My Darling Gunslinger (20 page)

“Are you afraid of me?” His words were slow and hesitant, his voice a rusty whisper.

“Don’t be—“ she stopped and drew in a ragged breath.

“Ridiculous,” he finished for her with a shake of his head.

“You aren’t,” she hurried to reply, her fingers fluttering in agitation. “Ridiculous, I mean. It is a vulgar colloquialism I appropriated from somewhere, one I am endeavoring to relinquish for I do recognize it is offensive and insensitive.”

Ty stepped out from behind the chair and approached the settee, slowly and carefully, as if inching along toward a steep cliff.

Or a wild animal, poised to fight or flee.

When Charlotte did neither, he took a seat at the farthest end, his legs spread and his elbows resting on his knees. He ran a hand over his jaw and she remembered the feel of his whiskers against her fingers, both soft and rough. The memory unsettled her, tightened her chest and burned behind her eyes.

“I’m no good at this,” Ty said with a quick glance at her before staring down between his feet. “I reckon it’s like swimming.”

Charlotte wasn’t certain what he meant by the words but her heart gave a little skip all the same. In that moment, Ty seemed more a lost and confused little boy than a confident, powerful man who’d made his way in the world by his gun and his wits.

“That wasn’t much of a simile,” he went on, the corner of his lip curling in something like a grimace. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is a person never learns to swim if there’s no pond or river nearby. Nobody’s ever expected me to be better than I am, so I’ve never felt the need to apologize for anything I’ve done. And now I’m drowning.”

“You needn’t apologize to me,” she whispered, reaching across the space separating them only to allow her hand to fall to the soft velvet only inches from his hip. “You were correct in your assessment, after all.”

“No, Charlotte.” Ty’s head whipped around, his eyes dark and ferocious beneath the brim of his hat.

“There is nothing I will not do to protect Sebastian,” she said, holding his gaze, wanting him to understand she did not hold him accountable for what had transpired between them in the cramped little study. “If I must go down on my knees before you and every man I encounter between Chicago and London, I will do so without a moment’s hesitation.”

“Damn it,” he barked, reaching out to clasp her hand tight.

“You told me a smart whore bargains first and fucks second,” she continued, ignoring the fury in his eyes and the crushing grip of his fingers. “As you have rejected my offer of coin and my quarter of the Zeppelin out of hand, I haven’t anything but my body with which to bargain. Although, I suppose if we are to marry—“

“There is no supposing about it,” he growled.

“An interim marriage does seem to be the most logical strategy, propriety being what it is,” she agreed. “Then I suppose, as your wife, I haven’t even my body to offer up in trade, as it will belong to you to do with as you will.”

Her words hung in the air between them, startling Charlotte with their truth before settling over her, bringing an odd sort of comfort mingled with heady anticipation.

“Christ, do you think I would force you?” Ty dropped her hand and jumped to his feet to stride across the railcar to the window. He braced his hands on the wall and leaned forward, the brim of his hat knocking against the glass and falling to the floor.

“There would be no question of force,” Charlotte replied in confusion. “It is a wife’s duty to acquiesce to her husband’s demands.”

“Acquiesce,” Ty repeated, his voice was little more than a whisper as he pressed his forehead to the window.

“Submit,” Charlotte translated, her lips trembling as she was swamped with regret for all she’d lost with her half-truths and omissions. Why, oh why hadn’t she told him the truth rather than let him find out when it was too late to salvage the affection and tenderness that had been blooming between them?

“I wish I could relive that night,” Ty said. “I wish I could go back and unsay all of it, undo all the wrongs, somehow make it come out right.”

“Me, too.” Charlotte could get only the two words past the lump in her throat.

“Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which fills faster,” he murmured. “I don’t suppose your mother ever told you that one?”

“My mother wasn’t one for doling out such pearls of wisdom,” she replied. “But Nanny Bettelheim once told me what cannot be changed must be embraced. Or perhaps she said endured.”

