Behaving Herself

by Yvonne Jocks

  “Then I really would be walking with you.”

  “As opposed to our walking in the same direction, at the same time, in the same place?”

  She nodded solemnly.

  Poor, deluded Audra! If men had the God-given right to ruin their life in whatever manner they saw fit, Jack supposed that should go for women, too. But he surely did hate to see someone do it with her pretty eyes closed. especially when he would so enjoy enlightening her on the subject of what she was rejecting.

  As they walked, a mockingbird called two separate snatches of birdsong down at them from the trees in rapid succession, one melodic, the next sharp. Acorns crunched beneath their feet. It occurred to him to wonder if Audra should trust him, considering his obsession with kisses, but she'd enjoyed their kiss, too. He was sure of it, would bet everything he owned, down to his fifty-dollar gold piece and Jürgensen watch. She might cal it a mistake, but that wasn't the real Audra talking, not the one with fire in her eyes and a lilt in her laugh, not the one who had melted against him as he held her. The gal calling it a mistake was the inhibited Audra, the hurt Audra, the Audra who didn't see her right to throw off the weight of all those rules and make of her life what she wanted it to be.

  Even now she sneaked little looks at him while her sense of propriety had her trying to hide it.

  “Nobody's watching,” Jack pointed out. “If you've a mind to stare, you just stare away.”

  Pink flooded her cheeks and she tried to hide that, too, pressing her gloved hands to them.

  “Nothing wrong with interest in another human being,” Jack assured her. “Even a cardsharp. I reckon I'm the first one you've met; that must make me quite the novelty.”

  She slid her hands up to cover her eyes, too.

  “And I'm surely looking at you. Is that so low of me?”

  Silence, and the back of her bonnet.

  “You're the one raised to know this kind of etiquette,” he reminded her. “So you will have to clue me in.” finally he eased a few muffled words out of her.

  “It's not polite to stare.”

  "How else am I going to memorize what a pretty schoolteacher looks like on a gray December afternoon?"

  Her hands might have fallen from her face, but they twisted at each other, and she chewed with agitation on her lower lip.

  "See how ignorant I am in these matters? I'd have figured the polite response to a compliment was at least a thank-you."

  She was walking faster than she had before. “That would mean I accepted it.”

  “No harm there. I offer it freely. No strings attached.”

  “Tell me about the favor,” she pleaded. “The one you couldn't mention at the store.”

  Luckily he actually had a favor to request. Not that he felt quite right turning poor Ferris over to the godly. It seemed . .. intrusive. He soothed his conscience by remembering that Ham could tell any well-meaning busybodies, including him, to go to hell and how to get there—assuming he didn't need or want the help. What came off a tongue loosened by laudanum might not be polite, but it could be surprisingly honest.

  “I'd like you to speak to someone,” he admitted. “About Hamilton.”

  “What about Mr. Hamilton?”

  The words tasted bitter. “I believe him to be a mite too dependent on painkiller.”

  Audra cocked her head, confused. Lordy, what if she couldn't grasp the idea of an addiction? Nice girls were kept ignorant about so many of the world's evils.

  “Ah,” he stalled. “Um . . . you know how most respectable folks hold against spirits?”

  She nodded, then surprised him. “Do you imbibe?” She looked down, flushed again. "I apologize.

  That is none of my concern."

  normally he found folks minding their own concerns refreshing. So why did her question please him so? “I have partaken now and again,” he admitted, despite the urge to lie.

  “Doesn't it burn your throat?”

  Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “And how would a lady like yourself know that?”

  She would not meet his gaze, so he stopped and caught her coat sleeve, too intrigued to worry about repercussions. She peeked up at him through a fringe of red-gold hair. "You must not tell a soul," she whispered.

  Jack felt hollow. His voice came out flat. “You drink?”

  “Just once!” By the guilt shadowing her eyes, one would think she'd just admitted to bank robbery.

