Chapter 14

 

It was the aroma of baked ham that woke him. His mouth watered. He could taste the texture of the salty meat on the tip of his tongue. The fragrance of hot buttered rolls tempted him. He opened his eyes reluctantly, half afraid he was dreaming, and sought out the source of the delicious odors. At his side on the floor, directly in front of Michael's door, was a tray of covered dishes. Ribbons of steam escaped the silver lids. Ethan breathed deeply and his stomach growled.

He rapped twice on the door. After a moment it opened a crack. "Your dinner's here."

"It's not mine," she told him. "I went to the dining room to eat. I brought that back for you." She started to close the door again but this time Ethan was not being compliant. Michael threw her weight against the door as his intent was clear. She was not quick enough. Ethan pushed from the other side. The tray of food was kicked out of the way, the chair overturned, and Michael did not have to see the cold light in his eyes to know that he was suddenly, blindingly angry. No match for his strength, Michael assessed the situation and calmly stepped to one side. The move was so unexpected that Ethan had to catch the frame to keep from falling into the room.

He glared at her as she serenely walked around him and picked up the dinner tray. She ducked under his outstretched arm and put the tray on an end table in her sitting room.

"You may eat in here," she said, "but then out you go." She started to walk away only to be brought up short by Ethan's hand on her wrist. His grip was bruising. She turned toward him and raised her face. There was nothing defiant in the gesture, only a certain sadness. "You're hurting me."

Ethan looked down at his hand. His knuckles were bloodless around her forearm. His fingers loosened a fraction and his eyes returned to her face. "I want to hurt you," he said in his deep whiskey-smooth voice. "I want to shake you so badly I'm trembling with it. Why are you acting as if there's no danger? I've never believed you were stupid, Michael. Don't you care what happens to you?"

Michael tried to ease her wrist out of his grip. His fingers hadn't loosened that much. "I don't know what you mean." Ethan didn't so much let go of her as he did throw her away from him. It was as if he couldn't bear to touch her a moment longer. Michael's face paled as she took a step backward and massaged her wrist.

Closing the door behind him, Ethan leaned against it. "I suppose I was giving you the benefit of the doubt," he said. "Thinking you were only acting stupid. Do you understand at all the threat that Houston and Detra pose to you? When you let me sleep in that hallway while you blithely went to the dining room, did it even occur to you that perhaps you were putting yourself in danger? Or were you so hellbent on making me seem foolish that risking your life was worth it?"

Frustrated, Ethan raked his hair with his fingers. "What about the baby, Michael? Is it worth risking the baby's life just to put me in my place, just because you hate me so much?"

She gasped a little and her hands went instinctively to her swollen abdomen. She hadn't thought it was possible to hurt anymore than she already did. "How dare you say that. You are angry because I did slip out right under your nose. It's your pride that's wounded, nothing else. It wasn't a deliberate swipe at you. I was hungry. Your incredible nerve to come here this way is not to be believed. You charge back into my life as if you have every right, as if there's not been seven months gone by without so much as a word from you." Her voice rose a fraction and her breathing came faster. Michael's green eyes were luminous with the strength of her own anger. "And to pretend you care so much as this—" she snapped her fingers, "—about me in order to capture Houston and Detra is reprehensible. Even after all you've done I wouldn't have believed it of you. Until today, that is. Today you proved to me that you are totally without conscience." She pointed to the tray on the table beside her. "Take your dinner and get out now. And get out all the way, Ethan. I don't want you lurking in the hallway. If I could blast you out of this hotel I would."

She turned on her heel and headed for the doorway on the left of the sitting room. Without a backward glance, confident that her directions would be followed, she disappeared in her bedroom and shut the door behind her.

Ethan sighed and pushed away from the door. He wondered when she would come out again and discover he had no intention of being ordered around. He sat down on the plump sofa and pulled the tray on his lap, uncovering the dishes and setting the lids on the table. The food was still hot but it had lost much of its appeal. He ate now because he knew he needed to, not because he was particularly hungry. When he was done he set the tray in the hallway and brought in the chair. He bolted the door and turned the key in its lock, then investigated Michael's suite.

The sitting room was decorated primarily in maroon and cream, accented with dark wood and large fringed area rugs. There was a mirror above the mantel that reflected gaslight from the milk-white glass globes on either side. There was a delicate porcelain vase on the mantel filled with fresh pink roses, baby's breath, and greenery.

Ethan took off his hat, tossed it on the sofa, and grimaced as he studied his reflection in the mirror. He could hardly blame the St. Mark's manager for hesitating at the prospect of having him as a guest. He needed a shave and a bath and twelve hours sleep, judging by the shadows beneath his eyes. He swore there were a few more iron gray strands at his temples. Ethan rubbed his chin with the back of his hand and turned away. Shrugging out of his duster, he threw it down beside his hat and unfastened his gun belt. He laid it on the table and continued his exploration.

