Short Straw Bride (Harlequin Historical) Read online

  “Daniel and I aren’t much for housework,” he muttered, using the edge of his boot to brush cigar ash under the sofa while Eleanor was looking around the parlor.

  “That’s all right. I know a great deal about cleaning house, including how to get ash out of a carpet.”

  She glanced at the place where the ash had been before lifting her eyes to his face. Luke thought he’d never seen anything half so appealing as the teasing smile in those big brown eyes. He grinned back, and some of the nervous tension seemed to leave her face.

  Luke showed her through the rest of the house but her impressions were sketchy at best. The place needed a thorough cleaning. It was obvious that it had been some time since it had known a woman’s care. She knew she should be paying more attention to the things he was showing her. After all, this was to be her home from now on. But her thoughts kept jumping to the night that lay ahead. Her wedding night.

  “Daniel has moved his gear out to the bunkhouse,” Luke said as he opened the door to one of the three bedrooms upstairs. “He figured we ought to have the house to ourselves for a while.”

  “He didn’t have to do that,” she protested, thinking that the last thing she wanted was to have the house—or her new husband—to herself. “This is his home.”

  “I think he’s figuring to move back in a few weeks. Since we didn’t take time for a trip or anything, maybe he figured this was the next best thing.”

  “Well, it’s very nice of him but not necessary,” Eleanor said briskly. For one wild moment she considered suggesting that they should drive back to town and tell Daniel as much, maybe bring him home with them.

  “This will be our room,” Luke said, pushing open the door at the end of the hall.

  Our room. Eleanor swallowed a lump in her throat the size of a melon and forced herself to the threshold of the room. Luke had carried her portmanteau upstairs with them, and he set it on the bed. One bed. One not terribly large bed. She swallowed again and dragged her eyes from that terrifying piece of furniture.

  This room, like all the others, showed signs of neglect. Dust covered every surface, the floor was in desperate need of a good coat of wax and the curtains needed washing. Certainly, there was more than enough work here to keep her busy.

  Her eyes drifted back to the bed and she couldn’t repress a nervous shiver. For a moment she wished quite desperately that Luke had hired her as a housekeeper rather than married her. Never mind that her uncle would have seen her tarred and feathered rather than let her become housekeeper to two bachelors. Never mind that Luke’s gray eyes had haunted her dreams from the moment they’d met. And most especially never mind that she’d thought of little else but his kiss for the past two weeks. A kiss on her uncle’s front porch was one thing, sharing a bed was something else entirely.

  If Luke noticed that she didn’t allow more than the toe of her slipper to enter the room they were to share, he didn’t comment on it. Leaving the portmanteau on the bed, he came toward her, and Eleanor quickly backed out of the doorway, anxious to avoid accidentally touching him. Her knees were still a little wobbly from the feel of him carrying her across the threshold.

  Letty had thought to provide a light supper for the bridal couple, packing it in a wicker basket that had sat next to Eleanor’s feet on the way to Luke’s house—her house, she reminded herself as she picked at a plate of cold chicken and cold boiled potatoes dressed with Letty’s special dressing. She’d been too nervous to eat at breakfast, too stunned at finding herself actually married to eat at the wedding supper her aunt and uncle had provided. The last decent meal she could recall was noon the day before and she knew she should be hungry, but she couldn’t force down more than a few bites.

  If Luke shared her nervousness, it didn’t seem to have affected his appetite. He ate three pieces of chicken and a second helping of potatoes. Having run out of small talk, Eleanor let her eyes drift around the kitchen, which appeared to have suffered more abuse than the rest of the house. No wonder Luke had decided to get married. The place was falling apart around his ears.

  Though she had no interest in food, she was sorry to see the meal end. Because once the food had been put away and the dishes had been scraped and set ready for washing the next morning, there was nothing to stand between her and the reality of that bed upstairs.

  “Why don’t you go on ahead,” Luke said when there was no longer any excuse for lingering downstairs. “I’ll smoke awhile and then come up.”

