“I have had a lovely day, husband,” Eleanor said at the door of her room the following evening. “Our meal at the hotel dining room was very grand, and I’ll remember it forever.”

“We’ve got our deed and our wedding license, signed and sealed,” he said, and patted his breast pocket.

“Will we visit the property tomorrow?”

“I would like to, Eleanor.” He smiled at her and held her hands in his.

“I want to thank you, Beauregard,” she said softly. “I am honored to be your wife and will do my best to make a home, and raise children you will be proud of. I cannot tell you how much it meant to me that you escorted me to church and waited while I said my prayers and spoke to Reverend Buckland.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me for such small matters. You are my wife. If you need escorted, I hold that privilege.”

“You remind me so very much of my father. He was always so kind to Mother. And thank you for taking me to their graves today. It may have seemed morbid for a wedding day but for . . .”

Beau wrapped her in his arms as she began to sob. “They are still very alive to you. It is only a short time ago that you spoke to them and touched them.”

She nodded against his chest. “I felt as if I had to tell them, especially my father, that I was married and that you were a good man and that he could be sure that I would be taken care of and protected. It sounds very silly as I say it.”

“It is not silly. It is not silly at all.” He leaned her back in the circle of his arms. “I’m no religious man. I just don’t take to it and don’t know that I ever will. But I made my peace with your daddy, too, today. He deserved to hear my promises to keep you safe.”

Eleanor opened the door to her room. “I look forward to tomorrow, Beauregard.”

He kissed her forehead and waited in the hall until she locked the door to her room. She undressed in the dim light of the kerosene lamp then curled under the covers and shivered. Soon, she thought, she wouldn’t shiver in the night from the cold sheets and damp air. Soon she would climb in bed with Beauregard. Her husband. How happy she was! How strange life could be. Emptiness and fear and desolation could be overcome by joy and bittersweet memories . . . and longing. She was hungry for him, she admitted to herself, and worried she was no longer in control of her nineteen-year-old body. How could it be a “duty,” as her mother reluctantly described, if she wanted it, whatever “it” was, so badly. Although her mother had smiled when she said it and told her that joining with her husband was so much more than that, so much more than a duty, and that she would tell her about the mysteries in good time.

There would be no good time now. How strange to wish to feel a man she did not know, had not heard of, less than a month ago. She wished she could run her hands over his shoulders and touch the hair on his chest. She wanted to feel his hand touching her, touching her everywhere, especially her breasts, heavy now with the thought of him undressing. Would he touch her there? In her most private, intimate area that she had no name for? He would have to, she imagined, if what she thought was necessary to complete the act happened. Would his hand touch her there with feather traces like when he stroked her cheek with his long fingers? The bed was suddenly cozy and warm as she replayed their kisses in her head, and she fell asleep as she twirled the gold wedding band on her finger.

* * *

Beau knocked on his wife’s door, his wife!, he thought in some wonder, and waited.

“Good morning, Beauregard,” Eleanor said, smiling and rosy cheeked, when she opened her door.

“Good morning. I want to have the men at the stable check the wheels on the wagon. I thought we’d take it out this morning to find our property. It may take some time at the stables. Would you like to wait here?”

She pulled on a straw poke bonnet and tied the wide blue ribbon under one ear. “I’ll go to the mercantile while you are at the stable. You can bring the wagon there when you’re done, if that is agreeable to you.”

“By yourself?” he said and twirled his hat in his hand.

She turned to him. “I imagine I will be by myself as you’ll be at the stables. We did not bring many of the things I’ll need in a household from Allentown, as my mother intended to purchase items when we arrived. I don’t mean to purchase much, but I’ll need soap and salt, at the very least. Could you see if there are any burlap sacks to be had at the mill?”

“Could you wait until I’m finished at the stable?”

Eleanor tilted her head and stared at him. “I went to the mercantile by myself when we stayed here. Reverend Buckland told my father it was perfectly fine for me to go alone during the day. I went several times and took my sisters on some occasions, too.”

Beau had seen women of all ages walking alone out in the town over the last few days, but they had not been his wife. She was staring at him now with raised brows. “Just be careful. There are always drifters coming though towns like this.”

She smiled up at him, and he realized he would most likely grant her anything to see her smile and her eyes crinkle up at the corners. He escorted her down the street with a hand under her elbow, past horses, buggies, and troughs ’til she was at the door of the mercantile.

“Be about an hour, I think, and I’ll come by for you.”

“Thank you. That will be fine,” she said as she pulled a paper from her bag and whisked herself past pickle barrels and into the store.

* * *

“Which fabric would you recommend for making a tick for my bed, or do you sell ready-made ones?” Eleanor asked the woman behind the counter as she ran a hand over the canvas. She looked up when the woman didn’t answer.

“Aren’t you the daughter of that preacher who got himself killed?”

