Her laughter carried them to where Tyler and Janice sat together, discussing the need for expanding public education. Evie's last words fell into a momentary silence, and the flush on Janice's cheeks indicated she had caught their drift. Peter smiled at the bloom of color. Finally, he could take her to bed again.
His gut clenched when Janice glanced away from his eager gaze.
Chapter 16
They used candles to light their way to the top of the long staircase leading into the tower room. In this moment, the Gothic qualities of the approach to their bedroom held a vague appeal. Janice thought perhaps she'd had too much wine if she was finding humor in the situation.
She smiled in genuine delight when they entered the outer chamber. The tower was far enough above the trees for the moonlight to shine in far stronger than the candles they carried. A silvery cast illuminated an old-fashioned love seat in gold velvet and mahogany, a towering armoire that could date back to Revolutionary War days, a delicate writing desk sporting a silver tray and crystal champagne glasses—and a bottle of champagne. The Monteignes were obviously romantics.
Behind her, Peter laughed. Janice couldn't remember if she'd ever heard him laugh. The sound was vaguely delicious, sending a thrill through her middle. She knew she'd had too much wine when she thought that. She didn't have the courage to face her husband just yet, and she wandered to the magnificent bank of windows to look out at the stars. She was much too aware of the closed door to the bedchamber on the far side of the armoire.
She heard Peter pop the cork on the champagne and fill their glasses. Trepidation filled her along with the sound of the wine in the crystal. Here was the perfect setting for a honeymoon seduction, a second chance to see if she could overcome her flaws and become the kind of wife her husband craved. But even had she wanted this opportunity, she couldn't take it. Embarrassment as much a anything else overcame her as Peter handed her a glass.
"To a lifetime together, Mrs. Mulloney." He struck his glass to hers and the crystal chimed.
Janice sipped the intoxicating bubbles and dared to study her husband. Carmen was right. Pete was far more handsome than Daniel. There had been time a long, long time ago when she had fancied Daniel as the hero of her dreams. Peter's broad build was far more suited to the hero image than lanky Daniel, but Janice rather thought that Daniel's character was probably more heroic.
Still, it wasn't as if she was perfect. She couldn't resist the pull of her husband's dark good looks when he smiled down at her. She hastily took another sip of champagne.
"I don't want you to be afraid of me, Janice," he murmured, tucking a straying strand of hair behind her ear. "I should have treated you better the other night, I know, but I thought you more experienced. I know better now. I'll do what I can to make it good for you."
She blushed, a painful hot flood of color that seared her cheeks. She couldn't look at him. She admired the way the moonlight played across the champagne bubbles instead. "We can't," she whispered at the glass.
Peter's hand halted its caress. "Can't?"
"The train," she murmured nervously. "When I travel..." She couldn't get the words out. She was twenty-five years old and had never had to explain personal functions to a man. She didn't know how to do it now, especially to a man who had grown up in a household of boys and no doubt never thought about such things. "It's my time," she managed to get out before giving up.
She felt him studying her, working her words through that encyclopedia of a brain of his. She was quite certain the section on feminine hygiene would be extremely small. Peter's reputation back in Cutlerville had little to do with women despite his good looks. He was known as a thorough, humorless, highly intelligent, driven autocrat.
She was beginning to understand that he may have been expecting his employees to keep the same kind of hours and work as hard as he did, but that was neither here nor there. What she needed him to understand had nothing to do with business, but Peter knew very little outside of business.
"I see," he finally said, although his tone voiced less than certainty. "Perhaps you'd rather go on to bed then. I'll stay out here until you've had time to get to sleep. I'm still a trifle restless."
Janice interpreted that easily enough. She might not know a great deal about men, but she understood the source of their restlessness. She felt a twinge of regret at disappointing him, but she shoved it away with the knowledge of how much he had disappointed her. She wouldn't forget that they had made it to Natchez on her money, not his. He had a lot to prove yet.
