Victoria Thompson - Texas Blonde

"Oh, and Winthrop?" Gordon called after him. When Winthrop turned warily back, Gordon added, "Give Henry my best, will you?"

Asa winced at the way the glass in his office door rattled when Winthrop slammed it behind him, but he was still smiling. Irritating Richard Winthrop was only part of what was making him so cheerful. The other part was the thought of traveling to Texas.

Gordon had spent some time there during the war, working undercover as a Union spy under Allan Pinkerton's direction. Although his stay had been brief, he could still remember the vast unsettled regions and knew a longing to once more see the sky uninterrupted from horizon to horizon.

He hauled himself up out of his desk chair and glanced with jaded eye out the window at the carriages manuevering in the street below. How long since he had slept under the stars or ridden a horse simply for the joy of it? Too long, he decided, absently rubbing the slight paunch he had developed during the last year. At first he had been pleased to be appointed superintendent of the Philadelphia office. The promotion meant a raise in salary and an end to the shadowy, unsettled life of a detective. Unfortunately, it also meant an end to the excitement. Instead of capturing criminals and gathering evidence and solving crimes, he had to deal with men like Richard Winthrop.

Gordon ran a hand through his curly brown hair and sighed. He would explain to Mr. Pinkerton that he was taking this case as a personal favor to an old friend and leaving the office in the very capable hands of his assistant for a while. Then, if he found Texas to be a disappointment, he could come back with no problem. But Asa Gordon had a feeling Texas would not be a disappointment.

He would find Felicity Storm and her father, and with any luck at all, he would find something for himself as well. He would soon be forty years old. He did not plan to get much older without finding that something else.

"Now will you marry me?" Josh repeated when he received no answer.

Neither of them even realized that until this moment he had not previously asked her.

Felicity blinked furiously against the tears that threatened to choke her. She should be grateful that he still wanted to. Her father had warned her often enough that men didn't marry women who let them have their way without it. She didn't feel very grateful, though. "I'll have to, won't I?" she replied, steeling herself to meet his gaze and turning abruptly to face him. "I'm going to have a baby now, aren't I?"

She was certain of it. Her father had told her that, too, about how women who let men have their way got babies. What he hadn't told her was how good it would feel. No wonder some women were led astray so easily, she thought wildly.

Josh stared at her in dumb amazement. "A baby?" he repeated as if he had never heard the word before. This was a complication he had not even considered. He ran a hand over his face as if to wipe away the last vestige of the sensual spell that lingered over them. A baby, of all the things to think of. "You are probably not going to have a baby," he explained with elaborate patience.

"Probably!" Felicity echoed in dismay. She was shaking now, much as she had shaken with chills after the flood, except that now she was not cold.

"And if you are, it won't matter… if we're married," Josh concluded, knowing he had discovered the final link in the chain. She must marry him. He could not let her go, not now that he knew marriage to Felicity Storm would be everything he could ever want. Seeing the terror in her eyes, he reached for her, wanting only to comfort, but she dodged his hands and scrambled off the bed.

Felicity wrapped her arms around herself, desperately trying to still her tremors. He had seduced her. She knew that's what it was called, except something was wrong. Men who seduced women did so because they didn't want to marry them, not because they did. The thoughts collided in her brain, confusing her so she could not make sense of anything. All the desperate emotions she felt coalesced into white-hot anger. She watched him rise from the bed through a haze of fury.

"You seduced me!" she accused.

Josh paused in the act of tucking in his shirttail. He frowned as he considered her charge. "Seduction" suggested previous planning. What he had done was entirely too spontaneous to be termed seduction. "Not exactly," he tried to explain, taking a step toward her.

"Yes, exactly!" she cried, almost hysterical now. To escape him, she scurried backward, away from the rumpled yellow bed and on out into the parlor, where she felt safer. "You did… that-"she gestured toward the bedroom, backing away as he followed her-"so… so…" The truth dawned with crystal clarity even as she spoke the words. "So I would have to marry you!" she said, her voice hoarse with horror.

Struck by the irony of the situation, Josh paused in the bedroom doorway. Women were usually the ones who used sex to trap a man into marriage, not the other way around. He might have smiled if Felicity had not looked so appalled.

"That's not usually considered an evil motive," he tried, but the delicate sarcasm went right past her. "Look, calm down," he urged, feeling more and more like a cad with every passing minute. Damn, she was shaking like a leaf. "Sit down before you fall down," he said, coming toward her. Ignoring the way she cringed from his touch, he forced her onto the settee.

Felicity winced as her bottom struck the cushions, acutely aware of a new tenderness in her body. Before she could even begin to consider the significance of this tenderness, he was pressing a glass into her hands.

"Here, drink this," he ordered.

Felicity accepted the glass with trembling fingers and sniffed it suspiciously. "Is this whiskey?" she asked in an outraged whisper.

"Brandy," Josh corrected impatiently. "And don't look at me like that. I'm not trying to get you drunk. It's a little late for that anyway, don't you think?"

Felicity flushed scarlet at the implication of his words and lowered her eyes with shame. Of course he did not need to get her drunk. She had already surrendered to him in every way possible when she was cold sober.

"Drink it!" Josh ordered again, pressing the glass to her lips.

Past resistance, Felicity obeyed, gasping and choking as the liquor scalded her throat. Almost instantly, the warmth from the brandy seeped into her bones. After another few minutes, her shaking began to ease.

