Homespun Hearts (40 page)

The Roscoe boy choked out an agreeable reply, and Cleav dropped him abruptly. Turning, he held out his hand to Esme.

"Come on," he ordered, and she followed him without a word.

He was halfway down the mountain before he realized that both his anger and his daring were born out of lust. Lust had empowered him to call the bluff of those besotted bullies. At least, he hoped it was only lust. Were there cracks in the gentlemanly veneer that barely covered his rough cracker heritage?

Either way, it didn't set well with him.

T
he night was
black as pitch as the exhausted couple made their way down the mountain to the wide porch of the large, white house. His jacket missing, his knees splotched with mud, his muscles aching, Cleav made no attempt to enter but seated himself on the top step of the porch.

He glanced at Esme as she sat down beside him. She, also, looked a bit worse for wear. Sophrona's made-over dress was no longer white but splattered with dark, dirty stains. Her hair was loose and flying, and her shoes were missing.

"I'm sorry," she said woefully as she propped her elbows against her thighs and rested her chin in her hands. "Sure to graces, you must be just too vexed to live."

A smiled twitched at the corner of Cleav's lip. "It wasn't your fault, Esme. I should have imagined those hill boys would have to have a shivaree for us. Truth to tell, I was so busy thinking about the wedding itself, I didn't give the other even a thought."

"I never thought of it, either," she admitted. Then with fury she added, "I swear I'll kill that Armon Hightower next time I see him."

The sincerity of her words struck Cleav as outrageously funny. "I almost pity that poor man," he told her, laughing.

"What are you laughing at? There's not a thing funny about it," she declared.

Cleav shook his head. "Yes, there is, Esme. We are the funny thing about it."

"What do you mean?"

"Every decent hill girl that's ever been married has had a shivaree, Esme," he told her. "Poor old Hightower probably does think of himself as family. Your father thought you should have a real wedding. I guess Hightower wanted to make sure that you did."

Esme looked at him quizzically at first, as if she couldn't quite understand. Finally she nodded. "You're right," she admitted. "If we hadn't a-been shivareed, folks would always remember it was a hurry-up wedding. Now they'll be talking about you rolling that cask of molasses up the mountain."

The two looked at each other for a moment and then both burst out laughing.

"Was it that funny?" he asked.

"I didn't get to see it," she confessed. "I was tied up with Cambridge's dirty old handkerchief in my mouth."

As the laughter continued, Cleav wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her closer. As he rested her head in the crook of his neck, their laughter began to fade. Tired muscles and foolish embarrassments were forgotten in the still summer quiet of the Tennessee mountains as they sat together for the first time as man and wife. Esme laid one tentative hand against Cleav's chest.

The touch fired Cleav, and he vividly recalled the lusty kiss on the mountain. She was his wife. His brain screamed the words to him joyously. There was no reason in the world for him to wait another minute. "You ready to go to bed?" he asked abruptly.

Esme pulled back, startled. She gave him a frightened look and then swallowed bravely. "Yep," she declared daringly. "I'm ready when you are."

Cleav could hardly hear her for the roaring in his ears. Rising to his feet, he graciously offered her a hand, and she took it.

They moved in silence toward the door, neither having the vaguest idea of what to say. Esme's attention was momentarily drawn to a wadded gunnysack left on the porch.

"Oh, look," she said, pointing to it eagerly.

"What's this?" Cleav's thoughts were already upstairs, and in his mind he was laying Esme across his bed and throwing her skirts up over her head. Glancing inside the bag, he saw worn and faded material. "Somebody's left a ragbag on my porch," he commented distractedly, and as they stepped into the foyer, he moved to throw the gunny and its contents back to the porch.

Esme jerked the sack out of his hand. "That's my things," she explained defensively. "And my dowry."

"Your dowry?" Cleav's brain couldn't quite grasp the word. At that moment the word he most associated with Esme was not dowry but legs.

Reaching deep inside, Esme pulled out a corner of lacy white cotton that glowed in the moonlight.

"This is my mama's crochet tablecloth. By rights, it should have gone to one of the twins, since they're older. But I thought that since I'm marrying so high, I ought to bring you the best that we own."

