California Caress (35 page)

Neither will I,
Hope thought as she dipped a curtsey to his neatly cut bow.
Neither will I.

“Hello, Drake.” The voice, remarkably like the purr of a contented feline, flowed over his shoulder with a satisfied sigh.

Drake straightened and all semblance of lightness left his body like steam floating up from a kettle. He took Hope’s suddenly cold hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow.

By the time Drake had turned toward his brother and sister-in-law, the transformation was complete. The smile he sent to the tall, dark-haired woman was filled with warmth. Only Hope seemed to notice that the warmth did not touch his eyes. Angelique was too busy preening to recognize the falseness, and Charles merely stood gripping a bloodstained white linen handkerchief around his hand as he glowered at them all.

“Angelique,” Drake greeted, ignoring the outraged look that crossed his brother’s face. He inclined his head to the woman, untangling Hope’s fingers from his arm before stepping from her side. Angelique’s victorious smile lit up the room. Hope’s heart tightened.

“I should be quite angry with you,” Angelique murmured, accepting the fleeting kiss Drake placed on her flushed porcelain cheek. “The least you could have done was send word. We’ve thought you dead for these past months, you know.”

“And did the thought upset you?” he asked candidly, running the back of his hand over her jaw. Hope shivered, remembering all too well the feel of his weathered knuckles grazing her own eager flesh.

“It upset some of us,” Charles interjected hotly, before Angelique had a chance to answer. A muscle twitched beneath his left eye, reminding Hope of Drake when he was angered. “Some of us did not mind so much.” He turned his attention to a flustered Hope, and she found herself pinned under his steel blue gaze. “And who might this lovely creature be?” he asked coldly. “I heard her introduced as your wife, but perhaps I heard wrong?”

“You heard right,” Drake replied casually, his eyes never leaving Angelique, who preened like a contented cat under the unwavering attention. He offered no more information, but continued to pierce Angelique with his stare.

Charles gave a snort of disgust as he extended his hand to Hope. “I’ll presume you have a name, but my brother is too unmannerly to give it. Charles Frazier,” he introduced himself, taking her damp hand in his and pumping it lightly. “Yourself?”

“Hope Benn—er, Frazier,” she corrected quickly, through suddenly parched lips. She snatched her hand back as soon as politeness allowed, not at all liking the feel of his soft palm beneath her fingers. As inconspicuously as possible, she wiped the feel of him off on her skirt. No, Hope thought,
Angelique’s
skirt—for it was abruptly apparent from whose closet the gown had been borrowed.

Angelique tore her gaze from Drake’s, and regarded Hope head to toe with a glance just shy of loathing. “Hope?” she purred, a false smile turning her lips. Her nostrils flared with distaste. “How... quaint.” She looked back at Drake, dismissing Hope as though she were of no consequence. Slipping her hand beneath his elbow, she rubbed the breasts that threatened to spill free of the daringly low décolletage of her gown against Drake’s upper arm. “I am simply
dying
to hear all the details of your trip, darling. You’ve been gone so long.” The thick lashes lowered coyly. “And we’ve so much time to make up for.”

Hope gritted her teeth and tried not to scream. Always an intelligent man, Drake Frazier suddenly seemed not to possess a logical bone in his body. Perhaps it was the feel of soft flesh rubbing suggestively against his sleeve that was robbing him of all form of common sense? She hid her clenched fists in her skirt. Or perhaps it was finally being reunited with the true object of his affection—instead of a poorly built substitute?

Whatever the reasons for his bizarre behavior, Hope thought that if she was forced to stand here and watch this disgusting display for one more minute, she would surely be ill.

Angelique leaned close to Drake and whispered something in his ear that brought a smile to his lips.
He never smiled that way at me,
Hope thought as the orchestra began the first strains of another waltz.

Thrusting her chin up high, Hope turned to Charles. Her accent thickened considerably, and there was a glint of determination sparkling in her eyes. “Mr. Frazier,” she said with a coquettish grin that put Angelique to shame, “unless you think it too forward of me, I would be honored if you would lead me though the next dance.”

