Running Wild

by Denise Eagan

  Nick’s shoulders tensed so much they ached. “Black?” he asked, peering at Star, willing her to meet his gaze. Damn it, but she oughta have told him. She’d promised.

  “Yes, with a note attached that said ‘You belong to me’. Inventive and romantic, but one must wonder if he’s considered that it’s infinitely easier to fix a woman’s interest by actually talking to her.”

  Nick’s knuckles turned white on his glass. She belonged to him.

  Leaning against one of the windows, Lee took a puff on his cigar and scowled. “Inventive, yes, but I can’t like it, Star. It seems a trifle dark for someone who wishes to win your love. Has he sent you anything else of late?”

  After taking another shot, she straightened. Then, holding Nick’s gaze, she answered, “No. Just the flowers.” Her stare held a challenge and her eyes warned him that the consequence of spilling the beans could be losing her. Damn, damn, damn, she had too much courage for her own good!

  “Dark?” Port repeated. The merriment in his voice grated on Nick’s nerves. “Why, what else would you expect from a man who loves our sister, Lee? You must know she’s ignored all else. I doubt that most days she gives the poor fellow a second thought. Dying the roses was a stroke of genius.”

  Huntington grinned. “Why, I’ll credit him with intelligence as well. I’m sure Star receives flowers regularly and scarcely notices who sent them.”

  She stiffened and her eyes threw bullets at Huntington. “I am not so ill-mannered, Del, as to ignore a simple thank-you note.”

  “Still,” Huntington said shaking his hand, “I’m sorry for the poor fellow.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Lee said. “If he wants Star that badly, he ought to be a man and tell her to her face. All this secret admirer cr—sh—” He stopped. “At any rate, it’s only romantic for a time. After that, it’s creepy.”

  Star glowered at Lee. Nick’s estimate of Lee, always high, climbed.

  Port smirked. “You’ve no guarantee that he hasn’t already, Lee, and this is nothing but another approach. You’ve grown up with her the same as I have. Star’s a frightening woman. No, it is a far better tact to butter her up over time, intrigue her, and then spring himself on her. Give him credit, Lee,” he said with a chuckle in his voice. “It’s been almost a year. He’s lasted longer than all of her fiancés!”

  Huntington laughed, Jane chuckled and even Lee couldn’t resist a grin. “All right, I’ll award him credit for perseverance. And inventiveness, and,” he said, nodding to his sister, “good taste. While any man who hopes for a lasting connection with you, Star, is sadly deluded, I can readily understand why he might try.”

  Star smiled. “So I am no dog after all?”

  “If you’ve any resemblance to an animal at all, it is of the feline persuasion. God knows Port and I felt your claws often enough!”

  “Only,” she answered, arching an eyebrow, “under extreme provocation.”

  “Or to sharpen them,” Port said acerbically.

  “Why, yes, on occasion,” Star answered with a laugh, “you were especially useful in that respect, Port!”

  “Yes, and I recall one time. . . ” Port started, and proceeded to relate a story of their youth. Afterward everybody laughed.

  Everybody except Nick.

  ***

  Star’s short, light breaths tickled Nick’s ear. Eyes closed, he breathed in her scent while enjoying the weight of her body on top of his and her breasts pressed again his chest. She was quiet for once, while their hearts galloped in unison, then slowed in unison, as if connected by an invisible bond. He could lie like this forever. If not for the fact, he thought smiling, that in another hour he’d want to start all over again.

  By and by, she sat up and rolled to his side. She heaved a deep satisfied sigh. “My, Nicholas, but that was quite an interesting way of doing it, wasn’t it?”

  Grinning, he reached for the two abandoned glasses of port on the bedside table. “Thought you’d like it.”

  “Thank you,” she said when he handed a glass to her. “It’s rather a physical position. At least for the woman.” As he removed the french safe, she fluffed a pillow behind her and leaned against it. Naked, purely naked next to him and not in the least self-conscious, not even with the gas lighting shining off her pearly skin. Society lady by day—siren by night. His siren.

