won’t make it so.”
She wanted to hate the man towering above her. She certainly hated his calmness in the face of the horrible disaster unfolding before her. His insufferable superiority grated. He acted as if he had the answer for everything. He was arrogant, condescending and a shameless reprobate.
“Now that you’ve delivered your news, you can leave.” She wanted to be alone. She’d poured all her money, except the bank draft Uncle Clarence had promised, into remodeling this building.
Reeling from the banker’s revelation, she thought back to the day when Emma had tried to tell her something about the tavern having a bad reputation. Clearly her friend had found out about the brothel’s tawdry past but had been too much of a lady to come right out and say what the problem was.
“Do you have any brandy?”
Jayne’s thoughts came crashing back to the present. “There are no fancy women or alcoholic spirits on the premises.”
“Too bad,” he drawled, gingerly touching the bruise on his forehead. “You look as if you could use a drink.” .
“So do you,” she snapped, “but, that doesn’t alter the fact I have no alcohol.”
“No demon rum for Miss Stoneworthy, do I have that right?”
Sensing he was secretly laughing at her, she scowled. “If you want to ingest vile liquor, there are any number of saloons to accommodate you.”
“I’m not sure I can make it that far.”
Despite her intentions, reluctant sympathy surged within Jayne. “Perhaps you ought to sit down. Are you feeling dizzy?”
He shook his head, then groaned. “Maybe sitting is a good idea.”
Even though she knew she had every reason to abandon him to his misery, Jayne took his arm and escorted him to a chair. She plucked the green cushion from his downward descent and absently handed it to him.
“Perhaps a glass of water would help.”
“I wouldn’t turn one down.”
She didn’t understand why the sight of him running his lean fingers through the gold tassels on one of Aunt Euphemia’s embroidered cushions caused a tickling feeling inside her. She tugged at the pillow. “If you’re feeling faint, you should put your head between your knees.”
He eyed her balefully. “I have no intention of fainting.”
“No one intends on swooning. It just happens.” Why wouldn’t he release the cushion? The last thing she wanted was for him to read one of Euphemia’s pithy observations about the failings of men.
“Well, it’s not going to happen to me,” he virtually growled. His gaze fell to the neatly sewn letters on the pillow, and his fingers ceased their idle stroking. “I assume you’ve heeded the advice contained in this message.”
She had no intention of discussing the condition of her private furrow with Burke Youngblood. She had yet to find an easy way to explain her late aunt’s dismal opinion of the male gender. Euphemia, often absentminded and generally kind, had been rebellious of all masculine authority. She considered all pants-wearing members of the human race mentally deficient.
The older woman believed, with a passion that could foment a revolution, that males were completely inferior to females. She cheerfully expounded to anyone willing to listen that a woman was sufficiently strong and capable of living her own life without enduring the tyranny of any man.
“It’s my late aunt’s stitchery,” Jayne confined herself to answering.
He tossed aside the cushion and turned his head to take in more of Euphemia’s creations, ranging from a hand-painted p late that read “A good man is more rare than sweet-smelling elephant dung” to a plaque of varnished wood proclaiming “The hands that rock the cradle haul the water.” His roving inspection settled finally upon a painting of a scantily clad Grecian woman winning a footrace against three nude Greek runners.
Beneath the vividly colored picture, poking up from crumpled newspapers that lined an opened crate, was a twelve-inch statue of a nude female racer that Jayne hadn’t yet convinced herself to display, even in the privacy of her own bedchamber. As Mr. Youngblood reached to extract the figurine from the rumpled papers, she hoped he didn’t notice the startling resemblance she bore to both the runner in the painting and the statue. When she’d posed for the projects, she’d been fully clothed. Aunt Euphemia’s artistic eye, however, had rendered her niece otherwise.
She wished he didn’t seem so fascinated with the statue. The way his gaze caressed it greatly disturbed her. Since she’d scarcely envisioned anyone, other than herself, ever viewing the marble figure, she was unprepared for the hot wave of self-consciousness that flowed through her. Having him examine a female nude, especially one of her likeness, was excruciatingly embarrassing.
“Do you suppose you can walk downstairs unassisted?”
He returned the full force of his dark eyes to her. He looked exactly as he had moments before she’d whacked him. Maybe she ought to have kept that piece of two-by-four close by.
“I might need a shoulder to lean on.”
She doubted it, but would do virtually anything to get him out of her room and away from Aunt Euphemia’s statue. “Let’s give it a try.”
He carefully returned the statue to the crate. She braced both hands against his arm to steady him as he rose. He hadn’t taken more than two steps before he changed things so that his arm was draped around her. She suffered the familiarity and urged him forward. Slowly they made their way down the stairs he’d flown up two at a time. Though he wasn’t putting much weight on her, she was pressed tightly against his side. When they reached the jumbled confusion of the main room, she waited for him to release her.
Several moments passed with no action on his part. She frowned. Was he exhausted and about to lose consciousness again?
“I never realized before just how much I like the smell of sawdust mingled with lilac water.”
The husky observation made no sense. “I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind. I suppose you’re waiting for me to let go of you.”
“Can you? I mean without falling down?”
He chuckled, then audibly sucked in his breath. “You’re probably going to insist we find out.”
“Not if you’re too woozy to stand unassisted.”
“Ah, Miss Stoneworthy, you appear to have a much more forgiving nature than your aunt”
Jayne suppressed a smile. “If you’d tried to have your way with Euphemia, she would have shot you through the heart.”
“She was an expert with pistols?”
Was it her imagination or had he just hugged her? “Actually, archery was Euphemia’s sport. It would have been an arrow that dispatched you.”
“Poison-tipped, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” Jayne muttered absently. “Is there someone I can contact to see you home?”
“I’ll make it under my own power.” The pressure of his embrace eased. “But maybe I should rest before I try.”
He swept debris and sawdust from a chair and sat down.
“I could fetch a doctor.”
“There’s no need.” Youngblood stretched his booted feet before him. Despite his travails, he appeared surprisingly sound. “I wouldn’t turn down a glass of water, though.”
She’d been so busy trying to make him disappear, she’d forgotten about getting him a drink. “I’ll be right back.”
Counting the seconds