Marianne's Marriage of Convenience Page 23

  “They will be delivered by our driver, Miss Moreland. Just as soon as they’re ready.” He moved past her, swung the shop door open and waited for her to leave. She shot him a look and bent to slip her shoe back on.

  “’Bye now, Lance,” she murmured as she swished past him. “Y’all won’t make me wait too long, Ah hope?”

  “Just as long as it takes, Miss Moreland.” He shut the door after her and blew out a long breath.

  Marianne had just stepped out onto the apartment landing when she glimpsed Lance down on his knees before a young blonde woman who stood with her hand on his shoulder. Fanny Moreland, she remembered. They had been introduced months ago at the wedding reception. She ducked back inside the apartment.

  Miss Moreland certainly seemed friendly this morning! She shook the image of Fanny’s hand possessively gripping Lance’s shoulder, waited until she heard the shop door close and walked down the stairs. Lance gave her a wordless nod, then went back to oiling a pair of dark leather boots.

  Marianne picked up the account book from her desk. For the first time in over a month, Collingwood Boots was operating in the black. Ever since she had retrieved their missing mail, orders and payments, some in bank drafts and some in cash, had poured in. When Abe and Sammy returned, she tallied up the finances and took a big leather deposit bag over to the Smoke River bank.

  On the way back to the shop she stopped in at the restaurant for coffee and a slice of peach pie. She had just picked up her fork when Rita dropped a cannonball in her lap.

  “Seems your husband’s caught the eye of Fanny Moreland,” the waitress said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yep. Might need to keep a real close eye on him. And her,” Rita added.

  “Oh. I don’t think Miss Moreland is interested in us.”

  Rita snorted. “Isn’t you she’s interested in, Miss Marianne. It’s Mr. Lance.”

  Marianne’s cup clanked on to her saucer. “What? Oh, I don’t think…” Then the image of Lance kneeling before the young blonde woman and her hand resting on her husband’s shoulder floated into her mind.

  “The whole town knows Fanny Moreland’s a real shameless flirt,” Rita intoned. “’Specially when it comes to other women’s husbands.”

  “I see,” Marianne murmured. Well, she did and she didn’t. Since the riding accident when three of her ribs had been broken, she and Lance had not been intimate. They had resumed sleeping in the same bed just two weeks ago, but she still couldn’t move in certain ways without pain, and Lance had not pressed her.

  But it has been weeks since we… Surely he wouldn’t have lost interest in her? She’d heard that men’s physical needs were more urgent than a woman’s, but…but… Would that drive a man into another woman’s arms? Another flirtatious woman’s arms?

  Rita cleared her throat. “Somethin’ wrong with your pie, Miss Marianne? You’re not eating any.”

  “What? Oh, no, Rita, the pie tastes fine.”

  It’s my marriage that isn’t fine.

  Back at the shop she decided to talk to Abe about it. She waited until late afternoon for a break in their work schedule, and when Lance left to go to the mercantile, she cornered Abe at the table where he was nailing on a boot heel.

  He laid down his hammer and peered into Marianne’s face. “Yer lookin’ all consternated, Miss Marianne. What’s wrong?”

  “N-nothing,” she lied. She swallowed. “Oh, everything is wrong, Abe.”

  “Aw, now, honey-girl. Cain’t be all that bad now that we’re makin’ boots an’ rakin’ in money.”

  She bit her lip. “Abe,” she said quietly, “can I talk to you about something?”

  “Why, sure. About what?”

  She glanced over to where Sammy was bent over the cutting table and lowered her voice. “About Lance. And me.”

  “Oh? What about Lance an’ you?”

  She drew in a long, slow breath and dropped her voice even lower. “Abe, when a man… I mean, when it’s been a long time since…”

  Sammy’s cutting shears halted with the blades half open.

  “Yeah? A long time since what, Miss Marianne?”

  “Since…um…well, you know, when a man and a woman…”

  Sammy cocked his head toward them.

  “Ya mean you an’ Lance, huh? You haven’t…?”

  “Well, um, no. Remember when I fell off that horse and broke my ribs?”

