Golden Flames

by Kay Hooper

“Falcon?” Her voice was breathless, bewildered. “Is something wrong? You didn’t—“

  He managed a laugh, never more grateful than now for the control built up over a lifetime. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I must be more tired than I realized. Forgive me?”

  Her laugh was throaty. “Oh, I’ve nothing to complain about! But we could stay the night, and—“

  “No.” He stepped back, smiling. “I have to return to the city. But there’ll be other parties.” There wouldn’t be, he knew. Not another party like the one this night.

  Cassie accepted his arm, politely offered. She was smiling, feeling as satisfied as she had ever felt. But she wondered, as he escorted her courteously downstairs, why his eyes had changed. They had been hard and hot at first; now they were dark and quiet, almost as if he were hurting inside….

  Chapter 4

  NEW MEXICO

  Read Talbot peered into the distance, narrowing his good eye. “Helluva ranch,” he grunted. “I see my dear old friend has done well for himself.”

  “He hasn’t spent the gold!” Sonny’s voice was a desperate whine, and grated on Read’s nerves.

  “Shut up, you fool!” Read snapped quietly. “This range is crawling with Fontaine’s men. Bring them down on us and we’ll never see the gold.”

  “But he hasn’t spent it all?” Sonny whispered.

  The third man lying prone at the top of the hill spoke coolly. “He didn’t need any of it—then or now.” Gus Rawlins exchanged a glance with Read. “You know what I found out in England. Fontaine made his fortune with a fleet of pirate ships thirty years ago, then bought himself respectability. He wouldn’t have been received at all in Charleston if that had gotten out.”

  “Pity we didn’t know then,” Read agreed.

  “But the gold…” Sonny murmured.

  Read exchanged another glance with Gus, both aware that Sonny was lost in gold fever. He had been a fairly dependable, if stupid, man until they had discovered Morgan Fontaine’s young wife enjoying herself in New York; with the scent of gold in his nose, Sonny had fallen into feverish desperation. His panicked attack on the stranger in New York had ruined their plan to snatch Victoria Fontaine after they had lured her there with a false message, and to use her to force the knowledge of the gold’s whereabouts from her certainly doting husband. Read had been unwilling to take the chance that the stranger knew her and would realize she had been kidnapped.

  Men such as that one, Read reflected now, had an annoying habit of butting in where they had no business, and he wanted no dangerous stranger on his back trail. Particularly one who had apparently followed him to the bookshop for some unknown reason. Still, that man was back in New York, and Read knew of many methods to force information from an unwilling man without resorting to the screams of a lovely young wife.

  And he wanted her for himself. He had recognized her, of course, the moment he saw her. Eight years older and a woman now, he had nonetheless recognized the terrified girl who had so nearly killed him. But that didn’t matter, that she had nearly killed him. She was Morgan’s woman, and he meant to have her. He meant to take everything of Morgan’s, everything he had claimed and built and stolen. Everything.

  The plan would have worked, it would have worked—if Morgan hadn’t stolen the gold. They could have seen the South rise triumphant. But now it was dead, and Morgan had to be punished for killing it. He would lose everything, just as Read had lost everything that mattered to him, everything that was important, everything he loved.

  “I still don’t understand,” Gus said, “how he managed to stay hidden for eight years. We never knew—“

  “Of course we didn’t,” Read said. “Because not one of us knew who he was. When he came to Charleston, he never said where he was from. And, since he knew so much about ships, we all figured that was his line of business. None of us was likely to come way the hell out here, and he knew it. We were looking up north for him, not out here. He just kept quiet.”

  “If it hadn’t been for spotting his wife,” Gus agreed, “we might never have found him.”

  “Read…” Sonny whined.

  “Shut up,” Read said, his voice a low growl, and turned his eyes back to the sprawling ranch below. “He rode out yesterday. We’ll wait and see if he rides out today.”

  NEW YORK

  For two days, Falcon wrestled with himself. He haunted the waterfront, asking hard questions of hard men as he tried to keep his mind on business. But each night he returned to his hotel room and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and business, only a surface occupation at best, vanished from his thoughts. Like ore to a magnet, his mind returned to Victoria.

