The Savage Heart (12 page)

He noticed Matt's curious glance and shrugged. “You know who fathered Nan's child, don't you?”

Matt inclined his head.

Jim smiled, his eyes warm and quiet. “I never thought about having a child until a few months ago. She likes to cook and clean house. She hums when she washes dishes, and her eyes light up when she smiles.” He glanced at Matt sheepishly. “I've had more women than I can count, but they were all passing fancies. Nan didn't pass. I wanted her the first time I saw her. The longer I watched Collier mistreat her, the more I wanted to kill him and give her a good life.” His eyes blazed for a minute. “I didn't kill him, but I was tempted,” he said bluntly. “He hit her. I knocked him down a staircase for that. Your operatives will tell you that, because some of the neighbors saw him go down. They didn't know why, but they're not stupid. I escorted Nan out to the street and to a hotel. I had a message sent to her sister to meet her at the women's assembly. Then I put her in a carriage. We agreed that it would be safer if she met her sister and brother-in-law in
public. We agreed that she wouldn't tell her sister anything about what happened, just that Dennis had hit her.”

“Do you realize where that puts you?”

“Of course. It puts me at the top of the suspect list. Except that if I meant to kill a man, I'd do it staring him in the eyes—and I'd have killed Dennis with my fists, not a pair of scissors.”

“Thanks for telling me the truth. I'll try to keep your name out of it. I have friends at the precinct.”

“I don't have any friends,” Jim said casually, “but I own a few people at city hall. Between us, maybe we can get Nan off the hook and find the culprit.”

“You're a damned scoundrel.”

“Oh, and I work at it, too. Except with Nan.” He drew in a slow breath. “She's the only person in all my life who wanted me. Not the money, not the notoriety, just me. It's a unique experience for me, being loved.”

It must be unique—and a lot more, Matt was thinking, to bring down a man like this one. He'd heard stories about Diamond Jim ever since his arrival in Chicago, none of which indicated a man with a soft heart or a weak spot.

“Shocked you, have I?” Jim asked, smiling rakishly. “Well, we all fall sooner or later, I suppose. When she's free, I'm going to marry her, in case you wondered. I'll buy her a house and pretty clothes, and spoil the kid rotten.” He grimaced. “Maybe I'll go legit,” he added, sounding totally disgusted. “I don't want my kid kicked around because of his father.”

Matt laughed.

“You tell that to anyone and they'll find you in a dark alley one night,” Jim said.

Matt only grinned.

Diamond Jim shifted his weight. “I'd rather visit Nan, but I don't want things made worse for her. If they see me in there, it'll ruin what's left of her reputation,” he said curtly. “But it rankles to be here in the middle of a party while she's stuck in jail.”

“It's a benefit.”

Diamond Jim's big shoulders rippled. “Yeah. For the orphanage where I grew up. They needed a new roof, and the stoves were about shot.”

Matt searched the other man's face and saw the years he carried.

“You got family?” he asked Matt.

Matt shook his head. “My father died at Little Bighorn, my mother and sisters at Wounded Knee.” His eyes were dark with pain and anger. “Tess is all I have now.” He glanced at her.

Diamond Jim gestured with his cigar. “You won't have her long if you don't do something about that,” he remarked. Tess was standing beside the wall while the man partnering her was leaning on his arms just in front of her, bending over her in a proprietary manner and talking a mile a minute.

“She likes him,” Matt said through his teeth.

“Maybe,” Jim said. “But she's watched you all the time we've been talking, whenever you weren't looking.”

“Has she?”

Diamond Jim shook his head ruefully. “If a woman like that looked at me with her heart in her eyes, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell about the differences between us. You're a damned idiot.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Careful, your war paint's showing.” Diamond Jim chuckled. He watched Matt control himself with a visible effort. “You give to charities, but you don't go to balls. Why are you here?”

“For a number of reasons. Mainly, for what you've already told me. I can scratch you off the list of suspects and find the real killer.”

“Thanks.”

