Chapter 9 #2
And Francesca took his hand. “Sooner, Bragg,” she vowed. “We will find out sooner, not later, because I have lost patience with your treacherous chief of police.”
It didn’t matter that Leigh Anne Bragg was now a cripple.
Bartolla Benevente had dressed exquisitely in jewels and a fabulous couturier gown to make certain she put her friend and rival to shame.
Of course, while the gown was couture, the jewels only appeared real.
The false emeralds surrounding her long, pale throat matched her coat and were a bit darker than the low-cut, three-quarter-sleeved dress she wore.
Bartolla had also spent hours on her long red hair that morning.
She wore a new rouge on her lips and cheeks, and she knew she had never been more stunning.
She was staying with the Chandlers on the dreadful west side of town, so there was no opportunity for any flattering glances to come her way until she alighted from their hansom cab at Madison Square.
There, a dozen gentlemen turned to look and stare.
She smiled at them all as she swept up the brick path to the ugly, dour Victorian house Rick Bragg had let.
How Leigh Anne must hate living there, she thought.
She knew the other woman very well. Leigh Anne had always expected a mansion, furs and jewels when she married into the wealthy Bragg family.
Somehow, her working husband had managed to provide her with everything except the mansion.
Bartolla smiled widely and knocked on the front door.
She had called on Leigh Anne four times while she was in the hospital but Leigh Anne had, amazingly, been asleep each and every time and she had not been allowed to enter the sickroom.
Once she had managed to steal a glance inside and she had been truly shocked when she had glimpsed Leigh Anne.
The woman had been lying there in bed, her face so devoid of color that she appeared dead. She had looked ghastly, even ugly.
God, how ironic it was! How tragic, how utterly Homeric! As much as Bartolla hated to admit it, the other woman more than rivaled her in beauty. But no more. Never again. The city’s most beautiful woman was now deformed, forever maimed, a cripple, for God’s sake.
She knew she should not have even the smallest sense of satisfaction. But, in the past, when they had been together in a room, at a fête or a ball, Bartolla had not received the majority of the longing male glances cast their way. No more. No man would ever look at Leigh Anne Bragg that way again.
It was almost amusing.
Bartolla was let inside by a manservant as dour as the house and told to wait while he went to see if Mrs. Bragg was receiving callers.
Bartolla wandered the small, garish salon, shuddering at the dark red stripes on the walls, the dark red velvet of the tacky sofa, the worn and faded rug.
Leigh Anne had returned from marital separation and an opulent life in Europe to reclaim her husband, and Bartolla could not quite understand why.
Of course, she had been the one to write Leigh Anne and inform her that her estranged husband was in love with another woman.
Still, Bartolla would have let Francesca Cahill have him, had she been Leigh Anne.
Leigh Anne had been courted by dukes and chased by Russian princes. What a fool she had been.
She heard the wheels even before she heard Leigh Anne and she turned as her hostess said hello.
Bartolla froze. Leigh Anne sat in a wheeled chair, a young male nurse pushing it, clad in a stunning lavender gown with a pearl and diamond necklace and matching earrings.
For one moment, as Leigh Anne smiled at her, Bartolla started in dismay.
She had expected to see a corpse. But other than the fact that Leigh Anne could not walk and sat in that odd contraption that was a chair, nothing had changed.
She was utterly lovely and terribly elegant and the necklace she wore was real.
“How wonderful of you to call,” Leigh Anne said. She smiled slightly at the handsome, dark-haired man who was her nurse. “I’ll call you if I need you, Mr. McFee.”
He smiled, blushing a little, and left.
Bartolla recovered and swept forward, beaming, but inwardly she was furious. How could Leigh Anne make being a cripple so glamorous? “How are you, darling?” she cried, clasping her hands. “I tried to call on you at Bellevue, but you were asleep every time and they would not let me in.”
“I know,” Leigh Anne said with the same slight smile. “That was very nice of you. Do sit down. Peter is bringing us brioche and coffee.”
“Ah, those were the days, when my dear husband the count was still alive—when we would meet in Paris and shop together until we were ready to expire!” Bartolla laughed, recalling those two years of her marriage very vividly.
She had married the Italian count at the age of sixteen—he had been in his sixties.
Then he had died, leaving her with next to nothing, the bastard.
He had left his grown adult children everything, except the smallest pension that came to her, one which she had already spent.
Of course, no one in the city knew her little secret—that she was living on her American family’s charity and was desperately impoverished.
But when she married Evan Cahill—once he was reconciled with his family and his inheritance—that would all change.
Leigh Anne’s smile never faltered, though now Bartolla realized it did not reach her amazing green eyes. “I’m afraid you did all of the shopping, my dear. I never had that kind of credit, if you recall.”
Bartolla took a chair. “Bragg kept you well while you were separated.”
“He was as generous as he dared to be. I quickly learned to excel at pretense,” Leigh Anne said. “Some of the gems I wore were nothing but paste, the gowns hand-me-downs.”
Bartolla was uncomfortable, as she wore paste and a hand-me-down gown. But of course, Leigh Anne could not know that. “I had no idea. No one did. That necklace is beautiful,” she added.
Leigh Anne’s expression softened. “Rick gave it to me when we were newly wed. I have always treasured it. It was so hard for him to afford this.”
Bartolla was annoyed now. “Oh, please, all he had to do was ask for a check from his father. He might have chosen to work for a living like a common man, but let’s be frank, one day he will inherit quite a fortune when Rathe Bragg dies.”
Leigh Anne’s eyes widened in shock and distress. “I am very fond of his father, and I hope that day is decades away!”
Bartolla had to glance at the appalling room.
