Velvet Ligntning

  Velvet Lightning is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2017 Loveswept Ebook Edition

  Copyright © 1988 by Kay Hooper

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Originally published in paperback in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, in 1988.

  Ebook ISBN 9781101969373

  Cover design: Diane Luger

  Cover photograph: CoffeeAndMilk/iStock

  randomhousebooks.com

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Genealogy

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  By Kay Hooper

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  The Delaney saga has spanned nearly three years of my life. It began as a fun challenge, a change of pace; it began as a project with interesting possibilities. Thirteen books later, I can honestly say that our project brought with it innumerable joys and frustrations—and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

  I wish here to thank my two collaborators. My experiences with them have taught me more about writing and about myself than I could have learned alone in a decade. Their patience, generosity, and understanding made the tricky business of collaboration possible, and their friendship is a gift I treasure.

  I wish also to thank everyone at Bantam. Carolyn Nichols in particular, who worked above and beyond the call of duty on the project. Each of our agents managed to hang on to her sense of humor despite being forced to cope with contracts that boggled the mind, and for that, I thank them all.

  And, finally, regarding this final Delaney book of mine, I would like to apologize to those who may feel affronted by the liberties I have taken with history as we know it. In my defense, I can only say it was all done in the pursuit of a good story.

  Prologue

  ABOARD THE RAVEN

  NEW YORK HARBOR, NOVEMBER 1871

  Captain Marcus Tyrone stood on the captain’s deck and absently watched his unusually small crew scurrying about the ship. He had taken on volunteers this trip, explaining that The Raven would be at anchor for an extended period, and that those accompanying him would be expected to behave themselves.

  His men took the mild warning to heart. Twenty of those who had been to Port Elizabeth on previous trips had elected to sail this time, knowing there would be rest and ease, and that they would be well paid. Bored, most likely, but well paid.

  Tyrone gazed briefly back at the city, then sighed and looked ahead. He had left instructions in his office for Jesse, as he had on past occasions, and smiled a little as he thought of that young man’s probable reaction. Jesse Beaumont had developed a strong liking for the sea these last years, and hated being forced to remain on dry land for any length of time. Still, he would take good care of Tyrone’s business during this trip.

  He was the only man Tyrone trusted to do so.

  Tyrone hoped that business affairs were all Jesse would be forced to cope with. However, since Jesse had gone west to find his long-lost sister, Tyrone had had time to think everything through, time to curse the vagaries of fate. When he had received Jesse’s telegram saying that all was well and that he was returning to New York, Tyrone had swiftly made his own plans to slip away.

  Falcon Delaney wouldn’t be stopped, Tyrone knew. That man had been on the trail of stolen gold for too many years to abandon the search no matter how obscure and tangled the path had become. And there had been too many deaths tied to the gold, the most jarring to Tyrone being the man to whom he owed so much.

  REGRETS—MORGAN FONTAINE IS DEAD.

  Jesse’s telegram, the statement made baldly. Tyrone shook off the memory, but he couldn’t help thinking of how two separate webs of intrigue and deceit spun so many years before had somehow overlapped, catching both himself and Falcon Delaney in the sticky strands. And now neither could escape.

  It would be over soon. Tyrone could only hope that there was enough time yet to see his plans to their completion.

  But for now he was going home.

  Chapter 1

  FALCON DELANEY’S JOURNAL

  NOVEMBER 1871, NEW YORK

  The discovery of Morgan Fontaine’s hiding place for the gold shipment stolen from the Union by him and his conspirators should have ended my long search at last. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

  The grave had been undisturbed for years, of that I am sure. Victoria is certain Fontaine never returned to the old mission after he had buried the gold there eight years ago. The group of conspirators he betrayed are all dead; only two, in fact, survived the war, and those two were killed while still searching for the gold.

  It seems obvious that no member of the group could have found and recovered the gold in the years immediately after it was secreted. That trail has ended, and I know of only one other.

  Victoria and I arrived back in New York yesterday to find that The Raven had sailed south with Captain Tyrone aboard and in command himself. I can only believe that, as in the past, he will sail to some point between Florida and the Bahamas.

  Though I cannot as yet know what lay behind it all, and though I find myself reluctant to accept it, the conclusion seems inescapable. Marcus Tyrone was Fontaine’s friend; he delivered the gold to Fontaine rather than to the group that had commissioned its transport. And I have discovered that back in 1865 while The Raven was anchored in Charleston harbor for a period of several weeks Tyrone journeyed inland alone. I can find no witnesses to his return. The Raven raised anchor and left the harbor with a midnight tide. She did not return to any port along the coast for six months.

  A simple theft by Tyrone of the gold seems to me incredible and unbelievable. Still, I must discover the truth. I have been too long on the trail of the gold to stop now.

