In Want of a Wife

by Jo Goodman

  “Look at me.” When she didn’t, he said, “Say something, then.”

  “I am not fearless.”

  “What?”

  She turned her head to look at him then. “You said I was fearless. I am not. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am trying to convince you I can be a good wife. Certainly I have been trying to convince myself.”

  Frowning, Morgan said slowly, “That’s not exactly what I said.”

  She did not argue the point. “It’s what I heard.” Her faint smile faltered. She brushed away a tendril of hair that had fallen across her cheek. “I want to stay here, but not so much that I would take a role for which I have no talent or regard. I do not mind terribly that you see me as trying to impress with my competence, but it is disturbing that you think it is the same for my concern. I am concerned. You might have been killed.”

  Morgan started to object, but he allowed her to cut him off with a shake of her head.

  “No, you will never convince me differently, and you should not try to. You know very well there are dangers you face every day. They are part of your life and that makes them part of mine. So, yes, I am concerned that you are properly rested and healed before you lead that animal around the corral again. Because I know you will.”

  “You know that, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  Morgan plowed his fingers through his hair and regarded her thoughtfully. “That sounds like something a good wife would say. She might add a couple or three words about not making her a widow before she’s lost her virginal blush, but everything else about that speech seemed right.”

  “I am not opposed to poking you in the ribs or twisting your foot, so you might want to temper your observations.”

  It was difficult for Morgan to take the threat too seriously when Jane’s virginal blush was already coloring her cheeks. He was tempted to kiss her splendid and saucy mouth and was prevented from doing so by the stitch in his side every time he took a breath, but when Jane began to rise, he risked sharpening his pain by reaching for her arm and managing to capture her wrist.

  “Yes?” she asked, looking from him to his clasp.

  “You’re going?”

  She hesitated. “Not if you don’t wish it.”

  “I thought you could sit here for a while longer.”

  “You’re tired.”

  He did not deny it. “Maybe you could read to me for a spell.”

  Jane glanced at the books at his bedside. “From one of those?” When he nodded and released her wrist, she picked up the books and held them up. “Treasure Island or Daisy Miller?”

  “Do you have a preference?”

  “Whichever will put you to sleep more quickly.”

  “That’s easy. Daisy Miller.”

  Jane set Treasure Island down, walked around the bed to the rocking chair, and sat where the late afternoon sunlight could spill over her shoulder. “I confess to being surprised you are in possession of Daisy.”

  “Mrs. Bridger lent it to me on one of my previous trips to town.”

  “The marshal’s wife?”

  “The schoolteacher,” he said firmly. “She believes everyone should read. She’s going to build a library.”

  “Really? Here?”

  “Well, in Bitter Springs.”

  “That’s what I meant. It is quite a wonderful contribution to the town.” Jane opened the book to where Morgan had inserted a ribbon marker. “You do not seem to have read very far.”

  “Second time through.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t much care for Daisy the first go-round. It occurred to me that I should give her another chance before I returned the book.”

  “I wish the author had liked her half as well as I did. He might have decided to end her story differently. He wrote her as a woman who did not behave in conventional ways and then punished her for it. It seemed so unfair.”

  “I thought she behaved naïvely. I would have liked her better if she acted out of some conviction, but it seemed to me that she was insensible of her society or the stir she created.”

  Jane blinked. “You really did read it.”

  “You thought I lied?”

  “I—no, not—well, perhaps that—” Jane shut her mouth.

  “Maybe you should start reading,” Morgan said. “Let Henry James speak for you.”

  Jane lifted the book and did as he suggested.

  • • •

  Morgan slept through supper, which Jane believed was exactly as it should be. By his own admission, he had gotten very little sleep the previous night. Jane prepared sandwiches and baked apples for the men, which they carried outside and ate on the back porch. She considered joining them but decided against it. Morgan’s view of the flirtatious Daisy Miller might have factored into her reluctance, but Jane was also aware that the men were not as comfortable around her alone as they were when Morgan was in their midst.

