The Marriage Bed (10 page)

"And it also says, and this is because your grandpa Henri didn't want the fight over
his
land that had split him from his brothers when
his
pa passed on, that the land is left in trust to his son—that'd be Remy—and to his son's heirs, unless and until it passed out of the family. Long as Remy wants it, it's his free and clear. And he can keep it or give it to any Sacotte he wants."

"But if he sells it," Julian said, pointing his cigar at his son, "one-third of the money is yours."

"My pa would never sell Sacotte Farm," Philip said.

"Never," Thom-Tom echoed.

"No," Spencer agreed, mustering an innocent smile at his brother-in-law. "Never."

Julian flicked an ash off the end of his cigar and smiled back like he was a friend of the devil himself.

"Never's a long time."

"Especially if you're around," Spencer said, signaling with a jerk of his head for the boys to leave the house.

"I could be out of here in ten minutes," Julian said, eyeing the horizon to the west. "They've discovered gold in the Klondike, you know."

"The what?" He'd heard about another gold rush, but he'd paid it no mind. Any gold he expected to find had better be on his own farm for all the traveling he planned to do in his life.

"The Klondike. Alaska. There are steamers out of San Francisco Bay nearly every day, and every one of them is loaded with men looking to find themselves a gold mine."

"So?"

"So there are fortunes to be made. Why shouldn't I be the, one to make them?" Bouche looked at him earnestly. He'd had a hunger from the day Spencer had met him that had never been sated. Because what Bouche had always wanted was more. More, and sooner. Two commodities some people could never get enough of.

Still, as badly as Julian might want wealth, Spencer just couldn't see him dirtying his hands to get it. "Mining? In Alaska? Somehow Bouche, I just can't see you in overalls and boots to your hips panning in some frozen—"

Bouche threw back his head and laughed. "You've never quite gotten the concept, have you, Williamson? There are worker bees and queens—or in this case, kings. A man with money in Alaska's gonna need a place to spend it. Someone's gotta sell them booze, provide them with a little warmth on those cold winter nights, sell them a heavy coat. Why not me? It would only take a small stake. I repeat, so why not me?"

"Because you got three kids, Bouche. And my guess is not a dime in your pocket."

Julian Bouche shrugged. "You could fix that, and I'd be outta here before that sun finishes setting." He gestured in the general direction of some dark clouds.

"Yeah, and I'd be stuck with your children for the rest of my life."

Bouche shrugged a second time, then stretched and yawned. "Wonder what Livvy's making for dinner.''

Try as he might, Spencer couldn't keep his fists from balling. "You won't be here to eat it," he said. "So sorry, but you'd best be on your way before it gets dark."

"I'll only be back," Julian said, grinding out his cigar on Olivia's freshly swept porch and heading on into the house.

"Damn right," Spencer called out after him. "Don't go thinking this is a permanent thing."

Livvy knocked on the door of the house in which she'd been born and raised and had lived until the day she'd married Spencer Williamson, and waited for her sister-in-law to answer it. After a moment of silence, she knocked again.

"Bess? Remy? You home?" she called out.

"It's Livvy," she heard Remy say despite the closed door. "Just a second, Livvy."

Her hand had been on the latch, but now she waited. Never, not in all of the eighteen years of their marriage, had Bess and Remy ever asked her to wait before entering their house. In fact, she couldn't remember them ever asking anyone to wait.

Remy opened the door a crack, looked back over his shoulder at Bess, and then opened it fully to allow Livvy entrance. The house was dim, the shades closed, the lamps unlit.

On the couch, Bess sat like a giant discarded rag doll, her shoulders slumped, her apron lifted to her nose. Clearly she had been crying, and even in the dim light, Olivia could tell she had been at it all morning.

"What on earth . . . ?" she asked, rushing to sit next to her best friend in the world and putting an arm around her. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Bess waved Remy away with her right hand and held her apron to her nose with her left. She blew hard and then wiped at her face, which was red and raw.

"Should I make you ladies some tea?" Remy asked, looking decidedly lost in his own parlor. "Or something cold?"

"Go check the pigs," Bess said, a hiccup escaping her lips. "Or the chickens."

"The stock's all fine, Bessie," he assured her. "It's you I'm worried about."

