A Texan's Honour

“When Aunt Esther died two years ago, I joined them in San Francisco and was hired by your cousin as a governess.”

“We had better make sure Jamie and Amber know of this. Amber is an involved parent who still teaches Meara on her own.”

Patience nodded. “I have begun a letter to send to Amber so she knows in case there is an inquiry into the Winston family. Heddie apparently took Miriam Trimble’s place as housekeeper because Mrs. Trimble was too elderly to keep up with both the staff and act as nursemaid to the earl’s daughter.”

Alex chuckled. “I would love to hear Mrs. Trimble’s reaction to that being said of her—the old warhorse.”

A frown crinkled Patience’s forehead, her brows pulling together in a V. “Warhorse? But she has been described to me as all that is kindness. Amber loves the woman.”

Now he laughed. “As does Jamie. She was a mother to him for nearly his whole life. And a better mother no boy could have asked for. Mrs. Trimble was a mouthful for a little tyke. You should know he called her Mimm and still does.”

“Oh. Yes. Amber calls her that, as well. Thank you for the correction.” She looked down at her notebook and scribbled a footnote.

Alex held tight to his lighthearted facade, refusing to let it crack. “I had another experience with her. She used to call me the spawn of Satan. Even did it once in the presence of the daughter of a British peer. The name followed me in society from that day until I came to America. Mrs. Trimble apologized after what happened in San Francisco, so all is happy between us.”

Her eyes softened and he could have sworn she lifted her hand as if to touch him in comfort but she let it fall in her lap. “I am so sorry. I know how much it hurts to be misjudged,” she said instead.

Though he wished with all the loneliness inside him that she had found the courage to reach out to him, he shrugged in a purposefully careless gesture. “I didn’t care,” he lied, feeling a bit like a petulant child denying what was true to spite an authority figure. “I had my way to protect Jamie and she had hers. Together, though very separately, we managed.”

She stared at him for a long moment then looked away, withdrawing into her thoughts and leaving him to wish he had admitted that Mrs. Trimble had hurt him with her mistrust.

Keeping his careless facade alive grew more difficult around her than it had ever been. Conversely, he thought he was supposed to be shedding the mask now that he had embarked on his new life, but he couldn’t seem to manage it with Patience there. He could come to care for her and her rebuff might actually hurt. Right then, casting off the mask would be too much like casting off an old friend. It kept him safe and protected from rejection and contempt.

Should he have said a simple yes? That, of course, it had hurt? Should he confess that his own mother had been dead? That though he had taken on an adult’s role in Jamie’s life he’d still been a child himself? That he’d needed comfort and the kind of support only an adult could have provided? He hadn’t understood all that at the time, though. Instead, he’d been alone and had felt as if the weight of his corner of the world rested on his shoulders. Especially since then and now he feared his mother’s death had been his fault.

Determined to get Patience talking again Alex asked a question with a rather obvious answer, but it was the best his tumultuous thoughts allowed. “So were you supposed to have been in California when Jamie arrived there with Amber?”

Patience shook her head. Why was he insisting on this conversation? It might look casual to the Winstons but she saw determination in his gaze. She almost asked but decided answering his queries was the easiest course to take. And he had been helpful adding one or two facts they’d forgotten to account for. “No. We are to say my parents, the Winstons, were hired by Mrs. Miriam Trimble before the earl and Amber arrived just as they truly were. I am to have traveled there later to meet up with my parents after Heddie’s sister, Aunt Esther, passed. I will say I arrived after the fire and became Meara’s governess.”

She resented her father enormously at that moment. It was his fault she had to lie this way. Resentment warred with shame because she lacked the means to fight him openly instead of resorting to deception.

“Something about this doesn’t sit well with you,” Alexander said.

How had he known? “You’re very perceptive. I was taught to abhor liars. And now I am one.”

He looked angry for a moment then his gaze softened. He leaned a bit forward and set his forearms on his thighs. It put him at her eye level.

She wanted to scoot off the sofa and run but forced herself to remain still. She didn’t want him to see her for the coward she was even though she refused to examine why.

“Your father didn’t seem to have the same problem when he began to spread it about that you have gone mad,” he told her. “You mustn’t let the content of a Sunday sermon on lies endanger you, no matter how much you agree with the sentiments.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way. If she didn’t stick to the plan, her father and Howard Bedlow would win. She set her lips together and nodded before notching her chin upward and straightening her back the way her mother had always done when she’d stood up to Patience’s father. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. But, still, you cannot argue that I won’t be lying. I’ll be lying to all my new neighbors and even to the children I hope to teach. I’ll be living a complete lie. I’ll be a lie.”

“But you will be keeping yourself safe and you may be giving the Winstons their fondest dream. Did you see Heddie’s face that first night in New York when she tossed me out of your room? She was like a mother bear defending her cub. I have been watching the three of you. There is some sort of instantaneous connection between you. I am quite sure they have in mind an adoption of a sort.”

She found herself chuckling over the vision that prompted. “I am a bit long in the tooth to be adopted, don’t you think?”

“I see no problem with the notion at all.” He grinned and sat back, falling into his usual lazy posture. “And I cannot imagine describing you as long in the tooth. You look like a girl just out of the schoolroom.”

