Only Mine (9 page)

Jessica opened her mouth but no words came out. A visible shudder ran over her. Wolfe turned away and lit another match with a swift slash of his hand.

“Go unpack the trunks, your ladyship,” he said
as he set the match to the previously laid fire. “The viscount’s
savage
will fix supper tonight.”

Jessica flinched. She hadn’t realized how warm and affectionate Wolfe’s voice had become until she measured it against the return of ice and distance.

“Wolfe? What have I done?”

“When you’re finished unpacking, be sure to take some of those aristocratic bed linens you brought and make a pallet by the hearth. A nun like you wouldn’t want to do something so bestial as to sleep near any man, much less a savage like your husband.”

Wolfe stood up. Behind him the stove fire blossomed into orange flames.

“But—” she began.

“You said when I tired of your company you would leave me alone,” Wolfe interrupted, slamming the stove door shut. “Do that, Lady Jessica. Now.”

Even an aristocrat had some common sense. Jessica picked up her skirts and fled to Wolfe’s bedroom. But even there, she found no peace.

The sound of the wind was very loud in the silence.

W
OLFE
watched Jessica as she knelt over a washtub in the lean-to at the side of his house.

“You’re supposed to be washing the shirt, not making rags of it,” he said.

“I see little difference in the process.”

“Not the way you’re going about it, certainly. Tell me, your ladyship, while the servants accomplished all the useful work at Lord Robert’s house, what did you do?”

“I read, I played the violin, I oversaw the staff, I embroidered—”

“My God,” Wolfe interrupted. “Something useful. How did that creep into your daily regimen? Does that mean you’ll be able to repair the seams you’re pulling apart under the guise of washing my clothes?”

“Would you prefer initials, a coat of arms, or Jacobean-style flowers embroidered in your seams?” Jessica asked pleasantly.

Wolfe made a sound of disgust.

She didn’t bother to look up from the washtub and the lean-to’s widely spaced wooden slats. She knew what she would see if she looked at her husband. He would be watching her with cold eyes
and an unforgiving line to his mouth. It had been that way for the three days since he had so startled her by running the tip of his tongue over her burned fingers.

And for those same three days, she had kept a smile pinned on her lips until her face ached.

Unfortunately, by now her face wasn’t the only part of her body that ached. She was as exhausted this afternoon as she had been at the end of the stage ride. When she wasn’t pumping water to wash and rinse clothes, she was carrying bucket after bucket to the stove to heat. From the stove she hauled buckets to the lean-to, poured water into the big tub, knelt, and went to work rubbing and scrubbing every piece of clothing. It usually took three or four times before the shirts pleased Wolfe’s critical eye.

“That’s about as much scrubbing as the poor shirt can take,” Wolfe said.

“I think not, my lord. It’s not perfectly clean.”

“Enough, your ladyship. That’s my favorite shirt. Willow made it for me last summer.”

The sound of ripping cloth carried very clearly over Wolfe’s last words.

“Jessica!”

“Oh, dear, look at that. One would think a paragon would choose cloth that was less frail, wouldn’t one?” Jessica dragged the ruined shirt from the water and wrung it out with real pleasure. “But all isn’t lost, my lord. It will make a wonderful rag for cleaning the privy.”

“You little witch! I should—”

Wolfe’s words ended in a curse as he leaped aside, barely avoiding the torrent of soapy water that came when Jessica upended the washtub.

“Sorry, did you say something?” she asked.

There was a simmering silence while husband and wife looked at each other. Then Wolfe smiled. Jessica smiled in return.

“I think it’s time your ladyship learned to scrub something more durable than a shirt,” Wolfe said.

“What’s that?”

“Floors.”

Jessica’s smile slipped, then was resurrected. “Ah, another quaint wifely ritual. It occurs to me, my Lord Wolfe, why Americans don’t have servants. Wives are ever so much cheaper.”

“Too bad you dumped all that hot, soapy water,” Wolfe said, turning away. “Now you’ll have to get more. You do remember where the wood pile is, don’t you?”

“Quite well.”

“Then hop to it.”

“Do I look like a rabbit?” Jessica asked beneath her breath.

Wolfe turned back. “Hurry up, my red-haired bunny. Daylight is free, but lamplight is expensive. Those of us not fortunate enough to be born into the aristocracy have to be concerned about such things.”

Standing up was easier said than done for Jessica. With an effort, Wolfe restrained his instinctive move to help her. Instead, he watched impassively while she struggled to her feet.

