Only Mine o-2

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Jessica continued talking aloud to herself while she worked. Talking helped to hold the sound of the wind at bay, but the sustained moans still ate away at her composure. She was grateful when the vigorously boiling water added its bit to the kitchen sounds.

  Soon the smell of potatoes cooking drove out the pungent lye scent that lingered after the bricks had been so thoroughly scrubbed. The clatter of a cast iron frying pan as she hauled it onto the stovetop was almost cheerful, as was the sizzle of chops when the pan warmed enough to cook the meat.

  Humming despite the numbing fatigue that was creeping through her body, Jessica primed the pump and filled a huge soup pot with water. She spilled about a quart on the way to the big stove, but barely noticed. The remaining two gallons were quite enough for her to lift. She opened the stove’s front gate, stuffed in several more lengths of wood and slammed the gate shut.

  «What next?» Jessica asked, running through the list in her mind. «Ah, yes, the table must be readied. Another cloth to dirty, to wash, to hang out to dry, and then to put in that great pile awaiting the flatiron. Praise God, Wolfe hadn’t insisted that I iron another shirt after the first one. How was I to know cloth burned so quickly?»

  Jessica went to the sideboard, ran her hand admiringly across its beautifully made top, and opened a drawer. To her relief, there was another cloth left. Last night’s cloth had been ruined when Wolfe had taken a swallow of coffee and then spewed it all over while swearing that she was trying to poison him.

  Closing her eyes, Jessica reminded herself that someday she would find this all as amusing as Wolfe sometimes did. Until then, she must continue to smile and learn to do chores as quickly as possible.

  There was no other choice. Every time her smiles faltered or she showed how weary she was becoming, she would turn around and see Wolfe watching her, cataloging each sign of weakness, waiting for the moment she gave up on being a Western wife.

  Say the word, Jessica.

  Wolfe didn’t even have to speak the command aloud any more. It was there in the line of his mouth, the scrutiny of his eyes, his predatory attention like a cold wind blowing through her. Yet she couldn’t give up, no matter how tired she was, no matter how strange her new life was, no matter how desperately lonely it was to be in a foreign land with no friend but Wolfe.

  Wolfe, who wanted her out of his life.

  «Never,» Jessica vowed aloud. «You will see, Wolfe. We will laugh again, sing again, read by the fire again. We will be friends once more. It will happen. It must. And if it doesn’t…»

  Jessica’s throatclosed.Itmust happen.

  «I’ll get stronger,» she vowed. «I’ll learn. Whatever happens to me as a Western wife can’t be worse than what my mother endured being married to a Scots aristocrat who wanted nothing from her but a male heir.»

  The sound of the wind rose to an eerie cry, the wailing of a woman giving way to despair, screaming in agony. Jessica put her hands over her ears and began singing as loudly as she could. The wind howled unabated, for it blew only in her mind, not in the wild Western land.

  With a stifled cry, Jessica hurried from the kitchen to check on the hearth fire. She added wood, then went into the bedroom and looked longingly at the big hip tub. The thought of it filled with hot water and laced with drops of fragrant rose oil madegoosebumps course pleasurably over her skin. Never had she understood what an extraordinary luxury a hot bath was.

  Now she did. Since they had arrived at Wolfe’s home, Jessica had made do with French baths taken from the basin before she dressed. She had been too busy during daylight and too exhausted by nightfall to draw, heat, and haul bath water to the hip tub.

  Tonight she would do all of that if she had to do it on her hands and knees. She simply couldn’t bear going without a true bath for one more night.

  Jessica looked longingly at the soft invitation of Wolfe’s bed, but didn’t want to soil its exquisite fur covering with her grubby clothes. Grimacing, she sat by the hearth, leaning against the fire-warmed stone. The nights of broken sleep on her hard pallet by the hearth and the days of unaccustomed work had drained her. Very quickly she fell asleep.

  The sound of Wolfe shouting from the front of the house startled Jessica awake. The first thing she saw was a layer of smoke hanging just below the ceiling and curling out an open window.

