скачать книгу бесплатно
“Don’t you want to know why?” he asked, practically whispering.
“Why what?” Her mouth felt cottony and dry.
“Why I desire a wife.”
She cleared her throat, trying to make sense of the moment, of the sweet, compelling feelings flowing through her as she looked up at him. “Very well. Why do you desire a wife?” She couldn’t help the spark of devilment that made her suggest, “Did your mother finally put you out of her house?”
He caught her against him and laughed heartily. “My dear Miss Kate, you are a caution. It is a privilege to know you.”
Now, she thought, moving in for the kill. “Do you truly feel that way?”
“From the bottom of my heart.”
“Then I wonder—” She stopped. “Oh, I am too bold.”
“Go on. What were you going to say?”
“I was hoping you would invite me to the opening of Crosby’s Opera House,” she said. “I was hoping you would be the one.”
“I will, Kate. I’ll be the one. I am, after all, looking for a wife. Escorting you to the opera seems a good way to begin the hunt.”
For a moment, Kathleen felt dizzy with her victory. She had won. She had proven she could fool a society gentleman into escorting her to the opera. But the moment came to a cruel and swift end. She wanted to take pride in her cleverness, but instead, she felt empty. Deceitful. Here was this perfectly nice man, innocently offering her an evening’s entertainment, and she thought only of the wager. An apology hovered on her lips, but something—the expression dancing in his blue eyes—held her silent. In the matter of his quest for a wife, she couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. She speculated about the real reason for his interest in matrimony. Family alliances, convenience, sometimes even appearances. Occasional expedience, for accidents did happen even in the best of families.
“We have managed to have an entire conversation, and neither has revealed the least little thing about the other,” she commented, stepping back.
“You find my air of mystery alluring,” he said.
“What—” She swallowed. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the howl of the dry, blowing wind. “What gives you the idea that you are so alluring?”
“Ah, but I didn’t say that. I said that you find me fascinating. It’s not my fault, but you do.”
“I certainly do not.”
“Sweet Kate, when you punched me in the jaw with such ardor, I could only conclude that I arouse a strong passion in you. And then when you sneaked out here to be with me, I felt even more certain of your feelings.”
“You are insolent,” she said, grateful for the many hours she had spent studying with Deborah. She could stand up to this clever, clever man, just see if she couldn’t. Long after her mistress had lost interest in her studies, Kathleen had absorbed all the lessons of the best tutors money could buy. “You are arrogant,” she said to Dylan. “You are manipulative, sly and completely wrong about me.”
He had a swift and elegant way of moving, and he employed it now, pressing her against the figured stone balustrade. He filled her field of vision—snowy white shirt and a white silk cravat framed by the beautifully tailored, slightly worn lapels of a dark frock coat.
“We like each other, Kate. We both felt the attraction.”
She tossed her head, trying to appear unintimidated by his nearness. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do, and it matters not at all.” Very lightly, shockingly, he put his finger at the base of her throat, brushing the emeralds and diamonds of her necklace. “I know your game, Kate.”
“And pray, what is that?” She spoke playfully, enjoying this far too much.
“I know what’s under your dress,” he said.
Saints alive. He knew about her muslin underclothes.
“Beneath this gorgeous milk-white breast beats the heart of a guilty woman—”
“Sir, you forget yourself.” Letting a man speak of one’s breasts was absolutely taboo. It was so taboo that no one had even told her such talk was forbidden. She just knew.
“Tell me, what would your family think if they knew you were here?” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken.
Heavens, but he was right about the guilt. She pictured her simple, loving family and felt like the ingrate of the world for pretending to be something she was not. They would see it as a rejection of their way of life, their values, when in fact, it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with Kathleen and a dream inside her that refused to die. But for the moment she was more concerned with fending off this man who seemed to see right through her.
“My family loves and supports me in all I do.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Sounds promising. And unusual for the heiress to a fortune. So they would not worry that you had come to hear an evangelist, a good Catholic girl like you?”
She tried not to show her relief. “Sir, my family would be far more worried about your attentions.”
“Don’t you want to know how I guessed your secret?”
“How?” she asked cautiously, though she knew it was the holy card.
“Because I am just like you, my sweet.”
She nearly laughed at how wrong he was. How shocked he would be if he understood what that truly meant—that she came from a poor family with no property, no prospects. “Catholic, you mean? You’ve already said so.”
“I am anything you want me to be. What do you want, Kate? What do you want?”
Every word dried, unspoken, on her tongue. Every thought flickered and disappeared like the sparks flying through the night sky. It was extraordinary. In all her life, no one had ever asked Kathleen O’Leary what she wanted. She was told with great frequency what she should do or must accomplish. But never had anyone posed the simple, straightforward question to her. No one waited so avidly to hear her answer.
And she discovered, in the long breathless moments that stretched between them, that she did not know the answer.
Until now, her life had been about what she didn’t want. She didn’t want the hardscrabble workaday life her parents endured. She didn’t want to marry a dockyard clerk and crank out baby after baby, year after year. She did not want—and saints in heaven preserve her—to be ordinary.