Despite her best effort to be silent, a groan got past her lips. Wolfe took it as a sign that he was finally winning the contest of wills. At least, he hoped he was. He didn’t know how much longer he could bear to twiddle his thumbs while the shadows beneath Jessica’s eyes deepened more each hour. The hard physical labor of housekeeping under his critical eye was draining what strength had
remained after the long, strenuous trip to his home.

Even though Jessica had trapped Wolfe into marriage, he had too many good memories of times past to enjoy grinding her down in such a manner. Yet he forced himself to watch Jessica’s stiff movements without flinching. If he showed kindness, it would be mistaken for weakness, which would only prolong the process of getting Jessica to accept the futility of their marriage.

But even while he was telling himself to be strong, he was speaking.

“Just say the word and you’ll never put those delicate hands into wash water again.”

Jessica stretched her back and sighed. “The last time you made that offer, you objected to the word I said.”

Bastard.

Unwillingly, Wolfe smiled as he remembered. Jessica caught the softening of his expression and prayed that he would relent on the matter of scrubbing floors.

Wolfe saw her hopeful expression and knew he must not give in. Silently, he picked up the bucket and held it out to her. He saw both the dismay in her eyes and the straightening of her spine as she took the bucket from his hands.

Reluctant admiration grew in Wolfe. Jessica’s sheer determination was greater than that of men twice her size. But no matter how stubborn she was, her endurance was limited by her strength. In the end, he would use her own stubbornness as a weapon against her. In the end, he would win.

All he had to do was endure his own self-disgust while he wore her down.

“Jessi,” Wolfe said gently, “give it up. You aren’t
cut out to be a commoner’s wife. You know it as well as I do.”

“Better your wife than Lord Gore’s.”

Wolfe’s temper slipped, for there was nothing he could force himself to do to Jessica that would equal Lord Gore’s drunken brutality, which put Wolfe at a disadvantage when it came to convincing Jessica to give up this farce of a marriage.

“Better for you,” Wolfe retorted coldly, “but not for me. There are many better wives for me than you.”

“Don’t count on it,” Jessica said, turning away. “Paragons aren’t so thick upon the ground that you can just pluck one like a daffodil in spring.”

“I don’t want a paragon. I want a
wife.
”

“How fortunate for the paragon Willow that she is already married. Her heart would be broken if she knew that even her astonishing perfection wasn’t enough to satisfy Tree That Stands Alone.”

At first Wolfe didn’t understand what Jessica meant. When he did, he smiled. It was the first real sign that his frequent praising of Willow’s accomplishments had rankled Jessica. She had just given him a tool with which to chip away at her own monumental confidence that their marriage would work.

“Willow has passion,” Wolfe said. “That’s something a nun wouldn’t understand, much less be able to equal.”

There was no answer but that of the pump handle being worked inside the kitchen as Jessica drew more water for scrubbing the floor.

F
ORWARD
, back, forward, back, dip into the water, lean hard, harder, forward, back, forward, back…

The silent chant had been repeated in Jessica’s mind so often that she wasn’t aware of it any longer. Nor was she aware of the lateness of the hour. Her world had shrunk to no larger a space than the bricks within reach of her scrub brush.

At first look, Wolfe’s kitchen had struck her as small. Now it seemed the size of a ballroom.

Forward, back, forward, back.

The wind had risen with the descending sun. Now the wind moaned hungrily around the eaves and pried with transparent fingers at every crevice, searching for a way inside. Jessica began humming to shut out the horrifying, soulless cries that had disturbed even the exhausted sleep she succumbed to at night. No matter how forcefully she hummed, the sound of the wind was louder.

Lean hard, harder.

The brush moved sluggishly over brick despite Jessica’s desire to finish. Despairingly, she realized that her arms had no more strength. She locked her elbows and leaned her full weight on the brush. It rolled in her soapy fingers and rattled across the floor. She barely caught herself before she went sprawling.

By the time Jessica set aside the brush and rinsed the whole floor with clean water, it was past time to be preparing supper. Not that it mattered. Whatever she prepared, Wolfe would look at it as though it had crawled from a chamber pot onto his plate.

“Ah well, I can hardly fault him for that. Even the skunk passed up the stew I made last night. Nor can I fairly be blamed. No one told me to cover the pot and keep adding water while I cooked.”

The memory of the silent, nighttime visitor made Jessica laugh despite the steady aching of her body. She shook out the ruins of her once-fine traveling
outfit. The skirt no longer matched the aquamarine of her eyes. Instead, the fabric more resembled a muddy pool, with dense black patches where her knees had ground the cloth against brick or the wooden slats of the lean-to where she had toiled over the washtub.

