Baron Cain was a dangerously handsome man, with tawny hair, a chiseled nose, and pewter-gray eyes that gave his face the reckless look of a man who lived on the edge. He was also bored. Even though Dora Van Ness was beautiful and sexually adventurous, he regretted his dinner invitation. He wasn't in the mood to listen to her chatter. He knew she was ready, but he lingered over his brandy. He took women on his terms, not theirs, and a brandy this old shouldn't be rushed.

The house's former owner had kept an excellent wine cellar, the contents of which, along with the home itself, Cain owed to iron nerves and a pair of kings. He pulled a thin cigar from a wooden humidor the housekeeper had left for him on the table, clipped the end, and lit it. In another few hours he was due at one of New York's finest clubs for what was sure to be a high-stakes poker game. Before then, he'd enjoy Dora's more intimate charms.

As he leaned back in his chair, he saw her gaze linger on the scar that disfigured the back of his right hand. It was one of several that he'd accumulated, and all of them seemed to excite her.

"I don't think you've heard a word I've said all evening, Baron." Her tongue flicked her lips, and she gave him a sly smile.

Cain knew that women considered him handsome, but he took little interest in his looks and certainly no pride. The way he saw it, his face had nothing to do with him. It was an inheritance from a weak-willed father and a mother who'd spread her legs for any man who caught her eye.

He'd been fourteen when he'd begun to notice women watching him, and he'd relished the attention. But now, a dozen years later, there'd been too many women, and he'd grown jaded. "Of course I heard you. You were giving me all the reasons I should go to work for your father."

"He's very influential."

"I already have a job."

"Really, Baron, that's hardly a job. It's a social activity."

He regarded her levelly. "There's nothing social about it. Gambling is the way I earn my living."

"But-"

"Would you like to go upstairs, or would you rather I took you home now? I don't want to keep you out too late."

She was on her feet in an instant and, minutes later, in his bed. Her breasts were full and ripe, and he couldn't understand why they didn't feel better in his hands.

"Hurt me," she whispered. "Just a little."

He was tired of hurting, tired of the pain he couldn't seem to escape even though the war was over. His mouth twisted cynically. "Whatever the lady wants."

Later, when he was alone again and dressed for the night, he found himself wandering through the rooms of the house he'd won with a pair of kings. Something about it reminded him of the house where he'd grown up.

He'd been ten when his mother had run off, leaving him with his debt-ridden father in a bleak Philadelphia mansion that was falling into disrepair. Three years later his father had died, and a committee of women came to take him to an orphan asylum. He ran away that night. He had no destination in mind, only a direction. West.

He spent the next ten years drifting from one town to another, herding cattle, laying railroad track, and panning for gold until he discovered he could find more of it over a card table than in the creeks. The West was a new land that needed educated men, but he wouldn't even admit that he knew how to read.

Women fell in love with the handsome boy whose sculptured features and cold gray eyes whispered a thousand mysteries, but there was something frozen inside him that none of them could thaw. The gentler emotions that take root and flourish in a child who has known love were missing in him. Whether they were dead forever or merely frozen, Cain didn't know. Didn't much care.

When the war broke out, he crossed back over the Mississippi River for the first time in twelve years and enlisted, not to help preserve the Union, but because he was a man who valued freedom above everything else, and he couldn't stomach the idea of slavery. He joined Grant's hard-bitten troops and caught the general's eye when they captured Fort Henry. By the time they reached Shiloh, he was a member of Grant's staff. He was nearly killed twice, once at Vicksburg, then four months later at Chattanooga, charging Missionary Ridge in the battle that opened the way for Sherman's march to the sea.

The newspapers began to write of Baron Cain, dubbing him the "Hero of Missionary Ridge" and praising him for his courage and patriotism. After Cain made a series of successful raids through enemy lines, General Grant was quoted as saying, "I would rather lose my right arm than lose Baron Cain."

What neither Grant nor the newspapers knew was that Cain lived to take risks. Danger, like sex, made him feel alive and whole. Maybe that was why he played poker for a living. Fie could risk everything on the turn of a card.

