Linda Castle (12 page)

“Oh damnation, what do I care if I see him?” she asked herself sharply. “I don’t. I don’t care one whit.”

With more confidence and indifference than she really felt, she lifted her chin a notch and marched downstairs.

“Marisa? Is that you, child? Come in here, dear, and have breakfast with me.” Patricia greeted her from the dining room table as soon as Marisa appeared at the foot of the stairs.

Marisa refused to allow herself to be in a bad mood when the glory of spring was beaming through the windows. Patricia was in her customary morning attire of a colorful silk wrapper, with her ribbon-tied hair trailing down her back. Watermarked stationery lay near a half-full cup of coffee.

“You are up early,” Marisa remarked.

“A message came this morning. I am surprised you didn’t hear all the commotion. Donovan and Rod have been summoned to Chicago.” She sighed and sipped her coffee.

“Not bad news, I hope.” Marisa frowned as she laced her coffee with cream and sugar.

Had Brooks gone to Chicago also? Was he still upstairs? Would he walk through the door and join them? Questions filled her head until Patricia’s voice drew her attention.

“It is a small problem with the shipping business. Donovan
has been working on some sort of merger. He never tells me anything, but I think there has been some sort of crisis. He rarely discusses these things with me because he thinks I will worry too much.” She smiled indulgently. “I do miss him, but I know how much he enjoys the world of business. The only thing I regret is that they will both miss the party tonight.”

“Party?” Marisa gulped down a swallow of hot coffee. She searched her mind while Patricia continued talking.

“The fund-raiser for St. Michael’s Hospital is this evening.”

How could I have forgotten?
Marisa chided herself, knowing that this fund-raiser was the social event of the season, according to Ellen.

“Oh, yes, Ellen insisted that my dress for tonight be very special,” she said, but the idea that she would go without her friend made her sad once more. “Since Ellen is ill, I don’t know if I will go…”

Patricia’s head snapped up. “What? Of course you will go. We both will attend. I refuse to let a little thing like Donovan’s absence prevent it. And put your mind to rest. I have it on good authority Ellen was so much improved yesterday afternoon that Leland has finally relented and will let her go. He was very puzzled by the abrupt change in her health, but he has agreed to let her resume a normal social schedule as long as she is careful.”

The memory of falling from Ellen’s balcony made Marisa shiver.

“Are you feeling all right, my dear? Are you cold?” Patricia reached out and softly touched the back of Marisa’s hand. “You are not coming down the with the ague, are you?”

“I’m fine,” Marisa assured her. “Just a little chill.”

“Good, I am glad to hear it, because I have a special favor to ask of you.”

“Of course, anything.” Marisa took another sip of her coffee, then replaced the cup in its saucer. She was grateful for anything that would keep her busy and her thoughts away from Brooks.

Patricia wrote as she spoke. “I need you to take a message to Brooks.”

Marisa’s stomach lurched. The coffee threatened to come back up. “Brooks?” His name was a strangled sound on her lips.

“He evidently left the house before Donovan got the message and could speak to him. Rod was very reluctant to tell me where he was, but I managed to pry it out of him before he and Donovan left.” Her grin was quite triumphant. “I don’t know why he made such an issue over Brooks taking his exercise at the gentlemen’s club.” She looked at Marisa and frowned. “Sometimes my sons are very odd.” Then she smiled as if she had dismissed the thought. “I need you to take a message to him for me.” Patricia scrawled something more on the piece of stationery, then folded it and slipped it inside an envelope.

“I’ll have the carriage brought round when you’re ready.” She handed the envelope to Marisa and smiled. “And if you can, dear, persuade him to come back with you. I really must speak to him.”

Marisa stared at the envelope as if it were alive. Her stomach had balled up.

“I know you two haven’t been getting along all that well, Marisa, but this is rather important to me.”

“I’d be happy to do it,” Marisa lied with a smile on her face. And it was, after all, only half a lie, because some deep, hungry part of her longed to see Brooks, to recapture the tumultuous sensation of that kiss, even
though it was madness. Strange hidden longings had bubbled to the surface.

She pushed herself up from the table. Each time she thought of seeing Brooks her middle did a series of flip-flops like a catfish in shallow water.

Marisa felt like she must be some sort of polecat by the way men stared at her when she walked through the main lobby of the gentlemen’s club. The scents of bay rum, brandy and tobacco smoke hung in the air as several sets of eyes followed her progress. One elderly man, bald as an egg, looked up from his paper. She nodded and gave him what she hoped was a proper smile while she felt eyes scrutinizing her from the top of her hat to the curve of her bustle.

“Excuse me, I am looking—” she began.

“Yes, I know what you are looking for,” he said knowingly. He laid the paper in his lap and graced her with a grin that showed a set of gleaming gold teeth.

“You do?” Marisa frowned.

“You are not the first one to come
looking
this morning.” He cackled.

