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  Hannah's main source of information on sexuality was Bessie Turnball. Although Bessie was more Myrtie's contemporary than she was Hannah's, she seemed to know a great deal about the subject of men and women and never hesitated to explain it to whoever would listen.

  To Hannah, the whole thing sounded a bit untidy, embarrassing at best, but she was sure that she could survive. What she was not too sure of, however, was what these flustery, warm feelings were all about. She wanted to move away from him at the same time she felt the need to ease up more closely.

  Henry Lee undid the last button and gently pushed her away.

  "You'd best change into your night clothes and get into bed," he told her. "We'll have a very busy day tomorrow."

  She looked at him with anxious confusion. Fortunately Henry Lee was sensitive enough that she needn't express her hesitation.

  "Don't fret now, Miss Hannah, I'll turn my back." Which he proceeded to do, staring at the door, his hands jammed into his trouser pockets. Hannah was held frozen in place for a moment and then with incredible haste, but almost total silence, she went to the hook in the far corner that held her nightgown. She changed her clothes without taking her eyes off Henry Lee for one moment. She tried to be very quiet, thinking that not drawing attention to herself somehow made her safer. As if he were a wild animal that might not know that she was there if she didn't disturb the leaves or grass.

  Even as quiet as she was, Henry Lee was very aware of what was happening behind his back and was busy trying to drown out the telling silence with his own silent admonitions. She was a virgin, and not a ripe one, but rather an overripe spinster who undoubtedly was horrified at the idea of sex. And even if she weren't so terrified, she did, after all, seek this marriage in a very desperate manner. She was so anxious he would surely hurt her, and he certainly didn't want her screaming or crying with her parents and most of the community right outside the door.

  No, he told himself, he would wait a few days until they got a little more used to each other and he would start out slowly, a few kisses tomorrow, some serious hugging the day after until she was more used to him. If there was one thing he had learned about women it was that patience has its rewards. Tonight he would be patient.

  Hannah, dressed in her flour-sack cotton nightdress, stood uncertainly beside the bed. She couldn't decide what her next move should be. If she just stood there, he would turn around and see her, but if she were to hide herself in the bed, it would seem as if she were anxious to couple with him. Finally she gave up the effort of making a decision, and turned the problem over to Henry Lee.

  "Should I get in bed now?"

  "Yes, go ahead," Henry Lee answered as he waited for the sounds of her movement into the bed. After he was sure she had settled herself, he turned without looking at her and lowered the wick in the lamp, and then blew it out completely. Normally, on these hot summer nights, he slept naked, but he wasn't ready to do that with Miss Hannah. He stripped down to his small clothes and decided it was enough.

  He carefully moved over to the bed and eased himself in beside her. Even without touching her he could sense how stiff and frightened she was. He congratulated himself on his superior judgment and control in not breaking her tonight in her parents' home. He made himself as comfortable as possible and waited for sleep.

  Hannah lay tense and wary. She wasn't sure what was to happen next. She remembered overhearing Nettie Haskell saying once that the carnal needs of men were disgusting, but that a Christian woman had to tolerate them so that her man would not be tempted into sin.

  Hannah felt that she would gladly allow Henry Lee to be tempted into sin, if he would just not do anything disgusting to her. It felt so strange to have him beside her in the bed. She had shared this bed with Myrtie, and for years it had always seemed a reasonable size. Now with Henry Lee lying in it, it seemed miniscule. It was hard to imagine how a man could be so broad and so long. Even though she knew herself to be a robust, country girl, he made her feel small and vulnerable. She was still fearfully waiting for something to happen when she fell asleep.

  * * *

  The sun was well up when Henry Lee drowsily awakened, realizing that a warm female body lay in his arms. Actions born of memory and instinct led him to pull the woman more closely to his body. Her hair brushed his face and the warm clean smell drew his lips to her neck and collar. He felt her breasts against his chest, so soft, but with hard points, and it encouraged him to run his hand along the length of her back. She was smooth and soft and warm. His hand found her firm buttocks and he could not suppress his need to press her against his erection. It felt so good that he gave a small moan of pleasure as he continued to move himself against her.

