She shook her head. “I don’t think I can.”
“Why not?”
“If I were to fall, David would have a fit.” She stared at him as comprehension dawned. “That’s why you didn’t let him come.”
“I’m sure he means well, but he’s suffocating you as much as your illness.” He dismounted. “The horse is gentle and trained. I’ll ride behind you to hold the lance steady.”
She set the bowl aside and slowly rose to her feet. “I’m not properly dressed. If I sit astride, my skirt will hike up.”
“You’re among friends. They won’t care. Or if you’d rather, I can send them on their way.”
“No!” It was the craziest thing, but she wanted an audience. She wanted people to see her taking a chance when she’d never taken a chance for fear it would shorten her life.
She barely noticed her shawl falling from her shoulders as she swiped her damp palms over her skirt, trying not to focus on the sweat glistening over his chest. Surely he would put his shirt back on before he climbed on the horse behind her. “I’m willing to give it a try.”
“Good.” He removed the rings from the lance. “Johnny!” The boy loped over. “Put these back into place, will you, lad?”
Johnny grinned broadly. “She gonna do it?”
“Of course.”
“Uncle Harry said you could talk an angel into sinnin’.”
“He spoke out of turn.”
“Maybe so, but he still won the wager.” He grabbed the rings and ran off.
“What wager?” she asked.
“Who knows?” he mumbled as he took her hand and pulled her toward the gelding. “Harry would make a wager on whether or not the sun would come up if he could find a taker.”
He hoisted her into the saddle as though she weighed no more than a petal on the flower he’d given her. Her skirt and petticoats rose to an indecent height. She was jerking them down when he wrapped his roughened palm around her calf. She froze.
“You have lovely legs, Miss Robertson.” He eased her foot out of the stirrup. “But I need the stirrup.”
He vaulted up behind her. She thought if she didn’t fall from the saddle, she might expire from a heart that pounded with too much force. Her mouth went dry when his arms came around her.
“Grab the lance,” he ordered, his breath skimming along her ear, sending delicious shivers cascading over her body.
She did as he’d ordered, tucking the lance in close to her body. His hand covered hers, his arm brushing against hers, his chest pressing against her back. His bare chest. The warmth was enough to make her wonder how he survived the summers.
“Hold onto the pommel with your free hand, and I’ll take charge of the reins and the horse. With my arms around you, I promise you won’t fall. We’ll lope, not gallop.”
Nodding, she took a deep breath. His tanned hand was so much larger than hers, his fingers longer than hers. Her paleness stood out in stark contrast.
He guided the horse around and her body instinctively nestled against his.
“What’s the horse’s name?” she asked as they neared the start of the track.
“Lancelot. Relax, Miss Robertson, or the horse will shy away from his task.”
“I am relaxed.”
“Liar.”
Before she could respond, he urged the horse into a trot. She tightened her fingers around the lance as though that insignificant action could hold her in place.
Kit’s body curled around her in a protective gesture that caused all her fears to recede. The wind caressed her cheeks. With her ribbon dangling at the end of the lance, her loosened hair flew around her face with wild abandon. Her heart thundered in rhythm to the horse’s pounding hooves.
She felt the lurch and heard the ping as the lance hit the first ring. Amazingly it spun toward her hand. She wanted to laugh. Instead she focused on the next ring. As it sang its way down the lance, she realized victory held a sweetness she’d never experienced. Until this moment, her only victories had been waking up to welcome the arrival of the dawn.
They missed the third ring, but she didn’t care. The remaining rings found their way home.
Kit brought the horse around, and only then did she hear the cheers and clapping. She thought she could sail to the clouds on the joyous sound.
“Five rings. Not bad for a beginner,” he said, his warm breath skimming along the nape of her neck.
Smiling brightly, she swung her head around. “Thank you. I’ve never been so happy.”
Steadfast and sure, his light blue gaze dropped to her lips. For one insane beat of her heart, she thought he might kiss her.
