Angelfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  Peony sighed and took a sip of her wine before trying again. “Jamie’s not a man to trifle with,” she said. “If I were you, Bliss, I wouldn’t push him another inch.”

  Choosing to disregard the warning, Bliss watched Jamie as he shook hands with the man he’d been talking to and started back toward his own table. “What’s happening, Peony?” she asked. “Why is he keeping us inside the hotel every moment of the day? I’m about to suffocate!”

  “You’re not alone there,” Peony replied dryly. “But he has his reasons.”

  Bliss brought one fist down on the table for emphasis. “I want to know what they are!” she cried.

  Peony’s reaction was the last one Bliss would have expected. She began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Jamie asked irritably as he rejoined them at the table.

  Peony went right on laughing. Only when her mirth had subsided did she say, “I warned you to stay on the straight and narrow, didn’t I? Now you’ll have your comeuppance, Jamie McKenna!”

  Jamie gave Bliss a wry, private look that said he’d have more than his comeuppance, and she felt her blood turn hot at the prospect of being alone with him.

  As it happened, Bliss was asleep when Jamie joined her in bed, but she awakened to find him unfastening the buttons of her camisole with light, agile fingers. “Ummm,” she whispered, stretching luxuriously as he slipped his hand between satin and alabaster to caress her bare breast. Her nipple went deliciously hard against his palm.

  With a groan, Jamie slipped beneath the covers to take the tender confection between his lips and flick at it with the tip of his tongue.

  Bliss whimpered, arching her neck and entangling her fingers in Jamie’s hair as he teased her. Meanwhile, he smoothed away her drawers; it seemed that they’d dissolved into thin air, so easily did he remove them.

  She wanted him to take her, then and there, she needed him so badly, but Bliss knew that Jamie would exact the last measure of response from her before giving her complete satisfaction. She wanted vengeance, and when Jamie was poised above her but still withholding himself, she began scooting downward.

  She felt the beggar’s badge touch her cheek, warm from its contact with Jamie’s chest, and she kissed her way through coarse down to tease a masculine nipple with her tongue.

  Jamie moaned as she repaid him for some of the sweet torment he’d put her through, stiffened as she slid lower and lower beneath him, kissing the taut expanse of his belly. His powerful arms, holding his torso up off the bed, trembled with the effort of remaining in that position.

  A primitive groan of triumph and surrender escaped him as Bliss found what she sought. She teased him until he was wild with the need of her, until he was pleading in hoarse, senseless words, and then she progressed back up over his belly and his chest to kiss the underside of his chin.

  With a surge of newfound strength, and of passion, Jamie entered Bliss in one powerful motion of his hips. Now, it was her turn to know that tender torment she had subjected him to earlier.

  Her fingers grasped frantically at the muscular expanse of his back in an effort to hold him as he withdrew slowly, slowly, until he was barely inside her. “Please,” she whispered.

  Her reward was another deep and magnificent stroke, followed by the inevitable, excruciating withdrawal. Again and again, he lunged and withdrew, hovering for long seconds on the brink of leaving Bliss, then delving far inside her again. She was near delirium when Jamie finally permitted her the ecstasy he had been taunting her with, and she was like a wild creature, flinging her head back and forth on the pillow, hurling her hips at him, crying out as glory exploded within and all around her. The light was white and dazzling, like fire sparked by the friction of angels’ wings.

  Now Jamie’s pace grew more rapid as he too felt the sweet heat of angelfire. Bliss soothed him with whispers and with her hands, at the same time purposely driving him toward madness, sheathing him in rippling velvet.

  In the shattering, seemingly endless moments of his release, Bliss once again found his nipple with her mouth and enjoyed him ruthlessly as he trembled upon her, her name like a war cry on his lips.

  When he collapsed beside her, gasping so greedily for air that Bliss feared he would die, she whispered, “Jamie, I love you!”

  His strong hands rose to clasp the sides of her head, fingers buried in her hair, but he was still breathing too raggedly for speech. Finally, he pressed Bliss’s mouth to his and kissed her.

