The Bridal Veil

by Alexis Harrington

  “See you in a couple of hours, Emily.”

  “Yes, g-goodnight, Luke.”

  “Emily?”

  She lifted her chin again and he took it between his thumb and index finger. Then he pressed a light kiss on her tender mouth, but as soon as their lips touched he deepened the embrace. She clung to him suddenly as if he were the only thing keeping her from being swept away by a strong current. Tongues, soft lips, arms, and Emily’s small, anguished murmur all blended together to fan the fires in Luke’s body.

  When he released her, she searched his face in the low light, then sped into her room. Her long, blond braid dangled down her back, and she closed the door.

  Luke went to his own room and flopped on his bed, a heavy throbbing down low in his belly as his imagination showed him Emily’s long, silky limbs and sweet curves. He wondered if he’d just guaranteed that he wouldn’t sleep the rest of the night.

  ~~*~*~*~~

  Saturday was unusually warm and humid, and was spent in a flurry of activity in the Becker household. While Luke did farm chores, Emily gave both her dress and Rose’s a final inspection and pressing, and made sure that Luke’s suit was clean and ironed.

  Then she fried the two chickens that Luke had dressed out for her, while she gave Rose the task of chopping up boiled potatoes, pickles, onion, and hard-boiled eggs for salad. The meal would be accompanied by fresh bread, spread thick with Jennie Manning’s sweet cream butter. Dessert would be the chocolate cake Emily had promised and two quarts of apple cider.

  All this work should have kept Emily so busy that she wouldn’t have time to dwell on her late-night conversation with Luke. But she could barely think of anything else. Of all the things he’d told her, two stood out in her mind with knife-sharp clarity.

  Rose was not his daughter, he had been duped into marrying her mother, and yet he loved the girl as much as any father could. This revealed more to Emily about his character than anything else she’d heard yet.

  The other and most important thing he’d said was that he’d begun to question his mourning of Belinda. This fact, combined with the touch of his hand on hers and the hot, moist kiss he’d given her, put a different face on their marriage.

  Now she was almost as nervous as she’d been the day she landed at the Fairdale dock.

  Now she had hope.

  A person with hope ran the risk of losing everything, or gaining the world. Even writer Alexander Pope had made a pithy observation about it: Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

  But such a man would never know joy, either, Emily thought. Hope, joy, and disappointment were a tightly interwoven triumvirate. To live, one had to take chances.

  So, late that afternoon, as she’d stood in her bedroom and dropped her new teal dress over her head, she knew that she must open her heart to him and take the chance that Luke would come to love her, too. Take the chance that they’d have a real marriage together. Certainly her attraction to him had never been a problem. She had heard him at the pump earlier, washing up just as he did every day and had gone to the side window to gaze upon him. He glanced over his shoulder at her, and this time, she hadn’t jumped back. She’d just smiled.

  Now she heard him calling from the front of the house. “You women better get a move on if we’re not going to be the last ones walking into that social! The food is loaded in the back of the wagon but I can’t eat it all myself!”

  With a last glance in her mirror, Emily grabbed her gloves and fan and scurried out into the hall. “Rose, come along. Your father is waiting.”

  Rose emerged from her room, and Emily looked her over, checking for missing items. But the girl seemed to have everything—matching stockings, matching shoes, her hair was still neatly braided. She still owned no gloves, though. Emily hadn’t had a chance to do anything about that, but her heart swelled. She could not have been more proud of her if she were truly her own daughter. “You look beautiful, Rose.”

  Rose beamed. “So do you, Miss Emily.”

  She smoothed her skirt. “Thank you, dear. Let’s go show your father.” Emily had taken special pains to keep Luke from seeing the dresses. She wanted to surprise him, and he’d played along, pretending to sneak peeks while they worked on them in the parlor, making Rose shriek with mock dismay.

