by Sara Donati
“Yes, but don’t we need to get back for supper?”
“We’ll take the shortcut,” he said.
Daniel walked right up to the edge, where the cave floor dropped away into the falling water, and held out his hand. She went to him, but cautiously. Her skin rose in goose bumps all along her back.
“We’d have plenty of time if we started from here.” He was looking at her in a particularly calculating way, and in that moment she realized what he was suggesting.
“You don’t mean it,” she said. Shocked and excited too.
“Oh, I mean it.”
“It must be dangerous.”
“We all do it. I’ve been jumping into the lake from here since Da taught me to swim.”
“What if I can’t swim?”
He looked at her.
“All right, I can swim. But—but—” She laughed. “Whatever they imagine us doing, this is not it.”
“Nothing predictable about this, you’re right.”
She shivered, and he squeezed her hand.
“We don’t have to,” Daniel said. And the truly wonderful thing was, he meant it. He would not be angry or disappointed if she told him she couldn’t, for any reason at all.
“I want to,” Martha said.
“Well, then,” he said. “Strip down to your chemise.”
That brought her up short, and he cocked his head at her.
“My chemise?”
“Long skirts won’t do much for your backstroke. You reconsidering?”
Daniel’s thumb was stroking the indentation at the juncture of palm and wrist, and somehow that made it all the harder to order her thoughts.
She said, “What are you going to wear?”
“You don’t remember?”
She did, of course. Daniel naked in the water, and the way he had kissed her. The shock and pleasure of it.
“You don’t mean it.”
“Darlin’,” he said, leaning closer so that his warm breath stirred the hair on her temple. “We’re married now. We can do whatever we like.”
She could be a coward, or she could do this thing. This crazy, exciting thing. “Very well,” she said. Before she could change her mind, she turned to offer him her back. That in itself was something it would take a long time to get used to. There had always been a woman nearby to help with dressing and undressing, and now this task fell to Daniel.
It was almost off-putting, how easily he coped, one-handed. In no time her gown was around her ankles; her short corset and petticoat followed, and then her moccasins—she steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder when he lifted one leg and then the other—and finally her stockings. Then he reached for her drawers, and she stepped away.
“I don’t think silk and a bit of lace will slow me down at all,” she said.
His hand was still on her leg, moving upward with a gentle and devastating touch. “Maybe not you,” he said. “But these things are sure in my way. Since when do women wear drawers, anyway?”
She scowled at the change in the direction of the conversation, but she answered. “I suppose it’s a French fashion. I think they had just been introduced when I first moved to Manhattan. Now everyone wears them.”
He raised a brow.
“Everyone of my acquaintance. All the ladies of my acquaintance. In Manhattan.”
He was tugging at the lace edging of her drawers, very softly. “But how do you know who’s wearing them? And more important, why do you wear them?”
In her irritation, Martha said what she otherwise would never have said. “Because the silk feels good.”
His hand was moving again. “So it rubs you in the right way.”
“Daniel.”
“Hmmm?”
What was it she meant to say? She couldn’t think like this. It felt as if she was dissolving, as if her flesh had turned to liquid and was flowing toward him. With tremendous effort she pulled away.
She said, “I want to swim. Right now.”
“Hold on, girl. Let me get out of my breeches.”
She didn’t trust him, but neither did she want to go without him and so she stood there while he stripped, sling first and then shirt—it was shocking, how few clothes he wore, really—and finally his breeches and moccasins.
He was fully aroused, and completely at ease. Martha, coward that she was, closed her eyes and when she opened them again, he had slipped the sling back into place and was holding something out to her. A long strip of fabric.
“Will you help me bind my arm in place? It’ll go quicker if you do.”
It was the first time he had asked for her help, and it struck her that she had been waiting for this. Wondering when he would let her close enough to do what she could for him, if he could trust anybody with that. Her whole body flooded with relief and thankfulness and love. It was a word they hadn’t yet used, but at this moment she might have.
Instead she did as he asked. When she had finished to his satisfaction and her own, they stood for a moment in the light of the falling water.
He said, “Do you trust me?”
She took his hand, and they jumped.
—
Her hair flowed around her, a long dark flag that sparked with color and then fell like a cloak over her shoulders as they broke the surface.
She blinked water out of her eyes, put back her head, and laughed.
“I’d like to do that again.” With a wiggle she dove underwater and swam away.
The simple truth was, she made him happy. Daniel stayed just where he was to watch her moving through the water, sleek and fast, as flexible as a reed.
When he caught up with her she moved in so close that she must feel the fact of his arousal but now there was nothing of embarrassment or shyness in her expression. Treading water he could feel the warmth of her, the curves of breast and hip as she pressed against him, but he couldn’t reach out for her.
It struck him then: She was teasing him. The idea surprised him, but he kept that out of his expression.
“Aren’t you the brave one.” He looked past her shoulder. “You’re giving Gabriel quite a shock.”
She jerked around then shrieked; no sign of Gabriel or anyone else.
