Bees in the Butterfly Garden (24 page)

When it was over.

Knowing John wouldn’t have approved of Brewster’s method afforded Ian some comfort, but even so he hoped Meg wouldn’t find out. The last thing he wanted was anybody’s pity, and for some reason the thought of hers was especially distasteful.

“It does no good to see Brewster,” Kate insisted from her seat opposite Meg.

Her words might have been foreign for all Meg understood. She knew only one thing: she would stop this, no matter what it took.

“If you’re really intent on getting involved . . .” Suddenly Kate threw her hands up in obvious frustration. “Oh, all right, then! Driver!” She banged on the roof of the carriage in the most unladylike manner Meg had ever seen. “Not the St. Denis!” she yelled. “Take us to Washington Square.”

Then she settled back in her seat, eyeing Meg with something between irritation and fear. “There’s only one way to make any possible difference, and that’s to stick to Ian like two flies on a spiderweb. Brewster has just enough respect left to protect the women John loved from witnessing what he’s planning to do. I’m not sure it’ll work, but at least whatever’s going to happen won’t happen today. If we can delay it long enough, maybe we can think of a way to prevent it altogether.”

Meg twisted out of her seat, balancing on one knee for her own turn at banging on the carriage ceiling. “Hurry, driver! Hurry!”

“Hey, Maguire.”

Ian heard the voice, but it was the last one he’d expected.

Evidently this was to be Keys’s test of loyalty too.

Ian didn’t turn toward the carriage that slowed at his side, but from his peripheral vision he saw two drivers instead of just the one who normally drove Brewster’s carriage. He also saw Keys leaning out the open window. “Better get in on your own. Save us the trouble.”

Ian stopped, and so did the carriage. Other than the two atop, Keys appeared to be alone. He wondered if Keys thought Ian a more worthy opponent than he was at fisticuffs, if he’d brought two others to hold Ian down.

“This isn’t your normal job, Keys. Been lowered in rank?”

“Yeah, all for the big fat nothin’ your bank job brought in. Thanks.” He opened the carriage door. “Get in.”

Ian did so, seeing he’d been right about Keys being alone. That was good, although the man had a solid thirty pounds on Ian. His police training probably enhanced whatever natural ability he’d had for fighting. This would be no tomfoolery, particularly when one—or both—of the burly drivers participated.

“You have someplace special in mind for this little dance of ours?” Ian asked once he settled across from Keys. He’d hoped talking instead of dwelling on the stone in the pit of his stomach would help him ignore that weight, but it didn’t.

Keys looked out the window at his side as if he couldn’t stand the sight of Ian. “You’ll know when we get there.”

Ian looked out the other window, surprised that his breathing was steady, his pulse even. Didn’t he believe Keys would go through with it? Maybe not. Or maybe Ian was as much an idiot as Brewster believed.

Without another word, the carriage continued on its way to the unknown destination away from the square, in the direction of Battery Park. There were plenty of scenic spots in that neighborhood. Stinking warehouses, run-down taverns and bunkhouses offering the first welcome to the poorest of immigrants coming through the fort, piles of landfill made up of rocks and stumps and debris cleared from the rest of the city to make it suitable for building.

A little blood sprinkled here or there would hardly be noticeable.

Ian shot a quick glance at Keys, wondering how he felt about spilling some of Ian’s blood.

Just then noise erupted from the street.

“No!”

“Stop!”

The protests came from a confusing source. Certainly outside the carriage, but closer than expected—from empty walkways. Shouts quickly followed, calling Ian’s name. Female voices.

At first Brewster’s carriage picked up the pace, until it was obvious another carriage, the one containing the objecting voices, was behind. Just as Ian spied activity through the window behind Keys, Keys himself turned as well. It didn’t take long to spot the hired carriage on their tail, with two women reaching out, waving frantically from each side.

One was Kate.

The other Meg.

Another man might have been hopeful, but not Ian. Far better to be beaten to a pulp than rescued by either one of them.

Yet rescue was not to be had, at least not easily. Suddenly the carriage holding Ian stopped, and the horses behind, so close in pursuit, whinnied at the abrupt obstruction. Before Ian considered seeing himself out, Keys landed a restraining grip on one of his forearms, and Ian saw Brewster’s driver stomp toward the hired carriage behind them.

