Betina Krahn (23 page)

Society’s direction was decided as Evelyn was joined by a few perceptive friends, and was soon followed by every woman in the room who was the anxious mother of an eligible female.

“Diamond,” Morgan was saying feverishly, “tell them it’s not true!”

Bear reached for her and her gaze lowered to his big, work-hardened palm. It looked like the Promised Land.

An engagement—a public and unquestionably authentic betrothal—was her only hope of escaping this debacle with any sort of reputation left. Her mind raced. Who better than an outsider … a handsome, memorable Westerner who was eager to leave Baltimore and return to his home out West? A long engagement … McQuaid would return to Montana … she could be the pining fiancée … eventually the jilted female … who never quite recovered from the heartbreak of her one true love …

“It’s true,” she said breathlessly. “We do intend to marry.”

It was only when he had drawn her from her failed fiancés’ clutches and put an arm around her waist, that she looked up and saw a small, fierce flame in his eyes. She was going to pay dearly this time. Her knees weakened and she sagged slightly against him. Whatever the price, she would gladly pay it.

As the opportunity-emboldened mothers of Baltimore flocked to wish her and her new fiancé well, her three contentious jilts were forced aside and withdrew, deflated by their sudden and disastrous change of fortunes. In the ensuing confusion, she caught glimpses of them fleeing the room in high dudgeon and felt conflicting pangs of loss and relief.

Hardwell and Hannah came rushing upstairs from the drawing room, their faces flushed and their eyes shining. They peeled her from Bear’s grasp long enough for congratulatory hugs.

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Hardwell announced, sticking
out his chest and beaming. “These two had eyes for each other from the minute they met!”

Hannah dabbed at her eyes and sniffed a little, but her response was immensely practical. “We’ll have a wedding to prepare—how exciting!”

“Feel free to call on me,” Evelyn Vassar said, putting an arm around Hannah. “I’d love nothing better than to help with the dear girl’s nuptials.” She turned to Bear and Diamond. “And when may we expect the happy event?”

Without a heartbeat’s pause, Bear declared: “Next week.”

Diamond, who had been moving and responding in a haze of relief at her deliverance, was jolted forcefully back to the present.

“What?”

“The end of the week. Saturday sounds good.” He clamped an arm around the back of her waist as if afraid she might bolt for the door. “You know I have to be back in Montana shortly—and I won’t be able to return for some time.”

“I’m willing to wait,” she said a bit too hastily, praying that he would read the message in her eyes.

“But
I’m
not.” His determined smile said he read her objection well enough, but intended to ignore it. “I can’t wait to make you Mrs. McQuaid.”

Before she could sputter a protest, he grabbed her around the waist, hoisted her up, and swung her around and around. The laughter his impulsive behavior caused was entirely good-natured … which was the only thing that kept her from slapping him silly the minute her feet touched the floor.

“I suppose”—she put a hand to her reeling head—“we can
discuss
it.”

“What the devil got into you in there, McQuaid?” she demanded raggedly, pulling him toward the darkest corner of the moonlit garden.

It had been more than an hour since their surprise announcement in the ballroom and she was still reeling from the excitement it had unleashed. Her feet were killing her, her hands had been squeezed, pressed, patted, and drooled on by half of Baltimore, and her face ached from besotted smiling at a man who took perverse pleasure in taunting her with his new “husbandly” authority.

“Telling everyone that we’re to be married next Saturday … have you gone stark raving mad?”

“Is that any way to talk to the man who just saved your matrimonial hide?” he responded, pulling her off the secluded garden path and planting himself in front of her.

He was so close that she had to bend backward to glare at him. His face was cast in shadows by the overhead branches, but she could see his eyes clearly enough to make out the glint in them. Something—his sensual presence or the intimacy of the darkness around them or the
memory of having been alone with him in the dark before—caused a softening in her response.

