Wishes (8 page)

Terel had learned how to deal with him. When she wanted new clothes she went to a store and charged them. Her father’s pride kept him from refusing to pay the bills.

But Nellie knew nothing about their father. All Charles had to do was say he couldn’t afford more servants and Nellie doubled her efforts to help make ends meet.

So what would happen if Nellie left, Terel thought. What if she went away and left Terel and Charles alone? Terel knew that Charles would make her life hell. He’d no doubt expect Terel to spend her days cooking and trying to get the lazy Anna to do something. If Terel did get out of doing the work, it would only be through waging enough battles to equal a war. Her father could be pleasant; cold, perhaps, but all right if his basic needs were taken care of and he didn’t have to spend too much money. But he could be a tyrant over simple matters such as his dinner being late. Terel couldn’t imagine what his temper would be like if she had to prepare his dinner. She didn’t know the first thing about cooking.

“Nellie cannot leave before I do,” Terel whispered. Under no circumstances was she going to allow Nellie to marry and leave Terel alone to take care of their father. Terel’s jaw clamped shut. If nothing else, Nellie couldn’t marry someone like Mr. Montgomery. Today was just an example of what would be said if fat, boring Nellie caught a man like that. She could hear Charlene now. “Your husband is nice, but he’s not as rich or as handsome as Nellie’s husband. Who would have thought that Nellie would get the catch of the season, all while wearing such ugly dresses? Terel, maybe you should have learned to cook.”

No, Terel thought, she couldn’t bear the ridicule—and she intended to see that there was no reason for her to bear it.

At six o’clock her father walked through the door, just as Terel knew he would, and she smiled, because Nellie still hadn’t returned. She pulled out her handkerchief, sniffed a few times, and went running to her father.

“Oh, Papa,” Terel wailed, throwing her arms about his neck, “I’m so glad you’re home. I’m so very, very frightened.”

With distaste, Charles pulled Terel’s arms from around his neck. He did not believe in physical displays of affection. “What has frightened you?”

Terel put her handkerchief to her face. “Nellie isn’t home.”

“Nellie isn’t home?” Charles asked in the same tone he might use to say, The earth stopped turning? “Where is she?”

“I’m afraid to tell you. Oh, Papa, I hope our good name can overcome the scandal.”

“Scandal? What is this?” He half pushed Terel into the dusty parlor. “Now tell me everything. Hold nothing back.”

Terel, while giving a good show of weeping, told him all she knew and then some. “They were embracing on top of the wall! And everyone in town saw them. I wouldn’t be surprised if people canceled their contracts with you after this. Nellie cares nothing about us, only about herself. There is no dinner prepared, and upstairs is a mess.”

Charles’s eyes widened, then he left the room to go upstairs. It was some minutes before he came down again. In spite of Terel’s theatrics, Charles understood the problem very well. He wasn’t concerned about Nellie’s scandalous behavior causing him a loss of business, for if that were possible, Terel’s behavior would have hurt his company years ago.

It was the unpolished shoes that caused him concern. Two years ago when Nellie had wanted to marry he had persuaded her not to. He’d known what his life would be like without Nellie. If Nellie left, he’d be alone to deal with Terel’s laziness, with her refusal to do anything that didn’t directly benefit herself.

When Charles had first met Jace Montgomery he’d known who he was. A year before someone had pointed him out as the son of the owner of Warbrooke Shipping. Charles had tried to get an introduction to him, but the man had left town before they could meet. A year later Charles had blessed his luck that, out of the blue, the man appeared and saved him from ruffians.

Immediately Charles had started planning. What a catch he’d be for a son-in-law! Jace would connect the Grayson family with Warbrooke Shipping. Charles imagined a vast land and sea company named Grayson-Warbrooke. So Charles had started talking about his beautiful daughter and had, after hours of talk, persuaded Jace to come to dinner.

Then everything had gone awry. Terel, as usual, hadn’t listened when Charles had told her how important Montgomery was, and so she’d turned the man over to Nellie. Heaven only knew why he was interested in Nellie, but he had been from the first.

