"How long have you been here?" she asked, hiding her annoyance.
"Since last night," he said, watching closely for her reaction. He was not disappointed.
"Last night!" she repeated, both surprised and pleased. "You certainly didn't waste any time coming to call, did you?" she asked, glancing at the morning sun and thinking that it could not yet be nine o'clock.
Asa smiled, glad that he had impressed her. "I would have been here sooner, but I wanted to be sure you'd finished breakfast."
Blanche considered all the ramifications of this confession. "And now that you are here, maybe you'll tell me why you've come," she said, suddenly suspicious. Had Felicity sent him? And what was he up to?
Asa gave an inward sigh. This was it, his one remaining chance. If he ruined it, there would be no third opportunity. "I came to see if I could get you to understand why I had to lie to you about being Felicity's uncle. I know it's hard-"
But Blanche interrupted him with an impatient noise and a wave of her hand. "I already told you I forgive you for all that. I don't want to hear about it again. What I want to know is why you're here now."
Asa stared at her, momentarily nonplussed. He had planned it all out. He would ask her forgiveness. If she granted it, he would obtain her permission to call on her. After a suitable length of time, when he was more certain of her feelings for him, he would confess his own. Now she was insisting he bypass all the preliminaries and simply blurt out his intentions. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "I… I'd like to court you, Blanche."
She was instantly wary. Had he traveled ail this way with the express purpose of marrying her? This was too sudden and too drastic a move fora cautious man like Asa Gordon, a man who had spent his adult life carefully investigating every situation. "Why do you want to court me?" she demanded.
"Why?" he repeated incredulously, searching frantically for a respectable-sounding reason. He certainly couldn't afford to offend her at this point by telling her how he had been dreaming for months of having her in his bed, as his wife, for the rest of his life. "Well, you're a very attractive woman and-"
"What is it about me that you find attractive?" she challenged, sounding almost angry.
Puzzled, he swiftly considered all her many charms, trying to decide which ones to mention… and which ones he could mention. "Surely you must know how beautiful you are…" he tried.
"Is it my beautiful self that you want or my beautiful money?" she asked, no longer bothering to conceal her fury. Her money was the only thing she could think of that might have brought him back here so determined to win her hand. If he had felt some unrelenting passion, he never would have left in the first place. She could see Felicity's hand in this. The poor girl had probably been trying some matchmaking and had innocently let slip the information that had brought Mr. Gordon rushing back to Texas to plead his case.
Asa frowned. At last her animosity made sense, but it opened a whole new set of problems for him. "Are you very rich, Blanche?" he asked, dreading the answer.
"Don't you know? Surely Felicity told you all about me. Is that why you came, because you decided to try to catch yourself a rich widow?" Blanche knew her anger was out of proportion to the situation, but she could not seem to help herself. The thought that he had sensed her attraction to him and, learning about her financial status from Felicity, had decided to take advantage of it infuriated her.
"Then you are a rich widow," Asa said with genuine disappointment. "I've been afraid to ask. I was hoping that since your husband's death, you'd been just barely scraping by, holding this place together by the skin of your teeth. Maybe you'd even be happy for some help from an unemployed Pinkerton detective."
"Unemployed?" Blanche echoed.
Asa nodded resignedly. "I quit my job before coming here. That double-damns me, doesn't it?" He didn't bother to add that Allan Pinkerton would hire him back in a second. There was no use in making excuses. Blanche Delano was not a woman to be impressed by excuses. His best bet would be to beg her pardon yet again and make his escape while he still had a few shreds of dignity intact. But just as he opened his mouth to do so, a slender Mexican girl emerged from the house carrying a pitcher and two glasses.
"Our lemonade," Blanche announced, grateful for the interruption. At least she would have a few moments to collect her wits and analyze the things Asa had told her so far. She sat quietly as Maria poured their drinks, smiled tentatively at both of them, and then went back into the house. Asa drained his glass in one gulp.
"More?" Blanche asked, lifting the pitcher that Maria had left sitting on the small wicker table that stood between the two chairs.
When Asa extended his glass for her to fill, she noticed the slightest tremor in his hand. Instantly her gaze flew to his face. She had been studying men's faces all her life, reading their thoughts and their intentions. It was the only way she had been able to survive in a man's world. What she saw now in Asa's face was not what she would have expected from a determined fortune hunter.
He looked positively vulnerable. And discouraged, too, as if her accusations had ruined his plan. But if his plan had been to win her fortune, such a setback would not have mattered. A veteran charmer like Asa Gordon would simply overwhelm her with flattery and make her feel so desirable that she would forget all her doubts. Why wasn't he doing that?
The answer came to her in a blinding flash of insight. For the first time in his life, Asa Gordon was trying to be honest. The trouble was, he was so used to lying that he didn't quite know how to go about being honest without ruining everything. It was only a theory, of course, so Blanche decided to test it.
"I'm not really the fine lady that you think I am," she began, filling his glass and setting the pitcher down again.
A little disoriented by the sudden shift in subject, Asa said, "You're not?" for lack of a better response.
