“You aren’t the only one who doesn’t wear drawers, Alanna. Or are you tonight, what with this freezing weather?”
Explain that little remark to your guardian.
“Back or front?” he asked and flopped on the bed.
“Arse down, please,” Old Chinese responded and laid a towel across Wolf’s pelvis.
Wolf snorted and closed his eyes.
For the next two hours he floated in and out of himself as the Asian worked. Incense filled the room. Fragrant creams were massaged into his skin with strong hands that varied the degree of pressure and heat, seeming to increase their warmth at the points where Wolf’s muscles were most tender. Long, thread-thin needles were inserted into various parts of his body—ears, hips, inside his calves—releasing flashes of childhood memories in Wolf’s head. The intensity and clarity of his visions surprised him, yet they did nothing to dampen his peaceful mood.
By the time Old Chinese completed the session, Wolf lay on the bed feeling more at ease than he could recall. Gone was his belligerence, the lack of caring, the sense of isolation.
Alanna still sat in the chair with her lids shut. Now, though, she appeared softer, less determined. Wolf viewed her in an entirely different light.
He climbed off the bed, slid into his trousers and fastened them. “You can open your eyes now.”
She stood. “Captain Thompson said your business undertaking has been delayed and you’ll have to depend on him and others to complete it. Old Chinese lives deep in the countryside on a farm belonging to my father. He’d like to have you as his guest for however long it takes to complete your business. Would you accept his offer?”
Wolf made his way to the window, where he parted the drapes and stared out at the night. “And have your father stumble across me? No thanks.”
“My father rarely visits the farm. He likes the idea of owning a great deal of land, but doesn’t care for country life.” Alanna flashed a slicing, cynical smile. “He’s too busy being a
tycoon
.”
Wolf grunted. “Don’t tell me. Your father turned the place over to Old Chinese, but every time he comes to call, it’s in better shape than the time before? Smart man.”
“I have worked diligently for Miss Malone’s family,” Old Chinese said. “In exchange, I have free run of the family farm. I consider it my duty, not to Miss Malone’s father, but to the land I live on, to give back more than what I take. I am quite comfortable with the arrangement.”
“And what of you, Alanna?” Wolf drank her in. He could sense that she and Old Chinese wouldn’t be staying much longer. Already he was aware of the briefness of their visit.
“What about me?”
“Would you come visit me on the farm?” His lips pursed in a small smirk, his voice teased, but he veiled his eyes from hers.
“Yes, of course. I visit there often. I would like that.”
Immense relief washed through him. He’d grown damn weary of living alone in hotels.
Alanna glanced at Old Chinese, sending a silent message. The man collected the contents of the reticule, drew the strings together, and disappeared from the room in a flash.
Wolf stood transfixed as moments passed and Old Chinese failed to return. “Is he standing outside the door with his ear pinned to it, or did your guardian actually leave you alone with me?”
Something ancient shifted in Wolf.
He moved toward her. “Or was that odd look you sent across the room your signal to send him on his way? Are you his little ward, or his employer?”
Without a word, Alanna stood and made her way to the window. She separated the drapes and looked down at the street.
“Aren’t you concerned you’ll be recognized coming and going from a hotel?” he asked.
“Old Chinese will see to it that I am not.”
“How so?”
She didn’t respond.
Wolf felt compulsively drawn to her side. He looked down and saw a hulking figure standing in the shadows. “How the hell did he get down there so fast?”
Alanna remained silent.
Against his will, Wolf brought his hand up and touched her shoulder. He let his finger trace lightly down her arm, the side of her hand. A shiver raced across her flesh as his hand closed ever so gently over hers. His heart gave a jolt.
Like gunpowder set alight, his blood exploded. He closed his eyes, steeled himself against the heady emotion. If he didn’t do something at once, his loneliness would take him beyond mere thoughts of what he wanted to do to her.
He gritted his teeth and stepped back from her. It took all the strength he possessed. “What are you doing alone in a man’s hotel room?” His voice came as a harsh growl. “For God’s sake, this is worse for you than aboard ship. Leave.”
Alanna turned around. “You’re right. I must go, but not for the reason you think.” Nonetheless, she stood in one place.
Wolf returned to the bed. He flopped on his back, his head against the pillows. Had he actually seen her eyes fill with desire? An incredible feeling of tenderness, and a craving to express it, overcame him.
