Megan Chance Page 13

  "Yes," he said softly. "Christabel and Mrs. Travers look just the same."

  Sari heard the soft catch in his voice when he said her name, heard the quick ache, she knew all she needed to know. That kiss had mattered. She was right to feel as shaken as she did. For a moment the joy engulfed her. Even if nothing came of it, even if he betrayed her again, she would remember this joy.

  Conor cleared his throat. "Christabel went into the woods all alone that night to pray for her knight, who was far away. Before she could finish her prayer, she heard a moan. She thought at first it was the wind, but there was no wind that night; the forest was still."

  "What was it, a monster?" Peter whispered. "Shhh!"

  "No. No monster," Conor told them. "It was a lady so beautiful, Christabel could barely speak for wonder. The lady was dressed all in white, with jewels of every color in her long blond hair. She was like a fairy queen, but she seemed very sad.

  '"Who are you?' Christabel asked, and the lady said, 'My name is Geraldine, and I am so tired, I can barely speak. Please don't be afraid, please help me.' She told Christabel that she had been kidnapped by five knights, who left her there to wait for them while they rode off. She didn't remember how long she'd been there, because she was bewitched."

  "By fairies?" The merest whisper of a voice.

  Sari put her hand to her mouth to stop her laughter. He had them wrapped around his finger, enraptured by the tale. Almost as if he were a big brother. Or their father.

  "Or so Geraldine said. Christabel was a kind princess, and she begged Geraldine to come home with her so that Christabel's father, Sir Leoline, could protect them. But when they got there, Geraldine was so quiet, Christabel was worried that the lady was sick. She grew even more worried when Geraldine began to talk—because she wasn't talking to Christabel, or even to anyone Christabel could see."

  "She was talking to ghosts!" Johnny piped up.

  "In a way. She was talking to spirits."

  "Like fairies?"

  "No, not like fairies. She was talking to the spirit of Christabel's mother, who had died a long time ago. Christabel thought she heard a warning." Conor paused. "But then Geraldine told the spirit of the lady queen to leave, and she told Christabel not to look while she changed her clothes."

  "I would have looked anyway," Johnny said.

  "Christabel was like you, John. She looked too. And what she saw—well, what she saw was terrible."

  "Tell us!"

  "She saw," Conor lowered his voice dramatically, "that Geraldine's whole side was gone."

  "Gone?" Ida's voice quivered.

  "Like a bear got her?" Samuel asked.

  "Just like that."

  "I don't like this story," Becky whined.

  "Oh, it's just getting good!"

  "What did Christabel do, Mr. Roarke?" Ida asked. "Did she run away?"

  "No."

  He would make a good father. Sari smiled at the thought. He was so good with the children, and she knew it was because he genuinely liked them, because he respected what they said. The thought filled her with wistfulness. She wondered if he even wanted children of his own, if he thought about it at all.

  "Christabel took Geraldine in her arms to comfort her and fell asleep. And while she slept, she forgot Geraldine's strange ways, and in the morning she took the woman to see her father.

  "Sir Leoline found that Geraldine was the daughter of his long-lost friend and he was very happy. It was then that Christabel caught the strange look Geraldine gave her—an evil look. In that moment she knew that Geraldine was not a friend, but an enemy sent from evil demons. Christabel begged her father to send the woman away, and—and ..."

  He trailed off. Sari waited, and then she realized why he'd stopped. There was no more story. Christabel was an unfinished poem, one that left Christabel hovering between good and evil, one that had no easy answers. It was the reason it was her favorite poem. She couldn't control the grin that hovered at her lips. What would he do? What kind of ending would he give Christabel?

  "And then what?"

  "Yeah, don't stop there."

  He still didn't answer.

  "Mr. Roarke!"

  "Just a minute," he said harshly.

  She heard the touch of anger in his voice, a confusion that seemed harsh and strange and far too familiar. It was as if he'd cut off emotions, it was the kind of voice that held no tenderness and no joy.

  It was the voice she'd heard in those last days.

  The voice that held the lies.

