A Candle in the Dark Read Free Page A

not?”
    “I have a proposition for you.”
    A barmaid thumped a bottle on the table and retreated. Cain reached for it and sloshed a good portion into his glass, downing it quickly. Its warmth spread through his stomach, into his blood. He poured another glass. “What proposition?”
    “I need a partner.”
    Cain gulped his drink. “Didn’t look to me like you cared for doctors.”
    “I don’t need a doctor,” she said quickly. “I need a partner.”
    “No, thank you.”
    She didn’t take her eyes from his face. “Davey said you were used to traveling.”
    Cain straightened. Traveling? What the hell did that have to do with anything? This entire conversation was strange. He thought for a minute that the drink was making him hallucinate, but she was too real to be an illusion.
    “He said you never stayed in one place long.” She said quickly, as if afraid he would interrupt her. “I need someone to travel with me. I’ll pay you well. Very well.” She took a deep breath, as if the next words were a necessary evil. “How long has it been since you had a woman?”
    He nearly choked on the bourbon.
    Her voice dropped to a practiced purr. “What about me? Do you want me?”
    Cain leaned forward. “Listen, Duchess, Ana, or whoever you are, I’m not interested, but since it looks like that won’t shut you up, why don’t you just come out and tell me what you want?”
    She stiffened. “I need someone to pose as my husband to California. I need to leave soon—tomorrow if possible—on the next steamer to Panama, but I can’t go alone. Even you must be able to see that I’ll need someone to protect me on the trip.”
    “You don’t look like you need help.”
    “But I do.” Her voice was low and intense. “There arc—people—looking for me. They’ll be looking for a lone woman, not a couple.”
    “Why me?”
    “Davey said he trusted you. He said you could survive. And that you spoke Spanish.”
    “Ah.” He laughed shortly. “
Chapurro
.”
    “What did you say?”
    He shrugged. “That I get by, that’s all. It’s been a long time since I had to speak it.”
    She nodded. “Will you do it? Will you come with me?”
    “It depends on what I get in return.”
    She shifted her body subtly, and he saw the cleavage again. Suddenly the aristocrat was gone, in her place a whore. He wasn’t sure how she’d done it, but she’d replaced cold distance with seduction.
    “In return for pretending to be my husband, I’ll give you husbandly rights,” she said, her voice low and throaty. “All yours. No one else, until we get to California.”
    “I wouldn’t offer free medicine to a well man,” he said. “What else do you have?”
    She looked confused for only a moment. “I’ll pay for everything. Your tickets, your food.”
    “I expect that. What else?”
    “Your booze,” she said angrily. “Cash. Enough for your next bottle, and the one after that, and the one after that.”
    He saw her look away, as if ashamed by her outburst. The motion told him that, drunk as he was, he hadn’t misread her earlier. She was desperate. Desperate enough to ask a man like him for help.
    “What’d you do, Duchess?” he joked. “Kill somebody?”
    Her gaze was challenging. “Yes. I think I did.”
    Cain dropped his glass in surprise. It crashed to the table and bounced off. Bourbon splashed over the surface and onto her dress.
    She didn’t move, and her eyes never left his. “So you see, Mr. D’Alessandro, why I need your help. And your answer.”
    Christ, what he wouldn’t give right now for a clear head. Cain knew he was on the verge of saying yes, of leaving everything familiar to follow this woman. It was ridiculous—she was a murderess and a whore, and there was something about her cool manners that disturbed him.
    He didn’t want the trouble she brought, didn’t want to have anything to do with her at all.
    She was still staring at him, and her gaze sent an insidious, coiling heat into the pit