  "Four years ago. I had a toothache, and Mama gave me medicine so that it would not hurt so badly when the dentist pulled it. But later my sister Laurel told me the medicine was whiskey. She made terrible fun of me—she called me a booze hound—until Papa stopped her."

  Jack fought a laugh at her obvious trauma. "I see you are a more worldly woman than I had imagined."

  She rolled her eyes at him, perhaps less gullible than he sometimes thought.

  Well, of course she was. Here she stood, a dissolute herself! "So what did you think of the devil's brew?"

  "It was terrible! It tasted awful, and it burned my throat and my nose, and I coughed. I can't think why it's so popular."

  "I will admit, it is an acquired taste. But did you by chance get a sort of warm, easy feeling around your heart? After you stopped coughing?"

  Audra thought about it, then looked quickly away again, flushed, and nodded. Damned if he wasn't feeling a sort of warm, easy feeling around his heart just watching her.

  “That's why it's so popular,” he assured her, smiling. Who would have thought he'd be giving the teacher lessons on the joys of drinking! Maybe she should stay away from him, at that.

  “Oh.” She thought about it, then frowned at him. “What has any of that to do with Mr. Hamilton and his pain medication?”

  “His pain medication has a great deal of liquor in it,” Jack explained.

  He did a double-take when she said, “I thought it was opium.”

  “You know what's in laudanum?”

  She nodded. “That is why I am not allowed to take any. The opium.”

  He would have preferred it immensely if she simply admitted to not taking the drug, without the word allowed coming into it. “Then you know how folks can start needing it, by itself.”

  She nodded. “Like drunkards in the grip of evil liquor.”

  “So why'd you look lost when I told you Ferris may have gotten himself . . . caught in its grip?” He refused to say the word evil.

  “Because that's not my business.” Disapproval darkened her frown. “I had not realized you were one to gossip.”

  Gossip? “Well, I'm not telling you just for your enjoyment, Audra. Ham may need help, and I'd hate to leave town until I know he has it.”

  Pain shadowed her gray eyes again. “Leave town?”

  If he wasn't careful, he'd promise to be buried here. "Darlin', you knew I was only helping until Ferris got back onto his feet ... didn't you?"

  She nodded, took a deep breath, and like that, the ache vanished. Efficient, responsible Audra. "Of course I did. It is kind of you to have stayed as long as you have."

  He tilted his head, intrigued. “I've greatly enjoyed it.”

  Her eyes widened; then she looked down again. Getting her trust would take longer than he'd thought. Or—and this idea caught his fancy—was it that she didn't trust herself?

  “Who do you think could help him?” she asked only a little unevenly, pulling her cloak more tightly around her.

  He didn't even want to say it. “Who's the obvious choice?”

  “If it were me, I would go to Reverend Col ins. He would know what to do.”

  Jack felt his shoulders relax at her grasping the situation so quickly. “Well, there you go.”

  She smiled. Then she frowned again. “But why can't you ask him? Why involve me in an obviously personal matter?”

  Uh-oh. “I don't have dealings with ministers.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don't.” He could see her dissatisfaction. “You don't fraternize with gam
blers; I don't fraternize with ministers.” But hers wasn't choice so much as a social obligation.

  “But I'm fraternizing with a gambler right now.”

  Not without a great deal of effort on the part of the gambler, he wanted to say. That might prove counterproductive. Instead he said, “But you're a degenerate booze hound, aren't you?”

  Her mouth fell open in shock; then the fire returned to her eyes, her flushed face, and she hit him in the shoulder with her open hand. “I am not!”

  Laughing, he caught her wrist. At least he'd gotten her to touch him! But then, his" fingers encircling her little gloved wrist, he felt himself sober—fast. “No,” he agreed, his voice raspier than he'd expected. Her upturned face seemed so close. “I can see that.”

  Sober? No. Her effect on him surely did mimic that of fine liquor. She stared up at him, eyes bright and lips artlessly parted, and did not try to free herself from the loose manacle of his hand.

