Sleep came fitfully that night. How could one sleep with such change in the air? As I lay staring at the cracked plaster ceiling and peeling pink paint, I couldn’t help but imagine what he was doing. Likely he was fast asleep in the comfort of his tavern bed. The memory of our kiss touched my lips over and over until I was hot and writhing in the confines of that small room with a discomfort I couldn’t seem to soothe.
With my internal clock set to rise with the sun in order to secure a seat at the poultry house, today was no different. Jeremiah had promised to pick me up at dawn, but I couldn’t wait in my stifling room that long. I’d wait on the street so he didn’t have to send someone for me. It would be my first kindness paid to him as his betrothed.
Through the buildings, a deep purple and pink stretched across the sky as the first wisps of dawn yawned and stretched. I’d find a dry place for my bag and sit upon it until he came for me. The stairs seemed endless in my haste. What if he’d changed his mind in the night? What if he realized he really didn’t want another’s cast offs and didn’t come for me at all? What if I sat here all day as people passed and sneered at me for my naiveté?
I almost tripped over a large form in the dark and strong hands reached up to steady me. “Jeremiah?” I’d never been talented at seeing in the dark, but a mass so big could only belong to him or the other men in his family. “What are you doing here?”
His voice was deep and full of sleep. “I wanted to make sure you were safe in case your husband came for you.”
I crouched down beside him and squinted through the darkness. “Have you been here all night?”
“You running away?” he asked instead of answering.
“No, I was coming out to wait for you.”
His deep voice had a smirk in it and he slid a glance to the coming sunrise. “It’s five in the morning.”
“Well, I was trying to be helpful. That and I couldn’t sleep,” I admitted.
“Did you get the closure you wanted?”
“I did.”
“Good, let’s go get some breakfast then.” Fluidly, he stood and held a hand out to me.
The crook of his arm provided a safe, warm place for my chilled palm and I didn’t cower away from the closeness as I had earlier. Maybe it was because no one would see the gesture here in the dark before dawn, or perhaps I just wasn’t as hesitant about his offered touch anymore now that we were engaged. Whatever the reason, it felt right and safe to be physically connected to him somehow. A feeling of naughty rebelliousness washed over me, and I didn’t completely hate it.
He gallantly carried my bag like it weighed less than air and here, in the silence between our boot prints through the black slushy piles of snow, a weight lifted from me as a comfortable quiet between us blanketed the crisp morning air. I wanted to drink up every single detail about this mysterious man I’d soon call husband, but for now, I was content to just be with him.
The baker and his wife worked feverishly to bake the foods breakfast goers would soon be demanding, but they opened the door at our soft knock. Jeremiah paid for three giant cinnamon pastries still hot from the oven and we ate two of them as we walked slowly toward the tavern we were to meet Luke and Kristina at.
When we arrived, I balked at the door. Old habits and manners said a lady should never go inside of one of these establishments. In fact, the wooden shingle outside specifically advised I didn’t.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to go in. I can run up and tell them we’re ready to head to the train station, and then I’ll come back and wait with you out here if you want.”
I rocked on my tiptoes and tried my best to peer over the swinging doors. A pair of men with their arms over each other’s shoulders stumbled out slurring an old Irish drinking song, giving me a small glimpse into a nearly empty bar area.
“I’ve never been in one,” I admitted.
“Well we don’t have to start tonight.”
“I want to. It can’t be worse than the inn Daniel sent me to the night he denounced me.” Something in Jeremiah’s face, or maybe it was the air around him, warned to proceed with caution and I stepped back just a little.
“I ain’t gonna hurt you, woman,” he said. Pulling my hand, he led me to a hallway in the back of the bar. At the third door, he rapped light knuckles across the wood grain, which was answered almost before the knock sounded.
Luke grinned and jerked his head in invitation. “Kristina’s getting ready.”
“Oh, should we come back later?” I whispered, but Jeremiah had already pulled me inside.
Kristina poked her head around a folding screen while Jeremiah laid on the bed with a giant sigh and pulled his hat over his face.
“Guess what I got back behind this screen?” Kristina asked. “Come here.”
A steaming soaking tub had been filled and sat invitingly in the corner. Kristina stood in a thin robe and gestured to the tub. “You want to take her for a spin?”
“I’m sure your husband filled that for you,” I said, though I wasn’t quite able to take my eyes away from the billowing steam as if it were fingers beckoning me into the dark heat of the water.
Kristina yanked her robe out of the way and revealed the most atrocious injury I’d ever laid eyes on. Morbidly, I stalked closer until I was bending over in front of her burned skin. Bile caught in my throat. Someone had done this to her on purpose and I couldn’t even imagine the pain of healing from such a wound.
“It’s too hot on my burns. I have to wait a while for it to cool down. It’s a long trip home though and if you want a bath, you’d better do it now.”
“What about the men?” I whispered.
“Kristina, we got you a pastry for breakfast,” Jeremiah’s deep voice sounded from the other side of the screen. “I’m setting it on the table. Luke and I are going out while you ladies get ready.”
Had he heard my whispered worry?
