* * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mary awoke later to find her head cradled on Lee's shoulder, her hair fanned out across the pillow, and one of her arms wrapped around his waist. Her hand rested atop the cotton dressing covering his wound. She sighed, then snuggled closer to him and pressed her lips against the side of his chest. "Thank you," she whispered.
"You're welcome," Lee answered in a husky voice as he tightened his arm around her. "It appears that I don't have the willpower to refuse a woman when she says please and thank-you so nicely."
"A woman?" Mary asked.
"Did I say woman?" Lee asked innocently. "I meant to say my wife. And not in name only, I might add."
"Not anymore." Mary stretched lazily.
"Happy birthday," he said softly.
"Was this my birthday present?" she asked, cuddling closer.
"Part of it. What's the matter? Don't you think it's appropriate for a twenty-nine-year old?" He turned to his side and propped up one elbow so he could look at her.
"Oh, I think it's very appropriate." Mary rolled over to face him. "Especially for a twenty-nine-year old who's wearing her birthday suit."
"And what a pretty birthday suit it is!"
"Yours isn't so bad either," Mary told him. "Except that it appears to have a hole in it. And I don't remember pulling the trigger."
Lee glanced down. "What, this?" He tried to make light of his gunshot wound. "It's nothing. Just a flesh wound."
"It's bleeding." She touched the stained bandage very gently.
"Probably from all the exertion. I didn't expect to have to break into the house just to be here in time to give you your birthday gifts." He watched as Mary's brown eyes widened in shock and her face paled at the memory of their confrontation on the stairs.
"I thought you were a burglar. Oh, dear Lord, Lee, I nearly shot you."
He leaned over to kiss her, gently. "But you didn't."
"I could have. I could have killed you." Mary began to shake and her voice quivered.
"But you didn't. And, except for a previous hole in my handsome birthday suit, I'm fine. See?" He took her hand and placed it on his chest over his heart.
Suddenly overcome by emotion, Mary wrapped her arms around his neck and began to cry.
Her tears alarmed him. "Ssh, ssh." Lee smoothed the stray strands of silky black hair away from her face, rubbed her back, and kissed first her cheek, and then her mouth. "Twenty-nine-year olds aren't allowed to cry on their birthdays," he told her.
"But I could have lost you, Lee," Mary sobbed, "and then, I would never have known about… this."
Lee couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing. "Oh, I'm pretty sure you could have talked someone else into showing you all this."
"It's not funny!"
"Sure it is," he teased. "What man wouldn't be thrilled by the prospect of teaching Mary Alexander all about lovemaking?"
"Mary Kincaid," she corrected, drying her tears on the top of the sheet. "Did you teach me everything?"
Lee shook his head. "No, but you sure taught me something." His voice was husky and low and sent shivers of anticipation running down Mary's spine.
"What was that?"
"How lucky I am. If you had shot me, we definitely wouldn't be doing this right now."
A teasing light appeared in Mary's brown eyes. "But we aren't doing anything."
"Oh yes we are." Lee leaned closer and covered her mouth with his. He wrapped his arms around Mary and hugged her tightly, then rolled to his back so that she lay sprawled atop him. "Time for another lesson, teacher," he told her when he finally let go of her mouth. "And this time, in deference to my wound, I'm going to let you do the work." He lifted her then, and carefully eased her down to cover him.
Mary almost purred. "I think I'm going to like this lesson," she said. "Teach me."
Lee taught her the motion, then lay back and allowed her to practice until she got it right.
They awoke a second time to the sound of a high pitched bark coming from the pile of clothing Lee had dropped on the floor as the terrier puppy reminded them of his presence.
"What was that?" Mary asked, coming slowly awake.
"Your other birthday present." Lee rolled to his side, then leaned over, and lifted the puppy onto the bed. "I think he's lonely."
The terrier pup waddled over the bed clothes, across Lee and over to Mary, where he promptly licked her face. "Lee, he's wonderful." Mary hugged the little fellow.
"I thought he might make a nice companion for you. Something to bark at would-be thieves and housebreakers whenever I'm away. Something to guard you while you sleep whenever you're alone." Lee's voice took on that husky quality Mary loved, the one that made her heart race and her body quiver with anticipation.
"Only when you're away?"
"You won't need him to guard you when I'm here," Lee told her. "Because I plan to be right in bed beside you from now on."
"Good," she told him. "Because that's where I want you from now on."
They watched in companionable silence as the puppy amused himself leaping at the bed clothes, barking, and tugging at the sheets, until he finally curled up into a tight little ball of black and gray fur and fell asleep between the two of them.
"What are you gong to call him?" Lee asked.
"Barker," Mary decided.
"It fits." Lee reached out to scratch one of the puppy's ears.
"Thank you," Mary said, staring at him with all of her love for him shining in her dark brown eyes.
"You're welcome."
"I don't just mean for the puppy. I mean for everything. You altered the course of my life, Lee, and have given me all the things I wanted so desperately. I can't tell you how much that means to me."
