The Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection: Nine Historical Romances Celebrate Marrying for All the Right Reasons (67 page)

She sighed. “Remember not to act like you still wear it around your heart.”

Her words weren’t intended to hurt. Irie had not a mean bone in her body, but Duke hurt. The ring weighed him down. Figuratively. Emotionally. He didn’t want a woman to replace Janet in his heart, but maybe he did need one to fill the empty places, to remind him how to love and be loved. Time had come for him to pack his wedding ring away with the rest of the treasures he’d saved for Tabitha to someday have.

He pushed off the gazebo support beam. “I don’t want Tabitha knowing why The Twelve are here. I want to protect her from this circus.”

Irie’s gaze flew to his. “She is bound to overhear something.”

This was why Tabitha needed a mother—to have someone think of the things a father didn’t.

“Duke
, you
need to be the one to tell her.”

She was right; he knew it. “You’re going to make my life miserable until I do.”

The left corner of her mouth twitched upward.

“All right. Tabitha, come here.” Duke grabbed Irie’s wrist as she started to leave the gazebo. “Oh no, you’re not fleeing this ball, Cinderella. You are my Moral Support.”

Irie grumbled under her breath, and Duke grinned. He liked her lack of pretense. He nudged her to sit next to him on the gazebo step as Tabitha stopped before them. All the running had reddened her cheeks. More hair was out of braids than in. She smelled of sweat, pond water, and childhood fun.

“Yes, Daddy?”

Duke loosened his tie and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “We are having a house party for a few weeks.”

Her face brightened. “Will any children be here?”

His mind went blank. He couldn’t remember reading that any of The Twelve would have younger siblings joining them. He should have studied the information in the folders, or at least paid more attention to Irie’s four nights of discourse. The number of awards some Austin socialite earned playing the violin didn’t interest him, not like Irie did. Looking at her made him remember how he’d felt seeing her in that blue dress. Remembering then led his mind into wondering. The only way to keep him from wondering things he shouldn’t be wondering about Irie was to not look at her.

He sat up straight. “Children? Uhh, there may—”

“No,” Irie put in. “Only adults will be visiting. All ladies.”

Tabitha promptly responded with, “Why are they coming?”

“For the Harvest—” Duke grunted at the elbow housed in his side. “It’s time I married again. You need a mother.”

Irie grasped Tabitha’s hands. “Your grandfather has selected twelve delightful women for your daddy to meet,” she said in a tone reminding him of his own mother. “After he does, he will choose the one he favors most.”

Tabitha’s face showed no emotion, which surprised Duke.

Irie let go of Tabitha’s hands.

Tabitha lifted one grass-stained foot then the other. She plucked a rose off the gazebo trellis. Then she looked at him with a toothy smile so much like Janet’s. “All right.”

“All right?” he and Irie said in unison.

Tabitha nodded. “I’d like to have a mother. Can I have ice cream?”

“We have ice cream?” Duke exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” In one fell swoop, he grabbed her waist, stood, and flung her over his shoulder, which sent her into a fit of giggles as he expected.

“Daddy, stop,” she said between squeals.

He shifted her onto his back, and she immediately wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. Duke stretched a hand out to Irie. “You don’t think I’d eat ice cream and leave my Conscience behind.”

For a second, he thought he saw panic in her eyes. She had no reason not to want to continue the evening with them. They were all like family.

Her brow furrowed then smoothed again. She placed her hand in his. “I thought I was Moral Support.”

He pulled her to her feet. He should have released her hand, but something in her smile made him want to keep her close. While he wasn’t ready to let go, she did.

Tabitha squeezed his neck. “Ice cream!”

“Of course, of course.”

The next afternoon

“How was the charity auction, dear? Did your pies sell for much?”

Irie leaned back against the Pink Room’s damask-papered wall as her mother ensured the bulb in the bedside lamp worked. It did. Everything in the mansion was in working order because Guadalupe LaCroix—the daughter of impoverished Mexican immigrants—had been raised to do more than she was asked. To work as if she was serving the Lord.

