Improper Gentlemen

by Diane Whiteside

  “Why are you so eager to find out?” she parried, unsure of the look in his eyes.

  “It would give me the best excuse to destroy the man who did it to you,” he replied calmly.

  Her jaw dropped. For the first time in three years, trust blossomed in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps she might not be alone and helpless any longer.

  “It was Simmons,” she said cautiously.

  “That brute!” She didn’t like Talbot’s smile at all but it was comforting, too, mainly because his fury wasn’t directed at her. “It’ll take a little extra planning but I can dispose of him.”

  “Honestly, I’m just a little bruised.” Suddenly, she didn’t want her unusual protector injured. “I can move my mouth easily and . . .”

  He lifted her chin gently to inspect her cheek under the hanging lantern. His lean, strong fingers were very disturbing, perhaps because she wanted them to linger.

  “Besides, I don’t think you can completely blame Mr. Simmons,” she babbled on. “Johnson shoved me into his room.”

  “The mayor.” Her escort’s dark eyes flickered but his grip stayed protective.

  “He gave me the hotel room beside Simmons. Showed me through the connecting door, which didn’t lock, and . . .” She closed her eyes against the memories.

  “What about the hotel manager?” Talbot’s voice rasped in his throat.

  “Ran away before then.”

  “Damn.” The word was very soft. “I swear to you nothing like that will happen again,” he said strongly. “You’re right about the bruising. I can have a poultice fetched if you need it, but otherwise I suspect you mostly need a hot drink to take away the chill.”

  “What haven’t you seen and done in here?” Charlotte whispered. While she’d spent an eternity in gambling saloons over the past three years, she’d never thought much about concert saloons, their far rarer brethren.

  “I sell pleasure—but nothing illegal. I don’t run a brothel and I’m not a pimp. Adults rent space from me to pursue entertainment of their choosing.” He set her bonnet atop a coat tree. “Mining towns are frequented by hard men.”

  “And dangerous.” As she knew all too well.

  He draped the velvet quilt over her shoulders. “But they can be very profitable, if you’re prepared.”

  In the distance, the singer curtsied once more and ran offstage. The audience rustled and glasses clinked more loudly. “Hurry up with that red-eye,” somebody demanded.

  There was a soft knock and a bartender appeared. Charlotte quickly took her place on the settee, determined to appear an experienced woman of the world no matter what her hammering pulse said.

  Talbot offered her a cup of coffee, laced with cream and speckled with crimson and gold. She sniffed cautiously, then again far more happily. “What is it? It smells delightful.”

  “Coffee with chocolate and spices. It’s a Mexican recipe.” He sat down beside her with his own cup.

  A very tall, cadaverously thin man strutted onto the stage and fingered his lapels.

  “Yeehaw!” somebody yelled down below and a torrent of gunfire erupted into the ceiling.

  Charlotte cringed. She could endure one or two shots, however close, but a fusillade sounded like a massacre.

  “Gentlemen!” Talbot shouted over the railing. “The next man to welcome our guest like that gets a taste of his own medicine.”

  Charlotte managed to crack open her eyes, amazed she hadn’t dived under the settee. Where had she gained such confidence?

  Talbot had a shotgun at his shoulder, as did Garland and every bartender.

  There were a few apologetic coughs, then pistols disappeared back into holsters. The rowdier miners sat back down and the more cautious members of the audience emerged from under their seats or behind their boxes’ paneling. The actor poked his head onto the stage from behind a sturdy column, like a wary tortoise investigating the early spring air. Polite applause greeted him this time and he sauntered forth more cautiously.

  Silence fell when he reached the stage’s center. Even the bartenders’ usual clatter as they passed fresh drinks disappeared. The actor swept the crowded room with his pale eyes as if he could see through the darkness into everyone’s soul.

  “ ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe,” he announced and a woman loosed a long, heartfelt sigh of anticipation.

