CHAPTER SIX

 

With a flourish, Montana Rose fanned her five cards onto the tabletop, showing the three tens that were good enough to bring home the pot of nearly four hundred dollars. She permitted a small smile as she raked in her winnings. Having arrived on board with less than three hundred dollars, she had managed to coax the tally to over four thousand.

Her secret smile became somewhat less secretive as she surveyed the faces of the men seated around the table. Four out of five of them had their eyes fastened speculatively on the deep cleft between her breasts; the fifth, who had been stretching his legs, rejoined them with a loud scraping of his chair and sent a broad wink across the table.

“Good show, Montana,” he said, and she was not one hundred percent certain he was referring to her card-playing skills. “It looks to me like Lady Luck has decided to favor her own sex tonight.”

Montana ran her fingers caressingly down the final, neat stack of coins and met Lyle Swanson’s gaze directly. “You are not doing too badly yourself, sir.”

“No, I’m not,” he agreed readily. “And I intend to give you a run for your money tonight even if none of these other beggars are up to it.”

Her gold locket reflected a flare of light from the overhead lamp as Montana accepted the deck of cards and began to deftly shuffle them. Swanson was a balding, rotund man who developed a tic in one of his bullish jowls whenever he held anything better than a pair. He also had an annoying habit of humming under his breath, a sound that was pervasive and irritating and rarely in keeping with the music that filtered up from the main gambling salon. But he had a stack of greenbacks and gold double eagles in front of him the size of Mt. Vesuvius and gambled with enough indifference to deter any of the others from complaining.

“Shall we try a little round of cutthroat?” Montana suggested casually. “Quick and vicious—just the way I like it sometimes, when the blood needs to flow a little faster.”

In the long moment of exquisite silence that followed her declaration, at least three hearts skipped a beat and more than one mind’s eye had a brief, explicit picture of satin sheets and gleaming, sweating bodies twined together.

“Fifty-dollar ante, deuces wild,” she announced crisply, and began dealing the cards. Her eyes followed around the table as each player met the ante, starting with the gentleman seated on her left.

Norman Smith was a Yankee, like the others, a banker or a speculator come to scavenge what he could from the corpse of the South. Short and squat, with no neck to speak of, he was an officious boor who made it quite clear through unsubtle hints and hard stares that he was a wealthy man who would not be opposed to lavishing his generosity on a fine Southern-bred mistress—if he could find one with enough fire and spunk to hold his interest. Adding to his appeal, he kept an unlit cigar clamped between his lips and as he worked it side to side, the spittle built up a brown crust at the corners of his mouth.

Paul Whitney sat next in the circle. He had the lean, rangy look of a panther, dressed all in black from the toes of his tall, polished boots, to the top of his wide-brimmed, silver-banded hat. He was as miserly with his conversation as Smith was gregarious and rarely showed any change in his expression. He had the smell of a professional about him, someone who made his living from cards and other games of chance. He folded more often than he played, but when he did stay in a game, it was usually with a hand that was tough to beat. He also rarely played a hand that required him to draw more than one card, a sure sign, Montana suspected, he was leading up to a monumental bluff.

Her eyes flicked to the next player, Michael Tarrington. Ex-Army, she surmised. A Yankee officer. His voice and mannerisms bespoke the quiet authority and self-confidence of a man accustomed to giving orders and not having them challenged or ignored. His broad shoulders were encased in tailored blue-black broadcloth. The whiteness of the pleated linen shirt and the burgundy silk of his waistcoat gleamed with casual wealth. His hair was chestnut brown and fell rather handsomely unkempt over his brow, as if he shunned the services of a barber and preferred to let the wind style it for him. He wore a rakishly thick moustache and his peculiar "tell", if it could be said that he had one, was to stroke a thoughtful forefinger over his upper lip whenever he debated a wager of over a hundred dollars— which seemed to be most of the time. He neither won nor lost with any regularity or interest. The latter seemed to be reserved for the scantily clad hostess who hovered in the background replenishing drinks when the need arose.

