Jane Bonander (19 page)

“If we’re not careful, it may come to that. Humor me. Please. I’m only thinking of your safety.”

She sighed again. At least that was something. She turned to leave, then remembered what she had come into the room to tell him. “I’d appreciate it if you would be a good host tonight. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how I feel about Charles. I never quite forgave him for not trying to get me out of Trenway, although he probably couldn’t have done anything about it anyway. He’s not a powerful man. Not like you.”

A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth. “Are you buttering me up?”

She bit her lip and grinned. “No, but he’s staying for dinner. Alice invited him.”

“And the night, too, I suspect.”

“Yes.” She studied his handsome face. “I was happy to see him, Tristan.” She gave him a smile and shrugged. “It was my first link with home since Uncle Martin put me away. In spite of your feelings, you will be a good host, won’t you?”

“In spite of my feelings, I’ll try.”

She turned to her gowns and studied them.

“Dinah?” His gaze locked on to her chest again. “Change your dress. Wear the purple one.”

“The purple one? You can’t be serious. I look like a spinsterish schoolmarm in that gown. Lord, next you’ll demand that I wear the binder.”

“That was my next request.” He gave her a quick smile before he disappeared.

She wrinkled her nose. He wasn’t serious, not when he smiled like that. She turned and studied her gowns again, grimacing when she found the purple one. She hadn’t liked it when she’d tried it on, but for some reason, Tristan had insisted they get it. Had it been silk or velvet, it might have been pretty. As it was, it looked no better than the gown she’d arrived in.

He wouldn’t truly want her to wear it. He was probably just testing her to see if she’d become a dutiful wife. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to change overnight.

She searched through her new gowns, stopping at one with a shaped, jacket-like bodice and apron of coral faille. It had a scarf and train of ivory silk and fine wool and the chenille garland trimmings were of green foliage, caught at the waist and train by red poppies. The square neckline and shoulder-strap sleeves drew her. Steam would come out of Tristan’s ears if she wore it tonight.

Uttering a menacing sigh of pleasure, she lifted the gown from the rod, draped it over her arm and went into her room to dress for dinner.

With nervous fingers, Dinah touched the gold pendant that hung from the black velvet dog collar at her throat. As she descended the stairs, she heard Tristan’s voice coming from the great room. Fortunately, he sounded civil. She pulled her new Chantilly shawl around her shoulders; the room might turn chilly, despite the fire, once he saw what she was wearing.

She crept to the door, intending to listen briefly to their conversation: It wasn’t meant to be. Both men turned toward the doorway as if she’d sent each a signal.

When Tristan took in her attire, he appeared to want to throttle her. Charles, on the other hand, was properly, impressed.

“Dinah! You look ravishing.” He hurried to her side.

“Why, thank you, Charles.” She took his arm and stepped into the room, her gaze returning to Tristan’s. She almost winced, for she detected a black cloud hovering over his head. His eyebrows were shoved down over his eyes, and she noted the telltale knot of muscles in his jaw just below his ears.

She should learn to be obedient, if for no other reason than to save her husband’s health. “I’ll have a glass of sherry, Tristan.”

His eyes were hooded behind his lids. “Oh, you will, will you?”

She smiled. She couldn’t help it. He almost appeared jealous. “Please?” She lowered herself into a chair by the fire and Charles took a seat across from her.

Tristan poured her a drink and brought it to her, bending so close to her ear, she felt shivers the length of her body.

“I think you need a leash attached to that velvet collar that circles your lily-white throat, my dear wife.” He spoke in a whisper, his tone mingling menace and banter.

She couldn’t ignore the trembling of her pulse at his words. “And I suppose you want to be the one to yank it when I don’t behave,” she responded, giving him a sweet smile.

He returned the smile, but the devilish gleam in his eyes remained. “You’re beginning to understand.”

Charles cleared his throat and Dinah jumped. She’d almost forgotten he was in the room.

“I’m sorry your sister isn’t feeling up to joining us, Mr. Fletcher.”

When Tristan didn’t respond, Dinah answered for him. “She finds evenings very tiring, Charles.”

After another period of awkward silence, Charles nodded toward the ugly moose head mounted on the wall. “So, you’re a hunter, sir. I’ve always found it a fascinating sport.”

Tristan fixed himself another drink. “Those are my father’s trophies. I’ve never found much pleasure in hunting game.”

Another lengthy silence, although this time, Dinah looked at Tristan in a new light. She was happy the animal heads weren’t his souvenirs. At least they agreed on something.

Soon, Charles broke the silence again. “Before you came down, Dinah, I was telling your husband about the plunder of the buffalo. They say three million are killed every year, just for the hides.”

