To my aunts, Catherine Hemme Ocskasy and Marjorie Daniels Schemmel
San Francisco, 1879
With the heavy brocade drapes drawn, only a sliver of moonlight entered the room. It was enough to catch the gleam of cut stones and to silver the rich setting as the necklace dangled from the dark-gloved hand.
The thief smiled, a small, self-satisfied curving of the lips, and admired the piece. The diamonds were as clear as water and nicely matched. They had been hoarded away in a vault at the bank for years, nearly forgotten by the family, before Oswin Hartleby had remembered them. His first wife had been a rarity in San Francisco society for she hadn’t cared for ostentation. But Hartleby’s second and much younger bride liked to flaunt his wealth. To please her, he’d spent a fortune having the diamonds made up in a glittering necklace and matching earrings: The gold for the setting had come from his own mines.
Nearly played out mines.
Of course, no one had known that until life with a wife forty years his junior had been the death of old Hartleby. There were some who claimed that, married to the coldly beautiful Hildegarde Keyes, Oswin’s last years had been joyless. It was the young widow who wasn’t smiling now. Hartleby’s will had been read the day before and the news had sped about town, running rampant through the parlors. Oswin Hartleby had left few bequests and astonishingly high debts.
Old fool, the thief thought in derision, then grinned widely in amusement. Poor Hildy. Having lost her husband, she was about to lose her precious diamonds, as well. If not to a thief in the night, or hungry debtors, then to her prickly middle-aged stepchildren who felt the exquisite set should remain in their care.
The stones shimmered in the thin ray of moonlight. The necklace was a gaudy trinket in many ways. It reeked of new money, lacking the taste that came with inherited wealth.
It was much admired in San Francisco.
If, by some chance, the widow didn’t weep for it, there were a good many other covetous women in the city who would.
The necklace dropped into a dark bag with a slight tinkle of sound and was joined by the matching earrings. There was little else of interest in the jewelry box to add to the cache. Although they’d been married nearly five years, Hildy had received promises from Oswin rather than more baubles. The thief closed the lid quietly and walked silently to the window. More moonlight spilled into the room, outlining the dark-clothed form as the drapes were parted. If there had been another in the room they would have seen a figure of average height but little else. A silk mask covered the lower section of the thief’s face, a cloth cap disguised both the color and length of the robber’s hair. A shapeless sack coat and baggy trousers hid any trace of build. To all intents and purposes it had been a shadow that had retrieved the diamonds from the wall safe in Hartleby’s house.
If any of the sleeping residents heard a sound in the master suite, they put it down to Oswin Hartleby’s ghost Now that he was gone, his young widow had moved her personal belongings to a more cheerful room down the hall.
The thief moved quickly, letting the drapes fall closed, returning the room to its peaceful slumber. Outside the night grew attentive to a shadow’s needs. Tendrils of fog stretched from the sea to shroud the moon. When the veil was complete, the thief slid from hiding, hastening to take Hartleby’s diamonds to their new home.
The slap echoed in the parlor.
A lone beam of sunlight shone through the bow window, falling on the intense young couple who stood frozen in the center of the room. It burnished the pale flaxen locks of the woman, and brought a brighter sheen to the rose fabric of her afternoon gown and the multilayered train that spilled away from it across the fading patterns in the Oriental rug. The man’s dark-suited back was turned away from the day, his expression temporarily masked by shadows and the tawny, rather rakish side whiskers that framed his lean cheeks.
The woman was the first to recall her lines, words she had heard other women speak, words she had never thought to utter, especially to this man.
“How dare you,” Winona Abbot rasped. Her hand stung sharply, a physical reflection of the blow Deegan Galloway had dealt her ego.
“I love you,” he answered simply. “I made a mistake and…”
“A mistake!” Wyn swung away from him. Crossing the room, she snapped open the pocket doors. Moments ago they had turned the front parlor of her family’s Nob Hill mansion into a private haven for lovers. Now that same sanctuary felt like a prison that confined Deegan and her in each other’s company.
“You don’t understand, Wyn,” he said.
She wheeled back to face him, the rich fabric of her train whirling with the motion. “Oh, I understand only too well. It was never me you cared about, Deegan. It was my dowry. After all,” she snapped, her usually soft tone harsh with sarcasm, “there is so much a man can accomplish with a quarter of a million dollars.”
He stood his ground on center stage, the imprint of her hand still clear on his face. “With you it was never the money, Wyn. Never.”
If he meant to pacify her with the compliment, the effort was a failure. Her deep green eyes, dark lashed and mysteriously foreign against her fair coloring, flashed with indignation. The delicate curve of her chin tilted upward in a challenge. “So you admit it You are a fortune hunter.”
Deegan drew a deep breath, the air hissing through his clenched teeth. “I wish to God I knew who told you about Leonore Cronin.”
There was a part of her that wished she had never learned of his perfidy, as well. But she had, from Leonore’s own lips. “Did you think she and I didn’t travel in the same circles, Deegan?”
“I thought,” he said, “that you would understand when I did the girl a kindness…”
Wyn’s brows rose at the inappropriateness of the term.
Deegan plowed on as if he hadn’t noticed, “…and danced attendance on her last night. She looked so miserable sitting with the chaperons along the wall. I merely asked her to dance.”
“I see. And was it then or on a previous occasion that you poured honeyed love words in her shell-like ears?”
She noticed Deegan had the grace to look embarrassed at hearing his own words thrown back in his face. How many times had he praised her own beauty using the trite phrase? How many times had she fallen happily into his arms, her maidenly reserve melted by his murmured praises of her charms?
At twenty-five, Wyn had thought she knew the wiles of men well enough not to make herself a fool over one of them. She had been wrong.
Wyn turned her back on Deegan, unwilling any longer to gaze on his handsome features. She had believed she loved him and yet had never been sure of him, never trusted him. That being so, the pain of his deception should not be this sharp. Wyn rested her brow against the highly polished molding around the door. “Oh, Deegan,” she whispered in anguish, “tell me true. Was this gallant behavior begun before or after you discovered Leonore’s father made his fortune in Nevada silver? Did you know she is his sole heir?”
When he didn’t answer immediately, her heart broke a little more.
“Wyn…” Deegan took a step toward her, his hand touched her shoulder.
“Don’t.” She didn’t want him to lie to her anymore, wouldn’t tempt him to do so for the sake of a relationship that, for her, no longer existed. Wyn straightened her shoulders, gathered her courage.