  That Luke had pulled the wagon around to the front of the house indicated that this was a special night. Most of the time, they came and went from the back door. When she and Rose stepped out onto the front porch, Emily thought the very air between she and Luke felt electrified. He looked as handsome as ever in his frock coat, standing there next to the front wheel. He gave a low whistle as he considered first Emily and then his daughter. His dumbfounded gaze returned to Emily, where it lingered like a caress. Even with no experience, she felt the heat of his regard.

  “Did I make good use of the silk, Mr. Becker?” she inquired playfully, the closest Emily had ever come to coy flirting.

  His eyes traveled over her, from curled, upswept hair to hem. “Yes, ma’am, you sure did.” He turned to his daughter. “And you, missy, you look so fetching—well, I’d better not catch any young farm boys giving you the eye tonight or they’ll have to answer to me.”

  “Oh, Daddy!” Rose blushed furiously but her grin was as bright as daybreak.

  Luke helped Emily up to the seat next to him, and then put Rose in the back, next to the wicker basket of food. “Everyone ready?” Nodding at his own question, he clucked to the horses and they set off for town.

  As they made their way down the hill toward the church, Emily noticed dark clouds boiling up from the south. “A storm?”

  “Looks like we might have some weather headed this way,” Luke confirmed over the jingle of harness and rattle of the wheels. He studied the sky with a farmer’s eye. “We can use the rain, but I hope it holds off till we get home tonight.”

  They passed the cemetery, and no one looked at the gate or the graves. Not tonight. Emily was too nervous, wondering how she would be received by the community, and whether Cora would be at the social. Rose, she suspected, was eager to show off her new dress, and Luke—well, she never knew what Luke was thinking. But the furrows that often marked his brow were absent, and she hoped that he was looking forward to the evening of fun he’d promised her when he first invited her to attend.

  When they arrived at the church, the surrounding grounds were packed with wagons, buckboards, and a buggy or two. To see a carriage in Fairdale would have been so astounding, Emily suspected that its owner would be mobbed by curiosity-seekers, or perhaps even shunned as highfalutin.

  Women came and went, toting boxes of food and dishes, flapping tablecloths over makeshift picnic tables, and setting out all manner of delectables for those who weren’t participating in the box-dinner auction. A temporary dance floor had been built in the side yard and Jennie Manning had told Emily that music would be provided by the Duffy brothers, the same group who played at weddings, grange dances, and socials. They had a fiddle, a tin whistle, and spoons. If Tom Duffy had enough to drink, he might even bring out his uilleann bagpipes. Reverend Ackerman didn’t hold much with drinking on church grounds, but he figured the Duffys were the pope’s problem and not his. A string of lanterns had been rigged around the perimeter for late-night dancing. Luke had told her that dances sometimes went on until dawn, although that probably wouldn’t be the case with a church social. Reverend Ackerman wouldn’t want to give anyone an excuse for not being in their pews in the morning.

  Children ran around, full of energy and high spirits, playing tag, and bragging about their mothers’s cooking. The men clustered in groups and engaged in discussions about planting, weather, and crops.

  Luke stopped the wagon under a wide-branched maple and jumped from the high seat to help Emily down. Then he handed Rose out and unloaded the wicker hamper that Emily had packed.

  “Mrs. Luke!” Emily turned and saw Jennie Manning waving at her from a group of tables on the n
orth side of the church. A couple of the smallest Manning children, a girl and a boy, peeked at the Beckers from behind Jennie’s skirt. “Mrs. Luke, come and sit with us.”

  Relieved to see a familiar face, Emily waved back, and Luke and Rose followed her to the table set up next to the Mannings’s. “Mrs. Manning, how good to see you,” Emily responded. “Carrie and Jack, it’s good to see you, too.” With a nudge from their mother, the youngsters made polite replies.

  “My, my, but that dress made up so nice! You have a real talent with the needle,” Jennie said. “And Rose, I see you’ve got a new frock. The Becker women look handsome tonight.”

  Emily thanked her, and opened the hamper to pull out her box dinner. “Luke, would you mind putting this on the table with the other dinners?”

  He tipped her a private smile and said, “Don’t forget what I said the other night. I’ll make sure that you and I eat this—no one else.”

