The Barefoot Bride (42 page)

Brusquely, she wiped at her eyes. "Killian, I tole you to be keerful with that low bush lightnin'. I know you didn't know nothin' about Nevin a-takin' it, but—"

"What's this I see, colleen?" Shane asked and brushed a tear from the tip of her nose. "Are ye weepin'?"

The vision she had of him blurred as more tears came to her. "Iffen you-uns got a wagon, will you ride me 'round fer a while?"

The three men glanced at the mansion, each of them wondering what had gone on inside it to make their dear friend cry. They gathered around her, surrounding her within a wall of brawny Irish muscle should she be threatened anew. Together they murmured their assurances they would, indeed, take her anywhere she wished to go.

And when Saxon finally appeared, Desdemona in tow, there was nothing left of her but the gold slipper she'd lost in her haste to be gone.

*

Desdemona clung to Saxon with every pitiful ounce of strength she possessed during the ride home. She shivered and wept so hard on his shoulder, his heart broke for her. "Desdemona, you'll see Keely soon," he said as tenderly as he knew how. "It could be that she's already home waiting for us. Don't cry anymore, sweetheart."

But when they arrived home and Candice informed them that Chickadee wasn't there, Desdemona's tears increased. She refused to walk and hung on to Saxon as he carried her up the staircase to her room. Her cold hand remained pressed tightly against his cheek, and though Saxon was anxious to go out and search for Chickadee, he remained with his sister until sleep finally relaxed her hold on him. The clock was striking three when he finally raced to his own room, tore off his elegant apparel, and dressed for riding.

Candice met him as he prepared to leave the house. "Mr. Blackwell, you'll search in vain. She's hurting, and you must give her time to do whatever it is she has to do with herself. She's different from us and sorts things out in her own way. Let her come home of her own free will."

He gave her a furious look, but she refused to relent. "I speak to you not as your employee, Mr. Blackwell, but as someone who cares for her as much as you do. And it would never do if she returned needing you and you weren't here for her. Let her be, sir."

His shoulders slumped. Candice was right, and he knew it. Besides that, if Chickadee didn't want to be found, a pack of bloodhounds wouldn't find her. He nodded to the maid and went directly to the parlor, Khan trotting along behind him. There he grabbed a bottle, sat down, and sought some answers in the burning liquid.

But the brandy gave him no solutions. The only hope, the sole prayer he had was the effect Lord Cavendish's speech might have had on Boston's elite. He could do nothing but wait.

When Araminta, upon her return, entered the parlor and poured herself a sherry, wolf and man were still waiting in that dark corner for the missing girl they loved.

"Didn't you get enough champagne at the ball, Grandmother?"

Her glass fell to the floor and rolled beneath a chair. "What are you doing in here?"

He lifted his bottle of brandy in response.

"Ah, yes. No doubt drunkenness is the only condition that enables you to bear that hill hellion you married."

"Watch your tongue if you value that scrawny hide of yours. I've company here with me." Saxon snapped his fingers, and Khan slinked into view. "Khan, I'd invite you to eat her, but I'm sure she'd give you a stomachache. I know she's giving me one."

Araminta eyed the wolf warily and then looked back at Saxon. "Quite a show your little wife put on tonight."

"Lord Cavendish—"

"Does not live here," Araminta sneered, her smile like a thin stick glued to her face. "His stand was an influential one, I grant you that. But he will depart for England soon, and I dare say his defense will quickly be forgotten by society. It is my guess your wife's name, as well as yours, will remain sullied."

Saxon slumped further into his chair. "And what of your own place among the aristocrats. Grandmother? Your name too is Blackwell."

She fingered her brooch. "I can return to England, where I retain both my reputation and many old friends." But she had no intention or need to return to her homeland. Despite the duke's lecture, she was intent on continuing with the infallible scheme she had devised at the ball. She and her friends would antagonize Chickadee until she was goaded into threatening every Bostonian alive. In gratitude and admiration for her ingenious strategy, the matrons had accepted Araminta among them once more.

