He reached inside his jacket and withdrew three documents: the contract in triplicate, which his attorney had drawn up last night, inequitably worded, of course, in Luke’s behalf. If Cassandra signed it, she would be, to all intents and purposes, an object in his possession for the next twelve months, with no legal recourse. He slid the papers across the table to her.
“That said, perhaps you should look this over and decide if you’re even interested,” he said with an air of finality he was far from feeling.
“Of course I’m interested,” she said softly. “I’m in no position not to be. With Papa and Ambrose in jail, Khristos and I are in a devil of a fix, and my chances of getting a job elsewhere are practically nil.”
“You won’t be in a fix if you accept my proposal,” Luke reminded her.
She unfolded one of the documents and began to read it aloud, skipping over parts of it, frowning at others. At some of the wording, Luke cringed, half expecting her to toss the contract back in his face, but she was seemingly oblivious to, or didn’t understand, the legal jargon. In one section, she waived all custodial rights to any issue that might arise from their relationship. In another, she agreed to willingly and without complaint surrender her person to Luke in whatever manner pleased him.
The terminology was clearly above her head, for when she finished scanning the clauses, which stripped her of practically all personal rights, she had only two questions.
Fastening wide blue eyes on his, she said, “What will people think of my living in your house? And with my papa and brother in jail, who will take care of Khristos and Lycodomes?”
After his brief encounter with the dog last night, Luke wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of having the slobbery mongrel in his home. But it would be a simple enough matter to get rid of the hairy beast later. As for Khristos, he was only one small boy, and Luke had a very large house and an entire staff of servants to look after him.
Flashing what he hoped was a benevolent smile, he reached across the table and took the contract from her slender hands. Pulling his fountain pen from his breast pocket, he quickly jotted an addendum, which he also appended to the other two copies. “There,” he said smoothly. “Your brother and dog may reside with me until your father and brother are released from jail. You have my word on it in writing.”
She took the contract when he pushed it back to her. After reading the clause he had just added, she glanced up. “Thank you, Mr. Taggart.”
“Luke, please.” He extended the fountain pen to her. “If you’re going to sign that contract and become my companion for the next twelve months, I believe we should dispense with the formalities and begin addressing each other by first names. Don’t you?”
If she had noticed that he’d been calling her by her Christian name since their first meeting, she gave no sign as she accepted the pen. His stomach knotted with tension when she nibbled on the end of the ink reservoir and then tapped it against her teeth. Christ. Why didn’t she just sign the damned papers?
Luke sat there, alternately holding his breath, then inhaling deeply.
“I’m still a little worried about living in your house,” she mused aloud. “People can be so peculiar sometimes. Just last month, tongues were buzzing about Hope Bowers, and all she did was let Henry Chadworth walk her home from church.” She wrinkled her nose. “Papa says when a boy and girl are alone together after dark, folks with evil minds think the worst.”
Luke struggled not to smile. “I’ve made that same observation myself a time or two.”
She heaved a high-pitched sigh. “Anyway, you can see my concern. When Khristos turns twelve, I plan to enter a convent. Because of that, I have to be very careful of my reputation.”
“Are you willing to let evil-minded people dictate to you, Cassandra? What you do with your life—this job included—is no one’s business but your own.” He paused a moment to let that sink in. “Besides, as I understand it, nuns come from all walks of life. I’m no expert on the church, of course, but it seems to me that it will be your sincerity and devotion to serving God that will be questioned, not what kind of job you held before you decided to become a nun.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
Luke’s smile was so stiff, he felt as if he had drying egg white all over his face. “Under the circumstances, I think your residing in my home should be perfectly understandable to everyone in Black Jack. You and Khristos have no other relatives here in town. Your father and brother can’t provide for you. I’m your father’s former employer, and there’s the matter of his and Ambrose’s fines, which you’ll be working to pay off. I’d venture a guess that people are going to think you’re a very lucky young woman.”
Luke leaned forward, holding her gaze with his. “Have you any idea exactly what I’m offering you? In exchange for one short year of your life, you’ll not only be able to pay your papa’s and brother’s fines, but you’ll be well set for the remainder of your days. Twenty thousand dollars is a fortune. Most people only dream of getting an opportunity like this.”
She tapped the pen against her teeth again, her expression pensive. “I think that before I make a final decision I really should talk to my papa.”
“Cassandra, your papa is in jail.”
“But surely I can go visit him.”
“When I stopped by the jail this morning, the marshal told me only wives are allowed to visit the prisoners. Daughters and sisters aren’t afforded those privileges.”
It was yet another lie, of course. The jail had no such policy, but Luke had made special arrangements with the marshal in Cassandra’s case. There were benefits to being the most powerful man in town. Luke had a political reach that stretched from Black Jack to Leadville, and then again to Denver. The marshal, like many of the other town officials, was in Luke’s back pocket. Luke had made it clear, to the marshal and all his deputies, that Cassandra wasn’t to speak with her father under any circumstances.
