Noelle

by Diana Palmer

  “I was there to pick up some supplies for Mr. Beale. But I left long before they say that robbery happened. I wasn’t even in town when it happened,” Clark said. “And I had no small bag.”

  “Really? Well, John Garmon says you did,” came the reply. “He wanted to come after you with us, because he thinks the world of Marlowe.”

  “He’d better keep his distance,” Jared said coldly.

  “And what will you do if he don’t?” Sims drawled. “A pretty city feller like you.”

  Jared put his hands in his pockets and looked at the man. That level, cold blue stare was utterly fearless and faintly threatening. “Take care that you don’t have to find out what I’ll do.”

  Sims fancied himself a fighter, but he shrugged uncomfortably and moved away. “Come on, you black thief.” He dragged Clark out the door.

  “You take a lot on yourself, Mr. Dunn,” the police officer said quietly when Sims had taken the prisoner away. “Sims was a gunman in Arizona, and he’s bad tempered.”

  “Oh, I’m impressed,” Jared drawled.

  The policeman muttered and went out the door, warrant in hand.

  * * *

  THE TRIAL GAVE Mrs. Hardy and her friends something else to gossip about, but Mrs. Dunn was even more worried when she read in the paper that Jared was defending the black man accused of robbing and beating poor old Ted Marlowe.

  “He’s such a kind man,” Mrs. Dunn said at the dinner table. “Poor Mr. Marlowe.”

  “I agree,” Jared said. “But I think the real thief should be caught, and it isn’t my client.”

  “How do you know?” she persisted.

  “Because if he has a motive, I can’t find it,” Jared replied.

  “Maybe he has one that you don’t know about,” Mrs. Dunn said. She grimaced. “Oh, Jared. This case is dangerous—you know it is. Why did you accept it?”

  “He asked me to represent him. He’s a former cavalry officer. There is such a thing as fellow feeling.”

  Noelle, who had listened quietly, and uneasily, turned to look at her future husband. “Were you…in the cavalry?”

  He nodded. “I did a lot of things in my checkered past. I served in the army twice.”

  Her green eyes searched his pale ones. “I don’t know much about you,” she said, thinking aloud.

  “There’s nothing much that you need to know,” he said coolly. “You’re marrying me for the protection of my name, not for love.”

  Until he said it, she hadn’t realized it—but she was marrying him for love. It was unexpected and shocking to face the fact that all this time—when she’d thought Andrew was the end of the rainbow—Jared held her heart in the palm of his hand. Why else had she worried about him, watched him, responded with delight to his kisses, hung at his mouth like a slave? Oh, how horrible to know it now, when he hated her, when his contempt was visible every time he looked at her. And he was going to marry her, give her his name, only to save her reputation. He felt nothing for her. He couldn’t have made it more plain.

  “You look unwell,” Jared said curtly.

  She couldn’t look at him. Not yet. “I have a headache,” she said huskily.

  “Shouldn’t you lie down in a darkened room until it eases?” Mrs. Dunn asked worriedly. “I have a powder that might help, Noelle.”

  She shook her head. “I think that lying down will be enough,” she said. She got up from the table, her meal uneaten. “Excuse me.”

  Jared watched her go with cold eyes.

  “The wedding is next Saturday,” Mrs. Dunn said. “It’s nerves, I think, that make her so restless. She’ll feel better once the ceremony is over. Jared, this case…you must be very careful. I don’t want you injured over the fate of a cowboy.”

  “A black cowboy,” he emphasized.

  She chuckled. “Oh, you know I have no ill feeling toward people because they’re of a different race.”

  “Yes, I know,” he replied, smiling. “It was you who taught me that all people are of value, a lesson that was reinforced at Harvard.” He shook his head. “This nativism is disturbing. There’s so much violent hatred against immigrants, against people with any noticeable differences. And this at a time when we have become so conscious of the poor treatment of mental illness, and criminals, and even vagrants in our society—and are working to correct these problems. It seems incongruous to attack social evils such as slums and overcrowding and at the same time attack the immigrants who must suffer them.”

