Intimate Strangers Affair Read online

  “Never mind. I need to talk with the major. He needs to know. It’s Calhoun. He’s stolen the gold, and they’re shipping it out tonight.”

  Claude tilted his head back, his eyes narrowing as if he were following the progress of a fly on the ceiling. “Christopher Calhoun? He makes plenty as it is. A bona fide tycoon. He’s probably bathes in money every damn night. Why does he need more?”

  “I don’t know, profit’s the only reason that makes sense. Didn’t strike me as the political die-for-Dixie type, but I followed the Confederates to his mansion. They met with him. So it’s Calhoun, all right.”

  “And you said ‘they are shipping’. Well, who the hell’s ‘they’? I have a real problem with anonymity. Just who are you talking about?” Claude persisted.

  “Well…” I couldn’t finish. It was too hard to admit. My…no, not my Miguel. Double-crossing the Union. Double-crossing me. A traitor two times around.

  Folding his arms, Claude tapped his foot. “I’m waiting.”

  “Don Cabrillo,” I finally admitted, unable to meet his eyes.

  “Ah. Interesting. Very interesting.” My brother rubbed his long jaw thoughtfully. “Well, maybe your Don—”

  “He’s not my Don.”

  “What do you mean?” my brother asked heatedly. “By God, did he touch you? I swear if he touched you again, I’ll ...”

  No, I thought, the injury was far worse than that. I felt bruised in a place that couldn’t be bandaged, but I was too ashamed to explain that to Claude. I only shook my head in denial.

  My brother whistled low. “So that’s the size of it, is it? You’re having a spat? Right now in the middle of all this mess. Great. Isn’t that just like a girl? Letting all that lovey-dovey stuff get in the way of a mission. Really, darlin’. I thought better of you. Don’t worry, he’ll send some roses, write a bad poem, maybe even serenade you some night like a coyote canoodling at the moon. Real romantic-like. Then before you can spit, everything will be okay again. Take it from me. It always works with females. Guaranteed.”

  “Wait a moment, you said ‘missions’. What do you know about running missions? Come on, mister. I thought you were just a flimflam man.”

  “Just what are the odds? Of course, there are a couple of factors,” my brother said, totally ignoring me. He let out a huge sigh, then grinned. “Yeah, that’s the ticket. A long shot, I admit it, but that just means the payola is that much sweeter. I’ll split it with you. Fifty-fifty. Real square. Whaddya say? Let’s get to work!” He gleefully rubbed his hands together.

  “This isn’t a game.”

  “Everything’s a game, darlin’. Haven’t you learned that by now? And it’s better to be on the winning side. Much better.” And his grin turned feral.

  ***

  Morning was coming. Through the thick clouds, the eastern sky was just lightening from a midnight blue into the deep color of a robin’s old egg, but the sun remained hiding. Lengthy shadows still fell from the buildings and stretched across the docks. And in this darkness, the fishermen readied their ketches for another day’s work. The air was full of gulls shrieking, hopeful for some tossed bait, and the polyglot sounds of Chinese, Italian, and curses, the universal language. By The Silver Aura there was Spanish, rapid like a river. They’d already missed the first tide, but the second one was coming. I could see the color of the water change, deepen. It was splashing louder against the pilings now. Soon. High tide in another half-hour or less. Miguel must be getting anxious, but if he was, he didn’t betray it with any wasted motion like Buckner, who paced around him. Miguel just stood there on the deck, one hand resting against his flexed leg. There was nothing to do but wait now. The deck was cleared of boxes, everything else looked lashed down, and all hands were at their stations. The mainsail was unfurled and rigged up. And a thin plume of smoke trailed from the main stack. The engine was already stoked. They looked ready to go.

  We were running out of time. Hamilton’s carriage had just arrived, and the portly man was making his painful way up the gangplank. He was accompanied by someone that was not Calhoun. Too short. Maybe Calhoun’s agent, all wrapped up in a heavy concealing cloak. No surprise there. It was probably too early and too cold for someone of Calhoun’s consequence to show up for a business meeting on the wharf. No, he’d send someone else to do the dirty work.

