Jade

by Jill Marie Landis

Reggie failed to apologize, but he did fall silent.

  Jason ignored him and turned to Jade. “I want to take you to dinner. We need to talk.”

  She could not believe he had come. She had spent the last twenty-four hours convincing herself she would never lay eyes on him again, and now here he stood, more handsome than she remembered, defending her before Reggie. Suddenly self-conscious, her hands flew to her hair.

  “You look fine,” he said with a warm smile. “If you get your coat we’ll be on our way.” He nodded at Reggie as if to dismiss him, but Reggie was not leaving.

  “You realize, Harrington, I have nothing against you, but this is a very sticky situation. Very.” Reggie tugged on his collar. “I’m extremely upset.”

  Jade almost felt sorry for Reggie. It seemed he would not hold the embarrassing situation against Jason. Jason was wealthy now, and socially conscious Reggie Barrett would never blame him for the humiliating gossip. Only her.

  “Get your wrap, Jade,” Jason said again.

  She glanced once at Reggie, then back to Jason.

  “I’ll be fine,” Jason assured her.

  “I know that,” she said as she finally smiled. “I was worried about Reggie.”

  When J.T. smiled, too, she relaxed.

  “He’ll be all right,” Jason said.

  Jade lifted her skirt and fairly flew up the stairs. In less than two minutes, she was back with her cloak in her hands.

  Chapter Eleven

  Every day cannot be a feast of lanterns . . .

  ONCE THEY REACHED the carriage and were safely inside, Jade became increasingly nervous. She now knew for certain J.T. had seen the disgusting Chronicle article. Seated opposite him, she fidgeted on the plush upholstery in the closed carriage and wondered what to say.

  “Jade?”

  The sound of his deep voice over the rhythmic pounding of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels startled her out of her deep reverie. “What?”

  “I asked where you would like to go for dinner.”

  “Oh.” She was not hungry, but it would be far easier, not to mention safer, to be in a public place while they had their “discussion.” She nearly suggested the Cliff House, then decided they should probably avoid any location where they were likely to become the topic of conversation. “Have you ever had Chinese food?” she asked.

  “Is it edible?”

  Jade nodded with a wry smile. “Not only edible, but delicious. At least I think so.”

  “Fine.”

  She gave him directions and he passed them on to the driver. Then she asked him, “Is this your carriage? One of the carriages that was not available the night you forced me to stay at your house?”

  “It’s Matt Van Buren’s, on loan. And I did not force you to stay at my house. As I recall, the rain forced you to stay.”

  “I don’t want to argue about that,” she said, pausing long enough to look out the window to check their progress. “What’s done is done.”

  “Look, Jade, if it’s any consolation, I’m sorry as hell this all happened. I’m sorry about the article in the paper. That’s why I wanted to talk to you alone. I think I’ve come up with a way to put the gossip to rest.”

  “How?”

  She was only visible in the dark confines of the carriage when they passed beneath a gas streetlamp. Her expression was unreadable. J.T. wiped his slightly sweaty palms against his thighs—he had donned woolen dress pants of unrelieved black, along with a matching vest and jacket, and now found the outfit far too warm. He nervously adjusted his hat and wondered if the occasion warranted removing it. He set the hat upon his knee.

  J.T. cleared his throat. He looked out the window. He looked at Jade. He still didn’t know how to begin.

  It had been forever since he had thought about marrying anyone. Now he was about to ask a woman he had known for four days to be his wife. He figured it was enough to make any man jumpy.

  He took a deep breath. “I think we should get married.”

  Unable to hide her surprise, Jade gasped. “What?”

  “We could get married.” Jason cleared his throat again. He was definitely going about this the wrong way. “I mean, will you marry me?”

  “Marry you?” she whispered.

  He didn’t say anything else. J.T. moved to her side of the carriage and sat down next to her. Before she could move or say anything, he reached for her.

  Jade had not recovered from his shocking proposal when she suddenly found herself in his arms. She stiffened and held him at bay. “Is this the only way you know how to settle things?”

  “Can you think of a better one?” he asked.

  “Talking, for one.”

  “Somehow I’m not very eloquent tonight.” He tried to pull her close.

  She resisted. “Try.”

  “I want to kiss you.”

  “I want you to stop this carriage and let me out.”

  “Jade, please.”

  “Jason, no. Absolutely not. We can’t solve one crisis by creating another. I would have never agreed to come with you if I had thought this is how we would end up. You asked me to dinner. You said we had to talk. Start talking.”

  “I think we should get married. What do you say?”

  “I—” She did not want to sound mindless, but for the life of her, she did not know how to answer him. “Because of the article?”

  “Hell, no. Because of the way I feel when I’m with you. When I kiss you.” He moved his hands up and down, stroking her upper arms, gentling her. “Because of what I feel when I touch you and think about what it would be like to have you beside me for the rest of my life.”

