Proving Herself Page 19

  Well, that answered that. "As you like." Shrugging off his own, Collier hung it on its peg.

  Laurel began to clear the tea dishes with sharp, angry moves, still wearing her coat.

  "What is wrong?" asked Collier, snatching a delicate piece out of her reach. Menial though it might be for a Pembroke to wash dishes, better he do it and keep them whole.

  In any case, she too was a Pembroke ... to a degree.

  They really should hire help.

  "Nothing is wrong," Laurel insisted, emptying the contents of her mug back into the coffeepot with a splash.

  "You're clearly upset." He moved the marmalade closer to his plate. He had not finished.

  "Why didn't you tell me about the horses?"

  Collier blinked at her, startled by her vehemence. "You knew about them before I did." And had not bothered to warn him.

  "I mean, why didn't you tell me you've been stalking them?"

  "I haven't been stalking them. I've been observing them."

  "With a rifle."

  "Yes. With a rifle. Now please let me take your coat," of­fered Collier calmly, but before he could reach for her, she wrenched the damned thing off and threw it onto her bed.

  "I can take off my own coat," she repeated. "Of all the many things you could do to be helpful around here, taking my coat isn't one of them."

  Ah. So that was what had her out of sorts. He folded his arms, perhaps to protect himself from her anger. "If you feel I am not doing my share on your homestead, then by all means, tell me what needs doing." That you will let me do.

  "This isn't about that! It's about making me look bad in front of Uncle Benj."

  Collier had to sit down now, even if she was still standing. Since she had not just entered the room, it was technically excusable. "How could I manage so unlikely a thing?"

  "By making it look like we don't talk to each other."

  They didn't talk to each other. They exchanged courte­sies—commented on meals and the weather, and occasion­ally made small requests of each other. But the wedding was once their shared topic. Now wed, they found that discussing anything else of import led so often to arguments—or to teas­ing, perhaps even more frustrating—that they'd taken to avoiding it.

  Which could hardly be good.

  "If you must know," admitted Collier, "I did not tell you about the horses because you said you feel responsible. I saw no reason to bring up a painful topic."

  "You brought it up to Uncle Benj."

  "No, Uncle Benj brought it up." Collier took a deep breath—this was his job, as the gentleman. "But I apologize for having contributed. I assure you, I can think of very little in this world less likely than Benjamin Cooper thinking ill of you. The man loves you more like a daughter than a niece."

  Slowly Laurel sank into a second chair. She still had that stubborn lift to her jaw, but Collier suspected that somehow the situation had been defused.

  "You know," she offered tentatively, "Papa has brothers back in Texas. So I have real uncles. But I've never met them."

  Ah. Now this was more like it. Conversation with tea. "A shame," said Collier. Carefully—as if Laurel might leap up and begin hurling crockery—he drew his bread plate back toward him.

  "We've always had Uncle Benj. Even if he's not related by blood, he might as well be, as much as he loves all of us."

  "He seems particularly fond of you," Collier noted.

  "Do you think?" Laurel smiled at a memory, and Collier paused in sipping his now-cool tea to savor the smile. He'd seen too few of them lately. "Maybe it's because I look like my mother. He's very fond ... You know, I even used to try to talk like Uncle Benj. Like when he talks cowboy—'wad-dies' and 'purt near' and 'reckon.' That was before I knew he did it so the other men wouldn't think he was putting on airs. Anyway, Mama used to look at Papa and say, 'Jacob, I swear she's yours.'"

  Laurel laughed.

  Collier could not imagine such a jest going over at Brambourne. Such topics were not a source of humor in his set. Particularly not when there truly was a resemblance.

  And now that he noticed, there was that. Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. Laurel looked like someone other than her mother.

  She looked a great deal like Benjamin Cooper.

  "And?" Collier cleared his throat. "And your father?"

  "Oh, you know Papa. He would just glower at her, the way he does." Thinking of happier family times seemed to have soothed Laurel considerably. She even reached across the table and stole a piece off Collier's biscuit, then popped it into her mouth. "Why do you only put marmalade on it one piece at a time?"

