Noelle Read online

  He cocked his head and his narrow blue eyes stared at her. “Andrew’s opinion means a great deal to you, doesn’t it, Miss Brown?”

  “Well, yes. It was he who brought me here and gave me a home,” she replied.

  “That’s the only reason?” he probed.

  “He’s everything a man should be,” she said finally, twisting a piece of paper in her hands. “I’m sorry if you don’t approve of my admiration for him. I know that my background is nothing special.”

  He glared at her. “Your background is nothing to me,” he said shortly. “Your character is all that concerns me.”

  “You don’t think I have character,” she accused. “You think I’m after Andrew because he has money, don’t you?”

  He chuckled softly. “At first, yes—I did think you might be an opportunist. But you improve on closer acquaintance. I don’t think you have a larcenous bone in your body. You aren’t the type.”

  She eyed him with open curiosity. “You’d know the type, wouldn’t you?”

  His eyes became intent. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a lawyer,” she replied simply. “You must have defended many men who were guilty of their crimes.”

  “Not knowingly,” he pointed out. “I have too much respect for the law to dirty my hands helping felons to break it. Although there are plenty of people who consider themselves qualified to be judge and jury,” he added.

  “You’re talking about the lynchings, aren’t you? There are a lot of them these days.” She put the twisted paper in her hands on the desk and pushed it away. “It’s a shame that many accused people don’t have a chance at a trial.”

  “That will change one day,” he replied.

  “I hope so.” She searched his blue eyes curiously. “Why did you decide to come home after so long in New York?” she asked bluntly. “Was it because you thought I was trying to cheat Andrew out of his inheritance?”

  Her plainspoken nature amused him. He smiled indulgently and perched himself on the corner of the desk, looking down at her from far too close. “Yes, I think it was,” he replied, with equal forthrightness. “But I was tired of practicing pocketbook law, too. The last case I handled was a property dispute. My client was in the wrong, but I didn’t find it out until the verdict was handed down and there was some—” he paused “—unpleasantness.”

  “Someone tried to beat you up?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  He almost told her. Surprisingly, he wanted to. But he shrugged. “Something like that,” he said, and passed it off.

  “You don’t like being wrong, do you?” she asked him.

  He laughed, annoyed. “I rarely am.”

  “How conceited,” she shot back, but she smiled.

  “I know the law.” He corrected her faulty impression. “I’ve been in practice for ten years.”

  “That’s what Andrew said.”

  He wondered what else his stepbrother had told her about him. Nothing good, he was certain. Andrew didn’t like him, and the younger man was apparently taken with Noelle. He wouldn’t like an older rival.

  “Andrew and I are very different,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, I know. He’s much younger than you, isn’t he?”

  His jaw tautened. “Not that much younger,” he said irritably.

  “It’s very odd, you know,” she said thoughtfully, studying him, “that you look so much older than he does. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? I mean, he was in the war and you’ve spent years sitting in a courtroom. One would think that a soldier, a man who dealt in death, would look older than a well-dressed lawyer who never had to face more than an occasional verbal threat.”

  His eyes dropped to her long-fingered, elegant hands folded on the desk. She had no idea what his life had been like. She was right, but she didn’t know the truth. He’d lived more in his lifetime than Andrew ever would.

  “I haven’t offended you, have I?” she asked worriedly. “I sometimes speak without thinking.”

  His eyes shot back up to catch hers. He smiled slowly. “You’re not afraid of me. I’m glad. I don’t pull my punches, and I won’t expect you to. Our association should prove to be an interesting one, with a basis of such honesty.” He eased off the edge of the desk and got to his feet. He leaned heavily on the cane, wincing.

  “It’s an old injury, isn’t it?” she asked, standing up, and continued before he could reply. “You must have had a hard time getting around in a big city like New York. It’s less crowded here.”

  She’d gone to open the door for him, and he gave her a glare that disconcerted her with its cold fury.

  He reached over, grasped the door’s edge, and slammed it. The noise made her jump. His expression was even more threatening than the loud noise.

