Texas Tiger

chapter 11





"Have you discovered who ABC is yet?" Georgina whispered as she and her hostess recovered her evening wrap.

"Mulloney," Loyolla whispered back, finding the taffeta pelerine and placing it on Georgina's shoulders. "You should have asked Peter. He could have told you."

Fury was an ugly emotion, Georgina decided as she smiled graciously, adjusted her wrap, and replied with calm, "That would have ruined the surprise. Thank you so much, Mrs. Banks. I had a wonderful evening."

This last was said in the presence of her host and Peter as they waited at the door. She didn't even look to see if Daniel noticed she was leaving. He had been as insufferable as every male in here all night, and she no longer cared what he thought. She had hoped he would set this company on its ears and force them to open their minds, but he had done nothing but evade argument all evening. She had hoped he would stand by her side and support her when she attempted to voice her views, but he had laughed at her instead. She didn't know the man who had appeared tonight under the guise of newspaper editor, and she didn't want to know him.

Georgina let Peter take her elbow and steer her into the humid night. There was a rumble of thunder in the distance and a flash of heat lightning on the horizon. Her father had sent the carriage back for them, and Peter assisted her into the covered interior, climbing up behind her with athletic ease. Peter was a wealthy, handsome man. He would have no trouble finding another wife.

He certainly wouldn't want her as one when she got through with him.

Artemis Mulloney owned ABC Rentals, Inc. Artemis Mulloney had hired a thug like Egan to terrify his tenants into paying. Mulloney was responsible for the squalor and misery his tenants lived in. And Mulloney told his eldest son everything.

It was more than Georgina could stomach. This whole evening had showed her that she didn't belong in this society any longer. She had thought Peter the best to be had, but now that wasn't good enough. She had thought her father a reasonable and kind man, but his actions of late had proved her wrong. She was obviously no judge of character, but she finally knew what she wanted and what she didn't want. She wanted to help those people in those tiny houses, and she didn't want to marry Peter Mulloney. And she didn't want to live under her father's thumb any longer.

Peter's smooth baritone broke the oppressive silence. "Your father is right. I think we need to move the date of our wedding to the first of the month. We can take a long honeymoon and learn to know each other better without the constraints of our families around us."

She wondered if Peter would kiss her if she agreed. Now that she had decided to be rid of him, she was curious about what she would miss. She didn't have much experience at kissing, just a few furtive attempts by slightly inebriated young men at parties. She had fantasized for years about how Peter's kiss would feel. But there had only been an occasional peck on the lips to feed her fantasy these past weeks since her return. She wanted more.

"Whatever you think best," she replied meekly, knowing the darkness would hid her lie. She was beginning to think she'd lied to Daniel when she'd told him she couldn't lie.

"Georgina..." Hesitantly, Peter reached for her gloved hand. "I don't want you to be unhappy. Is there something I can do or change?"

He could disown his father, pay his workers better, give them shorter hours, and stools to sit on. He could fire Egan and repair those rental houses. There were probably innumerable corrections he could make to the mill and the gas plant and who knows what other places his family owned. But that wasn't what he was asking.

"I don't suppose you could disown your father?" she asked, just as a sap to her conscience, to say she had tried to communicate her problem.

Peter chuckled and lifted her chin with his fingers. "He's not that bad. And we'll have a house of our own. You never asked about that, Georgie. Do you want to see it?"

Before she could reply, he placed his lips against hers.

It was an interesting experience. He'd been smoking a cigar and drinking brandy, she decided. She could taste the flavors on his mouth as he pried at her lips with his. His tongue came out to taste the seam of her mouth, and she gasped slightly at the sensation. It seemed an incredibly vulgar thing to do, but she knew Peter was far from being vulgar. She allowed it briefly before pulling away. So that was what it was liked to be kissed.

It hadn't been unpleasant. She had hoped for more and so felt slightly disappointed, but slight disappointments were as nothing anymore. She had all she could do to deal with the major disappointments she had run into lately.

Peter was quiet as the carriage rolled up the drive. He continued to hold her hand, but there was no further demand for attention. Perhaps he was satisfied that she was in his control now. Men had that attitude, she'd noticed. She wore his ring. Soon, if he had his way, she would live in his house and have his babies. That somehow made her his possession in the minds of men. She would want for nothing.

It was a much better life than most. She would be a fool to throw it in his face.

Georgina made a gracious farewell in the foyer and left Peter to join her father in the study, no doubt to discuss the impending nuptials and whatever marriage contract they had decided on. She knew her grandmother had left her part owner of Hanover Industries. Her father had the controlling shares, so she was owner in name only, but Peter might be intent on changing that. It didn't matter any longer.

She went upstairs and quietly began packing her bags.

It was difficult to decide what she needed to take with her to her new life. She wasn't at all certain that her family would allow her back to remove anything she had left behind. They would be so furious that they might never speak to her again. That was her intent, but the notion was painful, nonetheless.