  “Guess it is. Puts you in complete control, though.”

  Her eyes glittered wickedly over the rim of her glass. “And we both know how much I adore control. I shall confess to you, however, and you alone, that I have recently discovered there are times it is enjoyable to relinquish it.”

  He raised his eyebrows as his heart took a tumble. Of all the different ways those wildcat eyes could gleam, he reckoned that touch of wickedness was his favorite.

  He loved it when they shone with affection, too.

  Or with love. Sometimes he could persuade himself it was love, even if she never said it. “Do you? And when is that?” he asked.

  “Why,” she said wriggling nearer until her thigh touched his and he could smell the sweet grapiness of port on her breath, “sometimes when you are feeling especially excited.”

  He smiled down at her, treating himself to the sight of her breasts. A half hour earlier he’d dripped the port along them, then licked it up slowly, which had set her to purring. “Reckon that’s most of the time, ma’am, since pretty near every thought of you leads to excitement.”

  “Really?” she asked. The wickedness fled as she searched his eyes for something deeper, something stronger, something he refused to confess. What was the point if she didn’t love him, too?

  Or even if she did?

  “Really,” he confirmed. “Listen, Star,” he said, putting his empty glass back on the table, “we need to talk a bit here.”

  She gave him her Cheshire-cat grin and reached up to run her hand over his chest. Her nails dug slightly, leaving thin white marks behind and sending shivers of pleasure along his arms. “Oh yes, let us by all means talk about it, for if I am correct we shan’t be able to do anything else for half an hour.”

  “Not about that,” he said, taking her empty glass to put it back on the table too. He drew a breath and focused on her. “It’s about Romeo.”

  The grin melted. Her eye twitched. “I can’t see that we have anything to discuss on that matter.”

  “Sure we do. We can start with why you didn’t tell me about the flowers.”

  She shrugged, shifted to lean against the headboard and crossed her arms defensively. “Why would I? Of what significance is a bouquet of flowers?”

  “None on their own,” he admitted. “But they were black, and when you add that to everything else, they become important, especially with the note saying you belong to him.”

  She stared straight ahead. “It is scarcely different from any of his letters. The implication is always there.”

  “Implying it and sayin’ it are different. You ought to have told me.”

  “What difference would that make?” she snapped. “You can’t do anything about it.”

  He inhaled and pulled hard on the reins of his temper. How could she be so obstinately naive? “It’s a threat.”

  “He never said he’d do something about it. He loves me.”

  Nick clenched his teeth. Keep a cool head, Nick. “Star, he cut up your clothes.”

  “That was months ago,” she said, bending forward to pull a sheet over her lap. And to hide her expression, Nick guessed. “He’s done nothing since.”

  “It’s only been two months and he has done something. He sent you black roses,” he ground out. “It’s a threat and he’s already been violent.”

  She laughed cheerlessly and turned to face him. No more soft, naked skin next to his. Damn, maybe he ought to have waited until she was ready to leave . . . except that this was just the first of two subjects he wanted to talk to her about. “Violence?” she asked. “Oh no, now I must reject that assessment, for all he’s done to
indicate violence is to tear up some dresses. Now, if there’d been a fur coat I might be fearful,” she joked in a tight voice.

  Nick shoved his hand through his hair in frustration. And to prevent himself from reaching for her, pulling her against him and ending the argument with a long, wet kiss.

  “You weren’t so certain in Saratoga. Besides, he used a blade; he didn’t just rip ’em up and throw ’em to the ground. It was cold-blooded and premeditated. I don’t like the roses and I don’t like him telephoning you, either. You promised that you’d tell me if he did anything else.”

  “And I will,” she said, “if there’s anything worth reporting.”

  “The telephone calls and the flowers were worth reporting,” he insisted.

  “I never received a call myself. We’ve no notion of what he wanted to say to me. Perhaps he meant to apologize. As for the flowers, why, don’t they indicate a direction away from violence instead of toward it? The note is rather sweet if you think about it. He’s afraid of losing me.”