Matt smiled at Jim's irritated expression. “I didn't know you from a hatbox. A man with your reputation could have done it. I wanted to know.”

“You also said you were here for other reasons.”

“Yes.” He glanced around and moved closer. “I've been trying to get something done about the jailer who watches Nan. You aren't going to like this.”

“Tell me!”

“He's making advances to her,” Matt said. “Her brother-in-law's tried, and I've tried, to have her moved. No dice, despite the fact that they have women matrons for the female prisoners. And the jailer's son went to school with our mayor. Do you see the problem?”

“That's not a problem,” Diamond Jim said, and for a few seconds, Matt was ready to believe everything he'd ever
heard about the man. His expression was utterly ferocious. “I'll see to it.”

“Thanks. I have influence, but nobody owes me political favors.” Matt shrugged.

“You're a decent guy,” Diamond Jim said. “I won't forget what you're doing for Nan.”

“For Tess,” Matt said after a minute. “She's fiercely loyal to her friends. She's fond of Nan. It's hard to turn her down when she asks a favor. She doesn't, as a rule.”

“Are you going to let him walk off with her?” Diamond Jim asked, nodding toward Tess and her dancing partner.

“It looks as if she wants him to.” Matt laughed humorlessly. “I taught her the bow,” he mused. “And how to speak Sioux. She was more tomboy than young lady in those days. Then I went away and everything changed.” He stared at her on the dance floor with an ache that wouldn't go away. “She has no idea what her life would be like if she got involved with me and the truth about me made the rounds of local society.”

“Think she'd mind?”

Matt stared at him. “I'd mind.”

“How old is she? She looks older than Nan.”

“She's twenty-six.”

“Never married?”

“Never wanted to be, she says,” Matt replied. “She's a suffragist, bloomers and placards and all.” He shook his head. “She says that's all she wants now, to devote her life to the cause.”

“Maybe she doesn't think she has a choice.”

Matt glared at him. “Sure she does. It's standing beside her, trying to hold her hand.” He indicated the man with Tess. “There could be a dozen others standing in line behind him, you know.”

“Well, it's your business, of course.” Diamond Jim puffed on his cigar. “But if she were mine, I'd pick her up and carry her out the door. Nothing like the element of surprise with a feisty little woman like that.”

“How do you know she's feisty?”

He grinned. “Nan admires her spirit. Tess is the reason Nan decided she'd had enough of Collier. She said Tess told her that no woman had to put up with being mistreated by a man, regardless of what society said. In a way,” he added thoughtfully, “it pushed her right into my arms. One minute she was telling me about the way Collier treated her, and the next she launched herself into my lap and started crying.” His eyes began to glow with the memory. “It was a new thing for me, being needed like that. It began then.” He sighed. “Somehow, the fact that she was married never stood in my way. I didn't give it a thought. A man who could treat her as badly as Collier had wasn't worth consideration in my book. We love each other.” He stared at his feet. “I can't lose her.”

“You won't,” Matt said solemnly. “She's innocent. All we have to do is prove it—and find out who
is
guilty.”

“It had to be a woman.”

“I think so, too. That means tracking down any old flames or current flames of the elusive Mr. Collier.”

“He used drugs. You know that?”

“Yes.”

“It might be one direction to try.”

“I'll remember. Thanks for your help.”

Diamond Jim shrugged. “I'm helping myself. Nan is the only good thing that ever happened to me.”

Matt searched the gambler's face and smiled. “I'll let you know what we find out. Meanwhile, it would help her most if you'd do what you can about the jailer.”

“He retired tomorrow morning. Wait and see.”

Matt couldn't repress a grin. The man had a way about him, all right.

His dark eyes searched the room for Tess, and he suddenly realized that she was missing. He moved forward a step, still searching.

“They went outside,” Diamond Jim said helpfully.

Matt tossed his cigar into the cuspidor and started for the door. He had no idea what he was going to say or do when he joined Tess, but he didn't like the idea of her being alone with that dandy—and he wasn't going to tolerate it.

