His Forbidden Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch (Spicy Version) Book 7) (16 page)

The girls laughed and whooped, and the men guffawed along with them, eyes zooming to all the places they probably shouldn’t have in public. Della even tilted her chest forward and asked one of the tradesmen, “You wanna reach in there and get my cash for me, honey?”

In an instant, the mood in the bank had utterly changed. The men who had come to withdraw their money were distracted beyond thought. Bonnie’s girls pushed past them to the counter, managing to flutter and flirt while making several impressively large piles of bills on the table.

“Bonnie’s always telling us we should deposit our earnings in the bank,” Pearl told Solomon, an exceptionally shrewd look in her bright blue eyes. “I figure it’s about time we opened those accounts.”

“But don’t you already have an account?” Horace asked, slack-jawed and more interested in what was almost popping out of Pearl’s bodice than her cash.

“These are
special
accounts,” Pearl answered. Her sharp gaze shifted to Solomon. “Bonnie says so.”

Bonnie. Everything clicked in Solomon’s mind. This money came from Bonnie. Some of it might have belonged to the girls, but whores, no matter how well-paid and taken care of, wouldn’t have the kind of money the girls were plopping on the table. Bonnie did well on her own, but everyone in town knew exactly where Bonnie got the bulk of her money from—Rex Bonneville.

A wide grin slowly grew on Solomon’s face and in his chest. Going to Howard and Gunn for help was obvious. Asking Bonnie to help him beard the lion in his den was a stroke of genius that he never would have thought of.

“Horace, give these ladies forms to open new accounts,” Solomon boomed as loud as Howard on a good day. “Then help me count this cash.”

“But you can’t do that,” Eastman protested. He tried to reach around Domenica to drag himself to the counter, but Domenica stood firmly in his way, hands roving his body. When Eastman let out a blood-curdling, high-pitched shriek, Solomon was pretty sure she’d grabbed hold of him where it counted and would keep him in his place more effectively than any revolver.

The door opened again, and more sad-faced, Haskell tradesmen wandered in. They blinked in surprise at the scene that was unfolding.

“And another thing,” Pearl went on as if in the middle of giving an Independence Day speech. She went so far as to hop up onto the counter, then to stand, lifting her skirts and shaking them. “Me and all the girls over at Bonnie’s have decided that from here on out, we’re only gonna do business with men who have accounts with this here bank.” The other girls whooped and hollered. “Because it’s only a good time if we’re all good and responsible, right girls?”

“Right!” they responded in unison, shimmying and hugging the men closest to them.

Solomon had a hard time not laughing out loud at the shift in events.

“You…you mean you won’t entertain us
at all
if we don’t have our money in this bank?” one of the tradesmen stammered.

“Not…not even a little slap and tickle?” another squeaked.

“Nope.” Pearl smiled proudly, dancing a few steps on the counter. “And you boys all know how far it is to the next cathouse.”

The girls laughed and made noises like it was a journey around the world. The tradesmen gawped and shook their heads, looking to each other for help and answers and finding none. The WSGA men could only stand back and glower…though Eastman could barely even do that with Domenica still in full possession of his…faculties.

“That’s it.” Grover reached for the withdrawal form he’d started to fill out and ripped it to pieces. “Rex can strong-arm me all he wants, but some things are sacred. I’ll just have to work twice as hard to court new customers.”

“That’s the spirit, honey.” One of the girls rushed to hug him. “Why don’t we go across the street to celebrate?”

Within minutes, the whirlwind of Bonnie’s girls circled through the bank as each one filled out a form for a new account as best they could, then grabbed a man and headed off to help them put their money to better use. Solomon went to work by Horace’s side, helping the girls fill out the forms and counting the cash. Bonnie had outdone herself. Whether all of the money came from Bonneville directly or not, there was more than enough to fill the cash drawer. Word must have spread about the girls’ ultimatum too, because within an hour, most of the men who had withdrawn their money that morning returned to put it back.