  Hannah awakened to a strange sensation of heat rushing through her body. She felt the hand that caressed her behind and felt the hardness of him pushing up against her. It answered a need inside her and instinctively she pressed back. Her heart seemed to have dropped to that warm place between her legs and it was pulsing and throbbing as if she had just run half a mile. She opened her legs instinctively to bring relief and he pressed against her so strongly it caused her to gasp. The sound brought her fully awake and Hannah suddenly realized where she was, and what she was doing.

  It was her sharp intake of breath that brought Henry Lee back into reality. Reality being a new wife who was not ready for him and a stiff member that was ready for anything. He released the pressure on her backside, but moved his hand only as far away as her hip. It felt too good to let her go completely.

  "Good morning," he whispered, his voice gravelly from sleep. "Remember me? I'm your new husband."

  Hannah gazed into his languid blue eyes, as his handsome face softened and smiled at her lazily. The enticing fire still sparked through her veins as she felt the firm, possessive hand on her hip. His long brown arms were corded with muscle, but held her with the strength of tenderness. Marriage to Henry Lee Watson abruptly, seemed not such a punishment, more a prize.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 4

  « ^ »

  Henry Lee was securing the harness on his team on the first day of his married life, feeling almost lightheaded. He was encouraged by Hannah's behavior this morning. Maybe she wasn't as starchy as he'd thought. She was obviously quite taken with him, enough to risk her reputation, and that always made a woman more malleable. And it certainly wouldn't hurt his business, either. Becoming a member of Preacher Farnam's family could be a real boon.

  With these pleasant thoughts, Henry Lee joked easily with the last of the campers heading out and laughed off the most raucous jokes about his wedding night. He seemed, to himself and to all those who spoke to him that morning, a man content with his life.

  Henry Lee ate his breakfast with enthusiasm, complimenting Mrs. Bunch until he had her giggling. When Violet assured him that Hannah could make biscuits just as light, he gave his new bride a warm smile and an agreeable nod.

  Hannah was also strangely cheerful and content. It was apparently true that things always seem better in the morning. Yesterday, the idea of marrying Henry Lee Watson had seemed the height of idiocy, but today it seemed no more strange than marrying Will Sample. After all, she could be a good wife and helpmate to either man. Making a quick perusal of her new husband through lowered lashes, she also admitted that, if the truth were told, Henry Lee Watson was a good deal more handsome than Will Sample.

  Yesterday that handsomeness had seemed almost threatening. But today she was no longer afraid. Certainly, he was a man who was going to need a good deal of churching and would have to be schooled in good manners, but with the confidence of the new day, Hannah felt up to the challenge.

  After breakfast, Myrtie volunteered to help Hannah sort her things and finish packing up.

  "Anxious to have the room all to yourself?" Hannah asked her curiously as they walked to the room.

  Myrtie giggled nervously. "I'll really miss you a lot, Hannah, but I'm so excited for you."

  Myrtie gave
her sister a quick hug, dropping the sheet and towels that she had clutched.

  "Now look what I've done!" she exclaimed in exasperation, dropping to her knees. "Violet wanted you to have this extra bedding and towels." She lifted an armful, shaking it clean as she deposited it in Hannah's outstretched hands, then rose to her feet with her own bundle clutched firmly.

  As the two began folding Hannah's clothes into her trunk, they giggled like young girls. Now that they were starting separate lives, the differences between them seemed to have disappeared.

  Bushed and giggling, Myrtie looked slyly at her sister. "You've got to tell me what it was like," she said, gesturing dramatically as she threw herself across the bed like a fainting heroine, scattering linen in her wake. "I want to know every romantic detail!"

  Hannah shook her head comically at her sister's antics, but couldn't conceal her involuntary blush. "Myrtie, you know it's none of your business."

