The River Nymph (4 page)

Across the table Clint was anything but indifferent. He studied her eyes, measuring the suppressed anger that turned them
deepest green. They flashed a barely leashed wildness. The woman was magnificent. Velvet over steel. He would have to be very
careful.
Daniels, you’re a fool.
“Forty-nine percent for me. And—”

“I give the orders.”

Clint shrugged. “Why, certainly, ma’am. As senior partner, that would be your prerogative,” he drawled.
Until you
get yourself in so deep you’ll be begging me to pull you out of Missouri
mud.

Delilah stared at him intently. There was no hint of smirking condescension in his face or in his voice. She rose and extended
her hand. “Then we have a deal, Mr. Daniels.”

He rose and shook her hand, and then Horace’s. “Let’s hope it proves profitable.” He looked at Eva and smiled. “If Bill Holland
is still in with Marie, could you ask him to come down, please? My partners and I need his services.”

“Who is Mr. Holland?” Delilah asked more sharply than she intended.

Eva paused, waiting for Clint’s response.

“Bill’s a bank officer and a notary. He’ll draft a business agreement for us and then notarize it.”

Delilah froze. “Are you insinuating that my word cannot be trusted?” Her words were like icicles.

Clint lost his hard-won patience. “I’m not insinuatin’ your word can’t be trusted. I’m
saying
your word can’t be trusted. You, madam, are as slippery as cow slobber on a flat rock. God, you think the twist you turned
on Riley isn’t common knowledge on the levee? The stupid ass never thought of a signed agreement.”

He walked around the table and stopped within inches of her. “I’m not Riley. And you, for certain, aren’t a poor, helpless
widow. You, ma’am, howl with the wolves.” He smiled enigmatically. “My people upriver have always respected the wolves…but we sure as hell don’t trust them.”

Horace interposed himself between the two and glanced over to the silver blonde. “Miss Eva, would you be so kind as to see
if Mr. Holland is available and willing to provide us his services?”

Loving the way Clint had put the gambling hussy down, the blonde smiled at Horace with his courtly manners. “Why not?” She
headed upstairs.

“Please sit down, my dear,” Horace said soothingly to Delilah, then asked Clint, “While we wait for Mr. Holland, would you
perchance have brandy for a toast to seal our bargain?”

“Why, certainly,” Daniels replied with a grin.

Oh so civilized. A Southern gentleman who lived in a bordello! Gritting her teeth, Delilah silently watched him select a bottle
from behind the bar. His private stock, no doubt. She was certain it would be swill.

Clint poured a snifter and handed it to her, deliberately allowing their fingers to brush. She didn’t flinch. Neither did
he. But both of them felt the sizzle like a lightning strike.

What the hell have you dealt yourself into?
Delilah’s and Clint’s feelings, for once, were in perfect accord.

She took one sip of the brandy. Damn the man; it was excellent. Trying to ignore him, she studied the ornately framed mirrors
and paintings, the heavy masculine furniture. Anything but look at her new business partner. A partner whohad outsmarted her
at every turn…so far. And a man who made her feel things she had never imagined before. And would not allow herself
to imagine ever again!

Eva swished back down the stairs and resumed her position beside Daniels. “Bill’ll be down in a couple, Clint.” One smooth,
pale hand rested on his shoulder, her long, lacquered nails kneading into the expensive wool of his jacket like a contented
cat. Looking at Delilah, she said, “Well, honey, since we’re both doin’ business with Clint, I guess we’re sorta partners-in-law.”
She paused for a moment and then sank the harpoon. “Sorta sisters under the skin.”

Delilah blanched. “Only like Cain and Abel were brothers,
madam
.” Her voice thickened with anger to a low, throaty rasp. “In addition to the more obvious dissimilarities in our
positions
…” She watched Eva draw back at the barb, then continued, “I’m the majority owner in my venture with our mutual partner,
while—as I understand it—you own only 20 percent.”

