The Right Wife (7 page)

“She was the belle of the ball,” Thayer said. “However, I was the lucky man allowed to call on her the next day.”

“I think her mother was impressed with your name. She had known your parents, hadn’t she?”

“Oh, yes. Mrs. Stafford couldn’t say enough about Colonel and Mrs. Coleman.”

“I can think the lady had marriage in mind for you and her daughter.”

“I can think of a worse fate.” Thayer smiled, the memory of Eloise’s delicate china-doll face flashing through his mind. “In a few years, I might be inclined to marry.”

“The time comes for all of us. You’re young yet. You need to bed whores and raise hell a few more years.”

Thayer laughed, reaching to pour himself more coffee. “I should think you’d reconsider marriage to Eunice after meeting Miss Maggie. And after getting shot by Sally’s pa, you shouldn’t be encouraging me to bed more whores.”

“If you’d stay with the ladies at Loretta’s, you wouldn’t have irate fathers trying to kill you and hitting me by mistake.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Thayer grinned, his dark eyes full of mischief. “Now about our lovely Miss Campbell.”

“Our?”

“If you’re not interested, I am.” Thayer noted the tightening of his friend’s square jaw and saw the slightest glint of anger in his green eyes.

“Maggie isn’t the girl for either of us,” Aaron stated, uncrossing his long legs and standing his big body facing the window. He would not allow himself to think any more about that redheaded witch who had haunted his dreams and tormented his every waking moment. “I spoke to the marshal about Whitcomb. He thinks we have to press charges and go through a trial, or the man will be after you again.”

“Old Whitcomb is crazy,” Thayer said, his black eyes narrowing to a squint. “Sally may be sixteen, but she’s been whoring for years. She told me she had her first man when she was twelve. Can you imagine? She wasn’t much older than little Judith Campbell.”

“Hell,” Aaron said, turning to face the other man. “I don’t want to hear any more about the Campbells. Leave well enough alone.”

“Why don’t you admit that Maggie stirs your blood like Eunice never has?”

“Dammit, Thayer, a man wants more from a wife than a good roll in the hay.” Aaron’s big hand ran through his long, tawny hair. “I need a wife who can give me social position and respectability.”

“I was born with everything you want so badly, my friend.” Thayer placed the cup on his desk and looked up at his agitated companion. “I would exchange it all for the right woman. Especially a woman like Maggie.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. No matter who you marry, you’ll always be a Coleman.”

“And no matter who you marry, you’ll always be Richard Leander’s bastard.”

If any other man had dared refer to him in such a manner, Aaron would have been tempted to call him out, or, if in a black mood, would have killed him on the spot. But Thayer was his best friend, a man who would never defame him. He knew the words had been spoken to force him to reconsider the decisions he’d had made.

“Eunice need never know the truth about my past. She seems willing to accept me at face value.”

“You’d want to share the rest of your life with a woman to whom you couldn’t tell the truth about yourself?”

“You’ve been against my courting Eunice from the beginning. Why? Is it because her husband was your cousin?”

“Damn stupid question,” Thayer snapped. “John Arnold was a fine man. The perfect match for Eunice. He was charming, soft-spoken, and gentle. An undemanding, young boy. You’re far too much man for the widow. You’ll scare the hell out of her on your wedding night.”

“I have the good sense to know not to treat Eunice like a whore.”

“I happen to know, on the word of some married men, that the happiest marriages are the ones where the wives enjoy their duties as much as their husbands do.”

“Who, pray tell, is your source?”

“Martin, for one.”

“Martin!” Aaron said. “Your brother-in-law actually spoke about your sister in such a manner?”

“I admit he was drunk at the time he was extolling Reba’s womanly talents.”

“She would have his hide nailed to the barn door if she knew.”

“You’ll have a chance to tell her,” Thayer told his friend who had just walked to the window, something outside catching his attention. “They’re all coming to Silver Hill for the summer.”

“Martha too?”

“Of course, Mama will be with them. Now that Reba is carrying her third child, she wanted Mama to stay with her for a while.”

“It will be good to see your family again,” Aaron said as he watched Phineas outside in the backyard where he stood talking to Daisy.

“They’re your family, too. They will accept you, if you’ll accept them.”

Aaron had no family, except Thayer’s. He had no parents, not brothers, no aunts and uncles eager to accept him.

