Jane Goodger Read Online Free Page B

he said to Carson, then turned to Amelia. “I hear your living arrangements have been resolved.”
    “At least until the wedding,” Amelia said brightly.
    Boone gave Carson a quick look, which Amelia saw but couldn’t quite interpret. “Right. Let me show you to your room. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do given the alternatives.”
    Amelia began to follow Boone, then turned to Carson.
    “Didn’t you think about this at all when you sent for me?”
    “I just figured it’d work itself out,” he said, grinning.
    For some reason that grin, that used to make her heart melt, was slightly grating. It was almost as if Carson thought he could grin everything away. If he murdered a man in cold blood, no doubt Carson would truly believe he could wink and smile at the jury and get off scot-free.
    Boone led her into a cool hallway that seemed almost dark compared to the brightness outside. “The garden is lovely,” Amelia said.
    “It’s a nice bit of color.”
    They passed a door with frosted glass and the word “Office” stenciled in black on it. In the corner, in much smaller letters, were the words: Boone Kitteridge, M.D.
    Amelia stopped dead.
    “Mr. Kitteridge.”
    “Yes, miss.”
    “What is this here?” she asked, pointing to the door.
    “My office,” he said, as if stating the obvious. Boone Kitteridge, unlike his brother, who could talk the paint off a wall, was a man of few words.
    “Are you a medical doctor?”
    He continued down the hallway. “I am.”
    Carson’s lies about his older brother loomed even larger. He’d had her completely convinced that his brother was a simpleton who needed him. It was the reason, he’d repeated over and over, for his need to return home before they married. He could not wait, he’d said, because his brother needed him to help run their fictional ranch. His dimwitted brother.
    “You went to university?” she asked.
    “Tulane in New Orleans.”
    Amelia stalked after Boone, feeling her anger and bewilderment toward Carson grow. Had everything been a lie? She knew many of the stories he’d told had been embellishments, or even downright fabrications. It had been part of his charm. But to lie about the most basic things, like what his town looked like, that his brother was slow, that he owned a ranch. Those lies seemed so unnecessary, and somehow cruel.
    The lies were piling up so high it was beginning to get difficult to wade through them all. He told her that he loved her, but did he? He told her that he’d sent for her, but had he?
    With her throat closing up from unshed tears, she found herself in a sunny, whitewashed room with a simple but clean bed in one corner and a chest of drawers in another. It was far smaller and far simpler than the meanest servant’s quarters back home in Meremont.
    “The toilet’s down the hall. Second door. It’s the only one in Small Fork,” he said, with a hint of pride.
    When she didn’t react, he said, “I suppose you’re used to such things.”
    “What? Oh, the toilet,” she said absently, staring at the lacy curtain that fluttered limply in the arched window, as if it were unused to catching a breeze. “Yes. We have several. I…”
    “You all right, miss?” Boone asked, taking a step toward her.
    “Thank you, Mr. Kitteridge, I’m perfectly well,” she said, even though she felt completely horrid. “Or should I call you Doctor Kitteridge?”
    “That’s not necessary,” he said, sounding almost embarrassed by the title. “I’d just as soon you call me Boone.”
    Suddenly, Amelia felt light-headed, from the heat, the stress, the lack of food. “Boone,” she said calmly. “I do believe I’m going to faint.”
     
    Boone immediately led her to the bed. She was deathly pale, her skin bathed with sweat.
    “Agatha, I need a cool cloth,” he shouted, grabbing one wrist and holding it to feel her rapid pulse. “Are you wearing a corset, Miss Wellesley?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Well, I suggest you