The woman blew a kiss and stretched, the motion causing both breasts to rise free of the sheets. Wainright returned the smile and closed the bedroom door behind him, making a mental note to bring a bottle of champagne back with him.
The sound of his boots descending the uncarpeted stairs kept the thin smile on his lips. A drum could not have produced a louder echo in the vaulted, paneled hallway, and he hoped Amanda was listening, losing her concentration on whatever little speech she had had prepared. He could imagine the agony of fear clouding her face, the pale delicate hands twisting in dread, the blue eyes rounded and staring at the twin mahogany doors, waiting …
He paused a moment to set his expression into one of grim forbearance and pushed the doors open before him.
Amanda was standing in front of the circular window, watching the carriage traffic pass by out in the street. The light was behind her, blooming soft and golden, turning her hair into spun silk and her profile into an artist’s envy. She looked amazingly calm. In fact, she looked as if his sudden appearance was as much of an intrusion as Bentick’s knock had been on the bedroom door earlier.
“Mrs. Jackson? I trust you will be neither offended nor surprised if I say that of all the people I might have expected to see on a such a glorious Sunday morning, you were well down from the top of the list.”
“In that case, I hope I am not disturbing you. The list must be very long indeed.”
Wainright smiled tightly as he closed the parlor doors behind him. “Your sister’s wedding went well, I hear?”
“As well as she expected.”
“She is happy?”
“I presume so.”
“And the groom?”
The false pleasantries were grating, and, she suspected, amusing him no end. “Deliriously so.”
Wainright saw her annoyance and crossed to the sideboard. He took the stopper out of a decanter of brandy and poured himself a small glass.
“May I offer you something? Tea? Coffee? A little wine, perhaps?”
“No, thank you. My business will not take long and I have several errands to run before returning home.”
“Business? How intriguing,” he said coldly. “After our last meeting, I assumed you had nothing more to say to me. You and your brother were most insistent, in fact.”
“Ryan has been under a great deal of pressure lately. I … did not even tell him I was coming here today; he probably would have stopped me.”
Wainright lifted his glass and sipped. So, the brother didn’t know she was here. Did anyone know she was here, dressed in what was probably her best frock—the lavender muslin he had so admired on his visit to Rosalie—putting herself in the lion’s den with only her own misguided expectations of Southern chivalry to protect her?
He laughed softly and took another sip of brandy. “I should warn you, Mrs. Jackson, if you’ve come to plead your brother’s case before me—”
“I haven’t come to plead,” she insisted calmly. “And believe me, if there was any other way out of the dilemma we find ourselves in, I would not be here at all.”
Wainright lounged against the edge of a writing table inlaid with gold marquetry and crossed his arms over his chest. “So why are you here, Mrs. Jackson? I confess, you have me intrigued.”
Amanda showed the first small fault in her composure as she ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. “I have come— assuming you are still interested—to accept the terms of your offer.”
“Offer?” Wainright’s bewilderment was genuine. He had made no offers aside from the purchase of Rosalie, which she would not be empowered to accept one way or the other, or …
The glittering hazel eyes widened and despite himself, he stiffened in surprise. “Are you referring to … the offer of matrimony?”
Amanda returned his gaze steadfastly. “Yes. I am.”
“You wish to become my wife?”
“No. I do not wish to become your wife, sir. I merely find I have no other alternative but to do so.”
“How flattering,” he mused.
“But honest. If I had answered any other way, would you have believed me?”
He stared at her thoughtfully for a long moment. “No. Probably not. At the same time, I would want an equally candid answer if I asked what you would expect in exchange? If there were any conditions, verbal or … physical in nature?”
Amanda met his gaze steadfastly. “If I married you, sir, I would agree to comply with whatever would be expected of me as your wife.”
“And in exchange?”
“In exchange, I ask only that you allow Ryan the time he needs to repay the loan on Rosalie.”
