Devil Moon Page 3

  Cain and Abel his mother had called them. Brother fighting brother. He’d whipped Theodor that time, the only time, the only way he was capable of whipping him, with his fists. Theodor had taken a close look at the company books after that fight. He’d quickly found that his younger brother had been siphoning money out of the business to support his gambling weakness. Enraged, Theodor had wanted him out of the company, wanted to buy him out, but he’d refused to sell.

  “I’ll make you a promise, dear brother,” Zack had sworn. “You’ll never see me again and you’ll never get these shares while I’m living.” He’d ridden away from Wishbone a day later, hating his brother, knowing Theodor had been right. He’d never admitted it though, didn’t think he ever would. Let Theodor worry about him, wonder about what he would do with his remaining shares of the company. Let Theodor know that he might toss his only brother out of the family but he wouldn’t toss him out of the Gamble Line. Not before Zack Gamble was ready to go.

  Zack moaned, wished he felt up to having a drink. He’d been like the young Frenchman once, so cocky and sure of himself, so aware the real game among a table of players was in the minds and not in the cards. Twenty years ago he had been Rhys Delmar, not as handsome, not as polished, but as daring and devil-may-care as they came. And now...A pain shot down his left arm, a torturing spray of needles inside the trembling muscles. For a moment, until it eased, he lost his train of thought.

  A person’s whole world, his whole life could be dealt away in a game of cards. He wondered if Rhys Delmar knew that yet. Zack shook himself. Maybe he did have the whole world strapped on his back. Maybe it had been there the five endless years since he’d ridden out of Arizona. Maybe it was time to let it go. That thought gave him the first easy feeling he’d had since he’d arrived in London four months back. Zack was grinning when Rhys Delmar returned to the table.

  “Another hand, Rhys,” he said insistently.

  “Mons...Zack,” Rhys said, trying to dissuade the American. Zack Gamble sounded more the man he’d met the night before, but his face had paled to ashen and his eyes had the pained look of a man in need of a long rest. “To wager with a man for more than he can afford to lose is not my way.”

  “I’m not busted yet,” Zack said loudly. With a resolute look deep in his fevered eyes he tugged at his coat. His fingers went fumbling into all the pockets until at last, from one sewn into the lining, he extracted a thin leather sheath. Worn, contoured like the chest wall it had rested upon for so long, the sheath yielded a packet of yellowed papers which Zack spread upon the table. “I own forty percent of the Gamble Stage Line. Look here,” he said, heavily drumming a finger on the documents. “The finest express outfit in the whole of Arizona.”

  “Zack,” Rhys said indulgently. “An express company in the wilderness. What is that to me?”

  “About four times as much as you’ve taken off me tonight. Cash if you want it that way. I can make the arrangements tomorrow with my brother’s agent here. By damn, my brother will give top dollar. He wants those shares bad.”

  Rhys shook his head, feeling a shame he rarely felt when he had won so much. He wasn’t about to compound it by leaving the American a complete pauper. “I’ll come by your rooms tomorrow afternoon to redeem the marks,” he said. “If you trade for cash with your brother’s agent then we will play again at a later date.”

  Zack angrily scrubbed his chair back from the table, planted his palms on the card-strewn surface as he leaned over it and into the face of Rhys Delmar. “You owe me another chance, Frenchman. You picked me clean as a buzzard picks bones. You owe me a chance to win back what I lost. One hand,” Zack demanded and felt no remorse that he had lied. His brother had no agent in London. Collecting from Theodor Gamble would take time, but then Zack did not intend to lose.

  “As you wish,” Rhys said. He had seen that look before, a man’s refusal to admit defeat until it bit his head off. Regretfully, he pushed a fresh deck of cards to Zack. He would play the hand but it would be of no account. He had no desire for what the man offered and no desire to ruin Zack Gamble. He also had no desire to relinquish any of his winnings to salve the man’s pride. He would play the hand. For now he would give the man what he wanted, then he would be rid of him. Otherwise he was faced with calling someone to remove the stubborn American from the countess’s apartment. Tomorrow, when the man was calmer, and had realized how foolhardy he had been, he would be happy to pay his marks and take back his express company papers.

