A wild, triumphant joy seared through him then, almost euphoric, as if he'd discovered some fantastic ruin never seen by civilized man. That elation beat in his blood, drove his body in a primal dance of hunger and victory. Mac arched against him, spurring him on. In. One stroke, one long, deep stroke…
"Liam?"
Through a fog of lust he heard his name. Mac had gone very still, clutching his shirt in both hands, her gaze fixed past his shoulder.
Toward the door.
"Oh…" The faint, disembodied voice trailed off into a whimper. Liam almost ignored it, almost flouted the barrier of Mac's suddenly rigid body. He wanted, and he always took what he wanted—
Mac planted both hands against his chest and shoved. In his startlement he jerked back, watched in blank confusion as she grabbed at her skirts and pulled them down over her legs.
"Oh, my," another, older feminine voice said behind them.
Liam turned his head. The door was open. Two people stood on the threshold. The younger woman's pretty face was pale except for two vivid spots of color in her cheeks. The elder looked like a cat who'd gotten into the cream.
The elder was Mrs. Hunter, Caroline's chaperon.
And the girl who stared at Liam with horror in her eyes was Caroline.
Chapter Eighteen
Times go by turns,
and chances change by course,
From foul to fair,
from better hap to worse.
—Robert Southwell
ICE DOUSED THE fire in Liam's blood. He turned his back to the couple and buttoned his trousers with unsteady fingers.
This was a farce, a nightmare, a joke. It must be. Mac scooted off the other side of the settee, ears crimson, trying to smooth her hopelessly creased gown. Liam turned with as much dignity as he could muster.
"Caroline," he began.
Caroline had gone from flushed to white. Her little fists were clenched as she pushed away from her aunt's offered comfort.
"You… you scoundrel," she said with quiet, astonishing ferocity. And then she whirled and swept out the door, Mrs. Hunter at her heels.
The resulting quiet lasted all of an instant before it was broken by yet another intruder. The waiter who'd shown Liam to the room poked his head cautiously through the door and walked in, bearing a silver tray with a chilled bottle of wine.
"Your wine, madam," he said.
"Get out," Liam growled.
The man set the tray down on the table and obeyed with alacrity. Liam strode to the table and picked up the bottle. It was already uncorked. He splashed a liberal portion into one of the wineglasses.
He hardly heard Mac come up behind him. Her hand was shaking as she reached for the bottle and a glass and followed his example.
He lifted his glass to her. "Congratulations, Mac."
But she gave him no answer. No smile of victory, of triumph complete. He tilted the glass to his mouth and prepared to drown himself in the contents.
The first taste told him something was wrong. The second assured him of it. He spat into the glass and was slamming it down when he saw Mac preparing to drink.
The wine never made it to her lips. Most of it soaked the front of her bodice as he swatted the glass away, and the rest stained the fine imported carpet at her feet.
She stared at him in shock. Genuine shock, not in the least feigned. She hadn't known the wine was drugged.
With frigid, bitter calm he handed her an embroidered napkin.
"Get yourself cleaned up, Mac," he commanded. "It's over."
* * *
Over.
His brain was pounding to that infernal word, just as it had all night. It was limned in blinding light that burned through his lids. He opened his eyes a crack, winced, and tried to roll over. The solid bulk of an Irish wolfhound trapped him in place.
"Norton," he groaned. "Get off the bed."
A tail thumped against his arm with enough impact to encourage a more rapid recovery. His mouth tasted abominable. He couldn't remember a bloody thing since last night… had it been last night? Since Caroline had walked in on him and Mac.
Liam groaned again and cursed into his whiskey-scented pillow.
"Mr. O'Shea?"
Even Chen's soft speech rang like a struck anvil in Liam's ears. He propped himself up on his elbows and glared at his servant. "What time is it?"
Chen bowed and set the tray with tea and morning paper on the table beside the bed. "Three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. O'Shea."
