Patricia Potter (23 page)

Quinn’s hand hovered near her face in case she screamed, but it became immediately evident that she, for some reason of her own, had decided against it. Still, although her movements quieted, her eyes spat angry flames at him. A number of emotions flitted across them—fear, anger, humiliation—and then, quite intriguingly, they all disappeared, and he found the same blankness, the same vacuousness he had seen in them before.

She was marvelous at the game, and he felt a certain admiration flow through him. Quite obviously, she had weighed her situation and decided to let him make the next move.

Almost gratefully, he heard Cam’s distinctive knock on the door.

He leaned over Meredith, his finger on her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You
will
be silent.”

The gold flecks in her eyes flashed rebelliously.

“I could gag you,” he said. “Believe me, it would hurt you more than it would me.” There was a cold menace in his voice that made the threat a promise.

She bit her lip and nodded. He could tell that she was bitterly resentful that she was being forced to obey him. She was having a difficult time hiding her anger, which, at the moment, amused him.

Quinn stalked to the door, prepared to pounce back instantly if she uttered the slightest sound. He opened it, gave her one last searching look, and stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

Cam looked as if he had very little sleep. His eyes were red, and there were lines around his mouth. He looked at Quinn curiously. “Capt’n?”

“Miss Seaton is inside,” Quinn announced quietly.

Cam’s eyes widened. He had not missed the bristling hostility in the Seaton woman whenever she was in Quinn’s presence.

Quinn grinned, understanding. “It’s not exactly voluntary,” he explained. “She’s trussed up like a Christmas turkey.”

Cam waited patiently, knowing more information would be forthcoming and that he had been summoned for a reason.

“I found her at Elias’s warehouse, snooping. She saw the new shipment entering there.”

Cam’s large hands balled. “A spy, then?”

Quinn shrugged. “I can’t think of another explanation.”

“And Friend Sprague?”

“I didn’t stop to ask him. You know how he feels about violence.”

The words hung in the air with all the implications.

“What are you goin’ do?” Cam asked finally.

“I don’t know,” Quinn said with the first hesitancy Cam had ever seen in him. “First I have to find out exactly what she’s up to, and why.”

“Daphne?”

“This complicates the hell out of everything, doesn’t it?” Quinn said. “Go get her. She should be at the hotel.” He hesitated, then continued. “If anyone asks, you can say you have a message for Miss Seaton but, for God’s sakes, try to avoid everyone.” He shook his head slowly. “Be very careful, Cam. This might be the end of the
Lucky Lady’s
role in the Underground. I don’t want it to be the end of you too.”

“I’ll be back by dawn,” Cam promised.

“Before bringing her on board, leave her in the shadows and get me. I’ll distract the watchman while you take her to the cargo deck.”

Cam nodded, then turned quickly on his heels and left.

Quinn remained outside the room, his hand on the doorknob. He felt sick with failure, with the prospective loss of everything he had worked for. Damn Meredith Seaton to hell and back.

His jaw set angrily, he reentered and found her eyes on him. She was still, but he knew from the mess the bed was in that she had tried frantically to free herself in those few minutes he was gone. And then what would she have tried doing? His eyes went around the room, resting on a pistol that lay on top of his desk. He knew, from the way she averted her eyes too quickly, that she had seen it.

“Bloodthirsty as well as a snoop,” he said conversationally. But there was a warning in his voice. “Now tell me why you were in such an odd part of town in the wee hours of the morning.” It was an order, not a question.

“It’s none of your business,” she retorted.

“I’m making it my business, Miss Seaton.”

“You have no right to do this.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he agreed amiably. “Unfortunately you’re in no position to complain.”

Meredith disliked his sudden friendliness much more than the menacing hostility of a few minutes earlier. It was much more intimidating for some reason. “Your brother—”

“I think my brother would be aghast at both of us, Meredith,” he interrupted silkily. “I doubt if he would think much of your midnight forays, not to mention trespassing and snooping. He might cut your allowance. Of course, I might do something far more…extreme.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Ah, but you were, my dear Meredith. And don’t tell me we’re not familiar enough to use first names, not after you boarded my boat in my arms and made such a charming disarray of my bed.”

Horrified at the suggestiveness of his remark, she could only stare at him.

His voice hardened. “What were you doing there?”

“Where?”

“Come, Meredith, this loss of memory is becoming too convenient.” His gloved hand touched her chin, forcing her to look straight into his eyes. “Don’t play any more games with me.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do. But we will start from the beginning. Why were you hiding in the trees well after midnight?”

Meredith fought to turn her eyes from his, but they were locked there, just as securely as her arms were bound together. Despite the calm tone of his voice, the seeming mildness of his questions, his eyes, those dark blue eyes, were furious. Furious and magnetic. “I…I couldn’t sleep and went for a walk and…I was lost. I saw the light and thought I would ask directions.”

He grinned sardonically, amusement joining the anger in his eyes. “Surely you can do better than that, sweet Meredith.”

Surely she
could
do better than that, Meredith thought sourly, but right now a better explanation eluded her. She was tired and sore, and her head hurt. Her thoughts were as jumbled as the interior of a child’s toy box. She decided to attack, instead. “What right do you—a blackguard, a gambler, an…an abductor of women—have to interrogate me? I demand you let me go.” She tried to sit up, to maintain some dignity, but her damned skirt rode up again, and she saw his eyes go to her ankles. He smiled lecherously.

“Why don’t you yell for help?” he taunted. Her not doing so puzzled him.

“Because,” she retorted, “you would probably hit me again.”

