His words made Lydia very nervous, just as he had intended. She blushed. “I merely meant—”
Brigham cupped his hand under her chin and cut off the flow of words, gently but firmly. “Here's what I mean,” he said, his voice as low and intimate as a caress, audible only to her, in spite of the crowd. “You've been a sweet torment to me from the moment I laid eyes on you. Pleasuring you on that bed in the cabin, without being able to take you completely afterward, was such an exquisite torture that my nerves hummed with the strain for days. Now, my dear and lovely little Yankee, you are my wife, and I intend to keep my promise.”
Lydia swallowed hard. She felt overheated and a bit faint and it was all glorious. “Wh-What promise?” she whispered.
Brigham leaned down, tasted her mouth with his own, and then spoke close to her ear. “I'm going to make love to you so thoroughly, Mrs. Quade, that even the mountains will hear you calling my name in passion.”
A hot shiver went through Lydia, and she tried to pull away in sheer embarrassment, but Brigham wouldn't let her go. He nibbled at her earlobe for a moment, sending a sweet fire rushing through her veins from that vulnerable point, and as innocent as she was, she knew this was a portent of what he meant to do to her later.
Her nipples jutted against the gray-striped fabric of her dress, and a low, desperate sound escaped her.
Brigham laughed and then kissed her so deeply that she was like a drunk person when he let her go, and the wedding guests cheered raucously.
There was more fiddle music, accompanied by the strains of the mournfully sweet saw blade, and the celebrants danced in the grass. Brigham whirled Lydia through one waltz, never taking his eyes from her face, and pulled her away toward the back of the house when the song ended.
This was it, Lydia thought, with excited resignation and not a little fear. Her bridegroom was about to take her upstairs to his room, where she would be expected to remove her clothes and surrender to his attentions.
Except that Brigham pulled her up the path toward the old cabin instead. Somewhere in the middle, he swept her up into his arms.
Lydia was practically breathless. She'd come to see a wedding, and ended up a bride herself, and now her groom was carrying her off for deflowering. It was quite a lot to happen in the space of one day, and she was overwhelmed.
“Do you suppose we could wait?” she asked after they reached the cabin. Brigham stooped to work the latch, then kicked the door open. “Just a little while?”
“Wait for what?” he countered, standing just over the threshold, still holding her. He was watching her lips, as though he found them fascinating.
“I didn't plan on getting married today,” Lydia pointed out, somewhat lamely.
He bent close to her ear and told her something else she could plan on getting that day, and his audacity incensed her.
Brigham laughed at her huffy response, set her on her feet and pushed the door shut with the heel of his boot. Then he folded his arms. “What's the matter, Yankee? Having second thoughts?”
Lydia recalled how she'd stood up and stopped the wedding, and was unconsoled by the fact that Devon had spoken up at the same time. “What if I am?” she bristled, smoothing her crumpled dress.
He shrugged. “It won't change anything. I bargained for a wife, and I'm not letting you out of my sight until we've consummated this marriage.”
She closed her eyes, feeling another blush flood her face. “Must you be so blunt?”
Brigham made no answer. Instead he reached out and loosened the strings of her bonnet with his finger. Then he let the hat fall back to the floor, and began removing the pins from her hair.
Lydia stood, trembling with docile defiance, while he arranged her blond tresses, running his fingers through their silky length, arranging them on her bosom.
“You are so very lovely,” he breathed, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders, beneath the cascade of hair, and then pulling her close. He kissed her, his tongue first teasing her lips to open, then invading and conquering her.
Lydia's knees turned to crumbly paste, and her heart was beating so rapidly that she felt sure it would derail itself.
When the kiss ended, she could barely stand. Brigham held her upright by wrapping one arm around her waist. She leaned back lightly into the curve of his elbow as he used his free hand to open the buttons at the front of her dress.