Eastman and the other WSGA cronies got angrier and angrier as the morning wore into afternoon, but there was nothing they could do. Finally, they gave up and left. Solomon prayed it would be the last he saw of them, but doubted it. At least he could be sure of one thing—his bank was safe.

“I’ve got to tell Honoria about this,” he said as he and Horace finished counting the drawer in the middle of the afternoon. “She won’t believe it.”

“I’m not sure I believe it myself,” Horace laughed. Solomon thumped him on the back. “You go tell the story to that pretty wife of yours. I’ll keep the bank open until closing. Something tells me it won’t be as busy for the rest of the day.”

“I hope not!” Solomon shook his hand, then grabbed his hat and headed out to the street, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

If Honoria had taken his advice, she’d be at home resting. He headed there first, but was, admittedly, unsurprised when he didn’t find her napping on the sofa or in their bed, as he would have liked. His wife was industrious and determined, if nothing else. He assumed she had gone to work after all and headed out again to Wendy’s shop.

“Honoria?” he called as he walked through the shop’s front door, bell jingling.

“Hello?” Wendy answered his call. A moment later, she stepped out from the back room, her and Travis’s sweet baby boy in her arms. “Solomon!”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Montrose.” Solomon removed his hat and nodded. He couldn’t wipe the grin from his face. “I wonder if I might have a word with my beautiful wife?”

Wendy blinked at him. “She didn’t come into work today.”

As Wendy’s expression pinched to worry, so did Solomon’s. “She didn’t?”

“No, sir.” Wendy shook her head. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning.”

Solomon frowned. “She’s not at home. I was certain she would have come to work.”

Wendy shrugged. “She didn’t.”

The panic from that morning that he had forgotten about in the midst of his wild day returned full-force. He tried to mask it with a neighborly smile. “I suppose I’ll have to look for her somewhere else.”

“Let me know if you need any help,” Wendy said.

Solomon turned to go, fixing his hat back on his head as he stepped outside. Where could Honoria have gone?

The answer hit him with a bitter twist of regret. To Dr. Meyers, of course. She wasn’t feeling well. She hadn’t been willing to worry him with the details, but he was sure of it. Of course she would have gone to see the doctor.

He launched into motion, hurrying down Main Street and around the corner to practically run up Prairie Avenue. Dr. Meyers’s house and office was halfway up the street, so by the time he reached it, he was out of breath. That didn’t stop him from taking the steps two at a time and bursting into the office.

“Oh!” Abigail exclaimed as Solomon entered.

“Is my wife here?” Solomon asked without greeting.

“Your wife? Oh!”

She didn’t have time to get any farther before Dean Meyers stepped out of his office. “Solomon,” he said with a wide smile, rushing forward to shake Solomon’s hand. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, too distracted to really hear them. “Is my wife here? She seemed to be feeling poorly this morning.”

“Poorly?” Dean frowned, more confused than sympathetic. “That’s strange.”

Solomon narrowed his eyes, as confused as Dean. “Not so strange, considering her condition.”

Dean’s eyes went wide. “You mean, she didn’t tell you?”

Panic made the corners of Solomon’s vision go black. “Didn’t tell me what?”

Completely inexplicably, Dean beamed as though Solomon had won a prize at the county fair. “Didn’t tell you that she’s not sick.”

“What?” Solomon’s heart stopped completely. His whole body began to vibrate on a minute level.

“She’s perfectly healthy. Dr. Abernathy confused her file with that of another woman who has consumption.”

“
What
?” The breath squeezed out of his lungs. He hardly dared to hope that what Dean was telling him was true.

“Yes, I’m so pleased to tell you that Honoria is the picture of health. Her coughing was merely the result of stress, probably from the situation at home. That is, at her father’s home. She looked quite well when she was here yesterday.”

The words were having a hard time to sink in to Solomon’s soul. Probably because he couldn’t believe that he would ever be so lucky. Honoria wasn’t dying. She was his, his very own, and she wasn’t going to leave him. They had an entire life ahead of them, a long, happy, fruitful life.