Disappointment reeled through her as he shoved off the back of the horse, grabbed the reins, and led her toward the circle of admirers as though she were a princess just rescued from a dragon.
Chapter 4
“I hope you’ll forgive me for barging in, but I couldn’t wait for Harry to come home from the saloon,” Jessye said as she held the portrait of Ashton’s niece, Mary Ellen. “Oh, look how she’s grown.”
Sitting in Mrs. Gurney’s parlor, Ashton was surprised to see tears shimmering in Jessye’s eyes when she glanced up at David. “She’s quite the young lady, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is,” David replied from where he stood beside the fireplace, one arm resting on the mantel. “She’ll be ten soon, but then, I suppose you know that.”
Jessye nodded, smiling wistfully. “It’s just hard to believe.”
“Madeline and I thought we’d bring the family down next summer,” David said.
“That’ll be wonderful. We’ll look forward to your visit. Now, I’d best get to the carriage so Harry and I can get our girls to bed.”
“He doesn’t have to avoid me just because he lied to me,” David said.
Jessye angled her chin. “He’s not avoiding you. Getting in and out of the buggy causes him a great deal of pain so I told him to wait. But if you got something that needs to be said, you can say it to me.”
David straightened and cleared his throat. “I find it strange that Harry didn’t know where I might find Kit this afternoon when I asked, and yet you all apparently spent the afternoon together.”
“We didn’t know for sure that Kit would be there,” Jessye said, smiling brightly. “A wise man wouldn’t even hint at the possibility that my husband lied.”
David tilted his head in concession. “Now I know where Mary Ellen got her stubbornness.” He held up a wrapped parcel that Jessye had given him earlier. “I’ll see that she gets your gift.”
“Thank you.” Jessye crossed the room and hugged Ashton. “It was good to see you again. Take care of yourself.”
Ashton watched her walk from the room. She had admired Jessye from the moment she first met her. She’d gone on an adventure, herding cattle with Kit and Harry four years before. To her shame, Ashton had even envied her. To have the courage and health to do anything she wanted.
She looked up at David. “What did you mean when you said that you know where Mary Ellen gets her stubbornness?”
David met her gaze. “She’s Mary Ellen’s mother.”
Ashton felt her eyes widen. David’s revelation certainly explained the similarities she’d noticed earlier between Jessye and Mary Ellen. “How did all that come about?” she asked.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything on our journey back to Dallas.”
“I always thought Jessye was a remarkable woman.”
“So she is, and you’ll find her even more remarkable once you’ve heard the story. I’m grateful she was there to watch over you this afternoon.”
Ashton rolled her eyes. “David, I did not need a chaperone. Kit has no interest in me.”
He raised a brow. “Kit? Before you left on the outing, he was Mr. Montgomery.”
“Saying such a long name all day would have worn me out,” she snapped, losing patience with his protectiveness, even though she hadn’t had the courage to call Kit anything othe
r than Mr. Montgomery. Calling him “Kit” seemed so intimate. It hadn’t bothered her when he was in Dallas, but that was before her imagination had created fantasies in which her feelings for him blossomed and he returned her interest in kind.
“Look at your face, Ashton. The sun burned it,” David scolded.
She touched her fingers gently to her face. “Only my nose.”
David sighed heavily.
“Oh, David, don’t ruin my memory of the day. It was wonderful.”
“Kit was a perfect gentleman?” he inquired.
“A perfect gentleman,” she assured him. Unfortunately. She’d experienced moments when she’d hoped he wouldn’t be.
David knelt before her and took her hands in his. “I just want you to take care. Consumption—”
“Consumption?” Mrs. Gurney said as she rounded the corner into the parlor carrying a tray of cookies and hot tea. “Who has consumption?”
“No one,” Ashton said quickly, hating for anyone to know of her disease or weakness.
