Page 15 of Forbidden Fire

I an had just settled into the swivel chair behind his desk. He was congratulating himself about Jimmy O’Brien—the Irish lad had proven himself to be an invaluable asset already. In time, he could take over a great deal of the management. And the more management Ian could hand to others, the more time he had left for architecture and building.

And Marissa, and a personal life that had suddenly become very important.

“Hey, there, young sir! You can’t just go barging in on Mr. Tremayne! What’s the matter with you, lad?”

Ian frowned. His secretary, Arthur Mount, had shouted the words. Through the frosted glass of his office window he could see the silhouette of Mount holding a squirming youngster by the collar.

“I’ve got to see him! Let me go! It’s an emergency! You let me go or I’ll—”

Mount groaned with pain. The youngster fell to the floor, then came crashing through Ian’s door. It was the orphan boy, Darrin. He rammed his cap down hard over his forehead. Ian stood, coming around his desk just as Arthur Mount limped in, following the boy.

“I tried to stop the little hoodlum, Mr. Tremayne, I did! Give me just a minute and I’ll box his ears and—”

“No, no, that’s all right, Arthur,” Ian said, somewhat amused by the belligerent boy and the indignant, limping secretary. “There must be some serious problem for Darrin to be so anxious. What is it, lad? Can we help you?”

“They’ve got her!” the boy burst out. And suddenly the toughened street kid was stuttering. “They—they’ve taken her. Mrs.—Mrs. Tremayne. Two men. Outside on the street corner. I met her like I was supposed to, and I turned away. And they had her. Two men. They rode off in a carriage.”

Ian stared at the boy blankly for a moment, unable to assimilate and unwilling to comprehend his words. “What?” The single word exploded from him like a rocket; he gripped Damn’s shoulders in a vise, staring at him hard. “What?”

“Two men.” Darrin was thinking fast, desperately. He still trembled inwardly, but he gritted his teeth. “One tall with a handlebar mustache. Dark. Pin-striped suit, red vest. The other was blond, not as old as the other guy, maybe about twenty-two. No hat. No whiskers. They took her in a small black one-horse carriage pulled by a small bay, and rode down from the corner eastward—”

“Barbary Coast,” Arthur supplied.

“Chinatown, I think,” Darrin said, his wide eyes solemnly on Ian.

Ian dropped the boy’s shoulders and headed for the door. “Call the police, Arthur. Get someone here quick. I mean quick!”

He went out onto the street, ran the length of the store and tore around the corner. There was no sign of anyone there. No sign of a scuffle, nothing. Frantically he stared down the alleyway, feeling as if cold fingers had clamped down hard around his heart. The boy had made the whole thing up, he tried to tell himself. But he hadn’t. Darrin was beneath her spell, Ian had seen that easily enough. The lad adored her.

He swung around. Darrin was there now, he had followed behind him, close, hopeful.

“From here?” Ian demanded. “They took her from here?”

Darrin nodded.

“All right,” Ian said. “Get my horse from the livery stable. Then wait at the store and tell the police everything that you told me. Everything. Any little detail might be important.”

Darrin fled to do as he had been told. Ian stepped out into the street. There were tracks everywhere, but he could just barely discern where a small carriage had been pulled in close to the buildings in the alleyway. Chinatown. He knew where they were heading. Into the brothels and opium dens, where beautiful women definitely had a price.

Darrin was already coming down the street with his horse. He stared at the boy and he knew they both realized something.

Marissa had to be found quickly, or she would never be found at all. That was the way when a woman was shanghaied.

“Meet the police,” he told the boy. “And find Mr. O’Brien in the store. Tell him to get hold of John and Lee Kwan. Perhaps they can discover something. I’ll be in Chinatown.” He leaped quickly upon his horse. With a nod, he raced down the alleyway, heedless of traffic.

The news of Marissa’s kidnapping spread like wildfire. She was the wife of one of San Francisco’s most prominent, affluent and respected men. Also, one of its most popular and charming, for in his days as a widower he had both shocked and excited the mamas of the society belles who would have gladly become his wife by his escapades in the dance halls of the Barbary Coast. Wickedly handsome in evening attire, he was apt to leave an opera for a late show and more decadent companionship. He was loved for his passion for certain ethics—and his total ignorance of others.

In her mansion on Nob Hill, Grace Leroux heard the news from a neighbor with shocked distress.

Then she turned into her doorway and smiled.

Down near the waterfront, in the Barbary Coast, Lilli Reynolds heard the news, and her heart went out to Ian. Few people knew how deeply he had already been hurt.

She called a special employee to her room.

He was a man with a long scar down the left side of his face. He had small eyes, a cavernous face, and was surely as ugly as sin.

