Her face burrowed against his shoulder and she trembled—long, slow shimmers of delight she made no effort to deny. “Gage…” His name came more easily now, it seemed, and she spoke it again, a hushed syllable that resonated in his breast.
He turned with her in his arms, adjusting her for her comfort and clasped her to himself. His hands moved slowly, touching the soft skin, fingers threading through her curls and waves to hold her head still for his kisses. And yet it was not enough.
“I’ve missed you, Lily,” he said quietly, admitting the truth aloud as he faced it for the first time. “You’re under my skin. I’ve never known a woman like you, and God willing, I’ll never have to look any further than this to find some degree of peace in my life.”
She was silent in his arms and he felt his patience ebb, admitting to himself that he needed a reassurance of sorts that her own feelings were involved in this marriage. She’d let him know that he was important to her; and yet, perhaps that was only for her own reasons. After all, he’d promised to take her home.
Maybe…just maybe, if he was able to free her from the stigma of her past, if he could seek out and avenge her innocence—the ways and means of which evaded him—perhaps she would find herself willing to accept their marriage.
“Are you awake?” he asked quietly, pressing his lips against her forehead, gathering for himself a measure of that elusive peace he’d found in her arms. “Are you all right, Lily?” Concern laced his words as he nudged her head back, the better to see her face.
Behind him, the candle burned low, but he blessed its presence as Lily’s eyes opened to reveal a warmth he welcomed. No hint of anger marred the dark depths, no trace of apprehension remained to taint him with the brush of savagery. Even though he’d sensed a primitive force within himself that had brought him to the brink of force, he’d subdued it with the knowledge that to damage Lily in that way would be unforgivable—both for himself and her.
“I’m all right,” she whispered. “Just feeling as though I’ve been swept away in a whirlwind, I think.” She lifted her hand to his face and touched his mouth with her index finger, brushing it across his lips. “I think I wish you weren’t nearly so accomplished at this, Gage. You make me feel like a rank amateur.”
But we both know that you’re not. Unbidden, the words sprang to his mind, and he forced them from his thoughts, aware that those things he did not know should not matter. He had secrets of his own, and Lily had not asked for them to be revealed. On the other hand, she’d made the offer to tell him of her past, and he’d denied her the catharsis such revelations might provide for her peace of mind.
“You obviously haven’t had a whole lot of pleasure at the hands of any other man,” he said, smiling into her eyes. “And that’s just fine with me.” She seemed almost untried, unused to accepting the joys inherent in a man’s touch, and he wondered that she had not found passion before this.
“What will you do, Morgan?” she asked softly. “I’ve told May I’d be here for a few days. I can’t break my word.”
“Let’s talk about that tomorrow,” he told her, a glimmer of a plan forming in his mind. “I’m going to visit the sheriff to see if an idea of mine will bear fruit.” He slid his hand to rest against her waist, pulling her close, luxuriating in the cushion of breasts against his chest as she snuggled in his arms.
“Go to sleep, Lily. I need some rest. It wore me out watching you up on that stage, ready to shoot the first man who reached for you. I don’t think I want to spend my evenings doing guard duty.” And his words were not an untruth, he found, for he’d been poised to leap to his feet, had he thought for a second that she was in peril. Watching her perform during the days to come might prove to be beyond his endurance, but there was no possibility of his missing a moment of the time she spent on that stage.
The sheriff shook his head at Morgan’s story, sorting through his own stash of posters until he found one with Lily’s picture on it. It was folded and pushed to the back of a drawer, and he looked a bit sheepish, Morgan decided, as he displayed it. “I didn’t put it up,” he said. “Couldn’t imagine a woman who looks like that tryin’ to kill a man.”
“You knew when I showed you her picture, didn’t you?” Morgan asked. “You’d already seen it then.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Yup, I saw it all right.” He folded it again and Morgan reached to take it from his hand.
“I want you to notify the authorities in New York that this woman is here, in your town.”
