To Seduce a Rogue (23 page)

Hell, he did not even remember her name.

Charlie...always smelled wonderful. The lightest scent of roses lay upon her skin like silk. And, the way she responded to him, with as much unbridled passion and sincere wonderment as he felt for her.

Why should
any
woman, after all these years, enthrall him? Captivate him? Distract him?

Why did Miles have to come after him tonight of all nights? The little piece of fluff in that clinging dress might have solved some of his problems. As it was, all he had done was fondle her breasts. And the whole time, all he could think of was how well Charlotte fit his palm, how perfectly her body fused with his.

Would he have been able to finish what he started with that woman? He had doubts. Doubts he was not about to share with Miles Lambert. The meddlesome bastard.

“I don’t want to get married,” he reiterated.

He heard Miles chuckle. “She’s gotten to you, though?”

Adam grunted.

“Is it true what the men are saying about you and Tom?”

Adam took a vicious swipe at the dirty window. “Jesus, you just will not give up. Like a goddamn old woman.”

“I’m only trying to be a good friend. Give you a little advice.”

Another grunt.

“Well?”

Abandoning his inspection of the window, Adam moved to the press and began lifting stacks of newspapers bound with string to the floor. The rest, including the copies sent by stagecoach to Stokes’ office in Richmond, had left the office earlier today. Too late to stop their arrival.

Sometimes, life had a strange way of twisting and turning.

“Miles, if the men you speak of were saying Tom Walker came into the
Sentinel
office one night, as pickled as a beet, spewing a lot of immaterial nonsense and stamping his foot” —Adam dropped a bundle to the floor and nodded— “then yes, I would have to say your gossip is accurate.”

“What kind of nonsense?”

“What do you think? The same nonsense
you’ve
been spewing.”

“Seems like quite a few of us are spewing that same nonsense. Strange, ain’t it?”

Adam glanced up, his dark gaze holding Miles’. “Charlie is my friend. End of story. That’s all we can be.”

“Because you’re leaving?”

“Yes.”

“You could take her with you. She doesn’t have anyone here.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I guess I don’t.”

He didn’t have an explanation he wanted to share. Not this close to the time when he would be sleeping. The dreams would come too easily if he talked about it now. “I had a family once. I lost them. My brother in disastrous accident, my father and stepmother in a steamboat explosion a year later. My father and I had not spoken since my brother’s death, so he—” He pushed his hand though his hair. It shook as he lowered it to the cool metal press. “You’re my friend. The first one I’ve had in a long time. I want to talk to you. I wish I knew how.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I hurt when I think of...” He placed his hand on his stomach, unable to finish. “A deep, hard pain right in the middle of my gut. Charlie isn’t so different. I feel it in her. I recognize it. She doesn’t want to need anyone any more than I do.”

His hand closed into a tight fist, sucking up the material of his shirt like quicksand. “I have not loved anyone in years, Miles.
Years
. That part of me is gone. It died with my family as surely as there is a God.” He leaned, his arms outstretched, his palms flat on the press. “
I want her
, Miles. Sometimes so much that I literally quake with it. That kind of wanting is not love. You’re a man, you know that. At the same time, I like her too much to push her away.”

Miles appeared in front of him, holding a glass filled to the lip. The dark liquor sloshed onto Miles’ hand and the floor. He placed the glass in Adam’s hand before he spoke, “Drink this. I’ve not known a man to need a drink more than you do right now.”

Adam drained the glass in one swallow.

“Another?”

“No. Widow Davis is ready to throw me out. When she got a look at my face the other night after Tom—” He shook the glass in the air. “As bad as living with my mother.”

“And Charlie?”

“I don’t want to hurt her, but I can’t give her any more than I already have. Hell, I need to give her
less
.”

“That may be easier said than done.”

“Yeah.”

Miles walked to the door. He paused, turned back. “My pa wanted me to tell you he’s coming in early to finish the deliveries. Said he didn’t want to hear any of your bitching about them sitting around all day.”

Adam smiled. “I may be here when he arrives. I don’t feel like going home.”

“Do you want me to get a message to Charlie, tell her to stay home tomorrow?”

“I better do that in person. She’s likely to kill the messenger. Besides, Stokes won’t receive the
Sentinel
for another day or two. By then, I’ll have a plan.”

Miles stopped by the door. “Let me know.”

“Good night.” Adam walked to the window and watched Miles untie his horse, climb astride and ride down the deserted street. Maybe he should have taken him up on his offer to talk to Charlie. After ravishing her in the middle of a cornfield, he questioned the intelligence of them spending more time together. In an office with a back room that had already presented itself as a perfectly adequate spot for lovemaking.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he would tell Charlie. Damn, his head ached just thinking about it.

Indignation

Strong displeasure at something considered unjust, offensive, insulting or base.

Fortunately, he was in the back room when the men barged in. He was looking for an edition of the
Charleston Mercury
Charlie had stored in her files. The only problem with her filing system was, she was the only one who could find anything. Some system.

