The Widow's Secret (7 page)

They talked idly until Katya bustled in with refreshments. The maid searched Micah's face, then, nodding to herself, left without attempting to initiate a conversation, which Micah appreciated.

“She doesn't always try to run interference,” Jocelyn murmured as she handed Micah an earthenware mug full of steaming-hot tea. “Only when it's someone she thinks will take advantage of me.” A soft smile appeared. “For some reason she thinks I need protecting, even though she's not yet twenty.”

“You're fortunate to have her for a friend, as well as a servant.”

Her face clouded. “I don't ever want to treat people as slaves or even servants, no matter what the color of their skin. When I was married to Chadwick, I saw—Well, never mind.”

Inhaling a deep breath, Micah set the mug aside. “Jocelyn. This part of our conversation is going to be difficult, so we may as well get it over with. There are some things I need to share with you about your husband's family.”

O
n a brisk mid-October morning, Jocelyn and Katya boarded a private Pullman Palace car from the stately Baltimore and Ohio depot in Washington, to complete their journey to New York City. Despite Katya's continued disapproval of the “melodrama”—her new favorite word—the maid's excitement over the journey itself was contagious. By the time the Royal Blue Limited rolled out of the station, Jocelyn was able to banish the worst of her flutters and enjoy the simple pleasure of riding the rails in style.

The private car was a sumptuous affair of gleaming walnut and polished brass, with Waterford crystal chandeliers to light its interior, and deep burgundy velvet curtains draping the glazed windows. A crisply uniformed porter informed Jocelyn that he would return at noon to prepare her a luncheon in the car's private kitchen. After a sideways glance at Katya, he bowed himself into the vestibule.

But as the miles rolled by, memories of her past life as the wife of Chadwick Bingham chipped away at Jocelyn's serenity.
Over there, she could see Chadwick sprawled in the tassel-fringed chair, in the corner of their boudoir. He was
smoking, a brooding expression on his face, as she watched the scenery pass by in a blur.

Katya thrust a note in front of her face, and the image evaporated as she focused on the oversize loops and letters.
Mr. MacKenzie meet us in New York? What if they make me stay in basement?

“Mr. MacKenzie won't come calling until after we're settled in. He's going to be a distant cousin, from South Carolina. Why don't we leave him to worry over his part, and we'll concentrate on ours.” Katya only had to be herself, of course. As for Jocelyn's role, she'd perfected it ten years earlier: the gullible Southerner gratefully accepting the carrot dangled in her face. “You must not write down any part of Mr. MacKenzie's name, remember? From this moment on, we can't trust anyone, especially the servants. You will remain my personal maid, and I'll insist we have adjoining rooms. I won't let them treat you poorly, I promise.”

Don't want like before I work for you.

“If I see, or hear, of anyone—and I mean anyone, Katya, including the master and mistress of the house—mistreating you in any manner, we'll be on the first train back to Richmond.”

We have to stay. Have to help Secret Servants. Sorry. I will be strong. Like you.

No matter how often Jocelyn corrected her, Katya refused to acknowledge the agency by its correct name. Blinking back tears now, she gave the girl's mobcap an affectionate tweak, hugged her shoulders. “Dear Katya, I don't feel very strong, except when you're with me.” Jocelyn forced a smile, then led Katya down the gently swaying corridor. “Come along. I'll show you everything. This end of the car is called the observation room, because the windows are clear and you can watch the scenery go by….”

By the time the train left Baltimore rain poured from a leaden sky, with raindrops pelting the windows just as uncertainty pelted Jocelyn's resolve. Chief Hazen had reluctantly conceded that her distinctive qualifications could not be duplicated even by a trained undercover operative, but it was her own insistence that won his sanction of this scheme. How confident and self-assured she had been, fueled by ten long years of hurt and resentment and anger toward a family against whom she'd been helpless.

She had nobody to blame for her present qualms but herself. Micah had objected vociferously until their last meeting four days earlier. He had been willing to place her well-being above a case that had been a thorn in the Secret Service's side for years, and it had almost cost him his job. In her entire life, nobody—including her desperate parents—had ever lifted a finger to protect her from possible harm, either to her person or her soul.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Jocelyn fixed the image of Micah MacKenzie in her mind to banish images of her dead husband, thoughts of his malicious family and her own insecurities.