Liam massaged the skin between his brows. Hell, he'd lost most of a day. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on last night at the Poodle Dog—everything but his shoes, which Chen had probably removed.
"When did I come in?" he asked.
"Just before dawn." Chen lifted his sleeve and poured a cup of hot tea. The smell of it—green tea with herbs, which Chen insisted was good for a hangover—was already beginning to clear Liam's head.
Before dawn. It was starting to come back. The fiasco at the Poodle Dog, the way he'd numbly flagged down a hack for Mac and watched her drive off, his determination to go in exactly the opposite direction. A night of riotous dissipation along the Barbary Coast—the details of the latter remained blessedly obscure. It'd been some time since he'd gone down to the dives and hells of the Coast.
Chen cleared his throat discreetly. Mr. O'Shea, you asked me when you first returned to inquire as to Miss Gresham's well being."
Liam didn't remember, but he was glad he'd had that much sense. He paused to fight off a wave of dizziness and threw his legs over the bed. "And?"
"Miss Gresham is receiving no callers. Mrs. Hunter was quite adamant. I told Mr. Biggs to make certain that Mr. Sinclair has no access, should he reappear."
Thank God for Chen. "You think of everything when I can't think at all. Thank you."
"You honor me, Mr. O'Shea. There is more. Mrs. Hunter gave me this note to deliver to you."
Liam recognized the perfume and the fine paper. Caroline. He shook his head to clear it and tore open the envelope.
The delicate, careful hand was indeed Caroline's, but the note was brief and almost lacking in feminine flourish.
The meaning, however, was manifest. She wanted him to come to her house, tonight. She wanted to resolve matters between them. She was giving him another chance.
A strange, heavy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. It felt like disappointment, and that was sheer madness. He had to set things right.
But as he rose from the bed he felt as if he were about to march to his death on the gallows, to be hung on a rope made of lace and blond curls and acres of petticoat.
He drove the phaeton to the Gresham's in a state of complete mental blankness.
Mrs. Hunter answered the door. Biggs was nowhere in evidence.
"I've come to see Caroline," Liam said tersely.
"I know." She pursed her lips and let him into the house with obvious reluctance. Her attitude struck Liam as ironic; she'd done a poor enough job of watching over her charge.
If she hadn't been in on last night's fiasco with Perry. She would have to be questioned, but now was not the time.
"Where is she?" he asked.
Mrs. Hunter tilted her chin toward the stairway. Her disapproval burned into his back as he climbed the stairs. The house was eerily hushed. He reached Caroline's sitting room door and knocked, expecting to find her waiting. There was no answer.
"Liam?"
He turned to face the open door of Caroline's bedroom.
She was waiting for him, sure enough. Waiting in a sheer wrap that barely concealed the lacy white chemise she wore beneath. A chemise that revealed the thrust of her breasts, the roundness of her thigh sliding under satin. Her feet were bare, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders.
"Good God," he choked. "What the hell are you doing?"
Her voice was low—too low, forced into a register that made it sound like a parody of Mac's husky alto. "Waiting for you."
/>
Liam felt his face flame, but his body was chilled through. "Cover yourself," he rasped.
"Why? Don't you think I'm beautiful?"
Oh, yes, she was beautiful. Perfect. Any man would want her.
Any man but the one with her now. In the dim light he thought he saw the shape of a phantom standing behind his ward; taller, red-haired, tragic in spite of her gaiety. Siobhan.
They were not alike. Nothing alike. But Caroline might have been his sister standing there, ready to give herself to a man, with no idea of the consequences, because it seemed daring and grown-up and… no, not a way out of poverty. Not for Caroline. She'd never known want, and never would.
"I know you—want me," Caroline said, stumbling over the word, as if she only vaguely guessed what it meant. "You were going to ask me to marry you."
Yes. He was going to ask her for the sake of his oath. Never thinking beyond the ceremony because his mind refused to dwell on what must follow.
