Darling Jack. Mary McBride

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      “You might have informed me earlier, Mr. Haz— Jack,” Anna said. “Is there anything else in my background I ought to be aware of?”

      He came to a halt halfway down the gangplank and looked down at her. “Don’t take this so seriously, mouse. All you have to do is hang on my arm and behave like a bride. Let me take care of the rest.”

      “Yes, but-”

      Before she could argue, he was leading her along the narrow walkway again, and Anna focused her concentration on not plummeting into the river. Once her feet touched the paving stones on the wharf, however, she pulled her arm from her companion’s grasp and took a step away from him.

      “I’m your partner,” she informed him, pointing her chin into his face.

      That face darkened immediately. “You’re my bloody wife. Your job is to confine yourself to that role. You are to share my accommodations and my meals, gaze up at me adoringly through those ridiculous lenses and look happy hanging on my arm.” Jack’s low voice slipped to a deeper, more menacing register. “Beyond that, Mrs. Hazard, you have no role. Do you understand?”

      The look Jack gave her had sent more than a few men rushing for cover. But the mouse wasn’t flinching. That lush mouth of hers was thin with ire now, and sunlight was snapping off her spectacles like sparks. The mouse was mad. For a second, Jack wanted to laugh at her surprising behavior. He might have, but out of a corner of his eye he saw Gresham cutting toward them through the crowd.

      “Perhaps we ought to clarify one or two things,” Anna was hissing, “before we proceed any further.” Her fists were planted on her hips.

      She looked more like a fishwife than a bedazzled bride, Jack thought. And Henry Gresham, who would carry any and all gossip with him along with his baggage, was bearing down on them fast.

      “Did you hear me, Mr. Hazard?” she demanded now.

      Gresham came to a standstill beside them. The man’s smile was as murky as the river. “Lovers’ spat, Hazard?”

      Bloody hell. He had to keep the woman from ruining everything before it had even begun. Other than hurling her into the Mississippi, Jack could think of only one thing to silence her. He snagged her by the waist and clamped her hard against his chest, then stifled her furious mouth with a kiss.

      He had expected to meet rigid, icy lips, but Jack knew immediately he’d been wrong. Maybe it was the sudden shock of it. Or maybe she hadn’t been kissed in a long, long time. But, for whatever reason, Anna Matlin’s mouth felt lush and luxurious beneath his. She received his kiss the way a pillow receives a weary head, while her body softened and warmed against his like silk sheets.

      Without any volition on his part, his tongue tested the soft seam of her lips. They gave way. Instantly. Sweetly. It was heaven for a moment.

      Bloody hell. Jack broke the kiss and cast Henry Gresham a victorious man-to-man look, while the mouse still clung to him like breeze-blown silk. “We’ll be seeing you at the hotel, Gresham, no doubt. Sooner or later, eh?”

      Jack’s lascivious wink did exactly as he had intended. It sent the man off with an equally lascivious chuckle, and then Jack looked back at the woman in his arms. Even through her lenses, he could see a distinct glaze in her eyes. He wanted to kiss her again. Right then. He stepped back with an abruptness that unbalanced her.

      He gripped her arm. “No more outbursts in public, Anna. You could ruin everything. Please, from now on, think before you speak.”

      “Yes. All right.”

      Anna was amazed that she could speak at all. And as for thinking…Well, just then she wasn’t sure she’d ever again be able to rise to that monumental task. Jack Hazard’s kiss had taken her by storm, the surprise of it sending streaks of lightning clear to her feet, the sensuality of it reverberating through every nerve and fiber.

      He was ushering her along the levee now, and Anna was trying to make her feet move in concert with his. Not any easy undertaking at all, when her knees had turned to pudding a moment ago and were only now solidifying. This was no way for a Pinkerton agent to behave, she reminded herself as she rushed along.

      It was no way for a self-respecting woman to behave, either. To be so flummoxed by a kiss. To have her legitimate and quite serious concerns turned into frilly bows and butterflies by a man’s mouth on hers. And it wouldn’t happen again.

      Jack Hazard came to a halt. His dark face glowered down on her. “I apologize,” he snarled. “It won’t happen again, Mrs. Matlin. Mrs. Hazard. Whoever the hell you are.” He let go of her arm to drag his fingers through his hair.

      Had the kiss affected him, too? There was a definite flush to his face that Anna had never seen, and his fingers trembled as they threaded through that shiny black hair. Jack Hazard, master spy, seemed nearly as unsettled as she. Oddly enough, the notion, which should have perplexed her, calmed Anna instead. She could almost feel her features smoothing out.

      When she spoke, her voice no longer bristled. “Apology accepted, Mr. Haz—Jack. In the future, you’ll find a simple ‘hush’ will do if you require my silence. Or—” she demonstrated “—a finger placed just so upon the lips.”

      “Fine,” he snapped, not even looking at her while he dug in his pocket. “Here’s four bits for the porter.” He slapped the coins in her hand. “All of it. Understand?”

      “Yes.”

      “Good.” He pivoted on his heel and stalked toward a line of waiting carriages, turning back just once to glare at her and growl, “And don’t help.”

      

      There was a good deal of traffic, both vehicles and pedestrians, between the levee and the hotel, four blocks away. Jack sat in the carriage, his shoulders jammed into the corner, putting as much distance as he could manage between himself and the mouse, who was gazing out the window now, apparently enthralled by her new surroundings. Little murmurs of excitement kept riffling across her lips, and every so often she’d reach up to push her glasses up or tug them down a notch.

      It was just St. Louis, damn it. Just a city. Not so different from Chicago. You’d have thought Anna Matlin was taking a carriage across the moon. Now Anna Hazard, Jack thought, correcting himself. His—God help him—wife.

      Now that they’d arrived in St. Louis, all his energies and attentions should be directed toward his plan. Instead, his attention was focused on the woman beside him and his energies were concentrated below his beltline. Ever since that kiss.

      That damnable kiss. He threw her profile a black glance, meant to be brief, then found his gaze once again drawn irresistibly to her lips.

      He’d have thought she would struggle more when he silenced her so outrageously. But she had melted beneath his mouth. Not wilted, or given in like a cowering mouse, but warmed and softened like a woman. Of all possible reactions, that was the last one he had expected.

      Or wanted, he told himself now as he wrenched his gaze away from her and stared out his own window. He wanted only one thing. Well, maybe two. He wanted to bring Chloe down, and then to celebrate his sweet victory with a toast that would go on indefinitely. And for all the warm luxuries of her mouth, Anna Matlin had nothing to do with that.

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