Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahill 05] (36 page)

“I should think so. They both frequent my establishment on an almost nightly basis.”

She did not know what to think. Evan did not know Melinda Neville—or he didn’t think he did. But he knew Thomas. Meaning that Evan remained the only solid connection between each of the four women. And then Francesca realized that was not so—Hoeltz was as connected. He had known Sarah, and through Melinda he had surely been acquainted with both Grace Conway and Catherine Holmes. And what about Thomas Neville? Francesca quickly realized he was only linked to three of the four women—he did not know Sarah Channing.

And while LeFarge could never be mistaken for a big or
tall man, Francesca did not rule him out as a suspect. He was the kind of man to hire thugs to do his dirty work. In his case, he could have struck at Sarah and Grace Conway to threaten Evan—the murder of Catherine Holmes and the disappearance of Melinda Neville would then be incidental.

Francesca sighed. It seemed as if they were no closer to solving the case than they had been four days ago. “Do you know where Miss Neville is?”

“Hardly. Why?”

“She has vanished. It would be very helpful to locate her as soon as possible.”

“Miss Cahill, the woman painted my portrait well over a year ago—before she ever left for Paris. We did not even speak, except when she asked me to turn my head or body. She was rather cold, very severe, and very involved in her commission. Why would I know where she is? Isn’t that a question you should ask Thomas?” His black eyes were hard now, very hard, reminding her of all that he was capable of.

“I should love to ask Thomas again,” she decided.

“Then why don’t you?” LeFarge smiled.

Francesca stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why don’t you ask Thomas Neville? After all, he is upstairs,” LeFarge said.

S
ATURDAY
, F
EBRUARY 22, 1902—6:00 P.M.

C
ONNIE GULPED DOWN A
breath of air for courage. It did not enhance her courage—as she had none. She knew Neil despised her now. No lady ever behaved as she had done. She was terrified, now, that her marriage was over.

The door to his study was open. He was hunched over his vast desk, engrossed in his papers. For one moment, she studied him, aware of her heart pounding with such force that she felt ill and faint.

What he had done was wrong. But in a way, it had been her fault, for denying such a virile man his pleasure. Should they manage to go forward now, she would never deny him again. And at the thought of being in his arms, her heart skipped and skidded wildly.

It had been so long
.

She felt a tear on her cheek. But she was never going to be in his arms again. She felt certain. Oddly, she loved him even more now than she had before his affair, and it had taken this moment for her to realize it. If only he would
forgive her for her terrible behavior the other day.

He suddenly looked up, and the moment he saw her, he paled.

Connie could not smile. “Neil?” she whispered. It was so hard to speak. “Can we speak?”

He stood instantly. “Of course.” He did not smile, either. He was grim, more dark and grim than she had ever seen him. There was no laughter, no light, in his brilliant turquoise eyes.

He moved out from behind his desk slowly as she entered the room and they paused before each other. Her heart pounded like a drum. It was deafening. How could she tell this hard, angry man that she loved him still? Did she dare? The idea of his final and absolute rejection terrified her.

“Yes?” he asked.

She wet her lips. “I am so sorry,” she managed. “I have never been more sorry than I am for my terrible, reprehensible, inexcusable behavior the other day.”

He stiffened with surprise. “What in God’s name are you speaking about?”

Surely she had misheard. “My hysteria, Neil.”

He was motionless. “You are entitled to hysteria, Connie—and to anger and any other emotion you feel. There is nothing to apologize for. In fact, everything is my fault.” He looked down grimly, toying with the papers on his desk.

She was stunned. “No,” she heard herself whisper.

He started, looking up and into her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

She could not let him go
. Connie blurted, “Neil! Surely you . . . want nothing more to do with me . . . don’t you?”

He went still, his eyes wide, disbelieving. “What? How could you think such a thing?”

“My behavior—”

“To hell with improper behavior!” he cried. “I adore you, Connie. I always have and I always will!” he cried.

She remained in disbelief, but only for an instant, when she realized that she was going to have her life back. “Neil, I still love you. I don’t want to lose you!” she cried.

He stunned her then. He rushed out from behind his desk and crushed her in his embrace, against his big, solid body.

She had forgotten how perfect it was to be in the circle of his arms, with his powerful heart thudding beneath her cheek. She began to cry. Her own arms tightened around him.
What had she been doing, thinking? She loved him so
.