Since the day his mother died when he was sixteen, he had been alone. Perhaps he had always been alone, even before Louise Stone had been killed in August of 1871 when an explosion had wrecked the
Ocean Wave
, a steamer on which she and her lover had booked passage. When Aaron had visited Point Clear five years ago, parts of the wrecked steamer could still be seen on the bay shore at low tide. Although he had known where she died, how she died, and with whom she died, he had waited nearly ten years to visit the site and seek revenge.

There had been no revenge, only a bittersweet regret when he found out all the truths that had been a mystery to him for so many years. Martha Coleman had given him his birthright, and it had made him determined to acquire the respectability and social position always denied him. He had already made a small fortune, mostly by unscrupulous and often illegal means, when he met the Colemans. Since then, he had invested his “ill-gotten gains” in timber, cotton, steamboats, and the new steel industry.

“What seems to be fascinating you outside the window?” Thayer asked, standing, but still unable to see around his friend’s big body.

Moving slightly, to allow Thayer full view of the backyard, Aaron replied, “I was watching Phineas. He’s taken quite a liking to that Daisy girl. I’ve never seen him so smitten.”

“You have to admit that she is a beautiful creature,” Thayer remarked, watching the lovely Negress as she smiled at the huge black man holding her hand. “I dare say Phineas is in love. Surely you understand how he feels, having been smitten so recently yourself.”

“Leave it be, man!” Aaron hissed through clenched teeth.

“Deny it all you want, but I’ve seen the way you look at her. And I was there at the train station when you had to be prized from her arms.”

“The girl was in shock. A wounded man had just fallen on her.”

“Tell it to somebody who didn’t walk in on the two of you the day I tried to keep Eunice out of your hotel room.”

Aaron could feel a heated flush creeping up his neck. He refused to admit any feelings for Maggie Campbell, neither to himself nor his best friend.

“She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and that’s all there is to it. I have no feeling for her other than lust, and even you would know that she’s hardly the type I can bed and forget.”

“I’ll wager that you can’t forget about her anyway.” Thayer put a hand on his friend’s big shoulder. “You owe it to yourself and Maggie, and even to Eunice, to find out what your true feelings are before you propose to the wrong woman.”

“Just what are you suggesting?”

“I think you should become better acquainted with Miss Maggie. I’ll bet that once you know her better, you’ll be wanting to spend the rest of your life with her.”

“Dammit, man, she is not the woman for me.”

“Are you afraid to find out?”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Thayer eyed the taller man, whose entire attention was focused on him. “I’ll bet you can’t spend an afternoon with Miss Maggie without trying to make love to her.”

“Is that a dare?”

“Yes.”

“What are you betting?”

“Mmm . . . mmm . . . Let me see. How about my new spider phaeton? Take Maggie for a ride in it tomorrow. I’ll be a gentleman and take your word as to whether I win or lose.”

“It’s a bet.” Aaron reached out, taking his friend’s hand in his strong clasp.

“This is a perfect time to court Miss Maggie since Eunice is away at Bailey Springs with her mother.”

“I’m not going to court Maggie.”

“How long are Eunice and Mrs. Waite going to be gone?”

“Just till the end of the week. Eunice felt a week away at the spring would help Mrs. Waite’s condition.”

“Poor Henry Waite,” Thayer sympathized. “He’s one lone man in a household of females. Weak, complaining females, at that. Are you aware that Eunice is hoping I’ll take an interest in her sister?”

“Henrietta is a lovely girl,” Aaron said, knowing that Eunice’s younger sister was a plain, sickly girl whose main redeeming quality seemed to be her sweet disposition.

“I prefer more colorful beauties like Eloise Stafford and Maggie Campbell,” Thayer said, smiling thoughtfully. “Someone like little Judith will be one day, with that mane of fiery gold hair and those enormous blue-green eyes. Can you ever see a man taming either of the Campbell sisters?”

“A man could die trying,” Aaron said. He did not want to think about taming Maggie because that conjured up visions of their two bodies intimately entwined while he drank his fill of her lusciousness. Lord, but she would be sweet, sweeter than anything he had ever known. He could remember her lips, soft, hot, moist. He knew her womanly core would be the same, and the thought of being inside her had been torturing him night and day.

“Tomorrow is Sunday and the perfect day for a gentleman to go calling.” Thayer’s eagerness was evident in the timbre of his slow, Southern voice. “Right after dinner tomorrow, we’ll pay a visit on the Gower household.”

“You appear to have a plan,” Aaron said. “We will probably need one. No doubt, Miss Maggie has no desire to take a buggy ride with me.”

“Have no fear, dear friend. I do indeed have a plan. You will have the whole afternoon to be alone with your temptation.”