He loved her. The second realization hit him harder than the first. He had always been fond of her. He cared for her. She filled him with fire when they were in bed. He hadn’t dared to let himself give his heart over and to actually love her. But he did. More than anything he had ever loved or ever would love. And he could love her as much as he wanted for years to come.

Where was she?

“I’m sorry, Dean. I have to go find my wife.” He barely managed to push the words out before turning and running from the office.

Where could she have gone? If she wasn’t dying and if she
knew
she wasn’t dying, where would she be? And why hadn’t she told him last night?

He skidded to a stop at the bottom of Prairie Avenue as the realization hit him. She hadn’t told him last night, and she’d known the truth. Why? Why wouldn’t she tell him something so amazingly, blissfully wonderful?

Reason took over from elation and he pushed himself into motion again, heading home. If there was an answer, logic told him that it would be at home, in the private space they shared. Honoria was too good, too noble to run off without telling him something or leaving him some clue. He had to have missed something when he’d looked for her at the house earlier.

Sure enough, as he raced through the house looking for signs, he found a note folded on the kitchen counter. He hadn’t thought to look in the kitchen when he assumed she’d be napping. He snatched the note up and read it.

“
Dearest Solomon. Words cannot express how deeply I regret putting you through the nightmare of everything that has happened to you in these last few weeks. You are a good, noble, wonderful man, and my heart will belong to you always. If I had known that my simple, selfish request would have caused such devastation in your life, I would never have asked. Please believe me when I say that I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for your business to be ruined or for you to endure everything that has happened. If I could turn back time and prevent it, I would.

“
For you see, I’ve only just found out that I am not dying after all. There was a mistake with files, and I was given someone else’s diagnosis. I regret terribly that I forced you to marry me under false pretenses, and now that it has come out that I am not dying, that the whole reason for me asking you to marry me, care for me, and fill my last days with happiness has proven to be a lie, I am beyond devastated. Please believe me that I had no intention to deceive you. I may not have a fatal disease, but it is killing me inside to know that I have been the sole cause of so much misery to you.

“
I can only imagine how much you hate me right now, but I swear to you that I did not know that my death was a lie. You will probably resent me to the end of your days for everything that has happened. I cannot bear to see it, to know that you think badly of me. So I’ve gone home to my father’s house. It’s where I belong, and it’s what I deserve. I can only hope that you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me someday. Yours, Honoria
.”

“Oh my darling.” Solomon let out a heavy breath and sank into the kitchen chair. His heart ached as though it had burst in his chest. How could she think that he would ever hate her? It was an honest mistake, someone else’s honest mistake at that. Why would she assume that this was her fault?

Because of Bonneville. The answer came to him with swift fury. Bonneville and his spoiled daughters had taught Honoria that she was inconsequential at best and the cause of everything bad at worst. He should have seen that her past was more of a burden to her than she’d let on. Two weeks of freedom barely began to make up for a lifetime of emotional slavery. He knew that as well as anyone. How long had it taken him to grow past the mindset of belonging to someone else?

He wouldn’t stand for it. Tossing the letter on the table, he shot out of his seat and bolted down the hall to the back door and the stable where his horse was kept. There were more important things to save than banks and careers. The time had come for him to save his wife.

W
alking all
the way from Haskell to her father’s ranch while carrying a stuffed carpetbag was a crucial part of Honoria’s self-imposed penance for the trouble she’d caused. She was certain that she deserved every blister that would well up on her feet, every sore muscle in her arms and back, and every bit of dust that ruined the bottom of her skirt. She didn’t expect to feel a strange sense of pride in herself and strength—not to mention wonder—that she was able to make the entire miles-long trek without stopping to rest. She had grown in so many ways since leaving to marry Solomon.

Before she knew it, she was imagining the way he would smile at her and tell her how brave she was for making the journey all by herself. She couldn’t shake the vision of his surprisingly straight teeth and dark, dancing eyes. That only led to cozy memories of the way his body enveloped hers when she curled against him, the way they fit so well together in the throes of passion.

