Heaven Sent (13 page)
Thinking about her, his eyes were drawn to the sight of her standing at the sink washing dishes. From his perspective he could see only the back of her, the tall body flanked by unfemininely broad shoulders that served to emphasize the very feminine nipped-in waist. The contrast was accented by her apron strings that gently smoothed the outline of her rounded hips. Her behind was one of her best features, Henry Lee decided. He had always preferred tiny, petite women. They made him feel massive and strong, but he suddenly understood what the appeal was for women who were "big of breast and broad of thigh." To relax in the comfort of that big, lush body seemed a worthwhile goal. And that generous rump, it almost begged a man to run his hand across it. He remembered his sleepy, waking dream this morning, when he had done just that. And just the memory of it had him hard as a blackjack stump at Christmastime. How had he failed to notice that enticing backside before? And who was the man who had noticed it before he did?
He quickly rose and headed out through the back door, grabbing up a bucket. "Getting fresh water for morning," he said tersely.
"Could you get an extra bucket for me?" she asked him. He stopped to turn and look at her. She seemed more her usual self if he looked at her in the face, not nearly so enticing.
"Sure, what do you need more water for?"
She blushed prettily as she answered him. "I wanted to wash up a bit before bed."
Henry Lee jerked up a second bucket and headed out the door, anger and desire struggling for dominance in his thought.
Unlike Hannah's father, Henry Lee had dug no well at his place. The creek was only a hundred yards or so down the hill and it had just not seemed worthwhile; however, he now thought that it might be hard for a woman to tote water that far up the hill several times a day. Especially a woman big with child.
He tried to imagine Hannah a few months from now, her belly stretched out before her like a ripe watermelon. He briefly thought of his poor mother. Childbearing was no sure thing. He remembered her lying so white and still in the bed, she had given up trying to expel the baby and only moaned in pain and waited to die.
His father, drunk in the corner, had done nothing but curse at her. And the Indian woman he'd brought to help her only shook her head and told him, "Baby dead. Both be dead soon."
Henry Lee reached the creek bank and knelt, ostensibly to fill the water buckets, but in fact the memory of his mother's death still had the power to frighten and grieve him. She was nothing but used goods, she'd drop her drawers for any man who had the price. His father had said that a million times. But she had been gentle too, and had cared for him. Somehow that seemed to make up for what she was. And watching her die in such pain, surely she hadn't deserved that, no matter what she had done.
She had been so young when Henry Lee was conceived. A pretty, light-skinned half-breed living near
Being little more than a child herself, the childhood that she offered Henry Lee was full of games and fun. She had no rules and made none for him. They ate when they were hungry and washed when they felt dirty. They worked too, when it was necessary. And Molly taught her son the only thing that she really knew, whittling.
Molly could pick up a fallen branch and make three toy soldiers, or a bird, or an axe handle. She knew the best wood for each task and she always sought out whatever was inside.
"You can't make a bowl from a stump, if there isn't a bowl in there already," she told him and showed him how to read the lines of the wood to see what was inside.
Henry Lee was never the carver that his mother had been, but he learned a lot about wood and used his knowledge for practical things. Where Molly had made figures and whirlygigs, Henry Lee made chairs and tables.
When Henry Lee was seven, his mother had become pregnant again. He remembered Skut being very pleased about it, his mother was not. She felt poorly almost from the first and her death climaxed weeks of increasing agony.
His thought shifted from his mother to Hannah. Would she die crying and moaning as his mother had? No, he quickly discarded the thought. His mother had been tiny and delicate, breeding too early, she was never in the best of health. Hannah was built for birthing. She'd be one of those farm women who drop their babes in the field, and then go on to finish the row. No need to worry for her on that account. She'd put this one out early next spring he supposed, and after that, by God, he'd keep them coming spring and fall until he had enough young 'uns to populate his own territory! And every damn one of them had better look just like him. Except, of course, the first.
He had decided to forgive her. He had decided to make a life with her. He would accept this other man's baby. It wasn't the young 'un's fault at all. A child was a child. And it wasn't that he was jealous, he told himself, he had no feelings for Hannah. He just hated the idea that he had to take another man's leavings. Skut had done the same and he was determined that he would be a better father than Skut had been to him.
He just wished the baby was here and over with, so that she would be his and they could get on with their lives. That was the rub. As long as she carried another man's child, another man's mark was on her. She could not be Henry Lee's.
He knew with certainty that he would not, could not, spend his seed where another man's had taken root. He would not share a bed with Hannah until she was delivered.
Having come to this decision, Henry Lee headed back up to the house, to explain to his bride just exactly how things were going to be.
* * *
Full darkness had fallen as Hannah lit the lamp in the main room and surveyed the drying corn kernels. It was so hot in the house now, that she doubted the possibility of sleep. If he really wanted these dried out by morning, someone would have to mind the fire.
She felt the sweat running down the back of her neck and decided she was wearing far too many clothes. In the bedroom she slipped out of her petticoats and removed the binder that she routinely wore on her bosom. The binder, which Hannah thought gave her a more youthful appearance by restricting her more womanly contour, was extremely bothersome in the heat and she gladly discarded it.
She stared at the cornstalk bed and imagined being in it with him tonight. The memory of the morning was still sweet to her, but because he had been grouchy on and off all day, it was tempered with a bit of embarrassment. She wondered if that tenderness in bed had not affected him as it did her. Perhaps he engaged in such things on a frequent basis and found them pretty usual. Since he regularly attended all the parties and shindigs for miles around, maybe he regularly took women to bed. Maybe those other women were more attractive and exciting than herself. The thought was not very comforting.
