Proving Herself Page 10

  Of course, the demon then bolted, nearly pulling Collier's arms from his shoulders before he'd set for it.

  Laurel, however, wore leather riding gloves. Taking her own seat, she opened her hands to him. "May I? Please?"

  He doubted she could handle so contrary an animal, but they were on the plains; where was the risk? He handed her the reins. "Just be careful—"

  To his surprise, Laurel stood in the box, her booted feet braced. "Giddap, Firefly!" And off they went!

  Chickens, a dog, and one startled cowboy leaped from their path as Laurel drove the horse in a wide turn around the outbuildings, then back toward the track to town. Long, dark strands of hair already flying free from her coif, her skirt flapping in the wind, she laughed out loud. "Let's see if we can't run some of this wildness out of him," she called to Collier, clearly delighted with the very unruliness that had him wishing he carried a flask.

  He tried not to hold on to the seat rail too tightly. "All right," he agreed, lest she was daring him. He supposed they did have more room to run than he was used to. "Let's."

  She flashed him a beautiful, blue-eyed smile, for all the world like Boudicca charging the invading Romans in her

  chariot—but in a better mood. Perhaps she could drive this villain of a horse because she understood it. Perhaps running the wildness out of her would work better than reining it back, too.

  Collier wondered if she might prove more amenable to certain arrangements in their marriage than he'd hoped.

  Chapter Nine

  Laurel liked driving. She liked careening away from the ranch behind a feisty two-year-old, frightening jackrabbits and what looked to be a badger. The sky made an endless huge blue bowl over her. The great plains stretched forever to the east— a direction she hoped never to travel very far—and the Big­horn Mountains loomed, rocky and powerful, to the west.

  Courting or not, she felt happy.

  By the time Firefly let up on the bit, settling into a fairly steady trot, Laurel also felt ready to settle back and simply breathe. So she turned to hand the reins back to Collier.

  That was when she truly remembered him.

  He took the reins politely enough, and he even flashed her that incredibly bright, slightly lopsided smile of his—at least she had not frightened him! But, brushing a leather-clad hand across her face, and the hair that fell across it, she realized that she likely did not look like the kind of woman an English gentleman would be wooing. She felt her face heat with a blush.

  Collier's dimples deepened. "I will admit," he said, "never

  have I seen a woman look mussed quite as well as you do."

  Her cheeks burned hotter. "This sort of thing is the reason Papa always chides me about being ladylike."

  "Is it not normally your habit, then? Ladylike behavior?"

  "No. I'm surprised that a blueblood like yourself is even willing to pretend to marry me."

  The idea of pretending to marry Collier Pembroke wasn't nearly as frightening as the idea that nobody would be­lieve it.

  Driving more easily now that Firefly had been given a chance to kick up his heels, Collier said, "I believe any man would be fortunate to get you."

  She stared at him, then twisted away toward the moun­tains. In the distance, pronghorn antelope turned their white tails and bounced past the horizon. "I don't want any man."

  But the familiar words sounded oddly hollow.

  "Perhaps that is why he would be so fortunate."

  Unsure how to react to that, Laurel tugged off her gloves, tucked them into her dress's belt, and began to pull pins from her hair. She'd let her sister Audra style it earlier. "I should look more presentable, in case anyone comes across us."

  "Here," he said, and turned Firefly off the main track, to­ward the treeline that marked the creek. On purpose!

  "Collier Pembroke! We're supposed to stay in plain view!"

  "You don't think that, after such a run, this demon horse deserves a drink of water?"

  Her hand full of hairpins, she studied him for any sign of artifice, but she got distracted just studying him. He surely was an attractive man, especially with the sun reflecting off his halo of hair. "Where's your hat?"

  "The wind took it," he confessed. "I dared not leave the buggy to take chase."

  Since he'd probably have worn a boater or a derby any­way, she decided she liked him bareheaded. "I... suppose we can let Firefly have a drink," she said slowly. They were practically engaged.

  "And I shall help you put your hair in order," he offered. "While we are stopped."

