Authors: Kate Rothwell
Somebody To Love (14 page)
Her mother had tried to teach her to think of herself as a lady. Everyone else seemed to assume she was for sale.
Her grandfather had been right. She fit nowhere and no one.
“Miss Araminta.” A voice behind her interrupted her bitter thoughts.
Damn that Griffin. He must have sent along Hobbes. Reluctantly, she slowed her pace.
The big man caught up with her and pushed his battered brown bowler back to reveal a forehead creased by a scowl. For a moment she feared he would berate her, but then he asked, “You all right?”
“I am well, thank you.”
“Don’t seem so good.”
She bit her lip to keep the tears back. After she knew she’d succeeded, she spoke. “I suppose you are right. But I have no one to blame but myself.”
He briefly touched her shoulder. “I’ll not have him hurt you.”
“That’s kind, Mr. Hobbes—”
“Hobnail,” he reminded her.
“Hobnail, you offered to court me once.”
He nodded. “Like the way you see things. Wouldn’t ask about—about what you and him did.”
“Oh, Hobnail. You are generous, far too good, but I must still say no, thank you. I just want to know, would you ever consider marrying a woman like me?”
“That’s what courting often leads to.”
“Despite my . . . ” Her voice died away.
“Your what?”
“My color, Hobnail.”
“You’re Italian, ain’t you?”
She pressed her hands together, hard. “No. My grandmother was probably a mulatto,” she said gently.
“Oh.” He sounded uninterested. “She a good woman?”
“I never knew her.” She didn’t even know her paternal grandmother’s name.
Araminta lost the fight against tears and pulled out a handkerchief. How much easier her life would be if she could somehow manage to fall in love with Hobnail Hobbes. But she wouldn’t marry without love, and she apparently was attracted to heartless scoundrels, and not decent men.
“Oh,” she managed, after she’d wiped her eyes and blown her nose. “I’m sorry, I think I shan’t ever marry. But I would be honored to be your friend.”
“Right,” he said, unconcerned. “That’s understood, Miss Araminta.”
He began to whistle.
When she lay in bed, her brain would not turn away from Griffin. The hot anger had fled, and now indecision clouded her thoughts.
He was not unfair, really. He had always been clear that he would not marry. She should have known he would be businesslike about bedding her. Oh, heavens, but he wasn’t anything like cold in that bed. His touch lingered on her skin, in the raw ache between her legs. She shivered, as memory of that passion rippled through her.
She even wondered if he was right to offer compensation. After all, she was the only one who would take risks, for only she would be hurt when their time together ended. His armor was too thick.
But then she abruptly recalled that she wasn’t the only one at risk. There might be children. Another generation raised outside the boundaries of society. She had briefly indulged in fantasy earlier, had almost felt the sweetly perfect weight of Griffin’s baby in her arms. But she could not be selfish and cause an innocent to suffer the pain she knew too well. Her early childhood had been idyllic, but once she’d understood . . .
Deep sorrow extinguished her uncertainty. The matter was settled.
She woke the next morning determined to find another solution to the problem of Olivia. Perhaps the two of them could buy tickets for a ship sailing to Europe. Ignoring the pain that had replaced a giddy passion, she made plans. A fresh start would suit her. She slowly started the familiar process of sloughing off an old life, as she had after her mother died. Now she left behind more than a small country village—what was the old-fashioned phrase her mother might have used? Araminta would put herself on the shelf, and abandon dreams of love.
As she yanked on her dressing gown, she dismissed any other possibilities. She could not settle for a man she didn’t love—not after her mother had sacrificed everything for love. To settle for less would be an insult to Charlotte.
CHAPTER 12
Early in the morning, even before the sun rose, Araminta threw back the lid of her trunk and stared down at the letters. Stacks of them. All of them hers, written to her grandfather, the man who’d thrown out his daughter. He had never answered her on paper. But he’d saved the letters, and somehow, after his death, they’d made their way back to her, and for some reason she’d saved them. Evidence that she had once had a family, perhaps.
