The Bridal Veil Read online

  As if reading her mind, he whispered, “Are you scared?”

  “No.” She paused and then asked, “Are you?”

  “A little.”

  But nothing about his actions gave it away. Why on earth he should be nervous made no sense to her, but it pleased her just the same.

  He covered her nipple with his mouth, warm and moist, and tugged lightly, sending wave upon wave of gooseflesh over her body. She jumped, unaccustomed to the sensation, but Luke soothed her with more kisses and wordless murmuring that she found both exciting and comforting.

  With one arm holding her close, he pressed his hips against hers to give her the feel of him. She stroked the length of his strong back, as she’d so longed to do every time she’d watched him wash at the pump. Beneath his skin, she felt hard muscles move and flex. It was all new, this touching a man, new and wonderful. A low moan escaped her and she felt like a wanton, reaching up to twine her fingers in his hair and twisting beneath his ministrations.

  Somewhere in a cobwebbed corner of her mind, she knew that her behavior was shameful. Although marital relations were never discussed in her manuals, it was generally believed that it was a wife’s duty to submit to her husband’s more earthy—and dreaded—demands, and that from this submission she would know the joys of motherhood. So far, she’d found nothing about this to dread. Then all cognitive thought left her as his fingers skimmed the underside of her breast, trailed over her belly, down the insides of her legs, and up again to her most secret place at the apex of her thighs.

  His fingertips delved the slick, hot folds of her, testing, experimenting, looking for the exactly right place to stroke her. When he found it, Emily let out a muffled cry and turned her face against his neck. Luke tightened his grip around her waist and murmured to her while continuing his torturous massage.

  “I want it to be right for you,” he whispered. “I want it to be good.”

  She thought her heart would burst from her chest, it pounded so hard against her ribs. Tongues of flame flicked through her, all gathering in the tight fireball that burned between her legs beneath Luke’s questing touch. Her own hands began seeking him, feeling the hardness of his hipbone, the smoothness of his flank, the rigid maleness throbbing against her thigh. When she closed her fingers around him, he sucked in a breath and increased the friction of his touch on her. Suddenly, her body seemed to be spiraling into a vortex of heat and sensation that was almost frightening in its intensity. As if her body had developed an instinct of its own, her hips reached for his hand, reached for an ending or a beginning, she didn’t know which. The vortex spun faster until it pulled her into a place where nothing and no one existed but she and Luke, as wave upon wave of spasms racked her body. She sobbed his name between breaths, weeping with powerful sensations that had overtaken her.

  At last the contractions subsided and she lay limp and dazed on the mattress, astounded by the feelings that Luke had coaxed from her. Her hair had worked loose from the rope she’d twisted it into and now fanned out on the pillows.

  He rained more kisses upon her hot skin and wound his fist in her hair. “God, Emily, you’re wonderful.” His breath against her ear was hot and rapid.“I promise I’ll be careful—”

  Luke covered her with his sweat-damp body and parted her legs with his knee. He’d had a virgin just once before, and it had been so long ago he couldn’t remember exactly what it was like. Careful, he told himself, be careful. She owned his heart. And she was his wife, deserving every consideration and all of his patience. But holding back wasn’t easy. It took more self-control than he’d ever mustered to keep from plunging into her tender flesh, swollen and wet and waiting all these years for his entry. He probed her gently and heard her gasp when he breached her maidenhead. She tried to squirm away from him but he held her fast, smothering her protests with kisses and rough-whispered apologies. She lay still and at last he broke the seal of her femininity, pushing home into the tight warmth of her.

  “Luke—” Emily wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer to her.

  A groan rose from Luke’s chest at her acceptance. God, it had been years since a woman had lain beneath him, and even longer since one had received him with joy. The emotions churning in him were almost as strong as his basic instinct to couple with Emily. He would make this last, though, if he could. He wanted to savor every moment—he wanted to end this exquisite torment. He angled his body to give her the most pleasure. He knew that this first time probably wouldn’t be as good for her as it was for him, but he would try.

