Susanna Fraser (7 page)

“It would be new,” he said slowly. “I think I could learn to do the work, but...but I thought you wanted us to go our separate ways once we’re back in England.”

She swallowed. Now she recognized a certain hunger in his eyes that made her feel hopeful, hopeful and burning hot. “That was your idea,” she said, “not mine.”

They had been sitting on their separate bedrolls, about a yard apart. Now Elijah rose up on his knees, bridging the distance between them, and took her face between his hands. She had just time enough to run her hands up to his shoulders before his lips descended on hers.

This time his kiss was passionate and sure. She opened her mouth to the thrust of his tongue. He tasted sweet, like the wine Lieutenant Farlow had given them for a wedding present, with a certain earthy, male flavor all his own.

As best she could without putting pressure on her blistered ankle, she leaned into him. She worked her hands around his neck, exploring the smooth skin and the crisp, unfamiliar feel of his tightly curled hair.

Without breaking the kiss, he danced his fingertips down her neck and shoulders and cupped her breasts through her shift, one in each hand. With a groan, she arched into his touch, and her nipples hardened against his palms.

Suddenly he broke all contact and sat back, hard. “We have to stop.”

“We’re
married
,” she gasped. She could feel her face flaming in a blush, and she swept her hands down over her shift, smoothing the fabric. It only made her want his hands back. “We don’t have to stop anything.” Surely he was only worried about her leg, but it no longer seemed like a good objection to
her
. “As long as we’re careful, I think we can manage without hurting my ankle.”

He shook his head and took several deep, shuddering breaths before he spoke. “I know. But, before we make this real, I need you to think. I need you to be sure you want me.”

She let out a gasping laugh of sheer exasperation. “I am sure. Can’t you tell?”

“That’s not what I mean.” Already his voice was calm and steady again. Rose at once admired his control and vowed to break it as soon as she could. “I—I wouldn’t think much of myself, if I took advantage of you wanting to lie with me, just at this moment, without you thinking of what it would mean to have
me
, for the rest of your life.”

Did he think he was the only one here who thought before he acted? “Give me some credit,” she said. “I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me in the first place if I hadn’t thought about what it meant. You were the one who spoke of something temporary. When I asked you, I meant to be a real wife to you, so long as we both shall live, just like we said in the vows.”

He closed his eyes and blew out a slow breath. “I thought you asked because you trusted me to take care of you, and not to take the rubies for myself.”

“That’s part of it,” she said patiently. “I do trust you. I like you. I think you
can
keep me safe, and that you want to honor Sam’s wishes for the rubies. I think you can be a good stepfather to Jake. I wouldn’t want a husband who couldn’t do all that. And yes, I have thought about what it means that you’re black and I’m white.”

“Have you, truly?
Can
you? You don’t know what it means to be black. I’m not sure any white person can.”

“No, I can’t. But I know if we have children together, they won’t look like Jake. I know that people who never gave me a second look before will stare and wonder why I chose you. I know I’m taking on your people, and your history, by taking on you. I have your grandfather’s name now, too, you know.” None of it was what she’d expected from life, but if she wanted to keep Elijah, it meant taking it all on, and he was worth it to her.

“Yes,” he said, “but if you leave me once the war is over, you won’t have to keep it.”

She drummed her fingers on her blanket. “What would it take to convince you that I mean it, and I understand enough that you’re willing to—to take me as your wife in truth?”

He gazed out into the night. “A little more time, I think. You have to understand—I’m more respected here than I would be many places, because of Colonel Dryhurst’s patronage, and because I’ve been here long enough to prove myself. If I go with you, and we buy this inn, I’ll have to start all over again. I was born with this burden, and I’ve made it my choice now, to do as my parents taught me and live in such a way as to show that a black man truly is the equal of a white. But it doesn’t have to be yours, too.”

“I think I’d like to share your burdens,” she murmured.

Now he met her eyes, and the way he looked at her made her want to kiss him again on the spot. “I—you... Thank you for that, Rose. But I think we should wait at least until your ankle isn’t paining you. It buys us time, in a way.”

“I was thinking that myself,” she admitted, “until you kissed me.”

He grinned.

“You do have the best smile,” she said. “I think there’s women who’d marry you for that alone.”