The last member of the group was Ainsley Scott, the youngest and also the heaviest loser so far. Handsome and spoiled by family wealth, he could not have been a day over twenty, not old enough to have even bruised his callow softness in the war. He was an easy mark, suffering from a combination of poor card sense, a face that read like an open book, and a puppy-like eagerness to impress Montana with his boyish charm. She, in turn, responded to his efforts by relieving him of as many coins and greenbacks as he was willing to squander; a pleasure that would not last much longer to judge by the diminishing reserves in his pockets.

She finished dealing and barely glanced at her own hand before turning to the squinty-eyed Norman Smith. “Cards?”

Two,” he grunted. He tossed a couple of chips into the center of the table and discarded a pair of pasteboards, then reached a fat, clammy hand out for their replacements. Following his customary habit, he tapped all five together on the baize and leaned well back in the chair before slowly fanning and peering at the new additions. When he did, he grated his cigar savagely between his teeth and tossed a smug glance at Paul Whitney. “Well, sir, will it be one or none this time?”

A slight tilt in the brim of the gambler’s hat was the only reaction to Smith’s sarcasm as he paid for the privilege and held up a long, tapered finger to call for a single card.

Smith grunted again and Montana shifted her attention along the table. “Mr. Swanson?”

“Lyle, my dear. Call me Lyle, and I shall take a pair. Two ladies as lovely as yourself, if you can arrange it.”

Montana smiled and thumbed the top card of the deck. Something made her look over at the Yankee officer, and she was mildly surprised to find Michael Tarrington’s eyes waiting for her. Nothing so commonplace as gray, they were a smoky blend of steel and slate that seemed to be focussed entirely too closely on her hands, as opposed to her bosom.

She smiled. “And for you, Mr. Tarrington?”

“Three,” he said, not wavering his stare. He made his discard with an irreverent flick of his wrist and slotted his new cards into his hand without looking at them.

I’m going to stand but for one, Miss Montana,” declared Ainsley Scott, his voice pulling her gaze away from Tarrington’s. “I’m feeling lucky this hand, sure enough, and just one oughta do it. Oughta fit itself”—he paused and grinned hugely when he saw the card she threw him—“right here, you sweet thing. Right here.”

The bluff was so obvious, Montana almost winced.

Dealer takes three,” she said, paying into the pot and making the exchange with brisk, efficient movements. When she looked up again, it was to find that Tarrington's attention was still focused intently on her hands. It wasn’t the first time she had caught him studying her movements. The green velvet gown had long fitted sleeves and a spill of lace at the wrists—lace she had made a point of folding back so that her hands and wrists remained clearly visible at all times.

“The betting is open, gentlemen,” she said, drawing his eyes up to hers. “No limits, no credit.”

Norman Smith chewed the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “I might as well ride this filly awhile and see where she takes me.” He tossed some coins into the center of the table and glared down his nose at Paul Whitney. “Fifty to start.”

Whitney called the fifty and raised fifty without comment. Play passed to Swanson, who glowered at his cards for a long moment before counting out his bet. “Your hundred, gentlemen … and fifty more. And speaking of fillies, what’s your secret, Tarrington? What does a man have to do to get a drink around here?”

The buxom brunette waitress, who had indeed been giving most of her closest attention to Michael Tarrington, sashayed over to Swanson’s side and tickled his ear with a few breathy words as she topped up his empty glass.

“Gads,” he muttered. “You’d let me do that?”

If the price is right,” Smith chuckled, “I warrant these hot little Southern wenches would let you do just about anything.”

Tarrington was the only one of the men who did not respond with at least a smile. He called the girl back to his side instead and when she was there, he tucked a hundred-dollar bill into her waistband and held up his glass. “Just a refill,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

He threw two hundred and fifty into the pot, raising the bet again, and glared narrowly at Smith. Scott, whistling jauntily under his breath, matched Tarrington’s bet and added a hundred more.

While Montana debated what to do, she toyed with the length of gold chain around her neck. She kept her face carefully blank as she studied her cards, knowing this was going to be a rich pot. “Three hundred and fifty to cover," she said quietly. "And five hundred more to see what you Yankees will do for the right price.”

Smith guffawed and bit down hard enough on his cigar to sever a soggy clod in his mouth. He swore and spit at the same time as he threw his cards face down on the table.

“Not play the sucker,” he snorted. “That much I can tell you for free.”

