Bonds of Matrimony (16 page)

           
“The
men of Slaughter are going to fall over dead when they see the two of you get
off that train,” he joked charmingly.
 
“They aren’t used to seeing such beautiful, feminine women.”

           
Chase
snorted in an unladylike fashion before she thought to stop herself.
 
The feminine comment had seemed almost
deliberate, and she was most certainly taking offense.
 
Her grandmother patted her shoulder
again.

           
Webb
barely looked over his shoulder when he said, “God bless you, Lady Chastity,”
evidently hearing her snort and assuming it was a sneeze.
 
Or was he pretending ignorance while
also reminding her that she was a lady?
 
One could never tell with Colton Webb these days.

           
“Thank
you, Mr. Webb,” she answered with an especially sugary sweetness.

           
He
glanced back at her again with evident amusement lighting his cocoa eyes.
 
“Elisa is going to be ecstatic about
your living in her home.
 
She has
been so lonely these past few years.”

           
Chastity
was irritated that he felt he knew her sister-in-law intimately enough to
presume to know how she’d been feeling.
 
“She has had Marcus,” she reminded him shortly.

           
“Naturally,”
Elisabeth commented.
 
“But it is
not the same as a woman’s company.”

           
“Very
true,” Lady Colchester agreed.

           
Chase
bit her tongue.
 
With the exception
of her sister and grandmother, there were few women in London society whose
company she enjoyed.
 
She loathed
the activity of sitting up prettily while sipping tea and giggling over the
most recent gossip.
 
Had she ever
been given a choice, she would have happily sprinted for the stables.
 
Come to think of it, she and Colton
Webb seemed to occasionally have similar feelings about women in general.
 
That disturbing realization was quickly
pushed out of her mind.

           
The
hotel valet loaded their trunks into his automobile and called another valet to
drive them to the train station.
 
Although it was early, the sun was climbing rapidly.
 
She felt a dampness collecting on her
shirtwaist, indicating that the day was going to be a warm one.
 
The past six days on board the
Mauretania had been cool at sea.
 
Her
hair was beginning to stick to the back of her neck, and she could only imagine
the curls springing to life in the early morning summer warmth.

           
She
fanned her face with her hand, and Colton noticed the gesture while holding the
automobile door for her.
 
“Warm,
Cochrane?” he muttered with an especially sexy grin.

           
“It
was much cooler at sea,” she answered quietly.

           
“So
it isn’t my nearness that is bothering you?” he all but whispered.

           
“It’s
bothering me,” she confirmed.
 
“Another wave of nausea is hitting me as you speak,” she added with what
she hoped was a purely innocent and feminine smile.

           
He
laughed and shook his head, closing the door behind her.
 
Chase was disappointed when Marcus
climbed into the front seat of the automobile, leaving Webb to ride with the
second valet.
 
She sat in silence,
listening while Marcus warned them about the length of the train ride.

           
“I’ve
heard that some parts of America are beautiful.
 
Especially the wilderness and prairie,” their grandmother
volunteered.

           
“That’s
true.
 
But seeing that same sight
out your window for four days straight becomes dull and tedious, Grandmother,”
Marcus replied.

           
“I
can hardly wait,” Chase grumbled.
 

           
Marcus
smiled and patted her hands, which she kept folded in her lap.
 
“Impatient to get home, Chase?” he
teased.

           
“Aren’t
you?”

           
His
smile became soft with thoughts of his pregnant wife.
 
“I am,” he admitted.

***

           
That
afternoon, Webb was sitting across the aisle from Lady Chastity Fairfax when
her brother invited their grandmother and sister to lunch in the dining
car.
 
The three of them wandered to
the last car of the train, not bothering to wake the sleeping beauty across the
aisle from him.

           
The
heat had created delicious curls around her face and brought an appealing flush
to her cheeks.
 
Her long dark
lashes lay seductively on her cheek.

           
She
was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
 
She was intelligent and passionate, too.
 
He had never before met a woman like
her.
 
Chantal employed many women
in her business, women who were attractive and clever and passionate.
 
But not one of them was as arousing as
Chase Fairfax.
 
She had fight, and she
bucked the rules of her high-bred society.
 
She had had the gumption to pose as a young man…and
successfully, too.
 
And underneath
it all, she was more innocent and naïve than Chantal’s women had been at
birth.
 
Perhaps that was her
greatest appeal.
 
She was bold and
daring—bold enough to kiss him as she had the night before—but
still innocent.

           
He
heard someone near him sigh contentedly, and he was disgusted to realize that
the sound had come from him.
 
He
scowled and turned away from her, staring out the window beside him.
 
When he chanced another glance at her,
her eyelids fluttered on her cheeks and opened slowly.
 
