Nan Ryan (3 page)

“Why not?” was the Ranger’s flat reply.

He slid his strong fingers around her small waist, and she immediately put her hands atop his broad shoulders. Effortlessly, he lifted her up in front of him, and she eagerly wrapped her stockinged legs around his trim waist. Virgil Black locked his hands beneath her shapely bottom and ascended the stairs. While she laughed with joy, hisses and boos and shouts of jealousy followed them from below.

Once inside her gaudily decorated room, Black lowered her to her feet and reached for the low-riding bodice of her tight green dress.

“No, wait,” she scolded, smiling as she slapped his hand away. “Let us change roles,
vat
do you say? Instead of you undressing me, I first undress you.”

“Suit yourself, Red,” Black drawled as he shrugged wide shoulders. “So long as we both wind up naked.”

“Oh, we will. I promise.”

With that, her hands went to the buckle of his gun belt. Before she could get it undone, the ever-cautious Texas Ranger removed the heavy Colt .45 from its leather holster and laid it out of harm’s way on the marble-topped chest behind them. The redhead drew the gun belt slowly from around his hips and tossed it aside. She touched the silver star on his chest, then her nimble fingers went to the buttons of his starched white shirt. Virgil Black removed the silver star, placing it beside his weapon, while she unbuttoned his shirt.

Yanking the long shirt tails up out of his black twill trousers, she swept the opened shirt apart, leaned to him, and gave his dark, naked chest a warm, wet kiss. Quite adept at what she was doing, the Queen of the Silver Dollar had, within a few short minutes, completely undressed the tall Texas Ranger. His clothes, gun belt, and boots lay on the carpeted floor, and he stood, a bare brown hip against the marble-topped chest, Adam naked. She hadn’t yet removed so much as her high-heeled dancing slippers.

She played with him, teasing him and tempting him, circling him, kissing his smooth clefted back and his bare, hair-covered chest and his drum-tight belly. Finally she took him in her soft warm hands and toyed enticingly with him. Soon, awed by the size and hardness of the throbbing flesh she held, she was murmuring, “You were right,
Herr Kapitan.
Everything
is
in proportion.” She stared down at him with widened emerald eyes, adding, “You are even bigger than I’d supposed. I am impressed.”

“If you plan on staying impressed,” came his low, flat rejoinder, “you’d better get undressed and into that bed.”

She nodded happily, gave his pulsing shaft one last gentle squeeze, and said, “Give me a little time to freshen up for you. I’ll be right back, I promise.”

Virgil Black nodded as she hurried away and into her dressing room, assuring him she’d be “only a minute.” His aching tumescence bobbing on his belly, he walked to the bed, turned back the spread, and stretched out on the clean white sheets. He waited. And waited.

His erection starting to wither, Virgil Black put a warm, gripping hand on himself, closed his eyes, and attempted to envision how his pretty red-haired companion would look without her clothes. He tried to imagine how she would feel when she was naked in his arms.

But try as he might to keep himself in a state of hot arousal, the tired Texas Ranger was swiftly losing it. He was exhausted from too little rest and too much to drink. And she was taking too long to freshen up.

He passed out.

Inside her small dressing room, the Queen of the Silver Dollar had stripped off all her clothes. She took a refreshing sponge bath so she’d be nice and clean for the handsome Texas Ranger. She undid her hair and brushed it out so that it would spill around her bare shoulders. After dabbing her most expensive perfume between her full breasts, behind her ears and knees, and on the insides of her thighs, she slipped on a slinky robe of shimmering white satin trimmed with white ostrich feathers. She tied the robe’s sash at her waist, then purposely pushed the feather-trimmed lapels wide apart so that her full breasts would be half-revealed.

Sliding her bare feet into a pair of white satin house slippers, she eagerly hurried out to join her Ranger.

Her smile quickly turning to a frown, the Queen of the Silver Dollar sighed with bitter disappointment when she saw that the lanky, naked Ranger was sound asleep. Miffed, and frustrated, she paced back and forth for a few uncertain minutes, before kicking off her house slippers and removing her satin robe.

