Wild Roses (19 page)

Harrigan watched the big, dull-faced Matthew drag Ella away. It took every ounce of his will not to go and yank her out of the man's rough hold. Harold was certainly not acting as if an errant child had been returned to the fold, more as if a prisoner was being returned to her cell.

“I just found it odd that both of them told the very same story,” Harrigan murmured.

“Well, of course they would. They've had several years to concoct it and perfect its telling. I fear Louise is mostly at fault. She wants the child to stay with her and has slowly turned Ella against us.”

“If you say so, sir. My next question concerns the money owed me.”

“You'll be paid,” Harold said and briefly shook Harrigan's hand before disappearing into his house.

George stepped up next to Harrigan. “I believe the man intends to try and cheat us out of that money.”

“Well, he can think again.”

Harrigan looked up at the windows on the second floor. One glimpse of a small, pale face was enough to tell him which room Ella was in. He was not sure what he could do, or how useful that knowledge might be, but he was pleased to have it. Even if he decided not to do anything, he was determined to let Louise know which room her niece was in. Harrigan was still not quite sure how dangerous Harold was, but he was sure that the man deserved every drop of aggravation Louise could deal out.

One other thing he was sure of was that he hated what he had just done. The look of hurt on Ella's face was burned into his mind. He felt wracked with guilt and self-loathing. Right up until he had handed her to Harold he had convinced himself that he could do it, even that it was the best way to handle matters. Now he felt as if he had been kicked in the gut, and the one who had delivered the blow was himself.

“Why was Louise arrested?” he asked George as, knowing there was nothing he could accomplish by standing outside of Harold's house staring up at the window, he grasped the reins of the horses and started to walk toward his office.

“Because Harold ordered it,” George replied.

“Are you sure that is the reason?”

“Very sure. That fool Thompson nearly said so himself. There was no outright confession that he was taking a totally innocent group of people to jail simply because Harold Carson told him to, but he was too stupid to think of a good excuse to cover himself.”

“Louise must have been furious.”

“Yes, but not surprised.”

“And how was your little journey with the group?”

George smiled faintly. “You aren't really interested in that, at least not now.”

Harrigan grimaced and shook his head. “Sorry, old friend, I was just trying to make conversation.”

“There are other things you need to do besides try and be pleasant.”

“Such as make sure that bastard pays us for the dirty work we did for him?”

“There is that. I was thinking more of what you can do to take that load of guilt off your shoulders.”

“That noticeable, is it?” Harrigan released a short, bitter bark of laughter. “I'm still not sure the man means to kill her, but I do know it was wrong to bring her back here. He means her no good. I do, wholeheartedly, believe one thing she accused him of, and that is wanting her money. I just have to decide if he's capable of murder to get it.”

“I believe he is,” George said quietly.

“Then help me prove it. Perhaps I should go and talk to Louise.”

“If you're in the mood for a great deal of abuse, go right ahead.”

“Even if she feels like spitting in my eye, don't you think she'll answer my questions if it might help Ella?” Harrigan paused across the street from the jail and worried his bottom lip with his teeth.

“Yes, I think she will. I do not, however, think she will believe that you are going to help Ella until you actually do so. Go on then,” he urged. “I'll wait here and hold the horses.”

“Not going to come with me?” Harrigan felt a little hesitant about going on his own.

“I believe I'll give her a little time to calm down before I go to see her. Just ask her what she wants me to do with her horses.”

“Alright, but there is a chance the answer will be profane.”

George briefly grinned. “A very big chance, but then she will tell you what I should really do.”

Harrigan followed Thompson to the cells. He winced a little under Louise's glare then noticed that she redirected her anger to something behind him. A quick glance revealed that Thompson had no intention of allowing them any privacy. Warily, Harrigan stepped closer to Louise's cell, nodding briefly to the four youths in the next cell. Thompson was far enough away, trying to act as if he was not listening, so Harrigan hoped that if he and Louise talked very softly they might actually be able to exchange a few bits of information.

“You have a lot of nerve coming here to face me after what you've done,” Louise said. “You've already delivered my niece to that bastard, haven't you?”

“Yes. I made a bargain with the man.”

“A devil's bargain.”

“I begin to think so.”

“If you were having doubts,” she whispered, suddenly lowering her voice, “then why did you bring her here? Why didn't you just set her somewhere safe until you were sure which one of us was telling you the truth?”

“I don't think we'll be allowed the time to really discuss this in the depth it needs. I promised Ella that I would now look into Harold's affairs.” He kept his voice very low, forcing Louise to lean against the bars. “I need names.”