His hand cradled the back of her head. “You don’t hate me?” he asked roughly. “Connie, you don’t hate me for breaking your heart and being the worst cad imaginable?”

She shook her head and then whispered, “No. I wanted to. . . . I was so hurt, Neil—so terribly hurt—but my heart won’t allow me to hate you. I miss you!”

He seized her face in both hands and kissed her, hard.

She stiffened; then, as his kiss gentled and as he urged her lips to part, as warmth rapidly spread through her limbs and torso, beginning, finally, to build in every forbidden part of her, she relaxed, dazed, thinking that she had forgotten how much she loved his taste, his tongue. Tentatively she allowed her tongue to finally meet his thrusting one. Neil moaned without breaking the kiss and somehow, impossibly, deepened it, until Connie felt as if they were making love, just with their mouths, while the rest of her body was aflame.

His large strong hands slid up and down her small back. And finally he tore his mouth from hers, panting hard, and he rained kisses all over her face, her cheeks. Connie kept her eyes closed, and his kisses gentled, becoming feathery caresses on her skin. When he ceased, she opened her eyes and their gazes met. He was, she saw, as breathless as she.

He finally cupped her face in his hands, no longer kissing her. “Connie. I love you. I will never, ever stray again. I will live like a monk, if that is what you wish for me to do.”

“Neil.” Tears filled her eyes. She had almost lost him. She had almost lost everything, she thought. “Let’s go upstairs.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “The staff—the children . . .” he began.

“Take me upstairs, Neil,” she said. And Connie smiled at him.

He smiled back, took her hand, and obeyed.

Leigh Anne sat at the dressing table in her small, drab bedroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror, a hairbrush in hand. She was wearing a satin wrapper over a corset, lacy drawers, and her gartered stockings. The wrapper was very loosely belted, exposing a vast amount of bosom, as the corset barely covered her breasts. It made her tiny twenty-inch waist even smaller. She wore slippers with low heels, so she was an inch taller. She hadn’t bothered with any rouge, as she truly did not need makeup, but she had dabbed French perfume behind her ears and between her breasts. Rick had sent a terse note home earlier that afternoon, explaining that he would be back at seven. She was expecting him at any moment. Expectation made her breathless.

Why in God’s name had she stayed away for four years
?

She had been very angry with him when he had refused a position in one of Washington, D.C.’s most prestigious law firms, and that anger had grown day by day as the harder and longer he worked, the poorer and less socially acceptable they had become. Leigh Anne decided she had been a fool. She should have believed in him. Look at what he had become, and not just politically.

She shivered.

The note had said he would be working in his study all evening. He had advised her to make her own plans. Leigh Anne stared at herself. Her emerald green eyes sparkled with excitement, with desire. She had been doing nothing but making plans ever since receiving Bartolla Benevente’s note in Boston, the one insinuating that her husband was carrying on with, if not in love with, another woman.

This was Leigh Anne’s third day in residence with her husband, but they remained strangers—it was as if she was a houseguest. She hadn’t lost confidence in her powers of seduction and persuasion, but Rick had changed. Four years
of anger and bitterness had hardened him, and he was no longer simple to manage and easy to control. He had become a set and determined man. She found the changes fascinating and even frightening. There were moments when he truly intimidated her. And she had forgotten, truly, how gorgeous he was—how looking into his golden eyes and at his lean, muscular body made her mouth water and her body tighten.

She was fiercely glad that he hadn’t slept with Francesca Cahill. Not because the other woman was more beautiful than she, as she was not. But because she knew her own husband, to a point, and she understood why he was so attracted to the pretty sleuth. Miss Cahill was exactly like Rick—fervently reformist by nature, highly ethical, indifferent to the material world, and intrigued by any mental challenge. They were, Leigh Anne sighed, two peas in a pod. But that was very boring, was it not?

Vinegar enhanced oil.

Oil added to oil was tasteless and bland.

Leigh Anne finished brushing her long raven-hued hair, then realized she was being watched with some fascination in the mirror. She smiled at the angelic toddler drooling as she sucked her thumb in the doorway. “Hello, Dot,” she said softly.

“Pa . . . pa?” Dot shouted, ambling forward and falling on her face. She began to scream.

