From This Day Forward

by Victoria Thompson

  A few of them frowned. “I’m sick of the rain,” one said.

  “It ain’t rainin’ now,” another pointed out.

  “Gonna start again, soon,” the first one predicted. He was a farmer’s boy. Always knew what the weather was going to be, damn him.

  “Then stay here,” Eric advised. “The rest of us, we’re gonna find us some company.”

  “Company?” the dark one, the one Eric was now sure was a nigger, asked.

  “Some female company,” Eric clarified.

  “They got whores in this town?” Billy asked eagerly.

  “All women are whores,” Eric informed him sagely. “We’ll find one, and I’ll show you.”

  Their eyes were wide and trusting, and when Eric got up, the rest of them did, too. All but Alex who sat in his corner and glared. He wouldn’t, Eric decided at that moment, live out the week.

  “Come on, boys,” Eric said. “I’ll show you what real men do for a good time.”

  ***

  Adam was pretending to read, but his gaze kept wandering over to where Lori sat opposite him. They were in the back parlor, enjoying the last hours of the day together. She was knitting what appeared to be a sock while he read—or tried to.

  She was, he thought for what must have been the thousandth time, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He’d always thought her pretty, of course, but he’d never had the leisure to study her before. To linger over her perfections. To savor every feminine curve and line of her luscious body.

  To admire every wayward, raven curl and the delightful play of emotion across her face.

  If he didn’t possess her soon, he was going to go out of his mind.

  He’d thought the first few days were the worst. Knowing she was his wife and that she was sleeping just a few feet away. But at least then he’d had the hope that his patience would soon be rewarded. But the days had become weeks, and nothing had changed between them.

  Oh, Lori was as sweet as she could be to him and had managed to win the respect—and even the affection—of his servants. She was also running the house on her own now, with just the slightest help from Sudie. She was everything he could hope for in a wife—except for one important thing.

  So much for his confidence that he could seduce her as easily as Eric had.

  As if she felt his gaze on her, she looked up and smiled. “This rain must be driving you crazy,” she guessed. They could both hear it drumming on the roof as it had been for ten days now.

  He only wished it was just the rain. “It is frustrating not to be able to get out in the fields.”

  “It’s good, though, isn’t it? After the drought?”

  “Too much of anything isn’t good.” Or too little.

  Her luscious lips drooped into a frown, and she looked down at the knitting that she had stopped momentarily. When she glanced up again, her blueberry eyes were clouded.

  “What will happen after the war?”

  This was something Adam had not allowed himself to consider. “I expect we’ll have peace,” he said with a flippant smile.

  “I mean what will happen to us. To this place. You said the slaves would be free, and if they are...”

  “If they are, how can a cripple run a place like this single-handedly?” he finished for her, no longer feeling quite so flippant.

  He saw the color come to her cheeks and longed to take those satiny cheeks between his hands. But of course he didn’t. If he made one move toward her she would flinch the way she always did when he tried to touch her.

  “No, I didn’t mean that!” she insisted. “No man could run a place like this alone. You know how small my father’s farm is, and he could hardly manage that by himself. For this place, you need field hands, lots of them.”

  She was right, of course, although he didn’t like to think about it. Things had been so simple in the old days. He might not have wanted to own slaves, but he’d had no choice. That was the way things were and would always be. Until now.

  “Don’t worry,” he advised her, assuming his role as her protector, a role to which he had been bred. “I expect the slaves won’t be any more eager to leave here than I would be to lose them. Where would they go, after all?”

  She nodded as if she didn’t quite believe him, or perhaps she was simply afraid to. Her life had probably taught her not to place too much faith in the future and to expect the worst because that’s what usually happened. Adam was beginning to adopt the same philosophy.

  He decided to change the subject to something more pleasant. “Sudie tells me you planned all the meals this week.”

  Her smile was embarrassed but no less breathtaking for all of that. “She had to help me an awful lot.”

  “It’s a lot to learn, I’m sure. But Sudie is being patient with you, isn’t she?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lori assured him. “She’s been wonderful.” Why did her voice always remind him of honey? Thick and so, so sweet.

  “I was worried at first, afraid she wouldn’t be able to adjust to the idea that I had taken a wife.” There, a little reminder couldn’t hurt. She was his wife, damnit!

  “It was hard for her at first,” Lori admitted, and then she frowned again. Damn, he didn’t want her to frown. “Adam, what happened to her baby?”

  What the...? It took him a minute to figure out what she was talking about. “Sudie?” he asked to clarify.

  “Yes, she told me... she said she had a baby once, but she doesn’t have any children now, does she? What happened?”

  Oh, great, the family tragedy. Just what he wanted to explain to her in the moments before they would retire to their beds. Just the thing to get her thinking about sharing one of those beds with him. Damn.

  “The baby died,” he told her resignedly. “The night it was born. The same night Eric was born.” Oh, perfect, remind her of his brother, too.

  “The same night?” she asked in surprise.

  “Yes, there was a terrible ice storm that night. Everyone was out trying to save our livestock, and Sudie and my mother were here alone with me. They helped each other, I guess. At any rate, Sudie’s baby died, and a few days later my mother died, too.”

