Lions and Lace Read online

  “Very good,” Trevor said dryly.

  “Miss, you’re wrinkling,” Peg admonished when she saw the master’s face.

  Mara sat up and rushed back to her dressing table, nearly tripping on the long satin skirt.

  “Will she be ready soon?” Trevor asked Peg in Gaelic.

  “As soon as I can tame that hair,” the maid answered briskly, also in Irish.

  “Dearest brother?”

  Trevor slid his gaze back to Mara. “What, you minx?”

  “Shall I wear the pearls in my hair tonight or this sad little bit of lily of the valley … or those diamonds you keep in the vault downstairs for when I marry?” In the looking glass, Mara’s eyes clearly reflected her preference.

  “The flowers, I think.” Trevor took the lilies from her and handed them to Peg.

  “Not even the pearls?”

  “The pearls you can wear after you come out.” Trevor smirked. “The diamonds won’t see the light of day until you’re a married woman, so”—he held up his hand, already seeing her plotting to wear them—“don’t let’s speak of them again, shall we?”

  Mara heaved a great dramatic sigh of despair, but then, in spite of herself, she wrapped her arms around her brother and gave him a loving hug. “I forgive you for being such a beast, Trevor. But only if you forgive me for being so greedy. I just want tonight to be perfect.” She rested her dark head against his chest, and a furrow appeared on her sweet youthful brow. “I’m such a ninny. But I’ve such a fear that I’ll do something wrong. And I couldn’t bear it if none of the young gentlemen asked me to dance tonight.”

  Trevor stiffened and looked down at the beautiful young girl in his arms, his precious little sister. A crushing ache appeared in his hazel eyes. He touched her wild black locks, then held her to him fiercely.

  “Why, Trevor, what is this?” she asked when he finally pulled free.

  “I want you to never doubt that I’d do anything for you, Mara. I want tonight to be as glorious as your dreams. I’ve done everything within my power to make it that way.”

  “I know that. But why do you speak so solemnly?”

  He smiled, but it never quite took the melancholy from his eyes. “Am I being solemn?”

  “Yes, terribly solemn.”

  “Well, you know how I am. I’m never quite as much fun as Eagan.”

  “Nonetheless, you’re just as dear to me.”

  Trevor stared at her for a moment, as if flashes of their mother, or something deep and close to his heart, had touched him. Yet his stiff, formal manner soon returned. He kissed Mara’s hand and motioned for Peg to take over. After giving explicit instructions to Peg to use her Irish-born common sense and not to listen to a word of Mara’s on how she would like to wear her hair, he sauntered to the doors, leaning on his walking stick. He turned one last time to find Mara and Peg already in a battle of wills over the powder pot. He smiled and appeared reluctant to leave. Especially while Mara was still so full of happiness and her eyes still shone with the anticipation of the night ahead.

  The Louis XIV clock in the Sheridan drawing room chimed eight times, and with each bell, the sound seemed to echo endlessly through the enormous mansion until the final sound was like a distant moan of despair. Precisely on the hour Eagan came down the stairs, his face jolly for the moment. Mara was on his arm, her hair finally dressed in a modest falling chignon with lilies of the valley strewn through the twists at the back of her neck. She looked lovely, but Trevor did not look at her. He asked their butler if he would bring Mara a sherry on this fine occasion, and once the sherry was brought and Eagan’s glass refilled with V.S.O.P., he left the conversation to his brother.

  The worst moment came when the large ormulu clock on the mantel chimed the half hour. Mara still waited for her guests, the hope burning in her eyes, dimmed only slightly. Trevor kept his gaze on the fire and his glass of liquor, hardly bothering to address his brother or sister.

  By nine o’clock even Mara knew there was something wrong, yet she refrained from speaking her worries. Her conversation with Eagan drifted to a morose silence, and all three of them waited. For what, they weren’t sure.

  When the clock chimed ten o’clock, the drawing room was a tomb. No one spoke. Eagan slouched over his glass, an unusual frown marring his handsome features. Trevor still stood at the mantel, his face a cold emotionless mask. Mara stared at her hands. But when the final bell chimed, she couldn’t bear it any longer. She stood up and slowly took the flowers from her coiffure. In defeat, she walked to the door, her every step like a death march.

