The Irish Devil (24 page)

“Can we do whatever you want tonight?”

He turned to stare at her. Primal hunger and intimate masculine knowledge flickered there for a moment before his thick eyelashes swept down to conceal his thoughts. Something in her melted and surged toward him.

“I thought we always did what I want,” he drawled.

Viola blushed scarlet but pursued her goal. “You’re always so very kind and considerate toward me. Are there activities you’d enjoy if you didn’t need to worry about me?”

His face froze, shifted. He seemed to consider infinite possibilities. Then he shook his head. “No, don’t think about that, sweetheart. We do very well as we are.”

“There are other games to play, aren’t there?” Viola persisted. “Games with a rope, or a little whip, or maybe something else.”

She stopped at the look on his face.

His eyes blazed brilliant blue. Her pussy clenched, anticipating the pleasures his expression promised.

“What are you asking me for, sweetheart?” He tilted a finger under her chin. She met his fierce gaze openly. They were so close together she could feel his chest rising and falling under his proper suit.

“To play the games you dream of, without worrying about me.” She gulped, then bravely finished with the truth. “I’m certain we’ll both enjoy them.”

William swallowed hard, his cock a hot ridge against her belly. “Oh, sweetheart,” he growled, “tonight I will show you such fantasies as would make your head spin. I promise you’ll forget about everything else in the world.”

Viola gulped. If they could both forget Evans’s departure, taking so many teamsters, and Lennox prowling outside like a ravaging beast hunting for an opening…

William kissed her, long and hard, certain of his welcome. She threw herself into her response, eager to distract herself from the coming danger.

William double-checked the powder wagon one last time, ensuring the knots would hold during the long journey ahead. The other wagons stood waiting on the desert just beyond, ready to leave for Fort McMillan with their cavalry escort. Most of his men would depart with them. He’d prayed for them that morning during his usual devotions at the Blessed Virgin’s shrine in the compound.

He’d remain behind to prepare for the next supply train from Fort Yuma and to protect Viola from Lennox. He had few worries for his own fate but mountains for Viola’s future.

His eyes lifted to find her, watching from the colonnade outside the office, an island of feminine calm in the depot’s hubbub. She smiled at him and he touched his hat to her, then returned to the knots.

He wondered, not for the first time, why Lennox sought her so fiercely. Hurt pride from her repeated refusals? Maybe; heaven knows he had pride enough for a thousand men so he’d likely take poorly to being publicly crossed. But why did he want her to begin with? She was the only woman in this town from a fine family, but Lennox could hunt for a wife in other towns.

Viola deserved better than Lennox’s cruelty.

For a moment, William imagined Viola as his wife, not Lennox’s. They’d attend Sunday Mass together, dressed in their finest, and the bishop would give her a fond greeting afterwards. He’d take her home in a magnificent carriage, the matched team trotting fast enough to ruffle the feathers in her hat. She’d laugh and cling to his arm, eyes dancing as she anticipated the embrace he’d give her when they reached their house. The hours of passion afterwards would pass quickly as he showed her marriage was just a beginning, not an end, to their love.

Bloody hell,
William snarled silently, and wrenched himself away from that foolish dream. No daughter of America’s finest families would ever tolerate an Irishman as a husband, or the Catholic religion. No, Viola would leave in three months and he must make the most of the time remaining.

By all the saints, he’d do his best to ensure she remembered this Irishman whenever she was with another man.

“Ready, Donovan?” Morgan’s rich tenor interrupted William’s thoughts.

“Ready.” He turned to face his friend.

Morgan was dressed in his usual attire for the trail: well-worn flannel shirt and canvas trousers, a broad-brimmed battered slouch hat pulled well down on his forehead, and a pistol belt close to his waist with a Colt on each side, butts forward in the cavalry style. Leather chaps rose above high-heeled boots and Mexican spurs. His rifle was balanced Arizona-fashion on his saddle’s pommel and an old Navajo blanket rested at the cantle. His Indian pony could outlast almost any other horse in Arizona, and still be capable of a sprint at day’s end.

Locals said Morgan could ride and track as well as any Apache. This morning, his appearance matched every bit of his reputation and more.

Viola appeared beside him. “Please take care of yourself, Mr. Evans. I will pray nightly for your well-being.”

