Training Ivy [How The West Was Done 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (6 page)

As Charlie and Wade lifted the body, Ivy asked, “Yes, but what
is
it? It’s so short.”

“Could be the drawstring for something.” Harley placed the rope inside the glove and pocketed them both. “Someone’s poke or purse.”

“Like a sort of reticule?”

“Exactly. Say, Neil. This is going to be an odd request.”

Neil fairly snarled at his adversary. His nostrils flared as he looked sideways down his lovely aquiline nose at the linguist. “Odder than anything else you’ve said?”

“Yes, probably. I want to photograph that body. I’ve brought camera equipment for surveying, and it’s all been taken to Vancouver House. You say the body will be at the undertaker’s?”

“Yes. But why would you need to photograph it?”

“It’s a new theory I’ve been hankering to test out. Don’t worry, it won’t harm the body in any way.”

“Well, you know,” Neil said in a new way that was somewhat friendly. “I’ve seen that symbol before, the one on his forehead. I just can’t pinpoint exactly where. But I’ve got a hunch it’s stamped on some paper on the desk of Miss Hudson’s father. Not that it involves
him
,” he was quick to tell Ivy. “Just that I’ve seen it, incidentally, emblazoning a paper of some sort.” He frowned and looked far away at the horizon. “But I’ve got to get over to Gentry’s ranch now, find his wife.” Looking back to Harley, his exquisite face almost had the cast of nobility when he said seriously, “You’ll look out after Miss Hudson.”

“Most assuredly.”

“I’m coming, too!” cried Zeke. “I can look for the paper you’re referring to. After all, paper is my job.”

“No,” said Neil. “You’re coming with me to Gentry’s ranch. If Katie Gentry is going to be sobbing all over me, as I reckon she will, I’m going to need someone more familiar with female emotional turbulence.”

“I? But I’ve never been married,” Zeke protested.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Neil said darkly.

So they parted ways, Ivy glad that she was at last alone with the accomplished British traveler. Not only was she able to take his solid, substantial arm and parade down Thornburgh, but a heat emanated from him that made her feel assured and confident in some odd way. That was it—she felt
protected
. The serious mountain man rifle slung across his back, the strength in his swagger, the livid, deep scar across his cheekbone—all these things combined to melt Ivy into a particularly feminine puddle of frailty. Oddly enough, this alleged feminine weakness actually made her feel stronger than she had in years.

Exhilaration flowed through her veins as she strolled with the powerful adventurer.
What a day!
An hour ago she’d walked the opposite direction clutching the arm of a different man. She was becoming quite the bon vivant, if not something of a fresh judy! “So what is this photographic idea you have?”

“Well. It will sound odd, but there is some scientific basis for it. The idea has been floating about that if you can photograph the retina of a recently deceased person, the retina will function like the plate of a camera and display to you the image of the murderer.”

Ivy’s jaw hung so low she couldn’t even speak.

Harley continued, “Hear me out. If the pupil becomes hugely dilated at a moment of sheer fear, anger, shock, or other strong emotion, the concept is that the image of the last thing the victim sees remains fixed forever. Or for a short time after death, thus why it needs to be photographed to preserve the image.”

“But,” Ivy gasped at last. “What if the last thing he sees is—oh, I don’t know, say, the floor? Or the back of his own hand as he lies face down on that floor? Or the barrel of a gun?”

Harley shrugged. “Theoretically we’d get a photograph of the gun, at least. And the idea has gained enough footholds in society, at least in some shady underworlds, that some murderers have resorted to gouging out the eyes of their victims.”

If Harley expected her to cringe in shock, then he was in for a surprise. “This sounds like that spirit photography I’ve heard about. Some photographers have been able to capture images of the dearly departed standing behind a subject. Of course, the ones I’ve seen mostly look like a photograph of the departed glued to a stick that someone is holding up. Completely ridiculous.”

“I’d like to try my hand at that as well!” Harley cried enthusiastically. “If it’s true that your beloved Neil is a conductor, a medium, if you will, then we might be able to get some interesting results.”

