by Merry Farmer
“What idea?” Talia asked. There was a light of excitement in her eyes and a touch of a smile on her lips that mesmerized Trey to the point where he had to remind himself to pay attention.
“Why, we must have a trial,” Howard declared.
Confused murmurs zipped around the table.
“A trial?” Eden asked, even as she fed Winslow a piece of cake dipped in milk. “What kind of trial?”
“A witchcraft trial.” Howard grinned as though he’d just announced the invention of the century. He was met by blank stares—blank stares from the guests who weren’t downright scandalized, that was. “We’ll put Talia on trial for witchcraft,” Howard went on, attempting to sell his idea. “Like they used to back in olden days.”
“Back in olden days, women were burned at the stake for being witches,” Libby spoke up.
“I’m not doing anything that will put my wife in danger of being burnt at the stake,” Trey said, loathe to offend Howard but determined all the same. “And I won’t have her ridiculed any more than she’s already been.”
“No, no, no.” Howard waved his hands and shook his head. “You completely misunderstand me. This trial is not designed to make a mockery of your dear Talia. In fact, the trial is designed to make fools out of the women who have been catty enough to air such ridiculous accusations in public in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” Talia asked with a frown.
“Like I said,” Elizabeth said from across the table, “this was not my idea.”
Howard snorted. “Listen, it’s simple.” He leaned into the table, and everyone else leaned in too. “We acknowledge the rumors of witchcraft outright. We call for a trial. Everyone in town will attend, you know they will.”
Several people around the table hummed and nodded in agreement.
“We ask the accusers to give their evidence against Talia. And I can guarantee to you that when those women find themselves standing in the witness box of our courtroom, spouting their tall tales out loud to an audience, they’ll be seen for the ridiculous ninnies that they are.”
“But would Mrs. Abernathy or the Bonneville sisters actually be willing to stand up in a witness box and say those things?” Eden asked.
Howard shrugged. “If they aren’t, then no one will believe what they’re saying anyhow, and the result would be the same.”
“Isn’t it a tad cruel to put those women on the spot that way?” Alice asked.
“No more cruel than spreading silly rumors about a woman who has just arrived in town and helped half the population through the influenza to boot,” Virginia answered her.
“Good point,” Alice agreed with a smile. “I say we go ahead with it.”
“I’d love to see some of those harpies get what’s coming to them,” Eden agreed.
“Now hold on just a minute.” Trey raised his hands, hoping to put a stop to things. “What you’re proposing is almost as ridiculous as the accusations themselves.”
Howard shrugged. “Fight fire with fire.”
“By putting Talia on trial for being a witch?”
“It wouldn’t be a real trial,” Howard explained. “It would be more of a theatrical event.”
“Then how do you propose to get Mrs. Abernathy and the Bonneville sisters and their friends to agree to it in the first place?”
“By making it look legitimate,” Howard said with a wink. “I’m certain Theophilus Gunn would be willing to play the part of the judge. Most of those women are terrified of him to begin with—though heaven knows why, seeing as Gunn is one of the kindest men of my acquaintance—and I’m sure Gunn would bring all the necessary gravitas to the trial.”
“Gravitas,” Trey repeated with a flat stare. “At a witchcraft trial.”
“I think it might work,” Talia said in a voice so quiet half of the table leaned closer to hear her. She blinked, glanced up from where she had been studying the last of the cake on her plate, and repeated, “I think it would work.”
“Sweetheart, are you sure?” Trey asked, brimming with doubt.
She turned to him, and suddenly it was as if they were the only two in the room. “I know it sounds mad,” she said, “but sometimes the best way to point out how silly something is, is to let the people saying it shout it from the rooftops.”
“But if it backfires,” Trey went on. “If folks in town believe the likes of Vivian Bonneville over you.”
“Do you really think the people of Haskell will believe Vivian when she says anything?” Virginia asked from the other side of the table. “Where have you been living, son?”
A tension-breaking chuckle rippled around the table. Even Trey recognized how unlikely it was that most people would side with women who spent the majority of their time turning up their noses at half the town, especially after Talia had been so instrumental in beating the epidemic. And maybe it was time that those women got what was coming to them.
“But if you get hurt in this in any way.” He finished his thought aloud.
Talia shrugged. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Trey smiled. Yep, he was proud of his wife, all right. He’d never known anyone so brave.
“All right,” he sighed at last. “If you want to do this, then let’s go ahead and do it.”
Chapter 11
It was late by the time Talia and Trey returned home. Talia’s head spun with everything that had been discussed, both with her friends before supper and with Howard during dessert. Haskell certainly did work in mysterious ways, but at least she knew she had a core group of friends in her new home that wouldn’t let her down.
“I don’t like it,” Trey said as they got ready for bed.
Talia was halfway through unbuttoning her blouse with her back to Trey, but turned to send him a curious look. “What don’t you like?”
Trey had just removed his shirt, putting it in the hamper Talia had bought the other day to keep their small home more organized. His frown disappeared as he stared at the skin Talia had exposed from her neck to the top of her corset. She might have been self-conscious over Trey looking at the swell of her breasts above her corset, but she was too busy staring at the firm muscles and dark hair across his chest and abdomen.
