Jane Bonander (9 page)

“They are exquisite.”

She stood hastily, her breasts jiggling from the movement.

“It’s criminal to flatten them with anything but your lover’s hands,” he remarked lazily.

Heat flooded her face as she scrambled into her robe. “I hope you’ve had a good, hard look, Tristan Fletcher, because it’s the last one you’ll get.”

“Don’t be childish, Dinah.” His liquid, arrogant stare heated her blood. “Not only will I see them whenever I want, I’ll touch them”—He took a step toward her, reached beneath her robe and cupped one—” whenever and wherever I want.”

She swallowed hard, attempting without success to ignore what he was doing to her. “Are you changing the rules?”

His hands rested on her hips. “Rules?”

“In the agreement, you promised to be a gentleman and not touch me.” She was amazed that she could sound so rational when acrobats did tumbles in her stomach.

He dropped his arms to his sides. A dry smile touched his lips, his eyes were cold. “My apologies. I’ll remember that I’m to find my pleasure elsewhere from now on.”

He strode from the room, leaving her angry and confused and aching with desire. She slumped onto the bed and scowled, biting back a frustrated scream. If he would leave her alone, she could get through this. If he didn’t, well, she didn’t know what she’d do. All she knew for certain was that his touch did something to her that she’d never felt before. The worst part was, she’d enjoyed it.

Tristan bolted for the brandy the moment he got to his study. What had gotten into him? He poured himself a drink, noting that his hands shook.

Hell, he knew. He’d been so shocked to see what she’d done to herself, he’d nearly gone crazy. Breast binder. He swore again. He didn’t care if this marriage was a sham, no wife of his would wear such a stupid, inane device.

He flung himself into his chair and took a healthy swig of liquor, holding it in his mouth until the insides of his cheeks stung.

Trenway. She’d worn the binder to keep the guards at the asylum from noticing her. Accosting her. A physical anger twisted at his guts, and he sucked in a painful breath of air. Thoughts of anyone touching her made him ill. Images of what some lust-filled guards could have done to her tore at him, leaving him in agony about things he could only imagine. His shame deepened when he realized he was no better than they.

Scowling into his drink, he swore. When he had first seen her breasts, he had wanted to change the rules. He’d silently vowed to take her on their wedding night, make her his wife in every way. His body had ruled. He’d lived like a monk for long enough, damn it, and a wife was the perfect receptacle for his lust.

He finished his brandy, then ground the balls of his thumbs into his eyes. He couldn’t do that. If she’d had to fight off the unwanted advances of asylum guards, she was probably traumatized. What was wrong with him? He’d promised not to touch her, and he had to keep his word. His father had told him it was the most important thing a man had.

Once Martin Odell was no longer a threat to Dinah, Tristan vowed again that he would have the marriage annulled so she would be free to make her own choices.

He dropped his arm, allowing the snifter to dangle from his fingers. He swung it rhythmically. Why did he care what happened to Dinah Odell, anyway? He barely knew her.

With a heavy sigh, he closed his eyes. Yes, he barely knew her, but he couldn’t tolerate men who preyed on women, and Martin Odell was preying on Dinah like a vulture on carrion.

He enjoyed thwarting men like Odell. Maybe that was the reason he was willing to go through with this. Perhaps it had nothing at all to do with Dinah and everything to do with her uncle.

Real marriage was a foolish trap, anyway. He hadn’t known one union that was happy. Well, he amended, Lucas appeared to be. And, of course, Wolf and Julia were happy. But they were the exception, not the rule. It was far better to arrange a marriage that he could control than to have one that would control him.

The vision of Dinah, bare to the waist, floated before him and he growled. On paper, everything had seemed perfect. Had Daisy Jenkins showed up instead of Dinah, Tristan was certain everything would have gone according to plan.

But this could work. He had to get control of his hunger, that’s all. He’d deserved her angry words. He was horny. It was time to find a good, loud mistress.

The idea made perfect sense. He was angry and surprised that it left him cold.

The day of the wedding dawned sunny and warm, as usual. Not since the day Dinah arrived had there been another storm. Hardly a cloud had marred the perfect clarity of the blue sky. At any other time, she would have imagined it was an omen of good things to come.

