Texas Tiger TH3 (33 page)

This wouldn't do at all. She had promised to learn to be a wife, and wives didn't behave like whores. Pulling the sheets up around her, Georgina looked for a washbowl and wished for a convenience.

As if sensing her desires, Daniel yanked on his wrinkled shirt and trousers and started for the door. "I'll send someone up with warm water."

He was gone before she could say anything.

The room seemed hollow without him. With the sheet wrapped around her, Georgina wandered to the window, but it overlooked the street. She assumed Daniel would be heading out back to the privy.

Daniel, her husband, until death did them part.

She closed her eyes and offered a fervent prayer. They would be sharing toilets and washbowls for the rest of their lives. She would have to learn to live with these terrifying desires coiled up and rattling inside of her. She would have to pretend she was a perfectly normal person going about her everyday chores when all she wanted was to be back in that bed with her husband.

She was out of her mind.

She forced herself into the prosaic chores of preparing herself for the day. She was sore between her legs, she discovered as she washed with the water the maid brought up. She had bled, and a hasty glance to the bedsheets showed the stain. She blushed and cursed herself for blushing. She was a married woman now. She was expected to know about these things.

The room smelled of what they had done, and Georgina threw open the window to air it out before anyone noticed. Once washed, she dressed hastily. Daniel would be back at any moment, and she would feel better insulated against these desires if she was buried in clothing.

When he came back, he had his shirt properly tucked in, and he was carrying a paper bag full of rolls and muffins.

"There isn't time to find breakfast. Maybe these will hold us until we reach Cincinnati."

Daniel was unrelentingly attentive as he fastened her buttons, gathered their things, and led her out to join the others to walk to the train station. He was everything an overzealous husband should be to the point of driving Evie and Tyler to laughing glances. But Georgina knew it was all for show. The Daniel she knew had retreated somewhere behind that pleasant facade. His mind wasn't on the false attentions with which he showered her.

That was nothing more than she had expected. His mind was back on his business already. She ought to be glad she hadn't horrified him with her wanton ways. But a trace of her still longed for that romantic encounter of the prior day when his attention had been solely on her.

Well, now that he had what he wanted, that would never happen again, so she might as well get used to it. Despite his protests, Daniel was still a Mulloney, and she had reason to know their single-mindedness. She should be grateful he had agreed to take her as wife so she had a roof over her head. She wouldn't ask for more than he could give.

So she smiled and blushed at the Monteignes' gentle teasing and clasped the bag of baked goods tightly in her hands as they found seats on the train. Evie ordered Daniel to sit with Tyler on the other side of the aisle, informing him that he had the rest of his life with Georgina so he couldn't protest a few hours apart. Then she spread her elegant skirts and took the seat beside Georgina for herself.

Georgina offered her the bag, and after they each selected a roll, they passed it over to the men. She felt shy with this elegant woman who seemed so very certain of herself. She had never felt shy in her life. Perhaps it was just because everything in her life had suddenly become so strange. Georgina picked delicately at her roll, conscious that the gown she wore was Evie's and not even her own.

"I must tell you, we were terribly worried when Daniel telegraphed us that he was married."

Georgina looked up, startled. The woman certainly didn't believe in social amenities.

Evie smiled back at her. "Well, we only have a few hours, and I didn't want to waste them. Tyler said we would be imposing if we went home with you, so we're stopping in Cincinnati."

Georgina crumbled her roll some more. "I'm certain Daniel would love to have both of you. We would have to put you up at the hotel, though. We haven't had time to..."

Evie shook her head and touched her hand. "Of course you haven't. I don't care what anyone says, getting married is a shock to the system. You've always been one person and suddenly you're two and it's not easy making all the adjustments." She sent Georgina a penetrating look. "And if you don't do anything to prevent babies, you'll be three real soon. I don't suppose Daniel bothered to take care of that, did he?"

Georgina's eyes widened with shock. She hadn't even given that any consideration. Babies. Good lord above, what would she do with babies?

Evie took her silence for agreement. "Bother the man. I hope Tyler is giving him a good talking to right now. You can't have known each other very long. It's obvious Daniel has gone on one of his heroic exploits again and you're caught up in it. I can't say I'm sorry. He's needed a wife, but there hasn't been time enough for you to know each other. Drat it, I wish Tyler would let me go back with you. You're going to need help."

Georgina offered a smile at this amazingly accurate assessment of their predicament. Evie obviously knew Daniel very well. "I mean to make him a good wife, Mrs. Monteigne. You don't need to worry."

Evie rolled her eyes heavenward. "You would have to be a true heroine to make a wife to Daniel. Call me Evie. We're family, and we're going to be friends. You'll need one if you mean to live with Daniel."

Thinking of the man with the six-gun, the one who had apparently climbed over a train roof to reach her, Georgina had some inkling of what Evie was saying. She bit her lip and asked anxiously, "He isn't always that way, is he? I mean, he seems so nice, and he laughs all the time, and he's so easy to talk to."

Evie nodded, and the flowers on her hat bounced. "Yes, he is. Don't get me wrong. Daniel is special. You'll not find another man like him in all the world. My children love him. He always plays with them. He has the patience of a saint sometimes."

She turned and gave Georgina a sharp look. "He hasn't told you about his childhood, has he?"

"He hasn't told me anything," Georgina whispered sadly. "I didn't even know he was a Mulloney until the day we married."

