Somerset

by Leila Meacham

  Jeremy had clasped his friend’s shoulder. “I’ve no doubt you will, my friend. I wish you every happiness. My best to you both.”

  Jeremy was happy for Silas, he really was. His friend didn’t deserve Jessica, having gained her in the way he did, but Silas would grow to love her—never as much as his plantation, but close enough. Silas’s remark, I hope you do, Jeremy, had let him know that Jessica was his. Jeremy could put aside his private hope that Jessica might fall into his hands. That possibility was now not likely to be. A pity. He would have set his slaves free for Jessica’s sake. She was an extraordinary person who had won his admiration more by the day. Now there was nothing for it but for him and the woman he would gladly have married to become the greatest of friends.

  “How did you know I’d be…willing,” Jessica asked as Silas unbuttoned the last obstacle to the other barriers in the way of their mutual desire. Jessica stood still while his hands did their work.

  “I read your diary,” he said.

  “What?”

  He kissed her astonished mouth. “While you were sleeping,” Silas said afterwards while her lids were still closed in pleasure. He kissed them, too. “Thank God I did. I would have continued under the delusion you hated me.”

  Her eyes flew open. “I tried to. I don’t know why I don’t.”

  The corset was next, followed by a camisole. “I don’t for the life of me know either,” Silas said, unlacing the ribbons that held the garment together. “I shall do my best to give you no reason to as…a husband.”

  The gentle implication was clear. Jessica accepted it. He might give her cause to despise him as a slave owner, but as her husband, her lover—how could she hate a man who filled her with such physical longing?

  The corset fell away, and Silas pulled the camisole over Jessica’s head. “Dear God,” he said in awe at the second sight of her exposed breasts.

  “I’ll do the rest,” Jessica said, hurriedly stepping out of the petticoats and her pantalets. Watching her, Silas untied the sash to his dressing robe, and it dropped to the floor. He touched her bandage.

  “Are you sure you’re well enough for this?”

  “I’m well enough,” she said, giving him her hand, and Silas took it and led her to the bed.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Silas was gone by the time Jessica awoke. She reached over to his side of the bed and found a shocking void. Her first thought was that he had fled from her, too embarrassed by their unrestrained ardor the night before to face her. How could she blame him? She had behaved appallingly for a bride…a virgin. He must wonder if she hadn’t had experience for him to have satisfied her need so naturally and easily.

  Jessica threw back the sheet to take advantage of the ablutions closet and remove her head binding, which Silas had been careful not to disturb. Still it was a miracle the cut looked none the worse for her exertions except for its unpleasing discoloration. She left the dressing off until Tippy could replace it and returned naked to bed, not yet ready to leave its warmth or memories from her first sexual experience.

  Little about it was as she’d expected or been warned of in the long discussions of wedding nights with her classmates at boarding school. She had bled slightly but had felt no pain, only an intense pleasure that made her feel as if she were floating among the stars. When Silas discovered the virginal stains, he’d gone at once to soak a cloth in basin water and bathed her as tenderly and unselfconsciously as if he were tending a baby. He placed a clean towel under her, and they turned their backs to the other to seek sleep, but their need—or lust, Jessica didn’t know which—got the better of them, and they turned to each other again.

  She should be ashamed of her abandonment to a man she barely knew, even if he was her husband, but she did not. For the first time in her life, she did not feel plain and undesirable. Silas made her feel beautiful and wanted, and, against her instincts and better judgment, that tribute to her vanity alone might force her to be happy with him. Love was a long way off and may never come for either of them, she realized that. She was not so young that she did not know time and familiarity and irreconcilable differences could snuff the strongest attraction, but she would not borrow tomorrow’s trouble. She would live for today.

  Where had Silas gotten himself off to? She missed him so, ached for him. He had told her he had business in New Orleans today and would not return to the hotel prior to leaving for camp, but that was before last night. She had hoped for them to have breakfast together, a civilized and appropriate formality to the consummation of their marriage.

