Bonds of Matrimony

by Carrigan Fox

  He looked offended at first, but then his shoulders fell, and he looked to the front of the car instead of at her. “I’m not like that. I was just frustrated. I will leave you alone to be with your family, and I will stay away from you.”

  She pursed her lips angrily and nodded. After realizing that he still wasn’t looking at her, Chase gave him a curt verbal response. “Fine.”

  “And for the record, Lady Chastity, when your family came back from the dining car without you and expected to find you with me, well, you gave us all a bit of a scare,” he informed her gently. “I think we would all feel better if you came back to join us.”

  She turned her eyes toward the darkened window and saw only their reflections. “I don’t give a damn about making you feel better, Webb,” she answered equally gently.

  Startled, his reflection turned to hers. “I suppose not,” he answered with a hint of his old grin. “But it might do your grandmother’s heart good to have you sitting with her again.”

  “Get the hell out of my way, and I will go back. But I don’t want to hear your voice for the rest of the evening.”

  His reflection nodded. “I will remain mute.” The grin was in full force again. He stood up and moved into the aisle, waiting for her to move ahead of him.

  “Do that,” she ordered turning to face him and gaining a bit of satisfaction to see him wipe the smirk off of his face immediately. She took a few steps along the aisle and stopped abruptly, turning on him. “Webb?”

  “Yes,” he nearly laughed.

  “I don’t want you looking at me, either,” she snapped. Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and bobbled gracefully down the aisle. She didn’t have to turn back to know that he was watching every step she took. She smiled coyly to herself at having regained control of the situation. Perhaps she wouldn’t give up on him yet; after all, he had apologized.

  ***

  “In a dry season, like the summer we’re experiencing this year, wind storms can be fierce. The wind will pick up rapidly and fling millions of tiny grains of sand at your face and arms. It stings. You wouldn’t think so, but it does. And you don’t dare open your eyes against that kind of assault,” Webb explained.

  “Do these wind storms happen very often?” Reese asked, clearly displeased with his description.

  “Only every time the wind starts whipping through the county,” he laughed with a shrug. “You get used to them.”

  The thought of sand grains pelting her arms and face in the hot, dry Texas sun sounded nothing short of perfect to her. Chase couldn’t wait to feel the sting on her cheeks and forehead. It sounded exotic and wild…and free.

  “What are you smiling about?” Webb asked her, catching her staring out the window with a wide grin on her face.

  Unnerved by the awareness that Webb had been spending considerably more time watching her for the last 24 hours, she flushed and stammered through her explanation. “Nothing. It just sounds so…so…exotic,” she finally answered. She was certain that he would laugh at her for finding pleasure in something that was probably quite simple and possibly quite painful, but he only met her eyes with a warm smile and a small nod.

  Marcus’s sudden clearing of his throat caused Webb to pull his eyes from Chastity’s guiltily. He turned his attention to the darkening landscape outside instead. Chase looked up to meet her brother’s eyes as he stood looming over their table in the dining car. He had decided not to join them for dinner tonight, claiming that his sisters should dine alone with their grandmother for their last meal before arriving in Slaughter, Texas.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Marcus,” his grandmother had assured him. “We’ve been dining together for the past three years. We would love your company.”

  Regardless, he had declined our invitation, which Colton Webb was quick to accept. Marcus glared at him as he rose and followed the women back to the dining car. It had been three years since she had seen her brother, but the past couple of days had proven to her that in spite of the beard that he’d recently shaved, he hadn’t changed too terribly much. And Chase knew him well enough to know that he was too proud to follow them, no matter how much he hated the idea of Colton Webb dining with his sisters.

  And in spite of the fact that his cousin had held the majority of the conversation by doing imitations of some of the more prominent English members of the ton, Chase couldn’t deny that Webb had repeatedly sought to capture her attention. She would occasionally try to sneak a look at him, hoping to catch him grinning his slow, sexy, Texan grin; and she would be startled to find him boldly watching her. Her eyes would dart around the table, guiltily checking to see if the other three women noticed these none-too-subtle flirtations, but all three of them seemed oblivious.

