Texas Moon TH4 (20 page)

Peter assumed the boy and girl clinging to Carmen's hands were the Harding children, and the two young men and a girl slipping into the hall from various directions were some other relation to Carmen—and thus to Evie—although blond Evie bore no resemblance to her cousins' Mexican good looks. He was grateful that Janice knew them all. Maybe sometime in the next decade he would straighten out all the names and faces and relationships.

This was a radically peculiar household, a far cry from the sterile mansion of his own childhood, but apparently the family and home Daniel had been denied.

In the best parlor, Benjamin leaned against the fireplace as if he were as much owner of this house as Tyler. Benjamin's wife consulted with Carmen and Grandmama Sukey and the three of them disappeared into the bowels of the house.

A herd of children ranging from the age of two on up to Carmen's sister's approximate seventeen ran in and out of the parlor and up and down the stairs, toting musical instruments and strewing confetti. The children ranged in color from Betsy's pale fairness through the Hardings' tanned bronze to a toddler's gleaming black. Peter knew he didn't have time to straighten out the menagerie, but he was fascinated by the fact that Evie and Tyler treated every one of them as their own. Actually, Peter couldn't quite decide which ones actually did belong to the Monteignes.

Peter gave up the pursuit of knowledge some while later when he noted the lines of fatigue marring Janice's smile. They had sipped rich wines and coffee, nibbled at cakes and breads and meats that would have rivaled those of the best restaurants Peter had known, and the conversation had whirled furiously from the mundane to the outrageous. The time had come to put an end to the welcoming ceremonies. This was their honeymoon. Someone needed to remind the company of that.

Without fanfare, Peter wandered over to his beautiful hostess as she gave instructions to a young girl called Maria he assumed to be Evie's youngest cousin. The girl hurried off to locate the last of the children and send them on to bed, and Evie turned an expectant gaze to her guest.

"Janice looks a trifle weary. You will be wanting someone to show you to your room, won't you?"

If Janice were half as beautiful as Evie Monteigne in ten years, he would be a lucky man. Peter nodded gratefully at his hostess. "The last days have been a trifle hectic, and traveling is always difficult. As much as we are enjoying the company, I think perhaps we ought to think about retiring for the evening."

Evie's laughter bubbled from her lips and into her eyes. "You've spent too much time with your father and not enough time with Daniel, Mr. Mulloney. You're in danger of becoming a pompous man. Come, I will show you the tower stairs, but do not dare to tell me that it is only your weariness that inclines you toward bed. I have seen how you look at your wife."

Her laughter carried them to where Tyler and Janice sat together, discussing the need for expanding public education. Evie's last words fell into a momentary silence, and the flush on Janice's cheeks indicated she had caught their drift. Peter smiled at the bloom of color. Finally, he could take her to bed again.

His gut clenched when Janice glanced away from his eager gaze.

Chapter 16

They used candles to light their way to the top of the long staircase leading into the tower room. In this moment, the Gothic qualities of the approach to their bedroom held a vague appeal. Janice thought perhaps she'd had too much wine if she was finding humor in the situation.

She smiled in genuine delight when they entered the outer chamber. The tower was far enough above the trees for the moonlight to shine in far stronger than the candles they carried. A silvery cast illuminated an old-fashioned love seat in gold velvet and mahogany, a towering armoire that could date back to Revolutionary War days, a delicate writing desk sporting a silver tray and crystal champagne glasses—and a bottle of champagne. The Monteignes were obviously romantics.

Behind her, Peter laughed. Janice couldn't remember if she'd ever heard him laugh. The sound was vaguely delicious, sending a thrill through her middle. She knew she'd had too much wine when she thought that. She didn't have the courage to face her husband just yet, and she wandered to the magnificent bank of windows to look out at the stars. She was much too aware of the closed door to the bedchamber on the far side of the armoire.

She heard Peter pop the cork on the champagne and fill their glasses. Trepidation filled her along with the sound of the wine in the crystal. Here was the perfect setting for a honeymoon seduction, a second chance to see if she could overcome her flaws and become the kind of wife her husband craved. But even had she wanted this opportunity, she couldn't take it. Embarrassment as much a anything else overcame her as Peter handed her a glass.

"To a lifetime together, Mrs. Mulloney." He struck his glass to hers and the crystal chimed.

Janice sipped the intoxicating bubbles and dared to study her husband. Carmen was right. Pete was far more handsome than Daniel. There had been time a long, long time ago when she had fancied Daniel as the hero of her dreams. Peter's broad build was far more suited to the hero image than lanky Daniel, but Janice rather thought that Daniel's character was probably more heroic.

Still, it wasn't as if she was perfect. She couldn't resist the pull of her husband's dark good looks when he smiled down at her. She hastily took another sip of champagne.

"I don't want you to be afraid of me, Janice," he murmured, tucking a straying strand of hair behind her ear. "I should have treated you better the other night, I know, but I thought you more experienced. I know better now. I'll do what I can to make it good for you."

She blushed, a painful hot flood of color that seared her cheeks. She couldn't look at him. She admired the way the moonlight played across the champagne bubbles instead. "We can't," she whispered at the glass.

Peter's hand halted its caress. "Can't?"

