The Bracelet (25 page)

The president of the society took the stage to make the introduction. Then Dr. Sharp, dressed in a suit of deep violet trimmed in black lace, rose from her chair behind the lectern and acknowledged the applause. She took her time putting on her spectacles and opening her notes. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Celia smiled at the opening line from
Pride and Prejudice
and listened raptly as Dr. Sharp began her lecture. She hated to leave what promised to be a lively discussion, but she had to know the identity of the young man who had sent her the bracelet. She waited until Dr. Sharp reached the end of a longer passage, when another burst of applause masked the sounds of her departure from the lecture hall.

Outside she spotted her carriage waiting in a long line of conveyances. Joseph, pipe in hand, was deep in conversation with a group of fellow carriage drivers. She checked the address Mr. Ryan had given her, though it had fairly burned itself into her brain, and set off on foot for Liberty Street.

Situated across from the old cemetery, the white clapboard house was plain and small. A deep porch wrapped around three sides. Dark-green paint peeled from the shutters of narrow windows flanking the door. A crack in the fanlight above the entry fractured the late afternoon sunlight spilling across the porch. Celia crossed a patch of lawn bordered by pride-of-India trees. Mounting the steps, she lifted the brass door knocker and let it fall.

Presently a woman who seemed neither old nor young opened the door. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry to arrive unannounced. I’ve come to speak to a young man who sent a gift to me a while back and didn’t reveal his name. I was told he lives here.”

“Whoever told you that told you wrong,” the woman said. “I’ve had only one boarder the past few months, and he is clear on the far side of young.”

Celia checked the paper the jeweler had given her. Unless he had made a mistake, this was the right house. The woman stood back and began to close the door.

“Wait.” Celia glanced around. “Perhaps I was given the wrong address after all. Do you know, is there anyone nearby who might have sent a—”

“What’s the trouble, Mrs. Adams?”

The voice was unmistakable. Celia froze as a man appeared in the narrow entry hall, one finger marking his place in his book. Finally she said, “Mr. Channing.”

The reporter stared at her in genuine surprise. “Miss Browning. I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me. And I must say
the feeling is mutual. You cost me my job, and now you’re disturbing my Saturday afternoon with Mr. Shakespeare.”

“I didn’t expect to find you here.”

Mrs. Adams looked first at Celia and then at Mr. Channing. “Seems you two know each other, so I’ll leave you to your bibble-babble. I’ve got a pie in the oven, and it’s about to burn.”

As his landlady hurried away, Leo Channing swept one arm toward the parlor. “I believe the polite thing to do is to invite you inside.”

“No, thank you. I haven’t much time, and this won’t take long.”

He leaned against the door frame and clutched his leather-bound book to his chest. “I’m all ears.”

“Someone sent a bracelet to my house. Anonymously. And then I found out—”

“You’re complaining?” He laughed. “Girls like you live for the admiration of men. But I can assure you, as much as I wanted to interview you, I am not the one who sent it.”

“I know that. As I was saying before you interrupted, I have learned that a young man ordered it and asked that it be sent to this address. I came here today to find out who he is and why he sent it.”

“Indeed.” Leo Channing’s eyes lowered to half mast. It was like being observed by a coiled cobra. She took a step back, causing the wooden porch to creak.

“I might know something,” he said. “But I want something in return.”

“I told you before. I was a child when the accidents occurred. I remember very little. I don’t know anything that has not already been reported, and even if—”

“Yes, I know all that. Even if you did know, you wouldn’t say anything to sully your precious family name. Or jeopardize your marriage to the dashing Mr. Mackay.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever find the diary?”

“I never heard of it. I have no evidence it ever existed. But if I should find it, I wouldn’t give it to you. Nor divulge its contents.”

“Of course not.”

“I thought you’d have left Savannah by now. You did say you have family waiting in Baltimore, and since you’re no longer at the newspaper—”

“I was able to come up with the funds to stay on here a while longer. I haven’t given up on writing a book about the house of love and grief.”

“Well, nobody will read it since it will have absolutely no relationship to the truth.”

“If you are so sure of that, then why go to such lengths to stop me?”

She sighed and glanced down the street. Dr. Sharp’s lecture would end soon. And there was no point in continuing this conversation.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed your reading.” She turned on her heel.

“Wait.” He came out onto the porch and leaned against a railing. “You might not believe this, but despite your appalling naïveté, I can’t help admiring you, Miss Browning. Such loyalty to your father—and to your dear cousin. But are you certain it’s warranted?”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” He seemed to be enjoying this little torment. Like a cat with a mouse.

“I must go.”

“Without finding out what I know about the bracelet? Come on. Be a good sport. As a sign of good faith, I’ll go first.”

Though she couldn’t imagine what bit of information he
would demand in return and where she would get it, she waited, both hands clutching her reticule.

“Shortly after the masquerade party you threw for your intended, I received an anonymous note at the newspaper office. I was asked to provide an address where a gift—I assume now it was your bracelet—could be delivered to me. It was such a curious request that I agreed. I left my reply at the newspaper office, and it was picked up while I was in the archives, reading up on your family.”

And stealing the copies of the paper in the bargain. “What about the man who came to retrieve the bracelet from you?”

