"Actually," she was saying, "I never would have guessed you were Mr. Monteer's uncle. You seem much too young. How old are you anyway?"
Bartholomew burst into peals of deep masculine laughter that were rusty from lack of use, and which drowned out Mrs. Doughney's polite warning cough.
"Gracious Sadie!" Ariah blushed prettily. "I truly should have my mouth sewn shut. It's likely the only way I'll learn to stop shoving my foot in it."
Never! he wanted to say. Such delectable lips were meant to be used, though he did have a purpose other than conversation in mind. "I shall be thirty this year, eight years Pritchard's senior."
"An excellent age." Mrs. Doughney gave an approving nod of her gray head. "Old enough to have sown your oats, as they say, and to have made something of yourself, yet still young enough to adjust to the tricks fate plays on all of us, eh?"
Bartholomew glanced at Miss Scott, wondering if she could be one of fate's tricks. Something niggled at his memory. He shrugged it away.
"I'm sure you're right. Now, Miss Scott, if you'll point out the rest of your baggage, I'll get it loaded while you two finish your good-byes. We've a long way to go."
"Oh, yes, of course." She gestured to two small crates and a large trunk. "That's it there."
Bartholomew shouldered the trunk as though it contained nothing more than bird feathers, holding it in place with one arm while he squatted to pick up one of the crates.
As he put space between himself and the two women, he chuckled silently, remembering how he had wondered what he would do with the girl during the four long days of the journey home. There was no doubt about what he wanted to do. His hands ached with the need to stroke that smooth, velvet flesh, to explore and discover its secret contours. Thinking about it, four days no longer seemed enough.
He set the crate alongside the boxed-up fancy rosewood étagère Hester had insisted he buy her, and lowered the trunk onto the wagon bed.
Hester. Bartholomew's fantasy about Ariah burst like the seed head of a giant dandelion, scattered by the wind.
Hester was his wife—till death do us part—no matter how much he might wish things different. And Ariah Scott belonged to Pritchard.
His shoulders sagged under guilt as ponderous as a steam engine. He rested his arms on the sideboard, braced his forehead on a fist, and tried to banish the image of the girl's sweet tempting mouth, so lush, so—
A warm hand closed over his arm. "Are you all right, Mr. Noon? Is there anything I can do for you?"
Bartholomew looked down to see Ariah Scott standing only a kiss away, gazing up at him with those unbelievable forget-me-not blue irises, her luscious lips moist and parted, her concerned expression sweetly, guilelessly intent.
And he plummeted into hell.
Chapter Three
Pretending to admire the stately structures lining Portland’s streets, Ariah studied the profile of the man next to her on the seat of the rumbling wagon as it carried them out of town. The only similarities she could see between Bartholomew Noon and the architecture she was supposedly enjoying were their stalwart solidity and craggy surface. Ensconced inside one of the buildings or seated beside the man, a woman would feel safe.
But there, all likeness ended. The edifices lining Jefferson Street were relatively common—Bartholomew Noon was not.
His face put her in mind of a sculptor’s work, of sensitive hands armed with clay, dabbing on a bit here, pinching off a tad there, and smoothing with the swipe of a thumb, before moving on. It was a face of inconsistencies, a face as complex, she imagined, as the man himself. Dark, brooding, intense. Predatory.
In his ridiculously long wire Pritchard Monteer had described his uncle as a man to whom women generally gave a second glance, and Ariah agreed. Some, no doubt, would even call him beautiful. A few might be challenged to see what it took to make those full, sensuous lips curve in genuine joy. Others, noting his forbidding expression and the sense of barely contained power hidden inside that massive body, would give him a wide berth.
Ariah Scott was fascinated. His full mouth hinted at sensitivity. The brooding sable eyes suggested comparison. Try as she might to give her attention to the passing sights, her gaze was drawn back to him again and again. She kept her hands clutched in her lap, her skirts properly swept aside so they wouldn’t brush his muscular limbs, as she resisted the urge to stare, to study, to touch.
