Of course, Steve Morgan—also known as Esteban Alvarado—the American millionaire who had somehow been appointed as Mexican ambassador, always stood out in a crowd, with his tall, lean good looks and the air of danger that attended him.
“Yes,” a dowager whispered behind her jeweled fan, “he does look Mexican, I suppose, with his dark skin. And it is said that his grandfather is a rich Mexican landowner descended from Spanish aristocracy, though I think all of them claim a heritage they do not possess.”
“Perhaps,” her companion remarked, eyeing Steve Morgan with an appreciative smile, “he is aristocratic, though if you look at his eyes—” She shuddered deliciously. “So very wicked, those blue eyes, and the way he looks at a woman. Why, it makes one feel disrobed!”
The dowager countess laughed. “I am not so old that I do not recall how it feels to have a man look at me that way, my dear Amelia, and neither are you. Is it true, do you think, that he still has his famous Italian opera singer as mistress even though his wife has just returned? I cannot imagine why he would not be more discreet, though his wife has hardly been very discreet herself. My dear, the most delicious on-dits claim that she actually lived in a Turkish harem, and then there is that painting that hung in the Royal Academy, the one by Alma-Tadema that is scandalously revealing. It is her, I have heard it said.”
A light tap of folded fan against her companion’s arm accompanied the significant glance and whisper. “It is said that the Prince of Wales purchased it from the Academy for his own private collection…. What do you think of that?”
“I think,” the dowager replied with a sniff, “that it is far too obvious there is much mystery and rumor about the ambassador’s wife, and not all of it can be just the latest gossip. Mrs. Morgan has had her own share of admirers, I am told.”
“Oh my, yes! When she first returned to London, she was seen in the company of Herr Metz, the Swiss banker. Much has been rumored about his preference for boys, though it is claimed that he is only a friend of her cousin, Monsieur Pierre Dumont. Very interesting, I think….”
The jeweled fan fluttered more gossip, their boa feathers studded with emeralds and sapphires, intricate patterns of gilt wafting speculation between the women with relish.
“And now Morgan has been appointed as the Mexican ambassador, though I hardly see why it is necessary. There is always revolution in that country, and England should not be involved. Ah, but these politicians must have their intrigues, I suppose. Do you think it true that his wife’s former husband, the Russian prince, was actually killed by him? He does look as if he could do murder, looks very dangerous despite the fact he’s dressed so impeccably.”
As conjecture swirled around them, Steve and Ginny danced a waltz, his arm around her slender waist as he held her against him. His hand spread on green satin the exact shade as Ginny’s emerald eyes, lean brown fingers pressed firmly into the small of her back.
Exotic eyes tilted up at him, and a sparkle lit their depths as she smiled provocatively. “They are all making guesses about us, I am certain.”
“And do you care?” His hand tightened briefly. “Let them talk.”
“Shall we give them something else to talk about?” Her soft murmur was accompanied by a subtle shift of her body, so that he felt the press of her breasts as a seductive reminder against his chest.
He gazed down at her through narrowed eyes, amused by her defiance of public convention. Ginny, his green-eyed temptress, his nemesis, the woman who bedeviled and tempted him, the one woman he had never been able to get out of his mind for long. It was just this sort of thing that made him want her, her unexpected flouting of all the rules society expected to be followed, her fiery nature and passionate little body that he knew so well—yet hardly knew at all.
No matter how many times he’d made love to her in the past, there was always something new and surprising when he was with her.
“Have I told you how lovely you are tonight?” he said in a soft drawl, deftly turning her toward the open French doors at the far end of the ballroom. “And how much I would like to kiss you all over?”
“No, you have not.” Her murmur and the tempting pout of her mouth reminded him once again how sweet her lips were and how long it had been since they’d made love. He had spent their first night together with Ginny in his arms, but not made love to her since then. He knew she wondered why, as he did himself.
