by K. Anderson
“Still,” I said. “Somehow, he has tracked me down.”
“I imagine Mr. Robert Benson has a hand in this,” William said. “Both the discovery of your location and the genesis of this letter.”
“Why would you say that?” I asked.
“Because your Father would probably much prefer that you never be found,” William said. “He loves you. He didn’t want you married off to this murderous bastard.”
“You’re awfully certain of that, for someone who’s never met my Father.” My hands were shaking. I didn’t want to read the letter. I was afraid of what I would read there – the recriminations, the hardships Benson was imposing on him, the fact he was forced to sleep in an open field somewhere because he’d been forced out of the house. All of those things would be my fault. “If it’s in his best interests that I go back to Virginia, then that’s what this will say.”
“Even if that is what it says, you’re not going to go back,” William said. “Your home is here now.” He reddened a little and said, “That is, as long as you’re happy.”
“I’m happier than I’ve ever been, William,” I said. “That is God’s own truth.”
“So you might as well read it,” he replied. “It’s always better to know than to not know.”
“I hope you’re right.” Father was always wordy; I wasn’t surprised to see the envelope was thick with a pair of folded pages. I was surprised to discover one page entirely blank and the other filled by just two sentences, a scant ten words long:
Get away as fast as you can! Benson is coming!
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I have to get out of here,” I said, panicked. William took the pages from my fingers and quickly read the letter’s contents. “I’ve got to go now!”
“Go where?” William said. “You’re not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere.” He stood up and began to stride around the kitchen table. “Benson is coming? Good. Let him come. He will see that we are married, man and wife, and that will be the end of it.”
“You don’t understand!” I said. “This man killed his wife!”
“But you are not his wife,” William said. “You are my wife.”
“But I was meant to be his wife…” I started.
“Is that how you feel?” William snapped. It was the first time I’d heard him the least bit cross, and I wanted it to be the last. “Was that man your destiny? Are you sorry you’ve wed me instead?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “Of course not. I don’t want anything to do with him. That’s why I came here to you.”
“As good a reason as any, I suppose.” William snarled.
“What is the matter with you?” I shouted. “I don’t understand why you’re angry with me. I want to get away so you’ll be safe, you dunderhead! Don’t you understand that Benson can do anything?” I broke down in sobs. “I don’t want him to shoot you.”
“Abigail. Liebchen.” William took me in his arms and squeezed me tightly. “You must be calm.”
It was hard to respond to him, as I was crying so hard. “Shh, shh,” he soothed me. “You must calm down, and you must believe.”
“Believe what?” I asked.
“Believe in me. I am not going to let anything happen to you. It is my duty to protect you.”
“You don’t know how he is,” I wailed.
“Honestly, you don’t know how he is, either,” William said. I looked at him, shocked. He continued, “You’ve heard a lot of rumors, and you’ve seen the man once for yourself for at the most half an hour.” He shrugged. “From your observations, Robert Benson is a man in his mid to late forties, in poor health and most probably considerable pain. He depends on his servants to do even simple things for him, and apparently doesn’t have much in the way of family and friends.”
“But he has influence,” I tried to explain. “When a man has enough money and connections, the law doesn’t apply to him quite the same way anymore. He can act with impunity and never face any punishment.” There were more than a few rumors about exactly why the Sheriff back home couldn’t find any evidence of Kitty Benson’s murder. “He can do what he wants and he knows it.”
“This isn’t Roanoke. It’s not New York, or Boston, or even Chicago,” William said. “Mr. Benson may have influence in any or all of those places. But this is Sioux City, and only you and I even know who he is. The West may be wild, Abigail, but we’ve got our share of law here.”
“Fat lot of good that will do us after we’ve been shot,” I groused.
William laughed and kissed me. “The man can’t shoot me,” he said, “if I shoot him first.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Something in William’s calm, bold proclamation inflamed my sensibilities. I turned in his embrace so we were standing nose to nose, and took his face between my palms.
“What’s this?” he asked, a little startled.
“I want to kiss you,” I said and then I did. In the three weeks we’d had together, I’d learned a lot about kissing, but that particular embrace was all passion and no technique. William drew back, eyes wide at my enthusiasm. “Abigail!”
“I want you,” I said. “Here, now.”
“In the study?” My husband laughed. “All right,” he said, “but I’m not sure how we’re going to make that work.” Every flat surface in the room was piled high with books and papers; I’d been pleading with him to let me straighten the room since my arrival, but on this one point, he’d been unwilling to budge. “There’s nowhere to lay down.”
“Then we’ll have to stand,” I said. I leaned forward over the reading table, flatting my belly against the surface. Then I reached back and started to pull up my skirts, inch by inch.
“I see,” William said, springing to his feet. He moved into position behind me and took over the task of raising my skirts. Once my haunches were exposed, he stood there for a second, running his hand slowly over my bloomer-clad bottom. “I see perfectly.”