  Eleanor nodded wordlessly and left the kitchen, carrying a lamp with her to light the way. He was being considerate, she thought as she climbed the stairs. He was giving her time to unpack a few of her things and to change in privacy. If he was really considerate, perhaps he’d give her time to climb out a window and flee.

  The image of herself dashing across the empty prairie in the middle of the night was so absurd that she smiled. But the smile wavered and crumpled as she pushed open the bedroom door and confronted the reality of the bed she was expected to share with her husband in a short while. It hadn’t grown any larger since she’d last seen it. Two people sleeping in that bed would certainly be…intimate.

  Trying to keep her mind a blank, Eleanor opened the portmanteau and took out what was necessary. She could finish unpacking tomorrow when she had a better idea of where her things might go, when Daniel arrived with her trunks. When her hands weren’t trembling quite so badly.

  She hurried through her ablutions, terrified that Luke might come in while she was in a state of undress. Tugging her nightdress on over her head, Eleanor froze as a sudden thought assailed her. Smothered in layers of fine muslin, she caught her breath, her eyes wide. He wouldn’t expect to see her without her clothes, would he? Letty hadn’t said anything about that. Surely he wouldn’t expect to take all of her clothes off. No one had seen her naked since she was a baby.

  Her heart thumping, she quickly finished pulling the nightdress down over her head and reached for her wrapper. Her pulse didn’t slow until she had the wrapper on and buttoned all the way up to her throat. She pulled the pins from her hair and dragged a brush through it, trying to subdue the unruly curls into some semblance of decorum. When she’d done the best she could, she tied the heavy mass back with a blue ribbon.

  And then she waited.

  Her hands clasped together in front of her to control their trembling, she tried to remember what Letty had told her, tried to forget Aunt Dorinda’s grim expression and tried most of all not to think of how big and strong Luke was, of how easily he could overpower her. Despite Letty’s reassurance, she couldn’t prevent a shiver of fright from working its way up her spine when she heard a door close downstairs. Luke would be coming up soon. This was their wedding night and it wasn’t likely that he planned to spend it alone.

  Chapter Seven

  Eleanor heard Luke moving around downstairs, perhaps checking to make sure the lamps were out and that windows and doors were closed against the cool night air. The sound of his boots on the stairs made her feel almost dizzy with fright. She threw a wild look at the bed, wondering if she should dive beneath the quilts and pretend to be sound asleep. But the last thing she wanted was to be anywhere near the bed when Luke came in.

  So she stayed where she was, her hands gripping one another, the knuckles white with tension, her eyes huge in her pale face. When he entered the room, Luke thought she looked like nothing so much as a virgin sacrifice, waiting to be thrown into the maw of a volcano or fed to the lions.

  He was already half aroused just from thinking about having her in his bed, but it was immediately obvious that it was going to take considerable effort to get her into that bed in the first place. Schooling himself to patience, he pushed the door shut, closing them in the room together. If possible, Eleanor’s eyes grew even bigger.

  He’d left his hat downstairs, and now he reached up to run his fingers through his dark hair, still slightly damp from washing up in the pump outside. The ice-cold water hadn’t done much to
quell his hunger. But even the simple motion of combing his fingers through his hair made her jump, and Luke suppressed a sigh of regret. It had been foolish to think she wouldn’t be nervous.

  “I’m not going to pounce on you,” he said, keeping his tone light and easy.

  She didn’t smile but only looked away as he shrugged out of the black coat he’d worn for their wedding. He draped the coat over the back of a chair and turned to look at her again, debating the best way to go about seducing his wife.

  “You knew we were going to share a bed, Eleanor.” The words were neither statement nor question but hovered somewhere between the two. He saw her throat work as she swallowed. When she spoke, her voice was so low he had to strain to hear her.

  “I just wondered…I wasn’t sure…” Eleanor couldn’t seem to lift her gaze from the floor.

