Searching for Home (Spies of Chicago Book 1) (33 page)

“Is this about Haymarket? What happened tonight is my fault.”

His lips pulled. “I hardly believe an outbreak of rioting could be pinned on you.”

“But it is! I told Peter Geere about the meeting because he’s a Tabor and I thought he could help. But he’s the one who threw the bomb. If I hadn’t made him aware, it would never have happened.”

“Take heart, this situation has been waiting to explode for some time. The Tabors knew about the meeting without your letter. The world could no more blame you than the daily newspaper for sharing information.”

“Then, are you a Tabor?”

“Has knowledge spread yet of the President’s Secret Service?” He reached into his pocket and produced a golden star-shaped badge.

James snatched the star from his hands. “I read something about them in the national headlines. They uncover persons perpetrating deception against the government.” He placed the badge back into Lewis’s outstretched hand. “It’s real.”

Lewis slipped the badge back into his pocket then reached to shake James’s hand. “Forgive me for not telling you sooner. I trust you more than anyone in the world. Believe that I couldn’t tell you until now or I would have. But the case I’m working on is something that could affect the entire nation. I couldn’t jeopardize it for anything. Not even you.”

“You’re forgiven. Of course.”

“Now, there is one more thing I must ask of you. It is in regards to my sister.” Lewis’s gaze bounced between Ellen and James, and a slow smile crept onto his face. “Although, I don’t believe my request will be a hardship to you.”

Eyebrows rising, James glanced at Ellen. “I always held back because I thought you’d never allow it. Then I have your blessing?”

Lewis laughed. “Precisely.” He extended his hand. “Take care of her.”

“And you.” He turned to Ellen. “I won’t be able to walk you down the aisle at your wedding, and I’m sorry for that. Asa will have to do it, or Uncle Garret. I know neither are your first choice but this is how it must be. Now vow—both of you—that you will never seek me out.”

“But what if we need you? What if we want to tell you something? What if something terrible happens?” Ellen couldn’t fathom the thought of never seeing her brother again.

“I’ll always look in on you. Don’t fear about that.” Lewis pivoted, craning his ear. “Did you hear something?”

James tucked Ellen against his side. “Yes. It sounds like people downstairs.”

Ellen’s gaze darted to the door. “We talked for too long.”

Lewis pointed to the cracked window above his desk. “Quickly. Through here. I’ve propped a ladder along the wall. Climb down and make certain to remove it. No one should be along that side of the wharf. Run north along the line of buildings. At the second left there will be a carriage waiting for you. The man driving is a member of the Secret Service. He’ll take you wherever you need to go. If you run into trouble, he’s been instructed to protect you with his life if needs be.”

Ellen’s throat clamped up. Her emotions bubbled together and she didn’t quite know what to feel. Fear of the men downstairs who might find them. Heartbreak at the prospect of never seeing Lewis again. Unspeakable joy with the knowledge that James loved her—always had—and that they would be married. Everything was too much to handle.

James inclined his head. “Take care of yourself, and should you ever need help—”

Lewis shook his head in a quick and final manner. “No need to finish that sentence. Truth be known, you make a horrible spy. I was attempting to be encouraging when I said otherwise earlier. I do have one last thing for you to do before you leave.”

“Anything.”

“Ellen, you may want to turn your back to us.” Lewis moved his finger in a circle.

She gave James a questioning look, and he shrugged.

“Because I need James to beat me to an inch away from death, and I daresay you don’t want to watch that.”

James started to speak, but Lewis held up his hand. “Keeping my cover is imperative to the operation. They can’t know I set you free. You’ll have to make it convincing. If I were you, I’d start by using the chair.”

James blanched. “I don’t want to hurt you. I could never.”

Everyone’s gaze bounced to the door when the stairs creaked with weight.

“If you love my sister as much as you say you do, you’ll thrash me soundly. It’s the only way.” Lewis reached for Ellen and she dove into his arms.

“I love you.” She squeezed him.

“Take care of yourself. Listen to James.”

