Gabe tried to let that sink into his overtaxed brain. “Well, when people do discuss topics of such a personal nature, they refer to the act as—”
She clamped her fingertips over his mouth, sending a jolt slamming through him. “Please, must we talk about this? Having to engage in the act will be burden enough.”
Gabe searched the depths of her beautiful gray eyes, and the fear he saw there gave him pause. “Well, we’re going to have to call it something, because sooner or later, husbands and wives do discuss it.”
Her lashes, thick, luxurious, and several shades darker than her golden hair, dipped low. Then a muscle jerked in her delicately hollowed cheek. “Very well,” she said stonily. “If and when we must discuss it, we shall refer to it as engaging in the act.” He suspected she’d have used the same tone to refer to a particularly loathsome type of vermin. Besides, the formality of that phrase was above and beyond ridiculous. Still, he was on untraveled paths with this woman, and it wasn’t his aim to upset her any more than he already had.
“All right,” he consented. “I can do that.”
He hoped some of the tension might ease from her small frame, but she remained rigid. He belatedly realized that he’d grasped both her shoulders and was holding her fast against him. He released his grip instantly, which resulted in her losing her balance, which prompted him to grab her by one arm again.
“Are you all right? Don’t fall. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Let go of me. I won’t fall,” she assured him. With a glance both up and down the boardwalk, she visibly cringed and added in a fierce whisper, “We are making a spectacle of ourselves. People are staring.”
Gabe started to turn to see who was staring, but she stopped him with, “Don’t look!” Her eyes filled with supplication. “That will only make everything worse!”
How returning someone’s stare could make anything worse totally escaped Gabe, but he honored her edict.
“We must get off the street. Please. The moment news of our marriage gets out, tongues will be wagging nonstop. I don’t want to add fuel to the fire by standing here on the boardwalk like two well-rooted stumps.”
Gabe felt a little like a stump. Making his feet move required concentration. He guided his rigid bride to the door of her shop, watched her struggle with wildly shaking hands to insert the skeleton key into the hole, and, in frustrated silence, bit down so hard on his back molars that he started to get a toothache.
“Here, honey, let me.” He snatched the key from her grasp, a feat that took unerringly good aim, because the thing was bouncing about erratically in her hand. He hit the hole on the first try, gave a sharp twist, and pushed the door open. Stepping back, he gestured her forward. “Ladies first.”
He couldn’t say that she actually leaped across the threshold, but she did enter with frenzied haste. As Gabe stepped inside behind her, she whirled to slam the door closed with such force that the walls vibrated, creating a muted noise to underscore the cacophony of the jangling bell. Then, trembling like an aspen leaf in a brisk wind, she leaned against the portal, her forehead resting on the doorframe.
Feeling helpless, Gabe hooked his thumbs over his gun belt and watched her try to regain her composure. When he’d accepted this mission, he’d never for an instant imagined that pushing this woman into marriage would upset her so much. He’d had mostly his own concerns in mind, and been so glad to be offered a second chance that he’d thought of little else.
“I should have chosen Tyke,” he muttered.
She turned to stare at him, her face so drained of color that it worried him. “Pardon me?”
“Nothing. Just talking to myself.”
She straightened, unfastened the frog of her cloak, and then reached up as if to flip over the sign.
“Uh, I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said, making her freeze midmotion. “Do you really want to deal with customers right now? Chances are, the news of our marriage is traveling through town like a wildfire licking at August prairie grass. Anyone who comes in probably won’t be looking to buy anything. They’ll be wanting information, and even if you refuse to give them any, they’ll still race out to tell anyone who’ll listen every word you said, everything I didn’t say, and that you look like you’re about to faint.”
“Do I?” She touched trembling fingers to her cheek. “Look as if I’m about to faint, I mean.”
“If you turn any paler, I’m going to stand close enough to catch you before you hit the floor.”
