Authors: Diane Whiteside
Viola was too emotionally tired to tolerate pretty speeches. “I am not beautiful. I’m short, scrawny, and pallid.”
“Is that how you think of yourself?” William pulled back to stare at her. “Do you not feel how my body reacts to you? You’re lovely beyond compare, sweetheart.”
Viola opened her mouth to deny it again, but stopped when a ray of sunlight illuminated his face. His expression was entirely open to her for the first time outside the bedroom. William was telling the truth.
“But I have no curves,” she stammered.
“I can hold your breast in my mouth. Your hips cradle me and take me to the heights. What need is there for more? Your hair has moon magic woven through it and your eyes are the color of the dawn sky. And your mouth. Ah, sweetheart, do you want me to describe in detail all the ways your mouth has roused me to ecstasy?”
Viola shook her head, blushing as she tried to smile. Her eyes blurred with moisture.
“Look at yourself through my eyes, sweetheart. You’re a beautiful woman in every way—mind, heart, and body.”
His conviction took root in her heart. Her smile grew as she, too, believed in her own beauty for the first time. “Thank you, William.”
She leaned up to him. His lips met hers in a long, sweet kiss that melded their breath as much as their lips and tongues. She couldn’t have said how long the moment lasted as she savored the hard strength of his muscular body behind layers of clothing.
She slipped her arms around his neck and simply enjoyed the kiss. He seemed content to do the same, holding her close and safe and gently stroking her back.
Undemanding companionship seeped into Viola from his touch. He wasn’t demanding carnal fulfillment, simply offering his affection. A knot around her heart slipped loose.
Perhaps William might be someone to ride the river with, someone she could trust to stand with her no matter what the odds against them.
William Donovan possessed few of the virtues her mother had deemed essential for a husband. He had money but little else Desdemona Lindsay valued. To begin with, he didn’t belong to the right church or the right clubs. He couldn’t claim ancestors who’d fought in the Revolution. He lacked family, especially kinfolk who could pull strings in business or politics.
Viola knew the pampered life her parents had planned for their daughters: the dinner parties for the right people, the balls with the right people, summers at Saratoga Springs. A Paris wardrobe, of course, with magnificent jewels. And an elegant piano in every house for her amusement.
The husband would be carefully selected for his bloodlines and wealth. He’d probably be fat, pompous, and disinclined to seek her company for sensual amusements after he’d bred a few children on her.
He’d lie to her whenever he pleased, cheat his social inferiors whenever possible, and hunt power at all times with the obsessive energy of a rabid wolf.
In short, he’d be everything she should want.
Viola leaned her head back against William’s shoulder. She had three months remaining with him before the bargain demanded her departure. It had to be enough for her heart.
Paul Lennox strode into his office and tossed his sword stick down on the desk. The O’Flaherty brothers silently followed him in. The youngest, favoring his right leg, closed the door behind them.
Paul unlocked the ornate cabinet against the wall and pulled a decanter of Napoleon brandy and a single snifter out of it. He poured the snifter full and drank it down, favoring his wounded hand. It warmed his insides, but not as much as a good killing.
Revenge for today’s debacle would be very sweet, when he finally had Donovan in his clutches. And when Viola had paid in blood for wounding him like this.
He smiled, considering the possibilities, and twirled the crystal goblet.
Then he filled the snifter again, capped the decanter, and settled into his chair. The O’Flahertys had doffed their caps and remained standing, as befitted their inferior social status.
They’d served his family for a long time, ever since they arrived in New York as young men in 1850. He’d heard whispers their father had been a bitterly unpopular land agent in County Cork, eventually ambushed and killed by “unknown assailants.” Paul cared little about their background, except for how it had developed their instincts and skills as the most feared thugs in Five Points.
“What next?” he demanded of the senior O’Flaherty. “Staging a brawl won’t work twice.”
Conall shrugged slightly. “Simplest way would be to wait for the cavalry to come. We strike hard when they take that big wagon train and most of the teamsters up to the new fort.”
“We can’t wait that long. If Lindsay comes straight through from Colorado, he could be here in two days. I must have Mrs. Ross before then.”
“Her mother was quite the one for shopping, remember, Conall? Buying those rifles we had to deliver to Richmond for her. Maybe this girl likes to shop, too, and we could snatch her off the street,” the youngest brother offered.
“Richmond? You delivered rifles to Richmond during the recent unpleasantness for Desdemona Lindsay?” Paul’s head spun. A naval officer’s wife committing treason?
“Yes, sir, we did,” Conall agreed.
“And you’d swear to it in court?”
“Of course, sir. God’s own truth, for once.”
Paul smiled slowly, stroking his muttonchops. Either Viola Ross would marry him or he’d destroy her mother, and her family’s reputation.
