Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2

by Lynna Banning

  “Doesn’t preclude what?” she asked again.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. “Doesn’t preclude desire.”

  “Desire,” she said, her voice tentative, as if weighing the word.

  “Sexual desire, dammit.” There, he’d said it. It had been on his mind for months; it was a relief to finally get it off his chest.

  “Oh.”

  There was a long, pregnant silence. Zane’s body heated in a long, slow dance he hadn’t felt since...since his marriage. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “Oh,” she said again.

  Zane gave himself a mental jab in the ribs. “You are not to get out of bed again until I say so, understood?”

  “I think—I think I am...flattered.”

  He blinked. Her remark was irrelevant. Well, perhaps not so irrelevant, considering where the previous conversation had strayed. And then his mind jerked back to the matter underlying everything.

  “Flattered,” she breathed again.

  “Flattered?” Hell.

  “Yes, flattered.”

  There was a stunned silence.

  “Zane, you look just like Papa used to when I shocked him.”

  “Did you shock him often?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes amused, a little smile playing around her mouth. “As often as I possibly could.”

  Zane dragged in a long breath, then blew out a sigh. “You must have been a difficult girl to raise. A trial, in fact. I feel a great deal of sympathy for your father.”

  Winifred laughed softly. “Papa adored me. And I adored him, even though I was away at school for months at a time. But he did love me, and that helped.”

  Zane studied her. He could believe “difficult.” And he could most definitely believe “adored.”

  She laid one arm over her eyes. “Were we finished?”

  “We were, yes.”

  Well, no, they weren’t, in fact. But Winifred was still too weak from her illness to take things any further. In fact, at this moment, he himself was feeling somewhat weak. He fought an urge to mop his forehead with his handkerchief.

  “Get some rest,” he ordered. He backed out of her bedroom and headed down the stairs, straight for the brandy decanter.

  * * *

  For the next few days, Winifred rose each morning, dressed and waited until she was sure Zane had left the house. When she heard the front door close, she carefully made her way downstairs to breakfast, played peekaboo with Rosemarie and tried a few passages on the piano just to keep her memory sharp. She had a concert early in September.

  Then she climbed slowly back up the stairs to lie down, acknowledging that Zane was right about demanding that she rest. She would need all her strength when she returned to the conservatory for the fall term.

  In the afternoon Sam or Yan Li would bring up tea and later would wake her for supper. But this afternoon was so clear and beautiful outside, and she felt so much stronger she decided to take a book of Milton’s poetry out to the front porch and rock in the lawn swing while she read.

  She had just stepped into the entry hall when the front door opened abruptly and a face wreathed in blond ringlets poked into the hall.

  “Oh!” the young woman said, her cheeks turning pink. “What are you doing here?”

  Winifred’s hands clenched as she opened her mouth. “A better question, Mrs. Bledsoe, is what are you doing here? Do you make a habit of entering private homes without first ringing the bell?”

  Darla Bledsoe stared at her. “I thought you lived in St. Louis?”

  “I do live in St. Louis. I am a guest here.”

  “But why?” Darla’s eyes narrowed into two hard stones.

  “I came to visit my niece, my sister’s child.”

  But Darla’s question whirled around and around in Winifred’s brain. She had to think about that. Yes, why was she here?

  She felt she owed it to Cissy to be a presence in Rosemarie’s life, but it was more than that. She had fallen in love with her sister’s baby girl at first glance. She was so beautiful, so tiny and perfect, her fingers delicate and her eyes...oh, her eyes were that same blue-green Cissy’s eyes had been.

  Her breath stopped. Rosemarie filled an aching hollow in her own life.

  Good heavens, that could not possibly be true. Her life in St. Louis was crammed full of everything she loved, her music, her students, her colleagues at the conservatory. She was sought after for piano performances, and she had her teaching, endless preparation for concerts and recitals, faculty conferences, even an occasional picnic or opera with a fellow professor. And before Papa died, she’d had him to love and care for.

  Was that not enough?

