Edwin Booth was performing a scene from Hamlet first, followed by lighter fare: a comedy of manners lately imported from London. The theater, although of a lesser size, had the same magnificence as Europe’s finest: red velvet seats; muraled ceiling; magnificent crystal chandeliers; gilt and ormolu-trimmed boxes; an audience elegantly dressed and ablaze with jewels.
Edwin Booth, returned to the stage after a year’s retirement following his brother’s assassination of President Lincoln, was in top form. The slight, dark-haired actor gave a stirring rendition of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy.
Flora and Adam viewed the performance from a well-placed box, enjoying their first night out. They drew the eye, but, then, the Comte de Chastellux always did, and the beautiful lady on his arm tonight, rumor had it, might be replacing his wife. Although the Herald’s gossip column, being printed even as Mr. Booth emoted, wouldn’t appear until morning, the few short blocks of fashionable Broadway had been abuzz with the tantalizing news since afternoon.
The Herald reporter had mentioned the Tiffany’s anecdote only discreetly to a few friends, who of course mentioned it discreetly to a few more, and so it went.…
During the short break between performances, the houselights came on, and several members of the audience trained their opera glasses on Flora and Adam and openly gawked. Familiar with being stared at, Flora decided American audiences were simply more overt in their curiosity; Adam had long ago learned to ignore the interest his looks and profligacy inspired. But when several members of the audience actually pointed and then whispered to their companions, Flora leaned over and murmured, “It can’t be my jewels; there are dozens with more diamonds on, including several men. Why the acute fascination?”
“You’re dazzling, dear, or maybe Hamlet bored them,” Adam casually said, surveying the audience, his gaze sweeping the floor, the box seats. “I’m looking forward to the next”—his pause was infinitesimal—“performance,” he finished. But his glance returned to the boxes stage right, where his brain had registered an ominous image. Blond hair, a familiar crescent hairpiece of large diamonds—a woman leaning flirtatiously over the shoulder of the man in front of her.
She was laughing now, her head thrown back, the expensive diadem purchased with his money catching the light from the chandeliers in sparkling brilliance.
His wife.
Adam’s stomach tightened. She had that effect on him, like an evil demon reentering his life.
She had to have seen them, with so many glasses trained on them. When had she arrived in Saratoga? Why had she come? Were there no country-house parties of interest this year; had Cowes lost its appeal? Why was she back?
He made excuses during intermission, not wishing to join the crowd in the lobby in the event Isolde was there. Knowing Isolde’s malignant tongue, he didn’t want to risk his wife meeting Flora. “Why don’t I go out and bring us back a champagne?” he suggested. “It’s such a milling mob out there, you’re bound to be crushed.”
And it was. Pushing and weaving his way to the bar set up under two enormous potted palms in the lobby, he asked for a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
There was no question who the woman was when she entered the box. Winterhalter’s portrait had done her justice, Flora thought. She was the graceful ideal of his stylistic female image: delicate; fair-skinned; a heart-shaped face with large doe eyes; and a dainty nymphet body perfect for the frothy, full-skirted styles of the Second Empire. But he’d painted out the malice in her eyes.
“I hear rumor my husband has promised to marry you,” the Comtesse de Chastellux coolly said, moving down the carpeted stairs. “I thought I’d come over to disabuse you of that notion.” She sat down in full view of everyone and smiled at Flora as though she’d not brutally demolished her future.
Isolde’s sudden appearance, when she was supposed to be in Europe, had a disconcerting effect, but long familiar with aristocratic cattiness, Flora replied with a studied calm, “I suppose I can’t exactly say it’s none of your affair, but in truth, I think you’re years too late to influence Adam’s plans.”
“My, how cool a tart you are,” Isolde murmured, her smile a shade tighter. “I hear you’re quite an attraction in Mayfair; Adam always did have an eye for experienced women.”
“You speak from personal knowledge, no doubt. Is the baron here with you?”
Isolde’s porcelain complexion took on faint color, and when she replied, the coolness had disappeared from her voice. “Adam won’t be able to marry you because he’s married to me and France doesn’t allow divorce. I just thought I’d make that plain.”
Although Flora knew Isolde had no intention of cooperating with Adam, the blunt denial dispelled any illusions. “Apparently you couldn’t bring the baron up to the mark,” Flora said, a fine insolence in her voice. “Adam will be disappointed to hear the news.”
“What a little bitch.” Isolde’s pale-blue eyes took on a haughty air. “For your information, my life is no concern of yours.”
