by Holly Bush
“It isn’t right.” His voice rose with each word. “You’re my wife and you should wear the damn rings.”
Her face flushed. “There’s no need to shout. I’m trying to make this easy for both of us.”
He stalked closer to her. “There is every reason to shout. My wife is sneaking off behind my back and leaving me. I think that’s plenty of goddamned reason to shout.”
Emmaline’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. “I’m not afraid of you, Adam Gentry! There’s no reason for us to remain together now after my miscarriage. I’m going to start anew somewhere else, and you’ll be able to put all of this behind you. You’ll have time to heal over the loss of Josephine and your child.”
“I don’t expect you to be afraid of me and I’ll holler all I want in my own home!” Adam bellowed and threw his hat on the floor. He stepped within inches of her. “You’re my wife. That’s it. We’re married for better or worse.”
“Why are you being so unreasonable?” She backed up as he stalked forward, until she was flush against the wall. “You can’t think you wish to be married to me!”
“You don’t know what the hell I’m thinking,” Adam growled as he leaned close to her face. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes flashing and determined. “Maybe we should consummate this marriage right now!”
She took in a sharp breath and brought her hand up from her side, aiming to slap his face. He caught it and pushed it against the wall over her shoulder. He leaned close to her, close enough to see the gold flecks in her brown eyes and feel the heat of her against him. It was as if he was watching himself from afar as this couldn’t be his normal, orderly persona. He was furious with her and fully aroused in his coarse work pants. She looked at his mouth, and he lost all semblance of control.
Adam kissed her roughly, her hand held above her head, slipping his tongue in her mouth, hearing himself moan as he did, tilting her head back until it touched the wall and grabbing her waist, pulling her hips forward against him. He opened his eyes long enough to see her lashes drift up and down, wafting like a mating call, sensuous and primitive.
She brought her other hand slowly up his chest and lingered there, running her fingers across his flannel shirt, and kissing him back, growling as she did. She lifted her foot from the floor and moved her leg up his shin, past his knee until the inside of her thigh was resting against the outside of his. He moved between her legs with his hip, rubbing her, and had just palmed her breast, running a thumb over a taut nipple when he heard someone behind them.
“Adam?” he heard his sister-in-law say. He felt Emmaline’s leg slide down his as he released her hand from the wall.
He turned, keeping Emmaline out of Annie’s and Matt’s views. Annie covered her open mouth with her hand, and Matt didn’t even try to contain his laughter. Adam swallowed.
“Annie’s been worried about you two!” Matt looked at his wife. “I told you there was nothing to worry about.”
“We’ll be going,” Annie said quickly. “I just wanted to check on you. The last time I was here Emmaline seemed . . . to be feeling sad.”
“I’m thinking she’s not sad anymore.” Matt grinned, but Annie was already pulling him out the door.
Adam could hear his brother’s laughter still. He turned to Emmaline, feeling wildly out of control and nervous. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said. “I was rude and forward and I richly deserved the slap you were planning on. I’m sorry. Can we continue this discussion in the main room?”
She was staring at him as if he’d never met her, as if he were a complete stranger to her. He understood her confusion. He was barely able to recognize himself.
“Stay here, please,” he said and waited for her nod. He swiped his hat from the floor and went out through the kitchens until he saw Jenny and Mabel and Beatrice in the kitchen garden, all looking at him skeptically.
“I’d like a coffee tray and some biscuits in the main room, please,” he said.
Mabel hurried toward him. “I have a pot on and will bring it right away, Mr. Adam.”
Adam found Emmaline in the same spot in the entranceway where he’d left her. Her cheeks were no longer pink, but her hair was mussed, and her lips looked as if she’d been thoroughly kissed and a bit more. “Will you join me in the main room?”
She followed him, and he waited for her to seat herself as Mabel bustled in with a tray. Adam poured a cup of coffee, added one sugar and a healthy splash of cream, and handed it to her. She sat it on the side table and looked at him. He heard the door close as Mabel left.