  Of course it was enough. Her existence was dizzyingly busy. In fact, the pace had been so frantic these past months she had felt continually exhausted. So exhausted, she admitted, that she had fallen ill with pneumonia and was now struggling to regain her strength. Zane said even now she was still “run-down.”

  Darla was saying something, but Winifred couldn’t focus on the words. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said,” the young woman enunciated carefully, her tone sharp, “doesn’t a famous pianist have enough to keep her busy in St. Louis?”

  Winifred blanched at Darla’s rudeness and simply stared at her, unable to speak. No, it was not enough. It had never occurred to her before, but it wasn’t enough.

  But why isn’t it?

  Darla advanced another step into the entry hall and Winifred jerked to attention. “Dr. Dougherty is at the hospital all afternoon.”

  “No, I am not,” a male voice from the porch steps interjected.

  Darla pivoted, her stylish muslin skirt belling about her feet. “Zane!”

  “Good afternoon, Darla. Do you need an appointment?”

  “What? Oh, no, I am quite well. I just dropped by to...” Her gaze settled on Winifred.

  Winifred knew the young woman wanted her to leave her alone with Zane, but something inside her refused to retreat a single step. Zane stepped up onto the porch. Darla was blocking the doorway, but she didn’t move. A standoff, Winifred thought. If they had pistols, it might be a shoot-out.

  Finally Zane took Darla’s arm and pulled her out of the doorway. “Is there something I can do for you?” Adroitly he stepped around her.

  “Yes, there is. I came by to invite you to a whist party at my house this evening.”

  “Sorry, I don’t play whist.”

  “I could teach—”

  Zane plunked his leather medical bag down on the hall floor. “I’m afraid I’ll be at the hospital this evening.”

  Darla’s lower lip pushed into a pout. “You’re always at the hospital. Every party I give, you’re busy at that old hospital.”

  “I’m a doctor, Darla. I work at ‘that old hospital.’ I have patients who are dying, patients getting born. What makes you think whist is more important than that?”

  Winifred turned away and discreetly retreated into the dining room where both Sam and Yan Li instantly busied themselves with setting out plates for supper. She didn’t dare look at either one.

  “Lady chase Boss,” Sam whispered. Yan Li poked her elbow into his ribs and he ducked his head.

  “Yes,” Winifred said quietly. “I see that.” No doubt everyone in Smoke River saw it as well. Was that how women ended up marrying a man, by pursuing him until he gave up?

  Cissy had not done that; Zane had pursued her sister, not the other way around.

  She shrugged and met Sam’s eye. It was no concern of hers.

  But you don’t want Darla to trap Zane, do you?

  No, she admitted. She didn’t want anyone to trap him.

  Oh, what nonsense! Why should I care?

  Yan Li
again poked her husband in the ribs, then dropped her head to hide her expression.

  Of course she shouldn’t care!

  But she did.

  Oh, for mercy’s sake, her thoughts were tumbling like dry leaves in a stiff breeze. She must still be feverish.

  She retreated to her bedroom with the volume of Milton’s poems and read until she fell asleep with the book open on her chest.

  When she woke the sun outside the window painted the hills a soft gold and someone was tapping at her door.

  “You want tea, missy?” Yan Li’s soft voice brought her fully awake.

  “Yes, thank you, Yan Li. I’ll come downstairs. Where is Rosemarie?”

  “In piano room with Mister. Bring tea there.”

  Winifred patted her disheveled chignon into a semblance of respectability, smoothed down her skirt and descended the stairs. Not a sound came from the “piano room.” Usually Rosemarie gurgled and crowed her incomprehensible little words with such volume you could hear her all over the house; but not today, it seemed.

  She stepped into the library and stopped short. Zane lay stretched out on the carpet, his baby daughter clasped belly-down against his chest. Both were sound asleep.

  Winifred’s heart gave a queer little thump. She tiptoed in and settled herself in her favorite green velvet wingback chair and opened the Milton. Seven poems later, Zane’s voice startled her.