There were so many memories between them, so many times they had fought one another, the verbal spats no less vicious than the physical ones. He still bore the scar from where she had stabbed him so long ago, that time in the desert when he had forced her into submission, taking her on the burning hot sands with only a thin blanket beneath them, not caring if she wanted him—until she had shocked him into taking her seriously. Then she had yielded to him, his passionate little gypsy. With the fresh knife wound bleeding in his side, he had taken her again….
Ginny. When the news had been given to him of her death in an earthquake in Cuba, he had thought—known—it couldn’t be true. How could such life, such beauty and passion die without his knowing the exact moment of its death? First a kind of grief, then anger overwhelmed him, until he had moved by rote, living each day because he had no other choice, because he had two children who looked to him for their survival. It had been the children who had kept him from the road to his own destruction, the anguished thought that they were all he had left of Ginny.
So many times in the months he had thought Ginny dead he’d remembered his cruelty to her, her frustration, her fury and, yes, her own brand of vengeance. She knew how to hurt him in return, with a careless shrug of her shoulder and a new admirer on her arm. Now it was time they ended the games, time they came to know each other instead of indulging in the constant warfare that always seemed to lead to bed.
Yet he felt so awkward with her now, so damnably like a callow youth instead of her husband. Her lover. The man who had introduced her to the passionate side of her nature—and who had watched her blossom into an alluring woman he had not been able to forget even when he had tried.
Guiding her in a sweep of satin skirts across the ballroom floor, his hand shifted lower, palm testing the contours of the stiff corset binding her beneath the silk. He preferred the softness of her bare flesh beneath his hand, her smooth, flawless skin a welcoming cushion instead of layers of cloth and bone. Why must fashion dictate women hide their bodies behind rigid whalebone and yards of satin?
“What are you thinking about, Steve?” Her elegant head was tilted, her eyes curious as she gazed up at him, and he gave a careless shrug, his tone light.
“I noticed that the Prince of Wales could not take his eyes off you earlier. Is he another of your conquests?”
“Could he be? Oh, don’t look so black at me, Steve. I’m only teasing you. The prince is a terrible flirt, but he talked mostly about his tour to America and Canada. It is so difficult to understand his thick German accent at times.”
Not replying, he swung her about and through the open French doors onto a narrow veranda. Strains of the waltz were softer here, and his hand shifted on her back to slide down to the shelf of bunched skirts caught up with bows and lace in the ridiculous fashion called a bustle.
“Steve…?” There was a question in her eyes and tone, the pressure of her hand light on his arm as she looked up at him through her lashes.
“It’s more quiet out here.” A poor excuse. He just couldn’t stand the crowds anymore, the smell of too much perfume, the ennui and desperation that was so evident in the high voices and nervous laughter. It always made him impatient, made him want to ride out where the air was fresh and there were no staring, avid gazes. The impulse to leave the ball was nearly overpowering.
Moonlight filtered through lacy tree branches, pouring molten silver onto the veranda just off the ballroom, and the soft air was spiced with the fragrance of night-blooming flowers. A huge urn at one side dripped soft white blossoms that reminded him o
f moonflowers, a tropical vine in Mexico that exuded sweet scent and exotic blooms, round and lucent—pale as the moon, as beautifully intense as Mexico.
“You’re ready to leave here now, aren’t you, Steve?”
He looked down at Ginny, saw the frown gather in her eyes and on her brow. She was far too perceptive at times. He put out a hand, his finger brushing over the gleaming jewels around her neck, vivid against the creamy expanse of her skin. Once her pale skin had been a lovely peachy color, a vibrant tan acquired from days of riding in the hot Mexican sun. His hand fell away and his tone was abrupt.
“You should know something, Ginny.”
She tensed beneath his hand, eyes suddenly dark and wide.
“Oh God! You’re not going to tell me bad news tonight, Steve, when the music is so gay and the champagne chilled. I am having too good a time and I refuse to allow it.”