  “Sure do. Go on, I’m listenin’.”

  Sammy was listening, too, she noted.

  “Well, ever since then Lance and I have not…have not…”

  Sudden comprehension lit up Abe’s face. “Aha! Ya mean—”

  Sammy’s forehead creased into a frown, and all at once she wanted to laugh. This situation was ridiculous! Here she was, confiding in an old, experienced man while a young, inexperienced one frowned in puzzlement.

  “Sammy,” Abe said, “why don’tcha go back to my quarters an’ bring us a couple mugs of coffee?”

  The boy slapped his shears on to the table and stomped off to the back room where Abe’s stove and coffeepot were. The minute he was out of sight, Abe laid his gnarled hand on Marianne’s shoulder and pressed her toward the front of the shop. “Now, tell me straight out what’s worryin’ ya.”

  “What’s worrying me is Fanny Moreland,” she blurted out.

  Abe’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows rose. “Aha. I heard she paid us a visit.”

  “Not ‘us,’ Abe. Lance.”

  He nodded. “An’ you’re thinkin’ ’bout yer sore ribs an’ Lance and you bein’, well, not too rambunctious at night, and you’re wonderin’ if he’s got his eyes all lit up elsewhere, izzat it?”

  “Y-yes. I’m wondering if Fanny Moreland has lit up his eyes.”

  Abe patted her shoulder. “That would surprise me some, Miss Marianne.”

  She expelled her breath in a rush just as Sammy returned balancing a brimming mug of coffee in each hand.

  “But,” Abe whispered, “t’wouldn’t be the first time ol’ Abe’s been hornswoggled.”

  “Oh. Oh.”

  Sammy set the coffee down on Marianne’s desk. “What’s ‘hornswoggled’ mean?”

  “It means someone pullin’ the wool over yer eyes so’s they cain’t see.”

  “Huh,” Sammy said with a grin. “Nobody pulls the wool over my eyes. I see everything.”

  Oh, Marianne thought. How I wish I could see everything, too.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Lance sat up and studied Marianne’s sleeping form, curled up on the bed with her bottom snugged against his groin and her face turned away from him. Man, she sure was acting strange lately, cooking all his favorite dishes and worrying out loud about the long hours he spent working in the shop.

  He liked that she worried about him. He worried about her, too. But the hardest part of the last few weeks were the nights when she came to bed smelling so good it was all he could do to keep his hands off her. When his work schedule let up a bit he’d stop by the hospital and ask Doc Dougherty how long it took broken ribs to fully heal.

  It couldn’t be much longer, could it? He settled back against the pillow with a sigh. He knew she was overtired. While he put in extra hours with Abe every day, Marianne worked ten to twelve hours in the shop, and in addition she cooked, did laundry and kept their apartment clean. She was burning the candle at both ends. No matter what came up, Marianne simply rolled up her sleeves and went to work.

  He knew she was pleased about the success of Collingwood Boots. He was pleased about the growth of the business, too, but for himself there was more to it. He liked spending time in the shop. He liked learning the craft of boot-making. He liked working with crusty, exacting Abe producing boots he could be proud of. And he liked working with Sammy. The boy was turning out to be not only a fast learner but a sunny spirit and a good source of any gossip floating around town.

  Funny how things worked out, he mused. He was glad he had married Marianne. In fact, even with their
exhaustion at night and his wife’s injuries, married life was making him happy beyond his expectations.

  And, he thought with a grin, he had a secret.

  *

  At the sound of the shop door closing, Marianne glanced up from the account book. “Where is Lance off to?”

  “Dunno,” Abe said.

  “He said he had to see about something,” Sammy volunteered without looking up. He crunched his shears into a waiting length of cowhide.

  Marianne twiddled her pencil between her thumb and forefinger and exchanged a look with Abe.

  “See about what, Sammy?” she queried.

  “He didn’t say. Just said it couldn’t wait.”

  She bit her lip. She could guess what “it” was. Fanny Moreland. She was learning more about what “for better or worse” meant in a marriage; “or worse” meant another woman.