She fought the need to squirm like an untested girl under his direct gaze. He’d said he’d been watching her with the Winstons. Well, she had been watching him, too.

She didn’t think he or his posture were as casual as he pretended. To her, his carelessness seemed studied. As if he, too, had learned to hide who he was. Making her wonder if he was a wolf? Or an ever-protective collie? She frowned at the metaphor, not liking that either made her the pitiful sheep.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

Called back from her thoughts, Patience realized she’d not only strayed from the topic at hand, but she’d also left the conversation altogether. She cleared her throat. “I do find myself comfortable with the Winstons,” she decided to admit. She forced herself to relax into the back of the burgundy brocade sofa. She refused to care if she stepped beyond the strictures of her society. She was no longer a part of all that. And it was just fine with her. It had to be.

“It’s an odd thing,” she continued. “I am suddenly able to let who I am inside show on the outside. And I am growing to like the feeling. They are wonderful people and it is an honor to be called their child.”

“Good.” He tilted his head, his eyes so intent she felt exposed. She nearly stood to go and join the Winstons. “Consider this,” he went on and she settled back against the seat again. “The Winstons lost a girl child. Judging from their age it was probably about the time of your birth. You must be the fulfillment of their every dream. You have the capacity to give back to them what fate took and be a great joy to them in the gift of yourself.”

“I think it is perhaps the other way around. They have become very dear to me in a very short time. So I suppose it is settled.” She put a hand to her chest. “I am Patience Winston, late of San Francisco and points east.”

He grinned and inclined his head. “Miss Winston.”

Relieved, she smiled at him. “Now that you have salved my conscience, perhaps you could fill me in a bit on your niece. I know from Amber that she is a sweet, lively and bright child. I believe Amber said she is fair with blond hair and blue eyes. Do you know her very well?”

He pulled out the watch and stared down at it for a long moment before detaching it from the chain. “Jamie gave me this the day before he sailed. Set in the cover is a miniature of Meara.” Opening it, Alexander smiled. His expression looked a tad wistful and entirely enchanted.

She reached out for the watch when he held it out, careful not to allow any contact when she took it from him. She was sure she’d never want a man to touch her in any way ever again.

The child smiling up at her from the watch’s cover was indeed a sweet-looking, blond-haired girl who looked startlingly like her uncle. Patience looked up. “There is a strong family resemblance. Meara could be your child.”

Alexander’s gaze stilled and widened a bit then he blinked. “But she is Jamie’s. We, all three of us, look like my grandmother.” He slouched a bit and this time she was sure his careless pose was purposeful. “And we are all thankful to fate that we don’t resemble my grandfather. He looked rather like a fat, out-of-sorts troll.” His smile was mischievous and irreverent. “Actually, he may have been.”

Wondering again what Alexander hid behind the devil-may-care facade he presented the world, she handed the watch back but forgot to be careful. Her hand touched his. She gasped and dropped the watch, snatching her hand away.

What was that?

Touching him had felt the way she imagined lightning would were it to strike one’s person. Dangerous. She had to tighten her abdominal muscles to stop her stomach from its unruly series of somersaults. Her gaze flew to him as he straightened, having bent forward to pick up the dropped watch. He looked haunted but she was sure it was impossible that he had felt what she had.

Men did not fear women. What she’d felt was fear and the need to run.

Stop it! she shouted in her mind. You’re safe here with these people. It’s Father and Howard Bedlow you fear. Did Amber’s letters teach you nothing of good people? If you continue to tar all men with the same filthy brush, you will go as mad as Father says you are.

She didn’t run no matter how compelled she felt to do so.

Alexander finished settling the watch in his waistcoat pocket then looked at her again. “So now you have a picture in your head of your charge,” he said as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She could see only kindness and a bit of sadness in his clear blue gaze. And then she remembered.

Spawn of Satan.

She had hurt him just as those other people had. This had to stop. She could not injure others because she harbored unreasonable fears. She forced herself to hold his gaze.

If philosophers were correct and the eyes were the windows of the soul, then Alexander’s aquamarine eyes showed only goodness. She would not retreat in fear. She had to find a way to converse not just with him, but with other men near her age once again lest they see fault in themselves or her.

“Your niece is lovely. Do you think we have woven the tale well enough to fit with the lives of not only the Winstons, but also with the movements of the Earl and Amber?”

“It should certainly stand up to frontier scrutiny.” He chuckled. “I now know more about my new employees than I know about most of my so-called friends back in London. And I can say I like the Winstons quite a bit, especially since they are so willing to give aid to someone not of their station.”

He smiled and this time it seemed genuine and not that false smirk. “You seem to have quite a bit of influence with the Winstons. Do you think you could get them to spend the rest of the trip at leisure? By Heddie insisting upon making up the berths and setting the table for meals, she is supplanting Virgil, the porter assigned the car. She is also driving me mad with all the dusting whenever we reach a station. Dust is part and parcel of train travel but Heddie refuses to give in to the inevitable.”

She tilted her head and sighed deeply. “I have already tried.”

