The Bridegroom (11 page)

He didn’t.

“We’ll all be headin’ over to the Blue Garter Saloon after the whistle blows,” O’Hanlon said. “Just to toss back a few and wash the copper dust out of our throats. Care to join us?”

Gideon debated—or pretended to. “Not tonight,” he finally replied, with what he’d calculated to be just the right note of regret. “My wife will be waiting for me.”

O’Hanlon chuckled, finished off his coffee, made a satisfied sound that put Gideon in mind of old Horace, down in Phoenix, draining his whiskey glass, either not knowing his sons were about to haul him out, or resigned to it and determined to enjoy every last drop of the cure-for-what-ailed-him. “Tied to some colleen’s apron strings, are you?”

Gideon grinned. “I just married her last night,” he said easily. “It’s not her apron strings I’m thinking about.”

All of which was true—though not something he would normally confide in a stranger. Nor, as much as Gideon wanted Lydia, did he intend to do anything about it.

“Well, then,” O’Hanlon allowed, in a good-natured way Gideon knew was at least partly put on, “that’s different, then. You’ve got honeymoonin’ to do. Another time, maybe?”

“Another time,” Gideon confirmed, handing back the empty coffee mug.

O’Hanlon stood, like a man meaning to go his way, but instead he lingered, towering over Gideon, letting him know he ran at the head of this particular herd. “You done this kind of work before?” he asked, and though the question sounded like an afterthought, Gideon knew it was the whole reason the Irishman had approached him in the first place.

“No,” Gideon said, because there were times when the truth was more effective than any lie. “Does it show?”

“Just a bit,” O’Hanlon allowed, flashing a grin in the semidarkness. Then, still casually he continued, “Where’d you draw your wages from last, if you don’t mind my askin’?”

Gideon sighed, but not too heavily. “I was a bank clerk,” he said. “Out in San Francisco. Couldn’t take another day of wearing a coat and tie.”

O’Hanlon weighed that. “You related to the marshal?”

“He’s my brother,” Gideon said.

“Rowdy’s a good man,” O’Hanlon allowed. “If you’re like him, you’ll do fine down here.” An unspoken
if-not
hung at the end of the Irishman’s sentence. Did the crew already suspect he was a ringer, or were they just naturally careful around a stranger?

Gideon was betting on the latter.

And he sure as hell hoped he was betting right.

If these miners ever found out he’d be reporting everything he saw and heard to the owners, smuggling dispatches out of Stone Creek on the stagecoach to avoid using the telegraph, he might meet with some kind of melancholy misfortune—and never get out of the hole.

O’Hanlon walked away.

The whistle blew again, signaling the end of the twenty minutes allotted for a midday meal.

And Gideon went back to work—wishing to God he could go home that night and take real solace in Lydia’s arms. Instead, he’d use Lark and Rowdy’s elegant porcelain bathtub, gulp down what supper he could manage, and collapse into bed, exhausted.

He’d get Lydia’s nightgown—if she’d remembered to recover it from Helga’s room—up around her waist. He’d pleasure her again, a little more boldly this time, and that would be the next best thing to taking his own satisfaction.

He might lie awake the whole night, once he’d banked the fire in Lydia.

Or he might fall asleep with his head between her legs.

Time would tell.

“T
HEY’RE ALL OVER AT
the Porter place,” Rowdy informed Gideon, as soon as he dragged himself through the kitchen door that night, after his shift at the mine had straggled to its merciful end, and he looked around the softly lit room with an expression that must have revealed a lot more than he’d intended. “Lark, Lydia, Wyatt’s Sarah and Sam’s Maddie, the old ladies and the kids—the whole lot of them.”

“Oh,” Gideon said. It hurt to bend and stroke Pardner’s head in greeting, but he did it, just the same. Seemed like the dog was the only one glad to see him.

Rowdy, who had been reading at the table—no sign or scent of supper—watched as Gideon kicked off his boots and placed them on the back step. “Aren’t you going to ask what they’re doing over there?” he wanted to know.

“I figure you’ll get around to telling me sooner or later,” Gideon replied wearily, heading for the coffeepot. He poured a mugful, added a dash of whiskey from the bottle Rowdy kept on a high shelf, took a gulp and waited for the fire to surge through his tired muscles. “I guess Jacob Fitch didn’t show up, looking to reclaim his bride?”

Throughout the long day, when he hadn’t been thinking about mining strikes and deflowering his virgin wife, Gideon had fretted over Fitch, tallying up all the ways the bastard might be plotting to avenge his honor.

“Not so far,” Rowdy admitted, closing his book, taking off the wire-rimmed spectacles he wore when he read for any length of time. “I did get another telegram from the U.S. Marshal down in Phoenix, though. He’s sending a couple of men up here to speak to Lydia—make sure the marriage is valid and she didn’t enter into it under duress.”

Ravenous, Gideon cast a glance toward the stove, even though he knew it was cold. Nothing waiting in the oven, then.

“All right,” he said, leaning back against the spotless counter under Lark’s cupboards and folding his arms, “what are the women doing over at the Porter house?”

