|
Synopsis |
Reviews |
Excerpt |
Jade Douglas is a determined young woman who risks it all to travel to San Francisco in the late 1800’s to learn the truth about her father’s mysterious death.
J.T. Harrington is a handsome, rugged rancher who has just inherited a vast estate. When he finds the radiant beauty on his doorstep, he is tempted to ignore his vow never to love again and offer Jade both his name and his heart.
Before their scandalous wedding can unveil the secrets of the past, J.T. and Jade find themselves torn apart by a dangerous deception, but brought together again by a desire too powerful for either one of them to deny . . .
Jill Marie Landis is the
New York Times bestselling author and seven-time Romance Writers of American Finalist for the RITA Award. Long known for her historical romances, Jill Marie Landis also now writes The Tiki Goddess Mysteries (set on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, where she lives with her husband, actor Steve Landis.)
Coming Soon!
Prologue
Man cannot stir one inch...
without the push of Heaven’s finger.
China
1874
NEITHER LIGHT OF day
nor the heat of the summer sun penetrated the interior of Li Po’s cave. Tin oil
lamps hung suspended from slender lengths of chain imbedded in the rock; their
smoke stained the ceiling of the cave with ever-widening, black circles of
soot. The cloying scent of incense weighed heavy on the air, yet even it was
unable to disguise the odor of must and time.
An age-old, slate-topped table banked the back wall of the cave; a work space covered with blue and white
porcelain jars, clay pots, and glass vessels filled with the grains and powders
essential to an alchemist’s work. Granular cinnabar, fine-dusted gold, slivers
of jade and silver lay beside pieces of bark and snippets of pine tree boughs,
baskets of peach pits, and dried cuttings
from the divine herb, chih. A weathered basket with an unraveledrim housed a dozen or more eggs of tortoise and crane, ingredients vital in
the mixing of medicinal elixirs.
A bulbous glass still with a triad of extended arms took precedence beside the instruments of weights and measures
on the worktable. Hot coals burned brightly in a brazier, blinking like the
glowing red eyes of a demon against the shadowed walls of the cave.
Everything stood
in readiness. The hushed sound of footsteps sliding over the earthen floor and
a soft mumbling and grumbling grew louder as an ancient alchemist, stooped and
white haired, entered his shadowed realm. Li Po paused for a moment inside the
large room in the earth’s interior and surveyed his worktable. His eyes, shaped
like midnight black almonds, shone with inner light; they were quick to note
that all was exactly as he had anticipated. The pine in the brazier had burned
low until it was reduced to the fiery ash he needed to heat the still.
Stray white
whiskers grew from the corners of the old man’s mouth and chin like long blades
of dried grass. They formed a pointed beard that Li Po repeatedly stroked as he
whispered to himself in the flickering light of the cave. The villagers thought
him a wizard. Indeed, his fame was renowned throughout the countryside. For
generation upon generation Li Po’s ancestors had been alchemists. His father’s
father had once served the emperor.
Only Li Po knew
the truth.
He was no more a
wizard than the humblest village beggar. He was a charlatan, a fake who had
held the people enthralled with little more than explosions of sulfur and simple predictions for which he carefully
orchestrated the outcomes. Whatever
valuable secrets his ancestors had possessed had long since been lost to
time. Had his father or his father’s father truly been wizards they would still
walk among the living—for it was well known that true alchemists possessed the
very secret of life itself.
Now that he was stooped
with age, he could see the doubt in the young men’s eyes when they watched him.
He could feel their disbelief when he tried to hold onto his power over them.
Even the high-soled shoes he had ordered made in Canton so that he might appear
taller than any man in the village failed to bring him proper respect anymore.
He often heard the young ones laughing whenever he passed by.
For years he had
tried to discover the elixir of immortality supposedly known to the ancients.
Today he would try again, and hope that he would succeed before death claimed
him.
The old man had
taken great care with his appearance this day so that he might please the
goddess of the stove. He had followed every prescribed precaution in order to
insure success. On his head he wore a tall, nearly square black hat. The
headdress was covered with gold and red beads. He had donned the sacred crimson
alchemist’s robe handed down from generation to generation. Unlike Li Po, whose
wrinkled body showed all of his eighty-nine years, the robe had not aged,
though it was hundreds of years old. The silk fabric, as red as blood, was
emblazoned with dragons and tigers, lions and cranes. Stars, crescent moons,
and images of the sun were worked in threads of spun gold.