Matt was almost to the door when a lovely young woman with dark hair, wearing a jet-studded taffeta gown, stopped in front of him. He recognized her as one of the girls who'd been giving the eye to Kilgallen.

“I know you,” she said in a voice like velvet. “You're the detective. Don't you remember me?”

Matt stared at her, trying to make his mind work, not an easy thing to do with Tess outside and in the company of an amorous suitor. “No,” he said more abruptly than he might have.

She moved closer and laid a gloved hand on his sleeve. “I'm Daphne Mallory,” she said. “You handled a case of embezzling for my father, Hart Mallory.”

“Ah, yes,” Matt said.

She smiled. “I invited you to supper, but you wouldn't come.” She peered at him through impossibly long lashes
over the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. “Do you think if I invited you a second time, you might show up.”

He was going to brush her off. But at the same moment, Tess came back in the door just ahead of her escort, looking breathless and faintly unkempt. She fanned herself and glanced back over her shoulder as if waiting impatiently for her companion. It set Matt off.

He turned and stared into Daphne Mallory's eyes, knowing that Tess was watching. “Do you dance, Miss Mallory?”

“Indeed I do, Mr. Davis!”

He led her onto the ballroom floor, slid an arm around her, and moved her into the most beautiful dance Tess had ever watched. She'd never danced with Matt. She'd never seen him dance. She was surprised to find him so accomplished. He moved with such grace that he might have been born dancing the waltz. Her heart ached at the sight of him with that beautiful, sophisticated woman. She'd just had to fight her way out of Michael's embrace. Having led him on quite innocently, she'd found herself maneuvered out the door and almost kissed.

Part of her had hoped that Matt had seen them leave, that he might be jealous enough to come after her. But he was dancing with that beautiful woman, and it couldn't be more evident that he found her fascinating.

“I'm sorry,” Michael said belatedly, hesitating beside her with a worried look. “I know that I was anything but a gentleman. I won't do it again.”

Tess's eyes flashed. “You won't get the chance,” she said
coldly. “Why don't you go out there and find a woman with a private income and loose morals?”

He caught his breath.

“I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea,” she said belatedly, averting her gaze. “I thought we were enjoying a harmless flirtation, not the prelude to a five-minute affair in the dark!”

He started to speak, but just as he opened his mouth, Diamond Jim came sauntering up beside Tess. He had a smoking cigar in his hand, and he gave the young man a look that clearly was intended to make the fellow feel as if he were wearing short pants.

“Scoot along, boy,” he told Michael with a mocking smile. “You're out of your league here.”

“Yes, sir,” Michael said at once. He gave Tess a wistful, apologetic glance and walked off.

She looked up at the man local citizens called a criminal. “You don't look like a killer,” she said pleasantly.

His eyebrows shot up and he chuckled. “Thanks!”

She clutched her small bag and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, it just slipped out.”

“He saw you go out the door,” Diamond Jim said, his head jerking toward Matt, who was apparently oblivious to everything except his dancing partner. “He was heading after you when you came back in.”

“He was?” Her soft eyes brightened. They were so full of longing and hope that the man stared without meaning to.

“She captured him in midstride,” he told her. “Although
I think the way you looked when you came in had something to do with his capitulation.”

“It wasn't like that.”

“I know Boson,” he said unexpectedly. “He's a rich layabout with a yen for virgins.”

She gasped and her face went flaming red.

He smiled wickedly. “They told you I was a bad man,” he reminded her. “You should have run while you had the chance.”

“You…are bad!”

While he was grinning at her shocked expression, Matt caught sight of them. Very quickly he extricated himself from his dancing partner, excused himself and made a beeline for Diamond Jim and Tess.

“Here comes trouble,” Diamond Jim remarked, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

“You did that deliberately!” she burst out.

“Shhh! Don't tell him! Wait and see what he does.”

Matt stopped in front of Tess, any amiability that had once touched his hard face all but a memory now.