“Why are you leaving?” he blurted out before he could think better of it.
“The baby is gone, Adam. I will never forget your kindness to me, but it’s no longer necessary.”
Adam seated himself. “I took vows at the church a few weeks ago and you were standing right beside me. We’re married.”
“But the entire reason we’re married no longer exists.”
Adam most often was the one who listened as someone bared their soul. He was able to dissect what others said about how they felt and why. He was able to give good advice and yet be honest and always encouraging. It was gift, he felt. His mother had it and he’d watched her wield her influence since he was a young boy. But he was adrift right now. He couldn’t handle the overwhelming sense of isolation and disillusionment he felt when he realized Emmaline was leaving him. Leaving their marriage. Words tumbled out of his mouth then, much to his mortification.
“Josephine is gone and our child with her. I can barely write to her brother, a dear friend for years, as I cannot scribble niceties to him without any mention of his sister. Mother has moved to Washington. Matt and Livie are married and in their own homes. Jenny and Mabel are seriously considering retiring from their work here at Paradise.” He looked up at her then. “Our child is gone, cold in a grave. And now, you want to leave me, too.”
She stared at him, blinking and licking her lips. He stood and went to the window to study the landscape rather than consider the foolish and ridiculous words he’d just spoken but couldn’t have stopped himself from saying.
There was an open lonely chasm in his chest. How silly it was to be so sensitive, as if he weren’t a man with significant responsibilities and prospects, but there was no closing that empty space it seemed. He’d wondered if he was meant to be alone in this world after Josephine’s death. But his marriage to Emmaline, ragtag as it was, had dangled some thin thread of possibility that he could have a partner, and even though he’d convinced himself he was saving her perhaps she was saving him instead. He turned when she cleared her throat and found her standing beside him gazing out at the landscape, too.
“I don’t know what I’m about, Adam. I’ve got to find out what it is, and I have a suspicion it’s not having children, not right now anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I’ve never been like Nettie or Betsy, dreaming of starting a family in their own home. Painting walls and mending clothes. Wiping runny noses and teaching a primer. I was prepared to do all that with this child, although it wouldn’t be the same as living in the small house Edwin has leased for him and Betsy. But she is thrilled beyond belief, Mother says, to do all those things. To be a wife and a mother at the exclusion of everything else. Nettie is the same.”
“What is it you want then?”
She looked up at him, and he was reminded of the kiss they’d shared just minutes ago. He’d been intolerably forward but she’d taken to that heated embrace, he was experienced enough to know.
“I’m not sure, Adam. There are things about me that no one knows.” She looked away. “Things that I may want to pursue.”
“What are these things? Perhaps I can help.”
“I doubt that. I’ll never be able to continue them if I’m to be a wife and mother and mistress of this massive home. Not to say it’s not magnificent because it is. Paradise is quite exceptional as I’m sure you know but the running of it, t
he maintenance of it, surely took the majority of your mother’s day, let alone raising three children. I can’t do what I want and do this, too.” She looked up at him. “That’s why I’m releasing you. You need someone as competent and committed as Mrs. Gentry.”
“You believe then that my father and mother were happy together because she kept this house, expanded it several times, raised us, directed staff, and all the other things she did that I have no idea of?”
“Mrs. Gentry made a comfortable place for her husband to come home to and saw to her children’s education. Of course, it led to their happiness. My mother has emphasized repeatedly to my sisters and I to do exactly that to ensure marital bliss, as she refers to it.”
“Marital bliss?” He couldn’t help the smile curving his lips.
“Nettie says marital bliss occurs in the bedroom and rarely in any other room of the house.”
“Your sister is quite outspoken, isn’t she?”
“You have no idea.”
“Do you think you’ll ever want those things, Emmaline? The runny noses and the primers?”
“I do. But not right at this moment. Please don’t think poorly of me.”
