by Merry Farmer
“Piper,” Elspeth gasped. “Oh dear, it just now dawned on me. Does Piper expect to live with all of us when she comes back?” She’d known that was the arrangement when she agreed to marry Athos, but now, after all they’d shared, the idea of having another woman in the house with them was…unsettling.
“I’m suddenly wondering if Piper might be more comfortable striking out on her own,” Josephine said, a sly grin on her face as she studied Elspeth.
“I—”
“I’m surprised that poor woman hasn’t turned tail and run long before this,” Mrs. Plover interrupted, as though she’d been a part of the conversation from the beginning.
“I beg your pardon?” Josephine snapped.
“Do you really think she’ll come back from Connecticut at all?” Mrs. Abernathy sniffed. “That poor woman was a virtual slave to those horrible children.”
“Excuse me.” Elspeth rounded on the women, planting her hands on her hips in spite of the dirt on her gardening gloves. “The Strong children are wonderful, sweet things.
Both women snorted with laughter, shaking their heads and sneering.
“If you believe that,” Mrs. Plover said, “you’re as crazy as everyone says you are.”
Elspeth’s jaw dropped, but her anger was eclipsed by a sinking sense of dread. She knew the looks that the two women across the garden fence from her wore. They were the same sort of looks the wives and friends of the wives of the families she’d worked for—the families whose husbands had assumed she would provide more services than tutoring children—had given her. In the last few days, since Athos had come into her life, she hadn’t given those women or that sense of worthlessness a second thought. She didn’t want to now, but old habits died hard.
“Nobody is saying Elspeth is crazy,” Josephine said, crossing her arms and giving both women hard looks. “You two, on the other hand…”
Mrs. Plover and Mrs. Abernathy shared a decidedly snooty glance.
“Maybe the people you associate yourself with aren’t saying that,” Mrs. Abernathy said.
“Anyone who would shackle herself to a booby like Athos Strong must be a little weak in the head,” Mrs. Plover added.
In seconds, Elspeth was enraged enough to spit at the women. She held onto her temper by a thread. “If you think—”
“They don’t.” Josephine put a hand on Elspeth’s arm to stop her from surging forward. She glared at the two, sour women. “Those two don’t have enough sense between them to think anything at all.”
“Why, I have never been so insulted,” Mrs. Plover said. “Come along, Jill.” She tugged at Mrs. Abernathy’s sleeve. The two woman marched off, their noses in the air.
The confrontation was over, and an unsettling feeling of disappointment and worry rushed in as anger left Elspeth.
“Don’t pay any attention to those two,” Josephine said. She cocked her head to the side, then added, “Or Beata Kline, for that matter. Every town has its sour old biddies, and those three fill the role for Haskell.”
Elspeth faced Josephine with a weak smile. “Thank you. I’m sure you’re right. But after everything Athos and the children have gone through, I am ready to strangle anyone who would disparage them.”
Josephine chuckled. “That makes two of us.”
Josephine left her to go about her business, and Elspeth crouched to return to weeding. Anger had pushed the pain out of her thoughts for a moment, but it came back again as soon as she tried to squat. She didn’t know whether to cry or laugh at the protest from her thighs, knowing how they had gotten so sore in the first place. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry over the fickle course of neighbors and reputations either. How long would it be until someone in town heard whispers about Elspeth’s past and how she’d come to be at Hurst Home—or in America—to begin with?
Those and other irritating thoughts stayed with her, building and building, until she pulled up a handful of difficult weeds and was stung by a bee on her wrist for her efforts. She wheeled back, hissing, “Ouch, ouch,” and landed hard on her backside on the front walk with a shock of soreness. The irritating pain, the horrible neighbors, and the uncertainty of everything with the children and the future doubled back on her, and for all those reasons and no reason at all, she burst into tears.
“Elspeth? Elspeth!”
Suddenly, Athos was there. She hadn’t heard him coming, but once second she was sitting on her sore backside, sucking the sting on her wrist, shedding pointless tears, and the next he was rushing around the garden fence and crouching by her side. He held a bouquet in one hand and a small box in the other, but pulled her into his arms all the same.
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter?”
Her pointless tears flashed to equally absurd laughter. “I was stung by a bee. Can you believe it? With everything else that’s going on, I’m weeping because I was stung by a bee.” She circled her arms around his shoulders and rested her forehead against his neck.
“All right,” he chuckled. “You’re okay.” He rocked back and sat with a thump, shifting her to sit in his arms.
Elspeth lifted her head and blinked around through tear-blurred eyes. She shook her head. “Athos, we’re sitting on the path in the middle of the front yard. Any number of our neighbors could walk by and think we’re out of our minds.”
“I don’t care. I like you in my arms this way.” He grinned like a beautiful fool, then kissed her. It was lovely and absurd at the same time.
“What are you doing home so early?” she asked when he finally kissed away her tears and let her go for a breath.
“Ah.” A gleam filled his eyes and he helped her to her feet. “Howard Haskell accepted my request for a raise and an assistant.”
“Oh, Athos, I’m so happy for you.”
“Happy for us,” he corrected her. “So I bought you these on the way home.”
