Fright and anticipation sluiced through Sheridan as she wondered what wasto come. She'd never seen what went on between Paddy's girl and the customersafter they climbed the stairs and found a room.

But certainly there could be nothing more wonderful than this, than thefeel of his muscled chest rubbing over her sensitive nipples, the intense heatof his body, the delicious strength in his upper arms as she wrapped her handsaround the steel bands of muscle, clinging to him, searching for somethingonly he could give her.

His lips drowned her in a sensual haze, the pleasure swirling together. Hishand smoothed over her stomach, cupping her and then gently parting her slickfolds, his finger resuming where his tongue had left off.

Sheridan arched upward as bliss spiraled through her. Her breasts thrustbefore him. He took the offering, drawing one straining peak between his lips.

The excitement built to a fever pitch as she squirmed beneath him, heatculminating as his finger moved faster and faster.

He whispered against her breasts, telling her how beautiful she was, howmuch he wanted her, needed her. Then he gently bit her nipple and color burstbehind Sheridan's closed eyes.

She cried out as pulse after pulse of release crashed through her, bringingliquid warmth to the core of her, drowning her in a rush of sensationsradiating from her toes to her fingertips.

"Yes," her dark angel murmured against her mouth. "So sweet."

Sheridan wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers playing with hissilky hair as his burning kiss scorched the breath from her lungs.

"I love you," she whispered in Gaelic, knowing she truly did, that this manwas her fate, her destiny, come what may.

He shifted his weight, nudging himself upward until the hot, hard length ofhim probed the place where his fingers had just been. Fear spilled throughSheridan's veins as she realized he sought entrance.

She shook her head. Too late. He plunged into her to the hilt. A halfscream died on her lips, tears blurring her vision at the pain.

"Nay," she pleaded, but the alcohol had eclipsed his rational thought. Shebit her lip to keep from crying out, but the pain ebbed within a minute andthe realization that he'd made them one soared through her. Two soulsentwined.

Sheridan clung to him as he slipped in and out of her, lifting her legs,rocking her, filling her, taking her once more to that bright, spiralingplace. He tipped his head back and roared as they reached the summit together,his throbbing heat satiating her, completing her.

He nestled his head between her breasts. "Virgin," he murmured groggily asshe stroked her fingers through his hair. "Thank you," he softly added,filling her with contentment, banishing the niggling doubts that she had donethe wrong thing by giving him her body. God had brought her to this man. Forbetter or worse, their lives were now interwoven.

His long lashes fluttered against her skin as he struggled to keep his eyesopen under the drugging sedation of the alcohol he'd consumed.

Tenderly, he pressed a kiss against the curve of her breast. "Shamrock," hemurmured in a barely audible voice, referring to the tattoo on her hip, as hisbreathing lapsed into the measured rhythm of sleep.

"Aye," Sheridan whispered. " 'Tis meant to bring good fortune ... and hereye are."

*Chapter Six*

A commotion woke Sheridan from her slumber. She discovered her arms and limbs entangled with those of a man whose name she didn't know. Yet that fact seemedinconsequential in the scheme of things. They had made love, and she had givenhim her heart.

How unpredictable love was. She'd expected its arrival to be announced byherald angels singing on high, not by the sound of a breaking wine bottle on adeserted dock. And never in her wildest dreams had she imagined it wouldhappen so suddenly, so completely.

And with an Englishman, no less.

Sheridan tried not to think about how her mother would react to such news. Certainly her family would understand that emotions of the heart could not beturned on or off at a whim. And for the moment, Sheridan allowed herself tobelieve they would eventually accept the fate God had dealt her.

In sleep, her dark angel looked like an engaging young boy with his tousledlocks, but the hint of whiskers on his chin and the large, muscular armsholding her close clearly proclaimed he was a man ...

As did the magic he'd cast over her body in the deepest part of the nightwhen time held suspended and no other world existed beside their own.

Sheridan shivered in remembrance and tenderly swept the hair off hisforehead. He murmured something and tugged her closer to him, his bodystirring to life, as did her own.

The loud noise sounded again as he began to nuzzle her neck. Then Sheridanheard a distinct voice that caused every limb in her body to go stock-still.

Uncle Finny had found the saloon.

Oh, heavenly Father!

Gingerly, Sheridan peeled her dark angel's arms from her waist and tried toslide out of bed. Her breasts caressed his cheek as she moved. Like a hungrybabe, he latched on to a nipple. A searing rush of moist heat pooled at thejuncture of her thighs.

