Prince Charming

Victoria was taking forever to put on her bonnet. It took her three attempts to tie the satin strings into a perfect bow. Taylor wanted to take over the task for her, so impatient was she to get moving. Lucas acted as though he had all the time in the world. He simply stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting for Victoria to finish. Then he offered his arm to her. Victoria took hold and smiled sweetly up at him.

They left her standing on the sidewalk. She followed the pair inside. Since Lucas was watching out for Victoria, Taylor felt free to explore the ground floor. It was filled with retail shops, and in the very center of the area was another set of double doors leading to the hotel’s reception area. There was a large crowd of men smoking in front of the entrance. Most were dressed in business suits, though there were a few garbed in buckskin jackets. Several of the men openly gawked at her in a way that made Taylor feel decidedly uneasy. She held her head high as she hurried through the entrance the doorman held open for her.

Lucas suddenly seemed to remember he had a wife. He turned, grabbed hold of her hand, and pulled her close to his side. She didn’t understand what had come over him. One minute he was smiling down at Victoria and the next he was frowning at everyone who looked their way. Victoria seemed to understand, if her smile was any indication, and Taylor thought her friend might actually burst into laughter so amusing did she seem to find Lucas’s conduct.

Taylor decided to ignore her husband until he got over his sour mood. Both she and Victoria changed their opinion of the hotel. The owners had obviously decided to spend their money on the inside. It was, as Taylor whispered to her friend, grand. The floor was black and white marble squares, and circling the gigantic foyer were magnificent white pillars.

Everything was sparkling clean. The lounges in the spacious hall were covered with buffalo skins. Taylor wanted to go across the room and touch one.

Victoria drew her attention with her remark. “Do you notice there aren’t any ladies here?” she whispered.

“I did notice,” Taylor replied.

“There’s a separate entrance for ladies traveling alone,” Lucas explained. “But since you’re with me, it’s all right for you to be here. Wait by the luggage while I sign in and get a room for Victoria.”

Lucas underscored his order by adding what he obviously considered a meaningful frown at Taylor and then walked away.

The luggage was easy to spot. It was a pyramid of baggage really and stacked in the center of the hall.

Taylor was a bit overwhelmed by the chaos surrounding her. There were at least two hundred gentlemen coming and going, more reading the daily papers on the settees, and large groups of men standing around talking to one another. The noise made conversation difficult.

Victoria had to ask Taylor her question twice before she heard her. “What if all the rooms are full?”

“Then you’ll stay with me.”

“But what about your husband?”

“Oh, I’m certain he’ll get his own room.”

“But you’re married.”

“Yes,” Taylor agreed. She patted Victoria’s hand. “In your delicate condition, you shouldn’t be worrying about inconsequential matters. I think you should sit down. You look weary to me. Let’s try out the buffalo lounges.”

Victoria nodded agreement. She pinched her cheeks for color, hoping to hide her fatigue, and followed Taylor over to an empty lounge.

The two women sat side by side. Taylor stroked the animal skin with her fingertips and smiled at her friend. “We can now boast that we sat on a buffalo.”

Victoria gave her a weak smile. She folded her hands in her lap and stared down at the floor.

“You’re worrying, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Victoria admitted. “I’m thinking you shouldn’t have told your husband I was married. If we keep to the lie, I’m bound to run into people I know in Boston who have moved here from London . . .”

She didn’t go on. Taylor immediately felt guilty. “I shouldn’t have made up the lie, and I apologize for putting you in an awkward position. If I tell you something, do you promise not to say a word in front of Mr. Ross?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have any intention of living in Boston. You don’t have to stay here either, Victoria. There are at least a dozen other cities to consider.”

Victoria’s eyes widened. “But I heard your husband mention . . .”

“Oh, he thinks I’m staying in Boston, and it’s best he doesn’t know the truth just yet.”

“I don’t understand. Won’t he notice if you leave?”

“It’s complicated,” Taylor told her. “Tomorrow morning, after you’ve had a good night’s rest, we’ll sit down and have a long talk. It’s going to be all right. I promise you. Heavens, I’m so excited to be in Boston, I can barely sit still.”

A beautiful marble statue of a Greek warrior holding a disc caught her eye. It was at least nine feet tall. Taylor stood up, told Victoria she would be right back, and then crossed the hall to have a closer look.

One gentleman after another tried to catch her attention by calling out a greeting. Taylor ignored the men, yet by the time she reached the impressive statue, she found herself surrounded by strangers wishing to engage her in conversation.

They were all Americans, and for that reason alone, Taylor found it impossible to maintain her haughty facade. She was smiling in no time at all. The Americans were very open and friendly, just as she’d read they would be. One gentleman said howdy to her instead of hello and with the most wonderful accent she’d ever heard. She was enchanted. She soon forgot all about proper etiquette. She introduced herself, explained she had just arrived from London, England, and then asked each man to tell her where he lived. Everyone tried to answer her at once. One, she learned, lived in the heart of Boston and was at the hotel for a business meeting. He sounded as though he were pinching his nose shut when he spoke. Another gentleman resided in the valley of Ohio, two were from Missouri, and three, cousins she discovered, lived in the state of Texas. Their accents were outrageously divine.

