Bonds of Matrimony (20 page)

           
Her
grandmother had had her own Colton Webb?
 
Chase could hardly believe it.
 
And yet, her urgency was convincing.
 
Yes, she knew what her granddaughter was doing.
 
She was right; she was no fool.
 
And yet, Chase could not imagine
denying herself the pleasure of Webb’s company…or his kisses.
 

           
She
nodded and took a sip of tea, more an effort to hide her thoughts.
 
She would have to think about what
she’d said.
 
She was not convinced
that America wasn’t freer than England.
 
But she wasn’t prepared to jeopardize Marcus’s business, either.
 
She decided she would have to find out
for herself.
 

***

           
In
some ways, it seemed like a lifetime since they had said goodbye to James in
Liverpool.
 
In other ways, it had
seemed like yesterday.
 
When the
train came to a stop in Slaughter, Texas, Chastity Fairfax could hardly believe
that the moment had already arrived.
 
They were home.
 
They had
been in America for a couple of days already, but for the first time, she felt
the excitement and the thrill.
 
This, after all, was
their
corner of America.
 

           
Marcus
was the first off the train, followed by his grandmother.
 
He held her elbow sturdily to assist
her descent to the platform.
 
Reese
and Chase climbed down after her, and Colton hopped down to help his
cousin.
 
Webb paused and looked
around himself with appreciation.
 
Chase
wasn’t sure how long he’d been away from home, but he certainly looked happy to
be back.
 
Elisabeth looked slightly
less happy.
 
She looked almost
disgusted.

           
The
train station was a small wooden building with some benches outside where
passengers could await their trains.
 
The station appeared to be in the town of Slaughter.
 
Chase paused to count the buildings in
town.
 
There were eight, including
the train station, four on either side of the road.

           
“Tom!”
Marcus shouted from beside his sister.
 
He waved to a man who was sitting on a bench beside the station.
 
He stood and strolled over to greet them,
not seeming to be in a big hurry.
 
He wasn’t very tall, hardly taller than Chase.
 
But his frame was solid and muscular.
 
He wore a hat low over his dark eyes,
and his trousers and shirt were covered in dust.
 
He looked as though he had had a harder journey than the
others had.

           
“Tom,
these are my sisters, Chastity and Rosalie.
 
And this is my grandmother, Evelyn.
 
Ladies, this is Tom Lawson, the foreman
on the ranch.”

           
“Ladies,”
he greeted.
 
His voice was deep and
appealing.
 
Chase wanted him to
talk some more so that she could enjoy the sound of him.
 
But he appeared to be a man of few
words.
 
Regardless, the one word he
spoke revealed a drawl very similar to that of Colton Webb.

           
He
must have spotted Webb behind them because he suddenly frowned and nodded in
that direction.

           
“Yes,”
Marcus answered the unspoken question.
 
“He’s been with us since I picked them up in New York.
 
He was on the ship with them.
 
That’s his cousin, Elisabeth.”

           
“Mr.
Webb was kind enough to travel all the way to England to ensure that his cousin
arrived safely in America,” Chase explained, suddenly feeling the need to
defend him.

           
Marcus
took offense.
 
“I would have gladly
come to England to escort you back if I’d had enough time.
 
But by the time I received
Grandmother’s letter, you were already on your way.
 
As it was, I barely met the ship on time.”

           
Chastity
put a hand on her brother’s arm and smiled.
 
“I didn’t mean it like that, Marcus.
 
I was just explaining about Elisabeth.”

           
He
looked over her shoulder at Webb and matched Tom’s frown.
 
She hadn’t made a decision about her
plans for Colton Webb, but she certainly didn’t like the animosity that her
brother and his partner felt for him.
 

           
“Lawson,”
Colton greeted Tom.
 
His tone was frigid,
and he stepped in front of his cousin protectively.
 
She peered around his shoulder and smiled shyly at my
brother’s foreman.

           
He
nodded politely and then turned his attention back to Marcus.
 
“The shaft of the wagon broke.
 
We’ll have to take the horses instead.”

           
Marcus
cursed softly.
 
“Can it be
repaired?”

           
“It
doesn’t look like it,” Tom answered.

           
Chase
found herself again imagining riding with Webb, seated securely between his
thighs with his arms around her and his breath on her ear.

“Cochrane,” a soft drawl
whispered over her shoulder, questioning.

           
She
snapped out of her reverie and glanced over her shoulder at Webb and
Elisabeth.
 
“I’m fine.”
 
But suddenly, she wasn’t feeling
fine.
 
For days, the adrenaline of their
journey, their danger, and Mr. Colton Webb had kept her functioning well
enough.
 
But she suddenly felt
exhausted; and she wanted to cry.
 
“What’s this about horses?” she asked Marcus, forcing herself to focus
on the conversation at hand.

           
“We’re
going to have to take horses home.
 
