by Yvonne Jocks
"Actually," interceded Collier, from where he poured coffee at the stove, "she was more dragged in. Pure accident."
His loyalty warmed her. "Cole carried me home."
"Laurel knew how to treat her injuries," Collier insisted.
Papa looked from one of them to the other. Then he held out a callused hand. "Best see."
She put her right hand in his—ooh, it was cold! He looked at it, turned it over, and nodded. "No scarring."
"No, sir," she agreed, feeling guilty on her own, since he wasn't putting it on her. "But the cold makes me ache something awful."
"It will," warned Papa. "Some time, yet."
Collier put a mug of coffee in front of him, and another in front of Laurel, then sank gracefully into the chair beside hers. "I gather you've had the same difficulty then, Mr. Garrison."
Had he?
Papa looked none too pleased to turn his gaze back to Laurel's husband. "Never fell in no creek."
And that was all they got out of him on the matter.
He'd brought a two-person sleigh—a Christmas present from Uncle Benj—so that they could ride back to town with him, spend the day, and hopefully return before the weather changed, if it changed.
As soon as they'd had their coffee, they dressed to go out.
"Cooper certainly is generous when it comes to Laurel," Collier noted, a thoughtful note in his voice.
All Papa said was, "Best I drive."
They both insisted on tucking and wrapping Laurel so thoroughly beside her father that she could barely breathe. At least the cold didn't make her hurt... except her nose.
The sleigh ride had to be the fastest, easiest trip to town Laurel had ever made from her claim cabin. The hard, thick crust on the snow evened out every obstacle, from coulees to fallen logs to all but the biggest rocks. And the little black gelding seemed so eager, she felt sure even Collier would have no trouble driving him home. Collier rode beside them on Llewellyn, clearly enjoying the outing as much as she was.
"This is wonderful, Papa," Laurel said, snuggling closer to her father's familiar warmth. "Thank you for coming to get us."
He said nothing, just nodded. That was familiar and safe too.
Still, she found herself watching how well Collier rode, despite that silly saddle of his, more than any other scenery. Now that they'd left the cabin, the thought of everything she and her new husband had done together made her blush— especially since Papa had probably guessed.
But she must truly be a hoyden, because she didn't regret a bit of it. Simply knowing that this marriage wasn't meant to last the way other folks' were made things different.
Still, she guessed she'd enjoy every bit of it while she could.
As they reached the outskirts of town, Collier rode closer to the sleigh and called, "I'd best get a shave and a haircut
before I risk frightening my cousin, much less do some business."
"Business?" asked Laurel.
"Check the mail, see to my accounts," he clarified. "Do you mind, dearest? I ought not be but an hour or so."
Dearest. Sometimes it felt real. "Not the hair," she insisted, and his eyebrows rose. Even with half his face covered, he looked beautiful, what with those bright, eager eyes of his.
"Pardon?"
As long as she was wringing every bit of enjoyment out of this marriage as she could, why not make her preferences known? "I like your hair this way. Please don't let them cut it."
Collier made a sweeping bow to her from horseback. "As you wish, Mrs. Pembroke."
She wasn't certain if Papa snorted. But she definitely sighed as she watched Collier urge his horse on ahead of them, toward South Main.
"Ain't mistreatin' you," clarified Papa, in that way he had of asking things without really asking at all.
"No, sir. Collier's wonderful."
"Wonderful," he repeated, clearly unconvinced. But that was all right with her. He didn't have to like her husband any more than he liked Mariah's. He just had to be polite.
She could certainly count on her gentleman husband to be polite in return.
Laurel expected to be mobbed by her sisters when Papa sent her ahead into their in-town house while he saw to the horse. She'd forgotten it was a school day.
But Marian was there, and she was clearly in the family way.
"Mama fetched me," she explained, while they hugged as tightly as the baby under her apron would allow.
"Oh, my," said Laurel, standing back to look at her older sister's round figure with widening eyes. "Oh, my goodness!"
"Only three months to go," said Mariah happily.
