Willow: A Novel (No Series) (27 page)

“With Gideon, of course?”

“Quite alone, I’m afraid,” countered Willow, in a distracted tone. Daphne’s sidelong glance said clearly that Zachary wasn’t the only one overdoing things around here. “You see, Gideon has asked Daphne to accompany him.”

Zachary looked stunned, then hopeful. “I see,” he said softly.

“Willow Marshall!” warned Daphne, flushing to the roots of her raven hair.

Every inch the cavalier, Zachary bowed low, his handsome face a study in knightly humility. “As Gideon’s brother,” he said, “I can but offer to rectify this shameful situation in the only possible way. Will you do me the honor, Willow, of attending the dance as my guest?”

This was what Willow had planned on, hoped for.
Indeed, she had even considered approaching Zachary with the idea herself. Now, however, faced with the actual prospect of attending a public function on the arm of a man who was not her husband, she was nervous and more than a little reluctant. “Yes,” she said firmly, determined to see the daring enterprise through to the end, however rash it might seem now. “I’m staying at my father’s house.”

“I know,” said Zachary easily, touching the brim of his stylish hat. “I will call for you there at seven.”

“Seven,” confirmed Willow, her voice shaky.

Zachary kissed her hand, flung one triumphant look at the simmering Daphne, and turned to leave the dress shop.

The little bell jingled hard to mark his departure.

“Willow Marshall, you
are
a fool!” Daphne accused heatedly, turning on her friend with folded arms and angry lilac eyes. “Gideon will be livid when he finds out about this!”

“That is exactly what I want him to be,” said Willow, with a lofty bravado that was almost wholly feigned. “Livid.” Then she turned her attention to the dressmaker, who was very busy pretending not to have noticed the small drama that had just been played out in her cluttered little shop. “I’ll take this dress, please.”

“You don’t understand—about Gideon and Zachary, I mean,” Daphne persisted, practically atwitter with anxiety now. “Willow, they aren’t like most brothers . . .”

Miss Collins hummed to herself, clearly delighted to make the sale, oblivious to the charge of anger arching
between the two younger women, scurrying to fetch pins and a measuring tape.

Willow went into a curtained cubicle to change. Daphne, her face pale except for two splotches of bright crimson flowering on her cheekbones, accompanied her to help with buttons and other fastenings.

“Do you have any idea what you’re starting, Willow?” she demanded, in a rather feverish-sounding whisper. “I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that there is bad blood between those two. They’re more like enemies than brothers—their names might have been Cain and Abel, rather than Zachary and Gideon!”

Willow felt only the faintest flinch of alarm at Daphne’s words before discounting them completely. She was fond of Coy and Reilly, her half brothers, and she adored Steven.

How could brothers be enemies? After all, blood was thicker than water, wasn’t it?

“That’s silly,” Willow said, turning her back to step out of the dress.

“They despise each other,”
Daphne repeated. “If you go through with this, someone is surely going to be hurt—perhaps even killed!”

A memory sniggled into Willow’s mind; Gideon taking his gun belt down from its high shelf, the day he’d caught Vancel Tudd prowling near the pond.
You’d be surprised at what I’d gun a man down for, Zach
, he’d said.

Willow squared her shoulders, pulled her everyday dress back on over her head, and put aside her misgivings,
turning her back so Daphne would fasten the buttons. Gideon and Zachary were
brothers
, despite any minor differences they might have.

Willow couldn’t imagine that not mattering deeply to both of them.

“Do you think I should wear my hair up?” she asked, lifting the heavy tresses to survey the effect in the murky dressing room mirror. “Or should I have Maria curl it into ringlets?”

Daphne, whose flush of conviction had given way to pallor, only sighed and shook her head.

*   *   *

“What do you mean she’s already left for the dance?” barked Gideon Marshall, taking no note of the fear he was inspiring in poor, timid Hilda, who had made the hapless mistake of answering the door.

Daphne, standing on the stairway of Judge Gallagher’s house, worked up a brave smile. “Gideon, don’t plague my cousin so. She’s merely a guest in this house, as I am, and knows nothing of the intrigues that concern the rest of you.”

