Wishes by Jude Deveraux

falsehood?”
    “If the shoe fits, wear it,” he said before he thought.
    She glared at him. “You may leave now, Mr. Montgomery. And I do not believe you should return.”
    “Nellie, I apologize. I didn’t mean to say that about your sister, even if it is true. I meant—” He didn’t continue because Nellie was looking at him with a great deal of anger. “Nellie, please walk out with me. Just leave everything here and walk with me. Let me show you how much you mean to me.”
    “As you just did in the pantry? No, Mr. Montgomery, I think not. I know what I am. I am an old maid who happens to have a rich father. You need not bother wasting any more of your time on me now that I have seen through you.”
    The pleading look left Jace’s face and was replaced with one of rage. “I have never been dishonest with you,” he said through clenched teeth, “and I do not like being accused of dishonesty.” He stepped toward her, and Nellie stepped back. The anger on his face was frightening. “Someday, Nellie, you’re going to have to make a choice—either your own life or your family’s. I’m willing to help, but not when I’m called a liar and told I’m courting a woman merely to get her father’s money. If you took a little time to get to know me, you’d find out I’m not like that. I’m—” He broke off. He wasn’t about to tell her what he was like. If she believed her sister, believed what someone else told her instead of what she knew to be true, that was her problem. He wasn’t going to defend himself to her.
    He took his hat from the table. “If you want to be an old maid, that’s your decision. It was nice meeting you, Nellie,” he said, and then he turned on his heel and left the kitchen.
    For a moment Nellie was too stunned to think. She stared at the empty doorway, unable to move.
    So, she thought at last, Terel had been right. He wanted only her father’s money. When he knew he wasn’t going to get it, when he knew Nellie had been told of his devious plan, he left.
    For a moment Nellie considered going after him. For a second it occurred to her that it didn’t matter whether he wanted her for her father’s money or not. Whatever had caused his interest in her, the afternoon and evening they had spent together had been the happiest hours of her life. She closed her eyes and remembered being on the wall with him, the way he’d made her feel light and pretty. She remembered his head being in her lap as they talked. She thought of the way he’d sung the hymn and how the tears had coursed down his cheeks. And today in the pantry. She had never before felt passion, and it was a new and heady experience. She folded her arms across her chest and rubbed her forearms.
    Money, she thought. All he’d wanted was her father’s money, and as Terel said, he was courting a fat old maid to get it.
    Behind her the kitchen door swung open. “She wants her lunch,” Anna said, sullen at having to do some work.
    Nellie came back to the present. “Yes, I’m coming,” she said, gathering up the tray and food.
    Terel was sitting on the bed reading, pillows propped behind her, her silk skirt wrinkled beneath her. Nellie put the tray across her lap and began hanging up Terel’s clothes.
    “There is no flower.”
    “What?” Nellie asked absently. She kept seeing Jace’s eyes. He had been so angry at her. Maybe she shouldn’t have accused him as she had. Perhaps she should have gathered a little more proof that his intentions were dishonorable. Maybe—
    “You always put a flower on my tray,” Terel said, as though she were on the verge of tears. “Oh, Nellie, you don’t care about us anymore, only about him.”
    Nellie took the tray off Terel’s lap, pulled her young sister into her arms and stroked her hair. My child, Nellie thought. Terel is the only child I’ll ever have. For a moment she felt like crying, too. Perhaps the only chance she’d ever have of having her own home and family had