“Not the first one?” she repeated dumbly. Were other women looking for Brooks?

Violet Ashland.

An unexpected jolt of possessiveness ripped through Marisa. She had to stop this, had to get a rein on her emotions. Damn it, he was
engaged.

“Just go straight down the corridor and turn left. There are chairs set up.” He chuckled again. “And enjoy yourself.” He lifted his paper and went back to reading.

Marisa stood there for a moment, puzzled over his bizarre statement until she felt her flesh crawling under the steady stares of the other men. The old gentleman had
said he knew who she was looking for. Perhaps Patricia had sent word that she was coming to find Brooks. Yes, that had to be it. Marisa put the matter out of her mind and turned away, leaving the man to his reading while she felt eyes watch her bustle sway down the corridor.

Her heels clicked on the diamond-shaped patterns of lustrous gray-and-white marble, the sound echoing sharply off the polished stone walls. A bright shaft of light from a set of double doors on the left bisected the hallway. She turned and went through them, surprised to find herself in a room of enormous proportions.

A square platform constructed of padded canvas had been roped off in the center of the room. Rows of chairs were positioned around it, and young women of every size and shape were observing the pair of men standing inside the roped-off space. Marisa scanned the group until she was sure that Violet Ashland wasn’t there.

Something like relief washed over her. But she shook off the silly notion and tilted her head to watch what the other women were watching.

The men in the ring shook hands. But from that moment on things seemed to get stranger and stranger. The men started bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans on a hot August morning while they punched each other in the face.

Marisa had never seen anything like it. She had witnessed plenty of fistfights, both the sober, serious kind and the drunken, foolish kind, but she had never watched anything like these two galoots.

They just stood there toe-to-toe and traded punches. Having four brothers in the family had insured at least two donnybrooks a month, but never in Marisa’s born days had men pranced around in their long underwear like a couple of banty roosters while women oohed and aahed.

New York City was a mighty odd place.

One of the men landed a haymaker that made her unconsciously wince. His adversary staggered backward until the rope halted his momentum. The hemp rope hummed with the impact of his hard, muscled body.

The dark-haired man who had been hit in the face sagged against the ropes. “I suppose you think that makes us even?”

Brooks.

His voice sent shivers skipping over her arms and down her spine.

“Hardly even, but it is a start.”

Cyril.

Marisa mentally cursed and turned away from the spectacle. The two fools had lost their damned minds!

A
flash of movement caught Brooks’s eye as he laughed and pushed himself off the rope.

Marisa.

She disappeared out the door in a blur of green fabric and a flash of white petticoats. He felt a tug on his heart that shocked him.

“Uh-oh, it looks as if we have been caught in the act,” Cyril said cheerfully. “Of course, I am not the one in love with the dark-haired vixen, so…”

“Oh, shut up, Cyril.” Brooks vaulted out of the ring and grabbed a towel. “And for God’s sake, stop saying that.” He rushed past the surprised female spectators, their murmurs of embarrassment and appreciation humming in his ears. By the time he reached the hallway Marisa had covered a considerable distance.

Luckily for him, she had lost her direction. She was practically running toward the wrong end of the corridor. He knew the moment she realized her mistake. She abruptly halted and drew her shoulders taut. Her bustle jiggled as she pulled herself up and inhaled.

Brooks could almost hear the string of epithets bubbling in the back of her throat.

“Did you lose your way?” he asked in a voice that was too sweet to be sincere.

She turned and glared at him with all the fury of an Atlantic squall. There was no other way to exit the building than for her to pass him, and it was evident that was the last thing she wanted to do.

He grinned, waiting for her to admit that fact to herself. As he watched, she lifted her chin a notch and stiffened like a captured hare, but she did not move toward him.

All right, my stubborn, little spitfire. I will come to you. This time.

She held her ground while he strode toward her. Each step narrowed the distance and intensified the tension between them. He looped the towel around his neck, trying his damnedest to ignore the lovely contour of her jaw and smooth column of her graceful neck where her pulse beat under skin softer than the finest French silk.

He stopped two feet away from her just to get his own pulse under control. The nearness of her delectable body was like iron striking stone. Sparks of emotion flew off in all directions, burning him as they slid by. He fought two impulses—one to turn tail and run, the other to take her in his arms.

“Why are you here? Did Rod tell you where I went?” He was going to wring his big brother’s neck—

“No.”

Now his curiosity was really pricked. That tempestuous look in her eyes did something nearly fatal to his insides. He started to grow hot and rock hard. He felt like a warrior preparing to take his deathblow, his veins pumping with blood lust. Well, lust anyway.

He took another step closer, feeling as if he was stalking his quarry.

But what will you do if you catch her?

“Alone? You came here alone? Are you looking for me?” Out of his vanity he secretly wished that were true, but he suspected something different. “Or Cyril?”

