Defiant Rose (22 page)

After all, the circus came but once a year.

Rosemary cringed as she counted out most of the money she’d won, and the deputy counted with her, making sure every last cent was there. “Good. That’s fifty dollars in fines, twenty for the damage to the saloon, and one to replace Sheriff Martin’s lamp, which was broken in the fight. You’re all set, little lady.” The deputy scooped up the money and withdrew the keys, leading Rosemary to the rear of the jail. “It’s a good thing you came when you did. Kept me up the whole damned night singing something about ‘My Wild Irish Rose.’ ”

Rosemary fought back a grin which died instantly when she approached the crowded jail cell. The townsfolk occupied one cell, the circusmen and clowns the other. They looked more like the broken tramps they sought to emulate than clowns as they slept on top of each other like puppies, their bodies stinking of whiskey.

Michael was seated in the midst of them, asleep like the others, his body propped against Griggs’s. His hair had loosened from the fray, and she could see a nasty swelling just above his left eye where one of the fists had connected enough to give him a lump. Rosemary swallowed hard, knowing what his expression would be even before he awakened and saw her. With less conviction than she’d hoped, she watched as the deputy slid the key into the lock and heard the tinny click.

“All right, boys,” the deputy boomed. “Your fines are all paid. Yeah, even you. The saintly lady who won the card game saw fit to bail you all out.”

The circusmen and clowns awakened, then groggily got to their feet. One by one they set eyes on their cellmates, and as they took in the battered clothes, the whiskey-washed stench, and the blackened eyes, they began, in true clown fashion, to laugh.

“My God, Jake, look at you! That cowboy took you down in two seconds flat.”

“He did like hell.” Jake rubbed his broken fist against his chin. “If I didn’t have to rescue the likes of you, I’d have knocked him through the wall.”

“Listen to him,” Rags muttered, wiping the dried blood from his lip and grimacing as the pain registered. “I’m the one that had to save all of you jokers. These local farmers thought to see you become fertilizer.”

Everyone chortled, all except Michael. Rosemary blanched as he got to his feet, obviously mortified to awaken and find himself in a jail cell. Massaging his shoulder, he grimaced as the pain increased, and he winced as he tested his legs. He glared indignantly at Rose as she stood beside the door, pressing her lips together to keep from smiling.

“You did grand, Michael. I didn’t know you could fight like that.”

Admiration beamed from her voice, and he glanced at her incredulously. This clown-woman, who had started all this to begin with, was now grinning at him approvingly and complimenting him on his fighting ability! It would have been laughable if he weren’t so furious.

“Does it hurt so much?” She mistook his scowl for physical pain, and she lightly touched the growing lump on his forehead. “Clara can brew some herbs to help for this. We can make it into a poultice for your head—”

“I don’t need any witch’s brew,” he muttered, keenly aware of how close she was standing to him, and of the cool feel of her hand on his injured head. That led him to other thoughts, more embarrassing ones, especially with the deputy standing by and looking on with an amused smirk. At least she didn’t come for them dressed as a clown. And gone was the seductive saffron frock of the previous night. Today she looked like a midwestern farmwife, clad in a rustic dress, her hair pulled back and her pristine apron flapping as she walked. She was the picture of angelic innocence and bore no resemblance to the bawdy card-playing wench he’d seen last night, before they all went to jail….

Prison! He followed Griggs toward the circus wagons, his head throbbing in disbelief. He’d been reduced to this, a jailbird, a saloon brawler, all in the course of twenty-four hours. He was a banker, for God’s sake. True, like most other Victorian gentlemen, he knew the rudiments of boxing and had even spent some time in pursuit of that sport in college, but good God, he never anticipated needing such experience in a barroom brawl. His clothes smelled of whiskey, his shirt was in shreds, and Rosemary was beaming at him as if he’d brought her a bouquet of roses.

