Nobody's Darling

She couldn’t remember the color of his eyes, but oddly enough, she could remember the exact texture of his eyelashes. They’d fringed his eyes like threads of gold silk, giving the dangerous planes of his face the disturbing illusion of vulnerability.

But it hadn’t been an illusion. Billy Darling had been as vulnerable as any mortal man to a woman with a gun in her hand. Now those extravagant lashes would forever rest on his pale, still cheeks.

Pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle a moan of shame, Esmerelda rose from the bunk and began to pace the cell. She’d already compounded her sin of murder by lying to the sheriff about her prospects for eternity. She wasn’t nearly as afraid of being hanged as she was of going to hell. The tin kerosene lamp suspended from a peg in the corridor outside the cell cast writhing shadows on the wall. From the corner of her eye, they looked like the flames of perdition licking at the bars of her cell.

The devil himself was probably chortling with delight at her predicament. Since her parents had died, she’d striven to be a paragon of Christian virtue her younger brother could emulate. And aside from the occasional uncharitable thought about her grandfather, she’d succeeded. Every naughty impulse and selfish desire had been ruthlessly squelched beneath the iron fist of duty.

A hysterical laugh welled from her throat, sounding more like a sob. Her steadfast devotion to virtue had all been in vain. Each time she’d bitten back a blasphemy when she’d scorched the biscuits. Each time she’d forced herself to hasten past a store window without pausing to covet the pearl-inlaid combs and pleated rosettes. Each time she’d given Bartholomew the last slice of bacon in the house when her own stomach was cramping with hunger.

Despite her years of unflinching self-denial, Satan was going to get his bony claws into her after all. And all because of some born sinner who’d probably spent every waking moment of his abbreviated life indulging his selfish desires.

Bitter regret flooded her, for all the delicious sins gone uncommitted and all the guilty pleasures she would never know.

“Damn you,” she whispered fiercely, clenching the cold iron bars of her cell. “Damn you straight to hell, Billy Darling.”

“Now that’s not a very charitable sentiment, ma’am, even for a woman who’s already done everything in her power to send me there herself.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The laconic drawl came out of the darkness, a thousand times more damning than the voice of her conscience.

Esmerelda backed away from the bars as Lucifer himself emerged from the shadows wearing a butternut shirt, black vest, scuffed boots, and a pair of sinfully tight copper-riveted Levi’s. There didn’t appear to be so much as a scratch on him, proving that he was indeed Satan incarnate. Unless Old Nick, not content to wait for her arrival, had sent one of his most devoted emissaries to escort her to his unholy kingdom.

The wicked sparkle in his eyes made a mockery of his sympathetic frown. “Perhaps you should sit down, Miss Fine. You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Esmerelda had no choice but to obey. In her attempt to put as much distance between them as possible, she’d backed all the way to the bunk. Her knees buckled and she plopped down on the lumpy mattress.

“I shot you,” she blurted out, unable to come up with anything more coherent. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Am I?” He drew off his hat to reveal a devilish grin. “Ma always said I was never any good at doing what I was supposed to.”

With the reddish glow of the lantern haloing his disheveled hair, he looked less like a demon than an avenging angel come to claim her soul. In that feverish half-light, she could no more determine the color of his hair than the color of his eyes.

Esmerelda rose from the bunk, drawn toward the apparition by a dangerous combination of fascination and fear. He curled his hands around the bars and cocked one knee through them, all but daring her to approach.

When she reached the bars, she stretched one trembling hand toward his chest. If he’d have grabbed her hand or whispered “Boo” at that instant, she would have crumbled into hysteria. But he simply watched her without blinking, his expression almost as wary as her own.

Her fingertips slowly came to rest against his chest. Beneath the faded fabric of his shirt lay a solid wall of muscle and bone. His heart throbbed beneath her touch, proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that her visitor was no demon or phantom, but Mr. William Darling in the flesh.

She recoiled from the bars with a soft cry. She could not have said herself if it was one of relief or dismay.

Darling smoothed back his tousled hair with one hand. “Sorry I couldn’t oblige you by being dead, Miss Fine. I’m afraid that little jaunt to hell you had planned for me will have to be canceled. Or at least postponed.”

His quip made Esmerelda wonder just how long he’d been standing in the shadows watching her anguished pacing. He looked so earnest, it was impossible to tell if he was teasing her. “How?” she croaked.

He shrugged, his rueful smirk giving her the eerie sensation that he really could read her mind. “Luck of the devil, maybe? I really can’t fault your aim. You put one hell of a hole in my chair, right where my heart would have been.”

“If you had one?” she mumbled, still battling shock.

He gave her a reproachful look. “If I’d still been sitting there. But I was halfway around the table when you fired. You really should learn how to shoot a firearm without closing your eyes first. It’s a dangerous habit. If I’d have been a different sort of fellow, I might have shot you dead instead of catching you when you swooned.”

“You?”she whispered, horrified anew. “You caught me?”

He nodded. “I couldn’t very well let you bang your pretty head now, could I?”

Esmerelda had no reason to doubt his claim. She remembered only too well how the pistol had materialized in his hand. He had the grace and reflexes of a cougar. But if Darling had been the man who caught her, he’d also been the man who had carried her to the jail. The man who’d smelled so utterly delicious—like the leather of book bindings mingled with the aroma of tobacco. The man she’d clung to as if she were a frightened child and he her only salvation. She began to sputter, mortified beyond speech. He held up a hand. “There’s no need to thank me, ma’am. It was my pleasure.”

This time there was no mistaking the mocking quirk of his lips. Esmerelda blushed to the roots of her hair. Dear Lord, what liberties had the scoundrel been allowed to take while she lay defenseless in his arms? Her reticule, gloves, and bonnet had all been missing when she awoke. She touched a hand to her disheveled topknot, then to her throat to find the modest lace collar of her basque still buttoned to her chin. She licked her lips, breathing a sigh of relief when she tasted no whiskey upon them.

Esmerelda returned her attention to Mr. Darling to find him staring at her mouth, his expression impossible to interpret. But when he raised his eyes to meet hers, they were darkened by scorn. “If I’d have compromised you, honey, I’d have made damn sure you remembered it. It may even surprise you to learn we Darling men prefer our women conscious.”

Esmerelda couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t mentioned willing. Refusing to be further intimidated by the ruffian, she stiffened her spine and lifted her chin. “If I didn’t kill you, Mr. Darling, and mores the pity, then why am I being held here? Against my will?”

“I believe the charge would be assault with attempt to kill.” All traces of good humor had vanished from his eyes, leaving them icy and flat.

She took an instinctive step backward, thankful for the sturdy iron bars that separated them. Until she saw the ring of keys dangling from his finger.