Steal Me, Sweet Thief Read online

  "You have caused quite a stir in our little hamlet, I must tell you," the doctor went on, palpating her throat with big, gentle fingers. "It seems as if half of the country has been looking for you, and suddenly you have turned up on my doorstep. Open your mouth, please."

  Half of the country? Looking for her? Beaumarche's words astonished her, and she wished he would tell her more. Blessedly, he did.

  " 'Where is Geneva Lionwood?' " he intoned, chuckling as he looked down into her throat. "It has been in all of the papers. Your disappearance nearly overshadowed the opening of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Of course, no one knows you are here. Yet. And it will remain so, until you or one of your mysterious friends reveals your whereabouts. And Miss Brooks has proven remarkably adept at keeping a secret."

  Camilla! Geneva's heart leaped. Her excitement must have shown on her features, for Dr. Beaumarche smiled down at her benignly.

  "Miss Brooks showed much the same enthusiasm when she saw you. She is a singer herself, you know. She performs nightly at The Hall. Your throat looks fine." He sounded both encouraged and puzzled. "Are you quite sure you cannot speak?"

  Geneva nodded, realizing that she was terrified to try again, lest she find that her voice was gone for good and all. Dr. Beaumarche sat back in the caned chair, crossing his arms before his chest, regarding her with pursed lips.

  "Perhaps rest is what you need," he pronounced finally. "And a chance to regain your strength. You are going through quite an ordeal, but the worst of it may be behind you. The laudanum has worked through your system, and your burns have healed nicely. Good food and sunshine may be all that is yet required, and fortunately both are in abundance here in New Orleans. Of course, we must remove you to a suitable hotel as soon as possible."

  Dr. Beaumarche stood up, straightening his collar and pushing his silver-rimmed spectacles up his broad, black nose. "You are a fortunate woman, Miss Lionwood." he declared. "But you have a long recovery yet ahead of you."

  Geneva's heart swelled with renewed gratitude for the man. "Thank you," she mouthed, but did not attempt to give body to her words.

  He regarded her with a steady, unsmiling gaze.

  "It has been my pleasure, Miss Lionwood. Now please rest. I believe your voice will return. I will look in on you later."

  She was alone. She realized, surprised, that she wanted very much to see Kieran Macalester, to convince herself that the nightmare of the past few weeks had ended at last. She wanted… She wanted many things from Mac, she realized with a quick pang of sadness. Most of which she would probably never get.

  Her next visitor was not the outlaw but Camilla Brooks, looking prosperous and effervescent in a gown of fuchsia and white, complete with an intimidating piece of millinery to which she was equal. Geneva, while admiring the couture, could not help but experience a stab of jealousy: Here she was with nothing but a borrowed nightgown to call her own, her hair in God alone knew what state, still wrapped in bandages like an Egyptian mummy to shield her healing burns from infection. And there was Camilla Brooks, looking as though she'd just stepped from the display window of New Orleans's finest dressmaker. However, steeped as she was in her own mire of problems at present, Geneva perceived at once that Camilla's attire was more for another's benefit than for her own.

  "Lordy, gal, didn't you get to New Orleans the hard way after all!" Camilla declared after they embraced in greeting. "And in the comp'ny of two handsome men! Soon's you can talk, I want to hear all about it from you. Mr. McAllister and Mr. Doyle, they tole us their side. But I 'spect your side is much more interesting."

  Doyle. So Macalester and Deal were still using aliases. That explained why Deal was with her when Mac was not: They could not risk her awakening without one of them present, lest she reveal their identities to the doctor, or to Camilla. But now, of course, as long as her voice remained locked in her throat and her hands wrapped in enough gauze to render them useless, their secret was still safe.

  For awhile, at least.

  Camilla remained with her for better than an hour, prattling on about her budding musical career, her growing relationship with the doctor and New Orleans news in general. Geneva loved listening to her. It was comforting to hear another woman's voice after what seemed an eternity among men, and it was wonderful to be reminded, as she gazed at Camilla's heartbreakingly lovely dress, that beautiful clothes and gentle things still existed in the world.

