The Wedding Cake War

“Would you care to dance?”

Lolly looked up at him. She would give the moon to dance with this man, tall and elegant in his black dress coat and knotted silk tie. He moved without making a single extra motion, like a mountain cat. A panther, that was it. And his eyes were positively hypnotic, an odd gray-green, and twinkly, as if he were amused at something.

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Can’t?” His dark brows arched upward for a split second. “As in, you don’t know how? Or you are already spoken for? Or…you don’t wish to?”

“Oh, I do wish to, but…” No, she couldn’t possibly tell him the truth. He would think her a complete ninny.

Or would he?

“The truth is,” she heard her voice say, “I cannot raise my arms that high. My…that is, the top half of me will come undone.”

Colonel Macready stared at her. Completely unnerved by her admission, Lolly fiddled with the loose knot at her bosom. He swept his gaze over the gauzy lace covering her chest and shoulders, and suddenly his face changed.

“Your trunk went on to the next stop! Is that it?”

“How on earth would you know that?”

“Happens all the time. The Russell Steam Engine Line prides itself on two-minute station stops. They’ll bring it back tomorrow afternoon.”

“I am relieved to hear that. In the meantime…” She sent a surreptitious glance down her front.

“In the meantime, you could waltz without raising your arms. I will simply lower mine.”

She took another gulp of the interesting-tasting cider and rose unsteadily. “Very well. If you will promise not to laugh if, well, if shomeshing…that is, something…untoward occurs.”

Kellen swung her away to the band’s raucous rendition of “The Blue Bell of Scotland.” Not a waltz, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to put his arms around her and keep her talking.

They danced in silence for half a chorus, and then his black swan opened her mouth. What came out shocked him into a complete standstill.

“Colonel Macready, do you really, truly want to get married?”

He tightened his hand at her waist. She felt warm and soft under his fingers. No corset. Interesting.

“You want an honest answer, I assume?”

“Honest? Why, of course I want an honest answer. It is an honest question.”

“Well, then, yes.” He swallowed hard. “I do want to marry.”

“But why?”

“Why! What kind of question is that? Most men want to marry at some time or other.”

“Yes, but…I mean, why this way, with the Ladies Helpful Society stirring the pot?”

“Ah. The truth again, I gather?”

“Yes, please. It’s usually much more interesting than anything one could make up.”

“Well…” His throat threatened to close up tight. He swallowed again. “That is, I am comfortably situated and, well, I am getting older. And I find that I am…”

“Yes?”

He was beginning to sweat under his starched shirt. “In want of a companion. That is, a wife.”

She cocked her head and the fine dark eyebrows rose. “What for? You do your own cooking, I understand. Even your own ironing.” She looked from his chin to his toes and back. “And you look extremely well cared for, right down to your shiny gold cuff links.”

“Miss Mayfield, let me make something clear. I do not want a wife for the purpose of caring for me. I…well, I— My God, are you always so inquisitive?”

“Yes. Always. Up until a week ago I ran a newspaper office, you see. I got quite in the habit of asking questions. Also, it must be obvious that I have a personal interest in your reasons.”

“Ah, the Ladies Helpful Society again.”

“Exactly. Why ever would you put three elderly ladies in charge of choosing your life’s companion?”

“I can’t answer that. I just plain don’t know, unless maybe it’s because I gave my heart away twenty years ago and at my age I don’t expect to fall in love again.”

“Certainly not,” she said in a crisp voice. “Love is for the young.”

He missed a step.

“How old are you, Miss Mayfield?”

Lolly missed a step. Her stocking-clad foot smacked into the hard toe of his left shoe. She bit her lip. “I am twenty-nine and eleven-twelfths.”

“I am forty-three…”

She gazed up at his chin. My goodness, he didn’t look a day over thirty-five, except for that streak of silver at his temple. And the faint whisker shadow visible on his chin; why, he looked rugged and manly and…even a little dangerous.

“And two-thirds.” A conspiratorial glint of humor showed in his eyes.

“Ow!” She collided with his foot again.

“Miss Mayfield?”

“Colonel Macready?”

“Leora, is it?”

“Lolly.”

“My given name is Kellen. My grandmother’s family name. And…” He stopped in the middle of the ballroom and stood looking down into her face. “I would like—”

“Oh, theah you are, Colonel! Ah’ve requested a Virginia reel. You will partner me, won’t you?”

Fleurette eyed Lolly with a look that reminded her of a green glass bottle on her mother’s medicine shelf. The one that contained castor oil.

“That is, when y’all are finished heah, of course.”

Lolly caught Colonel Macready’s eye. Some devilish imp inside her pushed her lips open. “I do believe the colonel is quite finished.”

She spun away and limped—unobtrusively, she hoped—back to the green velvet settee where she sank down onto the soft cushion with a sigh. She would never, never learn to keep her mouth shut.

She bit her lip and watched the colonel swing Fleurette up and down the line of dancers while the band boomed out a reel. Fleurette’s yellow silk train twitched and jumped with a life of its own while the shiny brass instruments and one violin warbled on.