  “A question philosophers have often asked, I’m certain. Eat your roast beef, dear boy.”

  “In a moment. I have to see about Noelle. She’ll be my responsibility from now on.”

  “Leave the door open, if you please,” Mrs. Dunn murmured dryly.

  He chuckled at her tone. “There won’t be anything to see, I assure you,” he added. “I have no such interest in Miss Brown.”

  He was lying, but his grandmother didn’t know it. He walked upstairs and down the hall to Noelle’s room. He tapped at the door and went in.

  She was lying on the spotless bedspread, unmoving. She’d stiffened at his entrance, but now she was very still.

  He moved to the end of the brass bedstead and rested his hand on it. Not that he needed the support. He hardly limped at all now, and had long since dispensed with the cane.

  “Do you have a headache, or an attack of conscience?” he asked coldly.

  She pulled herself into a sitting position and lifted her legs over the side of the bed. She folded her hands over her long skirt before she answered.

  “I have the beginnings of a headache,” she said, prevaricating.

  “Why?”

  Because I’ve suddenly discovered that I love you most desperately, she thought with wonder. But she didn’t say it. She didn’t look up, either. She really couldn’t meet those piercing pale blue eyes just yet.

  “It’s not long until the wedding,” she remarked.

  “No, it isn’t. And you have cold feet, is that it?”

  Her hands clenched tighter. “Do you?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing will change if we marry,” he said idly. “Except that you’ll share my name and people will have one thing less to gossip about.”

  “This black man whom you’re to represent, is it a dangerous case?”

  “Why should that matter to you?” he demanded. “I’m the one in the line of fire. No one’s going to shoot you because I’m defending him.”

  She looked up then, with her worry on her face. “It isn’t for myself that I’m afraid.”

  He drew in a short breath. “My grandmother is tougher than you imagine. She has no qualms about my client.”

  “She has a bad heart, and this case will certainly be controversial.”

  “What would you have me do, Noelle,” he asked quietly, “give an innocent man up to the gallows to spare my grandmother more gossip?”

  “I thought that you were marrying me to accomplish that.”

  “The sort of gossip you represent is more dangerous to her than this case, I assure you,” he said. “She’s acutely aware of her social standing and fearful of anything that might jeopardize it. But a murder trial will only excite her and make her read the papers—and try to shake more details out of me.” He smiled faintly. “You don’t know her. She isn’t what she seems.”

  “No one is what they seem,” she said, looking at her hands.

  He studied her down-bent head. She seemed thinner. The worry and shame of the past weeks had honed her down. She still worked like a draft horse around the house, helping wherever she was needed. Her one concession had been to stay out of the garden. Henry was doing a better job, because Jared had insisted that he must. She played with her kitten and sewed and embroidered things for Mrs. Dunn. But she was reclus
ive now and unnaturally quiet.

  “Noelle, how you’ve changed,” he remarked.

  “For the better, I hope,” she replied calmly.

  “I’m not sure.”

  She smoothed her skirt and got to her feet. “My headache is better. I’ll help Mrs. Pate with the dishes.”

  She started past him, but he caught her by the waist and slowly pulled her to him.

  He’d been unkind to her. She should protest, flee, slap him, scream in outrage. She did none of those things. His hand came up to brush back the loosened wisps of her hair, and she closed her eyes at the glory of his touch.

  He felt that helpless response and reacted to it with cold fury. Was she so enslaved by her physical needs that any man would do, even him?

  “Are you missing Andrew?” he asked, with a mocking smile. He tilted her face up to his. “Shall I lock the door, Noelle, and roll you onto the bed and give you what you need?”

  The crudity of the statement burned her cheeks and made her want to hit out.

  “I need nothing from you,” she said in a choking tone.