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Cleav felt strangely uncomfortable with her confession. He pulled her forcefully into his arms, pressing the hard evidence of his desire into the softness of her stomach. "Give it to one of your sisters. Mother's got dozens of tablecloths."

A cold flash of anger swept through Esme that the warmth of Cleav's embrace could not assuage. As he brought his mouth down to capture hers, Esme struggled against him.

"Your mother doesn't have any tablecloths made by my mother!" Esme told him.

Cleav pulled back slightly and let his thoughts momentarily clear. "You're right, sorry," he answered offhandedly. "Let's forget about tablecloths right now." He pulled her against him and rubbed himself suggestively against her. "We'll just go up to bed and enjoy ourselves. We have a whole lifetime together to argue about unimportant details."

Esme found at that moment that her only desire was to "argue about unimportant details." She was an equal partner in this marriage. Suddenly she was afraid that maybe she wasn't.

"I'll have you know, my mother's tablecloth is very important to me," she stated a bit too loudly. Self-doubt fueled her anger.

"Esme, I didn't mean—"

"My family don't have much and you know that, but what we do have we value!"

"Esme sweet," he whispered against her throat. "You already know the things I value about you." He ran a hand down the length of her spine and then naughtily cupped the temptingly curved behind he found there. "Why don't we just lay ourselves down in that soft feather bed I've got upstairs"—he soothed the hot words against her throat— "and talk this out in the morning."

Her heart pounding in her throat, Esme decided that she'd made a terrible mistake. This wonderful man she thought she wanted for a husband was an insensitive, unfeeling clod who thought himself far too good for her. Did he think her some stray cat that had just wandered up on his porch? With a hasty glance at her surroundings, the shiny pine floor at her feet, and the massive, elaborate hall tree, Esme wondered if perhaps she was.

Angrily she pushed him away. "I don't care to talk to you in the morning," she claimed in a near shriek. "In fact, I don't care to talk to you at all. I'm going home."

"What?"

"You heard what I said," she snapped. "I'm leaving. I may be poor and got no learning, but I won't be looked down on by anyone. Surely not the man who's supposed to be my husband!"

"I wasn't looking down on you."

"Well, what do you call it?"

"I call it asking for my rights as a married man. This wasn't my idea, you know. I wouldn't have married you in a million years if you hadn't trapped me into it."

"Oh, you ..." Esme raised her hand to hit him, but he caught it easily, and his expression was black.

"Don't you try to strike me," he said furiously. "Just because you saw another woman get away with slapping me doesn't mean you can do the same. You are not Miss Sophrona!"

Esme's eyes widened in horrified shock. "How dare you bring her name up between us on our wedding night!"

Cleav opened his mouth to make a crude comment on what should be between them on their wedding night, only to be interrupted by an anxious voice from the second-floor landing.

"What in the name of heaven is going on down there!"

The two combatants stood silently staring at each other. Neither had remembered that they were not alone in the house.

Cleav stepped away and fumbled for a match to light the lamp. "It's me, Mother," he called upstairs with a more controlled tone. "Esme and I are home at last," he commented conversationally. "How are you feeling?"

"I was feeling fine and sleeping peacefully until I was awakened by what sounded like a Saturday-night brawl in my own foyer." Mrs. Rhy's words were clipped and haughty.

Cleav managed to light the lamp and then gave Esme a beseeching glance.

"Evenin', Miz Rhy," Esme said sweetly as she stepped closer to Cleav. "We's real sorry about waking you up. I'm sure glad you're feeling better."

Cleav wrapped his arm loosely around Esme's waist.

When she started to squirm in protest, he tightened his grip.

"The wedding was lovely, Mother," he said evenly. "Everybody in town was there."

Eula Rhy peered curiously at the couple at the foot of the stairs. "You look awful. How did you get so muddy?"

Esme glanced down at her ruined dress and wanted to die with mortification.

"They had a shivaree," Cleav explained calmly. "It's a custom among the hill people to—"

"I know what a shivaree is, Cleavis," his mother replied sharply. "I've lived in these mountains all my life. Your father had to get me down out of a tree, and we both were covered with poison oak." Her eyes stared out into nothingness for a moment as if she were recalling the unpleasant incident fondly. Then, looking at the young couple at the bottom of the stairs, she actually smiled.

