Lucas removed his pocket watch to check the time. Exactly nine minutes. He leaned against the carved column adjacent to Flora’s bedchamber door and closed his eyes. How had it all come to this?
Flora Brimm was a Pinkerton agent’s worst nightmare, the type of woman who would niggle her way into his thoughts at the oddest moments, work her way into his heart, and all the while irritate him beyond description.
The fellow he’d seen spying on them from what he assumed was the back stairs once again poked his head out of the door. Looking around, he obviously did not see Lucas partially hidden behind the column, for the man skulked forward within reach of his hand.
Only when Lucas grabbed him did the man’s eyes go wide. “Oh, sir, you startled me,” he protested. “I only just wondered if you might need assistance before you turned in for the night.”
“Is that so?” He gestured to the opposite end of the hall. “Then you took a wrong turn. My bedchamber is that way.”
“Yes, s-sir,” he stammered. “I suppose I was misinformed on which room you would be using.”
Lucy opened Flora’s door and shut it quickly as she hurried past without acknowledging either of the men. Lucas released the valet and then watched both of them disappear down the back stairs.
“All right, Miss Brimm. Your time is up.” Once again he removed the watch from his vest pocket to check the time. Eleven minutes. He paused and then knocked. “Flora, you’ve had an extra minute. Please do not try my patience any further.”
When she did not answer, Lucas reached into his hat and connected his listening device. Pressing one end of the tube against the door, he held the other near his ear.
Nothing.
He tried the knob. Locked.
And then a thought occurred.
“No she didn’t!” he muttered as he raced down the back stairs two at a time. Emerging into the servant’s hall, he looked around for the first uniformed employee he could find.
“You!” he called to a footman. “Where is the nearest back door?”
“This way, sir.” The man quickly led Lucas through the kitchen and past a cluster of maids folding laundry. A moment later, he emerged into the thick night air.
“Thanks,” he called as he hurried around the corner of the building to find the approximate place where Flora might have climbed out of the window. And there she was above him, nimbly making her way around the back of the second floor of the three-story home.
A call to her would have alerted Flora to his presence. With tools to close the distance between them waiting in his pocket, Lucas decided to try another way to confront Flora Brimm.
Removing the bullet from his revolver, he inserted the special canister and made sure the weapon was once again ready for firing. Judging the distance to the ledge above him, he smiled as the shot hit its mark just around the corner from where Flora was heading.
Lucas returned the revolver to its holster and pulled the spikes from his pocket and attached them to his boots. Giving the filament line a yank, he curled it around his waist three times to anchor himself and raised his foot to begin the climb up the side of the structure.
Though the going was slow due to the poor visibility from the clouds covering the moon, Lucas managed to reach the ledge before Flora came around the corner.
“Oh!” she shouted as her forehead slammed into his shoulder.
He caught her before either lost their footing and then, to be sure she was safe, he released the clip and wrapped her against him with the wire. A turn of the notch and they were secure.
“What are you doing up here?” she demanded.
“I came to see a woman about a meeting with her father. If you will be still, I will get us both down safely.”
Instead of not moving, Flora twisted around to see how they were connected. Lucas tumbled sideways and took her with him. Holding her tightly, he fought to connect his boots with the ledge.
“What are you doing?” she demanded as her nails dug into his back and her head rested against his chest.
“Trying to keep from landing on the ground before I’m ready.”
Unfortunately, they were dangling just far enough away from the ledge to prevent him from using the spikes to gain control. All he could do was release the latch slowly and begin a descent to the ground.
A stiff breeze rocked them against the house, slamming Lucas’s back against the ledge. He bit back the choice words he once would have said and focused on keeping control of the situation.
“Be still, or we’re both going to end up in your grandmother’s roses.”
“I am being still, but I will ask you again. What are you doing? You were supposed to be waiting in the hall.”
Lucas laughed at the absurdity of the situation. At the way she could take any kind of trouble she’d created and turn it into something she had no part of.
“I was waiting in the hall for you,” he said as his fingers slid the notch on the wire down just enough to lower them a few inches. “You were supposed to come out as you said you would.”
He felt her grip on his back loosen, and he swiftly tightened his arm, holding her close. “Hang on, Flora. I’ll have us out of this mess in a minute.”
