Morgan frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean. You never thought about sleeping with me, or you never thought about not sleeping with me? You can see they’re horses of a different color.” When she did not reply, he said. “All right. I’ll just keep going.” He thought he might have heard her moan softly, but he couldn’t be sure.
“You asked me once if Ida Mae Sterling gave good advice,” he said. “I figure that’s because she gave you an earful about me, and you were wondering if you could trust her. Is that about right?”
Jane nodded.
“Well, she was pretty free with her advice to me about you.” Even in profile he could make out the lift of Jane’s eyebrows. “I know. It probably seems strange since she’s known me a spell and you for about a minute, but she’s like that. Maybe I should have taken that more into account, but some of the things she said, I was already thinking. It made them seem truer. More like we had facts instead of just two wrongheaded opinions.”
Morgan paused, waiting to see if Jane would look at him. She did not. He judged her interest by the angle of her chin. At the moment, she was about as alert as anyone could be and still be sitting. If that chin came up another notch, it would yank her right off the sofa.
“When I lifted you off the train, my hands just about circled your waist. Holding you was like holding a flower stem. You had all those red poppies on your hat, so it wasn’t exactly a stretch for me to think like that. You’re so slight. Tiny bones, narrow hands. You can see how I thought I might snap you in two.”
“You were expecting Rebecca.”
“I suppose I knew that would come up. I can’t very well deny it, can I?”
“No. Her photograph is the reason you wanted another day to decide whether or not you’d have me for a wife.”
What had made sense to him at the time, sounded on the other side of appalling when he heard it coming out of Jane’s mouth. “Mostly because I thought I’d been lied to. It struck at my pride. No man likes to think he’s been made a fool.”
“No woman either.”
“No,” he said quietly. “No woman either.”
Jane said, “I am stronger than I look.” For the first time since Morgan drew her onto the sofa, she stole a sideways glance at him. “You are the one with broken ribs.”
“I surrender to your superior argument.”
Jane went on anyway. “Rebecca would not have been able to lay a fire in the dragon.”
Morgan nodded. “I got there on my own.”
“She does not know how to make hotcakes or goulash or honeyed ham.”
“Or fritters, I’ll wager.”
“Or fritters,” said Jane. “She has a fine hand for embroidery, but she has never mended anything in her life.”
“Probably has a personal maid to thread her needles.”
“She does not wash, hang, or fold clothes.”
“I already figured she doesn’t dress herself.”
“She could ride your horses, play your piano, even read to you if?—”
“If the words weren’t too big?” he asked.
Jane clamped her mouth closed.
“Jane?”
She shook her head.
“It’s all right. Were you listening to me at all? It was early days yet when I came around to thinking all of those things you just said. You didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.” He paused a beat. “Except maybe about the piano.” He glimpsed Jane’s small smile as humor asserted itself. “I’ll bet she’s ham-handed.”
Jane’s smile deepened. “No. She plays beautifully.”
“Oh. That’s a shame.”