  Slowly, he began moving within her, push and pull, ebb and flow. Emily, his innocent with a spirit of fire and steel, adjusted her movements to match his, and the heaviness low in his belly increased. She lifted her hips and moaned, and he knew another climax was about to overtake her. Suddenly, rapid undulations grabbed him as she reached that instant of passion. His own need increased threefold and he pushed harder into her fevered body, seeking his own release.

  Faster he plunged, bent on joining his soul to Emily’s. He thrust forward one last time and tumbled into an abyss of white-hot convulsive tremors that shook him to his core. He poured himself into Emily, and it was as if all the pain, regrets, and sins of his past were released at the same time. In his mail-order bride, he felt reborn.

  At last he lay exhausted and panting with his head on the pillow next to hers. When his breathing slowed, he asked, “Did I hurt you? Are you all right?”

  Emily wanted to tell Luke that she loved him, but despite the intimacy they had shared, she felt shy about revealing her heart. She smiled in the darkness. “No, you didn’t hurt me. Did—did I do it right?”

  He rolled off her and pulled her into his arms. His chuckle was warm against her hair. “You did it better than right, Emily. You’re beautiful.”

  Beautiful. There was that word again, applied to her, Emily Cannon Becker. Maybe he really meant it. After all, he didn’t have to tell her that now—now that she’d already succumbed to his charm. She burrowed her forehead against the hollow between his shoulder and throat. “I have a wedding veil. Well, actually, it was my grandmother’s veil.” She told him the history of the length of silk and why it was now in her possession. “Because I was the plain one, I always had a fantasy that if I put on that veil, I would become beautiful, like the frog turned into a prince in the fairytale. Except, I’d be a princess, of course.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “I’ve never tried it on. I thought I’d wear it on our wedding day, but that was a pretty hurried event. I think I wasn’t meant to wear it.”

  He turned his head and tried to look down at her. “Oh, hell, honey, you don’t need a magic veil.” She heard compassion and his heart in his words. “You’re already a princess. At least you are to me.”

  She watched in the gloom as he interlaced his fingers with her own. “You know, you’re a very remarkable man, Luke.”

  “Me? Naw. I’m just a farmer who got a second chance at life.”

  Emily’s throat tightened and for a moment she couldn’t speak. Then she reached up to touch his jaw and the words tumbled out. “I love you, Luke. And I’m so glad I was able to get up the courage to come out here in Alyssa’s place. I worried sometimes that it had been a mistake, when Cora still—well, I worried.”

  He shifted on the mattress and resettled her against him. “I know that was hard—I should have done something sooner, I guess. But I didn’t know how. Finally, I knew I had to ask her to leave.”

  “Now we have a new family.”

  Beneath her cheek, his chest rose and fell on a deep sigh. A silence settled between them. A married silence was all Emily could think. That intimate moment between husband and wife when words were not necessary. She’d suspected her mother had had it with her father, doubted she’d had it with Emily’s step father. But now, she, plain but well-mannered Emily, was sharing such a moment with her own husband. A warmth filled her, one that had nothing to do with being press
ed against Luke’s naked body.

  After a time he put a kiss on her forehead and said, “Morning is going to come pretty early, with a load of chores. And there’s that henhouse to take care of.”

  He pulled the top quilt over them and it wasn’t until Emily heard Luke breathing evenly in sleep that she realized he hadn’t told her the one thing she’d hoped to hear.

  That he loved her, too.

  ~~*~*~*~~

  The hands on Luke’s big alarm clock pointed at four-twenty-five when dawn crept into the room. Emily peered at the clock face on the dresser and remembered that Luke had said daybreak would come soon. It certainly had.

  Next to her, Luke still slept, turned on his side with his arm looped over her waist and his forehead pressed against her upper arm. He’d thrown a leg over hers on top of the quilt, and she studied his bare hip and flank. He was as beautifully made as a sculpture. Except he was flesh and blood, and he was her husband. She moved a little to get a better view of his face, relaxed in slumber. He looked younger. His curly hair was awry and all the lines that usually marked his eyes and brow were smoothed out. Her heart swelled with affection and tenderness for him. Then she thought about the night before and hot blood rose to her cheeks.

