Betina Krahn (27 page)

“Oh?” She was anything but convinced.

“I’m going to sing your clothes off. Every blessed stitch.”

“You’re what?” She started to turn, but his grip on her shoulders prevented it. “Connor—”

“Shhh—just stand still.” He began to hum as he lowered his head to her shoulder and the vibration set her skin tingling where he touched it. By the time he reached the edge of her shoulder, he had indeed broken into a soft melody. “‘Women are angels witho-o-out any wings …’”

The song was an old Irish drinking song, to which Connor added words perfect for warming up a nervous suffragette. He unbuttoned her nightgown, phrase by phrase, and peeled it down one arm, singing softly into every inch of skin that was bared. He could feel her sharp breath and tiny quivers as he paused at her elbows. Then he sang her other shoulder free, and she caught the gown before it could fall past her breasts. When she refused to relinquish it, he gamely sang through the thin silk … kneeling to glide down the side of her hip … alternating kisses and melodic phrases that produced a nervous giggle.

“Hold still,” he ordered.

“It tickles.” She shivered massively. “And you’re off key.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

He looked up at her with narrowed eyes. “The music’s not the point here, darlin’.”

“I’ll say.” She realized she was staring at him over her half-bared breast and quickly crossed her arms over the pair, reddening. His expression softened.

“Do you have even the slightest notion of how lovely you are, Beatrice Von Furstenberg?”

She flushed and glanced away. “I’m not a beauty. I’m not even in the first bloom of …” She took a bracing breath. “Connor … I’m
thirty
years old.”

“Aged to perfection,” he said, sliding his hands up and down her silk-clad hips. “You’re a beautiful woman. Don’t you know that? There’s not a spot on your body that I’d not wish to kiss and feel grateful for the chance to do so.

“Look …” He rose, stepped behind her, and nudged
her toward the mirror. She resisted and tried to cover more of herself—or at least look away. He wouldn’t allow it. “Look at you, Bebe.” The sweet-talking Irishman was gone. This was pure Connor. The real Connor. “Look at us.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and smiled into their reflection. “Your strong shoulders and fine legs … hips just made for bearing. Look how my arms just fit around your waist and how your head just fits under my chin. This is the way men and women were meant to be. Together.” She turned in his arms and looked up at him with a tangle of emotions visible in her face. “Does that scare you?”

He could feel the hammering of her heart against his chest.

“Yes,” she whispered. “It scares me to death.”

He smiled ruefully.

“I’ll confess, it scares me, too. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that fear and love cannot abide in the same place at the same time. And if I have to choose, I’ll take love.” He ran his hand up her back to cradle her head. His eyes were dark with a need that just now seemed far more than physical. “Love me, Bebe. And let me love you.”

Love me.

Sparks ignited in her eyes and her arms came up around his neck to pull his head down. She claimed his lips with all the joy and passion she possessed, and in that enthusiastic and increasingly steamy kiss, both her gown and the last of her inhibitions melted away. She raised his undershirt, unbuttoned his trousers, and as he shrugged out of his remaining garments, she replaced them with warming kisses and exploring hands. Both were now trembling with eagerness, hungry for sensation and experience.

Desire, banked since they reached the room, now ignited between them. Somehow they made it to the bed and sank down into a feather ticking covered by fresh sheets. Their bodies blended naturally shapes molding together, limbs shifting, bodies seeking more intimate contact. She parted her thighs and he fitted himself against her, arching his back, rubbing, caressing her with every part of his body.

When he joined their bodies, it seemed paradoxically the most natural and the most remarkable thing that had ever happened to Bebe. She welcomed him, wrapped her legs around him, reveling in the heat and fullness inside her, in his power and in her possession of him. As he moved within her, she felt herself climbing a tightening spiral of response, approaching the purest limits of human sensation.

Their bodies grew damp and feverish, their breath came hard and fast as they strained together, clinging hard to each other, as if they could by force of will merge into one flesh. Then suddenly the bright, brittle limits of arousal shattered within them, freeing them from their individual boundaries.