  “You wondered what?” The calm inquiry in Luke’s voice gave her courage and she managed to raise her eyes as high as his chin. “What did you wonder, Eleanor?”

  “I wondered if maybe you didn’t have in mind a real marriage at all.” She spoke the words in such a rush that they nearly slurred together. “That perhaps you really needed a housekeeper but couldn’t find one and knew that my uncle would never allow me to work for you because it would mean living here alone with you and your brother and so you decided you’d marry me instead.”

  She stopped abruptly, holding her breath as she waited for his response. Luke’s chest rose and fell as he drew a deep breath and slowly expelled it. The silence stretched out so long that she dared a nervous peek at his face. He was watching her, and she flushed and looked away, as if caught in some guilty crime.

  “I had in mind a marriage real in every way,” he said finally. “I’d hoped you’d want children.”

  “Oh, I do,” she said, her mind filled with an image of a dark-haired baby with gray eyes.

  “Well, then, having children requires a real marriage,” Luke said reasonably.

  “I know.” Eleanor’s voice dropped to a whisper and she returned her gaze to the floor again.

  Luke couldn’t help but notice the soft thrust of her breasts against the thin muslin of her nightdress and wrapper. The voluminous cut of the garments failed to conceal the womanly curves of her and he thought again that, while she might not be statuesque, there was certainly plenty there to fill a man’s arms.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  “No.” He liked the way her chin immediately came up as if her pride had been stung. But her eyes skittered away the moment they met his. Her chin came down. “I’d just like a little more time before we…before we become…intimate.”

  Luke’s first impulse was to give her what she asked for. Despite the pulsing beat of arousal that thrummed in his blood, he had no intention of starting off his marriage by forcing his bride to share his bed. But he hesitated, his eyes on her downbent head. That time he’d kissed her on her uncle’s front porch she’d responded with a warmth that had made it damned uncomfortable to sit a saddle.

  There was passion there and he wanted to taste it again. Whether she admitted it or not, she was scared to death, if not of him, then of what he might do to her. He could give her the time she asked and spend it trying to show her that she had nothing to fear from him. That might work. Then again, her fear might simply grow the stronger.

  “When I was a little boy, I fell out of a tree and broke my arm,” he said slowly, speaking apparently at random. “It wasn’t a bad break but my mother didn’t want to set it herself and risk leaving me crippled, so she sent for the doctor. It took him several hours to get there and I had plenty of time to think about what he was going to do when he got there and how bad it was going to hurt. By the time he got there, I’d scared myself so much that I started to cry the minute he set foot in the door.”

  He was pleased to see that Eleanor was looking at him, her eyes full of sympathy for the child he’d been. “Was it very bad?”

  “No.” Luke’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “The waiting and worrying was a lot worse than anything he did. I’d scared myself half to death for nothing.”

  She blinked at him as his meaning sank in. “Are you saying that…marital duties are no worse than a broken arm?” she asked finally, looking both confused and even more apprehensive.

  Luke nearly groaned aloud at the results of his clumsy attempt at reassurance. “What I’m saying is that the waiting and worrying are a great deal worse than reality.”

  “So you’re suggesting that we just…get it over with?”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I meant.” Luke choked back a laugh at her choice of wording. “But it’s close enough, I suppose.”

  Eleanor chewed on her lower lip while she considered that possibility. She was still uncertain, but the longer Luke stood here talking to her, not jumping on her, the more the fear receded. It was difficult to hold on to her fear when he hadn’t done anything frightening. And Letty had said that, with the right man, there was nothing to fear. If only she was sure that Luke was the right man. She was suddenly struck by the absurdity of that thought. He was her husband, which made him the right man in the eyes of God and the law. Perhaps he was right, and waiting would only make it worse.

  “All right.” The words exploded out of her as if she had to get them out in a hurry or not get them out at all. “If you think it’s best.”

