Heart Appearances (Truly Yours Digital Editions Book 560) (20 page)

He was a reject. A failure. How could he promise protection in the possible role of her husband when courage for him was as unreachable as the moon? Michael’s words floated to his memory. “When it truly matters and when you need it most, God will give you the courage you need.”

Brent removed his spectacles and closed his eyes. He wished he could be certain. He had faith in God; that wasn’t the problem. Rather, he entertained little faith in his own ability to carry through if the situation should warrant it.

Sighing, he folded the temples of his spectacles, opened his desk drawer, and laid them inside. He purposely had not attended dinner at the main house that evening, wanting to avoid Darcy, but he was hungry now. Knowing Darcy, she likely had put something aside for him.

After grabbing his overcoat and hat, Brent turned down the kerosene lamp and moved toward the door.

❧

“Be still!”

Darcy recognized the faintly accented voice of the man holding the gun to her head. It was the clown from the carnival.

“What do you want with me?” she asked, maintaining a show of bravado though her heart beat with the fury of a panicked bird. “Why are you here?”

He chuckled, then coughed. Darcy could feel his body tremble and noticed how heat seemed to radiate from him. He was obviously quite ill.

“You cost me my job,” he growled through his teeth. “Word spread of how one of the freaks left with a lady Brit to work at a boys’ reformatory.” He coughed, the sound raspier. “When I was fired after a stranger informed my boss of my ‘illegal activities’—only minutes after you and your boyfriend left with Lila—it wasn’t hard to figure out. Especially after making your acquaintance behind the fortune-teller’s tent last week.” A severe bout of coughing shook him.

Darcy swallowed. “You’re ill. You need care.”

“The only thing I need now is vengeance!” he growled in a low voice, pressing the barrel harder to her head. “This day was long in coming. I’ve waited for it for years, and neither you nor anyone else is going to rob me of my satisfaction.”

Darcy furrowed her brow. “Long in coming? What do you mean? You’re not making sense.” The fever must be giving him delusions.

“Shut up!” he ordered. “We three are going to the main house now, and you’re going to lead the way. But I warn you. One false move, and I’ll blow you to kingdom come. I’m an expert marksman.”

Darcy turned to face her attacker. She’d been right in her assumption regarding his identity. In the lamp’s glow, she could see his aristocratic features were sickly pale, almost gaunt, with shadows under his eyes. He wore no overcoat, only a pair of trousers with a shirt and suspenders and a shoulder holster under one arm. He was thin, his body shivering. Sweat-dampened hair clung to his head. In his hand he held a gun—now trained at her heart.

“We haven’t any money if that’s what you’re after.” Immediately Darcy thought about her remaining three and a half dollars and flinched, but he seemed not to notice.

“That’s not what I’m after,” he said. “It’s a simple matter of justice. And revenge.”

Darcy said nothing, wondering how someone of his caliber could equate the word
justice
with his dark motives.

“Mister, you said no one was going to get hurt.” Joel’s uncertain voice came from somewhere behind Darcy. “I told you I’d go with you. Just leave her and the others alone.”

Rage ignited in the man’s eyes as they snapped toward the boy. “Joel, as my new associate, you must learn never to talk back to your superior.” His low words were smooth but full of undisguised venom. “I’ll not have it.”

“Yes, Sir,” the boy whispered, his voice barely audible above the sound of sleet falling on the roof.

The man returned his gaze to Darcy, a smile lifting the corners of his cracked lips. “Actually, Joel, you’re about to learn an important lesson in the art of seeking justice from those who’ve wronged you. Keep your eyes and ears open. There may be a test afterwards.” He chuckled, then coughed and motioned with his gun toward the door. “After you, Miss. And, remember, if you want your friends to remain alive, I’d advise you not to do anything foolish.”

Keeping her expression blank, Darcy moved in the direction he indicated, trying not to let him see her fear.

