Noelle by Diana Palmer

Author:Diana Palmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2012-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

NOELLE COULDN’T REMEMBER ever feeling so miserable. Andrew had made her out to be a loose woman, Jared believed her capable of sporting with any man at all, and Mrs. Dunn would probably never speak to her again. Worse, the terrible Mrs. Hardy would gleefully spread news of Noelle’s downfall around the city to anyone who would listen.

She put her few possessions into her nice valise and looked wistfully at the pretty things Jared had bought her, still hanging in the chifforobe against the wall. She didn’t want things from a man who could think her so vile a woman. He wouldn’t even listen to her explanation. He’d judged her and found her guilty from Andrew’s cowardly lie. His contempt hurt more than the threat of having her good name ruined in the community.

With her cloak around her, dressed in the familiar white blouse and black skirt, with a simple wide-brimmed black hat on her head, she left the room she’d occupied for so many months and made her way down the staircase.

Andrew was nowhere in sight. He was probably nursing the cheek Jared had hit. She was surprised that Jared had done that when he held her in such contempt, but she was pleased that Andrew had at least some small retribution for the lie he’d told. She’d idolized Andrew until the first time Jared had kissed her. How strange, she thought, that Andrew was everything Jared was not, and yet it was Jared whose admiration and attention she craved. What a tragedy that it should have taken this to make her realize that she had no affection at all for Andrew!

With her head high she went straight to the front door and opened it. She had no money, no train ticket, no place to go except her uncle’s, and no way to get there. But she was too proud to ask the family for help. She would wait tables, if she had to, or cook in a kitchen or get a job as a housekeeper and earn her way back to East Texas. She’d starve before she’d ask Jared for help now.

But as she opened the door and started onto the porch, a steely, merciless hand caught her by the upper arm and dragged her back into the house. The valise was taken from her and tossed aside; the door was closed.

She jerked away from Jared with hatred in her green eyes. “Don’t you touch me!” she hissed.

“Why deny me what you dole out to other men?” he asked, still in a quiet rage at what he’d seen.

She rubbed the arm he’d gripped and stared at him accusingly. “Andrew lied,” she said flatly. “I wasn’t encouraging him, I was trying to get away. Or do you think I welcome such blatant advances from a man?” And then she remembered how eagerly she’d responded to Jared and blushed furiously.

He mistook that flush for guilt. His pale eyes narrowed. They were unblinking, steady, frightening in that lean, rigid face.

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