His Californian Countess (21 page)

“Because I’m the spawn of Satan, Jamie.” Fury had engulfed Alex’s features. He was again looking at his father. The hand holding the gun vibrated as if he was fighting to hold himself back from pulling the trigger and was about to lose the battle. “How were you to know I wouldn’t ultimately choose him over you after the bad blood he caused between us? I was angry at first tonight, but then I realized how bad my actions looked. And then it dawned on me that, if I’d defended myself, you’d have listened.

“I came looking for you in America because I’ve had my father watched for years. He met up with a very unsavory bloke then booked tickets for the two of them. I hopped a steamer the day after. But you weren’t easy to find. Neither was he. He must have made it here to San Francisco before me because the trouble had already begun.”

“This is all very touching,” Oswald put in. The hand holding the gun wavered. “And I know I promised a reunion but I’m tired of standing here listening to you two. You don’t have the guts to shoot your own father, Alexander. You couldn’t turn me in during all these years and you still don’t have the guts. And he’s still going to be written up in the morning papers as the man who was attacked and killed in his study. And that little
American is going to be the wife burned to death with him after a lamp was knocked over in the struggle that killed him. I’ll let you go rescue your daughter, Alexander, but that is as far as my generosity goes.”

His uncle’s eyes glittered, but not with madness. With joy. It was clear he saw his dream of the earldom within reach. He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a match and struck it on the grip of the gun before dropping it into the pile of oil soaked papers he had ready on the floor. A whooshing sound erupted under the library table. He stepped back as the fire leaped up the oil soaked wallpaper.

Jamie thanked God Meara wasn’t in her room. It was right over the study.

“Alex. Go,” Jamie ordered. “Meara’s with Amber. Mimm is in the middle room. Save them.”

Alex blinked, but kept staring at his father grimly. Oswald laughed as the draperies caught. This wasn’t the act of a madman, but by a cold calculated mind bent on having life as he wanted it no matter who stood in his way.

Smoke and heat engulfed the room and Oswald moved toward the desk, his full attention centered on Jamie.

“Don’t do it, Father. Don’t move another step,” Alex warned.

Then the whole bizarre scene seemed to spin out of control in a heartbeat. Everything happened as if with deliberate plodding slowness but in the blink of an eye, as well. Oswald took aim at Jamie, now standing too close to miss. Jamie dove to the side as two shots exploded simultaneously.

“Jamie!” Alex shouted at the same moment the shots rang out.

Jamie managed to move quickly, but a bullet caught
him and spun him around. He hit the floor on his back. Hard. His head smacked on the hardwoods and swam. But there was another thud and this one shook the room. Jamie knew what Alex had done. To save him, he’d killed his own father.

Then Alex was kneeling over him, ripping off his neck cloth and tying it around the wound on Jamie’s upper arm. Tears that probably had nothing to do with the thickening smoke ran down Alex’s cheeks. “God, I’m so sorry,” he said. “You’re going to be okay. We have to get you out of here, though. Come on. You think you can stand?”

Jamie nodded and got to his feet with Alex’s help. “Your father?” he asked his cousin as they stumbled from behind the desk.

Alex nodded toward the middle of the room. Oswald lay in a heap on the floor, flames raging all around. “Sent him to hell where he belongs. I’m sorry, Jamie. So sorry.”

“Don’t,” Jamie told him as they skirted the flames. “You were a child, too.”

They made it to the door of the office just before the flames would have cut them off. Flames quickly engulfed the back hall in their wake as they scrambled toward the dining room. Oswald must have spread the lamp oil throughout the first floor.

The combination of the gunshot wound, the crack on the head and the smoke had his head whirling. Only Alex’s support kept him moving forward. Apparently, Alex had been propping him up since the awful day Oswald had cruelly taken Jamie’s father away. It seemed to Jamie they’d both lost their fathers that day.

Mimm shook Amber awake. “Lovie, I think we’ve some nasty company. I heard voices in Jamie’s study.
Unfriendly voices. And Jamie’s down there,” she said, glancing at the empty cot where Jamie had settled for the night. The older woman had lit the oil lamp on the nightstand that illuminated the room a bit.

