by Jillian Hart
"I have to go," she whispered. "I have supper to prepare for Grandfather's family."
"Don't go." He meant it as an order, but it came out like a request. He shook out the cloak.
She drew in a shaky breath. "I'll be back to tend your father. I shouldn't be gone more than two hours."
She wasn't ever going to slave for that ungrateful family again. Jonah laid the cloak across her thin shoulders, so close he could smell the faint scent of wild roses in her hair. His guts clenched. Blood drummed through unmentionable parts of his body.
"You said a cloak this fine should go to my wife, the wife I've come home to marry." She deserved a little kindness. He'd hurt her feelings. Had he been so thoughtless to her? Shame filled him. He'd proposed, and she was so unsure of him she mistakenly believed he would hurt her cruelly. Now, what did she believe?
"I can't be your wife, Jonah." Another sniff. More tears vibrating in her eyes, so dark and drawing he could not look away.
"Forget Horace Walling. You will not be marrying him." "
When he expected a smile, maybe a thank you and her undying gratitude for saving her from such a fate, Tessa shrugged off the cloak. Her slim fingers held the garment as if it were made of pure gold.
Her chin went up. Her entire body stiffened. "Why would you want to marry me?"
"Well, I-" Duty. He stopped before the explanation passed his lips. He didn't need to explain. She'd lived a lifetime of duty caring for her mother and earning her keep with relatives who didn't want her. He knew without asking she would care for his father with the same sense of duty.
Besides, she was wise enough to know, unlike those foolish young girls, that marriage was an agreement. A contract. A simple physical coexistence.
Her gaze studied him with pointed intelligence, searching his eyes and his face. Then her face changed. A light warmed her eyes, unlike anything he'd ever seen. A sweetness that drew him, made him feel as if he'd done the right thing after all.
"You really want to marry me."
So, she finally understood. Jonah's heart warmed. He reached out and took the cloak from her hands. Without a word, he held it out and she slipped into it, the fine wool curling over her shoulders as if she were made for it.
"What you're saying is that you love me." A question wrinkled her brow, but the brightness in her eyes doubled. A warmth just for him that held him spellbound.
"Love you?" he repeated.
Another tear rolled down her cheek. "Jonah, I never thought"
He didn't want to deceive her. He didn't want to use her. Jonah rubbed his brow, uncertain what to do next. How did he explain he would never love a woman, never give over the control of his heart the way his father had?
"I swore to myself long ago," she began, head down, shimmering black curls hiding her face, "when my mother suffered so married to my stepfather, that if it were in my power, I would only marry for love."
Love. There was that word again. That empty word that meant a person thought they could use you. Romantic love was about power and control. And love was little different than the battlefield, casualties and fighting and all.
Jonah didn't want love. He wanted peaceable coexistence.
He opened his mouth, but he knew any explanation would bring back those tears of hurt. He could not do that to her, no matter his personal opinion of Tessa Bradford, because she cared so much for his father.
She lifted her face and he could see all the hope in those eyes and all the uncertainty. Her voice sounded brave when she whispered, "I want to marry you."
Chapter Eight
He'd made a mistake. A terrible, horrible mistake. Jonah gazed down into dreamy blue eyes, as clear as dreams, and saw how wrong he'd been. He should have guessed that the woman who had tended Father with gentle hands and an angel's light was the same woman who instilled fear in the strongest men in this village with her sharp bold tongue.
Beneath the determined shell lived a tender heart. He had assumed a spinster who had seen as much of life and death as Tessa had would see his proposal as the practical arrangement he'd intended.
But how tremulous she looked, as if she could melt against his chest in disbelief.
Guilt speared him. Hero, they called him. Major, a leader of men. Hell, he gazed down at Tessa Bradford, saw a rare beauty brushing her face with the same luminous light as the pale sun, and turned coward. Full-fledged, yellow-bellied coward.