Gideon, basically a chivalrous sort, subsided with an audible sigh. Hilda saw her chance and scampered off toward the kitchen and the safety of Maria’s presence.

Daphne drew a deep breath and held on to the banister, in case the winds of Gideon’s anger should blow her away. “I tried to reason with Willow, Gideon,” she said quietly. “I really did. But she was angry about what happened last night and she wouldn’t listen to me.”

Color surged beneath Gideon’s deep tan. “What are
you trying to tell me, Daphne?” he demanded, turning his freshly brushed, round-brimmed hat in his hands.

“Willow went to the supper dance with Zachary,” confessed Daphne, in a rush of carefully enunciated words.

Now Gideon paled. His eyes narrowed. “What?” he whispered.

“Please don’t make me repeat it,” Daphne said, not knowing whether to approach him or keep her distance. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Gideon, but she sensed the strength of his emotions, knew that he wasn’t merely angry, he was afraid.

“Son of a bitch!” rasped Gideon, half under his breath.

Daphne decided to be firm, and she came down the stairs rapidly, careful of her long, silken skirts. “What did you expect, Gideon, after the way you behaved last night?”

“I behaved rather well last night,” he muttered, his tone bleak, his thoughts elsewhere.

Daphne remembered the rumpled bed she’d seen that morning and the flush in Willow’s cheeks, but refrained from comment. “You asked me to go to the supper dance with you, Gideon, just to spite Willow. Now, I’m afraid, she’s determined to spite you in return. You brought this on yourself.”

Gideon’s hand was already on the doorknob. “You didn’t warn her?”

“I told Willow that you and Zachary are different from most brothers, and that this would be a mistake. What
else
was I supposed to say, Gideon? That you suspect your brother of all manner of secret sins, things I only know as hearsay?”

Gideon’s aristocratically handsome face tightened for a moment, but then, with extraordinary self-control, he relaxed a little, even smiled.

“It appears that we have no choice, then, but to play by Willow’s rules,” he said. “Are you ready to leave?”

Daphne swallowed and nodded. With a gesture of one hand, she indicated her shawl, draped over one of the hooks on the coat tree there in the entryway.

Gideon brought it to her and set it gently over her shoulders.

Daphne looked up at him in trepidation and concern. “I hope you know,” she said, “that you will only make this situation worse if you pretend that you still care for me.”

“Pretend?” Gideon retorted smoothly, wearing his lawn-party smile. Daphne could almost smell freshly cut grass and hear the click of croquet balls. “I assure you that my attraction to you is not feigned, my dear. You are a very beautiful woman—not to mention a
good
one—and the man who eventually becomes your husband and fathers your children will be fortunate indeed.”

Daphne rolled her eyes and took his offered arm. “Gideon, Gideon,” she reprimanded, under her breath. “What will become of you?”

He smiled, but only faintly.

Together, they set out for the supper dance on foot, for the distance was short and the night was warm.

*   *   *

The reaction of the townspeople to Willow’s wine-colored dress and unexpected escort was notable. It was also, considering
all the times they’d slighted or ignored her, very satisfying.

Zachary drew his sister-in-law inordinately close for the first waltz of the evening. The dance hall was filled with noise and color and the enticing smells of the pies, cakes, and other delectable dishes brought by the local women. “They’re all talking about you,” he told Willow, in an intimate whisper.

“That’s nothing new,” she replied, drawing back from him a little way and looking around. “Do you see Daphne? She should be here by now.”

Zachary grinned. “No. And I don’t see Gideon, either. Perhaps they’ve worked out their differences and gone off to start anew.”

Willow flinched slightly, then recovered herself. Daphne had, after all, categorically denied having any romantic feelings for Gideon, and her fascination with Steven, during his brief stay at the ranch house after his grievous injury at the hands of Red Eagle, had been obvious. “Zachary,” she said directly, after yet another struggle with her conscience, “I must apologize. You see, the fact of the matter is that I’m using you.”

“I know that,” he answered smoothly, as they continued to dance.

She was stunned. Was she as transparent as that? “You know? And you aren’t angry?”

“Of course I’m not angry. I’ll stoop to any depths to spend time with you.”

If she’d had any doubts before, now Willow knew for sure that she had gone too far. Although he’d spoken in
a light tone, there had been a worrisome note to Zachary’s words.

