Jane Bonander (5 page)

Refusing to react the way Emily undoubtedly expected her to, Dinah answered with ridiculous calm, “Why, yes. One eats ants and the other carrion.”

A flicker of surprise crossed Emily’s face before she swung away. “How did you know that?”

Dinah massaged her neck, tempted to tell the woman she had a mind like flypaper, attracting all sorts of useless information. Instead, she asked, “How did you?”

Emily toyed with her long, golden braid. “I don’t want you here.” Her voice had a deceptively childlike quality to it.

I’m beginning to think that makes two of us.
Dinah moved away, her heart pumping hard as she kept near the door in case she had to make a quick escape. “And, why don’t you want me here?”

Emily made a petulant moue that became a frown. “Because you’ll hurt me.” She rubbed her wrist with her thumb, as if soothing an old injury.

“As you hurt me?” The memory of being dragged by her hair around the halls at Trenway made her scalp tingle. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that was why most of the women kept their hair cropped short. Hers was just now beginning to grow out.

With her fists on her slim hips, Emily took a threatening step toward her. “I dare you to tell Tristan. I
dare
you. Because it won’t matter if you do. I’ll tell him you hurt me first. It worked with the others.”

Conniving witch, Dinah thought. Clever, though. “I don’t see why we can’t—”

“Be careful what you eat,” Emily warned behind a sly smile. “It could be poisoned.”

Scare tactics. Dinah had seen them work before. In fact, circumstances had forced her to master a few herself. “Why would I—”

“Emily!”

They both turned as Tristan strode into the room. Water dripped from his hair and his shirt was plastered to his skin. His expression was a cross between dread and surprise.

“Tristan!” The woman ran to him and whimpered into his chest.

Absently stroking his sister’s shoulder, he looked at Dinah, as if waiting for an explanation.

“We were getting acquainted.” Dinah gave him a small smile, hoping none of her turbulent feelings showed.

He spoke to his sister, yet his gaze was on Dinah. “I thought we’d decided you would wait until morning to meet the nurse, Emily.”

“I’m hungry, Tristan.” She drew away and gave her brother a look of pure, innocent adoration.

Dinah raised her eyebrows. It was no wonder. After their scuffle, Dinah was hungry, too, in spite of Emily’s threats of poison. She touched the biscuit in her pocket, hiding her disappointment when she discovered that during her tussle with Emily it had become a wad of crumbs.

“I’m sure Mrs. Linberg has prepared something for you.” He touched the delicate line of Emily’s chin. “What have you two been discussing?”

Emily tossed Dinah a blatant I-dare-you look. Dinah ran her fingers through her short curls, biting back a groan when she skimmed the bruises on her skull. She had no intention of telling him anything, although she had a suspicion that’s just what the woman wanted. Obviously other nurses had been foolish and gabbled about Emily’s private tiffs. It was no wonder they hadn’t lasted. Dinah felt she had a surprising handle on Emily Fletcher already. Of course, she’d always been a foolish optimist.

“Oh, we were talking about aardvarks and aardwolves, cabbages and kings.” After tossing him an innocent smile, Dinah gave her skirt a tug. She cringed when the seam ripped further.

Tristan Fletcher raised his satanic brows in question but said nothing. Instead, he led his sister toward the kitchen. “I imagine you’re exhausted, Miss Odell. Get a good night’s rest and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Having been so soundly dismissed, Dinah made a face at his retreating back. As she took the stairs to her room, she wondered if there was a lock on her door. For a year she and Daisy had to dream up clever ways to keep her virtue intact. Now, her virtue wasn’t the issue. It was her future and her job. Emily Fletcher wanted her gone. Dinah wondered to what lengths the woman would go to get her way.

Expelling a gruff sigh, Tristan left Emily asleep in her room. As he stepped into the dim hall, he stood and studied Dinah Odell’s door and dove his fingers through his rumpled hair. Emily had pleaded for him to send the new nurse away. As she had before, she created a scenario in which the nurse was the attacker and poor, sweet Emily the victim.

Although others might have been fooled by such devices, firing nurse after nurse at Emily’s request, Tristan was not. Unfortunately, the last nurse left of her own accord, as did the one before and the one before that. He had little hope for this one either, for their voices had reached him before he interrupted them in the great room, and he’d heard Emily threaten to poison the girl.

Because the girl hadn’t said anything, Tristan felt there might be hope, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Now, however, would be the real test. Alone, with no one to interfere, she might tell him what Emily had done to her. The others had, assuming that with Tristan on their side, it would be two of them against the patient. At that point, Tristan knew they wouldn’t be long on the job.

