The Marriage Bed (21 page)

For a moment they lay still in each other's arms, then she lifted her head and started searching for something with one hand.

"What are you doing?" he asked, wondering if he might have fallen asleep for a second or two.

"My gown," she said, holding the sheet up over her breasts and feeling around with her other hand. "I can't lie here like this."

"Excuse me, Mrs. Williamson," he said, trying not to laugh at his prim wife in light of her performance atop him just moments ago. "But I've just run my barge up your canal. You can lie anyway you damn please."

"Spencer!" she said, blushing furiously. "What a thing to say!"

"I am sorry," he said. "You are a lady of refinement and taste. Now, come here and let me run my train through your tunnel again."

He rolled over and pulled her beneath him, covering her face with kisses as she laughed. What a wonderful laugh she had, deep and sexy. He couldn't remember having heard it before, but he planned to hear it over and over for the rest of his life.

"I could plant my hoe in your furrow," he teased. He felt himself grow hard against her leg, and was sure she could feel it too. "Why, here's an ear of corn now. Wherever is your shucker?''

His hands were on her waist, her hips, her buttocks, tickling her thighs and she was squirming and laughing like a young girl.

"Touch me back," he begged. "I dare you."

"Spencer!" He really was going to have to get the proper lady out of hen He searched for where she had it hidden, checking in one particular spot until surely he had managed to rid her of it, for no proper lady would ever do what she was doing to him with her left hand.

"Oh, Liv!" he shouted, grateful the children were off with their cousins. "It feels so good. Loving you feels so good. What kind of fool would fight this? Oh, God!"

He was getting to know her body quickly. Lush and ripe and soft everywhere, she liked teasing here and stroking there. Fondling her whole breast frustrated her, barely touching the tip drove her wild. In the journal he was keeping in his head, he made entry after entry so that he could please her again and again.

Again he climaxed with her, at least he was pretty sure she had found her piece of heaven, too, and collapsed half on, half off her.

At first he thought she was just breathing hard, but through a haze it came to him that she was crying.

"What? What is it? Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head against him and sniffed. "Have I died?"

"What?"

"Nothing we ever did felt like that. Did I die?"

He laughed and resettled them both against the pillows, dragging her up into the crook of his arm. "No, you ninny. Though we did go to heaven, didn't we?"

She was silent, her hands busy beneath the blankets.

"Liv? Didn't we? Didn't you like it?"

She sat up, pulling the sheets with her to keep those tempting mounds covered. "Turn around, okay?" she said nervously.

He didn't understand.

"Face the door, Spence. Please."

"Livvy, I've already seen everything you've got, and if you've got any more, I couldn't do anything about it now anyway." He was lucky his mouth still worked. But his other parts . . . there wasn't a chance without a good rest.

"Please," she asked again. He didn't like the sound of her voice, but he complied with her request.

"Liv? Something wrong?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe. Spencer, we've made love before, but it's never . . . I've never . . . I'm . . . there's something . . ."

"What? What is it?" He turned around, her privacy be damned, and saw her staring at her hand, which glistened, damp in the moonlight.

"Spencer?" There was fear in her voice where there should have been anger.

He didn't even consider lying. "I'm sorry" was all he said.

Sorry? Whatever did he have to be sorry about? It was her mess, wasn't it? At first she'd thought she was bleeding, but it wasn't her time and there was no color to the stickiness on her thigh.

Sorry?

Was this . . . ? But they had made love before. He had planted his seed so many times and it had been her garden that had refused to allow it to prow.

Sorry?

Dear Lord, could it be? Was this what Bess had meant? She thought back to the other times, but a new memory assailed her.
Why can't you just go away and leave me alone?
Was she remembering right?

"Did we have a fight last night?" The wetness continued to seep from her body, and she leaped from the bed, hoping every ounce of him would leave her.

"Yes," he admitted, pulling on the sheets she had wrapped around her, trying to coax her back to his bed, back to his arms. "And the truth of it is you were packing this morning. But that was before, Liv. All of that was before."

She stood stock still by the edge of the mattress and asked, "Before I fell?"

"Yes, that, too, but I meant before I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop myself from loving you. Damn, Liv, I didn't want to hurt you, I just couldn't risk it. After Kirsten, I couldn't stand the thought of losing another woman I loved, and I thought if I could just stop myself from loving you . . . "

She backed away from him, the bedding slipping from his fingers until she was free of his grasp. The stickiness between her thighs took on its full meaning, and she had no doubt what Bess's French envelope was for. "And children? What was your plan about children?"