Eva studied the seething brunette. Uppity woman thought she was better just because she talked fancy and dressed oh so ladylike,
but she made her living gambling. Not any more respectable than Eva’s chosen career. “The way I figure it, my 20 percent is
worth a lot more than your 51 percent.”

Delilah arched her brow condescendingly. “Indeed?”

“Deed? That’s right, honey!” Her eyes remained locked with Delilah’s. Before Clint could stop her, she bent over his shoulder
and slid her splayed hand down his chest until it disappeared below the tabletop. “See, Mrs. Raymond, with my 20 percent comes
the deed to some fertile Southern territory…the same one you’re interested in.”

Delilah snapped back in her seat, too appalled to utter a word. Denial would only give credence to the harlot’s absurd accusation.

Removing Eva’s hand from the waistband of his pants, he kissed the palm lightly and murmured, “Behave yourself, darlin’. Can’t
you see you’re embarrassing my new partner?” There was just enough steel beneath the softness of his voice to make Eva subside.

To Delilah, however, his remarks were a red flag. She rose so quickly that her chair tipped over. “You coarse, vulgar little
trollop!” Illogically, she attacked Eva rather than the man between them.

Eva emitted a hiss of indignation and jerked her hand free of Clint’s grasp, moving around the table. Both Clint and Horace
jumped to their feet. Clint seized Eva’s arm as Horace murmured in Delilah’s ear, “Dear one, unless you wish to dispute ownership
of the aforementioned territory with Miss Eva, I suggest that you let me right your chair and that you be seated.”

With a most unladylike oath, Eva jerked away from Daniels and stomped to the bar, loudly ordering a double whiskey.

Once satisfied that the foe had been vanquished, Delilah sat back down.

A stone-still Clinton Daniels stood pondering the distinct possibility that God had created female rage as a male purgative.
Then Attorney Holland clamored down the stairs, interrupting Clint’s ruminations.

“I understand you need some legal work done. Hell of a time, Clint.”

“There are paper and pens in my office. You know where to find whatever you need,” Daniels replied, ignoring the lawyer’s
ire. He gave the man too much business for it to last.

In a quarter hour Bill Holland returned with two copies of a contract between Clinton Daniels and Delilah Mathers Raymond.
After the copies had been signed and notarized, the attorney returned to unfinished business upstairs.

Horace raised his glass in a perfunctory toast. Warily, his niece and Clint joined in. The two men arranged a business luncheon
for the following afternoon. The older man wanted to get Delilah out of the immediate vicinity of the beauteous Miss Eva,
who had spent a quarter hour at the bar slugging back shots before retiring upstairs, the remains of the bottlein hand. She
was well on her way to inebriation, and he had always observed that women and alcohol were a most combustible commodity.

As he and his niece were departing the Blasted Bud, Delilah murmured, “Don’t worry, Uncle Horace. I’ll strip him of his share
of the
Nymph
just as easily as I stripped him of his clothes.”

Horace whispered vehemently, “My dear, you must stop underestimating this man. You didn’t win that cut by chance. He cheated.
As he was examining the cards, I saw him palm one. Well done, too. I almost didn’t catch it. I thought he had palmed an ace.
I said nothing because I thought he would take his thousand and save you from acquiring the unfortunate reputation to which,
alas, you now have fallen victim.”

Delilah halted abruptly on the walk outside of the Bud. “You mean he deliberately palmed the deuce so he’d lose?”

“Do you believe a man that skilled would filch a deuce instead of an ace by accident?” The moment he asked the rhetorical
question, Horace realized he’d just made a major tactical blunder.

Before he could stop her, Delilah spun on her heel and slammed through the door. Clint was still standing at the table, brandy
glass in one hand, contract in the other. He looked up in surprise as his new partner made straight for him with purposeful
strides. “Back so soon, Mrs. Raymond? What can I do—”

She swung her reticule by its drawstring. It connected with the side of his face, making a satisfying
thunk
. “You sneaky, conniving…deceitful wretch!”