  «Jessi! Answer me! Where are you?»

  Her first attempt to come to her feet failed because her overworked arms refused to cooperate. Her second try was more successful.

  «Wolfe?» she called, her voice hoarse with sleep.

  The front door banged open and Wolfe leaped inside. His dark face was grim.

  «Jessi, are you all right?» he yelled, looking toward the kitchen where smoke boiled thickly.

  «I’m fine,» she said.

  Wolfe spun and saw Jessica standing in the bedroom doorway, her hair half-unraveled and her eyes very pale against the dark lavender circles that surrounded them. He closed his eyes and let out an explosive breath as the urgency went out of him.

  «Wolfe? What’s wrong?»

  His eyes snapped open. They were narrowed and frankly dangerous. «I thought the house was burning down, and you with it.»

  «Burning — oh, dear God, the chops!»

  Wolfe followed Jessica’s rush into the kitchen. When she reached for the frying pan, he struck her hand aside.

  «No! You’ll blister yourself!»

  He went into the living room and returned with fire tongs. Using them, he managed to get the cheerfully burning chops outside. He placed the smoking pan in the dirt just beyond the back steps.

  Behind him, Jessica sighed deeply. «Do you suppose the skunk will be any hungrier tonight than he was last night?»

  Wolfe took a long time turning around, because he didn’t trust himself not to laugh out loud. He, too, had wondered if the skunk’s appetite would be up to the challenge of Jessica’s cooking.

  But sharing laughter with his irrepressibleJessi was too enjoyable, too arousing, too…addictive. Each time he let her get past his guard, it encouraged her to believe she would ultimately win him over. He must not do that, for it wasn’t true. He would never accept the sham marriage, which meant that any kindness from him would be cruelty in disguise. Kindness would only draw out the painful process of getting Jessica to accept an annulment.

  Wolfe didn’t want to extend the process by so much as one second. He didn’t know how much longer he could look at his frazzled aristocrat and not gather her into his arms.

  When Wolfe turned around to face Jessica once more, his face was expressionless.

  «What else is the skunk having for dinner tonight?» he asked in a carefully neutral voice.

  Jessica smiled rather grimly. «Not a blasted thing. I put plenty of water in the potatoes and I haven’t opened the tinned cherries yet.»

  «Canned.»

  «What?»

  «Canned cherries in the West, tinned cherries in England.»

  «Oh.»

  Wolfe could practically see Jessica’s agile mind noting the peculiarity of speech for future use. She was losing the last bits of her British accent and idioms as quickly as she had once lost her Scots speech patterns. Like Wolfe, she had learned as a child the survival value of camouflage. Being the daughter of a Scots commoner mother couldn’t be changed any more than the circumstances of Wolfe’s own birth could be altered. But clothing and patterns of speech could be changed, and were, depending on the people Wolfe found himself among.

  Few people looked past the outward appearance, which suited Wolfe just fine. It allowed him to move freely where he pleased. He wondered if Jessica had found — and cherished — a similar personal freedom beneath the appearance of conformity. He suspected she had.

  The thought didn’t please him. It would only make her fight that much harder against an annulment, for her continued freedom depended on the same marriage that so badly restricted Wolfe’s own freedom.

  Jessica walked past her silen
t husband into the smoky kitchen. He followed her, noting the many gaps between the tiny buttons on her back. She hadn’t been able to fasten the dress herself, or had fastened it incorrectly.

  This further proof that Jessica didn’t want Wolfe’s hands on her at all, even to fasten her impossible dress, made anger uncurl in him. Though he knew he should be grateful she wasn’t bent on seducing him into a real — and disastrous — marriage, he wasn’t the least bit pleased by her aversion to being touched by him in even the most casual way.

  Bloody little nun. Why did you choose me to torment with that perfect body?

  Throughslitted eyes, Wolfe watched while Jessica propped the kitchen door open to let out the smoke before she went to check on the potatoes. She lifted the lid and looked into the pot.

  «Blazes,» she said unhappily. «Where did they go?»

  «Where did what go?»

  «The potatoes.»