Mingled with the
images were symbols, characters of an archaic form of Chinese long since
forgotten by most. He was happy the robe was red, for it insured success. Red
was the color of the female deity of the stove, the goddess who blessed all
those who transmuted metals, brewed medicines, or merely prepared meals.
Li Po’s father
had failed to rediscover the exact proportions of the magic life-extending
elixir, but he had passed on one important clue to Li Po. On his deathbed, the
father of Li Po whispered the same words his father before him had whispered
with his dying breath: "The robe itself is magic, it is part of the
transmutation.”
After years of
futility, Li Po had nearly given up, but then, a month ago, after his last
miserable attempt to transform himself into a youth, he realized where he had
gone wrong. As he had cursed himself, his forefathers, and then the sacred
robe, he suddenly stopped in mid-sentence. He slipped off the robe and ran his
long fingernails over the symbols. He stared at the ancient script, at the
lions, tigers, cranes and dragons, and a revelation came to him.
Merely wearingthe robe and mixing his own elixir would not insure success. The secret
formula itself had been carefully embroidered on the robe in gilded threads. As
he looked closer, even his faded vision could not miss the fact that the robe,
which had been in his family for generations, was as new as the day it had been
made.
The magic had
kept the robe from aging.
It had taken Li
Po almost a month to transcribe the ancient symbols into a formula that made
any sense to him at all. Now he was ready to proceed. Not only had Li Po fasted
as ancient custom dictated, but he had purified himself with jasmine perfume
and burned incense at a shrine outside of the village. He knew as well as any
that one must enter the mountains to produce efficacious medicines. And so he
had come to his cave deep in the heart of the mountain outside of Sin Ngan
Hien.
This night, even
the stars were aligned in his favor. All he needed to do was believe. Disbelief
assured failure.
With an iron
ladle he measured the white-hot ash into the bed below the still. His
blue-veined hands were steady and sure. Li Po thought of the many years he had
conducted the tan, the search for the secret formula that would produce
the life-extending elixir. He chuckled to himself when he realized what a cruel
trick fate had placed on his ancestors. The correct proportions of gold and
mercury that would assure his immortality had always been within their grasp.
They were emblazoned on the robe. He reminded himself to hurry. Time was of the
essence.
He was fast
becoming a very old man.
Li Po sifted the
cinnabar and then gold dust into the still while he repeatedly whispered the words of an incantation that had also been
handed down to him.
"Gold, you will
not rot or decay. You are the most precious of all things on earth. Make me a
lusty youth. Help me escape the perils of life and pain of death. Let me live
to be as old as the universe itself. I pray that once I have ingested the
elixir of life that I will regain my lost years and live forever. Change me as
easily as the wind changes direction before a storm. As I say these words
aloud, make them so.”
Li Po chuckled
to himself—a rasping, choking sound—each time he repeated the line about the
lusty youth. He alternately smiled and frowned as he bent stoop-shouldered over
his worktable, sifting and measuring, mumbling and mixing. Soon now,
thought Li Po, I will achieve the status of True Man and live forever. Far
past eternity will I walk the earth as I have these many, many moons. I will
watch the stars rotate through the heavens again and again.
And just as the
philosopher Lao Tzu practiced magic, so too did Li Po.
Carefully he
continued to sift ingredients into the glass crucible that topped the still as
he chanted and chuckled over the words of his prayer. The old man’s mind was so
attuned to the moment at hand, his concentration so focused, that he failed to
hear the muffled sound of hushed whispers or the scuffling feet of the
half-dozen men who crept stealthily toward him through the shadows.
They were upon
him before he was aware of their presence.
Li Po turned, his withered, parchmentlike skin bleached with shock until
it was as white as his whiskers. The fire behind his eyes blazed bright with
anger. He recognized these men; they were the bearded foreigners who rode the
tall-masted sailing ships.
Quickly, he
turned and lifted the vial of elixir that had simmered above the still. He
swirled it, made a great show of holding it to the light and watched it
shimmer. It pulsated with life and glowed iridescent in the darkness.
He had to stall
these intruders while the liquid cooled, for to drink it now would surely scald
his throat beyond healing.
One of the men
started to creep toward Li Po.
With the elixir
clutched in one hand, he raised his arms high in a dramatic gesture of power.
The wide sleeves of the royal red robe fanned out to give him the appearance of
a huge bat ready to swoop down upon them. The golden animals on the robe shimmered
in the lamp light, moving and swaying within the garment’s folds.