Apparently she preferred that he keep his distance. She rubbed her cheeks vigorously with the heels of her hands. With a quivering intake of breath, she swept off her cloak, hung it on a hook by the door, and stood like a soldier at attention when she turned to face him again. “I have never fainted,” she informed him, “and I have no intention of starting now.” She peered down at her bodice watch to check the hour. Gabe hadn’t noticed the dainty little timepiece until she touched it. When his gaze settled on her chest, where he’d been trying really hard not to look, he noticed nothing but the thrust of her breasts against the blue cloth of her dress. “Laney will be back from school in an hour and twenty minutes,” she announced.
Gabe realized she was letting him know that he had a limited time if he wished to “engage in the act.” He nearly smiled, stifled the urge, and managed to keep his expression suitably solemn. “I was hoping she’d be here sooner. I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
His response clearly wasn’t what she expected. “Sooner?” she echoed in a thin voice. “I thought that you’d—”
Gabe finally allowed the grin twitching at the corners of his mouth to curve his lips. He looked deeply into his bride’s worried eyes, took a moment to think before he spoke, and then said, “I know what you thought, Nan. But you misjudged me. As I said earlier, now it’s time for the courting part to begin. ‘Engaging in the act’ isn’t on my agenda for tonight, or for tomorrow night, or for any night unless you are a willing participant.”
“I will never be a willing participant.”
Gabe was a man who enjoyed laughing. Even as a kid who’d had little to be happy about, he’d always felt better with a smile on his lips. So he allowed himself to chuckle now. “Never is a very long time, but I’ll still stand behind my word. If the moment never comes when you can willingly engage in the act, I won’t press you. It’s not my way.”
Her worried expression turned to one of pure and undiluted bewilderment. “Why on earth did you insist on marrying me then?”
He ventured a grin. “Because you’re beautiful, and I enjoy looking at you. And also because any single man with eyes who didn’t want to marry you would be a damned fool.” He glanced toward the rear door that led upstairs to her living quarters. “I’m thirty-three years old, and except for a year of my life when an elderly ex-schoolmarm took me in to clean me up and teach me to read, I’ve never enjoyed a home-cooked meal, never slept in a real bedroom, or spent an evening doing whatever it is families do after supper.” He winked at her. “If your prediction of never turns out to be true, then I’ll still count myself lucky to have the opportunity to be in your home and spend time with you and your sister.”
“Daughter,” she corrected. “You mustn’t refer to Laney as my sister. No one but you knows the truth.”
“Daughter, then,” he said with a shrug.
Well-done, the angel Gabriel murmured in Gabe’s ear. Gabe barely managed to stifle a response to his heavenly mentor. Damn. If Nan heard him talking to himself again, she’d feel certain he was crazy, and he wouldn’t blame her. The last thing he needed was for her opinion of him to sink even lower.
Time to back off, he silently conveyed to Gabriel. From this point forward, you have to leave me alone and let me handle this my way.
The angel laughed softly, causing a waft of air to tickle Gabe’s ear. The instant I leave you to your own devic
es, you’ll be calling upon me for advice.
Gabe couldn’t deny the possibility. He’d only ever dealt with eager, willing females, and he knew he was totally out of his depth with Nan. Even so, the angel needed to scat. I can’t say I deserve my privacy, Gabe replied in his mind, but Nan has never deliberately harmed anyone, and she does deserve hers. What happens between us from this moment forward needs to be between her and me and nobody else, not even an angel. You can’t hover invisibly in the air, watching us and listening to every word we say. It wouldn’t be right or fair to her.
Gabe heard the angel sigh. All right, my friend, I’ll leave you to proceed without my inestimable wisdom to help you along. Before I leave, however, I’d like to give you a few last words of advice. When you have no idea what to do or say next, take a moment to listen to your heart.
Gabe wasn’t sure his heart did much talking.
“Would you like to see my shop and the upstairs?”