“I could have kept us out of this mess, Lucas. If you hadn’t stood in my way, I would have simply walked over to the cupola and climbed down the trellis. It’s not a difficult…oh!” she exclaimed as the wire gave way a little too much and they plummeted several feet before he caught the notch and ceased their movement.
Flora held on very tightly now, and her talking had finally ceased. Lucas was sure he would be able to continue lowering them in a slow and measured manner.
Their swift descent had left them still several feet above the ground and well within view of anyone who might be seated in the dining room or formal parlor. Thankfully, tall shrubs kept them all but invisible from anyone who might be standing outside.
Lucas eased up on the notch and nothing happened. The wire seemed to have snagged.
Trying again, he found the workings had jammed. A glance up the length of the wire, at least from what he could see, showed him there was no reason from above that it would not be working.
Reason from above.
The idea caused him to shake his head. As did the unmistakable feeling of a fat raindrop as it plopped on the back of his neck and began a slow trickle down his spine. Along with all of this, he recalled Kyle’s mention of the load limit on the wire. Though Flora was tiny, there could be no doubt their combined weight exceeded the two-hundred-pound mark.
All he could do was laugh.
“Mr. McMinn, I fail to see what could possibly be so funny. We are dangling a ways off the ground yet, and apparently your contraption has ceased to work. Is there something humorous in this situation I am missing?”
Another raindrop followed, this one slanting just enough to hit him beneath the rim of his hat. Meanwhile, Flora had her arms wrapped around him, her blue eyes trained on his face, and her beautiful, kissable mouth blessedly closed in a tight line.
“Face it, Miss Brimm,” he said as he gave up on the wire and wrapped his free hand around her. “This is your fault.”
“Mine?” Her eyes narrowed. “You are the one who was standing in my way, and you are certainly the one who created this ridiculous contraption that now has us both dangling and stuck.” She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. Looking back up at him again, she said, “With all of those inventions of yours, can’t you come up with something that will solve our problem? Perhaps you have a machine that will allow us to fly down to the ground in that pocket of yours next to the extra-vision spectacles and the human torch and who knows what else?”
“It is a personal torch, and there’s no reason to use it. I can see you just fine.” A pause. “And must I say, you look quite lovely in the moonlight. Much better now that you’ve given up on wearing doilies.”
“Of all the nerve.” She slanted a look up at him through thick lashes. Just as she appeared about to add more to her complaints, a raindrop splattered against her cheek. “Oh, no, Lucas. It’s raining. Do something!”
“And what would you suggest I do, Flora?”
“I suggest you explain yourself, young man,” said a gruff voice from the window below.
Lucas angled himself just far enough away from the wall to see who had spoken. From the age and appearance of the man in question, it did not take a Pinkerton agent to surmise that this fellow was Flora Brimm’s father.
“Just the man I’ve been looking for,” Lucas said. “Give me a minute, sir, and I’ll bring your daughter down. And then you and I have some talking to do.”
“Don’t listen to him, Father. We’re just having a little trouble up here. Could you call for a ladder or some shears to cut the wire?”
“I should call for the sheriff! And I still may.”
“Yes, please do,” Lucas said.
“No, don’t.” Flora implored. “Just get us down, and I promise I will explain everything.”
Mr. Brimm gave her a doubtful look. “I will keep that thought under advisement, young lady. For now I’ll ring for Harrison. Do not even think of going anywhere until one of us returns.”
“Where would we go?”
“Yes, a good point indeed. But do understand, Flora Brimm, that I have ignored many of your antics over the years, including ones that might cause another parent to declare you completely beyond repair. Until now I assumed you would someday settle down into a more sedate manner of behavior. Unfortunately, I have once again been proven wrong.”
Lucas could see his nemesis go from blustering to crushed with her father’s words. Something in him, call it a lawman’s instinct, told Lucas that Mr. Brimm was the one who was wrong.
“Father, truly I did not expect to—”
“Watch out, Flora,” Lucas said as the wind kicked up again and tossed the two of them against the building. This time Flora’s shoe went through the window just above her father’s head.
From Lucas’s vantage point, he could see Mr. Brimm’s color redden beneath his substantial facial hair. With a shake of his head, he moved away from the remnants of the glass and was gone.
Flora looked up at Lucas, her expression anguished. “We have now officially gone too far. My father is not an easy man to irritate, but I have never seen him that angry.” She paused. “We’ve really done it.”
