Wicked Temptations

by Patricia Watters

  The door opened wide, and the man's tall, solid frame blocked the light, darkening the room as he stood in the doorway. "I'm Frank Gundy Jr.," he said, hat turning in his hands. "I'm looking for Miss Priscilla Phipps. The notice said she'd be here."

  Priscilla studied the man, who looked to be in his late teens or early twenties at best. She had expected Frank Gundy to be older. At least from his photograph he looked older. And in his letter to Edith, he mentioned having children. "Then you're here about Miss Hogan," she said.

  "Well, yes ma'am," Frank replied. "That is, I'm here for my father. He sent me to pick up his bride."

  "Your father?" Priscilla stared at the man. A pleasant looking young man with the stubble of youthful whiskers. Certainly a better match for Edith than the man's father.

  "Pa's having a problem with one of his mules and couldn't come, so he sent me over to fetch Miss Edith Hogan. Is she here?"

  Edith stood in the doorway to the back room, appreciation in her eyes, a shy smile on her lips. "I am Edith Hogan," she said.

  The two stared at each other. When neither spoke, Priscilla took the moment to explain to the man what was going on, and to assure him that a bank draft, made out to his father, would be waiting at the bank.

  Young Frank Gundy looked at Priscilla, as if at a loss for words. Then he shifted his gaze to Edith and said, "Ma'am, my Pa will not be happy about this. He's been waiting a long while for you and has the place fixed up for your arrival. There's fresh bedding on Pa's bed and a bath tub by the stove so's you can bathe. Pa even took a bath in it this morning and shaved fresh so's he'd be clean when he and you... that is, when you are... together as husband and wife."

  Edith stared at Frank, wide-eyed. When she said nothing, Frank continued. "My Pa's a good man, Miss Hogan. He never once hit Ma. And the farm's in fine shape so there aren't many chores that need doing. Pa just wants a wife for tidying the house and keeping him company at night and fixing his meals and sharing his bed. And he's not mean or anything. He'd be real gentle with you too since he knows you're still a maiden lady."

  Edith finally found her voice. "Mr. Gundy, please tell your father that I appreciate his offer to become his wife, but I'm looking for someone considerably younger. In fact, I'm prepared to join the right man in securing a homestead and being a help mate in starting a farm. I am not afraid of hard work." Her lips curved slightly, and she added, "Perhaps we will meet again in the near future. I'll be here working for Miss Phipps."

  Frank's smile reflected as tiny points of light in his deep blue eyes. Then he turned to Priscilla, and said, "I'll give my pa your message about the bank draft." He looked at Edith, smiled again, and left. Edith stepped to the window and watched him walk away.

  Abigail started giggling. "I don't know why you didn't jump at the chance to bed a man who was scrubbed clean and shaved and waiting for you to join him, never mind that he was an old hoot. Actually, young Frank was a looker. Maybe you could just add Junior to the name on the agreement and marry him instead."

  Edith turned to Priscilla. "Could I? I mean, would it be legal if Frank Jr. agreed?"

  Priscilla eyed her with alarm. She needed all four woman right now. Unlike the tramp type-slingers who roamed from newspaper to newspaper, hiring for short periods of time and then moving on, women typesetters and compositors were trustworthy and dependable, and they didn't stash bottles of whiskey around the place. If she could hold onto all four women until the paper got going, it would go a long way in insuring its success. "You barely know the man," she said, "and marriage is forever. By working here, you can take your time before settling on a man."

  Edith's brows pinched together, and her mouth drooped. "But I liked young Frank Gundy. I liked the way he was polite, and that he talked about how good his pa was, not as a husband for me, but just to let me know that he was thinking about my well-being."

  Abigail picked up her scrub brush and started in again. "But there are hundreds of eligible young men in this city," she said, rasping the brush against the old floorboards, "and lots of them are rich from running cattle and mining gold. We don't have to settle for old men like the ones we were fixing to marry. But if you're set on getting to know young Frank Gundy, then going to church on Sunday would be a start. I'll bet he'll be there."

  Edith smiled. "Yes, church," she said, then she dropped to her hands and knees and continued scrubbing, a cheerful little tune emanating from her throat, a smile fixed on her lips.

