Page 44 of Fairest of Heart

She nodded but didn’t give any further answer. The way she dipped her chin snagged Titus’s attention, however. He remembered that look. She’d looked the same way when he’d asked her about Gerard Carlisle.

Titus’s gut tightened. “Penelope, did Hunt hurt you?”

When she finally lifted her face, tears shimmered in her wide eyes. “He helped me in the end, so don’t rush off to arrest him, all right? He was only carrying out Madame’s orders. She gets in these rages sometimes . . . it was partially my fault . . . I was trying to help Mildred . . . I thought if I wore the dress, Mildred would be able to get the alterations corrected, but Madame saw it as an act of betrayal . . . sh-she went a little crazy . . .”

Titus struggled to make sense of the disjointed story. All he knew for sure was that Hunt had done something worthy of an arrest. To Penelope. Something Madame LaBelle had ordered.

Shoving aside his own rising tension, Titus reached out and clasped Penelope’s hand, seeking to comfort her the way she had him. She stilled at his touch, and her gaze finally melded with his.

“What did Hunt do to you?”

She inhaled a shaky breath, and he felt a tremor course down her arm.

“He’s the one who tied me to the tree.”

19

By the time she finished telling Titus the story of how she came to be cast out of Madame’s troupe, Penelope felt as if she’d been stripped bare again. Exposed, not to the elements this time, but to the scrutiny of a man whose opinion mattered more to her than it probably should. Doc, bless his heart, must have sensed her ragged state, for he shooed her off into the kitchen, telling Titus in no uncertain terms that any further questioning could wait until after supper.

He was such a dear. They all were, really. Even Jeb with his grouching. A small smile touched her lips as she took out a mixing bowl from the cupboard and measured out flour, sugar, cornmeal, soda, and salt. She’d never had grandparents growing up, but the Lord had blessed her with seven grandfathers to watch over her when she’d been at her most vulnerable. Seven grandfathers and one Texas Ranger.

A disturbing tickle ran through her midsection at the thought of Titus watching over her. Good heavens. She really needed to stop thinking of the man as some kind of romantic hero. He was a man doing a job. That’s all. He needed her for information, nothing else. He held her in no particular esteem. Why, he would’ve arrested her without a single qualm had she been guilty of a crime . . . which made him a man of integrity. She sighed. Another reason to admire him. Was there no escape?

Swallowing a small growl of frustration, she added milk and eggs to the dry mixture and whipped a wooden spoon through the batter. She stirred until her arm grew tired, diligently searching the bowl for any dry bits of meal and flour as if they were grains of gunpowder that would ignite if she didn’t thoroughly dampen them.

Get your mind where it belongs, Pen. On cooking.

The admonition might have worked had the Ranger inducing her ticklish thoughts not walked through the back door right after she’d scraped the last of her batter into a cast-iron skillet.

“Mr. Kingsley!” She startled at his unexpected appearance, the spoon in her hand wiggling wildly enough to splatter a blob of yellow batter onto the front of her apron.

So much for looking her best the next time she saw him. Oh well. Maybe that little dose of reality would keep her mind in check.

Titus pulled his hat off, then rubbed a hand over his head as if to fluff up the wavy hair that had been flattened by his Stetson. Her pulse jumped at the idea that he might be wanting to make himself more attractive for her benefit, but she squelched the unhelpful notion. His head probably just itched.

“I, uh, brought you something.” He held out a sling bag she hadn’t noticed him carrying. An olive-green one she thought never to see again.

She dropped her spoon into the empty bowl and took a tentative step toward him. “Is that . . . ?

“It’s not everything. Mildred said your dresses had already been cut up for rags, but she had pulled together the rest of your belongings and slipped them to me after Mr. Billings and I finished searching the personal quarters of all the troupe members. I made some excuse about how they might offer some insight that would help me track you down, and Billings encouraged me to take them.” Titus moved a step closer, his movement drawing her to meet him by the edge of the table. “There’s not much here,” he said with a shrug, “but maybe having a few belongings restored to you will provide some comfort.”

Penelope reached for the bag, her heart pounding in her chest. When he placed it in her hand, her legs wobbled, and she had to grip the back of one of the kitchen chairs to steady herself. It was heavy. Praise God, it was heavy. Her books. They had to be inside.

She slipped into the chair and gently laid the bag on the tabletop in front of her. As she peeled back the cloth flap, she stretched the opening wide and peered inside. One by one, she extracted each treasure, the joy of discovery so keen, she found herself constantly blinking away tears.

Her Bible. She clutched the holy book to her chest and kissed the top of the leather spine. Thank you, Lord. If the rest of the bag were empty this would be enough. But the rest of the bag wasn’t empty. It held an abundance of riches. The photograph she and Edith had taken together in front of Miss Wyndham’s school and the small packet of letters the dear woman had written. Her hairbrush and pins. And Oliver! A whisper-soft chuckle escaped her as she extracted her battered copy of Oliver Twist. Such a faithful companion. “‘My dear child,’” she quoted under her breath, stroking the cover, “‘you need not be afraid of my deserting you, unless you give me cause.’” Or unless she was abducted again. But she couldn’t imagine such a thing happening under the watchful eye of so many Diamond D men.

She set the book aside, then smoothed the bag against the table, surprised when her fingers rubbed against a lump at the bottom. Not knowing what it could be, she reached in and clasped the rolled-up item. Stiff ribs met her fingers. Boning? She peeked inside, a grin stretching across her face. Mildred, you angel! She’d packed Penelope’s corset.

Beaming, she jumped to her feet and just barely stopped herself from throwing her arms around the Ranger’s neck.

“Oh, Titus! I never expected . . .” She wrapped her arms around herself and bounced on her toes. “What a precious gift.”

Light touched his eyes, and his mouth turned up just a bit at one corner. It softened him. Made him seem more man than Ranger. A man who, in that moment, seemed to care more about her than about what information she could provide to his investigation.

Penelope released her hold on her midsection and touched his arm, needing somehow to convey the depth of difference he had just made in her life. “Thank you.”

A frisson of energy radiated up Titus’s arm from the place where her fingertips brushed against his bicep to course through his chest, causing his heart to start thumping at an abnormal rate. What was happening to him? He was supposed to be immune to beautiful women.