My Darling Gunslinger (26 page)

“The thing is, now I know you exist,” Ty whispered against her lips. “Now my dreams are full of you and I can’t see as how that’ll change anytime soon.”

“Would it be so terrible if it never changed?” she asked before stroking her tongue along his bottom lip.

Ty’s only response was a hum of pleasure as he shifted the angle of his head, fused their lips together and deepened the kiss.

Charlotte’s last coherent thought was to marvel at the manner in which silence interspersed with soft moans and whispered sighs conveyed so much more than mere words.

She might have done better to consider the manner in which words, no matter the language, could wreak havoc upon one’s dreams.

We are trained to run a large household, to host dinners and balls, to dance and flirt, to make polite conversation, to ignore those things beyond our control and instead concentrate our efforts upon those very few things within our power. And to please our husband in all things.

Lady Charlotte Morgan

Tyler Morgan had never attended a ball, never attended so much as a country dance. He didn’t know a waltz from a quadrille, a violin from a cello, and the only cards he knew came in a deck of fifty-two.

As far as Ty could reckon, a dance card held fifty-two lines for fifty-two dances. And his wife had promised them all to over-starched, over-dressed gentlemen with glib tongues and nimble feet.

Charlotte had barely finished her fifth dance when a pale-haired young man wearing a green and blue paisley waistcoat beneath a padded yellow jacket waylaid her on the edge of the dancefloor.

It wasn’t the first time a man had brushed a kiss across her knuckles in greeting. Likely it wouldn’t be the last, more’s the pity.

Ty came up on Charlotte’s right, pausing just beyond her shoulder as he took in the over-dressed fop from his hair stiff with pomade to his dance slippers shined to a high gloss.

“My lady, would it be too much to hope you’ve saved an open space on your dance card for this next waltz?” The fop’s voice held the same arrogance and faint boredom as every other gentleman in the ballroom.

“Thank you, Lord Godfrey, but I believe I’ll sit this one out,” Charlotte replied with a gracious smile. “Shall I pencil you in after supper?”

“Only if you’ve a waltz left, Lady Westlockhart,” the handsome man answered with a slick smile.

“Lady Charlotte Morgan,” she corrected gently. “I’m afraid I’ve only a quadrille open. All my waltzes have been promised to my husband.”

“It’s quite odd to think of you married to someone other than Westlockhart.” Lord Godfrey blatantly ogled Charlotte’s breasts. “We were great friends. I miss him sorely, as you must.”

“Of course,” she agreed, carefully extricating her hand. “Though it has been nearly eight years and I am now happily married to Mr. Morgan.”

Pale blue eyes wandered leisurely up and down his wife’s slender form. “If you should need anything while in Town, anything at all, please do not hesitate to call upon me. Day or night.”

“I do thank you, but I cannot imagine what I should need that my husband cannot provide.”

“One never knows when the urge to…oh, I don’t know…bob about on the water might overtake a lady. I’ve a new sloop, fast on the wind she is, with an exceedingly comfortable cabana to shade one from the sun. And I’m a deuced good swimmer.”

“Thank you, but I am not overly fond of sailing.”

“And yet Westlockhart was effusive in his praise of your talents.”

“Go on with you, sir.” Charlotte gave the man’s arm a good thwack with her closed fan.

“Please say you’ll come sailing with me.”

Ty had had more than enough of whatever was going on between his wife and her former husband’s great friend. He closed the space that separated them, stepping up beside Charlotte and laying a proprietary hand on her lower back. “The lady said no.”

Lord Godfrey’s head snapped up, his eyes going wide as he took a quick step back. Ty followed his retreat until they stood nearly toe to toe.

“I say, I meant no offense,” Godfrey said, his voice cracking. “The lady and I were only engaging in a bit of harmless flirtation.”

“The lady is my wife,” Ty growled, tempted to push back his jacket to expose the revolver resting comfortably on his right hip. “And the only man she flirts with is me.”

“You’re Morgan?” Godfrey squeaked. “Grenville be damned. First he’s ignorant of your marriage and then he swears you’re naught but a cowpoke.”

“Splendid timing, Mr. Morgan,” Charlotte exclaimed with a laugh, for all the world as if Ty wasn’t looming over some pipsqueak with too much pomade in his hair. “I did so want to introduce you to Lord Godfrey.”