“Very well then,” he said briskly. “Snatching her from a shop should work. Afterwards, you’ll escape into the mine tunnels below Main Street before Donovan can come to her rescue. There’s an abandoned mine where we can hold her until she turns biddable. Yes, that should definitely work.”
“Donovan’d probably come hunting her,” Conall mused, a feral battle light glowing in his eyes. He enjoyed killing as much as Paul enjoyed watching. They’d spent more than one delightful evening together in Five Points, indulging their mutual appetites.
Paul stirred reluctantly. The only other bids he’d ever received for freighting goods into this godforsaken hole demanded half again as much as Donovan & Sons. He couldn’t afford to lose Donovan & Sons a day earlier than necessary, especially since he planned to keep the Golconda. Nick might want to sell it and focus on railroads but Paul found the hunt for silver too exciting to give up. “Might be better if he didn’t. Perhaps I can bribe him.”
With money? That hadn’t worked before. There must be something else he could offer, something Donovan couldn’t obtain any other way and would be properly grateful for.
Perhaps an invitation to join the Pericles Club. Yes, that might do very well. He’d seen how Donovan’s eyes widened with hunger when he mentioned his own acceptance. He’d ensure the Board of Governors voted Donovan down, of course. A quick note to Nick should do the job.
Nick had coaxed the governors into admitting Paul into the Pericles Club, despite all the ridiculous gossip about Paul’s war record. He was well-spoken, accounted handsome by the ladies, and a skilled blackmailer who worshipped his older brother. Yes, Nick should be able to easily block Donovan’s admission.
“Yes, plan to kidnap her Friday morning before the stage arrives. That will give you time to clear the entrance to that old mine so we can keep her there,” Paul ordered. “I can send her a note while Donovan’s at the depot, purporting to come from that fool Graham, which should fetch her immediately. You’ll have to eliminate the Chinaman, of course.”
“Of course, sir. We’ve fought his type before and won. Paddy will dispatch him in a trice.”
“Try not to use a gun. I don’t want any untoward attention.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Anything else? You’re hesitating.”
“Donovan looks a bit familiar, that’s all.”
“Common name in the old country,” Conall’s youngest brother suggested. “Especially in southwest Cork.”
“Maybe that’s it. But I swear I’ve seen his eyes before. Never mind my fancies, sir. We’ll snatch the woman for you.”
“Fetch some mules from the mine’s stables and return here in an hour. You can start work on clearing the rubble from the abandoned mine tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” the O’Flahertys chorused.
Paul walked them out to the street, planning to stop by his house next. A plume of dust in the distance caught his attention. He shielded his eyes against the sun’s glare and squinted. Then he chuckled, a sound he’d taught Virginia civilians to know and hate during the war.
“Gentlemen, the cavalry will be here by nightfall. The supply train should depart in the morning, taking Donovan’s men with it.”
“Are you sure about that, sir?” Conall questioned. “It’s coming from a long way off.”
Paul’s humor was too buoyant to be offended by any challenge to his judgment. “Learned my dust clouds in the recent unpleasantness, O’Flaherty. That dust is loose and fluffy, thrown up by horses’ hooves, not heavy wagons. Cavalry, nothing else. The prize will be ours come Friday.”
V
iola took another spoonful of snow pudding as she watched William sip his tea and stare into space. Sarah had outdone herself with this rich dessert but it meant little when compared to tomorrow’s dangers. Viola set aside her spoon and began to nervously crumble lemon biscuits into the creamy white sweet.
The cavalry had come a day earlier than expected, damn them. Evans and most of William’s teamsters would leave tomorrow for at least a week. They wouldn’t have the usual overwhelming complement, since William and some other teamsters were staying behind in Rio Piedras to guard Viola. Apaches could kill them all in a single attack.
William had to be concerned about his men’s survival. If only she could do something to distract him.
“Tea?” William offered, lifting the pot.
“Yes, thank you,” Viola replied automatically. The hot drink flowing into her cup raised different questions. Perhaps she could use them to divert him.
“William, have you ever indulged in strong liquors?”
He shook his head as he filled his own cup. “Never. I saw too much of how they could destroy a man when I was twelve. I took an oath then never to imbibe, except for the Sacrament at Mass, of course.”
“Of course,” Viola nodded. He attended Mass every week here in Rio Piedras. She’d attended Mass almost a dozen times with Molly and Brigid O’Byrne. It had seemed an exotic but comforting ritual to her eyes, and she respected its appeal.
“Did you take any oaths as a child not to engage in an adult activity, Viola?”
She cocked her head as she considered. “When I was eighteen and the war broke out, I swore I’d never join a political party. But women will never get the vote so it’s not much of an oath, is it?”
“You’d keep the vow, if it came to pass, wouldn’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“Then it’s a true oath. But why that one?”
