by Diana Palmer
* * *
LATER, SHE PUT on the green silk gown with its black lace trim and arranged her hair in its puffy high coiffure. She had no jewelry to wear with it, but the dress didn’t really require it. She had a lacy black mantilla to keep her warm. She draped it around her slender neck and stared at her reflection with little real appreciation. Jared had bought the dress, and she had been unkind to him. Not that his behavior had been any better, but she regretted her lapse. She would have to apologize. Despite their differences, he was in a strange way the best friend she had. At least he was as long as she didn’t think too hard about the feel of his mouth and the tenderness of his hands. He was old, she kept telling herself, and crippled and bookish. She was much better suited to young, dashing Andrew. And perhaps she could learn to appreciate his touch as she did Jared’s.
Andrew took her to dinner at Monaco’s and he was delightful company. He regaled her with stories of his week’s business and the people he’d met in his travels. He found people fascinating, and it was obvious that he enjoyed them. Noelle was more reticent, more withdrawn. In fact, she was like Jared, who conducted business quite well but who kept to himself at other times. His private life was all too private. He had hinted at dark secrets, and no one in the family seemed to know much about him—not even his grandmother. She wondered what kind of life he had led. He might have been very poor, as she had been. Or he might have been crippled in a fight over the woman in his past.
No. He’d told her that his injury was recent and temporary. She wondered how he got it.
“Do you know anything about Jared’s childhood?” she asked suddenly.
Andrew’s eyebrows went up. “Jared?” He blinked thoughtfully. “Well, no. As I once mentioned, I had very little to do with him. He was seldom here, and we never spent time together. He does not speak of his early life.”
“I had noticed.” She traced the fine lace collar of her dress with her fingers. “He had Mrs. Pate take me shopping,” she said after a minute. “He said that I had nothing proper to wear, and that he did not want a relative of his to attract unkind comment.” She looked up suddenly and saw a strange look on his face. “I should have mentioned it before.”
“How unusual, that Jared would care,” he commented. His eyes narrowed. So Jared was interested in his young cousin. That would explain his anger this morning. He understood now. He had brought Noelle home—and the kisses he had shared with her were insinuated by the way Andrew addressed her. Jared had noticed, and he had become jealous. Did she know? He studied her thoroughly. No. She did not seem to understand at all. Jared had attacked her and she had retaliated. That she was disturbed by the argument was also evident.
He sat back in his chair with a calculating smile. He had never found himself the rival of his stepbrother in any way. It had irritated him that Jared should come home to Fort Worth and immediately become a social success because of his impeccable reputation as a criminal attorney. Andrew was younger, more handsome and more debonair. But Jared had the community in thrall and Andrew had been pushed aside for him on guest list after guest list. And last night, Jared had counted the social coup of the season by escorting one of the most beautiful women in Fort Worth to a dance—one, moreover, who’d rejected Andrew.
But it was Noelle who had his eye, and it was obvious to the whole family that Noelle wanted Andrew. Even Mrs. Dunn had remarked on Noelle’s infatuation. He was secretly delighted, because he had something that Jared wanted. He had Noelle’s heart.
He wasn’t sure that he really wanted it. She was more accomplished than she had been, she was pretty and sweet and pleasant to be around. But she had drawbacks, like that flash-fire temper and her inclination to do unladylike things. He could always change her to suit him, though, if he ever got around to thoughts of marriage. He was not yet thirty, and that lay far in the future.
His eyes dropped to her bodice and lingered there while he pretended to look at his crystal water glass. It would be interesting to see how she reacted to real lovemaking. He might find her more receptive to him than he’d first thought. A little dalliance was, after all, permissible to a bachelor. And cutting Jared out was appealing.
“However you came by the dress, you look lovely in it,” he told her.
She smiled. “Thank you, Andrew. You are very dashing yourself.”
He smoothed his mustache and studied her quietly. “But the next time you need new clothes, let me assume the bill.”
“Andrew!”
