Magic and the Texan (8 page)

“Let not your heart be troubled,” Bethany whispered into the burrows of bed. Easy to say, not easy to do. How did one comport herself in the company of a virginal male of thirty?

She needed help, training, and more. Thankfully, she'd found Miss Buchanan's letters to Jon Marc, in a box under the bed. Read them, she must. By lamplight she scanned all fifty, particularly the ones composed in the six-month gap found in Jon Marc's dispatches. Reading between the lines, Bethany detected hesitation on the Kansas beauty's part. She'd packed these messages with poems, not plans.

Heavens.

These poems.

They were flat wearisome. Bethany figured she'd never remember line after line of painted sunsets or blooming flowers. References to religion sent her to chewing a thumbnail. She repacked the envelopes and shoved their box under the bed.

Additional letters were scattered around her, most unopened, the unread correspondence having come from Louisiana and Tennessee. The unsealed ones were from Pippin O'Brien, apparently a youthful nephew. Why did Jon Marc treasure Pippin's words but ignore the rest of his family?

“Trouble,” she whispered. “There's trouble in the O'Brien clan.” Scrutiny of one particular letter from the youth confirmed it.

Bethany wanted to explore Jon Marc's hurt, and try to heal it. Survival, unfortunately, was of the utmost importance. Miss Buchanan had flat-out said, “I'm pure of flesh.”

There was no way Bethany could claim otherwise.

“Let not your heart be troubled,” she repeated.

Mrs. Agatha Persat had given such advice, saying it came straight from the Good Book. Bethany didn't know whether to believe Someone up there looked out for the sheep of this earth, but He'd never done much tending the Todds.

Bethany did, however, believe that if a spirit could ascend to heaven, Miss Buchanan was up there.

“I wish you were here to advise me,” she said, as if Miss Buchanan were in the bedroom with her. “You were so wise.”

They knew each other two weeks, the Beths. Fourteen days in which many people mistook them for sisters. They became sisters of the heart.

As she had many times since Miss Buchanan was injured, Bethany cried for her sister and mentor. She wouldn't cry for herself. That would be selfish. But wasn't it greedy to lead a copper-haired rancher down the garden path?

Bethany rose to sit at the bedside. “A virgin, Miss Buchanan. He's a virgin! You couldn't have known. He wrote reams, yet never said much about himself.”

How she did yearn to know the source of his silence. If she could get past the marriage bed, she'd give whatever support he needed.

“How the dickens am I going to handle the situation, when I have to account for my lack of purity? What am I going to do on the wedding night?”

What was the use of bemoaning milk that refused to spill?

He hadn't once suggested setting a date, but surely their present impasse wouldn't last forever.

“I'm not going to succeed, at the rate I'm going. Like he said I must accept him, he must accept me as I am. Do you think he might?”

When pumpkins turned to peaches.

Moreover, if she admitted a lack of virginity, it would be a sin against the departed, a mark against the Buchanan name.

How could she be more like Miss Buchanan?

Bethany quit the bed to pace and clutch her arms, as if it were January. “I respect Jon Marc—even if he isn't rich—and I want to be his, till death parts us. What am I going to do?”

Miss Buchanan's memory must suffer.

Bethany lifted her eyes. “Wherever you are up there, my friend, please listen. Even if it spells disaster, should Jon Marc dislike the ‘real' Beth, you must become the scapegoat.

“I loathe sullying your reputation, but if I have any chance of a future with him, I must walk with my own shadow. It's begun. It's too late to back out. And it was your idea to start with, Miss Buchanan.”

Of course, Bethany hadn't argued too long. Broke and on the run, she'd sought a decent man. Hoot Todd.

Fort Worth, a stop on several cattle trails, had disabused Bethany of the notion about her half brother's decency. Trail drivers from brush country had spread stories of the outlaw. Those tales spread like a whirligig through town.

Hoot Todd, even in absentia, frightened Bethany.

