Broken Vows (31 page)

      
She pouted, sticking out her heavy lower lip in a moue that usually melted men to puddles. “I'm far more beautiful than that skinny stick. Whatever do you see in her, Rory?” She nudged his arm with one lush breast as a reminder of the bounteous charms virtually spilling from her Worth gown.

      
“That, pet, is none of your concern.” He turned to her at last, offering her his arm. “Just smile and be—er, affectionate as is your usual charming wont.” Raising one eyebrow in a sardonic gesture, he winked at her, then led her toward the festivities.

      
Rebekah knew Amos had seen Rory. She could feel his whole body tense in anger when he danced by them with Senator Paisley's wife clinging to him like a leech.

      
“Cheap, vulgar woman. Paisley's a fool to turn her loose in public,” he muttered beneath his breath.

      
Rebekah knew better than to bait him by replying, or to let her eyes follow Rory's arresting figure. Dressed in formal evening clothes that hugged every inch of that lean, muscled body, he drew admiring female glances around the room. Not yet thirty, he was already one of the richest men in a state known for millionaires. The sapphire studs winking in understated elegance from his snowy white shirtfront and cuffs attested to the fact.

      
While most of the elite were balding, toothless, or fat, he was in his prime. A few premature silver hairs at his temples only added to his mysterious air of brooding Irish charm. Now that he had made his fortune, being Irish was no longer a liability. In fact, the lilt of his accent seemed more pronounced as she heard him exchange jovial remarks with Senator Sheffield across the room.

      
By contrast, Amos, once so dapper and distinguished, had deteriorated over the past years. His salt-and-pepper hair was washed out and thinning now, and the thick muscles of his barrel chest seemed to have slipped downward to form a paunch that even the most expensive tailoring could not conceal. Fleshy lines of dissipation from late-night drinking marred his once handsome face, unmasking the cruelty within his soul.

      
Rory the ruthless charmer, Amos the cunning despoiler.
Rebekah shuddered, thankful to have neither of them in her solitary bed. Let that Paisley witch fornicate with Madigan tonight! Yet she dared not ignore his request to meet him. What did he know about Amos that could place her husband in grave danger—and herself along with him?

      
Over the years, Rebekah had learned as little as possible about Amos' shady business practices and political chicanery. The less she knew, the better she could sleep nights.
As if I could change anything if I did know the sordid details.
Whether his fortune rose or fell, she was tied to him, with Michael an innocent pawn she would protect at any cost.

      
Shortly before eleven p.m., when Senator Sheffield's huge triple-tiered cake was wheeled into the room amid laughter and applause, Rebekah slipped away through the crowd. She prayed Amos would not miss her, nor the crotchety and keen-sighted old curmudgeon, Horace Sheffield, when he asked for help blowing out all those candles. Having been a frequent visitor to the mansion, she had no trouble finding the library at the end of the long hallway in the west wing.

      
The room was dark and silent when she peered in. Glancing up and down the deserted corridor to be certain she was not followed, Rebekah slipped inside and closed the door, then moved slowly across the thick carpet. Where was the blasted switch for the gaslights?

      
Suddenly, a tall figure moved from behind one of the floor-to-ceiling freestanding bookcases in the center of the room. She jumped back and started to scream, but hard fingers covered her mouth and held her jaw immobilized as a man's muscled arm pulled her firmly against his chest.

      
“I doubt anyone would hear you over the racket down the hall, but I'd advise against screaming. Think of the scandal if we were caught together in the dark.”

      
Rory's voice was a low purr. He held her back pressed against him as his hand slid down her throat and around the curve of her breast. She could feel the heat of his breath and see in the moonlight streaming through the window that once beloved hand, still sun-darkened and callused in spite of his elegant new lifestyle. How pale her breast looked in contrast. How achingly familiar the old tightening and swelling when he cupped the globe through its sheer silk covering. His throaty chuckle indicated that he felt her body betray her.

      
“Let me go, Rory.” She was proud of the steadiness of her voice but could not stop her pulse from racing or her body from trembling.

      
He turned her around in his arms but did not free her. “I wondered if you'd come. The preacher's prim daughter on a moonlight tryst.”

      
“This is no tryst.” She wriggled ungracefully free of his arms, which abruptly fell away as he reached over and turned up the lights. Blinking in the sudden brightness, she glared angrily at him. “I came because you said Amos and I are in grave danger—not to dally with you.”

      
His eyes swept over her. “A moment ago, I could have sworn I detected quite a different response, darlin'.”

      
“Don't call me that. I'm not your darlin'. I never really was.”

      
“No, you weren't.” Rory kept his expression sardonically cool and detached while he drank in her loveliness. The deep violet silk made her hazel-green eyes turn almost gray and brought out the bronzed highlights of her dark golden hair. She seemed to grow more beautiful every time they met. “Have you ever regretted your hasty bargain with Wells? Just think, if you'd waited a few years, I could've bought you Worth gowns and amethysts,” he said as his hand caressed the delicate lavender stones encircling her throat, then trailed lower to where the largest oval stone nestled in the deep vale between her breasts.

      
She felt her heart accelerate until she was certain it would leap from her chest. Unwittingly, she took a step backward, trying to break the spell. “If you lured me here only to add me to your string of conquests—”

      
His mocking laughter cut off her protest. “You were already one of my conquests. Or have you become such a staid society matron that you've blotted our brief liaison from your memory?”

      
“No, I haven't forgotten our
brief liaison
, as you so charmingly put it. Nor have I forgotten your threats back in Washington four years ago. I'll never come to you for anything, Rory Madigan.” She started to walk past him, furiously angry for coming to humiliate herself in this cruel hoax of his.