Kristina poked her head around the screen again. “Give me,” she said, twitching her fingers. She pulled the pastry in and groaned as the door to the room shut. “Oooh, it’s still fresh and everything.” She plopped into a chair and motioned to the tub. “Go for it. I’m savoring this.”
Servants had often been present when I bathed before. I shouldn’t worry overmuch about bathing in front of my sister-in-law, right?
Kristina pointed to herself. “Whore, remember?” she said around a giant bite of breakfast. “I’ve seen a hundred girls naked. Don’t mind me.”
She had a point. Still, I shed my clothes and slipped into the tub as quickly as I could. I tried to imagine that kind of heat on a burn but failed. Such pain was beyond my limited comprehension of such things. The crude lye soap prickled my skin but it could’ve been because I scrubbed it within an inch of its life. The goal? To rid myself completely of the smell of dead poultry and feathers.
In the midst of scrubbing my hair with lavender wash Kristina kindly offered, she wiped her hands loudly and asked, “So what do you think of Jeremiah?”
The water lapped at my chin but it couldn’t hide me completely. “He’s a very nice man.”
“Fetching too, isn’t he? Come on. You can tell me. I have personal experience with a Dawson. Those boys are the handsomest men I’ve ever laid eyes on. And Jeremiah? Now that’s a man a woman can wrap her legs around.”
I slunk under the water as long as I could hold my breath and until the soap was completely rinsed out of my hair. Disappointingly, when I emerged Kristina still waited for my answer. “He’s very handsome,” I allowed.
“I bet he’s a demon in the sack,” she said. “From what I gather, all were…” She froze, then cleared her throat. “All Dawson’s are.”
I frowned and took the towel she offered. She disrobed and slipped into the cooling tub and hissed as she lowered into the water. A great pity took me at the pain she must be enduring.
“Does Luke mind your scars?” I asked as I ran the towel soothingly through my hair.
“Not one bit
far as I can tell. I got them saving him though. He tells me they’re a badge of honor and he’s always brushing his fingers across them like he can’t help himself, so I don’t think it matters overmuch to him.” She leveled me with an earnest blue-eyed gaze. “You just have to accept the imperfections in the one you love.”
I slipped into my dress and pulled the sleeves over my shoulders. “Does Jeremiah have imperfections?”
Kristina closed her eyes and leaned back into the tub. “Nobody’s perfect. Give him half a chance though and he’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
Here, in the glowing lantern light of the tavern room, it became clear that her lack of education and proper etiquette didn’t make a difference on how intelligent she was. She was wise beyond her years, and maybe it was because of her life experience that I’d judged so harshly. It’d take some getting used to, accepting life advice from a whore, but what she said made a lot of sense. It touched on something I’d always thought was wrong with my marriage.
Daniel had tried to change and mold me until finally, he’d given up and wanted nothing to do with me. In return, I’d wanted him to show me affection. To show me he loved me when he so clearly did not. Our marriage had been one of changing the other to better suit us, when the truth was we’d never been right or healthy for each other in the first place.
This time around, I’d try a different approach and hope for different results.
Chapter Nine
Lorelei
Jeremiah and his brother took their time returning to the room. “Are we going to miss our train?” I asked.
Kristina didn’t seem overly worried, but in the excitement of my escape, I fidgeted like an anxious child. My hair was long since dried and in its pins by the time the light knock on the door sounded.
Jeremiah entered with Luke and another man I didn’t recognize. “Lorelei, this here’s Randall Craig. He’s a preacher around here, and if you’re willing, he’s offered to do our service before we leave for Colorado.
I looked from face to face in shock. Was he serious?
“I’d take him up on that offer if I was you,” Kristina said. “You’ll likely have to wait until the circuit preacher’s baptized all of the spring babies before he makes it our way again. You’ll be out on Dawson land with an unmarried man for some time before the wedding is official unless you take care of it now.”
“I’d be living with you before we married?”
Jeremiah’s eyes were soft but solemn as he nodded. “Ain’t much help for that. Living space is limited out where we live.”
“Okay,” I said as my heart leapt into my throat. “Where will the ceremony take place?”
“Here’s as good a place as any,” said the preacher from behind a set of thick bifocals.
“But it’s a tavern.” I wasn’t trying to be argumentative but never in my wildest imaginings would I be marrying a stranger in an ale house with the sound of singing whores as my wedding march.
“She’s right. This ain’t no place for a wedding,” Jeremiah said.
Thank goodness he agreed with reason, but that didn’t mean I’d given up on the notion of making our arrangement official before we hopped the train. “What about the train station? We can do the ceremony there before we board.”
The shift in Jeremiah’s stance settled my nerves. If relief had mass, it would’ve filled the entire room. “Okay, the train station it is. You ready to go?”
I clamped my mouth closed and nodded. He would hear the tremble in my words if I gave them a voice. Today was my wedding day and in a couple of short hours, I’d no longer be a Delaney or McGregor. I’d be a Dawson bride.
Despite my conscious effort to stay in the here and now, everything suddenly seemed terribly surreal. I hefted my floral bag, made much lighter over the month of hard work to strengthen my arms. “I’m ready.”