"And as healthy as she's ever been," agreed Mama, enveloping Laurel in the kind of accepting, concerned embrace only a mother could give. "And how are you, my little homesteader?"
"I'm fine," insisted Laurel, as the door opened and Papa came in, stomping snow from his boots. "Really. It's wonderful!"
Mariah widened her eyes with playful interest, then glanced toward Papa and looked quickly away, biting her lip. Some things they just didn't discuss around their father.
Papa's glance, noted Laurel, shied just as surely from Mariah. Maybe he didn't know how to react to his daughter's condition ... or feared his true reactions would just cause trouble.
At least that was one difficulty Laurel and Collier would not have to face!
Papa did tattle on her, though. "Fell in the creek some weeks back," he accused, shrugging off his coat.
"No!" exclaimed Mariah. "Good heavens!"
"Then you'll need a warm bath," said Mama firmly, as if it had just happened. "And I know just what to put in it."
"It's been weeks," Laurel assured her. She'd been paying more attention to the calendar lately, after all. "Almost a month. Really, I'm already feeling much better."
"Your father nearly froze in a blizzard once," insisted Mama, "and it took some time for him to fully recover— though he denied it, too. I know you're a full-grown married woman. You don't have to have the bath if you don't want it—"
"A hot bath?" challenged Laurel. "In a full-body tub?"
Mama and Mariah laughed with her, and Laurel realized they'd all three been young wives on homesteads during hard winters. The realization startled her. She'd always felt so different. She was different. Wasn't she?
"There's plenty of time before lunch," insisted Mama, leading the way into their bathroom. "Your sisters and Thaddeas will be here, and the Coopers."
"Collier will be back by then," said Laurel. "Wait until you see his hair!"
"Is it shorter or longer?" asked Mariah. Soon Laurel was in the tubful of blissfully hot, sudsy water, while Mariah sat on a chair beside her—with a curtain drawn modestly so that she mainly saw Laurel's head and shoulders, of course. It seemed they had more to talk about in this one late morning than they had the whole previous year. In particular, Laurel found herself fascinated by the swell of her sister's belly.
It wasn't as if she'd never been around a woman in the family way before. Some of her earliest memories were of falling asleep with her head resting on her mother's big tummy, already understanding that she had another sister or brother in there. She'd been twelve when Elise was born. That was quite old enough to understand.
And yet, that had been her mother. This was her sister!
"Does it hurt?" she asked, scrubbing soap into her hair.
"Not at all," said Mariah. "I don't even feel sick anymore."
"But it's got to fed different. May I touch it?"
When her sister nodded, Laurel swished her hand free of suds, dried it on the towel Mariah offered, then put her splayed hand on her sister's belly, as she might a mare in foal.
It moved, and her eyes widened yet again. Just like with Mama or a foal. It really was a baby!
"My belly itches," Mariah admitted. "And my back hurts some. But nothing awful. Not like when I was feeling so sick, or two months ago, when my, well..." Glancing at the door, she whispered, "My bosom hurt t
erribly. I wouldn't let Stuart touch me."
Laurel flushed, thinking of all the wonderful things Collier did with her bosom. Time to rinse her hair. "But that... passed?"
"Oh, yes." Now Mariah blushed.
Laurel felt relieved. Not that it should matter to her. She herself wouldn't be having a baby, maybe not ever. And that, unlike the lingering knowledge that she and Collier's marriage was finite, still did not bother her.
She had, after all, seen mares foal!
"Why all the interest?" teased Mariah. "Do you and Lord Collier have news?"
"No! Goodness, no. Collier and me?" Laurel shook her head. "We've no intention ... that is, not-anytime in the next few years."
Or any of the years after that. It wasn't exactly a lie.
"Oh." Mariah ducked her head. "What about everything else?"
Laurel stared at her sister's deepening blush. "You mean... ?"
Mariah nodded, golden curls bouncing, and Laurel couldn't keep from smiling at the thought. "Oh, Mariah! If I'd known it was that much fun, I might've ruined myself long ago."
