The Bridegroom

by Linda Lael Miller

  Lydia stared at her former teacher, shocked. “Lark Yarbro,” she whispered. “Are you suggesting that I barge in where I’m not wanted?”

  Lark laughed again, harder this time. “Of course that’s what I’m suggesting,” she said. Then she lumbered toward the staircase. Her time, Lydia thought distractedly, must be near. “Come with me, Mrs. Yarbro. If there are keys for any of the doors upstairs, we’re going to make sure they go missing.”

  Lydia snatched up the skirt of her borrowed dress with one hand, so she wouldn’t trip on the stairs, and dashed after Lark. “I couldn’t possibly—”

  Lark turned, one hand on the banister, and her eyes sparkled as she looked back at Lydia. “Get into bed with your own husband?” she finished. “Sure you can. And I’m going to tell you just what to do when you get there.”

  There were several bedrooms upstairs, all fully furnished, though everything was draped in old sheets. Only the largest chamber had a key, hanging from the knob by a faded loop of ribbon, and Lark quickly pocketed that.

  She went straight to the windows, threw the dusty curtains aside, and raised the sashes to let in the fresh summer breeze. The lush scent of the lilac bush by the porch rose to perfume the dusty air.

  “This,” Lark said, mischievously decisive, “is going to be fun.”

  Lydia could not seem to help fussing. “Gideon would be furious if he knew—”

  Lark dismissed the partial statement with a wave of one hand and a phoof sound. “Who cares if Gideon is furious?” she countered. “It’s not as though he’s Henry VIII, and could have you beheaded or locked away in some tower.” She smiled, pulled the covering off an old rocking chair. “Sit down, Lydia.”

  Lydia sat, overwhelmed. And strangely hopeful.

  Lark took a seat on the edge of the bed, bounced once, and looked pleased when the springs protested with a rusty whine.

  “Now,” she said, smoothing her skirts and settling her very pregnant self for a chat. “Here’s what you do first—”

  GIDEON HADN’T EXPECTED THE JOB to be easy. Mining, after all, was treacherous work done in the dank and the dark, brutally hard, with only a few kerosene lanterns to illuminate the hole. The lamps, of course, represented a danger in their own right, partly because the flames consumed oxygen, but mostly because they could ignite invisible gases at any time, and blow every miner caught below ground to the proverbial smithereens.

  He kept mostly to himself that first day, shoveling ore into a seemingly endless line of carts, knowing he’d arouse the other men’s suspicions if he seemed too eager to join whatever circles they’d formed among themselves.

  At noon, when the whistle blew, he sat down with the lard pail Lark had filled for him, ravenously hungry since he’d missed breakfast, dirty as the devil himself, and aching in every joint and sinew. His clothes had soaked through with sweat, dried to a clammy chill, and then soaked through again. The calluses on his fingers—the same fingers he’d used to bring Lydia to several howling climaxes in the sweet privacy of the night—stung as intensely as if he’d already worn the hide away.

  There were twenty other men underground with him, give or take a few, but they kept their distance, working in twos and threes, muscular brutes, mostly Irish, accustomed to punishing labor. They talked and joked in grunts and undertones, but they were careful not to let the new man hear—and hearing was almost impossible, anyhow, with the shovels and the picks pinging off stony walls of dirt and the wheels of the carts screeching fit to make Gideon’s back teeth quiver as they rattled in and out of the mine.

  God bless her, Lark had packed three pieces of fried chicken, two slices of dried apple pie, and a heel of generously buttered bread into that lard tin, and Gideon consumed every bite. He craved coffee—something he could usually take or leave—and smiled to himself, thinking he might turn out to love the stuff, the way Wyatt and Rowdy did.

  Wyatt and Rowdy.

  Right about now, Wyatt was probably riding a fence line in the open air, or flinging hay out of the back of a wagon for his herd of cattle, or sitting across the kitchen table from his beautiful wife, Sarah.

  Maybe, if the kids were away from the house—they were a bunch of happy hellions, like Rowdy’s brood, and ranged far and wide on foot and on horseback—Wyatt and Sarah were making love.

  Gideon decided not to go down that road. He’d been waiting all morning for his own need to bed Lydia to ease up, and so far, it hadn’t.

