Chapter Thirty-Six
Silas was gone by the time Jessica awoke. She reached over to his side of the bed and found a shocking void. Her first thought was that he had fled from her, too embarrassed by their unrestrained ardor the night before to face her. How could she blame him? She had behaved appallingly for a bride…a virgin. He must wonder if she hadn’t had experience for him to have satisfied her need so naturally and easily.
Jessica threw back the sheet to take advantage of the ablutions closet and remove her head binding, which Silas had been careful not to disturb. Still it was a miracle the cut looked none the worse for her exertions except for its unpleasing discoloration. She left the dressing off until Tippy could replace it and returned naked to bed, not yet ready to leave its warmth or memories from her first sexual experience.
Little about it was as she’d expected or been warned of in the long discussions of wedding nights with her classmates at boarding school. She had bled slightly but had felt no pain, only an intense pleasure that made her feel as if she were floating among the stars. When Silas discovered the virginal stains, he’d gone at once to soak a cloth in basin water and bathed her as tenderly and unselfconsciously as if he were tending a baby. He placed a clean towel under her, and they turned their backs to the other to seek sleep, but their need—or lust, Jessica didn’t know which—got the better of them, and they turned to each other again.
She should be ashamed of her abandonment to a man she barely knew, even if he was her husband, but she did not. For the first time in her life, she did not feel plain and undesirable. Silas made her feel beautiful and wanted, and, against her instincts and better judgment, that tribute to her vanity alone might force her to be happy with him. Love was a long way off and may never come for either of them, she realized that. She was not so young that she did not know time and familiarity and irreconcilable differences could snuff the strongest attraction, but she would not borrow tomorrow’s trouble. She would live for today.
Where had Silas gotten himself off to? She missed him so, ached for him. He had told her he had business in New Orleans today and would not return to the hotel prior to leaving for camp, but that was before last night. She had hoped for them to have breakfast together, a civilized and appropriate formality to the consummation of their marriage.
Jessica sighed ruefully. Here she was, already fuming like any wife disappointed at her husband’s dereliction of his connubial duties.
A soft knock on the adjoining door of her bedroom startled her from her musings. Hastily, she drew the sheet over her exposed breasts. Tippy, she thought, chomping at the bit to find out what happened.
“Come in,” she called.
The door opened and Silas entered. He was dressed in clothes suitable for a drawing room and looked fresh, rested, and unbearably handsome. “Good morning,” he said, a sheepish glimmer in his eye. “How’s the head?”
Quickly Jessica covered the spot of her injury with her hand, her heart beginning to pound. “Don’t look. It’s starting to go an ugly color, but otherwise it survived the night.”
“A wonder.” Silas came around the edge of the bed and removed her hand to judge for himself. “It doesn’t look ugly to me,” he said. “It’s a sign of the healing power of youth and health, but to be on caution’s side, it should be rebandaged. I’ll send Tippy in. And…uh, are you all right otherwise as well?”
“I find myself perfectly all right.”
A moment’s awkward silence hung between them. Jessica pulled the sheet higher and burrowed her head deeper into the pillows. “You must think I’m a wanton,” she said, peering at him over the edge of the bed linen.
A grin relaxed his countenance. “I think nothing of the kind. I was intensely flattered by your…response to my enthusiasm.”
“I’m sure I’m not the only woman who has aroused yours, but be assured you’re the only man who has ever aroused mine.”
Silas grinned wider. “What an enormous compliment. I hope you found the experience better than copulating with a mule.”
“I can’t say since I’ve had no comparison,” Jessica said loftily.
Silas chuckled and withdrew two letters from inside his coat, one secured by a wax seal and the other protected in a handmade envelope. “Here. These are for you. I collected them from the reception desk. The Morgans forgot to give them to you last evening. From the seal, I see that one is from your mother. I hope she sends good news but not enough to make you homesick. Now I must leave you, but I’ll be back at noon to have a meal with you and Joshua, then I must get back to camp.”
He leaned down again. Jessica thought he meant only to kiss her cheek and be on his way, but a mischievous glint appeared in the emerald irises, and before she could anticipate his move, he pulled at the sheet.
