M. Donice Byrd - The Warner Saga

by No Unspoken Promises

  His blue eyes shined with an unfamiliar light as his pearly teeth became visible through his curving lips. She wrapped her hand around the crook of his proffered arm as they left the room. Holding her head high, she tried to be the beautiful, confident woman she imagined he usually courted despite being sure she would trip and fall down the stairs and end up sprawled head over heels on the landing.

  Meredith felt disappointed the lobby was nearly void of people. Only the desk clerk looked up as they pass through and seemed to take little interest in them.

  Waiting on the street was Blake’s mare harnessed to a highly polished rig. The horse’s mane had been braided adding an air of elegance. She wondered, as he handed her into the carriage, if there was any detail left unattended by Blake besides the lack of a chemise.

  13

  Des Moines was a quiet city of large houses with picket fences and porch swings. Couples strolled leisurely along the wooden sidewalks and crickets chirped loudly in lazy chorus. Even the streets with saloons seemed quiet with only the low excited roar of the crowd spilling into the streets when near the doorway.

  Blake took her to eat at the nicest restaurant in town and to a performance of As You Like It performed by a troupe of traveling actors. Meredith laughed and enjoyed herself so much and was in such a good mood afterwards that Blake didn’t dare comment on the poor performances for fear of getting into another fight with her.

  As they left the opera house, Blake sat back and listened as Meredith excitedly recapped her favorite moments of the comedy. He liked seeing her so enthralled by his choice of activities.

  “Have you seen Shakespeare before?” he asked.

  “I’ve never seen any play before. I tried to read Shakespeare once but I really struggled to understand the old English phrasing. It made a lot more sense hearing it.”

  “Ever go to the opera or ballet?”

  “No.”

  It would be so easy for him to give her these experiences – so easy to make her face radiate with joy as it did now. He wondered how many of these experiences he could squeeze in before the divorce. No, it wasn’t fair to her to show her his world when she might someday marry another man and experience these things for the first time with him. He wondered if it was selfish that he still wanted to be the man seeing the happiness on her face. What if she never had another opportunity to be exposed to the arts? Was it better to never know what she was missing?

  Meredith scooted closer to him on the buggy seat, wrapped her arm around his and rested her head on his shoulder.

  Normally, he’d asked a woman who made unwanted contact if she was cold. Blake was not a man to encourage physical contact. He had enough trouble keeping women at arm’s length without allowing them the subtle encouragement of holding hands and such.

  So, he didn’t understand why he didn’t mind it now. Perhaps it was because he could feel her soft breast pressed against his arm through the sleeve of his frock coat. It was sophomoric he knew, but he flicked the reins so he could move his arm against it.

  Ah, those beautiful breasts of hers. All night long, he tried to ignore their subtle movement under that thin layer of silk. But knowing she wore no chemise or corset under her gown had been a distraction of epic proportion. When he wasn’t surreptitiously trying to decide if he could discern the difference, he watched the eyes of other men to make sure they weren’t staring at her. If they were, he intentionally moved to block their view.

  He flicked the reins again making his inappropriate contact more obvious this time. Her breath hitched and she shifted away from him, releasing his arm, a blush heightening her color.

  “You did that on purpose,” she said. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you treat me like a hussy when I acted like one but I’m really not like that.”

  “I don’t think you’re a hussy,” he said contritely.

  “Would you have treated the women you’ve courted that way?” she asked putting her hands on her hips and making the dark green silk drape loosely over her breasts. As the carriage hit a hole in the road, the fleshy mounds shifted one way, then the other before finding their natural position.

  He mentally groaned as his body reacted of its own accord. Criminy! One would think he was fifteen again.

  “That doesn’t mean I think you’re a hussy.”

  “You said it yourself this afternoon.”

  “I never….”

  “You said I’d been kissed before and more. What does that make me? Maybe you prefer a different word? Tart? Slattern? Slut? Whore?”

  “Stop!” He would have put his hand over her mouth if he hadn’t held the reins. “Christ, where does a girl like you learn those words?” he asked. “Just because you’ve kissed other men doesn’t make you loose.”

  “But I haven’t kissed other men.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I was the first man you ever kissed?” he asked dubiously.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and looked off into the darkness. He heard her slowly inhale through her mouth and he heard her unsteady exhale. “I’ve never kissed anyone else.”

  “I was your first kiss? There wasn’t a boy at school…?”

  “There wasn’t a school there until recently. My parents educated me,” she said. “There was only a man when I was about fourteen who wanted to teach me how to kiss but he was as old as my father and I ran home and told my parents.”

  The hair on his arms and the back of his neck bristled. After his mother died, he felt the same sensation when approached by certain men who claim they wanted to help him. “Good girl,” Blake said with a nod. “What did your father do?”

  “He confronted him. But Unc- the man denied it. His wife very vocally took his side and tried to cast the blame on me. She told everyone I tried to seduce him.”

  “Uncle? You started to say uncle. This is why your parents argued with them and why you’re not sure they’ll take you in?”