How easy it was to slip back into the role of genteel southern belle, Hope thought, as Charles regarded her with veiled surprise.

Inclining his head, he held out his arm for her to take. “Why, Mrs. Frazier, I’d be delighted,” he replied smoothly. His arrogant smile showed he was quite pleased with this unexpected turn of events. “Moreso if you would do me the honor of calling me Charles. After all, we are
family
now,” he added, patting her hand. “That in itself should allow us to be more familiar. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Swallowing her revulsion, she placed her hand on his sleeve and nodded. “Charles it is,” Hope said, meeting Drake’s stormy glare. Her gaze shifted to an amused Angelique, then back to Drake. “You don’t mind, of course, if I dance with your brother?”

Although phrased as a question, it was anything but. Drake gave a brisk nod, his attention distracted by her connivance. Reluctantly, he tore his gaze away from Hope as Charles led her to the center of the dance floor. Against his will, it returned time and again.

“Mr. Frazier—Charles,” Hope said as she placed one hand on a shoulder almost as broad as Drake’s. The other was captured inside the curled fingers of his wounded hand. The linen handkerchief scraped against her palm. “You do dance well, I hope. I mean, you aren’t given to treadin’ on toes?”

“Toes?” he asked. With effort, he wrenched his gaze from his brother’s back as Drake and Angelique disappeared through the open French doors leading to the veranda. He led into the first steps of the dance, turning his full attention to the curious creature in his arms. “Why do you ask?”

With an impish grin, she glanced down at the bare feet peeking from beneath her hem. Charles followed her gaze, his eyes widening when he saw the shell-pink toes. “What happened to your slippers?”

“Your wife’s wardrobe wasn’t that generous,” she replied, as though she were telling him how much a wagon load of corn would fetch in the market booth.

To her surprise, he tipped back his head and let loose a laugh that rumbled from somewhere deep in his broad chest. The crystal blue eyes sparkled. “I thought the gown looked familiar,” he said as he swept her through a half-circle. “I just couldn’t place it. How on earth did
you
get it?”

“Stolen,” she replied in a clandestine whisper. “As, I’m sure, are my husband’s clothes.” Her gaze raked his form, noting how close his build was to Drake’s. Not quite as rugged, nor as broad, but close all the same. “Yours?”

“Ah, now those I recognized,” he nodded. “And yes, they are mine.” His gaze hardened, a little.

“You have a wonderful tailor,” she said, thinking that she liked Drake far better in a pair of tight denims, a threadbare flannel, and a worn leather vest and Stetson. “Tell me something,” she said lightly, her skirts rustling around her ankles as she was propelled away from, then back into, his arms. “Does it bother you that my husband has abducted your wife? And that, as we speak, they are probably strolling some secluded spot in the garden, catching up on old times?”

Hope wasn’t disappointed. The arm encircling her waist tightened and the blue eyes clouded with anger. It was exactly the reaction she had expected. He had been too charming, too careless in his reaction to the entire situation. Now she could see the truth. Charles Frazier was more disturbed with the way the evening was progressing than he cared to let on.

And what other feelings is he hiding?
she wondered.

“Should it bother me?” he said finally, his voice tight. “After all, you might say I am doing the same with
his
wife.”

“But it isn’t the same,” she corrected shrewdly. “Those two go way back—or so I’m told—whereas we don’t have any old times to catch up on.”

“Yes,” he conceded, with a nod and a calculating smile.

“Yet,” she said cautiously, feeling as though she’d been caught between a rock and a hungry wolf. This man had stolen Drake’s fiancée out from under his nose. Hope didn’t know why, but instinctively she knew that he was going to try and do the same thing with her.

Should I let him?
she wondered as they lapped into an uneasy silence. She remembered all too clearly how Drake had hung on every word that flowed from Angelique’s lips. A stab of jealousy pierced her heart. While she harbored nothing but disgust for this caricature of Drake, she was also finding it difficult not to throw Drake’s callous treatment of her back in his face.