There was a room opposite Michael's bedroom. She had made it into a study and used it for writing. Books were scattered on top of the desk, stacked on the floor, and lined the window sill. The large overstuffed armchair held more books. The surface of the desk and floor around it were littered with crumbled pieces of paper, the unsatisfactory drafts of her work, he supposed. His hands drifted across the desk, over the papers and books, her spectacles, and finally the pencils. He picked up one, rolled it between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully. He imagined it tucked in Michael's hair, just behind her ear. The picture in his mind made him smile.

He put the pencil down as his eyes fell on her notepad. The leather binding, slightly worn and beaten was achingly familiar. He picked it up, running his fingers along the spine, hesitating a moment before opening it. He hooked his hip on the edge of the desk and began to read.

Her crisp prose brought it all back to life. He saw Madison as clearly as if he had been standing in front of Kelly's Saloon again, and in some ways, more clearly. Michael made him remember the men behind the hard and ravaged faces she described, the hopefulness in their eyes as they talked of finding the big strike, their pride in the skilled wielding of hammers and drills. She wrote touchingly of Ralph Hooper's shyness as he asked her to dance and frankly of Kitty's philosophical approach to her above-stairs job.

He skimmed the pages, leafing ahead to the point when they arrived in Stillwater. There was no entry about the mine or the arrests. Nothing about the trial or her journey east. Nothing about him. Disappointed, not certain what he had expected to find or how it might have helped him, Ethan started to put the journal aside. His thumbnail slipped along the pages and the journal flipped open to a page where there was a single entry.

He raised the notepad closer and read.

I am pregnant... I am having a baby... I am with child. There is no way to say it that will soften the blow. I can hardly admit it to myself. How will I tell Mama? And Mary Francis? Mama will be so worried for me; Mary Francis will be so disappointed. Rennie will support me, but she will not understand. Not about this. I do not think I can bear to look at Maggie and Skye, not when I have disgraced my family.

It hurts, knowing how they will hurt for me. I think it is probably good to hurt a little now. I have not felt anything for so long. No pain, no anger, no ache, no fear. The numbness seemed a sweet blessing at first, a way to get through each day pretending confidence and strength, but it is better behind me. I do not think I can heal if I do not care for the wound. No one can help me if I do not acknowledge the wound exists.

It exists.

It sears my heart.

I will have to tell Jay Mac. Tomorrow will be best. No, tonight. I should tell him first so he can be there to support Mama. He will want to find Ethan, of course, and demand that he marry me. I shall have to let him rant and vent his outrage and scheme his schemes and remind him very gently that he is in no position to cast stones. My surname is Dennehy, not Worth. He will be perfectly indignant that I could be so impudent and rightfully so, but it is too late for either of us to change. And neither of us wants to.

Through everything I've never doubted my father's love. My child will never have the same assurance.

A thin trail of ink followed the final period. There was a smudge where a tear had splashed the page and been hastily wiped away. It wasn't Michael's, but Ethan's. Blinking, sucking in his breath, he closed the journal and set it down. She could have come to him, told him about the baby—not just the baby, but their baby. He'd always known she hadn't loved him, but that she could have come to feel so little for him that she would keep his child from him left Ethan stunned.

Feeling the numbness she described not as a sweet blessing, but as a curse, Ethan slowly moved away from the desk. He was stepping out of the study when he heard her scream.

For a moment he thought his worst fears had come to pass, but the scream was not about Nathanial Houston or Detra Kelly. The door to Michael's suite was still bolted and locked; his Colt lay undisturbed on the table top. Ethan's heart stopped hammering. It was a different sort of scream, one originating from a vague fear, not a specific one, one he remembered that came to Michael in the middle of the night.

He turned the knob on her bedroom door, and pushed it open.

Ethan stood at the foot of the bed. She was lying across it diagonally on her side. She was still fully dressed, even wearing her shoes. Her gown twisted around her as she moved restlessly. It was clear that Michael had lain down with no intention of falling asleep. The tear stains on her cheek told their own story.

Saying her name brought no waking response. Ethan moved around the bed and sat on the edge. He did not touch or reach for her, but said her name again, this time more firmly than gently. He saw her eyelids flutter, then finally open. For a moment she was frightened of his shadowy figure in the dimly lighted room.

"It's Ethan," he said. He rose from the bed and drew back the curtains at the French doors. Gaslight from the street lamps illuminating Broadway filtered across the small balcony and into the room. He watched the scenes playing out below him, people rushing across the busy thoroughfare, elegant coaches taking their passengers to private clubs, then he turned away from the windows slowly. Michael was sitting up on the bed, taking pins from her hair. Ethan's blue-gray eyes were impassive. "You had a nightmare."

Michael nodded, not looking at him. "I remember."

He watched her comb out her hair with her fingers, an absent, guileless act on her part that sent waves of heat rolling through his middle. "Do you have it often?"