“Do you think you might be able to endure being married to a man like me?” Ty turned away from the window, away from the vista of half-formed buildings soaring to the sky. “‘Cause the only way I can think to make it right is to kill that bastard for you.”

As marriage proposals went, it was certainly the oddest she’d ever heard.

Were marriages so well-thought out as weddings, the world would be full of happy unions.

Nanny Bettelheim

Once, nearly a decade back, Ty had snuck into a church during a wedding. He’d been in pursuit of an outlaw and the bounty on his head. Tobias Mulroney had robbed seven banks in three states, running down an elderly man with his horse after the last and final hold-up.

No sooner had Mulroney vowed to cherish his pretty little dark-haired bride, than Ty had stepped out of the shadows at the back of the small, weathered wood church. With no gun within reach and nowhere to run, the outlaw had given up with nary a protest, allowing the bounty hunter to haul him from San Antonio to Kansas City and the hangman’s noose that awaited him.

“I can’t hardly remember the words the preacher said,” Mulroney had repeated over and over during the long journey. “But damned if I don’t remember the feel of Maryellen’s hand in mine and the smile on her face.”

Tyler Morgan hadn’t given much thought to the man’s words in all the years that had passed between his first visit to God’s house and his second.

The church in Chicago was large, the aisle bisecting dozens of rows of polished wood pews. Colored light streamed through painted glass windows, falling softly on the bald head of the preacher standing behind an ornately carved pulpit.

And damned if the preacher’s voice didn’t sound as if it were traveling through a tunnel before rushing right by to echo off the gray stone walls. Ty couldn’t grasp but one word in seven, and most of those he would have to look up in his dictionary later.

Sanctify

Divinity.

Consecrate.

Ty curled his bare fingers around Charlotte’s gloved hand, felt the delicacy and warmth, the strength that could not be measured by force, but by the care with which she touched those around her. His gaze drifted to her profile, washed in golden light, still and serene as she looked at the preacher, and he wondered if she felt the same odd sense the ceremony was happening from a great distance, that they were but two spectators watching from afar.

Love.

Honor.

Cherish.

Eternity.

Ty knew the meaning of the words even if he’d never imagined they would ever apply to him. Yet here he stood, next to a lady whose beauty and courage were boundless, a woman he’d wronged in ways too numerous to count.

As the preacher rambled on and on about promises and God’s mercy and a union no man could tear asunder, Ty silently made his vows.

To protect Charlotte and Sebastian while he went about killing Frederick Grenville, releasing both mother and son from the horror and fear that had dogged them, mile after mile and year after year.

To atone for the wrongs he’d done Charlotte, to erase the shadows in her eyes and the pinched look hovering at the corners of her lips.

To love, honor and cherish his bride so well words like acquiesce and interim no longer had any place in her convoluted vocabulary.

Ty’s voice was hoarse in his ears as he repeated the vows printed in the Bible and spoken by rote by the preacher. He could not help the flex of his fingers on Charlotte’s, the gentle tug pulling their joined hands close, when her voice rose, clear and musical, above the clamor of his heart.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.” The preacher’s words—the first full sentence Ty had truly heard throughout the entire ceremony—brought a confusing swell of joy and fear, comfort and panic. He floundered for a moment, suddenly unsure of himself in a way he hadn’t been since he’d lit out of the brothel after burying his mother in a tiny churchyard on the edge of town.

“You may kiss the bride,” the preacher said, chuckling when Ty only stood staring mutely at him. “Go on. It is permissible to kiss your wife in God’s house on the day of your wedding.”

Still he could not move, could not even manage to turn to face the woman who waited silently beside him. How the hell was he going to convince her to love him, to stay with him, to make their marriage a real one?

The preacher leaned over the pulpit, his bald head falling into a soft beam of light. “Best to begin as you mean to go on, son.”