“I don’t like having you receive things from my stepbrother,” he continued. “It’s his house, and I live there. But you are my responsibility, not his. I assumed that responsibility when I asked you to come and live with Grandmother and me.”
“Yes, and I’m more grateful than you know—” she began.
“Let me finish.” He looked very stern. “Jared is very taken with Miss Doyle,” he lied, noticing how Noelle’s face closed up. “I think that he may eventually marry her. If this is the case, then he shouldn’t do anything that would seem less than proper. Buying your clothing isn’t quite proper for a man when he’s considering becoming engaged, Noelle.”
She flushed. Her hand went to her throat. Jared hadn’t told her about any engagement. And he had held her, kissed her. Her face grew hard. Had he been playing, then? Was it a last fling before he gave Miss Doyle a ring?
“He was angry because I insulted her by bringing up that scandal in her past,” she said, thinking aloud. “But it was Miss Doyle who insulted me first.”
“She thought you a rival for his affections,” he said, chuckling. “Imagine that, when you are only Jared’s cousin. And mine, of course.”
Only his cousin. She could picture Jared with that beautiful woman in his arms, kissing her as he’d kissed Noelle the night before, making her moan with shocked passion. She swallowed. Her body felt tight and hot even with the memory. Jared might not be a man of action, but he had a way with women that was not immediately evident when one saw him in public. And a man did not gain such experience with only one woman. Even in her naiveté she knew that.
“Did he tell you…that he was considering Miss Doyle for his wife?” she asked.
His eyes were on his plate. “Certainly.”
She hated the emptiness inside her. She had no claim on Jared. But she was possessive about him, without knowing why. He had been kind to her. Surely that was all. After all, she had been infatuated with Andrew since her first glimpse of him.
She looked up now, studying his handsome face with quick, interested eyes. He was very handsome, she admitted, and good company. But when he touched her, why did she feel no excitement, no surge of emotion?
“We get along well, don’t we?” he asked, smiling.
She nodded. They did. They never argued like cats and dogs or had flare-ups like she and Jared did.
“I think that we may be well suited,” he said. “Time will tell.” He sat up. “Finish your dessert, dear girl. We mustn’t be late for the curtain.”
* * *
THE PLAY WAS FROM the New York stage, with actors who made Noelle alternately laugh and cry. It was billed as a comedy, but it was poignant just the same. She watched it raptly, and thought how much Jared would have enjoyed it. Andrew seemed interested, but the poignant parts went right past him. He was not a sensitive man. Probably being in the army for so long had affected him.
Jared had mentioned a brief stint with the Texas Rangers. She wondered if he had done other law enforcement work, and how dangerous it might have been for him. She lifted her head with sudden enlightenment. Jared had been a Texas Ranger. That meant that he had to know how to use a gun, how to ride, how to confront and handle violent men. Why, how could that have escaped her all this time? She hadn’t really thought about what he’d told her. She’d called him a milksop. Her cheeks grew hot.
“What’s
wrong?” Andrew asked as the play finished and they walked toward the theater entrance. “You looked very sad at the end of the play.”
“I was only thinking.” She looked at him. “Does Jared ride?” she asked suddenly.
The question surprised him. He laughed aloud. “Ride? Heavens, he fell off a horse and hurt his leg!”
“Did he tell you that?” she persisted.
He shrugged. “No. But it’s logical, isn’t it? He’s a city man and he was recently on a case in New Mexico, my grandmother said. Probably he had to ride a horse to get to the courthouse and it threw him.”
She was sure that Jared hadn’t fallen off any horse. But she only smiled. “Of course,” she agreed pleasantly. “I’m sorry that I argued with him. I shall have to be less unkind. I do owe him a great deal. And I must apologize to Miss Doyle also.” She glowered. “If she’s to become a member of the family, she’ll have to be treated kindly.”
“She’s very beautiful.”
She nodded sadly. “Yes, indeed.” It hurt her to think of Jared with the woman.
