Silver Lining (10 page)

"And a walk…" She hesitated, then spoke in a rush. "Actually, if you don't mind too much, I'd like to get the poking over with." Circles of color burned on her cheeks. "The longer we put it off, the more nervous I'm getting about the whole thing. And the way I figure, tonight would be a good time. I might not look this good again."

Of course, he had known the moment was coming. He couldn't avoid it forever. And he'd halfway promised that tonight would be the night they made the first attempt toward the baby she wanted.

Suddenly he felt the presence of the Piney Creek prospectors. A prickle along his neck raised the uncanny impression that if he looked over his shoulder, he'd see the miners standing behind him, waiting to hear him deliver the correct answer.

"We could do that," he said reluctantly, frowning and tugging at his collar.

"Good!" A relieved smile curved her lips, and for a moment she looked almost pretty. "Let's get to it, then."

This time as they crossed the lobby and climbed the staircase he was glad she kept her head down and her gaze fixed on the floor. He didn't want her to note his unwillingness, even though he couldn't imagine that she'd fooled herself into believing he was eager to bed her.

The first thing he did upon entering the suite was walk directly to the drink cart and pour himself a generous splash of whiskey. The scent of soap and kerosene announced she'd followed.

"I'll have one of those, too."

He gave her the whiskey he'd fixed himself and poured another.

Raising her glass, she tipped it against his. "I sure hope this works the first time." After she'd drained half the whiskey, she stepped back from him and pressed her lips together. "How do you want to go about doing it?"

He was doing a lot of throat clearing tonight, especially in the last few minutes. "Why don't you go into the bedroom and get ready," he suggested uncomfortably, turning the whiskey glass between his fingers.

"I'll join you in a few minutes."

"You mean I should get out of this rig before you come, so we don't waste any time. All right." Their shoulders collided as they both turned to the drink cart, and she jumped back as if he'd scalded her. Max stepped aside and let her pour a refill. She tossed down the whiskey and filled her glass again. "Can I trust you not to sit on the chairs while I'm in the other room?"

This was not the moment to argue about sitting on the chairs. He nodded and filled his whiskey glass to the brim.

"I didn't like that sherry," she said, carrying her whiskey toward the bedroom. At the door, she straightened her shoulders and turned back to him. "There's a couple of things I need to say before we get started."

Of course, he thought with a sigh. This was not a woman who regarded silence as a virtue.

"First, I want to thank you for taking your duty seriously and for living up to your promise to the boys and to me."

"Do we have to talk about that?" Even from across the room and in dim light, he noticed her fingers were shaking.

"I told you already that I did this before a long time ago. I didn't like it much, and I wasn't good at it, so don't get your expectations up. Just do what you have to do and don't dawdle around."

Without thinking, he sat down and crossed his ankles on the ottoman. "Damn it, Low Down, tonight won't be the first time I've been with a woman. I don't require instructions."

"I knew I couldn't trust you about this! I just knew you'd sit on a chair!" Her chin came up and her eyelids narrowed, and for the first time tonight she looked like the woman he'd known in the schoolhouse. "As for the other, all I'm saying is get to it and get done with it." Whirling on her heels, she slammed into the bedroom, but not before she gave him a stony look and muttered something about getting thrown out of the Belle Mark and it would be his fault.

Never in his life had he felt less like making love.

Rising, he walked to the window and pulled back the drapes, gazing down at the young trees lining Fourteenth Street . A set of carriage lamps appeared, then passed his line of sight.

If his life had proceeded according to plan, he would have married Philadelphia in a matter of days.

Instead, he was about to take another woman to bed. He lifted the whiskey glass to his lips with one hand and gripped the green marble with the other. Nothing about this felt right or honorable.

"Max? I'm ready."

Turning from the window, he caught sight of a billow of nightgown, then heard the bed springs squeak.

Grimly, he drained his whiskey glass, then rubbed his palms against the legs of his trousers. The only thing that could make this situation worse was if he couldn't perform at the critical moment. On that issue, he had to trust that his body wouldn't know that his mind was unwilling. Or that he was damned near as nervous about the next few minutes as Low Down appeared to be.

