Texas Tiger TH3 (9 page)

"Mr. Harmon, I am quite willing to pay for your services. I'm not asking you to bill my father if you think he won't be pleased. This is very important to me." Georgina jerked her elbow from the man who was steering her out of the office. She was growing extremely tired of men leading her about like a pet dog.

"Now, Miss Hanover, I'll be happy to look up those deeds if your daddy wants me to, but it's not something you need be worrying your pretty head over. I hear there's to be a wedding soon. You need to be picking out a nice gown and writing invitations. You and Peter will make a lovely couple."

She had been irritated before, seriously annoyed upon occasion, but never had Georgina felt so overwhelmingly furious in all her entire life as she was now. She wanted to box the man's ears, grab his black whiskers and tug with both hands, rip them right off his smug face, and then she wished she could lift her leg as high as Mr. Martin had and kick the lawyer where it hurts.

Instead, she gave him her best vapid smile, waved her fingers in farewell, and sauntered out of the office as if she hadn't a care in the world.

And then she stalked straight over to the courthouse.

She was damned if she would let any more men stand in her way. She would find out who owned those houses, and she meant to give him a piece of her mind. And if he didn't listen to reason, she had every intention of revealing the scandal to every woman she knew until his name was black as tar all over society. She didn't know where she would go from there, but she would think of something. There must be laws of some sort. If there weren't, then somebody ought to make them. The mayor could help her with that. Her mother and the mayor's wife were good friends.

Having learned her lesson, Georgina smiled beguilingly at the clerk behind the counter labeled deeds. "I want to surprise my fiancé. Could you help me? I need to know how to look up the owner of a piece of property."

By the time Daniel arrived five minutes later, Georgina was up to her elbows in crumbling old books. Dust smudged her nose and stained her gloves and coated her elegant gown, but she was smiling victoriously as she ran her finger down a list of addresses.

Daniel glanced over her shoulder to see just the information he had come in search of, and it was just as useless as he had suspected it would be. But he wouldn't spoil her triumph by letting her know that.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. "I told you I didn't need your services."

Undaunted, Georgina stuck her tongue out at him and slammed the book closed. "Go fly a kite, Mr. Martin. I've better things to do than work with you."

Even coated in dust she smelled like lilies, and she rustled softly as she stood up right in front of him. There should be music so he could dance her around the cramped little floor. It was the only excuse Daniel could think of to grab her in his arms. Of course, what he ought to do when he grabbed her was to shake some sense into her.

"And just how do you propose to find out who owns ABC Rentals, Inc.?" Jamming his hands in his pockets, he blocked her exit.

Her lips tilted mischievously. "The same way I persuaded the clerk to tell me how to find the addresses. I bet I find out faster than you."

He didn't like the look in her eye. And he didn't like the look in the clerk's eye as he watched them. Daniel knew a possessive look when he saw one, and he knew what put it into a man's head to be possessive of a woman. He scowled. "And what do you propose to do with the information if you manage to get it? Start your own newspaper?"

"Wouldn't you just like to know?" Lifting her skirts, Georgina inched past him.

Daniel hurried after her. "Look, Georgina, you don't know what you're getting into. Men like that are dangerous. You could be hurt."

She shot him a glance over her shoulder. "I didn't give you permission to use my name, Mr. Martin. I'm Miss Hanover to you."

"I'll be damned if I will call a spoiled brat Miss anything." Daniel hurried down the courthouse stairs in her wake. "Go ahead and try to find out who owns ABC if you want, but don't do anything until you tell me. I can put it in the paper and not involve you at all. If all you want to do is help Janice and her family, that's the best thing to do. But if you're out to show the world what a wonderful person you are, then forget it. You deserve whatever happens."

He was striding down the street away from her before the last words were out of his mouth.

Georgina wanted to throw something at him. She wanted to screech and shout and tell him what she thought of men and their arrogant assumptions. And she wanted to grab his neck and hug him. He hadn't doubted that she could find out the owners of ABC Rentals, Inc. He hadn't told her not to find out. He'd told her he would print the story when she had it.

She really thought Mr. Daniel Pecos Martin the most original man in town—when he wasn't being a pig-headed jackass.

* * *

"Georgina Meredith, I have known you since you were in diapers, and I'm perfectly aware when you are up to something that you shouldn't be, so don't play Miss Coy with me, young lady. Why in the name of heaven do you want me to inquire about something so crass as a company called ABC?"

The haughty lady affecting a lorgnette and wearing her silvered hair stacked higher than seemed possible for normal human hair looked down her nose at her young guest on the other side of the tea table. Georgina merely smiled back. The mayor's wife played the royal lady every bit as well as Georgina played the young scamp. They understood each other perfectly.

"Because they own some property I'm interested in buying," she replied demurely. "I wish to surprise Peter with my economic expertise."

The older woman's face almost cracked a smile before she forced it into retreat. "Economic expertise, my foot and eye. You're up to no good, Georgina Meredith, that I can vouch. But it should be amusing to see what you do with the information. You do realize it won't be easy to persuade Harold to tell me?"

Georgina had anticipated that. It was tit for tat with Loyolla Banks. She sipped from her cup before replying. "I fully appreciate that, Mrs. Banks. I'm not certain how I can offer my gratitude. But I have met the most interesting person—I've been thinking he would make a delightful addition to a dinner party. He's from Texas, and his nickname is Pecos, and he's the most original person I've met in a long time."

Loyolla's eyes lit up like beacons. Georgina hid her smile. She knew the matron prided herself on introducing the original and the intellectual at her exclusive dinner parties. She had no idea how Daniel would feel about such an invitation, but she had no intention of telling him he was being served as the main course.