Now here was this extraordinary man, promising her anything.
“You haven’t answered me, Kate,” he reminded her, gently prodding. “What do you want?”
“For this night to go on forever,” she blurted out, and even as she spoke, she realized it was the most honest thing she could have said. From the moment she had donned the Worth gown, she had felt like a different person. Someone better, more important. Of course, it was all an illusion. She knew that. But the magic was as strong and seductive as Dylan Kennedy himself.
“I like that answer.” He whispered the words into the shell of her ear.
He was going to kiss her, she realized. He moved slowly, deliberately. Not with the clumsy urgent hunger of other men who had tried to kiss her. He knew what he wanted and took his time getting it. He placed his knuckles softly beneath her chin and directed her gaze to his. Then he bent from the waist, almost formally as if making an elegant bow. His lips touched hers lightly, so lightly she wasn’t sure she had felt it at all. She sensed the subtle warmth of his breath, scented with brandy, and an exquisite intimacy thrummed between them, so poignant that all of their lighthearted banter could not mask the fact that she grew suddenly thick-throated with yearning.
He kissed her as though nothing existed but her. As though she were the only other living soul on earth. As though he existed for the sole purpose of kissing her.
She had never believed she could be moved by a man’s touch, or even by his kiss. Certainly on rare occasions there might have been a flash of excitement when a suitor stole a peck on the mouth, but what she experienced in Dylan Kennedy’s arms went far beyond mere titillation. Her heart was engaged by this man, and he roused emotions more poignant and moving than anything she had ever felt. A longing seared her, and even as she reveled in his kiss, she knew why this experience was so overwhelming.
He was showing her, in this single, perfect crystal of a moment, all that she wanted, and all she could never have.
She surrendered to him utterly, softening and growing pliant in his arms. Here was a man who had probably held royal princesses in his embrace, handled blooded horses and business deals worth a staggering fortune.
In one single moment she wanted it all. She wanted to experience his life of bold, glittering excess. She imagined awakening in an airy, light-filled chamber with a gentle swish of organdy curtains. Breakfast would be served on bone china by white-gloved servants, and they would spend the day surveying their beautiful estate. In the evening they would attend a musicale, visiting with friends who laughed easily, made lighthearted conversation and admired the famous Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.
Long after he stopped kissing her, she kept her eyes closed and her face angled toward his. Only the silken rustle of his laughter startled her back to reality. She blinked like a dreamer, awakening to find him laughing down at her.
“Where the devil are you, Kate?” he asked.
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I want to go there.”
Feeling sheepish, she stepped away from him. He tilted his head, peering shamelessly down her bodice. She smacked him on the shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound at all contrite. “I was just checking.”
“Checking what?”
“To see where that blush of yours starts. I’m having all sorts of ideas.”
This was how wealthy, privileged people behaved. This delicious flirtation with an edge of the forbidden. And she wanted it. Oh, how she wanted it.
A spark drifted past, alighting on her bare arm, and she brushed away the hot sting. A frisson of fear touched her like the ember. “I don’t think that strayed from a chimney pot,” she said.
“Could be a leftover from last night’s blaze at Conley’s Patch,” he remarked.
She frowned. Conley’s Patch was known as the devil’s acre, a lowly ramshackle neighborhood of saloons and brothels on the south side. How would a man like Dylan Kennedy know the first thing about the Patch?
Disconcerted, she turned to look out at the city. The sun had set hours before, but an orange glow painted the sky to the west.
“I think the fire’s spreading fast,” she said, worried.
At that same moment, the French door banged open. The wind slapped it against the building and one of the panes shattered. Lucy blustered forward and grabbed Kathleen’s arm.
“We’ve got to go,” she said. “We must get back to Miss Boylan’s before the bridges get too clogged with traffic.”
Kathleen pulled her arm away, and the cord of her reticule slid off her shoulder. “But—”
“There are rumors of a fire.”
“The fires aren’t just rumors,” Dylan said calmly. “There’ve been six a day and more because of the drought.”
Lucy regarded Dylan with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t worry, Miss Hathaway,” he said smoothly. “I was not behaving offensively.”
“Why not?” she asked. “All men do.”
Kathleen guessed she’d had a run-in with Mr. Higgins. “We really must go,” she said, reluctantly agreeing with Lucy.
“Yes, we must be getting back. Miss Boylan was quite insistent,” Lucy said. “Our curfew is ten o’clock.”
Even Cinderella had her midnight, Kathleen thought. But Cinderella was nothing but a story in a book, a dream of a magical evening that could never come true. Kathleen lived in Chicago, fires were troubling the city and it was foolish to cling to the masquerade any longer.
But she did have her private fantasies. She wanted Dylan Kennedy to think back on this night and remember the mysterious, sophisticated young woman who had kissed him with forbidden intimacy.
And so, in full view of Lucy, she wound her arms around his neck and planted a long, impassioned kiss on his mouth.