Lolly kept time with her stockinged toes hidden under her skirt, sipping the cup of apple cider she’d left on the side table. It tasted different now. Better. Warm and soothing when it reached her stomach. Her chest began to feel floaty, as if any moment it might sail away from the rest of her body.

Not only that, she thought in alarm, the tips of her— Heavens, she shouldn’t be having such thoughts!

Her nipples swelled into hardened peaks anyway. “Stop that!” she ordered under her breath.

She focused her attention on the yellow swirl of silk taffeta in the colonel’s arms and then on the colonel himself. How graceful his motions were as he swooped his partner around the room. And how tall and straight he was. She’d seen tall, handsome men before, but she had never seen one like this.

His tousled dark hair and mustache gave him a slightly rakish air, even though he was correctly dressed right up to his chin. His mouth moved, saying something to Fleurette, and his teeth flashed in a grin. Then his lips closed, leaving just a hint of a smile.

Fleurette gazed up into his face, her laughter trilling over the sound of the fiddle. Over the cornet, as well. The colonel’s chiseled features remained impassive, but his eyes—those unsettling eyes— like liquid jade—flicked over the line of dancers as if looking for something and then returned to his partner.

Fleurette’s lashes beat like gold butterfly wings against her pinkened cheeks. The colonel tightened his lips and looked up at the chandelier.

Lolly sat upright. At the chandelier? Was he bored? With the most ladified lady in the entire room? Why, they looked simply wonderful dancing together. The perfect couple.

So why was he staring at the ceiling?

Lolly’s toes curled under. A man as heart-stoppingly handsome as he was would always want a pretty partner on his arm. A pretty wife.

A pretty, slim wife.

Her breath gusted out in a rush. Oh, bother. She was not going to cry. Not one drop. She most certainly was not.

She would avert her eyes and…and have another sip of cider. She drew the cup to her lips.

Empty? Over the rim she saw Colonel Macready bow over Fleurette’s daintily extended hand, gently disengage himself from her fingers and head in Lolly’s direction.

Her heart flip-flopped. Her belly felt cold, and then hot, and then cold again. And farther down, between her thighs, a secret part of her throbbed to life.

“Oh, not you, too,” she breathed.

Before the colonel had completed three of his long-legged strides, a spoon tinked against a glass and everything—noise, motion and Kellen Macready—came to a halt.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?” Lolly tensed at Dora Mae Landsfelter’s commanding voice. Something momentous was going to happen. She could feel it.

“The Ladies Helpful Society of Maple Falls has a wonderful surprise for you this evening. A most unusual surprise, but I am assured by the committee members, Minnie Sullivan and Ruth Underwood, that it is perfectly proper. Colonel Macready? Will you step forward?”

“A Question Bee!” Carrie stared at Dora Mae Landsfelter’s beaming face, then tipped her head toward Lolly. “Does she mean like a Spelling Bee?” she intoned.

“I suppose so,” Lolly whispered back. “Why should our knowledge of those things matter to him? He wants a wife, not an encyclopedia.”

“Well,” Carrie ventured, “his wife will also be the mother of his children. Wouldn’t he want her to be educated?”

Fleurette swept toward them, a swirl of bobbing yellow ruffles. “What are y’all whisperin’ about? Are y’all talkin’ about me?”

“Not you at all,” Carrie assured her. “About the Question Bee.”

“Oh, that.” Fleurette tossed her curls. “Ah ’spect the colonel…” Her green eyes swept the room. “My, he is handsome, isn’t he? Ah think he desires knowledge of our background and upbringing.”

“He knows everything about me,” Carrie wailed. “What will I say?”

“Just tell him the borin’ ol’ truth, honey.” Fleurette bent toward the two women. “Could Ah join y’all on that settee? Mah poor feet ache somethin’ awful after all that dancin’.”

Carrie and Lolly shifted apart to make room, and Fleurette wedged her derriere between them. Two large puffs of yellow silk ballooned out on each side, spilling over Carrie’s green dress and Lolly’s black skirt.

“Oh, my, that does feel so much better. Now, what were we—”

“Ladies and gentlemen?” A spoon tinked for attention and the three gray-haired Helpful Ladies gathered in front of the refreshment table. Minnie Sullivan’s hands darted and swooped before her bosom. “Let me tell, Dora Mae. I was the one who thought of it.”

“It was my idea, Min. Don’t you remember? You had just finished your second serving of Ruth’s applesauce cake and—”

“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 bees beginning to swarm. Kellen was too stunned to respond.

Squeezed between the settee arm and Fleurette’s voluminous skirts, Lolly decided she had to stand up. Either that or fall asleep right where she sat. Already her toes were numb and the tingly feeling was beginning to move up her calves toward her knees.

She tried to rise, but she couldn’t struggle past the enveloping mountain of yellow silk. “Ahem,” she murmured.

Fleurette chattered away without dropping a beat.

Lolly shifted her weight. “Excuse me,” she murmured. She tried to press down the puffs of skirt material.

No reaction. Fleurette’s voice drawled on. And on.

