The Invitation (35 page)

“I beg your pardon,” she said, looking up at him.

“I said that if you want to get yourself a husband—a real one, that is—you ought to try to be more, well, charming.”

Dorie could only blink at him. Charming. It was a word she had heard connected with Rowena's name and with witches' spells but not much else.

Ever since that cold little farce that was called a wedding, Cole had been asking himself what in the world he had done. He'd never thought of himself as a romantic, but that quick, boring ceremony, with the preacher anxious to get back to his dinner, was not his idea of a wedding. Wasn't a woman supposed to want flowers and a pretty dress? Weren't women supposed to be sentimental about weddings and such? Wasn't the man supposed to act as though that sort of stuff didn't matter to him, but secretly he rather liked the smell of flowers and the sight of a bride dripping lace?

Since the wedding she hadn't said a word, had just let that bossy sister of hers manage everything. After a few hours around Rowena, Cole was beginning to realize that under that coaxing, honey-coated exterior of hers was a core of steel. She had complimented Cole so much that, had he believed her, he would have thought he was the smartest, bravest, best-looking man on the planet. But while she was flattering him, she was making sure her little sister got married. She told Dorie where the wedding was going to be, where Dorie was going to spend her honeymoon, and when the couple would return to Latham. Rowena arranged the wedding supper and ordered Dorie's clothes packed and readied for the trip. It was at the end of the ceremony when Rowena said, “You may kiss him now, Dorie,” that Cole had put his foot down.

“She's my wife now,” he said quietly but in a voice he'd used to tell men that he believed they were cheating at cards. One good thing about Rowena was that she seemed to know when to back down. Graciously she stopped giving orders and stepped aside, smiling happily, pleased that she had arranged everything.

So now he was alone with a stranger who was and was not his wife, and he had a sudden urge to get to know her better. Was she as hard as she'd seemed the first time he met her, or was she as soft as she sometimes seemed? Was she calculating or innocent? Did she mean to wound with that tongue of hers or did she just not know any better?

“I'm afraid I don't know how to be charming,” she said, not looking up from her food. “I leave the charm to my sister.”

After today he knew that in order to wade through Rowena's “charm” one needed very tall boots. As Cole looked at the top of his wife's head, he realized that he'd never really seen her smile.
Did
she smile? What would she look like if she did smile?

He sat up straight in his chair, like a schoolteacher. “Attention, Miss Latham—er, Mrs. Hunter,” he corrected himself and found that he rather liked the sound of that name. “We are now going to have a lesson in charm.”

She looked up at him in surprise.

“Now, answer me this: If you find yourself alone with a man and you want to engage that man in conversation, what do you say?”

The look on her face told him she was taking this very seriously. “What does he do?”

“He doesn't
do
anything. In most of the world it is up to the woman to be the social one. The man is to be the strong silent type, and the woman is to try to draw him out.”

“Oh,” Dorie said. This was something she'd never heard before, but it explained some things she'd never been able to understand. “I mean, what does the man do for a living? To support himself. Perhaps there is conversation in that.”

“Good point. The man is a farmer.”

“Well, then, I would ask him how his crops are doing.”

“Mmmm,” Cole said. “That might be all right for a man who's old enough to be your father, but what about a young, good-looking man, someone with broad shoulders?”

A little sparkle of humor came into Dorie's eyes. “Just exactly how broad are this man's shoulders?”

Cole didn't smile. Holding out his hands, he said, “Oh, about this wide. No, this wide.”

Dorie's eyes sparkled more. “Mr. Hunter, no man has shoulders
that
broad.”

For a moment Cole looked defensive as he looked from his outstretched hands to his own shoulders and saw that he had his hands apart exactly the width of his own shoulders. When he opened his mouth to point out that
his
shoulders were indeed that broad, he looked at her eyes and saw that she had been teasing him. Well, well, he thought, I'll get her back for that.

“On second thought, this man you're sitting next to is a renowned peacemaker.”

“Peacemaker? Do you mean a gunslinger? A killer?”

Cole's face was very serious. “Mrs. Hunter, would you please listen to the assignment? The lesson is in charm, and so far you haven't convinced me you know the meaning of the word.”

“Oh, yes, I do. It means lying.”

That threw Cole for a loop. “Charm means lying?”

“Rowena practices charm by lying.”

“Please give me a demonstration.”

Dorie started to say that she couldn't possibly show him what she meant by Rowena's lying, but then she realized she had spent a lot of time watching her sister. She
should
be able to pretend to be Rowena.

Her elbows on the table, she leaned across her plate so her face was close to his and batted her lashes at him. “Oh, Mr. Hunter, I've heard so much about you. I've heard of your wisdom, how you settle disputes and save entire towns single-handedly. My goodness but you are an important man! I do hope you don't mind my staring. It's just that I've been looking for a sapphire just the color of your eyes, and I can't find that deep a shade of blue anywhere. Perhaps the next time I visit my jeweler you'll come with me so I can show the man just what I mean.”

Dorie leaned back from the table, her arms crossed over her bosom.

For a moment Cole couldn't speak. She had been making fun of him and of her sister, of course, but, damn it anyway, he liked hearing what she'd just said. He had an almost uncontrollable urge to pick up the knife and look at his eyes in it.

What made him control himself was the look in her eyes that said she knew just what he was thinking. That's two for her, he thought.

“Lies,” he said. “They are terrible. You know that men lie too, don't you?”

