Deadly Vows. Brenda Joyce

and devoted husband.” He flushed again. Clearly, the words pained him.

      Hart raised his brows, incredulous. “You are giving me your blessings?”

      “Unlike you, I prefer taking the high road.” Rick stared, his expression hard and tight. “I am trying, no matter how difficult you make it.”

      Hart had to laugh. “Of course you are—you are so damn noble!”

      Rourke shoved a scotch at him. “Drink it. He has apologized, and you should bury the hatchet, at least for the rest of the day.”

      Hart took the scotch, but did not bother to take a sip. He was utterly amused. Only Rick would sincerely offer him his blessings. He wondered how noble his brother would be later that night, after he and Francesca had gone home to finally and thoroughly make love to one another. He hoped Rick would stay awake, brooding unhappily about it.

      A knock sounded on the lounge door and Gregory went to open it. The moment Hart glimpsed Julia’s starkly white face, with Connie standing behind her fearfully, his heart turned over with sickening force. He glanced again at the grandfather clock. It was 3:30 p.m.

      “Julia?” Rathe hurried forward. Hart saw Rathe’s wife, Grace, standing with Julia—her arm around her, as if she might collapse.

      “I don’t know where she is!” Julia cried. “Francesca isn’t here, she isn’t at the house, and no one has seen her since noon!”

      Hart felt the room still. All conversation ceased. Time stopped.

      Francesca wasn’t there.

      Of course she wasn’t. There wasn’t going to be a wedding—and he wasn’t even truly surprised. She had come to her senses at last.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Saturday, June 28, 1902

      4:00 p.m.

      HER THROAT WAS raw from shouting for help. Francesca leaned against the door of the gallery, blinded by a sudden surge of tears. How was she going to get out? She had been crying for help for a very long time, and no one had heard her. What time was it, anyway?

      She could barely believe that she remained locked inside. Trembling, she turned to find her purse. She had dropped it on the floor when she had heard the front door being locked. It was on the other side of the central wall where her nude portrait hung. For one moment, Francesca stared through the shadows in the gallery at her own sultry image.

      She had been lured to the gallery and now, she was locked inside.

      Someone wanted her to miss her own wedding.

      There was no other conclusion to draw. She was not going to miss her own wedding! Somehow she was going to get out of this damn basement. She loved Calder Hart—she could not wait to finally be his wife. She would never leave him standing at the altar, in shock, waiting for her!

      As she stumbled into the other chamber behind the wall, she wondered who had done this.

      She had made many enemies in the course of the past six months. Every crime that she had solved had involved justice for the perpetrators. The list of those who wished to hurt her was probably long. She would consider it the moment she was out of the gallery and uptown—finally married to Hart.

      Her purse lay on the floor, open. Francesca knelt and dug within for her pocket watch. Her heart slammed when she saw that it was a few minutes before four.

      By now, her family, friends and three hundred guests were at the church. Everyone—including Hart—must know that she had not arrived.

      Surely he was worried about her! She wished she had left a message with Alfred; she wished she had shown Connie the damn note. But she hadn’t done either of those things and no one would have any idea where she had gone.

      She must have been screaming for help for perhaps an hour, hoping a passerby would hear her. Clearly, the gallery was set too low below the sidewalk, and too far back from it, for anyone passing to hear her. There had to be another way to get out.

      Francesca dismissed the notion of trying to escape through the front windows, as they were barred. She ran back into the office, praying that the windows there were not as small as she recalled.

      She stared up at the two windows, which were high up on the wall near the ground level, just below the office’s ceiling. They were small rectangles that barely allowed any light in. Each was probably eighteen or twenty inches wide. They looked half as tall.

      She was a slender woman, but even if she could get up to the windows and break the glass, she feared she would not be able to squeeze through. She shuddered. If it weren’t her wedding day, she would continue calling for help—and wait for someone, eventually, to hear her. But she was going to take her vows, even if she was late—which now, obviously, she would be.

      Francesca glanced around. She quickly realized she must push the desk to the wall, beneath the window, and stack the file cabinet on the desk, in order to make a ladder. The desk looked small enough, but it was surprisingly heavy, and it was many moments later before she had pushed it across the small space. She cleared the desktop with a determined sweep of her arm. Then she marched to a file cabinet. She pushed it across the floor, then managed to lift it onto the desk. Her back felt broken. Panting, she paused and looked up.

      Francesca stared up at the window grimly. If she got stuck in that window, she could hang there all night. The possibility was distinctly dreadful.

      But there was no other choice. Determined, she removed her shoes and stockings, the better to gain some traction, and climbed onto the desk. She tested the cabinet for balance by jiggling it. It sat square on the desk and seemed steady enough. Hiking up her skirts, she climbed onto it, clawing the rough wall with her fingers. She paused. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but she was now six feet from the floor and she did not think her makeshift ladder all that trustworthy. She sighed. Very slowly, she tried to stand up.

      The file cabinet rocked.

      She froze, regained her balance and tried again. A short time later, she was standing upright, her fingertips now grasping the shallow concrete ledge of the window, which was about four inches wide. Her face was level with the glass pane, which was thick and dirty. Her heart was thundering, but she was briefly exultant.

      Then she grew grim. The window opened onto a grassy patch of backyard, or some such thing. She thought she could fit through it, but wanting to get through it was one thing, actually doing so, another. Once she broke the glass and cleared it away, she was going to have to jump up and try to get her chest onto the ledge, at least. If she failed, she was going to fall to the floor.

      Francesca slowly, gingerly reached with one hand into the waistband of her skirt for her gun. The cabinet she stood on teetered slightly, but she felt that it was stable enough for her next move. Raising the gun slowly, she inhaled and slammed it with all her strength into the glass.

      It shattered.

      She covered her face with her arm, turning away. She felt shards dart against her cheeks anyway.

      The rocking cabinet stilled. Her heart was pounding hard, but somehow, she was still standing on the cabinet. She took a few steadying breaths, then used the gun to clear away the remaining glass. The edges of the frame were dangerous—there was no way to make them shard free. But she intended to ignore a few scrapes and cuts. This was her wedding day.

      She told herself not to look down. Francesca put the gun through the window and laid it outside on the grass. Then she reached with both hands for the ledge. There was nothing to really grab on to, and she was afraid that she wasn’t strong enough to hoist herself up high enough to begin to get out the window.

      But she had to try.

      She leaped up, pushing with her legs and her arms. For one moment, she thought she had made it. Her breasts hit the concrete and she was briefly suspended there. And then she was falling wildly downward, through the air.

      SHE HAD COME TO her