by Lisa Kleypas
“Yes, I’m sure everything was just dandy, all during your three-year engagement with him. Three years! And you were still as clean and untouched as a new-minted penny. I’ll bet you begged him to make love to you. I’ll bet you nagged him to death about it while he put you off with mouthings of honor and respectability. What held him back, Lucy? Why didn’t he make you his?”
“He loved me. He respected me!”
Heath let go of her with a gesture of distaste and reached for his trousers on the floor. “Respect had nothing to do with it,” he said savagely, buttoning up the trousers and scooping up the rest of his clothes as he headed towards the door. “He finally understood that he couldn’t handle you. He realized he didn’t have the strength, the time, and God help me, the patience to deal with you. But you’ll never accept that. You’re planning to keep on hankering after him and dreaming about how it all could have been, instead of trying to find out how good things could be between us.”
“I didn’t do anything to stop you from . . . from taking me tonight. You were the one who started the argument.”
“Don’t be such a martyr. Poor, sinned-against Lucy. I’d sooner fight the war over single-handed than try to change your mind about your pure-minded ex-fiancé.”
Lucy said nothing, clutching the quilt over her naked body; her fingers whitened with the pressure she exerted on the patchworked edge.
“Let me know when you’ve decided to grow up,” Heath added from the doorway, sounding a few degrees more controlled than before, and then he closed the door with unnatural quietness. She would have preferred a slam.
Lucy awoke reluctantly, dreading the crushing guilt that would face her as soon as she opened her eyes. Sliding lower under the warm covers, she tried to avoid the morning sunlight, which glared malevolently through the window. Her mouth tasted like it was stuffed full of chalk. Her eyes were mere slits as she peered around the empty room and clasped a hand to her head. She doubted that she could have had a worse headache had a train run right between her ears. Groaning, she burrowed her face under a pillow and thought over what had happened the night before. There were so many things that she had said, things she longed to take back and would never be able to. Blinded by anger, she had said them without thinking.
It seemed as if another person had been speaking and acting in her place. Surely she, who had always hated to hurt anyone, had not turned into the vindictive shrew of the night before. Her pride was stung by the recollection of the nasty things Heath had said to her, but still, remorse attacked her vigorously. His bad behavior didn’t justify hers.
Lucy wished she had ignored the whole subject of Daniel. Of course she still cared for him. That kind of love didn’t die easily, and she was still besieged with all the tender memories she had shared with Daniel: the times they had laughed together and held each other; the times he had walked with her by the river when the scent of golden willows was heavy in the air; their gentle kisses and long, romantic embraces. Even now that she was married to another man it was hard to believe that all of that was over. But she didn’t want to make Heath miserable, and she didn’t want to be a bad wife. It was just that he had an uncanny power to stir her up into a greater rage than she had ever felt before.
She wondered if he was still angry with her—how could he not be? I don’t want to face him, she thought miserably. But only a child would stay up here hiding in her bed when she could hear him up and around in the kitchen. She had to go downstairs and face him, no matter what dreadful things he might say to her, no matter how icy his blue eyes might be. Slowly she crept out of bed and hunted through the closet for her robe. The rich fragrance of strong-brewed coffee floated to her nostrils. The realization that Heath had made it made her feel doubly worse. I’m his wife, she thought guiltily. I should be doing that now.
Heath sat alone in the kitchen, his brown hands curled around a thick mug of coffee. His tousled blond head rested against the high-backed chair as he experienced the indescribable numbness that follows a sleepless night. He had always been one to accept the truth for what it was. A man never had control over his own destiny until he learned not to lie to himself. Only during the war had he let his idealism mask the truth. Like the rest of his people he had been too bullheaded to accept that they were beaten. Not until they were crushed and humiliated, not until disillusionment had eaten down to his very bones.
Now he had stolen another chance for himself—a chance to enjoy life again, a chance to care for someone—and he was throwing it away without meaning to. Lucy was going to come to hate him, and that was the last thing he wanted. He walked out to the small porch outside, taking a deep, hot swallow of coffee and looking down the road that led to town.
There were too many differences between them, with little ground to meet in between. She had never known hardship or want; she had never known the fear that drove ambition; she had never known what it was like to have everything and then lose it all; she knew nothing about any of the things that had gone into making him what he was. No wonder she didn’t understand him. No wonder he understood so little about her. But he understood her more than Daniel Collier ever had. He understood her enough to hurt her, and he had to keep his temper in check. If it killed him, he would keep it in check.
“Heath?” He heard her timid voice from the kitchen. Strolling leisurely to the kitchen doorway, he leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and regarded her silently.
Lucy found that the sight of her disheveled husband had a strange effect on her sensibilities. She had never seen any grown man in such a state. Her father always dressed and shaved before appearing for breakfast each morning. But there was a shadow of a beard on Heath’s face, and his hair was uncombed, and she was overwhelmingly conscious of the lazy grace of his tanned body, clad in gray trousers and an unbuttoned shirt. He smiled slightly, seeming to be cool and utterly in control, but there was a fire smoldering right under the surface that she could sense without any difficulty.
