Staking Their Claim (10 page)

“We need a minder,” Nigel said. “In England, until a woman of the upper class married, she had a governess or a nurse to look after her—a strong, sturdy woman who could protect her and correct her if need be.”

“The only women I’ve heard speak of here are Doc Martin’s nurses. But I don’t suppose they’d be available.”

“We need to check,” Nigel said. “I’ll go into town and inquire.” He paused. “I never thought something like this would feel so right. I never thought I would meet the perfect woman, let alone share her.”

“You’re right. She’s perfect.” Cody sighed. “But I have to admit I feel a little guilty for at least not waiting until her mourning period was over.”

“Don’t feel guilty.” Jenny’s voice came from the doorway. She’d donned her simple nightgown and walked over to stand between them. Cody pulled her down onto his lap as Nigel pivoted his chair to face them. She leaned her head back against the cowboy and smiled.

“I felt so adrift and alone until… well, now I feel like I belong not just to one person, but to two. I’m so glad May took me in so you could find me. I don’t ever want to leave.”

“And you won’t,” Cody said. “You’re ours now, and we mean to make an honest woman of you.” He sighed. “I don’t want you to think that we don’t intend to do right by you. I’ll marry you in Coloma, if that’s agreeable to Nigel.”

“And then I’ll marry you in another town where nobody knows us, even if it means going all the way to San Francisco,” Nigel said. “Even if my marriage to you won’t be valid, it’ll still be valid in here, where it matters.” He put his hand to his heart.

Jenny teared up, and Nigel took her hand and kissed it.

“We may have to wait to marry,” Cody said. “But that don’t mean we can’t make our own private vows here.” He tilted Jenny from his lap and turned her so that she was facing both of them.

“Jenny Beaumont,” he said, taking her other hand. “I promise to be devoted to you all the days of your life. I promise to meet all your material needs, see to your happiness and health, and guide you with a firm but loving hand, so help me God.”

Nigel couldn’t help but smile. “Jenny,” he said. “I promise to do the same. I promise to make your wellbeing my highest priority, and to work with Cody here to give you a loving home free of strife. I promise not just to you—but to Cody, too—that I’ll share not just your body, but the responsibility of your care. I promise to treasure you always as our little one, and our wife.”

“I promise the same,” Cody said.

Nigel watched a flush of pleasure come to her face and felt her squeeze his hand as she was squeezing his friend’s.

“And I promise to love and obey you both,” she said with a quavering voice. “I promise to trust you and to accept that if you punish me, it’s for my own good. I pledge my body and heart to both of you… and…” She paused. “Wait. What of children?”

“What of it?” Nigel asked.

She looked from one to the other. “How will we know who it belongs to should I have a baby?”

Cody threw back his dark head and laughed. “I think it will be clear. If the baby is dark, she’s mine. If fair, she’s Nigel’s. But it won’t matter. She’ll be ours—a daughter to the three of us.”

“I’m so happy!” Jenny threw herself into their embrace. But then Nigel pushed her back, his face suddenly serious.

“Did you mean what you said, Jenny, about trusting us to correct you if you did wrong?”

“Of course!” Her eyes were shining as she spoke. “You’re my husbands—if not in the eyes of the law yet, in the eyes of God. And you’re also my guardians.” She furrowed her brow. “Why?”

“Because,” Nigel said, and nodded at his friend as he spoke. “I believe there must be consequences for your running away the other night. Even if you were running away for what you thought was our benefit, the truth is you put yourself in danger, and that’s a punishable offense.”

“You mean to punish me after what we shared?”

“He’s right,” Cody said, pulling her forward and pushing her across his lap. “You could have been killed, and you’ve complicated things for us by exposing your presence as a woman in the camp. Don’t you think you deserve a spanking?”

She looked back, her eyes swimming in tears, and Nigel thought she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, lying there over his friends lap. Cody had raised the hem of her nightgown, baring her round bottom. As he rubbed his hand over the springy mound of flesh, Nigel realized that living like this would require self-discipline. He would always want to be the one spanking or fucking the beautiful woman he and his friend shared, but he knew they would always find that balance—for her.

