by Kari Trumbo
Constance held her arm and stopped her momentarily, keeping them a few steps behind the men. Her eyes were wide. She whispered, “Flirting is acceptable, Frances, but never let them go too far. You need to learn where that line is, and never, ever cross it. Letting him get you alone is terribly close. You’ll get hurt.” She closed her eyes tight. “Please, trust me.”
Frances gripped her friend’s hand. “I didn’t want to be there, Constance. You have to help me. Keep me close at hand. Don’t let him near me again.”
Constance shook her head and wrapped a long, gloved hand around Frances’s waist. “This is your mess, not mine. I have my own life to think about. If you can’t stop a situation, fake a headache. It usually works for me.”
Frances nodded as Constance rushed to catch up with Clive. There was no reason to believe he’d want to check on Frances, so why did it hurt so badly when he didn’t turn back to her at all? If Clive ignored her all night, she wouldn’t have to fake a headache, it would be very real. Turner stopped, waited for her to catch up, took her hand and looped it around his arm.
“There you are. See? Everything’s back to rights.”
Nothing was right! Her greatest fear had been realized. Clive had been right all along. Her career in writing was over before it had even begun.
Chapter 10
If only he’d brought his bicarbonate… Clive’s insides boiled and he couldn’t rid his mind of the sight of Frances pressed against the wall, the aggressive Englishman pushing in on her. She’d been so trapped by Turner he hadn’t even been able to see her, just her dress. If he’d have done all the things his mind had come up with in that moment, he’d not only lose his job, but probably get arrested.
Hundreds of pretty ladies had flitted in and out of his life, but this one got to him in some deep place he didn’t want to think too hard about. Constance rushed to join him as they entered the theater, clutching his bicep and squealing with childlike wonder. He couldn’t even enjoy the beauty of the theater or his companion. She wasn’t the one he wanted to be with, and he had to finally admit it. He wished he were in Turner’s place. If it were Frances in awe on his arm, the lighting of her lavender eyes would be a balm to the harsh reality of being a reporter. He could come home to that treatment every last one of the rest of his days.
“You haven’t said a word since we found Turner. Are you feeling unwell?” Poor Constance, she was lovely and had probably never played second to any woman. But tonight, he couldn’t focus on her. Not when it would be so important to get Frances away from Turner. He’d have to think of some good excuse. Some reason she could no longer go with him on his outings, one that wouldn’t offend the pompous foreigner. Clive assumed that Frances would be safe if he were there, but the Englishman obviously had other ideas.
“I’m sorry, Constance. I guess I’m just not looking forward to Shakespeare.”
She giggled and slid her hand up and down his arm. “Well, we could always skip the show and just walk about town. It seems that Frances would rather be alone, anyway.” He stopped in place as Turner escorted Frances past them. Why would Constance say such an obvious lie?
Frances took that moment to glance over her perfectly rounded shoulder, scuffed with harsh red marks. No woman had ever looked on him with such concern worrying her brow. He knew she hadn’t wanted to be with Turner in that alley—any fool with eyes could see that.
“I don’t think Frances wanted to be there at all. Didn’t you see the look on her face?”
Constance scoffed. “Women are bred to pretend they don’t like it, all while lapping up the attention.” She bent her head, but he could see her eyes through her lashes. She was waiting for a response from that heavy revelation. Constance was a flirt. Perhaps Reginald wasn’t fully to blame for the indiscretions between them.
“I think you forget that Frances wasn’t raised the same way you were. I don’t think there’s a single dishonest bone in her.”
“Why, Mr. Davidson... You feel something for her, don’t you?”
He couldn’t admit to Constance about his burst of anger at discovering Frances with Turner. She was a woman, someone he was growing to see as a friend. She’d just happened to be in danger. That was it. But, what to say to the gossip so it wouldn’t affect his job?