  Through his chest she could feel the hard, steady beat of his heart. “And I love you, Duchess,” he whispered, when he could speak.

  Although they were both exhausted, their young bodies had been honed for sweeter battles; within minutes, they were needing again. Loving again.

  And when that skirmish was over, they fell into sound sleep, their arms and legs intertwined as if they would cling together forever.

  But forever is a thing sometimes denied to mortal man.

  Chapter 16

  IT WAS PURE LUCK, AND NOTHING MORE, THAT NEITHER JAMIE NOR Peony was in the suite when Mrs. Minerva Wilmington came to call. She was obviously disappointed at not being able to meet the woman who had written such a glowing letter of recommendation for Bliss.

  Cheeks slightly warm, Bliss lowered her eyes and said, “Won’t you please sit down, Mrs. Wilmington?”

  “No time, no time,” replied the woman. Jamie would have said that was typical of a Yank, being in a rush. “I have reached my decision.”

  Bliss held her breath, one hand clasping the other as she stood there facing Mrs. Wilmington, the door of the suite standing open. She longed to stay with Jamie, but he was even then out looking for a suitable place to tuck her away in, like a doll in a dollhouse.

  He wanted a toy, not a wife and a partner.

  “You’ll do,” Mrs. Wilmington said briskly. “We’ll discuss your wages and the payment of your passage at another time. You will be prepared to depart in six days, won’t you?”

  Bliss nodded, so near tears that she didn’t trust herself to speak. It was really going to happen; she was going to leave Jamie McKenna and her homeland behind—and never look back.

  When she’d closed the door behind Mrs. Wilmington, Bliss leaned against it, bit her lower lip, and let the tears spill over. Suddenly America seemed big and strange and very far away.

  The fact that her mother lived there didn’t offer the comfort that it had in days gone by.

  Resolutely, Bliss took herself in hand. The last few days had been a foretaste of the life Jamie meant for her; despite luxurious surroundings, Bliss was alone for the greater part of every day, and she was bored to distraction. Only when Jamie made love to her—which was always at his convenience—did she feel truly alive.

  She had yearned for adventure all her life, and by heaven she was going to have it. Furthermore, she was bound to get over Jamie McKenna one day—though who knew how long that would take.

  With a sigh, Bliss went into the bedroom and opened the huge armoire. It was time she decided which of the clothes Jamie had bought her were suitable for a widow’s companion and which should be left behind—along with silly dreams and wishful thinking.

  Increase Pipher settled back against the pillows on his bed, exhausted from his travels.

  He smiled to himself. The exquisite irony of it all; after all these years of helpless fury, he was in a position to monitor virtually every move that arrogant young Irishman made.

  The suite across the hall. Increase threw his head back and gave a raspy burst of laughter. Jamie McKenna would pay, in coin more precious than gold, for all the grief he’d caused. And as for that little bitch who’d helped him—

  In the distance, there was a noise. Walter Davis, Increase’s private secretary, had returned.

  “Davis!” the old man shouted.

  The clerk entered the master bedroom with trepidation. “How are you feeling, Mr. Pipher?” He spoke with respect, but Increase didn’t miss the red flush climbing th
e lad’s skinny neck.

  “Never mind how I’m feeling. What did you learn?”

  Davis kept his distance, probably because Increase had reached out for his cane and waved it for emphasis while speaking. The cowardly little whelp had learned to stay out of its range.

  “He’s got a wife, Mr. Pipher. Jamie McKenna’s got himself a wife.”

  Increase digested this information with particular pleasure. “Have you gotten a look at her?”

  Davis nodded. “Just briefly, in the dining room this morning. She’s a saucy red-haired snippet with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Got quite a temper, according to the staff.”

  Increase smiled. “She’s the same woman, then. The one Dunnigan described. McKenna loves her, does he?”

  “The staff uniformly agrees that he does, sir,” said David, his tone obsequious and sugary now. He was always pandering, the sniveling little worm, and even though Increase liked to force people into doing both those things, he despised them for it, too.

  “So it’s a grand passion, is it?” Increase muttered thoughtfully. “Wonderful. I can’t tell you how happy I am for the both of them.”