  He smiled at her brass. "Because that is how it is done."

  "Mmm." She nodded knowingly. "In England."

  And New York City. And Denver. But Collier did not want to argue anymore. He never had wanted that. He only wanted things to feel normal. Like home.

  "Oh!" Laurel leaped to her feet and claimed the lumpy flour sack that had sat by the door during the entire visit. She hefted it onto the table. "It's heavy! Shall I open it?"

  Collier spirited a piece of china to safety. "Do."

  So she did, exclaiming with mixed joy and annoyance. Cookies and candies. Flour and white sugar, lest they run low. A large pat of butter, and a bottle of milk. Tinned peaches and tomatoes. Dried apples. Nuts. And another jar of mar­malade for Collier. "They shouldn't have," she said more than once. "We really didn't need any of this."

  Just as they did not need chairs. That she could not see how much finer the world was with feather "beds and butter was beyond him. The same philosophy, in fact, went toward good table manners, and a gentleman taking a lady's ...

  Coat! Collier leaped out of his chair and across the room— luckily, a short trip—to snatch her coat off the mail that Coo­per had brought, a gift even more precious, in his eyes, than the food. "Thank the Lord it's not snowing," he murmured, testing a newspaper with his fingers. "They're not wet."

  "I guess they would have dried if they got wet," said Laurel. The little barbarian.

  But before he could argue that—or decide if he even wanted to—Collier noticed familiar handwriting on a rather fat letter. He forgot all else, even what Laurel said about Thanksgiving.

  The sight of a mother's handwriting could do that, even to a son full-grown and married.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Laurel went to the feed-store calendar and began to count. The days had already begun to blur into each other. Was this Tuesday or Wednesday? Surely Uncle Benj would not have made so harsh a journey on Thanksgiving itself! "Collier?"

  No response.

  Likely she'd angered him, flippantly dismissing his maga­zines. She regretted that, the same as she regretted so much between them. Something about him made her want to be­have badly, just like around her father.

  Well, not just like around her father.

  She looked up from the calendar, ready to apologize, and saw how intently he was reading a letter—a letter with fine, feminine handwriting, on what was clearly quality paper.

  Laurel's first thought was, Lady Vivian. The surge of dismay she felt at that—a frightened kind of cramping—surprised her more than she would ever have expected.

  "Cole?" Her voice came out higher than before.

  Collier looked vaguely up. "Yes?"

  What day is it? That was what she'd initially wanted to

  know. Instead she asked, "Who's the letter from?"

  "My mother. She sends her love—I'll read you that part, once I finish." And he sat down on her bed to keep reading.

  Oh! His mother? Collier had spoken very little of the woman who had allowed his father to send him away, but of course he would be hungry for news from her. Laurel went back to the gifts of food that Uncle Benj and her mother had sent up for their Thanksgiving, trying to put everything onto shelves very, very quietly, so as not to disturb Cole's reading.

  Did his mother really send her love to a woman she'd never met? That was, of course, kind of Lady Brambourne.
But Lau­rel had to wonder if the woman would welcome her so en­thusiastically did she know what Laurel was really like, instead of just what she looked like in silk and lace and or­ange blossoms, for the wedding photograph, and what Collier may have told her.

  Setting the butter and milk on the windowsill, where they would stay cold but maybe not freeze, Laurel wondered what Collier had told his mother... and if any of it was the truth.

  Finally her pretend husband put the letter down. He seemed pensive. It made his jaw look even stronger.

  "Is something wrong?" she ventured.

  Collier blinked, then became his usual, pleasant self again. "No, nothing at all. Did you have a question for me?"

  "What day of the week is it?"

  "Tuesday." She'd thought he would know. Collier did not keep a journal, but he did add to his pile of letters home on a daily basis. "Is that important?"

  "Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow," she explained. "Uncle Benj brought us food for a Thanksgiving dinner."