  Wolfe looked over Jessica’s head into the pot. Nothing resembling a potato was visible in the opaque water.

  «Last night the potatoes were scorched on the outside and raw in the middle. Tonight they have no middle. No top, bottom, or sides, either.»

  «I had no idea potatoes were such perverse vegetables,» Jessica muttered.

  «No wonder people leave out milk and cookies for elves. The silly bastards would starve to death otherwise.» Wolfe shook his head and looked at Jessica with open curiosity. «What have you done to the canned cherries? Buried them in salt or soda?»

  «It’s unreasonable to expect me to learn in three days a skill chefs spend years learning on the Continent,» Jessica said, keeping her voice level with an effort. «I’m doing my best to be a good wife, truly I am.»

  «A frightening thought. What happened to the cherries?»

  She grimaced and admitted, «I couldn’t open them.»

  «For these small things, Lord, I am damned grateful.»

  Wolfe grabbed a potholder, hooked his finger around the handle of the kettle of potatoes, and strode out the back door. Jessica heard a sudden hiss and explosion of steam as he poured the contents of the pot over the smoldering chops.

  «Bonappetit, monsieurleskunk,» Wolfe said.

  The sardonic words made Jessica flinch. She doubted the wee striped beastie would be any more interested in her cooking than Wolfe was.

  Jessica discovered she wasn’t hungry either. Her stomach was in a knot, her throat ached, and her eyes burned with tears she would not shed. She suspected by the hard line of Wolfe’s shoulders and jaw when he stepped back into the kitchen that he was waiting for a sign of weakness on her part. There would be no relenting in him, no understanding of her predicament, no comfort when she tried and failed spectacularly.

  He couldn’t wait to be rid of his unwanted wife.

  With the last of her strength, Jessica straightened her spine, grabbed two potholders, and went to the stove. The first time she attempted to lift the big soup pot, her arms failed her before the pot was a half-inch off the stove. The pot banged back onto the black metal amid a hissing fury of spilled water. More by chance than anything else, Jessica avoided being burned by the boiling water.

  Gritting her teeth, she shifted the potholders and reached for the big pot again, determined to have her hot bath no matter what. Before she had fully extended her arms, she was snatched off her feet, spun around, and found herself facing Wolfe’s furious indigo eyes at a distance of bare inches.

  «Are you too stupid to know that boiling water will raise blisters on your aristocratic hide?»

  At Wolfe’s words, Jessica’s eyes narrowed until they were splinters of pale blue. For a moment she didn’t answer, because she didn’t trust herself not to scream like a fishwife at him.

  «Even you aren’t that stupid, my lord,» she said finally, softly. «Or have you managed to teach a boiling pot to come to your heel like a long-tongued hound?»

  «What are you talking about?»

  «Getting a pot of water from the stove to the bath,» she said succinctly.

  «If you think you can soothe my ire over dinner by offering me a hot bath…»

  Jessica opened her mouth to object that it was her own bath she was speaking about, not his, but Wolfe was talking again.

  «You’re right,» he continued. «I’ve been looking forward to a bath much more than to eating whatever dinner you cooked. Clever of you to realize it.»

  «We non-paragons do our best,» she said between her teeth.

  «I’ll remind you of that while you scrub my back.» Wolfe smiled at the furious young woman suspended between his strong, dark hands.

  «Tell me, husband dear, are all paragons also Amazons?»

  «Willow is only an inch or two taller than you.»

  «But broad in the shoulders and thick in the arms?» Jessica suggested sweetly.

  «She’s as delicate and feminine as her name-sake.»

  «Then how does she get hot water to her bath — one delicate demitasse at a time?»

  «Paragons don’t have to carry hot water to their baths. Nature does it for them.»

  «Ah, I knew it,» Jessica purred. «She’sawitch.»

  Wolfe pressed his lips together firmly, determined not to let Jessica beguile him with her quick mind and quicker tongue.

  «Nothing that sinister,» he said smoothly. «Caleb built their house near a hot spring. Reno put in pipes to the house.»

