Just This Once (16 page)

He shifted his gaze, leveling a thunderous
frown at Josie. “Be ready to depart at seven. And God help me,” he
muttered under his breath as he turned and left the room.

Ethan walked straight out the door, veered
down the sloping lane to his left, and cut through the gardens. He
needed to be outdoors, breathing in fresh air, clearing his head,
calming his temper. He walked quickly, his long legs eating up the
ground beneath him, though he scarcely realized where he walked.
The sight of Oliver Winthrop had inflamed him as if all of it had
happened yesterday. Good Lord, where was his famous cool control,
the legendary deadly calm of Ethan Savage, hired gun?

Seeing Winthrop, the first time since that
night all those years ago, had lit a fire in his blood.

And it had brought Molly’s image searing
into his brain again, as if she had never left. And maybe, he
thought, stomping through green fields, jumping a brook, heading
toward a belt of trees, maybe she never had.

He almost heard her silvery little voice,
almost smelled the fresh rose-and-vanilla scent of her. “Ethan, do
come in. I’ve missed you ever so much! Ethan, you shouldn’t have.
These flowers must be ever so expensive. You don’t have to bring me
something every time you call, you know!”

Sweet, innocent, unspoiled Molly. His heart
tore in two, remembering. Remembering what they’d meant to each
other, and how she had trusted him, and what had happened to her
for daring to love an earl’s son.

And Ethan sank down on a fallen log in the
wood, and buried his head in his hands. The pain was sharper since
his return to England, and he was quite certain that nothing would
ever take it away.

Presently, glancing up, he noticed a cottage
several hundred yards ahead, nearly hidden by a rise in the ground
and a copse of ancient trees. The stocky figure chopping wood
outside struck him as oddly familiar. He rose slowly from the log,
staring.

It couldn’t be. Couldn’t... it was.

He started forward at a run.

“They told me you were retired. No longer
living at Stonecliff Park,” he said as he slowed to a halt before
the wide-shouldered, gray-haired man who set down the ax at the
sight of him.

“I am. And I don’t.”

“But you’re here... so close....”

“You want me to leave, lad?” The scraggly
gray brows drew together in a questioning glance that pierced Ethan
to the bone with its familiarity.

“No.
No.
” Ethan stared at the man who
had been more like a father to him than his own father ever had,
the man who had taught him to ride, to shoot, to mend his puppy’s
cut paw, the man who had let a small boy trail after him when he
went about his work day after day after day, and he swallowed past
the lump in his throat as he started forward, arms
outstretched.

“Ham.” The name burned in his gut, squeezed
like an anvil at his heart. He reached the old groom, and with a
rough sigh, clasped the bewhiskered old groom in his arms. “Ham,
you old gaffer, I’d given up on ever seeing you again.”

* * *

“So you never did find it, did you, lad? I’d
hoped you would.”

“Find what?” Ethan peered up from the tin
cup of steaming tea Ham had set before him, a baffled expression on
his face.

“Happiness. Peace. A kind woman to love and
to love you back.” Ham rubbed his whiskers thoughtfully and watched
Ethan, studying the changes in the boy he’d known, who’d now become
such an imposing figure of a man. “Yours was always a restless
spirit, lad. And when you went to America I hoped you’d find the
balm there you needed to soothe it.”

“I found myself there. That was enough.”

Ham’s shrewd brown eyes, flecked with olive
in the sunlight that streamed into the cottage, never wavered from
Ethan’s face. “But you’ve still got that restlessness inside you.
You’re still...” He trailed off. He’d been about to say
unhappy.

“I’m resigned to my fate.”

“Without hope?”

“Hope of what?” Ethan studied him, amused.
“Peace? I haven’t exactly led a peaceful life. But I’ve found some
moments of it. Sleeping under the stars in the Arizona desert, or
beneath the Mogollon Rim. Riding through the Rockies. Wandering
through country so beautiful, it hurts to look at it, with no
strings on me, no one to tie me down or pull me back.”

