Elizabeth Lowell (43 page)

“Ty, stop, please.”

“Why? Afraid those fancy Englishmen will see you holding on to me?” Ty’s narrowed green eyes glittered coldly at Janna through his black eyelashes. His voice was equally icy. “Not one of those titled fops would touch you if they knew your past. When they see past the silk they’ll be furious at the joke you’ve played on them.”

“Men never look past the silk.”

“I’ve looked, Janna Wayland. I know what’s beneath all the finery—and it sure as hell isn’t a fragile silken lady.”

The words sank into her like knives, killing the last of her foolish hope. A feeling of emptiness stole through her as she realized that no matter how she dressed she would never be Ty’s dream, for he would always look at her and see the ragged waif dressed in men’s clothes.

Silk purse.
Sow
’
s ear.
Never the twain shall meet.

She tried to turn away from Ty, but his fierce grip on her never wavered. She would have fought despite all the people around, but even if she had won free she would still have been trapped within swath after swath of silk.

Silver had been right. Men preferred silk because it prevented women from running off.

Janna was in a silken prison. There was no escape, no place of concealment for her but deep within herself. Yet even then her tears gave away her hiding place.

Case tapped Ty firmly on the shoulder. “This dance is mine.”

He turned on his younger brother with the quickness of a cat. “Stay out of it.”

“Not this time,” Case said matter-of-factly. “I brought her here, forced her to stay here until you came back, and now you’re spoiling the Thanksgiving ball Cassie has looked forward to all year. Your family deserves better than that, don’t you think?”

Ty looked beyond Case and saw Blue Wolf starting through the throng in Ty’s direction. He knew that Blue was even more protective of Cassie than Case was. Then Ty spotted Duncan and Logan closing in on him with grim expressions.

Silver began playing a waltz again. Its slow, haunting melody recalled formal summer gardens and elegant dancers glittering with gems. Calmly, Case disengaged Janna from Ty’s arms. As Case whirled Janna away, he said over his shoulder, “Go take a bath. You aren’t fit company for anything but a horse.”

Without a word Ty turned and stalked off the dance floor, shouldering aside his brothers.

Behind him Case and Janna danced slowly, gracefully, for Case matched his demands to his partner’s skill. When the final strains of the waltz dissipated among the candle flames and rainbows trapped within crystal prisms, Case and Janna were standing at the doorway. He held her hand and looked at her for a long moment.

“Cassie told me you aren’t pregnant,” he said finally. “I’m sorry. A child with your grit and grace and Ty’s strength and fancy speech...well, that would have been something to see.”

She tried to smile, couldn’t, and said simply, “Thank you.”

“There’s a feisty zebra dun in the corral. That fool brother of mine packed more than a hundred pounds of gold all over Utah Territory for three weeks looking for that zebra mare. Sixty pounds of that gold is now in a bank waiting for you to draw on it. The MacKenzies will honor Ty’s promise and see that Mad Jack’s half gets to his kids.”

“Half of my gold is Ty’s.”

Case shook his head. “No.”

She started to object again. He watched her with the patience of a granite cliff. She could object all she wanted and nothing would change.

When Case saw that she understood, he bowed to her more deeply than custom required and released her hand. “You’re free, Janna. All promises kept.”

The oil lamps in Janna’s room turned her tears to gold, but that was the only outward sign of her unhappiness. Cream leather shoes stood neatly next to the armoire. Pale silk pantalets were folded neatly on the chair. Hoops and petticoats were hung out of the way. Earrings and necklace and brooch rested in an open, velvet-lined box.

All that stood between Janna and freedom was the maddening fastenings on her ball gown. The dress had been designed for ladies who had maids in attendance, not for a mustang girl who had nothing but her own ill-trained fingers and a burning need never to see or touch or be reminded of silk again.

“Allow me.”

She spun so quickly toward the door that candle flames bowed and trembled.

Ty stood in the doorway watching her, but he was a different man. Gone was the rough frontiersman. He was clean shaven except for a black mustache. He smelled of soap and wore polished black boots, black slacks, and a white linen shirt whose weave was so fine it shone like silk. He looked precisely like what he was—a powerful, uncommonly handsome man who had been born and raised to wealth and fine manners, a man who had every right to require that the mother of his children be of equal refinement.

