“So now, you think you have to marry her,” Reed said with heavy-sounding finality. “Couldn’t you give it some time? You hardly know her. Marriage is forever. You’ll have to spend your life with this woman, and one night’s acquaintance isn’t enough to base that on. Just because she’s feisty in bed doesn’t mean—.” He stopped at Lee’s look.
“All right,” Reed continued. “So now, you ask for the young lady’s hand in marriage. What happens to Houston? Do you just walk away from her? Women take these things quite hard, you know.”
“Since all this was started by the twins, I don’t feel too bad. They should have thought of the consequences.”
“They could hardly have known that you would choose that night to decide the fate of your future. Before you ask Blair to marry you, why don’t you wait a month or so? That’ll give both of you some time to think about what you’re doing.”
“It’s too late for that. Besides, I don’t think Blair would marry me.”
“Don’t…?” Reed began. “If she’ll sleep with you, why the hell won’t she marry you?”
In spite of the anger in his father’s voice, Lee began to smile. “I’m not sure she likes me. She thinks I’m a bigot like Gates, and I honestly believe that if I asked her to marry me, she’d laugh in my face.”
Reed threw up his hands in despair. “I don’t understand any of this.”
At that moment, the front door was thrown open, and immediately there was the sound of shouting throughout the house.
Lee rose from his chair. “That will no doubt be the outraged Mr. Duncan Gates. I went to his brewery an hour ago and told him that I had deflowered his stepdaughter and, to make amends, I would marry the wayward girl. He is bringing Blair and the four of us are going to discuss the matter. Don’t look so glum, Dad. I mean to have her and I’ll use any method I can to get her.”
Chapter 7
“I have absolutely no intention of marrying him. None,” Blair said for the twentieth time.
“You are soiled, unfit,” Duncan raged. “No one else will have you.”
Blair tried her best to keep calm and not show the turmoil that was boiling inside her. Gates had been shouting at her and trying to intimidate her for three solid hours. She thought about her Uncle Henry’s calmness, how he’d look at what had happened with some humor, and they would sit down and talk about the situation as if they were sane adults. But not Gates. He had the medieval idea that now that she was no longer a virgin, she should be cast down to the dogs—or to Leander, which was about the same thing as far as Blair was concerned.
“May I ask why you don’t want to marry my son?” Reed Westfield asked.
Blair could feel animosity coming from the man, like heat waves on the desert. “I have told you that I have been accepted to intern at a major hospital in Pennsylvania and I plan to take the offer. Besides, I don’t love your son. He is engaged to my sister and, as soon as possible after their wedding, I will return to Pennsylvania, and no one in this town need ever see me again. I don’t know how to make myself more clear than that.”
“You’ve ruined your sister’s life!” Gates shouted. “You don’t think she can marry him after this?”
“Are you insinuating that Leander was…ah, unsoiled, as you put it, before last night?”
Duncan’s face turned red.
“Calm down, Duncan,” Reed said. “Blair, there must be some way that we can work this out to everyone’s satisfaction. Surely, you must have some feelings for my son.”
Blair looked at Lee, who was standing at the back of the room and appearing to enjoy everything. Not any feelings that she could tell publicly, she thought, and as if Lee could read her mind, he smiled at her in such a way that she blushed and had to look away. “I told you before,” she said. “I was pretending to be my sister, and I was acting the way I thought she would act with the man she loved. I don’t think I should be punished for being an excellent actress.”
Reed lifted one eyebrow. “I don’t think any actress carries her role that far.”
“And I’ll not have Houston’s name dragged through the mud by you or anyone else,” Duncan shouted. “She wouldn’t have done what you’ve done. She’s a good girl.”
“And I’m not, is that it?” Blair asked, torn between tears and outrage.
“A decent woman wouldn’t—.”
“I’ve heard all I want to hear,” Lee said, stepping forward. “Would you leave us now? I want to talk to Blair alone.”
Blair wanted to protest that she didn’t want to see him alone, but perhaps he wasn’t as bad as all of them shouting at her.
“Would you like some sherry?” he asked, when they were alone.
“Please,” she answered, taking the glass with shaking hands.
He frowned when he saw her hands. “I had no idea that he was as bad as that. Houston’d told me, but I hadn’t imagined half of it.”
Blair drank the wine gratefully and hoped it would calm her nerves. “If you didn’t think he was so bad, why did you enlist his help in your preposterous scheme?”
“I wanted all the help I could get. I thought—correctly—that if I went to you on my own, you’d laugh in my face.”
“I’m not laughing now.”
“All right, then let’s get this settled. The invitations are at the printer’s, and all that has to be changed is your name for Houston’s.”
Blair jumped up from her chair. “Of all the stupid ideas I have ever heard, that’s the worst. Can’t you hear me? I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to spend another minute in this dreadful town. I want to go home and I want my sister to get her fiancé back. What can I say to you people to make you understand? I want to go home!”