He didn’t understand any of this, and yet, a primitive part of him did and didn’t want to admit it. He’d been jealous, insanely jealous of her, sitting like some ignominious clown-princess on a throne surrounded by jesters. As he walked through the stark Kansas sunlight, he admitted the truth. He’d wanted to kill when he saw her in that dress, smoking a cigar, drinking and playing cards like any of the boys. Yet he of all men knew just how womanly she really was. Rosemary Carney made him exasperated, spiteful, revengeful, tender, gentle, and filled with a kind of joy he couldn’t remember experiencing ever in his safe life of ledgers and numbers. He wanted to smack her and kiss her at the same time, and the conflicting emotions made his head throb harder.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

She was asking him quietly, concern overriding the twinkle in her eyes. He nodded, still massaging his temple, trying to ease the ache in his head. It was then that he noticed his hand was swollen, and that the knuckles were still bleeding.

“What the hell happened to my hand?”

“It must have been that one cowboy,” Rosemary remarked. “You got him pretty good.”

“Yeah. Guess he took you for a lightweight, what with that white shirt and all.” Rags beamed, his bruised lip twisting comically. “Didn’t know you packed a mean punch beneath your pencils and books.”

“Maybe now you’ll listen next time he tells you to do something.” Jake grinned, slinging his arm around Michael. “You’re all right, mate.”

Michael nodded, a reluctant smile coming to his face. They accepted him, finally, after all this time. And all it took was a bar fight. His eyes narrowed as they fell on Rosemary’s approving grin, and she quickly looked down to the ground. He had a score to settle with her, one that wouldn’t be resolved so easily. Well, he would have it out with her, before another day passed. After all, he was learning from the best of them.

Michael’s opportunity came sooner than he expected. As the troupe prepared to travel onward to Colorado, Jake led him to one of the wagons and hoisted his armload of ledger books inside.

“We’ll be going for most of the day and should reach Colorado by nightfall. I ’spect we’ll get to Denver within a week.”

Michael nodded, so distracted by his work that he didn’t notice anything odd until he climbed inside the wagon. Usually he traveled in the front with Jake or Griggs; this time they had him cozily seated in the same wagon with one other occupant, and he didn’t have to look twice to discern who it was. “What the hell—”

The door slammed shut, and he heard it lock. Damn them. They’d done it again, and this time they had him good. He was locked inside the wagon with Rosemary Carney, his face throbbing like a thousand bees stinging his wounds, his muscles screaming in pain from the fight. Yet he was as helpless as a fish in a tin, sequestered without a choice of neighbors. Banging on the door, he shouted, “Let me out, goddammit!”

His only answer was the laughter of the clowns and the thud of the wagon as it started toward Denver. Furious, he turned to glare at Rosemary, who looked as confounded as he did.

“You don’t think that I—”

“No, I’m sure you knew nothing about this, did you? Just another Carney clown trick! Lock up the banker, tease him, torture him…what damned difference does it make?”

“That’s not fair!” Rosemary got to her feet, then plopped down to the hay-covered floor as the wagon lurched on the dirt road. “I didn’t know anything about this! Do you think I’d ask to ride with you, of all people? What do you think I am, a glutton for punishment?”

“What?” He stared at her in amazement, unable to believe she was sitting in a bale of hay, giving him a defiant stare, when she’d just tricked him again. It was just too much. “Rosemary, don’t you dare deny it—”

“Why not?” she continued, looking magnificent as her hair tumbled around her and her legs curled up in the golden straw. “What are you going to do about it? You can’t hurt me more than you already have! I don’t have anything to lose at this point.”

Her breasts heaved with exertion, and a reluctant smile came to his face. God, she was beautiful, and he was beginning to understand her. Rosemary never backed down when cornered; like a kitten, she came out, claws bared, spitting and fighting.

“Don’t you? You seem to forget that I was the one who got beat up last night. What kind of woman are you, anyway? Cavorting at bars with the men, playing cards, smoking a cigar—”

“So what concern is that of yours? You made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want any ties to me. So what do you care what I do?”

“Because I do!” he thundered. The admission came out before he could stop it. He stood over her, her body half buried in hay, her green eyes staring up at him like fathomless fairy pools. He caught her hand and pulled her to her feet, glad to see the stunned look of surprise replace her scorn.