It took several heated seconds for either of them to remember what they’d been talking about. Trey recovered, clearing his throat and saying, “I don’t like the idea of you going on trial for witchcraft.” He deliberately glanced away, but as Talia continued with the buttons of her blouse, his gaze kept darting back to her.
“I’m not entirely comfortable with it myself,” she said, trying to be as honest as possible, “but I trust Howard.”
Trey hmphed, a wry grin spreading across his face. “Sometimes that’s a good idea and sometimes it’s not.”
Talia shared his smile. At least until he reached for the fastenings of his trousers. Her heart sped up. With a confused frown, she turned away and went back to her own bedtime preparations, tugging her blouse out of the waist of her skirt and draping it over the ladder-back chair beside the wardrobe. She and Trey had shared a bedtime routine for weeks now. Why would it suddenly cause such intense flutters in her belly to be undressing with him in the room now, and vice versa?
Perhaps it had something to do with the heavy-lidded glances he’d sent her throughout their evening at Paradise Ranch. She’d never caught him looking at her with that kind of desire in his eyes. It was a far cry from the lascivious stares she’d had from Dr. Abernathy and others like him in the past. The way Trey had been looking at her that evening spoke of tenderness as well as desire. And it hadn’t helped that her friends had seen the looks as well and whispered to her about how lucky she was when Trey wasn’t looking.
She hadn’t had the heart to tell them that she wasn’t as lucky as they thought. It would have been an unforgivable violation of the intimacy of marriage to tell her friends that there was no intimacy in her marriage. And up until that point, she hadn’t minded or even given it much t
hought. But now?
Her hands trembled subtly as she unhooked her corset and laid it over the back of the chair as well. Behind her, she could hear Trey moving, hear each of his boots as they plunked to the floor. A shiver passed down her spine at the swish of his trousers coming off. She swallowed as she reached for the fastenings at the back of her skirt, undoing them and the ties of her petticoat, then letting them fall to the ground. She didn’t dare turn around to see what Trey looked like without his clothes, but she burned to know whether he was looking at her without hers and what he thought of the sight.
Her petticoat and skirt weren’t dirty enough to wash, but rather than moving to hang them in the wardrobe right away, she draped them over the back of the chair as well. Her nightgown hung from a hook on the inside of the open door of the wardrobe, and she snatched it up before she could be tempted to turn and peek at Trey. But then she was faced with the dilemma of removing her chemise before she put her nightgown on, thus potentially exposing her chest, or looking like a fool as she covered up before taking off her underclothes.
In the end, the rustling of bedcovers as Trey climbed into bed decided her. The temptation to sneak a peek at him was gone, so she quickly whisked her chemise off, then threw her nightgown over her head. Only when she was completely covered by the soft muslin did she remove her drawers.
And then she paused, wishing the unsettled feeling tickling her in inconvenient places would go away. Possibly. She hung her skirt and petticoat, still keeping her back to Trey and their bed, then gathered the rest of her clothes to take to the hamper. Trey wanted a marriage in name only for now, she reminded herself. He was uneasy about his decision to send for her, had been influenced by his friends to take the step. She had no business testing that decision, even if she longed to feel his touch against her skin, to taste his kiss like she had that day at the saloon.
Thinking of that kiss was the wrong idea. It turned the curious prickles breaking out in intimate places to aching fires. And just as she reached the hamper, which was on Trey’s side of the bed, she couldn't help but look at him.
“You look nervous,” he said, his voice a little lower than usual. “I told you the trial was a bad idea.”
“It’s not the trial,” she said before she could think better of it. Her cheeks flared hot and she lowered her eyes, scurrying around to her side of the bed.
Trey was quick to ask the inevitable question. “Then what is it?” He twisted to face her side of the bed as she blew out the lamp and slipped between the covers.
“It’s—” She wanted to say it was nothing, that he should go to sleep and have happy dreams. The words snagged in her throat.
Trey rolled fully to his side, facing her. His bed wasn’t large, but there was still a reasonable amount of space between them. “Tell me.”
The softness of his voice, the heat of him warming the bed…all of it made her itchy and restless. “I…I saw the way you were looking at me tonight,” she confessed.
Without touching him, she could feel Trey tense. “You did?”
Talia couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed to have been caught or whether he was subtly asking what she thought. The last thing she wanted was to call him out for going against wanting to keep things cool between them.
“I don’t mind,” she said at last. “It’s a natural reaction for a man to…appreciate his wife, even if he doesn’t want all the aspects of a marriage.”
It was too dark to judge whether Trey broke into a blush, but she had the feeling he had. He twitched as though he was as restless as she was. “I never said…I mean, maybe I did…that’s not to say….”
Talia’s heart thumped harder against her ribs. Was he going back on his plans? She didn’t realize how badly she wanted him to until that moment. Her body ached for him to reach for her. She had to grasp a handful of her nightgown in her fist under the cover to keep herself from reaching for him.
