by Kay Hooper
He held out a hand in a silent command, and, very slowly, she put one of hers into it.
“Small and soft,” he murmured, then straightened and lifted the hand, palm up, to his lips. She gasped when she felt his tongue, her fingers fluttering against his lean cheek. And then the carriage was halting, and he released her hand, looking at her with eyes that gleamed darkly.
The house was a respectable brownstone in a good neighborhood, and no raucous sounds issued from it to proclaim the activities within. A doorman admitted them, his large size and rather battered face hinting that his duties probably included dealing with the occasional rowdy patron; he murmured a greeting to Falcon in a respectful tone, gave Victoria a faintly surprised glance, and closed the door behind them.
“Why did he look at me like that?” she asked softly as they climbed the stairs to the upper floor.
After a moment, Falcon said, “Max? Surprised to find a real lady inside these walls, no doubt.” The words were mocking, but there was something new in his tone, something sharp and grim. As if, she thought, he were suddenly regretting bringing her here.
She glanced at him, puzzled, but had no time to question him. A maid at the top of the stairs took her cloak, and when she turned to face him again, his eyes went over her emerald-green gown with a look that was half-pleasure and half-pain.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
She lifted her chin, the green of her eyes intensified by the gown, and by anger. “I’m sorry you don’t like it.”
He met her stormy eyes for a moment, his own gaze somber, then studied her gown again. It was low-cut—the neckline displaying as much of her charms as the pink ball gown had done—and trimmed in lace and satin ribbons. He looked back at her face, where the soft veil of her Windsor hat shadowed her features mysteriously. Then he sighed explosively.
“Oh, I like it. So will every other man in the house.” He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm, his own hardheaded nature hell-bent to go through with this now that they were here. But she didn’t belong here, dammit, even Max had known that the moment he’d laid eyes on her; Victoria didn’t just look like a lady, she was a lady—and even an ex-boxer whelped in the gutters of New York could see that!
“I don’t understand you,” she murmured helplessly, and he was saved from replying to that when a second ex-boxer-turned-doorman opened a set of double doors at the end of the hall to allow them into the main rooms of the house.
Victoria’s hand tightened on his arm as they went in, and she gazed around with wide eyes. Smoke and the mingled scents of perfumes and spirits hung in the air, and the sounds of laughter, swearing, and an occasional argument sliced through it. There was a glittering profusion of gowns and jewels, half again as many men as women, and a concentrated attention to the business of gambling that was almost absolute. Except, Victoria noted with startled eyes, a few couples here and there with other matters on their minds, and total disregard for onlookers.
Here and there she saw a face she recognized from the ball a few nights before, and she realized Falcon had not deceived her in saying that the highborn of the city would be present. But what he hadn’t said—and what she noticed almost instinctively—was that the patrons of this “private” house were a mixed lot. Among the glittering gowns, jewels, and laughter of the very rich were also the grim, sometimes cruel faces of professional gamblers, the cheap tawdriness and bright smiles of young women who would no doubt accept payment for an hour or so in one of the private rooms, and the rough conversation and manners of workers or tradesmen with the price of a game.
“We don’t have to stay,” Falcon said to her quietly.
She looked up at him as they paused inside the room, and her smile was half-forced and half-reckless. He had brought her here, after all—and she even thought she knew why. Not because Falcon didn’t regard her as a lady, but because he did. She had thought about it carefully this afternoon, remembering several occasions when some reaction of hers had shaken him, defusing his blatant determination to seduce her. He was hardly a man without a conscience, she knew, and it was clear that some part of him was bothered by her innocence.
So he had brought her here, to this place where ladies and gentlemen checked their reputations at the door so that they could enjoy gambling with cards, dice, and each other, as well as with persons they would normally have little or nothing to do with.
Her smile became suddenly natural as she decided it was time Falcon discovered that innocent ladies were often many other things as well. She felt reckless, vividly alive, and strongly aware of Morgan’s advice. Damn the consequences. “Poker, I think. Will you stake me?”
His eyes narrowed for a moment, and then he nodded. “My pleasure, sweet.” He led her to a table where a game was breaking up, beckoning to a dark-suited man with an expressionless face who was standing by with chips.
“Gentlemen, may we join you?” Falcon asked the remaining three men at the table.
As soon as Victoria was seated at the table, she made up her mind to come out of the game a winner. Judging by their clothing, the three men here could well afford the loss, and she wasn’t at all concerned about Falcon. She looked at the chips he had placed before her and asked, “How much are these worth?”
“The whites are fifty, the reds a hundred, and the blues five hundred.”
She had never played for money before. “Dollars?”
“Don’t worry, little lady.” The heavyset man on her right grinned, a wolf’s grin if she’d ever seen one. “The rest of us are plenty anxious to take Delaney’s money; he has the luck of the devil.”
Victoria silently marked him as the one to run up the stakes on, and gathered the hand she’d been dealt. So Falcon had been here often before? It didn’t really surprise her. She would have been surprised to hear that he was a hardened gambler, sensing instead that he enjoyed playing the odds, but probably wasn’t addicted to the game. As the hand began to be played, she realized that three of the men at the table clearly considered her a beginner. The fourth, Falcon, seemed very watchful, his eyes unreadable.
