by Nerys Leigh
On rounding a corner, they reached a black coach with shiny silver trim, pulled by two magnificent chestnut geldings.
A tall, well-built man in his thirties wearing a crisp gray uniform opened the door on their approach. “Miss Ravensworth.”
She smiled and placed her hand in his. “Thank you, Ira.”
“May I take your luggage, sir?” he asked George, once he’d helped her in.
George looked at the battered leather bag in his hand. Instinct told him to hold onto it, unused to the local people and their behavior as he was.
“Much obliged,” he said, handing the bag to the driver. He most likely looked like a backwoodsman, but he didn’t need to behave like one.
Inside the coach, Millie was already seated. George eyed the space beside her. He wanted to sit as close as he could get, but he had no idea how she would feel about that. So he took the seat opposite and removed his hat.
Although she didn’t comment, Millie’s lips twitched.
“Miss Ravensworth?” George said as the coach started off.
Her smile fairly glowed. “I didn’t want to use my former husband’s name any longer than I had to. Mrs. Franklin Courtney no longer exists, and I’m better for it.”
It seemed to him there was a lightness to her that, even when they’d spent time together back in Green Hill Creek, had been missing. It made her even more attractive.
“You certainly are,” he said. “If you don’t mind me saying so, I think divorce agrees with you.”
“Being free of Franklin agrees with me.” She gave him a coy smile. “Seeing you again agrees with me even more.”
He knew he should have taken the seat beside her. “I reckon seeing you again agrees with me too.” He leaned back in the padded seat and looked around the plush, blue velvet interior of the coach. In all his fifty-one years, it may have been the fanciest thing he’d ever ridden in. “Is this yours?”
“My father’s. He found a buyer for my house who wants all the furniture and everything else with it, so my two carriages are staying there. To be honest, I’m glad of it. Now it’s over, I just want to forget everything to do with my marriage.” A wicked smile slid onto her face. “Back when we were newly married and I still imagined Franklin a decent, loving man, he bought me two dresses he said looked especially pretty on me. The day the divorce was finalized, I wrapped them both in his favorite smoking jacket and burned them. It felt wonderful.”
He grinned. “Ha! I think I’d have liked to have watched that.”
Her feistiness was one of many things he liked about Millie. He’d never understood men who wanted their wives to behave all submissive and obedient. Give him a woman who argued with him and stood up for herself and he’d be happy. His wife had never held back on speaking her mind, and he’d loved her all the more for it.
They talked for a while, sharing their lives since they’d last been together, and the comfortable familiarity they’d enjoyed in Green Hill Creek returned. This was why he’d come all the way to New York for a woman he’d only spent two weeks with. With Millie, everything felt easy and right, as well as exciting and new. It was a feeling that often only came once in a lifetime. He was blessed to have found it twice.
Having lost track of time as they chatted, he eventually glanced out the window to find the busy, people-filled streets had given way to a more residential scene, with large houses separated by expanses of lawned gardens. It looked like the kind of neighborhood where people with more money in their pockets than he’d see in a lifetime lived.
“Are we going to your home first, before I find a boarding house?” If there were any hotels in this area, he knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be able to afford even one night in any of them.
“Boarding house?” Millie smiled. “Don’t be silly. My parents’ house has five guest bedrooms. It wouldn’t make any sense for you to stay somewhere else.”
It was a few moments before he could formulate an appropriate response. “You…” He coughed around his suddenly arid throat. “I’m sleeping in the same house as you?”
“Well, there’s also my mother and father and twelve staff, but I’m sure we’ll be able to find somewhere we can be alone.”
To his mortification, he felt his cheeks heat. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d blushed. In fact, he couldn’t remember if he’d ever blushed. “Are you flirting with me?”
She pressed a hand to her breast in mock dismay. “Goodness, am I so bad at it that you have to ask?”
“Uh, no. I, um…” First the blushing, now he was flustered. He was too old for this kind of thing.
She leaned forward, her expression turning serious. “George, I wasted too long in a loveless marriage to a philandering scoundrel because I was afraid of what other people might think if I left him. I’m forty-six years old. It’s about time I stopped worrying what others think of me. So yes, I’m flirting, and I hope you don’t mind because I plan on doing it often.”
A warmth blossomed in George’s chest that had him smiling. His taste in women hadn’t changed at all.
Moving from his seat, he sat beside her and took hold of her hand. “I can’t say I mind at all.”
A smile played on her lips and her fingers tightened around his. “Good.”
If the carriage hadn’t pulled to a stop at that moment, he might have put forward the idea of having their first kiss right then and there. Ira the coachman had the worst timing.
Ira helped Millie from the carriage and George followed her out, his mouth falling open. Focused on her as he’d been while they were moving, he hadn’t noticed the grand wrought iron gates they’d entered, or the perfectly manicured lawns and trees, or the huge three-story house in front of which they now stood.
He’d known her family was wealthy, but he hadn’t realized they were this wealthy. He closed his mouth before something flew in. Late summer flowers still filled the neat flowerbeds and insects were buzzing everywhere.