She sipped the sherry; it was warm going down. “I remember that sight from the train, Charles. It was the worst thing I’d ever seen.” Unlike every other passenger on the train, she found it so disturbing that after the initial display of carnage, she’d refused to look. She didn’t need any more pain to store away in her head. She had plenty of painful memories of her own to cope with.

“The farmers on the Plains still haven’t recovered from last year’s grasshopper plague, either,” Charles offered.

Dinah blushed under Tristan’s constant scrutiny. His gaze lingered on her, but she attempted to focus on Charles and his small talk. “All that wheat gone. How long will it take to overcome a disaster like that?”

Charles’s answer was long and drawn out. Dinah could hardly concentrate on what he said, for Tristan had stepped behind her and rested his fingers on her shoulder, as if claiming possession. He added little or nothing to their conversation, and Dinah drank her sherry a bit too quickly, accepting another glass as Charles continued to babble. She was so relieved when Alice called them in to dinner she nearly bolted for the door.

She was gratified as well when dinner was over and she could escape to her room. During the course of the meal, it had become imperative that she get away from Tristan. He had insisted that she sit next to him rather than across from him as she usually did. She knew it was no accident that his knee kept pressing her leg beneath the table and his arm touched hers. At one point, while he cut his meat, his elbow jostled the side of her breast, making both nipples stand at attention.

She had bid both men a hasty good-night, then escaped to her room and flung off her clothes, shrugging into one of Tristan’s shirts rather than her cumbersome nightgown. She hugged herself, running her palms over the soft fabric of the shirtsleeves. She enjoyed the loose-fitting garment, savored the freedom of having her legs free and unencumbered by her heavy cotton gown.

She stood before the window, listening to the muted sounds of night that came through the glass. Crickets. An owl. A frog in the garden. She smiled. Two frogs. Playing a mating game, perhaps. She often wondered if that’s what she and Tristan were doing.

There was a soft sound behind her.

“You left me to show your guest where to sleep.”

She didn’t turn, but continued to stare out the window, even though the sound of his voice sent shivers over her skin. “I would imagine, then, that he’s bedded down in the barn.”

Tristan chuckled quietly. “It crossed my mind.”

She smiled as well. “I have no doubt that it did. You weren’t an especially good host, Tristan.” She felt, rather than heard, him come up behind her. Her body tensed.

“I’ve been gone for six damned days, and you expect me to entertain your house guest?”

His voice so close to her ear intensified the fluttering she already felt in the pit of her stomach. “I guess I couldn’t hope for more than civility. You were civil, Tristan. For that I thank you.”

His hands found her shoulders. She closed her eyes at his touch and leaned into him, enjoying the sensation of his breath against her cheek as he bent close.

“Entertaining choice of night apparel.” He unbuttoned the shirt, his palms grazing her nipples. “Also an interesting gown you wore for dinner. Somehow I knew you would defy me. Women who appeal to me often do. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to them.”

“Does your balloon-breasted mistress defy you?” She couldn’t leave it alone. She’d wanted to, but it wasn’t possible. She had to know.

His fingers stopped and he spun her to face him. Even in the dim light from the lamp at her bedside, she could see the fury etched on his features.

“I’m going to tell you this one time, and one time only. I have no mistress. I haven’t slept with a woman in nearly a year.”

“But you said—”

“Damn what I said. Anything I might have told you about a mistress was said because I wanted you to know that at that time, this marriage was a pretense.”

She swallowed. “At that time?”

He turned from her, presenting his handsome profile. She ached with love for him. Did she dare believe she would truly have a real marriage?

“I had every intention of keeping you pure, Dinah. I’m basically an honorable man, I think, but—”

“Keep me pure for what?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he raised his arms, bracing them against either side of the window. “Once I learned who you were and that you’d been in the asylum, I wasn’t even sure you hadn’t already been violated.”

“Daisy found ways to keep me safe.” His concern softened her.

“She must have been a special woman, indeed. I don’t imagine it was a small feat to keep men of all sorts away from you.”

His flattery softened her more. “That sounds like a compliment. I think. I’m glad you find me comely.”

“You’re far more than comely, and I think you know it.” He shook his head and sighed, a rumbling sound that started deep in his chest. “If you must know, I’ve been fighting a physical attraction to you for weeks. Hell, before that. Even before I learned about the binder. I wondered how I could be attracted to a woman who had no more curves than a fence post.”

She reached for him, then drew her hand back. “I wouldn’t have minded if you had taken me, Tristan.”

He swung around, his fists clenched at his sides. “You should have.” He combed his hair from his face with his fingers. “I suppose even now I could give you to someone else in good conscience, if I had a mind to.”

She pulled in a sharp breath, her hackles rising. “You could
give
me to someone else?”

Unaware of her rising pique, he answered, “It was my hope that you would find a suitable husband one day. I just wanted to make certain you were safe from your uncle.”

