Scandal Meets Its Match (The May Flowers #7) - Merry Farmer Page 0,54

that I was free to marry you?”

Her question hit him like a crack of lightning. In fact, she’d said explicitly on several occasions that she was not free to marry him. All the same, he said, “You lied by engaging yourself to Freddy. Married women do not generally become engaged to other men.”

“You know full well the nature of that arrangement,” she said, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Freddy and I never had the slightest intention of marrying.”

Phin rubbed a hand over the bottom half of his face and adjusted his glasses, scrambling for a way to gain the upper hand again. “Does Freddy know about your husband?” he asked with a burst of energy.

Lenore lowered her head and clasped her hands in front of her. “No,” she admitted. “He doesn’t. My father doesn’t know either.” She winced and rolled her shoulders. “Although he might now. But if he does, he hasn’t said anything in the letters he’s sent me. None of my friends or family in Haskell has so much as hinted at the subject.” She frowned as though contemplating that fact.

“How on earth could your father not know you were married?” Phin asked, feeling as though he might actually be close to the heart of the issue.

“We married in haste,” Lenore said, her expression wary, as though her words were a massive understatement. “In Laramie, during the conference Papa was attending. Papa was busy.”

“I see,” Phin said in a wry, almost mocking tone. He absolutely did not see.

Lenore glared at him, as though she took offense to his tone. “I told you that I found direct evidence, proof, if you will, that Bart had killed men and was planning to murder even more who opposed him and the WSGA.”

“You did,” Phin said, his jaw clenched.

“He threatened to kill me right there on the spot.” The color drained from her face, and her gaze lost focus, as if she were remembering the incident. “I begged him for my life. Truly, I begged.” Her eyes were round again as she glanced to him. “Bart wasn’t particularly inclined to grant it to me. He had his revolver out and pointed at my head. And believe me, when death stares you in the face that bluntly, you will do anything to stay alive.”

“And what did you do?” Phin’s fury was suddenly directed at Bart Swan more than at Lenore. Any man who would threaten a woman like that wasn’t worthy of the word “man”. If Lenore was telling the truth.

“I told him I’d marry him,” Lenore said, pressing a hand to her stomach again.

Phin stared blankly at her. “Why?”

“Because in America, a wife can’t testify against her husband in a court of law,” she said.

“Is that true?”

Lenore shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know what the law in Wyoming says. But it was the best I could come up with at the time. Bart believed me, in any case. And not to be crass about it, but there were other things I could see he wanted from the arrangement as well.”

“Did you sleep with him?” Phin found himself asking out of pure jealousy, before he could think better of it.

“I just told you that I didn’t, but your jealousy is flattering.” She sent him a sour grin. “I managed to convince Bart he would be safer if we married as fast as possible, which meant before any horizontal activity could take place. We went straight to the Laramie courthouse and were married on the spot.”

“And is that legal?” Phin had serious doubts.

“Anything is legal when the county clerk has a gun pointed in his face,” Lenore said in a hollow voice.

Phin wanted to hold onto the slim hope that Lenore’s marriage to Swan wasn’t actually legal, but the marriage license seemed to prove otherwise. Even if it was obtained under criminal circumstances, he had a bad feeling that any Wyoming court of law would uphold its legitimacy.

Legalities aside, the circumstances as they were in the present remained the same.

“You are married,” he said, scowling all over again and taking a step toward her. “You lied by omission about your married state. To me and to all of your friends. To your family, even.”

“And what else would you have had me do?” Lenore demanded. “Be killed by a bloodthirsty murderer? Would that have satisfied your sense of honor?” She matched his attempts to show dominance in the situation by moving closer to him, her chin tilted up, making her more beautiful than ever. “Would