  She put her head down on her folded arms. If Mrs. Schneiderman was watching this, she must be shaking her head.

  All her sins and shortcomings crowded into her brain with insistent, yammering voices. She had been greedy and grasping. She had selfishly coveted Uncle Matty’s business with no thought about whether she was equipped to run it. Now they were struggling to catch up with all their existing orders and stay ahead of the new ones that poured in. If they couldn’t meet their production obligations, word would spread and their reputation would plummet. And it would all be her fault for taking this on in the first place.

  She bit her lip and raised her head to meet Abe’s steady gaze. The biggest sin of all was trapping Lance into marrying her. It was a sin not only of greed but of pride, of believing she could please a man like Lance, could attract and hold his interest when pretty, accomplished women like Fanny Moreland were around. She acknowledged she had deceived Lance about riding in the race, and now she was not only injured but bone-tired and short-tempered and exhausted every night. Lance must be even more displeased with her.

  A more clever woman would have figured out some way to please a man who was disappointed in her. A clever woman like Fanny Moreland would know what to do about the muddle she was in, even if she did have three cracked ribs.

  She looked away and set her jaw. If she kept digging away at all her shortcomings she would go crazy. She got to her feet and marched over to the cutting table, where odd-shaped pieces of cowhide lay in neat piles, awaiting the mallets and awls and creasers and embossing dies that would turn them into top-quality boots.

  It would take half a lifetime for a person to truly master all these skills. What she was good at was cooking and sewing and beating carpets and scattering feed for the chickens. What she was proficient at was running a boardinghouse!

  She longed for a big house to care for, not a tiny apartment she could dust in ten minutes. All her adult life she’d wanted her own house, a house like Mrs. Schneiderman’s, with a front parlor and a piano and watered silk drapes on the windows.

  But it was too late for that.

  She was forgetting the most important lesson she had learned in her life: Happiness is wanting what you get.

  With sudden clarity she knew what she wanted. What would make her happy was exactly what she had, Lance Burnside. Not a big house. In fact, not a house at all. Just Lance.

  *

  Lance stood for a long time studying the pretty blue house with the graceful maple tree shading the front yard. It sat next to Rooney and Sarah’s boardinghouse, and the sign on the white picket fence said it was for sale. There was now enough money in their bank account to buy it; actually he could pay for it twice over.

  Would Marianne like it? Would it make her happy to have her own house? He knew he should ask her, but something held him back. The truth was he wanted to surprise her. He wanted to see her laugh again, wake up eager for the day to start, not with aching shoulders from hammering boot heels and a headache from too many hours hunched over the account books. Marianne was wearing herself out.

  He turned away and headed to Ness’s mercantile for the coffee beans and cornmeal they needed.

  The minute he stepped through the door he wished he had walked on past. Fanny Moreland launched herself down the garden tool aisle and cornered him between rakes and brooms.

  “Why, mah goodness me, Lance.” She curled her fingers over his arm. “Seein’ y’all is such a great pleasure!”

  “Miss Moreland.”

  “Oh, surely y’all could call me Fanny? After all, Ah’m now a customer of yours, aren’t I?”

  Over her head, Lance spotted Carl Ness rolling his eyes. “Collingwood Boots has many customers, Miss Moreland. We maintain a businesslike relationship with all of them.”

  Carl Ness nodded decisively.

  “Of course you do,” Fanny purred. “Ah find that truly admirable.”

  “In that case, Miss Moreland—” he plucked her hand from his arm “—you won’t mind if I purchase some coffee beans for my wife.”

  Carl grinned. “Right this way, Lance.” He gestured toward the next aisle.

  “And a sack of cornmeal,” he murmured as he passed the mercantile owner.

  Fanny twitched her green silk skirt in place and stepped after him. “Ah’m evah so fond of the coffee the Smoke River hotel serves.” She sent Lance a significant look.

  “Are you?” he said absently.

  Carl thrust a bag of coffee beans into his hands. “Miss Marianne likes this brand,” he said. “Arbuckle’s.”