  Weakness washed over him—or was it strength? As with the first warm rush after a shot of whiskey, he couldn't differentiate. He felt as if he were falling, unsure where or if he'd land, and damned if he wasn't going to kiss her despite his good intentions...

  He'd all but claimed her lips—breathing her breath, feeling her warmth on his face—when Audra spun away from him and wrenched her hand free. “No!”

  “Audra!” He reached for her, but she backed quickly away. “I have to go home,” she said, looking at anything but him. “I ought not have ... this is not right. I led you on; I'm sorry.”

  Led him on? “Don't be sorry, darlin'. You didn't—”

  “I'll talk to the reverend,” she promised. “Good day, Mr. Harwood.”

  “Audra!” She was leaving, and he couldn't bear it. He'd made such progress ... and not even necessarily toward kissing her. He'd made progress toward talking with her, relaxing her, learning a sweet secret about her, seeing her laugh. Now he'd ruined it. The only thing that kept him from stalking after her was the sure knowledge that she'd simply run faster. “Audra!”

  “Good-bye!” she called.

  So he said the only thing he could think of to stop her: “My father was a minister!”

  And it did, indeed, stop her, if only from sheer shock.

  Jack stared at her back and felt guilt—gut-sinking guilt the depth of which he'd not felt in years. He didn't talk about his parents. He'd rejected most of their fervent convictions long ago. Yet here he stood, under live oak and cedar, using his pa to coerce a woman into trusting him.

  And yet, even past the nauseating guilt, he felt relief.

  Audra turned toward him.

  Audra did not know what to believe. Had Jack truly wanted her help, or had he merely lured her here? Was he her friend or a charming libertine? Now he told her his father was a minister. His father? He did not even like ministers.

  He stared at her, blue eyes uncharacteristically raw. But that, too, could be part of a confidence game.

  “Are you lying?” she asked, then felt foolish. If he were lying he would hardly admit to it.

  But the way his shoulders sloped as he denied it convinced her. Perhaps not that he spoke the truth; she hardly trusted her ability to discern that. But it convinced her to risk the miscalculation of believing him.

  As long as she did not touch him again.

  “Then how could you be a gambler?” she asked, bewildered.

  He drew his head back, incredulous. “Ministers can't have gamblers as sons?”

  “But surely you were taught right and wrong as a child.”

  He shifted his weight, his expression narrowing to something more contemplative. "I reckon you could say I was."

  "I don't understand.

  “You wouldn't.” Perhaps recognizing her frustration, he sighed and turned, frowning in profile.

  Before she could protest his cryptic answer, he glanced over his shoulder and added, "I learned that right and wrong are nowhere near as simple as folks say. I learned I'd rather be an honest gambler than a hypocritical pillar of the community. So, yes, my pa did teach me right and wrong.

  But his actions taught me a hell of a lot more than his sanctimonious sermons ever did."

  Oh, dear. Audra regretted having said anything, felt ashamed to know such a personal, obviously painful thing about Jack— and yet, secretly, she also wondered what it was his father had done. "I ought not be hearing this," she demurred.

  He turned to her, cocked his head. “Could be you should.”

  If she had not already been standing a good length away, she would have put distance between them then. A frightening intensity darkened his face. “It's none of my concern.”

  “And here I thought you put a great deal of store in doing the right thing.”

  Was he angry at her? “I do,” she insisted.

  “Well, darlin', what if by doing what folks tell you is the right thing, you're really doing wrong? That ever occur to you?”

  She shook her head, confused.

  “How about when you let me stay at the schoolhouse? Was that the right thing to do?”

  She remembered the dilemma clearly. “You needed shelter.” . “And did you tell anyone about me?”

  Of course she hadn't. In retrospect, she felt even more ashamed of involving him in her secrecy than of keeping secrets in the first place. “No. And that was wrong.”

  "Why? Would it be right for folks to come out in the storm just to make sure I didn't steal your McGuffy readers, maybe to throw me to the weather when they figured out what I was? Would it be right for them to suspect your honor—yours!—just because you did me a kindness?"