"A few times a week," she said, shrugging. "Since the mine it has more substance." In her dream she had reached out for him and he wasn't there. It was always the same; the emptiness she well and truly feared had come to pass. "The blackness holds more terror." She heard his indrawn breath and paused in combing out her hair and raised her face to him. She was careful to keep her voice calm and even, afraid he would hear the lie and know the depth of her fragile state. "It's all right, Ethan. I've quite accepted it."

She put the pins on her bedside table, then got up from the bed and went into the adjoining dressing and bathing room. When she returned a few minutes later all evidence of tears had been washed from her face. She had changed from her gown and was wearing a nightshift and robe. Her feet were bare. "I thought you'd be gone," she said when she saw Ethan still silhouetted at the window.

"Marry me, Michael."

She jerked a little in surprise. Her fingers fumbled with the sash of her robe, tightening it just below her breasts. Her pregnancy became more evident with the gesture. "It's good of you to offer, Ethan," she said without emotion, "but there's no need."

"Perhaps not for you," he said.

For a moment she was hopeful then his eyes wandered to her belly. "I see," she said quietly. "You mean the baby's needs." She walked out of the bedroom. He followed her.

"Why shouldn't my child be assured of her father's love?" he asked from behind her. "The way you were?"

Michael spun on her heel. Except for bright angry color of her emerald eyes her face was pale. She glanced at the open door to her study and then back at Ethan. "You read my journal."

He nodded.

"You had no right." She hugged herself, the feeling of being violated total. "You had no right," she repeated, more softly this time as accusation was replaced by hurt.

"I know. But I'm not sorry."

At her sides her hands clenched. She wanted to strike him. Instead she struck out. "Of course you are not sorry. You would have to have a sense of what is decent, of what is respectful. I have been managing on my own. There is no better proof that my baby and I don't require anything from you." She looked around, wanting nothing more than to put distance and barriers between her and Ethan. Her glance fell on his Colt lying on the side table. Before he could divine her intention she scooped it up and aimed it at his midsection.

Ethan did not move. He watched her, not the gun. "That's loaded, Michael," he said.

"I hope so." The gun was heavy in her hands. Her outstretched arms were already shaking. "It would not be much of a threat otherwise."

He stood his ground, waiting her out. "Why did you never tell me about our baby?"

Her brows arched skeptically. How could he not know? "Because you would offer to marry me, perhaps even force the issue, and I didn't want that."

"I wouldn't force you to marry me. I would have hoped you'd see the sense of it."

Her laughter held no humor. The gun wobbled in her hands. "Seen the sense of marrying someone because he thinks it's his duty? Well, you've made the offer, Ethan, and I've refused. You are not obligated to do anything else and neither am I."

"Are you going to shoot me, Michael?"

She stared at the Colt for a long moment. Her aching arms were the only connection she had between herself and the gun in her hands. She barely recognized herself and even the part she recognized repelled and appalled her. Michael lowered the gun. "No, I'm not going to shoot you."

Ethan approached her and removed the weapon from her nerveless fingers. He laid it carefully on top of the table then he took Michael's wrists in his hands and held her loosely, drawing her hands to his chest. "Look at me, Michael."

Her eyes came up reluctantly but she could not hold his smoky stare. "I wish you would go," she said wearily. "What do I have to do to make you go?"

"I'm not leaving you until Houston and Dee are caught and then I'd rather not leave you at all. This isn't all about the baby, Michael, though I'll understand if you don't want to believe me. When I spoke of needs before I wasn't only thinking of our child. I was thinking of me and what I want. From almost the beginning I've known what you felt for me."

She sucked in her breath a little, and embarrassed, tried to pull away. He wouldn't let her go. "I hadn't realized..." she said, her voice trailing off. "I didn't know it was so obvious."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," he said. "I admit I was flattered. It was difficult to remember that it wasn't real."

Now she pinned him with her eyes, her brows raised in question. "Not real?"

He nodded. "I was your protector—not a good one as things turned out—but there was no one else. It was a natural progression of events that you should imagine yourself in love with me."

"Imagine?"

"Perhaps I should have tried harder to make you see your feelings for what they were, but I liked believing you loved me, and in the mine, when we thought there was no escape for either of us, I needed desperately to believe you loved me that much." He could not understand the growing incredulity he saw in her eyes or the rigid posture in response to his words. "As much as I loved you."

"Loved me? You can say that after the way you've treated me?" Michael tore her wrists away from him now. She stepped out of his reach. "I never imagined myself in love with you. I was in love with you. If I imagined anything it was that you felt something deep and abiding for me. It didn't take long to have the scales lifted from my eyes. You barely acknowledged me during the weeks of the trial, let alone touched me. I was nothing more to you than a supporting witness, a means to an end."

"That's not true. Yes, I was busy with the trial but I-"

"You were consumed by the trial."

"How would you know? You spent all your time with Drew Beaumont."

"Because you would have none of me!"

"Because I could never have any of you!"

For a while there was only silence. Michael felt the curve of the heavy armchair behind her. She sat down slowly, bewildered. "What do you mean you could never have any of me?" she asked quietly.

