Katherine O’Neal (34 page)

“How long have you been here?”

“A week or so. They’ve been watching the
shipping office all that time. I staked it out myself, hoping you’d
come along. I had to warn you. They’re looking for you everywhere.
There isn’t a safe way out of town.”

“Any word from New York?”

“The pressure’s building. The closer he comes
to this deadline, the bigger the reward offered and the more men
this McLeod sends out to find you. I’d watch my back.”

“We will. Thanks.”

Bat noticed her casual use of the word “we”
and exhaled heavily.

“I took the liberty of getting you some
tickets. They’re expecting you to head for New York. There’s a
riverboat leaving today for St. Louis. You can’t board in
town—they’ll be watching for you. This carriage will take you
upriver to where you’ll board. I’d change costumes in case they’ve
wired ahead what you’re wearing.”

He rapped on the roof of the carriage with
his cane, and the driver pulled to a halt. Opening the door, he
stepped down. Saranda followed, closing the door behind them and
moving a few steps away.

“How can I thank you for coming?”

He took her hand. “I don’t suppose you’d run
off to Mexico with me?”

He said it half-jokingly, but she sensed the
seriousness of his proposal. “Bat—”

He caught the way she glanced back at the
carriage, back at Blackwood.

“I have to help Mace now.”

Mace
. No longer
that bloody
Blackwood
. “I see.” He peered at her closely. “What about
Lance? Have you thought about that?”

“Lance... is something we shall have to work
out in our own time.”

“I know how much you hate him. How long
you’ve hated all the Blackwoods. I just hope you
can
work it
out.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling helpless.
“About Mexico. About everything—”

“Well, I tried.” He handed her the tickets.
“You just call me if you need me, promise?”

It was clear he thought her chances with Mace
were minimal. Not that she could blame him. Too often, she still
thought so herself.

He opened the door and handed her inside,
then watched as she gave the tickets to Mace.

“How can we thank you?” Mace asked. Again,
Bat flinched at the use of “we.”

“Don’t ever let me hear about you hurting
her,” he said. Then he closed the door, and the carriage lurched
away.

The riverboat cabin was gaudily luxurious.
Decorated in gold with accents in bright jewel tones of ruby,
emerald, and sapphire, it looked to Saranda’s eyes like the
captain’s quarters on a pirate ship. The walls were papered in
watered silk. The four-poster bed was curtained in brocade and
fringed in gold silk rope. Thick Persian rugs warmed the wood
floor. To the side was a small sitting room with a camelback gold
settee and matching chairs with an assortment of needlework pillows
so colorful they gave the impression of artfully strewn gems.

From their portholes came the lulling wash of
the river as it churned and cascaded over the wheel. The rhythm of
the boat was soothing, a creeping along of such grace and elegance,
it seemed to belong to days gone by. Saranda felt she’d been
transported back in time, as if she were hovering in some enchanted
world where reality wouldn’t dare intrude.

Mace seemed to feel it, too. Stripped of his
jacket, looking sleek and predatory in white shirt and pants that
molded themselves to his athletic frame, he came to her and pulled
the wig from her head. His strong fingers tangled in the silver
hair beneath, reminding her of the night in his office—in Archer’s
office—when he’d done the same after removing her hairpins and
dropping them to the floor. That night, he’d shown her, for the
first time in her life, that she could respond to a man as
powerfully as a woman could—as long as she didn’t look him in the
face.

“No sultan ever had it so good,” he said, his
gaze sweeping over the decor.

“I don’t know about that. From what I hear,
sultans have their pick of women,” she teased.

“If that’s so, call me sovereign of all I
survey,” he parried back.

“Careful, darling. I might take that to mean
you’d choose me above all others.”

“I would choose you,” he said, rubbing his
thumb along her lip, “were I the only man alive, with all the women
of the earth at my feet.”

“
All
women? Even Pilar?”

She didn’t know what it was that made her say
it. What goaded her to spoil the mood by bringing up his past? The
instant she said it, she knew it was a dreadful mistake. His eyes
clouded over, his hands fell from her, and he turned from her so
abruptly, she stumbled a little when he suddenly wasn’t there.

