Miss Phipps and the Cattle Baron (6 page)

And those were the thoughts she took with her
when she curled up on her mattress pad later that night... And they
were there the next morning when the first light of dawn fell on
her eyelids. Before long, she found herself considering the
contents of her picnic basket. A basket that would be filled with
delicacies that included pasties, and meat pies, and custard tarts,
and other British delicacies intended to attract the notice of a
certain British lord.

CHAPTER THREE

'The hardest thing to govern is the
heart.'

—
from Elizabeth
1

Priscilla stared at herself in the mirror,
scarcely believing what she saw. The women had transformed her into
someone she barely recognized. Someone she actually
liked
.
Abigail and Libby had all but covered her freckles using a mixture
of bases and powders that they prepared. Then they focused on her
eyes, plucking her blond brows and darkening them with pencil,
brushing green eye shadow onto her eyelids, dusting her blond
lashes with oxide. For a touch of color on her face, they applied a
trace of rouge to her cheeks and a reddener to her lips. When her
face was done, Edith and Mary Kate took over, sweeping her hair up
on top of her head and catching it with tortoiseshell combs, then
pulling out ringlets to frame her face and tickle the back of her
neck. In the place of a hat, they tucked silk flowers into the
upsweep of her hair.

Although she'd originally planned on wearing
a simple tailormade, the women were adamant that she wear a dress
belonging to Libby, and she reluctantly agreed. It was a Surah silk
in alternate stripes of glossy lime and dull-surfaced olive green,
with a high ruffled collar, rows of tiny tucks running down the
front of the bodice, and great bouffant sleeves that drew together
at the elbows and hugged her forearms. Below the wasp waist, the
skirt gathered at the small of her back and rose over one of the
new braided wire bustles. And below the sharp point of the bodice,
it flared over her hips and tapered in at the ankles, giving her
figure the sought after hour-glass look. She wasn't sure how she
was going to sit on the ground on a blanket during the picnic, but
she'd worry about that when the time came. A lime silk parasol
trimmed in olive green topped off her outfit. Opening it and
twirling it against her shoulder, she turned around slowly in front
of the full-length mirror. For the first time in her life, she felt
pretty.

Maybe someone
would
bid on her basket.
She'd packed it with pastry sandwiches and small pigeon pies, and
custard tarts, and plum pudding with lemon sponge, and cucumbers
and tomatoes and an array of cheeses. Lastly, she included a small
loaf of freshly-baked bread, sweet cream butter, and a baked tongue
for slicing. She tucked in a bottle of wine and two wine goblets.
She was sorry she had to purchase everything already prepared from
stores, but the kitchen in her building was not yet serviceable.
She hoped to rectify that soon, but getting the first issue of
The Town Tattler
out took priority.

Picnic baskets loaded into the back of the
buckboard, Priscilla and the women set out for St. Marks Episcopal
church and the picnic social that would follow the service.
Priscilla couldn't help wondering what Lord Adam Whittington's
reaction would be on seeing her fixed up as she was. If he noticed
her at all, that is.

***

Adam gazed at Priscilla, dumbfounded. When
she'd first arrived at the social he'd wondered who she was. But on
closer inspection, he realized it was the homely spinster he'd been
unable to shake from his mind. Not only did her dress accentuate
her very shapely figure, but her red hair gleamed like spun copper,
the heat of day brought high color to her cheeks, and her eyes seem
to dominate her face. Even at a distance he could see that they
looked green, obviously taking on the hues of her green dress.

Standing in a circle of women while talking
with great enthusiasm, she seemed to have captured the full
attention of the wives of his opponents in Cheyenne's upcoming
mayoral race, as well as the wife of Wyoming's territorial
governor. Whatever she was telling the women, they were listening
with rapt attention.

He suspected there was far more to Miss
Priscilla Phipps than he'd initially thought. She appeared to be
elucidating to the women in the circle around her something of
great interest to them, and he was curious to know what it was. He
also had a business offer to make to her. He'd been mulling it over
for days, and it seemed the answer to at least one of his problems.
The other problem would take a woman in his bed to solve, and Miss
Phipps was not yet ready to fill that role. But she would be
eventually, he vowed.

