Twin of Ice (4 page)

“You can’t leave yet. I got somethin’ to say.”

“Perhaps you could send me a letter. I really must go.”

“Come outside with me. I got lots of plants outside,” he said in a little-boy pleading way.

She hoped she wouldn’t regret this, but then maybe his “lots of plants” was a garden.

It was a garden: acres of fragrant, flowering shrubs and perennials, roses and trees.

“It’s as beautiful as the house,” she said, wishing she could explore the pathways she saw outlined in the moonlight. “What else did you have to say to me, Mr. Taggert? I really must leave soon.”

“You know, I used to see you when you was a little girl. You used to play with Marc Fenton. Course you never noticed me. I was just the stable boy,” he said tightly, then relaxed. “I always wondered what you’d turn out like, what with bein’ a Chandler and playin’ with the, Fentons, but you turned out real good.”

“Thank you.” She was puzzled by this talk and wondered where it was leading.

“What I got to say is that I’m thirty-four years old, I got more money ’n I know what to do with, I got a big empty house and an attic full of furniture that needs movin’ downstairs, and I wish somebody’d hire me a cook so me and Edan don’t have to eat our own food. What I need, Miss Houston Chandler, is a wife and I decided I want you.” He said the last triumphantly.

It took Houston a moment before she could speak. “Me?” she whispered.

“Yes, you. I think it’s fittin’ that a Chandler should live in this, the biggest house Chandler, Colorado, will ever see and, too, I had somebody do a search on you. You been to some real fine schools and you know how to buy things. And you know how to give parties, like the ones Jay Gould’s wife used to give. I’ll even buy you some real gold plates if you want ’em.”

Houston was recovering herself, and the first thing she did was turn on her heel and start walking.

“Wait a minute,” he said, walking beside her. “What about a date for the weddin’?”

She stopped and glared at him. “Mr. Taggert, let me make myself perfectly clear. First of all, I am already engaged to be married. Second, even if I weren’t engaged, I know nothing about you. No, I will
not
marry you, even if you ask me properly instead of making a lordly decree.” She turned away again.

“Is that what you want? Courtin’? I’ll send you roses every day until the weddin’.”

She stopped again, took a deep breath, and faced him. “I do
not
want you to court me. In fact, I’m not sure I ever want to see you again. I came to see your house and I thank you for showing me. Now, Mr. Taggert, I want to go home, and if you want a wife perhaps you should look at one of the many unattached women in this town. I’m sure you can find another so-called true, deep-down lady.” With that, Houston turned, and if she didn’t quite run toward the front of the house, she certainly didn’t collect any dust.

“Damn!” Kane said when she was gone, and he made his way upstairs.

Edan stood in the upstairs hallway. “Well?”

“She told me no,” Kane said in disgust. “She wants that penniless Westfield. And don’t you say nothin’ about I-told-you-so. I ain’t done yet. Before I’m through, I’m gonna have ‘Lady’ Chandler as my wife. I’m hungry. Let’s go find somethin’ to eat.”

Houston crept quietly into the Chandler house, making sure the stairs didn’t creak as she tiptoed up them. Mr. Gates trusted Leander completely and Houston was quite unsupervised when she went out with him.

As she slipped into her room, she smiled at her mother, whose frowning face was peeping through her bedroom door. Once inside, the door closed, Houston smiled as she realized that her mother was probably frowning because Houston was supposed to be Blair yet she’d just entered Houston’s room. No doubt her mother’d guessed their game and not liked it.

With a shrug, Houston dismissed her mother’s disapproval. Opal Gates loved her daughters, indulged them, and wouldn’t question what they’d done, or betray them to Mr. Gates.

As Houston began to undress, she thought of her evening. That beautiful house, so empty, so uncared for. And the owner had offered it to her! Of course, he was part of the package, but then every worthwhile gift had some strings attached.

Sitting down at her dressing table, wearing her corset and drawers, she absently applied cold cream to her face. No man had ever treated her as Kane Taggert had tonight. All her life she’d lived in this little town, and everyone knew she was the last of the founding family. She’d grown up being aware that she was some sort of possession to be acquired, as in “no party is complete without one of the Chandlers.” When the prominent, rich Westfields came here from the East when Houston was a child, it seemed to be taken for granted that a Chandler and a Westfield would marry.

And Houston always did as she was told. Blair stood up to people but Houston never did. Over the years Houston had learned to do exactly what was expected of her. Everyone around her thought she should marry Leander Westfield so she set out to do so. Since she was a Chandler, she was expected to be a lady, so she was one.

Dressing like a fat old woman and going into the coal camps was the only unladylike thing she’d ever done, and that was in secret.

Looking into the mirror, she saw fear enter her face as she thought of what Leander would have to say if he found out about Sadie. Leander liked things his own way. He knew exactly what he wanted in a wife: one without surprises.

Standing, she began to unfasten her corset. Tonight had been an adventure, a one-time happening before she gave up all adventures and became Mrs. Leander Westfield.