Mama pulled the chain to turn off the Tiffany lamp Irie had helped Mrs. Baker order years ago. The gracious lady never saw the extravagant Quality Hill home her beloved husband had built for her. Polio ensured it. Yet Mama had ensured Mrs. Baker’s decorations were hung and placed in the rooms she’d chosen before her passing.

“Mama, why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?”

A curve appeared on Mama’s lips, a sparkle in her dark eyes. “You’re wearing the Irish lace gown you save for special days, and you are smiling. Thus, I know you were hoping to see him and he fulfilled the hope. You like our handsome fireman. How many of your pies did he buy?” Mama claimed her clipboard from off the bed. As she walked to the bathroom en suite, she withdrew a pencil from the pocket of the apron she wore over her black dress. She wrote something on the top page. “Well?” she prodded from inside the bathroom.

“He only bought one, and there isn’t a female in Tarrant County—married or single—who doesn’t like him.” Irie chuckled. “If you combined all of Jane Austen’s heroes into one man, Julian Parish would be him. I’m convinced he has no flaws.”

“He will make me beautiful grandbabies,” Mama called out.

“Mama!” Mortified, Irie closed the door to the bedroom lest one of the maids on the third floor walk by and hear their conversation.

Mama exited the bathroom, walking directly to Irie, her expression filled with delight and hope. “Tell me you agreed to go to the opera with him tonight.”

Irie’s amusement died. “I did.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I do like Julian. I do. It’s just—” She gave her head a little shake. She was making falling in love harder than it had to be.

Mama ran the back of her fingers down Irie’s cheek. “But he isn’t the man you wish to be going to the opera with.”

Ah, the heart of her problem. For a woman with just six years of schoolroom education, Mama was quite smart. “When I am with Julian, I enjoy our time together. He is a man with strong moral qualities. We have common interests, shared values, and similar tastes. When we talk—and he is not shy about talking—I feel like we understand each other.” She sighed. “He’s almost too beautiful to look at.”

“But Duke.”

“Yes, but Duke.”

“Your feelings for him cloud your heart and your judgment.”

Irie raised her brows, nodding at Mama’s understatement. Her chest hurt. Her head hurt. He was so oblivious to her; it had never crossed his mind his daughter’s not-so-imaginary friend, Misery, had been her. Miss Irie. Not until she told him.

“Don’t cry.”

“I’m not going to cry.”

“You look like it.”

“I feel like it,” Irie said with another sigh. “Oh, Mama, I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I’ve pleaded with God, yet the feelings remain. I need to escape Fort Worth.”

Mama drew Irie close. “I told Mr. Baker not to involve you. He refused to listen. If he knew how you felt about his son—”

“Please,” Irie begged, “don’t tell him. I couldn’t bear the mortification of him knowing. If Duke doesn’t choose one of The Twelve, Mr. Baker may think I sabotaged the courtship out of jealousy.”

This time Mama sighed. “I will say nothing, but if you truly want your feelings for Duke to end, you need to be open to falling in love with our handsome fireman.”

“I will. I am,” she corrected.

“Good.” Mama kissed her forehead. “A man like Julian Parish will give my baby a reason not to leave her mama.”

Irie drew back. “I thought you wanted to move to San Francisco with me.”

“Fort Worth is my home.”

“But you wouldn’t have to work again. We could have a future together.”

“Contrary to what you believe, my life did not stop when you left for Boston. I have a life here I don’t want to leave.”

“Like what?”

Mama’s look signaled the end of the conversation. She opened the guest room door. “I must get back to work, and you need to change into an even prettier gown. Shoo, Irie. You have a fireman to catch.”

Irie watched Mama exit the Pink Room and turn down the hall to the Gold Room. The news her mother didn’t want to leave Fort Worth stunned her. Mama kept house for the Bakers. She attended church and her knitting club. What life could she have here that Irie didn’t know about? Mama was keeping something from her. Had to be.

By the time she made it to the LaCroix private quarters, she was certain of it.

Chapter 5

Monday, October 3
10:23 p.m.

