Halfway Home, page 27
“Could we possibly go tomorrow?” she asked, returning to the subject of her shoeless state.
“Why not today? If we leave within the hour, we’ll make it soon after dark, and you can have all day tomorrow to do your buying.”
All day tomorrow. Which meant they would also be away tonight. Sara refrained from bouncing with joy at the thought of being alone with her husband for an entire day and a night, with no Ivadelle forever dusting right behind them, no Rafe poking his head through the door, and no Hester or Maulsie fussing and fretting over them.
Coolly, she said, “I’m sure Simon could drive me just as well if you’re busy.”
“And sleep where, in the wagon? I figured on putting up at the Indian Queen.”
And of course, there was no place for any black man, free or not, in the town’s finest hotel. There were private homes, little more than shanties, where arrangements could be made, but she hated to see the old man have to stay with strangers in a strange town.
“Oh, very well, if you’re sure it’s no bother,” she said just as if she were reluctantly resigned to her fate. Which was better than jumping up and dancing around the kitchen table the way she felt like doing. “I suppose I’d better go get ready, then, if you’re insisting on leaving right away.”
“Not wit’out yo’ soup. You set right dare and scrape yo’ bowl good, child, ‘fore I take a willow whip to yo’ legs.”
Sara sighed. Maulsie had bullied her shamelessly all her life, ever since her mother had grown too ill to look after her. She stared down at the huge chunk of ham swinging in a tomato broth thick with corn and beans, sighed, spread a napkin across her lap, and tried to summon up an appetite. She was too excited to eat.
The minute Maulsie and Hester left the kitchen to go tidy up the downstairs rooms, she excused herself, stepped out onto the back porch and scraped her bowl into Brig’s pan.
Evidently Jericho was no hungrier than she was. Idly, he stirred his soup, watching her while she set her dishes to soak. “What’ll you give me not to tell on you?” he teased.
Sara stared. Mercy, he was in a strange mood. She had never seen him quite like this, eyes twinkling with devilment, a grin testing the corners of his wide mouth. “What if I promise not to fall out of the shay again?” she ventured.
“I’ll hold you to it,” he said. His eyes said more, only she felt suddenly too skittish to try and read their message.
Once out of the kitchen, Sara flew up the stairs, ignoring the last faint twinge of discomfort in her bruised foot. They were going to town! She and Jericho, just the two of them! He was taking her to the Indian Queen Hotel, where they had copper bathtubs in every room and an unending supply of hot water for the asking, and where they would quite naturally share a room.
And would they share a bed?
Well, of course you’ll share a bed, you dunce. And you’ll turn down the lamp so he can barely see, and sprinkle some of Maulsie’s rose-and-lemon grass scent on your hair, and he won’t be able to resist you.
And this time, now that she knew how to do it, she would make sure to get it right. Maybe then, he would want to do it with her again.
Before she had quite finished getting dressed, Sara heard Jericho stirring around in the next room. She was tempted to go in and offer to help him pack, only he would probably refuse. He was a very private person, her husband—a man who preferred to do for himself. She had learned that much when she’d had the care of him for more than a week after he’d been stabbed in the back. If he could have lain on his stomach and changed the dressings on his back, he would have done it.
She slipped into her yellow, which was hardly seasonal, but was prettier than the brown. Her yellow and green bonnet had been chosen to go with the gown, only the yellows were off just enough so that it didn’t work. She had never had a scrap of fashion sense. Her friend Carrie had told her that more than once.
That wasn’t all Carrie had told her. But by now, Sara thought smugly, she could tell her friend a thing or two.
Carefully, she settled her bonnet over her coiled hair and anchored it with a jet hat pin. She gathered up her best wool shawl, hoping it would keep her dry, knowing it wouldn’t. Her yellow kid slippers were all she had to wear, and she shoved them on her feet. She’d been a fool to buy them in the first place, but they were so lovely, and the store had only had two pairs—one too big and one too small. She’d thought at the time she could scrunch up her toes.