“It’s so big,” he murmured, and then regretted it. He sounded like a hick.
“Most of it doesn’t even get used,” Millie said, walking up beside him, “unless we have visitors. It was different when my brothers and I were young and all lived here, but now it’s really too big.”
“Is your house this big?”
She laughed. “Oh, goodness, no. It isn’t small, by any means, but it was nothing like this.”
He nodded, attempting to feel reassured by that and failing. Why in the world would Millie have any interest in the next to nothing he had to offer her? Why was he even here?
“Are you all right?” she asked, a small frown creasing her brow.
“I reckon I’m just tuckered out from the journey.”
He flinched internally. Tuckered out? He sounded even more like he came from the back side of nowhere now. Although he’d never worried about the words he used when they were together back in Green Hill Creek.
This was ridiculous. He’d never been intimidated by money; he wasn’t going to start now. He was as good as anyone in this city, and Millie knew that. If she hadn’t thought he had something to offer, she wouldn’t have invited him.
Drawing himself up, he offered her his arm and she slipped her hand around it with a smile. It felt good there. Comfortable, like it belonged.
He looked up at the lintel as they approached the entrance, wondering why any entryway needed to be ten feet tall. As if by magic, the huge door swung as they reached it, although the man waiting just inside might have had something to do with that. George wondered if he’d been standing there the whole time, waiting for just the right moment to pull the door open.
Millie unwound her arm from his and walked ahead of him into an expansive entrance hall dominated by a huge staircase rising from the center of the room. Six men could have walked side by side up the red-carpeted steps without jostling each other. Wooden paneling decorated the walls and at each corner of the intricately patterned tiled floor sat a marble bust on a pedestal.
Who on earth had marble busts in their home?
“Miss Ravensworth,” the man said, bowing slightly as they entered. He took her coat and turned to George. “Sir, may I take your hat?”
He snatched his hat from his head and handed it over. “Uh, thanks.”
“George, this is Harris, our butler,” Millie said, unpinning her own hat. “If you need anything, just ask him. This whole place only works because he’s here to see that it does.”
Harris gave her another bow and took the hat she handed him. “You’re very kind to say so, madam.”
“It’s nothing but the truth. Is my father at home?”
“He’s in his study. Should I announce you and Mr. Parsons?”
“No, thank you. We’ll surprise him.”
Inclining his head, the butler withdrew, and Millie took George’s hand to tug him in the direction of an open door to their left.
“Mother is visiting her sister at the moment, but she’s coming home tomorrow so you can meet her then. Daddy will want to meet you right away though.”
George’s mouth turned to dust.
He held the opinion that no man or woman was beneath him and, equally, none were above him. The Bible taught that judging a man on his wealth was wrong, so George took the same view as his Father in heaven. He hadn’t felt intimidated by another human being since his age was in single digits.
The thought of meeting Millie’s father, however, had him feeling queasy.
“He does know I’m here, doesn’t he?” Her talk of surprising her father had him even more worried.
“Of course he does. What’s the matter? Nervous?”
They entered a room lit by a tall window facing the front of the house. It was large but comfortable, in a dripping with wealth kind of way. A carpet extended to within a few feet of the walls and settees and chairs gathered around a huge stone fireplace. One corner was dominated by a grand piano. A gaming table stood beneath the window.
George looked up at the intricate molding around the ceiling. “Yup.”
She pulled him to a stop halfway across the room and faced him. “My father is a well-respected, powerful man. People look up to him. Even though he’s been retired for two years, they still call him Judge Ravensworth, and they respect his opinion. He’s a firm man who won’t put up with any nonsense. But I know something about him that most others don’t.” She leaned in close and lowered her voice as if imparting a great secret. “Underneath all that, he’s a sweetheart. You have nothing to worry about.”
Was she trying to make him feel better? “Sweetheart. Right.”
Giggling, she slipped her arm around his and they resumed walking. “It’ll be just fine. You’ll see.”
He hoped she was right. It had been a long time since he’d had to meet a woman’s parents. He didn’t remember it being so nerve-wracking the first time, but maybe he’d just been young and stupid.
She led him to a door in the far corner of the room, unwound her arm from his, and knocked. At a bid from inside to enter, she opened the door, grinned at George, and walked in. He followed her with somewhat less enthusiasm.
Judge Ravensworth’s study was smaller than the room they’d left but no less grand for it. Leather-bound books filled bookcases in between walnut paneling. Green leather upholstered chairs clustered around a polished table. A red and green patterned rug covered most of the floor.
And in front of the window was a huge walnut desk behind which sat a man.
George knew Judge Leonard Ravensworth to be sixty-eight, but age hadn’t rendered him at all frail. His build was solid, back straight in his chair, and a full head of thick white hair graced his head. Shrewd eyes the same blue as Millie’s fixed on George.
She smiled at her father. “Daddy, this is George Parsons. George, may I present my father, Leonard Ravensworth.”
George inclined his head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. Thank you for inviting me into your home.”