She tied the belt to her dressing gown tight, and then leaned down to open a few, pulling them at random from the thick piles and throwing them back into the trunk without reading them. She’d save a few—not a link to the past, more of a small reminder.
The rest she gathered, and, kneeling by the small fire she had started in the grate, she tossed them one by one onto the blaze. Mesmerized, she watched the paper—some of it white, some cream, depending on where she’d lived when she wrote the letters—all curl into black, then gray, ash. The solid pain remained, but rested more easily now. This end of a past marked a beginning, after all.
“Well, then, Grandfather,” she said aloud, “you wouldn’t allow the loss of something precious to interfere with your busy life. Maybe you can teach me something after all.”
She tossed the rest of the letters into the trunk and spoke to her grandfather again. “I must say it is too bad your lessons always seem more true than Mama’s.”
At work she kept herself and her hands busy with preparing a meal. The usual eight-course meal for the evening’s guests—nothing extravagant. The rhythm of cooking eased some of the dreary heaviness in her heart.
Olivia came into the kitchen earlier than usual and perched on a stool to watch. Since Kane’s departure, she seemed more cheerful, so Araminta decided to approach the question.
“Did you ever want to visit Europe?”
Olivia’s smile vanished. “Yes, but that was an old dream.”
Araminta tied up the bags of herbs and stuffed them into the trussed-up fowls. “I might return to England, I think. Would you like to accompany me? I’d buy your ticket for you.”
“Araminta, you are too generous and kind.”
Araminta was reminded of her own words to Hobnail.
Olivia pulled out a delicate handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “I can’t. I shall never be able to travel, I think.”
“It’s not so difficult, you know. Simply walk up the gangplank and allow the captain and his sailors to do the work.”
Olivia gave a watery smile. “Tell me, Araminta, why are you so determined to rescue me?”
Araminta began to knead some herbs into butter. “Who wouldn’t want to?”
“But to go so far as to quit your job!”
For weeks it had been more a matter of going so far as to keep it, but Araminta replied, “I suppose because you remind me of my mother.”
Olivia’s eyes widened. “I am so much younger than you.”
Araminta hid her amusement. “Yes, by a half-dozen years, I’d say. But she looked like you, even had coloring like yours—no, don’t look so surprised. I believe I must take after a member of my father’s family.”
Olivia shook her head, bemused. “Because I look like your mother, you are willing to run all the way to Europe to protect me? You are a zany.”
Araminta laughed. “It is not such a sacrifice. Nothing holds me here. In fact, I would be delighted to leave this city.”
“Are you hurt, Araminta? You seem so unhappy.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and reached for a tray of timbales. “I’m a trifle sad. Perhaps because I’m—I am thinking of my mother,” she lied. “You are like my mother in more than just appearance, too. Lovable and”—she decided not to add “weak,”—“and under the thumb of a man who doesn’t deserve to hold power over any living creature.”
“Your father was a bad man? I’m sorry.”
“No, ake after died soon after I was born, and my mother loved him. She always said he was as fine a man as ever lived. I mean my grandfather. But it’s not a particularly interesting tale.”
Araminta didn’t intend to share her family’s story with Olivia or anyone else. She walked briskly to a cupboard and came back with her arms full. “Here, break up this bread into small pieces for me.” She handed Olivia three loaves of long bread and a large bowl. “I shall make a bread pudding. With brandy and a good cream sauce, no one will know it’s such a homely food.”
Araminta finished preparing the timbales and went to pour a cup of coffee for herself and Olivia. The huge pot was empty, but rather than stop one of her busy helpers, she made a fresh pot herself.
She put it on the range. Across the kitchen, Jack wedged open crates of supplies with an iron bar. He gave an angry shout.
“Look at this!” He pointed at an open box full of young lettuces. “The ones on the bottom are slimy.”
As she strode over, Araminta could smell them, but still she leaned down and prodded the lettuce with a finger. Disgusting. “Didn’t you talk to the greengrocer about his produce before?”
