Chapter 7
C
harlotte shook out her bustle and swiveled her hips one last time to make sure her skirts rustled well within the tiny powder room. It was always tricky to hide money within her crinoline’s wire hoops. Placing coins and greenbacks inside small silk purses was easy, even if she had to be careful not to let anything clank. The difficulty came in balancing everything so that her wool skirts and petticoats still floated over the floor like an ocean wave. Lurching like drunken sailors would shout what lay underneath.
Today’s take was good but not enough to overflow her other hiding places in her corset or jacket. Somehow the Palace’s regulars had seemed more like friends than opponents, especially after Justin—no, Talbot—had introduced them to her by name. She’d competed for the joy of the game, rather than strip them of funds and speed her return to Boston.
It had felt so natural, just like waking up to the coffee he’d brought. No embarrassment, just conversation—and the growing sensation she needed to go somewhere else soon, lest she sink roots here.
Which she couldn’t.
She scanned herself in the mirror over the washbasin and her mouth reluctantly slid into a smile. Justin would have to clean this room more often. The hallway outside, which ran between the poker parlor and the wine cellar, also offered bedrooms for rent to a few very expensive courtesans. It was a civilized space, painted green and decorated like a European hotel. One of their clients had used this latrine afterward to shave—messily.
She’d get to tease Justin, the king of cleanliness and forethought.
She gathered up her handbag containing her grubstake and sallied out, feeling much better about her prospects.
The moment she stepped into the hallway, a man’s rough hand clamped over her mouth. He yanked her against his body, his other big paw manacled around her wrists, and started to drag her down the hallway. Nine-Fingers Isham matched strides with her abductor in a miasma of sweat and whiskey, his heavy Colt pointed toward the poker parlor.
Charlotte’s escort, an older gentleman uncommonly good with both knives and jokes, lay crumpled and motionless just inside the bedroom door opposite. A thin trickle of crimson smeared his once-pleasant countenance. He’d been injured trying to help her, simply because a friend had asked him to.
Sheer rage flashed through her, first heating then chilling her thoughts. By God, she wasn’t going to stand aside and wage her battles with words anymore, no matter what etiquette said about ladies’ behavior.
She bit down on the filthy digit in her mouth. Her captor grunted, his thin mustache twitching like the rat he resembled, but he didn’t release her. He was almost running toward the wine cellar and its stairway to the Hair Trigger Palace’s back door.
She ground her teeth harder. This time, her captor’s grip loosened slightly.
She scrabbled for purchase in the thin carpet and tried to pull away.
“God damn it,” Nine-Fingers cursed, “keep the bitch quiet. Get the ether on her, fast.”
“Charlotte?” Justin called from ahead. “Charlotte, where are you?”
Two men against one—and her as a hostage in the middle? What options would Justin have? None.
Charlotte closed her eyes and sank her teeth into her enemy with all her strength, the way her friends at the Soldiers’ Home had attacked enemy battlements in the dead of winter.
He howled and she bit harder, traveling past reeking flesh and stinking blood. She needed to protect Justin so these brutes wouldn’t shoot him over her head.
He screamed again and yanked his hand out of her mouth, then hurled her away from him. She slid down the fern wallpaper and landed, her skirts a crumpled mass, between the doors to the courtesans’ bedrooms.
The lighting was better down here than on the floors above, good enough to see Justin poised at the foot of the narrow stairs with Colts drawn and murder in his eyes.
She could hear pounding from the hallway’s other end.
“Put down your guns or we’ll kill her.” Nine-Fingers stirred her hem with his boot. His cohort shook blood off his finger and moved to his side.
Charlotte cautiously came up onto her knees. She needed a weapon in order to help.
“You’ll never get out of here with her,” Justin countered. “My men will kill you.”
“Those big sturdy doors you’re so fond of? We locked the one leading to the poker parlor. At this hour, nobody’s looking for refills from the cellar so they won’t use the back door.” Nine-Fingers sniggered. “No, looks to me like it’s two against one.”
Oh, dear Lord, may this work . . .
Charlotte hurled her purse, with all of her grubstake’s precious gold in it, at the rat’s legs. It thudded into his boot and he jumped into the air. When he came back down, the long, corded handles wrapped around his ankles. He stumbled and fell onto the floor, cursing viciously as he fought to free himself.
Now Justin only faced one man’s guns.
Nine-Fingers fired first, almost directly over her head. Justin’s gun belched fire—and the brute crumpled onto the floor, his throat a crimson wreck. Thunder deafened her ears and black smoke filled the hall.