Mrs. Gurney set the tray on a nearby table and pointed her finger at Ashton, wagging it unmercifully. “You need to get married, young lady. That’s a surefire way to prevent getting consumption.”
Ashton bit back her laughter. “Marriage?”
“That’s right. I read it myself in a book called The People’s Medical Lighthouse. That’s one of the reasons I married my daughters off when they was fourteen. You need to get rid of all the worry in your life. And corsets. Those gotta go, too.” The woman spread out her arms and inhaled deeply. “A woman’s gotta be able to take air deep into her lungs.”
David cleared his throat.
Ashton brought a hand to her mouth to hide her smile at David’s obvious discomfort.
“Ain’t been sick a day in my life,” Mrs. Gurney said with a quick nod of her head. “Corsets. That’s the secret. Gettin’ rid of the durn corsets. That contraption had to be invented by a man who didn’t like women. That’s all I got to say on that matter. Now you folks eat up my cookies and drink my tea. It helps to go to bed with something on your stomach.” She bustled out of the room.
Ashton reached for a cookie. “In all my reading, I somehow overlooked that book.”
“It was interesting,” David said quietly.
Ashton snapped her gaze to his. “You read it?”
He blushed and she thought she’d never loved her brother more. “You did read it.”
He shrugged. “I was looking for a miracle.”
“That’s not the reason you asked Kit to marry me, is it?”
“No, unfortunately, marriage supposedly only prevents consumption, it doesn’t cure it.”
Ashton nibbled on the cookie. “Thank you, David.”
“Don’t thank me, Ashton. I’ve yet to find a cure for your disease nor a way to grant your wish to be a bride.”
“At least you tried, and that means the world to me.”
Bloody damned hell!
Kit paced the small confines of his office unable to erase Ashton’s jubilant smile from his memory. In sleep, in joy, she was a fragile beauty, an earthbound angel soon to touch the heavens.
She took delight in the simplest things, putting his cynical side to shame. Dear God, in truth, it had been years since he’d known happiness. Long before the night he learned that Christopher was to marry Clarisse.
“Mind if I join you?” Christopher asked.
Staring into the fire, Kit simply waved his hand magnanimously over the decanters on the table beside his chair. “By all means, if you can find one that still has anything left in it.” With an unsteady hand, he brought the glass to his lips, wondering how much more he’d have to drink before he drowned the pain.
Christopher came to stand before the fire.
“You’re blocking my view of hell,” Kit muttered.
“I just had the most unbelievable conversation with Father.”
Kit lifted his glass in a salute. “As unbelievable as the one I had with him earlier? Interesting, how he broke the news to me before he told you.”
“I swear to you, Kit, I did not know he was going to arrange a marriage between me and Clarisse.”
Kit scoffed. “For the good of Ravenleigh…or some such. I am having some success at forgetting his exact wording.” He sipped the brandy.
“Her father would not allow her to marry a man who is not titled.”
Kit grinned crookedly. “Don’t suppose you’d do me the great service of dying?”
Christopher sat in the chair beside him, planted his elbows on his thighs, and leaned forward, his face incredibly serious. “If she does not marry me, she will go to someone else. She can never be yours.”
“You make her sound like a mare on a bloody bidding block.”
“She has been raised expecting to marry a man with a title. She deserves one.”
“She deserves love.”
“As my wife, she will have that…in abundance.”
Dumbfounded Kit stared at his brother. “You love her?”
“You attend so few balls, Kit. In the beginning, even though I believed your hopes unrealistic, knowing how you felt about her, I was merely trying to ensure that no one else captured her fancy—”
“Does she love you?”
“I believe she has a fondness for me. I was not actively pursuing her—or anyone else, for that matter—which is the reason Father took the action that he did. He grew impatient waiting on me to choose a wife.”