  “So that’s why,” she said with a troubled frown. Adam had no idea what she was talking about, but he wasn’t going to question her. He didn’t want to continue this conversation a moment longer.

  But Lori did.

  “Do you know who the father was?” She looked embarrassed again, as well she should be to ask him such a question. “The father of Sudie’s baby, I mean?” she prodded when he didn’t reply.

  Adam knew perfectly well, but he said, “No, I don’t. One of the slaves, I expect.”

  “Oscar?” she pressed.

  If only life were so simple. “We didn’t have Oscar then. He’s only been with us about ten years now. And he and Sudie have only been... uh... married about a year.”

  Of course they weren’t really married. They’d jumped over the broom or something after his father had died. Chet hadn’t allowed his slaves to enjoy any form of marriage, especially not Sudie, but Adam saw no harm in it, and of course Eric didn’t care.

  Lori looked shocked, although Adam couldn’t imagine what he might have said to shock her. “A year?” she was saying. “So long?”

  “A year isn’t a very long time,” Adam said with forced cheerfulness. But it could be a very long time, indeed, if things didn’t improve around here soon.

  “No, I mean, it was over twenty years from when... when her baby was born until she married.”

  Adam wasn’t sure why that fact should disturb Lori so much, but he had no intention of letting it continue to disturb her.

  “I’m afraid we imposed on Sudie for a long time. She had to run this house practically single-handedly. You know how much work that is, and she didn’t have anyone to help her the way you do. She just didn’t have time to think of herself.” That wasn’t quite the truth, but close enough. “I intend to make sure the same thing doesn’
t happen to you, though. I want you to have time to think of yourself. And of me,” he added meaningfully.

  She must have gotten the meaning because the color came to her face again. She gazed at him with such sweet innocence, it was all he could do not to jump up out of his chair and haul her into his arms.

  But such movements never came as easily to him in reality as they did in his imagination, so he settled for saying, “It’s getting late. Perhaps we should retire.”

  “Oh, yes,” she murmured, flustered, and started putting her knitting back into the basket that had been his mother’s.

  While she wasn’t looking at him and wouldn’t see his awkwardness, he rose from his chair. He waited until she rose, too. Seeing her move was bliss, even though she usually wore a corset now. Her breasts seemed larger than they had before, but perhaps that was only his imagination. Or the way her new dresses fit her, the dresses Sudie had had made for her out of the cloth she’d been hoarding through the long years of the war. He liked this one in particular. Red was definitely her color, even if it was only calico.

  He picked up the candle that had been sitting by his chair, and waited while Lori blew out her own. Then he followed her to the door. Out in the hall, the house seemed darker. And quieter. And he and Lori more alone than they had been in the parlor.

  She walked slowly, out of deference to his disability, and he imagined that he could smell the scent of roses in her hair. This late in the day, her curls had begun to come loose from the bun into which she pinned them every morning. A few of them trailed along the back of her neck, and Adam had to lock his hand into a fist to keep from reaching up to touch her just there, where the wispy curls lay against her delicate skin.

  She glanced up at him and smiled, a fleeting thing that was gone almost as quickly as it had come, a tiny instant that he would treasure. She didn’t smile nearly enough. God, he wanted her to smile all the time, to smile for him, because he made her so happy. If only she would give him the chance!

  The hallway seemed endless, the darkness impenetrable, but at last they reached the door to her room. She opened it, giving him another of those fleeting, heartstoppingly uncertain smiles over her shoulder. He stepped inside the door and held out the candle to light the one that sat on a small table beside the door.

  “Thank you,” she said. She was smiling again, her face fixed in a pose of calmness, but her hands betrayed her. They were twisting nervously in front of her, as if she knew what was in his mind.

  He drew a deep breath and set the candle he was holding down beside the one he had just lit.

  “Lori?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t believe you kissed me today.” He tried to kiss her every day, at least once. Hoping it would lead to more. So far, it hadn’t.

  Her eyes widened and her hands stilled, locked tightly together at her waist. “Oh.”

  He managed not to sigh in dismay. “Would you?” he asked instead.

  “Oh, sure,” she said, going up on her tiptoes and lifting her face. She was always compliant. But never eager.

  Carefully, he lifted his hands and laid them on the points of her shoulders. She felt so soft, so warm, so female.

  He lowered his head until he caught her scent, sweet and musky and alluring. Then lower still, until his mouth touched hers. Her lips yielded beneath his, delicate as rose petals, sweeter than the honey of her voice.

  Desire roared in him, hot and huge and undeniable, like a beast he could not control. In the next second his arms were around her and her body was against his, her softness crushed against him, enveloping him, and still it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. He forced her lips apart, plunging his tongue into the tender recesses of her mouth, devouring her like a starving man.

  He wanted her naked and panting and begging him to take her, but no sooner had he formed the wild vision in his mind than he realized she was struggling, fighting, trying to wrench free.

  Instantly, he released her, and she staggered backwards, almost falling as she wrapped her arms around herself and stared at him in absolute terror.

