A Wedding Story (7 page)

“See and call,” he snapped out in an instant.

Her gaze flew up to him, then back to her cards. Seconds eased by as she deliberated; the only sound in the old shed, the scrape of the twigs as she adjusted their position. Flickering, delicate motions, a dance over the pieces. His vision hazed, cleared again.

“Stop it!” He slapped his hand on top of hers, stopping it in mid-motion.

She startled, her hand jerking beneath his. “What?”

Mistake.
Oh, mistake. He thought he couldn’t take it one more second, those brisk, little movements spawning lewd images of her fingers drumming on his belly, lower still.

But touching her, even on the back of her hand, was a thousand times worse. Her skin was warm, impossibly fine, as tender as a new petal. Her knuckles bumped into his palm, a delicate impression that scalded him with possibilities.

“Wh—” She cleared her throat and tried again. “What?”

He had to force his hand to move, peeling each finger away one by one. “Sorry.” The hand now; lifting it felt like it suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. “It’s just…the drumming. It made me twitchy.”

Her scowl was a brief flicker, there and gone. He wanted to grab her by the shoulder and shake the expression out of her. Did she really think that smooth and cool was better than animation and life? She wasn’t Dr. Goodale’s remote hostess anymore.

“It annoyed you, did it?”

“Yes.”

Deliberately, she began drumming against the trunk, nails clicking, smile bordering on smug.

“I believe I called,” he said through his teeth. It would serve her right, he thought, if he told her exactly why her fidgeting disturbed him.

“Oh. Of course.” She fanned the cards on top of the trunk. “Two pair.”

She was a fair poker player. Her composure allowed her to bluff with relative ease, and she certainly had no compunctions about lying.

But try as she might, there was one thing she couldn’t overcome.

The cards liked Jim Bennett.

Always had. His father and brother hated that he’d always been lucky when they’d been the exact opposite. He’d been no more than twelve when they tried to draw him into the games, thinking that he could win back part of the fortune they’d squandered. But he understood even then that it was a trap…the moment one depended upon Luck was the moment she turned against you.

He tossed down his own hand. “Full house.”

Blinking, Kate twisted around to inspect his cards.

“Ah…” The sound was very low, but could only be considered a snarl.

“Now, now, don’t whine,” he chided.

Color flooded her face, dusky in the low light.

“You cheated.”

“I most certainly did not.”

“But…but…”

“Come now, be a sport.”

Heat flashed in her eyes. “Now whoever said I had to be a sport!” she snapped.

It was as much animation as he’d ever seen in her. He sat back and contemplated her for a moment. “You hate losing.”

“Of course not, I merely…” She paused, then blew out a breath. “I
hate
it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. There. You know my secret. It’s terribly unladylike and not at all kind but truly—when I was in school, all my friends refused to play games with me.”

He leaned forward on his elbow, the candlelight casting a conspiratorial oval around them. “What’s the worst thing you ever did to win?”

“I couldn’t—”

“Tell me.”

“I sawed halfway through my best friend’s croquet mallet so it would break in the middle of our championship match.”

He laughed, thoroughly and heartily, the sound swelling up in the small room.

“Oh!” She pressed her palms to her cheeks. “I can’t believe I just told you that. What you must think of me.”

And just like that, their companionable mood ended. They both knew what he thought of her.

“Well,” he said. “We’d best get to sleep.”

“Oh, no!” she said, dismayed. “Just one more. It’s only sporting.”

He should say no. The rising simmer of a desire that he neither wanted nor knew how to manage should tell him that much.

“Please?” She didn’t wheedle. She was too sure of her wiles to wheedle. She merely smiled at him and waited, skin gleaming like pearls in the candlelight, looking up at him through her lashes so her eyes looked mysterious and promising, luring him in.

Say no.
The wiser part of him was flimsy, growing weaker all the time. If there was a man on earth who could say no to sitting across from a beautiful woman in the soft light, watching her move and speak and smile, breathing in air that was replete with seductive potential—well, there was not a man on earth who could.

“All right.” He bent to gather up the cards.

“Let me.” She was quicker than he, sweeping them toward her in a wide arc. The cards flashed in her hands, a competence born of long practice. “Whew. It’s getting warm in here, isn’t it?” She reached up and flicked open the top button of her blouse. The collar released immediately, lace sagging loose and lush against the pale wedge of skin revealed. She fanned herself, blowing the lace aside, giving tantalizing glimpses of more.

