Noelle

by Diana Palmer

  “How is he?” Beale asked.

  The other man ran a lean hand over his short curly hair. There were threads of gray in it, but that scarred face wasn’t as old as the eyes in it were. He glanced at Beale without the subservient attitude that some of his race wore like a garment. Clark was surprisingly well educated, and he had the bearing of a man who’d wielded authority. He was an odd man altogether, but Beale had always respected him.

  “The foal is worse,” Clark replied. “He needs more than my poor efforts for a cure. I think you should call the veterinarian.”

  Beale nodded. “I’ll have Ben Tatum come out first thing tomorrow. Will that be soon enough?”

  Clark nodded. “I’ll sit up with him tonight.”

  Beale bent and touched the soft coat of the foal, noting its labored breathing. “You know a lot about horses, Clark.”

  “Yes, sir, I do,” Clark replied, with a faint smile.

  Beale straightened, eyeing the other man. “Wouldn’t care to tell me how, would you?” he asked, with a gleam in his eyes.

  Clark chuckled. “You know I wouldn’t, Mr. Beale.”

  “Guess I do, after six years,” came the dry reply. “Keep an eye on him. If he gets worse, come get me.”

  “I’ll do that, Mr. Beale.”

  Beale nodded. He smiled to himself as he left the barn. He was the only man he’d ever heard Clark address as “sir” or “mister.” Despite the insults he sometimes got from temporary cowboys who hired on for roundup, Clark had an innate dignity that kept him out of brawls. He kept his temper when Beale lost his own. Once Beale had knocked a mean cowboy down for cursing the black man, who’d taken a quirt away from him. Clark had chided Beale for his lack of control, and then laughed at the other man’s outraged expression. They got along well, despite the disparity in their backgrounds. It occurred to Beale that if his foreman ever quit, he’d probably give the job to Clark. The man had the makings of a first-rate boss. Nobody questioned his orders about the remuda. Not even the white cowboys. Well…most of them, anyway. There were a few who didn’t like Clark, especially one bullying middle-aged wrangler named Garmon. He was from Mississippi and he hated blacks. He made remarks that Beale would have decked him for, but Clark simply ignored them. Maybe that was the best way to handle it. Beale tended to be too hot-tempered. He’d led a wild life on the border in his youth, before a pretty young Eastern girl had captured his heart and made him human. He smiled, remembering Allison, Jennifer’s mother.

  He whistled softly through his teeth as he walked back toward the elegant house, thinking how far he’d come from the adobe shanty where he’d been born fifty-five years past. His life had been a hard one, but he’d overcome obstacles that other men had fallen behind. He was proud of his accomplishments. Most of all, he was proud of Jennifer. What a tragedy that her mother had been killed years ago, and had missed seeing what an elegant beauty their daughter had become. His eyes shifted to a lone grave on a small rise, protected by a wrought-iron fence. He put flowers on the grave twice a week. Sometimes he just went over there and sat, talking to Allison as if she were still alive. It helped get him through rough times. He’d go tomorrow, he thought, and tell her about this Andrew person. He was sure that she’d be as irritated at Jennifer’s poor choice of suitors as he was himself.

  * * *

  ANDREW DIDN’T RELAX until he and Jennifer were safely ensconced in the carriage and on their way to the restaurant, where they would have supper before they went on to the dance.

  “How lucky I am to have such a pretty companion for the evening,” he said, smiling. “Thank you for coming with me.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” she said shyly. She laughed. “Papa is so possessive of me, did you notice? Don’t pay him any mind, Andrew. He’s just old-

  fashioned—and he worries about me, especially since Mama died.”

  “Any man with such a beautiful daughter would worry,” Andrew said gently. He searched her eyes hungrily. “Jennifer, I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  “Nor I, anyone like you,” she replied. “When we met at the dry goods store, it was as if I’d known you all my life.”

