The Endless Forest (37 page)

It sounded like a question, but his expression made it more of a challenge.

Panic flowed through her, and worse still, she could see that he knew what she was feeling. He saw it, but what did he make of it? Disappointment? Anger? Amusement?

She sat back and folded her hands together in her lap, as tight as she could.

“Um, I thought you wanted to talk to me about teaching.”

Daniel grinned, clearly pleased to have flustered her so completely. “Will you help out at the school until the end of term?”

She nodded, because she didn’t trust her voice. There was a tic at the corner of her mouth, a smile that wanted to show itself. Which was utterly ridiculous; this wasn’t a game they were playing.

“That’s settled then. Now what about getting married?”

She expelled a sharp breath. “You’re serious.”

“I am serious. And if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll recognize it’s right. You can feel it in your gut, I know you can.”

She took his hand in her sincere wish to be heard. “Daniel Bonner, we hardly know each other.”

He gripped the hand she had given him and his thumb moved across her wrist in a motion so light and so shocking that she jerked, as though he had stuck her with a hidden pin.

He said, “How well did you know your Teddy?”

Annoyed, Martha turned her head away. “Don’t call him that. Don’t call him my Teddy. And the obvious answer is, I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

Daniel was not in the least put out by her irritation, and was that not impolite? Though some small voice pointed out how refreshing it was to be able to say what she thought without worrying about it being wrong somehow. She wondered what it would take to make Daniel Bonner angry, or to turn him away. A question she had never asked herself about Teddy, but she had found out the answer anyway.

He was saying, “Do you think I’m after your money?”

“No!”

Martha got up and walked to the end of the porch. She should be collapsing with weariness, but every nerve was tingling. A breeze had come up and with it, the smell of things greening. Birds darted in and out of shadow, small flags fluttering under the canopy of trees where the evergreen branches were tipped with new color. The light irritated her eyes. Martha squinted and wished for the handkerchief she must have left behind at Lake in the Clouds. She was not near tears, she told herself sternly. In no way or manner was she about to weep. No matter how confusing and shocking this sudden proposal, no matter how—thrilling.

Daniel Bonner wanted to marry her.

Something bright had blossomed in her as he said the words, an excitement and pleasure she couldn’t remember ever feeling before, though surely she must have, when Teddy proposed. What had been in her mind then? How had she felt? Relieved, certainly. But otherwise she had no memory beyond the fact that he had a smudge on his cheek, one she wanted to tell him about but certainly could not, not in the middle of his very formal, almost—

“Still got Teddy on your mind?”

She jumped. He was directly behind her. Martha shook her head and then turned and gave him a reluctant nod. “It is hard not to think of him—” her voice trailed away.

“I reckon his proposal was a lot fancier,” Daniel said flatly.

“Oh Daniel.” She put her forehead on his chest and his arm came up around her. “It was very awkward, to tell the truth. He meant to sound sophisticated but he—” She stopped, searching for a word that wouldn’t sound cruel.

“He’s a boy,” Daniel said. “I’m not.”

She lifted her head and put her chin where her forehead had been. “I know that. I know.”

He smiled at her then. A small, knowing smile that made the knot in her chest draw tighter. When he kissed her there was some hesitation, as if he expected to be rebuffed. If he only knew what he made her feel, that was the last thing he need worry about. The very thought made her flush, and at that moment his tongue touched hers, a tentative brushing that raised gooseflesh along her arms and back. She opened her mouth to him on a sigh, and he pulled her up tighter against him. A kiss that spun out of all imagining and experience. His cheeks were rough with beard but she hardly noticed, the recklessness of the kiss was too overwhelming. She felt it everywhere. Everywhere.

“Come inside,” he whispered. “Come.”

Oh, she wanted to. She wanted nothing more, but there were other considerations, things she could barely admit to herself.

“What?” His expression was puzzled.

“I don’t want people to think of me as they did of my mother.” There. It came out that simply. She heard herself going on, a little breathless. “She was—immoderate. She was—” Words failed her, as they must. How could she speak of something she barely understood?

