by Gordon, Rose
Jack crossed his arms. “I don’t compromise.”
Allison ignored him. “We will go, but you must eat.”
“Fine, I’ll eat,” he said through clenched teeth.
Wes exhaled. “All right. I’ll bring the bath in here.” He shot Jack a sharp look. “You will be bathing tonight.”
Jack lifted his brows. “And do you plan to stand around and ensure that I do?”
“No. I’ll go inform one of my men that is his duty tonight.”
Jack scowled. “Just go.”
Wes left and Allison grinned. “I’ll just take Wes’ plate with me.” She looked down at Ella. “If she needs—”
“I’ll come get you.”
She nodded and walked to the door just in time to open it for her husband, who was carrying in a large copper tub.
Wes set it down by the fire.
“I’ll bring it back to you tomorrow.”
“There’s no need for that. I’ve talked to Colonel Lewis. The tub and pails are now officially yours, so we shouldn’t have to have this type of conversation again.”
Jack shook his head. “Thank you.”
Wes muttered something, then left and came back a minute later with two large pails of steaming water and set them next to the tub.
Jack closed the door behind his friends then let his eyes travel from the food to the tub. There was no doubt about it. He might have hardly eaten since Ella had taken ill, but the temptation of the tub was far more appealing.
Jack bent to untie his boots and peel off his stockings, then splayed his toes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d removed his boots. Or any of his clothes for that matter. He stripped off his once white shirt that now bore stains from sweat and tea, then dropped his dark blue trousers.
Careful not to spill one precious drop of the water, he poured both pails into the tub then walked over to the shelf where he’d placed the bar of soap he’d bought from Charles.
The hot water was like euphoria to his tired body and aching muscles.
He sank a little lower and closed his eyes. He knew he should be doing a quick scrub and then getting out and waiting for Ella to awake. It had been almost an hour and a half since she was last awake. She’d wake up soon. He needed to get out. But he couldn’t. Not yet. He would in a minute, he promised himself, leaning a little farther down into the tub.
He involuntarily groaned and shifted to spread out as best he could in such a confined space.
Sleep he couldn’t fight began to settle over him and he tried in vain to lift his eyelids, but the dark abyss of slumber called to him—
“Jack!”
***
Ella held her hand over her pounding heart as she sat bolt upright in a bed that she vaguely remembered. Her eyes wandered the room. Dishes. Curtains. A pile of discarded clothes. Towels. Food. A tub. A naked man.
She blushed and pulled her eyes away. Not only had he been naked, but he was dripping wet. His dark hair was slicked back and steady drops of water were dripping from the ends of his hair, his nose, his chin, his fingers and even... Her face flushed. Yes, in a matter of seconds, when she’d looked his way, she’d even noticed that. “I’m sorry,” she blurted.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, now at her side. His large hand touched her back, while the other cupped her face and turned her gaze toward him.
Jack. She licked her lips. “I—I’m sorry for what I did to your boots.”
“My boots?” he repeated, confusion marring his handsome face with a line between his brows.
“Earlier when you came in to take me to breakfast and I accidentally...er...washed your boots in last night’s dinner.”
He stared at her for a long moment, after which a look she’d never seen on his face, or anyone else’s, came over his, and then, he wrapped both of his arms around her and sank to his knees on the floor beside her. He pulled her against his bare chest and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t care about my boots, Ella. They’re replaceable, you’re not.”
She wiggled around to see his face but couldn’t get a clear view of the addled man who held her.
He pulled away from her but didn’t let her go. “I’m so glad you’re awake.”
Yes, she was, too. She’d had a terrible nightmare. “Thank you,” she said because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“How do you feel?”
“Better.”
A grin split his lips. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.” He moved his hands to frame her face and idly stroked her cheekbones. “Is there anything I can get for you?”
“Yes. You can put some clothes on.”
He glanced down at himself, then met her gaze again, his dark brown eyes alight with all sorts of mischief. “Sorry. I was taking a bath while you were resting.”
“I didn’t know we had a bathtub in here,” she said, rather excited at the prospect. If she’d known, she’d have taken a bath when she’d first started feeling sick.
“Wes just brought it over a little while ago. Colonel Lewis assigned us one because—” He broke off with a hard swallow, but he’d said enough. A private tub was likely just another benefit to being married.
A wave of sadness and renewed vulnerability came over her at his partial admission as memories of the day before flooded her. She pulled away. “Just get dressed, please.”
He stood and quickly donned his clothes while she stared down at her nails. He walked past her, creating a light breeze. She shivered and ran her hands over her bare arms. She froze. Her bare arms? Hadn’t she lain down in her dress?
She was certain of it. She cast a fleeting glance over to Jack, then closed her eyes. Likely, he’d taken it upon himself to undress her. She swallowed, staving off the prickles of humiliation. Perhaps he thought he was helping, she reasoned in her mind, taking a deep breath. At least he hadn’t completely undressed her or worse... She shivered again, remembering brief snippets of her dream, and what had happened to her then. Her shiver made her legs brush together. She grimaced. The inside of her calf still itched and a large circle of concentrated tender-itchiness had formed. There was no doubt about it; some eight-legged critter had had the audacity to bite her!