He knew he should tell her the truth. But how could he? She looked amazing, like the first blushing light of dawn. Crisp breezes ruffled her ebony curls and painted her cheeks pink. He could not take his gaze from the sight of her beauty so rare; he'd never seen the like before.
Then the light so blue in her eyes dimmed, the joy ebbed from her face until there was no light, no beauty. Only the plain face of duty and hardship. "I want to marry you, but I cannot. I am already promised. Money and livestock have changed hands and it can't be undone. Besides, there is no way Grandfather would ever let me-"
She held out the cloak to him, regret so dark on her face 'twas as if something precious inside her had died. "I'm sorry I got carried away. I just thought-I mean, I would have liked to marry you. Even if-"
"Even if you hate me?"
She blushed. And he saw the truth then. She didn't hate him. The taste of her kiss, heated velvet and passion, the feel of her slim woman's body held tight against him, the silken luxury of her curls, and the music of her voice came to him, memories that would haunt him this night and for many to come. She was an enchantress beneath her hard spinster image, one that she wore like a cloak to disguise the woman beneath.
He was no longer fooled. She was no child half his age, no whimpering female full of wiles and manipulations. Her hands, rough from harsh lye soap and chapped from the cold winter temperatures, testified she was a woman who knew how to work and did so willingly. And she loved his father.
He could think of no greater gift to the man he loved above all, the man he owed his life and his loyalty and all that he was.
"Keep the cloak, Tessa."
" 'Twould not be right. Others will say-"
"I don't give a damn what others say. All that matters is that it is cold outside and you have no serviceable cloak. It would make me happy knowing you wore it, someone who values my father so. Besides, he would want you to have it."
Were those more tears glimmering like rare diamonds in her eyes? " 'Tis too fine for me to wear. I will save it as a treasure."
She bowed her chin and simply walked away, her shadow slim and elongated from the low slant of the sun. Birds pecking for their sustenance upon the frosted ground scattered at her approach.
"Tessa."
She stopped, then turned. "What is it now?"
He stood squinting into the brightness, one hand at his brow to shield his eyes. Even simply dressed in black trousers and a dark tailored shirt, with the collar open to expose the strong column of his neck, he looked every bit the heroic major, a commander of men, brave and loyal.
He had proposed to her. To her, Tessa Bradford. His fine house towered behind him, two stories of well-constructed clapboard and a dozen diamond paned windows that winked and gleamed at the touch of the day's lemony light. It was hard to admit, but 'twas all too fine for her. If Grandfather knew, if Violet or her step-grandmother knew, how they would laugh at her.
"Let me take you home." He strode toward her, mighty and powerful. " 'Tis the least I can do for keeping you from your chores again."
" 'Tis a long walk," she conceded, daring to take a step toward him.
"What? Can it be that the feared spinster is being agreeable for once?" Humor glinted in his coffee dark eyes.
"I shall only be agreeable to you, and only this once." She took another step, and it was easier accepting his offer of help, of kindness. She had grown never to trust such gestures, for she had learned the hard way that she could never trust a man's motives. "Grandfather is likely to be angry that I'm so late."
; "I will speak with him. Mayhap I can convince him out of his anger."
Gratefulness shone in her eyes. She had worked so hard tending his father, and the reason the frail old man now lived was in great part due to her quiet, tender, and knowledgeable care.
As Jonah led the way to the stable, he did not know what to say. Now that he'd made his mind up, he thought Tessa adequate for his wife. Nay, not just adequate, but the best choice he could make.
He hitched up the mare, a fine bay, one of Father's favorites, then offered his arm. But she climbed up onto the high seat herself, the cloak still folded around her shoulders, her chin down, her face unreadable.
"My brother Andy likes your berry tarts," he said, to break the silence as he took the reins. "He might eat like a horse, but he has a discerning palate."
She blushed with pleasure. "I noticed you did not sample my pastries."
"I had little appetite. If I had eaten anything, it would have been your tarts. 'Tis the frosting, I think, that makes them appealing."