“I’m very eager to see the lighthouse.” She looked away, desperate to get her mind on something other than the man at her side. “I’ve never seen the ocean, but I’m terribly excited to think that I’ll be living so close to it. Are there many birds? I am an ornithologist, so I’m hoping to spend some time studying the birds there. I hope there’ll be sea lions, too. You’d think any sort of lion would be ferocious looking, but the sea lions I’ve seen in pictures struck me as enormous pillows with mustaches.”
Ariah knew she was prattling and thought at once of the “Hints on Etiquette and Personal Manners,” she had read during her train ride. They had been in a book, Dr. Chase’s Recipes, or Information for Every Body, given her by Aunt Ida. “Be discreet and sparing of your words,” it had instructed. She’d completed only the first paragraph of that section and already she’d broken one of the rules.
Actually, Ida was the wife of her father’s law partner, Lou Steinberger, and not related at all. But to Ariah the Steinberger’s had been “Aunt” and “Uncle” for as long as she could remember, and, in truth, they were the closest thing she had now to blood relatives.
Except for Uncle Xenos.
Ariah’s stomach clenched with the agony of a grief—and fear—so new she had yet to come to terms with it. Perhaps, if her father had not died so suddenly, so cruelly, if she had at least dared to attend his funeral, his death would seem more real. As it was, she had found it all too easy to push the painful reality aside for hours at a time during her journey west, to think only of the future the rattling, shrill-whistling train was carrying her to. A future that hadn’t existed until a few brief days before her departure.
The hair at her nape prickled as she sensed Bartholomew Noon’s eyes on her. Quickly she brought her emotions under control. She wasn’t ready yet to talk about her father. Or why she had been forced to abandon everything comfortable and familiar and agree to a marriage with a total stranger. The pain was too fresh, the fear too real.
Out of the side of her eye, she peeked to see if Mr. Noon was still watching her. He appeared so confident and competent, one boot braced on the front of the wagon, his arm resting on his thigh. What would he do if he knew of the danger that even now might be tracking her across the country? Certainly this man appeared strong enough to take on any foe. Even outraged Greek uncles. Squeezing her eyes shut, Ariah prayed that wouldn’t become necessary.
“We do see sea lions from time to time.” His voice seemed to emerge from deep inside his massive chest, a sort of half-growl, half-caress that reached into Ariah and helped soothe her overwrought nerves.
“Mostly they stay out on the seastacks though,” he added.
Grateful for the distraction, Ariah said, “Seastacks?”
Without looking at her, he nodded. “Small islands of rock. Basalt, primarily.”
“Oh. I thought sea lions liked to lie on the beach and bask in the sun.”
“They do, but spending much time close to shore usually wins them a bullet in the brain.”
Ariah gasped and clutched at his arm. “Why? Who on earth would shoot such gentle creatures?”
Bartholomew glanced down to gauge the genuineness of her reaction. What he saw pleased him almost as much as her delicate hand on his thick forearm. “Fishermen don’t like anything harvesting salmon or shellfish but them.”
“That’s selfish. Why doesn’t someone stop them?”
Her face was so close he could count the spikes of her lashes and see the pale tracery that made the blue of her eyes look like fractured glass. How he longed to cover her small hand with his o
wn, to lean forward and…
Bartholomew gave himself a harsh mental shake. The girl would soon be his niece, for God’s sake. And even if she wasn’t, Ariah Scott was a fragile, beautifully wrought piece of crystal, shining and pure. He was a clumsy oversized chamber pot. For him to think of her with such heated prurience was immoral.
“Don’t the fish belong to the sea animals as much as they do to humans?” Her eyes altered to a periwinkle blue as her anger grew.
Bartholomew took a deep breath and froze his lust with an iceberg of guilt. “The fishermen are only trying to protect their livelihood, can’t blame them for that. And the law is on their side. Anyway, until someone sees beyond his next plate of steamed oysters and gains enough influence to get things changed, there’s nothing that can be done about it.”
To his disappointment she removed her hand from his arm, leaving him feeling surprisingly bereft and alone.