At any other time.

The good thing was that Emily’s mood had begun to lift again, slowly. Her depression seemed to come and go in cycles. She was on the upswing again.

The bad thing was Tristan. Since stripping her of her binder, and doing all of those other things to her, he’d made himself scarce. For that she was relieved, wasn’t she? In the quiet recesses of her mind, she wondered what she wanted from him. What to expect from him.

Before she got too involved, conjuring up daydreams that wouldn’t happen, she’d do well to remember that he had offered marriage to a woman he didn’t even know. He was only marrying her because he thought she was that woman.

She could never be like Daisy Jenkins. Daisy had been a saint. Tristan would have been lucky if Daisy had become his wife. Daisy was sweet, and honest, and good. Dinah was not. She was a liar and a coward, unable to tell him the truth about who and what she was.

“There you are.
Uff dah,
but there’s work to do today.” Alice bustled into the room, set the teakettle on the dry sink, then started straightening Dinah’s bedding. Dinah joined her.

“Don’t you find it odd that Tristan would offer to marry a total stranger, Alice? Even if it would benefit Emily?”

Alice squared the corners of the bedding. “Not so odd. Tristan’s given up on marrying for love, I think.”

An unpleasant feeling attacked Dinah’s stomach. “What happened to make him feel that way?”

“He was engaged to be married once before.” She tested the water in the pitcher on the dry sink, then poured it into the basin, adding hot water from the kettle. She stood back and frowned. “I don’t see why you won’t let me fill the tub for you. There’s plenty of time for a bath, dear.”

Panic at the mere thought of sitting in a tub was enough to remind Dinah that she wasn’t ready to try it. She had enough to cope with today without adding that. “No, don’t bother, Alice. This will be fine. Really.”

She couldn’t get Tristan and his other love out of her head. “Who was he engaged to?”

Alice returned to the bed and fluffed Dinah’s pillows. “Some rich girl from Boston. He came home one summer, all excited and in love. Poor boy, after his papa died, he didn’t get much loving from his mother. I don’t want to stir up Zelda Fletcher’s ghost, but she never did like Tristan.”

Dinah was astonished. “But, she was his mother.”

Alice made a grumbling sound. “In name only.”

“What do you mean?”

Alice stopped working and sighed. “I think that’s something you should ask him about.”

She would. She wasn’t sure she’d get an answer, though. “What happened to his fiancée?” She envisioned him losing her in some horrible accident, suffering the anguish of a lost love for the rest of his life. She couldn’t compete with that sort of thing.

She frowned. What had made her think that? She was in competition with no one. This wasn’t a marriage, it was a mockery of one.

Alice used the edge of her apron to wipe off the top of Dinah’s desk. “Once she found out that Tristan didn’t live in San Francisco, but on some lonesome ranch in the mountains, she called it off. No Boston city girl wants to live on the wild frontier.”

Dinah went to the dressing table, sat, and began brushing her hair. “How sad. But I still don’t understand why he would offer to marry a woman sight unseen, even if it was to stabilize Emily’s care. Any other kind of agreement would have made more sense than this.”

“Tristan’s a man of contradictions, dear. If you want answers, you’ll have to ask him. But don’t expect to get them. Getting him to talk about his feelings is a little like predicting Emily’s moods.”

Dinah had to try. She needed answers. Too many things had gone wrong in her life because she hadn’t questioned them. Never again.

“Come now,” Alice said, running her fingers through Dinah’s short curls, “take your bath, then I’ll help you dress. You don’t want to keep the groom waiting, do you?”

Not only did she want to keep him waiting, but she suddenly wanted to call the whole thing off. She at least wanted some answers. The situation was ridiculous. Grabbing her robe, she shrugged into it. “Where is he?”

“What? You mean Tristan? You can’t see him now, dear, it’s bad luck.”

“Horse manure. If this is a business arrangement, then none of those stupid rules apply.” Dinah sailed from her room and went in search of her husband-to-be-in-name-only. Or whatever he was.

She found him in the barn, preparing food for the dogs. He appeared startled to see her.

