Nobody's Angel (18 page)

"Why, thank you, Miss Mandy. And you look as beautiful as always. Tell me, do you ever get tired of men telling you that?" He was quite as bad about flirting as Mandy, as Susannah had discovered to her cost.

"Oh, no, never!" Mandy breathed, not one whit abashed by the scoundrel's blatant flattery. Susannah, fixing Connelly with a warning glare, caught Mandy's arm and turned her in the direction of the carriage.

"We must hurry, or we won't have time to practice that new song. Sarah Jane, Em, get in." Susannah mentally
j
congratulated herself, so composed did she sound.

But Connelly, moving with lazy grace, somehow managed to reach the buggy before any of them.

"Miss Mandy?" With the merest lift of a smile that did strange things to Susannah's heart, Connelly held out his hand to her sister. It took Susannah only an instant to realize that he meant merely to hand Mandy into the buggy. But it was a very long instant, an instant in which,to her own dismay, her fingers instinctively clenched into fists.

"Why, thank you." Mandy dimpled at him, then put her hand in his. Setting one slender foot on the step, she gathered up her skirts with the same minx's trick she had employed once before to emphasize the shape of her behind and show more than was strictly proper of white-stockinged ankle and permitted Connelly to assist her into the rear seat.

Watching Connelly watch Mandy's backside with obvious appreciation, Susannah did a slow burn. Realizing that her fists were clenched, she had to make a conscious effort to relax her fingers.

"Who goes in next? Miss Emily?" Finally able to tear his eyes away from Mandy, Connelly turned and held out his hand to Emily, who had been staring at him goggle- eyed since she'd first emerged onto the porch. As he spoke to her, Em blushed alinosi as red as her hair, mumbled something, and then, apparently overcome with embarrassment, just touched her hand to his as she all but leaped up into the buggy. Her full skirt of lime-green cambric caught on the carriage wheel. For a second she seemed in danger of either falling flat on her face or ripping her dress. But Connelly, moving quickly, freed the skirt in time to prevent either catastrophe, and Em subsided, amidst thanks and more blushes, next to Mandy.

"Miss Sarah Jane? Will you sit in back or in front?" Connelly's smile was no warmer than was polite for Sarah Jane (certainly he did not smirk at her as he did Mandy!), but Sarah Jane's cheeks turned as pink as her dress as she looked up at him.

"I—usually sit in front." Sarah Jane's voice was soft and uncharacteristically shy. She had never been at ease around men in the way that Mandy was, but she had never been so missish as to practically whisper a reply to a simple inquiry, either. Connelly's effect on her sisters was embarrassing, and Susannah owned herself surprised at the lot of them. She would never act like such a fool over any man, be he ever so handsome. Not if it killed her to behave like a rational human being.

Sarah Jane gave Connelly her fingers, and allowed him to hand her into the front seat. Seeming almost to sigh with relief when he released her hand, she scooted over to make room for Susannah beside her.

"Miss Susannah?" Connelly turned devilish gray eyes on Susannah. Forewarned and forearmed, she lifted her chin and coolly laid her hand on his. She would not simper like Mandy, or blush like Em, or stammer like Sarah Jane. She would not make a fool of herself over him.

"Thank you." His skin was warm against her own, his fingers long and elegant and strong-looking beneath her small, capable, but certainly not beautiful hand. Susannah noted the swarthiness of his coloring compared to her own fairness and the faint roughening of black hairs just visible where his shirt ended at his wrist. Dismayed at the tenor of her thoughts, she forced her eyes away.

He handed her into the front seat, then released her fingers, just as was proper. Her skin might tingle from the contact, but no one would ever realize it from her demeanor, Susannah was determined. Taking a deep but, she hoped, unnoticed breath, she smoothed her skirts and sat. With a dismissive nod at Connelly, whom she expected to follow in the buckboard with Craddock and Ben, she reached to untie the reins.

"Slide over."

"What?" Not understanding, she looked down at him, frowning.

"Slide over. I'm driving."

"I always drive."

