Coming Home to Wyoming (Peaceful Valley Series Book 1) by April Hill Page B

outdone herself, to the point of drawing hostile stares from some of the ranch and farm ladies, and openly lascivious sidelong looks from most of the male attendees, married or not.
    In a dangerously low-cut emerald satin gown with a bodice studded with tiny pearls, she looked a lot like visiting royalty might, while being entertained at the White House by President and Mrs. Grant. Not content with that, she had draped herself in gold and emerald jewelry, which Griff knew was nothing but paste and plate, but when she walked through a pool of gaslight, it all still sparkled like the real thing.
    Fifteen minutes after they arrived, the trouble he’d been expecting began—when Elyn sidled up to him with a cup of punch in one hand, and a dainty fistful of stings and barbs in the other. The first barb compared Amelia to Marie Antoinette—except for the missing wig.
    “In the history book we had in school, it said that a bunch of townspeople got together and chopped off Marie Antoinette’s head—just because she was so vain,” Elyn confided. “They had to bury the poor woman in two pieces—one really big box for her head in that wig, and… ”
    Griff groaned. “Would you please shut up and go get something to eat? It doesn’t look like we’ll be staying long. Coming to this damned circus was your idea, so you might just as well get something out of it.”
    “Aren’t you going to at least dance with me, before we leave?” she pouted, pulling a tiny white folder from her skirt pocket. “They gave me this dance card at the door, and there’s not a single gentleman’s name on it. I suppose you’ll have to dance every dance with me.”
    “And what about Amelia?”
    Elyn smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about her,” she said sweetly. “That’s one honey of a dress she’s wearing. She’ll be drawing flies all night. And I helped out just a bit by making out a dance card for her.”
    Two hours later, while Griff was dancing the last of three waltzes with Elyn, Amelia was sharing the same three waltzes with three different men—all of whom were several inches shorter than she was, one of whom was hugely overweight and sweating heavily, and one of them the balding, eighty-four year old minister of the Mill City Methodist Church. She sat out the evening’s lone polka in the company of a skinny cowhand with a broken foot named Floyd Muckle, whose missing front teeth made chatting difficult for him, and incomprehensible for Amelia.
    “It’s amazing, isn’t it, what they can do with hair dye, these days,” Elyn remarked, as Amelia swirled by once again, in the arms of another of her new “beaus.”
    Griff groaned. “All right, what’s wrong with her hair? And don’t try telling me it’s a wig, because I know damned well it’s not.”
    “Well, I have no way of knowing about the poor woman’s hair ,” Elyn conceded. “Although the curls do seem awfully rigid to be natural, but I understand that the color—twenty-five cents a bottle at the drugstore—can cause blindness, not to mention making a person bald as a billiard ball. She does have quite a nice, plump figure, of course, and I understand that broad hips and heavy thighs can actually be a blessing in bearing children. Still, I suppose there are many other women, like Amelia, who get down on their knees every night, and thank heaven for corsets and full skirts.”
    “Amelia isn’t fat,” he said sharply.
    “I don’t believe I said fat. Maybe… Yes, I believe the word I was looking for is buxom —like those women that famous artist… Rembrandt, yes, that’s it—the women Mr. Rembrandt painted, with just a bit too much bosom, and all those rolls of pink flesh. Still, your lady does have the loveliest little eyes. Very dark, almost black—like a snake.”
    In spite of how annoyed he was, Griff grinned. “And here I was, thinking you wouldn’t like the woman.”
    * * *
    Before leaving town that night, Amelia asked to be dropped off