  The prim etching of the concerned wife at her husband’s feet in one of her advice manuals now seemed like an illustration from a child’s book. Emily at last had knowledge that so many other women already had—what a night in a man’s bed was really like. And it bore no resemblance to the chaste, brother-sister relationship that she’d once pictured. It was sweaty and violently passionate, undignified and intensely intimate beyond anything she had ever been able to imagine.

  And Emily had reveled in it.

  It wouldn’t have helped if someone had tried to tell her about it before. She realized that it would be impossible to explain a sexual union to a maiden, even if that were permissible, which it most certainly was not. Ladies did not speak of such things, no matter how curious they might be. In any event, it had to be experienced to be understood. Especially the heart-stopping pleasure a husband’s nimble fingers could bring to his wife’s body.

  Next to her, Luke tried to pull her closer in his sleep. As much as she wanted to stay, Emily knew she had to get breakfast going. There would be a lot of hard work to do today, and she wanted to give her family a good start.

  She slipped from Luke’s embrace and paused a moment to gaze upon him. Oh, she did hate to leave him, even for an instant.

  Pulling herself away, she went back to her own room to wash and dress. Downstairs in the kitchen, she bailed out the heavy tub but decided to let Luke take it out to the porch.

  She went outside to look at the remains of the henhouse and was shocked by the devastation. A chill skittered through her, and she knew it wasn’t just from the coolness of the morning. The sky was still gray and low, although the rain had stopped for the time being. She crossed her arms over her chest and wished she still had a shawl.

  In the light of day, she saw how close they had come to losing the barn. Only one corner of the little shelter remained unscorched. The rest had been reduced to black, charred rubble that was still hot in some places. Here and there, she saw blackened chicken carcasses, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the debris. The huge old oak—nothing of it could be saved as far as she could see. It had been split right down the middle, and the smells of fresh and burned wood mingled together. It would take a lot of work just to clear away the wreckage. And where would the money come from for a new henhouse? she wondered. Maybe she could arrange to teach etiquette to other girls in the area, just as she did the Manning daughters. At the social last night, a few mothers had expressed interest in having their girls learn the finer points of proper deportment. Emily wouldn’t be able to charge much, but every little bit would certainly help. And she would be able to make a real contribution to the rebuilding project.

  Emily straightened her shoulders, as if mentally taking on her responsibility. She had never shied from hard work, and now she had something to work for.

  She turned and went back to the house. With no eggs, she had to improvise breakfast. She stoked the fire in the stove, then sliced bacon and put it on to fry. She cut bread to put in the toast rack and got a pot of cornmeal mush bubbling. By the time she heard Luke’s tread on the stairs, she had food ready on the table, the coffee brewed and fragrant.

  He came into the kitchen and seemed to fill every corner of it. He grinned at her, and though the morning was cloudy, it was as if the sun had broken through. “Good morning, Mrs. Becker.”

  Emily felt her face flush and she stammered like a schoolgirl. “W-well, um, good morning, Mr. Becker.” But she was grinning too.

  He walked to the stove and poured his coffee. “Did you sleep well?”

  She ducked her chin. “Yes, very well.”

  He nodded and gave her a knowing look. “Me, too.”

  Rose followed soon after, dressed in overalls and yawning. Her hair was a dark tangle, probably because she’d gone to bed with it wet. She talked about the fire for a while and then asked Emily, “What’s the bathtub doing in here? Are you going to take a bath?”

  “Nope, I’m taking that out to the porch right now,” Luke said, and picked up the tub as if it weighed no more than an empty soap crate. When he came back inside, he said, “That’s a hell of a mess out there, isn’t it? I’m not sure how I’m going to rebuild the henhouse.” But even through this grim news, he smiled at Emily.

