Free Fortune's Flames by Janelle Taylor Page A

she’ll believe anything I tell her,” Eric vowed smugly. “‘Course, I didn’t like putting that money in a safety box for some mysterious partner, but it’ll be worth doing if it throws Maren off our wake. Besides, the money didn’t come out of my pockets.” Eric chuckled merrily. “Maren’s already been a big help to us. Picking her up in London covered our backs. And she’ll keep Josephine’s necklace safe for me. If I lost it—”
    “Your back would be exposed,” Horben finished for him.
    “Yours too, my friend,” Eric reminded his cohort.
    “How do you plan to get it back when we need it?”
    “Nothing to fear,” Eric boasted. “As easy as a slipknot. When this war’s over, we’ll recover our treasure from Jamaica and live like kings. As for my dear brother, poor Murray won’t be around long enough to catch on to me.”
    “How do you plan to get rid of him when we reach Baltimore?”
    “We’ll decide that on the voyage. I’ve had too much on my mind to give my brother much thought. Do you want to handle it for me?”
    “Sure,” Horben replied, a wicked sparkle in his eyes.
    At midnight on Friday, Maren walked back and forth in her suite. She had never been a pacer until lately, but something was nagging at her. She had finished searching the trunks and boxes that afternoon, without success. Next week she would decide what to do with the belongings. Hers had been delivered to her suite, to be explored leisurely, but only one item had been removed and placed on the lowboy, the dried nosegay Jared Morgan had given her years ago.
    She had eaten with Eric Thursday evening and this evening, Horben accompanying them both times. The men were to sail at dawn, and she was glad. Although Eric seemed to say and do everything right, she had perceived that something was wrong. Maybe she had sensed something in her cousin’s tone, in his expressions, or in the exchanges and undercurrents between him and Horben.
    Yes, she was holding the key to the box that contained money for her secret partner. But was the money already hers? Was there really a secret partner? Was it Eric? If so, why had he given her the key and the records? He could have kept Lady Luck and the money, and she would not have been the wiser. If thiswas some clever strategy of his, she could not figure it out. However, she felt she was being duped. Possibly the answer to this riddle was Eric’s need of her agreement to sell and her ability to discover the identity of her partner.
    She had worn the ruby necklace to dinner, and the two men had gazed at it often as if it had some crucial significance. She had been a bit nervous because Horben Wolfe had followed her each time she had left the hotel, as if he were spying on her instead of protecting her. And Marc was acting crazier than ever. He seemed afraid of his brother. Eric… he was being too good to be true. Nobody changed that much. Had her cousin forgotten she knew his weaknesses as well as his strengths, his bad side as well as his good? The more she was around Eric, the more she realized she must not trust him, and that saddened her.
    Maren halted at her dresser to finger the ruby necklace. There was something odd about it…. But what? So many mysteries were plaguing her. When Eric left in the morning, she would begin to solve them.
    As Maren approached Lady Luck, she wondered if Mary Malone and Dan Myers knew more than they had told Eric. Perhaps her father had sworn them to secrecy. Just this morning she had realized that Eric had been using her earnings at Lady Luck to pay his expenses, yet he was claiming that the entireshipping business was his. How could that be when only the New Orleans office was Cameron James’s share and that had been saved by the sale of Cameron’s holdings? Yes, Eric had taken care of the business after her father’s death, but it was wrong of him to keep it. He was too smart not to realize he was taking what was rightfully hers. His father had been