Page 6 of Daredevil Lady and the Mysterious Millionaire (The Hidden Hearts Collection #3)
He paid her no heed. He was too busy shouting more orders to some straggling servants. She drew back her fist and thumped him hard on the chest. It was like pounding on a brick wall.
As he toted her toward the house, he looked down at her and grinned. “If it weren’t for the lightning, I’d stay out here. I forgot how much fun it is to romp about in the rain. My mother used to give me pure holy hell for it.”
“So did mine—” Rory began, then recollected herself. “You put me down right now!”
“What! Right here in this puddle?”
She saw the disconcerting twinkle in his eye and knew the infernal man was fully capable of doing such a thing. Although she despised herself, she wrapped her arms about his neck in alarm. With gritted teeth, she endured being carried into the house.
She caught a glimpse of the bedraggled guests crowding into a large parlor. Someone was striking a match to the gas jet in the fireplace grating. But Zeke Morrison carried her in the opposite direction.
“Too crowded in there. We’ll find some quiet spot to dry you out and then have a look at your ankle.”
“Dry me out? I am not a wet dishcloth! And you are not looking at my ankle!”
He ignored her protest, even when she squirmed in his arms. Far from being furious now, Morrison seemed to find everything she said damned amusing. But as he carried her into the front hall, Rory’s struggles abruptly ceased.
As she stared about her, she was awed in spite of herself. The scrolled ceiling that towered over her head was as impressive as the rotunda at City Hall. The crystal chandelier glittered even on such a gloomy day, and the marble staircase seemed to wind upward into eternity.
At the foot of those stairs, barring Zeke Morrison’s path, stood the most elegant woman Rory had ever seen. She had masses of icy white-blonde hair and frigid blue eyes. Unlike the other guests, she appeared untouched by the storm breaking outside.
Mrs. Morrison? Rory wondered. Although beautiful, the woman looked too old to be Zeke’s wife.
Yet there was something very proprietary in the way she demanded, “What are you doing with that girl, John?”
Morrison should have been embarrassed enough to set her down at once. Goodness knows, Rory felt her own cheeks burn as though she had been caught doing something wrong.
“Please,” she hissed. “Put me down. I swear I can walk.”
Although he continued to smile, the belligerent tilt of his jaw became prominent again. Yet he seemed to sense Rory’s embarrassment at being seen cradled in his arms. He lowered her reluctantly to her feet, explaining to the woman, “Miss Kavanaugh had sustained some injury to her ankle.”
“That is hardly your concern,” came the cool reply. “I imagine the police will provide her with whatever medical attention she needs. I have taken the liberty of summoning them.”
“Police?” Rory gasped at the same time Zeke demanded, “What the hell did you do that for?”
The woman’s fine brows arched upward. “These circus people vandalized your lawn.”
“On the contrary,” Zeke retorted. “I have it on the best authority that my lawn vandalized Miss Kavanaugh’s balloon.”
“I doubt Captain Devery will share your levity, John. There are still, thank God, laws that protect people from the wanton destruction of their property.”
“But it was an accident,” Rory faltered, a sick feeling clutching her stomach. She had never expected this misadventure to end with her being thrown into jail.
Morrison squeezed her hand, the warm pressure comforting. “Don’t worry, little girl, I’ll deal with the police.” His reassuring smile vanished as he turned back to the woman blocking the stairs. “Sometimes I wish you would not be so confoundedly busy on my behalf.”
“Do you indeed? That could be arranged.”
“Look, I’ve got no time for a quarrel now. Could you step out of the way until I see that Miss Kavanaugh is looked after? Then you can snap at me as much as you please.”
A trace of pink stole into that icy white complexion. The woman’s gaze rested for a moment on Rory; then, with a chilling dignity, she moved away from the stairs and stalked off down the hall.
Rory shivered. No living being’s eyes should have been that cold. Rory felt as though the woman could have destroyed her as easily as brushing aside a speck of lint from her gown. An odd thought to have about such a refined-looking lady.
Rory turned to Zeke, who was following the woman’s retreat, a frown on his face.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble between you and your...wife?”
“Mrs. Van Hallsburg is not my wife!” As Zeke glanced back at Rory, his expression lightened. “I am quite a free man, Miss Kavanaugh. And you are quite wet.”