But Daniel knew. He swung around to half sit on the rail and pulled her to him. This way they were face-to-face and so there was no way to hide what she was thinking.

“Jemima used whatever tools she had to hand to get what she wanted,” Daniel said. “To get what she thought she needed. Is that why you’re here with me?”

She shook her head.

“Nobody could confuse you with Jemima. Nobody with a brain. Nobody with an ounce of fairness in them.”

Now tears did rise and threaten to fall. She blinked them back. “But there will be people like that. Thoughtless and cruel. I don’t want to give them anything to hold against me. Against us.” The last came in a whisper, but it made him smile.

“Is that an answer I’m hearing?”

Talk was terribly overrated in these situations, Martha told herself. She kissed him and he smiled against her mouth.

“I’ll have an answer,” he said.

She nodded. “Yes. Yes.”

His smile grew broader. “A proper answer. A full sentence. ‘Yes, Daniel Bonner, my love, my life, I will marry you and gladly.’”

She opened her mouth to protest and he kissed her. Thoroughly. His hand moved over the line of her hip and down, rested flat on the curve where leg met hip.

Martha felt herself beginning to unravel.

He broke the kiss. “You can say it here, or you can say it inside.” He rocked her toward him with his hand spread over her bottom. Nerves jumped and kicked.

“Yes,” she said. For the third time.

Inside he pressed her against the closed door and kissed her there in the dim empty room. With one hand holding her face he kissed her until something came awake in her, a need she hadn’t known about. But he had underestimated her, or overestimated his powers of persuasion, because she pushed him away with a hand against his good shoulder.

“Wait,” she said breathlessly. “Wait. I have to say something. I have to ask you a question.”

It took a moment to master himself, but then Daniel nodded. He tried to focus on her eyes, though his gaze was drawn to the curve of her lip. Her lower lip, full and plump as a berry.

She said, “Jemima is going to show up here, you know that.”

The hem of her skirt was already in his fist, and he let it go.

“Let her come,” he said. “She don’t worry me.”

“She’ll be your mother-in-law.”

“You’ll be my wife; that’s the important thing.”

She held him off, still. “Daniel, you need to think this through. What it means.”

“She’s nothing but a bully,” Daniel said. He was leaning over her with his hand stemmed against the wall. He bent his elbow and came in closer. “I never could abide a bully.”

Martha curled her hands in his shirtfront and pulled his face down to hers. “People will talk, you know.”

“They do that anyway. Might as well make it worth their while.”

He ducked his head but she held him away to examine his expression. “They’ll say it’s too fast. And maybe it is.”

“I’m not an impetuous man,” he said. His tone was patient. “I could have got married ten times over these last years, but I was waiting for you.”

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “You were not.”

“I was,” he said. “I just didn’t know it ’til I walked into my mother’s kitchen and saw you standing there.” He gave her an intense look, just edged with playfulness. “Now, if you’re trying to say you don’t want me—”

Martha went up on tiptoe and kissed him, or tried to. Daniel turned, his head cocked at an angle at the sound of voices.

He said, “That’s my sister and brother and the rest of them on the way home.”

They stood there against the door for five minutes and then another five, listening as the others passed. The talk was far more subdued this morning than it had been last night, but that would have mostly to do with lack of sleep. Daniel waited for one of them—Hannah or Jennet, most likely—to call out a hello. Or Ben or Ethan might just come and open the door, see if he was back from the village. Ask if he had done any swimming this morning and did Martha get home all right? With a grin and a nod. Nothing mean about it, all good-natured.

The truth was, he didn’t care to talk to anybody just now, no matter how well-meaning. They were just about to settle some things, he and Martha, and they didn’t need any interruptions. With luck this was something a man only did once in his life, and he wanted to do it right. Now that he had made the decision.

Just exactly when that had happened, he couldn’t say. The moment she settled the shawl around his shoulders at the end of the last dance, right then it was clear to him he had known for days what he wanted. He’d marry Martha Kirby as soon as she’d have him, and count himself lucky. She was one of the strong ones, though she didn’t seem to realize it herself.

