Patricia Rice (44 page)

"It's not drudgery to me, Pace," she whispered into the pillow as she turned on her side to watch him.

"That's because you don't know any better." He dropped his shirt on top of the coat and waistcoat over the chair back. "I'll bet you don't have any memory of scrubbing floors or washing baby diapers when you were Lady Alexandra." He kept his back to her as he unfastened his trousers.

"I remember standing on the very tips of my toes with my nose pressed to a spot on the wall for hours past my bedtime,” she said without inflection, “until my legs wobbled and my stomach hurt and I cried so hard I couldn't stop. My nurse paddled me when I couldn't stand any more."

"God
damn
them!" Pace flung his shoe at the wall and fell onto the bed beside her, dragging her into his arms and holding her through the thicknesses of bedclothes. He buried his face in her hair and tried to block out the images she had given him, but his body shook with rage.

He knew she spoke of the least of the cruelties. He knew all too well that some subjects were too painful to ever put into words. He didn't want to picture what human monsters might do to the frail fairy child she once had been.

"It's all right," she soothed him, caressing his hair. "He didn't hurt me like he hurt my mother. I just want you to see that it's all over. I'm Dora now. I'm your wife. I like making jams and jellies. I like having a baby whose diapers I have to wash. And I don't have to scrub floors. We pay Ernestine to do that. And when you hold me, I feel like a lady. I'm right where I want to be, Pace."

Oh, God, You made me weak,
Pace muttered to himself as he leaned over and pressed his mouth to Dora's. Her words spread like warm honey through him, but her lips set him on fire. She was everything he'd ever imagined and more. She soothed his wounds, supported his sagging pride, and offered him the physical love he so craved. He would never get enough of her. He would die trying.

Carnal knowledge, that was the phrase, Pace thought incoherently as he parted her lips and immersed himself in the moist heat inside. He forgot the question when her tongue slid hesitantly over his. He groped beneath the blankets to find her breasts. He needed to touch her. He needed to bring her to the painful peak of arousal he had already reached. He needed to bury himself so deep inside her he would never be free.

His fingers had just reached the moist juncture of her thighs when the thready cry of an infant intruded.

Pace cursed and spread his fingers over her heat, as if to hold her there until the cry quieted. Dora arched soundlessly against his palm, and he slipped a finger inside to ease her. The infant's cry grew louder.

He contemplated tearing off the rest of his clothes and driving into her right here and now, burying himself deep and not coming out until they were both drunk with satisfaction. He could do it. He could be quick. He was already full to bursting.

But his daughter's cries grew more pitiful. She hadn't woke at this hour for this past week or more. Something must be wrong. With a groan, he drew back so Dora could slide from the bed and rescue her. He didn't think he could stand on his own anytime soon.

Dora brought Frances back to bed with her and opened her gown. The babe gulped frantically for a few seconds, then gave another cry of distress. Pace watched as Dora put the infant over her shoulder and rubbed her back. Frances wailed even louder, arching her little spine with anger or pain. He couldn't tell which.

"What's wrong with her?" Worried, he leaned closer to better see the baby's face. It was screwed up in a tantrum wilder than anything he could ever remember throwing.

"Colic," Dora answered. "Her belly's all drawn up and tight." She lay the baby over her lap and rubbed her back that way. Frances squalled a while longer, then settled into a restless squirm with a gassy hiccup.

Pace buried his face in his pillow and felt the ache take over his body. "Hers isn't the only one," he complained.

"Would you like a tonic?" she asked innocently, still soothing infant whimpers.

Pace turned and gave her an evil look that she couldn't see. "I need a tonic all right, but it ain't the kind you drink."

His tone must have finally registered. She turned her worried look on him. "What would you have me do?"

"Just lie beside me and let me groan. I'll recover." Not anytime soon, he could tell her, but he didn't. She ought to feel something of the driving passion he felt. She would learn how it lingered until satisfied. But she was still recovering from childbirth. She probably didn't feel it as strong yet. He would only make things worse by encouraging her as he had tonight.

Dora finally got the child quieted and slipped beneath the covers with him. Pace could feel the brush of her night shift against his legs. He had only to pull up the hem and he'd be back where he'd been a little while ago.

Although she lay awake and willing beside him. Pace turned his head and shoved his hands under the pillow. For once in his life, he would do the right thing. He just had to figure out what the hell it was.

* * *

Dora admired the dark outline of Pace's broad shoulders against the pillow in the dawn's light. His auburn hair lay tousled and falling across his brow. The sheets had fallen back to cover only the lower part of him, and she had the urge to push them away from the narrow line of his hips, but she didn't have the courage to follow through.

Frances was already making waking-up noises in her cradle. She wouldn't have time to persuade Pace into changing his mind. She wasn't a natural-born seductress, but she knew Pace. Last night had given her some modicum of confidence. She could tempt him somehow, she knew. And she meant to. Not just because of how he made her feel, although the memory of last night burned sharp and clear in her mind. But she had to tempt Pace to hold him. She knew once the possibility of another baby had entered the picture, he would never let her go.

That was an utterly foolish and insane thing to believe after he'd left her last time, but Dora knew it with all confidence. She understood him. Or she understood enough to know that she was his wife now, his possession, and Pace had very few of those to claim his own. He might let her go under some misguided attempt to see her better cared for, but he would fight until death for any child of his. The idea of marriage as ownership had terrified her, but she thought perhaps it worked a little both ways. She owned some small piece of Pace, and that knowledge gave her the confidence she needed to protect what was hers.

