He descended again, tentatively. This time the overwhelming sense was of enveloping him, of embracing him entirely, and all at once the last of her apprehensions fled. Her body yielded, a sudden ripening, welcoming him deeper.
Charles had sensed the change and his pace had quickened until he whimpered and shuddered. Caroline felt a hot spurt and then it was done. He shivered all over and sank down around her. Caroline lay still beneath the pounding of his heart, listening to the luff-luff of his breath falling into her hair. In a few minutes he raised his head to look at her, a little abashed, and she had ventured a smile.
“It was all right?” Charles asked. “I didn’t hurt you?”
She’d wanted to tell him no. Nothing he had done had put his own pleasure above causing her pain. There had been a fleeting sting at the outset, but Caroline did not see how he could have prevented that. Likely he had felt it himself, so she shook her head. It eased him considerably, but there was still something pinched in his expression. If not for the fact that he was able to meet her eyes she might have mistaken it for shame. Perhaps, she’d thought as she studied him, she did not know Charles Ingalls well enough yet to decipher these ever-so-slight anglings of lips and brow. And then with a warm rush she recognized the shape his features made.
Beholden. He had looked for all the world as though he felt beholden to her. Caroline herself perceived nothing of the kind. He had taken nothing from her. Indeed, to have him feel that way was a gift in itself, a kind of power she had never anticipated. Caroline put her palm to his cheek and coaxed his head down onto the crocheted yoke of her nightdress. With her fingers she combed his whiskers.
As she’d lain there with him beached upon her an unexpected sense of pride welled up within her until she felt nearly regal. That he could lose himself so fully in her was a revelation.
Now his body planed against hers, shaving away thin curls of pleasure. He had learned, in the ten years since, to give, and she to take all that he offered. Rare were the times when it was not enough. Charles had never knowingly left her hungry for more. And yet, Caroline thought as she moved with him, she did crave more—of everything. All her life she had longed to breach that pale and hazy boundary between enough and plenty. All her life she had forbidden herself from wanting to reach toward it, telling herself in her mother’s voice that enough is as good as a feast.
It is not so. The heat in her chest flared into her belly and beyond as the traitorous thought broke free. It is not so. It was only something Ma had desperately needed her children to believe.
Tonight she would feast, Caroline promised herself, and with the tilt of her hips and the clutch of her thighs she made plain her desire. Charles gave a luxuriant sigh and nuzzled his cheek against her neck. Emboldened, Caroline murmured to him of how often she imagined his fingers, so nimble on the fiddle strings, plucking the same sweet chords from the softest folds of her body. She felt his skin flush and the swell of his excitement. Caroline let go of herself, of everything but Charles. He did not use his hands, but the cadence of his movements became so fluid and familiar, Caroline could not escape the notion that he was enacting a melody upon her. With her eyes closed she could picture the matching strokes of the bow across the strings. Charles moved in that same smooth pattern until her every nerve was honed to its brightest, keenest edge, the rhythm building until at the last her body trembled in a final vibrato.
When he had caught his breath Charles whispered, “None knew thee but to love thee, thou dear one of my heart.”
The chorus of “Daisy Deane.” She had not imagined it, then. The music had been in his mind and in his flesh. Caroline smiled broadly into the darkness, anticipating the memories her mind would conjure the next time he played that song. The day had consumed every ounce of her, yet Caroline could not remember the last time she had felt so vibrantly alive.
The next day was not washing day, but Caroline filled the washtub and brought out the clothes she and Charles had worn the day before. There were two small black-rimmed holes on the back of Charles’s shirt, just at the shoulder blade, that she would have to patch. At the front of her own dress, the skirt was scarred with places where fire had eaten into the braided trim along the hem. Beneath that the calico itself was badly scorched. Caroline sighed. The trimming could not be salvaged. Nor could the dress be worn without fraying the remains of the hem further. And it was her new dress, made from the lilac calico Charles had brought back from Oswego. To mend the skirt properly would require more braid or ribbon—yards of trim she did not have.
Look at what you do have, her mind insisted mechanically. Her chest and throat tightened in resistance. No, said another part of her, equally frustrated that she could fall back so easily into that old habit.
Caroline made herself pause, the way she did before speaking to the children when they were at odds with each other.
Might it be possible, she asked herself, to mourn the one while rejoicing in the other? The loss of a dress was a small one. It did not compare with all the irreparable things that might have gone up in smoke. But it was a loss, and she would allow herself to feel it. She touched the charred fabric lightly, so as not to break the fragile threads. It was so new, she had not yet memorized the pattern of the soft gray leaves printed across the lavender ground.
The sorrow was as sweet as it was fleeting. Caroline had barely acknowledged it before it had passed. Like rinsing away a stain before it has time to set, she thought as she set to work.
She took up the soap—lye soap, itself made of ash from good Wisconsin hardwood—and rubbed it into the smoke-darkened places. “Ashes to ashes,” she murmured.
By the time Charles returned from the Scott claim she was squeezing the last of the suds from the clothes. The stains were not gone, especially where the smoke and the sweat had mixed, but they had faded enough that Caroline was satisfied the garments would not appear marred.
“The Scotts are all well and safe,” Charles said. “They’d seen Edwards as well. His place wasn’t touched. The fire never crossed the creek.”
“I’m thankful for that.” She held out his shirt so that he could see the holes.
“Close call,” he said. “Never felt a thing. There was talk,” he added, fingering the burned places, “that the Indians set the fire to drive off the settlers.”
Caroline let the news settle, working it over in her mind as she pressed the fabric against the washboard. Then she spoke as though the idea were of no consequence. “They’ve already agreed to leave.”
Charles nodded. He dipped up a bucket of rinse water from the well for her before replying. “I didn’t say I believed it.”
“But Mr. Scott does.”
“Yes.”