by Jo Goodman
Ethan wanted to tell her. His mouth opened a fraction, the sun lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. There was tension in every line of his body, then it was gone. "No," he said finally, "I can't. I'd be trading your safety for time in your bed. I thought I was that selfish, perhaps I'm not. In any case, you deserve better."
Michael hesitated, moved by the desire that made him want to tell her something and the self-denial that held him back. "If you told me something, anything, to help me trust you, what is it you're afraid I might do?"
"Give the information away by some small misstep. It wouldn't be purposeful. I trust you that much. But it really wouldn't matter about the motive. If it happened you'd be dead."
"Is Nathaniel Houston your friend?" she asked, watching him closely.
Ethan didn't answer immediately. Finally he said, "Houston's using me to get something he wants. I'm using him for the same reason."
"But is he your friend?" She was unaware of the pleading look in her eyes. "Do you like him, admire him?"
"No. None of those things." He paused. "Is that what you needed to hear?"
"It's enough."
"It will have to be. If I respected Houston less, I'd tell you more."
Michael understood. It was the danger Houston represented that Ethan respected, not the man himself. "It's enough," she repeated.
Outside dusk was slipping quietly into Madison, silhouetting the surrounding mountains and bringing up the flames in gaslighted rooms along the main street. Ethan drew the curtain closed. Michael began taking the pins from her hair.
"Let me," he said.
"All right." She dropped her hand to her side and waited, anticipating, her eyes searching his face as he approached. Thick lashes shaded the darkening centers of his eyes. There was an intensity in their cool depths that held her immobile. Inside she trembled.
Ethan stopped just inches from her and raised his hands. His fingers barely touched the downy strands of hair at her nape. He heard her breath catch. "Do I frighten you, Michael?"
"When you look at me that way..." She shook her head, unable to finish. Unselfconsciously she tilted her face toward his cupped hand, rubbing her cheek against his palm. "...you make me want you."
It was Ethan who felt air swell in his lungs and burn before he could take another breath. His fingers tangled in her hair. He pulled at the pins, unwound the thick coil and combed through it with his fingertips. Silky, curling strands of copper, gold, and red spilled over his hands. He lifted her hair over one shoulder and let it fall and buried his face against her exposed neck. Her skin was as beautifully soft as it looked. He tasted. He sipped. Her arms went around him, holding him, stroking his naked back with the lightest touch of her tapered nails. She traced the length of his spinal cord. Her fingers dipped just below the waist of his jeans and circled around to the front. She fumbled with the button fly.
His mouth was hot on her skin. His tongue damp. Ethan's teeth caught her earlobe and worried it gently. His lips brushed her temple and he felt the faint racing of her pulse. Trailing across her forehead, he touched her feathery brows, her closed lids, the arch of her cheeks. His mouth teased the corner of her lips. Her mouth opened, hungry and demanding. She ground her lips against his mouth, pressing her tongue against his, making no secret of what she wanted.
Ethan was struck by her open and honest passion. There was no one else like her in his experience. Her reserve vanished in the face of her desire. She was without guile, untroubled by the depth of her wanting. Her fingers had managed the buttons on his jeans. She parted the material and pushed at his drawers. He had to capture her wrists as she captured him.
"I'll throw you back on the bed and toss up your skirts if you keep that up."
"I wouldn't mind."
"I would." His voice was husky, whiskey smooth. "I want to look at you."
Her smile was artless, not seductive, her pleasure genuine. She helped him with her buttons as he backed her toward the bed. He pulled the hunter green gown over her shoulders. She wiggled out of it as he tugged at the laces of her corset. She felt the mattress at the back of her thighs and dropped, lying back, supporting herself with her elbows while she raised one leg at a time for Ethan to make short work of her shoes and stockings. Grinning, he tossed them blindly over his shoulder. The shoes thumped, the stockings fluttered.
He was beside her on the bed then, rolling so that they stretched diagonally on the bed. Their mouths touched. Clung.
