Tears of Gold (33 page)

The Swede nodded slightly, puzzled by her sigh of tired disappointment. “Do you know him?” he asked, then shook his head mockingly. “I should have realized Nicholas would know a woman as beautiful as you. I never have been able to get the jump on him yet. I don’t blame him for not having mentioned you, ’cause I didn’t say anything about you to him either,” the Swede admitted sheepishly.

“Then you don’t know anything about me?” Mara asked carefully, her tawny eyes watching his face.

The Swede continued to stare at her openly. “And what more should I know about you except that you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met?” he said earnestly, having forgotten for the moment the presence of Jenny, across from him. He stared deeply into Mara’s eyes, a look of longing in his soft blue eyes.

As Mara recognized the look, she suddenly realized the extent of her power over him. Using her beauty as an intoxicant, she might even be able to destroy the friendship between the Swede and Nicholas, planting doubts and lies in the Swede’s mind about Nicholas. But the feeling faded. Mara knew that she couldn’t do it. Instead, she would probably lose the Swede’s friendship, for Nicholas would not leave him in the dark about her for long, once he knew the Swede was seeing her.

“I’m afraid Nicholas thinks me anything but beautiful,” Mara told him bluntly, deciding to geld that stallion before he could become too troublesome. By telling the Swede the truth about her relationship with his friend, Nicholas could not completely prejudice the Swede against her.

“I can’t believe he’d think that,” the Swede protested in disbelief. “Nicholas isn’t blind, and he’s always had a deep appreciation for a beautiful woman. And no offense intended, ma’am, but I can’t quite believe you repulsed his advance either, for Nicholas can be a very determined man.”

Mara smiled reluctantly. “I’ve found that out, much to my discomfort, Swede. Nicholas is also an unforgiving man, and when he takes a dislike to a person and feels there’s a debt to be paid…well, he’s quite relentless in collecting what’s due him, isn’t he?” Mara asked in a tight voice.

The Swede sat quietly watching her, aware that she was losing her composure as she talked about Nicholas. He glanced uncomfortably at Jenny but was relieved to see her busily sewing, her red head bent as she worked. He glanced back at Mara, leaning forward on his knees. “You don’t need to tell me anything if you’d rather not, but I really can’t see Nicholas wishing you ill, or doing you any harm. He’s a reasonable man, and an honorable one, despite any rumors you might have heard to the contrary,” he defended his friend.

Mara laughed abruptly as she looked around the room, avoiding the Swede’s honest gaze as she admitted, “I suppose he has reason to hate me. You see…I caused the death, no suicide, of his nephew Julian in London a few years ago. He swore he’d make me pay. And he has.”

Mara finally looked into the Swede’s eyes, surprised to see a puzzled frown in them. “I’m confused, Miss O’Flynn. Are you sure you couldn’t have misunderstood Nicholas? The only nephew Nicholas has named Julian, and living in London, is alive.”

Mara’s lips parted slightly in surprise. “Alive? Julian’s still living? He didn’t die from the gunshot wound?” Mara repeated in a whisper more to herself than to the Swede. “And all these years I had his death on my conscience.” Mara’s eyes suddenly seemed to glow with a bronzed light as she angrily remembered what Nicholas had allowed her to believe. “He let me go on thinking I killed Julian,” she spoke more loudly as she glanced up into the Swede’s worried face. “How could he hate me so much he’d have me believe Julian dead?”

“Nicholas told you that?” the Swede asked in disbelief. “That doesn’t sound like him. Are you sure we’re talking about the same Nicholas Chantale?”

“Mocking green eyes, cruelly sneering mouth, and a sarcastic tongue in a ruggedly handsome face,” was Mara’s brief description.

The Swede nodded his big blond head in agreement, a smile of appreciation curving his wide mouth upward. “That’s the Creole, sure enough. But I’ll be damned if I’ve ever heard of him acting quite so vindictive before.”

Mara looked over at Jenny who had given up pretending to mend the socks still held in her hands. She openly listened now to the conversation. “You might as well hear the worst of it too. I’d rather it came from me than an unfriendly party.”

“I can leave,” Jenny offered in embarrassment as she started to rise.

