Mary McBride - Darling Jack

“I’ve never dreamed of anything,” Anna answered, and then felt her cheeks flush because that wasn’t exactly true. She had, in fact, dreamed of the man across the table from her now. And that bed, which was still looming like some square and monolithic granite monument in her head. “Well, nothing much,” she added in a whisper. She cleared her throat, lifted her chin and forced a hopeful smile. “So, we’re in pursuit of the baroness, then? Has she stolen more jewels?”

“Probably.” Jack let out a bitter, almost brutal laugh. Its viciousness surprised even him. He wasn’t used to disclosing his emotions that way. “It doesn’t matter. Not even if she’s made off with the crown jewels. What matters is Chloe’s Gold.”

“She stole gold?”

The mouse’s blue eyes were huge behind her glasses, magnified by candlelight and curiosity. They were an intense blue. For a second, Jack felt as if he were swimming in their depths. Another little jolt of electricity shot through him. He sat up straighter in his chair.

He infused his voice with cool condescension that was in marked contrast with his body. “Chloe’s Gold is the baroness’s Thoroughbred stallion. A racehorse, Mrs. Matlin.”

“Oh. I see.” Her mouth tightened then—thank the Lord!—and she edged backward a bit, as if some of the air had gone out of her, while Jack watched a succession of emotions cross her face like banner headlines. Disappointment Embarrassment. Chagrin at having expressed such unmouselike enthusiasm. Sadness at having that enthusiasm splashed with his curt cold water.

Damn! This wasn’t about the mouse!

Even so, he tried to soften his tone. “They’re opening a new racecourse in St. Louis next month, Mrs. Mathn, and running a race called the Carondelet Stakes, which promises a lucrative purse to the winner. Chloe’s Gold is undefeated.” He paused to let his tongue pass over his dry lips. “Naturally, the baroness will be there. And so, Mrs. Matlin, will we.”

She sat quietly a moment, repositioning her lenses, contemplating the rim of her coffee cup, chewing her lower lip, before asking politely, “To what end, Mr. Hazard? You haven’t explained—”

“To the baroness’s end,” he growled. Then he stood, so abruptly the water goblets sloshed over their rims onto the white linen tablecloth and, behind him, his chair tipped over. “Are you quite through, Mrs. Matlin?”

They were at the door of their room—Hazard having rushed her through the lobby, up the stairs and down the dimly lit corridor—when Anna remembered she hadn’t addressed one extremely important particular.

The bed It loomed up before her when Hazard pushed open the door. Its white linens shimmered in the lamplight.

“After you.” He gestured with a fine, courtly hand.

She simply stood there, her feet numb, her mind a blank, her vision filled with plumped pillows and starched dustruffles and the counterpane that had been invitingly, almost lovingly, turned back.

“What—?” Johnathan Hazard’s voice, so near her ear now, lowered to the depths of the chuckle in his throat. “The bed? Is that what you’re worried about?”

Anna nodded. At least she thought she did. Her neck was stiff with tension. It took a monumental effort to turn and lift her gaze to the man standing so close behind her.

In the dim hallway, it was difficult to read the expression on his face, but her first impression was of sweetness. There was a softness to his features that she’d never seen before. And then he grinned. Not his usual devil-may-care and cavalier grin. But a sweet, almost shy tilt of his lips.

“Don’t worry, little mouse,” he said softly. “The bed’s all yours. The pillows, too. Every fold and feather.”

His hand was warm on her back as he gave her a little nudge across the threshold.

“But where will you—?”

“I don’t sleep much, Mrs. Matlin.” The tender warmth she had only just heard in his voice seemed to have dissipated, replaced by a thin chill as he strode past Anna toward his valise on the opposite side of the room. He opened it and, while Anna watched, lifted out something swaddled in cotton cloth that he proceeded to unwrap with meticulous care.

It was a bottle! A bottle of whiskey! So it was true, she thought suddenly. All the gossip in the hallways, and all those whispered hints about Johnathan Hazard’s drinking, were true. She had worried about that earlier, but then had cast those niggling doubts about him aside. To her knowledge, the man hadn’t had a drop of liquor all day—nothing on the train, and nothing more than coffee with his supper.

“What are you looking at, Mrs. Matlin?”

He was lowering himself into the chair beside the small writing table now, placing the bottle before him, keeping his hand on it, as if he feared she might snatch it away.

“Is that disapproval I read behind those windowpanes you’re always wearing?” he added harshly. “What have you heard, Mrs. Matlin? That I’m a lush? That Jack Hazard prefers looking at the world through the green glass of a whiskey bottle, or perhaps up from the perspective of the gutter?”

Anna bit her lip and shook her head, even though that was precisely what she had heard. “There was gossip,” she said. “I never gave it much credence.”

His hand clenched more tightly around the bottle now. “Well, you should have. It’s all true.”

Her jaw slackened, and Anna could feel her breath passing in and out through her open lips. There were no words, though. She didn’t know what to say. Johnathan Hazard sat there, glaring at her, silently demanding that she be shocked or affronted or even disgusted by his admission, when all she felt was an overwhelming sadness for him and a sudden, nearly desperate urge to help him, which made no sense to her at all, since she was the one—a woman alone in a hotel room with a man—who so obviously needed help.

“It’s nothing you have to worry about,” he said before she could speak. He smiled a little crookedly then, as if he had been imbibing from the bottle, rather than merely clutching it. “My tendency toward dissipation isn’t contagious, Mrs. Matlin, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It isn’t.”

“Good. And, as you’ve no doubt noticed, I am not, at the moment, drinking. I am merely caressing the bottle, which is what I will continue to do until our assignment is finished. After that…” His smile thinned to nothing, and his voice trailed off for a moment.

Still not knowing what to say, Anna perched on a corner of the bed and began to unlace her shoes. She sensed Hazard’s blue-gray eyes on her. Even across the room, she could hear a ragged edge to his breathing. For a moment she thought she could almost feel his pain.

She glanced at him, but he was staring at the bottle in his fist now.

When he spoke, he didn’t look at her, and his voice sounded faraway, almost ancient, infinitely weary. “Please feel comfortable with me, Mrs. Matlin, and feel free to do whatever it is you do when preparing to retire for the night. I’ve already seen everything there is to see, and I’ve done everything there is to do. I want nothing from you, little mouse. Believe me.”

She did, and his words provoked a distinct surge of relief in Anna. But that relief came coupled with a sadness she didn’t quite understand. A sadness she wasn’t altogether certain she ever wanted to comprehend.

A flat-bottomed ferry carried them down and across the Mississippi River from Alton to St. Louis, and transported Anna out of Illinois for the first time in her life. She sat by the railing, contemplating the water, wondering how anything the color of mud could manage to glitter so brilliantly in the warm May sunlight. Ahead, on the river’s western bank, the city of St. Louis was coming into view. Unlike Alton, which nestled upon high green bluffs, St. Louis marched right down to the riverbank in rows of red brick, granite, and twinkling window glass.