Morgan’s face softened. “Thank you, Mrs. Ross. I promise you we’ll return as quickly as possible. A week, maybe less.”

Viola nodded, her smile a bit tremulous. “Sarah has a splendid supper planned for your return.”

She slipped her hand into the crook of William’s arm. He patted it reassuringly.

“Take good care of her, Donovan. Otherwise, I’ll just have to look after her myself.”

“The hell you will,” William retorted. Morgan laughed, and the tense moment was over.

Morgan touched his hat to Viola, then wheeled and rode out of the depot, while William and Viola followed him on foot.

In the street outside, Morgan waved his hat to the cavalry lieutenant. An instant later, a bugle sounded, setting the blue-clad horsemen into motion. The great wagon train uncoiled itself from the open plain and lumbered onto the trail. William and Viola, with the townsfolk and remaining teamsters, waved good-bye.

Seven nights, at best, would pass before his men would return. Until then, he, Abraham, and his few remaining men would protect Viola from that scum Lennox.

H
al Lindsay climbed down from the stagecoach’s roof, grateful for escape from this particular form of torture, as Holbrook steadied the horses for the passengers to disembark. The coach’s height and width of little more than four feet were not designed to hold his big frame in comfort, even if he’d been the only passenger.

That hadn’t been the case, of course, so he’d escaped to the roof as often as possible. And from there, he’d been privileged to help fight off more than one Apache attack.

The headache gained in the Santa Fe attack had finally disappeared a few days ago, although he still wore the doctor’s carefully wound bandage. He badly needed a barber to restore his goatee’s usual tidiness. He was also both filthy and hungry, conditions he never tolerated while piloting.

“Thanks for the help, Lindsay,” Holbrook called down to him, his gray eyes vivid in his weathered face. “We sure had our hands full during that last attack, ’til you cut loose with your Henry rifle.”

“My pleasure,” Hal answered as he tucked the repeating rifle comfortably against his side. He’d bought it from another traveler just before Apache Pass and thanked God for it during every Apache attack since.

He accepted his carpetbag from the station agent, a sturdy man with watchful eyes. He glanced toward the west and frowned at the setting sun. The last Apache attack had cost more time than he’d hoped. He stood little chance of reaching Rio Piedras today, if it was as far as men said.

“Where can I buy a horse to ride to Rio Piedras?” Hal asked.

Holbrook laughed as he, too, finally jumped off the stagecoach. “You ride out of Tucson alone and you’ll be dead before sundown, thanks to the Apaches. Waste of a good horse, if you don’t mind me saying so. No, you’re better off catching tomorrow’s stage.”

“When does it leave?”

“Pulls out of here at dawn and reaches Rio Piedras after noon. Makes a quick turnaround there so it can be back here before midnight. We run two stages on that route for safety.”

“Thanks.” Hal surveyed the neighborhood around the depot and frowned. He’d heard stories of Tucson, especially as a den of villains. But this looked worse than he’d expected. “Any advice on where I can stay?”

“Two hotels in town, and you’ll want the one at the end of this block. It has a good bathhouse and barber,” Holbrook added. “Spend some time there and they’ll get you fixed up right. Good food and beds, too. Don’t waste your money on any other place.”

Hal nodded and started to turn.

“One more thing.” Holbrook spoke confidentially. “You might want to exchange that bowler of yours for something better suited to keeping off the sun. Strange things happen when a fellow wears narrow-brimmed hats.”

Hal raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Fact. Those Rio Piedras fellows like to make sure no eastern headgear is seen in their town. All in fun, of course.”

“A tough place.”

“Makes Tucson look like a Sunday school, especially when those miners and teamsters start a brawl.” Holbrook’s tone held a wealth of caution.

“Thanks for the warning, friend.”

“Pleasure’s all mine.”

The two men exchanged nods of perfect understanding before Hal proceeded down the block, carpetbag and rifle in hand. He kept his distance from other pedestrians, as he had first learned in Natchez Under-the-Hill at fourteen. That way, he could see anyone who wanted to attack him—and there seemed to be many interested in doing so. If this was a Sunday school, then what was Rio Piedras like? What kind of situation had Viola found herself in?