  "You know how to style a woman's hair?" She laughed, but Lord Collier regarded her solemnly.

  "Perhaps better than I can drive," he said.

  That was when Laurel felt it the first pang of something unnamed, unfaced. She stoically ignored it.

  When they reached the cottonwood shade by the creek, where Firefly could wade in still harnessed, Collier tied the reins and said, "Now turn away from me. Yes, like that."

  And his fingers swept her hair back from her shoulders.

  Laurel tried not to shiver. The urge to do so only increased when he sighed in something close to frustration. "No, this shan't work. Would you ... I know it's rather improper, but might you kneel in the footwell, so that I can better reach?"

  Drawing her skirt out of dirt's way, she did, and Collier drew one of his high-booted legs up under him, on the seat.

  Laurel became increasingly aware of his other thigh, so close to her shoulder that occasionally they touched, and his booted calf by her elbow. Mostly, though, she was aware of Collier Pembroke finger-combing her hair.

  She arched her back, leaning her head into the stroke of his long, artistic fingers. No wonder animals enjoyed being petted.

  "You've lovely hair," he murmured gently, working through a tangle. "Despite that you clearly get a great deal of sun, it's soft."

  Then he said nothing for a long while, and she listened to his breath mingle with the breeze in the cottonwoods.

  Laurel considered explaining her mother's theories about healthy diet, or how she and her sisters used rainwater to wash their hair. Her throat tightened under the stroke of his hands, but for once she managed a proper response. "Thank you."

  "You're quite welcome."

  "Your hair is beautiful, too," she told him.

  "Ah." He sounded embarrassed. When she looked up at him, her shoulder bumped his thigh and he inhaled, sur­prised.

  She quickly faced forward again. "I'm sorry."

  "No need." He sounded oddly breathless. "And thank you."

  For? Oh. Because she'd said he had beautiful hair.

  "I know we've decided many details of our... partner­ship," said Collier, as he began to twist a length of her hair. "But I am afraid that we've not yet approached a matter of particular delicacy."

  Delicacy? "I don't need your money," she assured him. "Other than whatever you want to invest in cattle."

  His fingers stilled. "No, Lorelei. Not money."

  She wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or amused when he called her that without an audience. "What, then?"

  "Hairpins, please."

  She held up her handful, and he slid a pin free.

  "I mean the matter of marital relations."

  "Families?" But then she figured it out. "Oh! You mean—"

  "Rather," he agreed, sounding embarrassed.

  Well, he should be embarrassed! Wasn't their only option plain? "I didn't figure there would be any!"

  "I assumed as much," he assured her. "Pin."

  "It's just business between us, so... what's to discuss?"

  He hesitated long enough that she turned to look up at him again—this time careful not to bump his thigh. Although this way she seemed to be leaning her head rather close to it.

  Collier even looked good from this vantage point.

  "What's there to discuss?" demanded Laurel again.

  He cleared his throat, averting his eyes. "Alternatives."
<
br />   "I don't understand."

  "No, I imagine you wouldn't."

  Although he didn't seem finished with her hair—she still held three pins—Laurel pushed herself up onto the seat again to see him more directly. "I dislike feeling stupid, Cole."

  "You're not stupid. And I am being vulgar even to mention this. Some men would not. But as this is a business partner­ship, oughtn't we be as thorough as possible from the start?"

  Yes. They ought. She folded her arms and waited.

  "Men have certain ... urges." His overly bright gaze—the color of cottonwood leaves—dodged hers when she tried to capture it.

  Well, she knew that.

  "Since we shall not have a true marriage, however, you should be aware that I may seek the solace ... that is, pay visits . . ."

  "To whores?"

  He flushed. "Miss Laurel!"

  Her hand itched to slap him at the very idea, but he'd approached it so darned tentatively, she wasn't sure she had a good enough excuse. "No, you will not be visiting the third floor of the Sheridan Inn. Not and be married to me!"