She moaned low in her throat as he suckled her, her body remembering the ecstasy he could so easily bring. How she longed to stay within the warmth ofhis embrace, to taste and touch and marvel once again. But as it had beensince her ship had departed Boston Harbor, Sheridan had to chaperone herchaperones.

He groaned sleepily as she reluctantly climbed out of bed and hurriedlydonned her clothing. She padded to the doorway. Knob in hand, she hesitated,glancing back at the man who had walked out of her dreams and into her arms.

Dawn had not yet fully pinkened the horizon, but one slim beam peekedthrough the crack in the drapes, glistening off his dark, sleek back. His armswere thrown wide, and the sheet barely covered his incredible backside.

Knowing she should go, Sheridan still traveled back to the bed. She tuckedthe sheet around him and kissed his forehead. "Sleep well, m'love."

"Danny," he murmured.

Sheridan's heart clenched at the sweet sound of her name on his lips. Sheforced herself to leave his side and hurried down the stairs. Alarm rifled through her as she came to a halt at the bottom step. Two burly, uniformed menglanced up at her.

The law.

In between them was her uncle, his head flopped forward onto his chest,their meaty hands clamped around his upper arms.

A snap of cold dread washed over Sheridan. The police had never been afriend to the Delaneys or to the Irish in general. Even the paddies back inBoston, who, ironically, were mostly Irish, looked at their countrymen likesecond-class citizens.

The lace-curtain crowd had embraced their new home and now were Americans of Irish extraction, drawing another line only a privileged few could stepover. The unfairness of their treatment angered Sheridan, as it always did.

"What are ye doing? Get yer hands off him!"

Her voice must have registered with her uncle because his head slowly rose.She gasped. He sported a black eye and a swollen lip.

"Oh, uncle, what has happened to ye?"

He gave her a gap-toothed smile. "Ther-re's a good lass comin' to her puiruncle's rescue."

Glaring at the men, Sheridan demanded, "What have ye done to him?"

"Nothin' he didn't deserve," one of the surly blocks of granite said,shaking her uncle. "Put your feet down, Mick."

In his usual rebellious fashion, her uncle had his feet lifted off thefloor and tucked back, leaving the men to hold his full weight.

"The back of me hand to ye, ye dirty blatherskites!" her uncle spat,followed by a long stream of Gaelic curses, everything from a pox on the men'sfamily to a painful bout of dropsy, impotency, and their manhood falling offand being eaten by a pack of vicious wolfhounds.

"What are ye doing with him? Ye have no right to be treatin' him so!"

The larger of the two men bent forward, his expression menacing, his faceround like a boulder, his complexion far whiter than the teeth he bared whenhe snarled, "If you don't want to follow him to the hole, sweet piece, I'dwatch what you're sayin'." His gaze raked her body, mentally stripping hernaked, trying to cheapen her. She wouldn't allow it.

Sheridan tilted up her chin and gave him her haughtiest glare. "Ye'll keepyer looks to yerself," she told him, firm on the outside but quivering on theinside. Then she nodded to her uncle. "What has he done?"

For a moment it appeared as if the man might take exception to her remark.Instead he answered her question. "He laid a hand on his betters."

"Bloody no-good Irish," an angry voice called out.

"Go back where ya belong," another added.

Sheridan's gaze rolled over the scruffy group of men and women. "We belonghere just as much as any of ye!"

"We don't want your type here!"

Sheridan would not allow her despair to show. Why did she continue to holdout hope that people could put aside their prejudice and hatred and learn to live together?

Turning back to the constables, she said, "Ye can't throw a man in jailjust because he touched someone."

"He pinched me bum!" a female voice cried out indignantly.

Sheridan scrutinized the young barmaid, a peasant blouse hanging off hershoulders and barely covering her ample bosom. Sheridan highly doubted thiswas the first time the girl's bottom had been sampled by roving male hands.The patrons of Puddlebys were not cut from the finest cloth.

"He meant no harm," Sheridan appealed, hoping for some understanding, butgetting none.

"Let's go," the constable ordered. The men headed toward the door, heruncle dangling between.

"Wait!" Sheridan jumped in front of them. "Where are ye taking him?"

"To the stockade they ar-re," her uncle answered, wriggling his body toannoy the men. Obviously the alcohol had worked its way out of his system--andwithout the soul-persuading powers of twelve tumblers of strong drink, heruncle was at his worst. Pure cussedness, her mum liked to say.

"I sez to them, I'm a humble man. I've merely come to see to me flock. Bah!sez they. 'Tis a drunken old sot ye are. A drunken old sot! sez I with me gallall puffed up and me fists feelin' powerful mean at me sides. Oh? sez they inthat snortin', bullyin', spalpeen way of theirs, who ar-re ye then if not adrunken old sot? I gave them the eye." He pointed to his left one, since hisright sported his ever shifting patch.