“I’m sorry,” Trey mumbled at last. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Oh, you didn’t,” Talia blurted breathlessly. “I mean….” What did she mean?
There was a long pause, during which Trey didn’t move or breathe. At last he asked, “You weren’t uncomfortable?”
She shook her head against her pillow. A wiser woman, someone like Eden, would just blurt out that she wanted him. Eden would probably rip off her nightgown and roll on top of him to get things started. There was no way Talia was that daring…but maybe she needed to be.
“I trust you, Trey,” she said at last, just above a whisper. “We’ve been husband and wife for weeks now, and I know that you’re a good man with the best of intentions.”
“I am?” Trey cleared his throat. “I mean, I am.”
He seemed so unsure that Talia grinned. It sent a wave of relaxation through her. She unclenched her fist and reached across the mattress until she found his hand resting between them.
Trey’s fingers jerked as she touched him. A moment later, he relaxed and twined his fingers with hers. The fire that had begun to awaken in Talia’s belly flared hotter. A need greater than any she’d felt before swirled through her, pulsing to places she had barely thought about until now. Crazy as the notion was, she wanted to draw Trey’s hand to those places to see how his touch felt.
“Maybe we shouldn’t sleep in the same bed.”
Trey’s whispered statement froze every one of those pulsing sensations.
“Why not?” she asked, heart fluttering.
Trey took a very long time answering. “I’m not sure I want to sleep.”
“I’m not sure I want to sleep either,” she whispered.
He drew in a breath. Everything between them seemed heightened, from the gentle rush of their breathing to the heat growing under the covers with them to the scent of lavender and salt from their bodies. Above it all, Talia’s heart pounded like a drum in her ears.
“I said I wouldn’t make you do those things,” Trey murmured. He slid bare inches closer to you.
“Until we got to know each other better,” she reminded him, moving closer to him as well. She was close enough to tell that he still wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he did have on drawers. “I think we know each other very well now.”
His hand wrapped tighter around hers. “I don’t want to impose myself on you when you aren’t ready.”
“Trey,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”
She was so ready that her body began to tremble in anticipation of what he would do next. The only things she knew about love between a man and a woman were from all of the things her friends had shared with her, but in that moment, all she wanted to do was roll to her back and spread her legs open so that Trey could teach her everything else. The slickness she could feel between her legs only spurred the sensation.
After a long, deep silence, he said, “I don’t want to give my heart away only to lose you.”
Talia’s breath caught in her lungs. She’d never heard anything so beautiful or so sad. “You’re not going to lose me,” she told him. She threw caution to the wind and reached for him, resting her hand on the side of his face. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can’t promise me that.” His voice was a little stronger, as if he’d broken through the hard part and could speak more freely. “If you keep nursing, you’re bound to get sick eventually.”
“Everyone gets sick now and then,” she said, stroking her thumb across his cheekbone, finding the line of his scar. “Everyone gets hurt sometimes. But that doesn’t mean you’ll lose me. And even if you did, isn’t it better to have had someone and held them close for a while, even if it means losing them in the end?”
He didn’t answer. She could feel whatever thoughts he was having trapped tightly behind a wall of old pain. It felt wrong to push him to answer when his feelings were so raw and close to the bone. Instead, she summoned up the courage to put what her heart wanted to say into actions, not words.
She surged across the bed to him, sliding
her arms around him and finding his lips with hers in the dark. His body was taut, and he drew in a breath of surprise as she kissed him. But she could also feel the tell-tale stiffness of him pressed against her thigh as she embraced him and knew that the desire was definitely there.
It took only a few seconds for whatever was holding Trey back to snap. As soon as it did, he took a deep breath and returned her kiss with fourfold passion. His lips teased her, nudging hers to part, and when she opened her mouth, he slipped his tongue inside. The sensation of him exploring her that way was a revelation. His taste was unlike anything she’d expected. It was something she needed more of.
His kiss was so intoxicating that she almost didn’t notice him reaching down to tug at the hem of her nightgown. As soon as it dawned on her what he was trying to do, she wriggled and arched against him, doing everything she could to make his task easier. Her movements had another effect too. Trey growled and sighed as she moved, and when they had her nightgown over her head and tossed aside, he covered her body with his, pinning her to her back.
“I like the way you move,” he said in husky tones, “but if you keep it up, this will all be over too soon.”
Talia nodded, biting her lip and looking up into his eyes, only barely visible in the darkness. There was just enough moonlight filtering in through the windows to illuminate the hard lines of his face and the spark in his eyes. He dipped down to kiss her once more, and Talia closed her eyes, reveling in the sensation. Every inch of her skin seemed alive where it brushed him, whether in direct contact with his skin or the fabric of his drawers. She wanted to feel every inch of him, and ran her hands down his sides and up across the muscles of his back.
Trey’s hands wandered as well, though he had the added burden of trying to balance himself above her as he tested the feel of her curves under his touch. Talia had no sooner decided that she loved the way his fingers felt as they raked against her thigh and hip when he cupped his palm around her breast. Every new touch brought with it a new horizon of pleasure that she was more than eager to explore.