But there was no need for Saxon to know that. "I've no desperate desire to leave Boston, but I am in no way bound to it either," she said. "But you—you must stay here and wallow in your misery. You've nowhere else to—"

"I can go anywhere I—"

"Then go. Go and forever worry about your sister's welfare. And should I return to England... Do you think the cold, wet English fog will agree with Desdemona? No doubt she would soon lie in the family cemetery. Now that's something to consider. I wonder why I never thought of it before. I guess my brilliance comes at exactly the times I need it most!"

The bottle of brandy flew only inches past her face, but Araminta never moved. "Where is your yokel—the cause of your violent fits of late? Has she left you?"

"She'd never do that. She loves me."

"Ha! What is there about you for anyone to love?"

He winced at the question with which she'd tortured him daily years ago. Unbidden, childhood horrors rose. It took every shred of his willpower to crush them down again. "What do
you
know about love, Grandmother? You've never loved anyone in your whole life."

Deep, horrible pain flashed through Araminta, but she masked it instantly. "Your plan for tonight failed dismally, didn't it, Saxon? Mine, however, succeeded gloriously."

He bolted from the chair, a cobalt storm brewing in his eyes. "What did you do to—"

"Always look for the weaknesses of your enemies, my boy. Find them, and you win the battle. One of the many flaws I find in your wife is her overwhelming determination to defend you in all ways, shapes, and forms. It took but a few insulting comments about you to push her into losing that famous temper of hers. A lady is allowed to become slightly irritated, but never may she lash out as viciously as your... uh,
lady
did this evening."

"I'll—"

"You can do nothing! I hold you within my palm and can crush you without warning. Without my money, you can never have custody of Desdemona. Try and make your own fortune as you once did foolishly, and I will take her to England and its cold fog immediately. Steal the pitiful, delicate thing away, and she will most likely die within a week if I don't find her first. And I do assure you, I will scour every inch of this earth. And the law will be on my side. My legal counselors will make sure of it."

Saxon searched desperately for an argument that would defend him against her malevolence. But there was none. Her hatred was her deadliest weapon, and it seemed to make her omnipotent. He fell back into the chair.

"It is true, Saxon, that you followed the stipulations of my will to the letter, but your method of following them will bring more misery to you than you ever dreamed possible, because I will never stop forcing both you and that female barbarian to see she does not belong here. Get rid of her! She's an outcast and will never be anything else. No doubt she is in the thick of more trouble even as we speak." Gathering her gloomy skirts, she swept from the room.

*

The next morning, Saxon raced up the sun-washed steps of the city jail, snatched open the door, and whisked inside, failing to see the velvet cording that partitioned the room he'd entered. He tripped over it, landed on his stomach, and slid several feet on the slick, polished floor. When he stopped, one gold slipper was pointed at his face.

"Saxon, I knowed it warn't gwine take you but a whipstitch to git here, but I warn't a-lookin' fer you to come a-skimmin' along on yore belly."

He looked up at her, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets when he saw she was wearing only the bodice of her gown and her pantaloons. "What happened to your dress?"

"I couldn't do nothin' with all them dang-blasted skirts a-hangin' all over my legs, so I ripped them and my petticoats offen. Had to be real quiet-like when we snuck inter Ruford Sinclair's house. Y'know how he allus has that room whar he keeps his paintin's lit up? Well, last night them winders was dark. I knowed somethin' was wrong so I—"

"Keely—" Saxon jumped to his feet, jerked off his coat, and threw it around her. After a glance around the room, he saw the chief of police sitting at a desk.

"Captain, I'm Saxon Blackwell, and one of your officers came to me this morning to inform me my wife was jailed for theft," he said, never pausing to wonder why Chickadee was not in a cell. "Whatever the amount of her bail, I'll—"

"The charges were dropped fifteen minutes ago," the captain said. "Mr. Sinclair dropped them when we caught the real thieves. Caught them red-handed about an hour ago with several of Mr. Sinclair's paintings."

Chickadee smiled at the officer. "Much obliged fer the breakfast, Mr. Policeman."

"And many thanks to you, Mrs. Blackwell, for bringing the weaknesses of our cell locks to our attention. She broke out twice," the officer informed Saxon. "We finally had to tie her up."

