Nan Ryan - Naughty Marietta

Nevertheless, Maltese had high hopes that one day Marietta would be naked in a candlelit room with him and there would be no screen between them. He would be the one helping press the dampened sponge to her heated body.

This pleasant fantasy continued as Marietta finished her bath and got dressed. When she stepped out from behind the screen, she was fully clothed and fully aware that she had given her aging caller all the excitement he could handle for one evening. Nothing more would be required of her. A sumptuous dinner at the Castle Top and then a good-night peck on the cheek.

Maltese would leave her a happy man.

Cole joined the departing crowd.

He left the opera house, but he did not immediately go to the hotel. Crossing the street, he approached a false-fronted business, now darkened and closed for the night. He stepped into the shadows of the roof’s low overhang, turned and leaned back against the building. Arms crossed, Cole stood looking up at the top floor of the opera house.

Marietta’s private quarters.

Cole wondered if she was up there now, entertaining her aging Romeo. He recoiled at the thought and quickly looked away.

From where he stood, he could see down the alley directly beside the opera house. The tall, spare man he’d observed in Maltese’s private box was posted there by a side door near the back of the building.

Cole watched him for a moment, then looked back to the front of the theater. The crowd had thinned dramatically. Only a few stragglers remained on the sidewalk, talking, getting into carriages. Two men stood out—both were big, burly fellows dressed in work shirts and buckskins. Undoubtedly, the Burnett brothers that Harry the barkeep had told him about. Cole studied the brothers for a while, sizing them up, wondering how he was ever going to slip Marietta past them.

His attention was drawn once more down the side alley, when the door opened and out into the mountain moonlight stepped Marietta and her middle-aged lover.

Cole sank farther back into the shadows. He watched as the couple came up the alley toward the street. They turned onto the sidewalk and into the glow of the gaslights lining the avenue.

Again Cole was struck by Marietta’s incredible beauty and for a moment he sorely envied the silver-haired man with whom she shared her time and her charms.

Cole’s jaw tightened.

He continued to watch as the couple, arm in arm, strolled up the street. The scar-faced bodyguard called Lightnin’ followed a few paces behind. Marietta and Maltese soon entered the bustling Castle Top restaurant at the top of the hill. Lightnin’ stayed outside. An armed, unmoving, black-clad sentinel.

Cole again glanced directly across the street. The Burnett brothers still loitered outside the opera house. They would, he surmised, be waiting when Marietta got home.

Cole pushed away from the building and headed for his hotel. Back at the Teller House he undressed without lighting the lamp, tossing his clothes over a chair. He mulled over what he had seen and heard. And he grimaced.

Old Maxwell Lacey’s beautiful red-haired granddaughter was the mistress of a wealthy, powerful man who was old enough to be her father. And it would not be simple or easy to whisk the gold-digging beauty away from Central City. Not with the lovesick Maltese certain to interfere.

Naked, Cole crawled into bed. He yawned and thought back over the evening. Like a quick jolt of adrenaline came the unforgettable moment when he’d gotten his very first glimpse of the gorgeous Marietta. Cole felt himself stir at the vivid recollection. She was without doubt the most beautiful, the most innocent-looking, the most desirable woman he had ever seen.

He wanted her. Wanted her now. Wished that she was here, naked in his arms.

Cole exhaled with frustration and silently cursed himself. He flopped over onto his stomach and pressed his surging erection into the softness of the mattress. He gritted his teeth, cursed his weakness and waited for this quick burst of unwanted desire to pass. He was annoyed with himself. And he was surprised. It wasn’t as though it had been weeks since he’d had a woman. He’d had one just last night in Denver. What the hell was wrong with him?

Cole waited impatiently for the stirring sexual hunger to subside. All at once he recalled the discordant sound of Marietta’s singing voice. He could hear it ringing in his ears. That did the trick. Desire fled. Heat passed. Cole relaxed.

He heaved a sigh of relief, turned onto his back, folded his hands beneath his head and wondered idly if the beautiful opera singer was in love with the Maltese mining magnate.

No, she wasn’t. He’d bet his ten thousand against it. Harry, the barkeep, had said Maltese purchased the newly built Tivoli Opera House solely so that Marietta could star in all the productions. Marietta was cleverly, cold-heartedly using the lovesick Maltese to further her fledgling singing career.

Cole lay awake pondering how best to get the heartless little gold digger back to Galveston. He decided he’d have to spend a few days in town before he tried anything. He’d watch her closely, check out where she went and when. And with whom. Try to catch her away from her big bodyguards. If he could get her alone for just a moment, he would introduce himself. Tell her he was a fan.

Cole briefly considered courting her, but decided against it. He wasn’t that big a heel. He would simply level with her. Admit that he had come to Central City to escort her home to Galveston and her waiting grandfather.

After all, he wasn’t sure she would refuse to go.

“New York. London. Rome. Amsterdam. Madrid!” exclaimed a glowing Marietta after the morning’s rehearsals. “Andreas, tell me that one day I shall sing in all those cities’ fine opera houses!”

The other players had left the opera house as soon as rehearsals had ended. Only Marietta, Sophia and the opera’s artistic director, Andreas, remained on-stage.

Andreas, a slender, refined man with sandy hair, a pencil-thin mustache and a fondness for the red-haired Marietta, smiled indulgently but was noncommittal.

He said, “My dear child, before you can hope to appear in the opera houses of London and New York, you must spend years mastering your craft. Listening to Madam Sophia, doing as she instructs. Learning, practicing, improving.”

This was not what Marietta had wanted to hear. She sighed heavily and sank onto a chair. “Andreas, you know very well how much I practice. That’s all I do all day, every day. Tell him, Sophia.”

The rotund Madam Sophia agreed. “She works very hard, Andreas. Perhaps too hard.”

The discerning artistic director, like the voice coach Madam Sophia, was all too cognizant of the unfortunate fact that the long hours of practice were not going to make a great deal of difference. Marietta, bless her, beautiful though she was and possessed of a great stage presence, was never going to sing in Rome and Madrid. She simply did not have the voice. But Andreas did not have the heart to tell her.

“Marietta,” Andreas said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “I believe Madam Sophia is right. You’ve been practicing too much. Both you and Sophia need to take a rest. Why don’t you get out of that costume, get dressed up in something attractive and go out for a walk or a carriage ride.” He smiled and added, “The fresh mountain air will be good for you.”

Marietta’s weariness instantly fled. She jumped up out of the chair. “You mean it?” She looked from Andreas to Sophia. Both nodded. Her emerald eyes now sparkling, she mused aloud, “I could go shopping or out to lunch. Or just take a walk. I’d enjoy that so.”

“And it would be good for you,” Madam Sophia said.