But no one knew the dens of the Barbary Coast as well as he. His name was Jake Breed. He’d been in the Barbary Coast as long as anyone could remember. He didn’t work for Lilli because he needed money, but because she was the only person he had ever loved.

From her settee Lilli lit a long cigarette and indicated the outside world. “Mrs. Tremayne has been taken. The police seem to imagine that she’s in Chinatown somewhere. She was taken by two men.” Lilli gave him the description Darrin had so meticulously given to Ian and then the police. “Find out what you can.” Lilli hesitated only a moment. “I have a feeling that this was no accidental job.”

“I won’t come back without something,” Jake told her.

Lilli offered him one of her warm smiles. “I know that.”

Marissa awoke very slowly, the drug seeming to take a long, long time to fade. She was aware first of a sweet scent in the air. Then she came to realize that she was lying upon silk. She could feel the elegance, and the softness, and for long moments, the feel of that silk was deceptively comforting.

It was difficult to open her eyes. When she finally managed to do so, she was stunned to realize that she was looking up a very long way at a very fat man.

His hair was straight and black, and he had a long, straight black beard, and a mustache that fell over the beard with the same astounding length. He wore a Chinese coat and dark trousers, and he studied her, rubbing his bearded chin so that the long strands of hair shook.

“Green eyes,” he murmured. Then he turned to someone behind him. “Yes, she is worth much. But you are overanxious—and greedy. We will discuss the price. I will send for tea and a pipe, and we will finish our business.”

The price. They were talking about her. She wanted to leap up and rip out that black beard by the handful. She still couldn’t move. She could barely keep her eyes open.

She decided to close them and try to fight off the sick dizziness that remained. She heard whispers.

“The price doesn’t matter! We’ve already been paid!”

“Right, damned right, so whatever we make now is pure profit, and I want some of it!” came the response. The first voice had been deeper. Marissa was certain that it belonged to the dark-haired man who had seized her. The second voice had been higher, more youthful. The blonde.

And then the large Chinese man returned. She heard him ordering someone around, and heard the sound of liquid being poured into cups. She smelled something, a cloying, sweet scent, and she wondered if it was opium.

The Chinese man gave her two abductors an offer for her. Apparently, it was shockingly low. “You must be insane! Not only has she green eyes, but she has golden hair! She’s young and beautiful. She has superb lines, wonderful breasts—” the blond man began.

“And the word is on the streets as to who she is. The police are seeking her already.”

“Ah,” interrupted the darker of her abductors. “But you have the resources to get her on a ship within the next hour. And once she is gone …”

The Chinese man haggled. Marissa slitted her eyes, desperate to survey her surroundings.

She was in the corner of a large room. There were only two windows, and those were beyond the men who were haggling at a low round table. Straight across the room from her sat a woman, her head low, her back bowed in absolute submission. She was beautiful, a little China doll. She was there to serve the tea, to light the opium pipe, Marissa thought.

She would not be difficult to elude.…

But the men were there. If she tried to rise, to escape, they would be down on her in seconds. Carefully, unobtrusively, she tried to gain strength, flexing her fingers, then her toes. The feeling was coming back to her. She stiffened an arm, then a leg, then relaxed them. She started to inch over to the window. They weren’t paying the least bit of attention to her. If she were not too high up, perhaps she could jump out. And if she were high up …

At least she could scream. She had to do something!

They had come to some kind of an agreement. The men were rising. “They will take her to the ship right now. You will wait for your payment below until she is safely on the ship,” the heavy Chinese man said.

Now … right now. They were coming for her now. They might drug her again, and she would be helpless, unable to protest.

Marissa could afford no more finesse. She leaped to her feet and raced for the window.

The blond man shouted and jumped. He was almost upon her. She turned and kicked him with all her strength. He bellowed in pain and fell to the floor. Marissa reached the window. She tore open the drapes.

She was high, very high. On the third floor. If she jumped, she would kill herself.

But the streets were crowded. The citizens of Chinatown pulled their little wagons through the street, or walked quickly, some with their papers, some with carts of vegetables and meats.

Some were criminals.

And some were good people.

A hand touched Marissa’s shoulder.

She leaned out the window and screamed. “Help! Help me! Oh, dear God, somebody help me!”

She was wrenched into the room with such force that she fell, stunned, upon her back.

“Perhaps we should renegotiate, gentlemen,” the heavy-set Chinese man said. “You neglected to inform me that she is an incredible amount of trouble!”

Ian had toured the streets, one by one, stopping to ask questions, growing ever more determined and desperate. Passing by a market, then a known opium den, Ian saw a man called One-Eyed Charlie who was a notorious—and extremely slippery—criminal. Charlie dealt in hashish, the best, and in female flesh, the most pathetic. He’d been taken downtown to jail a score of times—he had always managed to avoid conviction. Evidence disappeared, just as women disappeared.