After letting her mull everything over for a moment, Luke decided to wield the emotional knife. “Cassandra, do you understand what may happen to your father and brother if you don’t sign the contract?”
She fastened worried blue eyes on him.
Luke held up his hands. “I have to exact some sort of recompense for what they’ve done. I have no choice. The steep fines will satisfy all my other employees, giving them a sense that justice has been meted out. If you don’t pay those fines…” He heaved a sigh. “Well, there’s no telling how long your father and brother will be in jail. Even if you could find some other job, which is highly unlikely, how much money can you conceivably hope to make? And out of that wage, how much will you be able to spare for fines?”
“You mean they’ll have to stay in jail until the fines are paid?” she asked in a strangled voice.
“That’s usually the way of it. Even if I made arrangements otherwise, where would they work around here after their release? I can’t very well hire them back. How would that look?” He shook his head. “They’d have to leave town, and I couldn’t let them do that before they settled their obligations to me. Appearances are everything in a situation like this. It has to look as if they’re getting their just punishment. Your taking the job as my paid companion will bring about a happy ending for everyone.”
Her forehead knitted into another frown, and her amazing blue eyes narrowed in concentration. She looked over the contract again, during every second of which time Luke was in a sweat, thinking she would call him on some of the inequitable wording.
“I still feel funny about taking money for being your companion,” she said faintly. “It doesn’t seem right, somehow. Especially such a great deal of money.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m a wealthy man. The money means nothing to me.”
Smoothing the document out on the table, she bent to sign. A swishing sound pulsated against Luke’s eardrums as he watched her finish writing her last name. The instant she straightened, he reached out to retrieve the first signed d
ocument before she had time to think better of her decision. She signed the other two copies without hesitation.
“I’ll keep your copy in my wall safe with my own,” he said congenially as she slid the signed documents to him. Taking the pen, he added his signature to each of them as well. “My safe is even fireproof, so nothing will happen to your copy or mine that way.”
Gazing across the table at her sweet countenance, Luke folded the papers and returned them to his breast pocket, scarcely able to believe how easy it had been. She belonged to him now. Every sweet, delectable inch of her was his, to do with as he pleased. He had a host of plans for her, which he would now be free to implement, and far sooner than he had dared to hope.
“I take it Khristos is at school?”
“Yes, until two o’clock.”
“And where’s…what’s his name? The dog.”
“Oh, Lycodomes. He’s with Khristos. He always walks him to and from school. Lycodomes is very protective, you know.”
Luke had noticed that.
“Sometimes he returns home to be with me until school is out, then goes back to walk Khristos home. Other times he just waits outside the school, and then the two of them meet me over at the orphanage when Khristos is finished for the day. Then we all walk home together.”
Luke nodded. “I’ll arrange to have a servant meet them over at the school and escort them to my place.” He glanced around the shanty. “Can I help you gather your things?”
“Right now?”
Luke knew he was rushing her, but the truth was, he couldn’t wait to have her ensconced in his home and at his disposal. Tonight she would be his.
“I’ll make arrangements for your father’s and brother’s possessions to be stored,” he told her. “All you need to worry about are your and Khristos’s personal items.”
He pushed up from the table, rubbing his hands together. “Just aim me in the right direction, and I’ll help you pack.”
She stood as well, glancing around as if she were in a daze. “It never occurred to me I’d be leaving so soon.” The tea kettle chose that moment to whistle, and she leaped with a start. “It all seems to be happening so suddenly.”
Not suddenly enough to suit Luke. He stepped around her to take the kettle off the heat. “Is there something specific you need to do before you leave?”
She shook her head. “It’s just—” She gestured with her hand and flashed a wobbly smile. “Shall we go ahead and have tea?”
“I’ll have the maid fix you tea at my house.” To push the point, he withdrew his pocket watch. “I have some errands to run this afternoon.” An emergency trip to the dressmaker’s, he thought to himself, to buy her some ready-made gowns and lingerie. The awful blue dress and the drab brown rag she wore right now were destined for the burning barrel. “It’s really best for me if we don’t waste time.”
“I could always start the job tomorrow,” she offered.
Over his dead body. “If I send people down here to move everything into storage, where would you sleep tonight?”
She pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead. “Oh, my…well, I guess—” Her gaze snagged on the stove. “I need to put out the fire. I can’t just walk off and leave that. Are you sure you’ll be able to send someone to the school to collect Khristos? He’d be frightened if he came home to an empty house.”
“I promise to have someone waiting outside the door for him at precisely two o’clock.” Bending to open the stove door, he added, “I’ll tend to the fire. Meanwhile, you gather your and Khristos’s clothes. How’s that sound?”
“All right.”
He heard her dragging something out from under a bed as he rearranged the firewood with a poker. When he straightened, there was a satchel on one of the cots, and she was standing beside it, apparently finished packing.
“Is that it?” he asked incredulously.
She gave a slight nod. “Khristos has outgrown nearly all his clothes, and mine have mostly worn out. We have only enough to wear clean while the soiled are being laundered. Papa planned to take us shopping soon.”