Squaring his shoulders, he crossed the hall and rapped on her door. Now might be the time to clear the air about many things, the marriage, included. He heard hurried movements on the other side of the door before she opened it.

The muted light from the lamps in the room created a halo around her vibrant hair. She wore a voluminous white robe that hung on her slim frame, and her bare toes peeked out from beneath the hem. Her eyes, wide with caution, were the dark blue of a night sky.

“May I speak with you?” For some insane reason, he didn’t want to bring up the marriage agreement. He wanted her to.

She tossed a nervous glance over her shoulder. “I—”

“If you’d be more comfortable, meet me in the library.”

She looked down at her nightclothes, a pinkness blooming on her cheeks. “Should I—”

“Don’t worry. I seldom accost children.” He wasn’t able to curb his disdain as he started for the stairs. Why did women always assume that a man was driven wild by the sight of them in their nightclothes? Especially nightclothes that covered far more than the clothes they wore during the day?

It wasn’t that he didn’t find women who were ready for bed provocative. Ever since his first foray into the pleasures of the flesh, he’d loved moving a searching hand beneath the soft fabric over their willing bodies, touching warm, dark, wet places that were kept secret from him during the day. But the women he hungered for always tantalized him, undressing slowly before him before slipping into something so deliciously filmy he could see their treasures beneath.

Even though Dinah Odell was oddly appealing in her white gown and robe, that attire was made for either virgins or gray-haired old maids, neither of which whetted Tristan’s robust appetite. Usually.

He cursed as blood thickened in his groin. Being sequestered on the ranch had forced him into celibacy, and now, even the thought of a slim, boyish, man-hating harpy in a crisp, no-nonsense nightgown got him hard. It was time to go hunting for companionship, preferably a wild, lusty Spaniard whose screams of delight would make his ears ring.

He opened the door to his study, allowing her to go in before him. Her head barely reached his chin as she brushed passed him, smelling delicately of the lilac soap Alice had placed on her dry sink. He shifted, allowing for more comfort inside his snug trousers.

Before he’d come for her, he’d changed into dry clothes and built a fire in the fireplace. She took a chair near it, curling her feet under her, waiting for him to proceed.

He poured himself a brandy, settled in the chair across from her, and studied her languidly before he spoke. Her full lips were parted slightly, making her appear as though she were waiting to be kissed. He took a healthy swig of liquor and scowled into the fire.

“Why did you want to see me?”

Shivering, Dinah moved deeper into the chair, relishing the warmth of the fire. Her employer’s brooding visage frightened her, but she pretended nonchalance.

“What’s your impression of my sister?”

Wondering if it was a trick question, she toyed with the buttons of her robe. “I haven’t formed an opinion yet, Mr. Fletcher. First impressions aren’t always reliable.”

He nodded, his expression remote. His long legs were spread wide, his soft buckskin shirt open nearly to his navel, his thick, brown chest visible to her gaze. And gaze she did, intrigued by his complexity.

He was both wild and restrained; he had the body of a woodsman and the mind of a scholar. He was massively built, but obviously could be gentle when it suited. Her gaze was drawn to the black hair that grew on the back of his hands. His long, strong fingers with the flat nails stroked the sides of the snifter, causing a different kind of shiver to steal over Dinah’s skin.

“She can be physically violent when she chooses to be.”

Don’t I know it.
Dinah sat forward, feigning surprise. “Violent? That slip of a woman?”

One side of Tristan Fletcher’s mouth moved into a smile, but he said nothing. Instead, he nodded toward the wound on her hand, which she’d forgotten to dress with salve. “How did you hurt your hand?”

She gave it an indifferent glance. “Oh, that’s hard to say. It probably happened when I fell out of the tree this afternoon.” She waited a moment, then added, “When you refused to help me down.”

His eyes accepted the volley, but he didn’t return it. “I don’t remember seeing the wound at dinner.”

Dinah gave him a careless shrug. “I can’t remember how it happened. It isn’t important. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”

He appeared surprised. “You have nothing to say to me?”

Again, she shrugged. She had the sense that he was waiting for her to unload, unburden herself regarding his troublesome sister. Perhaps this was a ritual he went through with each nurse he hired, and undoubtedly, if each nurse went through what she had, he got an earful.

“As I said before, I can’t elaborate on her condition until I’ve spent some time with her.”

He stood and moved to refill his snifter. “I’ll be honest with you. Emily is a clever woman, Miss Odell. She’ll probably drive you away, but I think you will leave here soon, anyway.” He took a pull on his brandy, then came to stand near her.

He was a potent man, exuding both power and control. Dinah wondered if he ever just tossed his head back and laughed. She doubted it.