* * *
IT WASN’T REALLY late when they returned home. In fact, someone was visiting, because Noelle heard voices coming from behind the closed living room door. She started toward it, but Andrew caught her hand and tugged her toward the study.
He put a finger to his lips and smiled conspiratorially.
He drew her into the parlor and closed the door, chuckling at her expression. “Do you want to sit around and listen to female complaints for an hour or more?”
“Not really,” she confessed, and smiled back.
“Good. Would you like a cordial?”
“Yes, please.”
He poured her one, and she tried not to remember as she looked around the room that Jared had been in here with her only last night in a state of undress.
When Andrew handed her the small cordial glass she had to forcibly evict the startling memories that made her body tingle.
He had a brandy snifter with only a small portion of the bottom filled. He warmed it in his hands while Noelle sipped her drink and walked idly past the bookshelf, looking at the titles.
“A great many of these are law books,” she remarked.
“Yes. Jared has moved most of his books to his office, but he likes to keep these here. I had to remove my collection of first editions to accommodate them,” he muttered.
“First editions? What were they?” she asked, interested.
“I have no idea,” he said, smiling. “I invested in them, that’s all. I hate taking the time to read books.”
“But what a waste!”
He shrugged. “I’m a man of action, my dear,” he reminded her. “Not a bookworm.”
He was referring to Jared. She was sure of it. But she didn’t reply.
He watched her for a long time. Finally he put his brandy snifter down and took her half-empty glass from her hands. He put it beside his glass and turned off the lights. Then he pulled her toward him.
Jared had done much the same the night before. But Noelle’s whole body had clenched with need at the first glance of his pale eyes. Andrew was already holding her, and she felt nothing. Nothing at all.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered, smiling as he bent to kiss her. “I mean you no insult. But I do so love the taste of your mouth, Noelle. It excites me to hold so innocent a woman in my arms.”
She started to speak, but his mouth covered hers hungrily, and he began to kiss her, confident his advances would be welcome.
His mouth was warm and wet and she did not like the way his tongue kept poking inside her lips. He might be a good soldier, but his talent as a lover was limited.
Noelle’s hands pushed gently at his chest. It had released her immediately from Jared, but Andrew was made of different stuff. He clasped her to his body with both arms and his mouth became insistent. One hand slid quickly down her body and caught her skirt, pulling it up so that his hand could find her leg. He reached above her garter-held cotton hose to her thigh, where the long legs of her ruffled muslin bloomers reached.
She gasped and pushed, but he kept right on, her skirt hiked to reveal much of her leg.
“Relax,” he said huskily. “Relax, there is nothing…to be afraid of.”
He bent suddenly and put his open mouth right on her breast.
And while they stood like that, Noelle protesting, Andrew with one hand up her skirt and his mouth covering the whole thrust of her breast, the parlor door suddenly opened.
There was no time to react. Mrs. Dunn and Mrs. Hardy, who had come to borrow a history of Fort Worth for a Daughters of the American Revolution article she was researching, stood in the doorway with the light from the hall behind them and their mouths wide open, gasping at the sight that met their shocked, horrified eyes. It was dim in the room, and Andrew was in the shadows, but Noelle wasn’t. There was enough light to see that her skirt was pulled up and a man’s head was at her breast.
And to make it worse, Jared had just come into the hall. He was behind them, but not too far away to miss the couple silhouetted against the window. Noelle thought that as long as she lived, she would never forget the way he looked at them.
Andrew had kept his back to the door, sliding farther into the shadows, but Noelle stood there like an accused prisoner. The damage was done.
“I will…speak to you…presently.” Mrs. Dunn choked. She herded the gaping Mrs. Hardy out the door so quickly that she didn’t see Jared standing in the doorway of the living room. The women’s muted, stiff voices resounded down the hall before they went out onto the porch, closing the door behind them.
When he heard the voices retreat, Andrew came out of the shadows and stopped dead as his stepbrother came through the doorway.