First he held out the bouquet. “For me?”
“Absolutely. I want to bring you flowers every day.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” he insisted.
She started to smell the flowers, then stopped and eyed them suspiciously. “There are no bees in them, I trust.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” he insisted. “No one, no bee, would dare offend the lady of a musketeer.”
Elspeth laughed out loud at that and went to hug him.
He stopped her, holding up a hand and taking a step back. “And to prove that you’re the lady of a musketeer, I bought you this.”
He held out the small box, opening it to reveal a simple wedding ring. It wasn’t expensive or fancy, just a gold band with a rose vine etched onto the surface. Elspeth gasped as though it was the richest jewel in the Queen’s crown.
“It’s beautiful.” Now she was crying in earnest.
Athos took her hand and slipped the ring on. “I feel like I should be asking a question before I put this ring on your finger.”
“But the answer’s already been given and then some,” she finished his thought.
“Exactly.” With the ring on her finger, he slipped the box back into his pocket, then drew her into his arms for a kiss that the neighbors really shouldn’t see. Even that was simply perfect.
“Now all we need is the children home and life will be complete,” he said, breaking their kiss.
“Two days,” Elspeth sighed. “Two days and we can put this mess behind us.”
“Do you believe I’ll win this appeal, Elspeth?” he asked with enough seriousness and concern to send Elspeth’s heart pounding with love and sympathy.
“Yes, of course I do, Athos.” She kissed him lightly, then went on. “You are the best father a child could have and the best husband too.”
“I’ve never been—”
“Well you are now,” she cut him off, hugging him tight. “And on Friday the two of us are going to walk into that courtroom, tell the judge this has all been some sort of stupid mistake made by vengeful nobodies, and then we
’ll bring our family home.”
Chapter Twelve
The flurry of activity that had surrounded Athos and Elspeth since the moment Elspeth stepped down from the train a week ago was suddenly transformed into an expectant hush as Friday dawned. Athos had had a hard time sleeping. His thoughts refused to settle throughout the night. What if the judge sided with the dreadful Mrs. Lyon and the Bonnevilles? What if his dear, sweet, amazing children were taken away permanently, split up, and placed in institutions, or worse, with families who didn’t love them? What if he truly was a failure as a father?
“It will be all right,” Elspeth spoke out of the blue as the first rays of morning sunlight peeked through the curtains. “Everything will go our way, I’m certain.”
“Are you?” He lay on his back, but turned to face her now, holding her close against him. That skin-to-skin contact was the only thing keeping him sane right then.
Elspeth smiled. He could only just see it in the dim light, but it ignited his soul all the same. “Yes, I’m certain. The more I’ve come to know your friends here in Haskell, the more I’m seeing that if you hadn’t just married me, if they didn’t think it would be grand for the two of us to have some sort of a honeymoon, they all would have moved heaven and earth to make sure the children were back under this roof after one night.”
He stared hard at her. “Are you certain you’re certain?”
“Yes,” she said with a peal of laughter. “How could you expect a man with Howard Haskell’s power—a man who gave you a raise above what the railroad pays you and is hiring an assistant for you to boot—would not swoop in and write a new law to keep your children with you if he had to?”
Athos tilted his head in thought. “You know, you’re right.” He blinked and sought out Elspeth’s eyes in the growing light. “I am going to win this hearing, aren’t I?”
“Yes, dear.” She brushed her fingertips along the side of his face, then combed them through his hair, sending arrows of longing straight through him.
Mischief bubbled up and he rolled Elspeth to her back. “In that case, if the children are going to be home by this afternoon, we’d better make the best of the time we have alone.”
He kissed her, hesitantly at first, but when she responded with enthusiasm, squirming beneath him to fit her hips against his and draw her knees up on either side of his thighs, with deeper passion.
“I may never get over how responsive you are,” he whispered as he moved on to kissing her cheek, the tender spot where her jaw met her neck, the line of her throat.
“I surprise even myself,” she teased, tracing her nails up the small of his back. The sensation fired his blood hotter, beginning the first stages of the delicious rush that would end with both of them in bliss.
“How can you be surprised at yourself when you’re so free and open with me?” He shifted so that he could continue the downward path of his kisses, savoring the heat and tang of her skin as he made his way across her shoulder and collarbone to her breast.
She drew in a breath as he teased her nipple with his teeth, then suckled her, stroking her to tautness with his tongue. A moment of hesitation passed, and she said, “I was never like this with him.”
Athos lifted himself above her, gazing down at the regret in her eyes that marred the haze of passion around her. “You were young,” he said, almost a whisper. “And excited. And then probably a little terrified.”
She swallowed and blinked as if fighting tears, then nodded.
“So was I,” he confessed. “With Natalie. But that’s all in the past, for both of us. And I’m grateful to her for teaching me what I needed to know for when you came along.” He narrowed his eyes and went on with, “I suppose I should be grateful to him for teaching you what you needed to know and doing away with the whole fear part of making love before I came along.”
Elspeth’s sorrow turned into a fond laugh, and she pulled him close for a kiss. “All right. I suppose I should be grateful to him too. Because I feel nothing but the most ardent and scandalous desire for you.”