The rat-faced man’s scarlet fingers grabbed for her out of the smoky haze, followed by his gun.
She screamed—and Justin fired again. The hand twitched, then fell back.
Justin pulled her up onto her feet and into his arms. Charlotte clung to him, trembling as if she’d never walk again. Her heart was beating faster than the winds still racing around the roof high above.
She’d encountered violent death before, since her arrival in the Colorado mining country. But this was somehow far worse than seeing another poker player die at the table across from her. This time, the danger had pointed directly at someone she cared deeply about, rather than a stranger.
Her protector pressed kisses to her hair. It took several moments before she realized he was shaking as much as she.
“Justin, darling, I’m fine.”
“The blood?” He ran his thumb lightly across her lips. Her pulse turned hot, rather than cold with terror. “By everything’s that holy, if a drop of it’s yours, I will—”
“It’s all his. I bit through his hand.”
Justin continued to stare at her mouth. “Damn, but I was terrified.”
“Justin.” She wet her lips. Her hands twitched with the need to hold him. He had to stop looking at her like this.
“Charlotte.” He kissed her ravenously and she answered him the same way, intent on reclaiming every bit of joy she’d so nearly lost. Holding him was like holding life itself—strength, heat, the headlong rush to share. Even the hot shaft rising between his legs promised ecstasy, rather than frustration and pain.
His tongue plunged between her lips, enticing her. She rose onto her toes to come closer.
More, please, more . . .
A door slammed open behind them.
Justin whirled and placed himself between her and the intruders. An instant later, he relaxed and Charlotte dared to peek around him.
“Sorry for the interruption, boss.” Garland touched his hat and tucked his shotgun back into its sling. “Thought you might need some help down here. Happy to see I was wrong.”
“Glad you came.”
“Sorry we didn’t make it sooner.” Garland’s face flushed to a dull crimson. “Didn’t expect trouble, not with—”
“The latrine being only two steps away from the poker parlor? And me taking such a ridiculously long time in there?” Charlotte came all the way around Justin to help protect Garland with an explanation for the attack.
Justin nodded curtly. “Isham must have come through the back door, then waited in one of the bedrooms. We’ll do better next time.”
“Damn right,” Garland agreed. His expression said he expected rough words from his employer later. “We’ll start by doubling the fire patrols. Johnson likes to watch things burn.”
A muscle throbbed in Justin’s cheek but he agreed.
Charlotte glanced up at him, then moved a little further away from the dead men littering the floor, victims of Johnson’s greed.
Justin was fighting his best friend. God alone knew if he or anyone else would die.
Chapter 8
T
he conjurer bowed again, flourished his two very-much-alive rabbits, then left at a brisk trot. Guards sauntered onto the stage with pistols prominently displayed.
Last night’s poetic sensation strolled out, still looking as if he hadn’t eaten in a year. This time, the crowd cheered and clapped instead of shooting holes in Justin’s new tin ceiling.
“Have you changed your mind about the actor?” He glanced at Charlotte. “The opera singer and cancan dancers follow him.”
He rotated the bill of fare every evening for variety in order to attract a fresh audience to fill the Palace’s non-stop hours. So far tonight, she’d enjoyed the trained dogs, a cornet soloist, and the conjurer.
“And listen to the audience shout ‘Nevermore!’ again, every time he cues them with ‘Quoth the raven’?” She shook her head with an exaggerated shudder. “I thank you, no. I’d almost prefer to stare at more snowflakes.”
Justin chuckled.
Outside, the air was clean and soft under a full moon and the storm’s last snowfall. Here in his box at the Hair Trigger Palace, the air smelled of lavender and the faint, lingering wonder of her pleasure. The world beyond Wolf Laurel would reach them tomorrow and the stagecoach would arrive within a day or so afterward.
What would he do when she was gone? Survive. He needed to send her out of the mining town to get her away from its mayor’s attacks.
His hand wasn’t entirely steady when he pulled the drapes shut. Sitting down beside her felt too much like coming home.
“Thank you for saving my life this afternoon.” She kissed her fingers and laid them against his cheek.
“I’m sorry you were abducted. If I’d had any idea that would happen, I’d never have left.” He caught her hand and pulled her close.
“Of course you had to go alone. You needed to speak to your friend.” She leaned confidingly against his chest, for all the world as if she still trusted him to look after her. “It was my fault those brutes had a chance to capture me. If I hadn’t spent so long primping, they wouldn’t have had time to arrange their ambush.”
He hugged her lithe form a little nearer, thinking her precious as the first taste of spring. She murmured a little noise of agreement that lifted his soul.
