Chapter One
Boston
June 1878
Braxton Steele got off at the trolley stop closest to his father Harrison’s Boston home and walked the rest of the way. They dined together once a week and always enjoyed each other’s company. Harrison Steele was a well-known painter and illustrator. Between his work for a few of the local newspapers and the portraits commissioned by Boston’s elite, both Black and White, he made enough to live a fairly comfortable life. Brax hadn’t inherited his father’s artistic talent, however. He made his living as a tailor and managed the estate left to him by his grandparents.
It was a lovely spring evening, and when Braxarrived, Harrison was seated outside on the top step of his small home. “Greetings, son.”
“How are you, Da?”
“Doing well for an old man. Come on inside.”
His father was also a passable cook, and they sat down to a meal of roast chicken and root vegetables. The usually gregarious Harrison seemed subdued, however, and it gave Brax pause. “Is there something wrong?”
His father shrugged, saying quietly, “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Meaning?”
“When you have a past, sometimes it comes back to put its foot on your throat in ways you hadn’t considered.”
“That’s certainly a definitive answer.”
That earned him a rueful smile. Brax waited for more clues as to what this meant.
“Back before I married your mother, I was in love with a woman named Hazel Moreau. In those days I was an art forger, and she and her family were one of the best grifter operations in the South.”
Brax paused with his fork on its way to his mouth. “An art forger?”
“Yes. I was exceptionally good at it, too.”
Brax set his fork down and wiped his mouth on his napkin. “Why do I get the impression I’m going to need a drink for this conversation?”
His father’s aging eyes twinkled. “You knowwhere the scotch is. Pour me one, too, if you would, please.”
Brax returned to the table with glasses and the decanter. “In case I need more bracing,” he explained, indicating the decanter.
His father nodded and after a sip asked, “Now where was I?”
“Hazel Moreau and art forgery.”
“Yes.” And for a moment no words followed. His father stared off into the distance as if memories of the past had returned. “She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Fiery, intelligent, driven. Her uncles and brothers were actors, swindlers, counterfeiters, and she, her siblings, and her cousins grew up in that life.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“At a gambling house in New Orleans. I was working for the family as a counterfeiter. She was a bartender and an actress.”
Braxton’s curiosity was well piqued. “Why have I never heard about this before?”
“Because I left it all behind after I married your mother, or at least mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“I dabbled here and there for a while, but once you were born I gave it up entirely.”
Brax thought about his own past. “So, all those years I spent raising hell and sowing my wild oats was because it was in my blood?”
His father simply smiled.