“And you, Cassandra? Did you enjoy my company as well?”
Two bright spots of color flagged her cheeks, and her eyes went suddenly dark. Glancing away, she toyed with the brooch, the nervous flutter of her fingertips a dead give-away. Luke recognized the signs. For all her angelic behavior, she wasn’t unaffected by him.
“I, um…” She drew her gaze back to his. “Yes, I enjoyed your company very much.”
Luke took her hand and bent over it in the most courtly fashion. As his lips brushed the back of her wrist, a feeling very like hunger clawed at his middle, and it took all his self-control not to let the polite gesture turn into a full-blown kiss. If he once tasted that ivory skin, he feared he might try to devour her, much as Tigger had the potato earlier. “In that case, Miss Zerek, perhaps I’ll accept your invitation and come again sometime.”
“I hope you will.”
Even as she spoke, Luke saw the sudden wariness in her eyes. Did she sense what he was thinking, or his intense neediness?
Need for what? Luke asked himself as he released her hand. The question eddied like a black riptide inside him.
He smiled slightly as he turned away and strode back to the gate. Miss Zerek’s instincts served her well. Less than an hour ago, he’d been going through his list of female acquaintances, searching his mind for just one woman who might be remotely suitable as his paid companion. Someone pleasing to the male eye, who still managed to look sweet and seem innocent. Someone whose company he’d find entertaining. Cassandra Zerek was exactly what he’d been looking for.
Oh, yes…she had every reason to be wary of him.
Luke Taggart had just found his live-in mistress.
Luke never hesitated once he set his mind on a goal. So instead of going directly home after leaving the church, as he had originally planned, he retraced his steps to the Golden Slipper. As he strode at a rapid clip along the familiar streets, he discovered that his mood had changed from gloomy to expectant. As he walked, he settled a plan in his mind.
Workers at the mine changed shifts at six sharp every evening. Milo Zerek, who worked days, would be getting off in an hour and ten minutes, and when he exited the mining tunnel, Luke intended to be waiting outside to intercept him. He had a proposition to make to the older man, a very generous proposition, and he didn’t intend to take no for an answer.
To pass the time until six, Luke decided to play some high-stakes poker. He rarely made a mistake or a bad decision; the fortune he’d amassed and the power he wielded gave testimony to that. But he soon discovered that his thoughts weren’t on the game. Since spending those few minutes with Cassandra Zerek in the churchyard, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Instead of the cards, he kept seeing a laughing angel with a wind-tousled halo of sable hair and the body of a temptress.
His gaze settled thoughtfully on a group of men gathered around a set of scales at the bar, where Harvey, the barkeep, measured out gold dust as viable tender to finance his customers’ evening festivities. Not really seeing what he was looking at, Luke conjured a picture of Cassandra’s face. She was lovely and wholesome-looking, just the kind of woman he’d been thinking about hiring as a paid companion, and he couldn’t stop imagining her in his bed, those lovely cobalt eyes filled with sultry yearnings.
“Hey, Mr. Taggart, you gonna play?”
Luke thumbed the Liberty head on a ten-dollar gold piece, commonly known as an eagle for the bird imprinted on its reverse side, and tossed in the coin to ante up. “Sorry, gentlemen. I’m a little distracted this evening.” He smiled slightly. “I ran across something I never expected to see today—a young woman from the miners’ district who seemed to be a virginal innocent.”
The mismatched group around the table, well-groomed businessmen and grimy miners out for a little gaming before they started their night shift, all looked up. One, a whiskery rock-buster named Fred, snorted loudly. “What was she—a twelve-year-old?”
“Somewhere between eighteen and twenty would be my guess,” Luke replied.
One of the younger miners laughed. “Mr. Taggart, no disrespect intended, but maybe you’re needin’ spectacles. There ain’t a girl over twelve in the whole of shantytown what’s still got a cherry. I get me a little pert’near every mornin’ comin’ in from the mine. The girls linger there at the far end of miners’ row, just waitin’ for us gents, all of ’em eager to lift their skirts for the bits of dust we can brush off our shirtsleeves.”
No stranger to miners’ row himself, nor oblivious to the girls who plied their wares there, Luke arched an eyebrow. “I have to admit, this girl’s looks bewildered me. She seemed to”—he hesitated, not wanting to sound the fool—“I don’t know. There was this sort of glow about her.”