“Ow!” Cody had begun to spank her, his hand rising and falling to leave palm prints blooming in their wake. Jenny kicked her legs; the sweet little mouth that had been moaning earlier was now opened in a childish bawl as she sobbed aloud, her eyes scrunched tight.

“It hurts! It hurts!” She was bucking over his lap now, her legs gaping as she kicked. The inside of her thighs was sticky with their dried seed, but she was shameless in her flailing and Nigel wondered if Cody’s cock was as hard as his had become.

After her bottom was a dusky pink, the cowboy stopped.

“Are you going to be a good girl?” he asked.

“Yes, sir!” she wailed, still writhing on his lap. Nigel shifted in his chair to accommodate his rock-hard erection. The sound of her submissive tone alone was enough to have him nearly unmanned for the second time that morning.

“Up with you, then.” Cody set her on her feet. “Now, I trust you’ll do what we say so you can stay safe, right?”

She nodded, whimpering, and rubbed her bottom as the men stood.

Nigel looked at his friend. “I’m going to go see Doc and see if he has any advice. I bet our little love here would like a hot bath.”

“I think I can see to that,” Cody said, and Nigel headed toward the door.

Outside, he tried not to think about what else Cody might be doing while he was gone. But then he told himself, that they’d both take her separately as well as together, and jealousy could not factor into the equation except as a passing reaction. And as he walked, he realized that the feeling did pass quickly. With the two of them, Jenny would never want for attention, and he had quickly surmised that she was a woman with an unusual appetite. Yes, their little one could easily wear just one man out.

Once in Coloma, Nigel noticed some folks staring longer, and whispering as he passed. Yes, word did travel fast—so fast, in fact, that Doc Martin already knew of Jenny’s presence even before Nigel arrived.

“You’ve got every tongue in town wagging,” Doc said. “Rumors, too. When folks saw you coming out of Cora’s with that young lady, some assumed you’d bought yourself a girl to keep at your place permanently. But Cora quickly put that rumor to rest, and the magistrate tells me you and Cody Drake have an arrangement to keep that girl up there, and mine her claim?”

“That’s so,” Nigel said. “But we’re worried about her safety. She’s a good girl, but innocent. But she’s with us and has no one else, so we are committed to keeping her where she is.” He paused. “That’s why I’m here.”

“What can I do to help?” Doc Martin sat forward, putting his arms on his desk. A tall, bespectacled man of fifty whose dark hair was graying at the temples, he struck Nigel more as a professor than a mining camp doctor.

“The shopkeeper told Cody that you have a couple of nurses. In my native England, sometimes such women could be employed as caretakers for children and even older girls. They were protectors and disciplinarians, and could even see to the health of their charges.”

“Say no more,” the doctor replied. “I actually have someone who’d be perfect for the job. Her name is Mab, and like you she’s from across the pond, as we like to say. In her case, Scotland. She’s as tall as a man and as tough as one. She came over here with her husband, but he died in a rockslide and she’s stayed on with me. Personally, I think the work of stitching up cuts from fights or setting bones from accidents is boring her silly.”

He turned and called out a door leading to a dark hallway. “Mab?”

A moment later, a large woman entered the room. She walked ramrod straight, like a soldier. She wore her gray hair in a bun, and the apron over her dark uniform was crisp and white. Her nose was hooked and sharp, like a hawk’s beak, and she had a formality about her that reminded him of the world he’d left when he’d hopped a ship to America.

Nigel listened as Doc Martin explained the situation to the woman, who nodded as he spoke, casting occasional glances at Nigel. Her mouth curved into a small grin as the physician explained the need of the two men who had taken the young woman in.

“This is an indeed an unusual situation,” she said. “But it sounds that if anyone was ever a need for an experienced nurse, it’s you.” She stood even straighter as she recited her credentials to an already impressed Nigel. “I served in this very occupation in Scotland, and for some very fine families. I kept one lass until she was married at twenty-one, and she went to her husband as an obedient bride, for I do not spare the rod.

“A young lady’s health is important, too, and I will insist on bringing her here for a cleansing supervised by Dr. Martin. This town is a nest of filth,” she said, screwing her face in disapproval. “A cleansed girl is a healthy girl.”

Nigel nodded. He was well aware of the flushings young women of the upper class were subjected to, and the notion of Jenny getting one was not at all unpleasant.