“No, please,” Mara said, waving her back into her seat. “I believe I told you once before that I’d made mistakes. Well, this is one that has come back to haunt me. You see—I was the cause of a young man taking his own life. Or at least,” Mara corrected herself, “I thought he’d taken it. Of course, the undisputable fact is that he tried, and I was the reason why. I played a very cruel game with his love, spurning him, ridiculing him, but you must believe me,” Mara told them, her eyes unconsciously pleading with them, “I never meant him to try and take his life. I was wrong, I know that now, and I deeply regret how I treated him. I can’t excuse my actions. They were vicious and calculated. Nicholas has every right to hate me. But I have been punished for my sins, and Nicholas unknowingly has had his revenge, so must I go on paying for a mistake?” Mara demanded defiantly as she stared at the two silent people. “If you want to tell Nicholas where I am, then go ahead. He’d probably find me soon enough anyway. And if you’d rather not continue to visit me, then I’d not blame you. After all, Nicholas is your friend.”

The Swede rubbed his chin in perplexity. “Thank you for telling me all this. You needn’t have, but I admire you for your honesty.”

Mara laughed in genuine amusement. “No one has ever paid me that compliment before. I’m afraid I’m not very good at confession. I’m quite out of practice.”

“Well, I don’t think any of us likes to admit we’ve been wrong. I know I don’t,” the Swede laughed, easing the tense atmosphere with his deep chuckle. “You didn’t by any chance happen to run into Nicholas last night as well, did you?”

Mara nodded. “Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Why?”

“I just wondered. He was in such a foul mood that I was curious. Nicholas isn’t one to speak aloud his private thoughts. That’s why I’ve never heard of you before. And although I knew about Nicholas’s nephew, I never knew the exact details concerning the incident. I didn’t know you then, I only know the woman you are now, so I won’t judge you on the past. What is between you and Nicholas is none of my affair,” the Swede told Mara, but he made up his mind to hear Nicholas’s version as well.

“Since I’m clearing my conscience, I probably should tell you of Nicholas’s latest grievance against me, which involves a deception played on him and the loss of his money. I knew nothing about his money—not that he believes a word I say—but he has reason to be angry once again, so I don’t think he shall ever forgive me. Too much has happened to destroy whatever faith in me he might once have had.”

Mara glanced over at Jenny and shrugged. “I told you I wasn’t very nice. Do you still want to be friends?”

Jenny pushed a bright red curl from her forehead as she smiled gently, realizing for the first time that behind the facade of hauteur she protectively wrapped around herself, the beautiful Irishwoman was really very vulnerable. “That’s what friends are for, aren’t they? To stand behind you when you need them, give support, and,” she added bluntly, “to accept each other’s faults. ’Cause Lord knows we all have enough of them.”

“Thank you,” Mara said simply, humbled by a type of loyalty she’d never experienced before.

“Well, I’d best be on my way,” the Swede said regretfully as he stood up. “I’d like to call again, if I might?” he asked tentatively, his wide smile broadening at Mara’s pleased nod.

And so during the next week the Swede continued to visit as if that revealing conversation had never taken place. Whether or not he had spoken with Nicholas, Mara wasn’t sure, for his attitude of obvious adoration continued. He asked her to dine with him one evening and Mara accepted. She knew it was a first step into a different relationship, but perhaps she wanted to see if it could develop into something more than friendship.

She dressed with care in a pale green brocaded silk with layers of Brussels lace falling from the décolletage and framing her shoulders elegantly. A wreath of artificial spring flowers sat like a crown on top of her head. The Swede turned out to be a perfect host, entertaining her throughout their dinner with amusing stories of incredible, if perhaps exaggerated, adventures he’d had and seeing to her every need with gentlemanly courtesy.

As they stood in the hallway of the silent boardinghouse, the shadowy light from one of the oil lamps flickering on their faces, Mara thanked the Swede for an evening she had truly enjoyed sharing with him.

“I haven’t told Nicholas I’m seeing you, Mara,” the Swede told her honestly. “It’s not that I’m afraid of what I might learn about you, or that I haven’t believed you,” he said with a frown, “but Nicholas is my best friend, and he might say some things about you that I won’t like. He can be insultingly cutting—vicious in fact—when he’s at his worst. I don’t want to have that between us just yet.”

“I understand,” Mara said, touched by the difficult position the Swede found himself in. “I’m sorry it’s been so difficult for you, Swede. I wish there were some way I could help, but I’d only manage to make things worse,” Mara sighed. Then, holding out her hand, she said softly, “Good night, Swede.”