He observed her through half-closed lids. Where he’d once thought her strange, he now found her fascinating. He was attracted to her unconventional personality, to the way she strained old codes of behavior and still managed to maintain her dignity. He also found her self-control enticing, a discipline that conveyed a sense of complete security.
It was this very restraint that Wolf wanted to challenge. Perhaps her strength of will masked underlying passion. A hell of an ache gripped his groin. He spread an arm out and patted the space beside him. “Come lie beside me.” His voice grew husky. “For only a moment, Alanna. Let me hold you before you leave.”
Alanna steeled herself. “I cannot do that.”
Wolf was far tenderer than he’d care to have anyone know. And everything about him right now was a full expression of that terrible tenderness threatening to vanquish her self-control. Dear God. To lose herself in him before he felt safe enough to share his heart would destroy what she desperately wanted. She had no choice—she had to set strong boundaries.
Nonetheless, she was inexplicably drawn forward, only able to halt her approach when she reached the end of the bed. Her hands gripped the brass foot rail. He regarded her with eyes that seemed to bare her very soul. A slow-moving heat rippled through her, pooled in her belly.
Sensuousness coalesced with the mischief in Wolf’s smile as he snuggled his head a little deeper into the pillow. “You must be an enigma to Boston’s society. Too bad you are owned by your father—such ownership precludes autonomy.”
They stared at one another for an eternity—he, spread out like a banquet; she with her knuckles white from gripping the bed’s foot rail.
“Take your hair down for me, Alanna.”
His husky words blazed through her veins, sent her heart pounding erratically, and whipped wicked pleasure through her thighs. “No.”
“Are you afraid of me, Alanna, or just plain cold?”
“I am not cold.” Her fingers gripped the brass railing tighter, the metal heating beneath her hands. He was so near, she absorbed his ruggedness, his vital power. Blood hammered in her ears. “I have great passion, Wolf. So great, I feel as though I cannot take in a deep breath, as though I might lose myself entirely.”
His expression changed. He rose on one elbow. Startling blue eyes pierced the distance between them. The tip of his tongue swept his bottom lip, leaving it moist. “I’ll say it again—take your hair down for me.” Raw with emotion, his voice came as a bare whisper.
“No.”
“Tell me why not.”
“Because I doubt I would be able to control myself thereafter.” Her answer came clear and determined, but with a hint of beseeching.
“Because your hair is down, you could not control yourself ?” Fire raged in his eyes.
“Why do
you
want my hair down?” Her chin rose in defiance. “Tell me what setting my hair free will do for
you?
” She watched a tremor pass through him.
His nostrils flared. “Would it be so terrible if taking your hair down did the same thing to both of us? Would it be so terrible to share such sweet feelings?”
“Sweet?” She cleared her throat as his eyes roved slowly over her body. “I’m afraid such feelings, as you are well aware, are beyond sweet.” Her resolute strength turned to excruciating longing. “I cannot . . . I feel as though I would lose myself entirely, and . . . and you are not at that place yet.”
His head tilted quizzically. “What
place
?”
“I want you to fall off the ends of the earth in love with me. That’s the place of which I speak—the one place where I am willing to lose myself in you.” Head spinning, she let go of the brass bed rail as though it burned her flesh. “It would be a slow death to do otherwise.”
“How long have you felt this way?” Wolf was still on one elbow, regarding her with blue fire.
“Since I first laid eyes on you. Back in the hotel in San Francisco.”
“Over one little dinner? You stared at me and my friends throughout one meal, and you came to these conclusions?”
“Before then, Wolf. The first time you stayed at the Morgan Hotel.”
Wolf leaned back into his pillow, studying her with a new and curious intensity.
“You don’t remember me, but when I saw you in the hotel that first time, wearing buckskins and a scruffy beard, I saw through the dirt, as if I were seeing you through a special lens. I knew you would be back. I knew the second time, in the dining room when you were clean-shaven and formally dressed, that it was you.”
She turned to leave, but paused with her hand on the doorknob. “You love to touch the flesh of a woman, don’t you?” Her voice had grown thick with emotion. “But you’re afraid to go much beyond that. Something tells me you shield yourself from the fear that every relationship ends sooner or later—through death, or through someone’s leaving. It’s a part of the human condition. You know it is as much a natural part of a relationship as breathing is a natural part of staying alive, yet the idea frightens you. And so you avoid getting caught up with anyone. But here I am.”
