"You and Peter have been acting awfully odd lately," Georgina complained. "I'm not at all sure I like it. I'm beginning to think I was much better off when you had no family."
Daniel sent her a glance of concern, then seeing the laughter in her eyes, he smiled and hastened his steps. "At times, I've thought the same thing. But there are other times when there are distinct advantages to family."
Georgina sighed. "I don't know. I love my father dearly, but he just won't listen when I make suggestions about rebuilding the factory. And even though I persuaded my mother to stand up to him about all those medicines and Dr. Ralph, she still lets him walk all over her. He's a terrible tyrant."
"You can't expect a man who's had things his own way all his life to change overnight, Georgie. He did agree to let you look over the new line, and he hired a woman to act as foreman."
"It should have been Janice. I still can't understand why she all of a sudden decided to up and leave with Evie and Tyler. Just because Audrey got her job back and you gave Douglas an after-school job isn't any excuse for her to run away like that."
"Audrey and Douglas are comfortable at the boarding house. Janice and Betsy weren't. The position of schoolteacher back in Mineral Springs was a good opportunity. Evie will see that Janice is paid well and provided with housing, and Betsy will benefit from the dry air. Quit being selfish, Georgina Meredith. You know they were delighted with the chance to leave. Janice has been raising that family for years. It's time for her to have a life of her own."
Georgina considered sulking at his proprietary tone, but she was distracted by her surroundings. They had walked past the old neighborhood in which she had grown up and were traversing the recently laid streets of a new development. Gaslights had already been installed, and the streets were not only wide and straight, but sidewalks ran alongside of them. Several new houses were already occupied. Tender leaves shivered on young trees. Older trees had been left at the rear of the houses, and these provided shade for the wraparound porches and second-story turrets of the lovely homes. Georgina stared around her in surprise. She'd scarcely known this area existed.
"Daniel, are we lost?"
"Nope." He steered her up the walk to a modest, two-story, yellow house ornamented with white gingerbread scroll work. The deep front porch already sported a swing, and trailing ferns hung on the shady side porch. Georgina glanced enviously at the rose bed along the decorative iron fence. It wasn't anywhere near the size of her parents' garden, but it was a start. She wished it were hers.
Biting her lip at such a selfish thought, she followed Daniel up the steps. Daniel had given her everything she had ever wanted except a home of her own. She couldn't blame him for that. He owned part of his nanny's house in St. Louis with Evie. He owned part of a ranch in Texas with Evie's cousins and father. He even owned a share in Tyler's plantation in Natchez. And there was always the Mulloney monstrosity to call home if he wished. Then, of course, they were already living in her father's house. Why would he need still another home?
There really hadn't been time to even talk about such things. What with consulting with her father about the factory and working with Peter on Mulloney Enterprises and fighting on a daily basis with his father, Daniel scarcely had time to breathe anymore. Even his press had been packed up and put away, and she knew that was his true desire.
So she didn't quite register the fact that Daniel produced the key to unlock the front door. It wasn't until Daniel swept her into his arms and crossed the threshold that Georgina gasped and clung to his neck and allowed herself to hope as he swung her around to inspect the front hall.
"Daniel! Put me down! What on earth are you doing?" But she continued clinging to his neck even when he set her feet on the polished wooden floor. Her gaze greedily took in the exquisitely carved wooden molding around the ceiling, the delicate etching of the glass-covered lamps on the walls, and the pattern of colored light from the stained-glass transom. She had never seen anything so enchanting in all her life.
"Do you like it?" Daniel watched her face worriedly, holding her waist between his hands as she looked around with an expression of wonder.
"It's magnificent. I've never seen anything so lovely. Oh, Daniel, who does it belong to? Do you think we could buy it? Please, please tell me it's for sale and we can afford it." She bit her lip suddenly and let her arms slide from his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. There isn't any way we can afford a place like this, not with Daddy's place to keep up, too."
Daniel relaxed and caught her hand to pull her into the parlor. "The factory is starting to produce again. Your father can pay his own bills as long as you don't ask him to pay the mortgage. I can afford this on my own income, but you'll be wanting pretty gowns and servants, too. So Peter and I have come to an agreement, and whether my father likes it or not, he's going to have to accept it or find himself without anyone at all."
Georgina stared at her husband with rising hope and no small amount of trepidation. "You aren't playing the hero again, are you, Daniel? I'd rather we stayed with my father than to risk you in some other mad scheme."
Daniel's smile was slightly lopsided as he gestured at the sun-filled parlor. "Do you like it?"
"I love it, and you know it. Just tell me what it's going to cost, and I'm not talking about money." She glared back at him, knowing this husband of only a few months too well.
He bent and nibbled at the corner of her mouth. "It's going to cost every night in your bed for the rest of our lives."
Georgina shivered as the liquid warmth of his kiss took its course. If they were married for a million years, she would never get used to this sensation. She wrapped her fingers in Daniel's vest to steady herself. "You already have that. What else, Daniel?"
His hand brushed her breast lightly before settling on her arm. He steered her back toward the hall and the lovely oak stairway leading upward. "We'll be staying here in Cutlerville rather than traveling the seven seas." He pulled her up the first step.