Lucas looked down at the woman in his arms. “We?” He shook his head. “We? As with just about everything else that has gone wrong since the day I met you at the Crescent Hotel, Flora, this has been completely your doing.”
“I wasn’t the one who invented this thing.”
“No, that was me,” he said as he removed a tiny device hidden in his jacket lapel. Not only did the invention have a blade sharp enough to do substantial damage despite its size, it also contained a serviceable pair of wire cutters.
Lucas gazed into the cornflower blue eyes of the most maddening woman on the planet. A moment later he said, “Put your head against my shoulder. I’m going to cut us down, and I’ll do my best to break your fall and keep us from landing in the broken glass.”
“Lucas, don’t—”
“Okay, here we go.” A snap of the wire and her words became a squeal that chased them the remainder of the distance to the ground. Lucas’s landing was softened by the garden soil, while he broke Flora’s fall.
She shakily lifted her head to look at him, her nearness distracting him even as he grasped for the cutting device that had rolled just out of reach. “You are absolutely certifiable, Lucas. We could have been seriously injured.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked as he quickly inventoried his own limbs and declared himself fit.
“No, I don’t think so,” she breathed. “But all the same, I could have been.”
He leaned just a little more to the right and inched toward the device. “Hold on,” he said as he moved their bundled selves toward it. Finally his fingers touched cold metal, and he palmed the little instrument.
“Did you get it?” she asked, a fiery curl falling over her face as she looked down into his eyes.
“Yes. Don’t move or I might cut something I don’t mean to.” That stilled her until he could make short work of releasing the circle of wire that bound them. Jumping to his feet, he hauled Flora up and into his arms. “Why is it things are always so complicated when you’re around?”
“Me? You’re the one complicating things.”
“We’ll see about that.” He leaned back a little to look at her. “I believe you and I were on our way to see your father before you attempted this ridiculous escape.”
A rustle of noise beyond the shrubs diverted his attention. A man who appeared to be a gardener hurried in the wake of the man Flora had called Father. In Mr. Brimm’s hand was an oversized pair of shears. Lucas let his arms fall from around Flora, though he stayed close beside her.
“Is this the husband you wrote me about, Flora?”
Her father was tall, though not as tall as Lucas, and his posture spoke of boarding school and years following in the footsteps of his ancestors. He knew the type. If not for Kyle Russell and the Pinkertons, he might have been the type.
Mr. Brimm brandished the pruning shears far too near to Lucas for his liking. “Sir, I will have an explanation of what you are doing dangling outside my home while inappropriately entwined with my daughter.”
Where to start?
“Go ahead, Lucas. He’ll find out eventually. You should probably tell him now.”
The pruning shears caught the gaslight inside and took on a decidedly sinister golden glow. “Tell him what?”
“Indeed, daughter. Tell me what?”
Flora shook her head, and another of her curls sprung loose. “We were going to tell you eventually, Father. Lucas and I are working on a case and hoping to give chase to a criminal without alerting him to our presence.”
“That is the most ridiculous statement I’ve heard in quite some time,” Mr. Brimm stated. “Almost as ridiculous as the letter you sent informing me you were to be married. Thankfully, your grandmother tells me that hasn’t happened yet.”
“No, sir,” she said softly, her eyes averted.
“Actually, sir,” Lucas said, looking the man in the eye. “I am a Pinkerton agent. If you’ll set those shears aside, I will reach into my pocket and show you my badge.”
Mr. Brimm gave him a doubtful look. “And what would that prove? I fail to see how your employment as a Pinkerton could possibly explain why you were hanging outside my home with my daughter, sir. And in the rain, no less.”
“It has everything to do with it, Father.” She paused to give Lucas what he assumed was supposed to be a meaningful look. “We only just received a message from the man that Mr. McMinn is tracking. Because he managed to deliver the message to Brimmfield unseen, it is likely he could still be watching the house now.”
“We did?” Lucas whispered, his lips against Flora’s ear.
Flora nodded. “Please, let’s just go inside and we will explain everything.”
“You’re in luck. I’ve never been fond of standing in the rain unless I must. My dear, inside with you. And you, sir,” Mr. Brimm said to Lucas, “shall find another place in which to carry out your investigation.”
Linking arms with Flora, Lucas stopped her progress. “Sir, I know she is your daughter, but she is helping me with an investigation. I wonder if I might speak to her privately for just a moment before we join you in the house.”
