Twice Blessed

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  “I trust you with everything I can, sweetheart.” He framed her face and smiled. “I simply don’t want to talk about bad memories when I want to create more splendid memories with you now.”

  She could not argue with that, for she did not want the joy to be tarnished either. Yet it had been. As soon as he held back this part of his past from her, she recalled how much she had not told him.

  When he drew her into his arms and found her eager lips again, she expelled those thoughts from her head. The past was all around her, but tonight she wanted to think of only this man and the wondrous sensations they could share with each other while she forgot how short-lived this joy could be.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Sean, stand still, so I can check that you washed behind your ears,” Emma ordered as she inspected Sean from every angle.

  Even though his cowlick refused to be lacquered down, his face was scrubbed. He wore a brown worsted coat with trousers to match. His shoes were well shined, and the bowtie at the throat of his neatly pressed white shirt was surprisingly straight. With his face already tanned from playing out-of-doors, he barely resembled the boy who had arrived in Haven with a sickly pallor and a bearing that suggested he was preparing himself for the next person who might do something to hurt him.

  He wiggled away from her and put his hands over his ears. “No one’s going to see behind my ears but you.”

  “Not if you don’t let me cut your hair soon.” She gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. “If it gets much longer, I swear we’ll have to braid it like Belinda’s.”

  “Jenny likes it like this.”

  “Jenny Anderson?” she asked, trying not to smile. The Andersons ran the livery stable across the street from the store. She had wondered why their oldest girl, who was about a year older than Sean, had found so many excuses to come to the store in the past week. Somehow, Sean had always managed to be sweeping the porch when she arrived so the two of them could talk before Jenny did her shopping for her mother. “She is a very nice girl, Sean, but that is no excuse to let your hair grown down over your ears.”

  “I want to look like a slicker.”

  “Where did you learn such language?” She held up her hands. “No, don’t tell me. I think I’d be better off not knowing the answer to that. Just watch what you say.”

  “I won’t embarrass you, Emma, during the wedding.” His face was abruptly sober.

  She squeezed his shoulders and smiled. “And I’ll try not to embarrass you either.”

  “You?”

  “Of course.” She drew on her best lace gloves. “When Jenny Anderson walks by, I could casually mention that I hadn’t seen the back of your ears in more than a week.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  Laughing, she said, “You’re right. I wouldn’t do that.”

  He grinned and curled the top of his ear forward. “See? All clean?”

  Emma pretended to peer with concern at him. She would not tell him, but she was glad to see him come into the kitchen all dirty and laughing about how he had beat someone in a footrace or played hide-and-seek. Now that some of the other orphan train children were attending the village school, he was not as reluctant to attend each day. His chores were done more quickly, and Emma often had to call him in after dark to eat the supper that had grown cold on his plate.

  A knock came on the door. Through the frosted glass, Emma could see three people on her porch.

  Her smile broadened as she threw the door open for Noah, Belinda, and Gladys. She started to greet them, but could only stare. She had seen Noah dressed in his working clothes—cotton shirt, suspenders, vest, denims, and scuffed boots. The man standing before her now could have stepped out of an eastern fashion plate. Straight black trousers flowed down to his brightly polished boots. His black cutaway coat contrasted with the silver vest he wore over a flawlessly white shirt. The collar of his shirt, which reached nearly to his chin, was closed in front by a white tie that tilted slightly to the left—the only imperfection in his appearance. In his hand, he carried a black top hat edged with a band of silver.

  This aristocratic man who looked as if his feet had never walked on anything but a sidewalk or through a fine garden unsettled her, for Noah wore these fine clothes with such ease. The questions she had tried to silence burst forth again, and she wondered why he spoke so seldom of his past. Was this elegance a part of his past?

