Silver Nights With You (Love in the Sierras Book 1) (14 page)

Lila woke with a smile that grew each time she relived her kiss with Morgan. Sweet dreams, indeed. Her tongue reached out to wet her lips, and she detected the faint taste of clove. He imparted such tenderness and passion into her with his kiss, and she trembled with the realization that she wanted more, that she wanted him.

She took great pains readying herself for the day only to learn that Morgan left Gold Hill in the early morning hours. Val did not know where he went or when he would return. The knowledge troubled her, though the day passed quickly. When the sun began to set without any sign of Morgan, she began to wonder if he had left Gold Hill for good. He’d told her that the previous owners of his homestead would be gone in two weeks’ time, so she knew the place would be vacant by now, but why wouldn’t he say anything? Why would he just leave without telling her, especially after their kiss?

She’d known in her heart when she woke up that her night at the opera wasn’t going to change anything with David, but cancelling on the day of would be rude. The tickets and the gown must have cost a small fortune. She decided to carry on with their outing and tell him when the timing was right that she wanted to end their courtship. She had hoped to see Morgan and inform him herself, but as she cleared the supper plates from the dining table he was still nowhere to be seen.

She soon left and confined herself to her room to prepare herself for the evening. Her new gown was a trial, as there was a large degree of difficulty fitting into the thing. She required Ellie’s assistance to lace up her corset tighter than normal to fit into the bodice, small as it was, and the square neckline was so low that the exposed mounds of her chest nearly burst out of it. Both she and Ellie gasped when they saw the end result.

“I can’t go out looking like this,” Lila breathed.

“You’re absolutely right,” Ellie agreed. “Didn’t you try this on before tonight?”

“No, never. I was either too filthy from working or too tired. I didn’t want to ruin it. What am I to do? I can’t cancel on David now.”

Ellie looked her over. The skirt was long enough that the black petticoat beneath it was not visible. She bent down and ripped a strip of black lacing from the bottom of the slip.

“We ought to be able to make some use of this, I should think,” Ellie said. With the quick employment of needle and thread she sewed a complimentary lace edging around the bodice, veiling half of Lila’s bust. The full amount of cleavage could be seen through the lace but that was only in the full light of a lantern. Under the cloak of night and the dim lamplight of the opera house she ought to be suitably covered. For an extra measure of concealment, she held an open fan before her chest.

“Ellie, you’re a marvel,” Lila said.

“Well, now, let’s do something with that hair,” Ellie said with a smile.

When she descended the stairs her back was straight. The skirts rustled around her ankles with the softest whisper. Ellie had twisted, stuffed, pinned and primped her hair until it made a flattering halo of curls. A soft cluster of green and black feathers swayed from it as she walked. Her eyes were lined with kohl, bringing out the green over the gold in her eyes. David was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, and his smile widened appreciatively when he saw her.

She smiled in return, though she felt the rot of guilt in her belly. He was dressed equally impressive with a starched white shirt and necktie and a black coat with tails. His hat was brushed to the deepest black and even his mustache looked as though a comb had run through it.

“You look ravishing, my dear,” he said, taking her hand in his for a kiss of her knuckles. “Absolutely ravishing.”

“Thank you. You are quite a dashing figure yourself.”

“Shall we?” he gestured toward the door as he tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “I’ve hired us a carriage to travel into the city.”

“Wonderful,” she said as he led them to the door.

He reached for the handle, but the portal swung open and in walked Morgan and Val. The four bodies collided, Val into David, Morgan into Lila. Apologies flew from one pair of lips to another, but Morgan fell silent as he looked down at her. His very presence made her smile wide, but then his features hardened as he took in her attire before glancing to her arm hooked around David’s elbow. When his face found hers again, the look he bore sliced right through her. She saw surprise and anger move over him, but it was the hurt that cut her deepest.

“Morgan,” she gasped, clinging to David to keep her upright. The strength seemed to have fled her legs. “I thought you left town.”

“You were wrong, Miss Cameron,” he said coolly, and her heart clenched at the formal use of her name. “You look breathtaking. Enjoy your evening.”

He stepped around her and she wanted to explain the situation, but how could she do that without making a scene? She needed to explain things to David as well. Before she could conjure a resolution, David was pulling her down the steps toward the carriage, and Lila wanted nothing more than to run away from him.

The impact of her beauty hit him hard in the chest, like it always did. Her face was a light tan from all of her time in the sun. The dark green of her dress brought the green of her eyes to a stunning sheen. Her hair was growing lighter in the bright desert and she had it bundled decoratively. The dress was skin tight around her figure and he saw clearly the full bosom trying, and failing, to hide behind a thin film of black lace. She stole his breath, and he was gutted to find her on David’s arm.

