California Caress (38 page)

Drake chuckled. “Now who’s ‘insatiable’?” he mimicked. A shudder ran through him as her hand slipped down the tautness of his stomach. He grabbed her wrist and plopped it back on his chest before he lost all control. “I’m warning you, sunshine, if you keep playing with fire, be prepared to get burned.”

A flicker of emotion sparkled in her eyes, but was quickly doused. Drake cursed himself for all kinds of a fool and wished he could bite the thoughtless words back.

Hope stiffened and pulled away. Drake had no alternative but let her go.

“Hope, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” He reached for her, but she rolled away too fast.

“It’s alright!” Stooping, she withdrew her chemise from the bottom of the wrinkled pile of clothes and slipped it over her head with trembling fingers.

“But—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replied through gritted teeth. Woodenly, she walked toward the bed and climbed beneath the covers.

She heard Drake’s muffled footsteps approach the bed, but she scrunched her eyes closed and refused to open them. The comforter was tightly clutched beneath her chin.

Drake tried everything he could think of to get her to talk. Nothing worked. The only word she would utter was “Leave,” and even then, only once.

Eventually, he gave up. Not knowing what else to do, he retrieved his clothes, yanked them on, and left. Hope caught a brief glimpse of the rumpled shirttail hanging to mid-thigh and the polished shoes dangling from his fingers as he gave her a final glance, then closed the door quietly behind him.

She stared at the door for what seemed like hours.

Damn him!
she swore.
Damn Drake Frazier for taking something so wonderful and turning it so sour!

Drake spent the rest of the night—the early hours of the morning, actually—closeted in the study, poring over files, reports, accounts, anything he could get his hands on. At seven o’clock, he’d stumbled on the copy of a sealed bid Charles had submitted to buy the lease to City Wharf—Boston’s largest and most lucrative block of wharves on the north shore. The wharves would be a definite boost to the floundering business. The problem was, Charles would have a great deal of trouble pulling the venture off without sufficient funds to cover the inevitable expenses. His bankbook was already depleted.

About nine o’clock, less than an hour ago, Drake found an even more incriminating piece of evidence.

The desktop was scattered with discarded files and crumpled papers. Drake ignored the mess as he leaned back in his grandfather’s favorite red leather chair. His tired, bloodshot eyes flickered between the two rumpled sheets of paper he held in each hand. The more he looked, the angrier he became.

The Bradfield-Stillwell Home,
one declared in bold, black script. Beneath were paragraphs of information regarding a home for wayward boys that handled only the most dire of cases. It was followed by a brief plea for funds to keep it in operation. The other, titled the same and written in the same crisp hand, had two long columns, one, names, the other, figures. The names were easily recognizable. Beecher, Lowell; Webster, Quincy; Frazier—none of Boston’s more prominent citizens was omitted. Scribbled beside each name was a dollar amount. The total at the bottom of that column was staggering.

“The fool!” Drake crunched the papers in his fist and slammed them on the desk. The glass mantel clock, ticking rhythmically atop the flat mahogany surface, rattled with the force of the blow. He should have known Charles was capable of using a fictitious charity to draw much-needed money. Should have, but didn’t. In his wildest dreams, he had never imagined his brother would stoop so low.

He waited for what seemed like hours, until his anger faded to a dull throb, then pushed himself from the chair and moved toward the door with purposeful strides. Once there, he slipped a key from the pocket of his denims and unlocked the door.

It was as he was returning the key to his pocket that his fingers reacted to the silky key ring. Looking down, he saw the lock of chestnut hair he’d stolen from Hope the day of the fight with Larzdon. The dark strands were worked into a fine plait, the reddish highlights glistening like molten copper in the morning sunshine. Absently, he ran his fingers over the braid, his thoughts drifting to the woman upstairs.

Sooner or later he was going to have to do something about Hope Bennett. What, and when, was another question. One that demanded contemplation.

Drake scowled darkly. He’d delayed her leaving by buying her services as his wife. The job was unnecessary. He could just as easily have ruined his brother and sister-in-law without Hope’s help. But when it had come time to send her on her way to Virginia, Drake found he couldn’t do it. He didn’t stop to ask himself why, or question his motives, he’d simply invented a need for a temporary wife. To his surprise, she’d agreed.

At the same time, Drake had told himself that his reasons were completely chivalrous, motives his grandfather would have been proud of. Now he wasn’t so sure. True, he couldn’t bear the thought of Hope making the last leg of the journey alone, but if he was honest with himself, he would also have to admit that his reasons were much more than mere concern. After all, he could easily have put her on the next stage for Virginia the second they’d reached civilization.

But he hadn’t. He’d offered her a job and dragged her, not totally unwillingly, back to this godforsaken place.

Why?

The answer hit him like a fist smashing into his gut, and he staggered with the blow. He leaned heavily against the door, his eyes flickering shut as his thoughts were barraged with unbidden memories.

Hope, drunker than a river rat as she collapsed in his arms, awarding Drake his first real look at her enticing curves and innocent profile. Hope, her face draining of color when Oren Larzdon’s knife had slicked toward his shoulder. Hope, her hair a tousled mass of chestnut curls upon a bed of sawdust. Hope, her skin moist with the water he’d sponged on her perfect body while she raged with fever. And, at last, Hope, as he had left her, curled and despondent in the large bed that had once belonged to his grandmother.

When did I fall in love with her?
he wondered as his fingers crushed the lock of hair in his fist. He remembered her dark eyes flashing with fire that first night in his hotel room. He’d denied the feeling for months, but his love had started then, and had grown over the weeks that followed.

“As always, Frazier, your timing is poor,” he mumbled to himself, running the lock of hair against his stubbled cheek. It smelled of dirt and the leather strap that held it tight, but it felt like heaven as it stroked his flesh.

