River Lady

by Jude Deveraux

  Leah, feeling a quick surge of anger, excused herself from the men near her. “Perhaps you should go ahead. My husband and I will follow you.”

  Leah planted herself in front of Wesley. “You’re making a fool of yourself!” she hissed up at him.

  He didn’t hear her at first.

  With disgust Leah used her thumb to poke him sharply in the ribs.

  “What are you doing?” he asked angrily, then as his eyes focused on Leah, they turned smoky for just a second. He recovered himself. “Trying to show the men what they missed?” he asked, one eyebrow raised as he looked at the low, low cut of her gown.

  She willed herself not to blush. “You’re looking after Kimberly as if she were a bitch in heat. If you plan to save her name I think you should exercise a little control.”

  He looked at her in speculation. “Are you always sensible?”

  “I try to be,” she answered, puzzled.

  “I thought so. Come on, let’s be the loving couple.” He took her upper arm in his hand and led her into the dining room.

  They were greeted with uplifted tankards and one toast after another.

  “To Wesley, who had the sense to look for a jewel where no one knew there was even a mine.”

  “To Leah, who agreed to put up with a cantankerous, stubborn mule who is only a little better than Travis.”

  The word Travis made them groan as Wesley pulled the chair of honor out for his wife.

  Kimberly sat directly opposite Leah and gave her a hurt look that said Leah had betrayed her. Leah felt a pang of guilt as Kim turned away to talk to the man next to her.

  For all the warning he’d been given, Wesley still watched Kim with hot eyes.

  Telling herself she was doing this to save Wesley and his beloved Kim, Leah leaned across Wesley’s arm to reach the pepper and pressed her breasts against him. Wes reacted instantly, turning surprised—and interested—eyes toward his wife. Leah smiled up at him sweetly.

  “If you would pass me the pepper I wouldn’t have to reach,” she said softly.

  His eyes flickered downward. “Reach, by all means. Reach for whatever you want.”

  “Wesley!” Kimberly said sharply, and he looked away from Leah. “I was just trying to remember when we last saw the Ellingtons. Wasn’t it at the harvest ball?”

  It was obvious to Leah that Kim was reminding Wes of some private, probably risqué, meeting.

  Didn’t Kim realize it was her reputation being saved? Leah clutched Wesley’s arm, leaned into it, and looked up at him through her lashes. “The harvest ball and moonlit nights,” she murmured. “Sometimes the moon causes people to do memorable things.”

  Wesley narrowed his eyes at Leah, then bent to put his lips near her ear. “You’d better stop this little game, or you’ll get more than you bargained for.”

  Quickly Leah moved away from him. What did she care if Wes made a fool of himself in front of his friends? Except that she had some pride, too. She didn’t want to leave Virginia with people saying that maybe a Simmons could get a man but couldn’t hold one. They’d probably never hear of her divorce unless Regan or Travis told, so there was some advantage in leaving the people with an impression that she was good enough to remain with one of the high and mighty Stanfords.

  Chastised and no longer so sure of herself, Leah gave her attention to the food, pushing it around on her plate, her head down, speaking only when she was asked a direct question. She no longer felt like competing with Kimberly. Disinterestedly, Leah watched Kim flirt with one man after another.

  As the meal progressed things began to change. The man next to Leah started talking about the new cotton gin and within minutes Leah forgot about Kimberly. From cotton the conversation went to sheep and the prevention of diseases in one’s livestock. More men joined the talk.

  Within twenty minutes, as Bess and two other women cleared the table, Leah, the ten friends of Wesley, and Wes himself were deep into a discussion of crops and animals. Steven ate, not interested in anything else, and Kimberly looked ready to cry, but Leah was oblivious to the looks directed toward her.

  “My father lost nearly everything when the tobacco market collapsed and I’ll not put everything into cotton now,” one man said.

  “I agree,” Leah answered. “We’re going to raise some sheep and I believe that someday American wool will be in demand.”

  “You’ll not compete with the English markets.”

  “I’ll hire spinners who can do as well as any Englishwoman!” Leah said vehemently.

