No Place for a Lady

by Vivian Vaughan

  She had no choice but to throw her arms around his neck and hold on. Struggling was out of the question. Not because of his greater strength. She was certain he would turn her loose if she asked. But asking for such a thing didn’t enter her mind. She basked in the fiery heat that coursed through her, at the wet persistence of his lips on hers. “This could become addictive.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “One could come to crave it.”

  “One does.”

  “Like rutabaga pie.”

  “Rutabaga pie?!”

  “You don’t like rutabaga pie?”

  “I know something I like a whole hell of a lot more.”

  “What?” she asked, a bit hesitantly, for she had half a notion she should not be engaging in such intimate banter.

  He kissed her again, another of those deep, wet, mind-boggling kisses he was so good at. At least, she thought he was good at them. Even with her limited knowledge on the subject, she didn’t see how anyone could do it better.

  “Kissin’ and cuddlin’…for starters.” His deep voice quivered along her spine. “But there’s a whole lot more, Maddie.” When he spoke again it was with his lips softly brushing hers, which set off another tremor, which, in turn, caused her body to shudder against his.

  Like on the hillside, she entertained the shameful image of their bodies touching, heated skin to heated skin. Finally she succeeded in pushing herself back. “Maybe Goldie’s suggestion wasn’t such a good idea, after all.”

  “No?” His expression left no doubt that he could see through her pretense. “I’ll bet every cow I own that you think this is the best idea of a lifetime. If you don’t kill off my town, when ol’ Buster’s term is up, I may appoint Goldie mayor.”

  “Mayor?” Madolyn had never been so charmed by anyone in her life. The strangeness of the situation left her uneasy, but not so much that she wanted the evening to end. He kissed her again, and she decided she wouldn’t mind spending the entire night standing here in the hallway being courted by Tyler Grant.

  “Hell, yes. Maybe I’ll even bake her a rutabaga pie. Have to do something to thank her.”

  She laughed at that, out loud; then she heard the footsteps.

  “Here’s your supper, Miss Maddie.” Madolyn turned to see Annie standing not three feet away, holding a tray.

  Embarrassment flooded her. She lowered her arms and scolded the startled girl with, “I told Lucky I would come downstairs.” Awkward now, Madolyn freed herself and fumbled to open her parlor door. Waves of hair cascaded around her face, concealing, she hoped, the flush that felt like a blast from a furnace.

  “She didn’t want you to go hungry,” Annie explained. “We didn’t know you were busy entertainin’ Tyler.”

  Tyler exploded. “She was NOT entertainin’ me!”

  “Well, you couldn’t tell from lookin’.”

  Consternation buzzed so loudly in Madolyn’s ears she could hardly make out the words or Annie’s defensive tone. She shouldered the door open.

  “Set the tray down,” Tyler directed. At the same time, his arm shot around Madolyn. He caught the doorframe, preventing her escape. She stiffened in the prison of his arms, faintly conscious of the sounds Annie made setting down the tray, retreating down the hall.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Tyler turned Madolyn around. He forced her face up with two fingers to her chin. She felt his breath, soft and warm on her flushed face.

  “Guess that puts an end to our kissin’ an’ cuddlin’,” he whispered in tones that spread over her like warm honey. “For tonight.”

  Ten

  “Mornin’, Miss Maddie! I’ve brung your breakfast.”

  Lucky’s call came as a mixed blessing. On one hand Madolyn welcomed an end to her sleepless night. On the other, she dreaded facing the women of this establishment after the scene Penny-Ante interrupted the evening before. Annie had no doubt spread the word throughout the House of Negotiable Love.

  Negotiable love. The term carried even more scandalous overtones, since her own episode of indecent behavior with Tyler Grant. Whatever had possessed her to follow the directives of a…of a woman of ill repute?

  But in the week Madolyn had been in Buck, Goldie and her girls had become much more than women of the night. She knew them now as simply women—compassionate, caring, and possessed of the same human desires and fears as other women.

  And that, in itself, was a further botheration. For Madolyn had not only learned a few things about the nature of women in general since coming to Texas, she had learned some unsettling things about herself, as well.

