Rebecca Hagan Lee - [Borrowed Brides 02] (13 page)

Moments later Margaret Jeffers stepped through the curtains much like an actress making an entrance onto the stage. She had exchanged her dark blue wool dress trimmed in black velvet for an afternoon gown of crimson silk.

David bit back a smile. He hadn’t seen Margaret earlier in the day, but he recognized full military battle dress when he saw it. He knew his opponent had dressed for the engagement.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Alexander.” Margaret was polite, courteous. “What might I do for you?”

“I think it’s what I can do for
you
,” David announced. “I’ve come to settle my account.”

“That’s not necessary, Mr. Alexander, until the end of the month,” she answered sweetly. Too sweetly for David’s taste.

“But I want to settle up now. I don’t like to leave things undone.” He was implacable. “I’ll be having my household orders shipped from Chicago from now on.”

Some of the customers gasped at his statement. Jeffers’s Mercantile was the largest, finest store in all of Peaceable. Margaret Jeffers carried everything. It was unthinkable to pay the freight costs on orders from Chicago when you could buy what you needed in Peaceable.

“Oh, now, Mr. Alexander, don’t be ridiculous,” Margaret began. Lorna, standing off to one side, winced at her employer’s choice of words. David Alexander wouldn’t appreciate being called ridiculous. “Why, the freight charges alone will be double what you pay right here.”

“I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Jeffers, but I assure you that I can afford to pay the cost of shipping. In fact, I prefer to pay it.”

“What?” Margaret Jeffers responded, shocked at the idea.

“I prefer to deal with merchants”—David paused for effect—“who appreciate my business.”

Margaret smiled at him, gritting her teeth. He was a formidable adversary and, unfortunately, one of her most valuable customers. “I have always appreciated and welcomed your business.”

“Until this morning.”

“Oh, now, surely you aren’t going to all this trouble over what happened this morning. Surely you don’t intend to cancel your account here and pay enormous amounts of money to out-of-town merchants and to the UP railroad because of a little misunderstanding.”

“That’s precisely what I intend to do.” David smiled a slight smile. “I was certain you’d understand.”

“But, Mr. Alexander, it was all a misunderstanding,” she said again. “If I had known you wanted the supplies, I’d have put them on your account as always.” Margaret ignored Lorna’s gasp of outrage at the barefaced lie.

David’s face hardened into lines closely resembling the look of fierce determination on the face of a mountain lion stalking its quarry. “I sent Miss Roarke and young Mr. Donegal here this morning to pick up supplies for me.”

“I didn’t—”

“Did you or did you not refuse to add the cost of the supplies to my account?”

“How was I supposed to know that was all right with you?” Margaret asked defensively. “Anyone could come in here and ask to have things charged to someone else’s account.” She looked around to the customers gathered in her store. “I didn’t know the young woman. I pride myself on my diligence in protecting my customers.”

“From riffraff?” David asked silkily. “That
is
what you called Miss Roarke, isn’t it? Riffraff.”

“Well…” Mrs. Jeffers hedged.

“And when Miss Roarke offered to pay for the supplies in cash, didn’t you refuse to sell them to her?”

“I can refuse service to anyone who enters my store if I choose to do so,” Margaret stated firmly. “It’s my right.”

“Yes, it is,” David agreed easily. “You have every right to refuse to serve customers you deem unfit.”

“See?” Margaret said to the crowd gathered close enough to hear. “I told you Mr. Alexander wouldn’t be offended if he knew I was standing up for my rights as a store owner.”

“Oh, but I am offended, Mrs. Jeffers,” David corrected her. “In refusing to sell the supplies to Miss Roarke, you refused to sell to me. When you called her names, it was the same as calling me names. And when you refused to accept the ‘dirty money,’ it was
my
money you turned away. You have a right to do all those things,” David told her. “Just as I have a right to buy my supplies elsewhere, and I will gladly pay more to do so.”

“But I have your order right here.” Margaret recognized the danger; if she lost David Alexander’s business, she would risk losing the Trail T ranch’s business as well. “The order is ready. It’s been sitting here all afternoon just waiting for you to pick it up.”