  Emily felt the blood rise to her face and she ducked her chin.

  “Come on, Rose,” he said. “Let’s find out where they’re collecting the boxes.” Emily watched them walk away and when she looked at Jennie again, the woman was smiling approvingly.

  They chatted for a while, then Jennie’s attention was diverted to a minor squabble among her own brood. Emily was putting out her family’s dishes when she saw Clara Thurmon coming toward her. She hadn’t seen or spoken to the woman since that terrible afternoon at the general store. She smoothed out her checked tablecloth and waited for Clara to speak first.

  “Well, Mrs. Becker, this is a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here at my basket social tonight.”

  Apparently Clara had recovered from their last encounter, enough to try and insult her again. Emily straightened and squared her shoulders. “And why is that Miss Thurmon?”

  “I figured this might be tame entertainment for someone used to big-city ways. We’re just plain-speaking folks here, not given to fancy manners and fancy talk.”

  “Really? I’ve found that people are basically the same everywhere. One difference I’ve noticed, though, is that where I come from it’s customary to make everyone feel welcome, especially newcomers.”

  Clara tightened her lips into a white line, obviously unable to think of an excuse for her plain-speaking rudeness. So she changed tactics. The sun glared off her spectacles, giving her a weird, eyeless appearance. Her gaze raked Emily up and down, taking in her new dress. “What a lovely outfit. Blonds usually look terrible in that shade. But it suits you.”

  Emily sizzled inside her lovely outfit, trying to think of a reply. But nothing came to mind, and she was tired of the battle. “I’m sure you must have many important duties to attend to, Miss Thurmon, and I know I do. If you’ll excuse me . . . ” She dismissed Clara, who had no option but to move on.

  Jennie leaned closer, obviously a witness to the war of words. “Isn’t she the most dreadful woman?” she whispered. “I hate talking to her—I never know where to look. All I can see is that silver mustache of hers.”

  The tension broken, Emily laughed. “I don’t suppose it would be so noticeable if she had a nice personality that a person could concentrate on. For some reason, she’s taken a grave disliking to me.”

  Jennie, her eyes sparkling with humor and good will, laughed too. “Mrs. Luke, I thought you knew why!”

  It was good to have another woman to confide in. She hadn’t enjoyed that since she’d lost Alyssa. “I know that she and Fran Eakins make fun of my height and my way of doing—”

  The other woman shook her head. “Oh, no, no, it’s not that. Well, it might be part of it, but what’s really eating them up is jealousy.”

  Emily stared at her. “Jealousy! Forgive me, Mrs. Manning, but that’s impossible.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you started calling me Jennie?”

  She couldn’t help but grin at the woman. Jennie Manning had known her share of heartache, loss, and hard work, but she hadn’t let it conquer her spirit, as Cora had. “Yes, and you must call me Emily. But Jennie, I still think you’re wrong about those women. What could they possibly be jealous of?”

  Jennie pulled a stack of folded napkins from the crate she’d brought with her. “They wanted to marry your husband. And they hate it that he chose you instead.”

  Emily stared at her. “How do you know that?”

  “Neither of them can keep a confidence to save their eternal souls. They’ve been talking about it in town ever since you got here. They were both sure that one of them would eventually drag Luke to the altar. Heaven knows what would have happened if he’d offered for one of them—they probably would have scratched each other’s eyes out. He was the most eligible bachelor around here, with a good piece of farmland and a nice house. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s a good-looking man, either, almost as handsome as my Chester.” Emily suppressed a smile. Chester Manning was a devoted husband and a tireless provider, and she knew that Jennie adored him, but he looked like a scarecrow that had been left out for too many winters. “Anyway, you pretty much settled their hash, and now they’re sniping and resentful.” She leaned closer. “If I were you, I’d enjoy it. No one has been able to put those two biddies in their place, and you did it very nicely.”

  Jealous. Emily could hardly believe it—was it really true? No one—no one—had ever been jealous of her. It seemed that she’d spent most her life trying to justify her worth as a human and a female. She’d never had anything that someone else wanted or envied. Until now.

