A Song Across the Sea (30 page)

At least Millinder didn’t try to interfere with Reece’s allowance. Reece used his money to fund his own work, and some to help various people he encountered and befriended to set themselves up in small businesses, like Mr. Lee.

He left people with the illusion that he was happy. He took women where they offered themselves, but gave little in return. Certainly not his emotions. He would not make that mistake again.

The dreaded summons from Millinder came five years after the killing in the tavern. Reece sat in Millinder’s study—his father’s study, really—and listened to what was expected of him. Millinder was trying to cement an important business arrangement with Arthur Sedgewell III. It would be long range and immensely profitable. He needed to reinforce the business ties with something more personal in nature. Reece was directed to romance Arthur Sedgewell’s daughter Miriam, and, in a year or two, marry her. The two families would be permanently joined.

Reece felt no emotion. It was not such a bitter pill to swallow. Miriam Sedgewell was a beautiful, cultured girl, although he felt no special attraction to her. He’d met her on several social occasions. From the speculative, overtly flirtatious way she’d looked at him, he knew that she’d be open to his overtures.

A loveless marriage. A business arrangement. Such things were not uncommon among their social set. He and Miriam would grow fond of each other, over the years. She would busy herself with charity fundraisers and civic improvement projects, with supervising the staff of the household they would establish, and raising the children they would undoubtedly have. He would focus on his work.

He had little choice in the matter. The five years he’d spent keeping his dreadful secret from his mother had made it grow larger, even worse than it had been originally. He couldn’t imagine her reaction at learning not only that he’d brutally killed a man for no reason, but that he’d concealed his crime from her all this time.

There were worse things than marrying a woman you didn’t love.

Or so he thought, until the day he met Tara McLaughlin.

W
hy did it have to happen now, like this?

Reece knew, from the moment Tara opened her eyes in the back room of Mr. Lee’s laundry, that he had unwittingly stumbled across his own destiny. She was the woman for him, and he the man for her. It was all so clear.

It was all so impossible.

He wanted to gather her into his arms and hold her. To fill her with his passion and lay with her afterwards, drawing peace from the warmth of her body as she slept. To keep her safe and make her laugh. To spend the rest of his life happily losing himself in the sapphire depths of her eyes.

He was in love with Tara McLaughlin.

Better that he had never met her. His life was set on an irrevocable course. The murder, his weak-willed decision to let Emory Millinder circumvent justice for him—these caused him to forfeit any right to happiness he might once have had.

It was torture, knowing where Tara lived. He tried to keep away from the boarding house. Every encounter with her increased his agony.

He arranged more and more trips away from New York, hoping that time and distance would diminish what he felt for her. Even as his feelings swirled and twisted in painful turmoil, his professional aspirations came clearly into focus. Within a year, his plan to open a factory and manufacture airplanes of his own design would be put into action. Airplanes would be an important mode of travel in the future. He was sure of it. He spent a great deal of time devising innovative new manufacturing techniques and assembling, on paper, the team of men who would join him in the venture. He would finance the operation himself, with the trust fund his father had left him.

But thoughts of Tara were never far away.

Reece was like a blind man who, through a sudden bolt of lightning, had his sight restored. When Tara came into his life, the emptiness—the unsatisfying narrowness of his existence—was laid bare to him. Images of what could be flooded his mind.

He could not give in to his dreams of her. Nothing else had changed. His mother, Emory Millinder, Miriam…they were all cords in the net that held him captive. The net was of his own making, though, not theirs. His original crime was made far more wretched by the intrigues and deceits that he’d allowed to follow it.

That night in Hap and Delores’ apartment, when he and Tara had found each other in the darkness… The sensation of her lips haunted him. He remembered the shame as well. Delores was right about him, wasn’t she? Tara had everything to lose, but she was courageous enough to make her feelings known to him. If he was the man he wanted to be, the moment he’d kissed Tara he’d have gone immediately to Millinder and told him to go to the devil.

Instead, Reece followed Tara’s life from a distance. Her success in vaudeville surprised him not at all. How could anyone who knew her not see how special she was? He refrained from going to see her perform, fearing his own weakness. Performing was the vital center of her life, a burning core of energy that would pull him even closer to a woman he couldn’t have.

Not until the automobile accident, when Miriam sensed something passing between Tara and Reece, did he acquiesce to attending one of her performances. Miriam, although not an especially intuitive girl, knew that Tara was somehow a rival and wanted to learn more about her. If Miriam only knew the truth, Reece thought tiredly.

Then, backstage, in Tara’s dressing room, having to mask his true feelings… When Miriam invited Tara to the wedding, he alone saw the look of hurt in Tara’s eyes. It was obvious to him that Muldoon meant nothing to Tara, in spite of the man’s attempts to convey the impression that he did. Still, Reece had to quell a violent anger when he saw the two of them together like that.

Maybe if he could explain things to Tara…

Desperate to see her once more before the wedding, Reece visited the boarding house a few days later. He found Hap in bed, still recovering from his injuries, and learned the whole appalling story.

“She and her cousin Sheila left before dawn the next day, without a word. I sure am worried about her, Reece. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this Muldoon character.”

“Did she leave anything behind?”
A letter for him
? he wanted to ask. “A clue to her whereabouts?”

“Just some boxes in the basement. Clothing, mostly. Her vaudeville costumes. Guess she figured she wouldn’t be needing them until this whole business got cleared up, seeing as how she’s blacklisted and all. Left a note asking me and Delores to keep \’em for her and of course we will. Said she’d be back to get \’em when she could.”

“Any idea where this Muldoon can be found?”

Hap glowered and shook his head, then winced. “I’d like to find him myself. I don’t care about what happened to me. I’ll be up and around in a few days. But a man who would go to those lengths to get at Tara…”

Delores came into the room with soup for Hap and cheerfully managed to turn the talk toward Reece’s upcoming wedding.