“You . . . made the coffee this morning,” she said in a low voice, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’ll do it from now on. A wife is supposed to do things like that.”
It took all of Heath’s self-possession to keep from pointing out that there were more significant things a wife was supposed to do for her husband. “Fine. As long as it gets made, I don’t care who does it,” he replied in a monotone.
“You’re using a mug,” she said nervously, going over to the cabinets and searching until she found the blue-and-white china all neatly stacked. “Do you prefer that over a cup and saucer?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She pulled out a china cup and saucer for herself, poured some coffee, and sat down at the table with a faint sigh of weariness.
“Sleep well?” Heath asked.
Her eyes shot to him sharply as she tried to figure out if his question was jeering or not. His face, however, was expressionless. “Yes. I was very tired after yesterday.”
“So was I.”
Lucy drank her coffee while he watched her thoughtfully. She knew he was looking at her, and she could hardly sit still under such quiet watchfulness. “I’m going through the house today,” she said in order to break the silence. “I’m going to find out where everything is, especially the pots and pans and cooking—”
“There’s no need. The Flannerys take care of the cooking and cleaning. You can put together a meal now and then whenever you feel like it, but I didn’t marry you in order to make a housekeeper and cook out of you.”
Lucy stared at him in confusion. For the first time she wondered why he had married her. If he didn’t need someone to take care of him, then had it merely been out of pity? The thought didn’t leave a pleasant taste in her mouth. “But . . . how am I going to spend my time?”
“Any way you want to. You can go into town or stay here. You can do nothing or everything, whatever you wish. I won’t expect your schedule to revolve around mine, since mine will be erratic during the next few months
.”
“That’s fine, as long as you’re home by dinner so we can—”
“To be blunt, we won’t be eating many meals together. I won’t be coming home at regular hours. I’ve got . . . business . . . to attend to in different areas, mostly Lowell and Boston.”
Business? Lucy had been long accustomed to that word, and she hated it passionately. What a convenient term for men to be able to use, a perfectly acceptable way to explain or disguise anything they wanted to hide. “That’s just the way a business is run,” her father had told her when she had resented the long hours he spent running the store instead of spending time with her. “Business reasons,” “business demands,” “business problems”—her father and Daniel and every other man she had ever known used the mysterious world of business as an excuse for their faults, their unfulfilled promises, their absentmindedness. And it seemed that her husband knew how to use that word as well.
“What kind of business?” she asked suspiciously.
“Something to do with publishing. Any objections?” Heath asked, now sounding sardonic, and though a multitude of protests trembled on her tongue—yes, I object . . . I’ll never see you . . . we’ll never be a real husband and wife . . . you don’t even care about how I feel about it—she couldn’t tell him any of that.
“Of course not,” she said coolly.
Chapter 6
There was more freedom in being married than Lucy had ever dreamed of. She had never had so much money to spend on herself, so much leisure time and so few responsibilities. Her reputation had been mended somewhat by her marriage to Heath, though it remained slightly fractured. There were still some people who sniffed and raised their noses as Lucy walked by, but there were very, very few these days whose opinion she cared about. Her money and her new status had made her popular with the kind of people she had never known before. Spending most of her time in and around town, she made new friends and kicked up her heels in a way that caused her father and her old friends to shake their heads silently at her.
She was hardly ever with her husband. In fact, Lucy saw Heath so seldom that during the day it was almost difficult for her to remember that she was married. At night things were slightly different—they did share the same bed—but they had never made love, and the distance between them was so wide that they might as well have been on different continents. Many nights he arrived home very late, and she would already be asleep, alone on her side of the mattress. She would stir drowsily as she felt him get into bed beside her, and then they would lie there, side by side, not touching, until sleep claimed them both. They were both careful not to venture on each other’s territory: the left side was hers; the right side was his, and not even in sleep did an arm or a leg cross the invisible line that separated them. But in spite of their lack of closeness, their lack of communication, sharing a bed with Heath became a habit that Lucy would have hated to give up. Even though she could doze off without him there, it seemed that her sleep was never deep or complete until she knew that he was beside her. There was something strangely comforting about knowing that he was next to her, hearing the deep, even rhythm of his breathing, waking up in the middle of the night and seeing the dark outline of him nearby.
On the nights when he got home early, Lucy would turn the lamp down low and get into bed first. She always kept her eyes closed as Heath stripped off his clothes and stretched out beside her, but often when he was asleep, she would open her eyes and let her gaze wander over him. Even though the graceful, pantherish lines of his body became familiar to her eyes, she would always become a little bit breathless. He was an uncommonly handsome man. And since their wedding night, he hadn’t made one move toward her.
At first she had been relieved by his lack of attention to her, and then curious, and gradually even a little resentful. Now she spent a lot of her time wondering how to make herself more attractive to him. Once he had seemed to want her very much. What had happened to change his feelings so radically? Was he ignoring her out of consideration or actual disinterest? She couldn’t bring herself to talk to him openly about it, and since he didn’t seem inclined to broach the subject, it seemed likely that she would end up like Abigail Collier after all—a sharp-tempered, immaculate old maid.
