Forbidden Fire

by Heather Graham

  She wasn’t sure; she really wasn’t sure what he meant at all, but she nodded, wondering if he was going to agree, or if this was all a charade to humiliate her.

  He stared at her hard. Then he muttered a harsh, “Damn you, girl!”

  And he reached for a handsome overcoat, and touched her at last, taking her arm to draw her away from the door.

  “Where are you going?” she cried.

  He turned to her. Once again, his blue eyes seemed to impale her beneath the rakish fall of the black lock upon his forehead. “I am going for a registrar, my lady. If we’re going to do this thing, we’ll do it now, and be done with it all. I’ve got a license. All we need is a registrar.”

  The door swung shut in his wake. Marissa gasped. Her knees were beginning to buckle and she braced herself with her hands against the door.

  What had she done?

  He had agreed. He had agreed too swiftly! He had given her no time to plot and plan, to find a way to make it all false or to make it all real.

  But he had agreed. He was coming back with a registrar, and she must do something, she must …

  Marry him.

  A coldness settled upon her, and the words kept repeating hauntingly in her mind. Help me, God! she thought. But surely God would not help a liar playing such a deception as she played.

  There was no choice, she assured herself. No choice at all. She had won, she had come here wanting this, and now, surprisingly, she had gained what she wanted.

  But very soon, she knew, he would come to the room with a registrar. And she would stand there and vow to be his wife. His wife. Irrevocably tied to the man.

  She started to tremble and closed her eyes. She didn’t dare keep thinking, and yet she could not stop. What would happen if she were found out? The knot was tangling more viciously with every turn.…

  Maybe he didn’t mean to go through with it. Perhaps he had gone out to order a tray of tea and crumpets. He did not really mean to marry her; he just wanted to agree to give her the chance to realize what she was saying, to back out of it herself.

  Which she could do. If she and Mary were caught perpetrating this deception it would be disaster.

  He was letting her escape.

  Perhaps she did block out her thoughts, for it seemed that he had barely left before he was back. At his side was a stocky little man with wispy gray hair. Behind the man were two women—a small, pert maid in a white cap and apron and an older woman, also in a cap and apron.

  “My dear,” Ian said, still appearing very much the rake, his shirt opened at the neck, his coat haphazardly over his shoulders and a night’s stubble upon his cheeks, “this is Mr. Blackstone, the registrar. And this is Meg, and she will witness the ceremony for me. And this is Lucy, who will also witness the marriage. We do want it to be legal.”

  He was not letting her escape.

  Marissa tried to smile. She needed to be gracious, to extend her hand to the two women. She couldn’t speak. She had barely managed to move away from the doorway at their return. She stared at Ian with wide eyes.

  His mouth was set in a grim line, and his eyes were hard upon hers. He said nothing to her, but she knew what he was thinking. She had started this. And now he would finish it.

  He would give her exactly what she wanted.

  “It will be just a minute here now,” Mr. Blackstone was saying, setting his briefcase upon the desk. “I need the proper legal documents and my seal. Mr. Tremayne?”

  Ian went to the desk and produced the license.

  “Oh, this is so exciting!” Meg said.

  “Thrilling,” Ian agreed wryly.

  “Did you wish to, er, tidy up a bit, sir?” Mr. Blackstone asked Ian.

  Ian rubbed his cheeks. He offered Marissa a smile that didn’t touch the fire in his eyes. “No, thank you, Mr. Blackstone. My wife will be seeing this Yankee mug every morning of her life from here on out. She doesn’t mind it a bit, do you, my dear?”

  Marissa smiled at last, as sweetly as she could manage. She touched his stubbled cheek and assured Mr. Blackstone. “I can’t tell you just how charming I find Mr. Tremayne to be. Kind, solicitous—absolutely charming. With or without the stubble. It’s such a noble face.”

  “She adores me,” Ian told Mr. Blackstone.

  Meg sighed. Lucy giggled. Mr. Blackstone seemed uneasy.