"I want a hundred of them. And I want them all to be just like you, not stubborn and stupid like me. And I want—"

"We were talking about before," she said, trying to keep her voice even, fighting the hysteria she was afraid would overwhelm her. "When you didn't love me."

"Then," he admitted, not denying that he hadn't loved her, not even trying to deny it, though it wouldn't have done him any good, "I didn't want more children."

She couldn't resist touching the moisture on her legs. Her stomach turned over at the contact.

"You have to understand," Spencer was saying. "I had lost everyone I loved. I thought if I protected myself, that I
had to
protect myself . . . Of course, I was an idiot. I'm always an idiot. I live in a state of perpetual idiocy. But that's all from before."

Again he reached out to pull her toward him, grabbing the edge of the comforter that shielded her nakedness from his eyes.

"Livvy," he pleaded. "I'm sorry. I said I was a fool. I'm going to make it up to you. We'll have a child. Lots of children. We might have made a baby tonight."

"But not before tonight," she said, just trying to be absolutely sure that she understood what a sham the past three years had been. "Is that right?"

"It was unlikely," he admitted. "But now . . . Your family is full of children. My family . . . well, I . . . now, Livvy, we can have all the children you want."

"That would be very difficult," she whispered, slipping behind the screen and searching in the dark for her under-things. Very difficult indeed, since she fully intended never to let Spencer use her again.

Chapter Fifteen

"You're being ridiculous, Liv," he said as he trudged alongside her in the dark.

This from the man who lived with her for three years pretending to love her or, if not that, pretending to . . . just the thought shamed and embarrassed her. A grown, married woman and she didn't know what was happening in her own bed. She bet that doctor in Milwaukee had enjoyed a good laugh after she and Bess left.

"If you still feel this way in the morning, I'll hitch up George and drive you over myself." He tripped over something in the dark and swore.

She was sorry he didn't break his neck.

"I don't blame you for being mad," he said, his voice conciliatory. "You certainly have a right. But I love you, Livvy. You can have everything you always wanted. Me, kids . . ."

She snorted. It was obviously the only proper response.

"Are you going to be mad at me forever? You know you're not. When I'm on my deathbed twenty years down the road, and you come to say your good-byes, you know you won't still be mad. And ten years? You couldn't stay mad at a fellow as handsome as me for ten years, now could you?"

Ten years? She could be mad at him for ten lifetimes.

"So we're down to five years. A lot can happen in five years. Louisa'll probably be getting married. And you'll expect me to pay for the wedding. And I will, and then how will you be mad at me then? So we're down to what, two years? Heck, Henry'll probably be getting married, and if Remy has his way, Sacotte Farm will be sold to the railroad and we'll have to have the wedding at our place, since the mercantile'll be too small for all those relatives of yours."

It sure was dark out. And the owls weren't making the night sound any friendlier.

"So what? A year? Could you still be mad in a year? With me bringing you gifts and taking Neil under my wing? Could you give up what we just did in our bed for a year, Livvy-love?"

Did he think he was so wonderful in that bed that she would roll on her back for him whenever he asked? Did he think he was the only man in Maple Stand with a rolling pin between his legs?

"So a few months, tops. Now, Liv, is it worth it, for just a few months, to be upsetting the children, imposing on Bess and Remy, and her so sickly, just to punish me? Believe me, I was punished enough. Do you think I enjoyed one minute of keeping my distance from you? Tonight wasn't the first time I ever enjoyed myself, Olivia.
I
knew what
I
was missing."

She stopped dead in her tracks. It was dark, but not so dark that she couldn't see her husband's face. And not so dark that she couldn't give him the slap he deserved.

The crack that reverberated in the still night surrounded Livvy, and for a moment she wasn't sure whether it was the sound of her hand coming into contact with Spencer's face, or perhaps the sound of her heart breaking in two.

"You're the reason I didn't know," she said, the heel of her hand stinging so badly she wanted to put it in her mouth, but she wouldn't give Spencer the satisfaction. "And reminding me about the grand time you and Kirsten had in my bed is not likely to make me take pity on you, Mr. Williamson."

"See," he said, touching his cheek gently as if he could take the pain away with his hand, "I'm an idiot. I say the wrong things. I do the wrong things. But it's because I can't think around you."

"Well, that won't be a problem for you anymore."

"Livvy, I was happy. For the first time since they died, I was happy today. Are you going to take that away?"

"There was a time, Spencer, that I would have given my right arm to hear you say that."

