She thought of Hart as she closed and locked the door, and there was so much heartache and despair. She didn't know how she would have managed without Bragg. He had become a better friend than she had ever dreamed possible. He had always been as solid and dependable as a rock. He would not abandon her now, in her time of need.

A hall light came on.

Francesca jumped, glimpsing her father in his navy blue silk robe, matching pajamas and slippers, standing at the foot of the stairs. He was clearly wide-awake. She bit her lip. "You didn't have to wait up for me, Papa."

Andrew Cahill was a gray-haired man of chubby proportions with huge side-whiskers and a kindly face. He came rushing forward. "What happened today, Francesca? And what happened to your cheeks?"

Francesca smiled tearfully as he took her hands. "I am afraid that someone wants to hurt me, Papa. Someone wanted to prevent my marriage to Calder, and I fell for the bait. I am so sorry!"

He embraced her briefly. "Your mother was hysterical, fearing the very worst. She is asleep now, of course. The moment Rick called and said you were all right, she collapsed."

"I am sorry," Francesca said again, meaning it.

"Who did this? What exactly happened?" Andrew asked, his brown gaze intent.

She trembled. "I was given a note and told that it was urgent that I go downtown. I should have ignored it. I was lured to an art gallery-and locked inside. I never saw the culprit. I tried to get out by breaking a window, but it was very high up and I failed. By the time help arrived, it was well after four o'clock. I am not hurt."

"Thank God," Andrew said grimly.

"I have asked Bragg to help me find and apprehend the person responsible."

Andrew hugged her again, briefly. "I am sure Rick will get to the bottom of this terrible affair. Have you seen Hart yet?"

She tensed.

"Francesca?" Andrew demanded. "Surely you explained yourself to your fiance!"

She knew she had to tread with care now. Andrew did not like Calder Hart at all. Apparently, he did not think Hart good enough for her. Nor did he trust him to give up his womanizing ways. She procrastinated by taking a deep breath. "Yes, I have seen Calder. He has suffered a shock, as well. It is not every day that a man decides to marry, then ends up jilted at the altar."

"Let me hazard a guess. He doesn't care what you have gone through. He is furious with you." Andrew was cold. People assumed him to be easygoing and benign, yet he was a farm boy from Illinois who had amassed a fortune in the very competitive meatpacking industry through hard work, relentless ambition and razor-sharp intelligence. He was not a man to be dismissed or taken lightly. When necessary, he was formidable.

"Of course he cares," Francesca said, praying it was true. "But he is very upset, and right now, he is not kindly disposed toward having a dialogue with me."

Andrew folded his arms across his chest. "And Rick just dropped you off, after spending the night trying to apprehend this villain with you?"

She did not know where he was leading. "Yes. Papa, I am exhausted. I must go to bed. Can we finish this discussion tomorrow?"

"Of course we can." He softened and kissed the top of her head. "But, Francesca? I wonder if you were about to marry the right man."

MORNING LIGHT POURED through the oversize windows of his Bridge Street office. The office took up an entire corner of the fifth floor. Hart turned to gaze out at New York Harbor as the sun rose even higher in the red dawn sky.

A scotch was in his hand, his fifth or sixth of the evening-he had lost count and he did not care. Except, the evening was now gone.

Hart stood up, staring outside, his head pounding. He could see several cargo ships, a tugboat and a naval destroyer, all at anchor. From where he stood, he saw the street almost directly below, which was vacant except for one lonely-looking carter. Within half an hour, he knew, the southernmost tip of Manhattan Island would come alive with frock-coated bankers and scurrying clerks, city lawyers and ill-suited accountants, rushing to their various places of business. Vendors would begin to sell iced oysters and hot chestnuts; cabs and trolleys, all occupied, would crowd the streets.

Holding his glass even more tightly, he cursed. For his mind was now, finally, made up.

It was definitely over.

She had failed to show up for their wedding. He would never forgive her such betrayal, but he understood. On some level, perhaps subconsciously, she had used that note as an excuse to avoid marrying him. Because she knew as well as he did that their marriage was a vast mistake.

All he could think of all night and this morning was their argument, when she begged him for forgiveness and claimed that she loved him. If she loved him, she would have never left the house to go downtown; her priority would have been their wedding. They could have gone downtown together, after the ceremony. She didn't love him and she never had. It was so painfully obvious. Rick was the one she truly loved, deep down. She had loved him first-she had even said so, not just to Rick but to Hart. He had remained nothing but her second choice.

Now, he wasn't a choice at all.