“Sorry, Constance. Frances is only here because she’s doing a little research for her book and Turner needed a pretty face to escort around. You’re here because Frances begged it. I’m only here because Turner needed someone to match up with you. I’m afraid I have much more important things to be spending my time doing than getting tangled up in women’s skirts.”
She put on a pretty pout, jutting her lip—not as a five-year-old, but as a woman who knew that if you could get a man to notice your mouth, you were on your way to a kiss. “Surely, going about town with me on your arm isn’t as bad as that, Mr. Davidson.”
He forced a bored sigh. “I’m afraid so. I hardly know either of you.”
“I dare say you know Frances more. You had hours alone with her at the lake, and you’ve read her book. She didn’t even let me glance at the first page.”
He had to shift the topic away from Frances’s book. While he was certain it could get better—the more he looked at it, the more talent he saw—that topic was as loaded as Constance’s derringer. It was still rough and not worth discussing, especially if Frances hadn’t shared it yet. Had he been the author, Constance would be the last person he’d let read it.
“As I said, Frances is doing research. Right now, the book is infantile drivel. We’ll see what it looks like after she learns a few things.”
Constance gasped, then giggled, her eyes lighting wickedly. “Oh, that’s rich. She does think her book is the best thing ever written. It will be good to take her down a peg.”
How could he have made such a tactical blunder? His blood ran cold. He’d not only managed to almost get Frances attacked, now her own friend would skewer her with his words.
“I hope what I said can be held in the strictest of confidence, Constance.” He steered her up the stairs to their balcony seat. “Frances already knows how I feel. There’s no need to make it worse.” Those words shouldn’t have been uttered, ever. But he couldn’t take them back now or it would only arm Constance with more spears.
“Oh, Mr. Davidson, I wouldn’t dream of saying a word.” She flicked her fan in front of her face, but her eyes said she hid a wicked grin.
If only Constance could be trusted, but she was proving to be as slippery as an eel.
The bench of the rig was hard underneath Frances and she shifted, trying to find a comfortable position on the seat behind Clive. Though he’d insisted she call him Clive at the office, he hadn’t said a word to her that night. Not after what Turner had done. Did he think she welcomed it? Of course he did. He’d wanted her to enjoy herself, to experience what men and women did when they cared for one another. So why was he so silent? Even after the show, when they’d gone to the hotel for coffee, he’d chattered with every other person, including the waitress. But not her. He didn’t even look at her. Not a glance.
Constance had prattled on and on while sipping her wine, insisting she never wanted the night to end. When Frances offered up her own genuine pain eating at the back of her neck, Constance had laughed and asked her for just a few minutes so they could sit just a bit longer. She didn’t have the heart to ask Clive to side with her. She’d merely gone along with the plan to go with Turner. He’d sat with his arm draped possessively over her shoulder all evening, despite shifting away from him, and Clive had ignored her, not even turning to look at her when she spoke. It had been a horrible evening and she never wanted to go again.
The packed dirt street rumbled under the wheels, and Frances wrapped herself in her thin shawl against the chill—though she wasn’t sure if it was the night air, or from Clive. Constance took that moment to curl into him and whisper something in his ear that sounded somewhat like a barn cat, purring. Her lips were fa
r too close to his face for Frances’s liking. The evening had been an eye-opener. Constance wasn’t as innocent as she’d claimed to be. It really was no wonder Dunworthy had followed her around. One only had to watch her with a man to know it was just a matter of time before she would do something that could be skewed as scandalous. No wonder Reginald had been seen with another woman to stop the impending engagement, or was the scandal really a lie? Perhaps Reginald was just as troublesome as she was? It all made her head pound harder. Oh, to be back home on the ranch with her family who were honest to a fault!
Clive pulled the rig to a stop and climbed down. He offered a hand to Constance, who slid to the edge and fell into his arms. It was the last straw. Her cork blew. First, she’d been attacked by that lout and gotten her emotions all in a muddle, then watching Constance fawn over Clive all night had left her feeling raw and even more so since it left the door open for Turner to pay her even more unwelcome attention. She’d never felt so alone and anguished. Now, Clive was leading Constance back to the house on his arm as if Frances weren’t sitting there waiting. She’d had more than enough.
