by Diana Palmer
He hugged her tight. "I'm sorry, so sorry," he said as he pushed her to arm's length. "I wouldn't have been angry if I'd known. I thought you were staying out deliberately to spite me. I was half out of my mind, thinking about all the dire things that could have happened to you, alone in the city, especially after the close call you already had."
"Idon't hold grudges," she replied. "I wouldn't have been so low as to stay out late just to worry you." She hesitated and looked up at him. "You were worried about me? Truly?"
"Why else would I have been angry enough to manhandle you?" He grimaced. "I forgot your poor arm, too. I'm sorry, Tess."
"It's not very sore now. The doctor took my stitches out Friday. I've healed quite well, he said."
"You didn't tell me Saturday."
"Ididn't think of it."
He recalled the things he'd said to her with faint regret. "I was rude to you."
"Iwas obnoxious," she replied. "You had every right to be rude. I didn't even thank you for my ice cream."
"Still, I had no right to treat you as I did then—or tonight," he said through his teeth. "Especially in your overwrought condition."
"Is that why it felt the way itdid?"she asked, openly curious. "I mean, because you were angry and I was so upset?"
He hesitated. "Howdid itfeel?"
"It's hard to describe," she said. "Throbbing, hot, shaky, weak. I haven't experienced those feelings before."
She heard him draw a long breath. "Those feelings," he began, "are desire. A woman's desire to…lie with a man."
"To be intimatewithhim," she ventured.
"Yes."
She could have gone through the floor. "Oh."
"Civilization covers desire with a veneer of romantic love," he continued cynically, "to make it respectable. It's only after marriage, as a rule, that a man permits himself to show desire. I'm sorry that I lost my temper and treated you in such a familiar manner."
"It's all right," she said. She wrapped her arms around herribcage. "Most women of my age are already married and know about such things. In the normal course of events, I should never haveknown how it felt to be … to want…"
His lean hands took her arms gently from behind. "Don't be ashamed," he said quietly. "I regret having shocked you, but nothing of any realimport happened. Certainly nothing happened that should shame you."
She sighed. "It's rather wicked, isn't it, to feel such pleasure?"
He let his hands drop. "I think we should stop talking about it," he said. His body was ignoring the cold reason of his mind.
"As you wish. But I can't help being curious about such things. Despite having worked as a nurse for some years, there are still many aspects of life I know very little about."
"You were made for marriage," he said bluntly, holding a guilty secret in his heart.
"Better to live alone than with a man whom I couldn't love," she said simply, which made her think again of Marsh and brought the stinging tears back. "I must go inside."
She moved ahead of him and opened the front door just as Mrs. Mulhaney came into the hall.
She gasped as she saw Tess's face. "My dear, whatever has happened to you?" she exclaimed, glancing suspiciously over Tess's shoulder at Matt.
"One of my patients committed suicide this evening," Tess said at once. "I'm very sorry to be seen in such a state, but he was very young and…"Asob stopped the words.
"Oh,my dear." Mrs. Mulhaney was at once all sympathy and concern, any trace of suspicion gone from her manner. She put her arm around Tess. "You come right along to the kitchenwithme and I'll fix you a nice cup of tea. You poor dear, you must tell me all about it!"
Tess dared not glance back at Matt. Her embarrassment had grown to unmanageable proportions, and she was glad of Mrs. Mulhaney's intervention. She didn't know how she would ever be able to talk normally to Matt after the glimpse of heaven he'd just shown her.
Mrs. Mulhaney's sympathy was shot full of morbid curiosity. A genteel woman with no real knowledge of the world outside her home, she listened raptly while Tess told her about the young amputee who hadn't been able to cope with life before his accident and had convinced himself he'd be even less able to do so as a cripple.
"Such a pity," the older woman said, shaking her head. "And him so young, as you say." She eyed Tess covertly. "Working in a hospital must be…revealing. I mean, you must learn a great deal about men. About their bodies. Oh dear, I didn't mean to sound like that."
Tess smiled at her. "Mrs. Mulhaney, we do what we're told by the physicians, but there are male orderlies to deal with the men when they need bathing or, er, other assistance. We're actually quite sheltered in most ways."
Mrs. Mulhaney put a hand to her heart. "Heavens, what a relief," she said. "We didn't know, and there's been so much speculation—well, my father always said that women had no business outside the home anyway. When my husband was alive, I had a washerwoman and a cook. He insisted." She straightened her skirts. "I know nothing of these modern ways in the city." She looked embarrassed. "I think it unwise to work in a shop or even a hospital." She wrinkled her brow. "Tess, aren't you afraid to be out unescorted of an evening?" she asked bluntly.
"Not with Mick driving me," Tess assured the other woman. She chuckled. "He's the same age my father would have been. He lost his wife and child to pneumonia, and he drives me to and from work and my meetings. He carries a huge crooked stick which he calls a shillelagh, and he tells me that he knows how to use it on any man who might get fresh with me."