  Belinda peeked around him, smiling broadly. Her hair was pulled back in two braids beneath a hat decorated with silk roses to match the ones at the dropped waist of her dress. The full pink skirt was held out by crinolines and reached just below her knees. Pink-striped stockings and recently polished white shoes that buttoned up to her calves gave her an appearance as elegant as her father’s.

  “Look at the swells!” Sean whistled in appreciation, breaking her mesmerism with the sight before her.

  She looked down at her gown. It was her very best, a silk only a shade deeper than the pink of Belinda’s dress. Did fashionable ladies still wear cascades of ruffles down the back of their gowns below their bustles? And were the necklines still scooped so deeply that the sleeves were little more than a few layers of lace? She wanted to ask him, but her voice seemed to have vanished as she realized it was not her appearance that bothered her, but his.

  This wondrously elegant man seemed so different from the one who had carried her in his arms across the floor of his new barn to make love with her in the moonlight. She loved that man who was not afraid to let her know how much he wanted her. He was plainspoken and kindhearted and so enticing that he made her breath falter each time she looked at him.

  Noah’s finger in the gray kid gloves reached beneath her chin and tilted her face up toward his. His smile and twinkling eyes were unchanged, and she was able to smile back at him.

  “You look lovely,” he said softly.

  “Not as lovely as you.”

  He laughed. “I thought I’d do you proud today, Emma.”

  “You could do the fancy houses on Fifth Avenue proud in such clothes.”

  “No one would notice me if I walked down the avenue at your side. Today, you don’t look like the sensible Miss Delancy of Delancy’s General Store.”

  “She looks like a fairy-tale princess!” Belinda chirped. “Can I touch the ruffles on the back of your dress, Emma?”

  Noah began, “Belinda, you shouldn’t—”

  “Of course, you can.” Emma turned, listening to the lush sound of her gown’s short train as it brushed the floor. “Just don’t ask the same of any of the ladies at the wedding.”

  “Even if they look like fairy-tale princesses?” the little girl asked.

  “Even if they do.”

  “Careful, Belinda,” Noah said.

  When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw his warm smile and the even more heated glow in his eyes that told her he wished he was the one touching her. She yearned to throw her arms around him and remind him that two weeks had passed since he shared that ecstasy with her in his barn.

  “Tonight?” he mouthed, and she knew his thoughts matched hers.

  She nodded, not knowing how he planned to get time for them alone when everyone in Haven would be celebrating the wedding with decorum and the party after with whiskey that would flow even faster during the shivaree at dark. Anticipation trickled along her like the ambling caress of his fingers, enthralling her.

  Pulling her gaze from his, she looked down to see Belinda fingering the cascade of ruffles that dropped from the bow at Emma’s waist. The little girl giggled with delight and ran her hand along the pink and silver embroidery that fell from the bow to curve around the front of her skirt in an soft drape.

  “Just like what a fairy-tale princess would wear,” Belinda whispered.

  “Soon you shall have a dress like this of your own,” Emma said, smiling down at the little girl.

  “Don’t rush her in growing up.” Noah laughed.

  She looked back at him, finding him
less than an arm’s length from her. A hint of a smile tipped his lips, and the now familiar sensation fluttered in her stomach. She closed her eyes to soothe her quivering as his breath brushed her hair. It would be so easy to lose herself again in that rapture. She could not. Not now.

  He offered his arm. “Shall we go? Half the green is filled with wagons already.” With another laugh, he said, “With everyone in the church, today would be the perfect day for a gang of bank robbers to ride through town.”

  “What?” she cried, freezing, her hand only inches from his arm.

  His smile disappeared as his brows lowered. He took her hand and drew it down to his sleeve. “I was only jesting,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about your store with everyone about for celebrating the wedding.”

  “It was a discomfiting thing for you to say.” She was aware that every eye was focused on her, and she tried to smile. Her expression seemed brittle, but it must have appeared less strained than it felt, because Noah’s frown eased back into a lighthearted smile.

