“Those men and women of the aristocracy set themselves up for mockery by their ridiculous behavior,” he defended himself, his face heating as his conscience kicked him.
“Like Lady Agnes Hamilton?” Lenore arched one eyebrow at him. “Like our friend, Lady Phoebe? Their behavior is so ridiculous that they deserve to be mocked in your prose?”
“I never mock anyone,” Phin argued. “If you cared to actually read my stories, the heroines come off quite well.”
Lenore laughed sharply, and he flushed hotter.
“What I mean is that the female characters in my stories are always powerful seductresses, not hapless victims, as some writers show them,” he went on, feeling as though the entire conversation were spinning out of his control at an alarming speed. “But we’ve strayed away from the point. You lied about who you are.” He took a step toward her.
Instead of retreating, Lenore held her ground. “When did I ever lie?” she asked, tilting her chin up. “When did I ever claim that I was free to marry you?”
Her question hit him like a crack of lightning. In fact, she’d said explicitly on several occasions that she was not free to marry him. All the same, he said, “You lied by engaging yourself to Freddy. Married women do not generally become engaged to other men.”
“You know full well the nature of that arrangement,” she said, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Freddy and I never had the slightest intention of marrying.”
Phin rubbed a hand over the bottom half of his face and adjusted his glasses, scrambling for a way to gain the upper hand again. “Does Freddy know about your husband?” he asked with a burst of energy.
Lenore lowered her head and clasped her hands in front of her. “No,” she admitted. “He doesn’t. My father doesn’t know either.” She winced and rolled her shoulders. “Although he might now. But if he does, he hasn’t said anything in the letters he’s sent me. None of my friends or family in Haskell has so much as hinted at the subject.” She frowned as though contemplating that fact.
“How on earth could your father not know you were married?” Phin asked, feeling as though he might actually be close to the heart of the issue.
“We married in haste,” Lenore said, her expression wary, as though her words were a massive understatement. “In Laramie, during the conference Papa was attending. Papa was busy.”
“I see,” Phin said in a wry, almost mocking tone. He absolutely did not see.
Lenore glared at him, as though she took offense to his tone. “I told you that I found direct evidence, proof, if you will, that Bart had killed men and was planning to murder even more who opposed him and the WSGA.”
“You did,” Phin said, his jaw clenched.
“He threatened to kill me right there on the spot.” The color drained from her face, and her gaze lost focus, as if she were remembering the incident. “I begged him for my life. Truly, I begged.” Her eyes were round again as she glanced to him. “Bart wasn’t particularly inclined to grant it to me. He had his revolver out and pointed at my head. And believe me, when death stares you in the face that bluntly, you will do anything to stay alive.”
“And what did you do?” Phin’s fury was suddenly directed at Bart Swan more than at Lenore. Any man who would threaten a woman like that wasn’t worthy of the word “man”. If Lenore was telling the truth.
“I told him I’d marry him,” Lenore said, pressing a hand to her stomach again.
Phin stared blankly at her. “Why?”
“Because in America, a wife can’t testify against her husband in a court of law,” she said.
“Is that true?”
Lenore shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know what the law in Wyoming says. But it was the best I could come up with at the time. Bart believed me, in any case. And not to be crass about it, but there were other things I could see he wanted from the arrangement as well.”
“Did you sleep with him?” Phin found himself asking out of pure jealousy, before he could think better of it.
“I just told you that I didn’t, but your jealousy is flattering.” She sent him a sour grin. “I managed to convince Bart he would be safer if we married as fast as possible, which meant before any horizontal activity could take place. We went straight to the Laramie courthouse and were married on the spot.”
“And is that legal?” Phin had serious doubts.
“Anything is legal when the county clerk has a gun pointed in his face,” Lenore said in a hollow voice.
Phin wanted to hold onto the slim hope that Lenore’s marriage to Swan wasn’t actually legal, but the marriage license seemed to prove otherwise. Even if it was obtained under criminal circumstances, he had a bad feeling that any Wyoming court of law would uphold its legitimacy.
Legalities aside, the circumstances as they were in the present remained the same.
“You are married,” he said, scowling all over again and taking a step toward her. “You lied by omission about your married state. To me and to all of your friends. To your family, even.”
“And what else would you have had me do?” Lenore demanded. “Be killed by a bloodthirsty murderer? Would that have satisfied your sense of honor?” She matched his attempts to show dominance in the situation by moving closer to him, her chin tilted up, making her more beautiful than ever. “Would it have been better if I’d burst into tears or fainted instead of done whatever the hell I could to save my life and get away from Wyoming as fast as possible? If you ask me, changing my entire life on a dime by asking Papa to bring me with him to England, going with him without so much as making a quick jaunt home to say goodbye to my mother and my family and my friends, knowing I might not ever see them again, is the bravest thing I’ve ever done. So for you to chastise me for it, for you to have the gall to be hurt because I was so frightened and overwhelmed by what I’d done that I didn’t even want to think about it, let alone speak of it, is—”
Phin stepped into her, clasping her face with both hands and crashing his mouth over hers in a kiss that not only silenced her, but hopefully banished every miserable thought from her mind. He was still boiling with anger over the way she’d kept the truth from him. If she loved him, surely she would have confided in him long before now. She would have explained from the start why she couldn’t marry him at present. He continued to be furious with her, but his heart and his body couldn’t resist her, no matter how wicked she was.
He kissed her possessively, harshly, even. That angry part of him wanted her to know she belonged to him, even if she didn’t. He kissed her with a rough passion designed to prove that he was the only one who had any right to her. He parted her lips and thrust his tongue against hers, owning her like a rogue. And like the courageous woman she was, Lenore grasped his sides, digging her fingertips into his body as if to tell him he could try to dominate her all he wanted, but she would always have the upper hand.
Only when Hazel cleared her throat and muttered, “Do either of you want this tea I’ve just gone through a heap of trouble to make or would you rather go to bed?”
Phin broke away from Lenore, frowning at his sister. He expected Hazel to wear a sly grin, but her expression was deadly serious. Then again, Hazel had seen enough of the darker side of life to know that the only way to get through it was to find humor wherever possible.