by Lisa Plumley
Not that he wanted to, Graham reminded himself staunchly. He’d chosen a drifter’s life and it had always suited him. The sooner he finished this charade with Julia Bennett, the sooner he could return to that life.
Ignoring his tightening throat, he sucked in a deep breath and knocked. Moments later, the door opened. An apron-wearing, sour-faced maid stood in the entry.
“Yes?” she asked, her attention all for her floury hands and water-spotted apron once she’d sized him up. “May I help you?”
“Graham Corley to see Miss Bennett,” he said. His voice boomed in the small space, overly loud and rough as gravel to his ears. Defiantly, he squared his shoulders and silently dared the woman to refuse him, the way he half expected.
“You must mean Dr. Bennett,” she told him dismissively, waving her arm. “Use the side entrance. That’s where all his customers go to, once the Emporium’s closed for the day.”
She began closing the door. Graham jammed his boot into the passage. “I mean Miss Julia Bennett, not her father. I’ve come to call.”
A confused look met his statement. “You’ve come to call on Miss Julia?”
“Yes.”
The woman’s perplexed expression only grew. Did no one ever call on Miss Julia? Or did no gentlemen ever call on her? Against all reason, Graham hoped it was the latter.
“She’s expecting me,” he added.
“Have you a card?” the woman asked. Her pinched face begrudged him every syllable of the question. “I’ll see if she’s at home.”
He stared at her work-roughened, floury hand, outstretched to receive his calling card, and realized, in that moment, exactly how ill-equipped he was to enter his supposed “fiancée’s” world. A bounty hunter carried no card, had no credentials save his record for captures and a hard-earned reputation. The reputation Graham had made—for patience, tireless pursuit, shrewd captures and honest dealings—would hardly carry weight in a world where ladies pretended not to be “at home” to disreputable elements.
Disreputable elements…like him.
“No card?” the maid asked. She arched a brow. “Miss Julia is not at home to you, then. Good day.”
Frowning, he made ready to leave. The maid’s obvious disapproval pushed at him in ways he hadn’t experienced since his days in Boston. He thought only to escape it. For an overlong moment, Graham felt crushed beneath it, desperate to strike the trail and put Avalanche, with its close-knit families and respectable ladies, firmly at his back. The way he always did. The way he always would.
But then something inside him caught hold, and he stopped with his body only just turned away. The chill of the deepening twilight swirled past him with his return to face the maid.
“I’ve no card but this,” Graham said, snatching a dollar coin from his pocket and holding it out to her. “I’d say it’s fine enough for now.”
Her eyes widened. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Graham Corley.” He said it proudly, the consequences be damned. Miss Julia Bennett and her family would accept him as he was, or not have him at all. “To see Miss Bennett.”
“Fine, then.” Instantly, her demeanor changed to one of cooperation. “I’ll tell her you’ve come.”
The coin disappeared. So did the maid. And a moment later, the woman who’d filled his mind with visions of lace, his senses with the fragrance of oranges and woman, and his dreams with foolish hopes better left unspoken, arrived in her place.
Julia.
The very sight of her revitalized him, brought him away from the childhood memories that plagued him back to the life of the man he’d become. Graham felt calmer, clearer—utterly purposeful. The past was behind him. This—she—was his future, and he meant to make good on the bargain they’d made.
She stood on the threshold, dressed in a new gown of deep blue and ruffles, and gawped at him as though she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Clearly, Graham decided, Julia could not believe her fiancé prayers were being answered quite so swiftly…and so masterfully. Mustering a bow from some mostly forgotten sense of gallantry, he angled himself before her and then rose with a grin on his lips.
“Let the games begin,” he said.
Letting out a squeak, Julia grabbed his coat sleeve and hauled him inside the foyer, slamming the door behind them.
“Sweet heaven, you’re really here,” she muttered, her gaze roving from the top of his head to his boot heels. In the distance, the sounds of conversation and clanking cutlery were heard, betraying the presence of other people in the house, but Julia’s attention was all for the man standing nearly noses-touching in front of her. “What in the world have I done?”