“I rather think we are beginning as we mean to go on, Reverend Bloom,” Charlotte said, pulling her fingers from Ty’s grip and turning away. “We aren’t… That is… We haven’t that sort of marriage.”

It occurred to Ty that if he continued to stand there wishing for the impossible, Charlotte’s words would become truth. They wouldn’t have the sort of marriage that allowed a man to kiss his wife in church or any other place he had a mind to kiss her. Hell, they wouldn’t have a marriage at all.

With the lightning quick reflexes that had saved his hide time and again, Ty wrapped one hand around Charlotte’s arm and spun her back around. She stumbled, both hands coming up to press against his chest, her head lifting to reveal a pale face dominated by wide blue eyes and a soft pink mouth open in an “O” of surprise.

Ty swooped down, capturing her lips and taking advantage of her surprise to thrust his tongue deep, begging silently for the sort of marriage he’d never even bothered to dream of, so far out of his grasp had it seemed.

Charlotte went rigid in his arms, her fingers spreading across his chest as if to push him away.

Ty reined in his swirling emotions, battled back his fear and desperation.

Best to begin as you mean to go on.

Carefully wrapping his arms around her slender back, one hand firm on her spine, the other trailing up to her neck, Ty set out to remind Charlotte how it had been between them that afternoon in the Pleasure Palace. Not the frantic, almost violent coupling against the wall, but the slow and gentle lovemaking that had followed. He sifted his fingers through the fine, downy curls at her nape, caressed the soft skin, before cradling her head in his hand.

Gentling his possession of her mouth, he eased back to nibble her bottom lip, to stroke his tongue softly from one corner to the other, before dipping inside once more. With slow, shallow forays into her honeyed warmth, he kept the kiss light and easy while he waited for some sign of welcome from his bride.

Finally, finally, Charlotte joined her lips to his, her tongue gliding over and around his in a decadent swirl that nearly brought Ty to his knees.

And instead of reminding her how it had been between them that day in the sun-washed railcar, Charlotte reminded Ty how it had been the evening before, reminded him that everything he knew of kissing he’d learned the first time his lips had touched hers.

Fingers clutched his coat, pulling him closer as she rose onto her toes to meet the next sweep of his tongue. A soft hum of pleasure drifted from her lips to his. He answered with a low groan that had no place in a church. And still they kissed, lips fusing and tongues tangling.

It wasn’t until Ty felt the silk of Charlotte’s gloved fingers coasting along his jaw that he broke the kiss. He could not bring himself to let her go, so he leaned his forehead against hers, taking the soft huff of breath she let out deep into his lungs.

“Christ, I could kiss you for hours,” he whispered for her ears alone. “From now until forever.”

Another huff of breath, this one laced with laughter, met his proclamation and Ty smiled as he tucked her hand through his arm and turned her to accept the congratulations of their wedding guests.

***

Charlotte couldn’t remember a single word of the ceremony. In truth, she could remember nothing beyond the kiss they’d shared before God, Reverend Bloom and her family.

Peeling her gloves from her hands, she watched her groom, her husband sprawl out on the carriage seat opposite. He pulled his hat down low, crossed his arms over his chest, and stretched out his long legs until the tips of his boots brushed the ruffled hem of the lavender silk gown she’d chosen for their wedding.

What had Ty meant by such a kiss?

She’d expected a kiss to seal their wedding vows, had been secretly anticipating the moment their lips touched again. So it had been truly mortifying, not to mention disheartening, when he stood as still as a statue, refusing to so much as look at her, let alone kiss her.

When he’d grabbed her and plastered his lips to hers, giving her a brutal, punishing assault that hadn’t the least thing in common with the kisses they’d previously shared, she hadn’t been terribly surprised.

Best to begin as you mean to go on.

Only it seemed as if Ty did not mean to go on in the same manner with which he’d begun. Instead he’d kissed her as reverently as the first time, reminding her with a bittersweet sorrow of all she had lost and all she would miss in this temporary marriage they’d forged from desire and death.

