Savage Heat (9 page)

8

“M
artay?”

Puzzled, Lawrence Berton stood looking about the empty veranda, holding two cups of icy punch. His irritation was rising. If this were someone’s idea of a joke, even Martay’s, he failed to see the humor. Foolishly he had dashed inside and upstairs as soon as the servant had delivered the message saying he was wanted by his superiors, only to be met by Colonel Darlington and told that no one had summoned him; there was to be no meeting.

“This is a party, Major,” Thomas Darlington had reminded him.

“But, sir,” Lawrence Berton had protested, holding up the folded note, “this message was signed by you, and I …”

“What message? I signed no message. Someone’s having sport with you, Major.” And Colonel Darlington had grinned and added, “It appears to me one of the many young men anxious to beat your time with Miss Kidd has cleverly maneuvered to get her alone for a few moments.”

“No. No, sir, I don’t believe …”

“Well, I do, Major. You’ve apparently failed to notice the looks of envy you’ve been drawing from a majority of the men here.”

“I can certainly believe that, sir,” Lawrence said proudly.

Major Darlington clamped a hand down atop Lawrence Berton’s muscular shoulder. “You’re a lucky man, Major. Now get on back out there to your sweetheart before some fellow steals her away.”

And so Lawrence Berton, mildly annoyed, had hurriedly stopped by the table where a gigantic carved-crystal bowl held gallons of icy pink punch, nodded yes to a servant’s offer to pour, and carefully balancing the two brimming cups, had gone back out to claim what was his.

But where was she?

“Martay?” he called again. “Martay, where are you? I’ve brought our punch.” He turned his head, listening, looking. The huge stone porch was silent. “Martay, answer me.”

Lawrence Berton’s irritation turned to downright anger. Major Darlington was right. Obviously one of the unattached males present had called him away on false pretext, then hurried outdoors to charm Martay. Lawrence Berton immediately began considering who the guilty party might be. Captain Haynes? He was always trying to move in on somebody’s date. Lieutenant Brooks? He was a known ladies’ man. Samuel Baker? Sam had made no bones about the fact that he wanted Martay.

Gulping down one cold punch, then the other, Lawrence Berton set the empty glasses atop the smooth porch railing and hurried down the back stone steps into the manicured gardens. Jaw set, he went in search of the woman he loved, ready to fight any unscrupulous cad who might, at this moment, have Martay alone out in the moonlight.

Major Berton’s anger had given way to mild apprehension after twenty minutes of scouring the vast grounds, both in back and in front of the mansion. His careful search had turned up a half-dozen courting couples enjoying the warm mountain moonlight, but not a trace of Martay.

Dashing back inside, Lawrence Berton wandered through all the downstairs rooms, his eyes anxiously seeking a head of gold-gilt hair, a shimmering gown of white silk.

“Excuse me, Miss Brady, Miss Hanson.” He hurriedly mounted the stairs to meet a pair of descending young ladies. “Did either of you happen to see Miss Kidd upstairs in the ladies’ salon?”

“No,” they said in unison. Then Miss Brady, the one with chestnut curls, teased, “Major, everyone knows she went out into the moonlight with you.” She tapped his broad shoulder with her folded fan. “Don’t tell me you left her out there alone and lost her.” She laughed then, as did Shirley Hanson.

Realizing suddenly how very irresponsibly he had behaved, Lawrence Berton muttered, “Jesus Christ! Dear God in Heaven!” And the heart inside his broad chest beginning to pound with alarm, he bounded down the stairs and sought out his host.

Within minutes the orchestra no longer played, guests no longer danced, sweethearts no longer strolled in the moonlight. While the ladies, twittering nervously and holding hands, gathered in the vast white ballroom, every man present began a thorough search for the missing guest of honor.

Nothing.

Not a sign of Martay Kidd.

A decisive Colonel Thomas Darlington ordered a mounted search of the wooded acreage surrounding his big estate. In a remarkably short period of time, dozens of young gentlemen, dressed in their evening duds, thundered out of the stables astride fast horses, Colonel Darlington and Major Berton leading the way.

It was after three in the morning when the frustrated horsemen came riding back to the mansion in defeat. They had not found her. Miss Martay Kidd was very definitely missing.