Thirteen

Brent let himself in through the kitchen door and lit a nearby lamp, preferring its soft glow to the harsh glare of the electric light. He felt like a boy sneaking into the kitchen after hours for a late-night snack. He opened the icebox and crouched to peer inside. Hmmm. Interesting. The bowl there appeared to contain a vegetable mix with strips of chicken. He wondered if Darcy had made it. She was a wonderful cook.

The unmistakable sound of the front door flying open, then slamming shut, broke the silence. Brent shot to a standing position and faced the hallway entrance. Who would be up this time of the night? Darcy? Samuel? Or had Michael returned?

About to call out, he changed his mind. The household was surely asleep; and if the sound of the front door hadn’t awakened anyone, Brent certainly didn’t want to. Nine boys were difficult to get back to bed.

Curious, he shut the icebox and crept along the hallway. He heard a man’s low voice—not Michael’s or Samuel’s—in the parlor. Suddenly Charleigh gave a soft cry of fright.

“Eric!” she exclaimed as though she’d seen a ghost.

Alarmed, but instinctively knowing he must remain silent, Brent peered around the corner. In the light of a lantern Joel held, Darcy sat wide-eyed next to a pale Charleigh on the sofa. All three were staring at a tall man who pointed a gun at the two women. Brent’s mouth went dry.

The man chuckled. “
Bonsoir,
dear Charleigh. Destiny brings us together yet again. I’ve waited for this day a long time, and the Fates were kind enough to drop the opportunity into my lap.”

Shaking her head in shocked denial, Charleigh pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders. “But—but Stewart told me years ago that he’d read an account of your death in the paper!”

“Yet, as you can see, I’m not dead,” Eric said with a slight wave of his gun.

“A dockworker identified your body!” Charleigh insisted, as though by saying it, she could make it true.

“Men will do anything for money. And his price wasn’t so steep.” Eric coughed. “I found the need to, shall we say, disappear. Some of my former associates in Manhattan were out to kill me.”

“Imagine that,” Charleigh muttered sarcastically. “So you murdered another poor soul to lose your identity?”

Eric shrugged. “Actually, no. Someone had already done the deed. I stumbled across his corpse one night on the docks, saw my chance, and took it. The dockworker fixed his face so no one would recognize him.”

During the conversation, Darcy repeatedly looked in confusion from Eric to Charleigh. She spoke for the first time. “You know this man?”

“Yes,” Charleigh said bitterly. “This is the man who was with me on the
Titanic
. The man I assisted for three years in a life of crime. Darcy Evans, meet Eric Fontaneau—the cruelest man alive.”

“Fontaine, now,” Eric said, his manner almost glib. “After disposing of my alias, Philip Rawlins, with the dead man, I took back my real name—only changed the surname to sound more American. And I tried to lose the French accent, though a trace has quite obviously remained.” Again he coughed.

Brent grasped the edge of the wall, remembering the despicable things Stewart had told him about this man. And he was here now with Darcy and Charleigh, his intentions boding evil. Brent couldn’t simply stand by and allow these women to remain in danger. He couldn’t! Yet what could he do? The man was armed. Brent knew Stewart kept several guns locked in his study, but he didn’t know where the key to the glass case was—and even if he did, he didn’t know how to fire a weapon. The phone was too close to use. Even if he whispered, he would be overheard.

“What do you intend to do with us?” Charleigh asked. “Why are you here?”

“Why am I here?” Eric repeated, almost cordially. He moved, and Brent zipped back around the corner to avoid detection, waited a moment, then looked again. Eric was now seated in the rocking chair facing the sofa, his gun still trained on the women.

“Well, dear Charleigh, since you ask, originally I planned to take both you and Joel from this place and resume our ‘life of crime’—isn’t that how you put it?” He chuckled, then coughed again, harsher this time. When the spell ended, he waved the gun toward Charleigh. His gaze lowered to her rounded belly. “Yet, in your present condition, my plan to use you as bait will no longer work.”

“I did my time, Eric,” Charleigh seethed. “I went to a reformatory and paid for my crimes. And I will not return to that life again!” She straightened, lifting her chin. “I want you out of my house—now.”