  Ian snatched Marissa’s hand and drew her to his side. “Can we get on with this?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. My papers are now all in order. I think …”

  He started to speak the words. Slowly, very slowly. Marissa did not hear them. She felt Ian Tremayne’s hand locked around hers, large, warm, powerful.

  She was building prison walls around herself, she realized. This was very real. She would have to travel across the globe with him. Live in his house. Answer to his beck and call.

  “And do you, Ian Robert, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, from this day forward, till death do you part?”

  Marissa couldn’t breathe. He would protest now. He would say that it had all been a lark and that he hadn’t the least intention of marrying her.

  “I do,” he said firmly.

  “And do you—” The registrar paused for a second, squinting at a paper.

  “Katherine Marissa, Mr. Blackstone,” Ian supplied dryly.

  “Yes, yes, of course. Now do you, Katherine Marissa, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, to honor and obey, from this day forward, till death do you part?”

  Death? she thought vaguely. It seemed drastic. He hadn’t stopped it; she had to do so.

  She almost cried out at the sudden pressure upon her hand as his fingers wound tightly around it in warning. “I do!” she gasped.

  Then Mr. Blackstone was talking again, and she really couldn’t hear a word he was saying. Moments later Ian was raising her hand, and something cold and way too large was slipped upon her finger.

  Mr. Blackstone pronounced them man and wife, and nervously suggested that Ian might like to kiss his bride.

  “Kiss my bride,” he muttered, and she wanted to wrench away at the bitterness that tinged his voice. For a moment she thought he meant to thrust her far from him. He did not. His hold upon her was very firm. And she was suddenly pulled tight within his arms, and her mouth opened in protest as she saw the intent within his eyes.

  No sound escaped her.

  His lips touched hers. She expected violence from the way he held her.

  But there was none.

  His mouth formed over hers with a fierce demand and pressure, but there was something more. Perhaps it was something practiced … something innate within the man.

  Whatever it was, she could not think once his lips molded so securely over hers. She felt the brush of the stubble of his beard, she felt his hold, his pressure, his undauntable determination. And yet she felt the seduction. The slow, almost lazy coercion. Her lips were parted beneath his, the startling, damp, heady warmth of his tongue filled her mouth, tasted and explored. Leisurely, and yet with such purpose. The fingers of his left hand entwined with the hair at her nape, holding her still to his thorough exploration. His other hand lay upon the small of her back, holding her close to him, so very close that she felt the pulse and tension of his body, the hardness of his build, and the heat that lay within, simmering, fusing, touching her in a way she had never imagined being touched before.

  The tip of his tongue skimmed over her lips, delved deep within her mouth once again, endlessly deep. Her fingers wound into his shirt, for she was certain that if he moved, she would fall. All the fire had seemed to enter into her from his body. And a trembling that was rich with newborn sensations, making her both hot and cold, furious and …

  And fascinated.

  She should protest.…

  She could not.

  Dimly she heard Mr. Blackstone clear his throat; Meg and Lucy sighed very softly in unison.

  An
d then, at long last, Ian Tremayne moved his dark head, lifting his mouth from hers. His cobalt eyes seared into hers for a long moment, and she could not draw her gaze from his. He touched her lip with his thumb, rubbing the remaining moisture from it. And still his gaze touched hers, yet she did not know what emotion lurked in his eyes. She thought that he was still furious with her for testing his hand. Yet he was the one with the sudden determination at the end. He had taken her course of action and flown with it. In a sudden impetuous heat? She was sure of it, for already she sensed a withdrawal. His touch fell from her face, and he was gazing at Mr. Blackstone again.

  “Well, the papers, then,” he said flatly. “We should keep this legal.”

  “Yes, Mr. Tremayne! Most certainly.”

  Mr. Blackstone pushed the license across the desk. Ian Tremayne leaned low over it and scrawled his name. It was barely legible.

  He thrust the pen into her hand. She stared at him. The anger was back with him. “Sign it,” he told her. She kept looking at him. “For the love of God, Marissa, sign the damned thing.”

  She hesitated a second longer. Which name did she sign? Mary’s? Would things be legal then? Perhaps not. But if they weren’t legal, things would be better if they were caught!

