Garters.htm (40 page)

Cleav chuckled out loud. "I can't imagine how any gentleman could be other than favorably impressed," he said, stepping up behind her to wrap his arms tightly about her waist.

Pressing a gentle nip-kiss into the crook of her neck, he said, "I don't want the gentlemen
too
impressed, however, so keep those pretty legs of yours decently hidden."  Esme paled and jerked away from him, her expression hurt, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. "Of course I would never shame you like that, Cleavis," she said quickly. "Surely you trust me not to make a spectacle of myself."

"Esme? What's wrong?" he asked her. "I was joking with you, of course."

He reached out to run a comforting hand along her arm. "What is it?" he questioned curiously. "Are you ill?"

"No, no, I'm fine," she answered, trying to regain her composure.

"You are
not
fine," Cleav said firmly. "Something is very wrong and has been for the last several days."

Esme shook away his concern hastily. "I'm just worried about the evening," she said. "Would you mind looking in on the preparations, the dishes and linens and such?"

"If you want me to," Cleav said.

"I'd just like for you to make sure that I've chosen everything correctly," she said. "The salt cellar and spoons don't match the celery vase. I don't know if that will do."

"Esme? What—" he began.

"Please," she interrupted. "I need to dress or I'm going to be very rudely late. Could you please have a look at the table, just to make sure that everything is proper and appropriate?''

Cleav agreed with a nod and headed toward the door. With his hand on the brass knob, he turned back to look at his wife. Esme scurried around nervously through her toilet.

"Proper and appropriate?" he whispered to himself. With a shrug that lacked understanding, he headed downstairs.

"So you've been living in these mountains all your life, Miss Crabb?"

It was the blond gentleman's question that caught Esme's attention as she stepped into the front parlor.

"Oh, please call me Miss Agrippa," the pretty magpie replied with a chirpy twitter. "Miss Crabb sounds like an old maid schoolteacher."

The gentleman's pale face flushed with bright color and his eyes seemed glued to the vision in blue before him.

"No one could ever mistake
you
for such," he told her. "And because you've given me such honor, I must implore you to call me Theodatus."

"Oh, Mr. Simmons," she teased. "I should never do that."

"Oh, please, Miss Agrippa," he said. "I'll go down on my knee to beg if necessary."

Agrippa giggled. "You'd best not be doing that," she warned. "Pa's liable to get all kinds of strange ideas about it"

Simmons laughed gleefully, as if the young woman's comment were funny.

"Esme, dear." Cleav captured the attention of the room as he acknowledged his bride.

Standing beside the mantel, Cleav looked the part of the relaxed gentleman at leisure. The two young men stood, also, brandy glasses in hand. Yohan was seated on the divan with Mrs. Rhy, both passing occasional knowing looks. The twins were seated in identical fireplace chairs as if posing for an artist's portrait.

"Gentlemen," he said, addressing the two city fellows. "Although I made introductions this morning, I know you have hardly had a moment to greet my wife, Esmeralda."

Bespectacled Westbrook grasped her hand immediately and bent over it.

"It is truly a delight to meet you, Mrs. Rhy," he said.

Simmons stepped up and took his turn. "Yes, it is a pleasure," he agreed. "Your husband brags incessantly about your knowledge and interest in trout breeding. Ben and I have both been positively virescent with envy at his good fortune in finding a wife who shares his interest."

"How could she not be interested?" Adelaide piped in with a hasty glance toward dark-haired Westbrook in the thick gold-rimmed spectacles. "Trout are such fascinating creatures, I swear I can hardly hear enough about them."

Eula Rhy nearly choked on her lemonade.

"Oh, really?" Westbrook bit the bait, turning to examine the pretty twin in pink more closely.

"Oh, yes," Agrippa agreed with her sister. "We just love to hear that fish talk."

Cleav barely managed to hide his grin as he took Esme's arm and led the conversation into the direction closest to everyone's heart—fish breeding.

Esme hardly heard a word that was said. Her mind kept tumbling over lists. What to say, what to do, how to act, how to think, and dinner.
Dinner
!

"Esme?" Cleav asked curiously as she hastily pulled away from him.