The couple in the box next door were chanting Edgar Allan Poe’s verses, together with the actor.
Justin forgot about them and the rest of the audience with the ease of long practice, and to protect his sanity. He’d memorized “The Raven” in childhood, long before he’d learned how well its performance filled concert saloons.
“You need to leave town soon,” he told his darling.
“Can Johnson mount an attack again so quickly?”
“It’s the only way to keep you safe.” His heart lurched away from the thought. After so many years of fighting to save the man’s life—and so much shared laughter—he couldn’t simply take Johnson out as an obstacle and plant him in Boot Hill. Doing so would irredeemably stain his soul.
But Charlotte had brought joy and light into his life. He couldn’t risk losing her now.
She hesitated, then nodded.
“I don’t want anybody else to die on my behalf—and I don’t want to destroy your friendship with him.”
“It’s already gone on his side.”
“Are you sure? What about you? Can you forget ten years that quickly?”
He hesitated, then shook his head.
Her quick look of sympathy pierced his heart.
He cuddled her close, letting her pulse sing to his. More than anything else, he needed to know she was safe. Would he ever forget how helpless she’d looked crumpled on the floor at her kidnappers’ feet? And then how neatly she’d hurled that missile to knock one off balance?
Where could he send her?
“You should go back to Boston, not stay on the poker circuit.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Why? Were you convicted of a crime?”
“No, but—”
“Then there’s still a place for you there. You’d be safer beside the Atlantic Ocean than here in the Rockies, with Simmons offering a price on your head.”
“My father said I was a slut.”
“What the hell?” How could her parent be that deluded? Justin didn’t know whether to plot a lecture or a drowning.
“My stepmother said all the time I spent at the Soldiers’ Home, tending the war veterans, was actually loose conduct.” Charlotte flushed.
The darling probably didn’t know how to act immoral with a multitude of men. Her stepmother needed to be strangled.
“The jealous bitch! And he believed her?”
Charlotte nodded. “We had a dreadful fight and I stormed out. I haven’t been back in three years.”
“Did you ever offer an explanation?” He caught her hands.
“No, I was too angry.”
Sounded like all the times he and his father had fought when he was eighteen.
“Since then, I’ve concentrated on making money.” She looked up at him from under gold-tipped eyelashes, the same color as all the success she’d enjoyed. “I plan to return to Boston as a wealthy woman and make my stepmother and stepsisters jealous.”
“Ah.” Now that definitely sounded like the relationship between him and his half-brothers—nothing but vicious competition every inch of the way. Regrets for what could never be regained stirred within him.
“Honey, is your father still alive?” He kissed Charlotte’s hands.
“Yes. I’d have seen his obituary if not.”
Ah, the unconscious arrogance of class and fortune which expected to see their important announcements widely distributed.
Justin closed his eyes for a moment to push away ancient grief. The old days were gone. Like wintertime, they’d passed by to be replaced by the new ways. No man could stand in the path of change.
“Charlotte, you should make peace with him while you’re both still alive. You need to make the most of the time you have together.”
“No! Do you know what he said? Do you know how he insulted the brave soldiers who fought for this country?”
Justin’s mouth twisted wryly. Was he about to defend blue bellies, the long-hated Union troopers who’d destroyed his world? Or could he finally live in peace with them, the way Lee had surrendered his sword at Appomattox?
“Darling, I’m sure if you speak gently to him, you can make him see reason, even about that.” Good, he hadn’t actually defended any blue bellies.
“But . . .” Her chin still jutted defiantly.
“Family is worth fighting for, at all costs, even if it means swallowing a little pride.”
She tapped her fingers as if seeking a new argument.
“You know I lost my mother to The War. I lost everyone else, too—including my father, my two elder brothers and their families, even my cousins.” His voice had turned soft, his drawl thicker than if he stood once again in Charleston. “I’d give anything to go back and have one more day with my father or brothers. Or sail down the Ashley River again and see Northwick Plantation rising fresh and clean from the gardens.”
He halted. He’d said too much, far more than he’d told anyone. Even Johnson only knew he was a South Carolina veteran who’d lost everything to The War. The Georgia native preferred to dwell on his own lost farm and assume Justin’s heart ached for the same simple reasons.
“Oh, Justin, I’m so sorry.” Charlotte leaned up and kissed his cheek.
He turned his head and captured her sweet mouth. She tasted of youth and springtime, of hope for a civilized life in which battles were fought with words—and ladies’ handbags! —not guns.