“Not to Rowena. They don't have to. What can they make up about her beauty that is a lie?”

“True charm contains no lies.”

“Ha! Rowena is an expert at charm, yet all she does is lie.”

“Then it is not true charm. What wins the men's hearts is her beauty. But what will happen to her when her beauty fades? No man is going to fall for her lies when they come from lips that are no longer beautiful.” He could see he had her interest now. Obviously she liked lies that sounded as though they were true.

“Here, let me show you what real charm is. Give me your hand.”

She kept her hand where it was, folded close to her body. “If you tell me lots of really dumb lies about my magnificent beauty, I won't like it.”

“Could you give me credit for a little sense? Now, give me your hand!” Damn, but the woman got to him. He was sure there wasn't another woman on the earth who would refuse a lesson in seduction. Especially when the man trying to seduce her was her husband.

Gently he took her hand in his. With another woman he might have worried about scaring her, but he wondered if anything scared this little creature. Holding her hand, he raised it to his face but didn't kiss it. Instead, he pressed the back of her hand against his cheek. “You know what I like about you, Mrs. Hunter?” He didn't wait for her answer. “I like your honesty. All my life I've heard compliments. Men have been too afraid of me to say much of anything that wasn't nice, and women have so much liked the look of me that they purred when they were near me.” At the word “purr” he rolled his
r
in a soft, silky way that made Dorie's eyes widen.

“It is refreshing to meet a woman who is honest with me, who tells me that I have things to learn. And it is invigorating to have my mind challenged. You make me want to work hard around you; you make me want to show you that I can do the work, even though you think I can't.”

He brought her hand to his lips and began to kiss her knuckles one by one. “As for beauty, there is a sparkle about you that your sister cannot match. She is a rose, full blown, lush, and showy, but you are a violet, sweet and shy, gentle but strong. Yours is not the kind of beauty that a person sees merely by looking. Your beauty is gentler. One has to search for it, and it is therefore worth much more.”

Dorie sat still, her eyes widening with every word he said. Little prickles of feeling ran from her hand up her arm, then spread throughout her body.

Abruptly he released her hand. “There,” he said. “That's what I meant. Charm without lies.”

Dorie had to shake her head to clear it. “Charming lies. That's what I think,” she said.

“And what do you think is the truth?”

“You think I am a pest and a nuisance. I am, however, a rich pest, and you need money.”

Cole didn't know when he had ever felt more insulted. She was saying that he had married her for money and money alone, which of course wasn't true. He had married her because…Damn it! He wasn't exactly sure why he had married her, but it wasn't only for money. A man who married for money was…was…What was that word? A gigolo, that's what. He didn't mind being called a killer, but he wasn't going to be thought of as a man who took advantage of women.

Abruptly he stood up. “Let's get something straight right now. I married you because you needed protection, and you're paying me for that protection. I'm a bodyguard of sorts for you. When my arm is healed and your sister is out of the country, we'll shake hands and part company and that'll be the end of it. Agreed?”

“Of course,” she said calmly, her eyes clear, showing no emotion at all.

“Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed. It's been a long day.”

At that her eyes widened just enough that he knew what she was thinking.

Not knowing exactly why he was so angry, he grabbed two carpetbags from where they were set against one wall and plopped them down in the center of the bed, creating a wall between the two sides. Maybe his anger was caused by the fact that all his life he'd had to fight women off and now suddenly this mousy little thing was acting as though he'd turned into a satyr, something vile and repulsive. She disliked him so much that she was reluctant even to give him her hand across the dinner table.

“There,” he said nastily, nodding toward the divided bed. “Does that suit your sense of propriety? I don't know why you persist in thinking I'm a deflowerer of reluctant virgins, but I can assure you that I'm not.”

“I didn't mean—” she began, but he cut her off.

“Just go to bed. I won't bother you, so you can stop looking so worried.”

“I wasn't worried,” she said quietly, then moved behind the pretty little screen that stood in the corner beside the bed and began to undress. Rowena had talked to Dorie alone after Cole announced that he and Dorie were getting married. Rowena had said a lot of nonsense about not being frightened and had told Dorie to do her best to make Mr. Hunter feel as though he were the smart one. “This is important to a man,” Rowena had said. “It is
necessary
to a man.” Dorie had no idea what her sister was talking about.

“Damnation!” she heard Cole say, then the little tinkling sound of a button hitting what sounded like the porcelain washbasin.

Peeping around the screen, she saw Cole frowning in concentration as he tried to undress himself, his incapacitated arm making the task very difficult. A hero, she thought, a man who wouldn't ask for help.

Wearing an enormous white nightgown that covered her from neck to toes, she walked around the screen and went to him. Immediately she saw that he meant to tell her he could certainly undress himself, but here at last Dorie felt competent. For the last year of his life her father had been an invalid, and she had been the only one he would allow to take care of him. She was used to dressing and undressing a full-grown man.

“Here, let me,” she said in an efficient voice, and within a few moments she had divested Cole of his clothing down to his long cotton underwear. She was unaware that he was smiling down at her in amusement and some disbelief.

She was also unaware of the way he was looking at her thick hair tucked into an innocent braid. During the day she kept her hair pulled tightly and astonishingly neatly against her head, not a strand out of place. But now it looked soft and there were little curls about her face. And oddly enough, her prim nightgown was almost provocative. He was used to seeing women in black or red lace, not pure, clean, virginal white. Seeing her completely hidden the way she was made him wonder what was under her clothes far more than see-through silk did.