The Bridal Veil (34 page)

At last the contractions subsided and
she lay limp and dazed on the mattress, astounded by the feelings
that Luke had coaxed from her. Her hair had worked loose from the
rope she’d twisted it into and now fanned out on the
pillows.

He rained more kisses upon her hot
skin and wound his fist in her hair. “God, Emily, you’re
wonderful.” His breath against her ear was hot and rapid.“I promise
I’ll be careful—”

Luke covered her with his sweat-damp
body and parted her legs with his knee. He’d had a virgin just once
before, and it had been so long ago he couldn’t remember exactly
what it was like. Careful, he told himself, be careful. She owned
his heart. And she was his wife, deserving every consideration and
all of his patience. But holding back wasn’t easy. It took more
self-control than he’d ever mustered to keep from plunging into her
tender flesh, swollen and wet and waiting all these years for his
entry. He probed her gently and heard her gasp when he breached her
maidenhead. She tried to squirm away from him but he held her fast,
smothering her protests with kisses and rough-whispered apologies.
She lay still and at last he broke the seal of her femininity,
pushing home into the tight warmth of her.

“
Luke—” Emily wrapped her
arms around him and pulled him closer to her.

A groan rose from Luke’s chest at her
acceptance. God, it had been years since a woman had lain beneath
him, and even longer since one had received him with joy. The
emotions churning in him were almost as strong as his basic
instinct to couple with Emily. He would make this last, though, if
he could. He wanted to savor every moment—he wanted to end this
exquisite torment. He angled his body to give her the most
pleasure. He knew that this first time probably wouldn’t be as good
for her as it was for him, but he would try.

Slowly, he began moving within her,
push and pull, ebb and flow. Emily, his innocent with a spirit of
fire and steel, adjusted her movements to match his, and the
heaviness low in his belly increased. She lifted her hips and
moaned, and he knew another climax was about to overtake her.
Suddenly, rapid undulations grabbed him as she reached that instant
of passion. His own need increased threefold and he pushed harder
into her fevered body, seeking his own release.

Faster he plunged, bent on joining his
soul to Emily’s. He thrust forward one last time and tumbled into
an abyss of white-hot convulsive tremors that shook him to his
core. He poured himself into Emily, and it was as if all the pain,
regrets, and sins of his past were released at the same time. In
his mail-order bride, he felt reborn.

At last he lay exhausted and panting
with his head on the pillow next to hers. When his breathing
slowed, he asked, “Did I hurt you? Are you all right?”

Emily wanted to tell Luke that she
loved him, but despite the intimacy they had shared, she felt shy
about revealing her heart. She smiled in the darkness. “No, you
didn’t hurt me. Did—did I do it right?”

He rolled off her and pulled her into
his arms. His chuckle was warm against her hair. “You did it better
than right, Emily. You’re beautiful.”

Beautiful. There was that word again,
applied to her, Emily Cannon Becker. Maybe he really meant it.
After all, he didn’t have to tell her that now—now that she’d
already succumbed to his charm. She burrowed her forehead against
the hollow between his shoulder and throat. “I have a wedding veil.
Well, actually, it was my grandmother’s veil.” She told him the
history of the length of silk and why it was now in her possession.
“Because I was the plain one, I always had a fantasy that if I put
on that veil, I would become beautiful, like the frog turned into a
prince in the fairytale. Except, I’d be a princess, of
course.”

“
Well, what
happened?”

“
I’ve never tried it on. I
thought I’d wear it on our wedding day, but that was a pretty
hurried event. I think I wasn’t meant to wear it.”

He turned his head and tried to look
down at her. “Oh, hell, honey, you don’t need a magic veil.” She
heard compassion and his heart in his words. “You’re already a
princess. At least you are to me.”

She watched in the gloom as he
interlaced his fingers with her own. “You know, you’re a very
remarkable man, Luke.”

“
Me? Naw. I’m just a farmer
who got a second chance at life.”