“Some strings are good.”

“You want strings?” Ethan’s short laugh
filled the tiny spaces of the scrubbed and tidy cottage. “I’ve got
plenty now.”

“Aye, all this rich and beautiful land, the
title you inherited from your father. The houses, all of ’em. The
responsibilities of wealth most only dream of. And a wife.”

“That’s right, a wife.” Ethan drained the
tea and set the cup down with a rattle on the table, remembering
how wildly lovely Josie had looked last night, the impossible
brilliance of her eyes, the rich glory of hair spilling across her
bare shoulders.

He scowled at the tin cup, suddenly wishing
it was filled with brandy to help soothe and dull the memory.

“I heard about her already.” Ham picked up
his pipe and tobacco, and shifted his weight in his chair, noticing
that the dull flush that had entered Ethan’s cheeks at mention of
his wife was the same brick-red hue as the rag rug beneath the
young earl’s feet. He suppressed a smile and spoke with deliberate
casualness. “Word spreads fast, it does. They say she’s a lovely
thing. That’s why I was a mite surprised—”

He broke off.

“Surprised about what?” Through narrow eyes,
Ethan watched the groom tamp down tobacco as if nothing else
mattered.

“To see you still so restless. I thought if
you were married... unless, lad, you didn’t marry for love.”

Ethan gave a harsh bark of laughter. He
raked a hand through his hair, then stood up and began to pace.
“Still as keen as ever, aren’t you, Ham? Well, you’re right. I
didn’t marry for love. I married because of my father’s
will—because I was drunk, because I acted in haste, and anger, and
spite. I married a damned thief—and now I’ve got to pass her off as
a lady.”

He sighed as Ham stared at him
incredulously.

“No!” the groom exclaimed.

“Yes.” Ethan’s lips twisted with cynical
amusement. “Reckon I’d better explain.”

When he was done, the old groom whistled
slowly through his teeth. “So, there’s no feeling at all for this
lass? You’re going to send her away in six months?”

“Sooner, if she fails at any point along the
way and brings the whole scheme crashing down.” Ethan was surprised
by the clenching of his gut as he thought of this possibility. He
recalled how Josie had knelt beside him last night when he’d been
so wound up about being back—of what she’d said about her past.
That she’d never had a home either.

Could it be true? Was the sweetness and
concern he’d seen in her eyes real, or was it all part of her act?
And today, she’d actually worried about his hand when he’d struck
Winthrop—any other woman would have gone weak in the knees over
witnessing that sort of violence, or would have tried to tend to
the fallen man, offering apologies and excuses—but not her.

Something about that made him think of
Molly, though why, he didn’t understand. Those two were completely
dissimilar, in looks as well as in nature. Molly had been small,
exquisite, and dark, her hair black and sweeping down her back like
a midnight waterfall. Her skin had been very white, her cheeks pink
and round in a beautiful Irish face that was lush with sweetness.
And she had been innocent, shy, sheltered from the ways of the
world, unsuspecting of the casual cruelty that had been visited
upon her. Josie Cooper, on the other hand...

His jaw tightened at the thought of her. She
was stunning too—with her luscious cloud of curls, the seductive
uptilted shape of her eyes, their astonishing violet color. She was
taller than Molly, not so round, more slender, yet every bit as
alluring, with a coltish sensuality that heated his blood despite
all his efforts to remind himself that she was a common pickpocket
and liar, the last person he could afford to get involved
with—especially now.

And he told Ham exactly that as the groom
watched him through the smoke that rose from his pipe.

“Seems to me you’re already mighty involved
with her, lad.”

“Not for long.”

“What’ll become of the lass when she
leaves?”

“That’s her problem. She’ll have money. She
can do as she pleases. So long as she doesn’t trouble me.”