  “Mara,” Trevor finally whispered, making her stop. “I will avenge this if it’s the last thing I do.” He delivered this promise with as much hot fury as cold vengeance.

  Mara turned, her beautiful young face far less innocent than it had been only two hours earlier. “No, Trevor,” she said, her voice trembling with held-back tears. “Remember what Mrs. Mellenthorp said: ‘Rudeness is to be tolerated only in others, never in oneself.’” She met her brother’s eyes and suddenly burst into tears. She ran out of the room, leaving a trail of crushed flowers in her wake.

  The only sound left was the tap of a walking stick as Sheridan made his way through the cavernous foyer. Eagan stayed behind in the drawing room, finding cold solace in another glass of brandy, but Sheridan was not to be comforted that way. He entered the dining room, still decorated in anticipation of the dinner that was to be held there. Surveying the room, his gaze rested upon the shamrock topiaries that now seemed to mock him, their shapes taking on nearly mythical proportions in the abandoned grandiose room. A dripping noise drew his attention to the expensive table arrangement. Atop the center, the swan ice sculpture, once a masterpiece, was now a melted, grotesque caricature of its former self. The roses and lilies surrounding it drooped almost imperceptibly, yet Sheridan noted their defeat, and his face hardened further.

  He stepped up to the table and touched the rim of a cobalt goblet. But when he looked down at it, something inside him must have snapped. He must have been reminded that this was a goblet that should have been raised in toast to his sister, not sitting unfilled at an empty table in a desolate room. Without warning, his rage overcame him. Abruptly he raised his ebony walking stick and smashed it down on the table, breaking crystal and china in its wake. The Limoges porcelain clattered to the marble floor, and the roses and lilies were ripped apart from the force of his blow. He moved down the table and took particular vengeance on the wine goblets, shattering them one by one like clay pigeons, his expression frighteningly calm and deliberate.

  When the last cobalt goblet was destroyed, the last piece of Limoges cracked beyond repair, the last pink tea rose lying limp upon the floor, Trevor straightened and stared down at his hand that clutched his walking stick. It dripped blood from a dozen tiny cuts, a casualty of his violence and the flying shards of glass. He looked down at the carmine spots on the damask tablecloth. They were like virgin’s blood on bedsheets, a final metaphor for Mara’s lost innocence. Tormented beyond salvation, vengeance burning in his dark eyes, Sheridan decided on his retaliation. He shouted for his butler.

  Whittaker arrived, his professional demeanor not shaken by the violent destruction of the dining table or the crunch of priceless crystal beneath his polished shoes. After all, he was an English butler, trained to remain above the master’s tantrums.

  “What may I do for you, sir?” Whittaker bowed.

  “Get me this evening’s guest list.” Sheridan didn’t even look at him, his gaze riveted vengefully on the shamrock topiaries.

  “Very good, sir. Thank you very much, sir.” He bowed again and mechanically went to retrieve what the master desired, the smile on his aging lips the only hint that he was not as detached as he appeared. Whittaker, with his scrupulous British background, was, of course, very much a believer in the Mellenthorp Rules of Etiquette. But he knew what went on in his domain. He, like the rest of household, knew that Miss Mara was upstairs in her bedchambe
r crying her eyes out. So he carried out the master’s request with even more efficiency than usual, for in spite of his skills at the gentle art of buttling, Whittaker still believed that there was indeed a time and a place for revenge. And that time had most certainly come.

  3

  The Commodore Club was busy that noon. Old rich men sat in the library in burgundy leather chairs reading the latest edition of the Bankers’ Magazine. Hopeful investors crowded around the ticker-tape machine next to the concierge, praying that silver or Erie stock would rise and thus pad their incomes.

