Midnight Star (Star Quartet 2)

She sucked in her breath. “Hoolihan,” she repeated blankly.

“Yes. I had quite a long chat with the fellow. Indeed, sweetheart, although he didn’t know the name of the man who’d hired him, he gave me an excellent description. He is English, of course. I imagine that he followed you here after his failure to eliminate you in Plymouth.”

Paul Montgomery. He’s going to describe Paul Montgomery! She jerked away from him and planted herself behind a chair, her fingers gripping the back until her knuckles showed white. Oh God, what am I going to do? “Tell me,” she said tersely.

He did, carefully and precisely, his eyes never wavering from her face. She knows who he is, he thought. She knows.

“Tell me his name, Chauncey,” he said.

She looked at him wildly. She couldn’t tell him, not like this! Not without . . . Without what, you fool? Without making him love you first, without giving yourself a chance to make him understand. She felt trapped, helpless and afraid.

“Hoolihan is going to help us find him,” Delaney said after a long moment. “It would help, sweetheart, if you’d tell me who he is.” The silence was thick between them. He had to push her. He said very calmly, “If you don’t tell me, Chauncey, I’m putting you on the next ship back to England.”

“No! Please, Del, you can’t!” She gulped. He would do just as he said, she knew it. “Very well,” she said. “His name is Paul Mont . . . Montsorrel. He is . . . was my father’s solicitor. I’ve known him since I was a child.”

“Why would he want you dead, Chauncey?”

She was rubbing her arms, her movements jerky. “Greed,” she burst out. “He was furious when I didn’t allow him to handle my money. Indeed, my aunt and uncle went to him, blackening my name, trying to have me sued for breach of promise.”

“Chauncey,” he said very quietly, “Hoolihan said this Paul Montsorrel indicated to him that you knew too much. That doesn’t seem to have anything to do with greed.”

“No, no, it doesn’t,” she said numbly. “But I can’t believe he would try to kill me!”

“Tell me the rest of it. Now.”

If I tell you all of it, I’ll be on my way back to England before the end of the week! “Very well,” she said. “I . . . I discovered that he was cheating my father. Indeed, I shouldn’t have been a pauper upon my father’s death, but he’d stolen all the money.” It was the truth. And it didn’t make sense. “Why, Del? Why would he want me dead?”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

She flung her hands before her as if to ward off his words. “I don’t know.”

She knew what his next question would be. “Just how did you discover what he’d done, Chauncey? And upon discovering it, why didn’t you have the man arrested?”

“I couldn’t prove anything, nothing! I wanted only to leave England and him and all the awful memories.”

He knew her well enough to realize she was mixing truth with lies, but he didn’t know which was which. Jesus, would he ever unravel all of this mess? One thing he did know: Chauncey wasn’t a coward or a frightened, timid female. If she’d believed this Paul Montsorrel guilty, she’d never have left him unpunished. Montsorrel. Indeed, was that the man’s real name? He sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair. He simply had to gain her trust.

When Lucas returned from the post office the next morning, bringing him a letter from his brother, Alex, he realized trust had nothing to do with anything.

22

Alex’s bold handwriting blurred a moment before Delaney’s eyes. One meager paragraph, he thought in ironic amusement, perhaps only a hundred words. Those words written by his brother could have been about anything: Nicholas, his nephew, as black-eyed as his father; or Leah, his lovely niece; or . . . Stop it, you bloody fool! You wanted to know the truth! But he’d wanted Chauncey to tell him. He forced his eyes downward and read yet again that meager paragraph that had suddenly changed his life.

“Incidentally, Del, Giana received a letter from her mother shortly after I wrote to you. It seems that that Englishman, Sir Alec FitzHugh, indeed left a daughter. What’s more, he left her penniless! I believe the plot thickens. Then, like Cinderella, the girl received a huge inheritance from a Sir Jasper Dunkirk. Funny thing is that the young lady left England very soon thereafter. The duchess says the girl’s aunt and uncle Penworthy were screaming breach of promise for their son. It would be interesting to know, the duchess suggested, just why Sir Alec’s solicitor, Paul Montgomery, had turned colors so quickly and maligned the young lady himself, since he’d known her all her life and was supposedly loyal to the Jameson FitzHugh family. Further, she wondered where all the money you’d faithfully sent had gone.”

Paul Montsorrel. Paul Montgomery.

“Jesus,” he said softly. “Elizabeth Jameson FitzHugh.” His first thought, oddly enough, was whether his marriage was valid. Chauncey hadn’t provided her complete name.

He reread Alex’s final words. “I have already written to the duchess and assured her that you’ve been sending money like a regular trooper, supposedly to Sir Alec. I doubt not that she’ll see to that damned bounder Montgomery.”

Delaney slowly lowered the letter to his desktop and calmly folded it back into its

envelope. So many damned twists and turns! But Chauncey knew that Paul Montgomery was swindling her father. Then why had she come to San Francisco? Why had she so assiduously sought him out?

“You stupid ass,” he said to himself, “she believed that you were the guilty party! Montgomery must have convinced her of it.” She’d come to San Francisco to get her revenge upon him. He made an effort to close off all the myriad implications of her act, at least for the moment. Montgomery was the immediate problem. Certainly he had to realize that she would discover the truth eventually. Why murder? My father died from laudanum. He froze. Dear God, had the man murdered Sir Alec? Certainly Sir Alec must have wondered where all the money was going. Had he confronted Montgomery?

I discovered he was cheating my father.