The Marriage Bed (23 page)

As the day wore on, her anger grew, as did her shame. Her life with Spencer had been a sham, and it was over. Every time she had let him use her, had lain beneath him while he raised her gown, had been a lie.

And the thought of what it could have been like all those times haunted her as she moved about the kitchen of her childhood, which, it seemed, would become the kitchen of her old age.

Worse still, it was the memory of that last time he had made love to her and the knowledge that it was just that,
the last time
, that hurt more than anything else. He had known the joy he could have brought her, and he had given her a taste of it as his parting gift. Something she could never forget as she lay alone in her bed for the rest of her life. What might have been, if only he had been willing to love her.

She heard the familiar wagon pulling up the rutted path to Sacotte Farm, heard the screen door banging as Thom-Tom ran out to welcome Spencer, heard his greeting ring out in return, and felt the knot in her stomach twist yet another turn at the sound of his voice.

The two pies in the oven were nearly done; three more were cooling on racks in the hot kitchen. Sweat trickled down between her breasts and her heart lodged in her throat. If she ran now, the pies would burn. If she ran now, Spencer would know she was running from him.

Oh, but if she stayed!

The knock startled her. "Liv? Can I come in?" he called from beyond the screen door.

She couldn't find her voice.

"Liv?" he called again. "You still mad?"

She wiped her cherry-stained hands on the already dirty dishrag and marched purposefully from the kitchen until she stood five feet or so from the front door. The late-afternoon sun was low enough in the sky to turn Spencer Williamson into a black silhouette against the brightness.

"The children are ready," she said dully, finding it hard to push the words up through a throat already clogged with tears.

"I brought you something," he said softly, reaching for the door handle as he spoke.

"I don't want anything from you."

He let the door go, remaining where he was, outside of her home, outside of her life. "Guess I got my answer. I'll just leave it here on the porch," he said. Then more loudly, more sociably, he added, "Sure smells good around here. Those your cherry pies I smell baking?"

Livvy sniffed. "They're my pies you smell burning," she said, racing toward the kitchen. There were fifty cents' worth of pies and a lifetime of self-esteem in that oven, and Livvy wasn't about to watch either go up in smoke.

She flung open the oven door and a puff of smoke rose to sting her eyes. She reached for the pie on the left, but before she could get her hands on it she was yanked away from behind, her arms pressed to her sides.

"You want to burn those precious hands, you ninny?" Spencer asked.

She looked down at her unprotected hands and unwelcome tears flooded her vision. She hadn't burned herself on a stove since she was a little girl. That one time had been enough. After that her sensible side had always reigned in the kitchen. Until now.

Now, when her back was pressed up hard against Spencer's chest and his breath was ruffling her hair, her common sense seemed to have taken a walk behind the same old barn where a.young boy had stolen a kiss from a young girl so many years ago.

"I'll get them," he offered, releasing her and grabbing a towel. Before she could object, the two pies sat on the counter and several children stood in the doorway attracted by the smoke and the commotion. "Not too bad, I don't think," Spencer said. "They don't look ruined, do they?"

Livvy looked at the blackened tops of her precious pies, pies known for their shine, their eye appeal as much as for their taste. All she could see on the counter was wasted flour, wasted sugar, and wasted cherries. "They're ruined, all right," she said.

"I don't think so," he argued, as if he had the slightest knowledge about pies beyond stuffing them in his mouth with never so much as a
This is good, Liv,
or a
thank you.
"I think they could be saved."

"You would," she said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "But when a pie is ruined, it's ruined. When something's over, Spencer, it's over."

He looked from her to the pie and back again. He'd taken her meaning all right, and she was glad. She might not be able to speak her mind in front of the children, but his reading it was good enough for her.

"I can't sell a pie like this," she said, then wished she could rip the tongue from her mouth. It was a natural response. After all, he'd forbidden her from selling her cooking. But that was when he had some say over what she did. It was no longer his concern if she was selling these pies or burying them in the yard. She raised her chin and looked at him defiantly, daring him to tell her what to do.