Rowdy grinned, rose at last from his chair, and approached the ice box. Drew out a plate of cold chicken and brought it to the table. Took his sweet time answering.

“They’re getting it ready for you and Lydia to live in,” he finally said. Mischief flickered in his eyes, indicating that he’d had a much easier day than Gideon had. “You might want to oil the bedsprings before you turn in for the night, though.”

Focused on the platter of cold chicken—the hungry hordes had already picked through it, evidently, because what was left was mostly wings and necks and scrawny backs—Gideon pumped water at the sink, washed his hands, and sat down at the table. For all that his stomach was rumbling, the comment about the bedsprings had made his neck heat up.

“I won’t be oiling anything tonight,” he said, avoiding Rowdy’s gaze and tucking into the food. If his brother planned to eat, he’d have to fend for himself. “All I want is a bath and eight hours of oblivion.”

Rowdy laughed. Sat down again and folded his hands on top of the closed book—for a moment, he put Gideon in mind of a preacher with a Bible. “You might get the bath, if you hurry,” he allowed. “But I’m not sure about the
oblivion. When those women get back here—that’ll be anytime now, since it’s almost the kids’ bedtime—they’ll be full of chatter about curtains and rugs and flowerbeds. And our lot, brother, is but to listen.”

Gideon barely suppressed a groan. He’d forgotten how respectable women loved to talk, especially if they had taken up some cause; when it came to females, he’d mostly limited himself to the
un
respectable variety. That kind didn’t talk much—just did what needed doing and went on about their business. “I can’t afford the Porter house,” he said, remembering how big it was, and how grand—at least, by Stone Creek standards.

“Lark signed it over to you this afternoon,” Rowdy said. “It’s a wedding present.”

Gideon nearly choked on the last bite of chicken he’d taken.
“What?”

“Lark thinks you and Lydia ought to have a house,” Rowdy told him, as though it were an ordinary thing to do. “So she gave you one.”

Lark, Gideon knew, had inherited her first husband’s railroad and a fortune to go with it when the son of a bitch had done the world a favor by getting himself killed. That was why she and Rowdy had been able to build a house like this one, but except for having more space than most folks did, they lived modestly—so modestly that it was easy to forget they had money.

“Damn it,” Gideon growled, “I can’t accept a
house.
Whatever happened to
reasonable
wedding presents, like tablecloths and teapots?”

Rowdy chuckled at that. “There’s nothing ‘reasonable’ about my wife, once she takes a notion into that beautiful head of hers,” he said. “If you’ve forgotten that, little brother, you’ve been away from home too long.”

By then, Gideon had gobbled up all the chicken there was, and pushed back from the table to set the platter in the sink. He was bound and determined to get to that bathtub before the women got back and he lost his chance.

He wanted to tell Rowdy that he couldn’t take the house for another reason, besides its being too costly a gift. Once he’d ruined any plans O’Hanlon and the others had to go out on strike, he’d be dangerously unpopular around Stone Creek, which meant he’d be leaving in a few months, probably sneaking out of town like a thief in the night, and staying gone for a good long while.

Possibly forever.

Of course, he couldn’t say anything, given his agreement with the members of the mining cartel. Besides, when he’d laid his initial plans, Lydia, the pair of elderly aunts and Helga the housekeeper hadn’t figured into them. He meant to travel light—that would be a necessity—and the harem he’d acquired would need a place to live after he was gone.

Gone.

The thought of leaving Lydia behind made the pit of his stomach drop, like a trap door swinging open over an abyss with the fires of hell itself waiting at the end of a long fall.

But leave her he would.

Wrenching himself back to the right here, right now, he concentrated on matters at hand. He’d gulp down his pride, the way he had his coffee a few minutes before, and the fried chicken, and thank Lark kindly for the house.

“The men at the mine think highly of you,” he told Rowdy in parting as he headed for the back staircase. It was a concession of some kind, though he couldn’t have said why he felt the need to make one.

“They have it hard, Gideon,” Rowdy replied quietly. “The miners, I mean. So do their wives and children.” He
patted the dog’s head, resting on his thigh again. “Pardner here eats better than they do. When you get a chance, pay a visit to the shanties behind the mine and see for yourself.”

Rowdy’s words pierced Gideon’s conscience, so far untroubled, at least as far as the men and their families were concerned, in some tender places.

Pretending he hadn’t heard, he headed upstairs.

T
HE AUNTS HAD CHOSEN
the spacious room behind the kitchen for their quarters—it had a fireplace and a writing desk, and they were charmed to know Lark had coveted that chamber herself when she first came to Stone Creek, as the new schoolmarm, and boarded with Mrs. Porter.

Maddie O’Ballivan, Sam’s brown-haired, bright-eyed, spirited wife, expressed misgivings, having discerned that the spinster sisters had been gently raised, despite the industry they’d displayed throughout the day, dusting and sweeping.

“But there’s only one bed,” Maddie said, concerned.

