Angelfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  Jamie blocked her way, trapping her there in the entry-way, against the door. “A story you’re about to tell, Duchess. In minute detail.”

  Bliss sighed. She was too cold, too tired, and too hungry for this. “It all started,” she said caustically, “when I saw you help your mistress out of a carriage and kiss her, right there on the street!”

  The expression on Jamie’s face would have been amusing if it hadn’t been for the circumstances. “My what?” he demanded.

  “Your concubine, doxy, paramour—whatever you wish to call her,” Bliss answered tightly, folding her arms.

  Jamie rocked back on the heels of his boots. Though he spoke in low, carefully controlled tones, he lapsed into the brogue. “Am I missin’ somethin’ ’ere, Mrs. McKenna?” he wanted to know. “You’re the one, lass, that sneaked out of me bed while I slept, robbed me blind—”

  “Robbed you blind!” Bliss yelled. “I took three pounds from you—little enough, considering what you’ve put me through!”

  “What I’ve put you through, is it? Why, you—”

  Bliss could bear no more. She raised one hand and slapped Jamie across the face with all the strength and fury she possessed. He stared at her for a moment, crimson prints of her fingers glowing on his cheek, and then whispered, “Get your things together, Mrs. McKenna, for we’ll be gone from ’ere as soon as me driver comes round again.”

  Setting her jaw, Bliss glared up at him, telling him with her eyes that she didn’t plan on going anywhere.

  “I won’t leave without you, Duchess,” he warned in a low voice, and that was when Bliss knew she’d lost the battle, if not the entire war. She could not subject her aging aunt to the kind of scene that would surely result if she continued in her rebellion.

  Dropping her eyes, Bliss conceded temporary defeat. “All right,” she whispered. “Just let me get my satchel.”

  Jamie stepped aside, allowing her to pass, and she went down the hall to her tiny room beneath the staircase. She had barely gone inside when her aunt joined her, looking very agitated.

  “I knew I should have summoned the police,” the old woman fussed and fretted. “When am I going to get it through my head that a stitch in time is only skin-deep?”

  Bliss smiled as she packed her things carefully away in the satchel. “Everything will be all right, Aunt Calandra,” she said. “I promise. Jamie can be very intimidating, but he’s not cruel.”

  Calandra looked sad. “I often wish that I’d married, you know.”

  Bliss closed her satchel and then gave her aunt a gentle kiss on the cheek. Because the room was so small, she did both without taking a single step. “Good-bye, Auntie, and thank you for everything. I’ll come to call if I get the chance.”

  Jamie was waiting near the front door, with his coat on and his leather hat pulled down over his forehead. Either the carriage had arrived, or he expected it at any moment.

  “Scoundrel,” Bliss muttered, and though she was very angry at his high-handed manner, she had to admit, at least to herself, that she was also glad to see him again.

  Jamie glared at her, but before he could say anything, Calandra interjected yet another pearl of wisdom. “If the truth hurts,” she told her niece’s husband firmly, “wear it.”

  Jamie glanced at Calandra, looked away, then looked back as her words penetrated his quiet fury. Bliss wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a hint of a grin lift one corner of his mouth.

  “Thank you,” he said politely, tipping his hat to Calandra, and then he opened the door and all but thrust Bliss outside onto the steps.

  A sleek carriage was waiting in the street, lamps glowing in the chilly darkness, matched gray horses nickering impatiently.

  Jamie had taken Bliss’s satchel from her, and he tossed it into the boot at the back of the carriage, then opened the door for her. “The Victoria Hotel,” he said to the driver.

  Bliss settled herself inside the carriage, wanting to stay as far from Jamie as possible, and he only chuckled at the maneuver, planted his feet on the cushioned seat opposite theirs and sighed contentedly.

  “Again, Duchess,” he said comfortably, “where have you been?”

  “Working,” Bliss answered, looking out at the night and despairing because somewhere in this big, confusing city, there was a woman who knew what it was to lie beneath Jamie McKenna, to run her hands down his naked back. A woman other than herself. “How did you find me?”

