A Texan's Honour. Kate Welsh
breathed a sigh of relief. The man had already passed the Philadelphia-bound train and was moving farther from Alex’s position, as well.
He thanked the employee for his help and hurried off to hop aboard the train bound for Philadelphia. He made it just as the conductor shouted a last call for riders to Philadelphia. A quick turn and survey of the remaining crowd showed that no one seemed to have taken any notice of him.
He could only hope he was right and that his ruse had worked.
It was midday of their second day on the rails. Jamie’s eighty-foot-long private car was opulent by anyone’s standards. On entering from the front of the coach, one encountered two staterooms and two bathrooms along a narrow hall plus fold-up sleeping berths for four crew members. Both he and Patience had tried to give their stateroom to the Winstons, but the older couple had refused and claimed two berths in the crew area he hadn’t thought he’d use until Patience almost literally fell into their lives.
A kitchen and formal dining area came next, though he hadn’t planned to use the kitchen, either. They took meals from the train’s kitchen, delivered by an efficient porter named Virgil Cabot.
Lastly there was a parlor area Virgil had called an observation room when he had shown them around just after they’d arrived. Behind that lavishly appointed section, with its larger-than-usual windows, was a covered observation platform. He’d asked that Jamie’s car be the last on the train so the platform promised wonderful panoramas on their way west. None of them had wandered out there as yet, though, preferring to remain unobserved as much as possible for Patience’s sake.
Alex looked toward that lovely young woman, her head bent to her stitching as she spoke in soft tones to Heddie. Once again he felt his entire body tighten with need and that need wasn’t only sexual. He was deeply touched by her plight and her determination, as well. That was a dangerous combination for him. Because she wasn’t just any young widow. She was under his protection and as untouchable as a virgin.
He found himself forever in debt and grateful to Heddie and her quiet husband. It was heartwarming the way she’d swooped in like a mother hen to gather a lost chick under her wing. Winston simply exuded benevolence toward Patience with frequent and surprising smiles.
Unfortunately watching the older couple interact with her was a poignant reminder of the warmth and kindness he’d lost with his mother’s death and the loneliness that had never left him since.
Patience laughed at one of Winston’s dry quips. My, but she was bright as a new penny today! Thus far she’d spent a lot of her time peppering the Winstons with questions about their lives and devising ways to fit her into their past. Alex couldn’t hear exactly what she said as she rehearsed the story of Patience Winston’s life but the murmur of her voice kept drawing his thoughts to her. And sparking his curiosity about how they planned to explain where a daughter had been during the years they’d worked in the houses of upper-crust families.
He doubted any inquiries would happen but it paid to be prepared.
He found his gaze constantly drawn to Patience even when she was merely reading or hemming another of Amber’s discarded dresses as she was at that moment. It didn’t seem to matter that she wasn’t doing anything remarkable. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Nor could he help notice the more miles that piled up behind them, the more relaxed and less shy she seemed.
Except around him.
With him she made only the stiffest of polite conversation at meals. It was clear she’d rather he were not there. It was a lowering thing. Most women went out of their way to converse with him. He had to admit her avoidance stung even though he understood it.
But her behavior caused him to worry about more than his stinging pride, too. If the way she acted around him was her normal way around men, all her preparations would be for naught. Because he realized her demeanor didn’t come across as shy, but instead as fearful, and when she had to deal with others it would stand out, calling attention to her.
So after a while he had two reasons—one altruistic and the other supremely selfish—to sit across from her in the parlor portion of the car when the Winstons vacated their chairs to sit in the dining area. He had to get her to feel more comfortable around him.
Alex refused to examine too deeply why it seemed so necessary. It could only be to help further her masquerade and he knew it. He wasn’t sure a woman could ever heal from the kind of damage her husband and now her father had inflicted on her.
“So how far have you come in writing the life story of Patience Winston?” he asked.
She looked up from her notes, startled.
Afraid.
Then she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, seeming to reach deeply into the same inner well of courage that had helped her face death in her tree-climbing escape. Again she found enough bravery to look at him steadily. “We plan to tell everyone I was born on a New Jersey farm owned by Heddie’s older sister. She was wealthy, widowed and childless.”
“And this can fit with the Winstons’ lives and personal histories?”
“Yes. Heddie and Winston went there after her sister Esther’s husband died. Heddie was expecting at the time but the child didn’t live more than a few weeks.”
Alex glanced toward Mrs. Winston where she sat toward the front of the car. “That is so very sad.”
Patience nodded. “After that, Heddie took up a post as head housekeeper for her sister’s home and Winston became the butler. The farm began to fall on hard times because the foreman stole a great deal from Esther.”
“It happens,” he said in an airy tone that had him wincing. He no longer wanted to be that man who hid his every deep thought behind a wall of careless comments. Patience stared at him, a tiny frown showing in her usually unlined forehead. She was as alone behind her walls as he was behind his. He didn’t know her well enough to scale hers or break down his before her, either. Instead he motioned for her to go on.
It took her a short moment of examining her notes before she looked up and began again, all signs of disappointment in his character gone. “Heddie and Winston left in pursuit of income to send back to help pay debts and keep the farm going and to keep Esther in the privileged lifestyle she’d come to expect. The farm was to go to them upon her death except it went for taxes instead. That is where truth and fiction depart.”
She looked at her lap, drawing his gaze to her knotted fingers. “The story will go,” she continued, “that they left their daughter—me—with Aunt Esther to be raised genteelly. Aunt Esther had me educated by governesses in her home where she kept very much to herself.”
“Good. That will explain your cultured speech and manners. I’d worried.” He’d worried about her classic beauty, too, but didn’t want to make her ill at ease again by mentioning it.
“The Winstons worried, as well, which is why we formulated the tale this way.”
“So, go on with your story. How is it that you’ve joined up with your parents on a trek to the West?”
“When Aunt Esther died two years ago, I joined them in San Francisco and was hired by your cousin as a governess.”
“We had better make sure Jamie and Amber know of this. Amber is an involved parent who still teaches Meara on her own.”
Patience nodded. “I have begun a letter to send to Amber so she knows in case there is an inquiry into the Winston family. Heddie apparently took Miriam Trimble’s place as housekeeper because Mrs. Trimble was too elderly to keep up with both the staff and act as nursemaid to the earl’s daughter.”
Alex chuckled. “I would love to hear Mrs. Trimble’s reaction to that being said of her—the old warhorse.”
A frown crinkled Patience’s forehead, her brows pulling together in a V. “Warhorse? But she has been described to me as all that is kindness. Amber loves the woman.”
Now