  Meredith nodded. “When they moved to the Nebraska territory, Aunt Ester wrote and said if we apologized and I admitted I lied, they’d forgive us. I think if I tell her I lied, she’ll let me stay with them.”

  “But you didn’t lie about it, did you?”

  Meredith hesitated before answering as if she was fighting the painful memories. “No, I had been avoiding Uncle Porter for a year after he tried to talk me into going swimming naked with him, but I didn’t swim naked by myself, I wasn’t about to swim naked with him even if he was more of a playmate than an uncle.”

  Blake stared at the back of his horse’s head as he digested what she was telling him. In his efforts to help children living on the streets, he had come across more than his share of runaways who fled from similar situations. There was no way of knowing if her uncle would still attempt to prey on her now that she was an adult.

  “Aunt Esther was like a second mother to me. She and Mama were best friends. Before Mama lost one of her pregnancies, I remember her telling me she hoped it would be another girl so I would know what it’s like to have a sister. I don’t think that kind of love just goes away after an argument. So, I do believe she’ll forgive me and take me in.”

  Blake had his doubts. If the woman truly believed Meredith tried to seduce her husband, she would not want her under the same roof with him. After their divorce, he planned to escort her to Nebraska, if he felt uncomfortable with the way they treated her, if the aunt was unfriendly or the uncle seemed too friendly, he would not leave her there. If need be, he’d set up a small trust fund for her to live off of to make sure she could live on her own. Maybe his half-sister, Donna, would let her stay with her for a while if suitable arrangements could not be made with her relatives.

  Blake’s mood soured at the thought of her living with a man like that. There was time to work out the details. Even paying bribes, a divorce would take weeks or perhaps even months.

  “I won’t leave you with them until we both feel you’re safe.”

  Meredith suddenly rose up putting her
hand on his shoulder for support and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. You’ve just taken a heavy burden off my back.”

  When she sat back down, he shifted the reins to his other hand and put his arm around her shoulders. “That’s what a temporary husband’s for – to take care of his temporary wife. Temporarily.”

  Meredith turned her head away so he wouldn’t see her cry. But the movement of brushing the wetness from her cheek and the sound of sniffling brought his attention to her tears. He reined the horse to a stop and turned to her in the seat, placing his hands on her upper arms so he could turn her to face him.

  “Tell me what’s wrong, treasure.”

  “When I think of them not wanting to help me, I feel like I can’t breathe. Our families were always so close. There are so many times I wish I hadn’t told my parents. And now they have the power to turn me out on the streets.”

  Criminy! What was it about her that could put knots in his stomach? She might be young but she was hardly a helpless child. Her parents felt she was capable enough to run the farm while they were gone and yet he just couldn’t turn her loose to fend for herself. “You know I’m not going anywhere until you’re safely settled.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a sniffle.

  “And for what it’s worth, I don’t think your morals are at all loose. I still don’t understand why you let me make love to you but I don’t think it’s because you’re a hussy.”

  Meredith’s eyes fixed on the top button of his shirtwaist. “When all this happened with Uncle Porter, my father, mother and I felt the matter should be kept private – in the family. Aunt Esther told everyone their version of the events—that I tried to seduce him—so when it was apparent I had to say something, people thought I said he tried to kiss me because I was trying to defend my own actions. No one believed me. They poisoned the whole community against me. I slept with you because I knew I’d never marry and I didn’t want to die a sixty-year-old virgin. I know those ugly words because I have been called every one of them.”

  Blake silently cringed as memories of his childhood flooded his brain. He remembered what it felt like to be an outcast. Being shipped off to boarding school where no one knew of his illegitimacy, had given him an equal footing.

  “We have a lot in common, treasure.”

  “You were afraid of dying a sixty-year-old virgin, too?”

  He laughed and flicked the reins compelling Wunner on.

  “You know you don’t have to go live with them. My friends in St. Joseph wouldn’t mind helping you find work and keeping tabs on you.”

  “What kind of work do you think I could do?”

  He leaned back, his brow lowering as if in contemplation. A smile quirked the corner of his mouth upward. “Stable hand, hostler, blacksmith?”

  Meredith laughed. “Can you imagine me with arms like a blacksmith?”

  “Maybe not a blacksmith, then.”

  They rode along in silence until the hotel loomed in the distance. Blake wasn’t ready for the night to end.

  “Would you like to get a cocktail before we turn in?”

  Meredith shook her head. “I didn’t like that muddled feeling – especially when you told me about my parents. I just kept wishing I was clear-headed so I would know if it was real or a dream.”

  Blake’s eyes closed as he shook his head. “There are so many things about that night I would change if I could.”

  “I know.”

  Blake put his crooked finger under her chin and tilted her head up until their eyes met. “Making love to you is not one of them.”

  As Meredith’s cheeks turned pink, Blake lightly brushed his lips against hers in a chaste kiss. “I’ve even come to appreciate your gift,” he said pulling the carriage to a stop in front of their hotel. He set the brake lever before climbing down and easily lifting her from her perch. As they passed through the lobby, Blake gave the clerk a tip and asked that he see that the horse and buggy were taken to the livery stable.