A few weeks after her marriage, Lucy became a part of a young and fashionable set in Concord, called the Thursday Circle. It consisted of several beautifully groomed women who had too much time on their hands. They had servants to do their work and busy husbands who were away too often. The wives volunteered their money for charities and musical organizations in order to get their names publicly acknowledged, and they took on many cultural and social projects, which Lucy joined eagerly.
She was welcomed readily into the circle, since she had all of the qualifications to be a member—she was young, fashionable, and as bored as the rest of them were. They, too, had husbands whom they hardly ever saw. They spent their excessive amounts of free time just as she did, shopping, talking, and leafing through fashion magazines. Their meetings always seemed to end in gossip, gossip about intimate and personal matters that Lucy had never heard anyone talk about so openly before. Privately she was sometimes embarrassed by their frank discussions of lovers and sexual exploits and affairs, and yet for all their careless chatter, she could see that many of them were lonely underneath, as lonely as she was. And they were great fun to be around, priding themselves on being shocking and sophisticated, filling the room to the ceiling with their brittle laughter and tobacco smoke. Many of them liked to smoke factory-made cigarettes, a habit of popular actresses and daring society women.
“Dixie,” Olinda Morrison, a local banker’s wife, drawled smoothly at one Thursday evening meeting, “you must tell me about something.”
“Dixie?” Lucy repeated, lifting her dark winged eyebrows quizzically.
“Yes, that’s what I’m going to call you from now on—I had no idea until yesterday that you were married to a Confederate. I think it’s absolutely delicious.”
“What exactly do you want to know?” Lucy inquired, smiling at the avid curiosity that shone in Olinda’s velvet black eyes. The brash possessor of striking beauty, Olinda had the confidence to ask anyone anything. Only the truly beautiful could dare to be as rude as she was.
“What is it like with him?” Olinda demanded.
“Do you mean—”
“Oh, don’t give me that little-lost-lamb expression . . . you know what I mean! Is he very charming in bed? Are Southerners as soft-spoken as they say, or does he give the Rebel yell at the crucial moment?”
They all howled with laughter. Even Lucy, who had turned bright red, couldn’t help joining in. As they all waited expectantly for her answer, she lifted a crystal glass of ice water to her lips in the hope that it would cool her burning cheeks. She had to maintain their impression of her as a woman who was as knowledgeable and familiar as they were with the subject of lovemaking.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, ignoring a twinge of guilt at leading them all to believe something that wasn’t true, “he told me that I disproved all the things he had heard about Yankee women.”
That set off another gale of laughter and scattered applause.
“In the South they think Northern women are all blocks of ice,” Alice Gregson, the pretty wife of one of the town councilmen, said dryly.
“We are, compared to them,” Betta Hampton replied. Betta was salty and witty; at forty-two she was the oldest one of the group, as well as the most experienced. She often disconcerted Lucy because her knowing smiles and ribald revelations always seemed to contain an unrelieved disenchantment with life. Betta didn’t seem to care for anyone or anything. “It’s the climate. I’m not talking about the weather, you ninnies—it’s the social climate. Here the men are all hardheaded and cold-blooded. They only care about one thing. I’ll tell you how to make a Northerner stand to attention . . . just rustle a wad of greenbacks near his ear. But Southerners . . . that’s a different matter altoge
ther. I had a Southern paramour once, and I can tell you that no matter how many men she’s known, a woman is never truly awakened until she’s had a Southerner.”
“Why? Why is that?” Olinda demanded.
Betta smiled wickedly. “They all have a special secret. Ask Lucy what it is.”
But Lucy would not, could not answer, despite the avalanche of entreaties and playful demands for her to reveal the secret. Secret? She had no idea what it could be. She had never made love with Heath—she barely knew her own husband! She looked up silently and met Betta’s mocking gray eyes, feeling like a fraud.
“I’ll tell you,” Betta said smugly. “Southerners do everything—everything—very slowly. Isn’t that right, Lucy?”
When Lucy returned home that night she was mildly surprised to find Heath already there. It was still early enough in the evening for them to have dinner together, something they almost never did. Lucy dreaded times like this. It was becoming unbearably difficult to sit across the table from him, exchanging stilted conversation and finding very little to say to each other. Sharing a meal was something that was supposed to be warm and cozy and intimate, but instead it made Lucy uncomfortable and cold. He was not the same man who had once teased her and made her laugh, who had provoked her and made her blush with his seductive smile. The man who sat across the table from her became more of a stranger to her every day, a stranger who had hard blue eyes that revealed no trace of desire for her. He did not seem to want her at all, and his indifference was much, much worse than anger.
Lucy figured that the only reason for such a complete lack of interest in her meant that he was seeing another woman. Perhaps he kept a mistress in Boston—she wasn’t sure—but it did hurt to think about it. She had no idea how things had deteriorated so far, but it seemed too late to change or fix anything between them.