  “Can she spin, Wes?” a man asked, laughing.

  Leah suddenly became aware of who she was and where she was and she looked down at the uneaten apple tart on her plate. “I’m afraid I’ve overstepped myself,” she said softly.

  To her surprise, Wesley put his arm around her. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t been married long enough to know whether she can spin or not.”

  Astonished, Leah looked up at her husband. His eyes were bright and he seemed almost proud of her.

  “Go ahead and kiss her, Mr. Wesley,” Bess said from across the table. “You look like you’re dyin’ to, and we’d all like a little proof that you love her. Isn’t that right, men?”

  To Leah’s anger, Wesley gave a glance to Kim.

  He was not going to humiliate her. “I don’t need much encouragement to kiss my own husband,” she said seductively as she slid her arms around Wes’s neck.

  The moment her lips touched his, she began to regret her actions. She wanted to prove something to the strangers around her, show them she really was good enough to be loved by a man of Wesley’s stature, but she forgot any sensible reasons for kissing him. For a year she’d lived with couples who loved each other passionately, and until she began to kiss Wesley she was unaware how this had affected her. She very much wanted to be touched, wanted a release for her passion.

  At first Wesley was cool, but he felt Leah’s excitement, felt the commitment in her kiss, and he responded. He forgot the people around them as he kissed her deeply, hotly, searingly. His hand covered her head, his fingers demolishing the ordered curls there.

  “Wesley,” someone said with some embarrassment, “maybe you should wait until later.”

  Leah was helpless in Wesley’s arms, as helpless as she’d been on the one other occasion when he’d touched her.

  A hand touched Wesley’s shoulder just as he was beginning to seek the soft curve of Leah’s breast. The man’s hand tightened. “Wes!”

  Gradually Wes began to surface, and when he broke away from Leah his eyes took a moment to focus.

  For seconds, Leah lay back on Wesley’s arm, her eyes closed, her dark hair streaming over his buckskins. When she opened her eyes and became aware of where she was, she sat up abruptly and her face turned several shades of red. Her one glance at Wes showed him to be looking at her with puzzlement, and a vein in his throat pulsed rapidly.

  “I…” she began, pulling away from him. A hand on her head showed her hair to have fallen. “Excuse me, I must…” she didn’t finish as she turned and fled through the room and up the stairs to her bedchamber.

  She was barely inside when Bess burst in. “I have never seen a kiss like that. Not in all my born days have I seen somebody get kissed like that. That Wesley is some man! Not only is he the best-lookin’ thing this side of the mountains, he’s also the best lover.”

  “Will you please stop talking?” Leah half cried. “How can I face any of them again? They’ll never believe I’m a lady now. I wanted to leave Virginia with the people saying I’d become a lady, but what do I do but act like a Simmons whore.” She paused, then gasped. “Oh Bess, I am sorry.”

  “You haven’t hurt my feelings, and those men down there are going to dream about you tonight.”

  “Just what I wanted,” Leah said as she sat down heavily on the bed. “Do you think I could slip out the back door and never see anyone again?”

  Bess chuckled. “Let me fix your hair and then you
will go downstairs again. You should have seen that Kimberly’s face. She was spittin’ nails.”

  “I was under the impression you thought Miss Shaw was the perfect example of a lady.”

  “Hold still!” Bess commanded, her hands in Leah’s hair. “I thought that before my own sister was transformed into the most beautiful, elegant lady that Virginia has ever seen.”

  “Bess,” Leah said, turning, “go with us. I need a friend. I’ll teach you how to weave and you can go into business with me.”

  “And leave my nice warm tavern and my nice warm men for a clackety ol’ loom? Those Stanfords didn’t teach you any sense, did they? You take your Wesley and live on your farm and milk hundreds of cows every day, but not me. I want a life of ease. There, you’re all prim and proper again. Now go down and smile. You’ve got Kimberly on the run.”

  Leah laughed. “I will miss you so much. Kim will run straight into Wesley’s arms as soon as this night is over and he’ll kiss her so well it’ll make our kiss—.” She paused, remembering. “Our kiss will mean nothing,” she finished quietly. “All right, I’m as ready as I can be. If my husband can playact a kiss I can at least recognize it as such.”