You will never be alone,
Micah had promised.
Either before I officially arrive, or whenever we're not together, someone will be watching over you. Don't be afraid…
.

Jocelyn was afraid of a lot of things, but her husband's family was no longer among them. Micah's revelations about their suspected perfidy had not surprised her. Nothing about Chadwick's family could surprise her.

She was, however, terrified of what her life would be like when Micah MacKenzie was no longer part of it.

 

After arriving in Jersey City, Jocelyn and Katya took a ferry across the river to Manhattan, then followed a sullen but
efficient baggage handler, who led them through the crush of passengers to an equally crowded street.

Aloof from the teeming masses waited a shiny dark green extension brougham, whose coachman and liveried grooms announced without a word the owner's exalted status. Resigned to her fate, Jocelyn watched one of the grooms snap to attention, then open the carriage door. A portly man with an old-fashioned walrus mustache stepped down and moved toward them. “My dear Jocelyn,” he exclaimed in an unctuous voice. “At last, at last.”

Jocelyn forced herself to offer her hand. “Uncle Brock.”

“More beautiful than ever,” he pronounced, subjecting her to an inspection just shy of offensive. “I can see I'll have to hire an army of guards to protect you from unwanted admirers. Ah, you must call me Uncle Augustus—you're going to be part of the family again.”

Jocelyn drew herself up. “That remains to be seen. I've come for a visit, not a change of residence.”

In the late-afternoon sunlight his florid face turned a deeper shade of red; sweat droplets gathered across his high forehead. “Mrs. Brock warned me not to expect miracles.” He fiddled with the stickpin winking from the folds of his red silk necktie, his stubby fingers nervously tracing the diamond figure of a racehorse. “She meant to accompany me, of course, but was unable to extricate herself from a previous engagement.”

The overblown phrases reminded Jocelyn of his letter, but instead of the pursed-lip piety she remembered, the caramel-brown eyes conveyed an earnestness she found disconcerting. She had steeled herself for a villain, and instead found herself with a heavily perspiring bear of a man who acted almost ill at ease.

“Hopefully, Mrs. Brock will at least be able to extricate herself in time to join us for dinner.”

Katya's elbow dug into her back. Jocelyn belatedly remembered that her role did not include alienating her hosts within moments of her arrival. “I beg your pardon. I'm feeling a trifle disoriented, I expect.”

“Was everything to your satisfaction during your journey? I trust you enjoyed traveling in the height of luxurious accommodation again.” A deep-throated chuckle puffed his cheeks. “The Aurora's still a grand piece of rolling stock, isn't she? I remember the year you and Chadwick made a trip to Chicago in that car. Your benevolent father-in-law had it completely refurbished, just for the two of you.”

“I remember.”

“Ahem.” Embarrassment flickered. He cleared his throat again. “Yes. Well, shall we go?”

Awkwardly, he handed her into the brougham; the groom practically shut the door on Katya's heels, which rekindled Jocelyn's ire. “This is my maid, and my friend, Katya. Katya, this my uncle-in-law, Mr. Brock.”

Nonplussed for a moment, her uncle hesitated, his glance hovering between Katya's carefully blank face and Jocelyn. “Well, now.” He laughed again, a little too heartily. “You've become more democratic than I recall, my dear.”

“I like to think of it as being thoughtful. Katya cannot speak, but she knows how to write, and she knows how to listen. I expect her to be treated with courtesy. And I'll want adjoining rooms for us.”

The carriage lurched into motion, joining the teeming throng. Compared to Richmond's quiet dignity, New York roared, as restless as a pride of hungry lions. With a queer little jerk, Jocelyn realized that while she'd been relieved to shed this family's ostentatious way of life, she actually missed the city itself.

“You have changed, Jocelyn. Most unexpected, I'll admit.
I have to say, I've always admired a woman who can stand her ground, however quaint the choice of battles.”

“Thank you. And how is Aunt Portia?” The name emerged grudgingly.

“As always, my dear wife enjoys robust health.”