"Liam," she whispered. "Look at me. Look at me."
He couldn't. There were ghosts in his way, the ghosts of defeat and those he had lost, phantoms of all the things he'd thought he wanted.
But Caroline was not among them. He did not want her. He couldn't. He knew it with a certainty beyond any he'd known in his life. He could protect her, cherish her, care for her. He could fulfill his vow. But he could never love her.
She wanted something he had forgotten the meaning of, had lost years ago in the tenements of New York.
Caroline moved closer. She put her hands on his chest before he could walk away.
"Kiss me," she said. "Kiss me like you did at Cliff House."
He caught her wrists. "No." It was the only word that would come. "No—"
"You want her." Her chest rose and fell rapidly. "You want her, not me."
He held her shaking shoulders gently and set her back. He stroked her hair once, only the ghost of a touch, and left her.
He could hear her sobs as he descended the stairs.
Mrs. Hunter was waiting, perched on the settee in the music room. "Go to her, Amelia," he said tonelessly.
"She needs you." She started for the stairs and he stayed her with a gesture. "Keep Caroline inside and admit no one. Do I make myself clear?"
He didn't wait for her answer. He walked the length of the hall, paused at the door, and slowly opened it.
The sun was beginning to set. Soon it would be dark—a time of oblivion, if he chose it to be. He could go back to the Coast and drink himself insensible, or take his riding horse and Norton and go racing along the beach until they could run no more.
But tomorrow everything would still be as it was.
He started toward the carriage house and had gone only a few steps when a man emerged from the garden shrubbery.
"Mr. O'Shea," he said.
Liam stopped, instantly wary. "Bauer. What are you doing here?"
The investigator was coolly professional as always. "Your man Chen told me you might be here," he said. "I have news that might interest you."
"Out with it, then."
"I've located Mr. Sinclair."
Liam took a sharp step forward. "Where is he?"
"I tracked him to Chinatown. He was incognito, but once I recognized him I was able to follow him to one of the primary tong houses."
A cold chill numbed Liam's body. "And?"
"He apparently met with Yung Po. I don't know the nature of the conversation, but Sinclair seemed satisfied with the meeting."
Yung Po. One of the most powerful tong lords, a man who controlled a quarter of Chinatown, who dealt in bribery and opium and, most especially, girls to fill the houses of prostitution. Girls Liam's group had often been able to rescue—until the last raid, which had ended in near disaster.
A raid that had been foiled by an informant. Until now Liam had suspected one of the group, or someone closely connected.
Perry had never been one of the group, but he'd been close to Liam. Close enough to learn of the raids if he'd been interested enough.
San Francisco was filled with city officials and police more than willing to be bribed to overlook laws broken by men like Yung Po. Some of them profited even more directly by the trade in opium and slaves. Perry was no official, but he had friends all throughout the city. If he had special knowledge he could sell to the tongs for a cut of their income—if he were working for the tongs and had promised to get a certain troublesome Irishman out of the way once and for all, it would doubly serve his purpose.
"When did you see him?" Liam demanded.
"Only last night. I couldn't find you until now. But I talked to a few men in Chinatown, and Sinclair's met with Po before. He was first seen at the tong house less than a week ago."
Liam closed his eyes. Only a few days before the raid.
"I've had men trailing Sinclair," Bauer said, "but he went underground somewhere in Chinatown. It's very easy to get lost there if you want to disappear. The minute he surfaces again I'll send word."
As if that could undo anything that had happened. Perry was more than a would-be murderer, more than a man who'd callously court an innocent girl for her fortune. He'd used Mac and then set her out as bait, indifferent to the harm that might come to her as a result. And he'd set himself to profit by the sale of children into lives of sexual slavery.
"Listen to me, Bauer," he said coldly. "I want you to have men watching this house twenty-four hours a day. I don't care how much money you spend or what steps you take, but I want Miss Gresham safe from him. I've given orders that Caroline is not to leave the house. If Mrs. Hunter goes out she's to be followed."
