A Touch of Camelot (32 page)

"I've been such a fool," she whispered.

But, in her mind's eye, she saw Cole's face, his smile. She remembered the way he had touched her when they made love and the way they had opened their souls to one another in that hospital. There was still a part of her that couldn't fathom what she was seeing with her own eyes, but she refused to recognize that part of herself anymore. No. Never again.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, she turned her back to the newcomers and stuffed the telegram deep into her skirt pocket. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

When she turned around again, she saw who was approaching. It was Sidney, followed closely by a uniformed policeman. He broke into a genuine smile upon seeing her.

Gwin smoothed her hair and adjusted her hat, empty movements designed more to clear her head and gather her composure than to neaten her appearance.

She had declined his offer to stay at his home, mostly because she was afraid Arthur might suffer nightmares after the horrible scene that had taken place there. Sidney had then insisted upon putting them up in the luxurious Palace Hotel. Upon seeing Arthur's face light up at the suggestion, Gwin had not had the heart to say no.

Gwin hadn't seen much of Sidney this past week. She had been too busy with her own role in the trials, but now she knew she would be leaving town. Very soon. And this might be her last chance to speak with him.

Sidney and the uniformed officer approached at a casual pace, their footfalls echoing on the hardwood floor of the empty hall. "You look like you've had a difficult day, my dear," Sidney commented when he reached her side.

Gwin noticed that his hands were clasped behind his back. As he turned to look at the youthful policeman who accompanied him, she realized, with surprise, the reason for it.

Sidney motioned downward to the officer with an inclination of his head. "Now that we've arrived, do you think we could dispense with these contraptions?"

Gwin watched, confused, as the officer removed the handcuffs that confined Sidney's wrists.

Sidney stretched his arms and flexed his wrists. "Much better!"

"They've arrested you?" Gwin asked.

"It seems there have been some irregularities discovered in my business accounts."

"But I thought they'd agreed not to press charges against you in exchange for your testimony."

"I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, there are some people in high places who have seen to it I won't walk away a free man. I've been offered the guarantee of a lighter sentence in exchange for my testimony. It's a deal I'm hard-pressed to decline at the moment."

"I don't understand. People in high places?"

Sidney addressed the officer. "Would you mind giving me and my daughter a moment of privacy, Officer O'Brien?"

"I'm not to leave you out of my sight, Mr. Taylor."

"Oh, of course not. Wouldn't expect you to, but they never said anything about out of earshot, did they, Jim?" Sidney rested a hand on the young officer's shoulder. "May I call you Jim? I feel as if we've come to know each other since this morning."

"Well, I suppose ..."

"Is it too much to ask, Jim? A moment alone with my daughter? I'm a doomed man, and we both know it. Is it too much to ask?"

"Well ... just for a minute or two, but I'll be right over here."

"Bless you, my good man!" Sidney beamed as the young officer moved to wait by the courtroom door with his arms folded.

 Gwin pressed in a subdued tone, "What are you talking about? People in high places? I thought your testimony was to bring these people down for good."

"Even my knowledge of the men who constituted the Round Table is limited. I know of their activities, but I only met a few of them."

"You mean, there are still more out there? Free?"

"Absolutely."

Incredulous, Gwin studied Sidney's impassive expression. "Wait a minute. You knew all along that there were more of them, and you still agreed to testify against the others?"

Sidney shrugged. "Perhaps it's just my way of stirring up the pot."

"Just what kind of prison sentence can you expect for stirring up this pot?"

Sidney offered a dry smile at her indignant tone. "Three years in San Quentin."

"But it won't be safe for you there. Those men you testified against will—"

"Try to have me killed," Sidney finished matter-of-factly. "I imagine there's quite a long line forming by now."

"But it's not fair," she said.

"Fair? Life is never fair. But we make our own odds. Didn't Silas ever teach you that?"

Gwin could only shake her head. "It must be so hard for you to give it all up, all that power, all that wealth. It must have taken you years to climb that ladder." Gwin narrowed her eyes. "Even if it
was
a slightly crooked ladder."

