Opening the door, she peered into the hallway decorated with portraits, plants, and small tables adorned with enough items to keep the maids dusting for the better part of each morning. No one was about though. She rushed quietly along the corridor, down the stairs, grateful to discover that the butler was not standing watch in the entry hallway. Her heart pounding with anticipation, she crossed over to the heavy mahogany door, opened it, stepped outside, and closed it behind her. She tiptoed down the front steps, along the walk, until she reached Tom.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“I was sitting in my stuffy library, drinking my whiskey, and it occurred to me that I could give you a little bit of Texas to night.”
“And just how in the world—Oh!”
Quickly sliding an arm beneath her knees and one at her back, he’d swung her up into his arms.
“Shh!” he ordered, holding her close.
She couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she wound her arms securely around his neck and pressed her head to his shoulder. Lord, but he’d gotten considerably stronger over the years. She didn’t want to be impressed or flattered by his attentions, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“Escorting you to my carriage.”
“This isn’t the proper way to do it,” she chastised, as his long strides ate up the distance.
“I’ll let you demonstrate the proper way later. I want to get us on our way before anyone comes out to stop us.”
A footman dressed in Sachse livery opened the carriage door as they neared. With a smoothness that made her wonder who he might have practiced this maneuver with, he had her inside the carriage, climbing in behind her as she took her seat. He sat across from her, lost in the shadows, but she could feel his gaze fastened on her. The carriage sprang forward.
“How did you know which room was mine?” she asked, to shatter the silence weaving around them.
“I paid a servant handsomely to tell me.”
“It had best have been handsomely. If my stepfather finds out, the poor man will get sacked.”
“If it was a man.”
He sounded so diabolically clever and pleased with himself.
“Do you have a destination in mind?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“I’d rather it be a surprise.”
She glanced out the window. “I spoke with my mother after you left. She admitted to taking your letters.”
“I’d pretty much figured out that she had.”
“She burned them.”
She thought she heard him grunt, maybe with regret over the loss of his words that could never be recovered.
“Did you get the letters I wrote you?” It occurred to her that she’d been so stunned to learn that he’d written that she hadn’t thought to ask.
“No.”
She sighed wistfully. “I guess she took those as well. I used to leave them in a silver bowl in the entryway so a footman could see that they were sent out in the morning mail. It never occurred to me that…” She let her voice trail off.
He leaned forward, took her hands. His were rough, callused, not the hands of a gentleman. Would Tom be as embarrassed by what his hands revealed about him as her mother was?
“It doesn’t matter, Lauren.”
Only it did matter. His words were irretrievably lost to her.
He said nothing further. Maybe he didn’t need to. Simply being with her was enough for the moment.
Christopher Montgomery watched his wife’s misery with an aching in his heart.
“Come away from the window, Elizabeth.”
“You could have stopped her from leaving.”
“She’s twenty-four, old enough to make her own decisions.”
She spun around, tears in her eyes. “You had more than enough time to go down there and confront him.”
He smiled slightly. “I believe he was wearing a pistol.”
She failed to appreciate his poor attempt at humor. He crossed over to her, wrapped his arms around her, and held her close.
It hurt his heart to see her suffering so. She’d shared her three daughters with him and then blessed him with two more. Unlike most aristocrats, he’d never wanted a son. His twin brother should have been the Earl of Ravenleigh, but that secret was known only to the two of them. With a clear conscience, Christopher would pass the title on to his nephew. But for now, he cared only about comforting the woman he loved beyond all reason.
“If we forbid them to see each other, they will find a way, no matter how badly you wish they wouldn’t.”
She tilted back her head. “He doesn’t understand the rules here. He’s going to ruin her.”
He wiped a tear from her cheek. “Or he might prove capable of giving her what we never could: happiness.”
“But at what cost?”
“Sometimes all we can do is be there to help our children stand back up if they fall.”
“And if we’re responsible for the fall?”
More tears had gathered in her eyes, far more than he could possibly wipe away.
“Elizabeth—”
“Oh, Christopher, I did something horrible, and I don’t know how to make it right.”
He drew her against his chest. “Just tell me, love, and we’ll make it right together.”
It was so quiet on the bank of the Thames, just outside of London. The ground was cool beneath Lauren’s back, in spite of the fact that she was lying on Tom’s duster, inhaling the scent of him as she stared up at the sky.
“It’s never as clear as a Texas sky. I’ve never seen a falling star here.”
“If you did, what would you wish for?” Tom asked, trailing his finger lazily up and down her arm.
She turned her head to look at him. He was braced on an elbow, gazing down on her. She’d thought he’d do more than hold her hands in the carriage, but he hadn’t. And perhaps that was the reason her heart had tightened, then swelled, because he was with her not for an unbuttoned bodice, but for something more. A piece of what they’d left behind in Texas, left behind in their youth.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure I would wish.”
“Did you stop believing in wishes coming true?” he asked.