Josh took the empty glass from her and set it aside. Resisting the urge to take her in his arms, he very carefully sat down beside her. "Are you all right now?" he asked quietly, hoping to calm her with his manner.

Felicity knew she would never be all right again, but she was better, at least. She nodded.

"You never did answer my question," he said, no longer able to ignore how small and defenseless she looked with her dress rumpled and her golden hair coming loose around her shoulders. If any other man had done this to her, Josh would have killed him instantly. The knowledge stunned him. Guilt clawed at his soul again, baring emotions he had thought long dead, emotions horrible in their intensity. For a moment he actually winced in physical pain.

No! a silent voice shrieked in his mind, protesting the insidious weakness he knew would destroy him. How could he feel this way? Forcing himself to think rationally, he quickly rationalized. Of course. It was so obvious. He cared for her. She was, after all, a sweet, lovely, spirited, intelligent, very desirable young woman. He had chosen her to be his wife. Of course he cared what happened to her, felt her pain, and bore the guilt for having caused it. But he also had the power to heal that hurt. And he would.

"If you marry me, you'll have a good home and someone to take care of you," he said, his voice ragged with his tormenting emotions. "You'd never want for anything again." The need to protect her was almost a tangible presence in the room. He waited tensely for her reply.

Felicity raised her head and looked at him. The liquor made her a little lightheaded, as if all of this were happening to someone else and she was only an observer. His logical arguments made little impression on her benumbed brain, but she understood their essence. If she married him, she would be safe. But would that be enough? She didn't know, and thinking about it only made her want to cry. She shuddered slightly and drew a shaky breath. "Yes, I'll marry you, Mr. Logan," she said, knowing she really had no other choice.

She looked so… so shattered. The memory of how he had hoped to win her devotion with a few fevered kisses tortured him. How could he have been such a fool? And how could he have let things get so far out of control? He had never meant to force her… But he had to admit that he had, indeed, meant to somehow force her into accepting him. Now he knew that a victory on those terms was hardly a victory at all. Could he make her understand how much he regretted what had happened? Could he erase that haunted expression from her eyes? "Look, what I did…"-he gestured vaguely toward the bedroom-"I didn't mean…"

"You didn't mean!" Felicity cried in despair, jumping to her feet.

"I didn't want it to happen," he corrected, rising swiftly to face her. "But when you didn't stop me…" Seeing the stricken look in her eyes, he stopped, instantly aware that he had said exactly the wrong thing.

Felicity stared at him in total humiliation. He hadn't really wanted her, but when she did not scream or fight him off… Overwhelmed with shame, she turned, following her instinct to flee, but he caught her and hauled her back against his chest. Knowing she should fear him, and hate him, still she could not resist the comfort of his arms. Unable to fight him, she surrendered to his embrace and began to sob uncontrollably, overwhelmed by the conflicting emotions that wracked her. When her feet left the floor, she no longer even cared where he was taking her or why.

Feeling helpless and completely reprehensible, Josh carried her to the big chair and sat down in it, cradling her in his lap to offer her what comfort he could. Not knowing how to make amends for his blunder, his many blunders, he remained silent, rocking her gently while every one of her tears seemed to scald his heart. After what seemed a very long time, her sobs gentled to weeping, and then even that stopped. Still he held her close, savoring the warmth of her body and the sweet, womanly fragrance of her hair. Regardless of whether it was right or not, she was his now. He pressed her to his heart possessively, but she stiffened in protest, startling him. "Felicity?" he asked softly.

Felicity knew she should never have accepted the comfort of his arms, not after he told her he had not wanted her, had not meant to make love to her. Love. How ironic. He had also said he did not love her, even before he had taken her to bed. "Do you have a handkerchief?" she asked into his shirtfront, knowing she must stop dwelling on her humiliation and save what was left of her pride.

He shifted while he dug into a pocket. He handed the white cloth to her. Averting her head so he would not see her tear-ravaged face, she wiped her eyes and discreetly blew her nose.

"Are you all right now?" Josh asked, more than willing to pull her back into his arms, regardless of her answer.

Felicity was getting extremely tired of that question, but she nodded again, still not meeting his eyes. She sat up stiffly, acutely conscious of the fact that she was on his lap. How wonderful it had felt to be held, and how she longed for the haven of his arms again. For a moment she had almost been able to forget her shame and remember only the sweet ecstasy she had found in his embrace. But that, of course, had been only an illusion, destroyed now by her humiliation.

"I think we should get married right away," he was saying, having decided that this was the best way to reassure her. "I was thinking we could do it next Saturday. That will give us a week to get things ready."

Felicity didn't know whether the sinking feeling she experienced was relief or dread that he still wanted to marry her, but she didn't have the energy to examine it. "That sounds fine," she said numbly.

Josh knew a sudden and very profound feeling of relief. She had accepted him. For a moment there, he had thought she might refuse. He knew it would have been no more than he deserved. "Then it's settled," he agreed as a strange sense of peace engulfed him.

Felicity heard the change in his voice and finally lifted her head to see his expression. She was a little startled to discover that he looked exactly the same as always. She wondered vaguely if she did, too, or if people would know, simply from looking at her, that she was a fallen woman. Except she would not be a fallen woman. She would be a wife, his wife, although why he wanted her as his wife, she could not begin to guess.