Suddenly she looked smack at him. “My mother says — ” Their gazes locked and nothing more came out. Her lips dropped open and his eyes fell to them — pretty, bowed lips; just looking at them made his heart churn like a steam engine gone berserk.
“What does your mother say?” he whispered in a reedy voice.
“What?” she whispered back.
They stared at each other as if for the first time and felt the thrum of fear and expectation beat through their inexperienced bodies. He leaned to touch her lips with his — a kiss as simple and uncomplicated as youth. But when he backed up he saw she was as breathless and blushing as he. He kissed her a second time and timidly rested his hands on her waist to pull her closer. She came without compunction, hooking her hands lightly on his shoulders. When the second kiss ended they backed off and smiled at each other. Then his eyes swerved to the corner and hers dropped to his chest while they both wondered how many kisses were allowable the first time. But in seconds their gazes were drawn together again. There was scarcely a moment’s hesitation before her arms lifted and his circled, and they were as close as when they’d been dancing, with their lips sealed tightly.
The outside door opened and he leaped back, blushing furiously but gripping her hand without realizing it.
It was his father and Linnea.
As the newlyweds passed into the shadowed cloakroom they looked up in surprise as two startled figures untwined from an embrace.
“Kristian... ” Linnea said. “Oh, and Patricia. Hello.”
“Hello,” they replied in unison.
Linnea felt Theodore halt at her shoulder, staring at his son, obviously perplexed about how to handle such a situation. She spoke into the breach with a naturalness that eased the guilt from Patricia’s face and made her stop trying to free her hand from Kristian’s nervous grip.
“Your father and I are going home now. Are you staying for the rest of the dance?”
Patricia lifted hopeful eyes to Kristian. The message in them could be read even across the dim confines of the cloakroom. The young man met her gaze, looked back at the pair who’d interrupted, and answered, “For a while, anyway. Then I’ll be taking Patricia home. I thought I’d take the wagon, if that’s all right with you, Pa.”
“That’s... that’s fine. Well, you be careful then, and we’ll see you in the morning.”
Kristian nodded.
“Well, excuse us while we go in and say our good-byes,” Linnea put in.
Kristian nodded once more.
When the farewells were said and they left, the cloakroom was empty. The familiar green wagon was absent from the schoolyard. Searching for it, Theodore frowned.
“Now where do you suppose they’ve went to?”
“They’ve gone to Patricia’s house, in all likelihood. Wouldn’t you have when you were their age and the place was deserted while the folks were at a wedding dance?”
He glanced up the road to the east. Standing beside their own black carriage she looked up at the freshly cut hair above his coat collar, his wide shoulders, and his distracted eyes. The time has come, Theodore, for them and for us. Don’t fight it. Possessively, she slipped a hand under his arm and asked in a quiet tone, “Wouldn’t you, now when the place is deserted and we have it all to ourselves?” Nissa had gone back to Clara’s right after the church service and would be there for at least a week.
He looked down at her, and from the expression on his face she knew Kristian and Patricia had fled his mind.
She made the short ride home beside a stiff, formal stranger, who dropped her at the door and left her to worry while he drove down toward the barn to see to the horse and buggy.
The kitchen was cold. She lit a lamp then sat on a hard chair at the table. Her clothes and personal items were still in her old bedroom upstairs. When would they be moved down? And who would move them?
The door opened and Theodore stepped inside, bringing a current of chill night air that made the lantern flame twist and flicker. He stood looking around the room as if it belonged to someone else. His eyes moved back to Linnea with her high net-swathed hat still on her head, her coat still buttoned, and her gloved hands folded in her lap.
“You’re cold. I’ll get a fire going.”
She sensed his great relief at having something to do as he made the stove clatter and chime. In no time at all he clapped the lid over the fire, and the room fell silent.
Linnea rose from her chair and Theodore wiped his palms on his thighs as she came to stand near him at the stove.
“Well... ” he said with an uncertain smile.
