Noelle

by Diana Palmer

  She shuddered with pent-up rage. Her face, drawn and white, was as tight as her clenched hands. “Nor have I any desire to be intimate with a man who thinks of me as a soiled woman!”

  He inclined his head mockingly. “So long as we understand each other,” he said politely.

  She stared at his back when he left her, wishing she had a heavy object to heave at it. Oh, she could refuse to marry him; she could leave and go home to East Texas. There might be a way she could borrow the money. But it would leave poor Mrs. Dunn in an untenable position—and might cost her her life. Noelle had encouraged Andrew, but she hadn’t realized how distasteful his attentions would be. She’d loved the touch of Jared’s hands and mouth, she’d gloried in the look on his face when he held her. She’d expected that, and more, when Andrew kissed her. But she’d felt only revulsion for the handsome blond ex-soldier.

  The reason for her inexplicable emotions confounded her. Why, Jared was much older than she was, and mocking, and half the time he acted as if he hated her. He was withdrawn, moody, stoic. Yet, he’d been so kind to her. No one in her life, except her late parents, had ever treated her so tenderly.

  Not anymore, though. His contempt was so obvious as to be tangible. He’d marry her for Mrs. Dunn’s sake, but never for his own. He wanted the elegant Miss Doyle.

  She bit her lower lip hard. What a terrible situation it was, for all of them. And the only solution was a marriage that would make everyone miserable.

  * * *

  WEDDING PLANS WERE made and announced, and not a minute too soon. Already people were whispering every time they saw Noelle with Mrs. Dunn anywhere in town. Fort Worth was big, and getting bigger, but people knew one another just the same. The local newspaper carried news of who was visiting in each hotel, and the society page was full of cheerful gossip about local people. Fort Worth was a small town that grew, retaining all the intimacy of its past, so that it was more like family than community.

  But family could be cruel when scandals broke, and every time Mrs. Dunn’s lower lip trembled from the malicious loud gossip, Noelle felt guilty.

  When the wedding announcement made it into print in the Fort Worth Morning Register, Mrs. Pate came home from the market with a basketful of meat, coffee and flour, and a smug smile.

  “There, that’s given them something to gnaw on, the vicious old gossips,” Mrs. Pate said when she greeted Noelle, who was stringing beans at the table.

  “What has?” Noelle asked.

  “The wedding announcement. Now it’s said that Mrs. Hardy got it all backward, and who she saw was you and Mr. Jared spooning. In fact,” she added, with a laugh, “they’re saying that you’d just got engaged when Mrs. Dunn and Mrs. Hardy walked in on you.”

  Noelle picked up another bean. She wasn’t feeling elated, as Mrs. Pate was. “At least perhaps they won’t whisper so much around Mrs. Dunn now. It’s been hard on her. I’ve feared for her heart.”

  “I wouldn’t worry so much. She’s a tough old bird,” Mrs. Pate said heartily. “I remember when she first came here with Mr. Jared’s dear mother,” she added wistfully. “Why, she had to be hog-tied so that she’d stay out of the flower garden with that hoe.”

  Noelle’s gasp was audible.

  Mrs. Pate pursed her lips and stared at Noelle whimsically over her glasses. “Didn’t know that, did you? Ah, she had the tongues wagging, she did. That’s why she made such a fuss about you.”

  “I’ve behaved shamefully,” Noelle said. “I’ve embarrassed everyone ever since I came here, and now I’ve made us notorious.”

  “Mr. Andrew helped,” she said curtly. “Imagine him, running like a yellow dog and leaving Mr. Jared to make it right. It’s always been that way, too. Why, Mr. Jared’s bailed him out of more scrapes over the years, and never complained. He had to pay one time to keep Andrew out of jail over some vandalism he did downtown.”

  Noelle’s hands stilled. “You’re very fond of Jared, aren’t you?” she asked.

  Mrs. Pate nodded. Overhead, the ceiling fan spun merrily, its faint burr pleasant in the late morning. Sun filtered through the curtains, making patterns on the wooden kitchen table where Noelle was working.

  “Mrs. Pate, may I ask you something?”

  “Why, of course, dear.”

  “Is Andrew really a war hero?” she asked gently.

  “No more than I am,” came the terse reply. “He was a clerk in the supply depot in the Philippines,” she scoffed. “Never even shot a gun. And here he comes home swaggering and bragging about his service to his country and all these fine deeds he did. Huh!”

  “Was Jared in the service?”

  She nodded. “He never spoke of it,” she said. “He was in the reserves. His unit was called up and he went to Cuba with some of his friends.”

  “Is that where his leg was hurt?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you know how it was hurt?”

  “Yes.” She studied Noelle’s face. “It’s for him to tell you that. He’s a very private man, is Mr. Jared. What I know, I don’t talk about. That’s why I’m still employed here.”

  “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I know so little about him.”

  “Plenty of time to learn, after you’re married.” She paused in her unpacking of the shopping bag to look at Noelle. “All you need to know is that he’s ten times the man Mr. Andrew is. He doesn’t swagger or brag. But he doesn’t run, either. Never has.”

  Noelle went back to her beans.