Coolly, she began raising the stakes, and even the man with the wolf’s grin started to lose his tolerant smile. One by one, the other players folded, until there was only Victoria and the wolf. He was bluffing, and she knew it. She also knew that Falcon was watching her intently, but that didn’t bother her.
Calculating that the pot held something like five thousand dollars, Victoria calmly called the wolf’s raise and waited for him to lay down his cards. Not quite bluffing, she noted as she saw his hand. Three aces.
“What have you got, little lady?” he asked, confident.
Victoria fanned out her cards and placed them faceup on the table, smiling gently. A flush, in hearts.
The wolf looked a bit stunned, but pushed the chips across the table to her. “Your trick,” he murmured.
Three hands later, Victoria folded and retired from the game, satisfied that she had made her point. She was a winner by several thousand dollars, after having been at no time a loser. She had earned the wary respect of the three men she had soundly defeated, and Falcon’s interest had never wavered.
He didn’t allow her to stray from his side, even though he continued to play, taking her hand and glancing up at her thoughtfully. Victoria smiled and moved to stand just behind him, and when he lifted her hand to his shoulder, she allowed it to remain there.
She watched the game for a moment, then allowed her gaze to stray, taking in the activities around her now that the game no longer demanded her complete attention. She wondered if this kind of place had existed even in the decorous society she remembered before the war; she thought it probably had.
For the first time, she began to understand that people were merely people, and that vice was old. Public morals and manners might bow to the dictates of convention, but there would always be places like this one. Men and women would always be drawn to one another despite marriage vows and public censu
re, drawn to drink and gamble, drawn to escape the strictures imposed on them.
She looked down at the raven-black hair of the man seated before her, looked at her hand lying possessively on his black-clad shoulder, and her sigh went unheard in the noisy room. If Falcon had brought her here to make a point, he had certainly been successful. He had proven to her that manners and morals were surface things, easily discarded.
“You’re a lady, Victoria—don’t ever lose that.” Morgan’s voice sounded in her mind.
But what did it mean? Where was the dividing line between lady and woman? If not the decorum and morals taught to her almost from birth, then what? Though he had taught her many of the necessities of survival and self-protection—how to hunt and track and handle a gun—Morgan had avoided challenging in any way the first fifteen years of her life, the things she had been taught during her childhood. He had, in fact, subtly but strongly impressed upon her that she should never forget what she had been taught. She could run a plantation or ranch, handle servants, balance household accounts, converse with people across a dinner table or at a ball, dance, ride sidesaddle, fashion her own clothing and hats, and plan or even cook a large meal.
She could track an animal or a man across land that would give an Apache pause, ride a horse for days on end, and shoe it if necessary, handle a pistol or rifle with ease and precision, trap or fish for her meals, find water in a desert and shelter in a storm, in winter or summer. She could remove a bullet from an injured man and treat his wound and fever, deliver a baby, or a foal, or a calf. She could play poker. She had killed a man.
And yet she was a lady. Or was she?
Victoria looked around at the other women in the room, the ladies and the whores, and wondered what made them different. Was it only that the whores were honest, that they made no effort to hide what they were beneath fine manners?
Unconsciously, she shook her head. No. Perhaps for these women, in this place, yes—but not for all women. Then what was it? What made a woman a lady?
Her abstracted gaze sharpened as a white-aproned servant passed with a tray of glasses, and she took a glass of brandy for Falcon, leaning forward to place it at his elbow. She caught her breath as her breasts were pressed briefly to his back, and saw his eyes gleam beneath the thick lashes as he glanced up at her.
“Thank you, sweet.” He turned his head to kiss the hand on his shoulder lightly.
She straightened again, a little flushed. Oh, damn, what was it? Was it this jumble of emotions Falcon ignited in her? Did a woman’s body know something a lady’s never could? Born a lady, had she become a woman only when Falcon had held her, kissed her, touched her?
Victoria was confused, angry. No one had warned her, no one had told her this would happen. No one had said that a dark, green-eyed Irishman who was untamed beneath his polished surface would make her doubt and question the teachings of her life. First, her mother had told her that she would marry and bear children, that a man would always protect her, that there were things in life she would never have to worry about. Then the war had come, changing all that she knew. And then, Morgan had come into her life and taught her how to protect herself, whether she faced the elements, animals, or a threatening man. But no one had warned her that a man would threaten her with no other weapon than the compelling strength of his passion.
After a moment, she bent just enough to murmur, “Excuse me,” to Falcon, and then slipped away into the crowd. Resolutely ignoring an amorous pinch from a drunken gambler she passed, she moved on until she reached the wide doorway leading to another room. It was in her mind to find someplace quiet where she could think, but two steps into the room convinced her this was hardly what she was looking for.
It occurred to her belatedly that she should never have abandoned the relative safety of Falcon’s presence.
This room, like the other, held card tables, but where the attention there had been focused more or less on the gambling, in this room, another vice was being explored. The number of women and men was fairly equal, the laughter softer, the caresses bolder—and nobody was playing cards.
