The hotel foyer was minuscule, scarcely larger than Mrs. Schneiderman’s front parlor. A red velvet settee and two matching armchairs sat opposite the scarred registration desk, which was deserted. The hot, still air smelled faintly of something cinnamony. Apple pie, maybe.
Lance stepped forward and jingled the bell beside the leather-bound sign-in register, and after a long moment a short man with a shiny bald head and a startled expression popped up from behind the counter.
“How do, folks!” He slapped the book he’d apparently been reading down beside the hotel register. Marianne craned her neck to see the title. The Plays of William Shakespeare. What a surprising choice way out here in this tiny Western town!
The clerk flashed her a tentative smile. “You folks new in town?”
“Yes,” Lance answered. “We just got off the train from St. Louis.”
“Ah, I see. What can I do for you?”
“Uh…we need hotel rooms.”
“Rooms plural, as in two rooms? Aren’t you two together?” The clerk’s curious gaze shifted to Marianne. “Or not?”
“Not!” Marianne said decisively. She felt her cheeks grow warm and prayed she wasn’t blushing.
“Not yet,” Lance added.
Oh, dear, she was definitely blushing now.
The clerk’s gray eyebrows rose. “Ah.” He bent over the register. “Not together, then,” he murmured, scanning the open page.
Lance cleared his throat. “We…uh…we plan to get married day after tomorrow.”
“Ah!” He handed Marianne a pen. “Sign here, please, ma’am.”
She scrawled her name with a hand that shook embarrassingly. “Could you send a bath up to my room? I—We have been on the train from St. Louis for the past three days and—”
“Oh, sure, ma’am, I quite understand. I’ll send one up right away.”
Lance nudged his elbow into her ribs. “Thank you,” she said quickly.
The clerk grinned at her and turned to Lance. “And for you, sir?”
“Just a single room, thanks.”
“No bath?” The man studied Lance’s shadowed chin. “Maybe a visit to the barber?”
A faint flush spread over Lance’s cheeks, and Marianne stared in surprise. Was it possible that Lance was a bit vain about his appearance? She had seen him dirty and disheveled, with sweat sheening his forehead and his chin all bristly after hours spent repairing a fence in the hot sun; he hadn’t minded looking unshaven then. Or maybe, she thought with a twinge of guilt, she’d kept him too busy to shave.
The clerk coughed and turned to consult the wooden rack behind him, then presented her with a shiny brass key. Number Six.
Lance accepted a second key, Number Seven, then noticed that Marianne’s penetrating green eyes were glued to his face. Hot damn, she was staring at him like she’d never seen him before. Well, hell, maybe in all the years he’d worked for her she hadn’t really looked at him.
He had sure looked at her, though. Whenever he’d been near her he’d tried hard to shut his ears so he wouldn’t have to listen to the endless stream of commands coming out of her mouth. But he had looked at her. Couldn’t help it, if he was honest. Marianne had a lot of annoying habits, but he had to admit she was one delicious-looking female.
All at once it hit him. He had a pretty good idea who Marianne was, but she didn’t know diddly-squat about who he was. Outside of that Wanted poster she carried around with her, she didn’t really know one cotton-picking thing about him. At the moment Miss Stiffer-than-Starch-Know-All-the-Answers Collingwood was actually facing something she didn’t know anything about. Him!
For some reason that thought made him smile.
They lugged their bags up the staircase to the second floor and located their rooms. Lance took the key from Marianne’s hand, unlocked the door to Number Six and pushed it open. The room looked dim and cool, and he caught sight of a big double bed under one window. That made him smile, too.
“Day after tomorrow we’ll only need one room,” he said in what he hoped was a matter-of-fact tone.
“Oh,” she said. “Yes, I suppose so.”
And that was all? No pre-wedding jitters? No I’m glad we’re finally here? Nothing?
He set her travel bag inside the door and turned to go. “After you’ve had a bath and a chance to rest, let’s meet up for supper at the restaurant, say around seven o’clock?”