The urge to kiss her crept into his mind. He fought the desire by digging his fingers deeply into the thick ends of the towel looped around his neck, all the while praying she would not drop her eyes to his crotch and see the evidence of his arousal beneath the thin fabric.

“I was looking for you.” The admission seemed to cause her physical pain.

“Oh.” Something hot and liquid filled his middle. “Why?”

He moved closer.

“I came to deliver a message.”

She backed up tight against the stone wall.

Trapped.

Her eyes flicked over his chest and left a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. He wished she would stop looking at him like that.

No. He wished she would never stop looking at him like that. Hell, he didn’t know what he wished anymore, he realized as he gazed into her hypnotic dark eyes.

“Brooks?” Her voice drew his gaze to her outstretched hand. There, within the grip of her very ladylike gloves, was a small white envelope.

He tried to subdue the impulse to grab her hand and pull her to his chest.

He finally snatched the envelope.

“Who recruited you to be a messenger?” He wished he could diffuse the electrically charged mood surrounding him.

“Your mother.” Marisa took a certain amount of pleasure when his brows arched in surprise. His blue eyes were alive with energy and…

Desire?

She could not help but notice the sweat-dampened tendrils of dark hair curling at his temples.

“A message from Mother?” He unfolded the flap and read the card. One side of his mouth tilted upward. “This sounds ominous. What does she want to talk to me about?”

“I have no idea.” Marisa’s gaze meandered over the breadth of his shoulders, lingering on the pale jagged scar he had earned by saving her life the first time.

“It healed pretty well, don’t you think?” he asked abruptly.

Her eyes snapped up to his face. “What?” Her voice was too breathy, too
interested.

“The scar. Hugh did a fine job of stitching me up.”

She realized with a start he had seen her staring at the scar…

And the deep corded muscles of his upper arms…

And his bare torso…

And every inch of his exposed flesh.

Dear Lord.

Heat flooded her cheeks and she fought for some semblance of control. “Yes, Pa has a real nice hand with a needle.” Her voice cracked; her throat burned. She wished her jaunty bonnet had a veil so she might draw it over her face and prevent people from seeing her, as Bellami had done.

“Your eye is beginning to swell.” Her fingers came up automatically, and before she had time to stop herself, her gloved fingers gingerly touched him.

The flesh above his cheekbone could have been branded, the sensation was so searing.

He flinched.

She drew her hand back as if she had been struck.

She wanted to stop the fluttering inside her belly. She didn’t like the strange tension that lay between them.

“Why have you and Cyril been fighting?” She hoped his answer would relieve the awful, hungry ache she felt each time she looked at his body.

Brooks’s mustache twitched, while his eyes narrowed slightly.

“I am not stupid, Brooks. This is not the first time,” she challenged. “First Cyril had a shiner and you had barked knuckles…” She pinned him with a smug gaze.

“Boxing, exercise. Nothing more,” he lied.

What would her lips taste like today? Would they be flavored with sugar cookies and lemon tea?

“I see,” she murmured.

He studied her face and wished her hair were free of the white netting. He could almost feel the weight of the dark locks between his fingers as he imagined unpinning her chignon.

His belly began to tie itself into a tight knot. “What if I told you that we had been fighting over you? Tell me, Marisa.” He stared down at her. “What would you say if I told you we were doing battle to see which one of us would propose marriage to you?” His voice was a husky purr of sensuality.

Her eyes widened. Brooks took a step closer. She wanted to retreat farther, but her back was against the cold wall of polished stone.

She could not run away.

He closed the last tiny space between them and placed his hands on either side of her shoulders, trapping her within the circle of his bare arms. He inhaled deeply, drinking in the light floral scent she was wearing. Heat emanated from her body and warmed his arms, his chest, his heart.

She was so lovely, so feminine.

“What would you say?” He pressed his body against hers and saw her eyes grow wide when she felt the heat and bulk of his arousal.

“I would say that one of you had better remember that he already has a fiancée.” She tried to return Brooks’s gaze, but the sultry expression in his eyes was too much for her to withstand. To her mortification, she found her glance sliding away from his.

He wanted her to look at him again so he could study the gold flecks around her dark irises. “What if I told you all that nonsense about Violet Ashland being my fiancée is a lie?”

Marisa’s eyes snapped back to his face and held. “I would…I would have to hear it said in her presence.”

Was it a lie?

“Can’t you trust me? If I say it is a lie, can’t you believe me?”

“No.” In a lightning-quick movement, she ducked beneath his arm. He was left holding nothing but air.

He turned to her while the delicious warmth of her body faded away. “Why, Marisa? Why can’t you trust me?” He stared at her rigid back. She was breathing heavily, even more raggedly than he was.

“Because I want to believe it too much to trust you, or myself.” She spoke without ever turning around. Then she started walking as fast as she could toward the exit.