Never Marry a Cowboy (12 page)

K
it couldn't recall taking an afternoon nap since he was eight years old. He'd only done it then because his mother had insisted, and he hadn't wanted to disappoint her.

Today, he'd been exhausted, more so than he was last night. After lunch, he'd laid down for a nap. The final thing he remembered was Ashton removing his boots.

He stretched his body and opened his eyes to see dust motes waltzing in front of the open balcony doors as the late afternoon eased its way into the room. The temptation to stay here until dawn was strong, but he had to tend to Lancelot's needs.

The horse had traveled tethered to the back of the stagecoach. Kit had brought the gelding so he could ride him after he returned Ashton to Dallas. He preferred the freedom a lone horse would give him to the predictable route and monotony of the trail a stagecoach followed.

He turned his head slightly and could see no indentation in the bed where his wife might have taken her
rest. Perhaps she'd decided to use the bed in his room.

With a yawn, he got up and pulled on his boots. He glanced at the empty balcony and search beyond it to the shoreline. He saw no sign of Ashton. He checked the other bedroom. Empty.

He went down the stairs into the kitchen, welcoming the aroma of cinnamon. He heard Mrs. Edwards singing a song about the Red River Valley. He'd visited the area once. As far as he knew, he'd seen most of the state.

As though sensing his presence, she stopped singing and smiled at him. “Have a good nap?”

“I slept like a babe. Have you any notion where my wife is?”

“Yep. She went to the infirmary.”

Kit felt as though his heart had stopped. “The infirmary?”

Wiping her flour-coated hands on her apron, Mrs. Edwards nodded. “St. Mary's in Galveston. Martha took her.”

“Dear God in heaven, why didn't you let me know immediately?” Kit yelled as he stormed across the room.

“Because Mrs. Montgomery said we wasn't to disturb you,” Mrs. Edwards shot back.

“Don't ever follow my wife's orders again,” Kit called over his shoulder as he hurried out the door and down the steps. If there ever was an
again
.

Why hadn't Ashton told him that she wasn't feeling well? What was she thinking to let a woman she barely knew take her to a hospital while Kit slept?

He approached the lean-to where he kept Lancelot and hastily prepared him. He mounted the horse and urged him into a gallop toward town. He could only hope that he wasn't too late.

He could not bear the thought of Ashton dying with no one beside her.

 

“Then Sir Kit, the bravest of all the knights, thrust his powerful sword into the heart of the dragon. It roared out its anger and blew flames into the heavens, knowing that it had been defeated. It fell to its side, deader than a doornail. Sir Kit took the princess from the dragon's lair and they lived happily ever after.”

As the children surrounding Ashton clapped, Kit decided he would strangle his wife. He'd rushed into the infirmary like a raving lunatic, demanding to know where his wife was, only to discover she was regaling children with tales of damsels in distress.

She wasn't ill at all. He knew he should be incredibly grateful, and once he stopped shaking, he would be. But right now, he could only envision his hands around her soft throat as he placed his thumbs below her chin…and tilted her face toward his to receive a deeply satisfying kiss.

The woman had scared the bloody hell out of him, and he didn't like it, not one bit. She was destined to die, but he didn't want it to happen while he was within reach of her.

She walked around the room, giving each child a hug, most with dark smudges at the corners of their mouths. Then Ashton spotted him and gave him the
most beautiful smile he'd ever seen, and his heart melted like the damned chocolate she'd eaten last night.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she approached him.

“The question, madam, is what are you doing here? I thought the worst when Mrs. Edwards said you'd asked to come to the infirmary.”

Her smile withered, and he cursed his temper for making his words clipped and harsh.

“I thought I'd be back before you woke up.” She turned briefly, smiled at the children, and waved as they scampered back to their beds.

She followed him into the hallway. “I'm so sorry. I didn't think that you'd mind if we brought the leftover food from lunch—”

“Ashton.” He spun around and faced her. “I don't give a bloody damn about the food. I thought you were having another spell like the one you had the night we wed, and that you'd come here”—he swallowed—“instead of coming to me.”

A softness touched her eyes as she laid her hand reassuringly on his arm. “I didn't mean to worry you.” She nibbled on her lower lip. “Although I'm glad you were worried. I'm an awful person for being glad.”

He touched her cheek. “You're not awful. How did this adventure come about, anyway?”