“In other words,” he said quietly, “exactly what I offered you before.”
“Yes,” she agreed hesitantly.
“When you slapped me in the face for my impudence.”
Amanda’s gaze did not waver or falter. The only sign of the extreme stress she was feeling was the thin blue vein that beat so rapidly in her temple, it appeared to keep the surrounding flesh as drained and pale as wax.
“What makes you think I would still want you, Mrs. Jackson?” he asked, his voice a low and ominous throb in the silence. “And if I did, what makes you think I would take you on the same terms?”
She returned his stare without answering, without moving, and he knew she had come to him fully prepared for his sarcasm, his anger, his contempt. It was a gift, he thought with a kind of wonder. A gift he could take and use whenever he wanted or needed to remind her of his generosity, his forgiving nature, his complete and utter possession of her.
Wainright tipped his glass to his lips and tossed back the entire contents in a hard swallow. Keeping his eyes on Amanda, he went over to the sideboard again and poured himself another drink.
“What about your hot-headed brother? What is to keep him from shooting me out of hand before we ever make it to an altar?”
“He mustn’t know. Not until it’s too late to do anything about it.”
His eyebrows shot up at that. A furtive, late-night ride to a preacher’s doorstep was not exactly what he had had in mind as a way of establishing himself as a respectable member of the community. “Are you suggesting … an elopement?”
“I couldn’t guarantee your safety any other way,” she said matter-of-factly. “But if you would prefer to stand in an open churchyard …?”
He laughed and held up a hand. “No. No, an elopement is fine. Romantic, even. It’s just that I was under the impression most brides craved the pomp, the ceremony, the opportunity to show themselves off to the world. Especially,” he added softly, “if they were marrying someone who would relish the opportunity to do a little bragging and boasting himself.”
The thought of Alisha’s extravagances brought a hint of color into Amanda’s cheeks, and she lowered her eyes for the first time.
“I would be content with a simple exchange of vows,” she said. “The rest … does not interest me.”
Wainright set his glass down with more care than the act required. He went over to where she stood and waited until she raised her eyes to his again.
“I have already told you,” he murmured, “I want someone by my side who will make me the envy of Mississippi. I want a wife I can lavish with jewels and spoil with furs and silks and gold pins for her hair. And I will be utterly, absolutely honest with you when I say I want a wife who will stand by my side, wherever that might be, whether it is here, the county seat, or the governor’s mansion—and be able to convince everyone who sees her that she is more than just content to be there.”
Amanda’s heartbeat slowed noticeably. It thudded in her chest like a fist, reminding her why she was here, what she had to do to ensure the safety and future happiness of her family. Her own didn’t matter. She was desperate and she was sick at heart, but she would do almost anything at this point, agree to almost anything in order to protect Sarah and William, Ryan and Dianna, and most of all, Verity. She would still have to deal with Michael Tarri
ngton and find some way to appease his thwarted vanity, but there again, if she was married to Forrest Wainright, she would be buying herself a measure of protection. From what she already knew about Wainright, he would be a dangerous man to challenge.
All of this went through her mind between one heartbeat and the next. None of it showed in her eyes, which were round and clear and luminous with her resolve. None of it showed in her manner either, which was suddenly imbued with all of the sensual innuendo that had brought men to their knees in her guise as Montana Rose.
“I will be more than content,” she promised, the movement of her lips dragging his focus and his concentration downward. “If you take me for your wife, Mr. Wainright, and fulfill your part of the bargain, I will do everything in my power—verbally and physically—to ensure you do not regret your decision for a single moment.”
Wainright found his mouth suddenly too dry to form an answer right away. All of his cocky plans to leave her groveling and humiliated vanished with the thought of those lips soft and pliant beneath his, those eyes jewel-bright with her determination to please him.
“When?” he asked huskily. “And where?”
Amanda’s mind raced ahead. Tomorrow was impossible with Tarrington coming to dinner, but if she waited too much longer, she might find a thousand reasons not to go through with it.
