Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahill 05] Page 4

  “Of course it is fate which does so,” Francesca said, believing it with all of her heart. But was it also fate to have him married and unavailable? What kind of master plan was that!

  “You remain a romantic, hopeful and hopeless,” he said with a smile.

  “I am not as romantic as I once was,” she said softly.

  His smile vanished; Francesca wished she had not opened up Pandora’s box. He studied her but did not reach for her hand, as he would have once done easily and without hesitation. “I am the one who has made you unhappy,” he said quietly. “You were happy before we met.”

  “It isn’t your fault!” she exclaimed. “Bragg, I feel quite certain that even if I had known about Leigh Anne when we met, I would have fallen in love with you anyway. Anyway, what does it matter now? Yes, I am not happy. Leigh Anne is here and she wants you back. And she has every right, which means you and I must be friends and nothing more. This is a huge adjustment to make for both of us, but we will, in time, succeed,” she said, hoping she spoke the truth. His friendship was the most important thing to her now.

  Instantly his face tightened. “I refuse to discuss her now.”

  She stiffened. His reaction to the mere mention of his wife hurt her now. It was always this way. The subject immediately made him angry. But then, he had hated Leigh Anne for years—for four years, to be exact. But he had been wildly in love with her up until the day she had walked out on him and their marriage.

  He had turned his face away. Francesca stared at his profile, which she adored—he had a perfectly straight nose, a firm chin, and his eyebrows were darker than his tawny hair. The pang in her breast remained. Francesca no longer felt certain that it was only hatred that he felt for Leigh Anne. His emotions seemed very complicated when it came to his shockingly beautiful and oh-so-petite wife.

  “You know how I feel and where I stand,” he added darkly. But he now stared up at the stars overhead and not at her.

  Francesca looked away, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. If only that were the case. She no longer knew with any certainty what his feelings were. She did not doubt that he loved her, but she also knew he still, oddly, even hatefully, loved his wife. And while he had declared that he would divorce her, Francesca refused to allow it, as it would destroy his political future, and that was far more important than their own personal happiness. She sighed, the sound heavy, staring away, into the night. “Working together will certainly be a test of our resolve,” she murmured.

  “Yes, it will. I am very tempted to hand this case over to my inspectors and stay out of it completely.”

  Francesca heard herself gasp—in real dismay. For if they did not have this—their wonderful teamwork, a partnership that had already brought four criminals to justice—then they had so little! “Bragg,” she began.

  He lifted a hand, forestalling her. His expression was resigned. “Your brother is involved, Francesca. Or so it seems. I cannot allow Newman and a few others to oversee this investigation. Because of my feelings for you.” He stared, his golden eyes intense. “I do not want you hurt,” he added softly.

  That stopped her. She did not, could not, move. She was warmed from head to toe and deep inside—she knew he would always protect her, never mind that she could protect herself.

  His gaze had drifted to her mouth. Francesca found herself tensing, even as her own regard automatically found his lips. He had awakened the real woman inside her with his kisses. She now knew what passion was—what it meant—how strong and compelling it was. A part of her yearned for one last kiss. But Leigh Anne had been in her own home, and she was a flesh-and-blood woman now. She was no longer the horrid wife who lived abroad—she was no longer an abstraction. Francesca simply could not become the other woman.

  He did not remove his gaze from her face. It became searching. “What did Hart want earlier this evening? I know he called on you. You know I do not trust him! Or was it Julia who invited him over? Does she still think to match the two of you up?” He was grim and hard now.

  Francesca forgot all about his wife. She stiffened in alarm—he must never learn that Hart had decided she was the woman he must eventually wed! The half brothers were rivals. Jealousy, enmity, and distrust ran deep, never mind that when their mother had died, Rathe Bragg had taken both boys into his home and his heart, as Calder’s father had wanted nothing to do with him.

