Shadow Play (6 page)

She took another breath, gazed out at the sea, and began again. "There is some money, but not much. Perhaps enough to finance the journey, but beyond that... of course, you'll expect to be paid generously for your trouble. Perhaps some arrangements could be made.''

"Perhaps."

Silence fell again while she gathered her courage to face him. She found him watching her intently under hooded eyes. A ribbon of pale gray smoke streamed up from his cigarette and disappeared in the dark above his blacker- than-night hair.

He took up his whiskey glass arid slid away from the wall, tucked the cigarette between his lips, and walked past her to the doorway where he stood for a long moment, one hand in his pants pocket, the other swirling his liquor as he perused the room's interior. As he entered, Sarah hurried to follow, watching him guardedly. He moved through the house occasionally reaching for a silver candlestick, an ornamental vase, a porcelain figurine, replacing each carefully on its pedestal before returning to the dining room, where he paused in front of her portrait. He removed the cigarette from his mouth before looking at her over his shoulder.

"How much money do you have?"

She glanced about the room.

"Those silver candlesticks won't fetch a farthing," he told her, his eyes on the painting again. "And while the vases may have a great deal of sentimental value, they're worth nothing on the docks. How much cash do you have, Miss St. James?"

"Five hundred pounds," she snapped.

"I'll do it for a thousand."

"But—"

She bit off her words as he turned his back on her and returned to the veranda. She stalked after him, anger and frustration coloring her cheeks. She stopped abruptly as she came face-to-face with him at the door, and the sudden memory of her body pressing against his the night before flooded through her. Yet she could not look away even for a moment. She could not move. Even as a large moth fluttered in the air between them, battering its wings around the glass of the glowing oil lamp over the American's shoulder, she could think of nothing but the brooding slant of his mouth as it closed around the moist end of his cigarette one last time.

He inhaled deeply, then flicked the butt away without looking from her face. At last he smiled. "You're a very savvy young woman, Miss St. James, but not quite savvy enough to outfox a fox. You see, I was here a week ago, as you recall." He leaned against the doorframe. "You've replaced the more expensive pieces with a lot of cheap reproductions, no doubt thinking that I might accept a few of these worthless trinkets instead of money. I'm quite certain that even those diamonds twinkling on your lovely little ears are paste."

She blinked and grew angrier.

The American laughed, a throaty rumble that vibrated to her toes. He touched her cheek with his fingers. "I might have been born on the wrong side of the river,
ma chere,
but I'm wise enough to know that the aristocracy doesn't flaunt its wealth to anyone who might have a tow sack tucked down the back of his pants. So tell me,
chere,
what exactly are you willing to sacrifice to save your father's reputation?''

He slid his hard fingers around her nape and pulled her closer, so close his whiskey-warm breath brushed her mouth as he looked into her eyes. Instinctively, she braced her hands against his chest and felt his heart hammering against her fingertips. As his shirt turned warm and moist against her palms, the idea occurred to her that he might be drunk.

His eyes were very bright, his thick hair lightly ruffled by the breeze. She did not move, but watched his mouth and eyes turn as dark and moody as they had been the night before. Something turned over inside her that was neither anger nor fear. She shuddered in anticipation, vaguely aware that she had leaned closer to him, could feel the heat of his body warming her even through her clothes. For a shocking instant she imagined his big hand sliding down the small of her back and cupping her buttock, pressing her close...

Her eyes drifted shut and she wondered if she had imbibed too much wine with her meal. She felt entranced, like one on the verge of sleep, foreseeing the recurrence of some agreeable dream. She became dizzy, her body limp. Her shape molded to his as his hand slid down her spine, all five fingers splaying wide over the exposed portion of her back where her dress swooped down between her shoulder blades. Her skin burned

where he touched her. Her heart pounded.

With all her effort she forced open her eyes. His head was bent low over hers, his lips parted and poised above her mouth as tenuously as a hummingbird above nectar. In the periphery of her mind a voice cried out to flee; he was dangerous, and she was an engaged woman, after all. She shouldn't be within a mile of a man like Morgan Kane...