She wondered if she’d have to be the one to initiate every move throughout this night. What a disappointing thought. She’d imagined that a man who’d been married before would be very adept at this. Instead, Theodore flinched each time she drew near, and his eyes wandered from hers whenever she tried to catch his gaze.
Turning aside, she held out her hands toward the thin warmth from the fire. He studied the back of her hat, the froth of ivory net with its tiny slubs like morning dew caught in a spider web, the fine separations in her hair where built-in combs clung to hold the flowery concoction on her head. She dropped her chin and his glance was drawn to the proper little crescent hairstyle beneath the hat brim, the shallow well at her nape where several loose hairs caught on her wool collar. He let his eyes rove from her narrow shoulders to her hips to the hem of her coat, and he was clutched by an ache of arousal so fierce he rammed his hands beneath his armpits to keep from shocking her with what he wanted to do at this ungodly hour of the day. And in the kitchen yet.
“Well, everyone seemed to be having a good time at the dance,” she said, though the dance was the farthest thing from her mind.
“Do you want your coat off now?” he asked at the same moment.
“Oh, yes, I guess so.” She tugged the new gray gloves from her fingers while he stood watching over her shoulder. She tucked them into her coat pocket, then unbuttoned the garment. He peeled it from her shoulders and stood uncertainly, wondering what to do with it. She had always kept it in her bedroom upstairs.
She glanced over her shoulder and their gazes collided for an electrified second. “Well, I reckon I’ll hang this in my room now.”
He turned into the front parlor and she listened to his footsteps snapping across the linoleum.
In the semi-dark he hung her coat on a hook, then stood for a moment clinging to the hook with both hands, recalling how carefully he’d dust-mopped the floor in here, and changed the bedding, and put the room in perfect order. Probably not as clean as Ma would have done, but the best he could do. He heaved a deep breath and headed back for the kitchen.
At the sound of his returning footsteps Linnea snatched up the teakettle and began industriously filling it from the water pail.
From the doorway he watched her move across the room with tiny, careful steps in the skirt too narrow to allow proper movement. Such foolishness. Last year bird wings, this year narrow skirts that seemed like shackles. He supposed he’d be paying for many feminine geegaws in his life. But he didn’t mind. He wanted to do so much for her... so much. And besides, there was something about the skirt and the way it revealed her ankles that turned a man’s head clean around.
“What’s that called then, that skirt?”
“A hobble.”
“It’s a mite skinny, isn’t it?” He watched from behind as she set the kettle on the stove, then swung around brightly.
“Mother says they’re all the rage. A Harvard professor said narrower hems would save on wool for uniforms... so this is... the... ”
Looking at him, her words trailed away. He stood staring at her, tallying the hours till their normal bedtime. God in heaven, some nights when they were studying they hadn’t gone to bed till nearly eleven o’clock. That was a good five hours and more!
“Are you hungry?” she asked, as if suddenly inspired.
“No.” He tapped his vest buttons for effect. “
I ate plenty at the school.” Guiltily, he remembered his manners. “Oh, are you?”
“No, not a bit.” She glanced around as if searching for something. “Well... ” Now he had her doing it! An hour ago she’d been totally confident. Now his jitters were rubbing off on her. “My things are all upstairs yet. Should I... I mean... ”
“Oh, I’ll get them. Might as well bring them down to my room, too.”
He practically leaped to the spare lantern in his eagerness to get out of the room. When she heard his footsteps halt above her she smiled, covered her mouth with one hand, and shook her head at the floor. Then she followed him up the stairs to find him standing in her doorway, rattled and uncertain.
“Excuse me, Theodore.” He jumped aside to let her pass, then watched her move to the dresser, open drawers, and select things, piling them on her arm — everything white, some with wisps of eyelet and blue ribbon. From the dresser top she took a brass-handled brush, a comb, a hairpin holder, and a heart-shaped bottle of toilet water; from a hook behind the door, her blue chenille robe. Then, on last thought, she returned to the dresser for a small rock.
