The Lady of Bolton Hill (6 page)

The question took her aback. She was but one small foot soldier among thousands who had been working toward this cause. “Well, there is Thomas Gilbert, for one. And Henry Mayhew has done extraordinary—”

Daniel interrupted her. “I said name one
woman
. Your gender puts you at a distinct disadvantage, and I don’t enjoy watching you pummel yourself into despondency over your perceived inadequacies. You are a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, and I hope you intend to continue your publishing here in America.”

How odd, the way Daniel’s words seemed to inject a surge of confidence straight into her bloodstream. Whenever she was with him she always felt as if she could dream bigger, see farther. A smile broke across her face. “I hope so,” she said. “Learning about the world around me and publishing my work has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done. I still like to play the piano—I still
love
playing the piano—but I don’t compose anymore.”

“Is that why you never sent me drafts of the duet we were working on?” Daniel asked.

The phrase hung in the air, and Clara had to process it several times to be sure she heard him correctly, but there was no mistaking the look on his face: curiosity blended with the hint of an old wound. He masked it quickly, but she caught sight of it in the instant before he flicked his gaze away from her. Her jaw tightened, and terrible suspicions began to form in the back of her mind. “I sent you dozens of compositions,” she said.

That seemed to surprise him, if the lift of his brows and quickly indrawn breath were any measure. “I never received anything. I waited for months but nothing ever came. Did you get what I sent to you?”

She stood and turned to face him. There was no deception on his face, no trace of teasing or misguided humor. She felt the blood drain from her face as a growing realization of what had happened began to penetrate her stunned senses. “You sent me music?” she asked. “I just assumed you were far too busy with everything to be bothered with music.”

“Too busy to be bothered with Chopin?” She could tell he was trying to sound lighthearted, but she heard the anger simmering behind the words. “I sent the music to your aunt Helen’s house in London. I sent letters, too. And none of this got to you?”

“None of it,” she said weakly. Her father had done this to her. Her father and Aunt Helen had conspired together to pry the most meaningful person in her life away from her. The sense of betrayal was enormous, but even worse was the knowledge that Daniel must have believed she had abandoned him. During the most gut-wrenching few months of his life, she must have appeared to be the most frivolous girl on the planet, darting off to Europe and not even bothering to return the letters he had taken precious time from his day to write to her. There were no words she could say to apologize for what her father had orchestrated.

Daniel braced his elbows on his knee and yanked a blade of grass, rolling it between his fingers. Finally, he let out a harsh laugh. “Well, I’m a prize idiot.”

“How do you mean?”

“I noticed the way your father looked at us, toward the end. I certainly was not the kind of man the esteemed Reverend Endicott wanted for his only daughter. Your aunt Helen obviously prevented any letters you sent to me from leaving her house. And she made sure none of mine got to you.”

“I can’t believe they would have stooped to this,” she said. But she knew they had. When she was growing up she thought the sun rose and set with Daniel Tremain’s smile, and that was simply too much of a threat for her father to handle. She felt awful as she dragged her gaze to Daniel. “I’m so sorry. My father had no right to cast you out of my life just because you were poor.”

The wistful, damaged look on Daniel’s face lingered for just an instant; then his mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Don’t be naive. Your father spotted trouble before either one of us knew it was on the horizon.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “And we
were
trouble, Clara.” His voice roughened when he said the words, and the way he gazed at her with that gleam in his eye made her breath freeze in her throat.

When he picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to it, she nearly jumped out of her skin, but Daniel kept a firm grip on her hand. “Big, breathtaking, unrelenting trouble.” He touched his lips to her hand again. She shouldn’t have let it affect her so, as the gentle kiss was as proper as could be. He could have kissed the queen of England like that and no one would have thought anything of it, but the thrill that raced up her arm from that tiny touch of his lips was splendid.

At last he released her hand, and Clara knew that everything he said was precisely correct. What girl of sixteen had the ability to manage the torrents of infatuation she experienced when Daniel was the center of her universe? Even now she was intensely conscious of the magnetic pull that hummed between them. It was awkward and exhilarating at the same time, so Clara took the safe route and changed the topic.