"Ah, well, there are ladders and then there are ladders." Sidney flicked a piece of lint from the lapel of his suit coat. "I haven't given up all that much, really."

"I will never understand you," Gwin said. "Not for as long as I live."

"And I hope that will be for a very, very long time." He smiled. "You will be leaving soon, I gather?"

"Yes, very soon."

"Where will you be going?"

Gwin paused at the question. Where? She hadn't decided that for sure yet. "I don't know. Kansas City maybe."

"I'd rather hoped that would be your choice. When you return to your hotel, you'll find an envelope waiting for you at the front desk."

"An envelope?"

"In it you'll find the name of a bank in Kansas City, the number of an account, and a safe deposit box key. They've been changed over to your name."

"Why?"

"Because, Gwin, I have an account in Kansas City that I doubt I'll be needing where I'm going. Perhaps you can find some use for it."

Gwin placed a hand on one hip. "Now, why would you have a bank account in Kansas City?"

"If he's smart, a trapeze artist never practices without a net. A bank robber will always make sure he has his horse saddled, and our kind—"

"Always keeps one foot close to the door," Gwin finished flatly.

Sidney lowered his voice. "Precisely, my dear. I thought it prudent to have accounts in a variety of places. Philadelphia, New York, London, Honduras, or ..." He gave her a secret smile. "You get the idea."

"Yes, but that's not going to help you now, is it?"

He cocked his head to one side. "One never knows what the future holds."

Oh, how true
, Gwin thought. "Perhaps you should keep your money."

"Don't worry about me. I won't be destitute."

"Well, I don't know."

"Is there a problem?"

Gwin shook her head. "I just ... I never wanted your money, and I ..."

"Speak. We haven't much time."

"Okay. I can't help wondering how you got it."

"Got what?"

"All that money. I mean, I don't want any part of dirty money, and—"

"Dirty money?" Sidney echoed, appearing truly perplexed. "Why, I don't believe I've ever heard the expression. Could this be the rumblings of a conscience?"

Insulted, Gwin opened her mouth to retort, but closed it again. What was so bad about having a conscience?

"Interesting," Sidney said, "a conscience. I wonder wherever in the world you acquired such a thing?"

Gwin studied his face. He was her father. She was beginning to feel a certain sort of affection for him, but perhaps that was because of gestures and expressions that reminded her of Silas. What she had told him was true. She didn't understand him, but she did know one thing: In the end, he had chosen, at great cost to himself, to save their lives.

Officer O'Brien cleared his throat. "That's enough time, Mr. Taylor."

"Please. Call me Sidney."

Gwin offered Sidney her hand. "Well ... goodbye."

He reached out, but instead of shaking her hand, he swept it up in his own and bent to kiss it. When he straightened, he gave her a dastardly wink. "Nothing worse than some gifted stock speculation, my dear. Some people
would
call that dirty money."

Then, without another word, he turned to his uniformed guardian. "Shall we go join the party?"

Officer O'Brien grimaced at the gallows humor. "This way, Mr., uh, Sidney."

Gwin watched as her father disappeared into the courtroom. "When the doors swung closed behind him, her throat tightened, and she found herself blinking back another swell of tears. This was because, in her heart, she knew she would never see him again.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Cole awoke the next morning, early as usual. He stretched and turned over, acutely aware that he was sleeping single in a roomy double bed. He was growing tired of sleeping alone, of
being
alone. Funny, he hadn't ever thought much about that until lately.

He had received an answer to his last telegram yesterday from Allan Pinkerton himself. In it, Mr. Pinkerton had beckoned him back to Chicago, hinting that a plum assignment would be waiting. Cole should have been ecstatic at the thought of returning home to resume his career, a career that now seemed to hold all the promise he had ever dreamed of, but upon reading the words, he'd felt curiously unmoved.

He climbed out of bed, careful not to jostle his healing arm, and squinted at the clock on the dresser. Six-thirty. He didn't have to meet Gwin and Arthur for breakfast until eight. Nevertheless, he knew it would be useless for him to try to go back to sleep. He crossed the plush hotel room to a washstand, poured some clean water into the basin, and gathered together his toothbrush and razor.