  “I don’t need doors opened for me, a rocking chair to rest in, warm milk to help me sleep, or solicitous exaggerations from a woman who sees me as a cripple!”

  She gaped at him. “I thought no such thing about you! I would have opened the door for anyone who—who…” She flushed.

  “Anyone who was crippled, isn’t that what you meant to say? Spit it out, then.”

  “All right,” she said furiously. “I’d open a door for anyone who was crippled. There! Does it make you happy to have embarrassed me so? Would you rather I pretended that there’s nothing wrong with you, when I can plainly see that it hurts you just to stand up?”

  He drew in a sharp, angry breath. He leaned ever more heavily on the cane, aware of her slenderness and his superior height as he loomed over her. The injury was temporary. Wouldn’t she faint if he told her how he’d acquired it! His eyes gleamed as he debated with himself about doing exactly that.

  “I’m sure that a bad leg doesn’t have anything at all to do with practicing law, and your grandmother says there isn’t anyone at all who’s better at it than you are,” she continued, unabashed. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but I like doing things for you.”

  Both eyebrows shot up in surprise. She’d colored just faintly when she’d said that, and it touched him as few things had in years past. He searched her green eyes far longer than he meant to, and he could see her heartbeat change in the small artery on the side of her throat, where the lace fluttered.

  “I mean, I like being of help,” she said quickly.

  It wasn’t quick enough, though. He allowed himself to savor it for a few seconds. Then he laughed at his own assumptions. Her opinion of him certainly precluded any romantic feelings.

  “I can open my own doors, nevertheless,” he said quietly.

  “Very well, Mr. Dunn.”

  He gave her one last glance, and, with an irritated sound, he opened the door again and went out.

  * * *

  ANDREW CAME IN later and peered into the study; Noelle had just finished with the last report. She was putting a hand to her aching back, but she smiled when she saw him.

  “I’ve just finished,” she said.

  “What a sweetheart you are, Noelle,” Andrew said as he picked up the reports and looked through them. “A bit off the lines,” he remarked carelessly, “but they’ll do, I suppose.”

  Hours of work, and they’d “do”? She glared at him. “I spent the entire evening in here,” she began.

  “Yes, and don’t think I don’t appreciate it. Now about tomorrow night—”

  “I can’t go to the dance with you. Thank you all the same for asking me,” she said abruptly.

  He searched her eyes and then shrugged. “I’m sorry. Another time perhaps?”

  “Perhaps.”

  He chuckled and bent to kiss her on the cheek. “You’re a goose,” he accused gently. “I wouldn’t have asked for anything you didn’t want to give me.”

  “But that’s not why,” she said, horrified that he h
ad a totally wrong idea of the reason behind her refusal.

  He waved her away. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it. I’ll ask you again,” he drawled softly. “Sleep well, Noelle.”

  He yawned as he strolled back out of the room, still not knowing why she’d refused.

  Noelle was upset by his lack of interest about her reasons. His stepbrother would have had the information out of her no matter what it took. She wondered why it irritated her so much that Andrew had been so careless about it. She put up the typewriter, angry that she’d even permitted herself to think about what Jared would have done, and went halfheartedly up to her room.

  Chapter Four

  NOELLE WAS A little relieved that she’d refused Andrew’s invitation to the dance, because she had another problem besides the lack of an appropriate gown to wear. She’d never learned to dance. Her father, a carpenter like her uncle, but also a lay minister, despised dancing and other “sinful pleasures of the flesh,” and refused to allow Noelle to attend such functions. She couldn’t dance at all.

  She was also very unworldly. She’d lived in a house that was little more than a shack, first with her own family and then with her elderly uncle. She’d never experienced indoor plumbing, washing machines, newfangled refrigerators with removable ice trays, or a gas stove, electric lights and a telephone until she came to live in Fort Worth with Andrew’s people. She was keenly aware of her limitations. And probably, so was he.

