Rexanne Becnel by The Troublemaker Page B

one beefy hand.
    “Mr. MacDougal. Hello. Hello. Over here.” His already florid complexion had deepened to a ruddy glow. It was either too much to drink or else the woman he was presently conversing with, Marsh decided. For she was a glittering bird among the otherwise more sedately clad villagers. A bright blue glittering bird with a chest that would do a ship’s figurehead proud.
    “Miss Estelle Kendrick,” the innkeeper said. “May I present Mr. Marshall MacDougal, come to us all the way from the wilds of America, he has.”
    “We’ve already been introduced,” she cooed. But she curtsied again as he bowed, providing him with an even better view of her outsized chest. There was no ruching in her bodice like his mother had often sewed for one of her employers. That was all warm, trembling flesh—and available for closer inspection, he surmised, if the sultry look in Miss Kendrick’s eyes was any indication.
    Though he’d not come here tonight with an idea of seduction, Marsh felt a surge of relief to find another woman—any woman—to distract him from Sarah Palmer. So he grinned at the woman and said a silent thank-you to Mr. Halbrecht. “What a pleasure to meet you again, Miss Kendrick. Had I known the warm welcome awaiting me in Kelso, I would have come years ago.”
    She grinned right back at him. “An’ I wish you had. There’s no making up for the past, but let’s not waste the present. Aren’t you goin’ to invite me to dance?”
    “But I was hoping to do that meself,” Mr. Halbrecht put in.
    “Oh, Henry.” She placed a hand on the innkeeper’s sleeve and squeezed. “You and I, we’ve danced a hundred times before. An’ I promise to dance with you tonight. Only later.” She smiled up at Marsh, an expression that was almost predatory. “Right now I want to dance with Mr. MacDougal.”
    Marsh had no intention of declining, and when it proved to be a waltz, he was not sorry. At every turn Miss Kendrick’s bountiful bosom brushed up against his chest. He fancied he could feel her oversized nipples protruding through her bodice and his waistcoat, and he had to fight the urge to look down into the warm, dark cavern between those breasts.
    “Are you staying here permanent-like?” she asked, still smiling. Her teeth were slightly crooked, he noticed, with a dull cast to them.
    “No. I’m merely visiting.”
    “Too bad. Oops!” She giggled, stumbling, then clinging to his arms so that her breasts squashed against his chest. Marsh promptly forgot about her teeth, and yet he was also put off by her blatant display. There was a lot to be said for subtlety in a woman. Certainly Sarah had not needed to resort to such—
    He squelched the thought. He would not compare Estelle Kendrick to her. In truth, he didn’t want to think of Sarah Palmer as a woman at all. She was his half-sister and even though that was a distasteful thought, it was preferable to his previous thoughts about her.
    So he concentrated on enjoying Estelle Kendrick’s lusty attentions, and when Sarah swept by in the arms of a brawny fellow, he refused to follow her with his eyes.
    But he did not entirely succeed, for even a peripheral view of Sarah Palmer made him forget about the warm armful of woman he held. Working to ignore Sarah Palmer took all his energy.
    And when Sarah Palmer’s dance partner whirled her around to the far side of the room near the open terrace doors, he was nonetheless vitally aware of it.
    But he didn’t care, he told himself. He refused to care. It was a relief to have his view of her blocked by other dancers. Out of sight, out of mind.
    So he forced himself to smile down at Miss Kendrick, availing himself once more of the view from above. The last few stanzas of the song seemed to last forever, though, and when his buxom partner suggested that she was a little overheated, something perverse in him jumped at the chance.
    “Perhaps a little fresh air?” he suggested. “A turn in the