"Spewin' the wrath of God I was. 'Tis sorry ye'll be when ye find SaintPeter barrin' yer entrance to heaven, for I'll have nary a kind word to sayabout ye, sez I. They guffawed in their blustery way. And why should we carewhat ye have to say, sez them. Why? sez I, indignant and the like. BecauseI'm--"

"Father Pius Divine," Sheridan finished for him, heaving an exasperatedsigh.

Father Pius Divine was one of her uncle's favorite cast of characters and generally only presented himself in her uncle's more lucid moments. Hepreached the word of the Lord on one hand and got into all sorts of mischiefwith the other hand.

"This guy is a loon. He should be locked up for good."

Sheridan ignored the hateful giant and instead quietly asked her uncle,"What are ye doing here? I thought ye were sleeping."

"Aye, I was. But ther-re come upon me this terrible thirst. A wee cup o'warm milk 'tis all I intended, mind ye." He shook his head sadly. "Never didget the milk."

Sheridan looked up at the two men, trying to gauge which one might feel forher plight. Her heart sank. They wore identical expressions of steelydetermination.

She tried the direct approach. "I'll take him with me. He won't bebothering ye anymore tonight."

"Oh no, you don't," a beefy voice rang out Sheridan turned to see theproprietor waddling toward her. Dread shot through her at the look in hismud-puddle eyes. Clearly, he intended to make her pay for the embarrassmentheaped upon him earlier.

"I want the Mick in jail."

"Where d'ya think I'm takin' him?" the constable snapped.

Something calculated and glimmered behind the innkeeper's eyes as he shot aglare in Sheridan's direction. "Make sure you add thievery to his charges."

"Thievery!" she fulminated. "He's never stolen anything in his life!" Whichwasn't entirely true. Her uncle's favorite battered flask, for example, hadbeen plucked right out of a beggar's hands as the man slept off the evening'srevelry. Nevertheless, her protest went unheard.

"What did he steal?" the constable inquired with renewed interest.

The owner scratched his armpit. "He stole, er ... money from my wife.That's right. Straight out of her hand and everyone here will attest to it."

"Ye're lying!"

The proprietor's face mottled. "Don't you dare call me a bar, ye filthyIrish whore!"

The cutting words sent Sheridan reeling as if he'd dealt her a physicalblow.

An earsplitting shriek like that of a stuck pig pierced the air. "Call mycolleen a tart, will ye? I'll kill ye, ye blubbery amadan!" Her uncle twistedin the men's arms, his legs flying wildly to try to get at the proprietor, whohad scooted back, a satisfied smirk on his fleshy face.

"Nay, uncle! Don't!"

But it was too late for reasoning. One of the men had his arm clampedaround her uncle's neck and the other attempted to grab his flailing limbs.The man didn't realize her uncle's legs were quite spry for his age. He neededto be quick to outrun the barkeep seeking payment.

The constable almost had him, but her uncle got in one last kick, which, asluck would have it, struck the innkeeper in the groin.

"Ha-ha!" her uncle chortled with glee. "That'll teach ye, ye bloated cod!"

The constables finally captured him and dragged him away, his feet scrapingbehind him as he continued to cackle, while the proprietor ranted that he'dsee her uncle hanged. Sheridan had no choice but to follow and pray she couldresolve the problem.

With one last glance toward the stairs, she hurried after her uncle'srapidly departing figure.

In the daylight, all the ships berthed at the wharf looked identical. Not asingle one stood out to Nicholas's eyes. The girl could be on any one of themor she could already be out to sea, gone forever from his life.

Damn it to hell.

Why it bothered him so much that she might be gone was a mystery. It mustbe because he felt cheated. He wanted to see her in the daylight, if for noother reason than to discern if she truly was as glorious as he remembered orif his mind had been playing tricks on him and his passion had been alcoholinduced. Many a man had sunk to his doom at the bottom of a bottle. If only hehadn't passed out!

What was in that flask she'd given him? A liquid mallet? Nicholas hadawakened with a mouth that tasted like mud and tribal drums playing in hishead, a hundred little feet doing a jig behind his eyes.

The entire night was a blur that no amount of coaxing on his part couldcompletely piece together--although from the sated feel of his body, the girlhad made love to him with the expertise of a French courtesan. The thoughtmade Nicholas's "preening rooster" jump to attention.

Smiling at the remembrance, he had reached for her only to be greeted byemptiness ... and speckles of blood dotting the sheets. A hazy memory of apummeling--his own--came to mind, so Nicholas dismissed the blood.