  “How can you blame me for forgetting that you’re a businesswoman with so much on your mind,” Noah asked, “when you look like a—”

  “A fairy-tale princess!” crowed Belinda and Sean at the same time.

  Noah chuckled, but watched Emma, whose smile remained fragile. Why had she been so upset by such an offhand comment? He had only wanted to suggest that he and she could find a time to slip away when everyone’s attention was on the bride and groom. Instead of teasing him back as he had expected, she had acted as if she faced some horror.

  Her fingers were still trembling as he led her across the green with the children and Gladys in tow. He considered asking her what was wrong, but too many people greeted them and urged them to hurry into the white clapboard church. With each “good day,” her fingers on his arm calmed a bit more. He was glad to see her smiling again when they walked up the steps to the church’s front doors, which were both thrown open wide.

  He smiled indulgently as she drew away to check that both Sean and Belinda were still looking their best. There was a gentleness about her that he saw only when she spoke with the children. She clearly loved having children near, and he wondered as he had so many times why she remained unmarried. Her eager touch when he had brought her to the new barn had dazzled him, so he knew she was not shy about expressing her yearnings. And he was very sure that he had not been the first to make love to her.

  Who had been her lover before him?

  He had pumped Gladys like a dry well, hoping she would have some gossip that could answer that question. If Emma had had a lover in Haven before now, she had been so circumspect about it that nobody even hinted at the decorous Miss Delancy having an affair. Keeping such a secret in this small town seemed impossible. If she had had a lover before coming to Haven … he fought not to frown as they walked into the church. She never spoke of her life before Haven. Not once had she said anything about it.

  As he waited for the others to slip into one of the oak pews, he smiled. Today was not a day to dwell on the past. It was a day when two people were thinking of the future. He chuckled under his breath. Three people were thinking of the future.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Emma as he sat beside her on the red cushion that ran the length of the pew.

  “I’m just in a good mood today.” He rested his arm along the back of the pew, but did not curve his fingers around her shoulder. He was aware how many eyes would be watching them. There had been a wagonful of gossip since he had kissed Emma before he joined in the contest to raise the barn’s walls.

  “Me, too.”

  When her fingers slipped beneath his coat to settle clandestinely on his leg, he put his own over them. A single motion by those enticing fingers would be too much for his failing self-control. Pressing her back against the bright red cushion and kissing her with all the craving that had been whetted by two long weeks would create quite the scandal.

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it lightly through her lacy gloves. Her eyes glowed like the sunshine streaming through the stained glass windows marching along each side of the church. Curving her fingers over his, he turned reluctantly to see the wedding party come down the aisle.

  Emma hushed Belinda as the little girl giggled in excitement when the obviously nervous groom and his best man came to stand by the simple altar. Glad that Noah did not release her hand, she smiled at Sally Young’s sisters, who were serving as attendants. Their blue gowns had arrived at the store only a few days ago. Sally had insisted on store-bought gowns for her wedding, even though Mrs. Flexner could have made dresses just as pretty and for half the price.

  Noticing the seamstress smiling proudly on the other side of the aisle, Emma looked more closely at the dresses. She grinned, for the garish flowers that had encircled the waists of the gowns and climbed up the bodices like overgrown weeds were gone. A single strip of golden lace now was the only decoration.

  “What’s so funny?” Noah whispered as she had to him.

  “Mrs. Flexner.” She quickly explained.

  He muffled his laugh when everyone came to their feet as Sally Young appeared at the back of the church on her father’s arm. The bride’s dress remained unaltered, and it was bedecked with flowers that matched the ones edging her veil. Emma guessed those extra silk flowers had come from her sisters’ gowns. Even the garish blossoms could not detract from the bride’s loveliness. Sally usually wore dark clothes that accented her redheaded pallor. In her white gown with its bright flowers, she looked like—and Emma could think of no other description—a fairy-tale princess.