Victoria turned hastily back toward the door.
“Hey, honey, how ‘bout a drink?” The rough voice emerged from a shadowy corner as a big, heavy man stepped out in front of her.
Victoria kept her voice calm and level, hoping it would penetrate the man’s alcoholic fog; few men were desperate enough to molest a lady—even here, she hoped. “Please let me pass, sir.” She started to step around him, but the man blocked her.
“Not so fast, honey!” He laughed, a booming sound, and reached out to grip her arm. “I got money. I can pay. Why don’t we go have a little drink, an’ then—“
“Release me, sir!” Here was one man who didn’t think she was a lady; the offer of payment told her that. She started to push his hand away, but he caught hers. Then both his arms were around her, pinning her own at the small of her back, and his hot whiskey-breath was heavy on her face.
“Now, be nice, honey. How ‘bout a little kiss?”
Victoria was shaken, growing afraid, but when his stubbled chin scraped across her face and wet lips searched for her own, instinct took over. Her knee jerked up, the impact muffled by her heavy skirts, but still strong enough to take him by surprise and cause a certain amount of pain.
He grunted, his body contracting, and his arms tightened convulsively around her with a force that took her breath away. “Hellion! I’ll teach you!” His raspy voice was furious, pained, cruel.
She tried to bring her sharp heel down on his booted toe, struggling violently to escape him; she was hampered by her woman’s skirts and defeated at the outset by his strength and fury. He drew back an arm to strike her, his dimly seen face contorted by rage, and Victoria braced herself for the blow she couldn’t avoid.
But then the man was jerked away from her as though he weighed nothing, yanked around to face another large figure, and met a blow that knocked him reeling. With a bellow, the drunkard rushed his attacker, blind rage impelling him. But iron fists staggered him with two lightning punches, and a third knocked him backward to measure his length on the floor.
Victoria had been more or less pushed aside by the fight, and she winced when she realized that the fight wasn’t going to be confined to the drunken man and Falcon. One man started to rush past her toward Falcon with angry mutters, and she barely caught his more sober companion’s urgent warning.
“For Christ’s sake, man, don’t go after Delaney! He’ll kill you!”
After that, the confusion was total, the noise unbelievable, and the enthusiasm complete. It might have begun with Falcon defending her honor, but within minutes no one seemed to know—or care—how it had started. It hardly surprised Victoria, since she had seen a brawl or two in the last years; nor did it surprise her to see a bright look in Falcon’s eyes that told her he was enjoying his part in the melee.
The other men were enjoying it too.
The man who had warned his friend about Falcon was standing near Victoria when the fight became a glorious free-for-all, and she caught a pained look from him. He sighed, loosened his tie, murmured, “Excuse me, ma’am,” politely to Victoria, and broke a chair over another man’s head.
She should have been shocked. Perhaps she should even have found a deserted corner—somewhere—and folded gracefully into a faint in the best tradition of Southern womanhood. The truth, however, was that Victoria wanted to laugh. Her own rebellious anger was still alive in her, and she was annoyed to realize that a man could express his anger in a fight while a woman couldn’t. Or, at least, wasn’t supposed to. So, when someone reeled drunkenly into her and grabbed her waist, possibly for support, she broke a vase over his head.
She looked up as the man crashed to the floor, meeting Falcon’s eyes unerringly. He grinned at her suddenly, an infectious grin that was boyish, and she heard his low laugh even through all the crashings and thuds and grunts. Then he became distracted as someone took a wild swin
g at his jaw, and Victoria lost sight of him.
She was rather busy herself; the brawl had reached the point where the women either had to get involved or hide under some sturdy piece of furniture. Since the furnishings in the room consisted mainly of card tables, there wasn’t much to hide under. She lost her hat at some point, and removed one shoe at another point because she’d run out of vases and table legs.
And she almost hit Max with the shoe when he appeared, suddenly, at her side. The doorman was unsurprised to find a lady’s shoe waving in his direction, and his rough voice was unfailingly polite when he addressed her.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but you’d best be leavin’. They’ll be bringin’ the wagon round any time now.”
“The wagon?”
“Police, ma’am.”
That hadn’t occurred to her, but doubtless Max knew what he was talking about. “Oh.” She looked toward the melee, where Falcon’s height made him visible. “But I can’t leave without Falcon—“
“I’ll fetch him, ma’am.” Max casually backhanded a man making for Victoria with clutching hands, then waded into the brawl toward Falcon.
Giggling despite everything, Victoria tried to brace herself against the wall long enough to get her shoe back on, but there was a great deal of pushing and shoving going on, and she found it impossible. “I wonder where my hat got to?” she said to Falcon as he and Max reached her.
He looked at the shoe in her hand and grinned suddenly. “I can’t imagine. Shall we leave?”
“Certainly.” As they stepped into the relative quiet of the other room—which was deserted, since all the occupants had either joined the fight or left—she added calmly, “May I borrow your arm?”
He offered it silently, watching with a solemn expression as she held his arm and bent to put her shoe on.