“Well, Rathe does seem rather vital for a middle-aged man. So why don’t you appeal to him for a, er, different residence?
You surely could use a larger ground floor,” she said, implying that with Leigh Anne’s handicap, she did not need to be bothered with stairs.
“In fact,” she said, recalling that Leigh Anne had two young girls and a nanny in the house, “you must need a larger living space.”
Leigh Anne flushed. Very carefully, she said, “If Rick likes this house, which is conveniently located, as police affairs often call him out in the middle of the night, then I have no wish to relocate.”
“How noble you are,” Bartolla laughed, wondering if Leigh Anne really was that selfless. She doubted it. No woman would want to wheel that awkward chair about the narrow halls of this awful house.
Peter entered, setting a sterling tray with their cups of coffee and plates of pastries on the table between them. “Thank you,” Leigh Anne said. Then, as she reached for a cup, she said, “I am hardly noble, Bartolla. Rick is the noble one.”
Bartolla didn’t respond, because she had realized that Leigh Anne was going to have some difficulty reaching the cup of coffee.
Peter had placed the tray squarely in the table’s center, but that had been a mistake, as Leigh Anne’s unwieldy chair prevented her from sitting as close to the table as one usually would.
Her fingertips barely grazed the saucer beneath the cup.
Bartolla watched, her breath suspended, suddenly reminded that this woman was not normal and she never would be again.
Leigh Anne was now completely focused on seizing the saucer so she could hand her guest the refreshment.
Her cheeks were red and her breathing had accelerated.
Bartolla knew she should help, but for one more moment she watched, savagely satisfied.
Then she said, kindly, “Oh! Do not bother yourself, darling. I can do that,” and she took the cup and saucer into her hands, waiting to meet Leigh Anne’s gaze.
But Leigh Anne quickly put her hands in her lap, clasping them, her lashes lowered, her full bosom heaving from the brief exertion. Her cheeks remained flushed.
She couldn’t even serve a guest properly anymore, Bartolla thought. She sipped her coffee. “This is delicious, thank you.”
Leigh Anne made no move to take her own cup and saucer, as she clearly would not be able to reach them. She looked up. “I am glad you think so,” she said quietly.
Bartolla savored another sip then set the cup and saucer down. “So, does Rick really take care of police affairs in the middle of the night?”
“From time to time, yes, he does,” Leigh Anne said, her hands still in her lap.
“Does he still work closely with Francesca?” she asked, somehow keeping a straight face.
Leigh Anne met her gaze. “Of course. She is a sleuth—and a very good one, I might add.”
“I would not want my husband running about the city in the middle of the night with another woman,” Bartolla said, meaning it. “How generous you are.”
“Francesca seems very happy,” Leigh Anne said, more color blooming in her cheeks, “now that she is engaged to Calder Hart.”
And Bartolla had to laugh. “That is a coup, is it not! Our clever bluestocking and Calder Hart! I wonder, how long will that unlikely match last?”
“I think Calder is in love, finally,” Leigh Anne murmured, eyes downcast.
“Oh, please! He wants to bed her and she is clever enough to deny him—undoubtedly the only woman to ever do so. I wonder how he feels about her dashing around the city with your husband?”
Leigh Anne stared. “I doubt he is worried. Hart is one of the most secure men I have ever met.”
“Hart is no fool. I imagine he will put a leash on Francesca very shortly. Admit it, dear, it will be a relief once she is wed and out of the picture.”
It was a moment before Leigh Anne spoke. “I like Francesca. I imagine that, one day, we will be friends.”
For one moment, Bartolla thought she meant it, and then she realized that she was in jest. She had to be. Bartolla laughed.
“How is Evan?” Leigh Anne asked, cutting into her laughter.
Bartolla grinned. “Wonderful.” She hesitated, leaning close. “He is an amazing man—if you know what I mean,” she whispered, indelicately referring to his sexual prowess.
“How happy I am for you,” Leigh Anne said. Then, “Yes, he seems unique. Leaving his family in order to find his own way in life, giving up that inheritance—he reminds me a little of Rick. I hear Evan’s father has disowned him completely,” she added.
“It is a temporary family spat, let me assure you of that.”
Leigh Anne did not seem to hear. “And he is so generous, is he not? My friend Beth Tyler called earlier. She saw him last night, you know.”
Bartolla stiffened. “How nice,” she smiled, and then heard herself demand, “Where?” For last night Evan had sent her an odd note, canceling their plans.
“She saw him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”
She was relieved. “That is where he currently lives.”
“He was with a lovely redheaded woman and three small children. Apparently they all had supper together.” Leigh Anne smiled sweetly.
Bartolla froze. And the blood drummed in her ears, almost deafening her. “I beg your pardon?”
Leigh Anne’s delicate, dark eyebrows lifted.
“I’m afraid I don’t know any more than that.
Beth did not know the woman and Evan was so involved with her and the children that he never even saw the Tylers.
I heard he was so rapt he never saw anyone or anything in the dining room—other than his company, of course. ”
“Maggie Kennedy,” Bartolla breathed, almost seeing red.
“I beg your pardon?” Leigh Anne asked.
Bartolla did not hear her. It was impossible, unbelievable, that Evan would cancel their plans to be with that faded, unhappy seamstress. Bartolla was a countess, for God’s sake!
But it wasn’t impossible, not if Leigh Anne was telling the truth. In that case, he had jilted her last night for the other woman. Once, briefly, she had thought she had glimpsed the spark of romance kindling between her lover and that homely harpy, but she had been certain she was wrong.
Now, she knew she had been right.
Now, she must put an end to this nonsense, once and for all.
Fortunately, the timing could not be better.