The Northern Devil

by Diane Whiteside

  Lucas drew himself up proudly, determined not to let her see what she’d done to him. But he never had, and never would, force himself on a woman.

  “Very well.”

  The simple phrase tasted like ashes.

  William Donovan strolled back into his San Francisco townhouse, holding hands with his wife. Abraham and Sarah Chang, their houseman and his wife, came forward immediately. William promptly dismissed them so they could go shopping in Chinatown. This would be Viola’s first Chinese New Year in her own home and everyone wished to make it a splendid celebration.

  The house itself was a small place that he’d owned for years and would soon be replaced by a much larger establishment suitable for children. But this home had the advantage of a central location and his office on the main floor, where Jenkins, his telegrapher, kept him in touch with all his business doings.

  It was uncommonly quiet at the moment, with few loud clickety-clacks coming from inside to bear witness to Jenkins’s diligence. Still, it was currently during the man’s brief afternoon break.

  Not that William was paying attention to Donovan & Sons’ affairs at the moment, given how his wife’s enormous dark blue eyes were studying him, while her slender fingers strolled up his arm. The howling winds outside had whipped brisk color into her cheeks, emphasizing her mouth’s sweet sensuality, which was perfect for urging him into ecstasy. By all the saints, every man would be married if they knew a lady like her.

  “I wish we’d heard from Lucas Grainger. I’d be much happier about his safety, if he’d cabled us as he promised to.”

  William nodded silently, his own happiness slipping into worry. Dammit, it wasn’t typical of his friend not to come through. The Army had lost a future general when he’d resigned.

  “But this does provide us,” Viola commented softly, “with more time to…”

  His attention switched straight back to the center of his world. “Improve our techniques for connubial bliss?” he suggested.

  She gaped then laughed and popped him lightly on the cheek. “You are entirely too much of an Irish devil to be allowed out in public. You’re lucky I adore you.”

  She leaned up for a fond kiss. He caught her around the waist and pulled her closer, losing himself in a joy that never grew old. “We could go up upstairs,” he murmured, a few minutes later.

  “If we do that, you’ll be late for your appointment with Huntington,” she reminded him. Her voice broke when he lightly scraped his teeth over her throat. Her neck helplessly arched back to allow him more room to excite her.

  He rumbled happily and enjoyed her sweet flesh a little more before reluctantly withdrawing. “You’re probably right: We’d better wait until after I speak to that poor fool who only has a railroad to worry about, not a beautiful wife. I can carry you off to my bed when I can spend an entire evening enjoying you undisturbed.”

  Her eyes were closed, her skin flushed, and she was definitely panting. William observed these signs of carnal passion with wry satisfaction, well aware their counterparts existed in himself. He caressed her cheek lightly. “How do you wish to spend these moments, sweetheart?”

  Heavy eyelids slowly lifted, revealing her deep blue eyes filled with passion—and he tumbled head over heels into love yet again. His fairy queen who’d blessed this Irish lad with her life and love, who was all of his living kin.

  She blinked, untwined her arms from around his neck, and straightened his lapel. Her hands lingered overlong, stroking his chest, before falling away.

  He grumbled silently, but saw the wisdom of her choice and stepped back.

  “Well, we might want to consider names for our children,” she commented.

  William lifted a quizzical eyebrow. From the bedroom to children was all too short a step, after all—but naming the little ones before they were conceived?

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked, genuinely curious, and leaned back against the wall next to the office. “I’d always thought of naming them for our family and friends.”

  She knitted her brows, looking enchanting. He clenched his fists lest he grab her and kiss the furrows away.

  “How did you receive your name? I don’t believe it’s a common one for Irish Catholics.”

  William snorted in derision. “Hardly, since it’s that of the Protestant king who defeated and banished the last Catholic king. But I was named for my grandfather’s partner during the Ninety-seven Rising, who saved his life more than once. My family believed it was more important that he was an Irish patriot than that he was a Protestant.”