The Swede’s big hand engulfed hers as he took it gently into his. Staring down longingly into her face, he breathed her name. He pulled her unresistingly into his arms. His mouth came down on hers.

The kiss started out with tender passion, but as the Swede felt her response, his arms tightened, enfolding her slender form against his muscular body. His lips moved hungrily over hers and he breathed the intoxicating sweetness of her fragrant skin.

Mara allowed herself to be pressed closer to him as she tried to respond to his kiss, but it was useless. She felt none of that excitement that seemed to set her blood on fire when she was near Nicholas.

The Swede’s lips parted from hers with lingering sweetness, and as he stared down into her face, his worst fears were confirmed. The truth was revealed in her clear eyes, their golden depths unshadowed by passion. He shook his leonine head sadly. “It’s no good, is it?”

Mara stared up into his wide blue eyes and knew she could not lie to him, or pretend a love she did not feel. “I’m sorry, Swede,” she said gently.

The Swede smiled crookedly. “I was just fooling myself. I knew the first day I saw you that you weren’t for me, but a fellow can’t help dreaming,” he said gruffly. Then, as he stared down at the sad longing in her eyes, he said oddly, “Are you in love with someone, Mara?”

Mara stepped away from the Swede as she tried to compose her features and erase whatever it was he had read in her eyes. “Well now, with a town full of rich miners and fast-talkin’ adventurers I just might be, to be sure, there’s enough of them to choose from.” Mara laughed with a mocking glint in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mara,” the Swede said softly.

“Sorry? Now whatever for?” she asked curiously, feigning ignorance.

“It’s Nicholas, isn’t it?”

Mara stared at him in humiliated silence, her face mirroring confusion and anguish. “Is it so obvious?” she asked in self-derision, her voice shaking.

“No, my dear,” the Swede reassured her, “but I’m more sensitive, being half in love with you myself. It’s our secret.”

“Thank you,” Mara said with dignity. She turned and started for the stairs, but at the foot she turned and asked diffidently, “I hope you will still be my friend?”

The Swede nodded, forcing himself to grin naturally. “You won’t be getting rid of me so easily.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she smiled.

And sure enough, the very next morning when Mara came downstairs, she found him enjoying a cup of coffee while he laughed with Jenny over Peter’s antics.

“Good morning,” Mara greeted him casually, her cool beauty showing no sign of the sleepless night she had spent. “’Tis a good sign to see the sun shining for a change,” Mara predicted. She waved Jenny back as she poured herself a cup of coffee and prepared to enjoy the half hour of talk that had become almost a daily ritual since the Swede started calling.

Mara was laughing at one of the Swede’s endless supply of anecdotes when a loud voice sounded in the hallway and Mara heard her name being called.

“If you’ll excuse me, please,” Mara said. She quickly left the room, recognizing the voice imperiously summoning her as Jacques D’Arcy’s. She had allowed herself to forget him as the week passed, but apparently she had been lulled into a feeling of false security by his silence. Her step faltered slightly as she entered the hall and saw the man standing beside Jacques.

He was called the Count. Nobody knew his real name. Despite his elegant style of dress, he had a mean look about him that repelled close contact. He wasn’t a large man like the Swede, but there was a toughness about his firmly muscled body and a cunning wariness in his eyes that warned a smart person not to cross him. Nothing had ever been proven against the Count, but Mara knew the unsavory rumors about him were true, for too often, someone who had displeased Jacques had suddenly been found murdered, or had suffered a strange accident that left them incapacitated for months.

“What do you want?” Mara demanded bravely.

“I think you know what I want, ma petite,” Jacques answered her, an unpleasant gleam in his eye. “You and I have some unfinished business to settle, and I would advise you to come quietly,” he said meaningfully as he gestured toward the room Mara had just come from and where the laughing voices of small children could be heard. “I know you would not wish for your little boy to get hurt by mistake. Accidents are often fatal, ma petite. So you will come with Jacques and the Count, eh?”

Mara backed up a step as the Count moved forward, a cruel smile curving his thin lips. His eyes were without expression or emotion, reminding Mara of the opaque eyes of a reptile. She watched in fascination as one of the Count’s heavily ringed hands slid beneath the fine woolen cloth of his coat and reappeared a second later with a very thin-bladed, evil-looking knife. The hilt of carved ivory was held caressingly in the palm of his hand.