Chapter Six
“What have you done?” Graham repeated. Stepping still closer to her in the foyer, he gave her a widening, bedazzling smile. “Why you’ve bartered yourself a man to come courting, Miss Julia. And I’m here to fulfill my end of the bargain.”
“Now? Like this?” Panic poured through her at this unanticipated development, and suddenly Julia wanted nothing more than to take back her desperate scheme. “You can’t!”
“I can. I am.”
“Paying calls after five o’clock simply isn’t done,” she returned inanely, taking refuge in the security of her etiquette books. “We’re already at dinner.”
Graham wrinkled his brow. He glanced at the octagonal foyer’s elegant furnishings, taking in the mauve velvet drapes, glossy parquet floor, standing fern, and upholstered settee as though noticing them for the first time.
“I’ve been afoot for so long now, I’ve lost track of such things,” he admitted. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I can see that your dinner is important to you. Its interruption has you fair worked up.”
His gaze shifted to her hand, still fisted on his coat sleeve. Beneath his flat-brimmed hat, his eyes sparkled with teasing humor. At once, Julia became aware of the hoydenish way she’d dragged the bounty hunter inside the house with her, and wanted to close her eyes with embarrassment at the memory of it.
Miss Julia’s Behavior Book, volume three: Unseemly and impudent contact should never be tolerated. No proper woman permits a man to be so familiar as to toy with her hands, encircle her waist with his arm, or otherwise encroach intimately upon her person.
How much worse, then, was it for a woman to handle a gentleman in such a fashion? If she continued to behave so recklessly, she would lose what little respect and admiration she’d earned in the community since her return. Seeing her plan through, Julia realized, would require far greater self-control than she’d thought. It would be risky, in the extreme.
Something about Graham Corley, though, brought out a kind of irresistible wildness in her. An urge to throw caution afield and do…something. She didn’t know what.
“Or maybe it’s me,” Graham said, breaking into her thoughts with his rumbling voice and good-natured manner, “that has you in such a state. My presence that’s got you all aflutter. I wonder….”
Experimentally, he moved closer, angling their bodies more nearly parallel. Julia found herself unable to move away, helpless to do more than hold her breath and wait to discover what came next. A taut expectancy took hold of her, thrumming through her with an excitement that was wholly unwise…and completely overpowering.
The bounty hunter’s coat whispered with his continued movement, brushing against her skirts. His dark hat dipped low to shade his whiskery face. With his free hand, Graham touched his fingertips to her chin, and tilted her face upward toward his. The heat of his body made her skin fairly tingle.
“Standing this way, so close with your hand on my arm, ’tis almost an embrace,” he observed. “Nearly a lover’s hello.”
Only he could have turned her embarrassing social faux pas into an opportunity for seduction, Julia thought crazily. Yet for a heartbeat, it seemed almost as though Graham truly craved that fond greeting he’d mentioned. The harsh angles of his face softened as the bounty hunter spoke of it, and his eyes darkened w
ith anticipation.
His fingertips stroked her, once. Julia leaned nearer, her heart beating wildly, momentarily fascinated by the change in him.
“If I didn’t know better, I would swear you hold me like this because you can’t bear to let go,” he said, some hitch in his smile betraying an earnest hope behind his lightly spoken words. “You’re a woman of passion, Miss Bennett.”
Leisurely, he lowered his hand. Julia refused to admit that she felt the loss of his touch.
“’Twill make our charade go easier,” he added, eyes sparkling. “I’m pleased to learn it.”
“I’m sure to deny it!” She found the will to loosen her grasp at last, and tucked her fist safe at her side amidst her skirts.
“Ahh, but will you deny it truly? Or would that be a lie?”
Without awaiting her answer, Graham shucked his coat and hat and hung both on the mahogany coatrack beside the front door. Then he stretched his arms high, groaning with unconscious pleasure at the movement, and stepped with heavy footfalls a few paces farther into the house. His attention was drawn to the table, where he touched the calling cards in their silver plate receiver.