She decided she would just have to be the same type of wife that she had been as a daughter. It had always been Myrtie who was pretty and sweet and lovable. It was Hannah who had been responsible and hardworking.
Freed from her hot, constricting underclothes and feeling a good deal cooler, Hannah returned to the quilting frame and carefully stirred the kernels as Henry Lee had. Maybe he would never see her in the same way as he might one of those other women, but she would prove her worth to him. Make him glad that he had taken her on. Prove that she could be a very good bargain.
When Henry Lee walked in the back door of the cabin, his mind was quite made up. He would move his workroom out to the shed and bed down next door to her until after the baby was born. Then they could use the workroom as a nursery and he'd move into his rightful place as husband, beside her in his own bed. He was ready to sit down and discuss it with her calmly and rationally. However, the sight that greeted him as he stepped into the cabin took away all rational thought.
Standing in profile next to the quilting frame with the fire to her back, Hannah was more exposed to Henry Lee's eyes than if she were stark naked. The light through her thin cotton dress revealed in detail the luscious curve of buttocks that he had already admired, as well as strong, well-muscled thighs that tapered into long well-turned calves. Her bosom, released from its confines, strained against the bodice of her gown like a ripe fruit begging for a hand to pluck it. She turned her face toward him and smiled eagerly, as if to say, "I want to please you."
His resolution disappeared like ice cream in hell as Henry Lee bridged the distance between them and grasped Hannah from behind. He captured those breasts in his hands and pressed his aching desire against her firm, yielding bottom.
She was wanton, desirable, and out to tempt him, he thought. But he would show her who was in charge. He was not a man to be led around by petticoats. His lips found her tender throat beneath her hair, and blazed a trail of sparks and flame up to her ear where he hoarsely whispered, "I want you."
Hannah was startled at his touch and frightened by the roughness of his embrace. Her breathing and her senses vividly alive, she could not seem to react to the onslaught of emotions and feelings that were bombarding her. The intense heat surrounding their mingled bodies blazed hotter than the fire behind them and Hannah had no coherent thought for responding to it. Her young, healthy body, however, knew exactly how to answer the flame he was stirring.
Henry Lee's need prodded him to harsh handling of her tender bosom. Through the thin summer blouse, he felt the hard nipples straining against his hand. His attention to them was both tender and crude as he alternately teased and treasured. His own desire was throbbing and plethoric as he brushed it hungrily against her backside.
Instinctively, her bottom squirmed and wiggled, pressing eagerly against him. Henry Lee's reaction came gasping from his throat, part moan, part cry, as he answered her squirming pressure with his own heated thrusting.
His right hand released the pouty nipple it had been worshiping and headed down the front of her dress, hoping to find her hot, feminine core wet and ready for him. As his hand splayed across the smooth curve of her abdomen, he suddenly thought of what lay beneath his touch. Another man's get. The result of her passion with some unknown male before him sparked his humiliation and anger.
Henry Lee released her abruptly and stepped away turning his back to her, so that she wouldn't see his body's obvious eagerness, so accurately displayed in the front of his trousers.
"Get some clothes on, Hannah!" He slammed his fist angrily against the wall. "Damn it, woman! Would you have me mount you on the table? Have you no shame at all?"
Hannah stood bereft, as if something vital was now lost. Her womanly parts were throbbing. The blood in her veins was pounding and every nerve in her body was awake and alert. His hurtful words sank through the red haze in her brain and suddenly she was ashamed. What had she done? What had happened to her?
The image of her mindless lust was as clear to her as if she had watched herself. Her wanton loss of control and her animalistic display of carnal appetite was completely unforeseen in her life thus far. She had shocked herself and was sure that she had disgusted Henry Lee.
Her mind filled with confusion and her eyes filled with tears of humiliation she fled to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her and slithering to the floor as she leaned against it. She folded her arms across her knees and as tears of mortification coursed down her cheeks, she willed herself to cry silently.
Henry Lee was also ashamed. He knew that his words had hurt her and knew that he had lashed out at her in anger at himself. She was no better than she should be. A woman of doubtful morals would be expected to try to entice a man when no one else was around. And it wasn't as if she were being dishonest about it. She must have been wanting a man pretty bad, the way she flashed to fire so quick. It must have been a while since she'd been with her lover. Henry Lee wondered why. Had the man voluntarily given her up when he found out she was in the family way? It was possible, but it seemed more likely that he would have continued to take his pleasure while scheming to find a way out.
Maybe he wasn't from around here. Henry Lee remembered an old tinker once sitting up drunk all night telling him stories of all the skirts of farmers' daughters that he'd raised in his travels. He made it sound like a traveling man could have most any woman he set his sights on.
That would actually make more sense, Henry Lee decided. She wasn't really such a trollop. She was just a very foolish old maid that fell for a peddler's fast talk, and then had to find someone to make an honest woman of her.
He thought on it as he began stirring the corn kernels again. He could live with that a bit better, he decided. And he wondered if he was right to wait until she was delivered to share the bed with her. If the sparks between them could fly so easily, it would be a long winter.
Anyway he needn't worry about sharing it with her tonight, he thought bitterly as he heard the faint evidence of her weeping through the bedroom door. He had corn grits to make tonight.
CHAPTER
6