What did Ty mean by such a kiss? She simply could not puzzle it out.

“I’m not going to leap on you the second we’re alone.” Ty’s lips barely moved as he tossed the words into the silence of the carriage.

“I did not suppose for a moment you would,” Charlotte replied primly.

“You looked as if you expected me to pounce on you.”

“I can assure you I expect no such thing.”

“No?” he asked doubtfully.

“No,” she answered, tossing her gloves to the seat beside her.

“So long as we understand each other.”

“We certainly do,” she retorted, unaccountably irritated by his words, by his hat, by the heat that swept over her at the sound of his deep voice.

“Good.”

“Perfect.”

Ty settled deeper into the seat and crossed his ankles as if he were entirely unaffected by both their wedding and that…that darned kiss.

“What did you mean by that kiss?” The words flew from Charlotte’s mouth without premeditation.

“Mean by it?”

“Yes, what did you mean kissing me that way?”

“What way was that?” He pulled his hat so low the brim rested on the bridge of his nose.

“As if…as if…” Charlotte stammered, irritation giving way to fury until she had to fight the urge to leap across the space between the seats, pluck his hat off his head and toss it out the window. “I realize you were raised in a house of ill-repute, but surely you are aware it is both discourteous and impolite to wear a hat while traveling in a closed carriage with a lady.”

Ty’s lips twitched. “But not in an open carriage? How about in a closed carriage with a hurly-burly girl?”

“A hurly-burly girl?”

“A loose lass, a wanton wench, a light-heeled hoyden.”

“Kindly remove your hat, if you please.” Charlotte couldn’t remember how or why she’d started down this ridiculous path, but somehow it seemed imperative she finish what she’d begun.

“I don’t please.”

“You are without a doubt the most obstinate, exasperating, audacious man I have ever encountered.”

“Obstinate I know, exasperating, too. But you lost me with audacious.”

“Insolent. Impudent. Rude.”

“Audacious,” he replied as if relishing the word.

“Why?” she cried, flinging her hands in the air. Not that he could see the less than well-mannered gesture with his hat over his eyes. “Just tell me why.”

“I suppose I was born that way.”

“No, why did you kiss me as if…as if…” Charlotte couldn’t think how to put that kiss into words without sounding like a naïve ninny.

“You were begging for it.”

It took her a moment to comprehend Ty’s words and when she did she launched herself across the carriage and onto his lap. She had his hat in her hand before he could do more than utter a soft grunt at the sudden weight of an enraged woman landing across his thighs amid a tangle of lavender skirts and starched petticoats.

“What the hell?” His question was accompanied by a gruff laugh as he reached for his hat.

Charlotte squirmed around, her shoulder catching Ty’s chin as she tossed the battered black hat straight out the window.

Ty’s hands fell to her hips, his fingers gripping tight and pulling her back to rest against his chest. His breath teased the curls falling around her ear as he leaned down to whisper, “That was my favorite hat.”

“Was it your only hat?” She shifted about, ineffectually tugging and pulling at her skirts in a wasted effort to set herself to rights.

“Yeah.” Warm lips just barely brushed her neck.

“Good.” Charlotte dusted her hands together in a gesture sure to annoy.

Only it didn’t annoy Ty, not if she was to judge by the way his arms came around her, by the hands he spread low on her belly, by the unmistakable ridge of his arousal pressed to her bottom.

Charlotte placed her hands over his, intending to push them away so she could return to the other seat. Instead, somehow their fingers became entangled and she found herself holding hands with her husband. A novel experience.

“I kissed you to seal my vows.” His lips skated down her neck, raising gooseflesh along her arms.

She’d thought she’d only imagined she could taste their wedding vows on his lips, a silent pledge to honor and cherish her for all the days of their lives. But hearing him put into words her wild imaginings brought a sharp pain somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.