Feeling the men of Piney Creek pushing from behind, he crossed the living room and walked into the bedroom. She had pulled the shades and the draperies and extinguished the lamps. He couldn't see much of anything.

Maybe that was best. Stepping out of the shadowy light spilling through the doorway from the living room, he took off his jacket and vest and removed the studs from his shirtfront and cuffs, then looked around for the bureau.

"The dresser is right behind you."

She was watching. Frowning, he placed the studs on top of the bureau, then peered toward the bed. All he could see was a pale blur that might have been the sheets or might have been her nightgown. She'd seen him stark naked when he was ill, so why undressing in front of her made him uncomfortable was a mystery, but it did. Before he stepped toward the bed, he removed his tie and his trousers but decided to leave on his shirt.

"Damn it!" Grabbing his toes, he hopped around on one foot, cursing.

"What happened?"

"I stubbed my toe on the bedpost," he said between clenched teeth. His next thought was the memory of Preacher Jellison promising God's retribution if the men didn't do right by Low Down. His stinging toe felt like a warning.

Stumbling to the side of the bed, he sat heavily on the edge, massaging his toe and wishing he were a hundred miles away. At length, he pulled back the sheets, plumped up the pillow, then slid into bed and sat against the headboard. Now she had her back to him and was curled into a ball.

"I'm not taking off my nightgown, so if you were thinking I would, forget it," she stated in a muffled voice.

She'd crunched down and pulled up the sheets and all he could see of her was the back of her head.

"Do you plan on helping things along any?" he asked, exasperated. It would have been more conducive to the moment if she'd taken down her hair, and if she didn't feel so strongly about removing her nightgown, and if she'd at least face him.

Her answer was so long in coming that he began to hope she'd fallen asleep. "Why do you need help?

Can't we just get this over with?"

"Contrary to some women's belief, a man needs a little stimulus to make things work." The back of a woman's head wasn't the most alluring view he could think of.

"Well, what kind of help do you have in mind?" came the muffled question. "This sure sounds like dawdling to me."

"Well, I'm sorry, damn it, but sometimes poking requires a little buildup. If that seems like dawdling, that's just too bad, because there's nothing I can do about it!" Anger was not going to improve the situation. After drawing a breath, he ground his teeth together, slid under the covers, hesitated, then curled around her body. She made a hissing sound between her teeth, and he inhaled a whiff of whiskey fumes and the strong scent of kerosene.

On the positive side, her warm firm buttocks pressing against his groin caused an involuntary stirring that was powerfully encouraging.

"It would help if you'd try to relax," he said against the nape of her neck. Her hair, at least, didn't smell like kerosene. The silky coil beneath his nose smelled clean and soapy.

"Now, how can I relax?" She spoke into her pillow and held herself rigid. "I don't know what you're going to do next."

He didn't know either until he heard his answer. "I'm going to reach up under your nightgown and touch your skin. Think of it as preparation, not as dawdling."

Placing his hand on the nightgown covering her thigh, he paused to let her get used to his touch, then he moved his fingers and began to inch up her nightgown in what he intended as a provocative and hopefully seductive act for them both. He inched at the material, kept inching at it, pulling at it, tugging on it, until a sizable wad had bunched up between his hand and chest. What the hell? "How big is this thing?" There was no end to the nightgown, no hem that he could find and heaven knew he was trying.

"The big one was the cheapest."

Throwing back the covers, he blinked and tried to see what he was up against. At once he realized the nightgown was a hugely voluminous tent with a drawstring tied at her throat. Where he'd gone wrong was pulling sideways instead of straight up, and that was not going to work. He'd still be inching along when the call to judgment sounded. "There must be thirty yards of material here." He'd never seen such a voluminous nightgown or even suspected such a thing existed.

She rolled on her back inside the nightgown and heaved a sigh. "I can see that I'm going to have to take a hand in this or we're never going to get it over with."

"Well, thank God. A little help would be greatly appreciated," he said, staring down at her. "Could you start by taking that damned thing off?"