“I owe you for that. And I intend to see you amply paid, but—”

“I intend to see me amply paid, too,” he said with an intensity that brooked no interruptions. “I have saved your rosy butt for the last time, Diamond Wingate. I’m calling in my markers. All of them.”

The time she had dreaded had come. “Fine.” She swallowed hard. “Name your price.”

“I believe I already have.” Though she couldn’t quite see, she had the worrisome sense that he was smiling. “You’re marrying me next Saturday.”

“That’s not the least bit funny, McQuaid,” she said with a tinge of panic. As she pulled away, his hands closed on her shoulders to prevent her escape. Her heart thudded. “See here … I appreciate what you did in there … more than I can say. You saved my reputation, my social standing, and just possibly my entire future. But I’ve told you … I don’t intend to marry … on Saturday or ever.”

“They say the road to hell is paved with failed intentions,” he said with alarming calm. “You just agreed to marry me in front of half of Baltimore.”

“I was desperate. And coerced. Rather rudely, I might add.”

“Coerced?” He gave a short, sardonic laugh. “I offered you a way out, an honorable escape from an intolerable situation. And you took it. You agreed of your own free will.” He took her by the shoulders and she could feel his stare penetrating her, invading her thoughts and feelings. “Can you honestly say that you find the prospect of marriage with me disgusting?”

She didn’t answer, except in her thoughts.
Not fair
.

“Revolting?”

Still no response.
He knew better
.

“Intolerable?”

The heat of his hands and the warmth of his body began to invade her garments, setting her skin tingling.
Marriage with sun-bronzed, smooth-talking, sweet-kissing Bear McQuaid. Looking at him across the breakfast table each morning, listening to his outrageous stories, watching him walk up stairs in his tight-fitting trousers and Western boots … lying in bed at night beside him
 … For one brief instant the prospect held as many intriguing possibilities as potential hazards. Then the drift of her thoughts alarmed her, as did the softening of her objections.

“Perhaps you’d rather I’d send for Kenwood or Pierpont or Webster … let them know that you never intended to marry me … that you’re a free woman once more.” She couldn’t hide the anxiety that generated in her and when he saw that his words had reached their mark, he eased and drew back slightly. “You know of course that the moment their pride quits smarting, they’ll start thinking. And it will occur to them that you owe them something for all their ‘services’ to you. Miss Wingate will still be fair game. Mrs. McQuaid will be out of their reach.”

He was probably right. Curse his hide. It set her thinking and when she looked up at him in the moonlight her glare and her irritation were both fading.

“Don’t you see, Diamond?” The taunt was gone from his tone. “This is the answer to everything.”

She wrung her hands as she struggled to think, to reason it all out, to search out the ramifications of the step she would be taking. Was he right? Was this her best course … the answer to her problems … the answer to
everything
?

Then she looked up, searching for answers in his face and his certainty. And she found her answer in her own desire, reflected in his eyes. He was the one man in her
life who had seen her as she really was, weaknesses and all, and still accepted her. He had been her confidant, partner, and sometime accomplice. He had rescued her again and again, with no thought of himself. He was the one man in her life who had never mentioned her money or approached her as if she were a bank account with a bustle.

More importantly, he was the only man who had invaded her thoughts and dreams and desires … who made her laugh, made her furious, made her think … who made her hope.

He was the only man she had ever
wanted
.

Reading in her physical softening her acceptance of his logic, he lifted her chin and looked into her eyes.

“That’s my price, Miss Wingate.”

“It’s a great deal higher than I bargained for.” She felt her skin tingling where he touched her.

“ ‘No’ is not in your vocabulary,” he reminded her.

“But, perhaps—”

“ ‘Perhaps’ isn’t an option, either. I’m leaving a week from Monday.”

“Then … I suppose … the only thing left is ‘yes.’ ”

He expelled a deep breath, betraying just how much her answer had meant to him. Whatever doubts and questions remained in her mind were swept aside by that small but telling action. It was the ultimate persuasion. It meant he wanted her, too.

