Weak Flesh (14 page)

"Susan said that Jim gave Nell the ring as a symbol of their affection for one another," she began. "Evidently Nell thought it was humorous."

Gage lifted one brow.

"Susan claims that Nell was never as fond of James as he seemed to think," she explained.

"Do you think that's true? Would Nell have been honest with her sister about her feelings for the man?"

Bailey shrugged. "I don't know. Truthfully, Susan and Nell were often at each other's throats. I wonder why she would share such a secret with Susan and not with me."

She looked a little stymied, even hurt, then impatient as she patted the bench beside her. "Do sit down, Gage, you're giving me a kink in my neck looking all that way up to your face."

Gage smiled and sat down, his leg brushing against her skirt. Both of them stared out onto the river for a few minutes in silence.

"Do you know," she said at last, "I believe the Pasquotank is one of the most beautiful rivers I've ever seen. There's something very dark and mysterious about it. Exciting, as if it could take one away to – to, oh, I don't know, to all kinds of romantic places."

"Romantic? Really, Bailey, I thought you were such a practical woman."

She slanted him a look from beneath remarkably thick lashes that shadowed her pale cheeks. "Honestly, Gage, sometimes I think you don't know me at all."

Examining her profile as she turned back to the river, he took in the straight line of her nose, the sculpted cheekbones now flushed with the chill off the water, the long line of her neck. Bailey wasn't conventionally pretty, but those clean, straight features stirred a strange longing in him.

"Stop ogling me," she said sharply without looking at him.

"I don't ogle, Bailey," he retorted, somewhat taken aback by her sharp intuition.

She turned to face him, her eyes like emeralds, dark and vaguely mysterious. She leaned forward until her nose nearly touched his chin. "Then what do you call such fierce concentration?"

His gaze dropped to her lips, the bottom lush and rosily tinted in a way he'd never noticed before. Her eyes remained on his, wide and innocent, her breath sweet and warm. "I was thinking that you've grown up on me, Bailey."

After awkward silence, she broke out in a loud and unfeminine snort, followed by raucous laughter that disturbed the seriousness of the moment. She aimed a hard punch at his arm. "What a foolish thing to say, Tucker Gage."

His heart skipped a beat or two. Foolish indeed, he thought, and forced his gaze away from her mouth.

"You need to ask Jim Wade about the ring," she continued. "Pressure him into telling you the truth." She slanted a challenging glance his way. "You're good at that, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am." He cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Have you figured out Nell's code?"

"No," she confessed reluctantly. "I swear, Gage, Nell was a lot more clever than any of us gave her credit for."

He stood and held out his hand to pull her up. "Perhaps I can assist you with it."

"You don't even think the note is significant," she said suspiciously. "Why are you offering to help?"

"Good grief, Bailey. Nell sewed her dance card inside a pillow and hid a note inside the card. Of course, I'm interested."

"Oh, well, that's good." She looked somewhat mollified. "Then we shall work on it together."

She hesitated a moment. "You keep reminding me that I'm not to be involved with your investigation. Have you changed your mind then?"

Her face with its light scattering of freckles looked fragile for a brief moment. He tucked her arm through his and patted her hand. He forced a grumpy note into his voice. "It seems I'm always changing my mind around you, Bailey."

"Good." He felt her relax next to him. "That's good."

When he turned, he glimpsed the small smile of satisfaction on her face.

Chapter 16

The buck was strong, his black flesh gleaming tautly over powerful, sinewy muscles. Naked from the waist up, his shoulders and arms were like boulders. But the blow to his head had felled him and he knelt on all fours, shaking his head and roaring like a wounded beast.

The white man didn't think of himself as a killer. He thought of his actions as part of the natural order of things. After all, man had dominion over the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and yes, the beasts of the earth.

The beasts of burden. And when those beasts became sick or failed to perform, the master put them down, didn't he? He couldn't allow one diseased animal to infect the herd.

The man stepped closer, gripping the rifle barrel, the stock stained with the buck's blood, which ran freely down the side of his face and dripped into his eyes.