  Davis folded his arms across his skinny chest. “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, it seems—unprofitable to seek revenge after all this time.”

  Rage exploded within Increase. Unprofitable, was it? He’d lost everything the day Peony had rescued that miserable Irishman. He’d lost his mistress, his crop of sugarcane, his house. He looked down at his legs, clearly seeing the scars the fire had left even though they were covered by his trousers. He’d nearly lost two limbs as well.

  The clerk read his expression accurately and held out both hands in an effort to stay an outburst. “I’m sure you have your reasons, of course,” he sputtered. “Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

  “Oh yes,” Increase said, smiling. “I think a wedding gift is in order, don’t you? And I know just what I want to send to the happy couple.”

  Davis’s face went pale as Increase gave him his instructions. It was a sad commentary, the old man reflected later, that so few men had the stomach for seeing matters through to their just conclusions.

  The package arrived by messenger just as they were about to go out for supper, and there was a card attached. Frowning, Jamie opened the envelope and read, “For the newlyweds, with kindest regards for your future happiness. An old friend.”

  Bliss appeared at his elbow, for she loved a surprise, but Jamie had a feeling this wasn’t anything he wanted her to see. Nonetheless, he cut the twine away with his knife and laid back the plain wrapping paper.

  The gift was a bullwhip, wound into a coil of lethal black leather. Jamie’s knees weakened, and he closed his eyes for a moment, fighting against memories of another whip, in another time and place.

  Bliss was stricken dumb, for once in her life, but Peony put one hand to her mouth and whispered, “Oh my God, Jamie—”

  Jamie bolted out the door, bent on catching up with the messenger, but he was too late. The boy was gone.

  “What does it mean?” Bliss asked, looking from Peony’s face to Jamie’s. “Somebody tell me what’s happening!”

  Jamie shoved a hand through his hair. “It’s a long story, Duchess. Peony and I—well, we made an enemy when we left Australia.”

  Peony was pacing and wringing her hands. “I know this is all happening because I set the cane fields on fire,” she muttered. “If I hadn’t done that—”

  “If you hadn’t done that,” Jamie broke in, anxious to reassure his friend, “I’d be a mess of bones underneath a tree. You saved my life, love.”

  Bliss’s eyes were wide with the drama of it all, and she didn’t speak. At any other time, under any other circumstances, Jamie would have laughed at her expression.

  “What are we going to do now?” Peony whispered.

  Jamie’s hand moved, by habit, to the knife he was rarely without, his fingers resting lightly on the scabbard. “Just what he wants us to do,” he answered. “Wait.”

  The day of her departure for America was drawing nearer and nearer, and with each passing moment, Bliss wanted less than ever to go. Even though Jamie would never have admitted it, he needed her.

  As Bliss placed the few carefully folded items of clothing she meant to take with her into her satchel, she thought about the whip that had arrived several days before and shuddered. Something really horrible was happening, but neither Jamie nor Peony would tell her what it was.

  It had to do with the scars on Jamie’s back, though. Bliss had been able to deduce that much from the nightmares that set her husband to tossing wildly in his sleep every night.

  She sighed. There was no use in worrying, for she could do nothing to help unless Jamie decided to share the problem with her. Not much chance of that, it appeared.

  Bliss went back to the suite’s main room, feeling bored and frustrated. If nothing else, Jamie had stopped locking her in; she would go out for a long walk. With the approach of September, spring was in the air.

  She was just reaching for a lightweight cloak when someone knocked at the door. Forgetting Jamie’s warnings—he could be such a fussbudget—she swung it open wide, pleased at the idea of company.

  The young man standing nervously in the hallway was familiar to Bliss; she’d seen him in the lobby and the dining room of the hotel.

  “Hello,” he said, after clearing his throat. He was thin, with brown hair that stuck up rambunctiously, despite generous applications of pomade, and a poor complexion. “Please excuse me for troubling you, Mrs. McKenna. My name is Walter Davis and I’m here about—about my grandfather.”

  Bliss was puzzled. “How do you happen to know my name?” she asked.