I’d never forget the buggy ride to the train station for as long as I lived. It encompassed my final moments as a lady of Boston, the final moments of living in the only city I’d ever known, and the final moments of my single, wanton life. I’d no longer be around to hear the snickers and crude whispers about delicacies I’d never thought to hear spoken on proper men and women’s tongues. This was the final moment before everything changed, and for better or worse was still a gaping mystery.
The late winter air stung my cheeks but the whipping wind had died down as a pleasant surprise send off. The old carriage horse’s hooves clomped across ice and cobbled stone. Jeremiah sat so close to me, his warmth swept through my layers and brushed my bare skin. His arm draped across the seat back, but I was leaned forward saying my silent goodbyes to the streets I’d known since childhood.
“We’ll pass near the house I grew up in,” I said.
He studied me with a clear, dark gaze. “Do you want to see it before we leave?”
“Would it be a terrible inconvenience?”
“Not at all. Driver, could we make a small detour?”
I gave him my parents address and he turned the horse from the main road. As the homes passed, I pointed out which ones had housed childhood friends, first crushes, and now people who had been close to me just a matter of weeks ago. Kristina drank in the gargantuan homes with their sprawling gardens and towering columns with a look of wide-eyed wonder. The driver stopped in front of my home. With a little luck, Mother and Father would still be asleep in their beds and wouldn’t wonder outside to see their only daughter in a cart full of common strangers. What a colossal disappointment I must’ve turned out to be.
The home was large, one of the largest on the street in fact. If only Jeremiah could see it in springtime. The gardens rivaled the most beautiful in the city and the colors were so brilliant, they were almost overwhelming to the senses. An imposing but elegant iron gate surrounded the property and the home stood two stories tall with cascading balconies and cobbled walkways. The main house was even larger than it looked from here because it stretched back to an impressive size.
“You grew up a regular princess, didn’t you, Ms. McGregor?” Kristina asked softly, like she would disturb the magic of the place.
“If you’re impressed with this view, you should see the ballroom.”
“No,” she drew out. “You held fancy parties and dances here?”
Jeremiah’s eyebrows furrowed. “Are you sure you want to leave this behind?”
Warm air steamed against the cold in front of my face as I sighed. “It isn’t my place anymore. Take us to the train station,” I told the driver. The horse jerked forward with the snap of the reigns and I fell backward into the cushion of Jeremiah’s arm. “Sorry.” Awkwardly, I pulled forward again. Unable to shoulder the disappointment I knew would be on his face at my hesitancy to touch him, I watched the houses pass instead.
At the train station, he offered his forearm for me to balance on as I made my way down the rickety steps of the buggy and then pulled away. Was he trying to touch me less because of what Daniel said last night? Or was he already tuning into my cold nature?
The pain at his willing distance was a pin prick. It was nothing less than I deserved though. How many times had I pulled away since he’d met me yesterday? Unable to stomach that I brought the kind stranger pain, I wrung my hands against the chilly morning.
The loading platform was busy with the bustle of farewells and the clutter of luggage and boarders. The preacher led us to the side of the ticket building that boasted a small porch and bench seat. As Jeremiah and I stood in front of him, Kristina took her place beside me and Luke beside Jeremiah. It was strange to stand for a wedding with no parents here, but the ceremony had been unplanned and there hadn’t been time to send out formal invites.
The preacher said a few words about the importance of marriage and read a small passage of scripture about the kindness of love. The vows were simple but I still stuttered my way through as heat crept up my cheeks and I mouthed an apology to Jeremiah.
He took my hand in his and
the warmth and strength of it settled me a bit. “It’s okay,” he said.
“Do you, Jeremiah Cade Dawson, take Lorelei Dawn McGregor as your lawfully wedded wife?”
His dark chocolate eyes burned with emotion. “I do.” He slid a thin gold band, the width of a cobbler’s awl, onto my finger. It glinted in the sun. Had he brought it from home or bought it this morning while he was out?
The preacher turned to me and smiled in encouragement. “And do you, Lorelei Dawn McGregor, take this man, Jeremiah Cade Dawson, as your lawfully wedded husband?”
I opened my mouth but the train blasted an ear shattering whistle from the tracks behind us. Jeremiah and Luke both doubled over and covered their ears. The sound had startled my heart into a gallop and as Jeremiah straightened up again, I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped my lips. Inappropriate, yes, but Jeremiah’s answering smile made it hard to feel too guilty.
“That was a yes. I do,” I said.
“Kiss your bride,” the preacher said with a gesture to Jeremiah.
Right. I’d forgotten about this part and suddenly my palms became very clammy. Last night had been easy. He’d kissed me without any warning and took complete control. I didn’t have to do much more than exist in the warm stirrings his lips created. Now, I had to be an active participant in our first wedded kiss—and in front of an expectant audience, no less.
Jeremiah, in his strong, calm way, lifted my chin gently and pressed soft lips against my own. This kiss wasn’t fierce as it had been last night. This one asked permission and left my entire body warm despite the frigid air of the platform. As he pulled away, the soft pad of his thumb stroked my cheek.
I couldn’t take my drunken gaze from the satisfaction that adopted his face as Kristina pulled me in for a lung-squeezing hug. “Welcome to the family,” she said.