Blind Trust (31 page)

Lemuel nodded shortly and went out. Columbine must have been waiting, for she came back with a quick step, closing the door behind her. Tavish stood at the window, watching Lemuel walk through the towering piles of snow on either side of the sidewalk, looking small and almost frail.

“What did he want?” Columbine asked anxiously. “Is Darcy all right?”

“I must leave, Columbine,” Tavish said, still gazing out the window. He turned and went to her side. He took her cold hands in his. “I don't want to leave you now. But I have to find her.”

Columbine's face was strained. “Of course you do,” she said softly. “Go, dear brother. Be careful. Find her and bring her back to us.”

“I will find her,” Tavish said darkly. “But only to take her away again. We can't stay in New York.”

She touched his face tenderly. “Sooner or later, Tavish, you will have to make a stand.”

“I tried. I tried in Solace. It was a place without memories. I can do it again, with Darcy. I can find a place. The West is full of places …”

“Yes. Full of places without memory. Perhaps that is what is wrong with us, Tavish. We never stop and turn to face our memories. We turn our backs. We don't make a stand.”

Tavish grimaced. “I can't think of this now. I must go. I'll find her. She couldn't have gotten far. I have one stop to make first.”

“Oh, do be careful.” She kissed him on the cheek, and they embraced. Tears were in her eyes when they moved apart. “Godspeed,” she whispered as he moved to the door.

“My father cannot see anyone,” Julia Hinkle repeated. “He is ill. He walked far in the blizzard and had to sleep sitting up on an armchair in the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”

“Miss Hinkle, I would not dream of endangering your father's health. But this is a matter of life and death. I do not exaggerate!”

Julia Hinkle looked doubtful. Tavish almost expected that delicate eyebrow to arch sardonically at him. But she frowned in genuine distress. “Perhaps if you could tell me what this concerns, Mr. Finn. I could go up and see if he will receive you.”

“Thank you, Miss Hinkle. Tell him it concerns Darcy Statton. She needs our help.”

She started. “Darcy Statton?”

“Yes. Please tell him.”

She nodded shortly. “Please wait here, Mr. Finn.” And then she hurried out, her russet silk dress billowing out behind her.

He hardly had time to become impatient before she was back. There was heightened color in her cheeks, and her hand was not quite steady when she briefly touched his sleeve. “Please, promise me you will not stay long, Mr. Finn. He really is quite ill. I, too, do not exaggerate.”

Tavish nodded brusquely, anxious to follow her upstairs. Then he was moved by the look in her eyes. He took her hand in his and spoke to her gravely. “I promise, Miss Hinkle.”

She nodded and without another word led him to Hinkle's bedchamber upstairs. She went before him into the darkened room, led him to a chair by Hinkle's bedside, then retreated, softly closing the door behind her.

Hinkle looked terrible, grayer and older. Julia had not exaggerated one whit. His jowls sagged and his usually ruddy face appeared as white as the pillow it rested on. His meaty, purposeful hands looked odd plucking listlessly at the sheet.

“I'm sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hinkle,” Tavish began. “Please believe I would not do so were there any other choice.”

Hinkle coughed. He nodded.

Tavish felt decidedly uncomfortable. He had come to extract the truth from Artemis Hinkle, perhaps bully him a bit. But what could he say to this coughing man who appeared to be at death's door? And he had promised Julia not to upset him.

He sighed.

“Tell me,” Hinkle whispered. “Mrs. Statton?”

Tavish leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. “Artemis,” he said, using Hinkle's Christian name for the first time, “I believe you lied to me the last time I was here. I've been turning it over in my mind, and there it is. I believe that you wouldn't have done so if someone near to you hadn't been threatened, for if you yourself had been threatened you would have told them to go to hell and be damned. So I am here to ask you for the truth. I realize I may be putting your wife in danger. But I think that she is in danger already, and this might be the way to get both of you out from under this cloud of blackmail forever. We need to end this, Artemis. Darcy has risked so much to help us, and now she has had to run, accused of murdering her husband. She is to me what Anne is to you, most dear to my heart. And I cannot threaten you, or browbeat you, or shake the truth out of you.” He spread his hands. “I can only ask.”

The beefy hands grabbed the sheet, then relaxed again. Hinkle turned his face away. “He sent me a message. He threatened Julia as well as Anne. He said they would never be safe. Never. That if I didn't tell you Anne had run away, Julia would be ruined. That he would first destroy her beauty and then her name.”

“So Anne did not run away?”

“That was the strange thing. She had, but he did not know it then. We thought it was best that she go into hiding, so she left one night secretly, telling the servants to inform everyone she was ill. Now Dargent thinks I don't know where she is. But I do.”

“She is not in Denver, then?”

He shook his head bleakly. “He wanted you to think that. If you hadn't asked me I was to let it slip, just enough information to convince you.”

“But you didn't, Artemis. How could you know I would come back that night?”

“I couldn't do it. But don't get me wrong—perhaps I would have done it the next day, or the next. I was worried about Julia, I'm still worried about her. He wants you to go to Denver, looking for Anne, and I suppose he will be waiting for you there. If you had decided to go, Tavish, I would have had to warn you. But until you decided that, I thought it best to do nothing.”

“I see. So where is Anne?”

Hinkle coughed again. His chest sounded bad. Tavish held a glass of water to his lips and he sipped it. When he leaned back against the pillow, he looked even more exhausted.

“Where?” Tavish repeated softly.

“I don't know at the moment; we thought it best. But she's to meet me in Colorado Springs. I had planned to leave next week.” Hinkle covered his face with his hands. “She will wait for me, she will wait forever. She is ready to have the exposure break on her head, as am I. And now I am tied to this bed. She won't believe me if I wire that I'm sick. She'll think it's a graceful way to bow out, she'll think that I changed my mind …”

“I'll go,” Tavish said. “Where and when were you to meet her?”