  Victoria’s brother, Jesse, was almost continually aboard The Raven in those days, and could doubtless provide me with at least some of the answers I seek. He, however, refuses to discuss the matter at all, and how can I press him to forget his natural and understandable loyalty to Tyrone?

  I am in the unhappy position of requiring information from the man who, yesterday afternoon, stood witness to my marriage to his sister.

  CAMELOT

  Falcon, bending over a desk in a dark and silent office near the waterfront, squinted in the faint light of the desk lamp and frowned. He was staring down at a ledger which for the most part seemed to detail business transactions during the year of 1863. He had found the ledgers stacked neatly on a shelf behind the desk, with this particular year on top.

  The heading on the page he stared down at was simple: only the month—April. There was no mention of gold. There was no explanation of a business transaction. There was only the word Camelot beneath the month. It was heavily underscored and followed by a list of names.

  After a brief hesitation, Falcon drew a notebook from his pocket and copied the list neatly. He thumbed t
hrough the remaining pages of the ledger but found nothing of interest. He returned the ledger to its place and put out the lamp, then, soft-footed, went to the door.

  Minutes later he was striding soundlessly through the dark, dangerous streets of the waterfront. Behind him, the business offices of Marcus Tyrone were left undisturbed, as though he had never been there. Tyrone wouldn’t discover the illegal visit, of course, since he had left New York. But Jesse—reluctantly and with a great deal of swearing—was occupying the office in Tyrone’s place, and Falcon had no intention of further upsetting his new brother-in-law.

  Entering an uptown hotel a considerable time later, Falcon nodded briefly at the sleepy desk clerk and went straight upstairs. She was waiting for him, dressed for bed but awake, and relief eased her delicate features as he came into their room.

  “You’ve been such a long time. I was beginning to worry.”

  Falcon pulled her into his arms and kissed her lingeringly. “Nice to have someone to worry about my hide,” he murmured, then grimaced faintly. “A poor honeymoon for you, sweet.”

  Victoria Delaney smiled broadly at her husband. “I believe I can bear it.” Then she sobered. “You won’t be content until you find out what happened to that gold, and neither will I. The job has to be finished.”

  “Yes. The trail’s getting hellishly tangled though.”

  “You found something.”

  “I’m damned if I know.” He pulled her down on the bed beside him and showed her the list he had copied into his notebook. “Look at this. You’ll probably recognize at least a few of these names. James Sheridan and Ryan Stewart are senators; Steven Franks is a judge; Paul Anderson is a cabinet member. And you remember Leon Hamilton.”

  “Yes, of course. But what’s this? Camelot?”

  Falcon shook his head and hesitated, then said slowly, “It sounds to me like a code name.”

  “And you found this in Captain Tyrone’s office?”

  “Um. Yes. In a ledger dated 1863.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means—have you ever been to Washington, sweet?”

  WASHINGTON

  Victoria was amused two days later to find that the visit to the nation’s capital consisted of a whirl of social events. Falcon, it emerged, believed more strongly in casual approaches to those he sought to question than in formal interviews. Victoria was learning more about her husband with each passing hour, and her respect for his intelligence and instincts grew enormously.

  That he was a strong man with a powerful sense of right and wrong she knew; his persistence in the years-long search for a stolen shipment of Union gold made that obvious. He was sensitive enough to be highly aware of loyalties that couldn’t be interfered with, and so refused to press her brother, Jesse, with questions about Captain Tyrone. His devotion to his forceful family was strong despite his infrequent visits home, yet he could, with a dry amusement, send a laconic telegram to Killara that stated: Lawfully wed. Falcon. And he was independent enough to subsequently ignore wires from his incensed father demanding more details.

  Victoria, who had a keen desire to meet the family that had helped shape her man, cultivated her own brand of Delaney stamina and claimed her place at Falcon’s side, ready at an instant’s notice to go wherever his trail would lead.

  Not that Falcon complained. In fact, one of her greatest joys lay in the understanding that once a woman won her place at the side of a Delaney man she belonged there always in his view. His past warning to the contrary, she discovered very early in their marriage that Falcon wasn’t the kind of man to send his wife home to his family while he cheerfully went on with his job.

  And since the last months had shown him quite clearly that she was a strong, intelligent woman with an innate sense of justice and the will to take matters into her own hands, he never hesitated to share the baffling questions and discuss possibilities with her.

  He had made it clear that the ranch in New Mexico, left to her by her first husband, Morgan, was hers. If, when this job was completed, she wanted that to be their home, fine; he would help her in the running of it, and it would be left, in due course, to their children. It wasn’t, he had said with a secret amusement, a part of the Delaney spread in Arizona, and his father wouldn’t be allowed to annex it to add to the already vast family holdings.