“What do you know of that?” he asked
quietly.

“I know you were posing as a British earl in
Italy—wooing some Italian
contessa
, wasn’t it? When you were
spirited away by Pilar and her men. I know you disappeared for
months after that. Rumor was, Pilar’s charms were more distracting
than even the
contessa’s
jewels.” She paused, then pressed
on. She had to know. “I can understand the
contessa
, Mace,
but what kind of con did Pilar fit into?”

Slowly, he turned around and looked at her as
if he’d never seen her before. As if she were the most heartless
creature he’d ever known. “Pilar was part of no con. I loved her
with all my heart and soul.”

It was the last thing she’d expected, and the
last she wanted to hear. The pain of it made her feel alone in a
world she suddenly couldn’t comprehend. Anger gripped her heart.
But she wasn’t angry with Mace. Rather, she felt consumed by
self-loathing. She’d purposely hurt him, and she didn’t know
why.

“Never mind, Mace. You don’t have to tell me.
I didn’t bring it up to hurt you. Or perhaps I did. I’m ashamed of
having done so. In fact, I’m rather sorry I brought it up at all,”
she confessed shakily.

“Nevertheless, having brought it up, you
shall hear the entire story.”

He spoke bitterly, but there was no malice in
his voice, no forceful intonation. He spoke as a man who’d been so
deeply saddened by this part of his life that he seemed apart from
it—as if relating a tale he’d heard of someone else.

“As you’ve said, I was passing myself off as
one of the aristocracy. Something I’d done with great success
throughout Europe.”

“I remember.”
The greatest lover in all of
Europe. Made the ladies of the aristocracy swoon and beg for
more.

He clenched his hands behind his back and
began to pace the room.

“One day we were attacked by what we assumed
to be bandits, but who, it turned out, were actually
revolutionaries. I was wounded in the scuffle. Badly. While I lay
unconscious, they took me—with the intention of holding me for
ransom. I think I was out for several days. It’s difficult to
recall. All I know is, one night I opened my eyes, and there before
me was the most—” He paused, savoring the memory. Then, shaking his
head as if to clear it, he continued. “The most amazing woman. The
fiercest-looking woman I’d ever seen, but engagingly so. All wild
black hair and flashing eyes. Half-Spanish, half-Italian, she
had—something. An air about her that said, beautiful as she was,
this was a woman of immeasurable substance. A little slip of a
thing, she was, but she could command men with a single insolent
lift of her brow.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear this.”

He gave her a hard look. “Correct me if I’m
wrong. Weren’t you the one who forced the issue?” When she sighed
and sank into a chair, he went on. “Her name was Pilar, I soon
learned. She was the leader of this band of revolutionaries. She
spat abuse at me day and night, calling me an aristocratic swine
and worse. I finally told her that the joke was on her. Told her
who I really was. When she didn’t believe me, I sat back and
laughed and waited for her to discover it on her own. She did
discover it, in time. That I was no more blue-blooded than she was.
Although I was complimented that she believed the act.”

“Naturally,” Saranda murmured.

“When they discovered I was telling the
truth, they didn’t know what to do with me. There was little point
in killing me, since I wasn’t part of the class they were fighting.
It left them in rather a quandary. But as I’d recuperated, I had
ample time to observe them, to question their goals. I began to
admire their dedication to their cause, their desire to aid the
underdog, and most of all, their ideals. I came to see that they
genuinely wanted to help the poor people of their country and were
willing to risk their lives daily that others might find a better
existence. I’d never met anyone like them before.”

“So you fell in love with Pilar.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “I loved her and saw
for the first time what a sham my life had been. That I’d been
wasting my talents on selfish pursuits when I could have channeled
them into something that, like Pilar and her revolutionaries, would
help others. So I joined forces with them. I suggested we ask the
contessa
for the planned ransom—she’d pay generously, I
knew—then sent out the word that I’d been killed trying to escape,
once the money was procured. I knew Chiara—the
contessa
—would assume I’d escaped trying to get back to her
arms. She’d always wanted romance above all else, so what better to
bestow on her as a parting gift than a romantic fantasy she could
cherish for the rest of her days?”

