Desperate for him to leave before she began to cry, Madeline said without thinking, “It’s up in the attic in the trunk with the red leather straps.”
She was setting a honey pot on the table when the angry roar exploded from above her. Immediately, she realized her mistake. The crock slipped out of her hand and cracked against the floor, the golden liquid spreading out into a sticky pool. Madeline stood staring at the mess at her feet as she heard Brazos’s boots pound down the stairs. He burst through the doorway, her blue velvet pouch crushed in his white-knuckled grip.
“Bloody hell,” Madeline cursed softly.
In a voice as sharply edged as the bowie knife sheathed at his hip, Brazos demanded, “I want an explanation.”
She remained calm as she answered, “When you shouted, the jar slipped out of my hand and shattered. It’s dribbling between the cracks in the floor. Do you think I’ll have ants?”
“Crawling across your naked body staked out beneath the sun if you don’t start talking.”
For an intelligent woman, Madeline was thinking distressingly slowly. She pushed past him and retreated to her bedroom. Obviously, she needed to dress. She felt entirely too vulnerable wearing only a silk wrapper.
He allowed her to don underwear and a dress before he reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Madeline.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “Enough. Talk.”
“But my shoes.” She pulled away from him and sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s dangerous to walk around barefoot, you know. Just the day before yesterday, Jean Charpeau was stung by a scorpion.”
“Lady, you’ve no idea the danger you are in this very moment. Now, enough stalling. Talk.”
“You want to know about my bag,” she said, tugging on a stocking.
“I don’t give a good damn about your bag. I want to know about the stuff that’s inside it.” Holding the pouch at the bottom, he dumped the contents out onto the bed. “My Colt revolver,” he said, lifting it from the jumble of articles. “I thought one of those slimy seamen aboard the ship took it.” He tossed the gun aside and lifted a delicate mosaic bracelet, dangling it from one accusing finger. “This I purchased in Italy—it’s a gift for my mother.
My mother
, Madeline.” Gently, he set the jewelry on the bed; then, raking his fingers through his hair, he began to pace the room.
“That gold watch chain is Tyler’s,” Brazos declared. “He’s been grousing about losing it for weeks. Now, Madeline, those are all valuable items. Perhaps you have a rational reason for stealing them. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt in that regard. After all, you managed to explain away stealing a baby, for God’s sake. But the other things?”
He halted, braced his hands on his hips, and demanded, “What possible explanation could you have for stealing them?” He pinned her with a frustrated, yet curious stare. “Buttons from my shirt? Three checkers? The trey and eight of clubs from my favorite card deck?” He pointed toward the bed and said through gritted teeth, “And my
golf ball
! The one I was using in France when I holed it with
one shot
. I was saving that ball, Madeline! It’s special.” He loomed over her and shouted, “Why?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t know it was special. As far as I could tell, it was just like any other old ball.”
His eyes glittered like the burning fuse of a firecracker. She offered him a tentative smile, hoping to douse the flame. “There’s no harm done, Brazos. Everything is there. You have it all back now.”
He blew up at that, but it was a different sort of explosion than she had anticipated. At first, he seemed at a loss for words, but when he finally spoke, she wished he hadn’t. He talked much too softly, for one thing, in a voice as cold as the North Sea in January. “My grandfather’s watch. You knew how much it meant to me. I told you.”
For the first time, Madeline was afraid. She licked her suddenly dry lips. “I’m sorry, Brazos. I considered returning it, but I didn’t know how to do it without having you catch on to me. It was quite a dilemma, don’t you see? I would have found a way to give it back. I know I would have. It simply had to be done properly.”
He narrowed his eyes and spoke roughly, “Don’t waste your breath lying. I know better, I’m leaving today, remember? We’ll probably never see each other again, thank God. You couldn’t give me back my watch even if you had intended to.”
In a small voice, she said, “I would have found a way, Brazos. I always work things out.”
He arched one brow. “You do, don’t you?” Brazos grabbed a ladder-back chair from beside the wall and straddled it. “Why don’t you tell me about it, Madeline.”
“But, Brazos—“
He interrupted. “Let’s see, you’ve stolen everything from a baby to a potato masher. Quite an interesting string of thefts when one looks at them.”
Maddie turned away from the accusation in his eyes, walking to the fireplace to grab a dirty pan and stick it in the wash water.
