him, nimbly making her way around the back of the second floor of the three-story home.

A call to her would have alerted Flora to his presence. With tools to close the distance between them waiting in his pocket, Lucas decided to try another way to confront Flora Brimm.

Removing the bullet from his revolver, he inserted the special canister and made sure the weapon was once again ready for firing. Judging the distance to the ledge above him, he smiled as the shot hit its mark just around the corner from where Flora was heading.

Lucas returned the revolver to its holster and pulled the spikes from his pocket and attached them to his boots. Giving the filament line a yank, he curled it around his waist three times to anchor himself and raised his foot to begin the climb up the side of the structure.

Though the going was slow due to the poor visibility from the clouds covering the moon, Lucas managed to reach the ledge before Flora came around the corner.

“Oh!” she shouted as her forehead slammed into his shoulder.

He caught her before either lost their footing and then, to be sure she was safe, he released the clip and wrapped her against him with the wire. A turn of the notch and they were secure.

“What are you doing up here?” she demanded.

“I came to see a woman about a meeting with her father. If you will be still, I will get us both down safely.”

Instead of not moving, Flora twisted around to see how they were connected. Lucas tumbled sideways and took her with him. Holding her tightly, he fought to connect his boots with the ledge.

“What are you doing?” she demanded as her nails dug into his back and her head rested against his chest.

“Trying to keep from landing on the ground before I'm ready.”

Unfortunately, they were dangling just far enough away from the ledge to prevent him from using the spikes to gain control. All he could do was release the latch slowly and begin a descent to the ground.

A stiff breeze rocked them against the house, slamming Lucas's back against the ledge. He bit back the choice words he once would have said and focused on keeping control of the situation.

“Be still, or we're both going to end up in your grandmother's roses.”

“I am being still, but I will ask you again. What are you doing? You were supposed to be waiting in the hall.”

Lucas laughed at the absurdity of the situation. At the way she could take any kind of trouble she'd created and turn it into something she had no part of.

“I was waiting in the hall for you,” he said as his fingers slid the notch on the wire down just enough to lower them a few inches. “You were supposed to come out as you said you would.”

He felt her grip on his back loosen, and he swiftly tightened his arm, holding her close. “Hang on, Flora. I'll have us out of this mess in a minute.”

“I could have kept us out of this mess, Lucas. If you hadn't stood in my way, I would have simply walked over to the cupola and climbed down the trellis. It's not a difficult…oh!” she exclaimed as the wire gave way a little too much and they plummeted several feet before he caught the notch and ceased their movement.

Flora held on very tightly now, and her talking had finally ceased. Lucas was sure he would be able to continue lowering them in a slow and measured manner.

Their swift descent had left them still several feet above the ground and well within view of anyone who might be seated in the dining room or formal parlor. Thankfully, tall shrubs kept them all but invisible from anyone who might be standing outside.

Lucas eased up on the notch and nothing happened. The wire seemed to have snagged.

Trying again, he found the workings had jammed. A glance up the length of the wire, at least from what he could see, showed him there was no reason from above that it would not be working.

Reason from above.

The idea caused him to shake his head. As did the unmistakable feeling of a fat raindrop as it plopped on the back of his neck and began a slow trickle down his spine. Along with all of this, he recalled Kyle's mention of the load limit on the wire. Though Flora was tiny, there could be no doubt their combined weight exceeded the two-hundred-pound mark.

All he could do was laugh.

“Mr. McMinn, I fail to see what could possibly be so funny. We are dangling a ways off the ground yet, and apparently your contraption has ceased to work. Is there something humorous in this situation I am missing?”

Another raindrop followed, this one slanting just enough to hit him beneath the rim of his hat. Meanwhile, Flora had her arms wrapped around him, her blue eyes trained on his face, and her beautiful, kissable mouth blessedly closed in a tight line.

“Face it, Miss Brimm,” he said as he gave up on the wire and wrapped his free hand around her. “This is your fault.”

