The Northern Devil Read online

  Hope burned deep in Collins’s heart. God willing, if he played on Leventhorpe’s desire to avenge Maitland, he’d have an ally here.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Maitland,” Leventhorpe responded, with only the slightest hesitation. “My father will be very glad to hear I’ve made the acquaintance of the next generation of Collinses.”

  Maitland bowed again, more deeply.

  Collins’s lips thinned. His boy always did have such perfect manners in public. Damn the bitch for ruining his chances of becoming a great name in society!

  “What can I do for you, Collins? I admit that it’s a surprise to see you here, so far from any ocean.” Leventhorpe’s gaze slipped briefly back to Maitland before he brought himself under control.

  “As I mentioned in my cable, we’re traveling to Nevada on business,” Collins began smoothly. “It’s urgent stuff, so we must stay with the work train and cannot linger here as we’d like. Please convey my sincere regrets to your wife.”

  Leventhorpe nodded. “She’ll be sorry to have missed you.”

  “Given the season and the harsh weather so far, I was hoping you could show us something of your equipment and preparations, to assure us of safe passage over the high mountains.”

  “My pleasure.” Leventhorpe turned away from the station and started walking toward the roundhouse. “But if you’re traveling with the work train, we only have a few minutes. What are you particularly interested in?”

  Collins could almost feel his dirk slipping into his hand. Now to arrange the bitch’s downfall!

  “I understand you have another snowplow, kept here to ensure the safety of the passenger trains.”

  Leventhorpe frowned slightly. “Indeed we do.”

  “A backup, in effect, to travel directly with one of the passenger sections?”

  “Yes, or replace the work train’s snowplow, if it’s damaged.”

  “Excellent, excellent. I am delighted to hear that the Union Pacific is so well managed.”

  He stopped a few paces away from the roundhouse, near the woodshed. Hats over their faces, the half-breed and his young friend were drowsing in a patch of sunlight, leaning against a wall and just out of earshot.

  Young Leventhorpe was studying Collins very closely now. Of course, he’d be aware of how often the Union Pacific’s efficiency had been compared to the Central Pacific’s and found wanting—especially after last winter. “What are you thinking of?”

  Collins met his eyes directly, allowing his jovial mask to drop. “A prudent man would make certain that this snowplow was always in the best possible condition, in order to guarantee that those passengers always traveled safely. Correct?”

  Leventhorpe nodded curtly.

  “It’s a minor curiosity that the individual responsible for my son’s, ah, difficulties in speaking is traveling on the section immediately following this work train,” Collins finished softly.

  The other man’s eyes narrowed. “The devil you say!”

  “Hell, yes,” Maitland agreed, somehow managing to be intelligible.

  Leventhorpe clasped his hands behind his back and turned to stare toward the east—and the individual’s train. He paced beside the track, occasionally pausing to survey the machine shop.

  Collins contained his impatience, watching the very properly dressed man who just might get that bitch much delayed.

  Leventhorpe turned back to them, his expression impassive behind his spectacular mustache.

  “You are entirely correct: This snowplow must be treated with the utmost care. This winter has been long and hard and the plow should be thoroughly serviced immediately, which will take at least a week.” His Georgia accent was very deep, in an amazing contrast to his words’ decisiveness. “It will not be available to travel with any passenger train in the meantime.”

  Maitland started to say something hot and approving, but Collins elbowed his son hard in the ribs. He gravely inclined his head to the master of this enterprise. “Well done, sir, well done. Your grandfather would have been very proud of you, showing simultaneous appreciation for both human life and your employer’s property.”

  They smiled at each other in perfect understanding.

  The work train’s whistle blew the signal for departure. Dozens of men tumbled out of the station and began to trot toward her. The half-breed and his young friend slowly straightened up and returned to the work train, tugging scarves up until their faces were warm and invisible.

  Rachel lifted her head and tried to see over her husband’s chest to the clock. “Shouldn’t we be in Cheyenne soon?”

  He didn’t move a muscle. “Another five minutes or so.”

  She squeaked and started to sit up in bed. “But we can see the Rockies from here!”

  He yawned. “One mountain, not even an entire range.”

  She leaned on her elbow and looked down at him. “It must be covered in snow.”

  “Probably—but so are the prairies.”

  “Are there forests, too?”

  “The Black Hills, which are straight ahead to the west, have pine forests.”

  “We can look at those. Aren’t there animals other than prairie dogs?

  He shrugged. “Lots of antelopes, which make good steaks. Personally, I’d rather observe my wife.”

  He ran a possessive—and highly flirtatious—hand over her derrière.

  She gawked at him and somehow refrained from asking, Even after all of last night and this morning?

  Aurelia Grainger had gone into noisy hysterics after Lucas’s bitter accusations and his father had immediately taken her off the Empress. Lucas had snatched Rachel into his arms, holding her so tightly as to almost crush her, and swept her into their stateroom for a bout of frantic lovemaking.

  They still hadn’t left it.

  They’d spent the rest of the evening in their bed, alternately making love, sleeping, snacking on Lawson’s delicious offerings—and never conversing. Lucas hadn’t said a word of explanation about his parents or his childhood.