  Audra wished he were not so convinced of her honor. “You are imagining the worst.”

  “Am I? And the hair dye, Audra? How wrong were you then?”

  “That was a mistake.”

  “You could have lost your job over it anyway. How could that kind of decision be right?”

  “But I didn't lose my job.”

  Jack folded his arms. "What if I told you that someone on the school board, who put you on probation for cropping your own hair, is dallying with the mother of one of your pupils?"

  Her mouth fell open. When she wondered whom he could mean, her face heated all the worse.

  She did not want to know! “That is gossip and slander, Mr. Harwood!”

  "I've worked at the mercantile of late, ma'am. I hear things. What does that tidbit do for your take on right and wrong?"

  “You're trying to confuse me!”

  He strode closer to her and put a steadying hand on her shoulder. Stunned by his argument, his shocking announcement, she did not think to pull away. “I'm trying to open your eyes!”

  “What's wrong with my eyes the way they are?”

  "Nothing, if you care about appearances over the truth. Truth isn't always what folks tell you, Audra. They aren't giving you these rules to save your soul, you know. They want something from you—a docile, compliant schoolmarm to keep their children just as docile and compliant—so they tell you thou shalt not commit adultery when they are, and they tell you thou shalt not covet your neighbor's goods when they do."

  She shrugged off his hands and his blasphemy. “You lie!”

  “I'm not even bluffing,” he assured her. "Where do you think I find the folks to wager with? It's men coveting my goods. You hear bad things about gamblers, but has anyone mentioned we

  couldn't make much of a living if it weren't for so-called decent folks willing to bet on the likelihood

  that they can take our money before we take theirs?"

  He made a horrible sort of sense, and that frightened her. “Even . .. even if all that is true, even if people do try to make me do what they want, you're doing the same thing,” she insisted, gulping uneven breaths. “You want to kiss me again!”

  The accusation echoed through her head, louder each time, and silence fell between them. A nearby mockingbird tried out a bobwhite's song, then a robin's, then a starling's. As Jack stared at her
from beneath the shadow of his flat-brimmed black hat, Audra felt increasingly mortified.

  What if he didn't want to kiss her again? He could probably have women whenever he wanted, loose women who would let him kiss them al he liked.

  Then Jack took a deep breath and nodded. “You are right there. I do want that.”

  She could not tell if her shivery reaction was relief, concern, or both. They were alone on the path, after all.

  “But I'm not trying to make you do anything,” he insisted, holding up his hands as if to show her he was unarmed. “I got the impression you weren't averse to kissing me back.”

  Had she been that obvious? She covered her cheeks with her fisted hands again, her arms making a shield between them.

  “I don't want to do your thinking for you.” Jack's expression softened. "I'm not even aiming to upset you. I just... it would please me to know that you can judge the world for what it is, to think you can see I'm a man of at least middling character, gambler or not. It would ..."

  One of his raised hands dipped toward her cheek, but apparently he changed his mind. He

  dropped his hand to rest against his thigh. "I would feel better about you, safer, if I thought you could spot a real vil ain even if he attends church and follows every single one of those damnable rules that you've piled up between you and the joys of life. That's what I want."

  She could not even form her lips into a protest.

  “And yes,” insisted Jack, low. Though he had not bent nearer, his face seemed dangerously close to hers. "I want to kiss you, Audra. I want to hold you tight and kiss you until we're both dizzy, until we can't remember if it's sunrise or sunset and we don't care, until you figure out that kissing is one of the right things in life and that denying what you truly want, for the sake of someone else's rules, is wrong. I may be a gambler and even a scoundrel, but I'm honest with you, which is more than I can say for half the folks you're worried about catching us.

  “What I'm wondering now, Audra, is how honest you are with yourself.”

  He backed away from her far more gracefully, more purposefully, than she'd retreated from him moments before. He held her gaze for the longest time, not smiling at her, not visual y caressing her... just watching. Expectant, as if he expected the best from her—whatever that was.