Susan Johnson

by Susan Johnson

  “Madame Restell’s,” she whispered, his grip leaving marks on her pale neck, stark fear crumbling her patina of arrogance.

  The name made Hazard sick with despair and he was overcome by nausea. “When did they leave?” he asked, very low.

  “An hour ago,” she managed to croak, with the viselike fingers unconsciously tightening.

  A cold sweat covered Hazard’s body. He might be too late. Desolation swept over him and for a long, terrible moment he relived the horrors of the past. It was the odd choking sound that brought him back. He dropped his hands and ran. He ran faster than he’d ever run before.

  Chapter 36

  When they reached Madame Restell’s four-story brownstone on Fifth Avenue, Blaze was whisked through the side entrance on Fifty-second Street and shown to a richly decorated bedroom by an attendant while Yancy met with Madame Restell in her ground floor office. The two hired guns guarded the marble foyer like prison wardens.

  Let Yancy talk all he wanted, Blaze thought, looking around the room draped with a baby-blue brocade that she thought put a strain on good taste. I’ll have the final bid. And no one, she knew, could afford to turn down $100,000 for not performing an abortion. She heard the door open and prepared to meet the most notorious woman in New York City.

  “You’re looking well, Miss Braddock,” a deep, familiar voice she hadn’t heard in seven weeks said. It was Hazard’s rich and drowsy tone. Hazard’s accent. Hazard’s beauty of cadence. Impossible.

  Blaze whirled, clutching the heavy black pearls. He stood half in shadow, impeccably dressed in dark wool, the velvet collar on his topcoat lush in the dim light, his hair ordered and gleaming. His eyes accusing.

  Her immeasurable joy wilted under the cold dark eyes and guilt overwhelmed her. How had he found her? What must he think? Her heart was thudding. “How did you know I was here?” she whispered. It was the worst possible choice of first words to him.

  Hazard fractionally lifted his brows at the unexpected candor and then remembered it was typical of her type—selfishly self-centered. In Boston that afternoon, Millicent had information Hazard badly wanted, and her well-honed sense of preservation and the deadly look in Hazard’s eyes warned her she’d best not withhold it. His reply omitted the less subtle details of garroting. “Millicent is easily persuaded,” he smoothly said, in a voice as sharp as a knife blade. He was leaning against the door favoring one shoulder. A relaxed, casual pose, an odd contrast to his sudden ghostlike appearance.

  “How did you find it?” Blaze’s hands fell from the pearls and tightened on the heavy black silk of her skirt as if the stiff fabric would hold her upright. Astonishment, wonder, colored her breathy voice. He misread it from his jaundiced point of view. Ruffled resentment, he thought, and misjudged her clenched fists as well.

  “The woman boasts of a six-figure income, pet, and lives openly in grand style on Fifth Avenue. Not exactly a difficult person to find.” The cool, familiar voice brushed through her nerves. “And besides,” he softly added, “I’ve been here before.” When he saw the demonstrable disbelief, he finished with silky contempt, “Madame Restell is well patronized by Boston society. You can’t think you’re the only soiled brahmin daughter to spend a few hours here.” He allowed an unflattering stare to include both Blaze’s prickly new stance and the floridly furnished room.

  “I might have known,” Blaze said, a sudden sharpness cutting through her quiet voice, images of Rose and Hazard strong. “With your track record.”

  “No, you don’t know,” he replied, equally sharply. “Unlike you, I value my progeny. I came down here one time with Cornelia Jennings and a friend of hers. A friend whose husband was unwilling to accept a pregnancy as his responsibility after returning from an extended trip to Europe.”

  At the curt explanation, embarrassed color rose revealingly in her pale face. “I …” She swallowed. “Forgive me …” Her grip loosened on the silk crumpled in her hands, and her heart suddenly ached at the sight of him. He’d come after all … all the way from Montana. But so remote, she thought, gazing at him resting casually against the door. Remote … and affronted. There wasn’t time to decipher the nuances in the polished stranger before her. Not with Yancy likely to appear any minute. “It’s dangerous,” she warned, almost in a whisper, moving a step nearer, and as if in choreographed response, he slowly pushed away from the door and strolled out from the shadows with his deceptively lazy stride. He stepped full into the lamplight by the window. He looked like any rich man of leisure in his exquisite tailor-made clothes. But different from most in one stunning way. He was as beautiful as sin, she thought. As always. And as if all her dreams had come true, he was really here.