She consoled herself with the knowledge that it was for everyone's good. Peter deserved a supportive wife, and she would never be one. Her mother didn't need a daughter who would constantly disrupt her life and make her ill. Her father wanted a dutiful daughter and she wasn't. And Daniel... Well, what she was about to do wouldn't really hurt Daniel at all. Men only increased in reputation by this sort of nonsense.

She packed sensible dresses, or the closest she had to sensible dresses. She found good, solid walking shoes. In the midst of June it was difficult to think of winter, but she made sure she had a heavy winter cloak to carry with her.

She had only the one satchel, and she wasn't at all sure how she would carry it, so it didn't take long to fill. She would have to leave all her books and perfumes and ribbons behind. She had some pearls and a few gold and ivory pins that might be sold if necessary. She had her quarterly allowance in a purse she pinned to her corset. It wasn't much, but it would keep her until she figured out what she could do. She hoped Daniel would reconsider and hire her back, but without her camera, he wouldn't have much use for her. Perhaps she could learn to make those sketches she had seen in city papers.

If nothing else, she could sew. Her much-heralded education had taught her that. If the Harrisons could survive by sewing, so could she.

Georgina waited until the house was quiet before leaving her note and slipping out to the small stable and carriage house her father kept. She was an expert horsewoman, but her father kept only carriage horses. She couldn't have saddled them if she had tried. But the friendly pony of her childhood was still here, growing fat and sassy for lack of exercise. She had been able to saddle him since she was a child.

He whickered willingly when she fed him sugar she'd stolen from the kitchen. He wasn't quite as happy when she saddled him and tied her satchel on; he was even less so when Georgina mounted. But he was too old to learn new tricks, and he trotted out of the barn obediently when she applied her heels.

The thunder that had threatened earlier was directly overhead now, and the heat lightning had become something a little more forceful. Georgina jumped nervously as it flashed on the other side of the city and the thunder cracked and rolled. But the rain held off, and for that, she was grateful.

She didn't know if she would be able to keep the pony. Feeding it might be too expensive, but she had worn her heavy riding skirt anyway. She wouldn't have a carriage to get around in any longer, and she would need something practical to maneuver the streets. A riding skirt afforded a considerable amount of freedom.

And Georgina felt remarkably free as she rode through silent, empty streets. A cool wind blew in with the storm, and even the air wasn't hampered by the heavy humidity any longer. She felt light and unburdened and wildly happy for the moment. She would have no one but herself to account to now. It was exciting and scary and exhilarating beyond anything she had ever known.

Of course, the closer she came to her destination, the more she worried. She ought to be worrying about the dark alleys and furtive shadows and the rain that started to drop in great splattering plods in the dust and against her coat. But she was more concerned about the scene that would surely unfold once her father found her gone and read her note. It wasn't going to be pleasant, and she was involving an innocent man.

But she was quite certain Daniel could handle anything. He was an odd man with many facets who revealed little of himself, but from what little she had seen, he knew how to take care of himself. If she hadn't seen him bring down a man twice his size with his bare hands—or feet, as the case might be—and watched him terrify two bullies with a fancy display of gunfire, she might have thought twice about this. He didn't seem the sort to actively defend anyone or anything. With his mild manners and spectacles and limp, he seemed more the type to hide behind books than to lash out at evildoers. He certainly wasn't the kind of white knight a girl dreamed about. But he would do.

It wasn't as if she was asking him to look after her for the rest of her life. She was perfectly content to do that herself. She just needed someone to ruin her long enough to get away from Peter and her family. Someone like Daniel ought to be perfectly adequate for that, and his reputation wouldn't suffer any for it, either.

The rain hit as she turned down the street leading to Daniel's office. In just the time it took to hitch her horse to a post, Georgina was drenched. Under the influence of her newfound freedom, she didn't care. There was no one here to complain or scold if she wished to stay out and play in the rain. She could drip across the floors with impunity. It was her skirt and her life and no one had any right to interfere.

So she climbed the stairs, satchel in hand, with a smile on her face. There was no lantern, but the rapid flashes of lightning through the upper-story windows gave her an occasional glimpse of where she stood. She probably looked like a drowned rat, but she couldn't hold back her smile. Freedom was terribly sweet.

She pounded on Daniel's door with a grin, imagining his reaction when he found her here. He couldn't even put her out on a night like this. The heavens were obviously on her side. She hummed to herself at the muffled sounds from the other side.

A dog began a frantic bark that left Georgina momentarily bemused, but the door finally fell open, and she was looking up into bespectacled gray eyes beneath an unruly cowlick. He'd removed his fancy coat and waistcoat, but from the looks of his rumpled shirt, he hadn't been to bed yet. She could see the lantern gleaming on the table beside the armchair she had noticed earlier.

"May I come in?" she asked with all innocence, pulling her dripping hat from her equally wet curls.

