The Enchantment (9 page)

Fool. The word came automatically to her mind, but for some unfathomable reason, the familiar venom was absent.

He turned back to his reading, and Emma found herself studying his downcast face.

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He wasn't a bad-looking man, if one was attracted to the smiling, boyish type. He had . . . something. A joie de vivre that made her feel vaguely old. Almost elderly, in fact.

It would be difficult for him to find a place to sleep

on this crowded train. He was—

(crippled)

—a tall man, taller than she'd first thought, and he'd have to curl up like a cinnamon roll to sleep in one of the parlor car's chairs. Assuming, of course, there was a vacant one.

She tried to think about something else. The treasure, the weather, anything. But her mind kept returning to the word it wanted: crippled.

He was crippled. She was stealing a crippled man's bed. That was low—even for her.

Reluctantly her gaze slid down his long legs to the scuffed toe of his walking boots. His left foot was tucked protectively behind his right.

Emma rarely thought about other people; not their pleasure or their pain. Yet now she found herself thinking about his crippled ankle. About him. He was just dumb enough to sleep curled up in some little chair and never once complain.

Damn him anyway. His silence would make her feel guilty and selfish—and she hated feeling anything but pleased with herself. No doubt she was going as soft in the head as he was, but she knew there was only one thing to do. "You may share the bed with me." "But—"

"Don't say anything," she cut in sharply. "I might change my mind, and I don't want to."

A smile shone like the first rays of an August sun in his eyes. She felt its warmth in every fiber of her body.

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cold and dark for years felt;

Emmaline stared at the bed. White sheets stretched across the mahogany-sided berth, their starched rims turned precisely down across equally white blankets. It looked like a thick layer of new-fallen snow in a smooth, red-gold box.

It was so small. Somehow, when she'd been sitting across from Larence—fully clothed—the area between them had seemed big enough for a good-sized bed. Not nearly so ... confining. Now she saw the space for what it was: a dining-table-sized mattress made for one.

She cast a sideways glance at Larence and almost smiled in spite of herself. If possible, he looked more uncomfortable than she felt. His lanky, broad-shouldered body was ramrod-stiff, and he was staring at the bed as if he expected a cobra to slither out from the crisp sheets at any moment. A striking cobra, at that.

"Will that be all, Doctor? Mrs. Digby?"

The porter was finished.

"Yes, yes." Larence handed the man a coin. "That will be all, thank you."

"Sleep well." Then the porter left. And they were alone. Bedtime.

Emma turned to Larence; he turned to her. Silence 77

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thudded between them. He cleared his throat. She nibbled on her lower lip. Both of them did their best to avoid looking at the bed. Neither had much success. Emma knew it was ridiculous to be so uncomfortable, but she couldn't help herself. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was sleep with Digby. Just the thought made her edgy. "Nice bed—" "Looks comfort—"

They spoke at once, and the sudden cacophony of sound punctured the sleeper car's quiet. Their sentences ground into an awkward silence. Emma racked her mind for something witty to say, but nothing came to her.

"Why don't you go in first, and change your clothes?" Larence ventured. "I'll wait out here."

Emma almost laughed in relief. Her awkwardness vanished. His stupid words had returned them to the status quo. Life was back on track. She felt better, more in control. She gave him a look that would shrivel grapes. "I don't have any clothes."

His eyes bulged and he looked quickly away. Right at the bed. His gaze bounced once, then ricocheted to the ceiling. Color crept slowly along his Burnaby-style shirt collar and fanned up his throat. "Sorry."

"Oh, this is ridiculous," Emma said sharply. "We're acting like children. I refuse to allow this absurd situation to be exacerbated by unnecessary awkwardness. You said it yourself: We're adults. Let's act like it."

He nodded, obviously relieved. The idiot smile came back.

It calmed her to talk. So she added, "I mean, it's not like we're a couple of virgins on our honeymoon.

We've both slept with members of the opposite sex before."