  The memories plunged back: Evan had gone into town and Conor was there—in her house, lounging on her bed while she brushed her hair. She had been unsure whether to feel tense because he was there and Evan was due home soon or happy because she loved him and wanted him with her always—and she had decided simply to bask in the warm pleasure of his voice, of his Irish burr and whiskey-rough words.

  He was running his fingers through her hair, asking her where Evan was, where Michael was, and she had laughed and batted at his hand and told him not to bedevil her with questions and to love her; they had so little time.

  It was then his voice had changed. The tenderness left it, and something had come into his eyes, a darkness that was as frightening as it was momentary.

  It was three days before the Pinkertons had come in.

  And it was then she'd known he was a traitor.

  The memory sank inside her. Sari jerked back from the wall, shaking, not wanting to hear more, unable to hear another word uttered in that voice. She hurried back to the soddy, slipping on the icy, frozen grass, trying to feel nothing at all. This was not what she wanted. Not those memories, not this icy chill that deadened her heart. She wanted to think about his tenderness, to relive the sweet ache she'd felt when he said her name. She wanted to remember only his quiet laughter when he spoke to the children, and the way he'd caught them in the magic of his story.

  It was all she wanted now. The cold light of tomorrow would be soon enough to face the truth again. But the night... the night was a time for dreams.

  He was still awake when the last murmur of protest faded into the darkness,.and the steady rise and fall of breathing once again filled the air. His muscles were tight, and nervous tension made his breathing shallow.

  Telling the story to the children had been a mistake. At first he'd enjoyed it. He liked children, and tonight had reminded him of his years in the rectory, banding the younger ones together for the annual Christmas pageant. He'd been good at it then, teaching them their lines, making sure the little heathens didn't kill themselves vying for the parts of the three kings.

  But the joy had ended in the split second when he realized there was no end to the poem. He'd floundered then, searching for something, anything, first wondering how Coleridge would have ended the poem, and then what the hell his father would have done.

  It was that question that had stopped him. Sean Roarke had been a terrible storyteller. Conor recalled late nights when his father had bent next to' the flickering flame of a candle, writing down notes to some biblical story for his sermon. The priest could remember the word of God, but he was at a loss when called upon to recite the parables that served as examples. Without those notes the exciting stories faded away to one or two lines of God's laws.

  The memory had paralyzed Conor, because with it came the realization that at some point in the last few days he'd begun to put vengeance behind him. The realization shook him. The need for revenge hadn't changed, it had just taken a different turn. Suddenly he wasn't so sure that things were as black and white as he'd imagined.

  In fact the only thing he was sure about any longer was that Michael Doyle had set the bomb that killed his father.

  But as for the rest...

  So many things had happened. Too many things; he needed time to sit back and sort them out. It was what William Pinkerton had taught him. Every operative must be a clear thinker, a man or woman able to force coherence from confusion. Lately Conor felt as if h
e'd been failing miserably at it.

  He took a deep breath, struggling to put his thoughts in order. It was slowly becoming clear to him that either Sari Travers was an actress fit for Pinkerton's ranks or she had no idea where her brother was. She never talked about him, she denied having any other family to her newfound friends. It didn't change anything really. Regardless of whether Sari knew Michael's whereabouts, Conor was fairly certain Doyle would come to her. It was just that Conor was beginning to wonder if Michael would be welcome when he showed up.

  The question gnawed at him, made him feel like a traitor again—and that was a feeling he'd hoped to leave behind him. Because he could not—would not—back down. Somewhere in that soddy was a letter, a picture, something that alluded to Michael's whereabouts.

  But now the task held no appeal. After tonight the thought of betraying Sari made him sick. He had set out to charm her, to beguile her into trusting him, and his plan had worked almost too well. He had charmed her. She was falling for him the same way she had in Tamaqua. Everything was going according to plan.

  Except for one thing.

  Unseeingly Conor stared into the darkness. Cold fear clawed its way up his spine. He had not planned on succumbing to her spell. When he'd first come to Colorado, he expected to be able to seduce her as coldly as he'd seduced informers in the past—with a sharp, ruthless efficiency that left his emotions intact.

