Buch lesen: «Legacy of Secrets»
Legacy of Secrets
Sara Mitchell
MILLS & BOON
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“Halt this instant! You’ve been shooting at me!”
Gray swiveled toward the voice, which emanated from behind a large, two-trunk oak. “Shooting at you?” he shouted back, marching across the glade. “Stop spouting nonsense and show yourself. I’m here to guide you back. You’ve nothing to fear.”
“I don’t believe you.” Neala Shaw, the bedraggled young woman with curly brown hair, brandished a tree limb in his face. “Who are you? You’re trespassing.”
Gray propped his shoulders against the tree. “You wouldn’t deter a kitten with that twig, much less a man with a gun.”
“Are you one of the sheriff’s new deputies?”
“No! I’m Isabella Chilton’s nephew. I just arrived for a visit. And I certainly didn’t plan on rescuing any damsels in distress today.”
“Well, what on earth are you angry for? You’re not the one who was almost killed!”
SARA MITCHELL
A popular and highly acclaimed author in the Christian-fiction market, Sara’s aim is to depict the struggle between the challenges of everyday life and the values to which our faith would have us aspire. The author of eight contemporary, three historical-suspense and two historical novels, her work has been published by many inspirational book publishers.
Sara has lived in diverse locations, from Georgia to California to Great Britain, and her extensive travel experience helps her create authentic settings for her books. A lifelong music lover, Sara has also written several musical dramas and has long been active in the music ministries of the churches wherever she and her husband, a retired career air force officer, have lived. The parents of two daughters, Sara and her husband now live in Virginia.
Jesus wept.
—John 11:35
For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor
the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God that is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
—Romans 8:38
For B.K. and Barry—neighbors and dear friends who
not only walk the extra mile, but provide new shoes,
food for the journey and umbrellas for all the storms
of life battering our family these past few years.
Thanks for being there.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to:
Dr. Robert S. Conte, historian, the Greenbrier
at White Sulphur Springs, for his hospitality, help and
endless patience with all my questions. Any historical
inaccuracies fall solely on my shoulders!
Melissa Endlich, my editor, whose enthusiasm and
insight warm the heart and energize the creative soul.
Janet Kobobel Grant, my long-suffering agent,
whose belief in me never falters.
Prologue
Richmond, Virginia
September 1862
On a humid, chilly evening in late September, the boy finally reached his goal. His journey had lasted three terrifying nights and four equally terrifying days; except for the first night, when he’d stowed away on a northbound freight train, he was forced to evade swarms of soldiers, rebel and bluecoats alike. They roamed the countryside and main roads like the biblical plague of locusts his grandmother talked about, the ones inflicted upon the Egyptians.
For two of those nights the boy hid shivering in fear under cover of a forest, in a thicket of wild rhododendron, his nose filled with the ripe odors of leaves and wet earth while a hundred yards away the awful sounds of bloodcurdling battle rent the air. The thought of killing a human being twisted his insides. When he could no longer bear the cold and fear and uncertainty, he clapped his hands over his ears, choking on tears wept in desperate silence.
Swallowing hard against the memory, he focused on his present surroundings—a narrow alley on a busy street. Tall brick buildings engulfed him instead of trees; a cluster of wooden crates shielded him instead of bushes. Instead of the noise of battle, the sounds of a city filled his ears. Buggies and wagons rattled past in the street. Crowds of people choked the walkways. As the moments passed, gradually he crept onto the sidewalk and huddled in the shadow of the doorway to some kind of store. Directly across the street, a fancy hotel rose in lofty grandeur between two nondescript brick buildings. Inside that hotel, the man he had traveled over a hundred miles to see dined with his family, oblivious to the existence of the scrawny thirteen-year-old boy who was his nephew.
Time passed while he tried to decide what to do. He could feel his heartbeat clear up inside his ears. Dusk settled in, and he watched the lamplighter’s progress along the street, lighting up the tall streetlights. Several times shiny carriages stopped in front of the hotel, collected and discharged men in top hats and expensive-looking suits, along with women in their hooped skirts wide enough for a flock of chickens to hide under. A colored man clad in a hideous purple uniform guarded the hotel entrance, nodding to arriving guests as he held open the door.
Several passersby glanced askance at the boy, and one frowning man in a greatcoat actually stopped, asked him what he was about, loitering on the walk.
“I’m waiting for my uncle.”
“And where might your uncle be, boy, that he left you here on the street after dark?”
Sweat gathered on his palms and at the small of his back. “Oh, he’ll be out in a few moments. He had to leave a message for someone in the hotel.”