Evie sent the two men laughing across the aisle a furious glance. "That figures. And I thought Tyler would make a good example for him to follow. I should have known better." She turned back to Georgina. "Daniel has his reasons, and you'll have to blame his less honest moments on me and Tyler. We weren't a very good influence."

She tucked the pin more safely into her hat and sought words to explain. "Daniel is a Mulloney in name only, you know," she said thoughtfully. "His family sent him away right after he was born. He never knew them until recently."

"Right after he was born?" Shocked, Georgina stared at her. "How could they send a baby away?"

Evie shrugged. "I've never met them. I've always thought they must have horns and tails, myself. But the excuse probably had something to do with the fact that Daniel wasn't expected to live. Something went wrong when he was born. Now that I know a little something about childbirth, I imagine it must have been a breech. He may have been born blue and they thought even if he lived, he would never be right. And then there was his leg."

She lowered her voice to a whisper as she glanced in Daniel's direction. "Whoever delivered him broke his leg when he was born, and they didn't set it. He came screaming into this world and didn't stop even when he arrived in St. Louis and was delivered to the nurse who raised us."

Georgina stared at her in shock. "St. Louis? They sent a sick infant all the way to St. Louis? They had to be mad."

"Nanny was very good. I'm certain they thought they were doing what was best. And St. Louis was on the river, more easily accessible than most places. It made sense. Even if Daniel lived, he was going to be a cripple, or worse. If they sent him far enough away, they probably figured he would never work his way back again."

"A cripple?" Georgina threw a hasty glance to her husband, who was now playing a game of cards with Tyler, the crumpled bag empty of baked goods between them. "He limps sometimes, but I certainly wouldn't call him a cripple."

"But he was." Evie rummaged in her satchel and found a pot of lip cream which she applied carefully. "Daniel grew up unable to walk without the help of a cane, and his balance was precarious. He could never play with other children, so Nanny kept him home with her. He grew up learning about life from books. I thought you ought to know that. Daniel still has this funny idea that life ought to be like books, that right should always prevail, and heroes always win."

"And fair maidens should always be rescued," Georgina finished what Evie had left unspoken.

"Exactly." Satisfied with the result in her mirror, Evie set it down. "That gentle, sweet-natured man still thinks he ought to be more like the Pecos Martin of his childhood dreams, and that devil of a husband of mine and his friends taught him just how to go about it. You didn't marry one man, Georgina, you married two. And one of them hasn't the foggiest notion of what to do with heroines after he's rescued them."

Georgina leaned her head back against the seat and stared out the window at the fields rattling by. She rather thought Evie might be just a little bit wrong about that last part. Pecos Martin knew what to do with women, all right. Unconsciously, she pressed a hand to her abdomen and felt the aching in the place where they had been joined. She just thought maybe it was whores and not heroines with whom Pecos might be most familiar.

Chapter 26

They waved Evie and Tyler off at the train station in Cincinnati. Then Daniel took her hand and led her down the platform.

"Well, Mrs. Mulloney, shall we go home, or would you prefer to wait for the next train and go wherever it takes us?"

Georgina started slightly at the sound of her new name, but his words captured her attention. There was nothing she would like better right now than to run and hide in some faraway city where no one knew her, where she could learn to deal with her embarrassing predicament without the watchful eyes of people who had known her all her life. She wanted to be the child she once was, the one who knew the world was a happy place and everything would be all right because Daddy made it so. But she wasn't.

Georgina turned her eyes up to her husband's concerned face. They had been stiff and nervous with each other ever since Evie and Tyler had gone. She didn't see any immediate resolution, but she knew enough now to know the answer Pecos Martin expected. "Your father still thinks he's running a slave plantation. Who will correct that if we don't go home?"

Although there were shadows of strain behind his eyes, Daniel smiled and brushed her hair with his hand. "Then come on, Miss Merry, the train's fixing to leave. It's time to head back."

They had made this trip together once before. That time they had laughed and teased and behaved outrageously with each other. That had been before, when she was still a child. Perhaps she had proved her wanton status even then. Had Daniel seen it? Was that why he had allowed her into his life? Because he had seen what she was and wanted her the way a man desires a whore?

Georgina's cheeks flooded with embarrassment. She clutched her hands in her lap and stared out the window.

Daniel watched as Georgina closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. He had taken something magical away from her and destroyed it. He didn't know how to undo whatever he had done. She was afraid of him, and rightly so. He didn't know himself anymore.

His stomach clenched as he remembered how he had taken her last night, not once, but twice. She had every reason to fear he would lose control and do that to her again. He couldn't even tell himself that he wouldn't do it again. Even knowing he must have hurt her very badly, he was aching to have her again. He couldn't keep his thoughts from straying to their bed, of dragging her up the stairs and tearing her clothes off, and of making mad, passionate love to her for the rest of the day and night.

He was obsessed with the notion. Sex had never been an extremely important part of his life. It was something one did when the time was right. The rest of the time he had been quite content with his books and printing presses and horses and whatever interests he was involved with at the time. He had always been surrounded by women. They were there to laugh with, to talk to, to flirt with upon occasion. But they hadn't been the kind of women he would take to his bed and practically rape. Neither was Georgina. But that's what was on his mind now. He was sitting here peaceably beside her on a public train, but he was so hard his trousers pinched.