Noelle Read online

  She was, too. Andrew was a practiced dancer and she wasn’t. She could hardly tell him that her expertise was a gift from his stepbrother. Andrew resented Jared, for reasons she didn’t understand.

  Her eyes flickered again to Jared and Miss Doyle, and she found him watching her from across the room. When he saw her, he smiled mockingly. Yes, she thought as she averted her eyes, it was deliberate. He’d come here with that lovely debutante to make a point, and his attentiveness was only part of that plan. What she didn’t understand was why it hurt so much.

  “Let’s go and see Jared’s lady,” Andrew said, drawing her along with him. “I’ve only once had the pleasure of making her acquaintance. Her father is very well-known hereabouts, and although his main source of wealth is the railroads, he also invests in the building trade. He’d be a useful contact,” he added. He was putting on a merry face, but it was hurting him to see his own Miss Jennifer Beale with another man. Consequently he was much more attentive to Noelle than he would have been, and Jennifer pointedly ignored him as he led Noelle to where his stepbrother was standing with Miss Doyle and his grandmother.

  Noelle went reluctantly. She didn’t want to meet Miss Doyle. It was going to hurt even more than it already did. But she put on her best polite smile and tried to remember that it was Andrew to whom she was attracted, not Jared. The Doyle woman looked to be in her mid-twenties, too, which made her more his own age.

  She clutched Andrew’s arm closer and fanned gently with the blue, black and red Oriental silk fan Mrs. Dunn had loaned her to go with her elegant sapphire silk gown. Jared had paid for the gown and taught her to dance—and to become socially acceptable. She was his creature, but he’d lost interest in her. He was telling her so without a word.

  Jared watched her approach him with Andrew, and the look on her face disturbed him. He’d met Miss Doyle at a Civic Betterment meeting and her parents had immediately pushed her at him. A rich New York attorney was a good catch for a young woman of good family. He’d asked her to the dance tonight only to show Noelle that he had no real interest in their young houseguest, but his idea was backfiring. This was hurting Noelle. It was just a date, nothing serious or binding, but Noelle’s big green eyes were wounded and he felt badly about that. He’d recalled over and over again his action the last time they’d been together, when he’d thrown her hand away from his and made her think he found her touch repulsive. He didn’t understand himself lately. He wanted her passionately, but she was a green girl—and besides, her heart belonged to Andrew.

  As Andrew joined his stepbrother, the lovely but snippy Miss Doyle gave Noelle a contemptuous stare and clung tighter to Jared’s arm. She barely glanced at Andrew, as if she didn’t know him at all.

  “This is Noelle Brown,” Mrs. Dunn was saying. “Noelle, this is Miss Amanda Doyle. Her family has been here for two generations.”

  “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Doyle,” Noelle said politely.

  Miss Doyle didn’t smile back. She only nodded. “Hello, Andrew,” she added, with a faint smile. “Nice to see you again.”

  Andrew nodded graciously. “And you, Miss Doyle.” He drew Noelle’s hand tight in his. “Noelle and I are just sitting out this dance. We’re exhausted.”

  Jared’s eyes flashed as he noted Noelle’s pallid face. “Don’t keep Noelle out late,” he said curtly. “She isn’t used to long evenings.”

  Miss Doyle fanned herself frantically. She lifted a thin eyebrow and smiled condescendingly. “Noelle. Now where have I heard that name? Oh, yes. You do the gardening for Mrs. Dunn, I believe, and in your bloomers. How scandalous!” she said sweetly, adding, “Mrs. Hardy is an old friend of my mother’s. She lives at the corner, just beyond Andrew’s house.”

  Mrs. Hardy had been gossiping. Noelle’s green eyes met Miss Doyle’s unblinkingly. There was a bit of a rumor she’d heard in one of the shops about this woman. She smiled with cool nerve. “And I believe that you were recently engaged to a young man who represented himself as an official of a rival railroad company of your father’s? How did his trial come out, by the way?”

  It was a faux pas of the first order. Miss Doyle looked near to a faint. Her face went so white that she resembled a bleached bedsheet. Voices started to murmur loudly all around her.