When she took passage on the stagecoach headed south from the Trinity River town, the other passengers were Miss Buchanan and her soon-to-be-discharged chaperone. Miss Buchanan, thanks to correspondence with Jon Marc, added to Fort Worth gossip.

Bethany had been beside herself, frantic.

“I don't know what to do,” she'd confided to Miss Buchanan, a day after Mrs. Wiley got into that strip-poker game. “I have no money to set up my own home.”

“Why not secure a position as a tutor? You're educated.”

“Not that educated. I didn't even learn to read until I was nine. My pa and I moved around a lot, you see. When we settled in Liberal, a schoolteacher, Mrs. Agatha Persat, saw that I had books and pencils and the opportunity to learn. Mrs. Persat even took me under her wing outside the classroom, to improve my verbal and social skills.”

Shame heated Bethany's face. Disappointing the schoolteacher hurt the worst. Agatha Persat had been kindly, friendly, motherly, but her strict moral code, and her protégée's lack thereof, had killed their friendship.

“Sounds as if you have enough training,” the dark-haired miss from Kansas commented.

“One needs references for the noble work of tutors.”

“You did leave a mess, Miss Todd. It's worse than . . .”

“Worse than what?”

Blue eyes got trained on a spot outside the window. “Worse than being browbeaten. I yearned to take the veil, but Father objected. He wanted me married, and well. When he became ill, I agreed to leave the convent. Just short of my vows.”

“Your heart doesn't beat for your fiancé?”

“How could I love a man I've never met?”

“Oh.” Bethany forced her mouth not to drop. “Well, your father is in his grave. Can't you do that veil thing now?”

“It's too late. I promised my hand to Mr. O'Brien. He would grieve, should I disappoint him. So I won't.”

“You're an exemplary woman.”

“Enough about me. We were discussing you. If you don't feel comfortable with tutoring, you could take a job as a servant.” Tucking a curly lock of hair behind her ear, the Buchanan miss smiled. “It's respectable work.”

“I've been subservient. And ridiculed. It got worse after my father was arrested, accused of robbing a church. Anyhow, I loved Pa. I believed in his innocence. We had no money to hire any attorney, much less the best in the area. But the best offered his services.” Tears trailed Bethany's cheeks. “Oscar Frye promised to defend Pa ... if I'd become his mistress. I had no choice. It was my Pa's freedom at stake!”

Placing a handkerchief into Bethany's trembling fingers, Miss Buchanan let her do the talking.

“It got worse. Oscar insisted I work as a servant in his home, so his wife wouldn't get suspicious of how he got paid. You cannot imagine the indignities I suffered, serving Mrs. Frye by day, servicing Oscar by night. Then—From the witness stand, Pa confessed. My sacrifice was for naught.”

“Poor dear,” Miss Buchanan said, all heart.

“Losing the case infuriated Oscar. He stomped over to Pa's cabin. His wife followed. It was a terrible scene. Then she told a friend, who told a friend, who told a friend. It didn't take much to organize the outraged. Even Mrs. Persat got in on it. They burned my belongings.” Bethany would never forget the castigation in the older woman's face. “Then the sheriff threatened the painted ladies, said if they helped me, he'd toss them all in jail.”

Bethany sat back against the squabs, the coach wheels hitting a rut that matched her disquieted heart. “The part of me that hadn't already died over my disgrace died that day. It didn't have much to do with being drummed out of a town I hated anyhow. I lost everything. My virtue, my honor. I'm nothing.”

“Oh, Miss Todd. You unfortunate girl. I believe, in the proper element, you'd live as Caesar's wife.”

“If I had a chance, just one chance,” Bethany uttered, dreaming of a fresh start. “It seems I am simply unlucky. When I left Liberal, I thought my father's son by his first wife might help me get established in southwest Texas. He can offer no more than what I'm running from. Disgrace. I wish I'd never written Hoot Todd. Would that he didn't know to expect me.”

“You'd best steer clear of him. He's quite horrid.”

“I have no other choice.”

“If I were you, I'd take whatever chances came my way.”