“It's important that you listen to me now, Lydia,” he said, with tender hoarseness, continuing to undress her. “This first time might be a little painful for you, but I'm going to give you all the pleasure you can bear beforehand. In a day or two there will be no hurt at all, I promise you that.” He paused to nibble her earlobe again and, at the same time, slipped his hand inside her camisole to cup a bare and eager breast.
The nipple thrust against his palm.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asked, with stern affection.
She could only nod. She'd heard, all right, but she didn't care. The craving for completion was too primitive and all-consuming to allow room for fear. “I—I'll probably cry out, like the other time,” she managed, as he proceeded to taste her neck.
Brigham's chuckle was a deep, rich sound, welling from the center of his being. “Oh, yes. I can guarantee that you will, Yankee. I'm going to give you a going-over you'll never forget.”
Lydia whimpered again. His words were as treacherous as his caresses, making her dance on the tips of invisible flames. “They'll h-hear me—at the wedding party—”
He leaned down, still supporting her in the curve of his arm, and teased a nipple with the tip of his tongue for a long, torturous interval before answering. “No, Yankee,” he assured her, as she moaned in response. “The walls of this cabin are thick, and there's music down there, and laughter and a lot of talk. No one is going to hear you but me.” With that, he closed his mouth over the morsel at the peak of her breast and enjoyed it in earnest, and Lydia gave a lusty cry at the assault of pleasure and leaned back over his arm.
He took advantage of that by sliding his free hand down inside her muslin drawers and taking a brazen grip on her femininity.
Her eyes flew open in ecstatic shock, but her vision quickly blurred as he reached through to stroke the moist place. He went right on drawing at her breast.
Lydia's breath came hard and harsh through her throat, and a low whining sound began to bubble out of her, rising from somewhere so deep inside her that it seemed like another world, a separate reality.
Brigham licked her nipple thoroughly before lifting his head. “This first time, Mrs. Quade, I want to be looking straight into your eyes when you finally surrender.”
“Oh!” Lydia cried. Her hips were moving faster and faster against his arm, her knees were wide of each other, her back arched. “Oh—God—Brigham—”
He continued to stroke her, but his voice was firm. Even brisk. “Look at me, Lydia,” he commanded.
She opened her eyes again, focused on his face, and then the ceiling seemed to splinter, along with the sky beyond it. She shouted in joyous response as Brigham thrust his fingers inside her and her body buckled around them in a greedy clasp. “Oh—oh—oh—” she said, peaking with each separate cry.
Brigham caught her when she sagged against him in relief, carried her to the bed where he had mastered her once before, and began removing his own clothes. When he was fully, magnificently naked, he took away all that remained of Lydia's garments—her drawers and stockings.
“Feeling better?” he asked, with deceptive sweetness, stretching out beside her and planting slow, audacious kisses on her belly.
“Yes,” Lydia gasped. “No. I don't know.” And she didn't, for deep in its most secret places, her body was still responding to this newest lesson from Brigham.
He parted the veil of silk and kissed her there. “Does that help?”
Lydia moaned like a woman taken by fever. “No—oh, no—”
He began to enjoy her, slowly, and with obvious en
thusiasm.
“Brigham,” she pleaded breathlessly, even as her hands flew up to grip the iron bed rails above her head. “Oh, Brigham—not yet—don't make me—”
But Brigham was merciless. He pried her fingers loose from the bedstead, turned her over and brought her down onto his mouth.
The muscles in her buttocks tensed and untensed as the relentless licking and sucking went on. And on.
“Oh, God!” Lydia cried in desperation, clasping the bed rails again and writhing.
The loving intensified. By the time Brigham was ready to consummate their marriage, he'd turned Lydia's body to pleasure with such precision and skill that she hardly noticed the pain of taking him inside her. There was another violent, glorious upheaval within her, in fact, although this one was spiritual as well as physical. From that moment on, Lydia knew she was truly Brigham's wife, a separate being and yet part of a whole, too.
Beyond the cabin's single window the world grew dark and silver stars sprouted in the black sky. Music, singing, and laughter still rolled up the hill from the wedding place, and a boat's horn sounded from the harbor.
