by Laura Parker
How fragile are dreams, he now thought. How easily they shred when rasped by chance and reality.
“Eduardo?”
He turned back from the window to see that she had awakened. She sat up in bed, the half-light of dawn falling light as mist upon her naked shoulders and breasts, and the slatted waves of her hair. Her face held the blurred softness of one just awakened from deep sleep, the expression inquisitive yet uncertain. She needed to be kissed.
He moved slowly toward her, wanting to remember the moment forever. If he could, he would turn back the clock, giving them another night of darkness. He did not want the dawn and the reality that came with it. He wanted the night and the music and the passion, and most of all he wanted her, forever.
He bent to her and kissed her slowly. He felt her response as her lips softened under his, but as he brushed a caress over one breast, she, suddenly shy, reached for the sheet. “Don’t, menina. Let me love you.” Her hands fell away.
He made love to her slowly and completely with a fierce passionate need to stretch out each moment to its fullest, to hold her, and hold back the dawn. And when it was done, he pulled her so tightly against him that she wiggled unconsciously to ease his embrace but he didn’t yield. Later, perhaps, he would yield, but not until then.
Philadelphia lay awake with the astonished joy of being in Eduardo’s arms. He moved slightly as he lay on his stomach beside her, his hand curling tightly down on her waist to hold her even in exhaustion against the next rise of passion. His thigh was slanted over hers. Feeling his knee lying arrogantly between hers, the imprint of possession lingering in the wake of the deed, she trembled at the glory of its weight and scalding hot strength. It was unlike anything in her experience, this flesh-and-blood clamoring inside her to touch and hold and stroke and kiss every inch of him.
There were no words for her feelings, no clear comparisons in her experience for the precious hours of the past night. He had made love to her twice, first while the rapturous fever-fed yearning of his music still flowed in her veins, and now at dawn. The amazement of her own passion was still fresh to her senses.
The first time had been too bright, too feverish to recall in detail. In his arms she’d been all joy and shock, snared by the last latent strains of maidenly modesty and utterly awed by the power and muscular warmth of his body that had covered hers and gently but inexorably opened her to his pleasure.
The second time she felt the inadequacy of her new knowledge and the lack embarrassed her though he didn’t seem to notice. She knew that she didn’t truly know how to make love to him, didn’t know how to hold him as expertly as he held her, didn’t understand how to return his subtle musician’s caresses which left her body humming and near-weeping in joy. She didn’t know how to beguile as he did with his kisses. And so, she simply imitated him, caressing and kissing whatever part of him which came like an offering under her lips and hands; the hard scallops of his shoulder blades, the shallows behind his collarbones, the heated moist skin of his neck where the pulse beat more strongly than her own, and the sweat-sheened expanse of his chest. She found the slope of his spine, running her fingers lightly down it until he had gasped and arched under her touch.
And then, he was inside her again, filling her with his body and his spirit and his life, and she gave up to his throbbing heat and her uncalculated joy of being a part of him.
The night had shielded him from her sight but now the sun had risen above the distant hills and the room was awash in a golden haze. She turned her head to look at his face on the pillow beside her, more daunted by his beauty than ever before. He faced her, one long almond-shaped lid with heavy straight lashes shielding his eye in sleep. The bold wedge of his nose pressed into her pillow and his gorgeous mouth, that had offered such luscious kisses, curved tender as a child’s in his contentment.
She stared in amazement at the blue-black stubble of his beard that had appeared as if by magic overnight. Heavy as a peppering, it defined his cheek and jaw and chin. She reached out and drew her thumbnail across the wiry hair, pleased by the texture so different from any womanly counterpart.
Strangely exultant and yet embarrassed by the raw desire curling once more through her, she lifted her head to see more of him. She saw first his muscled forearm with its dark copper skin lying in vivid relief against the fairer mounds of her naked breasts. A deep blush raced down over her bosom, but she didn’t look away. She followed the black hair furring his arm, fine as silk thread, from elbow to wrist, and frowned.
