Rexanne Becnel (42 page)

If Tanner was even half a man, he’d step aside and let their romance blossom. But something stopped him. He’d kill any man who tried to steal one of his horses, and he felt the same way about this man who had made his interest in Abby clear. Abby was not Tanner’s to claim, so his possessive feelings for her were asinine. But logic didn’t change the way he felt.

He eyed the rippling surface of the lake that spread before them, as wide and reaching as the ocean was purported to be. He needed a cold dunking, an icy bath to chill both his desire for the woman who sat watching him and his insane need to throttle Patrick Brady.

Instead he dismounted and turned to stare at Abby. Her smooth cheeks were rosy with color, and the sparkle in her wide eyes was as clear as emerald. Good God, but she was the most desirable woman he’d ever laid eyes on.

He loosened his horse’s reins and tossed his hat carelessly to the ground. The brisk wind off the lake caught it, and it rolled in reckless circles before coming to a rest against a tuft of grass. “So, come teach me to dance,” he said, watching the startled look that came over her expressive face. He held out his arms. “Do you know how to waltz?”

She did. Not that she’d ever danced it before. Her father would never have approved. But she’d seen it done and she’d occasionally practiced the steps alone, imagining some tall, handsome man sweeping her around and around in his arms. Up to now the closest she’d come had been dancing the polka with Gustav van der Haar after the Hoffmans’ barn raising. That rousing dance had left her breathless with her heart racing. But that was nothing compared to how Tanner’s invitation affected her now. Every one of her senses raised to new levels of awareness. Her skin tingled, her muscles tensed. Her heart might even have stopped as she crossed the short space that separated them. Certainly she did not remember to breathe.

“Your hands need to go here,” she said breathlessly. “And here.” He obliged so that one of his arms encircled her and his hand rested lightly at her waist, while the other hand, big and strong, grasped her damp palm. Then he urged her nearer. “Sing us a waltz,” he murmured in that low, husky tone that always turned her insides to butter.

Abby stared up at him. All she could think was that they were close enough to kiss. If he wanted to … If she wanted to …

“Sing,” he ordered.

She couldn’t sing, for she couldn’t manage words. But she could hum, and once she found an appropriate three-quarter-time melody, they began to dance, right there on the open banks of Lake Michigan, with no one to see them but the circling gulls and several scuttling crabs. They danced stiffly at first, for Abby was in a state of shock. She’d never truly expected to make this much headway with him today. But his touch warmed her, and the rhythmic movement of their bodies soon began to have the most heated effect on her. It was clear he already knew how to dance, but she didn’t want to think about that, about whom he’d danced with before. For now he was with her.

Their eyes locked. The wind ruffled his raven-dark hair and lifted tendrils of hers about them both. If she were to die, this would be her idea of heaven.

But in Tanner’s gaze there was a disturbing glitter, some intrusive something that should have warned her that heaven was not a place easily attained. He cleared his throat. “I guess it might be too soon to tell—and that you don’t want to hear this. But I need to know if you’re in the family way.”

The tune died on her lips. Her skirt caught on some spiky dark-green plant and she stumbled to a halt. This again. Was that what this was all about—this ride, their dancing—so that he could ask her? And what if she was to lie? What if she pretended her monthly courses hadn’t finally come the day after they arrived in Chicago? What would he do then?

“Abby?” His fingers tightened around hers and she felt his other hand splay open at the small of her back.

She shook her head, unable to lie even to hold on to him.

He frowned. “Does that mean no, you’re not, or no, you’re not certain?”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure, damn you!” she exclaimed. Then her eyes narrowed belligerently. “But what would you do if I was?”

He let go of her then and took a step back. “Since you’re not, it hardly matters.”

“It matters to me,” Abby countered, though a part of her wished she could just drop it. She was bound to hate his response.

A muscle tensed in his jaw as he stared at her. She saw him take a slow breath. “I’m a bastard. My mother didn’t have any idea who my father was.” He shook his head as if he wanted to deny the ugly truth of his words. “I wouldn’t want any child of mine born a bastard.”

Abby wrapped her arms around her waist, though she really wanted to wrap them around Tanner. He looked so vulnerable at that moment, despite his forbidding posture and remote expression. So scarred inside. Yet those scars were the source of his odd code of honor.