  Mr. Davis went ruddy. “I—I’ve inquired,” he stammered. “The fact is, Mrs. McKenna, I need to find a chemist—so that I might purchase my grandfather’s medicine—and—well—I do hesitate to leave the old fellow alone. I was wondering if you might stay with him, just for a few minutes?”

  Bliss would have much preferred going on the errand, she so craved fresh air, but perhaps Mr. Davis had been shut up even longer than she had, looking after his sick grandfather and all. “All right,” she agreed with a polite nod.

  Mr. Davis turned and opened the door across the hallway. “Thank you so much, Mrs. McKenna. I know Grandfather will enjoy meeting you.”

  After only the briefest hesitation, Bliss preceded Mr. Davis into the other suite. Jamie would have said she was taking a foolish chance, but then, he had rather a suspicious mind. If it were up to him, she’d sit in the suite like a geranium on a windowsill, looking pretty and doing nothing.

  A shriveled old man with white hair sat ensconced in the middle of the suite’s front room, like a king holding court. Bliss felt a chilly finger touch her soul when he smiled at her, but she shook the reaction off. She’d been spending too much time inside the hotel, that was all. She was getting skittish.

  “Hello there, my dear,” the scratchy voice said, and one thin hand was extended. “It’s grand to finally meet you.”

  Bliss worked up a smile as Mr. Davis began the introductions. “Grandfather, this is Mrs. James McKenna—”

  The rheumy eyes seemed to flash beneath their heavy lids. “My name is Albert,” he broke in. “Albert Davis.”

  The elder Mr. Davis’s grip was strong, despite his advanced age and the fact that he sat in an invalid’s chair. “Hello, Mr. Davis,” Bliss said politely, wondering how long it would take for the grandson to visit the chemist’s shop. The room was dark, since the drapes were pulled, and there was a musty smell in the air, along with an inexplicable sense of peril.

  Bliss was relieved when the old man released his near-painful grasp on her hand.

  “Do sit down,” he said as his grandson left the suite.

  Bliss had ever believed in making the best of any situation. “Are you visiting Auckland, Mr. Davis?”

  He smiled, revealing huge yellow teeth. They gave him
a cadaverous look. “I’m here on business, Mrs. McKenna. Tell me—might I call you by your first name?”

  Bliss looked longingly toward the drapes. Oh, to open them and let in God’s clean, bright sunshine. “I see no harm in that,” she replied politely, folding her hands in her lap.

  “Thank you, my dear. And that name is ... ?”

  “Bliss,” she said.

  Again, the leering yellow smile. “I daresay, it suits you. How long have you been married, Bliss?”

  The question, innocent as it was, felt like a violation of some sort. Bliss blushed, growing more uncomfortable with each passing moment. “Only a few weeks,” she answered.

  Albert Davis raised his bushy white eyebrows and his smile remained fixed. “You’re still honeymooning, then.”

  Bliss lowered her eyes. The only time her marriage seemed real was when she and Jamie were in bed together, but she couldn’t very well confide as much to a virtual stranger. Especially not a male stranger.

  “I’ve embarrassed you,” the old man crowed delightedly. Then he composed himself. “I’m sorry, my dear. I truly am. Tell me about this husband of yours. What does he do with his time?”

  Quick as that, Bliss felt her attitude changing. Jamie was, after all, her favorite topic of conversation. “He has sheep,” she said happily. “Hundreds and hundreds of sheep. And I think he must be very important, for he’s had meetings every single day.”

  “He’s wealthy, then?”

  Bliss hadn’t really considered that, since Jamie wasn’t a man to flaunt the fact that he had money. “I suppose he is,” she agreed, with a note of surprise in her voice.

  The sharp blue eyes were fixed on Bliss’s bare left hand. “But you don’t wear a wedding band,” Davis muttered.

  The reminder was wounding to Bliss. A man who had been forced to marry, at gunpoint, would naturally be disinclined to offer his bride a wedding ring. Still, Jamie McKenna availed himself of the advantages of marriage without any noticeable qualms. Full of conviction, Bliss silently vowed to turn away the very next time he touched her.