  Jamie grinned beneath the slant of his disreputable hat, which he’d pulled down over his eyes in the way of a man about to doze off. “Workin’ at what?” he asked, completely ignoring her question.

  “Waiting tables in a tearoom.”

  He gave a hoarse burst of laughter. “Ah, Duchess, trust you to do the one damn thing I wouldn’t have expected. Why the hell did you want to bring a lot of bleeders their tea?”

  Bliss felt very virtuous all of the sudden. “To earn wages, of course,” she said loftily. “So that I could repay you the money I borrowed.”

  Quick as that he’d reached out, caught hold of her, and wrenched her across his lap, so that she was looking up into his shadowed face. Heaven help her, she hadn’t the spirit to fight.

  “Borrowed, is it?” he drawled, his lips so close to hers that she could feel the heat of his breath. “Were you plannin’ to come back then, Duchess?”

  She trembled as he worked the buttons of her coat and then settled one proprietary hand over her breast. “You know I wasn’t,” she managed to say. “You’d made it clear enough that you didn’t want a wife.”

  His thumb moved over her nipple, slowly, causing it to tighten and then rise beneath her shirtwaist and camisole. “You and I,” he answered gruffly, “have a lot to talk about.” A moment later, he was kissing her.

  Chapter 12

  THE VICTORIA HOTEL WAS THE GRANDEST PLACE BLISS HAD EVER seen, even more splendid than Alexander’s house in Wellington. Furthermore, despite his rumpled clothes and that infernal leather hat, the staff deferred to Jamie as though he were Prince Albert himself.

  Bliss was awed by the massive chandeliers that graced the ceilings, and the rugs beneath her feet were richly colored and so soft that she was certain her shoes must be leaving imprints.

  Jamie strode confidently into the lift, but Bliss hung back. She’d read about these contraptions; sometimes they fell a story or two and somebody crawled out with broken ankles. Provided they’d been fortunate enough to survive, of course.

  “I’ll just take the stairs, thank you very much,” she said.

  Jamie’s hand shot out, caught Bliss by the upper arm, and wrenched her inside the cubicle just before the operator closed the door with a disturbing clank. Bliss shut her eyes tightly as the conveyance began to lurch upward.

  Jamie’s chuckle was low and warm. “You’re safe with me, Duchess,” he said.

  Bliss gave her husband a wry look. If ever anyone had misstated a case!

  His fingers entangled themselves in her hair, which was now badly in need of brushing, and the mischief still danced in his blue eyes. Bliss thought he might actually kiss her in front of the lift operator and, even worse, that she might let him. She reminded herself that she was little more than an amusement to this man and twisted away.

  Jamie shrugged and leaned back against the wall, his arms folded, while the metal box made its laborious way skyward. Finally, to Bliss’s relief, it stopped and the operator grasped some kind of lever and opened the door.

  Bliss leaped into the hallway, the way a climber might spring from a narrow mountain ledge to a wider one, and Jamie was grinning as he joined her, carrying her satchel. He and the lift operator exchanged a few words that she couldn’t hear, and then Jamie led the way to a door at the end of the hall.

  There was a number on it, in glistening brass: 29. Bliss swallowed nervously as Jamie took a key from his coat pocket and unlocked the door. At the twisting of a switch, the room was flooded with light, and it looked like a palace to Bliss, who
had never been inside a hotel until then.

  Before she could do more than peer past one of Jamie’s shoulders, however, he turned and lifted her easily into his arms.

  As he carried her over the threshold, Jamie kissed Bliss with a thoroughness that set her tingling in the most sensitive places, and she was breathless and flushed when he set her on her feet.

  His lips brushed her forehead and one of his hands moved in her hair. Bliss knew that Jamie was in the grip of some powerful emotion; she could feel it pulsing around him like an aura, but what he said was commonplace enough.

  “I suppose you’re ’ungry, Duchess.”

  Bliss hadn’t been aware of the fact until he mentioned it; now her stomach ground painfully. She nodded.

  Jamie laughed and tossed aside his hat and coat, then proceeded to unbutton Bliss’s. “I’ve sent word to the kitchen,” he said, in the tone of one speaking to a weary child. “In the meantime, why don’t you lie down for a while?”