  * * *

  THE WEDDING GOWN was the most glorious garment Noelle had ever seen in her life. She hadn’t wanted something so elegant, but Jared had insisted.

  “Those gossiping old biddies aren’t going to make a verbal meal out of you,” he said when she protested the expense of sending to New York for an imported Paris wedding gown. “You’re going to have an original, and it’s going to be the most expensive one there is.”

  “Is this really necessary—just to make a point?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She gnawed her lower lip. “I could still go away.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere…except to church to be married,” he said shortly.

  The dress had arrived days later, matching exactly the measurements that Noelle’s local dressmaker had provided, and when she unpacked it from its huge box, she was astonished at the yards and yards of imported lace that trimmed it.

  “Brussels lace,” Mrs. Dunn had exclaimed. “Oh, how exquisite, Noelle! No one will ever forget how you look in it.”

  Noelle touched the lace. It was delicate and pretty. But she was marrying for all the wrong reasons. The joyous occasion she’d dreamed of since girlhood was tarnished, and she looked ahead to sadness and grief. A loveless marriage would be a sort of hell.

  Chapter Eleven

  JARED VIEWED HIS approaching marriage with the same resignation that a man facing a firing squad would feel. He hated being forced by social convention to marry a woman for whom he had only contempt—his stepbrother’s fallen angel.

  He knew that women were treacherous, but Noelle had melted in his arms, welcomed his kisses. And despite her headlong response, she’d gone from his arms to Andrew’s in less than a day.

  Not that he cared, he told himself firmly. He’d felt sorry for her at first, but that was all. The unwanted physical attraction he felt for her was unexpected, but it changed nothing. He should have been firmer; he should have insisted that Andrew do the honora
ble thing. Yet, somehow, he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Noelle married to his stepbrother. That was why he hadn’t protested Andrew’s defection.

  He scowled out the window as he pondered his own strange behavior. He didn’t understand why the woman should have become so important to him. She was much too young for him, in the first place, and she’d been in love with Andrew for months. She might feel desire for Jared, but it had been made obvious to him that she felt it for Andrew as well. And she loved Andrew. It was folly to marry her, scandal or no scandal. But there was his grandmother, he told himself, finding reason after reason that made the marriage logical. It didn’t occur to him that he was justifying it to himself because he wanted Noelle any way he could get her.

  A knock on the door interrupted his train of thought. “Mr. Dunn, there’s a man to see you, sir,” his secretary, Adrian, told him.

  “Send him in.”

  Adrian stood aside to let a tall black man in a worn suit enter the room. The black man had his hat in his hand, and he looked tired and out of humor. But he didn’t look at his feet or stumble over apologies for interrupting the attorney without an appointment.

  “Mr. Dunn?”

  “I am.”

  “I am Brian Clark,” the black man told him. “I would like you to represent me.”

  “On what charge?”

  The man lifted his chin proudly. “On a charge of robbery and assault, sir. I expect to be arrested momentarily.”

  Jared’s eyebrows lifted. There was a noise outside the office, muffled voices coming closer, a door opening and closing. Louder voices in the outer office. A thud. And then a knock on the door.

  It opened, and Jared stared at the uniformed police officer and the city police detective beside him. The policeman had jurisdiction over the crime, because the robbery had occurred inside town. The city detective, who wore a low-slung sidearm, was obviously along in case there was any trouble.

  “Sorry, sir,” Adrian apologized. “They refused to wait until I announced them.”

  Jared waved him away with a lean hand. He moved toward them, at the same time maneuvering himself in front of Brian Clark. He took off his reading glasses. “May I help you?”

  “We want that colored man,” the policeman said. “He stole a hundred dollars from old man Ted Marlowe at the dry goods store—knocked him over the head with a pistol barrel and left him for dead. Doc says it’s a miracle he’s still alive, but he ain’t conscious yet. He’s in a coma. Doc says he may not live.”

  “Have you evidence to support a warrant?”

  The officer stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I won’t surrender Mr. Clark until you produce a warrant for his arrest, stating the charges against him. You’re an officer of the court, as I am. I operate by the book. As every public official should,” he added, with a cold smile.

  “Well, I never did,” the city detective, Sims, said heavily. “You’re going to protect that…” and he used an epithet that made the black man cringe.

  “His name is Clark,” Jared corrected. “It’s easy enough to say.”

  Sims snorted. “He beat and robbed an old storekeeper—old Mr. Marlowe—and you want to keep us from arresting him?”

  “Arrest him. But get a warrant first.”

  The police officer hesitated, but he didn’t like Jared’s stance any more than he liked that threatening blue stare. He’d heard things about this lawyer fellow from New York from the judge that he hadn’t quite believed. Until now.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said curtly. “You make sure he’s here when I return.”

  “He will be,” Jared said easily. “An innocent man doesn’t need to run.”

  The policeman made a rough sound at that and motioned the city detective, a tall, foxy man who was also his friend, to follow him. The door closed.

  The black man let out a heavy breath. “You took a chance, Mr. Dunn.”

  “Not a very big one. I had the law on my side. Sit down.”