So, that would be the approach now, would it? He was surprised that she hadn’t tried it before now.

He’d no intention of falling for her attempts at distraction. That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the show in the process.

She leaned forward on her elbows, squeezing in with her upper arms, and her breasts swelled into the slight opening. And just like that, his brain shut down.

“Are you ready?” she said brightly.

“Huh?” He blinked, coming back to the present as if swimming up through murky water. She’d dealt without him realizing it and had her cards fanned neatly in front of her, amused eyes peeking flirtatiously over the top. He snatched up his cards and thumbed them open.

He threw down a card. “I’ll take one.”

“Only one?” Somehow she’d opened another button. He was sure of it; there hadn’t been that much lovely bosom exposed before. He started plotting ways to draw out the game, wondering just how far she’d go. “I would have thought you’d take more,” she purred.

He swallowed hard. “You did?”

“Hmm.” She delicately ran a fingertip down the curving edge of her hand of cards. “You always struck me as the kind of man who’d take a risk. Who’d go for broke, as it were; who’d reach for all he could.” She reached up with her free hand and plucked the pins from her hair. It tumbled free, a rich, glorious spill that captured the candlelight for its own. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “After a long day, the pins start to hurt.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, and hoped he hadn’t squeaked. He couldn’t tell; blood roared in his ears.

“Good.” He had to watch her mouth to make out all her words. Which only made it all the worse. Her mouth gleamed with moisture and her lips curved around the words as if they were a solid thing. “Just one? It’s not too late to change your mind.”

He shook his head, not so much a no as an attempt to clear out the fuzz. “Just one.”

She put one card on the flat surface and pushed across to him with her forefinger—slowly, her hand inching over the surface, directly toward him. “There you go.”

She didn’t lift her hand. “Aren’t you going to take your card?”

“Ah…of course.” He pinched the card by the edge and managed to slide it from her grip without brushing her fingers.

Damn it.

She pouted over her cards, her mouth drawn up in a coquette’s promise. “I think I’ll take…three,” she whispered. “One’s never enough for me.”

He’d memorized his cards in that half-second when he’d first glanced at them. Now he stared at them as if his life depended on the knowledge—not because he had any concern for his hand but just because he didn’t dare look at her again. He’d vastly overestimated his resistance. It didn’t matter that he knew very well she was simply trying to distract him, not attract him. That every move she made was calculated and there was nothing of true passion on her side. She was expert, thoroughly detached, as professional in her role as a Broadway actress.

It made no difference. It was impossible to remain immune. And so he studied the tiny printed hearts marching across his cards with the desperation of a drowning man latching onto one last, tenuous lifeline.

He bid quickly, jumping in after her declarations with a speed that bordered on rude, hoping only to get it all over with as quickly as possible. Though sleep was rapidly becoming unlikely, putting a little distance between them might—
might
—make it possible for him to keep his hands off her.

“Jim,” she said softly, and waited. The little hearts swam before his eyes. The silence grew awkward, then obvious.

“Jim,” she said again, and he knew there was no help for it.

Reluctantly, dreading, hopeful, he raised his gaze.

Lord.
When had that happened? He could see her nipple. No, not quite, but almost…nearly…a shadow of it, at the edge of a loosened flutter of soft cotton. It was more arousing than her bare breast would have been, just that promise of it, making him suck in a breath and hold it, waiting for that cloth to slide down another fraction.

Well, no, not more arousing, he admitted ruefully. He’d still take the whole damn sight of her, gloriously naked, given the chance. Still, this was pretty darn—

“Four aces.”

Her voice clipped through his heated dreams like a torrent of ice water. “What?”

“Four aces.” She tapped her finger on the fan of cards she’d arranged across the trunk.

“Huh?” He knew she expected something of him right now; her head was tilted, her smile sweetly smug. He just couldn’t quite fathom exactly what she wanted.

“Your cards,” she reminded him. And then, when he only swallowed hard, she said more forcefully, “Your
cards
.”

He threw his cards down, face down. One hit the edge and flipped over as it fell to the floor, revealing a ten of hearts. “You win. The bed’s yours.”

