Emmeline's Exile (The Alphabet Mail-Order Brides Book 5) Read online

  “Let’s talk about something a bit more cheerful, shall we?” Lawson stood up and went to fetch two glasses, then he withdrew a bottle of wine from the pantry cupboard. “I was saving this,” he said. “But, all things considered…” he popped the stopper and came back to sit beside the fire.

  “To our first few weeks as husband and wife,” he said cheerfully and he poured them both a healthy measure.

  “I’ll drink to that.” Emmeline tipped her glass against his, and the dull clinking noise echoed through out the house. She hadn’t had much wine in her life. A sip or two when she’d been a young woman in the foundling home, and perhaps a glass with her dinner out one night. So, when Emmeline lifted the red liquid to her lips and tasted, she thought she had never tasted anything so wonderful before. It was sweeter than she had thought it would be, and evidently more potent, because when she finished her first glass and asked for a second, she gave a little hiccup that made Lawson chortle.

  “Tell me about the dogs,” Emmeline said suddenly.

  Lawson looked up at her in the process of filling her wine glass. “The dogs?”

  “Yes,” Emmeline said firmly. “They seem to make you very happy, and I want to know why. Where did they come from?”

  Lawson sat back. He had taken cushions from the sofa and propped himself up against the bricks of the fireplace. He looked quite at his ease. His ankles were crossed on the rug before him, and his smile was lazy and amused.

  “Well,” he started slowly, taking another sip of his own wine. “Cooper was the first. He kinda’ sorta’ found me, if truth be told. Tiny little thing, he was.” Lawson cupped his two hands together. “I found him crying in the roots of a big oak tree when I was about twenty-two,” he said. “Then I got Joe from a neighbor who was heading overseas, and then I got Smudge when he just wandered into the yard one day. Couldn’t leave him out in the cold. It was the dead of winter.”

  Emmeline smiled gently. “You rescued them all.”

  Lawson shrugged. “They’re good pups. I spent a lot of time working with them.” He paused and took another sip of his wine. “Why don’t you like animals?”

  She tilted her head from side to side and said, matter-of-factly, “They stink, and they bite. They’re big and hairy and…” she sighed. “I was bit by a small dog when I was in my teens. I haven’t liked them since.”

  Her husband chuckled, and they both reached for the bottle of wine at the same time. They’re hands touched, and an evil sort of look slid over his face. Emmeline raised her eyebrows, smirking at his expression.

  “Perhaps you just haven’t met the right animal,” he winked and Emmeline let out a high-pitched giggle that sounded very unlike her own. “In fact,” he set his glass down carefully on the bricks of the hearth. “I think if you were bit by the right sort of animal,” he grinned, and slowly began inching his way toward Emmeline. “You might actually find you enjoy it.”

  Emmeline leaned away from her husband. “I highly doubt that,” she chuckled, but Lawson kept coming, crawling on all fours towards her, so that she shrieked and tumbled over onto her back.

  “Oh, I don’t, not one bit.” He was hovering over her now, looking down at Emmeline with a mischievous grin dancing over his handsome face. “What do you say we give it a try?” he whispered.

  Emmeline giggled again as Lawson lowered his head. His breath skated over her skin, and she could almost taste the sweet, raspberry wine on his lips. She waited, knowing he was going to kiss her, and having absolutely no desire to resist him. But he did not press his lips to hers immediately. Instead, the tip of his nose slid slowly down her jawline. She shivered, and his responding chuckle made her tense with pleasurable anticipation.

  He pressed a gentle kiss to the tender skin, just below her earlobe. Emmeline inhaled sharply and Lawson began to nibble at her throat. She could feel his smile there. When she arched her neck to him, he made a sound deep inside his throat, somewhere between pleasure and longing, and his body slid fully onto hers, crushing Emmeline against the cushions on the floor. “Please,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Tell me if I should stop.”

