Tears of Gold (41 page)

“Then have you, perchance, knowledge of a certain gentleman called Nicholas Chantale? I am dining with him this evening, and he does not care to be kept waiting, m’sieu,” Mara lied in a last, desperate attempt.

The waiter turned back to her with a knowing smile that Mara longed to wipe from his face. “Why didn’t the mademoiselle say as much in the first place? Monsieur Chantale is dining upstairs in one of our private dining rooms. You should have used the other entrance,
madame
,” he advised her insolently. He snapped his fingers and a young waiter came running. “Show this
lady
to Monsieur Chantale’s table,” he said with a discreet gesture to a door at the back of the hall.

Mara followed the waiter up the stairs and into the dimly lit hallway of the second-floor suites. Here, a man and his dinner partner could dine in luxurious privacy and then enjoy a few hours of dalliance on cushioned sofas.

Mara stood nervously behind the waiter as he knocked discreetly on the door, her fears for Paddy overcoming her reluctance to face Nicholas again. He might hate her, but he could at least tell her the whereabouts of the Swede.

Mara heard Nicholas’s deep voice bidding them enter. She did so, the door closing firmly behind her as she stood facing an incredulous Nicholas Chantale.

Dressed in her heavy cloak, with her bonnet still covering her head, Mara felt horribly overdressed. She stared at the embarrassing dishabille of the blonde reclining languorously on the velvet cushions, a glass brimming with champagne held in one hand as she looked up dreamily. The softness left her eyes as she became aware of Mara.

“Who the hell is she?” she demanded angrily as she struggled to pull up her bodice. “Lord, but you should’ve warned me you had a jealous wife who might come barging in.”

The sound of Nicholas’s rich laughter filled the room as he moved away from the sofa to where Mara was standing. He stood silently in front of her for a moment, watching her. He had discarded his coat and vest, and his finely ruffled, linen shirt was partially open, revealing the dark hair covering his muscular chest.

“I should really be surprised to see you here, but knowing you, I’m not,” Nicholas remarked softly. “What do you want? Not looking for the Swede, are you? I am surprised you’d let him get away from you. You’re losing your touch.”

“I don’t care what you think, Nicholas. I’ve got to find the Swede, he’s the only one who can help me,” Mara cried, her hands clenching in front of her. “Jacques and the Count have kidnapped Paddy. They’re holding him in a warehouse down at the docks. I’ve got to get him back, Nicholas. Molly won’t believe that Brendan spent all his money. There’s nothing to give her. I don’t know what she’ll do when she finds out,” Mara told him, the story spilling out in tangled confusion. “Where’s the Swede? Damn it, Nicholas, tell me!” Mara begged as she raised her fists in a fury of frustration.

Nicholas grabbed her arms and held her away from him as he stared into her panic-stricken face, trying to read the truth. She’d lied to him so many times in the past that he didn’t know what to believe.

“Nicholas,” Mara whimpered. “
Please
. Help me. I’ll do anything you ask, but please, please help me.”

Nicholas looked deeply into her eyes for a moment longer before nodding thoughtfully. “All right. I believe you, Mara. Come on, let’s find the Swede,” he said abruptly. Gathering up his coat and vest, he started from the room.

“Hey! What about me? A fine gentleman you are to leave a lady in the middle of dinner! I’ve got half a mind to—” she began, only to fall silent as Nicholas threw a bag of coins into her lap.

“For wasting your valuable time, mademoiselle,” Nicholas apologized gallantly. He pulled Mara after him, out of the room and down the hallway to another room. Without bothering to knock he stepped inside, leaving Mara in the hall.

Mara opened her mouth to complain, then stopped abruptly as she remembered the state of undress Nicholas’s dinner partner had been in. She heard voices beyond the door, and a second later fell back as the door opened and Nicholas and the Swede stepped into the hallway.

“Are you all right, Mara?” the Swede demanded as he took her arm and guided her down the back stairs and out into the noisy street below. “Paddy was kidnapped, is that right?”

Mara nodded in the darkness. She was helped inside the carriage Nicholas had signaled to. As she settled down between Nicholas and the Swede on the carriage seat, the Swede asked, “What happened, Mara?”