  “No?” He caught her chin in his lean hand and lifted it. His mouth crushed down over hers, parting her lips, burrowing, caressing, until she was helpless.

  Her body, starved for his touch for weeks, responded predictably by melting into the length of him without restraint. Her mouth opened, surprising him into deepening the kiss.

  He groaned and his arms enfolded her, tightening, demanding. She reached up to hold him closer and felt her breasts flatten against the broad, hard chest as the kiss went on and on, burning into her like hot steel. She trembled at the intensity of it, at the ardor that left her shaking all over before he abruptly released her and all but threw her away from him.

  She sat down heavily on the bed, too weak in the knees to even stand, and looked up at him with wide eyes and swollen lips.

  “It seems that any man will do,” he said cruelly. “You’re an easy mark, aren’t you? So easy that I find you totally undesirable. You won’t have to lock your bedroom door against me when we marry. But,” he added as he moved to the door, “perhaps I might have to lock mine!”

  He smiled mockingly and gave her a curt little bow before he went out and closed the door with a snap.

  “You…vicious bastard!” she shouted after him.

  She grabbed up a small dish from the bedside table and flung it at the door with all her might. It shattered loudly and fell in colorful shards. She looked around for something else, but there was only the lamp and heavy furniture. She cried aloud, furious at her response and his sarcasm. She hadn’t asked him to kiss her! And he wouldn’t have to lock his door, because she wouldn’t want to get leprosy from touching him!

  She was screaming these sentiments at the closed door. Outside it, a coldly angry Jared hesitated just briefly before he controlled himself and continued on down the hall. She had a vicious temper and a mouth that needed washing out with lye soap. She couldn’t know how the word she’d hurled through the door had once pained him, since it was true—he had no father. Even his mother hadn’t known the identity of the man who raped her and left her pregnant. The word had been the worst kind of insult in his youth. It still stung when he heard it.

  But in all fairness, he knew that he’d provoked her to that show of rage. He shouldn’t have been so cruel to her. It was just that the fever he shared in her arms made him vulnerable and angry. He didn’t want to be so hungry for a woman his stepbrother had seduced and abandoned, for a woman, moreover, who was in love with another man. That weakness he felt for her wounded his pride.

  She denied letting Andrew seduce her. But if she loved Andrew, it was natural that she’d want him. Had she or hadn’t she slept in Andrew’s bed? His eyes narrowed as he contemplated the question. There was only one way he could find out. His whole body went hot at the thought of a naked Noelle in his bed. If tonight had been any indication of her state of mind, she would welcome him.

  But it was odd that she should find him physically irresistible when she was in love with his stepbrother. It had been that way from the beginning, from the first time he’d kissed her. She’d talked about Andrew, blushed when his name was mentioned, poked around for any little tidbit of information about the dashing blond man with the mustache. Yet that same infatuated girl would melt into Jared’s arms the minute he touched her, hang hungrily at his lips waiting for his kisses, even permit him to touch her under her gown, to look at her there.

  He couldn’t understand why she would do that, unless she really was loose in her morals. But she hadn’t flirted with other men. At the dance she’d attended with Andrew, she’d only danced with Andrew and Jared, and she hadn’t smiled at or teased any of the eligible young men present.

  He went to his own room with all his unanswered questions rippling in his mind. He didn’t sleep well because of them. When dawn poured in through the curtains, he was no closer to an answer. But his temper hadn’t quite cooled, either, from the insult she’d given him.

  Noelle, meanwhile, had tossed and turned with vengeance on her mind. She was going to make Jared pay for his cruelty, one way or the other. She didn’t know how just yet, but she was going to pay him back for every low remark he’d made about her. And when she finished with him, the despicable Andrew was going to be next on her list!

