Page 24 of Seven Brides for Beau McBride (The McBrides of Montana #3)

“Would you like a spray of my perfume?” Diana asked, and Ellie recognized it for the extreme generosity it was, because Diana rationed that narcissus perfume tightly.

Ellie shook her head. She’d never take Diana’s special scent from her. But also, she much preferred the ghostly summer flowers of the hotel soap on her skin.

Arm in arm they went downstairs, bolstered by one another’s presence.

“Remember,” Ellie whispered as they reached the door to the dining room, “it’s you he wants.”

They stepped through the doorway and Ellie felt Diana’s fingernails digging into her arm.

The room had been rearranged; now there was a single long table stretching the length of it.

A cheerful fire crackled in the grate and candles danced in their sconces.

The sound of high-pitched chatter greeted them, and the room was bright with gowns in violets and blues and pinks and greens.

It was so enchanting that Ellie had to stop for a moment to take it in.

“I feel like I’m in a book,” she breathed.

“Well, your book better not be a tragedy,” Diana whispered fiercely.

Ellie followed Diana’s gaze to where Beau was backed against the wall. He was wearing his midnight blue coat again, only now it was spotless. His hair had been tamed, and it licked against his neck and jaw in delightful dark curls.

“Look at them all,” Diana hissed.

A semi-circle had formed around him, and the ladies looked so beautiful Ellie’s heart gave a squeeze. “Aren’t they lovely,” she breathed before she knew what she was saying.

Diana made a horrified, hurt noise.

“Not as lovely as you, of course,” Ellie said hurriedly. “I only meant, it’s like something from an illustration. Their dresses are so enchanting.”

But the damage was done. Diana’s eyes were shimmering again.

Ellie wasn’t used to being the steady one. Usually Diana was practical and cool, and she was the one weeping, usually over some delicious imagining. But of course Diana was fighting tears. Her soon-to-be-husband was like a bee in a bed of flowers right now. And bees loved flowers!

Ellie tried to catch Beau’s eye to no avail. He was tangled up in conversation.

“I won’t go over there, El, I just won’t.”

Ellie thought that was a mistake, but she knew Diana well enough to know she could be immovable. She certainly had her immovable face on right now.

“Junebug,” Ellie grabbed Beau’s sister as she flittered past, holding a basket of bread rolls. “Should we find our seats? Beau said Diana is sitting next to him.”

“Not according to the seating plan.”

That little witch. Ellie glared at her. “I’m sure you’ll find it is according to Beau’s seating plan.”

“No, Miss Newchurch is at the head of the table down there,” Junebug pointed to the far end of the table, “while Beau is all the way in the middle here.” She gave Ellie a look of angelic innocence.

“Excuse me,” Ellie apologized to Diana, “I just need a minute.” Ellie took Junebug by the arm and pulled her further away. “You move Diana next to Beau or I’ll…” Ellie struggled to think of an effective threat.

“You’ll what?”

Oh, the kid was smug. It was too irritating for words.

“Fine,” Ellie said, deciding abruptly on another course of action. “If you sit Diana next to Beau, you can borrow one of my books.”

That got her attention.

“Just one,” Ellie stressed. She might need more bargaining chips up her sleeve in future.

“Any one I want?” Junebug cocked her head and considered it.

“Any one you want. For one week,” Ellie added. “And then I want it back.”

“I do know what borrowing means,” Junebug said tartly. “Fine. I’ll sit her near him.”

“ Next to him.”

Junebug rolled her eyes. “Next to him.” Then she grinned. “For another book, I’ll sit you on his other side.”

“I don’t need to be near him. This isn’t my circus.”

The kid got a sparkly look at that. “What do you know of circuses? Have you ever been to one?”

Ellie blinked, startled. “Once. Two summers ago, we went on our day off.”

“Well, I reckon you can sit near me, then, and tell me about circuses.” Junebug lifted one of the rolls from her basket and tore off a mouthful with her teeth. “I’ve got an interest in circuses,” she said through her bread, and then she was off, dropping bread rolls onto side plates with her hands.