  “Let us dance, Noelle,” Andrew said quickly. He dragged her away and back to the dance floor, and she went only reluctantly. That silly woman, passing on gossip, making her out to be a hussy! Her green eyes blazed with anger, and she noticed that Jared refused to look at her. Probably he was furious at what she had said, and she didn’t care.

  Andrew was shocked. “My dear,” he began

  gently, “one simply doesn’t mention such things in polite company.”

  “But she made fun of me, Andrew,” she said indignantly. “She told everyone that I was your gardener!”

  “If you will continue to potter in the garden dressed like a—a…well, you must expect such gossip,” he said irritably.

  It was, she decided, a good thing that she was no longer blindly infatuated with him. She had already learned that he was, for all his swagger, the most conventional member of the family. Even more so than his grandmother. It amused her that Jared found her antics less shocking—when he looked and acted so straitlaced.

  He wasn’t laughing tonight, though. She was sure that he would read her a lecture after the dance was over about her unspeakable behavior. And she would deserve it, she admitted. She had let her temper make an idiot of her—and embarrassed Mrs. Dunn and especially Jared—who had been so good to her. Not that the haughty Miss Doyle didn’t deserve to be put down, she thought belligerently. Even if she had invited comment with her puttering, it was hardly Miss Doyle’s place to tell the world about it.

  It was malicious, and unfounded. Why should the woman want to embarrass her? She hadn’t ever met her until tonight. It seemed odd that she would want to attack a total stranger. Jared hadn’t defended her, either. She remembered again the way he’d thrown off her hand at their last meeting and she felt miserable.

  She sighed. Andrew heard the faint sound and felt guilty for having been so stern with her.

  “You’re new to such situations,” he said soothingly. “It takes practice to behave well in polite society. I’ll take you out more often, Noelle,” he decided impulsively. “If I teach you proper behavior, you’ll fare better.”

  “How kind of you to think of it, Andrew,” she said. She didn’t look up. There was no need to let him know how angry she was. The woman had attacked her first, after all.

  Andrew grimaced. “And here comes Jared.”

  She didn’t look up, except to stare at a spotless white shirt under a tuxedo and black tie that appeared beside Andrew. She heard Jared’s terse apology, followed by his request to dance with Noelle.

  “Could we wait a bit, old chap,” Andrew began, with smiling arrogance.

  “No, we couldn’t, old chap,” Jared replied, with a cold smile.

  Andrew found those blue eyes chilling at close range. Jared made him feel cowardly. He handed Noelle over without protest.

  “Age hath its privileges, dear girl,” Andrew said maliciously, with a meaningful glance at his stepbrother. He kissed her gloved hand with a flourish and relinquished her without another word.

  Noelle felt Jared’s gloved hand at her waist, the other clasping her own. He moved her fluidly to the music, staring straight above her head.

  “Go ahead,” she muttered, with a glare in the general direction of Miss Doyle, who was surrounded by friends who gossiped behind their silk fans while gaping over them at Noelle. “Lecture me. Andrew said that I should expect it. I’ve disgraced the family.”

  “Parts of it,” he admitted.

  She stared at his nice, neat black tie. “She made me look a fool, because I like to grow things.”
/>   His hand tightened on hers, although not a sign of sympathy showed in his hard face. “Nevertheless, it was unkind of you to bring back a painful memory to her.”

  She nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully. “Did he go to jail?” she asked, with irrepressible curiosity.

  “Yes, for impersonating a railroad official and extorting money in that guise. Her father was out of town at the time, or he’d have been found out sooner. But the subject embarrasses Miss Doyle.”

  “Miss Doyle is a—”

  “Noelle!” he said disapprovingly.

  She stiffened. “I don’t like your world. People in it are hypocrites. Look at them,” she invited, inclining her head toward the beautiful girls that surrounded Miss Doyle, “gossiping about me. Mrs. Hardy has no doubt told them that I come from a poor background and am not fit to associate with them. How dare she insult me so!”

  He was trying desperately not to laugh. He whirled her around to the rhythm and groaned at the pressure on his leg.

