The Bridegroom (10 page)

Lydia was nervous, but it had nothing to do with spirits. Gideon’s lovemaking—if
lovemaking
was the term for it—had set her all a-jangle inside and, even now, hours later,
she felt an occasional, twitching echo of the pleasure he’d given her. She was at once sated, and in dire need of more intimate attention.

“Oh, no,” she said, with a little laugh. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Indeed, for all that had happened there, much of it truly tragic, the Porter house seemed to embrace Lydia when she stepped inside, just behind Lark. She felt as though it had been waiting to welcome her back, to enfold her and offer her solace.

“Good,” Lark said, sort of waddling over to the longcase clock standing silent against the foyer wall. Gently, she opened the glass door on its front, reached inside to pull up the heavy brass weights, shaped like pinecones, and, after consulting the tiny watch pinned to her bodice, move the hands to their proper places. “Empty houses make me sad. They should be full, don’t you think? Full of laughter and life and—” she paused, her eyes twinkling as she looked into Lydia’s face “—children. Lots of noisy Yarbro children.”

Lydia’s cheeks heated. She’d found it impossible to lie still while Gideon was working her up into a frenzy in their narrow bed, after the wedding—had Lark and Rowdy heard some revealing noise? Or was it just that, Gideon and Lydia being newlyweds, everyone simply assumed the marriage had been promptly consummated, like any other?

“That would be…nice,” she answered, somewhat forlornly.

Lark stopped, there in the large, blessedly cool entryway, and regarded Lydia seriously. “I know the wedding was a little—hurried,” she said, her voice quiet, though the two of them were alone in that spacious old house. “But—well—when I saw the way you looked at Gideon, I thought—was
I wrong?” She chuckled, shook her head again. “That was certainly jumbled. I’m just going to ask you straight-out, Lydia—do you love Gideon?”

Tears sprang suddenly to Lydia’s eyes, giving her no opportunity to weave a deceptive answer. Even if she’d been willing to lie to Lark, which she wasn’t, it would have been impossible. “Yes,” she said miserably. “I think I fell in love with him years ago, when he brought me here, to this house, from the school, in the middle of that terrible snowstorm. And if it wasn’t then, it must have been when he gave me that letter—”

Lydia very nearly broke down then, bit her lower lip and looked away, her shoulders trembling with the effort to contain the choking sob that flew into the back of her throat, like some trapped and frantic creature, flapping dry and boney wings.

Tenderly, Lark took Lydia by the shoulders. “If you love Gideon,” she asked gently, “then why are you crying?”

Because he doesn’t love me.

Lydia might not have been able to get those words out, her fondness for her sister-in-law notwithstanding, even if she hadn’t been stricken to silence. For Lydia’s besetting sin was pride, and Gideon’s disinterest chafed her there, and sorely.

“Oh,” Lark murmured, saddening a little. “Even after the way Gideon behaved last night—well, I thought everything was all right, because you were glowing when you came downstairs this morning—”

Mortification swept through Lydia. She put her hands to her face, wanting everything to disappear when she pulled them away again—Lark, the wonderful, lonely old house, Stone Creek.

And Gideon.

Lark embraced Lydia, offering sisterly comfort. When
she took hold of Lydia’s shoulders and held her away to look into her face, Lark’s eyes fairly twinkled with warmth and fond sympathy—but not pity. Thank heaven, not pity—Lydia could not have borne that from a stranger, let alone a person she admired so much.

“When Gideon got the letter,” she reminded Lydia, “he rushed to save you from Mr. Fitch. From what the U.S. Marshal said in the wire he sent to Rowdy, he turned half the town upside-down to do it. That
means
something, Lydia. My guess is Gideon just hasn’t figured out what that something is yet.”

“Rowdy and Wyatt
forced
him to marry me,” Lydia finally managed to say. “I
know
they did!”

Lark chuckled at that. “Lydia,” she said firmly, “no one
forces
a Yarbro to do
anything,
especially not another Yarbro.” She smiled more broadly then. She tilted back her head, took in their surroundings. “You and Gideon will have a fine home here,” she went on presently, and in a tone of happy resolution. “Together.”

Lydia could not hold back her confession; it burst from her, partial and broken, the thing with boney wings escaping to fly free. “He didn’t—he hasn’t—”

Lark frowned, quickly discerning Lydia’s meaning. “But this morning—the way you looked—”

Lydia said nothing. What
could
she have said?

“Oh,” Lark said, as realization dawned.
“Oh.”

Lydia clutched at Lark’s hands. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? Not even Rowdy? I’d
die
if anyone knew!”

“It’s natural for a man to please a woman, Lydia,” Lark answered. “There’s no shame in that.”

Recalling the things she’d felt when Gideon kissed her, when he touched her in such intimate ways,
reliving
those things so intensely that her very core seemed to be ablaze,
Lydia shook her head. “What he did to me was—it was
wonderful,
Lark. But for anyone to know he didn’t—he didn’t want me—”

“Oh, he wants you all right,” Lark broke in. “He’s a man, and a
Yarbro
man, in the bargain. Whatever his reasons for not making love to you, Lydia—and I’d guess it’s some foolish idea that it would be dishonorable—he won’t be able to withstand the temptation forever.” A light went on in Lark’s lovely, serene face. “What you have to do is
seduce
him!” she cried. “A challenge with the aunts and Helga around, I know, but still—a glimpse of an ankle here, a soft touch to the back of his neck there—”

“How can I seduce him?” Lydia blurted. “He told me last night that as soon as we found a place of our own, we’d have separate rooms—”

Lark laughed. “Oh, he
is
deluded,” she said. “Unless he locks his door, or shoves a bureau in front of it, he won’t be able to keep you out of his bed.”

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—”

G
IDEON 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.