Meara was sleeping soundly next to Amber and she wanted to keep it that way. She got out of bed and quickly pulled on her wrapper. Then she reached into her nightstand for the little derringer pistol her uncle had given her for protection on her trip. She’d never really thought she’d need it, but now she loaded it with shaking hands and turned toward Mimm. Ready to use it if she had to.

“I see we have a plan,” Mimm said. “I’d thought more on the lines of hiding you and the little one somewhere.”

“I can’t let Jamie be hurt and I don’t want to chance Meara hearing or seeing something she shouldn’t. She should be fine here.”

Mimm picked up a small oil lamp she’d left on a table in the hall then they made their way down the stairs. They’d just reached the first landing when two shots rang out.

“Lord in heaven,” Mimm cried.

Amber froze, horrifying possibilities running through her head. She had Jamie’s baby and Meara to protect. If Alex had killed him—perhaps she and Meara should hide as Mimm had thought. But this was Jamie. She started forward, fear making her heart pump so hard it seemed like thunder in her ears. Mimm followed.

The smell of Mimm’s oil lamp seemed to engulf Amber, turning her stomach. But then as they made their way through the dining room and were within sight of the back hall, Alex and Jamie stumbled from the office, flames following on their heels. Blood darkened Jamie’s sleeve.

“Jamie!” Amber screamed.

“Go. Get out!” he shouted at Amber and started coughing. Alex was coughing too as he clung to Jamie’s side. Fire seemed to be spreading inordinately fast. Confused though she was, it was clear Alex wasn’t the villain they’d all begun to think he was. He kept moving with Jamie till they reached the front vestibule.

“I’ll go for Meara,” Mimm said.

“No, Mrs. Trimble.” Alex stopped her. “You three get clear. I’ll go. My father dumped lamp oil everywhere. You’d never get her out.”

“We left her in the master. Oh, do hurry,” Mimm cried.

Amber glanced back at the fire as it engulfed the first step of the staircase. “Alex!” she shouted, pointing.

“Go. All of you! His socks and your hems are probably soaked in oil.” Alex turned and ran, leaping over the flames, then charging up the stairs.

Mimm got the door open. “He’ll never get her out!” she fretted, stepping outside.

They followed quickly, the fire following, Jamie pulled the door shut and they rushed down the step. “Alex won’t let anything happen to her,” Jamie assured both of them.

Together they left the front steps behind. The staff streamed out the garden gate. All of them had made it out, which left only two inside. Alex and Meara.

Jamie seemed steadier on his feet. He let go of her and walked to the staff, sending two young men running for the fire department. He sent another man back along the side of the house to shut off the gas supply to the house. The rest of the staff moved to the other side of California Street.

Jamie backed up too, but only to the middle of the street, and Amber went back to join him, leaving Mimm crying on Lily’s shoulder. She and Jamie stared up at the bay windows of the master bedroom, repeating a litany of prayers.

But it was the bathroom window that suddenly tore open. Then Alexander climbed out on to the roof of the small porch over the front door. He turned and leaned back in, emerging seconds later with Meara, wrapped in a sheet.

They disappeared from view, then.

“The fire department will get a ladder up to them as soon as they get here,” she assured Jamie.

But Jamie shook his head and pointed. Alexander came back into view at the edge of the porch roof with Meara clinging to his back. He’d wrapped the sheet around them both and tied it around his middle, anchoring her to him. Then he started climbing down the turned columns of the porch.

Jamie put his good arm around her shoulders. “I’m afraid your wedding cake is a bit burnt now, Pixie.”

“They’ll be able to save some of it.” Amber hugged him as Alexander and Meara moved ever closer to the porch. Once there, Alexander didn’t waste time, but ran down the steps and over to them. Jamie embraced them both.

“Come on,” Alexander said. “We’d better move back. I heard a few small explosions.”

A neighbor met them at the crowded sidewalk and offered Jamie shelter for his household. Jamie nodded to Alexander who carried Meara to the neighbor’s porch. There they all kissed her then Mimm took her inside where it was warmer.