As if the memory of her youth had somehow fortified her, the older woman pulled up the sleeves of her wrapper and headed downstairs.

"You'll both be needing baths, no doubt," she said practically. "Esme, do come help me get the water heated."

W
hat a way to start a marriage
! Esme thought to herself as she helped Mrs. Rhy draw water for their bath.

"We can just have a basin bath," she had assured her new mother-in-law. But the older woman was having nothing to do with it.

"Lord only knows what kind of vermin you're bringing to my clean sheets," Eula Rhy had declared.

Esme gasped in shock. Mrs. Rhy hastily attempted an explanation. "I mean the both of you all muddy from the shivaree!" she corrected. "A couple only gets one wedding night. The least it ought to be is clean."

Esme thought that if a couple got only one wedding night, the least it ought to be is alone.

It had taken the better part of an hour to heat enough water for a tub bath. Chivalrously Cleav allowed Esme to bathe first.

The water felt delicious, and Esme was tired, but she couldn't quite relax. She was in Eula Rhy's kitchen, and the older woman showed no inclination to leave her alone with her thoughts. Esme was trapped stark naked in the bathtub as Mrs. Rhy explained Cleavis, his life and family, and Eula's own personal philosophy of marriage. "Things are different today than when I married," she told Esme. "In my day a couple really knew each other and the families were all agreed before the wedding even took place." The older woman shook her head in disapproval. "Now, you and Cleavy don't know the first thing about each other," she said.

"Oh, but we do," Esme insisted. "I've been watching Cleavis for weeks, studying him. I know everything about him."

Eula Rhy snorted in disbelief. "That's obviously not the truth, young woman, or you would have never married him."

Esme's mouth dropped open in shock. "Why do you say that?"

"You seem like a fairly intelligent girl, Esme. If you really knew Cleav, you'd have seen how totally unsuited for him you are."

Esme held her tongue with great effort.

"My son is a gentleman," Eula continued. "His life revolves around the finer things and higher thoughts. A mate for such a man should be as refined and conversant as he is."

Esme's jaw was tight as she scrubbed with diligence. Someone like Sophrona Tewksbury, she thought to herself but refused to utter the words.

"Heaven knows," Mrs. Rhy had rambled on, "it hasn't been easy for me. My late husband was a common man. He'd been to school, of course, and knew a lot about the business. But he never worried about who he was or his place in the world. Our people just weren't like that." Eula gave a tired sigh as she considered the memory.

"But, Cleavis ..." She shook her head. "Let me tell you, Esme Crabb, that once Cleavy had been to that school in Knoxville, why, he knew everything about everything and wanted the best of all of it."

"My name isn't Crabb anymore," Esme said quietly. "It's Rhy."

Casting a wary eye at the young woman in the tub, Eula shook her head disapprovingly. "You are not at all what he had in mind when he thought of marrying."

Esme raised her chin defiantly. "Well, maybe not," she admitted grudgingly. "But we's married now, and I know Cleav well enough to know he won't back down from his vows."

"Of course he wouldn't!" her mother-in-law agreed with a haughty tone that said such a thing was foolish even to suggest.

"I'm learning to help out about the store," Esme told her proudly. "And I know some about his fish, and I'm real interested in that."

"His fish!" Eula Rhy chuckled with disdain. "Those fish are the biggest bunch of foolishness that Cleavis ever involved himself with. There are fish aplenty in the river. There is certainly no call to try raising them like chickens."

"That's probably what the mother of the man who decided to tame the first rooster thought, too."

Eula raised an eyebrow at her daughter-in-law's unexpected defense of Cleav. But young Mrs. Rhy could apparently be counted upon to do the unexpected.

"You married my son for his pecuniary fettle and social position," Eula said evenly. "I fear that you will both find that it takes more than wedding vows to make a marriage."

Sloshing the soap from herself, Esme could think of no appropriate reply. It was not a fact that she could dispute. She'd chosen Cleav for his big white house. It was too late to deny it. Already having a glimpse of the disparity between them—Cleav regarding her mother's fine tablecloth as little more than a rag—Esme wondered if she'd made a mistake.