  Talbot shoved his shotgun under the settee. Only Charlotte’s fast action kept her skirt from being pinned by it.

  “Once upon a midnight dreary / While I pondered weak and weary,” the actor intoned. His hands inscribed circles as if casting spells upon his enthralled audience.

  “Do you want to listen or may I close the drapes?” Talbot asked softly. “I doubt you want to see Isham.”

  “Please shut them,” Charlotte assured him. He sealed them carefully, then joined her on the settee. “Besides, I enjoy Shakespeare better or even Burns. Do you like Shakespeare?” she asked, desperate to make conversation in these very intimate confines.

  “Very much. My mother used to read his sonnets and plays to me.” He took a sip of coffee, his lean length comfortably relaxed across the leather.

  “His sonnets, too?” Charlotte blinked at him. She could believe that a woman would teach her son to cherish the plays, since those were commonly performed. But the sonnets were frippery bits of rhyming words, more often relegated to the feminine sphere.

  “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past . . .”

  Talbot’s rich drawl, far more attractive than the actor’s melodramatic tones, faded and he shrugged. “She was an Anson of Chillington and wanted her only child to enjoy English poetry.”

  “Chillington? Earl Chillington?” Charlotte came up onto her knees to look at her companion more closely.

  “He’s a second cousin, who received the house and title in England, while my mother inherited everything else.”

  “A fortune,” guessed Charlotte, backed by generations of banking instincts.

  “She brought it as dowry to her Southern marriage.” He waved that off and swallowed more of his richly spiced drink, as if for solace. “The War wiped it out.” He swirled his coffee for a moment before answering the question Charlotte hadn’t asked. “My mother died only a year after the fighting started.”

  “I’m very sorry.” Charlotte dared to put her hand over his. His expression carried such anguish, similar to her father’s on the rare occasions when he mentioned her mother.

  “It was better that way. The Low Country’s climate was very hard on her and we still had enough property to keep her comfortable.” Ancient pain snarled behind his gritted teeth before his fingers laced through hers.

  “My mother was from Scotland,” Charlotte offered and shifted so she could sit next to him. She could at least offer the simple comfort of her presence, even if he didn’t want to say much about his mother. “Father made me memorize Mr. Burns’s poetry in her memory.”

  “Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw,” Talbot began and cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “I dearly like the west,” Charlotte finished triumphantly.

  “Here’s to poetry, Ace.” He lifted his cup to hers.

  “Charlotte,” she corrected him, the first time she’d freely given anybody her real name in three years.

  A true smile warmed his eyes and broadened his mouth. It changed his face from a sculptor’s masterpiece to a study in sensuality. “Justin,” he offered in exchange.

  “Justin,” she agreed and clinked her cup against his. Maybe it wouldn’t be too dangerous to take shelter from a blizzard at his side. At least if she could forget about his voice, scent, and body, it would be safe.

  Chapter 5

  “This is my private bedroom,” announced Justin hours later and threw the door open.

  Charlotte blinked at a tiny chamber, barely sufficient to hold the wrought iron bedstead, plinth with a basin of water, and straight-backed chair. “Are you sure we can both sleep in
here? It’s hard to believe you can fit in that bed.”

  “Normally I sleep at my own house, further up the mountain.”

  “Where it’s quiet.”

  “Where I can practice gunplay in private,” he corrected her.

  She hiccupped a breath. She’d forgotten all too fast the true meaning of the pistols riding so easily at his hips.

  “I only use this room to snatch a few hours’ rest or if the weather’s too foul to get home, like tonight.”

  A cold draft rustled her petticoats, emphasizing his point. She quickly stepped inside and he closed the door behind them, his lean body heating her back like a torch.

  “You can undress behind the screen.” He tilted his head toward the corner behind them. “After that, the bed’s yours. I’ll take the floor.”

  “You’ll freeze!”

  “Worried, Charlotte?” His white teeth flashed in a rare grin.

  She flushed. “Of course. You’ve been very kind.”

