Firestorm (16 page)

“Oh, yes. Sian understands Mrs. D'Archand is never to go riding alone.”

Brett experienced a brief but fleeting relief. Sian was good with a pistol, better with a knife, and lethal with his hamlike fists. That was the reason Brett had given the young but capable groom the job of escorting Storm should she ever step out of the house. There would be no repetition of what had happened on the beach a couple of weeks ago. Where in hell were they? “Did she say where she was going after the Farlanes'?”

“No, sir.”

She must have stayed at Marcy's, he thought with new relief. It was the only answer. “Send William to the Farlanes' to bring Storm home. He can tell her I'm waiting.” With that dictum, Brett removed himself to his study, where he stared out at the blooming azaleas, rhododendrons, and tulips of his garden. Even the dogwoods were in bloom, but he hardly noticed.

William, the coachman, returned twenty minutes later, without Storm. She had left the Farlanes' before noon. Brett was stunned. William didn't move, waiting to be dismissed. Finally Brett found his voice. “Did she say where she was going?”

“No, sir,” William said.

Brett stood and waved him away, icy tentacles of fear gripping his bowels, vying with new anger. Now it was almost six hours since she'd gone. Nobody rode for six hours. Where in hell was she?

Something had happened.

Jesus, he thought, rushing through the house and outside, Sian was only twenty, even if he was six feet tall and two hundred pounds. Jesus, there were all kinds of crazy, women-starved scum in the area. “William, saddle King,” Brett shouted, then proceeded to do it himself because he was too impatient to wait. He took off at a gallop.

Storm loved the beach. As he thought that, turning in the direction they had once ridden together, the words of her letter came hauntingly back to him:
I hate San Francisco. Nothing has gone right…stuffed into corsets and shoes that hurt…I lied…We never fell in love…
Panic rode him as hard as he rode King, panic and guilt and remorse. No matter what, she was his wife, and only seventeen, and he was responsible for her.

Thirty minutes later, when he and King were equally lathered, Brett saw them riding slowly up the beach, toward the path leading over the dunes from where he was surveying the coast. He made out the big black before he could even see Storm, but there was no mistaking the stallion, and that it had a rider. There were two horses, two riders…Relief swept him through and through.

He didn't ride down to meet them, for King had been pushed too hard already. But he did go to the trail to wait for them, and when they came into view, he saw that Storm was truly all right, sitting easily, as if she'd been born on
that big black stallion. Sian was beside her, oversized on the bay gelding he rode.

Then Brett's relief vanished. Storm's face was flushed and glowing. Her hair was loose, long, golden tendrils falling over her breasts. Her riding jacket was completely unbuttoned, and her shirt was unfastened a good three inches below her collarbone. She and Sian hadn't seen him yet, and they were chatting gaily, merrily, laughing, beaming…He couldn't believe it. A huge, hot, hard, impossible rage swept him.

Nobody rode all day.

He would kill Sian. And then he would kill Storm.

They saw him. Storm immediately stopped smiling, an expression that looked like guilt crossing her face. Brett moved King forward, between them. “Where in hell have you been all day?”

Storm looked at him, indignant, then her expression became mutinous. “Where do you think I've been all day, Brett? Where does it
look
like I've been all day?” The last words were gritted furiously.

Her jacket was open, her ripe breasts exposed beneath a thin shirt. Brett noted the faint sheen of perspiration on her chest and face. He looked at her mouth. It didn't look bruised, and the glow from her face could have been from riding for hours on the beach…but
nobody
rode all day.

“Go on ahead without us, Sian,” Brett said, his voice controlled and deadly. He didn't look at the young man, but sat his horse ramrod straight, staring at his wife. He waited until he knew Sian was gone. Storm's chin thrust up as she waited for the attack.

He rephrased the question. “What have you been doing all day?”

“I went to Marcy's, and then I was riding.”

He stared at her mouth again, looking for some swelling, then at her lush breasts. “All day?”

She frowned. “Are you deaf?”

He wanted to hit her. “Your jacket's undone. So is your shirt. Why?”