  Emily directed Rose and Luke to their chairs to eat and doled out a big spoon of mush to each to go with the bacon and toast. “I was thinking about tutoring a few pupils.” She told him about her idea to teach etiquette. “I thought I might be able to help the family finances.”

  “Let’s wait and see what we’re facing,” he replied. “I don’t want you taking on more than you need to. Being a farm wife is a lot of work on its own.” But she could see he was pleased with the thoughtfulness of her offer.

  Rose shifted her gaze back and forth between them, her porridge spoon stalled in her bowl. “What’s everyone smiling about? Our barn almost burned down and you two look so happy.” It wasn’t an accusation—she sounded genuinely puzzled.

  Emily exchanged a private look with Luke, and couldn’t help but remember being held in his arms deep in the night, their bodies joined. She glanced away, certain that every detail of the memory was there on her face for anyone to see.

  “Well, we’re just . . .” Luke paused and rubbed his hand over his mouth and chin, as if he smothered a cat-licking-cream smile. Emily picked up her coffee and took a hasty sip. The strong, hot liquid reminded her of sharing the whiskey-laced toddy with him. She set her cup down with a snap. As if he had the exact same memory, Luke fingered the rim of his own metal cup as he continued with a tender light in his eyes, “We’re just glad the fire wasn’t any worse, Rose,” he said.

  Rose didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t ask anymore questions. Obviously she believed this was another of those instances where adults knew everything and children were left in the dark.

  Under Luke’s intense regard, Emily tried to eat more of her breakfast. Her heart thumped in her chest, but she kept her hand steady as she sliced a piece of bacon. Luke’s gaze tracked her every movement, lingering on her mouth as she took the bacon between her lips.

  “Since tomorrow is the last day of school, I thought I’d stop by Grammy’s on the way home—”

  Rose’s abrupt statement reminded Emily that she was not at a private wedding breakfast with her husband. She dropped her gaze from Luke’s and folded her hands in her lap.

  “I’ve only seen her once since she left, and that was when Daddy went over there to plow her kitchen garden.” Rose threw out this announcement as if waiting for either Emily or Luke to object.

  “I think that’s a fine idea, don’t you, Luke?” Emily said, bending a meaningful look upon Luke.

  He wiped his mouth on his napkin and swallowed
a bite of toast. “Well, sure, honey, that’s good. I know your grandmother will be glad to see you. You go visit her.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah—did you want me to say no?”

  “No, but I thought you might.”

  He pushed away his empty plate. “Whatever problems Cora and I had don’t have anything to do with how she feels about you, Rose. And I expected you to keep on seeing her. She’s still your Grammy.”

  Emily released a quiet, relieved sigh. She hadn’t supposed that Luke would forbid Rose from seeing Cora. But he had a right to feel bitter about his former mother-in-law. She’d caused a lot of trouble in the family, from what Emily could tell, both before and after Belinda’s death. She was glad that Luke was big enough to rise above those problems and not criticize her to Rose.

  “Today, though, I’m going to need your help around here.”

  “Oh! What do I get to do?” Rose wore a look of responsibility and importance. Emily was so pleased that Luke had found a way to reach out to his daughter, and that Rose had responded to the gestures.

  “We’ve got to start clearing away that tree and the ashes. Unless Emily needs you for something else?”

  Emily shook her head. “No, you two go along. I can handle what needs doing around here. I’ll bring you a snack around mid-morning, and we’ll catch our meals as we can today. It doesn’t look like we’ll have a regular Sunday dinner anyway.”

  “All right, then, let’s get going.”

  Luke stood and Rose jumped up too. “Can I chop wood? I know how the axe works.”

  He winced slightly. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I need you to do that to start. We’ve got plenty of other chores, though.”

  Just as they were about to go out the door, Luke turned and walked back to Emily. In front of Rose and God and the nation, he took her into his arms and gave her a long, soft kiss. “We’ll see you later.” Then he released her, winked, and went back to the door.

  Emily felt almost as dumbfounded as Rose looked, with her jaw hanging open.