Janna turned away and said carefully, “I can manage, thank you. Please close the door on your way out.”

There was silence, then the sound of a door shutting behind her back. She bit her lip against the pain ripping through her body.

“A gentleman never leaves a lady in distress.”

She froze with her hands behind her back, still reaching for the elusive fastenings that held her confined within a silken prison.

“But I’m not a lady, so your fine manners are wasted. Nor am I pregnant, so you needn’t feel dutiful.”

The bleakness of Janna’s voice made Ty’s eyes narrow. He came and stood behind her, so close that he could sense her warmth.

“Case told me,” Ty said.

His nostrils flared at the fragrance of crushed roses that lifted from her skin and hair. Memories blazed for an instant in his eyes. He brushed her hands away from the fastenings that went down the back of her dress.

“You’re a satin butterfly,” he said, unfastening the dress slowly, feeling a hunger to touch her that was deeper and more complex than a desire, a hunger that tightened his body as each tiny hook silently gave way, revealing a bit more of her skin. “And I’m going to release you from your cocoon.”

His long index finger traced the graceful centerline of her back. She made a stifled sound as the dress fell away, leaving her naked.

Ty had never seen anything quite so beautiful as her elegant feminine curves. He traced her spine once more, following it to the shadow crease of her hips.

“During the war, Case kept his sanity by walling off his emotions,” Ty said quietly. “I kept my sanity in a different way. I swore that I would never see such ugliness again. If I survived, I vowed to surround myself with fine and fragile things that had never known even the shadow of violence and death. Every time grapeshot ripped through living flesh, every time I saw young children with empty eyes, every time one of my men died…I renewed my vow.”

Eyes closed, body trembling, Janna felt the lingering caress of Ty’s fingertip tracing her spine; but it was the pain in his voice that broke her heart and her control. She had loved him recklessly, without regard for the future cost.

Now the future had come to demand its reckoning.

“It’s all right,” she said huskily. “I understand. You’ve earned your silken lady. I won’t—”

Her voice shattered as his hands caressed the length of her back before smoothing up her torso until her breasts were cupped in his hands.

“Run away?” Ty offered, finishing Janna’s sentence for her. The feel of her nipples hardening at his lightest touch made blood rush in a torrent through his body. “That’s good, because touching you makes me so damn weak that I can hardly stand, much less run after you.” With aching gentleness he caressed the breasts whose textures and responsiveness never ceased to arouse him. “So soft, so warm. No, hold still, love. It’s all right. We’re going to be married just as soon as I find the strength to leave this room and round up a preacher.”

“Ty…” Her throat closed around all the tears she hadn’t shed, all the dreams that couldn’t come true. “You have to let me go.”

“Why?” His long fingers shaped her, caressed her, made her tremble with a wild longing. “You want me as much as I want you. Have I told you how much I like that? No games, no coyness, just the sweet response of your body to my touch.”

She bit off a telltale moan and asked desperately, “Did your parents love each other?”

His hands stilled in surprise. “Yes. Why?”

“Think how you would have felt if they hadn’t. Think how a child would feel growing up and knowing that his father felt a combination of desire and duty and disappointment toward his mother. Your child deserves better than that. So do you. And,” Janna added softly, “so do I. Seeing you, having your body but not your heart…It will break me, Ty. Is that what you want?”

Gently he turned her around. She met his eyes without evasion despite the slow, helpless welling of her tears.

“Janna,” he said softly, bending down to her, “I—”

She turned her head aside and spoke quickly, interrupting, words tumbling out in a desperate effort to be heard. “No. Please listen to me. Please. I may not be fine or fragile, but even mustang ladies can be broken. You said once you owed me more than you could ever repay. You can repay me now. Let me go, Ty.
Let me go before I break.
”

Eyes closed, hands clenched into fists at her side so that she wouldn’t reach for the man she loved too much ever to cage, she waited for Ty to leave. She heard him make a hoarse sound that could have been anger or pain, sensed currents of air moving as he moved, and she trembled with the violence of her emotions.