Georgina continued to hold back. She couldn't keep her eyes from focusing on the beautiful details of the banister and the rooms unfolding above, but she still hadn't received the answer she wanted. "That's what you wanted to do anyway. You said you wanted a home and a family, and now you have one. That isn't too high a price. There's still a catch to it." She glared at him balefully. "Who built this house?"
Daniel sighed, scooped her waist into his arm, and half carried her the rest of the way up the stairs. "Peter did. This was the house he had meant for you. I added a few details since he never had it finished. If you don't like it, just say so. There's still time to sell it to someone else."
Georgina stared into the massive bedroom filling the right wall of the upstairs. Sun streamed through a wall of windows, pooling on a familiar piece of furniture. "Our bed," she murmured, floating out of Daniel's hands and into the room to touch the first piece of furniture they had shared together.
"We can always buy something fancier later." Daniel stuck his hands in his pockets and watched her anxiously. "I just thought it would be nice..."
Georgina swung around and stared at him through wide blue eyes. "We certainly will not. Our son could have been conceived in that bed. That's our bed. It stays right there."
Slapped in the face with too many possibilities at once, Daniel could only stare at the vision in pale blue standing between himself and the bed. Sunlight captured the silver-gold of her hair, but cast her beautiful blue eyes in shadow. His gaze dipped to the generous expanse of her bosom, the one he had admired blatantly every night these past few months. Then hearing her words still ringing in his ears, he couldn't help but send a look of curiosity to the loop of fabric crossing the delicate muslin pulled back from her stomach and hips. He couldn't see anything different. But his eyes rose to meet Georgina's, and hope blazed in them.
"Our son?" he asked tentatively.
"Or daughter." She shrugged almost diffidently, turning away from the heat of his gaz
e to stroke the ornate brass footboard.
"Georgina." A warning in his voice, Daniel stepped closer, reaching out to take her chin and turn her face back to him. "Are you or are you not trying to tell me something?"
"Well..." She couldn't meet his gaze, but her hand stroked the muslin he had been eyeing earlier. "It's been three months," she said, as if that explained everything.
Heart pounding crazily, Daniel searched Georgina's averted face for some sign of certainty. A delicate flush stained her cheeks, and his thumb caressed the shadow beneath her eyes. He had thought she just wasn't getting enough sleep. "Georgina," he whispered, "give it to me straight. Are we or are we not going to have a baby?"
Her lips curved bravely upward. "You're not angry? I know it's awful soon, and Evie said we ought to wait, but well... It was probably too late even then, Dr. Phelps says. I'm almost three months along..."
"We've only been married a little over three months!" Daniel exclaimed. Then seeing the fear rise to her eyes, he carried her up in his arms and began smothering her face with kisses. "My God, Georgina, I love you. I think I just might burst with happiness this minute."
"Really? Really, Daniel? You're not just saying that?" Georgina clung to his shoulders and arched her neck backward as his kisses found new territory. For the first time since she had learned of the child, she admitted a tingle of joy. He wasn't angry.
Daniel dropped her on the bed and began working at the ivory buttons of her bodice while he scattered kisses across her face and throat. "I'm the happiest man alive," he murmured in between kisses. "I just can't believe it. I'm going to be a father." Laughter instilled with pure joy burst from his throat, and he kissed her soundly. "And you're going to be the best damned mother this world has ever seen. Have I mentioned that I love you?"
"Not in the last few minutes." Finally regaining her confidence, Georgina began to work at Daniel's shirt buttons. "We'd better put this bed to good use while we can. My mother says I will be fat and ugly before long, and you won't want anything to do with me."
"Never," Daniel whispered along the expanse of skin his fingers had uncovered. "I'll always want you. And I'll want you even more when you're filled with my child. I can never thank you enough."
"Thank me?" She caught his hair and pulled his head up where she could see his eyes. The gray glittered with unshed tears, and her heart gave an extra leap at the emotion she saw shining there. "Why would you thank me? I love you. I want to have your children."
"That's why I'm thanking you," he answered gruffly. "Now shut up, woman, and let me make love to you."
Georgina gasped as Daniel's hands unfastened her corset ribbons and his mouth found her nipple through the cotton of her chemise. Every fiber of her body tingled as he tasted her there, and she cried out her ecstasy as he released the buttons of her chemise and touched her nakedness. Even after three months of marriage, this was entirely new, because her husband was a different man every time he touched her. Today, he was proud and greedy and demanding, and she had no intention of ever changing him.
Their clothing fell to the polished floor in stages. The heat of a mid-September afternoon caressed their skin as the sun poured through the uncurtained windows. Georgina didn't think they had ever done this in sunlight before, and she opened her eyes to admire the broad expanse of Daniel's chest hovering over her. Gray eyes smiled back, and his hand touched the place where their child grew. And then his fingers slid lower, and Georgina was closing her eyes and arching her hips and begging to receive him again.