She turned her leg slightly and pushed the itchiest area down firmly against the mattress. She had this horrible habit of scratching things that were best left alone, such as poison ivy and spider bites. The last thing she needed was to scratch her bite and make it bleed all over the bedclothes, which is exactly what would happen now that she wasn’t wearing any stockings.
Ella clenched her fists, squeezed her eyes closed and tried to think of anything other than her leg. Sheep. Cows. Cotton plants. Rivers. Trees. Fans. Wigs. Books. Jack—
“Do you feel like eating?” Jack asked as he buttoned the top button of his shirt.
She started. “Actually, I do.”
“Good.” He grinned. “Oh, stay there, I’ll bring it to you.”
She nodded, thankful she didn’t have to get up. Then she scooted back against the pillows while Jack brought over a bowl of soup for her. “This looks better than last night’s,” she commented, taking the bowl from him.
Jack looked at his plate. “I’d offer you a peek at my meal, but I don’t want to make that soup inedible for you.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you for sparing me such a fate.” She ate a spoonful of the best soup she’d ever tasted. Or at least the best soup she’d had since she left her home in Savannah. A dull ache formed in her chest. She missed home. She forced her thoughts away. “I’ll make dinner tomorrow night.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Yes, I do.” She took a deep breath. “I came all this way to be your wife, knowing I’d have to cook.”
His face grew hard and his eyes pierced her. “You don’t have to cook, Ella. I’ve survived the last two years on these meals.”
She returned his stare. They both knew this had nothing to do with her cooking dinner the next night. She dropped her gaze and idly stirre
d her soup. She had to let her anger at his deceit go. They’d be miserable if she didn’t. She sighed and lifted her spoon to her lips. “Thank you for the soup, Jack. Also, I’m sorry, I interrupted your bath.”
He nodded once and they finished their meal in utter silence.
~Chapter Eighteen~
Jack ran his fingers over the long, cold barrel of his pistol. It was the same pistol he’d been issued when he started at West Point and the only pistol he’d ever used since then. So reliable and constant, it was one of the only things in his life that had ever been that way. His parents certainly hadn’t been.
He put it down on the table and turned his head to look out the window. The sky was as black as the leather on his boots, perhaps darker; lit only by a large white ball in the eastern sky. He sighed and glanced over at Ella. She’d fallen asleep an hour or so ago. He’d be lying if he didn’t acknowledge that a part of him was relieved when she’d said she was tired and snuggled back into her pillows. Their conversation after she’d awaken fully lucid had been strained at best.
He steepled his hands and pondered what to do next. She was awake and recovering just fine. Did he return to work now? Or did he stay and take care of Ella until she was fully healed? Colonel Lewis had told him to take off until she was awake, and then he could have an additional week off to take care of her until she was fully recovered. He so badly wanted to do just that. But how would she feel about being around him so much? He’d never met anyone who seemed to dislike and not trust him as much as his own wife.
***
Certain it was completely dark in the room, Ella allowed herself to finally open her eyes. Following their tension-filled dinner together, she’d feigned sleep, this time hoping it would come. Unfortunately, it seemed to be as elusive as the pot of gold that was rumored to be at the end of each side of the rainbow.
Ella’s eyes traveled over the room. It had looked so different only yesterday. Jack must have made a few purchases today. She couldn’t fault him there. The room had been positively barren when she’d woken up this morning. His day must have been very busy. Or at least his afternoon, she amended. He’d come to see her at lunch, because she remembered him doing that. She still hadn’t felt well, but she did remember him giving her water to drink. The room had still looked fairly empty then with all of her trunks and travel bags stacked against the wall by the door and only a few dishes on the shelves. This evening, however, there was a tablecloth on the table, along with candlesticks (and brass holders) on the table and their dresser. There were more dishes and what appeared to be sheets stacked on the shelf in the corner. Dark green curtains now hung where the tattered, threadbare ones had hung at lunchtime. A mirror framed in dark wood was leaning against the wall on top of their dresser. So many little things. Yet, so little time involved. She shook her head. He probably had help doing all of that.
Speaking of him...
She turned her head slightly to discover Jack sitting at their crudely fashioned dining table. He was still dressed in his shirt and trousers and had his boots laced all the way to the top. She bit her lip. Should she invite him to bed? It was his right to sleep there. He had a job he needed to be awake for tomorrow. It wouldn’t do for him to be stiff and tired in the morning. An image of his wet, naked body flashed in her mind and her throat went dry.
“Jack,” she croaked.
At first, he didn’t respond, making her think that perhaps he hadn’t heard her. Just as she’d resigned herself to the fact that he was either sleeping or very displeased with her, he said, “Yes, Ella?”
“Uh, why did you join the army?” What kind of stupid question was that? She needed to invite him to go to sleep, not prod him about something immaterial.
“I had nowhere else to go,” he said softly.
