Betina Krahn (18 page)

She was starting to annoy him; no doubt about it.

“I
did not
break my word to you this evening. I said I would support the passage of suffrage legislation for women, and I will.”

“Oh, yes?” She took a step closer.
“When?”

When I damned well please
… somehow didn’t come out. He found himself standing over her, staring down into a pair of fiery emerald eyes, breathing in the fragrance wafting up on tendrils of warmth.

“When you’ve persuaded me,” he declared with heat rising up the back of his throat and invading his voice.

Her eyes widened and she took a step backward.

“Even if that were possible in a mere human lifetime … ‘persuasion’ was not a part of our deal.”

He took a step forward.

“Did it never once enter that devious mind of yours that it would have been political suicide for me to walk into that debate tonight and out of the clear blue declare that I’m prosuffrage?”

She took another step back and was suddenly trapped with her back against her desk, more accurately, with her bustle squashed against it.

“Typical politician.” She sniffed. “As soon as you make a promise, you set about proving it’s impossible to keep. ‘I’d love to, my dear, but my cronies simply won’t allow it.’”

“I didn’t say it was impossible. I said it wasn’t possible
tonight.
If I change my platform, I have to have good reasons. People have to be prepared … change can only be accomplished in small increments.”

He paused to let that sink in and when he spoke again, his voice was softer.

“That means you have to educate me … enlighten me. And while you’re publicly persuading me, I’ll be privately persuading Boss Croker and Charles Murphy and campaign contributors and city officials.”

Everything he was saying sounded so cursedly reasonable. How could she be sure he was speaking in earnest? She could barely be sure of her own name with him only an inch away.

“I must hand it to you … you really are good at this,” she said, clinging desperately to her skepticism. “You could almost convince me that you mean it.”

He raised his arms as if demanding the universe witness the outrage of her behavior toward him, and then dropped them to his sides.

“You are the damnedest female I’ve ever—you’re determined to make me into a lying, greedy, underhanded heel, aren’t you? Why is that? So you can bury me in the same box with old Mercer and every other man who dared cross you? Well, I don’t think so, darlin’.”

He seized her by the shoulders.

“I’m alive and well and I’m not going into any box. If you really want support for your women’s suffrage, you’ll just have to deal with me”—his gaze dropped to her mouth—“and whatever it is you feel whenever we do this.…”

His lips touched hers and the tension that had been growing in her burst, sending a surge of desire along the underside of her skin. This was what she had dreaded, this power he seemed to have over her senses and responses. A soft flame ignited and raced along the nerves of her limbs.

“Did you forget?” he murmured against her lips, his voice slipping into that cozening Irish lilt that always dispelled her anger and indignation. “I couldn’t. The feel of your lips against mine, stirring my blood …” He nipped her lips with his, tasting, tempting. She ran her tongue over them to assuage the tingling it caused and he gave a throaty laugh and kissed her deeply again.

“Did you forget how my body comes alive against yours?” he whispered, seizing her waist and pulling her into the bend of his body. Alive was a pale description of the energy and vitality that engulfed her as his arms closed around her. She arched into him and slid her hands around his waist and up his back.

“Did you forget the feel of my arms around you, and how you lean into me when your knees go weak?”

Each word added to the heat building inside her and she felt that melting beginning again. Knees first, then
spine, then will. She was suddenly pliant, yielding … an overwhelmed observer in her own hungry and receptive body.

“No,” she whispered, looking up and seeing halos of light around everything in her vision, “I didn’t forget.” She blinked, but the light remained. “Not overly smart of me …”

“It’s not a matter of being smart, Beatrice darlin’. It’s a matter of trusting the wisdom of your heart.” He drew back enough to run a finger down her chest to her heart. “It’s a matter of trusting yourself as much as another … of knowing that when it’s right, you’ll
know
.”

“And when you think you know, what then?”

“Ahhh.” His smile filled with invitation. “Then, when every particle of your body and every thought in your brain is screaming out for you to reach out and grab that pleasure with both hands … you do it. And you hang on for dear life. True pleasure’s a great gift, you see. Not something to be taken lightly.”

He trailed kisses down her jaw line to the side of her neck, where he was stopped by a pair of prim collars. He slid a hand up the front of her jacket and began expertly dispatching buttons. Her skin seemed to hum everywhere he touched it. She arched her back to meet those soft, scandalous kisses.

Suddenly she was perched on the edge of the desk with her jacket and blouse unbuttoned to bare her white satin corset and thin chemise. He drew back enough to study the way she looked and moaned appreciatively as he ran his fingers over the creamy curves of her breasts. She closed her eyes, trapping in her head the sight of him touching her. More, she wanted …

More?

She began to surface from her submersion in that sea
of pleasure. The closer she rose to the surface, the greater the sense of urgency that possessed her. What was she doing? Taking his face between her hands, she looked at him with rising alarm. The blue of his eyes was now mere rings of color around dark pools of desire. She pushed him away and stumbled from the desk.

Her heart was hammering. Her head felt disconnected from her body. She forced herself to breathe deeply and slowly. With trembling hands she worked to right her garments, waiting, desperate for the rise of those inner walls that had long ago ceased to be a barrier and had become, instead, a comfort.

“Don’t do that,” he said quietly.

“Do what?” she said tautly lifting her chin.

“Run away.”

His gaze held hers for a long moment. She bore it just long enough to salve her pride, then looked away.

“Maybe I just learned what I needed to learn.”

“Which was?”

She busied herself fastening the buttons of her jacket.

“That you’re as smooth with your kisses as you are with your words. And that I need to beware of both.”

He reddened and his eyes narrowed.

