Runaway (5 page)

Robert cleared his throat. “Jarrett? Poker? You’ve called the man, Jarrett. Put your cards on the table.”

Jarrett did so, barely glancing at the others. Smiling Jack had been sitting on a decent hand, a straight. Not bad. Not enough.

Robert stared at Jarrett, then swept the money into a pile before him.

Jarrett cast a level eye on Jack. He really didn’t give a damn about the game anymore. He couldn’t even truly appreciate the irritation he was causing the Frenchman. “Do we continue?” he asked Jack. “Are you dealing,
mon ami?
”

“Oui, mon ami,”
the Frenchman agreed. He started dealing out the cards with a swift expertise. Jarrett sat back, his eyes half closed. He observed everything.

The cards, the Frenchman.

The girl.

That was one good thing about living in the “swamps” with the “savages.”

He had learned to watch.

For Tara Brent the evening was already a nightmare. Short, pudgy little Eastwood was going on and on about how late she was, about how he needed her on the floor.

She had made a mistake. Oh, God, she had made a mistake coming here!

But she was desperate for money. Money was her only escape. Money was passage aboard a steamer, somewhere north, anywhere north, far away where she could hide for a lifetime.

Where
they
could never find her.

New Orleans, she had heard, was the city to come to first. It was a place to find work without questions being asked. There were all manner of folk in the city, Creoles, Spanish, English, southerners, and northerners.

It was the gateway to oblivion.

And so she had come, and an old hag-woman in the street had directed her here, and Eastwood had given her work immediately, a job running whiskey and food around to his card-sharking customers. He’d told her that she could make good money taking the gentlemen up to the tiny room he’d given her in the attic, and she’d firmly told him that she didn’t take gentlemen anywhere. He laughed and told her that she’d get to it eventually, but he didn’t really care, he’d take her on just because she had a classy look about her. Maybe he’d even convince her that he’d make a good “gentleman” for her to take up the stairs eventually himself.

She’d be drawn and quartered first. But she didn’t have to say so, because he had hired her, and so far, the few nights she’d been here, he’d left her alone. She shouldn’t have spent so long wandering the flower markets and gazing at the Mississippi. She wouldn’t have been late coming in for the night, and he’d probably not
be yelling at her now. If she wasn’t careful, he’d be pressing the issue of her usefulness.

But a number of people had assured her that it was a reputable place. If she had just been either a little less naive—or desperate—she might have realized that these reassuring people weren’t all that reputable themselves!

And if this was an establishment of any respectability whatsoever, she shuddered to think of what was not so reputable down by the docks.

She gasped as Eastwood suddenly clutched her by the arms. “Are you listening to me! I run this place,
you
don’t! You’ve already told me in your high-handed way that you won’t have men up the stairs. And I went ahead and figured you were so good looking that it didn’t matter. But—”

“Get your hands off of me!” she said icily, her words low, but still a dead-set demand.

Eastwood obeyed her. His hands fell from her arms. “Get out there!” he roared. “Get to work if you want wages from me!”

Wages! Slaves probably received more for their efforts!

But she
was
going to work for those wages. She had to get away. Working for Eastwood was better than going back. Anything was better than going back.

Death might be better than going back.

And going back might well mean death, she reminded herself.

She slipped off her cloak and hurried into the kitchen. Eastwood was a tyrant, but his two Creole cooks were wonderfully nice men, and Emma, the plump Irishwoman who ran the kitchen, had a way with her that somehow made working tolerable.

It didn’t matter, did it? As soon as she had earned her passage, she was gone!

And all that she had to do was pray that
they
didn’t find her first!

“There you are,
ma belle chérie!
” Gaston told her, pulling bread from the oven. Like Emma he was as plump as a pillow. He liked his own cooking. But he was exceedingly kind, and she offered him a shy smile. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

He waved a hand in the air with Gallic philosophy. “We are fine on the food. However, there is a table of card players shouting for whiskey. Four men. You will find them.”

She nodded, turning about to obey. She crashed into Marie, one of the pretty little Creole girls who worked the downstairs—and the upstairs.

“I’ve men shouting from every direction!” she cried, shaking her head.
“Mon Dieu alors!
You are here,
chérie. S’il te plaît
, before that German bites my head off! Whiskey for the card players.”

There were always dozens of card players. “I’m going right now,” Tara promised. “Which table?”

“You cannot miss it!” Marie promised her. She took the time to pause for a minute, looking Tara over from head to toe. “The German is tall, lean, and very good looking, like a Viking! Then there is Smiling Jack, as sharp—and dangerous—a Frenchman as you may hope to see.” She had been rushing. Cute, dark, petite—and very kind—she stopped suddenly to give Tara a word of advice. “Either one of them,
chérie
, would surely pay you your passage in a single night!”

Tara shook her head, blushing slightly, amazed that she could still do so. Pretty little Marie couldn’t begin to understand why she didn’t want to sleep with one man one night and make more than she could in two weeks slaving away for Eastwood. To Marie tending to the tables
was nothing more than a way to acquire a good clientele.

“Well, if you could miss the German or the Frenchman,
chérie
, I promise you will not miss the Americans. One is very young, handsome, and light. And the other”—she paused, smiling—“the other is McKenzie.” She said it almost reverently, with no other description, as if nothing more were needed once the hallowed name was mentioned. It didn’t matter. Tara could surely find the right table from the descriptions Marie had given her already.

“Well, I’ll try not to miss your McKenzie,” Tara told her, amused.

“Oh, you won’t miss him!” Marie called, hurrying onward for a tray filled with steaming crawfish. But she paused, looking back. “He’s black Irish, they say, just so you know.”

Tara paused. “Pardon?”