Brazos wasn’t through. “I must admit that you are very good at what you do, Madeline. The majority of those items are mine, and I never once suspected you of being the robber. Tell me how it is you chose for yourself such a lucrative profession as thievery.”
She mocked him silently.
Lucrative profession as thievery
—why, he was one to talk, carrying around a casket filled with silver bars.
“Well, Madeline? I’m waiting. Why did you become a thief?”
Into the silence that fell came the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked. Before Brazos could react, a knife point bit into his back. A heavily accented voice spoke from behind him, “Yes, this something I’ve wondered about also. Perhaps, Mistress Smithwick, we’ll have time to discuss it before you die. But first you shall answer a more immediate question.” The intruder sharply enunciated each word as he asked, “Where is my daughter?”
Brazos didn’t need to hear the name Madeline gasped. The man holding a knife to his back as he threatened Brazos’s wife was none other than Rose’s father and grandfather.
The bastard, Julian Desseau, had found them.
Chapter 17
“WELCOME TO TEXAS, DESSEAU,” Brazos drawled, wincing as the knife bit deeper into his back. “Mistress Smithwick? I reckon that’s my wife you’re talkin’ about, huh? Call her Mrs. Sinclair.”
Julian Desseau demanded roughly, “My Elise. What have you done with her?”
“Hold on a minute,” Brazos said, lifting his hands from the chair back. Julian stuck him good, and Brazos felt the warmth of his own blood dribbling down his back. “Watch the kidneys there, would ya?”
“You will remain quiet, Monsieur Sinclair.”
Madeline trembled visibly as she said, “Don’t hurt him, Julian. He has nothing to do with this. I lied to him, I told him Rose was mine.”
“Rose?”
“It’s what Celeste called her.
Le petit rose
.”
Brazos slapped his hands upon the chair. “Dammit to hell, Maddie. The names are a lie, too? Who the hell—” And he whirled like a Texas twister and knocked first the gun and then the knife from Julian’s hands.
The Frenchman landed a punch to Brazos’s chin that knocked the Texan to the floor. “I’ve traveled thousands of miles in search of my stolen daughter, Sinclair. You may be younger and stronger than I, but I’ve hatred enough in my heart to defeat you and your slut.”
“Bull,” Brazos replied, catching Julian’s leg and yanking his feet out from under him. They rolled and grabbed and grappled across the floor knocking over chairs and banging into trunks.
Madeline dove across the bed for Brazos’s Colt revolver. Chambering a bullet, she pointed the weapon toward the ceiling and squeezed the trigger “Damn,” Brazos said, breathing heavily, his forearm shoved against Julian’s throat. “She’s got a gun. Probably be best if we ended this scramble here and now, Desseau. The thought of Maddie with a gun scares the bejesus out of me.” With that, he grabbed the older man’s shirtfront, lifted his head off the floor and with a right hook to the temple, knocked the Frenchman cold.
Madeline opened one of her trunks and threw her husband a length of rope before uprighting the chair. Brazos hauled Desseau into the seat and tied his hands to the ladder-back slats. His eyes on the slumped figure, Brazos held out his hand and said to Madeline, “Give me the gun—both guns, in fact—and the knife.”
Pursing her lips, Madeline hesitated. While she trusted Brazos with her very life, she wasn’t absolutely certain that he envisioned an outcome to this confrontation similar to the one she foresaw. So she gathered up the weapons and retreated to sit cross-legged in the middle of the bed. She kept the derringer Desseau had carried pointed in her husband’s general direction.
He glowered at her “Madeline, quit being cute. This isn’t the time.”
“Brazos, you acted in a threatening manner toward me just a few moments ago, and I think it best I watch after my own interests at this particular time. Now, hush and let me think.”
Desseau came around as Brazos stood cracking his knuckles, with fury burning in his blue eyes. “Woman, I can take those weapons away from you faster than a six-legged jackrabbit, and I’d hate for one of them to hurt you in the scuffle. I’d rather save that pleasure for my bare hands.”
Madeline’s anger got the best of her, and she fired a shot that split the distance between Brazos and Julian. “The same man who taught me to steal taught me to shoot, Sinclair. Now, sit down and keep your mouth shut.”
“Damn!” Brazos exclaimed, looking over his shoulder at the bullet hole in the wall. His astonished gaze met Desseau’s wide-eyed gape. “You know, I think she means it.”
Julian whipped his head around and said grimly, “At least, tell me if my daughter is safe, please! I’ve been frantic.”