For a long moment she stared blindly at the road ahead, her generous mouth pursed. When she spoke, her voice was soft and reflective as though she were merely speaking thoughts aloud. “’The most vicious acts are done involuntarily’.”
Taken aback, Bartholomew stared at her in stunned surprise. Any female spouting Greek philosophy would astonish him. To hear it from a nymph of a girl like Ariah was both a shock and a thrill. With a grin so broad it used muscles he was sure he hadn’t exercised in years, he offered a favorite quote of his own. “’He who commits such acts is in a worse state than he who knows the good and wills it, but is overcome by passion—’”
“’For the former cannot help doing evil,’” Ariah finished for him in delight. She had been right; his body might look as though it belonged on a wrestling mat or behind a plow, but it contained the soul of a poet. “You’ve read Plato?”
“Some. Who taught you his philosophy?”
Did she dare to tell him the truth? Surely it could not hurt to admit her heritage. “My mother. She was born in Crete.”
His brows rose again. “You’re Greek?”
“Only half. My father was a Scot.”
Bartholomew caught her use of the past tense when speaking of her parents, but gave it little thought. He was too caught up in the pleasure of knowing he now had someone with whom he could share one of his interests.
“Plato had another teaching you might find fitting,” he said.
“What is that?”
“That through the order of nature which God sustains, He sees to it that justice is always done.”
Her eyes filled with anguish before she looked away to stare into the distance. “I hope He does, Mr. Noon. More than anything, I hope He does.”
Her voice was velvet soft, yet vehement. So vehement that he wondered if she were still thinking of sea lions or of something much more personal. Her sudden vulnerability filled him with a need to protect her, cherish her. But he said nothing.
Soon Portland’s bustling streets and thoroughfares were left behind. The road narrowed and became rougher. Houses grew smaller, more rustic, farther apart. Evergreen forests carpeted with ferns—rich green where the sun infiltrated the deep shadows—brought soft exclamations of delight from the parted lips of Bartholomew Noon’s young passenger. A few brilliant pink, wild azalea blossoms, brought on by the unseasonably warm weather of the past few weeks, provided a startling contrast to the more somber greens and browns.
Burying her grief by imagining her future home, Ariah said, “May I ask you something, Mr. Noon?”
He glanced down and saw with relief that the sadness had faded from her eyes. “Of course.”
Ariah allowed her gaze to settle on the large, bare hands riding relaxed between his spread knees, their grip on the reins seeming loose though she knew he was in complete control. Capable looking hands, the fingers thick but not overly stubby. Handsome hands, she decided, in spite of the small scars speckling the deeply tanned skin. Were the palms tough and hard with old calluses and how would they feel on her skin?
Flustered by her errant thoughts, she blurted out what was on her mind. “Is…is my fiancé, Pritchard Monteer, as pleasant to look at as you? Or will I find him squat, pock-faced or half-bald?”
Bartholomew looked at her in astonishment, tipped his head back and bellowed with laughter.
“No,” he said when he finally contained his mirth. “Pritchard’s nothing like me. He’s shorter, but certainly not squat. Actually, we aren’t related by blood. His mother and my wife are sisters.”
That brought up her head. “Your wife?”
“Yes.”
Why did Ariah find that disappointing? “She also lives at the lighthouse?”
“She does.” Bartholomew cursed himself for the despondent note that crept into his voice. “There are two houses at the station, both new and well equipped, though we have no electricity or even gas lighting, since we’re so isolated. Hester and I live in one of them. You and Pritchard will share the other with Seamus, the First Assistant Keeper.”
“Oh.” She seemed to consider this. “Seamus is not married?”
Bartholomew chuckled. “That old seadog? He’s well into his sixties and so salty from his years on the sea that I doubt any woman could live with him. In the same room, anyway.” Not wanting to alarm her, he added, “Actually, he’s likeable enough and easy to get along with, so long as you don’t mess with his pipe. Or his goats.”
“He has goats? Are there other animals there?”
“Two milk cows, four horses, chickens, two goats and the Chinese pheasants I breed.”
