“Papa, someone’s here.”
From where he stood on the ladder, Anders could hear the horse approaching at a fast clip but he could not see out into the yard. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before.”
By the time Anders climbed down the ladder and reached the barn doors, the man had dismounted his black horse and was at the door of the cabin. He saw him try the knob and finding it unlocked entered without an invitation.
It took Anders only a few seconds to cross the yard but when he entered, he used catlike grace to hide his presence.
The man stood just inside Meredith’s bedroom with his hands on his hips looking around the room as Meredith, who had obviously just been roused from sleep, climbed out of the bed. She did not seem frightened by the man or embarrassed for him to see her dressed in her sleeping gown.
“What are you doing?” Her voice didn’t sound at all harsh.
He glanced at her, his eyes raking her scantily clad form, “I’m sorry I woke you, I know you need your sleep.” He put his crooked finger under her chin and tilted her head up and kissed her softly on the cheek. “I lost something.” he said and bent to look under the bed. He picked up two buttons.
“You found it, now you better go.”
“I would hardly come all the way back here for buttons. I lost the one thing I own that I would risk coming back here for. It must have fallen out of my pocket when you put my clothes in the chair.”
He stood and began searching the room with his eyes again and swore under his breath when the razor did not immediately come into view. “Do something about that,” he said motioning with his hand to the bed. “Either make the bed or burn the sheet.”
For the first time, Meredith noticed the blood stain. “Oh!” she gasped and moved to the bed.
As she began stripping the sheet she asked, “Maybe you lost it in the barn when you changed clothes. What did you lose?”
Before he could answer, another male voice asked from behind them, “Perhaps this?”
6
Blake stood with his arms crossed and his weight shifted to his back foot as if he could not stand far enough away. He closed his eyes as the man in the cavalry officer’s uniform endlessly lectured using words like military justice, brig and marriage. His stomach churned as his mind frantically tried to come up with a solution that didn’t involve marrying the girl.
Blake shuffled uncomfortably. Criminy, he thought he was past the point in his life where his actions would cause embarrassment to his father if the truth of his parentage ever came to light. Getting kicked out of boarding school for fighting or kissing the headmaster’s daughter did not compare to this disaster.
Running his hand through his unruly hair, Blake was torn – torn between what society expected and the internal conflict inside him. The fact that he never wanted to get married was not a flippant way to continue his hedonistic lifestyle but a deep-seated need to protect himself because if he didn’t grow close to any woman, no woman could hurt him like Beth had.
He hated this. To see her in a position of outcast like his mother and know the blame rested on his shoulders, killed him. And yet, he could find no way around the inevitable. There had to be an answer other than marrying her. Why couldn’t he come up with an equitable solution? He could give her enough money to live out the rest of her days. Surely that would be compensation enough. But Lieutenant Sheehan would not be happy unless he agreed to wed her.
Meredith approached slowly. “Sir,” she said when the lieutenant spotted her. “I knew when I agreed, we had no future together afterwards. He offered me several opportunities to back out but I didn’t want to.”
The officer’s face mottled with anger. “You’re not helping matters. You will get married or he’s going to spend a very long time in jail.”
“I don’t want to marry him. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“No. You could be with child.”
Meredith looked at him as if he lost his mind. “You can’t get pregnant your first time. Everyone knows that.”
Blake’s hands flew out in a defensive gesture as he took a step back. “I didn’t tell her that lie.”
“That’s not true?” she asked with wide-eyes searching Blake’s face.
The lieutenant pinned Blake down with a harsh look. “How can you possibly say you didn’t take advantage of her naivety?”
“Criminy!” Blake cursed running his hands through his hair. Under normal circumstances, he might have been able to argue that he had taken measures to protect her from pregnancy but not only did he leave his sheath at home, in the heat of the moment he forgot to pull out. Paling, he realized he could have indeed fathered a child. “Fine. I’ll marry her.”
“No! I don’t want to marry you.”
Blake took her by the elbow and pulled her aside. “Do you think I should go to jail for raping you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Thank heaven for that,” he said under his breath. “I’ve been racking my brain for a solution for twenty minutes. We are either getting married or he’s going to lock me up.”
“I’m not going to marry you.”
“They think I took advantage of you by manipulation – took advantage of your vulnerability after telling you about your parents and took advantage of your innocence.”
Meredith opened her mouth to protest but realized she would be protesting to the wrong person. “I need more time. I just found out about my parents. I don’t want to think about this now.”
He cast a sympathetic gaze at her. “I know, Meredith. This is unfair to put you in this position.”
“Please,” she said tears choking her.
“Women back home think I’d be quite a catch,” he said with feigned cheerfulness.
Her head jerked up to meet his gaze. Her gray eyes were red and watery and dark smudges attested to the fact she had not slept well the night before. “Then marry one of them,” she snapped.
“That’s going to be a little difficult from a prison cell.”
Meredith crossed her arms over her chest. Her voice was small and tight, her lower lip and chin trembled. “I don’t want to marry someone who doesn’t want to marry me.”