Despite her flippant words, there was a note of genuine distress in her tone. For all her bravado, Ginny was far too fragile lately. The resilient woman he’d known—had battled across half of Mexico at times—had changed since she’d come back to England for her children. Since they had agreed to reconcile. But hadn’t he changed, too?
He forced a smile, dragged his fingertip across the lushly glowing necklace around her throat, up to the heavy earrings dangling from her lobes.
“Ah, hell, sweetheart, you know I just want to tell you how the moonlight makes your eyes glow like stars….”
“Liar.” A soft laugh vibrated in the air between them, and she wore a resigned expression on her lovely face. “I know you better than that. You once told me not to expect pretty words in the moonlight from you.”
“And I haven’t disappointed you.”
“No, there have been few pretty words from you, that’s true.” She moved to lean against the stone wall, a graceful drape of her body that reminded him of the Alma-Tadema painting. In the pale light, her eyes looked huge, darkly mysterious, bewitching. “You hate it here, don’t you, Steve? Don’t bother denying it. I can see how restless you are, can feel it in the way you hold me. Is it here or is it us?”
“London can be stifling at times.”
It was the truth—and a lie. The city bound him, tied him down, but the restlessness came from being forced into a role he didn’t relish playing.
“I see.” Ginny faced him quietly. “I think there’s more to it than that. Is there something you don’t want to tell me, something to do with us?”
“Not tonight.” He bent, took her chin in his palm and kissed her swiftly, more to silence the questions than to serve a need, but that swiftly altered when she caught his lower lip in her teeth, a gentle, warning nip.
“Don’t lie to me, Steve Morgan,” she whispered when she relinquished his bottom lip, “Honesty, remember?”
He touched his lip with one finger, faintly amused by her vehemence. “Vicious little hellcat.”
“I would think you’d remember that.”
“And I was beginning to think you’d grown timid lately. I see how mistaken I’ve been in thinking you have tempered with time.”
She smiled. “Let’s just say I’ve grown wiser and less patient. Shall we go back inside? After all, we came to be seen, I believe. We’re quite the talk of the town now, I understand, the scandalous Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, with rumors about us as thick as a swarm of bees. I’ve had no less than three gentlemen ask me tonight if it’s true that I am a Russian princess.”
“And what did you reply?”
“That of course I am, and I expect to be treated as royalty.”
He palmed a fat, loose curl of coppery hair that lay upon her bare shoulder, shining against her alabaster skin like bright silk. Feathery strands curled around his finger in a soft caress. Regretfully, he released her hair, his hand remaining on her shoulder.
“I have to leave you for a little while, Ginny. Try to miss me.”
“Leave the ball?”
“No, I have some business matters to attend upstairs. I won’t be long, so don’t think you’re rid of me that easily.”
“I wish I believed that.”
“You should,” he said lightly, “because it’s true.”
On the surface, it was true. A few of the cabinet members were in attendance tonight, and in his new role as ambassador from Mexico, he was expected to join in the discussion about a possible international crisis. Since Juarez’s death in 1872, his successor, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, a chief justice of the supreme court, had been unpopular. Lerdo was a liberal anticlerical, hated because he did not flinch from using the power of the state to enforce his policies. Porfirio Díaz had risen again to grasp power from him, and now revolution seethed.
“Disraeli will be here,” Lord Sedgwick had murmured to him earlier, “instead of dancing attendance on the queen.”
Disraeli, prime minister of England and newly made earl of Beaconsfield, was a powerful man in the confidence of Queen Victoria. His predecessor, Gladstone, had been hated by the widowed monarch. It was likely that England would lean toward the policies favored by Disraeli in regard to the civil unrest in Mexico. Peace was always tenuous.
Since the Alabama affair three years before, when U.S. claims negotiations resulting from the British arming of Confederate warships during the Civil War had finally been peacefully resolved, relations between the two countries had been excellent. The warship Alabama, most famous of the Confederate raiders, had captured or destroyed over sixty Northern vessels during the conflict. After the war ended, the United States insisted upon compensation for damages from England for reneging on their neutral status. The arbitration tribunal in Geneva awarded damages, England had promptly paid the fine and cordial relations had been restored again. New turmoil on the U.S. border could affect both nations, if England chose to ally with Mexico.