“I love Gideon,” she reminded him. “I love him very, very much.”

Zachary didn’t miss a step. There was something in his eyes that made Willow feel out of her depth, even cornered. “Ah, but does Gideon love
you
, my dear? Will he do battle for you, or will he simply shrug and turn back to the fair Daphne? Or any one of the women he knows back home in San Francisco?”

Willow didn’t miss his subtle emphasis on the words
back home
—the message was clear. Gideon didn’t belong in the wild Montana Territory; he was a man of wealth and sophistication, used to the culture and the comforts of a major city.

She paused to collect her wits, then raised her chin a notch and countered, “What do you hope to gain by this, Zachary?”

“You’ve aroused my protective instincts, that’s all,” Zachary said easily. They were still dancing, and although Willow wanted to break away, she wasn’t about to make a scene.

The gossip was bad enough as it was.

“Gideon is a grown man,” Willow heard herself say, “quite capable of deciding where he wants to live, and he
did
buy a ranch right outside of town, after all. Furthermore, Daphne doesn’t have any romantic feelings toward him.”

Zachary arched one raven black brow. Still, the music went on. Still they danced.

“Gideon is extremely wealthy,” Zachary said. “He owns property all over the map. As for Daphne and her sentiments, are you
sure
she doesn’t care for my brother? The two of them have been a pair, in one way or another, since childhood.”

“Of course I’m sure,” whispered Willow, who, all of a sudden, was not sure at all. While she didn’t believe for one moment that Daphne had been lying about the state of her affection for Gideon, she supposed it was possible that her friend had spoken in anger, or from bitter disappointment over the dashing of her own hopes.

In Daphne’s place, loving a man the way Willow loved Gideon and then finding out that he’d been married to someone else all along would have left her devastated.

Zachary still wore a benign, satisfied smile. One that made Willow want to slap him.

“I don’t believe you
are
sure,” he said. “And Gideon is very persuasive with the ladies, as I’m sure you would agree. Isn’t it possible that my brother has been dallying with both of you?”

Willow remembered—nearly
relived
—making love with Gideon in the sun-spangled grass behind their house and blushed. There was no arguing with the fact that he was adept at getting his way. Even when she was wildly angry, as she had been only the night before, Gideon could get past her defenses with very little effort; he’d already demonstrated that more than once. It wasn’t so hard to imagine that he might be just as successful with Daphne.

“Don’t look now,” Zachary said smugly, “but they’re
here, Gideon and Daphne, I mean. Little wonder that they’re late.”

The implication in Zachary’s last words made Willow defy his warning and crane her neck to look. Daphne was a vision in pale blue silk, though her smile appeared a bit fixed, and Gideon stood tall and proud beside her, the last word in solicitous escorts. Seeing Willow, he nodded as though they had only a passing acquaintance and turned all his attention on Daphne.

“Thunderation,” muttered Willow, into Zachary’s fragrant neck.

At that point, Judge Gallagher brusquely cut in, waltzing his daughter well away from a surprised Zachary Marshall. “What the devil are you up to?” he demanded sharply. “And that dress. Did you borrow it from one of the dance-hall girls over at the Golden Feather Saloon?”

Willow worked up a faltering smile, relieved that her father had broken Zachary’s strange spell over her, and stung because Daphne and Gideon looked so right together. “What am I
up to
?” she echoed innocently, hoping Devlin would mistake the tremor in her voice for mischief, rather than heartbreak. “Why, Papa, I can’t imagine what you could possibly mean, saying such a thing—”

“Don’t you ‘Why, Papa’ me, you little imp,” Devlin broke in sternly. The set of his face was grim. “You’re trying to make Gideon jealous, aren’t you?”

Willow blushed. A lie would have been more prudent, but it was her private curse to blurt out the truth, whether the moment was opportune or not. “Yes.”

Devlin thrust out a sigh of exasperation and shook his
head. “That’s foolish,” he declared, though he did keep his voice low under the lively flow of the music. “Now he’ll feel obliged to return the favor.”

Willow couldn’t summon the spirit to argue the point. Between Zachary’s warning and the sight of Gideon and Daphne together, her bravado had deserted her. “What shall I do?”