  Emmeline wriggled beneath him, hoping to convey by this, that she was more than willing, but still he did not kiss her. Lawson continued to run his lips and teeth over her neck, pressing himself against her, and Emmeline felt herself fall away. Now she was the animal, and she found, as she wove her fingers into his hair and pulled his lips to hers, that he had been right. She had quite liked being bitten.

  Chapter Ten

  If Lawson had not been so very tired when he awoke on Saturday morning, he might have immediately understood the reason he was so very happy.

  As such, he awoke with a smile and stretched his arms up over his head, gazing up at the shaft of sunlight that cast a white streak of light on the ceiling. It wasn’t until he made to roll onto his right side that the night before came flooding back into his sleep-fogged brain.

  Emmeline’s face was innocent and peaceful in sleep. Her blonde hair was splayed out over the pillowcase, its strands catching the light from the window. Her lips were still full of his kisses. He gazed at her for a long moment, and joy seeped into his insides, swirling around everything that made him himself. He was a different person with Emmeline. He was more than he had ever hoped he would become.

  She stirred, and he slid his arm beneath her pillow, tucking her close to his chest. “Good morning, wife,” he whispered. Her eyelids fluttered open, and he marveled at their color. Green and brown, flecked with gold. He had never seen anything like it before in all his life.

  “Good morning, husband,” she murmured through a yawn. She reached out to tug herself closer to him, winding her legs with his. His heart settled in his chest, perfectly content to hold her in his arms for the rest of eternity.

  His stomach, however, had other ideas. Within a few silent, peaceful moments, it gave a low growl that rumbled against Emmeline’s ear.

  “Breakfast?” she giggled. As she sat up and stretched, Lawson could not take his eyes from her. He lay there and watched her wrap a velvet robe around her slender frame, and did not move until she had cast him a contented smile and strolled out of the bedroom and into the hall.

  They spent the day together.

  It was the first full day they had spent in one another’s company. She asked all sorts of questions Lawson had never thought about the answer to, and he asked a few of his own. It was late in the afternoon, as they sat on the sofa with sandwiches in their hands, when she told him about the letter she had been left with as a small child. It took Lawson a long moment to find the courage to ask her.

  “Is it because of your mother?”

  Emmeline looked up. She liked to sit very close to him, he’d noticed. She’d explained to him that she had less difficulty seeing objects that were closer at hand. It made him happy to know that she wanted to see his face.

  “Is what because of my mother?”

  Lawson shrugged and reached for a spoon on the little table before them. He placed it in the honey pot and then dipped it slowly into the steaming mug of tea she had made for him. “I just wondered if you were worried about passing your sight on to your children.”

  She was silent for a long moment, and Lawson worried that he had offended her, but eventually, she nodded. “Yes,” she said. “That is why I do not want to have children of my own, but there is also another reason.”

  Lawson waited, sipping his tea patiently.

  Emmeline looked up at him through the steam of her own mug. “It is just… I grew up in a foundling home, Lawson.” She settled back against the sofa cushions, and her hazel eyes were begging for him to understand. “There were so many of us. Lost children, with no families. That school was very like a family but… what I would not have given for a mother and father of my own. Someone to love me as only a parent can love a child. Lawson, there so many little children without a home. If I could give even one child the life I never had, I should try, shouldn’t I
?”

  Lawson smiled at her and reached for his wife’s hand. He pondered for a moment, and wondered how it might feel to raise another’s child. He imagined it would feel very much like raising your own.

  “I understand,” he said at last. “If the time comes when we are ready for children…we shall first look for a child without a home.”

  Emmeline threw her arms around him. The action was so unexpected that Lawson slopped a bit of tea down his front. He chuckled as Emmeline nuzzled into his neck. “If I have not thanked you enough for your kindness,” she whispered, and he felt a dampness in the crease of his neck that meant her eyes were wet. “Then I shall thank you a thousand more times. You are not the sort of man I expected to be matched with Lawson Aldridge. You are so much more than I could have ever dared hope.”