  Such as her dismal lack of control over her body. Shameful as her conduct with Tyler had been, she could not dredge up the slightest bit of remorse. Even being caught by Annie hadn’t been the embarrassment it should have been.

  Would have been a week before. Madolyn grimaced at the realization that one week ago she would not have engaged in such despicable conduct in the first place. And that, in turn, provided even more cause for alarm than her behavior. What if she had not talked to Goldie? What if she hadn’t followed the madam’s advice? Oh, my, what she would have missed!

  As with her inability to dredge up remorse for her behavior with Tyler, Madolyn found herself unable to brand her conduct despicable—not even when she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Miss Abigail would frown and frown sternly on such behavior.

  But my, what a shock it had been—the sweetness of it. For the life of her, she couldn’t help but want more.

  “Hope you done slept well, Miss Maddie.” Lucky paused in the doorway, holding a tray covered with a cup towel.

  Madolyn flushed what she knew must be three shades of red when Lucky peered over her shoulder at Tyler’s closed door. Quickly, she shooed Lucky inside.

  The elderly little maid didn’t say more until Madolyn’s breakfast was uncovered—the same dishes as every other morning since Madolyn arrived. But today the aroma seemed somehow much more sumptuous. Likely because she hadn’t eaten supper. Indeed, she had sent the startled Annie scurrying back down two flights of stairs with the full supper tray.

  “Don’t reckon Mr. Tyler had time to wait ’roun’ and share breakfast with you, honey. But don’t you fret none—”

  “Share breakfast with me?” Madolyn came out of her reverie. “We never share breakfast. Why should we start now?”

  Lucky jerked her head around so sharply her topknot bobbled. “Why, honey, it seems like a right civilized thing to do.”

  “There is no reason on God’s green earth for Tyler Grant and me to share breakfast.”

  “If you say so, honey. But the good Lord didn’t see fit to give us much of His green earth out here. Maybeso that means that other things folks hold with back where you come from ain’t all that important, neither.”

  Madolyn picked up the freshly ironed napkin, quickly drawing her thoughts away from Annie and Tyler, where they had been a good part of the sleepless night.

  “One hen egg,” Lucky was saying, “one piece of bacon, two sourdough biscuits, an’ some of Miss Goldie’s store tea.”

  “Oh, no, I shouldn’t.” She avoided further eye contact with Lucky, which wasn’t easy, since the woman kept turning her head, as though to catch a glimpse of the truth.

  “Miss Goldie wants you to have it.”

  “I wouldn’t want to use it all up.” But Madolyn wasn’t thinking about tea. Her thoughts were on Tyler and they brought a sinking feeling to her stomach. She wasn’t sure why thinking about him should do that, or why it was impossible for her to ask the question foremost on her mind—Where had Tyler gone without waiting for breakfast?

  Or had he eaten breakfast early? Served by Penny-Ante? And what else? Had Annie spent the night in his room, like before? Had they kissed and cuddled, while Madolyn tossed and turned and rued the day she set foot in this barbaric town?

  “If the train comes today, I shall replenish Goldie’s stock of store tea,” she told Lucky, more to get her mind off Tyler
and Annie than because she wanted to converse about tea. “Do you think it will?”

  “The train? Can’t rightly say,” came the expected response. “In this country trains run pretty much like the rain falls, whenever they take a notion.”

  “Well, when it comes, I shall replace Goldie’s tea with some of what I ordered from Abilene.” Madolyn recalled the other items she ordered from Abilene, and her method for paying for them. She hoped she hadn’t borrowed herself a barrel of trouble.

  Although she was not the slightest bit hungry, she sat at the tea table and began to eat, one ear attuned for some indication from Lucky whether Annie had spread the word of her wanton ways.

  Lucky, it turned out, was more interested in the meeting the day before, which Madolyn had almost forgotten. She chastised herself and turned her attention to the maid’s version of Goldie’s report.

  “Miss Goldie’s mighty glad she went up there yesterday. Said she knew she’d been right about you all along.”

