Patricia Rice (24 page)

It was wonderful. Her insides were turning to hot jelly and settling in a place below her belly that began to ache.

He was no longer her friend, but her husband. Terror stole along her veins in accompaniment with a shiver of desire.

His thumb thrummed a tune across her breast, and she wanted to cry out with the need of it, or shout at him to stop.

“Don’t, Mac,” she whimpered, staring woodenly at the bedpost. “I
can’t.
”

“You can,” he said. “Just let me kiss you, and it will be easy.” He leaned over to do just that.

Grabbing the sheet, Bea rolled to the far side of the bed and clambered out, glaring at him as he sat on her bed, bewildered.

“You already have everything your way,” she cried,
not knowing where the words were coming from but letting them escape as
they willed. “Under law, my land is yours. My tenants are yours. You can
do anything you like, and I’ll have no say in the matter. It’s like
living with my father all over again, only worse. At least my father
wouldn’t force babies on me and then leave.”

He seemed in some kind of pain, but she couldn’t
relent. She’d never stood up to anyone in her life, never refused anyone
anything. If she backed down now, she would turn into a spineless
jellyfish. Or a fat cow, belly swollen with child. She’d probably have
udders spilling with milk. That’s why he wanted to touch her there.

She almost panicked as she wondered if just that
touch would lead to a baby, but she couldn’t see how. Surely he wouldn’t
have tricked her like that.

“I should certainly hope your father wouldn’t force babies on you,” he said grimly, rising from the bed. “Now,
that
would be indecent.” He didn’t advance on her but seemed to be seeking
reassurances. “If it’s what you want, I can have a contract drawn
settling the entire estate on you. I don’t need your land.”

She backed away, refusing to fall for that bemused
look on his face or his fancy promises. He’d talked her into this insane
marriage. She couldn’t remember why she’d let him. The children, she
decided. She hadn’t wanted her aunt to tell the earl about the children,
and now everything was just fine, and Mac could sail away whenever he
liked.

“Do you have any idea what happens between a man and a woman?” he asked, when she didn’t respond to his offer.

“They make babies,” she answered stoutly. “That’s all I need to know.”

Terror filled her as he narrowed his eyes and
started around the bed. Mac was bigger and stronger than any man she’d
known. He could throw her on the bed and hold her down and do anything
he liked. He could touch her breasts and kiss her and make her all hot,
and then he’d do whatever it was that men did, and she’d swell up and
everyone would know they’d done it.

When she shrank away from him, Mac lifted his hand
in surrender. “For heaven’s sake, Bea, I won’t rape you. I don’t want to
steal your damned land, and I don’t want to force a child on you if you
don’t want one. I just wish you’d told me your feelings
before
we got married.”

“I didn’t realize we’d make babies before this,” she whispered.

His face fell, and he ran his hand through his
rumpled hair. He stood there in little more than a dressing robe, his
bare chest looking so manly and powerful she had to swallow twice before
she could breathe, and he was still the perfect picture of confusion.

“Oh, hell, you’re twenty-eight years old, Bea. Where’ve you been all your life?”

She didn’t know. She’d just been existing, she
supposed, and he was forcing her to do more than exist. He was forcing
her to look at him as another human being, one who embarrassed as easily
as she did, and who got as frustrated. He was frustrated now, she could
tell, yet he hadn’t offered her any harm.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m trying to learn, but
no one will teach me. I don’t think I ought to have babies, or they’ll
grow up as ignorant as I am.”

He scowled and headed for the bottle of wine.
Apparently thinking better of it, he swung around again. “I can teach
you a wife’s duty to her husband, but I won’t have time to teach you all
you want to know about the estate, or even babies, before I sail.”

Disappointment washed through her, but she stuck her
chin out in defiance. “You may teach me a wife’s duty when you have
time to teach me what I
want
to know.”

Mac stalked closer, backing her up against the washstand. “You’d
want
to know about wifely duties if you’d just let me perform my husbandly ones.”

