Sara Mitchell - A Most Unusual Match

Stiffen your spine, Theodora, and get on with the task.

With a theatrical flourish, Edgar Fane pulled the sheet covering his latest painting from the canvas. His appreciative audience—the fifty or so guests he had invited to join him aboard the Alice as the boat gently steamed across Saratoga Lake—applauded and lifted their champagne glasses to toast his artistic prowess.

The effort was not one of his better ones. He’d chosen a seascape—hence the unveiling on the steamer—but the colors were too bright, the people on the shore more reminiscent of paint smears. The frame, however, was a lovely antique gold.

He did like the frame, which he’d discovered in an antique store in Chicago. A satisfied tingle briefly tickled his insides.

“Who’s the lucky recipient this time?” Richard Beekins gave his shoulder a congenial pat, wheezing noisily in Edgar’s ear as he talked. “C’mon, be a good chap and tell your daddy’s old friend.”

Edgar gave the boozy fellow a smile, then used the excuse of setting aside the delicate champagne flute to turn away. “You know I never divulge privileged information. Everyone needs a secret or two in life. Besides, I need a gimmick to heighten the interest. We all know I’m no Michelangelo.” He winked at Dahlia, his chosen dinner partner for the afternoon boating party. “Even my charming companion here, lovely lady though she may be, couldn’t inveigle the name of the new owner.”

Dahlia obediently pouted and fluttered her eyelashes. Diamonds twinkled in her ears, at the base of her throat and on almost every finger on both hands. “Darling Edgar, I haven’t yet tried.”

Bored with feminine fawning, Edgar downed another flute of champagne as he smiled his way among the guests until he reached the prow of the slender steamer. Dahlia fortunately had been detained by Richard Beekins. Propping his elbows on the narrow rail, Edgar contemplated the undulation of the water, how the sunlight danced over the ripples and whether or not he could capture the effect on canvas. Not that it mattered. His forays into painting provided a useful outlet, but he’d never intended to pursue the craft seriously. On the other hand, perhaps a studied dedication would offer an antidote to the ennui plaguing him the past few years.

“You’re looking far too solemn.” Cynthia Gorman’s scent filled the air before the woman herself joined Edgar, close enough for the wind to blow her lawn skirts against his trousers. “You’ve been brooding most of the afternoon. What is it, Edgar?”

“Can’t a man enjoy the sun on his head and the wind in his face for a minute or two?”

“Not Edgar Fane, apparently.” Her laugh drifted pleasantly over the water. “When I spied you off by yourself for once, I grabbed the opportunity. You’re the only member of your family I can stand being around for longer than a half hour, you know.”

“Because I don’t try and seduce you out of your fortune, or because I don’t talk about mine?”

“My dear man, yours is the only seduction I might contemplate, but we both know that’s never going to happen, so why don’t you try me as a confidante? I can keep a secret.”

Edgar’s impatience erupted in a burst of laughter, which naturally offended Cynthia. He laid his hand against her heliotrope-scented cheek. “Don’t,” he murmured. “You know I love you dearly—”

“As you love all the other women in your harem…”

“Precisely. All a delight to the eyes, but I have no intention of confining my delight or confiding secrets to any of them. Thanks to my brothers and sister making more money and producing heirs, I am free to live—precisely as I please, unencumbered by familial obligation.”

“Never alone, but always lonely.”

Annoyed, Edgar straightened and stepped away. “My dear Cynthia, if I want a philosophical lecture I’ll hunt down a mesmerist. The boat will be docking soon. I think it’s time I made the announcement.” He lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles against her jutting jaw. “Since we’re such old friends, I will share one small secret with you.” He waited until her eyes kindled with hope, then leaned to whisper into her ear, “You won’t be the recipient of my latest work of art.”

A loud burst of masculine guffaws echoed through the cut glass doors of the Casino’s barroom. Half-empty glass of springwater in one hand, Devlin paced outside the entrance while he chewed over what to do next. Two of his suspects were here. Upstairs in the game room, Randolph Lunt had suffered heavy losses at the roulette table, and when he left off gambling to drown his sorrows Dev automatically followed; meanwhile, Joseph Scarborough was deep in a poker game with four other men. He looked to be on a winning streak and would likely stay in the game for a while. Back home, some of their wins, and many of the losses, would feed half the county for a year. Devlin sipped the now-lukewarm water while he fought the cynicism crusting, one barnacle at a time, over the idealism of his youth.

As for his remaining suspect, Edgar Fane—that slippery charmer had taken a party of guests out on the Alice, one of the steamers chugging around Saratoga Lake. They wouldn’t return dockside until near sunset.

So Devlin paced, and pondered his options.

Moments later, across the room the narrow cut glass doors banged open, and Lunt shoved through. “Hey, you!” He headed toward Devlin. “Need change for a twenty. Help me out, won’t you?”

“Let’s see what I’ve got.” Dev tugged out his wallet and made a show of leafing through the bills.

After handing him smaller bills Dev accepted the twenty in return, casually tucking it away with rock-steady hands, while inside his heart pounded like a kettledrum. When Lunt disappeared back through the doors, Dev exited the Casino and hurried down the street to his hotel room.

Thirty minutes after a thorough examination of what turned out to be a bona fide twenty-dollar bill, he headed back for the Park, his favorite sanctuary not only from the masses but his own foul mood.

Redesigned a quarter of a century earlier by Frederick Olmsted’s firm, Congress Spring Park was a popular destination for guests and townsfolk alike. Meandering paths wove through neatly sculpted shrubbery and towering trees. Soft summer breezes carried the sound of the band playing hum-along tunes from a bandstand, built in the middle of a spring-fed pond at the center of the park.

Sunbeams turned the droplets of a fountain to twinkling crystal confetti. Steps slowing, Dev finally allowed the peace of the place to relax the knots in his muscles. The saw-toothed disappointment ebbed.

Most likely the soused Randolph Lunt was a dead end—a man who gambled away enough money to drive him to drink did not possess enough fortitude to be the Hotel Hustler.

That left Joseph Scarborough, Edgar Fane—and Miss Pickford, whose interest in Fane probably deserved closer examination, in light of her deceptions. By the time Devlin wound his way back through the pair of Corinthian columns flanking the entrance to the park he had settled upon a plan of sorts: shadow Miss Pickford for a few days, note who she saw and the circumstances, see if any pattern developed. He told himself this course of action was coldly professional, and had nothing to do with a pair of dark brown eyes or the longing expression he’d glimpsed when he first caught sight of her.

Nothing to do with the faint scent of lilacs or vivid blush when she looked at him and dropped her parasol.

Tranquil mood broken, Devlin headed for the lake to wait for Edgar Fane and his boating party to return. He could hunt down Miss Pickford tomorrow. After hiring a two-seater runabout, he drove the four miles at a leisurely clip, then left the horse contentedly munching a handful of oats beneath a shade tree. Dev wandered down toward the dock where several people were fishing, their poles stretched in ragged formation along the landing and the shore. Lake water lapped in lazy ripples, insects droned in the tall grasses and farther down the shoreline a pair of ducks took flight.