She stared, her brows wrinkling. “What?”

“Why?”

“Brett, I'm hot.”

“Your hair is down.”

She stared with dawning comprehension.

“You and Sian get along very well,” he said. “I had no idea.”

Indignation flared, and her mouth dropped open. A vivid red color—the color of guilt, he thought—flooded her face.

“Did he touch you?” Brett snarled viciously.

“You disgusting lecher!” she shouted, and drove her horse forward.

Thinking she was trying to get past him to escape, Brett moved to block her path. But she drove the stallion right into his, crashing horseflesh against horseflesh, and before he knew it—he just wasn't expecting this kind of reaction—she screamed, a scream that sounded half woman and half Indian, and leaped off her horse—at him.

She leaped viciously, savagely, her face contorted with rage, and they both went flying off their horses and landed on the sand, Brett on his back, Storm on top. He saw she was about to strike, and grabbed both wrists, preventing the small, balled fists from hitting his face. Simultaneously, he jerked up his legs to protect his groin from a lethal knee, and in one deft, practiced movement, he rolled her over and pinned her beneath him so she couldn't move. She was panting and glaring, a wild, spitting animal, her sapphire eyes filled with fury. He was acutely aware of her softness beneath his hardness, of her full breasts crushed beneath his chest, of her open mouth, the soft, fast warm breaths that mingled with his. “Nobody rides all day!” he said.

“All day?” she shrieked. “All day? It wasn't all day—and I do ride all day! Bastard! Pig!”

“Nobody rides all day,” he said again, crazed with jealousy. Even he recognized it as jealousy. She wouldn't let him in her bed, but she'd let some groom take her?

“You sicken me,” she said, closing her eyes.

There was only one way to find out the truth, he realized. Still holding her wrists, he transferred them to one hand and shoved one knee between her thighs, pushing them open. Her eyes widened as he yanked up her skirts.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

He slid his hand up her wide-legged pantalets, gazing coldly into her eyes. The pants were damp along the insides of her thighs, from knee to groin.

“Brett, no, please,” she breathed.

He saw the fear in her eyes, there was no mistaking it, and for a bare moment he hated himself. But no woman was going to cuckold him. With his hand moving so intimately, he felt himself swelling, felt his pulse quickening. He slid his hand into the recesses of her body. He was actually trembling as he moved his fingers over the soft pubic hair in a brief caress. She gasped, eyes widening, and began to struggle. “No!”

“Be still,” he rasped, throbbing now, tightening his hold on her. She froze. Brett slid his hand lower, unable to help it, gently caressing her most intimate parts, and felt her shudder. He slid his finger into her. He froze in shock. There was no mistaking her virginity. He had made a mistake, a dreadful mistake. No man's seed was there. She was an innocent. God, what had he done? He removed his hand, feeling the worst sort of heel, and in one efficient movement righted her garments. He stood, pulling her to her feet. “I'm sorry,” he said hoarsely.

Her eyes grew bright and shiny, and a tear spilled out, then another and another. “Dammit,” he muttered miserably. “I'm sorry, but what in hell was I supposed to think?”

She swiped at the wetness on her face. “You had no right, no right to…to…do that! I don't lie, Brett!”

He just looked at her. He was feeling terrible for having thought the worst of her, while his body was raging and demanding, straining against his trousers—he wanted his wife. “Your first letter was lies,” he said, and he thought about her not being as innocent as she pretended, and felt angry again. He welcomed that emotion.

“I hate you,” she said. She turned and mounted Demon. The stallion was sixteen hands, but Storm grabbed the mane and catapulted on as if he were a pony and she a boy. She began trotting away.

For a minute Brett just stood staring after her, trying to assimilate his roiling emotions—desire, remorse, and strangest of all, humility. Then desire won out. He recalled how she had been lying beneath him, soft and warm, how full and magnificent her breasts were…and where he'd had his hand. He imagined how it would feel to bury himself deeply in her, as deeply as he could.