  “I suddenly realized I was famished,” Marcus insisted stubbornly, sliding into the seat beside his eldest sister.

  The rest of them had already finished dining. Chase imagined that Marcus sat alone brooding over the idea of Webb eating with his family for nearly an hour before finally giving up and coming to find them. She smiled at him warmly and patted his hand with sympathy. She knew that he was not fond of his rancher neighbor and former employer. In spite of the fact that Marcus was raised a gentleman, he looked like he wanted to kill Webb every time he looked at him. It must have taken great restraint to travel across the country with him like he’d done. Chase imagined that he would be relieved to get off this train and return to his own ranch, a good distance from Colton Webb.

  For a moment, she felt sorry for her older brother. He would be furious if he found out about his sister’s feelings for his nemesis. She felt a wave of guilt and kept her eyes on the empty plate in front of her while Marcus ate his own dinner. Webb excused himself after ten horribly tense minutes.

  “Why do you scowl at him so angrily, Marcus?” Reese asked sweetly.

  He turned his scowl on her and shoved another forkful of food into his mouth. “He’s a lying, thieving bastard,” he answered in a deep, soft voice full of animosity.

  A lying, thieving bastard?

  “I assure you, Mr. Fairfax,” Elisabeth responded frankly, “he’s the legitimate child of my aunt and her husband. He is most certainly not a bastard.”

  Marcus sighed heavily. “Thank you for correcting me, Miss Davis,” he answered with great sarcasm. “This spring, a number of my cows disappeared. Half of them were already breeding. Do you know what that loss will mean for me this year? I rely on those calves for income.”

  “What does that have to do with Mr. Webb?” Reese asked cautiously. Clearly, she didn’t want to anger Marcus more than he already was.

  “I told the sheriff that I suspected he had taken them. Webb has had a hard time with one of his bulls. He’s resistant against…” he left off, suddenly uncomfortable discussing this particular aspect of cattle ranching. “He shies away from the cows. Webb’s been trying to get rid of that bull for two years now.”

  “So why would he steal your cattle?” Elisabeth asked, clearly defensive of the cousin who’d recently rescued her from an unbearable future.

  “Because he wants the offspring as much as I do. He can get some decent money, especially from any bulls who are born. And since his cows aren’t breeding, it would make sense that he would steal mine,” he explained slowly.

  “Except that my cousin wouldn’t take something that doesn’t belong to him,” Elisabeth insisted. Her chin raised an inch in the air, practically daring Marcus to dispute her understanding of a member of her own family.

  Marcus lowered his eyelids skeptically and shoved another forkful of vegetables into his mouth. He clearly wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t seem interested in arguing with Elisabeth. Instead, he slowly chewed his food, swallowed, and then said, “You don’t need to bother defending your cousin’s honor, Miss Davis. The sheriff already questioned him and decided that he was innocent.”

  Elisabeth nodded curtly, a polite I-told-you-so.

  “So he didn’t do it?�
�� Reese asked.

  “Well, he claims that some of his own cattle were stolen, as well.”

  “Then who stole them?” Reese persisted. She was clearly very interested in this mystery. In spite of the evident tension and Marcus’s evident opinion that Webb was lying about his own cattle being stolen, Reese demanded to know all of the details.

  Marcus shrugged.

  Reese sat quietly, obviously pondering something that bothered her. Her fair eyebrows were drawn together in a concerned concentration, and her small pink mouth frowned slightly. Finally, she blurted out, “Could it have been the Indians?”

  “What?”

  “Well I overheard some women talking yesterday about the savages raiding homes and stealing cattle and killing men and women and children,” she answered rapidly, perhaps in a hurry to spit out her worries before she lost her nerve.

