ToLoveaLady (2 page)

Charles scowled and turned to his valet, Gordon, who had been reading over his shoulder while appearing not to do so. “Why doesn’t he plague one of my brothers with this? There’s nothing on this list Reg or Cam or one of the estate managers couldn’t just as well see to.”

“Begging your pardon, m’lord, but I don’t expect your brothers could marry Lady Cecily in your stead.” Gordon had perfected the perfect British valet’s knack for stating painfully annoying truths without a trace of smugness on his face.

Cecily. Guilt stabbed at Charles whenever he thought of his fiancé. Lady Cecily Thorndale was a pampered, beautiful child. He’d been wrong to agree to his father’s scheme to marry him off to the girl.
 

He carefully re-folded the letter in thirds and slid it back into the envelope. “We’d best be going, or I’ll be late for dinner.” He led the way through the half-dozen ranchers and townspeople who milled near the store’s entrance, greeting each by name. “Hello, Bryce. Good evening, Dillon. Good to see you, Joe. No, I haven’t got time to stop. I’m due at the Educational Society’s
soiree
. Bad form to keep the ladies waiting, don’t you know.”

“Would you like to dictate a reply to your father’s letter, m’lord?” Gordon asked as he followed Charles out into the street.
 

“I ought to write and tell him I’ve no intention of returning home any time soon, and certainly no intention of rushing into marriage with Cecily Thorndale.” Charles buttoned his coat close around him as the January cold hit him full force. Like everything else in his new home, Texas weather offered variety; two days hence he might be strolling the streets in shirt sleeves.

“Pardon me, m’lord, but I thought you were quite fond of Lady Thorndale,” Gordon interrupted his thoughts on the weather.

“Nothing’s wrong with Cecily.” He automatically touched the brim of his hat and bowed as he passed a trio of matrons. The women smiled and blushed like school girls. “Cecily is perfect,” he continued. “As I recall, she is the perfect hostess. A charming dancer, competent musician, talented in watercolors and needlework. From birth, she has been groomed to be the proper British lady. She’ll make a perfect wife. For someone else. I’m too young to wed.”

Gordon coughed behind his hand. “I believe your father had been wed six years by the time he was your age, m’lord.”

Charles gave his valet a haughty look. “That’s all well and good for you to remind me. Father spent his youth roaming the globe. I’ve done precious little with my days.” He fixed a cheerful look on his face and raised his hand in greeting to a pair of cowboys lounging outside a saloon. They whooped and raised their hats in answer.

Gordon glanced at the cowboys, then back at his master. “I always thought it was your choice to remain home and learn the family business.”

“Hah!” Charles snorted. “You should know as well as I, choice had precious little to do with it. I’ve spent my life shadowing the earl because he chose for me to do so. Just as he chose for Reg to enter the service and Cam to take up the clerical collar. Just as he’s chosen for me to marry Cecily. Deuces, Gordon, I hardly know the girl.”
 

They paused at an intersection and waited for a freighter to guide his team across. He cracked his whip and gave them a gap-toothed grin. “Howdy, Charlie!” he called.

Charles returned the greeting. “I say, Gus. Do be a good fellow and look me up when you’re back in town. I haven’t forgotten you owe me a drink.”

The freighter passed and the two men started across the street. Charles picked up the conversation once more. “Grant you, I’ve a mind of my own, but I find it easier to play along with the earl, then live as I please behind his back.”

Two freckle-faced boys raced toward them. They skidded to a halt in front of Charles. “Penny for your thoughts, Lord Worthington,” the older one said, beaming up at them.

“What do you say to two pennies? If you hurry, you can catch Mr. Perkins before he closes up shop.” He flipped two coins into the air. The boys snatched them up and ran off, calling their thanks over their shoulders.

“That’s all very good, m’lord, but how do you propose to break your engagement without unpleasant repercussions?” In that maddening way of his, Gordon refused to drop the topic. “Marbridge might very well press suit.”