“Because I do,” he said again, surrendering to what he felt. “Rosemary, I’ve tried to keep you at a distance, but it didn’t work. And God only knows if I let you take control, I’m liable to wind up as elephant bait. I’m sorry, but it’s time to take matters into my own hands.”

“What…what do you think you’re doing?” Blinking, she saw him smile as he took her into his arms and picked a piece of hay from her hair.

“What you’ve been asking me to do again for the last few days.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—” Fear flooded through her. Did he somehow know? Was he privy to her innermost thoughts and had divined the need she had for him? She watched as if hypnotized as his hand stroked her hair, then brushed downward to the curve of her breast. The nipple stood out, hard against her plain dress, reacting to her emotions and to him.

“I think you do.” He smiled again, looking meltingly handsome with his disheveled hair and his fight-roughened face. Emotions swelled within her: relief, pain, apprehension, and overwhelming joy. What if he pushed her away again? What if he—

“Rosemary.” He said her name like a caress, and a shudder passed through her. “What’s done is done. I’ve tried to stay away from you, tried to keep you as just another clown in the circus. I can’t do it. Last night proved that.”

Hope sprang within her, ridiculous, giddy hope, and he smothered her questions with a kiss that sent showering sparks all through her and made her knees buckle beneath her. Her arms crept up around his neck, and she clung to him, loving the way his hard body felt against her soft one. Any apprehensions she still had quickly fled, replaced by the need in her heart for him, Michael Wharton. The aching in that region soon spread to other parts of her body, and her blood pulsed hotter, surging through her, making her feel deliciously on fire.

He pulled her closer to him, groaning at the innocent response that was so real, and so natural. His mouth eased from hers long enough for him to see her passion-flushed face, her eyes, gently half closed, their mischievous glint darkened into something more languid and erotic. Her mouth, moistly parted, was pink and perfectly formed. Rosemary Carney may have been a clown, but in his arms she was all woman.

“What are you doing?” She felt his hands slide through her hair, loosening the red-gold tresses and allowing them to fall around her shoulders.

“I’m making love to you. And by the time I’m through, my whiskey-drinking clown, you will be mine.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

R
OSEMARY TREMBLED AT HIS WORDS
. When she stared up at him questioningly, he took her mouth again like a starving man, his kiss devouring and sending delightful little shudders all through her body. His hands moved from her hair to her waist, then upward to cup her breast, his kiss deepening and sending her right over the edge into oblivion.

It was so good, so unbelievably good. If Rosemary had deluded herself that their first act of lovemaking had been wrought from Clara’s potion, then the giddy sense of delight that rushed through her was a keen reassurance that this was not simply drug-induced pleasure. Michael sent slow, wonderful caresses down her arms, her waist, and thighs, his hands expertly stroking, lingering just long enough, then moving in a pattern designed to make her go out of her mind. Inexperienced as she was, Rosemary knew that what was happening between them was special and carried all of the emotional impact of any of their battles. It was suddenly very clear to her what he meant, that she had been asking him to do this again, and with new insight she saw that she had been asking him to do this from the beginning. Michael had seen her as a woman all along, and now he was teaching her the full meaning of the word.

His hands lowered to the buttons of her dress, and he began the arduous task of undoing them, while she flushed in new embarrassment. There was no potion this time to envelop his actions in a foggy haze, and while that made the experience raw and new and unbelievably pleasurable, it also heightened her sense of awareness. But his amused chuckle at the row of obdurant buttons made it all so much easier, especially when he had to enlist her aid.

“Where did you get this dress? Whoever wore it before you must have never taken it off.”

“It’s a farm dress.” Rose giggled, struggling out of the dour cotton sack. “I couldn’t bail you out of jail looking like a Jezebel.” She stood in the sweetly scented hay, clad now in worn, inappropriate underwear, her hair tumbling around her as her smile died. The tattered chemise that Clara had lent her made her color deepen. But when she looked up, the passion and approval she saw in his eyes made her misgivings vanish, especially when he pulled her into his arms with a throaty rumble in his chest.