"No," she said emphatically. "Get back under the covers."

Her stubbornness about the damned nightgown meant he'd be working blind. All right, if that's how it had to be, he'd cope. Once he was alongside her again, he felt her hands tugging at the nightgown under the sheets and thanked heaven for small favors. Then she rolled back on her side and sort of wiggled, which he interpreted as an invitation to curl around her and begin again.

This time her bare buttocks pressed against him and his reaction to skin and heat and curve was immediate despite the huge wad of material bunched at her waist. Closing his eyes, he tentatively stroked a hand over her bare hip, surprised by the taut smoothness of her skin. On the upward stroke of his palm, he continued tracing the curve of her waist, then slid his hand up under the cursed nightgown almost to her breasts.

"This feels very much like dawdling," she whispered in an oddly breathless voice. But she didn't shove his hand away as he'd given her an opportunity to do.

Seizing on the lack of protest, he continued his exploration, amazed that he had ever supposed she had no curves. Her hips narrowed to a small waist and farther up he found the swell of her splendid breasts.

Soft, yielding warmth filled his palm, and her body shifted against him as if she'd shivered. Wishing he could see even a patch of actual skin, he brushed his fingers lightly across her nipple until he felt it bud and stiffen. Then he slid his palm down her belly and stroked the nest between her legs until she made a strangled sound and pushed his hand away.

"That's enough dawdling," she gasped, rolling onto her back.

His own breath was ragged as he lifted over her, wishing she was naked, half feeling that he was making love to a nightgown instead of a woman. After slapping aside his shirttail and shoving a bulky roll of nightgown away from her thighs, he entered her, then froze when she stiffened abruptly.

"What's wrong?" he asked in a husky voice, peering down at her. "Am I hurting you?"

"No. It's just that I don't know what to do with my knees," she whispered. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could see her staring up at him. "Or where to put my hands, and I don't know if I should close my eyes."

"I thought you said you'd done this before." He was whispering, too, and had no idea why.

"I also said I wasn't any good at it."

"Raise your knees." A film of perspiration heated his brow, and a tiny voice deep in his head congratulated him on having the control to stop the proceedings and issue instructions. "Put your hands on my shoulders. Open or close your eyes, whatever you want."

"That's a good idea. This is a lot more comfortable," she confided in the same breathless whisper after she'd raised her knees. "You can go ahead now."

"You're sure? There isn't anything else you'd like to discuss at this crucial moment?"

"If it won't make you nervous, I think I'll watch."

It did make him nervous. He couldn't really reach stride until she turned her head to the side, then he rushed toward crescendo before she looked at him again. In the end he forgot to notice if she watched, losing himself in the sweet mysterious force of a ritual that had begun at the dawn of time.

Afterward, he lay beside her in the darkness, catching his breath and feeling strangely unsatisfied.

"Max? Thank you," she said softly, her head turned away from him. "This was an amazing day, the most wonderful day in my life. I'll never forget a single detail."

Tossing back the sheets, he padded across the room and found his jacket and his cache of cheroots. In the flare of the match, he noticed that the pins had come loose from the coil on her neck and long strands of dark hair spread across her pillow. He waved out the match with an irritated gesture.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, coming back to bed. As he'd already lighted the cheroot, the question was moot.

"I like the smell of a cigar," she murmured drowsily.

After propping his pillow against the headboard, he smoked in silence, thought about what had transpired, and questioned the anger building in his chest. It wasn't difficult to identify the source. He had betrayed a woman who didn't know yet that he wouldn't be marrying her, a woman he had intended to remain faithful to for the rest of his life. Guilt twisted into a knot behind his rib cage.

He hadn't done well by Low Down, either, he realized, frowning into the darkness. He'd done his duty and nothing more. He hadn't kissed her, had shown her no particular tenderness. He'd indulged just enough foreplay to ensure that she was ready for him, and then he'd proceeded with little thought for her satisfaction or pleasure. That wasn't how a man expressed gratitude for his life; it was how he coupled when he was paying for his pleasure.