The Bridegroom

by Linda Lael Miller

  The inference might have been that Paddy, by contrast to his brother-in-law, was not troubled by a pesky little thing like masculine pride—the bartender certainly looked as if he’d taken the remark that way. Again, Gideon noted that Paddy seemed more afraid than angry.

  “She’s got a houseful,” Paddy said, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. “Bridie, I mean. And her just a maid, for all her haughty ways, with a couple of rooms to herself and the gall to snitch leftovers from a lady’s kitchen.”

  “These are hard times, Paddy,” Mike lamented, swaying a little now, as he reeled away from the bar. “Hard times indeed.”

  “Aye,” Paddy agreed, getting more Irish with every tick of the clock. “And here I am, speaking ill of our own kin, I’m that ungrateful. Why, if it weren’t for Bridie—”

  “If it weren’t for Bridie,” Mike slurred, slamming a hand down onto the bar and making Paddy start, “you’d have to share them pickled eggs, now wouldn’t you, brother, and everything else you stuff down that gullet of yours in the space of a day?”

  Paddy had no answer for that. His bulk told the story; this was his comeuppance, evidently, for remarking on the sum Mike and the others owed for whiskey.

  Having said his piece, Mike staggered out into the daylight.

  Following, Gideon wondered why Mike had decided to play the drunkard.

  At the road, Mike said, “If you hear the whistle in the morning—three long blasts before the rooster crows—you’ll know the mine is open and you ought to come.”

  Gideon nodded. Watched as Mike leaned—ably for a man supposed to be so far into his cups—and retrieved his lunch pail, a lard tin like the one Lark had packed for Gideon the day before, from the high grass, where he’d stashed it on the way in.

  He pried off the lid, peered inside to make sure the tinned ham was still there, saw that it was.

  “A good day to you, young Yarbro,” he said.

  And then he turned, without waiting for a response, and headed back toward the mine and the shanties beyond, weaving as he went.

  Watching, Gideon was reminded of the way a wolf or coyote will pretend to be wounded, in order to draw its prey into the midst of the waiting pack.

  DR. VENABLE, LYDIA SOON LEARNED, was a very old man, with a thin white film of cataracts covering both his eyes. His wife, Kitty, brought him to the house, sitting ably at the reins of a one-horse buggy, and when they came in through the back door, she carried his medical kit.

  By then, with help from Sarah, who had arrived soon after Lydia had sent the children away, she had changed the bedclothes and Lark’s nightgown, and it seemed the worst of the bleeding was over. Lark had stopped screaming, but whether that was because the pain had subsided or because she was simply too exhausted to cry out, there was no way to know.

  Although awake, Lark was mostly unresponsive.

  She found enough strength to speak when the doctor entered, though. “My baby,” she whispered, when the old man bent over her, murmuring gruff there nows and pressing a stethoscope to her distended belly. “Doc, my baby—”

  “Shush, now,” he replied hoarsely. “I hear somebody in there, raising hell, like any Yarbro might be expected to do.”

  Lydia and Sarah, standing at the foot of the bed, exchanged hopeful glances. The baby was still alive, then.

  This was something Rowdy would want to know. Wyatt had brought Sarah to the house, and persuaded his brother to come downstairs to keep his vigil.

  Rowdy hadn’t wanted to leave Lark’s side, Lydia remembered, her throat tight. But Wyatt had spoken quietly, insistently, said they’d only be in the way if they stayed, a couple of outlaws like them. At a time like this, Wyatt’s reasoning went, a woman wanted other females for company, and nobody else—except for a doctor.

  “Turn back those covers,” “Doc,” as Lark had addressed him, told his wife. “Have a look and tell me what you see.”

  Sarah took Lydia’s hands, squeezed it hard.

  And by tacit agreement, the two of them slipped out of the room.

  In all the excitement, Lydia and Sarah had not spoken much, but they’d worked in concert to make Lark more comfortable, and several times, Lark had managed a grateful if frighteningly absent smile that took them both in.

  Rowdy and Wyatt were at the kitchen table, when the two women descended the rear stairway.