Anger swelled inside her like gas bubbles on a putrid pond. “Why, you arrogant son of a dog’s mother. Despite what Martin Odell did to me, I’ve survived quite handily on my own until now, and I don’t need your help finding a suitable husband,” she mimicked. “Pardon my stupidity, but I thought I had one.”

He grabbed her arm, securing it with his fingers so she couldn’t pull away. “I came home to woo you, to try to change your opinion of me. I was ready to acknowledge my feelings for you, and what do I find in my great room? One of your old beaus.”

Shocked at his stupidity, she shot back, “Acknowledge
this,
you lickspittle!” Doubling her fist, she shoved it into his diaphragm.

He let out an appreciable whoosh of air and doubled over.

“You…you
man,
you.” She’d run out of choice words to call him. She winced as pain shot up her arm. “Your wooing skills are woefully lacking.”

He uttered a surprisingly mild curse. “Somehow I’ve got to train you not to fight so dirty.”

“I don’t need training, Tristan. I’m not one of your dogs. All you had to do was show me some consideration as a person and I’d have been happy.”

“I’ve been an arrogant bastard, haven’t it?” His knuckles grazed her chin, her neck, the tops of her breasts. Moving his fingers inside the shirt, he discovered her erect nipples. He stroked them. Fondled them. His touch aroused her and softened her anger. It always did.

“I supposed you’d be offended if I considered you a possession.”

She could smell him. His woodsy fragrance, the brandy on his breath, the special scent of him that would not leave her, even when he wasn’t there. She locked her knees to keep from weaving toward him. She remembered Emily’s words about his possessions. Even though she understood them, the very idea that he considered her no more important than his dogs or his horse annoyed her.

“You can’t possess other people. Unlike animals, we can’t be trained. At least I can’t. If you find that an offensive quality, then go to the devil, Tristan Fletcher, because I won’t ever kowtow to anyone, not even you.”

His hand had been moving over her abdomen. It stopped. The whites of his eyes still glittered in the darkness. “Don’t be a shrew. If you think so little of me, why do you want to remain my wife?” He folded her shirt over her breasts and walked away.

He was leaving? Good riddance, then! “I often wonder the same thing myself.”

After he’d gone, she stared at the door, tears of frustration tangled in her throat.

They had resolved nothing. Now more than ever she realized that even though they talked, they never settled anything. They couldn’t sit down like two civilized people and discuss their problems because they ended up fighting.

Dinah rolled to her side, hugging her stomach. She couldn’t sleep knowing that he thought she was a shrew. She hadn’t meant to sound that way. She hadn’t even wanted to sound that way, but he often brought out the worst in her. How else could she feel, knowing he had planned to pawn her off on someone else as if she were no more important than an indentured servant?

When he’d told her his plan, she should have sat him down and quietly told him that no woman likes to be treated like chattel. Explain it to him. Patiently. But, no, she thought with a self-deprecating smirk. She had to fly off the handle and punch him in the stomach. Again. Hearing him calmly tell her he’d wanted to save her for some other man had made her temporarily insane. Not only because it was a stupid thing to think he could do, but because she loved him so much she didn’t want to leave him at all.

And what a way to woo her. She made a face in the darkness. He had a lot to learn. She wondered if other women had simply thrown themselves at him, giving him nothing to do but enjoy their favors.

She flopped over and stared at the dressing-room door. She should apologize tonight. How many times had her mother told her that she and Papa had never gone to bed angry with each other, no matter how heated their arguments?

Sliding from the bed, she buttoned the shirt, then crossed to the dressing-room door. She stepped inside; his door was open and there was light flickering in his room. She went to the doorway.

He sat in bed, reading. His chest was bare, brown and hard. Manly and enticing. No hair covered the finely cut muscles or the dark, flat nipples. His chest looked warm. Seductive.

Her gaze moved languidly to his face. Reading glasses were perched on the end of his nose. She smiled to herself, amused at the picture. He looked at her over the lenses, snagging her gaze.

Her smile spread. “You look like a very threatening schoolmaster.”

He didn’t return her smile, but his eyes were warm. “Did your schoolmaster often teach without wearing any clothes?”

Her stomach jumped, and her gaze swept the rest of him that was hidden under the bedding. “I suppose he could have if he’d looked like you,” she countered.

He touched his glasses, as if to remove them.

“No, don’t take them off.”

One of his black eyebrows went up, but he said nothing.

She gave him an embarrassed smile. “They civilize you.”

“Make me less threatening?”

“Something like that.” She fiddled with the buttons on his shirt.

“What do you want, Dinah?”

She studied the floor. “I came to apologize for punching you and calling you so many awful names.”

He closed his book and laid it on the table by the bed, removing his spectacles as well. “I deserved it.”