Julie Garwood - Prince Charming

Lucas was halfway down the corridor before he realized she still hadn't told him what reason she was going to use for the annulment. He turned around, walked half the distance back to the door so he wouldn't have to raise his voice, and then said, "If I'm not a drunk or a deserter or a lout who beats his wife, what am I?" he asked her with a good deal of exasperation in his voice.

Taylor sweetened her smile and started to shut the door. In a voice filled with cheerfulness, she told him. "You're impotent."

She ruined his evening.

All Lucas could think about was Taylor's outrageous remark. The hell he was impotent. By God he'd go to his grave laughing before he let her put that foul reason down on a petition for everyone in the court to read.

He must have fumed for over an hour before he settled down and thought the matter through. He replayed the conversation in his mind at least a dozen times, all the while picturing the sparkle that had come into her eyes, and when he was finished with his analysis, he came to the conclusion she'd been bluffing. Pride. The word popped into his head all at once. The boast he'd made came next. Men weren't plagued with worries about pride the way women were. Hadn't he said that or something similar? And hadn't the glint come into her eyes then? Oh, yes, she'd been bluffing all right. She'd been teaching him a lesson, too.

Lucas started smiling. Taylor, he decided, was one clever lady.

"It's about time you quit frowning and started to enjoy yourself."

His friend Belle made the comment. Lucas immediately shook himself out of his preoccupation and gave his mother's friend his full attention.

Belle had changed considerably over the past ten years. She looked frail to him now. She used to be a big, strapping woman. She was still just as tall, his size actually, but her skin and posture showed her age. She'd been through difficult years. The frontier was hard on women, made them old before their time. Belle wasn't any different. She'd lived in the wilderness for thirty years before moving back east to Boston. The harsh weather had leathered her skin, and the daily workload every woman was expected to carry had made her shoulders stooped and her back curved.

He remembered she used to have dark brown hair. It was white now. Her eyes hadn't changed, however. They were still warm, inviting, kind. Men were still drawn to her, as evidenced by her companion seated next to her, a Mr. Winston Champhill. The elderly man was half her size, but Lucas noticed the look of adoration in his eyes whenever he looked up at her.

Belle had already buried three husbands. Lucas thought Winston might very well become the fourth.

The couple had already taken seats inside the gentlemen's lounge, an area strictly forbidden to women, but Belle hadn't paid any attention to the rule. The attendants didn't want to make a scene. They sent for the hotel manager. Lucas had only just taken his seat across from the couple when the manager appeared at Belle's side. He leaned down and whispered something to her, she said something back, and the man went hurrying out of the lounge with a blush on his face.

Lucas didn't think he wanted to know what she'd said. After he put the matter of his wife out of his mind, he was able to concentrate on listening to all the news from his hometown. Kerrington was the settlement where he'd been born and eventually abandoned. Once Lucas was old enough and strong enough to leave, he did just that. He hadn't been back since. According to Belle, the town hadn't grown much in the past twenty years. She'd returned to Kerrington several times for weddings and family reunions. With so many husbands, there was of course an extremely large extended family. And with her loving heart, she embraced every one of her relatives.

It was well after one in the morning before she finished with what she called her catch-up news. Mr. Champhill had nodded off a good hour before. Belle was vastly amused by her escort's behavior. She motioned to the gentleman, then grinned at Lucas.

"He's plain tuckered out," she told him in a low whisper so she wouldn't disturb her friend. "He's a good ten years younger than me but he still can't keep up. Don't matter how young I pick them, Lucas. Don't matter at all. I still wear them out." She made the last remark with a boast in her voice.

Lucas smiled. "You going to marry him?"

"I suppose I will," she replied. She let out a sigh. "I get cold at night, and he's big enough to warm me. Maybe this one will last longer than the others. What about you, son? You ever going to find a woman and settle down?"

Lucas leaned back in his chair and reached for his glass. He'd been nursing the brandy all evening. He'd never been much of a drinker. He didn't mind the taste. He minded the aftereffects. He was a man who always wanted to be in control and drink robbed him of that ability.

He wasn't one to tell his business either, but he and Belle went way back. She'd been like a mother to him and had in fact taken over his care when his own mother died. She was the closest thing he had to family and the only tie to his Kentucky background.

"I got married, Belle."

It took him several minutes to convince her he was telling the truth, then he had to wait another couple of minutes for her to recover from the surprise of his announcement. She was clearly astonished, especially when he told her the marriage was in name only, and she did a fair amount of laughing and shaking her head.

"If that don't beat all," she repeated again and again.

She wanted all the particulars. Lucas told her almost everything. He gave her his reason for returning to England, explained all about his youngest brother, Kelsey, and how Merritt had suddenly changed his mind and demanded Lucas pay a ransom for Kelsey's release.

Belle was scowling like a hanging judge about to pass sentence by the time he'd finished that part of his explanation.

"Where's the boy now?" she asked.

"On his way to the ranch with Jordan and Douglas. They're stopping in Denver for a week or so. There's a school there Jordan thinks would be good for Kelsey. If it checks out to his satisfaction, the boy will start next fall."

"These older boys… they still working your ranch outside Redemption?" Belle asked.

Lucas nodded. "The ranch is a day's ride from Redemption," he said. "I'm going to deed it over to the three of them. They'll probably split it in thirds, eventually get married, and…"

"Live happily ever after?"