Nan’s question jerked him back to the moment. Her nervousness and the anxiety in her expression told him she’d issued the invitation with great reluctance. “I’d love to see everything.”
She gave him a quick tour of the downstairs. He found her curtained-off workroom far more interesting than the storage closet and display areas, because it reflected more of her character. The right and left walls sported shelves and cubbyholes that held yardage, trims, and other sewing sundries, all tidily arranged. A new-looking Singer sewing machine held court at the back of the room, its gleaming walnut stand draped with what appeared to be a woman’s dress in progress. A roomy square table took center stage. Scissors, a neatly wound measuring tape, a sketch tablet, and a wine-red pincushion adorned its smooth surface.
She rested her slender fingers on the black scissor handles, making Gabe wonder if she planned to stab him. With a quick search of her expression, he chased away the thought. Nan didn’t have it in her to deliberately harm anyone, not even a man who had forced her into matrimony.
“This is where I work,” she said shakily. “I also consult with my customers in here.”
“That is a beautiful sewing machine. It must have cost a small fortune.”
Pink slashed her pale cheeks. “A necessary purchase. I’ve doubled my sales since buying it.”
She brushed by him to exit the room and turned toward the door that led to the upstairs living area. Gabe stopped her short. “Shouldn’t we lock up? Even with the closed sign showing, curiosity seekers are liable to walk right in.”
Nan glanced down at the key he still held in one hand. “Laney will be home soon, and her only way in is through the shop.” She held out a slender hand for the key. After taking it from Gabe, exercising care as she did to avoid a touch of their fingertips, she slipped the instrument into her skirt pocket. “As for the gossipmongers, as sharp as their tongues can be, most of them are honest to a fault. I doubt any of my customers would steal.”
Gabe didn’t share her faith in the goodness of most people, but then, when he thought about it, he decided that his opinion of others might be more than a little biased. He’d spent much of his life seeing the dark side of human nature, and as a kid, he’d suffered cruelties that not even Nan, emotionally injured by her father though she had been, could probably imagine. Maybe his perspective had come to him through a narrow lens, focused on the gutter scum, while Nan had seen the world through a multifaceted prism, allowing her to glimpse more brightness and hope.
Remaining two steps behind her, Gabe followed her up a steep, narrow staircase, the kind he called a neck breaker. One misstep could cause a person to take a very nasty fall, and if that occurred on one of the top risers, a somersault to death could easily result.
“You need some nice, sturdy handrails,” he observed.
“I know,” she admitted as she paused to push open the door to the apartment. “Hiring a carpenter is expensive, though. I recently enlarged the shop and our quarters after buying the place next door. The renovations, simple though they were, cost me dearly. I also paid a lot extra to put in a kitchen water pump and some drainpipes. Handrails in this stairwell must wait until next year.”
Gabe made a mental note to visit the lumberyard and the hardware section at the general store. He didn’t want Nan or Laney to take a tumble.
After passing through the doorway to enter the room beyond, Nan stood in its center with her hands clasped at her waist, the fingers of her right hand twisting the wedding band around and around as if the circle of gold seared her flesh. She waited for him to join her. He noticed that her pointy little knuckles were white, a telltale sign that she still expected him to jump her at any second. Recalling the scenes of her life that he’d been shown by the angels, most particularly the obscenely fat Horace Barclay’s sexual assault upon her person, he felt a little sick to his stomach. Nobody who’d seen all that could blame this woman for fearing men.
