Chapter 2 #4
One of Morgan’s eyebrows lifted. “Mischief? That’s your explanation?”
“That is my guess.”
“She’s twenty-two,” he said flatly. “Finn Collins makes mischief. He’s maybe half her age.”
Jane said nothing for a time. Neither did Morgan.
His silence felt like a tactic to prompt another response from her.
Jane wanted to believe it only worked because the pressure of what she was trying to hold back was greater than the pressure of his silence.
“Rebecca has always found a certain amount of perverse pleasure in creating situations that will end badly. More often than not, she creates them around me. I thought I was being clever and careful with our correspondence. I was so certain she did not suspect that it was my intention to leave New York. I told Alex, of course, but he would never have shared a confidence with his sister. David did not know.”
Jane pressed her lips together briefly. Gathering her thoughts, she shook her head slightly.
“It does not matter how she found out. The most obvious conclusion is that she did. She read the letter before I posted it and exchanged the photographs. She might have been trying to ensure that you would make a proposal and that I would leave, but it’s also possible that she saw into the future to this very end and knew your disappointment would be profound and that I would be stranded. ”
Morgan unfolded his arms and examined the photograph again before his gaze returned to Jane. “Was that difficult to say?”
“Not as difficult as it should have been. Whatever little satisfaction comes from speaking ill of others is transitory at best. Making a habit of it poisons one’s soul. If Rebecca were here, she would take issue with everything I told you, and you would believe her.”
“Would I? How do you know?”
“Everyone believes Rebecca,” she said simply. In Jane’s mind it was as absolute a fact as the earth’s revolution around the sun. “Regardless of what she’s done, has thought about doing, or will do, it is unfair to lay all the blame at her feet.”
“Cousin Frances,” said Morgan. “I thought we would get around to her eventually.”
Jane said nothing.
“That’s what you meant, isn’t it? She bears some of the responsibility.”
“It’s done,” Jane said tiredly. “There is nothing to be gained from sifting through the confusion to the source of it. I am here. Your correspondence was with me. I wrote the letters you received.”
“All of them? Are you sure?”
Jane suddenly felt cold to her marrow. A moment earlier there had been no doubt. Now it niggled at her, shaking her defenses. “I suppose it does not matter if I did or not,” she said on a thread of sound. “You proposed to the woman in the photograph.”
“It seems so.” Morgan tossed Rebecca Ewing’s picture sideways. It struck the beveled edge of the table and fell on the floor. He left it there. “How well do you think you know me, Miss Middlebourne?”
Jane turned on her side, slipping one arm under her pillow to elevate her head. She tugged on blankets until they covered her shoulder. “Much less than I thought I did.”
“Not so different from me, then.”
“I suppose not.”
“Are there things you want to know? Something more than, say, the color of my hair.”
“Did you pen all of your own correspondence?”
The right corner of Morgan’s mouth kicked up. Amusement gave way to a chuckle deep at the back of his throat. “Yes. I take it your question arises because I am more tolerable on the page than in person. Better written than spoken.”
Jane smiled a little herself. He had spared her from making the blunt observation. “Have you ever been married?”
“Ah. So you do wonder what I left out. No, Miss Middlebourne, I have never been married.”
“There must be single women in Bitter Springs.”
“Yes. One of them trotted off to refill my beer in the saloon. That’s when I left.”
“You didn’t want the beer?”
“I did, but I wanted to see you more.”
Jane was skeptical and she let him see it in her narrowing eyes.
Morgan held up his hands, palms out. “I swear. I was concerned. I could see you weren’t well when you stepped off the train.”
Jane went from skeptical to disbelieving. “I was fine and you know it, and I didn’t step off. You carried me off.”
“Not quite how I remember it, but it doesn’t change the fact that you came a long way to be here. I thought I should look after you.” He set his hands together again and rested them against his belt buckle. “You were right that I was set to propose back there at the platform.”
“I know. In front of God and witnesses. You told me, remember? And then you thanked me for rescuing you from acting the fool.”
“I should have made a better apology.”
“You said what you meant.”
“I would have written it better.”
Jane’s smile was a bit rueful, a bit wistful. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sure you would have.”
Morgan nodded shortly. “You want to know what I was thinking just before you interrupted my declaration?”
“I don’t know. Do I?” When he said nothing, she finally nodded. “Yes, please. Tell me.”
“I was thinking that I made a contract with you and that I needed to honor it.”
“To be a man whose word means something.”
“Yes,” he said. “To be exactly that.”
“That’s important to you?”
“Yes.”
“So it was no romantic impulse that I forestalled.”
“No. I told you I am not a romantic.”
“I know what you told me.” And perhaps he was right about it. “You reconsidered that contract quickly enough. What does that say about you and your word?”
“That I would make a fine lawyer if I did not have such a disgust of them.”
Jane laughed quietly. Her eyes crinkled. When she sobered, she said, “Cousin Franny’s husband was a lawyer. He was made a federal judge in the County of New York two years before he died.”
“A judge,” said Morgan. “Well, at least you were not related to him by blood.”
“He was a good man, Mr. Longstreet, and I was heartbroken when he died.”
Morgan sat up. “Then I’m sorry for that.”
Jane accepted him at his word. Her eyes wandered to the door. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“The bathhouse.”
“So no cell for you.” She thought he might be moved to grin. He was not. “I still do not know why you did not look closer to home for a wife.”
“Perhaps I did, and no one would have me.”
“At the risk of flattering you, I think finding some young woman in Bitter Springs to have you would not have been a problem.”
He shrugged. “I don’t come into town often, and what I know about courting a woman is as much as I put in my letters. Sitting on a porch swing, holding hands, trying to be interesting, well, it seemed like more tiring work than mustering calves for branding and not nearly as satisfying.”
Jane’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh my. It seems you have given this some thought.”
“I did. I heard about papers and periodicals that accepted inquiries. I wrote to several.”
“I suppose there were dozens of replies.”
“Not dozens,” he said. “An even dozen.”
So she was one out of twelve, Jane thought. Or rather Rebecca was.
“Your letter was the only one that I responded to with a request for more information.”
Jane wished she were not heartened to hear that. There was no place for emotion, especially not the one that was seeking entry into her heart. Hope only crushed her.
“I answered the other letters,” Morgan said, “but for the purpose of putting an end to them. I did that before I heard from you again.”
“And if I had not written a second time?”
“Then I would have tried again. There are churches that facilitate introductions, but it seemed wrong to apply through them the first time. I am not a godly man, and I did not want to be mistaken for one.”
“Oddly scrupulous.”
His quicksilver grin whitened the scar at the corner of his mouth. “Even a godless man can have scruples.”
Jane’s headache had subsided to a dull ache.
If she slept through the night, it would be gone by morning.
“I think you should go now, Mr. Longstreet. We still have the morning and part of the afternoon to come to terms. I would like to think about what I’ve learned.
I imagine you will want to do the same.”
Morgan said nothing immediately. He searched her face for a long moment before he slowly got to his feet. “Breakfast?”
“Yes. I’d like that.”
“Very well. In the dining room. Does seven suit?”
“It does. I rise early.”
He smiled a little then. “At Morning Star we call that sleeping in.”