“We’ve met.” Ty didn’t budge, no matter that his wife was tugging on his coat tails.

“Godfrey and Westlockhart were great friends, forever in one another’s pockets and up to some mischief or other,” Charlotte prattled on. “And now it seems Mr. Grenville has befriended him. Why, we simply must reminisce about old times and new, seeing as I’ve been away for so long while Lord Godfrey has been right here in London. With Grenville.”

Ty budged.

Stepping back beside his wife, he gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Why didn’t you say so, Lady Morgan?”

“You don’t mind if I give away your waltz, do you dearest?” Charlotte batted her lashes, her lips curling into a smile that did queer things to Ty’s heart.

“That isn’t… I don’t… We needn’t…” Godfrey stuttered, clearly desiring only to be as far away from the pair of them as possible.

“Nonsense.” Ty slapped Godfrey on the shoulder, smiling grimly when the man stumbled. “Dance with my wife. I’ll stand just here and watch.”

“Come along, the waltz is just beginning.” Charlotte wrapped her slender hand around Godfrey’s sleeve and pulled him off to the dance floor.

Ty stood precisely where they’d left him beside a tall marble pillar, watching as his wife twirled around the dance floor, a bright smile lighting up her face, her midnight blue skirts belling out around her. She was graceful and light on her feet, even when her partner repeatedly tripped over his own.

As the first dance of the set gave way to the second, the music soaring and the couples gliding faster and faster around the parquet floor, Ty tapped his foot to the lively tune, his eyes never leaving his beautiful wife.

Even so, he felt the presence of the voluptuous red-headed woman two seconds before she stepped up on his left.

“What on earth did you do to Lord Godfrey?” she asked with a sultry laugh. “He’s likely to injure himself watching you rather than where he’s going.”

Ty made no reply and spared no more than a glance for the woman beside him. He knew who she was, recognized the low timber of her voice, the breathy quality of her laughter and the snide tone of her words. Even had he not known precisely who she was, he would have known exactly
what
she was with only that single quick glance.

Mrs. St. Germaine was a whore. High-priced, to be sure, but a whore all the same. It was evident in the calculating glint in her dark eyes, in the sly lift of her rouged lips, in the spill of her breasts above the low-cut bodice of her emerald gown.

She spread her legs for gaudy jewels and fancy carriages, for a house in some fashionable neighborhood and a dozen servants to wait on her hand and foot.

Hell, she even required payment for parting.

Ty’s lips twitched just thinking about all the money his mother might have earned had she asked for extra payment from every gambler, cowboy and drifter as they were on the way out the door.

“Do you find the idea of Godfrey becoming injured while dancing with Lady Westlockhart amusing?” Mrs. St. Germaine purred.

“Lady Charlotte Morgan.” Ty was getting tired of correcting people who knew damn well she’d married again. “Wouldn’t bother me none to see the dandy fall flat on his face at my wife’s feet.”

Mrs. St. Germaine turned toward him, one gloved hand coming up to play with his cravat, the other curling around his shoulder. Leaning into him, her breasts bracketing his arm and her skirts tangling around his legs, she whispered, “It would hardly be the first time. Your lady wife does have something of a reputation for luring a man into danger.”

Ty didn’t acknowledge her words, nor the smile she gave him as she peeked up at him through the fringe of her lashes.

“Poor Westlockhart was forever led around by his cock.”

Ty suspected she’d hoped to shock him with her bawdy talk, maybe even arouse him. She couldn’t know he’d heard dirtier, naughtier words while still in the cradle.

“You do know how your predecessor died, do you not?” she persisted in the face of his silence. “Surely, someone has shared that little tasty morsel with you? Gracious, am I to have the pleasure, then? How positively delightful.”

Charlotte and Lord Godfrey twirled along the edge of the dancefloor, not a dozen feet from where he stood with Mrs. St. Germaine all but humping his leg. Ty met his wife’s eyes, saw a spark of anger shining in their turquoise depths.

“It was a lovely day for sailing,” the fire-haired whore murmured in his ear. “And Westlockhart never could resist a good stiff wind, among other things.”