      
His arm barred her way as he reached out and placed his palm against the end of the bookcase. He stepped toward her and pulled her into his arms again. “Don't be so certain of that. I happen to know your husband's political fortunes are on the decline. So are his business interests.”

      
She stood rigidly within the circle of his arms, her nails biting into her palms as she struggled to regain her poise. “Amos has lost his bid for a second term as senator. I know you had a hand in it.”

      
He shook his head reprovingly. “So little wifely concern, Rebekah. Could it be you have as much reason as I to want him brought low?”

      
“Why should you care about him or me? Why this vendetta, Rory? Just because you were a poor Irish Catholic and my family favored Amos Wells over you?”

      
He refused to give her the satisfaction of knowing how flayed he had been, returning to Wellsville with those rings in his vest pocket, learning of her marriage, watching her dance with Wells' filthy hands all over her. “Your family has sterling taste indeed. They favored a murderer.”

      
She blanched. “Amos is many things...but murder...I don't believe you. You're just as filled with prejudice and hate as the good citizens of Wellsville were.”

      
“I have far better reason for my hate. Remember when I told you my brother Ryan was killed in a mining explosion?”

      
Cold dread washed over her. “No! Not Amos.” Her protest was desperate. She had seen her husband's cruelty and ruthlessness firsthand.

      
“Yes, Amos. Surely you've heard about the way speculators hold miners prisoner underground?”

      
She nodded. “To start false rumors about a big strike—or keep word of one from getting out until they buy up the stock cheap.”

      
Rory could see from her expression of dawning horror that she understood. “I have proof Wells was involved in half-a-dozen explosions. Unfortunately, not the first one at the Silver Lady back in '64 when Ryan died, but more than enough others since then to send him to prison for life.”

      
“No!” She put her hands on her ears as the room spun around her and a great roaring noise seemed to fill her head.

      
He pried her hands away and forced her to hear him out. “It's only a matter of time until the investigators sift through all the evidence. Once Patrick and I got our first piece of solid information, his whole filthy operation began to unravel.”

      
She looked up into his face, once so beloved, still as handsome even though etched by the years and his bitterness. “I understand now why you hate him, but why me?”

      
“Perhaps I don't hate you, darlin'—any more than you hate me.” He let one hand caress the elegant line of her cheekbone, then move to her lips and lower yet down her throat. His fingertips teased around the low décolletage of her gown, grazing sensuously over the creamy swells of her breasts. He could feel the pulse racing frantically in her throat and knew she felt the old pull just as he did. And resented it just as he did.

      
“Once Amos is in prison, you'll be penniless. I think we'll derive mutual pleasure when you become my mistress.”

Chapter Fourteen

      
Rebekah slapped him so hard that her hand stung. The noise echoed around the high-ceilinged room as she tried to move past him, but Rory was too quick for her. He seized one slender wrist and turned her around to face him. The red handprint stained his cheek. Her own cheeks were filled with high color from the fury his insult had generated.

      
“Let me go, you insufferable bastard!” She twisted under his hurtful grip.

      
“Not until I'm good and ready,” he said in an implacable voice.

      
“I'll scream the house down, birthday celebration or not!”

      
He grinned sharkishly. “I doubt it. What would Amos say?”

      
“Why do you think I won't go to him and warn him about your plans to destroy him?” Foolish question! She berated herself the instant she blurted out the angry words.

      
“For the same reason you sent me that note warning me about him four years ago in Washington. You were right. Someone did try to kill me. You know what your husband is. Could you still hold some guilty bit of tender feeling for me?”

      
He studied her with fathomless blue eyes, watchful, perhaps uncertain, she was not sure. “Don't be absurd!”

      
“Or maybe you were only trying to frighten me away from dear Amos then. But now—now you must realize you're both in over your heads. His house of cards will crash down around him, and you'll be dragged under too, unless—”

      
“Why? Why do you want me now?” Her expression changed from anger to hurt bewilderment. He had thrown away her love, deserted his child eight years ago. What kind of cruel game did he play? Surely, he had not found out about Michael! Panic welled up inside her.
He can't know!

      
Rory watched the play of emotions sweep over her face and tried to read the truth. All he could see were the small golden flecks swimming in her green eyes. “You're quite an actress,” he finally said with a sigh of disgust, releasing her wrist.

      
She stood rubbing it where his fingers had bitten into the tender white flesh, too afraid to move as her thoughts tumbled over each other in chaos.

      
“I'm sorry,” he said softly, his hands gentle as he took her arm and raised it to plant a soft kiss on the bruise forming on her wrist. “Once your skin was golden from working in the hot Nevada sun...in a cabbage patch.”

      
“Don't—please.” His coldness, even his cruel, degrading insults, she could endure better than the invading desire engendered when he evoked old memories. “Please let me go, Rory.” Damn, she was begging!

      
“For now, Rebekah. Only for now,” he said, placing one last soft salute on the inside of her palm.

      
She snatched her hand away as if he had scalded her and ran from the room.

* * * *

      
When Rory's note arrived the next morning, she was having a late breakfast with Amos. Her husband had insisted on discussing their social agenda for the forthcoming weeks. Normally, her routine was to rise at dawn, eat lightly, and go for an early morning ride before the heat of the day became oppressive. Amos, who often conducted late night meetings and drank to excess, slept late. Their paths crossed as little as possible except for the political events during which she was on display as his ornamental wife.

      
“What's that?” he said, frowning over his coffee as he poured an extra dollop of cream and stirred it.

      
She folded the note and slipped it onto her lap before her hands betrayed her trembling. “Just an invitation from Celia to go shopping this afternoon,” she replied with feigned calm, praying he would not demand to see the invitation to a tryst with Michael's father.