Olivia felt sick with fear, her heart thudding in her throat, her palms sweating so much that she had to wipe them on her skirt. "Bess? You want to tell me what's wrong?"

"Remy," Bess said firmly. "Go check the fields. Check the sun. Check something."

Remy nodded, his face revealing that he understood his wife wanted to be alone with his sister. "I, uh, I think I'll just check on Blackie's hoof. You know I put some new medicine on it yesterday, and . . ." His voice trailed off as he backed his way toward the door.

"You do that," Bess said gently. "And take your time. I'm fine here with Livvy."

"It's not such a big deal, Bessie. I swear it's not," he said, and Livvy could hear the tears in his throat.

"Maybe it's not to you," Bessie said. "But Livvy'U understand. Go on. Check the horse."

He left quietly, shutting the door without a sound. Bess's breathing was heavy and labored and filled the room.

"Saw Doc LeMense," Bess said finally. "Old coot. You think he knows what he's talkin' about?"

The saliva pooled in her mouth, but Olivia couldn't swallow. She pursed her lips, moved her tongue, but still she couldn't make her throat cooperate.
Dear God, don't let anything be wrong with Bess.

"Livvy?" Bess asked, her head tipped so that she could look her full in the face. "You look worse than me."

"Tell me what's wrong," Livvy said when she could finally get her tongue and lips under control. "Are you sick? What did Dr. LeMense say?"

Bess let out a heavy sigh and dropped both hands in her lap.

"Besides that I gotta lose fifty pounds, at least?"

"He always says that. It never upset you so before."

"There's more. Says my weight's so bad that my heart doesn't sound good."

"What does that mean?" Livvy demanded. "I mean, you can lose the weight and then you'll be all right, yes?"

"He says I can't . . . that if I . . . oh, Liv!" Bess turned and took Livvy in her arms, her bulk nearly suffocating her sister-in-law. "I can't have any more babies. The strain on my heart'd be too much. Leastwise, that's what he says."

"But if you didn't have any more?" Livvy said, extricating herself from the embrace and backing up enough to read her sister-in-law's face. "Then you'd be all right?"

"Well, I have to lose some weight. Says that's why my joints hurt so bad, from all the extra weight, but that's not the point. Livvy, I can't have any more children."

Livvy tried to keep the anger from her voice but was sure it was written all over her face. Bess was looking to her for sympathy. Well, she surely had the wrong sow by the ear if she thought that Olivia would feel sorry for her, what with her three children and her loving husband. No more children? Bess had felt the flutter of life inside her, the strains of childbirth, the tug of an infant at her breast, and she was expecting Livvy to hurt for her because after three—not one, not two, but three children—she couldn't have that pleasure again?

"That's it?" Livvy asked tight-lipped, when she thought she had herself under control. "Just no more children and lose some weight?"

Bess rose with great effort and walked stiffly to the window. She drew back the shade and searched the fields, no doubt looking for Remy. "I should have known you wouldn't understand."

"Yes," Livvy agreed. "You should have."

"I suppose it was kind of thoughtless of me," Bess said after a few moments. "To you I must seem kind of greedy."

"Well," Livvy said. "Kind of."

"It's not just the babies," Bess said, still with her back to Olivia. "But Remy. A woman has a duty to her husband and, well, Remy's always enjoyed trying, if you know what I mean."

Olivia was silent. Did Bess really mean only Remy? How she wished she had talked to Bess before she'd married Spencer. But Bess had assumed she'd known the facts of life by twenty-five, and both her mother and Marion were already gone. How could she ask her now, after she'd been married for three years, whether a woman should find any pleasure with her husband? How could she ask Bess if she enjoyed it?

It had never been a question in her mind until that night before the children came when she had wished that instead of getting it over with, Spencer had never stopped. Even thinking about it now, in Bess's parlor, her blood rushed and her in-sides warmed.

"I don't even know how to try not making babies," Bess said. "I just know that the possibility made it all the more worth trying."

Olivia bit the side of her lip. "I wouldn't know," she said quietly.

"It's getting late," Bess said, despite the brilliant sunshine that was streaming through the window where she held the shade away. It couldn't be much past three. "Guess you wanna be getting back home."

She was being asked to leave. "I'm sorry you're so sad," she said honestly. "I do wish you could have everything you want."

