The Courtship. Lynna Banning

ma’am. I’ll just step in and see if he’s busy.”

      Jane willed her gloved fingers to rest in a ladylike manner atop her reticule while the clerk disappeared through a doorway. What if he’s occupied? What if he wants to see all our family private papers, Papa’s will and the deed to the house? What if he says no?

      “Just step this way, ma’am. Mr. Wilder’s always happy to see a pretty lady.”

      I’ll just bet he is. Rydell Wilder had a Past, her mother had whispered over the years. Papa had been less subtle. “No background, no breeding, and a damned Yankee besides.”

      Clamping her lips tightly shut, she followed the young man in icy silence, listening to her black leather shoes tap-tap on the polished wood floor. When the clerk thrust open a heavy oak door, Jane’s heart jumped.

      She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

      But you will. You must. She sucked in a breath so deep her corset pinched and forced her feet through the doorway.

      The man behind the desk rose. “Jane,” he said, then caught himself. “Miss Davis.”

      “Mr. Wilder.”

      “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

      Jane steeled herself, stepped toward him and extended her white-gloved hand. Too late she saw the dark smudge on the palm, where she’d laid her hand on the dusty front gate.

      He didn’t seem to notice. “It’s been some time since I’ve seen you,” he said, his voice low and oddly tense. “How are you? And your mother?”

      “Why, we’re just fine, Mr. Wilder. Thank you for inquiring.”

      He hesitated, an alert, almost wary look in his steady gray eyes. Well and no wonder, she thought. Papa never did like him, and made no bones about saying so.

      “Please sit down.” He drew up a slat-back oak chair and gestured. Jane noticed the cuffs of his white shirt were rolled back, revealing tanned wrists and forearms sprinkled with dark hair. The sight made her uneasy. The dark jacket that matched his trousers lay on the chair behind the desk.

      She wished he would put it on. Rydell Wilder was tall and lean and good-looking, even if he was a Yankee. His mouth, especially. Unsmiling as it was, the lips were well-formed. She remembered from school days that he rarely smiled. His mouth had seemed thin, pressed into a hard line. Well, he had been struggling then, she reminded herself.

      As she was now, she admitted with an inward sigh. How time altered things.

      He settled himself into the chair behind the desk. “What can I do for you, Miss Davis?”

      “I—” Her throat closed.

      “Yes?”

      “You know…about my father’s death.” It was as far as she could get at the moment. She worked to keep her breathing steady.

      “I do know. And I am sorry, as I said.”

      Honey, not vinegar, she reminded herself. To catch a fly, a Southern woman uses charm and lightheartedness. She tried to smile at him.

      “Mr. Wilder, my father—through no fault of his own, mind you—left us with some…er…obligations.”

      “Debts, you mean.” The bank owner’s voice was gentle but firm.

      “Why, yes, I suppose you could call them that.”

      Do not prevaricate, Jane. It is beneath you. Papa owed everyone in town, from the liveryman to the mercantile owner. She’d found the notes in the box of private papers in the chiffonier. Even Mama didn’t know about them. She’d rather die than admit their existence to a Yankee. But…

      “Oh, all right, debts.”

      “How much?”

      “Over two hundred dollars.”

      His dark eyebrows rose. “Are there assets?”

      Jane’s stomach clenched. “Just the house. Papa built it when he came out West after the War to work for Uncle Junius on the newspaper. Since Uncle passed on a year ago, well, the house…” She swallowed hard. “It’s in need of some few repairs, but it’s all we have now.”

      Rydell leaned forward, folding his hands on the desk. “And?”

      And. Jane stared at his hands. The long, tanned fingers sent a jolt of awareness into her belly. His hands had held guns, had handled gold. His hands, she had heard her mother whisper, had touched women. Many women.

      She wrenched her gaze away, studied the wall behind his dark head. “Well, Mr. Wilder, I have come to a decision. A very difficult decision, you see, because…” Her voice faltered.

      “I can imagine,” he said quietly. “This must be hell—uh, hard for you.”

      With all her heart she wished he hadn’t said that. The very last thing she wanted was understanding. It stripped her pride away, left her exposed. Vulnerable.

      But, in for a penny, in for a pound.

      “I have decided to establish a business in Dixon Falls. A dressmaking shop. I am quite a capable seamstress, you see….” She made another attempt at a smile, but tears stung under her lids. All these years she had dreamed of going back to Montclair, imagined how it would be when they lived again with Aunt Carrie. Odelia would help with Mama, and they would plan picnics and a ball in the summertime. To think that now she had to beg like a common…a common laborer.

      Oh, God, can this really be happening? I am sitting here in Rydell Wilder’s bank at noon on the hottest day yet this July, asking—begging!—for money?

      “How old are you, Jane?”

      His voice was low and quiet, but the question sliced through her muddled thoughts. She stiffened. “How old…? Not ‘How much do you need?’ or ‘How do you intend to proceed?’ but ‘How old am I’? Why on God’s green earth would you want to know that?”

      “I know how much you’ll need,” he said. His mouth quirked toward a smile. “And how you intend to proceed; you’ll roll up those lacy sleeves and go to work. What I need to know is what my risk is.”

      “Your risk? What about my risk? I am prepared to offer our home as collateral.”

      “I don’t want your home. As you said, it’s in disrepair, and besides…”

      Every nerve in her body jangled into excruciating attention. “I am twenty-six years old,” she blurted. “If you don’t want the house, what do you want?”

      He did smile then, a slow, sensuous curving of the lips, and a light flickered deep in the cool gray eyes. He paused, assessing her with an odd mixture of amusement and pain. “I want to make you a deal.”

      “What kind of deal?” Her voice sounded tight.

      Rydell waited a full minute before answering her. She would never know how many years he had thought about such a moment, a time when Jane would again turn to him for help. His chest felt like a horse had ridden over it.

      He’d wanted Jane for so long he couldn’t remember a time when seeing her didn’t make him ache. He knew about the debts her father had incurred, about the state of their house. At least a dozen times he’d planned to go to her, in spite of her father’s disapproval, and offer a proposal of marriage.

      “I’ll lend you three hundred dollars, enough to pay off your father’s…obligations, rent you a store, and get you started in business.”

      Jane sat bolt upright. “You will? Just like that?” She narrowed her eyes. “With no collateral?”

      Rydell smiled. “A deal, as I said.”

      That she wanted to be independent surprised him. He had to admit he admired her for wanting to try setting up her own business, but the truth was he wouldn’t