  Sarah went, not to her husband, but to her brother-in-law. Laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Doc heard the baby’s heart beating,” she said quietly. “There’s reason to hope, Rowdy.”

  He didn’t move, or speak, just stared down into the full and obviously cold cup of coffee sitting in front of him.

  “I’ve known Doc all my life,” Sarah went on gently, probably thinking, as Lydia was, that while knowing his unborn child was alive was a great relief to Rowdy, he was still crazy with worry over Lark. “He was Papa’s dearest friend. He’ll take good care of them both.”

  Rowdy made a sound, but didn’t lift his head. “He’s blind,” he muttered, a few seconds later.

  “Kitty sees for him,” Sarah replied. “You know that.”

  “I wish Hon Sing was here,” Rowdy said.

  Wyatt said something in response, but Lydia didn’t hear what it was.

  Needing something to do, so she wouldn’t break down, Lydia set about brewing a pot of tea. She and Sarah could use the lift it would give them, and maybe Lark would even manage a few sips, though that probably wouldn’t happen.

  She hadn’t thought of Gideon, except fleetingly, since she’d arrived at this house and heard Lark’s terrible screams. Therefore, when, looking out the window above the sink as she pumped water into the copper teakettle, she saw him vault over the back fence, not bothering with the gate, and sprint toward the house, she was startled.

  The door flew open, and Gideon spared her one brief glance, as though she were a mere acquaintance, someone he’d met once or twice, and her name escaped him.

  Maybe it had.

  It was plain from the pallor in Gideon’s face that he’d learned that Lark was in a desperate way—most likely, he’d gone by the Porter house, earlier, and found Julia and the other children there. Julia, who adored her younger uncle, though he didn’t seem to notice that, would have told him what few terrifying facts she knew.

  “Lark—?” he said to Rowdy.

  “It’s the baby,” Rowdy said distractedly. “Something’s wrong.”

  Wyatt looked up at Gideon, looming over the table, and ordered quietly, “Sit down. Doc’s with her now, and there’s not much any of us can do but wait.”

  Sarah had moved to stand behind Wyatt now, her hands resting on her husband’s shoulders. But she looked at Gideon with such sisterly tenderness that Lydia’s heart squeezed.

  She wished she had the courage to stand behind her own husband, the way Sarah was standing behind Wyatt, and lay her hands on his shoulders, but she knew, after this morning, that Gideon wouldn’t welcome such a familiar gesture.

  Upstairs, Lark cried out again.

  All three of the Yarbro men got to their feet at the same time.

  “No,” Sarah said, moving swiftly to block them from rushing up the stairs. “Let Doc do what he needs to do. I’ll go up and see what’s happening—and Lydia will make tea.”

  “Tea?” Wyatt croaked.

  But he sat down again, and so did Gideon and finally, Rowdy, too, returned to his chair.

  Lydia busied herself finishing up that batch of tea, shaking all over, Lark’s latest anguished cry echoing in her ears. With her back to the men, she felt free to weep, and allowed her tears to flow.

  Sarah went briskly up the stairs, a small, trim figure, all business.

  Lydia continued to go through the motions, finding a spouted pot, and then searching out the pretty enameled box where Lark kept tea leaves. She set a kettle on the stove to heat, barely glancing at Gideon as she passed because she wanted so badly to stop and touch him, reassure him somehow.

 
Gideon adored Lark, just as she did. Even when he was a boy of sixteen, and Lydia herself only eight, he’d looked up to the new schoolmarm. He’d even gone to class, Lydia recalled with a pang, though that had probably been because Rowdy had forced him.

  She felt his gaze resting on her before she turned away from the stove, and when she did, their eyes connected, locked.

  The despair Lydia saw in Gideon’s face rocked her; left no room for hurt feelings. Looking at him, she felt only love, only a desire to hold him and tell him everything would be all right.

  But that wasn’t to be.

  Sarah came back downstairs, hurrying, a little breathless, before Lydia could say a single word to Gideon.

  “The baby’s come!” Sarah cried, smiling and weeping both at once. “Rowdy, the baby’s here, and she’s—she’s breathing—”

  Rowdy scraped back his chair and headed for the stairs, and this time, no one tried to stop him. No one could have.