“Nor is mine remotely within your sphere of influence. I suggest you attempt to bully those more easily intimidated,” Flora answered, familiar with arrogance. “I’ve held off bedouin tribesmen and Chinese bandits armed with more than your vicious intent. You’ve picked the wrong person to terrorize.”
“I can make your life hell.” Isolde sat very straight, her voice no more than a whisper.
You already have, Flora thought. “You can’t anymore,” she said instead. “You arrived too late.”
“Actually, I rather think it’s too late for you.” Isolde’s smile reappeared. “Why don’t I let Adam explain everything to you tomorrow?”
It was a lengthy interval before Adam worked his way back through the crowd and up the stairs to the second floor.
Striding down the corridor fronting the boxes, he heard Isolde’s voice before he saw her, and in that split second he debated a score of options, none ethical or legal. He wasn’t smiling when he lifted the velvet curtain at the back of their box. He was grim-faced as a hanging judge.
Both women turned at his entrance, Flora’s expression relieved, Isolde’s veiled wickedness as he remembered.
“Good evening, darling,” his wife cooed. “I came to see the engagement ring you bought for this sweet woman. It’s the latest gossip in town. Didn’t you know?” she innocently inquired as his brows drew together in a fierce scowl. “He’s such a generous man,” she added, turning to Flora with a mocking smile.
“What are you doing here?” Adam harshly said, standing dark and forbidding at the back of the box.
“I’m just being sociable. I’ve heard so much about your newest paramour, I simply wanted to meet the darling girl.”
“You don’t know how to be sociable, Isolde. Kindly leave.”
“Not even a welcome-home kiss, darling? I’m so looking forward to the healthy air of Montana.”
“We changed the locks the last time you left, Isolde. Save the train fare.”
“And I suppose you’re planning for this woman to become your new chatelaine?”
“My plans are none of your concern.”
Her brows rose. “My, my—I think she said the same thing.”
“Twice warned, then, Isolde. If you don’t want to leave, we will. I have no interest in talking to you.”
“What of our daughter?”
“What of her?” But his voice held a new caution.
“I came back to spend some time with dear Lucie.”
“What the hell are you conniving?” Adam growled. “You haven’t spent five minutes alone with her since she was born.”
“I find I miss her dreadfully.”
“If the baron didn’t contribute enough to your bank account, Isolde, I’d be happy to help you out. But leave Lucie out of your plans. I don’t want her life disrupted any more than it already has been.”
“What of my mother love, my need to nurture my daughter?” Isolde gazed at Adam with soulful eyes. “You can’t deny me that.”
“You should consider the stage as a new avocation,” Adam sarcastically drawled. “Since I’m not as good an actor,” he went on in a level, carefully modulated voice, “I’ll state my position simply. Stay away from Lucie. I don’t want her hurt again.”
“Apparently you’re not in a reasonable frame of mind,” Isolde pleasantly declared, rising from her chair in a shimmer of diamonds.
“If being reasonable means giving you what you want,” Adam quietly said, motionless, watchful, “no, I’m not. Not ever again.”
“I wouldn’t recommend buying your trousseau,” Isolde tranquilly said to Flora as she turned to ascend the shallow bank of stairs. “You certainly found big tits this time, darling,” she mockingly said, advancing up the stairs toward Adam.
“Jesus, Isolde. What the hell’s wrong with you?” he growled.
“She’s going to be a cow when she gets pregnant,” his wife gibed as she swept by him in a cloud of perfume and a rustle of peach-colored tulle, her smile cold as ice.
“I’m sorry,” Adam said with a sigh as he came down to join Flora, setting the bottle and glasses on a chair. “I wish I could have spared you her crudeness and malice.”
“I’ve met other fine ladies like her,” Flora sardonically replied, her sympathy for Adam more marked since meeting Isolde in person. She was more vicious than she’d expected. “Don’t worry, darling, I’m relatively unscathed. But what of Lucie?” she gently asked. “How dangerous will Isolde be to Lucie’s peace?”
Sitting down beside her, Adam sprawled low in the chair, stretched his legs out, leaned his head against the padded back, and briefly shut his eyes. “Her talk of mothering Lucie sets off alarm signals,” he murmured. “She might as well have said she planned on becoming a nun.” Turning his head, he gazed at Flora. “I think we should leave tomorrow. Whatever Isolde wants can be negotiated with Lucie out of range. Isolde in a nurturing pose makes me want to check my ammunition.”
