The Endless Forest
Page 108

“It’s all right,” he said. “We’ve got years ahead of us.” She forbade herself to drop her gaze. “I am very tired,” she said. “But can’t we sleep in the same bed? Just sleep?”
Now there was a question.
Daniel doubted that such a thing was possible, but he also was determined to give her what she wanted. It was the least he could do after such an abrupt wedding, without so much as a proper wedding supper. And worse still, without a wedding ring.
In the hurry to get away it was the one thing that hadn’t occurred to him. They were almost to Johnstown when he realized what was missing, and he told her immediately. He was ready to see unhappiness or disappointment on her face, but she only looked puzzled.
“There’s no goldsmith in Johnstown,” Daniel told her, “but there is an Irishman who fixes clocks and he sometimes has things to sell. We could stop there—”
She stopped him with a soft shake of the head.
“Is a marriage legal without a ring?”
It was the first question they asked of the lawyer, who assured them that the law did not insist on a ring. But it still felt wrong, no matter how unconcerned Martha seemed to be. He would have to put it right as soon as possible.
Now Martha was sorting through her bag and making neat piles of things. He saw something edged in lace, a set of hairbrushes, a tin of tooth powder, a pair of rolled stockings.
She said, “I won’t be long,” and without waiting for a response she ducked behind the dressing screen. When she came out she was wearing a night rail that brushed against her bare feet, with their high arches and long toes. She had plaited her hair and it swung as she walked, bumping the base of her spine.
She climbed the three steps to the bed and sat on the edge, her hands folded in her lap.
“I think this will be a very comfortable bed to sleep in. Come, Daniel, I’m not going to bite. Come and sleep.”
Sleep was going to be hard to come by; now he had not only her bare feet to put out of his mind, but curiosity about how exactly she might bite him, should things ever get that far.
The last person Martha had shared a bed with was Callie, when they were girls. After Callie’s father disappeared and Jemima ran off, Curiosity took them both in and gave them a chamber together. It had seemed too large a gift at the time, a quiet, safe place where they could talk without worry that they would be overheard.
What a treat it had been to sleep in a bed made up with cool linen and pillow slips that smelled of lavender. How comforting it was to have Callie sleeping beside her, better than a warming brick on the coldest nights. Every time she went to bed with a full stomach she had wondered how long she could count on what she had.
Now that old feeling of safety and comfort came back to her, and she slipped away, contented, half asleep before Daniel ever came to lay down beside her.
She woke to the sound of rain drumming on the roof and the smell of apple wood on the hearth. Had she ever been so comfortable before in her life? If so she couldn’t remember. It would have been the most natural thing in the world to slip back into sleep.
If it wasn’t for the fact that there was a man in the bed with her. Daniel Bonner, who was, oddly enough, her husband. Martha turned onto her back slowly so as not to wake him and saw she was too late.
He smiled at her. A sleepy smile that asked nothing of her but acknowledgment. She said, “Good morning. What time is it, do you know?”
“The hall clock struck six not long ago.”
“You’ve been watching me sleep.”
“Do you mind?”
She shook her head. It was interesting to her that he watched her openly and without excuse. For her own part, she found both things very difficult. Daniel had worn his shirt to bed, open at the top so that his throat was plain to see. Why it should move her so strongly she couldn’t say. Looking at classical sculpture she was most often drawn to the strength of leg and arm and back, but now the sight of Daniel’s muscular throat started a warm pulsing that moved up her spine and spread out.
Of course she could do as she liked. She could run her fingers along Daniel’s jaw to feel the bristle of his beard or kiss the hollow at the bottom of his throat and test his pulse with her lips. Any of those things were her right, but for the moment she was content to study him as he studied her.
Martha had heard quite a lot about the etiquette of the wedding night from her friends who had married first, marching into foreign territory armed with the advice of mothers and older sisters and grandmothers. The trouble was, there was no consistency in any of the reports. Some of it was shocking and some of it was frightening, and some of it was even funny, but there was precious little practical in the guidelines handed down to a bride or even in the firsthand accounts.
Her own engagement had ended before Amanda could bring herself to speak of such things. She wondered now what Amanda might have said. It seemed unlikely that sweet, quiet Amanda would give advice as Sylvie Steenburgen’s mother had. Mrs. Steenburgen had told her only daughter not to worry, the business was messy but it didn’t last long; she herself used the time to compose menus.
Margaret Bickman’s mother had told her to submit once a week and no more, and that complaining would do her no good; in fact, it might only serve to drag it out. And, most important: She was never to lift her night rail higher than her waist.
Dorothea Ennis had heard from her grandmother that it was a great deal of fuss about nothing at all and that once she had three children she should come again and ask how to keep from having more.