Rexanne Becnel (44 page)

If only they could get away from this place.

“Why, Abigail, my dear.” Patrick’s smooth tones cut jarringly into her thoughts. With a firm hand on her arm he turned her away from Tanner, then steered her out of the room. “What a positively dreadful introduction to Chicago society—but not altogether a shocking one, considering the sort of people drawn to the place. Why has Mrs. Strickland allowed you to be exposed to this tawdry mess?” he added.

“Mrs. Strickland has no say in the matter. Besides, I’m fine. Really I am,” she insisted, trying to twist free of his too-solicitous hold.

But he wouldn’t release her. “Your grandfather asked me to bring you to him,” he stated as if he’d heard the words of God in Willard Hogan’s demand and must obey at all costs. Ignoring her foot-dragging reluctance, he ushered her through the throng in the foyer, past all the staring eyes, and toward the library. Once there, he closed the double doors with a decisive thud.

Abby finally managed to throw off Patrick’s presumptuous grip. But before she could take him and her grandfather to task, she stopped.

Willard Hogan, usually such a dandy, was a mess. His cravat hung loose and drooping. His gray hair stood out at odd angles from around his balding pate, and both his waistcoat and his vest gaped open around his massive girth. Yet disheveled as he appeared, he seemed nonetheless more real to her in that moment, with his society veneer stripped away, than at any other time she’d been with him.

She might actually be able someday to grow fond of the man, Abby realized.

“Off with you, Patrick,” he barked, dismissing his godson with a flick of his hand. “You. Come here, Abigail. I have something to discuss with you.”

Abby heard Patrick leave. The muted uproar from the lobby seeped in as he opened the door, then disappeared when he closed it. In the resulting quiet of the library, insulated by books, most of which looked as if their spines had never once been cracked open, Abby crossed warily to stand before her grandfather. Despite his rumpled appearance Abby detected a gravity in his bearing. A determination she wasn’t certain she liked.

“I’ve made a decision,” he began after she perched on the edge of a high-backed leather library chair opposite him. “Until we can ferret out this rat who seeks to hurt me by hurting you, it’s not safe for you to be in Chicago.”

“But—”

“Hear me out,” he interrupted her with a scowl. “Patrick has made a suggestion—a very good suggestion. Or perhaps it would be better termed an offer. In any case it’s a sound solution to what might have been a bit of a business dilemma for me one day. It solves both my short-term problem and the long-term ones.”

Abby listened with a sinking heart. In his own way he sounded very like her own father. Though that one had always spouted Bible verses, the curt business jargon her grandfather used reflected the same sort of unemotional decision making. Robert Bliss had always used the Bible to validate his decision. Willard Hogan obviously used the bottom line.

“What long-term problems?” Abby ventured to ask.

“Why, about your inheritance of course. Who will manage it when I’m gone?”

Abby stared down at her hands. “Don’t talk that way,” she pleaded, surprising herself with the sincerity of her words. “I’ve dealt with enough death. Enough loss.” She raised her eyes back up to him, really seeing him for once. The nose so like her mother’s. The eyes that were the same changeable hazel green as her own. “Please, don’t talk as if you’re about to die. We’ve only just found each other.”

He smiled then, the warm smile of a loving grandfather. It sent her burrowing into his arms.

“Ah, Abby girl. It’s lucky I am to have you. To have this second chance,” he admitted more quietly. For a few moments he simply stroked her hair, which had spilled free across his lap. “But I can’t sit idly by while someone threatens to rob me of my heart’s dearest possession. No.” He set her firmly away from him and stared into her eyes as she knelt before him. “Patrick has a capital idea. I should have thought of it myself. He wishes to marry you and take you on an extended tour of Europe.”

Abby gaped at him, not believing things could have progressed this far, this fast. Patrick wished to marry her? But that was out of the question. She started to protest, but he raised a hand, forestalling her words.

“Don’t you see? You’ll be safe in Europe with Patrick. And while you’re gone, I’ll have time to discover who it is that plots against me. Plus the management of all my businesses can remain in Patrick’s capable hands. It’s a perfect solution, don’t you think?”

“A
BSOLUTELY NOT.”

