Ignoring her, Connor took a long swallow. He capped the flask and slipped it inside his vest pocket.
Beryl's taffeta gown rustled and the iridescent shades of purple shimmered as she moved toward him. She put one hand on his forearm in an imploring gesture, but there was no hiding the edge of anger in her tone. "You're being ridiculous, Connor. You don't seriously mean to go through with this. That land can't be so damned important that you'd sell yourself for it."
"I think I'm proving that it is," he said quietly. He removed her hand from his forearm.
"But so cheaply?"
His short laugh held no humor. "We all have our price, Beryl.
Just because you held out for more . . ." He shrugged.
She slapped him hard.
Connor didn't retaliate. He pinned her with his stare, letting the heat and color of the imprint fade from his cheek before he spoke.
"I trust you have that out of your system," he said calmly. "The next time you even think about hitting me I'll lay you out."
Beryl had held her ground. At his icy, controlled words she took a step backward. "You good as called me a whore," she said.
"So?"
Beryl's beautiful features contorted with fury. "You bastard!"
Knowing that his calm was all the more infuriating to her, one of Connor's dark brows kicked up. "Bastard? I don't think so. God knows, though, had I been one I probably wouldn't have these problems.
That land would have been mine free and clear when my mother died, instead of ending up in my father's hands."
"If she had wanted you to have it she should have made a will," Beryl snapped. "Perhaps she meant for Rushton to have it. It forced you back to New York, didn't it? It forced you to acknowledge that you have a father. Perhaps Edie knew exactly what she was doing all along."
The fact that Beryl could be right did nothing for Connor's temperament. He had dwelled on the same idea himself, but it was another thing entirely to hear it from her. He had never thought of himself as unreasonable yet he was being forced to reconsider that opinion. "Leave it alone, Beryl. My mother's wishes had nothing whatsoever to do with you."
The strain of anger dissolved in Beryl's features. High color receded from her complexion, leaving it milk-white and smooth. Her full mouth settled in serene composition. The pale blue of her eyes was emphasized by the dark centers and the glistening wash of unshed tears.
"Do you really hate me so much, Connor, that you can't even contemplate that I might be right? Is it so intolerable to give me my due?"
Yes, he thought, it was intolerable. He said nothing and turned away.
Did he hate her? he wondered. Or did he hate himself? It wasn't easy to admit that, against all reason, he could still find himself attracted to her. That was the power she held over him, that in spite of everything he could not quite manage to feel the indifference he feigned. To feel nothing at all would be liberating; hatred bound him.
It didn't matter that it was unfair. He resented her all the more for that. He found some small comfort in the fact that he didn't love her, had probably never loved her. That would have been unendurable.
"We should be going," he said. "That is, if you're still planning to accompany Father and me. I assure you it isn't necessary."
"I'm well aware of that, but the invitation included me." She walked to the full-length mirror again and smoothed the crown of her deep chestnut hair. She curled a tendril at her ear with her index finger.
"And I'm insatiably curious," she said. "I want to meet the man who thinks he can buy you for his daughter." Her smile was wickedly beautiful. "And I want to meet the daughter."
A muscle worked in Connor's jaw. He had to force himself to relax.
"Don't ruin this for me, Beryl."
"What if she turns out to be mud-fence ugly? Or worse, a shrew?
What do you really know about that family except that scandal touches almost everything they do. I've heard stories since I came to New York. John MacKenzie Worth's money quiets rumor but doesn't silence it. Have you thought of that, Connor?"
"Shut up, Beryl," he said with menace.
"Are ten thousand acres of Colorado so damned critical that you have to marry a bastard to keep it?"
Connor let a moment tick by. Into the expectant silence he said quietly, "I'd still marry you if I thought it would help me keep that land, and God knows how much I despise you. So you see, Beryl, it doesn't matter who or what she is or isn't. My mind's made up."
He started walking toward the door.
"You must regret losing that twelve thousand dollars," she said as he opened the door to leave.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. "You can't imagine how much."
Connor had no time to dwell on the stolen money and opportunities lost.
He met his father in the hallway.
"Have you seen Beryl?" Rushton Holiday asked.
People often remarked on the striking resemblance between father and son. Separated by only twenty years, they had finally reached that age where it was not unreasonable or surprising for strangers to mistake them for brothers. It could have been a flattering observation to both men but neither Connor nor Rushton saw it that way. Of course, there were the obvious similarities that they could accept:
thick, ink-black hair that was only just graying at the temples in Rushton; shoulders that were set at an equal breadth; height that favored Connor by a mere half-inch; and a jaw line squared off aggressively. It ended there. Connor thought his father had a cold, intolerant manner. Rushton saw cynicism in his son's expression.
The patrician features of the father appeared aloof to the son, and the same handsomely molded lines on the face of the son appeared arrogant to the father. Their dark eyes were mirrors, yielding little of any thought or emotion they did not intend to be known.
They were so much alike they could barely be civil.
"She's in my bedchamber," Connor said. "I just left her."
Rushton searched his son's face with a hard, penetrating stare.
"She has no business being in your room."
"Have this conversation with Beryl, Father. I didn't invite her in.
My conscience is clear."
"Damn you, Connor," he said under his breath. "I want you to stay away from her."
"That's awkward, don't you think? We're both living under your roof.
Granted, it's an enormous roof, but there are limits to what I can do."
He looked at his father expectantly, a half-smile playing on his mouth, his eyebrows raised slightly.
Rushton sucked in his breath. It was Edie staring back at him.
The impression came and went with startling speed and equal clarity and then Rushton was left staring into a face that was a younger reflection of his own. In spite of the resemblance Rushton thought of Connor as Edie's son, not his own. "I'll get Beryl," he said tightly.
