by Tracy Sumner
Annie’s situation seemed chillingly similar.
The door clicked shut, and he glanced back, releasing a relieved breath. Elle had changed into decent clothing, thank God, although the blouse looked fit for the rag box, too wash-worn to do more than cling to her lush bosom. The skirt was much the same, hanging in temptingly gentle folds from her hips. Why the hell couldn’t she wear all those layers that normally kept a man from seeing a woman’s true shape?
“Any sign of Sean?” she asked, her voice surprisingly controlled. He had to hand it to her—the woman was made of stern stuff.
“No.” On his second pass around the parlor, he paused by the mantel, a dab of color catching his eye. “What is this?” He plucked a faded yellow ribbon from a brass hook.
“Oh, that.” Elle cleared her throat and from the teasing scent invading his senses, took a step closer. “A suffrage bazaar ribbon. Widow Wynne let me put some of my things in this parlor when I moved from my father’s house. He offered to keep them there but... I didn’t trust him with, well, not with that.”
“World’s Congress of 1893, Department of Women’s Progress. New York City.” Noah turned the ribbon over and back. “Where did you get this?”
“At a rally.”
“You’ve been to New York?”
Stepping forward, she took the ribbon from his hand. “I was a student delegate, not a full member.”
He considered, trying to firm his slack jaw muscles. “Student?”
“Yes.” Crisp as a fresh bill, no hint of inflection.
“You went to university, Elle?”
Bringing her mouth close to the mantel, she pursed her lips, and blew dust from a ceramic clown figurine. “For one year.” Their arms brushed; the hem of her dress flapped against his ankles. She drew a breath, and he wasn’t sure if he heard it or felt it. Or both. “There was trouble at the rally”—she gestured to the ribbon—”the university called my father and... that was that.”
“Trouble?”
She slipped her watch from her pocket and checked the time. “I got arrested.”
“Arrested?”
She snapped the cover and returned the watch to her pocket. “For two hours. The police herded us into the rear compartment of three wagons, not much more than grocer’s carts. They only quarantined us to clear the streets they said, quite apologetically. The jail cells were clean. Not bad if you ignored the things etched on the walls.” She frowned, remembering something unpleasant. “And the catcalls.”
“A jail? With bars?”
“Yes, a jail cell. With bars. I wasn’t scared. I knew from the astounded look on the lieutenant’s face that he had no idea what to do. I feared my father’s reaction much more than I feared a stranger’s. Silver badge or no.” She turned toward the window, thrusting the velvet curtain back as he had. Then she laughed, the sound both anguished and amused. “Actually, I found the experience rather exciting. A once-in-a-lifetime event.”
“You call being arrested an event?”
She rubbed a scratch on the glass and shrugged. “I can’t explain it, but I felt an incredible sense of freedom. Watching the crowd of women marching along Fifth Avenue, I realized life offered more if I only had the courage to grasp it. For the first time, Noah, I altered my destiny. My life finally took a turn I had chosen. A turn that did not require my father’s sanction. Or society’s.” She rubbed harder at the scratch, weighing what she would reveal to him, he could tell. “Though the situation did not end well.”
“Your father forced you to leave the university?”
“Oh, heavens, yes. He telegraphed the dean after the rally, threatened them with endangering my safety. They were glad to see me go, and I can understand. Many universities hesitate to start women’s programs because of the additional responsibility.” Elle cut her eyes his way, the pain in them making him wonder if she had talked about this with anyone else.
“He never wanted me to attend. He forbid me, in fact, vowing to withhold funds. I wrote to every eastern school accepting women and requested information. I had mail sent to a postal box in Morehead City. After a few months, he thought the matter, a whim, was forgotten. He didn’t know I had money stashed in a spectacle case in my closet. Money Grandmere Dupre sent the year before she died. And what little I’d managed to save taking in darning and delivering groceries for the mercantile, anything I could do without my father’s knowledge.” She began a gradual circle of the parlor, her memories setting her in motion. “In June of 1892, I got a letter from Byrn Mawr that I had received a stipend for the fall term in exchange for working in the library four afternoons a week. I sent a reply of acceptance in July, took the train north in August. I stayed with Savannah, my roommate’s family, until the term began in September. I returned to Pilot Isle a year later, without my degree.”