She was on her feet in an instant, as if she were afraid that he would change his mind and insist upon another game. “I’ll just go outside and…I’ll just go outside.”

She backed toward the doorway, wagging a finger at him. “I’m not going to come back and find you’ve stolen the bed, am I?”

“Would I do that?” he asked.

She answered with insulting speed. “Yes.”

“You’re right, I would. But not tonight.”

She studied him suspiciously for a moment, then shrugged. “All right, then.”

He didn’t get up, just pondered the empty, densely black rectangle where she’d been standing a moment ago. And then he reached down and, one by one, flipped over his four remaining cards. “Straight flush,” he murmured before, in one wide sweep, obliterating his final hand.

What the hell, he thought. She’d earned it.

K
ate had gotten up long before Jim. Hours, by the look of her. She’d piled her hair up on top of her head in a complicated arrangement of swirls and dips that showed off her long neck, the smooth pink curve of her ears. Her skin glowed, delicate rose blooming on her cheeks, her mouth—he’d no idea if the color was natural or if she’d helped things along.

She had on a different white shirt; a more severe cut, a lot less lace, every bit as flattering. But if the rest of her was as flawless as if she’d just stepped out of her dressing room, here was the slightest hint of where she’d spent the night. One lone crease dared to slash across the bodice; one wrinkle marred the crisp navy blue of her narrowly cut skirt.

She stood over him, tapping her foot—sooner or later that was going to drive him insane.

“Oh, good, you’re up. I was just about to wake you.”

With a painfully aimed kick, he had no doubt.

“Don’t you think we should get going?” she asked.

“Sure.” He yawned, ears popping. “Sleep well?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He stretched and rolled to his feet, hearing every joint protest along the way. At this rate he wouldn’t be able to move by the time he was fifty.

“Are you always so slow?”

“Yes.” As he bent to grab the limp pile of his blanket, he saw her scrub the palms of her hands briskly up and down her upper arms.

“Problem?”

“No.” She dropped her arms and held them rigidly against her sides.

“If you say so.” He turned away for an instant, whipped back to catch her in the act. A smile tugged at his mouth. “No problems, huh?”

“There was something in that hay,” she admitted, thoroughly disgruntled. “I don’t know what—” She stopped as his smile broke free. “You knew!” she accused him.

“Suspected,” he corrected. “Just look at that stuff. Be more surprising if there weren’t a few beasties crawling around in there.”

“No wonder you surrendered it so easily.” She gave up and scratched her forearm in earnest. She glowered at him, two seconds of fierceness before her expression smoothed again. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I’ve always been of the opinion that cheating gets its own reward.”

She froze in mid-scratch. “Cheating?” she asked, wary, composed. “I didn’t cheat.”

“Two aces tucked beneath your thighs?” He shook his head sadly. “Not subtle enough, Kate.”

“You knew?”

“Your distraction was most entertaining, I’ll admit.” He grinned broadly. “You can practice on me anytime.”

“Thank you ever so much for the offer.”

“You underestimated me.”

“Terribly easy to do, I’m afraid.”

“And always a mistake.”

She arched, twisting one arm behind her back in an attempt to get at a spot between her shoulder blades. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize, we’ll be here all day.”

“I’d be disappointed if you did.”

“Excuse me?”

“First hint I’ve had this whole time that you might be worth dragging along. If you’re willing to cheat to win—not to mention exploit certain natural assets—well, you might present a tactical advantage after all.”

“Darn it!” She spun, presenting him with her back. “Scratch. Please.”

She stood still before him, waiting. The nape of her neck was bare. Fine tendrils of gold trailed down. He drew his nails slowly down her back and she arched into his touch.

“There’s just one thing I must know.” He leaned forward, closer than he should have, until the scent of her clouded his brain. “Just how far would you go?”

She sucked in a quick breath. “I imagine you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”

“Oh, I’ll see.”

The scratch veered dangerously close to a caress. Her back was firm, lithe, a sinuous line. And if he didn’t stop touching her right that second, he never would.

“Shouldn’t we be going?” she asked.

“Going?” he murmured. “Oh yes. Going.” He dropped his hand and started for the door. “I’ll just go clean up while you pack, and then we’ll get on our way.”

“I am packed.”