He'd been sure after last night that she returned his affection. Perhaps he'd been wrong about her all this time. Maybe she wasn't reserved and refined, sophisticated and grounded. Maybe there wasn't a mature bone in her body. Perhaps she was the type of woman who enjoyed playing men off of one another, needing to tease and tempt all men into tumbling over their tongues just to feel like a greater object of desire. Well, if that was the case he ought to opt out of the game. If only he could get his heart to comply.

David swept her past Morgan with a triumphant twitch of his eyebrows, and it took every ounce of Morgan’s will not to pummel him on the spot. He and Val turned and watched the couple leave once the carriage rolled away. David looked back to wave as they disappeared over a hill, and Morgan ground his teeth together.

“Damn,” Val said beside him. “Maybe I ought to join the fight for Miss Cameron. I think I could have a woman that beautiful on my arm for the rest of my life.” Morgan narrowed his eyes at his brother, who laughed in response. “I’m teasing you, Morg. I’m not interested in the family life.”

“But is Mr. Gardner?” came the old, cool voice of Argyle Cameron behind them. They turned to find the doctor leaning against the door, watching his daughter ride away in David’s custody. In his gaze was concern, suspicion and a burning love for his offspring.

“Argyle,” Val nodded in greeting. “Nice to see you again, doc.”

“Likewise,” Argyle said. “So, what of Mr. Gardner? Does he have honest designs on my daughter?”

Val looked like he swallowed a lump. “David is a good man.”

“How good? Good enough to deserve my daughter’s affections? Good enough to return them?”

Val shrank even further under the bold directness of Argyle’s interrogation. “I believe that he would be a good husband to the woman he wanted as wife.”

Argyle crossed his arms over his chest and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I can’t name the nettling feeling I have about him, but seventy-five years upon the earth does not season a man in body only. My instincts are still sharp, and I feel a thick sense of suspicion toward the blue-eyed smooth-talker.”

“I can tell you this,” Morgan assured, “if his intentions are not honorable, or if he mistreats her in any way. He
will
answer to me.”

The doctor studied Morgan’s face and finally nodded.

The city in the evening was far livelier than it had been during the day. Streets bisecting the main road were alive with piano song and raucous laughter. The ground was dappled with orange light thrown from establishment windows. Drunkards and wastrels shared the walk space with ladies and gentlemen and more than once Lila found herself curling closer to David’s side to avoid being stepped on, bumped into or spit upon, and she suddenly found herself not caring one whit about the opera.

“My goodness,” she said in a voice raised above the din. “And I thought this place was busy during the day!”

“Yes, it’s a real den of iniquity,” he said cheerily, panning the chaos with a wide grin.

On their brief walk to the opera house, David stopped them several times to introduce Lila to his acquaintances. Most were young disheveled pleasure-seekers in various states of sobriety. She doubted any of them would remember her in the morning. She was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief when they entered the opera house. The company was much more conservative and refined.

“Thank you, again, for bringing me,” she told him as they settled into their box seats.

“My pleasure,” he answered smoothly. “Seeing that beautiful smile of yours is worth every penny.”

Her eyes shifted uneasily. “You flatter me too much, David.”

“Well, I know a way you can make it up to me,” he said, and she looked up.

He leaned forward. She thought he meant to kiss her, and her smile faded as she tried to find a way to deflect him politely, but he didn’t kiss her. He reached out a finger and touched its tip to her bottom lip before running it down her chin. She glanced around awkwardly, wondering how she was supposed to respond and if they were being watched.

“Promise me all of your smiles,” he said in a voice rich and smooth. “Your mouth is too tempting to draw anyone’s attention but mine, and I should warn you that I tend to be possessive and jealous.”

No words came to her. It sounded like any other phrase he'd said to charm her, but she couldn’t help frowning at the ridiculousness of the notion. How could someone only smile at one person? His eyes lowered to peer at her mouth, and she suddenly realized that she was clutching the fan on her lap so tightly that the decorative wooden spikes were biting into her palm. She forced herself to relax, wondering how she was ever going to get through the night.

David’s eyes made their way back up to hers and she could tell he was awaiting a response to his words. All she managed was a small smile to hide her hard swallow. Their brief conversation was cut off by a spark of music from the orchestra, and Lila broke the connection of their eyes to lean forward in their box seats.

David frowned at her reaction to his flirtation, or rather her lack of reaction. Maybe it would be harder to seduce a virgin than he thought. He was sure getting her out of dreary Gold Hill would be the ticket to unleashing her more lively side, the side he’d seen on the day he brought her into Virginia City to confront Samuel. Yet, there she sat, stiff as a board. If he had been in a dark, isolated box at the theater with one of Juliet’s girls they’d have their hands in each other’s laps by now.