“She’s here? In Brightmoor?” Surprise lit the lawman’s face as he heard Morgan’s request. “I sure haven’t seen a dark-haired beauty like this anywhere around here.”
“She’s been wearing a blond wig,” Morgan said, leaning back in his chair. “Stop by the Red Dog Saloon tonight and you’ll be able to hear her sing.”
“That gal’s name is May,” the sheriff said. “I was in there three or four days ago and took a gander. She don’t look anything like this woman.”
“You haven’t heard that May has a friend working with her now?”
“And the friend is Yvonne Devereaux?” The sheriff mangled the name, reading it from the poster as if he were unfamiliar with the French pronunciation.
“The very one,” Morgan said. “And to make it even more of a problem situation, the lady is my wife.” He ignored the grin on the lawman’s face as he laid out the plan he’d formed.
“I’ll send a wire, today—this morning, in fact. It goes to this here fella?” he asked, pointing to the name in small print on the poster. “Here where it says she tried to kill Colonel Stanley Weston? What is he, some kind of war hero?”
“He’s the worst sort of man,” Morgan said angrily, his nonchalance gone as if a wall had appeared at the mention of the colonel’s name. “I can’t tell you much for right now. Just notify the authorities, and I’m sure they’ll get in touch with the good colonel.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Morgan. I try to get along with any government men who pass this way. Don’t see very many, but I’ll warrant you’re the one they’re talkin’ about upriver a ways. What do you know about the land scam some shysters were pulling on farmers up there?”
“That was my last job for Washington,” Morgan said. “For right now, I’m on a break. I thought I’d spend a few days here, until we hear back from New York, anyway. Let’s just see what kind of a fuss we can stir up.”
The lawman’s eyes lit with good humor. “We’ve been downright dull around here lately, Mr. Morgan. It sounds to me like things are gonna perk up.” He stood up behind his desk and extended a hand in Morgan’s direction. “I’ll get working on this right now.”
It took Lily over an hour to get the wrinkles out of the blue dress and even longer to tame May’s mood to something approaching acceptance of Morgan’s behavior.
“He tossed this thing across the room, did he?” May sputtered. “He didn’t have to work long hours to earn money for a wardrobe, I can see that.” Her fingers were deft as she plopped on a chair and worked at the wig, watching as Lily ironed the dress on a makeshift board.
“And I suppose he sweet-talked you into bed, didn’t he?” she asked, shooting a look of censure in Lily’s direction. “That man has a silver tongue, that’s for certain. But, you know, he never gave any of the girls on the boat a tumble, just sat there and counted stacks of money every time he played poker. He’s a gambler, sure enough.”
“He hasn’t run out of hard cash,” Lily said. “He doesn’t spend a lot, but he seems to have enough to go around.” She halted in her task, the iron in midair. “I’d give a lot to know more about him, but he doesn’t say much. I don’t even know where his family is from.”
“Somewhere in the South,” May surmised. “You can catch a little touch of a drawl in some of his words.”
“Could be Texas,” Lily said. And then she looked at the iron she held. “This thing is cooled off too much to do any good.” Another iron sat on a metal stand, wrapped in a th
ick towel, and Lily picked it up, fastening the handle atop its weight, and touched the dress gingerly with it.
“I’ll take the other one back downstairs to heat,” May offered, placing the wig on the dresser and taking the cooled iron with her as she headed for the door. It opened beneath her hand, and Morgan looked at her from the other side of the threshold.
“You going somewhere?” he asked, and Lily looked up at the sound of his voice. She felt a shiver run the length of her spine as he shot her a glance. His eyes gleamed with an appraisal she could not mistake, and his mouth curved in a smile that suggested his thoughts were of the night before.
He held the door for May’s departure and she sailed past him, calling back to Lily over her shoulder. “I’ll be a while, waiting for this to heat. Might even pick up something to eat while I’m at it.”