“Montana sounds like paradise after my few short days back in fashionable society.” And after five minutes with Isolde, she thought. “I can be packed in fifteen minutes.” Flora smiled. “Since I only came here to find you, and now I have, my mission is complete.”
Adam grinned. “A plainspoken woman.”
“Subterfuge isn’t my forte.”
“A decided blessing after Isolde. Do you want some champagne?”
Flora shook her head. “You’d better check on Lucie.”
“My thought too. I’ll see you home and come for you in the morning. I’d like to leave early.”
After saying good night to Flora, Adam returned to the Clarendon and found Lucie peacefully sleeping. He explained to Cook that they’d be departing earlier than anticipated and under no circumstances was she to allow Isolde into the suite. Next he had his driver take him out to the track to make arrangements with his grooms for the transportation of the horses. If it was too difficult to prepare everything by morning, Adam told them, they could follow later.
Joseph convinced him the horses could be ready by dawn, so Adam made arrangements next at the station to have the stable car brought up with his traveling car. Both would be waiting on a spur rail, he was assured, by five-thirty, ready to be hooked up to the train scheduled to depart at eight o’ clock for Chicago.
Adam stopped at Morrissey’s last to say farewell to his friends. They’d been expecting him later that night for a few hands of poker and, having also heard the Tiffany’s anecdote, greeted him with ribald congratulations on his marriage plans. After cheerfully accepting the crude teasing over a last drink, Adam described the incident with Isolde at the theater and advised them of his abrupt departure.
“Sensible thing to do,” Caldwell remarked, taking a cigar from the humidor on the table. “Gonna cost you a pretty penny to buy her off, ain’t it?”
“Worth every cent, believe me,” Adam said.
“Should have done it before,” a banker from Atlanta asserted. “Now that you’ve found someone else, she’s going to ream you.”
“Talking from experience, Grant,” a millionaire iron-rail manufacturer facetiously remarked. Everyone knew how much Grant Putnum’s new young wife had cost him.
“I don’t mind a million or so one way or another, but Winnie was damned greedy, I’d say, for a lady from the Natchez Trace country. I’m supporting everyone of her deadbeat relatives in high style.”
“But, then, you’ve got some fine consolation at home,” Caldwell declared. “Can’t say which of my four wives consoled me best.”
“Now, boys, just want to remind you that there are some of us who still love the wife we married the first time,” a wealthy congressman from New York cheerfully said.
“Ain’t knockin’ first wives, Taylor. Just saying it’s damned hard to find that perfect one,” Caldwell said with an expansive smile. “Not that I’m not doin’ my share of tryin’.”
“Since my father selected my first wife,” Adam interposed, “this time will be my last.”
“Sounds like a man in love to me,” Caldwell boomed. “Send us a wedding invitation once you’ve got the Vatican paid off.”
“I know a lawyer in Washington who could help you,” the congressman said. “Name of Tom Barton. Smoothed the way for an annulment of a twelve-year marriage with six children. Said it went like silk on silk soon as an agreeable price was reached.”
“I’ll have James contact him, although attorneys in Paris are also essential,” Adam said. “But thanks, I’m interested in speed.”
“Got the little lady in the family way already?” Caldwell inquired with a grin. “Have to turn up the legal wheels full speed if’n you do.”
“No,” Adam quietly replied. “I just want my life back.”
“She’s a beauty. We wish you luck and happiness,” the congressman said. “But with your luck, hell, you don’t need any from us.”
“Appreciate it, just the same,” Adam replied. “And we’ll send out invitations, so plan on a trip west sometime this year.”
“Think we can get through the Powder River country? Hear Red Cloud’s kicking up trouble on the Bozeman Trail.”
“We’ll bring down an escort if needed,” Adam said. “The Lakota are traditional enemies of ours.” He didn’t mention they’d come with gifts last year, looking for allies. None of these men would understand.
“Always forget you live with—”
“—the Absarokee,” Adam kindly interjected to help out Grant Putnum, who wasn’t sure how to refer politely to his heritage. To most easterners, Indians were either noble savages or dangerous savages without discrimination for tribe or individual.
“Hell, my grandma was a Comanche, Grant,” Caldwell pointed out. “If’n your family settled out west early enough, that’s how the family tree looks, or else there wouldn’t be no family tree. Don’t have to go tippy-toeing around being polite just ’cuz Adam here has a shade darker skin and that long hair and those damned earrings like some Gypsy. He’s just a man same as us, even if he is too damned good a poker player for my bank account. Don’t mind saying, Adam, my games are going to be a tad more profitable once you get on that train for Montana.”