"The frosting is a family secret from my mother's side." She almost smiled as the wagon rocked over the rutted patches in the road. "I believe I'm the only living soul who still knows the recipe."
The wind caressed loose dark tendrils across her alabaster brow, touching the satin softness of her face. Jonah well remembered the soft lustrous feel of her skin, and blood heated his veins, warming him despite the cool temperatures. "I didn't know my father went to dame school with your mother."
"Neither did I. Not until she was gravely ill and Grandfather refused to let us stay in his home any longer."
"What happened then?"
Shadows from a tall grove of trees blocked the light and cast her in shadow. "The colonel came and convinced my uncle to take us for a time. I shall never forget how he simply appeared at the door one day, even though neither my mother nor I summoned him. He made our lives better. His servant came with a cart to carry our few possessions and Mother, since she was not strong enough to walk."
"And he provided a doctor."
"A fine surgeon from Boston who stayed for three weeks, until he could do no more." Sadness swept across her face like the shadows of the trees, translucent and without color. " 'Tis why I must do all I can for your father. What he did for my mother- why, she was so good and kind, and very beautiful before she grew ill. I was her only child, and she loved me."
Jonah recalled a young girl, not quite a woman, always taking in laundry to earn enough money whilst other girls attended husking bees and socials and teas, did charity work, or were being courted by young men. He knew now her harshness was meant to drive away those who teased her for being so distant, although he could see now it was her circumstances that kept her from what others her age had enjoyed.
"I remember your mother."
"You do?" How she lit up, like sunlight peering through trees, like hope coming to dark places.
"Aye. My best recollection is when I was ten and Thomas and I were put in the stocks for mischief and she was in the crowd with you."
"You were put there for throwing rocks at a cow. I remember. You were a horrible little boy. If only you had been punished for pulling my braids in dame school, you might not have turned to more serious crime."
"Aye, right you are. I wonder what the penalty would be now if I gave your hair a tug?"
"Tug on my braids and you will likely find yourself bottom first in that mud puddle up ahead."
"Some things never change. I recall landing in many a puddle or snow patch when I was young. And all because of you."
"Well, you deserved it."
They laughed together, and how good it felt. But then the curving road twisted around a final corner, and she saw grandfather's stout wooden house. All the brief gaiety faded. She did not want to go home. Gray smoke crept from the stone chimney in a lazy curl, and she wondered if the morning meal was waiting for her, or, if not, a messy kitchen.
No matter that Jonah could make her laugh or had proposed marriage to her in the frosty air, this was her life. She did not like it, but she could not change it. A wedding promise was binding by law.
Nay, it was best to put her feet back on the ground and keep them there where they belonged. She could not be pining after a man she could not have. How her family would laugh if they knew she harbored a secret want for the heroic major. "Thank you for the cloak. I know it was your mother's, and I will cherish it."
She stepped down and hurried around the horses, not daring to raise her eyes to see if he was sad or relieved.
The front door snapped open and Grandfather's short rotund figure filled the frame. "Horace stopped by to retrieve his ironing. I told him you would be here at suppertime to take care of it. Hurry up, work is waiting."
Tessa felt shame creep across her face, shame because she knew Jonah watched and listened. She could feel his gaze heavy on her back. She did not want to know what he thought, what opinion he formed.
If Jonah Hunter harbored tender feelings for her, as he claimed, they surely would be changed now that he saw her life, saw what she was to become: Horace Walling's wife.
Tears burned in her throat and she raced around the back of the house before anyone could see them fall.
He watched her avoid him that evening when she returned, after tending to her chores at home, to sit by Father's side. She kept to herself, her chin down, shielded by the fall of dark curls across her face. She kept him and Andy running after more wood and fresh water and clean towels until the moon slid behind dark clouds and there was nothing but darkness.
Aye, he'd made a mistake proposing to her. No doubt about it.