  He ran one hand down her spine, settling it at her waist and holding her there. “I thought it would take me more time,” he whispered. Emmeline looked up at him, her nose mere inches away from his. “But it has taken no time at all for me to fall in love with you, Emmeline. I would give you the world if you would ask it of me.”

  She beamed at him and snuggled back into his warmth. Together, it felt as though they were cradling sunlight between them. “I love you too.”

  Monday morning came too quickly for Lawson’s taste. The last few days alone with his wife had been like something out of heaven itself. But he went to work whistling, with her kiss on his cheek, and spent the afternoon between customers at the Pharmacy anticipating his lunch.

  He had a quiet morning, which gave him time to work on a pet project he had started on Friday before the attack. Mr. Grunkle came in to fill a new prescription from Dr. Valentine, and brought with him the news that the reconstruction of the miner’s homes was set to begin on Thursday the following week, once all of the supplies needed had arrived by train.

  As the very grumpy Mr. Grunkle left the shop, Lawson’s thoughts took a darker turn. It had been a miracle that none of the men in town had been seriously injured trying to protect the miner’s homes from the Indians. They had been disorganized and sloppy in their attack, which made him think that the entire thing had been brought on by the consumption of whiskey that never should have been in their possession in the first place. Lawson had witnessed one red-skin man tumble drunkenly from his horse, and another totter around a burning building, laughing uproariously.

  The whole of Buffalo Creek was well aware that someone was keeping the Sioux well provided with illegal alcohol. It was anyone’s guess who it was. A handful of nasty accusations had been thrown about town over the last few years, but the culprit had never been caught.

  Lawson frowned out the small shop window. Who would do such a thing? It was highly illegal, a hanging offense, to sell whiskey to the Indians. Who would be desperate enough to risk their life for a handful of coin?

  Lunchtime took its time circling around that afternoon, but at last, Lawson felt justified in making his way over to the school to join his wife for a meal. The schoolyard was full of shouting, frolicking children when he arrived. He found Emmeline inside the schoolhouse, scrubbing at the blackboard. To his very great surprise, he also spotted his dog, Cooper, sitting beside the desk. The collie’s tale thumped wildly as he approached.

  “What’s all this then?” he laughed. Emmeline glanced up at the sound of his voice, smiling.

  “Would you believe? The rascal insisted on escorting me to class this morning. He hasn’t left my side since.”

  Lawson knelt down on the schoolhouse floor beside his dog. “You keeping an eye on my girl here, Coop?”

  The dog’s tail thumped even more wildly, and Lawson chuckled.

  “I couldn’t get him to leave,” Emmeline said, her hand on her hip. “He sat right down there and watched the children as though he thought he was in charge of today’s lesson.”

  Lawson shook his head. “Think he’s decided to keep you around,” he said, grinning. “Sounds like a good plan from where I’m standing.”

  His wife shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with a dog in the classroom,” she said, striding over so that her skirts swished around her ankles to stand beside Lawson and gaze down at Cooper.

  “If he’s distracting the children, I can take him home,” Lawson suggested mildly, but Emmeline shook her head quickly.

  “No… Let’s not do that just yet. He’s not hurting anyone, after all.”

  Lawson concealed his grin with difficulty and pulled a chair up beside the desk for lunch.

  They only had a few minutes of quiet talking before it was time for Emmeline to recall the students from play. Lawson kissed her cheek and hopped down the steps, mussing Thomas’ hair as he passed.

  It was on his way back to the pharmacy that he spotted something that caused his good mood to vanish like a puff of smoke. His brother, Jason, was leaning casually against the post that stood nearest Lawson’s shop, picking his teeth with a piece of straw.

  “Afternoon!” Jason called cheerfully, oblivious to Lawson’s scowl as he approached. “How’s marriage treating you, brother?”

  Lawson grimaced at Jason, his temper rising. The last thing he wanted to do was admit to his brother that his latest idea for “improving” Lawson’s life had been a success. It would merely make him more determined to meddle even further in Lawson’s business instead of keeping his nose out of it.

