Cale desperately needed to soak in a tub, relax and ponder Sarah’s proposition.
Hell, he thought, if she really was determined to marry someone, it might as well be him. It wasn’t as if he had any other potential prospects beating down his door. But all the same, a man was entitled to a wedding night for the use of his name—especially when his new wife looked, smelled and felt as tempting as Sarah Rawlins.
Her offer of money didn’t persuade or impress him, because money wasn’t a motivation for him. He’d been stockpiling cash in Fort Smith’s bank for years and had money to burn. What he didn’t have was a wife and the titillating trimmings of a wedding night. He wanted that violet-eyed beauty to come willingly into his arms, wanted to know what it was like to touch purity and refinement.
And secretly wished her innocence and good breeding might somehow rub off on him.
Cale waited impatiently while a troop of young boys filed into his room to fill the tub with steaming water. When he had the place to himself once again, he stripped off his clothes, sank into the tub and sighed contentedly. Ah, there was nothing better than a long-awaited bath…unless it was one uninterrupted night in the arms of an alluring woman who’d sought him out with an intriguing proposition.
Chapter Three
Hanna stood in the middle of her cramped room, which contained nothing but crude necessities—a narrow, lumpy bed, washstand, lantern and small towel. Grumbling, she plopped down on the bed. Her perfect, would-be husband had turned out to be as demanding as her father. Furthermore, Cale Elliot was an unscrupulous scoundrel. He wanted a wedding night and six grand, did he? Hanna silently fumed over the fact that a man had manipulated her again. It was the story of her life.
On second thought, she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by Cale’s counteroffer. Expecting any man to blithely agree to a wedding without the night that customarily followed was asking a bit much. As for the extra thousand dollars, Hanna would be more than compensated when her trust fund was released to her. That really wasn’t the issue here.
Spending the night with Cale Elliot was. The mere prospect of the unknown caused uneasy sensations to ripple through her.
Hanna glanced across the room to stare in the mirror that hung above the washstand. She pulled the pins from her hair and shook her head to send curls streaming down her back. Although Cale Elliot was as rough around the edges as a man could probably get, and they had nothing in common, there was something about those intense dark eyes and that bronzed face that intrigued her. Not enough, of course, to agree to going to bed with him, unless all other possibilities of gaining his assistance were exhausted. To Hanna, intimacy was just one more way for a man to control and dominate a woman. According to her married friends, lust was much more enjoyable for a man, and it was a woman’s duty to tolerate her husband’s physical desires. It seemed blasted unfair, but there you had it. That was marriage for you.
Hanna called up Cale’s mental image as she stretched out on her bed to rest. Despite her irritation at him, there was a wild nobility, an aura of dynamic power about Cale that she envied. Although he would make a most inappropriate husband if they were brushing shoulders with the upper crust of society, undeniably, there was something about the man that appealed to her. She was at a complete loss to explain or define her reaction to him. The fact that she had reacted to him on some basic level disturbed her.
Surely she couldn’t be attracted to Cale Elliot. He looked too rugged for her tastes, and she naturally assumed from his appearance that there would be nothing gentle or enjoyable about his embrace. He certainly hadn’t showed any tendencies toward tenderness when he’d clutched her to him, then searched her for weapons as impersonally as he might search a criminal.
The question was how determined was she to marry? Determined enough to sacrifice her innocence to a stranger who would take what he wanted from her and likely give nothing in return?
The thought caused Hanna to shiver, and she reflexively reached out to flip the thin bedspread over her shoulders. She lay there for a moment, asking herself just how much she was willing to sacrifice for her long-awaited freedom. She’d come this far. She’d given up all that was familiar and comfortable, but she was not returning to her father’s home to marry Louis Beauchamp, no matter how many French titles his uppity ancestors had flaunted.
Hanna drifted off to sleep, knowing that she would meet Cale Elliot’s stipulations, as distasteful as subjecting herself to his lusty pleasures would undoubtedly be. It was only one night, she consoled herself. She could endure that sort of physical torture for one night, couldn’t she? After all, nothing worth having came without a price, did it? This was the price she had to pay to call her life her own.
Her freedom and independence were worth it.
Walter Malloy stormed to the far end of his elegantly furnished study, wheeled around, then stalked back in the direction he’d come. Curse that devious daughter of his! He’d thought he’d finally got that willful girl under his thumb and convinced her to wed the man of his choice. Walter had found the perfect social match, but Hanna had defied him.
When Walter had stood at the church a few days earlier, staring in disbelief at the open window and realizing Hanna had fled, he’d vowed all manners of punishment when he located his runaway daughter. He would never forget the humiliation and embarrassment he’d suffered when he was forced to enter the sanctuary and announce to the guests that the wedding had to be postponed.
Walter scowled sourly and pivoted to wear another path on the imported Aubusson carpet. He’d been left to deal with Louis Beauchamp’s outrage and indignation. Even Walter had gotten sick of hearing how the entire lineage of Beauchamps had never been left at the altar, and that Hanna’s deceit ranked right up there with high treason.
Gad, what a disaster! By the time Louis had finished ranting and raving about the potential shipping monopoly being null and void if Hanna didn’t return to voice a public apology and follow through with the wedding, Walter was in the throes of a full-blown headache—and it hadn’t let up yet!
The quiet rap at the door prompted him to lurch around and glare at the agent he’d sent to locate Hanna. “Did you find that ungrateful child of mine?” he boomed.
Rutherford J. Wiley stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “No, sir, I’m afraid not. Miz Hanna seems to have vanished into thin air. I checked the train depot, shipping yard and riverboat depot, but her name didn’t appear on any of the passenger lists.”
“Well, of course not, you dolt!” Walter bellowed. “You think she’d traipse off, dragging her real name behind her?”
The agent shrank as Walter’s buglelike voice ricocheted off the walls. “Of course not, sir.”
Walter’s stubby arm shot toward the door, as if the feather-brained hireling didn’t have enough sense to know where it was. “Wire the Pinkertons immediately,” he barked. “Give them my daughter’s description. Instruct them to name their price, and I’ll double it. I want every available detective on this case and I want them now!”
“Yes, sir, at once, sir.” Rutherford spun on his heels and scurried through the foyer posthaste.
“Hell and damnation,” Walter muttered as he resumed his restless pacing. He’d lost his only son, the child who was to become the heir to the vast fortune Walter and his wife, Clarissa, had amassed. Now his wife was gone and he was consumed with such grief that there were times Walter swore constant work was all that kept him from losing his mind. He was left with a daughter