He felt her gaze on him and couldn’t help but look down at her. Her eyes glowed with excitement.
“You raise pheasants?”
The wagon jolted as the front wheel rolled onto a rock. She clutched at his thigh to keep from being thrown across his lap and her breast flattened against his arm. His pulse doubled. He gripped the reins hard to keep from reaching for her. The wheel bumped down off the rock and the wagon straightened. Even after Ariah had righted herself and let go of his leg, a few seconds passed before he could speak calmly.
“One of our Oregon judges, Owen Denny, discovered these pheasants in Shanghai when he was consul general there about ten years ago,” Bartholomew explained. “Denny liked them so much he shipped several crates home to establish colonies of them here. I became interested in them about five years ago, but was too busy tending my father’s dairy farm at the time. That’s one of the reasons I took the job as Head Keeper at Cape Meares, so I could start raising them. I sell live birds all over the country, to men who hope to establish them in their areas. Shipped a load off to Kentucky yesterday.”
“How exciting. I love birds. May I help with them?”
He wished she wouldn’t smile up at him like that; those blue eyes radiating such joy, her mouth moist and parted. It kept his pulse thrumming with a need he did not dare satisfy. He leaned further over his knees to hide the evidence of her effect on him. “We’ll see.”
Bartholomew spent a goodly amount of time studying the towering sky that afternoon. He didn’t like the look of the clouds rolling up from the south. Oregon had been enjoying the warmth of an early spring, but he knew that could quickly change. Now dusk was just around the corner. One more hour could see them at the Olwell place. He wiped a hand down the back of his neck. The image of Nehemiah Olwell’s bushy white brows raised to his fading hairline at the sight of Miss Ariah Scott made Bartholomew sweat.
Nehemiah was a Baptist circuit preacher. In good weather, he rode a swaybacked mule to the settlements, bringing the Word where it might otherwise never reach. Nehemiah’s sons Joe and Lemuel worked the homestead. Along with their wives and a pack of children as wild as timber wolves, the two younger Olwells shared a large house with their parents and an unmarried sister called Toots.
Toots. Bartholomew had had a hunch for some time now that her interest in him was less than proper. That notion—to his shame—had provided fuel for more than one unwonted fantasy on nights when he became overwhelmed by
needs his conscience and Hester forbid him to sate.
A nighthawk darted up from the rutted road, startling the horses and eliciting a startled cry from Ariah. Bartholomew firmed his grip on the reins and brought the team under control. Between the mossy trunks of Douglas firs the sinking sun reflected muted shades of coral and orange off low-banked clouds. Soon it would be dark and he would have to find a place to spend the night.
Miss Scott had made no complaints about the long hours sitting on a hard, bumpy wagon seat. But there was a definite droop to her shoulders and her straw bonnet failed to hide the bluish shadows under her eyes, or the thickly lashed lids threatening to close over those unforgettable eyes. He had to make up his mind; the Olwells or a camp in the wilderness—just the two of them.
As though feeling his gaze on her, she straightened her spine and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind a delicate, seashell ear. Her stomach rumbled. She clapped a hand to it and gave him a wan smile.
Bartholomew made his decision. “There’s a stream a little way ahead. We’ll stop there.”
Though he didn’t bother to examine his motives, he didn’t lie to himself either. Bartholomew never hedged at looking reality in the eye. If his interpretation tended to be a bit pessimistic, that was another matter.
He wanted Ariah to himself. Nehemiah’s disapproval of a married man traveling with a woman who was not his wife was only a convenient excuse.
The idea of spending the night only a few feet away from her, smelling her subtle scent of lily of the valley and femininity, listening to her soft breathing, and imagining what that luscious mouth would taste like, how she would feel beneath his exploring hands… Hell, it was headier than a bottle of old Seamus’s demon rum.
“I think I hear the stream.” Ariah squirmed with enthusiasm. Her arm brushed his and a charge, like the electric currents they were using in Portland now to create light, sizzled through his body.
Forever Mine Page 3