The fire department arrived and in minutes the fire
men were working the pumps and pumping water onto the fire, subduing it quickly.

Jamie turned to Alex. “Before the police get here, give me the gun.”

“I dropped it behind the desk when I got to you.”

“Fine, then you were sleeping and heard a noise before the women did. You got there just as we shot each other. They know someone was trying to harm me and mine. They’ll see it as self-defense. I see no reason for you to face their questions.”

“I killed my father, cuz. You can’t erase that.”

“Not from your memory, but I can make it a little easier. You’ve been taking care of me for years—this time I’m taking care of you.”

Alexander nodded, resigned.

“We’ll be at the Palace. Perhaps you should disappear for a while. And draw on your trust, damn it! It’s yours. You’ve more than earned it.”

“Not necessary. My father gave me the money to buy a commission when I was twenty. I wasn’t about to be got rid of when I knew he needed watching. I bought into a mill. I’ve put together a tidy portion with it and a few other enterprises over the years. I do fine, cuz. And if you think on it, I’m sure the money he gave me was embezzled from Adair. So, in effect, you already gave me a good start toward independence.”

Jamie smiled sadly and nodded.

“Now, cuz, why don’t you go sit over there. I’ll see that someone sends for a doctor, give that nice officer approaching the story you’ve cooked up and then I’ll make myself scarce.”

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Jamie said.

“Not half as sorry as I am. It’s a little much to com
prehend right now. See you around.” He winked at Amber. “Pixie. Take care of him. He gets into a dizzying number of scrapes.”

Then he turned and walked away.

“Do you think he’ll be all right?” she asked.

“I wish I knew. I really wish I did.”

As they watched the firemen’s efforts, Jamie told her all of what he’d learned that night during their three-way confrontation with Oswald Reynolds. It was all so shocking she didn’t think she would ever understand the mind that had committed and tried to commit such heinous crimes.

The fire was out completely before dawn. They’d saved much of the house from the flames, but there was a lot of smoke and water damage, Jamie said after walking through it with the police. Alexander had already disappeared. The police accepted Jamie’s story without question and they left for the Palace Hotel.

Malcolm Campbell arrived there and dressed Jamie’s arm and checked both her and Meara. Thankfully, Jamie’s uncle’s was the only life lost. She really couldn’t feel he was a loss at all except for the damage ending his life had done to his son.

Amber slept till noon. Sometime before she woke, Jamie managed to have some of the clothes they’d bought the day before delivered to the Palace. She dressed with Lily’s help, and then went in search of Jamie. Amber found him in the parlor writing a letter. He stood and held out his hand. She went to him and he seated her next to him on the settee. “Feeling all right?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m fine. How about you?”

“I think I’ll avoid facing down madmen in the
future, but I’ll be fine. I wanted you to know the Pinkertons found Helena. She is indeed going by Mrs. Brendan Kane. And Helena Kane. I want your permission to write her to tell her that her father’s death was meant for me and that the men responsible have been arrested or killed. I don’t want her thinking there is even a chance Brendan Kane was involved. I know what trouble misunderstandings caused in our marriage. I don’t want to be responsible for that happening in theirs. Alex has been by. I thought I’d send it with him. Give him something to do and think about for a while.”

Amber nodded, shocked that his plan caused her no worry. No upset. That he wanted to contact Helena sounded reasonable.

Jamie handed her the letter he’d drafted. It said exactly what he’d said it would. “It’s fine. But you didn’t need to show it to me. I trust you, Jamie.”

He smiled. “I know. And I thought I’d add my thanks to her for being so damned hard to track down. She inadvertently led me to the perfect woman.”

Amber knew her grin was cheeky. “Actually, the masquerade was my idea, remember?”

Jamie’s laughter rang through the suite. And in the next moment he was kneeling in front of her and taking her hand in his. He reached into his pocket and pulled out her wedding rings. “I found these on the nightstand when I went to survey the damage.”

Then he looked up into her eyes, his love in his gaze. “With this ring I thee wed, the woman of my dreams. My true adventurer.”