He handed his niece over to Houston and held his arm out to his wife.
“Mrs. Leigh,” he said, knowing his voice sounded too stern, but unable to stop it. He’d lost one wife on his wedding night. He didn’t intend to lose another.
She stepped toward him hesitantly as though he’d just said he was going to take her to the gallows instead of to her room. Her fingers dug into his forearm, and dammit, she was still trembling.
“This way.”
Cordelia followed him from the room, down the hallway, and up a wide flight of stairs. He walked to the last room on the right—the corner room where the door was closed.
“This is our bedroom. I moved your trunk into it earlier so it’s waiting for you.”
Their bedroom. Not hers, but theirs. She knew he fully intended to share it with her tonight. “I’m sorry we ate all your lemon drops,” she said inanely, wishing the sun had never set, night had never fallen.
“Did it work?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did it make the sadness go away?”
“Not entirely.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m sorry I screamed.”
“I knew Maggie was hiding beneath my desk. I wouldn’t have tried to startle her if I’d known you were there as well.”
“I’m sorry I said you were heartless.”
A corner of his mouth tipped up. “We could probably stand here all night apologizing for things we said or did throughout the day. Let’s just acknowledge we got off on the wrong foot, and we’ll go from there.”
He put his hand on the doorknob.
“The first two conditions—” she said quickly.
He removed his hand from the door, straightened, and looked at her. She licked her lips.
“The first two conditions that my father agreed to … what were they?”
“Didn’t he tell you?”
“He said you would share your water with him if I married you. Without the water, he would lose his cattle.”
“That was the first condition. I promised to pull my fence back the morning after we were married.”
“Was that your idea?” she asked.
“It was my offer.”
“And the second condition?”
“When you give me a son, I’ll deed a portion of my land over to your father.”
“Was that your idea as well?”
He hesitated. “No.”
Cordelia felt as though someone had just pulled her heart through her chest.
“Isn’t there a name for a woman who trades her favors for gain?” she asked.
“There’s also a name for a woman who takes a husband. You’re my wife, not my whore.”
“In this case, Mr. Leigh, it seems to be a fine line. May I have a few moments alone?”
He nodded and opened the door to their bedroom. “I’ll see my brother and his family off, and then I’ll come back.”
She slipped inside the room, closed the door, and pressed her back against it.
Her father knew the fears she harbored, knew what she had seen as a child. She had been standing in the doorway, terrified, when he’d finally rolled off her mother.
He had promised her that no man would ever touch her. He had traded his promise for a strip of land, knowing full well that what Dallas Leigh expected of his wife was what her father had sworn she would never have to give.
Dallas leaned against the veranda beam and watched as Houston tucked Maggie into the back of the wagon. Amelia had been kind enough to help him clean up his office. He wished she had the power to wipe away his doubts as easily as she had wiped away the kitten’s puddle.
Was a son such a terrible thing for a man to wish for?
“Have a safe journey home,” he said.
Houston looked up from his task. “We will.”
“If you need anything—”
“We’ll be fine,” Amelia said. “Get back to your wife.”
Walking into the house, Dallas closed the door behind him. After a day filled with guests, the house seemed unbearably empty. His footsteps echoed down the hallway. He began climbing the stairs.
His wife was waiting for him. His wife. He’d planned to dance with her, toast her happiness, and charm her.
Instead, she’d seen his temper flare up more than once, and he’d frightened her. Her scream had been one of pure terror.
He stopped outside the door to his room. A pale light slipped into the hallway. She was inside waiting on him.
Tonight he’d have someone beside him, and with any luck, nine months from now, he’d have someone in his heart.
He’d vowed for better or worse. He’d do all he could to make everything better for her, but he’d live with worse if he had to.
He put his hand on the knob, turned it, and discovered she had locked him out.
By God, he had been challenged at every turn today, and he was damn tired of it. With a burst of rage that sent the blood rushing through his temples, he kicked in the door.
She screamed and flew out of the chair by the fire he’d built earlier in the hearth, clutching her brush to her breast.
“Never lock the door against me,” he said in a low menacing voice. “Not in my house.”
She shook her head and took a step back. “No, no, I wouldn’t. I know my duty. I … I was just preparing myself for you.”
Her duty. The words sounded incredibly harsh, but then what had he expected? She knew less about him than he knew of her because all she knew of him had come from her brothers, and it was obvious after the confrontation in his office and conversations held throughout the day that they had few kind words to say about him.
Her eyes were as large as a harvest moon, and he could see now that her brush was tangled in her hair. Tangled in her thick black hair that cascaded down to her narrow hips like a still waterfall.
She wore a white cotton shift with lace at the throat and tiny pearl buttons running down the front. Something a woman might sleep in.
As he took a step forward, he saw her bare toes curl. For some inexplicable reason, that small action touched him as nothing had all day. He glanced over at the door, hanging at an awkward angle, torn from the top hinges. He looked back at Cordelia. “I’ll send someone up to repair the door.”