By the time she crossed through the gate at the edge of her father’s property and started down the drive toward the house, the voice at the back of her head was whispering that she’d made a terrible mistake to leave without at least discussing things with Solomon face-to-face. Returning home was just another bad idea in a string of bad ideas.

“Oh my gosh, is that
Honoria
?” Bebe was the first one to see her. All three sisters sat on the front porch, fanning themselves in the afternoon heat and sipping some sort of cool beverages. “It
is
Honoria!”

Bebe jumped away from Vivian and Melinda. It was only then that Honoria noticed Bebe wasn’t lounging and fanning herself like the other two. She was sewing something. Not only that, instead of wearing one of her usual flouncy dresses, she’d put on one of Honoria’s shabby old work dresses.

“Honoria?” Melinda shot to her feet, squinting as she searched to see what Bebe saw.

Vivian leapt up a moment later, and within seconds, the three sisters were racing down off of the porch to meet her.

“Oh, Honoria! I’m
so
happy to see you. You can’t even imagine.” Bebe slammed into her with a hug that caused Honoria to drop her carpetbag. For a second, Honoria couldn’t tell if her younger sister was laughing or weeping.

“Get off of her!” Vivian yelled, charging toward them with a straight back. “Honestly, Bebe. What sort of an idiot are you? Only a nitwit puts on displays like that.”

“Stupid cow.” Melinda sniffed. She crossed her arms as she came close to Honoria.

Bebe gasped and leapt back, straightening her skirt with jerky movements. “Sorry, Vivian. I’m so sorry, Melinda. I didn’t mean to be a stupid cow. But it’s Honoria.” She gulped a few times, almost trembling with tension and misery.

“So? Vivian crossed her arms now too. She tilted her chin up. “What do you want?”

Internally, Honoria second-guessed everything she had been so certain about for the last eighteen hours. In the span of two weeks, Vivian looked older and twice as peevish. Melinda, on the other hand, somehow seemed younger, or perhaps immature was a better word. And Bebe… Well, looking at the strain in Bebe’s face made it easy for Honoria to see how she could have developed an anxious cough.

Still, Honoria picked up her carpetbag, squared her shoulders, and said, “I’ve come home.”

The three sisters stared at her, mouths open, Vivian and Melinda wearing calculating frowns.

“Did…did Mr. Templesmith throw you out?” Bebe ventured uncertainly.

“No,” Honoria answered with as little emotion as she could. “I left of my own free will.”

“Why?” Bebe asked, or rather, implored.

“It’s not important.” Honoria lowered her head, losing some of her strength under the weight of the destruction she’d caused.

“Ha!” Vivian barked. Her peevish look morphed into a sour smile. “I
knew
Papa would win that fight.”

“Papa always wins,” Melinda added, equally as smug.

Vivian’s smile faded away, leaving her expression just plain bitter. “Don’t I know it,” she grumbled.

Bebe sent Vivian a wary, sidelong look. Melinda looked as though she’d eaten something spoiled. She and Vivian recovered fast enough for Melinda to say, “Well, I’m glad you’re back. I have two new dresses that need to be finished before the Founder’s Day ball, and Bebe here is a complete clod with a needle.”

Bebe wilted, looking like she might either cry or dissolve into a puddle.

Honoria sighed. “What work still needs to be done?”

Vivian and Melinda took her resignation as their own personal victory.

“The whole thing needs to be taken apart and sewn anew,” Melinda said.

“And when you’re done with that, this useless piece of nothing can’t even get the stains out of my boots, so you’ll have to.”

“And I’m not going to church again with my best bonnet looking the way it does.”

“And no one has tidied my room in ages. Rance is such a pig.”

Vivian and Melinda suddenly clammed up at Vivian’s final statement as if with some private and dire knowledge. Vivian climbed the porch stairs with the air of a woman going to the gallows, while Melinda darted sidelong glances of horror, mingled with relief that it wasn’t her, Vivian’s way. They likely thought they were as discreet as could be, but Honoria was certain the theatrics were just another part of Vivian’s unhappy marriage.

