Perry. She blew out her breath and sat on the edge of the bed.
Rose, the note began:
You are perhaps aware that an emergency called Liam from the ball last night before he was able to propose to Caroline. He was not present at the close of the ball, and did not arrive home until the wee hours of the morning.
Thank God. Liam was all right. Mac read on:
However, this past hour I have confirmed that he has issued an invitation to Miss Gresham to join him this evening at the Poodle Dog for an intimate supper. Her chaperon, Mrs. Hunter, is to escort her. I have no doubt of his intentions.
The Poodle Dog? Mac remembered the name, though she wasn't sure if she'd heard it here or read it in a book. A fancy restaurant, if she recalled correctly.
This is your opportunity to make good on your hopes of renewing Liam's interest and showing him the intensity of your feelings. All you need do is follow my instructions carefully, and I will take care of the rest.
So. Perry probably didn't know about her little attempt last night. Damn.
I have already seen to it that Caroline will not receive Liam's invitation. I will send a carriage at 6 o'clock to deliver you to the Poodle Dog, earlier than the invitation specifies. A man will take you to a private room, and there you will wait for Liam's arrival.
I venture to presume that you understand what you must do, and it may be your last chance. Drastic measures, Rose. But it is vital that I know if you are succeeding.
If your attempts have been insufficient to turn the tide, you must let me know at once so that I can be prepared to give any necessary aid. You will do this by summoning the waiter outside the room and asking him to bring in the wine. He is in my employ. You will drink and see that Liam does the same, and by that signal I will know our plan has failed.
Well, some of that didn't make a whole lot of sense. What was Perry going to do if she did fail? Burst in the room and come to her rescue?
As for the elaborate secret signals—it all sounded very underhanded and… sinister. But she did trust Perry. She had to.
She returned to the last paragraph of the letter.
If you succeed, however, I will declare myself openly to Caroline. I should have done so long ago. We are both taking great risks, Rose, but we are doing what is right.
Mac set down the letter and closed her eyes. If only she knew what "right" was. She certainly no longer knew her own heart.
Chapter Seventeen
Come, fill the Cup,
and in the fire of Spring
The Winter garment of Repentance
fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flye—and Lo! the Bird is on the
Wing.
—Omar Khayyam
HE WAS EARLY, which was just the way he wanted it.
Liam took the stairs to the doors of the Old Poodle Dog two at a time. All day he'd kept himself busy: running with Norton and looking in on Bummer—who was recovering nicely, thanks to Chen's and the veterinarian's quick attention; consulting with Mr. Bauer, who as yet had not found a definite trace of Perry; seeing to his various neglected business interests and fulfilling long-delayed obligations to his associates and investors in San Francisco.
And mopping up the aftereffects of last night's disastrous raid. Only two of the seven girls had been rescued, and those almost by sheer luck; the rest had been spirited away before the group could find them, vanished into the very bowels of Chinatown where they might never surface again except as downtrodden prostitutes.
There had to have been an informant. Someone had known their objective and had given the tongs enough warning that the slave traders had taken extra and early precautions. It hadn't done any good to move the raid up by one day. None at all.
Liam's jaw tightened as he walked into the restaurant lobby. No use in repeating last night's attempt; the raiders must completely change their methods of operation if they were to get the tongs off guard again. And Liam could not be the one to make those changes. Not after tonight. All of that must be put behind him.
Because, after tonight, his oath to Edward Gresham would be fulfilled. The thought brought him little satisfaction.
After tonight Mac would be out of his life.
"M'sieur? May I be of service?"
The Poodle Dog's maître d' approached him with a diffident step, recognized him, and asked him to make himself comfortable while a waiter was summoned to show him to his room.
The first-floor dining room, always popular, was crowded with respectable couples and families; far too public a place for a proposal.
Liam's room was on the second floor. More private, but still eminently respectable. He'd be waiting when Amelia Hunter delivered Caroline, all proper and correct.
Caroline would certainly not know what went on in the rooms on the upper two floors—floors reserved for… less reputable assignations between men of wealth and their paramours. She would be fully occupied in his. There would be a quiet dinner by candlelight, the proposal free of interruption, and then…
A waiter, circumspect as all Poodle Dog employees, arrived to lead Liam to the elevator. The man made no comment as the contraption made a rattling ascent to the second floor—and beyond, to the third. Even then it did not stop.
"There must be some mistake, my man," Liam said impatiently. "I am to meet a lady—"
The waiter's face remained impassive, but his eyes held a glint of knowing amusement. "Yes, sir. A lady, on the fourth floor."
If Caroline had been brought to the fourth floor, there certainly had been a mistake. The elevator doors opened on a plush, carpeted corridor. Gas lamps were turned very low. The place stank of genteel decadence.
The waiter led him down the hall to the room at the end. Liam knocked once, opened the door, and stepped inside.
A woman rose from the velvet couch where she'd been sitting and turned to him. A woman taller than Caroline, more slender, her hair the wrong color…
"Mac! What the hell are you doing here?"
The door closed discreetly behind them.