The man aimed again and swung hard, catching the buck on the side of the face. He fell over, no longer roaring like a lion, but bleating like a sacrificial lamb.

The man aimed one last blow toward the front of the head and swung with all his might, the jar of the impact sending ripples of numbness from his hands and wrists up to his elbows and even his shoulders. The buck toppled sideways and lay motionless. The man panted heavily with the exertion of the task ... and the tingle of pleasure.

Long minutes later, after he'd left the body hidden in the Swamp, he examined the stock of his rifle. Damn! Gore and blood, and what bits of brain the coon had, thickened on the wood grain. Likely it wouldn't come clean.

Next time he'd find something else to use.

No sense in ruining a perfectly good rifle.

#

Meghan thought the bright and sunny, but very cold late Sunday afternoon was the perfect time to speak with Mrs. Nolan about her daughter's school progress. Church was long over and suppers likely finished. She rapped sharply on the front door of the palatial Nolan house and looked around her while she waited for someone to answer.

The porch landing was wide and neat, but not nearly as inviting as the Bailey home with its porch swing and year-long plants in colorful containers. Ivy curled around lattice on either side of the porch, but it was so overgrown that it resembled a Hawthorne setting.

The windows were dark, heavy drapes covering them, preventing the slightest hint of sunshine from filtering in. How did one survive in such gloominess?

She raised her hand again, intending to use the knocker this time, when the door suddenly swung open and Mr. Nolan stood in the doorway, his face cleanly shaven, his cheeks high rosy slashes of flesh that exuded happiness and joy. His lips were full and tinted pink and his brows were thick above the palest shade of blue she'd ever seen.

It was the eyes that betrayed him. While on the outside, Oliver Nolan was all smiles and jocularity, the eyes were like arctic skies. So light and clear they seemed transparent. So chilly that one look at them sent a frigid blast to the marrow of the bones.

"Miss Bailey, our little school teacher come to visit. How pleasant to see you." Nolan peered around her as if he half-expected someone to accompany her. "Are you quite alone, then?"

How could he make the innocuous words sound so villainous?

"Yes," Meg said, "I've come to speak with Mrs. Nolan."

He frowned and the motion seemed so artificial to her that Meghan wondered at the sincerity of his next words. "She's not feeling well today. I'm afraid she's resting."

Meg couldn't keep the disappointment from her voice. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

She fidgeted on the landing, suddenly feeling the dank cold seep into her boots and beneath her cloak and gloves. "I was rather hoping to speak with her about Emily's school progress."

"Perhaps another – " he began, only to be interrupted by Mrs. Nolan's voice directly behind him.

"Who is it, Oliver?" she asked and stepped to the side so that Meghan could see her. The woman didn't look particularly ill and she was certainly fully clothed, not at all like she'd been lying down.

When Mrs. Nolan saw Meghan, her face lifted in delight. "Hello, Miss Bailey, do come in, dear. It's such a chilly day in spite of the bright sunshine. I think the light simply mocks us with it semblance of warmth, don't you?"

As she chattered, she urged Meghan into the foyer, took her coat and hat, and ushered her into the sitting room where she pulled a bell to summon her maid, Sally.

After tea had been delivered, along with the butter cookies Sally was famous for making, the two women settled down to talk. Mr. Nolan had conveniently – in Meghan's mind, at any rate – disappeared.

"I came to talk about Emily," Meghan said when the opportunity presented itself.

Mrs. Nolan set her cup down rather sharply on the table in front of them where they sat together on the sofa. "Oh, dear, I do hope she's doing well in her studies."

"Yes, she is. Emily is one of my brightest students."

A smile and flush of color livened Mrs. Nolan's normally pale face. "I'm so glad. She's a clever little thing."

"Yes," Meghan answered noncommittally and took a sip of tea. "She's rather slow to make friends, though, don't you think?"

"I guess I've never noticed. She seems very ... content."

Content, Meghan thought. A child ought not to be content. She should be exuberant, lively, full of energy – none of the things that Emily Nolan was. "She prefers to stay close to my side rather than engage in the activities with the other children."