  He turned his thoughts to Rowdy, with force, the way he’d rein a green-broke mule off a path it was determined to follow.

  As marshal, Rowdy was probably making rounds—counting horses in front of saloons. That was his time-honored way of gauging the prospects for shoot-outs and hell-raising in general, day or night—if there were too many horses in front of any given drinking establishment, the chances of somebody disturbing the peace of Stone Creek went way up.

  A lot of people might have considered that technique simplistic, but Gideon had seen it work time and time again. Perhaps because he’d been an outlaw himself, Rowdy knew what to look for, how to scent trouble in the wind.

  Or maybe, since it was noon, Rowdy was home, having his midday meal. Or having Lark—there was a reason those two had so many kids, and another due at any minute. Like Wyatt and Sarah, they could barely keep their hands off each other.

  There he went again. Right down a road that led straight to Lydia.

  Warm, sweet Lydia, who’d so enjoyed the ministrations of his hand, and shyly asserted her belief, after that last bout of complete abandon, that there was more to lovemaking than what she’d experienced.

  Thinking about that more made Gideon ache in ways swinging a shovel could never do. He turned his thoughts again, but it wasn’t quite so easy as it had been the first time.

  “Have some of this?”

  The voice startled Gideon; he’d been so caught up in the struggle to govern his imagination that he hadn’t heard or seen the other man’s approach. Now, a big Irishman, his hair and eyes as black as the soot covering his skin and clothes, sat beside Gideon on the ledge of rock where he’d perched to eat his lunch, holding out a cup.

  Coffee.

  “Thanks,” Gideon said, taking the cup. It was a blue enamel mug, and though the coffee inside had long since grown too cold to send off steam, it was delicious nonetheless, laced with sugar and a dollop of whiskey.

  “Mike O’Hanlon,” the big man said, putting out his free hand, for he had a mug of his own in the other, and sipped from it with obvious appreciation.

  “Gideon Yarbro,” Gideon answered, extending his own hand.

  O’Hanlon’s grip was calculated to make Gideon wince.

  He didn’t.

  “We’ll all be headin’ over to the Blue Garter Saloon after the whistle blows,” O’Hanlon said. “Just to toss back a few and wash the copper dust out of our throats. Care to join us?”

  Gideon debated—or pretended to. “Not tonight,” he finally replied, with what he’d calculated to be just the right note of regret. “My wife will be waiting for me.”

  O’Hanlon chuckled, finished off his coffee, made a satisfied sound that put Gideon in mind of old Horace, down in Phoenix, draining his whiskey glass, either not knowing his sons were about to haul him out, or resigned to it and determined to enjoy every last drop of the cure-for-what-ailed-him. “Tied to some colleen’s apron strings, are you?”

  Gideon grinned. “I just married her last night,” he said easily. “It’s not her apron strings I’m thinking about.”

  All of which was true—though not something he would normally confide in a stranger. Nor, as much as Gideon wanted Lydia, did he intend to do anything about it.

  “Well, then,” O’Hanlon allowed, in a good-natured way Gideon knew was at least partly put on, “that’s different, then. You’ve got honeymoonin’ to do. Another time, maybe?”

  “Another time,” Gideon confirmed, handing back the empty coffee mug.

  O’Hanlon stood,
like a man meaning to go his way, but instead he lingered, towering over Gideon, letting him know he ran at the head of this particular herd. “You done this kind of work before?” he asked, and though the question sounded like an afterthought, Gideon knew it was the whole reason the Irishman had approached him in the first place.

  “No,” Gideon said, because there were times when the truth was more effective than any lie. “Does it show?”

  “Just a bit,” O’Hanlon allowed, flashing a grin in the semidarkness. Then, still casually he continued, “Where’d you draw your wages from last, if you don’t mind my askin’?”

  Gideon sighed, but not too heavily. “I was a bank clerk,” he said. “Out in San Francisco. Couldn’t take another day of wearing a coat and tie.”

  O’Hanlon weighed that. “You related to the marshal?”

  “He’s my brother,” Gideon said.

