The Mistress

Her senses filled with the nearness of him. He had the most delicate touch of any man she could imagine. With the finesse of a gifted musician, the light fingering of a master violinist on the neck of his instrument, Dylan Kennedy placed one hand under her chin, turning her face to one side. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, or if it was real, but she felt the fine brush of that delicate finger across her jaw as she turned her head.

“I confess I don’t have much practice applying jewelry to a lady,” he whispered, “but I am a willing pupil.”

“Mr.…Dylan, please. If you would hand me the earring, I could—”

“And spoil my chance to be near the most beautiful woman in Chicago?” His mouth was very close to her ear. She could feel the warm eddy of his breath over her skin. The sensation was so pleasant that, just for a moment, she closed her eyes. Then she felt his fingers gently manipulating her earlobe. Sweet Mary, what was happening to her? A man was touching her earlobe and she could do nothing but let her insides turn to melted butter. She held perfectly still, in a state of rapture, as he worked the tiny screw of the earring so that the teardrop-shaped jewel hung once again from her ear.

Then, all too soon, he stepped back. “Beautiful,” he said, his bluer-than-sky eyes shining.

“You,” said Kathleen in her haughtiest voice, “are a wicked man.”

“True,” he said. “That’s why you find me so interesting.”

“What makes you believe I find you interesting?”

“Let me think.” He stroked his chin, pretending great concentration. “You followed me to this private balcony, as if for an assignation.”

“I most certainly did not. You—you commandeered me as if I were a prisoner of war.”

He laughed. “A prisoner of love, my dear.”

“You’ve proved nothing except that you’re even more wicked than I thought.”

“Sweet Kate, you are fascinated.”

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “You are the most arrogant, conceited—”

“But I’m right about you.”

“You have not the first idea about me.” She left the balcony, edging back toward the carpeted room.

He took her arm to stop her retreat. “My first idea was that you blushed the moment you met me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh, Kate. It wasn’t just a blush.” Bolder than ever, he touched the neckline of her gown, tracing the wide, U-shaped décolletage with a slow, deliberate caress. “You were seashell pink from here—” he traced his finger over the tops of her breasts and then upward, mapping the rise of her collarbone, the dip at the base of her throat, and then the side of her neck, up to the crest of her cheek and temple “—to here,” he concluded with a low, liquid laugh. “I swear, I never saw a woman blush like that.” He leaned forward and blew the whispered words into her ear. “Do you blush all over, Miss Kate? Do you blush with your whole body?”

Finally, finally, he had pushed her over the edge. Forgetting the drawing room manners she had donned along with the Worth gown, Kathleen drew back her arm and walloped him one. It was not an openhanded, ladylike slap designed to put him in his place, but a full-fisted roundhouse punch of the sort used in saloon brawls in Conley’s Patch.

He went down like a heap of unmortared brick. The thud of his body brought several people rushing over from the main salon.

“What happened?” Mr. McCormick asked, his walrus mustache twitching as he sank down beside Dylan Kennedy.

Kathleen braced herself. Now Dylan would reveal her for exactly what she was—a lowborn immigrant’s daughter, with crude manners, no sense of humor and a wicked punch. A fraud.

But he surprised her. Shaking his head and running an exploratory hand along the length of his jaw, he stared straight at Kathleen and said, “I fell.”

McCormick stepped back. “So I see.”

Dylan took his proffered hand and stood up. “I swear, I never fell so hard in my life.” As he spoke, his gaze never left Kathleen.

And to her mortification, she felt herself heat with an uncontrollable blush. She didn’t speak, and neither did Dylan Kennedy, but her thoughts rang loudly through her head: He’s right. I do blush with my whole body.

“Can you believe it?” Lucy Hathaway said excitedly, later in the powder room. “It’s you.”

“What’s me?” asked Kathleen.

“The woman Dylan Kennedy is interested in.”

“Fiddlesticks.” Kathleen took a clean linen towel from the brass serving tray on the counter and dabbed at her overheated face.

“She’s right.” Phoebe spoke with grudging admiration. “It is you. Dylan Kennedy wants you.”

“How can you know that?”

Phoebe gave her a tight smile. “I have made a careful study of him since he arrived in Chicago.”

Lucy laughed. “You mean you inspected his pedigree to see if he’d be a suitable husband for you.”

“I most certainly did. Is there something wrong with that?”

“Well, is he a suitable husband?” Kathleen demanded. Discreetly, she studied the hand that had just socked Dylan Kennedy. The knuckles were bright red. She put her one glove back on before the others noticed.

Phoebe fussed with the organza rosettes on her gown, then turned and fluffed out her bustle. “He is certainly rich enough. They say he has two million from his family’s shipping fortune. And he is stunningly handsome. I suppose you noticed that right off.”

He is a god that walks the earth, thought Kathleen. She bit her lip to keep from saying it aloud.

Phoebe ticked off his attributes on her fingers. “He comes from the East Coast, attended Harvard, traveled abroad. People say he is involved in shipping down the Saint Lawrence to Chicago. One of the most lucrative trade routes there is. No wonder he’s such a catch.”

“So you marry him,” Kathleen suggested.

Lucy shook her head. “She’s holding out for a duke, though Lord only knows why.”

“Then you marry him,” Kathleen said, amazed to be having this conversation.

“I shan’t be marrying anyone,” Lucy said. “I intend to devote my life to the cause of equal rights for women.” She grinned at Kathleen. “You’re elected.”

Kathleen laughed to cover a sudden jolt of ungovernable yearning. “I’m a maid,” she reminded her friends. “I hang Miss Sinclair’s clothes in closets and do her hair for a living. My mother milks cows.” She spoke flippantly, but underneath it all she felt a familiar mortification. She had always harbored the secret belief that she’d been born into the wrong life. Being in the company of Chicago’s best people tonight was a delight beyond compare, yet at the same time it held the razor sharp edge of frustration. The night gave her a taste of a life she could never have. Meeting a man like Dylan Kennedy merely twisted the knife.

“Not tonight,” Phoebe insisted. “Tonight you are a privileged young lady from Baltimore. Your ancestors were the founding fathers of the colony of Maryland.” Lacking her customary meanness, Phoebe took both of Kathleen’s hands in hers. “I didn’t think this would work, but so far you’ve made people believe our story. Initially I wanted to win my bet with Lucy, but I’ve changed my mind.”

“You have?” Kathleen was amazed. This was a side to Phoebe she had rarely seen. She wasn’t sure she trusted it.

“Tonight, Kate, I want to see you win. Don’t tell me you forgot about the invitation to the opera. That was the wager, or have you forgotten?”

He made me forget my own name, Kathleen thought wistfully.

The door to the powder room swished inward. Mrs. Lincoln, whose father-in-law had been the Great Emancipator, bustled in. A maid followed behind her, eyes cast down to the floor.