  He wanted her. With every hour that passed, he was more aware of his need, his restless desire to return to her hotel and hold her, and explain away the hurt he had seen in her eyes. And it was that desire that stopped him, baffled him—that desire to take away the hurt. Stopped him because he didn’t understand his own motives where she was concerned.

  It had happened in the garden. She had told him tonelessly about killing a man in self-defense, and something inside him had turned over painfully. He had shied from the feeling instinctively, unwilling to examine himself, and had deliberately put a distance between them.

  Lying on his bed on the third night, Falcon’s lips twisted in a grimace as he remembered the results of that. He had gone to Cassie, thinking, if he thought at all, only of wiping out the unfamiliar emotions in the willing embrace of another woman. And the realization that he couldn’t do it, that his mind and body refused that simple solution, had kept him away from Victoria since.

  What was it about her? She was beautiful, yes, and innocent; God knew both could tie a man in knots. She was usually serene, her green eyes vivid, and yet intelligent, calm, tolerant. The fires of passion and temper lurked just beneath the serenity, which was intriguing as hell, he acknowledged. And with that deep well of passion tapped, she was vibrantly alive, aware, responsive; a man could go mad, he admitted to himself, knowing he could evoke that response from her.

  And underneath it all, in some carefully preserved part of her, was a fifteen-year-old girl, and a gentler time when fragility had been cherished and respected and her world had been unmarred by war.

  Falcon fumbled for a thin cigar and lighted it, frowning up at the ceiling. And so? She wasn’t the first woman who had fought for her life and won. Christ knew she wasn’t the only survivor of the war, however brutal the cost to her. And it had been years ago. So why did she have the subtle trick of inspiring a new and bewildering tenderness in him? Why did he feel the overpowering urge to stand between her and anything that could hurt her?

  She was just different, he thought, from any woman he had ever known. He knew strong women; there were many in his family, including his mother. He had known serene women, women wounded by war or hardship, women who were gentle, women who were passionate, women with green eyes.

  He swore and watched expelled smoke shape the harsh words. She was just a woman. Once he had taken her, he could forget her, as easily as he had always forgotten. If he could ignore that look in her eyes, that look of a fragile, gentle, desperate girl preserved in a simpler time.

  Falcon set his teeth and decided he could ignore it. He had to ignore it. Or change it. All he had to do was show her, as painlessly as possible, that her girlhood was a thing of the past, consigned there by time rather than a war. She was a woman now, and this world was not the one of her childhood. She would see that, and the look in her eyes would be gone. And then he could take her to his bed and pleasure them both.

  She was willing, after all; she couldn’t hide that from him. And if he didn’t get her out of his mind soon, he wouldn’t be worth shooting. He had to take her to his bed. He’d please her, he was sure, and he had never yet known a woman to regret that.

  He jabbed out his cigar and reached for the light, feeling relieved, back on balance. He just wanted her, of course. There was nothing more to it, nothing at all.


  —

  Victoria came out of her hotel, drawing on her gloves; when she saw him waiting for her, she stopped as though she had run into a wall. Automatically, she smoothed the material over her fingers, staring at him, helplessly aware that her feelings were showing on her face, in her eyes.

  The sight of him fed a hunger that had grown hour by hour, and she knew that hunger was obvious. But she had been so afraid she would never see him again, so afraid. There was no shuttered look in his eyes now, no formal smile. His eyes were intense with that familiar desire that even in her memory turned her bones to liquid and heated her flesh, and his half-smile was lazy with promise. A distinctly improper look to give her, she realized vaguely, especially in broad daylight on a public sidewalk, and she could have laughed aloud.

  He stepped forward and took her arm, leading her in the direction she had turned after leaving the hotel. “Where to, sweet?” he asked softly.

  “I was—just a walk,” she murmured. She sent him a glance, puzzled and wary despite her relief at seeing him again. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  He was holding her hand in the crook of his arm, and smiled down at her indolently as they walked slowly. “No? Why is that, sweet?”