  Almost everyone was there. Everyone except the Union soldiers. Now where was the major and the men he’d promised? I looked across the way to where my brother was hiding. He curled his fingers into a zero, and shrugged. Then Claude suddenly pointed behind me. I looked.

  There was one man. One. That was it. Was this our back-up? I wasn’t impressed. If I didn’t feel so tense, I would have laughed. Instead of the cavalry, they’d sent a human walrus to help us. Between his big belly and a long droopy moustache, he looked like a graying marine mammal. Harmless. He wore a navy blue frock, and his brass buttons looked as if they’d been spit and polished. A dress sword clanked against his boots with every shuffling step.

  “Miss?” his polite address ended on an inquiring note.

  “Are you the harbormaster? Thank goodness you’re finally here. Now you can stop The Silver Aura from sailing. It’s full of gold stolen from the Union.”

  He held his hands behind his back and rocked a little on to his heels. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” Was this man stupid? Drunk? Or maybe he didn’t care. Frustration welled inside of me. “Go on, do your job. Didn’t Major Moore tell you how important this was?”

  “Major Moore, eh? Come with me.” He took my elbow.

  I wrenched it away and took two steps backwards. “I don’t think so, I’ll just stay here.”

  “The docks are no place for a lady.”

  “I’m not a lady, I’m a doctor. And I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Ladies, Lord love them. Just like my missus. Gets a notion into her head, and there’s no letting go. It just sticks, stirs her up, and makes her crazy. Now please, miss. Take it nice and easy. We’ll go get a nice cup of tea in the parlor. That’s where you belong, not here in the harbor by yourself. Don’t get hysterical.”

  My eyes flared. How dare he? This was real, not some fit of vapors. “No,” I said firmly, retreating a few steps more.

  “Oh, come on. Come with me, miss,” he said in those loud insistent tones you use to speak to a deaf patient or a crazy one.

  I had to go with him. It didn’t seem right, but I didn’t have much of a choice. What else could I do? If I made a scandal, I’d draw attention. The wrong kind of attention. And he didn’t seem interested in doing his job. Maybe I’d have to do it for him. I’d promised the major I’d keep watch until the soldiers arrived. So I ended up walking with the harbormaster after all. My dread increased with each step as we left the shadows behind the warehouses and stepped on to the middle of the docks. In plain view. Exposed. This couldn’t be right. I could feel the eyes of the men on me: the crew, the Confederates, and Don Miguel. He didn’t look happy to see me. Quite the opposite, judging from his down turned mouth, as I walked up the swaying gangplank. I put one hand on the polished hardwood rail and boarded the ship. The deck gently rocked under my feet, but it didn’t feel comforting like it usually did. This was no homecoming, this was the last place I wanted to be. On his ship. His. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore. The harbormaster stopped and coughed behind his fist. “Good morning, gentleman. Forgive me for interrupting you, but I found this…young lady on the docks. She’s made some serious allegations. Very serious.”

  “Not allegations, the truth,” I said hotly. “Now don’t just stand there. Do something. Arrest them, for God’s sakes.”

  “Something about stolen gold,” the harbormaster continued. “Would you know anything about that?”

  “Me?” said Buckner, winding his fob watch. He shook his head.

  “Not at all,” Hamilton replied. The figure behind him only stared over the rails and remained silent.

 
; Miguel didn’t say anything either. He looked grimmer than usual. His hands clenched, then slowly relaxed. And his eyes looked once again like green ice: cold and bleak. There was no greeting there. And no welcome.

  Then one by one, all the other men started laughing. Even the harbormaster. Even Buckner. His sour face stretched with ghoulish delight. I wasn’t sure exactly what was so funny, but whatever the joke was, it seemed to be on me.

  “Imagine,” the harbormaster sputtered. “Imagine me doing anything to stop this operation! Why, that would be insane, like tearing a hole in my pocket so I could lose money right and left. Just let it fall to the streets like some greenhorn.”