“Oh, he’s not my ‘beloved.’ I only just arrived, as you know. I barely know the man.”

“Really? You seem to have such camaraderie, such an emotional connection. That’s just my observation, of course. And the fact that he’s adamantly and hotly competing with me for your hand.”

At this, Ivy did cringe. “What gives you the idea he wants my hand?”

“My dear.” Harley patted her hand. “I’ve made a study of the mating rituals of humankind—a sort of amateur ‘sexologist,’ if you will. And the way that fellow took such a rabid and instant dislike to me tells me that I’m a vast threat to him.”

Did Harley insinuate that he, too, was fighting for her hand? Ivy had never been in such an enviable and yet terrifying predicament. She decided to play coy. “Perhaps he took an instant dislike to you because you were accusing him of being an escaped convict.”

“No. He already loathed me the moment he laid eyes on me.”

Ivy said flippantly, “Perhaps it’s that sort of loathing that also contains love. Perhaps he sees qualities in you that he wishes he possessed.”

They were approaching the front steps of Vancouver House now, so Ivy had to release Harley’s arm. He said thoughtfully, “Intriguing concept. Masculine competition that also contains love…”

“Father’s carriage is gone,” Ivy said as a maid let them in the front door. She skirted around the many trunks that evidently contained Harley’s surveying and photographic equipment.

“He left you this,” the maid said, handing Ivy a note.

Ivy unfolded it.

My Dear Daughter,

I must go back to Sherman Summit to see about a situation. These Irish tracklayers are always causing incidents. Please help make Captain Park at home. Tell him to check on the water line for the roundhouse.

Love, Father

P.S. I will wire Liberty and tell her you are returning home.

P.P.S. There is no more honey to be had anywhere in town. If you see any, please purchase it for me.

“All of it” was inserted after the word “purchase,” using an arrow.

“Honey!” Ivy cried, exasperated.

“Excuse me?” Harley looked up from unscrewing a lens of some sort. A case open before him contained many mechanical parts that probably all fit together in some way.

Ivy sighed. If she was to continue learning the telegraph, she should learn all of this equipment as well. “No, I wasn’t cussing. He just wants honey. He’s gone back to Sherman Summit, so you won’t meet him today. I’m filthy, and I don’t even know where my bedroom is.”

“I should like to know that as well,” said Harley, looking back to his lens. “That bathtub Neil mentioned sounds intriguing.”

And, perhaps Ivy’s biggest shock in a thoroughly shocking day, Harley uttered some flowery sentences in a language presumably Spanish directed at the black-haired maid.

The maid seemed pleased by his commands or requests and immediately scurried off. That was how Ivy got her very first, and most luxurious, bath in Dakota Territory.

Harland Park eased into the tub of steaming water.

Of course, being a gentleman, he’d allowed Ivy Hudson to bathe first. So it had taken a couple hours for Guadalupe to fill not one but two tubs of water. She’d even thrown some rosemary sprigs and rosewater into the bath for Harley, as she’d apparently taken a special liking to him as one of the few people who’d bothered learning Spanish.

Now Harley gripped his cock in his powerful fist. He’d been looking forward to a good frigging for hours—no, days. Apparently the peach pits and camphor didn’t have the desired effect of cooling down his ardor, and spending time close to the bountiful Miss Hudson didn’t help either. He drizzled sandalwood oil over the bulbous head of his cock and caressed it, his thighs spreading as he slid down into the heavenly scented water.

Harley was something of a master—or at least an enthusiastic student—of all things sexual. His overabundance of carnal urges had landed him in trouble more than once. It wasn’t seemly for a British army officer to be seen translating scintillating Arabian love manuals in his tent. So that had already raised the suspicion of his superiors when he’d been assigned to investigate Indian male brothels. There had been rumors that they were catering to British soldiers, and since Harley could speak Sindhi, could pass as a local in disguise, and was a sharp observer of mankind, his superior told him to infiltrate and report back.