Skeptical to the marrow, Bethany said, “I don't think you'd do that. Not you.”

“I am not you. But if I were, I'd do it. A desperate lady must go to whatever lengths to survive. Thrive. Prosper. It's only sensible.”

“You're right,” Bethany said in a shallow tone.

Several moments passed before she was asked: “What is it you'd like to have? Say, if you were given three wishes.”

“A husband. Children. And land. Land is power. When you own a piece of this earth, no one can take it away from you. No one can run you off, if you're entitled to stay.”

“Unless you don't pay your taxes,” Bethany's traveling companion had interjected. “There's always a price to pay . . .”

Now, as Bethany huddled in the bedroom of a landowning man who could give her children, she trembled. That piece of advice, delivered the day before Miss Buchanan went behind the bushes and had been struck by the rattlesnake that Bethany herself had killed with a ratty old parasol, had distinct significance. Distinct significance, over and above Bethany's intention to be herself as much as possible with Jon Marc.

What price would she pay for taking another woman's place?

“I won't pay,” she vowed. “I'm not evil, just tarnished. I'll do Jon Marc no ill. Ever.”

What she needed was sleep. A good night of it, and she could address a day of making a saint into a scapegoat.

Sleep eluded Bethany.

 

 

“Oscar lied. Flat lied.”

Bethany Todd, arch liar, deceiver of the first water, had added to her sins. She played the Peeping Tom.

Thus hadn't been her intention. When she'd left the bedroom for outside, she'd meant to walk out her plans. A light from the kitchen had drawn her attention.

Jon Marc kept it.

Evidently he hadn't been able to sleep either, for he had filled the copper hip-bath and was bathing.

For a closer look Bethany climbed the live-oak tree that grew near the kitchen window. She moved like a monkey, gaining a heavy, low-growing branch. All right, it teetered, but she paid no mind. Her eyes were soldered to Jon Marc.

He stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel to rub down the long lines of his body, yet she got another gander at his attributes. Saliva fell to the oak branch. Yes, Oscar Frye had told her a fish story.

Oscar had claimed his male gear was as big as they grew. Not so. Even soft, Jon Marc had him beat.

Musing over just how big this one got, Bethany trembled, goose bumps running up and down her arms and legs. The hem of her nightgown caught on something. She tried to free it.

That was when she lost her purchase.

An involuntary scream of fright carried through the night as she tumbled to the ground, landing with a thud. Thankfully on a patch of last year's leaves, yet she hurt just the same.

Her cry exposed voyeurism. Jon Marc, frocked in his birthday suit, shouted her name and jumped through the window, ready to rescue her.

Too bad her aching body forsook the opportunity to appreciate his manly delights. She rolled into a ball at the same moment he hovered over her.

“Beth honey, speak to me!”

“I'm okay.” And she believed she was, especially since he ran his fingers along her limbs to check for broken bones. “Nothing injured but my pride.”

“What the dickens brought you out here?”

An answer that concerned checking new leaf growth got abandoned. Besides, hadn't she decided to be more herself? “Natural curiosity, sir.”

He laughed. “You never cease to surprise me, Beth.”

“I hope that doesn't displease you.”

“No. Not at all.” A moment went by, a second in which he leaned his face toward hers. “I like you more this way.”

Good.

She liked it even better when his lips brushed hers. Her fingers floated up to settle against his ribs. Then he kissed her, really kissed her.

His bath made him smell like soap—his lips tasted like bliss. His body felt lovely against hers, even though she hated that the nightgown came between them.

Bethany pushed Jon Marc's face away. Flipping as fast as twinging muscles would allow, she rolled to her side, then shoved to stand. With as much dignity as she could muster, she limped to the bedroom, and was relieved he didn't follow her.

 

 

As the first shard of dawn lightened the day, Bethany faced the morning. Faced Jon Marc O'Brien. She expected to answer for tree-climbing, or at least field a question about her injuries, which were none, thank goodness. Not so.