He pushed at her chemise, baring the smooth skin of her abdomen. She raised her arms over her head so he could pull it off. It went the way of the stockings. His knuckles brushed the tips of her breasts. The pink nipples seemed to darken to rose as they hardened.
Ethan bent his head. His tongue flicked the tip of one nipple. She moved a little impatiently beneath him. He attended the other breast, laving the sweetly tender flesh with the edge of his tongue. She arched. Her fingers curled in his hair, holding him to her. The suck of his mouth radiated fire.
Their legs tangled. The clothing that remained was quickly discarded. When their legs touched again it was flesh against flesh. She reached for him intimately and Ethan watched her hands close around him.
"Take me into you."
She opened her thighs and guided him. Ethan watched her watching them. "You are so beautiful." He was deep inside her. She was tight all around him. Her fingers passed into the taut flesh of his buttocks.
He kissed her. The play of their tongues was a prelude to the play of their bodies. Her mouth slipped from his as she gasped her pleasure. She trailed damp, tasting kisses along his jaw and down his neck. Her hips lifted to his rhythm. She tightened as he withdrew, opened to him as he thrust again.
He spoke her name, whispered it against her skin. Her hair spilled across the comforter. It wound around his fingers. She bit her lip to hold back the sounds of her pleasure. He nudged her mouth open with his, tasted her husky little cries, and let her hear his. Pleasure hummed between them.
Tension tugged at their skin, drawing their bodies taut, making them responsive to the slightest touch. Michael felt as if she were standing on the edge of the very emptiness she feared. It was Ethan who was encouraging her to go further. She listened to him. She leaped.
He didn't desert her. His arms held her, his body cradled her, his voice soothed her. The pleasure was intense. Sharing his was equally satisfying.
After their breathing calmed, Ethan started to move away.
"Don't leave me just yet," she said.
His lips brushed the corner of her mouth. "All right. In a little while." He liked the touch of her fingertips sweeping across his back. When he moved later she didn't protest, but rolled with him so that her body curved against his and her head rested in the crook of his shoulder. They managed to get between the sheets with the least amount of fussing.
Michael looked up at him. She absently smoothed back the hair at his temples. "You have some strands of gray here. Did you know that?"
"What I know is that I didn't have so many a few weeks ago."
"Meaning, I suppose, that I'm responsible."
He shrugged. "You decide."
She nudged him lightly in the ribs with her fist. "What's wrong?" she asked when she heard him swear softly. "Did I hurt you?"
Ethan was looking past Michael's shoulder to her breasts. Her skin was faintly reddened there as if she'd been brush burned. "Did I do that?"
Michael looked down at herself, saw the same flush he saw. "It doesn't hurt," she told him. "It's my fault anyway. I interrupted your shaving." He started to sit up to remedy that fact immediately. Michael pushed him back down and trapped his legs beneath one of hers. She snuggled. "That's better. I don't mind the little bit of beard." It had been pleasantly rough against her skin. She stroked the underside of his jaw lightly with her knuckles. "You could grow your mustache again. It doesn't matter if I see you with it now."
"I'll think about it. I've become—" He broke off when there was a knock at the door.
"What is it?" he asked impatiently.
It was Carmen's voice that came through the door.
"I'm looking for Michael," she said. "Is she with you?"
Michael started to answer only to have Ethan's hand clamp over her mouth. "She is," he called back. "And she's occupied." At the very moment one of her hands was running across his flat belly.
"Well, let her go, for God's sake. She promised to help with the new dance number."
Ethan tightened his hold on Michael when she began to squirm, trying to get away and answer Carmen herself. "She's not going downstairs at all tonight. She's still recovering from yesterday's bout with the bottle."
"She looked fine to me a while ago."
"Relapse," Ethan said tersely. Beside him Michael was shaking with laughter, at least he hoped it was laughter, not anger.
"Dee won't like it," Carmen called through the door.