"I must check the food," she said and managed an extraordinarily polite request to be momentarily excused.

The okra was slightly scorched and the corn not quite done, but the fish smelted very good, and Esme swallowed down the nausea as she carefully spooned it into the "chamber pot"

She checked everything at the table four times before deciding that she could safely invite the honored guests into the room.

"We descend to dinner," she whispered to herself. It sounded funny to her ears and she tried again. "
We
descend to dinner." That wasn't much better. "We
descend
to dinner."

She nodded approvingly to herself. That was undoubtedly it.

Stepping quietly across the foyer to the front parlor, she stopped formally at the threshold.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she spoke up distinctly, "we defend the dinner."

The twins looked up puzzled.

"Defend it from what?" Adelaide asked.

"It's time to eat," Cleav announced quickly. "Theo, why don't you escort Miss Agrippa."

Esme's face was bright red as her husband reached her side. "It smells wonderful, Hillbaby," he whispered. "And the dining room never looked prettier."

Esme nodded but couldn't quite shake the embarrassment of her foolish misquote.

Directing the gentlemen to their places, Esme regained some of her composure as she ignored dagger looks from the twins, who found themselves seated next to Eula and Pa rather than the gentlemen.

"This is certainly beautiful country. These peaks clearly take one's breath away," Theo offered politely. "Even my own Massachusetts doesn't compare."

"It's all we've ever known," Cleav explained easily. "I spent a few years in Knoxville, but the mountains are the mountains."

"I ain't never been nowhere," Yohan stated with matter-of-fact evenness. "But ain't never been nowhere I've wanted to go."

"That's understandable," Theo acknowledged.

"Are you a fanrmer, Mr. Crabb?" Ben Westbrook asked.

An unexpected hush fell over the group.

Esme held her breath.

What would her father say? What could he say? I'm the laziest man in Wader, Tennessee?

"I don't farm much," he answered honestly. "I play the fiddle."

"Oh, really?" Westbrook's expression broke into a delighted smile. "My grandfather was a musician," he said. "He played the French horn with the Philadelphia symphony for twenty years."

"What else did he do?" Adelaide asked.

"What else? Why, nothing. He was a musician."

The twins shared a delighted glance before Agrippa said firmly, "That's what Pa is. He's the best musician in this part of Tennessee."

There were smiles and nods as Yohan half-heartedly attempted to dispute the compliment.

"I wondered if you were from a musical family, Mr. Crabb," Theo told him. "With a name like Johann, a man should definitely be involved in magical blending of tones and rhythms."

"You must play for us while we are here," Ben entreated.

"I planned on it," the older man said easily. "Why, I intend to have you two city boys cutting up the rug afore morning."

Esme was stunned and shocked by the direction that the conversation had taken. This was not going to be nearly as difficult as she had thought. If she'd known that lying was so easy, why, she'd have started doing it years ago.

The last of the fish was being separated from the still-warm chafing dish as the conversation turned once again to pisciculture.

Esme rose to retrieve the peach crisp, allowing the twins to continue their concerted attempt to pretend that they knew and were interested in the subject of fish.

Feeling herself relax, Esme began to gain confidence. The gentlemen were not so different from the people in Vader. The twins had made no horrific blunders, and even her father had managed not to make himself a family embarrassment. Cleav seemed quite pleased with her and she could only sigh a thankful prayer for Sophrona's help.

Passing around the dessert, she began, at last, to get caught up in the conversation.

"Trout need cold running water to live," Theo was explaining. "That's why the ponds must be set up to drain into each other, keeping the temperature and oxygen level adequate."

"Once the fish are raised to fingerlings," Westbrook continued, "they can be let out into the river or transported to areas where trout have not been or are now unavailable."

"It must be hard to move those little fish across country," Adelaide said. "Looks like there would be an easier way."

"Some have tried easier ways," Theo told her. Then, with a teasing glance, he turned to Cleav. "What do you think of the Reverend Dr. Bachman's experiments?"

Cleav's grin was infectious. "I think they worked best in his own imagination."

"What were Reverend Bachman's experiments?" Agrippa asked.