The attack was so sudden that Clint could not even get out a curse. He simply stumbled backward, got his feet tangled with
the chair legs, and landed flat on his back. Delilah stood motionless in front of her prostrate tormentor as he struggled
to a sitting position, shaking his head to clear the ringing in his ears. “What the hell’s—”

“I’ll give you hell, right enough!” She drew back one foot and tried to kick him in that hateful face. Unfortunately, thetoe
of her slipper caught in her petticoat and snapped the rear hem of her narrow skirt against the heel of her other foot, sending
both feet flying upward. She landed in a sitting position in front of Clint. Her spine felt like a compressed accordion.

“Merciful God, woman, what’s in that bag? A hunk of brick?”

In spite of her pain, Delilah noted with satisfaction that the upper left side of his face was beginning to swell. “A .41-caliber
double-barreled Remington Derringer!”

“A must for any lady of fashion.” Daniels touched his throbbing face, muttering, “I’m gratified you used it as a bludgeon
rather than shooting me with it.”

“Don’t tempt me, you…you…”

“My brain’s too rattled for me to provide you with cuss words at the moment,” he muttered.

“You deliberately lost that cut! You did it so I wouldn’t be able to get a crew.”

He shrugged, then winced. “I had no idea you were going to haul freight. I thought you intended to keep the
Nymph
as a floating gambling palace, same as Riley. I don’t need competition from a lady gambler. I let you win to protect my business
here at the Bud. No man would sit down at the table with a woman who humiliates other players. If I’d known you were going
into the upriver trade…” He shrugged, then grinned. “Hell, I’d ’a probably done it anyway.”

Delilah stared at the grinning oaf. In just two meetings, he had succeeded in stripping her of a lifetime of refinement, not
to mention the hard-earned self-discipline she had acquired over the last decade. Now here she sat spraddle-legged on the
floor of a bawdy house. What was happening to her? His congenial expression was intolerable. He’d succeeded in making her
lose her temper, her self-control, everything she prided herself on. She needed to make him pay, but how? Then, noting the
way he looked at her, an idea occurred…

Clint watched the confused expression on her beautiful face. A minute ago she had been all self-righteous anger, enraged
sufficiently to try to kick out his teeth. Now she looked like a lost child. He came up on one knee and leaned forward with
deliberate slowness. She seemed so very fragile and vulnerable that he held his breath, afraid to frighten her, but she didn’t
move.

A part of his brain sounded warning bells. He dismissed them as the aftermath of her blow to his head. With exquisite care,
he placed the lightest kiss on Delilah’s luscious mouth. Gentle, oh so gentle. She closed her eyes. He leaned away, watching
as they opened and she smiled tentatively. God, she was precious. God, he was crazy!

She rose to her knees in a seductively fluid movement and reached out one hand to his cheek, then slipped it to the back of
his head. Grasping a fistful of straw-colored hair, she drew him to her. His lips parted as he prepared to kiss her again
with much more vigor.

She sunk her teeth into his lower lip. And held on.

“Auugh! Godda eh! Leggo! Awww! Daa!” He couldn’t get his mouth to form the curses while she held him in the agonizing liplock.

Abruptly, Delilah released his lip and he snapped his head back. Still a bit groggy from the blow to his skull, Clint lost
his balance and toppled onto his rump again. Blood streamed down his chin, staining his jacket and shirtfront. He pulled a
handkerchief from his breast pocket and pressed it to his lacerated lip.

From the top of the stairs, Eva’s beautiful laughter filled the room. “Clint, honey, let that be a lesson. If you don’t wanna
lose that valuable Southern bottom land, you better keep your fly buttoned when that bitch is around!”

Chapter Four

The
only thing you need to button, Mr. Daniels, is your lip,” Delilah snapped as she seized the back of the nearest chair and
used it for leverage to get back to her feet. She smirked down at Clint, who remained on the floor with his long legs spread
wide, dabbing at his bleeding mouth. His fancy shirt was ruined. Good. Served him right for his clumsy attempts to win her
over with his charm. Women such as the harlot standing at the top of the stairs might find him irresistible, but she certainly
did not.