“Flatterer.”

“It’s true.”

Now he looked embarrassed, eyes downcast, a small smile that didn’t show any teeth. Rose decided she could look at him every day for the rest of her life and not get tired of the sight.

“Time,” he said again. “I need you to be sure you truly understand. One of the reasons my mother wouldn’t stand for changing our name to King or George, other than how foolish she thought it sounded, was that it’s not as though England is some kind of paradise for our people. My parents didn’t get their freedom because the government thought slavery was wrong. It was only for the war effort, anything to hurt the Americans. They haven’t freed their own slaves on their sugar plantations, after all.”

“A great many people are abolitionists, though,” Rose said. She herself had barely given slavery a thought before she met Elijah—in her quiet childhood in Aspwell Heath she’d hardly known it existed. But she knew enough to know a great many people did know and care, and she knew the slave trade had been outlawed when she was fifteen or so. Surely that was a start.

“Yes, but not everyone. I don’t know what your village will make of me. Can you bear it, if they turn against me, and you for choosing me?”

“They won’t,” she said stoutly. Aspwell Heath was
home.
Everyone there knew her, and her family, the Lamborns, had lived there longer than anyone could remember. Of course she would be welcomed back, and her husband with her.

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re that sure of them?”

“I am. That is—I’m sure they’ll be surprised, and not know what to make of you at first,” she allowed, remembering her own early wariness in his company. “But they’re good people, and they’re my people. They’ll give you a chance, and they’ll value you once they come to know you.”

“I hope so.” He took her hand in his again and raised it to his lips. “Think carefully, Rose. Be sure I’m really what you want.”

She was sure now, but she allowed him to bid her a good night and lay down on her solitary bedroll, her blistered foot carefully propped on a rolled-up blanket. He fell asleep before she did, and she lay in the darkness, listening to his steady breathing.

Chapter Seven

The next evening Elijah decided he must provide Rose something better for dinner than the usual rations. He couldn’t explain the impulse, but having acquired a wife and child, he found himself compelled to prove he could keep them fed. After some bargaining among his friends and acquaintances in the other regiments of Light Division, he bought a freshly killed hare from a man in the Ninety-Fifth, a string of new spring onions—hardly the most romantic of vegetables, but he’d heard Rose say they were a useful foundation for cooking—and a little sack of dried apples.

By the time he found Rose, he felt foolish. It wasn’t as though they’d been in danger of going hungry before, after all. But she smiled with genuine pleasure. “I’ll cook this myself,” she declared.

He frowned down at her—her foot was still wrapped in bandages, and she could just make shift to hobble about with the aid of her stick. “I didn’t bring this for you to do yourself an injury.”

She glanced over to where Luisa and Jemmy were setting up their tent with the doubtful assistance of Jake and Fernando. “Luisa will only burn it.”

“Then I’ll cook it,” he said, “and you can tell me what to do.”

She laughed. “Have you ever cooked a meal in your life?”

“I don’t know about cooking a meal, but I’ve roasted birds and beasts over a fire before. Besides, I like to learn new things. And—if we’re to run an inn together someday, I reckon I should know a little more about your part of the work.”

Her smile grew wide and triumphant. “Very well. And—” she darted another furtive look at Luisa, “—at least you haven’t any bad habits to unlearn.”

Under his wife’s direction, Elijah built a fire, set up a spit and butchered the hare. She insisted upon doing what she could while seated, setting a board on her lap and cutting up the onions and a clove of garlic with a speed and deftness that must have taken her years to acquire.

He wouldn’t let her come near the fire, much to her frustration. “I would’ve thought fire would make you nervous now.”

She shook her head with an exasperated sigh. “If you’d almost drowned crossing a river, would you be afraid to walk in the rain or take a drink from a well?”

“Still. Until you’re steady on two feet again, I don’t think you should come near enough to a fire that you might stumble into it.”

She lowered her gaze with unusual meekness. “Yes, husband.”

He chuckled, but shook his head. “Don’t take such a tone with me. It makes me feel odd. Besides, I can’t do any of this unless you tell me how.”