In unison, the
men fell back a step.
Good, Li Po thought. Let the spineless
creatures quiver! He reached down with one hand, scooped up a few grains of
sulfur, and tossed them on the brazier.
They exploded
with a shower of light and an ominous hiss.
The men scurried
farther away.
For good
measure, Li Po waved his arms and shouted curses at them.
Fiercely he
stared at the burly fon kwei, the foreign devils who dared surround him
in the inner sanctuary of his cave. They were certainly thieves of the lowest
sort, for their clothes were strange and rough, tattered and filthy. Their
faces were covered with thick, shaggy beards. One man wore an eye patch;
another was missing his front teeth. Typical of other Caucasian devils he had
seen, they reeked of grease, liquor, and unwashed flesh.
When Li Po spoke
again, the strength in his tone belied his age. The words sounded clear and
true against the walls of stone. "Be gone, devils! Take what you will and be
gone!”
He glanced at
the vial. It was still glowing, but the steam had died down. Out of the corner
of his eye, he saw a shadow move; one of the men had ventured away from the
others and was steadily creeping toward him. Slowly Li Po carried the glass
vial to his lips, and just as he did, another man shouted and rushed forward.
In the struggle
that followed, the vial fell from Li Po’s hand. It fell to the ground, where it
shattered into hundreds of tiny shards. The precious elixir mingled with the
broken glass on the floor of the cave. The liquid seemed to pulsate. As if it
were a live thing, the liquid danced. Its iridescence flared, wavered, and
then died.
Before Li Po
knew what was happening, the foreigners moved forward in a pack. Someone grabbed
his arms, twisted them behind his back, and bound his wrists together.
Li Po began
shouting, commanding, summoning the gods for help. But when the first devil
remained unharmed, the others failed to heed him.
Helpless now, he
watched while they threw all of his precious items into baskets and cursed him
in their harsh foreign tongue.
Li Po hung his
head in resignation. If he had only swallowed this latest elixir, he would now
be immortal. Fit and youthful, he would have been able to fight the devils off.
As the men
prodded him out of the cave and along the crooked path that wound down the
mountain, Li Po realized with aching clarity that unless he could retain
possession of the robe and escape his captors, he would remain a captive,
powerless old man doomed to meet the fate of all mortals.
Chapter One
Good deeds stay
indoors...
Evil deeds travel many miles from home.
San Francisco
1875
ALTHOUGH SHE WAS anxious
to see her hostess, Jade Douglas was glad she had arrived before her old friend
had awakened. She needed the time alone to collect her thoughts. Jade stared
around her borrowed retreat, studying its overblown opulence. Fall sunlight,
diffused by fog, barely lit the second-story room, but even the weak, early
morning light could not diminish the shining surfaces of the various gilded
frames, polished mirrors, and crystal droplets that adorned the wall sconces.
Pausing just inside the door, Jade ran her fingertip over the textured wall
covering flocked with gold highlights, and then crossed over to the high, four-
poster bed swathed in crushed velvet curtains and spread—a veritable sea of
emerald green.
Despite the
richness of the room’s appointments, there was a look of untouched perfection
about the place that made it lifeless and uninviting. When she set her satchel
on the bed, the faded, lopsided bag reminded her of an old tramp that had
somehow crept into a place where it definitely did not belong. She quickly
moved it to the floor.
The same muted
light that filled the room highlighted the golden strands woven within the red
of her hair. Within seconds of closing the door behind her, she had released
the wild mass from the severely wound knot tied at the slender nape of her
neck. Now, as she ran her fingers through the thick, shining tresses, they
sprang to life with curl. Jade shook her hair once more, enjoying the way it
swayed past her shoulders.
She retrieved
her buttonhook from the satchel, then sat on the edge of the bed and slowly
unhooked the buttons of her well-worn shoes. Once they were undone, she sighed
with relief, and slipped them off of her feet. They fell to the floor, the
sound muffled by the thick Persian carpet. After tossing the hook back into the
bag, she paused to admire the ornate detail of the rug’s green and gold
pattern. She wriggled her stockinged toes, then stretched, arms skyward, and
crossed the room to linger before the window. She opened it and leaned out to
welcome the chill October air that chased away the stuffiness of the room. Jade
stood in silent contemplation, relishing the tangy scent of salt on the air,
and stared out at wisps of fog that crept along and eddied about the other
homes that lined Powell Street.