His lips parted in surprise, and his face paled. Quickly, he put on a smile that set her on edge.
“That’s it, isn’t it, Wolf? You’re afraid of someone leaving you.”
He shook his head slightly, but she suspected it was less in denial than in consideration of what she’d said.
She opened the door. “Once you are no longer afraid, then it will be easy for you to fall off the ends of the earth for someone.” Alanna nodded to the space beside him. “Then, when you ask, that’s right where I’ll be. Forever.”
Softly, she closed the door behind her, pulled the hood of her cloak over her head, and hurried to the servants’ stairs.
Chapter Ten
One week later
Wolf leaned against the coupe rockaway in the silver dawn, its door hanging open as he tried to coax Little Mary, Thompson’s youngest, and Alanna’s namesake, out of the carriage. Off in the distance, the captain hollered for Julia. The dog’s rambunctious yipping told Wolf there’d be no rescue from this sticky situation anytime soon.
Little Mary’s round eyes lit Wolf’s world when they filled with joy, but let tears fall, and his heart broke faster than he could figure out how to help her.
She brushed at her wet cheeks and busied herself by pushing rows of white eyelet ruffles into place beneath her red coat. “Will you be marrying Miss Malone right off when we get there?”
“Wha . . . what?” Wolf straightened away from the carriage.
“I said—”
“I heard you, sweetheart.” Where the hell did she get that insane idea? He pressed his forehead against the cold metal of the carriage. No wonder she insisted on stowing away—and wearing that fancy dress—she thought she was going to a wedding! He doubted he’d ever get used to the uninhibited spontaneity of this winsome chatterbox. Alanna Mary Thompson, or Little Mary, as they called her, had a bad habit of eavesdropping, only to skew the information she culled.
Still, he adored her. “Sweetheart,” he began while collecting his thoughts.
“
Where did you get the idea we were going to a wedding today?”
“From you.” She grinned, exposing the gap where she’d lost her front teeth.
“Me?”
“Yeth.” Her pink tongue poked through the gap. “You thaid you’d like to marry me, but you’d be a very old man by the time I’m grown, tho you’d have to find another Mary.”
“Whoa, wait. That I did say, but your father and I are attending a business meeting, not a wedding.” He took a step back, scanning the area for Thompson. Where the hell was he?
“Watch out for Julia!” Little Mary giggled uproariously as the dog bounded around the corner of the carriage and climbed all over Wolf. He swore under his breath at the muddy paw prints all over his fur-lined broadcloth coat.
Thompson trotted up. “Princess, if you’ll see Julia inside for Papa, when I return, I’ll take you both on a fancy carriage ride about town.”
“Can we stop at the thweet shop?”
“Of course.”
Little Mary’s face lit up. She scrambled out of the carriage and raced for the house without a backward glance. Her mother waved and closed the door behind girl and dog.
“That’s all it took?” Wolf climbed onto the front seat of the rockaway.
Thompson grinned. “Care to take the first leg?”
Wolf grabbed the reins and with a flick of his wrist, set the two Morgans in motion down the drive and onto the street.
“Sorry about your coat,” Thompson said.
“The worst of the whole business was I couldn’t curse at the damn dog with your daughter’s ears out like an elephant’s.”
Thompson laughed. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“Don’t think so.” Wolf picked at a clump of mud clinging to his coat. “Holding anything in tends to curdle a man’s insides over the long haul.”
“Leave the dirt alone,” Thompson cautioned. “It’ll brush right off when it’s dry.”
Wolf scowled. “I’m not ignorant. How the hell do you think I kept my buckskins clean?”
“You call those rags clean? What a relief you packed them away.”
Wolf ignored him. “Did you know your daughter thought she was going to Miss Malone’s wedding, and I was the groom?” He shot a scowl at Thompson’s chuckle. “I am not that man.”
“Perhaps you could be.”
“You seem to ignore the fact that I would make a piss-poor husband for the likes of anyone. Not interested.”
“Well, she’s interested in you.”
Wolf jostled the reins, half to speed the horses and half to hide his jolt of embarrassment. “Like hell. Women of her class don’t marry because they like someone. They marry for convenience. And don’t go reminding me about your Martha—again. Besides, it usually helps if the feeling’s mutual.”
