Brighter than Gold (Western Rebels Book 1) (39 page)

“Is that all you can say?” Katie asked, disappointed.

“No, I can truthfully say that I love it,” he replied, turning to grin at her. “It’s light and warm and in the best of taste. I don’t see how Jack can object.”

“Neither can I. After all, he told me to be a
wife,
insisting that I occupy myself with the house. He also told me to purchase anything that would make me happy. In a way, this was his idea!”

Conrad thought that Katie sounded almost rebellious, as if she had redecorated the parlor to irritate rather than please her husband. He never knew what to expect from his sister-in-law, and now he watched fondly as she moved a candy dish and fussed with an arrangement of miniature mauve-and-white chrysanthemums. She had undergone quite a transformation herself in the past few days. Clad in a stylish morning dress of white French muslin with a bright blue vest, Katie looked fetching and elegant at the same time. Her glossy black hair was caught up in back in a
cache-peinge
of net and ribbons, while soft curls escaped to frame her face. Although she was more beautiful than ever, and certainly more self-assured, Conrad thought that he detected an undercurrent of sadness in Katie’s eyes. It wouldn’t have been noticeable if there weren’t moments when it lifted, moments when Jack was near and looked at or touched his wife with unguarded affection. Then Katie’s face would radiate joy until Jack remembered himself and drew away from her.

Conrad was more than a little puzzled by his brother’s marriage. He had expected Jack to make a marriage of convenience, most predictably with Genevieve Braithwaite. She was beautiful and poised, would make an efficient wife, mother, and hostess, and she was already established in San Francisco society. Physically, Genevieve was desirable, and Conrad suspected that Jack also liked the fact that she was not warm and loving and thus would make few emotional demands on him.

Then, out of the blue, Katie had appeared, with her winsome looks, warm, carefree charm, and expressive, intelligent eyes. It had been logical to conclude that Jack had slipped and fallen helplessly in love. Yet the outward signs of that love, if it existed, were few and far between. Jack was friendly toward his bride, but little more. Conrad knew that they slept in separate beds, and Katie had taken to reading next to Ambrose in the parlor after Jack went to bed at night. It was all very curious.

“Katie, can I ask you a question?” he said suddenly.

“Of course, Con! Let’s rest for a moment, shall we?” Smiling, she sat down on the new sofa and patted the spot next to her. “What would you like to know?”

“More about you, actually. I’ve never really heard about your life before you married Jack. I think you mentioned the foothills once, but then Jack changed the subject.”

Poppy, who was venturing out of the bedroom now if Katie was close by for protection, jumped onto the sofa and snuggled between them, purring. Katie began to stroke the kitten. “Well, my parents came west when I was four years old, and I was raised in the town of Columbia, up in Tuolumne County—”

“I’ve been to Columbia!” Conrad cried in surprise.

“Have you?” Her eyes twinkled. “Did you go there thinking to strike it rich?”

“Well, yes, and I
did,
in a manner of speaking,” he said with a frown. “But that’s another story. You tell me yours first.”

“My mother was a lady of culture, and I loved her very much, but she died when I was ten. After that, my father raised me, which meant that I was pretty much able to do as I pleased. What few girls there were in Columbia had mothers who taught them the rules of proper feminine etiquette, but Papa hadn’t the vaguest notion about such things. I guess he thought I would just
become
ladylike through instinct.” Katie paused, smiling as she thought of her father. “Of course it didn’t work that way. I wore breeches a great deal until I was sixteen, and although I went to school, I often stole away to my favorite spot above the Stanislaus River and read the classics instead. My mother had a beautiful library of books.”

“It sounds idyllic,” Conrad murmured.

“I suppose it was, in a way... but not exactly the proper training for the wife of the wealthy, influential owner and editor of the San Francisco
Morning Star,
do you think?” She laughed. “I grew up working alongside my father in the saloon he owned—”

“A saloon? A
real
saloon?” Conrad echoed in amazement.