She proceeded to do so, and by nightfall he managed to produce a roasted hare with crisp skin and tender flesh, along with a sauce of onions fried down till they were limp, brown and sweet-smelling, then mixed with wine and a little flour to make a thick sauce. The dried apples, meanwhile, gave savor to a pudding with cornmeal, milk, sugar and suet that the little boys loved and even the adults attacked with enthusiasm.

“I’m a lucky man,” Elijah pronounced that night as they settled down for sleep.

Rose glanced at him from under her eyelashes. “I wonder if you married me for my cooking. Sam said
he
did.”

“Did he?”

“He said it was one of his reasons.”

“It’s one of mine, too. Who wouldn’t want the chance to eat at your fire every night?”

She smiled, taking this as her due, and why shouldn’t she? It wasn’t as though she could suppose herself a bad cook.

“But what I like best about your cooking,” he continued, “is how much you care about it. I like how much it matters to you.”

“Really? I didn’t drive you mad tonight?” She grinned, then put on an exaggerated version of her anxious expression from earlier that evening. “
No
,
no
,
don’t add more wood
now,
you’ll only burn it.
Wait
,
not a three-finger pinch of salt—your hands are bigger than mine.
Make it two.
”

“Not at all,” he assured her.

She smiled, leaned across the space between their blankets and kissed him. It was a leisurely kiss, and he settled in, taking his time to enjoy it. She slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders and made a sort of pleased hum that reminded him of the sound
he
made when he ate her cooking.

He broke the kiss but stayed close, his forehead pressed to hers. “Hm?” he asked.

“I like your shoulders,” she said, squeezing them for emphasis. “You’re so strong and
solid.
”

He brushed his lips against hers and threaded his fingers into her hair, undoing the long braid she’d put it in for the night. “Well, I like your hair.” He spread it over her shoulders, then brought a lock of it up to his face, drew it across his skin and pressed his lips against it. “So soft and thick.”

She ran light fingertips up his neck and along his jawline to his mouth. “Well, I like your smile, but you already know that.”

He considered his next compliment. “I like your eyes. As gray as the rain.”

Her eyebrows drew together in a slight frown. “As the rain? That’s a good thing?”

“Of course it is. If it weren’t for rain, we’d dwell in a desert.”

“Oh.” She smiled, leaned back a little, and looked him over from head to toe. “I like to watch you move,” she said. “Most big men I’ve known are clumsy with it, but you never are.”

He shook his head. “You should’ve seen me at eleven or so. My feet were the first thing that grew, and I must’ve spent a year tripping over them.”

She laughed a little. “Well, you’ve grown into them nicely.”

“I like to watch you cook,” he confessed. “Because you’re so absorbed in it, but also because when you bend over the fire I get such a good look at this...” He palmed one of her lovely, full breasts through her shift and felt her nipple go as hard as his cock, “...not to mention this.” He ran his hand down to the swell of her hip.

They kissed, hard and fierce, and when at last they broke apart, both of them were gasping as if they’d been running a race. Rose swallowed and trailed her fingertips down the side of his face. “Luisa thinks I’ll be ready to wear a shoe again by next Wednesday.”

He grinned. “I’ll be looking forward to it—though I think you’ll be glad enough to have that shoe off again, come nightfall.”

“Oh, I will. For many reasons.”

They kissed once more for good measure before settling themselves for sleep, but Elijah’s happiness ebbed as he lay awake in the darkness. He wanted Rose, and he didn’t think he could resist her much longer. But no matter how much she liked and desired him, was it enough to keep her from regretting this choice a few years down the road, once she’d had a chance to hear every coarse jest about white women with black men repeated a few dozen times. And was she ready to be the mother of brown-skinned babies who’d grow up to face their own share of society’s judgment and disdain?

* * *

Rose’s burn continued to heal well, and just as she’d hoped, by Wednesday the blisters were all gone. The skin beneath them was still soft, pink and faintly scarred, but when she tugged on her stocking and laced up her half-boot, the pressure didn’t pain her, and she could at last walk again with a brisk, easy stride.

At Luisa’s insistence, she still rode in the baggage wagon for much of the day, but during the hottest part of the afternoon, while Luisa dozed and both Jake and Fernando slept, Rose jumped down from the wagon to let the summer breeze cool her and to enjoy her newly restored freedom.