  It wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic agreement, but it was as much as he’d hoped for to start with. Luke released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and considered the best way to proceed from here. The blood thrumming in his veins demanded that he strip them both naked, throw her on the bed and slake the thirst she’d created in him. Odd how much he wanted her. He’d knows more beautiful women. Women who trembled with anticipation rather than fear at the thought of taking him into their beds. But there was something about this slip of a girl with her big brown eyes and sensuously full lower lip that had edged its way under his skin.

  Just as well. It would make the job of producing a son a pleasure rather than a duty. And he’d make it a pleasure for her, too, he thought arrogantly, once he’d convinced her that he wasn’t going to pounce on her and ravish her like some animal in the jungle.

  “Did your aunt talk to you about what happens between a man and a woman?” As he spoke, he moved closer. Eleanor trembled but stood her ground, not pulling away even when he reached around behind her head and tugged loose the ribbon that held her hair at the nape of her neck.

  “Yes.” She managed to answer his question despite the shiver that ran down her spine as she felt his fingers brush her skin.

  “What did she tell you?” Luke’s tone was almost conversational as he gathered a handful of her thick hair and let it sift through his fingers to fall almost to her hips against the front of her gown.

  “She said that a woman had to fulfill her marital duties and that I would learn to endure—that I should close my eyes and pray.” She couldn’t prevent a shudder as she remembered the stern expression in her aunt’s eyes.

  “Do you think I’m going to do something so horrible to you that you’ll have to close your eyes and pray?” Luke didn’t sound upset, only curious, and she dared a quick glance at his face.

  “I…I don’t know. My friend Letty said that it was more likely Uncle Zeb who’d had to learn to endure.” Luke’s quick bark of laughter reassured her. Whatever was going to happen couldn’t be so terrible if he was laughing. Could it?

  “What else did Letty say?” He kept his tone conversational, almost as if they were discussing the weather over a dish of brown Betty. So casual was his pose that it took Eleanor a moment to realize that he was deftly undoing the row of small pearl buttons that ran down the front of her wrapper. By that time they were nearly undone and it seemed foolish to protest.

  “Letty said that…it might hurt a bit the…first time. But that after that, it could be quite pleasant.” Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire when she finished speaking. H
usband or no, she was not accustomed to discussing such things with a man.

  “Did you believe her?” He made no move to push the wrapper off her shoulders, though it was completely open now.

  “Yes…no…I’m not sure,” she whispered finally.

  “Would you believe me if I told you the same thing?” Luke’s fingers slid along the line of her jaw to her chin, tilting her face up to his. It took every ounce of courage she possessed but Eleanor met his eyes.

  “I’d try to.”

  Her careful honesty made him smile. But the smile faded when her tongue came out to lick her lips. The nervous gesture left a faint sheen of moisture behind and Luke thought he’d never seen anything so inviting in his entire life.

  “Try real hard,” he whispered as he lowered his head to hers.

  Her mouth was just as he remembered it, soft and sweet, tasting faintly of the tooth powder with which she’d brushed her teeth. Her lips were stiff against his for a moment but gradually softened, allowing him to deepen the kiss. Luke’s fingers drifted down her throat, his thumb resting on the pulse that beat steadily at its base. His tongue stroked across that tantalizing lower lip of hers. Just as before, she sucked in a quick, shocked breath, stiffening under his touch.

  “Open your mouth for me, Eleanor,” he whispered without lifting his head. After a moment’s hesitation she did as he asked, and then shivered in surprise as his tongue slid inside, claiming her mouth for his own.

  At first she merely accepted his possession, standing rigid as a fence post beneath his touch. But Luke was patient. If it took the whole night to draw a response from her, then the whole night he’d use, even if the torture of it killed him.

  But it wasn’t going to take that long. He felt the change in her pulse first, felt it skip and then speed beneath his thumb. And then he felt it in the way her mouth opened wider beneath his, offering him greater access to the sweet warmth of her. Luke curled his tongue around hers, coaxing a response from her.