  ***

  From his stance across the street, Adam watched a big Negro paint a band of brick red over the words, CHEYENNE SENTINEL, that were scrawled across the face of the old building. The man stood on the porch roof, a bucket of paint in one hand, a brush in the other. On the porch beneath the roof rose a mound of trash and printing equipment and discarded pasteboard boxes. He'd seen several women, along with Miss Priscilla Phipps, step out of the building on occasion to toss rubbish onto the growing pile. He had not gone to the bank to pick up the bank draft, as he had not yet given up hope of collecting his bride. He needed a mother for his children, and he needed her fast. He'd caught Tom Rafferty throwing dirt clods at Trudy's bedroom window at the ranch the night before, and if he could talk Mary Kate Burns into marrying him, he would install her and the children in the house on 17th Street, and Trudy and Tom would be miles apart. It wouldn't be long before the young buck would find other pastures in which to graze.

  As for Mary Kate, he'd stay with her a few nights a week, which should work for both of them, since there was no love between them. Actually, a rather good arrangement. He took a last look at the photograph she'd sent to him and headed across the street, certain she'd been one of the women who'd stepped onto the porch earlier. Seeing the door ajar, he walked into the building unannounced and stood just inside the doorway. Four heads looked his way. "I am Adam Whittington, and I'm looking for Miss Mary Kate Burns," he said. "I believe she's here."

  To his annoyance, Priscilla Phipps emerged from the back room. "I told you yesterday, Lord Whittington, that Miss Burns will not be marrying you. Now, will you please leave. As you can see, we are all very busy."

  "I don't care how busy you are," Adam said, "I've come to hear it directly from Miss Burns." He looked around the room. "Which of you is Miss Burns?"

  "I am Mary Kate Burns," a small, slender woman said, her milky white skin and wide blue eyes the image of youthful innocence. She stood slowly then, the top of her pigtailed blond head about mid-chest to him, making her seem younger yet. She stared at him with those large innocent eyes while waiting for him to respond.

  Bloody hell. He'd be marrying a child. And to bed the woman... He probably wouldn't even be able to function as a man. He slipped the photograph from his pocket and glanced at it again. It was the same woman alright, but with her gloved hand on the back of a chair, and wearing a hat and fashionable gown, she looked ten years older. But she wasn't ten years older. She was four years older than Trudy. And there was no way Trudy or the other children would look on her as a mother figure.

  He handed her the photograph. "Miss Burns," he said, "if you want to get out of the marriage agreement, I will release you from it."

  The woman turned worried eyes on Priscilla Phipps, as if looking for confirmation, and when Miss Phipps nodded, Miss Burns said, "Yes, Lord Whittington, I think it would be best. You have three nearly-grown children, and I do not feel competent to see to their needs. I am sorry for whatever grief I may have caused you and your family."

  He shrugged. "We will survive." He looked at Priscilla Phipps standing in the doorway to the back room, wondering, for the first time, what she'd be like in bed. She was certainly closer to his age, and of a better age to mother his children. But as a spinster woman she'd probably never had a man in her bed, which could make things unpredictable. And she wasn't much to look on, with her carrot-red hair a tangle of curls and cobwebs, her freckled face smudged with dirt, her eyes rimmed in blond lashes, and her figure—he scanned the length of her. At le
ast she was curved in all the right places. Very nicely so. And from the rise and fall of her ample bosom, he knew her breath had quickened from his perusal. Maybe she'd be passionate in bed, once they got through the deflowering. He'd never taken a virgin before, much less one nearing forty...

  "Lord Whittington? Is there something else that you want?" Miss Phipps asked, drawing his eyes to her face, which, he noted, was flushed a rosy pink. There was also the hint of prurient sparks in her eyes. And her lips were parted. Full moist lips that looked oddly inviting.

  Hell! He was mooning over a homely spinster with a razor sharp tongue and aspirations of starting a newspaper in a field dominated by men. All she had going for her as a wife was that she was curved in all the right places and would undoubtedly be able to hold Trudy in check. "No, Miss Phipps," he said. "We are done. I'll go to the bank now and take care of the agreement. Good day." He turned abruptly and left.