  With a flash of temper, she said, “You know why.”

  He chuckled softly. “Yes, I suppose I do. Did it never occur to you, sweet, that if I hadn’t drawn away from you a bit, we might well be in that garden still?”

  She flushed vividly and fixed her gaze on the sidewalk in front of them. “Oh.” Her voice was small. Was it that? Only that? Somehow, she didn’t think so, but she didn’t want to ask again. Not now.

  “I want to take you to a party tonight,” he said lightly.

  “Another one?”

  He chuckled again. “Another one.” There was something reckless in his eyes then, a laughing challenge thrown her way. “A special sort of party—very exclusive, very private. It will be at a house here in the city.”

  She gave him a look that mingled doubt and suspicion. “I don’t think I should—“

  He pressed her hand, interrupting to say thoughtfully, “I’ve never seen your hands without gloves, do you realize that?”

  Considering what he had seen, she thought, flushing again, her hands hardly seemed to matter. “Falcon, I don’t think—“she began determinedly, only to be cut off again.

  “Small hands. Soft hands? Yes, soft hands. So soft they feel like satin. And long, delicate fingers that touch with the lightness of a butterfly.” His thumb slipped underneath the hand on his arm and rubbed the hollow of her palm slowly. “And if I put my lips here, where it’s warm and a little rough…Would you like that, sweet?”

  Victoria kept her eyes resolutely downward, feeling hot and shaky and hoping vaguely that none of the passersby heard or realized that he was, as they strolled decorously along the sidewalk, seducing her. Damn him. “Stop,” she murmured.

  “Only if you say you’ll come with me tonight. I’ll stop if you agree, sweet. For now.”

  “That’s blackmail,” she managed unsteadily, very aware of his thumb rubbing her palm in a slow, tingling rhythm until she couldn’t feel anything but that, the promise of that.

  “Isn’t it?” he agreed politely.

  There was a moment of silence, and she sighed. “All right. I’ll go with you.” She wasn’t at all certain that, if she refused, he wouldn’t resort to a more blatant seduction right there on the sidewalk.

  He chuckled, and his thumb rubbed an instant longer before he removed it and patted her hand lightly. “Wise of you. In case you hadn’t noticed, Victoria, I’m rather determined where you’re concerned.”

  She sent him a look. “Is that what it is?” Her sense of humor came to the fore, rescuing her from the deep, throbbing demand of passion he had evoked so swiftly and easily. “No, I didn’t notice.”

  He laughed aloud at her dry tone. “Too determined to accept a denial from you, sweet.”

  Victoria decided not to pursue that. “What kind of party is it?” she asked casually.

  “A gambling party.” He was watching her as he answered, and was delighted by the series of expressions that followed one another across her lovely face. First, interest and curiosity, then, doubt and uncertainty, and, finally, wariness.

  “Is that proper?” she asked, an unconscious severity in her tone.

  “Not in the least,” he answered, his tone cool. “However, you will find many of the highborn ladies of the city in attendance, and gambling as expertly as the gentlemen. And since their reputations are at stake as well, you won’t have to fear the loss of your good name.”

  Victoria glanced at him, feeling a pang that she didn’t have to look far to identify. She looked down quickly to hide the realization from him. No gentleman who felt respect for and had serious intentions toward an innocent lady would even think to take her into such a place. But, she reminded herself sternly, she had known what he wanted from her since the beginning; it was a bit late to cavil at it now.

  “Would she could make of me a saint, or I of her a sinner.”

  Congreve, she identified automatically, remembering the dusty book in Morgan’s library, and the long hours spent reading beautiful words. And then, realizing that Falcon was looking at her, she said casually, “It sounds interesting.” You’re going to make a sinner out of me, and why don’t I care?

  “Good.” He turned them back toward the hotel, smiling.

  Why don’t I care?

  —

  Falcon straightened away from the wall and moved smoothly and silently down the hallway, slipping through the door before it could be closed. “Hello, Tyrone,” he said pleasantly.