His wrist, powerfully shaped, was a mass of braided scars, some smooth and naturally colored, others puckered and hard and pale. The wounds were old but they had been deep and brutal. Empathy, sharp and painful as his injuries must have been, jolted her as she ran a finger over the tortured surface and wondered how it had happened.
His arm was heavy with sleep, and she needed both hands to lift his wrist to her lips for a kiss. He murmured but didn’t open his eyes as she cupped his palm against her cheek for a moment. There was so much she didn’t know about him, and she wanted to know everything. Were his parents alive? Did he have brothers and sisters? Had other women felt about him as she did? No, she didn’t want to know that. Once she had wondered how any woman would resist this man if he wanted her. Now she knew the answer, no woman would. She fingered the heavy gold band on the third finger of his right hand, wondering who had given it to him. So many unanswered questions.
A few short hours ago, she had wondered if he were somehow connected with her father’s ruination. Now she lay like a wanton beside him, without a stitch of clothing, so astonished by how far she’d strayed from what she thought herself to be that she had no room left for shame or regret or even fear for the future. He was not her enemy, the feeling was so strong that it blocked every other consideration.
Rising up on her elbow, she half-turned to him to gently stroke his shoulder but her hand never touched his skin.
The faint morning light revealed a dozen long silvery ribbons of scar tissue which crisscrossed his back, and she knew with a shudder of rage and revulsion that he’d once been whipped.
Accustomed to a much more dangerous and unpredictable life than the one he’d lived these last few months, Eduardo sensed even in sleep the shudder passing through Philadelphia. He lifted his head sharply and looked at her and her expression made his blood run cold. He saw fear and abhorrence on her face. For an instant he didn’t react, wondering if she’d just realized exactly what she’d done in allowing him into her bed. And then the precise angle of her gaze registered in his mind and he knew that she had seen his scarred back.
He hadn’t forgotten it, he had simply forgotten to prepare her for the sight. The realization embarrassed him. In the wild jaded world where he had lived much of his life, women were sometimes strangely moved by those scars but none of them were ever horrified. A few even wanted to know the details of his ordeal, their gazes quickening with desire. He never shared their beds, for he’d learned that cruelty wasn’t reserved to those with the courage to act on it. There were those who sought doses of cruelty vicariously, sucking from the misfortune of others the tainted sweetness of forbidden and twisted desires.
He sat up. “You saw the scars.”
Stricken, she nodded and looked away. “I—I didn’t mean to stare, only—”
“You are disgusted by the ugliness.”
“No, not that!” She turned to look at him fully, searching for the words to explain her feelings, and absorbed the mixture of emotions on his face. There was reproof against pity, a flare of old anger and an older pain that would not soon leave him, and a vulnerability she had seen there only once before, when he’d asked her if she loved Henry Wharton. Did he care so very much about what she thought that she had the power to wound him?
She reached out her hand and rested it against his cheek. “I hate what was done to you, but I am not disgusted by your scars.”
She saw a softening in his
gaze that didn’t reach his mouth but he didn’t answer her in the way she expected. “Menina, if you could have but one wish, what would it be?”
She answered promptly. “I would have my father’s name cleared and his enemies destroyed.”
His smile was bitter. “At least you are honest.”
Philadelphia saw pain reappear in his eyes, and guessing that it was because she had not mentioned him in her wish, she put her arms about his neck and lightly kissed him. “You didn’t ask me what my second wish would be. I would wish that the pain I see in your eyes would heal and be gone forever.”
“One cancels out the other, that is the rule.” He framed her face in his hands, feeling both a protective tenderness and the bleak realization that they were headed on a collision course that no amount of wishing would avert. “I once told you that what we often want to believe is what comforts us. Would you settle for the truth?”
“Of course.”
“How easily you say that. It must be a wonderful feeling to have someone who believes so completely in you. Your father was a lucky man.”