“I need your help.”

Ellie jumped a mile at the voice in her ear. “Oh my goodness, you startled me half to death. You’re as silent as a cat.” She turned to find Beau McBride looming over her.

“No, you were just a million miles away.”

“I wasn’t,” she lied. Although she might have been thinking about Junebug’s manners and that might have led her to thinking about Beau’s letters, which had led her to his stories about losing their mother, and their sisters, and thinking about Junebug as a poor motherless child, with no one to teach her manners…

“You’re doing it again,” Beau sighed.

“Doing what again?”

“Staring into space.”

“I’m not.” She fixed him with her full attention. “See?”

He pulled nervously at the cuffs of his coat and glanced over at Diana. “I need your help.”

Diana was standing miserably by herself, caught in a shivering net of candlelight. Ellie thought she looked exactly like a heroine on the cusp of a grand romance, the moment someone spied her across the room at a society supper and fell ravenously in love with her…

“I’ve already done it,” Ellie told him absently, caught up in her fancy.

“Done what?” He frowned, bemused.

“Helped you. Junebug’s going to sit Diana next to you.”

“I’d already sorted that. I said I’d talk to all these girls tonight if she sat Diana with me. We shook hands on it and everything.”

Ellie gaped. “Why that little…”

“Why? What did she get out of you?”

“A book,” Ellie sighed. “I said she could borrow a book.”

Beau looked impressed. “Very clever. She loves books.”

“But it’s a waste of cleverness, if you’ve already arranged things.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve arranged myself into a nightmare.”

Ellie didn’t understand.

“If I sit next to her, I have to talk to her.” Beau shot Diana a vaguely panicked look.

“And?”

“And I realized earlier that I don’t know how to talk to her. You should have heard me; I was a stammering idiot.”

Ellie doubted it. Maybe he felt like a stammering idiot, but he’d probably been… But then Ellie remembered Diana’s uncertainty. She hadn’t seemed impressed by his ardor or his fidelity at all. Maybe he had been a stammering idiot. Sometimes Diana’s beauty did that to men. Ellie bit her lip.

“Anyway, you have to sit next to me, so you can help me.” He took her by the wrist. “Come on, before Junebug hitches someone else to me.”

“Wait. You need to take Diana too.” Ellie pulled him towards Diana, who had been watching them surreptitiously. She heard Beau swallow hard. “Don’t worry,” she soothed. “I’ll be here the whole time.”

Honestly. How did he expect to marry the woman if he couldn’t even talk to her?

“Beau wants to escort us to the table,” she told her friend brightly. Discreetly, she pried Beau’s fingers off her wrist.

Somehow she herded them both to the table, and then everything was a whirl of color and noise as the ladies flocked to their chairs.

Ellie shyly introduced herself to Flora, who was beside her, and Frances who was opposite; they extended the introductions to Kate and Nancy.

Ellie almost felt like she was back at the boardinghouse.

“Everyone’s been just delightful,” Flora confided. “I initially thought we might end up at each other’s throats, but I think everyone’s so glad that he’s not a complete beast that they’re willing to be friendly.”

“And none of us chose to be in competition with each other,” Frances added.

“I’m quite relieved not to be the only one,” Nancy chipped in. “I spent the whole train journey imagining the worst. Like I’d arrive to find a burly monster of a man who’d beat me as soon as look at me.”

“Me too!” Ellie was relieved to hear she wasn’t the only one prone to imaginings. All her own awful daydreams surged up: the lonely cabin, the scary husband with big fists and unquenchable lusts.

“And I thought for certain I’d be all alone in the middle of nowhere with him, with no protection,” Nancy said, as though she’d plucked Ellie’s thoughts from the air.

Judging by the nodding and sighing, they’d all felt the same.

Ellie felt Beau’s elbow jabbing at her.

“I’m busy,” she whispered. He was interrupting Frances, who was describing her darkest fears, which were better than any gothic novel.

“ Help ,” he whispered fiercely.