“Explain to me again why we must get married, Tristan.” Even to her own ears she sounded more confident than she felt.

He paused, then put two enormous bowls of victuals on the ground. The hounds approached their food with regal reticence. “Do you always run around outside in your nightclothes?”

She realized she had little on under her robe, but she was covered up well enough. She shook a finger at him. “Don’t change the subject. The letter I received said nothing about a wedding. I read it over so many times before I left Trenway, I have it memorized. Down to the dotted
i
’s, the crossed
t
’s, and the periods.”

She followed him out of the barn and into the smithy. An array of tongs skirted the forge. The fire was low. Even so, the warmth felt good.

“I don’t know what happened to the rest of the letter, Dinah. I would have no reason to lie to you about it. I may be a lot of things, but trust me,” he said, giving her a firm glance, “I’m not a liar.”

No, she thought, frowning to hide her guilt, but she was. It was certainly possible that Daisy had purposely not given her that portion of the letter.

“It’s only a business arrangement, Dinah. I don’t understand why you’re getting your knickers in a knot over it.”

“But why is a marriage necessary?” she probed.

“Because I want a binding commitment.”

“Then, why not just write a binding commitment? Why a marriage?”

He appeared to be losing patience. “Because women take marriage seriously, especially if there’s a comfortable sum of money involved.”

A quiet burning crackled through her. “So you thought if you dangled money in front of me, like a worm on a hook, I’d be a more willing worker.”

“Something like that.”

She studied the hard line of his jaw, noting the knotted muscles below his ears. “What if I hadn’t worked out?”

“Then I would have paid your fare back to New York, as I thought I’d have to do, and as I still can do, if you don’t stop asking so many questions.”

She bristled, a feeling she was becoming accustomed to when talking with him. “Don’t you dare treat me like a child.”

His face was hard and his eyes filled with danger. “You want answers?”

She had the urge to step away, but didn’t. “Yes.”

He took a deep breath, then expelled it and straightened the wood stacked near the fire. “Marriage is for fools. You’re putting way too much emphasis on it, because to me, it means nothing. It’s a word. Only a word. My parents were married. I’ll never understand why, because if I’d been wed to a crow like Zelda Fletcher, I’d have eventually gone mad, divorced her, or died young. I might even have considered murder. My father’s greatest flaw was his honor, and it brought him nothing but misery.

“So you see, marriage means nothing to me. I could as easily have used the words business arrangement, but I know women. Marriage has a magical meaning for them. It means security. Count yourself lucky, Dinah Odell. You can tell the world you’re married, but you won’t have to suffer any of the messy trappings.”

The calculated way in which he informed her of the details sent cold chills up her spine. “What if I refuse to go through with it?”

He moved a bucket of horseshoes with the toe of his boot, the pail leaving tracks on the dirt floor. “Then you’re free to leave.”

She muttered a mild oath. How did she get herself into such stupid situations, anyway? “Before I can leave, you’ll have to pay me my wages for the month.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“But that’s not fair!”

He turned and slanted her a dangerous look. “Fair? Let’s talk about fair, Dinah. If you leave now, you’ll be letting Emily down. As hard as it might be for me to admit it, you’ve done some very good things with her. Your absence would undoubtedly cause her to regress. Is that what you want to do?”

Dinah swallowed hard. “No. Of course not, but—”

“I’m offering you an arrangement no sane woman on earth would turn aside. The safety of marriage without the marital trappings. How much fairer can I be than that?”

She stared at him, her mouth open.

“I vowed I wouldn’t touch you, and I won’t. Are you happy now?”

“I don’t know. Should I be?”

“Most women would be delighted to have the protection of marriage and none of the obligations.” He was almost sneering.

“But, why would you want that?”

He spat a curse. “Don’t be cheeky, Dinah.”

“I’m not. I mean, I don’t mean to be.”

He gave her a cold, humorless smile. “Then you’re the most naive girl on the face of the earth.”

She knew she should quit while she was ahead, but she couldn’t. “I probably am. But if you had no intention of making this marriage real, why did you insist on removing my binder, not only from my person, but from my room, as well? Why would you care one way or the other what I look like?”