“So was it any good? The music you sent me?”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Adolescent dreck. Pure self-indulgent grandiosity. Do you want to come by my house and listen to it?”

“You’ve still got it?”

“Naturally. I wrote it for you.”

“Then I must hear it.” She took the seat again beside him on the stone wall. “So tell me about this grand company of yours. I should probably treat you with a little more deference, now that you are some exalted corporate titan.”

“Yes, you certainly should,” Daniel agreed. But he did tell her about his corporation, and the house he had built for his family on the north side of town, of which he seemed particularly proud.

The years fell away, and once again, they were like two enraptured youths. As Daniel talked, he leaned forward and a lock of his hair tumbled onto his forehead, just as it had when they were kids. It was so familiar, but now Clara had to clasp her hands together to prevent herself from smoothing the lock of hair back from his forehead. The skin around his eyes had tiny fan lines that deepened when he smiled, and he still had that eager, roguish look when he grinned. Her best friend had returned to her, but he had grown into a man. And for the life of her, Clara did not know if it would be possible to stay friends with Daniel Tremain anymore. How could she maintain an even keel when she was so utterly enthralled by him? Daniel’s magnetism had the strength of an incoming tide that grew stronger by the minute, and Clara had little desire to resist it.

All of a sudden, the sun was low in the sky, with shadows lengthening across the lawn. Clara tried to ignore the lateness of the hour, as this had been one of the most magical afternoons of her life and she wanted to cling to every moment. The concert had let out hours ago, and her father was liable to send out men to search for her if she did not return soon.

“It’s getting late. . . .” she said finally but hesitantly.

“I’ll let you go if you agree to meet me again.” The immediacy of Daniel’s request made Clara bite back a smile.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Clara hesitated. “I can’t,” she said. “I promised Clyde I would accompany him to Washington, D.C., for a few days. He is meeting with a committee about the Navajo reservation, and I would like the chance to get acquainted with some members of Congress. I can’t pass up an opportunity like this.”

“I have a copy of
Two Rhapsodies
by Brahms. A new work, opus 79,” Daniel said. “It arrived by special delivery last week.”

Clara’s breath caught in her throat. “You’re joking!” She adored Brahms, and judging by the wicked gleam in his eye, Daniel knew his lure was a mighty temptation.

“We can meet at the Music Conservatory for old times’ sake,” Daniel said. “It has fallen into disrepair, but it’s still there.”

Clara rose and shook the grass from her skirts, hearing her father’s warning voice in her mind.
“You must not let Daniel derail you from your life’s goals.”
How many times had she heard that refrain when she was growing up? She pursed her lips, angered that her father’s words made so much sense at this particular moment. The sting of his betrayal in intercepting her letters to Daniel was still fresh, but on one level her father was correct. Daniel had always had the power to utterly dazzle her, and she had only a few weeks left with Clyde before he returned to Arizona Territory. Daniel was already proving to be a dangerous temptation, and she could not turn her back on Clyde for the sake of hearing a Brahms rhapsody.

“I’ll be back in Baltimore in three days’ time,” she said. She would not let him budge her from her resolve. A good sister would go to Washington with Clyde as she had promised, and not suffer the least bit of temptation from Daniel. She ought to feel guilty for even contemplating it.

“Near the end of the B minor rhapsody, the fingering is so wild and intense, I doubt even your hands could keep up with it.”

She glanced over at him and could not help but wonder what Mr. Brahms had come up with this time. She bit her lip, aching to get her hands on that score. “That complex?”

“Want to give it a try? We can meet up tomorrow.”

She elbowed him in the side, then gave a gasp of surprise when he elbowed her back. When she was a teenager, she would have succumbed to temptation, but she would like to pretend she had learned a few things since then. She sent a flirtatious glance over her shoulder as she walked away. “Meet me in three days’ time at the old Music Conservatory,” she said. “And don’t you dare forget that score.”