“Mine?” Her eyes narrowed. “You are the one who was standing in my way, and you are certainly the one who created this ridiculous contraption that now has us both dangling and stuck.” She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. Looking back up at him again, she said, “With all of those inventions of yours, can't you come up with something that will solve our problem? Perhaps you have a machine that will allow us to fly down to the ground in that pocket of yours next to the extra-vision spectacles and the human torch and who knows what else?”

“It is a personal torch, and there's no reason to use it. I can see you just fine.” A pause. “And must I say, you look quite lovely in the moonlight. Much better now that you've given up on wearing doilies.”

“Of all the nerve.” She slanted a look up at him through thick lashes. Just as she appeared about to add more to her complaints, a raindrop splattered against her cheek. “Oh, no, Lucas. It's raining. Do something!”

“And what would you suggest I do, Flora?”

“I suggest you explain yourself, young man,” said a gruff voice from the window below.

Lucas angled himself just far enough away from the wall to see who had spoken. From the age and appearance of the man in question, it did not take a Pinkerton agent to surmise that this fellow was Flora Brimm's father.

“Just the man I've been looking for,” Lucas said. “Give me a minute, sir, and I'll bring your daughter down. And then you and I have some talking to do.”

“Don't listen to him, Father. We're just having a little trouble up here. Could you call for a ladder or some shears to cut the wire?”

“I should call for the sheriff! And I still may.”

“Yes, please do,” Lucas said.

“No, don't.” Flora implored. “Just get us down, and I promise I will explain everything.”

Mr. Brimm gave her a doubtful look. “I will keep that thought under advisement, young lady. For now I'll ring for Harrison. Do not even think of going anywhere until one of us returns.”

“Where would we go?”

“Yes, a good point indeed. But do understand, Flora Brimm, that I have ignored many of your antics over the years, including ones that might cause another parent to declare you completely beyond repair. Until now I assumed you would someday settle down into a more sedate manner of behavior. Unfortunately, I have once again been proven wrong.”

Lucas could see his nemesis go from blustering to crushed with her father's words. Something in him, call it a lawman's instinct, told Lucas that Mr. Brimm was the one who was wrong.

“Father, truly I did not expect to—”

“Watch out, Flora,” Lucas said as the wind kicked up again and tossed the two of them against the building. This time Flora's shoe went through the window just above her father's head.

From Lucas's vantage point, he could see Mr. Brimm's color redden beneath his substantial facial hair. With a shake of his head, he moved away from the remnants of the glass and was gone.

Flora looked up at Lucas, her expression anguished. “We have now officially gone too far. My father is not an easy man to irritate, but I have never seen him that angry.” She paused. “We've really done it.”

Lucas looked down at the woman in his arms. “We?” He shook his head. “We? As with just about everything else that has gone wrong since the day I met you at the Crescent Hotel, Flora, this has been completely your doing.”

“I wasn't the one who invented this thing.”

“No, that was me,” he said as he removed a tiny device hidden in his jacket lapel. Not only did the invention have a blade sharp enough to do substantial damage despite its size, it also contained a serviceable pair of wire cutters.

Lucas gazed into the cornflower blue eyes of the most maddening woman on the planet. A moment later he said, “Put your head against my shoulder. I'm going to cut us down, and I'll do my best to break your fall and keep us from landing in the broken glass.”

“Lucas, don't—”

“Okay, here we go.” A snap of the wire and her words became a squeal that chased them the remainder of the distance to the ground. Lucas's landing was softened by the garden soil, while he broke Flora's fall.

She shakily lifted her head to look at him, her nearness distracting him even as he grasped for the cutting device that had rolled just out of reach. “You are absolutely certifiable, Lucas. We could have been seriously injured.”

“Are you hurt?” he asked as he quickly inventoried his own limbs and declared himself fit.

“No, I don't think so,” she breathed. “But all the same, I could have been.”

He leaned just a little more to the right and inched toward the device. “Hold on,” he said as he moved their bundled selves toward it. Finally his fingers touched cold metal, and he palmed the little instrument.