He wasn’t at all sure, given the stony expression on Judge Ravensworth’s face, that he actually had invited him, but he wasn’t going to start out with bad manners.
“Take a seat, Mr. Parsons,” was the reply, without a hint of cordiality to it.
Two chairs sat in front of the desk and George waited for Millie to sit in one before he took the other. He was intensely aware of Ravensworth’s eyes on him and he had the strongest sensation he was being afforded the same level of scrutiny as any criminal in the erstwhile judge’s court. Evidently, judges never stopped judging.
“Millicent, don’t you have something else you’d like to do?” Ravensworth said. “You’ll just be bored listening to us. Men’s talk.”
She gave him an amused look. “Really, Daddy? Men’s talk? What would Mother say?”
The ghost of a smile flitted across his face, softening the hardness for a moment. “It was worth a try.” All hint of cheer vanished as he moved his gaze back to George. “My daughter has told me a lot about you, Mr. Parsons. Frankly, I have my doubts that you’re as wonderful as she thinks you are.”
“Daddy!” Millie looked as though she didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry.
“I did warn you, Dumpling.”
Closing her eyes, she shook her head, muttering “Dumpling” under her breath.
“The truth is,” Ravensworth went on, “when Millicent told me she’d met a man in California who hadn’t even let the dust settle from the arrest of her husband before he was pursuing her, my first thought was that this man was clearly after her money. My opinion hasn’t changed on that.”
Beside George, Millie groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. This was evidently a conversation they’d had many times before.
Judge Ravensworth’s admission was unashamedly forthright, but George appreciated a man who spoke his mind. He was the same way. He liked to know where he stood. Admittedly, he would rather have stood on less shaky ground where Millie’s father was concerned, but he’d faced worse in his life.
And if he thought for a while, he’d probably be able to remember what that worse thing was.
“I understand how you feel,” he said, “and I’m grateful for your honesty. I reckon if I was in your position, I’d think the same thing. But I have no interest in Millie’s money. The only thing that means anything to me is her.” He glanced at her sitting beside him and smiled. “Even though we’ve known each other for hardly any time, she’s become real important to me. From the moment I first laid eyes on her I knew she was special, and the more time we spent together, the more I knew I was right.”
Millie’s smile curled around his chest, warming him inside, and for a moment he forgot there was anyone else in the room.
Until Ravensworth said, “You’ll forgive me if, after forty years of dealing with people who lie as a matter of course, I don’t take your word on that.”
In the west, a man didn’t question another man’s word without very good reason, at least not to their face. In some places, that sort of thing could get you shot.
But since Ravensworth’s approval was something George needed, he didn’t mention that. “Well, I hope you’ll come to realize that my word is as important to me as I reckon yours is to you. I can’t do anything but tell you the honest truth.”
Ravensworth’s eyes narrowed. “You’d be surprised the number of times I heard that in court, usually from men who turned out to be anything but honest and are now languishing in prison.”
George opened his mouth and then closed it again. Anything he replied to that would only lower him even further in Ravensworth’s estimation, so he kept silent. He did, however, keep his gaze firmly on the other man. Even if he couldn’t convince him of his honorable intentions towards Millie, he could show him he wasn’t a man who would be intimidated into backing down.
It was Millie who brought the silent standoff to an end. “Well, now the two of you are acquainted and before this conversation gets any worse, I’ll show George to his room. If you’ll excu
se us, Daddy.”
She rose from her chair and walked in front of George, breaking the line of sight between him and her father.
He stood and nodded to Ravensworth. “Sir.”
And as he followed Millie from the room, he couldn’t help thinking that, so far, his chances of successfully courting Millie weren’t looking good.
What with her father hating him and everything.
Chapter 2
“Daddy!”
Startled, Millie’s father’s eyes jerked up from the papers on his desk. She didn’t usually barge into his private domain without knocking, but then she usually wasn’t this annoyed with him.
“Yes, Millicent?”
She marched up to the desk. “How could you do that?”
He leaned back in his chair. “What is it you think I’ve done? And where’s Parsons?”
“He’s in his room, unpacking. And don’t you dare feign innocence. You know exactly what you’ve done.” When he failed to respond, she glared at him. “Your behavior towards George was appalling.”
“I think I was perfectly civil. Remarkably so, given the circumstances.”
She lowered her voice in an attempt to imitate his. “‘You’d be surprised the number of times I heard that in court, usually from men who are now languishing in jail.’ I hardly call that civil. And don’t you dare laugh!” she added when his lips began to twitch.
He held out his hand. “Stop pouting and come here.”
She waved a hand at her face. “This isn’t pouting; this is anger.”
He beckoned her with his fingers and she reluctantly approached. When she was close enough, he took her hand, the way he always did when she was upset. Although normally it wasn’t him who had upset her.
“You know how much I disliked Franklin and how he treated you.”
She nodded silently. Her father had warned her when she’d first met her former husband, but she’d been so blinded by her loneliness and Franklin’s apparent charm that she hadn’t listened. She’d spent eight years of marriage regretting that.
