Thorne Brothers: With All My Heart Part 22

Berkeley drew Pandora onto her lap and stroked her absently. Was she wrong? Her eyes traveled over the taut line of Grey's lean frame. His jaw was fixed, his shoulders braced. He had the look of a man who had taken one blow and was preparing himself to receive another.

"You're correct," Berkeley said and readied herself to deliver it. "Under any usual circ.u.mstances, I couldn't know, but there's nothing usual about my situation here. I wouldn't find myself in San Francisco if not, in part, for Mr. Denison. And I wouldn''t be here with you if not for your rather surprising likeness to him."

Grey turned slowly to face her. A small vertical crease appeared between his dark brows. "I look like him?"

"Yes." Berkeley frowned. "Don't you know?"

"No," he said. "I don't. You're going to have to accept that."

"Perhaps you didn't get a clear look at his face before youa""

"Have a care," he interrupted. "You're close to accusing me of stabbing him in the back."

"No, I wasn't thinking that at all. I thoughta well, I thought it might have been dark."

Grey advanced on the bed. Pandora didn't snarl at him this time. She simply leaped out of the way when he sat on the edge of the bed. "Do I frighten you?" he asked Berkeley. She shook her head and reached for his hand. Grey withdrew it slightly, keeping it just beyond her easy grasp. "Are you certain you want to touch me?"

"Are you certain you want me to?" She showed him again her uncommon patience by turning her palm over and waiting for him to place his hand in hers. It was a long minute later when her fingers closed over his. "I'm only holding your hand, Grey, not probing your guarded feelings or your past. I don't want to know anything from now on that you don't tell me freely."

"Do you mean that?"

"I mean it. But you have to remember that sometimes not wanting to know isn't sufficient protection. I only can exercise a certain amount of control. I didn't want the knowledge that was revealed in Ivory's gown, and it came to me anyway."

"And what about Graham Denison? Did you come across what I revealed then by accident or design?"

"Design," she admitted.

"You were looking for his murderer?"

"I was looking for him."

Grey looked at her oddly. "You thought I would know?"

"I thought you were him."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"No," she sighed. "It doesn't. Not when you have to look at things from your point of view. That would make things rather confusing."

"Incredibly," he said dryly. "Berkeley, you have to strive for some clarity here. You said I bore a surprising likeness to this Mr. Denison."

"You do."

"Can't I a.s.sume from that that you've met him?"

"I suppose you can a.s.sume anything you like, but it doesn't follow that you'll be right. This time you took a meaning I didn't intend."

"I see that now. And the earring? What was I supposed to understand when you said he'd given it to you 'in a way'?"

"I didn't mean for you to understand at all," she said candidly. "I was being purposely evasive."

"Yes," he said. "You were. Does that mean you're not truly prepared to tell me about Graham Denison?"

Berkeley hesitated. She squeezed his fingers because she could not quite meet his eyes. She knew herself to be a coward. ''It means I'm not prepared to tell you anything about myself,'' she said quietly. She risked a glance at him. "I'm sorry, Grey. I am."

"I'm sorry, too. I'd hopeda" He touched her chin and brought her eyes back to him. "Perhaps after we're married it will be easier."

Chapter Ten.

Nat won the wager. He won because he was the only employee or guest of the Phoenix who thought it would take Grey Janeway an entire week to wear Berkeley down. When asked how he arrived at the winning number for his submission, Nat's answer was simple: He thought G.o.d Himself would have needed the seventh day if Miss Shaw had been around to try His patience. Amid the raucous laughter, Nat was very happy to collect three hundred dollars.

Courting in earnest was an exhausting business, Grey decided as he leaned against the bar. First there had been the matter of flowers. He had filled Berkeley's suite with them. He surprised her with carriage rides in the afternoon, theater and opera tickets in the evening, and a Sunday steamer trip up the Sacramento River. Grey had no plan except to keep her so busy she'd marry him simply to get a rest. At the very least she would have to move in with him to make room for the flowers.