Paul Whitney pursed his lips and riffled thoughtfully through a stack of greenbacks before counting out the required seven hundred and fifty dollars to call Montana’s bet, and two hundred more to raise.

Swanson’s humming stopped abruptly. He stared at the small hillock of money that sat temptingly under the circular spill of light and his jowl twitched and shivered as if it were possessed. He had a good hand—full house, fives over aces —but was it worth nine hundred dollars to see just how good?

“Bah. Only money.” He slid the bet forward and looked expectantly at Tarrington.

Tarrington casually stroked the ends of his moustache and seemed to take a close look at his cards for the first time. He suspected Whitney was running a bluff—he had already managed to convince the hummer he would play only if his hand was solid. Swanson’s twitch meant he had enough for at least a run at the prize. Scott was running low on cash and would probably fold. The woman was the puzzle. She was good—damned good—and was either bluffing to the tips of her distractingly luscious breasts, or she had them all cold and was reeling them in like fish on a line.

It was worth the gamble, he decided, just to satisfy his own curiosity. He covered the bet, sweetened the pot by fifty more to keep his options open, and patted his jacket pocket, finding and extracting a slim gold cigar case.

Ainsley Scott’s hands trembled visibly where they cradled his cards. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on his upper lip, and his eyebrows arched up and down as if he was having an argument with himself.

That’s four hundred and fifty to you, boy,” Smith said impatiently. “And that’s why it’s called cutthroat. You either show the balls to stand behind them cards of yours, or you toss ’em in and let the grown-ups finish playing.”

Scott’s flush deepened. He flexed one of his hands into a fist then started to count out his cash.

Are you certain you want to do that?” Tarrington asked quietly. “He’s only goading you.”

Yeah, well, I guess that’s all he’s got the balls to do. And I can play my own hand, if you don’t mind. Four fifty to call? Why don't we take it up to an even thousand?”

He pushed his money into the middle and Tarrington shrugged. He withdrew a thin black cheroot from his case and smiled his thanks at the brunette as she leaned over quickly to light it.

The acrid cloud of smoke drifted straight across the table and caused Montana’s nose to wrinkle with distaste. Tarrington noticed. He also noticed that she covered the bet without so much as blinking an eye.

Play went to Whitney, who again riffled the small stack of cash in front of him as his eyes, shadowed by the brim of his hat, flicked around the table doing a rough calculation of the money remaining in everyone’s stash. Satisfied, he counted out what he needed to call and a thousand more to raise.

Swanson started shaking his head even before he conceded and threw his cards down in disgust. Across the table, Scott mouthed a particularly graphic oath that stopped play before it even went to Tarrington.

Norman Smith chuckled deep in his throat and picked at a cavern in his tooth with a wooden matchstick. “Looks like you ain’t going to have enough to bluff out this round, boy,” he said, indicating the few bills and coins Scott had left. “Should have got out last round, like Tarrington advised, while you still had enough to maybe buy your way into a game of Old Maid.”

“I can write a note for the amount I’m short. I’m good for it.”

“No dice,” Whitney grated. “The rules were stated plain enough at the outset. Cash on the barrelhead. No notes. No credit.”

“A personal loan then,” Scott countered. “Between players. There was nothing said about that.”

“True enough,” Swanson agreed. “But just who are you going to get to spot you, son? I don’t believe anyone here is willing to throw good money after bad … unless, of course, Mr. Tarrington here has another soft spot?”

The Yankee officer studied the end of his cheroot a moment before spitting out a shred of tobacco and crossing his arms over his chest. “I believe he told me he was capable of playing out his own hand.”

Scott surged to his feet and threw his cards on the table. “You raised on purpose just to shut me out!”

The game is cutthroat, boy,” Whitney said, his voice low enough to scrape the floor. “You win some and you lose some. No one is going to coddle you because you smile real pretty and boast about your daddy’s fortune.”

“At least I’m not a cheap cheat,” Scott countered furiously.

The brim of Whitney’s hat came up again and his dark eyes screwed down to slits. “You accusing somebody of something … boy?”

Scott’s flush deepened and his breath, laboring in and out of his lungs, sounded like bellows. His hand, rigid with indignation, inched back toward his waist, and Montana wondered if he was truly stupid enough to try to draw on a man like Paul Whitney.