  When the door closed behind him, Priscilla could barely catch her breath. Was the dry, high plains air getting to her? She fanned her face. Lordy, lordy, the man did nothing but look at her. But when his gaze moved down her chest, she could feel it, warm and tingly, like fingers touching her there. Touching her where no man had ever touched. And he had not even laid a hand on her...

  "Miss Priscilla? You alright?" Abigail's voice seemed to come from out of nowhere. "You look like you just ran a mile. Maybe you should sit down."

  Edith giggled. "She's just reacting to Lord Whittington. You saw the way he looked at her, eyeing her like she was on the auction block and he was about to make an offer."

  "I am not reacting to Lord Whittington," Priscilla snapped, the sound of his name on her lips bringing prickles of heat moving down her. And at the junction of her thighs, odd things were happening. Things she couldn't explain. Like having a rush of adrenaline in an area she'd just as soon ignore, but couldn't. It came to her then that if Lord Whittington so much as touched her, even by accident, she was certain she'd need smelling salts to keep from swooning. She made a mental note to add those to her list of supplies when she went to the general store later...

  "Had you ever thought of marrying?" Abigail asked.

  Priscilla looked at Abigail with a start. "Why on earth would you ask that question now?" she asked. "Certainly you have no thoughts of me and Lord Whittington?"

  "No, I was just wondering. Have you?"

  Priscilla hated answering that question. She'd thought about it most of her life. But her carrot red hair did not have the deep rich tones of the heroines in her Dime Novels, and her blond brows and lashes seemed to draw attention to her red-rimmed eyes. There was no cosmetic in existence that could cover her freckles, and she had the kind of skin that red-heads hated—soft and smooth, but so white, she looked like a ghost with mud splatters on its face. Men just didn't take to women who looked like she did.

  Before her father died he'd given up hope of seeing her wed. But he left her and her mother comfortably well off. His dying words, the night he passed away from a burst appendix, were, "You won't need a man to take care of you, lovey, because you and your ma are well fixed." He shut his eyes then and exhaled his last breath....

  "Miss Priscilla? I didn't mean to get personal," Abigail said, "I know you must have had offers from men. Just seeing the way Lord Whittington looked at you says that much. I was just wondering why you didn't ever get hitched."

  "I might have considered it a long time ago," Priscilla said, even though no man had asked for her hand, "but ever since I began reading the writings of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony, I have come to realize that marriage is a man-made institution, inherently unjust to wives, and with this injustice, entered into with the sanction of church and state, husbands are given complete authority over their wives."

  Abigail looked at her, bafflement on her brow. "I never thought of it that way," she said. "I guess it's a good thing I didn't go ahead with the marriage."

  Edith stopped scrubbing and looked up. "That may be how you look at it," she said, "but I want to find a good man and settle down and let him make the money so I can concentrate on keeping house and raising the young’ns. The job here with you will be fine for a while, Miss Priscilla, but I don't want to stay working here the rest of my life. And I still want to get to know young Frank Gundy." She started moving the brush again.

  Priscilla stared at the covey of young women on hands and knees scrubbing the floor and was tempted to tell them a few sordid tales as a warning, but refrained. Perhaps they'd find good men who'd love and cherish them and want only the best for them. Then on the other hand, they could end up like so many others, which was precisely why The Town Tattler would have a column devoted to the suffrage movement. Feeling a renewed sense of purpose, she picked up a scrub brush and joined the women on the floor.

  ***

  Adam looked up at the freshly painted facade of The Town Tattler building. In only five days, the place looked functional, and the huge mound of rubbish out front was gone. He never would have believed it could be ready for business in just a week.

  However, Priscilla Phipps had come west with a wagon train of homesteaders, and her paper was potentially a rabble-rousing voice against cattlemen. That being the case, he was anxious to learn what printing equipment she owned. So here he was, heading across the street in a beeline. Although he told himself he wanted to look at her equipment, who was he fooling? He wanted to see the plain, unadorned spinster lady who was running the place. Something about the woman had taken hold of him, then burrowed under his skin like a wood tick that refused to let loose.