My degree. Noah swiped his hair from his brow and felt a pinch of realization. Her voracious appetite for knowledge suddenly made sense. “Elle—”
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking.” She bounced up on her toes to adjust the gas fixture on the wall. The flame heightened behind etched glass, sparking an orange blaze in her curls. “I would have graduated if I had not gone to the rally, and you may be right. I’ve turned that over in my mind a thousand times, until I can’t stand to think of it anymore. But, I would have missed my one, true moment of completeness, standing in a crowd of strangers, all of us experiencing our own sense of purpose. Also, I can’t help but long for her, the girl who believed.” She tilted her head to the side and a smile much older than her years graced her lips. “She was braver than people who fear the future because of uncertainty.”
Using the edge of her sleeve, she swabbed the fixture’s brass arm, injecting a cool tone into her voice. “I lost that naiveté, that self-assurance, when I came back. I still have no fear of the future, I simply loathe the certainty.”
Noah propped his elbow on the mantel, a deck plank salvaged from one of Pilot Isle’s many shipwrecks. As Elle paced the length of the Aubusson carpet, he realized: I do not know this woman. This engaging, puzzling, and entirely too attractive woman he denied desiring even as desire pulsed in steady jolts. He watched her frown and glide her worn slipper across the floor. The impulse to ask what made her brow crease was so powerful he gave in to it. “What are you thinking?”
She drew her head up, her foot stilling over a stubborn wrinkle in the carpet. “About the school. Why, if I didn’t have the school, I would have nothing,” she said, as casually as she recited a recipe.
Noah brought his hand to his neck and attempted to knead away the pressure. He did not want to know her this well, recognize her fears, understand her dreams, witness her vulnerability. Liabilities he might use to bring the balance to his side if he grew desperate.
And he might be getting there.
Elle Beaumont packed enough force to knock him from his pragmatically grounded feet.
Crossing his ankles in what he hoped passed for casual lassitude, he pretended interest in straightening his cuffs while covertly studying her. She twisted her hair into a careless knot and raised her arm to slide an ugly clip into place. The elbows-out posture thrust her breasts forward against the cotton blouse that, he decided again, belonged in the garbage bin. He would bet a gold eagle against her wearing an item of consequence beneath.
He would just bet.
As unsought images intruded, he suppressed a groan. This was not the time to let lust, a response he had learned to subdue years ago, gain the upper hand. All because a girl who had once been a thorn in his side had turned into a beautiful, intelligent, exciting woman.
He shook his head, denied the yearning, but the evidence chafed against his buttoned fly. He felt like acting, taking, overpowering. Without even pausing to consider the ramifications, perhaps make a detailed list of pros and cons to decide if he should act or not.
Which, of course, he shouldn’t.
Without trying very hard, he marshaled five reasons for not touching her
and would have recorded them if he had pen and paper. He tapped his finger on the mantel. One, he would return to Chicago in another month, six weeks at best. Two, children and marriage were not on his agenda before the turn of the century. And, if he pictured getting married, it wasn’t to a woman who made the blood boil in his veins.
No, thank you.
Elle brushed past him, her enticing scent trailing behind. He let his arm drop, hiding his bulging trouser fly. A brief affair, maybe. Elle claimed to be a modern woman. She said she didn’t want marriage, and he certainly didn’t want marriage with her. He envisioned a marriage of respect and... restraint. He did not plan to invite this loss of control into his life for the remainder of it.
No, no. Affairs always resulted in lies and seduction. Things he had not had much experience with, which led quite logically to number three—
“Merciful heavens!”
Startled, Noah reached the window in two long strides and ripped the drapery aside. A drop of water hit his face. He wiped his cheek and let the velvet settle into place. “The roof leaks.”
