ToLoveaLady (5 page)

“The very idea!” Alice picked up a silver-backed brush and began to stroke Cecily’s tangled tresses. “You’re Lord Silsbee’s intended. This place is as good as your own, the way I see it.”

Cecily closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the soothing rhythm of Alice’s brush. But even this morning ritual couldn’t ease the tightness between her shoulder blades, a nagging reminder that things weren’t quite as settled as Alice liked to believe. She’d seen Charles’s face last night when she’d made that announcement about him needing her. Now that she was here at the ranch, the idea sounded preposterous. Why should Charles need her? From what little she’d seen thus far, he appeared to have a host of employees to help him run the ranch, and friends throughout the town. He had only to smile and he captured the hearts of half the women in a room. When he spoke, the other half fell in love with him as well. Why would he need Cecily?

Why would anyone need Cecily? Her mother didn’t need her to help run the household or entertain guests. Her father had little use for an unmarried daughter who could neither follow him in business nor produce grandchildren for him to dandle on his knee. She had no cause or job to which she could devote herself. All she had was Charles.

She opened her eyes and handed Alice her cup, then slid from beneath the covers. “Is Lord Silsbee awake yet?” she asked.

Alice set the cup aside and picked up a petticoat from the clothing she’d laid out on a chair. “Cook says everyone else is up and gone about their work. Made a point of saying that, she did. As if she expected you to rise at dawn like a common housemaid.”
 

She helped Cecily into a ribbon-trimmed corset covered in peach satin and tightened the laces, then picked up a matching petticoat of crisp lawn, its hem edged with a full twelve inches of handmade lace. “We are in a different country, Alice,” Cecily said as she stepped into the petticoat. “We must adapt ourselves to the customs.”

Alice gave a disdainful sniff and picked up an organza morning gown and started to slip it over Cecily’s head.

“Not that dress, Alice. The brown velvet habit. I plan to ride about the ranch today.”

“Not with Madame LeFleur and the other two, I hope.” Alice removed the habit from the trunk and carefully unfolded the full skirt.

“Are they awake yet?” Cecily asked.

Alice sniffed. “No. Cook informed me of that, too.”

“I imagine they’re used to keeping late hours.” She raised her arms and allowed Alice to tie on a horsehair bustle. “When you see them, give them my regards. I imagine I will be occupied with Charles most of the day.”

“Very good, m’lady.” Alice fastened the buttons of a fine linen blouse, with a jabot of more frothy lace. “I hope you won’t be needing Nick for anything this morning, as he’s run off, too.”

“Run off?” Cecily asked, alarmed.

“Oh, he hasn’t run away, m’lady. He’s gone off with some cowboys.” She helped her mistress into the skirt of the habit. “Thinks he’d like to be a cowboy himself. As if footman weren’t good enough for him.”
 
She gave a sharp tug on the tapes of the skirt.

“Not so tight, Alice,” Cecily gasped.

“Sorry, m’lady.” Alice loosened the tapes, then picked up a pair of hand-knit stockings.

Cecily sat on the edge of the bed and allowed Alice to fit her with stockings and a pair of high-button riding boots. “Hurry, Alice. I’d like to speak to Charles before he leaves to attend to his days’ duties.” What did a rancher do all day? She’d have to find out. From the cradle she’d been groomed to be the perfect wife for an English gentleman. She’d have to adapt those lessons to become the ideal spouse for a Texas rancher. She’d prove to Charles that he couldn’t live without her.

She stood and shrugged into a short, close-fitting jacket of matching brown velvet, then accepted a cockaded campaign hat, a jaunty ostrich feather trailing from its crown. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror as Alice arranged the hat on her head. Charles would see that she’d come to the ranch prepared to ride. She’d impress him with her practicality as well as her sense of style.