She lay beneath him afterward, weak with surrender, open in ways she had never imagined possible. Aftershocks of pleasure shivered through her, and he showered brief kisses on her damp face and down her chest as he slid to the bed and curled protectively around her. When she turned her head to look at him, he was blurred by tears. She had no idea why she was crying, except that she was overwhelmed, and grateful beyond words to be in Connor Barrow’s bed and in some part of Connor Barrow’s heart.

He soothed and stroked her cooling body, nuzzled and kissed her as if memorizing her with each of his senses.
And when her tears dried, she looked up to find his eyes glistening strangely. It was that beautiful expression, that acknowledgment of wonder and connection that filled her mind as her eyes closed. Then, just as she drifted to sleep she heard him confess:

“You may as well know … I’m thirty-
two
.”

CONNOR’S BREATHING WAS
slow and deep. Trying not to awaken him, Bebe slid gingerly from under his arm, peeled her body from his, and slid toward the edge of the bed. Alice was undoubtedly wondering what had happened to her.

Climbing from the bed, she located her gown, robe, and slippers and shivered her way into them. Then she came to the edge of the bed and stood for a moment watching him sleep. He was so gentle, so careful of her, and so sure about the rightness of their loving. He had made it so easy for her to open herself to him, to forget who and what she was and lose herself in the passion he stirred within her. She was tempted to drop a kiss on his ear, but he shifted in his sleep and she refrained. If he awakened, she wouldn’t be able to leave him.

She slipped out the door and down the hall to her own room. There, she found the door unlocked and Alice sitting in a chair facing it … fully dressed, sound asleep, and holding tightly the stout parasol she sometimes carried for self-defense.

Bebe gently awakened her and suggested she climb into bed instead of passing the night in the chair. Alice was too sleepy to do anything but comply. Bebe heaved a huge sigh of relief as she snuggled under the covers. Her secret rendezvous with Connor was still secret.

The next morning, however, Alice was tired, uncharacteristically cross, and clearly suspicious of Bebe’s explanation for coming in late. And when Connor joined them at breakfast in the hotel dining room, Alice watched with a discerning eye as he gallantly kissed Bebe’s hand and she blushed.

Bebe told herself she didn’t care what Alice thought. But it wasn’t true. And as they headed for the banking department and the committee meeting, she felt pulled between the propriety and camaraderie she shared with Alice, and the passion and intimacy she had shared with Connor. By the time they reached the meeting chamber, she was beginning to feel guilty that she had thought so little about her purpose in coming to Albany.

Then she glanced up at Connor, who slipped her a sly wink as they settled into seats in the committee chamber, and felt a refreshing release of tension. Whatever happened today, she understood with a knowing deeper than logic, that what had happened last night was indeed a gift of love for both of them.

“
WE WENT OVER
this proposal,” one of the committee members announced, beginning the morning’s proceedings, “and one thing puzzles us. Several places refer to a policy of making loans to
all
customers. Surely you can’t mean that. You can’t expect to go about giving loans to just anybody.”

“Anyone who qualifies,” she answered. “We intend to see to it that loans are available equally to men and women, based solely on their ability to repay.”

“Did you say women?” Hurst sat forward, glowering at her. “You intend to loan money to
women
?”

Connor’s hand tightening on her arm beneath the table reminded her of yesterday’s warning that she avoid talking about her stand on women’s rights. She glanced at him and his expression was taut with caution.

She gave the committee her most confident smile, but not one of their stony faces cracked with a response.

“If they qualify for loans, certainly,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we take advantage of every possible source of revenue?”

“There are a number of banks that have made loans successfully to women customers,” Connor put in.

“With their husbands’ signatures,” Hurst said, eyeing Beatrice. “But I get the feeling that’s not what you mean here. Am I right?”

“Once again, Mr. Barrow, you show an admirable grasp of nuance,” she responded. “We will not require husbands’ signatures. Women’s applications will be considered the same as men’s, on their own merit and ability to repay. The interest charged also will be the same, depending on the size of the loan.”