“Martha asked if she could bring the food that we didn't eat at lunch, and I asked to come along. Actually, we were very quick about delivering it, but then I saw the children…” Tears surfaced in her eyes. “I
just wanted to make them smile. It's horrid to lie there in bed with nothing to do but wait to get better.”

He took her arm and led her outside. “As frail as you are, a hospital is probably not the best place to spend your time.”

“I know.” She looked up guiltily. “I brought them all my chocolate.”

“We can purchase more. We can even make arrangements to have some sent here daily if you like.”

She smiled warmly. “I'd like that.”

“Just please give me your word that you will not go on another adventure without telling me.”

“I promise.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Sir Kit, heh? I didn't catch the princess's name.”

“Why, she was Princess Ashton, of course.” She clutched her hand more firmly around his arm.

“And he killed the dragon deader than a doornail? What exactly does that mean?”

“It's just an expression.”

He dared not ask the name of the dragon, for he feared he already knew it. Consumption. Unfortunately, Sir Kit had no powerful sword with which to defeat it.

 

Standing alone on the balcony with the remnants of a hellish nightmare rippling through him, Kit watched the mist roll in from the sea, thick and heavy, silent but menacing. He heard the deep timbre of a horn blasting from the lightship, its light a muted glow hovering in the dense fog.

Wrapping his hands around the railing until he felt the wood bite into his palms, Kit tried to decipher his dream. The gossamer images were unclear, and he was certain of only one thing: he'd been lost, confused, stumbling in the dark, struggling to find his way.

He'd awakened bathed in sweat that he could attribute to the warmth of the night coupled with Ashton's heat as she lay within the circle of his arms, but the chills, the trembling, the inability to form concrete thoughts had forced him to gasp for air like a drowning man.

Was that how the end would be for Ashton? Desperately trying to draw in air when there was none to be found?

He took a deep shuddering breath. Perhaps his concerns for Ashton had prompted the dream. Within the past week, since their arrival at Galveston's shores, his fondness for her had deepened, and the thought of her facing death was becoming increasingly unbearable, but he didn't think his emotions had prompted the dream. He'd been frightened, disoriented, like a ship tossed on a turbulent sea, unable to find mooring.

He'd felt ill upon awakening—as he had aboard the ship when he'd traveled from Liverpool to Galveston. Two weeks of heaving his meals over the side before he'd managed to adjust to the constant roiling of the boat. Poor Grayson had never adjusted. Harry had never gotten ill. Luck always rode his shoulder. Well, almost always.

“Kit?” Ashton whispered.

He glanced over his shoulder. She stood near him, a
blanket draped around her, the hair he'd loosened from the braid while she slept hanging in wild disarray around her face and shoulders. It had become a game between them. She braided her hair each night before bed, and once she drifted off to sleep, he unwound the strands, careful not to disturb her. He found her unbound hair incredibly enticing. He'd considered a dozen times convincing her that they should sleep without clothing, but he didn't think he could withstand the assault on his senses. To have the full length of her flesh pressed against his—the thought alone was dangerous. His restraint was being sorely tested. Perhaps the demons he fought had brought on the dream.

“What's wrong?” she asked quietly, studying him warily. “I woke up and you weren't there.”

“Nothing more than a disturbing dream. Go back to sleep. I'll be there shortly,” he said.

With the fog swirling around her, she seemed to glide toward him, ethereal, and he wondered for a moment if he still dreamt.

“It's scary out here,” she said in a low voice. The horn sounded, and she jumped.

Smiling gently, Kit reached out, took her arm, and pulled her into his embrace, nestling his chin on top of her head. “It's only a bit of fog.”

“Isn't this dangerous for ships?” she asked.

“It could be, but since there's no wind, the ships are probably just bobbing on the water.”

“The fog distorts everything. Maybe that's what disturbed you.”

“No, it was the dream.”

She turned in his arms, bent her head back, and studied his face. “What happened in the dream?”

“The images were foggy.” He grinned. “No pun intended. The thoughts, however, were clear.” He gazed past her and stared at the lone light struggling to serve as a beacon. “The thoughts were crystal clear,” he repeated. “Perhaps they weren't mine. Maybe they were Christopher's.”

“You can read his mind even though he's an ocean away?” she asked incredulously.

How to explain what he didn't begin to understand? “It's not reading minds so much as sensing his feelings.” He shook his head in exasperation. “It's impossible to describe what I experience.”

“Try,” she said with the determination in her voice that never failed to amuse him. “You've explained it a little, but I still find it odd.”