“I’d wager it is. You’re plenty sensitive to have noticed Alanna is attracted to you.”
“I’m not sensitive enough to know crap.” Wolf handed the reins to Thompson, shoved his arms across his chest, and stared out at the skeletal trees that arced against the sky’s bleak backdrop.
“Sure, you are. Look what you just did.”
“What the hell did I just do?”
“You did two things,” Thompson replied. “One, you handed me the reins, which tells me you know that what affects you affects the horses. And two, you slipped back into your old attitude and crude manner of speaking. Seems to me, that’s where you hide out.”
Wolf continued to stare out at nothing. He should have stayed in the West. He should have kept riding his goddamn horse all over nowhere.
He could use a shot of whiskey. Good whiskey.
They were out of the city and into the countryside when Wolf spoke again. “You happened to have had decent work when you and Martha met. What the hell am I supposed to do, throw a woman on the back of my horse, buy some old nag, and line my kids up on its swayback according to height? Ride around the prairie for the rest of our goddamn lives?”
“Is that what’s stopping you, son?”
Wolf went back to staring out at nothing, no longer sure what all bothered him of late. “I’m here to find out who killed my mother and then I am going back to St. Joe. Understood?”
“Aye, aye.”
Alanna climbed out of the tub and grabbed a towel. A puddle formed around her feet on the hard wooden floor of Old Chinese’s bathing area.
Take your hair down for me, Alanna.
Wolf’s passion-filled words vibrated through her, as fresh as the night he’d spoken them. It happened again—an involuntary quickening, something no amount of discipline seemed to discourage of late. The tips of her breasts hardened. Liquid heat pooled in her belly.
She wondered dispassionately what it was about her that he found attractive. Her skin was a shade too dark. Well, blame the sun. And according to her mother, her lips were completely unfashionable as well. As if Alanna cared what society dictated with regard to anything, let alone the shape of a person’s mouth. Thank goodness her long, skinny legs had finally filled out. Nonetheless, her mother still had the annoying habit of bruising her thighs when she pinched them in passing and complaining of their wretchedness. And in her mother’s eyes, Alanna’s full breasts were hopeless. A man would surely be reminded of a cow if he were ever to see such a ghastly sight, her mother had repeatedly told her.
Suddenly, something pricked her senses. Her head snapped up. She focused on the windows at the front of the building.
He was on his way to her.
She could feel it in her bones.
Barefoot, Alanna padded across the room to where her starched clothing lay. She dressed slowly, meticulously, in her white garb, and then fitted a black sash twice around her waist so the ends tied in front. Next, she smoothed her hair and braided it, left the single braid to trail down the middle of her back.
When she sensed Wolf was close enough, she stepped directly in front of the window and peered down the long driveway. A black speck, no bigger than a fly, appeared in the distance.
It was time to begin her other preparations. Silently, she slipped from the window, sat with her legs crossed and her eyes closed. In her mind, she entered the fire of the dragon.
The thin sun that briefly appeared never did manage to lend any warmth to the crisp air. The low, gray sky reminded Wolf of a tilled field turned upside down, ready for the planting. He breathed deep of the fresh, cold air, and exhaled a cloud of mist.
After a long silence, Thompson spoke. “I’ve been thinking.”
Wolf grunted. “Life gets real dangerous when you go and do things like that.”
“If you’re as easy with women as you are with a horse—”
“Told you it gets real dangerous when you think.”
“I was thinking about that graphic picture you created of an old nag’s back lined with ragamuffins.” Thompson grinned. “Somehow I doubt you’d ever let anything like that come about. You strike me as a man who would see to his children’s needs, no matter what the cost. I see the way you are around my girls. You must not do too badly for yourself financially, either.”
Wolf shrugged. “I do all right. Sure as hell not like you, though. Christ, you gave me some kind of song and dance back when we sailed the Horn about how your poor little Martha, coming from noble British stock, married down. In case you haven’t noticed, that house you live in is a mansion. And the trappings inside don’t come cheap, either. No wonder your kind are referred to as merchant princes. If your wife married down, I’d hate to see your idea of wealth.”
Thompson slowed the horses and made a turn onto a long drive. “I don’t think a woman like Alanna gives a hoot about material things.”
Wolf grunted. “You’re in a rut with this conversation.”