Bess patted her own hip and laughed. "Think that's what got me in this fix, Livvy."

"You really are going to have to stop eating those pies, Bess."

Bess nodded.

"And those cakes."

Bess nodded again.

"And the cookies, the puddings, the breads. I love you too much, Bess Sacotte, to watch you eat yourself into an early grave."

"Now, Livvy, I'm not gonna kill myself with sweets any more." She smiled. "But it would be a nice way to go, wouldn't it?" Bess dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her apron and gave Livvy a genuine smile.

"You feeling better?" Livvy asked.

Bess nodded. "Now, you wanna tell me what's troubling you?"

"I was only worried about you," Livvy answered.
At least that was before I came.
"You were the only thing on my mind."

Chapter Six

Well, if there was a stupider stallion in all of Wisconsin than Curly George, Spencer Williamson didn't even want to imagine him. A mare in heat in the near field and Curly George couldn't find her with a damn treasure map. Even with Remy's help the two men could hardly get the stallion to cover Peaches, who couldn't lift her tail fast enough, and nearly trampled George in her haste to back up toward him. With a female that eager, that ready, he'd have thought Curly George would have been nipping the back of her neck before the sun was even up.

But no, he and Remy had nearly had to do the act for the horse, coaxing him up over Peaches's rump and reminding him what went where.

It was the goddamn longest morning of Spencer's life, trying to convince the horse to do what he damn well ought to know he'd enjoy, and he burst through the door for the midday meal with a grunt that went ignored by his wife and the little girl who sat naked in the kitchen sink.

"Because a little girl who doesn't wash starts to smell a lot like a little pig.'' Livvy stood with her back to him, apparently bathing a reluctant Josie. The water splashed up and his wife shook her head like a dog coming in from the rain and then wiped her eyes against her sleeve. "Keep it up, honey bunch, but you're still not getting out of that sink until that hair is soaped and rinsed. Then we're going to buy you the prettiest white dress anyone's ever worn to La Chapelle and you're going to throw the prettiest flowers."

Livvy's own hair appeared to be getting a washing, too, quite incidentally. Several strands had escaped from that damnable bun and were corkscrewing down her back nearly as far as her waist.

"That's a good girl," she cooed at the child encouragingly. After just two weeks with the children in the house, it appeared that Livvy was getting the hang of mothering a lot faster than he'd expected. "I'll just get a towel."

She turned and reached for the towel, a broad smile of accomplishment on her pretty face.

"Oh, Spencer," she said, turning further still to face him, all the while keeping one hand on the little girl in the sink. "I didn't realize you'd come in. I'll get your dinner in just a minute."

Her bodice was soaked, the front of it plastered to her like she'd been whitewashed. Two dusky nipples stood out erect and taut from the cold. She said something else, but he wasn't sure what. He wasn't sure of anything except that he might burst from the sight of her. He gulped for air like a drowning man, his eyes riveted on the two spheres that rose and fell around the locket that hung between them, his senses fully aware of the pressure in his loins.

"You're wet," he said when he found his voice. "That is, your dress is wet."

"Well, we were having a bath, weren't we, Josie?" she said, gesturing with her arm and causing her breasts to quiver. "We're getting ready for the Blessed Sacrament at La Chapelle. Imagine, Spencer! I've finally got a little girl to bring to the celebration. What thanks I've got to give!" Her eyes sparkled, but it was the glistening buttons on her blouse that captured his attention. The buttons, and the wet blouse, and what was no longer concealed from him.

She was killing him, as sure as if she had a knife and was twisting it in his gut.

"I can come back in when you're done," he offered, though he wasn't sure he could move from the spot where he stood.

"We're done," she said, spinning on her heel and lifting the baby from the sink, setting her on the floor, then drying her briskly with the towel. "Run and get your clothes, now, and I'll help you get into them."

She wiped her hands on the towel and brushed at her blouse with the cloth.

"Cold," she said, lifting her shoulders and squeezing her arms together so that her breasts were pushed against each other like one of those cloverleaf buns.

"Jeez," he said, gawking like he was fourteen and had never seen a woman's breasts before.

"Where's Remy?" she asked, running her hands up and down her arms and making her chest do some kind of dance in front of his eyes.

