Deadly Vows. Brenda Joyce

right there. But she had run off.

      He felt the stares in the room, all leveled at him. He did not look at anyone now. The shock remained, but there was disbelief, as well.

      She had run off.

      He has been stood up at the altar.

      Images flashed of Francesca smiling at him, laughing with him, her eyes filled with warmth and affection, all of it meant for him. He stared through the memories at his half brother, and he wondered how he could have ever thought, even for a moment, that she would actually marry him. He was a fool. She had never wanted him as her husband—it was always Bragg who she had wanted to marry. She had wanted him as her lover.…

      She lusted for him, but she loved Bragg.

      He was her second choice.

      He trembled and realized his fists were clenched. How could he have been such a fool?

      “Who was the last to see her?”

      Hart started, realizing that Rick had stepped forward to take charge.

      Julia said hoarsely, “Connie. Francesca asked her sister to bring her clothing here. She told her she would meet her here at 3:00 p.m.”

      “I begged her not to go!” Connie cried.

      Hart heard, but vaguely, as if from a distance. Something odd was happening inside his chest, but he was determined to ignore it. How could she have done this to him?

      More images flashed in his mind of the many moments he has shared with her—over a good scotch whiskey in his library, or inside his coach in the dark of night, or at a supper club by candlelight. There had been debate and discussion, levity and laughter, lust and love. He had committed himself to her completely. He had trusted her completely. Or had he?

      He was her second choice and he had always known it; he had never forgotten it.

      The odd feeling in his chest intensified, as if something within the muscle and flesh was snapping—no, ripping—apart. He was determined to ignore it. He should not be shocked or surprised. He should have realized how this day would end.

      Connie was speaking to him, he realized. “I don’t know what the note said. She wouldn’t show it to me. I begged her not to go! She swore she would be here at three!”

      “Did she leave the note in the salon?” his half brother was asking.

      “She had it with her when she ran upstairs to get her purse,” Connie said, wringing her hands. “Only Francesca would respond to whatever was in that note on her own wedding day!” She looked pleadingly at Hart.

      He stared coldly back. He did not care about any note.

      “Did she say anything about the note, anything at all?” Rick asked.

      “No,” Connie said tearfully. “But she seemed very distressed.”

      And he almost laughed, bitterly. Francesca had received a note that had distressed her—enough for her to fail to attend her own wedding. He had meant to spend his life with her. He had looked forward to showing her the world, offering her any experience she wished to have, when she wished to have it. He had wanted to open her eyes to the pyramids of Egypt and China’s Great Wall, to ancient Greek ruins and the temple of David; he had wanted to share with her the greatest works of art in the world, from the primitive drawings in the caves of Norway, to Stonehenge of Great Britain, and the medieval treasures cloistered in the cellars of the Vatican. How could she have done this to him?

      He had taken her friendship to heart. Having never had a friend before Francesca, he had thought her friendship an undying profession of loyalty and affection. How wrong he had been. Friends did not betray one another this way.

      He realized Rourke was offering him a drink. He had given her his trust—his friendship—his absolute loyalty—and her desertion was his reward.

      In front of three hundred of the city’s most outstanding citizens.

      “Calder, take the scotch. You clearly need it.”

      He took the glass, saw that his hand trembled and hated himself for being a weak, romantic fool. He downed the entire contents of the glass, handed it back and walked away from everyone.

      Hadn’t he expected this? Wasn’t that why he had kept staring out the window, waiting for her to arrive? Hadn’t he known on some subconscious level that this marriage was not to be?

      Of course she didn’t want him.

      He refused to remember being a small boy, scrawny and thin and always hungry, sharing a bed with Rick, in the one-room slum that was their flat. He did not want to think about their mother, Lily, before she died, standing at the stove, smiling not at him but at his brother, telling Rick how wonderful he was. Nor would he recall her last dying days, when he had been so terrified that she would leave him. It was Rick she was always asking to see, Rick she was always whispering to.

      He was an adult now. He knew that she had made Rick swear to take care of his younger brother, but that knowledge didn’t change anything. Lily had loved Rick greatly; to this day, he wasn’t sure that she had ever wanted him, much less loved him. The more troubling his behavior had been, the more distant she had become, looking at him with sorrow. She had never looked at Rick that way.

      “You were a mistake!” his father, Paul Randall, had said.

      Hart had been accepted at Princeton University at the age of sixteen. Rathe had been a personal friend of the university’s president, but his test scores were superior anyway, allowing his early admittance. Yet instead of going to New Jersey and registering for his first term, he had gone to New York City. Returning to Manhattan as a young man in a suit with a few dollars in his wallet had been strange—and exhilarating. He liked the fact that when he stepped out into the street and raised his hand, a cab instantly pulled up. He liked walking into a fancy restaurant and being called sir. But the trip to the city was hardly impulsive; he had hired an investigator to find his biological father. He had not only found Paul Randall, he had been shocked to learn that he had a pair of siblings.

      Randall had been living in the same house, on Fifty-seventh Street and Lexington Avenue, where he was murdered last February. Hart had succumbed to uncharacteristic nervousness as he approached the brownstone. In spite of having rehearsed a nonchalant introduction, he was speechless and perspiring by the time he reached the front door. He had imagined their first meeting while on the Manhattan-bound train. No optimist, he had nevertheless imagined various scenarios that ended on a happy note.

      When he had told Randall who he was, the man had turned deathly white with shock. Instead of inviting him in, he had stepped outside onto the front stoop where Calder stood, closing the door behind them. “Why are you here?” he had cried. “What do you want? My God, my wife must never know.”

      Instantly understanding that his father did not want him, he had come to his senses. “For some odd reason, I thought it appropriate for us to meet.”

      “It is not!” Randall had exclaimed. “Please leave—and do not come back.” He had shut the front door in his face. Stunned, trying not to feel anything just then, Hart had heard his half siblings behind the door, asking their father who that was.

      “Just a boy selling encyclopedias.”

      Now, Hart stared down at Fifth Avenue, his hands clenched so tightly on the sill that his knuckles were white. Francesca had jilted him. He would always have been the man she had settled for. Except, in the end, she had realized she did not want to settle.

      He turned. To his amazement, Rick was still interviewing Connie, as if this were one of his criminal investigations. Well, it was hardly that. As far as he was concerned, the drama was over.

      Rick saw him staring and walked over, his strides decisive. “Francesca must be in trouble.”

      He raised his brows. “Really? Why would you reach that conclusion—when you begged her this morning to postpone our wedding?”

      Rick’s