Well. She was older now, and wiser.
Oh, yes, you’re wonderfully wise. Stifling a giggle, she kicked up her feet and fell back on the bed, bonnet, shawl, and all.
Wouldn’t you just know, she thought, embarrassed, that Jericho would choose to come in just then.
He didn’t say a word. Sara sat up just as if there were nothing at all unusual about a grown woman wallowing fully dressed on a bed in broad daylight. Standing, she adjusted the waistline of her gown, resettled her bonnet, which had gone crooked, and collected her reticule.
“Ready to cast off?” he asked, a suspicious tremor in his deep voice.
Sara nodded with every appearance of composure. She had already cast off. Cast off every vestige of the common sense she had been so proud of all her life.
*
As towns went, Elizabeth City was scarcely more than a growing village. All the same, to someone who had lived all her life in the country, seeing lights in the windows of so many houses at once and knowing that there were several shops just waiting for her to explore was thrilling enough. Being shown into the plush hotel by an elegant gentleman made it all the more magical.
And Jericho did look elegant. Compared to all the other men present, which included several dapper gentlemen standing around the lobby of the hotel with their cigars and their colorful silk cravats and waistcoats worn with stand-up collared shirts, he reminded her of an eagle looming over a flock of canaries.
He’s mine, she wanted to announce to the world. He might not know it yet—I haven’t exactly figured out how to make him realize it—but he’s mine!
After a quiet word to the manager, who obviously recognized a figure of authority when he met one, Jericho led her up the stairs to what surely must be the finest room in the whole establishment. It was three times the size of the room she’d been given when she’d stayed there before, but at that time she’d been newly married and extremely unsure of her place in the world.
“Are you sure you can afford all this?” she murmured, gesturing toward the mahogany tester bed and the matching pair of velvet-covered arm chairs. The chairs were sky blue to match the draperies. The walls were white with deeper blue woodwork. The carpet on the floor was blue and gray and green and pink, and every bit as thick and lovely as the ones she remembered from her childhood, before Noreen had sold them all and replaced them with a few stingy rag rugs.
Jericho scowled. “That’s not your concern.” Darling, he almost added, but couldn’t quite bring himself to voice the word. Darling was Rafe’s style, not his.
He only hoped to God he could figure out what his style was and get on with this business of courting before he busted a gut.
Sara was opening wardrobe doors and peering behind the curtains, just like a child on Christmas morning. Not that Jericho could remember much about being a child on Christmas morning. He did recall Louisa’s expression, however, the year she had received the big china-headed doll. His gift had been a thin volume of inspirational verses. He had hidden it in the attic and claimed he’d misplaced it, which had gotten him a good switching, but it was better than being forced to try and read the blamed thing.
“Oh, my, would you just look at this bathtub,” Sara whispered, and he did. Standing beside the folding privacy screen, they both stared down at the biggest copper, slipper-shaped hip bath either of them had ever seen. He had asked for the best accommodations the establishment had to offer, but he hadn’t expected something like this.
Slowly, his face gathered heat. He cut his eyes at Sara, wondering if she was thinking the same thing he was. That the bathtub was big enough for two people as long as they arranged their limbs properly. He could think of several ways, and before he could stop himself, he was picturing a wet Sara, her plump pink behind snuggled between his long limbs while he lathered her hair and her . . .
“I’m hungry,” he growled, backing away. “I ordered us up a mess of food. Ought to be here most any time.”
“You mean we won’t have to go downstairs to the dining room?”
“No, ma’am. You can take off your shoes, and I’ll just ease these chairs up a mite closer to the table, and we’ll set-to right here.”
Carefully, Sara heel-toed her feet out of her cruel kid slippers. Perhaps they would fit Hester, or one of the girls who was coming to work at the house. She removed her coal-skuttle bonnet. Her face, which had been flaming only a moment before as she imagined Jericho seated in the hip bath, with her washing his back, had cooled off until now it felt numb.