"Laurel Lee!" But Mariah laughed.
"It is!'
"Well, yes. Of course it can be marvelous fun. But it's so much more than that, too!"
Laurel watched how dreamy her sister's gray eyes got and wasn't sure she understood. Collier's making love to her the way he did—kissing her and filling her and drawing her to such ecstasy that she couldn't hold it in—amazed her, every single delicious time. She felt important with him, and beautiful, and happy.
That had to be what Mariah meant. But when Laurel said, "Of course. Much more," that felt like lying, too.
And she did not really like lying.
"I'm so glad." Mariah sighed. "Now it's so clear, what Mother used to tell us. You know, about the importance of being in love. The rest is wonderful, of course, but without the love, it would just be..."
Laurel waited, uneasy and fascinated at the same time.
"Just carnal," Mariah decided. "Temporary. With Stuart, I know it won't matter how long we need to wait after the baby's born before ... you know."
"It won't?" challenged Laurel, and again her sister blushed.
"Well, it might. But he'll be patient, because what we have is so much more than that. And that's what makes... the rest of it... so much better. Don't you think?"
Did she? Maybe, for Laurel and Collier, it was just carnal. It was certainly temporary.
Laurel started lathering herself again with her mother's special soap, harder than ever. What she and Collier had been doing wasn't just anything, and she resented her sister for that angelic glow, and that round belly, and for acting as if, once again, she could do everything better than Laurel could.
Everything womanly, anyhow.
It was all foolishness, just like the stupid shoes. The only womanly thing Laurel had ever liked, she'd found with Collier. And she planned to keep doing it with him at every chance, and enjoying it too, whether he loved her or not.
For as long as she could.
But somehow, that thought just made her madder.
"Are you all right?" asked Mariah, and she looked so concerned that Laurel felt guilty. Here her sister sat, giving up her day to spend time with her, and Laurel blamed her for being better at marriage—when Laurel's had been a sham to begin with.
"I'm fine," she insisted, fibbing some more. "I just want to be dry and dressed when Collier gets back."
Everything would make more sense with Collier there.
Or at least the difficulties would be easier to ignore.
Had Collier gotten the mail before going by the barber's, he might have cut his hair after all. But appearances made the man. So he went to the "tonsorial parlor" right off, indulging in a bath as well as a good, professional shave. It amused him how little surprise the barber showed at his scruffy appearance. Apparently Collier was not the first man to come into Sheridan without having shaved in weeks; nor would he be the last. Neither did the barber hesitate to accept Collier's refusal
to have his hair trimmed, despite long hair not having been fashionable on men for over seventy years. "Women," was all the man said when Collier explained Laurel's preference.
A dark-haired cowboy, who had entered the shop shortly after Collier, made more of a fuss. "So, Marmaduke," he challenged—as if Collier would truly want to fight with a straight razor at his throat. "You do everything your wife wants?"
The implication, of course, was that Laurel emasculated him. Considering the last few weeks, Collier deliberately misconstrued his meaning.
"I have not," he answered, "had any complaints thus far."
The barber laughed, and the cowboy stalked out without waiting for his own turn.
"I mean that in the most proper sense," Collier clarified.
"Well o' course," agreed the barber. But he insisted on giving Collier a nickel discount for having so thoroughly amused him.
A new suit of clothes came next. Only once he felt cleaned and pressed—truly like himself for the first time in months— did Collier go by the bank, then the jeweler, and, of course, the druggist. By the time he gathered the pile of mail waiting for them at the post office and saw the familiar, authoritative handwriting on a letter postmarked from England, it was too late to reconsider his hair.
Good news rarely came from his father.
Collier found a seat right there in the store—Louk's, where the post office was kept—and unfolded the letter to discover what nasty turn was about to befall him this time.
Displeased by your secrecy... Impatient, he turned the page over. Part of his pleasure in marrying Laurel had been the realization of exactly how making his own decision would displease the "governor."