“Wednesday night. After dark.”
He nodded. “I will bring a carriage to the foot of the avenue at Rosalie. Shall we say midnight?”
“Midnight,” she agreed. “I’ll be there.”
“Alone,” he insisted. Seeing the quick narrowing of her eyes, he added, “It is little enough to ask that we have a day or two on our own—to become better acquainted—without the distracting needs of a child to tend to.”
She hadn’t considered … hadn’t even thought of the likelihood of having to leave Verity behind for any length of time, however short.
“Rest assured, Amanda—I may call you Amanda now, may I not?—rest assured I am quite fond of children. Other people’s children up to now, of course, but hopefully, in time, that too will change.”
Amanda felt her knees begin to buckle. She certainly hadn’t given any thought to children, and the notion of bearing a child with carrot-red hair and brown eyes made her stomach rise precariously high in her throat.
“I—I should go now,” she stammered. “I will be missed.”
He raised a hand and brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheek. Her eyes flickered for a moment, but she did not pull back, not even when he cupped his hand under her chin and angled her face up to his.
“In most business ventures, things that come with a high price tag are usually sampled first, just to prove to the prospective buyer he isn’t being sold a bill of goods without substance … or potential.”
When she neither balked nor made any attempt to prevent him from doing so, he bent his lips to hers, taking them lightly at first, wary of any delayed sense of propriety or indignation. They were cool—a little stiff, he thought, with just enough of a tremor to guard against any further intimacy.
He did not press his intentions, although there was a definite stirring of interest to know what she would have done had he insisted on more. After Wednesday, there would be plenty of time to test the strength of the earnest promises she had made. After midnight Wednesday, she had best not deny him anything, or she would find out the true meaning of humility.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amanda found herself looking forward to Monday evening with the same degree of anticipation as she would an infestation of locusts. The Judge and Dianna Moore had come to Rosalie in the late afternoon, and, though she had prayed and willed for a storm to open up the heavens and wash away the roads, Michael Tarrington had been the one holding the reins of the buggy as their visitors drove up the tree-lined avenue.
Looking more piratical than ever, he was wearing a fawn-colored jacket over dark-brown trousers that fit snug to the bulge of muscles on his thighs. His shirt was snow-white linen, left casually open at the throat to counter the humid effects of a hot August afternoon. He wore his flat-top hat at a rakish angle, slightly off to one side and forward to shade his left eye. His boots were knee high and made of supple black goatskin that seemed as comfortably molded to the shape of his calves and feet as a pair of thick socks.
Reflecting her own dark mood, she had deliberately worn one of her mourning frocks, a plain, high-necked, long-sleeved dress of dull black cotton with nothing, not a braid or a line of piping, to relieve the severity. Sarah had been dismayed, William had declared she looked like a crow. Ryan had been the only one not to criticize her, saying it was only fitting to wear mourning clothes to mark the day they entertained a Yankee at Rosalie.
Verity had reacted no differently to Tarrington this time than the last, hugging her mother’s leg and giving every good impression of being determined to hide in her skirts all evening. But her resolves, along with a considerable portion of her shyness, dissipated a few seconds after Michael Tarrington produced a huge covered and beribboned basket from the floor of the buggy.
“The card says this is for a Miss Verity Jackson,” he had announced, frowning over the pink square of vellum. “Does anyone know where I might find the young lady in question?”
An enormous blue eye edged around a stiff fold of cotton and lingered long enough to catch Tarrington’s attention.
“Ahh. Well, if no one knows anyone by that name, I suppose we’ll just have to carry this big old basket all the way back to town with us. I wonder, though, if she would mind if we took a peek at what’s inside. It’s powerfully heavy—too heavy for me to hold like this without spilling. I’ll just set it down a minute and maybe we can pull back the cloth an inch or two …?”
