The Night Angel (5 page)

“Yes, Falconer. I must—”

“Serafina.” How he loved to speak her name. “I do understand.”

She studied his face with the calm resolve of one who trusted him utterly. Open-eyed, taking her time, giving little notice to the scar that frightened so many. Discounting the shadows of past crimes. “How could you not,” she said quietly. “You know me so very well. Will you sit with me?”

He followed her lead, moving to a pair of high-backed chairs set slightly behind the central staircase, hidden from the view of most people in the lobby. Falconer kept his back to the wall and the stairs so he might continue to scout the passing faces. There was no danger in such a public place, but such habits died hard.

“I know what you wish for, John Falconer,” Serafina told him. “I have wished that I could give it to you.”

“You do not love me.” The words dropped from his mouth with the dull weight of frozen stones.

“There are two issues, and both stand against us. The first is my affection, which is great for you. As great as for any I have ever known since Luca.” She stopped then. “Luca. How I screamed and cried that name aloud and in my heart. How can so much poison be held within so few letters?”

“At least he made it possible for us to meet.” Falconer’s voice was so low she leaned forward slightly.

Her gaze was calm, deep. A woman’s gaze, to match the loving concern within her voice. “What an awful price to pay for coming to know my dearest friend. I never thought I could thank God for such agony. But the Bible says He will sift out the gold from all our dross. And He has. Even here.”

“You said there were two problems.”

“Yes, dear Falconer. Even if I cared for you . . .”

“Romantically.”

“Even then, there would still be my parents. With God’s help, I shall never go against their will a second time. And they . . . well, you see how they are.”

“I am not suitable.”

Serafina remained silent in a woman’s fashion, allowing her stillness to answer for her. Then, “A part of me had hoped they would change with the passage of these weeks and months.”

“As had I.”

“But they have not. I shall honor them, John Falconer, in my choice of husband. After all the suffering I have caused them, I must. You see this, do you not?”

He had so many things he wished to say. Confessions of love, yearnings for what was being denied him. All his vast strength was useless here. He felt like a hulking brute brought by some vast error of fate into an alien world. And here before him sat all that he could never claim as his own. Of course he saw. Yet just then his throat was caught in a vise grip of regret, and he could say nothing.

Falconer rose to his feet. He opened his mouth, but the words would not come. He bowed to her, bidding farewell to all his futile dreams. Then he did the hardest thing of a hard and brutal life.

He turned and walked away.

Chapter 4

The Gavis’ move to their new quarters was delayed a week by a late snowstorm. Washington was an odd sort of place when it came to weather. One day seemed firmly wedded to the southern states, particularly the fiercely hot summers when the wet air clung like damp blankets to the skin. In the depths of winter a south wind could blow in several days of piercing blue sky and temperatures that had people speaking of spring in January. The next day, however, a gale could arrive from Connecticut. The wind would slice through the thickest coats. The poor of Washington suffered hard on such days. The missions were packed, and famished children flocked to the back roads where the constables did not patrol, begging for pennies.

That week a blizzard cut Washington off from the rest of the nation. The turnpikes both north and south were shut. A ship arriving from Charleston carried the astonishing news that even the ports of Savannah and Jacksonville had been blanketed by snow. Food was growing scarce. Then suddenly the sun emerged, and within two days the snow was a memory. The city roads that were not bricked turned to bogs. Streams ran down the center of some avenues. All of Virginia’s and Maryland’s rivers broke their banks. But the sun remained strong. By week’s end some of the most hardy dogwoods were beginning to show the first buds of spring.

The Gavis’ house stood four down from one formerly owned by Dolley Madison. Their new home, the smallest on Lafayette Square, had been erected to fit into a very narrow lot, one of the square’s last free spaces. But the stone and brick edifice held a warm artistry, a place of charm rather than grandeur. The windows were tall and the interior filled with light. Directly across from them was the manor of Martin Van Buren, and beyond that rose the bare-limbed forest that backed onto the White House. Although placed in the very center of Washington, Lafayette Square was broad enough to hold almost a country air. Falconer had taken to walking either here or along the Potomac, seeking momentary freedom from the city’s confines, which was how he had chanced to learn the house had suddenly come available.