"Caroline asked me to come," Mac said, a little too quickly. "She said the three of us would be having dinner together."
A coldness washed through Liam, followed by raging heat. "Perry," he growled.
Mac didn't flinch, didn't show any sign of guilt. "What's going on?" she asked. "Have you finally seen Perry? Where did he go?"
He ignored her question. "Let me understand you." he said, moving farther into the room. "You claim that Caroline asked you to come here."
"That's what her note said."
For the first time Liam noticed Mac's gown: it displayed more décolletage than anything he'd seen on her before, and it hugged her figure like a second skin.
"Caroline," he said, "would not have asked you to accompany her. Not after last night."
They stared at each other, a lightning-flare of purely physical awareness arcing between them.
Her skirt rustled as she came toward him. "I didn't intend to hurt Caroline—if she did see us."
He snorted. "Have you been in a place like this before, Mac?"
She blinked at his change of subject. "Not exactly."
"Do you know what people do in this room?"
"Eat, I suppose—It is a dining room, isn't it?"
"A very private one." He circled the room until he was almost behind her.
"I figured," she said, turning to keep him in view.
"But this wasn't the room I reserved for tonight."
No. This parlor was a regular love nest. He'd been in rooms much like this one, here and in far less elegant locations. Dining—on food, in any case—was only one of the lesser attractions. There was probably a bed behind those red curtains if the wide settee didn't suffice for the purpose at hand.
He inspected the table of hors d'oeuvres that had been laid out beside the fireplace. Wineglasses, but no wine—an odd omission under the circumstances.
"Come no
w, Mac. You must know that the Poodle Dog is renowned in San Francisco. For its cuisine, its elegance, and the rooms above the second floor." He picked up a delicate appetizer and crushed it between his ringers. "Rooms like this one."
Mac glanced around, fidgeting, and suddenly joined him by the table. She selected a cracker and put it down again. Nervous, his Mac—beginning to think she'd gotten herself in a little too deep.
"Such rooms are well known to the powerful men of our fair city," he drawled, "and to a certain class of women."
She picked up one of the wineglasses. "I guess they showed us to the wrong room."
"Did they?" His anger was fading, replaced by speculation and some other emotion less vehement but equally acute. Her nearness was reminding him of last night—and of the jungle. Heat. And passion.
"Mac, Mac," he said, shaking his head. "What do you want?"
She rolled the stem of the wineglass between her fingers. "Actually," she said, "I was rather hoping for a good French dinner."
"Are you… hungry?"
She set down the wineglass, provoking him with the deep brown warmth of her eyes. "Ravenous," she whispered. But she looked away again, and he took a moment to study her: the slenderness of her figure in the gown, the thrust of her breasts above the bodice, the pulse beating so intriguingly at the hollow of her throat, the paleness of her skin.
Damnation. Had Perry put her up to seducing him, making him forget all about Caroline and the proposal? Liam knew Mac hadn't met the Englishman at the Palace; Liam's contacts there had assured him of that. And he'd kept her close at the Gresham residence, with Caroline, since Perry's disappearance.
But Perry obviously wasn't gone from the city, fled after a botched murder attempt. He'd found out about Liam's invitation to Caroline. And now, one way or another, he was using Mac to stop the proposal.
"We both know Caroline's not coming," Liam said.
He found himself lifting his hand, touching Mac's cheek, brushing his fingers across her soft skin.
She was very still under his caress. For a seductress she was remarkably restrained. Except for the dress, which had clearly been chosen to display her charms. She hadn't been very adept at the business in the jungle, either.
But it had been good between them. Damn it to hell.
"It's not too late, Mac," he said.
"I'm glad you feel—"
"Not too late for you to leave." He dropped his hand, sucked in a lungful of air and let it out again. "Go," he rasped. "Go now, and we'll forget this happened."
"The way we forgot about the jungle?"
"How did it happen in the jungle?"
She jerked up her chin. "I was too much for you then, and I still am. That's why it's all words with you. That's what you fall back on when you can't do anything else."
"Why, you harridan—"
"I said it before. I scare you, Liam. Isn't that why you didn't finish that day in the jungle? Couldn't keep it up… the macho façade, I mean?"
His mouth dropped open. Did she actually think… The blood rushed into his face and, at the same time, to another place entirely.
The devil. Incredible as it seemed, her defiance and insults aroused him even as she derided his manhood. She had that much inexplicable power over him.
He remembered her passion in the jungle, that mingling of boldness and innocence that had puzzled and inflamed him, the catlike strength of her slender figure. He remembered the eagerness and wetness of her opening to him without maidenly modesty, no reluctance, wanting as he wanted.
And then her kiss in the ballroom, bringing it all back into sharp focus.
His trousers pulled tight over his groin. Words, was it? Did she think that was all he had to prove himself? He scanned the room behind Mac, noted the position of the wide velvet settee with its mounds of pillows. Part of his mind was coolly planning even as his body was hot and hard with desire.
Very well. He'd teach Mac a lesson—the one he'd never completed in the jungle. And this was a lesson he'd enjoy to the fullest.
"You doubt my manhood?" he challenged.