She looked up, gave him an unsmiling nod and closed the door in his face.
Three hours later, after a visit to Poletti’s Barbershop down the street for a bath and a shave, Lance walked into the restaurant and was shown to a table by the front window. The white-aproned waitress laid a menu in front of him and slid an order pad out of her apron pocket.
“You new in town?”
“Yeah,” Lance said. “Came in on the train from St. Louis this afternoon.”
“You stayin’?”
“Yeah.”
“Alone?”
“Uh…not exactly. My fiancée is upstairs taking a—She’ll be joining me shortly.”
“Fiancée, huh?” The waitress laid another menu on the table and glanced toward the entrance. “That her?”
Lance followed her gaze and half rose from his chair at the sight of Marianne. She looked so fresh and pretty his thoughts froze for a minute. “Yeah. At least I think so.”
The waitress laughed aloud. “You think so? How long have you two been engaged?”
“Three days,” he murmured.
“Not long enough,” she said. “How long have you known each other?”
He watched Marianne gliding across the dining room toward him. “Not long enough,” he said.
The woman nodded. “Most men think that after the wedding,” she said with a wink.
Marianne settled into the chair across from him and sent him a tentative smile. She wore a striped shirtwaist and a flouncy blue skirt he’d never seen before. Her hair, loosely gathered at her neck and tied with a blue ribbon, looked even shinier than molasses. And he’d never seen her wear a ribbon before. Maybe he didn’t know Marianne as well as he thought.
Her skin glowed. Even after three nights with little sleep, breathing dusty air and eating nothing but stale sandwiches and cold coffee, Marianne Collingwood looked downright beautiful.
She spread out her skirt, and Lance caught a whiff of something that smelled like lilacs. He inhaled appreciatively. She’d never worn scent before, either.
“Good evening, ma’am,” the waitress said.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Marianne replied. “I hope you have steak on your menu tonight. I am positively famished.”
“This is cattle ranching country, ma’am. We have steak on the menu every night.”
Marianne smiled. “Oh, of course. I’ll have mine rare, please. With lots of very crispy fried potatoes.”
The woman scribbled something on her order pad. “And for you, sir?”
“The same,” he said. When the waitress marched off to the kitchen, Marianne leaned toward him. “Lance, I didn’t know you liked your steak rare.”
“Maybe that’s because you never asked,” he said shortly.
She gave him a long look. “I never had time to ask. I was too busy in the kitchen frying steaks for all the boarders to ask, so I fried them all the same way, even my own.”
“And I always ate last,” Lance reminded her. “After everyone else had finished.”
Marianne pursed her lips. “You ate next to last,” she corrected. “I was the one who always ate last.”
“Gosh, I never realized that. Bet you were plenty hungry by the time all the boarders and then me had finished their supper.”
“To be honest, I was too tired to be hungry,” she said quietly. “In fact, never in the last eleven years have I eaten a meal that someone else has cooked.”
Her answer stopped him in his tracks. He’d never thought about working for Mrs. Schneiderman from Marianne’s point of view. Eleven years? She’d been a
t that boardinghouse for eleven years? Lord God in heaven, no wonder she was so desperate to get away.
He fiddled with the pepper shaker, then began folding his linen napkin into smaller and smaller squares, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I guess there’s a whole lot of things we don’t know about each other,” he said at last. “Maybe we should spend time getting acquainted some before we, uh, get married.”
Marianne gave him a short nod. “In a civilized world like St. Louis, an engaged couple would be expected to wait at least a year before the wedding, perhaps more, getting to know each other. But out here in the wilds of nowhere isn’t exactly a civilized world.”
“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But we’re civilized, aren’t we?”
She leveled an appraising look at him. “Lance, we cannot afford to wait a year before marrying. When I call on Mr. Myers and Mr. Waldrip at the bank to take possession of my inheritance, I must already be married.”
“Oh. Right.”