* * *

On Wednesday morning Georgina woke up with imps of hell tap dancing in her stomach. Today was the day Daniel's newspaper would come out—and her photographs would go on display in the glass kiosk Daniel had rented as a newsstand. She would learn once and for all whether Peter was willing to have her as she was, or if all he wanted was a smiling ninny to decorate his arm. She might be throwing away a certain future for an uncertain one, but she had to know.

And she didn't intend to sit around the house, waiting for it to happen. She already knew how the photographs had turned out. Now she wanted to see that newssheet as it rolled off the presses. Daniel could fire her all he wanted, but he couldn't stop her from showing up if she chose to. And she did.

Besides, she had a perfectly legitimate excuse to appear on his doorstep. The invitation to Mrs. Banks's dinner party lay right there on her desk. When Daniel understood that access to the information they wanted was dependent on his acceptance of the invitation, he would have to consent. And she would have to be the one to present him with it.

The June heat was scorching as she directed Blucher to the street with the camera shop. She needed more supplies anyway, so she wasn't really lying. By the time the carriage returned after running her mother's errands, she would have had time to see Daniel and still buy the chemicals. Walking quickly in this heat would have to be the price she paid for her deception.

She had dressed appropriately this time. Her white organdy skirt whispered coolly about her ankles as she hurried down the unpaved street. The matching ruffled parasol kept her protected from the worst rays. Her lace gloves let in every breath of air. The only problem with the whole effect was that it made every man on this side of town turn and stare.

Men on her side of town weren't so rude. Georgina had the urge to stick her tongue out at them, but instinct told her that probably wasn't wise. Sticking her nose up in the air and disregarding the gawkers, she hurried toward Daniel's office.

She could hear the racket of the press running even before she entered the building. All the windows on the second floor were open, and the clackety-clack bounced off the walls and up and down the narrow alley. She closed her parasol, wiped her hands nervously on her skirt, lifted it out of the dust as she stepped inside and started up the stairs.

The door was open, so she walked in. The mattress in the corner now sported a colorful quilt; an old wing chair decorated another corner. Beside the chair was a table with an oil lamp and a collection of books that covered the remaining surface and towered dangerously at several points. Georgina imagined Mr. Martin sitting there in the evenings with his spectacles on, devouring those volumes instead of food. No wonder he was so lean.

The pounding noise of the press was enough to give her a headache even from here. Crossing the room, Georgina peered into the press room with curiosity, hoping to see the newssheets as they rolled off the machine.

Instead, she saw the wide bare shoulders of a half-naked man as he bent over some obscure piece of oily equipment. The sight caught her completely unaware, and she stared. She couldn't remember ever seeing a man's naked back before. Sweat streamed in rivulets down the hollow of his spine to a narrow place just above his trousers. The trousers rode low on narrow hips, leaving a gap where she could see the difference in skin color, tanned on top, much lighter below the belt.

She gulped and flushed, but couldn't look away. His back was tanned and smooth and rippled dangerously as he wrenched at a bolt on the machine. The motion made her follow the line of broad shoulders to the bulge of muscular arms. Was that what men looked like beneath their shirts and cravats and waistcoats?

She must have made some sound or movement to warn him, although how he could hear over the racket of the press was beyond her. Daniel glanced over his shoulder, and she was caught, even as she started to back away. A big grin sprawled across his face as he straightened and turned around.

That left her even more speechless. Now she wasn't looking at his bare back, but his naked chest. How had she ever thought this man on the skinny side? True, his waist was slim and his hips narrow, but that only emphasized the width of the rest of him. She couldn't look at the rest of him. She hadn't realized men had nipples, too.

She covered her eyes with her hand. "A shirt, please, Mr. Martin."

Even over the bumps and thumps she could hear his chuckle. She wanted to melt right through the floor and die. Her cheeks were even hotter than the air in this stifling room, and there was a nervous twinge in her middle that made the imps that had danced there earlier seem innocent. Stiffly, she walked into the outer room, trusting he was finding some decent clothing.

Even though she kept her eyes closed, she knew when he entered the room. She could smell him. Strangely enough, it wasn't an unpleasant odor. It stirred her senses in ways they had never been disturbed before. Georgina scowled and grabbed the paper he was rattling in front of her.

Opening her eyes, she read the banner headline: SLAVERY STILL EXISTS! The subheads were sensationalism at its best, indicting Mulloney's without benefit of trial, but doing it in three-syllable words that made it sound legitimate.

She could imagine the display at the newsstand, these headlines next to her photographs of the clerk looking bright and fresh at eight that morning and wilting wearily against the counter at six that night, the plush office with its upholstered chairs next to the barren counter without so much as a stool to sit on. There had also been a picture of the Mulloney estate next to one of the rundown shack of a worker in the final batch. She hadn't taken them. Daniel had made free with her equipment. But if it accomplished their objective, she couldn't complain.

"Well, what do you think?" Daniel had donned not only a shirt, but spectacles as he glanced over another sheet. The shirt was only half buttoned and not in the right buttonholes, and he looked like a tousled little boy.

Georgina wasn't fooled. She looked back to the story. "It's not enough. No one will feel sorry for clerks who work in a store as posh as Mulloney's and who don't even get their hands dirty. You'll have to go after the mill and probably the gas company. He has shares in the railroad, too, but I don't know if that will help. I still think my father's factory is your best bet. It's much easier for a reader to understand."

Daniel looked at her over the top of his spectacles and the newssheet in his hand. "Lady, you're meaner than I am. Your boyfriend will be screaming bloody murder over those pictures and you're looking for more trouble?"

Georgina threw down the sheet and glared back. "Just because I'm rich doesn't mean I'm heartless. I saw how those people were living back there. How do you think it makes me feel to know that the clothes on my back come from the bread robbed from the mouths of those children?"