“Well, I do have somewhere to go with it if you’d allow me to finish. I sure am curious as to what happened to your parents’ wealth.”
A cloud of misery settled in Wolf’s heart. “What in God’s name is going on? It’s as though my past fell off the face of the earth. It had to have taken a good deal of money to live in that area of Boston. Do you suppose my father died penniless? Did those years after my mother died break him financially?”
“It happens,” Thompson answered. “But what if he transferred everything to England before he left for India? Is England where he was from originally?”
“Don’t remember.” Wolf tapped his temple. “But ever since that Chinaman stuck those damn needles in me, I’ve been having odd dreams that make me recall things here and there. Guess England’s next on my agenda, since that’s where I was shipped off to school. I can remember the name of the place now. Yesterday, I sent off a letter of inquiry. There had to have been some kind of monetary arrangement for my education and personal needs. That could be a lead.”
Thompson scratched his head. “When I return to town, I can instruct your detectives to begin an investigation of European financial institutions as well.”
Wolf nodded. “May as well. The agency will likely have to hire extra men to handle it all. I’ll send a letter of authorization along with you.” He heaved a sigh. “Oh, hell. Here I am, supposedly the crème de la crème of trackers, and all I’m doing is holing up on some farm and hiring other people to do the work.”
“You
are
the best,” Thompson replied. “But you’re too close to the matter to make objective decisions. Even men of medicine don’t try to operate on themselves. But you already know that or you wouldn’t be on the road with me today.”
They cleared a small knoll and an expansive mansion loomed before them. The brick home sprawled across a gently rolling hill nestled in a grove of tall, graceful trees, the stark branches like great masses of veins exposed against the cold, gray flesh of the sky.
“Well, hell, Thompson, now
that
monstrosity resembles a farmhouse about as much as that house of yours looks like a rundown sea shanty.” The corners of Wolf’s mouth twisted into a cynical grin. “I should have known when we started up this fancy drive that carries on for God knows
how
long, we wouldn’t find some farmer pointing the way to Old Chinese with a pitchfork.” He swallowed another curse and turned forward, settling down to observe his surroundings.
Granite statues of fauns and nymphs stood guard over a frozen ghost of a garden that extended to a haze of woods fronted by a pale ribbon of water. Gnarled vines in deep hibernation created arbors over carved paths jutting from the main house.
Wolf counted three floors to the red brick manse, its entire front graced by huge columns covering a walkway and porte cochère.
He wondered when Alanna planned to visit.
Surprise snagged him when Thompson drove past the house and continued down the tree-lined lane over a small hill. He headed in the direction of a glossy white stable with a massive rust-colored barn set to the rear.
A rush of excitement flooded Wolf at the sight of white-painted fences, frozen pastureland and a herd of horses, their heads to the ground and nibbling on brown grass.
Memories tumbled into Wolf’s head—from the bustle of San Francisco’s gold rush and its harbor clogged with tall-masted clipper ships, to the nightmarish Horn’s howling winds battering against the door of his cramped quarters. Then on to staid Boston—yet another confining space stuffed with neatly compressed rows of fashionable brick and granite town houses.
Freedom.
He breathed deeply of the fresh air. How much he’d missed the wide-open spaces, and the feel of his loins hugging horse and saddle. Bewilderment banished his smile as Thompson failed to stop at the stables.
“Stables?” Wolf queried.
“Sure are. The best you’ll ever find. Same with the horses inside.”
Something was oddly out of place. Except for the horses and a few pigs roaming loose, the place seemed peculiarly devoid of life. Old Chinese couldn’t possibly reside out here entirely alone. Could he? Despite the eerie silence, Wolf felt a thousand eyes peering at him from the safety of dank woods and through windows harboring darkened rooms.
His skin chilled.
At last, Thompson brought the carriage to a halt at the doors of the barn, a dull red hulk of a rectangle with a deep pitch to its shingled roof. Only two sides of the massive building were exposed. The remaining two sides butted against a high, deep berm. The barn held the look of a fortress.
“Home,” Thompson announced and placed the reins in his lap. He glanced upward to a stack of paned windows fronting the barn.
Wolf followed suit and spied a shadowed figure at the window. “Home?” He looked at Thompson. “Aw, no. Don’t tell me Old Chinese lives in the barn for Chri . . . in the barn?”