At almost four
A.M.,
in an upstairs study of the lighted Darlington mansion, a heartsick Major Lawrence Berton, his blue jacket cast off, circles of perspiration staining his shirt, related again and again to a circle of looming military superiors exactly what had led up to Martay’s disappearance.

It was past four in the morning when the bearer of the bad news galloped up to the Emersons’ Larimer Street home. Inside, a wide-awake, worried Colonel Dolph Emerson, upon hearing the approaching hoofbeats, drew an easy breath at last, turned and smiled at his robed wife, Betty Jane, and said, “They’re home.”

Betty Jane Emerson’s eyelids slid closed in relief and she sighed. Then, opening her eyes, she immediately clutched at her husband’s forearm, saying softly, “Now, Dolph, please don’t be too hard on the boy.”

“Hard on Major Berton? Why, Betty, I ought to horsewhip him! Keeping that child out all night when he promised he’d have her home at a …”

“Now, Dolph, you’re forgetting what it’s like to be young and in love.” His reply was a snort and a shake of his balding head. “You are,” his wife went on, gently. “Remember the Fourth of July Ball back in forty-nine when we …”

“Hush now, darling, they’re on the porch.” And not waiting a moment longer, Dolph Emerson strode into the foyer and jerked open the heavy front door. He saw not the tall, muscular major and Martay but a skinny young lieutenant standing before him.

“What’s the meaning of this, Lieutenant?” said Dolph Emerson.

“Colonel, sir, with apologies from my superior, who is in the field,” replied the nervous officer, “I’m afraid I have some very bad news.”

It was straight up four
A.M.

A lone rider, on a deep-chested dun gelding, pulled up on the reins, bringing his mount to an abrupt halt atop a rocky overhang above the sleeping city of Denver. Only a few lights were still twinkling below in the valley. The full moon had set and the summer sun had not yet tinged the eastern horizon with color.

The rider sat for only a moment, then nudged the gelding back into movement. If he were to be in and out of Denver under the cover of darkness, as planned, he could wait no longer.

Down the rocky, timbered slopes the rider guided his horse beneath the towering trees and across boulder-strewn crevices in the early morning blackness, reciting silently to himself the instructions he had been given, the orders he had sworn to carry out.

“You’re to ride into Denver and go straight to the Larimer Street home of a Colonel Dolph Emerson. Place this envelope under the door, lift the door knocker several times, making sure you’ve roused the household, then flee back to your horse, remount, and ride away before the door opens. Don’t come back here; don’t return home. Go south, spend the winter with Running Elk’s people, and I’ll see you in the spring.”

The rider was so preoccupied with his thoughts of successfully carrying out the all-important mission for his friend, he failed to notice, as he rode into a wide upland clearing, a trio of mounted men lying in wait. They’d heard him lunging down the mountainside, his horse whinnying and loosening boulders as he came.

As soon as he spotted the ill-kempt men, he pulled roughly on the reins, the bit jerking his gelding’s head up. But it was too late.

“Get him,” shouted a big, bearded man, grabbing for the startled gelding’s bridle. The rider managed to wheel his gelding away, but he didn’t get far. The men gave chase in the darkness, overtaking the rider not a half mile from where he’d first seen them.

His hand flattening protectively over the breast pocket where the all-important message lay against his rapidly beating heart, the rider was jerked down from his horse and unceremoniously killed by the three drunken vagrant gold prospectors.

It was a robbery, of sorts.

They took from the knife-butchered body the few coins he carried in a tiny worn leather purse. They also took, after prying away the still-clutching fingers, a message from inside the rider’s breast pocket. An impressive white parchment envelope with a shiny gold seal securing its flap.

Striking a match so that he could see, the largest of the three, the big-bellied, bearded Benjamin Gilbert, held the envelope between soiled thumb and forefinger as though it were precious, studying it carefully.

His match went out.

“Light a goddamned match, Eli,” Gilbert snapped at the young, skinny boy who was still frantically searching the warm body, hunting for hidden treasures.

A match flared, then a second, as Johnny Batemen, the third member of the drunken trio, moved closer, and the big man painstakingly separated shiny gold seal from fine parchment and unfolded the letter. Squinting, he peered thoughtfully at the bold, neat handwriting as though he were carefully reading it.