"There's little about you I don't doubt, O'Shea."
He moved toward her. She took a step back, paused, and retreated another step when he kept coming. Right toward the settee—right where he wanted her.
"Then you need proof, my thorny Rose," he said. The proof he intended to give her throbbed and ached for release.
Her smile was a little shaky. "And what would that be?"
A few more steps. She wasn't watching where she was going. "No mere words, Mac. Something you can touch. Something you can hold in your hands."
Her gaze flickered down. His erection strained under her inspection like a restive stallion. "I've, uh, always been a skeptic," she murmured.
"But not for much longer, I promise you."
At that moment the backs of her legs bumped the settee. With a soft grunt of surprise she sat down on her bustle. Liam wasted no time. He sprang the remaining few feet and pinned her down among the pillows.
Her first instinct was to fight. He could feel the tension in her body—a tension that relaxed all at once, as if she had commanded her wayward muscles to obey. Her eyes were wide, but not with fear.
Her eyes. He'd forgotten what beautiful eyes she had. A man could drown in them, dark and fathomless as they were, and lose himself forever.
But he wasn't here to lose himself. Carefully he began to unbutton her gloves, peeling them inch by inch away from her hands. When he had bared both of them, he kissed the undersides of her wrists.
"Proof, Mac," he said. He clasped her hand and guided it down between their bodies. She stiffened again.
"Surely you're not afraid?" he taunted.
Only her chin twitched as he helped her fingers find their mark. That hesitant contact was sweet agony. He felt her mold the cloth of his trousers to the shape of him, trace his length hesitantly and then with greater boldness.
"Okay," she said. "I'm beginning to be convinced."
"Of what?" He hissed as she touched him again, more boldly still. "Tell me, Mac."
"That, uh… you're not all talk."
"What else?"
"You're definitely of the masculine persuasion."
She was teasing him, the minx. He pressed her hand down harder and held it there. "And?"
"You must not find me too unattractive."
This time he had to stifle a laugh. She had turned the tables on him again. "You're right," he admitted. "Even I have to accept the proof of that." He let his free hand slide down from her wrist to settle just below the swell of her bodice. "You might even find more ways to encourage me."
"And what exactly… did you have in mind?"
He nuzzled the side of her neck. She smelled clean and brisk, like sea air. "You have an imagination, Mac." His fingers negotiated the gentle slope of her breasts. "Use it."
Her back arched beneath him. "You might not like some of the ways I've been using i—"
But she broke off on a gasp as he kissed the place where her breasts met the edge of her bodice. Her skin was tender and thoroughly feminine here, unmarked by sun or weather. She made a muted little sound—encouragement or protest, he couldn't tell and didn't care—as he unfastened the top button of her bodice, and then the next. She wore no corset, no bust improver, nothing but a chemise underneath. It was a simple matter for him to ease her breasts from their scanty confinement.
They were sweet and ripe for kissing, lifted and supported by the bodice that no longer protected them. The dark areolas of her nipples tightened as if in anticipation.
"You threw down the gauntlet last night," he said, cupping her breasts. He kissed the angle of her jaw. "You've been doing it ever since I brought you back to San Francisco. And now I think I'm going to take it up."
Her nipples puckered under his hands. He kissed her throat, her shoulder, the last level plain of fair skin above her breasts. And then he took what he wanted so badly to taste. He covered one brea
st with his mouth and suckled, rolling her nipple against his tongue, licking and teasing until Mac's head was tossing against the pillows.
When he'd had his fill of one breast he moved to the other, savored it, made her shudder and squirm and thrust up against him.
He wanted very badly to undress her, to feel her naked body writhing under his, to make her vulnerable, to possess her completely. But this was not the place, or the time. There was no need to go so far. Not to get what he must have.
He continued to kiss and nip her neck, her chin, the corners of her lips while he reached down to gather the bunched hem of her skirt in his free hand.
She didn't protest. Even Mac was helpless at a man's touch. At his touch. He had her skirt up to her knees and his hand underneath before her body recognized his intrusion.
"That's… not a gauntlet you're taking up," she said hoarsely.
"Isn't this what you wanted, Mac?" he said, catching her lower lip between his teeth.
He found the ties of her underdrawers, parted the delicate fabric and found moist skin. More than moist; she was wet, hot and wet and ready. He fumbled urgently with the buttons of his trousers.
"I warned you, Mac. You started this fire. Now you're going to put it out."
Her eyes closed as he pushed her legs apart and positioned himself between them. Acres of heavy skirt and a lacy froth of muslin were no impediment; he had her where he wanted her. The mere anticipation of taking her like this, so unexpectedly, so hard and fast, excited him almost beyond endurance. It could never be like this with Caroline. Would never be.
"Tell me you made a mistake," he taunted. "Admit you're no match for me, and I'll let you go."
He waited, breath suspended, for her answer. But he hadn't read her wrong. Nothing had changed since the jungle. His memory hadn't played tricks on him, hard as he'd tried to forget. She grinned like a she-cat and grabbed a handful of his shirt.
"Forget it, O'Shea. You'll never hear me say uncle."
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