The sound of the horses, still complaining but perhaps now in fear rather than indignation, muffled the shouts between the men. In a facile movement, Brewster’s driver leaped to the cabbie, effectively pulling him from his seat. With one soundly landed punch, the man fell past his perch all the way to the uneven Dutch bricks that paved the street below.

Then the driver waved at the man who must have remained on Brewster’s carriage and drove off, carrying away both women squawking with dissent.

“He told you to stay away, Kate.”

The man Kate said was Brewster’s driver had each of them by the hand, as if they were two wayward children needing to be taught a lesson. Once the carriage had stopped from its dangerously rapid pace—in front of the familiar facade of Kate’s French flats—he’d hopped to the side so quickly, Meg couldn’t have escaped even if she’d thought of it. He’d reached in and grabbed each by a wrist, then hauled them out without delay. Meg could see Kate was nearly cooperating, perhaps in fear of being seen by one of her tenants.

“You have no right to do this!” Meg insisted, though she saw from Kate’s face that continued protest would be fruitless.

The man said nothing, just kicked open the door to the building before Kate had a chance to reach it. Once inside she hurried ahead in time to open her own door.

Even as Meg had visions of her and Kate going right back out, the man followed them inside Kate’s flat. Then he closed the door, folded his arms, and stood before it like the guard he was.

“This is outrageous!” Meg fumed at the man, her face only inches from his placid one. He stared past her with a gaze so steady it was as if she weren’t even there. “Not only are you guilty of kidnapping; you’re standing in the way of preventing a crime. I have every reason to believe Ian Maguire is being accosted this very moment, and you’re doing nothing to stop it! Have you no hint of conscience, no shadow of human decency?”

Though the man clearly breathed a bit heavily—he was a bulky sort and likely expended a good deal of his energy jumping up on the hired coach, then pummeling the cabbie—he stood so still he might have thought himself invisible to anyone or anything around him.

“It’s no use,” Kate said. “He won’t leave until he knows whatever happens to Ian is done and finished.”

Meg wanted to scream, but all that came out was a garbled moan of pure frustration.

Ian felt himself dragged. He tried picking up his feet, but like a drunkard’s, they wouldn’t obey. His brain was indeed confused and slow, though it wasn’t from anything he’d ingested. It was from his skull being slammed from side to side, then bashed against the brick wall behind a fish market.

He thought he’d have the chance to defend himself. He thought he’d be able to get in at least one punch or have the wherewithal to raise his arms in defense. But the slug who’d accompanied Keys made sure that didn’t happen. He held Ian back while Keys battered him in a one-sided boxing round.

And now they were dumping him. He had only one more hazy thought. If they threw him in the river, that was the end of him.

“If Brewster thought for a moment I would help him now,” Meg said to Kate, seated across from her on the settee in her parlor, “he’ll know soon enough I’d rather turn him in than give him a whisper of information about the Pembertons.”

Kate stole a quick glance the thug’s way, as if to remind Meg of their “guest.” “I’ve said all along it’s foolish for you to be involved in anything regarding the Pemberton gold,” she said. “Maybe now you’ll listen.”

“Oh, I haven’t changed my mind. I’ve just decided whom I want to help, that’s all.”

“And what if after today Ian is working with Brewster, just as Brewster wants?”

Meg clamped her mouth shut. This was impossible!

“The only thing that should happen now is for you to tell both of them, Ian and Brewster, that you want no part in looking for the Pemberton money. You know now that you’re risking your entire future. The rest of your life could be ruined because of this ridiculous scheme.”

Meg was in no mood for a lecture. “Coming from someone who calls herself Lady Kate, I find your caution more than a little disingenuous.”

“Believe me, I hated to introduce myself in such a way this afternoon! But I had no choice if I was to see you in that neighborhood.” She sighed, looking so worn that she seemed to have aged a few years in the past minutes of their confinement. “I was once known along Fifth Avenue as Lady Kate Weathersfield, so visiting there requires me to be her again.” Her gaze rose to Meg’s, this time defiantly. “I sit before you as proof that youthful mistakes can haunt a person the rest of her life.”