“It’s very nice,” Jenny choked out, and swallowed.
“I am sorry.” Lorelie shook her head. “How terribly thoughtless of me.”
Jenny glanced at Alma, who rolled her eyes at the ceiling. Jenny’s words were cautious. “What are you sorry about?”
Lorelie’s eyes widened with surprise. “Why, I asked you a question when your mouth was full. It was quite rude of me. Not at all civilized and hardly respectable.” She leaned toward Jenny in a confidential manner. “We are working very hard right now to become civilized.”
“So I hear,” Jenny said, stifling a giggle.
“It’s quite important, you know,” Lorelie said. “Civilization. Although just between us, I’ve always rather liked the rugged ways we have out here. Still, it’s no doubt time for a change. I was born in St. Louis. It’s extremely civilized there.”
“I was in St. Louis once,” Jenny said.
“How lovely.” Lorelie’s voice was bright, as if she’d just found a long-lost friend. “Then we have something in common. Did you like it?”
Jenny shrugged. “I don’t remember much. I was just a baby.”
“I see.” Lorelie hesitated, a sad look in her eyes, as if remembering something she’d just as soon forget.
“I don’t see why everyone wants all this respectability anyway,” Alma grumbled.
“Why, Alma,” Lorelie said. “You know as well as I do it’s all part of progress.” Her voice held a chastising note. “We’re going to be a state someday soon, and we’d hate to have the rest of the states looking down their noses at us.”
“Well, I think it’s silly. Especially changing the town’s name. Empire City.” Alma snorted her disdain. “It will always be Dead End to me.”
Lorelie sighed. “Yes, well, I agree with you there. It is so difficult to get used to new ideas. But I suppose it’s the price one pays for progress.”
The kitchen door slammed open and a tall, lanky cowboy strode into the room. “Alma, I hear you’ve got some fresh pie and I—” He stopped short at the sight of Lorelie and snatched his hat from his head. “Beg pardon, Miz Lorelie, I didn’t know you were in here.”
Lorelie waved off his apology. “Not at all, Zach. I was just having a pleasant talk with this nice young lady. Jenny, have you met Zach?”
“No,” Jenny said a bit breathlessly, and stared into eyes the color of the Wyoming sky, endless and bewitching, beneath an unruly shock of thick, black hair. She met his gaze, and a slow smile spread across his face. Heat crept up her cheeks, and she jerked her gaze away.
“Jenny,” Lorelie said. “This is Zachary Weston, one of our hands and quite a scamp. We’ve known him all his life, and he’s still as ornery as when he was just a little tyke.”
“Miz Lorelie.” Zach groaned in obvious embarrassment and stalked over to the table. He cut a huge piece of pie, jammed half of it into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “I’m a grown man now. High time you stopped telling people what a cute kid I was.”
Alma chuckled. “He was a cute kid, though.”
He still was as far as Jenny could see. Of course, he wasn’t a kid anymore. This was definitely a man. Why, he was at least eighteen. Tall and lean as if he’d grown too fast, with a smile that promised an easy laugh and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on but intrigued her nonetheless.
“Zach,” Lorelie said, “why don’t you take Jenny out and show her around the ranch. Unless the countess needs you, Jenny.”
“I doubt it.” Jenny was not about to pass up this opportunity to taste a bit of freedom. Especially not with the interesting Mr. Weston by her side. “She’s not even here right now.”
“That’s right,” Alma said. “She’s out with Mr. Jack and Mr. Tye.”
“Tyler’s with them?” Lorelie said. Alma nodded, and Lorelie smiled with delight. “I see. Isn’t that interesting?”
Alma cast her a warning glare. “Now, don’t you go getting any big ideas about Mr. Tye and that foreigner. I know you’re used to running his life, but settling down with a woman ain’t something a family should be meddling with.”
“Pshaw.” Lorelie waved off the objection, and her eyes sparkled. “Settling down is the very sort of thing a family should meddle with. Why, it’s what families are for.” A frown flitted across her face. “Although I daresay I’m not at all fond of the term meddling.”