"And then we'll leave. Hickes is out front with the carriage."
Connor wondered what had given his father that briefly haunted expression. "Very well," he said. "I'll be waiting."
The atmosphere inside the carriage was tense. Connor had one of the upholstered bench seats to himself while Rushton and Beryl sat opposite him. Gaslight from the street filtered in the window at regular intervals as the carriage skirted the edge of Central Park.
Rushton's countenance was brooding, Connor's resigned, and Beryl's anxious.
She drew her cape more securely about her shoulders, warding off the chill seeping under the door and under her skin. "Rushton, can't you talk some sense into him?"
It was Connor who responded. "Be serious, Beryl. It was his idea.
Anyway, do you think I would be in this position if he didn't need the money? You should be delighted I'm willing to do this. Money in his coffers means money in yours, or hadn't you thought that far ahead?"
"But your father can have the money by selling the land."
"Save your breath, Beryl," Rushton said. "Connor knows that. It's only because he is stubbornly insisting on buying the land that there's a problem."
Connor couldn't help himself. "It's my home," he shouted. The echo of his words seemed to slam against the walls of the carriage.
Beryl recoiled in response. Rushton's mouth thinned and his jaw tightened. Swearing under his breath, Connor drew back the communicating panel and rapped out an order for Hickes. The carriage stopped almost immediately and Connor opened the door. "I'll walk the rest of the way."
Beryl leaned forward to try to stop him but Rushton put out his arm, blocking her. "Leave him," he said.
"But we'll arrive before he does. What will we say?"
"We'll circle the block until he gets there."
Unhappy but mollified, Beryl leaned back in her seat as the carriage began to roll again. "Must you sell the land, Rush?"
"Yes. The fall in the market makes it absolutely necessary. No matter what Connor thinks, I'm not doing this to spite him." He looked sideways at Beryl. "And I'm not doing it to satisfy your social aspirations or to keep you in a style to which you've only recently become accustomed."
Beryl's arm looped inside Rushton's and she snuggled closer to him.
"Do you think I care a fig for social aspirations or indecent wealth?"
Rushton looked down at her upturned face. A banner of light briefly illuminated her pained expression as she made no attempt to hide her hurt. He patted her arm gently, his smile and tone only faintly mocking. "I think you care very much, my dear, else why would you have married the father when you could have had the son?"
The brisk pace that Connor set only partially curbed his anger. He wanted to hit something or, better yet, someone. He had never been one to spoil for a fight but tonight he found himself hoping there would be one. He didn't even care if he was the one laid out on the sidewalk as long as he got a few licks in first.
Perhaps it was the aura of anger that kept others at bay, but no fellow pedestrians along Seventh Avenue or Broadway came within three feet of him. A stray dog followed briefly but stayed well outside of kicking range. A trio of children mimicked his glowering expression as he passed them but thought twice about asking him for money. Connor noticed none of it.
In his mind's eye he was seeing the fine-boned and fragile features of a scheming harlot, the red hair of a temptress, and the wide, clear, green eyes of jade. She was the one he wanted to meet, the one he wanted to hurt. With the money she had stolen he had intended to buy the Colorado ranch from his father. Never again would he have had to worry that the land could be taken away. His father was selling his heritage out from under him and Connor, as hurt and frustrated as he was by this further evidence of betrayal, still reserved the largest fraction of his anger for the whore who had beguiled him rather than the father who had birthed him.
Connor halted in front of the spiked iron gate at the corner of Broadway and 50th. He leaned against the rails, catching his breath and clearing his head. Behind him the mansion beckoned invitingly with lighted lamps in each of the front windows. On the upper story a drape that had been drawn back was abruptly dropped in place.
His attention on the approaching carriage, Connor didn't sense he had been observed. He straightened, ran his fingers through his hair in an absent, nervous gesture, and waited for his father and Beryl to alight.
By the time he reached the front door of the palatial gray stone house his breathing had calmed and his uncertainty was hidden behind the cool and distant reflection of his darkly mirrored eyes.
From inside the receiving parlor John MacKenzie Worth heard the housekeeper open the front door and greet his guests. His normally impassive features were anything but as he alternately stared at his wife and youngest daughter. His mouth gaped in his broad face and his dark blond hair seemed to grow a little grayer as his authority was called into question. "What do you mean she's not joining us for dinner?" he demanded. "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"
Moira Dennehy Worth merely shook her head, a ge nuine smile on her sweetly bowed mouth. "I suspect, dearest, it's because we knew you'd take it badly. And you are, so there you have it."
Jay Mac speared his daughter with a glance that had been known to make a business colleague's brow bead with sweat. Mary Schyler was not only not cowed, she stared back and gave as good as she got.
"That's your story, I suppose," he said, at once admiring and aggravated.
Skye nodded, dimpling as she gave her father a placating smile.
"The very same," she said. "Did you really think Maggie wouldn't see through your machinations?"
He frowned and straightened the stems of his spectacles.
"Your sister rarely sees past the pages of a book, how was I to know she'd ... wait a minute here, ....... what machinations are you referring to? Moira? What is your daughter talking about?"
"I think it's too late to play the innocent, darling," Moira said. She glanced in the mirror above the mantelpiece and smoothed her dark red hair. "Our guests will be upon us any moment." She stopped fiddling with her hair and came to stand in front of Jay Mac. She smoothed the shoulders of his evening jacket while her loving expression revealed how much she adored him. "Over dinner I hope you will refrain from referring to Skye only as my daughter or Mary Margaret as her sister.
You have a terrible habit of disclaiming fatherhood when you're aggrieved."
Skye giggled. "Poor Jay Mac. He's been so poorly abused by his five daughters that it's a wonder he claimed us at all."