“Yes, except that we didn’t have dance hall girls. And I began writing articles for the
Columbia Gazette
a while back. So, you see, although there weren’t many rules in my life, I did have to work very hard. Much harder than most boys at the same age.” She rubbed behind Poppy’s ears. “I also kept house for my father, and I set high standards for myself there. I was always looking up to Mama’s example....”

“How did you meet Jack?”

Katie chose her words carefully, aware that Conrad didn’t know about Jack’s other life in the foothills but thought that his brother had been in Nevada during his absences from San Francisco. “Jack used to pass through Columbia on his travels, and he got to know my father. I met him in the saloon on my twentieth birthday.”

“When was that?”

“On the twenty-first of June.”

Conrad smoothed back his red hair, pondering this information. “So, Jack knew you when he came home in July....” He grinned. “That’s very interesting!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he seemed
different,
somehow. More restless and moody. And—” He broke off, blushing.

“And?”
Katie pressed.

“Well, there was a woman Jack had been seeing...”

“Genevieve Braithwaite,” she supplied.

Conrad was shocked. “You know about her?”

“Not from Jack, but from everyone else. In fact, I overheard you carrying on about her the night I arrived. Since then, I saw her in the dress shop the morning after we arrived here, and Hope Menloe confirmed her identity.” Katie smiled wryly. “I had the impression that Miss Braithwaite thought her relationship with Jack was still in full flower, so I don’t imagine that she was very happy when she learned of my existence.”

“No, she’s not,” Conrad replied hesitantly. “I work in her father’s bank, and she’s had words with me about it. She’s not the sort of woman who gives up easily. But what I was going to say before was that Jack changed toward Genevieve after he came home in July. He was definitely cooler.”

Katie sat back against the green velvet upholstery and stroked Poppy’s back thoughtfully. “Life is interesting, isn’t it? I’ve come to believe in fate. There is a reason I met Jack and a reason for our marriage. So many twists of fate came into play... for instance, if my father hadn’t died, it probably would have taken a great deal more to convince me to leave Columbia.”

“How did your father die?” Conrad asked softly.

Before Katie could reply, the front door opened and Jack’s step sounded in the entry hall.

They both jumped up, suddenly remembering that the parlor had changed completely in his absence. Katie was surprised to discover that she could scarcely wait to see him. For three days she had kept busy with her projects, trying to pretend that she didn’t miss Jack, but now the promise of his physical presence filled her with elation.

At last Jack appeared, framed in the arched entrance to the parlor. His hair seemed dusted with sunlight after two long days on the
Senator,
and his face was more deeply tanned than ever. He wore an impeccably tailored morning coat and trousers of lightweight, charcoal-gray wool, a double-breasted waistcoat, a starched white shirt, and a simple wrapped cravat.

He froze in the act of drawing off his dove-gray gloves and stared. “Am I in the right house?”

Katie went to him and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Welcome home, Jack. Do you like it?”

Conrad watched them both with a rather anxious expression on his face. “In my opinion, Katie’s done a wonderful job,” he offered helpfully.

“Leave us alone, would you, Con?” Jack’s tone made it an order rather than a request. When his brother had gone, he turned to Katie, his cat’s eyes dazzling with anger. “How dare you do”—he gestured at the parlor—“
this
without consulting me?”

“Don’t you like it?”

“That’s not the point! I chose the things that were in this room after I purchased the house. They belonged to
me,
and you had no right to dispose of them and put something else in their place!”

“That’s not fair!” Katie retaliated. “First of all, you are married now, so it’s wrong for you to keep saying ‘I’ and ‘me’ that way. There are two of us now. Secondly, you
told
me to busy myself with the house, that there was more than enough for me to do here, and when I asked you what those things might be, you had no answer. So I had to look around and see what I could do to make this male house into a home. Thirdly—”

“For God’s sake, Katie, how long is this tirade going to last?”

