Covington, Cara - Love Under Two Lawmen [The Lost Collection] (Siren Menage Everlasting) (4 page)

“For as long as you’re here? I kind of hoped you’d stay for a nice long visit!”

Amanda could read the disappointment on Sarah’s face and hear it in her tone. “Oh, I’ll visit for a long time once I get back. But there’s something I need to do first. It’s really the main reason I came.”

 
“Perhaps that topic would make excellent dinner conversation.”

Amanda looked up into Adam Kendall’s eyes. She hadn’t heard the man come out onto the verandah.

He moves like a wraith
.

She’d file that away for future reference. For now, she simply smiled and said, “I can guarantee it will be an interesting discussion.”

* * * *
  

Adam loved watching people. He’d been accused of having some Shaman sixth sense in him, supposedly passed down from an ancestor. He didn’t know if he could dispute the claim or not. The less eerie truth was that people often revealed themselves—their thoughts and intentions—in small ways. All one had to do was learn how to read them.

Sarah was completely taken with her newfound cousin, and her happiness found its way into Caleb and Joshua. Neither of those men were pushovers. If there’d been something off about Amanda Dupree, they’d have picked up on it. Adam would bet on that.

He trusted the Benedict brothers’ instincts as much as he trusted his own, which in this case was a good thing. The only thing he’d picked up on where Amanda was concerned was that he wanted to fuck her. Very,
very
badly.

He saw Warren look at her with lust in his eyes and he knew his lover felt the same way. While they’d each, from time to time, been known to enjoy carnal pleasures with a woman, they’d never shared one.

The idea had never occurred to either of them until Caleb and Joshua Benedict had taken on Sarah. Of course, in the case of himself and Warren, any potential third in their relationship would have to be amenable to not only taking two men into her body, but accepting the fact those men loved and made love with each other, too.

He’d never considered whether or not there could be such a woman on the face of this earth until recently. He thought now that there was and maybe that woman was Amanda Dupree.

“You have to tell me about being a private investigator,” Sarah said now. “However did you come by such a choice?”

Amanda sat back from having finished her soup. Rita, the Benedict’s cook, made quick work of removing the bowls.

“You have to understand that from the time I was able to perceive such things, I understood my prospects in life would be limited. Being the daughter of a kept woman has its drawbacks. Many in society consider me no better than a light-skirt, and the fact of my…” Amanda trailed off as she seemed to just now realize there were four men around the table listening avidly to her speak. Adam noticed not only the pink that colored her cheeks, but the fine tremor in her hand as she reached for her wine glass and took a delicate sip. “The fact of my lack of experience in that area has no influence on their opinion at all. I was already the object of gossip and speculation. I thought I might as well be doing something to deserve all the attention.”

“I imagine you’d want to provide for yourself as well,” Joshua said.

“That was my prime motive, of course. There aren’t many opportunities for women, as you know. None of the ordinary avenues open to me interested me in the slightest. So I made a path of my own.”

Adam sat back as Rita brought in a tray piled with plates of food. He took his attention off the succulent roast beef and put it back on Amanda.

“I imagine you found a ready supply of clients through your mother?” He noted the confused look Sarah gave him. To her, he said, “Gentlemen who would appreciate discretion and be guaranteed it by using Amanda to look into delicate matters on their behalf.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Amanda agreed. She smiled at him as if her prize pupil had just exceeded her expectations. “And not all delicate matters concerned, shall we say, affairs of the heart.”

“Likely any mess a man got himself into he’d be embarrassed to admit,” Warren said. “We’re strange creatures. We don’t like to admit we’ve been taken advantage of or cheated.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Warren. Women don’t like to, either.” Sarah nodded as she said that, then turned back to Amanda. “Is it dangerous, what you do?”

“I would have said no a month ago. But the last case I handled has proven to be different. One of my mother’s more socially prominent clients had invested in a business opportunity, and then he had second thoughts. He asked me to look in to the matter and the principals. I discovered he had reason to worry. Once I had all the facts in hand, I alerted the police. One culprit was apprehended, but the other escaped.”

“And threatened to kill you, you said.” Adam helped himself to some roast beef and potatoes, passing the platters in turn. “I can understand your need for independence, but your chosen line of work
can
be dangerous, as you now know.”

“My mother knew I’d have to take care of myself in this life, Captain Kendall. She saw to it I knew how to do that.”

“Someone threatened to kill you? Something has to be done!” Sarah shot an accusing glare at Adam, and he had to resist the urge to squirm under her stare.

Sighing, he nodded. “If Miss Dupree will furnish me with the name of the culprit, I’ll look into the matter. Officially.”

“I thought you were going to call me Amanda,” the woman said. Damn if she didn’t look amused that Sarah frowned at him.

“No, I was pretty certain we agreed to call you Mandy,” Warren said. “And since we’re all friends here, let’s all dispense with formal address.”

Soft-spoken, Warren could make his points when he needed to.

“Now, it isn’t only the desire to get away from a threat or the urge to connect with family that brings you here. Is it, Mandy?” Adam didn’t feel the least bit guilty putting the woman on the spot. In his estimation, she could more than handle herself.

In response to his goading, she sat back, folded her hands in her lap, and locked her gaze with his. He felt her on his skin, an almost physical presence. He’d never had this connection with a woman before. It seemed to him as if the others in the room, even Warren, faded into the background as she took his measure.

I’d like her to take my measure in a more personal way.