Luckily, he wasn’t. He did push away from the table, however, sending the chair flipping backward onto the floor. He snatched up the meager remains of his cash and stormed out of the curtained alcove, consigning all their souls to rot in hell.

Montana released a slow sigh of relief and reached uncharacteristically for the as-yet untouched glass of whiskey that sat at her elbow. Norman Smith dug in his nose in lieu of any verbal comment, an act that was frozen rather comically midway when he saw Whitney’s hand emerge from under the cover of the table. It was not the sight of the small, pearl-handed derringer that was the most unnerving. It was the fact that he had palmed it and aimed it at Scott without anyone noticing.

Or almost anyone.

A second muted snick came from the gleaming Remington revolver that Michael Tarrington uncocked and returned to his hip holster.

“I see we both had the same idea,” Whitney said with a crooked grin.

“A similar idea, perhaps,” Tarrington agreed, “but I doubt our intentions were the same.”

Whitney’s smile faded. “Meaning?”

“Meaning … I wasn’t aiming at the boy.”

“He accused me of cheating,” Whitney snarled.

“A poor choice of words on his part. Manipulating would be more like it.”

“Because I raised the stakes higher than what he could afford? I didn’t notice your heart bleeding too much at the time. Or is it just bleeding now because you can’t meet the stakes yourself?”

Tarrington’s gaze narrowed through the fine ribbon of smoke that curled up from his cheroot. He smiled slowly and carefully counted out the greenbacks he had in front of him, then, with every eye on him, he reached into the breast pocket of his coat and produced a leather billfold. From it he extracted enough to call Whitney’s bet … and added five thousand more.

Montana suffered a distinct sliding sensation in the pit of her belly as she followed the motion from billfold to table. Tarrington's hands were strong, she noted absently, with long square-tipped fingers that looked more than capable of crushing her smaller, finer-boned one to pulp.

Of more importance, however, there was over twenty thousand dollars sitting within arm’s reach. She’d had enough to meet Whitney’s raise—barely—but Tarrington’s flamboyance left her almost five thousand shy.

Now, as she watched his fine, strong hand retreating again, moving as if it were being dragged through a heavy liquid instead of air, she thought it might well have been an axe he had wielded, not a billfold. And she wondered if anyone had yet noticed the blood.

She looked up and, indeed, the attention had shifted from Tarrington’s grandiose gesture to her own meager reserves.

“In or out, lady?” Whitney demanded. “Is that all you have?”

Montana cursed inwardly. She glanced at Tarrington, but he had obviously used up his quota of sympathy and the gray eyes were as cold and hard and flat as Whitney’s.

It’s surely all I have … in cash,” she murmured, putting every ounce of seductive innuendo she could muster into the last two words.

It had the desired effect. Smith and Swanson both had to breathe through their mouths as she stared at each of them in turn and made her meaning even clearer by trailing her fingers along the deeply scalloped edge of the green velvet bodice.

Smith mashed his unlit cigar to the corner of his mouth as he pulled out his billfold and started counting out greenbacks. “I’d say you’re a sweet enough risk to take. How much are you short, gal?”

Whitney flashed an angry glare. “Didn’t we just have this discussion with the kid?”

“We discussed credit,” Smith countered. “And I ain’t offering any. This here is a loan, between friends, with real friendly terms of interest.”

For the briefest of moments, Montana hesitated. She had no illusions as to what he would expect in return for the privilege of losing his money, but before she would let herself think about it too long, she used the edge of her cards to push her bet into the center of the table. “I’ll just take you up on your offer, Mr. Smith, and I’ll call.”

Whitney sat back in his chair and, with an angry stab of his finger, thrust the brim of his hat up above his hairline. The act revealed more than just his mounting frustration. It uncovered a wide, jagged scar that ran across his forehead from temple to temple, the kind a knife might make in a botched attempt at scalping. Immediately above and below the scar, the skin was a smooth, shiny pink, translucent enough to see the veins pulsing beneath the surface.

Without another word, he folded his cards and threw them face down on the baize. He gripped his whiskey glass tight enough to shatter it and tossed back the contents. The brunette came forward out of the shadows to refill it, but he snatched the bottle out of her hand instead and pushed to his feet, stalking the short distance to the open porthole behind them before he filled his glass and drank again.