“You rotter. You fiend!”
Daniel laughed. “Tease and thou shalt be teased.”
She was off again, swimming toward the falls. Daniel passed her and kept going, pushing right through the curtains of water to the other side. To his satisfaction she followed him without hesitation or pause.
Martha pulled up short, treading water and turning one way and then the other.
“It’s a little cove.” Her voice echoed against the rock face. “How is it you’re standing and I can’t touch the bottom?”
“Boulders,” he said. “Come and see for yourself.”
For the moment she stayed where she was. “It’s quieter here.”
“That has to do with the angle of the water on the rock. You are as nervous as a cat. Come over here, girl.”
She made a doubtful face but came closer anyway. “Where does that opening go? Another cave?”
“Not much of one,” Daniel said. “Go look.”
She found her footing and walked toward the cleft in the rock wall, her chemise floating around her in the water. In the shallow opening she stopped, and Daniel, coming up behind her, stopped too. A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with cold, he was sure of it.
“This isn’t a cave,” she said, a little breathlessly.
“I said it wasn’t.” He moved closer still until all that was between them was a thin layer of wet linen.
She turned and then stopped suddenly, as if the sight of him surprised her. He touched her face and she turned her cheek into his cupped palm.
“What?” he said.
She shook her head, and Daniel had the strong impression that she wanted something from him—that she wanted him—but was unsure of how to say so.
“Tell me,” he said.
She frowned. “I don’t remember what I wanted to say.”
“Ah,” Daniel said. “Then let me remind you.”
It was her own fault; Martha had to acknowledge that much. She had teased him and played games, and here was the price to pay. Or the reward to claim.
“It’s not seemly,” she said against his mouth, but then the kiss drew her down and down and she couldn’t hold on to the argument she had wanted to offer. Something to do with privacy and public places. Something to do with adults capable of self-control. Which at this moment was simply not true.
Daniel said, “I told you these silk drawers of yours would be in the way.”
She started to say that she did not want to part company with her undergarments, but his fingers were very clever and all that came out of her mouth was a sigh and a gasp.
The plain truth was that all her concerns about privacy could not stand up to the pleasure of kissing Daniel. He was slipping her chemise over her shoulders when she realized that her drawers were already gone, but for the moment at least she couldn’t remember why she had resisted in the first place. Daniel turned her until the rock face was at her back and her legs were hooked around his waist beneath the water, his good hand cupping her buttock, lifting her leg to position her for his thrust.
He made a sound deep in his throat as he entered her and then he was still. For two, four, six heartbeats he stayed just as he was, embedded to the very core of her while the water flowed around them. He pressed his brow to hers.
“My God,” he muttered.
Martha put her head back against the wall and made herself relax, drew in a deep breath and centered all her attention on the point where they were joined.
“Please,” she whispered, and he let out a short, sharp laugh as he surged into her, harder and deeper than she would have thought possible.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t stop.”
He worked over her, strained into her again and again, but it wasn’t enough, somehow it wasn’t enough; she shifted and spread herself and reached down to clutch at him, to bring him into her hard, harder, to touch that one spot that yearned toward him, tighter and tighter until every nerve in her body thrummed in the same rhythm.
When she thought she could bear the spiraling ache no longer, when she was sure she must die, it burst and she cried out. It came upon her in a rush that made her hips and legs jerk convulsively, a wave of feeling so intense that she was lost in it, defenseless. It washed over her once, twice, three times, and then left her, breathless and shaken.
Daniel thrust one last time hard into her and held her there, split open around him and filled, his whole body trembling.
He kissed her then. A soft kiss, slow and gentle, and she felt how his heart was racing, as her own raced.
Daniel shifted and drew away from her. It felt like a terrible loss, an inestimable loss, and there were tears on her face.
“Shhhh.” He pulled her closer and moved through the water with her just as she was, wrapped around him, until he found the place he was looking for. Then he sat on the outcropping of rock and held her until the tears and the trembling had passed.
He said, “You didn’t know about that, did you? What just happened to you.”
She sat up to look him in the face. “I may be naïve, Daniel Bonner, but I am not simple. I know what we just did. Or at least, I know what it’s called.”
“No,” he said, and he was trying not to smile. “Not the act, what happened to you toward the end. That rushing feeling.”
“Oh,” Martha said, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. “I didn’t think you would notice.”
Now he did laugh. “It was hard to miss. You reached a climax.”
After a moment’s silent contemplation Martha said, “I’m not sure I can talk about this.”
“Ever?”
She bit him, gently.
“No need to go after my good arm,” he said. “We can put off this discussion for a while. Or at least, until next time.”
Her mouth fell open and she closed it with a click. “That could happen again?”
“If we’re lucky and we work at it,” Daniel said, “it should happen pretty much every time.”
Someone had left them blankets for when they finally came out of the water, and someone else—Gabriel or Blue-Jay, most likely—had retrieved their clothes from the cave. But for once Martha was too preoccupied to worry about what others saw or imagined.