“It's a little late now, don't you think?”

“She's still alive. I thought you might have a few pieces of information you would like to share, things that might shorten the time I spend finding the truth.”

To his relief, Louise began to tell him names, incidents, and anything else she could think of. Since he did not dare write it all down, he struggled to remember it. Once she began, however, he knew he would have to come back again or have George do so. She was giving him far more than he could remember. He finally asked her to stop, promising her he would be back for more as it was needed. He then asked her what George was to do with her horses, not surprised by her first, very painful suggestion, but then she sighed and gave him some instructions to relay to George.

Once he returned to George, they shared a brief smile over her first suggestion about the horses, then went to see that the animals were properly cared for. George was a little intimidated by the number of people they would have to check, but he was more than willing to be the one to go visit Louise and get more information as needed. They had no proof of anything yet, but the wealth of information Louise was ready to provide made Harrigan uneasy. He desperately wanted to find out just what the truth was, but he was beginning to fear that the truth was exactly what both Ella and Louise had been trying to tell him from the start.

“What do you want me to do first?” George asked as they returned to Harrigan's office, opening a window to air the place out, and then sitting down in his chair to face Harrigan directly.

“I think you should keep a close watch on Harold,” Harrigan replied as he sprawled in his chair.

“That's what Louise asked me to do. She wants to know whatever happens at that house, whatever Harold does, and any news of Ella.”

“And I want our money. I may have just sold my soul for it and I'll be damned if that bastard will cheat me out of it.”

“The man will be tripping over me each time he tries to leave his house.”

“Good. If he's planning to do something illegal, he'll pay you off just to get you out of his way. He certainly won't want someone constantly watching him. Once you get the money he owes us, you can continue to watch his house, but do so covertly.”

“And what will you be doing?”

Harrigan looked at the list he had been making, trying to write down as much of what Louise had told him as he could before he forgot it all. “I'll be trying to find someone, anyone, who will tell me something I can use against Harold. I may be slow to do what I should, but believe me, it will be done thoroughly. If Harold has used us to give him a victim, he'll pay dearly for it.”

Ella paced her room, pausing only to try the door, find it locked, and curse. After catching herself at that fruitless endeavor for the fifth time, she clenched her hands at her side, and took several deep, slow breaths to try to calm herself. She wanted to hurl herself at the door until it fell open, but told herself firmly that that would be stupid. The door was solid oak with heavy iron hinges. She would just hurt herself.

She felt torn apart by fury, pain, and fear. Despite all that had passed between them, Harrigan had handed her over to her relatives without hesitation. He had muttered some vague promises about keeping a close watch on her, but she refused to have any faith in his promises. With that one traitorous act he had shown her that he had never believed her, so she refused to believe in him. Her brief bout of understanding had faded the minute she had been given into Harold's hands. Ella found it hard to believe that Harrigan would ever take Harold's word over hers. He had his blood money and she had been fool enough to let him enjoy the use of her body. There was no reason for him to stay around and certainly no profit in it.

“And you have far more important things to worry about than some handsome, grey-eyed rogue,” she grumbled, and kicked over a footstool. “Idiot,” she cursed herself as she hobbled over to her bed, sat down, yanked off her slipper, and rubbed her sore foot. “You will not get far if you break your foot.”

“Ella?” called a tremulous female voice from the other side of the door. “Are you in there?”

“No, I'm waltzing down the promanade,” Ella snapped as she limped to the door, wondering if some miracle was about to happen and her cousin Margaret was going to set her free.

“There is no need to be pert. It is I, your cousin Margaret. Eleanor is here too. We wished to talk to you about Harrigan Mahoney.”

Ella slumped against the door, cursed, and shook her head. She was locked in a room facing death at the whim of her relatives, and these two women wanted to gossip about Harrigan. He was the last person she wanted to talk about. There was, however, a slim chance that she could fool or cajole her cousin into setting her free, a very slim chance, but one she had to try for.

“We could talk more clearly and freely if you would open this thick door,” Ella suggested, not really surprised when the two young women giggled, but thinking that it was a particularly cruel thing for them to do.

“Come, cousin, do you think we are stupid?”

Deciding it was best if she did not reply to that, Ella sighed. “I had thought that you might not wish to be party to a murder.”

“Murder? Carsons do not spill the blood of their own.”

“No, they hire others to do it for them.”

“Ella! Eleanor and I have come to visit, to have a pleasant chat, and all you can do is spit accusations at us. If you do not wish to talk about Mr. Mahoney, you need but say so. There is no need to be so unpleasant.”

