Twice A Hero Part 24

Mac listened, bemused, as Caroline outlined her plans for the ball. Liam set the surrey in motion alongside Perry's gig, keeping his expression carefully neutral.

Caroline had manipulated things to her liking once more. Perry's doing, of course. The ball was an unavoidable nuisance, but now it had become another setting for Perry's game.

Not that Mac would enjoy it. She would be as much as home at a formal society ball as Liam was.

The four of them drove on without speaking, bypa.s.sing the park proper with its conservatory and largely undeveloped dunes. A turn north on Stanyan carried them past the cemeteries that dotted the Outside Lands beyond the city limits. Within minutes they reached the long straight lane that led through the countryside to Point Lobos, Cliff House, and the Pacific Ocean.

"Well, Mac," Liam said when Perry and Caroline had fallen a little behind, "I'll give you credit. You seem to know how to survive in this city."

She chuckled. "I wouldn't want to go through that kind of inspection too often." She looked sideways at Liam. "I'm sure Caroline can't wait to be the next Mrs. Wyndham, laying down the law for the rich and famous. How thrilling."

A feminine squeal interrupted Liam's belated response. Several seconds pa.s.sed before he recognized the voice as Caroline'sa"and the carriage, pa.s.sing them at a rapid clip, as Perry's gig.

Perry's gig, driven by a girl. A girl with blond hair. Caroline, urging Perry's team to a reckless pace on the old speeding drive that ran alongside the main avenue to the ocean.

Caroline squealed again as the gig hit a rut in the road and her hat went flying. The speeding drive had once been the province of young bucks anxious to test their teams against each other, but it hadn't been kept up. It was uneven, furrowed by weather, dangerousa And Caroline didn't know a b.l.o.o.d.y thing about driving.

Chapter Fifteen.

Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast?

to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?

a"William Shakespeare THE GIG WAS well ahead before Liam slapped his own team from their easy trot into a rolling canter. Even that wasn't fast enough; Caroline had her horses at the gallop.

Liam cursed and exhorted his team to greater speed. He had only an instant to spare for Mac; he started to warn her, but she was already prepared. She caught the edge of the seat as they burst into flight.

The surrey b.u.mped over uneven patches on the pitted clay surface and swayed with the speed, but Mac was sitting up, her face into the wind, grinning from ear to ear.

"Can you go any faster?" she shouted. b.u.mmer echoed her plea with a bark from the rear, and Norton pa.s.sed them by, tongue lolling.

By all the saints, Mac had never looked more alive, more attractive than she did now, with the wind ruddying her skin and her short hair in windblown tangles. It was as if she might spread wings and fly of her own accord.

Liam knew that feeling. It was the very soul of existence. Adventure, risk, the reckless need to dare the limits of life itself: Mac felt their seductive power just as he did. And Liam was caught in a rush of desire as powerful as it was unexpected.

Desire he had tried to ignore ever since their brief time together in the jungle. Desire he shouldn't be feeling, born of the excitement of the moment and of his anger and his wayward thoughts.

The surrey was almost even with the gig as they started up the curved, ascending lane to the jutting headland on which Cliff House perched. Both carriages slowed, and Liam could see Perry's steadying hands over Caroline's. Guiding her, encouraging her to defy her guardian.

Caroline was breathless with laughter. Like Mac, and totally unlike. All Liam felt as he watched Caroline laugh was rage.

And fear. Gut deep, coming out of a past long gonea"fear of failure. And loss, and death.

He drove that madness away and pulled the surrey alongside the gig with a sharp jerk of the reins.

They looked at him, Perry and Carolinea"her smile fading, his gaze cool, united in their mutiny. Reins slackened, and the horses came to a stop.

"You see, Liam," Caroline said triumphantly. "I can drive."

Liam pushed the reins into Mac's hands and jumped down from the surrey. "Get out of the gig, Caroline," he ordered.

She tightened her fingers on the gig's reins and lifted her chin. "No. Perry and I were onlya""

"Get out. Now." Liam reached up and s.n.a.t.c.hed the reins from her hands.

"See here, old man," Perry said. "There was never any danger. I'd advise you to calm yourself."

Liam turned on Perry. "You blackguard." He helped Caroline down. "Go inside and wait for me."