  “That was no playacting,” Bess called behind her sister, but Leah either didn’t hear or ignored her.

  Chapter 8

  It took all Leah’s courage to face the people downstairs once again. She was so sure they’d treat her as if she were a whore that she wasn’t prepared for the warm welcome. Three men had arrived while she was upstairs, two with fiddles, one with a banjo, and they were already beginning to play.

  Before Leah had a thought she was shoved into Wesley’s arms and he led her in the first minuet.

  “You seem to have regained your composure,” Wes said before Leah was taken away from him to dance with another.

  For hours Leah was whirled from one man to another. Once, she saw Kim dancing with Wesley, and he was looking at the blonde woman with concern. Leah pretended she didn’t see them.

  Twice during the night she heard the name Justin Stark mentioned, but she never had enough breath to ask who he was.

  At midnight Wesley announced that the party was over, that they needed an early start the next morning. He took Leah’s arm and half pushed, half pulled her toward the stairs.

  Leah felt wonderful. She’d had much too much of the delicious punch Bess had given her and she was humming as she entered their room. On the bed was her most beautiful nightgown, a translucent concoction of silk and ruffles. Leah picked it up, held it close to her, and began dancing about the room.

  “Are you drunk?” Wesley asked calmly as he slipped his buckskin shirt over his head.

  “How lovely!” Leah said under her breath as she looked at Wesley, bare from the waist up.

  There was a spark of interest in Wes’s eyes—perhaps more than a spark.

  Leah stopped dancing, although her head didn’t stop. “Are you going to make love to me?” she whispered.

  Wesley’s face changed as he looked at her in the golden light of the single lamp in the room. He took a step toward her. “Maybe I could be persuaded.”

  Leah dropped the gown from the front of her and stood waiting for him, her breath held, her heart pounding. She wanted more than anything for him to hold her, to kiss her again. When he was close to her she touched his bare chest, her fingertips wrapping in the abundant hair on his chest. “Wesley,” she whispered as his head moved down toward hers.

  A loud, quick knock on the door wasn’t even heard until the door opened and Steven Shaw entered. “It looks like my little sister was right.”

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” Wesley asked angrily.

  “Unlike you, Stanford, I don’t have two women in two rooms. My little sister is bawling her eyes out because she believes you’re doing just what you are.” He gave Leah a hooded look. “I told her what a man of honor you were and that you could be trusted. Somehow, after seein’ this little filly after you all night, I knew I was lyin’.”

  “Get out of here,” Wesley said tiredly, moving away from Leah. “Tell Kimberly I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “As soon as you finish here?” Steven chuckled but left the room before Wes could say a word.

  “Leah, I’m sorry,” Wes began.

  Leah glared at him. Her mood, loosened by the liquor, easily changed from love to hate. “Sorry you didn’t get to finish what you started? Sorry you didn’t get to take advantage of the weakness of one of the Simmons whores?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, reaching for his shirt. “You’re my wife and—.”

  “I am your wife? Do you mean me who has begged you all evening to stop drooling over the divine Miss Shaw?”

  “I’d advise you to watch your tongue,” he warned.

  “My tongue!” She gasped. “Don’t you know that we Simmonses have better uses for our tongues than to talk with them? Isn’t it in our bloodstream?”

  Calmly, Wesley pulled his shirt on over his head. “Look, I really don’t know what you’re so upset about. You were the one who wanted to travel as my cousin and you’ve always known how I’ve felt about Kim. I’ve always tried to be honest and fair.”

  “Fair! You nearly attack me in this room and you call that fair?”

  Wesley almost smiled. “You’ve done everything possible to entice me this evening, and that dress isn’t exactly made to calm a man down.”

  “I didn’t wear it for you,” she said softly as she turned away to hide her humiliation.