  It was after seven when she finally stepped outside to take their plates and cups and bid them good night. After she washed dishes, sorted through the ash receiver for cinders and clinkers, and swept the kitchen floor, she checked on Morgan. He had changed positions since the last time she had looked in on him, but he was still sleeping. Since she had never managed to get him under the covers, she drew half the coverlet over him and added a quilt from the chest.

  Jane checked his brow. She took some comfort from the fact that he was no longer clammy. She removed the basin, cloths, and soap to the washroom, tidied the bedroom, and pushed the steel tub that Morgan had used as a footbath under the bed. She would ask Jake to carry it out tomorrow.

  When she returned to the washroom to ready herself for bed, Jane indulged in a moment of yearning for the copper hip bath to be filled with hot water and sprinkled with lavender salts. It was surprisingly easy to imagine and a good reminder that wishing did not make it so.

  Jane removed her dress and examined it for stains. She had been careful, but she could see where she had knelt in the dirt beside Jem and where the tea she had made for Morgan had splashed her wrist. Remembering what Morgan had said about her fancy clothes, she thought it would have been better to burn her skin than ruin her gown.

  She washed up at the basin, brushed her hair, neatly plaited it again, and put on her robe over her nightgown. She wore kid slippers but acknowledged that a pair of woolen socks would have been a better choice. She thought about the money she had secreted away under the lining of her trunk and wondered if she dared use some of it for practical necessities. Her funds were not nearly what she had hoped they would be. Alex had been mistaken about how much she could depend on. Jane shivered, not from cold, but from memory. Alex had been mistaken about many things.

  Jane returned to the bedroom and put up her gown in the wardrobe. She closed the door quietly, darted a look toward the bed, and moved to leave the room in what she considered a stealthy fashion.

  “Sneaking out?”

  Jane stopped short of reaching the door. Perhaps stealthy and silent were not quite synonymous. “I did not want to wake you.”

  “Why not? We haven’t finished Daisy Miller.”

  “No, and we are not going to.” Lamplight bathed Morgan’s face, but his expression was shuttered and Jane could not tell if he was disappointed or relieved. “I put your supper on a tray in the dining room. Would you like it?”

  “I’ll get it on the way back.”

  “On the way back? What do you mean?” But she understood precisely what he intended when he struggled into a sitting position and slid his legs over the side of the bed. Jane threw up a hand. “Stop right there. I’ll get the pot for you.”

  “The hell you will.” Morgan mostly swallowed a groan as he got to his feet. In deference to his injury, his weight was not distributed evenly. “If you want to be helpful, you’ll lend me your shoulder; otherwise, you’ll get out of my way.”

  “You need your boots.”

  “I can only wear one.”

  One was better
than none, Jane decided. She retrieved it, helped him pull it on, and then found a sock to put over the bandages on his injured foot. Jane put his arm around her shoulder when he hesitated. “You really do need my help,” she said. “You said it yourself.” He grumbled something under his breath that she did not ask him to clarify. Jane accepted his weight, although she realized he did not bear down on her heavily.

  In this manner they hobbled through the house to the back door, across the porch, and then across the yard to the privy. The return trip was equally halting. He sent her back to the dining room to get his supper while he washed up. When she returned, he was back in bed.

  She set the tray on his lap. “You are a stubborn man, Morgan Longstreet. I did not suspect how deeply that streak ran when I read your letters.”

  Morgan picked up one half of his sandwich and bit into it. “But you had a suspicion it was there.”

  “I supposed a man who lived the way you described must be stubborn.” She paused and looked at him askance. “Or crazy.”

  “Or both,” he said.

  “Perhaps.” Jane went to the rocking chair and sat. “Tell me about the mustang. Max says she’s no dink.”

  “Max is right. I knew I wanted her the moment I spotted her in the herd. She wasn’t easy to cut out; the stallion wanted to keep her. He interfered as much as he could, but he had a harem to protect. That’s how he lost her. I wanted her more.”

