Page 41 of Seven Brides for Beau McBride (The McBrides of Montana #3)

Thirteen

Ellie had a wretched time of it, watching Beau take Diana’s deluded advice to heart.

It was bad enough that he was spending time with all these girls who weren’t Diana, but it was infinitely worse how much he seemed to enjoy it.

On Monday he’d sat at one of the dining room tables with Mabel and Frances, cutting paper snowflakes and stars to decorate the hotel for Junebug’s party.

The sound of his laughter raked Ellie like nails on a chalkboard.

On Tuesday, he’d tied on an apron and let Nancy boss him around in the kitchen, icing cookies, also for the party.

When Ellie had walked through he’d had the nerve to wink at her, the ass.

On Wednesday, he’d sung Christmas carols with Flora, Kate and Frances, their voices bouncing exuberantly around the hotel.

Of course he had an incredible singing voice.

It sent shivers down Ellie’s spine. On Thursday, Diana showed him how to make paper flowers and, one by one, the other girls had joined them, until they were filling the hotel with bunches of the stupid things.

It ended up being a party before the party.

Ellie had sat peevishly in the parlor, pointedly reading her book.

All of that was bad. But what was worse was imagining all the things she couldn’t see. What happened when he was out of sight with them? Was there hand holding? Kissing? More? Her imagination ran riot.

“He hasn’t kissed me yet,” Diana confessed when Ellie could no longer contain herself and brought it up.

Diana was making the final adjustments to Ellie’s dress for the party.

Ellie had overruled Junebug’s nonsense about low cut dresses and had insisted the rose-pink dress be high necked and full sleeved.

She wasn’t here to seduce the stupid man.

She seemed to be the one person who wasn’t.

“Do you think he’s kissing them , though?” Ellie peered through Diana’s bedroom window down at the street below. The creek had a crust of ice on it but there was still no snow. She couldn’t see Beau anywhere, even though he and Flora had headed out for a walk.

“You’d have to ask them,” Diana said stiffly. She gave Ellie an odd look.

“Oh Diana, I’m sorry.” Ellie turned away from the window. “I’m being thoughtless.”

“Has he kissed you ?”

Ellie flinched. But then she realized Diana didn’t mean it. She was just being sharp after Ellie’s thoughtlessness. Ellie gave a nervous laugh. “Don’t be silly. I’m not involved in this.”

“He asked me to come with him to choose a Christmas tree this afternoon, so maybe he’ll kiss me then,” Diana mused, sitting back on her heels and straightening Ellie’s hem. “Or maybe I’ll kiss him.”

“That’s a great idea,” Ellie said quickly, ignoring the hot spurt of acid in her belly.

“There, you’re all done.” Diana rose to her feet and turned Ellie towards the mirror.

Oh. Ellie blinked. Maybe they’d been right about her brown dress.

Maybe its overwhelming ghastliness had infected her.

And maybe they were right about her yellow-ish dress too.

Because Ellie looked like a different person in this pink dress.

She didn’t look like wallpaper at all; the dusky pink made her eyes shine and gave her a perfect roseleaf complexion.

The simple cut of the dress flattered Ellie’s figure, and the high neck framed her face; Diana had included a tiny frill in a square design around her chest, with little fabric buttons running down her neck and between her breasts, creating more of an illusion of curves than usual.

The flare of the skirt low on her hips also accentuated their shape.

“Oh El, you look beautiful.” Diana stood back and admired her, her sincerity evident.

No one had ever called her beautiful before. Ellie’s eyes welled with tears.

“Don’t cry all over it,” Diana scolded. She handed Ellie a scrap of material to wipe her eyes with. “Now, we need to think about your hair.” She took Ellie’s single braid in her hand. “Do you want it down, or shall I make you a crown?” She wound the braid around the top of Ellie’s head.

Ellie reminded herself she wasn’t trying to catch anyone’s eye. “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

“It does. If you wear it down, you’ll have to wash it tomorrow. You don’t want it to have been braided or it will go all bushy again. You need to plan for these things.”

Ellie had trouble tearing her gaze from her reflection.

She was plagued with imaginings: descending the stairs in this dress, Beau catching sight of her, his eyes widening and twinkling and growing hot, his lips parting.

He’d be overcome by her beauty. And then when she paused at the foot of the stairs, he’d notice that she’d come to rest under the mistletoe…

“No,” she said flatly. “It doesn’t matter. No one will be looking at me.”

Diana frowned.

Ellie knew how it would be in reality; a vivid new image swam to mind of Ellie descending the stairs in Diana’s wake, like a shadow.