Charles’s shoulders sagged. “If I keep putting her off, Cecily’s bound to tire of me and find someone else,” he said. “I’m surprised she’s stayed on the shelf this long, really.”

Gordon nodded. “Yes m’lord, as I remember Lady Thorndale is quite attractive.”

Attractive enough to make a man forget his good sense. It was the only explanation Charles had for his initial acceptance of the idea of marriage. Once he’d put some distance between himself and the girl, he’d realized what a mistake his proposal had been. “Someone else is sure to come along and make her a better offer and I’ll be off the hook, free for other pursuits,” he said.

Gordon looked skeptical. “And what would that be, m’lord?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But the day I marry, I might as well lock myself in a dusty old clerk’s office and throw away the key.” He looked away, along a line of storefronts, each more ramshackle than the next. Light spilled from their windows, making patterns on the darkened street. He thought of the perfectly proportioned architecture of his father’s estate house, every brick arranged in absolute symmetry, every day of life within those walls a replica of the one before. “You saw the letter – the earl’s already planning to saddle me with duties. I’ll have retainers and tenants and clerks all looking to me to take care of them. Not to mention a wife and family.”

“There’s much good to be said for a wife and family.”

“If that’s so, then let one of my brothers take a wife and fulfill Father’s wish for grandchildren.” He opened his heavy wool greatcoat and fished out his gold watch and consulted it. “Deuces, where has the time gone? I’ll have to hurry to avoid being late to this confounded dinner.”

“Word among the locals is that you have been quite looking forward to this evening, m’lord. Miss Simms said you were one of the first to sign her subscription list for the Academy.”

Charles turned up his collar against an icy gust. “Well, what was I supposed to do – refuse to make a donation after she rattled on and on about the value of higher education and the importance of this Academy of theirs to the growing families in the area? I fail to see why she and her women friends are suddenly so keen to introduce morals and higher ideals into the town. Why, I hear they’re talking of closing the saloons on Sundays.”

“They say they don’t want Fairweather to become another Tascosa or Dodge, with shootouts every night, and new graves each week on Boot Hill. They want this to be a safe place for families.”

Charles grimaced. “Where does that leave the rest of us morally bankrupt sinners?”

“No doubt you’ll feel differently when you have a family of your own, m’lord.”
 

“That’s just what I’m afraid of.” He had a sudden picture of himself, dressed in a sensible dark suit, his hair gray and thinning, forehead creased in a permanent frown. All around him, people clamored for his attention – clerks and tenants, half a dozen children with sticky hands, his wife nattering on about pin money or some other triviality.

Though he couldn’t quite picture Cecily nattering. She was much too dignified for such behavior. Cecily, no doubt, would heartily approve of Miss Hattie Simms’s efforts to civilize the town.

“Whatever your reason for donating, you’re quite the hero with the ladies,” Gordon continued. “Though I daresay, you’ve already managed to beguile the majority of women in town. Miss Simms seems particularly besotted.”

Charles groaned. “Yes, well Miss Simms is a pleasant young lady.” A trifle too
earnest
perhaps, always going on about one of the many causes which she supported. This week it was the Educational Society. Next week it might be City Beautification or the Temperance Union.

“I’m glad you approve, m’lord. I understand she’s to be your dinner partner this evening.”

He narrowed his eyes at Gordon. “You wouldn’t!”

Gordon looked offended. “No, I would not, m’lord. But apparently, others would.” His expression sobered. “Apparently, some of the women on the committee think it’s high time you wed. They worry you are lonely.”

“I am
not
lonely.” Ah, well, there were times when he craved the sound of a woman’s soft voice, or the feel of a woman’s soft body in his bed. But what man surrounded by other men wouldn’t feel those things? That didn’t mean he was ready to settle down – not with earnest Miss Simms, and certainly not with prim and proper Lady Cecily.