He proved it with his next breath, as he slid his hand around the nape of her neck and lowered his head.

The soft resilience of his lips against hers, the warmth and intimacy of his tongue caressing her … she remembered it all the instant his lips touched hers. The taste of him and the scent of his soap and starch and wine-sweetened breath was familiar and felt instantly right. A
faint hum began in her blood and grew steadily louder, as if her body itself were approving her decision.

She melted against him, feeling as she did that her body’s contours were reshaping, adapting … that she was somehow being changed by the decision she had just made. Then he wrapped both arms around her, pulled her hard against him, and deepened his tantalizing explorations of her mouth. She felt a sudden and searing rush of heat that all but melted her rational apparatus.

Alive now with a new and mesmerizing awareness of her body and her physical response to the man in her arms, she wrapped her arms around him, pressed her aching body against him, and opened eagerly to his kiss.

By the time they heard people strolling on the nearby garden path and broke apart, it was all she could do to remain upright. Her very bones seemed to have been softened by the heat of their joined desire. Her lips felt swollen and conspicuous and her face and breasts were flushed. When they stepped through the terrace doors and into the limelight again, she seemed every inch the blushing bride. No one doubted for a minute that the glow in her eyes and the radiance of her smile were caused by her pleasure in the prospect of becoming Mrs. Barton McQuaid.

There were a thousand things to do between the Charity Ball and the following Saturday, the first of which was giving Robbie the news that his favorite cowboy would soon be a member of the family. He bounced on the bed, whooped, and shouted hallelujah … then wanted to know when they were “lightin’ out” for Montana. It took four helpings of dessert at supper—his first meal outside his room in ten days—to salve his disappointment at learning that he and Diamond weren’t going anywhere.

Bear called only once during that week … a short visit to consult on arrangements for the wedding, during which they were interrupted repeatedly by unexpected guests, deliveries of unsolicited wedding gifts and, of course, Robbie. Diamond had no chance to mention the score of questions and issues that had occurred to her since she agreed to make good her acceptance of his very public proposal. He was heavily occupied with arrangements for shipping men and materials west and was pleased to leave the wedding preparations to her.

The balance of the week was a blur of people and planning. Evelyn Vassar insisted on holding a bridal tea in Diamond’s honor, and Diamond was deluged daily by more acquaintances paying calls and by more unneeded wedding gifts. By the time she caught her breath, it was Saturday afternoon and she was seated beside Bear in a halo of warm sunlight, hearing toast after toast being proposed to their nuptial happiness.

The haze of unreality that had muffled the events of the frantic week began to settle out, freeing her perceptions and responses. Uppermost in her clearing thoughts were the details of their vows, exchanged not long ago in the drawing room, before a score of guests. There had been a progression of weighty promises, he had put a simple gold ring on her finger, and the minister declared them to be man and wife. Bear then kissed her with a bit more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary, and she was introduced to all as “the new Mrs. Barton McQuaid.”

Everyone had gathered around to kiss the bride and shake the groom’s hand. Champagne was brought out and Diamond managed to intercept three glasses of the wine before Robbie downed them. Lord knew how many she didn’t catch, for when they went in to dinner her charge sat at the table with his knees drawn up, giggling and making annoying horse noises.

Up and down the rest of the blossom-laden table, faces were glowing. Talk was lively and emotions ranged from relief to exhilaration.

“This is all so lovely,” Evelyn Vassar said, gazing at Diamond with genuine fondness. “A pity you couldn’t have shared the occasion with more of your friends. Oh, I nearly forgot … Did you hear? Alice Taylor is engaged to marry. Richard Elkhart of the East Bay Elkharts. And Emma Harding received a call Thursday from none other than Paine Webster. And”—she glanced at her daughter—“our own dear Clarice is beginning anew career. She’ll be tending the sick … starting tomorrow.”