For some inexplicable reason, he dropped a coin into their midst, looked at it with something close to satisfaction, and then continued his survey of the house.
His shrewd assessment was unnerving. It was as though Graham saw and measured everything in the blink of an eye. Doubtless the ability served him well in his notorious profession, but heaven help her if he ever decided to turn his talents toward her! She’d have nary a secret left, nor the will to keep one from him.
The thought jolted Julia into action. She needed to take the upper hand, here, else risk losing it forever. As it was, her sense of control was sorely slipping away.
“Perhaps if you’d care to wait in the parlor,” she began, walking toward him with hopes of guiding them both into the adjacent room, “we could—”
“Get better acquainted? I’d like that.”
He turned the whole of his focus on her. The effect was enough to stop her where she stood. My, but the man had a wickedly charming manner, when he chose to!
As though he’d guessed what she’d been thinking—and approved—Graham’s smile broadened. “A man should know his betrothed. As thoroughly as possible.”
“We could have a proper visit, after dinner,” she finished staunchly, willing herself to seem unaffected, and untempted, by his outrageous suggestions. “With a chaperone, of course.”
His answering expression of disappointment was nearly her undoing. It seemed as though Graham truly wanted to be alone with her—to get to know her—and the notion was a heady one, indeed. The man was a rogue, it was true…but he was a likeable one, too.
Trying to hide the strange, topsy-turvy feelings being near him gave her, Julia indicated the parlor with one hand. Amiably, Graham edged past her in a graceful movement she wouldn’t have expected in a man so powerful.
Their bodies nearly touched as he left her, and she found herself entranced by the glimpse of bare, tanned throat and masculine chest his partially unbuttoned shirt afforded her, right at eye level. It was with unfamiliar awareness that Julia watched him turn away and stride to the center of the parlor.
“A chaperone?” Turning to her, he raised his eyebrows. “Are you afraid to be alone with me, then?”
Yes, suddenly. So long as he wore that predatory aura and expression of masculine surety, she would be. Never mind the fact that she’d soundly discouraged him once before—with a cake of soap, no less—and that he had the bruised face to show for it. In matters of men and women, compared with the bounty hunter’s greater experience, Julia was at a disadvantage.
And she knew it.
“Being alone together wouldn’t be proper,” she said aloud, following him inside the room.
“It would be enjoyable.”
“Not once someone found out. Even betrothed, we’ll need to take care, else risk both our reputations.”
He made a small sound, one that richly expressed his disregard of a proper reputation. Unnerved at this reminder of the risk she was taking in bargaining with him, Julia hid her dismay with a burst of activity. It wouldn’t do for the bounty hunter to guess she had anything less than utter command of herself and her future.
She took a few minutes to adjust the love seat and chair pillows and to light additional lamps for his comfort. That accomplished, she looked upward to discover him regarding her seriously.
“We’re alone right now,” he said, as though no break had taken place in their earlier conversation. “It can’t have escaped your notice.”
It hadn’t. Julia had the trembling fingers and unusual urge to look her fill of his rugged features to prove it. The last thing she meant to do, however, was reveal that fact. At least not until she thoroughly understood her fascination with Graham herself.
“I’m aware of our situation,” she said instead, busying herself with arranging sheet music atop the parlor piano. “It’s most out of the ordinary for me, Mr. Corley, and I assure you—”
“You have nothing to fear from me, Miss Bennett. Nothing at all. No matter how beautiful you look, with the lamplight shining on your face that way.”
Julia stilled, the husky sound of his compliment still echoing inside her. A thrill enveloped her, and she dared to send a forthright glance his way.
He stood, unapologetically blunt and unfortunately bruised. Graham nodded once, almost tenderly. “’Tis true. The dress becomes you as well. I noticed while you lit the lamps.”
