Nan Ryan (11 page)

Nevada sighed with relief.

“But you have exactly one minute to clean it off me. The method you choose is of no interest to me. Pluck it off. Wash it off.” His fingers tightened threatening. “Or lick it off.”

Nevada started to protest but immediately changed her mind and smiled sweetly. “Why, sure, Johnny. I’ll be happy to.” And she lifted her free hand, grabbed a bit of egg, all tangled up in curly black hair, and yanked as hard as she could.

“
Owwwww,
” Johnny, yelped in pain and automatically released her wrist to raise his hand to his smarting chest.

Nevada whirled away from him, dashed madly for her room, and when she was safely on the other side of the door, she shouted through it, “My daddy might not have been no fine gentleman, but he never came to the table shirtless!”

“Yes? Well, you won’t be coming to the table at all after that little show of defiance!” came his heated reply. “You’ll have nothing to wear.”

“Oh, damn,” Nevada muttered to herself. She’d completely forgotten that Johnny had promised to take her shopping this morning. Now he wouldn’t.

Hellfire, would she never learn to keep her big mouth shut?

“Nevada, you must learn to express yourself occasionally,” Johnny teased later that morning as he sat on a plum-hued velvet
causeuse
in a private salon at Monaco’s, the most exclusive ladies’ shop in Memphis. By nature an easy-going man, Johnny had already forgiven Nevada for misbehaving at breakfast. She was, he reminded himself, a child of the river who’d not had the proper advantages.

So he smiled indulgently as Nevada tried on gown after expensive gown behind a dressing screen of peach-and-gold. She was so excited, she couldn’t keep quiet.

The shop itself was something to see with its sixteenth-century Isfahan carpet covering floors of ivory Carrara marble. Gold-framed paintings lined the peach walls. Gleaming furniture from France graced the spacious downstairs entry.

A graying, matronly lady who introduced herself as Madame Nicole Jousset led Johnny and Nevada up a grand staircase, down a wide corridor, and into the private salon with the velvet couch and dressing screen and a tall gilt-framed upright mirror.

Nevada saw no clothes anywhere. She gave Johnny a questioning look. He grinned and sat down on the sofa, plucking at the sharp creases in his gray trousers and stretching his long legs out before him. Not knowing what else to do, Nevada quickly sat beside him. At once the matronly Nicole Jousset told her to stand up. She did. Madame Jousset walked around and around her, critically appraising her small slender form, and making suggestions concerning the choices of afternoon dresses and ball gowns and intimate apparel.

When the knowledgeable couturiere had decided on several possibilities and smilingly turned to leave them, Nevada made a move to get up and follow. With a hand on her arm, Johnny stopped her.

“Wait here,” he said, and seemed not the least bit surprised when a white-coated porter came quietly into the salon bearing a silver tray with refreshments. Placing the tray on a polished Chippendale side table at Johnny’s elbow, he was gone by the time Madame, followed by two cheerful female assistants, returned carrying a half dozen of the most beautiful afternoon dresses Nevada had ever.

“Monsieur?” questioned Madame, holding up a French-made garment of soft, flouncy yellow organdy.

“Yes,” said Johnny. “Let’s see what it looks like on.”

Beaming, Madame Jousset turned her attention to Nevada. “Mademoiselle, if you please?”

Nevada looked at Johnny. He said, “Try it on.”

“Where?”

He grinned. “Behind the screen.”

At first Nevada couldn’t believe that Johnny actually intended to remain in the small salon while she tried on the new frock, but he did stay and she found it strangely exciting to undress behind the screen while he continued to lounge comfortably on the sofa, not twenty feet from her.

The screen, of course, shielded her body from his sight, but it reached only to her shoulders. He could look right at her and she at him as she changed. While the industrious assistants brought forth armloads of dresses and nightgowns and lace-trimmed underthings, Nevada stood behind the screen, her face flushing, talking to Johnny.

