| |
HETTIE WAS SEATED IN the study, penning correspondence to some overseas associates, when she heard footsteps in the hall. She glanced at Perdita, who was tucked in a nearby alcove hunched over a book.
Cassius strode into the room hurriedly, looking as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Where have you been?” Hettie challenged. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock, and we still have important arrangements to discuss tonight.”
Without replying directly, Cassius glanced at his sister. “Send her to her room.”
Realizing that her son had something weighing on his mind, Hettie complied. “Dita, go to bed. Staying up late damages a young lady’s complexion.” She sighed. “Though, in your case, it probably won’t make much difference.”
Perdita glanced from one to the other suspiciously. Without a word, she snapped her book shut and left the room. The two waited until her footfalls could no longer be heard in the hall, and the door to her bedroom had clicked shut emphatically.
“I need a drink,” Cassius announced. Without waiting for his mother, he stalked back to the parlor and poured a glass of Madeira from the decanter on the sideboard.
“Don’t you think that toasting a victory tonight may be slightly premature?” Hettie asked pointedly as she followed him into the room.
“We’re not toasting anything,” Cassius countered peevishly. He drank the liquor in two gulps and poured himself a second drink. “I just needed something to steady my nerves. I would have preferred whiskey, but this will have to do.” He drank a second glass, poured himself a third, and threw himself down on the sofa. “What a vile night! Nothing went as I planned!”
Hettie sat down beside him, searching her son’s face. “What have you been up to?”
He scowled in dissatisfaction. “I thought I’d clear an obstruction from our path.”
With a growing sense of uneasiness, his mother asked, “What obstruction?”
“The Ruby!” Cassius spat out the words with contempt.
“Idiot!” she exclaimed. “After I expressly ordered you not to interfere with her.”
“I wasn’t going to kill her,” Cassius objected sullenly. “I merely wanted to throw a scare into her. Warn her off our trail.”
Hettie said nothing for several seconds, taking note of her son’s agitation. “From the look of things, you didn’t give a scare. You got one.”
“I wasn’t frightened!” he protested, but the shrill tone of his voice suggested otherwise.
“A son should never lie to his mother,” Hettie rebuked him coldly. “Did she recognize you?”
“Of course not!” Cassius protested. “I was masked, just the same as the night I stole the statue. She couldn’t see my face.” He faltered. “But someone must have told her what I was wearing the night of the robbery at the museum because she recognized my costume. She accused me of being the thief.”
“But she didn’t call you by name?” Hettie asked tensely.
“No.” Cassius raised his chin defiantly. “It was dark, and there was no possibility she could have seen through my disguise.”
Hettie furrowed her brow in concentration. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Cassius recounted his attack on the spinster and angrily described her reaction to it.
After he was finished, Hettie laughed mirthlessly. “You’re lucky she didn’t shoot you. It would have been no better than you deserved, you foolish boy!”
“Next time will be different,” he muttered tensely.
Hettie took her son by the arms and shook him as if he were a rag doll. “Listen to me closely and try to hear me for once. You will not threaten Evangeline LeClair again! Do you understand?”
Cassius slid his gaze away from his mother.
“Look at me!” she commanded. “Do you understand?”
He petulantly shook off her grip. “I hear you.”
“I’ve taken the measure of that woman,” Hettie said. “If you think that you can frighten her, you’re much mistaken. She is perfectly capable of killing you without batting an eye. Under other circumstances, I might have considered her a valuable ally. She will certainly prove to be a dangerous foe. If you underestimate her, you do so at your peril.”
“She’s like you.” Cassius murmured the words in a thunderstruck tone. It was as if the concept were only occurring to him for the first time. He shivered involuntarily.
“I see that the truth of the matter has finally penetrated that mulish skull of yours.” She smiled grimly. “Yes, my son. She is every bit as formidable in her own way. Sadly, her way opposes mine, and I can’t have that. Be assured that we will eliminate her permanently but now is not the time. We have other, more urgent, concerns.”
By this time, the haunted expression had left her son’s face. He had relaxed into his characteristic insolence. “I was just trying to play a larger role in the family business. You don’t give me enough rein.”
“And now you see why,” Hettie replied caustically.
“Have a care, Mother. I may decide to wrest the reins from your hands one day.”