  “If you hadn’t spent the past few years in Europe, you would have.” He chuckled. “My family has been here for two generations. The first Paige came over from England. He was the second son of a duke, but he inherited nothing. He made his own fortune here. How incredible that we’re only just meeting.”

  She didn’t tell him that her father would never have sanctioned such an association. He didn’t like Andrew, and he hadn’t liked Andrew’s wealthy father, either. He didn’t like men who were born with all the advantages and did nothing with them. Andrew had been content to lay about and go into and out of three colleges before he finally took a job—having been forced into it by his stepbrother, gossip said—and went to work. Her father considered Andrew a shiftless layabout, leeching on his stepbrother. Jennifer saw him as a man of vision with great potential. It would only take a caring woman to incite him to great acts, she thought romantically, filled with thoughts of idealistic delight. She smiled at him, lost in dreams.

  Andrew smiled back. She made him feel that he could accomplish anything. He still couldn’t believe his good fortune in having her accept his invitation to dinner and the dance. God willing, it wouldn’t be the last time he escorted her of an evening.

  * * *

  IF ANDREW WAS having a good time, Noelle wasn’t. She was very quiet at supper, avoiding Jared’s curious eyes. She excused herself directly after they ate and went to her room, where she remained for the rest of the night.

  The next morning, her withdrawn expression and unusual detachment during breakfast drew more attention from an unexpected quarter. Jared stopped her as she was helping Mrs. Pate clear the table after his grandmother had retired to the drawing room to read.

  “You’re as unhappy this morning as you were at supper last evening. Why?” he asked bluntly, although he already knew the answer.

  She was surprised at the question, and at his perception, but she answered readily enough. “Andrew invited me to the dance last night and I had to refuse him.”

  “Why?”

  She gave him a harsh glare. “Because I had nothing to wear. And even if I had a dress, I—” she cleared her throat “—I can’t dance.”

  Both eyebrows lifted. “Why?” he said again.

  “My father considered dancing sinful,” she said haughtily.

  He smiled faintly. “Probably it is, but even a saint could hardly find anything objectionable about a man’s gloved hand on a woman’s waist over several layers of fabric.”

  She flushed. “Nevertheless…”

  “He took Miss Beale instead.”

  “I know that!”

  “Your temper is showing, Miss Brown,” he said wryly.

  “You irritate me, Mr. Dunn. Indeed you do!”

  He looked down his elegant nose at her. “You have a singular lack of tact. You dress poorly. You have no idea how to behave at table or even in a small gathering of socialites. You’re far too outspoken and high tempered and impatient.”

  She opened her mouth to rage at him, but he held up a lean hand.

  “But you have a certain potential,” he continued. “Elegance and a soft heart, and a pleasant way of speaking. It might be possible to…remake you.”

  “Sir?”

  “Remake you.” He walked around her slowly, leaning heavily on the cane. “With the proper clothes, and some lessons in social behavior, you should do well in polite company.”

  “Sir, I can’t afford the proper clothes, and I know nothing of social—”

  He waved away her objections. “Money is no problem, Miss Brown. I like a challenge.”

  “Why should you want to do this for me?” she asked.

  He s
hrugged. “I haven’t decided where in town I want to open my practice. I’m having a holiday. But I’m bored, Miss Brown. You present a temporary distraction that will occupy my mind and my free time.”

  “Andrew would realize…”

  “He would not, unless you tell him,” he replied. He pursed his lips as he studied her. “It would do Andrew good to have his lack of foresight pointed out to him. He doesn’t consider possibilities.”

  The excitement she felt bubbled up into her eyes. “He might find me attractive, if I were more like the ladies of his acquaintance.”

  God forbid, Jared was thinking. But he didn’t say it. He wanted to take Andrew down a peg. He didn’t want to hurt Noelle in the process. On the other hand, he might be saving her from a fate worse than death. While Andrew wouldn’t hesitate to seduce a woman he considered socially inferior, he’d think twice about giving offense to a woman of culture.

