He didn't seem to mind. He winked at her. 'Are you going to make me sorry I told you what happened?' she asked. She didn't give him time to answer. She shook her head at him and said, 'You're supposed to be loyal to me, sir.'
'I am?' Hunter asked.
She nodded. She waved her hand in Lucas's direction. 'I'm his wife, after all.'
'Who in thunder are Wellen and Elburn?' Lucas asked the question in a surly, someone-better-answer-me voice.
'They're Elwin and Wilburn.' Hunter took great delight in correcting his friend's pronunciation.
'Start explaining, Taylor.'
'You might become irritated.'
She was a little late with that concern. Lucas was already looking angry.
'They're the men who followed Taylor from the train station yesterday. She told me she prayed for a miracle. God gave her one.'
'Oh?' Lucas asked, his voice suspiciously soft.
Hunter couldn't wait to explain. 'A gun shop.'
Lucas nodded. 'I see.'
'Your eyelid's twitching,' Hunter said.
Lucas ignored his friend. He turned his attention to his wife. She was giving him a sweet smile and trying to act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
'And?' he prodded.
'There really isn't anything more to tell,' she replied.
Hunter didn't agree. He ended up telling Lucas the entire story.
Just as Taylor suspected, Lucas didn't take it all in stride. His grip on her arm started stinging. She pinched him to make him let up on his hold. By the time his had-to-tell-it-all friend finished giving him every last detail, Lucas's jaw was clenched tight, and there was a noticeable tick in his left eyelid.
It mesmerized her.
'Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?'
She knew that question was coming. 'If you weren't so tired, you would realize I used my wits to get out of a worrisome situation. You would be praising me, sir.'
The tick intensified. Yes, he should have complimented her. He didn't though. He dragged her over to the settee, forced her to sit down, and then towered over her while he tried to scare the hell out of her.
He didn't raise his voice, and that made his lecture all the worse in her opinion. In great, vivid detail he told her what could have happened to her. He painted a godawful picture. Her face turned as white as snow by the time he was finished listing all the horrors she might have had to endure… before they killed her. Lucas had her dead and buried on a remote country road, and when he at last finished with his ungentle-manly terror tactics, he made her admit she'd done several foolish things. 'You never should have gone alone.'
'No, I shouldn't have,' she readily agreed. Her head was bowed low.
He thought she was being contrite and maybe even a little submissive. He was immediately suspicious. In all their time together, he'd noticed how headstrong she was and how stubborn. But submissive? Never.
Fatigue made his anger over her foolishness more intense. He knew he was overreacting. He didn't care. The thought of Taylor in such danger made him furious and all because it scared the hell out of him. If anything ever happened to her, he didn't know what he would do.
'I made a promise to your grandmother to keep you safe until you got settled… where in thunder are you going to get settled? Are you going to take your nieces to their father's relatives? You weren't thinking of taking them back to England, were you? No, of course you weren't. What about Boston?'
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. The action made him want to throttle her. And then kiss her. He shook his head.
'I'm not a saint,' he muttered.
Taylor didn't look at him when she agreed. 'No, you certainly aren't a saint, sir.'
'How long am I…'
He didn't finish his question.
'Stuck with me?' she asked, her voice as whisper soft as his had been when he started the question.
No, that wasn't what he was going to ask her, but thankfully he'd stopped himself before he blurted out the rest. He'd wanted to know exactly how long he was supposed to keep his hands off her. Pretending to be a eunuch around her was taking its toll. He wasn't made of stone. Didn't she understand that?
Lucas let out a sigh. Of course she didn't understand. She was quite astute about most things, but when it came to the marriage bed, she was as innocent as a… virgin, just like she was supposed to be.
What was the matter with him? He was trying to make her understand she couldn't just run here and there without protection, and right smack in the middle of his speech on the merits of using caution, his mind turned to thoughts of what it would be like to bed her. Lucas was thoroughly disgusted with himself.
The tension inside the room grew until it was almost unbearable. Hunter had already gone into the second bedroom so Taylor and Lucas could have the privacy they needed. Lucas suddenly wished there was a crowd of people in the suite with them. The questions rambling around in his head, one on top of another and another and another, kept demanding answers. He suddenly felt like a barracuda he'd watched once, fighting against the hook. He'd stood next to a fisherman on the pier and seen how the weathered old man had patiently worked the fish. He'd given him plenty of line, let the barracuda fight until exhaustion finally overtook him, and then the old man had calmly reeled him in.
Lucas pushed the memory away. He kept his gaze firmly directed on his wife. He couldn't see her face, for her head was bowed so low he thought her chin must be touching her chest. God, she looked dejected. He assumed he'd injured her feelings, and hell, what was he going to do about that?
She suddenly straightened her spine and looked up at him. One glance told him he'd been wrong in concluding he'd hurt her feelings. There weren't any tears in her eyes. There was fire. She didn't look like she wanted to weep. Quite the opposite. She looked like she wanted to kill him.
He was at first startled by the notice, then incredibly relieved. Oh, how she pleased him. He felt like laughing and couldn't give a reason why. The woman was making him crazy. Those wonderful, beguiling blue eyes of hers captured his full attention. And his heart.
They stared at each other a long, silent moment. She was trying to collect her thoughts so that she would sound reasonable when she spoke to him.
He was using the time to come to grips with the truth. He expected to be hit by lightning. He wasn't. He didn't blanch or stagger to his knees, and all because the realization wasn't gruesome or horrifying after all. It was in fact quite liberating.
He could feel himself being reeled in. The questions were gone, the answer had been there all along. He realized that now. He'd just been too stubborn and mule headed to recognize all the signs.
He was a man in love with his wife.
Taylor had succeeded in getting her anger under control until her insensitive clod of a husband smiled at her. He'd just asked her the most appalling question and then had the gall to grin over it.
'I'll be happy to answer your question,' she announced in a voice that shook with anger. 'You're stuck with me until you find my babies. It's that simple. Find them, and then you can leave.'
She suddenly bounded to her feet. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. 'Go where the wind blows you, Mr. Ross, if that is your inclination.'
Hunter stood in the doorway watching Taylor. Since she wasn't paying any attention to him, he thought it safe to smile. He wanted to laugh. Lord, she was in a lather and she was about the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. He wondered if Lucas knew how fortunate he was to have married her. She wasn't just beautiful, she was also spirited. Hunter found it an appealing combination.
He didn't want to interrupt, but he'd noticed the lateness in the hour and thought he'd offer to go to the train station to collect her friend. He guessed he'd have to wait until Mrs. Ross was finished giving Mr. Ross hell before he could find out if she wanted him to go on the errand or not.
Taylor kept her attention on her husband. She was determined to make him understand how she felt and why. Her mind raced from one argument to another.