He had no reply. No matter what he thought she was, he couldn’t completely suppress the flash of guilt for having already struck her. The purple bruise on her face seemed more severe than before, and he winced, noting the grim satisfaction in her eyes as he did so.

She was, he told himself, a consummate actress. He moved closer and saw her involuntarily flinch. “Damn,” he said, “but you’re going to tell me what I want to know or…”

“Or what?” This time she was the one who taunted. She was now certain he wouldn’t physically hurt her, not again, and the knowledge showed in her face.

Quinn saw some of her fear fade, and he cursed himself for showing even a smidgen of remorse. But there was another way…a way other than violence to torment her. Pleasure.

He had sensed her reluctant response to him before, had felt her passion in their few kisses, and recalled her frantic escapes. This time there would be no escape.

He stood and walked over to a bureau and, knowing her eyes were following every move, took a knife from a drawer and returned to her side. He leaned down over her, the steel blade shining in the lamplight. Although her eyes never left the blade, she didn’t flinch, and once again, he secretly applauded her.

Quinn slowly cut the cloak away from her. Then very deliberately he laid the knife on a table and took off his gloves. It no longer mattered that she saw his hands, knew they were not those of a gentleman. His left hand moved sensuously across the bodice of her modest dress. Even through the barrier of material, she felt the fire of his touch. It seeped in through the cloth, through the skin, until it reached the core of her, taunting, teasing, arousing.

“No,” she whispered.

“Ah yes, love.” He was practically purring. Like a cat. A jungle cat. A very, very dangerous sensuous animal. “I’ve been wanting to do this since we became…reacquainted on my boat.”

She squirmed frantically, which served only to drag her dress up to her thighs. He reached down and ran his fingers along the length of her legs, caressing and inciting until he could feel her tremble under the slightest pressure. He marveled at the passion he sensed in her, at the glowing embers that needed only the slightest fuel, the merest provocation, to burst into roaring flames. His hands moved farther up her legs, encountering her pantalets, which he shoved up. Kneading, massaging her flesh, he moved nearer to her private place. Her movements became even more frantic as she moaned. He could feel the reaction of her body, the way it strained toward him and heated under his touch. But as he continued, he felt his own body responding and wondered if his punishment was not equal to, even greater than, hers.

“You bastard,” she spit out in anguish.

“What language for a lady,” Quinn said smoothly, trying to smother the growing ache in himself, to hide his own agonizing need. His hands continued to move with seductive sweetness, with an expertise that had always won him whichever lady he wanted. He had often used his hands to give pleasure, to simulate affection, for he had never been able to give his heart. Not since Morgana.

She shuddered and bit her lips. He could see a drop of blood trickle from one. “Please…”

“Why were you on Canal Street?”

“Damn you to hell.”

He leaned down and licked the drop of blood from her mouth, then nuzzled her lips with a tenderness she would have treasured if she hadn’t known he was doing it for nefarious purposes.

She bit him.

He cursed, tasting his own blood as well as hers. His hands left her leg and went to his lips, touching the cut, feeling the blood flow from it.

Quinn looked down at her. There was no victory on her face. If anything, there was a slight expression of guilt and regret. And intense scrutiny.

How had he ever thought her simpleminded?

As he gazed into chocolate-brown eyes that were as complex and mysterious as the Mississippi itself, he felt his whole body tense with craving. A craving to continue his exploration of her body, to awaken that passion so evident under the carefully composed veneer. He ached to tear it away and discover the real Meredith Seaton.

But he knew he would get no further now. His own emotions, which he had fought for years to conceal, were too close to the surface. He needed time to reconstruct his barriers, to cool the need within him.

Quinn slowly rose and tore two more strips from the tangled sheet. With one, he tied her already-bound feet to the end of his bed, and looped the other around her wrists, securing them to a bedpost. When he was through, she could barely move.

Reluctantly, he tore a third piece and gagged her, disregarding the plea in her eyes.

“I have to leave for a short while,” he said. “I’ll have the same questions when I return. And I
will
have them answered. One way or another. You have about an hour to consider your options. Or lack of them.”

She lowered those incredible lashes, and once more he thought how vulnerable she looked.

As vulnerable as a cottonmouth snake, he told himself.

Still, he liked himself a good deal less when he left than when he had risen twenty hours earlier.

He hoped like hell that Cam was having better luck than he was.

Meredith opened her eyes when she heard him move away. She saw him kill the flame in the gas lamp, plunging the room into darkness. The draperies had already been closed when she first woke from unconsciousness.

She saw just the barest outline of his stiff back at the door, and heard it opening and closing, a key then grating in the lock.

It was then that total despair enveloped her.

The gag chafed her mouth, momentarily making her panic. If only he knew he did not need it. She had no desire to scream or sound an alarm. This was the last place on earth she wanted to be found.

She tried to move her hands, to wriggle free, which, she knew now, was her only escape. But although the cloth did not bite into her skin, it was, nonetheless, snug and secure, and the more she moved, the tighter the bonds seemed to become. Captain Devereux was not the careless man he sometimes pretended to be.

Dear God, what did he want? And why had he been at the warehouse? What did he know?

Was he working with the Carroll brothers? Why else would he have invited them to sup with him?

There were those missing years no one would talk about, years when he had completely disappeared. She had heard the speculation, the whispers, but no one seemed to really know anything. Could he have been involved with the illegal slave trade even back then? Was that how he had made his fortune? For she knew he was very rich. Her brother had made that clear when she had protested the shipping arrangement between them. Surely Quinn Devereux had not acquired his wealth through gambling. No one was that good.