“I hardly think you’re in a position to make demands,” Eric said. He leaned toward her, his jaw rigid. “I told you once before that I don’t like my women to talk back. You would do well to remember that.”

Darcy put a protective arm across Charleigh’s chest. “She’s not your woman. She never was.”

“Indeed?” Eric sounded amused. “I beg to differ, Miss Evans. She has always belonged to me.”

“Stewart paid you—” Charleigh began.

Eric waved his gun to silence her. “Did you honestly think I would agree to his stipulations? You’re mine, Charleigh. I’ll admit, when you foolishly turned yourself over to Scotland Yard and were sentenced to the reformatory, that little setback altered my plans for us. And your present condition certainly isn’t going to help matters. Regardless, you’re coming with me.”

“No!”

To Brent’s horror, Darcy rocketed up from the couch, her hands flying to her hips, her face flushed with anger. She seemed suddenly oblivious to the gun Eric turned her way.

“Sit down,” he ordered impatiently.

“Ye won’t harm a hair on her head, ye won’t,” Darcy bit out. Instead of sitting down, she took another step forward, making Brent’s heart lurch in fear. “I heard about what you done to her—how you made her think she was married to you all those years when she wasn’t, how you beat her and ended up killin’ the baby she carried—”

“Darcy, no!” Charleigh whispered.

Eric swung his shocked gaze toward Charleigh. “Baby? You were carrying my child and didn’t tell me?”

Charleigh’s expression grew bitter. “It doesn’t matter any longer. I’m another man’s wife, and I carry his child. I’m also a Christian and have repented of the former life I led.”

“How touching,” Eric said in disdain.

Brent surveyed the room, knowing he must do something soon. Suddenly Joel turned his head and met his gaze. Brent tensed. The boy studied him for a few eternal seconds. “Mr. Fontaine?” Joel asked, gaining the man’s attention.

Brent frantically considered what to do if the boy should reveal his presence. Should he run up and surprise Eric before Joel could speak? And do. . .what? He ran a hand through his damp hair. How could he stop Eric?

“What is it, Joel?” Eric asked impatiently.

“We can make it fine—just us. I’m a fast learner, and I’ll show you everything my pop taught me, if you want to know. We don’t need no skirt along. My pop once said that womenfolk just get in the way of a man’s business. . . .”

Brent listened in amazement, realizing what Joel was doing. He was diverting Eric’s attention so that Brent could act. Again, Brent’s gaze swept the room—and landed on Michael’s pipe, which sat on its stand on a nearby piecrust table. An idea struck. A rather lame idea, but it was an idea.

God, help me.

Moving from behind the wall, Brent crept toward the stand, the carpet underneath his feet muffling his footsteps. He grabbed the pipe and slowly made his way toward Eric.

❧

Darcy watched, baffled, as Brent crept up behind Eric holding a pipe. A pipe? Had he gone daft? What was he doing? Was he going to suggest they smoke a peace pipe and have a powwow like her history book said the Indians once did?

Brent caught her eye and shook his head. Immediately Darcy looked away.

“In most cases, I would agree with you, Joel,” Eric replied. “Women cannot be trusted. Yet when someone takes what’s yours—as Mr. Lyons did to me—justice must be met. He won’t have her again; of that I’ll make certain.”

“You’re not going to kill her, are you?” the boy asked fearfully, eyes wide.

“No,” Eric said, “but I’ll kill anyone who stands in my way this time.” He cocked the hammer of his gun and stared at Darcy. “Anyone.”

From the corner of her eye, Darcy saw Brent falter. She swallowed hard, silently begging God to shield his presence. He advanced the last few feet to Eric’s chair. Lifting his arm, he pushed the stem of the pipe against Eric’s upper back. The man gave a startled jump.

“No,” Brent said, his voice surprisingly calm. “I don’t imagine you’ll harm anyone, Mr. Fontaine. Now be so good as to drop the gun.”

Eric moved to turn, but Brent jabbed the pipe stem harder against his shirt. “
Now
, if you please.”

Eric complied, and Brent looked at the boy. “Joel, please retrieve the weapon and bring it to me.”