He was standing in front of a tall window watching the people outside, an unlit cigar in his mouth. He didn’t look around when she entered.
“I’m very sorry about the mistake at the altar,” she began. “I’m sure it was just a flaw in my planning.”
“You didn’t want to marry Westfield?”
“No! It was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”
He took a step toward his desk. “I gave up somethin’ today because I couldn’t bear the idea of humiliatin’ you.” He gave her a cold look. “I never could abide a liar.” He tossed a piece of paper at her.
Houston bent to pick it up. It was a note, laboriously hand–lettered, that said, I’ll be wearing red roses in my hair today. The name of Houston Chandler was at the bottom.
“Damn you, Lady Chandler! I played fair by you, but you—.” He turned away from her. “Keep the money. Keep the house. You worked for it hard enough. And you won’t have me to put up with. Maybe you can get Westfield to take that virginity that you’re so protective of.” He started toward the door.
“Kane,” she called after him, but he was gone.
Heavily, she sat down on one of the oak chairs in the room.
A few minutes later, Blair came into the room. “I guess we should get out there and cut the cake,” she said hesitantly. “You and Taggert—”
All Houston’s rage came to the surface and she came out of the chair toward her sister with anger in her eyes, “You can’t even call him by his name, can you?” she said furiously. “You think he has no feelings; you’ve dismissed him and therefore you think you have a right to do whatever you want to him.”
Blair took a step backward “Houston, what I did, I did for you. I want to see you happy.”
Houston clenched her fists at her sides and moved closer to Blair, prepared to do battle. “Happy? How can I be happy when I don’t even know where my husband is? Thanks to you, I may never know the meaning of happiness.”
“Me? What have I done except try everything in my power to help you? I tried to help you come to your senses and see that you didn’t have to marry that man for his money. Kane Taggert—.”
“You really don’t know, do you?” Houston interrupted. “You have humiliated a proud, sensitive man in front of hundreds of people, and you aren’t even aware of what you’ve done.”
“I assume you’re talking about what happened at the altar? I did it for you, Houston. I know you love Leander and I was willing to take Taggert just to make you happy. I’m so sorry about what I’ve done to you. I never meant to make you so unhappy. I know I’ve ruined your life, but I did try to repair what I’d done.”
“Me, me, me. That’s all you can say. You’ve ruined my life and all you can talk about is yourself. You know I love Leander. You know what an awful man Kane is. For the last week or so, you’ve spent every waking moment with Leander, and the way you talk about him is as if he were a god. Every other word you say is, ‘Leander.’ I think you did mean well this morning: you wanted to give me the best man.”
Houston leaned forward. “Leander may set your body on fire, but he never did anything for me. If you hadn’t been so involved with yourself lately, and could think that I do have some brains of my own, you’d have seen that I’ve fallen in love with a good, kind, thoughtful man—admittedly he’s a little rough around the edges, but then, haven’t you always complained that my edges are a little too smooth?”
Blair sat down, and the look of astonishment on her face was almost comical. “You love him? Taggert? You love Kane Taggert? But I don’t understand. You’ve always loved Leander. For as long as I can remember, you’ve loved him.”
Houston began to calm down as she realized that what Blair had done, she’d done out of love for her sister, out of wanting Houston to have the best. “True, I decided I wanted him when I was six years old. I think it became a goal to me, like climbing a mountain. I should have set my sights on Mt. Rainier. At least, once I’d climbed it, it would have been done. I never knew what I was going to do with Leander after we were married.”
“But you do know what you’ll do with Taggert?”
Houston couldn’t help smiling. “Oh, yes. I very much know what I’m going to do with him. I am going to make a home for him, a place where he’ll be safe, a place where I’ll be safe, where I can do whatever I want.”
To Houston’s amazement Blair rose from her chair with a look of fury on her face. “I guess you couldn’t have bothered to take two minutes to tell me this, could you? I have been through Hades in the last weeks. I have worried about you, spent whole days crying about what I’ve done to my sister, and here you, tell me that you’re in love with this King Midas.”
“Don’t you say anything against him!” Houston shouted, then managed to calm herself. “He’s the kindest, gentlest man and very generous. And I happen to love him very much.”
“And I have been through agony because I was worried about you. You should have told me!”
Houston took a moment to answer. Maybe she had been aware of Blair’s agony of the last few weeks, but part of her was too angry to care. Maybe she’d wanted her sister to suffer. “I guess I was so jealous of your love match that I didn’t want to think about you,” she said softly.
“Love match?!” Blair yelled. “I think I’m Leander’s Mt. Rainier. I can’t deny that he does things to me physically, but that’s all he wants from me. We’ve spent days together in the operating room, but I feel there’s a part of Leander I don’t know. He doesn’t really let me get close to him. I know so little about him. He decided he wanted me, so he went after me, using every method he could to get me.”
“But I see the way you look at him. I never felt inclined to look at him like that.”
“That’s because you never saw him in an operating room. If you’d seen him in there, you would have—.”
“Fainted, most likely,” Houston said. “Blair, I am sorry that I didn’t talk to you. I probably knew that you were in agony, but what happened hurt. I had been engaged to Leander for, it seemed to me, most of my life, yet you walked in and took him in just one night. And Lee was always calling me his ice princess, and I was so worried about being a cold woman.”