He took her gently, with the tenderness of a husband and the knowledge of a lover. He filled her, expanded her, showed her horizons that she could never have experienced without him. In return, she gave him all he asked and more, surrounding him with love, easing his needs, and surrendering her body into his care without a qualm, giving him the child he wanted and the future he dreamed of. The convulsions of joy that overtook them with this physical joining were only a small sample of the union binding them.
Afterward, Georgina lay in Daniel's arms and watched the sun sink toward the horizon, sending a pattern of shadows across their skin. Lazily, she traced the trail of light hairs to his navel. "You're so beautiful," she murmured absently.
Daniel chuckled. "If that's why you married me, you got a bad deal. I've got a couple of brothers who beat me in the beauty department."
Georgina slapped his taut stomach. "No, they don't. And they don't even come close when it comes to courage and intelligence and integrity. You'll have to show them what it takes to be real men."
Daniel grew momentarily silent, stroking her hair over her shoulder. "It's probably too late for that. Peter's planning on leaving as soon as we get the papers signed on this house. He doesn't want anything more to do with Mulloney Enterprises. I can't talk him out of it."
Georgina bounced up and glared down at him. "That has nothing to do with you, Daniel Mulloney. He's a grown man and can make his own decisions. The only thing that matters here is whether or not you want to stay and take up where he left off."
Daniel admired the lovely globes of her breasts hovering over him. The crests were puckered and pink and begging for plucking, but he forced himself to remember her delicate condition. His gaze swerved with interest to the faint swell of her abdomen, and pride surged through him. He had found a woman who loved him enough to carry a child for him. The knowledge of that still rang hosannahs through his soul.
"Wrangling with my father will be simple enough while he's confined to that bed, and the doctors don't think he will ever be able to do more than get about in a wheelchair. Running Mulloney Enterprises won't be the problem it has been for Peter in the past, and the pay is good. If Peter wants to take off, I'll miss his help, but there's plenty more coming along. Paul and John are willing to learn."
Georgina worried at her bottom lip. "What about your newspaper?" she finally demanded.
He grinned, then caught her waist and lifted her off of him. Swinging his feet to the floor, he tugged her after him. "I have something I want to show you. It's one of the reasons it took so long to get this place finished up."
As he pulled her toward the door, Georgina pulled back. "Daniel, I'm not dressed!"
"I know."
He gave her a look that warmed her clear through her middle and made her blush from head to toe. Fighting a desire to cover herself with her arms, Georgina raised her chin and followed him without further protest. They were both jaybird-naked and wandering through the house like a couple of pagan Indians. The excitement of it settled deliciously in her bones.
Daniel led her down the back stairs, through the kitchen, and to another set of stairs leading into the cellar. Georgina gave him a look of caution, then followed barefoot down the wooden steps. It was cooler down here, but she didn't feel the chill. Watching Daniel walking naked in front of her kept her warm.
He threw open a door and Georgina cried out in surprise. There, in all its glory, sat the printing press she remembered from the warehouse. She touched the massive steel machine with wonder, then sent Daniel a questioning look.
He shrugged and crossed his arms. "We won't need the money from it, and now I've crossed the line to Mulloney's side so I can't very well complain about myself, but there are still a lot of things in this town and state that need looking at. I don't see why I can't turn out a monthly newssheet, if I can find a few good reporters."
Georgina touched a finger to her lips and turned him an innocent look. "Like me?"
Daniel frowned. "Over my dead body. That's my child you're carrying there."
"And mine. And did you know that the railroad just laid off most of their regular employees so they could hire immigrants for half the usual wages? I have photographs of that train wreck outside the station the other day. The conductor had next to no experience, and I talked to the regular conductor. He says there's a bridge past Jasper that's ready to collapse, but the company isn't willing to spend money to fix it. I can take more photographs o
ver there if you can send a reporter to cover the story. I bet once the story breaks, even the Cincinnati papers will want to see those pictures."
She was just starting to get wound up. Placing his hand across Georgina's mouth, Daniel lifted her from the floor and started back up the steps.
"Not on your life, Miss Merry. You're not going anywhere without me."
Georgina nipped at his fingers until he lifted them from her mouth. "Then you'll just have to go with me. Now put me down, Daniel. You're going to hurt yourself."
The kind of hurt he was developing had more to do with all that rich softness filling his hands and arms and not any muscle strain from carrying her. Her round rear end was pressed enticingly to a most interesting part of his anatomy, and at his silence, she wiggled provocatively.
"Give up, Daniel. I'm too quick for you."
He turned her around and laid her back against the kitchen floor as they reached the top step. Kneeling over her, Daniel trapped her between his knees. "You'll never be quick enough, Miss Merry. If you so much as try to go out there without me, I'll have my old friend Pecos come back and tie you to the fence post."
"You wouldn't dare," Georgina said, then giggled as he brushed her mouth with kisses.
"Heroes always win," he reminded her, before settling the matter in a most masculine fashion.
Georgina's cry of laughter and joy echoed through the empty kitchen, but it wasn't a cry of surrender. The sun sparkling through the leaded glass of the breakfast nook caught the smile of love and triumph on her lips as she gave her body to her husband but let her spirit soar with his.
Whatever he could do, she could do, too. Her hero had taught her that.
The End
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