  “Rowdy’s a good man,” O’Hanlon allowed. “If you’re like him, you’ll do fine down here.” An unspoken if-not hung at the end of the Irishman’s sentence. Did the crew already suspect he was a ringer, or were they just naturally careful around a stranger?

  Gideon was betting on the latter.

  And he sure as hell hoped he was betting right.

  If these miners ever found out he’d be reporting everything he saw and heard to the owners, smuggling dispatches out of Stone Creek on the stagecoach to avoid using the telegraph, he might meet with some kind of melancholy misfortune—and never get out of the hole.

  O’Hanlon walked away.

  The whistle blew again, signaling the end of the twenty minutes allotted for a midday meal.

  And Gideon went back to work—wishing to God he could go home that night and take real solace in Lydia’s arms. Instead, he’d use Lark and Rowdy’s elegant porcelain bathtub, gulp down what supper he could manage, and collapse into bed, exhausted.

  He’d get Lydia’s nightgown—if she’d remembered to recover it from Helga’s room—up around her waist. He’d pleasure her again, a little more boldly this time, and that would be the next best thing to taking his own satisfaction.

  He might lie awake the whole night, once he’d banked the fire in Lydia.

  Or he might fall asleep with his head between her legs.

  Time would tell.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “THEY’RE ALL OVER AT the Porter place,” Rowdy informed Gideon, as soon as he dragged himself through the kitchen door that night, after his shift at the mine had straggled to its merciful end, and he looked around the softly lit room with an expression that must have revealed a lot more than he’d intended. “Lark, Lydia, Wyatt’s Sarah and Sam’s Maddie, the old ladies and the kids—the whole lot of them.”

  “Oh,” Gideon said. It hurt to bend and stroke Pardner’s head in greeting, but he did it, just the same. Seemed like the dog was the only one glad to see him.

  Rowdy, who had been reading at the table—no sign or scent of supper—watched as Gideon kicked off his boots and placed them on the back step. “Aren’t you going to ask what they’re doing over there?” he wanted to know.

  “I figure you’ll get around to telling me sooner or later,” Gideon replied wearily, heading for the coffeepot. He poured a mugful, added a dash of whiskey from the bottle Rowdy kept on a high shelf, took a gulp and waited for the fire to surge through his tired muscles. “I guess Jacob Fitch didn’t show up, looking to reclaim his bride?”

  Throughout the long day, when he hadn’t been thinking about mining strikes and deflowering his virgin wife, Gideon had fretted over Fitch, tallying up all the ways the bastard might be plotting to avenge his honor.

  “Not so far,” Rowdy admitted, closing his book, taking off the wire-rimmed spectacles he wore when he read for any length of time. “I did get another telegram from the U.S. Marshal down in Phoenix, though. He’s sending a couple of men up here to speak to Lydia—make sure the marriage is valid and she didn’t enter into it under duress.”

  Ravenous, Gideon cast a glance toward the stove, even though he knew it was cold. Nothing waiting in the oven, then.

  “All right,” he said, leaning back against the spotless counter under Lark’s cupboards and folding his arms, “what are the women doing over at the Porter house?”

  Rowdy grinned, rose at last from his chair, and approached the ice box. Drew out a plate of cold chicken and brought it to the table. Took his sweet time answering.

  “They’re getting it ready for you and Lydia to live in,” he finally said. Mischief flickered in his eyes, indicating that he’d had a much easier day than Gideon had. “You might want to oil the bedsprings before you turn in for the night, though.”

  Focused on the platter of cold chicken—the hungry hordes had already picked through it, evidently, because what was left was mostly wings and necks and scrawny backs—Gideon pumped water at the sink, washed his hands, and sat down at the table. For all that his stomach was rumbling, the comment about the bedsprings had made his neck heat up.

  “I won’t be oiling anything tonight,” he said, avoiding Rowdy’s gaze and tucking into the food. If his brother planned to eat, he’d have to fend for himself. “All I want is a bath and eight hours of oblivion.”

  Rowdy laughed. Sat down again and folded his hands on top of the closed book—for a moment, he put Gideon in mind of a preacher with a Bible. “You might get the bath, if you hurry,” he allowed. “But I’m not sure about the oblivion. When those women get back here—that’ll be anytime now, since it’s almost the kids’ bedtime—they’ll be full of chatter about curtains and rugs and flowerbeds. And our lot, brother, is but to listen.”