She smacked the heel of her hand against her brow. “I can see why everyone thinks you’re a genius.”
He shot her a hot look but didn’t reply.
She snatched a wooden bucket from behind the threadbare settee and shoved it at him. “Make yourself useful and put this over the bleached spot. That’s the worst leak.”
He centered the bucket precisely and returned to Elle’s side. “Why don’t you have the roof fixed?”
“I hoped it wouldn’t happen again,” she said and crouched, mopping the floor with a rag.
His restraint slipped another notch. Of course, her dress was bunched beneath her knees, slim ankles peeking out, round bottom perched high.
“Hoped it wouldn’t happen again?” He went to one knee beside her, slipped a handkerchief from his back pocket, and did what he could with it. Anything to keep his hands otherwise occupied. “How like a woman to think a roof leak would disappear.” He swiveled to wring the cloth in a potted fern by his side.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” She paused to rub her nose, splattering drops of water on her chest. “Widow Wynne hasn’t any family in town to help her. I do what I can, in exchange for board and use of the coach house, but I can’t repair the roof.” She glanced at him from beneath long, thick lashes, a smile spreading. “You remember my luck with roofs, don’t you?”
He laughed, and the tightness in his chest eased. He and Elle were friends. They could laugh and cross wits. Even eat dinner together occasionally. Friends did those things all the time. Relieved, he said, “I’m not suggesting you repair the roof. Hire someone.” How about that lovesick idiot, Daniel Connery, he wanted to ask?
She twisted her rag over the fern’s pot, then leaned back, taking her warmth and her seductive aroma with her. “Repairs take money, Noah. Widow Wynne doesn’t have much, and I don’t have much, either. In fact, sending Annie to Atlanta is going to take everything I have.”
“I thought you had, I mean... I remember talk of a modest inheritance. From your mother, wasn’t it? You used to tell me you were going to build a home for stray cats.”
“My father controls that.” The accent coloring her speech and her energetic scrubbing presented the only sign of agitation.
Before he comprehended his action, he’d captured her hand. “Why would he do that?”
She jerked her arm but not hard enough to pull from his grasp. “Mercy above, Noah. I’m an unmarried, twenty-five-year-old woman running a school which makes no money and is shunned by every man in this town. My father looks at me and sees a dismal failure, a frivolous spinster holding no prospects for the future, a dreamer lacking even an ounce of common sense.” She swallowed, her voice dropping to a whisper. “He sees everything he hated about my mother.”
Noah dropped his handkerchief to the floor, uncurled her knotted fist, and kneaded her palm until her hand sprawled open on his knee. Her skin was work-roughened in patches, marked by light blue veins and freckles, fingers long and slender. He traced the bones in her wrist, her pulse thumping beneath his fingertips. “Who cares what he thinks.”
She hung her head. “It shouldn’t matter, but it does.”
“I understand.” And he did. His brothers’ respect had always meant more to him than anyone’s. Colleagues, professors, students. Accordingly, their criticism cut the deepest and scarred the worst.
His grip around her wrist tightened, and she glanced up, slowly tugging her hand free.
A strained cognizance circled as rain pinked against the glass panes. She arched her back and swabbed the floor in a burst of intensity. The knot of hair at the base of her neck had begun to unravel. A lone curl brushed her collar; another lay beneath her ear. He lifted his hand and twisted the bright spiral about his finger. Her skin, moist and warm, lit the pad of his thumb afire.
A shudder rippled through her; her shoulders lifted. The delicate shush of air from her lips parted his on a strangled sigh. The heat radiated from her; a light sheen glistened on the nape of her neck. Taking a deliberate breath, he savored the fragrance that lingered in his dreams. Earthy and vital, the scent drew him. He wanted nothing more than to satisfy the reckless longing in his heart, ease the desperate hunger in his mind.