Lucas smiled. "Perhaps. They're fighting now. Douglas wants to farm the flat land and Jordan wants to add more cattle and use the land for grazing. They've worked hard, Belle. They'll work even harder if the land belongs to them."

"What about you and this new bride?"

"I'm going back to the mountains. She's going to live in Boston. She could never live in the wilderness, Belle. She's too tender."

"She'll toughen up."

Lucas shook his head. "She's very refined, a real lady," he explained. "Taylor comes from an aristocratic family. She certainly has never had to do any common work, and I wouldn't like to see her…"

He stopped himself before admitting he didn't want to see her get old and tired before her time. "She deserves to live a good life."

"She have money coming from this aristocratic family of hers?"

"Yes."

"Refined ladies with money do just as well as common women without," Belle said. "Fact of it is, son, with money, she can buy all the help she needs."

"Not in the wilderness," he contradicted. "Women are so scarce in Montana Territory they don't have to work for anyone else."

"There's fourteen women living in Bozeman right this minute," she argued. "And more will be settling in the area real soon."

Lucas didn't ask her where she'd gotten her information. For as long as he'd known her, Belle had always had an abundance of facts stored in her head. Most of them were true.

"I don't live near Bozeman," he reminded her.

"Makes no matter," she argued. "You can hire some men to work… Now why are you shaking your head at me?"

"I'll be damned if I'll let another man work close to her."

Belle's smile was wide. "So you aren't wanting any other men buzzing around her," she remarked. "That's mighty curious."

Lucas didn't know what to say in response to her remark. He shrugged to cover his sudden discomfort. He found the topic disturbing and wished now he hadn't told her about his marriage.

"Are you hearing the contradictions I'm hearing?" Belle asked. "You just told me you'd be damned before you'd let another man work close to your bride in Montana Territory, but just five minutes ago you said you're going to let her live in Boston all alone while you go riding back to your mountains."

"I know it sounds…"

"Contradictory?"

He let out a sigh. She was right. It did sound contradictory. Belle shook her head at him. "You haven't taken the time to think the matter through, have you?"

He wanted to argue with her. Hell, yes, he'd thought it through. It was supposed to be an easy, simple arrangement and only for a limited time. But Taylor made the arrangement complicated. He certainly hadn't counted on becoming attracted to her or feeling the constant need to protect her or experiencing such raw possessiveness every single time he looked at her.

"Of course I can see why you'd agree to the marriage. You gave your protection for the money to buy the boy's freedom. What was his name again?"

"Kelsey."

She nodded. "You recall the youngun named MacCowan? I seem to recollect the time you killed yourself a pair of vermin to get the boy out of their clutches. Then there was that little Irish girl. Now what was her name?"

"It happened a long time ago, Belle, and it doesn't have anything to do with my marriage."

"I'm just reminding you it's in your nature to protect," she countered.

"It's also in my nature to be free," he said then.

She chuckled. "I heard another contradiction, son. You said you're married, then you said you aren't. How long do you plan to go on like this?"

"I'm going to have to talk to Taylor and find out how long she wants to stay married. We've talked about getting an annulment or a divorce. I don't think it matters to her."

"Which do you prefer?"

"An annulment," he answered. "There would be less of a stigma."

Belle snorted with disbelief. "If she comes from money, she's social. She's going to be shunned either way. Does she realize that?"

"She doesn't seem to care."

"Now that's mighty odd," Belle remarked. "Most ladies would care."

Yes, Lucas thought. The majority of women would care. Why didn't Taylor? He recalled a remark she'd made earlier in the evening when she was going on and on about the list of reasons she'd memorized that were legally acceptable to the court for a divorce petition, and during the long-winded explanation, she mentioned her reputation didn't matter.

Belle downed the contents of her glass, motioned for Lucas to pour her another drink, and then leaned forward.

She grilled him with question after question about Taylor. She wanted to know how she dressed, what she ate, what she drank, how she behaved, how she treated others, and how she expected to be treated.

The contradictions piled up. Taylor came from wealth and luxury, yet on the voyage to Boston, she certainly hadn't behaved like a spoiled young lady in need of pampering.

"She pretty much does for herself," Lucas confessed.

"Nothing about your bride adds up," Belle announced. "Only one thing is certain in my mind, son. She had another reason for marrying you, one more important to her than her reputation."

The greater good. Lucas remembered that after prodding her to tell him the real reason why she'd married him Taylor finally admitted protecting her inheritance from her uncle hadn't been her only motive. She'd also married him for what she called the greater good. What in thunder was that supposed to mean?

Lucas decided it was high time he found out.

It was a fact he hadn't cared enough before the wedding to look into Taylor's background. Hell, he hadn't even bothered to look at his bride beforehand. No, he hadn't cared enough, and what she looked like hadn't been the least bit important to him. The truth of the matter was that he'd been in too much of a panic at the time. Desperation. He'd been desperate all right. He would have done anything to get Kelsey away from Merritt. When he'd seen how sickly and mistreated the boy had been, Lucas had even considered killing the jackal. Then Taylor's grandmother came up with a solution to his problem that wouldn't get him thrown in prison. Lucas immediately took the money and accepted the debt. And now what?