Edgar wanted to visit with you.... Collier read somewhat more slowly there. Was it possible... could it be that he and his family could, as the Westerners would put it, "mend fences" after all? The very thought of returning to England, to
Brambourne, caught his imagination and shortened his breath.
But his father refused to divulge what Edgar wanted. So Collier began to skim again, until...
Docking in New York City on March tenth. Then he realized, with growing dread, that he oughtn't skim this letter after all.
He started over, reading more carefully, but it was the same letter. It still scolded him for marrying without permission. It still hinted at a matter of personal business with Edgar. And on the third page, it still said that the Viscount of Brambourne and his heir—as well as the Baron Tentrees with his wife and their daughter, Edgar's fiancee—would arrive in the United States at the beginning of March.
Good Lord. These United States!
The only balm to his panic—and Collier did recognize his panic—was that they were not, apparently, coming to Wyoming.
We shan't manage to tour your new ranching interests, wrote the viscount, unaware of how this particular slight of Collier's life would benefit his second son. We shall be in Denver from Easter through mid-April. Your presence is expected.
There was no explanation of why they would cross an ocean and more than half a continent to get as far as Denver, but could not manage Sheridan. There was no request of Collier and Laurel's presence, just an expectation.
For one long, glorious moment, Collier considered crumpling up the letter and throwing it into the stove that heated this little store. The hell with Father and his expectations.
But then he looked more closely at the store, one of Sheridan's better-established businesses. Small chunks of ice floated in a puddle inside the doorway, where snow off customers' feet collected and then melted. Everyone wore coats and hats, most of them worn from years of use in harsh weather. A matron counted out payment for a purchase with red, chapped fingers. Her baby stood clutching her wet skirts, his nose running.
Sheridan boasted of itself as the "Denver of the Northwest." They claimed an opera house, four churches, three schools, three newspapers, and a population
of... what had Cooper told him? Somewhere around five thousand people. Denver itself likely had something closer to a hundred thousand.
Collier suddenly wanted to go to Denver, no matter why. He wanted to stay with Laurel at the Windsor; he wanted to abandon the tedium of menial chores that had become their daily routine. He longed to attend the opera. He hungered for the chance to dine in real restaurants. The only thing he wanted more than that was to return to England itself.
When last he'd looked into the matter, London was nearing a population of five million. Sheridan, for all its quaint attractions, was little more than a burg.
As the woman with the red-nosed baby approached the door, Collier stood and opened it for them. She looked startled—he wasn't certain why, as these Westerners did tend to treat ladies with at least an attempt at propriety—but she said, "Obliged."
Collier did not bother to sit again. He was unsure he could remain still. The matter of business with Edgar beckoned him. They'd once had an agreement. And he had managed Brambourne for two years, after all! If he had even a slim chance of returning, he had to go. They had to go.
Collier thought of Laurel and felt sick again. Oh, he did adore her. Her spirit, her strength, her incredible body. But Father would not. Edgar would not. The Baron and Baroness Tentrees and their daughter...
Oh, dear. Collier began to wonder if the Lord was all that good, after all. Because any chance he had of returning to Brambourne would likely rest on convincing his family that, should Edgar refuse his inheritance, Laurel would make an able lady of the manor and a laudable mother to future heirs.
Even if it was all pretense, mere months after the marriage was hardly the time to begin insinuating a possible divorce. Besides, no matter what the viscount meant to discuss, Collier had a bargain with Laurel.
But they had a great deal of work ahead, before his little rancher was ready for such a meeting.
Everyone arrived for lunch before Collier did. Everyone.
Laurel's sisters surrounded her as they hurried in from school. Audra, who had just turned fifteen, looked amazingly grown-up, with her strawberry hair pulled back into a knot and her skirts hanging primly down to her ankles. Laurel guessed she might make a fine schoolmarm yet. Victoria wanted to know how the claim cabin was holding up, and to repeat the latest news about all their friends. Kitty just stood quietly, waiting her turn, until Laurel scooped her up into a big hug and spin. Elise, pulling on Laurel's skirt, wanted to know if the cocoons had hatched, and why she'd been gone so long, and where Collier was.