“You’re not reneging on our bargain, are you?”
“Nope. You still have that Wanted poster in your pocket, and that means I’m still gonna marry you.”
She pressed her lips into a line and turned pink just as the waitress set two huge plates loaded with thick steaks and fried potatoes in front of them.
Marianne attacked her supper with a determined jab of her fork and watched the waitress march back toward the kitchen. She sent Lance an assessing look. Was it her imagination, or did he sound less than enthusiastic about the prospect of marrying her? An unfamiliar little dart of pain niggled into her heart. Was he unsure because she was forcing him into it? Or…she caught her breath. Maybe it was because she was past her prime? Was she too old and work-worn and unattractive to be of any interest to a man?
She glanced down at her bare forearm. Her skin was tan because she rolled up her sleeves and ignored the sun’s rays when she worked outdoors for Mrs. Schneiderman. But her arm still looked plump, even girlish, didn’t it? She hoped the rest of her did, too. At least it had the last time she’d had the chance to stop and really look at herself in the full-length mirror in her room. Except for her tanned cheeks and forearms, she still looked young.
Didn’t she? A paralyzing sense of inadequacy suddenly swept through her. Over the years she had made no attempt whatsoever to look closely at her appearance, let alone enhance it as other young women did. By the time she’d crawled into bed at night she was so exhausted she’d simply unpinned her hair, gave it a cursory swipe with her worn hairbrush and closed her eyes.
All at once a crushing doubt overwhelmed her. She scarcely knew who she was, other than a boardinghouse cook and housekeeper. Worse, she had no idea who this man now sitting across from her really was. She was about to jump into a life-changing venture, and she suddenly realized she was truly frightened. She grimaced and laid down her fork.
“Lance, before we get married, perhaps we should become better acquainted. More than just the polite conversation we had on the train, I mean.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “Sure don’t have much time, though. We’re getting married day after tomorrow.”
“Well, perhaps we could start with our supper,” she suggested.
“Yeah,” he said, staring at her dinner plate. “We both like rare steaks.”
“And we both like lots of fried potatoes,” she said. Talking about steak and potatoes was snatching at a straw, but it was a start.
“I like lots of any kind of potatoes,” he offered with a grin. “I like peas, too.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I have shelled so many mountains of pea pods I am sick sick sick of peas!”
“Carrots?” he asked, his voice hopeful.
She shook her head. “What about cabbage?”
“Chewy,” he pronounced. “Tastes like grass.”
She sat up straighter. “My coleslaw does not taste like grass!”
His cheeks turned pink. “Nah, you’re right, it doesn’t. You put some kinda fancy dressing on it, so your coleslaw tastes okay, I guess. What about apples?”
She nodded. “Yes, I like apples.” She picked up her knife and cut a bite of steak. “What about pears?”
“Pears are mushy.”
“Really?” She laid the knife back on her plate with a sharp click. “You think my ginger-poached pears are mushy?”
“Marianne, after they’ve sat around for an hour or two waitin’ for all the boarders to finish eatin’ so I could finally sit down for supper, your pears are plenty mushy, yeah.”
She frowned. She realized that neither of them had ever eaten a meal when it should be eaten, when the dishes were piping hot and bubbly from the oven and the salad greens were crisp. Even her layer cakes and cobblers tasted stale after sitting in a hot kitchen all afternoon and half the evening. Or maybe it was because she was so exhausted by the time she forked a bite past her lips she couldn’t taste anything. And they had never before eaten a meal, a real meal, together.
“What about…houses?” he asked. “I like brown houses with white trim.”
“I like big houses. I have never owned anything before, certainly not a house. So I want a great big house! I know Uncle Matty was rich, so I’m quite sure my inheritance will include one. I don’t care what color it is. I just hope it’s the biggest house in Smoke River.”
Lance studied her. “Do you think this business you’ve inherited is real prosperous then?”
“Of course. Uncle Matty could afford to live in New York City half the time. Out here in this little town he must have been the wealthiest man in the county.”