“Then I’m afraid you went to a great deal of trouble for nothing, Mrs. Jeffers, because I’ve come to settle my account.” David extracted his wallet. “I trust you’ll accept gold today. I wouldn’t want to be accused of foisting dirty bills on you against your will.” He stopped long enough to read the expression on Margaret Jeffers’s face.

She nodded in mute assent.

“Good. Now, please be so kind as to tell me how much I owe—minus today’s order, of course,” David instructed her. “Oh, and strike my name from your account list.”

Lorna stepped forward and politely told him how much he owed the store. “Your account totals seventy-three dollars, Mr. Alexander.”

David placed that amount in gold on the counter.

“You can’t do this.” Margaret Jeffers now fully comprehended the enormity of what she had done. “You can’t do all this just to stand up for that…that…
saloon hussy
.”

“I have done it.”

“She’s not worth it,” Margaret warned.

“That’s not for you to decide,” David reminded her.

“But you’re one of my most valuable customers,” Margaret protested.

“I
was
,” David replied.

“What about the ranch account?” She couldn’t restrain herself. She had to ask.

“Oh, yes, the ranch account.” David paused as if he’d forgotten, then removed several more gold coins from his wallet. “If this doesn’t cover the outstanding amount on the Trail T’s ledger, send me a bill.” He returned his wallet to his inside coat pocket. “And don’t forget to strike the ranch from your ledger as well. Good day, Mrs. Jeffers, Miss Taylor.” David nodded. “You know, Miss Roarke was right about the Satin Slipper,” he said, standing at the door. “It does cater to a better class of customers.” Seeing the outraged look on Margaret Jeffers’s face, David left the store.

The crowd began to disperse, disappointed that there hadn’t been screaming and name-calling, but aware that a major battle had taken place just the same. David Alexander was the undeclared winner.

He’d won the skirmish, David thought, as he walked back to his North Street office, but he found little pleasure in the victory. It would cost him. Not just money, though it would cost him plenty of that. It would cost Tessa, too. It would make it that much harder for her to be accepted into Peaceable’s small-town society once this was all over. People would remember the showdown at Jeffers’s Mercantile and that Tessa was the cause. He’d done the right thing, but now he had to worry about the damage to Tessa’s case and the repercussions once the murder of Arnie Mason was solved.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Arnie Mason. God, everything came back to Arnie Mason. David wasn’t looking forward to another showdown with Tessa, who seemed determined to keep every shred of evidence to herself. But he needed help. She had to help him. The only evidence he had to go on was her word, a length of gold chain, and the note found in Arnie Mason’s pocket inviting him to Tessa’s room. David’s quiet isolation in Peaceable had been shot to hell by Tessa’s arrival in his life. His whole life had been turned upside down, and it was time he did something about it.

When David reached his office he found the front door locked. The printed sign in the window proclaimed otherwise, as did the hours posted on a plaque that hung on the front door. The sign said
Open
, but the door refused to yield. Inhaling a deep breath, preparing himself for the worst, David inserted his key into the lock.

“Coalie?” Tessa’s voice came from somewhere inside the main room of the office.

“No, it’s David.”

“What happened?” Tessa asked as soon as she heard his footsteps cross the threshold. “What happened at the mercantile? You didn’t make a spectacle of yourself, did you?”

“No.” David walked to his desk. “I did not.” He removed his heavy coat and hunted for a place to hang it. He decided he wouldn’t satisfy her curiosity easily this time.

The main room of his office was a garden of white. It looked the way David imagined a cotton field down south might look, provided the cotton was processed into fabric and sewn into ladies’ undergarments. Stockings, petticoats, pantalets, chemise, corset cover, and corset decorated nearly every piece of furniture in the office, including his desk; a wet petticoat lay draped across its polished surface.

He smiled ruefully. His office looked as exotic as the Satin Slipper.

“What the hell?” David muttered beneath his breath. On the floor nearby were his stacks of papers. He picked up a brief, checking it for watermarks and damage. A tiny drop of water dampened one of its corners. “Tessa!” He looked around for her.

“Well, what happened? What did you do?” In his absence, she’d turned his office—his sanctuary and place of business—into a laundry. She’d even gone so far as to hang sheets on a line of kitchen twine in a square around the stove, assuming they’d dry faster that way. Her voice drifted to him from inside the square of sheets.