She crossed her arms, but that only drew his gaze downward. “I don’t want to have children by myself,” she repeated firmly.

He looked even more grim, but backed off slightly.
“You’re my wife, for better or worse. We’ll have to learn to deal with
that. In the meantime, I want you to move into the second room in the
suite you’ve given me. Is that too much to ask?”

Distrustfully, Bea held the sheet higher to her chin. “That was my father’s suite.”

The rumble issuing from his chest was almost a
growl, but he kept his voice pitched low. “I’m not your father. Unless
you want me to move in here with you, I suggest you start moving your
things there in the morning. I’ll not have your servants thinking I’m a
poor excuse for a husband.”

Warily, she nodded. “The other room needs airing, but I’ll take care of it.”

“Good. Then tomorrow we’ll start your lessons on what it means to be a wife.”

He strode out, leaving her horror-struck and staring at the door as it closed.

“If the Ladies’ Aid Society will operate the
Cooperative and Consignment Shop,” Bea said, “they can charge a small
percentage for every item sold, and we can save a considerable sum with
which to buy textbooks for the children. Someone really must see to
their education, and who better than us?”

If the other ladies wondered why Bea appeared at the
meeting the day after taking her marriage vows, none expressed their
curiosity. Bonnets bobbed in agreement all about the rectory parlor.

Bea had never actually attended one of the society
meetings before. Her father had said ladies of her position did not
attend functions so far below their stations. Ladies didn’t marry
uncouth Americans, either, but she had. So what was one more
transgression in the cause of what was right?

She’d contemplated fortifying herself with wine
before standing up before the meeting, but the opportunity hadn’t
presented itself. Deciding it would be no worse than standing up before
the entire town on her wedding day, she’d bolstered her courage and done
her duty. It certainly outdid staying home and watching the maids move
all her belongings into the chamber next to Mac’s.

“All children should be given the benefit of
knowledge,” Mrs. Rector agreed. “I think you have an excellent plan,
Miss... Mrs. MacTavish.”

Mrs. MacTavish. She’d even lost her identity. She didn’t feel like a Mrs. She certainly didn’t feel like a MacTavish.

Hands trembling, Bea gathered up the notes in front
of her, nodded, and stepped away from the library table. She was shaking
all over by the time she returned to her seat, but she had done it. She
had spoken her mind.

Mrs. Rector stood and addressed the crowd. “Such a
project would entail each of us choosing set hours to man the store so
that there’s always someone in charge. Does everyone agree to that?”

Bea could barely focus on the discussion. She’d done
her duty, led the charge, proved she wasn’t a hopeless imbecile. She
thought Mac might argue with that assessment.

She had disappointed him dreadfully, and she had no idea what to do about it.

If this was the best of all possible worlds, the
children would stay with her, and she wouldn’t have to bear any of her
own. She could easily love Buddy and Bitsy. She could teach them their
letters and numbers as she’d been taught. And if the estate ever made
money again, she could hire a governess to teach them everything she’d
never learned. And just in case she couldn’t afford private teachers,
the village would have a school.

Holding her chin high, she listened to the other
ladies discuss her idea. Because it came from her, they favored it, she
realized. They really did think of her as above them. That was silly,
but if it worked to the children’s benefit, she wouldn’t question their
attitude.

Clara Miller stood and the group quieted. “Won’t we need a teacher?”

From the back of the room the widow spoke quietly. “I have a sister who teaches in a ladies’ boarding school. I could ask her.”

Bea nodded in agreement. It would be wonderful for
the widow to have someone to help her about the house. If she had the
funds, she’d hire the sister now.

How could she persuade Mac to teach her what she
needed to know if he wasn’t speaking to her? How much longer would Mac
be with her? Could he help if she showed him the bank letter? Or would
he sell the estate to pay the loan? Despair cloaked her like a fog as
the meeting ended.

“Miss... Mrs. MacTavish,” the Widow Black murmured at Bea’s elbow as they stepped into the mist of early afternoon.