"Dee doesn't have to like it." He thought he heard her harrumph her disagreement before she walked away. Ethan waited until he was certain Carmen was down the hall before he slowly lifted his hand from Michael's mouth. She was laughing.
"Shh." He gave her a quick kiss, silencing her. "Someone might hear." He brushed her hair away from her cheek and where it touched her throat. "How are you feeling? You had quite a lot to drink yesterday."
The memory, not her head, made her groan. "I'm fine now. Could you doubt it?" She smiled. "But if you really want to protect me, you'll never let me drink like that again."
"I couldn't stop you. In case it hasn't been pointed out to you before, Miss Dennehy, you're a very strong-willed individual."
"My father's influence."
"Oh?" He was curious. He knew only bits and pieces about her family, not much more than the fact that she had one. She had mentioned precious little about her father. "How's that?"
"He doesn't let very much get in his way," she said. "He's been riding roughshod over people most of his life."
"Your mother included?"
She sighed. "Most especially my mother." She glanced up at him. "Don't misunderstand. He loves my mother. Quite desperately, in fact. And, for all his character flaws, she loves him just as desperately. It's the reason she accepts his decisions, no matter how much they pain her or go against what she was raised to believe. She loves him that much."
Ethan recalled something Michael had said to him before. "Why would some people think your mother's a whore?"
"I said that, didn't I?" She paled a little with the memory of her harsh indictment. "I shouldn't have. It doesn't matter what people think. I know the truth."
"And that is?"
"My father's married."
Ethan frowned. "Of course—"
"But not to my mother," she said. "She's been his mistress for twenty-five years, a wife to him in all ways except legally. She's borne him five daughters. She's comforted him, encouraged him, fought with him, and loved him. None of it could change the fact that she knew him first when she was a servant in his home. He was already married. My mother never tried to plead ignorance of that fact. She accepted him for what he was. Not only was he married, he was... is... Presbyterian. He's quite wealthy. She wasn't. His family was here before the revolution. My mother's Irish accent is still very evident. It was an odd pairing from the beginning, I suppose, but somehow it survived."
"You think it shouldn't have?"
"For my mother's sake I'm glad it has. Except for the place she has in her heart for each of her daughters, he's her entire world. But I resent him sometimes. I resent how he could walk in and out of our lives, how time spent with him, even as a child with my sisters, was always snatched, as if we were keeping him from something more important. I used to think it was his wife that took him away. As I grew older I understood it was just as much his work."
"He paid for your education?"
She nodded. "Mary's too. And Rennie's and Maggie's. Skye will be going soon herself. My father never let us want for anything. There was never a birthday forgotten or a Christmas when he didn't send gifts to our home. We were encouraged to study, to do well in school. Perhaps because he knew the struggles we would face as bastards, even as women."
"Michael..." He said her name softly.
"It's all right. I know I should feel blessed by his attention—my sisters don't all share my resentment—but I can't help feeling that he shortchanged all of us."
"And yet you are who you are because of him." Independent. Reserved. Strong-willed. Determined.
Her laughter was dry, humorless. "I know. I set out to avoid my mother's mistakes and somehow became my father. That's something to think about, isn't it?"
Ethan squeezed her lightly. "Mm-hmm."
"Meeting you has been good for me, Ethan."
"Oh?"
"The things I've done with you... the feelings... it helps me..."
"Yes?"
"I understand my mother better. It was so easy to sometimes condemn her in my heart when I never had to make the same choices."
He stroked her shoulder and could not find it in himself to wish he had given her other choices. She did not appear to regret the decisions she'd made.
"What's your mother's name? Another Mary?"
She smiled. "No. It's Moira. Her naming us all Mary was her way of trying to atone for her transgressions. She hasn't been inside a church for years, but she's deeply religious. Mary Francis, my oldest sister, completed her vows two years ago and became a nun with Little Sisters of the Poor. That seemed to help Mama. She felt as if she had offered something back to the church."
"Your sister's a sister?"