"The train," she murmured nervously. "When I travel..." She couldn't get the words out. She was twenty-five years old and had never had to explain personal functions to a man. She didn't know how to do it now, especially to a man who had grown up in a household of boys and no doubt never thought about such things. "It's my time," she managed to get out before giving up.

She felt him studying her, working her words through that encyclopedia of a brain of his. She was quite certain the section on feminine hygiene would be extremely small. Peter's reputation back in Cutlerville had little to do with women despite his good looks. He was known as a thorough, humorless, highly intelligent, driven autocrat.

She was beginning to understand that he may have been expecting his employees to keep the same kind of hours and work as hard as he did, but that was neither here nor there. What she needed him to understand had nothing to do with business, but Peter knew very little outside of business.

"I see," he finally said, although his tone voiced less than certainty. "Perhaps you'd rather go on to bed then. I'll stay out here until you've had time to get to sleep. I'm still a trifle restless."

Janice interpreted that easily enough. She might not know a great deal about men, but she understood the source of their restlessness. She felt a twinge of regret at disappointing him, but she shoved it away with the knowledge of how much he had disappointed her. She wouldn't forget that they had made it to Natchez on her money, not his. He had a lot to prove yet.

She turned to leave and felt even more regret that this wonderfully romantic setting wouldn't be the beginning of something beautiful. She had always known she wasn't meant for the kind of love and passion that the Monteignes enjoyed, but that couldn't keep her from wishing. She felt a tear pressing at the corner of her eye as she watched moonlight reflect off the crystal prisms on the desk lamp. She was almost afraid to look in the bedroom.

Unable to leave so easily, she asked over her shoulder, "You didn't wire Daniel about our marriage, did you?"

He was silent for a moment before answering, "No."

Janice nodded. She refused to speculate on whether he had been ashamed of his marriage or just too contrary to tell his family. Peter's voice halted her again.

"I'll write them before we leave. If you come from Cutlerville, you'll understand that I'm not very close to my family."

There was a challenge in his voice, and Janice turned to meet it. He still stood in the window, his broad shoulders in the dark suit jacket outlined against the moonlit night. Her stomach clenched at the sight, but she had already rejected him and he had accepted that rejection. She no longer had to worry about that. Not tonight, anyway.

"I'm from a town down by Cincinnati. My parents were immigrants. We just ended up in Cutlerville by default. I wouldn't say I was from there, any more than I would say I was from Texas."

His face was too shadowed to read his expression. "You knew who I was though. Why didn't you tell me from the first? There must have been any number of opportunities."

Janice shrugged. "I knew your name, and I owed Daniel a great deal, and I knew you were innocent of arson. I did what I had to do. I can't say that I liked it." She thought he almost smiled at that. She couldn't tell for sure.

"I guess that gives me a better idea of where I stand. You despise me for being a Mulloney and married me because I am a Mulloney. I'm just concerned what will happen when I don't live up to your expectations."

"So far, you've shot down every one of them. That doesn't make us any less married. I'm not completely certain why you married me unless it was out of pity or gratitude, but I knew what I was doing when I accepted you. I'll honor my vows." She hesitated, then finished bravely, "I just don't want to have to raise another child in poverty."

She entered the bedroom then and closed the door after her. Peter stared at the closed door with more confusion than he'd ever felt in his life. There had been a time when he'd been confronted with the extent of his father's perfidies that he'd been furious and without direction, but that hadn't been the same kind of befuddlement that he felt now.

He understood, even if he didn't accept, his father's callousness. But he couldn't ever come close to understanding the woman he had married.

Janice was a beautiful woman he'd thought would stand gratefully and loyally at his side for the rest of his years. Instead, he'd found an enigmatic puzzle who in all probability despised him for what he had been and had married him for the money she despised him for having. That made no logical sense at all.

And there was still the matter of the child. Her parting words had been telling, a warning he didn't want to heed. She didn't want to have to raise another child in poverty. The words didn't mean Betsy was more than her sister. It was the way she said them.

Peter turned back to stare out the window at the dark shapes of the trees below. He felt a hollow where his stomach should be. From a few terse comments Janice had made, he'd gathered she had grown up in poverty. He'd never known the specters of poverty himself. They'd never haunted his sleep.

Even now, so broke he used his wife's money, he knew he had only to make a few visits and he could be working again, making good pay. He could wire Daniel and have funds within days. His children would never starve. His pride might, but not his children. How did he explain that to a woman who had watched her family starve while his own got wealthy off their labors? For that was no doubt what had happened if she grew up in Cutlerville. He knew his father's villainy and cutthroat hold over the working citizens of his hometown too well.

When he finally had enough wine in him to make it safe to follow his wife to the bedroom, Peter found her sleeping on the far side of a bed draped in finely woven netting. The breeze through the open windows lifted the edges of the netting and fluttered them in a soft dance around the ancient four-poster. The bed dominated the chamber, but he lay his clothes across a chair by the wall. He had difficulty undressing while he watched his wife sleep, but he somehow managed to get all the buttons through their holes and his shoes off. Janice slept without moving.

He didn't own a nightshirt, and the formal shirt he wore with his suit was too stiff for sleeping in. His spinster wife would have to become accustomed to waking up with a naked man in her bed. That gave him a moment's satisfaction as he slid between the sheets.