“I never saw him. When the package arrived here, I took it to the office like I was asked to do, and it was picked up while I was trying to track down Charlie Lamar. I wanted to talk to Lamar before he sailed the
Wanderer
for Africa, but I never could get hold of him.” Channing shook his head. “Somehow the big stories always get away from me.”

Celia released an exasperated sigh. All this planning, all this time wasted, and she was no closer to learning the identity of the man who had sent the bracelet. “Well, whoever he is, he certainly went to a lot of trouble to keep from being discovered.”

Mr. Channing rubbed his unshaven chin. “That’s why I agreed to the plan. I was mighty curious as to why someone would single out a stranger like me to trust with a piece of valuable jewelry.”

“So you opened the package.”

He shrugged. “My reporter’s curiosity got the better of me. What puzzles me is how he knew I wouldn’t simply abscond with it.”

“The jeweler who made the bracelet told me it isn’t valuable. I suppose whoever ordered it felt he had little to lose if you didn’t keep your promise.”

“I thought it might turn into a story I could use for the paper,
but in the end it seems it was only the pitiful tale of some fellow who was too shy and too poor to court you properly. As if any other suitor would have half a chance with Sutton Mackay in the picture.”

Celia hadn’t encouraged any man’s attentions. All her life she had cared for no one but Sutton, and everyone in Savannah knew it. The other young men of her acquaintance were old family friends with sweethearts of their own or gentlemen she met in the course of shopping and paying social calls. Mr. Loyer at the jewelry store downtown was old enough to be her father. Lucius Harland owned the bookstore she frequented, but he cared for nothing save books. Miles Frost was a year Celia’s senior and, like Sutton, a Harvard graduate and a member of the Chatham Artillery. When they were younger, she and Miles had engaged in a bit of harmless flirtation, but it had never been serious—and now, according to Alicia Thayer, Miles was seriously courting Mary Quarterman.

That left Papa’s clerk, Elliott Shaw. Celia hadn’t seen him since refusing his gift the night of the masquerade. Certainly he had embarrassed them both that night. Even so, it didn’t seem likely that Mr. Shaw would risk his livelihood in pursuit of the impossible.

Leo Channing squinted into the distance. “If I were you, I’d forget all about that cheap little bauble and stop trying to ferret the poor fellow out. At least leave him with his dignity.”

Celia nodded. She wouldn’t tell him about the hidden message in the jewels or the cryptic note written on the packaging. To do so would only increase his curiosity.

“I must go.” She brushed past him, heading for the street. She would have to hurry now, to make it back to the lecture hall before the reception ended and Ivy noticed her absence.

“You’re forgetting something.”

Celia sighed. “I told you, I don’t know anything that hasn’t been mentioned in the papers.”

“Surely you know the name of the woman who died in your carriage house. I was intrigued to discover that, in all the newspaper accounts of the event, her name was never mentioned.”

“Mr. Channing. For the last time, I don’t know her name.”

He leaned against the porch railing. “For some reason, I believe you. But you still owe me, and I always collect what’s coming to me.”

He grasped her arm as she turned away. “Find that diary.”

“Let go.” She wrenched her arm free.

“Find the diary, and you’ll find the name. I’ll be waiting.”

16

J
OSEPH HALTED THE CARRIAGE OUTSIDE THE MACKAYS
’ house. Earlier in the day a chilly rain had fallen, and now a brisk wind guttered the gas lamps flanking the entrance. Papa opened the carriage door and helped Celia out. He offered her his arm, and in the gathering dusk they passed through the wrought-iron gate and mounted the steps to the front door.

Mrs. Johns, the Mackays’ housekeeper, answered the bell and ushered them into the foyer. “Good evening, Miss Browning. Mr. Browning.”

“Mrs. Johns.” Papa helped Celia remove her dark-green cloak, then removed his hat and scarf and shrugged out of his coat.

The housekeeper draped the garments over her arm and nodded toward the parlor. “The Mackays are waiting for you.”

Burke and Cornelia Mackay rose in welcome as Celia and her father crossed the foyer and entered the parlor where a cozy fire burned in the grate.

“My dear.” Sutton’s father planted a cool kiss on Celia’s brow. “I haven’t seen you in a long while, but Sutton keeps me apprised of your plans. I’m grateful to you for settling that boy down.”

Celia smiled. “It’s my pleasure, sir.”

He laughed and shook Papa’s hand. “David. I’m glad you could come. It’s been too long since we enjoyed an evening together.”

“Yes,” Papa said. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

“Ivy isn’t joining us this evening?” Mrs. Mackay asked.

“She has a terrible cough,” Celia said. “She spent entirely too much time out in the damp this week, I expect. She sends her regrets.”

“That’s too bad. I hate to think of her spending the evening alone.”

“She has some books from the circulating library to keep her company. And Maxwell, of course.”

Mrs. Mackay smiled. “Maxwell is a darling. Sutton brought him by for introductions before he took him to you. But please, sit down.” She motioned them to chairs before the fire. “Sutton’s upstairs, waiting to escort his grandmother down. She isn’t as steady on her feet these days, and we worry she might fall. Though we don’t tell her that.”

Papa settled himself before the fire and sniffed the air appreciatively. “Something smells good, Cornelia.”

“I had Mrs. Johns make your favorites. Roast beef and all the trimmings. And a pecan pie for dessert.”