The recommended hotel was a tidier establishment than any other on that block, with a few respectably dressed men and women lounging on its porch.

Hal stopped when he saw the gold mourning brooch adorning one of the women. The brunette wore flashy attire otherwise, typical of a respectable woman throwing good money after bad taste.

Hal’s mother and his sister Juliet would have laughed at her. Viola would have tried to interest the woman in other choices.

He approached her eagerly, heedless of their audience. “Excuse me, ma’am, but can you tell me where you obtained your brooch?”

The woman’s face paled, and she looked around as if seeking rescue. Her eyes fixed on a man a few feet away, but he remained engrossed in his conversation with another. Every instinct honed in Hal’s sixteen years as a pilot sprang to attention.

She returned her attention to Hal and visibly gulped before answering. “It’s a family piece. I inherited it from my grandmother.”

Hal frowned at the blatant lie and pulled out his watch. “Ma’am, that brooch is an exact match for my watch, down to the monogram and the ship. Only two such brooches were made, one for my sister in New York and one for my other sister who left Colorado a year ago. Did you obtain it from my sister Viola?”

Everyone on the porch was now openly listening. The brunette fell back a step, glancing nervously at his rifle. He was immediately grateful for his villainous appearance, if it would force the truth out of her.

“No. I mean, yes, she sold it to me,” the woman stammered. The man was finally coming toward her, his homely face alive with concern as his hand slipped to the Colt on his hip.

“When? Is she still alive?” Hal demanded, dropping the carpetbag to the porch’s floor but keeping the rifle in his hand. His voice cut the silence like a knife. The watchers on the porch murmured but didn’t move, while passersby gathered on the street to stare.

“Viola Ross is quite well, mister,” the man interjected.

Hal’s attention swung to him. “Where is she?”

“In Rio Piedras.”

“Living with Donovan,” the woman added. “In sin,” she added spitefully, sidling behind the homely man.

Hal stiffened. Calm flowed into him, the same ice he’d once felt while running the blockade past Confederate forts on the Mississippi. “What did you say?”

The brunette shrank back at his tone, leaving the man to answer. His fingers hung barely an inch above his revolver’s butt as he spoke. “My wife meant nothing disrespectful to your sister.”

Hal stared at them both for a long moment until the woman dropped her eyes sullenly. Their audience was motionless. “Here’s twenty dollars for the brooch. I’ll return it to my sister.”

He thumbed out gold pieces, watching the two closely.

She hesitated, hissing under her breath, then unpinned the golden token and tossed it to him. The pair scuttled down the street a moment later, clutching the money.

Tomorrow’s stage couldn’t reach Rio Piedras too soon for his taste.

Viola sat at the piano and tried her best to concentrate on the Chopin nocturne. William had made his excuses just after supper, murmuring something about seeing to the horses. But other things kept distracting her, like Lennox’s surprising inactivity.

She’d not seen Lennox since he’d watched, with the rest of Rio Piedras’s residents, the supply train leave for Fort McMillan. She’d spent a few hours at the depot afterwards to finish up the paperwork, then returned to the compound via the private stairs. She worried what that blackguard would do next.

Better to think about her clothing instead.

She was attired in a simple blue silk dinner dress, cut modestly enough for dinner at her grandmother’s house. Her silk stockings were equally respectable, as were her black kid dancing slippers. She had no idea where William had found such items in Rio Piedras since they were far too demure for a parlor house, even Mrs. Smith’s upscale establishment.

No, the true problem was what lay underneath, or what wasn’t underneath. She wore a white silk chemise, as tissue-thin as an evening scarf and embroidered with white roses at the neck and hem. It could have been invisible, for all it concealed of her body. She wore nothing else, neither drawers or corset.

The weather was unseasonably warm and rather humid for the desert, including a brief thunderstorm just before supper. She was sweating lightly and the two layers of silk clung to her. The chemise in particular showed a strong disposition to hug her breasts.

Her breath caught at the carnal images evoked by that thought and her hands stilled on the keys.

Viola lowered her head and took a deep breath. She tried to play the nocturne from where she’d left off but fumbled to a stop after a few measures, distracted by thoughts of what William would do to her naked pussy. She quivered.