She descended the stairs and followed a long hall toward the scent of bacon and toast. The dining room, like the rest of the house, was elegantly appointed, with mahogany furniture, Turkish rugs and polished wood paneling. A silver coffee urn gleamed from a mahogany sideboard. A smaller silver tea service sat on the table, a folded newspaper by its side. But not one of the dining table’s twelve chairs was occupied.

As Cecily stood staring at the empty chairs, Charles appeared in the doorway across the room. “Oh, I see you’re up.” He strode to the table and snatched up the paper. “I trust you slept well.” He scanned the front page, not even looking at her.

“Good morning, Charles. I slept very well, thank you.” She smiled, hiding her dismay at his casual greeting. “I was just about to have breakfast. Will you join me?”

He shook his head. “No. I must be off. Ring the bell and Mrs. Bridges will take care of you. Goodbye.”

He tucked the folded newspaper under one arm and exited the room the way he’d come in. Cecily stared after him. Not once in the brief exchange had he even looked at her. Did he resent her presence here so much that he couldn’t bear the sight of her?

“Charles, wait!” She hurried to catch up with him.

He paused, his hand on the door. “Yes?”

“I’ll come with you.” She reached up to adjust her hat. “This will give me the ideal opportunity to learn more about the ranch.”

“Really, Cecily, I don’t have time to wait for you to change.”

“Charles, I’m already wearing my riding habit.”

For the first time that morning, he really looked at her. He swept his eyes over the cockaded hat, the close fitting velveteen jacket and the full skirt. Cecily knew the outfit showed her figure to advantage. Though she tried not to be an overly vain woman, she couldn’t help being pleased by the appreciative gleam that came into Charles’ eyes.

Abruptly, he turned away. “I’m sure you would find ranch work quite tedious,” he said. “You’d be better off remaining here at the house and finding some other way to amuse yourself.”

“I did not travel all the way across the ocean for amusement, Charles. I came to be with you.” She tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and gave him a determined smile.
 

She felt the muscles of his arm tighten beneath her hand, as if he were bracing himself against some blow. “All right then, you may come along,” he grumbled. “But there’s not much of consequence to see.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, they set off, Cecily riding sidesaddle on a roan gelding. Charles glanced back once to see that she was settled. Even that brief look was a mistake. She smiled at him and he felt all weak inside, like a man with a sudden fever. Why was this woman having such an effect on him?

She was lovely enough, he couldn’t deny that. His gaze lingered on the froth of ruffles cascading over her full breasts. Even the heavy cloak wrapped close around her did little to hide her nipped-in waist and well-rounded hips. He wrenched his eyes away, facing forward once more. He’d known more than a few pretty women in his day. Appearance alone couldn’t explain Cecily’s effect on him.

Perhaps her attraction lay in the absurd combination of neediness and confidence with which she addressed him. She’d led a sheltered life of innocence; if anyone needed protecting here on the harsh frontier, it was Cecily. And yet she’d had the nerve to declare that she’d come all this way because of her conviction that
he
needed
her.
 
 

He scowled and urged his horse into a trot. No, he most certainly did not need Cecily. She was no more than a pretty lure, designed to trap him into the kind of life his father had designed for him. As long as he remembered that, he’d be safe from her charms.

“Where. . . are we riding. . . in such. . . a hurry?” Cecily rode her horse alongside his, doing her best to maintain a neat seat during the jarring trot across the prairie. The feather in her hat whipped up and down like a fishing float, and her breasts jostled in a way that made Charles’ mouth go dry.

He reined his horse to a walk. “I’m headed over to Bryce and Alan Mitchell’s ranch to talk to them about buying some calves they have for sale.”

She nodded and shifted in her saddle. “Tell me about your work. What does running a ranch involve?”

He started to protest that ranching was a topic that would no doubt soon bore her, but stopped himself. Maybe that was the proper approach to take. Let her see life on a Texas ranch as one tedious duty after another. Before long, she’d be begging to return to England and the whirl of parties, musicales and plays to which she was accustomed.