Damn politics! He was more comfortable with action than the interminable speeches and intrigues that suited men like Jim Bishop.
Bishop. The U.S. government agent was as much of an enigma now as he had been when he first came to Steve and offered him a chance at life, instead of the hanging that faced him as the result of a duel. Of course, he’d nearly been killed more times than he could count since then, and all in the name of the United States government.
But he was damned if he knew why Bishop had seen to it that he be appointed an ambassador based in England, other than the fact that it brought him to London at a convenient time for the United States.
“I can count on you, I am certain,” Bishop had said in his usual dry way, “to regard the interests of the United States as highly as Mexico’s in your duties.”
“Don’t I always?” he’d answered, and they both knew the answer to that.
Now here he was, balanced on a tightrope between two countries again, and at the same time trying to reconcile with his wife.
Ginny, of the fiery hair and temperament. The young girl he had first met had evolved into this composed, beautiful woman who seemed so confident and poised. He’d married her twice, both times to assuage scandal, yet still did not know her. She eluded him, the essence of her like a wisp of fog, always just beyond his grasp.
Yet her ethereal nature was what had captured his heart so long ago, intrigued him more than any woman ever had. Even after he’d abducted her and taken her with him into the mountains of Mexico, she’d not lost her allure for him. Not until his grandfather had forced him to marry Ginny, had he taken the time to explore his reasons for keeping her with him. And then it had almost been too late….
His activities as a Juarista nearly cost them both their lives. That separation, when he had been sent to a hellish prison, was only the first of so many since then. Yet somehow they always managed to survive, to end up in each others arms again. Even after this last separation, when Ginny had stormed out of New Orleans with Andre Delery and he’d thought he would never see her again, part of him had known he would. Maybe that was the reason he had taken their children from Ginny’s aunt in France,
bringing them to England. He knew she would search for them once she left Stamboul.
It rankled that, until so recently, she had been living in a sultan’s harem with Richard Avery, Lord Tynedale—his grandfather’s son. It had been Avery who was responsible for informing the Russian ambassador to Turkey of Ginny’s need to leave Stamboul when revolution loomed. As the Russian tsar’s illegitimate—but favored—daughter, she incurred ongoing interest from both the tsar and Russian authorities.
Steve had gone to Stamboul to find her when news of the impending Turkish revolution was given to him, and he had missed her. Instead, he had met General Ignatiev, a Russian officer sent by the tsar, who had helped Richard Avery arrange for Ginny’s flight from Stamboul when it became apparent she was in grave danger.
She always seemed to emerge from disaster unscathed, a phoenix rising from the ashes.
It was difficult to recall that she had been blind for a time, that Avery had been the man to take care of her. Now she gazed up at him with a familiar sparkle in her clear green eyes, a half smile curving her sensuous mouth.
“As long as you are meeting with gentlemen, and not one of the ladies who look at you so greedily, I will share you. But do not forget that you are going home with me, Steve Morgan.”
Though she said it playfully, tapping him with her folded fan, there was steely determination in her tone. He grinned.
“I have a feeling I would regret it very much if I were to find companionship elsewhere tonight. Would you use the little knife you no doubt still carry?”
“Perhaps…or perhaps I would come after you.”
“It would not be the first time.”
“Ah, and has Concepciόn—I mean, Lady Marwood—ever forgiven me for that? I did not hurt your old friend, after all, though I was greatly tempted.”
Steve laughed softly, and spread his hand atop Ginny’s shoulder, fingers digging gently into her skin. “No, I don’t think Concepciόn will ever forgive you for besting her. She did not expect a gringa to outfight a gypsy.”
Green eyes narrowed slightly. “It seems that she wasn’t the only one to underestimate me.”
Savage Desire Page 2