  Brian Clark slid into a chair and sat with his long legs splayed, his face drawn with pain.

  “They said Ted Marlowe was robbed. Why do they think you did it?” Jared asked. He tossed his glasses on the brief he’d been reading and perched himself on the edge of his desk.

  “I was set up, Mr. Dunn,” came the quiet reply. “There’s a man at Beale’s ranch, where I work, who hates me. He’s tried for months to make trouble for me. He got liquored up last night and said he was never going to let me have the foreman’s job out at Beale’s. He said he’d see to it, no matter what he had to do.”

  “The man’s name?”

  Clark lifted his face. “I won’t tell you that,” he said. “He’s a fellow cowboy.”

  Jared gaped at him. “For the love of God, are you out of your mind? If you know who he is, you have to tell me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Good God, do you want to be lynched?” Jared persisted, cold-eyed. “You know what happens to men of your race these days for any suspected crime.”

  “I do, indeed.” The man smiled faintly. “But this is a point of honor. I can tell you that he made his intentions quite clear to everyone present. That’s as far as I’m prepared to go.”

  “You didn’t rob the store?”

  “No, sir. I did not.”

  Jared glared at him. Honor. It was a word he knew very well. He’d lived his life by it. But he wasn’t sure that, in Clark’s position, he would have given a damn about it. Not when his life hung in the balance.

  It wouldn’t go easy for Clark, either. Old man Marlowe was well-known and well liked, and his assailant would not have an easy time of it. The case would be controversial and dangerous. Jared liked it already.

  “You’re being square with me? You didn’t do it?” he asked the man.

  Brian looked at him straight on. “No, sir. I didn’t. I’ve killed men, but I’ve never been one to drink or steal. I was a cavalry officer before I left the service to go to work for Mr. Beale. I’ve never robbed anyone, and I like Mr. Marlowe.”

  “Cavalry?” Jared asked. “Which unit?”

  “Tenth.”

  “Ah. The Buffalo Soldiers.”

  The black head inclined. “Our regiment has a proud history,” he said. “We’re men of honor. It would go against the grain for me to do something so dastardly as to rob a man and beat him half to death in the process.”

  “Will Mr. Beale stand by you?” Jared asked.

  The black man smiled. “I’m afraid so, and things won’t be easy if he does,” he murmured. “He’s an honorable man, so he won’t desert me. But his support won’t go well with the townspeople, either.”

  “If you’re innocent, someone else is guilty. Old man Marlowe is well liked around here. I remember hearing people tell stories about him when my mother first moved here. You could be lynched before we can get to trial.”

  Clark’s long fingers went to his throat. He grimaced. “Plenty of my race have been, whether or not they were guilty.” He shrugged. “I haven’t got much money. I’ll owe you—all my life if it takes that long to pay you back. I’ve heard a lot about you in town. They say you’re the best lawyer in these parts. Take my case. Defend me. I didn’t do it.”

  Jared smiled. “You have a way with words, Mr. Clark.”

  “Will you defend me?”

  “Oh, yes,” he replied, getting up from the desk. “I’d decided that two minutes after you walked in the door. You don’t act guilty enough to warrant lynching.”

  Clark nodded and smiled. “Thank you, sir.” He extended his hand, and Jared shook it. At the same time, he noticed the other hand, gnarled and useless, hanging at the man’s side.

  Angry voices sounded outside the office again, along with the thud of booted feet on the wooden
sidewalk.

  “They’re back again,” Jared remarked.

  “I have to go with them, I know. They won’t let me be lynched, will they?” he added worriedly.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  The door opened and the police officer and Sims entered the room with a warrant, which Sims handed abruptly to Jared.

  “That makes it legal, so you come with us, boy,” the skinny city detective told the black man, grabbing him roughly by the neck. “You’re going to lodge in the city jail until we hang you.”

  “He’s not a boy,” Jared said icily. “And no cavalry officer deserves to be treated like that. Unhand him.”

  “Cavalry officer?” Sims, the detective, drawled. “Him?”

  “Tenth Cavalry,” Jared replied. He turned his attention to the stoic policeman. “He surrendered himself to me, and I’ll represent him at trial. Furthermore, I won’t expect to find any marks of violence on him.”

  He was making the police officer think. Despite the nativistic tenor of the times, which made anyone nonwhite a legitimate target for scorn, he was planning to run against the sheriff in the next election and he’d heard that Jared had friends in high places in government. He didn’t want to risk his future job on a city detective’s brutality. Sims, the skinny one, had a reputation for being overly rough with Mexicans and blacks. He also fancied himself a gunman—wore his holster low on his thigh and liked to draw his Colt with little or no provocation. The police chief had found him troublesome ever since he’d been hired.

  “Let him loose, Sims,” he told the man. “Right now.”

  Sims jerked his hand away with a puzzled scowl.

  “Put the handcuffs on him,” the policeman instructed.

  Sims complied, with muttered complaints about nursing criminals.

  “I like old man Marlowe,” the policeman said. “He’s been robbed and beaten to his knees, and I have three witnesses who saw this man come running out of the store with a small bag just before Ted Marlowe was found.”