The widow Blackstone kept a bottle of whiskey and several glasses atop the pine bureau for Micajah's pleasure, and after shrugging out of his jacket and throwing the garment on the bed, he poured himself and Jeremy a slug of the liquor. Motioning for Jeremy to take the chair, he flung himself down on the bed and, half lying, half sitting, he sipped his drink.
In the flickering light of the candle, he studied the doleful features of the man across from him. It was obvious that the past years had not been kind to Jeremy Childers. His face was creased and lined well beyond his years, his ragged, light brown hair hung dull and limp around his unhealthy pale skin and his eyes were deeply sunken, dark circles emphasizing their queer glitter. Never a big man, Jeremy looked smaller and thinner than Micajah remembered, and there was a nervous air about him: he constantly fidgeted as he sat in the chair across from Micajah, starting at the faintest sound, his hazel eyes never still, always darting around the room as if he expected someone to leap out at him.
Micajah had been good friends with Jeremy and Orval before they had disappeared on that trip to trade horses—they'd run a few rigs together and Jeremy had been his partner in a couple of robberies. In fact, Orval, Jeremy, Jem and Micajah had made up a dangerous quartet of rogues in those days, but mostly they ran their own separate, nefarious schemes, only joining together when it proved necessary or profitable.
Micajah had been their natural leader; not only was his personality the most dominant, but he was four or five years older than the others and was the more experienced scoundrel... and he didn't blink if there was violence to be done. Jeremy had always been a follower, following either his or Orval's lead, and with Orval dead, Micajah wasn't surprised that the first thing Jeremy had done after more than ten years in a Spanish prison was to come looking for him.
Nursing his whiskey, Micajah said idly, "Since you've been in a Spanish jail all this time, I can hazard a guess as to why you were looking for me—you want some money and need a place to stay for a while." With the prospect of making a large amount of easy money before him and feeling unusually generous, Micajah went on expansively. "You're welcome to bed down here for as long as you like, and as for the other..." He smiled darkly. "As for the other—I just took on a job for a tidy sum and I might be willing to let you in on it. Would put a little money in your pocket."
An odd smile curved Jeremy's pale lips and the glitter in his hazel eyes increased. Taking a nervous gulp of the whiskey, he inhaled deeply and blurted out, "And I might be willing to cut you in on a fortune in Aztec gold."
Jeremy's words did not have the effect that he expected. Micajah remained unmoved, merely sending him a skeptical glance. "I think those years in a Spanish jail have addled your wits."
"No! No! It's true!" Jeremy said in agitation, never having considered that Micajah wouldn't believe him. "It's true, I tell you!"
There was such conviction in Jeremy's tone that a faint flicker of interest showed in Micajah's cold blue eyes. "Tell me about it," he said finally.
Nothing loath, Jeremy slid across the room in his haste to kneel by the bed, and with the words tumbling from his lips, he told Micajah about the fateful trip to Spanish Texas that he and Orval had undertaken in 1804, and the dying man he had found just before he'd fallen into the hands of the Spanish patrol. For eleven years Jeremy had kept the dazzling secret of the gold bottled up inside and to finally tell the tale gave him a feeling of relief. The candle was sputtering in its pottery holder and the whiskey had been diminished considerably when Jeremy finished speaking.
Micajah stared at him for several long, nerve-racking moments. Ordinarily he didn't have any time for tales of hidden treasure, much less of Aztec gold or the men who chased after such nonsense. He knew about all sorts of fools who had wasted years trying to find the notorious outlaw Sam Mason's supposedly hidden fortune near Cave-in-Rock. Having only contempt for men dim-witted enough to believe in such fairy-tale foolishness, Micajah had always turned a deaf ear to stories of hidden treasure, but Jeremy's tale caught his interest the moment Bias Davalos's name had been mentioned, and when Savanna's name came up, he'd been riveted by Jeremy's words. He wasn't certain that he believed everything Jeremy had told him—he did believe that Jeremy believed it, but what interested him more was the possibility of using this knowledge to get Savanna into his bed.