She feigned a sob. "Liam, pleasea""

But he wouldn't be moved by her tricks. "Miss MacKenzie," he said between his teeth, "would you be so kind as to accompany Miss Gresham into Cliff House?"

Mac scrambled down from her seat. "Get a grip, O'Shea," she hissed as she pa.s.sed him. She gently took Caroline's arm, and the two women moved off.

Liam turned back to Perry, clutching the carriage wheel in his hand. The rim cut into his palm. "Get out of here before I lose my temper."

"A terrifying prospect indeed." Perry gathered up the reins. "Take my advice, old man, and consider the nature of your audience before you do something you'll regret. You're not hurting me."

"Go."

Perry went, though not without a certain leisurely insolence. He clicked to his team and sent them off down the lane, his unflappable demeanor completely intact.

Liam strode back to the surrey. The horses were in need of cooling off after their run, and Liam himself felt near the point of explosion. He drove to the hitching racks beside the long white building at the top of the road and paid a loitering young man to walk the horses.

His gut was churning with a snarl of emotions. He wasn't thinking as he stepped through the doors of Cliff House. The place was all but empty. A few families, groups, and couples were scattered amongst the tables in the main dining room. Caroline and Mac were the only visitors standing before the large windows that framed an impressive view of Seal Rock and the ocean.

But it wasn't the view Liam noticed. He stared at the two women, deeply conscious of the vivid contrast between them. Against the window they were only shapes, but he thought he could see something more: a glow, a burning that was like a candle's flicker in Caroline and a roaring furnace in Mac.

Mac glanced over her shoulder, meeting his gaze. Meeting and holding, challenging, promisinga Liam broke free and strode across the distance between them. He grasped Caroline's hand, pulling her away from the window and Mac.

Caroline didn't resist. Her bootheels clicked on the floor in a rapid, uneven beat as she struggled to keep up with him.

He found a secluded hallway leading off the dining room. As good a place as any; this wouldn't be any delicate wooing. He'd been putting off the inevitable far too long.

He released her hand. "We have something to discuss, Caroline."

Her eyes were very blue and very wide, just as they'd been when she was a child. Only then they'd been filled with trust and admiration. "Discuss?" she said. "Like the way youa chastised me in front of Perry and Rose?"

"Caroline," he said, more evenly. "You deliberately ignored my warnings. You could have been hurt."

"Perry was with me. I was safe."

"Safe?" He laughed. "What was the point of that little performance, Caroline? Did Perry put you up to it?"

Her hands twisted in the folds of her skirt. "Ia it was my idea."

She looked up at him, as pretty and exquisite as a china doll. Perfect. Beautiful. An ornament easily broken, to be unwrapped only with the greatest of carea"never to be handled with strong emotion. Or pa.s.sion.

There was no danger of that, no stirring within him, nothing to spark between a man and woman. The lack of that spark was an emptiness, a hollow yearning he could not remember feeling before he'd gone to the jungle.

Before Mac.

He clenched his jaw. "You're nearly eighteen, Caroline," he said.

Her attention was fixed on him. Her lips parted; the delicate lashes of an angel fluttered against her cheeks. "Yes."

"Your father gave your care into my hands."

"You are not my father." She averted her face. "You don't care about me."

The words twisted deep into the emptiness inside him. "I do care," he said hoa.r.s.ely. He caught her chin and turned her face toward him again. "Carolinea""

He caught her shoulders and lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was no more than a brush of lips, though Caroline s.h.i.+vered at his touch. Liam felt nothing. He had expected a sense of Tightness, of relief in doing what must be done. But the coldness in his belly only grew more chill, more fathomless, as if all his vows to Gresham and to himself meant nothing at all.

There was only one answer to that nothingness. He lifted Caroline against him, taking her lips more fully, seeking life itself.

The life he'd sensed when he'd held Mac in his arms, hot and bright and pulsing as the jungle sun. The wash of ocean waves and barking of seals became the beat of rain and shrieking of parrots, another place and another heart pounding close to his, a radiance that knew no limits.

But it wasn't Mac he was holding, and the light within Caroline was not bright enough, not strong enough to pierce the darkness, to make him feela The wrongness of it shocked him back to himself as surely as the sound of purposeful footsteps rounding the corner into the hall.

Mac stopped in a swirl of skirts, her ears red as summer roses. Liam released Caroline; she put her hands to her lips and backed away to lean against the wall, trembling and mute.