  Starting to reread the letter, Collier said nothing—as if he'd traveled far, far away from her. Well, that was what he wanted to do, wasn't it? That was his goal in their agreement.

  "Do the British celebrate Thanksgiving? I mean, of course they wouldn't have the Pilgrims, and Squanto and all."

  "Hmmm?" Again, Collier looked up. "Oh. Well, no, not in the same sense you Americans do. But we do observe the

  harvest, and give thanks in most of the churches."

  You. We. They really were two different peoples. In the quiet that remained after Uncle Benj's departure—and their own argument—Laurel felt lonelier than ever. She went to her bed and sat down beside Collier. "May I read it?"

  "Here. I'll read you the passage I mentioned." He flipped over several sheets. " 'It was naughty of you to do something as consequential as to wed without your father's or brother's blessing. The viscount is quite put out with you, as is your younger sister, who takes your secrecy as a personal affront. Was your intention—' Wait; it's a bit beyond this."

  "Was your intention what?" persisted Laurel, and Collier slanted bright, amused eyes toward her.

  "Inquisitive, are we?"

  She liked it when he teased her like that. It helped soothe her loneliness. "Well, I am Victoria's sister."

  "If you must know, she writes: 'If your intention was to spare us the long journey, rest assured that we are quite ca­pable of such expeditions, were they planned with sufficient care to our schedules. I place blame firmly on you, for you wrote so enthusiastically of our new Mrs. Pembroke that you have quite convinced me of both her excellence and your mutual fondness. You've convinced Agnes as well, which may explain her resentment of your secrecy. Please give Mrs. Pembroke our love and warm welcome, and be a good hus­band to her. Agnes begs her new sister to write and tell her of your ranch.'

  "Then she writes more about Edgar and father."

  Laurel watched him pocket his letter. "Agnes thinks I'm her new sister?"

  "She's always wanted a sister," agreed Collier.

  "But I'm not!"

  He frowned. "You've enough sisters already, I daresay?"

  "It's not that! But if it's only a pretend marriage, then she's only a pretend sister, and she doesn't even know it. She doesn't know a thing about me—nothing real—but she's hoping for a friendship like in a Louisa May Alcott book."

  "Jane Austen," suggested Collier.

  "And in two years we'll just end up hurting her."

  Collier considered that. "It might be three years."

  Now she did kick him, though lightly.

  "What the devil—"

  "We should feel bad whether it's two or three or ten years. Think of something to spare Agnes's feelings."

  "Pardon?"

  "You came up with this solution for us."

  Collier parted his lips, inhaling as if to make a comment, but wisely held his tongue. If he said anything about how poorly this had worked out...

  Well, Laurel wasn't certain if she would kick him again or weep. Or both. They'd barely been married a month. Surely they would find some sort of balance between bickering and ... well...

  Getting too fond.

  "I can't write her," decided Laurel.

  "You must!"

  "It's not fair for two people to become friends, maybe grow close, when they're only going to be ripped apart. It's mean, and I can't believe you want to do that to your baby sister!"

  Collier said, "She's fifteen."

  "Audra's almost fifteen, and I wouldn't wish it on her."

  "You must write her, Laurel. You are older; it is not her place to send a letter until you've given her permission by writing first." More etiquette foolishness, she guessed. "Just take care not to invite close friendship. Keep your note dis­tant, polite. Acknowledge her without encouraging her."

  Distant. Polite. Did he know who he'd married?

  "I'll make spelling mistakes." She softly bit her lip.

  "If you like, I shall correct them for you."

  "My handwriting isn't as pretty as your mother's."

  "Laurel!" With an air of defeat, Collier slumped backward across the bed, propping his head on the wall behind them. "Are you being this intractable on purpose, or merely to goad me?"

  Looking at him beside and now rather beneath her, on her bed, Laurel thought again how pretty a man he was—espe­cially when he stopped being so proper. She did goad him, didn't she?

  Was it to shake the propriety right out of him? If so, she was playing a dangerous game. She suspected that only Col­lier's propriety was keeping him from sliding in next to her one night and renegotiating their bargain with persuasions she'd so far shown little ability to resist.

