by Sara Donati
“Come inside,” he whispered. “Come.”
Oh, she wanted to. She wanted nothing more, but there were other considerations, things she could barely admit to herself.
“What?” His expression was puzzled.
“I don’t want people to think of me as they did of my mother.” There. It came out that simply. She heard herself going on, a little breathless. “She was—immoderate. She was—” Words failed her, as they must. How could she speak of something she barely understood?
But Daniel knew. He swung around to half sit on the rail and pulled her to him. This way they were face-to-face and so there was no way to hide what she was thinking.
“Jemima used whatever tools she had to hand to get what she wanted,” Daniel said. “To get what she thought she needed. Is that why you’re here with me?”
She shook her head.
“Nobody could confuse you with Jemima. Nobody with a brain. Nobody with an ounce of fairness in them.”
Now tears did rise and threaten to fall. She blinked them back. “But there will be people like that. Thoughtless and cruel. I don’t want to give them anything to hold against me. Against us.” The last came in a whisper, but it made him smile.
“Is that an answer I’m hearing?”
Talk was terribly overrated in these situations, Martha told herself. She kissed him and he smiled against her mouth.
“I’ll have an answer,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. Yes.”
His smile grew broader. “A proper answer. A full sentence. ‘Yes, Daniel Bonner, my love, my life, I will marry you and gladly.’”
She opened her mouth to protest and he kissed her. Thoroughly. His hand moved over the line of her hip and down, rested flat on the curve where leg met hip.
Martha felt herself beginning to unravel.
He broke the kiss. “You can say it here, or you can say it inside.” He rocked her toward him with his hand spread over her bottom. Nerves jumped and kicked.
“Yes,” she said. For the third time.
Inside he pressed her against the closed door and kissed her there in the dim empty room. With one hand holding her face he kissed her until something came awake in her, a need she hadn’t known about. But he had underestimated her, or overestimated his powers of persuasion, because she pushed him away with a hand against his good shoulder.
“Wait,” she said breathlessly. “Wait. I have to say something. I have to ask you a question.”
It took a moment to master himself, but then Daniel nodded. He tried to focus on her eyes, though his gaze was drawn to the curve of her lip. Her lower lip, full and plump as a berry.
She said, “Jemima is going to show up here, you know that.”
The hem of her skirt was already in his fist, and he let it go.
“Let her come,” he said. “She don’t worry me.”
“She’ll be your mother-in-law.”
“You’ll be my wife; that’s the important thing.”
She held him off, still. “Daniel, you need to think this through. What it means.”
“She’s nothing but a bully,” Daniel said. He was leaning over her with his hand stemmed against the wall. He bent his elbow and came in closer. “I never could abide a bully.”
Martha curled her hands in his shirtfront and pulled his face down to hers. “People will talk, you know.”
“They do that anyway. Might as well make it worth their while.”
He ducked his head but she held him away to examine his expression. “They’ll say it’s too fast. And maybe it is.”
“I’m not an impetuous man,” he said. His tone was patient. “I could have got married ten times over these last years, but I was waiting for you.”
Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “You were not.”
“I was,” he said. “I just didn’t know it ’til I walked into my mother’s kitchen and saw you standing there.” He gave her an intense look, just edged with playfulness. “Now, if you’re trying to say you don’t want me—”
Martha went up on tiptoe and kissed him, or tried to. Daniel turned, his head cocked at an angle at the sound of voices.
He said, “That’s my sister and brother and the rest of them on the way home.”
They stood there against the door for five minutes and then another five, listening as the others passed. The talk was far more subdued this morning than it had been last night, but that would have mostly to do with lack of sleep. Daniel waited for one of them—Hannah or Jennet, most likely—to call out a hello. Or Ben or Ethan might just come and open the door, see if he was back from the village. Ask if he had done any swimming this morning and did Martha get home all right? With a grin and a nod. Nothing mean about it, all good-natured.
The truth was, he didn’t care to talk to anybody just now, no matter how well-meaning. They were just about to settle some things, he and Martha, and they didn’t need any interruptions. With luck this was something a man only did once in his life, and he wanted to do it right. Now that he had made the decision.
Just exactly when that had happened, he couldn’t say. The moment she settled the shawl around his shoulders at the end of the last dance, right then it was clear to him he had known for days what he wanted. He’d marry Martha Kirby as soon as she’d have him, and count himself lucky. She was one of the strong ones, though she didn’t seem to realize it herself.
Women on the edge of the endless forests grew up tough or they didn’t last long. A steady stream of girls left Paradise for Johnstown and Albany and beyond. They took jobs as servants and cooks, nurses and seamstresses, married and settled, and never came home again.
Some who shouldn’t have stayed did, and turned mean. Martha’s mother was a prime example, as people kept reminding him. As his sister Lily kept reminding him. She would take this hard, but Simon was there to talk sense to her. In the end Martha herself would need to win Lily over, but that would happen. He didn’t doubt it for a minute.