It was unlike Adam to let thoughts of sex interfere with his job. Right now, at this dining table, despite the fact he felt a strong attraction and desire for Amanda Dupree, he considered himself very much on the job. He’d wait until he had all the facts about her, before deciding if she could be trusted, or not.

He saw the moment she came to a decision and wondered then if, she wasn’t truly the most vulnerable among them.

“All right. I was contacted by the solicitor who represented my late father and informed that he’d left me a legacy. Aside from the sum of two thousand dollars, I was given a journal and a letter. I didn’t know why he’d give me such a thing until I read it. And then I knew he’d actually left me much, much more. I have that journal and that letter with me. And I have every intention of going after his real legacy, something I’d believed to be only a myth.”

 
“What are you talking about, El Dorado?” Adam asked. He’d known many men who’d come to Texas on their way to Mexico, looking for the El Dorado gold mine. As far as Adam was concerned, if such a thing existed it would have been found by now.

“Close,” Amanda said. “My father left me the location of the lost Confederate gold.”

Chapter 4

“William Gladstone…
Lieutenant Colonel
William Gladstone. My God, I didn’t put it together until now!”

Amanda looked at Caleb Benedict, that man’s utterance bringing the table conversation to a standstill.

Adam sat forward and pinned her with his stare. “Your father was
that
William Gladstone?”

Amanda lifted her hands, palms up. “All I know is what I read in the journal I received. My father was a Confederate officer, and the last thing he was ordered to do by President Davis was to intercept a shipment of gold and hide it.”

“Adam, Joshua, and I were in the same unit at the end of the war,” Caleb explained. “
We
were ordered to intercept a shipment of gold. But when we got to the farm where it was to have been, the Confederate troops there reported it stolen. We discovered that a Lieutenant Colonel Gladstone had been seen in the area with a small cadre of men, but by the time we were able to mount a chase, the trail had gone cold.”

“Amanda, may we see the journal?” Joshua Benedict didn’t appear to be as interested as his brother or his friend. But when she looked in his eyes, the glitter of excitement was unmistakable.

“Gentlemen, let’s allow the woman to finish her meal first.” Sarah shot each of the men a stern look. “Amanda isn’t going anywhere. We can see this journal after dinner.”

Amanda held back her laughter. In her experience, the fact that four men could be controlled so easily by one fairly dainty woman qualified as extraordinary.

She supposed one aspect of growing up in a female-only household run by a mother who lived outside of social convention was that she never had the image of a man as lord and master put in front of her. Not until she was a young lady of twelve and had occasion to venture out into the world with her mother or Millie, their housekeeper. She recalled how shocked she’d been one time, when she’d been shopping. She’d observed a man and woman together with the man ordering the woman to return home. His tone had dripped with condescension and abuse. Her shock had doubled when she learned the woman was the man’s
wife
and not his servant.

Her mother told her that while in some instances wives were not treated any better than servants, some men did treat their wives with respect—just not necessarily as equals.

“Sweetheart,” Caleb cajoled, “do you know the story of the lost Confederate gold?”

“Until today, I’d never even
heard
of it.”

He sat back, and Amanda thought him the sort who loved to tell stories. He proved her right.

“In the spring of 1865, we were young soldiers, temporarily assigned in Georgia under the command of General Wild. The order came down to intercept a shipment of gold remnants of the Confederate army was attempting to hide. We were a day behind the shipment. When we got to the Chennault plantation, where our informants had said the gold would be, it was to find the wagons had been stolen.”

“About the same time, another order had come down with regard to a list of Confederate officers as yet unaccounted for—men who had been known to be in our area and who had not officially surrendered,” Joshua said.

“That’s right,” Adam recalled, “we were ordered to search for those officers. At the top of that list were Lieutenant Colonel William Gladstone, and a Major Robert Montgomery.”

“My mother’s best friend, before she married my father, was a young woman named Melissa Montgomery,” Sarah said. “I recall that because my momma used to talk about life when she was a girl. Before everything changed.”

“It could very well be the Major Montgomery on our list was related to your mother’s friend,” Adam said.

“How much gold was in the shipment?” Warren asked.

“The official report put the estimate at about a quarter of a million dollars,” Adam said.

“A quarter of a million dollars?” Amanda shook her head slowly. “According to my father, it was a great deal more than that.”

All gazes turned to Sarah. Clearly, everyone wanted to carry on with the discussion. Everyone’s interest had been captured. Amanda wouldn’t mind getting on with her revelations, either, and waited to see what her cousin would say.

“My goodness you men are like children eager to tear into their gifts on Christmas morning.” Sarah rolled her eyes, then looked at Amanda. “It would appear these men will not rest until you share your legacy,” she said.

“The book is in my carpet bag,” Amanda said. “I’ll go get it.”

* * * *
  

Warren loved seeing Adam excited.

He didn’t have the same connection to the gold as the others did. He’d been a clerk in the War Department and hadn’t faced the same dangers as his lover and their friends. But their excitement infected him. No longer content to just sit on the sidelines, he got up from his chair to stand behind Adam and read over his shoulder.

Adam wanted to begin at the start of the journal, of course, and read chronologically.

“Here, listen to this.” He looked up at Warren for a moment before casting his gaze back to the yellowed page before him.

“I knew as soon as I saw him that Jeff was deeply troubled. He said nothing as he poured two glasses of whisky. He offered me one, then gestured to the chair, impatience on his face.

‘We were friends before I came into this accursed office, Bill,’ he said. ‘Now I am about to leave it, and the broth of failure is a bitter brew indeed.’