  Jessica sighed ruefully. Here she was, already fuming like any wife disappointed at her husband’s dereliction of his connubial duties.

  A soft knock on the adjoining door of her bedroom startled her from her musings. Hastily, she drew the sheet over her exposed breasts. Tippy, she thought, chomping at the bit to find out what happened.

  “Come in,” she called.

  The door opened and Silas entered. He was dressed in clothes suitable for a drawing room and looked fresh, rested, and unbearably handsome. “Good morning,” he said, a sheepish glimmer in his eye. “How’s the head?”

  Quickly Jessica covered the spot of her injury with her hand, her heart beginning to pound. “Don’t look. It’s starting to go an ugly color, but otherwise it survived the night.”

  “A wonder.” Silas came around the edge of the bed and removed her hand to judge for himself. “It doesn’t look ugly to me,” he said. “It’s a sign of the healing power of youth and health, but to be on caution’s side, it should be rebandaged. I’ll send Tippy in. And…uh, are you all right otherwise as well?”

  “I find myself perfectly all right.”

  A moment’s awkward silence hung between them. Jessica pulled the sheet higher and burrowed her head deeper into the pillows. “You must think I’m a wanton,” she said, peering at him over the edge of the bed linen.

  A grin relaxed his countenance. “I think nothing of the kind. I was intensely flattered by your…response to my enthusiasm.”

  “I’m sure I’m not the only woman who has aroused yours, but be assured you’re the only man who has ever aroused mine.”

  Silas grinned wider. “What an enormous compliment. I hope you found the experience better than copulating with a mule.”

  “I can’t say since I’ve had no comparison,” Jessica said loftily.

  Silas chuckled and withdrew two letters from inside his coat, one secured by a wax seal and the other protected in a handmade envelope. “Here. These are for you. I collected them from the reception desk. The Morgans forgot to give them to you last evening. From the seal, I see that one is from your mother. I hope she sends good news but not enough to make you homesick. Now I must leave you, but I’ll be back at noon to have a meal with you and Joshua, then I must get back to camp.”

  He leaned down again. Jessica thought he meant only to kiss her cheek and be on his way, but a mischievous glint appeared in the emerald irises, and before she could anticipate his move, he pulled at the sheet.

  “Lord have mercy, Jessica.” He sighed and pressed his lips to the voluptuous curve of her breast.

  It required all her willpower not to thread her hands through his black hair and pull him down to her, but she must think of Joshua in the next room. She pushed him away and restored the sheet. “Where’s your son?” she asked.

  “Downstairs,” Silas said, straightening reluctantly. “He’s had his breakfast and found a playmate, Jake, one of the boys from the wagon train. His parents are staying at the hotel.”

  “Joshua doesn’t know…about us, does he?”

  “I told him last night that we’re married. He wants to call you Mother.”

  “Oh, Silas, really?” In her joy, Jessica almost sat up. She could hardly believe it. She’d anguished over the real possibility that Joshua would reject her as a mother when he learned that she and his father were husband and wife. “He wants to call me Mother?”

  “Th
at was his expressed wish.”

  “I’m honored,” Jessica said and tried the name on her tongue. “Mother…”

  Silas bent down once more, and she saw his teasing intent to pull at the sheet again, but she held it firmly despite a flush that warmed her thighs. “Go away so I can read my letters,” she said, pushing him away with her free hand.

  Silas laughed and tweaked her cheek, but obeyed. With her eyes, Jessica followed him to the door and they were on him when he opened it and glanced back, his gaze serious and still. “Let us not question what has happened between us, Jessica, or why. Let us simply accept it and be…grateful.”

  “I will, Silas.”

  “I will return at the noon hour,” he said. “Rest now.”

  Tippy burst in a minute later, eyes growing huge when she saw Jessica still in bed and apparently naked under the sheets. “Don’t tell me it happened,” she said excitedly.