Beau would catch sight, his eyes widening and twinkling and growing hot, his lips parting.

He would be overcome by beauty. Diana’s.

Or Flora’s. Or Mabel’s. Or someone with copious and symmetrical attractions.

Not a skinny plain girl like her, no matter whether her hair was bushy or not.

“Ellie.” Diana snapped her fingers in front of Ellie’s face, to bring her back to reality. “What on earth are you imagining, to get such a look on your face?”

“Nothing,” Ellie said hastily.

Diana cupped Ellie’s face in her hands. “Tell me.”

“No,” Ellie said, horrified, pulling away.

Diana gave her a look. “You’ve been like this ever since that night you got lost in the woods. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

Absolutely not. Never.

Diana sighed. “Fine. But I’ll listen whenever you decide you want to talk. I hate it that we don’t talk anymore.”

“You know me. It’s just woolgathering,” Ellie said weakly. “And we do talk.”

Diana’s eyebrow lifted and Ellie winced.

“We will talk,” she amended. “I guess the last couple of weeks have been… unexpected… and difficult.”

“I think I forget that you came here to get married too,” Diana said softly. “And that it must have been disappointing to find that your Mr. McBride was my Mr. McBride.”

Ellie flinched. “No. It’s fine. I only came here for you. I don’t care.”

But Diana was still staring at her with open sympathy.

“I really don’t,” Ellie insisted. “All I care about is your happiness!”

“I know.” Diana sighed. “If you take the dress off I’ll press it for you, and you can take it up to your room.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“I should have the yellow ready in a couple of days. Then you’ll have a new day dress too.” Diana bit her lip. “And Ellie? It’s okay to be disappointed. You can love me and care about my happiness and still want what you want…”

Diana was so good to her, Ellie thought miserably as she wriggled out of the beautiful pink dress.

And how had she repaid such goodness? By kissing Diana’s fiancé!

She paused, dress in hand, as she caught sight of Beau and Flora wandering back towards the hotel.

They were both carrying arms full of fir branches and talking animatedly.

Flora looked very flushed. Was it a just-kissed flushed? Ellie couldn’t tell.

“So have you kissed anyone yet?” Ellie winced as she heard the words exploding from her mouth later that night.

She and Beau were in Mrs. Champion’s little front room, practicing his dancing.

It was too cold for the stable tonight. They’d pushed the furniture back and were twirling about by lamplight.

Ellie knew she was flirting with trouble but she couldn’t seem to resist when he invited her to help him.

Besides, if she didn’t do it someone else might, and the mere thought made her burn.

Everyone else was manically preparing for tomorrow’s Christmas dance.

The tree was being decorated, the paper snowflakes hung; Diana was weaving paper flowers into chains; Mrs. Champion, Mabel and Nancy were cooking up a storm; Junebug was bossing everyone around.

And they all thought Ellie was up in her attic room, reading.

Beau missed a step. “Jesus, Ellie.”

“What? I’m just asking.”

“A nice boy doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Did you kiss Diana while you were getting the tree this afternoon?” She just couldn’t help herself. She’d been torturing herself all afternoon imagining it. She was seriously losing her mind. She wanted him to be kissing Diana, and yet the very thought of it made her want to smash things.

“She didn’t tell you?”

Ellie didn’t dignify that with an answer.

Without music all they heard was their feet making muffled thudding noises on the rug. “Can’t you hum like normal?” she complained.

“I’ll do you one better,” he said, amused by her temper. “I’ll sing to you.”

Now it was Ellie’s turn to miss a step.

He gave her a wolfish grin. “I’ll give you one of my sister-in-law’s favorites. She likes the romantic ones.”

Ellie shook her head. “There’s no need for singing. Humming is fine.”

He ignored her. Because he was an ass. Ellie felt herself break out in goosebumps as his voice curled around her like a silky ribbon. I’ll take you home again, Kathleen… He had a smokiness to his voice that was like a shot of whiskey to her system.

He knew it too. Look at that smug grin. To where your heart has ever been / Since you were first my bonnie bride.

Oh God, he smelled good. Like resin and pine from the Christmas tree, that garden soap, and then a unique Beau-smell that was warm and male and intoxicating.

Against her best intentions, Ellie felt herself melting into him.

He glided her in slow circles, crooning about his love for some woman named Kathleen.

Like he needed another woman in his life.

“I think you’ve mastered dancing,” Ellie said thickly.

“Just in time, given the dance is tomorrow.”