“We could have children,” she whispered in a shaky tone. “They wouldn’t have to be bastards.”

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “You just don’t get it, do you? We’re good in bed, Abby. I’ll never deny that. But that’s not reason enough to marry a person.”

Abby swallowed hard. Well, she had her answer, cold and blunt and honest. “I see.”

“No, I don’t think you see at all. But tonight at that party you will. You’re Willard Hogan’s granddaughter, and after tonight you’ll be the toast of Chicago society. I’m just some bastard gunslinger he hired to find you. I don’t fit in.”

“But you could,” she pleaded, grasping at the only hope left to her. “You could.”

He sighed, and his hands fell to his sides. “No, I couldn’t. I don’t want to.”

“Then I’ll give it all up. I never wanted to be rich anyway,” she persisted. “I never wanted to come here. We could leave together—”

“No! No, dammit. It’s not going to work, Abby. You’d end up hating me eventually. We’re just too far apart.”

Abby stared at him, at his face set in such stern lines, and his eyes so shuttered that they appeared black, and clutched her arms around her waist. She truly thought she would be ill. That was it. This was the moment she’d thought she could avoid by tempting him with her new dresses and her coquettish ways. By flirting with other men and wearing French perfumes. But for all the lures she’d thrown his way, Tanner wasn’t biting. Once again his streak of honor was keeping them apart. That and her damnable
position
in society.

She looked down at her feet, at the brightly polished toes of her new riding boots peeking from beneath the fine Pekin of her ankle-length skirt. At that moment she knew she had truly lost everything that mattered to her. She was only a well-dressed mannequin with no heart left inside to keep her alive.

The breath caught in her throat when she tried to speak. “Under … under the circumstances … it might be better if you give up your position working with my grandfather,” she managed to get out, mustering the last reserves of her bravado.

“Someone’s got to protect you from whoever it is that—”

“The only protection I need is from you!” she burst out in a strangled voice. “The only one who’s hurting me is you!”

Then, unable to bear the sight of him, so tall, so appealing—so distant—she turned and fled toward the horses. She left pencils and tablet behind her as she mounted and forced the startled mare into a reckless gallop. What did it matter about her mice or her writing?

What did anything matter anymore?

W
ILLARD HOGAN TOASTED HIS
lovely granddaughter and her return to the bosom of her family. Patrick Brady, paired with her as her dinner partner, toasted her beauty and her wit. Joshua Hamilton, president of Chicago’s largest bank and a major stockholder in several of Hogan’s business ventures, and his wife, Eulalie Hamilton, widely acknowledged as queen of Chicago society, toasted their guest as a welcome addition to the city’s community of business and social elite.

Abby did not drink at any of the toasts. That would have been a social faux pas of rather large proportions. But between toasts she surreptitiously emptied the delicate crystal stem of its contents, then nodded when the white-garbed table server appeared to refill it. She needed something to deaden the pain that threatened at any moment to overwhelm her. She must remain calm. She couldn’t make any sort of scene, not here. Not now. It wasn’t the fault of these people. No, nor even her grandfather. They didn’t deserve being forced to witness her complete emotional collapse.

Besides, Tanner would see, and he would know why.

She gulped another glass of the pleasantly bubbling beverage. Champagne was every bit as good as she’d heard. After the first startling sip it had gone down easier with each subsequent glass. But it was no miracle worker, she knew. Tanner still waited just beyond the entrance to the Hamiltons’ ostentatious dining room.

She had protested to her grandfather that she hardly needed a guard to accompany her, especially with him and Patrick there. But though he’d made her promise to stay close to Patrick, he’d still ignored her request to leave Tanner behind. Gordon Jenkins was to be there, he’d explained. And Benny Finks. They were particular competitors of his, and though he didn’t think them likely to resort to violence, he and Tanner were not about to take any chances. Now, as she identified the two businessmen far down the table, Abby wanted to laugh. Did he and Tanner honestly expect one of those old men to jump out and murder her in the midst of this esteemed company? Though she did not know why Cracker O’Hara and his cohort had attacked her and Tanner back there on the prairie, she was more and more certain that their deaths had been the end of it.

