“What did I say?”
Ulysses held his gaze without fear. “You spoke of your father. And of prison bars.”
Morgan slammed his glass on the sawhorse that served as a table. “I am a convict. Does that change your friendship, Professor?”
“No. It only convinces me that you must speak of these things to someone if you are to put them behind you.”
“As you’ve put your past behind you?” Morgan laughed. “I—”
The tent flap opened and Tamar eased inside. She glanced at Ulysses and ignored him, making straight for Morgan.
“I waited for you,” she said.
Morgan eyed her coldly. “I was not aware we planned to meet.”
“But you do not wish to spend this night alone.”
“You make yourself foolish, Tamar,” Ulysses said, the words clipped like a Yankee’s.
“I do not care for your opinion, little man.”
“Morgan wants no part of you.”
“Oh, does the mannequin speak for you now, my wolf?”
She sat on the cot beside Morgan and breathed in his ear. “Is he your master? Or are you in love already with the little girl in the chair?”
Morgan stiffened. “If you want tender sentiments, look somewhere else.”
“Ah, but I find love as tedious as you do. We have much in common, you and I. We share only what we wish to share, no more.” Her long tongue curled about his earlobe. “Come. Come away, and let me show you.”
Morgan’s body had begun to throb in a way he had ignored one too many times. This was pain he didn’t have to endure, especially when the cure was so free of consequences. He and Tamar could use each other without illusions or expectations.
Ulysses and Caitlin thought he was attracted to Athena Munroe. There was one way of making them see how wrong they were—and purging his own senses of Athena’s unsettling effect.
He got up, pulling Tamar with him. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll give each other what we want. But don’t expect a lover. I am in no mood for gentleness.”
The pupils of her eyes were large with desire and excitement. “I do not want it.” She darted forward and kissed him, pushing her tongue into his mouth. He responded with equal violence, despising himself. As she led him from the tent, she cast a final, triumphant glance at Ulysses.
Morgan did not look back.
Chapter 6
The streets of Denver’s business district were everything Morgan hated. He stalked up Sixteenth Street, keeping his eyes fixed on his course, head down against the occasional stares and doing his best to ignore the cacophonous noise and overripe smells of horses, dung, spoiled food, smoke, unwashed human flesh, and the scent of many humans crowded together.
He would rather not have come here at all. The Munroes’ boundless generosity had provided the circus’s principal performers with lodgings at Denver’s finest hotel, the Windsor. Morgan might have been included among those so favored, but he would sooner hang than stay in the city. Visiting it was bad enough.
So he remained on the lot with the roustabouts, crew, and lesser performers, watching the circus come to life again. At the end of the first few days in Denver, French’s Fantastic Family Circus was back in trim, busy with practice and preparation for the orphans’ performance to be held at the end of the week. Everyone had enough to eat, and new costumes were being constructed by the seamstress to replace those that had worn out or burned in the fire.
Harry supervised the improvements and restorations with even more joviality than before. Caitlin had groomed her horses to a satin sheen of renewed health, Florizel and his cohorts were perfecting a new clown act of which he was inordinately proud, and the jugglers, aerialists, acrobats, and dog trainers went about their tasks with cheerful absorption. Hope wafted in the air like a seductive perfume.
Morgan kept to himself. He did not visit Tamar again. His one night with her had been more than enough to purge him of any desire to share her bed a second time. She was easy to put from his thoughts.
The same could not be said of Athena Munroe. They hadn’t met again, yet her eyes and her scent came back to him both waking and sleeping. There was no reason in it, and no sense. On the day that Miss Munroe and her society friends were to have their promised tour of the circus, he made an immediate decision to visit Ulysses at the Windsor and remain there. The only way to rid his thoughts of Athena Munroe was to avoid her as much as possible until the troupe left Denver.