  Her heart had broken for him a thousand times whenever she’d thought of the agony he must have gone through, blaming himself for his sister’s death, slowly realizing that he couldn’t have prevented it, growing into today’s strong man—and, all the while, being continually tortured by his mother’s accusations and his father’s demands. She wondered if they’d ever, once, simply asked him to lead a moral life and let him define how to do so. But she was almost certain they’d never listened to him, only harangued or ordered him.

  She hadn’t the heart to raise a single question, only to let him do as he pleased—and give him everything he asked for.

  He cocked an eye at her. “Do you truly want to get dressed, Mrs. Grainger? Put on all those clothes and go out into the cold?”

  She hesitated. “What do you have in mind?” she inquired, very cautiously.

  He rubbed the back of his forefinger very lightly up and down the center of her chest between her collarbone and her breasts. In some ways, it was a perfectly proper caress. In other respects, it sent the most amazing shivers all the way down to her toes, making her want to toss her head back. “What do you have in mind?” she repeated, with a definite tremor in her voice.

  “Play a game in here, instead.”

  “Game?”

  “Rachel, sweetheart, it occurs to me that if you’re going to inquire so much about the local scenery, I should receive a reward for giving you so many answers.”

  She frowned, torn between wanting to smack him—for placing conditions on a simple discussion!—or pull him closer. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll tie you up—very gently so you won’t be hurt. While I do exactly what I want with you, you can ask me any question you want.”

  Something inside her promptly purred and wanted to hurl herself at him. She froze, caught off guard by her own reactions.

  “Do you object to that?”

  She considered, then shook her head vigorously. “Not by you, not in
the bedroom. I’m sure you’d never hurt me.”

  He looked as if she’d given him all the keys of the kingdom. “Thank you for your trust.”

  She smiled at him a little crookedly and went back to thinking hard.

  Was this some silly bedroom game about orders and obedience? Given the lack of trust that he’d experienced while growing up, did he need her to prove her trust in him, here and now? If so, it seemed easy enough, especially if doing so made him happier.

  What harm could there be in agreeing? As long as she talked, he’d answer—and heaven knows, she’d always been able to talk for a long time. It would give her the opportunity to teach him how to converse in the bedchamber. It was also, as ever with Lucas, guaranteed to be extremely enjoyable.

  She tilted her head back and smiled up at him. “Very well, my dear.”

  “The next station after Cheyenne is Hazard, then Otto and Granite Canyon, about twenty miles away,” Lucas said briskly. “Stand up, darling.”

  She gulped and did exactly what he’d told her, ripples running through her skin. How could those simple, matter-of-fact words have had such a profound effect on her? If she tried to stand up, she honestly thought her knees would buckle under her.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Remember you can ask questions all the time.”

  Questions? Oh yes, to teach Lucas about civilized behavior, like conversation in the bedroom. “What does the scenery look like at Granite, ah, Granite Canyon?”

  “We’ll have risen six hundred feet—very quickly, too. The snowfall’s heavy enough that the locals build snow fences from limestone dikes, as well as strong timber.”

  There was a disturbing bit of information there, but she didn’t have the energy to find it.

  “Now lie down on the center of the bed, please.”

  His soft command sent a surge of lust through her, shaking her to the core. She obeyed him all too easily and lay down on her back.

  He produced a very soft cashmere stole and wound it around her wrists. He tied it to the center of the headboard, securing it around a deeply hooked carving. She could have easily freed herself. But it seemed very, very ridiculous to think about escape techniques when she was watching hunger for her build in Lucas’s eyes.

  He stretched, as totally immodest as ever. She watched him avidly, his male beauty firing her heat like the sound of the train rumbling through his bedroom.

  Trains…Traveling. She hadn’t asked any questions for a few moments. It would be far harder to do so once he touched her again, especially if he did so with his talented mouth.

  She closed her eyes and tried frantically to think. But about what?

  She rubbed her legs against each other, wishing she could free her hands and pleasure herself. Her hips twisted against the embroidered cotton coverlet.

  She’d never yet been able to give him oral attentions…

  She started to open one eye but forced herself to stop. Who knew when she’d have this chance again?

  “Is Granite Canyon the highest point on the railroad?” Thank God, there was nothing in the bargain about her voice being crystal clear.

  “No, Sherman follows thirteen miles later, the highest point on any railroad in the world.”

  He wrapped his mouth around one of her nipples, through her chemise, and suckled her. The warm, wet tug of his mouth sent a fiery jolt from her nipple through her spine and into her core.

  Rachel bucked hard against him, crying out his name.

  He kneaded her gently and licked her again, pleasuring her as if the silk wasn’t there.

  She moaned and writhed under him. She tried to think of another question for him. But conversation seemed very trivial when her nipple was being transformed into an exquisitely taut center of sensation under his mouth.

  His skillful fingers circled her other breast, bringing it into the same circle of delight.

  He lapped at her, used his teeth and his fingers to send shards of lust dancing across her skin and into her bones. Explored a thousand different avenues to excite her, always willing to repeat the ones that delighted her.

  Logic slipped out of reach.