Grey followed Berkeley's progress as she wended her way through the crowd toward him. She was stopped several times by guests and gamblers and always spent a moment with each one, but her beautiful eyes invariably darted toward him, seek-ing him out as if he were her calm in the storm. He thought how odd that was, that she should see him in that light when he rarely experienced the kind of peace she gave him credit for. He found himself straightening at the bar, wanting to go to her. He held back, not certain she really needed or desired to be rescued, and selfishly, because he wanted her to come to him.

Then she was there, standing in front of him, her fingers lightly brushing his hand. "Is everything all right?" she asked, searching his face. His jaw was set, and a muscle worked faintly in his cheek. His eyes radiated intensity.

Grey caught her fingers and drew her inches closer. "Everything's fine," he said deeply. And it was. She was here, with him, and she had come of her own accord. "No regrets."

Berkeley's smile was uncertain. "Are you asking if I have any?" she said. "Or telling me that you did?"

"I was asking."

She glanced behind her. The Phoenix was crowded this evening, but a small protective semicircle had been invisibly drawn around where she and Grey stood. Berkeley felt quite alone with him, quite safe. "No regrets. I held out for seven days because I wanted to be sure." And she had given in because there could be no a.s.surances where Grey was concerned.

"I thought you held out because you wanted Nat to win the pool."

Berkeley's smile was secretive. "You're not going to get me to admit I knew anything about that."

Grey let go of her hand and slipped his own about her waist. "Do you want to go up early this evening?" he asked. "Everyone will understand if you want a few more hours' rest on the eve of your wedding day."

His thoughtfulness touched her. His arm was a warm band at her back, and she was comforted being held by him. "Yes, please. I'd like that."

Grey nodded. "Of course." He released her. It was what she had come to ask him, he realized, and he was glad he had thought of it first. He couldn't help but be aware that she had been tired recently, that she often slept past breakfast and began yawning early in the evening. Most days, until he drew her out, Berkeley kept to her room. It seemed as if she would have been content with that. The flowers, the theater, the carriage rides had all been his idea. She didn't expect it, and Grey saw that she didn't know quite what to make of the attention. Sometimes Grey thought he had overwhelmed her. Did I wear you down, Berkeley? Or did I wear you out?

"Grey?" Berkeley asked. "What is it?"

For a moment he wondered if he had given voice to his thoughts. No, he'd said nothing. She'd only seen something in his face, glimpsed his uncertainty. Grey carefully shuttered his expression. A faint smile eclipsed the edgy, uneasy set of his mouth. "Go on," he said. "Use the stairs from the kitchen. It will take the men a little longer to realize you're gone."

Berkeley hesitated, searching his face again. As much as she wanted to leave the hall, she did not really want to leave Grey. Had she been possessed of even a thimble's worth of courage, she would have asked him to come with her, to sit with her until she fell asleep, perhaps even to lie with her, to hold her, touch her, place his lips upon hers, allow her to open her arms, her mouth, all of her body to him. She wanted him like that again. In spite of her gift, Berkeley was much less certain what it was he wanted. Tomorrow afternoon they would be married, and he had never once said that he loved her. Sharing those words had not been part of Grey's strategy to court her. "Good night," she said.

Grey nodded once, then watched her go. For a moment he had half expected that she would ask him to accompany her. Foolish, he told himself now. She hadn't let her guard slip all this long week, if indeed she had been guarded at all. It may have been that she simply didn't love him.

"I'll take that drink now, Sam," Grey said, turning back to the bar. "In fact, just slide the bottle this way."

Nat stepped outside with a bucket of sc.r.a.ps from the kitchen. Annie Jack's voice carried to him even after the door closed. "Take them all the way to the alley," she yelled. "Annie don't want the dogs nosin' around her kitchen." Dutifully, Nat hopped off the porch and marched across the yard. He was on the point of letting the sc.r.a.ps fly when the bucket was yanked out of his hand and he was hauled upward by the scruff of his neck.

"This way," a voice said close to his ear. "I believe you have some explaining to do."

Berkeley was pa.s.sing through the kitchen on her way upstairs when Annie flung open the back door and called to Nat to take a second bucket. "That boy," she said to no one in particular. "He can't make it from A to B without losin' his way. Now where'd he go?"