Emily’s throat tightened and for a
moment she couldn’t speak. Then she reached up to touch his jaw and
the words tumbled out. “I love you, Luke. And I’m so glad I was
able to get up the courage to come out here in Alyssa’s place. I
worried sometimes that it had been a mistake, when Cora still—well,
I worried.”

He shifted on the mattress and
resettled her against him. “I know that was hard—I should have done
something sooner, I guess. But I didn’t know how. Finally, I knew I
had to ask her to leave.”

“
Now we have a new
family.”

Beneath her cheek, his chest rose and
fell on a deep sigh. A silence settled between them. A married
silence was all Emily could think. That intimate moment between
husband and wife when words were not necessary. She’d suspected her
mother had had it with her father, doubted she’d had it with
Emily’s step father. But now, she, plain but well-mannered Emily,
was sharing such a moment with her own husband. A warmth filled
her, one that had nothing to do with being pressed against Luke’s
naked body.

After a time he put a kiss on her
forehead and said, “Morning is going to come pretty early, with a
load of chores. And there’s that henhouse to take care
of.”

He pulled the top quilt over them and
it wasn’t until Emily heard Luke breathing evenly in sleep that she
realized he hadn’t told her the one thing she’d hoped to
hear.

That he loved her, too.

~~*~*~*~~

The hands on Luke’s big alarm clock
pointed at four-twenty-five when dawn crept into the room. Emily
peered at the clock face on the dresser and remembered that Luke
had said daybreak would come soon. It certainly had.

Next to her, Luke still slept, turned
on his side with his arm looped over her waist and his forehead
pressed against her upper arm. He’d thrown a leg over hers on top
of the quilt, and she studied his bare hip and flank. He was as
beautifully made as a sculpture. Except he was flesh and blood, and
he was her husband. She moved a little to get a better view of his
face, relaxed in slumber. He looked younger. His curly hair was
awry and all the lines that usually marked his eyes and brow were
smoothed out. Her heart swelled with affection and tenderness for
him. Then she thought about the night before and hot blood rose to
her cheeks.

The prim etching of the concerned wife
at her husband’s feet in one of her advice manuals now seemed like
an illustration from a child’s book. Emily at last had knowledge
that so many other women already had—what a night in a man’s bed
was really like. And it bore no resemblance to the chaste,
brother-sister relationship that she’d once pictured. It was sweaty
and violently passionate, undignified and intensely intimate beyond
anything she had ever been able to imagine.

And Emily had reveled in
it.

It wouldn’t have helped if someone had
tried to tell her about it before. She realized that it would be
impossible to explain a sexual union to a maiden, even if that were
permissible, which it most certainly was not. Ladies did not speak
of such things, no matter how curious they might be. In any event,
it had to be experienced to be understood. Especially the
heart-stopping pleasure a husband’s nimble fingers could bring to
his wife’s body.

Next to her, Luke tried to pull her
closer in his sleep. As much as she wanted to stay, Emily knew she
had to get breakfast going. There would be a lot of hard work to do
today, and she wanted to give her family a good start.

She slipped from Luke’s embrace and
paused a moment to gaze upon him. Oh, she did hate to leave him,
even for an instant.

Pulling herself away, she went back to
her own room to wash and dress. Downstairs in the kitchen, she
bailed out the heavy tub but decided to let Luke take it out to the
porch.

She went outside to look at the
remains of the henhouse and was shocked by the devastation. A chill
skittered through her, and she knew it wasn’t just from the
coolness of the morning. The sky was still gray and low, although
the rain had stopped for the time being. She crossed her arms over
her chest and wished she still had a shawl.