  "Of course, it's my business!" she insisted indignantly. "I'm your baby sister and you've always been willing to give me the benefit of your knowledge."

  Hannah scooped a pillowcase from underneath Myrtie's shoulder and folded it, thinking of all the things she had shared with her sister. She'd taught her to read, and quilt, and turn the seams on a dress, but, being her sister and not her mother, there were some facts in life for which she had not been able to offer instruction.

  Now she wasn't able to look Myrtie in the eye. "I don't really have that much to tell you yet, Myrtie. At least not much that I think you'd want to hear." It was the closest Hannah could come to admitting that her husband had not elected to assert his rights on their wedding night. Unfortunately, Myrtie took it all wrong.

  "Oh, no!" she wailed miserably. "Was it awful then? Did he hurt you?" She clenched her fists in anger and looked mad enough to spit. "I don't care how cute he is, if he was mean to you, Hannah, I'm going to hate him!"

  Hannah waved away her sister's anger, sorry that she'd got Myrtie on the wrong track.

  "No, no, he didn't hurt me." She thought about the tender caresses of the morning and found herself blushing. "He was very kind actually, but you'll just have to wait until your own wedding night for the details."

  Myrtie rolled to her side, propping herself on her elbow with a look of disgust. "I just can't believe you're not going to tell me," she complained. "You've always said that these things were natural and that our bodies were nothing to be ashamed of, now finally you've done it yourself, and you get as closemouthed as all the other married women!"

  Hannah smiled at Myrtie. She hated disappointing her, and having her sister's undivided attention was something that happened less and less as she got older. Hannah just wished that she had more information to share.

  "Okay, I'll tell you this much," she said leaning down beside her sister and whispering conspiratorially. "He was very gentle and it wasn't unpleasant at all and it made me feel all kind of fluttery inside."

  Hannah congratulated herself on not exactly lying. She had accurately described what she had felt in Henry Lee's arms this morning, and she had given her sister enough information to stir her imagination, but not anything that was totally untrue.

  "Oh Hannah, I just can't believe that you are really married. Just think, by next spring you could be coming to church with a pretty little cotton-head baby of your very own."

  Hannah smiled prettily, surprised at her own delight at such a prospect, but quickly corrected her sister.

  "A baby of Henry Lee's would have coal black hair," she said, picturing in her mind the child she would give him. "I'd tie that gorgeous hair all up in pink ribbons and she'd be the prettiest baby the territory had ever seen."

  "What if it's a boy?" Myrtie asked laughing.

  "Well." Hannah flopped down next to her sister on the bed, allowing her imagination full sway. "Maybe not pink ribbons, but he would still be the prettiest baby in the territory."

  "You'd want him to look like his papa then?" Myrtie teased. "Henry Lee is so good-looking! All the girls think so. And you always acting like you never noticed."

  Hannah smiled with a bit of pride, pleased at the thought of finding herself the envy of young girls.

  Her voice was stern, but teasing, threatening mayhem. "You just tell your friends to keep their eyes off my husband!"

  The two sisters collapsed together on the bed, laughing and hugging.

  Henry Lee heard their merriment as he came through the house. He'd parked the wagon at the front door and he wanted to load up Hannah's trunk. Truth to tell, he was ready to get out of here. Nearly everyone had stopped by the wagon to wish him and Hannah the best, and to let them know that the community had forgiven them for, as one farmer put it, plowing the corn before the fence was in. He didn't wish to discuss it any further with anyone. He and Hannah would make a good life together, and the sooner the gossip about them stopped altogether, the easier it would be to make that life.

  He was just about to knock on the door when he heard the sweet music of female laughter. One voice high and tinkly, the other low and throaty, like a burgundy wine. Somehow he knew that laugh belonged to Hannah. It spoke to him in a way that sent strange hot sparks through his veins, warming him inside as well as out.

  As he tried to reason out the peculiar feeling, he just caught the words in Myrtie's voice.