Taking a sip of his whiskey, Micajah murmured, more to himself than to Jeremy, "So Savanna O'Rourke has a golden armband and a map leading to Aztec gold, does she?"
His expression intense, Jeremy nodded. "That's what he said just before he died—'Savanna will have it." For a second Jeremy looked confused. "Or was it Jason Savage who has the map...?"
Micajah wasn't concerned about Jason Savage, at least not at present; it was solely Savanna's part in this story that roused his attention. Tossing off the remainder of his whiskey and sitting up abruptly, he said, "It doesn't matter. I know where Savanna O'Rourke is, and that's all we have to bother ourselves with for the time being."
Jeremy appeared thunderstruck, his belief in Micajah's omniscience sealed. "You know where she is?" he croaked.
Micajah nodded. "Yep, you could say that. After we take care of this little job like I promised, we'll go see her and have a friendly talk with her about that daddy of hers."
"Forget the job!" Jeremy burst out, his blue eyes glittering with a zealot's light. "It's the gold we're after! And Savanna can tell us how to find it."
"Without money, we're not going to get very far," Micajah returned coldly. "We'll kill this St. Clair fellow and then, with enough money to keep us comfortable and see us outfitted for a trip to Texas, we'll go after your gold."
The jut to Micajah's chin told Jeremy that further argument was useless. "How're you going to kill St. Clair?" Jeremy demanded sullenly.
"Don't know," Micajah returned cheerfully. "But I'm certain before too long I'll think of something very deadly for our poor not-long-for-this-earth Adam St. Clair!"
* * *
Oblivious of the unpleasant plans being discussed for his untimely demise, Adam St. Clair was doing what after thirty-four years of perfecting his technique he did with aplomb and style—infuriating, beguiling and effortlessly seducing a woman all at the same time. Not that the lady in question needed to be seduced.
Upon her arrival in Natchez six months ago from Charleston with her brother, Charles, to visit with their older married sister, Susan Jeffries, Betsey Asher had taken one look at Adam St. Clair's long-limbed elegant length, mocking sapphire eyes and curly black hair and had decided then and there she must have him. That he came with a fortune, well-bred connections and a renowned plantation, Belle Vista, was certainly all in his favor, but it was Adam who fascinated Betsey and made her chase after him with shameless abandon—despite Charles's displeasure with her choice. Her brother had made it clear that he wanted her to marry a much more malleable gentleman, but Betsey had turned a deaf ear. She wanted Adam. And she intended to have him.
An impressive six feet four inches tall in his bare feet, Adam was definitely a noticeable young man under any circumstances. When that height was coupled with a smoothly muscular build, broad shoulders, rakishly handsome features and a devilish charm, Betsey's pursuit of him was understandable. But Betsey was after more than a delightful flirtation or even a passionate affair; by choice she was unmarried at the advanced age of twenty-six and now that it was imperative that she marry a rich man, she was becoming increasingly wrathful that a man who was not only rich but one she desperately wanted was proving to be singularly elusive when it came to proposing marriage to her.
Adam was entirely willing to bed her and have her sobbing with gratification at his incomparable sexual prowess, but he had no intention of asking for her hand in marriage. Which was one of the things, besides getting him out of his clothes and into her bed, that Betsey had been angling for since the moment her wide green eyes had met Adam's dancing dark blue gaze at the soiree her sister had held to introduce Betsey to all the e
ligible young men in the neighborhood.
The darling of her doting wealthy family, born several years after her sister and brother, Betsey had been spoiled and indulged since birth and she was not used to being denied... anything. As she had grown older, the pattern of being granted her every whim had continued—the fact that she had been endowed with a head of wavy blond hair, thickly lashed, mysterious green eyes set in an undeniably lovely face, and possessed an alluringly little body had not escaped the attention of the gentlemen. From the age of sixteen she had capriciously kept a string of ensnared suitors dangling after her and once she had discovered that there were ways to enjoy the pleasures to be found in the arms of a lover without the confines of marriage, she had refused to consider the most passionate appeals from the most eligible bachelors for her hand in wedlock. At least that had been the case until the disaster her brother, Charles, had created of their fortune had been revealed to her, and until she had set her fickle heart on Adam St. Clair.