“Hmm. Well—” his voice turned brisk “—that’s all right, then, I expect. How old are you, son?”
He stood straight, keeping his gaze open and earnest upon the gentleman. “Thirteen. You don’t need to worry about me, sir. I’m perfectly fine.” The cultured drawl of his proud North Carolina grandmother rolled easily off his lips, and he watched smugly as the lingering suspicion faded from the man’s face.
“Very well.” He touched two fingers to his top hat. “But you be careful, son. There’s a war going on, and it’s drawing closer to Richmond every day. I’d hate to see you conscripted into the army, though you’ve one foot in adulthood.” Some emotion flickered in his eyes. “War’s horrific enough for grown men. Don’t believe anyone who claims otherwise, or fills your head with stories of the glory of battle. You tell your uncle to take better care of you, in the future.”
“Yessir.”
The man patted his shoulder, then walked on.
The longing boiled up, fast and ferocious, as it always did. He watched the stranger stride down the street, wishing so fiercely it made his teeth hurt that he had a father who cared whether or not he loitered alone on a city street. Who tried to shield him from the brutality of war. Before the fear could take hold again, he darted across the street and ducked inside the hotel while the doorman was busy handing some ladies down out of a dark green brougham.
The lobby was a maze of gleaming oak columns and red-cushioned chairs scattered between huge urns of potted plants. Mindful that his clothes were rumpled and dirt stained, he slipped from urn to urn, behind columns, making his way toward the dining room. The scullery maid at his uncle’s imposing town house on Grace Avenue had been easily persuaded to provide directions to the hotel; ever since he’d been a toddler he’d perfected the art of pleasing females.
Heart thumping, as a large grandfather clock dolefully bonged nine times, he slipped inside the dining room—and saw them. Even when seated, his uncle was a commanding presence in his swallow-tail coat and blinding-white shirt, where a diamond stickpin winked with every motion he made. Next to him sat a pretty plump woman dressed in a deep red gown. Jet earrings and necklace decorated her ears and throat. That would be his aunt, and the two little boys dandified up in revolting little suits his cousins.
Everybody was smiling and talking, including the boys. He watched, still and silent as one of the wooden columns, while his uncle leaned over to hear something his wife was saying, a tender expression on his face the boy had never witnessed on another man’s countenance, not in his entire thirteen years.
The longing intensified until it was a monster, biting into him in chunks of indescribable jealousy and pain.
Suddenly one of the sons, the one barely a toddler, knocked over a glass. His older brother laughed.
Across the room, the boy tensed, not breathing, while he waited for the father to reprimand his son, to perhaps even backhand him. Waited for the mother to deliver a shrill scolding, to lecture the hapless child on proper deportment.
Instead, the father calmly signaled for the waiter, righted the glass himself. Then he ruffled his son’s hair, the expression of indulgence on his face visible all the way across the room.
Something snapped inside the boy.
That little boy should be him. He should have been part of a well-to-do family who dined in fancy hotels. His mother should be dressed in fancy lace and velvet, seated next to her husband. His father. His home should be the immense stone town house with the neatly manicured yard.
For years his mother and grandmother had filled his head with stories and promises of a grand Mission that someday he would undertake, to right a Grievous Wrong. Now, unnoticed and invisible to the family that should have been his, he made a vow of his own.
Chapter One
Charlottesville, Virginia
Spring 1889
The funeral service was over, the mourners dispersed. A light breeze carried the faint scent of spring hyacinths, and the sound of the church bell, tolling its doleful message. Six blocks away, Neala Shaw followed her brother Adrian up the front steps, into a house devoid of light and life. Silently they hung coat and cloak on the hall tree, then just as silently wandered into the parlor. Unable to bear the shadowed gloom, Neala made her way to the windows to pull back the curtains before confronting her brother.
“Adrian…what you said, about leaving?” The silken threads of the tassels holding the curtains were tangled; she concentrated on combing through each strand with her fingers. “Tell me you didn’t mean it.”
“I did mean it. Every word.” He tugged at his tie, yanking it off with quick, jerky movements. The stiff shirt collar followed. “Mother and Father are gone. Even if I wanted to, there’s no reason to stay here.”
Neala dropped the tassel and turned to stare blindly out the window, wishing just once her temperament would allow her the satisfaction of retaliating with equally hurtful words. How could Adrian behave so, when less than an hour earlier they had buried both parents?