  “You needn’t worry about Indians, Reese,” Marcus answered with a small smile. He seemed amused by his youngest sister’s naïveté. “We haven’t had any conflicts with the Indians since 1879, long before I even came to Texas. They were stealing horses from ranches then, and the Texas Rangers attacked and killed a number of Comanches that year. There haven’t been any problems since.”

  “What are the Texas Rangers?” Reese asked curiously.

  Marcus laughed and shook his head. “You’re like a child with your questions, Reese,” he answered.

  Her eyes widened innocently when she smiled. “I just want to understand,” she replied.

  Marcus went on to satisfy his younger sister’s curiosity with stories of the Texas Rangers, but Chase’s own thoughts were distracted. She wondered where Webb was just then, and what he was doing. She excused herself from the table after a bit, noticing that her grandmother carefully watched her departure. She made an extra effort to look exhausted as she moved slowly down the aisle and out of the dining car.

  A “psst” stopped her half way down the aisle of the next car, and she turned to see Colton’s grinning face.

  “Hello,” she answered formally, with a small smile.

  He patted the seat beside him. “I was hoping you would sit and talk with me for a bit.” His drawl seemed pronounced, and she wondered if he knew how sexy he sounded.

  She remembered their last conversation. She was feeling very warm and giddy at the sight of him, but she was supposed to be angry with him. Barely civil. She wanted nothing more than to leap into his arms and cover him with kisses. But she restrained herself and sat beside him, reminding herself to avoid being too friendly.

  “I can’t stop thinking about the way I barked at you before,” he said quietly. He wasn’t smiling now. He looked very serious, and very sorry.

  “Let’s forget about it,” she answered quickly. At first, she had been disgusted and angry, comparing him to Jett Stockton. Having had some time to think about it, though, she was forced to recognize that he spoke out of frustration, not anger and hatred. The last thing she wanted to do was sit alone with him, a mere single train car away from her brother, and re-live the entire scene.

  “You were so angry,” he whispered.

  “You were angry,” she corrected.

  “I had no business speaking to you that way.” He looked past her out the darkened window and hesitated. “Someone threatened you before.” It wasn’t a question.

  She stared coldly at the back of the chair in front of her. “Someone tried,” she answered. A lady in English society could be ruined by that kind of physical attack. Never mind the emotional and psychological destruction, she is also considered soiled, and no respectable gentleman would dare offer to marry her. Chase surprised herself by admitting to Webb what Stockton had tried to do to her. Granted, he had not succeeded, but most men would probably not look favorably upon her if they knew what had nearly happened. But she was counting on the fact that Webb was neither a part of English society, nor like most men.

  “I’d have you cut my throat before I ever hurt you like that, Chase,” he swore gently. “You know that, don’t you?”

  She met his cocoa colored eyes and wondered what it would feel like to swim in them. Warm and thick and safe. “Webb, I’d cut your throat before I ever let you hurt me like that,” she answered with a smile.

  He reached out and gently took her hands in his own. “I just wanted you to know that you should never be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not afraid of you, Webb. You just made me bloody furious. That’s all,” she answered with an easy shrug, hoping to lighten the atmosphere. It suddenly seemed uncomfortably serious.

  He grinned at her and released her hands. “Are you still ‘bloody furious?’”

  “I’ve forgotten that it ever happened,” she told him.

  “It will never happen again,” he promised.

  She only nodded. They sat side-by-side for a few moments, both staring straight ahead. “Webb,” she whispered, barely breaking the silence.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t try to control me.”

  He turned suddenly in his seat, clearly unsure of how he should respond. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he finally answered.

  She grinned at the seat in front of her before rising and moving down the aisle. She headed for the sleeping car ahead of them. On one hand, she was suddenly feeling flushed and felt like lying down might do her good. On the other hand, she was secretly hoping the Webb would follow her.

  ***

  She had him reeling. She was full of surprises. She was supposed to be an English lady, eldest daughter of the Earl of Colchester. She was supposed to be proper and prissy and stuffy and mindless. Instead, she was clever and witty and passionate…and strong. And irresistible.