  Her life had been challenged by such ugliness of late that she had very nearly given up hope of retrieving any beauty from it at all. And then Camilla had come, just when she was most earnestly needed. Geneva was suddenly crying, but they were tears of joy and relief Camilla misunderstood them, rushing forward to hold her in her arms and comfort her.

  "Don't cry, honey." The younger woman soothed Geneva, stroking her tangled hair. "Everything gonna be fine now. Dr. Beaumarche, he a fine doctor. He gonna make you all well again in no time; see if he don't. And that McAllister! I can tell he gonna take real good care of you. He ain't hardly let you outta his sight, since Richard fixed him up. I expect he think you a big pile a gold, the way he watch you. No ma'am, that man ain't gonna let nothin' happen to you, that's sure."

  Not, at hast, until he has collected his compensation, Geneva thought, adding a bitter tear or two to her happy ones. I am his pile of gold, at least until the next one comes along.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Camilla left her. Geneva was sorry to see her friend go, and the small room darkened appreciably after the lively young woman departed.

  Geneva grew restless. The pain, except for her throat, had faded to a memory, and she found herself wanting to move. Gingerly, for she had no sense of her strength or condition, she drew back the coverlet of the bed and lowered her gauze-swathed feet to the floor. She stood up, trying her balance. She blacked out abruptly and sank back down upon the bed until her vision cleared. Then she tried again, slowly.

  A few cautious steps took her to the window. Beyond the curtains and the imperfect glass, she perceived the daily activity in the alley, distorted, as if viewed through a filter. She was reminded, unpleasantly, of her drug-induced dreams, and she wished she had not ventured out of her bed.

  "Gen!"

  She recognized the velvet baritone at once and became painfully aware of her sorry state. Maddeningly, she felt tears sting the back of her eyes again, tears of frustration and shame. She fought them, though, successfully. Kieran Macalester, she knew, had seen her under circumstances far worse than this.

  She turned to him, and even as she did, he dropped his parcels wrapped in brown paper and string and ran forward, not stopping until he had enfolded her slight, pliant body into a strong, almost painful embrace.

  She had forgotten what it felt like to be held so close to him, to feel the strength and the hardness of his lean body pressed so closely against her own. To hear his heart against her ear and smell the wonderful scent of leather and of the outdoors and of him, and to feel his hand in her hair. She found herself holding on to the front of his dark green flannel shirt with her gauze-thickened fingers, closing her eyes and allowing the reality of Kieran Macalester to lift her gently into his powerful arms and carry her back to the bed, where he sat down with her upon his lap, cradling her like a child.

  "Gen," he murmured, kissing her forehead and her temple. "God, it's so good to hold you like this! I thought I'd never—" He broke off suddenly, as though he did not want to think about the rest of his statement.

  She tried to answer him. Her mouth formed the words, but her throat was dormant, as though that part of her was still asleep. She pushed away from him, although she made no move to escape from the throne of his lap, and she looked squarely into his probing dark eyes.

  "I—" She mouthed the word, and even managed an awful, guttural sound, but then she placed her hand against her throat and slowly shook her head. "I know," he whispered, his tone gentle but his angular features etched with concern. "Billy told me. But
it'll come back, Gen. Believe it. There's no god so cruel that he'd take that from you. Not after everything else you've been through."

  Her arms were around his neck. Although she did not remember putting them there, she did not wish to remove them. He was with her, her savior and her nemesis. No matter what his motivation or his ultimate design, she confessed to herself in that moment a love so great that she had not known its like before, nor would she, she suspected, ever know its like again.

  His face was inches from hers, and she studied it for a minute. He allowed her to, remaining perfectly still while she examined the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the conformation of his dark eyebrows, straight and uncompromising, the turn of his amusingly small nose and the fullness of his wide, faintly smiling mouth with its dimples at either corner. She touched her own lips with the tip of a finger protruding from the gauze, then touched his with the same finger. She watched as his eyes began to burn with a fire from somewhere deep within him. When her lips met his and she felt his mouth yield to hers, she knew, trembling in his hungry embrace, that he was the only man who could ever make her completely happy.

