Lila was beyond appreciating the sharp concern in his voice. She swallowed again, trying desperately to delay the inevitable. Her stomach twisted and, with a groan, she lunged from the bed, her state of dishabille forgotten as she ran for the dresser and the china bowl on it. She just made it, dropping to her knees with the bowl on the floor in front of her as her stomach heaved again.
Bishop was beside her in an instant. He caught her hair in one hand, holding it back from her face and wrapping his arm around her shoulders, supporting her trembling body.
“Go away,” Lila groaned between heaves. “Please go away.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” he told her, his impatient tone at odds with the gentleness of his touch. “I’ve seen people throw up before.”
“I don’t care what you’ve seen. I want you to go away.” She’d never been so humiliated in her entire life. Being ill was bad enough, but to have him there made it ten times worse.
Ignoring her, Bishop held her until her stomach had finished its tantrum. By the time the bout had passed, Lila could only lean weakly against his knee with her eyes closed. She wanted to order him to leave again, and, at the same time, she wanted to turn into his arms and sob like a child.
“Rinse your mouth.”
Lila opened her eyes to find the china pitcher in front of her. “I can’t drink out of that,” she protested automatically.
“It’s clean. Rinse your mouth.”
His tone was so matter-of-fact that Lila forgot her embarrassment. Too weak to argue, she did as she was told.
“Do you want to go back to bed?” Bishop brushed wisps of damp hair back from her forehead.
“I want to die,” she muttered.
“Not today,” he said heartlessly. He stood, drawing her up with him.
Lila leaned against him, gathering her strength for the trip back to bed. But when she swayed, he slid one arm under her knees and lifted her off her feet, carrying her as easily as if she were a child. At five feet eight inches, it wasn’t often that she felt small and helpless, but Bishop made her feel almost fragile. The fact that she rather enjoyed the sensation did nothing to improve her mood.
“I can walk,” she said crossly.
“You’d fall on your face.” He held her with a gentleness at odds to the cool tone of his voice.
There was something oddly comforting about the feel of his arms around her, the broad muscles of his chest pressed against her arm. Lila had to resist the urge to press her cheek against his shoulder, close her eyes, and just give herself over into his keeping. She couldn’t deny a small—very small—twinge of regret when he reached the bed and lowered her onto it.
He stepped back and she was relieved to see that he was wearing a pair of woolen drawers. It was better than if he’d been naked, but they rode distressingly low on his hips. Lila found her eyes tracing the dark line of hair that arrowed across his stomach before disappearing beneath the waist of the drawers. She jerked her eyes away, her cheeks flushing.
“Put some clothes on, for heaven’s sake. A gentleman would never appear before a lady in such a state of undress.”
Bishop studied her for a moment. He’d never in his life met a woman quite like her. She sat there, her hair tumbled around her shoulders and her skin the color of skimmed milk. He’d just spent five minutes holding her while she puked her guts up yet she still managed to sound as haughty as a queen handing out decrees to the peasants.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Seems to me a lady wouldn’t notice a gentleman’s state of undress.”
“I can hardly help but notice it with you standing there in your ... your underwear.” She flicked her fingers in his direction but kept her eyes resolutely turned away.
“Why, Lila, I do believe you’ve just made a reference to my intimate apparel.”
She glared at him, her eyes bright green against the pallor of her face. “Just put some clothes on,” she said between gritted teeth.
“Always happy to oblige a lady.”
He put just a touch of mocking emphasis on the final word, and Lila’s fingers curled into the covers as she struggled with the urge to hit him. He was the most exasperating man she’d ever met. Though she was determined not to look, she found it impossible to ignore him as he walked around the foot of the bed and bent to pick his clothes up from the floor.
The room had been dimly lit the night she’d come to him and her impressions of his body had been more tactile than visual. Seeing him now, in broad daylight, she found it difficult to take her eyes from him. He was all smooth muscles and hard angles. She was suddenly vividly aware of the differences between male and female. Even more distressing was the odd little twinge in the pit of her stomach, a twinge that had nothing to do with her recent sickness and everything to do with the way the muscles rippled across Bishop’s back and shoulders as he stepped into his pants.
Lila looked away, ashamed of the effort it took. There was something shockingly intimate about having a man dressing in the same room with her. Now that she was a married woman, she supposed it was the least of the intimacies to which she was going to have to become accustomed. The thought sent a shiver up her spine, a shiver she was determined to believe was caused by dread rather than anticipation.
“I’ll have them bring up some dry crackers for you,” Bishop said as he finished buttoning his shirt.
“I don’t want anything.” The thought of food of any kind made Lila’s stomach twist uneasily.
“They’ll settle your stomach. Eat them slowly.” He shrugged into his jacket. “I’ll have them bring up a pot of tea too.”
“I don’t want any tea,” she said, feeling as cranky as a child.
“It will help your stomach.”
“Since you know so much about what will make me feel better, it’s a shame you aren’t the one having the baby,” she snapped.
Bishop grinned, his teeth a slash of white beneath his dark mustache. “That would be an interesting trick.”