  "I shan’t be married to you, not wholly—and how does a lady like yourself know what happens on the inn's third floor?"

  She had her ways—namely her sister Victoria. "I won't have folks saying I can't keep my husband satisfied."

  "You won't be keeping me satisfied," he reminded her. "For two or three years you shan't be keeping me satisfied."

  "Well... neither will you be satisfying me," she reminded him.

  "Because you won't let me."

  Did he want to satisfy her? The idea left her hotter and damper than the August afternoon merited. Rather than ar­gue yet again that they would not really be married, she said, "If I can go that long without... marital relations... then so can you."

  "But you" noted Collier, "are a woman. Or so rumor holds."

  Then she slapped him.

  The crack of Laurel's barehanded palm across Collier's cheek echoed off the trees and startled the horse.

  He suspected the beast was laughing at him.

  Laurel looked as shocked as he felt. Then she set her jaw, perhaps against any startled urge to apologize. "I'm not a man!"

  Belatedly realizing what he'd spoken in frustration, Collier fully understood the slap. "Of course you are not," he offered quietly. "I was wrong to imply otherwise, even in jest."

  "You weren't jesting. You just said what other people do— that I'm not content to be female. Well, maybe I do want to do what men do. Do you know what it's like not to even be allowed to put my own nickel into the fare box on the trolley? The driver takes it from my hand and drops it in, every time! And I like to drive horses; I'm good at it. If that hurts your feelings, too bad. But it doesn't make me a man."

  Was that what had gotten into him, that she'd driven the buggy better than he? Collier wasn't sure. Staring into her flashing eyes and flushed face, some of her hair still streaming loose over her shoulders, he felt certain of only one thing.

  "You are most definitely not a man," he assured her—and covered her mouth with his.

  At first Laurel went so stiff that he could have been kissing a doll. Then, with a suddenness that startled him, she looped her arms boldly behind his neck and kissed him back.

  Fully. Enthusiastically. She was most certainly not a man.

  She opened her mouth, too, as if to draw him into her, and he did his best to comply by flirting his tongue across hers. It felt decadent, unrestrained, hotter than the August after­noon.

  Since Collier was already sitting with one leg tucked, he easily laid Laurel back onto the carriage seat as they kissed. His hands wove into her hair, holding her head still for his plunder. Pins pinged to the phaeton's floor, likely out of the box too. They didn't look. Their mouths were otherwise oc­cupied, wet and hungry and not at all polite. Wild.

  Good Lord. He'd thought kissing her by the water hole had been erotic. Even without wet clothing or the rush of danger, this surpassed it. Laurel's body cushioned his as he shifted more firmly atop her. She sighed throatily into his mouth. To his shocked delight, she even spread her legs beneath him, to hold him with her skirt-bound thighs as well as her arms.

  At that, he rocked against other parts of her too, hard and hot and hungrier than he could remember. He wanted to strip off his suit coat, but did not dare rear off her for even a mo­ment, lest he break the spell his Lorelei had cast Instead he fumbled one hand at her ankle—her cowboy boot—and then slid it under her skirt and up her stockinged leg as far as her knee, then to her garter, then to the softness of her thigh.

  She might appear tough, but parts of her were quite soft.

  Laurel stretched under him, arching her back happily. When the joy of plundering her mouth grew frustratingly in­adequate—it was hardly the way his body truly wanted her— Collier trailed his lips down her stubborn jaw to a perfect, ladylike ear. Then he nibbled on that until she whimpered. Amenable, was she? More kisses down her neck, into the collar of her dress, had her writhing beneath him. "Oh," she said in a gasp. "Oh, Cole."

  For once he did not mind being called that.

  His hand, under her skirt, found the hem of her drawers and slid inside, farther up her thigh. She arched again—then ran one of her hands down his spine to his flank and cupped his buttock.

  This time, he thrust against her. Their eyes flew open, and they stared at each other, flushed and flustered and half-blind with need. At least, he was.

  Her surprise reminded him who she was—and who she was not—to him.