She could still hear the sound of the shovels, still see the clumps of dirt pouring onto the coffins, signaling with brutal finality that, while Edward and Cora Shaw’s souls were with God, their lifeless bodies were forever consigned to the earth. Until she herself died, Neala would never see them again, never hear their voices, never inhale the scent of Mother’s honeysuckle toilet water or Father’s sandalwood hair tonic. Never feel the warmth of their hugs.
All because of an accident. A tragic, deadly accident that shocked the community and devastated the few members left in the Neal Shaw family.
“Adrian, this is our home. I don’t—”
“Was our home. The house and all its contents go on the auction block tomorrow, remember? Father may have been a respected university professor, but he knew as much about providing for his family as a squirrel finding nuts in a snowstorm.”
Neala winced. “Where will you go?”
He shrugged, abruptly looking much younger than his twenty years. “I bought a train ticket for Newport News yesterday. Always wanted to see the ocean.”
Curiosity overpowered caution. “Adrian, how on earth did you pay for the ticket?”
He avoided her gaze. “Sold Father’s watch,” he muttered after a minute. “I didn’t have anything else.” His voice rose in the face of Neala’s silence. “It’s not as though Father’s here to care one way or the other. Besides, it’s his fault we’re in this mess. You could always sell Grandfather’s legacy. I doubt if it’s worth more than a few dollars, but that’s more than Father left.”
He could have slapped her face and not wounded her so deeply. “I will never part with the clan crest badge. Perhaps that’s why Grandfather left it to me, instead of you.” Neala watched her brother’s face close up, but she was beyond placating him. “That crest has been part of the Shaw family for over three hundred years. Now it’s the only legacy we have left. It’s a shame I’m the only one who appreciates it.”
“What did you expect? They named you after him, not me. He left the crest badge to you, not me. Not his only surviving grandson.”
Silence gathered in the room, hanging like a damp fog. “I need to finish packing,” Adrian finally muttered. “You’ll be all right, won’t you, sis? With the auction, I mean?”
“I’ll manage just fine, Adrian.”
“Um…do you know what you’re going to do? Where will you live? The Johnsons’?”
“No, they don’t really have room, especially with Hannah in the family way.”
“Oh. What about the Marsdens?”
“Mr. Marsden suffers from sciatica. They’re moving to Thomasville, Georgia, this fall.”
Adrian hunched his shoulders, his expression sheepish but defiant. “Well, what about one of the boardinghouses where some of the teachers live?”
Neala folded her handkerchief into a neat square to give herself time to collect her sluggish thoughts. “Too expensive, I’m afraid, my dear.” She managed with Herculean effort to produce a matter-of-fact smile. “Mrs. Hobbs told me about a school for women,” she shared, the words dragging. “It’s farther north, somewhere up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I believe. She suggested I apply for residency there. I hadn’t considered it because you were here, and this school is apparently only for women who have lost all their family connections. Mrs. Hobbs says tuition is paid through donations or trusts or something, since the only applicants accepted are those who find themselves without any resources.” Carefully she kept her voice stripped of any hint of censure, but Adrian’s cheeks turned a dusky red.
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” he snapped. “This time tomorrow I’ll be long gone. Tell everyone I’m dead, too. The way things have gone over the past few years in our family, I may as well be.”
He stormed out of the parlor, and a moment later Neala heard the front door slam.
Philadelphia
The odors in the squalid alley would suffocate a buffalo. How could a human being survive, much less breathe here, Grayson Faulkner wondered as he and his partner picked their way down what seemed like a tunnel into perdition. A pack of snarling, slobbering dogs fought over the bloody carcass of another animal; Gray averted his gaze and breathed shallowly to keep his gorge at the low end of his throat. Rotting garbage, putrid food scraps and rusted tins formed piles higher than their heads. If he’d known what teaming up with a bounty hunter entailed, he’d never have let Marty Scruggs talk him into it.
When this job was finished, his old friend would have to hornswoggle a new partner. Seeking adventure all over the earth had been a satisfying way to explore life. But even Gray’s years as a deputy marshal out in Wyoming Territory, where he’d seen plenty of depravity in the wild cattle towns, hadn’t prepared him for the likes of a city slum.
Beside him, Marty gagged, then cheerfully cursed the dogs, the place, and the man they were looking for.
“I agree,” Gray said. “So I hate to break it to you now, but after this job, my friend, I’m through.”
“You and me both. But you lasted longer than I thought, seeing as unlike me, you’re a gent born with a whole place setting of silver spoons in his mouth.”
