The Genuine Lady (Heroines on Horseback)

by Sydney Alexander

  “No!” Cherry lifted a leg in front of her, embarrassed at the way Matt was fumbling with the buckles beneath her calf. “That can’t be true.” She glanced down; he was letting the stirrup down a hole.

  “You’re taller than Patty,” he grunted, grabbing her by the leg and guiding her boot back into the stirrup. She blushed, but Matt wasn’t paying any attention to such silliness. “Yep,” he went on, walking around to do the left stirrup. “She told me, that’s how her pa taught her to ride. And she’s a real good rider.”

  She lifted her left leg up past Galahad’s withers as Matt fixed the left stirrup, and managed put her boot in the stirrup without any assistance as soon as he had finished. “There y’are,” he announced, stepping back. “Now you sit too far forward. You gotta sit back, and let your leg go in front of you.”

  Cherry obligingly shifted her seat in the saddle, but it didn’t ease up the hard pressure between her legs. It was really terrible, she thought. She couldn’t imagine how Patty dealt with it. To say nothing of men!

  “Y’aren’t sittin’ back,” Matt said disapprovingly. “Sit back.”

  She wiggled.

  “Back means back, Cherry.”

  “For pity’s sake, Matt!” Cherry burst out. “I’ve never sat back in my entire life. I don’t know what that means!”

  He sighed. “You ladies.” And he put his hands on her back and hip and shifted her so that she was sitting back, on her tailbone.

  It was such an astonishing difference in feel that Cherry didn’t waste any time feeling embarrassed over the way her friend’s husband had touched her. He hadn’t meant anything by it, anyway — he was just trying to put her in the correct riding position. And he had! He had!

  She was sitting farther back than she ever could have imagined; instead of sitting rigidly upright, as she would on the corner of a divan, her derriere was directly underneath her body, much as she had seen a man lounging comfortably in a chair. Lounging comfortably while she was sitting as if a pole was lodged in her spine, one might add! The saddle held her comfortably in its broad, wide cantle, while her legs naturally shifted a little in front of her and pushed down into the leather stirrups. She felt utterly safe and secure. It was a marvelous feeling.

  She smiled down at Matt, who was momentarily taken aback by the brilliance of it. He had never seen Cherry quite so elated.

  “This should’ve been Jared teachin’ you,” he blurted out, and immediately felt ashamed, for the bright smile melted away and she looked momentarily bereft. Then her face smoothed over; the lines in her forehead disappeared and her smile came back, but it was the fixed and stiff thing he had grown used to seeing on her face.

  “Jared made his choice,” she commented, and her voice was thin. “You are a good teacher, Matt, and I appreciate your time very much. Your hospitality and generosity to me have been beyond the call of gentlemanly behavior.”

  Matt had never heard such a formal speech in his entire life. Evidently Patty had been right when she told him Cherry could write as good as a preacher. She could talk as good as a preacher, too.

  “Well gosh,” Matt said, and then stopped. “Well, gosh,” he said again, and thought. “Why don’t you take him out and get used to trottin’ and gallopin’ in that saddle,” he suggested when he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I’ll stay right here for a little while and make sure you don’t have any trouble.”

  Cherry smiled down at him and then nudged Galahad away from the rock. Matt watched her sway in the saddle, the split skirt falling away in pretty curves from her narrow waist, and he thought, once again, that Jared was worse than a fool. After this ride, he’d take Cherry down to order her a saddle of her own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hope came on the seventh day, when Jared had just about given up any thoughts of seeing her alight from the train. He had been a constant figure at the Opportunity siding every afternoon, awaiting the train alongside the station-master, who thought him a love-sick homesteader waiting on his wife from back east, and an ever-changing assortment of tradesmen come to meet their deliveries and escort the wagon-loads of goods back to their various storefronts. Opportunity was a bustling town, practically a city compared to the dusty little one-horse Bradshaw, with a lumberyard twice the size of Bradshaw’s, a livestock auction where Cherry’s stolen mule had almost certainly been sold months ago, and two hotels.