Ty watched the young dandy spin his wife away, into the center of the floor where they disappeared amid the couples rollicking to the music while Mrs. St. Germaine took delight in sharing her tasty morsel.

“There were dozens of boats on the river, the banks lined with ladies and gentlemen.”

In the same way he could sense an ambush before he heard so much as a twig snap or saw so much as a gleam of sunlight on a raised revolver, Ty sensed the attack about to be unleashed by the venomous woman whose fingers continued to pluck at his neck cloth.

“We were enjoying the first truly sunny day we’d seen in weeks.” There was laughter in the woman’s voice, mean and spiteful. “Promenading and picnicking, entirely unaware we were about to witness the most shocking spectacle of the Season.”

A portly man in a garish yellow jacket and his equally portly partner danced off toward the refreshment table, leaving Ty with a clear view of his wife and her partner. Charlotte twisted and turned and raised up on to her toes in an attempt to look over Godfrey’s shoulder toward the wall of French doors thrown open in deference to the stifling heat in the ballroom. Following her gaze, Ty scanned the balcony beyond, seeing nothing but a handful of people standing about in the shadows cast by dozens of torches.

“Westlockhart’s boat was drifting through the water, the sail unfurled but the tiller unmanned, spinning and dipping on the wake of the other boats.”

Across the ballroom crowded with too many bodies doused with perfume to hide the stench of sweat and stale tobacco, Frederick Grenville pushed his way into the morass.

“And there sat the Earl of Westlockhart on the bench in the bow,” Mrs. St. Germaine continued, no longer bothering to keep her voice to a whisper. “With his countess nowhere in sight.”

Dressed in a fancier version of the military uniform he’d worn as he’d bent over the queen’s shoulder before being swatted away like a fly buzzing around Pocahontas’s flanks, Grenville halted just inside the teeming ballroom.

“Grenville was on the river, sitting right beside me on the banks, both of us watching the sloop drift aimlessly through the water.”

Grenville scanned the crowd, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, the other cocked out in offering to the woman who followed close on his heels.

Lady Sylvia’s head was raised high, her chin jutting out as if offering some sort of dare to the ladies and gentlemen loitering about like fat, overfed heifers in a field. Gone was the clumsy, shy lady who’d knelt before the young lord on the docks. In her place stood a woman with her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed and her bosom heaving.

“To this day I believe Grenville hadn’t a clue what he was witnessing. He was little more than a boy, spoiled and petulant, bitter with his lot in life and forever coveting his brother’s place in the world.”

Lady Sylvia paid no heed to the spoiled boy’s offered arm. Instead she glided through the crowd, ignoring one and all as she made her way to the refreshment table. She paused there long enough to accept a glass of punch from a servant before disappearing onto the dimly-lit balcony.

While Ty contemplated what might have caused the lady’s obvious temper and how he might best use it to his advantage, the deceased Earl of Westlockhart’s discarded mistress continued to spew venom.

“The rest of us knew precisely what we were witnessing when the blonde head started bobbing over Westlockhart’s lap.”

Yes, well then he died…drowned.

I could take you in my mouth. Though it seems a dangerous endeavor in a moving carriage.

“I’ll be damned,” Ty muttered around a rusty chuckle. “Countess of Best Cock Hard.”

“Ah, so you’ve heard the moniker, have you?”

“I can’t say as I know what a moniker is,” Ty replied. “But I’m guessing my wife owes the mangling of her former name to you.”

“I’ve racked my brain to come up with a suitable alternative now that she’s married again.” The lady’s words were an admission of sorts. “Alas, I’ve come up with not a single witty replacement.”

Grenville turned to the long wall of French doors and Ty expected the man to go off in search of his recalcitrant wife, considered whether such action might somehow provide him with the fortuitous moment they’d been waiting to seize.

A tall form separated from the shadows lurking on the terrace, slowly wove around a trio of giggling debutants, and skirted the edge of the dance floor to stop beside a blooming tree in a tall gilded urn. Grenville joined him, ordering him deeper into the dimly little corner beyond with nothing more than a look.

Every last shred of Ty’s amusement disappeared as he recognized the dark brown hair pushed back from a high forehead, the long straight nose and the deep-set eyes beneath arched brows. The neatly trimmed moustache hiding a thin upper lip.