"Maybe if you sprinkled some of that sugar that looks like flour over it," he suggested, surprising her. Besides his attempt to be helpful, it was a good idea. "Be a shame to waste something that could be wonderful with a little bit of effort."

As well as he could read her mind, she could read his. She knew he wasn't just thinking about her pies, and she had no intention of agreeing. "No," she said, looking at the pies as if they revolted her. "You might as well take one with you on this little party of yours. Kids don't have real high standards when it comes to quality anyway."

He looked wounded, but he didn't argue. Just thanked her for the pie and called out to the children, even inviting Remy's boys to come along.

Tossing Josie up onto his shoulder and then warning her to duck through the doorway, he headed out of the house with Neil opening doors and Louisa, reluctantly following a few feet behind. Thom-Tom came running from somewhere, having gotten permission from Bess to join them, and Spencer looked a bit like the Pied Piper of Hamlin as he waltzed out of the front door with her family following him.

"Better not leave this out in the heat too long," he yelled from the porch before stepping down to put Josie into the back of the wagon and waiting for all the children to climb in. "I left your present on the porch," he called out before settling himself on the seat, with Neil climbing up into the seat next to him. Livvy wondered whether Spencer was aware she was watching him through the window, but when he ruffled Neil's hair and then handed him the reins to Curly George, she decided he surely was. He'd never let the boy handle the horse before, and it was unlikely that once they got beyond her vision he was likely to do it now.

She went back to the kitchen. Bess had taken advantage of the fact that Olivia was there and had gone to town to visit her sister. She was glad her sister-in-law was gone, but it meant searching through Bess's cupboards until she could locate the confectioner's sugar. As she waited for the pie to cool she cleaned the kitchen with a vengeance. The floor showed evidence of how hard it was for Bess to get down on her hands and knees, and months of dirt were embedded in the grooves between the wooden slats.

Remy came into the kitchen and nearly tripped over her, shouting and letting out a small curse as he caught himself before tumbling down on top of her.

"What in the hell are you doing?" he asked. "Penance?"

Her hands ached and the knuckles were raw. Slowly she got to her feet and arched the kinks out of her back. "I'm helping," she said, maybe a trifle pitifully. "The best I can."

He looked at her and balled his fists at his sides. "I wish I could kill him," he admitted quietly. "Or that he'd died along with the rest of his precious family."

"Remy!" The slap rang out in the quiet of the kitchen and his hand went quickly to his cheek. "Oh, I'm so sorry," Olivia said when she realized what she had done. Hitting two men in as many days, and one her own brother! What depths had that husband of hers brought her to?

He waved off her apology and as he did the look in his eyes became one of undisguised pity. "It's that way, is it? Still hopelessly in love?"

"Just because I don't wish dead a man that we've known all our lives doesn't mean that I hold him in any higher regard than any other human being."

"And the back of your hand to me, Livvy? If I'd wished Emma or Charlie Zephin dead, would you have slapped me?"

She ignored him and put fresh water in her bucket, then got back down to her knees. "I said I was sorry," she mumbled as she started in again on the floor.

"What you are, Olivia, is a fool. I'm going to town to get Bess. You wanna come?" He stood above her, looking down, extending one hand to help her rise.

Shaking her head, she scrubbed harder at the dirt she imagined must still lay between the cracks. The light was too poor to find it, but she scoured all the harder since she couldn't see any result. When she heard Remy pull away, she stopped. All the scrubbing in the world couldn't seem to erase the memory of Spencer's face when she'd come to after her fall. It couldn't rub out the night she had spent in his arms, laughing, aching, loving. It couldn't wipe out that moment when she'd realized that he had withheld from her the very thing she had wanted most in the world from him. What she had wanted, God help her, even more than his love.

She rose, washed up, and was just sprinkling powdered sugar on her burned pie and admiring the results when she heard the sound of a stranger's wagon coming up the path. Funny how she had come to recognize the sound of the wheels and rigging on Spencer's cart and the clomp of Curly George's gait.