  “Yancy’s here with his watch-dogs. How did you escape their notice? They’re guarding the door.”

  “I know.” Her breathlessness he saw as fear of betrayal, not concern. “I came in through Madame’s terrace door. I told her I was your heartbroken beau.” He enunciated each word in clipped syllables. “… And paid her twenty thousand dollars in gold to let me see you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because ten thousand didn’t get an eyelash to move and fifteen only brought a knowing smile. Paternity is expensive.” He would have gone much higher if necessary. He was carrying a sum of gold which could outfit an army.

  “No, why did you come? After so long …” Underlying her joy was a thin frost of resentment.

  “Call it nostalgia for fatherhood,” Hazard silkily replied. “With near-perfect timing, fortunately, since you decided not to become a mama after all, it appears.” His eyes traveled insultingly over Blaze’s curvaceous figure. “I expect it cut into your playtime more than you anticipated.”

  On the defensive again, shame coloring her cheeks, Blaze quickly replied, “It’s not what you think, Jon.”

  “How would you know what I think?” he retorted so brusquely that she moved back a half-step. He followed her the half-step, his kidskin boots silent on the carpet, and towered above her, menace in every line of his tall, lean body. “What I do think, Miss Braddock, if you’re really interested,” he went on in a deliberately emotionless voice, “is that it’s my child, too, and,” he said with simplicity, “I won’t allow this.”

  “Jon, I’m sorry,” Blaze whispered, tears suddenly welling into her eyes, her tender, full underlip trembling. He remained brutally silent, steeling himself against the fleeting impulse to drown in those huge pleading eyes. “You’re wrong … I wouldn’t … you don’t understand …” she faltered, deathly pale.

  And if the memories of the mine had been less lucid, he would have pitied her. “How could you?” he savagely said, instead, angry she could still affect him so, his forced reticence gone, his eyes like granite.

  “I wasn’t going to—I mean—they—” Blue eyes breathtakingly huge with appeal. An enchantress still capable of casting her spell over him. Almost. The hate was stronger.

  “Don’t tell me they made you do it, Blaze,” he brutally pressed, inner rage resisting the spell. “Not you. Not the woman who’s willing to take on the world single-handedly. Not the woman who thrives on independence. Admit it, you bitch,” he finished crisply, his eyes on Blaze’s pale face, contemptuous. “You didn’t want my child.”

  “No, no, that’s not true. It isn’t! I’d never—” and then her feelings overwhelmed her; the weeks thinking him dead, the dismay over Yancy’s story about him and Rose, the tearing apart of her dream of happiness, and now he was here like a miracle, only a few feet away from her. “You’re really alive,” she quietly sobbed, her emotions tumbling wildly, disbelief and fear uneasily assailing her mind. “Alive,” she softly cried, so distrait she didn’t feel the tears or realize she was trembling.

  He was determined to resist the drama this time with the ruthless implacability of a man once burned. “No thanks to you, pet,” he smoothly drawled. “It was a good try, though, I’ll give you that.” The memory of those terrible days underground, not knowing if he
was entombed forever, further strengthened Hazard’s resolve against the poignant scene of Blaze’s distress, the tears streaming down her face.

  The distant sound of the front door bell abruptly recalled to him the time element. Madame Restell had promised they wouldn’t be interrupted, but he didn’t trust her overlong, once she had her money. “Put on your cloak,” he flatly ordered. “We’re leaving. Or,” he added when she didn’t move, “shall I put it on you?” The steely warning was clear despite its softly perfumed politeness.

  “Where?” Blaze murmured, numb, stunned, fearful of Yancy, the guards, fearful for Hazard’s life.

  “Montana, where else? And hurry.”

  “Why didn’t you write?” she asked as though he hadn’t spoken. “You never wrote” she moaned, her voice ragged, perplexed. Wiping away a trail of drying tears with the back of her hand, she looked directly at him and quietly accused, “In all those weeks you never wrote.”