  Jared had booked a room in the shabbier of the two hotels, apologizing to the roan when he saw the indifferent state of the livery out back. But he knew that Hope — he expected that Hope — wouldn’t agree to stay in such a place, with its musty, moth-eaten curtains hanging crooked in the dirty windows and the dour-looking manageress smoking a pipe in the hotel office. And keeping as far from her physical presence at night as possible was a matter of grave concern for Jared. He wasn’t giving himself any chances to slip up. He had to convince this woman that she wasn’t going to get any satisfaction from him now, and that meant she couldn’t have any opportunities to seduce him.

  Because he knew… he’d give in.

  So he’d patted the roan on the neck and slipped the hostlers a few extra coins, with the promise that there was more where that came from for every day his horse’s stall was kept spotless and the hay was clean and sweet-smelling. A cowboy could never take too much trouble with his horse, after all. Even a retired cowboy.

  And then he went down to the train station, got a timetable, and waited.

  On the sixth day, the station-master finally asked him what the hell he was waiting for. He was starting to suspect Jared might have criminal motives. Perhaps he was sussing out the weekly deliveries in preparation for a robbery.

  “Just a woman,” Jared said drily. “Nothin’ special.”

  And the station-master laughed and let it be.

  On the sixth night he sat at the bar of the saloon next to the hotel and drank whiskey from a dirty glass. The saloon was teeming with people; a large group of cowboys was in town for some reason or another, and they were being stared down by a group of ladies who had taken a floor of rooms at the town’s nicer hotel and were drinking something the bar-man called “champagne” but was suspiciously lacking in bubbles when the bottles were opened.

  “Oughta make friends with one of them ladies over there,” the bar-man said after the fourth or fifth whiskey. He was growing fond of Jared, a quietly unhappy man who never made trouble and always paid his tab at the end of the night. That was the sort of man a bartender wanted to help out. “I hear they’re looking for husbands, but I imagine they’ll take whatever they can get. They’ve been here two or three weeks and money must be gettin’ low for some of them.”

  Jared turned and looked at the women in the saloon’s far corner. There were at least twelve of them, all in various stages of intoxication. One was standing on her chair singing a song; her voice might have been that of an angels’ except that it was just one more noise in a sea of noises. “They spend enough on booze,” he observed.

  “Tryin’ to stand out,” the bar-man said, not exactly sympathetic. “Want to seem fun-lovin’ I guess. Won’t tie a man down after they’re married.”

  Jared shook his head. “I don’t want company that bad.”

  The bar-man nodded. “I hear ya. Thought it was worth a try, though. You look a mite lonely.”

  Jared just nodded. He took a long drink and looked at the bar-man’s earnest face. The fella was young, with long mutton-chop whiskers of a scruffy orange-yellow. He wasn’t a handsome man, but his fingers were calloused and his face was tan. He probably had a claim he worked in summer and held up this bar in the winter. Hard worker. Jared liked him instinctively. “Nice of you,” he said finally. “I reckon I’ll always be lonely if I mess this up.”

  The bar-man looked interested, but Jared just turned his glass upside-down. “Time to go.”

  Now, standing on the platform, watching the train slowly gain size and detail as it came chugging from the east, Jared remembered
his words to the bar-man. He couldn’t mess this up. He had to find a way to put Hope aside gently, send her back to Galveston or to start somewhere new, maybe even back East, anywhere but here in the Dakotas, anywhere but with him. If she beguiled him again, there would be no second chances. A girl like Cherry wasn’t going to appear out of nowhere again, and she certainly wouldn’t take him back if he betrayed her. He knew that in his bones.

  At first he didn’t see her, as the steam hissed from the train’s engine and the wagons were rushed up to unload the baggage and supplies that were bound for Opportunity. Porters were darting around him, and little boys with hand-carts, hoping to make a few cents carting luggage to the hotels, but although Jared worked his way down the platform, gazing up at the windows of each passenger car, he didn’t see those familiar red curls, that smooth white face, those snapping green eyes. He felt down-hearted and tired at the thought of another pointless day in Opportunity, while back in Bradshaw Cherry grew angrier and angrier with him for his cowardly absence. Maybe he was going about things the wrong way. Maybe he should’ve just stayed put, waited for her to get off the train, and told her in front of Cherry and God and everyone that what they had shared was dead and gone.

