“Did your gunslinger tell you that?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But isn’t it true that my father sent you on the rescue mission in the hopes that I’d fall in love with you? My father badly wants me to marry, stay home and have babies.”
He smiled at her, snapping the reins to make the horse go faster. “It started out that way. I think I was to the point that I would have married a three-headed ostrich if I thought I could have a chance at getting my self-respect back. But the truth is, Chris, it’s come to mean more to me. You’re the most courageous woman I’ve ever met. You’re the most…most interesting woman I’ve ever met. If we lived together for ninety years, I don’t think I’d get bored with you.”
Chris had to laugh. “I think that may be one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received.”
“And now that that strutting criminal is out of the way, I think I’ll have a chance. I’ll never understand why you ladies fall for that type.”
As Chris watched, he shrugged. Was Tynan just a type? she wondered. Was that all he was and nothing more? He had seemed so special, so unique. Maybe she’d been blinded by his extraordinary exterior beauty. A horse pounding along the road beside them made her heart nearly skip a beat, but it was just a cowboy. She relaxed against the back of the seat—relaxed as much as she could in the springless carriage. “You have my permission to try, Mr. Prescott,” she said. “You may try.”
Two hours later, they arrived at the Hamilton house.
“Now remember that you are Diana Eskridge, a meek, mild-mannered woman and not the notorious Nola Dallas. If you step out of place, I may have to reprimand you.”
Chris, with eyes wide, looked up at him and started to speak, but the front door was opened by a fat, aproned woman and Chris put her head down. She’d chosen clothes she thought Diana would wear, simple little calicos, all insipid colors, all hint of stylishness gone. They were the clothes of a woman who’d allow her husband to make her life miserable.
“You must be the Eskridges,” the heavy woman with the broad face said. “We’ve been expecting you for days. Was beginnin’ to worry about you. Just set those bags down and I’ll get Mr. Owen.” She went straight ahead, up some stairs. “By the way, I’m Unity,” she called over her shoulder.
Chris stepped farther into the room. They were standing in an entryway, with a music room to the right, a parlor to the left, and to the right, farther down the hall a dining room. She looked up as a man came down the stairs. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a small mustache over full lips. The last thing in the world that he looked like was anyone’s idea of a villain. He was smiling in such a pleasant way that Chris wanted to tell him the truth of who she was.
“You must be Diana,” he said and he had a deep voice that instantly made a person relax. “We meet at last.”
She offered him her hand. “Yes, finally,” she murmured. “May I introduce my husband, Whitman? We can’t thank you enough for inviting us to your lovely home.”
He smiled at both of them with genuine warmth. “Think nothing of it. I’ll be glad for the company and Unity will be pleased to have someone to fuss over. Now, you must be tired. Let me take you to your room. We’ll eat in about an hour and until then I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me as I have mountains of paperwork to do. Quite unexpectedly, I have a buyer coming in from the East day after tomorrow and I have to be ready for him. Make yourself at home. There’s a garden in back that you might like. Here we are.” He opened the door to a large, spacious room with a big, double, four-postered bed, a closet and a little bay-window seat in the corner. Chris was grateful to see a fainting couch along one wall. Ash followed her eyes and winked at her, making her face turn pink.
“This is more than adequate,” Ash said. “Thank you very much.”
“If you need anything, just let out a holler. We’re not formal here. Unity is usually in the kitchen below or sometimes you can find me upstairs. I have a billiards table up there and a complete bar. One of my great luxuries in life. I’ll see you in the dining room at twelve-thirty.” He closed the door behind him and was gone.
Asher sat on the bed, bouncing a bit to test the springs. “I wouldn’t want this to squeak. More marriages are ruined by loud mattresses than any other—”
“He didn’t say a word about Lionel,” Chris said, cutting Ash off. “Do you think he’s here? You don’t think he’s already done something to him, do you?”
“Buried him in the rosebushes? Owen doesn’t look like a man who’d do anyone a bad turn. I never met anyone who welcomed his destitute relatives with such open arms before. How about a nap before dinner?”
“I sincerely hope that you aren’t going to persist in talking of the…the intimacies of married coupl
es. I think I’ll see this garden Owen mentioned. An eleven-year-old boy might be there playing.”
Chris went down the stairs to the kitchen. Unity wasn’t in the room but the smells of the food cooking were delicious. She felt as if it had been years since she’d had a decent meal.
The garden outside was beautiful, full of azaleas, wildflowers from the mountains, bulb plants. It was obviously the great love of someone and she guessed it was Owen Hamilton. There was a curved stone bench under a big Douglas fir and she sat on it, leaning back against the tree and closing her eyes. At the moment she’d never been so homesick in her life. Her mother used to have a garden like this but since she’d died, her father had not taken care of it. Now, when she visited, she almost cried to see the weeds overtaking it. “You should stay home and see to it yourself,” her father kept saying to her.
“You will not be allowed to sit there. That is my bench.”
Chris opened her eyes to see a boy standing in front of her. He looked a little like Owen except where Owen’s face was pleasant, this boy’s was scowling.
“You must be Lionel,” she said, smiling. “I’m—”
“I know who you are. You’re the poor relatives who’ve come to live off me. Now get up and go away.”
Chris just sat there looking at him.
Lionel’s face began to turn red. “I told you to get up. That is my seat. This is my garden. This is my house. Do I have to call my uncle to get rid of you?”
“Why, yes, I do believe you’ll have to do just that,” she said, wondering what Owen would do if he were summoned away from his paperwork to tell a guest to give her seat to a rude little boy.