  “Not my standard reputation,” he said wryly. “But I’ve survived worse than a hard floor under a sturdy roof and I doubt you’d sleep a wink if I were anywhere near you.”

  She couldn’t think of a single response. That she was afraid of his guns? That after an evening spent bantering poetry with him, she didn’t know if she was more afraid of his lusts or her own?

  She was only certain her single night with Holbrook hadn’t equipped her to deal with a man like Justin Talbot.

  He gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Go on now, get ready for bed. Everything will work out well.”

  “Thank you.” She tucked herself into the remarkably ample space behind the gilded Japanese screen and started yanking open buttons on her jacket.

  When this was over, she would make twice as much money as she’d planned before returning to Boston to lord it over her supercilious stepmother and stepsisters. She’d need the extra concentration and time at the poker tables to stop thinking about Justin Talbot.

  Ike Johnson lowered his lantern, satisfied. Talbot was locked down tight inside Hair Trigger Palace with the bitch. Almost as important, the season’s first storm hadn’t shown any gaps around the Silver King’s windows. Maybe this year would be better than the last.

  “Where is she?” His salvation’s huge frame blocked the hallway, like an avalanche closing off a road. “You promised I’d have her by now.”

  Shit. Ike’s heartbeat hit triple time but none of his nervousness showed in his voice. “She’s still with Talbot. You’ll have her tomorrow.”

  “I’ll lose an entire day of whipping her.” Simmons blew out a disgruntled breath. “You’d better get her to me fast or you won’t have your precious charter. Sweetwater can pay me more gold to become the county seat.”

  “Don’t worry about it!” Ike rushed to give an alternate explanation for his outcry than panic. “I’d like to see her under the lash myself. A Northern girl from the same blood as the soldiers who destroyed my home—and an adulterous bitch at that.”

  “Yes, she deserves to pay. She’s a rare treat, unlike whores or anything Sweetwater can offer.” Simmons licked his lips and stretched meditatively against the ceiling beams. Their creaking was hidden by the storm howling outside.

  “Tomorrow.” She’d be destroyed and Talbot would be his friend again. They always made up after a fight.

  Simmons’s eyes met his, narrow and red in the lamplight. “Better be soon so I’ll have full use of her before I leave. I must board the next stage to make my recommendation to the governor.”

  “You have my word.” Ike tossed him a salute like the infantry captain he’d once been. Just a few more hours and he’d rule Wolf Laurel again, with Talbot at his back.

  The snow hurled itself against the windows in a fusillade of icy darts. The trees outside beat their branches against each other in a series of thunderous cracks.

  Charlotte moaned and pulled the quilt higher over her head. But nothing could stop the wind from howling or her father from yelling at her, again and again.

  “How dare you betray yourself and your family by spending hours with such riffraff!” her father yelled at her. They stood in his library, where the books were a distant blur and the velvet curtains rustled unhappily in the drafts. Even the gilded ceiling, normally warm and close, seemed far away and forbidding.

  “How dare you call them that?” She glared back at him from an arm’s length away. Her cheek was swollen and bleeding on the inside from where he’d hit her, the first time he’d ever done so. But she’d never allow an outrage to her friends. “You should be ashamed to insult such heroes.”

  She raised her hands, ready to fight, as Alex Pelham had taught her. Her stepmother and stepsisters’ faces swam into focus from behind her father’s shoulder, smirking like carnival masks. She ignored them in favor of the greater danger to her heart.

  “Insult?” Her father’s voice dropped to an icy needle. “You have ruined your reputation and the family’s name—and you say I dealt an insult?”

  “Absolutely.” She folded her arms over her chest. Every inch of her eighteen-year-old frame vibrated with certainty. Anything she could do at the Soldiers’ Home paled before the sacrifices those brave men had made for their country. Surely playing card games, even poker, for hours, was respectable when conducted under the head nurse’s vigilant eye.

