The Genuine Lady (Heroines on Horseback)

by Sydney Alexander

  The Englishman was off the train next, followed by a stout woman; the train was nearly stopped, and a conductor had followed them, shouting, but the Englishman was ignoring him imperiously, not even looking over his shoulder. A porter ran up the steps and the Englishman put out a hand to stop the boy, addressing him in a few short sentences and passing him a dollar bill, presumably to collect his bags. Then they went marching down the steps and into Bradshaw.

  The station-master saw Jared running after them and stepped in front of him. “Here now, what’s going on? I have these folks acting crazy and now you?”

  “I can’t stop now, Riley,” Jared growled, shoving past him. “You haven’t even seen crazy yet.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” The station-master grabbed him by the arm. “Jared Reese, explain yourself.”

  Jared sighed. The Englishman and his party were looking all around them expectantly, turning their heads this way and that while the citizens of Bradshaw were scurrying about, too busy to notice any newcomers. He supposed they were all in a tizzy to lay in stores before the blizzard hit. The wind picked up as if in accordance with his thoughts; he and Mr. Riley both looked up at the threatening northern sky. Then Riley let go of his arm.

  “Bad day for tomfoolin’, Jared. Gonna be stormin’ before nightfall. This train has to unload and get out of here fast. They’re not even tryin’ to go on west; turnin’ here and going back to Opportunity. Don’t have time for this, man. Are you okay?”

  “I need to know where Mrs. Beacham is,” Jared said urgently. “It’s gravely important.”

  “It must be. She’s at the Barnsley’s, I guess. Oh, Jared?”

  “Yeah?” Jared had already started walking away.

  “Your horse is there, too.”

  Jared stopped dead. “My horse?”

  “That roan horse of yours. Some woman rode it in last night. Admitted it was yours. Said you gave it to her. Matt didn’t believe her, though, and he took it back.” Mr. Riley paused. “She’s at the Red Rose, I hear.”

  Jared wondered if he was perhaps going to have a stroke. His head was pounding, there was a roaring in his ears, and he couldn’t seem to make his throat work. He swallowed, looking for words.

  “You okay?” Riley asked again.

  He managed a nod. First things first. Walk down the steps, down the street, and straight to Matt’s. Whatever happened between Cherry and Hope last night — and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know — he needed her to know that the baby had to be protected from her relatives.

  ***

  Cherry was rubbing down Galahad with a rag while Eddie played with a bucket and a brush. He was beating the bucket with the brush, to be more exact, and with every thud Cherry gritted her teeth and Galahad nodded his head a little. “Sometimes you just have to let the little tykes make their noise,” she told the pony apologetically, but he just swished his tail and ignored her.

  She couldn’t really blame him for his mood. She’d given him a hard ride, pushing him for perfect behavior after Percival had given her so much trouble, and he was tired. The sweat mark on his back was soaking wet, and she had to get it dried out before he could go back in his stall and work on his hay. It was too cold to let his back stay wet for any time at all. She stood back for a moment appraising her work, and then leaned back into his back, rubbing with the towel as hard as she could. The wind howled outside, rattling the door back and forth on its hinges. A few errant snowflakes had hit her cheeks before she had brought Galahad and Eddie back in from their pony ride. It was certainly coming, she thought unhappily.

  The train whistle hooted from down at the siding, and she glanced up without thinking. But there was nothing to see but the wooden wall of the barn beyond her pony’s back. “Silly,” she chided herself. “What did you think you’d see? You’re in a barn. If you’d wanted to go to the train station you would have.”

  “Twain’s heah,” Eddie remarked casually. “Heah twain.” He banged on the bucket a bit harder.

  “Yes, that was the train,” Cherry replied. “Train in the station.” She changed arms; her right one was getting tired. Galahad shifted his weight and glared at her.

  “Eddie ride twain,” Eddie suggested hopefully.

  “Maybe in spring, darling.” Cherry didn’t have any idea where they’d ride the train to, but he’d certainly think it was an adventure. “The trains will be stopped by the snow.”

  “Snow?” He turned. “Snow?”