She turned to leave and felt even more regret that this wonderfully romantic setting wouldn't be the beginning of something beautiful. She had always known she wasn't meant for the kind of love and passion that the Monteignes enjoyed, but that couldn't keep her from wishing. She felt a tear pressing at the corner of her eye as she watched moonlight reflect off the crystal prisms on the desk lamp. She was almost afraid to look in the bedroom.
Unable to leave so easily, she asked over her shoulder, "You didn't wire Daniel about our marriage, did you?"
He was silent for a moment before answering, "No."
Janice nodded. She refused to speculate on whether he had been ashamed of his marriage or just too contrary to tell his family. Peter's voice halted her again.
"I'll write them before we leave. If you come from Cutlerville, you'll understand that I'm not very close to my family."
There was a challenge in his voice, and Janice turned to meet it. He still stood in the window, his broad shoulders in the dark suit jacket outlined against the moonlit night. Her stomach clenched at the sight, but she had already rejected him and he had accepted that rejection. She no longer had to worry about that. Not tonight, anyway.
"I'm from a town down by Cincinnati. My parents were immigrants. We just ended up in Cutlerville by default. I wouldn't say I was from there, any more than I would say I was from Texas."
His face was too shadowed to read his expression. "You knew who I was though. Why didn't you tell me from the first? There must have been any number of opportunities."
Janice shrugged. "I knew your name, and I owed Daniel a great deal, and I knew you were innocent of arson. I did what I had to do. I can't say that I liked it." She thought he almost smiled at that. She couldn't tell for sure.
"I guess that gives me a better idea of where I stand. You despise me for being a Mulloney and married me because I am a Mulloney. I'm just concerned what will happen when I don't live up to your expectations."
"So far, you've shot down every one of them. That doesn't make us any less married. I'm not completely certain why you married me unless it was out of pity or gratitude, but I knew what I was doing when I accepted you. I'll honor my vows." She hesitated, then finished bravely, "I just don't want to have to raise another child in poverty."
She entered the bedroom then and closed the door after her. Peter stared at the closed door with more confusion than he'd ever felt in his life. There had been a time when he'd been confronted with the extent of his father's perfidies that he'd been furious and without direction, but that hadn't been the same kind of befuddlement that he felt now.
He understood, even if he didn't accept, his father's callousness. But he couldn't ever come close to understanding the woman he had married.
Janice was a beautiful woman he'd thought would stand gratefully and loyally at his side for the rest of his years. Instead, he'd found an enigmatic puzzle who in all probability despised him for what he had been and had married him for the money she despised him for having. That made no logical sense at all.
And there was still the matter of the child. Her parting words had been telling, a warning he didn't want to heed. She didn't want to have to raise another child in poverty. The words didn't mean Betsy was more than her sister. It was the way she said them.
Peter turned back to stare out the window at the dark shapes of the trees below. He felt a hollow where his stomach should be. From a few terse comments Janice had mad
e, he'd gathered she had grown up in poverty. He'd never known the specters of poverty himself. They'd never haunted his sleep.
Even now, so broke he used his wife's money, he knew he had only to make a few visits and he could be working again, making good pay. He could wire Daniel and have funds within days. His children would never starve. His pride might, but not his children. How did he explain that to a woman who had watched her family starve while his own got wealthy off their labors? For that was no doubt what had happened if she grew up in Cutlerville. He knew his father's villainy and cutthroat hold over the working citizens of his hometown too well.
When he finally had enough wine in him to make it safe to follow his wife to the bedroom, Peter found her sleeping on the far side of a bed draped in finely woven netting. The breeze through the open windows lifted the edges of the netting and fluttered them in a soft dance around the ancient four-poster. The bed dominated the chamber, but he lay his clothes across a chair by the wall. He had difficulty undressing while he watched his wife sleep, but he somehow managed to get all the buttons through their holes and his shoes off. Janice slept without moving.