  As they sat, Emma set Belinda on her lap and hushed the little girl’s excitement. Sean was staring, openmouthed, at the fancy clothes, and she knew he never had been to a wedding like this. He had never been to a church, except to sneak in to find shelter on a bitterly cold night, before he arrived in Haven.

  More quickly than Emma wished, the ceremony was over, and the groom and bride were kissing for the first time as husband and wife. Belinda wiggled down off her lap and pushed to stand next to her father so she could watch the newest Mr. and Mrs. Smith walk back up the aisle.

  With a laugh, Noah picked his daughter up and held her under one arm as if she were a bag of potatoes. She giggled and squirmed, but he paid her no attention as he offered his arm to Emma again. Emma took Sean’s hand, and they walked out of the church together with Gladys following, dabbing at her teary eyes with a lacy handkerchief. That amused Emma, for Gladys had never met either Sally or Isaac Smith before the barn raising.

  Once everyone had a chance to congratulate the newly-weds and kiss the bride, long tables were set up on the green with planks and sawhorses, just as they had been at Noah’s farm. Food appeared out of every wagon.

  “Sean, don’t run about while everything is being brought out,” Emma said. “I have to get the biscuits out of the warming oven.”

  “Go ahead.” Gladys wiped a final tear from her cheek and smiled. “I’ll watch him so he stays clean at least long enough to drop something on himself during the wedding feast.”

  With a laugh, Emma wove her way through the crowd that seemed to fill the green to overflowing. She saw bottles of whiskey surreptitiously being opened. The keg that had been delivered last night and stored in the livery where it could be kept cold with ice covered with hay was being rolled out. It would be set up beneath the trees. She would have to keep an eye on Sean to make sure he did not sample too much of the beer.

  She felt oddly disconnected from the rest of Haven as she stepped up onto her porch. The voices diminished when she went into the house and to the kitchen. After pulling her apron over her head and tying it behind her, so there was no chance of getting anything on her silk gown, she opened the warming box of the oven. She used a pair of dishrags to protect her hands as she lifted out the trio of trays that held more than two dozen rolls each.

  She was reaching for the fourth tray when hands caught her at the waist. Whirl
ing, she smiled up at Noah.

  “I thought I’d surprise you,” he said.

  “You can’t surprise me, for I recognize your touch.”

  “Do you?” He ran his finger along the apron she had draped over her head. When it paused between the curves of her breasts, he murmured, “I’d like to become very much better acquainted with touching you.”

  She drew his mouth to hers, famished for his kisses. This was the feast she wanted today. His arms curved around her, drawing her tight to him. She wanted to be even closer.

  He raised his mouth from hers. “We can’t linger here. Gladys sent me to get you because everyone’s about to drink a toast to the happy couple.” He ran his tongue along her neck, and she quivered with the longing that refused to be quiescent. In a whisper, he said, “I know what would make this couple happy if we had an excuse to remain here a while longer.”

  “You could say you didn’t find me right away.” She ran her finger along his expressive brows.

  He laughed. “And who would believe that?”

  “I don’t care what anyone else would believe. I care about taking any chance to be with you.”

  “You’re a temptress, Emma Delancy.” He reached behind her and undid her apron. Drawing the ties around, he let them fall at her sides. “Only such a vixen would think of sampling a bit of love in the middle of the day.”

  “The moonlight was just enough to make me want to see your face in the bright sunlight.”

  “When we are one?” he asked as he glided his hands up beneath her apron to curve along her breasts. His mouth captured hers, and she gripped his shoulders to keep her knees, which were as fluid as melting butter, from pulling her away from him.

  From the parlor came Sean’s voice. “Emma! Emma, Gladys says for you to hurry up.”

  “Hurry?” Noah asked quietly. “No, I won’t hurry this, Emma. I want to go slow and relearn every bit of you. I want you to plead for release from this craving.”

  “I’m pleading now.” She smiled as she sifted her fingers through his hair.

  “Not enough, you aren’t.”