  “It happened,” Jessica said, “and no, I’m not going to tell you what happened, but it was divine.”

  “Well, thank the stars and moon and all heavenly bodies,” Tippy said, and tugged the bellpull twice to request bath water. “Now maybe Mister Silas will reconsider his intention to leave you here. Once a man has tasted honey, you think he’s going to leave the bucket behind?”

  “I’ve reconsidered my desire to go with him, Tippy. Joshua knows we’re married. Silas says he’s happy about it and wants to call me Mother. Isn’t that wonderful? So now I not only have to think of you, but also of my responsibility to my little…stepson and”—Jessica gave Tippy a look—“I may have to think of me, just in case.”

  “What do you mean, just in case?”

  “I’m in my fertile period.”

  “Glory be!” Usual for her in moments of elation, Tippy covered her small face with her large hands, leaving nothing but wisps of hair and ears showing. Behind the enclosure she asked in a muffled voice, “You going to let Mister Silas know?”

  “We’ll see,” Jessica said, removing the letter from the envelope that had been posted from Boston. Jessica did not recognize the return address. Her mother’s letter could wait. Jessica was hungry for every word from Willowshire, but the letter’s contents might sadden her, and she wanted nothing to disturb her euphoria.

  “It’s from Sarah Conklin!” she exclaimed, surprised. “She’s moved to Boston. She writes that she made it home safely but regrets that her nephew, Paul, had to see her in such a state when she arrived. She says her back took a long time to heal, but she’s fine now. Paul wants to attend West Point and be a soldier when he grows up.”

  Jessica frowned and Tippy asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Sarah says we may not live to see it, but she predicts that in time there will be a war between the North and South over the issue of slavery.”

  Tippy, preparing the bandage to redress Jessica’s wound, said quietly, “We will live to see it.”

  Jessica glanced at her, and a feather-light chill ran over her naked skin. Tippy was from the stars. They told her things, and her prophesies were never wrong.

  In her mother’s envelope were two letters. “Tippy, here’s a letter for you from Willie May!” Jessica cried. “Bless Mama for enclosing it. I’m sure Papa didn’t know.”

  Tippy snatched it from her hand, and the two exchanged news contained in each mother’s letter until Jessica came to the last paragraph in hers. As she’d dreaded, her mother had enclosed matter that disturbed and saddened her. “Oh, no!” she gasped.

  “What is it?”

  “Silas will be heartbroken…devastated. How I loathe to tell him.…”

  “Tell him what?”

  “Tell him about Lettie,” Jessica said. “She’s married to Morris and is now the mistress of Queenscrown.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Their luncheon together as a family perfectly complemented the night before. Joshua had approached Jessica shyly when his father brought him to her room before they went downstairs. She sat before her dressing table, and Silas led him to her chair.

  “You get to be my mother, Papa said.”

  Jessica took his hands into hers. Her voice pitched low and gentle, she said, “It doesn’t mean we can’t still be good friends.”

  “That’s what Papa said, too, but I want you to be my mother first. I don’t mind if you tell me what to do. My friends say their mothers tell them what to do because they love them.”

  “That’s very true,” Jessica said.

  “But you’ll read to me like always?”

  “Until I teach you to read. Then you can read to me.”

  Joshua glanced up at his tall father. “Is it all right if I hug her now?”

  “I don’t think she’ll break,” Silas said, with a slight wink at Jessica layered with private meaning. She ignored him and gave herself up to the embrace of the little arms around her neck. How had this miracle happened that she was now a wife to the handsome man beside her and a mother to this adorable child she had already grown to love? Wisdom cautioned her to beware of such heady happiness built on the uncertain ground of her marriage, but for the moment she would follow Silas’s advice and not question what had happened—was happening—between them. She felt wanted and needed. She would enjoy this new, delicious experience as long as it lasted.