How different
San Francisco was from Paris, where she had spent the last five years! Beyond
the window lay a city grown wild and unencumbered as a storm at sea. Miners,
stockbrokers, bankers, and thieves moved shoulder-to-shoulder with immigrants
of every land along the crowded streets in this sprawling city on the edge of
the world. Fortunes were made and lost in a day. Everyone in San Francisco was
caught up in the fever of speculation, even hotel maids and milkmen purchased
stocks on the San Francisco exchange.
People were
afraid not to spend their hard-earned wages on a chance at riches, not when so
many of the city’s most wealthy residents had made their fortunes in
speculation, even though just as many had lost. The city was much larger than
she remembered, sprawling wherever it was not held in check by the water that
surrounded it. Compared to the ancient, winding streets of Paris lined with
aged stone buildings, San Francisco seemed new, raw, and barely tamed.
Jade crossed the
room again and reached down into the satchel. When she found her hairbrush, she
worked it through her hair until it shone, then tossed it aside and slipped off
her faded, travel-weary gown. After she draped the dress over a nearby chair,
she donned a robe of rich, topaz silk to cover her short-sleeved chemise and
cotton knickerbockers. As she tied the sash, she lowered herself to the floor
and sat cross-legged—back straight, body relaxed. Closing her eyes, she tried
to still the inner chatter that plagued her thoughts as they tumbled one after
another.
Jade took a deep
breath and sat very still. Her daily meditation period was a habit she had
learned long before she went to Paris to learn Chinese. These contemplative
moments had long been a custom of her grandfather, Philo Page. As a small
child, she had taken to sitting quietly beside her grandfather whenever he and
his companion, Chi Nu, meditated. Before she was twelve, she was able to sit in
silence for nearly an hour.
She had barely
begun to breathe evenly—taking the slow, rhythmic breaths prescribed by ancient
Chinese philosophers—when the bedroom door opened without so much as a warning
knock and an effervescent Barbara Barrett swept in.
Casually wrapped
in a satin dressing gown with matching ivory slippers, Babs was a picture of
elegant dishabille—her luxurious brunette hair swept up off the back of her
neck and tied with a wide ribbon in a loose, sensuous style. She looked as
beautiful as Jade remembered her.
When they were
both thirteen, Babs’s figure had already blossomed, while Jade’s had remained
reed thin. Now, at twenty-three and nearly the same height, Babs was a stunning
brunette with dark, flashing eyes and a complexion that glowed the color of
ripened apricots. Jade considered herself lucky not to have inherited her
father’s freckles. Her skin was the palest ivory; beside Babs, Jade had always
felt like an ugly duckling.
Babs halted just
inside the room and stared down at Jade as if she could not believe her eyes.
She took a tentative step forward then halted again. "What are you doing
sitting on the floor?”
Jade smiled and
stood up, careful to keep her robe modestly closed. She hurried to embrace her
old friend with a warm hug. "Oh, Babs! I’m so glad to see you! You look
wonderful. You’re too good, taking me in like this.”
Babs laughed and
hugged Jade tight, then pulled back to study her carefully. Her expression
sobered. "You look tired, Jade.”
Leading Jade
across the room, Babs sidestepped the satchel without comment and sat on the
edge of the bed. She pulled Jade down beside her. The scent of Babs’s expensive
perfume heavily scented the air about them.
"You poor thing.
If I had known you were arriving so early, I would have been up to meet you. I
felt just awful having to cable you in France about your father’s murder, but I
knew you would want to return as soon as possible.” Babs hesitated while she
watched Jade’s reaction to her words. "You did want to come home, didn’t you?”
Jade nodded,
reassuring her friend as the two held hands in silent solidarity. She stared
down at Babs’s well-manicured nails and was suddenly all too aware of her own
uneven and neglected ones. "I suppose it was time I came back. My studies were
at an end. I’m able to speak Cantonese fluently now, which is what grandfather
dearly wanted. So yes, returning to San Francisco was the logical thing to do.”
"But what a
horrible thing to have to face,” Babs said, giving Jade’s hand a final squeeze
before letting go. "You can’t imagine Reggie’s reaction to your father’s
murder—”
"Oh, I think I
can.” It was no secret that Babs’s husband, Reginald Barrett, hated scandal of
any kind. He had never hidden his disapproval of Jade. Even when the three of
them were younger and he and Babs had first become engaged, Reggie’s feelings
were clear. To his way of thinking, Jade was too eccentric, too headstrong, and
far too intellectual for a woman. A bluestocking, he always called her. "I know
Reggie’s penchant for keeping up appearances,” Jade added.