A spirited conversation ensued. Each man was trying to outdo the others with tall tales about his home. Taylor was having trouble controlling her laughter. They were such delightful, good-hearted men. They were proud of their homeland and obviously wanted her to love America as much as they did.

She wanted Victoria to meet her new friends and was about to suggest they follow her across the hall when the attitude of the group suddenly changed. They were laughing and jesting one minute and looking as though they’d lost their best friend the next. Several were frowning enough to make her think they were extremely worried about something. The men standing directly in front of her weren’t looking at her any longer. They were intently staring at something above her head. The gentleman from Boston, she noticed, was even backing away.

The silence was heavy with expectation. Taylor had a feeling she knew what, or rather who, had caused the radical change in the men’s behavior. She slowly turned around to find out if her guess proved accurate.

She was right on target. Lucas was standing directly behind her. She’d half-expected him to be there. The expression on his face was a surprise, however. It was frightening enough to make an ordinary woman’s hair stand on end. Lord, he was intimidating. No wonder the gentlemen weren’t laughing any longer. Lucas was looking as though he wanted to shoot a couple of them.

Why, he even made her feel a bit nervous. She certainly wasn’t intimidated or afraid, she hastily reminded herself, just . . . nervous. She decided to catch the cat by his tail. She knew he was irritated because he’d had to look for her in the crowd, and so she simply turned the table around on him.

She folded her hands together, plastered a smile on her face, and then said, “Here you are at last, Mr. Ross. I’ve been waiting to introduce you to my new friends.”

He wasn’t going to let her get away with her clever ploy. He shook his head at her. “Taylor, I s

pecifically remember telling you to wait by the luggage. If . . .”

She wasn’t going to listen to a lecture. She broke his concentration by simply reaching out and taking hold of his hand. She turned around to face their audience then so that she could introduce her husband, but the eldest of the Texans spoke before she could.

“This little filly belong to you?” He directed his inquiry to Lucas and in such a slow drawl it seemed to take him a full minute to get the question finished.

Taylor wasn’t certain if she should be insulted or not. She opened her mouth to ask the Texan if women were often referred to as horses in America, but she never got the question out. Lucas put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed.

The message was distinct. She was supposed to keep quiet. Taylor decided to act subservient for the time being. God help Lucas Ross when they were alone. She would give him a piece of her mind then, she thought to herself, for being so high-handed in public. She pictured herself giving him a sound kick, and even though she knew she’d never do such an unladylike thing, the fantasy still made her smile.

“She’s my wife.” Lucas made the announcement with a good deal of possessiveness in his voice. Odd, but he didn’t grimace when he said the word wife. In truth, it sounded almost pleasant to him. Almost.

“She ain’t wearing a ring.” Another Texan made that remark and was staring at Taylor suspiciously. He was acting as though Lucas and she were trying to play some clever trick on him. His attitude didn’t make a bit of sense to Taylor.

“Ring or not, she’s still Mrs. Ross,” Lucas said.

“Ross? Well now, she didn’t call herself Ross,” the first Texan pointed out.

Taylor’s eyes widened. She almost laughed over her own error. “I forgot,” she blurted out. “We are newly married,” she hastily added.

They didn’t look like they believed her. She let out a sigh, shrugged away from Lucas, and then moved to his side. She kept her gaze on her audience.

“Gentlemen, I would like you to meet my husband, Mr. Lucas Ross.”

What happened next so surprised Taylor, she couldn’t hide her astonishment. The eldest of the Texans squinted at Lucas and then whispered in what could only be interpreted as awe, “The Lucas Ross from Montana Territory?”

Lucas gave a quick nod. Then he started to back away. Taylor looked up and saw his expression had changed dramatically. He looked wary now and horribly uncomfortable. She was intrigued by the change in him. She felt the sudden need to save him, yet couldn’t imagine what exactly she was saving him from.

“The Lucas Ross?” The gentleman from the valley in Ohio asked the question in a stammer of disbelief.

Lucas sighed. “Yes.”

Taylor didn’t think grown men were given to gasping, but these men did. She was all but forgotten from that moment on. The men surged forward. She got out of their way in the nick of time, for she would surely have been flattened against the statue by the eager crowd if she hadn’t moved quickly. The men surrounded Lucas on all sides. Everyone was talking at once. They wanted to shake his hand and pound him on his back.

The Texans were the most effusive in their admiration. “If that don’t beat all,” the eldest of the cousins kept repeating.

Word that Lucas Ross was in the lobby of the Hamilton House spread like free whiskey, and within minutes, most of the gentlemen inside the lobby had joined the group of adoring fans. They all wanted to meet the legend.

Taylor was flabbergasted. She heard the words hero and legend over and over again, and because the gentleman from Boston mentioned the war when he gave his praise, she naturally assumed Lucas had won his reputation during the time of the dispute between the North and the South. She was familiar with both the cause and the outcome of the war, of course. She’d read everything she could get her hands on about the division of the country. Odd, she didn’t remember reading anything about Lucas Ross.

