Comfort and Joy by Sandra Madden Page A

him. Blackmailing her Samson! He still thought of himself as Samson. He liked the image the name conjured. But unfortunately, if he did not placate the harlot, he knew well enough what the consequences would be. He stood to lose his business and his family. With the price this sketch would bring, he could pay off Lydia and move his business and family to another city.
    But he could not make the sale yet. He could not leave the country until a decent time had elapsed from the theft of the sketch. He would not risk being caught. He wasn’t an evil or greedy man, just a man forced to do what he must when life conspired against him, as it seemed to do time and again.
    Exercising great care, he slowly and carefully wrapped a brown paper covering around the sketch. He carried the small piece of art to the safe tucked into the darkest corner of his office and placed it gently inside. The covered sketch rested alone, the only item in the safe. And he, Samson, was the only one who knew the combination.
    No one would ever find the only sketch of St. Nick by Barnabas.
     

 Chapter Five
     
    Maeve had given up on Charles. He wasn’t coming. He had no intention of offering any explanations. Why should he? She’d lost her temper and lit into him like some demented druid.
    She changed her nightdress. Instead of the lacy gown Mrs. Potts had left for her, Maeve slipped into the comfortable flannel nightshirt her dad had brought. The scarlet garment had been a gift to Shea by an admiring but rather tarty lass. Maeve’s mountain of a brother preferred to sleep in the altogether. Being the good brother he was, Shea passed on the bright nightshirt to her. Although the fiery color screamed alarm and it enveloped her as if she were a bee in a blanket, Maeve loved its warmth and comfort.
    She extinguished the gaslights, leaving only the bedside candle aflame. Maeve was afraid of the dark. She’d feared the dark since the morning she’d awakened beside the still, cold body of her mother. Kathleen O’Malley’s life had been stolen during the silent blackness of night.
    The fireplace gave off a golden glow and a waning heat from the smoldering fire. Soon the small fire and its light would go out. As Maeve pulled back the billowing down comforter, she heard a soft rap on the door.
    Her heart thrummed in an unnatural rhythm as she caught up the candleholder and hurried to answer. Although expecting Charles, she rather feared finding herself face-to-face with Beatrice Rycroft. With only a glance at Maeve, the woman had required smelling salts. The matriarch had come close to fainting dead away. Maeve dreaded the moment Mrs. Rycroft’s strength returned.
    She opened the door a crack and peeked.
    “Good evening, Maeve.”
    ‘Twas Charles, as tall and magnificent as a man could be and still be mortal. The first time she’d seen her husband in his natural state, Maeve thought of Lug, the legendary Celtic God of Fertility. Should Lug ever appear in human form, she felt certain he would take Charles’s body.
    Though her heart fluttered with unnatural agitation, as if it had sprouted wings of its own, Maeve coolly dipped her head in greeting. No man had ever set her blood to tingling the way Charles did with just the merest shadow of a smile. Hard pressed to contain her excitement, she bit down hard on the soft inner side of her lip. Charles had come to her rooms. He hadn’t dismissed her from mind.
    “Come in.”
    Charles followed Maeve into the sitting room and stood before the chair she’d presumed he’d chosen to take. But he did not sit. He stared at her.
    His perplexed examination traveled the length of Maeve, from the too-long column of her neck to the folds of the scarlet shirt dragging on the floor.
    The scarlet shirt. She’d forgotten!
    “What is that you’re wearing?” he asked, hiking a dark brow.
    Maeve expected she looked to Charles as if she’d been swallowed whole by a red flannel monster. Heat flooded her