Before she could think more about it, the front door opened and their father stepped out onto the porch. “I thought I heard your voice,” he said without any particular show of emotion one way or another, narrowing his eyes at Honoria. “What are you doing here?”

Honoria took a deep breath—drawing strength from the fact that she
could
take a deep breath—and said, “I’ve come home, Papa. This is where I belong.” She’d planned to keep her explanation as short and simple as possible, but she hadn’t planned on the whole thing sounding like a colossal lie.
You
don’t
belong here
, that voice in her head whispered.

Her father took a half step back, crossed his arms, and looked her up and down. “What if I don’t want a despoiled whore like you living under my roof?”

Bebe gasped. Even Vivian and Melinda looked shocked. Honoria would have loved nothing more than to be surprised by his reaction, but she wasn’t.

“I made a mistake,” she said. “I…I acted impulsively.” That was the truth no matter how you cut it.

Her father continued to stare at her with a sneer. No one on the porch moved. If he turned her away, disowned her entirely, she had no idea where she’d go.

At last, Rex hissed out a breath and uncrossed his arms. “If you stay here, you’re going to make yourself useful. There’s work to be done, and someone needs to do it.”

That much was nothing new. “Yes, Papa.”

“You’re an embarrassment to the name Bonneville,” he went on. “I won’t have you swanning around town to remind everyone of it. You don’t leave the ranch from here on, and you don’t talk to anyone who isn’t a family member.”

“Yes, Papa.” It was what she deserved for all the trouble she’d caused, she reminded herself. And reminded herself again. Something deep within her rejected the notion, screaming out that it was wrong even as she worked to keep her expression penitent and her head lowered.

“You are not to be trusted around men either,” Rex went on. “If I so much as see you looking at one, I’ll move you to the barracks and let the ranch hands teach you what you’re good for.”

She snapped her head up, eyes blazing with fury and defiance for a moment. The mere thought of being intimate with any man other than Solomon was sacrilege. That her father would suggest pimping her out to his employees was unconscionable. But she was in no position to argue.

“Yes, Papa,” she ground out, jaw clenched.

Rex twisted to look back into the house, his expression annoyed. “Where the devil is Rance anyhow?”

Honoria blinked. Rance? What did he have to do with anything.

“Coming, Uncle Rex!” Rance’s shout came from deeper in the house. A few seconds later, Rance stumbled through the front doorway, nearly spilling to his face as he did. Strong liquor fumes followed him. “Uh, what’re we doin’ again?”

Vivian grunted in disgust and marched down the porch to the arrangement of chairs and chaise. She plopped into the chaise with a dramatic sigh. Melinda followed her, murmuring words of comfort.

“We’re riding out to inspect the herd,” Rex grumbled, his patience clearly hanging on by a thread.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Rance hiccupped.

Rex grabbed him by the lapel of his disheveled jacket and dragged him on, off of the porch and away in the direction of the stables.

It took Honoria a second to realize he’d dismissed her without even finishing the point he’d been making about the rules she should live under, as if, now that she was back where he thought she belonged, she was so unimportant to him that he couldn’t even be bothered to discipline her. While that sparked torrents of rage in her—something entirely new when it came to her feelings about her father—it was also an odd relief. He could bluster, but in all likelihood, he wouldn’t notice her if she was in front of his face.

“I’ll just put my things inside,” she said, not sure who she was talking to.

She headed into the house, Bebe lunging after her. “You can’t,” Bebe said.

“Can’t what?” Honoria stopped inside the front hall and turned to her.

“Can’t have your old room back, for one. Vivian made it into her parlor.” She leaned closer, eyes wide. “Actually, she’d been sleeping in there when she can get away from Cousin Rance.” She looked like she wanted to say more, like she wanted to gossip about Vivian and Cousin Rance.

Honoria didn’t have the heart for it. She set her carpetbag down in a corner of the hall. “I can sleep on a sofa if I have to.”