  Chatting merrily, they’d trooped down the stairs hand in hand and entered the dining room like any normal set of parents with their offspring between them and selected a table next to the family from the wagon train. They were Lorimer and Stephanie Davis and their son, Jake. Like the Tolivers, they were dressed as people of property, the woman one of the few slave-holder wives who had become somewhat friendly with Jessica. But for a faint show of curiosity at Jessica and Silas’s new marital situation (their fellow travelers were aware the couple, heretofore living separately, had shared a room), the Davises greeted them as one of them—parents with sons who had a grand time playing together.

  Jessica had determined to wait until Silas was ready to depart for the wagon train to relate the news of Lettie’s marriage. She did not want a second of their time together marred before he had to return.

  The moment came too fast. They had left Joshua taking a nap, Tippy also. Her one lung was feeling the oppression of the New Orleans humidity. Silas had said good-bye to his son as he’d seen him to bed. Jessica had accompanied him to the courtyard, where his horse was bridled and saddled. Like any husband and wife, they apprised each other of their plans. Silas would return day after tomorrow to attend Joshua’s birthday party. He would drive his Conestoga back in the company of another wagon loaded with children for his son’s party, and post the wagon to sell. He had already lined up a potential buyer who was willing to give him a fair price. Jessica would be busy with hotel personnel arranging the birthday luncheon, and she had accepted Henri’s offer to squire her and Tippy and Joshua around New Orleans. The Frenchman wanted to show them his father’s emporium and the St. Charles Hotel that was near completion and touted to be the largest and grandest hotel in the United States. Joshua was excited about riding the streetcar with his friend Jake.

  Then Jessica said, “Silas, I have something I must tell you.”

  “I hope it’s nothing to disturb my illusion that you are happy.”

  “It has nothing to do with my happiness, but it may yours. Your brother and Lettie are married. My mother wrote of it in her letter.”

  Jessica held her breath. The next seconds would tell if he still cared for Lettie and mourned her loss as now irrevocable. Jessica had often wondered if Silas would return for Lettie should she still be unmarried after he fulfilled the terms of the contract and divorced her.

  “Is that so?” he said, and saved Jessica two days of agony during his absence wondering if Silas was awash with regret. He took her hands and kissed them. “I wish my brother and his wife well,” he said, “and hope the disparities between them can be settled as satisfyingly as ours.”

  He said no more, and his face went exp
ressionless except for the small smile he gave her as he tipped his hat and rode away. Jessica covered the back of her hand with her palm, preserving the touch of his lips on her flesh. Silas was bound to feel pain, she thought, and perhaps a sense of betrayal and sadness that things had turned out as they had. But Lettie was gone from him forever, and she was here, at least for as long as it took Silas to fulfill the terms of his contract with her father.

  Silas was glad he was alone and on his horse miles from camp. He would need solitude and time and distance to adjust to his shock and the feelings that followed. So Lettie had settled for Morris. The picture of his beautiful, passionate, exuberant former fiancée married to his Bible-spouting, laconic dullard of a brother was almost too painful to imagine. His shock gave way to dismay. Talk about copulating with a mule! Good God, what had Lettie been thinking to marry Morris?

  But as his horse’s hooves ate up the miles, Silas came to a new awareness. It lightened his sadness for Lettie’s fate and his guilt for his part in it. His former fiancée had known exactly what she’d been thinking to marry Morris. For the sacrifice of her beauty and body to his blockhead of a brother, she’d gained the Queenscrown she’d always loved. Silas recalled her excitement at the prospect of living a year at the plantation before leaving for Texas. Even then he’d suspected that when it came time to go, for all her adventuresome talk, she would be reluctant to leave its luxury and comfort. Lettie was never more radiant than when she graced the rooms at Queenscrown, never looked as if she felt more suited to a place. Queenscrown was her consolation prize, and Morris, of whom she was fond, not a bad substitute for the man who had jilted her.

  His mother had gained the daughter-in-law she thought she’d lost. There would be grandchildren to hold and adore. With the exception of a minor adjustment, the lives and futures of the girl and family he’d left behind would continue as planned.