Taylor stood there watching Lucas and his enthusiastic admirers for a good fifteen minutes. Her husband was easy to keep track of, as he was the tallest man in the lobby. He was keeping his eye on her as well, she noticed, for every now and then he would glance over to make certain she was still there.

He didn’t look very happy about all the attention he was receiving. He didn’t like anyone standing behind his back either. Taylor came to that conclusion when she noticed how he slowly negotiated his way over to stand directly in front of the marble statue. He seemed determined to protect his back, just like all the famous gunfighters liked to do, or so Taylor had read in one of her countless dime novels.

One thought jumped to another. Good God, was Lucas a gunfighter? Is that how he gained his reputation? Taylor discarded the notion the second it popped into her mind. No, of course he wasn’t. He was temperamental and surly natured, but he wasn’t a killer. Taylor’s conclusions weren’t based solely on instinct. Madam had done a thorough investigation into Lucas’s background, and although she hadn’t had the time or the inclination to share the information she’d gathered with her granddaughter, Taylor knew in her heart that her grandmother would never have insisted she marry the man if he hadn’t proven to be honorable and courageous and noble.

There was also the undisputed fact that all gunfighters went looking for trouble. The stories she’d read about Ornery Eddie of Wolkum Junction had confirmed that truth. Eddie always wanted to fight. According to the tales, the gunfighter prided himself on the fact that he would always shoot someone dead within ten minutes after arriving in a new town. Oh, yes, gunfighters went looking for trouble. Ornery Eddie was just one example of that rule, but there were at least a hundred others written down in the dime novels.

Lucas was the complete opposite in attitude. He wanted solitude and wide-open spaces. She remembered he’d been quite specific when he told her he no longer liked living in Redemption because the two-block-wide town was becoming too crowded. He hated being penned in.

He apparently hated crowds, too. His expression told her so. The look he was now giving her indicated he somehow held her responsible for making him the center of attention.

She didn’t want to accept the blame. She hadn’t had anything to do with making him a legend. No, of course she hadn’t. If the man had bothered to mention he was such a celebrity, she wouldn’t have introduced him.

His discomfort was all his own fault. She still felt guilty. She was going to have to save him anyway. She let out a sigh, then nudged her way through the throng of men. When she reached Lucas, she took hold of his hand. In a rather loud voice, she announced that they were going to be late for an important meeting if they didn’t leave immediately.

“You shouldn’t be going to meetings on your honeymoon,” one of the Texans declared in his slow drawl.

“They’re newly married?” A gentleman she hadn’t met before asked the question.

Someone in the crowd shouted, “If that don’t beat all.” Because Taylor had already heard that colorful, but illogical remark before, she assumed it was some sort of popular American slang. She filed the saying away for future use.

“He got himself hitched all right,” another said.

A round of hearty congratulations followed the confirmation. There was more pounding on Lucas’s back, though one eager gentleman’s aim was off and he accidentally whacked Taylor squarely between her shoulder blades. She was kept from being thrown forward by her husband. He tightened his hold on her, frowned at the offender, and started to edge his way through the crowd.

The men finally let them alone. Lucas had dragged Taylor halfway across the lobby before she protested. “You may lessen your hold on me, sir, and do quit frowning. People will think we aren’t happily married.”

Lucas ignored both suggestions. Taylor looked up at him and matched his frown. She decided to give exactly what she was getting. “You’re a very moody individual,” she announced in a low whisper so her criticism wouldn’t be overheard.

“I didn’t used to be,” he responded.  “Do you mean to say you used to be pleasant?”

“Yes.”

She almost snorted with disbelief but stopped herself in time. “When?” she asked.

“When I wasn’t married.”

She tried not to take offense. “You’re blaming me for the chaos back there, aren’t you?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “I wouldn’t have introduced you to those gentlemen if you’d told me you were such a popular fellow.”

“Why were you talking to them?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

He let out a sigh. “Taylor, didn’t your grandmother tell you it’s dangerous to talk to strangers?”

He asked the question in a low growl. “I was perfectly safe,” she announced. “No one would dare accost me in the middle of the hotel lobby.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

He was fully prepared to hear her answer, then give her a good lecture on her naivete. Hell, the lobby was so crowded, anyone could have grabbed hold of her and dragged her outside without being noticed. Didn’t she know about the dangers inherent in the cities? Obviously not, he thought. Well, by God, he would make her understand.

Taylor was staring up at him with that wide-eyed, innocent stare. He wanted to shake some sense into her. He decided to scare her instead.

“Explain why no one would dare accost you,” he ordered in a voice he thought sounded downright mean.

She stared him right in the eye when she gave him her answer. “You wouldn’t let them.”

The bluster went right out of him. Her answer, given so quickly and in such a matter-of-fact tone of voice, sliced right through his frustration and reached his heart. He was at a loss for words. The compliment shocked him. She was too trusting, he thought, and how could she have such faith in him? It was downright humbling.

“You’re right I wouldn’t let anyone touch you,” he heard himself mutter.