  Gideon barely suppressed a groan. He’d forgotten how respectable women loved to talk, especially if they had taken up some cause; when it came to females, he’d mostly limited himself to the unrespectable variety. That kind didn’t talk much—just did what needed doing and went on about their business. “I can’t afford the Porter house,” he said, remembering how big it was, and how grand—at least, by Stone Creek standards.

  “Lark signed it over to you this afternoon,” Rowdy said. “It’s a wedding present.”

  Gideon nearly choked on the last bite of chicken he’d taken. “What?”

  “Lark thinks you and Lydia ought to have a house,” Rowdy told him, as though it were an ordinary thing to do. “So she gave you one.”

  Lark, Gideon knew, had inherited her first husband’s railroad and a fortune to go with it when the son of a bitch had done the world a favor by getting himself killed. That was why she and Rowdy had been able to build a house like this one, but except for having more space than most folks did, they lived modestly—so modestly that it was easy to forget they had money.

  “Damn it,” Gideon growled, “I can’t accept a house. Whatever happened to reasonable wedding presents, like tablecloths and teapots?”

  Rowdy chuckled at that. “There’s nothing ‘reasonable’ about my wife, once she takes a notion into that beautiful head of hers,” he said. “If you’ve forgotten that, little brother, you’ve been away from home too long.”

  By then, Gideon had gobbled up all the chicken there was, and pushed back from the table to set the platter in the sink. He was bound and determined to get to that bathtub before the women got back and he lost his chance.

  He wanted to tell Rowdy that he couldn’t take the house for another reason, besides its being too costly a gift. Once he’d ruined any plans O’Hanlon and the others had to go out on strike, he’d be dangerously unpopular around Stone Creek, which meant he’d be leaving in a few months, probably sneaking out of town like a thief in the night, and staying gone for a good long while.

  Possibly forever.

  Of course, he couldn’t say anything, given his agreement with the members of the mining cartel. Besides, when he’d laid his initial plans, Lydia, the pair of elderly aunts and Helga the housekeeper hadn’t figured into them. He meant to travel light—that would be a necessity—and the harem he’d acquired would need a pl
ace to live after he was gone.

  Gone.

  The thought of leaving Lydia behind made the pit of his stomach drop, like a trap door swinging open over an abyss with the fires of hell itself waiting at the end of a long fall.

  But leave her he would.

  Wrenching himself back to the right here, right now, he concentrated on matters at hand. He’d gulp down his pride, the way he had his coffee a few minutes before, and the fried chicken, and thank Lark kindly for the house.

  “The men at the mine think highly of you,” he told Rowdy in parting as he headed for the back staircase. It was a concession of some kind, though he couldn’t have said why he felt the need to make one.

  “They have it hard, Gideon,” Rowdy replied quietly. “The miners, I mean. So do their wives and children.” He patted the dog’s head, resting on his thigh again. “Pardner here eats better than they do. When you get a chance, pay a visit to the shanties behind the mine and see for yourself.”

  Rowdy’s words pierced Gideon’s conscience, so far untroubled, at least as far as the men and their families were concerned, in some tender places.

  Pretending he hadn’t heard, he headed upstairs.

  THE AUNTS HAD CHOSEN the spacious room behind the kitchen for their quarters—it had a fireplace and a writing desk, and they were charmed to know Lark had coveted that chamber herself when she first came to Stone Creek, as the new schoolmarm, and boarded with Mrs. Porter.

  Maddie O’Ballivan, Sam’s brown-haired, bright-eyed, spirited wife, expressed misgivings, having discerned that the spinster sisters had been gently raised, despite the industry they’d displayed throughout the day, dusting and sweeping.

  “But there’s only one bed,” Maddie said, concerned.

  “We’ve shared since cradle-days,” Mittie responded. Then, with an impish little smile, she added, “And it’s a good distance from the master bedroom, isn’t it?”

  Lydia, busy washing out cupboards, while Sarah, the sister-in-law she’d met just that day, dried the last of the dishes, blushed at her aunt’s inference, despite all the careful plans she and Lark had laid for Gideon’s seduction.