Picking up the blanket roll he'd brought as a
ground cover, he tucked it under his arm and joined the throng of
men sauntering over to where the picnic baskets were set for
viewing, and prepared to make his bid. He'd have Miss Phipps'
company for the afternoon, along with her basket of tempting
delicacies, whatever it cost. But already he saw several men
gathered around her basket and knew the bid was rising.

Thirty minutes later, Adam went to collect
Priscilla and her picnic basket. He had not expected to bid against
two other men. And the price of the basket turned out to be
considerably higher than he'd anticipated. But she was his for the
afternoon, and he intended to take full advantage of it. He had his
business offer to make her, along with a curiosity as to what she'd
been telling the women that had held them captive. He also intended
to kiss her before the day was done. He had not seen her since he'd
helped her unpack her printing press, but from the look on her
face, she was shocked with the bid her basket brought, or maybe
because he was the one to aggressively go after it and prevail.

He walked up to where she stood beside her
basket and said, "Miss Phipps, I believe you will be joining me for
the afternoon."

Her mouth darted into a smile. "You have put
up quite a bit of money, Lord Whittington," she said. "I hope what
I have put together in my picnic basket will not be a
disappointment."

He shoved the blanket roll tighter into his
armpit, picked up the picnic basket and offered his other arm for
her to take. "I was not bidding on what is in your basket, " he
said, as she slid her hand into the crook of his arm, "I was
bidding on your company. And I propose we dispense with the
formalities and you call me Adam, and I'd like very much to call
you Priscilla." Her face flushed, and moisture brightened her eyes.
He looked at her, curious. "I hope that intriguing response means
you're in agreement with me," he said, escorting her around the
side of the church, away from the gathering.

She quickened her pace to keep up with him,
the tapered gown causing her steps to be short and swift.
"Intriguing response?" she asked, clearly befuddled.

"Your eyes," he said, looking down at her as
she walked beside him. "They are bright with tears, which I hope
are tears of joy, not dread."

She blinked several times. "They are neither,
Lord... Adam," she said. "They are reacting to the... dust in the
air. It stings my eyes and makes them water."

Adam glanced around. "The day seems clear.
And I would like to think your tears are tears of enthusiasm." He
stopped at a secluded spot in the shade of a giant cottonwood tree
and set the picnic basket down. "Shall we have our picnic
here?"

Priscilla continued to hold onto his arm as
she looked around, brows gathered in a worried frown, and said, "We
are out of view of the others."

Adam smiled. "That was precisely my
intent."

She looked at him in alarm. "Why?"

He patted her hand. "Because I'd like to
spend time alone with you and not have curious eyes on us. It
appears you have gotten the notice of Cheyenne's first ladies—the
mayor's wife and the wife of our territorial governor—as well as
the wives of two of the men who will be running against me in the
upcoming election for mayor. If we were to sit in plain view of
them, they'd all be watching us closely, and the women would be
only too eager to cast doubt on my character, and yours, by
starting tongues wagging."

"Not unless we gave their tongues something
to wag about," Priscilla said. "I don't believe that was your
intention when you bid on my basket here today, was it?" Her face
flushed, and she looked up at him in anticipation.

"But that is the problem," Adam said. He
reached out and touched her face. "I have an almost irresistible
urge to kiss you soundly, because that thought is also on your mind
at the moment. Am I right?"

Priscilla's flush deepened, and her eyelids
fluttered like hummingbird's wings. "No, you are not right," she
said. But her voice wavered with uncertainty, and the tip of her
tongue came out to trace her lips, leaving them moist and
inviting.

"Then I'll hold that thought until I
am
right," Adam said. He unrolled the blanket and fluttered
it across the ground and set the picnic basket on top of it. "I
should have brought along folding chairs," he said, "but that
escaped me. There's a nice covering of grass beneath the blanket
though, so you should not be too uncomfortable."