Polly Quade—and now she truly was Polly Quade, for she had a signed paper to prove it—sank into the chair where she'd kept her vigil when Devon was hurt, and looked down at the bouquet of wilting wildflowers in her lap. The room was dim, but Polly didn't light a lamp. Nor did she feel drawn to the merriment still going on below the windows, in the yard.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, and it was as though Devon was standing there in front of her as he had that afternoon, after their marriage, leaning on his cane and glaring at her.
“You wanted a husband,” he'd growled, his eyes dark with contempt, his jawline hard. “Now you've got one. Your baby will have a name. I hope you're satisfied.”
Polly had gazed at him in stupefaction and pain, blinking back shaming tears. From the moment Devon had interrupted the first wedding, earlier, she had known he hadn't returned because he loved her, but because he wanted to save his brother from the clutches of a wicked woman. Still, she'd hoped for something more than the acid bitterness of his anger.
“You did it for Brigham,” she'd said. It hadn't been a bid for sympathy, just a simple statement of fact.
“And for Lydia,” Devon had replied coldly. “Now, you have the name, you have the store, you can have all of Quade's Harbor for all I care! There's a boat waiting for me at the wharf, and I'm leaving.”
Polly had swallowed. “So soon?”
His look had been almost cruel. “Did you want me to stay and consummate this marriage, Polly?” he'd drawled. “Well, you can forget that idea. Brigham and Lydia will do all the honeymooning the situation calls for, I'm sure. Good-bye.”
With that, he'd made his way to the door, quite gracefully, considering he still needed the stick to walk. Polly had wished, in those desperate moments, that Devon could have applied such determination to forgiving and loving her.
She had bolted out of the chair when she heard the door close behind him, but in the end she'd dropped back into the seat, shut her eyes and gripped the chair arms with all her strength.
If she'd asked Devon to stay, to give her another chance, if she'd begged Devon to stay, he would only have mocked her, and she knew she wouldn't be able to bear any more of that. So she just sat there, grieving, knowing he was leaving her, knowing he might never be back.
Now, when he'd been gone long enough for shadows to stream across the floor and wind themselves at her feet like the black ribbons of mourning, she finally raised her hands to her face and wept.
Joe McCauley stood at the end of the wharf, looking out at the dark water, which was spattered with the wavering reflections of stars. Never, except for those black days of misery following his closest brush with death during the war, and the staggering moment when he'd learned that his wife Susan and their children had perished of the fever, had he ever felt so hopeless.
His disappointment was a grinding, searing thing within him, and yet he was a reasonable man and he knew Lydia was happy. For this night, at least. He would not have taken that from her.
He pulled a cheroot from his coat pocket, lit it with a wooden match struck against the piling, and drew in the soothing smoke. He supposed tobacco would turn out to be bad for him, like most of the other things he enjoyed, but on this particular night he needed comforting.
Joe figured no one would blame him, least of all himself, if he just packed up his few belongings and moved on, started over somewhere else. But he'd taken out a loan in Seattle, and his combined house and office were well under way, and for the first time in a long while he had things to look forward to—even without Lydia.
He sighed, drew on the cheroot again. Maybe what he felt for her wasn't true love anyway. Maybe it was gratitude, for the way she'd saved his arm during the war, or plain friendliness, because she was living proof that there was indeed a Deity somewhere, one kindly disposed toward humankind.
Finally, he tossed the thin cigar into the water, where it would disintegrate into nothing, or be eaten by dogfish and cod and other creatures of the Sound. Joseph McCauley would stay in Quade's Harbor, because he liked the place, and because there was always the chance that Lydia might need him one day.
He lifted solemn eyes to the big house on the hill, the windows shining with light, the sounds of celebration rising like a fragrance from the yard. He raised one hand in a solitary, drinkless toast to the bride.
“Be happy,” he said in a raw whisper.
