But when Clay, Regan, and Nicole reached the strangely quiet Wesley and Travis, there was no need to persuade anyone.
“You talk to him!” Travis seethed at Regan. “He thinks he has to marry the little two-bit whore. He’s willing to give up his whole future because the cunning slut arranged it so he was her first customer. If he’d had any sense and waited a few minutes in the church, probably twenty men would have admitted to tumbling her. I wonder if she faked virgin’s blood on their cloaks?”
Regan, her hand on her husband’s arm, seemed reluctant to speak.
Nicole went to stand near Wesley, to look up into his bleak eyes. “You don’t believe that, do you?”
Wes shook his head. “I don’t want to marry her but it’s my duty. She carries my child.”
“And what about Kimberly?” Nicole asked softly.
“She—,” Wes turned away for a moment. “That was killed when I stepped forward in the church.”
“Wesley,” Nicole said, her hand on his arm, “I don’t know the girl, but I think she has qualities that could make her a good wife.”
Wesley snorted. “She’s fertile. Now, shall we get this over?”
“For God’s sake, think about it for a few days at least,” Travis exploded. “Maybe you’ll come to your senses. We can find the girl a husband. The cobbler’s boy is looking for a wife. He could—.”
“Travis, you can take your cobbler and—.”
“Wesley!” Regan interrupted. “Are you going to hate Leah when she’s your wife?”
“I shall give her and the child the best of everything. Now, shall we go inside to my—,” he smiled in an ugly way—“bride?”
Leah became Mrs. Wesley Stanford before the sun went down on that fateful Sunday. Through some inner strength, she held herself upright and answered the nervous preacher’s questions firmly. She didn’t quite understand how it had all come about, but it was so much like one of her dreams, standing in a marriage ceremony with the man she’d always loved, that the pain in her body seemed to slip away.
The solemn group didn’t say a word when the service was complete. Leah was helped to make her mark beside Wesley’s signature in the church registry, then Clay’s strong arms carried her to a waiting wagon. She was too ill to notice where she was or that her new husband and his brother refused to look at her.
She was placed in a boat, rowed upstream, and put into another wagon. At long last she was gently laid on a soft, clean bed.
“My room,” Wesley snorted at Regan as Clay put the girl on the bed. “It’s fitting then that I should leave.”
“Leave!” Regan gasped. “With a new wife and—.”
Wesley’s look stopped her. “If you think I can look at that every day and stay sane you don’t know me very well. I have to go away for awhile and get used to the id
ea.” He pulled a carpetbag from a wardrobe bottom and shoved clothes into it.
“Where are you going?” Regan whispered. “You won’t leave her and the baby?”
“No, I know my duty. I’ll take care of both of them but I need some time to resign myself to…that!” He sneered at the sleeping Leah on his bed. “I’ll go to my farm in Kentucky, do some work, and should be back in the spring. The kid’ll be old enough to travel then.”
“You can’t stick us with your leavings,” Travis said from the doorway. “You were the noble one who felt he had to make an honest woman of her. Woman! I can’t even tell if she’s human. Take her with you. I don’t want to be reminded of your stupidity.”
“Take the expense of her keep from my half of this place,” Wesley shouted.
“Don’t part like this,” Regan pleaded, but Wesley was already gone. “Go after him,” she told Travis. “Nicole and I will take care of the girl. Don’t part with your brother like this.”
After hesitating, Travis touched his little wife’s cheek, then tore down the stairs. From the bedroom window Regan watched the brothers embrace before Wesley started toward the dock and the boat that would take him west.
Chapter 3
Two days after Wesley left, Leah was delivered of a stillborn child. She cried over the tiny coffin then was ushered back to bed where she slept for days, waking only briefly to eat lightly.
When Leah finally woke and looked about her, she was sure she was in heaven. She lay in the middle of a big four-poster bed hung with cream-colored cloth. The walls were painted white and hung with pictures of sailing ships and men hunting, and there were chairs, tables, and cabinets such as she’d never seen before.
She allowed herself only a moment to enjoy the view before she swung her legs out of bed. She was wearing a cap on her head and a brilliantly white gown; wonderingly, she touched the garment while her head stopped spinning.