“And, why is that?”

He left her again, crossing to the bookcase. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, Miss Odell. I’m surprised David sent someone so young. A person your age needs a social life, and you’re certainly not going to get one here.”

In spite of wanting to tell him that being here, as gloomy and forbidding as it was, was a vast improvement over where she’d been, she merely answered, “I’ll get used to it. Remember, you promised me a trial month, no matter how you feel about me.”

He slanted her a look that moved over her like searching fingers, stopping in places no gentleman would. “I did, didn’t I?”

Beneath her layers of nightwear, her loose breasts tingled and there was a fluttering in the pit of her stomach that had nothing to do with fear. At least, not the kind of fear she’d felt up until now.

This awareness of him as a man was new to her. Now, instead of having to wrestle with her doubts about her ability to do this job, she had to fight the new-found attraction to her employer. She had no idea which would be more difficult, but starting tomorrow, she would find out.

Kitchen smells had always been Dinah’s favorites. This morning, venison stew bubbled on the stove and bread was rising in a big bowl on a chair in the sunshine.

Inhaling deeply, Dinah stood at the kitchen window and studied the sun-splashed hills. Mourning doves wailed softly outside, the melancholy sound threatening her fragile mood. She’d endured Emily’s petulance for a full week; three more to go to prove she was worthy of the task. There had been countless times when she’d have been grateful to pack up her meager belongings and hit the road. She’d thought the matron at Trenway had been clever, pinching her in places that didn’t show. She smirked. The matron could have taken lessons from Emily Fletcher. Even now, the soft inner surface of her arm hurt from where Emily had grabbed it and twisted it the day before.

But she refused to capitulate and tell Tristan what was happening. She sensed he’d already gone through this, although no doubt other nurses told him what was going on. He’d been elusive this past week, seeming to skulk around, appearing out of nowhere when she least expected him. That, too, was probably part of his plan. To catch her doing something with his sister that he didn’t approve of.

It was odd, though, that each time she saw him, her heart pounded hard and she felt a rush of blood to her face. He was quite a magnificent looking man, except that he rarely smiled and he never laughed.

Behind her, Mrs. Linberg stirred the stew, her metal spoon clanking against the sides of the pot. Emily sat at the table. There was tension between the two of them this morning. Dinah noticed it often. As for herself, she tried not to squirm, but she could almost feel the dagger in her back. The one she knew Emily wanted desperately to throw. Dinah touched her stomach, the tiny bit of breakfast she’d eaten weighing inside her like a stone.

“What a lovely day! Has either of you ever noticed how no two trees are the same shade of green? And the flowers!” She clasped her hands to her chest and sighed, forcing herself to sound enthusiastic. “I’ve never seen such colors.”

Even though she was making small talk, it was the truth. Since leaving Trenway, she’d been stunned at how beautiful everything was, especially here. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a blue sky as that which framed the mountain tops.

Behind her, Emily snorted. “I’ve always known that.”

Ignoring her, Dinah asked, “Mrs. Linberg, would it be possible to have a picnic in the gazebo today?”

The housekeeper’s expression softened. “Why, that sounds like a wonderful idea. Better today than tomorrow.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Tomorrow is the day you will be taking Emily to the hot springs. You do drive a rig, don’t you?”

Dinah paused. Her? Drive a rig? Well, she’d ridden in one often enough, she wondered if that counted. It would have to. “Oh, yes,” she answered expansively, then crossed her fingers behind her back.

“Good. It should be a nice outing for both of you.”

Alone with Emily? In a rig that Dinah couldn’t handle over roads she wasn’t familiar with? Youch, she thought with a sarcastic lift of her brow, A charming outing? It might well be her last.

“I don’t want her to come,” Emily groused.

“Well, she’s going with you, young lady, and you’d better shut up about it. You’ve caused your brother enough trouble since the poor girl arrived.” She shook her spoon in Emily’s direction, catching the drips with her apron. “Mark my words, if you don’t behave, he’ll send you back to that place where no one will put up with your silly tantrums.”

Dinah had noticed that in spite of Mrs. Linberg’s obvious love for Emily, she had little patience with her. She harassed her often, but even Dinah knew her threats were empty.

Emily’s eyes darkened and she clenched her fists on the table. “Tristan wouldn’t do that to me. He loves me.”

The housekeeper moved to the dishpan and rinsed the dishes, clanking them noisily. “Ya, sure, he loves you all right, maybe too much, I think.”

“You can’t love a person too much.”

“I know it won’t do any good to argue with you. It never does. But I don’t happen to agree with you.”

Emily stiffened.

