“They can’t? Well, my pretty little wife, you just sit there and I’ll prove you wrong.”
Leah sat, her eyes on her hands.
Wesley was frying bacon, moving it about in the skillet and watching her. “Did I ever tell you about Paris?”
“Paris?” She looked up. “I’ve never heard of Paris, Virginia.”
Wesley smiled at her. That wet dress of hers clung to her, but he knew that when it was dry it’d be loose and concealing. With a grin he remembered the low-cut dress she’d worn that night at the inn. She’d look good in Paris, wearing a pretty bonnet that set off her dark hair.
“Paris is across the ocean in a country called France.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t had the benefit of your education. My father didn’t see the need to send his slave-children to school.”
He ignored her. “One night about five of us had dinner in a private room.” He stopped. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you that story.” He looked up at her. “Maybe you’d like to hear how my brother Travis courted Regan.”
“Oh yes,” Leah said. She’d love to hear about her friend.
“Well then, go and put on some dry clothes and while we eat I’ll tell you the story.”
Later they ate beans, bacon, biscuits, and coffee while Wes told, with much exaggeration, Leah was sure, an outrageous story of what Travis had done to win the return of his wife. There’d been hundreds of roses involved, an uncountable number of proposals on paper, and at last a circus in which, according to Travis, he had risked his life and had been the star of the show.
“How many roses?” Leah asked.
“Travis said thousands, but Regan always rolls her eyes, so who knows?”
“I’ve never seen an elephant.”
“Travis brought back a wagon load of manure, said it’d make the tobacco plants grow twice as tall.”
“Did it?” Leah asked, her eyes wide.
“Didn’t do anything different that I could tell. Now that you’ve had your bedtime story, it’s time for bed.”
Leah braced herself and the flicker in Wes’s eyes showed her that he saw her movement.
“I’ve made your bed over there,” he said coolly. “I’m on the other side. If you get frightened, let me know. I’m a light sleeper.” With that he tossed out the dregs of his coffee and went to his own pile of blankets.
Quietly Leah went to her own bed, grateful that he wasn’t going to try to entice her to his bed.
For a long time Wesley lay awake, looking up at the stars.
He hated the way she jumped whenever he came near her. And her reaction was puzzling to him. She’d wanted to marry him. According to Travis she’d first gone to bed with him because she thought she loved him. So now she had him, he’d decided to stay with her, and she acted as if he were a disease she might catch. He didn’t understand it at all.
Of course maybe he had been a little hard on her at first. It was just that he’d been so damned mad because he’d lost Kim, and Leah seemed to be one of those women he’d always detested, the kind of woman who needed no one and nothing. But as they’d traveled together he’d come to see that Leah needed a great deal. She needed someone to protect her from everyone who took advantage of her. Kim made Leah wait on her. Justin expected Leah to fall for him. And even Wesley had started relying on her. It was so easy to give a task to Leah because the word no wasn’t in her vocabulary. She seemed to think she was the world’s slave.
At first Wes had spoken to Kim about how much work she piled on Leah. Kim had been bewildered. She said Leah wanted to do all the work. Wes realized right away it was no use trying to talk to Kim. In fact, he began to realize he couldn’t talk to Kim about anything. In the evenings he’d sit with Kim and want to tell her something about himself and he’d see her eyes dart around and more than once she’d jump up in the middle of a sentence. At those times, Wesley’s eyes would dart to where Leah was leaning forward, listening intently to every word Justin was saying. And Wesley would think, she’s my wife!
Wes wasn’t sure when he began to be bored by Kim. Perhaps it was the time she screamed so loudly that everyone came running, thinking she’d been bitten by a snake. A honeybee had stung the back of her hand. Very calmly Leah had put baking soda on the sting and Wesley had led a shaking, crying Kim away to the wagon where she’d immediately gone to bed. Later Wesley had seen Leah trying to put something on the back of her own neck. It’d taken awhile to get her to show him what she was doing, but she’d leaned against some wild honeysuckle and had three bee stings on her neck.
“And you didn’t say anything?” Wesley asked.
“They’re only bee stings,” she said, shrugging.
She wouldn’t let him help her with the baking soda paste and so he left her, but after that he was much more aware of her.
And he began to ask himself questions.
Life on a farm was never easy, and contrary to what many people thought, he didn’t have a great deal of cash. Half of Stanford Plantation was his, but the wealth of it was tied up in land. Only if it were sold would Wes get his money. Travis had agreed to pay Wes what he could, and whatever complaints he had about his brother, Wes never doubted Travis’s honesty. So if Wes wasn’t rich, couldn’t afford an army of servants, what was he going to do with a wife who