Babs shrugged.
"Well, one can never be too careful. There’s nothing San Franciscans enjoy more
than someone else’s scandal. Have you received any details aside from the Chroniclearticles I sent you?”
Bothered by
disturbing thoughts, Jade was unable to sit any longer. She stood and began to
pace, pausing here and there to gingerly touch whatever piece of bric-a-brac
caught her eye as she spoke. "A few. I stopped at the police station this
morning while I was waiting for a decent hour to come knocking on your door.”
She lifted the lid of a crystal bonbon dish. It was empty.
Babs brushed at
a stray wisp of hair that had escaped the pile atop her crown. "We were out
late last night, but you could have come right over. The servants are here to
answer the door anyway. "
"I met your maid
when she let me in.”
Babs leaned back
on her elbows and jiggled her foot, admiring her fashionable slipper. "Doreen
is utterly useless.” Jade paused for a moment and contemplated a Staffordshire
vase on a side table. She wondered if Babs truly meant the insensitive remark.
The maid had struck her as very young, inexperienced, perhaps, but very
pleasant and hardly useless.
"Well?” Babs
prodded.
Jade started.
"Well what?”
"What have you
learned about the murder? What did the police say?”
"Not much. The
detective on the case wasn’t there, but the man at the desk was able to tell me
that they think my father was connected to a kidnapping of some kind. I’m to
meet with the detective in charge of the case later this morning to learn the
details.”
"This morning?
But you just got here. Surely they’ll give you time to rest?”
Jade shrugged.
"It’s not every day a Caucasian is found in Little China with a tong war axe
buried in his skull.”
"God, it’s
awful, for a man to die that way, isn’t it? I mean, I know there was no love
lost between you and your father, but... ”
Jade walked over
to the window again, took a deep breath, and stared out at the city. Babs knew
her well enough to know what a strain Francis Douglas’s drinking and gambling
had put on her childhood. The girls’ mothers had been close; both women
encouraged the children’s friendship. Jade used to relish her visits to Babs’s
home; compared to her own, it was a haven, a place filled with love where both
parents lavished affection on their child.
Francis Douglas
had never hidden the fact that he had not wanted the burden of his only child.
Jade and her mother had been the victims of his constant verbal abuse. After
her mother’s death, Jade’s grandfather had urged her to study in France. He’d
insisted that he needed her to help him catalogue and translate markings on the
piece of his Chinese art collection. In reality, they both knew it was a way to
escape from her overbearing and increasingly irrational father.
Looking back
now, she wished she had possessed the foresight to return before her father
had placed the very collection that was essential to her grandfather’s dream in
jeopardy.
"It’s just
horrible,” Babs went on, unaware that Jade had not been paying attention. "God
knows we’re probably not even safe in our own beds. That’s the trouble with
having so many Chinese around. They’re taking over the city, you know. I won’t
even have a Chinese servant in the house.”
Jade spun around
to face her friend. The Chinese she had known were hardworking and
intelligent—fighting to make a place for themselves in a culture that was alien
to their own. Amazed by her friend’s prejudice, she held her temper,
nonetheless. She was, after all, a guest in Babs’s home. "Even the police
aren’t sure it was the Chinese that killed my father, Babs. It could be that
the murderer just wanted it to look that way.”
"But why? Why
would anyone have wanted him dead?” Babs wondered aloud.
"You know my
father wasn’t the most scrupulous of businessmen, Babs,” Jade said softly. He
had made more enemies in business than she could count. Some he had duped
through sales of bogus silver mine certificates, others he had outgambled, and
then there were those whose properties he had gained through illegal real
estate transactions. It could have been any one of them. "He was always
involved in one scheme or another, always losing as much money as he made.” She
had been too young and frightened then to do anything about his thieving. Now
it was too late.
Jade turned and
crossed the room again. She stood beside the bed and toyed with one of the
tassels on the satin braid that held the bed drapes swagged open. Babs had
shifted on the bed and lay curled up on her side, her feet tucked beneath her
dressing gown.
"Right now I’m
more concerned with recovering Grandfather Page’s Chinese collection than
finding out who killed my father. The Hibernia Bank contacted me before I left
Paris, and it seems that before he was murdered, my father managed to go
through all of the money mother had inherited.” She took a deep breath, nearly
unable to relate her next bit of bad news. "He even took Grandfather’s
collection... my collection,” she amended, "and used
it as collateral against his debts. The bank is holding it until I can find a
way to pay off the sixty thousand dollars my father owed them.”
