As they crested the ridge, a small fertile valley spread before them. Speechless, Charlotte stared at the creek that cut a sparkling ribbon through the middle. Beyond the tall trees that shimmered with silvery leaves, she caught sight of the blue glints of a lake.
“Water?” She turned to Thomas. “You live by a lake?”
“A reservoir.” A satisfied smile curved his lips. “The beavers built the dam. I merely improved their design.”
“Beavers?”
His smile broadened into a grin. “That’s right. But don’t get any ideas about a fur coat. They are my friends and neighbors.” He jumped down from the bench, circled the cart to her side and reached up with both arms.
“Welcome home, Mrs. Greenwood.”
Charlotte braced her hands on his shoulders as he lifted her down. Thomas set her on her feet, but instead of stepping away, he bent toward her. Pausing to snatch off his hat, he lowered his head and brushed a kiss on her lips.
It was over in a heartbeat, but the tingling sensation clung to Charlotte’s lips, even after Thomas had drawn back to his full height.
She’d never been kissed by a man before, and it seemed to her there should be more to it. She stole a glance at Thomas. He was scowling, as if something had annoyed him.
“I’ll show you the house,” he told her in a voice that sounded rough and impatient. With an abrupt turn on one worn boot heel, he strode away, across the small clearing and along the path between trees with their silvery leaves.
Charlotte hurried after him, her heart pounding. Why had he suddenly grown so terse? Had he felt the flatness of her belly when he lifted her down? Was he suspecting something?
Panic unfurled in her chest when she considered the hurdles she would have to navigate as part of her deception. She could do nothing but go on living as she had lived in the past ten days, since she fled out into the cold spring afternoon at Merlin’s Leap—by her wits, one minute at a time.
* * *
Thomas strode down the path to the front door, his boots thudding in an angry beat against the hard-baked earth. He needed to get ahold of himself. After just one tiny kiss, lust flamed like a brushfire through him, and it was scaring him witless.
He must let his bride get used to him first, to his strength and size, to his constant presence. The best strategy was to win her over gradually. Allowing greedy passions to rule his mind could ruin any hope of a happy marriage.
Thomas believed in creation. God had given men the capacity to enjoy the intimacy necessary for the survival of mankind and, being equitable in His creation, God must have given women the same capacity. But it was the man’s duty to make it so. Be gentle and patient. He would weave a web of temptation around his wife, until her own senses guided her into his arms.
Behind him came the rustle of light footsteps, and he knew she had hurried after him. Satisfied that he had his urges under control, Thomas turned to face his wife. She peered up at him, alarm stamped on her lovely features. He wanted to kick himself for having kissed her too soon. He lowered his voice, as if she were a frightened doe he sought to tame.
“Ready to take a look at the house?”
She nodded but did not speak.
He kept up a steady stream of talk as he climbed up the front steps, pushed the door open and waved her inside. “The house is built with split logs. I couldn’t dress the lumber properly on my own. You need two men to operate a whipsaw. I had plenty of timber, so I just sliced the logs down the middle.”
“You built this house yourself?”
“Every single groove and joint.”
He watched her as she surveyed the big central room. Light flooded in through the open doorway and from the wide window on the opposite wall. Slowly, she untied the laces of her green bonnet and removed it from her head. His stomach tightened at the way the slanting sun picked out coppery glints in her black hair and painted dappled shadows over her slim frame, as if nature itself wanted to touch her, just as badly as he did.
She drifted around the room, in front of the window, past the row of kitchen cabinets, to the long table flanked with two benches.
“If you don’t like the benches, I can make chairs,” Thomas told her.
She glanced at him, crossed the room to the pair of carved wooden love seats that faced each other in front of the massive stone chimney. She ran her fingers along the scalloped back of one of them.
“Did you make these?”
“Yes.”
“It must have taken a long time.”
“The winter evenings offered me plenty.”
He wondered if she understood the skill that went into carving wood, or appreciated the financial outlay he’d incurred for the new cookstove. He’d ordered it all the way from Flagstaff, right after Miss Jackson had agreed to marry him if he sent the funds for her passage.
His bride gestured at the doors on either side of the fireplace. “What’s in there?”
“That’s the bedroom.” His body tightened as he strode across the floor and flung the door open. The wide room had windows on both sides. A tapestry depicting a winter woodland scene hung on the wall above the bedstead.
“Did you make the bed too?” she asked.
“Yes, and the pair of nightstands, and the blanket box, and the two chairs, and the chests of drawers beneath the windows. The bed is in the shape of a sled. Reminds me of the snow in Michigan.”
“Is that where you are from?”
He nodded, keeping his face empty of expression.
“Why did you leave?”
“I had four older brothers. The farm wasn’t big enough for all of us, and land was too expensive to buy.” The explanation held some truth in it, and Thomas quickly closed his mind to the rest of the memories.
He watched his wife standing beside the bed and tried to keep his imagination under control. “Did you see the cookstove?” he asked, as much to distract himself as to keep her talking.