  When she was told that, Victoria was conscious of an even more intense interest in meeting the Delaney patriarch, realizing Falcon anticipated an argument with his father. More, she believed, Falcon looked forward to it.

  Strong men, she thought in amusement, bred strong sons. And in Falcon, Shamus Delaney had bred a maverick, as stubborn and fiery as he was himself. He had passed stubborn Delaney traits to all his sons to varying degrees, Falcon had told her wryly.

  Victoria foresaw an engaging meeting with her new in-laws and was untroubled by it. In the meantime, she had sent a telegram to the ranch saying that all was well, and that she would be returning in time. A more private communication in the shape of a long letter went to Morgan’s manservant and friend, Galen, in which she told him everything that had happened these last weeks.

  She was content to be with Falcon, grateful that they had found each other, that their love had survived much that could so easily have destroyed it. And she had found that her second marriage, a real and complete one, was all she had ever hoped for.

  “You look beautiful tonight, sweet.”

  She smiled at the murmured words, her loving eyes resting on the tall, handsome figure of her husband. “I thought wives had to learn to do without compliments,” she said, amused.

  Falcon carried the hand he was holding to his lips, his green eyes warm and steady. “My love, they’ll be putting me in the ground before you stop hearing them.”

  Recognizing the look in his eyes, she tucked her hand firmly in the crook of his arm and said, “We came here tonight so that you could talk to those men on the list. They’re all here, and there will never be a better time. That’s what you said.”

  Falcon sighed as they strolled through the warm, gleaming lobby of the Willard Hotel. “I meant it, at the time,” he said with a touch of wistfulness. “But then your gowns came from the ranch, and you chose this black one to wear tonight. It brings back several—interesting—memories, sweet.”

  Victoria felt her cheeks warm, and smothered a laugh. A great deal had happened the night she had first worn the black gown, and not all were happy memories. But she knew very well which memory Falcon was referring to. “You must ask your questions,” she told him serenely.

  “For some time now I’ve been wishing that gold was in hell,” he said dryly, and though both knew he half meant it, they also knew it wouldn’t stop him from asking questions and seeking long-elusive answers.

  “There are Mary and Leon,” Victoria said as they entered the ballroom to find a glittering assemblage of Washington society enjoying themselves. She gestured slightly, indicating a couple standing near the doorway.

  “Umm. I need to talk to Leon alone,” Falcon murmured, “before I approach the other men.”

  “He’ll be expecting a report, won’t he?” Victoria asked as they made their way toward the other couple, knowing now that Leon Hamilton was the man who had assigned Falcon the task of finding the gold years before.

  “Yes. And since he wasn’t in New York when we returned, he won’t be surprised to see me here. However, he may well be surprised to learn I’ve married since he last saw me.” Falcon sounded amused.

  And Leon was, though his wife, Mary, sent Victoria a look that was far less surprised. “I knew it,” she said happily, embracing Victoria and kissing Falcon’s cheek. “I told Leon after you both left New York that it was just a matter of time.”

  Falcon, thinking of everything that had happened since, grinned faintly. “That’s what it was, all right. I had to chase her all the way to Texas.”

  “Texas!” Leon looked at him narrowly. “You told Andrew you were heading for New Mex
ico.”

  “Yes, well, things happened.” Falcon shook his head, remembering. “I needed to talk to you in person, but this is the first chance I’ve had.”

  Leon nodded, his gaze revealing his curiosity. “Fine. Ladies, if you’ll be so kind as to excuse us?”

  “We always do,” Mary said with a long-suffering sigh.

  Victoria smiled at her husband. “We’ll be fine.”

  Falcon kissed her cheek and said for her ears only, “Don’t dance with anyone under seventy, or it’ll be pistols at dawn.” She laughed as he winked, then watched him leave with the older man.

  “Well?” Mary Hamilton demanded.

  Victoria looked at her innocently. “Well, what?”

  Mary laughed.

  —

  In a small room down the hall from the ballroom, a frowning Leon faced Falcon. “You told Andrew you were going into New Mexico with a warrant for Morgan Fontaine’s arrest. As far as I can determine, the warrant was never served. Now you say you went to Texas—and you show up here married.”

  “To,” Falcon said softly, “Morgan Fontaine’s widow.”

  Leon blinked. After a moment he said, “So Fontaine’s dead. Was he the one we were after?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Would you care to explain that?”

  “It’s simple enough, as far as it goes. Fontaine and those with whom he conspired did commission the transport of the gold via Captain Tyrone’s blockade runner. But then something happened; my best guess is that neither Fontaine nor Tyrone could stomach what was apparently an assassination plot against Lincoln. Instead of that group of men getting the gold, Tyrone apparently delivered it directly to Fontaine, who took it all the way to Texas and buried the chests in the graveyard of an old mission.”

  “You found the grave?”

  “Thanks to Victoria, yes.”