“I paid my account in full and informed Mrs. Jeffers we won’t be doing business with her in the future. Oh, and I told her I thought you were right about the Satin Slipper.”

Tessa laughed. “What about the look on her face?”

“You were right about that, too.” David chuckled. “It was worth it.”

He heard a splash of water. She was obviously doing more laundry. “You did get the supplies first?”

“No.” David leaned against the edge of his desk.

“Oh, David…” Tessa nearly wailed her dismay.

“What’s the matter?”

“You canceled your account without getting our supplies? That wasn’t very smart. I thought you knew better.”

“Did you want me to ignore what happened and forgo the pleasure of seeing Margaret’s face?” David asked.

Tessa shrugged her shoulders. “To be honest, I’d thought you’d go back and demand the supplies,” she told him.

“It was a matter of principle.”

“But at least we’d have food on the table and tea to drink and soap for bathing. This is the last of it.”

David heard another splash of water and saw, for the first time, the shadowy outline of Tessa’s body behind the sheets as she stepped out of the tub. “You’re bathing?” He dropped the brief. The pages fluttered to the floor, adding to the general disarray.

She sounded a little breathless. “What did you think I was doing?”

David swallowed hard, watching the shadows as Tessa patted herself dry. “I thought you were doing your laundry.” David said the first thing that popped into his mind.

“I finished it. Just the uh…unmentionables. Besides, it’s Saturday,” she concluded as if that explained everything.

“What does Saturday have to do with anything?” Her logic bewildered him.

“I always take a bath on Saturday night. What’s the point of putting clean clothes on a dirty body?”

He watched through the translucent screen in fascination as she bent at the waist to wrap a length of toweling around her hair. She probably thought she was in complete privacy, but he couldn’t look away. He hunted for an excuse to stay in the room. “Have you mentioned your theory to Coalie?” David’s voice was low, thick with emotion. He edged aside one corner of her petticoat and rested more of his weight against the desk. “He doesn’t seem to subscribe to your view of cleanliness.”

“He’s a little boy,” Tessa answered. “I’ve never known one who did.” She straightened, lifting her arms to balance the makeshift turban.

David sucked in his breath, then shifted his weight from one leg to the other to accommodate the sudden swelling in his groin. The outline of her perfectly shaped breasts was silhouetted on the sheet. He shifted again, stood up, and began to pace the small space left to him.

“Is Coalie with you?” she asked.

“No, I sent him on an errand.” He didn’t elaborate, distracted as he was by her veiled movements.

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “I thought I might talk him into using the tub while the water’s warm.” Tessa pushed at a sheet and stepped out. She wore her flannel nightgown. It was damp in places where it clung to her skin. David noticed immediately.

The air seemed to thicken around them. Modestly covered, she should have been completely at ease, but she wasn’t. And neither, Tessa saw, was David. The unmentionables scattered about the room advertised in dainty white letters that she was naked underneath the night rail.

At a loss for words, Tessa struggled to find something to ease the tension. “Would you like it?”

“What?” David was engrossed in the damp white patch marking the valley between her breasts.

“The bathwater,” she explained, releasing her wet hair from the towel. “It’s still warm.”

So was he. And the thought of washing himself in her bathwater did nothing to cool him down. As he spoke, visions of the two of them sharing a bath clouded his brain. “I assumed you’d bathe in your room.” He cleared his throat. “Or even the storeroom.”

“Those rooms are too cold.” Tessa looked up at him and found his handsome face lined in concentration, his dark gaze studying her closely. “And I would’ve had to carry the water all the way back there. This way, all I had to do was drag the tub in here.” Her blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. “More heat. Less work. Simple.”

“I never thought of it that way—carrying water back and forth from room to room.” When he’d lived in Washington, there were hotel maids to carry water and draw his bath. He wondered, suddenly, who had provided that service for him at home. At the ranch there were no servants, just his mother; his sister, Mary; and Reese’s wife, Faith. He’d never given a brimming tub of hot water much thought; it was simply there when he wanted it, waiting. The thought of Mary or Faith carrying water for his bath dismayed David, but the thought of his mother performing the task for her grown, able-bodied son shamed him.