D
eep in the Vermont woods, isolated by endless miles of hardwood forests and far away from any road that appeared on a map, a granite mansion was hidden from the eyes of the world. Surrounded by guardhouses, a series of wrought-iron fences, and a cadre of bull mastiff dogs, the mansion was an impregnable fortress. And in a remote room in the northern wing, a young man with the face of an angel studied in an opulent library. With blond hair and cool blue eyes, he looked even younger than his seventeen years.

Alexander Banebridge, or Bane as he was generally known, had been steadily devouring the contents of Professor Van Bracken’s library whenever he had the chance. Spread before him were books covering every detail of the Ming Dynasty, including the structure of the government, the trade routes, and the strategy of the army. Bane had never been to school a day in his life, but he needed knowledge of the world if he was going to wield the kind of power he craved. He had already mastered geography—he could identify the caliphates of Arabia and the provinces of China as easily as the states in his own country. He knew the location of every navigable river in the United States and had a comprehensive understanding of tidal currents. He had mastered economics and political science with similar ease, but Bane needed to learn history if he was to have the same air of refinement that made Professor Van Bracken so successful. Never would Bane allow himself to be seen like the ham-fisted thugs the Professor often used to carry out his operations. Knowledge and cunning were much more effective than brute force.

Bane was in the process of memorizing Chinese military philosophy when the door of the library opened. The matronly figured Letty Garfield entered the room, wiping her hands on an apron and looking at him with expectation.

“Alex?” she asked as she approached him. She was the only person who called him by his first name, as if she refused to reduce herself to the crudeness of the rest of the people living here. “I’ve just taken a fresh apple pie from the oven. Would you like me to bring you a slice?”

Bane straightened in his chair and feigned a look of disappointment. “Apple? When I heard you were baking, I had so hoped it would be a peach pie.”

He studied Mrs. Garfield as her forehead wrinkled in distress. “Oh, heavens . . . if I had known . . .”

“I’ve been craving peach pie all day. The kind with pecans in the crust.”

Mrs. Garfield patted him on the shoulder. “Then you shall have one,” she said kindly. “I’ll begin at once, so it will only be a couple of hours, and then you shall have your pie, dear boy.”

Bane smiled, although it was so easy to manipulate Mrs. Garfield, he really should not take so much pleasure in it. “You’re the best, Mrs. Garfield.”

Bane watched the door close behind the cook, feeling not the slightest twinge of guilt for manipulating her into making a pie he did not even want. After all, this was the woman who slipped him a steady stream of opium to compel his submission when he was only six years old. Those weeks after he had first been kidnapped were a haze of temper tantrums and opium-laced tea before Bane learned how to survive in this shadowy world. He still remembered the sight of Mrs. Garfield stirring spoonfuls of the sickeningly sweet opium into his tea before she served it to him with a smile.

Two hours later, just after Bane had begun studying the import regulations in Canadian shipping ports, Mrs. Garfield returned with a slice of steaming peach pie. “Here you are, Alex.” She set down the plate as well as a glass of milk. “Peach pie, just as you requested. And the Professor asked me to give you this file that arrived in today’s mail. He said you would understand its importance.”

Tucked beneath Mrs. Garfield’s arm had been a fat envelope she now extended to him. “Excellent!” Bane said, with no need to feign enthusiasm this time. For weeks he had been anxiously awaiting this delivery from Baltimore. He pushed the books to the far side of the table and tore open the envelope.

“Is there anything else you need?” Mrs. Garfield asked. When Bane shook his head, she nodded and backed out of the library. “Very good,” she said just before leaving. “I’m going to change the linen in the tower room. I’ll be up there preparing the room, if you need anything else.”

Bane merely nodded, completely engrossed in the pages of information he pulled from the envelope. A grainy photograph of Daniel Tremain accompanied a newspaper article documenting the recent developments in Carr & Tremain Polytechnic. The Professor had a scheme up his sleeve to get the better of Tremain and was trusting Bane to lead the mission. He was young to be taking on this level of responsibility, but the prize the Professor dangled was too tempting for Bane to resist. If Bane could succeed in knocking Tremain out of business, the reward would be huge.