Her brown eyes darted from side to side
rapidly, reminding her of where she was.
 
When she spotted Webb, her eyes widened a bit and the corners of her
mouth lifted.
 

           
“I
must have dozed off,” she greeted groggily.

           
“Your
family went for lunch,” he responded with a nod toward the rear of the car.

           
She
didn’t answer.
 
Instead, she stood
and moved to sit beside him.
 
She
looked past him out the window, but her nearness brought her spicy scent to his
attention.
 
He tried to pretend
that she had no effect on him and frowned at her instead.

           
“Isn’t
it beautiful here?
 
Is Slaughter
this beautiful?” she asked without waiting to hear his opinion on the current
scenery.

           
He
shrugged even though she was too captivated with the view to notice his
gesture.
 
“Some parts are.
 
It’s not so green back home.
 
Too hot.
 
Not enough water.”

           
“Too
hot?
 
Do you mean it is even warmer
in Slaughter than here?”

           
Suddenly,
the heat that consumed him on that train seemed more unbearable than working in
the noonday sun in August on the ranch.
 
he wanted nothing more than to taste her and feel her lips on his.
 

           
“Webb?”
she asked, still waiting for a response.
 
His silence caught her attention, and she turned to look at him.

           
“Shouldn’t
you be joining your family for lunch?” he asked her gruffly.

           
Her
eyes narrowed angrily.
 
“I’m not
hungry.”

           
He
was confused.
 
What had her so
riled up now?
 
She wasn’t the one struggling
with arousal on a crowded train.
 
“I’m sure your brother would want you to join them.”

           
She
breathed heavily out of her nose, seeming to take her time responding.
 
“I’m not interested in going to the
dining car, Webb.
 
If I was, I
would have gone.
 
I don’t care what
my brother wants.
 
In case you
hadn’t noticed, I am a grown woman, and I am fully capable of making my own
decisions.
 
That’s why we came here
to begin with,” she added.

           
In
case he hadn’t noticed?
 
Her fury
had her full breasts rising and falling rapidly, much the way they had after he
had kissed her the night before.
 
He
most certainly
had
noticed that she
was a grown woman.
 
He clenched his
fists, resisting the temptation to pull her into his lap.
 
“Why didn’t you just marry some rich
man and get out of your parents’ house?”

           
“There
are far too many men in the world waiting to take control of us, men who are
more than happy to make every decision for us so that we don’t have to be
burdened with such nonsense.
 
God
forbid we think for ourselves.”
 
Her cheeks were becoming more flushed with every passing moment, the
color spreading to her full lips, too.
 

           
Her
eyes were flashing now as they met his own with a challenge.
 
He didn’t know what the challenge was,
but she was certainly fired up about something.
 

           
“Go
be with your family, Chase,” he suggested, trying to get her away from him
before he lost control.
 
He saw her
suck in her breath angrily, preparing to provide him with a verbal lashing
again.
 
He interrupted her.
 
“I told you to stay away from me,” he
reminded her nastily.

           
Her
temper seemed to have been doused for a moment and then flamed up higher than
it had been moments before.
 
“I
don’t take orders—”

           
He
desperately needed to get this woman away from him.
 
And while he certainly could have stood up and walked to the
dining car himself, a childish part of him enjoyed getting her all riled
up.
 
“Listen, lady, you will take
yourself off to dine with your family if you know what is good for you.
 
And if you don’t—”

           
When
she spoke, her voice was low and deadly.
 
“Don’t you dare threaten me, Webb.
 
I swear to God, I will never be controlled by any man.
 
And no man will ever threaten me again,”
she growled.

           
He
was relieved when she stood and stormed down the aisle, undoubtedly to join her
family.
 
He hadn’t expected that
kind of response.
 
Naturally, he
expected her to be angry and to storm off.
 
He hadn’t expected her to become enraged.
 
That had been a strange twist.
 
Intriguing even.
 
It sure as hell didn’t do anything to
help dull his attraction.

CHAPTER 8

           
She
paused at the door of the dining car to catch her breath before joining her
family.
 
They would know
immediately that she was upset about something.
 
And her mind was racing too rapidly for her to come up with
a viable excuse for her anger.
 

           
Webb’s
threat had startled her.
 
And the
anger in his ordinarily warm eyes…she was suddenly back in the Stockton’s
library.
 

           
“Lady Chastity, so wonderful to see you,” he
had greeted as she had entered his library.
 
He sat behind a ridiculously large mahogany desk and had
risen to kiss her fingers.
 
“Although your methods might be unconventional, I won’t argue.
 
For I am thrilled that you have come.”

           
She
had forced a quick smile in response and swallowed repeatedly in an effort to
moisten her suddenly dry throat.