At a loss for the flirtatious response that was clearly called for, Julia brushed her palms down the dark bombazine skirt of her gown. Her heart felt too open to him, all at once, her soul too hungry for acceptance, to pretend otherwise with a careless remark or coquettish gesture. It was as though, somehow, this unlikely man saw inside her to what she needed, and could not wait to provide it.
Which was foolish, of course. Why she should feel such a pull toward him, Julia didn’t know. And until she did, she, who was accustomed to understanding all the things in her world, was afraid to reveal as much to him.
So she looked away, and busied herself with the ornaments on a side table. “You needn’t flatter me so, Mr. Corley,” she told him evenly. “It isn’t part of our agreement.”
“Perhaps,” Graham said, and there was undisguised bemusement in his tone. “But courting you is a part of it, and so is paying calls, like this one.”
Of course. He’d merely been fulfilling the terms of their bargain. In the future, Julia reminded herself, she’d have to take care not to be naive enough to take everything that passed between them at face value.
“You asked me to call on you,” he went on. “Here I am.”
“Indeed.” She needed to return to dinner, she thought wildly. Her father and Aunt Geneva would be wondering what had happened to her. But Julia found herself curiously reluctant to leave her bounty hunter. And so she lingered. “Do you need anything before I go? I could send Alice ’round with refreshments for you.”
At mention of her household’s longtime servant, Graham grimaced strangely. But all he said was, “No. Thank you.”
“Very well, then. I suppose I—”
“What’s this?” came a booming interruption from the passageway between the parlor and the adjacent dining room. The twin walnut doors dividing the areas slid aside with a thunk, and Asa Bennett emerged from between them. “Refreshments for the man, when we’re right in the midst of dinner? Come now, Julia! Let’s show the proper courtesy to Mister…?”
He extended his hand to the bounty hunter, a jovial grin playing over his usually serious face. Graham clasped it, and they shook solidly.
“Corley,” he replied. “Graham Corley. I’ve come to call on your daughter, Mr. Bennett.”
“Asa!” her father insisted. He rubbed a hand through his graying hair, then let his palm rest on the waistcoat of his tailored brown suit, just above the paunch his skinny f
rame supported. “We don’t stand on formality in this household. Not amongst our friends.”
He laughed aloud, and Julia gaped at him. Her father typically stood on utmost formality with his family, and certainly with acquaintances. What had gotten into him?
Whatever it was, it was growing increasingly worse, she learned next.
“You hear that, Geneva?” her father called, leaning sideways toward the dining room beyond. “Young Mr. Corley here has come to call on our Julia!”
“Oh, my goodness!” Geneva Whitcomb, Julia’s aunt on her mother’s side, bustled into the room, almost as though she’d been waiting for exactly such an opportunity. “My dear boy,” she called to Graham, “do come in. Such a pleasure to meet someone of Julia’s acquaintance.”
Geneva’s gaze flickered meaningfully to her brother-in-law, then back to Graham. Julia watched the byplay in befuddlement, at a loss to discern what caused her family to behave so atypically.
“I was just explaining to Mr. Corley that I’d need a chaperone if we were to spend more time together, Aunt Geneva,” Julia said hurriedly. “I wouldn’t presume to—”
“Nonsense!” Geneva, tall and elegant in a green gown with her dark hair twisted in a ribbon-embellished chignon, waved her hand dismissively. She’d come to live with them since shortly after Julia’s mother had died, and was very much a respected authority in the family. “These are enlightened times. And you’re an eminently trustworthy person.”
At that, her aunt and father both looked inexplicably pained. Nevertheless, Geneva hurried on: “A trustworthy person of a certain age, to boot. With your family right in the next room, we hardly need to stand on such ceremony. Wouldn’t you agree, Asa?”
“Indeed.”
Julia boggled, but her father continued on blithely—and, she could add, utterly uncharacteristically.
“Especially where Mr. Corley, here, is concerned,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Mayor Westley and the sheriff were both in the Emporium today, telling me all about this young man’s efforts on behalf of Territorial justice.” Beaming, Asa clapped Graham on the back. “Excellent work nabbing that Hidalgo character, young man.”