  But things weren't working that way now. In all his years as a Pinkerton operative, he'd never forgotten the case. He'd always been in control of everything. Until now. Sari had done the one thing no other woman, no other job had ever done.

  She had made him forget.

  Chapter 13

  The neighbors had left that morning, driving off over the barren prairie just after breakfast. Sari had immediately gone out to do the washing, and Charles was struggling again with the barbed wire. Without his help, Conor thought, allowing a nagging twinge of guilt. He'd muttered an excuse about an aching head and a headache powder, and now here he was, standing at the edge of the loft, looking into Sari's bedroom.

  It seemed he'd spent half his life thinking about this room, wondering about it, wondering where she slept and where she kept the letters from her brother. For a moment he wished he could look at this room without ulterior motives, without thinking about anything except how much of Sari was in it.

  He sighed, glancing at the rocker near the edge of the wall, where the flat roof slanted. He remembered when it had held a place of honor in her living room, one of the only graceful, beautiful things she and Evan had owned. There had been one picture above it—some Catholic icon, he remembered.

  His eyes scanned the fine carved lines. The chair had seemed out of place in Evan's house, only emphasizing the ugliness of poverty and depression. Evan had preferred it that way.

  Conor wondered what Sari had preferred.

  Funny, when he was Jamie O'Brien, he'd never thought to ask her that, never talked to her about the privation of a coal miner's wife. What would she have said? Probably she would have turned her head and said nothing at all, and made him feel that he had no business asking the question. Not that he had of course. Being Sari's lover had given him no rights at all.

  Conor deliberately brushed away the regret that flooded his mind at the thought, and forced himself to focus on the job at hand. He held out the lamp, but it barely cut the dimness of the room, and he stared into the gloomy shadows. It was nothing like he'd imagined it, though he could not have said what he was expecting. Her bedroom in Tamaqua had been as spare as the rest of the house, the one concession to beauty a counterpane on the bed. It had been white, he remembered, with bright calico birds and leaves quilted onto it.

  But the counterpane was gone now. In its place was a quilt patched in some kind of tulip design, riotous with scraps of color. The bed was one he didn't recognize, with a simply carved pine head and foot board. The well-kept wood gleamed in the lamplight. The ceiling was so low and the bed so high that there was barely enough room to sit up in it. But he was sure she spent hours doing exactly that. Beside the bed was a trunk that served as a night table. A lamp rested on it, and a stack of books rose beyond its height.

  Other than that, and the rocking chair, the room might have been mistaken for a pantry. Bags of flour and cornmeal leaned against the walls, canned goods lined one end. Conor lifted the lamp higher to see, and cats of light glittered over the glass jars, highlighting the jewellike colors of the fruits and vegetables within. The shadowed forms of sausages and hams hung from the ceiling, and thin cakes of something were wrapped in layers of cheesecloth and piled on another set of shelves.

  And the smells ... There were so many of them, Conor was aware only of one—a smoky, spicy scent that invaded the little room below the rafters. It was a damn good thing he didn't sleep here, he thought. He'd be hungry all the time.

  Conor stepped gingerly onto the floorboards; the wood creaked beneath his weight. He hunched over to avoid the muslin-draped ceiling and made his way to the trunk. There was another one against the edge of the loft—probably full of Sari's clothes. But it was the one that served as her nighttable that most intrigued him.

  Carefully Conor lifted her lamp and unbuckled the lid. It creaked when he opened it, and the lid shuddered as it hit the wall. He felt again that stab of guilt. These were Sari's things, things she had hidden from the world. He licked his lips nervously, trying to ignore his reluctance to probe through her belongings, half afraid of what he would find.

  There was a scarf of some kind on the top; Conor's hands sunk into its fleecy warmth. It was unbelievably soft, loosely woven and fuzzy, and he lifted it out carefully, smelling the strong, pungent scent of the cedar shavings she'd lined the trunk with. The scarf was beautiful, and he wondered for a moment why she kept it hidden away. But his curiosity vanished as he saw what lay beneath it.