"I'm saying it, Livvy." Sacotte Farm was just over the next rise. Having walked the distance a thousand times, neither Spencer nor Olivia had to see it to know it was there.

"It's too late."

"I could pick you up and carry you home." He put a hand on her arm.

"And are you going to chain me to the bed, or the stove?" she asked.

He let her go and kept pace next to her. "It's not too late," he said just as they were feet from the door. "You'll see, Liv. You loved me when I was at my worst. If you could do that, loving me at my best is gonna be as easy as rolling off a log."

"People who roll off logs drown," she said, one step on the porch where long ago she had spent her days mooning over the man who was now begging for forgiveness.

"I'd save you, Livvy," he said, cupping her chin and letting her see the tears in his eyes. "After all, I owe you one."

He owed her a lot more than one. If tonight was any indication of the sparks two people in love could produce, he owed her three years and as many children. She didn't see any way he'd be able to repay that debt. No way at all.

But even if she saw it clear as day even in the dark of night, that didn't mean he was ready to give up.

"You can't just turn off that love, Liv," he said when she stepped up onto the porch.

"Ssh," she warned him, pointing toward the screen door. "Someone will hear you."

"I don't care," he said, maybe even a little louder. "You love me, Olivia Williamson. You can't tell me you can just stop that feeling that you've had all your life."

"Well," she said, taking hold of the railing to steady herself. "For three years I've watched a master. I'm sure I've picked up a few tricks."

"That's not fair," Spencer said his voice a plaintive whine. "I lost everything. What have you lost that compares?"

"I thought I wasn't a woman, Spencer," she said, embarrassed by the admission. "Do you know what it feels like to think you can't bear a child? That you have no purpose on earth? That you're being punished?"

"I'm sorry, Livvy," He touched her gently on the shoulder and let his hand run down her arm. "I do know what it feels like to believe you're being punished, and I know what it feels like to lose a child, and given the choice of not bearing one or losing one, I know what I chose, and I would choose it again."

"I'm so tired of
your
pain, Spencer.
Your
loss.
Your
choice. Did you ask me? Did you tell me? Did you care that they all believed
I
was barren? That
I
believed I was barren?"

What was the point? It wasn't as if he would ever understand the pain he had caused her. He was too busy nursing his own to make sure it never died. She opened the door and let herself in.

"I'll come by in the morning to see if you've changed your mind," he shouted through the screen door into the darkened room.

"I won't," she said quietly, seeing Neil's form on the sofa and praying the boy had slept through yet another of his aunt and uncle's arguments.

"Then I'll come again the next day," Spencer said as she was closing the wooden door behind her. He raised his voice. "And the day after that. For as long as it takes, Olivia. I won't give you up."

She leaned against the door with her back for a moment, then, feeling the tears welling up, she hurried to the kitchen, wanting to spare her nephew the sight of his aunt breaking down and crying for all the dreams that had died stillborn in Kristen's bed just an hour before.

Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth to silence her cries, she leaned against the kitchen sink and let the tears roll down her cheeks.

Neil had heard his uncle yelling the night before, and it had taken him a long time to fall back to sleep again. It seemed he had just managed to close his eyes when the sound of Uncle Spencer's voice roused him again.

"Somebody open this goddamn door!"

Aunt Bess's hand flew to her mouth, and Uncle .Remy grimaced and shook his head.

"She doesn't want to see you," Uncle Remy yelled toward the closed door. "She's getting the children ready for school. All six of them."

Neil thought about correcting Uncle Remy. After all, Josie wasn't going to school, but he thought his uncle was just trying to sound put out, and he sure was doing a good job of it.

"I could help," Uncle Spencer said. Neil nearly fell off the sofa. Uncle Spencer was about as helpful around the kitchen as Thom-Tom was in the field. Aunt Liv must have felt the same way, judging from the sound of the spoon clattering to the floor.

But she must have said no, because Aunt Bess, stationed at the doorway to the kitchen, looked into the kitchen and then shook her head at Uncle Remy, who told Uncle Spencer that Aunt Liv still didn't want to see him. It reminded him of when Thom-Tom and Philip had had a fight and they kept talking through Henry, asking him to tell the other one this or that. Uncle Remy had boxed Philip's ears and threatened to do the same to Thom-Tom if they kept on with it.

He wondered if Uncle Remy felt like boxing Aunt Liv's ears. From the looks of things, he sure would have liked to box Uncle Spence's.

"I'll just wait for the children, then," Uncle Spence said. "I could walk 'em all to school. Maybe even give Josie a ride in that wagon of Philip's."