  In her bed. Right here. Where she sat. And he lay.

  Oh, dear. "I'll go check on the horses," she decided, stand­ing. By the time she had reached the door and put her coat back on, Collier had moved to the table again.

  "I'll catch up on the news," he said just as decisively.

  "Good idea," said Laurel. She put on her hat, her gloves, and her muffler, opened the door, then shut it again.

  The newspaper that Collier had picked up made a noise as a gust of cold air hit it, and he looked up. "Something wrong?"

  "How long ago do you think Uncle Benj left?" she asked.

  "Perhaps an hour. Why?"

  Laurel nodded. Going downhill would be more slippery, but he'd done the digging on the way up. So he should be halfway back to town by now, maybe more. And that was good. Very good.

  "Why?" asked Collier, standing.

  "It's started snowing again," she explained. "Hard."

  And one good snow was all it would take to completely seal them off from town for who knew how long. Alone. To­gether.

  Collier had thought the snowstorm on their scheduled wed­ding day had been a blizzard. The storm that swept down on them the day before Thanksgiving proved him mistaken.

  Like a living thing it tore at the claim shack until he felt certain it would fly apart around them. Without his clock, they could not have told day from night, so thoroughly did snow eclipse the sun. The wind shrieked like banshees, des­perate to claw their way in—and this, with the protection of the woods!

  When first Laurel began to dress to go outside, he could not believe it. "You're mad! One cannot see a foot out there!"

  "Someone has to see to the horses," she reminded him.

  "Then for pity's sake, let me.' At least he, with more weight on him, would be less likely to blow away!

  Laurel gave him an odd look. "Now you want to help?"

  "I never said I would not do what must be done."

  "Well, I'm the one who knows how." And she wrapped on her muffler. "They're used to me doing it, too. You saw the rope I tied between here and the shed and the corral—that'll get me there and back. It'll just take me longer than usual."

  "Are you enjoying this?"

  Those fiery blue eyes, the only part of her face now visible, widened. "Not e
njoying," she protested through the scarf. "But I won't let a storm best me, if that's what you mean."

  She reached for the door/but Collier caught her coated arm.

  "How long ought I wait before coming to look for you? Should something happen."

  She stared at him for a long moment. "You don't."

  As if that should be obvious? "The hell you say!"

  "Even if I got lost, it wouldn't do any good for you to do it too. Then folks would find us both frozen to death."

  Collier stared at her. "You cannot be serious."

  She patted his bare hand with her mittened one. "If I'm not back, don't come looking until the snow stops. Now hurry— I'm steaming up my scarf." When she unlatched the door it slammed open, as if thrown in by a giant hand. Snow burst in like blown sand against Collier's face. Laurel yelled some­thing. When he shook his head, she slapped the door with one arm, and he nodded.

  He'd not been the one who'd wanted to homestead, nor to ranch. His was not a family that fed and watered their own horses.

  But closing that door against the storm, with his wife still out in it, had to be the least gentlemanly thing Collier had ever done in his life. Compared to that sense of impotence, the humility of sweeping up the grainy snow before it melted did not even signify. And then the helplessness he felt when she finally did return, safe and whole, and he could not hold her...

  Perhaps that was when, finally, he began to give up.

  Laurel refused to let him help with the horses throughout that entire first blizzard. She said she would show him what to do once the weather cleared, but no sooner. She assured him the horse shed, off the corral, was holding, and that their unseen cattle should be fine as well. Herd animals, their stock would have banded with others', wandering the range to­gether, staying in front of the wind. The larger "outfits" would put out hay, for which the smaller outfits paid them a per­centage—no longer did they count on the cattle's ability to forage through the snow.

  "High as the grass got this summer, they'll do fine," insisted Laurel cheerfully, as if all the demons of hell weren't howling around them. "Especially the longhorns. The more they mix with the blooded stock, though—like Herefords and the An­gus—the more helpless they seem to get."