  She let her gaze drift over the crowd until she found her husband’s dark head where he was in a conversation with a couple of other farmers. His stance was easy and naturally graceful, his profile clean and chiseled. His black frock coat emphasized his big shoulders and narrow waist, and she thought he was the handsomest man present. Just as when he washed at the pump, it was as if he felt her gaze on him, and looked in her direction. He gave her a smile and winked at her.

  She realized that Alyssa would have made Clara and Fran just as envious. But Alyssa, God rest her, had never suffered the kind of social misery that Emily had. Before the Cannons’s financial ruin, when they still attended parties and balls, Alyssa had taken her beauty and popularity for granted. She’d never sat unclaimed at a dance, hour after hour, like the last stale piece of pie on a plate, trying to make polite small talk with the chaperones and all the while wishing she were on the moon. In fact, when their social status had tumbled and all the parties came to an end, Alyssa had been more baffled and unhappy than Emily. After all, she’d lost so much more, including her fiancé.

  Now, though, Emily had a sense of confidence and strength that she’d never known before. She was married to Luke Becker, and as far as those women knew, it was a love match. But whether they believed that or not, Emily would be the one going home with him tonight, not either of them. And he had kissed her last night with a passion that made her feel as if molten honey drizzled through her. Only fear of her own response had sent her scurrying to her room.

  As Emily unpacked the silverware, she overheard a group of farmers talking about the weather. Well, of course—it was a popular topic among people who lived off the land.

  “We’ve had some wicked-bad rainstorms lately. But it’s been warm. Been worryin’ about the snowmelt in the mountains.”

  “Yeah, after the those snowfalls we had last winter, the creeks and rivers are runnin’ a little high. I ain’t worried about my land, but the Edgertons planted on the side of that steep slope. That damn fool Paul, I told him it was a bad idea. The whole crop could wash down to—”

  Reverend Ackerman interrupted all conversations when he clapped his hands for attention and used his best preaching voice to carry to all ears.

  “Friends, thank you for coming out this evening to support our humble church. God willing, we’ll raise enough money to put the new roof on before the fall rains set in.” He went on to introduce and thank Clara Thurmon for organizing the social, to drone on about the joy
of giving freely, and finally, to begin the auction so that everyone could start eating.

  Several of the dinners were auctioned off, including the one prepared by Fran Eakins. Jobie Palmer, an arthritic old logger who lived in a cabin on Larch Mountain and rode a mule, bought her box of roast beef for the grand sum of one dollar. He was the only bidder. Everyone clapped and cheered Jobie on, and Fran, trying to keep her face from collapsing with disappointment, went along with him to dine at one of the tables.

  “Now, let’s see,” Reverend Ackerman continued, “it looks like we have a meal here from our newest resident, Mrs. Emily Becker. She lists fried chicken, potato salad, rolls and butter, chocolate cake—sounds mighty good. Who’ll start the bidding?”

  “Five dollars!” A murmur rippled through the onlookers and Emily saw Luke emerge from a group of men. Five dollars was a fortune, an almost ostentatious gesture, especially for a farmer. It was only a little less than her weekly salary had been at Miss Wheeler’s.

  Reverend Ackerman chuckled. “Luke, I guess you know better than anyone how well your new bride can cook.”

  “Yes sir, and for the time being I intend to keep it that way. Good luck with the roof, Reverend.” Emily blushed and everyone laughed as Luke handed over his money to buy his wife’s dinner box. Everyone except for Clara, who seemed to be stewing in her own juices, and Fran, who was miserably occupied with gnarled, white-haired Jobie.

  Luke looked around for Rose, found her, and gestured at her to follow him to their table. When he came back to Emily, he said, “I believe I have the pleasure, ma’am.”

  “Luke, that was a lot of money to spend,” she murmured. “Can we afford that?”

  He chuckled. “No. But I didn’t want to waste time outbidding someone else. So I just took everybody out of the running.” He said this as if he believed another man would actually have challenged him for the right to have dinner with her.