  Great! I’d done it again. I’d trusted the wrong person. The harbormaster had been conspiring with the smugglers all along. Cabrillo Shipping had probably paid him off since the very beginning. Just greased some palms and everything ran that much smoother. The harbormaster wasn’t acting as a government agent any longer, he was working only for himself these days. I was in trouble. The kind of trouble that makes you hope it’s only a dream, so that at any moment you’re going to wake up and make it all go away. But this wasn’t going to go away. Not in the blink of an eye. My pulse pounded with real horror. I could only pray that Claude used what little sense he had to stay put, or better yet, get creative real quick.

  ***

  No one had touched me yet. I wasn’t in jail, wasn’t handcuffed, but I might as well be. I felt good and trapped. Mocking masculine faces surrounded me like a pack of half-drunk hyenas. The only serious one was Miguel. He seemed sober as an undertaker in his black coat, looking like the first time I’d met him: severe, austere, and remote. Only now he seemed even remoter, more of a stranger, and I understood him far less. Maybe I had never really known him at all. Maybe that Miguel had never even existed.

  His gaze swept over me like a beam of harsh light, finding and exposing every single flaw from my down-in-the-heel boots and too-high hem, to the dirt smeared across my face. My hair was a tangled mess. I’d lost that watch cap a long time ago. He examined me with a detachment that was far worse than the fury he’d shown me in his office hours ago. Then, Miguel had seemed to care passionately. And now he did not. That was painfully clear.

  And when he finally spoke, it was like the Don to a peon. “Let her go. No one will believe her. A crazed woman who thinks she can do a man’s job.”

  “This one says she’s a doctor. Impossible! A lady doctor! What will be next? Ladies voting? I tell you, these ideas just go to their heads, makes them dizzy,” the harbormaster regarded me as if I were rabid.

  “She will only get in my way.” Miguel was already turning away from me. I had been dismissed from his life.

  I didn’t think it could hurt more, but it did. Somewhere inside of me that hurt throbbed and grew, resonating. Staring at his back, I felt my hands fist as if they were looking for a weapon.

  “And now, gentlemen. The money I am waiting,” Miguel addressed his accomplices.

  “I would like to oblige you, but my superior refuses. The deal stands just as it is,” Hamilton thumped his cane against the deck for emphasis.

  “Does it?” Miguel said softly. “I think not. I have your gold, all of it. You cannot force me.”

  “We can. Quite easily,” Hamilton replied. “Seize her.”

  Me? Run! my brain screamed. But I reacted too late. I felt a wind at my back, and then two ham-sized hands grabbed me. I twisted and turned, but it didn’t work. I was held by some big gorilla of a guard. I kicked and connected solidly with his femoral nerve. The guard’s knee buckled for a moment, but then straightened again. Was he made out of iron? I kicked again, harder now, but he only held me higher and farther away from him so that I looked like I was bicycling in air. The guard shook me once for good measure.

  “Look at that. She’s a high-spirited filly, all right. A real mustang,” Hamilton’s tone was amused.

  “Too wild, too much trouble. That is your bargaining chip?” Miguel said disdainfully. He looked me over as if I were defective goods, his disdain deepening. “Think again. Do what you like with her.”

  “Well, well, well,” Hamilton chuckled. “You surprise me, sir. I hadn’t thought Miss Arnaud was so, how shall we say it, disposable? Why just the other night at the State ball, Buckner and I accidentally overheard you two in the garden. You sounded very enamored.”

  Miguel lifted one shoulder. “One night’s fancy, no more. It means nothing at all. I could not care less.”

  That cold brutal tone. His words jabbed me, finding all the vulnerable places. I sagged at my middle as if he’d kicked me in the solar plexus.

  Hamilton chuckled. “Maybe you are even cooler than they say, Don Cabrillo.”

  The cloaked figure by the rails turned very slowly until he faced us. But his features were still hidden under the hood. I couldn’t tell who this stranger was. He walked toward me with deliberate care as if he was more comfortable on land and didn’t trust the shifting deck. When he finally reached me, his hand touched my chin. I jerked backwards, surprised at the strange soft feel of his skin. Pampered hands. The kind of hands that pinched snuff and poured brandy. He had probably never done a decent day’s work in his whole life. Who was he?

  Then his tender touch stopped, and just as suddenly, he slapped me. Hard. Vicious. Completely without warning. The second blow made my head snap back. I accidentally bit down on the inside of my cheek, and the metal taste of blood seeped into my mouth. I spit it out on the deck. A big fat gob sprayed out and stuck to his shoe. He didn’t even flinch.