Ellie plastered a smile on her face and passed Beau her bread roll. “Of course you can have it,” she said, as though he’d asked for it.

He frowned at it. “I’ve got my own.”

“I’m trying to be discreet,” she whispered, dropping the roll on his plate. “This way they’ll think you only wanted to ask me for my bread.”

“Why do we need to be discreet? You’re supposed to be helping me. That’s why you’re here. And I’ve got my own bread.”

Yes, but she was painfully aware that everyone was casting curious glances and eavesdropping madly. She didn’t want anyone to think she was after Beau for herself. She tried to use her eyes to convey that fact to Beau.

He looked exasperated. “You look like you’re having some kind of attack. I just want help. Tell me what I should say.”

She rolled her eyes and stole her bread back. “Start by giving her a compliment,” she suggested as she reached for the butter.

He had that panicked look again.

“You do know what a compliment is?”

“Of course I know what a damn compliment is.”

Rigby and Mrs. Champion chose that moment to start serving the table. The chatter rose as the girls exclaimed over the platters of roast beef and potatoes. Ellie’s stomach rumbled as her gaze followed the food.

“ Why do I have to compliment her?”

Ellie reluctantly tore her gaze from the food. “You just do. It’s called courting.” Ellie was painfully aware that Diana was sitting there on his other side, being ignored. “Go on.” She elbowed him.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said through gritted teeth. “That’s why I asked you in the first place,” he reminded her.

Honestly. “Well, practice complimenting me first,” Ellie suggested. “It will get the nerves out of your system.”

Beau looked her up and down. He seemed at a loss.

“Hurry up or I’ll be offended.” Ellie bit into her bread. Oh, it was good. Much better than anything on Mrs. Tasker’s table.

“I helped make these,” Junebug told the table proudly. “If there’s one thing brothers have given me practice at, it’s baking bread.”

The roll was fresh baked and fluffy and the creamy butter just melted in Ellie’s mouth.

“Stop that,” Beau told her.

“Stop what?”

“That face. It ain’t decent.”

“Is that your idea of a compliment?” Ellie eyed his plate. “Do you want your bread?”

He dropped his roll on her plate. “Have it. I’ve had a pained lifetime of Junebug’s bread; although she’s a sight better since Pip taught her a thing or two. Now, come on, help me.”

“You seriously can’t think of a compliment to give me?”

“You look a lot cleaner.”

“That’s not a compliment,” she said dryly as she buttered her second roll.

“What? You’d rather I said you were still dirty?”

“Compliment a woman on her hair. Her ribbons.”

“Diana ain’t wearing any ribbons.”

Honestly. She could see flashes of Junebug in him sometimes. “Compliment her eyes then.”

“How do you compliment eyes? They’re eyes.”

“I thought Junebug said you knew how to be charming?”

“What would she know, she grew up on a mountain with a bunch of backwoodsmen.”

Fair point.

“Try complimenting my eyes,” she suggested. “Go on. Take a look. I’m sure you can think of something.”

“Right.” He examined her eyes.

Ellie tingled as he stared deep into her eyes. Oh. It was like her stomach was falling slowly through the center of her. He was being a little too thorough, though, she thought as he kept staring. People were noticing. She cleared her throat, and he jerked, remembering where he was.

“You have the eyes of a confused badger,” he blurted, sounding surly.

Ellie pressed her lips together, refusing to give him the satisfaction of laughing. “How romantic.”

He made a despairing noise.

“You’ll win her in no time with compliments like that,” Ellie said sarcastically, turning her back on him.

She heard him curse under his breath as he turned to Diana.

Ellie piled her plate with beef, potatoes, pumpkin and green beans and poured gravy over the mountain of food.

Her stomach was pinching violently, and her mouth was watering.

She’d never seen so much food in her life—and it smelled so good.

Mrs. Tasker never had generous portions—she said she had budgets to keep—and Ellie felt like she’d been hungry for years.

Vaguely, as she ate, she heard Beau telling Diana that her hair was nice.

Ellie grinned. It was no confused badger, but it would do.