  The clock did not move a quarter hour before Zack Gamble threw up his hands acknowledging his loss. Slowly, with every exertion paining him, he struggled to his feet, slid the worn leather sheath from his pocket and slapped it down on the center of the table. Zack called for a pen and ink, which Lucien quickly provided. Despite Rhys’s urging that he wait until the morrow to transfer title, Zack insisted that one of the house servants be called and that he and Lucien witness the transfer.

  Begrudgingly, Rhys did as the man asked, knowing it would be all the more of a nuisance to find witnesses for the undoing of the deed. Annoyed, but glad to see the evening at an end without a worse mishap, Rhys pocketed the sheath and the marks so that he would not forget to have them with him when he called upon the American the following afternoon.

  “Bring your marks by at two,” he said to Rhys, oddly composed for a man who had gambled away the last of his possessions. “I’ll have your winnings for you then.”

  Rhys insisted on having Lucien call a cab for the man. And Rhys saw him to the door as it waited outside.

  He was unaware, however, that Zack Gamble was laughing as he left the apartment, laughing in spite of the pain that spread like venom to his shoulder and arm, laughing in spite of the leadenness of his feet and the difficulty of drawing each breath. Let the Frenchman find Theodor if he wanted to collect. Let Theodor find him in hell if he did not like what had become of his brother’s share of the company. What did he care? His promise was kept. He would never get back to Wishbone.

  But Theodor, high and mighty Theodor, would wish he had.

  Chapter 4

  The black satin eye mask the countess found essential for sleep had slipped out of place on one side, exposing a puffed bluish lid and the ever-deepening series of lines at the corner of her closed eye. Hers had been an elegant face once and even now with the right application of powder and rouge it was enough to turn a head. Her figure, once the talk of Paris salons, had grown rounded and overripe to the point that even the tightest cinching of corset could not restore the wasplike waist she had once proudly displayed. But with characteristic good nature she dismissed her added girth and was known to chirp, “the more to hold, cher ami,” to her young men.

  Rhys cast a glance at the slumbering countess as a thump outside the door awakened him. He saw that in spite of the displacement of her mask, the countess slept deeply, snoring softly as he quietly stirred from the bed, pushing layer upon layer of silk covers off him as he swung his long legs to the floor and reached for his linen dressing gown. Raking a disarray of black curls from his forehead, he hastened—barefooted—to the door to answer the unmistakable knock of Lucien Bourget.

  “Hurry,” came Lucien’s agitated whisper. “I’ve brought her inside. Hurry! She’s calling for you.”

  To see Lucien ruffled was enough to jolt him completely awake. “Who?” he demanded. “Why?”

  “There’ll be trouble from this,” Lucien babbled as he broke into a shuffling run toward the drawing room. “She’ll not last I think.”

  Totally baffled, Rhys also ran for the drawing room. Muffled moans, and the soft mouthing of his name, drew his chilled feet toward the room. He was unprepared for what awaited him, the crumpled figure, the cries of pain, the smell of blood.

  “Jenny!” he cried. “Jenny!”

  Jenny lay upon the couch. Her face was tormented, her eyes glazed with pain. Rhys hastened to her and knelt at her side, cuddling her in his arms, finding the front of her black woolen clo
ak wet through with warm blood.

  “Jenny, what has happened to you?”

  The woman trembled and gasped a breath as she clung to him. “Done you a bad turn,” she whispered. “Should have come to you first...Took it upon myself to right things...For Mariette...”

  “Get a physician!” Rhys shouted to Lucien. “And be fast about it!”

  Lucien fled the room. His uneven gait beat a loud retreat on the marble tiles of hallway. In the moments since he had found Jenny and brought her inside, he had completely forgotten the well-dressed man he had seen across the street. The red-haired man had tucked a scrap of something white in his pockets and walked swiftly away, as Lucien swept Jenny into his arms.

  Rhys bent his head to Jenny’s face and kissed her cool cheeks, her forehead.