Ethan's fingers raked his hair absently and sighed. "You said yourself it was a good thing there was no future for us."

Michael grew very still, remembering her words, despising herself for ever uttering them.

"You're Jay Mac's daughter. Bastard or not, you could marry anyone, someone more like you than different, someone with your fine eastern manners and your love for the city. Your father would want a better arrangement for you than me, and in time, so would you."

"And that's why you never asked me to marry you?"

He nodded shortly.

"But the baby's changed things," she said. "You think I'll have you now where I would have turned you down before."

A muscle worked in his cheek. "I had hoped," he said, his voice strained. "It seems that's not the case."

"Tell me something, Ethan. If Houston and Dee hadn't escaped would you be in New York now?"

Ethan's eyes dropped away briefly, then he looked at her squarely and answered with painful honesty. "No, I wouldn't have come. The hardest thing I've ever had to do was let you leave Denver. That will be nothing compared to leaving you here."

Michael slowly released the breath she'd been holding. "I always thought I'd love a man who didn't make assumptions about my feelings, who didn't make assertions about what I thought. I hoped he'd respect me enough to allow me to make up my own mind and would never hold the circumstances of my birth against me. I may be Jay Mac's daughter, but I'm also Moira Dennehy's. And I'm my own person." She poked herself in the chest with her forefinger as tears gathered in her eyes. "I'm Mary Michael, Ethan. Mary Michael. And I don't want you to leave me behind. I never wanted you to let me go."

The step he took toward her was halting. His hand lifted, almost reaching out to her, then fell back.

Her eyes implored him. "Why won't you believe I love you?"

"Oh God," he said softly. He closed the distance between them, raising his hand to her face. His knuckles brushed her skin in a whisper caress. His eyes darted over her, searching, questioning.

Michael's hand slid over his, holding his fingers against her flushed cheek. "I love you."

She was achingly beautiful to him with her darkening eyes and her tumbled hair. "I never wanted to let you go," he said huskily. "I never want to let you go." He bent his head and kissed her softly on the lips. "Marry me, Michael."

The hint of a rare, wide smile touched her mouth. "Yes."

* * *

Houston's restless sleep woke Detra. Tired, she turned on her side and watched him, hoping he would fall into a deep, less painful sleep. The narrow planes of his face were flushed unnaturally; beads of perspiration clung to his forehead and upper lip. Detra touched his brow with the back of her hand. Her eyes darkened worriedly as she felt the unnatural heat of his skin warm her.

Holding up the covers, Dee examined Houston's leg wound. He had insisted she tend to his injury herself rather than seek real medical help. Houston did not want to risk identification at a doctor's hands and the killing which would have inevitably followed. Their trail would have been dirty then, easy to follow, and capture a foregone conclusion. Houston was willing to risk losing his leg rather than losing his life to prison.

Detra scooted out of bed and turned up the flame on the bedside lamp. The small room they had taken in the Bowery was without many amenities, including gas lighting. They had been willing to sacrifice those in return for anonymity in Manhattan's rough and squalid district. The pimps and prostitutes who shared rooms in the sagging clapboard house with them cared nothing about their new neighbors. The portly, ruddy-face landlord cared only about the advance on his week's rent. Detra had been careful not to indicate by either dress or manner that she carried enough money on her to pay the man's rent for years.

Standing at the bedside table, Detra sleepily fumbled with the glass bottles and stoppers that contained Houston's medicine. She used no measure but her eyesight to gauge the amount she poured into the mortar. She ground the grains with a pestle, added water to make a paste, then sat on the edge of the bed again while she cleaned Houston's wound and then swabbed it with the medicine.

His leg jerked once in reaction to her touch and she heard the slight, indrawn whistling sound as he sucked in his breath. He held himself very still for her after that.

"You should have let a doctor take out the bullet," she said. "Not done it yourself. It may come to a doctor anyway, Houston. I'm not certain I can save your leg."

"No doctor," he said through clenched teeth. He tried to get a look at the wound on his thigh. Detra was blocking his view as she worked. "Isn't it any better at all?"

"Some, I think. But I don't know if it's going to be enough." She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Lie back down. There's nothing you can do except rest."

"I don't even do that well. I woke you, didn't I?"

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter." When she was finished dressing the wound Detra bathed Houston's face and neck with a cool cloth. "You should sleep again," she said. "I'll sit in the chair so I don't disturb you."

He stilled her hand. His eyes were very dark, hinting at some measure of his pain. "No, I want you here. You won't disturb me."

Perhaps it was gratitude that made him so loving toward her, Dee thought, or perhaps it was the constant, painful reminder of his own mortality. Detra had no desire to examine her good fortune too closely. She rejoined in the fact that he wanted her at his side. The depth of her own love for this man still stunned her; the thought of living without him nearly paralyzed her with fear.

In her own mind Dee had already proved she was willing to do anything for him. Houston would have agreed. She was responsible for the prison escape, his care, the fact that they made it to New York at all. Dee smiled as she slipped into bed beside him. He barely knew the half of it.