Hettie stroked her son’s forehead. “My eager, fretful boy. Why exert unnecessary force to capture a prize that will be given to you freely when the time is right. Assuming that you can learn a little patience, you will inherit my thriving concern one day. That is...” she paused for effect. “So long as you behave yourself and don’t compound tonight’s folly. I expect you to obey my orders to the letter from now on.”
“I don’t see that I have a choice at present,” Cassius remarked bitterly. He stood to refill his glass.
“Pour one for me as well,” his mother said. “We don’t have a victory yet, but we are on the verge of one.”
“Yes, the count.” Cassius returned with two glasses and handed one to his mother. “Is everything arranged for the transfer?” her son asked, sipping his Madeira more slowly now.
Hettie nodded. “The count’s courier will arrive tomorrow. Once we hand him the museum piece, he will compensate us handsomely. Then, we will depart this wretched city, never to return.”
Cassius clinked his glass against his mother’s. “To crime.”
“They say it doesn’t pay,” Hettie murmured pensively. “Of course, whoever they are, they’re wrong.” She gave a self-satisfied smile and touched her glass to her son’s. “To crime.”
***
PERDITA LAY DUMBSTRUCK on the floor of her bedroom. The voices coming from the parlor had been agitated and loud. By lying prone and pressing her ear next to the gap at the bottom of the door, she had been able to hear nearly every word. For weeks she had been trying to discern what her family was plotting but to no avail. They generally conspired when she was asleep. She even suspected that they sometimes gave her a sedative to make her drowsy, but tonight was different. Cassius came home upset, and Mother couldn’t sedate her ahead of time. They had let down their guard and then compounded the error by conducting their business in the parlor right next to her bedroom.
As a result, she had finally heard all their secrets. It was too horrible to believe. Her brother admitted to being a thief. If that weren’t bad enough, her own mother had arranged the robbery and now planned to sell the item to a foreign aristocrat. Her family’s criminal enterprise didn’t alarm her half as much as what they intended to do to Evangeline. Cassius had attacked Perdita’s friend tonight, and he and Mother had calmly discussed murdering her someday.
Perdita sat up and rubbed her head, trying to think of a plan. She had kept her distance from Freddie and Evangeline to appease her family, thinking she was shielding them from harm. Tonight’s overheard conversation convinced her that harm would come to them no matter what she did. Her best course of action would be to tell them about the robbery her family had committed. She might be able to seek refuge with Evangeline until the law could be sent to apprehend her mother and brother.
She listened again briefly at the door. The two voices in the parlor were conversing more softly now. Maybe if she waited until Mother and Cassius went to sleep, she might be able to slip out undetected. Evangeline’s townhouse was only a few miles north of the hotel. She knew the address, and the doorman could summon her a cab. If she tipped him enough, he could deny ever having seen her that night. Yes, her scheme might work. First, she would have to pack a bag. She kept a small sum of money in her room that ought to get her to her destination. It was a start.
Rising stealthily from her position on the floor, she tried to avoid making any noise as she stepped across the room. A single nightlight was burning. She couldn’t risk illuminating the rest of the chamber. The reflection might be seen from the other side of the door. Moving as quietly and cautiously as possible, she began to assemble a few articles of clothing in a satchel. She dressed herself in a dark-colored walking suit, hoping the somber shade would conceal her once she was out on the street. Then, she rummaged through the dresser drawers for her change purse. Not finding it immediately, she started to panic. What if Mother had taken it? How would she pay for a cab? She was so caught up in her search that she didn’t hear the door behind her slide open quietly.
“Going somewhere, Dita?”
Perdita whirled about to see Cassius silhouetted in the darkened doorway, light spilling in behind him from the parlor.
“Mother,” he called over his shoulder. “Come look at this.”
Perdita’s heart was hammering so hard that she could scarcely draw breath. She wanted to scream in terror, but no sound escaped her throat.
Mother came to stand beside her brother. “Dita, it’s much too late to be paying a social call.”
“Far too late,” Cassius agreed ominously.
Perdita backed toward the corner of the room as the two advanced upon her.
“Whatever shall we do with you?” her mother whispered.
“Yes, what indeed?” Cassius gave a wicked grin.