Lila’s mouth twitched but she refused to grant him a smile. She preferred it when he wasn’t being pleasant. It was easier to keep her distance then.
“Where are you going?” she asked when he picked up his hat.
“I’ve got some things I have to do. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. We can have lunch in the dining room downstairs.”
Lila shuddered. “I don’t think so.”
“You’ll feel better once you get something in your stomach.”
She didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. She didn’t particularly appreciate his certainty that he knew her stomach better than she did.
He grinned again, as if he knew what she was thinking and found it amusing.
“Don’t miss me too much,” he said as he pulled open the door.
Lila barely restrained the urge to stick out her tongue.
***
“If you’ll wait here, Mr. McKenzie, I’ll tell Mr. and Mrs. Linton that you’re here.”
As if they didn’t already know, Bishop thought cynically but there was no sense in saying as much to the maid. “Are Gavin and Angelique here?”
“Yes, sir. They’re upstairs.”
“Tell them to come down.”
The maid looked uncertain. “I don’t know as how I should do that, Mr. McKenzie. Mrs. Linton, she said they was to stay upstairs until—” She stopped abruptly, as if she’d just realized she was about to say something unwise.
“Until I left?” Bishop asked.
She flushed. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it, sir.” Bishop didn’t doubt that Louise Linton had meant exactly what she’d said. He gave the maid a shallow smile. “Tell the children I’m here and that I want to talk to them. I’ll deal with Mrs. Linton.”
“Deal with me, Bishop?” Louise Linton’s sharp voice preceded her into the room. “That sounds very much like a threat.”
Bishop was struck, as always, by the amazing amount of presence she carried with her. She was a small woman, barely five
feet tall, with a reed-thin body that gave her a delicate, almost birdlike appearance. But if Louise Linton had been a bird, it would have been a hawk, not only because of the fierce intelligence in her pale-blue eyes but because of the sheer ruthlessness with which she dealt with anyone unfortunate enough to enter her circle.
She wore a black silk gown trimmed at wrist and neck with fine white lace. The effect was both elegant and daunting. No one looking at her would ever suspect that she’d been born Louise Pervy, illegitimate daughter of a tinker and a Tennessee mountain girl. George Linton had been a simple shopkeeper when she married him. With her pushing him, he’d made a small fortune supplying the emigrants and miners heading west along the Oregon Trail and now owned a good portion of St. Louis.
With money behind her, Louise had obliterated all trace of her dirt-poor beginnings. She’d become more elegant and refined than anyone borne into money would have needed to be. No one who knew her now would ever have guessed her hardscrabble background. The fact that Bishop knew exactly where she’d come from was the one thing she could never forgive.
“Are you threatening me, Bishop?” she asked, as she came farther into the room. Though he could have snapped her neck without effort, there was no concern in her eyes. Rather there was a challenge, almost a dare.
“I came to see the children,” Bishop said, ignoring her question.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Either the maid can go get them or I will.” He didn’t raise his voice but his tone was pure steel.
“You do not give orders in this house.”
“Then you give the order. One way or another, I will see them.”
“Perhaps it would be best if we sent someone up to get them.” George Linton had entered the room behind his wife. Of medium height and rotund build, he nevertheless seemed to disappear into her shadow in some way that Bishop had never completely understood. He gave Bishop an apologetic smile. “After all, he is their father.”
Louise’s thin features tightened, “Since that is the reason our daughter is dead, I hardly think the reminder is necessary.”
A tense little silence followed her comment. Bishop knew he was expected to fill it by offering some defense on his own behalf. He said nothing, letting the silence stretch until George felt compelled to break it.
“Yes, well, Isabelle’s death was a terrible tragedy, of course. But Bishop is still the children’s father, my dear.” He cleared his throat and glanced uneasily from his wife to Bishop and back again. “I’m sure Isabelle would want everyone to let bygones be bygones.”
“Isabelle was an idiot,” Louise snapped. “If she hadn’t been an idiot, she would have married someone worthy of our position in society instead of throwing herself away on this... this shootist. I warned her no good would come of it but she wouldn’t listen. See where it got her!” There was a certain bitter satisfaction in her voice at having been proven right, even at the cost of her only child.
“Now, my dear, you mustn’t upset yourself so. Isabelle has been gone these past five years now. There's no sense raking over old coals. Mary, go tell the children that their father is here to see them.”
Mary looked at Louise. It was clear that she knew who ran the Linton household. Louise hesitated a moment and then flicked one hand in the direction of the door. “Bring them down.”
The maid hurried out, patently relieved to be gone. She left behind a silence thick enough to touch. Bishop stood with his back to the fireplace. There was a small fire on the hearth, but the heat it produced was not adequate to combat the chill emanating from Louise’s stiff figure. The woman could put frost on the devil’s horns. Bishop liked to think she’d get the chance to try.
George cleared his throat again, his eyes flickering between the room’s other occupants. He pulled a linen handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and dabbed at his forehead. He put the handkerchief away and cleared his throat again. No one spoke. He shifted from one foot to the other like a nervous child at a grown-up’s party.