While they sat down to eat, all during the long conversation about Johnstown, about Ethan and Callie, Jemima and young Nicholas, about crops, her thoughts kept wandering away and jolting back when someone asked her a question.
She made an effort to answer thoughtfully and then as soon as the discussion moved on, her thoughts slipped away again.
Pretty much every time.
The things she wanted and needed to talk about could not be raised at this table, or at any table she could imagine. Even if her best friends from Manhattan should magically appear, Martha had no idea how she would put such things into words. She would have to talk to Daniel about this, or be content to live in ignorance.
Pretty much every time.
She felt him watching her. She had pleased him, there was no doubt of that, but he also seemed pleased with himself.
“You’re hardly eating,” Gabriel said to her and it was true.
“It’s the heat,” Susanna suggested.
Martha smiled at her in thanks, and Susanna put her hand over Martha’s and squeezed it.
“It’s a grand adventure,” she said quietly. “But ofttimes a disconcerting one.”
The puppy nosed around her ankle and Martha took him onto her lap.
Annie said, “So does he favor Nicholas Wilde? The boy?”
From one uncomfortable conversation to the next.
“To be truthful, I don’t know,” Martha said. “I have a hard time remembering what Mr. Wilde looked like at all. I was no more than Birdie’s age.”
“It’s strange that Jemima waited so long to bring him here to meet his sisters,” Gabriel said.
Susanna had never known Jemima or Nicholas Wilde at all. The others had: Runs-from-Bears, Blue-Jay, Daniel himself; they knew her own story as well as she did. The miraculous thing was, it didn’t seem to matter. She was one of them; it was as if by marrying Daniel she had forsworn the family that went before, and cut her connection to the woman who had borne and raised her.
They had done the same for Susanna when she walked away from her family because they would not or could not come to peace with her decision. Of course, Susanna had left something worthwhile behind, something she must miss every day.
Martha wondered if Susanna was someone she could talk to. If she could be the kind of friend that once Callie had been, someone who understood without a great deal of explanation. There was a calm about her that Martha liked and trusted. She studied Susanna’s profile, the freckled skin, strong nose, wide-set eyes. She had a kind smile and an uncommonly even temper, though she had seemed ready to skin Daniel alive for bringing Martha through the falls.
Every now and then glances passed between Susanna and Blue-Jay, as they passed between Annie and Gabriel. As they might have passed between Martha and Daniel, were she to look up at him.
Runs-from-Bears said, “You are very quiet, Martha.”
“We’ve had an unusually eventful couple days,” said Daniel.
“I’d say so,” Annie said. “Martha got married and started teaching school and Jemima showed up, all at once.”
There was a small silence, and Martha decided that it would be best to break it.
She said, “I have no complaints. Just the opposite. I am very glad to be here. You are all very kind, but you don’t need to spare my feelings. I know what my mother is, and what she is capable of.”
“That’s not you,” said Runs-from-Bears.
“So I’ve been telling her,” Daniel said. “But it’s taking a while to sink in.”
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��Well then, you’ll have to come up here regular,” Gabriel said. “And not just to swim.”
Gabriel’s smile flashed, and in that moment Martha had a memory of him from their days at school together. He was always up to something, organizing races or baggataway games in the lunch recess. Together with Annie he had taken every chance to go explore the far—and forbidden side—of Hidden Wolf. They were much closer to her in age than Daniel and Lily, but still they seemed older and settled.
She said, “I will visit, I promise.”
“Good,” Susanna said. “I should like that very much.”
“In case you’re not hearing us plain enough,” said Runs-from-Bears, “you’re at home here. The mountain is your place now, and Lake in the Clouds is where you come if you need help.”
“Thank you,” Martha said. Her voice wavered and broke, but no one was rude enough to take note.
“Don’t get too excited,” Annie said with a half smile. “Most of the time we’ll put you straight to work.”
As tired as she was, it still took Martha a good while to fall into a deep sleep. All the things that had happened in one day, so many it would take her a long time to sort them all through. Her wakefulness rose and fell on the night breeze. A tumble of faces and conversations swelled and receded, and followed her into sleep.
46
Ethan had a mantel clock, a pretty thing of polished cherry wood with delicate hands to point out the time.
On her first night in this house Callie had hardly noticed the chiming. It certainly hadn’t kept her from her sleep, but then, she reckoned to herself, she had been bone weary and overwhelmed, a word she did not like to use in relation to herself. She could never afford to let her guard down or give in to fear. And she didn’t need much sleep; she never had.
She counted the soft chiming of the mantel clock at ten, at eleven, and now at midnight.
Ethan slept soundly; she could not see him in the darkened room, but she could hear the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Of course, Ethan had a clear conscience and nothing to really worry him. He had land and money and the respect of everyone in the village; he had an education, and freedom to do as he pleased. Ethan had lost his father and mother long ago, and his stepfather as well; he had no brothers or sisters to look after and worry about.