Betina Krahn (10 page)

The music ended, just then, and they were forced to disengage and applaud the music and their own duplicitous performance.

When he stepped back, she seized his arm. “Don’t leave!”

“Well, actually, Miss Wingate”—he swallowed his misgivings and forced himself to seize the moment—“I was hoping to speak to you—”

“There you are!” came a booming voice that to Bear’s ear had a forced joviality to it. They turned together and found Morgan Kenwood approaching with a determined stride and a brusque urgency to his manner.

“Diamond, my dear!” A higher-pitched and disagreeably nasal voice came from the side a moment later. Diamond turned to find her “missionary” coming across the dance floor with a look of distress on his sallow face.

Bear watched her stiffen and melt back a step toward him. Her hands fluttered frantically behind her back, searching for his arm or hand—anything to hold onto—as a third voice assailed her.

“
Diamond mine!
You stunning creature, you—I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” A darkly handsome and carelessly dressed fellow was drawing attention from around the room as he approached with a half-empty champagne glass and a sensual swagger.

She was being descended upon from three different directions at once. Bear heard her whimper of distress and allowed her to find his hand. She grabbed it as if it were a life preserver. From his position behind her, he could both feel her terror and see the reason for it. The looks in those three male faces were nothing short of predatory. He’d seen circling wolves with less hunger in their eyes.

One by one, they stopped before her, and she huddled back a bit more each time, until she was virtually standing on his feet. Scowling at the way she was crowding him, he caught sight of the panicky flutter of her pulse at the side of her throat. She glanced up at him with a sickly smile and he experienced an insane urge to grab her up by the waist and run from the damned room.

“Why, Paine, you’re home already? How wonderful,” she said, her voice reedy and oddly constricted. “And you, Louis … And of course, Morgan … Why, you’re all so … dashing and so … so very … very …”

She sank toward the floor.

It was a brilliantly executed swoon. A sway, some blinking, a wrist to the forehead, a vaporous flutter of eyelashes … then her legs folded and she surrendered to gravity and the mercy of someone else’s reflexes. It fell to Bear to catch her before she hit the floor, since he was the closest to her.

Galvanized by her unexpected collapse, he tried to collect and concentrate her weight into a manageable bundle. The more he grappled with her unwieldy form, the more furious he became … with those three grasping vultures for stalking her like a defenseless stray … with her for dropping her blessed problems at his feet, literally … and with himself for being willing to pick them up. He scarcely heard the commotion that followed, the squeals of the ladies, the gasps of the men, and the conflicting orders from her three gentlemen “friends” regarding
what to do and where to carry her. He ignored most of it, until Evelyn Vassar appeared, ashen and frantic, before him, clearing a path through the gawking guests and directing him to the nearest bedchamber.

He swept her down the hallway, in their hostess’s wake, with his back and shoulders straining and his heart pounding as if it would jump out of his chest. She wasn’t a tiny woman … not exactly what he would call a fragile flower of—Oh, hell, she weighed a blue ton!

It was in the grip of such ungentlemanly thoughts that he was caught staring at her face … when first one of her eyes opened … and then the other. He stumbled and damn near dropped her on her conniving little—
not
so little—bottom. In the next heartbeat, both of her eyes squeezed tightly shut and he was forced to watch in outraged silence as her lips curled in a smile of relief.

By the time Evelyn Vassar reached the bedroom door and threw it open, he had worked up a full head of steam. He carried Diamond to the four-poster bed, swung her over it, and while Evelyn was busy shooing onlookers away and closing the door, he dropped her onto the counterpane. She gave a surprised gurgle of protest as she hit, but after parting her eyes just enough to shoot him a murderous glare, she went instantly limp and silent once more.

Through a haze of chagrin, he backed away from the bed, from the room, and from the knot of curious people gathered in the hall outside. He retreated, in fact, to the main floor, where he found himself the object of intense stares and whispers. He was eyeing the front doors, contemplating making use of them and not stopping until he reached the comparative sanity of the brawling waterfront, when Philip Vassar called to him from the stairs.

“McQuaid! Well, well … you’ve created quite a stir this evening,” the banker said, joining him in the hall, clapping a hand on his shoulder, and steering him toward
the empty library. “Every tongue in the place is wagging. You and Miss Wingate have made Evelyn’s party. Party, hell, you’ve made her whole season.” He closed the library door in a stealthy manner and savored the resulting silence for a moment before going to pour them both a brandy.