Priscilla looked down at the blanket, a
perplexed frown on her brow, and Adam realized she was trying to
figure out how she was going to sit down gracefully in the
close-fitting dress. Amused, he waited and watched to see how she'd
solve the dilemma.

For a few moments she stood staring at the
blanket, then she closed her parasol, braced the tip of it on the
ground, gave a little wiggle, and like a snake recoiling into the
snake charmer's basket, lowered herself to the blanket onto one hip
and tucked her small booted feet beneath her. Her nicely rounded
bottom clad in varying shades of green silk captured his attention,
and when she raised her head, it was not his eyes that she focused
on, and he knew at once she'd noticed his
problem
. But how
could she not, with the bulge in his britches at eye level to her,
and not more than a couple of feet away. She looked up quickly,
meeting his gaze, and her face was crimson.

He chucked her under the chin. "Food always
takes a man's mind off other things," he said, lowering himself to
the blanket, "and I saw some very tempting morsels in your
basket."

But not as tempting as the two morsels
pressing against her bodice with the rise and fall of her chest.
And at the moment, his craving for those two full, round morsels
dwarfed his craving for food. His mere mention of kissing her made
her breath quicken. He could only imagine how she'd react while
laying naked on his bed as he introduced her to the finer art of
making love. He'd take as much time as necessary to familiarize her
with her body's response to a man's caresses. And by the time he
acquainted her with the part of him that was primed and ready,
she'd be welcoming him with a passion he was certain she did not
know existed.

Priscilla lifted the lid from the basket.
"Not knowing who would be bidding on my basket, I tried to include
a wide assortment of foods," she said. "If I had known you intended
to bid, I would have tried to accommodate your wishes. As it is,
you'll have to be satisfied with ordinary fare, as that was all I
could find in Cheyenne. It will be some time before the second
floor of my building will be converted into living quarters, which
makes it inconvenient when it comes to preparing any but the most
basic meals. But the women will be moving into the boarding house
next week, so I'll only have myself to worry about." She reached
into the basket and began setting covered bowls on the blanket.

"Maybe I could offer you a solution," Adam
said, eyeing a platter of pigeon pies.

Priscilla looked at him, curious. "I can't
imagine what you might offer, short of sending around a cook with
meals, three times a day." She lifted the platter, and he took a
pie.

"What I have to offer is—" he pinched off a
piece of pigeon pie and slipped it between her parted lips. To his
surprise, her mouth closed snugly around his finger, which he
slowly withdrew, heightening the effect below his waist...

"As you were saying, Adam..." she said, when
the silence stretched.

Adam dusted a crumb from her lips. "I'm
offering you a bedroom suite in my house on 17th Street, and I'd
pay you to live there. My mother recently arrived from England, and
because I spend much of my time at the ranch, she'd enjoy the
company." True, but not the reason he wanted Priscilla there. He
broke off another piece of pie, and as he brought it to her mouth,
her lips parted like a baby bird. "Because my mother's aging," he
continued, "she occupies the suite on the ground floor. You'd have
your own suite on the second floor. It's a comfortable suite with a
writing room and a well-appointed bathroom equipped with a large
bathtub. You'd have free run of the house, and my cook and staff
would provide meals for you and my mother."

Priscilla looked at him skeptically. "Then
what you're asking is for me to be a companion to your mother. Are
you trying to undermine my plans for my paper?"

"No," Adam assured her. "My mother does not
need a companion, but she would enjoy your company, I'm certain.
It's my children who I'm concerned about. I want to move them from
the ranch into the house, but I don't expect my mother to monitor
them, so I thought you could do that in the evening, especially my
eldest daughter, Trudy. She's sixteen and fancies herself in love
with one of my ranch hands, and I want to sever that tie. Moving
her into the house would take care of that problem. You wouldn't be
expected to do anything but be there in the evening. The children
have their own rooms, and their tutor, Mr. Avery, would live above
the carriage house and be there during the day to see to the
children's schooling. You might even give Trudy some advice on
staying chaste until marriage. She's a headstrong girl with a
passionate nature. Not a good combination."