"Sixty
thousand?” Babs sat up.
Jade shook her
head. "Exactly. Where am I supposed to get that kind of money in thirty days?”
"Are you sure
there’s nothing left of your grandfather’s estate?”
"Father sold
everything off but the old adobe and the land around it, which he could not
touch, but that was only because I was named on the deed when I was a child.
Grandfather didn’t leave a will, so everything that would have been mother’s
reverted to my father when she died. All that’s left is the house and the land
it sits on.” She flicked the tassel once more before she dropped it. "I’m sure
that wherever Grandfather is now, he hates knowing that. If there was any money
left at all, I wouldn’t have arrived here this morning, bag and baggage, on
your doorstep.”
Babs leaned back
on her elbows. "Don’t even think about it. I want you to stay for as long as
need be.”
Jade had no idea
when her affairs would be settled, and at this very moment, she felt too tired
to care.
"Maybe you
should talk to them. Tell them you need more time,” Babs suggested.
Jade shook her
head. In his absent-mindedness, her grandfather had not thought to safeguard
the collection for her. He had been a self-taught scholar of things Chinese,
living not in the present but in the distant past, trying to understand a
culture very different from his own. His dream was to find a way to house and
display the collection of Chinese antiques he had collected over the years, so
that the people of San Francisco could begin to understand the history of the
many Chinese that lived and worked among them. He had passed his dream on to
Jade.
She couldn’t
even imagine what state the adobe might be in. The house and grounds were in
disrepair even before she left San Francisco, for sadly enough, crumbling adobe
bricks had never taken precedence over Philo Page’s studies.
Compared to the
new homes she had heard were rising on California Street, the place was little more than a hovel of adobe clay. The
surrounding garden had once been filled with native plants as well as
exotic herbs and flowers able to withstand the climate. It was the place where
she had planned to live, and yet, as much as she loved it, she knew she would
gladly give it up if it meant saving the collection of Chinese lacquer,
pottery, bronzes, and paintings her grandfather had amassed.
"Maybe if I ask
Reggie, he might advance you the money you need,” Babs volunteered.
Jade turned to
her friend. "Sixty thousand dollars?” She shook her head, her eyes wide but
dry. "I can’t accept your offer. Besides,” she said, shrugging, "Reggie has
never been more than decidedly cool toward me. I’m sure my father’s scandalous
murder hasn’t endeared me to him, not to mention what happened the night before
I left San Francisco.”
She had been
eighteen then, emotionally drained, her nerves on edge. Caring for her mother
had been an ordeal she had yet to put behind her when her father insisted she
accompany him to dinner at Cliff House, the restaurant perched on a point
across from Seal Rocks.
Determined to
stand up to her belligerent, overbearing father as she had always wished her
mother would have done, Jade agreed to accompany him to dinner because she
felt it would be safer to tell him she was leaving for Paris if they were in a
public place where he would not be able to vent his fury. She had asked that
she be permitted to leave once the meal had ended and he had agreed, but once
they reached Cliff House, the evening began to reel out of control.
As usual, he had
gathered together a group of his cronies and began to drink heavily. Jade
stayed until the meal had ended, then asked the manager to hail her a hack.
Her father told her to sit down, that she was going nowhere until he said she
could, and began to lash out at her verbally, seeking to humble and bend her to
his will—as he had always done to her mother.
But unlike
Melinda Douglas, Jade lashed back. She refused to let his irrational ranting
upset her as she stood in a darkened alcove that did little to shield her from
the startled, curious expressions of the other diners.
"I’m going now,
Father, and tomorrow I’m leaving for France.”
He took a
menacing step toward her. "You will do no such thing. Get back to the table.”
"Grandfather has
arranged everything. He’s found a traveling companion and a family I can live
with in Paris. Now that Mother is gone, there is no longer any reason for me to
stay.”
Francis Douglas
had grabbed her arm as she turned to go. "Where in the hell do you think you’re
going? After all the years and money I had to spend on you, don’t think you’re
going to just walk away.”
Jade fought to
keep her voice low, tried to ignore the growing number of stares. "If you think
I’m going to cower and crawl like my mother used to, think again.”
He raised his
fist, glanced over his shoulder, then pushed her away. "Go ahead and go!”
Jade stumbled
back and fell against the window seat in the alcove. "I hate you.”