  He responded to her kiss with a wordless murmur, a growl of desire. She felt his hand upon her jaw, his fingers teasing her earlobe as he held her in thrall. He tasted wonderful, like a sweet dessert of which one could never have enough. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to feel his soft sable locks between her fingers like fine spun silk, but she could feel nothing but the bandages. The sensation reminded her, with a cruel jolt, of her circumstance. She pulled away from him, confused and embarrassed. She felt his soft chuckle begin as a gentle rumbling in his chest.

  "I know," he whispered, holding her close to him.

  "You don't feel very desirable right now, do you? Honey, you'd be desirable to me in sackcloth rags with your hair cut off But we can wait. See all those packages? I bought you some new things, Gen. Camilla helped me pick them out. You'll get better, we'll move into a hotel, and… we can wait."

  Geneva snuggled against him, warmed that he knew her so well, and not wanting to think beyond the picture his words painted. She sat thus for a long while, gaining strength from his very presence. He told her, in soft, gentle tones, the tale of his odyssey from Irving, but for the most part the words simply flowed by her like a lazy stream on a summer afternoon. The sound of his voice alone was a greater comfort than any drug or balm he might have offered.

  "Oh!" he exclaimed presently, startling her. "I almost forgot. Take a look at this!"

  From his back pocket he produced a rolled-up newspaper, perhaps twelve pages thick. Obligingly, she sat up and watched him open it to the third page. Folding the oversized newsprint back, he held it before her to highlight the headline of a two column item that read:

  Soprano Still Missing

  Geneva seized the paper from his hands, holding it clumsily with her gauzed fingers. She read with interest:

  Soprano Geneva Lionwood, reported missing in these page three weeks ago, may have been abducted. An Important Person who has asked that his name be withheld has come forward with information which points to foul play. Colonel James Maple son of the New York Academy of Music confirms that a Mr. McAllister, allegedly representing a San Francisco opera company, appeared shortly before Miss Lionwood's disappearance; the same person mentioned by the Unnamed Source.

  Authorities are now investigating the possibility that Miss Lionwood may have been taken west. Reports that the soprano, whose last appearance at the Academy of Music in Mozart's Don Giovanni as Zerlina commanded sterling reviews, may have been seen in Roanoke, Virginia, and even in Memphis, Tennessee, are still unconfirmed.

  "It would be a great tragedy if this fine artist is not found," Maple son has responded to this most re cent information. "She is an as set to opera in America."

  Henry Abbey, who fired Miss Lionwood from Faust, which premiered on October twenty second to less-than-favorable reviews, is no longer under suspicion in Miss Lionwood's disappearance.

  Geneva, scarcely able to believe what was on the page before her, read the article three times. "Well? What do you think?"

  Kieran's question startled her. She had forgotten he was there, that she was, in fact, sitting on his lap. She felt lightheaded. Euphoric. A fine artist, Maple son said. An asset to American opera. Maple son! The same man who had upbraided her for her curtain call! And—she nearly laughed at the notion—Henry Abbey had been suspected of foul play in the matter!

  Public praise from Maple son was an honor she had never before enjoyed. It made her want to thank him personally, although he was nearly two thousand miles away. Then another thought occurred to her: If her disappearance from New York was news even in New Orleans, it must have made headlines elsewhere, as well: Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, San Francisco, St. Louis…

  Gen!" Macalester's lusty laugh jarred her. "You look like you've seen the very devil! "What are you thinking?"

  She was looking at him, but he seemed strange to her all of a sudden, like someone she had never seen before. Five paragraphs in a newspaper had thrust her right back into the world of Verdi and Mozart, of Abbey and Maple son and the ritual mysteries of opera. A rite to which initiation was closed for Kieran Macalester.

  "Hotel St. Pierre," Kieran announced as he strode into the small room at the clinic he had been sharing with Billy since their arrival in New Orleans nearly two weeks earlier. "On Rampart Street. A suite for Geneva and a room for us. Adjoining."