“Criminy! I want to marry you more than I want to be incarcerated.” He looked at her expectantly. “Do you want me to get down on one knee?”
“Hardly.” She sniffled loudly and he handed her his handkerchief.
“Fine. Let’s negotiate. What do you want?”
She thought about it, gnawing her lip. “I want to keep my horse.”
Blake looked surprised as if he’d expected her to say something outrageous, demanding a house and jewels and access to the moon on odd Thursdays. “Till death do you part,” he vowed. “What else?”
“I don’t want anything else from you.”
“What about the land?”
“How can I ever come back here when everyone knows what I did?”
Blake sighed. He bore a strange desire to bundle her up in his arms and protect her from the gossips. It struck him as odd but he dismissed it as some misguided sense of chivalry or guilt since he caused her downfall.
No, he understood this echoed his mother’s circumstances. Their neighbors knew she lived as the kept woman of a man who protected himself from their scrutiny but did nothing to protect her. Blake hated that he caused Meredith’s downfall and knowing the stigma involved and knowing no other solution; he had to make an honest woman of her.
Criminy, he felt sick to his stomach. Literally. Blake struggled to rebury every wayward memory that this situation pulled from the recesses of his mind. His whole body trembled in warning that he was in the greatest danger of his life. The hair on his arms and back of his neck raised. He knew if the connection he shared with Meredith in the bedroom continued to blossom, she would hold the power to hurt him as much as Beth had. How could he marry her and not form an attachment?
“There’s no reason yo
u have to decide anything right now. I’ll talk to your minister and see if he can find out all the financial information and I’ll make sure it’s all kept up-to-date until you decide.”
Her face softened at his thoughtfulness. “Thank you.”
“So are we agreed?”
She hesitated a moment before nodding.
“Finally!” Reverend Michelson exclaimed upon hearing that they were in agreement.
A thin man of some forty years of age, Josiah Michelson combed his hair to cover up his bald head, his part moving further to the side every few months out of necessity.
“Miss Vande Linde, perhaps it is best your parents are not here to witness your shame. If I told them once, I told them a thousand times; letting you ride astride as you do would lead to your downfall.”
Blake rankled at his assessment. How could a man of God tell her that it was better her parents were dead than for them to witness her lapse in judgment? “How, pray tell, does riding astride factor into this?”
“It’s not modest. It gets women all…worked up.”
Had it not been for Meredith’s downcast countenance, stained with embarrassment, Blake might have laughed in the man’s face but he could see the words were aimed to hurt her.
“What a bunch of hogwash! If riding astride got women worked up, every man I know would buy the women they court a horse and saddle instead of flowers. You have no right to cast aspersions on her when you don’t know what happened.”
“But I do know what happened. Unlike the lieutenant, I know this girl. It was just a matter of time until something like this happened. You just happen to be her unfortunate victim.”
Blake began to wonder if her reputation of being a hellion stemmed from the clergyman. He was halfway tempted to tell him he did coerce her or at least that he plied her with alcohol to seduce her.
“Thank heavens he doesn’t know about the whiskey and the poker,” Meredith said in a stage whisper as she raised a stubborn chin at the preacher.
Blake smiled at her. He would much rather see her defiant than cowed. “The devil certainly had you in his grip when you cheated.”
“You think you’re funny but you don’t know this girl. You’d be wise to take a firm hand with her.”
They held the small ceremony under the big maple tree shading one corner of the house. Reverend Michelson presided with only the two Broberg males and the cavalry officer to witness the joining. Meredith fought back the tears welling up in her eyes as she stared into Reverend Michelson’s less than placid face. Everyone waited for her answer. She only glanced at Blake once. He was staring straight ahead refusing to look in her direction but the way the muscles in his jaw twitched gave her pause and she was sure he hated her and blamed her. It frightened her so much she didn’t look at him again.
She swallowed hard, knowing to keep him out of jail, she had to marry him. “No,” she protested vehemently.
The assembly of men stared at her incredulously. She had agreed to marry Blake Warner but now she refused to say her vows.
“You want me to vow to love and honor and I don’t know if I can or not and I’m pretty sure that obey part would be an outright lie.”
“I have no doubt,” Reverend Michelson said under his breath.
Blake shifted uncomfortably, the roiling in his stomach drawing more of his attention than her refusal.
“For God’s sake, can’t you just ask her if she’ll agree to marry me or let her say she’ll try?”
The preacher pulled his shoulders back. “Fine. Meredith, do you agree to marry this man and will you try to love, honor and obey him?”
Meredith glanced at her bridegroom. He looked pale, his skin wore a fine sheen of perspiration and his jaw muscle continued to twitch as he clenched his teeth. She wondered if he was suffering a terrible attack of nerves. Obviously, he was every bit as upset over this union as she.
“Y-yes,” she said distractedly.
As the preacher began to read the vows to Blake, he interrupted. “I agree to marry her. Period.”
“In the name of the Father, I now pronounce you husband-and-wife. She’s your problem now.”
