His Mail-Order Bride

One corner of his mouth tugged up in a wry smile. Didn’t matter. He’d not wear the suit again until someone died. His smile deepened. Or perhaps for the christening of his child. Their child. For, according to the law, any child born to his wedded wife would be his, even if another man might have planted the seed.

“Charlotte.” He tasted her name on his tongue.

“My wife,” he whispered into the silence, enjoying the sound of it.

He raked one more satisfied glance over his valley, now shrouded in deep shadows, and then he walked up the porch steps into the house.

The parlor was empty, the lamps unlit. Thomas turned toward the bedroom. The doors were closed. He didn’t know what to make of it. He understood it was common for women to fear their wedding night. It made sense. Most women had little idea what to expect, and it was human nature to fear the unknown, but that should not be the case with Charlotte. The proof of her experience was growing in her belly.

With hesitant steps, Thomas set off across the floor. Before he reached the bedroom door to the left of the fireplace, the door on the right side opened. His wife stood in the opening. The last glimmer of daylight from the window behind her silhouetted her, rendering her thin white nightgown transparent.

Thomas felt his mouth go dry. His heart hammered in the confines of his ribs. He wanted to rush up to her, rake his hands down the dark curls that cascaded past her shoulders. He wanted to frame her face between his palms, tilt it up toward him and kiss her until his body hummed with joy.

She moved.

A step toward him.

Not away from him.

And then she laughed—a tingling, feminine laughter that crawled up his spine and fanned the needs he had just spent an hour trying to bank down.

“Why do you have two doors to the bedroom?” she asked. “I can see us going round and round, looking for each other, one of us going in through one door while the other one is coming out through the other door.”

Thomas had trouble speaking. He had to clear his throat before the words came. “It is so that the bedroom can be divided into two later, creating a separate bedroom for the children. That’s why I put in a window on both sides, rather than one big window at the end.”

She spun around to survey the bedroom. The transparent nightgown gave him a view of her back, different, but just as fascinating.

“I see,” she said. “What a clever idea.”

Thomas smiled. Tomorrow, he would show her his irrigation station, and some other inventions he’d made to ease the burden of farm chores. She might be surprised to discover that despite his lack of formal education he possessed as much knowledge of mechanics as a trained engineer.

“I’m hungry,” he told her. “Will you eat supper with me?”

She whirled back around to face him and edged closer. Either she lacked modesty, or she had no idea how much the flimsy nightgown revealed. Thomas would have bet his life on the latter. When she was only two steps away, she clasped her hands together in front of her in a manner that was becoming familiar to him.

“I haven’t cooked supper for you,” she said, her expression crestfallen.

Another wave of warmth spread in his chest. This was exactly what he had hoped for. A woman to help with the chores. “It’s all right,” he reassured her. “I didn’t expect you to cook anything. Not on your first night. I was just going to have some bread and cheese.”

She pressed the flat of her palm against her belly and held it there. Thomas guessed a pregnant woman might like to do that, to feel the new life growing inside her. His eyes lingered at her waistline. Five months. Shouldn’t she be bigger? Without thinking, he blurted out his thoughts.

“You look too thin. Is there something wrong with the baby?”

“No,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong.”

“Are you sure? Have you seen a doctor?”

She shook her head in silent reply.

“Not at all?” he pressed. “Not even in the beginning?”

“No.” She came closer to him, touched the back of his hand in a gesture of reassurance. “Don’t worry,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with the baby. Nothing at all. I’m just small, that’s all. Some women don’t show until they go into labor.”

He studied her guarded expression for a second, then nodded. He couldn’t help the niggling feeling that something was wrong. Maybe earlier Miss Jackson had tried to get rid of the baby. Maybe she had taken some potion and it had harmed the development of the child, stunting the growth in the womb.

Miss Jackson. Thomas frowned. Strange, how it seemed to him as if that person, the person in the tintype photograph he had filed away, was someone else altogether, and not his wife, the woman who had asked him to call her Charlotte.

Turning to the kitchen cupboard, Thomas took out a loaf of bread from a stone jar and a wedge of cheese from the milk safe. “If you keep the burlap cloth moist at all times, it will keep the milk and cheese fresh an extra day, even in the summer heat,” he told her, looking back over his shoulder.

Charlotte remained on her feet, hugging her arms around her body.

“Why don’t you put your coat on?” he asked.

She rubbed her arms, shivering. “The wool fabric is itchy.”

Thomas paused. He glanced back toward the bedroom. He’d intended to save his bridal gift for when he knew for certain she would stay with him, but it didn’t matter. Today was the proper day for giving marriage gifts.

“Wait here,” he said, and strode off into the bedroom.

He knelt by the linen chest at the foot of the bed, lifted the lid and searched inside. He pulled out the crocheted shawl and paused for a moment, smoothing his fingers over the soft texture of the fine wool. It was the only token of love he’d ever received, not counting the fact that he had been born. On the morning he’d said goodbye and walked out of the house that final time, his mother had hurried after him.

“Take this,” she had whispered. “I made one for you too, like I did for your brothers. For your bride.” She’d cast a fearful glance back at the house, where her husband’s shadow fell across the window.

“He doesn’t know I made it.” She’d drawn a breath, and Thomas had heard a sob in her voice. “I wish I could have been...stronger...that I could have defied him...but I couldn’t...not even for you.” She had looked up with a plea in her eyes. “You understand, don’t you?”

Thomas had taken the shawl, slipped it into his bag. Not a saddlebag, for they wouldn’t even let him have a horse to see him on his way.

His mother had clung to his arm. “Tell me you understand,” she’d begged. “Tell me you forgive me.”

Thomas had looked down at her from his height. Small and dark, like everyone else in the family, she’d stared up at him with tear-bright eyes. He would never understand, and he didn’t have it in his heart to forgive his mother for not loving him. Perhaps the man he’d grown into might possess the strength to forgive, but the child he’d once been and whom he still carried inside him clung to the hurt.

But he’d said it anyway, even though it was not true.

One final act of love for the mother who had never loved him.

“I forgive you,” he said, and asked God to absolve him for the lie.

Kneeling by the linen chest, Thomas lifted the shawl to his face. In the first two years, the scent of the rose water his mother used had clung to the wool. Then he’d made the chest and the spicy scent of cedar wood had replaced the scent of roses.

He pushed up to his feet and went back into the parlor. He shook out the shawl. It was patterned in earthy colors, rust and moss green and the rich red hues of maple leaves in the fall. He moved to stand behind Charlotte and spread the shawl over her shoulders. His arms circled her for a second before he pulled away.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It’s a wedding gift for my bride. My mother made it.” As Thomas spoke the words, a tiny edge of the old pain chipped away. Perhaps one day forgiveness would come.

“The custom is that I should give it to you in the morning after our wedding night, but I can see that you are cold, and our marriage isn’t a traditional one anyway.”

Charlotte fingered the soft wool, not meeting his eyes. “It’s lovely,” she said. “And very warm.” She glanced up at him. “Thank you.”