  “Get away, lad” she whispered. “Not safe. Leave now. He’ll do you the harm he’s done me.” Her voice faded so that Rhys could scarcely hear it. “Get away from—”

  “Who, Jenny? Who hurt you?” Rhys demanded, too distraught to note Jenny’s warning of a danger to him. He held her closer, felt her cringe with added pain, and wishing to spare her more, lowered her gently to the couch’s soft cushions. “Tell me.”

  Jenny breathed a gurgling breath as a blood-streaked hand clutched a length of gold chain circling her neck. “Mariette’s,” she said pulling the chain and locket free and pressing it into his hand.

  Rhys knew the locket. His mother had worn it through all the time that filled his memory of her. He thought she wore it still, in death. But there it was, stained scarlet with Jenny’s blood. Silently, he took it from the trembling hand and held it in his open palm, feeling the warmth of Jenny’s body fade from the intricately filigreed gold even as the strength faded from the woman beside him. He supposed his mother had given Jenny the locket before she died. Jenny had been as close as a sister to his mother, her dearest friend.

  “Letter,” she mumbled. “Alain has—”

  “Alain should be here with his mother,” he said gently cradling her in his arms once more. “I’ll send Lucien for him when he brings the physician.”

  Jenny gave a tiny cry. “Alain,” she whispered. “Tell Alain I love...”

  He felt a shock run through her, a frisson of movement gathering all that remained of life in Jenny Perrault. He felt the fluttering of it leaving her, like a bird taking flight in the dark of a still night. He felt helpless and small as he witnessed that transition, as he felt the endless emptiness of her body when life was gone from it.

  Rhys slumped to his knees and stared at the shell of Jenny Perrault. What had brought her here? What had brought dear Jenny all the way from the south of France? She’d never left her homeland before, he was certain of that. Not even to see Alain. Why now? Had she been trying to warn him of something? Or had she been babbling in delirium? Rhys was so heavy-hearted he could barely move. But he explored the pockets of Jenny’s cloak. She’d spoken of a letter. He wanted to find it and deliver it to Alain. It seemed so little to do for one who had meant so much to him and his mother. The letter must have been of tremendous importance for Jenny to have spoken of it in her dying words.

  His search went unrewarded. If Jenny had carried a letter for Alain it was not with her now. Rhys rocked back on his heels, squeezed his eyes shut and said a prayer of peace for Jenny’s soul.

  Poor dear Jenny. Dead. What had happened to her? Reason returning, he probed beneath her cloak to discover that the wound which had robbed her of life had been made by a knife. Whose? And why? Who would harm a gentle old woman like Jenny Perrault? No thief would have imagined she carried more than a ha’penny in her pockets.

  Hands trembling, questions racking his mind, Rhys smoothed the bloodlessly transparent eyelids over her fixed gray orbs. He turned a fold of her dark, worn cloak over her blanched, lifeless face and left her.

  He’d loved Jenny almost as much as he’d loved his mother. Jenny’s devoted care had sustained Mariette Delmar through long years of illness and suffering. The last year would have been unbearable but for Jenny. She’d seen that the money he sent obtained the best doctors and treatment for his mother, though finally her weak heart had simply given in to the illness. She’d died less than two months before. The burial cost had taken the last of his resources. He’d left for London shortly afterwards, wanting a change of scene, hoping to find peace in a new place.

  What was he to tell Alain? Then the next disturbance came. He was dressed by then, or as close as he would get that day. The countess’s plump bare arm was thrown above her head on the down-filled pillow. She continued her soft snoring, in deep sleep, until the insistent, angry rapping at the bedroom door awakened her, abruptly. Confused, she clumsily tore the satin mask from her eyes and unwillingly greeted the morning.

  “That man of yours, cher ami!” she cried to her young lover. “Stop him before he cracks my head with his pounding!”

  Rhys hurried to the door. What had brought about Lucien’s insistent pounding he could not guess. The physician must already have discovered he had arrived too late to be of help to Jenny.

  “Lucien, what...” he started to say, as he flung open the heavy door.

  Lucien was accompanied by a pair of constables who stood ready to apply their shoulders to the door. With them was a stranger, an agitated wreck of a man. Rhys had never before seen him.