For a moment, Ella stared at the heavy door and wondered if Margaret was truly ignorant of her father's deadly plans, then shook her head. Margaret had helped her father destroy the lives of half a dozen men and their families. She was also very close to her father. In fact, Harold and Margaret's love for each other was sometimes so obvious and intense it was uncomfortable to see. The woman knew exactly what her father wanted and just how far he would go to get it. Under Margaret's genteel, pretty face, the woman was as cold and as avaricious as her father.

“Many pardons. I fear the thought of my impending death has made me ill-tempered. What do you wish to know about Mr. Mahoney? I am not certain I can tell you very much. I was merely his prisoner.” Ella realized that, despite her hurt and anger, she did not want to tell these women anything they could then use against Harrigan. Their families had hurt him enough.

Margaret laughed, a high, light, trilling sound she had practiced long hours to achieve. “Cousin, you are modestly fair of face and Mr. Mahoney is a rogue. Would you have us believe that nothing passed between the two of you?”

“Yes, because nothing did.”

Ella subdued the urge to tell Margaret and Eleanor that she and Harrigan had made wild, passionate love all the way from Wyoming to Philadelphia. She might yet escape her dire situation alive and she did not want that little bit of news to be spread far and wide. Giving Eleanor's haughty pride a little tweak was simply not worth the price she might have to pay. She wavered slightly in her decision when she heard Eleanor say, “I told you Harrigan would never touch such a thin, plain mouse like Ella.” The woman's vanity certainly deserved a thorough bruising. Ella hastily pushed aside all thought of how intimate Eleanor and Harrigan might have been during their courtship. That was something she neither should know, nor wanted to know, anything about.

“But Ella, you were alone with him,” Margaret began in a too sweet voice.

“Not often. And Margaret, you may deny that I have been brought here to die, but I certainly believe it. Do you really think I would stoop so low as to become romantically involved with the man who is dragging me to my own execution?” Margaret did not need to know the depths of her stupidity, Ella thought glumly.

“Well, you could have thought it would help you gain the freedom you so crave.”

“Harrigan was fooled once by close friends of this family. He is too smart to be fooled twice.”

“Any man can be fooled by a woman,” Eleanor said, her voice heavy with scorn. “They are easy to blind with sweet words, promises, and passion. One simply must know how to stroke their vanity and stir their passions. A man caught tight in the net of his own desires cannot think clearly.”

Ella was a little shocked at the cold, cynical way Eleanor spoke of men and then wondered why she was. The woman thought nothing of winning a man's affections so that her family could more easily steal all he owned. Despite all her efforts not to, she also wondered just how deeply Eleanor had stirred Harrigan's passions and if the woman had then satisfied them in any way. The images that that thought brought into her mind were painful and she shook her head, fruitlessly trying to fling them aside. What Harrigan had done before they had met was not her concern, not even if they had shared more than a fierce passion. She knew what troubled her most was not that he had been some other woman's lover once, but that he had been Eleanor's. That realization angered her, for it made her feel even more the fool than she already did.

“And that is when you steal all that is important to him, isn't it, Eleanor,” Ella said, forcing herself to concentrate on Eleanor's crimes and to try to forget the woman's love affairs.

“If the man does not have the strength or the wit to cling tightly to what is his, he deserves to lose it.”

“No man deserves the treachery you visited upon those poor fools you wooed, won, and discarded.”

“How high-minded you are. If all you mean to do is preach to us, I believe we will leave you alone.”

“I am prostrate with grief.”

“You have more than earned your fate,” snapped Margaret. “If you had tried harder to be more amiable, more pleasant of nature, you would not have stirred Papa's anger.”

“I have not stirred his anger, Margaret, only his greed.”

“Curse you and the fates that made you stay behind the day the rest of your family went boating. You ruined many a good plan.”

Ella stared at the door as she listened to the two women walk away. A coldness gripped her, sweeping through her body until she shivered. She told herself that Margaret's parting words were simply meant to be hurtful, no more than a spiteful child's wish that she had died years ago so that she could not plague the woman now. It was not an assertion she could make herself believe, no matter how often she repeated the words. The words Margaret had spat out were little more than a curse; it was the cold, hard way Margaret had spoken them that troubled Ella so.

She gritted her teeth, forced herself to walk to the bed, and sat down. Her hand shaking slightly, she clutched at her locket, running her thumb back and forth over the embossed rose on the front. There had been knowledge weighting Margaret's words, the strong insinuation that she knew something about the boating accident that had stolen away Ella's family that warm summer day seven years ago. Ella was certain that Margaret knew it had been no accident.