Horace looked like a man asked to choose between death by hanging from a long rope or garroting with piano wire. His horrified
eyes took in their new business partner sitting bloodied on the floor and Delilah struggling to stand upright in her fashionable
skirt. Having been raised a gentleman, he took her arm just as she righted herself. It was also a precaution. Considering
the reaction Mr. Daniels elicited from his niece, she might just take the chair and brain him with it if not restrained.

But he could see the gloating satisfaction on her face and thought that she would be content to allow a truce…for now.
Their new associate climbed to his feet while wincing at his swollen and bloody face. Not good. “Mr. Daniels, please accept
my niece’s sincere regrets for this most unfortunate, er, altercation.”

“No, Mr. Daniels, please do not,” she snapped, shaking her uncle’s hand from her arm as she glared at Clint. Then she swiveled
her head around and glared at Horace. “He accosted me. He’s the one who should apologize.”

Having seen the whole episode explode so quickly that he could not prevent it, Horace knew that Delilah had played her biblical
role. She’d deliberately lured the man into that fleeting kiss. But he was not fool enough to say it in front of witnesses.
The past week had been arduous enough without adding further humiliation to her lot. Instead he equivocated, “Nevertheless,
I fear that your blow to his head incited the matter.”

“As if a blow to his head could hurt a skull as thick as his.” How dare her beloved uncle take the ruffian’s side!

“Judging by the look of his face, I believe you underestimate your strength…or overestimate the thickness of his aforementioned
skull,” Horace said dryly, then turned to Clint. “Please accept
my
apologies, if you will, sir.”

“No need. There’s an old saying down where I come from: Once a yellowjacket stings a fellow, he’d be a fool to stick his face
near the hive a second time.” His words were muffled by the white linen handkerchief he held over his mouth to staunch the
bleeding.

Horace took hold of Delilah’s arm again, then looked over at Daniels. “The two of us may, I hope, still discuss our business
affairs amicably tomorrow over luncheon?”

“I’ll pass on lunch. Your niece has loosened all the teeth on the left side of my mouth and I doubt I’ll be able to open my
swollen lips wide enough to bite into anything. Let’s just meet for coffee here at the Bud, say around ten?”

As the old man nodded and turned Delilah around to depart, Clint could swear he heard her chuckle softly.
What the
hell was I thinkin
g
?
Then he watched her lush little derriere disappear out the door and knew blasted well exactly what he had been thinking…and what part of his anatomy had done the thinking.

It was not his brain.

“Ooh, honey, that looks bad. Here, let me make it well,” Eva said, holding up a bag of ice she had fetched from the kitchen.
She gave him a kiss on his uninjured cheek.

“Thanks, darlin’.” Clint accepted the ice bag and headedfor the stairs, but when she followed him and took his arm, tugging
him toward her room, he stopped and gently disengaged. “Sorry, I’m not in the mood right now. Think I’ll just try to get some
sleep.”

“But I could take your mind off that bloodthirsty little bitch,” she cajoled, feathering kisses along his neck.

“Who says I’m thinking about Mrs. Raymond?” he asked irritably. Could every female on the river suddenly read hismind?

“Clint, I watched her sucker you. You usta have more sense ’n that. She’s poison.”

“More like a cross between a cannibal and a gator. But I made a deal—a very profitable deal—with her and I aim to collect
every last dollar of it when the
Nymph
steams back downriver this fall.”

“Yeah, ’n all you gotta do is keep her from drowning you somewheres along the way,” Eva said and flounced away in a snit.
Clint didn’t usually turn down offers to share her bed. She knew the female gambler with her fancy airs was the cause of it
…even if he didn’t. All men were idiots.

When Horace Mathers arrived at the Blasted Bud the following morning he was uncertain what his reception would be. Although
a bit worse for wear, Clint attempted a smile through his swollen lip and shook hands cordially, ushering him to the office
at the rear of the spacious building. It was furnished with expensive leather chairs and an oak desk covered with papers.

“Please have a seat while I ring for coffee. Have you had breakfast? Our cook whips up a mean omelet with hash browns and
bacon on the side.”