Naked, she crawled in next to the sprawled Ranger. She snuggled close, pressing her bare, soft body against his hard length while she leaned over his face and licked at his lips, murmuring, “Come on, handsome,
vake
up.”

She ran her hands over his hard muscled frame. She tickled his broad chest. She pressed wet, tongue-probing kisses to his hard belly. She cupped his groin warmly, caressed his flaccid flesh in an all-out attempt to make it spring to life. She did everything in her power to awaken the sleeping Ranger and his magnificent body. But to no avail.

Exasperated, she finally got out of the bed, went through his trouser pockets, and took some cash, paying herself for what was promised but never delivered. Then she sighed wearily, blew out the bedside lamp, got back into bed with Virgil Black, and fell asleep.

When the Queen of the Silver Dollar awakened late the next morning, the handsome, hard-faced Ranger was gone.

3

New York City was in a royal tizzy
over the visit of Her Highness, Princess Marlena of Hartz-Coburg.

The elegant presidential suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel had been engaged for the royal party, where, on the morning of her arrival, fresh-cut flowers were placed in all the suite’s spacious rooms and the hotel’s nervous staff fussed over the smallest of details in an effort to ensure the total comfort and privacy of their illustrious guest.

The city’s foremost families fought for the privilege of hosting glittering balls and lavish dinners for the princess. There were far more hostesses anxious to fete the visiting royal than the proposed length of her stay allowed, so the arguing ladies finally resorted to a democratic lottery. Those who won an evening were elated; the losers, extremely disappointed.

On a bright sunny morning in early June, the royal yacht steamed into New York Harbor right on schedule. Swarms of admirers, crowding Hudson River pier 51, waited expectantly, hoping for a glimpse of the arriving royal.

As the yacht slowly maneuvered into its appointed berth in the busy harbor, the object of their interest was inside her satinwood-paneled stateroom, dressing for her initial appearance in New York.

Princess Marlena was terrifically tired from her long journey. First there had been the exhausting train ride in the royal railcar across the mountains to the seacoast city of Bremerhaven where the royal yacht was moored. Then the lengthy and frightening voyage across a storm-tossed ocean, which had on more than one occasion made her wretchedly seasick.

Weary and suffering from a slight headache, she would have liked nothing more than to slip unnoticed into the city and the blessed privacy of a quiet hotel suite where she could lie down and rest. But rest would have to wait.

First impressions were, the princess knew all too well, lasting ones. And so she chose, from the many wardrobe options presented for consideration by her lady-in-waiting, a freshly pressed, tastefully tailored traveling suit of heavy linen, the hue of which was a deep emerald green that brought out her eyes. To compliment the simple elegance of the stylish linen suit, she chose a delicate lace-trimmed blouse with a tall, tight-banded collar that felt as if it would surely choke her to death. The high-throated blouse and heavy linen suit would, she knew, be uncomfortably warm in the sweltering June heat of New York. But decidedly attractive. She could, for one short hour, endure a measure of discomfort.

When she was dressed, Princess Marlena placed a wide-brimmed straw hat atop her ginger-red hair, which had been carefully swept atop her head. She thoughtfully studied herself in the mirror and, focusing on her ears, made an unhappy face. Why, she had wondered a thousand times, couldn’t she have had her mother’s ears instead of her father’s? The queen’s ears had been absolutely perfect: small, well shaped, and lying close to her regal head. The king’s ears had not been overly large, but they protruded noticeably, and she, to her profound dismay, had inherited that unwanted family trait of the house of Ballarat. Her ears were as small as her mother’s, but they stood out a fraction too much from her head. She was extremely self-conscious about them.

“Do you think these Americans will notice my ears?” she worriedly asked her hovering lady-in-waiting, a favorite cousin of the princess’s.