  Andrew hadn’t been surprised by her gentle refusal to accompany him, and he hadn’t wondered why. In fact, he’d regretted his impulsive invitation as soon as he’d made it. Noelle was very attractive, but she was hardly his idea of a cultured companion for a very public evening. Although her speech was passable, she still seemed ignorant of even basic table manners and was uncomfortable among educated, sophisticated people.

  He promptly invited Jennifer Beale to be his companion for the evening. Jennifer was a debutante who lived outside town with her father—in a Victorian home even more elegant than the one that Jared had ordered built for his grandmother two years ago. She was beautiful and wealthy and cultured—all the things that poor Noelle was not. He’d met Jennifer by chance at a local dry goods store and had found her shyness and her beauty enchanting. Since then, he’d made a point of finding out her daily routine, and he made certain that he was somewhere nearby on her trips to town.

  She seemed to like him. He certainly liked her. Her father was rich, but he’d started out with nothing. He wouldn’t look down on Andrew for not being wealthy. Although the family had started out in the highest echelons of society, Andrew’s father had lost the family fortune, and Andrew had found himself dependent on his unpleasant stepbrother for his comfort. He hadn’t wanted to go to work, because no male member of his family had ever had to go out to work for a living. But last year, Jared had put his foot down and insisted that Andrew start contributing to his own support.

  The job at the brick works had been easily obtained, since the owner had been his father’s best friend. But Andrew was surprised to find that the job was challenging and that he seemed to do it rather well. He was apparently a born salesman. He wondered if his father would quite approve of his only son becoming a salaried worker, but it no longer mattered. He enjoyed his job, except for the paperwork. However, Noelle was around to take that off his hands, and he was left with only the pleasantest part of the job—enticing people to buy bricks. He was making a good salary, and his family name made him an asset, because often people would trade with him on the basis of it. The Paige name had also appealed to Jennifer, he thought, because it retained some of its former glory. There were even connections to European royalty, which didn’t hurt socially. Mrs. Dunn, Jared’s grandmother, was also well respected, but nobody knew anything about the Dunns, since they weren’t from Texas. Funny, Andrew thought, how little he really knew about his stepmother and her mother—or about Jared.

  If Andrew was impressed with his own background, Terrance Beale wasn’t. But Jennifer was entranced, especially by Andrew’s tales of his heroism in the Spanish-American War. That had been the key to unlock her heart, and Andrew had set about moving in on it. But she was a sheltered, very innocent girl, and it had bothered Andrew that he wasn’t even allowed to hold her hand. He was a man who enjoyed an occasional night in a woman’s arms; abstinence was painful. There was no way he could go to one of the local brothels without it getting back to Mr. Beale, who knew people everywhere. But Noelle was right under his own roof, and fascinated by him, and he wanted her. The fly in that ointment was Jared, who, instead of turning a blind, indifferent eye had suddenly developed a personal interest in the girl.

  Well, he couldn’t be everywhere, Andrew thought irritably. Sooner or later, he’d have Noelle, with or without Jared’s approval. Meanwhile, having Miss Beale’s affection—and the promise of her father’s money (she was, after all, an only child) one day—brightened his outlook immeasurably.

  * * *

  THE FAMILY KEPT a carriage and a horse at the local livery for use on special occasions. Andrew was forced to ask Jared’s permission to use it, now that Jared was in residence. It rankled.

  Jared agreed, because he had no engagement of his own that evening. “Are you taking Miss Brown?” Jared asked pointedly.

  Andrew was glad, given that angry stare, that he could deny it. “No. She refused, and I have to admit that I’m a bit relieved,” he added. “She has no social sense, you know, and she dresses like a serving woman. Her one saving grace is that delightful body. She’s very well formed, don’t you agree?” He smiled.

  Jared’s eyes narrowed. “I haven’t paid that much attention to her body. I’ll remind you that she’s a guest in our home,” he said sternly. “I expect you to treat her with courtesy and respect.”

