Stupid.
The Montgomerys, parents and brothers alike,
accepted him as a trusted friend, but what they wanted for Star was different:
a husband from the highest tier of Society, a man of equal class. She was the
granddaughter of an English nobleman. He was a rancher.
He was one of them . . . but not one of them.
Finished eating, Ward and Morgan rose. “If you’ll all grant
us leave, now,” Ward said, smiling affectionately at his wife, “Morgan has
kindly agreed to accompany me on a morning sail along the coast.”
“It’s a beautiful morning for it,” Meredith said.
“Lee,” Morgan said as Ward took her hand. “You’ll let us
know how Jess does later, I assume, after Dr. Blanchard has come to check on
her again? Not,” she added quickly, at the concern creasing his face, “that she
is in any danger.”
“Yes, Mother, of course. If you all will excuse me,” Lee
said rising. “I believe I will go check on the lady.”
A few murmurs followed the three. After taking another
swallow of coffee, Nick, heart in his throat, finally looked at Star. Her eyes
were upon him. “If you don’t have something else planned, Miz Montgomery, I
could use a stroll through the gardens.”
Not such an usual thing. He and Star took a walk through the
garden a few mornings a week. Nobody even looked up. But Star knew differently.
Her face grew wary, her lips thinned and she nodded, rising. “Why of course,
Nicholas. I should love it above all things.”
He tried to appear casual as they wandered through glass
doors to the gardens beyond. A riot of colors—pink, yellow, white and
more—greeted them, all flowers and plants with unfamiliar names. The sun shone
mightily upon them, its rays bouncing off the white broken-shell walkway. A
tense silence walked with them as they headed toward their favorite stone
bench, under a beech tree. It gave a view of the rest of the garden, the lawn,
the beach and the ocean beyond, bright blue this morning, with white caps
jumping now and again. It sure was pretty, he thought setting down. He didn’t
like being it in by much; the salt water was sticky and strange tasting, and
sailing hadn’t agreed with him, either. But looking at it, man alive, but he
could stare at it for hours, in all kinds of weather. No wonder that Ward and
Star loved it so much.
Star settled next to him, her thigh pressed against his,
dragging him back to the problem at hand. “You wish to talk about last night, I
suppose,” she said.
Straight to the point like always, leastways with him. He’d
seen her dance with a phrase, and flirt with the truth around other men. But
not with him, not most days. He loved that, too. “I need to apologize—”
“It was my own doing,” she interrupted.
He glanced at her. Her face was pinched, her eyes lacking
the usual mirth. Damn, but he’d caused that pain, and the last thing he wanted
was to worsen it. “Some maybe but . . . Star, if I’d known it was your first
time . . . I just figured not, after all the talk about your fiancés.” He
paused. “You seem pretty attached to Thompson.”
“We were—close—once or twice,” she said in a tight voice.
“But in the end none of them were interested enough to follow through. Until
now, I’ve consoled myself with the belief it was due to their being gentlemen,
or fearful of my father. Perhaps I’ve been deluding myself.” Her voice cracked,
and she stopped to take a breath before adding in a light tone that couldn’t
cover the pain. “Perhaps I’m not much of a temptation.”
Damn. Damn it
. Her words ripped through his heart
like a saw through butter. For the first time in years, he felt a lump in his
throat. “Star,” he said turning on the bench to face her. He took her hands and
gave them a light squeeze. She lifted her head. Her eyes glistened with unshed
tears, and her jaw was tight. “No, that’s not it. If you weren’t a temptation,
they wouldn’t’ve proposed in the first place, especially when it’s common
knowledge that you don’t ever want to marry. Most likely the problem is—not
that it
is
a problem, not by my way of thinkin’—well you chose good men.
Good men aren’t going to ruin you.”
She swallowed and looked down again. “I’ve tried to control
it, you know, this—this craving. I wholly understand what my inclinations make
me, the words that society applies to women such—”
“No,” he interrupted. “Honey, there’s nothing at all wrong
with you. It’s just that most women satisfy those needs inside of marriage,
which puts you between the devil and the deep blue sea. It’s not fair,” he said
slowly, realizing for the first time the difficulty of her situation. The last
weeks without Eva and May has stretched his self-control almost beyond
endurance. What if he’d lived a lifetime that way? “But there’s nothing to be
ashamed of.”
