The Lady and the Robber Baron Read online

  Without waiting for her to reply, he turned her and pulled her into his arms. He raised her face, and fresh tears slipped down her cheeks. He kissed them off. “Poor baby. Poor, poor baby,” he crooned. The more he repeated it, the harder she cried. He held her until the rigidity left her tense body and her tears stopped.

  He hated to leave her, but Steve had sounded terribly upset—and he never cried wolf. Even so, relinquishing Jennie was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  “I wish I didn’t have to go, but Steve’s waiting for me. Eat something.”

  Jennifer sniffed. For the first time in days she felt hungry. Chane knelt beside the table, pulled her down into her chair, and lifted a warm roll to her lips. It smelled yeasty and buttery. He nudged it against her lips until she took a bite. Her stomach growled.

  “Eat and rest. I’ll be back as soon as I can. If I don’t see you before the performance, I’ll see you after.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  When Chane left, Jennifer ate a little of everything on the serving table. She fell asleep in front of the fire, woke with a start, and searched the room for a clock. Seven-twenty. She barely had time to get made up for her performance.

  In his office Steve told Chane the bad news. “Peter Van Vleet lost twenty thousand dollars playing roulette.”

  “Dollars or his marker?”

  “His marker. What do you want us to do?”

  “Ignore it. If he volunteers to pay it, fine. If he doesn’t, fine.”

  Steve sat back. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  “Steve, I’m going to marry Jennie.”

  Steve nodded. “Does she know?”

  “Not yet, but she will.”

  By the time Jennifer reached the grand ballroom where the ballet company waited, she knew she had been wrong to tell Chane she was expecting, and even more wrong to agree to discuss it with him. She couldn’t undo either, but she wouldn’t go to Washington with him. She would tell him she had changed her mind.

  Halfway through Romeo and Juliet, Jennifer glanced into the fourth wings and saw Chane slip into place beside one of the stage hands waiting to make the last prop change.

  She finished the ballet with a pounding heart, and the audience surged to its feet. Curtsying, she held Frederick’s hand and smiled at the tapestry of enthusiastic faces.

  Taking her reverences, alternately bowing low and stepping toward the side of the stage, Jennifer finally reached the wings, accepted the towel Jim Farmer held out to her, and blotted sweat from her face. The applause became more thunderous. When it reached a crescendo, she swung the towel at Farmer and stepped back onto the stage to take another bow. She smiled, blew kisses, bowed deeply, then stepped behind the curtains.

  “Juliet! Juliet! Juliet!” The crowd chanted and clapped with wild abandon and jubilation. Each time Jennifer stepped on stage to take another bow, Simone, smiling from the opposite wings, raised another finger. Ushers walked briskly down the aisles toward the stage, carrying enormous bouquets of roses, which they laid at Jennifer’s feet. After the tenth curtain call, another ballerina joined Simone to add her fingers to the count. No one in the company had ever gotten more than ten curtain calls.

  Jason showed his pass to the old man at the side entry. The man scowled at the pass and then looked at Jason’s eyes very sharply for a minute. Jason held his bouquet of roses up a little higher and smiled right into the old man’s eyes. Finally, the man nodded and let Jason pass. A flush of self-confidence warmed him. Smiles were a sight more useful than most people realized. He’d found if he smiled at a girl enough and said nice things to her, most girls would let him do just about anything, even tie them up. And once he got a girl tied up, he could take his time killing her as slow as he wanted.

  From the stage, music filled the air. He could imagine the girls all on stage, looking pretty in their getups. He passed the big, communal dressing room, then found the first private room.

  He pushed the door aside and peered in. The room was small. There was a rack holding a few costumes. And a mirror encircled with those newfangled electric lights dominated the wall opposite the door.

  Jason heard footsteps and slipped into the room. The footsteps kept coming. He glanced around, saw the closet, and slipped into it just as the footsteps crossed the threshold.