Joining him, she said brightly, “There. I guess that’s everything I need. The rest can wait till tomorrow.”
“What’s that?” He pointed to her hand.
She opened her palm and they both looked down. “It’s an agate I found on the road last fall. It has a stripe of brown the exact color of your eyes.”
She looked into them and he was caught off guard, awed afresh by the fact that she was really his and that as long ago as last fall she’d been interested in the color of his eyes. But he stepped back as she moved through the door and down the steps, with the light from his lantern gilding the top of her hat. At his bedroom doorway she stopped politely and let him lead the way inside and set the lantern on the dresser.
Her eyes followed hesitantly, but the picture of Melinda was gone. Theodore opened a dresser drawer, then straightened to face her, eager to please. “You can put your things in here. I cleaned it out and threw some old things away to make room.”
“Thank you, Theodore.” She placed her collection in the drawer beside a stack of blue cambric work shirts and a pair of elastic sleeve holders he never used. His blood pounded, having her so close. It had been so long since he’d watched a woman do such things: smooth the clothes, shut the drawer, align her brush and comb on the dresser scarf, place the rock and the hairpin dish and the bottle of toilet water beside two spare celluloid collars, his own hairbrush and... and a handful of rivets’!
His hand lashed out and scooped them up. “I was fixin’ a harness yesterday,” he explained sheepishly and dropped them into a drawer, then slammed it guiltily behind him.
With a tilting smile she stepped over and opened the drawer again, nudging him out of the way. She dug in the corner beneath a pile of winter underwear and found the metal pieces, and dropped them where they’d been before, on top of the dresser.
“This is still your room. If we’re to share it, you may leave your rivets exactly where you did before you married me.”
Had she recited a flowery poem, he could not have loved her more at that moment. He wondered again what time it was and if she’d think him perverted if he leaned over and kissed her and carried her to the bed as he wanted to, ignoring the fact that the rest of the world was either doing their milking or eating their supper right now. Or dancing at his wedding dance without him. What in God’s name were they doing talking about rivets? How did a man lead up to the suggestion that his wife get ready for bed at five forty-five in the afternoon?
She looked around the room, all guileless and innocent, her top-heavy hat making her neck appear very fragile. The bodice of her dress disappeared beneath a form-fitting jacket with a high neck and tiny looped buttons running waist to throat. Lord, let it be a whole dress under there, he thought, as he suggested, “You might like to take your jacket and hat off and get more comfortable, so I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes.”
She’d had dreams of how this night should be. They had not included a painfully shy husband. She remembered things Clara had told her, and she greedily wanted it all. In a soft, quavering voice, she ventured, “I thought that was the husband’s job.”
Theodore’s eyes shifted to the clock that stood on the bedside stand ticking, ticking, ticking into the sudden silence, the hour hand nearly touching six. He looked back into his wife’s eyes. “Did you?”
She nodded twice, so slightly he had to watch closely to catch it. Her eyes were wide and lustrous in the lamplight as she stood with one hand resting on the edge of the dresser.
He took one step and her lips parted. He took a second and she swallowed. He took a third and her head tilted up, her eyes dark now, lifting to his from underneath the hat brim. They stood close, rapt, watching each other breathe. He kissed her once, very lightly, much more lightly than he wanted, then turned her around by the shoulders. In the mirror she saw only the top half of his face above the beehive of netting.
His blunt fingertips searched out the teardrop pearl and withdrew a nine-inch hatpin. He clamped it in his teeth and gently freed the combs behind her ears. As he lifted the hat free, one comb caught a blond strand and pulled it free. She reached up nervously to brush it back while he anchored the pin in the hat and set it down before her.