"Let me guess, all did not go well with Mistress Tessa this afternoon." Thomas poured two cups of coffee at the hearth, a smirk shaping his usually serious mouth.
"Do not dare laugh at me. I have had a bad enough day as it is." Jonah snatched the sugar bowl from the shelf and set it on the table. There were so many cakes and baked goods it was hard to find room. "How many women visited today?"
"I would say nearly thirty. Some were already married and just being neighborly."
"Aye, but how many looking for a wedding ring?"
"Twenty, mayhap."
"And not one offered to look after Father."
"Ah, so now you see the flaw in your logic." Thomas shook his head as he carried the steaming cups from the hearth. "Tell me, Tessa Bradford didn't accept."
"Nay."
"She could not. Rumor has it she is to marry Horace Walling next Sunday."
"She is merely betrothed."
"Aye, but you have been gone from Baybrooke too long. You have forgotten how binding those agreements are. Which is why I'm extremely careful whom I propose to."
With a wry wink, Thomas set the cups on a free corner of the table and dropped into a chair. "What will you do about Father? He has not shown much improvement. The doctor came this afternoon whilst you were away. You know he holds little hope. It saddens me, but 'tis only a matter of time until Father passes."
"And little time for me to keep my vows." He did not need reminding. Jonah shoveled a few heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and stirred, considering.
"How will you choose another woman?"
"I don't want another. I have to figure out how to keep the one I have."
"What?" Thomas spilled coffee down the front of his shirt. "Damn. I can't believe you had all evening to reconsider and you still want her."
"Then tell me what I should do?"
"Marry a more agreeable woman. Tessa does not know her place, as a proper woman should. She's been a spinster too long. I fear you've made a mistake, brother."
"A mistake? Why, you wagered Andy five pounds over my mistake."
Thomas groaned. "Do not remind me, brother. I'm not proud of myself. I only meant to jest. Why, Tessa is an honest enough woman, but there isn't one man in all of Connecticut Colony who wouldn't blame you for choosing another."
Troubled, Jonah faced the window, stud
ying the night-black windowpanes and his own reflection within.
"Besides, she is too much like our stepmother, sharp-tongued and harsh. Can't you at least remember how our stepmother nearly destroyed our father? With one sharp-tongued demand after another. And her suffocating selfishness."
"Tessa is not selfish." Jonah spun from the window. "She is always compassionate and tender with Father. She would never harm another."
" 'Tis you that I'm worried about." Trouble darkened Thomas' brow. "How will you handle such a woman? She is not sweet and biddable."
"Nay, but she's the only woman I can see myself in bed with." Amazed at his frankness, Jonah paused.
Thomas stared open-mouthed. "So, I see. Been sampling the goods?"
Not as much as he would like to. Jonah felt heat creep across his face and desire pulse through his blood. Tessa's kisses had tasted as seductive as the night. He wanted her. All of her. Every night in his bed. She would give him the son he needed.
"She is an upstanding woman," Thomas agreed. "Above reproach morally. Why, there's no doubt she's an untried virgin. Between her mother's long illness and then slaving in Ely Bradford's home, she has had no spare time for dalliances of any kind."
"Trust me, Tessa is no untried virgin." Not a woman who kissed as she did.
"It cannot be so! Why, I know of no man who would-"
"Some man has. And I'm determined to be the next one to lift her skirts."
He watched his brother's face slacken and the regret creep into the creases at his eyes. The very air seemed to change. Thomas cleared his throat. "Good evening, Mistress Tessa."
She saw how Jonah turned around in his chair, dread clear on his face. He looked guilty and apologetic, but his words still rang in her ears. She had been wrong to let him kiss her, to let her own desire for such a man overshadow her better judgment "I have your father settled for the night. I'll be back to check on him after midnight. I have some business to attend to."
"Would you like a ride home?" Jonah stood abruptly, and his chair scraped against the wood floor. " Tis cold outside tonight."