Considering that all his host had probably been able to manage was oatmeal, Horace declined with thanks. “Coffee will be fine.
I broke my fast before leaving the boat.”

“Heard you hired Luellen Colter. She’s a fine cook. Tried hiring her for the Bud, but she didn’t much cotton to Eva,” Clint
said, using a small silver bell to summon one of Miss Eva’s girls from the kitchen.

“I would expect Miss Eva is an attraction sufficient to render the need for fine cuisine irrelevant,” Horace said dryly.

As soon as the coffee was poured and the server dismissed, Clint leaned forward across his desk and said, “Shall we get down
to business?”

Horace replaced his cup in its saucer on the small table beside his chair. He noted that the set was fine bone china, reminding
him of all he and his niece had lost. “Before we begin, there is something I believe it best to explain…er, regarding
my niece and myself.”

Clint leaned back in his chair and took a sip of the hot coffee, careful not to let it touch the place where Delilah had bitten
him. “That she’s hell on wheels when you aren’t around to rein her in?” he offered, curious in spite of himself. His new partners
were really an enigma—well educated, obviously from the upper class, yet making their way in life by the turn of a card.

“The Matherses were wealthy businessmen in Gettysburg before General Lee swooped over the Mason-Dixon. My brother’s daughter,
Delilah, had just married a young cavalry officer in the Union army. She was only seventeen. Her groom of one week, Lawrence
Raymond, was a lad of nineteen from a prominent family in Maryland. Both he and my brother perished in the battle. All my
brother’s property was laid waste by Confederate forces and the Raymond family refused succor to Delilah because they disapproved
of the marriage.

“I was abroad at the time but rushed home immediately upon learning of the tragedy. Ever since she was a small child, we shared
a special bond.” He paused to smile wistfully. “She was always bright and ever so curious. I must confess to teaching her
the finer points of card games whenever I chanced to visit. Another sin to lay at my door, in my brother’s opinion.

“I won’t bore you with the reasons why I had earlier been sent away by our father. Suffice it to say, he had just cause. But
after Delilah’s widowhood, I employed my skills to keep aroof over our heads and food on the table. Not the best life for
a gently reared young lady, but considering the circumstances, the only option either of us had…until…”

Horace held out his left hand. For the first time, Clint noticed that the fingers were slightly curled. “Besides being the
black sheep of the Mathers family, I also had the grave misfortune of having my hand broken by a gentleman who took umbrage
after losing a considerable sum in a game of whist some years back.”

“So you taught your niece to do what you couldn’t do any longer—handle cards,” Clint supplied, nodding. A lot of things about
Delilah Mathers Raymond now made sense.

“If there had been any other way…” Horace placed his hands on the arms of the chair and seemed to shrink against its
back. “All I could do was act as her chaperone and protector. Another of my skills is shooting. I rarely miss.”

“You kill a fellow in a duel? That’s what got you banished from the family?” Clint asked.

“Among other sins, that was the petard that hoisted me, to clumsily paraphrase the Bard.” He looked pensive for a moment,
then sat up and reached for his cup. “Now that you understand Delilah’s antipathy for men with Southern drawls, I hope you
will be tolerant of her behavior. I will endeavor to keep her from inflicting any further injury to your person.”

“I’d take it right kindly if you’d do that. It’s a long way up the Missouri to Fort Benton and back, long enough for her to
gnaw me to death.” Then recalling Eva’s prediction about Delilah drowning him, his tone became almost pleading. “Please tell
me you didn’t also teach her to shoot a gun?”

Horace sighed. “I fear I did. She is almost as proficient with shortarms as am I.”

Clint said in a resigned voice, “Lovely. I guess there’s nothing left to discuss now but business…except maybe my funeral
arrangements.”

It was midafternoon by the time Horace returned from his morning coffee meeting with Clint Daniels. Delilah watchedhim walk
up the gangplank, eager to learn what Daniels had done about getting them a crew. All around the
Nymph
she could see activity increasing as the days grew longer and warmer and the river rose with spring rains. Within weeks the
steamboats would head up the deadly, swift-flowing Missouri, laden with cargoes for the gold-camp trade deep in Montana Territory.