"Can I help you?" Berkeley asked.

Annie eyed Berkeley's ivory gown and her matching kid boots skeptically. "That'd be somethin' to see, you traipsin' across the yard in that dress with these sc.r.a.ps." Berkeley took the bucket right out of Annie's hand. "That would be something to see," she said politely. Squeezing past the cook's ample form, Berkeley went as far as the lip of the porch. "Nat! You forgot this othera"" She fell silent when she heard some scuffling and a m.u.f.fled cry from the direction of the stable. She c.o.c.ked her head. "Nat! Is something wrong? Is there someone with you?"

"I'm coming!" he called.

Behind her, Annie began to say something, but Berkeley waved at her to be quiet. She squinted in the darkness, trying to make out the deeper shadows against the side of the stable. She was preparing to step off the porch when one part of the shadow separated itself from the rest. Her eyes shifted to Nat's small form as he came running toward her. When she looked back toward the stable there was nothing left for her to see.

Nat held out his hand for the bucket. "I'll take it, Miss Shaw."

Berkeley shook her head. "Annie can find someone else. You're coming with me." To be certain he obeyed, she took his outstretched hand. "Now," she said.

Grey saw light seeping from under the door as he approached his room. He couldn't remember leaving a lamp burning, but he supposed he must have. It didn't occur to him that he would find his suite occupied. Berkeley was curled in the large chair next to the fireplace. She had a shawl around her shoulders, and her boots were tucked neatly under the chair. Nat was lying on the sofa, one stockinged foot dangling awkwardly over the side, the other over the arm. Both of them were asleep.

He wondered which one of them had picked the lock, then decided it had been a joint effort, or at least that's the story they would tell. Neither one of them was likely to let the other take full responsibility. Shaking his head, wryly amused, Grey hunkered beside Berkeley's chair and placed one hand over her knee. He whispered her name several times before she finally responded.

"Oh," she said softly. "You're back."

She had a perfectly lovely, drowsy smile to welcome him, and for a moment he was transfixed. He didn't want to ask the : obvious question. It came out anyway. "What are you doing here?"

Her sleepy eyes strayed to Nat's prostrate form. "Will you take him to his room? He wanted to wait up for you, to tell you himself, but he's too tired." She pressed back her own yawn by knuckling her mouth. "You won't make much sense of it now. I'll explain everything." She intercepted his skeptical glance. "I promise you'll understand."

"All right. Come with me. You can open his door."

Grey fished Nat's key out of his pocket and gave it to Berkeley. He scooped the boy up in his arms. Nat would have cringed if he had known he was being carried like a young child, but he slept through the walk down the hall and didn't wake even when he was stripped down to his drawers and tucked into bed. Grey watched Berkeley stroke Nat's fair head. She bent and kissed him, then turned back the lamp.

"You're like a mother to him," Grey said when they had stepped out of the room. "He calls you Miss Shaw, but he thinks of you as his mother."

"I know." She glanced at him sideways. "You don't find that objectionable?"

"No. Why?"

"It rather makes him your responsibility as well."

"I accepted that the day you brought him here.'' Grey opened the door to his room for her and ushered her inside. "He could be our son, you know. His hair. The shape of his face. They're both like yours. He has my eyes, though."

"And your cleverness." She turned on him suddenly, her expression earnest. Her eyes shone, and there was a knot in her throat that gave her voice a vaguely desperate quality. "Can you love him, Grey? As if he were your own? Would you be able to forgive him if he'd done something that coulda""

"Berkeley." Grey took her wrists. "What is this? What's wrong? Here, sit down." He drew her over to the sofa. "Do you want something to drink?"

She shook her head as she sat. Her hands slipped out of his, and she stared at them after they came to rest in her lap. "Could you forgive me?"

He touched her chin and raised her face. "I think you'd better explain yourself."

"Natand I," she began slowly, "we've placed you in danger. Someone's found out about you and Graham Denison." She saw that Grey's features were not cleared in the least by this information. "The man you killed, Grey. Others know now."