There was something whole about Martha, something solid that he had never known in women outside his own family, and that was something even Lily couldn’t ignore. It was a fine thing and a rare one and she couldn’t begrudge him. It was true it had happened fast, but he argued with himself as he would with Lily: He was old enough to know his own mind. And then the voice that came to him wasn’t Lily’s or even his mother’s, but Curiosity’s. Telling him he might know his own mind, but did Martha know hers? Or was he sweet-talking her into something she wan’t ready for? She was a rarity, all right, and she would suit him just fine. But why the hurry?
That was a question he would be asked by Curiosity and his mother and every other woman he knew. Why the hurry?
He closed his eyes and reached for an answer, but all he got was Martha, the smell of her. He had the urge to put his face to the line of her neck and pull in her scent until it filled his lungs, but she was already anxious, breathing shallow and quick. When he looked he saw that she had turned her head hard to the side, listening still for voices. He studied her profile in the half-light from the one open shutter and saw how high her color was. Her upper lip and her forehead were damp, and as he watched a single drop of sweat moved from her hairline to travel down her temple, though the room was cold.
Where the light touched her hair, the rich dark color sparked a deep copper. Her skin was milky, the faintest blush of color high on her cheekbones and at her earlobes. Like sugar candy that would taste of strawberries.
She gasped when his lips touched her neck and then again, a small sharp intake of breath when he reached her earlobe. Now she would push him away, walk away and stare at him from across the room, accusing him and rightly. Instead she turned her head sharply and their mouths met. Something gave way, some last bit of barrier between them. She was so close that he could feel the shape of her legs against his own, the curve of hip and breast. He was aroused beyond all experience, but he made himself stop. To remind himself what she was owed. What was right and reasonable. O
f his mother’s infernal categorical imperative.
Think for a moment. Think if everyone were to handle this kind of situation and act as you are acting now.
Martha was very still, but for the triple beat of the pulse at her temple. “What is it?”
“I’ve been standing here reading myself a sermon,” he said finally. “Am I trying to take you someplace you don’t want to go?”
Her eyes widened. “And where would that be, exactly?” The grin surprised him. A little uncertain but a grin nonetheless. Whatever she was feeling, it hadn’t robbed her of her wits.
Daniel found that he was grinning back at her. “You want me to say it plain?” He ducked and nipped at her earlobe.
She wiggled and she was gone, on the other side of the room with her arms wrapped around herself, almost rocking on her heels. Ready to run a race.
“Don’t smile like that,” she said. “It’s too early to congratulate yourself.”
Daniel began to cross the room at a casual pace that fooled neither of them. But she held her ground until he was in front of her, looking up as if there was something written across his face in bold letters.
She said, “There’s too much to think about. It’s too complicated.”
So the play was over for the moment. Daniel took her by the hand to the settle that stood at right angles to the hearth, and when they were seated he took a deep breath.
“It ain’t complicated. People get married every day with no fuss at all. Unless you were wanting a big party and a new dress and all that. Is that it?”
Martha studied the hands folded in her lap. “No,” she said. “I’ve been through all that and I didn’t like it the first time. But there are things to be settled, Daniel. If you’ll only stop and think. Where are we to live? Here? In the village? Some other place? And forgive me for raising this subject, but all my property will pass to you as my—my husband.”
“I don’t care about that,” he said. He was hot now, a churning in his gut. It was something he hadn’t wanted to think about, but she was right.
“People will care,” she said. “People will say—”
He took her hand and squeezed it hard. “But I don’t care,” he repeated slowly. “We’ll go to a lawyer and see about getting papers drawn up, so you can keep what’s yours. Signed and witnessed. Let people talk then, we’ll know the truth.”
“Will that be enough to convince your sister?”
“She didn’t ask my permission when she married,” Daniel said, more calmly now. This, at least, he had thought through. “If she had, I wouldn’t have given it. And I’d have been wrong. Simon is right for her. Can you leave my sister to me?”
Martha’s gaze was steady. After a moment she nodded. “Yes, I think I can. I mean to. But there’s still the question of Callie.”
It was as if she had spoken a name completely unfamiliar to him, so confused was his expression.
“Callie? What about her?”
“She came to me—why, it was only yesterday,” Martha said. “She was very agitated, and she said some things—I wouldn’t care to repeat them. But she predicted this.” She lifted their clasped hands and let them fall.
His brow rose. “She did?”
“She said we’d be married before the summer was out. And she was so angry, Daniel. She said it was about the house, about the idea that she and I would build a house and live together there, but I wonder now if she isn’t in love with you after all.”
If he was feigning surprise he was a very good actor.
“Callie Wilde is not in love with me.”
“I don’t want her to be hurt,” Martha said.
“Nor do I,” Daniel said. “But this is between you and me and nobody else.”
There was something so focused and knowing in the way he looked at her that gooseflesh rose along Martha’s spine in one long unfurling.