“Well, how about interfering or butting in?” Sarcasm dripped off the housekeeper’s words. “Or just plain sticking your nose in other people’s business where it don’t belong?”
“No, no, I don’t like those at all either.” Lorelie drew her brows together as if searching for just the right word. “I know. Guidance. That’s it exactly. All Tyler needs is a little bit of helpful guidance and he’ll do exactly what he should.”
Zach popped the last bite of pie in his mouth and shook his head. “You can call it meddling or guidance or whatever you want, but Tye ain’t gonna like it.”
“Now, Zach.” There was an admonishing note in Lorelie’s words. “You were just a boy when Tyler left to go away to school. His attitude about such things could be quite a bit different now than it used to be.”
Zach cast her a disbelieving glance. “Miz Lorelie, I was thirteen when Tye left. Old enough to remember the yelling and screaming around here when you tried to make him go back East.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “It takes more than a high-flown education to change a man who’s as pigheaded as Tye.”
Lorelie heaved an exasperated sigh. “I suppose you could be right. Still, I had hoped he’d mellowed a bit.” Lorelie fell silent. Jenny watched with fascination. Goodness, this woman’s mind was nearly as clever as Ophelia’s. Zach and Alma studied Lorelie with the careful concentration of a gambler waiting for the next card to be played, all the while knowing his opponent wouldn’t hesitate to cheat. “I have it.” Lorelie grinned with satisfaction. “We just won’t tell him.”
Zach and Alma exchanged glances as if to say they’d seen this kind of scheme before. Tye had obviously lost the battle over going to school. Jenny wondered if he’d lose this one to his aunt as well. She hadn’t met him yet, but it already seemed to her that if this tiny birdlike creature could get him to leave his home for years, marrying him off to Ophelia would be like rolling off a log in comparison. Ophelia, on the other hand…Jenny gasped. “Oh, no!”
“No, my dear,” Lorelie said. “I think it’s much better not to tell him. Otherwise, he’s bound to put his foot down and refuse even to go near the countess, and if that—”
“That’s not what I meant,” Jenny said quickly. “I mean, you’re probably right not to tell him, but Oph—the countess—well, she might not be at all interested and she can be every bit as stubborn, and…”
And why not? Maybe the idea of settling Ophelia down with Tye Matthews wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, it had definite possibilities. Why, if Ophelia married Tye, she and Jenny would never have to move again. They could stay in one place, have a real home complete with a real family and put down roots. Ophelia wouldn’t have to worry over where their next meal would come from. Better yet, she’d have to give up gambling and they’d never have to crawl out a hotel window again. Of course, Ophelia would have to pretend to be a countess for the rest of her life, but that was a minor problem—at least for Jenny.
“I think,” Jenny said, each word slow and measured. “I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
“Tye won’t go for it.” Zach’s voice rang with warning.
Lorelie ignored him and cast Jenny a confident smile. “It is, isn’t it?”
“And I’ll do everything I can to help.” Jenny grinned, basking in the warm glow of a newly formed conspiracy.
“This ain’t gonna work.” Alma glared her disapproval. “And the two of you should know better.” She aimed a chastising finger at Jenny. “You’re scheming against the lady who pays your salary, and you”—Alma directed a scathing glance at Lorelie—“you’re doing what you’ve
always done with that boy, trying to run his life again.” She planted her hands on her hips and shook her head. “I don’t know about the two of you. It must be the hair.”
Jenny and Lorelie exchanged puzzled glances.
Alma sighed with forbearance. “You two both have almost that same shade of wheat-white hair.”
Lorelie’s eyes widened with surprise. “Why, I hadn’t noticed. So we do.” She pushed an errant strand away from her face and smiled at Jenny. “Do you know what they say about hair like ours?”
Jenny stared in rapt captivation. “Nope.”
“They say hair like ours is a gift from heaven.” Lorelie lowered her voice, as if her words were a secret shared only by fair-haired women. “It means you were kissed by an angel at the moment you were born, and the moment you die they’ll welcome you back to heaven.”