He wheeled around to face her. “Uh-uh. One bag. I don’t care what you put in it, but you’d better choose carefully, because that’s all you’re getting.”

It wasn’t fair, Kate thought. Not one bit. There he was, just rolled out of bed, his eyes still foggy with sleep, his posture relaxed. His hair was rumpled, standing up in all directions. A thick, prickly growth of beard studded his chin. His clothes were in worse shape than his hair. And yet he looked better than she’d ever seen him, completely male, totally appealing—and he’d looked awfully good before.

If he’d seen her the instant she’d woken up, he would have burst out laughing—if he hadn’t run shrieking from the shed. It had taken her a good half hour of repair before she’d dared to rouse him, and it was a barely passable effort at that. She hadn’t done badly, considering the limited conditions, but it would have been immensely satisfying to see him stunned into silence.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

“One bag.”

“There you go again.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t possibly—”

“One.” He crossed his arms over his chest, as implacable as a palace guard.

“I realize your rudeness is deeply ingrained, but I really will not tolerate interruptions,” she snapped. “You seem to be overly fond of the roles you’ve cast us in. That is all well and good in front of Hobson, but I am most certainly not your assistant and I have no reservations about reminding you of that fact.”

“I am well aware you’re not my assistant. Any assistant I hired would have enough sense to know that she couldn’t drag half of Wannamaker’s along.”

She continued as if he hadn’t said a thing. If he could interrupt, she could ignore. “I have compromised in this instance already. I will consider you, in light of your experience in such matters, an equal partner despite it being
my
money and
my
invitation. You simply must listen when I say one bag is simply and utterly insufficient for my needs.”

“Then change your needs.”

“Oh, come now. You cannot convince me that you would ever undertake an adventure with inadequate supplies. I have brought only the necessities, I assure you.”

He flicked a glance toward the trunk she had brought in the previous night and the two packs stacked neatly on top of it. “It is as foolish to be weighed down with frivolities as it is to be undersupplied, and we are hardly entering the Sahara tomorrow. If the time comes that we need to buy more, so be it. We can choose specifically for the environment and terrain we encounter.”

“Why buy again what we might already have?”

“Kate.” He sauntered toward her, deliberate steps, as though they had all the time in the world. She would not shrink, darn it, would not step back, even though he stood altogether too close.

He pointed at her then himself before he held up two fingers. “Two people,” he said, slowly and clearly. “One horse. Just how many bags do you think we can bring along?”

“You do not need to address me as if I were mentally deficient.”

He grinned widely and let the implication rest.

“We’ll get another horse,” she suggested. “One can’t carry us both for long in any case. Perhaps even a wagon.”

“Can you afford that?”

She considered her small hoard, pondering all the myriad of expenses likely to arise along the way. Certainly Count Nobile and the baron would not be constrained by their budget.

Ridiculously, horrifyingly, she felt the burn of tears and the thought of abandoning all her trunks.

They were only
things.
But she’d lost so many things already.

“Perhaps,” she said, carefully keeping her eyes turned away from him.

“All right,” he ground out. But just as she thought he might be giving in, he stomped over to her trunk and yanked open the lid. “Let’s see what you consider so essential that you’ll jeopardize the whole damn venture for it, all right?”

“Now wait a minute!” She scurried over, half offended, half grateful. He was ever so much easier to deal with when he was acting the simple, block-headed male. And she functioned much better angry than sad. “That’s private!”

“Private.” He tossed her one quick, heated glance that implied so many things she could only be grateful it lasted a bare second. Any longer would have had her knees giving out beneath her. “Privacy is going to be darn hard to come by when we’re traveling, Kate, and you’d best get used to that right now.”

Oh, now there was something to think about. Too much to think about, guaranteed to disturb her sleep even more than whatever little creatures had lurked in that nasty pile of hay.

He reached into the trunk, grabbed a purple silken bag, and held it aloft like a gladiator displaying his opponent’s head. Glass clinked.

“Would you be careful!”

“Why?” He lowered it and tugged open the gold cord. “What is this stuff?” He spilled a handful out into his palm, tiny glass pots that glittered like gems. He poked at them suspiciously. “There must be dozens.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There are no more than fifteen or sixteen.”
In this particular bag
.

He lifted one to his nose and sniffed as if he suspected ammonia. His brows went up and he inhaled more deeply this time. “No wonder you always smell so good.”

