Noelle

by Diana Palmer

  She frowned. “This is interesting advice from a man who very nearly kissed me!”

  “A very chaste encounter, for a man like me,” he returned, and there was something dangerous in the set of his head, in his eyes. “You tempt the fall of fire every time you permit me to touch you. Be careful. Scruples are new to me. In the old days, I lived quite well without any, and Fort Worth brings back hard memories.”

  “You demand honesty from me, but you share nothing of your past with me.”

  “Total honesty is for lovers,” he said bluntly. “And that’s something that you and I will never be.”

  She put a hand to her throat, wide-eyed. “I should certainly think not!” she said, flustered.

  “You feel the stirring of the blood in your veins for the first time with me,” he continued, ignoring her flush. “I’m flattered. But I want no more madness.”

  “Is it madness?” she queried.

  He laughed shortly. “Isn’t it?” He opened the door and went through it. He didn’t look back.

  It was a trait of his that Noelle had noticed lately. And it wasn’t the only one that caught her eye. There were others, like sitting with his back to the wall in any chair he frequented—and asking for a caller’s identity before he opened a door. He was an exceptionally cautious man. She wondered what had happened in his past to make him that way. Even as her mind posed the question, she knew with certainty that he would never willingly tell her. He was a man with secrets, and he seemed very adept at keeping them.

  Chapter Six

  BECAUSE HE’D BEEN so short with her, almost insulting, while he taught her to dance, Noelle had expected Jared to leave her strictly alone afterward. But that wasn’t the case.

  In the days that followed, although Jared was still reserved and moody, he spent a surprising amount of time with Noelle—teaching her proper table manners and parlor manners, to the amusement of Mrs. Dunn. No one except Noelle noticed that he insisted that Mrs. Dunn be present while he conducted these “classes.”

  Fortuitously, Andrew was still out of town on business, which prevented any embarrassing comments from his quarter on Jared’s preoccupation with their young houseguest. He’d already explained his motivation to Mrs. Dunn, without going into great detail. She only smiled and gave her wholehearted approval. Like Jared, she, too, was worried by the girl’s infatuation with footloose Andrew. Andrew had been unusually attentive to the girl as well, and that was disturbing, especially when Andrew seemed equally bent on the courtship of the eligible Miss Beale.

  Usually Mrs. Dunn was present when Jared coached Noelle. But on one occasion, she wasn’t.

  “No, no, no!” Jared muttered, rocking on his heels with his hands deep in his pockets as he watched her flop in a chair. “Sit like a lady, Noelle,” he said. “Gently, and slowly. Don’t flop down like a worn-out cowboy.”

  “And what would a city lawyer know about a cowboy’s behavior?” she shot back, exasperated because she couldn’t seem to do one single thing to please him today.

  He only laughed. “You might be surprised at what I know, and at how I learned it.” He looked down at her through narrowed eyelids. The pretty pale blue dress she was wearing had what seemed to him acres of lace, and he found himself wondering how women dressed like that withstood passionate embraces without having the lace torn to shreds.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked unexpectedly.

  His eyes searched hers. “Nothing of importance,” he said. “Try again.”

  She grimaced impatiently, but she did as he said until he approved of her posture. She sipped her tea delicately and put the thin china cup back in the saucer. “I’m so afraid I’ll drop this tiny cup,” she confessed.

  “If you do, it can be replaced. It’s only a cup, Noelle.”

  “It’s a very expensive cup. When I lived at home, we had old thick white mugs to drink from, and our plates didn’t match. They were chipped and cracked…” She lifted her eyes. “My dresses were made of flour sacks—and a pair of shoes had to last me for a year or two.”

  “Not anymore,” he reminded her.

  “But I don’t belong here, don’t you see?” she asked plaintively, her big green eyes filled with her uncertainties. “I’m just a country girl. I don’t know how to talk to city people. I must be such a terrible embarrassment to Mrs. Dunn,” she added miserably.

  “My grandmother is delighted to have you here,” he insisted. “So is Andrew.”

  “But you pay the bills,” she replied. “And I came here without your permission, even without your knowledge. They waited weeks to write and tell you that I was here.”

  “And you think I resent you because of it?”

  “Don’t you? I irritate you. You can’t think I don’t know it.”

  She did irritate him, but not because he begrudged her a home. He studied her trim figure in the dress and her pretty, pale face with growing tension.

  “I could go and live with my uncle again,” she offered.

  “My grandmother would be lost without you,” he said carelessly, averting his gaze so that she wouldn’t see how disturbed her offer made him. He knew the terrors Galveston held for her.

  She felt a relief she didn’t dare show. She got up and sat down again, gingerly, before she picked up the cup, very correctly, put it to her lips, sipped, and put it down again without a mishap.

  He almost laughed at the triumph in her face. She was pretty, he thought, watching her animated expression and the light in her green eyes. She had freckles and soft skin, and he found himself wondering if her skin was that pale all over, that soft milky white…

  The thought made his hands clench in his pockets. He took a short breath. “You did that very well,” he said. “And I find that your table manners have improved greatly, along with your ability to participate in discussions at table.”