"In light of what happened at the Likenses' place, and bearing in mind that Jed Likens may well be harboring a grudge against you because of it, your father decided that it wasn't safe for you and your sisters to wander about the countryside unprotected any longer. I volunteered to drive you about for as long as he felt it was necessary, and he agreed that it might be a good idea. So slide, if you please."

"You put the idea into Pa's head! He would never have come up with such a notion on his own!"

"You underestimate your father's concern for you, I fear. Slide."

Seated above him as she was, Susannah had the novel experience of looking down into his eyes. He was smiling, but it was clear from the set of his jaw that he was quite determined. Susannah realized that she had a choice— she could meekly slide over or she could precipitate a scene in front of her sisters that might reveal more of the strange intimacy that had sprung up between herself and Connelly than she wanted them to know. Either way, she was likely to find herself doing as he said.

Drat the man! What evil genie had been snickering over her shoulder the day she had bought him?

She slid over as close as she could get to Sarah Jane without making it obvious that she sought to put herself as far from Connelly as she could.

Connelly climbed up beside her and settled himself in the seat. Reaching for the reins, he finished untying them, then snapped them gently against Darcy's back. Watching critically as he turned horse and buggy in a direction that would point them the right way down the road, Susannah could find nothing to fault in his handling of the reins. She recalled that he had listed driving to an inch, whatever that meant, among the things he could do.

As the clean male scent of him filled her nostrils and she felt the brush of his arm against her own, Susannah gritted her teeth. The day was beautiful, the sun bright, and the gentle breeze no more than pleasantly warm as it caressed her face. It was Sunday morning, and her mind should have been occupied with godly thoughts.

But instead she could think of nothing but the man so close beside her and the very ungodly way he made her feel.

17

The church bell began to ring just as the buggy crested the rise that brought the First Baptist Church of Beaufort into view. It was a small, one- story building made of brick and tabby, whitewashed so that its walls took on a pearly glow where the sun's rays touched them through the sheltering trees. The spire was roofed with shiny new copper, and the bell that swung within had been shipped just the year before all the way from Philadelphia. Huge twisted oaks shaded the church itself, while the white and pink blossoms of weeping cherry and crabapple trees turned the tiny cemetery beside the church from a beacon of sorrow into an oasis of peaceful beauty. The trees' gentle perfume scented the air.

A semi-circular drive turned off the main road to provide access to the church. Connelly drove to the shallow steps that led up to the wide double doors, then pulled Darcy up. They were not as early as Susannah had hoped to be; several other conveyances were already hitched along the drive.

"Here we are, ladies." Connelly tied the reins to the knob and stepped down from the buggy. The absence of his lean body beside her made Susannah want to slump with relief. She had been tense for every single minute of the twenty minutes or so that he had sat beside her. Every syllable he uttered, every movement of his body, every breath he took added to the raw heat that had built until it was now practically sizzling her flesh. Never in her life had she thought to be so physically aware of a man. Her violent response to him shamed her.

Once on the ground, Connelly turned, clearly meaning to assist them down. But Emily and Sarah Jane, unaccustomed to such courtesies and, Susannah suspected, not much desiring a repeat of the awkward business at the house, descended to the ground on their own.

That left Mandy in the rear and Susannah in the front. Susannah would have descended along with Em and Sarah Jane had not her way been blocked by Connelly on one side and Sarah Jane on the other. Mandy scooted to the edge of the rear seat, one hand on the top of the front seat as she summoned Connelly with a come-hither smile. Really, where had the child learned such tricks? Susannah wondered, vexed. Not wanting to watch Connelly playing the gallant with her sister, Susannah slid along the seat toward the opposite side of the buggy, meaning to descend on her own. She was not about to compete with her little sister for their bound man's attention. Besides, she had absolutely no desire to feel his hand on hers again.

"Oh, no, you don't," Connelly said. Susannah heard him quite distinctly but had no idea what he meant until, to her consternation, he caught her around the waist and hauled her back toward him. A fleeting, embarrassed glimpse at her sister showed Mandy's eyes wide with surprise as Connelly lifted her bodily from the buggy with as little difficulty as if she had been a small child. Susannah was flushing when he set her on her feet, conscious of the tightness of his grip and the gleam in his eyes and Mandy's astonished gaze.

