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“No man could ever forget a meeting like that. Chris, you have to go back inside. I can’t go walking with you in the dark.”
Chris wanted to stay with him always and, had he asked, she would have climbed on a horse and ridden away with him—to live in the rain forest for all she cared. But she knew she had to obey him. He didn’t know how he felt about her and she wasn’t about to pursue him.
“All right,” she whispered with great reluctance in her voice. “Let’s go.”
He moved away from her slowly, not looking at her, and allowed her to go first back onto the street. Chris took one step around the corner and saw Rory with Asher coming toward them, and they had the look of a vigilante committee out to rid the world of whatever they considered vermin. She turned back to Tynan. “Kiss me,” she whispered urgently.
Ty looked astonished for a split second then he lost no time obeying her, taking her in his arms and kissing her with a passion Chris had never before known existed. She completely forgot about the reason she’d asked Ty to kiss her but returned his passion, her arms going around his neck and pulling him closer—not that he could get closer as he wedged his thigh between hers.
“Unhand her!” came Rory’s voice as he pulled Tynan away from Chris.
For a moment, Chris was too stunned to even open her eyes, much less try to speak.
“I should call you out for this,” Rory was saying.
Chris was leaning against a building wall and was in such a state of euphoria that someone could have told her a bomb was about to explode under her feet and she wouldn’t have been able to move.
“I’m ready when you are, Sayers,” she heard Tynan say in a voice deep with threat.
Reluctantly, Chris began to surface because she sensed that this was an argument that she had to stop. But as she moved away from the wall, her eyes opened wide for a moment. The entire back of her dress was unbuttoned.
Standing as straight as she could, not allowing the loose dress to fall forward, she confronted Rory Sayers with his backup of Mr. Prescott.
“Mr. Sayers,” she said angrily. “I do not know you and, after tonight, I don’t believe I want to. You have no right to interfere in my life and I kindly wish you’d stay out of it.”
“Chris,” Tynan said. “Stay out of this. This has been coming for a long time.”
“I most certainly willnotstay out of this,” she said with so much feeling that the front of her dress fell forward, but she caught it and hoped the men hadn’t noticed. If she ever got out of this, she was going to give Tynan a piece of her mind. Of all the audacious things any man had ever done to her, this was one of the worst. She was tempted to let Mr. Sayers have him.
“Miss Mathison, I have to take offense at this. I have met your father several times and I cannot believe that he’d want his daughter pawed by a man of this sort in an alleyway.”
Tynan took a step forward, and Chris put herself between the two men. “My father hired this man to protect me and he is doing just that. You, Mr. Sayers, are the unwanted person. As it happens, Mr. Tynan has just asked me to marry him and I have, quite happily, accepted. Now, I do believe that a man has a right to kiss his intended without being molested by the local bully.”
Rory Sayers stepped back at that. “Bully? Pardon me, Miss, I had thought you were a lady of higher ideals than to take up with this…this criminal. I can only think that you know nothing about him.”
“I know that he was put into jail for two years without any evidence.” Holding her dress, her back to Tynan, she advanced on Rory. “I know that he’s never known who his parents are and that he’s never had the advantages of money that you have had. And even though he’s not had a formal education, he speaks like a gentleman, reads Voltaire in his spare time, and he constantly puts his life on the line to help other people. Can you say the same thing, Mr. Sayers?”
Rory straightened his back. “You are not the lady I took you for,” he said and after one look at Tynan, turned, Asher on his heels, and went down the street.
“He can’t say those things about you,” Tynan said and started after the men.
Chris planted herself in front of him. “Don’t youdare,”she said through her teeth. “Don’t you dare even think of going after him.” She began backing him into the dark alley. “Especially don’t you think of avenging my ‘honor’. What do you know of a ladies’ honor?”
“Chris, I—”
“Look at this!” she gasped, turning her back to him and showing him the unbuttoned dress. “How dare you try to remove my clothing!”
“Oh,” he said with a slight grin. “I guess it’s just habit. I didn’t even think about it.”
“Habit!” she gasped. “Whenever you kiss a girl you unbutton her dress?”
“Well,” he said slowly, still backing up. “Most girls I kisswanttheir dresses off. You seemed to like it well enough.”
“Of all the vain—I should have allowed Mr. Sayers to shoot you. You certainly well deserved it.” She began to fasten her dress, struggling with the many tiny buttons.
“He can’t shoot at all. All he can do is push a pencil around and flap his gums. Here, let me do that. I can button them as fast as I can unbutton them.”
“And I guess you’ve had practice at that often enough,” she said as he turned her around and began to fasten her dress.