  “I was under the impression,” Hazard flatly replied, intently watching her face, “after reading your fascinating note, that you weren’t interested in corresponding with me.”

  “What note?” A printing of shock and wide-eyed surprise played across the pale exquisite face.

  Slender, long-shafted hands languidly lifted and Hazard applauded softly, his mouth quirked in faint derision. “Marvelous, dear. I admire your talent for duplicity. That was exactly the right degree of dismay. But then you were always a very competent actress, weren’t you … bia.” He whispered the last word, and it drifted across the plush, lamp-lit room, evoking sweet memories of a one-room cabin in a no-man’s-land of claims and gold and contention. His eyes, unfathomable, held hers for a long moment, recognizing the power of those memories now in her presence. It took effort to stop remembering. Steeling himself, impatient with his sensations, he moved decisively, lifting the braid-trimmed wrap from the chair. “Surely you remember the note, love,” he said drily, holding out the elegant jacket. “The note you wrote a day prior to Yancy’s attack.”

  “How could I … I never wrote any note. I don’t know about a note! I swear! Show it to me!”

  “I wasn’t in the mood to save it.”

  “I’ll prove I didn’t write it. Look! I’ll write—”

  “Forget it, Boston. It doesn’t matter anymore,” he interrupted, waiting, impatience etched undeniably in every taut muscle and line of face and form. “Here … put this on.” The soft light underscored the dark shadows under his eyes.

  “Jon, I’m sure I can explain—”

  “Save your breath, Blaze,” he dismissively remarked, draping the jacket over her shoulders. “I’m not in the mood for any clever stories. It’s been a long trip from Montana and it’s going to be an even harder trip back with the dogs at our heels.” His scowl forgave her nothing.

  “We’re going back,” Blaze murmured, her eyes shining with happiness. They had told her he was dead—and he really wasn’t. Nothing mattered but he was alive; all else could be resolved. His anger, the misunderstandings, Rose. She moved toward him.

  His hand came out to stop her, touching her lightly on the shoulder, his posture rigidly inflexible. “I came for my child. I want it born with my people. I didn’t come back for you. Unfortunately, I can’t have one without the other.” His eyes were cool and expressionless, without depth or shade. His tone equally untouched. “After the birth, you’ll be free of me. But until then, I mean to keep a close eye on you. Very close.”

  Blaze drew in a sharp breath, her mood volatilely altering. “Just like that?” She demanded, hurt and resentful.

  “Just like that.” It was the voice of a Absarokee chief, absolute, uncompromising.

  “Don’t I have anything to say about it?” It was inconceivable, Blaze thought, her temper responding to Hazard’s laconic absolutism. Here they were again, all these months later, right back where they started.

  “I think your wishes have been indulged enough in the last few months. The mine will take weeks to reopen, weeks of unpleasant hard work. Not to mention the little attempt to shorten my life. I may have been a fool, but I draw the line at being a martyr. And draw the line at this.” His arm gently swept the room. “You may not want my child, but I do.”

  Blaze opened her mouth to vigorously deny his misconceptions, but Hazard continued speaking. “I won’t keep you any longer than necessary. After the child is born, you’re free to leave. I can find a wet nurse in the village.”

  The assured arrogance, the familiar command piqued, as it always had. “A brood mare, then. Is that it?” Blaze’s soft voice was acid.

  Hazard looked down at her. His voice was unhurried, his bronze face calm. “I didn’t want it this way. You did. Your note was quite explicit.”

  “Damn you! I never left a note!”

  “Well, someone else named Blaze did, then.” The sarcasm cut through her sharply.

  “And if I won’t leave … won’t be brushed aside when the child is born?” she hotly inquired. She expected an angry rejoinder. She was wrong.

  “I’m sure you’ll prefer leaving,” he retorted in his most detached voice. “You won’t be a first wife, bia. And”—A cold impersonal gaze was trained on her—“to be frank, the lot of a second wife isn’t always pleasant.”

  “Second wife?” Blaze breathed so quietly if the room hadn’t been absolutely still, the sound would have been inaudible.

  Jon Hazard Black inclined his head.

  Take a deep breath and the world will start up again. “Need I ask who?” A small whispered exhalation, for she was fighting off the tidal wave.