  Dear God, what had he ever done to make her afraid of him? Disgust he could understand, or indifference, but fear?

  “Lori?” he asked, still desperate, still needing her more than the air he breathed. He reached out to lure her back to him, but she cringed away.

  “I can’t!” she cried, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, but I can’t!”

  Of course. He’d already known that, hadn’t he? She couldn’t bring herself to endure his touch. The pain tore through him like a dull knife ripping open his soul, but he pulled himself up to his full height and managed to salvage what little remained of his pride.

  “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to... to force myself on you.”

  She flinched again, although he had no idea why. Then, mustering every ounce of his inner strength, he picked up the candle, turned and walked out.

  As he made his way down the hall the short distance to his own room, he waited for the sound of her bedroom door slamming shut. He walked slowly, acutely aware that she might well be watching, so he was careful not to limp. When he reached his own door, he turned to see her still standing where he’d left her, hugging herself as if the only true comfort she could find was in her own arms.

  I’m sorry, she had said. Perhaps she really was, but not as sorry as he. It was divine judgment on him. What else could explain how perfect this punishment was as retribution for his sins?

  Forcing himself to turn away lest he be tempted to go back and take her whether she was willing or not, he opened his door, walked inside and closed it behind him. The click of the latch carried the finality of doom.

  Alone in his room, Adam did not seek sleep. Did not even want it. Fatigue was not what had inspired him to come to bed so early. In fact, he wasn’t tired at all, and he was certainly much too restless to even lie down.

  He stripped off his shirt and washed, but then he began to pace. The walking stirred the pain in his leg, but he welcomed it. A bitter reminder of who and what he was. A man who could never hope for a woman’s love and apparently who couldn’t even inspire her pity. He walked until his muscles grew too weary, and then he sat in the easy chair and propped his throbbing leg up onto a footstool.

  Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and tried to think of something, anything, except the girl lying in the next room. Of how she would look—of how he knew she would look—in that flimsy nightdress with her ebony hair spilling down her shoulders and a smile of welcome on her beautiful face.

  Suddenly, he started awake, not even aware that he had fallen asleep. He had no idea what had roused him. Probably a dream he could not now remember. What time was it? And why wasn’t he in bed? His leg would cause him the pangs of hell tomorrow if he didn’t give it some rest and—

  Then he heard it, a woman’s scream.

  He lunged to his feet, oblivious to the pain knifing through his thigh. The candle still sat where he’d left it earlier, burned down almost to a nub now. He snatched it up and ran. He didn’t even ask himself who had screamed. He simply knew it was Lori.

  He ran to her door and realized vaguely that no light shown from beneath it. She would have gone to bed by now and been fast asleep. Could it really have been her scream he heard?

  But while he hesitated, he heard her moaning, and he threw the door open.

  He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but a quick survey of the room showed that she was alone. Alone and thrashing in the big bed as if she were fighting the demons of hell. He practically threw the stubby candle onto the table, almost knocking it from its holder, and ran for the bed.

  “Lori, wake up!” he cried as he pulled the blankets down to free her from their tangle.

  Even in the feeble light, he could see her face was twisted with terror, the same terror he had seen earlier only multiplied a thousand times.

  “No!” she cried, still fighting, and he saw she wa
s crying in her sleep.

  “Wake up!” he commanded, shaking her. “It’s just a dream!”

  But she was too far away to hear him, deep in some nightmarish hell. He sat down on the bed beside her and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her upright.

  “Lori, listen to me!” he practically shouted into her face, and her eyes flew open.

  At first they were unfocused, still seeing the dream devils that had tormented her, but then she saw him, and she screamed again.

  Startled, he released her at once, and she looked around wildly. “Where is he?” she cried. “Make him go away! Get him out of here!”

  “Who?” he demanded. “Who was here?”

  “Eric! Make him go away! Don’t let him hurt me again!” She was sobbing now, great wracking sobs that seemed tom from her soul.

  She was so terrified, that Adam found himself looking around too, almost expecting to find his brother standing nearby, grinning at his consternation. But, of course, no one was there.

  “He’s not here,” Adam assured her. “Lori, Lori, it was just a dream!”

  She looked at him then, really seeing him for the first time. “Adam?” she asked in disbelief and drew away from him in renewed terror.

  “I heard you scream,” he explained hastily, defensively. Dear God, did she think he’d slipped into her room to attack her while she slept? “I came running in here, and you were having a terrible nightmare.”

  She stared at him, still terrified and not really certain whether to believe him or not.

  “What were you dreaming?” he prodded, hoping to get her to realize it hadn’t involved him at all.

  She glanced around again, taking a quick survey of the room as if to verify that no one else was there. “He was here!” she insisted. “It was just like before! He was holding me down and I couldn’t breathe and I tried to scream but nobody heard me!” She turned accusing eyes on him again.

  “I heard you,” he reminded her, wondering what on earth she meant. Had she had this dream before? “I heard you and I came.”

  She lifted her hands to cover her mouth as she looked around again, less urgently this time. Her breath was slowing, and he tried not to notice how her breasts rose and fell beneath the thin nightdress. Breasts that were bare except for that shear covering. He swallowed.