“Yes, would you care to tell me exactly what I’m becoming involved in?” Nicholas asked quietly. “You weren’t too explicit when you interrupted my dinner.”

“The person causing all the trouble is Molly. She was Brendan’s wife, only she abandoned us years ago. Paddy is her son. We never thought we’d see her again, and we didn’t until a couple of weeks ago here in San Francisco. She demanded money from Brendan, said she’d cause trouble, spread false rumors about us if we didn’t give her the money she wanted,” Mara explained quickly. As they passed a gaily lit building, the light shone through the carriage window and revealed her pale, haunted face. “Then Brendan died, and no sooner had he been laid to rest than she demanded his fortune, but, Swede, Brendan spent it all. There isn’t any fortune to give her.”

“You mean you’re penniless?” the Swede asked in growing amazement.

“Not quite, but close to it. I spent most of it for our passage on the ship. I was desperate. You see, I knew they wouldn’t believe me about there being no money. Yesterday, Molly sent Jacques and the Count to bring me to her, and that’s when she demanded the fortune. I tried to tell her there was none, but she wouldn’t believe me. I managed to escape from them, but I had no idea they would take Paddy,” Mara said in a trembling voice. “I knew they would continue to cause trouble. That’s why I decided to leave San Francisco immediately. It was while I was saying good-bye to you tonight that they went to the boardinghouse and took Paddy. They broke Jamie’s arm and beat Jenny,” Mara told them, her voice throbbing with anger.

“My God!” the Swede expostulated, his fist bunching with suppressed violence, “they hit the old woman? And Jenny?”

“They’re animals, and Molly’s the worst, to do this to her own son,” Mara cried in despair. “I’ve just got to find him.”

“How do you know where to look?” Nicholas asked as he glanced outside the window. They were nearing the wharves.

“I went to Molly’s house, thinking they would have Paddy there. I knew a back way in.”

Nicholas looked over at her in surprise, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her profile. “You went to rescue him by yourself? And just what did you hope to prove by that fool stunt?”

“I’m not completely helpless, Nicholas. I have a weapon, and I know how to use it,” Mara told him coldly. “Paddy’s like my own son. I’ll do anything to get him back.”

“I believe you would, Mara,” Nicholas spoke softly, beginning to sense for the first time some of the determination and strength in this enigmatic woman.

“I wish you’d told me about your trouble, Mara,” the Swede said unhappily. “I would’ve helped you. You didn’t need to run away.”

“I didn’t want to get you involved in this. You might have gotten hurt. And anyway,” Mara said with a tired sigh, “I thought we’d be gone from here before anything more could happen.”

“Do you know what warehouse we’re looking for?” Nicholas interrupted as he halted the coach.

“The only thing I know is that they talked about nails, nothing more than that,” Mara told him with a frown.

“Well, it’ll have to do,” Nicholas commented. “You’d better wait here with the coach. In fact, he’d better take you back to the boardinghouse. You can wait for us there,” Nicholas ordered.

“No,” Mara said, jumping from the safety of the carriage into the muddy street before either Nicholas or the Swede could make a move to check her flight. “I will not wait. I’m going with you,” she proclaimed, “and you can’t stop me. I have to be there, Nicholas.”

“You might as well let her come,” the Swede advised. “I’d rather she were with us than sneaking around in the dark behind us.”

Nicholas shrugged as he paid off the coachman, promising him a large tip if he’d wait. With the Swede and Mara on each side of him, he began walking down the street.

It was quiet along the row of warehouses, although farther along were the rowdy grog shops and bawdy houses that attracted the scum of the waterfront with the cheap whiskey and cheaper women to be found inside the gloomy and squalid shacks that huddled together against the cold winds off the bay. They moved slowly along the front of the warehouses trying to read the lettering painted on the outside. They passed by fine hardware and woolen goods, printing materials and paper, ship’s stores and glass, all the large buildings darkened at this time of night. The next one they passed, however, had a glimmer of light showing from a small window at the back. And painted in huge letters across the front was the advertisement for building materials.

“They’re probably in the small office at the back of the building. I think the best thing to do is for you to go around to the back. There’s most likely a door from the office leading out into the alley. I’ll enter through the door next to the main part of the warehouse,” Nicholas spoke quietly. “That way, we’ll have them between us. Do you remember that Indian yell you used to cut loose with when we’d pass other boats on the Mississippi?” Nicholas asked suddenly.

