Archer, Jane

Prologue i

The moon shone brilliantly in the dark sky, spreading its soft silver light over the night-darkened New York City. It was an unusually cold night for early April and people hurried about the streets, pulling their coats tightly about them, anxious to finish their business and gain the warm security of their homes. Even those who had no warm cozy home awaiting them hurried, for it was a night of deep shadows, whistling winds, vague murmurings. The crisp clip-clop of horses' hoofs upon the cobblestones seemed to hasten them on their way like a clock ticking off the seconds to a deadline while clouds of frozen breath drifted from the noses of the steeds.

But inside the stuffy, smoke-clouded library of Stanton Lewis' modest home no notice was taken of the rising wind or the biting cold. If the four men there felt anything at all, it was that the night matched their own cold, turbulent feelings.

"I say kill Olaf Thorssen, and the sooner the better," Stanton Lewis said bitterly, as he turned away from the window to pace the narrow, overheated, book-lined room.

"But we've tried to avoid this, Stan," Winchell Clarke said, pulling at his elegantly groomed and patiently grown full set of whiskers as he regarded the man who'd been more like a son to him, to them all, than a nephew.

"Look, I tell all of you that we either kill the man or lose the fortune, and I for one have no intention of losing that money. I've waited too long," Stan continued, seating himself in the creaking leather chair.

"Well, we've given Alexandra every chance to make a good marriage, one that we can all agree on, and frankly, I don't understand her rejecting our boys," Wilton Clarke said, drawing irritably on his expensive cigar as he thought of his handsome, twenty-four-year-old son.

"Damn the girl!" William Clarke exclaimed.
"I
understand her. She's just like her father. It's that damn Clarke pride and stubbornness all over again. No one could ever tell Alexander Clarke a damn thing, and no one can tell Alexandra anything either."

"Isn't that the truth," Winchell said. "I'll never forget Alexander walking into the Magee ball cool as you please, like he owned the damned place. He took one look at Deirdre Magee and walked straight over to her," he continued, his face turning livid as he thought back over the years.

Wilton groaned, sharing the hated memory.

"Walked straight over to her," Winchell went on, "smiling that self-assured smile and strutting like a peacock—he never did walk normally."

"Hell no!" Wilton agreed, slapping his hand down on the polished wood of a shelf, making a small cloud of dust rise from the long ignored books resting there.

"Walked straight over to Deirdre Magee, just like
we
hadn't been courting her for months and just like
he
hadn't been away at school for years, and said, 'You're the most beautiful girl here and I'm going to marry you,'" Winchell finished, choking suddenly.

And as his coughs filled the room, Wilton and William glared at each other, still infuriated twenty years after the incident, for it wasn't the only thing about Alexander Clarke that had angered them over the years.

He
had inherited the family shipping firm.
They
had been given jobs with the firm. And all because Alexander's father, being the first born son, had inherited over their father, the second born. The unfairness inflamed them yet. And Deirdre Magee, the beautiful daughter of the firm's partner, had been
stolen
from them by Alexander.
He'd
married her and it outraged them to this day, for not only had she been the most perfect, most desirable woman they had ever known, she had also been the key to inheriting equal control of the shipping company, the company which should have been theirs to begin with. If only Deirdre had chosen one of them. If only—

"I never could understand what Deirdre saw in him," Winchell grumbled, lost in his thoughts, breaking the angry silence which had settled over the room.

"She deserved better," William declared.

"She was such a beauty," Wilton said wistfully. "A woman never breathed that was so perfectly beautiful and sweet."

Stan Lewis had been patiently listening to his uncles' self-pitying conversation, but finally he had had enough, there was the present to worry about. He decided to smash the old men's dreamy memories of lost love and opportunity.

"Obviously there was one big flaw in the perfect Deirdre," Stan said dryly, grinning derisively. The three heads jerked toward him, disbelieving his blasphemy. Stan smirked a moment longer then exploded, exasperated at their blindness. "Irish! Her father was Irish! Deirdre was Irish! All Irish!"

The three men, with eyes riveted on Stan's face, at last acknowledged that truth, a truth they preferred to ignore, and nodded their heads in mute agreement. Then Stan continued.

"And in her daughter, too, there flows an Irish streak a mile wide. Couple that with the Clarke pride and stubbornness and gentlemen, you have a problem, a big problem—a problem named

Alexandra Clarke," Stan said coldly, analytically, his wintry gray eyes boring into each old man like a drill, satisfied that he finally had them back on the track of the business at hand.