Falconer worked alongside the Gavis but remained at an inner distance from everyone, even himself. He observed the family taking in the home and its well-portioned rooms, talking excitedly as they decided where everything was going to go and which rooms would be for what purpose. They were a family facing problems together. Three of them, loving one another through the good times and the bad. Falconer slowly walked down the front stairs. He stood removed from where the two wagons from Langston’s Emporium were being unloaded. He had been alone all his life. But he had never felt it so clearly as now.

Even here, however, he was not to find solitude. For soon enough Lillian and Reginald Langston arrived in a carriage followed by two more wagonloads of goods. Reginald hailed him with “Did the first items arrive safely?”

“I doubt there will be enough room inside for everything, sir.”

“There, you see?” Reginald addressed his wife as he helped her down from the carriage. “Did I not say you were burdening them with too much?”

Lillian Langston, wife of the emporium’s owner, was a British lady aging with beauty and grace. There were tales that she had relinquished a title and vast holdings, but even her staff were uncertain of the truth. For Lillian Langston preferred to speak only of her life here in Washington and of the husband she loved so dearly. “And I told you, my dear, to allow the women to decide what should be required.”

“Hmph.” Reginald Langston doffed his hat to Falconer. “I am seeing far too little of you, my friend.”

“The snows,” Falconer said awkwardly. “My work guarding the family.”

Lillian stepped up alongside her husband. “Are they still in danger?”

“Hard to say, ma’am. The legate was certainly displeased over their departure from his manor. But if Serafina says there were men with guns, we had all best believe her.”

“I am so looking forward to seeing them again. And the house.”

As if on cue, the three Gavis came rushing down the front stairs, crying aloud with that odd Italian mixture of joy and astonishment and protest. Lillian and Reginald were hugged by them all. The Langstons smiled and stood as the Gavi family ran around the wagons, peering under wraps and exclaiming to one another. Then there were more hugs and laughter as Bettina lost her English entirely. Her husband then discovered the walnut desk with the gilt-edged leather top that was meant for his study. His cries were loud enough to attract attention from people across the square. Which only caused the others to laugh. Falconer remained upon the sidewalk, five paces removed from the exuberant celebration. The Gavis almost sang their joy, speaking English with such gusto that even a simple word was enough to have the Langstons laughing and all the busy workers smiling and chattering in reply. Everyone was swept up in the joy of entering a new home. Everyone, that is, except John Falconer.

Alessandro Gavi could not stop his exclamations. “The desk! The chair!”

“The carpets!” Bettina whispered to her daughter, then seeking an English word, added, “The chandelier!”

Mother and daughter hurried inside to tell the workers where to deliver the next load, which was a set of six high-backed chairs with carved arms. But midway up the stairs Bettina rushed back to embrace Lillian Langston in a childish flurry of excitement. Everyone was so happy they managed to ignore the fact that Falconer was the only one who did not join in. He was, after all, a stern man by nature.

“Grazie, di cuore. Grazie mille.”
Bettina pulled Lillian toward the house.
“Vieni. Presto, vieni!”

“She says you must come with us now,” Serafina called over. “Mama, where does this go?”

“Cos’ e`?”

“A table, I think. With drawers.”

“It is called a sideboard,” Lillian explained.

“Oh! What wood!
Che grande!
” Bettina would not let go of Lillian’s hand.

The three women disappeared inside the house, chattering in a pair of languages, not really caring now that little was being translated. Reginald Langston observed, “I do believe they have become the best of friends.”

“Sir, Mr. Langston.” Alessandro extended his hand over the stream of items and workers proceeding into his house. “I am speechless.”

“First of all, you must call me Reginald.”

“Reginald. I am Alessandro.” The man’s eyes shone with astonished delight. “One moment we are homeless and wondering whether we shall even have clothes for the morrow. The next, we have a home and all the furnishings.”