  “Go to your room, you impertinent whelp. You will have bread and water until you learn respect for authority,” her father snapped, tall and proud in his black broadcloth coat.

  She marched out to a chorus of her stepmother and stepsisters’ virulent whispers. They grew in volume as she climbed the stairs and the winds screamed louder among the trees. She could no longer hear the little voice in her head urging her to wait and explain everything to her father when they’d both calmed down.

  The stairs lengthened and flattened, surrounded by taller and taller walls, until they became the road out of Boston.

  She walked on and on, into the blizzard.

  The storm howled again and the quilt tightened around her until she couldn’t move her arms and legs. She thrashed wildly, fighting off the smothering blur.

  “Hush, darling. Hush.” A man’s rich voice, velvet-edged and totally unlike her father’s, pushed back the storm’s ice.

  “Help me.” She reached out, her eyes still shut. She’d had this nightmare so many times.

  Strong hands peeled the cloth away from the pillows and smoothed it over her limbs. He gently rolled it down from her face to lay it at the foot of the bed.

  She blinked up at Justin. His deep-set eyes were alive with concern under the blizzard’s white light.

  “Are you okay, Charlotte?” he asked very gently.

  She gulped.

  “Sounds like no.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking very different clad only in a nightshirt. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head violently. Talk about where she came from—or her own stubborn stupidity in not giving her father an explanation?

  “That’s okay with me, sugar. A person’s past is their own business out here in the West.”

  She shivered. The big quilt was a long way away. So were the secrets of whatever forces had created Justin Talbot.

  “Are you cold?” he asked quickly.

  “You must be.” She started to shiver. “Perhaps we could share the bed.”

  “Are you sure?” He cocked his head at her.

  “Just for warmth?” she offered. Surely she could brazen out a single night with Justin Talbot. He hadn’t shown any signs of interest in her. Even if he did, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen and she had her experience with Jeremiah to inform her.

  “Very well.” He joined her under the remaining covers in a sleek movement, graceful as a cat diving into its den. His torso was warm under the fine linen but his extremities made snow-covered rocks seem cozy.

  His foot brushed Charlotte and she yelped in surprise.

>   “Sorry,” he muttered and stiffened, taking himself away from her.

  “No, please.” She caught him by the shoulders and pressed herself closer. If she’d been bold enough to share a bed with him, she could be honest enough to share her limbs’ warmth.

  “Charlotte.” He wrapped his arms around her and relaxed slightly, enough that their toes brushed against each other. “You are full of surprises. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She dared to rest her head on his shoulder, since he didn’t seem to want to mention the erection that pressed against her thighs. Her breasts were warmer than the rest of her body, more than his proximity would account for.

  She stirred restlessly but said nothing.

  “Still upset by the nightmare?” Justin’s voice was a rich, sensual thread in the darkness.

  “Uh—yes, a little.” Could she say she’d been picturing him more the dream’s horrific denizens? Better not.

  “Let’s try distracting you a bit.”

  “With what?” she asked, honestly curious. There was no light to play a game by.

  He kissed the top of her head.

  “I, uh . . .” What would he expect her to do?

  “Just cuddle, sugar, that’s all.” Something in his tone hinted at nighttime comforts that she’d never known before. “All you need to do is relax and think about poetry.”

  “Okay.” She could do that. She settled more comfortably against him.

  “What does this make you think of? ‘That time of year thou mayst in me behold / When yellow leave, or none, or few . . .’ ” His drawl slowed to a velvet secret.

  “ ‘Do hang / Upon those boughs which shake against the cold.’ ” She chuckled softly and closed her eyes. She’d played this game before. “Shakespeare, Sonnet 73.”

  “Very good. Your turn.”

  “Hmm. ‘When I consider every thing that grows / Holds in perfection but a moment . . .”

  “You know your Shakespeare.” His arms shifted her to a closer, warmer position. The storm’s dangers were very far away and his attractions so close. “Sonnet 15.”