  “Lark?” Wyatt asked hoarsely, when Rowdy had gone.

  “She’s—alive,” Sarah whispered, dashing at her face with the back of one hand. “The baby is small, and she’ll need extra care, but Doc says she’s sound.”

  The newborn squalled just then, a puny sound, but a determined one.

  Wyatt rose, went to his wife, took her into his arms. Held her while she wept, murmuring to her.

  Lydia was so caught up in watching them, feeling both exultation over the baby’s arrival and envy because of the tender way Wyatt and Sarah comforted each other, that she was caught unawares when Gideon stepped up behind her, pulled her back against him, and kissed the top of her head.

  It was all she could do not to turn into his arms—but she knew she mustn’t. Gideon meant to leave her—he’d told her so that morning, straight-out—and she had to stop loving him.

  Had to stop needing him.

  Somehow.

  After a few moments, she stiffened, and, with a sigh, Gideon released her. Stepped away.

  She went back to making tea.

  Wyatt said he’d better go out to the ranch, see to the kids and feed the livestock, promised Sarah he’d come back as soon as he could, and left. After some private words between Wyatt and Gideon, too low to be heard but obviously heated, both men left the house.

  The teakettle boiled.

  Sarah fetched two cups and two saucers from the breakfront, and Lydia poured hot water into the teapot.

  All this transpired without a word passing between the two women.

  They sat companionably at the table, across from each other, and sipped from their teacups.

  Some time had gone by when Doc Venable came carefully down the back stairs, Kitty holding his arm and carrying his kit.

  Sarah and Lydia both rose immediately. Lydia’s heart was pounding in her throat, and she suspected it was the same for Sarah.

  “Lark?” both women asked, at the very same moment.

  Kitty, not only the doctor’s wife, it seemed, but his eyes, as well, smiled, though a little sadly. “She’ll pull through, I think,” she said. “But there won’t be any more babies.”

  Doc made a harrumph sound. “Five ought to be enough for anybody,” he blustered.

  Dizzy with relief, Lydia literally fell back into her chair.

  “Lark will need some tending,” Kitty went on, after giving her husband an affectionate elbow to the ribs in response to his crusty remark. “And since men aren’t much good in these situations—” Doc harrumphed again at that “—one of you will have to sit with her until she’s stronger.”

  “I will,” Lydia and Sarah chorused.

  A moment later, Sarah went to Doc, kissed his grizzled old cheek. “Lydia and I will take turns,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Seems like I’m still good for something after all,” Doc said heartily.

  “I don’t know what we’d have done without you,” Sarah answered, and Lydia knew her sister-in-law had addressed the remark to Kitty, as much as the doctor.

  “Send word,” Kitty said, already steering her nearly sightless husband toward the rear door, “if Lark starts bleeding again, or shows any signs of a fever. Day or night—no matter the time.”

  Lydia and Sarah both nodded.

  When they’d gone, Sarah turned to Lydia. Smiled gently. “You’ve been here for a long time,” she said. “Go home, Lydia. Get some rest. I’ll stay with Lark until morning, and you can come back then.”

  Lydia hesitated, then saw the wisdom in Sarah’s words. There was no point in both of them staying.

  “What about your children?” Lydia asked, worried.

  “Wyatt will look after them, and our oldest boy, Owen, too—Owen and his wife, Shannie, will see to things—they live just over the hill from us. All the little ones will be fine, Lydia. And so, thank heaven, will Lark.”

  Lydia nodded, swallowed. She’d been so brave all day, but now that the crisis was past, at least for the moment, she felt as though the floor had turned spongy under her feet.

  But Rowdy and Lark’s four children would be waiting for word, and so would the aunts. They were old ladies, not used to such upheavals as they’d endured lately, and while Helga could be trusted to keep them calm, she’d probably had a hard day, too.

  “What about Hank and Julia and the little ones?” Lydia asked.

  Sarah smiled, though her eyes were bright with tears. “Send them on home. They’ll want to see their mother, and their baby sister, too, and they need to be where Rowdy is, even though he probably won’t pay them much mind for a while.”