But he wondered if she had ever said those three words-I love you-to his brother.

The pain simmered in his chest in spite of the whiskey. It had bubbled there all evening long. Yet he would never acknowledge it; he much preferred the anger. He had never been hurt by a woman before, and he did not intend to start now.

He cursed and threw his glass hard at the wall. There was no satisfaction as it shattered; there was nothing except her tearful image and her protestations that she loved him. Damn her!

He paced to his desk, only to stare down at it unseeingly. He was such a fool. He would not blame anyone for laughing at him now. Maybe, one day, he would be able to laugh at himself.

But now, it felt as if he'd never laugh again. Her betrayal was that vast, that important, and goddamn it, it did hurt.

Francesca was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

It was true, but he didn't care. He was conditioned to reward betrayal with punishment. It was the law of the land, a matter of survival. He would never tolerate such betrayal, not from anyone, and not when he had given her his absolute loyalty. That was why she was no longer welcome in his house. That was why they would never be friends again. That was why he would never trust her again.

The sun suddenly intensified. He looked up at the wall of windows, but instead, he saw her as she had been last night, in tears. He tensed, not wanting to listen to the voice inside his head that told him that Francesca would never deliberately hurt anyone, much less him, and that he was being the fool now....

He cursed and reined in the pain. He refused to entertain all the memories they had made, which threatened to engulf him.

Francesca had been his one and only friend. As he contemplated the future, he felt a moment of fear, when he was never afraid; he felt a moment of intense loneliness, when he was never lonely.

He shrugged the momentary weakness aside.

It was over, and he was relieved. He wondered, though, as betrayed as he felt, if he was even capable of giving up his faith in Francesca. Would a part of him always believe in her? Then he reminded himself that there was no other choice.

Despite himself, he recalled the times she had kept her faith in him. Even at the beginning of their relationship, when they had been strangers, she had refused to see the bad in him. She had fought for him tooth and nail, even when he had been accused of murdering Daisy, when the entire city had been lined up to hang him....

Suddenly her tear-stained image came to mind, her cheeks scratched, her clothes torn.

Hart hadn't wanted to listen to her explanation last night. He had been too furious and too intent on controlling that fury to really listen to her. She had been completely disheveled when she had barged into his library, but she hadn't been hurt. As angry as he had been, he had taken a careful inventory the moment she walked in.

She claimed she'd been lured away from their wedding by the thief who had stolen her portrait.

He would never be able to live with himself if that portrait surfaced publicly.

Remaining calm, he walked back to the window. Below, he saw the streets coming alive. In the end, they had come full circle. The portrait only existed because he had commissioned it. He was a selfish, depraved bastard, and he had insisted the painting be a nude. Had he not done so, the theft wouldn't have mattered-and she wouldn't have gone chasing after it yesterday. She might have used the summons to the gallery as an excuse to avoid marriage, but he was ultimately responsible for her failure to meet him at the church. He hoped that one day he would laugh about that.

Hart became still-the hunter now in pursuit of his prey. He intended to recover the portrait and destroy it. There was no other choice.

Whoever had stolen it in the first place hadn't done so because it was valuable enough to fence. They had meant to use it to blackmail him-or destroy her with it.

And he could not stand by and allow that to happen.

Hart seized his suit jacket, shrugging it on and hurrying from the office. Two minutes later he hailed a cab. She had said the gallery was on Waverly Place. He ordered the driver there, at full speed, offering him a double fare.

The gallery was easy to find. Two police officers were guarding the establishment, which was barricaded from the public. Hart stepped down from the cab, ordering the driver to wait. His senses were warning him now that everything was wrong. But as he took in the neighborhood and the gallery, remarking every detail that might be useful, he could not decide what was bothering him.

As he started forward to investigate, one of the policemen came his way, barring his path abruptly.

Hart didn't even wait for him to speak-he shoved a ten-dollar bill in the man's hand and pushed past him. A moment later he was staring at the empty space where a painting had once hung. He could see from the holes in a section of plywood that it had been ripped from the wall, where it had been nailed.

"Did Commissioner Bragg take that painting down?" he demanded.

"No, sir."

When no more information was forthcoming, Hart turned and gave the officer another bill. The roundsman smiled at him. "I heard the chief talking last night. A painting was stolen, sir."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Sunday, June 29, 1902

9:00 a.m.

FRANCESCA GRIPPED THE banister for support as she started downstairs, expecting the worst. Her mother never left her apartments before noon, but she was certain this morning would be an exception.

The moment she started down the stairs, Julia appeared in the huge hall below.