As she glanced out the kitchen window, she caught a glimpse of Charlie Zephin's fancy rig. She supposed that Charlie had bought the Columbus A Grade Canopy Top Park Wagon Surrey with the hope that those must-have-the-latest-and-best-types would crush each other in the rush to the mercantile to order one of their very own. Only thing Charlie hadn't figured on was that there were no latest-and-best types in Maple Stand. And even if there were, they couldn't afford to throw their money away on something as frivolous as a Columbus canopy surrey when a plain old wagon would get them where they were going. He was lucky when a customer came in with cold hard cash rather than eggs or butter or something else to barter.

It was too bad, too, for Charlie Zephin. Liv had the feeling Charlie wished he could just sell the place and retire out to his daughter Celia's place in Green Bay, but he had Emma to worry about. Zephin's Mercantile was Emma's dowry, so to speak, and while it wasn't a bustling moneymaker, it would always keep a roof over a family's head and food in their bellies.

She was already at the front door, holding it open for Charlie, when he stopped the carriage by her front door. Speaking of dowries, she thought, alongside Charlie sat that Waylon Makeridge Emma so had her heart set on.

"Evening, Mrs. Williamson," Charlie said, tipping his hat.

"You come for my pies, Charlie Zephin?" she asked, unable to keep the smile from her face. "I knew you would."

"Mrs. Williamson, I'll take 'em as fast as you can bake 'em," he said, exchanging that same sort of look with Mr. Makeridge that he had when she was at the store.

"Thought I'd can up some preserves, as well," she offered, hoping that she wasn't pressing her luck.

"I'll take whatever you've got," Charlie said, looking around. "Where is everyone?"

"Around somewheres," Olivia said, suddenly uneasy to be entertaining two gentlemen alone. Not that she was entertaining, and not that Charlie Zephin was anyone's idea of a gentleman caller. But that handsome man alighting from the carriage, his trousers just a little too snug, his mustache waxed to a point . . . now he was certainly several women's idea of a gentleman caller if ever there was one.

"Looks like you better get this rose in some water before it ups and dies," Charlie said, picking up the flower that lay on the glider and handing vit to her as he walked past her into the parlor. "How many pies you got ready for me?" he asked.

Livvy looked at the rose in her hand and knew that Spencer had left it for her to let her know he was looking after her garden. She'd missed the opening of first bud of the season. And there was so much more she was going to miss.

Her heart sank at the thought.

And then she straightened and brushed the foolish thought from her mind like so much more dirt on the kitchen floor. Bringing her own rose to her as a gift. Now wasn't that just like Spencer Williamson? Like he'd served up her own heart to her on a platter and then said, as it lay there in bloody pieces, that he loved her and weren't they both happy now?

"Lovelier and lovelier," Mr. Makeridge said as he too passed her in the en try way. "I don't know how you do it and still turn out such wonderful pies. Seems to me God gave you more than your share, Mrs. Williamson. Or may I call you Olivia?"

He was looking her over from head to toe, and she couldn't remember when she'd been more a mess. Mr. Makeridge didn't look much better himself. The slight bruise she had seen at the store looked worse. In fact, his jaw was swollen rather badly, the skin discolored to purples and blues, and his smile was decidedly lopsided.

"Whatever happened to your face?" Livvy asked him, tilting her head to get a better look at it.

Mr. Makeridge waved away her concern. "A misunderstanding," he said as if a nearly broken jaw were of no consequence. Livvy guessed some irate husband had taken exception to all those compliments the handsome engineer seemed to dole out to all the ladies. Looking down at her feet, bare from the heat and the floor scrubbing she had been doing, he asked after her ankle.

With her knees bent in an effort to make her dress cover her toes, she answered, "It's fine," feeling herself redden. "Thank you for asking. I'll get you those pies, Mr. Zephin. I've only four, since I wasn't sure just how many you'd be wanting."

She licked her lips nervously, realized that Waylon Makeridge was watching her, and pulled her tongue quickly back into her mouth. He smiled at her as if they had shared an intimate secret. She found herself smiling back out of politeness, wishing she knew what the secret was.

"Four's fine," Charlie said. "Long as you can make me some more tomorrow."