Yet she could do nothing but clutch at the lapels of his coat in an endeavor to stay on her feet while his dark hand came up to wrap around her throat and tip up her chin with his thumb.

He kissed her.

First with his mouth.

Then with his tongue.

Just as he'd kissed the woman the night before, sliding between her lips and into her mouth, making lazy, swirling motions inside her so that she felt delirious and furious and shocked all at once. She managed a small, strangled sound of protest and tried to squirm away. He paused only long enough to say,' 'You said this venture was worth everything you own. Does that also include you,
chere?"

He kissed her again, harder this time, burying his free hand in her hair, his fingers gripping her skull to keep her in place. She clutched at his shoulders, then, doubling her hands into fists, drove them into his chest with all her strength, fighting her body's own scandalous response as much as his use of blatant, brutal force. Then with stunning quickness he spun her toward the wall, pressed her against it, his knee shoved between her legs in an effort to pin her there. His hand closed over her breast and squeezed.

For an eternal moment she couldn't think or move. The shock of what his tongue was doing to her mouth was so strong that at first she failed to realize that his fingers had worked her nipple into a hard, throbbing core that jutted up like a pebble between his thumb and forefinger. Then her entire body came alive under his hand, growing and straining and burning in a hot stream of fire that reached all the way to that sensitive place that was becoming hotter and wetter where his thigh pressed against her and rubbed. Not until he had raised his head and regarded her with feverish, hungry eyes did the consequences of her actions hit her with sickening force.

I
n an instant the spell was broken, dissolved by the cold onrush of reality. All at once she felt terrified-of him and herself. They were both breathing hard and unevenly. Kane's face carried a dark flush and a sheen of perspiration, the passion she had aroused in him as vivid as lightning against a night sky.

D
ear God, what had happened to her?

She turned her face away, shielding her raw, wet mouth with the back of her hand. "Stand away!" she ordered, her voice low and breathless, edged with desperation and fear. "Get away from me. Now! How dare you touch me! Stand away before I scream."

He did not move and she remained quite still,. refusing to look at him again, somehow knowing the outcome if she did. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist and said, “You are a filthy blackguard to think I would consider giving myself to you for any reason!"

He laughed, and with a gasp of horror she-pushed herself away from him, lifted her skirt with one hand, and dashed across the room. Not until she had put some distance between them did she face him once more, her breasts rising and falling in indignation. He was leaning against the door again, his hands in his pockets, his infuriating mouth curled up in that mocking half smile.

"So, chere. Did we decide on a thousand?" "I don't have a thousand!"

"No?" He shrugged and moved away from the wall.

"Very well, then, our business is finished. I will bid you adieu. "

Panic rose in her as he started to leave. "Wait!"

He stopped and looked around, regarding her with a long, penetrating stare. She moistened her lips and forced herself to speak with less vehemence.

"I don't have a thousand, Mr. Kane. I can prove it if you care to see my father's records." She met his look directly. "I-am willing to meet whatever other requirements you have in mind ... "

The American's lips curved in a cynical smile that made her cheeks burn with shame. She backed away as he approached her, yet set her shoulders with grim determination, refusing . to allow the cold fear and numbness settling throughout her body to show on her face.

He stopped in front of her, towering nearly a head taller than she, his white-suited shoulders blocking out the world beyond. His eyes were dark now, like building storm clouds on the verge of dusk.

She jerked her chin up a notch before speaking. "I am well aware of your reputation, sir. You are a base seducer of the worst kind. You are a crude, arrogant boor, Mr. Kane, and I cannot imagine why the gentle people of this country respect you so. There are names for people like you back in England."

"Chere,
there are names for people like me everywhere. Back in N'Orleans we're known as poor white trash. But we learn to get by the best way we can, finding our pleasures wherever and however we can. We make things happen, Miss St. James, or we die."