  "Oh Hannah, I'm so happy at how well everything has turned out for you. I can hardly wait until you have that baby. You'll be such a wonderful mother, and I'll be the best aunt you ever saw."

  "Now Myrtie, don't you be talking about that where anybody can hear you. We've had enough scandal involved in this marriage already. I don't want anybody talking any more about me if I can help it." Hannah laughed thinking what someone might think to hear a woman talking about having a baby the morning after her wedding.

  "Oh Hannah, you know I won't tell a soul, I swear it!" Myrtie giggled tauntingly. "My sister, Hannah, a mother at last, I can hardly believe it."

  Henry Lee stood stock-still, frozen in place. All color drained from his face and a hollow pit seemed to have opened inside him. He turned abruptly and returned to the wagon. Somebody spoke to him, but he ignored them. He could barely hear for the roaring rage inside his head.

  It all made sense now, perfect sense. She needed a husband and he was simply the one best able to fill the bill. His reputation had done him in. No one would doubt that the genteel Miss Hannah had been seduced by the Whiskey Man.

  And he had believed her. He thought her sweet and innocent and foolishly smitten by him. He remembered last night, how she had pretended to be so frightened and he had wanted to spare her. He had wanted to spare her, and she had been rolling in the hay with God-knows-who for no telling how long! He slammed a hay hook into the back of the wagon in anger. The movement startled the horse and he had to hurry to the front to quiet the young gelding.

  He stood beside the animal, crooning softly, trying to calm himself as he calmed the horse. She had made a fool of him. She and her lover were probably laughing at him right now. He had thought he was doing her a favor, what a joke. It was a joke all right and it had been played on him. At least the rest of the community didn't know what a fool she had made of him. At least they didn't know it yet.

  He wondered why her lover hadn't married her himself. Maybe he was already married, or maybe she'd had so many men that she didn't know who the father was. No, he ruled that out. Had she been round-heeled, he surely would have heard of it. Things like that couldn't be kept secret. But an affair with a married man could be. Obviously it had been.

  Henry Lee stroked the soft nose of the horse and worried about what he should do next. He'd given her the benefit of the doubt when they'd been caught at the wellhouse. He didn't feel obliged to accommodate her anymore.

  How in the world did she think she would get away with this? Did she intend to pretend innocence in his bed and then claim the baby had arrived early? He heard of women trying to play those types of tricks, but he never thoug
ht that it would really work. In his heart, a man would know the truth, or his suspicions would drive him crazy.

  Henry Lee was tempted to just hop in the wagon and ride off into the sunset forever. He felt like such a dolt, falling right into her devious little scheme.

  He knew he wasn't the first man to have been tricked into claiming another man's son, but he sure as hell was not going to let her think that her evil little plan had worked. She was his wife now, and she would learn to rue the day she tried to make a fool out of Henry Lee Watson.

  * * *

  By the time Hannah and Myrtie had everything gathered up, she was very excited. She was going to have her own home, her own husband. It was like a dream come true. She had discovered a new closeness with her sister, and a kinship with her stepmother, and other women of the community. She was a married lady. At last, all the rights and privileges of that blissful state had been visited on Hannah.

  Talking with Violet as they sorted linens and packed baskets of fruits and vegetables, the conversation drifted to the concerns of governing a household.

  "Now I doubt that Henry Lee has much of a garden," her stepmother told her. "You best start right away getting whatever you can out of the ground, it's really too late to plant much but maybe squash and turnips."

  "Do you think he'll have much put up already?" Hannah asked her.

  "I doubt it. I suspect that bachelors don't even know how to put things up. Making his place into a home should keep you busy for a while."

  Hannah was suddenly very anxious to do just that. She knew she was an excellent housekeeper. She would make such a wonderful home for Henry Lee, he would never regret having to marry her.

  Her father carried out her things to the wagon as quickly as Hannah, her stepmother, and sister could get them ready. She kept waiting for Henry Lee to come back inside the house, but for some reason, he continued to tarry by the wagon.