  “What are you reading?”

  “Milton,” she whispered, afraid to wake Rosemarie.

  “Ah.” One hand caressed his daughter’s back. “Sabrina fair,” he recited. “Listen where you are sitting, in twisted braids of lilies knitting—” He broke off as the baby stirred.

  “Do you like poetry, Zane?” It had never occurred to her that any physician would have an education other than medicine. But then Zane wasn’t just “any physician.”

  “I like Milton,” he answered. “And Tennyson, and—”

  Rosemarie woke up, immediately scrambled off Zane’s chest and launched herself at Winifred’s knees.

  “Well, hello, little one. Did you have a nice nap with your papa?”

  “’Infred,” the child announced. She tugged at Winifred’s blue dimity skirt and raised both arms to be picked up.

  She lifted the child onto her lap, noting that she wore the ruffled pink dress she had sent at Christmas. “Shall I read you a story?”

  The child snuggled against her bosom and began playing with the mother-of-pearl buttons on her blue-striped shirtwaist. Winifred picked up her book, paged to the middle and spread it open as if finding a story.

  “Once upon a time,” she began. “In a land far, far away, there lived a—”

  Yan Li entered with the tea tray, set it down on the small oak table at Winifred’s side and handed Rosemarie a cookie.

  “’ookie,” the baby squealed, crumbling it in her small fist.

  Yan Li bent to hand Zane a cup and saucer, which he absently set on the floor beside him. He wasn’t looking at his tea; he was looking at Winifred.

  “Go on,” he said. “I want to hear the story.”

  She swallowed back a burble of laughter. “It isn’t about Sabrina,” she cautioned.

  He grinned. “Make it about you,” he suggested.

  “Me! No child wants to hear a story about the storyteller.”

  “I do,” he said quietly. “Go on, I’m waiting.”

  Yan Li laughed softly and offered to take the baby, but Winifred shook her head. Rosemarie sat perfectly still while cookie crumbs rained onto Winifred’s skirt. She pointed her sticky forefinger at the open page.

  “Very well. Once upon a time there lived a little girl who loved to eat cookies.”

  “Did you?” Zane broke in.

  “Well, yes, I did as a matter of fact. Chocolate ones in particular. I left my handprints on every piece of furniture in the house and most of the curtains.”

  “And then what?”

  “Why, I grew up, of course. Zane, one day you will look back on afternoons like this with Rosemarie and cookies and tea and it will make you...” She caught a flicker of something in his gaze that stopped her breath. Pain, mixed with a hungry longing. “...it will make you glad.”

  Zane laid his arm over his eyes. “Is there more to the story?”

  Winifred caught Rosemarie’s waving, crumb-coated hand in her own. “No. There is no more to the story. The girl grew up and attended conservatory with her sister and embarked on a career as a pianist. And that is the end.”

  “But it’s not the end,” he said. “It has not been enough, has it? That was why you wanted to raise Celeste’s child, was it not? You want to give your own life meaning beyond what you have clung to all these years.”

  “No, Zane. You are quite wrong. I felt that I owed Cissy...”

  Slowly he sat up and looked at her. Something zinged between them and she couldn’t look away from his accusing gray eyes. Suddenly she found herself wondering all sorts of things, about him. About Cissy.

  About herself.

  “Winifred,” he said, his voice quiet. “Would you care to play some whist this evening after supper?”

  “But you don’t play whist. I heard you tell Darla this morning...”

  He held her gaze and a smile tugged at his mouth. “I do play whist. Just not with Darla.”

  She nodded but could not think of a thing to say. They drank their tea in silence, Zane cross-legged on the floor and Winifred in the chair with Rosemarie on her lap until she began to fuss.

  “Not another tooth, I hope,” Winifred said.

  “More likely she wants another cookie. Or,” he said with a low chuckle, “maybe she feels left out and wants to play whist, too.”