“Before you go having another temper tantrum, little missy, remember that I can take you over my knee.” Mrs. Linberg gave the pot another quick stir, then put a lid on it.

Emily tossed both women a veiled look through narrowed lids, then moved her spoon slowly through her cereal. But her knuckles were white.

Dinah dreaded the following day already. Surely they wouldn’t send her off alone with Emily. The dead lump of apprehension clogged her throat again, though she was beginning to get used to the feeling.

Mrs. Linberg dumped her bread dough onto the counter and sliced off a hunk, forming it into a round loaf. The process fascinated Dinah. Although she’d never learned how to cook, as a young girl, Dinah had often watched her mother’s chef and wished she could dabble in the kitchen. Maybe she would have a chance here. That is, if she wasn’t out on her scrawny rump at the end of the month.

Mrs. Linberg continued to form dough into loaves. “That poor brother of yours gets nothing done around here, and it’s because of you and your childish behavior. Don’t think you’ve fooled him, girl, because you haven’t. He knows what you’re up to. It wouldn’t hurt him to threaten you once in a while.”

Dinah usually enjoyed confrontation, or at least was able to tolerate it. This morning she wanted to slink from the room. She started for the door.

“What do you think, Dinah?”

Dinah stopped and ran her fingertips over the tabletop. “I think that he should be commended for not returning Emily to that kind of place, Mrs. Linberg. Remember,” she offered, “I’ve been there, too. It’s no place for anyone, no matter what’s wrong with them.”

Emily watched her with renewed interest. “I don’t remember much about it.”

Dinah wasn’t surprised. Daisy had told her there were people who chose to forget their unpleasant experiences, and were able to do so. Surely part of Emily’s hostility was based on what she’d been through during those years. But she was fragile, too. Not only physically, but mentally as well. Stress brought about Emily’s unusual behavior, and Dinah had no doubt that her own arrival had exacerbated it. Emily’s moods swung from one end of the pendulum to the other without provocation.

“Be grateful your brother hasn’t considered sending you there again, Emily. Be grateful.”

Fragrant honeysuckle grew up the slatted walls of the gazebo. Emily sat on a cushioned seat inside, in the shade, while Dinah lolled on a blanket in the sun, her eyes closed and her face soaking in the, warmth.

“You should be wearing a capote,” Emily suggested.

Dinah smiled. “A capote, huh?”

“I’ll bet you don’t know what a capote is.”

Opening her eyes, Dinah saw Emily’s smug smile as she sketched quickly on a pad.

“You don’t think so?”

“None of my other nurses did.”

Dinah stretched, feeling like a cat in the sunshine. Though Emily had a good vocabulary, she didn’t use it often. Most of the time her sentences were short and simple.

“My mother used to wear a lavender one to match her purple cape. I could never see her head for the wide brim of the bonnet around her face.”

Emily screwed up her tiny nose. “I thought I’d get you with that one.” She studied Dinah. “Mama always told me a lady never sits in the sun without a wide-brimmed hat and gloves.”

“My mother told me that, too. But believe me, after a year inside those dismal gray walls, etiquette is thrown to the wind.”

“Sometimes I wish I remembered,” Emily mused.

“I’d be grateful I didn’t, if I were you. I, on the other hand, remember everything so vividly, it is as if it were yesterday.” It almost was.

They sat together, sharing a quiet peace. Emily continued to sketch quickly on a pad she held in her lap.

Dinah scrambled to her feet. “What are you drawing?”

A guilty shadow crossed Emily’s face, and she hid the tablet in the folds of her gown. “Nothing.” She clutched her hands in her lap.

Dinah slowed her steps as she entered the shaded gazebo. “I’d like to see what you’ve done, Emily.”

Emily’s expression was defiant. “I won’t show you. If you make me, I’ll pinch you.”

Dinah raised her hands in defeat. “Fine. It’s probably a lot of scribbling, anyway.” Daisy had used this ploy on a patient at the hospital. It had worked.

“I don’t scribble.”

Dinah gave her a careless shrug and turned away.

“Whatever you say.”

“Well, I don’t. But, I…I can’t show you.”

Continuing to feign a lack of interest, Dinah examined the wildflowers that grew beside the blanket. She recognized some of them after finding them in a small book on California wildlife and wildflowers written by a California naturalist by the name of Ian MacDowell, who had lived for years in the Yosemite Valley.

She plucked a stalk holding a profusion of California buttercups and brought it to her nose, inhaling the fragile scent. “Fine. Then don’t.”

“If I show it to you, you’ll take it from me.”

Dinah stopped but didn’t turn around. “Why would I take it from you?”