Verity swayed to the side, using Amanda’s leg to maintain her balance as she watched the gingham cloth being drawn slowly back. The basket had been filled to the brim with oranges—a dozen or more—and perched on top, her eyes as big and blue as Verity’s own, was a doll with long blonde ringlets and a pink velvet pinafore.
The child had capitulated without any further struggle. Tarrington had held up the doll and Verity had walked toward it like someone in a trance. The oranges had been the icing on the cake, buying him a dimpled smile every time he looked at her and a comical, double-eyed attempt to mimic him every time he charmed her with a wink.
Dinner was an ugly pretense at civility. Ryan glowered with open hostility, almost defying anyone to speak to him directly. He was too much the gentleman to cause an outright scene at his mother’s table with a guest she had personally invited, but if stares could kill, the Yankee would have been colder than a corpse before they finished the first course of catfish soup.
Ryan’s black mood had a direct effect on Dianna, who looked to be on the verge of weeping each time she tried to draw him into the conversation and was met with a dark stare. Sarah was the only one who could be relied upon to jump into the breach. She was always starved for company and starved for gossip, and having someone there—now that Alisha was gone—with whom she could share her observations from the wedding kept her chattering almost non-stop.
Amanda wanted to scream. She did not care that Permalia Howard had turned into a shocking hussy, or that Dorothea Prine was as swollen as a ball of dough and should never have appeared in public in her condition. She did not care about the petty trials and tribulations affecting other people’s lives. She did not care about anything anymore. She only wanted to find the strength to survive through Wednesday night and then it would not matter if she cared or not anyway.
Mercy had done an impressive job of outfoxing potential scavengers after the wedding feast. She had hoarded several sacks of meat and savories from the pantries at Summitcrest, and the catfish soup was thick with vegetables and spices, the roasted haunch of beef was tender and juicy, the gumbo hot enough to set the glands in everyone’s mouths squirting rivers of saliva to drench the fire. But Amanda’s appetite had de
serted her the instant she had seen the carriage rolling down the avenue. She spent the better part of the meal pushing her food from one side of the plate to the other, eventually earning enough attention to win a not-so-subtle pinch from Mercy as she carried platters to and from the kitchen.
Michael Tarrington was to blame, of course. His presence was to blame for Ryan’s sullen resentment and Sarah’s babbling foolishness. He was the cause of Dianna’s helpless frustration and Verity’s open treachery.
When the meal ended and Mercy had cleared away the empty plates, Amanda begged to be excused and spent more time than usual getting Verity washed and ready for bed. She brushed out the child’s hair and told her a long story, staying by her bed well after she had fallen asleep, her hands clutched tightly around her new doll. Amanda was half hoping Tarrington would be gone by the time she descended the stairs again, but no. He was in the parlor with the others, seated by the fire, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, feigning an avid interest in a discussion between William and the Judge over the proper way to distill bourbon.
Ryan and Dianna, she was informed by her mother, had gone for a stroll in the gardens and wouldn’t it be hospitable (said with suitable emphasis) of her to invite Mr. Tarrington to do the same?
Tarrington saw the soft pink flush that darkened Amanda’s complexion and he caught himself staring again, at the prim black frock, the matronly chignon, the face so pale and devoid of any animation it made it nearly impossible to envision her on the deck of the Mississippi Queen. The green velvet gown had been anything but modest or matronly. It had encouraged her breasts to swell voluptuously over the edge of the bodice. It had drawn attention to the smooth white slope of her shoulders and lured the eye downward to marvel over how tiny the span of her waist was. It seemed insane to even think the two women were one and the same. A betting man would have staked his entire fortune on the sister, Alisha, being the one more likely apt to seek her thrills by masquerading as Montana Rose. Tarrington had met the twin only briefly on the day of the wedding, but he had felt those blue eyes stripping him naked and taking his measure in less time than it had taken him to offer his congratulations to the happy bride and groom.
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