When he left the room, the men’s backs were to him. Another lucky thing. As Adam watched, the taller one pulled a knife from his boot and began slashing the newspaper bundles on the floor. Adam waited until he resheathed his knife.

“You two certainly showed up sooner than I expected.”

They spun around, and Adam catalogued everything. Size, stance, facial features, clothing. Except for the knife in the tall one’s boot, they looked unarmed. Although, there was no telling what else a boot or pocket concealed.

Obviously, Stokes questioned the
Sentinel
operation enough to have men watching. Men close enough to receive copies of the newspaper and come calling in less than twenty-four hours. Perhaps, Stokes had miscalculated the problems a small press could create, because these men appeared to be out of their element. They didn’t look like thugs. Hell, they looked like sons of his father’s contemporaries, perhaps dressed less formally.

“Could you explain why you’re using a knife on my newspapers?”

The shorter one took a step forward. “Who are you?”

Adam leaned calmly against the doorjamb. His chances of escaping this predicament without injury were slim indeed. If he didn’t excite them too much, maybe he could get some information before the melee began. “Seems to me, the one breaking and entering should answer the questions.”

The tall one scowled at his friend. “Harry, there’s only three of them that work here. One’s a goddamn woman, the other an old man. Who the hell do you think this is?” His accent was southern, but he sounded more like a Virginian than a South Carolinian. These men were probably Stokes’ personal boot lickers.

Harry took another step forward. “We came to issue a warning, Mr. Chase.”

“A warning from whom?”

“No more editorials like the bank legislation piece,” Harry said and squinted. He had blue eyes, a bit on the pale side. Weak eyes, but they didn’t waver from Adam’s as he added, “You’ve got a very vulnerable staff, Mr. Chase. An old man and a woman.”

Adam lifted off the doorjamb. “If my staff receives so much as the touch of a raindrop, the person who caused it will be very sorry.”

“Are you threatening us? Harry, he’s threatening us.” The tall one clenched his fists, his eyes narrowing.

“Shut up, will you,” Harry said.

Adam tapped his finger against his lips. “Interesting. Harry. From Virginia, if I had to guess. That is all
very
interesting.”

“Mr. Chase, you’re not very smart, are you?”

Adam shook his hands, loosening his fingers up. He wished Eaton were here to help him out with this one. “Give Stokes a message from
me
. You tell that bastard I don’t appreciate interference or advice.”

When they came at him, Adam yanked his knife from his boot. He slashed it across Harry’s arm as the man closed in on him. Adam wanted them to go back to Stokes with a scar or two.

The tall one paused, his glance jumping to the knife gripped in Adam’s steady hand. “Take care of him,” Harry yelled, holding his arm awkwardly against his side. Blood flowed down his wrist, over his hand and fingers.

Like a trained bull, the tall one charged. Adam jumped to the side, the bull slamming into his shoulder. Adam steadied himself and flipped the knife to his other hand. He brought it up and around, piercing the skin at the back of the bull’s neck. It was a superficial wound; he didn’t want to kill the man, just slow him down. The bull lifted his hand to his neck and Adam took the opportunity. He raised his knee, slamming it into the bull’s groin. The bull dropped to his knees like a rock.

Adam walked toward Harry, who was glancing about, his eyes wide and alarmed. The situation had obviously gotten far beyond his control. Adam threw the knife to the floor and swung his fist as hard as he could, knocking Harry right off his feet. Adam realized his mistake when he heard a sound behind him.

He had turned his back on the bull.

The bull grabbed him by the shoulders, twisted him around and threw a fist into his face. Bright, white stars exploded behind Adam’s eye, and a slow pulsing commenced. Adam staggered, nearly falling over Harry, who lay stock-still on the floor like a sack of flour.

The bull came right back at him, but Adam ducked the punch and threw one of his own. The blow rocked the bull’s head back, and for a moment Adam imagined escaping with his face intact. Luck was not with him this time: he had backed into the press.

Before he could move out of the way, the bull threw another punch Adam could not block, and he ended up on the floor. He tried to pick himself up, but the bull made up for his lack of intellectual deftness with physical agility. He got to Adam first. Adam’s head connected with something hard and immobile and his world faded to black.

* * *

Gerald rubbed his eyes, concentrating on the road ahead of him. His feet felt heavy, but then, he had just left a warm bed. If he finished the newspaper deliveries early, he could go home before noon. The copies that went to Columbia and Charleston had gone with the stage yesterday. Oliver Stokes’ copies had gone then, too. Mr. Whitefield still needed his copies and all the businesses in town needed theirs.

Continuing to peruse his mental list, he turned onto Main Street. He enjoyed getting up early. The calm, solid darkness just before dawn was enchanting. The crickets and frogs were sleeping, the stars not as bright as the sun was just beginning to steal the sky. It was a dull kind of darkness, but, nonetheless, he liked it. He heard a rooster crowing somewhere and thanked the good Maker that he didn’t have to put up with one of those harassing beasts. He’d never wanted to be a farmer. Not for a minute. How his only son, his only child, had felt the pull of that calling was one of the great mysteries of life.