Her thoughts weren’t joyful.
In the Wentworth. mansion—more like castle— bedroom designated for the baby, Beth dug into the paper shopping bag for more of Mischa’s tiny clothes. The Wentworth housekeeper, Evelyn, hadn’t raised an eyebrow at Beth’s “luggage,” a worn duffel bag and two shopping bags, nor her expressed wish to put the baby’s clothes away herself. Not only was she unaccustomed to being waited upon, but she needed to close herself in a corner of this monstrous home to quiet her heartbeat and get her bearings.
Had she made a mistake as cavernously sized as this house?
She peeked over at Mischa, sleeping soundly in his familiar crib. She’d brought that with her—her one extravagance—and its fancy turned spindles didn’t look out of place in the peach-walled room with a deep window seat and an oriental carpet covering most of the gleaming wood floor.
But did she and Mischa belong here?
The room held the faint scent of the cedar lining the closet where she’d hung her own meager wardrobe. And the marble-topped, ornately carved dresser had plenty of space for both Mischa’s clothes and her underthings. The brass daybed in the room would be a fine place for her to sleep.
The bed made her think of Michael. She gritted her teeth and slapped a stack of tiny undershirts in the bottom of the drawer. She’d accepted a “convenient”—temporary and sexless—marriage. That first wild thought when he’d proposed, that he’d be in her life and bed forever—had died quickly, like every other of her romantic notions.
She should be used to disappointment by now.
A year ago she’d led with her needy heart. Unwary, she’d fallen for the first warm smile and outstretched hand. But her solo pregnancy had callused every urge that wasn’t maternal.
So she needn’t worry. She’d gone into this arrangement with Michael eyes open. For the sake of her son’s future and security. Beth determinedly placed the last of Mischa’s clothes in the dresser. Then, with the paper bag luggage in her hands, all ready to be crushed then tossed in the garbage, she froze.
“I’ll need them again,” she said aloud softly. It was true. “Soon.” Folded crisply and carefully, the bags were stashed neatly beside her duffel in the good-smelling closet. A small sigh of relief escaped as she regarded the easily accessible getaway bags.
How would she handle the strangeness of this situation, this marriage? How could she protect the new calluses? Never again would she be caught unwary or unprepared.
Mischa was awake and being diaper changed when a brisk tap sounded at the door. Beth’s heart started a bad-engine knock-and-wheeze in her chest. That wasn’t Evelyn’s knock. That was Michael’s knock.
Her husband’s knock.
She tried clearing her tight throat. “Come in.”
Michael opened the door and stepped inside. He’d dropped her off at the house after the brief wedding—not witnessed by any of the Wentworths, but rather two friends, because he said he wanted to surprise his family after the fact—and headed back to his office. He still wore the same dark suit and muted tie. The ring she’d surprised him with glittered on his left hand.
He was absently rolling the band around his finger with his thumb. She’d avoided mooning over her own ring, a wide circle of gold embellished with rows of seed pearls and polished teardrops of turquoise. Michael had mumbled a surprising something about his choice being inspired by her golden hair and glowing eyes.
He spoke into the heavy silence. “You’re doing okay?” No smile softened his mouth.
Beth’s heart banged against her chest harder than ever. “Fine. Both Mischa and I are fine.” Since picking her up for the wedding, Michael’s elated and satisfied mood of the days before had dissolved. It appeared as if maybe for good.
But a smile overtook his face as he looked at Mischa. “How is the little guy this evening?” Michael walked a few steps toward the brass bed where the baby lay swaddled in a blanket.
Beth smiled herself. “He doesn’t seem a bit intimidated by his new quarters in the magnificent and endless Wentworth mansion.”
Michael’s finger stroked Mischa’s cheek, but his eyes turned on her. “And you? Are you intimidated?”
By the house, no. By the man standing beside me, yes. She shrugged.
He turned back to Mischa and let the baby catch his finger for a squeeze. Michael smiled again. “And you, are you unpacked?” he asked casually. “Evelyn said you wanted to do it yourself.”