The question came to Philadelphia without thought or reservation. “Will you help me find the truth?”
Time, he desperately needed time to think and plan. Yet as he looked at her, he knew that he would lose her if he gave any other answer. “I know how to help you find out the truth about your father, but before I agree to do that I want a promise from you.”
Her heart thudded violently, and she found she could no longer bear the intensity of his black gaze. “You know something about my father? Tell me!”
He smoothed a hand through her hair then cupped the back of her head in one broad hand. “Look at me.” She lifted her head and her golden eyes were wide with trepidation and doubt and something new, fear of him. This was not a good beginning. He should never have brought up the subject of her father. “I want you to promise to spend the summer with me. Then I will help you find out the answers you seek, I swear it. But the summer, let it be ours alone.”
“Why?”
He moved his hands strongly down over her shoulders, and along her flanks to her hips, which he gripped tightly. “Don’t you know, menina? For this! And because I love you!” He lifted her toward him as he bent his head for her kiss.
She felt both exhilarated and fearful of the strong current of desire for him that ran like a flash flood just beneath her skin even now when the hunger of her body was sated. He had spoken of love but she wasn’t as certain of her own feelings. Perhaps he was right, that they needed time to sort out the emotions flaring quick-set as kindling between them.
He murmured in Portuguese against her mouth, and she withdrew a little from his kiss. “What did you say?”
He lifted his head, his black eyes searing her in their hunger and raw need. “I said you make me hot, menina. So hot my skin burns and my blood boils. Cool me with your soft skin, take me into you and love the heat away!”
His deliberately outrageous words shocked her as she glimpsed for the first time the hard, primitive, dark forces he’d always hidden from her. The strange sense of mystery about him that had affected her so strongly the first time they met surfaced. She knew so little about him.
His hands drew her hips in to his. Unmistakable, his need. Fear quaked through her but he didn’t retreat from his ruthless acknowledgment of his lust for her. She braced her hands on his chest and leaned a little away. “Please.”
Eduardo held her firmly with his gaze, not allowing her to look away. “Don’t be afraid, menina. Feel how it is between us,” he said softly in his dark-toned voice. “You, too, are warm for me. It is good, natural, this need. Nothing to fear.”
Philadelphia choked back a sob. Moments before he had calmed and reassured her against other fears. Now he made blatant what she would rather not face directly. He wanted her and demanded that she be honest in return, admitting that she desired him. There was no retreat from his clear black burning gaze that refused dissemblance.
“I love you.” He said it quietly but not with the deep persuasive voice that he could wield with such devastating affect. It was a statement. Flat. Unadorned. A challenge.
She remembered how much he admired courage and suddenly she wanted to be courageous for him. Her hands softened. No longer repelling him, the fingers curled naturally onto his skin. She was capable of meeting him equally, of defending this moment for both of them, of providing whatever he should need in order to make him happy. “I love you.”
When he turned her onto her back, following her down onto the bedding, she welcomed him with a warm embrace and suspension of any thought but pleasing him.
Saratoga, August 1875
“Everything is in order, sir, just as you requested,” said the manager of the Grand Union Hotel to the aristocratic young couple before him. “Your trunks arrived three days ago and were unpacked in anticipation of your arrival. I trust you will find everything to your satisfaction.”
“That remains to be seen,” the handsome young husband answered with a casual glance about the lobby of the most famous hotel in Saratoga Springs. “I am unaccustomed to this wild American frontier, but I suppose compromises must be expected when one travels beyond the more civilized cities.”
“Oh, and did you enjoy your stay in New York?”
The young man turned to rake the manager with an indifferent stare. “I speak of civilization. I speak of Naples. Paris. London when it is not raining. I found your New York hot, foul-smelling, and crude. Filth oozes from the streets and one may mistake half its humanity for dogs sporting men’s clothing. It quite fatigued my bride. She is delicate and suffers with a weak chest.” He glanced with indifference at his bride who stood beside him. She was swathed in the yards of white veiling that cascaded from her hat and disguised every feature. “That is why we are here, to recover from your New York.”