  “What’re you doing here?” he asked warily, wondering if his brother had yet another hairbrained scheme in mind for him. He withdrew the key to his shop and unlocked the door, spinning the sign that hung on the window to read “Open” as he passed it.

  “Came back into town for dinner, of course!” Jason bellowed, following Lawson into the pharmacy. “Your darling, sweet wife invited me, if you do recall.”

  Lawson could have kicked the smug look off of Jason’s face, instead, he moved around behind the check out table. “What are you using the schoolhouse basement for?” he asked, fixing Jason with a piercing stare. “I’ve been meaning to make a point to you. Just because Emmeline is here on your account, that doesn’t give you any right to manipulate her into one of your ‘win-win’ arrangements. There’s no reason for you to keep any ‘leather-working,’” his tone was heavy with implications. “Supplies in Buffalo Creek. Take them elsewhere.”

  “Keep your shirt on, Laws,” Jason said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “If you were wound any tighter you’d be hopping backward.”

  Lawson waited, his arms folded over his chest, for his brother to answer him, but as Jason opened his mouth, the door swung open.

  Lawson’s serious expression fled rapidly, and he smiled as he greeted his customer. “Mr. Tiggs, doing better I see?”

  The younger man grinned, his eyes darting between Lawson and his brother. “Much, thank you.”

  “Well, I’ll be off!” Jason declared with a hearty smile. “What time shall I come around this evening? Or should I direct that question to your wife?” Lawson didn’t like the look in his brother’s eyes as he said this.

  “Eight,” he grunted, and Jason smiled his sly smile and departed.

  Lawson wasn’t at all surprised that his brother arrived a half an hour early to dinner. He enjoyed inconveniencing people, Jason did. What did surprise him was that in place of his brother’s usual simpering, or sly grin, he was wearing a friendly, open expression. It caught Lawson’s attention at once. He raised a singular eyebrow, never able to keep his thoughts from his face.

  “Evening,” he said suspiciously. “Come in then, you old oaf.” He stood aside for Jason to enter his home and watched him remove his hat. Emmeline strolled forward to take his coat.

  “Mr. Aldridge! I’m so pleased you could join us this evening.” Lawson winked at her over his brother’s shoulder. She scowled at him. In truth, his wife had forgotten the invitation she had extended to Jason just as successfully as he had. “Come in and warm up by the fire! It’s chilly out this evening.”

  “That it is, that it is.
Thank you, Ma’am.”

  Jason settled himself ostentatiously in Lawson’s favorite spot on the sofa as Lawson followed him into the room.

  “Dinner is just about ready,” Emmeline declared. “Just a few more minutes!”

  And she left the brothers staring at one another with the silence stretching between them.

  Lawson lifted up his trouser pants and settled himself into one of the stiff armchairs perched beside the sofa. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat down in a room with his brother. The man usually accosted Lawson with his plans for betterment and departed town, assuming Lawson would do as he was told. He hadn’t learned, over the years, that Lawson was his own man, and Lawson had resented him for it.

  “So,” he said, listening to the comfortable sounds of Emmeline fussing about in the kitchen and rather hoping she’d be more careful at the stove. She’d already burned herself twice this week. “So, tell me about home. How’s Penny and your girls?”

  Lawson couldn’t be sure, but he rather thought he saw he brother flinch. “Good!” he said. “Very good. Penny has… er—taken up quilting. It’s made the house a disaster area, but there you go.” He chuckled, and Lawson joined in.

  “And your girls? You never bring them around with you when you come. Ginny has to be, what—ten years old now?”

  Jason nodded his large head. “Yep. Gracie is eight going on fifteen, let me tell ya.”

  Lawson grinned. He’d been so very frustrated with his brother over the last few years that he’d nearly forgotten… at times, he could be almost human. He had a wife and children back at his home in Cheyenne. It used to be several days’ ride for his brother to visit, but now… the train ran straight through. A few hours and you could be at either end if the train was moving quick.

  “And, eh… what are you doing for work? Is the—leather-working? Is that really something you’re into? Turning a decent profit?”