Grey's hand dropped away from her face. He slowly let out the breath he'd been holding. Berkeley was quite sincere about what she was saying, but Grey did not accept her alarm. "Who?" he asked calmly. "Who knows?"

"Decker and Colin Thorne."

"I see." Though of course he didn't. "And they would be exactly who?"

Berkeley touched the earring pendant at her throat. She fingered the dangling raindrop of pure gold. "They would be the ones who gave me this earring. They paid for my father and me to come to San Francisco. We were supposed to find Graham Denison for them, but their faith and money was misplaced with us. It was all a hoax on my father's part." Her eyes fell away from his. "No," she said quietly. "That's not entirely true. I was there, helping him carry it out. It was as much my fault that we ended up here as Anderson's."

Grey felt a tightening in his chest. Here were the things she had been unwilling to tell him a week ago and now, on the eve of their wedding, she was revealing them, not because she wanted to, Grey realized, but because she believed she had no choice. "Go on," he heard himself say. It was odd that he should say that, he thought. What he had wanted to do was stop her. "Tell me about the hoax."

"I don't know how mya my father first learned about the Thornes. He was very good at finding people who thought they needed him. He never left much to chance. He knew more about Colin and Decker Thorne than they could possibly have imagined, and he knew all of it before we were ever invited to their home in Boston. That's what we did, you see. Made ourselves useful to people, convinced them we could help with some particular task. My father's special talent was making it seem as if it were entirely their idea. My very special talent wasa" Her voice trailed off. She looked away, her smile mocking and sad. "Well, you know what it was even if you don't quite accept it."

"No," Grey said. "I'm not sure that I do." He stood and went to his sideboard. He had a need for a drink even if Berkeley didn't. He poured himself half a tumbler of whiskey. "What exactly is it that you did for people?"

Berkeley's hands turned over helplessly, almost as if she were at a loss to explain it herself. "Find things, I suppose. That's what most of the work was. Lost family treasures. Miss-ing doc.u.ments. I authenticated antiques and approved the worth of certain pieces of jewelry. Occasionally I was asked to find a person."

"And how often did you rely on your talent?" Grey asked. "And how often was the outcome determined by Anderson's research?''

Berkeley shrugged. "I can't really say. He never completely trusted me, but he was more than a bit afraid not to. It was just as well he left so little to chance. I didn't like helping him, and he knew it. Mother was the one who told him I had the gift, but he didn't know if he could believe her. It was a dying confession. It made him doubt her. Still, she was able to extract a promise from him not to abandon me."

"So he didn't."

"No," she said on a thread of sound. "He kept me very close."

Grey studied her profile. Anxiety had made her complexion pale. When she brushed back a corn silk strand of hair he saw a faint throbbing in her temple. His eyes moved to her jaw. The line of it was rigid as she clenched her teeth. "What else do I need to know, Berkeley?"

She started a little as his voice drew her back to the present. "Colin and Decker Thorne are brothers," she said. "There's also a third brother, the youngest one. Greydon. They were all separated in London as children, after their parents were murdered, when Greydon was a mere infant. The only clue to his ident.i.ty is an earring almost identical to the one around my neck. This is a replica that Colin commissioned. The real pair date back to Queen Elizabeth's coronation." She saw his skepticism. "It's true. The earrings now are in Boston with Decker's wife. You may have even heard of her. Jonna Remington."

Grey lowered his tumbler. "Remington Shipping? That Remington?"

Berkeley nodded. "She's the one who first contacted my father. She wanted to help her husband and Colin find Greydon. Anderson Shaw had become known to her, but you musn't think it was serendipitous. My father had been looking for a way to California. He really did have it in his mind that he could become a wealthy man out here. What he required was a sponsor."

"The Thornes."

"Exactly. We made a good living from our work. People could be very generous when we were successful in recovering an object or pointing out a fraud. My father, however, had a difficult time holding on to our money. He gambled much of it away." What he didn't drink. What he didn't give to wh.o.r.es. "There was never enough to suit him. Certainly not enough to buy two pa.s.sages to California."