“Leave him alone,” he told her in guttural Sioux. “He's too wise for you.”

She glared at him. “I choose my own companions,” she replied in that same tongue. “Go back to your fancy woman!”

Diamond Jim was enjoying himself. He pursed his lips and gave them a cursory appraisal. “It isn't Russian,” he murmured.

They both looked at him. Tess flushed more and Matt's jaw went rigid.

“What did you say to her?” he asked Diamond Jim in English.

“Oh, I was just warning her that Boson over there is a lazy scoundrel with a taste for virgins. You might expound on that theme. She's young for a woman her age. Very young.” He excused himself and went off in the general direction of the buffet table.

“He's quite blunt,” Tess said, ruffled. “Even more blunt than you!”

“He's a criminal, for all his charm. But he was right about Boson.” His eyes narrowed on her bodice. He saw a faint red mark on one half-exposed white breast, and the eyes he lifted to hers were furious.

“He…” She looked around, muttered to herself at the people close enough to hear every word she said, and switched back to Sioux. “The button on his jacket did that,” she said curtly. “And I hit him! You should have looked at his left cheek.”

The fury went out of him. He seemed to relax, although she noticed that he had to drag his eyes away from her bodice.

“I've found out what I wanted to know,” he said mysteriously, taking her arm. “We'd better go. It's getting late.”

She got her wrap from the maid, and he held it for her. They said a quick good-night to their host, and Miss Mallory, who was standing beside a newly acquired partner, sent a last regretful glance toward Matt and waved at him.

Once outside, Tess glared up at his profile. “Don't you want to stay?” she asked curtly. “She'll miss you.”

He didn't reply. He took her arm and led her to a hired carriage. But to her surprise, he didn't give the driver the address of their boardinghouse. She heard him give other, quite surprising directions—to Lake Michigan.

He climbed in beside her, leaned back and crossed his legs. He looked formidable and completely unapproachable to Tess. She didn't speak again. She was ashamed of her outburst. Her hands clutched her little evening bag tightly as the carriage jostled along behind the horses. The night was very cool, and she was sorry she hadn't a proper coat. The fur wrap was proving to be far more ornamental than utilitarian. Why did Matt want to go to the shore of the lake at this hour? Did he want to walk on the strip of sandy beach there?

Matt didn't enlighten her, even when they reached their destination. He left his top hat and cane on the seat and helped her down from the carriage. He instructed the driver to wait and, taking her arm, he escorted her along the sidewalk and down onto the sand.

“It's too chilly to go strolling out here,” she said through her teeth.

“Are you cold?” He stopped and turned to her. There was a full moon, and it lit his face enough for her to see its grave expression. She noted, too, that they were well out of view of the road and the carriage.

“My arms…are bare,” she said.

“Your arms and your breasts,” he said curtly. “I saw
the way that leering jackass gaped at you. You said that a button left that mark on your breast, but I don't believe it. You let him touch you, didn't you?”

She gasped, outraged. “As if I would let any man—!”

“You let me,” he reminded her with raging anger. “Or have you already forgotten?”

In one smooth motion, he slid the mink stole away from her shoulders. She barely caught it before it hit the ground.

The next movement he made was shocking. While she was catching her breath, he bent his head and his hard mouth found her breast where the red mark lingered.

She gasped, gripped his arms, stiffened. But his lips were narcotic in the pleasure they gave. His mouth opened, and his tongue teased the flesh he had just kissed.

Quite suddenly he pulled back. His beautiful, strong hands played along the décolletage of her gown until, abruptly, he jerked the fabric, baring her breasts.

In the chill night air, he looked at the hard red nipples for a long moment before his head bent again. He took one nipple delicately between his strong white teeth and nibbled it.

She was frightened not only by his anger and the feel of his teeth but by the sensations they caused deep inside her body. She shivered.

His big, lean hand cupped her gently, and he lifted his head so that he could see her eyes. “Did I hurt you?” he asked huskily.