 

Tarrington stroked his moustache and stared across the table at Montana Rose. With the betting closed, it had come down to the two of them, as he had suspected it would.

He had, from the moment he had first laid eyes on her, been conscious of her intensely seductive beauty—what normal, warm-blooded man would not? The stunning cornflower blue of her eyes, wide and thickly lashed, gazed out at the world from a face as flawless as a Botticelli Venus. Her mouth was lush enough to send the most erotic images through his mind, especially when she sent the tip of her tongue across her lower lip to moisten it.

He would give a year of his life to see her naked. Envisioning her so was costing him dearly enough, for just the thought of her lithe, supple body stretched out beneath him, her skin smooth and white as cream, her hair spread in a soft, silky pool … made him ache as if he hadn’t had a woman in years. Which he had, of course, the last one being two hours before he’d come on board the Mississippi Queen. And perhaps that was what was corrupting his perceptions, for the experience had been mechanical and perfunctory, no more than a pleasant way to release some tension. With this blonde beauty he doubted anything would be perfunctory. And he would need hours, not minutes, to release the kind of tension she was inspiring.

Tarrington drew deeply on his cheroot before placing his cards down on the table, displaying four nines with an ace high, and the glimmerings of an I-tried-to-warn-you look in his eyes as he waited for Montana’s reaction.

She drew an equally deep, slow breath, and her hand betrayed the slightest of tremors as she reached up to grasp the comfort of her locket.

Norman Smith, leaning over with all of the solicitude of an oiled snake, placed a fat hand over hers and squeezed. “Well now, looks like I saddled me a pretty filly after all.”

Montana turned the full, seductive power of her eyes on him as she smiled and fanned her cards face-up on the table. Three unobtrusive sixes became five of a kind in the company of the pair of wild card deuces she laid beside them.

Sorry, Mr. Smith. But I prefer to ride bareback.”

Michael Tarrington stared at the cards, then at the faintly mocking smile that still lingered on her lips.

My compliments,” he mused, his tone genuinely admiring. “I would have bet everything I owned you were bluffing.”

“I rarely bluff, sir. And never when the odds are so heavily stacked against me.”

“Against you, madam?” Lyle Swanson huffed. “I should have thought it the other way around, considering we are all gentlemen here.”

“We are all gamblers here, sir. And as Mr. Whitney and Mr. Tarrington have both demonstrated, a very prickly bunch indeed. I hardly consider it a favorable climate for testing temperaments. Now, if you all have no objections, a short break would be much appreciated.”

Montana slid her chair back from the table, but before she could move very far, a pale, long-fingered hand reached out and curled tightly around her wrist. Her first instinct was to wrench free. Her second was to hold her arm very still so that her bones were not crushed under the pressure.

Paul Whitney had stepped away from the porthole and now stood blocking her path to the exit. “You are planning to return, I hope?”

She smiled and twisted her wrist slowly out of his grasp. “I am, indeed, sir. If only for the pleasure of relieving you of whatever you may have left.”

 

In truth, Montana’s prime desire was to escape both the room and the company with all haste possible. Her blood was singing through her veins, her pulse was thrumming in her temples. The thrill of victory had never tasted so sweet, and she was hard-pressed to control the urge to throw her hands wide and embrace the world in laughter. Discounting the five thousand she had temporarily borrowed from Smith, she had won nearly twenty thousand dollars in that last hand. She had beaten Whitney at his own game, and she had given the moustachioed Yankee something to ponder other than the brunette’s long legs and come-hither smile.

Montana scarcely noticed the clamor of music and noise filling the main salon of the riverboat as she threaded her way through the crowds. She located a familiar face at the bar and gave him a nod, tilting her lovely head slightly to indicate an invitation to join her out on the deck. She waited long enough to see him take a last swallow of beer, then hurried out into the cool, fresh night air.

The riverboat was docked alone at the end of the jetty and on the port side, the waterfront was garishly ablaze with the lights from a legion of cheap taverns, saloons, and hotels that crowded the shoreline. It was not the most reputable part of Natchez, for the merchant district and more prosperous hotels and homes sat on the crown of the hill that overlooked the river. On nights when the big gambling boats were in, detachments of soldiers had to patrol the main roads and safeguard the passage of the wealthy patrons and their fine carriages to and fro.