Except it had all begun to pale. The cards, the exclusive clubs, the women-none of those things meant as much as they should. Something was missing, but he had no idea what it was.

Kit jerked awake to the sound of an unfamiliar male voice. Clean straw pressed against her cheek, and for an instant she felt as if she were home again in the barn at Risen Glory. Then she remembered it had been burned.

"Why don't you turn in, Magnus? You've had a long day." The voice was coming from the other side of the stable wall. It was deep and crisp, with none of the elongated vowels and whispered consonants of her homeland.

She blinked, trying to see through the darkness. Memory washed over her. Sweet Jesus! She had fallen asleep in Baron Cain's stable.

She inched up on one elbow, wishing she could see better. The directions the woman on the ferry had given her had been wrong, and it had been dark before she'd found the house. She'd huddled in some trees across the way for a while, but nothing had happened, so she'd come around to the back and climbed the wall that surrounded the house in order to see better. When she'd spotted the open stable window, she'd decided to slip inside to investigate. Unfortunately, the familiar scents of horses and fresh straw had proved too much for her, and she'd fallen asleep in the back of an empty stall.

"You plannin' to take Saratoga out tomorrow?" This was a different voice, the familiar, liquid tones reminiscent of the speech of former plantation slaves.

"I might. Why?"

"Don't like the way that fetlock's healin'. Better give her a few more days."

"Fine. I'll take a look at her tomorrow. Good night, Magnus."

"Night, Major."

Major? Kit's heart pounded. The man with the deep voice was Baron Cain! She crept to the stable window and peered over the sill just in time to see him disappear inside the lighted house. Too late. She'd missed her chance to get a glimpse of his face. A whole day wasted.

For a moment she felt a traitorous tightening in her throat. She couldn't have made a bigger mess of things if she'd tried. It was long after midnight, she was in a strange Yankee city, and she'd nearly got herself found out the first day. She swallowed hard and tried to restore her spirits by forcing her battered hat more firmly down on her head. It was no good crying over milk that was already spilled. For now, she had to get out of here and find a place to spend the rest of the night. Tomorrow she'd take up her surveillance from a safer distance.

She fetched her bundle, crept to the doors, and listened. Cain had gone into the house, but where was the man called Magnus? Cautiously she pushed the door open and peered outside.

Light from the curtained windows filtered over the open ground between the stable and the carriage house. She slipped out and listened, but the yard was silent and deserted. She knew the iron gate in the high brick wall was locked, so she'd have to get out the same way she'd come in, over the top.

The open stretch of yard she'd have to run across made her uneasy. Once more she glanced toward the house. Then she took a deep breath and ran.

The moment she was free of the stable, she knew something was wrong. The night air, no longer masked by the smell of horses, carried the faint, unmistakable scent of cigar smoke.

Her blood raced. She dug in her heels and threw herself at the wall, but the vine she grabbed to help her over came away in her hand. She clawed frantically for another one, dropped her bundle, and pulled herself up the wall. Just as she reached the top, something jerked hard on the seat of her trousers. She flailed at the empty air and then slammed, belly-first, to the ground. A boot settled into the small of her back.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" the boot's owner drawled overhead.

The fall had knocked the wind out of her, but she still recognized that deep voice. The man who was holding her down was her sworn enemy, Major Baron Nathaniel Cain.

Her rage shimmered in a red haze. She dug her hands into the dirt and struggled to get up, but he didn't budge.

"Git your damn foot off me, you dirty son of a bitch!"

"I don't think I'm quite ready to do that," he said with a calmness that enraged her.

"Let me up! You let me up right now!"

"You're awfully feisty for a thief."

"Thief!" Outraged, she slammed her fists into the dirt. "I never stole anything in my life. You show me a man who says I have, and I'll show you a damn liar."

"Then what were you doing in my stable?"

That stopped her. She searched her brain for an excuse he might believe. "I-I came here lookin'… lookin'… for a job workin' in your stable. Nobody was around, so I went inside to wait for somebody to show up. Musta fallen asleep."

His foot didn't budge.

"W-when I woke up, it was dark. Then I heard voices, and I got scared somebody would see me and think I was tryin' to hurt the horses."