  Chapter Twelve

  NOELLE AND JARED were married in the First Methodist Church. Noelle’s gown reached to her toes in layer upon layer of delicate Brussels lace with mauve and pink and blue ribbons interlaced, and a matching bouquet of silk flowers. Her veil was massive, trailing out behind her over the train of her oyster silk wedding gown. She wore no hat, only delicate ribbons in her upswept hair, which were pinned in the bun of her hair to secure the long veil. The ribbons matched those in her bouquet. Her gloves were of the same pretty lace as the gown’s trim. She looked faintly haughty with her auburn hair gleaming from the sunlight as she walked down the aisle on the arm of the minister’s brother, who had offered to give her away.

  She was sorry that her parents and brothers were gone, for she had no family save Mrs. Dunn to see her wed. Her uncle had wired that he couldn’t attend the wedding because of his back, but he did send congratulations. Andrew was her cousin, but, of course, he would not attend. She couldn’t look at Jared as she walked slowly down the aisle. It was like being offered heaven while standing on shifting rocks over hell.

  He’d barely spoken to her since the night they’d argued and he’d kissed her. She’d called him a name that made her flush in retrospect. She was sorry for it, but she hadn’t been able to find any way to apologize. That he was still angry had been hard to ignore. He’d avoided her except in company, and he’d only spoken to her when it had been necessary. He didn’t look at her even when she approached the altar. He stood straight and unbending, his face like stone.

  She was given over to Jared as the piano played the familiar strains of the “Wedding March” and the minister slowly went through the marriage service. The church was full, partly because of the gossip and partly because of Jared’s controversial client in the upcoming trial. Most of these people were curiosity seekers, including Mrs. Hardy in the first row. Her presence incensed Noelle, but there was nothing she could do about it—short of flinging the woman out one of the long ceiling-to-floor windows—unthinkable behavior in a church.

  The two questions were asked and answered. The minister smiled and pronounced them man and wife, inviting a cool, unsmiling Jared to kiss the bride.

  Jared looked down his nose at her for a long moment. His eyes went over the thick veil that concealed her eyes and mouth. He’d been furious with her beyond all imagining, because she’d used a word that wounded him. But now, looking down at her pale, sad face, pride of possession suddenly took precedence. She was his. She might love Andrew, but she’d married him, Jar
ed Dunn, instead.

  Slowly he eased the veil back from her face; the significance of what he was doing went right through him. He was seeing her as no other man ever had, ever would—he was seeing her for the first time as a bride.

  Wonderingly his thin lips turned up in a smile so tender that her breath caught audibly. It was as if they were alone in the world. While the audience sat, spellbound, Jared framed her oval face in his lean, strong hands and very slowly bent to her mouth.

  She saw his lips part as they met hers, felt his warm breath against them. He kissed her with breathless tenderness, as if it were the first time. She stood there entranced, and the poignancy of it made her sob, made tears form in her eyes.

  He heard the sound. It brought him back from the brief fool’s paradise he’d entered. He lifted his head at once and the coldness came back into his eyes.

  He knew what had prompted the tears. She’d just realized that Andrew was forever out of her reach. She was crying over Andrew, in church, at her own wedding.

  He bit back the words he wanted to say. His eyes said them for him. She averted hers even before he abruptly released her, and, taking her arm, escorted her down the aisle, past the wedding guests, and out the door.

  When they were on the sidewalk, he let go of her arm and looked down at her with cold eyes. “You lie beautifully with your mouth. What silky promises, ‘to love and obey and forsake all others.’ Ha!”

  Her mind was still spinning. One second he’d been kissing her, almost like a man in love. And here he was spitting poison at her.

  “I—I don’t understand,” she faltered.

  “Don’t you?” he asked coldly.

  He escorted her quickly to the gaily decorated carriage, put her inside with a minimum of fuss, moved her skirts into it, slammed the door, and motioned to the driver to take her home. The startled man complied. Jared didn’t look in at Noelle. He turned on his heel, put his hands angrily in the pockets of his best trousers, and walked angrily down the street toward his office.