“How could I have been so blind, so utterly stupid?” she whispered, fighting back a grief she had thought she'd conquered years ago.

There was no doubt in her mind now that her family had been murdered. She was also certain that no one would believe her if she made the accusation. She had no proof, and, if she repeated what Margaret had said, she would be thought foolish or mad to have read so much into one angry statement. There was no clear admission in those harsh words, but Ella knew that was exactly what it was.

Fear became a hard knot in her stomach. She had known for a long time that Harold wanted her dead. Knowing that he had already committed murder, however, made it all the more starkly certain, and much more terrifying. Anyone who could kill three people, including a babe in arms, would not blink an eye at killing her. A small part of her had always hoped that she could change Harold's mind or continue to elude him. Now she knew she had never had a chance.

The sound of the door being unlocked yanked her from her dark thoughts. She struggled to push aside her fear, to adopt an expression of anger and derision, as her uncle by marriage and two of his hulking men entered the room. As she held Harold's cold stare one of his men set a tray of food and drink on the small writing desk in the corner of the room.

“Food for the prisoner? How kind,” she drawled.

“You brought this trouble upon your own head, m'dear,” Harold said in a soft, cold voice.

“Odd, I do not recall requesting that I be dragged back here and locked in this room.” Ella could see that she was angering Harold and knew that was dangerous, but a cold, cynical voice in her head said that it did not really matter. The man intended to kill her, and being sweet and obedient would only make it easier for him.

“This treatment is necessary because of your constant attempts to run away.”

“Not attempts—successes. You would never have pulled me back here without help.”

“Which cost me dearly,” he said, his voice slightly rougher as his anger grew stronger.

“Good.” She resisted the urge to lean back when he took a step closer to her. “I should hate to think that my life was bought cheaply. I just hope you used your own money and not what you anticipate gaining from my death.”

“Child, I am your guardian—”

“Only because you killed my parents before they could alter their will.”

It was hard not to stare at him in surprise when he visibly reacted to her accusation. His too-narrow face hardened, the bones standing out with an ugly clarity. His cold eyes narrowed and he clenched his hands so tightly that his thick knuckles turned white. Obviously there was proof of his crime somewhere, or he thought there was, and he now believed that she had found it. Ella knew she had just given him another reason to kill her.

“You clearly need more time alone to reflect upon your errant and foolhardy ways.” He signaled the two men with him to go out the door even as he backed toward it. “You have not yet recognized your own faults and weaknesses in character.”

“My only fault was in trusting you, and my only weakness was in allowing you to keep breathing,” she snapped, racing toward the door even as he shut it behind him and locked it.

Ella fruitlessly yanked on the door latch, then kicked the door, cursing when she hurt her foot again. Part of her fury was bred of fear, but a greater part was born of the injustice of it all. Even if she escaped, or her Aunt Louise made the man pay for whatever he did to her there would never be any retribution for the death of her family. Even if Harold feared there was proof, Ella doubted there was any, not after seven long years.

She limped over to her desk and sat down, staring morosely at the meal in front of her. Although she was not hungry, she knew it would be foolish to weaken herself through hunger. There was always the slim chance that she could escape or be rescued and she needed her strength so that she could grasp whatever small opportunity might come her way.

The food was tasteless to her, her mind too clogged with thought for her to appreciate the cook's efforts. She had let her anger take control again and it had cost her. Not only had she made Harold even more determined to kill her, but she had neglected to find out what had happened to her aunt and the others. Ella was not sure how much trouble Harold could make for them, and she needed to know if they were free.

She stared out of the barred window as she drank the tart lemonade, thinking morosely that Harold had planned well for her return. So well that she might not be able to escape even if Louise and the others were free to help her. It took more effort than she thought it ought to to push away the sudden sense of defeat that swept over her. She would not let it take root, however. It just did not seem right that a man like Harold could continue to commit such crimes and never have to answer for them. It certainly did not seem right that she should have to die simply because she had money.

As she set the glass back on the desk, she frowned, wondering why that simple act had suddenly seemed so difficult. Ella shook her head. There were still a lot of thoughts swirling about in her head, but they were no longer clear. It was hard to center her mind on any one of them. She fiercely blinked her eyes as the objects on the desk became less distinct, but that only made her dizzy. Suddenly, in one brief flash of clarity, she stared at the now empty glass. The lemonade had held a lot more than a refreshing tartness. Ella struggled to stand up, then cursed Harold as blackness flooded through her mind and she slid to the floor.