He didn't own a nightshirt, and the formal shirt he wore with his suit was too stiff for sleeping in. His spinster wife would have to become accustomed to waking up with a naked man in her bed. That gave him a moment's satisfaction as he slid between the sheets.
The satisfaction died the instant he felt her linen gown against his legs, but he forced his thoughts to the discussion he meant to have with Tyler in the morning, and gradually his body relaxed. Moments later he slept.
When Janice awoke in the morning, she realized the sheets had fallen off the bed. The room was too warm to miss them, and she regretted her long nightgown, until the instant she recognized the greatest source of heat—the man beside her.
She had her back to him, but she knew he was naked. She remembered clearly that other morning when she woke in his arms to find him fully aroused and ready to take her again. Her cheeks burned with the memory, and a previously unknown tingle stirred inside her.
But the knowledge that their one time together hadn't left her with child gave her the strength to inch away. She might like to know what it would feel like to have Peter's hands touch her breasts again, but she was quite certain a man wouldn't be satisfied with just that. So the fact that the bodice of her gown suddenly felt tight held no meaning. She started to swing her legs over the edge of the bed.
His hand caught her arm and slid around to her waist, pulling her backward against him. Janice stiffened, trying to avoid the dangerous territory of her husband's hips, but that was an impossibility. She could feel his arousal pushing against the thin material of her gown, but he merely kissed the nape of her neck.
"I'm surprised our hosts haven't bestowed us with a fairy godmother bearing champagne and strawberries for breakfast, or at least installed an orchestra playing Mozart so we can waltz down the stairs," he murmured into the thick braid of her hair.
Janice giggled. She couldn't help it. She was so tense she thought she might break in two at the slightest wrong move, but the image of fairy godmothers and waltzing down stairs was so far removed from her current worries that her only recourse was laughter. She swore she could feel him smile behind her, and some of the tension slipped away. He was only human. She would have to remember that.
"I'm certain there's champagne left, and I'll look into the strawberry situation, if you like. I'm rather afraid the music will more likely resemble a hoe-down than a waltz, though."
He chuckled and caressed the undersides of her breasts. Janice tensed again, but he didn't seem to notice.
"With the Monteignes as the influencing factor in his growing up, I can see why Daniel turned out as he did. They're enough to make anyone believe in fairy tales."
Janice couldn't help smiling, even as Peter's thumb moved determinedly to caress her nipple through the soft cloth. The tender touch felt good, much too good, as long as she ignored the hard male length of his body behind her. That was hard to do when the place between her legs moistened just from the rumble of his voice near her ear.
"The Monteignes aren't quite real, are they?" she answered. "I think they're rather like a heady wine, too much and you're in trouble."
"I've had quite enough wine, thank you. My head is hurting from last night's abundance." Peter's fingers found the erect tip of Janice's breast beneath the cloth and tweaked it gently.
She gave a tiny gasp as he slid his hand back to the safer territory of her waist. The hand rebelliously stroked her hip and he gave a moan of frustration. "I'm hurting in any number of places, Mrs. Mulloney. If you don't mean to tend to me personally, perhaps you could bring me the rest of that bottle."
She practically jumped out of the bed, leaving Peter to grope the warm sheets. Her trunk had been transported to this room but not unpacked. She grabbed the first things that came to hand and fled for the far room.
Peter sighed and rolled over, giving the stiff flagpole of his manhood a disgruntled look. That was the reason he'd got into this mess, he had no doubt about that. His wife might not comprehend why he had married her, but he knew. He wanted to bury himself inside her and stay there for about six months at least.
But if he understood the calendar of human events, he wouldn't even be able to have her once before he left.
Damn.
He slammed his feet to the floor and reached for the well-worn contents of his saddlebag.