"Have you thought how you'll find her?" he asked, sliding an arm around Dee's waist.

She reached out to turn back the lamp and snuggled gingerly against him, spoon-fashion. "You haven't changed your mind, then?"

"No. Did you think I would?"

"No, not really, I suppose I hoped you would come to your senses on the journey here, but this morning, when we arrived in New York, I knew there was no turning back."

"But you don't agree."

She sighed. "You know I don't. What purpose is served by killing her? We could have been in Canada by now. Or Mexico. I have enough money with us to take a ship to Europe. Killing her is a complication, not a solution."

Houston's hand cupped the underside of Dee's breast. The warm curve of her flesh filled his palm through her thin cotton shift. "Killing her is about a promise I made to myself," he said softly. "It's the only response to betrayal... the only proper one."

Dee shivered slightly, but it was not because his thumb was passing across her nipple. It was the chilling calm of his voice that raised her flesh and his talk of betrayal.

"And killing her will make him suffer," he said after a moment.

There was no need to ask whom "him" was. "How can you be so certain? They weren't married, Houston. It was all a lie simply to protect Michael. It wasn't as if he really loved her. You saw them at your trial. Don't you remember what they were like?"

Houston remembered very well, but he knew he remembered quite differently than Detra. Ethan and Michael hadn't sat together, hadn't spoken except in passing, but Houston had glimpsed Ethan watching Michael while she testified. The momentary unguarded look on Ethan's face told Houston what he wanted to know. It wasn't so difficult for him to believe. After all, until Detra proved to him that Michael couldn't be trusted, he had been better than halfway to falling in love with her himself. "He'll suffer," Houston told her. "You can trust me, Dee."

She hesitated a mere heartbeat. "Don't I always?"

Moving cautiously, Houston bent his head and kissed the crown of her black hair. "Now tell me how you plan to find her?"

Dee laid her hand across Houston's. "I'll start with the Chronicle. It won't take long after that. Two weeks. A month at the most."

"And no one will know about the poison?"

She laughed softly. "Darling, even you're still not sure about the late Mr. Kelly."

* * *

"Well, go on son, this is the time to kiss her."

Ethan grinned. He felt the presence of everyone else in the judge's chambers but he only had eyes for Michael. Bending his head he touched his mouth to hers. Her lips were soft and pliant beneath his, her mouth tasted faintly of peppermint. Her beautiful smile was full of promise when he drew back.

Jay Mac pressed a handkerchief into Moira's hand even as he fought to temper his own emotion. She gave him a sideways look, a watery smile, and squeezed his hand. Mary Francis saw the affectionate exchange between her parents and her own heart swelled with love. No one who saw Jay Mac and Moira together could doubt the depth of the commitment they shared. Mary Francis poked Maggie in the side with her elbow just as Moira leaned into Jay Mac and his hand came around her waist.

Maggie's smile mirrored her sister's as her eyes drifted from the wedded couple to her unwedded parents. She turned to Skye and saw that her younger sister had already observed the same thing. Simultaneously they glanced over their shoulders to look at Rennie. She seemed to have forgotten Jarret Sullivan's hovering presence for the moment because her mouth was curved in a gently wistful smile.

Michael turned away from Ethan and sought out the dear, precious faces of her family. In a moment they were surrounding her, smothering her with hugs and good wishes. Beside her she heard Ethan's low laughter as he was similarly taken into the fold.

"It's the right thing you've done," Moira whispered in Michael's ear. She drew back, took the measure of her daughter's glowing happiness, and nodded. "Sure and you know it, don't you?"

"I know it, Mama." Michael glanced at Ethan. "He's the one."

Mary Francis kissed her sister's cheek. "I suppose he knows you're willful and stubborn and can't possibly honor that vow you made to obey." She looked at Ethan hard, her eyes narrowing momentarily. "You know all of that, don't you?"

"I know it," he said solemnly. "I don't love her in spite of that. I love her because of it."

Mary's features calmed, her beautiful face was serene. She touched the crucifix that rested against her wide, white collar. "Good, because I'll break your kneecaps if you ever hurt my sister again."

"Mary Francis!" Moira admonished, shocked. She cast a significant look at Jay Mac as if to hold him responsible for his daughter's outrageous threat. Jay Mac held up his hands innocently but his eyes were amused.

Rennie drew Michael aside as the rest of the family spoke to Ethan. She searched the face that was so much like her own and found every nuance of expression that made it different. Michael's dark green eyes were radiant, illuminated by some deep happiness within her. There was a becoming blush of color on her cheeks and the normally elusive dimples on either side of her wide mouth were fully evident.

It was Rennie's mouth that had flattened seriously, her eyes that were dark and worried. "Say the word and I'll take your place," she said.

Michael laughed, pretending to misunderstand.

"With Ethan? Really, Rennie, don't you think he'd know?" She looked down at her abdomen then back at her sister. "We're not all so much alike right now."