Ella’s heart clenched. She knew that feeling. She’d longed to matter and belong, even if it was only to one person. “Your service means a lot to so very many,” she said, using the same words she’d overheard her father use so many times with his men when they’d come to him about being discouraged.
“Thank you, but that’s not exactly what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I joined because I was angry and bitter at my mother.”
“Oh.” She’d heard many reasons for men to join the army, but never that one. “What did she do?”
“It wasn’t just one thing.” He drummed his fingers on the table for a minute. “When I was about three or four, she decided to go see her sister back in Philadelphia. Her stagecoach must have been delayed because she didn’t come back until I was seven. Two months later, she left again to go experience life in Boston, then New York. She went many places and I saw her only for brief snatches here and there until I was sixteen. That’s when my father got sick.
“According to the doctor, all of the time he’d spent underground mining coal had damaged his lungs. He had me write to my mother and tell her it was time to come home. She did as she was bid and played the doting wife for a while. But the sicker he got, the more sensitive her sensibilities became.” He scoffed. “You’d think by the way she touched him that his body was wrought with a contagious skin disease; and the way she recoiled at the very idea of having to help him bathe or see to any other sort of need he had, made me question my own parentage a time or two. I might have resembled my father, but it was either due to immaculate conception or she wasn’t truly my mother.”
Ella cracked a small smile at his jest.
“When he died some six months after becoming sick, she fled again and I was left to begin my job in the mine. I hated it. Absolutely hated it. The feeling was mutual between me and the foreman, however, and we were both quite pleased when a man showed up one day to settle my father’s accounts.
“See, what I never knew as a child was that my father owned half the mine. My mother’s spending habits, however, were so extreme and the mine so new and not yet profitable, my father had to also work at the mine in order to keep the two of us fed. Anyway, his share in the company passed to me, and not two weeks later, my mother had returned.” He let out a deep breath. “As a boy of close to seventeen, I wanted to believe her when she said she was ready to return and be the mother she hadn’t been before. But when she vanished a week after I’d signed the contract that would give her a percentage of the mine’s earnings each year that I owned it, I sold my portion of the mine, my father’s house and everything else that would fetch a price—even if it was only a cent. I sold it all.
“My father had never really been one to have discussions with me, but in his final months, he’d told me about the friends he’d made during his short time in the army. That’s when I decided to take all of the money I had and go to West Point. It seemed the best solution. I could join the army, and all of the money would be gone, freeing me from my mother and her manipulations all at once.”
Ella lay there frozen. That was more than she’d ever heard him say. Not that she’d been around him that much, but even in his letters, he hadn’t said much. Except about Christmas. She smiled warmly at the memory of his letter about Christmas. “It seems you found the camaraderie and sense of belonging that you were seeking.”
“You mean with Wes and Gray?”
“Yes. Did you meet them at West Point?”
“No. They’re both two years older than I am. I think I saw them each only once or twice there. ”
“Did you not see them for meals or evening activities?”
“No. When I wasn’t in class, I was locked in my room studying or was out shooting at targets. Foolish boy that I was, I didn’t take into account that reading, writing and basic arithmetic were skills I’d need. My father’s lack of funds and his twelve-hour days in the mines hadn’t exactly given me a life that had prepared me for such intense schooling, and I had to spend a lot more time studying books and learning the weaponry than anyone else. That was an oversight on my end when I went to the dean and
persuaded him to allow me entry, showing him that I had the funds for four full years. I should have known I would have trouble when I couldn’t even read or understand all of the words on the application papers.”
“But you stuck with your choice and didn’t run away when you realized how hard it would be,” she reminded him, and herself at the same time. She’d made a choice to come here. She couldn’t back out. She had to see it through.
“Yes. That I did, and I’m glad that I did.”
Would she one day be glad she’d come here, too? She didn’t wish to think about it too deeply at the moment but knew she’d never know for sure if she didn’t start making an effort with him. She licked her lips and screwed up what was left of her fleeting courage. “Jack, do you plan to sleep in that chair all night or come to bed?”
~Chapter Nineteen~
“Good morning.”
Ella’s eyelids fluttered open, revealing to Jack one blue and one green orb. “Good morning.”
“How do you feel?” Jack asked, propping himself up on his elbow and looking down at her.
“Better.” She reached up and brushed her hair away from her face. “What time is it?”
Jack glanced out the window. “I’d say it might be about five thirty or so.”
“Too early,” she said with a yawn.
Jack grinned. “Breakfast will be served at six.”
“Excuse me, but breakfast is served when I say it’s ready.”
Chuckling, he said, “I meant downstairs.”
“Oh good, then I’ll just go back to sleep.”
He let his eyes travel over her face. Her skin looked so much better than it had the past few days. He was tempted to look at her leg but didn’t want to startle her at his boldness and have her do something that might disrupt her scab. “If you’d like to sleep for a while longer, that’s fine, but I need to go talk to Wes before I miss him,” he fibbed. He really wanted to talk to Allison to ask her opinion on what his best course of action with Ella would be, but he didn’t want to tell that to Ella.