“I don’t think poorly of you, and I admit that I anticipated few changes in my life after marriage. That you would manage the household and any children. That I would continue on doing exactly as I have always done. But that may not be the way of our marriage.”
There was a knock at the door and Jenny came in the room. “I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Mr. Adam. I was wondering if it will just be the two of you for dinner.”
He looked down at Emmaline and spoke softly. “Will you stay for dinner? Please?”
CHAPTER 7
Emmaline couldn’t gather her thoughts. Bits of her brain were crashing into one another, with no regard for her sense and intelligence. How in the world did Adam end up kissing her? They’d been screaming at each other and wrapped around each other in the next moment. And now they were talking to each other in an intimate way about things she preferred left unsaid—exactly in the way she’d imagined her perfect husband would speak to her. She’d already told him he could divorce her and that she didn’t really wish to raise his children. She might as well continue to embrace honesty. It was a promise she’d made to herself that very morning.
“Jenny?” she said and cleared her throat.
“Yes, Miss Emmaline? I can have the dining room ready by five.”
“Would it be too much trouble to bring us a tray of whatever you are preparing in here? I’ll have some of that cold tea you served this morning, rather than this coffee, as well, please.” She looked at Adam. “Would you like anything special to drink?”
He stared at her for the longest time. “I’ll have whatever Mrs. Gentry is having.”
“Right away,” Jenny said even as she wrung her hands together.
Emmaline blew a breath. “I imagine I’ve set the kitchen on its ear, but I am hungry, and I don’t really feel like sitting so far away from each other at that massive table if we are to have a conversation.” She pulled off her jacket, stepped out of her shoes, and sat down on one of the soft chairs in front of the fireplace. She stood back up and removed what was sitting on a small table near a chair by the window. She dragged the table between the two chairs and sat again, pulling her feet under her. Adam was still standing.
“Perhaps you aren’t hungry. I’m ravenous.”
“I’ve not changed for dinner.”
She shrugged. “It’s your house, Adam. Take your boots off and sit down. What we’re discussing calls for comfort, I think, rather than formality.”
He slowly rounded the chair and stood in front of her. “It’s your house, too.”
“Hardly. I appreciate your intentions to include me, but I’ve not left your rooms for more than a few hours since our wedding. But that’s hardly what we need to discuss.”
She watched him sit down as if the chair would break in half if he put his full weight to it and found her eyes straying to that part of him he’d been rubbing between her legs. How strange to think of him in this way! When she’d thought about having marital relations with him, she’d imagined the lifting of her thickest flannel nightgown in a darkened room and a few obligatory kisses on the cheek followed by an awkward squeeze of her breast. Some gentlemanly and kind words of thanks and praise. How embarrassing it would have been to face each other the following morning over coffee! But she could feel the heat of a flush on her neck and face when she recalled how he’d looked at her as his mouth had claimed hers. It had been as if they were both on fire!
Jenny came into the main room leading Beatrice carrying a large tray. “Here, Beatrice. Sit it here between us. Oh, how delicious this looks!”
Emmaline picked up a roll and tossed it from one hand to the other. “These are hot!” she said and smiled up at Jenny as the two women left the room. “And they smell delicious!”
Emmaline pulled the steaming, yeasty-smelling roll apart and stuffed a piece of turkey breast between the halves. She placed one of the linen napkins on her lap and sat back in her seat, watching the low flames in the fireplace ahead of her. She could become accustomed to the service here at Paradise. Her parents’ household employed a cook and a housekeeper but with her mother, two sisters, and a brother still at home, she was accustomed to doing many of the everyday chores. Having a meal delivered to her side, especially one as tempting as this one as she’d just spied small plates with slabs of butter cake with chocolate frosting on the tray, was a real treat. She licked her fingers and glanced at Adam. He was staring at her.
“We’re not getting divorced,” he said finally.
