Karen Mercury

by Manifested Destiny [How the West Was Done 4]

  “What dog sitting right there?”

  Phineas regarded Josefina with amusement, blinking her eyes with a smile.

  “Never mind.” Apparently Josefina couldn’t see Phineas. “Can you add more water to the bathtub? It looks like this dye rubbed off on her arms.”

  Foster had Tabitha stripped down to her drawers and chemise—he removed the one petticoat that had protected her legs from the green dye. Now he tried to sit the woman up on the settee, but she lolled senselessly.

  “I’m sorry I’m sick,” she murmured. “I’m sorry I puked into the turkey.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Foster said. “That turkey had already taken a few spins around the block before you heaved into it.” He slung her limp arm around his shoulders and made as if to stand, but she wasn’t of much assistance. Josefina returned with another cauldron of hot water to dump into the tub.

  “Come on,” Foster urged. “We’ve got to get you into the tub.”

  “So embarrassed…” Tabitha muttered, but she had gained enough strength to somewhat stand and slide into the tub. She slithered like a fish, barely holding herself up by weakly gripping the edges of the metal tub.

  Foster tried to sponge off the green dye from her arm, but it was resistant. Tabitha was clad in a shirt of emerald green—her hands were green, too, from the gloves—but she already seemed to be perking up.

  Foster said, “I think that dress made you ill. You have no idea where it came from? Can you ask your sister if she’s ever seen it before? Your telegraph operator sister lives here, right? When she’s not at her Snowy Range ranch?”

  “I will,” Tabitha breathed. She seemed to be luxuriating in the washing of her arm, her head rolling back against the edge of the tub. “When she returns from her ranch. How could a gown make me ill? I thought it was the muscatel.”

  “You’ve got to admit—” Foster squiggled each of her fingers in turn. He thought he saw the corners of her mouth lift into a slight smile. He imagined it was a heavenly feeling. He hadn’t had a moment to frequent the local prairie flowers, and at the fandango had even run into a few dolls who had wished he would court them years ago, but he suddenly had lost all desire for those activities. “Odd things have been happening since we met up.”

  Now she really did smile, catlike. “Yes. It’s evident that Bettina and Pierre Badeaux were meant to be together. I wonder how we could find out more about them. I’ll bet one of my brothers-in-law could find someone in the Port of Galveston who could find out more. We know the name of their plantation, Campeche.”

  Foster was glad this subject had come up. “I might know some who’ve done some scouting down in that area, too.” He was reluctant to place her hand back into the tub, although he’d washed off most of the green dye by now. The soap foamed with a nauseating color between their intertwined fingers. “When you were talking earlier about the dead bear wrestler, you used the phrase ‘my sister and her husbands.’ You were saying, ‘Why would my sister and her husbands lie?’ What did you mean?”

  Tabitha’s eyes popped open, clear and aware as could be. Her mouth slacked to reveal her adorable beaver’s teeth. “Did I say that?” She looked down in shame, maybe only now becoming aware that her wet chemise was hiding nothing of her erect, pert nipples. She snatched her hand from Foster to riffle it through the bathwater.

  “Yes, you did,” Foster said softly. He lifted the sponge to her chest. He wanted to soap off the rest of the dye before she became aware how truly naked she really was. And if he stood up now, his rigid erection would be prominently displayed.

  Tabitha grinned secretively. “I suppose I did. Well, I believe all three of my sisters to have rather unconventional marriage arrangements. Ivy is legally married to Neil, Laramie’s marshal. Yet they live with Harley, your friend.”

  “I remember Neil. When I lawyered here in town, I had many dealings with him. He’s an upstanding, on-the-square fellow. Harley has talked a bit about Ivy and Neil, and I knew they lived together, but I had no idea…” He trailed off, to allow Tabitha to continue when, or if, she wished.

  She sighed deeply. “I probably shouldn’t sit in this water, if it’s poison dye. Well, since you’re such a boon companion of Harley, you must know that he has rather exotic tastes.”