She tried very hard to ignore his comment, pushing it back behind more pressing concerns. But it was there just the same, a warm, slow glow—
he noticed my scent and he liked it
.

“And the rest?” He peered into the depths of the bag.

She sighed, crossed over to him, and began to lecture like a reluctant teacher addressing a hopeless pupil. “That one, there, that’s eye cream.” She nudged a silver-washed pot. “That’s excellent in a dry climate for your elbows and your heels. And that one, there, that’s simply a colored powder.”

“This one?” He prodded a midnight lacquered one with his thumb.

“Eye cream.”

“Thought the other one was eye cream.”

“That’s for daytime use. This one’s for night.”

“Dear Lord, Kate, it’s more complicated than ‘change futures.’” He dumped the whole mess back into the bag. “What good is any of it?”

“What do you mean, what good is any of it?” she asked, hands on her hips, thoroughly offended

“Don’t look at me like that, Kate. You cannot for one instant believe I implied you were anything less than the loveliest creature I’ve ever seen.”

She’d received thousands of compliments in her day. Maybe more, trussed up in pretty words and poetry worthy of the bard. None had ever left her open-mouthed, unable to summon a polite reply.

“I simply meant that, well, there is such a thing as gilding a lily. And truly, who exactly are you trying to impress? Nobody knows who you really are. That leaves only me.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” she said darkly. “But a woman never knows…”

He shook his head. “You can’t possibly need
all
of them.”

She didn’t even bother to try and charm him into it, merely pressed her lips together in a mutinous line. After a moment, he shrugged and let the bag drop, leaving her to dive for it, snagging the cord the instant before it hit ground.

She straightened, ready for battle, to find him already head down, burrowing in the trunk again.

“Shawls.” He came up bearing four, beautifully wrapped in thin, crinkly paper, the top two peaking out—gossamer silk, the color of fine pearls; and the other, fuzzy blue wool that nearly matched her eyes. “All right, then. Why four?”

“Unpredictable weather?” she suggested helpfully.

He snorted and tossed them away.

Things flew from her trunk faster than she could protest, catalogued and dismissed in an instant. Four pairs of fine leather gloves, beautiful spangled handbags, slippers worked with silver threads.

“Stop!”

He paid her no mind but just unearthed a hatbox wrapped in lavender-flowered paper.

“Wait!”

He ripped off the cover. Violet feathers sprang free, a froth of ostrich feathers as thick as a hedge. “Good God, Kate, just how many birds were sacrificed for this monstrosity?”

“It was their honor to serve,” she snapped at him.

He snorted and threw it over his shoulder, the hat flying out of its box, feathers fluttering behind like a tail. She dashed for it too late and watched mournfully as the hat, acclaimed last spring as the most fashionable ever created by Philadelphia’s best milliner, flopped to the ground like a slaughtered pheasant.

She whirled on Jim, ready for battle, to find him standing, stock still, big rough hands holding a fistful of gauzy, ice blue silk.

He pinched a corner between his forefinger and thumb, as delicately as if it were a glass snowflake. He released his other fist and the entire garment spilled out, a slide of filmy silk and fine lace. She felt her cheeks heat. It was as wanton a thing as Kate owned, created by a French dressmaker the last time she’d replenished her wardrobe but never worn. As if she’d wear such a thing to bed with the doctor! The thought had been absurd, but she’d been unable to explain when the couturier had pressed the negligee on her.

She should have gotten rid of it a long time ago. It meant nothing to her, was utterly useless to anyone but a bride bent on encouragement or a courtesan intent on conquest. Yet it was so pretty. The one time she’d tried it on, the silk had whispered over her skin like a fantasy, then she burrowed it away in her drawer, one more wicked secret to add to the only other one she owned.

And now the other one stood right in front of her.

The fabric was thin as smoke. Kate could see the outline of Jim’s hand behind the fabric nearly as clearly as if there were no cloth at all. She saw him brush one hand down the length of it, slowly as if he savored each inch, as if it were a woman’s skin he touched instead of merely fabric meant to enhance it. He swallowed hard.

Then he looked up and met her gaze. He flushed, cheeks going bright as a schoolboy caught lurking around the girls’ privy, his fist wadding up the fabric as if to hide how carefully he’d held it before.