Chapter Three
Just like that, she was gone.
But Dylan could still taste the phantom sweetness of her, lingering on his lips. He could still detect the pliant warmth of her mouth pressed to his.
He could still feel the hard heat of the passion she inspired, and he was compelled to wait out on the balcony until he was fit for mixed company. Blowing out a breath of exasperation, he ran his finger around his collar, yearning to loosen his cravat. He couldn’t, of course. A gentleman never appeared with a less than perfectly tied cravat.
It was a great burden, being the most eligible bachelor in Chicago. If he’d realized the ruse was going to be this much trouble, he might have chosen something else—a divine prophet, perhaps, or a blind man. The guises had worked for him before.
Dylan Francis Kennedy, known in various other venues as the marquis de Bontemps, Sir Percival Blake, the Prophet Jephtha, and Dirk Steele—Man of the Comstock, used to consider himself the luckiest fellow in the whole U.S. of A. He breezed through life, donning different identities with the same ease as trying on a new chapeau. With his affable grin, his unusual physical abilities and his flamboyant style, he had fleeced a living from the smug, the self-satisfied, the richer-than-God, and he made no apologies for it.
But unfortunately, he’d arrived in Chicago with the notorious Vincent Costello dogging his heels. Under normal circumstances, Dylan would have the means to dodge his former partner. The smell of money never failed to put Vince off the scent. But this time, things were complicated.
This time, Dylan was flat broke.
Worse, Costello was flat broke, too. That made him cranky and unpredictable.
Dylan had arrived “from the Continent”—that always impressed the right people—with less than two bits to his name. The very notion grated. There had been times when he had stood poised just inches from total success, only to have a deal go bad or a mark wise up. He usually had a knack for salvaging something from the ashes.
Not this time. This time, escape had cost him everything, including the clothes on his back. He had wanted a change from the life of burlesque performing and carnival tricks that had kept him and Costello in the money. He’d grown tired of thrilling the crowds with his daredevil tricks while Vince picked pockets and collected wager markers from the onlookers. Most of all, he’d needed to escape Costello’s daughter Faith, who had imprisoned him with the mistaken belief that he would marry her.
During a stint in Buffalo, Dylan decided the time had come to disappear. He had to get away from them, for they were getting too close in ways that made him hot under the collar. He didn’t know how to be close to people, and he didn’t want to know.
And so, on a bet, the famous marquis de Bontemps was to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Dylan had done the stunt several times, curiously unperturbed by the violence of the raging cataract that lured so many tourists and daredevils from around the world. He studied the odds, chose his spot, measured his chances and then, while hundreds watched one evening, he had done the unthinkable. He had fallen. He’d gone over Niagara Falls. The horrified people who had watched him plunge to his death, who had wept to see a fine young man cut down in his prime, had forgotten all about the wager. And Dylan, who had carefully practiced the maneuver of falling, clinging to the underside of a boulder, then pulling himself along a cable to the Canadian side, had fought his way to shore in the dark. He had stolen away to the west, leaving his partner behind.
Or so he had thought. Costello probably grew suspicious when no body was recovered. Dylan should have known Costello would hunt him down like a bloodhound. Bleed him dry like a stuck pig. Or worse, make him marry Faith like a decent man.
Dylan needed a big touch, and he needed it soon.
Pressing his fist on the carved concrete rail of the balcony, he cursed the timing of the fire. And here of all places. He and all his aliases were unknown in Chicago, so he’d considered the city fertile ground for reinventing himself. He had finagled a spot on every elite guest list in town, but the masquerade would be over if someone discovered his serious cash flow problems. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep up the illusion of being the man of the hour.
The woman in the green silk gown had fluttered into his life like a petal on a breeze. No, he corrected himself, like a guardian angel. When he had met the heiress, who let him address her by the delightful nickname “Kate,” he thought his prayers had been answered. Her gown was Worth, her diamonds were genuine and her looks and personality enchanting.
She was clearly loaded with a fortune that needed a bit of lightening—preferably by Dylan. Pushing his face into the swirling hot tempest, he rotated his shoulders and glared out at the distant horizon, shimmering now with a fire in the west. It was going to be a long night.
“Damn,” he said, letting the howling wind snatch the curse away. And again, “Damn.”
He had been so close to winning her over. Even when he thought he’d have to work to earn her kisses, she had simply given him one. Given him a kiss and left, a spark on the wind.
If only he’d had a little more time, he would have succeeded with her. He could sense the opening bud of her interest. He almost dared to think he’d actually enjoy stealing from her. Generally, spoiled heiresses were a tough lot. They required a great deal of maintenance: cosseting, flattery, heartfelt pronouncements of utter devotion, promises from the bottom of his heart. Not this one. She was beautiful and merry. He would have had fun taking a fortune from her. She would have loved being taken by him.
Sadly for him, she had disappeared before he could learn more about her, capture her heart and steal her money. Perhaps he could track her down at…whose house were they going to? Miss Boylan? Who the hell was Miss Boylan?