Viola hesitated: how much could she tell him? But the war had ended six years ago and she could surely speak freely of at least a few matters. If nothing else, the story might distract him from worrying about Evans. “My father and brother served in the Mississippi Squadron of the Union Navy during the late conflict. My mother’s family, including her brothers and nephews, served in the Confederate Army.”
She snapped another lemon biscuit in two, remembering the anger and fear that had drenched her home. William patted her hand, comforting and undemanding.
“Did your mother sympathize with the Southern cause?”
Viola laughed bitterly. “Indeed so. Very strongly, in fact. She fought verbal duels with my father on the subject, which lasted for hours, both before he enlisted and afterwards, as well. I would run from the house and ride my horse for miles, or play the piano with the doors shut, trying not to hear them.” Especially the time when Father backhanded Mother across the face…
She thrust the memory back and went on. “I swore I’d have no part of politics, if that’s what it did to families.”
She snorted as she remembered some of the slogans shouted then. “Mother called herself ‘a true daughter of the South,’ who would fight for what she considered right when her own flesh and blood would not.”
Viola laced her fingers with his for strength. “Mother held parties at our house, where she’d flirt and flatter Union soldiers into telling her confidential matters. I watched her as closely as I could and diverted the conversation whenever possible.” Viola shivered as the old knots tightened in her stomach. “But I’m afraid some secrets were leaked to her, only to be passed to other Southern sympathizers. I grew to dread afternoon socials and dinner parties, even church bazaars. People called me such an attentive daughter for staying so close to my mother at all times. But all I desired was to stop Mother from harming anyone.”
“Ah, my poor darling,” William crooned and kissed her hand.
She closed her eyes as a tremor swept through her. His lips were firm and warm, reminding her of today’s joys rather than yesterday’s pain. This room was so far away from Cincinnati that the old agonies seemed a distant memory, something to be aired out then put away like laundry.
She opened her eyes slowly as she tried to regain her balance. William’s eyes were intent on hers, compassionate and patient. Perhaps she could say a little more. If nothing else, she was diverting him from worrying about Evans’s departure.
“Mother acted on her beliefs, too,” Viola said carefully.
Don’t say too much even now; just speak of things Mother
wouldn’t be tried for.
“A captured Confederate general escaped one Christmas, thanks to Mother’s help. She, who was the wife and mother of Union sailors, helped return a man to battle, a soldier who’d surely kill her menfolk if they crossed him.”
William’s eyes flashed. His fingers tightened on hers, then slowly loosened.
“Mother showed no remorse, ever, for risking her family’s lives,” Viola finished. Who was William angry at? Could he be disgusted by her, since she hadn’t stopped Mother?
“The bitch. The stupid bitch to risk her son’s life.” William uttered a string of what must have been curses in a foreign language, his face blazing with anger.
Viola stared at him. She’d carried the burden of her mother’s treason alone for so long that it was burned into her soul. Sharing the knowledge with someone else, someone who understood her bone-deep anger and disgust with her own mother, was an emotional release that left her shaken.
A knot deep in her heart fell away and her eyes blurred with tears of relief. She patted his cheek. “It’s over now, William. The war has ended and my father and brother survived. No harm was done.”
“No thanks to her.” He added a few more words, all of them heated.
The conversation obviously needed a new direction, since she hadn’t intended to make him angry. Her nerves were still unsettled but perhaps his past would be more relaxing. “Are you speaking Irish?” Viola asked softly, blinking away salt tears.
William opened his mouth, then smiled sheepishly. “My apologies for using profanity, sweetheart.”
“Where do you come from in Ireland?” Viola shrugged off his apology. She’d never heard a word about his life prior to 1855, when he’d started his freighting company.
“I was born near Bantry Bay in County Cork, on the estate of Lord Charles Mitchell.”
“Did your family have a farm there?” Viola’s ever-present curiosity bubbled into full life.
William hesitated for a moment, his eyes searching hers. She smiled at him encouragingly, hoping to hear a good story.
“My parents were servants at the great house before Lord Charles turned them off to save money in ’45. My father had a wee farm after that, and a few good horses for trading.”
Viola did some calculations in her head. She’d been born in 1843 but she’d still heard talk of Ireland. “The first year of the famine.”
“Aye.” Old agony echoed in his voice.
“But your family,” Viola sighed and fell silent, thinking of the stories that had been told and retold in Cincinnati. Molly and Brigid had said only that they were too young to remember much. Their grim expressions had discouraged any additional questions.
“We were evicted from our farm in ’47,” William answered her. “My two little sisters, my mother who was eight months gone with child, my father, and myself. They burned our home and they left us penniless and starving in the rain.”
Viola was horrified. How could anyone leave a pregnant woman and three children without shelter in the rain? “The callous sons of bitches,” she cursed, entirely forgetting propriety. “Wasn’t there someplace for you to go? The workhouse, perhaps?”