Montana preferred the relative quiet of the starboard deck. There she could lean against the rail and drink in the beauty of the vast, starlit sky. Overhead, a faint drift of smoke rose from the Queen’s boiler stack, spreading outward in long, filmy scrolls. Beside her, the river rolled by like a sheet of molten glass, pewter-colored from the starlight, a mile-wide silver ribbon that divided the state of Mississippi from the distant shoreline of Louisiana.

Tonight, for a change, there was not a cloud in the sky, not a trace of haze to blot the opposite bank from sight. If she leaned far out over the rail and looked south, she could just see the twinkling lights of Vidalia across the river; to the north, the dark tip of Natchez Island.

Hearing the anticipated footstep behind her, Montana straightened and spun around with such enthusiasm the luxuriant emerald velvet of her skirt swirled outward and was brought to a frothing halt against a pair of polished black boots. “Oh!”

“I beg your pardon. You were, perhaps, expecting someone else?”

Montana collected her wits about her as quickly as she could. The last person she had expected to see following her onto the deck was Michael Tarrington.

No,” she said quickly. “No, not at all. I … you just startled me, is all.”

Tarrington smiled slowly at the succession of rapid changes that came over her expression. The thick wings of her lashes immediately swooped low to conceal the disappointment in the vibrant blue eyes. Her smile—the fullest and loveliest he had seen in quite some time—was repressed to a tight, formal curve. Hands, slender white and delicate, that had been poised for a greeting, flew instinctively to the juncture of her breasts as if to catch a heart that threatened to leap from its confines.

“In that case,” he mused, “forgive me again, but for a greeting like that, I would gladly startle you several more times.”

“I … beg your pardon?”

Your smile. It is quite dazzling.”

Montana stared for as long as it took to read the mockery in his eyes. “Do you make a habit of following women around to startle them into smiling?”

“I hadn’t really thought of it as a worthwhile pursuit … until now. Usually I only follow them if they are intriguing. Or enigmatic. Or beautiful.” He saw her eyes narrow and her jaw set against what must, he imagined, be a familiar opening gambit. “But in your case, I only wanted to commend you on your flawless performance back there.”

She arched a delicately shaped eyebrow. “Performance?”

Certainly. One of the best I’ve ever seen. Bluffing successfully is one thing. Pretending to bluff is quite another.” He paused long enough to strike a match on the deck rail and touch it to the end of a cheroot. “You’re really very good.”

“You sound surprised, as if it never occurred to you to regard me as a genuine threat.”

“Oh, I regarded you as a threat, all right. I just wasn’t sure what kind.”

Montana felt a tug at the corners of her mouth. “And are you sure now?”

No.” He exhaled a long, slim streak of smoke and offered her his own dazzling smile—the one that usually had women melting into their pantalets. “I’m not sure about anything concerning you.”

To his surprise and pleasure, she laughed. It wasn’t the coquettish titter most females affected with the expectation of having some swain salivating at their skirt hems, it was soft and throaty, and set the skin across the neck of his neck tingling.

“I’m also hoping you won’t assume it will be so easy the second time around,” he added. “Those … gentlemen … you so artfully fleeced back there will be anxious to prove they aren’t as foolish as you made them look.”

“Including you?”

I rarely make the same mistakes twice. And my manners have a tendency to fall by the wayside when someone deliberately asks for trouble.”

Is that what you think I am asking for?”

He shrugged congenially. “It might be what you get if you go back in there.”

She laughed again. “A Yankee with a conscience. How unusual.”

A Rebel still fighting the war,” he countered smoothly. “Not unusual at all … but a bit misguided, perhaps.”

“Really? How so?”

“Because I don’t want to fight with you,” he said quietly.

His words and the way he said them sent a tiny spiral of heat radiating down her spine. It was an innocent enough statement and said casually enough, but there was an unmistakable air of possessiveness about it, as if by not fighting, he assumed they would aspire to some other emotional relationship.