  Again, Lydia nodded. She glanced once at the ceiling, offering a silent prayer for Lark and the new baby, for all of them, and started for the door.

  Sarah stopped her with a few softly spoken words of concern. “You’ll be all right? Walking home by yourself?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Lydia said. For she’d learned something important about herself that day—that she was stronger than she’d ever dreamed of being. Even when Gideon was gone, she would go on, find ways to get through the days and, worse, the nights. “I’ll be just fine.”

  THE OLD PORTER HOUSE WAS DARK when Gideon let himself in through the kitchen door that night. No sign of the aunts or Helga—or Lydia.

  They were probably sound asleep, all of them, even though it was relatively early. After all, it had been one hell of a day.

  Gideon fumbled until he found one of the light fixtures, bolted to the wall next to the door, and turned up the gas until the room took on a soft glow.

  He’d tried to be quiet, but without success evidently, because a door opened and closed somewhere nearby, and then Helga appeared, looking formidable in her nightcap and wrapper.

  “There’s a plate for you in the warming oven,” she said, none too hospitably.

  Gideon nodded, wondering if Lydia had confided in the housekeeper about his leaving, and decided she probably hadn’t had the chance, given the events of the day. Lydia had spent the bulk of it tending Lark and, according to Wyatt, she’d done a fine job of it.

  Gideon took pride in that, took pride in Lydia.

  He went to the stove, took his somewhat shriveled supper—some sort of meat, boiled cabbage and a baked potato—from the warming oven. If he hadn’t been in the presence of a lady, he wouldn’t even have bothered to get silverware and sit down at the table to eat.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked moderately, when Helga kept staring at him with undisguised irritation.

  “Lydia is unhappy,” Helga said, keeping her distance but showing no signs of retreating to her bedroom under the stairs and leaving him to eat in peace. “And that’s your doing, unless I miss my guess.”

  “She’s worried about Lark,” Gideon said, sitting down, jabbing a fork into the potato. That was true, wasn’t it? Lydia looked up to Lark, took every word the woman said as gospel.

  “Lydia had been crying when Miss Mittie and Miss Millie and I got here this morning,” Helga insisted, grave and suspicious. “And that was before she
knew there was anything the matter with Mrs. Yarbro.”

  Gideon didn’t answer, and even though his appetite had gone, he kept eating because his hungry body wouldn’t let him stop.

  “I helped you steal Lydia because I knew she’d wither away and die if she married Jacob Fitch,” Helga went on. “And I figured you must have cared about her plenty, if you’d go to all the trouble of carrying her out of that wedding and bringing her here.”

  “I care,” Gideon said.

  Helga studied him for a long time, her eyes narrowed. “You’d damn well better, Mr. Yarbro,” she finally said. “You’d damn well better.”

  With that, she turned, practically on one heel, and left Gideon alone in that empty kitchen with his stewed beef, his cabbage, his potato—and his badly bruised conscience.

  CHAPTER TEN

  LYDIA LAY ALONE IN HER marriage bed, listened to Gideon’s footsteps as he climbed the nearby staircase, paused outside her door, and then went on to the next room.

  Her eyes smarted fiercely as she huddled there in the darkness, curled into a stiff little ball of abject sorrow. So the leaving had already begun, then; even while they still lived under the same roof, Gideon was moving away from her—one closed door at a time.

  Crying would have been a relief, but Lydia had spent all her tears that morning, when Gideon had first told her he planned to go away and leave her behind, and through the long ordeal with Lark. She was dry-eyed now, scraped to a hollow rawness inside.

  Had Lark been there to advise Lydia, she probably would have sent her marching right out into the hallway and then straight on into the room where Gideon clearly meant to pass the night. But Lark wasn’t there, or in any condition to give counsel, even if she had been, and Lydia couldn’t make herself go to her husband.

  It wasn’t pride that kept her where she was—she didn’t have much of that left, thanks to Gideon. And it certainly wasn’t a lack of desire—even now, her body, like the strings of an exquisitely tuned harp, yearned for the play of Gideon’s fingers, his lips, his tongue. Everything Lydia was—flesh and spirit, substance and space—ached with the effort to contain that soundless music and the need to set it free.