“And yet, Nicholas,” she said squinting up at him, “you seem
to like everything else about me but that one thing.”
“Star,” he said on a breath, “that’s not true. I have a duty
to my conscience is all.”
And my heart
.
“Yes, I fully comprehend that, but now that the damage is
done?” she asked hopefully, searching his face. He winced and she added
hastily, “Perhaps damage is the wrong word. At any rate, I suspect that if we—”
“No.” He dropped her hands. His muscles ached with the urge
to shove aside honor, drag her into his arms and kiss her until she whimpered.
“Not while I’m living under your father’s roof.”
“Why, if
that’s
your only objection, then may I
suggest,” she said wry amusement marbling the suffering in her voice, “that you
find another place to stay while you’re in Newport?”
The thought jerked through his mind and heart, then damn it
to hell, settled there. She was right—if he was staying somewhere else—
It was still betrayal.
And would deepen his feelings for her, leading to even
greater
heartbreak than the trail he was current travelling. “Wouldn’t matter,” he
said. “At the end of the day, I have to answer to myself.”
“I cannot dissuade you?”
“No, ma’am.” He paused. “You know you could have what you
want if you’d change your mind about marriage.” He held her gaze, his heart
climbing up his throat in mad hope that she’d say “yes” to a question he didn’t
dare ask.
Something flickered in her eye. “I could never give up my
work. You must know how important it is to me, Nicholas.”
His heart fell. Useless hope. She’d made it clear from the
start: no matter what happened between them, no matter what he did, her work
would always come before anything else—before him. It wasn’t a deal he could
make. “Reckon I do.”
Another moment of staring and her shoulders fell. She
sighed. “Well I suppose I must abide by your decision, for when I did not, it
ended in disappointment. We are still friends, correct? You shall forgive my
wanton nature, I suppose, as you have known it all along.”
Forgive it? He was in love with it! “Sure. We’ll always be
friends.”
She nodded and rose. “Well, I have that at least. We have a
tennis date this afternoon. Will you still oblige me in that?”
He grinned, rising too. “I dunno. Depends on if you promise
to be gentle with me.”
“Gentle? Why on earth would I be gentle? It’s a game,
Nicholas. It’s meant to be won!”
“Yeah, it’s not losing that worries me,” he said, grimacing
as they started down the path back to the house. “If you recollect the
last
time I ‘obliged’ you, you not only shattered my fragile male pride, but came
close to cripplin’ me when you slammed that ball across the court.”
“Coward!” she said laughing. “That ball was at least three
inches away from anything, uh, delicate.”
“Three inches ain’t much when talkin’ about those places!”
he retorted. Back to verbal sparring, they entered the house, friendship
restored.
***
Nick glanced around the overstuffed ballroom. Another ball,
in another long week of boring, pretentious parties. Every blasted one of them
came with the same crowd of women dressed in gaudy gowns and jewelry, and
scarcer men dressed in black and white. Same parquet floor, same blinding gilt
and marble that decorated all these “cottages.” Only the weather changed, but
not to his way of liking. He couldn’t get used to summer in New England. The
humidity left a body feeling sticky and unclean, no matter when he last bathed.
Tonight was worse than most, forming a kind of haze around the room, frizzing
women’s hair or turning it limp, and wilting gowns and shirts alike. The last
was the only good point. His collar, having lost its stiffness hours ago, was
no longer cutting into his neck, for which he was grateful even if he looked
like he’d just limped in off the trail.
Limped in off the trail . . . in a
tuxedo
suit?
The heat was destroying his blasted mind. Man alive, but he
missed home. Missed plain-cooked food, and dry heat, and cool mountain air. He
missed straightforward men and women, and work, and, ah hell, he even missed
the damned cows.