“Indeed.” She stood up, moved to a side
table, and picked up a small yellow vase, studying it intently so
she didn’t have to look him in the face. “So you—the world’s
greatest flimflam artist, who’d spent years comfortably gracing the
beds of aristocratic women—joined forces with those who fought
against the very class that had supported you all those years.”

“Something like that. It changed me. Because
of Pilar, I began to see the world through different eyes. She was
a passionate warrior, but also the most compassionate person I’d
ever encountered. She taught me—” He stumbled, caught himself, and
forced out the words. “She taught me to care about people, and
about what happened to them.”

The pieces were beginning to fall into place.
“It must have been a wonderful time for you.”

“It was,” he said simply, “the happiest time
of my life.”

“What happened? Why didn’t you stay?”

He took a harsh breath, struggling to coax
air into his lungs. “I stayed as long as I could. We were happy, we
had a mission, a purpose. We were very much in love. Then, one day,
Pilar told me I was going to be a father.” The small vase in her
hand broke beneath the sudden pressure of her grip. She began to
tremble so badly, she didn’t notice the blood on her palm where
she’d cut herself.

He looked at her with eyes still shocked by
the memory of the night of her tarot reading. “You
knew
it
had to do with a child. How did you know?”

Helplessly, she shook her head. She heard in
his voice the sorrow that already told her what she needed to know.
What she suddenly didn’t want to know.

“What happened?” she asked again, her voice
choked.

“Someone turned us in. We were surprised in
the middle of the night by soldiers. They burst into the camp,
blasting away. Pilar was killed, along with some of her men. I
wanted to stay so they could kill me as well, but the others
dragged me away. The next day we went back and found Pilar’s body.
They’d raped and abused—” His voice broke and he turned away.

Saranda went to him, put her hands on his
shoulders, and rested her head on his back. “I’m so sorry. So
terribly, terribly sorry.”

She held him for several minutes in silence,
willing her compassion to warm and soothe him. “Did you ever find
out who betrayed you?” she asked.

“No. When I was coherent enough to ask
questions, I was satisfied that it was no one in camp. Unless, of
course, it was someone who’d been killed.”

“What did you do after that?”

“Stayed with them and fought like a demon. A
few months later, the revolution was over. Most of the men had been
captured or killed. Pilar and the baby were dead. There was no
longer any reason to stay. But I was never the same after that. I
came to see myself as an enemy to the upper classes everywhere. I
was haunted by the idea that there must be something I could
do—something that would be of lasting value. That wouldn’t just
fade into distant memory like Pilar and her men.”

It could have been her father talking. Mace
despised the inhumanity of the world as much as her father ever
had. All her life, she’d thought of the Blackwoods as enemies of
the Sherwins. Yet
this
Blackwood was more like her beloved
father than anyone she’d ever met.

“Is that why you were conning the Van Slykes?
Because they were the American equivalent of aristocracy?”

He turned and looked at her as if she were
crazy. “Who says I was conning the Van Slykes?”

She didn’t understand what he was saying. “I
assumed—you used the name Archer—I just—”

“At first, yes, it started out as a flam of
sorts. When I arrived in New York, still grieving over Pilar, I
heard the Van Slykes owned a newspaper that claimed to stand up for
the poor and downtrodden. I thought this must be the biggest hoax
of all. They were no doubt stuffy rich gents pretending to care as
a means of stuffing their already bulging pockets. So I decided to
infiltrate their ranks as Archer and work diligently to see that
they actually carried out their phony aims. The surprise, of
course, was how genuine they were. That they really cared. I was,
you could say, as seduced by their dedication as I was by
Pilar’s—but in a different manner. Somewhere along the way, I
became not just a part of the team but the driving force that
pushed the paper into exposing wrongs it might never have dared.
The Van Slykes were humanitarians, but they were sometimes not
quite bold enough in their actions. I managed to change all that.
And found a family of sorts in the bargain.”