Tally’s eyes widened. “When did you get so coarse?”
“When I found out what real life is like. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Of course I am. I always do, don’t I? But just remember that if you see something you don’t like, you’ll get hurt.”
Cay finished the last of the bread. “So what’s she like?”
“Who?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Pretty, but not the great beauty that I’d heard she was.”
“Are you just saying that?”
“Yeah,” Tally said. His little sister always knew when he was lying. “She isn’t dressing like we’d heard she did in Charleston, but even in her drab clothes, she’s a beauty. Eyes like a cat’s, lips like ripe cherries, and her body is—”
“I get the idea. You do know what she did to Alex, don’t you?”
“Sure. But couldn’t he have done something to stop her?”
Cay felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “What do you mean by that? That he should have figured out that the woman he loved was a low-down, lying skunk? Should he have seen that she was using him in some devious plot she’d come up with? That she couldn’t have cared less that Alex was hanged, as long as she got what she wanted?” By the time Cay finished, she was standing up and glaring down at Tally.
He was looking at her with interest. “If this is what love does to a person, I hope it never happens to me.”
Cay sat back down. “No woman would be insane enough to fall in love with you.”
“There, my dear little sister, you’re wrong. Half of the women in New Orleans have fallen for me. The other half want Adam.”
“That’s because Ethan isn’t here.” She heard noises outside the door. “They’re here.”
Tally grabbed her arm and pulled her upright. “If I had any sense, I’d push you back out the window.” He half dragged her across the room to the cabinet, and when she tried to trip him, he sidestepped her.
“Let me go! I can walk.”
“Walking isn’t the problem,” he said as he pushed her into the little space beside the cabinet. “If you’d never been taught to ride, you wouldn’t be in the mess you’re in now. Stay there and don’t make a sound.”
Cay started to make a retort to that, but she thought better of it. Tally might tell her brothers and Alex she was there, and they’d send her away. To find out where Alex was going, she’d had to follow him through the streets of New Orleans. She’d hidden behind a big palm tree in the lobby of a hotel, and when Alex went up the stairs, she’d told the clerk she had a package to deliver to the man’s fiancée. She hinted that it was a ring.
The man had been repulsed by Cay’s dirty clothes, but that kept him from looking at her too hard. She was told that Nathaniel Harcourt had taken two rooms in their hotel, one of them the bridal suite on the top floor. Cay asked the man for the key to the room so she could surprise him, but he’d given her a look to let her know she wasn’t going to get it. She knew that if she were a pretty, well-dressed young lady, he would have given her anything she asked for. It looked like there were advantages and disadvantages to being of either sex.
In the end, Cay’d had to climb the balconies at the back of the hotel, overlooking the garden, to get into the room. Twice she’d nearly fallen, and it had taken sheer muscle power to haul herself up to safety. “Thank you, Florida,” she’d whispered when she reached the top balcony. All those boxes she’d had to carry, the pole she’d had to use to help get the boat unstuck, not to mention energetic evenings spent with Alex, had made her much stronger.
To hide her, Tally opened all four doors on the cabinet and set a decorative wooden box at the bottom to cover her feet. You’d have to look hard to see her behind the open doors, but Cay was just the right height to look out through the gap between the doors.
Once she was hidden, she thought about what she was doing. She was waiting to see this woman she’d heard so much about. The great love of Alex’s life. The woman he’d merely looked at and known he loved.
Tally was barely two feet away when the door opened. It was Nate.
“If you’ll step into here,” Nate said in his cool voice, as though he felt nothing about what was going on. But Cay knew him, and she heard the underlying distaste. Nate didn’t like injustice. In college, he’d written several papers against slavery, and he’d petitioned President Adams, asking if he, Nathaniel Harcourt, could help reform the entire judicial system of the United States.
Cay could now tell that her brother thoroughly disliked the woman whom Alex had married in passion.
Cay held her breath as she heard the light footsteps of a woman, then saw the back of her. She was tall, and her thick, black hair was dressed high on her head. From the back, Cay could see that she was firmly corseted inside a blue silk dress that had obviously been made for her. She wore a tiny jacket that Cay knew was the height of fashion. When the woman started to turn around, Cay’s heart almost stopped beating.
Lilith Grey was indeed beautiful. She had chiseled cheekbones, eyes shaped like almonds, and perfect red lips—which Cay thought had to have some artificial color on them.
Cay tried to be sensible and think of her from a man’s standpoint. Tally was staring at her with a stupid expression on his face, as though he was seeing a star that had landed on this planet. At least Nate wasn’t enamored of her, Cay thought. He was looking toward the open door as though he saw something a great deal more interesting than the woman.