"As you wish. And when I find Sinclair?"
Liam stared blindly into the garden. "He's my problem. I'll deal with him."
"He's a dangerous man, Mr. O'Shea."
"So am I, Bauer. So am I."
Bauer had the good sense to leave then, melting away without so much as the crunch of a footstep on the gravel path. The chill in Liam's belly remained long after Bauer was gone, long after Liam retrieved the phaeton from the Gresham groom and drove out the gates.
He knew, now, where he needed to go. He'd done all he could for Caroline, but he had a second responsibility. One he'd never asked for. A woman who'd been in danger three times for his sake, whom he had to make safe in spite of her conniving ways and dubious motives.
He drove into the Grand Court of the Palace and his icy numbness washed away on the fierce tide of an emotion he understood.
It was impossible to be numb in Mac's presence, impossible to forget he was alive. She flouted him, defied him, forced him to fight. And it was a fight he wanted now, a fight to make his blood beat hard and his wits regain their edge.
Not by a single shift in his expression did he reveal his purpose as he left his team in the care of hotel staff and went in search of the concierge. A quiet word and a sum of coin earned assurances of discretion and privacy.
Then he was taking the stairs two at a time, refusing the sluggish dignity of the elevator, and standing before Mac's door.
It was locked. He thought better of breaking it down and confined himself to an ordinary knock.
Mac opened the door, took one look at his face, and started to shut it again. He wedged his foot in the door and pushed through. She retreated a few steps and then held her ground, braced like a matador waiting for the charge of a particularly nasty bull.
Liam closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. He looked her up and down, taking in the lacy muslin chemise that was her sole garment. His body instantly tightened. He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it over a chair.
"Well, Mac," he said softly. "I see you're dressed to welcome me."
And if her gaze, brilliant and dark, was anything but welcoming, he knew that was about to change.
Chapter Nineteen
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours
from the night
, my dear.
—Thomas Moore
MAC KNEW SHE was in trouble. Her mind knew it, anyway; her body had an entirely different opinion.
She'd been expecting this sooner or later, but somehow Liam had still managed to take her by surprise. Here she was, wearing practically nothing and confronting around two hundred pounds of angry male.
Mac backed up toward the bed and felt behind her for the muslin wrapper she'd left there. She tugged it on without haste. He watched every move she made with a dark hunger—hunger made more potent by barely suppressed anger. Heat coiled and pooled low in her body.
"I guess you came here to… to talk about yesterday," she said.
"Talk, Mac? Is that what you think I want?" He grabbed his tie and loosened it with a yank that spoke volumes.
Okay, Mac. You can handle this. She moved to the other side of the bed. "I don't suppose it'll do much good to tell you that I didn't expect Caroline to walk in on us last night."
"No." He hurled his tie to the floor and began to work on the buttons of his shirt. "But we do have some unfinished business."
Mac watched his undressing with unwilling fascination. "All I wanted was… um… to distract you—"
"You succeeded." He unfastened his left shirt cuff.
Only too well, it seemed. Perry had set things up very carefully. Without telling Mac the full extent of his plans.
"I'm sorry it happened that way," she said. "Whether or not you can accept it."
He continued undressing with slow, jerky motions. "Did you know about the wine?"
"The wine?"
"That it was drugged," Liam said.
"Drugged?" She felt a little dizzy and reached for the mahogany bedpost. The wine had been meant as a signal that she wasn't succeeding—a signal she'd never given, botched when the waiter had walked in without being summoned.
"The wine was drugged?" she repeated.
He looked up at her, his shirttail loose at his waist. "You didn't know," he said. "You tried to drink it after I did."
Good grief. Mac had a vague memory of pouring herself some wine, so confused by her own emotions that she'd only wanted to drown them. Liam had smacked the glass from her hand.
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