The notion, surprisingly not an entirely unpleasant one, made her take a closer look at the man who stood so huge and imposing before her. He was handsome almost beyond decency, big with muscles that suggested he was no stranger to hard physical labor. The little creases and lines that life had etched around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth heightened the impression of authority and determination— his was not a face that men scorned with impunity or women rejected out of hand. There was also an efficient grace to his movements, an instinctive balance and agility that implied he was as comfortable walking the decks of a ship as he was a smooth road. It was a trait easy to recognize for someone who had lived by the river all her life. His accent? Pure Bostonian. Blatantly upper crust, although his voice was so deep and carefully modulated, the hardest edges had been worn seductively smooth.

Michael Tarrington was not unaware of the close scrutiny, and he thought it only fair he should be accorded equal privileges. But with the silvery rush of the river behind her and the muted light from a nearby porthole bathing her face and shoulders in a soft, pearly glow, he was having difficulty regarding her with anything near his usual state of detachment. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to brush the backs of his fingers across her cheek and down her neck to see if her skin was as supple and warm as it promised. He wanted to keep exploring, to run his hands, his mouth, his whole body over hers, to know if her flesh would be as responsive as he imagined. Would she purr when he stroked her? Would she be sweet when he kissed her? Would she let him kiss her now or would she make him go through all the silly motions?

Now, he thought, and took a measured step closer.

Montana presented him with a cool shoulder and stared out across the river. “You said you would have bet everything you owned that I was bluffing. Why didn’t you?”

“Maybe I did.”

She cast a glance back under the thick sweep of her lashes and regarded him thoughtfully before turning away again.

You don’t look like the kind of man who would gamble everything on anything. Or anyone.”

“You don’t think so? You wound me, madam.”

“Not fatally, I trust.”

“You could stop the bleeding … by having a late supper with me.”

“A late supper,” she said, “would imply a desire to become better acquainted.”

He drew a slow, deep breath, saturating his senses with the smell of her hair, her skin. He succumbed to an even greater temptation and caught a shiny tendril of her hair in his fingers, fascinated by the slippery, silky texture, wondering how it would look released from its pins and curls. He was directly behind her, his body crowding hers against the rail, his intentions as warm as the smile that brought his lips to within a breath of her ear.

“Would you rather I just come right out and say it? Shall I simply say that I find you a fascinating and irresistible creature, Montana Rose, and have since the first time I saw you?”

The first time?” she questioned with a small frown.

It was about a month ago, the last time the Queen stopped in Natchez. I saw you in the salon, talking to the captain—getting him to arrange a seat in a game? As luck would have it, he was too efficient and returned before I had a chance to introduce myself.”

“How unfortunate,” she said dryly. “And you have been riding the river, watching for me ever since?”

He defused her sardonic smile with one of his own. “Our meeting tonight was purely accidental, I assure you. I’ve come back on business.”

“And you wish to invite me along on a business dinner?”

“I would like to get to know you better. Dinner seems like an amiable place to start. After that …”

“Yes?”

Tarrington cursed through another soft laugh. “After that, I was hoping to perhaps mellow that formidable Southern pride of yours. Enough to convince you I never wear blue in public … and never talk politics in bed.”

The tiny spirals of sensation became disturbingly insistent—almost as insistent as the glaring looks that were coming from the shadowy figure who stood not twenty paces away and who had been observing them—with increasing signs of agitation—for several minutes now.

“The possibilities sound intriguing, Mr. Tarrington,” she said. “But unfortunately, I prefer to keep my Southern pride intact. I don’t find you fascinating in the least, and the fact that all of your charm and conversation has been in aid of procuring yourself a bedmate for the evening … well, I find that amazingly easy to resist.”

The gray eyes narrowed sharply. “The war has been over for two long years, Montana.”

“Yes,” she said, offering an exaggerated sigh as she brushed an invisible fleck of lint from his jacket lapel, “but I’m afraid you will be a Yankee forever.”

She swept past him with a regal flourish of velvet skirts and re-entered the brightly lit salon. Tarrington watched her go, her rebuff keeping him rooted to the spot for as long as his mind held the image of her framed by the arched entry-way. When he realized it wasn’t merely a ploy, that she wasn’t coming back, his fingers curled around the cheroot and crushed it in half before he flung it over the rail and consigned it to the swirling eddies of the river. He strode back into the salon without ever noticing the man who stood watching him from the deck rail, nor did he see the man emerge from the shadows and follow purposefully in his wake.