Mrs. Mulhaney's eyes were twinkling. "My goodness. You do miss your father, don't you?"
"Very much. I was his nurse, too, for some years," she added sadly. "My mother died when I was very young. Dad and I were close. It's very lonely without him."
"Atleast you have your cousin here, to comfort you," she said. The comment was almost a question.
"We're not close relations." Tess was surprised at how easily the lie rolled off her tongue. "Matt and I are friends, too. He's been very kind to let me come here and stay near him. I have to make my own living, you know," she said solemnly. "My father had nothing to leave me, and I have no other family."
"My dear, I had no idea," Mrs. Mulhaney said, shocked. "I thought your job was nothing more than a social statement, a way of emphasizing your views about the emancipation of women."
"It's much more than that, I'm afraid," Tess confided. "I can hardly expect Matt to support me, however kind he is. I must manage to make my own way in the world. Nursing is the only thing I know how to do."
The conversation was very enlightening for the elderly woman, who had a new picture of Tess and her independence. The poor thing, too proud to accept charity even from her cousin Matt, having to slave away in that horrible place to earn her crust of bread. It saddened Mrs. Mulhaney, who had gone from the protection of her father directly into the protection of marriage at the age of fifteen. While shedidneed the income from taking in boarders, she also needed the company, liveliness, and sense of purpose they lent to her life. She had never considered herself an emancipated working woman.
She patted Tess's hand where it lay on the table. "Well, I'm sorry that things are so brutal for a nice young woman like you.Itdoes explain why you've never married as well. You have no dowry at all, have you?"
Tess had to bite back a tart reply. The dowry was at least a bribe, more usually a price for selling a girl to a man in marriage, she thought. She had the utmost contempt for the whole process. She'd heard that girls from rich families back east were literally sold to impoverished European noblemen for the sake of having a title in the family.
She wondered what Mrs. Mulhaney would say if she told her that, by Sioux custom, the dowry was paid to the parents by the prospective bridegroom. And under different circumstances, she'd have loved letting Matt pay her father ten horses for her hand in marriage. She stifled a burst of hysterical laughter. As if Matt would have offered to marry her, horses or no horses.
"No," Tess an
swered the question with forced solemnity. "I have no dowry."
"I wouldn't worry," Mrs. Mulhaney said. "You'll find a husband one of these days, regardless. I'm sorry about your young friend at the hospital. But really, my dear, what sort of life would he have had, an amputee? A man's physical strength is his livelihood. And there is, too, the matter of his pride. Charity is a hard pill for any man to have to swallow."
That was true. A legless man had few options but the poorhouse or the beneficence of a church or some social organization.Andthat would be a huge blow to his ego, to his very manhood. He could hardly expect to make a living at manual labor. He would never have played his beloved game of baseball again either.
"You go on up to bed. I hope I've helped you to feel better."
Tess smiled at the older woman, who couldn't begin to understand the new world that was opening at her toes.
"Yes, you certainly have," Tess lied. "Thank you for the tea and the sympathy, Mrs. Mulhaney. I do feel better."
"I'm so glad. You were pitiful when you came in tonight, your eyes all red and tears running down your cheeks, and your hair in such a state." She laughed a little hollowly. "You won't believe this, but for a few seconds, I thought you might have been outside spooning with a man. So silly. There was only Mr. Davis out there with you, your own cousin!" She'd turned away to put the dishes on the washboard of the sink and fortunately missed seeing the expression on Tess's face.
"Silly indeed," Tess murmured. "Good night, Mrs. Mulhaney. Thank you."
"You're very welcome, my dear. Sleep well."
"You, too."
Tess moved quickly out into the hall without looking around her. She went straight upstairs to her room.
But she didn't sleep. Her mouth still tasted of Matt. Her body was one long ache for something she couldn't even name. She was restless and hungry, and every time she closed her eyes, she could hear Matt's rough breath at her ear, feel his hands touching her…
She put the pillow over her head. She wasn't going to think about this. She was going to pretend that it never happened, which was surely what Matt would do. He'd lost his temper and something had happened that neither of them had expected; that was all.
As for those hot kisses, they could both forget that they'd tasted each other in the darkness of the porch. Matt had probably forgotten already. Having lived in the city for so long, such encounters must be a regular thing for him.
Her face flamed and she moaned. The thought of Matt with other women made her ill. She closed her eyes and started reciting the alphabet. Eventually she slept.
«^»
Morning came far too soon for Tess, and she looked it when she went down to breakfast. She flushed when Matt's dark, searching eyes met hers. Almost painfully ill at ease with him across the table from her, she couldn't still the tremor in her hands as she lifted her coffee cup. And merely looking at him made her lose her breath. Her lack of control over her senses embarrassed her almost to the point of tears. How humiliating, to love a man who didn't return the feeling, and have no way to hide it from him.