A snort of derision from Johnny Batemen caused big Benjamin Gilbert’s head to swing around. “What’s so all-fired funny?”

“You,” said Batemen. “You could have the secret to the mother lode there in your hand but it wouldn’t do you no good. You can’t read.” And he hooted with laughter, as did young Eli Wills.

Big Benjamin Gilbert looked fierce for only a moment, then he, too, laughed. They all three laughed because not a one of them could read or write. Not a word.

When they’d calmed a bit, Benjamin Gilbert said, “Reckon this here gold seal might be worth something?”

“I’d save it, you never can tell. Might be something valuable,” replied Johnny Batemen, rising. Looking down at the man they’d killed, he nudged the body with the toe of a scarred boot, scratched his itchy chin, and said, “Wonder what this ignorant redskin was doing with a fancy envelope sealed with gold?”

His black eyes had not left her for the past hour.

She lay exactly as he had placed her when they’d reached the abandoned line shack. On her back atop the cot, one small hand resting on her waist, the other beside her hip. Her head was turned to the side, facing him, her golden hair fanned out on the pillow, one thick lustrous lock falling over her left shoulder and across the swell of her pale bosom.

She looked as innocent and helpless as a baby lying there with her soft lips partially open, her green eyes peacefully closed. Long, dark lashes cast feathery shadows on her ivory cheeks. Her nose, small and proud, was that of an adorable child. But when, still slumbering soundly, she sighed and drew a deep, shuddering breath, her soft, full breasts swelled atop the low-cut bodice and the shimmering white silk of her gown pulled provocatively across a flat belly and flaring feminine hips.

This was no child.

As he studied her sleeping form, he thought she was a spoiled, beautiful woman who looked upon her too-easily snared lovers as mere playthings, toys to be chosen and discarded with equal carelessness. Much like Regina Darlington and so many others he’d known in the past four years, this lovely golden-haired temptress lying before him now, her pale, fragile beauty making her appear angelic, sweet, untouched, was in fact as brazen and promiscuous as the rest. Of that there was little doubt. He had observed her behavior for the past six weeks.

His jaw hardened.

He was glad he would have her only for twenty-four hours. With her deceptively innocent brand of beauty, she was as dangerous as her heartless, murdering father.

He turned his head and looked out the window. A faint hint of gray was seeping over the eastern horizon. She would waken soon. He’d used only a minute amount of the chloroform, just enough to ensure her silence until they were safely away from the Darlington estate and inside this distant shack so that her screams, when they came, could not be heard. It had been almost four hours.

His eyes returned to her face.

She gave a little short sigh and again turned her face in his direction. A tiny muscle twitched beside her soft mouth. Her lashes began to flutter.

Martay began slowly to shake off the chains of unconsciousness, struggling to wake up. She drew in a breath and tried, unsuccessfully, to open her eyes. She swallowed and licked her lips. And tried once more to open her heavy, heavy eyelids.

Managing to open them barely a slit, she found her vision blurred, fuzzy. She blinked, and blinked once more, then allowed her lids to slide closed. And she rested. Shortly, eyes still closed, she tried to lift her arms, to move her hands, but couldn’t. She moaned softly. And trying again, finally got her eyes to open fully.

For a long moment she saw only shapes and muted color and the glow of a lamp from somewhere. Then movement caught her attention and she stared, unblinking, as a man slowly came to his feet to loom tall and menacing before her.

He stood there silent and made not a move. In the heavy lassitude still weighing her down, Martay languidly studied him, unsure where she was and with whom, but as yet unafraid.

Looking down, she stared at his feet. And, her head still foggy, she didn’t think it the least bit strange that he wore soft, intricately beaded moccasins or that elkskin leggings covered his long, lean legs. A buckskin shirt, fringed at shoulder and hip, stretched across broad shoulders and lay unlaced and open down his smooth, dark chest.

Her curious gaze lingering on a white scar slashing across his muscular chest, Martay frowned imperceptibly and languidly allowed her eyes to drift up over his gleaming throat to his face.

As motionless as a statue, the harshly chiseled features were half in shadow, half in bold relief. A proud, fierce face with a cruel, sensual mouth, an arrogant nose, and high, slanted cheekbones that gleamed copper in the lamplight.