  Yeah, he thought, kicking at the dusty street beside the siding. That would have made a lot more sense. If he’d been thinking clearly a week ago, he’d have listened to Matt, and none of this would’ve happened. Cherry would have understood, why, of course she would have! Why had he thought this whole damn ordeal had to be kept quiet? Hell, it might make her like him a little more, knowing some girl had chased him all the way from Texas after two years.

  Maybe not. Maybe that was going too far. But still…

  Maybe he’d just go get the roan out and ride home after all. Take his chances. See Cherry. Take her in his arms and promise her —

  “Why, Jared Reese, you handsome thing, you haven’t changed a bit.”

  He whirled, heart in his throat, at the familiar purr. And there she was, standing there like an apparition from his past, a ghost decked out in ebony feathers and jet silk: Hope Townsend, lately of Galveston.

  ***

  “Of course I had to do everything possible to provide for my son, Jared. Of course you understand that.”

  Jared was more unhappy than he had ever been in his life.

  He had stopped just short of squirming with discomfort on the delicate French chair he had found himself seated on, certain he was ruining the red velvet with his saddle-stained clothing, damaging the slim gilt legs with his muscular bulk, but he couldn’t have guaranteed to anyone that he wouldn’t leap up at any moment and go running from the room and belting down the staircase and straight out into the street, right in front of everyone at Opportunity Hotel, from the disapproving front-desk clerk with his pressed suit and his silver spectacles to the murmuring ladies taking tea in the hotel’s sun-room.

  But Hope had done nothing wrong, in her estimation, and she made that very clear in the matter-of-fact way she described her actions. She had found herself with child. She had taken the man with the most cash in his bank account. It was that simple, to her. He wondered if all women thought that way. He wondered if Cherry would drop him like a hot potato if someone with more money came wandering into Bradshaw.

  He thought of Cherry’s fiery temper and fierce independence and knew that she wouldn’t. She didn’t want his money. She wanted someone reliable to love her, not take care of her. He was pretty sure that after these shenanigans, she didn’t even want him anymore. He sure wasn’t reliable as she might have hoped.

  He could have told her he had never been a reliable man. Or he hadn’t been since Hope had thrown him to the curb. She’d ruined him; he’d never be a nice, normal, sensible man again. Just his presence in this gaudy hotel sitting room had to be indication enough of that.

  The room was very quiet and he realized that Hope was watching him warily. She was waiting for him to speak. She leaned from her chair and picked up a china tea-cup from the service on the little table between them, taking a delicate sip with motions as measured as any fine English lady’s. With her other hand, she smoothed the black silk of her skirts. Hope was wearing mourning of a sort, but her dress was still a dizzying confection of lace and slashed netting and seed pearls, and there were still feathers in her hair, though they were dyed jet-black. There were shiny black stones at her throat, and in her ears, but there were shinier clear ones on her fingers. Jared didn’t know if they were real or not, but he had his suspicions.

  She waited impatiently, a pretend little smile crooking the right corner of her lips. He could see it there, false and forced, like everything about their relationship. She was a beautiful fraud, his Hope. He had loved her and she had repaid him with lies.

  “But there wasn’t a boy,” he croaked finally. “You lied about the baby.”

  Hope sighed and smiled at him. “I didn’t lie, Jared! These things… well, they’re not always certain. I didn’t lie to you and I didn’t lie to him.”

  Jared crossed his arms and leaned back in his foolish little chair. It creaked alarmingly. “You lied to one of us, Hope. You told us both we were going to be fathers. Whether or not you lied about the baby is something else entirely. You still told both of us we were going to be fathers. You picked the father with the most money, that’s all.”

  She just shrugged, still smiling. “What was I to do? I was in love with you, of course, but Townsend was always after me. And he was so wealthy…” she trailed off, and then started again. “He had money enough to do whatever he wanted, Jared. What makes you think everyone is the gentleman that you are? You have no idea how… how commanding he could be. I simply had no choice in the matter. If I hadn’t married him… well…” the perky tone to her voice faded, to be replaced with a shakier quiet. “Things would have been difficult. To say the least.”