  At last, after the fifteenth curtain call, Jennifer stepped backstage, and the clapping subsided.

  She felt grateful the show was over. Her cheeks ached from smiling. At the thought of facing Chane Kincaid and telling him her decision, her legs had grown weak. She’d brushed past smiling stage hands, accepted hugs from a bevy of misty-eyed ballerinas, smiled at Bellini’s beaming face, and held Simone while Simone sobbed and whispered wild praise. Even Bettina, who never cried, looked deeply affected.

  At last Jennifer escaped. The others seemed too keyed up to follow. They stayed behind, chattering among themselves. She avoided the fourth wings, where Chane waited, and ran toward her dressing room. She would not go with Chane. She knew what she had to do, but when she was with him she seemed to forget.

  He mesmerized her with his deep, melodious, slightly British voice, and her mind forgot its own business and became caught up in his business. She could not tell if he tricked her or if her own mind did the trick. Perhaps her mind only appeared to work on her behalf. Then when Chane came near her, she still expected it to take care of business, but it did what her body, longing for him, wanted to do. It was too complicated for her to figure out. She decided the safest plan was simply to avoid him.

  In the corridor, Jennie slowed down. Now that the tension of dancing had started to drain out of her, she felt the fatigue all the way to her bones. She would hurry home, have Augustine draw a warm bath, drink a glass of milk, and then sleep for ten hours.

  She stepped inside her private dressing room, closed the door, and leaned against it. She had evaded Chane. Tears of sadness or exhaustion ran down her cheeks.

  “You were even better than in rehearsal.”

  At the sound of Chane’s smoky voice, Jennie froze in the doorway. Before she could think or move, his arms enveloped her and she was pulled into his familiar warmth. His mouth kissed the tears off her face. Her mind twitched as if it wanted to struggle against him, but her body refused. His warm lips claimed hers, and Jennie felt her arms lift and twine around his neck. Her hands already resented the jacket he wore because she couldn’t feel the long, smooth muscles of his back.

  Part of her still knew this was insanity, but another part promised she would just take these few kisses before telling him. Just as soon as her body stopped trembling with need.

  He kissed her long and slow—fiercely and scaldingly—and she knew nothing except how his mouth tasted, how his skin smelled, and how her body ached to press itself closer to his.

  Chane kissed her until he knew she wouldn’t fight with him anymore, then lifted her into his arms and carried her out the private side door to his waiting carriage.

  “Where are you—”

  “Hush,” he whispered. She tried to sit up, but he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her until someone tapped lightly on the door. Jennifer opened her eyes to see Augustine climbing into a second carriage with a bag, and looked askance at Chane.

  He squeezed Jennifer’s hand and brushed the hair off her face. “I took the liberty of having Augustine pack an overnight bag for you.”

  “I can’t stay overnight with you.”

  “Not alone, you can’t, but Augustine is coming with us.”

  He answered every protest with a kiss.

  A dory waited at the harbor. Chane bundled them in furs. Snow fell steadily, but the ocean was strangely calm and quiet. She found herself sitting in a small boat being rowed out to Kincaid’s yacht. The boat slipped through water effortlessly.

  Temperatures had been below freezing for five days. The moisture in the air felt like ice.

  In a surprisingly sho
rt time, the dory gently bumped up against a long, low-slung yacht, its masts and yardarms weighted with half a foot of snow.

  A man in gold braid came forward to meet them.

  “Evening, Captain. When will we get under way?” Chane asked, steadying Jennifer with a warm hand.

  “The tide’s going out now, but as you can see, we’re becalmed. Strangest weather I’ve ever seen. If the wind comes up, we’ll be in D.C. by early morning. If not…”

  Men helped them out of the dory and onto the deck of the yacht. Chane arranged for Augustine’s comfort, then carried Jennifer to a beautifully decorated suite of rooms.