  There was no mistaking the heat and jealousy behind Bragg’s calm tone, now, and it glittered in his eyes. Francesca laid a hand on his forearm, which was strong and hard, even through his wool greatcoat. She realized that she was trembling. Leave it to Hart to once again overturn the boat! Everything that man did was unpredictable, shocking. She was grateful that his half brother was as dependable and reliable—and predictable—as he was not.

  And it seemed like days ago that Hart had come calling, but it had only been earlier that evening. Rick is right. My intentions are not platonic ones.

  Francesca had thought that he meant to seduce her—after all, he seduced every other attractive woman who crossed his path. What?

  I intend to marry you. He gave her a strange look. I intend to make you my wife.

  Francesca realized she was filled with a new and rigid tension now. It was hard to be reassuring when she herself was not reassured. “It doesn’t matter what Julia wants, or what Hart wants.” She forced her tone to be light just as she forced Hart’s dark, sardonic image away—no easy task. “Remember? I gave my heart to you—forever.” Her tone was odd and she cleared it. Hart now loomed between them as Leigh Anne had done so recently. “No matter what happens, Bragg, no matter what happens, even with Leigh Anne, you will always have my heart,” she whispered, meaning her every word. “And I will support you in your quest for reform forever, Bragg. In whatever way I must.”

  Their gazes locked. Bragg finally tore his gaze away, gripping the steering wheel, his hands gloved. She felt certain that his knuckles were white. “You make this very difficult,” he finally said. “I do not deserve such loyalty. Francesca, I have been thinking about you all night, even with the new murder on our hands. Until I have resolved my marital affairs, I will be the best friend that you have ever had, but I will not, ever, lose control as I did the other night.”

  His words somehow hurt. They signaled the end of romance and the beginning of a new road that they must somehow travel. She was very, very grateful that they had not consummated their love before Leigh Anne’s arrival in the city—and his control had been far greater than her own. “It was my fault,” she said truthfully. “I threw myself at you.”

  He did not rebut. “It is over with, and not too much harm was done,” he said, glancing sidelong at her, as if he regretted the encounter, too.

  And how could she not? She shifted uncomfortably. She felt guilty for that interlude, as well as ashamed. Calder Hart instantly intruded upon her thoughts again, his impossibly dark and handsome face mocking her, them. There will not be any happy endings, my dear. You may trust me on that.

  Francesca certainly believed him now. But he had warned her for some time that the love she felt for his brother would soon blow up in her face. She had refused to heed his warnings.

  It is Bragg you want for a husband, but it is me that you want in your bed.

  She felt her cheeks’ heat flame. She wished, desperately, that she could forget Hart’s damnable words. And this was certainly not the time to recall that particularly arrogant statement.

  “The last thing I wish for you to do is become martyr over my cause,” Bragg said firmly, cutting into her dismal thoughts.

  Francesca managed to jerk herself solidly back to the present. “I am hardly a martyr, Bragg.” She rubbed her temples.

  “Are you all right?” he asked quickly.

  “I’m fine,” she lied.

  Francesca let him open her car door for her and assist her to her feet. They started slowly up the walk. At the door, he paused, finally taking her gloved hands in his. Her heart tig
htened.

  “Francesca, my personal future is now hard to predict. I’ve said this before—I would never ask you to wait for me. And I’ve said this before as well—stay away from Hart. He will break your heart if you do not.”

  Francesca stiffened impossibly, tugging free. “We are only friends,” she said. “As I have said before, his friendship is very important to me, no matter how insufferable he can be.”

  “He is pursuing you,” Bragg said, his eyes suddenly flashing. “It is so terribly obvious! And I know he would love nothing more than to steal you away from me.”

  “You are so wrong. That is the one thing he would never do, not out of malice or envy or lust,” Francesca said. She knew Hart would never take his rivalry with Bragg so far. He would never use her to get at Bragg. Nor did she add, I am not yours, so how can he steal me away?

  Bragg stared. “Anyone but Hart, Francesca. Should you come to me and tell me that you were in love with Mr. Wiley, I would give you my blessing.”