When the new yellow gown fell into place and was fastened, she swept from behind the screen to model for him, turning around and around, liking the look of approval in his eyes.

It was wonderful fun and Nevada decided then and there that being a fine lady wasn’t so bad, after all. And the thought made her want to laugh. Who would have believed that fine ladies dressed and undressed right in the room with a man! It seemed to her tike a naughty game.

She was glad that they did. She liked it. It was a new experience that filled her with an unfamiliar exhilaration, made her feel warm and lightheaded and vitally alive. And daringly risqué.

Nevada tried on dresses and evening gowns and robes and underwear, liking the feel of luxurious textures next to her bare flesh, which had begun to tingle pleasantly. That tingling increased dramatically when she found herself, moments later, left totally naked. Madame and her helpers were out of the room. They had gone in search of more garments, leaving her there with Johnny. And no clothes. Not even any of the lacy, silky underthings they had shown them.

She didn’t know exactly how it had happened. All she knew was they had left nothing behind the screen for her to slip on. Even her trusty old blue satin gown was missing. But then she wouldn’t have reached for it, had it been there.

Awakened to her innate sexuality by Johnny’s experienced lovemaking, Nevada trembled and instinctively moved her bare feet apart. She drew in a shallow, excited breath and smiled seductively at the darkly handsome man looking at her.

“Johnny,” she said, her voice like warm honey.

Johnny Roulette felt heat rise to his dark face. Without being told, he knew that Nevada was naked. That behind the screen, which reached barely to the tops of her shoulders, she was gloriously, provocatively, temptingly nude.

The look in her blue eyes was boldly inviting. For one so young and basically still an innocent, she was incredibly erotic. She exuded a potent, steamy sexuality that was almost palpable. And she didn’t even realize it.

Or did she?

Johnny came to his feet. “Stop it, Nevada.”

“Stop what?”

“Making love to me.”

She blinked. “Are you crazy? How could I possibly be making love to you when you’re there and I’m here.”

“It’s easy.” He walked away. At the door he paused and looked back at her. “I don’t want you ever to be naked and alone in a room with me again, Nevada.”

“How can you be sure I’m naked?”

Johnny Roulette just shook his dark head and left her.

Looking at him now, standing at the white railing of the
Memphis Maiden
as the steamer made its slow, sure way downriver, Nevada wondered again how he had known that she was wearing no clothes behind that dressing screen.

And she wondered how he thought two people could make love without touching. Impossible. She didn’t believe it for a minute. He was teasing her, making fun. People had to get into bed to make love; everyone knew that.

Lifting the skirts of her new yellow organdy afternoon dress, Nevada went forward to join Johnny. She wanted to find out why they would be stopping off in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

11

She didn’t like it one bit. Johnny’s answer.

When Nevada had stepped up beside Johnny at the steamer’s railing, she touched his forearm, smiled sunnily up at him, and asked, “Why are we stopping in Baton Rouge?”

His slow, sure answer was, “To call on Miss Annabelle Delaney and see if we can’t persuade her to accompany us abroad.”

“I don’t like it! I don’t like it one damned bit!” Nevada quickly objected, as the first twinge of jealousy she’d ever experienced in her life shot through her. “You don’t need other women, Johnny. I’m woman enough for you. I am. I know I am.”

Johnny roughly took hold of her arm and escorted her away from a trio of sugar planters who had turned to stare as Nevada’s voice rose loudly with passion, breaking the deep stillness of the Mississippi.

Forcefully guiding her across the steamer’s polished deck and up a steep flight of steps to the deserted texas deck, Johnny drew her to the ship’s bow.

There he released her arm, and glaring at him, she rubbed it, letting him know he had hurt her. He was unmoved.

Gripping her slender shoulders in his big hands; Johnny said, “I will try one more time to explain things to you and I want you to pay close attention, because I’m running short of patience. You are not my woman, Nevada. You are Lady Luck. Fortune’s lodestone. And I, I’m your guardian, your mentor, your friend. I’ll take care of you, watch out for you. Like an older brother would.”