They marched through lovely countryside, almost green enough for England but far more rugged than anything near her Bedfordshire home. Rose hardly noticed her surroundings. Now that she was about to make her marriage to Elijah real, she found her thoughts turning to Sam, saying the proper goodbye she’d hardly had the chance for after his sudden death and the upheaval it had made in her life.

She truly believed Sam was safe and happy in heaven, but she didn’t know whether he could see her now any more than she could him. Still, she addressed the Sam of her memory and imagination.
I’ll always love you
, she assured him.
I’ll always be glad I had you for my husband
,
and I’ll tell Jake all about you.
I’ll take good care of him
—we
will.
You liked Elijah so much
,
and I hope you’re happy I chose him.

The more she turned the matter over in her mind, the more sure she was that Sam would indeed have understood and approved. He’d known the way of the army, that if he fell, she wouldn’t have the opportunity to mourn him in a long widowhood. Now she could recognize that when he’d asked her on the eve of battle whom she’d wed next if he died, he hadn’t intended to be heartless and morbid. He’d only meant he understood her position, and she should be ready to choose well for Jake’s sake and her own.

She
had
chosen well. Of that she was certain. Sam would’ve wanted her to be happy, and she meant to be.
Thank you for the rubies
, she added to her message for his ghost.
We’re going to use them just as you wished.

Lost in her thoughts, she was only vaguely aware that she’d passed all the wagons and caught up with the straggling end of the regiment until she heard a nasty voice call out, “There she is, the Negro-loving bitch.”

Jerked abruptly from her happy reverie, she froze and looked around her. George Yonge, damn him, just now healed enough from his flogging to resume his duties, with a pair of his friends, Horton and Keefe—troublemakers Rose had avoided as best she could in all her years with the regiment.

They approached to within a few feet of her, surrounding her on three sides. The road before them curved in a sharp bend, blocking her view of the marching men ahead of them. She didn’t dare show her fear by looking behind her, though surely the leading wagons were in sight. They couldn’t attack her or drag her away here, in broad daylight in the middle of the army column.

“Afraid of us?” Keefe asked. “Your big Negro can’t save you now.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said as coolly as she could. “Not here, not now.”

“Oh, we’re not going to hurt you now,” Yonge said. “You’re not worth another flogging. But don’t think you’re fooling anyone, claiming those silly popish beads of your friend’s are what Lewis saw. You wouldn’t have married that Negro if you didn’t need the biggest man in the regiment to be your guard, and I know why.”

“I don’t know,” Horton said with a leer, “maybe she wanted him for something else. You know what they say about their size and appetites.”

Just at that moment, Elijah appeared from around the bend ahead of them. When he saw Rose, he burst into a run. “Stay away from my wife,” he snarled as he reached her side.

Though they had him outnumbered, all three flinched away from his size and menace. Rose lifted her chin. “If you’re all so curious as to why I married him,” she said, “I’d be happy to tell you.”

“This isn’t necessary,” Elijah murmured in her ear.

“Oh, I think it is,” she said. “I married him because he’s the best soldier in this company—no, in this regiment. I married him because he’s clever and thoughtful and kind, and because when he eats my cooking he takes the time to taste it properly. I married him because I trust him to take care of my son like his own flesh and blood. And if I needed protection, it wouldn’t be for any imaginary jewels—” nor indeed, for the real ones still acting the part of a garter on her right thigh, “—it would be from men like you. And it’s obvious his protection is more than sufficient for that.”

The three men gaped at her, then exchanged uneasy glances.

“I’d catch up with the rest of the column, if I were you,” Elijah advised them. “And if any harm does fall to my wife or her son or any of her property, don’t think I won’t know where to look first.”

Three sullen mutters of, “Yes, Corporal,” and the men fled.

“How did you know I was here?” Rose asked.

“I didn’t. I’d come to chivvy any stragglers along. I’m just glad I was in time.”

“They only meant to frighten me.”

He sighed. “This won’t be the last time someone says something unpleasant to you, because of me.”

“I know,” she said. “But it’s words. Only words. They won’t change my mind.”

She turned, stepped into his arms and drew his head down for a kiss, there in broad daylight to the accompaniment of cheers from the driver and passengers of a passing oxcart. “Are you ready to believe I know what I want?”

He smiled slowly. “Yes.”