by Jill Metcalf
“This was my room,” a deep masculine voice informed her, and Margaret turned to face her husband. “My mother kept it this way for me all the years I was in England.” He pushed off with a shoulder from the doorframe and stepped into the room. “I moved my things to the larger room before I left to get you.”
Margaret frowned and clasped her hands behind her back, considering her words carefully before she spoke. “I like this room,” she said simply.
“I do, too. Perhaps one day we’ll have a son who will sleep here,” he returned quietly as he glanced around the room before his gaze settled on her again.
Margaret hesitated before continuing but finally said frankly, “I thought I would take this room for myself.”
Hunter’s brows arched even as his eyes narrowed, and Margaret knew immediately that she had grossly miscalculated. “Did you, now?” he asked in a deceptively calm voice.
“It is a nice room,” she added lamely.
“It is. It is not our room, however.”
“Hunter,” she pleaded, stepping back from him a pace. “You said you would give me time.”
“So I did. But I did not agree to being estranged from you. We will share a room and a bed, Maggie,” he added firmly. But then he softened a little as he tried to understand and be tolerant of her concerns. He held out one hand. “Come with me,” he said softly and led her into the room which they would share.
He looked around the large rectangular room that had been his parents’. It would be cool in summer; a large oak tree cast its shade over the room and windows. And it would be warm in winter; the chimney that serviced the parlor provided also for a small fireplace on the end wall of the bedroom. Jason and Hunter’s father had carved the bedstead, and Hunter had added two comfortable, well-padded chairs and a woven rug to a center spot before the fireplace, where he hoped to spend many a long winter’s evening in Margaret’s company.
He stood now, in the room he had planned to share with her before learning of her aversion to having a husband, and he felt the warmth of her small hand tucked neatly inside his much larger one. His plans had not changed with his new knowledge of her; they would share this room and his bed but he would, as he had promised, give her time to adjust to her role as his wife.
“Hunter, your friends will know that…”
“Of course they’ll know,” he interrupted, leaning close to her as he pressed her hand against his chest. “Haven’t you heard that husbands and wives sleep together? Most people understand that.”
“A gentleman would allow his wife to sleep in her own bed,” she insisted.
“Where did you learn that?” he teased.
“It is general knowledge.”
“Indeed? And did your mother and father sleep in separate beds? Is that where you learned this amazing news?”
Margaret tried to turn away from him but he wouldn’t let her go.
“I suspect that they shared a room,” he insisted softly, his dark eyes staring intensely into the light blue of her eyes. “I suspect they shared a bed. And I suspect they cared very deeply for each other and demonstrated that love often. How else do you think they got four daughters, Maggie?”
In theory, Margaret knew the answer to that, of course. She had been raised on a farm and understood the continuance of a line. She simply did not choose to believe that such tawdry, disagreeable behavior had any place in her own life.
When she looked down at the floor, Hunter’s other hand came up and held her hand against his shirtfront. “This is simple place,” he said softly to the top of her head. “And I’m a simple man. I have envisioned spending evenings here while you and I talk, or while I read and you sew. Quiet evenings, away from the work and the cares of the house and the farm.” He smiled when she dared to look up at him, a small frown marring her loveliness. “A quiet place where we would escape the demands of our children.” And when she would have turned her head away from him, Hunter gently forced her chin up again. “I have no mean or hurtful thoughts or plans for this room, my pet,” he whispered. “Everything I want to do with you here is about sharing. We will share the bed and our thoughts and our humor. We will share our fears and our disappointments, and most important, Maggie, I want us to share our love.”
Margaret’s eyes immediately turned stormy, and she tore herself away from him, speeding across the room to stare out the window. “Those are pretty words,” she said evenly. “But I think you’ve trapped yourself, Hunter.”
He didn’t move toward her; he simply turned until he was staring at her back. “How do you mean?”
“You returned to Treemont to get a pretty, laughing girl, and I am not that girl any longer. Once there, you were trapped in your bargain with my father, weren’t you?”
“No!” he said firmly, taking a step toward her. “I was not trapped, and there was no bargain. Can’t you see, Maggie? I had a choice. I always had a choice because there was no firm agreement. Your father and I agreed that I would return to Treemont when you were grown, and if there was an understanding between you and me…”
She whirled to face him then. “But there was no understanding between us,” she cried. “I didn’t want you.”
His dark eyes narrowed as he studied the torture in the eyes he had thought about for years, the eyes he had come to love during the years he had imagined her growing up. And in response to her statement he said only, “Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“I thought little girls dreamed of their first love.”
“Little girls do,” she returned heatedly. “But the realities are for big girls and I don’t want any part of them.”
“You don’t know what the realities are, Maggie.”
“Really?” she laughed bitterly. “And what do you call my previous experience?” Her hands were clenched at her sides, and she was leaning toward him in anger and frustration.
Hunter thought he had never seen anyone so frightened and trying so hard to hide it. “I call it rape,” he said. “And it has nothing to do with two caring people expressing their desire and their mutual need for each other.”
“Two people?” she scoffed. “And what woman would ever confess to feeling desire and need?”