  My cheek was already swelling. It stung. I swallowed hard, and then I glanced back up again. The force of the blow had made my tormentor’s hood fall backwards, revealing…

  What?! Disbelieving, I stared at those features: the limpid brown eyes, those polite painted lips that now twisted into a caricature of a smile, and that thick cloying scent. Honeysuckle? I thought dizzily. I must be going mad. How could such soft skin, such delicate hands deal out such pain?

  The owner of the hands just smiled like a cat being rubbed down and purring. “My goodness, gracious,” Margaret LaRue Calhoun drawled. “Why, I can hardly recollect such a lot of fuss and bother over nothing except for when my sister lost her beau to a gal over in the St. Ambrose district.” Her finger traced the line of my jaw. “So young, so pretty. And so unbelievably, incredibly stupid. I must say, my dear, that you gravely disappoint me. You are such a child.”

  “I’ll give you child!” I lunged forward, but didn’t get far. The guard’s grip punished me.

  “A child with hardly enough mind for a bird. Why, I cannot believe that you could hold Miguel’s interest. Not even for a minute.” Margaret looked me over, her nose wrinkling a little. “So rough and unpolished. So…unrefined. Not pleasing in the feminine arts.”

  I glanced from Margaret to Miguel. I had sensed something between them at the ball. A past connection, I’d hoped, but it wasn’t. It was a lot more recent than that. Bitterly, I remembered seeing them at the mansion. And everything Margaret said just turned those intimate memories into something sharp and clear and utterly plain. Every one of her words was like a blow. Hurt to hear it. Hurt to know that he heard everything and did nothing. Said nothing. He seemed to agree with everything that his mistress said.

  That pissed me off big time. Even though my mouth felt raw and swollen like I was sucking on a pumpkin, I ignored it. I swallowed my spit and blood, and tried to sneer at Margaret. “Ha! I may be just a green girl, but I can see how jealous you are. Must be hard to see another woman come along. A much younger woman. Must be hard knowing that every night he’s away, he’s calling someone else querida.” There. My best shot. I watched it fly and land with a thud.

  One plucked, perfectly arched eyebrow lifted slowly. Margaret’s eyes glittered with something I didn’t understand, and her mouth curved into a pleased smile. “Querida. Fascinating.” Her head slanted a little as she considered something for a moment. “So you saw us�
�together. Tonight, was it?”

  My eyes snapped shut, trying to squeeze down and shut away the tears that even now were beginning to form. I blinked rapidly and hoped that in this dim dawn light she couldn’t see them.

  She did, the satisfaction showing all over her face as if she’d just eaten something delicious. “How very, very diverting. Did you spy on us, darling? See more than you wanted to? More than your poor little heart can handle? Maybe you could learn something from us. From me. Learn how a real woman handles a man like Don Miguel. He’s too much of a man for the likes of you. After all, didn’t he come back to me? He always comes back.”

  Margaret touched my forehead, my cheek, and then my neck as if she were anointing me. She suddenly turned the tip of her finger deeper so that her nail jabbed into my skin, then broke through it. She scratched a thin painful line down my neck. Blood beaded, welled, dripped. When she lifted her finger again, she was breathing a little faster. She seemed almost excited.

  She turned to Miguel and showed him the finger marked with my blood. “So you don’t care what we do with her, darling? Very good. It makes it all the more easier. Show me.” She pointed her stained finger at me. “Beat her.”

  Miguel would do it. I knew he would. He wasn’t a machine, but a carefully hidden passionate man; the kind of man who would do anything for a cause he believed in or for the woman he loved. And that woman was not me. My guts twisted into a knot as I stared at his handsome merciless face. He looked as if he were carved from stone. Nothing would change him. He would withstand any amount of pleading, but I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction even though sickness welled inside me like mal de mer at its worst. I stared at his large elegant hands, which hung loosely down at his sides. I could see them quickly cut fruit during breakfast. I could still feel them introducing me to parts of my body that I had never really known. And now, those same hands were going to hurt me. At Margaret’s command.