He dropped onto a nearby chair and drew her onto his lap. “Odd, you say? A fitting word for my relationship with my brother. Had my father not always been so quick to point out that Christopher were the older, and therefore the favored, I would have thought us equal.”

“It's not as if years separate you,” she pointed out.

Kit settled more comfortably into the chair and pressed her head into the crook of his shoulder where it felt that the shallow curve had been created expressly for her face. He liked having her there, feeling her breath skim across his bare chest. “Actually, only a few moments separated our births, and yet, they were deciding moments, elevating Christopher to the ex
alted position of heir apparent and marking me as the lesser second son.”

“You're as important as he is,” she said indignantly.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, deeply touched by her defense of him. Christopher had been equally protective, never one to lord his position over Kit, but at times seemingly uncomfortable with the hierarchy of their family. “Not within the realm of English inheritance laws.”

“I don't like your laws.”

“I have no quarrel with the laws. They serve a purpose.”

“Tell me how you and Christopher share thoughts,” she prompted.

He grimaced. “Not thoughts, exactly. Impressions. At first, I always think it's what I'm feeling, but when I analyze the sensations, I begin to realize that they aren't mine. Tonight I awoke feeling unanchored, betrayed, angry. Something is troubling Christopher, but I don't have a strong enough sense of what it is. By the time I write him and he sends a missive, the crisis will have passed.”

“Crisis? You think something horrible happened?”

He gazed into the fog. “Not horrible. Baffling. Not to worry. He'll sort it out.” He brought the blanket up to shield her face from the dampness in the air. The foghorn blew.

“That's such a lonely sound,” she murmured.

The moments passed until he eventually felt her grow limp against him, her breathing becoming shallow and even. He needed to carry her to bed and remove the dew from her hair. Instead, he gathered her
more closely against him. He'd been adrift for too many years, and now one frail woman was beginning to serve as his mooring. The thought troubled him more than his dream.

W
hat harm can come of it
?

As Kit sat on the blanket spread over the sand not far from the cottage, he feared the answer to the question he had tossed out with such nonchalance in Fortune more than a month earlier.

Wearing a white dress, Ashton lay beside him on the blanket, raised on her elbows, her small breasts jutting up as proudly as the largest ones he'd ever seen, her face tilted toward the sun, her eyes closed. She was lost in her surroundings and damn his already condemned soul, but he was becoming lost in her.

Each day she was like a small child allowed to take her first outing. She took joy in every sight, every sound, every aspect of life that touched the senses and yet, she would be denied the greatest sensation of all.

The warm ocean breeze billowed her skirts and lost itself somewhere between her ankles and her thighs. He knew the extent to which a delicate breath skimming over flesh could delight and arouse, a coolness that had the power to ignite a fire.

“Can you hear the roar of the ocean?” she asked
quietly as though she feared silencing it. “I never thought it would sound so powerful.”

All he heard was the thundering of his blood between his temples. She had stopped padding her clothing, and now in her supine position, her bodice stretched taut across her chest to reveal the tiniest of alluring buds. Three loosened buttons, four at the most, and he could close his mouth around one of those hardened nipples and run his tongue across it in a variety of ways: up and down, side to side, a figure eight, a complete circle—

“Are you listening?” she asked.

He snapped his gaze to hers, trying to control not only his breathing but his errant body. Each morning and evening, they took long walks along the shore. He was beginning to realize he had made a grave error in judgment. He should have left his walks as a solitary endeavor, a private time for himself, but he enjoyed her presence so damned much. He cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon?”

She smiled at him as though he were a child to be indulged for daydreaming during lessons. “I asked if you had any idea what created the waves?”

“The waves?”

She nodded. “You see way beyond them, the water is incredibly calm. The waves seem to begin with no rhyme or reason, huge and majestic and then they fade away against the shore. What starts their journey?”

“How the bloody hell should I know?” He surged to his feet and stalked to the water's edge. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Ah, God, he was not a man prone to losing his temper. Even when Christo
pher had taken Clarisse as his wife, Kit had maintained his dignity as he stood at his brother's side, repeating vows within his head that were not his to keep. Breaking them had come much harder than he'd expected, but easier over time. He could never have carnal knowledge of the woman he loved, and now he could not make love to the woman who was his wife.

The irony of life made him want to laugh like that lunatic in the saloon shooting at the floor.

“I've made you angry with my incessant babbling,” she said softly behind him.

