we ought to clarify one or two things,” Anna was hissing, “before we proceed any further.” Her fists were planted on her hips.
She looked more like a fishwife than a bedazzled bride, Jack thought. And Henry Gresham, who would carry any and all gossip with him along with his baggage, was bearing down on them fast.
“Did you hear me, Mr. Hazard?” she demanded now.
Gresham came to a standstill beside them. The man’s smile was as murky as the river. “Lovers’ spat, Hazard?”
Bloody hell. He had to keep the woman from ruining everything before it had even begun. Other than hurling her into the Mississippi, Jack could think of only one thing to silence her. He snagged her by the waist and clamped her hard against his chest, then stifled her furious mouth with a kiss.
He had expected to meet rigid, icy lips, but Jack knew immediately he’d been wrong. Maybe it was the sudden shock of it. Or maybe she hadn’t been kissed in a long, long time. But, for whatever reason, Anna Matlin’s mouth felt lush and luxurious beneath his. She received his kiss the way a pillow receives a weary head, while her body softened and warmed against his like silk sheets.
Without any volition on his part, his tongue tested the soft seam of her lips. They gave way. Instantly. Sweetly. It was heaven for a moment.
Bloody hell. Jack broke the kiss and cast Henry Gresham a victorious man-to-man look, while the mouse still clung to him like breeze-blown silk. “We’ll be seeing you at the hotel, Gresham, no doubt. Sooner or later, eh?”
Jack’s lascivious wink did exactly as he had intended. It sent the man off with an equally lascivious chuckle, and then Jack looked back at the woman in his arms. Even through her lenses, he could see a distinct glaze in her eyes. He wanted to kiss her again. Right then. He stepped back with an abruptness that unbalanced her.
He gripped her arm. “No more outbursts in public, Anna. You could ruin everything. Please, from now on, think before you speak.”
“Yes. All right.”
Anna was amazed that she could speak at all. And as for thinking…Well, just then she wasn’t sure she’d ever again be able to rise to that monumental task. Jack Hazard’s kiss had taken her by storm, the surprise of it sending streaks of lightning clear to her feet, the sensuality of it reverberating through every nerve and fiber.
He was ushering her along the levee now, and Anna was trying to make her feet move in concert with his. Not any easy undertaking at all, when her knees had turned to pudding a moment ago and were only now solidifying. This was no way for a Pinkerton agent to behave, she reminded herself as she rushed along.
It was no way for a self-respecting woman to behave, either. To be so flummoxed by a kiss. To have her legitimate and quite serious concerns turned into frilly bows and butterflies by a man’s mouth on hers. And it wouldn’t happen again.
Jack Hazard came to a halt. His dark face glowered down on her. “I apologize,” he snarled. “It won’t happen again, Mrs. Matlin. Mrs. Hazard. Whoever the hell you are.” He let go of her arm to drag his fingers through his hair.
Had the kiss affected him, too? There was a definite flush to his face that Anna had never seen, and his fingers trembled as they threaded through that shiny black hair. Jack Hazard, master spy, seemed nearly as unsettled as she. Oddly enough, the notion, which should have perplexed her, calmed Anna instead. She could almost feel her features smoothing out.
When she spoke, her voice no longer bristled. “Apology accepted, Mr. Haz—Jack. In the future, you’ll find a simple ‘hush’ will do if you require my silence. Or—” she demonstrated “—a finger placed just so upon the lips.”
“Fine,” he snapped, not even looking at her while he dug in his pocket. “Here’s four bits for the porter.” He slapped the coins in her hand. “All of it. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He pivoted on his heel and stalked toward a line of waiting carriages, turning back just once to glare at her and growl, “And don’t help.”
There was a good deal of traffic, both vehicles and pedestrians, between the levee and the hotel, four blocks away. Jack sat in the carriage, his shoulders jammed into the corner, putting as much distance as he could manage between himself and the mouse, who was gazing out the window now, apparently enthralled by her new surroundings. Little murmurs of excitement kept riffling across her lips, and every so often she’d reach up to push her glasses up or tug them down a notch.
It was just St. Louis, damn it. Just a city. Not so different from Chicago. You’d have thought Anna Matlin was taking a carriage across the moon. Now Anna Hazard, Jack thought, correcting himself. His—God help him—wife.
Now that they’d arrived in St. Louis, all his energies and attentions should be directed toward his plan. Instead, his attention was focused on the woman beside him and his energies were concentrated below his beltline. Ever since that kiss.
That damnable kiss. He threw her profile a black glance, meant to be brief, then found his gaze once again drawn irresistibly to her lips.
He’d have thought she would struggle more when he silenced her so outrageously. But she had melted beneath his mouth. Not wilted, or given in like a cowering mouse, but warmed and softened like a woman. Of all possible reactions, that was the last one he had expected.
Or wanted, he told himself now as he wrenched his gaze away from her and stared out his own window. He wanted only one thing. Well, maybe two. He wanted to bring Chloe down, and then to celebrate his sweet victory with a toast that would go on indefinitely. And for all the warm luxuries of her mouth, Anna Matlin had nothing to do with that.
When the carriage came to a swaying halt in front of the arched main doorway of the Southern Hotel, he leaned toward her and whispered without warmth. “You’re among the idle rich now, Anna. Your job is to conduct yourself accordingly.”
The lobby was the grandest room Anna had ever seen. Its thick Persian carpets drank up the sounds of bootheels and the brass wheels of the baggage carts that whizzed by her, while it muted the dozens of conversations that were taking place all around her.
Jack had seated her smack in the middle of the room on a round velveteen banquette. “I’ll be right back,” he told her, adding a pointed “Mrs. Hazard,” as if he felt the need to remind her of her role once more.
How could she forget? As Mrs. Johnathan Hazard, Anna had already received more attention in one day than in the rest of her life put together. Waiters, porters and cabbies looked at her now, rather than through her. It was an altogether new experience, and not one with which she was completely comfortable.
She peered through a maze of people and potted palms, letting her gaze rest on the tall, elegant man who was leaning against the marble registration desk. The polished stone mirrored his long legs and gave back the gloss on his boots. At this distance he seemed pure god again. She couldn’t see the shadows that haunted his face, or the myriad little human nicks. He had an aristocratic air that perfectly suited this room. And then, she remembered, of course, he was an aristocrat by birth. The son of an earl, whether the first or the fourth, was all the same to the daughter of a hard-luck coal miner.
Her hands twisted in her lap. She couldn’t do this. She hadn’t the background to bring it off. Or, right now, the simple courage. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be in her little third-floor room in the big house on Adams Street, snuggled in her bed listening to the faint bickering of the Misses Richmond downstairs, reading a book, turning its pages and losing herself in distant places. Not here, where she was truly lost.
But it was too late. Jack’s black boots were striding toward her now across the Persian carpets.