His heart tightened when he realized he couldn’t confess his feelings to Hope and still pretend to be obsessed with Angelique. Once the words were spoken, he’d be lost, and too many years of hard work counted on him being able to convince Angelique he wanted her back. Unfortunately, recognizing his feelings for Hope now would only complicate matters. But it was already too late for that, wasn’t it?

There was only one solution.

With a ragged sigh, he shoved the key back in his pocket and stalked to the desk. He snatched up the two bits of crumpled paper as well as the bid, folded them over twice, and stuffed them in his vest pocket. Although he’d planned to prolong Charles’s suffering for as long as possible, suddenly that prospect held no appeal. There was no telling how long he could keep Hope waiting before she grew tired of the game and moved on. He couldn’t let that happen!

No, his former plan would have to be abruptly revised. He
would
ruin Charles, he’d worked too hard not to, but he’d do it as quickly as he could and take time to savor the victory later. Then, as soon as he was free....

He didn’t permit himself to complete that thought as he stormed from the room and into the hall. The door was slammed closed behind him and locked. Turning on his heel, he was surprised to find the hall empty.

A scowl furrowed his golden brow. He hadn’t expected his brother to give up so easily. Three times Charles had come to the study door, banging and demanding entrance, all the while shouting accusations that Drake had stolen his key. Of course, he was right. Each time he’d shown up, Drake had sent him away. Now, he’d half expected to find his brother camping out at the foot of the stairs, pouting the way he had as a child when their grandfather insisted the two boys go out on the
Mary Elizabeth
.

“Damn him!” Drake muttered as he stalked down the hall. He’d see the generous donations returned to their benefactors if it was the last thing he ever did!

Hope eyed Drake cautiously as she slipped a spoonful of oyster stew into her mouth. The oysters were soft and succulent, the potatoes firm, but the spicy concoction might have been made of sand for all she tasted of it.

All day she had been avoiding Drake; an easy task, since he’d been locked in the study all morning and gone most of the afternoon. This, she’d heard from the servants who’d brought her morning and afternoon meals on a tray, as she helped herself to the leather-bound books she found in the library.

On the best of days, Dickens could hold her interest like no other. Today she might as well have been reading a two-bit western. When she thought of it now, Hope couldn’t recall if she’d read
A Christmas Carol
or
Oliver Twist
, and she didn’t care. Right now about the only thing that interested her was the way Angelique insisted on pressing intimately against Drake’s upper arm as he reluctantly recounted some of his tamer adventures in California.

Charles sat at the head of the table glowering. He made no attempt to eat, instead contenting himself on glaring at his brother with an angry, sullen stare as he drank glass after glass of brandy.

And what the hell had gotten into Drake!?
All evening he had commented on the wonderful hard rolls, so much like his great-grandmother Bradfield’s. Then he’d praised the spices in the stew as exactly the ones his great-grandmother Stillwell would have used. Over and over the two names were bandied about.

Never in all the time she had known Drake had Hope heard these two women mentioned. At first she’d taken his observations as idle chatter used to fill the awkward pauses. Then she’d glanced at Charles. He seemed to pick up on the insinuations—if, indeed, there were any—immediately, and his expression grew more grim with each mention.

“You bluffed?” Angelique gasped with false astonishment. “Why, how clever. I would never have thought to do such a thing.”

Drake repressed a surge of disgust and smiled down on her. “Then we should play poker sometime, you and I. It would make an interesting game.”

Angelique batted her thick lashes and Hope’s grip tightened on the spoon as it clattered to her bowl. “You’d have to teach me, of course.” Again, the lashes batted as she smiled coyly. “And, I warn you, it may take a good deal of time. Charles says I am a slow learner, that I have no gift for cards. Isn’t that right, dear?”

Charles grunted in reply and looked down at his untouched bowl. His gaze was steamier than the hot stew.

Angelique fixed her attention on Hope. “Do you play?” she asked, then just as quickly answered her own question. “Why, of course you do. I don’t know what made me ask. After all, you did live in California, didn’t you?”

She stressed the words in such a way that Hope could feel her spine bristle. In spite of herself, she fixed the woman with an innocent glance. “Of course,” she said with a wave of her spoon. “It’s a state law. Anyone crossing the Nevada border must know how to play a good hand of poker. They won’t let you enter California otherwise.”

“Isn’t that interesting?” Angelique replied, apparently oblivious to the sarcasm of Hope’s words. “So tell me,” she continued, dismissing Hope as she turned her attention back to Drake, “what else did you do in the West? Surely you did
something
besides play cards.” Her eyes sparkled with a sadistic twinkle that was belatedly concealed. “Did you get into many gunfights? Or fistfights? Did you ever kill a man? Or two? Or three?”

“I was known as a hired gun, for a while,” he admitted reluctantly. His gaze locked with Hope’s and there was an emotion shimmering in the green depths, unreadable as it was undeniable. “I think we’ll skip over that part of my life. It’s not a dinner table topic, and I don’t want to upset you.”

Angelique pouted prettily, but still Drake refused. She gave up quickly, launching into a soliloquy of the people who had attended last night’s ball.

Hope recognized none of the names flung so casually about, but inferred, by Angelique’s awe-inspired tone, that they belonged to people of prominence. She averted her gaze to the rapidly cooling oyster stew. The silver spoon hesitated beside the bowl. She had suddenly lost her appetite.

“Mutton?” Charles came out of his self-enforced silence to offer Hope the tray piled high with lean meat.

Although her stomach rebelled at the thought, she thanked him and accepted the platter with a wooden smile. Moving the bowl, which was quickly whisked away by a servant, she placed only one succulent slab on her plate. It was one more than she wanted. Passing the tray to Angelique, she resisted the temptation to tip the juicy contents into the other woman’s lap.