  “That’s sure as shooting.” Foster knew that Harley had been ousted from the British Army for a making a scandalous report on male brothels in India. The brass had requested the report, but they sure didn’t like the results. Probably because Harley wasn’t tactful, to say the least, and he’d made it clear that he had actually participated in some, or all, of the topics at hand.

  “Well. Then it wouldn’t seem odd that he would share a wife with Neil. No?”

  “No,” Foster agreed. Especially one as beauteous as Ivy. “That’s entirely in keeping with what I know of old Harley. But when you mentioned the bear wrestler, you were referring to your sister Alameda. You called Remington Rudy her husband, but I know she is married to Senator Spiro.”

  “Yes, it’s the same sort of thing with Alameda.” She cocked her head in a fetching manner. She still wore her green jeweled hair barrette from the fandango, and without thinking, Foster reached out and slid it from her flaxen hair. “Don’t you agree it would be expedient to share a wife with another man? Especially since there are so few women in the far West.”

  If the other man was Worth. “Yes,” Foster agreed honestly, “although I’d have a difficult time sharing you with anyone.” He didn’t want to ask about the third sister, Liberty. She was the schoolmistress and lived with two mining tycoons, married to one of them.

  She cast him a low look of censure, but her eyes glittered with amusement. “All right. Now get up and turn around. I don’t want to bathe in this green slime anymore.”

  Foster rose from the stool and obediently turned his back. He mostly turned away out of embarrassment at the erection that jutted from the lap of his tailored trousers. But if it looked as though he did it from respect, all the better. “I saw Sherman Bullard at the party. The fellow who was supposed to be caring for Phineas.”

  Tabitha splashed in the bathwater. He didn’t let on that if he peeked behind the screen that divided the room in half, he could see her in the vanity mirror. “What did he say?”

  “He said he never got Phineas. He saw her the last day he helped Orianna pack for California. The next day when he lugged some stuff to the train station for her, she said Phineas had run off.”

  “But he sure took the money you sent.”

  “Yes, he did that. I understand he didn’t know how to find me, though, to get a letter through, so I don’t blame him.”

  She stood in the tub, stripping the sodden chemise from her torso and flinging it to the tiled floor. Yes, her breasts were literally outstanding, the erect pink nipples set high on the perfect globes, and they barely swayed with their weight. “But that’s suspicious. A dog like that would never drown, as you said.”

  “Yes, and she would never run off. Phineas was devoted to me and to the baby, Abe. She would easily leap onto that train to follow them anywhere.”

  Tabitha stepped out of her dripping petticoat, adding it to the pile on the floor. Foster’s heart beat faster with manly excitement as he peeked at her absolutely flawless little muff. She was the picture of a perfect Venus, her white skin glowing without a freckle to break up the impeccable expanse. He became so stimulated he feared he would breach decorum, and he did not want to rush the widow into any unseemly courtship. But in a pig’s ass! He wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and kiss her once again, to breathe in her essence—of apples and lavender, he recalled from their first, and only, abrupt kiss in front of the Cactus Club.

  “What do you suspect happened?”

  “I suspect Orianna,” Foster said forthrightly. He would have to admit it sooner or later. His former flame had murdered his beloved dog.

  Tabitha sat again in the tub, to swish clean the areas that had been hidden
by her garments. “Why do you think she’d do such a heinous thing?”

  “She was heinous,” Foster admitted. It was not good form to sail into a former flame like that, but Tabitha had a right to know why her new dog had become a ghost. “Not at first, of course. It was an accident that she had the babe, but I wanted to do right by her.”

  “And marry her?” Tabitha’s tone was light, but Foster was glad there was trepidation to it. That meant she was jealous—a good thing.

  “Right. She wasn’t interested, though. She wanted to take my son to San Francisco where an old beau of hers had set up a shipbuilding enterprise.”

  “But…” In the mirror, Foster could see Tabitha pluck a towel from the stool and press it to her moist body. “As a lawyer, didn’t you make enough money for her?”

  “Plenty, as far as I could see. But those shipbuilding fellows, well…They’re just flush. Utter moneybags.”

  “But why would she harm Phineas? Was she that beastly?”