The desire in his voice increased my already considerable need. I didn’t have the words to express it, but pushing my hips backward against William’s hand seemed to say everything that needed communicating.
“Yes, yes,” he said, tugging at the strings that held my bloomers closed. “I’m going to give you what you want.”
He was quick enough to say the words, but the actual delivery took some time. I stood trembling, feeling the air’s room tickling against my skin. I felt both exposed and completely safe, a delicious combination.
“You truly are a beautiful woman,” William said. He slowly began to stroke my behind, letting the very ends of his fingertips skitter across my folds. “I can’t believe you married me.”
I looked over my shoulder to see him loosening his belt. “I did. Honest and for true.”
William stepped even closer to me. I felt his bare thighs brush against my own naked legs, a contact so pleasurable that I closed my eyes to savor it.
I opened my eyes again, wide, when William slid into me. I must have been far more eager than either of us realized, since for the first time ever he was deeply in with a single stroke. I cried aloud and he did the same.
“My God, Abigail,” he murmured, bending forward over me, hands on my shoulders pulling me even further back onto him. “How can anything feel so good?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. It was difficult to think; all of my attention was on the feeling of being filled so completely. We started to rock back and forth, slowly. Even this gentle motion was too much for my companions on the tabletop. We sent first one pile of books and then another crashing to the floor. Loose pages went flying everywhere.
“Oh!” I said.
“We’ll worry about that later,” William said. He was moving faster, with less restraint evident in every stroke. His throaty grunts sounded almost like growls; I could feel his hot breath against my neck and thought for a moment he was going to bite me. “Now is for this, now!”
His body went rigid against me and h
e gave one last moan. I could feel his need spilling into me, a sensation that triggered my own response. I stopped even pretending to try to hold myself up off the table; collapsing onto it, I let my feet come up off the floor. William grabbed my legs and kept me pulled back against his groin for a long time before collapsing on top of me.
“Whoof!” I said to my husband. “I love you, darling, but you’re heavy.”
William propped himself up on one arm and looked down at me with a clearly satisfied smile.
“What’s that?” I asked him. “That has you smiling so?”
“That’s the very first time you’ve said “I love you” to me,” he said.
“Well, it’s about time,” I replied.
He laughed. “I guess that is true.”
“And if it is time for me to say it…” I prompted.
“Oh, I’ve been saying I love you from the minute I saw you,” William said. “But I guess today is a good time to say it out loud. I love you, Abigail.” He leaned forward enough to kiss me. “With all my heart.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
That Sunday, when we were leaving church, we saw Pastor Hofmann deeply engrossed in conversation with an older man I did not know. The Pastor appeared to be fully focused on what the other man was saying, but when he saw William, he put his head up and waved my husband over.
“William, you know the Curate?” Pastor Hofmann said. He turned toward me and added by way of explanation, “He’s with the Anglican church outside Sioux Falls.”
“I do,” William said, sticking out his hand. “It’s good to see you, sir.”
“I’m not sure you’ll think it good news,” the Curate said. He was an anxious man, or so it seemed. He spoke quickly and his hands shook throughout; every moment it appeared his eyes were looking in a new direction. “I’ve come to warn you.”
Just that morning, a stranger had appeared in the Curate’s congregation for Sunday services. Such a thing wasn’t unusual; more and more people were coming to the region every day and many of them were searching for a place to worship.
“But this fellow was different than most,” the Curate says. “Most of the time when someone comes in, they pay a good amount of attention to the service. Yes, people’s minds can wander if I preach too long, but them that are there to worship do tend to keep their eyes facing forward most of the time.”
I wasn’t sure where the Curate was going with this story, so I cocked my head, curious to learn more.
“Our service is just under two hours long; two and a half if you count fellowship,” the Curate explained. “This fellow came early, stayed the entire time, and I don’t think he spent more than twenty seconds total looking toward the front of the church.”
“Was he cross-eyed, by any chance?” I knew my husband was serious, but we all laughed.
“No,” the Curate said. “His eyes were perfectly normal, as far as I could see. It’s just that he wasn’t looking for God. He’s searching for someone else, and judging by how he most ardently directed his attention, I’d say that someone is you, young lady.” He nodded toward me. “There are a number of young women in our flock, and more than a few are ginger haired. The way he stared at them was quite unsettling.”
“To be fair,” William said, “It’s quite easy for any man to find themselves staring at a woman like Abigail.” He blushed a little. “One could almost say it was the natural order.”
The Curate blushed. “Be that as it may,” he said, “what isn’t any part of a natural order or even a divine plan, is when that same young man comes up to me after services inquiring about his long lost cousin, William Adalwolf.”
William’s eyebrows went up. “My cousin?” He snorted. “That would be quite a trick.”
“I know your history well enough to know that,” the Curate said. “So I told him that as far as I knew, you worshipped with the Saints.”
“Thank you for that,” William said.
“This man,” I asked, interrupting their conversation. “Tell me, what does he look like?”
