The Mistress

In one single moment she wanted it all. She wanted to experience his life of bold, glittering excess. She imagined awakening in an airy, light-filled chamber with a gentle swish of organdy curtains. Breakfast would be served on bone china by white-gloved servants, and they would spend the day surveying their beautiful estate. In the evening they would attend a musicale, visiting with friends who laughed easily, made lighthearted conversation and admired the famous Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.

Long after he stopped kissing her, she kept her eyes closed and her face angled toward his. Only the silken rustle of his laughter startled her back to reality. She blinked like a dreamer, awakening to find him laughing down at her.

“Where the devil are you, Kate?” he asked.

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I want to go there.”

Feeling sheepish, she stepped away from him. He tilted his head, peering shamelessly down her bodice. She smacked him on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound at all contrite. “I was just checking.”

“Checking what?”

“To see where that blush of yours starts. I’m having all sorts of ideas.”

This was how wealthy, privileged people behaved. This delicious flirtation with an edge of the forbidden. And she wanted it. Oh, how she wanted it.

A spark drifted past, alighting on her bare arm, and she brushed away the hot sting. A frisson of fear touched her like the ember. “I don’t think that strayed from a chimney pot,” she said.

“Could be a leftover from last night’s blaze at Conley’s Patch,” he remarked.

She frowned. Conley’s Patch was known as the devil’s acre, a lowly ramshackle neighborhood of saloons and brothels on the south side. How would a man like Dylan Kennedy know the first thing about the Patch?

Disconcerted, she turned to look out at the city. The sun had set hours before, but an orange glow painted the sky to the west.

“I think the fire’s spreading fast,” she said, worried.

At that same moment, the French door banged open. The wind slapped it against the building and one of the panes shattered. Lucy blustered forward and grabbed Kathleen’s arm.

“We’ve got to go,” she said. “We must get back to Miss Boylan’s before the bridges get too clogged with traffic.”

Kathleen pulled her arm away, and the cord of her reticule slid off her shoulder. “But—”

“There are rumors of a fire.”

“The fires aren’t just rumors,” Dylan said calmly. “There’ve been six a day and more because of the drought.”

Lucy regarded Dylan with narrowed eyes.

“Don’t worry, Miss Hathaway,” he said smoothly. “I was not behaving offensively.”

“Why not?” she asked. “All men do.”

Kathleen guessed she’d had a run-in with Mr. Higgins. “We really must go,” she said, reluctantly agreeing with Lucy.

“Yes, we must be getting back. Miss Boylan was quite insistent,” Lucy said. “Our curfew is ten o’clock.”

Even Cinderella had her midnight, Kathleen thought. But Cinderella was nothing but a story in a book, a dream of a magical evening that could never come true. Kathleen lived in Chicago, fires were troubling the city and it was foolish to cling to the masquerade any longer.

But she did have her private fantasies. She wanted Dylan Kennedy to think back on this night and remember the mysterious, sophisticated young woman who had kissed him with forbidden intimacy.

And so, in full view of Lucy, she wound her arms around his neck and planted a long, impassioned kiss on his mouth.

Chapter Three

Just like that, she was gone.

But Dylan could still taste the phantom sweetness of her, lingering on his lips. He could still detect the pliant warmth of her mouth pressed to his.

He could still feel the hard heat of the passion she inspired, and he was compelled to wait out on the balcony until he was fit for mixed company. Blowing out a breath of exasperation, he ran his finger around his collar, yearning to loosen his cravat. He couldn’t, of course. A gentleman never appeared with a less than perfectly tied cravat.

It was a great burden, being the most eligible bachelor in Chicago. If he’d realized the ruse was going to be this much trouble, he might have chosen something else—a divine prophet, perhaps, or a blind man. The guises had worked for him before.

Dylan Francis Kennedy, known in various other venues as the marquis de Bontemps, Sir Percival Blake, the Prophet Jephtha, and Dirk Steele—Man of the Comstock, used to consider himself the luckiest fellow in the whole U.S. of A. He breezed through life, donning different identities with the same ease as trying on a new chapeau. With his affable grin, his unusual physical abilities and his flamboyant style, he had fleeced a living from the smug, the self-satisfied, the richer-than-God, and he made no apologies for it.