James took Ellen by the shoulders and turned her away. He rolled his sleeves to his elbows. Then he walked out of her line of vision. She heard the first blow collide. It seemed to echo in the room along with each successive hit.

Lewis groaned.

James muttered.

Ellen locked her eyes on the green curtain that waved in the breeze, but her vision misted over, and a moment later her shoulders wracked with sobs.

She heard Lewis’s weight crumple to the floor.

Then James’s anguished, “Enough, I can’t strike you anymore.” He came beside Ellen and tugged her toward the window. When she tried to glance at her brother over her shoulder, James framed her face with his hands, making her look him in the eye. “He wouldn’t want you to see him like that.”

After he unfastened the window, James helped her down the ladder. As instructed, they pulled the ladder down, laying it beside the warehouse. James gripped her hand. He peeked both ways before they bolted along the row of buildings.

Cold midnight air sucked the breath from her lungs. Her patent leather boots rubbed her heels raw. She winced as they turned the corner and sent up a prayer of thanksgiving when she spotted the carriage.

A man dressed in all black hopped down to greet them. He opened the side door. “Where am I to take you?”

“To the Danbys’. Their address is—” James looked her way.

But the driver shook his head. “I know the way to their house from here. Agent Ingram added it to the patrol routes more than a week ago.”

Ellen dropped into the plush bunch along the back of the carriage. James took the seat beside her and the carriage lurched into motion.

When James’s arm came around her, her head drifted to his shoulder. “What now?”

He rubbed his thumb in a circle over her arm. “We go back to the Danbys’ and announce our engagement. We’ll wait for your mother’s arrival tomorrow and leave the city with them as planned.”

“My mother!” She bolted forward. “We forgot to tell Lewis about her moving west.”

James rested his hand on her back, right between her shoulder blades. “We’ll let the driver know. I have a hunch he keeps close communication with Lewis.” He guided her back to his side.

“Poor Lewis, I hate to think of him lying there in pain.”

“He was right. It was the only way. The Secret Service … I still can’t believe it.”

Harnesses jingled as the horses made haste out of the dockside portion of the city. She closed her eyes and listened to James’s heart beating. She was having a hard time processing everything and the steady
thump
of his heart helped calm her frayed nerves.

“Ellen, you didn’t say anything about the engagement. Is it not what you want?”

Not what she wanted?

She turned, grabbed his chin and planted a long kiss on his lips. He tasted like smoke and fish and weariness, but she didn’t care. When their lips parted, she touched her forehead to his and left her hand hooked around his neck. She searched his green eyes. “Does that answer your question?”

A sly, tight-lipped James-smile creased his handsome face, making the L shaped scar on his cheek stand out. “I love you. You know that, don’t you?” He kissed her again.

When she rested against the seat a moment later, James took a deep breath. “There is just one thing I have to do before we return to Wheaton tomorrow.” He laced his fingers through hers. “I met a man tonight who perished from a wound he received at the riot. I promised him I’d look in on his family and give them a last letter from him. I want to do what I can to care for them. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” She squeezed his hand. “I’m proud to have such an honorable fiancé.”

“I like the sound of that.” He snuggled closer than Madame De Molineus would have deemed proper. In fact, Madame was against snuggling in any form. Ellen took a deep breath of James’s Clubman aftershave and sighed.
Pity for Madame.

Tomorrow, when he went to see this family, maybe Ellen would go and bid farewell to Iana. She still had to figure out what God wanted her to do for those people. And now she was leaving Chicago. What if she never saw them again? She didn’t even know if James would consent to her helping the poor. What if he wanted a wife who stayed in the home, one who didn’t use his money toward charitable endeavors?

How quickly she had forgotten her mission. The promise of love appeared and she’d completely forgotten about her desire to help the poor of Chicago. How selfish of her. If getting the one thing she desired most in the world meant giving up her God given passion, she’d have to surrender her desire. No matter how much letting go of James would hurt, she’d do it. Perhaps that was the sacrifice required for all the mistakes she’d made alone the way.

“Wait.” Ellen pushed out of his embrace. “I … I can’t marry you.”

He slid on the bench, and then tipped her chin to face him. “You don’t wish to marry me?”

