Kate Welsh - A Texan's Honour

The last of her disguise hadn’t been as easily achieved as letting out the hem of Amber’s old dresses. Patience’s hair was too unique to be allowed to show. But a little boot polish carefully combed into her hairline had altered the coppery strands to drab brown. With the rest of those glorious tresses tucked up into her straw bonnet, she passed muster.

Still staying alert to any notice Patience drew, Alex continued to scan the crowd. No one paid her any particular attention. She was just a pretty girl traveling with her parents, but he did see someone take note of him. His blood began to pound in his head. As casually as he could, he let his gaze slide back past the man intently studying him. It was the oaf who’d appeared at Jamie’s door earlier in the day.

A few moments later, Alex stopped and purchased a New York Times from a newsboy, allowing the newly formed Winston family to enter the passenger car well ahead of him. He was rather sure no one would think he was a member of their party but the Pinkerton oaf might recognize Winston.

As Alex turned away from the newsboy, the Pinkerton stepped in front of him. “You didn’t say nothing about traveling.” It was an accusation pure and simple. But since Alex had caught the agent’s attention, Patience and Winston had slipped by unnoticed.

Alex blinked then narrowed his eyes in haughty annoyance. “Do I know you?”

“I was at your door just this morning,” the man said. His tone hinted that Alex either wasn’t particularly bright or was hiding something.

Allowing distant recognition to show in his expression, Alex replied, “Oh, yes. Seeking the countess’s new little maid, weren’t you? However, I must point out—you were actually on the earl’s doorstep, not mine. As none of it had a thing to do with me, I dismissed the entire conversation and returned to my packing.”

“You didn’t say nothing about packing, either. Where you heading?” the Pinkerton demanded, still clearly suspicious.

Alex’s heart pounded. He had to knock this hound off his scent. “You bloody Americans are so infernally rude. Why should I have mentioned my movements to you? As I noted, you were not at my doorstep but the earl’s. This business has nothing whatever to do with me. As I also stated, I owe you no explanations of my personal plans. Now if you will excuse me, I have a train to catch before my trunks go on without me.”

He walked off, heading away from the train bound for Philadelphia, where Jamie’s private car awaited and toward another one that was boarding. He stopped a passing conductor and asked an inane question so he’d have the opportunity to turn back toward the Pinkerton. Alex breathed a sigh of relief. The man had already passed the Philadelphia-bound train and was moving farther from Alex’s position, as well.

He thanked the employee for his help and hurried off to hop aboard the train bound for Philadelphia. He made it just as the conductor shouted a last call for riders to Philadelphia. A quick turn and survey of the remaining crowd showed that no one seemed to have taken any notice of him.

He could only hope he was right and that his ruse had worked.

It was midday of their second day on the rails. Jamie’s eighty-foot-long private car was opulent by anyone’s standards. On entering from the front of the coach, one encountered two staterooms and two bathrooms along a narrow hall plus fold-up sleeping berths for four crew members. Both he and Patience had tried to give their stateroom to the Winstons, but the older couple had refused and claimed two berths in the crew area he hadn’t thought he’d use until Patience almost literally fell into their lives.

A kitchen and formal dining area came next, though he hadn’t planned to use the kitchen, either. They took meals from the train’s kitchen, delivered by an efficient porter named Virgil Cabot.

Lastly there was a parlor area Virgil had called an observation room when he had shown them around just after they’d arrived. Behind that lavishly appointed section, with its larger-than-usual windows, was a covered observation platform. He’d asked that Jamie’s car be the last on the train so the platform promised wonderful panoramas on their way west. None of them had wandered out there as yet, though, preferring to remain unobserved as much as possible for Patience’s sake.

Alex looked toward that lovely young woman, her head bent to her stitching as she spoke in soft tones to Heddie. Once again he felt his entire body tighten with need and that need wasn’t only sexual. He was deeply touched by her plight and her determination, as well. That was a dangerous combination for him. Because she wasn’t just any young widow. She was under his protection and as untouchable as a virgin.

He found himself forever in debt and grateful to Heddie and her quiet husband. It was heartwarming the way she’d swooped in like a mother hen to gather a lost chick under her wing. Winston simply exuded benevolence toward Patience with frequent and surprising smiles.

Unfortunately watching the older couple interact with her was a poignant reminder of the warmth and kindness he’d lost with his mother’s death and the loneliness that had never left him since.

Patience laughed at one of Winston’s dry quips. My, but she was bright as a new penny today! Thus far she’d spent a lot of her time peppering the Winstons with questions about their lives and devising ways to fit her into their past. Alex couldn’t hear exactly what she said as she rehearsed the story of Patience Winston’s life but the murmur of her voice kept drawing his thoughts to her. And sparking his curiosity about how they planned to explain where a daughter had been during the years they’d worked in the houses of upper-crust families.

He doubted any inquiries would happen but it paid to be prepared.

He found his gaze constantly drawn to Patience even when she was merely reading or hemming another of Amber’s discarded dresses as she was at that moment. It didn’t seem to matter that she wasn’t doing anything remarkable. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Nor could he help notice the more miles that piled up behind them, the more relaxed and less shy she seemed.

Except around him.

With him she made only the stiffest of polite conversation at meals. It was clear she’d rather he were not there. It was a lowering thing. Most women went out of their way to converse with him. He had to admit her avoidance stung even though he understood it.

But her behavior caused him to worry about more than his stinging pride, too. If the way she acted around him was her normal way around men, all her preparations would be for naught. Because he realized her demeanor didn’t come across as shy, but instead as fearful, and when she had to deal with others it would stand out, calling attention to her.

So after a while he had two reasons—one altruistic and the other supremely selfish—to sit across from her in the parlor portion of the car when the Winstons vacated their chairs to sit in the dining area. He had to get her to feel more comfortable around him.

Alex refused to examine too deeply why it seemed so necessary. It could only be to help further her masquerade and he knew it. He wasn’t sure a woman could ever heal from the kind of damage her husband and now her father had inflicted on her.

“So how far have you come in writing the life story of Patience Winston?” he asked.

She looked up from her notes, startled.

Afraid.

Then she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, seeming to reach deeply into the same inner well of courage that had helped her face death in her tree-climbing escape. Again she found enough bravery to look at him steadily. “We plan to tell everyone I was born on a New Jersey farm owned by Heddie’s older sister. She was wealthy, widowed and childless.”