He can have Terel, Charles thought, but not Nellie. Or at least he couldn’t have her until Terel was married and gone. Charles wasn’t going to be left alone with his spoiled younger daughter.

“Fool man!” Charles muttered. What in the world did he see in Nellie? Nellie was to Terel as an old plow horse to a sleek racing filly.

He stepped back into the parlor. “I will send men out to look for her,” he said to Terel. “I do not believe our family can stand this scandal. I will forbid her to see Montgomery again.” He gave Terel a piercing gaze. “Perhaps you could see that the man is introduced to Chandler society.”

“I will do my best,” Terel said solemnly. “You know, Papa, that I am always willing to help you.”

N
ellie had been eating for three days. She couldn’t seem to stop. She baked three pies and ate one of them. At the bakery she’d order four cakes and eat a whole one herself. She baked six dozen cookies and ate two dozen before they’d cooled. Every time she remembered the evening of the day she’d spent with Mr. Montgomery, she became ravenous.

The horror of that night—Terel crying, her father’s disappointment in her—had haunted her every minute of every day since then. For three days now she’d lived in fear of people canceling their freight contracts because of Nellie’s scandalous behavior. Her father had painted a bleak picture of the three of them being cast into the street with no food, having to survive a Colorado winter in the open because Nellie was too selfish to care about anyone but herself.

That Nellie’s behavior had been outrageous was verified by the many invitations that began arriving in her name.

“They believe you to be a woman of loose morals,” Charles had said, throwing the invitations into the fire.

Part of Nellie wanted to point out that Terel received invitations yet wasn’t considered a lewd woman. As though reading her thoughts, Terel had said that
she
hadn’t been seen by the entire town embracing a man.
She
hadn’t spent most of a night alone with a man in a park.

Nellie had tried to defend herself by pointing out that she’d been home by eight-thirty, but she’d burst into tears when her father asked if there was a chance she would bear the man’s bastard.

Terel had talked to Nellie about how a worldly man like Mr. Montgomery only wanted Nellie because she was so innocent and he could get anything he wanted from her. “Look at yourself, Nellie. Why else would he want you?” Terel had said. “Men like him take advantage of women like you, women who will stay out all night with them, and then they marry respectable women. If he had any respect for you, he wouldn’t have come to the back of the house and asked you to sneak away with him. A man who respects a woman treats her with respect.”

Neither her father nor Terel let up on Nellie. They talked and talked and talked. And Nellie ate and ate and ate.

She was sure they were right. She knew she had caused them great embarrassment, but sometimes, often late at night, she remembered the way Mr. Montgomery had looked at her. Nobody knew that he’d put his head in her lap, and Nellie was sure that if they did, they wouldn’t hold out any hope that she could be saved; but sometimes she remembered the feel of his hair on her fingertips. She remembered how he’d asked her about what she liked to do in life. She remembered the tears on his cheeks when he’d sung the hymn.

In all her memories she could think of nothing that made him seem like the devious seducer that Terel seemed to think he was. Her father said that he flirted with all the pretty women who chanced to come into the freight office. And Terel said that in church on Sunday Mr. Montgomery sat between Mae and Louisa. Charles had said it was better for Nellie not to go to church that day, that she shouldn’t be seen in public yet. He hoped her absence would help the gossip of her scandalous behavior die down. So on Sunday Nellie had remained home, and after Terel told her about Jace sitting with the other pretty, thin, younger women she’d eaten half a dozen cupcakes.

Now she was alone in the house, her father at his office, Terel at her dressmakers, and Anna sent off to the market. She was scouring pans from the previous night’s dinner.

“Hello.”

She turned to see him standing there, and the memories of that wonderful afternoon and evening together came back. She smiled at him before she remembered the last three days, then she frowned.

“You have to leave,” she said, and she turned back to the dishes.

Jace put his bouquet of flowers on the table, went to her, took her shoulders, and turned her around. “Nellie, what’s wrong? I haven’t seen you in days. I’ve been by every evening, but your father said you were indisposed. You aren’t ill, are you?”

No one had told her he’d come by. She moved away from him. “I am perfectly all right, and you have to leave. You cannot be alone with me. It isn’t proper.”