He thought about his time in the hospital. Gwin had visited every day. In fact, she had spent as much time there as the nurses and doctors had permitted.

As Cole applied the shaving soap to his face, he recalled a particularly revealing conversation having to do with Arthur's future. Gwin had jumped up from her seat to pace by his bed. "I want to settle down and live in one place. I want Arthur to go to school and learn about all the things Silas and I could never teach him. I want him to go to college and hold the world in the palm of his hand."

"And you?" Cole had interjected, unable to take his eyes from her face. "What is it you want for yourself?"

"Myself?"

"If you could have anything in the world, Gwin, what would it be?"

"I don't know." She smiled wistfully and turned her back to look out the window. "I guess I wish that I could wipe the slate clean and start over, but ..."

"But what?"

"That's impossible, isn't it? Undoing the past? Starting over?"

"I don't know," he answered thoughtfully.

Later that night, in the darkened hospital room, he had remained awake for a long time, thinking. Maybe it wasn't impossible to undo the past. Maybe it wasn't impossible to wipe the slate clean.

The next morning, he had enlisted the aid of one of the nurses to get a telegram off to Fritz. The Pinkerton Agency wasn't all-powerful, but its formidable reputation was influential in many circles of law enforcement—especially in the Midwest.

Cole had received an encouraging reply from Fritz, who had been at work on his request. And in yesterday's telegram, Mr. Pinkerton himself had assured Cole that everything was taken care of. All that was left to do was to sit Gwin down and tell her the news, and he had intended to do that, but last night had not been the right time.

She'd seemed distracted by something all through dinner. He supposed it was natural for her to feel a little let down now that it was all over. The trials had passed quickly, but not without exacting an emotional toll.

No, last night had not been the time to bring up the subject. Perhaps this morning would prove different. Cole cursed as he finished shaving, nicking himself repeatedly in the process. He was learning to become proficient with his left hand at a number of tasks. Shaving wasn't one of them.

He got dressed and took the elevator down to the hotel lobby. Normally, the Palace Hotel would have been outside his budget, but it was Sidney Pierce who footed the bill for all this extravagance.

Cole still wasn't sure what to make of the man. His first inclination was to classify him with the rest of the villains he'd chosen to associate with, but there was something different about Pierce that Cole couldn't quite pin down. He knew that he wouldn't be alive today if Sidney hadn't drawn his gun when he did. That decision, belated as it might have been, was a hard detail to overlook.

Cole crossed the expansive lobby to the front desk, noting the time on a grandfather clock in passing. Seven. He still had an hour until he had to meet Gwin and Arthur. He'd been turning over in his mind the problem of how to bring up the subject of Garden City with Gwin, and now he had an idea.

He motioned for a clerk. "Excuse me?"

"Yes, Mr. Shepherd?" A middle-aged man answered his summons.

"Do you know where I might be able to get fresh flowers at this time of the morning?"

"Would you be speaking of a bouquet for a certain young lady?"

"Is it that obvious?"

The clerk smiled. "I suggest you try one of the pushcart vendors on Kearney Street. There's one in particular, a man named Winfrey, who sells the most delightful bouquets."

"That sounds perfect." Cole turned to leave and stopped. "Oh, maybe I should leave a message for Miss Pierce in case I'm late getting back."

The clerk hesitated. "A message? For Miss Pierce?"

Cole read something unsettling in the man's expression. "Something wrong?"

"That's Miss Guinevere Pierce, correct? The pretty one with the young brother?"

"Yes, that's the one. Is something the matter?"

"Well ... she's gone, sir."

Cole was stunned. "Gone?"

"Yes. She and her brother checked out this morning."

"They checked out? They couldn't have checked out. I was supposed to meet them here for breakfast in another hour."

"I'm sorry, but I'm certain they're gone. They both had their bags and I accepted their key myself. Over an hour ago now."

Cole felt like he'd been sucker-punched. He was numb. "Did she leave any message?"