He raged out of
control until there was not a single person in the restaurant who could not
hear him. "You’re not even mine! I never wanted you.” His face was flushed.
Threatening to burst, the veins at his temples stood out blue and throbbing
against his pale skin.
Laughter had
bubbled up in her throat, uncharacteristically sarcastic and cold, as she
spurned his cruel remark. There was no denying her flaming hair or emerald
eyes, the even brows and finely tapered nose. She looked so much like Francis
Douglas that she might have been an artist’s miniature. He had used that taunt
once too often to ever hurt her with the lie again. But this time he had said
it before a crowd of onlookers.
"No,” she said
softly as she slowly stood up to face him again. "Sadly enough, I’m yours. But
I wish with all my heart that I wasn’t.” She stood toe-to-toe with him and
refused to cower now that she no longer had to submit to his tantrums to
protect her mother. "I’m leaving. If you lay a hand on me, or try to stop me in
any way, I’ll have the manager fetch the police.”
She wanted no
part of him, his money, his schemes, or his twisted hatred. Then, just to
spite him, to pay him back in kind for every harmful word he had ever inflicted
on her mother, Jade lowered her voice to a menacing whisper and said, "I’m not
coming back unless it’s to dance on your grave.”
Now, while Jade had been lost in memories of the past, Babs remained
unusually silent for so long that Jade was afraid her friend had fallen asleep.
"Babs?”
"You know,
Jade,” Babs said, propping herself up against the mound of pillows against the
carved headboard, "I’ve been thinking.”
Jade tried to
remember what they had last discussed. "About Reggie?”
Babs waved the
idea away. "Don’t worry about Reggie, I can handle him. No, I’ve been thinking
about your predicament.”
"And?” Jade
couldn’t keep the suspicion out of her voice. In the past, whenever Babs got to
thinking, it had only led to trouble for them both.
Abruptly, Babs
sat up and scooted off the bed. She crossed over to Jade, took her hand and
patted it sympathetically. "And I think you should rest.” She pulled her
dressing gown up and tightened the sash at her waist. "Don’t worry about a
thing.” She turned and headed for the door. Before she left the room, she
paused and looked back at Jade. "I’m going to send Doreen in with some of my
things. You can’t run around town looking like a pauper.”
"Which is
exactly what I am at the moment.”
Babs mumbled
something that sounded like, "Not for long,” then said, "Leave everything to
me,” before she hurried out and closed the door behind her.
Jade exhaled, only just realizing she had been holding her breath. There was not much time left before she had
to dress and meet the detective assigned to her father’s case. She lowered
herself to the carpet once again, folded her legs beneath her, and closed her
eyes. But it was hard to clear her mind while it still echoed Babs’s parting
words.
Leave
everything to me.
THE BRICK-LINED path
between the carriage house and the service porch of Harrington House was
carefully manicured and edged with brightly colored blossoms. Pansies turned
their faces skyward to drink in the fall sunshine as Jason Terrell Harrington
III stood at the far end of the walk and surveyed its precisely laid
herringbone pattern before he stepped onto the rich red bricks. When he did,
the sound of the worn heels of his leather boots blended with the lilting
jingle of the rowels of his spurs as he walked toward the servant’s entrance to
the grand mansion he could now call his own. Three stories high, the place
loomed over the surrounding gardens and cast its shadow over the carriage house
and long row of stables behind it.
As he reached
the back door, J.T. paused, set down his satchel, saddlebags, and guitar,
removed work-hardened leather gloves, and used them to beat the trail dust off
his Levi’s and the long duster that flapped around his calves. Then he knocked.
The summons rang
hollow and went unanswered. Matt Van Buren, his father’s lawyer, had alerted
him to the fact that the house was unstaffed, the servants dismissed pending
the immediate sale of Harrington House. Still, J.T. was not one to walk into an
empty house, even if it was his own. He was relieved when no one appeared in
answer to his knock. What he needed now was food, a good long bath, and a nap.
Jason pushed
aside the edge of his long duster, reached down into the pocket of his denims,
and hooked his finger around the key that would gain him entrance. It had been
his father’s home, yet the place held no boyhood memories for him. J.T. had
never lived here. Nor, for that matter, had his father, who had built the
mansion merely as a showplace little more than a year ago. J.T. had learned as
much from Van Buren when the man wrote to inform him of his father’s death and
his own subsequent inheritance. J.T. hadn’t mourned the loss of a man he had
never really known.