He told himself to be patient. It was impossible for Lila to get excited over the brush of his hand if she had no idea how pleasurable his fingers could be for her. The most important thing was that she was there, and with him. He grinned, reliving the sweet rush of victory at the look on Morgan’s face when he saw Lila on his arm. It was worth the weeks of playing the fawning gentleman just to finally one-up that bastard.

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, nursing all of the reasons he hated Morgan Kelly while the orchestra music began to swell. The early mining days were David’s chance to prove his worth. With his new mill design, he’d ascended to camp leader and production doubled overnight. Just when they really started pulling metal from the ground, in walked Morgan Kelly. He wasn’t there a week before he started making suggestions to improve David's design. He tweaked a few things, changed the rigging and torque, but the original structure was from David's brain, yet every miner in camp praised the elder Kelly brother's ingenuity when production trebled.

Soon, he started in on the digging locations, pulling miners in the direction opposite David. If he said left, Morgan said right, and like a bunch of sheep they followed him. It was pure dumb luck they hit silver first. There was no way Morgan could have known where the silver was. Of course, every man jumped in on it, staking their claims and setting to work. And who received all of the credit for the silver boom? Morgan.

That alone soured David, but the day he decided he really hated Morgan was still swimming around in his brain, as clear as the waters of Tahoe. Leonard Stacy had come stomping around, tapping his ivory cane in every man's face with fistfuls of dollar bills. Morgan tried to persuade him and others against selling to the railroad mogul. He told them it would be foolish, that they were being swindled. David never believed there was as much silver in the ground as Morgan claimed. They'd been pulling it out for more than a year, and he knew the supply would run out. If that happened, the offering price would drop dramatically.

He sold to Stacy and crowed his cleverness for days, finally glad to be richer and wiser. He told the brothers they’d wish they would have sold out, too. One week later, to the day, the Kelly brothers hit on the thickest part of the vein. Another six months passed and David could still taste the humiliation each day he climbed down into a mineshaft as another man's employee, earning a meager four dollars a day while the Kellys pulled out hundreds.

Val wasn't like his older brother, which was the main reason David counted him a friend. The man was lighthearted and open-handed. He took things in stride and always looked for the humor in everything. He wasn't full of seriousness and a bloated sense of self-worth like Morgan. It was just another sign of David's poor luck that he couldn't enjoy his friendship with Val without Morgan tagging along to dampen it. The man's very presence was like a burr in his boot. The rancor rattled even stronger the day Morgan had come bursting into the boarding house, flashing the deed to his newly acquired homestead.

His jaw clenched as he thought about his life, always at the mercy of the Morgans of the world. He knew dozens of his kind; the kind divinely blessed with good luck. They swept in, always at the right time to claim the spoils of other men’s hard work and ingenuity. They said all the right things, smiled at all the right times and to all the right people, and they always won. David was tired of always being the one with the short end of the stick. For some reason he couldn't fathom, the forces of nature always conspired against him. If the two of them were to toss a coin, sure as the sun sets it’d flip in Morgan's favor.

His father had been like that, living on long runs of good luck, at least until David was born. He ruined his father's luck, and the man made sure he knew it. His mother had run off and when he was seven years old, his father was caught cheating in a poker game and shot dead at the table. Fortunately, the saloon owner took pity on the child and let him sleep in the storeroom and work to earn his keep. He earned his wages sweeping floors and hauling kegs, and learned much more than his father ever taught him. The old man would be alive today if he had learned to master the art of the bluff, and David wouldn’t make the same mistake. It was his turn to cheat chance.

The aria climbed to an ear-piercing note, and he forced back the bitter memories by remembering the trump card sitting beside him. There was one thing he had that Morgan wanted, and she was eager for his attention and addresses. This naïve little innocent next to him would prove the perfect torment for Morgan, and the process of seducing her would be just as pleasurable as the sweet taste of triumph over his adversary.

He stole a glance down at her swollen bust and smiled, remembering why he was there as the shrill voices of the players droned on. He congratulated himself on her appearance. He had guessed her size perfectly, and then selected a gown too small so that her wealth of…beauty would be on grander display.

His foot began to tap restlessly as he pulled his pocket watch and noted the time. It couldn’t last too much longer, he thought. His fingers were itching to hold a handful of cards. He had a feeling tonight was his lucky night. Lila was gorgeous and if she wasn’t a charm to tip the cards in his favor, at the very least her appearance would serve as a distraction for his opponents, one that would hopefully benefit him.

When the last round of applause finally faded, he grabbed her by the hand and swept her out of doors. She headed toward the carriage, but he tugged lightly on her arm to lead her in the opposite direction.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I’ve got another treat for you.”