Tears touched the sensitive skin between her breasts, and she was shocked to know how hot her own tears were. Then she felt Ty’s cheek against her body, saw him kneeling at her feet, felt his arms close tightly around her waist, and she realized that the scalding tears weren’t her own.

Moved beyond words, she stroked his hair with trembling hands, feeling as though she were being torn apart. She had thought she could leave him, but every instant she was with him told her how wretched life without him would be.

“I won’t let you go,” Ty said finally “Don’t ask me to. Don’t beg me to. I can’t do it, Janna. I need you too much.”

“Ty, don’t,” she whispered achingly, trying to still the trembling of her body, failing. “I want so much for you to have your dream.”

“I dreamed of you every minute I was away. You’re my dream, Janna. I went back to get that gold for you, not for myself. I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing you, couldn’t lick my lips without tasting you, couldn’t sleep for wanting you. Then I walked into that ballroom and saw the perfect silken lady of my dreams dancing with the perfect silken man.
And I wasn
’
t that man.
I went—crazy. I wanted very much to kill that high-nosed son of a blue-blooded bitch for even looking at you.”

“But you said—you said that you’d seen past the clothes, that I wasn’t a fragile silken lady.”

“Yes, I’d seen past the clothes, and I thank God for it.” Ty turned his head slowly, kissing the smooth breasts that smelled of roses.

“Listen to me, Janna. There’s far more to being a lady than silks and bloodlines. A true lady is more concerned with the needs of the people around her than she is with the state of her wardrobe. A true lady gives succor to the sick, laughter to the lonely, respite to the weary. And to one very, very lucky man, a true lady gives herself…and asks nothing in return but that she be allowed to give the gift of her love.”

Ty smoothed his cheek between Janna’s breasts, absorbing the beauty of her living warmth. “That kind of gift is so rare that it takes a man by surprise.”

He kissed the velvet tips of her breasts, smiled to hear her breath break and tremble even as her body did. His mouth caressed the smooth skin of her stomach and the auburn cloud at the apex of her thighs.

“My sweet satin butterfly,” he said in a low voice. “Let me love you again.” His hand eased between her legs and he groaned to feel her heat once more. “Janna…please, let me.”

Her knees gave way at the first gliding penetration of his caress. His arm tightened, holding her still for a searing instant while he was still within her warmth. Her breath unraveled as he slowly released her, leaving her body shimmering and without the strength to stand.

With a dark yet oddly tender smile, Ty caught Janna and came to his feet, taking the warm weight of her in his arms once more. He walked the few steps to the bed, put her on the fur coverlet and kissed her lips gently before he stepped back and removed his own clothes, watching her with smoldering green eyes the whole time.

When he was as naked as she, he lay next to her on the bed, gathered her against his body and kissed her as tenderly as though she were a frightened maiden. The caresses he gave her were equally restrained, almost chaste, but his words were elemental fire.

“Your body is all satin, strong and hot and sleek. You’re perfect for a man who is more rawhide than silk. For me, Janna. Just for me. You are…perfect.”

Her breath caught, then broke when his hand smoothed down her body. She didn’t deny him the intimate warmth he so gently sought. She could no more have refused him than she could have told her heart to stop beating. Nor could she hold back the shimmering pulse of her pleasure, the heat that welled up and overflowed at his touch, and she cried out his name with each pulse.

The evidence of Janna’s need for him was an exquisite shaft of pleasure so intense that it was also pain. Ty groaned and sought her secret warmth once again, and once again she didn’t deny him. Eyes closed, he bent and kissed her lips, her breasts, the taut curve of her belly, trying to tell her things for which there were no words. And then her fingers threaded lovingly through his hair and the words came to him.

“Once,” Ty whispered, “I saw Lucifer go to you, put his head into your hands with such trust that I was reminded of the legend of the unicorn and the maiden. It made me…restless, baffled, angry. I felt sorry for the unicorn, trapped by his reckless love. And then the maiden opened her hands and let the unicorn go, for she loved the unicorn too much to hold it against its will.”