The door swung
wide to reveal a large service porch that opened onto the cavernous kitchen,
silent now, but far from cold due to the warm fall sunshine that had burned
away the morning fog. The attorney had promised to send around a grocer’s
delivery of foodstuffs and assured Jason the wine cellar was still well
stocked. Jason was to make himself at home.
Home? He could never imagine this cold
mausoleum as a home, nor this city, for that matter. He had not been out of New
Mexico for three weeks, and yet he was already anxious to return. He had come
to San Francisco only to settle the estate, sell off his father’s coffee import
company, the mansion, and stocks, and then go back home to New Mexico.
As he looked
around the kitchen, he wondered why his father had even built the place, for it
was obvious no one had ever used the shining new pots and pans lining the open
cupboards. Compared to the crowded, very noisy kitchen at his uncle’s ranch in
New Mexico, this one had all the appeal of an empty tomb. As he surveyed the
place in the late afternoon light, he tried to imagine his Uncle Cash Younger
teasing Aunt Lupita as she bustled about. It was as impossible as trying to
picture the ranch hands gathering here for cups of strong black chicory and
boisterous talk on cold winter mornings or after the day’s work was through.
When his stomach rumbled with neglect, Jason wished he could smell some of
Lupita’s tortillas frying on the griddle, instead of the mustiness of a long
closed-up house.
He had lived
with Cash and Lupita for fifteen years now, although it seemed as if it were
just yesterday that his mother had taken him to New Mexico to live with her
brother and his wife. The sterile emptiness of the mansion made him thankful he
would never have to live in this showplace his father had built for no apparent
reason other than to impress others with his wealth.
J.T. walked
across the deserted kitchen and soon his boot heels and spurs rang out hollowly
in the long, wood-paneled hallway. No paintings brightened the walls. The doors
spaced at intervals down the hall were all closed, casting the passageway in
deep shadow. As he moved along, his saddlebags in one hand, his guitar under
his arm and satchel under the other, J.T. took care not to bump his possessions
against the close walls. He didn’t think it would do to scar up the place since
he was trying to sell it.
Walking down the
darkened hallway was like strolling through a tunnel toward the past, as he
pictured the night his uncle had told him the story of his parents’ divorce.
He’d been working with Cash, herding wild mustangs into a box canyon when they
set up camp for the night. Cash had casually mentioned the rotten hand his
sister had been dealt when she married Harrington, and J.T. immediately asked
if Cash knew what had happened between them.
All his mother
had ever told him was that she and his father had differences they could not
resolve, but that his father was a good man, an upstanding citizen, and that it
was because of her that they finally divorced.
Jason remembered
the night as if it were yesterday. The crackling, open fire, the call of the
night owl in the trees on the hillside behind them, even the crisp fall air was
still as real to him as his uncle’s words.
"Hell, yes,”
Cash had said before he flipped his cigarette into the fire, "you could say it
was because of Louisa. It was because your ma wouldn’t put up with his livin’
part-time with his mistress. Harrington wouldn’t give the woman up, either. Not
for you, not for Louisa, not for nothin’. Let his wife walk out and take his
only son and never put up a fight at all.”
Since J.T. had
taken his mother at her word—that his father had cared about him, that the
money he sent to Louisa Younger Harrington’s bank account was for Jason’s
upbringing and education, that he felt his son was better off living with his
mother—he never wondered why his father had never contacted him personally.
When he was a child, he had been able to rationalize that his father was an
important man who was just too busy to see him. But once Cash had told him the
truth straight out, when he learned that his father had placed his love for his
mistress above any feelings he had for his wife and son, Jason’s illusions
vanished, and with them went any shred of respect or admiration he might have
ever held for his father.
For years he had
nurtured an image of his father that had been built on a lie, and there was
nothing J.T. hated worse than a liar. Ever since Cash’s revealing conversation,
he became angry when he thought of his father and his desertion. His uncle
often ribbed him about his unbending idealism and the resultant intolerance he
displayed whenever anyone failed to live up to his expectations of them, but
his emotional reaction to a deception of any kind was not something he was
willing or able to change.
The long,
paneled hallway opened onto a foyer as large as the sitting room back home.
Shaking his head, J.T. stared up at the huge crystal chandelier that hung a
good twenty feet above him in the high open ceiling of the foyer. A wide,
curving staircase that led to the second floor beckoned, so he decided to
choose a room of his own before he explored the rest of the place and made
himself something to eat.