Only, his report had been a bit
too
detailed. It had been quickly squelched, never seen again, and mysteriously Harley began to be bypassed for promotions that he was obviously overqualified for. When he’d been assigned to some backwater hellhole in West Africa, he’d quit in anger and come to America. He’d imagined Americans, with their forward-thinking frontier spirit, would be more aligned with his open-minded nature.

Harley once again thought about the assignment to the male brothel. There were many rumors afterward that he had participated in the inverted activities. He had, of course, but hadn’t written it from that point of view in his report. He had been eager and willing to play with the androgynes who populated that brothel. Since they didn’t recognize him as an army officer and he freely paid them in coin, he became quite a popular client.

“Harley?”

Ivy was whispering at the bathroom door! Stunned, Harley didn’t release his cock, but his free hand reached for a towel. “Yes, my dear?”

“May I come in? A messenger has come from Dale Creek Bridge with a telegram from my father. There’s some problem with some railroad ties. Some engineering difficulty. The messenger is waiting in the parlor for your answer.”

“Yes, come in.” As there was a silk dressing screen that already shaded the tub from sight—and Harley had absolutely no fear of being seen in the buff anyway—he let go of his grip on his prick and stood, streaming water down his limbs.

Ivy’s lantern glow lit up the rose-colored screen, and her silhouette moved silently into the room. She must’ve put her lamp on a table, for her form moved closer as he absentmindedly rubbed his torso with a towel. “Do you want to read the telegram aloud?”

Ivy did so. The slope of the riverbank appeared somewhat steeper than Harley’s drawings indicated, perhaps due to recent erosion.

“I have a pen,” said Ivy, apparently settling herself on a small bench.

Harley was in no great rush to dress—just the luxury of being naked ten feet away from a luscious, desirable woman like Ivy was enough to quell that idea. He had wanted to shave, but the basin and mirror were on her side of the screen, so he continued languidly toweling himself off as he dictated a response.

It wasn’t until he was halfway done dictating the telegram that he noticed with a pleasant shock that the lamp on his side of the screen was throwing a scintillating erotic shadow on the rose silk curtain. His erection had only deflated by about half in his pondering on the scaffolding problem, and now when he lifted his arm to towel off his underarm, its formidable shadow swayed heavily, like the shadow puppet of a fist holding an apple.

Ivy was particularly quiet, her pen scraping the paper. He almost imagined he could hear her breathing heavily. Unashamed, Harley turned this way and that to get a better angle, the silhouette of his entire form athletic and sculpted like a Dionysian marble statue. It stimulated him, too, the idea that Ivy was drinking in the vision from her side of the screen, so of course his prick erected again until it stood out at a right angle—a very fine form indeed.

He finished dictating his advice to Mr. Hudson, and Ivy scurried off. Harley now discovered that toweling off his chest caused his cock to bob alluringly in the air. What a lecher he was, basically displaying his nude body to this hapless gal who, for all he knew, was a virgin! And the daughter of his host, no less! Since she had run off from her fiancé before the wedding, chances were she’d never fucked the poor sap, and if she’d been caring for her ailing mother for the past ten years, perhaps she never
had
fucked a man.

He could very well be terrifying her with his prideful, vain display, so he was a bit relieved when the letter was finished and she left to hand it to the messenger. He must absolutely go back into town and “dab it up” with those prairie flowers, as Neil Tempest no doubt would say. Then thinking of Neil Tempest had his cock hardening once more, so he stepped into a pair of long, tight drawers and cinched his rebellious appendage up near his hip.

Good Lord!
There were hundreds of potent, robust Irishmen working the Hell on Wheels rails. He could easily ride out there and temporarily satisfy his overwhelming urges with a few quick bumfucks without terrorizing this poor woman with a silhouette of his enormous cock. Particularly after having just fled from an undesirable fiancé, she was probably much more interested in the exciting paranormal adventures apparently going on in town than in ogling his bull’s cock.