Daniel blinked in disbelief. "Georgina?" He glanced over her shoulder as if expecting someone to appear to save him. When no one did, he stared at her again, shaking his head. "What are you doing here?"

"Dripping wet and getting cold. If you don't want me in, may I use one of these other rooms to change?"

That was probably the wisest idea, but just the suggestion of it made him throw open the door and move out of her way.

She marched in, dragging her satchel and trailing a line of water. The German shepherd took one look, yipped in happiness, and threw himself at her. Georgina dropped the satchel and grabbed the dog as it rested its massive feet on her shoulders, staggering slightly before she got her balance. She rubbed its head happily as he slurped at her face.

"I suppose if you'd been an armed robber, he would have rolled over at your feet and panted for you to rub his belly," Daniel said, disgruntled.

"He's gorgeous. Where did you get him? Papa never let me have a dog, but I love them."

"He's a..." Daniel halted as Georgina hugged the dog, set him down, and began to pull off her saturated frock coat. The linen shirt beneath was as wet as the rest of her—and much easier to see through. It molded to the perfect shape of breasts round as small melons.

Unaware of the cause of Daniel's sudden silence, Georgina held out the coat with despair. "Do you think it's ruined? I'll never be able to afford another. Do you think I should wring it out? Do you have a basin? I don't want to soak your floors."

"Georgina." Daniel coughed nervously. "I think perhaps you had better go in the other room and change. We'll worry about your wet things then."

Georgina gave him a swift look, but in the light of only one lamp, she could see little of his expression. The lamp light flickered off his spectacles, hiding his eyes entirely. "You don't mind? I had nowhere else to go."

"I don't imagine what I think has anything to do with anything at the moment," he said dryly. "It's raining out, I don't own a carriage, and you need to get dry. We'll take it one step at a time."

She detected a note of censoriousness in his words, but that wasn't precisely anything new. He wasn't throwing her out, and she suspected she had the rain to thank for that. She smiled, lifted her satchel, and sailed into the room with the press machines.

She would more than likely give him heart failure before the night was over, but the idea of actually shaking up a man for a change was a pleasant one. They always had all the control. It was always their houses, their businesses, their carriages, their horses, their plans. Women had nothing to say about any of them.

But tonight, just for a little while, she would make the men in her life jump through her hoops. Then she would be free of them once and for all and could go on with her life.

She hadn't anticipated getting soaked in the process, but it worked into her plan very nicely. Daniel had evidently never considered her as a candidate for seduction. She would never have showed up here had she suspected he might. So if she hadn't arrived soaked, she would have had some difficulty in providing the correct atmosphere for the next scene of this play. Of course, there was every possibility that her father wouldn't show up until sometime tomorrow when she was fully dressed again and Daniel was gone to find someplace to dump her, but she meant to be fully prepared for any development.

"Do you have a towel?" she called as she pushed the heavy material of her skirt to the floor.

Georgina heard Daniel muttering in the far room before a hand came around the door, dangling a fresh towel. So he had someone to do his laundry. She was glad. She didn't like a sloppy man.

Covered by her shirt and petticoat, she stood behind the door and took the towel. She wouldn't risk giving Daniel any ideas, even if she meant to convict him of them. The hand abruptly disappeared, and the door closed once she held the linen.

Peeling off the rest of her soaked clothing, Georgina briskly dried herself. The girls she had gone to school with had never stripped to the skin in their lives, but they hadn't been the types to get themselves soaking wet either. Georgina liked the feel of being naked.

Her hair was a saturated tangle that kept dripping down her back. Unpinning it, she tried to brush out the worst of the water, then wrapped it in the damp towel. She didn't think Daniel would look at her as any more than a drowned rat, but she would have to make it look a lot worse than that. With her hair secured in the towel, Georgina rummaged through her satchel.

She drew out the filmy Parisian nightgown the girls had given her when she had left finishing school. They had told her it was for her wedding night, but she had never been able to imagine wearing it. The silk was so fine she could see right through it. There wasn't any lace or ruffles to disguise the bodice. There weren't even any sleeves to speak of, just little ropes of silk. It was the most scandalous, decadent thing she had ever seen, even worse than anything she had ever bought on her own. Even for a good cause, Georgina had doubts about wearing it.

But it was the only nightgown she had brought with her, and it would be much more effective than if she pulled on a cotton chemise with all its girlish frills. She just couldn't decide if she ought to wear her cotton drawers under it.

At home she would have worn her drawers beneath a linen nightgown and not thought anything of it, but something about the drape of the silk told her that this nightgown wasn't made for drawers—at least not the bulky ones like hers with cotton ties and elastic at the knees and accented with eyelet ruffles.

Georgina contemplated the problem long enough for Daniel to call out from the other room to ask if she was all right.

Taking a deep breath, she decided against drawers. She was, for all intents and purposes, naked. But she really didn't want Daniel to know that. Not just yet.

And so she called for a blanket and prayed.