Lions and Lace (31 page)

"How did he make all his money?"

"He'd read in the
Chronicle
about the huge profits in Manhattan land. He persuaded a gentleman who bought the paper from him every day to buy a tract of land—they
would split the profits when they sold it. It brought a handsome sum, enough that he could buy his own land. He did this again and again until he had enough to tackle Wall Street."

"But you have to be invited into the exchange. I've never understood how they let him in."

"He sold stock in front of the exchange at one penny less than they were selling it in the exchange. When they found out about that, they were only too glad to admit him." He smiled at her. "And the rest, as they say, is history."

Alana took a deep breath, unable to get her mind off the man upstairs in his bedroom. Perhaps Trevor was in pain tonight. Perhaps his foul mood was due to his wound bothering him. The thought tugged at her heart. She felt as if she understood him better now. And suddenly she wanted very much to see him. "Is there anything that can help him when he gets sore?" she asked.

"He's never told me about it if there is."

"I had a grandfather with gout. He swore by horse liniment. Has Trevor ever tried that?"

Eagan laughed. "I'd love to see the woman who could put horse liniment on my brother."

Challenged, she smiled and tugged on the bell pull. When Whittaker arrived, she said, "Whittaker, tell the boys in the stable to bring in a bottle of horse liniment. And see that it's sent directly to my room."

"Yes, madam."
Whittaker bowed, rolling his eyes only after he'd turned to go.

She faced Eagan and took his hands in hers. "I've wanted to say this for a few days now. Thank you for being on my side. I want you to know that I'll always consider you a friend, even if you aren't always my brother-in-law."

Eagan stared at her and said wickedly, "Perhaps you should have been my wife, Alana. I really think I'd mend my ways for a woman like you."

"There's a magnificent girl for you. Just you wait and see."

He nodded, staring into his empty glass. In a falsely light tone he murmured, "Well, until then I guess
it's
back to the Hoffman House for me."

For such a hell-raiser, he suddenly looked so unhappy, Alana couldn't help herself. She kissed him full on the lips and left the room, shocking him absolutely sober.

Once upstairs, Alana was relieved to find the lights still turned up in Trevor's room. She paused in front of his doors holding the black-glass bottle of liniment and gathered her courage. This was definitely confronting the lion in his den. But what was becoming more and more clear to her was that she wanted this marriage. She had spoken the vows, and she had begun to understand the man, and both compelled her to go forward. The circumstances between her and Trevor were difficult, but could they not change? Of course they could, if one of them chose to change them. With that thought driving her, she lifted her hand and knocked.

"What is it?"
came
the severe response.

She nearly jumped. She'd forgotten how ominous his voice could be. "It's Alana. I—" she took a sustaining breath, "I saw the lights on and thought you might be . . . uncomfortable. My grandfather used to say horse liniment helped his joints. I . . . I brought you some."

"I'm not your grandfather," he answered in a terse tone.

His words stung. She knew he was in a foul temper, but somehow she expected something different.

Crushed, she answered huskily, "No, you're my husband."

The only thing left to do was leave, but for some reason she stayed, if only to listen to the brooding silence that emanated from beyond those mahogany doors.

There was a long pause. It didn't seem possible that he could have heard her reply, but out of the blue the commandment came down. "You may come in."

Her hand shook as she twisted the doorknob. Still in her evening gown, she had to pull away her lavender train before she could shut the door behind her. As expected, he was lying in his bed. What was not expected was the rush of warmth in her belly when she saw that he lay there nude except for the sheet low on his hips.

"Here it is," she announced in a trembling voice, and held the black bottle up to him. She had to bring it to him, but she wondered if she could manage that when her feet suddenly felt like lead.

"What makes you think
that
will help?" he demanded, giving her a wary look that spoke plainly his distrust of the liniment, but mostly his distrust of her.

"Eagan told me about your—" She had wanted to say
accident,
but that wasn't the right word.

Before she found one, he said sarcastically, "You mean my 'wound'?"

"Yes."

"And did he tell you precisely how I got this wound?"

"Yes."

"And it doesn't repulse you?
You, with your fine manners and delicate sensibilities?"

"Even I've had ugliness in my life." Her voice lowered, "Even I've had to do desperate things."

He was silent for a moment. His eyes flickered to the bottle in her hand, then slowly up her bodice to her face. Cautiously, painfully, he leaned back. "Bring me that thing."

Like an obedient child, she stepped to the bed. It wasn't a warm night, but she was suddenly hot. Her light taffeta gown clung to her like a blanket, and every step toward him seemed difficult and slow. The sight of him lying supine on the bed, his well-muscled, black-haired chest rising and falling with the pagan beat of his breath, made her almost light-headed. His skin was erotically golden, bathed in the glow of the gasolier. And then there were his eyes, eyes that glittered with promise and damnation. They turned her fear into a strange thrill. Prudently, she put the liniment on his night table and retreated.

He rolled over on his side, away from her. Without another glance, he said, "You'll have to rub it in. I can't reach behind me."

She was glad he had turned away so that he couldn't see the blood draining from her face. A wild urge to flee shot through her veins. But a stronger urge to stay made her pick up the black bottle. "Where . . . ?" Her mouth was so
dry,
she couldn't form the rest of her question.

"Here." He pulled down the sheet, leaving it to barely cover his left buttock.