  “Thanks to your tutoring,” she admitted. “Jared, I’m very grateful,” she began.

  “It’s little enough to do. I told you, didn’t I, that I have the time.”

  “You make it,” she said, smiling. “I know that you’ve worked overtime at night to make up for the time you give me, Jared. Your practice is already formidable, after so short a time.”

  He laughed humorlessly. “It’s larger than I expected it would be. But I can take the cases that interest me and put off the others. New York had become tedious, and my practice was limited to cases that involved money and prestige more than justice.”

  She was surprised and pleased that he could speak to her like this. He was, she had learned over the weeks of his residence, a very private man. He never spoke of the past, even of New York, and when he was with other people, mostly he sat and listened.

  “Why did you study law?” she asked.

  He lifted an eyebrow and hesitated.

  She got to her feet, pausing just in front of him. “It was you who said that we would be honest with each other, always.”

  “Then be honest with me and tell me why you want to know.”

  She searched his narrow, pale blue eyes. “You suspect me of hidden motives,” she said unexpectedly, and watched him react with a frown. “Yes, that’s why you say so little about yourself. You don’t trust anyone—especially women.”

  He stood unmoving, his face as rigid as his stance.

  “Do you think that after all you’ve done for me I would ever seek to harm you in any way?” she asked. “I owe you so much, Jared.”

  “You owe me nothing,” he said tautly. “I do what pleases me, no more. Your…education is a pastime to me, and the help you give more than pays your way. I expect nothing in return. Least of all do I expect a pretended interest in my life.”

  She flushed scarlet. “It isn’t pretended!” she said hotly.

  “No?” He smiled, and it was
not a pleasant smile. “But isn’t it Andrew whose past should interest you?”

  She put her hands on her hips in a very unladylike way and glared up at him. “Andrew would probably faint with terror if I even asked about his past. No doubt his is full of mangled dead bodies on a battlefield and scores of pretty women in his bed!”

  Only when his eyebrows lifted and he began to laugh did she realize how unconventional her remarks were.

  She clapped a hand over her mouth. The action brought attention to her horrified green eyes.

  He wasn’t shocked, as another man might have been. He laughed, because her unconventional response delighted him. He leaned closer. “And do you know what a man does with a pretty woman in his bed, Noelle?” he asked outrageously.

  She actually cried out with embarrassment. Red-faced, she turned to run, but he caught her arm with steely fingers and pulled her back to him.

  “That was unforgivable!” she raged at him. Her eyes were as livid as her cheeks.

  “No doubt,” he agreed lazily. He let go of her. “But you always forgive me, don’t you, Noelle?”

  “God knows why!”

  He nodded complacently and checked his pocket watch. “We have less than thirty minutes before dinner will be on the table. Would you like me to teach you to waltz?”

  “In thirty minutes?” she asked, calming slowly from her emotional upheaval.

  He chuckled. “I can teach you the steps. After that, you’ll only need practice.” The smile faded. “And that, I can’t offer.”

  “Your leg hurts you when you stand on it for a long time,” she said. “I’ve noticed.”

  “Why?”

  She couldn’t answer. She found herself watching him all the time, and her own fascination disturbed her. Surely it was because he was her tutor, her mentor, her helper. He’d been kind to her—when he gave no impression of kindness toward the world at large. In fact, Andrew was often scathing about his stepbrother and some of the cases he’d won. Andrew talked about Jared as if he had no heart and no conscience. But that couldn’t be true.

  He moved a little jerkily to the Gramophone. “The waltz is an elegant dance. It requires concentration, however, and stamina.”

  “You seem to be able to concentrate even in the noisiest situations,” she commented.

  “A learned reflex. One can rarely find sufficient peace and quiet in the modern world to reflect on a case.” He cranked the instrument and started the music.

  When he turned, Noelle was right behind him. “Ideally,” he added as his left hand encircled her trim waist, “your partner would be wearing gloves.”

  “Ideally, so would I,” she replied.

  He smiled, nodding as he indicated the first step. “Follow my lead. This isn’t so different from the two-step you’ve already mastered, but it’s more complex—Noelle, wait until I turn before you try to!”

  She had stumbled a little and caught him off balance. He grimaced as he straightened.

  “Oh, I’m so clumsy! I’m sorry. Did I hurt your leg?” she asked plaintively.

  “No,” he said through his teeth. “Try again.”

  She knew he was lying. He was stiff as he moved her slowly to the rhythm and took her through the turns, teaching her how to move gracefully. But less than five minutes later, the strain was telling on him.

  She stopped. “You did hurt your leg. Oh, Jared, I’m sorry. It must be like teaching a cow to dance.”

  He glared at her as he rubbed the soreness at his kneecap. “I’m not an invalid,” he murmured irritably.

  “Please sit down,” she pleaded. Her concern melted his stubborn resolve not to be pampered. He permitted her to lead him to an armchair; he sank gratefully down into it, stretching the offending leg to ease the pain.

  “Can’t I get you something to take for it? Do you have medicines?”