  “Right about me?”

  “You bein’ able to hole your own with the men in this town,” Lucky explained.

  “I’m afraid Goldie exaggerated on that score.”

  “That ain’t the way she tole it.”

  “She must not have told the whole story, Lucky. I didn’t handle the husbands well at all. Since they had no intention of helping reunite the town, they should have stayed home.”

  “No husbands? How you figure a man’s gonna let his wife go off an’ make decisions without him goin’ along to tell her what to decide?”

  “I don’t, not anymore.” That was the same conclusion she had come to during the long, sleepless night, along with an equally dismal conclusion—the submissiveness of the women at the meeting was no different than the submissiveness she felt in Tyler’s arms. For a while last night she would have done anything he wanted, a disquieting notion. Even now, recalling their scandalous behavior, she felt herself grow weak. She wanted him still. Her body ached for his touch. Was this one of the weapons husbands held over their wives?

  Never had she considered that a man might use tenderness and sensual, loving acts as weapons. In her parents’ house the weapons had been fists and voices—violent, loud, aggressive, physical. She had not known grown men possessed a tender nature until she experienced it in a myriad of ways in Tyler’s arms.

  Was tenderness his weapon? If so, it could prove as deadly as physical violence. Blatantly aggressive behavior forewarned a woman. But the tender side, that was different. She recalled telling Tyler it could be addictive. Was that the way men caught women? Snared them with kisses and gentle caresses, then dragged them into the lair of marriage, where everything turned ugly? Miss Abigail preached against weapons of the heart. Were these what she meant? Tenderness, gentleness, and sweet fiery passion?

  Sipping Goldie’s store tea, Madolyn pulled her thoughts from her narrow escape to the difficulty of reuniting Buckhorn.

  “We will never succeed with the husbands involved,” she worried. “You should have seen how they intimidated their wives. It was disgraceful. Those women are so browbeaten they wouldn’t meet my eye, much less participate in the discussion.”

  “That’s the way it is out here, honey.”

  “That’s the way it is everywhere, Lucky. I thought women in the West might have more backbone, but I was wrong. I must have confused strong backs with stiff constitutions.”

  “They’s got that, sure ’nuf. Couldn’t survive in this country without mighty stiff constitutions.”

  “I’m talking about inner strength, Lucky. Somehow I have to tap the inner strength these women use for everyday living and divert it to saving this town.” She smeared her last bite of biscuit with agarita-berry jelly, thoughtful. “To do that, I shall have to get them away from the men.”

  “Humph! That’ll take more’n a whippersnapper like you’s up to. ’Less, of course, you enlist Mr. Tyler’s help.”

  “Tyler?” Madolyn met Lucky’s gaze for the first time this morning. Although she flushed at what the little maid might be thinking, she quickly regained her mental footing. “I’ll thank you not to mention that outrageous man to me again, Lucky. Mr. Grant is the root of the evil, not the cure.”

  Lucky had the audacity to laugh out loud. “Do you say so?”

  “Indeed, I do. He and my brother. You should have seen how the men kowtowed when Ty…, when Mr. Grant walked into that schoolhouse. And the women, too. Of course, they hadn’t much choice. The way he worked the gathering, why you would think he was running for sheriff or something.”

  “Sure ’nuf? If he did, he’d get my vote.”

  “If you had one, Lucky, which is what this is all about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Women versus men. Men running roughshod over women and getting away with it.”

  “Been thataway since the world began, honey. Ain’t likely to change for one determined girl.”

  “Not one, Lucky, a town full.”

  “You said it yourself. Long’s those women’s husbands are runnin’ the show, there ain’t likely to be much you can do to change things.”

  “What their husbands don’t know, they can’t spoil.”

  Lucky peered around the corner from the bedroom. “What bee you got in your bonnet, Miss Maddie?”

  “Wait and see, Lucky. But be sure to clean my parlor extra good. I wouldn’t want to show off Goldie’s establishment except to its best advantage.”

  “Say what?”

  “Wait and see,” she repeated. “Miss Abigail claims that the best way to stave off a worried mind is with an active body.”