  It was a point. A good point. But it didn’t make Nick any less worried. “You should have told me, anyhow.”

  “Well you know, now.”

  “When did he send the roses?”

  She paused. “Almost three weeks ago.”

  He quickly calculated and the muscles in his neck knotted. “Right after I moved into the hotel.”

  A crease appeared between her brows. “Yes, that’s true.”

  “He said, ‘you belong to me’. He knows about us.”

  A thin smile crossed her face. “Nicholas, everyone knows about us.”

  He frowned. “How? Have you said something? I thought we were trying to keep it secret.”

  “I’ve told no one, but some things cannot be kept quiet and you and I—well I suspect people ‘knew about us’ before we even did.”

  Rubbing his neck, Nick leaned against the headboard. “Even your parents?” His stomach flipped queasily. Had Ward been colder to him lately? He thought Morgan had—

  “I doubt they know everything, but they’re no fools, Nicholas. And now,” she said glancing at the clock, “I ought to return home.”

  He looked at the clock. Half past twelve. She never left this early. Lately, she’d taken to staying until dawn—risky but worth every last second. Sonuvabitch, he’d pressed her too hard, and still more to talk about. His heart jerked, and then settled into an uneven gallop. “Can you give me a few more minutes? I’ve got something else I want to discuss.”

  “You sound grave,” she said as she leaned forward to grab her chemise, thrown to the end of the bed in a moment of excitement. He watched her pull it over her breasts, mourning the loss. “Don’t tell me you have more heavy matters weighing on your mind. Do you harangue all your lovers this way, or am I especial?”

  He jerked. His jaw stung as if she’d slapped him.

  She turned her head to look at him and the anger in her eyes eased. “I’m sorry. That was too hard. Forgive me, but I’m not accustomed to having my actions questioned.”

  Sure she wasn’t. Nobody expected consideration from Star Montgomery, or much of anything else for that matter. In fact, he thought rubbing his jaw, the only people she showed any true consideration to were women as a group, and only when they didn’t interfere with her own comforts.

  And that, his heart said, was too hard.

  “Sometimes your actions affect me,” he said. “I have a right to ask about ’em.”

  Two stubborn lines appeared between her eyebrows as she dug for her corset under the sheets. She pulled it on and started to fasten the front hooks. “Why then, if you insist, fire away.”

  “You’ve had your monthly,” he began, trying to formulate a way to lay it out plainly without getting her dander up again.

  “Yes. That’s why I haven’t visited these three nights passed.”

  Three long nights. He’d wanted to ask her to visit, anyhow, tell her he’d be satisfied to just lie in her arms and talk. But between them lay an invisible chasm, one dug by feelings they refused to admit existed. They easily moved back and forth across it, but they could not seem to fill it.

  He took a breath. Maybe tonight they could start. “So the French safes and sponge worked this time.”

  She threw him a confused, sidelong glance. “Why, yes.”

  “They don’t always, though.”

  Finished with the corset, she focused on him, raising an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that you have a love child, Nicholas?”

  “No. Just pointing out that it could happen.”

  She studied him. “I suppose it could,” she said, “but as we are employing two different ways to avoid it, it seems unlikely.” Lines formed around her eyes as she added in a tighter voice. “Are you perhaps suggesting that we ought to sever this aspect of our . . . friendship?”

  Friendship. The word cut him just as cleanly as Romeo’s blade had sliced her clothes. He didn’t want to be Star’s friend. He wanted more. He wanted it all.

  But he couldn’t have it, not unless there was a baby. “I’m thinking of all the contingencies,” he said, while a little voice whispered, Marry me. Admit that marriage to me would be worth all the risks. “Wondering what we’d do, is all.”

  Emotion crossed her face, moved through her eyes, but what it was he couldn’t make out. After a minute, her jaw set, and she squared her shoulders as if preparing for battle. “Why I suppose I should handle the situation like other women in my position.”

  Situation? A baby wasn’t a situation. A baby was part of him, part of her. “And how’s that?” Through marriage, naturally.