  The Commodore Club was the watering hole for Wall Street, one of the few places where old money shook hands with new. Though the Knickerbocker society wives wouldn’t dream of taking tea with those beneath their social position—even if those not of their set possessed five times their wealth—the Knickerbocker men, while in the Commodore Club, behaved by no such rules. They easily mingled with the nouveaux riches if only to gamble and increase their bank accounts. (After all, those Knickerbocker wives with all their rules and airs of superiority were quite a dull flock, and mistresses were getting expensive.) Even old William B. Astor himself consorted easily with the young and mighty of Wall Street. At the Commodore Club, he even asked to be called Backhouse because it was his middle name, but more importantly because Mrs. Astor, once they had been married, had asked him never to use it again. It reminded her of “all sorts of vulgarities.”

  So the established and the interlopers alike took their cigars and brandy at the Commodore Club. They conversed about bulls and bears, but mostly they talked about the Predator. They discussed in infinite detail how he had fared in the Comstock Lode and if his investments in the Marine Bank would prove astute. True, most wouldn’t invite Trevor Sheridan to dinner, nor would they expect their wives to associate with his family. Yet for a tip on the exchange, all would gladly have shared their mistresses with him, and perhaps, if the financial reward were worth it, they might have even lowered themselves to laugh over one of his crude Irish jokes.

  Today the Knickerbockers were willing to laugh. Tomorrow they would not be.

  Appearing unconcerned with the speculation around him, the Predator sat in the corner of the dining room eating, of all things, corned beef and cabbage, with his younger brother. Every now and again a gentleman would look up from his table and glance at Sheridan, then, seeing no profitable activity, return to his meal. This continued through Sheridan’s enjoyment of a large glass of the club’s best brandy (upon Eagan’s insistence) chased with a pot of strong coffee.

  The atmosphere in the dining room was sizzling. Everyone, of course, knew about Sheridan’s sister’s failed debut, but that was quickly overshadowed by the fact that it was Tuesday. And Tuesday was the day that the Predator bought.

  James Fitzsimmons entered the room, and all eyes fell upon him. He was Sheridan’s workhorse. One could set one’s watch by James Fitzsimmons. Every Tuesday afternoon at precisely two o’clock he entered the club’s dining room and walked to the Predator’s table. There the Predator would write out his order on a napkin, and James Fitzsimmons would then leave for the exchange, the napkin in his hand coveted by everyone in the room.

  The Predator wrote, and eyes followed his hand as if they might decipher the movements and reveal those hallowed words: silver bullion, Western Union, Chesapeake Railroad. Whatever it was, the Predator was almost assured of making a fortune, and those lucky enough to be holding on to his coat tails would profit beyond their wildest imaginings.

  Sheridan finished his order with a flourish and handed it to Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons bowed and turned on his heels.

  Then the unthinkable happened.

  Some thought Lady Luck had just landed sweetly in their laps when they saw that napkin slip from Fitzsimmon’s hand. The linen square fluttered to the ground, the scribblings in black ink available to anyone within sight of it. There was one huge intake of breath as they strained to read each line. Then Fitzsimmons retrieved it. He shoved it in his pocket as if the entire incident had never occurred. At the far end of the dining room the Predator hardly lifted his head. To all appearances, he hadn’t even seen Fitzsimmons drop the thing. Men suddenly began rubbing their hands.

  One by one, they left the dining room, each with a different excuse, each with the same destination and the same name on his mind: Jubilee Patent Laces.

  Eagan, of course, had seen the napkin drop. He paled and almost jumped from his seat. If not for his brother’s discreet hand on his arm, he would have sprinted across the room and taken the napkin back. Eagan looked down at his brother’s hand and said, “Trevor, they’ve seen the bid. We’ve got to tell Fitz not to put the order through.”

  “Wait,” was all Sheridan offered.

  More men cleared the room. Soon the only ones in the dining room were the Chinese busboy and old Cyrus Field, too blind and deaf to notice anything around him but the strip of beef on his plate that his manservant sawed into gummable scraps.

  “Jesus, Trevor, what the hell are you doing? That stock’ll be worthless if you and the rest of this room buy it,” Eagan whispered.

  “It’s Jubilee Patent Laces.”

  Eagan looked as if he’d just been slapped in the face. “That’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. Everyone knows that. Jubilee’s going into receivership any day. Are you out of your mind?”