Taking a few deep breaths once her corset was off, she allowed an irreverent thought to flash through her mind: what would a man like Kane Taggert do if he found out his wife was the driver of a huckster wagon every Wednesday?

“Well, honey,” Houston said aloud, deepening her voice, “just make sure you keep your hat on straight. Real ladies do, you know.”

Trying to cover her laughter, Houston fell back onto her bed. Wouldn’t all of Chandler be surprised, she thought, if she decided to accept Mr. Taggert’s offer?

She sat upright. What in the
world
would he wear to the wedding? Perhaps a red suit with gold tassels on it?

Still laughing to herself, she finished undressing and put on her nightgown. It had been quite nice to receive another marriage proposal, to find out that at least not everyone took it for granted that she was Leander’s personal property. Everyone, including Houston, knew what her future was going to be. She and Lee had been together so long that she knew what he ate for breakfast, how he liked his shirts done.

The only unknown question was the wedding night. Well, perhaps after that one night Leander wouldn’t expect her to do it again for a long time. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men, especially after what happened, the night before her friend Ellie got married, but sometimes touching Leander seemed, well…incestuous. She loved Leander, knew she’d have no difficulty living with him, but the thought of lying with him…

She climbed into bed, puffed a quilt over her and prepared for sleep. I wonder how Blair did with Leander, she thought briefly. No doubt he’ll be in a bad mood tomorrow because, of course, he and Blair must have had a quarrel. They couldn’t possibly spend hours together and not be at each other’s throats.

With a sigh, she drifted into sleep. Today had been an adventure; tomorrow she would be back to her humdrum everyday existence.

Houston had to ward off Leander’s advances as he helped her into his carriage, and again she thought how oddly everyone was behaving. All morning Blair had been evading her, and she looked as if she’d been crying. Houston hoped Blair and Lee hadn’t had a serious argument last night, and that Lee hadn’t found out they’d traded places. Houston had tried to talk to Blair about last night, but Blair had just looked at her as if her life were over and run from the room.

At eleven, Lee had arrived to take her on a picnic, a pleasant surprise, and Houston had heard Blair shouting at him on the front porch. To further confuse her, Lee had been quite forward with her physically in the middle of the street and Houston had thought she was going to have to slap his wayward hands.

Now, feeling as if she’d walked into the middle of a play and understood nothing about what was going on, she sat beside Lee in the buggy. He just drove, saying nothing, but he was smiling. Houston began to relax. Nothing too bad could have happened last night if he was smiling.

He drove her to a place of big rocks and tall trees that she’d never seen before, miles out of town, secluded and enclosed.

He had barely helped her out of the carriage, in such a hurry that she nearly fell, when he grabbed her in a smothering embrace. She was fighting so hard to breathe that at first she didn’t hear him.

“I thought about nothing else but you last night,” he said. “I could smell your hair on my clothes, I could taste your lips on mine, I could—.”

Houston managed to pull away from him. “You what?” she gasped.

He began disarranging her hair and looking at her strangely. “You aren’t going to be shy with me today, are you? You aren’t going to be the way you were before last night, are you?”

While he was talking, Houston was thinking, but she didn’t believe what she thought could be the only answer to his bizarre words. Blair couldn’t have…Couldn’t have made herself available to Lee? Could she? Impossible.

“Houston, you’ve proven to me that you can be different, so there’s no need to go back to being the ice princess. I know what you’re really like now, and I can tell you that if I never see that cool woman again, I’ll be even happier. Now come here and kiss me like you did last night.”

Houston suddenly realized what else he was saying besides telling her how wonderful Blair was. He’d not only enjoyed Blair last night, but he never wanted the cool woman he was engaged to to return. She pushed free of him. “Are you saying that I wasn’t like I usually am last night? That I was…better?”

He smiled in an idiotic way and continued raving about how wonderful Blair was.

“You know you were. You were like I’ve never seen you. I didn’t know you could be like that. You’ll laugh at this but I was beginning to believe that you were incapable of any real passion, that beneath your cool exterior was a heart of ice. But, if you can have a sister like Blair who starts fires at the least provocation, surely some of it had to rub off.”

He grabbed her again before she could say a word and gave her an unpleasant, lip-grinding kiss, and when Houston managed to escape, she saw that he was angry.

“You’re carrying this game too far,” he said. “You can’t be wildly passionate one minute and frigid the next. What are you, two people?”

Houston wanted to scream at him that he was lusting after the wrong sister, that he was engaged to the cold, frigid one and not the fiery one he seemed to prefer.

It was as if Lee read her thoughts, because his face changed.

“That’s an impossibility, isn’t it, Houston?” he said. “Tell me that what I’m thinking is wrong. No one can be two people, can she?”

Houston knew that what had been a simple game was becoming serious now. How could Blair have done this to her?

Lee walked away and sat down heavily on a rock. “Did you and your sister trade places last night?” he asked softly. “Did I spend the evening with Blair and not with you?”

Somehow, she managed to whisper, “Yes.”