  “Would you want your son to be called William?”

  He shrugged. “Not my firstborn. Joseph perhaps for my father, or Gerald for my grandfather. Or maybe Morgan for my best friend.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’d accept an English name?”

  “If it’s a name that means family and love, Viola dear,” he commented, deliberately being as mild as possible in order to tease out her opinions.

  How important was this to his Southern belle? Her family always chose Shakesperean names for their children, preferably ones with links to great literary themes or possibly prior generations of their lineage.

  “What about something Irish?” She stamped her foot. “Something that will remind your son he’s a Donovan whose family came from County Cork, not just another boy born in North America?”

  Was she thinking of a more common name, such as another Patrick or Michael? “What do you have in mind?”

  “Brian would be a good start. For Brian Boru, the high king who defeated the Vikings. Then there’s Brendan, for Saint Brendan the Navigator. It’d be only fitting if your son had wanderlust,” she added tartly.

  He roared with laughter before adding between gasps, “Or Donal for the two great medieval regents.”

  “Or Roark, or…”

  “You’ve a great many good names spilling off your tongue! Let’s not lose them all to the moment’s competition.”

  He pushed the office door open and a quick glance satisfied him that Jenkins was still absent. The room was compact, barely large enough to hold a big desk, a large swivel chair and a small straight chair, plus a small table. Like the rest of the furniture, they were high quality, comfortable for large men, and extremely durable. A narrow cot, typical of a telegrapher’s office but atypical of any other type of office, was pushed against the wall behind the door.

  It also sported several windows, on each side of the house’s southwest corner, which were currently allowing some pleasant breezes to sweep through. The garden beyond was tiny, but provided an excellent view of the neighbors’ overgrown foliage.

  He sat down at the big desk with its infinity of cubbyholes and litter of papers. Where was a blank pad of flimsies? Almost gone? Dammit, what was the fellow up to, allowing basic supplies to run so low? He’d already spoken to him about his drinking.

  He handed Viola the pad and a pencil. “Well, write them down.”

  “All of them?”

  “Of course. We must protect our unborn children’s interests,” he intoned piously.

  She sniffed. “Only if you do so, as well.”

  “Certainly.” He cast a dubious look over the desk. There was no other pad in sight. Well, the backs of old cables would have to do. “Henry, for your brother. Or Richard, for your father.”

  “Very sentimental choices,” she approved. “But you haven’t mentioned any daughters.”

  “Neither have you.”

  “Brigid, perhaps. Does Jenkins always eat at his desk? And do so like a pig?”

  She held up a yellow flimsy, its penciled message almost obscured by grease.

  William frowned, wiping his own fingers on his handkerchief after encountering similar examples. He pulled a handful of telegrams from the cubbyhole labeled MISC for miscellaneous, gambling they could be most readily ignored.

  “Telegraphers are usually dedicated to their jobs, which means they stay at their post day and night,” he commented, ha
nding her his handkerchief. “But every cable he’s handed me was immaculate.”

  Viola harrumphed. “You might want to speak to him. Uncleanliness like this will quickly invite the lowest forms of vermin.”

  William nodded absently, a chill sliding down his spine. In his hand lay a single telegram, which had been sent from Omaha less than a week ago—by Grainger.

  Viola immediately caught his shift in mood. “What is it, William?” She leaned over his arm to read the few words, her hat’s proud feathers tickling his cheek.

  Collins and Humphreys were plotting treachery at the Bluebird.

  Why hadn’t he known? Jenkins had to be in on it. Or at least damn well bribed.

  Rage stirred, crystalline bright.

  “Why, that low-down, stinking scum.” Viola spat.

  Soft footsteps sounded just beyond the closest window. The breeze shifted abruptly, teasing papers out of the wastepaper basket, as if someone had blocked the breeze from the tiny garden outside.