  When he entered the building, he found her struggling with a crowbar to wedge open a large wooden crate, which he assumed held her printing press. She stopped and eyed him guardedly while waiting for him to announce his reason for his being there.

  Glancing around the large room, he was surprised to find the plaster walls patched and freshly painted, and the scrubbed floors holding a waxy sheen. Then he settled his gaze on Priscilla Phipps. The unadorned brown dress she wore draped over her shapely body in a way that indicated she wore no corset. Although it covered her completely, the effect it had on him was unexpected. Her small waist, softened by the lack of whalebone, made him want to wrap his hands around it, and the sight of her full breasts, unhampered by bones or other stays, caused things to happen below his waist, something he didn't need right now. Focusing on her face, he said, "I thought I'd stop by to see how things were going."

  Wariness creeping into her eyes, she replied, "Things are proceeding as planned."

  Eyeing the crowbar clutched in her hand, he said, "You had your hands full opening the crate when I came in. Where is your pressman?"

  "He injured his wrist while moving the crate in," she explained. "The press is very heavy. But I can manage fine on my own." She jammed the crowbar into the crack between the boards again, attempting to wedge them apart. But the boards held fast.

  Adam walked up and took the crow bar from her hand. "It takes more muscle," he informed her. "Like I said, printing is a man's business." He shoved the bar between the boards and wedged them apart, then quickly ripped the boards off the wooden base, dismantling the crate. He set the crowbar aside and offered a smile.

  She did not smile back. Instead, she stared at him, lips compressed, pupils enlarged leaving narrow rims of olive green. Or was it light brown? They seemed changeable. "If you're trying to validate a point," she said, her voice irritated, "you have only proved that I am not very good with a crowbar. But since I'm not in the crating and shipping business, that's of no importance." She gathered the slats of wood scattered about the floor and started stacking them by the pot-bellied stove, which was positioned against one wall.

  Adam tipped the old Stanhope press first to one side, then the other, while retrieving the wood slats trapped beneath its four paw-like feet. Seeing the outdated thing, with its hand cranks and levers, he had to stifle a laugh. At best, she'd be able to pull two-hundred sheets an hour, one sid
e at a time, and the sheets would have to be run through a second time in order to print the reverse side. If she and her pressman worked around the clock, seven days a week, they'd never be able to keep up with their competitors. But he admired her grit and determination, even though her newspaper was bound to fail. "The press looks like it's been well cared for," he volunteered, a gesture intended to underscore good will.

  "My father was meticulous about his printing equipment," she replied. "After he died, my pressman, my mother, and I carried on as he would have wanted us to."

  "You must not have had many subscribers then," he said. "You could not have pulled many copies a day."

  "We were in the process of building up our numbers when my mother passed away from pneumonia," she said. "But since our newspaper was a weekly publication, as will be The Town Tattler, there was no pressure to get it out every day."

  "So, it will be a weekly," Adam mused. How much trouble could that cause? Not much, he surmised. Satisfied that this homely snip of a woman with her outdated equipment posed no threat to the cattle industry, he said, magnanimously, "Tell me where you want the press and I'll move it in place."

  Her lips parted as if to protest, then she blinked several times, and said, "If you could move it a little to the left and square it with the wall, that would be appreciated."

  Adam promptly complied. "Is there anything else I can do while I'm here?" He turned and found her standing just behind him. As he waited for her response, he noted a confusion of cobwebs in her hair. Reaching into the tangle of tresses, he said, while taking in the scent of lilac wafting from her, "You have collected yet more cobwebs in your curly red hair. The last time I was here, I was certain you had already gathered the bulk of them."

  Her hand came up, trapping his hand beneath hers. Eyes wide, nostrils flaring with her quickened breaths, she removed her hand at once and pressed it to her chest, seeming to be struggling for air. Fearing she might swoon, Adam took her by the arms and said, "Are you all right? You look a bit winded. Perhaps you've been trying to do too much too soon." Her arms were well-muscled, he noted—a woman without a man to do her heavy work. Which explained why she looked so fit for a woman approaching middle age. That thought had the odd effect of making his trousers grow tighter. What in hell was coming over him with this woman, responding like a pubescent boy, aroused by the sight of a trim ankle or the pointy tips of budding breasts pressing against a dress.