Climbing down from a rig herself wasn’t new to her. Manners and rules did nothing more than hold her back. Frances bunched her skirt, exposing her ankles, so she could climb down on her own without wrecking the dress she could never afford to replace. Not that it mattered. Turner had probably destroyed the back earlier, if all the looks she’d received all night were a clue. The soft pad of shoes running at her didn’t slow her down. She stretched with her foot, willing the ground to come closer, when strong hands appeared at her waist and a raspy voice rumbled in her right ear.
“So impatient. I was coming back to help you.” His hands disappeared as quickly as they’d come, leaving her head as light as a feather. She ignored the flutters in her belly as she turned to face him.
“I had no reason to believe you would. You’ve acted as if I don’t exist all evening.” Tears? Why should voicing her anger bring tears to her eyes? But there they were, hot and potent, collecting in her lashes. He was just the newspaper man. The one who’d put her in this mess with Turner in the first place. She should want to hit him, stomp on his foot. But she’d rather cry on his shoulder. Would Clive’s arms comfort where Turner’s had ravaged?
“I didn’t want Constance or Turner to realize we know each other more than we ought. She’s inside now. Are you all right?” His eyes feasted on her face, taking in every flaw that she could think of. The small scar on her lip was surely a beacon under his appraising stare. She looked away, his eyes burning themselves into her memory.
Frances had to quell his gaze, before he saw right to her soul. “Well, you couldn’t possibly know Turner all that well, but that didn’t stop you from chatting with him.”
She dodged around him, needing to get away before he read too much on her face. Oh, how his dismissal and angry scowl had torn at her all evening. He was only a friend, so why did her heart beg for an explanation she had no business wanting?
“Frances.”
His voice, though soft and secretive, stalled her as if a barbed wire fence had appeared in her path.
She halted within the walled garden, just a few feet from the door, her breath coming too fast. His warmth spread over her back as he neared her.
“I don’t want you to go with Turner anymore, not after what happened. Even if you hadn’t already asked. I’m telling you. It ends tonight.”
She wouldn’t turn, wouldn’t look at him and let him see how happy his words made her. “I guess I should thank you for that. When faced with an actual kiss, it wasn’t exciting in the slightest. More like terrifying.”
He stepped even closer, the front of his coat grazing the back of her shoulders, still sensitive from their brush with the wall earlier. “That wasn’t what a kiss is supposed to be like.”
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Every muscle in her told her to turn around, but what if he pushed her against the wall, just as Turner had done? Wouldn’t it frighten her just the same?
He touched her shoulder with a single calloused finger and the butterflies in her belly turned to sparrows, fluttering for release. She sucked in as much breath as her tight chest would allow and let her words slip on her exhale, “I’ve got to get inside before Constance worries.”
The imagined fence before her disappeared and she ran for the house. She could’ve sworn she heard a muffled oath on the breeze behind her.
Chapter 11
Frances remained in her room longer than she usually did. When Frances had made it into the house the night before, Constance had been just ugly. She’d asked what had taken Frances so long to come inside, but she couldn’t admit to Constance that the man who’d been keeping time with her…had almost kissed Frances. Or had he? She couldn’t be sure.
The most cutting words, the words that pierced right to Frances’s very heart, were those Constance had attributed to Clive. Those words had taken more weight than any Constance could come up with on her own, and it had been quite clear Constance had been trying to wound her. Those last words, that she was nothing more than a skirt to Clive and that he found her writing infantile—those had sent her to her room where she clutched her pillow, soaking both sides with her tears.