Wilton shook his head sadly. "I'd hoped she'd be like her mother, then she would have been sweet and done exactly what we wanted of her—"

"I really think you men have a mistaken idea of the character of the long departed Deirdre," Stan cut in, determined not to let the subject stray back to the supposedly angelic Deirdre. "After all, she married the man you hated and if he was half as bad as you say, that must have taken a lot of courage," Stan said, laughing cruelly.

"We never said she didn't have courage," Winchell said, bristling.

"Of course not," William agreed quickly.

"She was just so sweet that she couldn't hurt Alexander Clarke by turning him down," Wilton said, nodding his head vigorously, wishing he could really believe what he said.

"That's right. She'd probably never have stayed with him if they'd been married longer," Winchell said, repeating the personal fantasy he had used to console himself for so long.

"No, she'd have learned of his devious ways in no time," William agreed.

Stan rolled his eyes toward the ceiling in frustration, realizing they'd escaped him again, their old minds drifting away down the paths of their memories. It was the same overly discussed subject to which he had been forced to listen for all his thirty-nine years. He had a plan, a plan to right all their supposed wrongs and get the company back in their control. But the old men seemed able to do nothing but mourn the long lost Deirdre. True, they had never been men of action—no wonder Deirdre Magee had preferred the dashing, progressive Alexander Clarke, Stan thought, as the old, raspy voices droned on.

"He killed Deirdre, of course," Winchell said angrily. "He was never satisfied with the way things were. He was always upsetting everyone, including the company."

"He
would
insist that she accompany him on the test run of that crazy new ship of his," Wilton said, biting off the end of his cigar in his agitation, then angrily spitting the end into the fire.

"We didn't need any new ships. The old ones were perfectly good—after all, they were good enough for our fathers. If Alexander wanted new ships, he could have had new ones built just like the old, good ones," William said earnestly, joining in the gratifying anger at unalterable events long passed.

"Well, he killed her, all right. They all went down with that foolish killer ship," Winchell said.

"I'm just sorry that their only child wasn't with them," William added, his faded gaze suddenly gleaming wickedly, thinking of Alexandra.

Stan eagerly caught the reference and determined to try again to get to business. "Yes," he agreed. "She's been nothing but trouble ever since they died. You should have had control of the company then. And you
could
have made it your own, but the clever Alexander Clarke put it all into trust for Alexandra, their darling daughter," he said savagely. "And for eighteen years you've been battling Olaf Thorssen," Stan hurried on while he still had their attention. "He was the only man Alexander trusted with his company and his daughter. The one person Alexander made trustee of his estate and guardian of his daughter until she reached the tender age of twenty-one. And that sea captain has turned out to be one hell of an opponent, hasn't he, gentlemen?" Stan asked coldly, rubbing salt into their long open wounds to keep their minds alert.

"Gentlemen," Stan continued, his voice now cajoling and soft, "you must remember that our time has run out—Alexandra Clarke will soon be twenty-one. On the third of August, 1867, barely four months from now, she will be twenty-one. Twenty-one! We want her married to our man and in control of her estate before she reaches her majority. Thorssen has advised her too long," he spoke louder, "protected her too long—always against us. Agree with me and he'll never advise her again. Then she'll
have
to turn to
us!"
Stan exclaimed. "I'll kill Thorssen," he whispered harshly, "and gladly."

"But," Winchell said weakly, "how do we know that you'll see things our way, when, when—"

"I'm your nephew. Surely you haven't forgotten," he laughed conspiratorially. "I've
always
been one of you. Also, I need your help in running the company," Stan added, dropping his voice to a lower key, lulling the men into the safety of his desires. "Anyway, it's not like you didn't give her a choice, is it?" Stan asked, pushing them ever nearer to agreement.

"We
did
give her every chance for a happy life, a long life—with children," William said defensively. "And Thorssen could have been with her like always if she'd agreed," he said, as if he'd personally done all he could to make Alexandra happy.

"Indeed, we did," Wilton joined in. "Didn't all three of us go to Alexandra and tell her that she could marry any one of our sons? Yes, we did! They were all near her own age, well educated, well dressed, all of them handsome young men. Any other young girl in New York City would have been anxious to marry them, but they all waited for Alexandra, just like we three once waited for— Deirdre," Wilton finished.