"But why won't you marry me?" she demanded with a petulant curve to her rosy mouth.
Sprawled on the tumbled bed that bore witness to their recent lovemaking, Adam regarded her with an amused glance from beneath his thick black lashes. She was sitting in naked splendor at the edge of the mattress and Adam's gaze was appreciative as well as amused as he looked at her. The dark blue gleam of his eyes was barely discernible, but Betsey caught the beginnings of a mocking smile at the corners of his full-lipped mouth and said resentfully, "My question wasn't meant to make you laugh."
"I'm not laughing," Adam said lightly. "It is just that I find it hard to concentrate on anything but that delectable little body of yours when you are sitting in all your tempting nakedness not two feet away from me."
They were in the bedroom of a surprisingly luxurious cabin that was tucked into a secluded corner of Adam's vast estate, Belle Vista, situated some miles north of Natchez. The onetime hunting cabin had been turned into a discreet trysting place many years ago when Adam had been deeply embroiled in a delicate affair with a married woman. Having gone to great lengths to prepare suitable quarters in which to, er, entertain the lady, he had seen no reason to abandon the place when the affair ended—especially not when there were other ladies, like Betsey Asher, who did not want their sexual liaisons with him to be public fodder....
Adam continued to appreciatively eye Betsey's naked form as she preened at his words, her full, pink-tipped breasts jutting forward, but there was a part of him that was wondering if he hadn't made a mistake in bringing her to the cabin in the first place. Not that he didn't enjoy all that yielding white flesh brazenly displayed for his gaze or the astonishing things she could do with that mouth of hers, but he'd made it clear from the onset of their affair that marriage was not a state he had ever contemplated. Ever. While Betsey had assured him some weeks ago when their affair began that marriage was the last thing on her mind, regrettably it would appear that the lady had changed her mind. Adam sighed. God, how he hated scenes.
Encouraged by his remarks about her body, Betsey stretched and, looking over at him, murmured throatily, "If we were to be married, we wouldn't have to meet secretly anymore. This 'delectable little body' of mine that you enjoy so much would be in your bed every night...."
"And whose bed would it grace during the afternoons?" Adam asked, having no illusions about the young lady.
A gasp of outrage came from Betsey and she glared at him, leaving off her sensuous posturing. Did he really know about her other lovers? she wondered warily. She was certain she had been discreet. He couldn't possibly know that when he wasn't available she appeased her appetites with a few other accommodating gentlemen in the area, could he? Not that any of them was as skilled in bed as Adam St. Clair. It was just too bad, she thought resentfully, that he had to be the most desirable, infuriatingly arrogant, utterly charming rogue she had ever met.
Adam was undeniably all of those things as he lounged against a pile of white pillows on the bed. A cambric sheet covered the lower half of his tall body, leaving bare the broad shoulders, wide chest, narrow waist, and part of his upper abdomen. The fabric lovingly outlined his lean hips and long legs, and seemed to caress his blatant manhood as he relaxed like a sultan surveying his harem, his virility almost tangible. His skin appeared very dark against the pristine whiteness of the sheet and pillows, the lavish sprinkling of black hair which covered his chest and arrowed down to disappear tantalizingly beneath the sheet intensifying his darkness. A lock of curly black hair persisted in falling across his broad forehead, and with those gleaming sapphire-blue eyes, deep-set below thick, boldly arching black brows, those hard-angled cheekbones, that formidable chin and the most sensually chiseled mouth Betsey had ever encountered in her life, it wasn't surprising that he had been the object of more than one woman's fantasy all of his adult life.
He was also, Betsey reflected bitterly as she sat on the side of the bed amid the rumpled sheets, undoubtedly the most enraging, the most horrid, the most fascinating, most irresistible male she had ever met in all her years. And it was the unfairest thing in nature that even as furious as she was with him, she couldn't help but respond to his flagrant masculinity.