How often had she held her words to her chest, for fear that someone would think them horrible, unworthy? She’d been penning stories for as long as she could remember, for as long as she could hold a pencil. Yet, she hadn’t shared them willingly with anyone. Her heart was far too soft to share its workings just yet. And Clive’s words cut her to the quick. Her sisters had taken her stories, read them, and poked fun about her wanting to be a writer, but never the writing itself. No one had ever told her that her words were bad. But infantile drivel seemed so much worse, because he’d said it. Even thinking the words made tears well in her eyes once more. There was nothing more to do in Rapid City. If she couldn’t learn from Turner—and she wouldn’t—and her writing was so awful Clive couldn’t help her, there was no reason to stay.
Her ticket home sat on her dressing table, taunting her. Clive didn’t think she was worth the effort and Constance didn’t want her around. But, if she left now, she may never find out what romance was all about. She’d rot her life away on the ranch with Ruby and Beau. There was no reason for them to hire other men now that her brothers in law, Aiden and Hugh, worked the ranch. They had the work well in hand. While men were plentiful at the little church back in Deadwood, not a one had sparked her interest. Nor had they shown much in her. They’d all known her since she was thirteen. None of them were the right height, with dark enough hair, or a page-boy hat...
She continued brushing her hair long after the tangles were free. There had to be some other option her writer’s brain wasn’t seeing. A heroine always had a way out, so why couldn’t she see it? Where was the perfect solution that managed to solve every problem?
A gentle knock sounded against her door. She glanced at it over her shoulder, but unlike at home—where, not only did she not have a door, it would be rude to ignore a summons—here she was a guest. She could ignore the knock if she chose.
“Franny, let me in. Please?” Constance’s voice sounded contrite. But last night, Frances had learned her lesson. Constance wanted what she wanted and if that meant stepping on a friend to get it, so be it. The bond that had been strained since Frances’s arrival had broken irreparably the night before, leaving a hole in its place.
“I’d rather not, Constance. I’m using the time to pack my things.” She stood, her words finally giving her purpose. Constance would not make her feel guilty or hurt her with her dagger-like words.
The door pushed open and Constance trudged in, her eyes red and her nightgown rumpled. She appeared to have gotten as little sleep as Frances had.
“You can’t go Frances. If you do, Mr. Davidson will never speak to me again. Without you, he’s got no reason to. He’s the man for me, Frances, he is. I just know it.”
Frances swallowed the lump in her throat. Even with the few pounds Constance had put on since she’d been Dunworthy’s target, she was still beautiful. Prettier by far than Frances, with her long dark hair and full lashes that swept high cheekbones. Even Constance’s red-rimmed eyes managed to look beguiling, while her own were tired from her night of tears. “I won’t be seeing Turner again. I’m sorry. If Mr. Davidson is the one for you, he’ll come around and court you. What would stop him?” She reined in her words. Clive had never given her permission to tell Constance how he felt… Of course, he’d also had a loose tongue with Constance.
Even from across the room, Constance’s eyes flashed, and she glared at Frances. “Oh, stop acting as if you didn’t want Turner’s attention. I’ll have father send over a note that you’re sorry and everything’s forgiven and that you’d love to see him tonight. There, that’s settled.” She smiled, the feigned sadness completely gone.
There was no way she would go again, forgiveness had not been asked, nor would she give it to someone who so obviously didn’t care. “Are you completely mad? Just last night you were telling me not to go too far and now you want to shove me back at him? I don’t want anything to do with him. Are we friends or not, Constance?” The question hung in the air, heavy, like wet laundry.
Constance wrapped her arms over her chest. “I could ask you the same, Frances. If I don’t find a good match before the end of this summer, one will be picked for me. You think it would be horrible for you to go about for a few nights with someone you don’t want when I could be faced with a whole lifetime of the same?”
Guilt nibbled at her, but she refused to listen. “Oh no you don’t.” Frances flung open her small trunk. “You want to go with Turner and be pushed around? You have my blessing. I want no part of it. I’m sure your father would love to hand you off to a wealthy Englishman. I won’t be there. I won’t be put in that position again, and Mr. Davidson already said he would not set up another outing.”