He studied her as though he were having his first good look, and Rory realized with dismay that he probably was. Her damp gown outlined to perfection her breasts and the curve of her hips.
“Come on,” he said. “You’d better get out of those clothes.”
The statement sounded harmless enough, merely a civil suggestion. Why then did she have this feeling that Zeke Morrison should have his face slapped? He wasn’t doing anything, only looking.
Rory crossed her arms protectively in front of herself. “I don’t want to cause you any more bother. I am sure my assistants will track me here from the fairgrounds. We’ll move the balloon and try to set your lawn to rights. Of course I will pay?—”
Even as she started to promise, Rory wondered how she was ever going to do so. She bit down on her lip. The cost of the damages would likely bankrupt her.
“Don’t worry about that,” Zeke said. “I am sure we can work something out.”
His voice softened with the barest hint of suggestion, and Rory drew back in alarm. Just what did he have in mind?
Before she could protest any further, they were interrupted.
“Mr. Morrison,” the butler announced. “The police have arrived.”
Rory felt her heart skip and Morrison swore.
“They didn’t get here so fast last fall when I caught that burglar breaking into my safe.” He gave a sigh of pure annoyance. “Never mind, Wellington. I’ll meet with them in my study. You look after Miss Kavanaugh.”
“But what about my passengers and my balloon?” Rory protested. “I really can’t just?—”
“I’ll see to everything. You just run along like a good girl and do what you’re told,” Morrison said, striding away. He paused long enough to instruct his butler. “Send one of the maids to help Miss Kavanaugh out of her clothes. I’ll be right back.”
“Mr. Morrison!” Rory cried.
But having given these peremptory commands, Morrison was gone. She wanted to charge after him, inform him that she didn’t take orders as readily as his servants did. Yet it didn’t seem prudent to antagonize a man who had gone to confront the police on her behalf.
Rory raked her fingers through her damp hair in frustration. She sensed Morrison’s butler staring at her and whipped about to face him. If the man had been wearing a smirk, he was quick to stow it behind a deferential mask.
“If you would he pleased to follow me, miss.”
Rory wasn’t pleased, but she didn’t see what else she could do.
She had no doubt that Tony was tracking the course of the balloon, probably half out of his mind with worry.
But it might be hours before he found her, what with having to bring the wagon back across on the ferry, and make his way through the uptown traffic.
In the meantime, she could not just stand here, dripping water onto Morrison’s carpet.
“Lead on,” she said to the butler with a gesture of weary assent.
As she hobbled up the stairs after him, Rory had to grit her teeth. The endless rise of marble did her ankle no good at all. She was almost sorry she had refused to let Morrison carry her.
She sighed with relief when they reached the upper landing. The butler opened one of the imposing doors that lined the hall and bowed her inside.
Rory stepped cautiously across the threshold, schooling her jaw not to drop open at the sight of the mauve and gilt bedchamber sprawled before her.
An array of paintings, which would have looked more at home in an art gallery, hung on the walls.
At the room’s center stood a massive four-poster bed raised up on a dais.
It could have been the state chamber of a king.
“Listen,” Rory said. “Isn’t there any place in this house a little less overwhelming? Maybe I could go down and sit by the fire in the kitchen.”
But she discovered she was talking to herself.
Wellington had already disappeared, discreetly closing the door behind him.
Rory could only shake her head over the behavior of Zeke Morrison.
One minute the fellow had been threatening to throw her into the street, and the next he was having her ushered into a chamber like this as though she were an honored guest. Well, she had always heard that millionaires were eccentric.
Before Rory had an opportunity to take further stock of her surroundings, the door opened again to admit two maids in starched aprons. Rory assumed they had come merely to light the fire in the grate for her, but she quickly realized the young women had other plans.
One bobbed into a brief curtsey and then moved to deal with the hooks on the back of Rory’s gown. “Let me help you out of your wet things, madam. Maisie will draw your bath.”
Madam? Her bath?
“Wait a minute,” Rory ducked away from the girl. “I didn’t exactly bring a change of clothing with me.”
“We will provide madam with a robe while your gown is dried and mended.”
“But I’m not one of the guests here.” Rory’s protest died as she caught her first glimpse of the bathroom.
The girl called Maisie was laying out thick towels while a cloud of steam rose from the largest clawfoot tub Rory had ever seen.
Two people could have stretched out in it, side by side.
And the water poured forth from a golden tap.