She threw him a questioning look. He pointed back to the living room. She returned to the parlor and studied the appliance. Thomas realized he had no idea of her competence as a housekeeper. They hadn’t corresponded. He didn’t know much about her beyond her name, her age, and that she had been abandoned by her lover and her pregnancy had caused her to be dismissed from her position as a maid in some rich man’s household.
Suddenly the room closed in around Thomas. He needed to soothe his mind, needed to see the sky soaring above him and hear the trees whispering in the wind. He turned and headed out to the porch.
“I’ll go and put the horse in the paddock.”
“Why is the house not by the water?” his bride called after him when he was already halfway out the door.
“The creek floods after heavy rain and the soil is firmer here.”
“Do you bathe in the lake?”
“Sometimes.” He raked his gaze over her, his imagination running riot. He forced his mind to focus on practical thoughts. “You must not drink from the creek. There’s a well behind the house for clean water.”
Thomas turned his back on her again and clattered down the steps, as if Lucifer himself was chasing on his heels. Whatever happened between him and his wife—even if she only spent one week on his isolated homestead and left because she could not face a future in such a lonely place—one thing was certain: his life would never be the same again.
* * *
Charlotte sank down to the wooden love seat. Disaster screamed at her from every carefully crafted corner of the rustic cabin. She closed her eyes and let Thomas Greenwood’s words, full of pride, echo through her mind.
Did you see the cookstove? A sigh of regret rustled out of her chest. She wouldn’t have known if the stove had been slotted upside down between the cabinets.
Grim determination surged inside
Charlotte. Her hands fisted so hard her nails dug into her palms. She’d be the perfect wife. While she remained with Thomas Greenwood, she’d ease the harshness of his life. She’d work until her muscles ached and her fingers bled. And before she left, she would make sure the cabin had become a more comfortable home for him.
Jumping up, Charlotte rushed to the cookstove, an iron monster made pretty by a coat of pale green enamel on the front. “I’m going to call you Vertie,” she said and gave the top a friendly pat. “It comes from vert, the French word for green. And now you’ll have to help me make coffee.”
She found a tin of coffee on the open shelves, the beans already ground. A big copper pot hung from a peg on the wall. Two steel buckets stood on the counter, one empty, one half full. Rather than risk a musty flavor, Charlotte picked up the empty bucket and set off in search of the well.
Outside, the sun had dipped below the ridge of the hills and the air was turning cool. Clouds of tiny flies swarmed in the twilight. A pair of blue jays quarreled on the ground, screeching and flapping their wings. Rodents rustled in the undergrowth. It appeared the evening was the rush hour in nature.
The path rounded the side of the house and led to a stone circle rising from the ground. A crank handle and a spout protruded on the right. Charlotte hung the bucket on a hook under the spout and tentatively yanked the handle. A gurgling noise came from deep within the earth.
Encouraged, she attacked the pump with vigor. After a moment, a loud rumble erupted, and a jet of water exploded into the bucket with so much force it bounced up, drenching her face and chest.
A startled cry left her lungs, shattering the evening calm. Charlotte blinked away the droplets clinging to her lashes and mopped her face with her sleeve.
Down the path, she heard the heavy thud of footsteps heading in her direction. Twigs snapped and birds scattered in fright. She looked up and saw Thomas hurtling through the trees. When he reached her, he gripped her shoulders and towered over her. His eyes roamed her features in a frantic inspection.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded to know.
“No.” Laughter rose in her chest. “Only wet. And feeling stupid.”
“You shouldn’t be doing that.” He released his hold on her and stepped past her to the pump.
“Yes, I should.” She shoved him out of the way, her hip butting against his rock-hard thigh.
With a grunt of surprise, Thomas yielded and moved aside.
“I’m not made of glass, and I’m not made of sugar.” Charlotte cranked the pump handle, taking care to keep her movements slow and measured. When water started spurting out of the pipe, she ducked to avoid the spray from the bucket. “I won’t break if I fall, and I don’t melt if I get wet.”
She glanced over at Thomas to see if he’d understood her meaning. He hadn’t. She doubted he’d even heard her. His gaze was riveted on her breasts, which heaved up and down with the rhythmic motion as she operated the pump. She had discarded her corsets before setting off on the train journey, and the soaking wet blouse clung to her body, like lichen on a wood nymph.
Charlotte couldn’t think. She ceased cranking the pump handle. Suddenly, she felt a great surge of heat on her skin, so great it surprised her not to see steam vapors rising from her drenched garments.
A sense of inevitability filled her. Whatever her misgivings, whatever her desires, whatever her plans, the needs and wants of Thomas Greenwood might be more potent than hers. It might turn out that her married life would be a much harder ocean to navigate than she had allowed for.
“You’ll catch a chill.” Thomas spoke in a husky rumble. “You should change out of those wet clothes into something dry.”
She had to clear her throat before the words came. “I don’t have anything to change into, apart from a nightgown.”
“Are you hungry?” Thomas asked. “Do you want any supper?”
Charlotte shook her head, unable to speak.