“Maybe we should talk about—” he paused to fork a slice of fried potato into his mouth “—religion. What church should we get married in?”
“Not Lutheran,” she said decisively.
“Why not?”
“Because Mrs. Schneiderman was Lutheran. She made everyone say a long fancy grace before every single meal, even breakfast.”
“Okay, not Lutheran.”
“And not Catholic,” she added. “The priest at St. Timothy’s in St. Louis refused to let one of the boarder’s daughters attend Sunday school just because they were Russian. Lance, you’re not Catholic, are you?”
“Don’t know. But I’ve got nothing against them. I don’t think I’m Catholic, anyway. My folks never said.”
“Oh? Where were you brought up? In St. Louis?”
“Nah. Little tiny town in Indiana called Tulip Flat.”
She put down her knife. “How did you—?”
“Come to rob a stagecoach?”
“Well…not exactly.” She could tell her cheeks were flushing. She hadn’t wanted to embarrass him; the question just slipped out. “I mean, how did your picture get on that Wanted poster? I told you before I don’t really think you’re an actual thief.”
“Yeah, well, you’re wrong there. I am a thief.”
Her fork clattered on to her plate. “What? Good heavens, Lance, I can’t go into business with someone who’s dishonest! And I certainly can’t marry someone who is really a thief. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“You didn’t ask,” he said drily. “You just said all the reasons why I couldn’t be a thief.”
“You mean you really did rob a stagecoach?”
He looked up and held her gaze. “Yeah, I really did. I stole a piggy bank from a snotty ten-year-old kid because he was acting like an ass, braggin’ about how smart he was. Been sorry about it ever since.”
She stared at him. “But why did they think—?”
“Because his momma complained to the sheriff and said I was the only other passenger so it had to be me.”
“So it wasn’t a Wells Fargo gold shipment?”
“Yeah, it was. But it wasn’t me that stole it. I got off at the next stop, in Valdez. The robbery happened somewhere between Valdez and St. Louis.”
“But they blamed you? Why?”
He sighed. “Because nobody would believe that a proper-looking momma with a ten-y
ear-old kid would rob a stagecoach. I’d left the Sackler gang by then because they’d shot a stage driver, but it kept me on the run until I landed at Mrs. Schneiderman’s.”
Marianne bit her lip. That meant the Wanted poster in her reticule was not only outdated, it was based on a false assumption. She felt her hold over Lance Burnside slipping away.
“Marianne, listen.” Lance leaned across the table toward her and lowered his voice. “There’s two reasons why you could pressure me into marrying you. One is that it’d take me a lot of time and money to prove I’m innocent of that Well Fargo robbery, and I’ve never had a lot of time or money.”
“Oh,” she said with a nod. “I can understand that.”
“The second reason is that by marrying you I get to own half of some kind of business. It’s my chance to make a different life for myself, and I’d have to be soft in the head not to see the advantage in that.”
Again she nodded.
And the third reason is that, even with all your starchy manners, I’ve lusted after you for years.
Chapter Five
Marianne found the dressmaker, Verena Forester, next to Uncle Charlie’s Bakery. The shop was a small establishment whose display window had seven outlandish ribbon-bedecked summer hats and an elegant green crepe gown with ruffles around the hem. Too fancy for a working girl, she thought.
She walked through the shop entrance with trepidation. Never in her entire life had she ordered anything from a dressmaker. Ever since she was a girl, all her clothes had been hand-me-downs; even her camisoles and underdrawers had been given to her by Mrs. Schneiderman’s boarders or donated by the St. Timothy’s church ladies. Now here she was entering a dressmaking establishment for the very first time in her life, and her hands felt sweaty.
Verena Forester turned out to be a tall, fortyish woman with gray streaks in her once dark hair and a sour expression on her narrow face. Marianne introduced herself and explained what she needed.
Marianne's Marriage of Convenience Page 3