Chapter 21 #2
“I believe a friend of mine is staying at your hotel,” Hart said. “Lord Randolph. I should like to get a word to him. Do you know if he is in this evening?”
Francesca fidgeted as the clerk said that he believed Lord Randolph was in his rooms. It was the supper hour, but if he were as dour as Hart clamed, perhaps he was dining alone in his suite.
She glanced past the crowd in the lobby, trying to peek into the dining room on the hall’s other side.
But from this distance, it was simply impossible to distinguish any of the guests inside. The elevator bell chimed.
Francesca glanced impatiently at the gilded arrow, indicating the elevator was arriving on the first floor. Hart was scribbling a note, which a bellman would deliver to Randolph’s room. She leaned close and said, “Invite him for a drink in the lobby.”
“That is already done,” he said, signing his name without any flourish. He eyed her closely. “Are you a bit warm, Francesca?”
She was delighted because his tone seemed very normal, as did the light in his eyes.
In fact, she knew he had caught a whiff of her excitement and was mildly amused.
She was about to grin and ask him if she was forgiven, when the brass door of the elevator opened.
Three people walked out and the gentleman in the rear was Harry de Warenne.
Francesca was so excited she poked Hart hard in the ribs, hard enough to make him utter a breath.
“Sir.” The clerk had just espied Randolph as well. “There is Lord Randolph.”
As Hart made some kind of reply, Francesca grabbed Maggie and dragged her away from Hart, toward a large wooden column. “That is Lord Randolph, the handsome gentleman with the ivory-headed cane. The one Hart is walking toward.”
And indeed, Hart was leisurely approaching their quarry. Randolph saw him and stopped and the two men shook hands.
Francesca turned to Maggie. “Well?” she demanded.
Maggie was pale.
“Do you need a closer look?”
Maggie shook her head. “No. That’s him, Francesca, that’s the gentleman I bumped into outside of Kate’s building.”
They were standing fifty feet away. Francesca was thrilled; still, she took Maggie’s hand. “Are you certain?” Hart was glancing at them. She knew he was about to signal them to come over and join them.
“I am positive,” Maggie breathed, flushed now. She gazed at Francesca. “What does this mean? Is he the killer?”
Francesca shook her head at Hart and he gave her his back instantly. She pulled Maggie back around the column, ducking her head so she would not be remarked. “It doesn’t quite mean anything yet.”
Maggie seemed nervous, glancing toward the center of the lobby. “They are walking toward the front doors. I guess Randolph is on his way out. Hart seems to be joining him,” she said rapidly.
Francesca looked their way as the two men disappeared onto the street.
“Come on,” she said, hurrying after them.
She paused briefly before leaving the hotel, just in time to see Randolph getting into a cab and Hart nodding goodbye.
As the horse-drawn hansom pulled away from the curb, she darted out onto the avenue and over to Hart.
“It’s him,” she cried, pausing beside him and staring after the cab.
She was out of breath. “Maggie has no doubt. We have to follow him, Hart!”
Hart raised his hand. Raoul was standing beside Hart’s brougham farther down the block and he instantly climbed onto the driver’s seat, releasing the brake. And finally, Hart smiled at her. “After you, darling,” he said.
Gwen O’Neil smiled warmly as she pulled the covers up to her daughter’s chin.
“G’night, darlin’,” she murmured, but Bridget was already soundly asleep.
For one moment she stared at her beautiful daughter, filled with the warmth of love, but then her smile faded as she recalled her husband.
Bridget had gone to work with her on Saturday and David had been waiting for them at the day’s end outside the candle factory.
He had begged her to take him back and had threatened them both if she refused.
She didn’t believe for a moment that he was the Slasher, but she did believe that he would hurt her and her daughter terribly if he was not sent back to jail. He was a petty-minded and vengeful man and his new purpose in life was to make her miserable, she thought.
And it was working.
If only Harry had not dropped those charges against him.
And as a painful image of Harry de Warenne came abruptly to mind, she leaped to her feet, more than disconcerted.
A lump of anguish remained raw in her chest. It had been shocking to find him in New York, and his presence in the city had rekindled memories she had hoped to leave far behind in Ireland, where they belonged.
