Vows (37 page)

 
"Tom … stop…"

 
He stilled, dropped his face into the lea of her shoulder, and lay upon her, panting.

 
"This is a sin," she whispered.

 
He expelled a ragged breath, rolled to his back, dropped one arm across his eyes and the other across his groin.

 
She rolled away and sat up, but he grabbed her wrist. "Stay. A minute please." She curled toward him, pressing her knees and forehead against his side. For minutes they lay linked by the three contact points, descending like dandelion seeds on a still day. When his pulse had settled he said, "You don't do these things with Charles, do you?"

 
"No."

 
"Then why do you do them with me?"

 
"I don't know. If you're blaming me—"

 
"I'm not." Again he held her from leaving. "I'm trying to be honest. I think maybe we're falling in love with each other. What do you think?"

 
She had known the possibility existed the day she toured his barn, but when faced with the words was afraid to say them; they were so absolute and could bring such tumult into so many lives. "This is not the supreme test, I don't think. This is only lust. I've loved Charles for so long—I know I love him, but it's because of years and years of familiarity. Everybody I know married people they'd known a long, long time—my parents, their parents, even my friend's parents. I never thought love happened this fast."

 
"I never though so, either. I was like the other people you know, in love and engaged to a girl I'd known for years. But she had the honesty to break away when she realized she loved someone else. At first I was bitter about it, but now I'm beginning to see what strength it took for her to admit that her feelings had changed."

 
The longer Tom spoke the more she wished him silent, for she foresaw great hurt ahead for many should this wellspring between them be what he believed.

 
"Emily?" He found her hand and held it loosely, stroking it with his thumb while lying in thought for a long time. Finally he went on. "It's not just lust. Not for me. It's things I admire about you—your dedication to your work, and to your family, and to Charles, even. I respect you for not wanting to tread on Charles's feelings, and for not wanting me to tread on Tarsy's … and your affection for the animals and your sympathy for your mother and the way you do battle to keep me honorable. Those things count as much as any others. And you're … different. Every other woman I know dresses in petticoats and aprons." He rolled toward her and laid a hand on her waist. "I like your independence—britches and veterinary medicine and all. It makes you unique. And I like the color of your hair…" He touched it. "And your eyes." He kissed one. "And the way you kiss and the way you smell and the way you look … and I like this…" He found her hand and placed it on his throat where a strong pulse drummed. "What you do to me inside. If it is lust, all right, that's part of it. But I want you … I had to say it, just once."

 
"Hush." She covered his lips. "I'm so frightened and you don't help at all."

 
"Tell me," he whispered, closing his eyes, kissing her fingertips.

 
"I can't."

 
"Why not?"

 
"Because I'm still promised to him. Because a betrothal is a kind of vow, and I made that vow to him when I accepted his proposal of marriage. And besides … what if this is momentary?"

 
"Does it feel momentary to you?"

 
"You ask me for answers I can't give."

 
"Then why did you meet me tonight?"

 
"I couldn't seem to help myself."

 
"So what should I do tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that?"

 
"Do?"

 
"I'm the man. Men pursue."

 
"But to what end?"

 
Ah, that was the question—to what end? Neither knew the answer. To mention marriage would, after a mere twenty-four-hour liaison, be precipitous. And anything less would be, as she said, iniquitous. No honorable man would expect a woman to settle for that. Yet to go on deceiving Charles was unthinkable.

 
Emotionally weary, Emily pulled herself to the side of the bed and sat in a jumble of skirts, holding her head, coiled forward in misery, pressing her elbows against her belly.

 
Tom sat up, too, equally as heavy-hearted, studying the back of her head, wondering why it had to be she he had tumbled for. In time he lifted a hand and began absently straightening strands of her mussed hair because he could think of nothing else to offer.

 
"Emily, these feelings aren't going to go away."

 
She shook her head vehemently, still covering her face.

 
"They aren't," he repeated.

 
Abruptly she rose. "I have to go." He stayed behind, staring at the dark floor, listening to her sniffling, donning her outerwear in the kitchen. He felt like hell. He felt like a traitor. With a sigh he rose and went out to her, stood in the dim stovelight watching her button her coat. He followed her silently to the door and stood behind her while she faced it without touching the knob. He touched her shoulder and she spun around, flinging her arms around his neck, gripping him with quiet desperation.

 
"I'm sorry," he whispered against her bobcap, holding the back of her head as if she were a child he carried through a storm. "I'm sorry, tomboy."

 
She held her sobs until she was down his porch steps and halfway across his yard, going at a dead run.

Chapter 13

«
^
»

E
dwin arose at six the following morning. Outside, the sky was still black above an unbroken blanket of new snow. Stepping out the back door, he breathed deep, pulling in the fragrance of a fresh world after the cloying odor of Josie's sickroom. There were times when he entered it that the gorge rose in his throat, times when he lay in his cot thinking he would suffocate, times when he stood silently in the doorway, watching her suffer, and thought of the nostrums in his daughter's veterinary case: opium, aconite, tannic acid, lead—if administered in large enough doses, any one of them could bring a merciful end to his wife's suffering.