Their eyes met in the mirror, so dark neither appeared to have color beyond the sparkle of anticipation. The wisp of loose hair trailed free behind her ear. He stood so close his breath sent it waving like a strand of wheat in a summer breeze. He touched it, lifting and clumsily tucking it back in, then watched it drift stubbornly down her thin, sculptured neck. She waited breathlessly, willing him to go on. As if he divined her thoughts, his unaccustomed fingers probed the secrets of her chignon, finding celluloid pins hidden within, freeing them one by one until the mass of gold drooped, then tumbled under its own weight to lay in a furl on her shoulders. He combed it with callused fingers. Its fine texture caught on his horny skin. When had he last smelled a woman’s hair? He bent and buried his face in the fragrant mass, and drew a prolonged breath. In the mirror she watched his face disappear then reappear as he straightened.
When their eyes met, a thousand pulsebeats seemed to fight for space in his throat. She had taken up the perfume bottle. Holding his gaze in the mirror, she slowly uncapped it, tipped it against a fingertip, then brushed the scent beneath her uptilted jaw. Once, twice, until lily of the valley had turned the room to a bower. She pushed back a cuff, exposing the delicate blue-veined skin of one wrist, scented it, then the other, and silently recapped the bottle, all the while holding him prisoner with her sapphire eyes.
Where had a girl her age learned to do a thing like that? All day long, each time he’d thought of this hour, his imagination had stalled at the thought of her inexperience. But her invitation was unmistakable.
He pressed her arms, pivoted her like a ballerina in a music box, then studied her shadowed eyes momentarily before reaching for the button at her throat. It was a quarter the size of his thumbnail, caught in a delicate loop that thwarted his fumbling fingers twice before he discovered how to manage it. Then slowly, slowly he worked his way down thirteen of the same.
Beneath the jacket her bodice fit taut over breasts that lifted and fell to the rapid beat of her breathing. He lifted his eyes to her delicate mouth, the lips parted and waiting.
How incredible — they were man and wife.
He bent to touch her mouth with his own, the shadow of her hair eclipsing his face as he cupped her jaws and kissed her with a first tender consideration — soft, plucking, plural kisses while the sleek warmth of his inner lips joined hers. She swayed toward him, her fingertips touching his lapels.
When at length he lifted his head, they were both breathing harder, their hearts dancing a rondo as they gazed into each other’s eyes.
Wordlessly he removed her jacket, folded it, and laid it on the dresser.
She reached fo
r his tie and collar button, determined to do her share.
Tick, tick, tick came from the bedside.
“It’s only six o’clock,” he reminded her in a strange, forced voice.
Her fingers fell still at his throat. Her clear, guileless eyes lifted and met his squarely.
“Is there a right and a wrong time?”
He’d never pondered the question before. In his whole life he’d never done anything like this except at bedtime, in the sheath of late hours and darkness. With something akin to surprise he realized he’d come here prepared to be the teacher, only to find himself being taught.
“No, I guess not,” he replied, and his heart thrust hard as she proceeded, removing his tie, opening his collar, and freeing the top three shirt buttons until the vest stopped her progress. Glistening dark hair sprang into view, and she pressed her lips into the cleft, something she’d long imagined doing.
A ragged breath fanned the top of her hair and his arms came around her.
“Your jacket,” she interrupted, and he pulled back and let her take it from him to hang on a wall hook beside her coat. Next, she freed his vest buttons, then took his watch in her hand and looked up at him.
“Let’s never watch clocks, Teddy,” she requested softly, then laid it on the dresser.
When she turned he was waiting to haul her near, slanting his mouth over hers with lips open, tongue searching out the treasures of her willing mouth. She pressed close, lifting, nestling. His arms swept her up commandingly and took her against muscle and sinew she’d touched too few times — ah, far too few.
The kiss twisted between them with wondrous urgency, his tongue slewing the interior of her mouth, hers probing in a wild, loving quest. She spread her fingers wide over the warm satin back of his vest, inquisitive to know each taut inch of him. His chest heaved against her breasts, making them yearn for more.
He ripped his mouth from hers, labored breath pouring on her ear. “Oh, Linnea... ”