"Philip traded the wagon for a beat-up bicycle," Uncle Remy said. "And the kids know where the school is by now. Go home, Spencer, you've done enough damage for one day."

"Remy, for crying out loud, open the damn door."

"You watch your language, Spencer Williamson. I got children living in this house," Bess yelled.

"You ain't heard language yet, Bess Sacotte. Now open this door or I'll give you a sample of gutter talk that'll have you repainting the porch before noon."

"And I'll take soap to your tongue sure as I would one of my boys. You hear me?"

The door might have been closed, but they could surely hear Aunt Bess in Sturgeon Bay.

"You can't keep my wife in there," Uncle Spencer yelled back. "Not now."

Aunt Bess and Uncle Remy exchanged questioning looks.

"Jeez, Remy, I love her," Uncle Spencer yelled from the porch. "She's got to know I'm sorry. I've promised . . . oh, never mind!"

Aunt Bess opened the door and stepped outside, following after Uncle Spencer's retreating back. Neil couldn't hear the words they exchanged, but he did see his aunt pat his uncle on the shoulder and look toward the house.

And he did have the distinct feeling that after he and his cousins were out of the house, there was going to be a lot of talk he would be happy to miss.

"He wants to
what
?" Livvy asked incredulously once all the children but Josie were gone to school.

"He wants to take the children on a picnic," Bess said as if Spencer Williamson already had been nominated twice for father of the year.

"I won't go on a picnic or anywhere else with that man," Livvy said, seeing right through his little ploy. She put three spoons on the floor for Josie to play with and raised her voice so that she could be heard over the girl's banging. "Ever."

"You aren't invited." Bess was washing up from breakfast and didn't even turn to look at her sister-in-law.

"Oh? And when is this little outing? It probably didn't even occur to him that the children are in school all day." She took the spoons away from Josie and put her booted foot in front of the child. "Try to open the lace," she told the baby.

"Well, he's got this idea that's kinda nice," Bess said. It seemed to Livvy that Bess was purposely avoiding looking at her. Although with six children and three adults there were a lot of dishes to be washed. And Bess had set Livvy to the mending pile, claiming she had younger eyes. "He's planning a supper under the trees. It gets dark so late now that they can have dinner and play about before the moon even starts to rise."

It sounded beautiful, except that Spencer would be part of it. Livvy wished she'd thought of it first. An evening outside with the children was just the thing she felt she needed.

"He says he can show Neil how to tell the weather from the haze around the moon, and maybe point out the North Star, though he admits he isn't too good with the constellations. Kind of get them ready for that eclipse that's coming."

"What eclipse?" Her father had always pored over the almanac and told her about what to expect from the heavens. The idea of Spencer doing the same thing . . . well, she just wasn't even going to think about it.

"Don't know," Bess admitted. "He was going on and on about at least being able to recognize Cygnus and the dipper, and sort of apologizing for not knowing more. And then he started in on that picnic thing."

Livvy knew the heavens as well as she knew the back of her hand. On summer nights she would lie on the grass with her father and brother and study the sky and wish on stars. Her fondest wish, of course, always had been that someday she and Spencer would lie out in a field teaching the heavens to children of their own.

"That's ridiculous," she said, putting down a repaired shirt. "It's a school night. They need their sleep."

"You're rather snippy this morning, Olivia. It might help you to get some of that anger out. You want to tell me about what you're doing here?"

"I'm growing up, Bess. No more fooling myself, no more being fooled. I know it's an imposition. I plan to earn our keep and pay our way. You can be sure of that."

Bess dried her hands on the dishrag and turned around to study Livvy as if she had grown another head. "You thinking that this is a permanent thing?"

Livvy didn't need to consider. "Yes."

"Livvy," Bess said softly, coming to the table and settling in a chair close enough to take her sister-in-law's hand. "Honey, this is a problem. I can barely manage with my own three, and they're big boys." Josie went after Bess's lace. "Don't, honey, I can hardly reach 'em once a day as it is."

"I'll take over your chores, Bess. In fact, things'll be even easier for you with us here. And I figure I can bake and sell my stuff to Charlie Zephin to earn enough to pay you back for our food until I can think of something else."

"You've loved that man all your life, Olivia Williamson. I wouldn't be making such long-range plans if I was you.

Livvy picked up Josie. It was time to get on with her day, time to get on with her life. "No," she said as she stood, felt the looseness of her boot, and sat again. "I was in love with somebody else. At every stage of loving him, I was in love with someone else."