Betina Krahn Read online

  “My heavens, Louis,” she said, abruptly turning the focus back to him. “You seem so much thinner. Have you been ill?”

  “The heat in Barbados is so difficult. I’m afraid I dwindled a bit.” He took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead and throat. “But I’m certain that will change, now that I’m home.” He fastened his gaze on her eyes and made so bold as to brush her cheek with his fingertips. “I must gather my strength”—he lowered his voice—“for our future together.”

  Panic seized her.

  “Oh, my!” She snapped open the fan dangling from her wrist. “It must be the surprise—I’m suddenly feeling lightheaded.”

  Louis looked around them and quickly ushered her to one of a number of deserted chairs along the nearby wall. Sinking onto a seat, she swayed, closed her eyes, and pressed the back of a hand artfully to her temple.

  “Perhaps a glass of punch …” she said, gazing up with what she hoped would pass for appealing frailty.

  “I shall get you one straightaway,” he declared.

  The minute Louis disappeared through the rear salon door, following a trail of goblet-carrying guests toward the refreshment tables, she straightened, waited an extra heartbeat to be certain he was gone, and then bounded off the chair in the opposite direction. And ran straight into a wall of black wool.

  SIX

  Barton McQuaid, approaching from the other side, caught and steadied her. After a pause, he jerked his hands from her bare shoulders and cleared his throat. “Miss Wingate.”

  “Mr. McQuaid. I was just … ummm …” She reddened and again lifted a wrist to her forehead.

  “In need of a breath of fresh air?” he prompted.

  She frowned, then realized he must have seen her attack of the vapors. “Not at all.” She straightened. “I was just on my way …”

  Glancing past him, hoping to see someone or something to help her complete that response, she glimpsed trouble brewing instead. Morgan Kenwood was coming through the French doors that led to the terrace, looking anything but pleased. She stifled a moan and glanced frantically toward the rear salon doorway. There, Louis Pierpont, punch cup in hand, was being detained briefly in the doorway by people who recognized him and offered him greetings.

  What was intended to be a private groan escaped her.

  On her left was Morgan Kenwood … horse czar, country squire, neighbor, and self-appointed fiancé. On her right was Louis Pierpont III … philanthropist, sometime missionary, childhood friend … and self-anointed betrothed.

  There was no time to develop a plan. She was about to be caught between contradictory and onrushing futures—a matrimonial squeeze—and the last thing she needed was to have them collide in front of Baltimore’s elite.

  She needed an obstacle, something big enough to hide behind and mobile enough to drag from the room with her. The only thing at hand was one large and largely annoying Westerner. She regarded her other dreaded options a moment longer … then slid to McQuaid’s side, shoved her arm through his, and steered for the door.

  “I was just on my way out, Mr. McQuaid.”

  He scowled and looked off in the direction of whatever—whoever—had set her fleeing. He must have caught sight of Louis returning. “Where are you leading me? Besides away from your parson?”

  “He’s not a parson. He’s a missionary. And he definitely is not mine.”

  “Does he know that?” he asked.

  He must have seen the look Louis gave her, she realized. In addition to McQuaid’s more obvious faults, he was a bit too perceptive to suit her.

  Eager to be out of both his company and his debt, she released his sleeve as soon as they cleared the doorway and entered the main hall. But Morgan’s distinctive baritone drifted through the doorway behind her—“Wait, is that her?”—and she realized that while she might be out of the salon, she wasn’t out of danger. McQuaid’s company and the strains of music floating down the staircase from the ballroom on the second floor seemed her best hope of avoiding both Morgan and Louis until she could think of a way to leave the party early.

  “Upstairs”—she seized his arm again, scrambling for an explanation of why she was pulling him up the steps with her—“the Vassars have a most marvelous fresco on the ceiling of their ballroom. You simply must see it.”

  “A fresco.” He took the steps, beside her, with long, sure strides. “Heck, yes. Can’t wait to see that. Never miss a fresco if I can help it.”