Now he sighed as exaggeratedly as she had. “As have I. And I believe Winston refuses to be outdone by his wife. He intercepts the poor man as soon as he steps inside the door with our meals.”

“They’re what my mother always called a force to be reckoned with. I’m afraid they’re beyond me.”

Alexander shrugged, an ironic gleam in his eyes. “As you have retired from the field, I shall tip the man handsomely when he arrives with dinner. That way if he isn’t to continue on after Chicago he won’t be slighted. On my first cross-country trip I learned ex-slaves working as porters live mostly on their tips. I won’t be responsible for the man’s family doing without.”

“That’s very good of you.”

Shaking his head he spoke at so low a murmur she had to lean forward to hear. “I only have the monetary resources I do because my father embezzled from Adair’s coffers. Instead of seeing to the tenants’ well-being, he gave me funds to buy a commission in the army. Instead, I invested in Canadian railroads and eventually paid Jamie back but I cannot shake the guilt. No one will ever again do without because of me.”

He looked away and stared moodily out the window, making her think he felt awkward for having spoken of his father’s illegal activities. Or he felt they’d run to the end of the subject of her new life story, and of his tragic life.

Now that she was free to move away she hesitated. He looked so awfully tortured, though she couldn’t imagine how she could help or why she should considering trying. About to get to her feet now that she’d thought through the foolish impulse, he spoke absently with his attention still beyond the glass.

“I’ve been thinking your Christian name could be a problem.” He glanced at her, blue eyes somber, then back at the scenery speeding by. “Changing it could be one, as well. You might not answer to another as instinctively as you should.” Again he spared her half a glance as he said, “I think it would be better not to speak it in public until we reach our destination.” Again his visual attention drifted out the window. “It could catch the attention of someone who’s heard of the search for a woman named Patience. Perhaps the Winstons could use a pet name for you.”

“My mother used to read Mother Goose to me.” The wistful memory made her smile. “She called me Patty for Patty Cake—my favorite nursery rhyme. I could be Patty to them during travel. I believe I would automatically answer to that.”

She was unsure if he’d heard her but was equally sure he was trying to gather the tattered vestiges of his devil-may-care persona. Did he know how unusual it was that he’d learned the porter’s name and bothered to use it? Or that he’d given away who he was under the mask once again. “On that last trip across America, didn’t you learn that people call all of the porters George after George Pullman? I believe coachmen in your country are all called John Coachman.”

Then he looked back at her and nodded, an insolent grin in place. “So, Patty, do you play chess?”

“I meant I should be called that by Heddie … no, Mum,” she corrected before he could tease her for forgetting her role as the Winstons’ daughter. She was almost sorry—but not quite—that she’d worried for his feelings. He was a man and men took advantage of any weakness they glimpsed. “I meant they could call me Patty. Are you always so impertinent?”

“Oh. Yes. Always,” he said and grinned.

“I shall remember not to take you seriously in that case. As for chess, I was the unofficial champion at Vassar for my last two years.”

“Amazing.” He flipped over the table top between them. The flip side hid a chessboard. “Black or white, Miss Winston?” he asked and slid open the drawer containing the ivory and ebony pieces.

She took up the ivory pieces and set up her side of the board. At first she played her usual restrained game, allowing Alexander to win. He teased her for losing to an unschooled barbarian, reminding her all men became barbarians when alone with a woman. But they weren’t alone and he all but begged for a rousing game. So she played to win and it felt wonderful. She made first one daring move, then another and another.

Watching Alexander try to anticipate her next move brought a strange kind of gladness to her heart. Then she began to recognize that feeling again. It was like learning to ride the bicycle her father had brought from England when she was eighteen. Achievement. Triumph. Victory.

Alexander fought hard, yet he didn’t seem to mind when she ultimately won. It was the first time she’d enjoyed chess in years. Against Edgar she’d had to walk a fine balance between losing and not making it obvious she had done so intentionally. The few times she’d miscalculated either way, she’d paid in bruises.

She could admit now that somewhere inside her she’d been elated to see Edgar Gorham so humbled and furious at being bested by the wife he called a failure at every turn. Had she not been so embarrassingly bruised later, Patience might have done it more often. Fear had taken over, though, and it was she who’d been humbled.

“Now what, I must ask myself, is that smug little smile about?” Alexander asked.

Fear poured unchecked through her. Did she look smug? Had she annoyed him? Her heart pounded. The blood drained from her head. Time and place seemed to shift and she was back with Edgar in the mansion in Syracuse. She could no longer hold on to the present.

“Was I smiling?” she whispered, her voice warbling around a lump in her throat the size of New York City.

Then she looked up and her gaze met Alexander’s sparkling eyes. His teasing smile. And she was back on the train headed west. It was September the thirteenth. Relief replaced fear and she could breathe again.

This panic that washed over her at the unexpected sound of a man’s voice was a reflex she had to learn to fight or she was sure to bring notice upon herself. She saw it now. Concern flooded his gaze as surely as the terror had flooded her senses. She could not let them do this to her any longer.

Moving her hand forward, she lifted her remaining bishop and slid it forward till it mated his king. “Checkmate.”

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