Schulze, Dallas (11 page)

“I can walk,” she said crossly.

“You’d fall on your face.” He held her with a gentleness at odds
to the cool tone of his voice.

There was something oddly comforting about the feel of his arms
around her, the broad muscles of his chest pressed against her arm. Lila had to
resist the urge to press her cheek against his shoulder, close her eyes, and
just give herself over into his keeping. She couldn’t deny a small—very
small—twinge of regret when he reached the bed and lowered her onto it.

He stepped back and she was relieved to see that he was wearing a
pair of woolen drawers. It was better than if he’d been naked, but they rode
distressingly low on his hips. Lila found her eyes tracing the dark line of
hair that arrowed across his stomach before disappearing beneath the waist of
the drawers. She jerked her eyes away, her cheeks flushing.

“Put some clothes on, for heaven’s sake. A gentleman would never
appear before a lady in such a state of undress.”

Bishop studied her for a moment. He’d never in his life met a
woman quite like her. She sat there, her hair tumbled around her shoulders and
her skin the color of skimmed milk. He’d just spent five minutes holding her
while she puked her guts up yet she still managed to sound as haughty as a
queen handing out decrees to the peasants.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Seems to me a lady wouldn’t
notice a gentleman’s state of undress.”

“I can hardly help but notice it with you standing there in your
... your underwear.” She flicked her fingers in his direction but kept her eyes
resolutely turned away.

“Why, Lila, I do believe you’ve just made a reference to my
intimate apparel.”

She glared at him, her eyes bright green against the pallor of her
face. “Just put some clothes on,” she said between gritted teeth.

“Always happy to oblige a lady.”

He put just a touch of mocking emphasis on the final word, and
Lila’s fingers curled into the covers as she struggled with the urge to hit
him. He was the most exasperating man she’d ever met. Though she was determined
not to look, she found it impossible to ignore him as he walked around the foot
of the bed and bent to pick his clothes up from the floor.

The room had been dimly lit the night she’d come to him and her
impressions of his body had been more tactile than visual. Seeing him now, in
broad daylight, she found it difficult to take her eyes from him. He was all
smooth muscles and hard angles. She was suddenly vividly aware of the
differences between male and female. Even more distressing was the odd little
twinge in the pit of her stomach, a twinge that had nothing to do with her
recent sickness and everything to do with the way the muscles rippled across
Bishop’s back and shoulders as he stepped into his pants.

Lila looked away, ashamed of the effort it took. There was
something shockingly intimate about having a man dressing in the same room with
her. Now that she was a married woman, she supposed it was the least of the
intimacies to which she was going to have to become accustomed. The thought
sent a shiver up her spine, a shiver she was determined to believe was caused
by dread rather than anticipation.

“I’ll have them bring up some dry crackers for you,” Bishop said
as he finished buttoning his shirt.

“I don’t want anything.” The thought of food of any kind made
Lila’s stomach twist uneasily.

“They’ll settle your stomach. Eat them slowly.” He shrugged into
his jacket. “I’ll have them bring up a pot of tea too.”

“I don’t want any tea,” she said, feeling as cranky as a child.

“It will help your stomach.”

“Since you know so much about what will make me feel better, it’s
a shame you aren’t the one having the baby,” she snapped.

Bishop grinned, his teeth a slash of white beneath his dark
mustache. “That would be an interesting trick.”

Lila’s mouth twitched but she refused to grant him a smile. She
preferred it when he wasn’t being pleasant. It was easier to keep her distance
then.

“Where are you going?” she asked when he picked up his hat.

“I’ve got some things I have to do. I’ll be back in a couple of
hours. We can have lunch in the dining room downstairs.”

Lila shuddered. “I don’t think so.”

“You’ll feel better once you get something in your stomach.”

She didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. She didn’t
particularly appreciate his certainty that he knew her stomach better than she
did.

He grinned again, as if he knew what she was thinking and found it
amusing.

“Don’t miss me too much,” he said as he pulled open the door.

Lila barely restrained the urge to stick out her tongue.

***

“If you’ll wait here, Mr. McKenzie, I’ll tell Mr. and Mrs. Linton
that you’re here.”

As if they didn’t already know, Bishop thought cynically but there
was no sense in saying as much to the maid. “Are Gavin and Angelique here?”

“Yes, sir. They’re upstairs.”

“Tell them to come down.”

The maid looked uncertain. “I don’t know as how I should do that,
Mr. McKenzie. Mrs. Linton, she said they was to stay upstairs until—” She
stopped abruptly, as if she’d just realized she was about to say something
unwise.

“Until I left?” Bishop asked.

She flushed. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it, sir.” Bishop didn’t
doubt that Louise Linton had meant exactly what she’d said. He gave the maid a
shallow smile. “Tell the children I’m here and that I want to talk to them.
I’ll deal with Mrs. Linton.”

“Deal with me, Bishop?” Louise Linton’s sharp voice preceded her
into the room. “That sounds very much like a threat.”

Bishop was struck, as always, by the amazing amount of presence
she carried with her. She was a small woman, barely five feet tall, with a
reed-thin body that gave her a delicate, almost birdlike appearance. But if
Louise Linton had been a bird, it would have been a hawk, not only because of
the fierce intelligence in her pale-blue eyes but because of the sheer ruthlessness
with which she dealt with anyone unfortunate enough to enter her circle.

She wore a black silk gown trimmed at wrist and neck with fine
white lace. The effect was both elegant and daunting. No one looking at her
would ever suspect that she’d been born Louise Pervy, illegitimate daughter of
a tinker and a Tennessee mountain girl. George Linton had been a simple
shopkeeper when she married him. With her pushing him, he’d made a small
fortune supplying the emigrants and miners heading west along the Oregon Trail
and now owned a good portion of St. Louis.