“We will make our lives in this village,” Martha said. “We can’t pretend it doesn’t matter, what others think.”
“If I was a suspicious man,” he said, his voice low and sweet, “I’d wonder if you had your eye on somebody else. John Mayfair, maybe.”
She straightened. “Don’t be silly. I met him for the first time yesterday evening. It would take a great deal more than that to make me fall in love with him. Another evening, at least.”
His fingers curled into her waist and she shrieked with laughter and tried to pull away, but he had her where he wanted her. And, Martha admitted to herself as his hand moved to her breast and his mouth covered her own, she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
—
She had never swooned in her life, but a half hour later Martha thought she understood what it must be like. She was a stranger to herself, so given over to feeling that even simple language eluded her. Daniel wasn’t having that problem. Between long, deep kisses he talked to her in a low whisper, his voice muffled against the skin. The words themselves searing into flesh.
In the village he was known to be quiet, even severe, but the things he said to her were extravagant, opulent, full of images of herself, as he saw her. The color of her skin, the taste of it at the hollow of her throat. The shape of her lip and earlobe, the smell of her hair just behind her ear.
Her breasts. Somehow they had come so far. Somehow it had seemed imperative, and she had helped. In a frenzy to know the feel of his touch exactly there. And then the reality of it, his open palm moving over puckered flesh in a soft circle until she gasped and twisted, unable to get close enough. Wanting more. Wanting everything. He whispered to her, smiled against her mouth, touched her tongue with his own. His hand cupping her face while his beard scratched her throat and then the shock of his mouth closing over her nipple. Her body jerking in response to that slow suckling, as if he had taken her already. As if he had climbed inside her.
Daniel was the one to pull away. The cool air on her wet breast made her shiver; his absence was so absolute that she could hardly fathom it. He slid to the far end of the settle, breathing as though he had never tasted air before.
“What?” her voice creaked and wobbled.
“We could be married tomorrow,” he said.
“There’s the school to open tomorrow.” She shocked herself, and yet she couldn’t deny what she was feeling, and that was simple: She wanted more.
“Then by the end of the week,” he said. His eyes were wide open. Deep-set eyes the color of ivy, something in the expression: shock, or disgust? It struck her then, the truth.
“I’ve shocked you,” she said. “I’m—immoderate.”
His smile was completely unexpected, and then he laughed.
Martha turned away, sudden tears spilling over as she tried to put herself to rights.
“Martha.”
“How dare you, how dare you laugh at me.” The sob came up like a stone.
“I am not laughing at you.” He took her arm. She tried to pull away but she was already up against his chest, her tears seeping into his open shirt. The crisp dark hair against her cheek and the beat of his heart, these things robbed her of the urge to pull away.
“I am not laughing.” He said it again. “I’m happy. Martha. I’m happy. And let me make one thing clear to you, right now so there’s no mistake. There’s no such thing as immoderate, not between the two of us. You could never be too eager. I’ll prove it to you, when the time is right.”
After a moment she nodded, and then she pulled away gently and went back to trying to make some semblance of order out of her clothing. He was waiting for her to say something, but everything that came to mind was monstrously unladylike. She drew in a shuddering breath and stood.
“I need to tell you the rest of the story. About Teddy and his mother.” She made herself meet his eye, because this must be done and be done properly, if they were really to continue as they had started.
He nodded, his expression neutral. “Go on, then.”
“I haven’t been able to talk to anybody about this,” she
said. “But I think you should know.”
“You trying to scare me off?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Go on, then,” Daniel said with a calm smile.
She tried to put the story together in some rational order. Mrs. Peyton’s parlor, the heavy velvet and damask draperies always drawn to protect the furniture. Mrs. Peyton herself, still in mourning though her husband was six years gone. Her mouth pressed and pursed until it was ringed with a rigid white line, her whole frame trembling with anger.
The words she had used. Wanton. Unworthy. A look of hatred so plain it must have been very close to the surface all the time Martha had known her. The many kind things she had said and done—it seemed none of that had been sincere.
I hope you are not breeding, my girl. If you are, my son will not own you or it. The wages of sin will be yours alone to bear.
She stood up for herself, because Teddy did not. Standing in a shadowy corner, bent forward as if to study the pattern in the carpet, he said nothing.
I have never allowed your son such liberties. She said it firmly, and promised herself that she would not cry or faint or show these people anything but calm. Mrs. Peyton had pushed her to the limit of her endurance.
Liar, she called her. And worse. Far worse.
But Martha held her ground. Swallowed down her own outrage and anger and terrible sadness and held her head high.
Martha told Daniel all of it, sitting just far enough away that he wouldn’t touch her. All the noxious memories of that last interview came pouring out of her.
Like mother, like daughter. And: No wonder you pretend that she doesn’t exist. No wonder you lie with so little effort.
“But I didn’t,” Martha told Daniel. “I’ve never been able to tell a lie. Not because I’m an especially good person. I simply have no talent for it.”
