Free Lisa Bingham by The Other Groom

warmth.
    “I’ve done the right thing,” she said. But her tone sounded unconvinced even to herself. “Evie will be needing a mother, and I will not leave her alone in the world.”
    As soon as the words were spoken, Louisa felt better about the course she was about to embark on. A yawn caught her unawares. Her body thrummed with weariness although it was only midafternoon. She’d fairly worn herself out with worrying.
    “At least I think I’ve done the right thing….” she murmured, the words little more than a sigh. Then she surrendered herself to sleep.
    From his position on the other side of the door, Neil settled into a chair.
    If there was one thing for which he’d been known during his time as a Union scout, it was the fact that he had the ears of a fox. He could hear a whisper half again as far as the average man. He’d had very little difficulty discerning Louisa’s murmurings from the other side of the door.
    No, not Louisa. Phoebe Gray. The woman who had promised to marry him.
    When Neil had decided that he would assume the role of her bodyguard, he’d had two overpowering reasons. First, it would allow him to ensure her safety so that her uncle’s henchmen wouldn’t have a chance to harm her. Second, and even more important, he would provide a way for Phoebe to begin to care for him as a man, not merely as a name at the bottom of a letter or a skinny, frightened school chum.
    Unfortunately, Neil was beginning to see that he had sorely misjudged things. He would have been better off abducting the woman and hauling her back to Oregon. Sure, she would have been angry. But now…
    Now she could live a life of luxury without putting a dent in her inheritance. More troubling still, she’d been given the charge of a child. And in Neil’s experience a woman’s dedication to duty was never so strong as when a youngster was involved.
    Damn.
    Damn, damn, damn.
    What should he do?
    Slouching in the chair, he rested his head against the back, even as his finger curled loosely over the revolver in his lap.
    Right now he wasn’t sure what course to take. To reveal his identity might force his hand too soon. To point out the foolhardiness of adopting another woman’s identity could cause her to dig in her heels and become even more stubborn and intractable.
    He would simply have to play things by ear.
    Which meant that under no circumstances did he intend to abandon his own masquerade as Louisa’s bodyguard—no matter how she might protest.
    Late evening shadows were pooling around her bed when Louisa woke. Beside her on the pillow, Bitsy lay on her back, her pink stomach exposed, her mouth open and her tongue lolling out as she slept in utter abandonment.
    Louisa pressed the heels of her hands to her closed eyes. She had hoped that her nap would help her feel more refreshed. Instead, she was groggy and lethargic, her head pounding as she remembered the day’s events.
    Had she really been offered a million dollars? One million?
    Louisa had once served as a companion to an old woman who received fifty thousand pounds a year from a trust left by her husband. She’d been the wealthiest woman Louisa had ever known, with servants and carriages, a manor in the country and a town house in the city….
    One million dollars.
    Louisa couldn’t even comprehend the amount—and to think that she’d been made guardian of a child who had inherited even more was astonishing.
    Keeping her eyes closed, Louisa rolled onto her back, resting her forearm on her brow to block out the light.
    She still felt twinges of conscience in taking the inheritance that Charles had left to his wife-by-proxy. But when Evie was added into the equation, Louisa knew that there was no way she would walk away from the situation. In her mind, she couldn’t think of anything more horrible than to be sent to a boarding school simply because Charles had felt his life was too busy to entertain the company of a child.
    What did that action say about