  William touched Viola’s arm. She nodded, the barest movement of her head. Thank God, she was closest to the door and could escape. If anything happened to her…

  At least he had his dirk. Here in San Francisco, it was uncommon for gentlemen to wear any weapons at all and almost no one knew he had it.

  A great rock smashed through the south window. An instant later, another shattered the west window.

  Time stretched like taffy, until every movement, every detail became crystal clear.

  William immediately dove under the desk, pulling Viola with him and covering her with his body.

  A pair of shots plowed into the wall, where his head would have been if he’d still been sitting in the chair.

  Silence fell, broken only by the telegraph’s erratic ticking.

  His knife was ready for immediate use—should the coward show his face.

  “You’ll never get away with this, Jenkins,” William called, calculating the distance to the door. If he could only distract the bastard long enough to get Viola clear…

  A rough laugh was his only answer.

  Jenkins was on the west side of the house. Perhaps if he watched that window…

  He glanced at Viola, asking permission. Her mouth held very tight, she nodded slightly.

  He touched his fingers to his lips, then to hers. She gave him a brief, genuine smile and crossed herself. He drew his crucifix out from inside his shirt, kissed it, and rolled quietly, cautiously out from under the desk, free to hunt a killer.

  “Why are you doing this?” he called.

  Jenkins laughed bitterly. “You never recognized me, did you, Donovan?” He’d shifted to the south window now? The echoes were very indistinct on that side of the sunken garden. “You bought my father’s business and left him a worthless drunk, who drowned walking home from the saloon. Now I’m here to see you ruined as well.”

  “Johnson of Hangtown Freighters? Did you change your name?” William frowned, thinking back through the years.

  “That’s it. You destroyed his pride and he became a worthless wreck. My mother changed it when she remarried. I kept my foul stepfather’s name so you wouldn’t recognize me.”

  William nodded silently, remembering the fast-talking fellow with the whining wife. “Johnson agreed to an honest deal. Otherwise, how would he have had the money to lay about in saloons for five years without doing a day’s work?”

  “Are you calling my father worthless?”

  A fusillade of shots shattered the plaster over the desk. William cursed his errant tongue for risking Viola’s life by telling the truth too quickly.

  Outside, the neighbors had finally started to raise a fuss. But it would take time to form a search party and the slender, nimble Jenkins could easily slip all but the tightest cordon.

  “As one man to another, let my wife go. She has no place in this.” William took up his position between the two windows, his long, deadly blade in hand.

  For the first time, Jenkins hesitated before answering. “Very well.”

  William glanced back at his darling and jerked his head toward the door. Tears trickling silently down her face, she slipped out of the room without another word, crouching low the entire time.

  More determined than ever to kill the bastard who’d put that expression on her face, William waited. Jenkins would have to come in close to kill him.

  Gravel crunched on the path outside.

  William continued to wait, his breathing steady and his pulse regular—as they always were during a fight.

  Jenkins’s head popped up at the west window, silhouetted against the setting sun. He pointed a heavy Army Colt at William. “Damn you, Donovan, your sharp business practices will cost you your life—before you sire another generation of…”

  William threw his beloved dirk. It sank into Jenkins’s throat, slicing through flesh and nerves and bones.

  The traitor collapsed instantly, dead before his head could strike the garden paving.

  Running feet sounded outside, coming down the path. William spun immediately toward the sound, reaching for one of the weapons he’d have carried in a less civilized place.

  The feet slowed and approached cautiously, their existence almost hidden by the neighbors’ loud excitement over talking to the police.

  William shook his head. Ah, the innocence of law abiding citizens…He turned his attention back to his beloved, law-abiding but wise wife. “Viola? You can join me now.”

  He snatched a blanket off the cot, put his hand on the sill, and leaped down onto the garden path. Explaining this to the neighbors would probably be best done with Viola’s assistance. She had a knack for charming cantankerous males.

  Viola stepped around the corner, carrying her beloved shotgun. She came to a halt and frowningly assessed the crumpled corpse. “You already killed him,” she accused her husband. “I was planning to hand him over to the law and cheer at the hanging.”