"She's shy," Mrs. Nolan explained.

Meghan glanced at the open door and beyond to the foyer. She wondered if Mr. Nolan were lurking behind the door, listening to every word the two women spoke.

Which was ridiculous, of course. This was Mr. Nolan's house and he could have joined them had he wished to. Why did she feel so uncomfortable around the man?

Meghan lowered her voice. "I believe it's more than simple shyness, Mrs. Nolan." She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. "She seems to be – to be afraid of something or – someone." The words trailed off when Meghan could hear how foolish they sounded spoken aloud.

She tried again. "Emily doesn't socialize with the other children at all. She seems almost reluctant to make friends. I thought perhaps you could think of a way that I could draw her out of her shell."

"I don't think I know what you mean, Miss Bailey," Mrs. Nolan said, rubbing one smooth hand on top of the other, a worried frown between her finely arched brows. "Emily behaves perfectly normal here at home."

Meghan strongly suspected that Mrs. Nolan had little idea how normal children behaved and didn't even recognize that her child's behavior was unusual. She opened her mouth to speak further when Emily herself suddenly appeared by the open door of the parlor.

From the corner of her eye, Meghan caught the girl standing silently there. She suspected that had she not noticed Emily, she would've continued her vigilance, hovering by the door, listening, waiting until someone acknowledged her.

"Emily, dear," Mrs. Nolan said a little too brightly, "look who's come to visit, your own Miss Bailey."

Eight-year-old Emily Nolan edged into the room and immediately moved to stand near to Meghan, almost clinging in her intensity.

"Hi, Emily, what have you been doing with your several days' holiday?" Meghan asked, putting her arm around the girl's waist.

While Mrs. Nolan left the parlor a moment to replenish the refreshments, Emily spoke quietly of the activities of the past few days, but only after Meghan painstakingly pulled every item of news from her. Then the girl paused, her large blue eyes round and wide while she bent to whisper in Meghan's ear. "I have a secret."

"Oh, really? Having secrets is quite exciting, isn't it?"

Emily nodded and paused a long moment, clearly expecting Meghan to prod her about the nature of the secret.

Meghan decided to indulge her. "Can you tell me?"

Emily scrunched up her face and thought a moment. "I don't suppose it's really a very big secret. It's about Poppa."

That tidbit piqued Meghan's curiosity. "What about your father?"

"Poppa likes to play dress up."

A thrill of excitement, akin to imminent discovery, rushed through Meghan's body. What could the child mean by admitting such a thing about her father? What did dressing up mean to a child like Emily? Likely something harmless, surely nothing inappropriate.

She gave Emily a teasing poke in the belly. "What a silly thing to say about your father."

Emily's mouth turned downward in a pout. "It's true."

"What do you mean? Dress up how?" Surely Emily didn't mean Mr. Nolan dressed up in women's clothing? She'd heard that some men engaged in such unnatural activities, but she had no real knowledge of it.

Emily laughed, obviously pleased that her teacher believed her. Or was the girl simply playing a childish game?

"I'll show you," the girl said gleefully.

Meghan followed Emily out of the parlor through the foyer and around the corner where a great staircase wound upward to a second level. She didn't go up the stairs, but instead raced around to the stairwell where, scarcely seen from the decorative designs on the wall, she banged the flat of her hand on a portion of the wall and a door swung open.

"In here," she said, ducking low.

It was a storage area, hardly detectable from the outside. Meghan bent and followed the girl into the dusty well. Emily squatted down before a large trunk partially hidden in a barely discernible alcove. She swung open the lid of the trunk with some effort and Meghan was too aghast to stop her.

"Here are Poppa's dress-up clothes," Emily said.

Meghan knew immediately what the garments were, what keeping them hidden meant, and what dark secret Mr. Nolan kept in a trunk beneath the stairwell in a secret alcove.

The white robes, the pointed hat, the edge of the red cross – all screamed their significance.

It was only much later, when Meghan had left that she realized she had not pressed Mrs. Nolan with her major concern regarding Emily's behavior. How the girl not only clung to her – and other women as well – but that she had a marked fear of men.