Most nauseating of all to Gabe was the inescapable fact that Martin Sullivan had been in his upstairs study during the attack upon his daughter, well aware of what was occurring down in the sitting room, because he and Barclay had discussed the situation and agreed it needed to happen. Nan’s premature deflowering would have ensured that she offered no last-minute objections on the day of the fast-approaching nuptials. Grinning like a cat lapping cream, Sullivan had reclined on a velvet chair in front of the fire, enjoying an expensive cigar while wreathing his head with aromatic smoke. So far as he was concerned, nothing could be allowed to prevent the wedding. Nan’s feelings about it were inconsequential. The union of the Sullivan and Barclay families would create a formidable financial alliance that would greatly benefit both men. Nan would settle down quickly enough once Barclay got her pregnant. She’d forget about her silly, girlish revulsion at marrying a much older man and focus on raising a family, just as countless other women of her station had done for centuries. Martin wasn’t about to let his daughter’s foolish notions about becoming a spinster get in the way. What a bunch of poppycock. Females had been created for one reason, and one reason only: to provide men with progeny.
Fortunately, at least to Gabe’s way of thinking, Sullivan hadn’t counted on Nan’s knitting needle coming into play, and he’d seriously underestimated his elder daughter’s intelligence, courage, and ingenuity. While Martin Sullivan had sipped fine brandy and lit a second cigar, Nan, in shock and quivering with terror, had been emptying his study safe, stuffing possessions into pillowcases, and spiriting her little sister from the huge house through the servants’ quarters.
Gabe wasn’t sure how Nan had found her way to Random. The angels hadn’t shown him that part of her life. He had glimpsed scenes of her early years here in a much smaller shop, and had seen the meager existence she’d led in order to get her ledgers in the black. He also knew that she’d done without many necessities in order to give Laney everything she’d felt a little girl should have.
In short, though Gabe knew he had only a short time to enjoy it, he was proud to be Nan’s husband. She was, in his estimation, one hell of a lady. A little too prim for his taste, perhaps, and she definitely needed to learn how to laugh. But over the next month, he’d work on that.
• • •
During the renovations, Nan had enlarged the kitchen, turning the previously tiny nook into a spacious room reminiscent of the few farmhouse kitchens around Random that she’d seen. There was a wide window above the new sink, which was actually plumbed, and the counter space was ample, providing plenty of room for rolling out dough and cooling baked goods. She’d even gotten a long table, large enough to seat six, because it felt homier, as if a real family lived here.
Gabriel Valance made the area seem smallish and cramped. Nan wasn’t sure how that could be. Though he was a tall and well-muscled man, he wasn’t that big. Yet he seemed to dominate the room, towering over her and robbing her lungs of breath.
“This is nice,” he said, drawing his gaze
from the frilly lace curtains above the sink to scan the adornments she’d hung on the yellow walls and set on the waxed wood counters. He smiled slightly. “Your decorating talent extends to more than just hats, I see.”
Nan felt an odd warmth spread up her spine. She loved what she’d done with the kitchen, and of course Laney had given it high marks, but no one else, except the workmen, had seen the finished product. Having a stranger praise the room’s appearance felt . . . nice.
She nearly smiled, but squelched the urge. Gabriel Valance wasn’t just any stranger. He was her husband, and he might give her compliments merely to butter her up. Everything she’d heard about this man and from him made it clear that he took what he wanted. And she wasn’t at all sure she believed his avowals that he had no intention of consummating the marriage unless she was willing. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Valance.”
He chuckled. The deep timbre of his laughter was a pleasant sound, but Nan knew from hard experience that the kindliest, most pleasant of men could turn into heartless monsters in the blink of an eye. She’d seen her father charm his houseguests, then whisper a scathing remark to her mother that had shattered what little self-esteem Helena Sullivan still possessed. By the time Nan was thirteen, her mother had been slowly killing herself for years by trying, over and over again, to give her husband a son. Between miscarriages, Helena would barely give her body time to heal before she tried to get pregnant again, and her successes at that had always ended with hemorrhaging, loss of the baby, and Martin raging at her for failing yet again.
Nan’s memories of her mother’s last miscarriage, which had occurred right before Helena became pregnant with Laney, would haunt her for the rest of her life. Nan had just finished with her lessons for the day and had run upstairs to dress for their formal dinner, a daily ritual her father insisted on each evening, as befitted a man of his social status.