“Our primary concern is her safety, of course,” he said.

“Don’t you worry about that,” the nurse said. “Before my dear Seamus died—God rest his soul—he taught me how to shoot. I’m as good a marksman as any man, and can hold my own.”

Nigel looked at the doctor, his heart brimming with gratitude. “Are you sure you can spare her? Were she in my employ, I’d be hard-pressed to let her go to anyone else.”

“Oh, I don’t want to,” the doctor chuckled. “But I believe the safety of this young woman is more important than having two nurses when I can get by with one.”

“It’s settled then,” the nurse said. “I’ll get my bag.”

Nigel thanked Doc Martin and went across the street to wait for Nurse Mab on the boardinghouse porch. As he leaned back his head to rest, his thoughts straying to Jenny, he heard the sound of heavy boots and looked up to see a large figure shadowing him.

“I suppose you and your friend think you’re pretty clever.” Dan Forbes’ graveling voice carried a meaner-than-usual edge as he stared down over his bushy beard at the Englishman.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nigel said, standing up to face the man.

Dan Forbes smirked. “Sure you don’t.” His eyes narrowed angrily under bushy brows. “I ain’t stupid. Everyone knows you and that Cody Drake have that Beaumont girl up there. I knew as soon as I saw her dressed as a man that something was up. But before I could work it all out, your friend had gone in and jumped the claim before I could.”

“He didn’t jump it,” Nigel said. “It’s still a Beaumont claim, only we’re mining it on behalf of the woman who claimed it in her brother’s name. If your argument is with anyone, it’s with the magistrate. Take it up with him.”

“I already have,” the larger man said. “But the law doesn’t favor the honest man. Sometimes a man has to take the law into his own hands.”

Nigel felt a chill. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means I hear that claim is showing color, but for the wrong people. I don’t like what you did. A foreigner and uppity cowboy setting up in my camp with a house and a woman and the claim I wanted?” He paused, pulling out a knife that he began to use to clean under his filthy nails. “It won’t stand.”

Nigel tried to keep his calm as he stepped up to the larger man. “Threaten me and my family, and you won’t be standing long, Forbes,” he said.

The two stared at each other, and Nigel knew what the larger man was thinking. They were in town; if he stabbed the Englishman, he’d go to jail with so many witnesses. Touching the point of the knife to the tip of his filthy hat, Forbes winked then and walked away.

A moment later, Nigel saw Nurse Mab emerge from Doc Martin’s front door, a large carpetbag in one hand. This time when he headed home, he had not an innocent-looking woman by his side, but a large, strong woman—and an intimidating one at that. The looks that greeted him now were not longing, but respectful. He wondered how many of the camp’s miners had come across this nurse when showing up for care at Doc Martin. She stood a head taller than some of the miners, and didn’t seem at all fazed by the hubbub and turmoil of the town or camp. She walked purposefully and briskly, staring daggers at any man who dared to hold her gaze for more than a second.

Nigel was eager to tell Cody about his encounter with Dan Forbes, but decided was best a discussion had in private away from Jenny. He was especially glad now for finding the burly nurse, who could, no doubt, keep their little one safe while he and Cody mined the claims. That was their highest priority now, for she was more precious than any gold.

Chapter Eleven: Nurse Mab’s Remedy

The arrival of Nurse Mab tested Jenny’s vow to obey her guardian lovers. The woman was stoic and curt, and treated her more like a child than the men did. She had flushed in anger when the nurse had asked to speak to them privately, but had reluctantly gone to her room, where she sat by the window and wondered what was being said.

When she came out, the men were both gone.

“We thought it best if we didn’t drag out the goodbyes, dear,” Nurse Mab said. “The sooner a young lady accepts the order of things without a fuss, the sooner order will reign.”

Mab walked around the cabin as she spoke, tidying things up here and there with a disapproving look.

“My name is Mab, but you will refer to me as nurse. Failing to refer to me by a respectful title will earn you a slippering. I keep a nice piece of shoe leather in my pocket and if you’ve never had such a thing applied to your upturned bottom, trust me when I say it is an unpleasant experience.”

“Wait… they’re allowing you to spank me?” Jenny was indignant.