“So”—he handed Bear a draught of his best French stock and waved him into one of the tufted leather chairs—“did you talk with her about your proposal?”

“No.” Bear couldn’t help the edge in his voice. “First she was busy fending off your local wolf pack. Then she was unconscious.”

Vassar nearly choked on his brandy. “Our local wolf pack?”

“Your horse baron, Kenwood, and that missionary … I believe she called him Louis. Then there was some other fellow … dark, rumpled, half-drunk …” He snorted contemptuously. “He called her ‘Diamond Mine.’ ”

“Ye gods.” Vassar frowned. “Don’t tell me Kenwood’s still after her. He seems to think he has ‘first rights’ with her, since they grew up together. The missionary—that has to be Louis Pierpont III. There’s a piece of work. His family left him a small fortune and he promptly gave it all away … hoping to buy his way into Heaven, I suppose. Moralizing little sop. He’d love nothing more than to give Diamond’s fortune away, too.” He chuckled. “Though, in truth, she doesn’t need much help in that department.”

“And the third one?” Bear prompted, strangely intent on hearing it all. “Dark … pretty-boy face … three sheets to the wind …”

Vassar nodded. “Ah, yes. That has to be Paine Webster. I caught a glimpse of him earlier, as he arrived.” He cocked his head. “Odd … I thought he was out of the country. The family sent him to the Orient … ostensibly on business, but in reality to get him out of the way for a while. They’re garment people. They own a couple of
mills here in Baltimore and manufacture ready-to-wear. Good people. He’s the bad seed they keep trying to grow into something worthwhile. ‘Paine-in-the-Butt Webster.’ There’s a man aptly named.”

Vassar finished his brandy and set his glass aside on the nearby humidor.

“The three of them descending on her at once.” Vassar shook his head. “No wonder she fainted.” He cast a speculative eye over Bear as he rose. “And you to the rescue again. Dammit, McQuaid, if you haven’t already
earned
your blessed loan!”

As Vassar left the library, Bear sat staring into his dwindling brandy and felt an irrational burst of relief that those three vultures were doomed to merely circle her. Laying a hand on his midsection, he came alert and began searching for other worrisome feelings and reactions connected to his intended investor. They weren’t hard to find.

Whenever she was near, he found himself staring at the lights in her hair and her Montana-sky eyes. The mounds bared by her daring neckline and the prominent curves of her waist and hips made his palms itch. And he felt an alarming compulsion to intervene between her and lunatic inventors, pushy suitors, and even the damnable local gossips.

This preoccupation with her was exactly what he had been dead set on avoiding. What the hell difference did it make to him whether she was being hounded and pursued by money-hungry men or not? She was an investor, nothing more. A signature on a dotted line. A letter of credit on the hoof. A bank account with a bustle.

Bounding from the chair, he paced back and forth, then reached into the closest humidor for one of Vassar’s fancy cigars.

In the midst of lighting it, he paused to stare at the rolled tobacco.

He hated cigars.

What the hell was the matter with him?

The noise from the dockside tavern was loud as Bear climbed the rickety rear stairs leading to the room they had rented. He could usually count on the snores of the lodgers on the other side of the partitioning blanket, as well as Halt’s own “night music,” to drown out the din from downstairs. But tonight as he paused to let his eyes adjust to the moonlight coming through the crusty window, the snoring and tavern noise only seemed to amplify each other. Determined not to be the only one who got no sleep tonight, he shook Halt, who bolted upright in an instant and jammed a revolver to his middle.

Bear froze.

“It’s me!” When the Irishman blinked and focused and finally withdrew the gun, Bear felt a flash of heat rush through him. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he demanded as Halt swung his legs gingerly over the side of the cot. “Pulling a gun on—”

Then he caught a glimpse of Halt’s face in the dim light and sucked in a breath. It looked like someone had broken a board over his head. One eye was swollen nearly shut and his jaw and lips were puffy and discolored on one side.

“What happened?” Bear dropped to one knee beside him.