Soon. Luke had a feeling Milo Zerek was big on making promises but shy on execution. He stared down at the worn bag, trying to remember how it had felt to have all his worldly possessions stuffed into something so small.
The realization that the Zereks were so poverty-stricken banished any trace of guilt he might have been harboring. Lecherous though his plans for her were, this girl was going to be far better off in his care than she’d ever been in her father’s.
If she played her cards right and devoted herself to pleasing him well, anything she wanted would be hers for the asking.
SIX
A picket fence bordered the velvet front lawn of Taggart Manor, which rose in a two-story display of splendid white over manicured rose gardens and sculptured shrubbery. Cassandra had admired the mansion many times from a distance, but she’d never been close enough to set foot on the grounds. As Luke held open the gate for her, she stood rooted, her lips slightly parted, her gaze moving from one impressive architectural feature to another: gables with curlicue wood sculptures supporting the eaves, balconies with ornamental railings, and, most incredible of all, four brick chimneys. Why on earth might a house need so many fireplaces? Surely it couldn’t be that spacious inside or have that many rooms.
“Cassandra?”
She jerked at Luke’s softly spoken summons and turned a stupefied gaze on him. “Yes?”
He arched a tawny eyebrow, his whiskey-colored eyes twinkling with suppressed laughter. “Are we going in, or would you prefer to stand and stare all day?”
“It’s just so—” Cassandra broke off for lack of words. “Big and…and lovely.”
He chuckled and gave her a light nudge with the satchel he held in his left hand. “It’s just a house, honey. Once you’ve been here a few weeks, you’ll barely notice its size.”
On legs gone numb with awe, Cassandra started up the walkway, which was lined with ornate lampposts. At home, she had to be frugal with lantern fuel, lighting the lamp right before dark and turning it down whenever she could do without the light. Was Luke Taggart really so rich he could afford to have lamps burning in his yard at night?
The ornate wooden front door, she noticed as she stepped onto the porch, was another wonder. Carved in a busier pattern than a calico dress, it had a darling little peekaboo window at the top.
“Do you open that window and look out to see who’s knocking?”
He laughed as he pushed the portal open. “Actually, the servants usually greet my callers. If it’s someone I prefer not to see, they tell them I’m not receiving guests or that I’m out. The window is mostly for looks.”
“They lie, you mean? Saying you’re not here when you actually are?”
He furrowed his brow and appeared to mull that over. “It’s a polite lie, one that’s pretty much considered acceptable in more elevated social circles.”
In Cassandra’s books, a lie was a lie.
She stepped over the threshold into a huge foyer and found herself surrounded by panels of wood. Oak, she guessed, darkened to golden umber and polished to a high gloss. The floor was made of burgundy tiles with mosaic designs of gray stone that matched the mortar. To her left, a staircase climbed to the second floor, the newel intricately carved, the balustrade repeating the design until it disappeared from sight. Her gaze landed on a large, gold-framed mirror on the foyer wall that was flanked with smaller mirrors, greenery trailing from gold planters below them.
“Oh, my…”
“Like it?” His pride was unmistakable.
“Oh, yes.” Cassandra tried to think of something to say, but she was so incredulous, her brain seemed frozen. “Oh, yes…”
He chuckled again, a deep, throaty rumble that she found utterly endearing. “I’m glad. For the next year, at least, this is going to be your home. If we get on well together and I renew your contract, you may stay longer. Who’s to say?”
br /> A man entered the huge hall. He appeared to be dressed for church in an odd, uncomfortable-looking black suit that had tails hanging down the backside. He strode briskly toward them, then came to an abrupt halt, clicking his heels and inclining his balding gray head. “Master Taggart, I do apologize. I had no idea you’d be returning home so early with a guest.” With a military stiffness, he pivoted toward Cassandra, inclined his head again, then held out a hand. “Madam, may I take your wrap?”
Cassandra had never clapped eyes on anyone quite so solemn, except maybe old Mr. Faucett, the town’s dour undertaker. Fighting a sudden dread, she slipped off her shawl and relinquished it. With a puckered expression of distaste, the man held the length of damp, cream-colored yarn aloft in one hand as if he weren’t quite sure what to do with it. Cassandra nearly snatched her shawl back. It had once belonged to her mama, and even though it wasn’t as fine as the wraps grand ladies wore, she was extremely proud that her papa had given it to her.
“Shall I tell Martha you’d like refreshment, sir?”
“No refreshment for me, Pipps. But I would like Martha to attend Miss Zerek. In addition to other things, I believe the young lady would like some tea served to her in her rooms. Would you summon Martha, please?”
The humorless, unfriendly gentleman turned on his heel, draped Cassandra’s shawl over the arm of a coat tree, and then walked back the way he had come with heel-clicking precision, his back so stiff his coattails barely wiggled.
Cassandra leaned toward Luke and whispered, “Is he an eccentric relative?”
Luke stared down at her for a long moment, his expression curiously blank. “An eccentric what?”
“Relative. You know—an uncle or something?”
The corners of his firm mouth quirked. “He’s a butler.”