  “Marissa!” Her name seemed to be an explosion of impatience. She started to write with trembling fingers, scrawling out her name in a far worse manner than he had done.

  She stared at it. It was very nearly illegible. But she knew what she had signed. Katherine Marissa Ayers. At the last moment, she had signed her own name. He would never know. “Ahearn” and the “Ayers” were close enough when written with fingers that trembled as violently as hers had done.

  Meg and Lucy stepped forward and signed the wedding license, then Mr. Blackstone did the same, and blotted all the signatures.

  “Shall I get some champagne?” Meg suggested, and Mr. Blackstone looked up eagerly.

  “Champagne?” Ian mused. Marissa bit her lip in silence. “Champagne. By all means. What is a wedding without a toast?”

  “My own sentiments exactly,” Mr. Blackstone agreed jovially.

  Meg left the room for the champagne and Mr. Blackstone sat behind the desk, finishing with the forms. Marissa and Ian stood in silence. Waiting.

  Then Meg burst through the door. Ian took the tray with champagne from her, setting it upon the desk. He observed the label with a critical eye, then shrugged and popped the cork. Champagne bubbled out, and he quickly began to pour it into the five flutes upon the tray.

  He handed one to Marissa. Her fingers curled around it. He smiled, grimly. “Till death do us part,” he said.

  “Hear, hear!” Mr. Blackstone agreed. He lifted his glass and sighed. “To many years of marital bliss!”

  “Oh, many years,” Ian said wryly.

  “To a huge, full, wonderful family! Strong, handsome sons and beautiful daughters!” Meg cried, well into the spirit of the thing.

  Did neither she nor Mr. Blackstone see the hostility that lurked in Ian Tremayne’s eyes?

  They did not, but Marissa did. In silence, she sipped her champagne, then tossed her head back and swallowed the contents in a gulp. Ian’s lip curled as he watched her, and he poured her another portion of the vintage, then added to Mr. Blackstone’s proffered flute.

  “Well, then!” Blackstone said with a sigh as he swallowed his down and set the glass upon the tray. “The very best to you both. To you, good sir, and you, too, Mrs. Tremayne.”

  Marissa’s head jerked up. Blackstone locked his briefcase and lifted it from the table. Ian Tremayne opened the door for him. Blackstone bowed to Meg, and the little maid smiled and said goodbye and good luck once again and left. The more sedate Lucy followed quickly behind her. “Again, the best to you both,” Blackstone said, bowing just before he exited the room.

  Ian closed the door behind them. He leaned against it and stared at her.

  Once again, she saw the curl of a mocking smile touch his lips. “Ah, yes. Don’t look so startled, love. You are, you realize, Mrs. Tremayne. Just as you wished.”

  She started as he pushed away from the door and came toward her, catching her wrists, pulling her hard against his well-muscled form. “Yes, my dear, you’ve gotten exactly what you came for. Marriage. Are you happy?”

  She tugged uneasily upon her wrists, frightened by his sudden hostility. “Mr. Tremayne—”

  “So very formal, Mrs. Tremayne.”

  “But I’m not really—”

  “Oh, yes, you see, that’s where you are mistaken. You are really my wife, Marissa. My wife,” he repeated softly.

  Then he dropped her wrists and headed for the door, pausing with his hand upon the knob. His crooked smile curved his mouth and he repeated the words once again. “I’ve a wife. Dear God, whatever possessed me? May heaven help us both.”

  And then, with no explanation, he was gone.

  Chapter Four

  “You did what!” Mary gasped with horror.

  Marissa, hearing the tone of Mary’s voice at her casual announcement that she had gone ahead and married Ian Tremayne, grimaced. She was in the parlor of their suite, trying very hard to be calm and casual while her heart beat a rampant pulse of uncertainty.

  Ian Tremayne hadn’t returned. He would have to do so eventually, Marissa was certain, because he had left all his things. But she had paced his room for half an hour, trying not to look at those things that seemed to be so personal to the man, growing more and more restless. The room made her uneasy. The desk was filled with business papers, with letters, some addressed in smooth, flowing scripts that could only be feminine. There was his bed. And there was his shaving equipment, a fine ivory brush and cup, his razor and strop.