Seeing Charlie, Ian didn’t hesitate. He shouted the man’s name. Charlie cast his one good eye in Ian’s direction, then started through the narrow alleyways, plunging through the crowds. Ian shouted again, leaping from the horse, and racing after Charlie.

He caught up with him in the middle of a narrow alley where clothing and animal carcasses hung in profusion. He catapulted onto the man’s back, then dragged him to his feet, nearly strangling him as he shook him by the collar. “Where is she, where the hell is she, Charlie? If she’s gone, you aren’t going to get off this time! I’ll break your neck here and now if I don’t get something!”

Charlie burst into a spate of Chinese. Ian shook him, and Charlie switched to English as he began to turn blue. “I don’t know, I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“My wife, Charlie! The whole damned city knows, and you’re going to tell me that you don’t?”

“I don’t have her, I swear, but I’ll find her! Put me down, I’ll find her. She could be in a few places. I’ll find her—”

“Ian!”

He heard his name shouted as he held Charlie by the throat. He looked at the street and saw Lee Kwan coming toward him quickly. “Ian, we’ve got something. Drop Charlie. We’ve got something!”

Ian looked at Charlie then dropped him. Charlie sprawled on the ground, then picked himself up and dusted his loose trousers, staring at Ian suspiciously.

Then he bolted and ran like a rabbit.

“Lee, what?” Ian demanded anxiously.

“Lilli called. She said she sent feelers out, and she was able to get an address. She said to warn you that it could be dangerous.”

“The address, Lee, give me the address.”

“I’ve called the police—”

“And they might be too late! Give me the damned address!”

She had scratched, she had clawed, she might have cost a few of the heavy Chinese man’s helpers a new dynasty of children, but in the end it had done her little good.

Marissa was carefully trussed and wound into a carpet. She could scarcely breathe, and she was afraid that she would lose consciousness when she most desperately needed her senses.

She was thrown over the shoulder of a man who bore the imprint of her nails from his brow to his chin. She could see nothing. Her arms were caught to her sides by the carpet, and she thought she would die if she couldn’t breathe soon. But she could hear clearly.

Her assailants were gone, and she had been left to the mercy of the Chinese flesh merchant. She could understand nothing of the language, but she knew that she was being sent to a ship. She was leaving the house in Chinatown, and the man she had so ignominiously wounded was making no effort to be gentle as he carried her downstairs. Her face, wound in the heavy carpet, thudded hard against his back again and again. She could not brace herself for she could not move her arms.

She heard the shouts as they reached a rear alley. She was pretty sure the man who carried her was flanked by three others, wiry, strong young men who carried sharp knives and knew how to use them. She had fought them all until she had felt the blade of one of those knives at her throat. And the heavy Chinese man had warned her then that her value would not decrease too dearly should she bear a scar or two here or there in discreet places.

It was impossible to contemplate what was going to happen to her. She’d been warned but she hadn’t wandered into any dangerous neighborhood. She’d been taken anyway. And now God alone knew where she would end up, she thought bleakly.

Did it matter? She would lose everything of importance to her. This life, Uncle Theo, Mary, Jimmy …

Ian. Love.

All her life she had been searching. Even when she hadn’t known it. And she had finally found everything. God had given her not just a way to survive. He’d given her far more than gowns and beautiful things. He’d given her Ian. He’d given her love.

Perhaps this was justice. Perhaps she’d been given too much. Perhaps, like Icarus, she had wanted to fly, and so God had seen to it that her wings were melted and that she came crashing to the ground.

No! Tears stung her eyes. She could not accept defeat so easily!

She began to slam her body back and forth. Someone had to notice the movement! The carpet began to loosen around her.

“Stop!” Hands clamped down upon her brutally. She ignored them, squirming like a worm. It would do her no good, she thought desperately.

Then she heard the voice.

“You! You there! Stop this instant.”

It was Ian. She could have sworn it. Her heart began to hammer, and she writhed with greater determination to make the package of carpet and herself move more visibly.

The man carrying her did stop. Marissa felt him whirl around, and then she was dropped carelessly to the ground. There was a challenge spoken, and then she heard a thunder of footsteps.

Frantically, she rolled out of her carpet and staggered to her feet.

They were in the alleyway, Ian, the man who had held her and the others. The others, with their horrible, wicked knives.

The man who had carried her roared like a lion. Then he bore down on Ian like a steam engine. Marissa screamed, but Ian paid no heed. He was assessing his enemy. He stepped aside just before the man could butt him, then slammed his joined fists down upon his attacker’s back. The man crumbled at his feet.

But the others were encircling him now. The eternal fog was settling upon the city, and the streetlights were winking on. The knives were caught in that glow, twinkling as their owners twisted and turned them in warning.