“I was comin’ back from a bite o’ supper … that place on Alehouse Street.” Halt’s voice sounded strained, almost hoarse. “I heard somebody comin’ up behind me, but didn’t think nothin’ of it. City livin’s made me careless, I guess. They clouted me on the head, dragged me down an alley, and pounded me like I was a tough cut o’ bully beef.”

“They?” Bear lit the tallow lamp and held it up to inspect Halt’s injuries.

“It takes more’n one set of fists to do this much damage to a hardheaded Irishman.” Halt grinned and then groaned at the pain it caused. “Can’t say if there was more than two of ’em. I was a bit too busy for countin’.”

“Damnation.” Bear noticed the way Halt was holding his side, and pushed Halt’s hand away to feel for broken ribs.

“Naw, nothing broken,” Halt declared, inhaling sharply when Bear touched a bruised spot. “I’ll mend quick enough. Th’ worst is”—his voice lowered to a pained hush—“they got our money, lad. Ever’ last cent we had.”

“Every last cent?” The news hit Bear hard. He sat back on his heel. “Did you get a look at them? Any idea who they were?”

“Street toughs, most likely. Never seen ’em before.”

Bear drew a bottle of brandy from his pocket and thrust it into Halt’s hand. “Here. Use some of this to dull the pain. Compliments of our favorite banker.” He watched Halt work the cork free, put the bottle to his nose, and breathe deeply of the rich vapors.

“Yer a good man, Bear McQuaid,” Halt said, flashing Bear a pained grin that widened with astonishment when Bear produced a handful of fancy Cuban cigars from his other pocket. Halt passed one of the cigars under his nose, inhaling the rich tobacco, then took a drink of the brandy. The sigh of pleasure that issued from his battered form sent a sliver of guilt through Bear.

“Well, what about your evenin’? Our old Miss Wingate?” Halt slid to one side to make room for Bear on the cot beside him. “What did she say? Did ye get her to agree to a loan?”

“I … couldn’t get her alone to ask about it. But I did manage to meet her. They say she makes a lot of loans to
new businesses … some with a helluva lot less potential than the Montana Central and Mountain.”

Halt deflated. “Ye didn’t even get to ask ’er?”

“She always had people hangin’ around. And she’s not exactly how we pictured her,” Bear said, taking a drink from the bottle when Halt offered it.

“What do you mean ’not how we pictured ’er’?”

“Kindly. Like your old grandma. A real soft touch.”

Halt took the bottle back and drank again. “So, what’s she like, then?”

“Younger.” Bear squirmed inside, deciding how much to reveal. “A damned tough nut. Knows railroads front to back and left to right. And she’s not one to be fooled by fancy manners or to go all goosey over a handsome face.”

“That’s good.” Halt gave a muted chuckle and took another drink. “ ‘Cause right now, the best o’ both of us put together wouldn’t make a decent curtsy or a handsome face.” Bear scowled until he saw the flash of teeth in Halt’s battered visage. He began to relax at the realization that Halt’s humor was back, and he grinned.

“We wouldn’t at that.”

After the bottle had passed back and forth a few more times, the seriousness of their situation surfaced again, counteracting the effects of the brandy to sober them both.

“No loan. No way to exercise them land options. Plum out o’ money. And runnin’ out o’ time,” Halt mused. “It don’t look good for us, Bear, me lad.”

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, each considering the ramifications of their latest loss. Then as their hopes sounded the depths of despair, their determination only had one way to go.

“Not good. But not impossible,” Bear said, glancing overhead and around them, at their meager lodgings. “At least we got a roof over our heads.”

“True enough. Th’ rent’s paid three more days.”

“We each got two strong arms and willing hands.” Bear sat straighter.

“We can find work enough to keep our bellies filled.” Halt squared his aching shoulders. “And we still got old Miss Wingate. She’s a right old gal. Tough, but fair. She’ll do right by us.”

Bear’s rising spirits were momentarily hobbled by Halt’s enthusiasm for Diamond Wingate … until her words came back to him. “
I’ll make it worth your while
.” He seized and held on to that promise, while stubbornly blocking the rest of his memories of her.

“I’ll pay her a visit, first thing Monday morning,” Bear declared. “I’ll take the maps and charts and lay it all out in front of her … make her a straight-up business proposition. No pussyfootin’ around.”

Halt grinned, affirming his faith in Bear’s powers of persuasion.