“Frantic?” Madeline scoffed. “Now, that brings to mind an interesting question. Tell me, Julian—from personal experience, of course—who does more worrying about a child, a father or a grandfather?”
“What nonsense do you speak? Please, Mary Smithwick, I beg you. Tell me of Elise.”
Madeline straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and allowed all of the loathing she felt for this man to drip from her voice. “You are a cruel, despicable, filthy excuse for a man. You deserve to die for what you did, and I’m certain Lucifer is waiting anxiously to welcome you to hell. Rose is fine, Julian, happy and healthy and free of your evil influence.”
“I don’t care about this Rose person! I want to know about my daughter, my Elise.”
Madeline raised her voice to be heard over the thud of horses galloping past her house. Ordinarily, such noise would have brought her outside, but the drama taking place within the confines of her bedroom was all the excitement she could stand. “I have renamed Elise, Rose, as Celeste requested,” she said loudly. “Rose is safe, and she’ll remain so, far away from you.”
Desseau shut his eyes and bowed his head. Madeline was shocked when she heard him repeat the heartfelt words of a prayer of thanksgiving. Lifting his head, he pleaded, “Tell me about her.”
Madeline shifted uncomfortably. If she didn’t know better, she’d take him to be a concerned and loving father not the monster that he was. She forced herself to remember Celeste, and how he’d pretended such grief upon her death. “You don’t deserve to know anything about Rose.”
Julian bucked in his chair, straining at his bonds, and rumbling at her. She lifted the gun. “Maddie,” Brazos’s soft voice held a warning. “Give it some time, honey. We can always kill him, but I get the sense there’s more to this story than either one of you knows. Let’s hear the explanation of why he did it.”
“I don’t care why he did it.”
“I thought the same way about you, remember? I didn’t think anything explained away kidnapping, but you managed to convince me. I’m even willing to listen as to why you stole my watch—and my golf ball. Ask him, Maddie. Let’s hear his story.”
“Why I did what?” demanded Julian.
Madeline opened her mouth but she couldn’t force the word
incest
past her lips. Instead, she said, “Why you married Celeste.”
“It’s no business of yours.”
Madeline said in a soft, cold voice, “I’ve made it my business.”
“Why?”
“For Rose. Now, Celeste told me you married her for revenge. Can you deny it?”
Desseau’s mouth curved downward with disgust. Then he asked, “Who are you, Mary Smithwick? Why did you come to St. Germaine? Why did you steal my daughter?”
Brazos’s tone held a warning as he said, “Careful there, Desseau. Maddie’s the one asking questions. I think it’s about time you tried an answer. Did you marry Celeste as a way of seeking revenge on a woman called…what was her name, Maddie?”
“Bernadette Compton.”
Desseau spat on the floor then answered, “Yes, I did.”
Holding the gun, Madeline’s hand trembled with her rage. “How could you!”
Julian strained against his ropes, his face flushing red with both the effort and his own fury. “How could I? You want to know why I thought to take Bernadette’s precious daughter from her? Because in my heart, I’m certain she stole a daughter from me over twenty years ago, that’s why.”
His voice broke, but he continued, “In her insane jealousy, she took my Nicole—only four years old, mind you—and did God knows what with her. Yes, I used Celeste to punish Bernadette.”
Madeline screamed at him, “You evil, sick, depraved wretch. You married your own daughter! You made a baby with your own baby!”
“No.” He spoke quietly, his voice cold and hard as he stared her straight in the eyes and declared, “It is a lie.”
Madeline’s hand shook with her fury. Brazos took a step forward and said, “Give me the gun, sweetheart, before someone gets hurt.”
“I want to kill him, Brazos.”
“I know, Maddie.”
“I almost wish you would,” Julian added, his tone reflecting a deep inner pain. “Celeste believed this, didn’t she? She told you this story.” Julian’s brown eyes glazed, and his voice cracked with emotion as he looked past Madeline and asked, “She died thinking this?”
Madeline lowered the gun. “Julian?”
“Somehow, Bernadette must have contacted her,” he mused aloud. “I noticed a change, but I thought it was due to the pregnancy. My first wife, Anne, had often acted strange while she carried our Nicole.” His lips curved in a half smile as he said, “You are right about one thing, Mary Smithwick. I married Celeste to gain revenge upon her mother. The joke, however was on me. I never intended to fall in love with the minx, but I did. And we were happy, for many months we were so very happy. She was a special woman, a good woman; nothing like Bernadette.”