Lee squeezed his eyes shut. "You could have had all these things with someone else. Maybe not Cosgrove, but with someone else."
"I don't think so." Mary shook her head. "Who else would have taught me not to be afraid of the night like you did? Who else would have given me a puppy for my birthday?"
"Among other things," Lee interjected.
"Among other things," Mary agreed. "And who but you could have given me this town? This house? Or Judah? Or most importantly, Maddy?"
Lee took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. The moment of truth had come. It was time to tell her all he knew about Madeline. "Mary," he began, "there's something I think you should know about Maddy."
"What?"
"Well, remember when you asked about my personal relationship with Tabby?"
"Yes." Mary knew where the conversation was heading but she wouldn't make it easier for him. He had to tell her the truth, not the Pinkerton truth, but the real truth—all of it. And he had to do it in his own way.
"And I avoided the question by telling you that I didn't remember saying anything about a personal relationship between Tabby and me."
"I remember."
"Well, there was one," Lee said at last. "A very brief one."
"How brief?" Mary couldn't keep herself from asking the question.
"Four weeks."
"I see." Mary bit her bottom lip.
"No, you don't," Lee told her. "It wasn't like this. It wasn't what you and I shared. It was something else. We were working together, pretending to be lovers, practically living together as we worked-—going to parties, dances, the opera, and midnight buffets." Lee exhaled and raked his fingers through his hair. "Anyway, it all started on New Year's Eve, Tabby and I went to a party. We danced and drank champagne and, well, one thing led to another and pretty soon we were in bed together. I think I knew it was a mistake almost from the first moment. It felt dishonest somehow. I felt guilty afterward, as if I'd taken advantage of her. I mean, I liked Tabby. I really liked her. I admired her ability and her courage."
Mary was very still and very quiet.
"But I didn't love her. I wasn't in love with her."
"Then how could you…" Mary broke off.
"It
was passion, Mary. And lust. And loneliness. And need. The kind of need we all have that makes us want to be sure we're still alive, that we can still feel things for other people. I think Tabitha must have felt the same way. We drifted into an affair. We were adults with healthy appetites. I don't apologize for that. I just want you to understand that what I shared with Tabitha was not the same as what you and I shared tonight. It was different. It ran its course and at the end of the four weeks, we were friends but no longer lovers. I left Denver for Chicago and I never saw Tabitha again. I thought everything ended when we said good-bye at the depot, but I was wrong."
Mary watched as Lee rolled gracefully out of bed, and taking the sleeping puppy with him, walked unashamedly naked across the room to the pile of clothes he had dropped on the floor. He bent down and lifted his waistcoat from the pile before he placed Barker on the bundle of clothes for the night. Lee removed his gold watch from out of his waistcoat pocket, let the garment fall to the floor, and returned to the bed with the watch in his hand.
He handed the watch to Mary. Mary studied the ornate gold design on the lid and the initials engraved in the center: L.G.M.K. The gold pocketwatch hung on a fancy gold rope chain and a small portrait watch fob hung beside it.
"Open the watch," he said.
Mary lifted the lid and found herself staring at a miniature of a woman—a woman with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes—a woman who was the grown-up version of Madeline. Mary turned to look at Lee.
He nodded. "This is what Maddy will look like in thirty years."
"Who is she?" She already knew the answer. There could only be one reason for the unmistakable resemblance to Maddy. The woman in the watch was family—Lee's family.
"My mother," Lee answered softly. "Jane Alice Mclntyre Kincaid, aged thirty-two. It was painted shortly before she died. She gave me the watch with her portrait inside for my eleventh birthday so I wouldn't forget her." Lee managed a little laugh. "As if I ever could. She meant everything to me."
"And now you have Madeline, who's the spitting image of her grandmother."
Lee smiled. "Yeah. Now, I have Maddy. I didn't know about her until I arrived in Denver the day before you and I got married." He shook his head. "I had no idea. But the minute I saw her, I knew. And Tabby never told me, never sent word."
"Maybe she didn't know how to reach you or what to say."
"She knew," Lee said. "She knew how to reach me before she died."
"Look at the situation from her point of view," Mary suggested, "would knowing about Maddy have made a difference between the two of you? Would it have changed your relationship?"
"Of course," Lee said. "I would have gone back to Denver and married her."
"Even though you didn't love her?"
"Yes."
"That's why she didn't tell you. Tabitha would rather have lived her life alone with Maddy, than to have you marry her on those terms. You may not have loved her, but I think she loved you very much." And so do I, Mary wanted to add, so do I.
Lee cleared his throat. "Now that you and I are married in every sense of the word, I thought I should tell you the truth. I don't want any lies or 'Pinkerton truths' between us, Two-shot." He paused for a moment before continuing. "I don't regret tonight. I don't apologize for it. I wanted you. I still want you. And I think there's a very good chance that I'll always want you. But you have to be sure, Two-shot. You have to be able to live with my past."
"I love Maddy," she said simply. "I loved her before I was certain she was your daughter and I love her even more now that I know she is."
"You knew?" Lee stared at her.
"I had a fairly good idea."