Rennie took Michael's wrists and gave her a little shake. "Don't you dare make light of me. I'm thinking of you and the baby."

Michael's beatific smile disappeared. "I love you for this, Rennie. There's no one else like you."

"That's quite a compliment coming from my twin."

Michael hugged her sister. "I mean it," she whispered. "There is no one else like you. I don't want you to do anything that would place you in danger. I couldn't live with that, Rennie." She stepped back and searched her sister's face. Rennie was making a good show of being calm, but Michael knew better than anyone the strength of the anger that was being suppressed. "I'm sorry about your wedding, Rennie. Not sorry that you're not marrying Hollis, only sorry that it wasn't your decision. You believe that, don't you?"

"You know I do." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder to indicate Jarret Sullivan's shadowy presence by the door. "I wish Mary Francis would threaten his kneecaps."

Michael laughed. "And what about Jay Mac?"

Rennie's emerald eyes shifted from Michael's face to where her father stood in deep conversation with Ethan and Judge Halsey. She shook her head slowly, her expression torn between admiration and anger. "I'm not one to back down from a challenge," she said. "I'll think of some way to outmaneuver him for the trick he's played me."

Michael almost felt sorry for her father. "Good for you, Rennie." She squeezed her sister's hands, offering encouragement. "But don't marry Hollis Banks to spite Papa. You'd only be spiting yourself." Slipping away before Rennie could respond, Michael joined Ethan, the judge, and her father.

After he had drawn her into the circle, Ethan's hands rested lightly at the small of Michael's back. He looked at the grandfather clock standing in one corner of the darkly paneled chambers. It was almost midnight.

Michael intercepted his glance at the clock. "Tired?" she asked, searching his face. The edge of weariness had been taken from his features the moment she agreed to marry him, but it had been impossible to talk him out of waiting. Never had so much been accomplished in so little time. While the hotel sent around bellboys with messages to all the people Michael requested, Ethan soaked in a hot tub and washed away the grit of travel. He shaved as she held up gowns for his opinion. He was partial to the green silk satin with piping along the collar and sleeves the exact shade of her eyes, but she knew she could have worn her dressing gown and he wouldn't have cared. His belongings were brought down from the fourth floor as she shamelessly pressed every employee of the hotel into her service. His clothes were cleaned and pressed and laid out when he was finished in the bathing room. By unspoken mutual agreement, they dressed on opposite sides of the bed, and only came together when he needed help with his cuffs and she with her buttons. Neither of them looked at the bed but they were never more aware of it.

Looking at Ethan now, Michael could see the faint shadow of weariness cross the planes of his face. She wondered if he counted lack of sleep in hours or days. Michael turned to her father. His eyes were warm on hers. She slipped her hand into his.

"It's meant everything to me to be here tonight," he told her.

Michael smiled, shaking her head with bemused affection. "Jay Mac, I'm not at all certain you're not responsible."

His thick brows rose slightly. "Responsible for what?"

"For orchestrating Houston and Dee's escape. It set tonight's events in motion."

Jay Mac laughed. "Daughter, you've always credited me with more influence than I have. This is none of my doing."

Michael kissed her father on the cheek. "Twenty-four years ago you chose Judge Halsey as my godfather. I think you had the entire thing planned even then." She hugged the judge, standing on tiptoe to press a kiss to his sharply angled jaw. "Thank you for tonight. It was good of you to do this for us."

The judge sighed and dipped his graying head in Jay Mac's direction. "As you said. The man's had it planned for years. It's hard to stand in his way."

"Don't I know it," she said. Michael fell back into Ethan's loose embrace and she looked at her father. "Rennie's going to challenge you, Papa."

John MacKenzie Worth smiled widely. "Then that's something to look forward to, isn't it?"

* * *

Ethan plucked the pins from Michael's hair. His fingers sifted through the tumble of burnished curls before she laid her head against his shoulder. The hansom cab swayed, rocking its occupants gently as it rolled down Broadway to the St. Mark Hotel.

"Jay Mac looked nearly apoplectic when Rennie caught my bouquet," Michael said sleepily. "Did you notice that?"

"I don't think it was the bouquet so much as your sister announcing she had every intention of marrying Hollis Banks come hell or high water."

"Your friend Jarret didn't blink an eye."

"He doesn't."

"He was smiling though."

"He does that. Lots of things amuse Jarret."

"Not much amuses Rennie. She's so... so serious."

In the darkness of the closed carriage Ethan smiled, pressing a kiss against her fragrant hair. "I didn't know Judge Halsey was your godfather."

"You don't think I could have gotten just anyone to marry us tonight, do you? My father has that kind of influence, I don't."

What Ethan thought was that Jay Mac had done everything in his power to see that his daughters were cared for and well-protected. He couldn't give them influence but he provided connections. "I hope I see to our daughter half as well as Jay Mac saw to you."

"Daughter?" Michael snuggled against him. "Do you really think it will be a girl?"

"I'm counting on it."

"Have I told you I love you?"