“That’s beautiful,” Jenny said softly.
“Hogwash,” Alma snorted.
Zach laughed. “Well, it sure is pretty enough for an angel.” Jenny’s gaze met his, and again heat flushed up her face. Her stomach fluttered, and an odd ached filled her.
Alma and Lorelie exchanged knowing glances.
“Ready?” he said.
“Oh my, yes.” Jenny jumped to her feet.
He grinned down at her. “We’ll saddle a couple of horses—”
“No.” She stopped in her tracks and stared. Disappointment surged through her. “We can’t. I mean, I can’t. Ride, that is.”
“No problem.” Zach shrugged. “I can teach you.”
“Can you really?” She stared at him with a look of sheer admiration.
“Sure.” He tossed her a confident smile. “Nothing to it. Of course, I may have to put off showing you around until you get a feel for the saddle.”
“Then let’s not waste any more time.” She smiled back. “Let’s get going.” Jenny started toward the door, then turned back and nodded at Alma. “Thank you for the pie.” She turned to Lorelie. “And thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure.” Lorelie’s smile faded to a look of confusion. “Whatever for?”
“For the story. About the hair.” Jenny grinned. “And for not treating me like a maid.”
“Think nothing of it, my dear.” Amusement danced in Lorelie’s eyes. “It seems to me, at one time or another in our lives, we’re all maids of some sort.”
Alma snorted, “Ain’t that the truth.”
“If you three are going to gab all day, Jenny’ll have to learn to ride by moonlight.” Zach’s voice held a masculine note of forbearance with feminine peculiarities.
“Don’t use that high-and-mighty, superior male tone with me, young man,” Alma said. “If you want to stay welcome in this kitchen for that pie you’re so fond of.”
Jenny laughed. “We’d better get out of here before you’re banished altogether.”
“And that’d be rough,” Zach said. He wiped the few remaining pie crumbs off his lips, pushed the back door open and grinned. “Alma makes the best pie in the county.”
“I’ll bet,” Jenny murmured, only half of her attention on the young man. Behind her, Alma and Lorelie had returned to the topic of playing matchmaker for Ophelia and Tye. She strained to make out the words.
Lorelie’s eager voice trailed after them. “A countess in the family would be so very nice.”
Alma muttered something Jenny couldn’t quite make out. The girl smiled to herself. Lorelie might well like a countess for the family.
But a family for the countess would be even better.
Jenny had been back in her room a good half hour, and was already at work on yet another one of the countess’s dresses, when Ophelia finally sauntered in. Her eyes snapped with anticipation, and a self-satisfied smile danced on her lips. She paused by the doorway, and expertly sailed her hat across the room to land precisely in the middle of her bed.
“I have it,” Ophelia announced.
“Do you?” Jenny said.
“Indeed I do.” Ophelia closed the door behind her and leaned against it. “What is more civilized than an English title and estate?”
Jenny shrugged. “I don’t know. What?”
Ophelia laughed. “No, no, darling, it’s not a joke.” She grinned wickedly. “Well, perhaps it is, but not on us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about my brilliant plan.” Ophelia perched on the edge of the bed beside Jenny and fairly bubbled with excitement. “I’ve decided to sell my title and land in England to Big Jack Matthews.”
“You don’t have land in England.”
“Dearest, I don’t have a title either. That’s what’s so brilliant about it.” Ophelia beamed smugly. “And they fell for it without a second thought.” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “It was so easy. Almost too easy.”
“I don’t think we should do this.” Jenny shook her head. “These are very nice people.”
“Of course they’re nice people.” Ophelia released an exasperated sigh. “We’ve already established that. That’s part of the brilliance of it all.”
Jenny studied her sister for a moment. It would do no good to endeavor to dissuade Ophelia from her objective. Once she set her mind toward something, she pursued it with a singular purpose that defied any attempt at rational argument. Still, Jenny was compelled to try. Perhaps a different approach…
“Why didn’t you tell me about Tye Matthews?”