“Jared.” Andrew laughed nervously, holding out both hands. “Surely you understand. We forgot ourselves in a moment of passion.”
Jared didn’t speak. Not one word. He was looking at Noelle with eyes she couldn’t meet.
“It’s a misunderstanding,” Andrew continued, glancing at Noelle in something like panic. His fair complexion was very red and he looked frightened. He’d never thought to be discovered in such a scandalous position, and with a woman who hadn’t even wanted his embraces. “Noelle, tell him!” he pleaded.
She was shaking, from revulsion as well as shock and sick fear. “It was…a mistake,” she whispered.
“One you’ll both have to pay for,” Jared said finally, his voice as cold as his eyes. “I won’t have my grandmother subjected to this sort of scandal. Mrs. Hardy’s proclivity for gossip is well-known to you. If you had to sport with each other, you might have had the decency to make certain you wouldn’t be discovered.”
Noelle felt closer to a faint than ever before in her life. Her face was paper white. She couldn’t manage a single word through her tight throat.
Andrew looked haunted. “What shall we do?” he said.
“Do? You’ll get married,” Jared said mercilessly. He smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “And the sooner, the better.”
“Married? I can’t marry Noelle!” Andrew burst out. He glanced at her and grimaced. “Forgive me, Noelle, but marriage is out of the question. Why, we’re cousins, Jared. Yes, that’s it! We’re blood relations. There would be talk…”
“Oh, there certainly will be talk,” Jared agreed. He didn’t move. “You’ll do the honorable thing if I have to escort you down the aisle at gunpoint.” And at that moment he looked capable of it.
Andrew, who’d underestimated the older man at every turn, found himself in a corner without hope of escape. He didn’t want to marry Noelle, but Jared was looking murderous.
“You’ve ruined her,” Jared accused.
Andrew stared at him. And then, at once, he understood. Jared thoug
ht that he’d compromised Noelle, that this was only an indication of the intimacy of their relationship.
He was as angry as Jared. He wouldn’t be forced into marriage. He wouldn’t!
“Can one ruin a fallen flower?” Andrew demanded indignantly.
Noelle’s lips fell open. “Andrew!” she said, gasping. “Oh, how could you? How could you insinuate such a vile thing about me?”
“Forgive me, Noelle, but a man must be honest when he’s threatened with an unwanted marriage,” Andrew said stiffly. Jared looked briefly uncertain, and Andrew’s confidence grew. “I won’t marry her,” he told Jared. “I want a chaste woman for my bride, not a soiled one. She permitted my touch, after all. She is nothing but a slut—”
The words broke on Jared’s fist. The older man decked Andrew with no effort at all and landed him on his back on the floor. Jared moved slowly toward him, with that unblinking stare that had unmanned Andrew once before.
“Jared, no!” he cried, holding up both arms defensively.
“Get up,” Jared said coldly. His fists were clenched at his sides and he wasn’t limping.
Andrew rolled away and got to his feet, retreating to the desk. He didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a war hero. He looked more like a frightened boy in the grip of a schoolmaster.
Noelle walked to the door.
“Come back here,” Jared said venomously.
She didn’t stop or turn to look at him. She opened the door.
“I won’t marry Andrew,” she said, and still didn’t look at him. “He’s lying. I’ve done nothing with him, or any other man, that would ruin me—and what occurred just now was forced on me.”
“A convenient excuse,” Jared drawled contemptuously. “And I know better,” he added meaningfully, watching her face tauten at the insinuation of how well he knew her physical response to ardor. “But it won’t save you. You’ll marry Andrew or I’ll throw you both out of my house.”
“There’ll be no need to throw me out,” she said huskily, wounded to the bone. “I shall pack immediately. My uncle will give me a home.” She went through the open door and up the staircase, determined not to let him see her cry. Andrew’s lies made everything so much worse. And now Mrs. Hardy would have plenty of things to gossip about. Poor Mrs. Dunn!