She released a small laugh. “No, I still believe they come true, but unfortunately, when mine have it hasn’t always been in a way that I expected or had in mind.”
“What did you wish for that you didn’t want?”
“It was one of the nights when we were down by the creek. I found myself envying the life you’d led; it took you so many places, gave you so many experiences. I was feeling dull and boring. I wished on a falling star, I wished that I would travel. I just didn’t think I would go so far, or be gone so long.”
“I always liked that about you. That you believed in wishing.”
“I was concerned you thought I was just being silly.”
“No, Lauren. Just because I couldn’t believe didn’t mean that I didn’t appreciate that you could. I hate knowing you don’t wish anymore. I think you ought to take up the practice again. You might be surprised how your wishes might turn out.”
“If I were wishing, I think I’d wish for your letters back. What ever did you say in all those letters?”
“Well, let me see if I can recall.” He turned his head up toward the sky as though he would see the words written on the stars.
“Dear Lauren. I ran across three stray calves today. They had no brand so I branded them and added them to the herd. Yours, Tom.”
She laughed. “How frightfully romantic.”
He turned his attention back to her, and she could see his grin. “It gets better. Dear Lauren. I worked to get an ornery steer out of a muddy bog today. Almost broke my back doing it. I really missed you. If you’d been here, you could have done the pushing while I did the pulling. Yours, Tom.”
Laughing harder, she shoved his shoulder. “That is not what you wrote to me.”
He chuckled low. “Pretty much. I’m not much of a letter writer. Most of them weren’t long. Just a sentence or two, just enough, so I could keep my promise to write every day.”
Reaching out, she cradled his cheek, rubbed her thumb over the mustache that she was coming to adore. It suited him. “And to think, all this time, I never knew.” How could her mother have destroyed his letters? “If you wrote as often as you said, you must have written over a thousand letters.”
“You doubt my claim?”
“No. But I doubt all you wrote about was cattle.”
He turned his head, and she wondered what he was looking at in the distance.
“After a few months passed, and you didn’t write back, I thought maybe you were as bored by my letters as I was, so I tried to write about something other than cattle. I wrote about how lonely I was.”
Her heart tightened into a painful ache for the loneliness they’d both experienced over the years.
Taking her hand, he began running his thumb in a circle around her palm. “Do you remember what you wrote in the letters I never got?”
“Not exactly, but close enough for you to get the gist of it. Dear Tom. All the girls I meet are lady something or other. I don’t know how to be a lady. Yours, Lauren.”
“You are a lady, Lauren. You always have been.”
“A lady wouldn’t have offered to let a boy unbutton her bodice, so that ten years later he’s still demanding that he be allowed to do it.”
“You can’t blame me for wanting to. Hell, darlin’, what if I gave you a present all wrapped up and all I did was let you untie the string. You can’t tell me that ten years later you wouldn’t still want to see what was inside the package.”
Oh, he made her want to laugh again. She combed her fingers through his thick hair. “Oh, Tom, you see things in such simple terms when so much more complicated issues are at hand.”
“Those buttons on your dress look pretty plain and simple to me. I don’t think unbuttoning them would be that complicated or any great hardship.”
“Ah, but it could turn out to be both. What if you looked but couldn’t resist the temptation to touch?”
He lowered his head slightly, his voice a low rumble. “I think you’re afraid that you might decide you didn’t want me to resist the temptation.”
Oh, she could very well decide that, and perhaps that was her fear, that loosening her buttons might be enough for him, but certainly not enough for her. If his stroking her arm, stroking her hand warmed her so much, what in the world would happen if he stroked more?
She needed to distract him, distract herself from this potentially dangerous direction. She swallowed hard, determined that their behavior to night would remain above reproach. “I wrote other letters.”
“Did you now?”
She heard amusement in his voice, as though he knew exactly why she’d turned the topic back to letters, that he was fully aware that he did tempt her in ways that he shouldn’t.
“Dear Tom. All the boys I meet are lord something or other. I don’t like them very much. Yours, Lauren.”
He chuckled low. “Glad you didn’t fancy any of the fellas you met over here.”
She thought about telling him about Kimburton, but what was the point? That aspect of her life was over.
“I think I wrote a couple of lengthy letters about my clothes,” she said instead, “especially after my first trip to Paris for a Worth gown. In Texas, I put on a dress in the morning and took it off before I went to bed at night. Here, I change my clothing three or four times a day, depending on the activity or where I’m going or who I’m going to visit. Sometimes I feel guilty for not being happy when I’ve been given so much, and there are others with nothing.”
“You’ve really been that unhappy over here?”
She slowly shook her head. “I can’t explain it, Tom. Everything I missed. The smells inside the general store when we went into town on Saturday. The open friendliness of people, everyone greeting you regardless of who you were or who your parents might be. As long as I sirred or ma’amed my elders, I didn’t get into trouble for addressing someone inappropriately.” She peered over at him. “Here, they have rules for who can sit beside whom during dinner. Introductions are so formal. Even when you run into someone you know, you have to adhere to the proper way of greeting him…or her. It’s tedious.”