“Why, there’s nothing to tell.” Ophelia narrowed her eyes. “How did you know about Tye Matthews?”
“The housekeeper told me.” Jenny steeled herself against Ophelia’s inevitable outburst. “When I was in the kitchen.”
“You left the room?” Ophelia groaned. “How could you? I specifically told you to stay right here. Did you say anything?”
“I said quite a bit actually. But nothing that would give us away.”
“Thank goodness for that. I can’t believe you’d completely ignore my instructions and run the risk of exposure. You could ruin everything. Honestly, Jenny, I can’t leave you alone for a moment. You can be such a child.”
“I am not a child.” Jenny resisted the impulse to stamp her foot. “I’m practically a grown woman.”
“You’re only sixteen.”
“I’m almost seventeen.” Jenny crossed her arms over her chest. “You were seventeen when Papa died and left us on our own.”
“Yes, and I was not nearly as clever at seventeen as I thought I was.”
“I am.” Jenny tossed her a self-righteous smile. “And I’ve discovered I’m just as good a liar as you are.”
“Congratulations. That’s quite an accomplishment.”
“It’s a skill that seems to have served you well!”
“I don’t want to see you make the same mistakes I have.”
“What mistakes?”
“None that I can recall offhand, but the possibility is always there. Besides,” Ophelia said loftily, “I do not lie. I act.”
“Oh, really.” Jenny cast her gaze to one side of the room, then the other. “I don’t see a stage. I don’t see an audience. It seems to me without a stage and an audience”—she threw her sister a pointed look—“a paying audience…”
“The world is my stage.” Ophelia drew herself up and glared righteously. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
“You can quote Shakespeare all you want, but even he would agree with me on this. What you’re doing here, pretending to be this countess and selling her land and title, isn’t acting at all. It’s a big, old, ordinary lie. A falsehood. A prevarication. A whopper.”
“Call it whatever you wish.” Ophelia shrugged. “It’s going to get us what we want.”
Jenny gritted her teeth. “I don’t like it. It’s not right.”
“Right is all in your point of view.” Ophelia pulled her brows together in annoyance. “Was it right for Papa to die and leave us all alone? Is it right for us to keep moving from
town to town, barely making ends meet? Is it right for me to have to fend off the advances of every man who sits down for a game of cards just because they assume I’m willing to play for something other than money?”
“No!” Jenny glared. “But this isn’t right either, and I don’t think we should go through with it.”
“Well, we’re going through with it.” Ophelia narrowed her eyes in a menacing manner. “Whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t like it.” This time Jenny did stamp her foot. “And I refuse to be any part of it.”
“You don’t have to be any part of it. You just have to do what you’re told!”
Anger and frustration colored Ophelia’s face. The sisters stared at each other for a long, tense moment. Finally, Ophelia’s expression softened and she sank down on the bed. “Jenny, I don’t know what else to do. I’m so very tired of the life we’ve been living. You’re growing up so fast and I don’t want you to have to go on like this.”
Remorse gripped Jenny. Ophelia was only trying to make things better for them both. She sat down beside her sister. “I’m sorry. I just wish there was another way.”
Ophelia sighed. “Me too.”
“Couldn’t you find some kind of job?”
Ophelia smiled grimly. “Do you have any idea how few respectable jobs there are out here for single women? And aside from gambling, I don’t have many skills.”
“You can act.”
Ophelia pulled a deep breath. “Didn’t you ever wonder why we didn’t stay in the theater after Papa died?”
“I just thought you weren’t particularly interested in going on the stage.”
“Not exactly.” Ophelia chewed her bottom lip. “I can quote Shakespeare accurately until the end of time. I can remember every card played in every hand. But I have never, ever been able to remember…my own lines.”
Jenny stared in disbelief. “You can’t remember your own lines?”
Ophelia shook her head. “Never.”
At once tiny, nagging discrepancies fell into place. Jenny studied her sister. “What’s the countess’s name?”
The Emperor's New Clothes Page 9