  She glanced up at him through severely narrowed eyes. One corner of his broad, expressive mouth was curled slightly. Insufferable man. He probably didn’t even know what a fresco was. As soon as this interminable evening was over, she was going to see to it that she never crossed paths with him again.

  A spirited country dance was under way in the gaslit ballroom and the music had enlivened conversation as well as feet. It was no surprise to her that heads turned and fans came up to hide whispers as they paused in the doorway. She could just imagine what was being said. He’d rescued her as she arrived, been paired with her at dinner, and now sported her on his arm … it was nothing short of a scandal in the making.

  Anxious at the delay caused by people socializing and blocking the way just inside the door, she gave a quick glance over her shoulder and received yet another jolt. Morgan had started up the steps to the ballroom, but it was the sight of the person behind him that caused her hands to turn to ice in her gloves.

  In growing horror, she stared at another all-too-familiar figure climbing the stairs, dressed in a regal set of men’s evening clothes, negligently donned and worn. One of his cuffs was unfastened, some of his vest buttons and shirt studs were not done, and his silk tie was carelessly lopsided. Reckless dishevelment only seemed to add to rakish, raven-eyed Paine Webster’s magnetic appeal He could have worn a burlap bag and still have been the most attractive man in four counties.

  Her fingers must have clamped on McQuaid’s arm, for he glanced down at it, then at her with a frown. “Do leave some flesh on. I may have a use for that arm some—”

  “Quick, this way.” She pulled him discreetly along through the groups of guests, toward the dance floor.

  “Beg pardon?” He balked, when he sensed her intent, and stared at her.

  “Just come with me!” she whispered through a rigid counterfeit of a smile.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see what had set her to flight and apparently spotted the familiar Morgan Kenwood bearing down on them.

  “Who … that guy? First the missionary, and now him. Don’t tell me they’re trying to sell you inventions too.”

  “Not exactly,” she muttered, halting at the edge of the dance floor and scanning the couples forming twosomes for the next dance. She looked up at him, taking in the light in his eyes, the fierce cast of his features, and the physicality that surrounded him like a cloak. She could be asking for trouble. But in this instance, she just might be better off with the devil she didn’t know. Her decision made, she opened her arms and did the unthinkable.

  “Dance with me.”

  Even having been absent from polite society for ten years, Bear McQuaid knew that a woman asking a man to dance at a party like this was a stunning breach of etiquette. He stepped in front of her to block the other guests’ view.

  “You know, you ought to take it easy on that punch,” he declared, alarmed by the sight of her offering him such personal access to her.

  “Dance with me.” She glanced around him and whatever—whoever—she saw caused her eyes to widen. “Now.” In desperation, she met his gaze and lowered her voice and pride. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  The offer startled him and he scrambled for a response.

  “My rates, I should warn you, are fairly steep.”

  “My pockets, I assure you, are fairly deep,” she said in an impatient whisper. When he still hesitated, she reached for his hands, placed one at her waist, and stretched the other out in hers … just as the music began to play. She took a
step backward, but he didn’t move.

  “One problem.” His voice lowered. “I haven’t danced in years.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she said sharply, again glancing past his shoulder. “All right—I’ll lead and we’ll keep to the edge.”

  He didn’t know which was worse: the torture of having to follow her around the dance floor like an ill-trained bear, or the torture of having to hold and look at her warm, fragrant form without allowing that contact to have its logical, predictable effect. His only solace was the resounding echo in the back of his mind: She would make it worth his while.

  Damn straight, she would.

  “Your feet should alternate with mine,” she said with a wince.

  “My feet do damned well if they can alternate with each other,” he said testily. “If it becomes too much for your delicate constitution, we can always stop and let your friend over there take my place.” As they turned, he caught a glimpse of her prime pursuer watching, red-faced, from the far edge of the dance floor. “Who is he, anyway?”