“I’d like to see you in your nightgown.” He reached for the overflowing bucket and effortlessly lifted it down from the hook beneath the spout. “Why don’t you go inside and get out of those wet clothes. I’ll heat up water for you to wash.”
Thomas waited for her to move away but she stood rooted on the spot. His expression softened. “Go on now, Maude,” he said gently. “You can undress in the bedroom, in privacy.”
The name broke the spell between them. “Call me Charlotte,” she said, her voice rising with a touch of despair at how little control she seemed to possess over her situation. “I dislike the name Maude. I want you to call me Charlotte.”
“Charlotte?” Confusion flickered across his features. Then his frown eased and he gave a slow nod, his eyes steady on her. “I like that.” He lowered his voice and added in a low murmur, “More syllables for a man to whisper in the throes of passion.”
Charlotte gave a shocked gasp and fled inside.
Chapter Four
Thomas sat on the porch steps and watched the twilight thicken over the valley. A chorus of frogs croaked in the muddy pond near his irrigation station. In the creek, a beaver splashed its tail. A hawk soared overhead. The scent of blossoms from the pomegranate orchard by the lake floated on the breeze.
Sundown was his favorite part of the day. The chores were done. Horses were safe in their stalls, the milk cow in its pen and chickens in their coop. It was the time to relax, time to allow his aching muscles a moment of rest. Time to look forward to supper, and then to sitting down by the fire to work on a piece of furniture, or to read a book by lamplight.
Ever since he’d finished building the house in his second year on the farm, Thomas had sat on the porch steps in the evenings. And every night, he’d wondered what it might feel like, to have someone inside waiting for him.
All his life, he’d longed for that.
To enter a room and feel welcome.
Would he achieve it now? Would his wife smile at him, her face bright with pleasure as he stepped across the threshold? Or would it forever be his fate to live with the silent hostility that had ruined his childhood and youth, until he could no longer take it and had chosen to leave his Michigan home.
There was a risk in marrying an unknown woman.
It was a risk he’d felt compelled to take.
For not trying at all would have been cowardice.
Thomas pushed up to his feet, slapped the dust from his knees. He should have changed into work clothes instead of taking care of the animals in his Sunday suit.
One corner of his mouth tugged up in a wry smile. Didn’t matter. He’d not wear the suit again until someone died. His smile deepened. Or perhaps for the christening of his child. Their child. For, according to the law, any child born to his wedded wife would be his, even if another man might have planted the seed.
“Charlotte.” He tasted her name on his tongue.
“My wife,” he whispered into the silence, enjoying the sound of it.
He raked one more satisfied glance over his valley, now shrouded in deep shadows, and then he walked up the porch steps into the house.
The parlor was empty, the lamps unlit. Thomas turned toward the bedroom. The doors were closed. He didn’t know what to make of it. He understood it was common for women to fear their wedding night. It made sense. Most women had little idea what to expect, and it was human nature to fear the unknown, but that should not be the case with Charlotte. The proof of her experience was growing in her belly.
With hesitant steps, Thomas set off across the floor. Before he reached the bedroom door to the left of the fireplace, the door on the right side opened. His wife stood in the opening. The last glimmer of daylight from the window behind her silhouetted her, rendering her thin white nightgown transparent.
Thomas felt his mouth go dry. His heart hammered in the confines of his ribs. He wanted
to rush up to her, rake his hands down the dark curls that cascaded past her shoulders. He wanted to frame her face between his palms, tilt it up toward him and kiss her until his body hummed with joy.
She moved.
A step toward him.
Not away from him.
And then she laughed—a tingling, feminine laughter that crawled up his spine and fanned the needs he had just spent an hour trying to bank down.
“Why do you have two doors to the bedroom?” she asked. “I can see us going round and round, looking for each other, one of us going in through one door while the other one is coming out through the other door.”
Thomas had trouble speaking. He had to clear his throat before the words came. “It is so that the bedroom can be divided into two later, creating a separate bedroom for the children. That’s why I put in a window on both sides, rather than one big window at the end.”
She spun around to survey the bedroom. The transparent nightgown gave him a view of her back, different, but just as fascinating.
“I see,” she said. “What a clever idea.”
Thomas smiled. Tomorrow, he would show her his irrigation station, and some other inventions he’d made to ease the burden of farm chores. She might be surprised to discover that despite his lack of formal education he possessed as much knowledge of mechanics as a trained engineer.
“I’m hungry,” he told her. “Will you eat supper with me?”
She whirled back around to face him and edged closer. Either she lacked modesty, or she had no idea how much the flimsy nightgown revealed. Thomas would have bet his life on the latter. When she was only two steps away, she clasped her hands together in front of her in a manner that was becoming familiar to him.
“I haven’t cooked supper for you,” she said, her expression crestfallen.
Another wave of warmth spread in his chest. This was exactly what he had hoped for. A woman to help with the chores. “It’s all right,” he reassured her. “I didn’t expect you to cook anything. Not on your first night. I was just going to have some bread and cheese.”
His Mail-Order Bride Page 5