  She couldn’t wait any longer. She didn’t know if he had expected her to wait, he had slammed out so quickly. She had left the boardinghouse, hailed a hansom and returned to Mary’s suites.

  There she found Mary awake and pacing the floor, worried about her.

  “I married him,” Marissa repeated, sinking down on one of the stiff needlepoint chairs that faced the settee over a heavy Persian rug. “We married him, I guess. I don’t know. I used my own name. I signed my own signature. I think that makes it legal. The marriage, at least.”

  “Oh, Marissa!”

  Mary hurried to her side and hugged her tightly. “What made you do such a thing? You shouldn’t have. We would have survived somehow.”

  “Mary, nothing is really any different.”

  “Nothing is different!” Mary exclaimed. “Oh, Marissa! Don’t you know what married people do?”

  Marissa cast her a quick, narrowing glance. “Of course I know what married people do!” she said indignantly. Honestly, Mary could be terribly annoying. “But it’s not going to be that kind of marriage.”

  Mary sniffed. “Any marriage is that kind of marriage. Oh, of course, he is very good looking.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was peeking out the bedroom door last night. He’s handsome. Very attractive, really.”

  “He had you in fits last night.”

  “Oh, but that’s because I couldn’t begin to deal with such a man. He’s such a tremendous presence, demanding. But I think he could be charming.”

  “Charming. That’s the word,” Marissa said sweetly.

  Mary stared at her, hurt. “I only meant—”

  “He is charming, Mary. Completely,” Marissa lied. And he could be charming. When he wasn’t snapping and snarling. “Mary, it’s an arrangement, nothing more. If you were peeking last night, you must have been listening too. He was married before. He didn’t want to be married again. So I’m really just going to be a guest in the house, and then, because he’s already married, no one will bother him to get married. Understand?”

  “You made him understand this?” Mary said, confused.

  “Yes. Mary, it’s going to be all right.”

  “No, it’s not! And I can’t believe that you went off and marr
ied him without a word! Marissa, you didn’t give yourself time to think! Maybe we could have come up with something else—”

  “With what, Mary?” Marissa asked wearily.

  “I don’t know. Something.”

  “Mary, I didn’t think he’d really do it. I had all these wonderful plans and arguments. Then I assumed that if I did get him to agree, we’d make plans for later. The next thing I knew, a registrar was in the room, and we were married.”

  “Oh, Marissa!”

  Mary hugged her tightly, then released her. She stared at her with such mournful, miserable eyes that Marissa patted her hand and rose, determined to cast aside her own fears to reassure her friend. “Mary, you musn’t forget that I have my uncle to care for. Actually, it’s everything I’ve always wanted. Mr. Tremayne’s home will be very grand, I’m certain. I’ll see the opera, the theater, and I’ll be a gracious hostess for countless balls and dinners. I’ll be in my glory.”

  Mary looked at her with a sad wisdom that was unnerving. “A house doesn’t mean anything, Marissa. It’s brick and stone and wood. And you’ve entrusted your fate to this man—”

  “Our fates, Mary. We’ll be together, at least.”

  “We’ve traded places, remember?” Mary murmured softly. “He’s not going to let you choose your friends from among the poor immigrants.”

  “We’re going to America, Mary. The land of opportunity! And equality.”

  “Equality takes a long time in coming,” Mary said softly.

  “Don’t worry. He’s not going to rule my life! Oh, Mary, don’t you see, it will be all right. He didn’t want a wife. I’ll be an ornament upon occasion. And when I’m not, nothing will change. You’ll have a beautiful little home nearby, Jimmy will work, and I’ll help you with whatever you need. It is going to work out. It’s going to be exactly like we planned. There was really just a minor hitch to our plans, and that was it.”

  She hiccuped suddenly. Mary stared at her.

  “Champagne,” Marissa offered. She grimaced. “We celebrated.”

  “You celebrated!”

  “Of course. Remember, I told you,” Marissa said blandly. “He’s charming. Completely charming.” She smiled. “Like a wolf!” she muttered beneath her breath.