  Bliss immediately bristled. Recalling the intensity of Jamie’s kiss, not to mention the games he’d wanted to play in the carriage, she blushed with temper. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she snapped.

  He grinned. “Aye,” he replied easily. “But there will be time for that later. Lots of time.”

  Bliss eyed him suspiciously. He sounded as though they would be together for the next fifty years, and that certainly wasn’t the case. She waited, a stubborn set to her jaw.

  “I’ve come up with a solution to our problem, Duchess,” he said, turning away to approach a cabinet on the far side of what appeared to be a sitting room. Bliss had not seen a bed.

  A feeling of weary tension coiled in her stomach, dispelling her hunger for a moment. Jamie was about to say that he was going to divorce her. She braced herself and whispered, “Yes?”

  “We’ll stay married,” he went on, taking a bottle and one glass from the cabinet and blithely pouring himself a drink.

  Bliss felt both stinging fury and sweet relief. “What?” she croaked, for that was all she dared say, all she could think of to say.

  Jamie turned to face her, looking very pleased with himself, and leaned comfortably back against the cabinet. “We’ll make the best of a bad bargain, you and I. I’ll buy you a house and a carriage and some clothes and jewelry—”

  Bliss saw a frightening picture forming, a portrait of herself as a kept woman. Knowing that her knees wouldn’t support her any longer and that she’d turned pale, she sank into a plushly upholstered chair and clenched the arms so hard that her knuckles turned white. “And—and you would visit me whenever you had nothing better to do?” she interrupted, her voice small with shock.

  Jamie was looking at her curiously. “I’m not a man who thrives in the city, Duchess,” he said. “But you’d like it here. There are theaters and orchestras and shops—”

  Bliss shot to her feet. “By God, Jamie McKenna,” she screamed, “if I can’t be a real wife to you, then I won’t be a wife at all!”

  By now, Jamie was staring at Bliss as though she’d just sprouted an extra head. He was saved from having to reply by a brisk knock at the door, which he was forced to answer because Bliss was rooted to the floor, her arms folded in defiance.

  The food that Jamie had no doubt requested by way of the lift operator had arrived, and the scent weakened Bliss’s resolve to give no ground. Deciding that she would be able to think more clearly on a full stomach, she marched over to the serving cart and began looking under lids.

  Jamie watched with amusement, and a touch of smugness, as she filled a plate with venison, potatoes and gravy, and tender baby carrots swimming in butter. She was already chewing as she walked to a settee near the fireplace and sat down.

  “You needn’t think,” she said, through a mouthful of the succulent meat, “that this means I’m agreeing to your outrageous proposal. I won’t be a bird in a gilded cage.”

  Jamie rolled his eyes and began filling a plate of his own. “You haven’t the table manners for it anyway,” he replied.

  Bliss swallowed, her cheeks burning. “I rarely talk with my mouth full,” she argued. “It’s just that I’m so hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  She glared at him. “And you’re always—like you were in the carriage.”

  Jamie laughed and sat down on a settee to eat. “Oh? And how was that?”

  “Lecherous,” Bliss said, before attacking her supper again. She hadn’t eaten since the soup and tea at Flossy’s, and she was famished.

  “Tomorrow we’ll buy you some decent clothes,” Jamie speculated, between bites. He looked as though he were imagining Bliss in fancy silks and velvets instead of seeing her as she was.

  “I’m working tomorrow,” Bliss said flatly. “Flossy is depending on me.”

  Jamie’s voice was quiet in an unnerving way. “Flossy?”

  “Of Flossy’s Tearoom,” Bliss answered, rising to carry her empty plate to the serving cart and dispose of it.

  Jamie was shaking his head when she looked at him, his eyes on the bit of bread he was dragging through a pool of gravy. “Go to bed, Duchess,” he said. “We can fight this out in the morning.”

  Bliss was tired, but if Jamie McKenna thought she was just going to fall into his arms, the way That Woman probably did—

  “It’s in there,” Jamie said lightly, after setting his plate on the serving cart and reaching out for his coat and hat, pointing toward a separate room.