  «Lacking a husband as clever as Caleb and a brother as skilled as Reno, I’ll have to manage getting hot water to my bath in the usual Western fashion — one bucket at a time.»

  Wolfe measured the determination in Jessica’s eyes and knew she wouldn’t back down on this issue. He could either carry the pot for her or stand by and watch her pour two gallons of scalding water over herself.

  «I’ll carry the bloody water,» he snarled.

  Ten minutes later, Wolfe had filled the long, narrow tub, drawn more buckets to heat, and stoked the stove. He stripped off his clothes and lowered himself into the water.

  «All right, your ladyship,» he called. «Come and wash your husband.»

  «What?»

  «Wash me,» Wolfe said impatiently. «That’s something even you should be able to manage.»

  The stunned look on Jessica’s face as she came to the doorway should have made Wolfe laugh; instead, it made him angry. He had been looking forward to putting Lady Victoria’s advice towork: Teachthe little nun not to fear a man’s touch.

  «Don’t worry, Sister Jessica,» Wolfe said curtly, turning his back as she edged up to the tub, «washing me won’t make you pregnant.»

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t even hear Wolfe’s words. The sight of him naked in his bath had taken her breath away. She had been too shaken that night in Lord Stewart’s house to realize how physically magnificent Wolfe was, but now there was no wild panic or pain to distract her.

  Now there was nothing but Wolfe’s tawny body gleaming with water and rippling with masculine power.

  A curious heat stirred in the pit of Jessica’s stomach, as though she had swallowed a tiny butterfly with wings of golden flame. It reminded her of the hotel in St. Joseph, when the feel of Wolfe brushing her hair had sent heat and pleasure cascading through her.

  There’s passion in you, Jessi.

  Fear burst in Jessica, chilling the soft heat that had come at the sight of Wolfe sitting in his bath.

  I can’t be passionate. I’m not some stupid lamb frisking off to slaughter. If my stomach feels odd, it’s because I’m so tired I’m cross-eyed.

  «I’m waiting, wife,» Wolfe said.

  Jessica opened her mouth. All that came out was a breathless sound. Wolfe rose from the dark, gently steaming water of the bathtub like a torso by an Italian sculptor: smoothly muscled, poised, powerful, quintessentially masculine in its elegance.

  Candlelight rippled over sleek flesh like sunlight over water, heightening the play of muscle beneath skin that was as fine-grained as amber. The combination of stark male power and eq
ually stark male beauty sent heat rushing through Jessica, shortening her breath, making her feel as though Wolfe were running his hands over her.

  The thought was both frightening and fascinating. With fingers that trembled, Jessica scooped up soft, rose-scented soap and began rubbing it into Wolfe’s hair. For a few moments, there was silence except for the splashing of water when Wolfe shifted in the tub and the soft, whispering sounds of Jessica’s fingers as she worked rose-scented soap into Wolfe’s hair.

  Little of Wolfe was visible but his head, shoulders, and much of his back. The rest of him was hardly more than a golden blur beneath water that looked black but for streaks of lather and the shimmering of candlelight across the water’s surface.

  Despite the aching of her arms after hours of scrubbing, Jessica found that she enjoyed washing the thick, black pelt of Wolfe’s hair. Working her hands through it caressed the sensitive inner surfaces of her fingers. The heat and softness of the lather sliding over her hands was another lure. When she went from his scalp to the taut skin of his neck, she found herself wanting to stroke him, testing his strength and resilience.

  The golden butterfly in Jessica’s stomach spread its wings again, sending heat streaking through her, making her catch her breath in pleasure.

  No, not abutterfly, shetold herselfharshly.It’sa moth. A stupid little thing flying around a greathotflame, never knowing that the next second could be the last!

  Fear and passion warred within Jessica, making her tremble. Despite that, she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to spiral closer and closer to the flame, letting fire consume her to her very core.

  Wolfe shifted abruptly, sending dark waves lapping at the sides of the tub. The slow rubbing of Jessica’s fingers over his scalp was causing a heat greater than that of the bath water to gather between his legs.