For what seemed like a very long while he held her so, looking down at her with that expression that was not quite a smile in his eyes. Fortunately, he had swung her around so that his back blocked Mandy's view of both their faces, because Susannah was sure she must be beet red.

"Will you please let me go?" she hissed, horribly conscious of their audience, when he made no immediate move to release her.

"Ian," he said softly. "Will you please let me go, Ian?"

Sarah Jane and Em, already walking up the steps, glanced around to see if their sisters were following. Mandy was still in the buggy, probably curious as a cat and put out as well. The sound of a new set of wheels scrunching over the drive alerted Susannah to the arrival of another vehicle. He had to let her go at once, and she could not make a scene to secure her release. What a scandal she would cause if she did!

"Will you please let me go, Ian?" The words were forced through her teeth, though a slight, polite smile was pinned to her lips for the benefit of any onlookers. Summoning that smile was as difficult as anything Susannah had ever done. The self-satisfied smile that curved his lips and lit his gray eyes as she succumbed to his blackmail made her want to hit him. But when she identified the newcomer by his booming voice, she was heartily glad that she had held rein on her temper.

"Morning, Miss Susannah, Miss Sarah Jane, Miss Emily! Is that you there in that buggy, Miss Amanda? You just wait where you are a minute, and I'll come get you down. No need to be troubling that gentleman there." Hiram Greer's greeting made Susannah stiffen. Ian's—no, Connelly's, she would not let him coerce her into thinking of him by his given name!—hands dropped away from her waist. They both turned at the same time to watch Hiram Greer tenderly assist a tiny, wizened old woman clad from head to toe in flowing black to alight from the carriage drawn up behind their own.

"It's good to see you, Mrs. Greer," Susannah said with as much poise as she could muster. Keeping her smile firmly in place, she moved to greet Greer's mother. "I'm glad to see that you felt well enough to come to church this morning. We've missed you."

In the meantime, Greer hurried to the buggy where Mandy still sat and reached up to hand her down with an extravagant compliment, the exact nature of which escaped Susannah's ear. His next words, however, captured her full attention.

"Name's Hiram Greer," he said, and Susannah turned in time to see him hold out his hand to Ian—no, Connelly. For an amazed moment, she gaped, and then she realized that the change in their bound man's appearance was so remarkable that Greer didn't recognize him.

"Excuse me for just a minute, Mrs. Greer," she mumbled, and practically ran the few paces necessary to reach the two men, who stood face to face with Greer's outstretched hand still waiting between them. Greer, clad in garments of the finest material that had been tailor-made for him, looked almost slovenly next to the other man in his pieced-together raiment. Much of the difference had to do with Greer's stocky build and florid complexion, which put him at a marked disadvantage when compared with Ian's lean height and the stark beauty of his face.

"Ian," she began nervously, for his expression as he looked at Greer was not reassuring. Realizing what she had said and mentally kicking herself for the slip, she tacked on, "Connelly. Ian Connelly, you remember Hiram Greer."

"I do." He nodded curtly. Greer, his face slowly reddening, dropped his hand.

"Why, you must remember our bound man, Mr. Greer," Mandy said carelessly, hooking her hand in the crook of Greer's elbow and tugging him toward the church steps. "You advised my sister against buying him, did you not? But I must tell you, he's become almost one of the family. Susannah quite dotes on him."

"Mandy!" But Susannah bit back the rest of her protest, and no one save the man standing beside her heard. He looked down at her, his expression hard to decipher.

"Your lovely little sister's not used to playing second fiddle to anyone, is she? She seems to have gotten her nose put out of joint because I prefer you to her." He didn't sound as if the prospect of Mandy's displeasure disturbed him overmuch. As Susannah absorbed exactly what it was that he had said, her eyes widened. Did he mean it? He smiled down at her, a teasing grin that answered her question as well as any words: of course not! Like Mandy, the blackguard would flirt with a post.

"Miss Redmon!" An imperious voice caused Susannah to glance around. Mrs. Greer had reached the foot of the steps and was gesturing impatiently. "Give me your arm! My legs aren't as steady as they could be."