* * *
Tyler's study had more the appearance of an eccentric garden shed than an office. On the wall over the fireplace he had mounted a rifle and pistols, but someone had hung a shiny Valentine heart over the barrel of the rifle and a red paper rose stuck out of one of the pistols. The shelf of books to one side had obviously well-read volumes stacked haphazardly everywhere, interspersed with objects too strange for Peter to discern without obviously ignoring his host and studying them.
A rake rested in one corner of the room, several games of patience had been left in various states of disarray on a side table, and Tyler shuffled another deck of cards back and forth as he listened to his guest. Peter experienced some difficulty remembering why he had come in here. He kept waiting for the flying cards to leap into the air or scatter over the worn carpet.
"So you can see the loan would only be temporary," he heard himself saying. "We could repay it as soon as the deed is in our hands. You can practically name your terms."
Peter thought he'd said all that he'd come here to say. He was usually pretty thorough in these kinds of matters. Business was his strong point, after all. But Monteigne seemed to be looking over Peter's shoulder, and his cards kept flying back and forth between his hands.
The cards suddenly piled themselves up in a neat stack on the cluttered desk, and Tyler leaned back in his chair—so far back that Peter thought he would tumble over at any minute. Instead, the other man swung his boots up on the already scarred wood and grinned.
"I've got just the solution for you," he agreed. "This place eats up every piece of cash I ever get or I'd give you the money right out. I like gambling on sure things. But seein' as how that kind of cash ain't readily available, we'll have to wager for it."
Peter stared at him as if Tyler had just said they would have to go to hell and dig it up. "Wager for it?"
"Yep. I've got a horse that I've been meaning to race for some time now. We'll enter it into the holiday sweepstakes."
Peter grasped that notion well enough. He didn't like it, but he understood it. He raised his eyebrows uncertainly. "Holiday?"
Tyler grinned broadly. "Fourth of July."
That would give him less than five weeks to get to New Mexico. Peter felt sweat break out on his forehead. "If the horse is a sure winner, won't the odds be rather low? That would take a lot of cash."
Tyler swung his boots down and stood up, the very picture of a man eagerly setting out to meet a challenge. "The horse never won a race in its life. Come on, let's go l
ook at it."
Wincing inwardly, Peter followed the madman out of the house. He could feel his entire future sliding down the drain, and he had the awful feeling he could do nothing at all about it. God meant to punish him for his sins, unintentional or not.
Chapter 17
A tall man with the stooped shoulders of age stood beside Betsy's easel while the child painted the paddock scene before her. The man's hair was the same chestnut as Evie's, only faded and graying with time. Up close, Janice could see the dark eyes of Carmen and her brothers. James Peyton was the man who brought the separate heritages of Evie Monteigne and the Rodriguez family together. Janice smiled as Evie's father and Betsy launched into some argument over an object in the painting.
Her smile disappeared as her gaze traveled to the paddock and the men standing at the fence. Peter had discarded jacket and vest in the summer heat and leaned his shirt sleeves against the rail. He studied the horse in the paddock so intensely that he didn't even notice her approach. The man on his other side, however, turned and gave her his famous smile.
Janice shook her head, indicating that he not interrupt their conversation for her. Tyler grinned and returned to watching Benjamin cinching the horse's saddle, then grabbing the reins and hanging on while his mount flailed the air.
Peter protested, "The animal isn't even broken yet! Monteigne, you're out of your mind. Just look at it! I've never seen a more pitiful excuse for a horse. It's practically wall-eyed, and look at those flanks! Geld him and make him a plow horse, maybe, but race? I'll just end up owing you a thousand bucks with nothing to show for it."
Janice's eyes went wide at this startling information, but she kept her mouth shut. She hadn't heard the whole conversation. She may have missed something.
"Ben's had him out. The brute has the devil in him, but if anyone can handle him, Ben can. Just keep an eye on him." Tyler propped a boot on the bottom rail and pushed his light-colored frock coat back to shove his hand in his pocket. Even in the steamy afternoon heat, he looked cool.
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