“Because you’re not at Trenway now, Dinah. There are no gawking guards from whom you need protection.”

“No,” she quipped under her breath, “only you, you big, ogling dolt.”

He moved to the forge. “Don’t flatter yourself. You might be an exquisite creature, but you are not my type.”

She raised her eyebrows, feeling both flattered and disappointed. “What’s your type?” She heard him curse under his breath, then he rubbed his neck as if trying to relax his muscles. “Well?”

He spun to face her, his eyes glittering like shards of blue ice. “I like my women to come with a bit of experience, Dinah. Experience in the bedroom, if you know what I mean. I like them to wear filmy, provocative clothing. Things I can see through, not virginal white nightrails that cut off their blood supply at the neck and wrists.”

She swallowed and brought her hand to her neck, remembering the snugness of her own chaste nightgown. “I… could do that.” Had she actually said that?

He gave her a dry smile. “I wonder. Could you howl your passion so loud that the windows rattled?”

She suddenly realized he was purposely trying to rile her. “I guess that would depend on you, wouldn’t it?”

A smile lurked at the corners of his mouth, but he swung away from her again. “Touché. But don’t offer me something I won’t ask for, Dinah. Surely you understand that many men find their pleasures outside the marriage bed.”

His words hit her like the snap of a wet towel. Of course. He had a mistress tucked away. She should have thought of that. Now who was the dolt? She felt a foolish emptiness.

All of her youthful daydreams about marriage had included a husband who would love her so much he wouldn’t dream of seeking his pleasure anywhere else. It had been fanciful thinking, but she’d been a child of whimsy all of her life. She didn’t know what she wanted, but she definitely didn’t want this, even if it wasn’t real.

“Why bother to marry me, then? I won’t do it.” She put her fists on her hips and glared at him. “I’ll stay, Tristan Fletcher, because I owe Emily that much, and I’d miss her if I left, but don’t do me any grand favors.”

His eyes were still icy. “You’ll marry me, Dinah Odell, or you’ll be on the first train out of here bound for New York.”

She tried to swallow the cloying nausea that pushed into her throat and lingered there. “What makes you think I wouldn’t rather leave than live under these conditions?”

He lifted an anvil off a stump as easily as if it were made of paper, the muscles in his forearms tightening beneath his brown skin. “I don’t like idle threats, Dinah.”

“You don’t like. It comes down to that, doesn’t it?”

“This is my house and you are my employee. It’s fitting for me to have the last word, don’t you think?”

“No. I think people have been letting you have the last word your whole life. Well, those tactics won’t work with me. This is my life, Tristan, the only one I have. You have no idea what kinds of hell I’ve been through, and maybe I should be grateful for any bone you throw me, but I’m afraid that’s not the kind of person I am. In many ways, I’ve already experienced what it’s like to be a prisoner. I didn’t like it.”

She stepped close to him, finding it necessary to tilt her head in order to look up at him.

“I won’t become a hostage in a hellish marriage of convenience, knowing that every night you’re probably out whoring with your mistress while I sit home knitting wool stockings and caps with silly tassels.”

He almost smiled again. “Somehow I can’t imagine you sitting passively by if you discovered your husband had a mistress.”

“You’ve said as much, Tristan,” she reminded him.

He took her arm and led her outside. “But this won’t be a real marriage. Believe me, if at any time during the course of our contract you find a man who loves you the way you deserve, I will set you free. Hell, I’ll give you away, and with a dowry besides. This is temporary. Damn it, Dinah, don’t think of it as a marriage. Think of it as … as an investment in your future.”

She stared at him, unable to believe anyone could be so overbearing. “You are bloody incredible.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m doing?”

“You really don’t know, do you?”

He spread his arms wide. “Crucify me for trying to make your pitiful life easier.”

She clutched her stomach, unwilling to believe he was so impossibly arrogant. If he knew how pitiful her life really was, he wouldn’t be so callous.

“My life may be pitiful, but it is my life.” She shrugged a sigh and dug at the dirt with her slipper. “The only thing that’s keeping me from packing my things and leaving is Emily. Even at that, I’m tempted.”