She kissed him back sweetly. Her tongue moved more confidently today than yesterday, as if she too hungered for his taste. Her slender fingers kneaded his shoulders like an eager little cat seeking warmth and pleasure.
He rumbled encouragement and ran his hands down her back. Dear God, but she was deliciously strong under that delicate frame. Damn her corset, he wanted to taste skin. Here and now, in a public place, not in a bedroom’s respectable privacy.
He needed her acceptance of his wildness, of his speed with guns, which matched her own dangerous skill with cards.
The thought made his blood heat under his long black coat and starched shirt. He left her delectable mouth to nuzzle her sweet temples and eyelids. Tonight he could see all of her, unlike last night in his bedroom when she’d been a sorceress glimpsed under floating, icy shadows. Now he could savor the sweet flush that rose when he suckled her lip, and anticipate how she flung her head back to encourage his attentions to her neck.
Ah yes, her beautiful throat. Long, white, flexible as a swan. She uttered the most delicious little sighs, too. She made him groan until he had to kiss her there even more often, so their neighbors wouldn’t hear him.
Her breasts rose against his chest, fast and urgent like her hot breath ruffling his hair. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” she whispered into his ear.
“So are you, even if you don’t have a hat.” He drew back slightly to fill his eyes with her beauty.
“Are you sure you want to do this? Someone might hear us.”
“The curtains are closed. It’s quiet.” She pointed her chin in the air, defying him to contradict her.
“At the moment.” He kissed the inside of her wrist. “Until I do this . . .” He glided his teeth over her delicate tendons and she moaned.
“Wretch.” She blinked at him, her breasts rising and falling faster. “Have you done things like this before?”
“Frequently.”
“Ooh!” Her eyes sparkled. “Secrets to learn another day.”
She softly stroked his cheek and he leaned his head into the delicate caress.
“Such a close-cropped beard.” she whispered. “It’s very soft.”
“The barber enjoys my regular patronage.”
“I enjoy the results, even though they’re not fashionable.” Her husky voice hinted at a shared conspiracy. Her slender finger slipped inside his starched collar. “Do you shave here, too? Your skin is so smooth—but your chest felt prickly through your nightshirt.”
“Good Lord, didn’t that idiot Holbrook teach you anything?”
“We only had one night together. Besides, you’re much more enticing.” Color burned in her cheeks and lust flared in her eyes before she veiled them.
Justin’s pulse leaped. Sweet Lord, had she finally, completely forgotten her initial mistrust of him? Maybe he did stand a chance to win her.
“Well, now, I do feel the temperature rising in here.” He cupped her jaw and stroked the delicate pulse points at the back of her head. Her hands moved restlessly over his chest and arms, in the untutored, hungry pattern of an eager yet uncertain woman. He smiled privately and began to unbutton her jacket. He’d had a lifetime’s training for this.
“Take off yours first.” She caught his wrist. “I want to feel more of you.”
His eyes opened wide before he gave her a very predatory grin. “As my lady commands.”
Charlotte flushed but held her ground. She watched eagerly as he rapidly stripped off his coat and hung it on the coat tree. He turned to face her—and God help him, he paused nervously. His cock was thick and tense against his thigh.
Would she spook over his guns or his lust?
Her eyes darkened. “Take your vest off,” she whispered huskily.
His cock surged happily.
He removed the scrap of dark silk even faster than the heavy broadcloth. But he hung his weapons belt with his Navy Colts over the leather settee where they’d be within easy reach. Even if they frightened her, he had to protect her.
Now only fine linen hid his chest from her and his cock was shouting its eagerness to greet her.
She held out her hand to him.
“
Nevermore!
” shouted his damn customers, as if they were speaking about any future for him with Charlotte.
Even so, he kissed her again and her nails raked down his back as if she wanted to devour him. Slowly unbuttoning her fine wool jacket to further increase her excitement took an infinity of discipline.
Ah, but when he finally opened the dove grey cloth to bare her, it was like revealing a flower. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly above her chemise’s ruffled lace and ribbon. Her sweet curves blossomed above a blue satin corset which disappeared into her skirt.
His fingers itched to yank it open, peel everything else off, and bury himself within her. Impossible, no matter what the fire hurling through his blood screamed.
Wild and decadent, just as he’d always dreamed.
He kissed her breasts and traced every delectable salty trail of sweat and lust trickling across them. She moaned and pulled his head closer.
He rumbled agreement and strummed her nipples with his fingers until they became sensitive, aching peaks. Damn it, he wanted her to feel that her corset was just as much a prison as his damn trousers were for his cock.