“At the Cold Springs Hotel, the last week of March. Tavish, I've failed my daughter and my wife, I could not protect them …”

The door burst open, and Julia ran in. Her step was purposeful, her eyes alert and angry. Tavish opened his mouth to apologize for staying so long. She cut him off with an impatient gesture.

“How could you not tell me this?” she demanded of her father. “Do you think me such a child? Do you think I have not noticed that something is terribly awry? Could you not trust me with this, whatever it is? What is it Anne has done? Did you think I would turn my back on her?”

“Julia, Julia.” Artemis shook his head, back and forth. A bit of saliva trailed down from his mouth.

Julia bent over him and gently wiped his mouth with a lace handkerchief. “Dear father. You should have trusted me. You must tell me all now.”

Tavish stood. “Miss Hinkle, I have no time to lose. Your father can tell you, but I must remind you of how you cautioned me earlier.”

She rose, her hazel eyes furious. “I am well aware of his condition, Mr. Finn. It is impertinent of you to remind me of it. You have upset him terribly—”

“It was unavoidable, and I'm sorry.”

“Yes. Then allow me to help him now.”

Tavish bowed. He started toward the door.

“Mr. Finn, a moment, please.” She came up behind him and followed him into the hall. “I think you should know that Darcy came here the night Claude Statton was killed.”

“Here?”

“Yes. She spent the night here. I sent her off the next morning with a traveling case.”

Tavish felt his color rise. “You sent her out into the storm—”

“Be careful, sir!” Julia snapped. “Perhaps you exaggerated your intimacy with Mrs. Statton, for you could not know her very well if you did not know how difficult it is to dissuade her from a course she is bent on.”

“Of course. Forgive me. Did she say where she was going?”

The anger left Julia's face and reluctance stole over it. “I'm afraid I may have done something I shouldn't, Mr. Finn. I didn't know … how was I to know? She asked questions, I answered them. I told her that my stepmother had lived in Denver. That her happiest days had been spent there. And that I had received a telegram from Anne only three days ago from there, saying that she is well and will stop for a while. At least, I thought it was from Anne. Now I am not sure.”

“Oh my God,” Tavish said. He felt his whole body shake. “Darcy is on her way to Denver.”

“I'm afraid I agree with you, Mr. Finn.”

His eyes met Julia Hinkle's. He saw fear in them, and he knew it mirrored his own. “She's walking into a trap,” he said.

“I'm afraid so, Mr. Finn.”

“I was a fool,” Ned said.

“Yes,” Columbine agreed. “You were.”

He put his arms around her. “But will you forgive me?”

Columbine was surprised to find herself twisting out of his arms. Hadn't she dreamed about this moment? Hadn't she imagined Ned coming to call to tell her he'd been a fool? What she hadn't imagined was that she would have trouble believing in him again.

“I'm sorry, Ned,” she said, sitting down on the sofa and folding her hands in her lap. “Things have been so unsettled here, I cannot even begin to think of what to do about you. Tavish is off searching for Darcy Statton—I'm worried about both of them. And now you come to me asking for forgiveness. It isn't as though I expected very much of you—of us. But I did expect consistency, at least. I expected that our … friendship would end when one of us tired of the other. I never dreamed that you would fall for a ridiculous appeal by your wife. It isn't as though she truly loved you.
That
I could understand.”

He sat beside her. “I know. I was unsure of your feelings, and then when Cora said that she would devote herself to our marriage, I of course had to agree. I was cowardly, it was the easiest way.”

“And it is that cowardice,” Columbine said steadily, “that gives me pause now.” The effect of her words was like a slap; he actually flinched. “I don't mean to hurt you,” she whispered.

“Why not, when I deserve it?” he said bitterly.

They sat side by side, not talking. What was there to say? Columbine wondered at herself. She was thirty-three. Of all the lovers she'd taken since her divorce, Ned was the first man to touch her heart. Had he been destined to fail her? Had she prepared the way for him by her lightness, her mockery, her laughter, her refusal to take his avowals of love seriously? If the only man she trusted was her brother, how could any other man help but fail her? It was all very confusing.

“I wish I could trust you.” Unthinkingly, she spoke the words aloud; they came from her heart.

He slipped his hand into hers. “But you can trust me,” he said. He kissed her neck near her ear, where the soft tendrils escaped. “You can trust me,” he murmured.

Columbine disagreed. But his lips were so very soft. “Stop this at once, Ned,” she said sternly.

But her neck arched back. And Ned did not stop.

On Thursday morning, Darcy found the small purse Julia had tucked into the grip. She nearly fainted with relief. She had spent thirty dollars already, what with the amounts she had to pay the driver in Brooklyn to get her to the Sound and the tugboat captain to get her across the water. Thank God Julia had not listened to her when she'd said she did not need money.

She spent the night in a railroad station and then sat on a train for two days in freezing temperatures waiting for the tracks to be cleared. It was then she realized the full extent of the storm, and how foolish she'd been to imagine her troubles would be over as soon as she crossed the Sound and bought a ticket to Chicago with connections to the Kansas Pacific and on to Denver. There was nothing to do but wait, cold and hungry, for the train to move.

By the time the snow began to be cleared and the mess untangled and the locomotives able to push through, she felt lightheaded and warm. Her right ear hurt terribly. She felt feverish and dizzy, but she told herself she would get better. She couldn't fall ill now. Not now.

She sat up, half-awake and dreaming, for two days and nights. She slipped in and out of sleep, her head aching, her ear giving her pain so intense at times she thought she'd scream with the effort of not screaming. Faces blurred in front of her. The porter was kind and brought her tea when he could. But somewhere outside of Chicago, she was carried off the train, unconscious.