In all her planning and scheming, she'd never thought past the wedding. And she'd fully expected Cleav to fall in love with her and ask her to be his wife. Having a pair of garters intervene in her favor had thrown molasses in the churn. No matter how thick and hard to paddle, it seemed the combination would never turn to butter.

Esme rose to her feet. Mrs. Rhy, apparently unsatisfied with Esme's ablutions, picked up a bucket and poured the warmed water over the young woman's head.

The rush of water was not unpleasant, but it was a surprise. Esme had the bad manners to shake off the excess like a dog, splattering Eula Rhy, who gave a cry of disgust.

"Here!" she snapped, handing the young woman a towel. "Don't you even know how to take a bath?"

"I take them mostly in the river," Esme admitted. "I don't really approve of sitting in a big vat of hot dirty suds," she declared with as great a degree of hauteur as she could muster.

Clothed in Eula Rhy's soft cotton challis wrapper, Esme followed her new mother-in-law to the front hallway. The two came up short at finding Cleav seated on the stairs.

"Good heavens! What are you doing out here, Cleavy?"

His forehead was furrowed with worry. "I was waiting to take Esme up to our room."

"Oh, I can do that!" Mrs. Rhy said impatiently. "You go ahead and get your bath."

Cleav looked ready to argue, but Eula whisked past him, her arm firmly around Esme's waist, leading her upstairs.

"The furniture in this room came all the way from North Carolina," Eula told her as they stepped across the threshold. "Cleavis has very fashionable taste but an eye to quality. All of these pieces were hand-lathed from native black walnut."

Esme gazed with awe at the massive pieces of dark furniture. There were enough shelves and drawers to hide everything in the town of Vader. The huge wardrobe had a beveled glass mirror. The bed was wider and longer than any Esme had ever seen, and the headboard touched the ceiling.

"Save to graces, it's a palace!" Her whispered exclamation was so horrified, Eula Rhy turned to look at her curiously.

"Wasn't that what you wanted?"

Before Esme had time to answer, she found herself alone.

"I didn't expect a palace!" she answered the empty room. "I only wanted a good sturdy roof over my family's head." Even as she said it, the words rang false.

Somewhere between that first day in the General Merchandise and the "I do" she'd spoken earlier in the evening, Esme had fallen in love. But she knew, as she ran her hand along the pristine chenille bedspread, that she hadn't fallen for a man with a palace. She was in love with a man who was so gentle, he could call the fish to come eat from his hand.

She smiled as she recalled the memory. Sitting in his shadow, she'd felt so safe, so calm. It was as if the world had been lifted from her shoulders. As long as she was within his shadow, he would take care of her.

Take care of her? Esme smiled and shook her head. What a strange idea. Esme took care of everyone. She had no need for someone to take care of her.

With that, sweet memory floated in the remembrance of the other emotions of that day. The tingle that coursed through her as she became aware of his nearness. The catch in her breathing as she felt his breath on her neck. And the anxious jitters of anticipation that caused her to throw herself right into his arms.

Esme suppressed a nervous giggle and covered her pink cheeks with her hand. From this night on she would be in his arms, for better or worse, for the rest of their lives.

With that thought Esme scrambled into her bedclothes and braided her hair. Leaving one coal-oil lamp to light his way, she arranged herself in the big dark bed and waited with trembling anticipation for her husband.

She waited.

And waited.

She awakened when the other side of the bed dipped with his weight. The lamp had gone out and the room was dark as pitch.

"Cleav?" The question was a startled exclamation.

"Who else would it be?" His tone was tight with displeasure.

"No one," Esme answered in a small voice.

He lay down beside her and sighed loudly.

Wide awake now, Esme held herself as stiff as a board. This was their wedding night. He would make her his woman. But Cleav didn't move.

Maybe she should reach out to him, she thought. No, she'd thrown herself into his arms once before. Tonight he would have to reach for her. He would reach for her. When would he reach for her?

The minutes trickled past like hours, and Esme's whole body was rigid with anticipation.

The suspense became too much, and she spoke. "Cleav, I . . ." She had no idea how to continue. He had married her against his will. He didn't love her. Perhaps he didn't even want her.

"Cleav, I . . ."

He rolled to his side, facing away from her.

"Good night, Esme," he said.