Leigh Anne leaped up and rushed to her. She had many faults, all of which she was aware of, but an indifference to children was not one of them. In fact, once she had hoped for two children of her own, a boy and a girl. Newly wed at the time, Rick had hoped to negotiate with her—he had wanted four. Laughing, she had refused. Then he had pushed her down onto the sofa and pushed up her skirts and they had made love. . . .

“Dot, come here; it’s Mrs. Bragg. It’s all right, sweetheart,” she murmured, lifting the child into her arms.

Dot clung, whimpering. “Pa. . . . pa!” she demanded.

Leigh Anne shifted, realized that she could not get up,
and sat down on the floor. “Pretty girl,” she said softly, meeting the child’s huge blue eyes. She had been stricken to find out that not only was Rick fostering two homeless children, but the little one called him Papa. Now it didn’t seem that terrible, just sad. She had learned from Mrs. Flowers, their recently employed nanny, that the girls had been raised fatherless and that only two weeks ago they had lost their mother to a crazed murderer. “Poor baby,” she whispered.

“Pa . . . pa!” Dot cried, on her feet now and grabbing hanks of Leigh Anne’s hair.

“Ow,” Leigh Anne said, but with a smile. The child was adorable, if rather demanding. “Do not pull my hair, Dot. And Mr. Bragg will be home shortly.” She stroked the child’s golden curls and wondered if Rick still wanted children. She continued to debate the strategy of becoming pregnant with his child.

And she thought of how it would be when he finally caved in and took her to bed. Images filled her mind, so tactile that, for one moment, she could feel him inside her. He was huge and strong and she would never forget what being together with him was like.

“Papa!” Dot exclaimed, pushing Leigh Anne away, then falling in her haste to turn and race away.

Leigh Anne jerked and found Rick standing in the doorway, staring at her, as Dot now staggered awkwardly toward him. Instantly, as his eyes slipped lower, she was aware that her wrapper was almost completely open, allowing him a generous glimpse of her breasts, her waist, and even her inner thighs. Anticipation had been swelling within her for the past hour or so, and now it heightened considerably.

His jaw flexed, his eyes darkened, and he looked away. “Dot, sweetie! Come here,” he said, ignoring Leigh Anne now.

Leigh Anne slowly got up, triumph searing her, and she pulled the wrapper slightly closed. She watched Rick lift Dot and twirl her high while she squealed. “Where’s Katie?” he asked, settling her in his arms.

“Kitten.” Dot beamed. “Kitten.”

“I think that means the kitchen,” Leigh Anne said quietly.

His gaze jerked to hers. “I know what it means,” he said. Then, recovering his manners, he said grimly, “Good evening.”

“How was your day?”

He stared down her wrapper again, but just for an instant. “Hellish. I hope you’ve made plans for the evening?”

She smiled. “Of course I have,” she lied. “I’m having a late supper with a friend.”

For one moment she thought he started, and she sensed his suspicion. He wondered if her friend was a lover. She said gently, “We have an agreement, Rick. I am hardly going out on the town with a gentleman.”

“I hardly care,” he returned, walking out with Dot in his arms.

Leigh Anne waited ten minutes. In those ten minutes she sat back down at her dressing table, staring at her reflection, but thinking about the way Rick had looked at her. How long did he think to hold out? And why? For God’s sake, they were married, never mind if he was in love with someone else. But then, she had never understood him completely; in fact, his sense of morals and duty had bewildered her more often than not. Virtue was, more often than not, an inconvenience to be ignored. Unless one was born Rick Bragg.

They were nothing alike. But that was, she knew, the real reason for their undying attraction to each other.

Ten minutes later, her wrapper firmly belted and completely closed—up to her neck—her hair pinned up, as if she truly intended to go out that evening, Leigh Anne went downstairs and to his closed study door. She knocked.

“Come in.”

She entered and paused. He was at his desk, having taken his jacket off, his shirtsleeves rolled up, revealing his hard forearms. His tie was gone, his shirt unbuttoned, exposing his strong throat and the interesting space between his collarbones. How many times had she run her tongue over the
hollow there? And other, far more fascinating, hollows? She quivered. He was standing at the window, a scotch in hand, staring out at the small, snowy backyard and the patch of snow belonging to his neighbor. Beyond that, curtains were drawn in the windows of the facing brick house. The view was an uninteresting one.