  “Medicines.” His pale eyes stabbed into hers. “Medical men love their potions,” he said shortly. “They wanted to give me opiates to ease the pain…and create an addiction. Is that really what you think I need?”

  She wrung her hands. “No. But what, then?”

  He drew in a strained breath and his eyes closed. “Do you know how to pour a shot glass full of whiskey?”

  “Yes, of course. My uncle used it medicinally. He was subject to colds.”

  He would have made some dry comment about that, but he was hurting too much. “In the cupboard, in the study,” he prompted.

  She went to fetch it, uncaring if the whole household saw her toting alcoholic spirits around. Poor Jared. He must be in severe pain, but he would never quit. She wondered how long he’d suffered, and if it had hampered him in his career, because his grandmother had said that he traveled a great deal before settling here in Fort Worth.

  None of the servants were around when she went back down the hall to the living room with the small shot glass full of amber whiskey.

  She closed the door—just in case his grandmother came down from her room.

  He was sprawled in the chair, his teeth still gritted together.

  She sank to the floor beside the chair, her skirt spreading around her, and handed him the small glass.

  “Thank you.” He held it to his lips and downed it in one swallow. Noelle had smelled it—and wondered how one could drink something so noxious. It smelled worse than liniment. His hand dropped to his side and she took the glass from him.

  Curious, she dipped a finger into the drop at the bottom and put it to her lips.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed, making a face, “what a terrible taste!”

  He glanced down at her, feeling the warm glow from the alcohol wash over him as he smiled at her expression. “Why, you sot!” he said teasingly.

  She gasped indignantly and looked up at him. “I am not!”

  “Give me that.”

  She handed the shot glass back. “Uncle let me taste his, but it wasn’t as terrible as this,” she said defensively. “At least his had honey and lemon to temper it.”

  “A toddy,” he said. He sat up, grimacing, but the pain was easing. He leaned over to where Noelle sat at his feet on the spotless throw rug, her skirts all around her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, with genuine concern, as she looked up at him. “It must have hurt terribly when I tripped.”

  “Pain is a fact of life,” he said simply. “I’ve lived with it for a long time.”

  Which meant that the injury had to be an old one, she thought, not realizing that he spoke figuratively.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m all right.” His eyes slid over her and he had to fight a growing urge to pull her up between his splayed legs and press her body into his. “Get up, for God’s sake,” he muttered irritably.

  “Of course.” She caught the arm of the chair to give her some leverage, but she stumbled over her skirt and muttered a word she’d heard her uncle say. Then she gasped as Jared’s arms spared her a fall.

  He stood up, too, taking her with him, and he was laughing.

  She realized then what she’d said and gasped. “Oh!” she cried, horrified.

  Without counting the cost, he pulled her against him and wrapped her up tight in his arms, rocking her with rough affection, despite the throbbing pain in his leg.

  “Wicked, wicked girl,” he said into her ear. “It will take all my patience to turn you into a lady.”

  She felt the beat of his heart under her ear. But she felt, also, the steely strength of his body, which was not so obvious at a distance. He was warm and hard, and he smelled nice. She felt his warm breath in her hair. Closer, she felt the sudden tensing of her own body as the feel of his chest under her flattened hands made her hungry to touch him under his clothing. She stiffened, frowning at her
shocking thought.

  He felt her reaction and lifted his head to see what had caused it. Her wide, curious, searching eyes met his squarely; he felt her heartbeat race.

  The amusement left his face as rigid as ever, but his eyes were alive in it, glittering with emotions too long suppressed. His hands at her back became exploring, caressing, so that even through the whalebone stays they were warm and welcome.

  Her breath came in short gasps. Her hands pressed flat against his broad chest, where his silky vest covered his spotless cotton shirt. Under it, she could feel his heartbeat quicken, his breathing grow rough.

  His hands slid to her waist and, while he held her eyes relentlessly, up her sides, her rib cage, to her underarms. His thumbs just touched the edges of her firm breasts, and while she was burning from that light, outrageous pressure, he urged her arms up around his neck.

  She started to speak, but he shook his head.

  His arms slid around her again and he pulled her gently, so that her body came to rest completely against his. Then his arms contracted, ever so slowly, until he was openly embracing her. She felt her body swell, burn, throb. Her lips parted. She had never experienced anything so overwhelming, so sweet.

  His eyes fell to her parted lips and lingered there hungrily while the sudden chiming of the grandfather clock in the hall signaled the dinner hour.

  “This is unpardonable,” he said stiffly, and began to release her inch by inch. “In the old days, a shot of whiskey was less affecting to me. Or perhaps it is my advancing age that makes my head spin so.”

  He had moved her away from him while he spoke. She was not at all embarrassed by the frank, hungry embrace. She was puzzled, because her own hunger was inexplicable. She searched his eyes. “You didn’t mean it?” she asked softly.

  His jaw clenched and he breathed audibly through his nostrils. “You’re a guest in my home,” he said.

  “And if you offended me, sir, I should say so,” she replied quietly. “You’ve never offended me, in any way.”

  “Noelle, you’re a child,” he said harshly. “A green girl with no more knowledge of men than I have of Paris hats.”