She caught the waiter’s eye again. It wasn’t hard, for he seemed ever to be staring at her. All the men seemed to be catering to her tonight. Especially Patrick. She grimaced to herself. She supposed the daring décolletage of her salmon-colored taffeta dinner gown had something to do with it. At the time she’d ordered it, she’d thought to capture Tanner’s eye. But though he’d watched her closely when she’d come down the stairs tonight, his expression had remained stony and his eyes shuttered.

“Be careful, my dear.” Willard patted her hand, then held it still beneath his big bear paw, preventing her from taking up her glass once more. “Overimbibing is not the answer.”

Abby stared wide-eyed at her grandfather. Did he know what a fool she’d made of herself over the man he’d hired to find and then protect her?

“I know this evening is difficult for you. I remember my first few dinner parties.” He chuckled. “I was like a fish out of water. Didn’t even know which fork to use. Almost drank from the finger bowl. But you’ll get used to it,” he assured her.

Abby returned his earnest look with a tight smile. Her mother—his daughter—had taught Abby the subtleties of proper society. But she was not about to enlighten him about his misconception. Still she hoped he was right and that she would get used to this hollow feeling inside her. This sense of utter hopelessness.

Patrick leaned toward her, and his elbow brushed her arm. “Are you feeling unwell?” he murmured for her ears only. “For if you wish to plead a headache, I’m quite willing to see you home.”

“No.” She glanced only briefly at him before averting her eyes.
If you were Tanner, I’d leap at the chance. But you’re not Tanner. And he’d never ask.
“No,” she repeated. “I’m fine.”

She concentrated on her food for a while, but when Mrs. Hamilton rose to lead the ladies into the drawing room for coffee while the men had their after-dinner smoke in the library, Abby was inordinately relieved.

Once shed of the men’s company, however, the other women turned their avid attention to Abby, the newest addition to their elite company. Instead of toasts there was now more overt curiosity. One matron, decked out in purple sateen and black ostrich plumes, did not even pretend to hide her inquisitiveness.

“We all know our Patrick is a stickler for the proprieties. So tell me, is he holding that unchaperoned journey of yours against you?”

“Patrick?” Unsettled by the dozens of pairs of eyes turned upon her, Abby plucked at the ribs of the fan tied to her wrist. “I’m sure Patrick is far too polite to express his opinion about my … my adventure, one way or the other.”

“Pish-posh,” Mrs. Hamilton snorted, a most inelegant sound for a woman swathed in silk from just beneath her triple chin to the ruched and scalloped hem of her emerald-green gown. “Patrick may be a stickler for the proprieties, but he’s hardly above expressing his opinion. Even if he doesn’t say so in words, I trust I am a good enough judge in these matters to say that he does
not
concern himself with the recent and unfortunate circumstances that our dear Abigail found herself in. I think”—and here she paused so that even Abby leaned forward just a little in anticipation of her coming pronouncement—“I think he is so smitten with her that he may seek to secure his position with Mr. Hogan by marrying Abigail.”

Abby’s mouth dropped open. Marry Patrick! Her? No, she did not think so. But amid the chatter that had sprung up at Mrs. Hamilton’s pronouncement, one voice carried more piercingly than the others.

“Well, she may have Patrick Brady. Just so long as she introduces me to Willard’s new bodyguard.”

“Why, Rita Gadsdon!”

“My word!”

But for as many women who appeared shocked by the woman’s bold words, just as many of the others laughed. An unaccountable spurt of jealousy forced Abby to seek her out, to identify the woman who had so swiftly recognized Tanner and the pure masculine vitality he exuded.

She was a small woman with nonetheless a rather lush and well-formed figure. She arched one of her precisely shaped brows and gave Abby a self-deprecating grin. “You’d have to be dead not to notice him. And I’m far from dead.”

“Though your poor Clarence is not so fortunate,” Mrs. Hamilton proclaimed huffily.

“My dear aging husband is well tended to by his nurse, so never you mind, Eulalie. Anyway, I’ve been considering hiring a bodyguard for myself lately—this town is so rough, you know.” She turned toward Abby. “Do tell, dear girl, who is he and how much does your grandfather pay him? I’m certain I can more than match it.”