The darkness in Liam spilled over, a bedlam in his mind that left him numb to any feeling. He took Caroline's hand and pulled her out of the hall and across the dining room to the door. The fresh ocean air let him breathe again; he paused on the steps and searched the line of carriages waiting at the hitching racks.

A respectable-looking hack driver was leaning against his brougham, smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke circles lazily into the air. Liam strode up to him, Caroline in tow.

"Are you for hire?" he demanded.

The driver dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his heel. "I'm waiting for my farea"

"I'll double what they're paying if you take this lady home directly and see that she is put into the keeping of her chaperon. Tell Mrs. Hunter that no one is to see the young lady until I return. If I hear you've done exactly as I tell you, I'll triple the fee. Liam O'Shea's the name."

The driver straightened. "I know you, Mr. O'Shea."

"Good. Then you know I don't tolerate incompetence. She's to go directly, and safely, to her home. Can you guarantee that?"

"Sure. I'm the best driver in the city."

Liam snorted and counted out a handful of coins. "Send another driver to pick up your fare and come to my house for the rest of the money when the job's complete. You'll find the Gresham home on California Street."

"I know it, sir." The driver pocketed the coins and tipped his hat. "She'll be home safe and sound in a jiffy."

Caroline made no protest as Liam handed her into the brougham. She peered at him through the window, pale against the gla.s.s. Soon the carriage was down the lane and rounding the headland, out of sight.

He walked to the surrey to retrieve the dogs. Both were gonea"probably down at the beach for their run. Grimly he went back into Cliff House, but Mac was nowhere to be found.

She was not outside, nor on the descending road to the ocean. It wasn't until he looked over the railing along the rocks and down to the beach below that he saw her.

She was walking close to the surf, her skirts caught up in one hand. The dogs were with hera"Norton bounding ahead and doubling back again, b.u.mmer chasing the waves at her feet.

Liam strode along the curved lane and onto the sand, ignoring the coa.r.s.e grains that worked into his shoes and destroyed their fine polish. All he could see was Mac.

Her walking boots, stockings, and hat lay in a heap just out of the water's reach. He stopped to gather them up. Her footprints melted into wet sand as he followed them.

The sand also m.u.f.fled the sounds of his approach, allowing him to observe uninterrupted. The hem of her gown was soaked five inches up, and her hair was tangled with salt spray. She didn't mind displaying her ankles for all to see. Once she'd revealed a great deal more, only for him.

She was a b.l.o.o.d.y siren, bent on dragging a man to his doom under the icy waves.

No. She was a sea nymph, unselfconscious in her immodesty, unaware of its effect on mortal men who came too near.

His body stirred, betraying him. With a final long stride he caught up to her.

"Well, Mac," he said harshly. "I see you've found a way to amuse yourself."

She turned without surprise, pus.h.i.+ng her spray-wet bangs from her forehead. "It's a h.e.l.l of a lot better than watching your little soap opera up there. I can get that at home for free." She whistled sharply and Norton came running up to her, beating her skirts with his sandy tail. "Is it finally over?"

"It's over." He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a piece of driftwood. "Why did you run, Mac?"

"I didn'ta""

"Of course," he said with a fierce edge of triumph. "You're jealous. You couldn't bear to see me with anyone else."

Her stillness was sudden and profound. Mac's fingers pushed deep into Norton's rough coat. "You think I'd want to be in Caroline's shoes after what you did up there? Humiliating her, treating her like a babya""

He felt heat under his skin. "I know what Caroline needs."

"Sure. That's really the way to show it, all right. You have it down pat. Congratulations."

"You wouldn't know a b.l.o.o.d.y thing about how a lady should be treated. You're little better than a tramp, Miss MacKenzie."

"Tsk, tsk. You're forgetting to be a gentleman, Mr. O'Shea. But that's all right. Go on just as you've been doing, and you'll make things easy for everyone."

"And what do you mean by that?"

But she seemed to have thought better of what she'd said, for she turned her back and walked away along the surf's edge. Liam tossed the driftwood aside with a savage jerk, and Norton set out in pursuit with a joyful bark.

"d.a.m.n it," he said, lengthening his stride to catch up to her. "I warned you, Maca""

"The way you warned Caroline and Perry?" she said, trailing her sodden skirts. "You're good at that. Always need to be on top, huh?"