In spite of her good intentions, she collapsed in the chair, put her face in her hands and burst into tears. “He’s right,” she cried, “I’ve ruined Houston’s life.”
Lee knelt before her and very gently pulled her hands down. “Don’t you understand that I want to marry you, not Houston?”
She looked at him for a moment, felt his warm hands on her wrists and considered the matter, but before she could let herself be persuaded, she got up and went to stand before the window.
“You belong to my sister. Since she was a child, she has planned to marry you. She has a trunkful of linens embroidered with an L and an H intertwined. She’s never wanted to be anything but Mrs. Leander Westfield. She loves you, don’t you know that? And what I love is medicine. Medicine has been my life since I was twelve and now I’ve earned this internship and I want to take it and marry Alan and live happily ever after.”
Leander lost the concerned look he was wearing and stood bolt upright. “Alan? And just who the hell is he?”
“Since I’ve returned to this town, no one has asked me about my life in Pennsylvania. Gates shouts at me that I’m immoral, Mother just sits and sews, Houston spends most of her time ordering new dresses, and you…you just stand there giving me orders.”
Several emotions went across Lee’s face. “Who is Alan?” “The man to whom I’m engaged. The man I love. The man who is coming to Chandler in two days to meet my family and tell them that he would be honored to marry me.”
“I’m asking for that honor.”
“I’m sure that you fell in love with me after one night.” To her surprise, Leander said nothing to this.
He toyed with a letter opener on the desk. “What if I make you want to marry me? What if by the end of two weeks you want to walk down that aisle to me?”
“There’s not a chance in the world of that happening. Alan will be here soon and, besides, I told you, you belong to Houston.”
“I do, do I?” he said and, in one stride, he was across the room to her and had her in his arms.
His kiss was as draining to her senses as it had been last night when she’d pretended to be her sister. She was weak when he released her.
“Now, tell me I don’t have a chance.” He moved away from her. “Did it e
ver occur to you that this Alan might not want you after you explain why your name is on the wedding invitation?”
“He’s not like that. He’s a very understanding man.”
“We’ll see how understanding he is. You’re going to marry me two weeks from now, and you’d better get used to the idea.”
Blair somehow managed to remain calm until Mr. Gates took her back to the Chandler house—and then she saw Houston’s face. Her sister looked as if nothing in life mattered any more. Blair had been worried about Houston’s future, had been so concerned that she’d wanted to go out with Leander just to assure herself that her sister would be all right. And what she’d managed to do was destroy Houston’s entire future.
Blair begged her sister to answer, but Houston refused to speak to her, and even when Blair burst into tears, Houston wouldn’t relent.
Mr. Gates fairly pushed Blair up to her room on the third floor and locked the door behind her. Even when Opal came to the door and asked to see her daughter, Gates refused to open it.
Blair sat for a long time inside the dark room, her eyes too dry to cry since she’d been crying all day and quite a bit of the night. Now, she had to make a plan to get herself out of this mess. She wasn’t going to be forced to stay in this town and marry a man she didn’t want to marry, nor was she going to give up her internship at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
She sat quietly until she heard no more sounds from inside the house, and then she went to the window. As a child, she’d managed to climb to the ground by using the long, serpentine branches of the old elm tree on the east side of the house. If she jumped, she thought she could make the largest branch of the tree—and if she missed…She didn’t like to think of that.
Hurriedly, she packed a soft bag with a few clothes and tossed it to the ground, waiting a moment for the sounds of alarm. So far, so good. No one seemed to have heard her. She slipped into a divided skirt and climbed onto the window ledge, holding on with one hand and reaching as far as she could with the other. She could just barely reach the tree branches. She pulled back, knowing that there was no way that she could get to the tree except by jumping. She crouched in the window, and with one big leap, sent herself hurtling through the air, grabbing the tree branch as she went by.
She hung there, suspended in the air, and she could hear the slight cracking of the wood. It took several tries but she managed to get her legs around the branch just before her arms gave out. Using all her strength, while hanging upside down by her hands and ankles, and feeling the bark and sharp places scratch her skin through her clothing and hose, she managed to propel herself to the trunk of the tree. Once there, she took a moment to catch her breath before beginning the descent.
When she was finally on the ground, she looked back at the house with a feeling of triumph. They weren’t going to make her stay where she didn’t want to.
A sound to her left made her whirl about.
A match was lit and the flame showed Leander’s face as he held the match to a cigar. “Need some help with your bag?” he asked, when he looked at her.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped.
“Protecting what I’ve come to think of as mine,” he said, smiling.
“You were standing here while I was fighting for my life at the top of that tree?”
“Not quite the top, and I didn’t see that you were in any real danger. Who taught you to climb like that?”
“Certainly not you. You were too busy saving lives to learn how to climb trees when you were a boy.”
“What odd ideas you have about me. I can’t imagine where you got them. Now, if you’ve had your nightly exercise, I suggest that we get you back into the house. After you, my lady,” he said, making a sweeping bow toward the tree.