  “Probably not. Blue Flower will raise my child. The betrothal was three weeks ago.”

  The words hung between them like death.

  “I see,” Blaze said.

  “I thought you would.”

  They were no more than a foot apart, but Hazard could have been standing on the other side of the planet, so final was his utterance, his eyes distant as the open prairies of his homeland.

  “And if I don’t choose to agree with your interpretation?” Blaze’s eyes were bruised pools in a bloodless face.

  “You’ll change your mind—given a few months in the village. Think, Blaze,” he drawled sarcastically, his suddenly disconcertingly sharp glance sweeping the room, “none of this … no blue brocade, no down mattresses on gold and ebony beds, no servants.” His nose curled distastefully at the room’s cloying scent. “We don’t have hothouse flowers in Montana either. How will you survive?” He had no stomach anymore for what passed for upper-class deprivation.

  “I survived well enough at the summer hunt.” Her heart was quivering sickeningly.

  “It was temporary and you’re a good actress. Don’t expect me to succumb to the same performance twice.”

  “It wasn’t a performance, damn you.” Some of her old spirit shone through, but her voice was only a whisper.

  Hazard’s by contrast was perfectly modulated, as though they were disagreeing on nothing more untoward than the color of a hair ribbon. “You say it wasn’t. I say it was. Stalemate. Now let’s get the hell out of here. Our thousand and one differences can be debated later. How many months will you have in Montana?”

  “Fuck you, Jon Hazard!” Shiny wetness filled her eyes, frustration like suffocating cotton wool stuck in her throat.

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I’ll pass.” His mouth was a thin, straight line, his voice low and brooding suddenly. Like I should have right at the beginning, he thought bitterly.

  “You’re afraid of me,” Blaze asserted in a voice of discovery. There was a chink, after all, in his icy armor.

  “No,” Hazard replied, moving toward the window, provocation more real than truth at the moment. “I’m not afraid of anyone … least of all you, pet.” Dousing the lamp, he pulled aside the curtains and threw up the window. “Now get your sweet bottom over here and perch it on this windowsill. I’ll lower you to the ground.” Turning sharply, he snapped his fingers. “Now, bia, now.”


  Blaze moved. “I’m not finished with you,” she said, approaching him, a renewed confidence growing in her heart, and placed her palm lightly on his.

  Already intent on their departure, Hazard only absently replied, his fingers curling over hers. “I’m not finished with you, either, bia. Not for five more months.” And pulling her close, he lifted her, one arm around her waist, and swung her out the window.

  Chapter 37

  Hazard’s gold bought them a carriage, a driver, and the best team of horses in New York. Within the hour they were headed west.

  “They took all my money,” Blaze told him when they were finally settled in the beautifully upholstered interior.

  Hazard was sprawled on the seat opposite her, his eyes shut. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve plenty.”

  “I don’t mean that. I had to sign a power of attorney over to them for Daddy’s inheritance. They threatened our child.”

  Hazard’s eyelids levered half open over bruised, heavy black eyes and he looked at Blaze sardonically. “Forgive me if I find the story unlikely, after finding you at an abortionist’s.” His eyelids lowered wearily and he adjusted his head comfortably against the velvet squabs. “I’m not up to the melodrama,” he murmured, already half dozing. “I’ve been on the road eleven days and without sleep for the better part of it.”

  And while Blaze stiffened at the unfair reproach, contemplating a suitably scathing retort to the rank injustice, she heard the rhythm of his breathing slow as he fell asleep where he sat. Even in her anger, her heart went out to him. How tired he looked. She ached to touch him, hold him, and comfort him, but he’d put up barriers that daunted even her. He felt she’d betrayed him, blamed her for the attack on the mine, viewed her as an enemy, as he had when she’d first gone up to his mine that summer morning months ago.

  But she’d managed to change his mind then. Might it be possible once again? She loved him; that had never changed. And seeing him once again only strengthened that love. How could he talk about marrying Blue Flower? He was hers! Ten days, she thought, two weeks at the outside before they rejoined his clan, before he was reunited with Blue Flower. Certainly she mused, warming to the challenge, certainly it should be possible to reestablish her claim on his affection in that time.