The Curate’s description didn’t sound anything at all like the fire marshal. He said nothing about a tall, broad man with a foul face and stiff legs. Instead, he described, in excruciating detail, a man I knew I’d seen before: the fire marshal.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“The Saints have their services way out there, almost on the county line,” William said. He was driving the wagon home at quite a clip; the horses were kicking up dust and gravel as they galloped along. “By the time he rides out there to see if he can find us, half the afternoon will be gone.”
“That’s good,” I said. “You want us to be home before he gets there.”
“That would be best,” William agreed. “It’s not good to be surprised inside your own home.”
Pastor Hofmann had promised he would send for the Sheriff. He’d wanted us to stay at the church until the law came, but William wouldn’t hear of it. “I’ve got too much at home to protect,” he said. “I can’t have taken the risk of having all my research suddenly burning up in an act of spontaneous combustion.”
I asked about that as we galloped along. “You don’t think Papa’s shop was a case of spontaneous combustion?”
“No,” he said, holding up two fingers. “And here’s why. One: there’s no scientific proof anywhere that spontaneous combustion actually happens. In every supposed incident, researchers have been able to find some source of a spark or other cause. Fires don’t just happen for no reason.”
“Oh.” I let out a deep breath. “I didn’t know that.”
“The fact that the papers report such credulous nonsense as fact doesn’t help matters,” he said. “And of course, one must always keep an open mind. It is possible that your Father’s print shop was the first ever incident of spontaneous combustion.”
“Possible but not likely?” I said.
“Exactly,” William agreed. “Possible but not likely. And then you factor in reason number two, which was the fact we know Robert Benson wanted to marry you.”
“I’m not sure he wanted to marry me,” I said. “He just wanted a guarantee that Father would do everything possible to repay the loan.”
William raised an eyebrow. “Out of the blue, he just randomly decided to demand probably the most beautiful girl in town as the collateral for one particular loan? Be realistic, Abigail. People don’t work that way.”
I blushed. “I wasn’t the most beautiful girl in town. Not even close.”
“Well, we’ll just accept that you’re probably wrong about that,” William said. “How old were you when your Father took out this loan?”
“When he got the press?” I searched my memory. “I think I’d just turned fourteen.”
“And you’re eighteen and a half now,” William said. “Benson got tired of waiting for his payment, that’s all.”
“You think he started the fire in Father’s print shop?”
“That would be my hypothesis, yes,” William said. “I very much doubt that he did the deed himself. It’s more likely he sent one of his lackeys to do it for him.” The farm was in sight; he pulled the horses to a slower pace so we could make a more discreet approach. “Probably the same fellow he’s sent to fetch you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Shotsi was dead. I knew it as soon as I saw her little brown body sprawled on the ground. Her head had been bashed in, most likely by Robert Benson’s walking stick.
“He’s here,” I hissed to William. “We have to get away from here. Let the Sheriff handle it.”
“I’m not going to be run off of my own homestead,” William replied. He drew a pistol that I didn’t know he had from inside his vest pocket. “Stay behind me, and at the first sign of trouble, I want you to run.”
“We’re past the first sign of trouble,” I said. “We’re up to the twelfth or thirteenth sign of trouble, by my accounting!”
William laughed. “That’s my liebchen. Mind’s always going a millio
n miles an hour, no matter what else is going on.”
“You two might as well come in,” a deep voice called from inside the house. “I’m not going to wait all day, and I shouldn’t have to walk all the way out there.”
William and I looked at each other. There was no doubt at all in my mind. That voice belonged to Robert Benson.
He was sitting in the front room, in William’s chair, with one of the countless journals my husband subscribed to open on his lap. “You are to be complimented,” he said to William, “on your fine library.” His gaze turned toward me, and I shuddered as he examined my form. “And your taste in women.”
“Thank you,” William replied. “I go to great lengths in the keeping of both.”
Robert Benson laughed. “And who could blame you? If I were a man of your youth, and a gem of such worth tumbled unexpectedly into my lap, I would hang on to it tooth and nail. Everyone says you’re a bright man. It’s not beyond you to see what a treasure Abigail is.”
Every word Benson said, although complimentary, made me feel slightly ill. It wasn’t as if I was a person to him. Instead, I was an artifact, an object d’art to be acquired and displayed.
William said nothing. Benson had seen the gun my husband was holding, but it didn’t seem to trouble him.
“The thing is that your youth prevents you from seeing some unavoidable facts,” Benson continued. “Nothing alters the fact that this young woman has been promised to me for many, many years. The law takes breach of contract – particularly the marriage contract – very seriously.”
“I signed nothing!” I spat. “There is no contract.”
“Your father signed.” Benson shrugged. “You were a minor, so it was only fitting. The law is what the law is.”
“And under that same law, Abigail is my wife,” William said. “A woman who is married to one man can’t be wed to another. Our marriage rendered any contract engaging her to another void.”