“We’ve shared since cradle-days,” Mittie responded. Then, with an impish little smile, she added, “And it’s a good distance from the master bedroom, isn’t it?”

Lydia, busy washing out cupboards, while Sarah, the sister-in-law she’d met just that day, dried the last of the dishes, blushed at her aunt’s inference, despite all the careful plans she and Lark had laid for Gideon’s seduction.

Helga was taking the tiny room under the stairs—swearing up and down it would do just fine and she liked the idea of being near the kitchen so she could keep the fire properly stoked on cold winter nights—and that meant Lydia and Gideon would have the entire second floor to themselves.

At least until the babies started arriving, anyway.

“Look at the time,” Lark said, peering down at the watch
on her bodice. She’d had supper sent over from the hotel dining room, and now that the children, her own tribe, as well as Sarah’s and Maddie’s, had eaten, they were starting to run down. A few were irritable, and small skirmishes had broken out here and there. “We’d better go, and leave Lydia to welcome her husband home from a hard day’s work.”

Lydia had known all along that she would be staying behind, while the aunts and Helga returned to Lark and Rowdy’s house for the night, but now that the first stage of the plan was at hand, she felt a little shy.

“Surely there’s no hurry,” she said awkwardly, wiping her hands on her apron.

But the work was done. The house was livable, and the women were already removing their own aprons, pulling the kerchiefs from their heads, gathering handbags and baskets, herding fractious, exhausted children toward the door.

Helga planned to walk back to the Yarbro house, as did Hank, Julia, Marietta and Joseph, Lark and Rowdy’s brood. So the whole lot of them set out suddenly, and in a cluster, without so much as a goodbye to Lydia.

The aunts would squeeze into the buggy with Lark, and they, too, seemed at haste to leave. After placing simultaneous kisses on Lydia’s flushed cheeks, they departed.

Maddie and Sarah shepherded their lively offspring out next, Sarah calling back a reminder that Lydia mustn’t forget about the reception on Sunday afternoon. All the women had promised to return and help with the preparations for the delayed celebration of Lydia and Gideon’s marriage.

Soon, Lydia was alone with Lark, her fellow conspirator, in the kitchen that would now be her own.

“I’ll give you time to bath and change,” Lark said, squeezing Lydia’s hands in parting. “Then I’ll send Gideon over. Remember what we talked about.”

Lydia swallowed hard, nodded. Laughed a little, albeit nervously. Coming from anyone but Lark Yarbro, the advice she’d given Lydia in that upstairs bedroom soon after they’d arrived at the house that morning, would have seemed downright scandalous. “How could I forget?”

Lark smiled. “The pantry is stocked,” she reminded Lydia practically. She’d sent Hank and Julia to the mercantile with a list, soon after they’d turned up at the Porter house, and the food and sundries had been promptly delivered. “Make Gideon a big breakfast, and pack him something hearty to take along to the mine in the morning, too.” She paused, frowned prettily, stretched again, as she’d been doing all day, to ease her overburdened back. “You
can
cook, can’t you?”

Helga had always prepared the meals, and what little Lydia knew of the kitchen arts, she’d learned by observation, not actual doing—but how difficult could it be, she asked herself, buoyed with the confidence she’d gained by a day of competent housekeeping, to fry eggs and slice meat and bread for sandwiches?

“I can cook,” she said.

Lark started for the door.

Lydia trailed after her. “Lark?”

The other woman turned, looking tired and pleased by a good day’s work. “Yes?”

“Thank you,” Lydia said.

Lark smiled. “What are sisters for?” she countered.

And then she was gone, and Lydia was truly alone.

For a long time, she simply stood there, in the middle of that freshly scrubbed kitchen, with its full larder and icebox, paralyzed with hope.

Then, resolved, she made for the rear stairway.

There was a modern bathroom on the second floor, and
Sarah had shown her how to light a fire under the small copper boiler, so there would be plenty of hot water.

Her husband would be home soon.

And Lydia Fairmont Yarbro still had preparations to make.

So she started pouring water into the huge claw-foot tub and began stripping off her clothes.

W
HILE THE BATH, HOT AND DEEP,
didn’t resurrect Gideon—he still felt half-dead—it did revive him a little. He soaked for a while, then soaped himself from head to foot, and soaked again.

A delicate knock at the door brought the odyssey to an end.

“Uncle Gideon?” a small voice called, from the other side.

Julia, Gideon thought. Or little Marietta, the shy one. “Yo,” he answered.

“I need to get in there, really,
really
bad!”

“I’ll hurry,” Gideon replied. If he’d had a little longer, he’d have shaved, but he didn’t want to keep his niece—whichever one it might be—waiting.

“Hurry
fast!”

Gideon chuckled, pulled the plug, rose out of the water, toweled off quickly, dragged on the clean trousers and cotton shirt he’d brought with him from his room.

When he opened the door, Julia shot past him, making straight for the commode and already hiking up her skirts.

He stepped out into the corridor, only to run into his eldest nephew, Hank. Blond and blue-eyed, Hank was Rowdy in miniature, though he had some of his mother’s grace, too. Thank God.