“I’m afraid not.” He yanked Flora’s other arm and set her back in motion.
Lucas thought to register a protest and insist on his legal right to interrogate a prisoner, but if Mr. Brimm was at all as stubborn as Miss Brimm, it would do no good anyway. Resigned for now, Lucas followed the pair inside and across the entry to a room beneath the staircase.
From the looks of the dark, wood-paneled space, it was being used as some sort of study. One of the walls was covered in paintings of horses, while two others bore framed maps hung in orderly grids. The fourth wall was dominated by a large oil painting of a dark-haired couple seated before a roaring fire. In the woman’s arms was an infant dressed in a long white gown and matching bonnet. Standing beside the man was a girl with long dark curls and big blue eyes. Balancing out the painting was a pair of wolfhounds resting at the man’s feet.
“Sit, Mr. McMinn.”
Lucas complied, but only out of deference to the man’s position as Flora’s father. Flora followed a step behind, taking a seat beside him without being told. When Mr. Brimm walked over to close the door behind them, Flora passed Lucas a note.
He opened the torn page discreetly. Must follow the job to New Orleans. Marry me there? was scrawled at the bottom of the page just above the place where the paper was torn. Intuition told him there was more to the message, but there would be time to look into that later.
Coming back to the front of the room, Mr. Brimm said, “I believe I would first like to see your badge, young man.”
Lucas silently handed it over. After studying it a moment, Mr. Brimm handed it back.
“It appears to be in order. So what’s this about dragging my daughter into a Pinkerton investigation?”
“With all due respect, sir, your daughter invited herself into it. I am tracking a criminal who may have chosen Miss Brimm as his next victim. Had Miss Brimm not been insistent on withholding key information, I would not have need of keeping her in personal custody.”
Mr. Brimm’s bushy brows shot skyward as he shifted his attention to Flora. “What’s this, daughter? Mr. McMinn is not referring to the man you wrote me about, is he?”
“Yes, but it’s all a misunderstanding, Father. The man Mr. McMinn is looking for is innocent, and I want to see that the facts are heard.”
“Then give him the facts, Flora. All of them.”
Her face reddened. “I…well, I cannot. It would mean betraying the confidence of someone who trusts me.”
“That is ridiculous,” he blustered. “Sir, I demand to know why you’re using an innocent girl as part of your investigation. She obviously is not keen on giving a straight answer.”
“I’m not using her, sir. She is in my custody at the moment because she is, at the least, a material witness in an ongoing investigation conducted by the Pinkerton Agency. Any more than that I cannot tell you at this moment because it is classified.”
“That’s the same reason I cannot tell you why Mr. Tucker is innocent,” Flora interjected.
“Did we call a family meeting and forget to invite Grandmama?”
All eyes turned toward the Brimm matriarch, who stood at the door and allowed her gaze to sweep the room before landing on Lucas. “Mr. McMinn, it is always interesting when you and my granddaughter are in collusion. To what do we owe the honor tonight, and is it true you were found dangling up in the air with Flora?”
“He was just leaving, Grandmama,” she said as she swiped at the curls that had fallen. “He’s going to New Orleans in the morning.” She paused only a second. “And I’m afraid I must accompany him.”
“No, dear, that’s quite impossible.” Millicent Brimm swept into the room and seated herself behind her son’s desk. “You cannot possibly leave until the following day. Tomorrow we are hosting a reception for you.”
“A reception for me?” She shook her head. “When was I going to be told?”
“Or I?” Flora’s father asked.
Mrs. Brimm waved away the protests with a sweep of her bejeweled hand. “It’s all quite impromptu, but it should be a lovely afternoon event.”
“Afternoon?” Flora turned to Lucas. “We can still sail tomorrow evening.”
“No, dear,” Mrs. Brimm said. “Tomorrow evening you will be attending a ball held in your honor. It will be a bit of a push to have the house ready for two events, but I’m sure the staff will manage.”
“Grandmama, why am I being honored at both a reception and a ball?”
The older woman shrugged. “I may have mentioned on the train from Eureka Springs that my granddaughter did not accompany me on the return trip because she was betrothed.”
Flora groaned. “So your friends think I am engaged.”
“I’m afraid so. Unfortunately, we will need to borrow a prospective groom for the occasion.”