“I should have known from the first: how well she handled that suicide and she didn’t even know it was the house I’d bought for her—you. I don’t think I wanted to see. From the moment she said she wanted to go on the case with me to see if she could be of any help, I was so stupidly pleased that I never questioned anything after that. I should have known when I kissed her…

“Damn both of you! I hope to hell you enjoyed making a fool of me.”

“Lee,” Houston said, her hand on his arm. She didn’t know what she could say to him, but she wanted to try.

The face he turned to her was frightening. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t say a word. I don’t know what possessed either of you to play such a dirty little trick, but I can tell you that I don’t like being the butt of such a joke. Now that you and your sister have had a good laugh at my expense, I have to decide what to do about last night.”

Leander took her home and nearly shoved her from the carriage before driving away.

Blair was standing on the porch.

“We need to talk,” Houston said to her sister, but Blair only nodded, following her sister mutely into the little rose garden, away from the house.

“How could you do this to me?” Houston began. “What kind of morals do you have that you can go out with a man once and sleep with him? Or am I assuming too much? You did sleep with him?”

Mutely, Blair nodded.

“After one evening?” Houston was incredulous.

“But I was
you!
” Blair said. “I was engaged to him. I assumed you always…After he kissed me like that, I thought for sure that the two of you…”

“We what?” Houston gasped. “You mean you thought we repeatedly…made love? Do you think I would have asked you to trade places if that had been true?”

Blair hid her face in her hands. “I didn’t think. I couldn’t think. After the reception, he took me to his house, and—.”

“
Our
house,” Houston said. “The one I’ve spent months decorating, preparing for
my
marriage.”

“There were candles and caviar and roast duck and champagne, lots of champagne. He kissed me and I kept drinking champagne and there were the candles and his eyes and I couldn’t stop myself. Oh, Houston, I’m sorry. I’ll leave Chandler. You’ll never have to see me again. Leander will forgive us after a while.”

“No doubt he kissed you and you saw red,” she said in a voice heavy with sarcasm.

“With little gold and silver sparks.” Blair was quite serious.

Houston was gaping at her sister. What in the world was she talking about? Champagne and candles? Had Lee tried to seduce his fiancé? Had he planned something that had backfired so that he’d spent the night with the wrong sister?

Or
was
Blair the wrong sister?

“What was his kiss like?” Houston asked softly.

Blair looked shocked. “Don’t torture me. I’ll try to make it up to you, Houston, I swear I will, no matter what I have to do. I’ll—.”

“What was his kiss like?” she asked louder.

Blair sniffed and her sister handed her a handkerchief. “You know what they’re like. I don’t need to describe them.”

“I don’t think I
do
know.”

Blair hiccupped. “It was…It was wonderful. I never thought a man as cool as Lee could have so much fire. When he touched me…” She looked up at her sister. “Houston, I’ll go to Lee and explain that it was all my fault, that it was my idea to trade places and that you were entirely innocent. I don’t see why anyone but the three of us should ever know what happened. We’ll sit down together and talk and he’ll understand what happened.”

Houston leaned forward. “Will he? How will you explain that I wanted to spend the evening with another man? Will you tell Lee that his mere touch enflamed you so that you couldn’t control yourself? That will certainly be a contrast to the frigid Miss Houston Chandler.”

“You’re not frigid!”

Houston was silent for a moment. “All Lee could talk about was how magnificent you were last night. He’s not going to like someone inexperienced after you….”

Blair’s head came up. “I’d never made love to anyone before. Lee was the first.”

Houston wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be overcome with admiration. She was scared to death of her wedding night, and she was sure there wasn’t enough champagne in the world to make her react as Blair had done. Lee’s kisses had never made her forget anything.

“Houston, do you hate me?” Blair asked softly.

She considered this. It was odd, but she wasn’t even jealous. Her main thought was that now Lee was going to want the same thing from her, and how could she live up to what Blair had done? Maybe Blair had learned how in medical school but at Miss Jones’s School for Young Ladies in Virginia, they taught that a woman’s place was in the parlor, and no mention was made of what went on in the bedroom.

“You’re looking at me strangely.”

It was on the tip of Houston’s tongue to ask Blair for details of last night but she couldn’t. “I’m not angry. I just need time to adjust,” she said. “You’re not in love with Lee, are you?”

Blair looked up in horror. “No! Never! That’s the last thing I am. Did…did he say much about me today?”

Houston ground her teeth together, remembering how he had said Houston was usually so frigid, but last night…“Let’s forget this if we can. I’ll talk to Lee when he’s over his anger and we’ll keep it between the three of us. This may make things awkward for a while, but I’m sure we can work out a satisfactory solution. Let’s not allow something like this to come between us. Our sisterhood is more important than this.”

“Thank you,” Blair said, impulsively hugging her sister. “No one ever had a sister like you. I love you.”

Blair seemed to feel better, but Houston had some nagging doubts which she told herself were absurd. She loved Lee, had always loved him, had planned to marry him since she was a child. This one little thing, this one night with the wrong sister wouldn’t change anything, would it?