  Although Chane had brought Augustine along as chaperone, he put her in another room, so she wouldn’t bother them if they wanted to make love. It was hypocrisy, but to come without a chaperone would have been insanity. Reputations were lost over technicalities, while people did exactly as they wanted. Jennifer’s parents had lived quite happily among such craziness, but it made her head spin to try to remember all of the rules.

  Chane led her to the bed that dominated one side of the small room and unwrapped her. Then he was kissing her again, urgently and hungrily, as if he would never let her go.

  Jennifer floated in warm silence, the silence broken only by the soft sounds of their kisses and the lapping of the water against the ship’s hull. Her body pressed blindly against his, her heart beat with his, her senses ignored everything except the warm, manly fragrance that was purely his. No man in the history of the world had ever smelled or tasted quite like this man.

  Chane made love to her, and the world was reduced to flesh on flesh and the blood roaring in her ears, pounding through her, burning into her until she was only female to his male, softness to his hardness.

  Afterward, he rolled over and pulled her on top of him. His hands stroked her back and buttocks. “Jennie, love, what you do to me,” he whispered, and brushed damp hair off her face. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her throat, and then her eyes again, kissing away tears she didn’t remember crying.

  “Jennie, love, you’ve cast a spell over me. Are witches blond? I always imagined they’d have long, black, stringy hair, not shimmering strands of silver and the face of an angel.”

  They made love again, this time without urgency. Then, at last, they were able to talk—quietly, still enmeshed, still clinging together deliciously, naturally. Nothing mattered except each other.

  Jennifer found it curious how a decision could get lost in her head while she did all kinds of things that flew in the face of the decision. She had made her decision carefully. Now it had no more weight than a balloon.

  “I watched you tonight, dancing,” Chane said. “You’re so damned good it made me hurt all over. You had that crowd right here.” He kissed the palm of her hand. “I didn’t really think a ballerina could do so much with a story I know so well. You were wonderful.”

  The minute he reminded her she was a ballerina, the balloon popped. Now she had to tell him her decision, but it didn’t feel like hers anymore. It felt like something her mother thought up.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack with that costume you wore tonight. Those leggings looked like skintight gloves with a short skirt that didn’t hide a damned thing.”

  “It reached all the way to my knees.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of corsets or stays? Dammit, Jennie, you’re going to drive some man into a frenzy.”

  Jennie laughed. “I thought I already had.”

  “I mean someone else,” he growled.

  Despite her decision, which might or might not be hers, she still loved it when his voice became gruff and possessive and his big, warm hands caressed her, as if gentling a skittish mare. She remembered her decision, but it didn’t seem like anything that needed to be acted on right away. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

  “Does this mean you might fire me?” she asked hopefully.

  Chane kissed her cheek and nibbled from just below her eye to her throat. “Fire you? Didn’t you read the contract you signed?” His voice teased her.

  “I trusted Sam to—”

  Chane chuckled. “Never trust an agent. Didn’t your attorney ever warn you about men like me?”

  Vaguely, she realized that her mind had tricked her in this way before, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She loved playing these games with him.

  “I know you would never take advantage of me,” she whispered, using her most innocent voice.

  Chane chuckled and rolled her over to pin her beneath him. “Of course not. The contract was written by one of the best attorneys in New York. Besides, a smart woman like you will have no problem satisfying my simple needs.” His hands bit into the softness of her shoulders, slipped down to cup her breasts. Jennifer moaned softly.

  “Ever heard of white slavery?” He leaned down and bit at her nipples. His fingers dug into her hipbones. “I mean, before you signed that agreement?” he asked, his tone ominous. A fever started where she didn’t think it could again so soon.

  “Don’t worry, love,” Chane said gruffly, his hands rough and possessive on her sweat-slippery flesh. “I’ll only use you for my own personal needs, unless—” He scowled down at her. “—unless you think that would be too dull for you…”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “Then I’d have to punish you,” he said, his voice intimate and husky.