  “There, see what you’ve done!” she said, stopping at once as her bad temper gave way to concern for him. “You should be sitting down, not trying to prove how fit you are.”

  He glared into her green eyes. “I need no advice from you, miss.”

  “Yes, you do. You won’t listen to anyone else. Mrs. Dunn said that you’d been on your feet for two days in court this week, and you wouldn’t let any of the other attorneys in town assist you. For heaven’s sake, your leg must be killing you.”

  It was. He hated having her know it. His dark brows drew together over dangerously glittering pale blue eyes. “I don’t need a nurse.”

  She sighed angrily. “Go ahead, then, make it worse. Then you can get your sweet Miss Doyle to bring you whiskey to ease the ache!”

  He stared down at her with more conflicting emotions raging inside him than he’d ever felt in his life.

  She glared up at him. “And should you be touching me, after all? You do loathe my hands, don’t you? I’m certain that you think I’ll poison you. But we’re wearing gloves, aren’t we? Perhaps that makes me more acceptable.”

  He didn’t reply. He could never explain why he’d thrown off her hand that day in the kitchen.

  She stopped in the middle of the floor, sick with humiliation and bad temper. “I’ll ask Andrew to take me home. I don’t want to stay here any longer. Please make my apologies to Miss Doyle. Regardless of what she said, I suppose that it was wrong of me to embarrass her. But then, I have no breeding, have I?”

  She turned before he could say a word and made a beeline back to Andrew. “I feel unwell,” she said huskily. “Please, could you take me home?”

  “Of course,” he said. It was difficult not to show his relief. Miss Doyle was still glaring in their direction, and his own Miss Jennifer Beale was looking livid herself. Noelle’s presence was embarrassing him in more ways than one. “Let’s go at once.”

  He took her arm and escorted her around to make her apologies to her host and say good-night to Mrs. Dunn. She didn’t speak to Jared. In fact, she didn’t even look at him.

  “What a very odd houseguest you have, Jared,” Miss Doyle commented coolly as she watched Noelle leave with Andrew. “She has no manners at all, has she?”

  Jared was watching her leave, too, his hands in his pockets and all sorts of protective impulses prickling inside him. “She’s a child,” he said quietly, turning back to Miss Doyle. His eyes narrowed. “And your comment was in extremely poor taste. One hardly expects such tasteless remarks from a woman of your class. I’m disappointed in you, Amanda. I thought you were above such petty behavior.”

  She gaped at him. He’d spoken loudly enough so that the girls standing around her heard him. They looked uncomfortable, and she colored. “Jared, Mrs. Hardy told me—”

  “Noelle is my cousin,” he said, emphasizing the word. “I don’t take kindly to derogatory remarks about members of my family. From anyone.”

  Miss Doyle fanned herself furiously. She was more embarrassed than she could ever remember being. “Please, Jared. I meant no harm. It was an innocent remark, truly it was. You must forgive me.”

  “Gossip is unforgivable,” he said harshly. He looked at the other women coldly. “I find women who practice it repulsive.”

  There were gasps and choking sounds, and a rapid movement of feet. If he’d been in a better mood, he might have been amused at the reaction his remark brought. But Noelle had left with Andrew, and he was furious that Amanda had given his stepbrother an excuse to be alone with her.

  “Please excuse me,” he said stiffly.

  His blue eyes were cold as they met Amanda Doyle’s. She didn’t need an advertisement to know that her chances of landing this moneyed fish had gone awry.

  If she’d had hopes, he spent the rest of the time thwarting them. He danced with Jennifer Beale and several of the matrons present, but he deliberately refused to dance with Amanda the rest of the evening, which was remarked upon. Amanda seemed only then to realize that she’d driven Jared away with her insensitive remarks about his precious cousin. And not only Jared. Other men present, also outraged by her, left her on the sidelines as well. By the time Jared took Miss Doyle home, she was the subject of more gossip than Noelle had been. And he wasn’t sorry.

  * * *

  ANDREW TOOK NOELLE home, pausing in the hall just long enough to make sure that she was all right.