  “ ’E’s the one!” The man aimed a filthy finger at Rhys. “Put ’is blade in the wench then climbed in ’at window ’ere!”

  Screeching his accusation he pushed past Rhys and pointed at the bank of Japanese orange velvet draperies covering the bedroom window which overlooked the street. “ ’E killed ’er! No doubt about it!”

  Rhys, temper flaring, grabbed the stranger by the collar and thrust him hard against the hallway’s paneled wall. “Tell the truth!” he shouted. “I’ve never seen you and you’ve never seen me.”

  The constables, each grabbing hold of an arm, voiced warnings as they forcefully pulled Rhys clear of the man. “Your name, sir?” one of them queried.

  “Rhys Delmar,” he answered, shaking himself loose of their combined grasps. “Marc André Rhys Delmar. Jenny was dear to me. I’d never have hurt her.”

  “ ’E did it!” the stranger repeated.

  Rhys had never thought himself capable of taking a life, but as he looked at the man who had invaded his apartment, the man who accused him of murdering the last person he loved, he reconsidered what he might do, if pushed further.

  “Be certain, man,” one of the constables warned.

  “ ’E’s the one!” the man hissed through the gap of missing teeth. “ ’Im!”

  Fighting his rage, Rhys looked at the lying beggar and was gratified to see the bloke shudder.

  “Who is this man?” he asked of the constables. “Who is he to accuse me? He must have done it himself.”

  “And then run lookin’ fer a constable?” The stranger laughed warily. “Ye’r full of it,” he said.

  Rhys turned his back on the man lest he worsen his cause by attacking him again. “I was in my bed when my man brought Jenny in. I was sleeping,” he explained to the constables. “Ask him.”

  “Was he in his bed man?” the constable demanded of Lucien. “Did you see him there?”

  Lucien Bourget had seen no such thing. But he was as sure of the master’s innocence as he was of his own. Besides that, he owed Rhys Delmar his very life if the truth be told. “Sound asleep. I woke him, sir,” Lucien insisted.

  “ ’E’s lyin’! ’E’s in it too!”

  The constables looked uncertainly at the stranger, then at Rhys. Just as Rhys thought he’d weighted the case to his favor, one of the constables spotted the countess peering through the bedroom door. Tangled yellow hair swinging to her shoulders, quivering inside her russet silk robe, she’d heard enough to feel the damaging sting of a scandal.

  Face reddening, the oldest of the constables approached the countess. “Madam, can you account for this man? ’As he been
out this morning? Think hard.”

  The countess looked apologetically at her lover. He was the handsomest of the young men she had befriended and the most adept at lovemaking. There was aristocratic blood in those veins—even if it had been fostered on the wrong side of the blanket. She had an eye for good breeding. Even now, her heart fluttered at the sight of the virile Rhys Delmar. She had held those broad muscled shoulders, felt the power in the lean hips, admired the line of the fine high-bridged nose, and looked with wonder into those lazy blue eyes. A hand went to her breast as she recalled the smoke and fire she had seen in those eyes.

  A pity. She had begun to grow fond of him, but not so fond that she would willingly jeopardize herself. “I-I can’t say where he was,” she stammered. “I’ve only just awakened myself.”

  She might as well have put a noose around his neck, he thought. The constable’s countenance changed. The stranger’s nervous, toothless grin became a satisfied smirk. Rhys took a long pensive breath. He was as good as hanged. He had not a clue why, nor did he care to stay around and find one. As if he’d burst forth from a cannon’s barrel he gave a shout and sped into the countess’s bedroom, gave her a mighty shove which sent her tumbling atop the bed she had so recently left. Before the constables could follow he barred the door.

  The countess, tangled in the twisted bed coverings, screamed, far louder than she had when he’d pleasured her a few short hours earlier.

  “Stay put!” he shouted at her as he made a dash for the window. He reached it half a step ahead of the shattering water pitcher the countess had flung at him. A glance back caught her crouching on the bed, mouth agape, eyes straining, beginning to believe she’d been bedded by a murderer. He had half a mind to go to her and commit such a crime as she’d as good as convicted him of, but there was no time.