  Beastly. That was a good word for Orianna. She had not always been that way, of course. Foster would hardly bed a woman mean enough to steal a coin off a dead man’s eye. “No. But toward the end, after she decided to go after the shipbuilding fellow, her personality changed. I would not put it past her to murder poor Phineas to get even with me.”

  Stepping from the tub, Tabitha wrapped the towel around her torso. She stood so close behind Foster he could feel the heat radiate from her lithe body. She said, “There’s no way we can prove that, unfortunately.”

  Foster stepped aside so she could not see he’d been looking in the mirror. “I have an idea, actually. I’ll be able to do something about it tomorrow.”

  “Will you leave, now that you’ve figured out how Phineas died? Rejoin Custer’s regiment?” Tabitha giggled without enthusiasm. “I’m sure her ghost would follow you. And you’d never need to feed her.”

  Foster spun about to face her. He gripped her naked upper arms. “Bettina. You are Bettina, and I am Pierre. Of that I have no doubt.”

  This seemed to please Tabitha, for she smiled that precious smile and nodded. “I would think it should be obvious.”

  “And the message is obvious. Bettina and Pierre allowed themselves to be separated by his work—his pirating or whatever it was he did.”

  “Plundered Spanish ships in the Gulf of Mexico, according to what Bettina says.”

  “All right. That sounds exciting enough. But the message is clear. We should never allow ourselves to be separated again.”

  “I agree. So you’re not returning to Custer?”

  “No. I feel I’ve done my time in the mountains. This child’s getting old, and I want a woman’s face around my lodge for the balance of my days.” He hesitated then. “Is that agreeable to you?”

  Softly, she said, “What are you asking me, in your mountain man lingo?”

  Foster sighed. As a lawyer, he had been very good with persuasive words. But he was rusty in their use now. “I am asking you, Tabitha Hudson, if I have your permission to court you. You are my true love knot, sweeter than spice.”

  The smile that busted forth on her face was a caution! Tabitha placed her hands on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him.

  He assumed that was a “yes” to his proposition, and he kissed her back. This time, it was not gentle or sorrowful but imbued with happiness and lust. Instantly, Tabitha was nipping at his lips, slithering her precious little tongue into his mouth, tickling his teeth. Foster pressed his hands to her shoulder blades to hold her to him as he returned the depth of the kiss.

  Her apple scent seeped into his nostrils as he supped on her dewy lips. He knew he was snorting greedily and that she probably felt his insistent, rigid cock pressing against her lap. It would simply not do to introduce his stubbornly masculine need into the equation now, so Foster did what any polite, respectful suitor would do when overwhelmed holding such a bountiful gem in his hands.

  He abruptly dropped to his knees and buried his head underneath the towel.

  Tabitha squealed at first. But it wasn’t the outburst of a victim who would protest such manhandling. It was an adorable squeak of surprise, and she immediately reached out to the stool to balance herself. She even hitched one bare foot onto the stool’s lowest rung to give him access to her divine muff. Unsure of how experienced Tabitha was in the perverse ways of men, at first Foster merely nibbled the soft flesh of her inner thighs. He knew his damp, spiky hair was creating sensual havoc against the sensitive skin of her pelvis, and she instantly set to an encouraging array of panting sounds.

  When his tongue-tip first touched the curly hairs of her attractive muff, she gasped so loudly it resounded against all four walls of the tiled room. Foster clasped her hips and dove right in, boldly licking the jutting extension of her clitoris. He applied great cow’s licks to her sweet, bulging clitoris, slow at first, then swifter as she gasped out, “Oh God oh God oh God!”

  It was an endless jumble of cries that indicated he was doing it right, and when he briefly paused to suck a pulpy labia lip between his teeth, she dug her nails into his shoulders.

  Her thighs quivered with tension and she gyrated her pelvis against his face frantically, crying, “Don’t stop, you bastard!”

  He had paused to see how much she really wanted it. And, apparently, she did. A lot.