“How can that be? Brothers don’t make love to their—”

“Holy Christ, will you stop it! Put that night behind you once and for all.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to, dammit.” Gently he shook her. “You’ve a wonderful life ahead of you if you’ll do as I say. You’re very sweet when you set your mind to it. And very beautiful. And when some of the rough edges have been polished away, you’ll be sought after by any number of rich young gentlemen.” His hands relaxed on her tensed shoulders, the olive thumbs lightly rubbing, coaxing, as Johnny began to smile, hoping to convince her that everything was going to be fine. “You will adore Miss Annabelle Delaney. She’s a kind, gentle middle-aged spinster with impeccable manners. A true aristocrat of the Old South. Miss Annabelle will be the perfect chaperon to travel with us. A patient teacher for you.”

Nevada shrugged his hands away and turned to lean on the ship’s forward railing. She felt a little better, knowing that Annabelle Delaney was not in competition with her for Johnny’s affections. Still, she resented the intrusion. She would have liked to have had him all to herself, but she was clever enough to realize she must change her tactics if she was to have him at all. Apparently he could love only a refined lady, so she would have to become one whether she wanted to or not.

“I’m most eager to meet Miss Delaney.” She flashed him a wide smile. “I’ll be ever so grateful if she’ll agree to become my teacher.”

Johnny’s wide shoulders relaxed visibly. “Between the two of us, I’m positive we can convince her.” He slowly turned about, leaned back against the ship’s railing, and said kindly, “You’ve told me so little about yourself, Nevada. Is there family somewhere who would—”

“No,” she interrupted, her gaze sweeping out over the eddying waters to the unbroken flatness of the riverbanks. There luxuriant palmettos and towering live oaks and silvery weeping willows rose from a dense profusion of tangled undergrowth. Partridgeberry vines and grounded wild iris and jewelweed sprang from the rich soggy soil.

“Papa was all the family I had, and now he’s gone.”

“Your mother?” Johnny prompted.

“Died having me.” Her lids slid low over cool blue eyes. “Papa brought me from Nevada when I was still a baby.” Her attention was suddenly caught by the sudden flight of a snowy egret flapping its wings loudly, its long bill catching the sunlight. “I’ve been on this river since then. It’s the only life I know. It’s my home, Johnny. I love it.” She paused, “I loved my papa.”

Touched, Johnny said, “Sounds like you had a wonderful childhood.”

“I most certainly did,” she murmured, and looking back into her past, she regaled Johnny with her happy, adventurous days on the Mississippi. She talked and talked, telling him of her papa’s keelboat, of the crew, of the nights she sang for them under the stars. Of her early but brief schooling in New Orleans. Of her papa’s fondness for liquor and women, of the night he was knifed to death.

Johnny listened quietly, and with each childlike admission, each poignant revelation, felt his sense of protectiveness grow toward the raven-haired girl. That she was the neglected daughter of a drunken riverman was evident. That she was not responsible for her fate was just as apparent. That she had no idea anyone would pity her was appealing.

That she most definitely needed someone to watch over her was glaringly obvious.

Finally Nevada stopped speaking, and for a time they stood there quietly, each lost in thought. It was Nevada who broke the silence.

“Now,” she said, tilting her head, smiling up at him, “you know all there is to know about me. It’s your turn, Johnny. Tell me about your home and family.”

His only reply was a negative shake of his handsome head and a fleeting expression that passed over his dark eyes and was gone. Then he smiled engagingly, and straightening, shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his custom-cut trousers and said, “Enough reminiscing. Hurry down to your cabin and start dressing for dinner. Wear that apricot silk with all those fancy flounces.”

“Yes!” she said excitedly and promptly lifted her skirts and whirled about. “Will you help me with my hair?”

A faint smile played around the corners of his mouth. He took her elbow. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Papa used to brush my hair and help me pin it up.”