No sooner were the words out of Josiah Michelson’s mouth, than Blake Warner vomited on the man’s shoes. Twice.
Meredith jumped backwards and her lips twitched upwards. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll skip the kiss.”
With a look of embarrassment, he shook his head as he reached in his pocket and pulled out his greenbacks. He peeled off a couple of bills and handed them to the minister. “Buy yourself a new pair,” he said thrusting the money into the man’s hand. It was all the apology Josiah Michelson would receive. “What time is the memorial service?”
The man’s eyes never left his feet as he alternately tapped the toes of his boots on the ground. His lips were curled up in a scowl of disgust. “Eleven.”
“Then we’ll wish you a good day until then.”
Blake led her by the elbow into the house and after rinsing out his mouth, sat down in a kitchen chair.
“I had hoped my cooking had improved,” she said as she wet a cloth at the basin and reached it towards his brow. He jerked away as if repulsed.
“I haven’t needed a mother since I was ten years old. I don’t need one now,” he snarled.
She stared at him as if he physically slapped her. A sickening feeling of dread spread through Meredith until she trembled with the reality of being married to a man she didn’t know. A few feet away, Blake Warner sat with his head propped in his hands. Meredith watched him cautiously, waiting for his reaction, waiting for the anger to be unleashed.
The silence stretched on, her tension growing with it. “I just kept your butt out of jail and I deserve at least a modicum of civility if not a bit of gratitude.”
He lifted his head and the proud jut of her chin attested to the return of the hellion. His hellion. His wife. Criminy!
Bile burned his gullet threatening to make him sick again. Jeez, he hadn’t had a visceral reaction like that since the day he came home from school and found his mother dead. The sheer panic he felt made him lash out at her.
“Gratitude? Trust me; if I had known you were a virgin, I wouldn’t have touched you with a ten-foot pole. I was honest with you when I told you beforehand that I wasn’t promising you anything afterwards – a little honesty from you would have kept this from happening. But no, you had to bestow your little gift on me.”
Meredith’s eyes filled up with tears. The words he spoke had been aimed to hurt and they hit their mark. It was true, he had said basically the same thing the night before and that made the words sting. “I’m sorry. We can leave as soon as I’m packed. I don’t want to go to the memorial service.”
His eyes were trained her retreating back. He swore under his breath and followed her into her room where she pulled a valise from under her bed.
“You’ll regret it if you don’t go.”
“It’s not going to be about them. It’s going to be about me and what I did and what terrible parents they must have been to raise such an unruly little shit like me. Every time I got in trouble publicly, he preached on sparing the rod and spoiling the child. And honestly, I’m just too embarrassed to go. Everyone will know I slept with a stranger. They will think I had no respect for my parents. Getting married the day of their memorial service is the equivalent of dancing on their graves.”
Blake tried to put himself in her shoes. At some point, he’d have to face his own friends with his new bride. No one there would know the scandal involved with this marriage but everyone here would. He wished his presence could make it better but even if he pretended love at first sight, the truth was already out there. Showing off his wealth to these people or implying he forced her, would not change anything.
“I’ll make sure their graves get marble tombstones. You can have anything you want engraved on them.”
Her anger softened at his thoughtfulness. “Thank you.”
As Meredi
th began packing, Blake wrote a letter to the minister taking the blame for not allowing her to go to the service. Even if she never knew he accepted responsibility, it was important to him that her neighbors not view her in a worse light than they already did. He asked him to distribute the farm animals to people in the area who might need them and find an attorney to help with her parents’ finances and property.
When he finished, he entered her room to find her trying to figure out how to stuff a riding skirt into a valise already brimming with several skirts and dresses. With a look of defeat she held the outfit against her body as she began digging through the suitcase looking for something to discard.
“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you can do the sewing it’ll take to replace the dresses which won’t fit.”
He meant only to tease her a little but his tone held no humor in it. Damn. How had he gotten himself in such a mess? How many women in Chicago had set their sights on him? Not once had he come close to the altar. He really had no one to blame but himself. He should have never made love to her nor returned for the straight razor.
She stiffened her spine. “I’ll learn. And I’ll learn how to cook, too. I’m a hard worker, Mr. Warner. I’ll keep your house spotless and your garden tidy. And – and I’ll sell my saddle to pay you back for the material for the dresses if I have to.”
A half-smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. He liked her spirit. “I don’t doubt that you would. However, that won’t be necessary. I am by no means impoverished and from what I’ve seen of your wardrobe, most of it needs to be replaced anyway. I have not decided what to do with you yet but if I do decide to acknowledge you publicly as my wife, it would not do to have you dressed in rags nor in your first attempts of domesticity. I do not own a house for you to clean, so, also, I have no kitchen for you to attempt to poison me with your cooking. Should I acknowledge you and buy a house, it would not do to have my wife cooking or cleaning. I’m afraid I have a social standing to keep up and would not want my friends to think me miserly.”
M. Donice Byrd - The Warner Saga Page 7