In the ever-changing light of the flickering gasolier, she saw the scar. It was pink, the size of a New York copper penny and just to the right of his hip. It wasn't gruesome at all. In fact, if she hadn't known to look for it, she might not have seen it. Suddenly feeling
more brave
, she uncorked the bottle and placed a small amount in her hand.

"Christ, that smells," he growled.

She looked in the mirror over his bureau and saw his reflection. A grimace covered his face, and she suddenly knew how much it took for him to endure her helping him. He begrudgingly welcomed relief for his physical aches, but when he met her eyes in the looking glass, she wondered if he, like her, had other aches that needed soothing.

"Do it."

She nodded, glancing away, embarrassed.

Gathering her courage, she stepped closer to him and placed her hands on his hip. He was warm, like the first step into a bath, and hard, so hard she couldn't believe he was made of the same flesh she was. Her thumb rubbed over the scar. She thought she might feel the bullet beneath his skin, but she caressed nothing but bone and tight-woven muscle.

Feeling braver, she began to rub with more force. She looked in the mirror and saw he'd closed his eyes. The lines on his cheeks deepened as if he were feeling great pleasure. Wanting to increase it, she sat on the edge of the mattress to attain a better angle. The liniment burned like turpentine in her nostrils, but she ignored it and kept rubbing. Her hands appeared small against him. His frame took the entire length of the bed; his shoulders, even as he lay on his side, were massive. She kept rubbing.

Her eyes wandered up and down his body, unused to being so close to a naked man. The sight of him sent a tingle down her spine. Touching him was like caressing a lion. She was frightened, but the delight at being allowed such intimacy with such an awe-inspiring creature was beyond anything she'd felt before. As her palms kneaded his hard body, she had to fight the urge to let them wander. She wanted to pinch the skin of his belly and see if that grid of muscle was as taut as it looked. She wanted to discover how that dark hair sprinkled across his chest felt in her fingers. And she wanted to let her thumb move down his chest before that enticing black hair disappeared in the sheet at his hips.

Still she
rubbed,
her mind on every inch of him, her hands on only his hip. She kneaded back and forth with all the strength she could muster until her arms grew weary and a fine perspiration glistened on her brow. She longed to change position, but to do that would require forging new territory on his body, and she instinctively knew that to be dangerous. So it was her thoughts that danced upon his back rippling with smooth skin and knotted muscle, and stroked down his legs, which she knew from the transparency of the thin
sheet
were hairy, long, and substantial. But her hands stayed where they were until she chanced another look into that mirror.

He stared at her like predator at prey. With hard, desirous, unflinching eyes, his gaze stopped her breath. She still wore her evening gown, and while she had thought the décolletage appropriate for the theater, it was not for this kind of activity. Whenever she moved her hands, the shadow of cleavage, modest in one position, became a deep, alluring valley in another. His eyes were riveted to that valley made even more seductive by its ever-changing geography, until they rose slowly to her face.

The shock of his stare made her hands go limp. One came to rest on his hip, and the other fell forward on his belly. His gaze captured hers, suspending time and blocking her senses to anything that wasn't him. His earthy smell mingled with the liniment, his hard male body became even harder with every second she looked at him.

If he had never moved, she might not have become conscious of what was happening, but he pinned her hand against his stomach, and that jolted her into reality. She suddenly felt what had not been there before. Though not well acquainted with the mechanics of a man's body, she still knew exactly what that hardness that was now against the side of her palm meant, and she was horrified.

But he didn't give her another moment to think. She turned shocked eyes upon him just as he put his other hand around the back of her neck.
He
pulled her down to him, kissing her parted lips with an ease she never expected from this distant man. His response was hot, urgent, ready, and briefly the thought flitted through her mind—
He's practiced with Daisy
—but the words were banished the second his tongue licked like a flame into her mouth.

A fire rose in her loins with his every thrust. Reason told her to pull away, to slow things down, but unable to help herself, she allowed his hand to slide down her bodice and pull away the mist of lavender netting at her neckline. The tiny mother-of-pearl buttons that streamed down the front of her bodice were next, and he broke away from her mouth to concentrate on releasing them. Panting, she looked down and saw the tangled sheet that had once covered him lying in a heap on the floor. He was naked below her, and though her knee rode between his thighs, hiding his maleness, his hand still pressed her own against it in a manacled embrace.

She pulled away, beginning to panic, but he wouldn't let her. He again forced her mouth to his, tightening the grip on her hand until she couldn't bear it. "Please," she whispered, ripping her lips away. His male flesh burned against her until she felt she was being branded. She couldn't look at him.

"If not for this, why did you come here?" he rasped, obviously angered that she wouldn't meet his gaze, his breath coming hard and fast.

"I—I don't know," she nearly sobbed, the truth of her words overwhelming her.

"I'm not made of stone." He jerked her hand against his shaft,
then
repeated his words very carefully, ominously. "I am
not
made of stone."

"I know," she cried, confusion, shame, and longing warring within her.

He stared at her, and something, perhaps the worry in her ice-green eyes, moved him. Abruptly he let go of her hand, and she scrambled back, almost falling. She turned to the door, her hand holding her sobs at bay, desperate to look back at him, but she knew he lay naked behind her. And she knew he watched her, betrayal and frustration etched on those fine Irish features.