Her eyes glistening with sudden hunger, she leaned forward and said with a calculatingly winsome smile, "Oh, Adam! Let's not fight." Her eyes caressing him, she breathed huskily, "Not now. Not when we have so little time together..."
A frankly carnal smile tugged at his lips. "Is that a hint, my dear?"
A shiver of anticipation ran down Betsey's spine at the explicit promise in his deep voice. No matter how many times he made love to her, no matter how limp and satiated she lay in his arms afterward, she never seemed to get enough of Adam's lovemaking. She hungered for him as she had hungered for nothing else in her life and as she stared fixedly at the growing bulge beneath the sheets at the apex of his thighs, her breath caught in her throat. A catlike smile of satisfaction on her full pink mouth, she reached over and, pulling the sheet down to where it rested across his thighs, caressed the burgeoning flesh she had exposed, her fingers marveling at his size. "Is this a hint?" she asked demurely.
Adam's hands closed around her slim shoulders and he pulled her slowly up his long body. His mouth sliding warmly down her cheek to nibble at her lips, he muttered, "Now what do you think?"
His mouth found hers and he kissed her with such blunt passion that she couldn't think at all. Her arms closed around his neck and hungrily she met his tongue as he deepened the kiss, her senses spinning out of control. As he suckled at her breast and his knowing fingers brought her to the brink of ecstasy, she was convinced that she had never had another lover as sinfully exciting as Adam St. Clair.
Only when she was writhing beneath his caresses did Adam lean back against the pillows and lift her up over him. Positioning her above him, with one sure thrust, he impaled her. His mouth locked on hers, his hands on her hips guiding her frantic movements, they both found the pleasure they sought.
Collapsed against him, her body tingling, she murmured, "Wouldn't this be wonderful to share every night? If we were married, instead of having to meet only when I can sneak away from Susan and Charles, we could indulge our pleasures whenever we wanted."
Adam groaned and dumping her off of him, sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Running a hand through his tousled black hair, he glanced back at her and muttered, "Betsey, I don't mean to be ungentlemanly, but I did warn you—quite candidly, if I remember correctly—that even if we became lovers, I had no intention of marrying you. I told you emphatically that I was not, nor have I ever been, in the market for a wife. Now, if you can't accept that fact, I suggest we stop meeting each other."
Swallowing back the black rage that surged through her, Betsey composed her features into a look of utter woe. Forcing tears to her eyes, she sobbed, "Oh, Adam! How can you be so heartless? I know you love me! Why won't you marry me?"
"What you don't understand or will not understand is that I don'
t love you. I've never said I love you to you or any other woman and I've never given you any cause to believe that there is anything between us but the pleasure our bodies give each other. I won't marry you," Adam enunciated carefully, barely holding onto his formidable temper, "because I goddamn well don't want to, and if I ever were to be mad enough to marry, I would want to know that I was the only man in my wife's bed."
Ignoring Betsey's enraged shriek, he sprang up from the bed, stalked across the room and yanked on a pair of buckskin breeches. Finding a white cotton shirt, he jerked it over his head. His handsome face hard, he turned to face the woman on the bed. "I don't want us to end this way, but if marriage is what you're after, I suggest that we don't see each other anymore. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wise if we didn't see each other for a while anyway."
Fearful that she had pushed him too far, wondering how he had learned about her other lovers, she made a desperate attempt to regain lost ground. "Oh, Adam!" she wailed. "What are you talking about? You know that you are the only man I love!" Gambling that he didn't really know anything, she added with commendable innocence, "I just don't understand what you're talking about. Other men in my bed. Why, the very idea!"
His sapphire-blue eyes cold, Adam bit out, "Betsey, that horse won't run. I know about Reginald and Matthew and even poor, silly Edward. I've known about them for weeks, and while it doesn't bother me if you feel the need for other lovers, it does bother me when you try to pretend that I am the only man in your life and that my bed is the only one in which you have gamboled."
Incensed that she had been found out, Betsey surged up from the bed, and forgetting the urgent necessity to find a wealthy husband, she grabbed her gown and hissed, "Why, you damned gypsy bastard! Who the hell do you think you are?"
Each Time We Love Page 5