All eyes in the room now swung toward Lucas.
“Oh, no,” he said a moment later, grasping their meaning. “I can’t. I…” He paused to think about the situation in a rational and calm manner. “Honestly, I cannot think of a worse idea.”
“That’s funny,” Flora said, “because I think it solves everything.”
“For you maybe, but…” He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry but no. I didn’t create this problem, so I fail to see why I should solve it. Not when there’s an investigation in progress.”
She leaned over to whisper, “It keeps me out of trouble for two days and gets us where we can meet with Mr. Tucker. I don’t see the problem, do you?”
“What’s that Flora?” her father asked.
“I was just reminding Mr. McMinn of how well he danced aboard the Americus. He’s quite good.” The statement sent Flora and her grandmother off on a conversational tangent about dancing that finally had Mr. Brimm lifting his hands.
“Quiet!” he demanded. “Ladies, I wish to speak to Mr. McMinn alone. Flora, you will go with your grandmother and wait in the hall. As you will both likely stand at the door with your ears pressed against it, I will demand your ear trumpet, Mother, and I will declare that should you eavesdrop, Flora, my valet will alert me to it and you shall find yourself in more trouble than you are already. Now please go, both of you.”
“Son, you’re not actually asking for my trumpet?”
He held out his hand, waited until his mother complied, and then watched them walk out the door. When they were gone and the door was shut behind them, he turned his attention to Lucas.
“All right. What exactly did she do?”
“I don’t know what you mean—”
Her father leaned against the desk and crossed both hands over his chest. “What is my daughter being charged with?”
Ah. “Receipt of stolen property.” He paused. “But if it means anything, I don’t believe she knew it was stolen.”
“And yet you claim she is in your custody.”
Lucas shifted positions to rest his elbows on his knees. “Yes, sir. Until I knew for sure she wasn’t in cahoots with this Tucker fellow, I needed to keep the suspect—that is, Miss Brimm—close.”
“And are you sure now?”
“I am, but I still need her.”
“Are we still talking about the investigation?” he asked, one shaggy brow lifted.
“We are, sir.”
“Fair enough. I will allow my daughter to see this investigation through on one condition.”
Lucas bit back a retort regarding the older man’s ability to stop a Pinkerton investigation or to hold back material witnesses. Instead, he inclined his ear toward Mr. Brimm as he swiped at a raindrop that dripped off his hat.
“And what is that, sir?”
“That should you find that my daughter is somehow involved, you will inform me before you make an arrest.” He stood. “I love Flora, Mr. McMinn. She has taken on more responsibility for this family than anyone realizes, and yet she still seems to find herself in predicaments that are well beyond what anyone expects.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve seen that.”
He regarded Lucas for a moment. “I’m curious. How did the two of you really end up in such a predicament?”
Lucas told him, beginning with the part where he suspected she would climb out of the window, and ending with the explanation of how he got up to the second floor. “We didn’t create the device with two persons in mind, and my colleague had just suggested a weight limit of two hundred pounds. My guess is that’s where the trouble was.”
A look of interest flashed over Mr. Brimm’s features. “So you invented this contraption that helps you scale walls?”
“I did, sir. Creating new things is a hobby of mine.”
“Have you invented anything else?”
Lucas told him of some of the things he and Kyle had perfected, as well as a few ideas he had been working on.
“You’re an interesting man, Mr. McMinn, and well-matched for my daughter. I wonder if you’ve given any thought to an actual engagement with her.”
He certainly hadn’t expected that. “I don’t think she would have me, sir. Your daughter has her opinions, and I doubt she holds a very high one of me right now.”
Mr. Brimm chuckled. “Because you tell her no and refuse to allow her to go off and do things that are unsafe for her? I say bravo to the effort, even if I do not completely approve of the execution of the plan.”
“Yes, sir. I suppose that’s the problem right there.”
“Then I say continue with what you’re doing, and please, for my sake, do a passable job of pretending to be my future son-in-law. I would consider that a personal favor. And perhaps you will find you like the job.”
“Yes, sir. I will.” He rose to shake the older man’s hand. “Though with all due respect, I doubt I’m up to the task for longer than a few days.”
“We shall see, won’t we? Oh, and son, the next time I find you dangling from the second floor with my daughter, all bets are off on what I will do with the pruning shears. Understand?”
“Clearly, sir.”