“I have no intention of returning to that house. There’s a train to Denver in a little while and I will be on it.”
“Not if I tell Gates. I’m sure that he’ll be after you with a shotgun.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Do you forget that I was the one who started this in the first place? I don’t plan to let you leave Chandler now or ever.”
“I think I’m beginning to hate you.”
“You didn’t hate me last night,” he said softly. “Now, do you want a repeat demonstration of just how much you don’t hate me or do I help you back into your boudoir?”
Blair gritted her teeth. He had to sleep sometime and when he did, she’d be ready to escape.
“Stop looking at me as if you’d like to have me on a platter for breakfast and come on.” He grabbed the lowest branch of the tree and swung himself up, holding out his hand to her.
Reluctantly, she took his hand and let him pull her up. She did get some satisfaction from the fact that she did very little to help, and he had to pull her dead weight.
When they were at the roof, he helped her into the window, leaned forward and whispered, “How about a good-night kiss?”
Blair, with a little smile, leaned toward him as if she meant to kiss him and, at the last minute, slammed the window down so that Lee had to jump to keep his fingers from getting caught. From behind the glass, she puckered her lips into a kiss before she pulled the shade down to block him from view.
As she was smiling, she heard a crack of wood from outside, a muffled cry, then a heavy thud.
“He’s fallen,” she gasped, as she threw open the window and stuck her head out. “Lee!” she called as loud as she dared.
To her surprise, he put his head around the window jamb and kissed her quickly and firmly. “I knew you couldn’t resist me.”
With that, he jumped to the longest branch and was on the ground in record time. “You should have let me teach you how to climb trees,” he laughed up at her and then sat down under the tree as if he planned to spend all night there.
Blair slammed down the window and went to bed.
Chapter 8
On Sunday morning, Gates told Blair to get dressed for church, and she was to look as much like a lady as she could manage.
Breakfast was a sullen meal, with Houston more rigid than usual, and both she and Opal looked as if they’d been crying most of the night. Duncan’s face seemed to be permanently set in the mask of a martyr who was suffering for everyone.
Immediately after the awful meal, Opal said that she didn’t feel well enough to attend church and retired to her room. Gates got Blair into a corner and told her that she was killing her mother with her wicked ways.
Church was the worst. The minister seemed to think that what had happened between the twins was a great joke and made the congregation laugh when he said that Lee had changed his mind about which twin he wanted to marry.
After the service, people gathered around them, wanting to know what was going on, but Houston just stood there looking as if she were made of steel. And when Leander tried to talk to her, she answered him with barely concealed anger, so of course he decided to take his fury and frustration out on Blair. He grabbed her arm and half dragged her to his waiting carriage.
Blair was thrown against the seat of the buggy as Lee took off and headed for the south of town. It wasn’t until they were out of town that he slowed down.
Blair straightened her hat. “Did you think that she’d smile at you and say something pleasant?”
He halted the buggy. “I thought she’d be reasonable. It was the two of you who started the whole game. I never meant to publicly humiliate her.”
“All you have to do is help me get back to Pennsylvania, and you can go back to Houston on bended knee and I’m sure she’ll have you.”
He looked at her for quite a while. “No, I won’t do that. You and I are going to be married. I brought a picnic basket and I thought we could have lunch.” He wrapped the reins around the brake handle, climbed down and went to help Blair down. But as he came around the horse, he paused. “I seem to have a rock in my shoe,” he said, and leaned against a tree to remove it.
Blair sat there for a
moment and watched him, thinking about her sister’s face during the announcement in church; thinking that she didn’t want to remain in Chandler or become this man’s wife; then she grabbed the reins, flicked them, and yelled to the horse to go while Leander stood there wearing only one shoe. He chased her for a while, but he soon stopped when he stepped on something with his stockinged foot and started limping.
When she was safely out of reach of him, she slowed the horse and returned to Chandler. She had to find a way to escape the town. After this morning’s announcement, she couldn’t very well board a train without some curiosity being aroused. Being a Chandler in a town named Chandler had drawbacks. Tomorrow, Alan would arrive and perhaps he’d help her. In spite of what she’d told Lee, she had some worries about whether Alan would still want her after what had happened.
The minute Blair saw the Chandler house, she knew something was wrong. Opal was sitting on the porch, and when she saw Blair, she jumped up.
“Do you know where your sister is?”
Blair hurried up the stairs. “Has she run away? Let me change and we’ll start looking for her.”
“It’s worse than that,” Opal said, sitting down in the porch swing. “That awful man, Mr. Taggert, came to the church and told everyone that he and Houston were going to be married, that it was to be a double wedding with you and Leander. What is happening to my family? Mr. Gates says that that man Taggert has killed people to get what he has, and I can’t help but feel that Houston is taking this man because she lost Leander and she wants to show the town that she can get another husband. And he must be very rich. I’d hate to think that she’s marrying the man for his money.”
Blair sat down in the swing beside her mother. “This is all my fault.”
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