“Don’t you
dare
act bored and cut me off,” she told him in menacing tones. “Thirdly, you insisted that I buy anything that would make me happy. I happen to find that a pitifully condescending thing to say to anyone, and the sort of sentiment that is peculiar to your sex, but I decided to take you at your word. Fourthly—”

“I’m not sure that’s a word.” Jack was beginning to enjoy her performance. There was something especially stimulating about Katie when she was furious.

“I beg your pardon?” She paused impatiently for breath.

“I don’t think that ‘fourthly’ is a word,” he explained, leaning against the wall.

“Kindly refrain from patronizing me!
Fourthly,
I objected to the former style of this room. I’m not criticizing your taste, I’m talking about the taste of this entire period. I find most of the supposedly fashionable homes I have seen in San Francisco too dark, too cluttered, and the furniture too overbearing. I think that
our
parlor, now, is much more aesthetically pleasing, and if you will look at it with an unbiased eye, I don’t see how you can disagree.”

Jack gave Katie a smile that made her heart skip a beat. “You’re right.”

She paused in mid-breath and frowned. “What?”

“I can’t disagree. You are absolutely right.”

“Do you mean—”

“I mean that I like the parlor. It will take some getting used to—”

“That was going to be ‘fifthly.’ I think that you simply resist change, even change for the better—”

“Kathleen, be quiet.” His eyes crinkled gently at the corners.

“How dare you talk—”

“No more.” Jack drew her firmly into his arms. “Kiss your husband; welcome me home properly.”

“But Jack—” Katie felt that somehow he had defused the argument before she was finished.

He reached up with one hand to hold her face still, then covered her mouth with his own. He kissed her hungrily, drinking in the lithe, female warmth of her body pressed full length against his. Katie was intoxicated by the taste of him, the smell of his clothes and his skin, the forcefulness of his embrace. As long as Jack seemed to have lost control, perhaps it would be all right for her to lose control, too. Just this once....

* * *

“Grandfather, you really don’t have to do this. We have gardeners, you know.” Jack crossed the lawn through the cool morning mist to join Ambrose, who was cutting back the rosebushes that grew along the tall iron fence.

The old man scowled at him. “Why do you say that to me, Jack? You know that I
want
to do this, so leave me alone!”

“My apologies.” Jack smiled, fiddling with a cuff link. “Perhaps I said it so I would have an excuse to come over here and talk to you.”

“Then just say what’s on your mind, boy!”

“It’s Kathleen.”

“Katie? What about her?” Ambrose clipped the last ivory rosebud of the season and tucked it in his grandson’s lapel.

“I—I guess I feel that she isn’t putting enough effort into our marriage. She’s been so busy with the house, her new wardrobe...”

“Hmm.” The old man continued to prune, not looking up. “Go on, I’m listening.”

“I didn’t mind when she ordered the first batch of new gowns, or even when she redecorated the parlor, but then came elaborate preparations for Thanksgiving, and now she’s changing the dining room, and she’s being fitted for a riding habit this morning, and—”

“Seems to me that you
told
her to occupy herself with this sort of thing,” Ambrose remarked reasonably. “Or am I wrong?”

“Well, I didn’t expect it to occupy her every waking hour!” Jack loosened his cravat and hunkered down next to his grandfather. “Night before last, when I went to bed, she and Hope Menloe were looking at sketches for her new cloak and riding habit. Then, last night, I went to Kathleen’s room and discovered that she had installed a new
desk
for herself. She was working at it busily—”

“Oh, yes, I heard about that desk.” Ambrose smiled, scratching his bald head. “I think Katie’s planning to turn the morning room into a little study for herself, with her new desk, and a chaise, and bookshelves for
her
books. She wants to send to Columbia for the books that belonged to her mother, but was worried about the expense. I told her to go ahead. The study is a spectacular idea, and just what she deserves.”