“The only one aware of your ears is you, Your Highness,” said the baroness Richtoffen, right on cue. She shook her graying head, adding as she always did, “There is nothing wrong with your ears.”

Unconvinced, Princess Marlena sighed and reached for her white kid gloves. Drawing on the gloves, she crossed to the stateroom’s closed door. There she paused, smoothed down the skirts of her green linen suit, bit her lips to give them extra color, and took a deep, spine-stiffening breath.

When she exited the royal cabin, Montillion met her with raised umbrella, but Princess Marlena waved it away. “They will want to see my face.”

“Yes, of course,” said Montillion, bowing slightly, tossing the umbrella aside and escorting her to the yacht’s railing. There, smiling broadly, he extended his arm full length and made a wide sweeping gesture, indicating the huge crowd anxiously awaiting her appearance.

Princess Marlena stepped up to the railing and into sight. Shouts of joy immediately rose and quickly grew to a din as she smiled and waved to the masses below.

It was the same throughout Manhattan. So many people had turned out to see the princess, it took four hours for her to travel the few miles from the pier to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Throughout, Princess Marlena sat in the slow-moving coach with her back absolutely straight—never touching the seat. All along the route she smiled and waved and appeared to be as fresh as the first rose of spring. No one who saw her could have suspected that she was hot and miserable and had a headache and a backache.

Graciously enduring the ordeal, she reminded herself that she
was
royalty and that the future of the crown was at stake. She had been assured by her Rothschild advisers that there had been no problem arranging and executing a potentially successful bond tour. They had confidently predicted that in the heavily populated Northeast—where many prosperous Hartz-Coburg immigrants lived—she would be able to raise great sums of money rather quickly. With any luck, she’d be returning home at summer’s end with sufficient funds to drain and reopen the flooded Hartz-Coburg marble quarries. The much-sought-after pink stone with its ocean-blue veins would again satisfy the demands of worldwide construction.

Judging by the size and enthusiasm of the crowds that had turned out to see her, her advisers had been right. This happy thought lifted the princess’s spirits, and her smile became broader and more dazzling.

Nonetheless, the princess could hardly hide her relief when the gleaming black coach finally drew up before the Waldorf-Astoria’s canopied entrance. She was literally counting the minutes until she could get inside the suite, strip off her hot clothes, and sink down into a cooling tub.

The carriage wheels had barely ground to a stop before a high-hatted doorman rushed forward. Montillion motioned him back to the luggage coach pulling up alongside the servant’s coach, which was directly behind the royal carriage. The doorman nodded, put a whistle to his lips, blew one sharp blast, and a half-dozen uniformed young men rushed out of the hotel and began unloading the luggage.

In all there were eight large steamer trunks, thirty-five leather valises of various shapes and sizes, and a couple of velvet suede cases containing gifts that the princess had brought along to give to the people in service to her while in America. The cases were filled with pens and studs and rings and bracelets, all bearing the Hartz-Coburg royal crest.

The royal party began alighting from the carriages. Only a few of her most trusted traveling companions had come to America with the princess. The princess had been advised, and had agreed, that to be accompanied by too large a retinue would be unseemly in view of the fact that the purpose of her visit was to raise money.

So her small entourage consisted of Montillion, her trusted factor; the baroness Richtoffen, her dear cousin and lady-in-waiting; Doctor Hondrich, the royal physician; and Hantz Landsfelt, a large, muscular Bavarian equerry who served as protector and bodyguard and baggage handler.

The tired princess was swiftly whisked from the carriage and escorted across the red-carpeted entrance into the hotel’s grand lobby. She was spirited through the lavish lobby with its waxed mahogany and painted paneling and emerald-green ferns. Within minutes she was being directed into a spacious top-floor corner suite.

Ignoring the vases of fresh-cut roses and baskets of fragrant fruit and the beckoning view of the city from her private balcony, Princess Marlena tore off her straw hat, removed her kid gloves, and was already unbuttoning her green linen suit jacket as she headed straight for the bedroom.