  Chapter Twelve

  They played whist until almost midnight, when the clang of the doorbell startled them. Zane heaved himself out of his chair and went into the hall to answer it, returning within minutes. “I’ve got to go out. Ellie Johnson is in labor.”

  “The schoolteacher?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Married women aren’t usually allowed to teach school in Oregon. They made an exception for Ellie when she became pregnant. Matt, her husband, wants her to continue, but even a federal marshal can’t order the school board around.”

  Winifred began gathering up the playing cards.

  “Maybe it’s just as well,” he said. “I haven’t lost this many hands playing cards since my medical school days.”

  “I’ll wait up for you and make some coffee.”

  “Don’t. Might be gone all night and tomorrow, too.”

  “Is Mrs. Johnson at the hospital? I could bring—”

  “Nope. I’ll take a horse and ride out to their place. Go to bed, Winifred. Get some rest. Tomorrow is Rooney and Sarah’s wedding. Four o’clock at Rose Cottage. I’ll try to be there.”

  She watched him step into his office for his black leather medical bag, then heard him move through the kitchen and out the back door to the barn. No sooner had the door closed than Sam appeared.

  “Boss go out?”

  “Yes. A baby is on the way.”

  “Work too hard,” the houseboy observed.

  “A physician has no choice, Sam. Medicine is his chosen calling.” Just as music is mine. But I do have a choice. I haven’t sworn a sacred oath, as Zane has.

  She packed the deck of cards into the walnut holder and stashed it on the bookshelf between Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott. Sam disappeared into the kitchen and, she supposed, back to bed with Yan Li. How wonderful it must be to have each other, to talk to each other every day and be with each other every night for the rest of their lives.

  Upstairs, she undressed and crawled into bed to find her cheeks wet. Just fatigue, she told herself. Fatigue and...
and what? Well, she had been quite sick with pneumonia; perhaps she was not yet fully recovered. Perhaps her nerves had been affected by her illness. Or perhaps winning so many hands of whist had tired out her mind.

  Still, the last time she had wept was at Papa’s funeral, when she had felt overwhelming emptiness, the aching loss of someone she loved. And she had felt so terrible, so guilty, when she couldn’t be at Cissy’s funeral. She lay down on her narrow bed and swiped her hand across her eyes.

  * * *

  At a quarter to four the following afternoon, Zane had not returned. Winifred walked down the hill to Rose Cottage for the wedding of Sarah Rose and Rooney Cloudman, sending a silent prayer for Ellie Johnson’s safe delivery. Sam had unearthed a blue lace-trimmed parasol of Cissy’s, for which she was grateful; the sun was scorching.

  On the front porch of the boardinghouse, which Sarah ran, Winifred folded the parasol, then walked through the wide open front doorway and gasped. Huge bouquets of roses, crimson, yellow, even lavender, sat on every available table and swathed the fireplace mantel. Smaller vases of orange zinnias and black-eyed Susans decorated the dining table in the next room, surrounding a spectacular many-layered wedding cake. Oh, it was so beautiful she wanted to cry.

  Dr. Samuel Graham, Zane’s partner, greeted the arriving guests. “Zane isn’t back yet, I gather?” the graying physician asked.

  “Not yet. I hope everything is all right.”

  “It will be. I’ve never known Zane to lose a mother, except for—” He snapped his mouth shut and took her hand. “I beg your pardon, Miss Von Dannen. I recall now that Celeste was your sister.”

  Winifred nodded and moved on into the parlor. Jeanne and Wash Halliday were there with their young daughter, Manette. Winifred guessed this was the girl who had fallen out of the tree some months before. Leah MacAllister stood with them.

  How lovely she was, with her almond-shaped gray eyes and alabaster skin. And such cheekbones! Her husband, Thad, was deep in conversation with the groom, Rooney Cloudman, who looked rigid as a department store floorwalker in his dark suit and tie.

  Rooney looked up and started across the room toward her. “Glad yer here, Miss Winifred. Thought ya could give me some advice about my nerves. Stage fright, I guess you’d call it.”