Morgan closed the door behind himself and leaned against it. His fingers touched the key that rested in the lock and he was tempted to turn it, assuring privacy. Then, with another look in Lily’s direction, he changed his mind. She was ironing that dress as if her life depended on getting every wrinkle out of the skirt. And was probably calling him a whole slew of names as she worked at it.
“I’m sorry I wrinkled the dress,” he said politely, walking across the room toward her, assuming a hat-in-hand approach.
She looked up and her eyebrow lifted, a cynical gesture if ever he’d seen one. “Are you?” Bending back to the task, she spoke her mind, and he was left in the position of being obliging. “I’m going to sing at the Red Dog tonight, Morgan.”
“We’re back to Morgan, are we?” he asked. “I kinda liked it when you called me by my name.”
“I noticed,” she said sharply. “And if you’d like that sort of thing to continue, you’d do well to loosen the reins where I’m concerned.” She looked up at him, her jaw set in a determined way, and he smothered a smile.
The woman didn’t realize she was playing right into his hand, with her announcement of spending her evenings at the Red Dog Saloon. There wasn’t a chance of taking the wig away from her, but he could unmask her when the time came. For now, he’d just sit and watch, and wait.
“I mean it, Morgan,” she said. “I’ve made a promise, and I always do as I’ve said. I hope we aren’t going to have trouble over this.”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not as far as I’m concerned. I can use a few days off, anyway. I’ll just take it easy and wait for you to wear yourself out singing. I figure a week oughta do it, don’t you?”
“You’re not going to interfere?” she asked dubiously.
“Not unless you call it interfering for me to watch you from a table in the back. I won’t let you go over there without me being in the background, Lily. That’s where I draw the line.”
She looked at him for a moment, then bent to her work, stretching the blue satin over the board with a pressing cloth against the fabric. “I won’t argue about that,” she said after a moment. “But I have a notion that you’ve got something up your sleeve. You’ve given in too easily.”
“Just trying to be a gentleman, sweetheart.” He moved to stand behind her and bent to kiss the nape of her neck. Her hair was already pinned in a knot, with only a few tendrils falling from the arrangement as she worked. Her skin was damp, just a bit salty tasting to his tongue, and he felt the urge to tug her away from the ironing board and talk her into spending a half hour on the bed with him.
Only the thought of May finding the door locked in the middle of the afternoon and surmising what was going on behind it halted his yearning. It wouldn’t bother him, but he’d lay odds that Lily would be embarrassed. He nudged her ear with his nose and whispered a promise there, words that made her turn her head abruptly in his direction.
“Behave yourself,” she said sharply. “We will do no such thing, Gage Morgan.”
“There,” he said with a grin. “You said it, sweetheart. Now just call me Gage one more time and I’ll leave you alone for a while.”
“Well, be sure you come back in time for a late supper, Gage,” she said. “I’ll need some food to fortify me for the evening.”
And with that he had to be satisfied, knowing that he’d assured himself of at least a week in which to work out the plan that was still forming in his mind.
The next days passed slowly, with Morgan doing as he’d said, unobtrusively watching from the back of the saloon while May and Lily performed for the ever increasing number of men who gathered nightly to hear the rare treat. If he felt a twinge of jealousy touch him on occasion, he brushed it aside, recognizing that Lily’s beauty would always draw the eye of a discerning male, no matter where she was.
On top of that, she spent her nights in his bed, and as soon as the third show of the evening came to an end, he hustled her across the street to the hotel and placed her there. May laughed at his impatience, fluttering her hand at him as he attempted to escort her to her room, telling him that a woman alone could always use a friendly drink once the night was over. Because the saloon owner kept a watchful eye on her, Morgan just nodded agreeably and then took Lily in hand.
She seemed amused, he thought, by his protective streak, became haughty when she decided his possessiveness was out of control, his long fingers tugging the front of her dress a bit higher, lest she show more curves than he deemed appropriate. But when he rubbed her sore feet, she only crooned, sighing and wiggling contentedly on the bed.