“Proper?” he asked, puzzled. If she hadn’t been ill, then maybe she hadn’t seen him because she didn’t want to. “Nellie, have I done something to offend you?” He straightened. “Maybe at choir practice I…” He trailed off.

She gave him a startled look. Did he think his tears had offended her? “Oh, no, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s…” She couldn’t tell him.

“What? What have I done wrong that you won’t see me?”

To Nellie’s disbelief, she burst into tears. She hid her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook with her weeping. Within moments Jace was there, his arm around her, and he was handing her a glass of brandy. “Drink this,” he ordered when she was seated.

“I can’t. I don’t—”

“Drink it!”

She obeyed him, choking on the liquid but getting all of it down.

“Now,” he said, taking the empty glass and sitting in front of her, “tell me what’s been going on.”

“We behaved scandalously,” she said, and with the brandy in her it didn’t seem like such an awful thing they had done.

Jace didn’t understand. Maybe their behavior, had been a little outrageous, but no one in Chandler seemed to have minded. In fact, everywhere he went people were curious about Nellie. It seemed that no one in town had even noticed her before.

He took her hands in his. “Was it our being alone? We could go out with other people if that bothers you.” It might help him keep his hands off her, too, he thought.

“The wall,” she said, sniffing.

“The wall?” He smiled. “You’re upset because I hugged you on the wall? You were about to fall.”

“I…I…” She couldn’t tell him more, couldn’t tell him of the possibility of people canceling contracts or say to him that he wasn’t respecting her. When he looked at her as he did now she couldn’t think clearly.

The sound of a footstep outside the kitchen door made her eyes widen in horror. “It’s Terel. You have to go.” There was panic in her voice.

“I’ll say hello.”

“No, no, no. Leave. You must leave.”

Jace didn’t know what the urgency was, but he had no intention of leaving. He slipped into the pantry just as Terel entered the kitchen. Leaning against the shelves, he had a clear view into the kitchen and could see Nellie and her sister fully. Up until now he’d had eyes only for Nellie, but now it struck him as odd that there was such a contrast between the two sisters. Terel was dressed in an expensive wool suit, her hair coiffed and cared-for, while Nellie was wearing a dress that seemed quite old.

“Y-you’re back early,” Nellie said, stammering.

“Yes.” Terel yanked off her kid gloves. “I couldn’t stay in town and listen to more of the scandal. No one can talk of anything but you and that man.”

Nellie’s eyes darted to the pantry. “I don’t think we should discuss this now. Maybe we should go into the parlor.”

“I do not want to go to the parlor.” Terel unpinned her hat. “I am famished. I couldn’t even have luncheon because all anyone wanted to speak to me about was you and how you’d behaved with that man. I really couldn’t bear it.”

“Terel, please, let’s go to the parlor. We can—”

“Look at the flowers! Nellie, why didn’t you tell me I had flowers? Who are they from? Johnny? Bob? Not Lawrence, possibly?” Terel picked up the bouquet and searched for the card, then opened it. “It says,” she read, “ ‘to the most beautiful woman in the world.’ How lovely. It
must
be Lawrence.” She closed the card and then saw that it said “To Nellie, with love from Jace.”

Terel had to read the card three times before she really understood. She flung the flowers to the floor. “He has been here, hasn’t he?” she cried. “He has been in this room. After all Father and I said to you, you continue with your licentious behavior. How could you, Nellie? How could you?”

“Terel, please,” Nellie pleaded. “Couldn’t we—”

“And brandy, too,” she said, holding up the empty glass. “This has gone too far. Wait until I tell Father. Nellie, I never knew you were stupid. Don’t you know that the people who love you know what’s best for you? Don’t you understand what he wants from a woman like you? He wants to get you drunk and—”

Terel’s back was to the pantry, but Nellie was facing it, and to her horror Jace stepped into the kitchen, ready to do battle with Terel. Nellie shook her head violently, then sprinted across the kitchen. Terel fumbled with her handkerchief while Nellie pushed Jace back into the pantry. Her body was in the kitchen, but her outstretched arm was hidden inside the pantry.

“—and have his way with you,” Terel finished.

At that Jace snorted.

