A Texan's Honour

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.