  Noelle was nothing to him. But he didn’t want to see her hurt, even if she did have a low opinion of him as a man. That was vaguely amusing. He wondered how she would have reacted to him as he had been, before he began to study law. Andrew hid it well, but even now he was intimidated by his stepbrother—and without knowing anything of the past.

  She would need a wardrobe and some tutoring in simple parlor manners. His eyes narrowed. He could take her shopping, but that would raise eyebrows. He must be circumspect. His grandmother was too old-fashioned to buy Noelle the kind of clothing she should wear. But there was another woman in the household—moreover, one with good taste in clothes—who would buy what Jared told her to.

  “Get Mrs. Pate,” he said decisively.

  She had an idea why he wanted her. She smiled delightedly and went in search of that lady. When the two of them returned, Jared explained to the housekeeper what he wanted of her.

  “Take her to Miss Henderson’s dress shop,” he instructed, “and have her outfitted—in new styles, not the old-fashioned ones. Then stop by the milliner’s and the shoe store. She must have at least two gowns for evening, and a wrap.”

  Mrs. Pate was staring at him with her mouth faintly ajar.

  He gave her a long-suffering look. “She’s family, isn’t she?” he demanded, and swept an impatient hand toward Noelle. “It’s hardly proper to let her walk around like that!”

  Noelle drew herself up. Her nice black skirt and spotless white blouse were hardly rags. “‘Like that’?” she demanded belligerently. “What do you mean, ‘like that’?”

  “You’re a haughty woman,” Jared remarked as he searched her flashing green eyes under her mop of auburn hair in its upswept knot. “Even in outdated clothing, you have the arrogance of royalty.”

  She took a quick breath. He was offering to help her attract Andrew. She must keep her head and not take offense at every word. “I realize that my clothes are plain. I don’t mean to appear ungrateful,” she began.

  “Good,” he retorted. “Then be quiet, Miss Brown, and do what you’re told. Take her now, Mrs. Pate, before she has time to think up excuses to stay home.”

  Mrs. Pate was beginning to get into the spirit of the thing. “Very well, sir.”

  Noelle hesitated while Mrs. Pate went to get her hat and her light coat, because it was raining again. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  He nodded and one blue eye narrowed. “How do you feel about Andrew?”

  She caught her breath. “Mr. Dunn—”

  “You and I can be honest with each other,” he interrupted. “I won’t lie to you. I’ll expect the same courtesy in return. We have more in common than you might realize, despite the disparity in our ages.”

  She was surprised by the blunt way he spoke to her, but she felt at home with him, safe, secure, even though he stirred her up inside in unexpected ways.

  “I like Andrew. He’s dashing and exciting…” She studied him in some confusion. “But I’ve never known anyone like you,” she said slowly.

  “I know.”

  Her eyes went over his face like tracing fingertips, over the dark complexion, the thin eyebrows and steady blue eyes, the straight nose, the high cheekbones and thin mouth with its slightly fuller lower lip, his firm jaw and thrusting chin. He didn’t wear a mustache, as Andrew did, in defiance of the fashion. He was extremely good-looking. There was an intelligence in his pale blue eyes that mingled with something dark and reckless and a little frightening, something that was odd in the face of a stoic lawyer. And then, when he smiled at her, there was an expression of faint sensuality that made her toes want to curl up inside her lace-up shoes.

  He searched her eyes and then let his own gaze run over her face, from her auburn hair to her soft green eyes, over the faint freckles on her straight nose and the pink sweetness of her full, pretty mouth. He liked its Cupid’s bow shape, and the row of even white teeth behind it. She had a nice shape, too, not voluptuous but certainly not slender. She came up to his chin, and he had a strange urge to pull her into his lean body and see how it felt to grind his mouth into the softness of her full lips.

  She’d never learned to read a man’s expressions, but there was a tension between herself and Jared that made her knees feel wobbly.

  “I, uh, I should get my cloak,” she said in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.