  He wanted desperately, painfully, to ignore that. But he'd already been stripped of the standing of a gentleman. If he stopped behaving as one, too...

  So he rolled off of her, although it meant falling with a jarring thud into the footwell of the phaeton's box.

  Laurel peeked over the edge of the seat, dark hair stream­ing down around her face, toward him. "Collier?"

  He drew one knee up, hoping to disguise just how basely he and his body were behaving. He could at least spare her that.

  "My apologies," he said in a gasp. "Quite unseemly of me."

  "Oh, my!" She covered her mouth and began to laugh. "Oh!"

  He closed his eyes, trying to fight the heat still surging through his blood. "Amused, are we?" He sounded sulky.

  "And right after I insisted that we could both go three years." She vanished over the seat edge, but he heard a snort­ing sound, as if perhaps she were laughing even harder.

  At least he no longer had to keep his knee raised. Laughter had a particularly powerful influence in that area.

  "It hardly answers the difficulty," he pointed out as haugh­tily as he could from the floor of the Coopers' buggy. "If we're merely business partners, though joined by marriage ..."

  "Oh." Her face appeared over the seat's edge again, more concerned. "I see what you mean."

  Slowly he braced himself into a sitting position. "Although I enjoy such ... diversions, they lack a certain ..."

  She waited, curious. He could not believe he was sitting by a creek in Wyoming, speaking like this to a rancher's daughter.

  "Completion?" he suggested.

  She nodded, understanding. She had sat up herself.

  "And that is why I'll need to look elsewhere," he insisted, proudly veering back to the topic. "Discreetly, of course. I've no intention of having people say you do not keep me sat­isfied."

  "Even if I don't?"

  "I doubt it shall be through any lack of ability."

  "And what do I do?" she demanded. "If you do visit the chippies for your needs, how do I deal with mine?"

  "Women's needs," he assured her, "are not as powerful as those of men. All the experts agree on that."

  Laurel Garrison bit her lip. "You poor thing."

  Collier managed to return Miss Garrison to her parents' ranch safely, then even to coax the recalcitrant Firefly back to town, but his thoughts lingered elsewhere. As he saw it, his indis­cretion by the creek left him with only tw
o choices.

  One was to remove himself from this ludicrous deal he had driven. The other was to indeed marry the girl, but recognize that celibacy, despite their best intentions, might not win the day. There could be worse fates, he supposed, but for a few minor inconveniences.

  Only a rotter would deflower and then desert a girl—par­ticularly one who, despite her rough edges, seemed as basi­cally decent as Miss Laurel Garrison. And should he, in a moment of weakness, father a child...

  Collier had no intention of deserting or ignoring any child he sired. But neither could he imagine dragging Laurel Gar­rison to England with him, nor—Lord forbid—staying in Wy­oming. So they must guard against that possibility at all costs. And without putting too much faith in self-control.

  Discomfited, but desperate, he approached his cousin.

  "You can speak to me about anything, dear." Alexandra patted the striped cushion on the settee beside her. "My hus­band and son are off at that ranch of theirs. We could plot a murder or have an affair, you and I, and nobody would be the wiser."

  "I fear I went off married women some time ago," Collier teased, sitting. "And I never went on relatives."

  Despite her prim expression, Alexandra's mossy eyes laughed at him. "Never fear. My marriage with Mr. Cooper is quite... satisfactory in that area." Now he knew she was try­ing to shock him. Well, he did mean to ask something shock­ing.

  Her pretty lips flattened, though, when she added, 'And I vowed upon Stanley's death never again to have relations with another Englishman. So you are quite safe."

  Lord Stanley was her first husband.

  Collier cleared his throat. "I seem to remember another vow as well. Pardon my boldness, but... did you not say, before you remarried, that you would never again risk child­birth?"

  He silently cursed himself when her eyes took on the haunted expression that he also remembered. "I did."

  He need not ask why. He had lost count of her attempts to give her first husband an heir, and the resulting miscarriages, but he suspected she had not. "But when you remarried ..." he prompted.