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He swallowed so hard, his Adam's apple bobbed against his collar. "Well, actually—"

"Don't!" Emma flung her hands up to ward off his next words.

His mouth clamped shut.

Emma stared at him in shock. He'd been about to confess he was a virgin. She was sure of it.

No. It wasn't possible, she told herself firmly. Who would disclose such a thing, and to a perfect stranger? No man she'd ever met. She stared hard into his guileless, intelligent green eyes, and slowly shook her head. No . . .

There had to be women who were attracted to dreamy dimwits. Louis Pasteur had found Marie Curie, hadn't

he?"

"I'll sleep next to the window," she said at last.

"Okay."

But what if you were right? nagged a little voice in the back of her mind. Wouldn't an inexperienced man be dangerous in this sort of situation? What if his suppressed urges kicked into high gear while she was sleeping? She plucked a hatpin from her hat—just in case—and held it out in front of her like a miniature sword. "I'll expect you to keep a respectable distance."

"What's that?"

Emma looked down at her hand. "A hatpin."

"No, what's a respectable distance?"

Pain thumped her in the back of her head. It occurred to her that when he opened his mouth, she almost invariably got a headache. Without a word, she swept up her skirts and clambered onto the bed. On her knees, facing Larence, she grabbed hold of the heavy velvet curtain that partitioned the bed from the aisle.

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"Just don't touch me," she said. Then she whipped the curtain shut, and she was alone.

Blessedly, wonderfully alone. She breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and began to undress.

An hour later, Emma lay stiff and unmoving beneath the sheets, her head cradled deep in the pillow's cushy softness. She could feel the raised pattern of the railroad's monogram beneath her head.

She couldn't see a thing. Thick, forest green velvet curtains were drawn tight along Larence's side of the bed. No hint of light sneaked through the infinitesimal crack between the two sheaths of material, and the tapestried window blind kept any slivers of moonlight at bay.

Relax, she told herself for what had to be the thousandth time. But she couldn't accomplish it.

For all her bluff and bluster, she'd never actually slept with a man before. Had sex, yes; slept, no. Long ago, when she'd lived on the cold, dark streets, and slept huddled beneath sagging eaves, she'd dreamed of sleeping with a man, of waking up with one. Of cuddling and warmth and caring. But that had been a lifetime ago. Longer. Before she'd stopped dreaming of princes.

Now she believed in protecting herself. She had sex when she wanted to, and she always chose the partner. She orchestrated everything, down to the smallest detail. It was the only way she knew to keep absolute control of the situation.

Somehow, spending the night with a lover had always implied an intimacy she'd never wanted, a level of trust she'd never let herself feel. Sex was easy—fast, furious, impersonal. And, generally speaking, she enjoyed it. But intimacy was different.

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Intimacy required vulnerability. The relinquishment of the one thing she could never give up. Control.

She thought of all the men, including Eugene, who had asked her to spend the night, and of the way she'd turned them down. Flat. Cold.

Yet here she was, sharing her first slumber with a grinning, dreamy-eyed professor whom she didn't even like. In a very, very small bed.

Her body started to tingle from the effort of remaining so motionless. She took a deep breath, and slowly, inch by inch, began to relax.

Gradually she became aware of the sensations swirling within the penetrating layer of darkness. It felt as if she were floating in a sea of ebony-hued velvet. Larence's soapy, masculine scent filled the air, becoming an almost tangible presence between them. The movement of the train rocked the bed in a muted lullaby of sound and motion.

She felt the warmth of his body alongside hers. Even with him pressed as far as possible against the far edge, there wasn't more than an inch separating their bodies. Heat radiated between them, firing the sheets, prickling her flesh. Perspiration crawled in the valley between her breasts.

This was ridiculous.

She forced herself to think about something else, The treasure. For the first time, she wondered whether it could be true. Whether Dr. Dimwit could really lead her to gold and save her life.

"Larence?" she said softly.

He fell out of bed with a thud and a groan, then scrambled back in beside her. "Y-Yes?"