"Who?"

"Remy. You know, my brother, the man who was helping you with Curly George . . . Spencer?"

Remy. Spencer seemed to remember him taking off as soon as Curly George had finally begun to thrust in earnest. He didn't know about Remy, but the damn horse was getting more satisfaction than he was, that was for sure.

"Went home." God, she was beautiful like that, her hair half a mess, her face flushed and moist, her attributes showing like some kind of wanton hussy. And she didn't even know what it was she was doing to him, standing there like that, smiling that smile, swaying just a little from the cold, her breasts rising and falling and rising again.

"I'd better go dress Josie," she said softly, as if she was loath to break some spell. "Can you wait?"

Not one more minute. "Wait for what?"

"Dinner, of course. I'll just be a moment. I want to make sure Josie doesn't catch cold."

"Or you," he said, pointing at her wet blouse in a vague, I'm-not-staring-at-your-nipples kind of way.

"Oh, this'll dry," she said, as if she wasn't revealing anything that might be torturing the life out of him just by standing there.

She reached down to dry the floor by her feet and he could see her breasts fall forward, grow beneath his eyes to proportions he'd only dreamed about.

"I'm not hungry," he lied, rushing for the door without risking a look back.

"All right," she said, raising her voice so that he could hear her even after he closed the farm house door. "But it's always here if you want it."

The afternoon was a haze of feelings that Olivia revelled in. There was no mistaking the way Spencer had stared at her when he'd found her giving Josie her bath. Enough men had looked at her with lust in their eyes when she was younger for her to recognize it even in a man who didn't want to let it show. And when she'd crossed her arms, well, she thought the poor man's eyes were going to pop out of his head.

He wanted her. Wanted her as much as she wanted him, and the minute he'd bedded down the animals and she'd settled the kids she was going to let him know she was ready to let him have his way with her. Ever since that night before the children had come, she'd wished that Spencer might visit her again, suckle at her breast, touch her in her secret place.

And each time she thought about it she felt her heart race and her cheeks color, and worst, worst of all, her private parts grow moist.

Supper probably didn't take more than ten minutes start to finish. It felt, of course, longer than a carriage ride to Duluth. In the rain. With no padding on the seat. And nothing to eat.

Neil had seconds. Good for a growing boy, Spencer said. Spencer had thirds. Louisa barely touched what was on her plate, claiming the fish stew was too salty, the potatoes too soft. Naturally, Josie followed her sister in this as in everything else.

"Well," Spencer said after he'd eaten enough fish to leave Lake Michigan lifeless, "I've got some work to do in the barn."

"Work?" she asked, trying to hide her dissappointment. Of course, he was right. They could hardly go to bed so early with a houseful of children.

"The harnesses need dressing," he said. "And I want to throw a blanket over Peaches."

Neil offered to help and Olivia held her breath hoping Spencer wouldn't snap at the boy. Instead he simply nodded. It wasn't a riproaring welcome, but acceptance came first. She hadn't expected two weeks to produce a bond meant to last a lifetime. She'd settle for a mere halt to the feud that had begun the day the children first showed up.

Louisa and Josie took off for their room, rejecting Olivia's offer to help get Josie ready for bed and read her a story. In a few more days, when Josie was more used to her new surroundings and didn't need the comfort that repetition brought a child, Olivia intended to pull out some of the books she had saved from her own childhood and read them to the little girl whether she liked it or not. Sometimes a body just needed a push in the right direction, and no one had had more practice in the gentle art of pushing than Olivia Williamson.

But for now, Livvy had the first few minutes of utter peace she had known in over a week. And she knew precisely what she wanted to do with them.

She headed for the bedroom and shut the door behind her, turning the lamp up to reading level. Checking over her shoulder twice even though the door was closed, she went straight to Spencer's bottom drawer and dug through his winter underwear until she felt the book in her hands.

Spencer had no idea that she knew where he'd put it, or that he was even reading it. He had presumed she was asleep when he'd thrown back the covers and tiptoed to the dresser, coming back to their bed with Dr. Napheys's book. From all his humphs and grunts, the book seemed a source of great displeasure, but still he had gone back to it just last night and read a few more pages before slamming it shut and thrusting it back in the drawer with enough noise that she couldn't even pretend to sleep through it.