"No, I'm not. You see, I was raised in a whorehouse." Blanche waited for his reaction, but it was not the one she expected.
"So was I," he said.
What was it she saw in his eyes? Pity? No, empathy. He was not lying. He really understood. "But it's different for a girl," she continued relentlessly. "When you got old enough, you left. When I got old enough, my mother turned me out to whore, too. That's what I was when Sam Delano found me."
For an instant real pain flickered across Asa's face, pain for what she must have endured, but his expression quickly changed to suspicion. "Why are you telling me all this?" he demanded.
Blanche did not deign to reply. She simply gave him a moment to reach his own conclusions.
The process took only seconds. "Are you trying to put me off? Did you think I wouldn't want you if I knew?" he asked, suddenly furious. He slammed his glass down on the wicker table, making it tremble.
Blanche was unmoved. "Of course, enough money can help a man forget a lot of things," she remarked.
Asa swore and lunged to his feet. "I wouldn't care if you'd slept with half the men in Texas and didn't have a dime to your name," he informed her, wagging a large index finger under her nose. "And if you think for one minute you can scare me off…"
He stopped as he suddenly realized he was shouting threats at the woman he had come to woo. He lifted the hand he had been wagging in her face and used it to cover his own for a few seconds while he regained his control. He swore again, this time in despair. Now he had ruined everything. She would send him packing for sure. But to his infinite surprise, when he lowered his hand, she was smiling.
Blanche rose slowly, savoring this glorious moment, certain that she would never again see Asa Gordon quite so unsure of himself. "All right," she said cheerfully.
Asa blinked in confusion. "All right what?"
"All right, you can court me," she explained, still smiling. "But only if you don't take too long about it."
Asa opened his mouth and closed it, speechless for once. Finally, he managed to ask, "What made you change your mind?"
"I never changed m
y mind. I always wanted you to court me. In fact," she added, tipping her head coyly, as if to examine him from another angle, "I decided you were the man for me the minute I laid eyes on you."
Asa stared down at her for a long moment, not quite able to believe his ears but unable to doubt the sincerity he saw shining in her emerald eyes. Still, one thing did not quite make sense. "Then why did you act like you couldn't stand the sight of me?"
Blanche batted her eyes at him. "Because you were acting like a damn fool and I couldn't stand the sight of you. I thought you weren't going to apologize, that you really didn't understand how you had hurt me with your story about being Felicity's uncle."
"But I did apologize!" he protested.
"Yes, at the very last minute, and then you ran off and jumped on a train-" "I did not run off-"
"You most certainly did-"
"Blanche!" Asa said in exasperation. "Can we stop fighting for just a minute?"
"Why?" she challenged.
"Because I want to get started with my courting. You said you didn't want me to waste any more time."
"Well, all right," she allowed generously. "What would you like to do first?"
"This," he said, and wasting no more time, he took her in his arms and kissed her thoroughly.
The kiss was everything she had imagined it would be and more. When they were both breathless and clinging, he lifted his mouth from hers and gave her a shaky grin. "We can't keep this up on the front porch. Somebody will see us."
"Maybe we'd better go inside, then," she said with a provocative smile, "where we'll have lots of privacy."
But instead of eagerly agreeing, as she had expected, he frowned in disapproval. "Blanche, you hardly know me. Maybe we ought to take this a little slower…"
"Are you sure you want to?" she asked, teasing her body against the very obvious evidence of his arousal.
"No, I don't," he admitted hoarsely, "but I'm not the one who might be making a mistake."
"I'm not making a mistake," she assured him, pulling out of his embrace and taking his hand to draw him into the house. "And as for getting to know you, by the time this day is over, I think I'll know everything I need to."
* * *
Asa and Blanche's wedding was even more lavish than Josh and Felicity's had been, and certainly better attended. Everyone who had so much as heard of the Widow Delano wanted to see the mysterious Yankee who had finally won her heart. Even the scorching July heat did not keep anyone away.
As the resident photographer, Felicity had captured the event in a series of memorable pictures and a few that were best forgotten. Within the confines of the wagon/darkroom, she and Cody had decided that drunken cowboys should never be allowed to pose for photographs. But in spite of the trials, Felicity had thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to practice her craft once again. She was even more disappointed than her subjects when the sun slipped too low in the sky to allow any more photographs.
"Just look at the two of them, Joshua," Felicity demanded that evening as they and all the other guests watched a beaming Asa guiding a radiant Blanche around the makeshift dance floor for the first dance. "See, I told you everything would work out if we could manage to get Asa here."
Josh gave her a resigned look. "You mean, if you could manage to get him here," he corrected.
She grinned up at him, unrepentant. "I did sign your name to the letter, too."
Then it was time for the best man and the matron of honor to join the bride and groom on the dance floor, so Josh took his wife in his arms and whirled her around to the music. After a few minutes, they were both damp from the exertion.
"I feel sorry for Asa," Josh remarked, looking up at the dark canopy of July sky. "It's awful hot for a wedding night."
"Mr. Logan!" Felicity cried, pretending to be shocked, but then she added wickedly, "I didn't think it ever got too hot for you."