“My woman will,” he said quietly. “As soon as I teach her that desires and needs are natural and permissible. As soon as I teach her that making love with me will not be frightening or painful or degrading. Does that just about cover your concerns when you think about lying with me, Maggie?”
Suddenly Margaret seemed to crumble before his eyes, and her hands came up to hide her face as if she could not bear to have him see her any longer.
Hunter’s reflexive reaction was to reach for her and try to comfort her by holding her close against him. And he did so, ever so gently.
“I can’t, Hunter,” she mumbled against his shirtfront, her hands continuing to hide her face and the ugliness of tears. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take a lover.”
“You will, my pet,” he breathed with a confidence he wasn’t feeling. “You will take me.” He cupped her chin in the palm of his hand and raised her head until he could look into her troubled eyes. “You will take me,” he said again, “and you will find our loving to your liking. I promise you.”
“You’re such a strange man,” she whispered, finally looking up at him. “How can you dare to imagine such a thing?”
“I dare, my love, because we are going to make it happen.” He lowered his head, his eyes intense and alert as he watched her until the precious second before his lips lightly touched hers. She started, but he shook his head, moving one hand higher on her back to keep her in place while he pressed the palm of her small hand to the center of his chest once again. “So soft,” he murmured and tilted his head slightly this time as his lips moved across hers.
It was not a threatening kiss. In fact, to Margaret, it seemed that he was paying homage to her. As if he cherished her and wanted her to know that. She didn’t know how this could
be, but she felt it as certainly as if he had spoken the words to her. Such a curious man. He coaxed her senses in maddening ease with a combination of harsh demands and soft words, determination and hesitancy, dream and reality. He was, indeed, an unusual man, and he was cultivating some spot within her, just as he cultivated the land surrounding the house in which they stood.
The wide palm of his hand pressed warmly against her back and seemed to force a sense of fire through the stuff of her blouse, so that she thought he might be charged with summer lightning as tiny shocks traveled down her spine to the tips of her toes. It was a mysterious thing, and Margaret feared it because it was an unknown. But she did not fear that he might go beyond the gentle, lingering kiss. The kiss was all he wanted; she knew that instinctively.
She pulled her head back and stared at him with curiosity and shock.
Hunter smiled down at her, realizing that he had moved her in some small way; and any way he could make her think of him in relation to herself was a major event in his estimation. “Marie-Louise is in the kitchen preparing enough food for a threshing,” he said lightly. “Let’s go down to supper.”
Supper? They had yet to resolve their dispute to her satisfaction. But then Margaret realized the disagreement would be resolved to his satisfaction one way or another, and she might as well be kind to herself and give in gracefully. It crossed her mind, however, as he led her from the room, that if she put her mind and her meager brawn to the matter, she could push him out of the bed a time or two.
Supper was ready when they returned to the kitchen; a delicious smelling meat pie, thick with dark gravy by the look of it, was warming on the back of the stove. Carrots sweetened with maple syrup steamed in a pot, and warm popovers covered by a cloth had been set aside. Except for the food and the furnishings, however, the kitchen was empty.
“Where is everyone?” Margaret asked.
Hunter had no answer, but a clue jumped out at him when he turned toward the table. Marie-Louise had spread a neatly ironed white damask cloth across the table and set places for only two. A bouquet of freshly cut flowers stood in a tall pitcher, and propped up against it was a paper-wrapped parcel. Hunter smiled as he began to comprehend. “I believe they’re giving us a gift, my love,” he said and lightly tugged her toward the table. “Our first supper at home is to be for only we two, it seems.” He reached for the parcel, turned it over in his hand, and held it out to Margaret. “I imagine this is for us.”
Margaret stared at the thing for a moment before taking it in both hands. “A gift?” she murmured, staring down briefly before frowning up at him again. “Shall I open it?”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “And be quick about it. I’m a starving man.” He then pulled back a wooden chair from the table.
Margaret sat down, put the package on the table, and carefully opened the gift. It was a small broom, as long as her forearm, gaily and artfully decorated with dried flowers, pine cones, and herbs and topped by a wide plaid bow on the hand. “How lovely,” she said. Although it was extremely appealing to the eye, she doubted its usefulness. Then she spied a square of paper folded beneath the broom and gave it to Hunter to open.
They read it together silently, struggling over the nearly illegible scrawl;
'My grandmother often made these when I was a girl, it said. She told me of the importance of a new broom to newlyweds or friends moving to a new home. The gift of a new broom brings good wishes for a new start, and the decorations are a symbol of abundance. This is our gift to the newlyweds and to the new friend who has moved to a new home.
We thought you might like to enjoy your first night in the house in peace.' It was signed simply, Marie-Louise.
As a footnote, she added; Jason will sleep in the cottage tonight.
Hunter laughed at the last line, and Margaret glanced up at him hesitantly. “Marie-Louise seems to be in charge of everything and everyone,” she said and he nodded his head.
“I expect Jason thinks so about now.”
Margaret held the broom up for his inspection. “Do you suppose she made this?”