Francesca inwardly cringed. Julia was already elegantly dressed for the day. The implication of that was dire. "Good morning, Mama."

Julia was unsmiling. "It is hardly a good morning. Your father gave me some jumbled explanation as to why you failed to marry Calder yesterday."

Francesca came down the rest of the stairway. "Someone clearly wished to stop the wedding."

Julia was not sympathetic. "There are reporters on our front lawn, Francesca, a half dozen of them."

Francesca groaned and rushed past her mother, across the spectacular black-and-white marble floors. She peered out the closest window, not far from the front door, where the doorman stood. Julia had not exaggerated-six newsmen were milling about the front lawn. All wore rumpled suit coats. Some wore fedoras. She recognized that cur from the Sun, Arthur Kurland, who knew far too much about her private affairs than a newsman should, as well as Isaacson, from the Tribune. How would she ever leave the house?

"I hope you are pleased with yourself," Julia said curtly from behind her.

Francesca whirled. Her sister appeared at the far end of the hall, hurrying toward them. "I am not pleased at all! I love Calder, and I wanted nothing more than to wake up this morning as his wife," she said, meaning it.

"Then maybe you should have thought twice about recklessly and impulsively responding to some vague request for help," Julia said flatly.

Francesca cringed again. Connie came up to her, her expression worried. Her sister took her hand and squeezed it, her blue eyes searching. Francesca couldn't smile at her. She had said she would visit Sarah first thing, but she had decided she must speak with Hart before she did anything else. She prayed he had forgiven her. Surely, in the light of a new day, he had realized how much she loved him and that she had been deliberately prevented from attending her own wedding. Surely they would wind up in one another's arms. "I have made a terrible mess of things."

"Yes, you have. Were you really gallivanting about the city last night-sleuthing-with Rick Bragg?" Julia asked incredulously.

"Mama, yesterday I was lured downtown-and locked inside an art gallery. Someone wished for me to miss my wed ding. Of course I asked Bragg to help me find and apprehend the person responsible." Francesca looked at Connie for support.

Julia said, "I fail to understand why you weren't with your fiance last night. Bragg can apprehend that rowdy by himself."

Francesca trembled. She did not want to discuss Hart with Julia.

Connie put her arm around her, finally coming to the rescue. "Mother, Fran did not try to wreck her own wedding. Someone knew her well enough to bait her and destroy it for her. You know that Fran cannot refuse anyone in need-not ever!"

Julia harrumphed. "Andrew said you saw Hart."

Francesca wet her lips. Her head ached. "He is upset with me, but he will come around."

Julia's gaze became intent and searching. "Has he ended it, Francesca?"

She hesitated, and it was answer enough. Julia blanched. "Didn't you explain to him that you were locked up?" she cried.

"Yes, I did. He is very angry right now," she tried, trembling. "But in a day or two, he will calm down, I am certain of it." She did not want to think of his cruelty yesterday.

"This is simply unbearable-one scandal after another. It is all because of your sleuthing! Whatever did I do to deserve such an unconventional daughter? Well, Hart must come around. I won't have you jilted!" With that, her blue eyes flashing, Julia strode for the stairs.

Francesca didn't dare move, not until her mother was out of sight. Nor did she dare beg her not to intervene. She felt as if she had gotten off lightly. Julia was frightening when aroused.

Then she exhaled and faced her sister. "I don't know if Hart will ever come around."

"Well, he might certainly think twice about it if he learns you spent half of last night investigating this incident with his half brother," Connie retorted. She took her arm. "Fran, what really happened? I was here, remember? I saw how terribly upset you were when you received that note. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am beginning to suspect that you were frightened."

Francesca studied her sister grimly. They had almost no secrets. Connie knew that Hart had commissioned a portrait of her and that the painting had vanished in April. What she did not know was that it was so damn compromising.

Francesca didn't want to worry Connie, but she desperately needed her sister's help now. Not with the missing portrait-now that the thief had surfaced and had begun to reveal his or her hand, she felt certain she and Bragg would soon apprehend him-but she was at a loss where Hart was concerned. She simply could not lose him like this. "The note came from the thief who stole my portrait."

Connie blinked. "I do not understand."

"Connie, my portrait is a nude."

Her sister stared at her. For one moment, her expression did not change. And then, shock and disbelief covered her features. "What!"

"My nude portrait is in the thief's hands, and clearly, he or she intends to use it against me."

Connie cried out, "How could you!"

"Does it matter? I had to recover the portrait before it was publicly displayed," Francesca cried in a rush.