“No.” Surprised him was more like it. He had not expected to be undeniably attracted to her. He had thought they could travel here as friends, and by God, that was what they would be. Friends. Husband and wife in name only. He could hold his body and his thoughts in check for a few more days. Then he would cart her back to Dallas and she'd have memories of the ocean. He faced her.

She was standing, the infuriating wind blowing her skirt against her legs and creating a hollow that stopped at the juncture of her thighs. Was the woman not wearing a petticoat? Her feet were bare. That he could understand. What was the point in shoes when you wanted to feel each grain of sand beneath your soles—but undergarments? It suddenly occurred to him why her bodice gave him such a clear image of her breasts.

Was she an innocent or a seductress? It made no difference. He would not make love to her, and his decision had nothing to do with her health, her frailty, or
her brother's warnings. Responsibility was the sole thread that kept him tethered to a personal vow he'd made the night he asked her to marry him, but the thread was wearing thin and if it were to break, he feared his sanity would snap.

 

Ashton sat at the table while Mrs. Edwards heaped food onto Ashton's plate. Kit had charged back to the house like a man with a dog nipping at his heels.

They had both changed into proper clothes for the evening meal. He wore a jacket and cravat, and she wore all her undergarments beneath a light blue dress.

He had spoken hardly a word since her question about the waves, and he seldom looked at her. Was this what marriage evolved into over time? Silence in place of understanding?

Although he denied it, she knew she had done something to upset him. Perhaps he regretted bringing her here. They had stayed far longer than she had expected them to, but not nearly as long as she wanted.

As soon as Mrs. Edwards left the room, Kit glanced at Ashton over his wineglass. “You need to eat.”

She shoved her plate aside. “I'm not hungry.”

Anger flared in his eyes as he set down his glass but continued to hold it. “If you do not eat, tomorrow when we take our walk along the shore, the wind will no doubt carry you out to the sea.”

“I'll eat when you've told me why you're angry.”

“I am not angry,” he said in a tightly controlled voice.

“Liar.”

He snapped the stem of his glass, and Ashton watched in horror as red wine spewed across Kit and the table, along with his blood. Grabbing her napkin, she jumped up, rushed to him, and took his hand. She recoiled at the sight of the turned-back flesh and the river of blood that flowed from the wound. She pressed her napkin against his palm. “Why are you upset with me? What did I do?”

He cradled her cheek and tilted her face, his gaze capturing hers. “You've done nothing, sweetling, but be who you are.”

“Perhaps I should go back to Dallas tomorrow.”

“No.” Gently, he took her free hand. “I am not angry, Ashton. I am attempting to control a body that has no desire to be controlled and am having damned little luck at it.”

Warmth suffused her face as joy rippled through her because he was attracted to her; guilt followed in its wake because to give in to temptation would make the parting that much harder. She wanted to change his mood back to what it had been all the days before this one. “You're attracted to Mrs. Edwards, then.”

His eyes widened. “Good God, no! She's at least eighty if she's a day.”

“The maid—”

“The cook's daughter?” He smiled and brought her hand to his lips. “'Tis you and you alone that makes me feel as though I have made a pact with the devil.”

“Then I should leave.”

With his uninjured hand, he cradled her cheek, sorrow and something she couldn't quite understand
woven within his eyes. Regret, perhaps. Would she ever understand this man she'd married?

“My father sent me here because he feared I would bed my brother's wife. It is ironic that I have vowed not to bed my own.”

Ironic and incredibly disappointing. Lying with him night after night, she was discovering an intimacy growing between them that seemed to know no bounds. She loved the way her head fit within the crook of his shoulder, the constant beating of his heart, the rumble of his chest as he breathed. How often had she woken up before dawn simply so she could watch him without his knowing. She loved the beard that shadowed his face when he awoke and the smile that eased across his face when his gaze first fell on her as though he were glad that he'd discovered her in his bed.

She looked at his hand, grateful to see that the bleeding had stopped. “I would rather you break a vow than have memories of your anger.”

He kissed the top of her bowed head. “If you do not wish to incur my wrath, then eat your dinner.”

She rose to her feet. “Someday, Christian Montgomery, I'll find a way to stop you from always changing the subject just when it gets interesting.”

He smiled at her. “Someday, sweetling, I shall make you glad that I honored my vow.”

 

Within the darkness of midnight, Kit awoke, his head warning him that he'd drunk too much wine. The breeze from the bay whispered over his flesh.
What he found comforting his wife would no doubt find chilling.