“Oh, yes. Marie-Louise is quite talented.” He stood beside her, smiling as she continued to examine the broom. “Do you like your gift?” he asked unnecessarily; he could see that she was pleased.
“It was very thoughtful of her,” she said quietly. Then, raising her head, she asked, “Could we hang it on the door, Hunter? It would be such a pretty thing to greet visitors to the house.”
Visitors? They didn’t get many of those, but it that was what she wanted…he nodded his head in agreement.
He returned the note to the table then before moving across the room to fetch their supper. “I am truly a starving man,” he said again. “Could we consider the gift of abundance to start with food?”
The gift had lightened Margaret’s mood, and she followed in his wake. Hunter took the pie and a large spoon to the table while Margaret scooped the carrots into a bowl. And while she was pouring the syrup over the vegetables, he returned for the popovers. Hunter stepped close to her right shoulder and, bending slightly, planted a light, quick kiss on her cheek.
She started, unused to such familiarity, but he merely smiled and said, “Welcome home, Maggie.”
When she turned her head, intending to scold him for his presumptuous action, the happy, contented look in his eyes made her smile. But the look and the kiss had completely confounded her. Margaret quickly moved around him and carried the bowl to the table.
Hunter turned to watch her, pleased that she had not protested the kiss. And this sudden shyness was a good sign, he decided as he took his place at the head of the table while Margaret sat to his left. He had expected shyness in his bride, and he was convinced that could be overcome with time and patience. Her anger and suspicions were more difficult to deal with but these seemed to have diminished greatly in just a few days; that told him she had not entirely lost all feeling for him. Yes, as they sat down together for their first supper in the old house, Hunter Maguire was indeed a hopeful man.
He spooned a wedge of pastry and meat onto her plate, ladled gravy over the lot, and then served himself while Margaret waited patiently for him to start. But he had taken only a forkful of food when he set his fork on his plate with a sudden clatter. “Good Lord, I forgot!” He reached for her hand. “Come with me.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Margaret muttered as she dropped her fork while he was tugging her to her feet. Clearly puzzled by his strange behavior, she could only express an exasperated, “Hunter,” while being towed along in his wake.
He led her out onto the porch, turning to her the instant she stepped outside under the overhand. “I don't know how I could forget such an important detail,” he muttered as he scooped her up in his arms and then strode back over the threshold, back into the kitchen.
Margaret was so surprised by this rush of activity she could only stare, mouth open, as she wrapped her arms around his neck in order not to be dumped on the floor.
“What kind of husband have you wed?” he asked as he stepped further into the kitchen. And then he was smiling at her. “Now I can welcome you home.” He planted a quick, innocent kiss on her lips before lowering Margaret to her feet once again.
When Hunter returned to his place and picked up his fork, she remained standing, staring at him. “Should I expect to be hoisted up and dragged around with any frequency?” she asked lightly.
“Possibly,” he murmured and turned his full attention to his meal.
CHAPTER 17
That first evening of settling into a bedroom together was a night Margaret would never forget. Hunter was not gentlemanly enough to leave her any privacy, which raised her ire. Additionally he seemed to think nothing of shedding his clothing before her very eyes.
He removed his boots, then walked to the window and peered out into the darkness as he casually shed his shirt and dropped it on a chair. He turned to face her while he peeled off his trousers, which completed h
er undoing.
Margaret whirled away and stared at the wall until she heard a slight creak from the bed. Taking a deep breath that failed to steady her, she then began rifling through her trunk in search of a nightdress and gown. Somehow actually sharing a bed with him seemed much more frightening than sleeping next to him on the ground.
“Leave that,” Hunter said as he propped himself up in the bed. “Marie-Louise will help you unpack your things in the morning.”
She remained with her back to him, holding a white cotton nightgown in her hands. “Could you put out the lamp please, Hunter?” she asked and waited nervously for the room to fall into darkness.
He lowered the wick, and the corners of the room fell into shadows.
Margaret turned to face him, frowning.
“You need some light to find your way around,” he explained and he had the audacity to look her straight in the eyes as he said it.
Margaret raced for the door and across the hall to the dark, empty room that had once been Hunter’s. There she undressed without his watchful eyes on her. Once gowned and covered from neck to toe, she hesitated…but she knew he would only come and get her.
When she returned to the room they would share, Hunter hadn’t moved. He was sitting up in bed, the blanket pulled to his waist, watching her as she hung her skirt and blouse in the wardrobe. She then sat on the bed with her back to him and began to brush her hair. Hunter watched as she tended the waist-length tresses that were so close to white they might have been touched and colored by a cloud. His eyes followed her long, slow strokes for a moment before taking the brush from her hand.
Margaret’s head snapped around and he smiled. “Sit back,” he said quietly and, after a brief hesitation she moved closer to him. Her entire body tensed when he raised his hand, but Hunter ignored the reaction, running the brush slowly from her temple to the very ends of her hair on one side. He repeated the procedure over and over until Margaret, weary from the day’s events, found herself quite peacefully lulled, her eyes closing as the continuous stroking of the brush soothed her.