She gave him a jerky nod. He walked from the room, rushed down the stairs, and stormed into the night. He saw Houston, standing by the wagon, kissing Amelia as though he hadn’t spent the whole day with her, wasn’t sharing the rest of his life with her. “Houston!”
Houston lifted his head and drew Amelia closer to him.
Dallas felt like a fool. A damn fool. “I need you to … to fix the door to my bedroom.”
“Fix it? What happened to it?”
“A little misunderstanding. I kicked it in, and now it’s hanging off the hinges. I thought it might be better if someone else repaired it.”
Dallas grunted when Amelia hit him in the stomach.
“Watch our daughter,” she ordered.
Amelia and Houston hurried into the house. Dallas walked to the back of the wagon and glanced inside. Maggie lay on a bundle of blankets, the kitten Dallas had given her curled within the curve of her stomach. “Wouldn’t you like to have a little boy to play with?” he asked quietly.
He caught sight of a movement out of the corner of his eye. Austin was weaving toward the wagon. “Austin?”
Austin stumbled to a stop. “What?”
“Watch Maggie. I need a drink.”
He ignored Austin’s groan as he headed into the house.
Cordelia was shaking so badly that she didn’t think she’d ever be warm. Amelia had added wood to the fire, but Cordelia still felt cold, so cold. Amelia had draped a blanket around Cordelia’s shoulders but that hadn’t brought any warmth with it either.
“I can’t stay here,” she whispered.
Amelia knelt before her and took her hands. “It’ll be all right.”
Cor
delia shook her head. “My brother Duncan told me that you had married Dallas and that he had been so cruel that you left after only a week.”
Cordelia saw a spark of anger ignite within the green depths of Amelia’s eyes.
“Is that what he said?”
Cordelia nodded. “I can understand why you left him.”
Amelia began to work the brush free of Cordelia’s hair and smiled softly. “No, I don’t think you do understand. I was promised to Dallas. A few days after we were married, he realized that I loved Houston, and that Houston loved me, so he gave me an annulment.”
“I wish he’d give me one.”
Amelia began to brush her hair. “I’ll never forget what he said to me that night … when he let me go.”
Cordelia didn’t want to know anything more about the man she’d married, certain she knew all she needed to know. He had a temper worse than any she’d ever seen, that ignited like a piece of kindling.
Yet she remembered earlier in the day how he’d banked his temper when his niece had tugged on his trousers. The lemon drops. His unwillingness to let Boyd speak for her during the ceremony. Against her will, she heard herself ask, “What did he say?”
“ ‘I don’t need love, Amelia, but I think you do, and if you find it with a man who dreams of raising horses, know you do so with my blessing.’ ” Amelia stood and handed Cordelia the brush. “I’ll leave you with a little secret. Dallas does need love—more than any of us. I know your marriage hasn’t begun under the best of circumstances, but I think if you give him a chance, he will worship the ground you walk on.”
His elbows digging into his thighs, Dallas stared blankly at the low fire flickering within the hearth in his office. He remembered the day he’d married Amelia. He’d seen disappointment in her eyes, a touch of sadness, but there had also been hope and trust.
He thought about the day she had married Houston. She had glowed with love and happiness.
He hadn’t expected the woman he married today to glow, but neither had he planned to fill her with raw fear. What had he been thinking to marry a woman he’d never met? He’d arranged to marry her as though she were little more than a carefully selected brood mare. He couldn’t blame her for being offended, wary, and frightened.
“I fixed the door,” Houston said.
Without turning his attention away from the fire, Dallas merely nodded. “ ’Preciate it.”
“You scared the hell out of Cordelia … again.”
Dallas grimaced. “I know.” He sighed deeply. “I know how to bed a whore. I’ve got no earthly idea how to go about bedding a wife.”
“You didn’t seem to have any problem when you were married to Amelia.”
Dallas glanced up at the anger reflected in his brother’s voice. He’d offended someone else without trying. “You know as well as I do that we never got that far. With Amelia getting kidnapped on our wedding night and you getting shot when we rescued her, I barely had the opportunity to kiss her. I never saw her standing in front of the fire in some flimsy gown that was little more than shadows. Cordelia has legs that go clear up to her shoulders.”
Houston gave him an understanding smile. “I know all about shadows.” He cleared his throat. “Look, Dallas, this is none of my business, but there’s no law that says you gotta bed her tonight. Knowing her pa, she probably didn’t have much say in this marriage. What would it hurt to give her a couple of days to get used to it?”
Dallas stood. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s getting late. Did you and your family want to stay here tonight?”
“ ’Preciate the offer, but there’s a good moon tonight and a clear sky. We’ll be fine.”
Dallas followed his brother from his office and stood at the stairs, waiting while Houston walked through the front door. Dallas glanced up. The stairs had never before seemed so high. As he began to climb them, he started running apologies through his mind, trying to find the right one, the one that would undo all the damage he’d unwittingly inflicted on his wife’s peace of mind.