“Because Mama didn’t want me to draw. Before I went away, she took all of my supplies and hid them. I don’t remember much about being gone, but I do remember that the nurses there wouldn’t let me draw. Mama must have told them not to.”

Dinah sat on the gazebo steps. “Why would she have done that?”

“Because … because she didn’t like what I painted.”

“Has Tristan told you not to paint?”

Emily’s brow wrinkled and she started breathing hard. “No, but he doesn’t remember that I like to.”

“Your mother is in heaven, Emily.” Actually, she wasn’t so sure the old hag wasn’t burning in hell. Although she’d been taught it wasn’t up to her to judge someone, she couldn’t help hoping the woman was suffering for some of the things she’d obviously done to her own daughter. “She can’t stop you from painting anymore.”

“Yes, yes she can.” Emily’s agitation was real. “She told me she’d look down and watch me. And that bad things would happen to me if I did. I thought if I did it here, she couldn’t see through the roof and discover what I was doing.”

Dinah swallowed a disgusted sigh. What kind of mother would make threats that would reach out from the grave? “I’d like to see what you’re doing, Emily. Won’t you show me?”

Emily drew the tablet out from between the folds of her skirt and handed it to Dinah.

“Why, Emily,” she said with a sigh. “It’s beautiful.” The rustic garden scene was alive with trees and flowers. Despite the fact that they were drawn in black pen, color seemed to leap from the page. That’s how perfect they were.

All of a sudden, Emily’s face was pinched with discomfort. “Tristan’s coming. Please,” she pleaded, grabbing for her pad, “he mustn’t see it.”

She stood, hiding the tablet as she hurried down the gazebo steps. “I’m going inside.”

She stopped briefly, and Dinah heard her tell her brother she was going in to lie down.

Tristan continued to stroll toward Dinah, his worn buckskins clinging to his muscular legs. He wore the vest, as he had the day she’d arrived. His outdoor clothes transcended fashion, however she had the feeling that he could wear a loincloth and not be out of place anywhere. The sight of him made her tingle. He was without a doubt the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

The devil dogs appeared out of nowhere, loping beside him.

“They truly are ugly dogs,” she remarked as the three of them approached her.

He appeared offended. “I’ll have you know they’re championship Irish wolfhounds.”

“Irish?” She snorted a laugh. “Leave it to them to breed the most unsightly animals in the world.”

“I would have thought that with a name like Odell, you were Irish as well.”

“Me? No. Lord, no. Odell is a Norwegian name. There’s no, you know,” she explained, making a twist with her index finger, “no apostrophe after the O.”

He actually laughed. Or made a sound that passed for a laugh. “Better not let Mrs. Linberg know that. According to her, every evil done to man was perpetrated by a Norwegian.”

“Then she’d better not meet any of my uncles. They swear the Swedes haven’t bathed since the fourteenth century, and even then they all used the same bucket of water.”

This time, Tristan actually did laugh. A hearty, virile sound that sent shivers of delight over her skin. She was so surprised, she turned her gaze, lest he see the yearning in her eyes. Until now, he hadn’t been the perfect man. Oh, he was handsome, strong, smart, and compassionate. But he’d been so sullen. Knowing she could make him laugh made him perfect, and that made him completely unreachable.

One of the dogs drew close and sniffed Dinah’s shoe. She froze.

“She’s a gentle creature, Miss Odell, but she can also smell your fear.”

Dinah grimaced. “How can anything that size be gentle?”

“If she weren’t, I’d have to put her down.”

“Put her down? You mean you’d have to do away with her?” In spite of her fear, she was disturbed by the thought of having to kill a pet.

“If she weren’t gentle, she’d be too dangerous to have around. Imagine a dog this size with an unstable temperament.” Tristan scratched the dog’s muzzle and she leaned into him, nearly knocking him over.

Dinah watched the love play between dog and master and was intrigued.

“I remember their names. You called them Wolf and Amy. I can understand Wolf, but Amy?”

The other dog, the big one, meandered over to her and rested its head on her lap, gazing up at her with limpid eyes. Something softened inside her, and she felt a tugging at her heart.

“Their names are Wolfgang and Amadeus.”

She smiled. “You named your dogs after Mozart?”

“No, I named them after my brother.”

She gingerly stroked the dog’s head, eliciting a groan of pleasure from the animal. “Your brother? What an unusual name for a man these days.”

“My brother is an unusual man.”

Dinah studied Tristan but said nothing. His profile was regal, his cheekbones majestic. His haunted, dark-rimmed, stormy blue eyes gave him a vulnerability that made him human. Otherwise, he had the bearing of a god. The brother could be no more unusual than he was.