His shoulder brushed hers as he made a play at arm-and-finger wrestling with Mischa. Suddenly, Beth realized Michael was too close. Even though they’d agreed their marriage was to be temporary and sexless, right now, with the door closed, his body brushing hers, his presence felt too intimate.
“About, uh, about my room…” Right away she’d make clear that she planned to sleep here. Evelyn had shown her to Michael’s room, just across the hall, and she’d smiled but turned hurriedly away from the masculine furnishings and his all-male, allseductive football field of a bed. Did their “convenient” marriage mean he expected her to share that with him—temporarily? Sexlessly?
Just make clear you won’t.
“What are these?” Michael’s voice startled her. He’d moved away from the daybed to stand at the small writing desk. A stack of Business Week magazines topped by today’s Wall Street Journal lay centered on the desk’s leather-bound blotter.
Glad to be momentarily distracted from the discussion of sleeping arrangements, Beth sat beside Mischa on the bed and gently stroked his hair. “Reading material I should catch up on.”
Michael’s ringed, left hand flipped quickly through the densely packed text of one of the magazines. “You subscribe to these?” He frowned. “I guess I don’t know much about you.”
Now would be a fine time to tell him all he needed to know was that she wouldn’t sleep with him. Period. Even with a promise of no sex.
“I was attending one of the state universities in L.A.,” she said instead. Until Evan, Mischa’s father and one of the grad students in the business department, had denied all responsibility for the baby. Apparently he was such a believer in statistics that he couldn’t accept they’d been caught by the small failure rate of their birth control method.
“I’m three semesters away from a degree. Accounting major.” Though maybe she should have majored in fairy tales, Beth thought. Because despite her lonely childhood—or maybe because of it—she’d believed in. them right up to the minute when Evan said he hadn’t really loved her after all and then accused her of trying to trap him. Yeah, some prince.
But bitterness wasn’t a healthy emotion for a single mother. Squaring her shoulders, she blocked off thoughts of Evan and his eight-month-old defection and looked Michael deliberately, calmly, straight in the eye.
Well, her stomach danced as if it heard a hip-hop beat, but she didn’t think he could see that. “About sleeping together—”
Groan. Did she really say that? Well, if Michael’s startled face was any judge, she had. “I mean, about the sleeping arrangements.”
His full attention focused on her now. The gold rings edging the irises of his dark eyes reminded her of the band she’d placed on his finger this afternoon. His skin had been cool, his fingers steady, but he’d squeezed her hand tightly after they’d exchanged rings.
She stared at his mouth. He’d kissed her, too. Nothing like that heated caress that had come after she’d agreed to marry him. The mere memory started a hot shiver running down her spine. But that passion had just been a symptom of his exuberance at outfoxing his grandfather. Their kiss in the city hall had been brief, cool, in control.
She’d hated it.
“The sleeping arrangements?” Michael prompted. He slid his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned against the desk, crossing one foot over the other. Cool and in control.
But then she saw the faint tick in his jaw, as if he were struggling for the casual pose and attitude. His gaze, almost hot now, licked over her face. Another s
hiver melted Beth’s spine.
Tell him you won’t be sleeping with him.
“I’ll be staying in here,” she burst out, one hand moving to grip a rail of the brass bed. “In here with Mischa.” She squeezed the cool metal in her fist, as if she needed to hold on…or maybe hold out.
That tick in Michael’s jaw pounded. He straightened away from the desk and moved toward her. Beth gripped the daybed tighter.
His hot eyes ran over her, from her face to her chest, then down her jeans and back up to her face. Beth’s breath disappeared.
“That’s best,” he said, his voice mild in comparison to the warmth in his gaze and the hard tautness of his shoulders.
He crossed quickly to the door. “Fine with me.” It shut behind him.
Beth unlocked her fingers from the daybed’s brass rail. She massaged her stiff hand and stared at the beautiful ring wrapped around her finger.
And tried to figure out why his casual acceptance of her proclamation—which should have been a tremendous relief—seemed like just one more disappointment.
If the Wentworth mansion was a castle, Beth decided as she descended the massive staircase the next morning, then she was the princess who’d suffered the night with a pea beneath her mattress.