“So tell me, darlin’, how are you getting back to Texas?”
“On a ship.”
He laughed, a full-throated sound. “You know I figured that much out on my own. But passage on a ship costs money. Is Ravenleigh paying for it?”
“I wouldn’t presume to ask. He’s been a wonderful father, and I don’t wish to place him in an awkward position. Mother desperately wants me to remain here. She thinks life is too hard in Texas, that I’ve forgotten what it’s really like.”
“It is hard, Lauren.”
“It’s a different kind of hardship here, Tom, but it’s still hard. Don’t think it isn’t.”
“I wouldn’t do that. But you still haven’t answered my question. How are you paying for passage?”
“It’s terribly scandalous, and you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
“Who would I tell?”
“I’ve taken a position at a shop.”
“A shop? What kind of things does it sell to be scandalous?”
“The scandal has nothing to do with the shop itself, but what my working there represents. My stepfather is a peer. For it to be known that I’m working would cause him embarrassment. I went to great pains to locate a shop in an area of London that isn’t likely to be visited by anyone of importance.”
“Ravenleigh seemed surprised that you were planning to return to Texas.”
“I’d told him and Mother that I was spending my days doing charity work.”
“You lied?”
“I didn’t see that I had a choice if I wanted to accomplish my goal of returning to Fortune. Why even to night Mother ordered me to resign my post.”
“Will you?”
“How can I when it limits my opportunities, forces me to remain here?” Sighing, she shook her head. “I’ll think about it all tomorrow. Right now, I’m weary of talking about me. Tell me about you. What have you done all these years?”
“I’ve been a cowboy all these years,” he said. “Nothing extraordinary in that.”
She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out, cupping his chin, rubbing her thumb over the thick hair on his face again. “Why did you decide to grow a mustache?”
“You don’t like it?”
“I like it just fine,” she said, pleased that her opinion mattered to him. “I’m simply trying to figure out some of the things you’ve thought over the years, to understand some of the decisions you’ve made.”
“Second year out on the cattle drive, they made me trail boss. I was all of seventeen, giving orders to men a lot older than me, so I thought if I grew some hair over my lip, I might look a little older, a little tougher so they’d take me more seriously.”
“Oh, my gosh, Tom, you must have been the youngest one ever.”
“There were younger ones during the war. It’s not that hard.”
When had Thomas Warner become so modest? She had to continually remind herself that a good deal about Tom had changed, just as a lot about her had changed. They weren’t the same people any longer. She was torn between wanting to know him better and fearing that particular path would lead only to more heartache.
“It’s a lot of responsibility,” she told him.
“It meant I got paid more, meant I could get the things I wanted quicker.”
“And what did you want?”
“My own ranch. A cowboy who works for an outfit has little chance of ever having a family, and no chance whatsoever of providing for them the way he’d want to.”
“Do you have your r
anch now?”
“I sure do. I just finished building the house. I pounded a lot of the nails in myself, wanted it to have my mark on it. I’ve always wanted something permanent, something sturdy that would outlast me. I find it ironic that all this time, I had estates over here that I never knew about.”
“It doesn’t diminish what you did in Texas. What did you name your ranch?”
“Lonesome Heart.”
Her chest tightened, a knot formed in her throat. There was nothing she could say to that, nothing he could say either. The name of his ranch said it all for both of them. The silence eased in around them, comforting, familiar.
“What’s your earliest memory?” he asked, with so much solemnity that she wondered where the silence had taken him.
“Seeing you behind the general store.”
“Not of me,” he said quietly. “The memory that goes the farthest back in your mind, before you ever met me.”
“Oh, gosh.” She closed her eyes, thought for a moment, opened them. “It would have to be of my father, dressed in gray, kneeling before me, telling me that he loved me, promising me that he’d come home.” With startling clarity, she realized she’d had a lot of broken promises in her life. “It was a promise he wasn’t able to keep.”
“If I’m doing the calculation right, you were only four.”
She nodded, even though he probably couldn’t distinguish her movements in the shadows. “Close to that. I’m not sure how long the war had been going on before he went to fight.”
“I was a little older when my mother took me away from here, and I have no memories of any of it, Lauren. I don’t remember saying good-bye to anyone. I don’t remember any hugs or tears. I don’t remember if I was scared or excited. I don’t know if I thought we were going on an adventure. When I look back, my memories begin in New York.”
“What if they made a mistake, Tom? What if you aren’t Sachse?”
“Have you ever been to the Sachse residence in London?” he asked, obviously not interested in pursuing her question.
Was he like other men she’d known—so enamored of the title that he didn’t want to contemplate that it wasn’t his? Wouldn’t entertain the notion of giving it up? She couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed in his unwillingness to pursue the possibility that he wasn’t Sachse.
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