  Her throat worked; his heart thudded. She slid off the bed. “Why,” she said in a casual voice as she bent over to fetch her stockings, garters and shoes. “I’d take a tour of Europe.”

  What the hell? “Europe?”

  “Yes. There are many fine facilities there, in which a woman may pass her confinement in seclusion.”

  He leaned forward as his brain fogged and he tried to reconcile what he hoped she’d say with her actual words. “You couldn’t pass your confinement in the U.S.?” Was he supposed to go to Europe with her? Maybe marry her in Europe?

  She’d backed into a chair set in front of a small table next to the windows. She peered at him, before redirecting her attention to pulling on her garters and hooking her stockings. Her face was taut; her voice matter-of-fact. “Women of my station and position do not flaunt their mistakes before the public. We take ‘extended tours’ of Europe instead.”

  “And how do you explain going to Europe and coming back with a baby?”

  A flash of her eyes. They were dark. Angry. “We do not return with the baby.”

  “Until when?”

  “Until never. The baby is left behind with adoptive parents.”

  His baby? Nick crossed his arms over his suddenly aching gut. It was like she’d balled up her pretty, little fist and drove it straight into his belly. After a second the pain shot upwards to his heart, then lodged in his throat. “You’d give my baby away? Sonuvabitch, Star, to who?”

  She shrugged. Stockings hooked, she slipped her feet into her shoes. “The facility finds suitable parents.”

  Their baby. Part of him, part of her . . . created in love. “How suitable? They sure can’t find parents who’d do a better job rearing it than its real parents!” Created from his love, but not from hers. She didn’t love him. Didn’t want him. Didn’t want their baby.

  She crossed the room to pick up her skirt, abandoned in a rush of passion. She pulled it up. “Except that the child would have two parents instead of one. Have no fear, Nicholas. It’s done all the time.” Her voice was cool, unemotional.

  “Not with my kid, it’s not!” Damn it. Damn it! If she didn’t love it, he sure as hell did!

  “It’s best for the child to have two parents.”

  “It’s better for the child to know its real parents!”

  She buttoned the skirt in cold silence, the kind that t
old him that the conversation was over, that she’d made up her mind and didn’t care a lick what he thought.

  “I’ll take it,” he snarled. “To hell with adopted parents, you give it to me if you don’t want it.” The pain in his heart transformed into anger, rage, scorching his voice, turning it harsh and rasping.

  She jerked. Drawing a breath, she turned the skirt around so that the buttons faced the back. “I never said I didn’t want it. It merely does not fit into my life’s plans.”

  “Then you change your plans,” he spat out. “That’s the way we handle these ‘matters’ where I come from!”

  “Life is simpler where you come from.” She walked to the end of the bed and pulled the bedclothes up, searching. Her voice came back muffled. “You have no responsibility to Society.”

  “This is simple. You have a baby, you raise it,” he said through gritted teeth. “Nothing else, nothing else, is more important.”

  “Without adoption, it would be a bastard and a pariah, and I should be ostracized, which would destroy all that I’ve worked for.” Shirtwaist in hand, she straightened and slid her arms into the sleeves.

  “Your work is not more important than my baby!”

  Her body jerked. She stopped dressing to glare at him. “And if it were a baby girl? I am working to insure that it and every other baby girl has a better life, better opportunities and better treatment than all who have gone before them. Don’t tell me it’s not important, Nicholas. We, sir, are all that stands between your daughter and the brutality of men!”

  For a second his mind created Minnie’s image, crying and bruised. The image became his daughter, with Star’s dark curling hair and his blue eyes. Nick’s hands formed fists and his voice shook with the effort to keep from hollering. “You are not! I will stand between my daughter and the ‘brutality of men’ and if anybody harms a hair on her head, I’ll make them regret it for all eternity.”

  “The law forbids such action.”

  “I don’t give two hoots in hell what the law says when it comes to my children.”

  “Why then,” she said, buttoning her shirtwaist. “It’s just as well that you don’t have any children. Nor shall you get one from me. Any child that I accidentally bear will be raised by two parents!”