  “Why, isn’t that a coincidence,” Fanny sang. “That’s just the brand they serve at the hotel.”

  Carl plopped the coffee on the counter and added a ten-pound sack of cornmeal. “You want Sammy to deliver this?”

  “Nope. Sammy’s busy at the shop. I’ll carry the coffee and pick up the cornmeal tomorrow morning.”

  He bid Miss Moreland a terse goodbye and left the mercantile. He was about to turn the corner on to Maple Street when he decided to walk past the pretty blue house again. He waved to Rooney next door, rocking away in the boardinghouse porch swing, then stopped to admire the building.

  He just liked looking at it, imagining how happy it would make Marianne to have a big house like this instead of their tiny apartment over the shop. That was the first thing she’d said about her great uncle Matthew Collingwood, he remembered, that he must own the biggest house in town and how much she looked forward to moving into it.

  He slowed at the front gate. The arbor that stretched overhead was overgrown with blue morning glories intertwined with tiny pink roses. He retraced his route past Rooney, still sitting in the swing whittling on a piece of wood, and the older man motioned him up on the porch.

  “Been watchin’ you admire that house next door,” Rooney said.

  “Yeah. Sure is a handsome place.”

  “It’s old Vernetta Stupac’s place. Vernetta’s eighty if she’s a day, and I spose that house was built back in the day when banisters were carved real pretty and there was a fireplace in every room.”

  “Looks bigger than most of the houses in town, except for Doc Dougherty’s mansion up on the hill,” Lance said.

  Rooney grinned at him. “You lookin’ for a house, are ya?”

  Lance opened his mouth to say no, then heard something else come out. “Yeah. Marianne and I are pretty crowded in that little apartment over the shop.”

  “Got any money?” Rooney inquired.

  Lance noted the twinkle in the older man’s eyes. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact.”

  Rooney studied him, stroking his chin with one weathered hand. “Miz Stupac’s gone to live with her sister in Portland. She’s lookin’ to sell the house and everything in it to the right person.”

  Lance swallowed. “What kind of person would be the ‘right person,’ Rooney?”

  The older man brushed wood shavings off his lap. “Somebody that’s gonna stay in Smoke River permanent. You know, someone who’d keep up the house and prune the roses. Vernetta don’t want just anybody in her house.”

  “You have any idea wh
at she might sell it for?”

  “Sure do, son. You can have the whole kit and caboodle for four hundred dollars.”

  Lance swallowed again. There was more than that amount in the bank. Even after paying wages for Abe and Sammy, the Collingwood account would still be flush.

  Rooney was grinning at him again. “County seat’s in Gillette Springs. Oughtta ride up there to pay yer money and record the deed.”

  Lance nodded. The prospect was tempting. After the uncertainty and heartache of the past few months he longed to surprise Marianne with something she really wanted. That’s what a good husband did, wasn’t it? What better way could there be to show his love for Marianne?

  “You think it over, son,” Rooney said with a grin.

  He sure would! He nodded at the older man and headed back to the shop.

  *

  For the rest of that week, Lance thought of little else. Even when Abe shook his hand and told him he was turning into a first-class boot maker, he couldn’t stop imagining Marianne’s face when he told her about the blue house on Maple Street.

  Would she like it? What if it wasn’t what she wanted? What if it was too small or didn’t have enough bedrooms? Would she like the garden? The blue morning glories winding among the roses growing over the trellis?

  He set his awl down and shook his head in frustration. He’d never been able to predict what Marianne might do or what she might like. Maybe he should just give up the idea.

  Oh, hell, no, he wasn’t going to give up the idea. Marianne had worked hard to make Collingwood Boots a success. He wanted to give her something really special.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  When Lance completely forgot to pick up the bag of cornmeal she needed from the mercantile, went back for it and then forgot it again, Marianne began watching him. He seemed distracted. Unfocused. When she reminded him a third time about the cornmeal, he said he’d pick it up this afternoon, but even though he left the shop, he returned empty-handed once again.

  That was so unlike the steady, reliable Lance she thought she knew that she began to worry in earnest. What on earth could be on his mind?