  “Snow is coming. White, cold, snow. Like in your picture-book. The one with the kittens.”

  “Oh snow!” Eddie resumed banging. “Like snow!”

  I wish I did, Cherry thought wearily. She had once. But now, snow was just reminding that she’d have to put all of her dreams — including the foolish ones that involved Jared returning to her — on hold until the spring thaw. And that seemed impossibly far away.

  She had moved on to the other side of the pony, and Eddie had not yet tired of his bucket drum, when the barn door opened and someone came inside in a gust of cold wind and a scattering of loose straw. “Patty?” she asked, looking over Galahad’s back. The person she saw there made her knees go weak with shock. “Jared?” she whispered.

  He came into the barn and shut the door behind him, moving slowly and deliberately. Then he took off his hat and smiled uncertainly at her, and Cherry’s heart wrenched at his beloved face. How she had missed him! How she had longed and longed for him to come back to her!

  The roan whinnied, coming to the front of his box stall, and Jared reached out and gave his horse a rub on the forehead. She could see his mind working, trying to decide what must have happened the night before, how much Hope had told her, just what Hope had told her. He turned back to her, a hand still in the roan’s striped forelock, and smiled again. She thought she would die of love.

  Then she threw the rag at him and covered up that apologetic smile. It would be easier to be mad at him if she couldn’t see him, she reasoned. And she really ought to be mad at him. He had abandoned her, ignoring his own marriage proposal, and spent a month with some sort of dancer he’d been in love with years before. He was the worst sort of cad.

  He pulled the rag off, though, and there was his stubbled face, his dark-blue eyes, his mahogany hair all on-end after being unleashed from his hat. And the expression on his face… he was scared to death of her, she knew. But she didn’t say a thing. She waited.

  He opened his mouth, but no words came. And then, finally, he managed to speak. “Cherry, I’m so goddamned sorry,” he choked out.

  “Goddamn,” Eddie announced cheerfully. “Jawed. Goddamned Jawed.”

  Cherry burst into nervous laughter. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she said at last. “Eddie, darling, run along and tell Patty your new word. Not the Jared one, the other one. She’ll love it.”

  “Goddamn!” Eddie exclaimed, leaping up. Cherry came around from behind Galahad and straightened his coat and helped him with his mittens. Then she turned away, leaving him to find his own way to the house, and stared at Jared.

  “So,” she breathed, unable to pretend that she was unmoved by his reappearance. “You probably have some things to explain to me.”

  “Can I just do one thing first?”

  “What’s that?”

  He stepped close to her and reached both arms around her waist. Before she could protest Jared dipped his mouth and caught her lips in a sweet, lingering kiss. She moved a little, whether to escape or to deepen the kiss, she could not have said, so confused were her emotions, but Jared took it as encouragement and opened his mouth, his tongue pressing her to do the same, and it became a devouring, hot, passionate kiss that left Cherry’s legs trembling. When he finally released her, slowly, and with his fingers trailing hotly across her flushed cheeks, she felt ready to forgive him everything.

  Which was certainly his intent.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  He hadn’t expected the warmest welcome in the world, that
was true. Hell, he wasn’t even looking for it. His first goal was to warn Cherry that some unsavory characters had shown up and were looking for her and the baby; only after he’d helped her get Edward safe was he going to try and make amends for all his stupid behavior. And whatever in God’s name Hope had done.

  But he sure as hell didn’t expect her to leap back from his embrace and give him the slap of a lifetime across his face. He raised a hand to his burning cheek wonderingly, wincing at the sting of it, while the woman he loved glared at him with tight lips and cold eyes.

  “Cherry?” he attempted finally, after she didn’t say a word for a moment or two. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw motion: Little Edward, who hadn’t stirred despite his mother’s request to go back to the house, was looking up at them with wide eyes. Looked like the little tyke was just as shocked as Jared was.

  Cherry saw his glance shift momentarily and she, too, looked down at the boy. “Sorry, Eddie, darling. Mummy made a mistake. She thought Uncle Jared was someone bad, isn’t that funny? Hahaha!”