Abby flung the silver-gray moiré gown on the floor of her dressing room as if it were of no more value than a cleaning rag. “He will not bribe me with either gowns or jewels. Or with grand tours of Europe!” she added scathingly.

Mrs. Strickland only raised her thin eyebrows, then signaled the wide-eyed serving girl to collect the fabulous gown and hang it up again. “Mr. Hogan only wants you to be safe.”

“But not happy,” Abby retorted.

“Ah, child. He wants you to be happy. Of course he does.”

“Then how can he propose such an unlikely match?”

The woman shrugged. “Patrick Brady is considered by many to be quite a catch as a husband.”

Abby ignored that. No doubt it was true. He was handsome. Well mannered. He certainly had excellent prospects. But he was not for her. It was just that simple.

She opened the chinoiserie armoire and pulled out a pair of low-heeled leather shoes and a simple mauve-striped gown. “I’m not ready to marry,” she stated, using the same words she had used—to no avail, it seemed—with her grandfather. Mrs. Strickland, at least, did not explode with anger as Willard Hogan had done. She only pursed her lips and narrowed her gaze.

“I suppose you would have had this same reaction to whomever he might have suggested. Even Mr. McKnight.”

Abby’s head jerked up at that and her hands fumbled at their task of lacing on her shoes. “I’m not ready to marry. Anyone,” she insisted. “I have other plans.”

“Oh?”

But Abby was not about to enlighten her grandfather’s housekeeper. Mrs. Strickland might turn a deaf ear to most of Willard Hogan’s bellowing and run his enormous household staff the way
she
saw fit. But she obviously thought the world of the man. It was clear where the woman’s loyalties lay.

Abby stepped into the mauve dress with the silent young maid’s help, then found a light shawl and straw bonnet to match. Finally she glanced at the disapproving Mrs. Strickland. “Would you see to it that a carriage is brought around?”

Abby might as well have instructed the woman to fetch Tanner, for he was already waiting in the foyer when she descended. Maybe that was what she had wanted, Abby mused as she nearly missed a step. All night she’d worried about him and what terrible damage that white bandage covered. It did her heart good to know he was up and on the job as always.

As she drew nearer him, however, she noticed that he was a trifle pale underneath his tan. She hurried down the last few steps, the state of his health her overriding concern.

“You’re not stepping one foot out of this house.”

She came to a skidding halt on the polished marble floor before him. If he was well enough to order her around this way, she supposed she should take it as a good sign.

“You cannot make me a prisoner here.”

“I can. And your grandfather agrees with me.”

“Oh! Men are so thick-headed. How can you be so sure I am the one this person was after last night? It could have been my grandfather. It could even have been you.”

“Well, I’m not taking any chances.” He caught her arm with his right hand and steered her away from the door.

“And what am I to do with myself all day?” she protested as he marched her toward the east-facing morning room.

“Write your stories. Finish that book about your mice.”

“I was going to do just that. But I need an audience. For inspiration,” she added when he finally released her arm.

At their entrance the one maid in the plant-filled room melted quickly away, closing the door behind her. The muffled click of the brass hardware sent an unexpected thrill of awareness up Abby’s back. They were alone. But there was still the matter of her confinement to the house.

“I want to visit the orphanages here,” she stated, turning away from his disturbing gaze to restlessly wander the room. She plucked a yellowing frond from a maidenhair fern and tested the soil beneath the dense foliage of a Chinese palm for moisture. “I’m a teacher at heart, Tanner. The stories spring from there. I love teaching and being around children, and I miss it so. Is that such a terrible thing? Is it so very hard for you to understand that I need to be surrounded by children again?”

She heard him sigh, and when she looked over her shoulder, she caught him rubbing his left arm gingerly. He shouldn’t be up today, but he was. For her.

Guilt surged through her at the realization. And now she was making things even harder on him.

“Sit down,” she ordered, turning to face him. “Don’t worry, I won’t dash off,” she added with an exasperated grimace. She sank onto a gilded chair, carved to look as if it were made of bamboo. “Look. I’m sitting too.”