  For a man who claimed he was not eloquent, she thought he was doing a commendable job. A chill shot down her spine as he leaned close and kissed her on her cheek, slightly in front of her ear. She felt his warm breath against her face, shivered when his tongue graced the outline of her ear. Jade weakened for a moment and let down her guard. He raised his head and stared down at her mouth. As he began to lower his lips to hers, she locked her arms again and held him off.

  “It’s so sudden. I . . . we don’t really know each other,” she protested weakly.

  “We’ll have a lifetime to get to know each other.”

  “We have only known each other four days!”

  “I know what I like,” he said.

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “You don’t know what I like? I’ll teach you.” He laughed as he tried to kiss her again.

  She pushed him away. “This is serious, Jason. Or are you making a joke?”

  He looked down at her and his tone sobered. “I would never joke about something like this, Jade.”

  Uncertain, she stared back at him and wished it were not so very dark in the carriage. Just then, the vehicle drew to a halt. Before the driver could open the door, Jason drew a polite distance away.

  “We’ve arrived, sir,” Matt’s driver announced, holding the door open for them.

  “Thank you, George,” Jason said. He and Jade climbed out and he dismissed the driver. “Please give Mr. Van Buren my thanks. We’ll see ourselves back. Now,” he said as he turned to Jade and held his arm out like a proper escort, “let’s see this Little China of yours while you think about my proposal.”

  Although it was evening, the shops and stores that lined the streets were still open for business. They passed vendors selling their wares in the open beneath the light cast through shop windows. A cobbler lined his customers’ shoes on the sidewalk. Another man sold noodles from a pot bubbling on a brazier placed precariously atop some crates.

  “Which way?” Jason asked as they worked their way through the crowded streets.

  Jade paused until she could get her bearings and then pointed to the corner. “A
half a block that way,” she directed, and they moved on.

  When they reached the restaurant, Jade took charge. Deftly, she spoke to their host in Cantonese and Jason noted her ability with awe. They were seated in a far corner of a room that was filled with Chinese diners, as well as half a dozen other Caucasians.

  “You speak Chinese,” he said, still amazed, half-afraid to ponder all she knew that he did not, to contemplate their myriad differences.

  “Not very well, but I’m doing better. Grandfather’s friend, Chi Nu, taught me a little, but I refined my speech when I lived in Paris. The missionaries were as unwilling to forget what they had learned as I was determined to gain a better knowledge of Chinese, so we were well suited and spoke in Cantonese most of the time.”

  They were served tea in a small brass pot, and Jade poured some of the steaming brew into two small bowl-shaped cups. J.T. watched in silent appreciation of her natural grace. She ordered food for them both, and then quietly sipped her tea as she stared across at him.

  Jade could not help but smile as she watched Jason silently taking in every detail of the place. He ran his hand over the lacquered table, stared up at the multicolored hanging lanterns with their swaying red tassels, and peered curiously at the platters of food the waiters carried past their table. He seemed totally alien in the surroundings, more so than any of the other Caucasians in the room. For one thing, his great height and build made him more noticeable. He had taken the time to dress for the occasion and looked more handsome than any man in the room.

  Suddenly, she felt rumpled and plain beside him. If ever a man could be called beautiful, she realized Jason was that sort of man. Still, his good looks did nothing to diminish his masculinity. If anything, the strong line of his jaw, his even lips, the deep-set blue eyes shadowed by sun-gilded brows, all attested to his strength.

  Jason looked up and caught her staring. When he toasted her with his tea and smiled back, Jade’s heart melted. She wished desperately that she had let him kiss her again in the carriage, then forced herself to think rationally. He had just asked her to marry him. Why?

  J.T. watched Jade watch him. He could not help but grin. She was so fresh and natural, so unassuming, that it was impossible for her to hide her thoughts. Her open, guileless expression gave them away. She had on the same skirt and blouse she had worn riding, but he found he liked the outfit far more than the heavily bedecked gowns he had seen her in before. The crisp white blouse with its high-collared, modest neckline was closely fitted and emphasized her full breasts. Without the bustle, her skirt hugged her trim figure, leaving no need to guess what lay beneath.

  Although she was studying him speculatively—and the warm look in her eyes told him she did not find him physically wanting—her deep emerald gaze could not hide her doubts. He wanted to put her at ease, but before he could speak, the waiter delivered two bowls of steaming soup and porcelain soup spoons to their table.

  “Look,” he said, leaning forward as he alternately blew on his soup and sipped up the shovel-shaped spoonfuls, “I know this is sudden. I can see where you might want to wait and think about my proposal, but given the circumstances, I think we should be married as soon as possible.”

  “But wouldn’t a sudden marriage look as if we were guilty? That we had to marry? I’m not guilty of anything.”

  “No, but you’ve been tried and condemned by the press and everyone else all the same.” He set down the odd spoon and leaned closer. He thought of the conversation he had had earlier with Peoney Flannagan. Then he thought of his mother. “Jade, I know all about gossip. My mother divorced my father twenty-five years ago and took me to Georgia to her family home. Do you know what happened?”

  She shook her head, intent on his every word.