Theo leaned forward slightly to get the pretty young woman more fully in his line of vision.

"The gentleman from South Carolina insisted that he managed to fertilize eggs that were kept dry for ten days and actually produced offspring."

At the twins' puzzled expression, Cleav explained. "A trout egg can't live more than a few hours without water. Still, Dr. Bachman assures us that he managed to fertilize dead eggs."

"Don't you have to have fish to make fish?" Adelaide asked Mr. Westbrook, her eyes wide open with sweet innocence.

"Of course you need fish to make fish," Esme answered the foolish young woman easily. "Cleav uses a natural method of propagation, but many trout breeders simply strip the ripe females of their eggs, throw them in a pan, and then cover them with milt."

"Milt?" Agrippa asked curiously. "What in heaven's name is milt?"

"Milt is the stuff that comes from the male fish," Esme explained easily. "It's like the man's—"

Stopping abruptly in midsentencc, Esme glanced in horror around the table. Pa was staring at her curiously. The twins looked puzzled. Eula Rhy's expression was sympathetic. Theodatus Simmons sat stone still, his mouth hanging open in shock, and Ben Westbrook seemed ready to choke on the spoon that was frozen in his mouth.

Finally her eyes met Cleav's. As her final humiliation, her husband looked ready to burst out laughing.

"I… I…"Esme struggled valiantly for a way to save her disgrace but failed miserably. Giving in to tears, wordlessly she fled the room.

Down the hall, out the back door, Esme had to get away.

She was running to the hills. She had never run from humiliation, but she was running now. She was running and she was never coming back. She had embarrassed herself. That she could stand. But she had shamed her husband. He deserved better. She was going to keep right on running forever more.

A strong brown arm encircled her waist, capturing her before she made it past the azalea bushes.

"Esme, Esme," he whispered, pulling her against his chest. "Don't cry, Hillbaby, it wasn't that bad."

"I'm so ashamed," Esme managed to choke out before she buried her face in the warm, familiar shirtfront of the man she loved.

"You shouldn't be ashamed," Cleav told her, rocking her slightly back and forth. "Embarrassed, maybe a little, but never ashamed. When we're talking about fish breeding, it's hard to remember to be delicate."

"I'm so sorry, Cleav," she moaned. "I'm so sorry."

"What in the world are you sorry for? A few silly words aren't anything to make a fuss about."

"I'm not just sorry for that," Esme admitted. "I'm sorry for all of it. I'm sorry that you had to marry me. I'm sorry that I'm not the wife that you needed. I'm sorry that I'm not the woman that you wanted."

"The woman that I wanted?" Cleav held his wife at arm's length and looked down at her.

"Esme, my sweet Hillbaby," he said softly, "you
are
the woman that I wanted. The only woman that I've really ever wanted."

Esme shook her head.

"I don't mean that way," she insisted. "I know you want me that way. I mean the woman that you wanted for a wife."

"You are the woman I want for my wife," he said firmly. "I want you
that
way and every way."

Clasping his hand under her chin, he raised her face to look at him. "I love you, Esme Rhy."

"Don't joke about such a thing," she admonished him as another tear sneaked out of the corner of her eye. "It may be just funning to you, but a gal can take such a declaration plumb serious."

"I mean it 'plumb serious,' " Cleav replied. "I've never said it before because I didn't think that you loved me back."

"Loved you back?" Esme looked confused. "You know I love you, I've never made a secret of it."

"You
did
make a secret of it. A secret that got out of the-bag tonight."

Esme looked puzzled.

"You said you married me to get this house," he reminded her.

"This house?" she asked, not quite recalling the conversation.

"Yes," he insisted. "You said you wanted to marry me to get this house for your family."

"Well, sure I wanted
this house
for my family," Esme tried to explain. "But I wanted
you
just for myself. I was downright selfish about it. I didn't think about Pa or the twins, or even poor Sophrona, your sweetheart. I didn't even care about your feelings. I just loved you so much, I said I was going to have you by hook or by crook."

"By hook or by crook?" Cleav repeated, a smile stretching across his face. "Or by garters."

"Cleavis!" Esme protested. "How could you believe that I married you for your house?"