They passed a pile of steaming garbage, the stench so rank Gray’s eyes watered. When he finished this job, he’d take a long-needed vacation, he promised himself. Somewhere green and fresh, where the air sparkled and he could hear birdsong. Somewhere nobody knew or cared about his prowess with a gun, or his family. Surely some little corner of this vast country could provide relief for a man on the verge of destroying whatever passed for his soul.
“Isn’t this the one?” Marty hissed.
“Looks like it,” Gray agreed after a moment.
They climbed several flights of creaking stairs lit only by a single bulb hanging from a long wire in the wretched foyer; the higher they climbed, the darker and more stale the air grew. Through thin, decrepit doors they heard voices arguing, babies wailing, smelled the stomach-turning odors of urine, sweat and mildew along with rancid food. Gray opened one flap of his shapeless sack coat, curling his fingers around the holstered Smith & Wesson revolver. It was a new hammerless model that had replaced his trusty Peacemaker; Gray was as proud of the New Departure model as a parent with a precocious child.
“I’m right glad you’re along.” Marty grinned slyly. “Still the best marksman east of the Mississippi, I hear.”
Gray felt heat burn his ears and cheeks. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, or read, but likely it’s tommyrot.”
They reached the top floor; in wordless accord they approached the door on the end, and Marty knocked twice. The churning in Gray’s belly stilled, and an almost eerie calm descended—the falcon, poised to swoop upon its prey.
The door opened a crack, just enough for the two men to see a woman’s pitted face and suspicious eyes. “Don’t know ye,” she snapped. “Go ’way.”
Marty planted his foot in the door. “We’re here to collar Kevin Hackbone. Please step aside, ma’am. We know he’s in here, and we know there’s no way out except through this door.”
Gray watched a multitude of expressions streak across her face, unable to completely divorce himself from an uprising of pity. If she’d had a chance, a decent place to live and a man who took care of her…He stepped closer, crowding the doorway until reluctantly the woman stepped back. “He won’t go easy,” she said, jerking her chin toward a narrow hall.
“His choice,” Gray returned quietly.
“If you help us, it’ll be better for you,” Marty added. He exchanged glances with Gray, then tugged out a pair of handcuffs and headed down the hall, to a closed door. “Come on out, Kevin,” he called. “You’re under arrest back in New York City, for robbery, assault and battery, and too many other crimes to waste more breath on.”
“Come and get me, ya boot-kissing son of a sewer rat!” a nasal voice yelled through the flimsy panel.
“Now, Kevin, there’s two of us out here.” He shot Gray a quick glance, winked. “One of us is the Falcon himself. You’ve heard about him, right? Might wriggle away from me, but you know and I know you’ll never make it past him.”
“Got a knife, boyo. And I’ll use it, I will.”
“I’ve got a gun,” Gray called back, glaring at his irrepressible friend. “And I’ll use it.”
The door opened. Looking like a mangy ferret, Kevin eyed the cuffs dangling from Marty’s hand, then glanced down the hall where Gray waited by the door. After a long moment, Kevin heaved a sigh and held out his hands. “Knew it was just a matter of time,” he muttered, all bluster gone.
Going too easy, Gray thought with a prickle of disquiet. He watched, every muscle tensed, waiting for Kevin to make a move as Marty proceeded to handcuff his hands behind his back.
“No!” the woman behind Gray suddenly shrieked, a demented scream ripping from her throat. She dashed down the hall before Gray could stop her, and there was a knife in her hands, a knife she lifted high above her head, a knife aimed for Marty’s unprotected back.
It happened too fast. Even as he raced after her, shouting at her, Gray knew he was too late. Too late he screamed somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind as he lifted the gun and fired but the knife had already plunged into Marty’s back. Marty half turned, his eyes wide with disbelief. He shook his head, his gaze finding and holding Gray’s even as his hands fell away from Kevin and he dropped to his knees, then crumpled on top of the dead woman—the first woman Gray had ever been forced to kill.
Gray scarcely noticed Kevin’s escape. He gathered Marty in his arms, feeling the blood soaking his hands. “Hold on,” he pleaded, pressing against the wound with all his might. “Hold on, Marty. You have to hold on….”
The friendly brown eyes, always so full of humor, full of life, were glazed now, staring vaguely up into Gray’s face. Marty’s mouth moved, and he coughed, blood trickling down his chin. “Gray…” he whispered, one hand fumbling aimlessly until Gray grabbed it, gripped it tightly. “Glad it wasn’t you, Falcon…” The ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. “Would…ruin…your reputation.”
His head lolled, and his body went slack.
His friend was gone.
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