17
WHEN LYDIA AWAKENED ON THE MORNING AFTER HER IMPROMPTU wedding, the single room of the cabin was gilded in golden sunlight. She sighed happily, stretched, and turned, expecting to find her husband in bed beside her.
Instead Brigham was up and fully dressed, though in plain trousers, a work shirt, cork boots, and suspenders, instead of the fine suit he'd worn the day before. Evidently, someone had brought him fresh clothes from the house.
He came to the bedside with an enamel mug of steaming, fragrant coffee and bent to kiss Lydia's forehead when she sat up.
She was careful to keep herself decently covered with the sheet, and that brought a smile to Brigham's mouth.
“Good morning, Mrs. Quade,” he said.
Lydia blew delicately on her coffee, stalling, and averted her eyes for a moment. “Good morning,” she murmured. She'd spent most of the night tossing and moaning in this man's arms, but in the daylight she suddenly felt shy, and more than a little ashamed of her unbridled responses.
The legs of a simple wooden chair scraped against the floor as Brigham drew it close by hooking his foot under one of the rungs. He turned it backward and sat astride the seat, his arms resting across the back.
“Lydia.”
She raised her eyes to his face, embarrassment heating her cheeks. “Yes?”
Brigham smiled, reached out and took her coffee before answering. A moment after he'd set the mug aside on the floor, he tugged the sheet down to reveal her full, warm breasts, with their hard tips of dusky rose.
“Don't hide yourself from me,” he said. His gaze moved over her bounty boldly, without apology, and yet there was something reverent in his expression, too. “You're too beautiful for that.”
Lydia reddened under his perusal, but she didn't try to yank up the blankets, even though instinct demanded it, because she knew Brigham would only wrench them down again.
He made a sound that was part chuckle, part groan. Then, shaking his head like a man who's just intercepted a right cross from a grizzly bear, he stood and put the chair back in its place. He even bent down to fetch Lydia's coffee and hold it out to her.
She still didn't cover herself. Brigham's perusal made her feel as beautiful as a stage actress, and the sensation was addictive.
“I'd appreciate it,” he said, from the area of the door, “if you would move your things back into the main house as soon as possible. Charlotte and Millie can help you—bring whatever furniture you want, and
leave the rest for the next tenant.”
Lydia might have resented the offhandedness of his command, or the very fact that it was a command, however politely phrased, if she hadn't still been under the influence of his lovemaking. She felt as though she'd taken some magical potion, forbidden to all but wizards, goddesses, and angels.
Only when her husband had been gone for some minutes did she finally rise from the bed, wash at the white enamel basin, and get dressed. She left her long hair free around her shoulders, since there was no brush in evidence.
She couldn't help smiling as she looked at herself in the cracked, undulant mirror. She'd been the same woman the day before, in the same gray-and-pink-striped dress, and yet she was a very different person, too.
She stripped the sheets from the bed, not wanting anyone else to see the evidence of her surrendered virginity, and stuffed them into one of the pillowcases. She couldn't very well carry that particular laundry to the big house, where Charlotte and Millie were, and some guests probably still lingered, let alone bring it to the cottage for washing.
Thus, Lydia went to the stream that ran through the dense trees and blackberry thickets behind the cabin. She scrubbed the sheets carefully, pounding them clean with a rock the way she'd done so many times while traveling with the hospital corps, and draped them over bushes to dry in the sunlight.
That done, she went down the hill to the house, sneaked in through the side door, where the screened sun porch was, and hurried up the stairs. In Aunt Persephone's dressing room she found brushes, combs, and pins. She put her hair up in a soft, flyaway style, and then proceeded downstairs to the kitchen.
“Mornin', Mrs. Quade,” Jake Feeny greeted her, with a friendly grin.
The name warmed Lydia's soul like sunshine on frosty ground. “Good morning, Mr. Feeny,” she replied. “Are the girls around?”
“They're down watchin' all the buildin's go up,” the cook answered, ladling oatmeal into a bowl. “You sit down now, Mrs. Quade, and have yourself some breakfast.”
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