“Bloody hell, Christopher.” He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I knew I could never have her. What has a second son to offer any woman of distinction?” He opened his eyes and met and held his brother’s gaze. “Give me your solemn vow that if she is not in favor of the match, you’ll find a way to get out of the marriage that will not cause gossip.”
“I swear it.”
A promise his brother had never had to fulfill, and that knowledge had hurt even more.
Kit could not pinpoint the exact moment when he’d become aware of his unhappiness, but it seemed as though it had always hovered nearby. Never having the ability to meet his father’s expectations had not helped, nor had loving his brother but coveting his acquisitions. He wondered if he’d ever been truly happy. He certainly was unhappy now. If he did not marry Ashton, nothing would change. If he did, still nothing would change. He would continue to wallow in a past he could not alter, but she might know another moment of joy.
David was right. Her dream was an incredibly small request. It would not change Kit’s life, but it might ease Ashton’s dying.
He strode from his office into the night, leaving his common sense locked behind iron bars.
He neared the boardinghouse. Light shone from one lone window, and within its glow he saw the silhouette of a woman gazing at the stars. He wondered if she was making a wish.
She sought no pity for her condition but seemed intent on appreciating each moment that remained. Perhaps through her he could again learn to appreciate what life had given him, instead of longing for what it had denied him.
He leapt onto the porch, grabbed the beam, and hoisted his way up to the top of the eves. Bracing her hands on the sill, she leaned out the window.
“Mr. Montgomery, what are you doing?” she asked, concern clearly etched in her voice.
“Coming to see you, Miss Robertson.”
“Are you insane? You could break your neck.”
“It would be no loss, I assure you.” Balancing precariously, he cautiously made his way across the slanted roof over the porch until he reached the area that was even with her window. He held out his hand. “Come and join me.”
Her eyes became as round as the moon. “And risk breaking my neck?”
“I swear to you that I will not let you fall.”
She seemed to hesitate as she clutched the front of her nightgown. “I’m in my nightgown.”
Her unnecessary revelation amused him. “I assure you that I have seen women in much less. B
esides, with the slant of this roof, there is not a great deal I could do to compromise you, but if I were to slip in through your window—”
“I’ll come out,” she said quickly.
He smiled and reached for her. “I thought you might.”
She gathered up her hem and slipped a shapely leg out of the window. He grabbed her elbow, wrapped his arm around her waist, and guided her safely onto the roof.
“This is madness,” she whispered as she settled beside him.
“Yes, but you can see the stars much more clearly. Were you making a wish?”
“No, I was just thinking about today. I shall remember it for as long as I…forever.” She peered at him. “Thank you.”
“It was my pleasure.”
She ran her finger just beneath his chin. “I noticed this scar earlier today. How did you get it?”
“A gift from my father.”
She furrowed her brow, her eyes mired with confusion. “But it looks like a burn. Why would he hurt you like that?”
“I have a twin brother. Christopher. He was born first, and as such, he is the heir apparent. My father wanted to ensure that no one ever mistook me for him so he applied a hot poker just below my chin shortly after I was born.”
“How incredibly cruel!”
He shrugged as though his father’s action was of no consequence when in fact he’d often held the same sentiment. “I have no memory of the pain.”
“I find it odd that his name is Christopher and people call you Kit. I always thought Kit was a nickname for Christopher. Do they call him Kit as well?”
“Good God, no. As the future Earl of Ravenleigh, he carries my father’s second title, Viscount Wyndhaven, and is always addressed formally. When we were lads, Christopher said Christian was an inappropriate name for me when I was constantly getting into trouble, so he bestowed his nickname upon me, since he would never have a need for it.”
“It sounds as though the two of you were close.”
“Very.” He smiled warmly at the memories of his youth. “In some ways, our closeness is frightening. One day, I was at school, writing an essay, and suddenly pain shot up my arm, my pencil went flying, and I could not write. Even when the teacher threatened to smack me, I could not make my hand obey, and the pain would not abate.”
Never Marry a Cowboy Page 5