She removed her shawl, folded it and placed it in the bottom drawer of the tall, mahogany gentleman’s wardrobe. Should she place her night shift there, too, or hang it behind the screen? Suddenly, sharing a man’s wardrobe seemed terribly intimate. Which was a ridiculous notion for a woman who had already shared his bed. Shared the beds of two different men, come to that.
She was just being silly. “My, it’s warm in here, isn’t it?” she asked, striving for a bright, cheerful note. Instead of bright and cheerful, her voice sounded as if it had been strained through two layers of muslin. Thin as whey.
“I’ll open a window.”
“Oh, no! It might rain in, and besides, it’s not all that warm.”
He gave her a peculiar look, and she determined to try again.
“Shall I, um—unpack for you?” she offered.
“Thank you kindly, but I’m used to doing for myself.”
“Oh,” she whispered, looking rebuffed, and Jericho could have kicked himself.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” He broke off and swore, and then apologized again. “Actually, I’m used to having a steward do for me, but that don’t mean I can’t do for myself. I didn’t marry you to wait on me, Sara. Although I reckon it might seem that way, considering how we started out.”
What did you marry me for? The words went unspoken, but they might as well have been emblazoned on the very air between them.
She stared at him, and then stared at the window. It was pitch-black and raining hard. Hardly an engrossing view.
With two long strides, Jericho crossed to her side and gripped her arms in his big, hard hands. “Sara, I’m not real good at this, but—” He took a deep breath and started all over. “The thing is, we’re still strangers in most ways. We know some things about one another, but not the things that are important for the long haul.” A wintery smile broke across his face for a moment, making him look years younger. “Such as, I know you have a mole on your left buttock.” He paused. “And I knew you were going to blush when I mentioned it.”
As, of course, she did.
“There’s still a lot of little things I don’t know, though—like how many times of a night you roll over. Or if you like to sleep on your left or your right side. Or if you always sneeze three times when you wake up of a morning.”
Sara did her best to sound worldly. “I don’t have the least idea how many times I roll over. I prefer my left side, and I don’t always sneeze three times. Sometimes it’s four. Or even five, if the sun’s in my face when I wake up.”
“There, you see? Now we’re getting somewhere.”
They were getting nowhere. Those were only superficial things. Things he could tease her about just to watch her color up, which she invariably did, to his secret delight.
But there was so much more he had come to know about her, that it was somehow important that she knew he knew. Things like her deep sense of loyalty. Her kindness. Her pride. He had always thought pride was strictly a masculine attribute, but pride and a bone-deep sense of honor had guided her as surely as the North Star guided a mariner.
He wanted her to know that he knew those things about her so that she would know how much he valued her, only those weren’t things a man discussed. Not with a woman. Leastwise, not a man who had never discussed such nebulous things as feelings unless they had to do with a falling barometer or the uneasy look of the sky.
He sighed and decided he might as well barge ahead the best way he could. Things couldn’t go on the way they had for the past three days. He’d go stark-raving crazy if he had to go on seeing her, hearing her voice, smelling her scent, and keep his hands off her body.
“So, madam, tell me this, then—if a man was to set about courting a woman, do you reckon she’d rather be courted with flowers and pretty trinkets, or with store-bought sweets and fancy words?”
Sara gaped at him, making him wonder why the devil he hadn’t come right out and asked her about her own preferences.
“Well, now, I couldn’t say what other women would like. I’ve never had much cause to think about it,” she said slowly.
He immediately thought of Rafe, with his hothouse roses and his darlings. Clearing his throat, he said, “Yes, well—I didn’t mean other women, exactly. I meant you. And I can handle the flowers and trinkets and store-bought sweets, if you’ll just let me know your favorings.”
“Jericho, you don’t have to do any of that, honestly you don’t. I’m already your wife. It’s not like you had to—to win me.”