"Mm-hmm. Oh, I see. It's made you uncomfortable. Jay Mac had the same reaction at first. He's so very protestant and the idea of one of his daughters becoming a nun was a little discomfiting. He never really had any say in the matter though. If you think I'm strong-willed, you should meet Mary Francis. She's every bit as plain a speaker as our father and so calm about it that you don't realize you've been tongue-lashed until you hear yourself apologizing."
Ethan was only listening now with half an ear. Her mention of one single name made it nearly impossible for him to hear anything else. "Jay Mac?" he asked. "Your father's John MacKenzie Worth?"
She sat up, tucking the sheet under her arms and across her breasts as she did so. Michael nodded. "You know Jay Mac?"
Ethan pushed himself up and leaned against the headboard. Know him, he thought, I'm all but working for him! He could see himself in Logan Marshall's office again, working out the details of the plan with Marshall, Rivington, and Carl Franklin. Jay Mac hadn't been there, but he was at the heart of the scheme, the majority stockholder in Northeast Rail Lines and the client Franklin represented in the discussion. Had Jay Mac not been called away on some personal matter, he may have well represented himself at the meeting. Ethan could only imagine what would have happened if Michael had burst in on them then.
"I know of Jay Mac," he said truthfully. "Naturally I've never met him."
"Never robbed anything of his?" she asked slyly.
His look was stern. "Michael."
"I'm sorry." She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. "I just think it would be a wonderful irony if you had. He has banks, you know."
Ethan ignored that. "I thought Jay Mac had a son."
"You're thinking of Elliot. That's Papa's nephew. His brother's son."
"What about Mrs. Worth?"
"Nina? She's not any part of our lives, at least not directly. I find myself feeling sorry for her, then calling myself a traitor for having those feelings. She's childless, fills her days with good works. Jay Mac rarely speaks of her around us; but we always feel the tug of her as he prepares to leave."
"Why didn't you mention who your father was before?"
"I never mentioned who my mother was either. I can't see that it matters at all."
"Jay Mac's capable of turning the country inside out looking for you."
"I did tell you that my family would be trying to f
ind me. You assured me they'd only discover I was dead."
"Jay Mac's not the sort of person who will stop if there isn't a body."
"I see his reputation is far reaching."
Ethan wondered how successful Logan Marshall and the others would be at restraining him. Jay Mac Worth's interference now could only make things more difficult for his daughter, not better. "I just wish you had mentioned it before," he said.
"When I didn't trust you? I don't think so. You know what the others would do if they found out Jay Mac was my father. They'd demand money from him and my body would still never be found."
He reached for her then and held her tightly. The shiver that had begun with her words passed into him. He absorbed it, felt her fear touch his own. John MacKenzie Worth's money, power, and influence couldn't protect her in Madison. Only he could do that.
"I'm not going to let anything happen to you," he said.
"I know. I think I've always known."
"Even when I was threatening you?"
"Well, perhaps not then, at least not consciously. But that sense that I knew you in some way was always there. It probably made me feel safer than I had any right to feel." She kissed his shoulder. Her lips slid along the edge of his collarbone. She kissed his neck, his throat. Her mouth moved lower, down his chest, across his nipples, teasing him with her teeth and tongue the way he had done to her.
He watched her make a path across his belly while her hands dipped beneath the comforter to stroke his thighs. He pushed away from the headboard and lay back. Michael moved with him, sliding down his body to lie on top of him.
"I like this," she whispered against his skin.
"So do I." Her hair was a beautiful cascade of curls framing her face. It brushed his abdomen and then his thighs as she moved still lower. The first tentative, intimate caress of her mouth made him think he would come out of his skin. His fingers tightened in her hair. His words were husky and encouraging. She made him hot and hard and she seemed to know what he wanted, what would give him the most pleasure, without ever asking. No woman had ever done for him what she was doing, leastways without seeing his money first.
"I've got to take you now," he said hungrily, drawing her up, "or I won't..."