* * *

“Madame LeFleur, what exactly is it that you
do
, with these men who come to your
salon
?” Cecily addressed the woman who sat next to her on the hard bunk in Fairweather’s city jail. Fifi and Cherie, whom she now suspected were no relation at all to their traveling companion, perched on the edge of the bunk across from them like two brightly colored, disgruntled birds. Though it was warmer within the jail, out of the wind, the women had not removed their wraps, as if to avoid any more contact than necessary with the iron-walled cell and its grim furnishings. Cecily was doing her best to keep from staring at the white porcelain chamber pot situated against the back wall. She had never seen such a personal item sitting out in plain view. Compared with that affront to her modesty, Madame’s description of the ‘gentleman’s
salon
’ she intended to open in Fairweather seemed almost tame.
 

“Why, we provide entertainment for the clientele of our
salon
,” Madame said. “Estelle,” She nodded toward the ruby-haired beauty across from them, “is an accomplished
chanteuse
. Fifi,” She indicated the bosomy blond, “always commands an audience for her recitations.”

Estelle and Fifi smiled demurely. Cecily leaned closer to Madame and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Yes, but is that
all
you do?” she asked. She felt a blush burn its way up her neck and across her cheeks as she spoke, but curiosity burned hotter within her. How was she to become a woman of the world if she did not take every opportunity to learn?

“Oh, you are
tres curieux, non?
” Madame patted Cecily’s arm. “Perhaps you are wanting to please this handsome fiancé of yours come your wedding night.”
 

Estelle and Fifi tittered. Madame silenced them with a stern look. “I say it is
commendable
that you want to know. Of course, if more young women were like you, my girls and I would have much less business.”

Cecily’s face burned, and she wished the floor would open up to swallow her. “Oh my goodness, Madame, I never. . . “

“There, there,
mon cher
,” Madame reassured her. “If you will come to see me in private when we are free of this wretched place, I will be happy to share with you the knowledge you seek.” “But the sheriff said he would not allow you to open your
salon
in Fairweather,” Cecily said.

Madame gave an elegant shrug. “The sheriff does not control the land outside of town. We will find a place somewhere close by to open our salon. The men will find us no matter where we are.” She reached into the sleeve of her gown and extracted a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “Take this,” she said, urging the handkerchief on Cecily. “It will help to take away the stink of this place.”

Grateful, Cecily raised the bit of lace and dimity to her nose. The fragrance of rose petals replaced the cesspool stench of the cell. “Madame, you have been so kind,” she said. She smoothed the handkerchief in her lap and avoided the older woman’s eyes. “I’m sure you will think me terribly forward, but how can a woman such as yourself, a woman of obvious refinement, I mean, what led you. . . how can you. . .? “

“How can I sell my body for the pleasure of strangers?” Madame’s eyes were soft with sympathy at Cecily’s startled expression. “You are shocked that I would speak so frankly,
non
? I do not mean to offend, dear lady. And I do not mind answering your question.” She stared out across the cell, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “I was once a lady, much like yourself. Yes, I see that you have led a very proper and sheltered life. I was like you.

“And then one day, in France, I met a handsome nobleman. He was much older than I, so very rich and so very handsome. I could not help myself. I fell in love, and allowed him to seduce me. Only later, when it was too late, I discovered the man I loved was already married to another.” She sighed. “So you see, already ruined, I had no path open to me but to become another man’s mistress. Unsatisfied with that arrangement, I decided to come to America, to go into business for myself.”

“How terrible for you,” Cecily murmured.

Madame smiled sadly. “I have accepted my fate. And I do not find it so terrible now. These two,” She indicated Fifi and Estelle. “These two were never ladies. When I found them, working the streets, they knew nothing, they had nothing. I have taken them and taught them everything.”

Cecily had noticed, when it came time for the Sheriff to issue a receipt to each of them for their personal belongings, the two younger women had marked a simple X in the ledger in the space for their name. She leaned toward them, curiosity once again overwhelming her manners. “Do. . . do you enjoy your. . . your work?” she asked. “I mean, have you ever thought of doing something else?”