“Come tomorrow night your new phaeton will be mine.”

“If you lose, Aaron, I want you to postpone asking Eunice to marry you for three months.”

Aaron gasped, his green eyes shooting jade fire. “What?”

“Is it still a bet now that you know my terms?” Thayer asked.

Aaron hesitated. Surely he could resist one pretty redhead for a few hours. Couldn’t he? “It’s still a bet.”

T
he sun’s warmth touched Maggie’s face as she leaned back against the tree trunk. Bubbly and out of breath, an equally happy Judith laughed as she caught up with her sister. Dropping to the ground, she looked up at Maggie.

“It was fun playing catch, wasn’t it?” Jude smiled, her lightly freckled nose curling as her eyes squinted against the sun’s bright glare.

“I’m far too old to be playing with you,” Maggie laughed. “Micah thinks he’s too old. That’s why he’s enjoying lemonade on the porch with Uncle Chester.”

“You’ll be even older when you have children of your own, and I bet you’ll play with them.”

“Yes,” Maggie sighed, feeling more relaxed and content than she had since their arrival in Tuscumbia. “I suppose I’ll be a most improper mother running around playing games with my little ones.”

“You’ll be the very best mother ever,” Judith said, her tiny fingers plucking at the grass surrounding her. “Just look at all the practice you’ve had with Micah and me.”

“Oh, dear.” Maggie tried to hide her smile as she slowly lowered herself to sit beside Jude beneath the old oak tree. “I’ve done a terrible job of raising you. Look at yourself, sitting here in your Sunday dress playing in the grass.”

“I’m looking for four-leaf clovers.”

“Jude?”

“What?”

“I’m very proud of you.” Maggie wanted her young sister to know that she was aware of the effort she was making to follow all the strict rules and regulations of Mathilda Gower’s household. “Wesley says you’re doing good in your schoolwork. He thinks you’re a very smart girl.”

“He likes you, Maggie. I mean, he likes you in that special kind of way.”

“I know.” Maggie was well aware of Wesley Peterson’s feelings for her. He was a perfect gentleman, attentive, caring, and so kind to her and her family. She knew that eventually he would ask her to marry him, if Aunt Mathilda gave her blessings.

“You don’t like him that way, do you?”

“No, Jude. I don’t.” Her life would be so simple if only she did love Wesley. Perhaps she would consider marrying him, without love, if she had never met a particularly handsome, green-eyed lion.

“He wanted you to go with him to visit all the sick people and shut-ins this afternoon, didn’t he?”

“Yes. I’m trying not to lead him on. I like him, but I could never marry him.”

“Hey, you two,” Micah called from the side porch of his uncle’s two-story, white house where they sat together enjoying the peace and beauty of a sunny June Sunday. “Looks like we’ve got company coming.”

Both girls looked from their brother to the gate, and then to the road where Aaron Stone and Thayer Coleman were stepping down from a two-seated cabriolet. With the carriage top down, the soft leather upholstery gleamed in the bright sunlight, and a spit and polished Phineas sat perched on the driver’s seat. The two men were dressed in their dark Sunday church suits, high-collared white linen shirts, and derby hats. Just as Maggie caught sight of Aaron, he removed his hat and tossed it into the carriage.

“Maggie! Maggie!” Judith could hardly contain her excitement. “It’s Mr. Stone and his friend, Mr. Coleman. What shall we do? Why do you suppose they’re here? Oh, Maggie.”

“Calm yourself, Jude,” her sister scolded as she rose to her feet in one quick and quite unladylike movement. “It’s possible that they’re here on some business with Uncle Chester.”

“It’s Sunday,” the child said. “You only pay social calls on the Lord’s Day.”

“Get up and let’s go see what’s going on.” Maggie’s heart was racing wildly. Just a glimpse of Aaron had turned her stomach inside out. What was he doing here? Didn’t he have the decency to stay away from her?

“Should I go upstairs and wake Aunt Tilly?” Judith asked as she jumped up from the ground and brushed the grass from her tan muslin dress. She hated the garment, but Aunt Tilly had given Maggie the material to fashion them both a suitable Sunday dress, so she didn’t dare complain.

“No, you mustn’t disturb her.”

“She’ll be greatly disappointed if she doesn’t get to greet Mr. Coleman.” Judith said the man’s name, mocking her aunt’s speech and manner.

“Jude!” Maggie fussed. “Don’t make light of Aunt Tilly’s respect for other people’s importance.”