Canada.

The Professor had offered control of the Canadian opium trade to Bane.

At last, Bane could move thousands of miles away from the Professor to oversee their smuggling operations in Canada. Vancouver was as far as Bane could conceivably distance himself from the Professor yet still partake in the criminal empire that had made them all rich. Not that Bane cared much about money. It was power he craved. The ability to control his own destiny had been stripped from him when he was a six-year-old child, and nothing was more tantalizing than being able to take back control of his own life.

For months he had been studying everything there was to know about his future home. It had been a joy to devour every book he could find about Canadian history and culture. On his bedroom wall, he tacked a series of postcards that depicted the burgeoning town of Vancouver, and every night he stared at those pictures as he drifted off to sleep. A newly constructed townhouse overlooking the bay of Barkley Sound was where he would live. It was within walking distance of a library and had easy access to the ports for business purposes. He would still have to answer to the Professor, but with thousands of miles between them, he would have room to breathe for the first time in his life.

But only if he passed the Professor’s test. Bane studied the article about Daniel Tremain, and after a few minutes, a slow smile curved his mouth.

It was as he suspected. Daniel Tremain was a brilliant innovator, but he was also reckless and hotheaded. A man ruled by a volatile temper was easy to manipulate. Bane had learned how to suppress those inconvenient emotions and rely on cool, clearheaded logic to control a situation. How interesting it would be to match wits with Daniel Tremain. Bane pushed the article aside and looked at the next page, a short biographical summary of Tremain’s life. It said the man obtained his first patent when he was only twenty-one years old and had filed a steady stream of them ever since.

Bane studied the photograph. It was hard not to admire a man who had risen so quickly without the benefit of fancy schools or family connections. Would he really be able to best the man? In a battle of logic versus passion, who would win?

Then, suddenly, a thought that had been niggling at the back of his mind came to the forefront. Why was Mrs. Garfield preparing the tower room? Bane stood so quickly the chair behind him upended onto the floor, the clatter breaking the cold silence of the mansion.

He left the library and vaulted up two flights of stairs until he found her. She was making up the bed when he pushed open the door. “What is going on here?” he asked.

“Why, the Professor is going to have another visitor, I expect,” she said as she tucked a sheet beneath the mattress.

Visitor
. Hostage was more like it.

“There hasn’t been a
visitor
since young Kenny O’Hanlon was here,” Bane said calmly.

Shame suffused Mrs. Garfield’s face. Her gaze darted around the room and the corners of her mouth turned down, but she reached for another blanket and began laying it atop the mattress. “Such a tragedy,” she finally said. “Poor Kenny.”

Bane scanned the room. It had everything a young boy could want: toys, drawing supplies, books of all kinds. And outside there was even a pony in the stable. If the next captive was lucky, his father would concede to whatever business arrangements the Professor demanded.

Bane’s jaw tightened. There was very little compassion left in his body, but nothing brought it flickering to life faster than the abuse of a child.

“No opium,” he said bluntly.

Mrs. Garfield looked up from the sheets. “What was that?”

“Don’t feed him any opium. If he proves difficult, come get me and I’ll show him how to behave so he won’t anger the Professor. There will be no need for drugs.” Mrs. Garfield had the decency to look ashamed as she nodded.

Perhaps someday Bane would be clever enough to outwit the Professor and take control over this entire criminal enterprise, but until then there was very little he could do to help the child. Bane knew better than anyone in the world that if the boy was very clever and very patient, it was possible to survive here.

The next victim in the Professor’s game could not be Bane’s concern. He needed to carry out the Professor’s test and knock Tremain out of business. Only then would the Professor trust Bane to head up the Canadian branch of his empire. Only then could Bane put thousands of miles between him and this gothic horror house.

In the meantime, he needed to start planning the optimal way to outwit Daniel Tremain.