by A. Valentine
“I don’t even have a proper dress,” I confessed to Inge, the Hofmann’s oldest daughter. She had just turned sixteen, and clearly found the story of William’s impending marriage to be extremely romantic.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You look absolutely beautiful in that green dress.” She produced a length of wide lace from a basket. “And we can pin this up in your hair to make a veil.”
“I’ve got the bouquet,” one of the younger children chimed in. “I picked it myself!” Clutched in her chubby fist was a bountiful spray of Queen Anne’s Lace and Brown Eyed Susies.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, taking it from her and bending to give her a kiss. “Thank you so much.”
“Come on,” she said. “Mama’s going to play Here Comes the Bride for you!”
The church was small and plain, which meant the piano music easily filled it to overflowing. I heard the familiar notes echoing off the walls as I walked down the aisle between the pews. William was waiting for me, hands clasped before him, a big smile on his face.
Papa’s words echoed in my head. “Do what you have to do to survive.” Somehow, through the sheerest chance, I’d found a way to escape Richard Benson. In just a few minutes, I’d be married, and no matter how wealthy or powerful my would-be suitor was, there’d be nothing he could do about it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Our ride home from the church was much quieter than our ride home from the train station. Suddenly, William and I were shy with each other. The road was wide and empty; above us, a million stars sparkled in a twilight gray sky.
“It’s been quite a day,” I said.
“It has,” he agreed. “I many times have imagined this day, but I never really thought it would happen for real. I thought I would spend all of my days a bachelor.”
“Really?” I looked at him. “Why would you possibly think that?”
“Why wouldn’t I think it?” his shock was equal to my own.
“You’re very smart and hardworking,” I said. “It’s clear that Pastor Hofmann and his family respect you greatly. Any girl would be lucky to have you, Patience said, and she’s right about that.” I could feel myself blushing, but forced myself to continue. “And of course, you’re quite handsome.”
William blushed. “Do you think so?”
“I do.” I scooted over on the wagon seat until the sides of our legs were pressed against each other. Even through the thick folds of my green dress and his dungarees, I could feel the heat of him, and it made me want him.
“And you are quite beautiful too,” he said. He put his arm around me, letting his fingers play with my hair. “In all my imagining, never once did my girl have curls the color of fire.” He paused for a second. “Of course, that makes statistical sense. Maybe three in one hundred people are red heads, if I remember my reading.”
His digression made me smile. “It runs in families,” I said. “My mother was a red head, and the odds are good that our children will be as well.”
The mention of children put us both in mind of how progeny are produced. A new energy entered the air around us; I was very aware of how William felt against me. How he sounded. How he smelt. Every bit of it was wonderful.
“You know,” he said slowly. “What is to come…”
“Yes?” I said, leaning against him.
“It is not something I have done before.” I was silent for a moment, and he must have found the pause awkward, because his words tumbled out like puppies through a gate. “I mean, I’m familiar with the concepts…from the literature….”
“It’s all right,” I said. “We’re bright people. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
When we arrived back at William’s house, he was determined to carry me over the threshold. “We may not have had much in the way of tradition,” he said, “but we will have this much.” He swept me up easily; clearly he was every bit as strong as I’d imagined. I rolled against his chest and leaned up into his kiss, my arms around his neck.
We went through the house, kissing. He laid me gently on the bed and stared at me for a long moment. “You are very beautiful, Abigail.” He leaned forward and started unbuttoning the bodice of my green dress. “And I think without this, you will be even more beautiful.”
I laughed. “Let me do that,” I said. “My fingers are faster than yours.”
He grinned at my eagerness. “I am willing to believe this.” His expression grew more serious as the fabric parted, revealing the corset I wore below. “Like two fawns, the twins of a gazelle,” he said, gazing at my bosom. “May I kiss you there?”
“Of course,” I said, opening my arms wide. “You are my husband.”
I’d expected William’s kisses to feel wonderful; those he had already placed on my lips and neck had been sheer delight. But it turns out that I was wholly unaware of what wonderful truly meant. Every touch of William’s lips upon my bosom brought forth wave after wave of sensation. I came fully alive, shivering from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.
“You’re shaking,” he whispered. “Am I scaring you?”
“No,” I said, pulling him close against me. “You’re bringing a new part of me into being.” He smiled and I sighed. “And it is wonderful.”
As we kissed my underclothes somehow came right off; William’s shirt fluttered to the floor with amazing speed. Seeing him unclothed was a revelation; my eyes drank in the sparse gold fur covering the muscles of his chest. His stomach had lines that spoke to the long hours he’d spent working in the fields and orchard, and below that I found new delights to discover.
William would ask, before each touch, “May I?” To say yes was such a pleasure; I wanted to give the same to my new husband. So I stretched forth my hand and let my fingertips brush against the side of his swollen member. His eyes flew to meet mine, wide and startled. “May I?” I whispered.
He didn’t speak, just nodded. As my grip grew more certain William bit his lower lip. It was his turn to shake; his arms trembled like birch trees in a gale. The first stroke of his shaft brought forth a gasp from his lips. This deepened into a moan as I tried the action again and again.
Watching him in pleasure increased my own need. It felt so natural to let my legs fall open and guide the tip of William’s cock to the edge of my desire. For a moment we were frozen in that position, barely touching and intensely aware of every point of contact. I looked at him, and he looked at me, and at the same time, we said “May I?”
After that, we stopped talking. Having him inside of me took all of my breath; each thrust forced all the air from my lungs, each retreat forced inhalation. Every bit of my being was centered on William. I could feel his heartbeat echoing inside my own chest. His tempo became my own. We moved faster and faster until at last, my husband cried aloud, “May I?”
I answered the only answer possible, “Yes!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Father’s letter arrived 23 days into my marriage with William. It arrived in the post with the journals he subscribed to, addressed to me by my maiden name in a most familiar script. I brought it to William unopened.
“What’s this?” he asked, holding the envelope aloft.
“It’s from my Father,” I said. “Or so I believe.”
“It’s addressed to you,” William replied. “Or so I believe.” He tossed the envelope on the table in front of me.
“You don’t want to open it?”
“Of course not.” William opened up one of the journals that had arrived in the post and started to scan the page. “It’s your mail.”
Surprised, I picked up the envelope. I noticed that William was watching me as I opened it, but he acted as if he was still reading.
“You can be curious, you know,” I said.
“I am and I’m not,” he said. “For the first time in my life, I think there’s something I might not want to know.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“A man wants his in-laws to thi
nk well enough of him,” William said. “And your Father may not be in a position to think charitably of me.”
I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”
“When you left, your erstwhile fiancée didn’t get the payment he expected.” I’d told William how Kitty had come to be Richard Benson’s wife, and what had happened to her family when she’d disappeared. “And we know he is not a man who forgives debts.”
“Great,” I said. “Now I don’t want to read this either.”
“And then there’s the question of how he knew where to send the letter,” William added. “You’ve not contacted him, so how did he get our address?”
That question sent shivers running down my spine. William was looking at the envelope again. “He doesn’t know we’re married, I suspect, or he wouldn’t have used your maiden name to post this.”
“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 he 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