“But my father expects us back early.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be back in plenty of time. It’s just a brief step into a slice of the real west.”

He dragged her down the street and stopped in front of his favorite haunt. Before she could peer around him or protest at all, he turned and led them straight into it.

The Silver Queen. 

If David hadn’t dragged her through the crowded place, her feet would have been rooted to the floor out of sheer terror. Every inch of the bar counter was covered with leaning elbows and whiskey glasses. Men swayed on their feet or clung precariously to their bar stools. Their shirts and vests were soaked with spilled beverages, the rest of them covered in days-old dirt or tobacco spit. The stench from so many grime-filled bodies plagued her nostrils and worked her throat into tiny spasms.

Voices were loud, their words boorish, their hands grasping at any skirt that moved nearby. Lila surveyed the dozen female bodies in the place and saw more flesh than she had any right to. No respectable women moved through this place. In some cases, their laughter rang louder than the men on whose laps they sat, especially as they studied her. A piano had been shoved into the corner, its tuneless croak adding to the unwholesome noise. When David finally came to a stop it was only to release her hand and plop into an open chair at a card table. He motioned to the empty chair beside him, and she looked down at it.

“What are you doing?” Lila shouted above the noise.

“It’s time to buck the tiger!” he shouted back with an excited raise of his brows. “Have a seat and learn your next card game.”

“What?”

“Faro, love! Faro!”

“No, David. I don’t want to be here.”

“Okay, I’ll just play one hand then.”

He nodded to the dealer and promptly forgot her presence as she stood behind him, looking nervously around. Other spectators moved in on her flanks, forcing her to tuck her elbows in and cross her forearms over her chest. She felt the thick wash of hot drunken breath along her cheek and turned to peer into the gray eyes of a man. There was something familiar about his eyes.

His lewd gaze snaked over her filled with proposition. His upper lip was split by a crooked scar and the tongue that slithered out to wet it was as pointed as the snake’s she’d seen in the desert. Fear turned her blood to ice, and she reached out a hand to squeeze David’s shoulder. He turned and looked up with a frown before coming to his feet.

“Can I help you?” David said, squinting dangerously at the man.

“Percy’s the name,” he said. “Jared Percy.”

“What do you want, Mr. Percy?”

“I was just wondering if you were done with the lady, here. I’d love a turn.”

Lila gasped with outrage. “How dare you! I am not a…a…a…”

“What?” Jared asked, his voice rising with offense. “My money ain’t as good as his?”

She sucked in a breath so forcefully that it made a whistling noise. “Why you odious, little…”

“Lila, calm down,” David said. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. There’s no way this man would mistake you for a woman of the night. Isn’t that right, sir? You just mistook Miss Cameron for someone else, didn’t you?”

“Of course he would make that assumption!” she returned. “Do you see any respectable ladies in here?”

“Lila Cameron?” Jared mused, ignoring their exchange. “
The
Lila Cameron? I mean, it couldn’t be, could it?”

“Make your point, sir,” she snapped.

“I read an interesting article about a coldblooded assassin named Lila Cameron in the paper.”

“I am
not
an assassin,” she declared haughtily. “That reporter twisted my words.”

Jared’s eyes widened as he looked her up and down again. His astonished smile grew, the horrible split forming his mouth into the shape of a broken heart. “Well, you’ve certainly stopped my heart,” he said in a throaty rasp.

His eyes fastened to her breasts, and she watched his eyes darken as a shiver ran through him. It filled her with disgust. She took a small step closer to David, and he held up a hand toward Jared.

“Would you give the lady a little room there, man?”

Jared kept his eyes on her for a long, torturous moment before nodding and backing away slowly. Finally, he turned and walked away.

Lila huffed and stared up at David. “That’s it? Give the lady a little room? How about a little respect?”

“Don’t worry, Lila,” he soothed. “We won’t be here long. I’ve got a good feeling about tonight. We should be in and out. Can I get you a glass of whiskey?”

She stared at him, aghast that he wasn’t whisking her away from such lasciviousness. “No!”

“All right, then. Suit yourself.”

He settled into his seat again, and she bore her eyes into the back of his skull with an astonished shake of her head. She was ready to march right out of that establishment and all the way back to Gold Hill. She felt the firm grasp of a male hand on her buttocks, and she snapped up with a yelp. When she turned, the men behind her laughed and held their hands up in mock innocence. Frantically, she turned and grasped David’s shoulders.

“David, please take me home,” she begged.

“Soon,” he answered.

“No. Now!”

His blue eyes flushed with irritation as he looked up at her. “I can’t go now, the game just started. I promise, one hour and we’ll leave.”

“I’m leaving without you then,” she said and pushed her way through the men, stomping out the door.