She hadn’t slept for an instant in the daybed.
Instead, she’d listened to Mischa’s baby rustles and baby breaths and counted the stars on the backsides of her eyelids. She yawned and dragged the fatigue after her down the hallway. At breakfast, she’d avoid coffee and then head right back upstairs with Mischa for a morning nap.
The sight of Michael, clear-eyed and with showerdamp hair, seated at the breakfast room table made her swallow her next yawn.
“Good morning,” he said over the newspaper he held.
“Morning,” Beth replied. She’d hoped to avoid him altogether by dashing in for an early breakfast. Before she could think up an excuse and head back to her room, Evelyn pushed through a swinging door with a steaming basket.
“Let me take the baby while you eat, Mrs. Wentworth.” In one movement, the housekeeper set down the basket, pulled out the chair opposite Michael’s and scooped up Mischa in her arms.
Mrs. Wentworth? Startled, Beth blinked and sat down as Evelyn swept back to the kitchen.
“Coffee, Mrs. Wentworth?”
Beth jumped. An older woman in a plain dress and apron materialized from a corner with a shining silver coffeepot. Apparently taking silence as agreement, the woman filled a dainty china cup and then also retreated through the swinging door.
Beth blinked again. Mrs. Wentworth? She looked down at her ringed finger. Of course, Mrs. Wentworth.
The newspaper rattled. “Thought it was all a dream, huh?” Over the edge of the newspaper, Michael’s expression gave away nothing. “But then you woke up to find you are indeed my wife.”
Beth shut her mouth with an audible snap. His wife. Servants. Mrs. Wentworth. Nothing at the Thurston Home for Girls had prepared her for this new role. “Temporary wife,” she said, and a temporary role she’d handle by hiding away as much as possible—from the servants and Michael. From the whole world.
After breakfast she’d retreat to her room for that nap. From now on she’d scrounge her meals in the kitchen at odd hours. “Temporary wife,” she said again firmly.
He slid a glance toward the kitchen. “Don’t let that get around.” He folded the newspaper and set it beside his plate. “Especially since I spoke with my grandfather last night.”
Ways of keeping the lowest of profiles still occupied Beth’s brain. “I thought you already told him,” she said absently.
Michael smiled grimly. “I couldn’t reach him before—only his voice mail. But we spoke person-toperson last night.”
Something in his voice snagged Beth’s full attention. “And?” Her agreement with Michael hinged upon his grandfather, Joseph Wentworth, buying into their marriage. Suddenly, she didn’t know what she hoped for most—that he did or he didn’t. “And he took the news—?”
Michael shrugged. “Well. I might say suspiciously well, if I didn’t know how distracted he is by finding out exactly what happened to Jack.”
At his brother’s name, tension crossed Michael’s face. Beth couldn’t miss the sudden tightening of his mouth. With deliberate casualness, she reached for her coffee cup and stared into the fragrant blackness. A real wife might try to comfort him. A convenient wife kept her mouth shut. “What about your resignation? Did you also tell him you were leaving the Oil Works?”
Michael shot her a strange look. “Are you looking out for me?”
“For myself,” she corrected quickly. “That’s our bargain, remember? You get out of the family business and I get security for Mischa.”
Michael shrugged again. “He took that fine, too. I’ve been telling him for months that Steve Donnolly can do the job, and for the first time he agreed with me.”
“So it’s done then.” Beth brought the coffee to her lips. Now all she had to do was take Mischa upstairs to wait out this sham of a marriage.
“Maybe.”
She set cup to saucer with a clatter. “What do you mean, maybe?”
Michael made another precise fold in the newspaper. “It’s too easy. If I know Grandfather—and believe me, I do—he’s contacting every rat sniffer in northeastern Oklahoma.”
“Oh, great.” Beth sank against the back of her chair. “Don’t you think you should have considered this before up and marrying a woman you’ve barely known a month?”
“Maybe.”
Beth was beginning to dislike that word.
“But after dating every eligible woman in a hundred-mile radius, would it be any more believable if I suddenly up and married one of them?”