  He flung himself onto the low cot, which yelled in protest, and loosened his collar. He'd needed a new suit to be presentable at the St. Pierre, and one for Billy as well. With all of the clothes he had bought for Geneva, and the two weeks in advance he'd paid at the St. Pierre, the money he'd taken from Humble was bleeding out as if from a mortal wound.

  Billy glanced up, surveyed him for a moment, then returned his attention to the newspaper he'd been reading.

  "There've been some mighty strange sounds comin' outta that room," the younger man informed him. "I think your lady friend is finding her voice. Either that, or the end of the world is comin'."

  Mac closed his eyes with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. In the last five days, he had seen Geneva once, and it seemed to him that if she'd had her way, he would not have seen her then. He was annoyed and, yes, hurt. Camilla Brooks came and went from the Lionwood sanctuary like a privileged guest, and he felt like he was being quarantined from her company. She not ready to see you yet. Camilla had shrugged when challenged. Give her time. Time.

  When Beaumarche cleared her to be released from his care, Mac had hoped to resume their relationship where they had left off in Little Rock, before she'd found that damned letter. Certainly she'd seemed receptive enough, sitting on his lap for better than an hour on the afternoon when she had first recovered. But then something happened. A change had taken place in her, starting with that item he'd shown her in the newspaper.

  He sat up abruptly, startling Billy into looking at him again. Billy folded his paper at last and tossed it to the floor. "You gonna ask her, Senator? Or you gonna let it ride?"

  Mac grimaced, scratching the side of his neck where the stiff collar itched. "Damn it, Billy—"

  He checked himself Billy wasn't trying to be a pest, he realized with chagrin. Billy just wanted to be sure Geneva would not turn around and accuse him of abducting her when she at last came forward about her whereabouts for the last seven weeks. Macalester doubted she would do such a thing, but where Geneva Lionwood was involved, he had learned, the only thing that was certain was uncertainty. And after all, he had abducted her, or at least lured her under false pretenses. He liked to believe that her feelings for him would cancel out any desire for retribution, but in the final analysis, he simply did not know her mind.

  Then, of course, there was the problem of broaching such a topic. If she did, as he hoped, entertain feelings for him that were akin to his own for her, his asking such a question would h
urt and offend her, especially after all she'd been through on account of him.

  He was in the midst of a sigh before he realized it.

  "If you ask me," Billy was speaking again in a slow and thoughtful way, "that newspaper article opened up a whole new can of hash for your lady love. She's thinking maybe her life isn't shot to hell after all, and maybe she can start her career up again, now that she sees she matters to people."

  Macalester directed him a hard look. "I didn't ask you," he said pointedly.

  "No, you didn't," Billy agreed, unruffled. "But you're no fool, Mac. You thought about that, too. You just didn't want to admit it to yourself."

  "Now why in hell would I care, if she wants to keep on singing?" he retorted, feeling his face grow warm. "She can sing anywhere she wants, any time. All I want is to—"

  His voice caught, exasperatingly. All he wanted was to be with her, another useless ornament dangling from her arm. Like that irritating Blaine Atherton. Only Atherton was a lord, and a rich one, at that. Who the hell was he? An outlaw, nearly broke and without prospects.

  "What?" he heard Billy prompt him quietly. "What is it you want, Senator? If you know, you're way ahead of most folks, myself included."

  "I want a wife," Kieran heard his own voice say after a time, but it sounded odd. Far away. The way he imagined his voice might sound to God, if He was listening. "I want to be able to put my feet under a table at the end of an honest day's work and have a sweet, gentle woman put a tasty supper in front of me on a dish that's made of something other than tin. After supper, I want to bounce my babies on my knee, tell them stories and tuck them into their own beds. I want to sit by a fire and talk with an intelligent woman who's got an opinion about everything, even if I don't agree with it. Then after we're all argued out, I want to leave my boots under her bed and make sweet love to her all night, if she wants it. And I want her to want it."