  Bliss was staring at Jamie in surprise. “Where are you going?”

  He smiled and gave her a brotherly kiss on the forehead. “Don’t trouble yourself about it, Duchess—I’ve got some business to attend to, that’s all.”

  Bliss glanced at the gaudy gilt clock on the mantelpiece. “At this hour of the night?”

  Jamie had already reached the door, and he touched the brim of his hat in a blithe gesture of farewell. “Aye, love. Sleep tight, and all that.”

  An image of that blond woman greeting him at the door of some hideaway filled Bliss’s mind, and she felt an almost incomprehensible rage. When Jamie actually had the nerve to walk out, she snatched one of the china plates from the serving cart and sent it spinning after him, to shatter against the wall.

  The door opened again, and Jamie stuck his head inside to say, “Don’t run the bill up too ’igh now, love, for you’re already into me for three pounds.”

  Bliss gave a shriek and reached for the other plate, which he evaded by ducking outside. There was a tinkling crash as the dish disintegrated and little droplets of gravy decorated the door.

  “Good night, sweetness,” she heard Jamie call from the hallway. This was followed by the grating of a key in the lock.

  Too exhausted to throw another thing, Bliss whirled and stomped off into the room Jamie had indicated earlier. There was nothing to do now but sleep; in the morning, she would decide how to deal with all the problems besetting her.

  The bedchamber was graced with an enormous bed that had an intricately carved headboard, and in one corner of the room, there was a fancy teakwood screen. Curious, Bliss peered behind it and was astonished to see a stationary bathtub, with spigots and a faucet. She approached, full of wonder, almost unable to believe such luxury existed, even though she’d heard that Alexander had just such a tub in his house.

  Water thundered into the tub, steaming hot, when Bliss turned a spigot, and she leaped back, startled. Then, realizing that she must put the plug in place before starting the water running, she crept back, turned off the spigot, and located the plug.

  Minutes later, she was soaking happily in hot water, thinking that it would almost be worth being a bird in a gilded cage if she could have a bath every day. Almost, but not quite.

  She bolted upright when she heard the door open in the distance. Somehow, Bliss had gotten the impression that Jamie meant to be gone all or most of the night, and she wasn’t prepared for his return.

  “Jamie?” she called, at the same time r
eaching out for a towel.

  He came around the screen. “Aye, love, it’s me,” he said, and he looked as tired as Bliss felt. “Let’s go to bed, shall we? I ’aven’t slept since that last night we spent together.”

  Bliss was so glad that he wasn’t spending the night with his mistress that she made no protest about sharing a bed. She rose from the tub once Jamie had rounded the screen again and modestly wrapped herself in the towel she’d been grasping in her hands.

  Jamie had already stripped off his clothes and climbed into bed, and he watched Bliss with no expression at all in his eyes as she joined him, the towel around her like a sarong. She had no more than settled down when Jamie tossed the covers back and briskly divested her of the towel.

  Bliss trembled, because the night was cold and Jamie’s eyes were hot, and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to refuse him if he wanted her.

  He seemed captivated by the freckles that had always been Bliss’s secret shame, and he bent his head to kiss her between her breasts and then on her belly. Despite her bone-deep weariness, Bliss was aroused, but Jamie only gave her a light kiss on the mouth, extinguished the elegant lamp that burned on the bedside table, and with an expansive yawn, stretched out to sleep.

  Bliss was too worn out to fret and fume. She closed her eyes, and the moment she did so, sleep overtook her and carried her off to a safe, warm place where there were no thoughts and no images.

  Feeling a warm brightness on her face, Bliss opened her eyes. Sunlight was pouring in through a huge window, and she sat bolt upright.

  There was no sign of Jamie, and when she called his name, she got no answer. A horrible thought possessed her, and using the chenille bedspread as a cover, she dashed out of the bedroom and across the sitting room to grasp the doorknob.

  After muttering a prayer, she flicked her wrist and the knob turned. She sagged against the door, smiling with relief; Jamie hadn’t locked her in.