But unfortunately, he’d arrived in Chicago with the notorious Vincent Costello dogging his heels. Under normal circumstances, Dylan would have the means to dodge his former partner. The smell of money never failed to put Vince off the scent. But this time, things were complicated.

This time, Dylan was flat broke.

Worse, Costello was flat broke, too. That made him cranky and unpredictable.

Dylan had arrived “from the Continent”—that always impressed the right people—with less than two bits to his name. The very notion grated. There had been times when he had stood poised just inches from total success, only to have a deal go bad or a mark wise up. He usually had a knack for salvaging something from the ashes.

Not this time. This time, escape had cost him everything, including the clothes on his back. He had wanted a change from the life of burlesque performing and carnival tricks that had kept him and Costello in the money. He’d grown tired of thrilling the crowds with his daredevil tricks while Vince picked pockets and collected wager markers from the onlookers. Most of all, he’d needed to escape Costello’s daughter Faith, who had imprisoned him with the mistaken belief that he would marry her.

During a stint in Buffalo, Dylan decided the time had come to disappear. He had to get away from them, for they were getting too close in ways that made him hot under the collar. He didn’t know how to be close to people, and he didn’t want to know.

And so, on a bet, the famous marquis de Bontemps was to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Dylan had done the stunt several times, curiously unperturbed by the violence of the raging cataract that lured so many tourists and daredevils from around the world. He studied the odds, chose his spot, measured his chances and then, while hundreds watched one evening, he had done the unthinkable. He had fallen. He’d gone over Niagara Falls. The horrified people who had watched him plunge to his death, who had wept to see a fine young man cut down in his prime, had forgotten all about the wager. And Dylan, who had carefully practiced the maneuver of falling, clinging to the underside of a boulder, then pulling himself along a cable to the Canadian side, had fought his way to shore in the dark. He had stolen away to the west, leaving his partner behind.

Or so he had thought. Costello probably grew suspicious when no body was recovered. Dylan should have known Costello would hunt him down like a bloodhound. Bleed him dry like a stuck pig. Or worse, make him marry Faith like a decent man.

Dylan needed a big touch, and he needed it soon.

Pressing his fist on the carved concrete rail of the balcony, he cursed the timing of the fire. And here of all places. He and all his aliases were unknown in Chicago, so he’d considered the city fertile ground for reinventing himself. He had finagled a spot on every elite guest list in town, but the masquerade would be over if someone discovered his serious cash flow problems. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep up the illusion of being the man of the hour.

The woman in the green silk gown had fluttered into his life like a petal on a breeze. No, he corrected himself, like a guardian angel. When he had met the heiress, who let him address her by the delightful nickname “Kate,” he thought his prayers had been answered. Her gown was Worth, her diamonds were genuine and her looks and personality enchanting.

She was clearly loaded with a fortune that needed a bit of lightening—preferably by Dylan. Pushing his face into the swirling hot tempest, he rotated his shoulders and glared out at the distant horizon, shimmering now with a fire in the west. It was going to be a long night.

“Damn,” he said, letting the howling wind snatch the curse away. And again, “Damn.”

He had been so close to winning her over. Even when he thought he’d have to work to earn her kisses, she had simply given him one. Given him a kiss and left, a spark on the wind.

If only he’d had a little more time, he would have succeeded with her. He could sense the opening bud of her interest. He almost dared to think he’d actually enjoy stealing from her. Generally, spoiled heiresses were a tough lot. They required a great deal of maintenance: cosseting, flattery, heartfelt pronouncements of utter devotion, promises from the bottom of his heart. Not this one. She was beautiful and merry. He would have had fun taking a fortune from her. She would have loved being taken by him.

Sadly for him, she had disappeared before he could learn more about her, capture her heart and steal her money. Perhaps he could track her down at…whose house were they going to? Miss Boylan? Who the hell was Miss Boylan?