“I think you’re spoiled,” he told her the fifth night of their stay in Brightmoor. “I wonder if any other man would sit around all evening watching his woman display herself on a stage and then spend an hour making her comfortable.”
She yawned and stretched, her body showing to advantage beneath the new shift he’d bought her at the general store. As though his attentions had made her more secure, more certain of her place in his life, she’d blossomed beneath his care.
He watched as her toes curled, then stretched wide, noted the high arch of her foot and the slim line of her ankle. “You’ve got pretty feet,” he said, lifting the subject under discussion high enough for it to catch the candle-glow. His movement also exposed a bit more of her legs than she realized, and he grinned as he enjoyed eyeing the slender curves displayed below the hem of the muslin shift.
“On top of that, you smell good,” he said softly. He bent to brush her foot with his nose and she laughed. The look he shot her made her laugh even louder. “You’re supposed to be taking this seriously,” he said, one long finger reaching to tickle the sole of her foot. She twitched it from his grasp and sat upright in the bed.
“You may think you’re getting away with something, but you’re not,” she told him, her eyes half-closed, her mouth twitching a bit as if she held some secret to herself, and was relishing his seductive techniques.
“I beg your pardon,” he said with just the right degree of arrogance to aggravate her, and she was quick to respond.
“I’ve got your number, Gage Morgan. You think giving me a foot rub is going to earn you—”
He bent closer and snatched a kiss. “Well, I’m aware it won’t earn me a place in heaven, but I was thinking more about an hour of paradise right here and now.”
Her eyes filled with quick tears and he reached for her, pulling her into his lap. “What did I say? Whatever it was, I’m sorry, Lily.”
She shook her head, and wiped furiously at her eyes. “Don’t, Morgan. I’m just being foolish and I’d appreciate it if you’d ignore me.”
He held her firmly, tilting her face to his. “Not a chance, lady.”
“All right,” she said capitulating after a few moments. “I was just thinking that this seems like we’ve stolen a few days, and I’m afraid when we leave here, our time together will…” She sobbed once and Morgan felt a rush of emotion fill his chest.
“This doesn’t have to be the end of it, Lily. That’s up to you. You know what I told you, and I refuse to tie any strings to our agreement. You’ll be the one to make the fin
al decision when we leave here.”
“I don’t want to talk about it now,” she said, straightening on his lap and searching beneath her pillow for the handkerchief she’d left there. “Are you still sorry we got married?” she asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“I’m sorry I forced you into this mess,” he said quietly. “I told you last week that we shouldn’t have made such an agreement. But—” he ran his finger down her cheek and she stilled, as she were frozen in place “—but, the fact remains that we did, Lily. And I think we’re going to have to live with it.”
“What are you planning?” she asked. “I’ve seen you talking with the sheriff twice now, and I know there’s something afoot.”
He was hesitant, unwilling to frighten her with the threat of Stanley Weston. Yet, he couldn’t let her be shocked and floundering if the man showed up in town. And if he had the good colonel figured out, he was even now on his way to Brightmoor. A man with the capabilities to frighten Lily, as the good colonel had, must have committed foul acts against the woman.
No wonder she’d gone after him with a poker. Morgan would warrant that the man would be seeking his revenge on a personal level. And Morgan was ready for him.
“I’ve got a couple of things in place,” he said.
“Now that told me a whole lot,” she retorted with a narrowed look that amused him. Lily was at her best when she was riled.
“You’ll find out as soon as it works out, sweetheart,” he told her. “You just do what you’ve been doing, and I’ll handle the rest of the plan.”
Her sigh was weary as she nodded and curled against his chest. “All right, Morgan. There’s no arguing with you. You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever known.”
“Is that bad?” he asked, brushing her hair from her forehead before he bent to kiss her there. He leaned her head back over his arm and she lay quiescent in his embrace. “You know I don’t take my promises lightly, Lily. I always keep my word. When I said I’d take care of you, I meant it. No one will hurt you.”
The Marriage Agreement Page 21