In the light of day, she saw how close
they had come to losing the barn. Only one corner of the little
shelter remained unscorched. The rest had been reduced to black,
charred rubble that was still hot in some places. Here and there,
she saw blackened chicken carcasses, almost indistinguishable from
the rest of the debris. The huge old oak—nothing of it could be
saved as far as she could see. It had been split right down the
middle, and the smells of fresh and burned wood mingled together.
It would take a lot of work just to clear away the wreckage. And
where would the money come from for a new henhouse? she wondered.
Maybe she could arrange to teach etiquette to other girls in the
area, just as she did the Manning daughters. At the social last
night, a few mothers had expressed interest in having their girls
learn the finer points of proper deportment. Emily wouldn’t be able
to charge much, but every little bit would certainly help. And she
would be able to make a real contribution to the rebuilding
project.

Emily straightened her
shoulders, as if mentally taking on her responsibility. She had
never shied from hard work, and now she had something to
work
for
.

She turned and went back to the house.
With no eggs, she had to improvise breakfast. She stoked the fire
in the stove, then sliced bacon and put it on to fry. She cut bread
to put in the toast rack and got a pot of cornmeal mush bubbling.
By the time she heard Luke’s tread on the stairs, she had food
ready on the table, the coffee brewed and fragrant.

He came into the kitchen and seemed to
fill every corner of it. He grinned at her, and though the morning
was cloudy, it was as if the sun had broken through. “Good morning,
Mrs. Becker.”

Emily felt her face flush and she
stammered like a schoolgirl. “W-well, um, good morning, Mr.
Becker.” But she was grinning too.

He walked to the stove and poured his
coffee. “Did you sleep well?”

She ducked her chin. “Yes, very
well.”

He nodded and gave her a knowing look.
“Me, too.”

Rose followed soon after, dressed in
overalls and yawning. Her hair was a dark tangle, probably because
she’d gone to bed with it wet. She talked about the fire for a
while and then asked Emily, “What’s the bathtub doing in here? Are
you going to take a bath?”

“
Nope, I’m taking that out
to the porch right now,” Luke said, and picked up the tub as if it
weighed no more than an empty soap crate. When he came back inside,
he said, “That’s a hell of a mess out there, isn’t it? I’m not sure
how I’m going to rebuild the henhouse.” But even through this grim
news, he smiled at Emily.

Emily directed Rose and Luke to their
chairs to eat and doled out a big spoon of mush to each to go with
the bacon and toast. “I was thinking about tutoring a few pupils.”
She told him about her idea to teach etiquette. “I thought I might
be able to help the family finances.”

“
Let’s wait and see what
we’re facing,” he replied. “I don’t want you taking on more than
you need to. Being a farm wife is a lot of work on its own.” But
she could see he was pleased with the thoughtfulness of her
offer.

Rose shifted her gaze back and forth
between them, her porridge spoon stalled in her bowl. “What’s
everyone smiling about? Our barn almost burned down and you two
look so happy.” It wasn’t an accusation—she sounded genuinely
puzzled.

Emily exchanged a private look with
Luke, and couldn’t help but remember being held in his arms deep in
the night, their bodies joined. She glanced away, certain that
every detail of the memory was there on her face for anyone to
see.

“
Well, we’re
just . . .” Luke paused and rubbed his hand over his
mouth and chin, as if he smothered a cat-licking-cream smile. Emily
picked up her coffee and took a hasty sip. The strong, hot liquid
reminded her of sharing the whiskey-laced toddy with him. She set
her cup down with a snap. As if he had the exact same memory, Luke
fingered the rim of his own metal cup as he continued with a tender
light in his eyes, “We’re just glad the fire wasn’t any worse,
Rose,” he said.

Rose didn’t look convinced, but she
didn’t ask anymore questions. Obviously she believed this was
another of those instances where adults knew everything and
children were left in the dark.

Under Luke’s intense regard, Emily
tried to eat more of her breakfast. Her heart thumped in her chest,
but she kept her hand steady as she sliced a piece of bacon. Luke’s
gaze tracked her every movement, lingering on her mouth as she took
the bacon between her lips.

“
Since tomorrow is the last
day of school, I thought I’d stop by Grammy’s on the way
home—”