  Eddie — Eddie? Where had that name come from? —clapped his hands at her forced laughter. “Jawed,” he sang out. “Goddamn Jawed bad!”

  “Hmmph.” Cherry turned back to Jared. “Jared bad, Eddie says.”

  “I don’t reckon that’s any more than I deserve,” Jared said ruefully. “But I wonder if you’d step over here and talk to me in private. I got somethin’ to tell you and it’s not for little ears.”

  “I don’t think I want to hear anything you have to say,” Cherry announced, lifting her chin. “I don’t think I’m quite in the mood for you at all right now.” She put her hands on her hips and looked expectant, a clear suggestion that he remove himself from the barn and her presence. Pretty tough for a woman who’d just been melting in his arms. There were times he thought Cherry was a sight more tough than he’d ever been. He was coming down off his triumph of having kissed her very quickly.

  But he didn’t have any choice but to see this through. Their relationship had to wait. Little Edward came first. Someone would tell that old man where Cherry was living, and he’d be marching down here with that gun-totin’ cowboy and that teeth-chatterin’ nursemaid, and there’d be hell to pay on both sides if he did. “Cherry, I know you’re mad, but this is about Little Edward.” He glanced down at the boy, who’d gone back to beating on his bucket. “Eddie. Someone I saw on the train. Cherry, tell me: do you have a real tall, gray-haired relative who might think Eddie’d be better off with him?”

  To his shock, Cherry’s pale complexion seemed to fade to something like gray, and she took a step backward, nearly falling until her back hit Galahad. She leaned back against the pony and stretched an arm under his neck, her chest rising with frightened breaths.

  Jared took one look at her round, frightened eyes and knew he had to step into action. He was going to have be the man here. Well, well, Cherry wouldn’t thank him for that later, but… “Let me put a saddle back on this horse and get both of you out of here,” he urged. “Until we can figure out how much power these folks actually have. He hired a gun to scare you, so it might be he hasn’t really got the law on his side at all.”

  “A gun!” Cherry swallowed and then shook her head, as if she was having trouble getting her bearings. “Stop. Tell me everything.”

  “No time. You need to go —”

  “We’re not going anywhere.” She stood up suddenly, letting go of the pony. “There’s a blizzard coming on, had you not noticed? I’m not riding out onto the prairie with my son to be frozen in a snowstorm.”

  Jared sighed. She was right. For a few minutes, running wildly through town to try and warn her, he’d forgotten all about the storm. The wind rattled the door again as if to remind him.

  Cherry seemed to have recovered herself. She had certainly regained her color, Jared observed. The pink flush in her cheeks was either her fierce temper or too much time spent out in the wind. He wondered how she’d been spending her time since she came into Bradshaw. Not baking and knitting, he figured. That wasn’t his Cherry.

  She grabbed him by the arm while he was busy daydreaming and pulled him into the opposite corner of the barn. Percival leaned out of his stall, ears pricked, and nuzzled at Jared’s coat collar. “Who’s this?” Jared asked, distracted by the prospect of new horseflesh. “He’s real handsome.”

  “Percival,” Cherry said shortly. “One of my clients. Now tell me what you know about my Uncle Richard.”

  “Uncle Richard? Is that who that was?” Cherry was standing very close to Jared, her voice hushed and low to keep Eddie from hearing, and Jared, with his back up against the barn wall and Cherry’s chest nearly touching his, was having a hard time concentrating. The effect that woman had on him! Damn! With Hope, it had been all perfume and shimmering gowns and naughty words murmured in a thrilling voice. But with Cherry it was… it was everything. Her very presence consumed him. He wondered how he was ever going to convince her of that.

  “Tall, silver-haired, thick eyebrows and blue eyes?” He nodded. “That’s my Uncle Richard.” Cherry bit her lip. “He… he doesn’t like me,” she said lamely. “He’s the reason I left England.” She looked furtive suddenly, refusing to meet Jared’s eyes.

  “Turned you out? And you a widow expecting a child?” Jared was shocked. He’d had an idea her relatives would have been more, well, honorable than that. “But you were all alone in the world! How could a relative do that?”