“Look,” the hazel-eyed child whispered, tugging on her sister’s arm. “Mr. Stone is walking toward us.”

“Then let’s go meet him and invite him to join us on the porch.” Maggie wanted to run to the man who was leisurely approaching her, a friendly smile softening his rugged face.

“Hello, Miss Maggie,” Aaron said as he stopped directly in front of her.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Stone.”

“Hey there.” Jude stepped from behind the older girl.

“Well, hello, Miss Judith. Don’t you look pretty today.” Aaron tried to focus his attention on the child, but he could not take his eyes off of Maggie. That marvelous red hair was confined in a bun atop her head, but stray tendrils framed her face and neck, begging a man to curl his fingers about them. Her plain, tan dress fit every curve of her upper body to perfection, drawing his attention to the lush swell of her womanly breasts.

“Won’t you join us for lemonade?”
Why are you here?
she thought.
Please don’t look at me like that. I hate you for making me feel this way. Why aren’t you with your precious Widow Arnold?

“I’d be delighted.”
You aren’t happy to see me, are you, Maggie? Why do you have to be so beautiful? I want to take you in my arms and kiss the breath right out of you.

As they joined the others on the porch, Maggie heard Thayer Coleman asking her uncle’s permission to take her family for an afternoon carriage ride.

“I would deem it an honor to give the Campbells a tour of Tuscumbia,” Thayer said. “What better time for a ride than a Sunday afternoon?”

“Of course, they have my permission, Mr. Coleman,” Chester Gower assured his visitor. “It’s so kind of you to make the offer.”

“Please sit down, gentlemen,” Maggie invited as she entered the porch. “Let me pour some refreshments.”

Both men obliged, taking seats and accepting tall glasses of sweet lemonade.

“Are we really going for a carriage ride?” Judith asked impatiently.

“Jude,” Maggie said, her amber eyes darting a silent warning. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t be possible. Micah has been invited to the Stanfords’ today.”

“Just because I’m going over to Hollis Stanford’s to play paddle cat doesn’t mean you and Jude shouldn’t go on and enjoy the ride,” Micah said.

“It wouldn’t be proper to go without you.” Maggie was trying desperately to find a way out of accepting Thayer’s invitation. She did not want to go riding with Aaron Stone at her side for hours.

“Nonsense,” Uncle Chester said, smiling. “What could be more proper than for these gentlemen to take the two prettiest girls in Tuscumbia for a Sunday ride?”

“What would Aunt Tilly say?” Maggie hoped that the mention of his wife’s name would make her uncle reconsider.

“You leave Mathilda to me,” he told them. “Go and enjoy yourselves.”

“Come on, Maggie,” Judith said. “I want to go.”

“I’m sure Wesley would not approve.” Maggie knew that Wesley would be upset because he was already suspicious of her attraction to Mr. Stone. He would, no doubt, assume that she had been eager to spend the afternoon in Aaron’s company.

“Wesley is far too busy administering his holy duties to concern himself with an afternoon’s entertainment for you,” Chester informed his niece.

“I’m going,” Jude declared.

Thayer laughed at the girl’s determination. If his plan worked, he would be spending the next few hours in the child’s company, and suddenly the idea appealed to him greatly. He found her a constant source of amusement and fascination.

“I . . . I really see no need.” Maggie was afraid, afraid of Aaron and even more afraid of her own feelings.

“Please, Miss Maggie.” Aaron took her hand, and immediately realized that she was trembling. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her, and she was fighting the unwanted attraction with all of her strength.

“A short ride,” Maggie finally conceded. If she continued to resist, Uncle Chester might wonder why.

Within ten minutes, bonnets on and light shawls draped about them, the Campbell sisters were sitting in Thayer’s carriage. Although Jude had not taken her eyes off Thayer and was gaily chatting away, Maggie sat silently by Aaron, her gaze downcast.

“I thought we’d begin our tour with a trip to my house,” Thayer said, watching Judith squirm in her seat, her big eyes focused on him.

“Have you lived here all your life?” the child asked.

“We’ve had the town house since I was a boy,” Thayer said. “But I grew up at Silver Hill.”

“What’s Silver Hill?” Jude asked.

“It’s my family’s plantation down toward Cherokee,” he answered, wishing he could show the magnificent mansion to the little girl. “Actually, part of the acreage is in Alabama and part is in Mississippi.”

“Can I see Silver Hill someday too?”