“I’m not the right wife for you.”
“How could you possibly know if you are right for me? We’ve barely gotten to know each other. It’s a moot point anyway. We’re married. There’ll be no other wives for me.”
Emmaline looked at him. She couldn’t say that he didn’t bring out certain emotions within her, many of which she was unaccustomed to feeling, empathy being the most notable. She felt sorry him. His tragic speech about everyone leaving him was the only reason she was still here, at Paradise, that was, eating roast turkey and deviled eggs and drinking cold tea. She wasn’t certain she’d ever heard a person express such a sad opinion of themselves, especially as it had come from Adam Gentry, who was the very definition of self-possessed and poised. So, she had stayed.
“Will you stop me from leaving then?” She was suddenly aware that she was no longer under the auspices of a mother who was easily manipulated or an older brother who was blind to everything going on around him other than his wife, especially now that Olivia was expecting.
He stared at her for the longest time, making her palms sweat and her heart beat in double time, thinking of giving up everything she’d worked so hard for. She’d been prepared to have this child and others and raise them and run a household, if for no other reason than that she owed him. But she’d been terrified she’d end up unhappy and shrill in her complaints, as the weight of what she’d sacrificed would bear down on her.
“No. I’ll not stop you from leaving,” he whispered and sat back in his chair, staring straight ahead, but seeing little, if she were to guess.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.” Then she looked over at him. Tendrils of guilt were winding their way around her middle. He looked so forlorn, so unlike the confident Adam she knew. It was heady to think that she had any effect on him let alone this look he wore, but it nearly broke her heart. This was the man who was willing to be a father to a child he’d not conceived and had cried when that child had died. The same man who had married her to protect her and save her honor.
“You looked so ragged when I woke up after I lost the baby, Adam,” she said softly. “You’re looking the same now. We couldn’t mean that much to you.”
He glanced at her and was silent for a long few minutes. “I didn’t think you were going to wake up. We’ve ne
ver acted as if this was a love affair like Livie and Jim, but it was still my marriage. You are still my wife. Those vows mean something, and I thought I’d lost that when you lay there white-faced and still. You’re my future, Emmaline, and my commitment to you was made the day I put that ring on your finger. The loss of our child was terrible enough without the thought of losing my wife.”
She stared at him, listening to his declaration and feeling small and petty. She’d made the same commitment and was not honoring her end of the bargain, it seemed. Could she compromise? Could he?
“I’ve been selfish,” she said. “I’ve been chasing a dream around for ages that burned away the moment I realized I was expecting. You rescued me and now that there’s a chance that I can pursue that dream again, I’ve been focused solely on myself with small regard to our marriage. Truthfully, it meant little to me other than a way to save face, to be comfortable, to have a father for the child, and to save my family the shame.”
“Your brother said you were brutally honest. He wasn’t joking, was he?”
She shook her head slowly. “He was not.”
“I’ll write you a check, Emmaline. Chase this dream of yours. I’ll not stop you.”
She watched him walk out of the room and pull the door closed behind him. She’d never felt so foolish, so angry, so confused in her life, even including being an unwed woman expecting a child. What had she done? Had she turned away from a man so honorable that he would rescue her and release her all the same? And she could not, she could absolutely not, get the vision of him coming close to her to kiss her out of her head. That kiss had affected her in ways she’d not considered before. Suddenly, Adam Gentry was a man, not merely a person older than she who was never in her thoughts when she considered something as intimate as touching mouths. But after that kiss, she could picture him in no other way than as a virile and attractive man.
She licked her lips thinking about the way it felt to have Adam kiss her. It was nothing like the sloppy and slipshod meeting of lips with that dunderhead Henry, who’d gotten her with child. Although exciting at the time, rash as it had been, she’d wondered then if his clinking of teeth followed by a tongue as large as a dill pickle invading her mouth was the very best the kissing world had to offer. She knew now with certainty that it was not.