"Not since you married me."

"I love you, Ethan."

"That's a damn good thing, Mrs. Stone."

* * *

She was shy undressing in front of him. After he unfastened the buttons at her back she started to go to the dressing room. He stopped her, slipping his fingers around her wrist. "Don't you want me to look at you?" he asked.

"I look like an apple on legs."

He bent and kissed her mouth. His lips were warm. "It's all right," he said. "I like apples."

Her eyes were uncertain.

Ethan turned her and gave her a small push toward her dressing room. "Go on. I'll warm the bed for you."

He was as good as his word. The sheets were warm when Michael slipped between them a few minutes later. "Thank you," she said, moving closer, curving her body against his. She drew his arm around her thickened waist and warmed her feet against his calves. He didn't move. "Ethan?"

Michael peered in the darkness, raising her fingers to his face and traced the line of his mouth, his cheek. His lids were closed, his lips slightly parted. His breathing was gentle and even. Her smile was tender as she leaned into him and touched his mouth with hers.

In a few minutes Michael was asleep as well.

* * *

His mouth was on her breast. His tongue flicked her nipple and it swelled. Her skin was warm and damp where he touched her, the scent of her flesh musky. The taste of her was sweet.

Ethan's fingers curled around her neck. His thumb dipped in the hollow of her throat. The hair at her nape was downy, as soft as a child's, and his touch there made her whimper at the back of her throat. His mouth moved to her collarbone and placed teasing, tormenting kisses along its length.

Michael liked coming awake to the taste of Ethan against her mouth and the feel of him under her palms. Her movement against him was sleepy and sinuous. Her nightshift had been unbuttoned to her waist. It slipped off her shoulders as Ethan's fingers trailed from her throat to her breasts. Her swollen nipples hardened more. His head moved lower and his teeth caught her flesh, worrying the buds gently.

She sipped the air as a frisson of pleasure tripped down her spine.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

His voice was husky and it washed over her with its heat and desire. She shuddered. "No, you didn't hurt me. I want you to touch me." Michael arched toward him, lifting her breasts. The suck of his mouth made her gasp again and this time he knew it was pleasure, not pain, that had pulled the small cry from her.

Ethan's hand caressed the swell of her abdomen. His knuckle grazed her distended navel. The baby kicked and Ethan withdrew his hand as if scalded.

Laughingly, Michael drew back his hand. "Feel? There she is again."

"She wants out."

Michael shook her head. "She's just stretching." Her own arms circled Ethan's neck and she uncurled along his length. "Like her mother."

Ethan's mouth slanted across Michael's. He drew in her lower lip, tracing it with his tongue. She opened her mouth under his, sweeping the ridge of his teeth, sharing the same breath, the same husky and urgent cry.

"I won't hurt the baby, will I?"

Reaching between their bodies, Michael's fingers curled around him and stroked the hard, hot length of him. She giggled softly. "Don't flatter yourself," she said. "The baby will be fine." For her impudence she was kissed breathless.

Ethan's hands slid along the curve of Michael's thigh to her hip. His caress was gently insistent and her legs parted beneath his touch as her mouth parted beneath his. His tongue intruded in the same moment as his fingers.

"We've already waited too long, Ethan," she whispered. "I want you inside me."

"Then take me."

She raised his fingertips to her siren's smile and kissed each in turn. She moved to straddle him. His hands fell to her heavy breasts where her nipples had darkened to dusky rose. She guided herself onto him. The tangle of curls that was her magnificent hair fell forward over her shoulders. She began to move. Shadows tinged with hues of blue unfolded across her pale skin. She moved through them like a sylph, caressing the length of him intimately with her body.

Ethan did not take his eyes from her face until the moment of his coming. His back arched, thrusting into her deeply as his eyes, the same blue-gray shade as the shadows, closed in the taut agony of pleasure.

Michael clung to him as Ethan withdrew and turned her onto her back. His mouth trailed over her flushed skin. His hand slipped between her thighs and his fingers passed in a whisper-stroke across the bud that was all sensation. She twisted in her desiring and when she said his name it was as a plea.

His practiced touch became a shower of pleasure. The heat concentrated at the very center of her burst and became a cascade of sparks skittering along the surface of her skin. Tension dissolved and her fingers unwound in his hair and in the sheet she was clutching.

He watched her, loving her abandonment, her wild pleasure. She was so beautiful to him that he couldn't imagine he had ever thought otherwise. Ethan tugged at her nightshirt, pulling it down as he tucked the sheet around Michael. Her breathing quieted and Ethan listened, stroking her hair, her face. He turned on his side and propped himself on an elbow.

"I should have never let you leave Denver," he said. "I'm going to regret it all my life."

She touched his face, brushed the square angle of his jaw with her forefinger. "There are too many things you should never have done, things that I shouldn't have done. I can't find it in my heart to regret them anymore. You're with me now. It's what I want."

"And you must have whatever you want."

Michael's expressive green eyes were solemn. "Absolutely."