He sat on a yellow brocade slipper chair—an incongruous sight that brought a wry smile to her lips. The chair was delicate, designed for a lady and made in such a way as to accommodate voluminous skirts. His broad shoulders and long legs were far too large for the piece of furniture. Despite that, however, he managed, as he always did, to project the most disconcerting air of being both totally relaxed and conversely ready to spring into action at the least provocation. Like a tiger at rest, he was made no less intimidating by his nonchalant pose.

“Now,” she said, bargaining for time to get her unsettled nerves under control. “I want to teach again and I think the local orphanage is a worthy place to do so. Don’t you?”

He nodded once, but the stern expression on his face didn’t change one bit. “Your intentions are commendable, Abby. But until we find the person behind these attacks, I can’t let you go. Don’t worry, the orphanage will still be there when this is over.”

“But in the meantime I shall go quite out of my mind with boredom!” She jumped to her feet and began once more to pace. “This house is huge, but it completely lacks any sense of vitality. My grandfather bellows and everyone jumps.”

“Everyone but you, it seems.”

That quietly worded statement slowed her steps. What precisely was he referring to? Did he know about Patrick’s offer—and that she’d turned him down? “What do you mean?” she asked, though she longed to ask him other things. Far more personal things.

“I mean you refused to—” He broke off, and his slate-blue gaze veered away from hers. “I mean you refuse to listen to reason. You’re just as hot-headed as ever.”

“Hot-headed! If I were truly hot-headed, I’d jump at his plan to flee this mausoleum, and devil take the consequences.”

“The consequences being Brady?”

Was Tanner jealous?
Abby caught her breath. Should she be honest about the finality of her refusal or let him wonder whether she might eventually accept Patrick’s suit? Oh, how she hated this uncertainty. Why must Tanner be so pig-headed?

“If I could be assured that he would be as good a lover as …” she trailed off, refusing to feel the least bit of shame for provoking him this way. And her bold words did most obviously provoke him, for his expression grew black as thunder.

“That sort of talk will ruin your reputation,” he bit out.

“Really? Well, a certain Mrs. Gadsdon was even more bold than that last night, and it doesn’t seem to harm her standing in Chicago’s esteemed society.”

“She’s already married—”

“And that makes it all right? Does that mean you would not care if your wife sought—” She broke off, searching her mind for the right word. “Sought dalliances with other men?”

He stood up, tall and forbidding in his gray trousers and black vest. Though he wore neither coat nor neck cloth, the casualness of his attire did not lessen the aura of leashed power that emanated from him. He looked as if he were more than ready to throttle her. “Marriage is a sacred union,” he stated, his voice dark and low.

“Sacred?” Though she agreed totally, Abby was nevertheless gratified to know his view mirrored her own. She wanted to explore the subject further, but he cut her off.

“If you don’t intend to take up Brady’s offer, then you’ll have to find other ways to occupy your time—here, in this house.”

Abby could think of one particularly pleasant way to pass the time, though she was not quite bold enough to suggest it. Especially given the temper she’d already roused him to. She stifled an impatient oath and whirled on her heel to pace once more.

“No riding, I suppose.”

“And no shopping.”

She sent him a furious glare. “Perhaps I shall have the merchants bring their goods to me, then,” she snapped, though shopping was the last pastime she actually desired.

As quickly as she said the words, however, a far better idea occurred to her. She didn’t want to shop; she never had. It was just a diversion. What she wanted was to teach again, to tell stories to little children. If she could not go to them, why, there was no reason why she could not bring them to her.

A smile crept onto her face, filled with the sudden hopefulness she felt. “Oh, Tanner.” She moved toward him and without thinking laid a hand on his arm. “I could bring the children from the orphanage here. There are so many rooms. And the grounds too. I could have a classroom, and we could give them a good dinner every day.”

To her surprise he capitulated without argument. No, to be honest, she was not truly surprised, for she’d come to the conclusion that there were two Tanner McKnights. The one hunted down people for the money it gained him. He was hard and without emotion. Trained to kill without hesitation and without remorse.

But the other Tanner gave his horses fanciful names and never mocked her desire to write stories about mice. He rescued foolish young women from mud and snakes and desperadoes. And for all his professions not to care for children like young Carl, she suspected otherwise.