Legacy of Secrets. Sara Mitchell

north, somewhere up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I believe. She suggested I apply for residency there. I hadn’t considered it because you were here, and this school is apparently only for women who have lost all their family connections. Mrs. Hobbs says tuition is paid through donations or trusts or something, since the only applicants accepted are those who find themselves without any resources.” Carefully she kept her voice stripped of any hint of censure, but Adrian’s cheeks turned a dusky red.

      “Then you have nothing to worry about,” he snapped. “This time tomorrow I’ll be long gone. Tell everyone I’m dead, too. The way things have gone over the past few years in our family, I may as well be.”

      He stormed out of the parlor, and a moment later Neala heard the front door slam.

      Philadelphia

      The odors in the squalid alley would suffocate a buffalo. How could a human being survive, much less breathe here, Grayson Faulkner wondered as he and his partner picked their way down what seemed like a tunnel into perdition. A pack of snarling, slobbering dogs fought over the bloody carcass of another animal; Gray averted his gaze and breathed shallowly to keep his gorge at the low end of his throat. Rotting garbage, putrid food scraps and rusted tins formed piles higher than their heads. If he’d known what teaming up with a bounty hunter entailed, he’d never have let Marty Scruggs talk him into it.

      When this job was finished, his old friend would have to hornswoggle a new partner. Seeking adventure all over the earth had been a satisfying way to explore life. But even Gray’s years as a deputy marshal out in Wyoming Territory, where he’d seen plenty of depravity in the wild cattle towns, hadn’t prepared him for the likes of a city slum.

      Beside him, Marty gagged, then cheerfully cursed the dogs, the place, and the man they were looking for.

      “I agree,” Gray said. “So I hate to break it to you now, but after this job, my friend, I’m through.”

      “You and me both. But you lasted longer than I thought, seeing as unlike me, you’re a gent born with a whole place setting of silver spoons in his mouth.”

      They passed a pile of steaming garbage, the stench so rank Gray’s eyes watered. When he finished this job, he’d take a long-needed vacation, he promised himself. Somewhere green and fresh, where the air sparkled and he could hear birdsong. Somewhere nobody knew or cared about his prowess with a gun, or his family. Surely some little corner of this vast country could provide relief for a man on the verge of destroying whatever passed for his soul.

      “Isn’t this the one?” Marty hissed.

      “Looks like it,” Gray agreed after a moment.

      They climbed several flights of creaking stairs lit only by a single bulb hanging from a long wire in the wretched foyer; the higher they climbed, the darker and more stale the air grew. Through thin, decrepit doors they heard voices arguing, babies wailing, smelled the stomach-turning odors of urine, sweat and mildew along with rancid food. Gray opened one flap of his shapeless sack coat, curling his fingers around the holstered Smith & Wesson revolver. It was a new hammerless model that had replaced his trusty Peacemaker; Gray was as proud of the New Departure model as a parent with a precocious child.

      “I’m right glad you’re along.” Marty grinned slyly. “Still the best marksman east of the Mississippi, I hear.”

      Gray felt heat burn his ears and cheeks. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, or read, but likely it’s tommyrot.”

      They reached the top floor; in wordless accord they approached the door on the end, and Marty knocked twice. The churning in Gray’s belly stilled, and an almost eerie calm descended—the falcon, poised to swoop upon its prey.

      The door opened a crack, just enough for the two men to see a woman’s pitted face and suspicious eyes. “Don’t know ye,” she snapped. “Go ’way.”

      Marty planted his foot in the door. “We’re here to collar Kevin Hackbone. Please step aside, ma’am. We know he’s in here, and we know there’s no way out except through this door.”

      Gray watched a multitude of expressions streak across her face, unable to completely divorce himself from an uprising of pity. If she’d had a chance, a decent place to live and a man who took care of her…He stepped closer, crowding the doorway until reluctantly the woman stepped back. “He won’t go easy,” she said, jerking her chin toward a narrow hall.

      “His choice,” Gray returned quietly.

      “If you help us, it’ll be better for you,” Marty added. He exchanged glances with Gray, then tugged out a pair of handcuffs and headed down the hall, to a closed door. “Come on out, Kevin,” he called. “You’re under arrest back in New York City, for robbery, assault and battery, and too many other crimes to waste more breath on.”

      “Come and get me, ya boot-kissing son of a sewer rat!” a nasal voice yelled through the flimsy panel.

      “Now, Kevin, there’s two of us out here.” He shot Gray a quick glance, winked. “One of us is the Falcon himself. You’ve heard about him, right? Might wriggle away from me, but you know and I know you’ll never make it past him.”

      “Got a knife, boyo. And I’ll use it, I will.”

      “I’ve got a gun,” Gray called back, glaring at his irrepressible friend. “And I’ll use it.”

      The door opened. Looking like a mangy ferret, Kevin eyed the cuffs dangling from Marty’s hand, then glanced down the hall where Gray waited by the door. After a long moment, Kevin heaved a sigh and held out his hands. “Knew it was just a matter of time,” he muttered, all bluster gone.

      Going too easy, Gray thought with a prickle of disquiet. He watched, every muscle tensed, waiting for Kevin to make a move as Marty proceeded to handcuff his hands behind his back.

      “No!” the woman behind Gray suddenly shrieked, a demented scream ripping from her throat. She dashed down the hall before Gray could stop her, and there was a knife in her hands, a knife she lifted high above her head, a knife aimed for Marty’s unprotected back.

      It happened too fast. Even as he raced after her, shouting at her, Gray knew he was too late. Too late he screamed somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind as he lifted the gun and fired but the knife had already plunged into Marty’s back. Marty half turned, his eyes wide with disbelief. He shook his head, his gaze finding and holding Gray’s even as his hands fell away from Kevin and he dropped to his knees, then crumpled on top of the dead woman—the first woman Gray had ever been forced to kill.

      Gray scarcely noticed Kevin’s escape. He gathered Marty in his arms, feeling the blood soaking his hands. “Hold on,” he pleaded, pressing against the wound with all his might. “Hold on, Marty. You have to hold on….”

      The friendly brown eyes, always so full of humor, full of life, were glazed now, staring vaguely up into Gray’s face. Marty’s mouth moved, and he coughed, blood trickling down his chin. “Gray…” he whispered, one hand fumbling aimlessly until Gray grabbed it, gripped it tightly. “Glad it wasn’t you, Falcon…” The ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. “Would…ruin…your reputation.”

      His head lolled, and his body went slack.

      His friend was gone.

      Chapter Two

      Isabella Chilton Academy for Single Females

       April 1890

      Drizzling rain accompanied a week of demanding examinations, but winter session at the Isabella Chilton Academy was finally over. Along with academic and home-management courses, graduates from the Academy were educated in every facet of etiquette and social skills in order to survive a world where a woman’s role was no longer as rigidly defined. Since 1866, when Miss Isabella had converted her husband’s family estate into a school in order to save it from Yankee carpetbaggers, every student who completed the four-year curriculum acquired either a husband or gainful employment with which