After she had herself back under control, she performed a set of those carnal exercises he’d prescribed. A week of doing so, whenever she stopped playing, had strengthened the muscles he’d so wickedly introduced her to. She began the nocturne again, but from the beginning.

It flowed smoothly this time, singing of the night and the magic therein. She escaped into its world more easily, forgetting the clothes and William’s possible plans.

Suddenly, a light silk cloth floated over her head. Viola stiffened in shock. Then two strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her back against a broad chest.

“Ah, my faerie queen, I’ve captured you now,” William purred in her ear. “Will you fight me with your hands and feet and teeth? Or will you try to spin another spell, like the web your music weaves?”

Viola blinked. He’d spoken before of fantasies, of escaping into a pretense of being someone else and enjoying the carnal delights of their world. They’d enacted a small fantasy at his office. But to become a faerie queen? She was an ordinary person, not an exotic, powerful being.

“I’ve hunted you for years, faerie queen,” William continued. “You will be
my
lover now.”

Viola’s breath caught at the possessive note in his voice. She made up her mind quickly. If he wanted her to be a faerie queen, then she’d do so. If nothing else, it would be so very different from her everyday life, she could forget everything else.

What might Spenser’s faerie queen have said? She tried a phrase and an experimental wiggle, as if struggling to break free. “Foolish mortal, you forget yourself. Unhand me immediately,” she snapped.

“Never!” William responded, tightening his grip on her. “And you’ll not call me a fool tomorrow, after you’ve learned the delights of my bed. You may do your best to break free, but you’re mine for tonight.”

So he wanted her to fight a bit? Very well. She began to struggle more vigorously, lifting her elbows and trying to slide out from under his embrace. “Wretched brute!”

“Not quite as easy as you thought, eh?” William laughed and picked her up. A quick twist, then he tossed her over his shoulder.

He strode out of the room purposefully, but the silk prevented her from seeing exactly where they were. She was certain he hadn’t taken her out onto the colonnade and into the courtyard, but she could guess little more. Judging by the direction and number of steps, he’d bypassed their bedroom.

Viola continued to try to break free but his iron strength kept her close. She kicked and pummeled his back, calling him the worst names she could think of as she demanded to be released. The longer she fought, the more she felt like an abducted queen.

But he simply laughed softly and kept moving.

He entered a room new to her, whose door closed with a solid thud behind them. William stood her on the floor and lifted her arms over her head.

Viola tried to shake the cloth from her head but couldn’t. She ordered angrily, “I demand you release me, clumsy lout!”

Her only answer was a low chuckle. He quickly wrapped a soft rope around her left wrist and tied it to something else, an anchor that kept it in nearly the same position no matter how hard she tried to move it. Her right hand received the same treatment. Then her left foot, and finally her right.

“Importunate peasant,” she tried to snarl, but her breath broke on the last word. Merciful heavens, her situation was so close to her old fantasy of being a captive maiden. Heat burned deep inside, from her breasts to her pussy. She could barely breathe for anticipation.

“Indeed. And you’ll soon be grateful for my persistence.” William whipped the silk away from her head and tossed it aside.

Viola blinked in the brilliant lamplight, but her eyes quickly adjusted. She stood on a carpeted platform in a large room, probably a storage room once but now empty and immaculately clean. The ceiling’s exposed beams hosted strong iron hooks, from which a series of ropes descended. Persian rugs covered the floor, while a curious hammock hung in one corner.

But she had no time to consider the hammock now. Not when each of her limbs had three ropes attached—one from the front, another from the rear, and the third arriving from the side. Her hands and feet could each move a few inches in any direction, enough for comfort but not to fight him.

“What say you, my faerie queen? Do I hold you fast now?”

He had changed from the polite suit of suppertime into work clothes. A rough linen shirt covered his broad shoulders above coarse woolen britches and high leather boots. His fists were propped on his hips, a riding crop dangling casually from one. A peasant’s costume indeed, and he couldn’t have looked more magnificent. The platform raised her high enough to almost look him in the eye.

And her core considered him a very fine prospect indeed, given how dew gathered between her legs. But a faerie queen’s arrogance still ruled her tongue. “As soon as I’m free, you’ll regret this treatment,” Viola sniffed. “I’ll turn you into the toad you already are.”