He must have found her the same way David had, she thought as she vigorously cleaned the counter by the sink. Now she regretted leaving Father Culhane’s name with her neighbor in case anyone had to contact her. She wondered if Harry remained in the city or if he had left.
It was shocking that he had even bothered to look her up. Or was it?
Gwen paused, the rag in her hand, swept back in time to a perfect spring day, the lawns the color of emeralds, the sky brilliantly blue, as she slipped out of the manor house with no small amount of guilt.
But no one was home and the day simply beckoned.
Before she knew it, she was running barefoot down the hill in a moment of sheer joy and real freedom.
As she ran, her life with David did not exist. There was only the wet grass beneath her feet, the sun shining mildly upon her face, the faint chill of the air, the overwhelming scent of hyacinth. Then she fell.
She tripped on a stone. Briefly, she rolled over, once, twice.
And then, like a child, she rolled over again and again, all the way to the bottom of the hill, and laughing out loud, she stopped on her back and stared up at the passing white clouds.
She floated there in the grass, so wonderfully relaxed.
Then, her laughter gone, she sobered and came back to reality.
She had a job to return to and her black dress was wet and stained with dirt.
Worse, her white apron was now blotched green.
Gwen sat up, thinking to rebraid her hair.
And the lord of the manor sat on his bay horse, his eyebrows raised, staring at her.
She jumped to her feet in dread and dismay, her hands falling to her sides. “My lord, sir!” She bowed her head, her heart racing wildly. “I beg your pardon, sir, I…I,” she faltered, for she did not know what to say and he was dismounting—he was approaching!
She dared to look up, unable to breathe.
Randolph walked closer, an impossibly handsome man, a man she had never seen smile, not even once. “You don’t have to apologize for enjoying our first good day of spring, Mrs. Hanrahan.” He bowed.
She met his gaze and felt herself drowning in his remarkable blue eyes and in wave after wave of her own surprise.
She knew her cheeks were hot. But it was impossible not to be aware of Harry de Warenne as a most attractive man, even if he was a nobleman and her employer.
Fortunately, she rarely glimpsed him more than once or twice a day.
Unfortunately, she dreamed about those glimpses in the wee hours of the night.
Now a dozen questions filled her mind. Why had he bowed? How terrible did she look? For how long had he been watching her? “How do you know my name?” she whispered.
He did not smile. She knew all the rumors. He had lost his wife and children in a fire some time ago and continued to grieve for them, and she felt terribly sad for him. He was too young to spend the rest of his life in mourning. “You are in my employ,” he said with a shrug. “I asked the steward.”
Alarm began. He must have asked about her because he intended to reprimand her—or worse. But before she could get a word out, he said, “Your foot is bleeding.”
She somehow tore her gaze from his face and looked down. He was right. She must have cut it on a stone. “I’m fine,” she managed to say. She realized she must, somehow, escape back to the house and the duties awaiting her there.
But he knelt, swiftly producing a crisp linen kerchief.
Gwen gaped.
“The wound is not deep, I think,” he said, and she had to bite down not to cry out as he put the unfolded linen on her foot, tying it in place. His hands were stunningly gentle.
What was he doing?
Swiftly, he stood. And his cheeks were red as he said, “I don’t think you should walk. You may ride Storm back to the house.”
She had become incoherent, wanting to protest, for surely this could not be. She was no lady, to be treated this way. But then, as the crimson stain on his cheeks darkened, he swept her into his arms before she could utter her protest.
He set her in the saddle. She was staring at him, remaining more shocked than she had ever been in her life, and his gaze met hers. “I’ll walk,” he said. “Just hold on to the saddle.”
And he led the horse with her on its back up the hill and to the house.
Now, Gwen had to sit down at her kitchen table.
The tears began, tears she had thought finished a long time ago.
That had been the first time she had ever been in Harry’s arms. The first time they had ever exchanged words.
After that, once or twice a day, he would pass her in the hall or study and inquire politely after her or her daughter.
Eventually she and Bridget had run into him on the street of the village and he had bought Bridget a sweet.
He began to appear outside their church on Sunday—David did not go to church and Lord Randolph was, of course, Protestant—and he would give them a ride home in his handsome carriage.