Grandmother, are you feeling up to it?
 
It’s a two-mile ride.
 
It will take nearly an hour,” Marcus warned her.
          

           
“I’ll
be fine,” she promised.
 
Already, a
line of moisture beaded above her fair eyebrows and small mouth.
 
Ordinarily, she would be fine.
 
But the heat was uncomfortable, to say
the least.

           
Webb
interrupted.
 
“I’ll ask Wainwright
to drive her home.
 
He promised to
drive Elisabeth and me, anyway.”

           
George
Wainwright, he explained, owned the printing press across from the train
station, and he owned an automobile.
 

           
Chase
had hoped that Webb would invite her as well, but he didn’t.
 
She thought about the hour ahead of them
on horseback with the heat, and the thought of riding in the automobile for a
few minutes instead was very appealing.
 
Add Colton Webb to the mix, and there was no contest.
 
But her grandmother was still keeping
an eye on her, so she said nothing.

           
Once
they had left their grandmother with Elisabeth and Colton, they hurried to
gather the horses.
 
They had been
tied to a post outside of the blacksmith’s building.
 
He was an aging bachelor who lived above his shop, next door
to George Wainwright’s printing press.
 

           
Reese
balked when she saw the horses.
 
Chase,
on the other hand, almost cheered aloud.
 
It wasn’t that Reese had never ridden before.
 
She rode often enough for a woman in her father’s
household.
 
But she had always
ridden side-saddle.
 
Clearly, that
was not an option for her today.

           
Chase
watched Tom Lawson mount his horse with no trouble.
 
Marcus immediately tended to Reese.

           
“Just
swing your leg over the saddle,” Marcus instructed impatiently.
 
“It’s not as difficult as you’d like to
make it out.”

           
Reese
was still standing with both feet planted firmly on the ground.
 
Even Chastity could see her
dilemma.
 
“It’s the skirts,
Marcus.
 
It is impossible to
straddle a horse in these blasted skirts,” she told him.

           
He
glanced at Reese’s skirt and then Chase’s.
 
“Well Wainwright can’t fit you all in his automobile,” he
argued.

           
Chastity
nodded in agreement.
 
“We’ll need
trousers,” she told him.

           
“You
can’t be serious,” Marcus protested.

           
Tom
Lawson almost smiled from atop his horse.

           
“I
am
serious.
 
Is there somewhere where we can purchase a couple of
pairs?
 
We left ours on the ship in
case the inspector found them and began asking questions.”

           
Marcus
shook his head in irritation and hurried down the street, pausing only long
enough to gesture at his sisters to follow him.
 
Tom Lawson stayed behind, sitting astride his horse.
 
Marcus led the women to the third
building on the same side of the street as the train station.
 
A bell over the door tinkled,
announcing their entrance.
 
A
large, burly man stood behind the counter.

           
“Afternoon,
Fairfax,” the man greeted, with obvious curiosity about the two young ladies
attending the young rancher.

           
“Armstrong,
I’m needing two pairs of trousers.
 
Are you carrying those ready-to-wear clothes from the big department
stores?” he asked.

           
“Just
for the men, I’m afraid.”

           
“That’s
fine.
 
I need two pairs of trousers
for my sisters.”

           
“Sisters?”
the giant asked with surprised pleasure.

           
“Rosalie
and Chastity, this is Henry Armstrong.
 
He owns the general store here.
 
These are my younger sisters.”

           
“From
England?” Henry asked.

           
“Yes.”

           
“And
they need trousers?” he asked, snorting.

           
“Well
we can’t very well ride our horses home in these damned things,” Chase pointed
out, tugging on the side of her skirt.

           
Whether
it was her word choice, her accent, or her message, something amused Henry
Armstrong.
 
He laughed a low,
rumbling belly laugh and led them to the back corner of the store.
 
On a top shelf, he had a few pairs of
trousers and shirts.
 
He pointed to
his back room, a closet where the women could change their clothes in privacy.

           
Once
suited more comfortably, Marcus paid Henry Armstrong, and the Fairfaxes made their
way back across the street to meet with Tom Lawson.
 
The corner of his mouth twitched when he saw Chase and Reese
in trousers, and it twitched a few more times as he observed Marcus trying to help
Reese onto a horse.
 
He only
scowled at Chase when she effortlessly mounted her horse.

           
After
assuring himself that everyone was safely mounted, Marcus set the agonizingly
slow pace out of town.
 
Reese
shifted uncomfortably in her saddle and glared at her sister.

           
“You’re
loving this, aren’t you?” she accused.

           
Her
sister rolled her eyes at her.
 
“I’d be loving it more if we were riding a little faster.
 
I feel like we’re walking backwards,
we’re going so damned slowly.”

           
Marcus
turned in his saddle.
 
“You’re not
the Cochrane brothers on the Mauretania, anymore, ladies.
 
Clean up your language.”