Jack kicked the box. “Yeah. But he’s done it again. I think you’ll have to say something, Miss Araminta.”
“Yes. Good idea. I’ll pay the man a visit immediately.”
Olivia bid her good-bye and wandered from the kitchen. Araminta untied her apron and flung it down. She was in the mood to tell the greengrocer what he could do with his rotten vegetables.
His shop was only a few blocks away, and it took less than ten minutes to settle the matter. The brisk walk and the “conversation” with the apologetic greengrocer helped improve Araminta’s mood.
When she returned to the kitchen, she poured herself a cup of coffee and frowned. The pot she’d just made was almost empty.
Sure enough, five used coffee cups sat on the counter. She piled them in a corner for the scullery maids and pulled a pencil and paper toward herself to jot down a recipe detail that had occurred to her on the walk back from the greengrocer.
Olivia stood in the doorway, panting and worried. “There you are.”
“Are you all right?”
Olivia peered around the kitchen as if searching for something before coming all the way in. She must have been satisfied because she came close to Araminta, bent toward her and whispered, “I’m fine. But your friend. He’s not.”
“My friend?”
“Mr. Calverson. I was coming down the stairs and I heard a few of the men talking in the hall in the kitchen. I hid, but I could hear the whole conversation. I think they are going to go to his office to—to kill him.”
Araminta shot to her feet, alarmed. “Was Mr. Hobbes one of the men?”
Olivia looked around nervously and whispered, “You mean the big one who seems so taken with you?”
“Yes.”
“No. He’s not here.”
Another strange thing. Araminta grabbed her bonnet and reticule. “I have to do something. I must warn him.”
“Where are you off to now, miss?” red-haired Maggie shouted after her.
“I’ll be back,” was her only reply.
She abandoned frugality and hired a hack. By the time she had reached Griffin’s hotel, hemd departed for his office. And when she managed to rush there, she was told he’d just left.
“He accompanied a large, rather uncouth gentleman,” a gossipy clerk informed her. Araminta breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Mr. Hobbes had come to warn him. But then the clerk described the man as dark-haired. Not Hobnail after all. Panic tore through her. What if Kane had left town at this moment so that he could not be connected to Griffin’s death?
She rushed to the window in the front of the Calverson Company office and stared out over the crowds, searching. There, heading rapidly toward the river. Three men surrounding a man in the middle—one on each side, one behind. Surrounding another man. Could it be him?
She tore down the stairs, praying she wasn’t following a false trail.
CHAPTER 13
Griffin scowled down at the near-illegible scrap of paper—his father’s latest plea for more funds. “Why do you suppose my father would require three thousand dollars for excavation equipment? His crews use garden spades.”
The secretary awaiting his dictation shot him a frightened look and uttered a near-silent bleat. “I’m sure I do not know, sir.”
Hell, and why had Williams stuck him with the frightened sheep of a man? Maybe it was an attempt to drive Griffin out of the New York office.
Griffin flung his father’s letter onto the massive mahogany desk. “I’ll deal with this later. We should draft a response to the latest offer to buy the Minnesota property. Oh, and have we had any news yet about Senator Burritt and his lovely daughter, Elizabeth?”
The other names on the list he’d had an assistant draw up had all been disqualified. The girls didn’t match the description. Or they’d last been seen in other cities.
The secretary shifted nervously through the stacks of papers.
Griffin attempted to stifle his impatience. “Just check to see if Galvin’s man has verified my idea. It will be in Galvin’s weekly report.”
More scrabbling at papers. “Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. This says that Miss Smith is still unidentified.”
“Fine. We’ll deal with the Minnesota issue then.” Griffin shifted his chair so he could stare out the window as he droned on about properties and retaining mineral rights. Gazing far off in the direction of the harbor, he could see the masts of ships. He considered standing up, walking out the door and heading straight to one of those ships.