“We took shelter in an abandoned cottage. But my mother went into labor the same night.”
Viola stood up and hugged him fiercely, as her eyes blurred. “Dear God.”
William froze, then leaned against her, as if seeking shelter from that night’s cold rain.
“The labor was difficult, with the babe turned in the womb and not helping. My father did his best to help her, while I tried to comfort my sisters. They tried to be brave but, Blessed Virgin, how they cried.”
He stopped, his face engraved with anguish. He must have looked the same way on that wet Irish night so long ago. Viola stroked his shoulder tentatively, afraid to speak.
“My father sent me for help. The storm was fierce and it seemed to take forever before I found the midwife. I wished with every step that I could do more. Put a strong house around them, food on the table to give her strength, anything.”
Tears blinded her but she hung on William’s every word.
“My brother Séamus came into this world that night, although he never drew breath here. My mother died before dawn, too worn from hunger to survive the long labor. I swore on their graves that no wife or child of mine would ever suffer as they had.”
“Oh, my poor darling,” Viola gasped as she fought to breathe past the sorrow that choked her. She’d longed for a child of her own but she’d never felt a babe quicken in her womb. William’s loss made her emptiness deeper and stronger until she could scarcely think. She trembled, but kept her arms around him.
“Typhus claimed my sisters within the month,” William rasped as he stared straight ahead, one hand gently patting her. “Da took me to Cobh after that, where he earned a living as a forger. He partook of gin, deeply and often, to escape the memories. I swore I wouldn’t do the same, since that would be deliberately forgetting the lost ones.”
Sobbing, Viola buried her face against his hair, but his last words cut into her heart.
“And I swore I’d gain money any way I could. If we’d had cash, my family would still be alive.”
Merciful heavens, no wonder he sought money and power so fiercely.
Abruptly, William wrenched her onto his lap and locked his arms around her in a bruising grip. Great shudders ran through his body. She buried her face against him and wept enough for both of them.
It seemed hours before she stirred. Her head hurt from crying so hard, her nose was running, and her eyes and throat felt like sandpaper. His shoulder was sopping wet from her tears. She undoubtedly looked a fright, but William simply handed her his big bandanna.
Viola wiped her cheeks and blew her nose. How had he survived that much pain?
He turned her in his arms and settled her against his other shoulder. Exhaustion marked his face and his eyes were red.
She nestled as she considered how best to comfort him. Viola caressed his cheek. “Darling William,” she murmured, and leaned up to him.
Their mouths slid over each other as if relearning the shape, then settled into a gentle kiss. Viola caressed his head and enjoyed the simple renewal. But all too soon William lifted his head and closed his eyes, one hand warm on her back.
He needed more easing.
Viola untied his neat silk cravat and unbuttoned his stiff white collar. William cocked an eyebrow but said nothing when she carefully removed both cravat and collar.
She paused for a moment to consider her next move. His legs’ strength was as hot and solid under her silk-clad derrière as the desert floor on a summer day. She could see the pulse beating in his throat and feel the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. He was so vitally alive, unlike his lost family. She needed to celebrate his survival.
Viola unbuttoned his shirt’s top button, then another and another. William sighed as the soft collarband loosened its grip around his throat. She pressed a kiss to the small scab there. He rumbled soft approval but didn’t open his eyes.
She opened his shirt and the cotton undershirt. She slid her hand inside and briefly glided her fingers over his nipples. He shuddered as a soft gasp escaped him.
Even in dishabille like this, his western clothing was so much more respectable than her Chinese tunic and pants. But the Chinese clothing could be removed so much faster. She smiled to herself.
“Lean forward please, William. Let me take off your jacket.”
“We should go to the bedroom,” he murmured, and started to straighten up.
Viola settled herself more firmly on his legs. “No.”
“Are you refusing me?” He blinked at her and her heart twisted at how tired his eyes were. Had he ever spoken of his loss before? Probably not, or he’d have learned to be less drained by the telling.
She tilted her chin at him in mock hauteur. “Me? Refuse you? Certainly not. But I do believe you could remove some of your clothing without doing harm.”
He chuckled and some of the light returned to his face. “Teasing me, are you? Very well.”
He shifted in the chair as she’d requested, and she quickly removed his jacket. She slid his braces off his shoulders and down his arms, then peeled his shirt off and stood up.
He lifted his hips to free his shirttails, his expression quizzical. “You seem very determined tonight, sweetheart. Must I be polite lest you blast me with shells full of rock salt?”
Viola giggled at his gentle banter. “I am certain, sir, that a true gentleman like you would never need to be rebuked with salt,” she answered demurely. Then, more briskly, “Your undershirt next, William.”
“As you wish, sweetheart.” He peeled the intruding garment off while remaining in the chair, leaving only the crucifix and medals around his neck.