Briefly Bishop considered saying something to ease the older man’s discomfort, but he discarded the idea. There had been a time when he’d have said that George was a good man who had the misfortune to be married to a woman stronger than he was. But, over the years, he’d lost patience with George’s passivity in the face of his wife’s ambitions. While Louise ran roughshod over everything and everyone in her path, George stood by and did nothing. It was not a trait likely to earn a man much respect.
“I’ve married again,” Bishop said, speaking to both of them but looking at Louise. “As soon as my wife and I are settled, I’ll be sending for the children to join us.”
It was nearly worth all the trouble his marriage had caused just to see Louise Linton momentarily slack-jawed with shock.
“Married again. Well, that’s good news,” George said, too heartily. “Isn’t that good news, dear?” From his tone, it was difficult to tell whether he was asking her to confirm his assessment or begging her to agree.
Louise didn’t spare him so much as a glance. Her attention was all for Bishop. “What makes you think we’ll allow you to take the children?”
“What makes you think you can stop me?” Bishop asked coolly.
Before she could respond, they were interrupted by the arrival of the children. Mary barely waited until they’d entered the room before making her own escape. Not that Bishop blamed her. Given a choice, he’d have cut a wide path around any place that Louise was. But he didn’t have a choice, at least not quite yet. And the reasons stood just inside the parlor doorway, looking at him with varying degrees of uncertainty.
It had only been six months since he saw them, but he was struck by how much they’d changed. Gavin had to have grown at least an inch. At twelve, he was all arms and legs, his lanky body showing promise of matching his father’s height. With his black hair, blue eyes, and strong jaw, he was the spitting image of Bishop at the same age. Angelique, on the other hand, with her pale blond hair and soft blue eyes, was very like her mother. Looking at her, Bishop could imagine that, in another fifteen years, looking at her would be like looking at Isabelle’s ghost.
“Hullo” Angelique offered him a shy smile but hung back, edging a little behind her older brother. Her mother had died giving birth to her. In the nearly five years since then, Bishop had seen so little of her that he doubted if she had any real idea of who he was.
Not so Gavin. He knew exactly who Bishop was. And, from the wariness that marked his expression, he wasn’t overwhelmingly happy to see his father.
“Hello,” he said, nodding in Bishop’s direction.
“Your father has married again,” Louise said, without giving Bishop a chance to return their greeting. “He says he plans to send for you when he’s settled. I haven’t decided yet whether I should allow you to go. What do you think, children?”
Bishop’s jaw knotted with anger. Damn the woman! He should have insisted on seeing the children alone.
“Why ask us?” Gavin asked in a sullen tone. “You don’t care what we think. You’re going to do what you want, just like always.”
Bishop felt a twinge of admiration for the boy’s courage. There weren’t many adults who’d have risked drawing Louise’s wrath.
“Of course we care,” George said hastily. “Don’t we, my dear?”
“Not in the least,” she said with icy indifference. “Why would I care about the opinion of an ungrateful boy such as yourself?”
Gavin shifted so that he faced his grandmother more directly. “Why should I be grateful? You only keep us ’cause he doesn’t want us.” A jerk of his head indicated Bishop. “And you figure people would say bad things about you if you didn’t take us in.”
The bitterness in his son’s voice made Bishop wince. It had been a mistake to leave the children here. He’d known it at the time but, after Isabelle died, he hadn’t known what else to do with them. He had no family of his own. He rarely stayed in one place more tha
n a few weeks or months. He’d had no way to care for an infant and a seven-year-old boy. So, when Louise had offered to take them in, he’d gone against his better judgment and agreed.
“Go to your room,” Louise told the boy in a chillingly calm voice. “I’ll deal with you later.”
“Wait.” Bishop spoke for the first time since the children entered the room. He stepped forward and set his hand on Gavin’s shoulder, turning so that he faced the old woman. “You’ll deal with him? Now who’s issuing threats?” he questioned softly.
“As long as he is under my roof, I will deal with him as I see fit. As I told you once before, you do not give orders in this house. Gavin, go to your room.”
Gavin’s shoulder was rigid with tension beneath Bishop’s hand but he didn’t say anything. It was clear that he expected no help from his father. It struck Bishop suddenly that, when he’d been Gavin’s age, he’d been able to turn to his own father if he found himself in a situation he couldn’t handle. Looking down, he saw Angelique creep forward and slip her hand into her brother’s, saw Gavin’s fingers close almost convulsively over hers.
“Go to your room and pack your things,” he said. “Get Mary to help you. You’re both coming with me.”
Gavin’s head jerked around and he stared up at his father, his eyes round with shock. “Do you mean it?”
“I mean it.”
And God help him when Lila found herself a stepmother to two children she hadn’t even known existed.
***
Lila finished pinning the heavy mass of her hair into a roll at the back of her head. The simple hairstyle wasn’t particularly fashionable, but it was neat and tidy. Surely one of the benefits of being a married woman was the freedom to choose comfort over fashion, at least occasionally.
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