“Sure do,” the Swede answered with a broad grin as he understood Nicholas’s idea.

“Give me a few minutes to get inside, Swede, then come through the door when you’re ready,” Nicholas said. Then, without another word, he slipped into the darkness.

Mara jumped nervously as a hand was clapped to her shoulder. Then she heard the Swede’s deep voice speak softly in her ear.

“We’ll get him back for you, Mara. I swear we will,” he reassured her, and then strode off to position himself outside the door.

Mara pulled her little derringer from her purse and followed them along the side of the building until she was just below the window where the square of light was shining through. There was no sign of Nicholas, and the Swede had disappeared around the far side of the building.

Nicholas had paused before the outside door and halfheartedly tried the door handle, controlling his start of surprise when it turned beneath his palm and the door opened. Apparently the kidnappers thought themselves so secure that they never imagined someone tracking them down, nor suspected a surprise attack. They hadn’t even bothered to lock the door.

Nicholas stepped inside. Although it was dark, he could just barely make out the bulky, rounded shapes of large barrels and stacked crates. He cursed as he tripped over the handle of a shovel that had fallen across the passageway from the line of shovels, picks, and saws leaning against the wall. He sidestepped several wheelbarrows in the center of the floor. At the back of the cavernous warehouse Nicholas could see a thin strip of light showing from beneath the door.

Nicholas stood silently waiting just outside of the door, knowing that any minute now a bloodcurdling scream would shatter the silence of the night, and then the Swede himself would follow his bellow of rage into the small room as all hell broke loose.

Nicholas heard a cough and then a rough laugh followed by a woman’s voice behind the door. Suddenly he hoped that they had the right warehouse, and the people inside the office weren’t just working late on accounts. For they’d never be the same after hearing the Swede’s war cry. But then, it must be nearing eleven o’clock, and no merchant would be working so late, Nicholas reasoned, and certainly not with a woman or a child, Nicholas added grimly as he distinctly heard a small child’s squeal of fear.

Suddenly a savage, inhuman cry ripped through the stillness of the warehouse, causing even Nicholas’s flesh to creep as he swung open the door at the precise instant that the outside door split into pieces under the force of the Swede’s broad shoulder.

The occupants of the room had been temporarily immobilized with terror by the sound and the suddenness of the attack. Nicholas and the giant Swede charged into the room from either side.

Molly fainted dead with fright, her body slumping in the corner of the room as the Count and Jacques turned to face their attackers.

As Jacques recognized the almost satanic face of Nicholas Chantale, he almost gave up. But because he knew he’d receive no mercy from this foe, he pulled his pistol from his coat pocket and took hasty aim at the figure flying at him. But Nicholas was faster and dived at Jacques’s legs, knocking him off balance. They fell to the floor in a tangled heap, Jacques hitting out at anything he came in contact with, his feet kicking viciously at Nicholas as they rolled across the floor.

The Swede had, in one clean punch, knocked several of the Count’s front teeth down his throat, breaking the man’s jaw with the same powerful blow. He now stood spread-eagled over the Count’s bloodied body, his arms akimbo, watching with enjoyment as Nicholas fought Jacques. It seemed as if Jacques D’Arcy was getting the worst of it as the Swede saw Nicholas’s fist connect with the Frenchman’s nose. Suddenly the Swede caught the flash of steel, but before he could call out a warning to Nicholas, Jacques had struck, the knife blade piercing through the flesh of Nicholas’s shoulder.

Jacques was on his feet in an instant, Nicholas having lost his hold on him, but before he could reach the door, Nicholas called out for him to stop. Jacques turned with an evil grin crossing his bloodied face as he raised his arm, ready to throw the deadly dagger through the air. But this time Nicholas hadn’t been caught off guard. The ear-shattering report of his pistol filled the room with noise and smoke as the bullet struck Jacques, sending him backward against the wall. He fell to the floor dead, the look of surprised pain still on his face.

“You hurt bad, Nick?” the Swede called as Nicholas struggled to his feet.

Nicholas grimaced as he looked down at his blood-soaked shirt and coat. “I’ll be all right. Where’s the boy?”