“I see,” the manager said politely, but sized up the arrogant young man in expensively cut clothing as trouble. Wealthy foreigners were always his most difficult guests. Nothing they saw or did or experienced ever compared favorably with what they had left at home. He would put Polly, the head chambermaid, on to them first thing. She was good with foreigners, put them at ease and treated them in the manner they thought they deserved. And, just in case the young lady was seriously ill, he’d put a word in Dr. Clary’s ear so that he might call on them and leave his card.
“If you’re ready to be taken to your rooms, sir?”
“My wife is. I don’t suppose there’s a place nearby where a gentleman might indulge in a few of the more refined pleasures? The train ride has put me out of sorts.”
“There are the springs—”
“Mineral water?” The young man’s handsome features expressed distaste. “I’d as soon drink turpentine. The racing season does not open for a few days. Is there no compensatory diversion offered until then?”
The manager lowered his voice discreetly. “Would you by any chance be interested in certain diversions involving cards?”
His smile surprised the manager with its attractiveness. “Exactly!”
The manager nodded. “I can, of course, direct you in that matter, sir. Would be glad to.”
“Vittorio, caro, no!”
Struck by the lovely modulated voice that spoke from behind the veiling, the manager looked at the young wife and saw her lay a white-gloved hand on her husband’s arm. The young man’s face instantly became a study in icy fury. He turned to whisper something to her and the manager saw her visibly recoil. Her husband caught her by the wrist, his voice menacingly low as he spoke to her in a foreign tongue. The manager did not understand him but he saw clearly the results of the speech on the young lady. With each invective phrase her husband hissed at her, she bowed her head lower until she was hiding her face in the arm she’d raised in defense of his barrage. The voices of those guests nearby ceased abruptly to watch the drama going on in their midst.
Whe
n her husband finally released her, she staggered a little, gripped her bruised wrist protectively to her breast, and burst into pitiful little sobs.
The transformation in her husband was nothing less than miraculous. He looked stunned and then stricken by guilt. Emitting a low groan of distress, he reached out and quickly gathered her shaking, weeping form into his arms. Crooning words of comfort, he held her until the sobbing lessened. Then, he turn to the manager and said, “Where are our rooms? What kind of place is this that you keep ailing ladies waiting about in your lobby until they weep from weariness?”
“Very well, sir,” the manager answered shortly, aware of the necessity of keeping his opinion to himself about what caused the lady’s distress. “Follow the bellboy to the elevator.” He pumped the bell at his fingertips. “Peter, show the”—he glanced down at the signature—”the Milazzos to their suite.”
As he watched the young man shepherd his new wife with great solicitude across the lobby he was reminded of the hotel’s code, that the guest was always right unless he refused to pay his bills or began a public brawl. Spats between husbands and wives did not fall into that category, no matter how much he wished at the moment that they did.
Besides, he’d seen the look in the young man’s hot dark eyes and knew him for what he was. He was a gambler of the most reckless sort. Looks and money. A bit dark for convention, perhaps, but already certain ladies were casting glances his way, in spite of the fact that there was a bride attached. He’d be a good customer, expending his looks on the light and frail, and spilling his money at the gaming tables. “I must inform Mr. Morrissey at once,” he murmured to himself. “Perhaps he’ll set up a private game for our guest.” A good tip was always worth a bill or two. He looked down at the name again. Milazzo. Neapolitan.
Vittorio Milazzo carried his bride across the threshold of the elegantly appointed suite of the hotel and directly into the bedroom on his left. Waiting patiently by the door, the bellboy heard several short exchanges between the couple. The lady seemed in distress while the man sounded impatient and peeved. Finally, the rakishly good-looking young man strode back into the parlor, one hand clapped to his brow, the other riding his hip.