When he reached his bedroom, he tapped lightly on the door and waited an eternity for her to open it.
Cordelia peered out at the formidable man standing in the hallway. She opened the door farther, giving him access to the room, offering him access to her. She watched as his Adam’s apple slowly slid up and down.
“Be ready to ride before dawn,” he said gruffly and turned toward the stairs.
Stunned, Cordelia stepped into the hallway. “You mean to ride a horse?”
He stopped walking and stared at her. “What the hell else do you think we ride? Cows?”
She shook her head. “No … I just … I have something to wear. I’ve just never … ridden a horse.”
She thought if she released a deep breath, he’d fall over and tumble down the stairs.
“You’ve never ridden a horse?”
“Father said it was too dangerous. I always traveled in my coach.”
“There is no way in hell my wife is going to travel around the countryside in that red contraption. I had your brothers take it with them.”
“Oh.” She pressed her hand to her throat, trying to think of something to say.
“I’ve got a gentle horse you can ride, and if you don’t want her, you can ride with me.”
Quickly she shook her head. “The gentle horse is fine.”
“Good. Then I’ll see you before dawn.”
He spun on his heel and stomped down the stairs. Cordelia slipped back into her room, closed the door, and leaned against it. She pressed her fingers against her mouth. He had made her brothers take the hideous coach away!
Tomorrow, she was going to start riding a horse around the countryside.
She wrapped her arms around herself. He had said he’d see her in the morning. Did that mean she would be safe tonight? She could sleep alone?
She walked to the bed. It wasn’t until she reached up to pull the blankets down that she noticed the flowers resting between the pillows.
Wilted now, their fragrance still wafted over the bed. She picked up a yellow flower and trailed her finger over the fragile petal. They grew over the prairie. Easy enough to find. Not much trouble to pick.
Yet tears welled in her eyes. So simple a gesture. She wanted to believe Amelia had left them for her, but somehow she knew they had been a gift from Dallas.
She walked to the far side of the room, drew the heavy draperies aside, opened a door of windows, and stepped onto the balcony.
In the distance, she saw the silhouette of her husband sitting on the top railing of the corral, his shoulders hunched, as he gazed in the direction of the moon.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Cordelia lay in the massive oak bed listening for her husband’s footsteps. Several minutes past midnight, she finally heard them on the stairs. She followed the sound along the hallway until she heard him stop outside her door. She held her breath, waiting for the click of the turning doorknob, the echo that would announce he was coming to claim her as his wife.
But all she heard was the fading tread of his boots as he walked away.
She rolled to her side and watched as the shadows played around the room. Her room.
She wondered how long he would give her before he insisted on making it “their” room.
She slept fitfully through the night and finally crawled from the bed in the early hours of the morning to prepare herself for her first ride on a horse. It was then, in the quietness before dawn, that she noticed the many things she’d overlooked the night before.
She washed her face using the water that filled the heavy oak washstand. She gazed at her reflection in the oval mirror that hung on the wall. She imagined Dallas usually shaved here. His shaving equipment rested on a small table beside the washstand. She knew he was skilled with a razor. His chin and cheeks had been smooth and carried no nicks or scars, save one small one just below his left eye, but she didn’t think a careless razor had crea
ted it. His mustache had been evenly trimmed.
Using one of the two towels he had set beside the washstand, she patted the moisture from her face. Then she walked to the mirrored dresser, sat in the straight-backed chair, and unraveled her braid.
On the dresser, he had placed a small bottle of bay rum. Her brothers often doused themselves with it, yet it had smelled different on Dallas’s tanned skin. He owned this ranch, but she didn’t think he spent nearly as much time in his office as her father did. Dallas’s features were too brown, too weathered.
She swept up her hair, then quickly donned her red riding habit. She’d only worn it once. The day Mimi St. Claire had delivered it to her, a gift from Cameron in hopes he could convince their father to let her ride. She had admired the woman for traveling to the ranch, unescorted, in a buggy. She had envied the woman the freedom she had to come and go as she pleased because she was not shackled to a man.
Cordelia had asked her father if perhaps she could do the same, but he had forbidden her to travel unescorted, as though he didn’t quite trust her to return. No one had found the time to escort her to town after the day Dallas had set aside the land.
She had devoted so many years to caring for her mother that staying at home had become a way of life that she had seldom questioned. She had grown up with her father’s adage, “A woman’s place is in the home, tending her menfolk.”
Cordelia jumped at the rapid-fire knock. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the room and opened the door. She was struck once again with the handsome shape of Dallas’s chiseled features. His gaze slowly traveled from the tip of her hat to the tips of her toes.
“We need to go,” he said in a voice that sounded as though he were strangling.
She followed him down the stairs and into the early morning darkness. He had tethered two horses to the front veranda.
“This is Beauty,” Dallas said as he placed his hand on the mare’s chestnut rump. “She’s about as docile a horse as you’ll ever find. Pull back on the reins to stop her. Give her a gentle nudge in the sides to make her go. For the most part, she’ll just follow my horse.”
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