"You ready to go on home now, outlander? Shane, Killian, and Gallagher left afore you come. Thur a mite sore from all the fightin' so I tole 'em to go and—"

"Fighting? What the hell are you doing here, Keely? What happened last night? Why were you at Mr. Sin—"

"Well, I was on my way home, but when we passed ole Ruford Sinclair's place I seed them winders upstairs was dark. I ain't never seed 'em dark, so I knowed fer shore and sartin he was in trouble. But when we got inside? Well, it was so dang dark that Killian knocked Gallagher over the head, Shane mellered Killian, and then it was jist me and Shane agin' the robbers. But when we looked fer 'em? Well, they'd up and left already. Mr. Sinclair was fainted on the floor, but when he come to he thought we was the thiefs, and about that time his manservant come along with about fifteen policemen.

"Did y'know Mr. Sinclair only has one servant, Saxon?" she interrupted her own story. "He prob'ly don't want to pay no more'n that. He's stingy, jist like you said he was. I give him what fer about that too. Tole him it was plumb selfish fer him to keep all them paintin's to hissef. But he was too fitified to listen good. Anyhow, when the policemen come, they tuk me and my friends. Nobody believed our story till the real thiefs was—"

"Fine, fine, little one," Saxon cut her off when he noticed several men looking at her scantily clad legs. "We'll talk more in the coach."

But the drive home was a silent one. Exhausted from the night's activities. Chickadee promptly fell asleep, and Saxon was left to imagine why and how she'd gotten herself into such a fix.

Oh, how the gossip mongers would love this. It wouldn't make a bit of difference to them that she was innocent, he thought wearily. They'd harp on the fact that she, Mrs. Saxon Blackwell, had spent the night in jail, and Lord Cavendish's compelling tribute to her would be dismissed and forgotten as speedily as Araminta had said it would be. Nor was there anything he could do about the situation. With a resolute sigh, he forced himself to accept the painful truth.

Chickadee would never be his. This latest escapade of hers was the icing on a cake that already had so many layers, it nearly reached the sky. The girl asleep on his shoulder belonged to another world, one in which he could never join her. Nothing he'd done, could ever do, would change her. She was wild, wonderfully wild, and would stay that way forever.

He reached for his satchel. Her bail money was not the only thing in it. He pulled out an envelope, opened it, and reread the letter that had come from his associate in New York two days ago.

Barton Winslow had fallen. The plan had worked perfectly. The man was penniless.

After replacing the letter, Saxon drew his mountain girl closer to him. "I was a fool to try and change you into Keely Blackwell, for you will never be anyone but Chickadee McBride," he told her quietly and with a sad smile. "And what's wild has to stay wild, little one. You said that yourself when you set free that bear cub so long ago. Now you and I must live by your own words."

He knew she'd fight his decision. But he'd stand firm because, as heaven was his witness, he was doing it out of a love so deep, he had no other choice.

He would send her back to where God always meant for her to be.

*

"It's worser'n the North End," Chickadee said, her voice edged with uneasiness. "He don't live too good, huh?"

Saxon put his arm around her. The train trip was over, and they now stood in front of a dilapidated old building in the worst section of New York. Somewhere within was Barton Winslow. Saxon's detectives had kept a close watch on the man, informing Saxon that this slum, this putrid place, was where Barton had been forced to take up residence.

The wood-planked floors groaned as they entered the dingy dwelling. Mice scurried about, and several times Saxon was forced to swipe at huge cobwebs and step on the falling spiders. A mangy dog crept out of one corner, growled, and then slunk away. The smell was nauseating.

"Which one o' them rooms is Barton's?" Chickadee whispered.

Dusk had begun to fall, making it too dark to see the numbers on the doors. Saxon lit a match and held it out before him. "The one on the end," he replied, leading the way. He knocked loudly at the door.

There was no answer.

"He ain't home," Chickadee said and turned to leave.

Saxon threw down the match and caught her arm. "Keely, wait! I thought you were anxious to come face to face with him? Didn't you once say you wanted to fill his ass with buckshot?"

She bit at her bottom lip. "I ain't got my shootin'-arn."

"Well, you can still give him a piece of your mind, can't you?"

"I... Saxon, I don't know what to say to him," she squeaked and rubbed her arms briskly. "I mean, I used to dream about this day, but now that it's here..."