  “I hate leaving you here alone,” he said sadly. “Noelle, it isn’t your fault. I wouldn’t have had you embarrassed tonight for all the world. That Doyle woman is a viper.”

  He was defending her for once, even if he’d waited to do it in private. It made her feel warm. Jared hadn’t defended her at all. She smiled up at him. “You’re kind, Andrew,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He moved restlessly. “You’ll be all right?”

  “Mrs. Pate is here,” she reminded him. “I’ll go to bed. It was a lovely dance.”

  “You were lovely,” he said softly. “You are lovely.” He pulled her to him, kissing her very gently on the lips. He smiled at her shy hesitation and kissed her again, hard this time, and with ardor.

  She didn’t fight him, but she didn’t respond, either. How odd that she felt no tingle, no spark, when she’d dreamed of his kisses for so long. He lifted his head and touched her cheek softly. “You have no knowledge of this, have you?” he asked, with arrogance. “It doesn’t matter. A shop-soiled girl has no appeal whatsoever. You’re like a rose in bud, Noelle. I find you delightful.”

  She smiled halfheartedly. She was surprised. She’d wanted Andrew to kiss her for months. Now he had, and she felt nothing at all. The touch of his mouth, while not unpleasant, struck no chord within her. She wasn’t even breathing quickly.

  He patted her shoulder affectionately. “Sleep well, my dear. Tomorrow, we might go to the theater. There’s a new vaudeville troupe in town.”

  “That would be nice, Andrew.”

  He winked at her and smiled. “Good night. Sleep well.”

  He closed the door behind him and whistled merrily on his way back to the carriage. Noelle was delightful to kiss.

  But all the way back to the party, he was thinking about Jennifer Beale’s jealousy. It delighted him that she was beginning to care for him. He would play his cards very carefully, but her fortune would spare him the indignity of daily work. It was a prospect he desired greatly. And she was pretty enough, and somewhat more pliable than Noelle—although Noelle truly was a joy in his arms. Ah, well, there was no law that said a man, even a married man, couldn’t have a bit on the side.

  * * *

  THE HOUSE WAS quiet. It was very late, and the others had long since come home. But Noelle still couldn’t sleep. She deplored her bad behavior, however merited. She felt guilty about what she’d said to Jared’s woman friend and
about making things more difficult for Mrs. Dunn. She was a guest here. She must stop embarrassing the family.

  She wondered if a warm drink might not help her to settle. On second thought, a shot of that whiskey Jared had savored might be even better. Feeling utterly wicked now, she pulled her ruffled, lacy pink-and-white wrapper around her, with her auburn hair loose and full around her shoulders, and crept downstairs.

  The house was dark, but she had eyes like a cat. She felt her way into the study. Light from the streetlight near the house illuminated the cabinet where the whiskey was kept.

  She pulled out the squat bottle and a small glass and carefully poured a tiny measure into it. She put the bottle away and then stood, trying to get the liquid past her nose.

  A faint sound made her turn. There was a tall, shadowy figure in the doorway, and she gasped, holding her throat. The shot glass almost upended. She righted it in the nick of time.

  The door closed. The gaslight beside the door was turned on, and Jared stood there in his long burgundy robe, staring at her from a hard, alert face. He looked as if he hadn’t slept, either, although his dark hair was tousled. The robe was pulled tight, but it left a tiny sliver of his chest bare. It was dark, and not from the sun, and covered with thick hair. Noelle had never seen a man in such a state of undress. She was uneasy, and only then did it occur to her that she was standing up in only her nightgown and a flimsy robe, with bare feet and loose hair; every line of her body was outlined.

  Jared hadn’t missed that. His pale eyes were intent on her body, and the look in them made her take a step backward, even though he hadn’t moved.

  “Are you really afraid of me?” he asked quietly.

  She clutched the shot glass to her bosom. “It isn’t decent for me to be seen like this by a man,” she said.

  “Or for me to be seen like this by a woman,” he replied. His hands were deep in the pockets of the robe. He stared at her for a long time, until she felt her knees wobble under her.

  She broke the silence. “You were the one who said I needed to be more conventional.”