"Something wrong?" she'd asked him, sitting up and blinking in their bed.

"Everything, Olivia. Just everything. And there doesn't seem to be a damn thing I can do about it."

"Come to bed, Spence," she'd said, reaching out her arms to him in the hopes that he would seek comfort there.

"That's the last thing you can do to help, Livvy-love." He'd snorted.

Well, as the cover of the book promised in gold letters on brown leather,
Knowledge Is Safety,
and she wanted to be as safe as she could be. She flipped rapidly through the pages, unsure how long Spencer would be in the barn, and ignored the chapters on adolescence and puberty, as well as the shocking one on the social evil and diseases resulting therefrom, and finally found what she was looking for.

Page 171. Husbands and Wives.

Well, according to the book, their bedchamber was the right size and they were both clean. Dr. Napheys would be satisfied so far.

Page 173. Of Marital Relations.
Livvy closed the book, her finger keeping the page. She listened for sounds in the house but heard none. She promised herself she would read only a paragraph; surely a woman need not know more than that.

Passion in women
leaped out from the page, written in a scriptlike manner. She took a deep breath and read on.

A vulgar opinion prevails that they are creatures of like passions with ourselves; that they experience desires as ardent, and often as ungovernable, as those which lead to so much evil in our sex. Vicious writers, brutal and ignorant men, and some shameless women combine to favor and extend this opinion.

Nothing is more utterly untrue. Only in very rare instances do women experience one tithe of the sexual feeling which is familiar to most men. Many of them are entirely frigid, and not even in marriage do they ever perceive any real desire.

Well, she thought, slamming the book closed and making noises that reminded her of Spencer, she must be a shameless hussy. A wanton woman. She yanked open Spencer's drawer with so much force it nearly toppled put of the dresser, and then shoved the book back under his clothes in exactly the same place that he had left it. If only she could ask Bess whether she was the only decent woman who wished her husband's hands would explore her secret places again.

"Liv?"

She jumped away from the dresser at the sound of Spencer's voice with such speed that she upset the furniture, then hurried to right it and nearly knocked over the lamp.

"You all right?" Spencer asked, rushing to steady the lamp and studying her face. "You look all flushed."

Her hands flew to her cheeks, covered her mouth, hid her eyes.

"What's the matter? The girls upset you again?" He had his hand on her arm and she felt the heat of it through her sleeve. She looked down at it and he pulled it away as if he was the one being burned by their contact instead of her.

She bent to close the drawer then straightened, smoothing her skirts as if that would somehow restore her dignity. It did not.

He was studying her, waiting for an answer. She had trouble remembering the question with him standing so near. "Louisa shut you out of bedtime again? That what's got you so rattled?"

"Yes. That is ... no. You just startled me, is all." She studied the screen behind which she changed, the window, with its curtain hiding the moon. Anything but the bottom drawer of the dresser that contained Remy's book, or her husband's eyes, which were still fixed on her.

"You're sure you're okay?"

She had been reading a book about, well, the S word. Worse than that, she'd been thinking about, well, that.

"I'm fine," she insisted.

"What were you doing in here by yourself?" He looked around the room like some Pinkerton looking for evidence. His eyes studied the dresser. "Liv?"

"Laundry," she said, probably too quickly. "Putting away some laundry."

"At this time of night? I didn't see anything on the line today."

"Darning. Did I say laundry? I meant darning," she said.
Or simply darn
. "Neil settled down for the night?"

Now it was Spencer's'turn to look uncomfortable. "Boy's sleeping on the sofa, if it's all right with you."

All right? He knew she wanted all the children under her roof where she could rest easier knowing they were safe. He'd been the one who had insisted Neil stay in the barn.

"Dumb cow ate something that disagreed with her. Whole barn smells like . . . well, smells like a dumb cow ate something that disagreed with her!"

Livvy nodded but didn't say a word. Clearly Spencer, his fathering ability shining like the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse beacon to lost children, was making more progress with Neil than she was with the girls, despite the fact that she was trying so hard and Spencer was fighting any relationship with all his might.

"And could you take him in to Zephin's tomorrow and order him a pair of kip boots? Boy can't be much help with his feet stuck in the mire every other step."