  “Just what kinda activity you plannin’ for that body of yours, honey?”

  Madolyn was mortified! Positively mortified. Lucky knew. Of course, she knew. Annie would have rushed downstairs to tell every girl in the House about catching Madolyn in Tyler’s arms…kissing. There had been no way she could pretend to have a speck of dust in her eye; not with the way Annie sneaked up on them.

  “Organizing the women, Lucky. Oh, my, I do have a lot to do. And so little time. When the train arrives, I shall take the boots and things out to Morley’s. Then maybe he will sign those papers and I can return to Boston.”

  But it won’t be soon enough, she fretted later, while she hurried through her toilette. Pulling her unruly hair into a tight black bun, she slipped into a proper black gabardine frock and sensible shoes. Her haste, she knew, came as much from wanting to escape Tyler Grant—who was Lord knew where—as it did from being anxious to sort out the details of the Buck-Horn Reunited Society.

  She didn’t recall that she had promised an article to Price Donnell, until she was ready to leave for the schoolhouse, and by that time it was too late. She simply did not have time to sit down and compose a satisfactory piece.

  What to do? Searching the trunk in which she had stored her most treasured articles and mementos from the Boston Woman Suffrage Society, she pulled out her favorite piece.

  “The Art of Negotiating with the Male of the Species,” by Miss Abigail Blackstone. That would do nicely, thank you. As would the preponderance of Miss Abigail’s advice Madolyn carried in her head, if she would settle down and put some of it to use.

  Her first brilliant idea—at least, she considered it brilliant—had come earlier, while she attempted to evade Lucky’s inquiry about Tyler. That was exactly the way Miss Abigail claimed things worked:

  “Often, when one’s mind is engaged in strenuous battle,” her mentor advised, “the subconscious performs one’s best work.”

  And so it proved. The schoolchildren could fold the newspapers. She wouldn’t have to worry about convincing the women to help this time.

  When Madolyn arrived, Loretta James was engaged in a spirited game of King of the Mountain with the children. An appropriate game for a school run by Tyler Grant, she fumed.

  “Be with you in a minute, Maddie,” the teacher called.

  Madolyn sat on the steps in the shade of a
madrone tree, watching, pensive. What a lovely young teacher Loretta was. Vivacious, interacting so effortlessly with the children. Unrestrained in a way Madolyn would never be. One day Loretta James would marry and have children of her own.

  As Madolyn never would.

  The image of Loretta gushing to Tyler flitted through Madolyn’s mind like a bird in flight. Goldie claimed Tyler was committed to living a single life. But that could change. Loretta had confessed to being in the market for a husband, a cowboy to tame. Well, Tyler needed taming, if anyone ever did. A pretty thing like Loretta might be able to do it. Could she change his mind about remaining single?

  Change his mind? Not if he was as committed to the single life as Madolyn was herself.

  “I’m glad you’ve come, Maddie. I didn’t get a chance to tell you yesterday, but you did a superb job handling those men.”

  “I’m afraid they did a better job handling me.”

  “Don’t let them bother you. You’re a determined woman, and I have a feeling they’re running scared.”

  “Running scared? Of what?”

  “Of you, silly. They think you’re going to influence their wives.”

  “I certainly intend to try, Loretta. I certainly intend to try. Do you think there’s a chance of us getting the women together secretly?”

  “I don’t know how—or where.”

  “My parlor.”

  Loretta’s expression froze somewhere between approval and alarm. “Goldie’s third floor? I’m not sure the women in either town are prepared for that.”

  “You mean the men aren’t prepared for their wives to go there, either alone or in their company?”

  “Especially in their company, I should think,” Loretta laughed, a soft, tinkling sort of laughter that further worried Madolyn.

  She hurried on. “I’ve also solved the paper-folding quandary for today.”

  To that, Loretta agreed readily. “I’ll bring the children around to the news office an hour before school lets out.”

  That was when Madolyn entertained her third brilliant idea of the day. “Mr. Grant indicated that you’ll be closing the school for the summer.”