"And I suppose that includes blackmailing respectable women into your bed?" she demanded sharply.

For a moment he looked as if he might strike her, so deadly still did he become. Only the bunching of his left hand into a fist and the slight twitch bothering one corner of his lips hinted at his fury. Then the moment passed. His shoulders relaxed again into their habitual insouciant set.

"Mademoiselle St. James, I have never had the need to blackmail a woman into my bed. However..." He slid his hand around the back of her neck and she thought she

might swoon. Odd how her dread and fear over this moment seemed inconsequential compared with the shocking thrill his nearness evoked. He twisted his fingers slowly yet determinedly in her hair and pulled her close. "There is always a first time," he finished.

She couldn't have moved if she wanted to, spellbound as she was by his closeness. His grip on her hair was angry, yet there was something going on behind those eyes that was even more disquieting than his fury. There was desire, yes. He wanted her, and by the look on his features and the hardness of his body, she would not have been surprised if he had dragged her to the bedroom that moment, or taken her right there on the floor. But there was something else, an emotion less obvious man desire and anger, but just as unnerving. It crossed his face like a shadow, turning the fury into a look so haunted and confused that it left her breathlessly aching to hold him.

He dropped his hand as if she'd burned him, then turned and walked to the door before stopping. He considered her frozen features for a long moment, then continued, his voice deep and unsteady. "For five hundred pounds and that porrait entitled 'Sunshine,' I might consider going to Japura.”

"The portrait? But why—"

"Damned if I know, Princess. I guess there's a little part of us all that never outgrows the need to believe in fairy tales, no matter how cruel and ugly reality always be- comes."

He left the room, dissolving into the dimly lit corridor. Seconds ticked by before Sarah could grapple her way out of shock and follow. She ran to the entry just as he was sauntering down the front steps, his gait loose-limbed and graceful. He was digging in his coat pocket for a cigarette by the time she called out:

"Kane, are you agreeing to my request or not?"

"I said I'd consider it, Miss St. James. I'll let you know." Then he disappeared into the night.

Late that night Morgan stood within the vague flare of a gas lamp, his body propped against the pole, his back to the rain-threatening wind. The ocean waves slapped at the docks while on the horizon, where the black sky met an even blacker sea, lightning danced in spears and sparks. He smoked a cigarette, stared into nothingness, and thought of Sarah.

He had known a great many beautiful and sophisticated women, but few as desperate as the late Governor's daughter. Or as naive when it came to dealing with bastards such as he. To a man jaded by experience, her unawakened passion held an excitement that was new. No doubt about it, he could have taken her tonight, just as he'd imagined doing throughout the day. She'd virtually offered herself to him if he would escort her to Japura\ She was that desperate. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time he'd taken advantage of a situation, or a woman, but something had happened when he'd stared down into her wide eyes. The very innocence he'd seen reflected in the eyes of that portrait had gazed back at him, and he knew in an instant that no matter how badly he wanted to drive his

body into hers, both in anger and in passion, to do so would be a mistake.

He could have seduced her; he had no doubt about that. Sarah St. James was ripe for the plucking. All that pent-up passion no decent woman would admit to feeling was just itching to be released. By the time he had finished with her, she would have been applauding the sacrifice of her virginity.

He was the
boto,
after all.

He knew all the tricks it took to turn any frigid woman into a writhing, clawing slut begging him for one more go. More often than not it was in her husband's bed, or coach, or a time or two across his office desk when he was out at a meeting. Yet he, who had seduced some of the grandest bitches on the continent of South America, had chosen not to debauch Sarah.

When did he get such scruples?

Flicking the fiery stub of his cigarette toward the water, he swore under his breath, reached for another in his pocket, and slid it into his mouth. He struck the match against the rough surface of the lamppost and cursed as the wind blew it out. He tried again, breathing deeply of the pungent, sulfuric smell as the fire danced vividly against the cigarette.