"Will we find the treasure?"

"Yes."

"How can you be so sure?"

He shrugged. The movement pulled the blanket snug

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against her chin. "It doesn't sound very scientific, but in my heart I know it's there."

Emma closed her eyes. She was traveling crosscountry with a man who knew in his heart that the treasure existed. The thought depressed her greatly. For, of all the organs in the human body, the heart was the least reliable.

She let out her breath in a long, defeated sigh. She was as much a fool as he.

"Good night, Emmaline."

"Good night, Larence."

She heard him roll over, and within moments the soft, even cadence of his breath told her that he was asleep. Envy stabbed her. He went to sleep with the ease of a child. Her fingers, still curled in a death grip around the hatpin, loosened. She stabbed it in the mattress's far corner.

Maybe he slept easily because he believed in something.

Idly she wondered what it would be like to believe in something, and thought that, perhaps, it would be the sort of thing that helped a person sleep at night. Lord knew it had worked for Digby.

He had such big, big dreams.

She didn't have a single one. She'd stopped letting herself believe in anything except the security of cold, hard cash on the day her father killed himself.

And she hadn't gone to sleep easily since long before that.

Larence spread his papers and pens and pocket tapes out on the table he'd had the porter set up between him and Emmaline. Carefully extracting his brand-new Woodsman's Reliable compass from its leather pouch,

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he laid it alongside the pens. Then, very gently, he pulled the diary out of its special place in his valise, opened it to page one, and began rechecking his distance calculations.

"What are you doing?" she asked, sipping her morning tea.

He smoothed the map of New Mexico, his gaze riveted to the forested patch of terrain between Cibola and the Malpais. "Checking the map Stanton gave me against the landmarks in the diary."

She set down her cup and reached for the compass.

"Don't touch that."

She drew her hand back. "I wasn't going to steal it."

He got out his straightedge and drew a line between two points, then looked up. "Sorry," he said with an easy smile. "Sometimes I get sort of ... caught up in things. Of course, you're welcome to look at the compass."

She glanced over at it and nodded. "Nice."

"Michael gave it to me for the trip. It's the very best one on the market. Oxidized case, hinged cover, automatic stop, jeweled needle." His words ground to a chuckling stop. "I guess you don't care much about the compass."

She stifled an unexpected smile. "I guess not."

"Maybe we could talk about something else."

She pondered that for a moment, clearly hesitant. "Maybe . . ."

He pulled out his cherished copy of Century Magazine. The one with Frank Cushing's article about his travels in Zuni country. "Would you like to see—"

"No, thanks."

"How about my map? I could show you—"

"I don't think so."

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He frowned. "Well, then you think of something we could talk about."

"Stocks?" she said hopefully.

He shook his head. "Sorry. How about plants?"

"No. Economy?"

"Nope. History?"

Silence stretched between them, thick and awkward. Larence heard the quiet ticking of his watch as they stared at each other.

"Well." They both said the word at precisely the same moment.

Larence chuckled at their mutual discomfort. ' 'I think I'll go back to work," he said.

She nodded. "That's an excellent idea."

"Good."

"Good."

Emmaline plucked up the old financial newspaper she'd found in the parlor car, and began to read.

Larence turned his attention back to the map and began to mark off watering holes and rivers along the journey.

Larence sighed in his sleep, burrowing closer to the warm body spooned tightly against his own.

Something tickled his nostrils. He wiggled his nose and pushed the offending strands of hair off his face.

The delicate scent of roses reached him.

His arms tightened around her body, his leg slid atop hers. He felt the heat of her skin through his long underwear. She rolled over. Warm, firm breasts and hardened nipples pressed against his chest.

The contact jolted him awake. His eyes blinked twice in rapid succession, then widened at the sight that greeted him.

Emmaline was curled like a contented kitten in his

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arms. Her face was turned up to his, and their lips were no more than a strand of hair apart. Her even, peaceful breath teased his face and lips.