  As they approached her room, she fished in her reticule for her room key. She had just inserted the key into the lock and was turning it when his hand covered hers. “I had a wonderful ….”

  14

  His mouth seized hers midsentence. He cupped her upturned face with one hand. His long fingers traced her jaw to her throat as her lips parted under his assault on her senses. When she saw his mouth descending, she vowed she would not respond so he would see she wasn’t wanton but her body had different plans. She encouraged him by putting her arms around his neck and melting into his embrace.

  Vaguely, she was aware when he opened the door and pressed her inside. The key rattled as he withdrew it from the outside lock before closing them into the dark room. She reached out and groped the door only to meet his hand at the lock. Together they turned it. He put the key in her palm which she dropped to the floor along with her reticule when she could not easily locate the bureau. The kiss never interrupted.

  He sought out her breast through the delicate silk. The fragile material draped gently emphasizing the taut bud below. A sigh escaped her lips as his thumb grazed the sensitive spot. It amazed her how that thin layer of material changed what she felt. There was no friction of skin on skin as his thumb glided over the hard pearl of puckered flesh below and she found she wanted him to touch her everywhere through the silk.

  “Make love to me,” she murmured as his mouth traveled downward. It was all she had dreamed about since the first time they made love.

  His hand slid inside her bodice drawing out her nubile breast. When his mouth descended, tasting, teasing with his tongue, she threw her head back as the sensation radiated in waves until her core throbbed with pent up desire and she could take no more.

  Threading her fingers through his soft hair, she guided his mouth back to hers. Impatiently, she worked on his buttons. She needed to feel his skin.

  His hands roamed her back until he found the beginning of the hooks. As deftly as he secured them, he now unfastened them. By the time her gown laid open, she had divested him of all but his pants and boots. She explored the warm planes of his chest and back with splayed hands, trying to memorize the way his skin stretched tightly over his muscles’ symmetry. His skin’s smoothness was only marred by the sprinkling of soft curls on his chest. No detail was too small to attract her notice for she feared in the morning Blake would regret this night and not want to repeat it. He would worry that if she became too deeply involved, she would refuse to divorce him.

  As if he read her thoughts, he put her away from him. “Meredith,” he rasped in a husky voice. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

  “I know, Blake. No unspoken promises.”

  With a look of chagrin and a shrug, he nodded. “It doesn’t change anything. I’m still going to divorce you.”

  “I know. We would never suit. We’re just too different.”

  He pulled the pins from her hair as he gazed into her eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he said lacing his fingers into her hair. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I wish I were a man who could keep you, Mrs. Warner. I wish to God, I were someone else right now.”

  “I understand,” she whispered though in truth she didn’t.

  Suddenly, Blake kissed her mouth, released her, then strode purposefully to the door separating their rooms.

  She heard the door open. It was unlocked while Meredith recuperated and neither felt the need to lock it. “I need to get something,” he called from inside the adjoining room.

  He was divorcing her and could not risk impregnating her. The last time, in his passion, he had forgotten he wasn’t wearing his sheath and he didn’t pull out as he intended. He had left it in one of his trunks in Chicago thinking if Agnes went through his trunks, she would find it. He had a good laugh wondering if she would know what the piece of sheep intestine lining was used for. If she didn’t, would she show it around asking people? He knew a butcher back home who supplemented his income by selling the so-called French lette
rs to men but approaching the butcher in a Des Moines had been a little uncomfortable.

  When a mellow light appeared, Meredith made her way to the doorway and watched as he dug through his carpet bag and removed an object from it. He saw her standing there holding her dress up with one hand, one nipple partially exposed as the material sagged. Her lips were parted and puffy, her eyes hooded as she studied him. His erection tightened uncomfortably.

  Rather than move back into the darkness, Meredith came forward into the light. She lowered the dress until she could step out of it then draped it over the back of a chair. His eyes never left her nor did hers leave him as they finished disrobing.

  They came together again and drifted to the bed as they explore each other’s bodies. After easing her down to the mattress, Blake paused to sheath his turgid manhood.

  “It’ll keep you from getting with child,” Blake said seeing her puzzled expression. “You probably won’t even know I have it on.”

  Meredith met his eyes and nodded. She wouldn’t have minded having his baby but she knew it would either force him to stay married to her or it would leave her unmarried with a baby to explain.

  Entering her, Blake called out her name. Usually the sheath dulled the sensation somewhat. He had thought that was why making love with her the first time was so exceptional but now he realized it had little to do with it.

  Their lovemaking was even more passionate than the first time. They clung together as if it were the last time and neither expected to be alive when the sun rose the next morning. When she exploded over the edge, he pulled her into his chest even tighter, and for brief moment, he imagined himself in a real marriage to this woman. Nothing forced him to divorce her. But moments after his climax, as he held her in his arms, the painful memories returned. Nothing would ever rid him of the sight of his mother’s lifeless body forever and he knew he would never be able to love Meredith.

  “Why?” she asked sleepily against his chest.

  A faint smile touched his lips. He didn’t understand why she could ask such an oblique question and he automatically knew what she was asking. “Why is it like that for us?”