“And I’ll be considerably more comfortable once I’ve put some distance between myself and Isolde,” Adam said, rising from his chair. “Good night, gentlemen.” He smiled. “We’ll see you next at my wedding.”
Walking out onto Matilda Street, Adam turned in the direction of the Clarendon, quickly estimating the time remaining to see to the packing. He’d left instructions with Mrs. Richards to assemble some minimum clothing and supplies for Lucie and herself. He’d see to his own things. His railway car was well stocked, and what they left behind could be packed by the hotel and shipped later.
His most pressing obligation now was seeing that Lucie was safely away from Isolde. Knowing Isolde’s utter selfishness, whatever her plans for Lucie, they wouldn’t be advantageous to a child.
Preoccupied with his plans for departure, Adam didn’t notice the man farther back in the crowd keeping pace with him. There were a good number of strollers enjoying the summer night despite the late hour; all the hotel dances were still in full swing. Music drifted on the summer air, the sounds of laughter and conversation eddied around him as he wove through the crowd on Broadway, his swift stride moving him past those enjoying a more leisurely pace.
After passing the Grand Hotel, the crowds thinned, only the small Clarendon remained on this section of Broadway. Adam occasionally glimpsed stars now between the branches of the elms overhead, the scent of flowers from the hotel gardens sweet on the air, the summer evening idyllic. The portico lights of the Clarendon gleamed in the distance. Only a few minutes more …
A gunshot exploded, shattering the tranquillity.
Adam dived for the ground and rolled, his survival skills honed to a fine edge by raiding and war parties. Even as he plunged for cover, he was returning the fire, the revolver he’d carried in a shoulder holster since seeing Frank Storham last night blazing into the darkness. He assumed his assailant was Frank, although the dark figure that had slipped around the large elm tree was momentarily concealed from view.
The initial screams from pedestrians at the sound of shots lapsed, and Broadway was suddenly empty, the crowds vanished in a stream of fear. The doorman was gone from the Clarendon entrance, the night utterly still, the distant gaslights from the hotel porch the only illumination under the shadowed elms.
“Almost gotcha, Injun!” A voice of elation. Frank’s voice. “Gonna kill you when you least expect it, damned if I ain’t!”
The constable in Saratoga wasn’t going to be much help, Adam understood, nor was Frank likely to come out and face him now that he realized his target wasn’t unarmed. If he wished, he could wait for Frank to slip away, but that would leave a dangerous man free to ambush them later—perhaps on their way to the station, or on the trip home.
Or he could go and get Frank Storham.
Not a difficult choice.
As he reloaded his revolver, Adam gauged the distance between himself and the tree across the street—roughly thirty yards of wide-open space, of moonlight … and shadow. The shadows would help, and he didn’t expect Frank was sober. Two advantages in his sprint across no-man’s-land.
Snapping the loaded cylinder back into place, he checked the street one last time. Untenanted silence. Pushing himself upright, he leaped in a bound the low hedge that had served as cover, hunched low, zigzagging with agility and speed, twisting to one side and then the other to avoid the hail of gunfire aimed at him, diving across the last few yards into the protection of some shrubbery, pumping out two rounds as he finally caught sight of Frank’s form.
At Frank’s piercing scream Adam was already rolling to the right; he rose to his knees and fired again, dropped, rolled, stood upright, and fired three swift rounds into a target that was fully visible now.
And he watched the dark figure of Frank Storham crumple to the ground in a grotesque, doomed languor, falling to his knees first, his arms slack at his sides and then slowly toppling over.
He shouldn’t have felt the eerie chill; he’d seen men die many times before. The Absarokee were assailed by enemies, surrounded by tribes wanting their lands; warfare was a way of life.
But Ned Storham had purchased a small army to protect his grazing lands and allow him to expand beyond its perimeters. When he learned how Frank had died, Adam expected he’d need an army of his own to guard his valley. Not an unexpected eventuality even without Frank’s death, but a more imminent one now.
Stupid, drunken fool, he scathingly thought, gazing at the widening pool of blood spreading under Frank’s body. He didn’t have his brother to back him here, and he wasn’t fast enough to survive on his own. But even in death he was still a damnable menace.
Sliding his Colt into the holster under his arm, he slipped into the shadows and walked away from the Clarendon. He didn’t have time to stay in Saratoga for a formal investigation into Frank’s death, not with Isolde breathing down his neck. He’d approach the hotel from the north and enter by the rear door.