“We’ll plan on it. My mother and sister and her family are coming for the summer. I’ll invite you and Miss Maggie down to meet them. I have a niece named Rachel who’s six. I think you two would like each other.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because she’s an adorable little hellion destined to break a thousand hearts just as you are, my dear Judith.”

“Am I your dear Judith?”

“Jude!” Maggie’s shocked voice startled her sister, whose huge aqua eyes misted with tears.

“Here we are,” Thayer said as Phineas stopped the cabriolet in front of an impressive red-brick house with a raised portico, four Doric columns, and winding stone steps on each side of the veranda.

“Oh, my goodness.” Jude was in awe of the stately mansion, her eyes devouring the sight as Thayer assisted her from the carriage.

“Shall we go inside for a grand tour?” Thayer suggested, leading a willing Judith up the herringbone brick walkway.

Aaron disembarked and turned to help Maggie. Their eyes met and locked for a brief instant before she looked away. His big hands reached out for hers. When they touched, he groaned silently, longing to pull her into his arms.

“Before we join them,” Aaron said as he helped her down, “I’d like to show you something.”

“What?” Maggie knew her voice sounded weak, but she could not help it. The very nearness of this giant of a man was destroying her senses. She did not trust him.

“Over here,” he told her, leading her a few yards up the road where another buggy stood. “This is Thayer’s new phaeton. Isn’t it a beauty?”

Maggie had to agree. The fashionable blue vehicle, with brass mounting and a skeleton rumble seat, boasted intricately curved iron body loops from front to rear. “It’s lovely.”

“Come on,” Aaron suggested. “Let’s try it out.”

With no time to protest, Maggie was lifted and seated in the phaeton, a quick-moving Aaron at her side. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him.

“I’m taking you for a Sunday afternoon ride, Miss Campbell.” Aaron pulled the reins, and the horse began a slow trot.

“Stop this buggy right now!”

“Stay calm, Miss Maggie,” Aaron said. “What if someone were to see you acting so unladylike?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said. “I’m afraid that someone will see us alone together and start a vicious rumor.”

“Is that what you’re really afraid of?” Aaron asked, looking at the truth evident in her vivid topaz eyes.

“I want to keep my good reputation. Being seen alone with you could very well ruin it.”

“Is my own reputation so bad that being seen in my company is shameful?” Aaron hissed. How dare this little nobody be embarrassed to be seen with him?

“Please stop the buggy and let me out,” Maggie demanded. How dare he treat her like this, as if her good name meant nothing to him. He was just a money-grubbing rogue who was trying to improve his lot by marrying a socially prominent widow.

“We’ll ride to Sheffield,” he said. “More people can see us that way.”

“Why you blackhearted—”

“Now, now, Miss Maggie,” Aaron said as he increased the buggy’s speed. “A lady never uses such language.”

“And you know all about ladies, don’t you, Mr. Stone? Does Mrs. Arnold not object to all the ladies in your past?”

“Being a real lady herself, Mrs. Arnold would never speak of my past liaisons with the type of ladies you’ve mentioned.” No, Aaron knew that Eunice could never bring herself to discuss a matter as delicate as his past sexual encounters, but not ill-bred Maggie Campbell. She was obviously jealous of both his past women and the Widow Arnold, and she certainly had no qualms about debating the issue.

“Then Mrs. Arnold may be a lady, but she is a foolish one.” Maggie wanted to slap his face. She hated him and every “lady” he had ever bedded.

“How so?” Aaron asked, noticing several onlookers as the phaeton headed down Main Street.

“Any woman thinking of marriage should want to know everything about her future husband.” Maggie wanted to know about Aaron, his past and present. She wanted to be able to understand the kind of background that had created a man so determined to keep his past a secret, even from his future wife.

As they rode out of town, Aaron nodded friendly greetings to several people whose curious stares riled Maggie even more. Aaron’s determination to antagonize her outweighed his concern that this leisurely afternoon ride would soon be the talk of the town. He would have to think of some way to explain it to Eunice because he was certain word would reach her the very minute she returned.

“Did you have to go straight through town?” Maggie snapped. “And why did you call attention to us by speaking to everyone?”

Aaron did not reply, knowing his silence would further irritate his companion. He knew that the best way to win his bet with Thayer was to make Maggie so angry that she would keep her distance. An irate woman would be less seductive and easier to resist.

The short ride to Sheffield seemed endless to Maggie. She had never felt so miserable. The beautiful June Sunday had been ruined by Aaron Stone’s ungentlemanly actions. She could not understand why he had bothered to whisk her away if all he wanted to do was make her angry.