Reece noted dimly that Delores seemed to have forgiven him for his earlier indiscretions, but it gave him little comfort. He was consumed by worry for Tara. She was in trouble. A ruthless criminal was stalking her. Her career was in ruins, and she had a young cousin to care for. Where would she go? What would she do for money? He’d been a fool and had nearly lost her, but it wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be too late for them. He wouldn’t let it be.

“There won’t be any wedding, Delores,” Reece said abruptly, his tone troubled, like a man rousing himself from a nightmare. “Not with Miriam Sedgewell, anyway.”

Delores and Hap looked dumbfounded, but there was no time to explain it to them. Delores, predictably, recovered her powers of speech first.

“What in the world are you talking about, Reece? Have you lost your mind?”

He was headed for the door.

“And where are you going?”

He turned back just long enough to smile at them reassuringly. He felt peaceful, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders and he could finally stand tall again. “To do something I should have done a long time ago.”

•  •  •

Bewilderment. Tears and recriminations. Pleas, threats and finally, acceptance. Miriam gave vent to an impressive range of overwrought and dramatically expressed emotions before finally, bitterly releasing Reece from his betrothal promise. He’d earned her undying hatred, and accepted it as his due. Miriam was not to blame in this. She cared for him in her own way, he supposed, and she would suffer for it. Society tongues would wag for some time to come over how she was thrown over by her fiancée less than two weeks before her wedding. She would be thoroughly humiliated.

He was deeply sorry but it had to be done.

Where Miriam’s anger was teary, Millinder’s was explosive. “How dare you do this! We had an agreement!”

“I cannot go through with it.”

“You have no choice. Did you forget? You gave me your word. That apparently means very little to you, but I am not in the habit of allowing my associates to renege on agreements. You will go to Miriam at once and tell her you made a dreadful mistake in breaking off the engagement. Tell her it was bridegroom’s jitters. Cold feet. That sort of thing. Tell her whatever she needs to hear for her to take you back. Beg her, if you have to.”

“No.”

“And what of my partnership with Arthur Sedgewell? He may very well take this affront to his family personally. This could endanger an extremely lucrative business venture which I’ve spent a great deal of time putting together. Have you given any thought to that? To how your rash decision might affect me?”

Reece did not answer. Nothing Millinder could say would change his mind.

“And the most despicable thing of all is what this will do to your mother. Do you care nothing for her? The poor woman is just recovering from a bout of pneumonia. The thought of attending your wedding was giving her a reason to regain her strength. She was looking forward to it more than you can know. How selfish of you, to snatch away the happiness your nuptials afforded her. In fact, she has an appointment with a seamstress tomorrow for the final alterations on her dress.” Millinder shook his head in disgust. “She deserves better than you, in a son.”

Reece stared at the wall, his mouth set in a thin line.

Emory glowered at him for a long time then opened the door leading out of the study.

“Very well, then. Leave. Go off and do whatever it is you wish. But remember the terms of our agreement, Reece. I intend to tell your mother the whole story, and you’ll have only yourself to blame for the consequences.”

Reece started to turn down the hallway, in the direction of the central staircase. “I’ll tell her myself.”

“She’s sleeping.”

“I’ll wake her. It’s unfortunate, but necessary. I think she should hear this from me.”

Emory exploded. “She’s sleeping because she’s ill! Would you disturb her, just so you can confess and ask for forgiveness like some child? Are you really that selfish? Be a man and consider her welfare for a change. Haven’t you done enough to this family already?”

Beaten, Reece left.

Emory went to Adrienne’s room and sat at her bedside, watching her sleep. Her recent illness left her breath coming in short, tortured gasps, her thin, blue-veined skin as white as parchment paper. She awakened and looked up, smiling in surprise to find him there.

“Adrienne,” he said softly. “I’m afraid I must tell you some things about Reece…”

•  •  •

Three days after his confrontation with Millinder, Reece found, in his mail, a note in his mother’s shaky handwriting.

Reece;

Emory has told me everything. I have tried in my heart to understand, but what you did is unforgivable. My son is a murderer. Even now, after having time to absorb it, I can scarcely credit what I’ve heard. Emory has shown me the police report, so I know it is all true. That the details of the crime never became public knowledge makes what you did no less reprehensible. And how am I to understand your duplicitous behavior since the incident?

I am actually relieved that your father is not alive to see what you’ve become. He would be so disappointed.

I have no wish to see you again, ever. Do not try to gain admittance to my home. The servants have orders to keep you out. You will no longer be receiving any monies from this family.

-Adrienne

•  •  •

The twenty-two square miles of Manhattan would come to seem like twenty-two million to Reece in the frustrating months that followed. He went first to the vaudeville theaters, sure that he would find someone who knew where Tara had gone. The mention of her name elicited fearful, edgy glances among her friends and fellow performers, but little information. Everyone was afraid.

He went back to the boarding house and questioned Kathleen. Through her, he sought out Lotte and her family. No, Tara had not been in contact with any of them. She did not leave her forwarding address. She did not return to the factory for work. Kathleen was particularly distressed over Tara’s plight. Reece gathered that she and Tara had had some sort of falling out, and she didn’t want to leave things that way.

With vaudeville’s doors shut to her, what sort of work would Tara seek out? The garment district that sprawled along Seventh Avenue was a likely place, but his search of the factories there yielded no results.

He tried to put himself in her position. Where would she live? What would be affordable, clean and safe from Muldoon? He searched the enclaves where Irish immigrants tended to settle, and met with more suspicion than answers. No one he talked to knew of her. She was not among the Italians on Mulberry and Bleeker Streets. Neither was she to be found with the Germans in the East 80s section of Yorkville.