He sat up to draw the blankets over her and discovered that he had no one to cover. He was alone, not only in the bed, but also in the room. She had been extremely quiet as she'd prepared for bed. He had held her until he'd fallen asleep.

In the dimness of the room, he couldn't see her. The lamp was gone. Perhaps his earlier mood, which he deeply regretted, had prevented her from sleeping.

He got out of bed and walked through the open doors onto the balcony. He saw the inlet and an ethereal white shadow sitting where the land, buttressed with rocks, jutted into the bay. On the other side lay the Gulf of Mexico, but it was the small crescent moon that seemed to hold her attention.

He quickly donned his clothes before grabbing two blankets from the bed. Daft woman. She was probably shivering like a leaf in the wind, sitting out there. The ocean breeze coming off the water was always cooler than that which came from the land.

He rushed through the house and into the night, wondering at his own reaction. The way his heart was pounding, he would have thought that she'd been attacked by villains. They were isolated, but still, anyone could happen by. He stalked across the small strip of land until she was clearly visible. “What in God's name do you think you're doing out here?”

Without turning her gaze from the ocean, she said, “I needed solitude. Will you please leave me?”

“Leave—” His bare foot hit the lamp, its flame ex
tinguished recently judging by the heat that scorched his toes. He uttered a curse as he stumbled and nearly fell over the edge into the thrashing waves below. He regained his balance and clutched the blankets. “Have you no sense?”

His gaze fell upon her face, limned in the moonlight, her tears a beacon to his cynical heart. He knelt beside her and draped a blanket around her shoulders. “Why are you crying?”

She released a harsh, almost hysterical laugh. “Because I can't always pretend to be brave. I can't always pretend that I am not bothered by the fact that Death holds out his hand to me and that his touch will be cold and dark and eternal.” She swiped the tears from her cheeks. “Thank you for the blanket, but you can leave. I prefer to spend these moments of weakness in solitude.”

“Then you should have never taken me for a husband,” he said quietly as he eased behind her and nestled her between his thighs, bringing her back against his chest as he closed his arms around her.

“Kit, please—”

“Shh,” he whispered near her ear. “The advantage to marriage is not that we have someone beside us when we are strong, but that we have someone to lean against when we are weak.”

She shook her head. “But I am so often weak, and I yearn for things that I can never have.”

Knowing even as he did it that he courted danger, he pressed his mouth against the nape of her neck. “What do you yearn for most?”

He heard the sudden hitch in her breath…then
nothing but the washing of the waves upon the shore. The moon cast so little light as to be nearly useless. He closed his arms more securely around her. “Weren't you the one claiming we needed to trust each other with our thoughts?”

She dropped her head back until it rested against his throat, and he could place his chin on the top of her head.

“Tell me what you want, Ashton, and if it is within my grasp, I
will
give it to you.”

“
That
is the problem. Everyone has always
given
me everything.” She released brittle laughter. “I wanted a husband, and now I have one without earning his love. I wished to come to Galveston and here I am because you brought me when I should have just purchased a ticket and brought myself. I want normalcy and independence, and I don't want to die with so many regrets.”

He felt the shudder course through her body. “Ashton—”

“Can you please leave so I can wallow in my self-pity without anyone bearing witness to it?”

“Why do you object to my seeing that you are only human?”

“I object to your discovering that I am selfish and weak.”

He slipped his thumb beneath her chin and turned her head slightly until he held her gaze. “Have you no friends?”

She shook her head. “David's wife is the closest thing I have to a friend.” She lifted a shoulder. “And you.”

His stomach clenched. Who would be with her at the end? He shoved the thought back into a darkened corner where he could hide it from his conscience. It did not matter who would be with her. It only mattered that it would not be him. She would have David and Madeline.

“I am not your friend, Ashton,” he said kindly.

She started to turn her head away, but he held her in place. “If I were, you would not be bothered by my seeing you here, revealing your weaknesses. Although I consider both Grayson and Harry friends, Harry is the truer of the two. He knows my every weakness, my every sin. When I needed a confessor for the worst of all sins, the one that has condemned me to hell, he accepted the task without judgment.”

He watched her as she scrutinized him, knew curiosity gnawed at her. He didn't know why he'd spoken as he had. He'd wanted to comfort her, and instead, he'd allowed his personal demons to surface.

“I cannot believe that you committed so grave a sin that you'll burn in hell after you die.”

“Trust me, sweetling, when the situation warrants, hell arrives long before death.”

She twisted within his arms until she could face him squarely. “What did you do?”