“I’m afraid you have it all wrong, Mrs. Von Furstenberg. I’m not the one you have to worry about. When
I
kiss a woman it’s for one and only one reason. You, on the other hand, seem to have a whole host of ugly little reasons for kissing a man.” He headed for the door.

“Wait just a minute,” she commanded. “We haven’t settled things, yet.”

“Settled things? You mean your nasty little bit of blackmail?” He strode back toward her. “Fine.” His eyes were suddenly hot and luminous. “This is how it’s going to be: you’re going to meet me at this settlement
house … show me the place and introduce me to some of the inmates. I’m going to watch and listen to it all with noble concern. I’m going to be sympathetic, thoughtful, and then visibly moved. Afterward, I’ll make a statement to the news writers present that the women there deserve better justice and better representation.

“When they ask you about my comments, you’re going to praise my fairness but say that I still have much to learn. I’ll be damned annoyed, and you’ll issue another challenge. Something suitably educational, I’m sure … a visit to a factory, perhaps … someplace where women workers are greatly ‘oppressed.’”

“Good Lord—you have it all planned out,” she said, astonished.

“Just thinking on my feet.” His anger was still rising. “That’s what we shifty, underhanded, smooth-talking politicians do best…
think on our feet
.”

She tried to find in his eyes some assurance that he meant what he said.

“What guarantee do I have that you’ll go through with it?” she demanded.

“Lady, I’m fresh out of guarantees. But it’s always been my experience that you get what you pay for.”

CONNOR BLEW THROUGH
the front doors and out into the autumn night with his pride and his passion both on fire. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so angry. He was desperate to put his fist through something … preferably something that would shatter and make one hell of a mess.

Damnable woman. Why couldn’t she just want him, clean and simple? Why couldn’t she—just for one infernal hour—forget she was the widow Von Furstenberg?
That she’d had a rotten marriage with a decrepit old man who had no clue how to appreciate or even enjoy her? That she resented men and disliked her attraction to one of them? Why couldn’t she forget for a few blessed moments that he was a “man” and she was a “woman”? Why the hell couldn’t he just be Connor and she just be Beatrice?

There were no answers to those questions, but the exertion of walking gradually cleared his head and the rush of angry energy that accompanied his thoughts subsided. By the time he reached his office, he was left with a stream of vivid impressions that were freed from the emotions that had originally accompanied them. Beatrice in command. Beatrice soft-eyed and playful. Beatrice warmed and melting. Beatrice terrified.

He stopped in the middle of turning on a light, scowling, concentrating on that last image, seeing again her trembling frame and hasty retreat. For just a few frantic moments, she had been truly frightened; he would stake his life on it. Of all of the aspects of her he had absorbed during their encounter, that was the one that truly surprised him.

He flipped the switch of his desk lamp and sat down in the pool of light it created. What was it about her that made him so determined to have her, to feel her responding, to make her admit she wanted him as a man? Was it as simple as pride or curiosity? Or was it something more?

His features slowly relaxed.

What did it matter, as long as he had her?

She disdained and distrusted his gifts of persuasion, even as she tried to harness them for her own purposes. But in order to harness them, she had to stay closer to
him than she knew to be wise. There wasn’t a human born who could resist temptation forever.

He smiled, licking his lips slowly, anticipating, already enjoying the sweet rewards of victory. She was every bit as trapped as he was, and in a scheme of her own devising. His smile broadened.

It served her right.

TWO EVENINGS LATER,
Beatrice and Alice were in the drawing room going over the official agenda for the Consolidated Industries board of directors meeting when Priscilla arrived home. The last week had been anything but pleasant for her niece, she knew. The girl was generally too angry or exhausted to say so when she returned home, but Beatrice had received nightly reports from Dipper and Shorty on her activities.

Beatrice put down her board reports and watched from the settee as Priscilla dragged herself up the steps. The girl had given up silk and embroidered tulle in favor of cotton blouses and wool jersey skirts, but her clothes still took a shocking amount of abuse. Today was no exception; she looked like she’d been caught in a cannery explosion.

“How did it go today, gentlemen?” Beatrice said when Dipper and Shorty appeared at the drawing-room door.

“She ain’t much of a cook, I can tell ye,” Dipper confided in dismay. “Acted like she never seen a chicken plucked in her life. Dang near lost her dinner when I
showed her how. An’ Cook sent her down to the market … she didn’t know th’ first thing about hagglin’ a proper price ner checkin’ to see she weren’t shorted. They like to robbed ’er blind.”

“She shoulda let Jeff hold th’ money,” Shorty said, mostly to his partner. “He’d ’ave seen to it they paid proper prices.”

“Oh, he’d have paid, all right,” Dipped declared with indignation. “Through th’ nose. Like them beef steaks he had to have.”

“They was good meat,” Shorty responded, scowling. “And he’s right—ye get tired of stew and watery soup day after day.”

Dipper turned to explain to Beatrice: “We was sent to get chickens from the market. Only him and her”—clearly Jeffrey and Priscilla—“had a bit of a set-to over buyin’ beefsteaks. She wouldn’t let him have the money Cook gave ’em … said it wouldn’t feed enough. He went stalkin’ off … and we still had potatoes and carrots an’ onions and such to buy.”

Beatrice pictured Priscilla at a Lower East Side market, amongst the gamey hanging birds, bushels of sprouting potatoes, piles of wilted greens, and baskets of seeping tomatoes. “Jeffrey didn’t stay to help her?”

Dipper looked uncomfortable and began to knead the brim of his cap.

Beatrice scowled and turned to Shorty. “Mr. O’Shea?”

“He went on out to th’ market stalls and found some turnips and tomatoes,” Shorty answered with a sidelong glare at Dipper.