His eyes landed on Star, across the room, dressed in blue
silk and stripped satin, tight in the bosom and spreading out on the bottom. As
usual her gown was different from the other women’s, not enough to look wrong,
but enough to stand out. The sort of dress only a tall, athletic woman like
Star could wear. The band struck up a waltz and she hooked arms with Thompson
who, face just about split with a smile, led her to the floor. Nick’s jaw
clenched and he remembered another thing he missed. Smokes. Cigarettes or
cigars, anything a man could hold in his mouth to keep from hollering, “Take
you damned hands off my woman!”
Thompson was definitely Romeo. And after what he’d done to
Star, he oughta be in jail.
Nick’s gaze fell on another familiar, yet equally annoying,
fellow. Del Huntington. Huntington could be Romeo. He oughta be in jail, too.
Or that Cushing fella, who’d showed up the last couple days
and had just about taken over all of Star’s time. Nick hated him for the
arrogant, predatory gleam in his eye. Cushing belonged in jail, too.
Or that idiot Price, whose gaze too often strayed to Star, although
mostly he was consumed by Jane. A fact that seemed to escape Huntington’s
notice, more ‘n likely because he was still in love with Star.
Ah hell, Nick thought rubbing his neck, any of ’em could be
Romeo. He’d throw ’em all in jail if he could. And would, at least one of them,
just as soon as Keller figured out which was Romeo.
Romeo or not, though, none of them, not one, knew a damned
thing about how to court a woman, especially one like Star. They hung on her,
and fought over her, like drowning men over a single life preserver. Flirted
with her, too, touched her and jostled each other to get closer. A man oughta
have more pride than that. A man oughta give the woman room to breathe.
Who was he kidding? Star didn’t want room to breathe. She
loved the attention. She invited it, more so since the night on the beach. The
recollection wafted through his mind, quickening his breath. Her flirtations
these weeks had shredded his guilt, leaving him free to remember all the good
parts of that night—her eyes shining with desire, the starlight gleaming off
her skin, the sound of her excited gasps and the feel of her tight, wet heat
surrounding him—
Blood rushed downward.
Judging by the way she’d been flirting, she’d decided to
find other men to share those same pleasures. Virginity beat, he thought,
seeing red now, what was there to stop her?
He hated her for it.
The dance ended. Star raised her head to laugh up as
Thompson, who linked his arm in hers and pulled her nearer than was socially
acceptable, damn the man. He led her across the parquet dance floor, toward a
pair of glass-paned doors leading to the garden. And through them.
Oh yeah, Nick missed smokes.
He missed his gun belt, too.
Missed the rough laws of the West, missed the right to shoot
a man for touching his woman.
Enough. He’d be damned in hell before he spent another night
ridin’ drag to Star’s herd of admirers. Spinning around, he heeled it for the
door. He was going back to the Montgomerys’ house. He needed a drink, something
a helluva lot stronger than anything they’d serve in the supper room.
***
Thunder rumbled in the distance as Star stared through the
gloom of the night at the white netting of her bed’s canopy. A second set of
storms passing by, after the first set had brought cool, dry air, which ought
to help her sleep. But not tonight. Tonight her ears were tuned to the sound of
Nick’s heavy footstep on the stairs across from her bedroom. He had a corner
room, with her room next to his, and a bathroom and the nursery separating hers
from Lee’s room. The rest of the bedrooms were on the opposite side of the
stairwell, thus any step she heard pass by her door must necessarily be
Nicholas’s. So far, however, she’d heard no steps.
When she had returned, early, from the ball two hours
earlier, Nicholas had been in the parlor, still in ball dress, with a drink in
one hand and a book in the other. He’d seemed disturbed. In fact, he’d seemed
increasingly disturbed these two weeks since the disaster on the beach. She
could not understand it. She’d done everything he’d asked, gracefully accepting
his decision and treating him in the platonic manner he’d requested since their
first meeting. It had been tremendously difficult; her skin and lips yearned
for his touch, while her heart pleaded for a far deeper relationship.
In desperation, she’d turned her attention toward other men
whom she’d once found attractive. Leander Cushing, in particular, newly arrived
from a trip to Paris, who had once set her senses reeling. But in two weeks,
she’d not mustered even lukewarm feelings for any of them. All she could think
of was Nicholas, in spite of the fact that he’d grown unusually short-tempered.
On occasion, he even snapped at her, which was so unlike her easy-going cowboy
as to resemble Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.