Marie sighed with a wistful little sound. “Black Irish, so they tell me. Sometime, years ago, when the English defeated the Spanish Armada, the Spaniards landed upon Ireland before trying to sail home. So now there are these Irishmen with jet-dark hair and coal-dark eyes! As hot blooded as the Spanish plains and as fierce as those ever-fighting Irish. You’ll notice McKenzie, I swear it.”

Tara smiled, turning away. Marie noticed any man. All he needed was his hair—well, some of his hair—two legs, decent teeth—and plenty of gold.

She hurried through the bar and found a bottle of whiskey and a number of Eastwood’s short, heavy glasses. When she came back into the main room, the smoke from the fire caused her to pause for a moment and look around. A few sailors sat with their doxies, all laughing the night away in a far corner. Another set of river
rowdies leaned against the far wall, taunting Lisette, Marie’s cousin. Lisette seemed to be doing just fine with the lot of them. There were at least three tables of card players, but Marie had been right.

She could not miss the table of men that had been described to her. There was the German, just as Marie had described. The Frenchmen, and the Americans. One man seemed just a little bit younger. He had an easy smile. He leaned on an elbow, watching the game.

Then there was the fourth man. McKenzie.
Black Irish
, Marie had said. It fit him perfectly. She didn’t think that she had ever seen hair so rich or jet in color. In fact, she didn’t think that she’d ever seen any man quite like him. From the moment she discovered the table, she discovered that he had been watching her. His eyes were large, sharp, and so dark that they seemed as ebony as his hair. His features were hard, rugged; a stubborn, determined chin, high, broad cheekbones, ebony, high-arched brows, a long, straight nose, deeply bronzed skin. Yet despite the ruggedness of his face it was a strikingly handsome one. The bone structure was excellent. His mouth was full, wide, sensual.

And his eyes were intense. As dark as night. And fixed upon her. He caught her stare. A slow smile curved his lips. She felt a peculiar sensation, as if flames suddenly lapped their way from an intangible place within her soul to roar right through her limbs, searing her from head to toe.

He was well dressed. His shirt was as white as snow, his frock coat an elegant black, his trousers fawn. She noticed his hands, his fingers upon his cards. They were as bronzed as his face. His fingers were very long, the nails blunt cut but clean.

“The whiskey! At last!” the German man said.

Tara quickly put the bottle and the glasses down on
the table. She could still feel those dark eyes on her, and she was desperate to get away.

“You’re out of your gold coins, Jack. It’s time to call it quits,” McKenzie was saying. His voice was as rich and deep as his hair. It had a subtle slur of the South to it, though she could not exactly pinpoint the place. He wasn’t from New Orleans, but he certainly wasn’t from the North.

“Out of coins, but never out of assets,
mon ami!
” the Frenchman said.

Tara was so startled when his fingers wound around her wrist that she nearly shrieked out loud. She fought from doing so, well aware that Eastwood would have her on the streets if she screamed just because a man had taken hold of her wrist.

“The girl!” the Frenchman said. “Yours for the night.”

“What?” Tara gasped furiously.

“She’s not yours to barter!” the black-eyed American, McKenzie, shot back quickly.

“Eastwood is in debt to me. The girl for a night. Against your three hundred in gold.”

“No whore, not even this one, is worth three hundred!” the German said, swallowing down his whiskey, pale eyes assessing her carefully. “Or is she?” he speculated.

Tara wrenched her hand free. “I work for Eastwood!” she snapped. “I am not his possession, no man’s to barter or hold!” she cried angrily.

She turned to flee. To her amazement her skirt was caught, and she was hauled back against the table. Dear God, these two were involved in some wretched challenge in this poker game, and she had become a part of it! The Frenchman had her by her skirts, and she’d lose half her clothing trying to rip away from him. She stared at him incredulously, gripping her skirt. “You let me go
this instant! I’m not an object to be cast upon a table. Let me go! I told you! I wait tables—”

“Then you will wait on this man’s table for a night,
chérie!
” the Frenchman said.

The German sniggered. “Table, floor, what’s the difference, eh?”

Her eyes flashed to his, blue fire. “You, sir, may go to hell! I’ll get Eastwood—”

The Frenchman’s laughter interrupted and terrified her. “You go get him,
chérie!
He’ll set you in the center of the table himself. You see, I must bet with this blackhearted bastard, but your Eastwood owes me half his inn!”

She tried to control her temper. She really did. But she found herself lifting the Frenchman’s glass and dashing his whiskey into his face.

He let out a bellow like a whipped puppy and started to rise, reaching for her.

But McKenzie was up. His gaze was deadly as he stared down the Frenchman. “Let her go,” he said flatly.

“Sacré bleu—”

“Let her go!”

The Frenchman started to release her reluctantly. Tara would have fled then except that she was newly detained.

Now it was he, McKenzie, who had his hand upon her. His fingers circled her upper arm. She found herself staring up at him. He was very tall, his shoulders were broad. He appeared lean and trim but he was solid muscle, she realized. She could feel the force of his hold and knew that he was a man she would never escape if he chose not to let her go.

“Sit down,” he told her, dark eyes enigmatic.

She lifted her chin. “I told you, I don’t care who owes
who what! I’m not available for a night! For any man, from any man!”

A black brow arched higher. “I didn’t say that I wanted you for a night.”

“Then—”

“But that all remains to be seen, doesn’t it? It’s all in a deck of cards.” His voice was very soft. Only she heard it. “Three hundred dollars is a lot of money—for any woman. Sit!” he warned her.

“I won’t—”

A dry smile curled just the corner of his mouth. “You should be praying it’s me, and not the Frenchman!” he warned her.

Why? The Frenchman was the fool making the wager! He’d have to let her go. But if McKenzie won …