It was all she needed to say to pulverize any lingering doubt he had. He kissed her lips with reckless abandon, then continued with his exploration of her breasts. She had magnificent breasts, round and full without being too much. A guilty, impish part of him wanted to take them out and play with them almost every time he noticed their fullness through her clothes. He supposed that was normal, but that part of him had been dormant for so long that the sensation was new once again.
He scooped one breast into his hand and lightly pinched her nipple as he suckled and teased the other one. Elspeth gasped and jerked her hips. “Oh Athos, if you continue that way I’ll finish long before you.”
He chuckled. “Then you’ll have time to work your way up to another explosion by the time I’m ready.”
She laughed, but that laughter turned into something far more sensual as he slid one hand down her stomach to delve into her curls. She was delightfully wet already, and as he stroked her nubbin, her cries became more frantic.
“Athos,” she sighed, arching into his touch.
He hummed with pride and arousal at the pleasure he knew he was giving her. He sought to double it by bending down to lave her breast with the flat of his tongue. If he could have, he would have drawn her pleasure out for hours, teaching her all the little tricks he’d picked up over the years until she was sated. But that morning, time wasn’t on their side, and as much as he wanted to test the limits of his endurance, there were other things that needed their consideration.
Right after they finished soaring to heaven and back.
“I love you, Elspeth,” he whispered and increased the intensity of his fingers’ work.
“I love you too, Ath—ohh!” She came apart halfway through his name, her body throbbing with completion.
A deep, deep surge of affection filled him, and he moved to slide inside of her so that he could feel her body’s response. The hot, powerful squeezing around him was so beautiful that it drew every last bit of his focus. All he could imagine was the two of them joined that way, him working not to move too furiously until her tremors subsided so that he could feel them to the end, in all their glory.
Then he began to thrust in earnest, the friction and pull of her driving him past all rational thought. It wasn’t just the sheath of her tight around him, it was her legs wrapping around him, her arms embracing him, her soul-deep cries of longing and love, her whole being surrounding him and keeping him safe. He could be her champion for the rest of his days, but she would forever be the keeper of his heart.
The potent rush of orgasm sped through him, gathering heat and energy from his spine to his thighs and barreling through his groin with unbelievable pleasure. He cried out as his life itself burst through him and into her, uniting them beyond what any vows could accomplish. He wished that moment of perfect unity could last forever, that they could float together in heady abandon forever, but already the feeling was subsiding, leaving him with a sense that everything with the world was absolutely perfect.
“My beautiful wife,” he sighed, relaxing to the side so they could both catch their breath.
“My valiant husband,” she purred, resting her hand over his heart.
He fell asleep again, which was shameless, considering the importance of the day. When he awoke, Elspeth was gone. The sounds of breakfast being prepared downstairs and the scent of bacon reassured him that all was well. He took a moment to lay there with a broad grin on his face, wondering how he had gotten so remarkably lucky. Then it was time to get up, wash, shave, and dress, and get moving.
“Oh my, look at you,” Elspeth declared, eyes shining, when he walked into the kitchen.
“What?” He glanced down at his Sunday suit, hoping it wasn’t stained or he hadn’t put it on wrong.
Elspeth left the counter where she was buttering toast and came over to straighten his tie and brush her fingers through his carefully combed hair. He’d shaved and brushe
d his teeth to boot, even though he was about to eat. In fact, Elspeth stared at him as though she might like to gobble him up. He had to work not to scramble out of his clothes and do things on the kitchen table they would regret later.
“You, Mr. Athos Strong, musketeer, clean up very well,” she said at last, pressing her hands to her pink, pink cheeks.
“Do I?” He took another look at himself. He had put extra effort into things. That hardly mattered. “You look like a fine and noble lady yourself today, wife of mine.”
It was her turn to glance down at her dress—a pretty one made of blue material that contrasted perfectly with her porcelain complexion and dark hair. “Then we shall make the perfect picture of competent, responsible parents when we step into that courtroom today.”
He was certain beyond doubt that she was right. It was the first time he was certain of anything, without any reservation, in as long as he could remember. They ate their breakfast while discussing the strategies they had planned with Solomon in meetings over the last week. Solomon was a true friend to come to their aid so selflessly, in spite of having his own business to run.
After breakfast and clean-up, they headed out, up Prairie Avenue and across Elizabeth Street to the town hall arm-in-arm. Maybe it was smug of him to strut so confidently, considering the order of the day, but with Elspeth on his arm, approving of his appearance, and with the morning they’d spent, how could he help but crow.
The town hall was already crowded by the time they arrived. All of the major players were there waiting, including the children.
“Papa! Papa!” they shouted from the far corner.
Mrs. Lyon stood with them on one side, wearing her stuffy grey suit and a peevish expression. Her guards lounged between her and the children, looking exhausted and put-out. The Bonneville clan, complete with sisters, Rex, and Cousin Rance, and an embarrassed-looking Bonnie stood nearby as well. None of them was fast enough to stop the Strong children when they saw their father and bolted.
