Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (44 page)

“I love you, too, Ethan.  More than I could ever convey.”

We kissed again, his hands cupping my cheeks.  I felt wetness
on my cheeks and realized I had tears.  He must have realized it, too, for
he stopped kissing me.

“Maddie, why are you crying?”

 “I’m just so happy that you’re not angry with me.”

“Oh, my sweet Maddie,” he said, enveloping me in his arms. 

My tears turned sad, and I shook in his arms.  He whispered
soothing words to comfort me. 

“I never want this to end, Ethan.  Why can’t we just be
together?  Why does it have to be like this?”

“Let’s not think about that right now, shall we?  Let’s just
enjoy each other for the day.”

I stopped crying, and nodded my head.  “I apologize.  I
cry more easily these days,” I said, smiling as he wiped tears off my
face.  “I have missed you so much,” I said.  “You haven’t been here
in so long, and then you were mad and hurt…” I trailed off.

“I have missed you, too.”  He kissed me again to prove how
much he missed me, leaving me breathless.

Lillie squealed out in delight, interrupting us again.  We
reluctantly turned toward her and saw that she was pointing at a deer over by
the woods.  It was standing very still, ears pointed up.  Lillie
said, “That!” pointing again at the deer, and it ran off into the woods. 

Ethan and I started walking again and held hands, pushing Lillie’s
carriage.  We reached the old slave quarters close to the family graveyard
and headed into the woods.  We found a fallen tree to sit on, and Ethan
let Lillie get out of the carriage to explore a bit.

“So, how did you manage to get away from Elizabeth for the whole
day?”

“She doesn’t know I’m staying here the whole day.  She thinks
I’m at the marketplace.  Can I borrow something to take home with me, so
she won’t think I was lying?”

“I could give you some of my herbs.  Most of them are gone
now, but I still have some oregano and peppermint hanging on.”

“Perfect.”

I smelled the pine and cedar trees all around us.  The cedar
trees had tiny little blue berries on them.  “You could also take her some
camellias,” I said.  “I found some when digging out some honeysuckle over
by the grape arbor.  I pruned it, and it is blooming nicely now.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“I told you before, Ethan.  I would do anything for you.”

“You are so loving and so devoted.  I don’t deserve
you.”  His lips were on mine again.  He was spoiling me with all the
kisses.  It seemed like he was making up for lost time.

We watched Lillie hide behind bushes and then peek out at us,
shouting, “Boo!”  We laughed and played along, acting silly.

“Her hair is getting more like yours every day,” Ethan said. 
“Long golden-brown curls.”  I smiled.  It was good to be able to talk
about our child and share stories.  I hoped we could do the same with our
next child.

I told Ethan about how William had been helping me with my
symptoms with his herbal remedies…the ginger tea for nausea, chamomile tea to
help with better sleep, and the ointment for stretch marks.  He frowned
slightly.  I also told him about the dreams I had been having and William
making a dream catcher for me, but it wasn’t working, as I’d still been waking
up screaming for him.

“Oh, sweetheart, how terrible for you.”  He hugged me and
kissed the top of my head. 

“I didn’t have one last night,” I told him.  “First time in
weeks.”

He smiled.  “I’m glad.  So telling me the truth
yesterday truly helped you to feel better?”

“It did.”

He told me he didn’t like the part of William pulling me away from
him.  “Has he ever shown any sign of aggression towards you?”

“No, not at all.  He’s been very helpful and very
accommodating.  As I started to say earlier, he asked me not to do any
heavy gardening besides pulling weeds, not to climb anything to reach something
tall, like picking apples or pecans off the trees, and he washes the dishes
sometimes for me.””

He frowned again.  “This is worse than I thought.  He
has grown an attachment to you.”

“Well, yes, so to speak.  He did ask me to marry him.”

“I thought it was just for show?  Not a real marriage.”

“That is true.  It would be just out of convenience, nothing
more.  I already told you I don’t love him.”

“Ah, but I think he loves you.”

His observation stunned me.  It was my turn to frown. 
“He couldn’t.”

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you.  I honestly think he
does.  I don’t think I could bear it if you married him and he tried to
kiss you, or worse, if you started falling in love with him.  Not to
mention that he would be helping you to raise my baby.”

“Now you see how I feel,” I said. “It has been the same for me,
watching you and Elizabeth together, the way she looks at you, imagining the
two of your on your wedding night, the baby that she now carries, and her
helping to take care of our Lillie.”

Realization hit him.  “You’re right.  I see your point
of view now, which I had not seen before.  I broke your heart when I chose
her over you, I realize that.  If you choose to marry William, it will
break my heart, as well, so I suppose we will be on even ground then.”

“He protected me on Thanksgiving.”  I told him about the man
I saw sneaking around the kitchen.  “Was it you?  Did you drop by to
see me that day?”

“No.  This worries me.  It may have been Jeff. 
Please be careful.”

“I will, I promise.”

“Let’s get out of these woods,” he said worriedly.  “Why
don’t you show me what you’ve done with your herbs and the grape arbor?”

He picked Lillie up and twirled her around in the air on his shoulders,
to which she squealed in delight.  He placed her back in the carriage, and
then reached for my hand as we made our way back across the empty field. 
We swung our arms back and forth playfully while we walked.

We reached the laundry house and walked around to the back where
the grape arbor was.  “This looks beautiful, Maddie,” Ethan said. 
There were still some roses blooming, and English ivy reached and grew in and
around the roses and spilled over the
bricks.
 I showed him my herb garden directly behind the laundry house, where the
peppermint, oregano, and lavender were still alive and growing.  I rubbed
my hand over the lavender, which smelled wonderful, and I put my hand in front
of Ethan’s nose to smell also.