  Foster returned to his previous task of lapping away with a stiffened tongue against her enlarged clitoris. Sweet juice slicked his efforts, and he knew he sounded like a grunting pig at a trough, but he didn’t care. She had the most delicious pussy he’d ever eaten, and he was going to bring her over the peak of the most impressive, consuming orgasm of her life. This was the way to impress the dolls.

  “Oh God oh God oh God oh God!”

  When she caught her breath and held it, Foster knew he had her. He sped up his stoking of her inner fire until he heard her choke on her own cries.

  He didn’t let up then, not even when her fingernails punctured the thin covering of his linen shirt. She shuddered and quivered and held her breath so long he was sure she must faint soon. A gush of juice poured from her, dripping down his chin as he lapped away. He humped her leg that was still planted on the tiles, deliciously rubbing his erection against her ankle, and she seemed to come for many long minutes.

  His jaw was nearing that sore point, and she at last shoved him away. She collapsed on the stool, uncaring that her towel had dropped to reveal her succulent, bouncy breasts. Foster sat back on his haunches, overcome with bliss, wiping his face with his forearm.

  Tabitha panted into her palm, staring at the tiles as though astonished by what had just happened.

  Curious, Foster fished for a compliment. “Was that all right?”

  She stared at him with round eyes. “All right?” she repeated dully. Then more stridently, “All right?”

  “Yes,” Foster said dubiously. “Was it all right?”

  She broke into a wide smile. “I should say it was all right! It was more than all right, Foster. In fact, it makes me sort of suspicious how you know all that, but I don’t think I want to question it.”

  Leaning forward, she took his face into her hands and kissed him, unmindful of her juices that still scented his face.

  “I love you, Pierre Badeaux.”

  He was unsure if she really meant she loved him or was remembering how wonderful the pirate Pierre must have been, so he didn’t know what to say.

  He didn’t have to say anything, though, for she pulled back with knitted brows. “But what about Worth?”

  “What about him?”

  She blinked at him, as though it should be self-evident. “He is your other soul mate. How will he feel if you tell him you’re courting me and cannot continue to fuck him whenever the mood strikes you?”

  Though he wanted to laugh at Tabitha’s crude terminology, it did make Foster think. He had not realized until now how much anxiety the thought of giving up Worth created in him. “Maybe I don’t have to s
ay that to him.”

  She smiled slyly, as though they were plotting a crime. “Sex is the essential element of human happiness. That is what my free-loving marriage taught me.”

  “And I agree.”

  “There should be sex only if love is present. I can tell you love Worth.”

  Foster tilted his head. “In a certain way, yes. We definitely lock horns, but I think that’s because we have such a high, competitive regard for each other. I wouldn’t allow him to rile me if I didn’t think him my equal. I don’t love him as I love you, though. I don’t wish to give him a bouquet of flowers, for instance.”

  “That’s romantic love. There are different variations on the love theme.”

  “That allow for sex?”

  Tabitha nodded confidently. “That allow for sex.”

  Foster was glad they had worked that out.

  Chapter Eleven

  Worth helped Tabitha down from the carriage. “You say this pharmacist once helped you with a case?” he asked Foster.

  Foster shouldered the satchel that Worth knew held Phineas’s skull and—for some reason—the gown Tabitha had worn to the fandango the night before. “Yes, when I had the Mirror Murderer as my client years ago. I—and everyone in town—knew he was guilty as sin, but I defended him for the fun of it. Most interesting case I’ve ever had. I had Chang test an item for a poison. You can thank your brother, Tabitha, for providing the entertainment.”

  “I shall,” Tabitha said brightly. “I’m sure he loathes you for defending that miscreant, but I shall tell him you’re courting me.”

  They shared a knowing smile, and Worth again wondered. Their courtship seemed to have progressed mightily after the fandango. He could kick himself for being so occupied in the merriment of dancing he hadn’t even noticed that his partner was puking into the buffet, but it was only right that Foster had been the one to take her home and care for her. Care for her a little too well, apparently.

  Jeremiah hopped feebly from the carriage. He had to grip the door sash to steady himself after the effort involved. “You must not be a very good lawyer if your most famous client wound up having his hair raised, as you mountain men like to say.”