  Jane met Morgan’s eyes. She had the sensation of his fingers wrapped around her wrist, the pad of his thumb brushing the delicate blue webbing on the underside. She remembered his mouth on the curve of her neck, how light, how gentle his touch had been.

  I wanted her more.

  Jane tucked those words away where they could do no harm. It served no purpose to dwell on them. “She should have a name,” Jane said. “I do not think you can know her properly if you do not give her a name.”

  “You might be right.” Morgan tossed Jane the extra blanket she had pulled out for him. “Take it before your teeth crack.”

  Jane did not argue. She drew up her legs, folded them so her knees almost reached her chin, and tucked the quilt around her.

  When she was settled, Morgan asked, “What name would you give her?”

  “Sophie.”

  “Sophie,” he repeated, one of his eyebrows kicking up. “Why Sophie?”

  “I am fairly certain that is her name.”

  “And you know this because . . . ?”

  Jane shrugged. “It is of no account. In fact, it is a ridiculous notion.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  He wasn’t, Jane realized. There was some skepticism, but there was also curiosity. “Well, when I ran outside after you were injured, she was already turning away and going to the far side of the corral, but when I got there, she turned back. It seemed as if she was looking directly at me. Scared, you know. But sorrowful, too. And in my mind, I thought, ‘Oh, Sophie, how could you?’ It just came to me to call her Sophie, and that was when she shook her head. I don’t mean that she tossed it as if she did not care. She shook it as if she did but couldn’t explain it to her own satisfaction.”

  “Huh.” Morgan said nothing while he searched her face. Finally, “You know she really doesn’t think like that, don’t you?”

  Jane nodded. “I know. It just seemed as if she did. I told you it was a ridiculous notion.”

  “What it is, is a nice story, but probably better if it just stays between us.”

  “I am sure you are right.”

  “So when Jem or his brothers or Max ask why we’re calling her Sophie, we’re going to say it was your great-grandmother’s name.”

  “Sophie? She’s really going to be Sophie?”

  Her pleasure was arresting, and Morgan felt his breath seize when she smiled without inhibition. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “As a remembrance of your great-grandmother.”

  “No, she was Frances,” said Jane. “Like my mother’s cousin.”

  “All right, then we’ll say she was my great-grandmother.”

  “Yes, let us do that.”

  “Oh, good,” Morgan said with a touch of sarcasm. “That’s settled.”

  Jane nodded agreeably, her smile only slightly less fulsome than it had been seconds earlier. “What was your great-grandmother’s name? On your mother’s side first.”

  “I have no idea. Before you ask, it’s the same on my father’s side.”

  “I suppose not knowing makes it easier to repeat the story, doesn’t it? The devil is in the details. Or so I’ve been told.”

  “Umeh.”

  “Yes, that’s so.” Jane smoothed the quilt over her knees. “What about your grandmothers’ names?”

  Morgan shrugged. “I didn’t know them. Is it important?”

  “No, not important. I was merely wondering. Your letters contained nothing about family. I think I might have written too much about mine.”

  “Broad strokes,” he said. “For instance, I know your parents died when you were young. Of cholera, I believe, but you never explained how you came to live with the Ewings.”

  “Did I write that my parents were missionaries?”

  “No. You did not write that. I would remember.”

  “Yes, I imagine you would. I also imagine I would not be here if I’d told you, although that had nothing to do with my omission. I did not know you were a godless man then.” Jane was not certain that he was now, but she kept that thought close. “I did not write about their missionary work because as a child I did not fully understand it, and it was a bone of contention growing up in Cousin Franny’s house. My mother was ‘in a bad way’ when she married my father. That is how my mother’s ‘delicate condition’ was explained to me until Alex explained it better when we were twelve. There is also some disagreement in the family as to whether or not Robert Middlebourne is my father.”