Augustus squirmed about on the seat, finally settling with a gusty sigh. His unselfconscious humanity disarmed her; despite her initial stage fright Jocelyn found herself relaxing into the persona she and Micah had concocted—the reserved but congenial woman prepared to resume her former position in the family. With a bit of luck the Brocks wouldn't be guarding their tongues or their habits from a grateful widow eager for reconciliation. Hopefully, over the coming weeks Jocelyn would ferret out sufficient evidence for arrest warrants to be issued.

Under any other circumstances, she might have felt some moral qualms over her duplicity.

Then she would remember what Chief Hazen had told her about Micah's father. Murdered in cold blood.
Like Mr. Hepplewhite.
While she couldn't wholeheartedly embrace Micah's conviction that Rupert Bingham was guilty, she could not gainsay the circumstantial evidence the Secret Service had compiled against the entire family.

Naturally, she would have to be careful.

Leaning forward a bit, she soaked up the views outside the spit-polished window. Over the past five years, she'd forgotten the din and rush and roar and tumultuous congestion of New York City. Buggies and carriages and wagons clattered around them, horses snorting, their hooves occasionally drawing sparks from the pavement. Instead of trees, buildings—some taller than five stories—pressed together like books on a library shelf. And the people…so many people, more than she would have thought could possibly be squeezed
onto this small island. Faces of every nationality blurred together until Jocelyn shifted her gaze to her lap simply to rest her eyes.

Keeping a polite smile plastered on her face, she nodded as Augustus pointed out sights both familiar and strange—the old reservoir still in place because, he told her, the neighboring property owners were still fighting over the cost of turning it into a park; the former residence of a governor that had been converted to another hotel, and of course, the resplendent Waldorf Hotel, just opened the previous year, by “my dear friend William Astor.”

Some traffic snarl brought the carriage to a standstill a block from their destination. Jocelyn glanced outside, idly surveying a piano-box buggy with the top folded back that had pulled alongside the carriage. The man driving looked across, straight at Jocelyn. His eyes were light, strangely intent. Then the Brock carriage jerked into motion once more, pulling ahead of the man driving the piano-box buggy.

Needles of uncertainty stitched an uneven path through her body. Had he merely been curious, or was she already one more bug in a sticky spiderweb craftily spun by her husband's family? Or perhaps this man was from the Secret Service, though she had learned that the agency was perpetually shorthanded and underfunded, so she doubted they would assign a nanny to the starry civilian eager to do something of value to justify her existence.

“Terrible, the congestion these days,” Augustus remarked. “Mrs. Brock and I are considering having a new home built, farther north, across from Central Park. All the best families are doing so. I've also heard about plans for a new development along the Hudson, west of the Park.”

Her uncle resumed his monologue; sighing, Jocelyn tried to relax her own stiff muscles.
“Don't allow your mind to
wander from the role,”
Micah had warned her.
“It won't be easy. It's not too late to change your mind.”
He'd gone on to observe that she was not equipped for a life of subterfuge. Jocelyn had almost laughed in his face.

As though to prove her competence, she gave the rambling man across from her an engaging smile. “Your last telegram three days ago indicated that Chadwick's father would be arriving this weekend. Will Mrs. Bingham be joining him?”

One winged eyebrow lifted. “My dear. I forgot, you wouldn't have known.” He twirled the end of his mustache in what was probably a habitual nervous gesture, then heaved a sigh. “She died, about a year after Chadwick. She never recovered from the scandal of his…ah…the manner of his death. A bitter, grief-stricken woman, I'm afraid. Mrs. Brock tried many times to reason with my sister, but the poor dear wasn't having any of it. Rupert sold most of their properties and built himself a reasonably sized cottage on Long Island. You'll find him a much-changed man, I'm afraid.”

Jocelyn found she was hardly adept after all, not in the face of such callousness. One of the properties Rupert Bingham had sold in his grief had been Parham, the Tremayne family estate in Virginia.

Her uncle's face brightened. “Ah. Home at last. And it looks as though Mrs. Brock was able to juggle her appointments after all. There, you see? The family reunion for our prodigal niece has begun.”

As he handed her down out of the carriage, she watched the piano-box buggy wheel past the carriage and turn the corner two blocks later.

The driver had not so much as glanced their way.

Friend or enemy? Jocelyn wondered. Then, with a fatalistic shrug, she gathered up her traveling skirt and went forward to greet her aunt.