  “Yes, dear. As I’m sure you recall, he had fired a gun at you.” He smiled wryly and discreetly covered up the late, unlamented Jenkins. His darling was entirely capable of any amount of bloodthirstiness, whenever it was needed to protect her loved ones.

  She sniffed haughtily, but allowed him to wrap an arm around her waist. She leaned against him confidingly an instant later. She was shaking, damn the traitorous wretch for having frightened her!

  “I thought I’d died a thousand deaths when I saw you under the desk, with the glass all around, knowing he was out there,” she admitted.

  He tightened his grip on her. “So did I, sweetheart.”

  The neighbors started to crash through the foliage toward them.

  “We have to leave for the Bluebird tonight,” Viola remarked, her voice slightly muffled by his coat.

  William’s heart skipped a beat and he stiffened. Risk her life so soon after almost losing her? “We?”

  “Of course. You and me, plus as many of your best men as possible.” She read his appalled silence quite accurately. “Don’t give me any nonsense about leaving me in San Francisco. I’ll simply follow you by the next train.”

  “I’ll lock you up.”

  “You can try.”

  He’d have to try to change her mind along the way, although his chances were slim. Viola could make a Missouri mule look reasonable.

  “At least as far as Reno, of course,” she added briskly. “I’m not optimistic enough to think you’d take me into battle at your side.”

  He snorted softly at his own overprotective folly. He’d misread her need—and his!—to always be together, as a desire to accompany him into the coming battle. Viola had fought Indians and worse; she knew far better than to go where she’d only be a hindrance. He acquiesced as graciously as possible. “It will be a pleasure having your company in Nevada, Viola.”

  She pressed herself closer to him with a small, relieved sigh, just as the neighbors reached them.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rachel strolled down the boardwalk and tried
to pretend an interest in Reno’s frozen sights. Just behind her paced her two guards, Peter and Paul Hawkins. They were Donovan & Sons’ men from Ogden, taciturn brothers who monitored her every move whenever she left the Empress.

  The Sierra Nevada Mountains rose shockingly fast to the west, their summits dazzling the eyes. Below them, their steep flanks, the low ridges at their feet, and even the tiny humps of sagebrush—all had vanished under a heavy mass of snow and ice.

  According to the talkative Central Pacific stationmaster, storms had come in from the north more frequently than usual this year, never quite allowing the previous storm’s deposits to fully melt. Instead of the typical icy mud, now Reno’s inhabitants slogged through a half-dozen feet of solid snow and ice. In Virginia City, at over six thousand feet, miners were supposedly using snow tunnels to cross between buildings because of the much worse conditions there.

  Rachel shrugged slightly and moved on, turning away from the sun glinting off the frozen Truckee River. However narrow and cold those structures were, they couldn’t be any worse than the atmosphere inside the Empress had become since she’d reluctantly returned to Lucas. For the first day, she’d at least had the consolation that he’d need her help to protect William Donovan. But yesterday, they’d received Donovan’s cable, announcing his telegrapher’s treachery. Donovan was now racing to Reno to meet Lucas, so they could jointly confront Humphreys and Collins.

  And after that? Well…She’d withdrawn behind an impenetrable shell of rigid politeness, harder and deeper than the one she’d worn after Elias’s death. Her eyes and ears, even her skin seemed divorced from her brain. She ate because food was put in front of her. She’d ignored the excited planning for Humphreys’s demise because it meant nothing to her.

  Even when Lucas had asked her what she wished done with Collins, she’d simply shrugged and told him to do what he thought best. He would do exactly that anyway, no matter what she suggested.

  Hurt had flashed through his eyes at that and she’d been briefly glad. He deserved to feel pain for having treated her—utterly betrayed her!—in the one way she couldn’t tolerate. His countenance had turned as expressionless as hers and he’d bowed, before turning away.