  “Would you?” she asked doubtfully, as he referred to a suitor foisted upon her once by her mother.

  “Yes, I would. It would hurt terribly, but I would do my best to want what is right for you, as you have done in thinking that you should support my marriage in order to further my career.”

  She stared at him and he stared back. Finally she said, “I had better go in.”

  It was as if he hadn’t heard her. “Anyone, Francesca, anyone but my selfish, no-good, disreputable brother.”

  She nodded brusquely and said good night.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1902—HALF PAST 7:00 A.M.

  “MISS CAHILL! THIS is a delightful surprise.” Alfred beamed at her.

  Francesca stood bundled up in her fur-lined cashmere coat, her hands in a muff, trembling. Her shivers had little to do with the cold. She had not been able to sleep at all last night, and not simply because of the predicament her brother might find himself in. She had worried about Evan’s connection to Grace Conway’s death and the vandalism of Sarah Channing’s studio, but she had also been haunted by Calder Hart. His shocking marriage proposal kept replaying itself in her mind as she tossed and turned restlessly for hours on end. She had spent most of the night dreading the encounter now about to take place. Hart was opinionated and difficult. She intended to firmly let him down. She prayed, however, that the conversation she must now have with him would not become a confrontation, and hoped he would see the folly of his thinking and they would both wind up chuckling over the entire affair.

  But nothing ever went the way one hoped with Calder Hart.

  She managed to smile at his butler, Alfred, a slim, short bald man with merry yet respectful eyes. Here, at least, she had an ally. Most of what she knew about Hart’s private life—like the fact that he at times dismissed the entire staff and would wander alone around his mansion, staring at his paintings and sculptures—she had gleaned from Alfred. What she liked the most about the Englishman, however, was not the fact that he had violated Hart’s trust by revealing that kind of information to her, but the fact that he seemed genuinely fond and caring of his rather eccentric and often difficult employer. “Good morning,” she began, rather grimly.

  “Do come in; I can see you are freezing,” Alfred said, ushering her swiftly inside and closing the door behind him. Hart’s mansion—which was several times the size of her own home—was ten blocks uptown and also on Fifth Avenue. His property seemed to take up an entire block, as nothing else was built upon it other than his five-bedroom guest cottage, tennis courts and stables, and a very attractive gazebo. But then, he was very flamboyant with his wealth. Francesca knew it had to do with the fact that he had grown up on the Lower East Side with his half brother in extremely impoverished conditions, until their mother, Lily, had died. Now he flaunted his wealth, not caring what society thought. Calder Hart’s father had not bothered to come to take in his own bastard son when Lily had died, but Rathe and Grace Bragg had come at Lily’s dying request to take in both boys. How dramatically their lives had changed when the Braggs had arrived and the boys had moved from the run-down tenement in a crime-ridden neighborhood of the Bowery to the Georgian mansions of Washington, D.C., where Rathe had been in Grover Cleveland’s administration. But Hart, being Hart, had run away six years later at the age of sixteen, apparently to look for his biological father. Francesca knew that had not gone well. He had then gone to Princeton for one year, only to drop out. Now he was the owner of several shipping companies and one insurance firm, not to mention one of the world’s foremost collections of art. And he had achieved his wealth and success without any help from his foster family.

  Francesca suspected most of Hart’s current behavior—his lack of respect for societal norms and mores, his outspokenness, his womanizing—was molded by his troubled childhood.

  Francesca followed Alfred through the huge entry hall, where artworks hung on the walls and sculptures lined them. She thought about the irony of the fact that every mother of a young lady Julia knew wished to ensnare Hart for her daughter, just as Julia did. He was the most eligible bachelor in the city, never mind his notoriety, his outspokenness, and the parade of lovers he was always on the town with. How green with envy those other mothers would now be. While Francesca had never been the target of his advances—he had always been the perfect gentleman around her, never mind his reputation—somehow this notion that he must marry her was far worse than a mere attempt at seduction. She was desperately afraid—and she was as afraid to comprehend why.