Damnit, that was exactly what he had to do! But before he could make his next move, a rap on the door announced their evening meal. He had ordered the best in the house and hoped their best was better than the Halfway Hotel’s stringy turtle and soggy turnips.
While the waiter set out the food and laid the table, Jericho considered Sara’s words. No, he didn’t have to win her. She was already his, leastwise, so far as the law was concerned. But he knew now that it was no longer enough. Even having her in his bed was no longer enough, although the thought of not having her in his bed was unthinkable. He’d been hard-pressed not to come at her again after that first time, but he had made up his mind that before he did that, he’d best sort through all these peculiar feelings he’d been having ever since he’d taken her to bed, and see if he could put it all in proper perspective. A wise captain never set sail without a definite course in mind.
“My, this looks lovely,” she murmured. The waiter beamed, and beamed even more when Jericho slipped him two fips.
With a courtly gesture, Jericho held her chair and then slid it under her, trying not to notice too much the faint scent of roses and lemongrass that clung to her hair. One of her hairpins had come loose, and he lifted a hand to shove it back in, then changed his mind. if he touched her now they might never get around to eating supper, and for the task ahead, he needed all the strength he could muster.
“Try that beefsteak, why don’t you?” he offered. “And my, don’t that roast potato look good? Here, there’s plenty of bread. Have some butter, too.” She was going to need her strength, as well, if what he had in mind came to pass.
“Oh, doesn’t that rain sound good on the roof? I love to sleep with the rain pounding down on the roof. At home I had an attic room, and—”
Her gaze met his, and then they both flushed. The bed loomed behind them, seeming to swell in size. And right behind that screen was the hip bath . . .
Jericho cleared his throat and frowned. “Eat your supper, Sara. It’s getting late.” Which wasn’t particularly subtle, even for a taciturn seaman, he thought ruefully.
He heard her sigh and wondered if it was in eagerness or resignation. She picked up her fork. He thought, Lord, I think I must love her. Bemused, he picked up his own.
Chapter Twenty-two
All through the interminable meal, bursts of words alternated with self-conscious silences. Both Sara and Jericho knew precisely what was going to happen, if not precisely when. Jericho toyed with his cutlery as he envisioned undressing her, lowering her onto that big fat feather bed and following her down, burying himself inside her snug harbor and working her until they both collapsed.
He shifted uncomfortably on the overstuffed chair. Doggedly, he cut up his beef into half a dozen bites and began to eat, but it might as well have been the same old shipboard ration of salt horse and burgoo for all the attention he paid.
Sara thought perhaps she might swoon. She never had before, but this might be a good time to try it. How could a body look forward to something so much, and at the same time dread it?
Never had she been so aware of the width of a man’s shoulders. Of the way he seemed to fill the room with the force of his presence. Yet, for all his size, he was surprisingly graceful. The first thing she had ever noticed about him was the way he moved, with his shoulders swaying in counterpoint to his hips.
Something to do with balancing on a rolling deck, she suspected, remembering how powerful his limbs had looked when she’d been forced to knead the cramp from his muscular calves.
My, the room had gown warm! You’d think there was a roaring fire on the hearth instead of only the faint glow of one set earlier to take the chill off the air. Surreptitiously, she dried her damp palms on her napkin and proceeded to carve off a tiny portion of potato. Shoving it to the edge of her plate, she carved off another one.
Sara knew as well as she knew her own name that Jericho hadn’t driven her all this way on a whim and then hired the best room in the hotel just so that she could shop for a few fripperies. Rafe might have done such a thing. She suspected Rafe was wildly reckless and impulsive, whereas Jericho was sober and practical and steady as a rock.
However, Jericho had killed a man in a duel, had married a total stranger and sent her off alone, had gone to sea at the vulnerable age of thirteen and thereafter lived the life of a sailor—and everyone knew what that meant.
