Just This Once by Jill Gregory

that. Or give her a
chance to explain it.
    So what? Josie asked herself, shifting
deeper into the plush chair. It shouldn’t matter. Why should you
care what he thinks?
    She shouldn’t.
    But she did.
    If Ethan felt her eyes burning into the back
of his skull, he gave no sign of it. His thoughts were in turmoil,
his jaw clenched as he fought to curb the fury inside him.
    Above all else, he hated feeling trapped,
enclosed, controlled. And that’s how he felt now, trapped by the
terms of his father’s will—controlled by a cruel ghostly figure no
doubt laughing from the grave, reveling in his discomfiture.
    Marriage. He’d sworn ten years ago before
all of London society that he would never marry. And he’d meant it,
that long-ago night when he’d run away. But now here he was, tied
to a cheap lying pickpocket with a mouth shaped as voluptuously as
a courtesan’s, with uptilted, violet eyes that could hypnotize
mortals and gods alike, and a heart no doubt as black as a coal
mine.
    She couldn’t be more wrong for his purposes.
And she was clumsy, too, apparently, he reflected with a frown. He
could imagine the picture she’d present tumbling down the steps of
the Opera House.
    Damn, he didn’t want to be married at all,
and he sure as hell didn’t want to be married to this bit of fluff
and trouble.
    Feeling sweat break out on his brow, Ethan
fastened his gaze on the open prairie rolling past—thinking of the
Rockies, the Mogollons, the Sierra Nevada, of all the wild, untamed
land of purple canyons and pine-crested peaks and cactus-studded
desert he’d left behind. He couldn’t believe he was actually
heading back to London, with its crowds, its snobs, its rigid
conventions, with memories of a past he’d spent the past ten years
escaping.
    Maybe he should just fold right now. Throw
in his chips and call it quits—call this whole thing off. Damn
Stonecliff Park. And damn the money. He took a breath, feeling
better already. He could let the little thief go—get off this train
and head for where? Silver City? San Francisco? Denver? Wherever
the hell he pleased.
    As if reading his thoughts, Latherby crossed
the aisle and coughed quietly. His voice was low, as if to keep the
girl from hearing.
    “I’m sure I can imagine what you’re
thinking, my lord. Last night you made a mistake. But there is
still time to rectify it. You could take care of this, er, situation —leave the girl at the next stop, and find yourself
another... wife,” he whispered, throwing a glance over his shoulder
at the pale, brown-haired girl sitting stiff and upright in her
chair. “Someone more appropriate.”
    “I could, could I?” A number of men had seen
that deadly glint in Ethan Savage’s eyes, but none of them had
lived to tell about it. Latherby took one look, swallowed hard, and
continued forthrightly.
    “You c-could, indeed, sir. And if you
hesitate,” he rushed on, “I beg you to consider that your cousin,
the esteemed Mr. Winthrop, is no doubt walking through Stonecliff
Park at this very moment counting the rooms, all two hundred of
them. And noting on a ledger each stick of furniture which will
become his if you do not return and meet the terms of the
will.”
    “He’s welcome to it. And you know what,
Latherby? You’re damned impertinent.”
    Yet the solicitor’s words stirred something
inside him. It wasn’t only that he didn’t want Oliver to get his
hands on Stonecliff Park—though that was part of it. Oliver
Winthrop was a sniveling weasel who’d had a hand in what had
happened to Molly, and the last thing Ethan wanted was to see him
prosper. But it was more than that.
    Stonecliff Park meant more than land and
money and gardens, more than ancestral paintings and crests, and
tapestries dating from the days of the Conqueror.
    There were scores of people on the
property—housemaids, footmen, grooms, gardeners, cooks, scullery
maids, coachmen, and tenants—all of whose lives and incomes would
be affected by his