Because of You

by Cathy Maxwell

  She was a married lady!

  She still couldn’t believe it.

  “What is the matter with you?” Marvin asked.

  His question surprised her. She raised her eyes from the ring to see him studying her. “Me? Nothing. Why do you ask?”

  “Because you look inordinately proud of something.”

  She couldn’t help grinning then, letting some of the happiness inside her bubble over into the day. “I wasn’t expecting a ring.”

  He glanced down at the thin band and grunted. “It’s not very much, but it is the best Sproule can do on short notice.”

  “It is enough.”

  His gaze held hers a moment. He appeared ready to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. It didn’t matter, they’d arrived at the inn.

  The wedding breakfast was just as it had been for every other wedding Samantha had attended, and she was overjoyed. They sat in front of the room, facing everyone.

  The ale was strong and good and the toasts never seemed to stop. There was a whole keg of ale to be drunk before this day was over and everyone was in high spirits for it.

  Of course, Samantha and Marvin would not be there to see it dry. After the dancing, they would be escorted upstairs to the bedroom she’d used the night before and left there to consummate the marriage.

  Samantha pushed her tankard aside, suddenly feeling she’d had too much to drink. Her heart pounded in her chest at the thought of being with Marvin in that way.

  At that moment, his leg brushed against hers under the table. The brief contact was jolting. He must have sensed her restlessness, because he looked down at her with a question in his dark eyes.

  She gave him a tight, reassuring smile…and then watched his gaze covertly drop and settle on her breasts swelling over the bodice of her dress.

  She was tempted to raise her hand and cover herself, but instead she sat still, wondering if he found her at least a little attractive.

  Secretly, she could admit she had never met a more handsome, more heroic man. He had rescued her from a life of obscurity. She was Mrs. Marvin Browne. Her hands in her lap, she ran her finger over the ring.

  His glance shifted away. He smiled at something Mr. Hatfield said about husbands and wives, but beneath the table, he impatiently tapped his foot on the floor as if he was only biding the time until he could escape.

  She didn’t like that idea. She wished she knew what he was thinking.

  At last the squire rose. He’d been drinking heavily, as was his habit. He raised his tankard. “I have something to say—”

  “You always have something to say,” his wife rejoined good-naturedly. Everyone laughed, although she was the only one who dared to talk to him that way.

  Squire Biggers continued. “First a toast to our newest married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Browne.”

  Samantha blushed furiously as everyone said, “Aye,” and lifted their tankards.

  After they had drunk, the squire said, “Second, I want to offer Marvin a job. A good one. I could use a stablehand and I think he is suited for the position. I can always use a brawny man like you.”

  Everyone started to drink again—except Samantha and Marvin. She slid a look at him from the corner of her eye.

  He was not smiling.

  He pushed away from the table and came to his feet. Samantha stopped breathing as he picked up his tankard and raised it in the direction of the squire.

  “I appreciate your offer,” he said, his voice suddenly more cultured, more refined, the tones clipped and distinct. “However, I will take care of my wife as I see fit, and I must refuse. And now, if you will excuse us, we are going to leave.” He drained the tankard, set it on the table, and offered Samantha his hand.

  She had no choice but to take it. The whole situation was very awkward. The room had fallen into silence and she felt everyone stare at her.

  He helped her to her feet, pushing the bench back to give her room. She had just taken a step toward the door when the squire stepped into their path.

  “You will not take Miss Northrup,” the squire said. “You can’t. She is the only doctor of sorts we have.”

  “You should have thought of that before you married her off to a stranger,” Marvin drawled.

  “You will stay here,” Squire Biggers said in a resolute tone. “If you don’t like the job I’ve offered you, then perhaps I can talk to the duke of Ayleborough’s steward. They might have something there for you to do. But you will not take Miss Northrup.”

  “Her name is Mrs. Browne,” Marvin said. “And I’ll do anything I damn well please.”

  Squire Biggers’s nostrils flared with anger. “Aye, that you can…but only after the marriage has been consummated. Until that time, it can be annulled.”

  A gasp went up in the room. Samantha was one of those who had gasped.

  Marvin took hold of her arm and pulled her behind him. “You’ll do no such thing.”

  “I will do what I have to do to take care of what is mine,” Squire Biggers said proudly. “And there isn’t a man in this room who wouldn’t do the same.”

  As if on cue, all the village men, with the exception of Vicar Newell, stood up, a sign of solidarity with the squire. Samantha had seen it happen before. Traditions ran deep here and they all followed the squire. The only one who could gainsay him was the mighty duke of Ayleborough himself.

  The air vibrated with tension. All earlier good humor vanished.

  Samantha felt torn between the community she’d always known and this man who stood beside her. She turned to him. His expression was grim. He did not like the ultimatum—but then, to her surprise, his stance relaxed. He smiled even.

  “You are right, Squire Biggers. I would be wrong to take my wife from this village. Perhaps a job in your stables would suit me.”

  A big smile split the squire’s face. “Aye, it would, and happy we are that you have seen reason.”