Bebe rushed to grab her arm. “You can sleep in my room with me.” The strength of her grip and distraught hope in her eyes made Honoria feel sorry for her as she never had before.

“Thank you.” She smiled and gave her sister a hug.

Vivian and Melinda were right about one thing. There were a mountain of things to be done around the house. Honoria set to work, surprised that Bebe actually deigned to help her. A lot had changed in just two weeks, though, and it looked like Bebe was one of those things. They cleaned Vivian and Melinda’s rooms together, fetched them lunch and made lemonade for them, then sat and worked on the sewing that Melinda wanted done.

Vivian and Melinda were in their element with two sisters to bully and push around. Part of Honoria expected Bebe to slip back into her old, obnoxious ways and was surprised when she didn’t. Honoria had forced herself to return home as punishment for her sins, but the environment she found was worlds away from the one she’d left. If Bebe had been so helpful years ago instead of aspiring to be as horrid as Vivian and Melinda, Honoria’s life at her father’s house might have been bearable.

Which would have meant she never would have begged Solomon to marry her.

“Honoria? What are you doing here?” It was late in the afternoon when Bonnie stepped regally up onto the porch where Vivian and Melinda were napping and Honoria and Bebe were sewing. Underneath Bonnie’s surprise was a light to her expression and a victorious spark to her eye. “Are you all right? Is something wrong?”

Honoria stood as Bonnie rushed across the porch to check on her. She glanced sideways at Bebe. Vivian and Melinda snoozed on, mouths open, a trickle of saliva running down Vivian’s chin. There didn’t seem to be any harm in letting slip to Bebe what was going on.

“I’m…I’m fine, Bonnie,” she admitted, taking Bonnie’s hands when they were offered. “Turns out Dr. Abernathy was looking at the wrong file when he told me I was dying.”

Bebe gasped. “You’re dying?” She looked as though her world had just crashed around her feet after being turned upside down.

“No, I’m not dying,” Honoria told her. She turned back to Bonnie. “I’m not dying. There’s nothing wrong with me. Dr. Meyers says my cough was caused by stress. I…I married Solomon under false pretenses and ruined his life for nothing.”

“Ruined his life?” Bonnie frowned, then shook her head as though the notion were bizarre. “Honey, I think you
made
his life.”

Honoria pulled her hands out of Bonnie’s and turned away. “The only reason Papa went after Solomon is because he dared to marry me. Now the bank is ruined. Everything Solomon loves, I destroyed, and for something that turned out to be a lie.”

Bonnie stared at her, mouth half-open for so long that Honoria peeked sideways at her to see what was wrong. The look on Bonnie’s face could only be described as incredulous. She shook herself, shifted her weight to her other hip, and said, “Honey, Solomon’s bank is just fine.”

Honoria blinked and turned fully to her once more. “What?”

“It is?” Bebe echoed, brow rising in hope.

“Yes, it is.” Bonnie did a terrible job of hiding the way her lips twitched into a smirk before saying, “Thanks to your father.”

“What?” Honoria and Bebe exclaimed at the same time. They were loud enough to rouse Vivian and Melinda from their naps.

“What’s going on?” Vivian demanded groggily, sitting up and wiping her chin. “What’s
she
doing here?”

“Can’t you stay in your whorehouse where you belong?” Melinda added with a grumpy, post-nap scowl.

Bonnie ignored them. “The men from the WSGA and Rex tried to pull one last rotten trick on Solomon.”

“Papa?” Melinda mumbled, gazing at something past the group consisting of Bonnie, Honoria, and Bebe.

The three of them ignored her, and Bonnie went on. “Rex somehow bribed all of the honest businessmen in town. Told them he’d refuse to do business with them and encourage his buddies not to do business with them either.”

“Oh no.” Honoria clutched a hand to her chest. “Those were just the sort of people Solomon was counting on to support him.”

“Exactly.” Bonnie crossed her arms, expression pinched with anger. “It almost worked too. They were flying over to the bank in droves to withdraw their money.”

Honoria shrugged and shook her head. “So what happened? You said the bank was fine.”