  Jane tilted her head to one side, raised her hands in a helpless, but uncomplaining, gesture. “I think you can appreciate why I did not put this tawdry tale to paper. My father accepted a mission in India sometime before my second birthday. I traveled with my parents, but I have no memory of the voyage, and few memories of India except for the heat and the animals. What I recall is the return to New York, alone this time. My parents sent me away when they heard the sickness was coming. I do not know what they understood about cholera, but they meant to protect me. I lived with my mother’s mother for a short time, not out of graciousness on her part, but out of duty. When word came that my parents were dead, she would not have me any longer. My father’s parents did not claim me as one of their own so there was no room for me there. I am not certain how it happened, but I eventually came to the attention of Samuel Ewing, Esquire.”

  Morgan removed the supper plate from his lap and placed it on the nightstand. Only crumbs remained. “Samuel Ewing,” he said. “That would be Cousin Frances’s husband. He took you in?”

  “He did more than that. He welcomed me.”

  “But not your cousin.”

  “No, but she tolerated me, and she did not send me away when her husband died. She showed considerable forbearance. I will always believe it was the best she could do.”

  Morgan’s soft grunt was noncommittal. “Did you make a list?”

  His question made no sense to Jane. She stared at him, puzzled. “Pardon?”

  “A list. Jem’s going to town tomorrow. I suggested you make a list of things you need. Did you?”

  So he was changing the subject. And rather firmly, too. “No, I did not. Truthfully, I had forgotten. Thank you. I will do it first thing in the morning. Is there any particular thing you want?”

  “Maple syrup.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “If you’re going to feed us hotcakes, I prefer mine with maple syrup, not molasses.”

  “All right.” Jane unfolded her legs, stretched, and started to rise.

  “What are you doing?”

  She thought the answer to
that was so obvious that his question must have a deeper meaning. She pointed to the door. “I am going to bed.”

  “This is your bed.”

  Jane froze. “I don’t think that—”

  Morgan did not allow her to finish. “My bed is on the other side of that wall.”

  It required a little effort, but Jane managed to unlock her knees and straighten. “I am not helping you walk next door.”

  He shrugged.

  “Good night, Morgan.” She snapped the quilt and let it flutter across his legs. “Shall I turn back the lamp?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Jane nodded. “Sleep well.”

  Morgan watched her go. He picked up Daisy Miller and opened it in his lap. He had been thinking about naming the mustang Daisy, but that was before he knew her name was Sophie. The memory of Jane’s explanation surprised a chuckle out of him. Sophie. Morgan could only shake his head. He wondered if Jane knew that it meant “wisdom.” From the beginning, the mare struck him as more wily than wise, but then Jane was disposed to see the better side of all God’s creatures. If she could do it for Frances Ewing, she certainly could do it for a feral horse.

  Whether or not she could do it for him remained to be seen.

  Chapter Seven

  The first thing Jane noticed about occupying the bed where Morgan previously slept was that the scent of him lingered. It was faint but clearly identifiable, and not at all unpleasant. She felt a little foolish that she had mistaken Morgan’s meaning when he referred to the bed he was in as her bed. She thought he meant to invite her to join him. For an instant in time, hope had warred with alarm. Of course, neither was warranted. He had only been pointing out that they should return to the accommodations of the previous night.

  Her disappointment, and surely that was what she had momentarily felt, disturbed her. She knew herself well enough to know that she did not love Morgan Longstreet, not today, probably not tomorrow, but the idea that it might be hers to grasp at some future time was both tantalizing and terrifying. What if it was in her reach and she hadn’t the courage to embrace it?

  Fearless. No, she wasn’t that.

  What she was, Jane reminded herself, was practical. So, apparently, was Morgan. It made no sense for her to share his bed when she might cause him further distress by crashing into his cracked ribs or kicking his sprained foot. He had arrived at the same conclusion and because he was gallant in his own fashion, he was willing to surrender some of his comfort to assure hers.