  Samantha noticed that the smile of neither man reached his eyes. She sensed they were wary and waiting.

  “Drink with me, then,” Squire Biggers ordered, and Marvin dutifully held out his tankard for the serving girl to fill. He drank that one and several others, but Samantha did not see that drink had any effect on him. She was relieved to discover that he wasn’t a drunkard. That doubt had lingered in the back of her mind.

  The dancing had just started when Marvin took her hand. “Come.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To consummate our wedding.” He didn’t look at her but kept his gaze on the squire, who was dancing with his wife. His manner was far from loverlike.

  He rose from the table, pulling her with him. They started walking toward the door leading to the outside hall and the stairs.

  Mrs. Sadler saw them. “It’s time! It’s time,” she shouted. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to the bridal couple.

  Samantha froze. In her enchantment with being married, she’d forgotten the part of the ceremony when the villagers helped turn the bridal couple into the bed. Actually, she and her father had usually left before this part of the tradition, having no wish to see two people humiliated in such a manner. Many was the time the villagers had stripped the couple and tied them into the bed together.

  Apparently Marvin knew of the custom because he squeezed her hand. “Run.”

  He didn’t have to tell her twice. However, when they reached the door leading to the stairs and the hallway, he turned toward the outside door. Their clasp broke.

  Samantha stared at him in surprise. He hadn’t meant to take her upstairs.

  The first villager almost made it to the door when Marvin, acting quickly, shut it. “Where’s the lock?” he shouted at Samantha.

  “There isn’t one.”

  “There isn’t one?” he repeated, even as the door started to open.

  There wasn’t time to make an escape. He grabbed her elbow and directed her to the stairs.

  Samantha was out of breath by the
time they reached the top. The villagers shouted out their names along with crude jests and boasts. She ran into the her bedroom, Marvin on her heels, and they shut the door.

  “Where’s the lock here?” he yelled in exasperation.

  “There isn’t one!” she shouted back. She could hear the villagers laughing as they charged up the stairs. Her nerves were on edge. She wanted to scream. They couldn’t come through the door. She would die of embarrassment if they did half of what she’d heard they’d done to other couples.

  Marvin solved the problem by pulling the room’s heavy chest of drawers in front of the door.

  Someone pushed on the door but couldn’t move the chest. Mr. Porter hollered, “Come on, now, we must have our fun.”

  “Go to the devil,” Marvin told him.

  They laughed at his response but stopped pushing on the door. Squire Biggers’s voice said, “Come, lads, let us go finish that keg. We have them where we want them.”

  Samantha sank down on the bed, pressing her hand against her stomach as she heard them tramp back down the wooden steps. “That was close.”

  Marvin didn’t answer her but walked over to the window and looked out it, his gaze studying something in the distance.

  The room grew very quiet. Downstairs, the fiddler played a jig and the dancing had resumed. Samantha nervously tapped her toe to the music, all too conscious that they were alone—and for one purpose.

  He swung open a narrow window. “I think I can make it out of here by climbing out this. I’ll get the horse and sneak back in through another way besides the front door. What do you suggest? Does the kitchen have a separate entrance?”

  Samantha shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold air blowing freely through the window. Why was he so eager to leave?

  She knew the answer…and it made her feel stupidly girlish. She! A woman of six-and-twenty. For one shining moment, she had naïvely hoped for a miracle, that he would fall in love with her and she with him and they would be happy ever after…

  What rot.

  She kept her voice as calm as she could. “You have no intention of honoring our wedding vows, do you?”

  He shut the window, his brows coming together in concern, as if he’d just now thought of her. “Samantha, I…” He paused, whatever he’d been about to say abandoned. Instead, he said, “I’m a wealthy man. I don’t need to work in a stable. I can set you up nicely, wherever you wish. You’ll never worry for another thing for the rest of your life.”

  “But we won’t have a marriage.”

  His hands dropped to his side. “I don’t want you to feel tied down to me.”

  “Because you are leaving?”

  “I have a life somewhere else.”

  She came to her feet, horrified by a new thought. “You aren’t already married, are you? Mrs. Sadler said you told her you didn’t have a family—”

  “I’m not married, Samantha. You can be assured of that.”

  “Then why do you want to leave me?” She asked the question whose answer she most feared. She knew it would be because she was old and plain and too intelligent and forthright for her own good. “Why did you marry me at all?” she whispered.

  “I married you because that is what you wanted most. And because I owe you for saving my life—”

  “I expect no payment. And what makes you think I want marriage most in my life?”

  “Because you told me. Yesterday, when you were crying.”

  Samantha remembered. Her cheeks flamed with shame. Too embarrassed to look at him, she sat back down on the bed. “I was upset and tired. I shouldn’t have spoken that way in front of you. Please, you are free to leave. I will not stop you.”

  Her fingers brushed the ring on her hand. She twisted it off. “Here. Now climb out the window and go to your freedom.”

  He didn’t move to take the ring. “Samantha, I can’t leave you here to face all of them alone.”