Lolly didn’t want to make a scene, but she had to get out of there. Now. She could feel the lace shawl pulling away from the top of her camisole; two more minutes and it would unwind completely and she would be sitting here in nothing but her camisole!

Clasping one hand to her bosom to hold things together, she poked the other under the yellow silk, aimed for solid flesh and pinched.

“Oo-ooooh!” Fleurette sprang to her feet. “Well, really,” she huffed. “Ah do declare…” Her voice trailed off when the colonel stepped forward.

“Is something wrong?”

Lolly flinched. Had he seen what she did?

“N-no,” Fleurette stammered. She sent Lolly a venomous look. “Ah guess Ah was mistaken.”

But from the glint of amusement in the colonel’s eyes, Lolly would wager he knew very well what she’d done.

Now that she was unencumbered, she would try again to stand up and make as polite an exit as she could manage, considering that her head felt light and kind of swirly. She would rock her weight forward and straighten to a standing position, despite her dizziness.

She commanded her knees to flex. Nothing happened.

She stiffened her spine. On the count of three, then.

“Leora?” Carrie peered at her from the other end of the green settee.

“One,” Lolly said.

“One what? Are you all right? You look…”

“Two,” Lolly muttered under her breath.

“Leora?” A hand stretched toward her.

Three.

She tried. She really tried. But ever so slowly, she began to tip sideways. Oh, mercy and botherment. Her cheek touched the velvet. My, it felt so good to close her eyes and…

The next thing she knew, someone—a man she guessed from his strength and his piney-musky scent—was lifting her upright. She opened her eyes to see Kellen Macready’s face much closer to hers than seemed proper.

“Oh, h’lo,” she murmured. “You smell good.”

Kellen’s voice vibrated against her ear. “Miss Mayfield, put your arms around my neck.”

“I would if I could,” she whispered. “But they have stopped working.”

“In that case…” He lifted her off the settee, rolled her against his chest and began moving.

“Oh, please,” she moaned. “Not sho fast. I feel like I’ve sprouted wings and I’ll fly right up to the ceiling.”

“You won’t,” he assured her.

“How do you know?”

This time an unmistakable laugh rumbled in his chest. “Gravity is on my side.”

His voice sounded near her temple. “Close your eyes, Miss Mayfield. And don’t talk.”

Lolly obeyed. Oh, but it felt lovely to be held in his arms. Her head pressed against his neck; the silk tie he wore tickled her chin. He did smell good. So good she wanted to lick his skin and taste it.

“Miss Mayfield has fainted, I believe.” His deep voice resonated against her ear.

Oh, no, I haven’t fainted, an inner voice reminded. I never faint. Even if I think I might die, I don’t faint. At this moment she might be floating with the angels near the ceiling, but she certainly had not lost reason or consciousness.

Voices ebbed and sighed around her. One in particular cut through the woolly-bear feeling in her brain. “Well, Ah never…”

A door banged open and a rush of cooler air blew against her face and shoulders. As he descended the stairs, the colonel’s body sent a little jolt into hers at every step. She counted all eighteen.

“Miss Mayfield, where is your room?”

The sweet, drowsy feeling was spreading through her limbs. It was so delicious she didn’t want it to end. She shook her head.

He groaned. “You can talk now.”

“Dowanna,” she mumbled. “Wanna stay right here.”

He made the funny noise inside his chest and then groaned again. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, it would cause talk.”

“Don’t care. Been there before.”

A short silence. “For another, it would upset Dora Mae Landsfelter and the Ladies Helpful Society.”

Her lids flew open. “Oh! I forgot all about Dora Mae and…that. Tha’s why I was so scared all evening. Tha’s why I came to Maple Falls in th’ first plash. Place.”

“What is your room number?” he asked again.

“Ish room number…” Her mind went blank.

Kellen waited, breathing less steadily. “Yes?”

“Jush look for my shoes. I left them jush inside the door. Have pointy toes and they pinch.”

He guessed he had no choice. He stepped along the hallway with his burden in his arms, testing doorknobs, until he found one that opened. Sure enough, a pair of black leather pumps leaned against the baseboard. He kicked the door shut behind him, walked to the bed and laid her on top of the quilt. She curled up like a kitten, folded her hands under her chin and was asleep in an instant.

Kellen’s chest did something funny, as if a ripple had zigzagged from his throat to his belly. What the devil?

He spent a good five minutes just staring at her, noticing the scattering of freckles across her nose, the loose dark hair, sneaking from the bun at the back of her neck, the faint laugh lines in the outer corners of her eyes. She sure looked different from Careen and The Peacock.

And she sure felt different when he held her.

Damn. He had to get out of here. Now. Either that or risk a scandal that would destroy Miss Mayfield’s reputation.

He’d send Careen down to check on her. And tomorrow…

Oh, God, the Helpful Ladies and their bride competition! Tomorrow it would all start in earnest. How adept could a newspaper editor from dry, windswept Kansas be at greensward croquet?

Chapter Five

Shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight, Lolly moved along the board sidewalk keeping each footstep as smooth as possible to avoid jarring her head. This morning, the mere tap of her shoes on the wood planks sounded like cannon fire.