“Then who will vouchsafe these loans?” another of the committee members demanded. “You’ve got to have cosigners. Women must have someone sign for them.”

“We will certainly reserve the right to ask for collateral and cosigning,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “for any loan we feel needs guaranteeing.”

“That implies you intend to loan money to women
without
a husband’s signature,” Hurst declared.

“Some women, myself included, have no husbands.” She smiled tightly. “And some of us ‘husbandless’ women have thriving business and will make good any loan we contract for … just as a man would do in the world of commerce.”

That statement caused frowning and muttering amongst the committee. She felt her stomach knotting as Hurst Barrow leveled a dour look at her.

“You’re one of those women’s rights-ers, aren’t you?” he said with deepening conviction. “Should have seen it straight off. It would have saved us all a helluva lot of time.” He tossed the proposal from the table with open disgust, and transferred his glare to the other applicants in attendance. “Next!”

“Oh, no!” Connor shot to his feet. In one movement, he scooped the proposal off the floor, jumped onto the dais, and slammed the document down in front of his grandfather … pinning it to the table with his fist.

“What the devil do you th—” The old man started to inflate with outrage.

“You’re going to pass this proposal and recommend a charter. And you’re going to do it today,” Connor declared. “This is a damned fine proposal … for a bank that’s damn well funded and will be damn well run. It will be a credit to the state of New York, and you know it. It doesn’t matter what she thinks about women—or what you think about me—or even what I think about you and your high-handed, controlling ways.” He flung a finger back toward Beatrice. “She and Consolidated deserve a charter for this bank—and you’re damn well going to give them one.”

“Or what?” Hurst pushed his chair back and rocked to his feet.

“There is no ‘or what.’ You’re just going to do it.”

They stood face-to-face across the table, each filled with old hurts and old grudges, each grappling for the upper hand in a battle that had been joined two decades before. The intensity of the moment recalled a similar
conflict, ten years earlier, regarding Hurst’s opinion of another woman.…

“It’s obvious … she’s planning to use this bank to—” the old man blustered.

“Make money,” Connor finished for him, “like any other banker. Just because she has a conscience and a heart doesn’t mean she’s a fool.”

“Making unsponsored loans to women—what’s that, if not foolish?”

“Canny. Insightful. Forward thinking. Courageous. Determined. Compassionate. Anything
but
foolish. She has the best head for business old Mercer Von Furstenberg had ever seen,” Connor continued, his voice hoarse with compressed emotion. “She wasn’t just his wife, she was his student, his protégé. Why do you think he left a total of twelve companies in her hands?”

Hurst trembled as he glared at his grandson, then at the woman for whom his grandson was willing to do battle with him. After a pause, he planted his hands on the table and shoved to his feet. But even standing, he was not tall enough to look his grandson straight in the eye. Scarcely a breath was taken in the room as he pulled his gaze from Connor and looked at his stunned fellow committee members.

“Do what you have to do,” Hurst snarled at them. “You already know what my vote is.”

Then he made his way to the side door. It was a moment before the click of the latch registered and there was a collective exhalation of tension.

Connor snared the gaze of each remaining committee member, leaving no doubt that what he had just said to his grandfather was meant for them as well. Then he retreated from the dais to his chair beside Beatrice, feeling charged and coiled inside like a watch spring. All he
could think was that the old man had withdrawn. He looked at Bebe with his questions in his eyes. What did it mean? Hurst’s vote, it seemed, had already been cast. Was the decision already made?

The four remaining committee members turned aside to confer in heated tones. More than one member turned away in exasperation, then came back to the group for more glowering, snapping, and pointing.

Beatrice looked at Connor. From his grave expression and the shake of his head, she gathered that he had no more idea of what was happening than she did. Alice was pale as she reached for Beatrice’s hand and squeezed it. There was nothing to do but wait.

In those never-ending minutes, Beatrice kept hearing Connor’s description of her echoing in her head … canny, determined, courageous, and compassionate. Was that truly what he thought of her? Was that what she was?