  She studied the stitching on the bedcover. “I will be fine.” She didn’t feel fine. She actually felt numb, as if her body was trying to protect her from pain.

  The mattress gave as he sat down beside her. “I’m not going to leave you.”

  She didn’t try to speak. If she did, she would cry. How could she have shamed herself and admitted her innermost thoughts to him?

  He hadn’t married her to be gallant; he’d pitied her.

  She doubled up the bedcover in her fist without realizing it and then had to force her hand to release it.

  “Samantha, look at me. We must talk of this.”

  A lump had formed in her throat. It hurt to speak. “There is nothing left to say.”

  He was not happy with her answer. She could sense his exasperation, but she could do nothing for it. She wanted him to leave—the sooner, the better.

  Outside this silent room, she could hear Squire Biggers’s voice above all the others, singing with the fiddler. They were having a grand party in her honor.

  She should hate Marvin…but she couldn’t. All she could feel was disappointment, as if something expectant and hopeful had died within her.

  “Please, Samantha, don’t be this way.”

  She didn’t know what he meant. How did he expect her to act?

  He raked his hair with fingers, a gesture she noticed he did whenever he was irritated or frustrated.

  Downstairs, the fiddler changed his tune. The dancers were “whooping” with rowdy joy.

  And then Marvin placed his hands on her shoulders, turned her bodily to face him, and kissed her.

  Samantha had never been kissed before by someone other than her parents, and this completely surprised her. His lips felt hard and unyielding. His hands were on her shoulders. Her hands were flapping in the air.

  Her eyes were wide open.

  He opened his.

  She went cross-eyed staring into his gaze.

  He jerked back, the kiss broken. “Samantha, when a man kisses you, you aren’t supposed to stare at him.”

  She raised trembling fingers to her lips. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Obviously.”

  His dry sarcasm hurt her already wounded ego. “I thought you were leaving.”

  “I am, once I’ve convinced you to come with me.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” she asked.

  “I am going to kiss you again,” he said doggedly.

  Samantha jumped to her feet and backed toward the door. “I don’t want you to. I didn’t like it.” The noise of hand-clapping drifted up from downstairs. The wedding party was still going strong.

  “Oh, Sam,” he said, with exasperation.

  Sam. No one had ever shortened her name in that manner. She liked it; she shouldn’t like it.

  He rose from the bed and began walking toward her. “We’re going to try it again.”

  “Why?” she asked, moving around the room away from him. “Because you feel sorry for me?”

  “No. Because I want you to come with me.”

  He stopped.

  She stopped. Her back was to the bed.

  “Give it a chance, Sam,” he said quietly. “Try and be something you are not for just a little bit and you may find you enjoy the new freedom.”

  She wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but this time, when he took the three steps to stand directly in front of her, she did not run.

  “Your dress is pretty,” he said in a rough voice.

  “The villagers made it.” Her tone was more clipped. She inwardly winced to hear it.

  “They did a fine job.”

  She could only nod. When he stood this close and his purpose was so intent, she found it hard to breathe, let alone speak.

  “Sam, give me your hand.”

  She shied away, but her legs hit the bed and she could move no farther. “Why?”

  “I want to hold your hand.”

  It seemed like an innocent request. She held up her hand. He took it in his much larger, stronge
r one.

  “For being such a strong woman, you are a petite thing.” The flats of his fingers gently traced the tips of hers. He stood so close that if she leaned forward, her breasts would rub his coat.

  He carried her hand up to her chin and used it to tilt her head up. “This time, I want you to close your eyes.”

  “This time?” she echoed breathlessly.

  He placed her hand on his shoulder. “Aye, this time.”

  He bent over to kiss her and her eyes fluttered shut.

  This time his kiss started off tentative, respectful. But when she offered no resistance, it changed. It became insistent, even demanding. He nuzzled her with his nose and tickled her bottom lip with his tongue. She parted her lips in surprise and his lips opened to match hers.

  Samantha discovered herself kissing him as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. She lifted her head higher, the better to let him kiss her, and he took full advantage.

  His lips were no longer soft and yielding, but hungry, with a hunger she found in herself.

  She made a soft noise of anticipation and his arms came around her to fit her to him. The kiss deepened.

  Being this close to another human felt good. When he pressed his hand flat against the small of her back, she scooted nearer still until their bodies seemed to line up—her breasts against his chest, her thighs against his thighs.

  She could taste him now. He used his tongue and she didn’t even flinch because it all felt so very right.

  No wonder poets wrote about kissing! It was far better than any description she had ever read. It made her feel warm, real, alive…and when Marvin stroked her tongue with his in very slow, deliberate movements, her toes curled and she pressed herself against him for more.

  He accepted her surrender with a low growl of satisfaction. Before she even realized it, he was pressing her back on the bed. He lay down beside her, still kissing her.

  His lips left hers and worked their way along her jaw to her ear. His breathing was deep and heavy.

  Hers was too.

  “Sam.” His voice hummed in her ear and seemed to go through her body.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “You are a good kisser.”