“Lord have mercy, Jessica.” He sighed and pressed his lips to the voluptuous curve of her breast.
It required all her willpower not to thread her hands through his black hair and pull him down to her, but she must think of Joshua in the next room. She pushed him away and restored the sheet. “Where’s your son?” she asked.
“Downstairs,” Silas said, straightening reluctantly. “He’s had his breakfast and found a playmate, Jake, one of the boys from the wagon train. His parents are staying at the hotel.”
“Joshua doesn’t know…about us, does he?”
“I told him last night that we’re married. He wants to call you Mother.”
“Oh, Silas, really?” In her joy, Jessica almost sat up. She could hardly believe it. She’d anguished over the real possibility that Joshua would reject her as a mother when he learned that she and his father were husband and wife. “He wants to call me Mother?”
“That was his expressed wish.”
“I’m honored,” Jessica said and tried the name on her tongue. “Mother…”
Silas bent down once more, and she saw his teasing intent to pull at the sheet again, but she held it firmly despite a flush that warmed her thighs. “Go away so I can read my letters,” she said, pushing him away with her free hand.
Silas laughed and tweaked her cheek, but obeyed. With her eyes, Jessica followed him to the door and they were on him when he opened it and glanced back, his gaze serious and still. “Let us not question what has happened between us, Jessica, or why. Let us simply accept it and be…grateful.”
“I will, Silas.”
“I will return at the noon hour,” he said. “Rest now.”
Tippy burst in a minute later, eyes growing huge when she saw Jessica still in bed and apparently naked under the sheets. “Don’t tell me it happened,” she said excitedly.
“It happened,” Jessica said, “and no, I’m not going to tell you what happened, but it was divine.”
“Well, thank the stars and moon and all heavenly bodies,” Tippy said, and tugged the bellpull twice to request bath water. “Now maybe Mister Silas will reconsider his intention to leave you here. Once a man has tasted honey, you think he’s going to leave the bucket behind?”
“I’ve reconsidered my desire to go with him, Tippy. Joshua knows we’re married. Silas says he’s happy about it and wants to call me Mother. Isn’t that wonderful? So now I not only have to think of you, but also of my responsibility to my little…stepson and”—Jessica gave Tippy a look—“I may have to think of me, just in case.”
“What do you mean, just in case?”
“I’m in my fertile period.”
“Glory be!” Usual for her in moments of elation, Tippy covered her small face with her large hands, leaving nothing but wisps of hair and ears showing. Behind the enclosure she asked in a muffled voice, “You going to let Mister Silas know?”
“We’ll see,” Jessica said, removing the letter from the envelope that had been posted from Boston. Jessica did not recognize the return address. Her mother’s letter could wait. Jessica was hungry for every word from Willowshire, but the letter’s contents might sadden her, and she wanted nothing to disturb her euphoria.
“It’s from Sarah Conklin!” she exclaimed, surprised. “She’s moved to Boston. She writes that she made it home safely but regrets that her nephew, Paul, had to see her in such a state when she arrived. She says her back took a long time to heal, but she’s fine now. Paul wants to attend West Point and be a soldier when he grows up.”
Jessica frowned and Tippy asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Sarah says we may not live to see it, but she predicts that in time there will be a war between the North and South over the issue of slavery.”
Tippy, preparing the bandage to redress Jessica’s wound, said quietly, “We will live to see it.”
Jessica glanced at her, and a feather-light chill ran over her naked skin. Tippy was from the stars. They told her things, and her prophesies were never wrong.
In her mother’s envelope were two letters. “Tippy, here’s a letter for you from Willie May!” Jessica cried. “Bless Mama for enclosing it. I’m sure Papa didn’t know.”
Tippy snatched it from her hand, and the two exchanged news contained in each mother’s letter until Jessica came to the last paragraph in hers. As she’d dreaded, her mother had enclosed matter that disturbed and saddened her. “Oh, no!” she gasped.
“What is it?”
“Silas will be heartbroken…devastated. How I loathe to tell him.…”
“Tell him what?”
“Tell him about Lettie,” Jessica said. “She’s married to Morris and is now the mistress of Queenscrown.”