Bea halted out of the way of the steady stream of
departing ladies. She’d exhausted all her courage for the morning, but
the widow was younger than she, and frail and careworn, and she needn’t
fear her in the least.

“How are your children today?” Bea asked with concern.

“Much better, thank you. Granny Elder looks after
them when I go out. I don’t know what I’d do without her.” Mrs. Black
hesitated, as if arranging her words, and Bea let her take her time. She
knew what it was like to be stumble-tongued.

“A school is such a wonderful idea,” the widow said
in a rush of words. “If my children could have a better education than I
have—” She halted and rethought her sentence before continuing. “I
married young and did not pay heed when I was taught. My sister is much
smarter and more educated. If only there were some way...”

Anguish wrote itself across her fair face as she
turned it up to Bea. “She’s so unhappy where she is, Mrs. MacTavish. If
only I could bring her here, I know we would be fine again. She’s a hard
worker, much healthier than I. Between us, we could produce a crop so I
could pay the rent. I can’t lose my house. We have nowhere else to go.”

Bea knew that the Widow Black had come here as a
bride, that she and her husband were said to be related to some wealthy
family but had defied their wishes, and that Mr. Black had died of the
influenza a winter or so ago. The widow’s family could not be especially
wealthy if her sister was teaching school, though.

“I will not let him turn you out,” Bea said with the
fire of determination burning in her heart. “Mr. MacTavish is trying to
bring more wealth into this area, but men don’t always see both sides
of the coin. I wish I could say we could bring your sister here, but
without textbooks or funds for the school, I cannot see how. We cannot
even persuade the Earl of Coventry to give funds for the church roof.”

The widow bowed her head. “I understand. It is more
than kind of you to promise me the cottage. I will work as many hours as
I can to help earn the textbook money. And I already have several
pieces of jewelry made up to sell when the shop is ready.”

“Perhaps by summer’s end we will have a school for
your sister,” Bea said kindly, wishing she could offer more. It was a
terrible burden wondering if she ought to cut her staff and hurt their
families in exchange for the extra coin to fund a school so she could
help someone else’s.

Walking home, she nervously clasped and unclasped
her hands. She could almost wish Coventry would visit so she might give
him a piece of her mind. The gentry had responsibility for the people in
their care, and he was shirking his.

Perhaps she ought to ask the Widow Black’s sister to
become governess for the children and sail to America with them! Then
Mac could leave immediately, and everything would return to the way it
had been before he arrived.

She regarded such a lonely future with trepidation.

***

Fingers stained with ink from his new fountain pen,
Mac stared in frustration at the scratched-out sentences of the letter
before him. Now that the community knew his name, it was only a matter
of time before the inhabitants of Landingham heard it. There was no
sense in delaying the inevitable. He had to tell the Earl of Coventry
why he was taking the children to his parents. But the letter would not
write itself. Why?

Because he was afraid the earl would take the children away.

Mac dropped his head in his hands and buried his
fingers in his hair. This was ridiculous. The earl had as much right to
the children as his own parents did. In all good conscience, he ought to
let the man know what was happening.

He couldn’t think straight anymore.

Hell, he’d never been so confused in all his damned life.

He needed physical activity, not introspection.

Abandoning the letter, he strode into the bustle of
activity in the hall. He’d almost forgotten—the maids were moving Bea’s
belongings into the room next to his. It had taken very little for his
bag to be carried in, but apparently moving Bea was a major undertaking.
Feather dusters and mops and brooms trailed in a steady stream up and
down the stairs. Feather bedding and carpets were carried out to be
aired.

As he watched a mattress pass by, Mac admitted the real source of his problems. His wife.

Hastily escaping the activity on the stairs, he
strode into the damp air outside, with no particular place to go. He had
men with more experience than he had working on the mill. Bea’s better
tenants were busily plowing the valley fields. He had nothing else to
occupy his mind except his wife, his lovely, unpredictable, ignorant
wife.

He grabbed a scythe from the stable and began
whacking at the weeds around the outbuildings. He’d set the gardeners to
tilling fields. Which left only him to tend the lawn.