  He smiled to himself, remembering the first time he’d collided with her because he had been so enthralled with her sister. Reese was beautiful, that was undeniable. But Chase was exquisite. Webb had never wanted a woman as badly as he wanted her right at that moment. He closed his eyes and tried to picture her at the poker table with a cigar and a glass of ale. He had first known her as a young man, and yet she now seemed purely feminine to him.

  Webb stuck his head into the aisle and watched her departing hips swing beneath that long, slim, blue skirt and wished he had paid more attention to her hips and legs when he had seen her in trousers. He wondered where she was going, and thought for a moment about following her. He glanced back toward the door that would open into the dining car. He couldn’t be sure that her brother and grandmother wouldn’t leave that car to join her at any moment.

  He let himself re-live the kiss in the hotel room. The feel of her soft body, the taste of her full lips, the silkiness of her willing tongue. She had pressed her body against his that night. Oh yes, Miss Chastity Fairfax was a woman of passion. And Webb had no business taking advantage of that. She was not his to enjoy. And enjoy her he would, without a doubt. But she deserved better than that. She deserved to marry a gentleman. She was raised to marry a gentleman. And Webb prided himself on his strength. She may be damned appealing, but he had the strength to resist her. She may think that she wants him, but she’s naïve. Some day, she will meet a man more suited to her. A gentleman with education and money. And he will take her to bed and enjoy her passion. It was not Webb’s to enjoy.

  And with that decision made, he scowled out the window at the tall prairie grass that waved tauntingly at him.

  CHAPTER 9

  Chastity didn’t catch any more secret looks from Colton Webb. In fact, he seemed to be making a very deliberate attempt to avoid looking at her at all. Now what was wrong with him? Was he disgusted with her admission of Stockton’s attack? While she had walked away from him and partly hoped he would follow her, she found herself relieved that he hadn’t when Marcus, Reese, her grandmother, and Elisabeth joined her a few minutes later. If he had followed her, they certainly would have been caught. Marcus probably would have killed him on the spot. At the very least, he would have thrown him from the train.

  That evening, Lady Col
chester seemed to have something on her mind. She asked Chastity to join her for a cup of tea in the dining car. When Reese volunteered to join them, their grandmother patted her hand and told her she needed a moment alone with Chase. Reese looked relieved.

  She’d practically been connected to their grandmother since they had left England, and Chase thought she was eager to get some time to herself. That was a good sign. She was feeling safer and more comfortable in this new country of theirs.

  “I’m concerned about you, Chastity,” her grandmother started frankly as she stirred some sugar into her tea.

  “There’s no reason to be concerned, Grandmother,” she assured her, not bothering to pretend that she didn’t know where she was taking this conversation.

  “I’ve seen the two of you. And if Marcus had any idea…” she allowed the chilling thought to hang.

  “I know. But nothing has happened.”

  She frowned at her granddaughter. “Chastity, you’ve never treated me like a fool before,” she scolded.

  “It’s a harmless attraction, Grandmother. That’s all.”

  Her grandmother stared hard at her, waiting.

  “So perhaps we’ve shared a kiss or two, but it is nothing.”

  She still said nothing, watching with her big blue eyes. She didn’t blink and didn’t take her eyes off of Chastity as she sipped her tea.

  “Okay, so maybe it’s a little more than nothing. But…Marcus is not my father. And this is not England. He cannot tell me who I will spend time with. He cannot dictate my life.”

  “He will try,” she answered finally.

  “Let him try,” she challenged.

  “You must be careful, Chastity. I know that you believe that America means freedom. But people are people, no matter which country you are in.” She paused, trying to choose her words carefully. “If he was proposing marriage, that would be a different story, but—”

  “Marriage?!” she gasped with revulsion. The thought of marrying Colton Webb was certainly more appealing than marrying Jett Stockton; but that wasn’t saying much. Marriage, in general, still held no appeal for her. “Marriage is a contract of property, no matter who the bridegroom is, Grandmother. And marriage is something that holds no interest for me.”