"Good night."

C
leavis Rhy yawned broadly
and then shook his head as if to clear it. Glancing down to the tablet he carried, he carefully wrote in the number of tins of wool fat that he'd found on the shelf. He hadn't planned on doing inventory today. But he'd never seen a better day for it.

Apparently every soul in Vader either expected the store to be closed or weren't tempted to venture too close. Cleav would have welcomed a bustling business. He had no desire to be alone with his thoughts. His thoughts were too troubling.

"Stupid, clumsy clodhopper!" he muttered to himself. He'd thought with his trousers instead of his brain! He deserved exactly what he'd gotten! He sighed derisively at himself. He'd gotten exactly nothing!

"You have made your bed, and now you have to lie in it," his mother had declared last night.

"Lying in it" was exactly what Cleav had planned to do as he'd hurried through his bath. However, his mother had stopped him on his way upstairs.

"I wish to speak with you in the parlor, Cleavis," she'd said in her most disagreeably haughty tone.

Cleav was not a man to be bullied about by his mother, but long years of experience in dealing with Eula Rhy's snits had taught him to let her speak her piece. Otherwise, he would never hear the end of it.

"Of course, Mother," he'd answered politely and indicated that she should precede him across the threshold.

Walking across the room to lean with studied casualness against the mantel, he gestured toward her favorite chair. "Please sit," he told her. "It's very late and I'm sure that you are tired."

Eula Rhy made herself comfortable before she realized she'd been outmaneuvered. It was going to be very disconcerting—and not very effective—to scold her son while looking up at him. "You have married this young woman in good faith," she began adamantly.

Cleav nodded agreement.

"Needless to say, she is not what I had in mind for you. I very much doubt that she is what you had in mind for yourself."

"That's neither here nor there, Mother," Cleav said. "The deed is done."

"It certainly is," Eula agreed. "She'll undoubtedly turn our home into her own, as is her right as your wife. Have you thought about that?"

Cleav looked annoyed. "What are you suggesting, Mother?" he asked. "Esme is a very intelligent young woman. If you think she'll be raising chickens in the pantry and hogs in the dining room, I'm afraid you are doomed to disappointment."

Eula Rhy raised an assessing eyebrow. "I'm glad to hear you defend her. You'll undoubtedly be doing a great deal of that in the future."

Cleav closed his eyes for a moment. "I'm sure my wife and I will have our share of problems to work out," he said evenly. "Like all couples, time and familiarity are in our favor."

Mrs. Rhy gave a lofty snort that could only be described as a huff. "Time and familiarity are not usually the only things newlyweds have to base a future upon," she told him.

"There are other things," Cleav defended hastily.

"Name one?" she challenged.

One thing immediately came to mind, but Cleav was loath to speak it to his mother.

"Well . . . there's ..." he dissembled.

"Do you love her?" The question snapped at him like a whip.

"I . . ." he hesitated. "I believe that she loves me," he said finally.

The older woman gave him a moue of disbelief. "She loves you or she loves a fine house and nice clothes?"

Cleav's mouth thinned to a line of displeasure. "Esme is not like that, Mother," he said with complete confidence. In his mind's eye he could see her sitting in his shadow at the pond. Her eyes sparkling with delight as she watched the fish and then darkening with desire before she threw herself in his arms.

"She cares for me, Mother. Do you find that so hard to believe?"

Eula Rhy looked her son up and down as if to take his measure. "I believe she might think that she loves you," his mother admitted. "But even that won't last long if you continue to trample her pride as casually as you did her mother's hand-crocheted tablecloth."

Even this morning, as he counted the salves and drops on the medicine shelf, the truth of his mother's words continued to haunt him. He'd pulled Esme tight against him with all the finesse of a green farm boy at a house of ill repute. His desire had led him to act crassly.

He'd been so anxious to bed her he'd insulted her, a thing that had never happened to him before. Rightly she'd foisted him off with an argument about the tablecloth.

That was why he had lain beside her last night without attempting to claim his rights as bridegroom. This morning, however, he wondered if that had been a mistake. After living through a night of sheer torture, breathing the sweet smell of her hair on the pillow, he remembered that his baser nature seemed to be one of the things she liked best.