T
hey all look the same. They all talk the same.” Duke dusted his cue stick with the chalk cube as his father removed the last two balls from the table pockets.

“How is it possible twelve women have the same floral, citrusy, soapy smell?” When he had a chance, he was going to ask Irie.

Dad racked the balls then stepped to the side of the billiards table, the overhead lamp providing the light in the room. “They all hope to be kissed.”

“What?”

“A popular perfume advertises ‘For When You Want to Be Kissed.’” He didn’t look the least bit embarrassed about knowing that tidbit. “Don’t you ever read the paper?”

Duke blinked. Of course he read it, but not advertisements for perfume or any other girly products. He avoided the society pages. He cared about cattle, not cotillions. “I read what interests me. Is there a reason you’re reading perfume advertisements?”

Dad motioned to the triangularly placed balls. “You’re up. What about the Rayburn girl? She lives a street over.”

Duke hesitated a moment then accepted the change of topic. His father read the paper from first page to last. He had no reason to be suspicious about his father knowing about perfumes, even though he was. “Rayburn? Which one was she?”

“Blond in the cream-and-gold dress.”

Ah, the scatterbrained one with the annoying voice. After the evening he’d endured, he’d earned the opportunity to pull one over on his father. “Can’t say I remember her.”

Dad circled his hands over his head. “She had pearls stuck all in and around.”

Duke shook his head.

“Her mother looks more like an older sister,” Dad suggested. “She was the one in the crimson gown. Mr. Rayburn passed on six years ago, a few months after your mother. The ladies moved to Quality Hill this past spring after oil struck on their ranch near Odessa.”

Duke gave a noncommittal shrug.

“How can you not remember her?” Dad asked in awe. “Mrs. Rayburn was the prettiest lady in the room. Eliza can even rope a steer.”

Duke leaned over the table to hide his smile and took aim at the cue ball. “Did you not hear me say they all look alike? They all talk alike?” He struck hard, scattering the balls across the felt. The purple-striped number twelve sank into the left-corner pocket. Not his best opening, but tolerable. He chalked his cue stick and evaluated the arrangement, looking for the best angles. “Couldn’t you have found ladies closer to my age?” he said in all seriousness. “They’re all so young.”

“The youngest, Miss Abigale Sharp, is eighteen. Bonnie Hightower and Eliza Rayburn are both twenty-four, mind you, a year older than you when you married.”

Duke looked to his father, standing at the opposite side of the table, gloating over what he clearly thought was a winning argument. His parents had married because they’d been in love. Duke had married because he’d been in love. It wasn’t that he couldn’t tell the girls apart. His heart, rather, wasn’t in this courtship.

But Tabitha needed a mother, so no matter the inconvenience, awkwardness, and embarrassment he felt over the situation, he would give each girl a chance. They deserved it.

He walked around the table to the far corner. “You couldn’t find a widow? Maybe one with a child of her own?”

“Erin O’Keefe’s fiancé died eight months ago.”

“That doesn’t make her a widow.”

Dad shrugged. “It’s close enough.”

Duke took aim at the cue ball. “I doubt a single one of them has been out of the state of Texas.”

“Aha! The Hightower girls spent last year in Europe.”

Duke shot again—
crack
—and another striped ball banked off the wall, sinking into a pocket. “Which sisters are they?”

“Didn’t you study the information Mrs. Norris prepared?”

“Not everyone looks the same in person as they do in a photograph.”

“Irie said she quizzed you.”

Duke took his leisure chalking the pool stick. He tossed the chalk cube into the bowl on the side table. “You can always count on Irie to do her job,” he answered vaguely. “And go beyond what you’ve asked of her.”

Why she didn’t tell his father how poorly he’d answered her questions, though, was something he wanted to know. Irie was as honest as they came. After hours of reviewing the information (information that all blurred together), he realized facts about a person didn’t reveal who she truly was. Why waste his time studying facts? He never bought a bull or a mare on pedigree or weight, or on the advice of another. His eyes could tell if it was worth buying.