  “No one ever forgot that she had been divorced. The gossip never ended. Whenever anyone referred to my mother, they whispered behind her back and called her ‘that divorced woman.’ She was excluded from so many outings that she soon declined those she was asked to attend. She was punished merely because she stood up for what she believed and divorced my father rather than live a lie and stay married to a man who didn’t love her.”

  Jade thought of how Babs had whispered the word divorce the day she had first talked about Jason. She remembered how she had wished her own mother had had the courage to divorce Francis Douglas. Instead, Melinda Douglas had stayed married, and Jade had grown up with a father who made it all too clear that he did not love her and with a mother who was so busy grasping for her own happiness that she did not have time to pay Jade much attention at all.

  “It sounds as if you had an unhappy childhood,” Jade said. Perhaps that was something they had in common.

  “Not really.” He shrugged off her words. “My mother was treated unfairly, but she always saw to it that I had everything I needed. The stigma of divorce did not pass itself on to me. Of course, I never got to know my father.” He was silent as he thought of the row of pictures on Miss Flannagan’s mantel.

  Jade watched his eyes take on a faraway look, as if he could see beyond the walls of the restaurant to some other time and place. Then he began again. “It was during the war that I learned how much malice and hurt gossip could cause.”

  “Because you didn’t serve.”

  “Yes. On the rare occasions that I went into Santa Fe, I was called everything from a yellow-bellied snake to an out-and-out coward. I knew why I stayed out of the war, and it certainly wasn’t because I was afraid. Uncle Cash needed me. He was expanding his herd and couldn’t afford to pay for any more help. They had given me a home when my mother died, and I felt there was no way I could leave them high and dry. Cash had a broken arm at the time.” Jason smiled as he thought of his uncle and added, “He’s always busting up one part of himself or another. More importantly, I stayed out of the war because I didn’t believe in killing other Americans just because of their political persuasions.” He leaned across the empty table, his voice barely above a whisper. “Look, I’m trying to tell you that I know firsthand what harm gossip can cause.” She fell silent when the waiter reappeared with another course.

  “What’s this?” Jason asked, poking the unusual, crisp-fried food with his fork.

  “Egg roll.”

  “What’s inside?”

  “Just taste it,” Jade said, using the chopsticks she had requested to lift the golden egg roll to her lips.

  “Do you think it’s too late to get a steak anywhere?” Jason asked, turning the roll up and down, looking at each end before he took a bite.

  “Eat,” she commanded.

  J.T. took one bite and stared down at the mixture of cabbage and pork that spilled out of the opening. He set the egg roll on the plate and looked across at Jade again.

  “Can I get back to my argument?”

  “Are we arguing now?”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I’ve never met a woman like you. You’re intelligent—”

  “I didn’t ever see that as a particularly attractive asset before,” she interjected.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m too tall.”

  “Your hair reminds me of a wild sunset.”

  “Too curly. So far you haven’t given me one substantial reason. You say I’m beautiful—I don’t happen to agree with you, but you’re entitled to your opinion. Besides,” she added, setting down her chopsticks and staring across at him, “virtue becomes a wife, beauty becomes a concubine.”

  “An old Chinese saying?”

  She nodded.

  “You have both virtue and beauty.”

  “You still haven’t convinced me.”

  Jason watched her shake her head, her dark eyes sparkling with the humor of their exchange. She had gotten into his blood faster than any woman he had ever met. He wanted her, wanted Jade Douglas so badly it hurt, bu
t unlike the women he had paid to have in Santa Fe, this was one he wanted to keep. Jade wasn’t a whore he could use and leave. She was a lady—refined, cultured, intelligent.

  He decided to appeal to that intelligence. “Some marriages are arranged, aren’t they? At least we know each other. I think we deal well together.”

  She thought of the blood-stirring, nerve-shattering kisses they had exchanged. “Deal well together?”

  “I can talk to you like I never have with anyone else,” he finished. Then, at the risk of losing her, he added, “I’m in love with you.”

  She could not believe he had said it. Wanting to clear her name was one thing. Telling her he was in love with her was something else altogether.

  “What about you? How do you feel about me?” he asked her outright.

  For the first time since she had met him, Jason Harrington appeared to be nervous. Did her answer really mean so much to him? Jade thought about his question. More than that, she thought about how she felt whenever they were together. If they had gone a block farther in the carriage tonight, she would not have been able to keep herself from letting him kiss her. She wasn’t certain whether it was love or intense physical attraction to him that made her feel so alive whenever she was near him, but when she thought about her life—the way she had never been attracted to any man before, the magnetic way she had been drawn to Jason—the more certain she became that she did indeed love him.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Harrington,” Jade whispered. “I have never been in love before,” she said truthfully, “so I have nothing to compare my feelings with, but if loving you means that my heart feels about to burst each time I look at you . . . If it means that I find myself thinking about you all day long . . . ” she smiled and said softly, “then, yes, I must be falling in love with you, too.”

  “So, what do you think?” He was about to burst with the excitement of her pronouncement. “Will you marry me?”

  She reached over and stole Jason’s egg roll, since he seemed to be ignoring it.

  He stared, mesmerized as she licked her fingers.