Giving in, Noah groaned low and curled his arm about her waist, pulling her against his chest. She gasped and dropped her head, exposing a patch of skin above her collar, an invitation he could no longer refuse. At the touch of his lips, the essence of her flowed into him, surging to the tips of his toes and back, leaving a mass of exposed nerve endings. He had never, never in his life, been crowded by as many images—sensual, intoxicating, enthralling.
Not a single lucid thought remained to suppress them.
“Sweet,” he whispered and tangled his fingers in her blouse. He pressed light kisses along the edge of her lace-trimmed collar, following the curve of her ear to her jaw. His mouth parted over the hard ridge, desiring more, and moving toward it.
Elle murmured and sagged against him, giving him the opportunity he needed. Swiveling her around, he cradled her face in his palms, lifting her gaze to his. A fire burned in the green depths, one to match his.
A wave of virile self-satisfaction consumed him. She wanted him. Passion lived in each shallow breath she took, in the steady flush sweeping her cheeks. His hunger grew as he watched her lids flutter, her chin tilt, unwittingly bringing her lips closer. She had no idea the level of his desire, the crude images he entertained. And he knew somewhere deep inside that the touch of her lips would never be enough.
How could it be enough when she has belonged to you since the first day you saw her?
Noah reeled, the thought like a punch to his head. He opened his eyes to find hers fixed upon him, hooded and dreamy. Moonlight trickled in through a slit in the curtains, a golden glide across her slender shoulder, a fine-boned cheek. Her breath caught, body jerking beneath a blouse so revealing in its simplicity that he had imagined ripping it from her and taking her on the dirty floor.
Fear had him releasing her in a sudden wrenching movement; anger shoved him to his feet. Blindly, he made his way to the entrance hall, his hands trembling. His gaze stole back to find her kneeling in the pool of silver, her hair unbound and surrounding her, her eyes luminous and seeking. Blessit, didn’t she know what it did to him when she looked at him like that? He forgot his plans for the future, his strict code of honor and his decency crisping in the blaze. He needed to remember she was an innocent woman, even if she stared like a courtesan.
He jerked a boot on, then fumbled for the other. He’d struggled to create a life from nothing. To let Elle into his heart would demand examination of a past he had already paid the price for. He grabbed his coat from the hall stand and jammed his arms in the sleeves. She roused everything he’d spent years burying beneath layers of self-sufficiency and detachment. Call him a coward, but he couldn’t allow her to hold such power over him.
Her fingers grazed his arm and he flinched, turning to find her standing directly behind him. He felt a renewed burst of desire; he wanted to touch, kiss, mate.
The beveled doorknob slid from his grasp. Wiping his hand on his trousers, he tried again, ducking just before he hit his head on a low beam on the way out. The rain on his face was welcome. Hell, he would welcome anything that washed away the taste of her. Finally, when he was calm, he said, “Close the door, Elle. I’ll be right here.”
“Noah.” His name on her lips sounded thick and tender, heavily accented, the way it had years ago. Starting to turn, he checked the motion before he had a chance to see her face. Tears might be enough to defeat him. He clenched his hands at his side and stared into the black sky.
Let her cry. Let her despise me until the end of her days. Let her think I’m heartless. Cruel. A bastard. Just let her close the damned door and put something tangible between us.
With a faint click, she did.
Noah released a tense breath he had not known he held and leaned against the porch railing, his heart aching. He relaxed his fists with some effort, fear still holding him in its grip. Sentiment born of emotions deeper than lust bullied him: Go back. Finish what you started.
How he had come to feel so much for Elle Beaumont in such a short time dumbfounded him.
Worse, how in the world could he conquer his feelings?
* * *
Elle slid to the floor in a boneless, breakable heap. Oblivious to the rattling pane of glass in the door or the steady drip soaking her shoulder, she dropped her head to her hands and prayed for the first time in months. Surely, God wouldn’t let her... didn’t plan for—
She slammed her fist against her bent knee, recognized she still held the damp rag, and flung it across the entrance hall. What did everyone in Pilot Isle expect her to do but fall in love all over again? Why should God be any different? Noah was handsome and brilliant and honorable, everything she had known he would be.