She wanted to say yes, she wanted to pull away and run. She wanted to lie down and draw his mouth over…

“You…bit me,” she accused, shaking.

His hand softened on her body and lingered to caress her gently while he watched her shocked face. His fingers teased around the hard nipple, and he watched her shiver, knowing that it wasn't from the cold.

“Kilgallen was right,” he said quietly. “You're grass green.”

“Greener, even…” she whispered, realizing all of a sudden that he was as hungry as she was. Her body arched up to him. She looked at him with breathless anticipation. She never had the will to resist him. Not that she wanted to. All evening she'd thought of nothing except the hope of having him kiss her….

Her green eyes glittered with the same riotous desire he was feeling. “Please…!” she whispered, lifting her arms around his neck. “Matt…please…do it…again!”

His heart jumped. His hand cupped her warmly, moving under her firm breast as he touched his hard lips gently to her own. He was incapable of listening to his own small voice of reason. He was touching Tess and she was letting him, wanting him. It was just as it had been on the front porch so many long days ago, when they'd enjoyed each other in the darkness. Except that he could see her body in the faint moonlight. She was exquisite. She was everything he'd dreamed of…

He nibbled at her mouth and then let his lips slide down past her collarbone. His mouth slid over the hard nipple, worrying it with his tongue until he heard her faint gasp. Then his mouth opened and moved completely over her,
taking her almost completely inside the warm darkness while his tongue caressed the nipple until she arched up to him and shivered.

His tongue rolled hungrily against the underside of the nipple in a caress that made her cry out.

The sound excited him even more. His free hand slid down her back to her hips and gathered them completely against him, slowly rubbing her body into his until she could feel the hardness of him in a shocking contact.

Flustered, she pushed at his chest.

His head lifted. He saw the faint panic on her face. His hand still rested against her bare skin, and as he looked into her eyes, his hand contracted. He leaned against the seawall, his legs splayed, and he drew her between them, both hands at the top of her thighs, pushing her against the hardness of him.

She tried to protest, but he was relentless.

She shivered. Her eyes were wide, shocked, fascinated, embarrassed and through it all, hungry. She couldn't stop looking at him as he moved her slowly against his hips.

“You're innocent,” he said quietly. “But you're not ignorant about aroused men. When I was wounded, early one morning when you thought I was asleep, you lifted the sheet and looked at me.”

Her face went scarlet.

“You didn't think I knew, did you?” he asked softly. “It was too poignant a thing to have openly between us. You were so young, Tess. But I enjoyed your eyes. Too much,” he added with a conspiratorial smile. “And you saw how
much. I heard you gasp. After a minute, you dropped the sheet and ran.”

“I never thought you'd know,” she said, embarrassed.

“I knew,” he said solemnly. “That was when I started listening to your father about coming back east. You were only fourteen, but you had the body of a woman even then, and I wanted it.”

Her lips parted. “You never gave the least indication…”

“I didn't dare,” he said harshly. “You were so young, and it shamed me to feel that way about you. I gave you the only protection I could, and then I got on a train to Chicago.”

It sounded odd, that phrasing about protection. She tried to focus on what he'd said, but his hands became more insistent, and he lifted her even closer to his aroused body.

“Feel that,” he whispered through his teeth, watching her flush. “It's the most painful arousal I've ever had in my life, and you're a virgin!”

“Only because…you won't risk making love to me completely,” she said unsteadily. “But you knew that already, didn't you?”

“Of course I knew,” he said huskily. “I've always known. But you know, too, that there's no future in it.”

“Why?” she moaned.

“Because there are too many differences between us in a white world. I have nothing to offer you,” he said grimly. His eyes fell to her bare breasts. He touched them, hotly aware of her pleasure in his touch, her abandon. “Noth
ing,” he whispered, moving so that she was against the hard, cold wall. “Except this…”

His lean hand moved down. He found the hem of her silky gown, and his fingers smoothed up the stocking to the fastening of her garter belt, to the soft muslin of her drawers.