"You had a fairly good idea, and yet you let me go through this—torture—of trying to tell you and wondering how you would react? Wondering what you would say or do?"
"Yep."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because confession, Liam Gordon Mclntyre Kincaid"— Mary accentuated each of his given names with a kiss—"is supposed to be good for your soul. And, now that I'm your wife in more than name only, looking after the welfare of your soul is part of my business. Have you any more confessions to make?"
Lee shook his head.
"Not even one?"
"No. Why?"
"Aren't you even going to tell me who put that hole in your birthday suit?"
Lee shook his head again. "You wouldn't believe it."
"Try me," she invited.
And he did. Lee told her all about his trip to Washington and his confrontation with Cassandra Millen. He didn't omit a single detail and when he finished telling Mary about that, he told her all about Jeannie Carraway, her father, Edwin, and his own father, Patrick.
Mary held him while he cried. And when Lee finished telling her everything in his past, Mary Alexander Kincaid helped her husband put it behind him. She helped him lay his ghosts to rest by giving him three little words.
"I love you," she said. "I love you."
And then she showed him just how much.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mary gave Lee her little silver two-shot derringer as they dressed for breakfast the following day.
"What's this for?" Lee asked.
"1 won't be needing it anymore," she told him, as she slipped on her chemise. "I can protect myself without it. I have you now and I have Barker too."
"But it was a birthday gift from your uncle."
Mary nodded. "1 got it for my fifteenth birthday and I'm giving it to you for my twenty-ninth. I don't want to run the risk of accidentally shooting you ever again."
"Are you certain about this?" Lee tucked his shirt into the waistband of his trousers.
"Completely. I'm not afraid of the dark anymore."
"I'll keep it for you," Lee said as he walked over to the bedpost and dropped the little gun into the pocket of the canvas duster hanging there. "But if you ever want it back, all you have to do is ask."
"Thank you," she said. "But I don't think I'll be needing it again. Let's save it for Maddy or our other daughters."
"Are we going to have more daughters?" Lee asked.
"Most definitely," Mary teased. "My husband and I have been working on it."
"You'll let me know when this comes about, won't you?"
"You'll be the very first to know." She sidled up to him and kissed his chin before entering the dressing room to get her lingerie.
"What are you doing in there?" Lee asked.
"Getting dressed."
"Not fair," he protested. "Come out where I can see you. Come out where I can watch you." He hurried out of the bedroom to the landing and retrieved the brown paper-wrapped packages he'd dropped last night when Mary had stopped him at gunpoint.
She returned to the bedroom with a corset and a pair of muslin drawers.
"Happy birthday," Lee announced, presenting her with one of the packages.
"What's this?" Mary asked. "First you, then Barker, now this?"
"Yep. Open it." Lee sat down on the side of the bed to watch her.
Mary tore into the package and discovered several pairs of white silk' and satin drawers. She held one pair up and realized they were much shorter than she was accustomed to wearing. In fact, all they covered was her bottom. They stopped above the thigh and didn't conceal her legs at all. They were soft and smooth—the silk ones nearly transparent and the satin ones, luxurious and delightfully sinful. She looked at Lee. "Why? How? Where?"
Lee chuckled. "The why should be obvious after last night and this morning," he reminded her. "As to how and where; remember when we arrived in Utopia? When you took Maddy to the necessary?"
"Yes."
"And you handed me your jacket with clothes bundled up inside?"
"Yes."
"Well, I dropped it and a pair of your drawers fell out. I stuck them in the pocket of my duster, then watched as you tripped over your skirt a half a dozen times on the way to the house because you had taken off all your underth
ings to keep Maddy from being embarrassed about wetting hers and going without."
"You knew all along?"
"Yeah," he confessed. "And I spent the hours on the train from here to Washington wondering how you looked and felt without them. I ordered those"—he nodded toward the lingerie she held in her hand—"from a French modiste in Washington. She said they were all the rage in the more wicked places in Paris."
"I can't believe you knew about that day and didn't let on."
"I should have," he said. "Because I almost went crazy just thinking about prim and oh-so-proper schoolteacher, Mary Alexander, walking through the streets of Utopia for all to see in broad daylight with nothing on beneath her skirts."
"The streets of Utopia were deserted," she reminded him. "Nobody saw and nobody knew."
"I knew." Lee raised an eyebrow at her. "And I did everything I could think of to try to catch a glimpse of your long luscious legs after that." He leered at her. "By the way, Two-shot, did you know those prim white ruffled nightgowns of yours are practically transparent?"
Mary thought of the times Lee had seen her in her ruffled gown—how he had placed her in front of the lamp last night. "You didn't!"
"Every chance I got."
Mary reached over, placed her palms against his chest and shoved him back onto the bed.
"You can't do that! I just gave you a birthday present," Lee reminded her.
"And because it's my birthday, I can do anything I want," she answered, loftily.
Lee stretched out on the bed, then rolled to his side, and propped up on one elbow. "Well, do you think you might want to try on those fancy underthings I bought you? Do you think you might like to show them to your husband and maybe get his approval?"