Women on the edge of the endless forests grew up tough or they didn’t last long. A steady stream of girls left Paradise for Johnstown and Albany and beyond. They took jobs as servants and cooks, nurses and seamstresses, married and settled, and never came home again.

Some who shouldn’t have stayed did, and turned mean. Martha’s mother was a prime example, as people kept reminding him. As his
sister Lily kept reminding him. She would take this hard, but Simon was there to talk sense to her. In the end Martha herself would need to win Lily over, but that would happen. He didn’t doubt it for a minute.

There was something whole about Martha, something solid that he had never known in women outside his own family, and that was something even Lily couldn’t ignore. It was a fine thing and a rare one and she couldn’t begrudge him. It was true it had happened fast, but he argued with himself as he would with Lily: He was old enough to know his own mind. And then the voice that came to him wasn’t Lily’s or even his mother’s, but Curiosity’s. Telling him he might know his own mind, but did Martha know hers? Or was he sweet-talking her into something she wan’t ready for? She was a rarity, all right, and she would suit him just fine. But why the hurry?

That was a question he would be asked by Curiosity and his mother and every other woman he knew. Why the hurry?

He closed his eyes and reached for an answer, but all he got was Martha, the smell of her. He had the urge to put his face to the line of her neck and pull in her scent until it filled his lungs, but she was already anxious, breathing shallow and quick. When he looked he saw that she had turned her head hard to the side, listening still for voices. He studied her profile in the half-light from the one open shutter and saw how high her color was. Her upper lip and her forehead were damp, and as he watched a single drop of sweat moved from her hairline to travel down her temple, though the room was cold.

Where the light touched her hair, the rich dark color sparked a deep copper. Her skin was milky, the faintest blush of color high on her cheekbones and at her earlobes. Like sugar candy that would taste of strawberries.

She gasped when his lips touched her neck and then again, a small sharp intake of breath when he reached her earlobe. Now she would push him away, walk away and stare at him from across the room, accusing him and rightly. Instead she turned her head sharply and their mouths met. Something gave way, some last bit of barrier between them. She was so close that he could feel the shape of her legs against his own, the curve of hip and breast. He was aroused beyond all experience, but he made himself stop. To remind himself what she was owed. What was right and reasonable. Of his mother’s infernal categorical imperative.

Think for a moment. Think if everyone were to handle this kind of situation and act as you are acting now
.

Martha was very still, but for the triple beat of the pulse at her temple. “What is it?”

“I’ve been standing here reading myself a sermon,” he said finally. “Am I trying to take you someplace you don’t want to go?”

Her eyes widened. “And where would that be, exactly?” The grin surprised him. A little uncertain but a grin nonetheless. Whatever she was feeling, it hadn’t robbed her of her wits.

Daniel found that he was grinning back at her. “You want me to say it plain?” He ducked and nipped at her earlobe.

She wiggled and she was gone, on the other side of the room with her arms wrapped around herself, almost rocking on her heels. Ready to run a race.

“Don’t smile like that,” she said. “It’s too early to congratulate yourself.”

Daniel began to cross the room at a casual pace that fooled neither of them. But she held her ground until he was in front of her, looking up as if there was something written across his face in bold letters.

She said, “There’s too much to think about. It’s too complicated.”

So the play was over for the moment. Daniel took her by the hand to the settle that stood at right angles to the hearth, and when they were seated he took a deep breath.

“It ain’t complicated. People get married every day with no fuss at all. Unless you were wanting a big party and a new dress and all that. Is that it?”

Martha studied the hands folded in her lap. “No,” she said. “I’ve been through all that and I didn’t like it the first time. But there are things to be settled, Daniel. If you’ll only stop and think. Where are we to live? Here? In the village? Some other place? And forgive me for raising this subject, but all my property will pass to you as my—my husband.”

“I don’t care about that,” he said. He was hot now, a churning in his gut. It was something he hadn’t wanted to think about, but she was right.