Ethan stood, his chair scraping across the
rug. “Reckon I’d best get back, Ham. But what about you? Are you
comfortable here? Happy? Why don’t you come and live back at the
house? There’s a dozen empty rooms in the east wing. You could take
your pick.”

“This is my pick.” Ham clapped a gnarled
hand on Ethan’s shoulder as together they walked to the door. “If
I’ve got leave to fish in your duck pond, to pick berries in those
woods, to do a bit of hunting without being arrested for
poaching”—he grinned at the quick sharp look Ethan threw him—“then
I’m fine and dandy.”

“You damned old curmudgeon,” Ethan growled,
struggling to conceal the emotion that welled up in him as they
walked out of the cottage into the blazing golden afternoon. He
turned to stare long and steadily at the old groom with whom he’d
wandered this rolling, fragrant green land on so many other days
just like this one.

“Anything you need, Ham. Anything at all.
It’s yours.”

“I have what I need.”

“Next week, when I get back from town, I’ll
come chop firewood for you.”

With a small choking sound, Ham yanked his
pipe out from between his lips and shook his head at the younger
man. “No, Ethan, my lad,” he said firmly. “You won’t. That wouldn’t
be fitting. Not fitting at all. You’re the earl now, not a boy out
on a lark.”

“Think you can stop me, old man?” The look
Ethan shot him was full of playful challenge. “I’ve chopped plenty
of wood in the past ten years and not once for anyone I gave a damn
about. I can sure as hell chop wood for you.”

And clapping the old groom on the back, he
turned and sauntered back the way he’d come, feeling far more
cheerful.

Ham watched him go, torn between gladness at
having him back, and concern that the boy he’d taken under his wing
so many years ago had never yet found the happiness that had been
denied him in childhood.

But he’d seen something in Ethan’s eyes when
he mentioned his wife. Something that gave him hope, despite the
lad’s harsh words. Something definite enough to make Ham decide
that one of these days—and the sooner the better—he’d like to meet
the new Countess of Stonecliff and judge for himself.

Y
ou can do this.
Of course you can do this. All you have to do is walk down those
stairs and pretend you’re acting in a play. You’re not you—you’re
someone else. A countess. A lady. A wife.

“Is something wrong, my lady? Are you not
pleased with how I arranged your hair?” Devon asked anxiously, and
Josie realized that she’d been scowling at herself in the
mirror.

She shook her head, for a moment unable to
speak. Then she managed to say in what she hoped was a dignified
tone, “It’s lovely, Devon. I don’t believe it’s ever looked as
pretty as it does tonight.”

The girl beamed at her. She dropped a curtsy
and began moving about the room, tidying the bed, picking up stray
items of discarded clothing.

Josie studied her own reflection in the
mirror. A sensation of stunned unreality surged through her. The
gown of deep rose moiré with its silk overskirt trimmed with black
silk roses was without a doubt the most elegant, sophisticated, and
gorgeous dress she had ever seen. And it made her look like someone
else, she decided on a gulp of nervousness. Like someone she didn’t
recognize.

Her upswept hair, gleaming with a coppery
sheen in the hissing yellow gaslight, was adorned with a small
cluster of silk roses as well. Only a few carefully chosen wisps
floated out from that elegant topknot to skim softly about her
cheeks.

Her gaze moved lower. Goodness, how slender
and—yes—voluptuous she looked in that low-cut bodice and tight
skirt with the small bustle and the elaborate lace-edged train.
Even her shoes were exquisite—rose satin slippers adorned with
pearl rosettes and tiny glimmering jewels.

If only her cheeks weren’t so pale. If only
she could catch her breath. Tonight would be her first major test,
and if she failed, it would all be over.

Ethan Savage would send her away. He’d
probably put her on the next steamship for America himself—and she
had never even had a chance to try to find Miss Denby.

The thought that she wouldn’t see Ethan
Savage ever again was not lost on her—it made her spirits sink to
her toes—but she pushed this prospect from her mind.