 
Edwin moved off the step, dropped his chin, and watched his boots lift snow as he walked to the privy.

 
Would you do that to your own wife? Could you?

 
I don't know.

 
If you did, you'd never be sure whether you did it to put her out of her misery or to end your waiting for Fannie.

 
Worries, worries. Frankie had become a worry, too. He refused to enter the sickroom or to talk to his mother. She had grown so pitifully emaciated that the boy found himself unable to accept the change in her. Frankie seemed to be denying that his mother was dying.

 
And now this thing with Emily and Tom Jeffcoat—something else to worry about.

 
Returning to the kitchen, Edwin found Fannie already up, filling the coffeepot, dressed in a blue plaid housedress and a long white bibbed apron. Most mornings Emily arose at the same time as they and was here in the kitchen creating a welcome buffer over breakfast. Not so today. They were alone in the room, with the stovepipe snapping and the lamplight sealed inside by the long shades, still drawn from the night before.

 
"Good morning," Fannie greeted.

 
"Good morning."

 
Edwin closed the door and stripped off his jacket, revealing black suspenders over the top of his woolen underwear.

 
"Where's Emily?"

 
"Still sleeping."

 
He poured water into the basin, began washing his face and hands while listening to Fannie set the coffeepot on the stove, then get out a frying pan. When he straightened, drawing the towel down his face, he found her standing at the stove watching him, a slab of bacon in one hand, a butcher knife in the other, forgotten. For moments neither of them moved. When they did, it felt as natural as receiving falling snowflakes upon a lifted face; they stepped to one another and kissed—good morning, plain and simple, as if they were man and wife.

 
They parted and smiled into each other's eyes while his hands continued drying on the towel.

 
"Have I ever told you how much I love finding you here in my kitchen when I walk in?"

 
"Have I ever told you how much I love to watch you washing at the sink?"

 
He hung the towel on a peg and she began slicing the bacon on a board.

 
He combed his hair and she dropped the meat into the pan, sending up a sizzle.

 
"How many eggs do you want?"

 
"Three."

 
"How many slices of toast?"

 
"Four." So much like man and wife.

 
She searched out three eggs and the toasting racks and a plump loaf of bread while he went to find a clean shirt, and brought it back to the kitchen to don. Standing just inside the doorway, he watched her turning the bacon while he flipped down his suspenders, slipped his arms into the starched cotton, and slowly began buttoning it.

 
"I meant it, Fannie," he said quietly.

 
"Meant what?"

 
"That I love having you here, baking my bread, keeping my house, washing my clothes." He stuffed his tails into his pants and snapped the suspenders into place. "Nothing's ever felt so right."

 
She came to him and ran her fingers beneath one suspender, straightening a twist.

 
"For me either." Their eyes met, caring and momentarily happy. They kissed again, in a room filled with the scent of toasting bread and boiling coffee. When the kiss ended, they hugged, with her nose pressed against the clean starchy scent of his shirt, which she had happily laundered for him; and with his nose nestled in her hair, which smelled faintly of bacon, which he gladly provided for her.

 
"God, I love you, Fannie," he whispered, holding her by both arms, gazing into her eyes. "Thank you for being here. I couldn't have made it through these days without you."

 
"I love you, too, Edwin. It seems fitting that we should go through this together, don't you think?"

 
"No. I want to spare you, yet I can't bear the thought of sending you away. Fannie, I want to confess something to you, because once I confess it I know I'll never do it."

 
"Do what, dearest?"

 
"I've thought of taking something from Emily's bag—laudanum, maybe—and ending Josephine's life for her."

 
Tears glistened in Fannie's eyes. "And I've watched her shrivel away, fighting for breath … and I've thought of putting a pillow over her face and ending her painful struggle."

 
"You have?"

 
"Of course. No human being with a dram of compassion could help but consider it."

 
"Oh, Fannie…" He hooked an arm around her neck and rested his chin on her head, feeling better, less depraved, knowing she'd thought of it, too.

 
"It's terrible, thinking such things, isn't it?"

 
"I've felt so guilty. But poor Josie. Nobody should have to suffer like that."

 
For a moment she absorbed his strength, then patted his back as if punctuating the end of a statement.

 
"I know. Now sit down, Edwin, and let's not talk of it again."

 
While they ate, dawn came, paling the shades at the windows to the color of weak tea, bringing the faraway barking of dogs across town. Often Edwin and Fannie gazed at each other. Throughout the meal they felt the false connubial closeness brought about by the sharing of mundane morning routine. Once he reached across the table to touch her hand. Twice she rose to refill his coffee cup. Returning the second time, she kissed the crown of his head.

 
He caught her hand against his collarbone, brushed his beard along her palm. "Fannie, I have to talk to you about something else. I need your advice."

 
"What is it, Edwin?"

 
She sat down at a right angle to him, their hands joined at the table corner.

 
Holding her gaze, he told her, "I walked into the livery office yesterday and found Emily kissing Tom Jeffcoat."

 
Fannie's expression remained unsurprised as she sat back and hooked a finger in her coffee cup. "So, now you know."