He dropped a kiss on her lips. "I didn't mean to fall asleep before," he said. "It's probably not the wedding night you imagined."

"I've never imagined any wedding night. I never imagined any wedding. I thought you were lost to me, Ethan. It's incredible that I have Houston and Detra Kelly to thank for you being here."

Ethan didn't want to think about that.

"I wished I had been braver," she told him. "I wish I had asked you to marry me back in Stillwater."

Ethan smiled, intrigued by the idea. "Did you think about it?"

She nodded. "But I was afraid it was too forward a gesture—even for me." Michael turned on her side, drawing her legs up as the baby seemed to press into her back. "That's not quite true. I was afraid you'd say no."

"I don't know what I would have said, but I know I loved you then." His fingers threaded in her thick hair. Soft strands curled around his knuckles. "And now... I love you now."

An abrupt yawn changed the shape of her beautiful smile.

Ethan chuckled. "Go to sleep, Michael."

Beneath the sheet she searched for his hand, found it, and slipped her fingers between his. She closed her eyes. A moment later, so did he. They fell asleep together.

* * *

"I have an address for her," Dee said. She was careful not to jar Houston's leg as she sat on the edge of the bed. She pulled a slip of paper from her reticule and handed it to him. "It wasn't difficult to get at all. I merely told one of the secretaries I had an appointment with her at her home and I'd misplaced the address. It was as simple as that."

"The St. Mark Hotel. 305." Houston folded the slip and returned it to Dee. "She wasn't at the offices?"

"Not today." Her deep blue eyes were almost feverishly bright as she tried to relate her news calmly. "Perhaps not tomorrow either. There was quite a buzz at the Chronicle this morning. I couldn't help but learn what it was about. Everyone was talking."

Houston's tone was dry. A faint white line of pain tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Well? Can everyone in New York know but me?"

Dee stood, put aside her reticule, and took off her coat. In the cracked mirror above the washbasin she fingered her hair, securing a few wayward strands behind her ear. She wanted to relish her secret a moment longer, wanted Houston to feel the frustration of waiting, of being dependent upon her. "It seems Michael Dennehy was married last night."

"Married?"

Dee nodded, shooting Houston a sly, sidelong glance. "To Ethan Stone of all people."

Grimacing, Houston pushed himself upright in bed. Sweat beaded on his upper lip. For a moment he didn't say anything, pushing back the pain. "So he's here, then," he said softly.

"Apparently. The announcement will be in the afternoon paper."

"Has he been here all along or—"

"Just arrived," she said. "I had the distinct impression that the people she works with were surprised. Ethan hadn't been courting her."

"Then he's here because of us."

It was the same conclusion Dee had reached. "It seems likely."

"Do you think they're really married this time?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter though, does it? You wanted to draw Ethan out, to have him suffer. He will watch her die."

Houston nodded slowly, his black eyes distant as he stared at the yellowing wall opposite him.

"There's just one other thing, Houston."

He turned.

"It seems the new Mrs. Stone is very pregnant."

* * *

Michael and Ethan sat in the second floor family dining room of the St. Mark. They were seated near one of the large arched windows at the rear of the room. They could look down and see the parade of bonnets and derbies as people crossed Broadway or alighted from carriages. Dusk was shading the thoroughfare; crowds gathered in front of the St. Mark preparing to take a meal in the hotel's renowned restaurant. Gas lamps flickered on, brightening the street with warm yellow light.

No one shared their table. Ethan thought they must have looked as if they wanted to be alone. The waiter set their plates on the white linen table cloth and served them. Ethan had roast beef and potatoes and carrots. Michael had chosen the honeyed chicken and a salad. Ethan drank red wine with his meat. Michael sipped from a glass of white.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked. "You're only fiddling with your food."

Michael pushed her plate away. "I'm really not very hungry." Her fingers curled around the stem of the wine glass but she didn't raise it to her lips.

"Is it the baby?"

"No. Baby's fine." She paused, then plunged in. "Ethan, are you really going to follow me around at the office tomorrow?"

"I don't know about following you around. I certainly hadn't intended to get in your way, but I'll be there. Unless you decide not to go back to the Chronicle, there's really no other way."

"I have to go back."

"You don't have to work," he said. "I own a silver mine."

She laughed. "I didn't marry you for your money."

"Well, I didn't marry you for yours."

"What a relief. I only make forty-five dollars a week."

"That's more than I earn as a federal marshal."

"You don't have to work either," she reminded him gently.

But he did. It was no different for Michael, he realized, only more difficult to accept. "I'm trying," he said.

She reached for his hand. "I know. Someday I'm going to take you to hear Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Stanton speak on women's rights. The world's changing, Mr. Stone."

His grin was lop-sided, his tone dry. "Next you'll be wanting the vote."

Her steady stare and silence was eloquent.

"Oh, God," he sighed.

Pretending sympathy, Michael patted his hand. "Here," she said, pushing her plate toward him. "Eat up. You're going to need your strength."