He mounted and rode swiftly after her, letting her lead, knowing from the rigidity of her back that she wouldn't talk to him even if he had wanted to converse, which he didn't. He was too embroiled in his own turmoil and hot desire. He looked at Storm's back, at the magnificent cascade of gold and brown hair. Thinking about bedding her naturally made him think about the annulment, which made him recall what he had told Grant. Had he changed his mind about getting the annulment? Why
not
marry for lust? He was certainly never going to fall in love.

She was a magnificent little savage.

Hell, he was crazy. He didn't want to be married. If anything, he should get the annulment and make Storm his mistress. Now
that
was a good, sane idea.

He escorted Storm in brooding silence. For once, he was not a gentleman. Without making a move to dismount himself, he watched as Storm slid from Demon. His eyes
never left her until she had disappeared into the house. Then he turned the gray around and headed back into town.

He shut himself up in his office at the Golden Lady with a bottle of his finest brandy. He found himself drinking and staring at the door, but seeing her. He thought about how hot his blood ran for her, and almost changed his mind. Almost went back to the house, to Storm. To his wife.

Then he drained his glass in disgust.

There was a knock on the door. Irritated, Brett got up to answer it. It was Susie. “Brett, Fred Hanks saw you come in and wondered if he could have a word with you over a drink,” she said.

“I don't want to be disturbed,” he growled, and she hastily retreated while he slammed the door. He leaned against it, brooding. His damn recalcitrant thoughts wouldn't quit. He poured another brandy, then Linda knocked and walked in, uninvited. His jaw tensed.

“Brett, Mary Anne says she's quitting, and that leaves us short a girl tonight. I refuse to work the floor again. Can you talk to her?”

“You're in charge of the girls,” Brett said tersely. “You figure out what to do.”

“I say we let her go. She's uppity and temperamental—Brett?”

He shoved on his hat and jacket, and strode past her without a word. He slammed out the back entrance and mounted King. The alcohol hadn't eased anything—not his infatuation, not his lust, not his need for the woman who was his wife. And what he didn't need right now was to be bothered by business at the Golden Lady.

He found himself down by the wharves watching the stevedores unloading crates off a merchant ship just arrived from the East. A fat whore with orange hair grabbed his booted foot and offered her wares. Brett smiled slightly.
Two Dutch sailors were arguing across the block; their disagreement soon escalated into a fistfight that became a brawl as another half dozen men joined in. Brett thought it looked like fun.

He paid a gangly boy to watch King and strolled into a crumbling shack with a weathered sign advertising food and ale. The moment he stepped inside, all conversation ceased. Brett looked around. The room was dark, dank, and smoky. Most of the customers were sailors. Two bosomy, haggard women were serving drinks, and the bartender weighed at least two-fifty and was a good half a hand taller than Brett. “Can I help you?” the barkeep asked without expression.

Brett walked forward, removing his hat. “A bottle of your
best
rotgut,” he said dryly.

The barkeep met his eyes briefly, then shrugged. Brett took the bottle to a solitary table, shrugged out of his jacket, and downed a few shots. He sighed, leaning back. Conversation resumed. One of the women came over, hanging over him, showing him large, flaccid breasts. “Care fer company, mister?”

“No, thank you,” he said easily.

“What a smile,” she murmured, then arched her back. “If you change yer mind…”

He nodded, watching her saunter off without really seeing her. He drained another shot. Storm. Why did he have to want her so much? What was it about her? He rubbed his face. If he had stayed around tonight, after this afternoon, after having her beneath him like that, after touching her delicate flesh—damn! He was going to fight her every inch of the way. No, fight himself. Fight his attraction for her. Why couldn't she be ugly and meek and boring instead of beautiful and spirited and unique?

Of course, there were benefits to being married. Having a constant companion. A bed partner. A hostess. A mother for his children. He would be the envy of every bachelor
in town. She was the most magnificent woman in San Francisco. What were his objections to being married, anyway? How come he couldn't seem to remember them?

Oh, yes. She didn't want him. He wanted her, but she didn't want him.

Just like his mother.

And his father.

But she really didn't have a choice, did she? After all, she was his wife, and she couldn't legally refuse him. If he wanted her, to hell with how she felt—right?