“Bother,” Jessica muttered. “I should have taken the charwoman’s clothes and left mine in England.”

She went to the stove, flipped open the door with a metal hook, and looked inside. As always, more wood was required. The same was no doubt true for the living room hearth, which also cleverly served to heat the bedroom as well. She had been quite intrigued with the double-sided fireplace, and the artistry of the stonemason who had built it. Discovering that Wolfe had been the builder had surprised her.

In between feeding the stove and feeding the hearth fire so that it could take the chill from the buckets of water she had arrayed on either side for her bath later, Jessica barely had time to deal with preparing any food.

“Blazes!” she muttered when the paring knife slipped repeatedly in her inexperienced hands. “Tonight I’ll surprise Wolfe. Tonight we’ll have riced potatoes, fried pork chops from his neighbor’s pig, and tinned cherries. Little enough could go wrong with that lot.” Jessica sighed. “Tonight I won’t have to listen while Wolfe sings the praises of that paragon of the culinary arts, Willow Black.”

Jessica continued talking aloud to herself while she worked. Talking helped to hold the sound of the wind at bay, but the sustained moans still ate away at her composure. She was grateful when the
vigorously boiling water added its bit to the kitchen sounds.

Soon the smell of potatoes cooking drove out the pungent lye scent that lingered after the bricks had been so thoroughly scrubbed. The clatter of a cast iron frying pan as she hauled it onto the stovetop was almost cheerful, as was the sizzle of chops when the pan warmed enough to cook the meat.

Humming despite the numbing fatigue that was creeping through her body, Jessica primed the pump and filled a huge soup pot with water. She spilled about a quart on the way to the big stove, but barely noticed. The remaining two gallons were quite enough for her to lift. She opened the stove’s front gate, stuffed in several more lengths of wood and slammed the gate shut.

“What next?” Jessica asked, running through the list in her mind. “Ah, yes, the table must be readied. Another cloth to dirty, to wash, to hang out to dry, and then to put in that great pile awaiting the flatiron. Praise God, Wolfe hadn’t insisted that I iron another shirt after the first one. How was I to know cloth burned so quickly?”

Jessica went to the sideboard, ran her hand admiringly across its beautifully made top, and opened a drawer. To her relief, there was another cloth left. Last night’s cloth had been ruined when Wolfe had taken a swallow of coffee and then spewed it all over while swearing that she was trying to poison him.

Closing her eyes, Jessica reminded herself that someday she would find this all as amusing as Wolfe sometimes did. Until then, she must continue to smile and learn to do chores as quickly as possible.

There was no other choice. Every time her smiles
faltered or she showed how weary she was becoming, she would turn around and see Wolfe watching her, cataloging each sign of weakness, waiting for the moment she gave up on being a Western wife.

Say the word, Jessica.

Wolfe didn’t even have to speak the command aloud any more. It was there in the line of his mouth, the scrutiny of his eyes, his predatory attention like a cold wind blowing through her. Yet she couldn’t give up, no matter how tired she was, no matter how strange her new life was, no matter how desperately lonely it was to be in a foreign land with no friend but Wolfe.

Wolfe, who wanted her out of his life.

“Never,” Jessica vowed aloud. “You will see, Wolfe. We will laugh again, sing again, read by the fire again. We will be friends once more. It will happen. It must. And if it doesn’t…”

Jessica’s throat closed.
It must happen.

“I’ll get stronger,” she vowed. “I’ll learn. Whatever happens to me as a Western wife can’t be worse than what my mother endured being married to a Scots aristocrat who wanted nothing from her but a male heir.”

The sound of the wind rose to an eerie cry, the wailing of a woman giving way to despair, screaming in agony. Jessica put her hands over her ears and began singing as loudly as she could. The wind howled unabated, for it blew only in her mind, not in the wild Western land.

With a stifled cry, Jessica hurried from the kitchen to check on the hearth fire. She added wood, then went into the bedroom and looked longingly at the big hip tub. The thought of it filled with hot water and laced with drops of fragrant
rose oil made goosebumps course pleasurably over her skin. Never had she understood what an extraordinary luxury a hot bath was.

Now she did. Since they had arrived at Wolfe’s home, Jessica had made do with French baths taken from the basin before she dressed. She had been too busy during daylight and too exhausted by nightfall to draw, heat, and haul bath water to the hip tub.

Tonight she would do all of that if she had to do it on her hands and knees. She simply couldn’t bear going without a true bath for one more night.