“Why, Dora Mae Landsfelter, don’t tell me you counted my desserts?”
“Goddammit to hell,” a deep voice rolled over the assembly. “I cannot abide squabbling females.”
“Oh, of course not, Colonel,” the two women sang in unison.
Colonel Macready strode through the tittering crowd. “It was my idea, if I remember correctly. I proposed it to Mrs. Underwood an hour ago.”
Minnie’s hands fluttered. “Oh, yes. Yes, you are quite right.”
“And since it is the only suggestion the Helpful Ladies have allowed me to contribute—” he made his way to the front of the room “—let’s get on with it.”
“Well put, Kelly,” a voice said.
“Ask yer questions, Colonel,” another man added. “We’re sure ’nuf curious about what these here ladies think about…things.”
Beside her, Lolly felt Fleurette’s silk-swathed body stiffen. Could the woman be nervous? She had sufficient fancy background and aristocratic upbringing to answer a hundred of the colonel’s questions. Lolly could only pray none of them would touch on Abolitionist newspapers in Kansas.
“Question One,” Dora Mae Landsfelter announced. “Colonel? You may do the honors.”
Kellen stood perfectly still, surveying the three samples of femininity squashed together, their fluffed-out feathers settling over their nests. The peacock’s showy plumage nearly buried both Careen and Miss Mayfield.
He chuckled under his breath. Life was too short not to enjoy this. He sank into an upholstered wing-backed chair, loosened his neckpiece and picked up his cue from Dora Mae.
“Question One,” he reiterated. “What about Maple Falls interests you the most? Miss Gundersen?”
Careen jerked as if an elbow had been jabbed into her ribs. “My students,” she said without hesitation. “They ask so many questions. Naturally, I try to answer every one.”
A murmur of approval ran around the room. It sounded curiously like industrious bees humming in a hive. Kellen leaned back against the brocade and smiled at Careen. She was very practical-minded, the epitome of a dedicated schoolteacher.
“Miss LeClair?”
Fleurette tilted her head coquettishly. Two bright eyes fixed on him and then disappeared under a fluttery fringe of descending amber eyelashes. The perfect rosebud mouth opened.
“Why, Colonel, what interests me most here in Maple Falls is your home.”
Someone—it sounded like Sol Stanton—guffawed, but Miss LeClair proceeded undaunted. “After all, a bride wants to know wheah she will be livin’.”
Kellen kept his expression as impassive as he could. A shot of applejack would help, but Matt Underwood was whispering in his wife’s ear and Kellen couldn’t catch his eye. He turned his attention to the black swan.
“Miss Mayfield?”
She did look lovely in that lacy black getup, her cheeks rosy, her blue eyes slightly unfocused and her nose…
Good God, her nose was bright red! She was snockered! An English heritage, he would guess; their cheeks and noses reddened under the influence of spirits.
He wanted to laugh. Correction, he wanted to throttle her. Something inside him couldn’t bear to watch her make a fool of herself. In the next second he wanted to protect her. Oh, hell, he wanted to…
It was too late to retract the question. Say something simple, he urged her. Something short, using words of only one syllable.
The tip of her tongue slipped out to wet her lips and he heard a tiny sound. Oh, Lord, she had the hiccups.
Her mouth opened. “I think…” She closed her lips and frowned, and Kellen saw her throat tighten in another spasm.
“I think what interests me most about Ma-aple Falls is you, Colonel.”
Kellen blinked. “Me!”
“Precise-ly. What I find most intri-guing is why you would let the La-dies Helpful Society choose a wife for you. Oh, I understand about building the new sch-ool, but, to be honesht, uh honest, I would think—”
Kellen sent a desperate look toward the refreshment table. Do something!
Dora Mae nodded. “Question Two,” she stated in a piercing tone.
Thank God. Kellen wet his own lips and dug his notes out of his breast pocket. “Yes, well. Question Two is…what makes you happy? Miss Gundersen?”
Careen’s face lit up. “Oh, that’s easy, Colonel. I like solving things, like riddles. Or arithmetic problems. I like to figure things out.”
Another approving buzz circled around the hive.
“Miss LeClair?”
The pale eyelashes swooped down, then up. “Ah am happy when Ah can please others. Especially one particular Other, if you take my meanin’.”
Kellen unclenched his fingers. Meaning taken, yes. But believed? Not unless pigs flew south in the winter.
“Miss…” He caught himself just in time. Had the black swan had time to conquer her hiccups? He bent forward on the pretext of flicking a speck off his trouser leg and sent a surreptitious glance at Miss Mayfield.
She sat straight as a queen, her hands clasped in her lap—or what he could see of her lap under Miss Peacock’s voluminous skirt. And she was looking him straight in the eye. A challenge.
Ask me, her expression said. Get it over with.
“Miss Mayfield?”
“Flowers,” she blurted. “Flowers make me happy. Yellow ones. And sunsets and bread-baking smells and peach ice cream and running barefoot in long green grass and lovingsomeonelikeIlovedmyfather….” She paused for air. “There’s much more, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.”
So there, her gaze said.
Well-done. He congratulated her with a silent nod.
And just in time, too. Miss Mayfield’s eyelids were beginning to droop. The applejack had caught up with her.
“And now,” Dora Mae announced with a flourish, “the Last Question. Colonel?”
Kellen crumpled his notes in his fist and took a deep breath. The question he really wanted to ask wasn’t on his list. In fact he hadn’t thought of it until this moment.
He shouldn’t inquire about something so personal. But he had to know. He had to.
He took in a deep lungful of air and plunged. “The last question is, Why on earth are you interested in marrying me?”
All three women gaped at him.
Careen recovered first. “Every eligible female in this town would simply die to marry you, Colonel. Surely you don’t find that surprising?”
Miss LeClair responded as Kellen would have predicted. “Ah have heard on good authority that yoah a brave military officer and a Southern gentlemen. And that is exactly what Ah am lookin’ for.”
And his swan?
Miss Mayfield’s head nodded toward the yellow-silk-clad shoulder on her right.
“Miss Mayfield?” He sent her an urgent unspoken message. Wake up. Hoping the sound of his voice would rouse her, he repeated the question in a louder tone. “Why are you interested in marrying me?”
The blue eyes popped open. “Why? My gracious, I think that would be obvious. I don’t want to be an old maid!”
Laughter. Then the humming of animated conversation rose and eddied about the room; it sounded exactly like a hive of