  Cherry shook her head sadly. “Oh, Jared, I was never married at all! Edward died before we were married. Uncle Richard had just inherited the estate and title from my father, and he turned me out without a penny that hadn’t been specifically entrusted to me by my father. I’m not a widow at all,” she went on, turning to rub at Percival’s velvet nose. When she spoke again, her voice was bitter. “I’m a dishonored woman who ran away because I had no home left to me.”

  Jared blinked away his shock at her confession. It didn’t matter. There was too much else at stake. He reached out and touched her arm. “Cherry, listen to me. You’re not a dishonored woman. You can’t call yourself names and beat yourself up. Cherry?” She ignored him, but she didn’t shake off his hand. Emboldened, he slid his hand up, touching the softness of her neck, teasing the silken skin just behind her ear. She stirred, and leaned into him, closing her eyes. His heart leapt; she wasn’t slapping him away, she wasn’t snapping at him. “Cherry, you’re an angel,” he whispered clumsily.

  A muscle in her jaw worked; her throat convulsed as she swallowed hard. But she went on stroking at Percival’s muzzle, her fingers dancing as the young horse wiggled his lips playfully and tried to snatch at her fingertips, and Jared went on stroking her neck with the same slow rhythm. His heart was singing that she would let him near her again, but at the same time, he knew they didn’t have time for any of this. “Cherry,” he whispered, hating to break the spell. “We got to go inside and be ready for your uncle when he comes.”

  She nodded but didn’t move.

  “Cherry,” he murmured again. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go get Matt and Patty and tell them to be on guard.”

  “You’re right.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him. He caught his breath at the sight of her smile on him again. “Whatever else we have to talk about, it will keep. Eddie comes first.”

  She put Galahad back in his box and then got Eddie back into his scarf and coat for the short walk back to the house. The wind outside must be biting, for even the barn, with its low ceilings and warm horses, was starting to feel bitterly cold.

  Jared didn’t try to take her arm as they were walking through the yard; he wasn’t that sure of himself yet. But he did try to block the wind from her and Eddie, and if that meant their hips bumped a few times, well, she didn’t turn and give him an angry glare, as she might have. His thoughts, in a turmoil for the past month, were finally starting to settle down. If he could get rid of these fools from England, and get Hope on the next train out of town, winnin
g Cherry back shouldn’t be too hard, after all.

  All he had to do was chase a few folks out of town forever.

  That wasn’t too tall an order, was it?

  And then Patty came bursting out of the house, her face twisted with fear. “Cherry Beacham, get that boy as far away from here as you can!”

  ***

  Cherry snatched Eddie up to her chest, completely forgetting that the boy had grown so tall and heavy in the past few months that he was nearly too much for her to carry around. The look of terror on Patty’s face was too alarming for words: something truly awful must have happened for stalwart Patty Barnsley to look as though the house was afire.

  But she didn’t run away. There was nowhere to run to. The snow was starting to fly, tiny snowflakes stinging at her cheeks as they melted, and the day had darkened so much that the mid-afternoon sky was looking more like dusk. The heavy weather was settling in, and everyone in Bradshaw was about to be snowed in.

  “Are they in the house, Patty?” Jared shouted. “Where’s Matt?”

  Patty didn’t even react to Jared’s sudden presence in her yard. “Some crazy man has Matt in the parlor with a gun to his forehead. He says he’ll shoot us all if we don’t hand over the baby.”

  Cherry looked at Jared in confusion. This wasn’t so much frightening as it was bizarre. “My uncle wouldn’t do that,” she said, furrowing her brow. She tightened her grip on Eddie, hoisting him up on her hip. “He might be a peer in England, but that hardly makes him above the law. He knows that.”

  “Maybe he reckons the only law out here is the one he brings with him,” Jared suggested. “He said something about adoption papers. If he forces you to sign them, they’ll be legal enough no matter how you claim he got them signed. It’d be your word against his in a court.”

  “And my word is worth nothing,” Cherry agreed with a little head-shake. “Uncle Richard! Uncle Richard! Have you never done anything for love?”