  He was the most dangerously attractive man she had ever met. He was wealthy, powerful, fascinating. But any woman who dared to love him would wind up in shreds.

  “Mr. Hart should be downstairs in a moment, Miss Cahill,” Alfred said cheerfully, breaking into her desperate thoughts. Francesca knew her smile was a frozen one. In fact, she was beginning to perspire—which was the epitome of unladylike behavior. He led the way past an erotic sculpture of a beautiful young woman holding a pigeon. “He has been up since five, working in the library. Will you be staying for breakfast?”

  Francesca was realizing that she was perspiring, a very unladylike action, as Alfred spoke. Breakfast? Who could eat at a time like this? She felt as if she had just been tossed by the Romans into the Colosseum where an underfed and savage lion did wait. She wished the encounter with Hart were over.

  At that moment, Alfred paused beside the two wide open doors to the breakfast room and Francesca crashed into his back. “Oh! I am so sorry!” she cried, righting herself. Then her gaze veered past Alfred, and with dismay she saw an extremely familiar face at Hart’s long and gleaming oak breakfast table. For one moment, as the man slowly rose to his feet—he had been sipping coffee—she thought with real dismay that it was Bragg.

  And it was a Bragg, but not the police commissioner. It was his younger brother, Rourke, a medical student from Philadelphia.

  “I shall tell Mr. Hart that you are here,” Alfred said pleasantly.

  As she wished to speak with Hart privately, this wouldn’t work, oh no. Francesca felt a surge of sheer panic. She liked Rourke, but he was too astute and he had already seen too much. He sauntered toward her now as Alfred left before she could utter a protest. “Good morning,” he said amiably, with a genuine smile. He looked almost exactly like his brother, except that his hair was browner than gold and his strong face was a bit squarer, his chin cleft.

  “Hello, Rourke.” She fidgeted nervously.

  “Are you all right?” He eyed her closely, clad in a dark brown suit. “And it is awfully early for a social call, isn’t it?”

  She lifted her chin. “I have an urgent matter to discuss with your brother,” she stated firmly.

  “Do you ever rest, Francesca? You were nearly killed on your previous case. I would think you would sleep in this morning,” Rourke said mildly.

  “Your family makes it terribly difficult to lead a normal life,” Francesca said tartly
.

  Rourke laughed. “I happen to agree with you. Come, do sit down. Coffee?”

  But Francesca did not move. “No, thank you.” Rapidly she shifted mental gears. “How is Sarah, Rourke?”

  Rourke paused in the act of filling a porcelain coffee cup from the sideboard. “I had intended to call upon her a bit later in the morning,” he said.

  Rourke was in his third year in medical school in Philadelphia. He had come to town, joining his parents and sister and a few cousins, a few days ago. Sarah had been suffering greatly since the attack upon her studio, and Rourke had seen her through a fainting spell that had turned into a serious fever. That, however, was past. “I must call upon her, too. Will it be all right? Can I ask her a few questions?”

  Rourke did not reply.

  But Francesca had already become rigid. She didn’t have to turn around to know that Calder Hart stood somewhere behind her. Her heart began a series of amazing somersaults.

  He said, “This is a wonderful surprise,” in that impossibly seductive murmur he so often adopted around her.

  She slowly turned.

  He leaned against one of the open doors, devastatingly dark and dangerously handsome. A slight pleased smile was on his face, but sheer speculation was reflected in his nearly black eyes. He was wearing only a crisp white shirt with his black trousers. While his shirtsleeves were down and sapphire cuff links winked from them, the top three buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing a deep hollow between his collarbones and some dark, interesting skin.

  He was the same height as his half brother, Rick Bragg. But Hart was far more solidly built. Francesca had been in his arms several times, platonically, of course. He had the musculature of a weight lifter or a boxer.

  “Yet oddly, I am not really surprised to see you this morning, Francesca,” he said in the same bedroom murmur.