“Well, what has he done? Do we have a pilot and crew?” she asked, breathless after her dash down the stairs from the hurricane
deck.

Horace smiled at her. “You’re expecting miracles, my dear. Mr. Daniels has scarcely had time to make contact with his friends
along the river. His face is really quite a fright and speech is difficult because his lip is so swollen.” There was a hint
of admonishment in his tone. “But he will persevere, nonetheless. In fact, tonight several candidates for the captain’s position
are coming to his business establishment to discuss terms. He is an engaging and adroit man of business.”

“Oh, I’ve seen firsthand what his business is. How can you trust him?”

She knew her uncle well. He had said little yesterday after the debacle at Daniels’s bordello, yet she could sense his disapproval
of her behavior. Delilah rarely lost her temper. She had spent the past decade schooling herself to control it just as she
learned, with Horace’s coaching, how to keep her face utterly neutral when she picked up a hand of cards.

At the green baize tables, she was always in command. Until the fateful night she met Clint Daniels. The man infuriated her
in a way that was utterly irrational, and she knew it. That was what frightened her. And now he appeared to be winning over
her only ally in life, her beloved mentor and uncle, all the family she had left in the world.

Horace could read her like the Latin texts he’d studied in his days at Princeton. “I can trust Mr. Daniels because it would
be foolish for him to risk 49 percent of the considerable profit he will make at journey’s end. And so must you not only trust
him but treat him with all due civility, my dear.”

“He does make it difficult. But I’ll try,” she replied grudgingly.

Delilah was put to the test three days later en route to Anderson’s Mercantile, where she wanted to purchase some goods that
Mr. Krammer did not stock. Horace had reminded her that any further major purchases would require funding from their partner.
Daniels had to be consulted. He had come to the levee to pick the two of them up in his fancy rig, complete with driver.

“Mr. Anderson’s inventory is well stocked with luxury goods that rich men in the camps will want for their wives,” she said
as she sat across from Clint in the open carriage.

She was irritated when he made no comment, then apprehensive. What did the slick devil have up his sleeve now?

The day had dawned bright and sunny with a cool breeze coming off the rapidly rising river, where chunks of ice still floated
here and there. To Delilah, Clint seemed to take up more than his share of the rig. The man was tall, lean and rangy, dressed
in a black suit and starched white shirt that contrasted with his darkly tanned face. When he slid one long leg irritatingly
near the hem of her pale gold skirt, she planted her closed parasol’s sharp tip close to one custom-made boot. He grinned
at her, understanding the tacit threat.

Horace suddenly found the crowded brick warehouses lining Walnut Street fascinating, staring intently at them while the two
young people postured.

Delilah watched Clint’s windblown hair gleam a dull gold in the sunlight. He held one of his fancy flat-crowned hats on his
lap, letting the warm morning sun caress his face. As he combed his fingers through the thick, straight thatch and pushed
it from his forehead, she noted that his bruises were turning greenish and his lip was still quite swollen. She sighed to
herself philosophically. It would be best if he continued to heal, considering that any merchandise not from Krammer’s would
have to be paid for with his capital.

In moments the driver reined in the carriage in front ofAnderson’s and they alighted. The mercantile looked quite different
from Mr. Krammer’s establishment. This one was devoted only to cloth. Bolts of every hue and texture imaginable were stacked
on long tables floor to ceiling. Delilah greeted Kurt Anderson, a tall, pale man with thinning white hair, then introduced
him to her uncle and their partner.

His taciturn face instantly lit up as he shook hands with the gambler. “So good to see you again, Mr. Daniels. I understand
you’re going into the upriver trade.”

Was there no one in St. Louis the lout didn’t know? Delilah forced a smile as Clint replied, “Looks that way. We’ll need some
bolts of trade cloth. Mrs. Raymond tells me you have some items Krammer’s doesn’t carry.”