  “He is Morgan Kenwood … the owner of Kensington Farms and Stables. We’ve been friends for years. His family’s land borders mine and he thinks—” She abruptly changed courses, both in conversation and footwork, bumping into him and stepping hard on his toes.

  “Hey!” His eyes bulged briefly. Concentrating with desperate new intensity, he seized control of their movement.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

  “I just remembered how to dance,” he said, grimly turning her in a graceful arc. “The pain brought it all back.”

  They moved in less-than-voluntary harmony for a few moments before he recalled where he had been aiming his attempts at conversation. Anything, he thought, would be preferable to staring in stony silence at that damned golden hair of hers … those big blue eyes … those smooth, naked shoulders. Why did women have to cinch themselves up like that … make themselves nothing but treacherously irresistible curves and crevices?

  “So, what does he want?” he asked shortly. “This Kenwood fellow.”

  “What does everyone want?” she said through a forced smile.

  Without thinking, he quoted Halt Finnegan’s definition of the “good life”: “A warm bed, a full stomach, and a good five-cent cigar?”

  When she looked up at him and blinked in confusion, he reddened.

  “Money,” she supplied after a moment, averting her gaze.

  “Money?” A pricking sensation occurred in the region of his conscience. “You think he’s after your money?”

  “It usually comes down to that.”

  “You don’t think he might have at least one other motive?” he asked, thinking that with a woman who looked like her, any red-blooded man should be able to come up with at least a dozen possibilities more interesting than government greenbacks. He caught himself peering raptly at the plunging neckline of her gown and jerked his gaze away. Any man except him, of course. All he wanted was …

  A straightforward, by-the-book business loan. He felt another twinge of conscience that said it wasn’t quite that simple. Every time he came within ten feet of her, his honorable financial intentions got tangled up with long-dormant physical needs. The worst part was, he didn’t know which of his two desires—for her money or her person—was causing this uneasiness.

  The music ended, just then, and they were forced to disengage and applaud the music and their own duplicitous performance.

  When he stepped back, she seized his arm. “Don’t leave!”

  “Well, actually, Miss Wingate”—he swallowed his misgivings and forced himself to seize the moment—“I was hoping to speak to you—”

  “There you are!” came a booming voice that to Bear’s ear had a forced joviality to it. They turned together and found Morgan Kenwood approaching with a determined stride and a brusque urgency to his manner.

  “Diamond, my dear!” A higher-pitched and disagreeably nasal voice came from the side a moment later. Diamond turned to find her “missionary” coming across the dance floor with a look of distress on his sallow face.

  Bear watched her stiffen and melt back a step toward him. Her hands fluttered frantically behind her back, searching for his arm or hand—anything to hold onto—as a third voice assailed her.

  “Diamond mine! You stunning creature, you—I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” A darkly handsome and carelessly dressed fellow was drawing attention from around the room as he approached with a half-empty champagne glass and a sensual swagger.

  She was being descended upon from three different directions at once. Bear heard her whimper of distress and allowed her to find his hand. She grabbed it as if it were a life preserver. From his position behind her, he could both feel her terror and see the reason for it. The looks in those three male faces were nothing short of predatory. He’d seen circling wolves with less hunger in their eyes.

  One by one, they stopped before her, and she huddled back a bit more each time, until she was virtually standing on his feet. Scowling at the way she was crowding him, he caught sight of the panicky flutter of her pulse at the side of her throat. She glanced up at him with a sickly smile and he experienced an insane urge to grab her up by the waist and run from the damned room.

  “Why, Paine, you’re home already? How wonderful,” she said, her voice reedy and oddly constricted. “And you, Louis … And of course, Morgan … Why, you’re all so … dashing and so … so very … very …”

  She sank toward the floor.

  It was a brilliantly executed swoon. A sway, some blinking, a wrist to the forehead, a vaporous flutter of eyelashes … then her legs folded and she surrendered to gravity and the mercy of someone else’s reflexes. It fell to Bear to catch her before she hit the floor, since he was the closest to her.