He’d dated every woman in a hundred-mile radius? Beth was beginning to dislike him. “That’s your problem,” she said, pushing her chair away from the table. “You can handle it.” Her appetite had already fled the room.
“We can handle it.”
Beth gripped the chair. “We? What can I do?”
“Go into town today. Stop at the bakery. Chat with friends. You know—talk up the marriage.”
“Talk up the marriage?” What marriage? She gaped at him. “Why would I do that and what could I possibly talk about?”
“Everything you say is bound to get back to my grandfather. It’ll go a long way to convincing him we’re a very married couple. As to what to say—” he grinned “—you could tell ‘em the usual newlywed stuff. You know, what a great lover I am.”
Beth wasn’t going to touch that great lover business. “I don’t see why you think anything I’d say would get back to Joseph Wentworth. We don’t exactly travel in the same circles.”
“Don’t underestimate my grandfather, Beth. He’s lived in Freemont Springs his entire life and knows people everywhere.”
Oh, for the daybed and its feather pillows. The fluffy comforter drawn over her head. That pea could be the size of a boulder for all she cared. Just when she’d planned to spend her morning and the rest of her “married” life in a back bedroom at the Wentworth mansion, suddenly she was required to parade around Freemont Springs wearing a wedding band and a newlywed glow.
Michael relaxed against his chair and gave her another wicked grin. “And while you’re talking about our, uh, married life,” he said, a laugh in his voice, “be sure not to undersell me. I’ve a reputation to protect, you know.”
Beth didn’t feel like grinning back. As a matter of fact, if she knew how to flounce from a room, she would have. She settled for sweeping by him. “It’ll serve you right if I say I’ve had better!”
He caught her by the wrist. She halted, staring down at him. His thumb pressed firmly against her pulse point. “When it’s you and me, Beth,” he said, his voice quiet and deep, “there won’t be any better.”
Sensations, breaths, heartbeats jumbled wildly. Beth tried pulling her wits from the mass, tried finding some cool, sensible, measured
response. She pulled her hand free. She rolled her eyes. She turned up her nose as if he were an arrogant annoyance instead of an arousing temptation. “I suppose Alice was right,” she said, pulling some half-thoughtthrough saying from her memory. “‘She that would have eggs must endure the cackling of the hen.’”
When it’s you and me, Beth, there won’t be any better.
Promise? Threat? Slip of the tongue?
Beth wasn’t any closer to the answer now that it was nearly dark and now that her feet and cheeks ached from the miles and smiles she’d chalked up in an effort to portray the bright, happy, entirely authentic Wentworth bride.
She stretched her stockinged toes toward the library fire. Without the energy to even mount the stairs, she’d collapsed with Mischa on the leather couch. Tummy full, he snoozed against her chest, his breath soft against her neck.
How she loved her little boy! And despite her sore toes, she’d enjoyed her afternoon in town. They’d watched the city workmen take down the Christmas decorations. Two of the men, patrons of the bakery and proud grandpas in their own right, had taken Mischa in their arms and made him cross-eyed with an ant’s view of the streetlight Santas.
That was the beauty of little towns and Freemont Springs in particular. The town had carved a place for Mischa in its heart—and she had a place for Freemont Springs in hers. It was the place she’d landed, right-side up, when she’d left L.A. It was the place where she’d given birth to her son.
It was the place where she’d married.
She stared at the fire, heat rising on her cheeks as she remembered the slightly ribald jokes and hearty congratulations she’d received. According to Evelyn, Michael was home, at work in the office on the second floor, and when she renewed her energy she’d go upstairs and report on her day’s success.
For some odd reason, nobody had challenged her as even the tiniest bit counterfeit when she’d spoken of her husband and her new life as a Wentworth. Maybe because Bea and Millie had already spread the news—as quickly and lavishly as they spread whipped chocolate frosting on their famous doubledare chocolate cake. Beth doubted whether anyone she’d spoken to was a Joseph Wentworth crony, but she’d done her part.
The Millionaire and the Pregnant Pauper Page 5