“It’s very hard, dirty, tedious work.” He shook his head. “Most tedious. Cattle are exceedingly dumb animals. They get stuck in mud bogs, or eat poisonous plants, or succumb to strange diseases. They wander off into ravines and can’t find their way out. I and my men spend our time riding miles and miles looking for lost cattle or tracking down stolen animals. In the summer it’s a constant search for water and in the winter the herds have a disturbing habit of standing in one place until they freeze to death. Many’s the night I thought I’d freeze to death, too, sleeping out under the open sky with only a bedroll for shelter.” He hazarded a sideways glance to see if she was as appalled as she should be, but her face held an expression of eager interest.

“It sounds quite exciting. Exactly as I pictured life here. I can hardly wait to experience it myself.”

He stared at her, alarmed. “It is not the sort of thing in which a lady would be involved.”

She leaned toward him. “Do women never help with the ranch work, then?”

He shifted in the saddle. “No. Well, a few do. But that’s entirely different.”

“If I’m to be your wife, it seems –”

“No. I forbid it.”

She clamped her mouth shut. Her lower lip quivered and he wondered if she’d burst into tears, but she quickly composed herself. Still, he felt he had been too harsh with her. She was not to blame if she couldn’t understand the way of things here.

“We’re about to cross over onto A7 land.”
 
He nodded toward a dry wash ahead of them. “That dry riverbed – they call it an
arroyo
– marks our boundary.”

She nodded. “Is every ranch as large as yours?”

“Some are larger. However, the Double Crown is not my ranch. It belongs to my father and his business partners.”

“I like the name, the Double Crown. Did you think of it yourself?”

“Hardly. My father named it.” The Earl was accustomed to always having final say in such matters. It must be vexing him to no end to have Charles in charge now, even in a most limited way. That as much as anything had likely prompted his demand for Charles’s withdrawal. “You’ll find the locals don’t usually refer to it by that name,” he added.

“What do they call it?”

“The instant they heard the property belonged to a group of British peers, some wag dubbed it Nobility Ranch, and the name stuck fast.”

The slightest frown creased Cecily’s forehead. “Do they resent us, then, as foreigners in their country?”

He shook his head. “For the most part, no. The name is sort of a friendly way of letting us know that to them, we’re all on the same level. It’s one of the things I like most about this country, really.”

She nodded and slowly scanned the scenery around them. Charles followed her gaze, as if seeing the land for the first time. They had left the area near the ranch house, with its encircling corrals and outbuildings, and made their way onto the open prairie. The weather was milder today, the sun almost warm as it illuminated the endless vista before them. Not a house or barn or semblance of a road stood out against the sweep of grass that rippled in the wind like breakers on a vast ocean. The sky overhead mimicked the land, an azure canopy unadorned by a single cloud.

Charles reveled in the freedom of this open land. Texas was a place full of possibilities. But it was also a place with few rules or definitions by which to measure one’s life. Like a ship without an anchor, he sometimes felt swallowed up in the vastness.
 

“It’s very different from home, isn’t it?” Cecily said at last, turning back to him.

He nodded. “Yes. It is very different.”
 

“You’re different, too, Charles.”

“Different?” He rested his hand on his thigh and turned to look at her. “I’m brown as an Indian, I’ll wager, from this unceasing sun. And I may have added a stone or two, what with the manual labor no one can escape here.”

She touched one elegant finger to her chin, studying him.
 
Her gaze lingered on his shoulders, down his arms, stopping for a moment at the hand on his thigh, then skimming back up to his face. The directness of her stare startled him, even as a tremor of arousal raced through him.

“You’ve always been a most handsome man, Charles. Texas has only added to your looks. No, the difference I’m referring to is something else. Something in your manner.” She smiled. “Oh, you’re as charming as ever, to be sure. But you also seem more. . . independent.”

He could have told her Texas alone had not given him the new autonomy she sensed. Only finally breaking free from his father’s tight control could have made him a truly free man. And he fully intended to stay that way.