  Galvanized by her unexpected collapse, he tried to collect and concentrate her weight into a manageable bundle. The more he grappled with her unwieldy form, the more furious he became … with those three grasping vultures for stalking her like a defenseless stray … with her for dropping her blessed problems at his feet, literally … and with himself for being willing to pick them up. He scarcely heard the commotion that followed, the squeals of the ladies, the gasps of the men, and the conflicting orders from her three gentlemen “friends” regarding what to do and where to carry her. He ignored most of it, until Evelyn Vassar appeared, ashen and frantic, before him, clearing a path through the gawking guests and directing him to the nearest bedchamber.

  He swept her down the hallway, in their hostess’s wake, with his back and shoulders straining and his heart pounding as if it would jump out of his chest. She wasn’t a tiny woman … not exactly what he would call a fragile flower of—Oh, hell, she weighed a blue ton!

  It was in the grip of such ungentlemanly thoughts that he was caught staring at her face … when first one of her eyes opened … and then the other. He stumbled and damn near dropped her on her conniving little—not so little—bottom. In the next heartbeat, both of her eyes squeezed tightly shut and he was forced to watch in outraged silence as her lips curled in a smile of relief.

  By the time Evelyn Vassar reached the bedroom door and threw it open, he had worked up a full head of steam. He carried Diamond to the four-poster bed, swung her over it, and while Evelyn was busy shooing onlookers away and closing the door, he dropped her onto the counterpane. She gave a surprised gurgle of protest as she hit, but after parting her eyes just enough to shoot him a murderous glare, she went instantly limp and silent once more.

  Through a haze of chagrin, he backed away from the bed, from the room, and from the knot of curious people gathered in the hall outside. He retreated, in fact, to the main floor, where he found himself the object of intense stares and whispers. He was eyeing the front doors, contemplating making use of them and not stopping until he reached the comparative sanity of the brawling waterfront, when Philip Vassar called to him from the stairs.

  “McQuaid! We
ll, well … you’ve created quite a stir this evening,” the banker said, joining him in the hall, clapping a hand on his shoulder, and steering him toward the empty library. “Every tongue in the place is wagging. You and Miss Wingate have made Evelyn’s party. Party, hell, you’ve made her whole season.” He closed the library door in a stealthy manner and savored the resulting silence for a moment before going to pour them both a brandy.

  “So”—he handed Bear a draught of his best French stock and waved him into one of the tufted leather chairs—“did you talk with her about your proposal?”

  “No.” Bear couldn’t help the edge in his voice. “First she was busy fending off your local wolf pack. Then she was unconscious.”

  Vassar nearly choked on his brandy. “Our local wolf pack?”

  “Your horse baron, Kenwood, and that missionary … I believe she called him Louis. Then there was some other fellow … dark, rumpled, half-drunk …” He snorted contemptuously. “He called her ‘Diamond Mine.’ ”

  “Ye gods.” Vassar frowned. “Don’t tell me Kenwood’s still after her. He seems to think he has ‘first rights’ with her, since they grew up together. The missionary—that has to be Louis Pierpont III. There’s a piece of work. His family left him a small fortune and he promptly gave it all away … hoping to buy his way into Heaven, I suppose. Moralizing little sop. He’d love nothing more than to give Diamond’s fortune away, too.” He chuckled. “Though, in truth, she doesn’t need much help in that department.”

  “And the third one?” Bear prompted, strangely intent on hearing it all. “Dark … pretty-boy face … three sheets to the wind …”

  Vassar nodded. “Ah, yes. That has to be Paine Webster. I caught a glimpse of him earlier, as he arrived.” He cocked his head. “Odd … I thought he was out of the country. The family sent him to the Orient … ostensibly on business, but in reality to get him out of the way for a while. They’re garment people. They own a couple of mills here in Baltimore and manufacture ready-to-wear. Good people. He’s the bad seed they keep trying to grow into something worthwhile. ‘Paine-in-the-Butt Webster.’ There’s a man aptly named.”