  Jared raised an eyebrow. So far, he was managing to stay immune to her charms. She was still beautiful, that was for damned sure. But he could see her conniving nature at last for what it was, and the truth beneath her flawless complexion and luscious curves was not an attractive one. “Are you saying he forced you?” he asked, not bothering to conceal his skepticism. “And then you agreed to marry him anyway?”

  And then Hope put down her cup with a little clink on its saucer. She raised round green eyes to him from beneath dark lashes, and he felt a little catch in his chest. His beautiful Hope… he must stop, he must not think that way. She touched her lush, full lips with the tip of her tongue, and her chest was suddenly heaving with rapid breaths, like a frightened animal in a trap. “I know you don’t believe me but… I had to, Jared, can’t you see?” she whispered, her expressive face a picture of sorrow and regret. “He swore he’d do anything — he had a set of pearl-handled pistols, oh, you should have seen them! And he said… and he said…” she shook her head suddenly and pressed her lips together.

  “What did he say?” Jared leaned forward from his chair, reaching out to clasp her hand. She was so frightened, that much was clear, and it wasn’t right, she shouldn’t be so upset from something in the past. He wished he didn’t care, he cursed himself for caring, but all he wanted to do was stop her from feeling frightened. His passion was frightening him. “He’s gone now, Hope, it’s all right now, you’re safe…”

  Hope shivered violently and clenched his hand in a fist, grinding the bones together. Her eyes were downcast again; all he could see was her lashes upon her white cheek, and he felt a rush of something male and protective sweeping over him. He wanted to keep her safe from the world and tear her clothes off all at once. “He kept the pistols in a beautiful case. He opened them up and showed them to me… they were so gorgeous, Jared! I reached out and stroked one.” She shivered and sighed all in one motion.

  Jared’s mouth was dry. He thought he could imagine where the story was going. Had the bastard actually threatened to kill her? “What happened then?” he managed to croak.

  “He laughed a
t me. So soft, and cruel. Then he said the right one was named Hope, and the left one was named Reese, and the newspapers would say it was a lover’s pact.” A tear spilled down her cheek, and then another.

  Jared was dumbstruck.

  “He made me marry him, Jared! I couldn’t let him kill you! How could I, when I was so in love with you? Oh Jared —” And Hope burst into tears. “I should have killed him myself,” she wept. “I should have pulled out that old pistol and shot him right in his black heart!”

  Jared was at her side in an instant, kneeling beside her chair, holding her hands tightly in his. He couldn’t have explained his emotions at that moment, they were all so confused and conflicted and swirling. He felt rage at the audacity of the millionaire who had stolen Hope from him, he felt sorrow at what they had lost, but most of all, coming from deep within him, he felt a churning, raging, embarrassing desire rising up from the sight of the beautiful girl who had come to him for protection at last. And there was guilt, too: which meant somewhere, in the back of his mind, he must have remembered Cherry.

  But Bradshaw and the claim and Cherry seemed a thousand miles and a hundred years away. Right now was Hope, and he was back in that boarding-house room in Galveston, uncoiling her curls across the faded white sheets of his hard little bed. He put his hands in Hope’s red hair, spilling hair-pins as he pushed back her little feathered bonnet, feeling the glory of those fiery curls in his rough fingers, and she turned her tear-stained face up to his, those great green cat’s eyes gleaming at him from behind wells of unshed sorrow.

  Hope’s tragic, beautiful, matchless eyes were what undid him. He was drowning in them. The visions of Cherry, her gilt hair and her blue eyes, were fading from his mind. All he could think was that Hope had loved him, and sacrificed for him, and all this time he had called her a liar and worse and let his friends do the same, while she lived with a murderer, for God’s sakes! He’d let her lie for him and let her live without love for so long — he was a fool and a worse — and with a groan he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her swollen lips. He’d do anything to make her feel better. Anything.