There was another cry and one of them broke from the group, leaping for Ian, his knife high and poised. Marissa screamed a warning again. Perhaps she was in time; perhaps he had already known. He caught the man’s arm. They plummeted to the earth together and began to roll. The two other men ran after them. Marissa gathered up her tattered skirts and did the same. In the fog, she could see nothing but the entwined figures thrashing upon the ground.

And then one man was up.

Ian.

“Ian!” She shouted his name.

“Get out of here, Marissa! Get the hell out of here!” he shouted to her.

She couldn’t go. The other two men were taking no chances. They were approaching him together. He backed away, a careful eye on the deadly knives. One rushed him. The second started to do the same.

“No!” Marissa shrieked. She ran forward, leaping upon the man’s back. She grasped his face, blinding him. She heard a growl burst forth from him. His hand was upon her, groping, trying to dislodge her.

His knife went clattering down to the cobblestones. She felt herself wrenched free. In the night she saw his murderous dark eyes. And then it was as if she was flying as he hurtled her aside to deal with Ian.

Somewhere in the night, she heard a police whistle. She tried to rise, and she staggered against a wall. She heard a gasp, and the sound of steel ripping into flesh. She screamed, doubling over.

Ian!

Then there were footsteps everywhere. The police had arrived.

Suddenly arms wound around her, lifting her swiftly. She cried out, then her eyes widened. Ian, his face blackened with the grime from the street, blood streaming from a cut near his eye, looked at her. “My God!” she breathed, “I thought it was you!”

“No,” he said softly. “Don’t look back.”

But she had already done so. One man lay in a hideous arch over his own knife. Police officers were hurrying around his body and the others.

“Mr. Tremayne!” One of them called after him. “Mr. Tremayne, we’ve questions—”

“And you can ask them tomorrow!” Ian answered. “I’m taking my wife home now.”

She smiled and leaned against his chest. He carried her out to the street. Lee and John Kwan were in a carriage there. Lee helped her up, and Marissa leaned against her while Ian tethered his bay to the rear of the carriage. Then Ian held her again.

“How did you ever find me?” she asked.

“We moved quickly. Darrin saw them take you. Still, I would never have known where to look if it weren’t for Lilli,” he admitted.

Marissa nodded. “Then I must thank her,” she murmured.

The rest of the ride home was made in silence. It didn’t matter. Marissa felt so very comfortable. So loved. She was home with John and Lee.

And she was cherished by Ian. He had fought for her. Risked his life for her. Killed for her. She would never question his feelings or his past again.

Darrin and Lilli were waiting outside the house. Marissa descended from the coach and hugged the boy first. Then she looked at the woman.

“I just wanted to see that Ian brought you home safely,” Lilli said. Her dress was subdued. She wore no makeup. She had carefully chosen her attire to come to the house, and now she was speaking very shyly.

Behind her, Ian didn’t say a word.

“Lilli, I can never thank you enough. Please, come in,” Marissa said.

“Oh, but I can’t—” Lilli began. “It wouldn’t be right—”

“You’re always welcome,” Marissa assured her. She glanced at Ian, who looked at her approvingly. “There is no way that it could not be right.”

Both Lilli and Darrin were pressured into coming in. Marissa described the house, her assailants and the day, and Ian commented that in the morning, she would have to tell the police. Lee served cold meats and fresh bread and lemonade.

Ian insisted that Darrin take a room in the house for the night, and called the orphanage to say he would be with them. Lilli bid Ian good-night, but Marissa walked the woman to the door.

“Thank you,” she whispered again.

Lilli touched her cheek. “No, thank you. I was never your enemy, my dear. I never could have competed. I won’t come again. It wouldn’t be right. But I am your friend. If you ever need me.”

“Thank you again,” Marissa told her. “And we will see one another again.”

Marissa closed the door on her. Lee was waiting, and insisted on making her a hot toddy, and setting her into a warm tub. And when she was there, Ian, freshly bathed and in a smoking jacket, came for her.

For the very first time, he brought her through the doorway and made love to her in his bed. She lay beside him, sated, miraculously content, feeling so very cherished, and so very blessed.

His arms were strong around her. His lips brushed her forehead. She inhaled the rich scent of his soap and his warmth, and snuggled more closely against the crisp hair of his chest. She closed her eyes and savored the rugged feel of his hair-roughened legs entwined with hers. Thank you, God, thank you! she repeated in silence over and over again.

And she knew then that she had to tell him the truth.

“Ian?” She whispered his name.

But to her surprise, he was asleep beside her. Deeply, contentedly asleep. His face was strikingly young in repose. And very, very peaceful.

Marissa bit her lip. There would have to be another time. She could make him understand, she could tell him that she loved him too much to live a lie anymore.

And she had to believe that he would love her enough for it not to matter.

She smoothed his hair. She couldn’t wake him. Her time would come.

Or so she serenely believed that night.

Fate was destined to betray her again.