  She couldn’t have said why she breathed, when her lungs existed to push her breasts up toward his mouth for more attention. Her skin was hot, crackling with desperation—yet her core was melting with liquid fire. Cream slipped onto her thighs and she rubbed them together.

  He whispered her name against her throat.

  She lifted herself against him, begging for more of his touch, begging for fulfillment.

  Her body clenched, pulsing from her breasts to her core. Fire lanced through her veins, bringing her nipples erect.

  Lucas’s hand swept up her thigh and fondled her folds.

  Rapture hung so agonizingly close. “Lucas, please, soon, please…”

  He lifted her leg and came into her, with a skillful twist of his hips. Her intimate folds, exquisitely trapped between his shaft and her leg, sent a ravenous jolt of pleasure up her spine.

  “Lucas, oh yes…”

  Then he rolled, turning her to face him, though she was still tied to the bed. He thrust, slowly, his face a mask of concentrated lust.

  Dear heavens, he was big and perfect. Another hungry surge shot through her.

  Her channel wrapped itself around him. He was her husband and he’d be the father of her children. Anything he wanted, she’d give him. She writhed against him, desperate for rapture, aching for his seed.

  His shaft came back into her, velvet soft skin, fiery hot, granite hard—an infinity of sensations against her pearl, a microcosm in itself.

  “Lucas!”

  He thrust slowly, drawing out every moment of entering and pulling out only to return. Giving her every aching pulse of agonizing tenderness, infinite cherishing.

  Her breath matched every move of his, her pulse beating with his. Even the deep, heavy throb of oncoming rapture in her hips and thighs matched how his hips rocked against hers.

  He thrust in more deeply and fondled her pearl. “Come for me now, Rachel!”

  She spun into ecstasy, spiraling through a web of light. Her channel clenched him, hard, milking him rhythmically.

  He growled and climaxed, his body matching her waves of pleasure with rich, hot floods of his seed.

  Afterward, he took the scarf off her wrists with a single quick twist and cuddled her, still lying side by side, facing her.

  Rachel laid her head back down on his shoulder and tried not to sigh. If only Lucas’s lovemaking didn’t feel like the actions of a man determined never to show his own heart.

  Somewhere it had to be daylight, bright and shining as an afternoon should be. But not here, high in the Black Hills, where the snow had been falling ever since they left Cheyenne. She could no longer see the open prairies, stretching for uncounted miles in every direction.

  It was most especially not true, when traveling through endless wooden snowsheds. This was like moving through a covered bridge where it was possible only occasionally to glimpse the outside world. Black snowdrifts built up inside and out, filthy from cinders. Even the train’s normal sounds were muffled inside, so that the tracks’ continual clacketyclack became more of a dull kerthump-kerthump and the whistle was an occasional whoosh, rather than the great, echoing wail. The train was jolting, too, much more than on the flat prairies.

  Imprisonment on Collins’s Ledge had been easier. There, all she’d had to do was look out a window and see the wide Atlantic. Now, the world existed only a few feet beyond the Empress in any direction and was drawing closer, as the snow built up next to the tracks inside the snowshed.

  There were rumors of heavier storms in the Utah mountains ahead, strong enough to slow the previous days’ trains.

  Lucas had gone forward to the UPRR Pullman car, saying something about inspecting everyone’s firearms. While Elias had once shown her how to use his cavalry revolver, she had no desire to be around a drawing room of men p
laying with revolvers, knives, and rifles.

  She could almost rethink that decision now, except for the difficulty of passing from railroad car to railroad car in this appalling weather.

  She drummed her fingers on the drawing room table, watching the dim light flicker through the snowshed’s timbers. She definitely needed to stay outside at the next watering stop, no matter what Lucas said about her chances of catching lung fever.

  The Empress had a small library, its volumes chosen more for their binding’s beauty than their literary merit. Perhaps if she read one, she might drift into Morpheus’s arms and stop thinking about the walls of snow closing around her.

  The cellar walls were icy cold, as dark and unyielding as a blizzard’s bowels. Even the floor below her was solid and the ceiling was less than an arm’s length above her head. If she took a deep breath, she’d choke on the dank air.

  Rachel stretched out her arms, searching, searching for an escape. Behind her, to the left or the right. Anywhere.

  Maitland tossed his torch from one hand to the other, the hissing flames reflected in his red-rimmed eyes. “Go ahead—run. You know how much I like it when girls run.”

  She shrank back against the wall, certain there was another choice. Instantly, the wet went through her dress and into her skin.

  She jumped.

  Maitland laughed and swung the torch toward her in a great arc.

  Rachel screamed and screamed and screamed…

  “Rachel, darling! Sweetheart, please wake up.” Lucas was shaking her very gently by her shoulders. A single soft lamp showed that they were in their stateroom, in their wondrous bed.

  Rachel threw herself at him.

  He grunted in surprise and hugged her, quickly wrapping the embroidered silk coverlet around her shoulders. He patted her a little awkwardly.

  She gave a little chirrup of relief and burrowed closer, sniffling.

  Thank God his first instinct was to give affection. Perhaps as compensation for his hellish childhood.

  “Are you crying?” He sounded horrified.

  She swallowed hard. “Of–of course not.”