  He nodded. He hadn’t spoken, but his eyes caught hers and held them, unblinking—for so long that she felt the heat go into her cheeks.

  “How old are you, Noelle?” he asked abruptly.

  “I—I’m nineteen.”

  The hand that wasn’t holding the cane lifted to a tiny wisp of auburn hair that had escaped her wide bun and was lying against her flushed cheek. He lifted it in his long fingers and gently slid it behind her ear, making the gesture a very sensuous caress. He watched her lips part as her breath escaped, as if she’d been holding it. Her eyes flickered up to his and down to his throat, quickly. The lace at her neck fluttered as her heartbeat raced there. She was attracted to him, there was no longer any doubt in his mind about it.

  His fingertip traced the circle of her small ear, from outside to inside, and then down to the tiny lobe.

  “Buy something in blue silk,” he said, his voice deep and slow and sultry. “Sapphire blue, mind you, with white lace trim.”

  “It—it would— My eyes are green,” she stammered, hardly realizing what she was saying in the shivery silence.

  “I know. But the blue will suit you.” His thumb pressed against the artery in her neck and he felt it jump as he touched her skin. His own heart was none too quiet, now. Perhaps he’d been away from women too long, because this child-woman was having a savage effect on him.

  She was so shaken that her hands had gone cold where she clutched her skirt in them. Frightened, she stared into his pale eyes and found them glittering down at her from narrowed eyelids, steady and frightening in their single-minded intensity.

  The violence of the tension had almost reached snapping point when a door slammed and they both moved back, as if deliberately trying to break some unseen thread that bound them momentarily together.

  “I’m grateful for your generosity,” she said. Her voice sounded choked.

  “It’s little enough to do for a member of my family,” he said firmly, emphasizing the word.

  She didn’t look up. What she felt was hardly familial, but she might have misread his expression. She knew little enough about men and their appetites. She might have been imagining his interest. After all, he was much older than she…

  “How old are you?” she asked suddenly.

  His jaw clenched. “Too old for you, Noelle,” he said softly, and abruptly turned away, gripping the cane so hard that his fingers grew white as he walked out of the room.

  * * *

  THE SHOPPING SPREE was rewarding in the extreme. Noelle had never had such pretty things to wear be
fore. Mindful of Jared’s instructions, she did find a dress in sapphire blue silk, trimmed in white lace and silver bead decoration. She also found a sapphire velvet suit on sale with white ermine trim. She balked at even its marked-down price, but Mrs. Pate didn’t bat an eyelid. It would do nicely for next fall and winter, she said, and how it suited Noelle!

  Noelle, like most other women, made the most of her own clothes. To have store-bought things was new and very exciting, like being part of high society.

  She steered Noelle toward the skirts and dresses, and then to the dainty underthings. She bought silk chemises and bloomers and hose, and Noelle felt naughty just handling them.

  The milliner’s presented an equally exciting experience. Noelle found a sapphire velvet hat that just matched her suit, and two others that went with the lightweight, black-trimmed green suit and the navy blue and white suit she’d bought. Little Miss McAlpine had made the hats herself, creating each one with a flair for design that rivaled Paris. She fitted Noelle and enthused over the way the colors brightened her pretty auburn hair.

  The last stop was the shoe shop, where Noelle stood firm about simple black shoes with no frills. Jared had spent quite enough on her, without breaking the bank on shoes that wouldn’t even be seen unless she was getting out of a buggy.

  “I feel like a princess,” she remarked to Mrs. Pate as they went home in the hired carriage. The parcels would be sent on that afternoon from each store.

  There was one last stop. Mrs. Pate left a grocery list with Mr. Haynes at the local market, with instructions to have the food sent out after lunch.

  They arrived back at home just in time for Mrs. Pate to start lunch.

  Mrs. Dunn and Jared were in the parlor with Andrew when an excited, happy Noelle arrived. She thought of all her lovely purchases and how Andrew would notice how pretty she would look in them.