  Marcus Tyrone, ex-blockade-runner and now a shipping magnate, studied his visitor for a moment with veiled gray eyes, and then moved across the office and settled in his chair behind the desk. “Delaney.” His voice was just as pleasant as the other’s, and his hard face wore a faint smile. “What brings you here?”

  “Curiosity,” Falcon answered, stepping over to the visitor’s chair in front of the desk and settling in as if for a prolonged stay. “I don’t like questions with no answers.”

  The two men regarded one another across the desk, neither giving away his thoughts. They were both big men, both dark, and both had survived considerable dangers in their varied pasts. Tyrone had come out of the war with a sizable fortune, and had rapidly built a shipping empire; Falcon came from a wealthy family, but had spent his adult life in a career far less lucrative than the other.

  In appearance, they might have been brothers. Neither was given to showing his feelings, and both tended toward the cynical while observing their fellow man. In business affairs, each would have unhesitatingly trusted the other. And there was, in fact, a curious sense of empathy between them, unacknowledged by either but felt by both. They might have been friends.

  They were, in truth, enemies of a sort.

  Tyrone shrugged. “I don’t like answers with no questions.”

  Falcon inclined his head; nothing of his relaxed posture suggested that every sense was alert. “Fair enough. I’ve often thought,” he went on pleasantly, “that the decision to transport the gold south on a blockade-runner was an interesting one.”

  “It does seem unexpected,” Tyrone agreed in a thoughtful tone. “Damned risky, in fact. What gold are we discussing, by the way?”

  Falcon played along. “A federal gold shipment, stolen in ‘63. A rebel plot, presumably to finance the war effort. Funny thing is, precious little of that shipment ever surfaced.”

  Tyrone lit a thin cigar, frowning a bit. Then he looked at his visitor with clear, calm eyes. “Fancy that. I don’t suppose it could have gotten misplaced along the way?”

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” Falcon said, tacitly telling the other man he didn’t suspect him of having kept the gold for himself. “I think it was delivered. In Charleston.”

  “Then, I assume,” Tyrone said placidly, “that the men wh
o…commissioned the shipment took rightful possession.”

  “I wonder.” Falcon let the silence grow for a few moments. “There were all kinds of wild rumors just about then. Rumors of a group of powerful men in Charleston who were prepared to do just about anything to achieve a victory for the South. I believe I even heard a rumor that they meant to use that gold as payment for an assassin to gun down Lincoln.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Tyrone said.

  “No, of course you wouldn’t,” Falcon agreed, with no more than a hint of irony in his voice. Abruptly, he added, “It seems to me those men would have been very careful about the captain they chose to transport the gold. Quite a temptation, a million dollars. Unless, of course, he didn’t know what he was transporting.”

  Tyrone smiled.

  Falcon tried a slightly different tack. “I think we’ll find that at least one of those men knew a certain captain quite well. Well enough, at any rate, to trust him.”

  “An interesting theory,” Tyrone said. “Tell me—do you really expect to find your gold after all these years? It seems a bit unrealistic.”

  “I’ll find it.” Falcon smiled slowly. “It’s only a matter of time, and I have plenty of that. And patience. I never leave a job half-finished.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll be around, Tyrone. I’ll probably see you again.”

  Tyrone’s smile remained until the door dosed behind his visitor, and then faded. He stared at nothing for a long time, then crushed out his cigar in a heavy glass ashtray on his desk. “Damn,” he said softly.

  —

  The carriage ride that night was brief, and Victoria—cloaked again in black, with a shimmering green gown peeking out from beneath—was grateful for that when Falcon told her. Grateful and—disappointed? But she should have known he wasn’t a man to allow any opportunity to slip by unnoticed.

  “Take off your gloves, Victoria.” He was lounging back in his corner, relaxed, watchful. Smiling lazily.

  She looked at him, caught almost instantly by his eyes, his hot, hungry eyes. Would she could make of me a saint…or I of her a sinner. How easy it was for him. How easily he was making her a sinner. Slowly, she drew off the short gloves and held them in one hand. He reached out and took them from her, tucking them into one of his pockets.