“First of all, the home was Falconer’s doing.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” A trace of the stiff formality returned as Alessandro bowed to Falconer. But not much. “We are ever in the gentleman’s debt.”

“As for me, sir, I must tell you, we are here because we expect something in return.”

“Ah.” Alessandro wished to become the skilled merchant and negotiator. But the day was too much. “Anything, good sir. If it is in my power, it is yours.”

“Not your power at all, sir, but Falconer’s. We seek him to join our firm.”

“But . . . but, Mr. Falconer has agreed to help me.”

“As he has explained. We shall wait because we must. But Falconer has agreed to join us.” Reginald did not even attempt to hide his vast satisfaction. “Finally.”

Langston’s Emporium in Georgetown was but one segment of the merchant empire. Reginald Langston and his partners controlled a fleet of merchant ships and had established trading stations in such far-flung spots as Philadelphia, Wheeling, London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Falconer saw no need to explain to Alessandro Gavi that he had agreed to Reginald’s request with just one condition. That his work in the company require that he be sent far away.

“Surely, sir, there must be something I can do for you as well,” Alessandro offered. “The Gavis are known far and wide as merchants of quality.”

“I thank you, and I look forward to seeing how and where our interests mesh,” Reginald replied evenly.

Even Falconer noticed the sudden shift.

“But there is something more I can do for you, yes?” Alessandro asked.

“Falconer has told me in no uncertain terms that he will only join my establishment once he has concluded his work for you. But he will not tell me what this work is, nor how long it will take.”

Alessandro bit his lip, his former good humor gone. “It must remain a secret, good sir, only because it is dangerous.”

“If you do not trust those you can, how can you be sure that you will succeed?”

“True, true.” Alessandro Gavi searched about him, ensuring that the square remained empty. He cast a glance at Falconer. “I must thank you for being so guarded with my confidences.”

“It is your secret,” Falconer replied. “Not mine.”

“But you feel I should trust him, yes?”

“If it were my decision, I would have confided in him long ago.”

“Bene.”
Alessandro turned to Reginald. “I represent a council of Venetian merchants. As payment for a debt, we have been given ownership of a gold mine.”

“Whereabouts does it lie?”

“Two days ride from Charlotte in the Carolinas,” Falconer answered for Alessandro, very glad to have it out. “In the Appalachian foothills, or so I am told.”

“Don’t know it; don’t have business there. Our trade has all been north and west. But I could make inquiries.”

“No, please, I must respectfully ask that you not share this information,” Alessandro inserted quickly. “My lawyers here, they have sought to determine what they can. It has been slow, so very slow. The country is wild, the people not welcome to outsiders.”

“But the mine exists?”

“There is a mine. That much we know. How profitable, how large a holding, I cannot say. Apparently there are no . . . I am sorry, I do not know the proper term . . .”

“Assayers,” Falconer supplied. “Mining engineers.”

“Yes. Assayers who are not already committed to other mines. It is all so very primitive, you see. And very closed to outsiders.”

“So why not just take cash and be done with the matter?”

“Because the gold, sir. The gold!” Alessandro’s hands began to weave in a distinctly Italian fashion. “All the Venetian jewelers and Murano crystal makers, we must pay a levy to the Vienna court for all our gold. Why? Because either the shippers or the mines themselves are controlled by members of the emperor’s court. Now, suddenly, a source has been offered to us, one that we may own!”

Reginald Langston understood the problem immediately. “So you want Falconer to travel down and take the measure of this mine.”

“And return with our first share of the gold. Only when we have something in our hands can we truly believe this to be real.” The hand gestures grew more dramatic still. “But negotiations have taken forever, good sir. Our lawyers here in Washington have claimed it is faster to deal with London than this provincial town of Charlotte.”

Reginald was already looking ahead to the next problem. “The Austrian ambassador, how is he known?”

“The legate, Prince Fritz-Heinrich.”

“I don’t suppose he’s all too happy with the development.”

Alessandro repressed a shudder. “He must not know.”

“But if he does?”