It would serve the gunslinger right to see that someone else could actually be attracted to her, Hope thought with a satisfied grin. It didn’t matter that Charles was forcing himself to feign attraction. The means would suit the end.

A few more couples drifted onto the dance floor. She eyed them warily, noticing how each one looked quickly away whenever her gaze met theirs.

“Is it stuffy in here?” she asked suddenly. The cloying smell of flowery perfume and spicy male cologne seemed to be pressing in on her from all sides.

“I hadn’t noticed.” The crystal blue eyes narrowed on her, and she could see that Charles wasn’t fooled for a minute. He was also more than willing to play the game. “Would you care to step outside for a bit of air? The garden is quite lovely this time of year. The roses died with the first frost, but it’s still filled with delectable surprises. You really should see it.”

Hope nodded, letting herself be guided from the dance floor. She wasn’t entirely sure she’d made the right decision in indicating a wish to see the gardens. But one thing she was sure—she couldn’t stand another moment of twirling through the stilted steps of a dance with a man she abhorred, all the while wondering what Drake and Angelique were doing!

Charles was right. Although a goodly portion of the flowers had faded with the passing of autumn, the colorful, leafy shrubs so artfully arranged were really quite beautiful. The air snapped with the beginnings of a winter chill as the light of a crescent moon glittered over the winding paths. By the time Hope had seen her fiftieth bare rosebush, her twentieth petunia stalk, and her thirtieth withered violet, she was ready to pluck each shrub where they stood. Drake and Angelique were nowhere to be seen.

Charles hesitated beside a whitewashed, wrought iron bench almost buried amidst leafy ivy. His hands were clasped behind his broad back, and his dark blond hair shimmered in the pale moonlight. For a second, he looked remarkably like his brother. Then he turned. One glance at his cold blue eyes dispelled the image.

He seemed to have forgotten there were no slippers on her feet to protect them from the branches and stones littering the paths. Hope’s stinging soles had not. For the last half hour she had dogged this man’s footsteps, the whole time wondering if his elaborately roundabout route was not purposely devised to keep her away from whatever area he presumed his brother and wife to be in. Now she was sure that was his motive. His easy acceptance of the pair’s absence was exactly that—too easy.

“It appears they’ve wandered farther than the gardens,” he said, eloquently stating the obvious as he gestured Hope toward the bench. His liquor-soaked breath fogged the air. “Shall we sit and enjoy the quiet awhile before returning?”

“No, thank you,” she declined with a forced smile. She eyed the bench, but staunchly refused to approach it. Though the seat was a tempting respite for her aching feet, it wasn’t tempting enough to risk spending any more time alone in Charles Frazier’s company than was necessary. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to your guests?”

“They can wait,” he scoffed with a casual wave of his hand. His icy gaze settled on her creamy flesh where it swelled beneath the rosy satin neckline. “It isn’t often I’m honored by moonlight, and a beautiful woman,” he added suggestively.

Hope shivered, ignoring the compliment, as well as the insinuation. “You forget, I’ve met your wife,” she countered pointedly. The muscle returned to twitch beneath his eye. “I’d think you were used to both by now.”

Again the hands were clasped behind his suddenly rigid back. “Ah, very good, Hope. Spoken like a true jealous wife. Perhaps I underestimated your feelings for my brother.”

And perhaps not,
Hope added to herself. “That’s none of your business,” she snapped, dearly wishing she hadn’t given in to her curiosity and taken Charles up on his offer to stroll the moonswept gardens. “Unless you can find a more congenial topic, I’ll be forced to return inside.”

Her heart skipped a beat, then pounded frantically when a cold, malicious sneer curled his lips. Belatedly, she realized her mistake. His words, uttered in a tone close to boredom, confirmed it. “I do hope you can pick your way back alone then, dearest sister-in-law. I fear I’m enjoying the fresh air and moonlight too much to return just yet.”