  Andrew was surprised by Jared’s protective attitude, but he tried not to show it. “Why, of course. But, Jared, you must have noticed that she’s hardly the sort of woman a man wants to be seen with in public.” He laughed. “She’s very uncultured. She can’t even hold a fork properly.”

  Jared’s unspeaking stance rattled him. In the end, he rushed out with hardly a goodbye.

  Jared watched him go with mixed emotions. It had been a long time since any woman’s honor had mattered to him. He thought back to his one tragic love affair with cold cynicism. Hadn’t he learned how treacherous women were by now? But the thought of seeing Noelle ridiculed was bad enough—without worrying if Andrew would seduce her and throw her aside. It made him angry.

  It certainly seemed as if Andrew had seduction in mind. His remarks about Noelle had been frankly personal. And it was all too obvious that Noelle found the younger man fascinating. She was inexperienced and smitten, a combination that would work very well in Andrew’s favor. Well, if Noelle was endangered by Andrew because she was uncultured, it was time to think about correcting that flaw. There was one appropriate way, but it was going to be up to Jared to implement it. He cursed himself for having to interfere, but as he’d said, the girl was under his protection.

  Andrew had complicated his life enough in the past. Now here he was, putting more obstacles in Jared’s path. He’d expected his homecoming to Fort Worth to be uncomplicated. He should have known better. Nothing in his life had ever been uncomplicated, least of all where women were concerned.

  * * *

  THE NIGHT OF the dance arrived and Andrew left before the rest of the family sat down to the supper table. He wanted to avoid Jared, whose black looks were making him uncomfortable. But when Andrew was ushered into the house to escort Miss Beale out to the carriage, he got a look as black as Jared’s.

  Beale was a self-made man who’d risen to prominence because of a knack for investing his meager savings into profitable ventures. He’d invested in a million-to-one shot that a prospector would find oil in East Texas. His small stake had made him rich when
the prospector hit one of the deepest wells at Spindletop. He had money to burn.

  But Terrance Beale, who was a widower, considered his elegant blonde, blue-eyed only daughter his greatest asset; he didn’t want her head turned by fortune hunters. He numbered Andrew among them. He didn’t like Andrew and made no secret of it. He made Andrew nervous.

  Beale, a lean and dark-faced man, glared at Andrew without speaking.

  “I’ll have her home by a reasonable hour, I assure you, sir,” Andrew said politely.

  “You’d better,” Beale, a man of few words, replied. He had eyes that were steely and cold.

  Andrew thought absently that he’d hate to make a real enemy of the man.

  “Now, Papa,” Jennifer Beale chided gently as she joined them, beautiful in her lacy black dress and scarf. “Andrew will take excellent care of me. Don’t worry so.”

  The older man seemed to relax. He smiled and beamed at his daughter, then bent to kiss her soft cheek. “Have a good time.”

  “Yes, I will. I’ll see you later, Papa.”

  She took Andrew’s arm and squeezed it comfortingly. “I’ve so looked forward to tonight, Andrew,” she added, smiling up at him. “It’s going to be great fun!”

  “Certainly it is,” he agreed. She made him feel lordly. Her eyes were as soft as Noelle’s, looking up at him from a face that would have graced an art gallery.

  Terrance Beale watched them go, his eyes narrowed. He couldn’t keep the girl in a glass bottle, but he hated seeing her throw herself away on that tame city boy. She deserved better.

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered out to the barn. He had a sick foal and he was worried about it.

  Brian Clark, a middle-aged black man with a twisted hand, smiled at him as he approached. Clark had appeared out of the dark one November morning carrying a saddle over one dusty shoulder. He’d asked for a job, and Beale, sizing him up in one long glance, had given it without question. He’d never asked where Clark came from, or why he was on foot. In spite of his handicap, Clark was good with horses and he could gentle the meanest of them. Beale had put him to work taming the remuda to a saddle, and he’d never regretted his snap decision. Clark was kind to Jennifer, too, going out of his way to make sure that her horses were the best kept in the stable.