Matt was much the same as always, except that he put sugar in his coffee for the first time in memory and ate ham—which he detested. But his emotions were almost always under impeccable control. Last night had been the exception. This morning, he was himself again, on the outside at least.
Tess felt her body tingle at the near contact of their hands when they reached for the salt cellar atthe same time. The look they exchanged was so potent, so unexpected and disquieting that Tess left half her breakfast sitting on the table.
Apparently Matt's answer to the small dilemma was to pretend that it never happened. He was polite and wished her a good day on his way out the door, looking as remote as the moon.
Tess returned his greeting in kind, and then went on to her job, trying not to hark back to the night before and the feel of Matt's hard arms around her in mingled anger and passion.
She'd known that he was passionate. Having lived near him for some time, she'd seen him go on hunts, and she'd seen him playing athletic ball games with other young men in the green, lush summer grass near the wide, shallow river. She'd seen him happy and sad, wounded and strong. She'd learned his moods, as he'd learned hers. They knew too much about each other to behave as strangers. And now that knowledge was much more than intuitive. It was physical.
Matt didn't have to tell her that it was much easier to forget a smile than a kiss. She learned it painfully in the days that followed as she tried desperately to live with the unknown hungers that Matt had created inside her untried body.
Ifshe was suffering, he certainly didn't seem to be. He was outwardly as calm and courteous to her as he'd always been. Except for a few minutes that first morning after it had happened, he was completely normal. Tess wasn't. But she had to pretend.
In her grief after Marsh Bailey's suicide and Matt's unexpected ardor, she hadn't thought much about her friendNan. But as Tess started out to her suffrage meeting the next Thursday evening,Nanwas unexpectedly in Mick's carriage when it called at Mrs. Mulhaney's boardinghouse to pick up Tess.
"Why,Nan!" Tess exclaimed, breathless after letting Mick help her inside the carriage and thanking him. "I didn't expect you to come to any more meetings."
"I'm not exactly going to the meeting,"Nansaid, shaken. "Dennis hit me again, and there was a terrible fight. I'm going to meet my sister and her husband there, where it's public and he can't do anything, and I'm going home with her."
"I don't understand. You said that he'd never touched you in anger."
Nanpushed back her hair. "I lied," she said bluntly, her whole demeanor unsettled and frightened. "I was afraid of him and I lied. I thought I should deny it. I thought I could appease him. But that's all changed now."
"What's happened?"
Nanlooked worn but determined as well. "The end of the world." She laughed without humor. "But I have something to hope for now, something to live for, and it's given me the courage to walk out." she said. "He's not going to hurt me anymore."
"Good for you!" Tess exclaimed.
Nansighed and leaned forward. "I've had a devil of a time," she said. "I didn't dare tell you before because I didn't know you well enough to be sure I could trust you. I've been hiding in the shadows like a thief, but no more." She stared at Tess. "Here's something I should have told you before. Maybe you'll hate me when you know. You mightn't want me for a friend anymore."
Tess put her gloved hand onNan's. "Nothing you could say would stop us being friends."
"I've been seeing another man,"Nanblurted out, flushing. "I didn't plan to; neither did he. It just happened. I said I was coming to the meetings with you these past few weeks and I didn't. I was with him. Dennis knows about it. He invited my friend to supper without telling me. I had to fix a meal and sit at the table with them…and then he started cursing us both and he hit me. He and…and the man fought. Dennis swore he'd kill me if I see the man again. I…Ican't tell you his name, Tess. I promised I wouldn't. But the man got me out, telephoned my sister, and arranged all this. He got Mick to come for me." She slumped. "I won't go back; better to be disgraced or even dead than live in fear all my life, especially now! My…my friend has said that he'll help me. He isn't afraid of Dennis—he knows him very well, in fact." She folded her hands in her lap tightly. "Dennis is a bad man, Tess," she added worriedly. "People underestimate him because they don't see how he is when he's…when he uses that…stuff. He calls it his 'medicine,' but it's not medicine, and it makes him go crazy. That's why he raged so much tonight, although I guess maybe it was for the best, since he couldn't hide what he was doing to me anymore and accuse me of lying about it."
Opium was what he was using, Tess guessed, but she didn't say it aloud. "Can your sister protect you?"
"Yes," she said at once. "She's tried time and again to get me to leave, but I was never desperate enough to do it. Now I am." She smiled and her whole face was radiant. "Tess, there's to be a baby."
"Oh,Nan." Tess didn't know what to say. All this was far beyond her experience of life.
"It isn't Dennis's," she added a little uncomfortably. "I love the father more than my own life. I had to get away from Dennis before he hurts me, or the baby."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked gently.
"Lord, I wouldn't put you at risk for anything!"Nanexclaimed. "You're the only friend I have!"
"There won't be a risk," Tess lied. She'd already come afoul of Dennis's crazy temper once, butNanneedn't know that. Matt would protect her andNan, if she asked him to.