  Wesley smiled at the back of her. “Leah, really, I am flattered that you’d go to so much trouble to get me into your bed. It made me feel good to have you flirting with me even while you were dancing with other men, and I’m sure you could have seduced me if Steven hadn’t interrupted, but the truth is, I really should keep to our bargain. For Kim’s sake I’m going to try to resist your considerable charms.”

  “You what?” she said breathlessly, turning to face him.

  “I owe something to the woman I love and she needs me, all of me, to stand by her, and in the future I’m going to try to resist you.”

  “Is that what happened before?” she whispered. “That in spite of all you could do, you gave in to my enticement of you?”

  “I really need to go, so maybe we could discuss this another time. But, yes, you did throw yourself at me once before.”

  “Throw myself at you? As I did tonight?”

  “Leah,” he began, taking a step toward her, “I think I’ve hurt your feelings.”

  “Feelings!” She gasped. “Women like me don’t have feelings. Didn’t you know that? Women from my class of people, women who didn’t grow up wearing silk, are capable only of seductions and enticements. When we get to Kentucky, I won’t open a weaving shop, I’ll…I’ll merely open my legs.”

  Wesley’s face hardened. “You’ve misunderstood everything I’ve said. All I wanted was to thank you for the compliment of offering me your body.”

  “I won’t do it again,” she said coldly. “Next time I offer it, it will be to someone else.”

  “Not while you’re my wife!” he snapped.

  She gave him a nasty little smile. “Shouldn’t you go to your Kimberly? If you make her cry too long her pretty eyes will be red. How does she seduce you? Do her tears pull you into her bed?”

  “Kimberly is a virgin,” Wes said tightly, his eyes narrowed.

  Leah threw up her hands. “A whore and a virgin fighting over you. Poor Wesley, you must spend some sleepless nights. Go to her.”

  “Leah, I never said you were a whore,” he began.

  “Get out of here!” she screamed.

  “If you need me…”

  “Need you!” she yelled at him. “You’re the last person I’d ever need. I wish I could go to Kentucky by myself and I’d never have to even see you again. Now go to your dear Kimberly. She needs you.”

  Wesley seemed to want to speak, but instead he
turned and left the room.

  Immediately Leah fell to her knees, the sobs tearing through her. Need him, he’d said. No, she didn’t need him, but she wanted him, or wanted someone, a man who cared enough to jump when a tear ran down her cheek. A man who had never known her family, who didn’t believe she was a whore before he even saw her.

  Sometime during the night Leah removed her dress and slipped on her nightgown. She’d cried all she could cry and all that was left was an empty hollowness, a feeling that life was never going to change. She’d been born in a swamp and she’d always be a part of the swamp. Pretty clothes would never cover the vileness with which she’d been born.

  In the morning as Leah lay awake, Wesley slipped into the room; Leah knew he didn’t want anyone thinking he hadn’t spent the night with his wife.

  “You’re awake,” he said as the early light illuminated the room. “Leah, about last night—.”

  She rolled to the side of the bed, got out, and walked across the room to the small trunk that held her clothes. She felt as if her spirit were dead and she didn’t care about anything. Without a thought she slipped the gown off, careless of her nude form presented to Wesley as she began dressing.

  “You never give up, do you?” he exploded angrily.

  But Leah didn’t even bother to turn around. When she was dressed, she turned to face him. “I’m ready whenever you are. Your friends won’t know where you slept.”

  Frowning, he put his hand on her arm. “Leah, I’ve never meant to hurt you.”

  She looked from his hand to his face. “Never touch me again. Do you understand me? Never, ever again do I want you to touch me.” With that she opened the door, waited outside the room for him, and together they walked down the stairs, looking for all the world like a couple who’d just spent the night together.

  Leah parted from her sister quietly, and just as quietly she mounted the wagon beside Wes. He reached out his hand to help her, but one look from Leah made him withdraw.

  At noon she gathered wood, built a fire, and cooked a hasty meal while Kimberly bathed some of the dirt from her face. Steven conveniently disappeared and Wes was busy with the animals. During the meal Kimberly chatted about the last party they’d attended in Virginia and repeatedly told Leah she should have been there. Leah silenced Kim by saying she had been too pregnant at the time to attend a party.