“Are you laughing at me?” Terel asked in horror.

“No, of course not. I would never laugh at you. I—” Nellie couldn’t say any more because Jace had taken her hand from his chest and begun nibbling at her fingertips.

“You don’t know men like him, Nellie,” Terel was saying. “He is a…well, he’s a seducer of women.”

Jace was biting the inside of her wrist, and she could feel the tip of his tongue on her skin.

“Nellie! Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” she said dreamily.

“You cannot trust men like him, and Father was right when he forbade you to see him again.”

Jace paused in kissing Nellie’s hand for just a second when Terel said that, but he continued. Besides kissing Nellie, he wanted to hear what the lying bitch had to say.

“Father told you about his flirting, and I myself saw him at church. He merely wants as many women as he can get. I don’t know why he chose you as one of his…his conquests, but he has. Nellie, don’t you know that we care about you and want what’s best for you?”

Nellie could barely nod. Her sleeve had been pushed up to wash dishes, and now he was kissing the inside of her elbow.

“All the man wants from you is entry into Grayson Freight. He wants to be Father’s partner. He would have tried to seduce me, but he knew I know too much about men to fall for his scandalous ways.
I
would never have let him humiliate me in public as he did you. So, knowing he couldn’t get me, he went after you, and Nellie, you believed every word he said to you. Tell me, did he tell you you were beautiful?”

Nellie looked into the pantry at Jace. He looked up from her arm and nodded. “Yes,” Nellie whispered. “He told me I was beautiful.”

“There, you see. That proves he’s a liar.”

At that Jace dropped Nellie’s arm and started out of the pantry, but Nellie put her hand on his chest and gave him a pleading look while Terel turned around to get a glass out of a cabinet.

“Terel, why don’t you go upstairs and lie down? I’ll bring your luncheon on a tray.”

“Yes, perhaps that would be better. It has been a very trying day. You can’t imagine the gossip I’ve had to listen to about my own sister.”

Nellie started to pull away from Jace, but he wouldn’t let her, so she stood where she was and gave Terel a weak smile. Sighing, Terel left the room.

Immediately, Nellie turned to him. “Mr. Montgomery, you cannot—” she began, but she couldn’t say more because he pulled her into the pantry and into his arms.

He kissed her. At first Nellie was so shocked that she just stood there, her eyes open, his strong arms around her as he pulled her close to him.

“Nellie,” he whispered as he moved to kiss her neck, “don’t you understand that I’m not interested in your father’s company? It’s
you
I’m interested in.”

She barely heard him as his lips moved down her neck. His big hands were on her body, and Nellie could feel her knees growing weak. He moved back to her mouth, kissing her gently at first; then, as Nellie relaxed against him, his kiss deepened. The tip of his tongue touched hers. At first she started to draw away from him, but he held her close.

It was some minutes before Nellie began to truly react to his touching her. She had no idea how much longing and desire were pent up inside her. She was a loving woman who had had no outlet for her love. Her hands moved from her sides to encircle him and pull him closer, and her breath came harder and faster as he continued kissing her.

“Nellie,” he whispered, and he began to run his teeth and lips across her neck. She moved her arms up to bury her hands in his hair. She kissed his cheeks, his neck, running the tip of her tongue along his skin and feeling the whiskers. He smelled good; he felt good; he tasted good.

Within minutes Nellie could no longer see or think. She was all feeling, a great, huge, red mass of feeling.

“Nellie,” Jace said, trying to pull away from her but finding it very difficult, “we have to stop.” He lifted his head to look at her. Her face was flushed pink, her eyes closed, long, thick lashes against her soft cheek, and her lips were soft and full and parted invitingly.

“Nellie,” he said again, and this time the sound was a groan. “I can’t bear any more. We have to stop.” He kissed her once gently, then pulled away. “I think your family might be a little shocked if they found us making love on the floor of the pantry.”

Slowly Nellie opened her eyes and looked up at him. They were intimately pressed together, his leg between hers, and she remembered how wantonly she’d just behaved. “I…I’m sorry, Mr. Montgomery,” she mumbled, releasing him. “I didn’t mean…” She didn’t know what to say.