He’d grown sick of travel, but now he’d grown tired of New York. And London, for that matter. A dusty train heading west. A ship heading south or east. Somewhere else, preferably primitive. He didn’t need to seek adventure; the simple survival that travel in those areas required would be enough.
Something to scrub his brain clean.
Araminta had said no in her usual forceful fashion. And that was that. He did not need her, and her infernal presence in his thoughts was a useless burden. Perhaps another woman would provide some distraction.... The idea irritated him almost more than Araminta’s haunting him.
A light knock and one of Williams’s assistants opened the door. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but I have a, ah, gentleman here who requires a moment of your time. He insists it’s a private matter.”
Griffin dismissed the secretary, who gathered papers and fledthe office.
One of Galvin’s young oxen. Buckler. This one worked in one of Kane’s more grimy Tenderloin saloons, where the waiter girls were especially popular.
Griffin tilted his head as the bulky young man shuffled in. Something in the way Buckler didn’t look him in the face alerted him. Or the grip with which the oaf clutched his hat, while his other hand remained jammed in his jacket pocket. The day was too warm for a jacket that heavy. And Buckler was sweating.
Stealthily, Griffin reached into his own jacket pocket to check for his knife. Good.
“Sir.” Buckler cleared his throat.
Griffin could manage hearty when the occasion called for it. “How is your new assignment, Buckler? Is Kane a good employer? Very pleasant for you, I’d say, drawing pay from two masters. What can I do for you today?”
Buckler’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He made another attempt. “Sir,” he croaked. “I’m worried. Er. There’s something I think you ought to see. At the place. Where I’m working for Mr. Kane.”
Griffin managed not to roll his eyes. Buckler was the worst actor he’d ever encountered. “Why haven’t you shown whatever it is to Mr. Galvin? He is your supervisor.”
“I, er, have. He—Mr. Galvin says you need to see it too, sir. So if you’re not busy, I wonder if I could, ah, have some of your time?”
Griffin was busy.
And he was not stupid enough to walk into a possible trap. Except when he was very, very restless and curious. What was Buckler up to? Could Galvin actually know what was going on?
He only wished he could figure out if the young fool had a gun or a knife in the jacket pocket.
Feeling almost cheerful, he got to his feet and reached for his hat and coat. Good, he’d forgotten he’d left his gold-headed cane here. A foolish bit of work, but the hidden blade might come in handy soon.
He grabbed that, too. “Shall we go then?” He gestured to the door. “After you.”
The other two men waited at the sidewalk entrance. Obviously more professional than Buckler, they smoothly fell into step, one on either side of him. He waited for someone to growl out words such as “Don’t move, or you’re dead,” but no one spoke. So he came to a sudden stop. Buckler slammed into him.
Griffin turned and put out a steadying hand. “I’m sorry, Mr. Buckler. Are you hurt?”
Buckler stammered, and one of the other men grabbed Griffin’s arm. “No funny business, you.”
“Excuse me?” Griffin looked him up and down, assuming an air of confusion.
The man, the taller of the two escorts, stared back. Not a familiar face, at any rate. The man took in a breath and let it out with a slight snoring sound. Aha, thought Griffin, Araminta’s friend from the basement? This could be a bigger problem than Griffin had anticipated.
“Um,” Buckler said. “Sir. Mr. Calverson. Um.”
“Christ almighty, you didn’t say anything, did you, you idiot,” the other man snarled under his breath. “Calverson, you’re coming with us.”
“Yes?” Griffin turned to examine him. “Pardon me, have we been introduced?”
Buckler whimpered, “Um. Sir. I, that is we, have to take you somewhere.”
“But of course, Mr. Buckler. That is why I am here.” Griffin managed an aggrieved, befuddled glare to match his still mild tone. “Yet you still haven’t explained what is so terribly important. And I want to know what it is that I—”
“Shut it,” one of the other hoods spoke with a harsh growl.
Griffin, who was thoroughly enjoying playing the confused but outraged citizen, caught sight of a woman racing along the sidewalk, her dark honey skin flushed, long curling tendrils of her hair coming down in the back under a sky-blue hat.
