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rights as the old hound that slept behind the Republic Hotel, waiting for scraps from the kitchen.
    â€œIs that what you think, Angelina? That I’m a madwoman?” She held her breath for the answer.
    Angelina spat a Spanish expletive. “Of course not,” she added, when she’d stopped sputtering. “But I know you, Conchita. These others, they do not. They will talk about this for years!”
    Lorelei took up her fork, only to push her rapidly cooling eggs apart into little, unappetizing heaps. “I was just so—angry.”
    â€œSí,” Angelina agreed, laying a hand on Lorelei’s shoulder. “This temper of yours, it will bring you to grief if you do not learn to control it.” She gave a gusty sigh.
    â€œIt is done now, and there is no changing it. We will have to deal with the consequences.”
    â€œFather is furious,” Lorelei said, with resignation. “He threatened to have me locked away in a madhouse, and I’m fairly certain he wasn’t joking.”
    Angelina blinked, and in that instant her wholedemeanor changed. “Madre de Dios,” she muttered, and crossed herself again, and then twice more for good measure. “This is more serious than I thought.”
    Lorelei’s mouth went dry. She’d spent much of the night in frantic speculation, but she’d expected Angelina to soothe her fears, not compound them. “What am I going to do?” she murmured, more to herself than the housekeeper.
    â€œFor the time being, you must stay out of your father’s way,” Angelina counseled gravely. She paused, thinking, then shook her head. “No,” she reflected. “I do not think he would actually do this thing. The scandal would be too great. After yesterday, he will not be looking for more of that.”
    The clatter of horses’ hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels rolling up the driveway silenced them both.
    Angelina rushed to the bay window overlooking the long crushed-shell driveway. “Vaya!” she cried. “Go. It is the judge, and Mr. Bannings is with him!”
    Lorelei nearly overturned her chair in her haste to be gone, but then her pride got the better of her good sense, as it so often did.
    â€œNo,” she said. “I will not run away like some rabbit startled in the carrot patch.”
    â€œLorelei,” Angelina whispered, her eyes pleading.
    Lorelei planted her feet. “No,” she repeated, but her heart was hammering fit to shatter her breastbone, and she felt sick to her stomach.
    She heard the carriage doors closing, heard her father and Creighton talking in earnest tones. Oddly, though, another voice supplanted those, an echo rising suddenly in her brain.
    It belonged to Holt McKettrick.
    Are you crazy?
    Â 
    H OLT TOOK PLEASURE in the look of surprise on the banker’s face when he looked up and saw him standing there, with John Cavanagh beside him.
    A moment too late, the man shoved back his swivel chair and stood, extending a hand in greeting. The fancy name plate on his desk read G. F. Sexton. He was probably no older than Jeb, but already developing jowls and a paunch. That was a banker’s life for you, Holt thought. Too easy.
    â€œMr. Cavanagh!” Sexton cried, fixing his attention on John. “It’s good to see you.”
    John regarded the pale, freckled hand for a long moment, then shook it. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “it’s good to see you, too.” Sexton’s gaze shifted to Holt, full of wary curiosity.
    Holt didn’t offer a handshake, or an explanation. “We’re here about those loans you called,” he said.
    A flush stole up Sexton’s neck, if that narrow band of pallid flesh could be called a neck, and pulsed along the edge of his jaw. “You understand, of course, that business is business—”
    â€œI understand perfectly,” Holt said.
    Sexton tugged at his celluloid