"Mrs. Logan!" he cried right back, mocking her. But his expression quickly softened into a wondering smile. "You've certainly changed since you've been back from Philadelphia. The little girl I married would never have said a thing like that."
The training of a lifetime nudged at Felicity's conscience, and she found herself wanting to apologize for shocking him. Except that she hadn't shocked him, not really, nor had she displeased him. In fact, he was enjoying her, just the way he had been enjoying her-her, the new Felicity, and not the "little girl" he had married-ever since her return. But still, she had a few doubts.
"Joshua, do you ever… do you ever wish you had that little girl back?" she asked, feeling a slight apprehension over what his answer might be. After all, he had chosen that girl to be his wife, and he had grown to love her. Perhaps he preferred her meekness.
Josh frowned, sensing her genuine concern. "I still have her," he said. "You aren't so very different than you were before. I didn't mean to make it sound that way."
Without realizing it, they had stopped dancing and stood still in the middle of the floor while the other couples swirled around them.
"Come on," Josh said, suddenly noticing that they were presenting an obstacle to the gaiety. He took her hand and led her away from the crowd to a more secluded spot on the other side of Blanche's house. When they were alone, with the sound of the party only a dull roar, Josh turned her to face him and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "Is something wrong?" he asked, not liking the worried frown that marred her perfect features.
Felicity hesitated a moment, not even certain if she could put her concerns into words that he could understand. "I found out something in Philadelphia, something about my mother, that I didn't understand," she said at last.
"What was it?" Josh asked, suddenly alarmed. God knew, he had learned more about his own mother than any child should have to know. But surely there were no ugly secrets about Claire Maxwell Storm.
"I found out that she was… that she was very different than the way my father had always described her to me," Felicity began.
"You don't remember her at all?" he asked.
Felicity shook her head. "Only vaguely. She was good and kind and soft and she smelled nice, but that's all. I don't even remember her face. But Papa always told me that she was a perfect lady, that she never raised her voice or did anything unseemly or shocking. He made her sound like a saint, and he wanted me to be just like her. But Joshua," Felicity said, her eyes wide with wonder, "she wasn't like that at all."
"Then what was she like?" Josh asked, still unable to understand her concern.
"Aunt Isabel said she was wild, that she said whatever she thought and that she wasn't afraid of anything or anybody," Felicity explained.
Josh smiled, thinking that he was beginning to understand. "Maybe it just seemed that way to Isabel because she's such a frightened little mouse."
"No, that's what I thought, too, at first, but Grandfather said the same thing. If he thought she was outspoken and rebellious, she must have been. And don't forget, she had the courage to defy Henry Maxwell and run off with a penniless nobody. The woman my father described to me would never have done something like that! Why did my father lie to me, Joshua?"
Felicity watched his face as he considered the answer to her question, a question that had haunted her for months, ever since she had learned the truth about her mother.
"He told you that your mother was like Isabel," Josh murmured, thinking aloud. "And he wanted you to be just like her, and not like your mother… That's it! He wanted you to be like Isabel," he concluded.
"But why?" Felicity asked, more puzzled than ever.
"It's simple," Josh explained. "Twenty years ago, your mother defied her father and ran away, never to be seen again. Twenty years later, Isabel is still by her father's side. When your mother died, you were all your father had left, and he wanted to keep you. He saw that you were like your mother, or at least enough like her to frighten him, so he tried to change you, to mold you into the obedient daughter who would stay with him."
Felicity
mulled this over. "And that's why he never wanted me to talk to strangers, especially young men," she realized.
"And why he made you dress like a child. At first even I didn't realize how old you were. Remember?"
Felicity nodded. "Oh, Joshua, how foolish of him! I would never have done what my mother did."
"But he couldn't have known that. And neither can you. Who's to say what anyone will do when they're desperate?" As if he also was desperate, Josh drew Felicity into his arms and held her tightly against his chest. Suddenly he realized that he might have been speaking of his own mother. Once she, too, had faced a situation with which she could no longer deal, and she had run away, leaving behind her husband and her son. Although he would never be able to forgive her that or the evil she had done since, he could at least understand.
Felicity clung to him, grateful for the security of his arms and for the way he had helped her understand this final mystery about her family. As she considered his words, she wondered what she herself would have done if she had met Joshua while her father was still alive. Would they have fallen in love? Would she have been forced to forsake her father for Joshua the way her mother had done for her father? Glad that she would never have to make that decision, she gave her husband one last hug and drew reluctantly away.
"We'd better get back before we're missed," she said with a smile. "We don't want people thinking we sneaked off alone together."
"No, we don't want that," Josh agreed, grinning. "How scandalized they'd all be, an old married couple like us. But we will sneak away later, after Asa and Blanche disappear," he warned, leaning over to give her a lingering kiss full of promise.
When he lifted his lips from hers, she gazed up at him, wide-eyed. "I thought it was too hot for you, Mr. Logan," she said with false innocence.
He gave her a comic leer. "If you think it's hot now, just wait until later."
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