  “Punish me?” she whispered, dazed by the very real feeling of submissiveness that had overwhelmed her.

  “Of course, someone has to do it.” Now his tone was innocent, accommodating.

  “But why me?”

  “Because you are very beautiful and very tempting. You don’t think I would waste my time otherwise, do you? I have standards.”

  “But I haven’t done anything to deserve punishment,” she protested, her voice strangely breathless. Somehow her body had tricked her into getting caught up in the game. Her heart pounded as if it truly believed Kincaid was capable of doing terrible, wonderful things to her against her will.

  His hands moved to her hips, tightened there, pressed her against him. “It’s only a matter of time before you do something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, like arouse my baser needs. You could do that. In spite of my iron control.”

  “Iron control?” She snickered.

  “Or you might insult me,” he said ominously. His fingers bit into her hipbones again and found a sensitive place that made her laugh and cry out. He shook her gently. “You see how naughty and impulsive you are?”

  “How could I be held responsible for your becoming aroused?”

  “Who else? I’m an innocent victim.”

  “You’re impossible, that’s what you are.”

  “It’s all right for a man to be impossible.”

  In mock despair, Jennifer covered her forehead with her arm.

  Chane kissed her exposed breast. “I come from a long line of impossible men. Kincaid men are descended from a savage breed of ravishing Moors who spent all their time charging around the English countryside and carrying off fair-haired Saxon wenches. That’s why Englishwomen are so lovely. We only spared the prettiest ones.”

  “Will ye be killing me then, sire?”

  Chane’s hand caught the hair at the back of her neck and pulled until her throat arched back. Heat flushed into her loins and wrung a moan of pure need and surprise from her lips. Chane’s eyes burned into hers and his hand tightened in her hair, increasing the response that had devastated her. Slowly, as if satisfied that he had her attention and that she knew inescapably he was not teasing now, and maybe had not been teasing at all, he lowered his head and pressed his lips against the pulse that punched against her throat. “You will die a thousand deaths, my sweet wench, just as I will,” he whispered.

  His other hand touched her, spread her, levered himself into a position to claim her. His warm smoothness impaled her, and she pulled his mouth down to hers.

  Jennifer woke slowly.
Her eyes opened but she couldn’t focus. She blinked. Still out of focus. She struggled into a sitting position. That was a mistake. Cold bit into her skin despite the squat, blackened stove in the middle of the small cabin.

  Jennifer shivered and pulled the covers over her head. She remembered instantly where she was, but something felt wrong. The ship didn’t rock. Every ship she had ever been on rocked with a recognizable sway and creaked with the sounds of the ocean against the hull. Two round portholes, fastened against the cold, were frosted over. She could see nothing except diffuse whiteness.

  Outside, the wind, which had been still last night, howled loudly against the ship, but the ship did not appear to rock. Perhaps it had run aground and been abandoned.

  Alarmed, Jennifer struggled out of bed. The floor felt like ice against her bare feet. Someone had laid her clothes out for her. The water in the basin was still warm. Close to the fire the room felt warm enough to allow her to slip out of her nightgown. She washed quickly, dressed herself, struggled into her coat, opened the door and stepped outside.

  The howling wind caught the door and almost pulled it out of her hands. Swirling snow blinded her. She wrestled the door closed and turned to see an unbelievable sight—the ship caught like a fly on flypaper in the middle of New York harbor, which had frozen solid, trapping Chane’s yacht and a half dozen other ships. Snow fell thickly, softening every outline.

  Sailors in yellow slickers stood at the rails and looked at the city, several hundred yards away, blanketed with more snow than Jennifer had ever seen in New York.

  Chane saw her instantly. Hanging onto the ropes strung across the ship, he inched his way across the icy deck to her side.

  “What happened?” she yelled over the wind’s howling.

  “We were becalmed for several hours last night, long enough for the ocean to freeze around us. Then the snow came, then the storm.”