With money behind her, Louise had obliterated all trace of her
dirt-poor beginnings. She’d become more elegant and refined than anyone borne
into money would have needed to be. No one who knew her now would ever have
guessed her hardscrabble background. The fact that Bishop knew exactly where
she’d come from was the one thing she could never forgive.

“Are you threatening me, Bishop?” she asked, as she came farther
into the room. Though he could have snapped her neck without effort, there was
no concern in her eyes. Rather there was a challenge, almost a dare.

“I came to see the children,” Bishop said, ignoring her question.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Either the maid can go get them or I will.” He didn’t raise his
voice but his tone was pure steel.

“You do not give orders in this house.”

“Then you give the order. One way or another, I will see them.”

“Perhaps it would be best if we sent someone up to get them.”
George Linton had entered the room behind his wife. Of medium height and rotund
build, he nevertheless seemed to disappear into her shadow in some way that
Bishop had never completely understood. He gave Bishop an apologetic smile.
“After all, he is their father.”

Louise’s thin features tightened, “Since that is the reason our
daughter is dead, I hardly think the reminder is necessary.”

A tense little silence followed her comment. Bishop knew he was
expected to fill it by offering some defense on his own behalf. He said
nothing, letting the silence stretch until George felt compelled to break it.

“Yes, well, Isabelle’s death was a terrible tragedy, of course.
But Bishop is still the children’s father, my dear.” He cleared his throat and
glanced uneasily from his wife to Bishop and back again. “I’m sure Isabelle
would want everyone to let bygones be bygones.”

“Isabelle was an idiot,” Louise snapped. “If she hadn’t been an
idiot, she would have married someone worthy of our position in society instead
of throwing herself away on this... this shootist. I warned her no good would
come of it but she wouldn’t listen. See where it got her!” There was a certain
bitter satisfaction in her voice at having been proven right, even at the cost
of her only child.

“Now, my dear, you mustn’t upset yourself so. Isabelle has been
gone these past five years now. There's no sense raking over old coals. Mary,
go tell the children that their father is here to see them.”

Mary looked at Louise. It was clear that she knew who ran the
Linton household. Louise hesitated a moment and then flicked one hand in the
direction of the door. “Bring them down.”

The maid hurried out, patently relieved to be gone. She left
behind a silence thick enough to touch. Bishop stood with his back to the
fireplace. There was a small fire on the hearth, but the heat it produced was
not adequate to combat the chill emanating from Louise’s stiff figure. The
woman could put frost on the devil’s horns. Bishop liked to think she’d get the
chance to try.

George cleared his throat again, his eyes flickering between the
room’s other occupants. He pulled a linen handkerchief out of his jacket pocket
and dabbed at his forehead. He put the handkerchief away and cleared his throat
again. No one spoke. He shifted from one foot to the other like a nervous child
at a grown-up’s party.

Briefly Bishop considered saying something to ease the older man’s
discomfort, but he discarded the idea. There had been a time when he’d have
said that George was a good man who had the misfortune to be married to a woman
stronger than he was. But, over the years, he’d lost patience with George’s
passivity in the face of his wife’s ambitions. While Louise ran roughshod over
everything and everyone in her path, George stood by and did nothing. It was
not a trait likely to earn a man much respect.

“I’ve married again,” Bishop said, speaking to both of them but
looking at Louise. “As soon as my wife and I are settled, I’ll be sending for
the children to join us.”

It was nearly worth all the trouble his marriage had caused just
to see Louise Linton momentarily slack-jawed with shock.

“Married again. Well, that’s good news,” George said, too
heartily. “Isn’t that good news, dear?” From his tone, it was difficult to tell
whether he was asking her to confirm his assessment or begging her to agree.

Louise didn’t spare him so much as a glance. Her attention was all
for Bishop. “What makes you think we’ll allow you to take the children?”

“What makes you think you can stop me?” Bishop asked coolly.

Before she could respond, they were interrupted by the arrival of
the children. Mary barely waited until they’d entered the room before making
her own escape. Not that Bishop blamed her. Given a choice, he’d have cut a
wide path around any place that Louise was. But he didn’t have a choice, at
least not quite yet. And the reasons stood just inside the parlor doorway,
looking at him with varying degrees of uncertainty.

It had only been six months since he saw them, but he was struck
by how much they’d changed. Gavin had to have grown at least an inch. At twelve,
he was all arms and legs, his lanky body showing promise of matching his
father’s height. With his black hair, blue eyes, and strong jaw, he was the
spitting image of Bishop at the same age. Angelique, on the other hand, with
her pale blond hair and soft blue eyes, was very like her mother. Looking at
her, Bishop could imagine that, in another fifteen years, looking at her would
be like looking at Isabelle’s ghost.

“Hullo” Angelique offered him a shy smile but hung back, edging a
little behind her older brother. Her mother had died giving birth to her. In
the nearly five years since then, Bishop had seen so little of her that he
doubted if she had any real idea of who he was.

Not so Gavin. He knew exactly who Bishop was. And, from the
wariness that marked his expression, he wasn’t overwhelmingly happy to see his
father.

“Hello,” he said, nodding in Bishop’s direction.

“Your father has married again,” Louise said, without giving
Bishop a chance to return their greeting. “He says he plans to send for you when
he’s settled. I haven’t decided yet whether I should allow you to go. What do
you think, children?”

Bishop’s jaw knotted with anger. Damn the woman! He should have
insisted on seeing the children alone.

“Why ask us?” Gavin asked in a sullen tone. “You don’t care what
we think. You’re going to do what you want, just like always.”