  The bolt of cloth he'd bought her. The cream silk shone in the darkness, the dark green stripes looked black. He'd forgotten all about it in the last few days, but now remorse hammered at him. Conor ran his fingers over the fabric, and his rough skin caught on its smoothness. It was his thirty pieces of silver, his blood money, but it was no less beautiful for that. He'd wanted her to make something with it, something to showcase her dark beauty, but he knew she recognized it for what it was. He'd bought it out of guilt, and she refused to wear it because she knew it would make him feel better if she did.

  He smiled warmly. God, it was amazing, the things Sari knew, the things she understood. Her sheer obstinence annoyed him, but it was also one of the things he admired the most about her. Sari had always been able to call a spade a spade. He'd always called it whatever was most convenient at the moment.

  Just as it was convenient to call what he was about to do a favor. Conor lifted the fabric out and put it aside. He'd send it into town, have something made for her by one of the seamstresses she claimed were so inept. Sari would be angry, and she'd know instantly that he'd gone through her things. But by then it wouldn't matter. He'd be gone.

  Conor ignored the sadness that assailed him at the thought.

  The other items in the trunk he fumbled through and laid aside: a boxful of Christmas decorations, tin angels and painted wooden candleholders, a satin-lined box holding a single pressed rose, a half-finished needlepoint sampler, and a few skeins of roughly dyed wool.

  Conor paused as he reached a pile of framed photographs. They were wrapped in burlap, secured with twine, and he held one in his hand for a moment, wondering. His blunt fingers fumbled with the fine knot, but the string fell away easily once he broached it. Carefully he unwrapped the burlap to reveal a plain pewter frame. The back was to him, and Conor stared at it, feeling a strange reluctance to look at it. His mouth felt suddenly dry. Slowly he turned it over.

  It was Sari and Evan. Their wedding picture, he imagined, since it looked as if they wore their best clothes. Sari was wearing a dark-colored dress, with braiding on the collar and cuffs, and j
et buttons lining the bodice. Evan's collar was white, his suitcoat and vest black, and the hat he wore was shiny and new. They both looked as if they were suppressing huge, joyous smiles.

  Conor's chest tightened, his fingers caressed the edges of the frame. She looked so young. Young and innocent, with anticipation glowing in her dark eyes and her cheeks plump with happiness, before years of poverty put an edge on her softness. She was grasping Evan's arm, and her fingers were pressed into his coat as though she couldn't bear to let him go for even an instant. It was as if the picture had been taken solely to illustrate young love with all its illusions.

  There had been a time when Conor had seen echoes of that love in her eyes. Then he'd been too preoccupied to know it for what it was. Of course by the time he'd met her, those young illusions had been washed away and that kind of feeling had been much harder to find. And he hadn't been looking then.

  He stared at the young man who stood, shining with pride, beside her. It could have been him standing there. It could have been him seeing that love in her eyes, who took her home that night and every night. It could have been him, laughing with her, touching her, watching her struggle awake in the morning and hearing her husky hello.

  For a moment Conor imagined everything he'd dreamed of, all the bittersweet everythings he'd never had. Evan had been a fool to throw it all away. He had taken a young, sensitive girl and stripped her of her joy, her life. It was a crime Conor longed to avenge.

  But it wasn't just Evan, he knew. Evan had started the process, but it had been Conor who had finished it, embellished it. She had trusted him once, and he'd not known what a treasure that trust was until it was gone. No wonder she watched him with such trepidation, as if she was waiting for him to make a mistake, to show her that he truly was the bastard he'd taught her he was.

  Conor wrapped the picture again, clumsily retying the knot in his haste. Guilt filled his mouth with its sour taste. He hated this, hated it more than he ever imagined he would. There was something so obscene about pawing through her things, about wondering why she kept a dried rose in a satin-lined box and why the soft mohair scarf was stuffed away in cedar. They were her secrets, and he preferred letting her keep them. Someday someone would watch her pull them out one by one, someone would hear her whispered confessions in the dark.