“No, you mistake me. I
want
to marry you. I do, that’s why this is so difficult.” A tear trickled down the side of her face. Why must this be so difficult?

He caught it with his thumb. “Then what prevents you?” His voice remained soft.

“I made a vow. I promised God.”

It would have been better if he had tried to hide his laugh, but he didn’t. When he composed himself, James brushed her hair off her face. “Tell me, half-pint, did you suddenly decide to become a nun?”

She rewarded
that
with a hard pinch to his wrist. “You’re a rat.”

He yelped.

“After everything we’ve seen here, I want to help the poor. I can’t marry you if you don’t feel the same way.”

“And you believe I’d inhibit a God-given desire? Foolish girl, come here.” He pulled her into his arms. His chin rested on her head as his breath warmed the side of her face. “As long as you’re beside me in this life, that’s all that matters. I couldn’t care less what you do with our money. Someday I’ll own the bank. We’ll always live as comfortably as we wish to. I have plans to open more branches, and when I do, I’ll bring home a higher profit. Even then, as long as we have a roof above our heads, I don’t care if you give away every other penny.”

Ellen wrapped her arms around him and placed her ear over his heart again. “We’ll have to hire help for our household. I made a friend in town. I’d like to see if she’ll move with us. But you’d have to give her a good wage.”

“Of course.” He kissed the sensitive patch of skin behind her ear.

Tingles raced down her spine and she shivered against him.

A soft laugh rumbled in his chest. “We’ll probably be in danger of treating our staff too well and making them into extended family for our children.” He kissed down her jaw.

She sighed. “I like the sound of that.” And hopefully, so would Iana.

“Since your mother and Asa are moving west, how would you feel if I purchased your childhood home?”

“It makes sense. It’s the one place we’ve both always felt was home.” Ellen nuzzled his neck.

“Let’s get married as quickly as our families will allow.”

“I’m hoping they’ll say tomorrow isn’t too soon. I want it to happen before some big catastrophe rips us apart again.” Ellen closed her eyes.

“Nothing will ever take me from your side again.” His voice carried a fierceness she liked.

The carriage rocked like a cradle. James tucked his arm around her again and she nestled closer. Despite everything Ellen had encountered in Chicago and all the mistakes she’d made, she’d finally found the home she’d been searching for all along.

Chicago, Present Day

Whitney trailed her fingertips over Lewis’s letter. Such a dignified signature, she should have known he was trustworthy.

He hadn’t killed Ellen and James. More than that, Lewis sacrificed his reputation to protect his country.

Her father might have skipped out on her life. Her mother continued to be more interested in men than knowing her daughter. But neither of them mattered. Not at the moment.

Her roots—her DNA—was good.

She could have screamed for joy—although such outbursts were generally frowned upon in places of research.

A small postscript along the edge caught her attention.

Whatever you do, live. God has given you one life and has called you to be who He made you. This is my route. Find yours and walk in the knowledge that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Warmth flooded her chest.

Fearfully and wonderfully made, could that be? Even if everyone in her past had turned out to be evil. It would be difficult to believe she wasn’t somehow tainted. But her great-great-grandfather’s words—penned some hundred years ago—settled like a balm over the hurting places in her heart.

With great care, she folded the page and slipped it behind the photo. She tried to snap the back of the frame into place.

“Sorry I doubted you,” Whitney whispered as she set the photograph back into the box.

She moved to secure the lid but spotted a small album in the corner that she’d missed earlier. Yellow pages rustled as she withdrew the scrapbook. Dust puffed.

With a small squeal, she opened the cover. Each page depicted a snapshot of James and Ellen—their story continued.

The first showed them on what must have been their wedding day. Ellen wore a white dress, James an old-style suite and hat. They both attempted to wear serious faces, but anyone could notice the line of laughter that must have erupted a moment after the photograph. Thankfully, not even one photo depicted her ancestors in the stick-straight pose found in most black and white photography. Each moment of time showed flaws, as it should. Maybe a greater amount of people smiled in those days and the history books just didn’t include those ones.