“Mm, I never get tired of that smell,” he said.  “Especially
when it’s on you.”  He suddenly put his nose in my neck and took an
exaggerated whiff above the collar of my blouse.  His beard tickled my
neck, and I squealed and laughed out loud, which caused him to kiss all up and
down my neck in quick successions playfully, making loud kissing noises. 
His beard still tickled me, and I was laughing so hard, I started getting
tears.  He stopped then, took me in his arms, rubbed his thumb across my
cheek softly, and kissed me deeply.  “I love to hear you laugh like that,”
he said after the kiss.

“Only you can make me laugh like that,” I said, smiling.

Lillie wanted back out of the carriage and made her wishes known
by banging her hands on the side noisily and saying, “Out!” 

“Yes, ma’am,” her father said.  He took her out of her
carriage again, and I showed Ethan the deep pink camellias on the other side of
the grape arbor.  “It’s amazing that something this beautiful can survive
all the weeds and neglect.  You did well to bring it back to life like you
did.” 

“Thank you.”  We sat down on the bench under the grape
arbor.  The vines were all dried up but still hanging on, twisted over and
under the branches I had labored over in the summer.

“How many grapes did you get this year?”

“Not too many, just enough to enjoy ourselves a little.  We
had to get them quick before the birds got to them.  Hopefully there will
be more next year.  Do you remember how pretty the vines used to be? 
They covered the whole arbor.”

“Yes, I do remember.  Was the arbor still here, after the
war?”

“No, we had to burn that in the winter right before the war
ended.  I built this myself, when I first came back here in June.”

“You did all this yourself?  With your own two hands?” he
asked in a dramatic surprised gesture, teasing me again.  

“Yes, with my own two hands,” I teased back.  I didn’t
mention that William had helped me a little.  “I had to do something when
I got here to take my mind off of you,” I said, more seriously.  “It
didn’t work, though.  I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”

He leaned over and kissed me slowly and sweetly.  “Nor have
I, you,” he said softly. 

Lillie started chasing a stray cat around the bushes, walking at
first, then she got down and started crawling, mimicking the cat walking on all
four legs.  We could hear her talk to it in her own language in a hushed
voice.

“Do you remember proposing to me here?” I asked Ethan.

“Of course I remember.  That was one of the happiest days of
my life, despite being in the middle of the war.” 

“Mine, too.  That was the first night we spent in each
other’s arms.  It was wonderful, even if your mother was there in the same
room with us.”  We both smiled at the memory.  I almost wished we
could go back in time to that moment again and erase all the bad things that
had happened to us in between.  Keep the good parts and skip the bad
parts.  I still wished I could remember my accident, the thing that
started this whole mess.

Lillie got tired of the cat and walked over to us, reaching to be
picked up.  I picked her up and held her sideways, rocking and humming to
her.  “It’s her naptime,” I told Ethan.  He watched as I hummed and
rocked her to sleep, and he began rubbing my back, which felt wonderful. 
Once Lillie was asleep, he picked her up and put her back in the carriage. 
I covered her up with a warm fuzzy blanket, yawning in the process.

“Have we done too much walking, Maddie?  Is the baby
okay?”  He put his hand on my abdomen as he spoke.

“Yes, the baby is fine,” I said.  “I’m just a little tired,
no need to fuss over me.  But I would love another back rub.  You
have some mighty fine hands there.”

“Oh, you enjoyed that, did you?”

“Mhmm.”

Ethan turned me to face away from him, and he began rubbing my
neck and shoulders, working his way down my back.  I leaned forward
slightly so he could reach better.  I closed my eyes, enjoying his touch
and wishing I didn’t have the cape on so I could feel his hands even
more.  But as it was, I was still getting cold chills from the
massaging.  While still massaging, I felt his warm breath in my ear as he
asked me, “Would you like to nap, as well?”

“Not on this hard bench,” I said, turning my head towards him and
wrinkling up my nose.

“No, silly.  On the ground.  Allow me to
demonstrate.” 

He stood up and took off his overcoat and laid it on the ground up
against a thick tree trunk nearby.  He sat down on the top part of the
overcoat, and patted the rest of the coat for me to sit down on.

“In this hoop?” I asked.  He laughed.  I looked around,
and seeing no one else around, I reached up under my skirt and untied the
crinoline, taking it off and folding it up, leaning it against the bench. 

“This is highly scandalous,” he said, grinning as I sat down
between his legs and leaned my back against his chest.  I laughed at
him.  He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I could hear him sniffing
my hair.  “Mm, this is nice.”

It
was
nice.  It was actually almost too nice, too
close.  I began to feel yearnings for him, and as he caressed my abdomen softly,
the urge increased.

“I don’t think I can sleep,” I whispered, turning my head sideways
towards him.  Not only did I have yearnings for him, making it hard for me
to sleep, but I also didn’t want to sleep because I wanted to be awake and
enjoy all the time I had with him while he was here.

He kissed my cheek.  “Come on, at least close your
eyes.  You need to rest,” he said very softly. 

He took my bonnet off and then took the hair net off of my hair
and the pins out to let my hair down.  He smoothed it out down my back and
brought some in the front to rest on my chest.  Playing with my hair was
making me want to kiss him instead of going to sleep.  He kissed the top
my head, letting his lips linger there.  I could feel his warm breath
through my hair. 

“How can I sleep when I’m this close to you?” I asked, turning my
head sideways again. 

I shifted my body around more so I could look at him, and draped
my legs across one of his.  He slowly leaned towards me, and we kissed
passionately.  My heart did flips inside of me.  I wrapped my arms
around his neck, and he held me tightly against him.

After a few moments of bliss, I stopped kissing him, knowing that
if we continued, we would have relations right there on the ground…on top of
his overcoat.  I looked at him breathlessly and caressed his face,
regaining my composure.  He did the same.