Gently, she ran her fingers over the wide curve of his shoulder muscles to the broad expanse of his bronzed back, then trailed down the naked hollow of his spine. He stirred restlessly and started to turn over. Dora darted from the bed before he could reach for her.

She sat beside him and nursed Frances before he opened his eyes. She felt a tingle and knew he watched her. She had never given much thought to what it meant to be a woman, but Pace was so much a man that she felt small and delicate with his shoulders looming beside her.

He stayed silent so long that she feared his anger, but when she cast a glance in his direction, he was only watching as Francis nursed. At Dora's glance, he looked up.

"The two of you scare me sometimes," he said without inflection, the green of his eyes muddied. "Somehow, I've got to keep you in clothes and food and protect you for the rest of your lives. I've never had this much responsibility laid on me before."

Dora felt a place inside her tighten as she studied the lines of worry and pain around his lips. He held his right arm, as if it pained him this morning. She bit her lip as she realized the burden she would dump on him should she put her plan into action. Perhaps she shouldn't... She didn't know which voice to listen to, whether she heard her own selfishness or God or worldly temptation speaking.

"I don't want to be a burden," she answered. "I want to help, if you'll just let me."

"That's not the way it's done," he responded gruffly, rolling over and throwing off the sheet as he stood up, "A man takes care of his family."

Dora felt a flare of anger. She didn't know where it came from, it just materialized. She watched him jerk on his drawers with his back turned toward her. "And what does a woman do?" she demanded, trying not to admire the interesting aspect being covered.

He glared over his shoulder while he pulled on his shirt. "Dress in pretty clothes and smile, I guess. How the hell should I know?"

The anger dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. Dora smiled at the interesting picture he painted. Of course he didn't know what women did. The only woman in his life had spent the better part of it lying in bed contemplating the ceiling. She would teach him differently, if he gave her enough time.

She wouldn't think about that. She had to believe that she was here to stay, and that Pace would stay with her. She placed Frances over her shoulder and daringly answered, "Thou hath found the wrong wife for that then. Shall I fetch Josie for thee?"

Pace scowled and reached for his pants. "She'd bankrupt me in a hurry. Now isn't the time to tease, Dora. I'm not in the mood."

"I can see that," she said serenely. "Is it nobility or frustration that makes thee nasty in the mornings?"

He gave her a glare, grabbed his boots, and stalked out.

Dora wanted to laugh, but her own temerity scared her. She had actually dared say what she thought, and retribution had not followed. A vast horizon of possibilities loomed before her. Did she dare take a step forward all on her own?

Chapter 34

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.

~ Aesop, "The Fox and the Mask,"
Fables
(6th c. bc.)

"The English gentlemen are staying with Joe Mitchell," Josie announced airily as she sauntered into the parlor.

"A man shall be judged by the company he keeps," Dora answered enigmatically as she took another stitch in the seam of one of the gowns Josie had given her. After all these years of wearing coarse gray cotton, she was a trifle overwhelmed by the wealth of material bestowed upon her, but she intended to make the best of it. She had plans, and these gowns would aid her in them.

If the Quakers no longer accepted her, then she need no longer accept their principles. She wasn't so certain she had ever accepted all of them, but some made too much sense to give up.

"Joe Mitchell is a gentleman," Josie replied.

"Joe Mitchell is rich," Dora agreed, knowing Josie wouldn't decipher the difference.

"Daddy has asked them all to dinner. I said I would help Mama."

Dora knew perfectly well that Josie looked for reasons why she shouldn't, but Dora had no intention of giving them. As far as she was concerned, her past was dead, and so were the people in it. She hoped their ghosts would go away, but she knew they wouldn't until they had whatever it was they wanted. Idly, she wondered if the local minister performed exorcisms.

"Dost thou wish to leave Amy here?" she asked calmly.

Josie clenched her fingers in her skirts and finally said with exasperation, "Quit playing the innocent, Dora Nicholls! You haven't survived in this household all these years without becoming as devious and conniving as the rest of them. You parade around with that meek and modest mask, but it doesn't fool me one second. If we're ever to be friends, you have to learn to talk to me."

Dora looked up in surprise at this outburst. "Are we going to be friends? Is that possible with Pace between us?"

Josie threw up her hands and walked the carpet. "Pace isn't between us. Pace lives in his own dratted world where men are men, and women are there to admire them. I'm not a complete fool. I've learned my lesson. I want a real gentleman, someone who will treat me like a lady. Pace doesn't even know I exist."

Dora bit back a smile at the irony of this conversation, but she wouldn't offer laughter at Josie's honesty. She shook her head and bit off the thread she'd knotted. "You and Pace would have made a good pair. He would have loved pampering you and giving you everything your little heart desired in return for your smiles. But he can't do that now, so he'll have to put up with me."

Josie's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "He wanted you enough to bed you. I expect that's enough for any man when it comes right down to it. Help me, Dora. Tell me who these Englishmen are. They're not rude and uncouth like these country louts around here."

Dora met Josie's eyes squarely. "I have never seen the older man in my life. I know nothing about him."

Josie gave her an impatient look. "What about the younger one? He's more to my liking. He's supposed to be an English lord."

Dora hesitated. She would prefer to leave the past dead, but she could not lie. With a sigh, she answered, "He would be worse than Charlie. Stay away from him, Josie."

Josie didn't want to hear that, but she couldn't argue when she had asked for it. "Will you give me reasons?"

"I was eight years old when I left England. How can I tell thee more?"

"Then you can't really know him now, can you?" Josie asked triumphantly.