  Sheridan stood as if he hadn’t heard him. “What do you think, Eagan, if we give Fitz the day off tomorrow? He’s done well for us today, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Eagan looked up at his brother and narrowed his eyes. “What’d you do here? You just—just—?”

  “Fitzsimmons won’t be bidding for me today,” Sheridan commented, “though I doubt any of our luncheon partners will notice. Not in their haste to get their bids in for Jubilee.”

  With realization dawning on him, Eagan couldn’t help but see the flaw in his brother’s plan. “But not all those men who ran out of this room toward Jubilee were invited to Mara’s debut, Trevor. You’ve gone and ruined men who have no business with us.”

  Sheridan whipped around and bitterly whispered, “You know what they’re calling Mara today after her disappointment? The Irish whore. I was told that several men in this club were betting which one could take her to mistress. If I ever get their names, I swear they’ll be dead before they see another day at the exchange.”

  Rage and disbelief crossed Eagan’s features. Numbly, he stood and looked out the bay windows across Broad Street to the exchange. “You were too easy on them, then,” he said.

  “I’m not through yet.”

  Sheridan turned to go. He ambled out of the dining room, and the only noise besides old Cyrus Field in the corner busily masticating his beef was the distinct click of a walking stick on marble.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  Hearing these words, the old parish priest, who had been listening to those very same words for at least six hours, suddenly sat up straight. His rheumy eyes widened, and he stared at the tiny mesh window that separated sinner from priest in the narrow oak confessional. He couldn’t see through the black screen, but he didn’t need to to know who the speaker was. He knew that voice as surely as he knew his amber-beaded rosary. It was Trevor Byrne Sheridan, the Trevor Byrne Sheridan of Wall Street, the Sheridan Bank, and several railroads and silver mines that he couldn’t begin to name. But more than that, it was the Trevor Byrne Sheridan whose gold had roofed the chapel last winter, the sole means of support for the parish’s orphans’ home in Five Points, the man who the bishop once said owned nearly a quarter of Manhattan, including the costly dirt beneath St. Brendan’s.

  Old Father Donegal nervously replaced his steel spectacles and began listening as if the bishop himself were at his shoulder.

  “It has been a year since my last confession.” Sheridan’s shadow moved as if he were lowering his head. “I am treating men unfairly, Father. I’m depriving them of their money. For this and all the sins of my past l
ife, I humbly beg forgiveness.”

  “You’ve stolen from them?” The priest mopped the sweat from his balding head. The last thing he wanted to hear was that the orphans’ home in Five Points was being run on thievery.

  “No, Father. I’m not stealing their money. I’m simply making sure they have less of it. I know this must be a sin, and while I must do it, I seek God’s forgiveness.”

  “Tell me what you’re doing to these men,” the priest asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Begin, and you will find forgiveness.”

  “Three days ago in the Commodore Club, I was having my lunch. The exchange was busy that day. I made sure it became even busier.…” And so the confession went until Sheridan the sinner felt himself confessed.

  “What shall you say to me, Father?” Sheridan finally asked when he was through. “What shall be my penance for these sins?”

  The priest had lived a long time, but he’d never heard of such schemes. He had no idea that so much money changed hands in one day. In his amazement, he mumbled, “For your penance, say one hundred rosaries.”

  “One hundred rosaries?” the irate voice boomed at him from the confessional window. “There is no other way?”

  Father Donegal nearly slipped from his hard oak seat. “Exactly how—how much money did you plan on depriving these men of?”

  “All told, about three million dollars, I think.”

  The father was too shocked to even close his mouth.

  “I’ll say three rosaries. One for each million. Will that suffice?”

  The priest nodded lamely, then remembered himself. With as much confidence as he could muster, he squeaked, “You cannot bargain for your soul, my son. You must also make a good act of contrition. You must pay these men back.”

  “That’s impossible, Father.”

  “You must pay restitution.”

  The shadow paused. Quietly he said, “I shall give the bishop the same sum that I plan to remove from the pockets of my enemies. He may use it toward St. Patrick’s. I see fourteen years of building, and still Bishop Hughes’s dream of a cathedral for New York is not realized.”