Araminta. Searching for him. His heart, which should have been filled with fear, lifted, and he wanted nothing more than to run after her. He would, too, once he was finished with this nuisance.
He turned away at once. “I understand,” he muttered. “Keep your hands off me and I won’t raise a fuss. Let’s go.”
Behind him, Buckler heaved a deep sigh. Regret or relief, Griffin wondered, as they marched him off the bustling financial block onto a side street.
He gripped his newfangled knife. A present from his sister, it opened almost silently with only a press of a finger.
At the corner of an alley and the street, he gave a sudden twist, ducked and raised a knee hard in the shorter man’s groin.
The tall one pulled out a revolver and appeared to have a steady hand, so Griffin regretfully threw the blade at his arm. He would have rather held on to the knife.
The gun clattered to the ground. The confusion lasted long enough for Griffin to slam his cane into Buckler’s legs and then use it to hit the gun so it skittered in his direction.
He had the gun in his hand when something slammed into his hip and then his side, and he felt a kind of horrible ripping thrust that could only mean he’d been attacked by something sharp. A blade. He turned and saw Buckler staring, horror-struck, at a bloody paring knife in his own hand. Thank goodness the man was too much of a nitwit to bring a real weapon.
Griffin yanked his arm from his coat sleeve and looked down at his side. The blood was oozing rather than spurting from the two wounds. “Buckler, you fool.”
Buckler turned white and collapsed. In a dead faint.
With one hand clutching the heavy revolver and the other pressed tight to his side, Griffin pivoted to face the taller of the two ruffians. The man took one look at the gun, turned and bolted down the alley. Griffin considered firing off a shot at him, but didn’t want to deal with the trouble of the noise and its aftermath. He now knew the man’s face and suspected the man’s nickname was Bacon; that would suffice.
A woman’s scream rent the air. So much for keeping the incident quiet.
At a dead run, her hands outstretched, Araminta plowed into the smaller man, who was still hunched in pain. He toppled onto the pavement and groaned. She fell to her hands and knees but clambered up at once, and ran to Griffin.
She grabbed his arm, the one that held the gun. “Put that away. You are hurt.”
Griffin, who knew the pain would start any second, raised his eyebrows. “What does one have to do with the other?”
Someone shouted. Running footsteps.
Araminta’s voice was in his ear. “I’m taking you back to the office.”
“No. Too disruptive. I need to . . .”
At that moment, the pain slammed through him so he had to clench his teeth to keep from groaning aloud. She snatched the gun from him. She shoved her shoulder under hisarm and looped her arm around him. He wondered if he was going to be sick. The pain seemed to throb with every heartbeat. He’d suffered worse injuries in his life, he reminded himself.
“Perhaps I have grown too old for these kinds of larks,” he admitted in a croak.
“Don’t you dare faint.” Her voice came from far away. “You are too heavy for me to carry.”
“Araminta?”
“Yes.”
“Where are we going?”
“Just walk. A half-block more.” She sounded out of breath. After what felt like years, she stopped and waved her arm. It took Griffin, fighting the pain, a few seconds to realize she was hailing a cab.
The coachman shouted down angrily, “He’s all covered with blood.”
“It was an accident,” Araminta called back. “You can’t refuse to give a ride to an injured man.”
Despite his discomfort, Griffin was amused by her innocence about New York cabbies. “Assure the man he’ll get a large tip,” he muttered.
During the ride uptown, he leaned against her, counting the jolts. The circle of her arms around him almost made up for the pain.
Her voice in his ear again. “I’m taking you to my house. It’s closer.”
He nodded.
Then she was urging him up a mountain of stairs. A dark, cool breath of spicy air touched him. Air with her luscious, comforting scent. He felt his legs grow weak, and the ground rushed at him.
“Oh no, no, Griffin. Not yet.”
“Araminta. Come to bed.” And the world turned black.
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