“My father and mother and sisters were murdered by outlaws, just outside of your town, yes.”

“Not that it’s any of my business, but what do you need a tick for?”

“I was married yesterday. I’ll be setting up housekeeping soon.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “William took you back?”

Eleanor kept her face expressionless as she realized other shoppers had inched closer to hear her reply. “I have not married Mr. Dodgekins, if that is to whom you refer. Do you carry ready-made ticks?”

She refused to be drawn into this conversation, and realized that her family’s story, and its outcome, was most likely repeated at every opportunity. She would muster all the dignity necessary to quell such talk. And then the door of the mercantile opened behind her.

“Eleanor, my dear!”

She turned in time to be pulled into Reverend Buckland’s wife’s arms and patted on the back as if she were a small child.

“I am so terribly sorry I was not here in your time of need, Eleanor. I’ve been attending my niece who has just presented her husband with a son. What a horrible event for your family! I am so sorry for you! Please come back with me to the church. We will discuss your future, and you may unburden yourself of whatever upsetting memories you have.”

Eleanor pulled herself out of the woman’s arms. “Mrs. Buckland, thank you very kindly for your sympathies. I have set a course for myself, however, and my future is well planned.”

“Well planned? I heard that our William was less than sympathetic when he heard about the event, poor man, and undoubtedly said some things that he shouldn’t have. But he is heartbroken now. You must come back with me to the rectory. I will make tea and we will see how to make this right. It is only what your poor sainted mother would have expected.”

“Not today, Mrs. Buckland. I will call on you soon, though.”

“Said she was already married, Mariam,” the woman behind the counter said.

“Already married? Whatever do you mean?”

Mrs. Buckland’s grip on her upper arms tightened, and Eleanor forced herself to stand straight and not be intimidated. What hold did this woman have over her, anyway?

“I am married, Mrs. Buckland. Yesterday, to be precise. I am now Mrs. Beauregard Gentry. He has been willed property in this county and we—”

“Not that man!” she shouted. “Not that man who hit William!”

“Mrs. Buckland, please, calm yourself,” Eleanor said and looked around at the others in the store, all now in a hurry to look away. “There is no need for shouting.”

Miriam Buckland dabbed at her eyes and shook her head. “With your mother gone and myself away, you’ve been set adrift alone. The reverend and I were talking shortly after that night that we would take you in to our home. Yet with me being out of town, I had no idea what had happened. Something must be done!”

“There is nothing to be done. I am married and glad of it.”

The older woman grabbed her hands and squeezed. “Please come with me to the rectory. Please allow me to talk to you. I feel so terribly guilty having not been here in your time of need. And certainly, between the reverend and I we can solve this problem.”

“There is no problem,” Eleanor began, and realized at that moment that she must end this once and for all if she were not to have this story follow her into eternity. She nodded. “Let us go to the rectory. I will be happy to take tea with you and explain what has happened.”

She stopped and turned to the woman behind the counter. “My husband, Mr. Beauregard Gentry, will be here for me shortly. Please tell him to wait and that I will be back very soon.”

* * *

Beau made good use of his time while the blacksmith fixed a spring on the McManus wagon. He followed the stable master, asking questions and being friendly and helpful. Very soon, he was being introduced to every man who came in the stables, shaking their hands and listening as they talked. Whenever he could, he asked the men what they made their living at. Some farmed corn and sold it as silage to the dairy farmers or shipped it to be ground. The dairy farmers made cheese, some of it going as far away as Philadelphia. Most farmers grew wheat, ground at the gristmill and bagged to send by train or wagon to cities. What he didn’t hear was that anyone was breeding and selling horses to pull their wagons and plows or to ride. He could hardly wait to tell Eleanor.

He pulled up to the mercantile in the wagon nearly two hours after he’d dropped her off. He didn’t see her standing outside the building, so he pulled the wagon over and hitched the horses to the post. He looked in the window of the store and finally pulled the door and went in.

“There’s a young lady doing her shopping here,” he said to the woman behind the counter, “Miss McManus you’d know her as. Is she here? I’m a mite late.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” the woman said.

“I let her off here a couple of hours ago. She meant to buy some salt and whatnot. She must be here somewhere.”

A man behind the counter came over to stand beside the woman. “She went with the reverend’s wife. Mrs. Buckland.”

“Shush, Henry. It’s none of our business,” the woman said, but would not meet Beau’s eye.

Beau nodded to the man, too angry to even look at the woman. “Much obliged.”

* * *

Eleanor sat on the edge of the brocade chair, her back straight, her face and hands as calm as she could manage. “Thank you,” she said and accepted tea from Mrs. Buckland. She’d been alone in the sitting room for nearly a quarter of an hour, waiting for her hostess and wondering what had become of the woman.

“Now, dear,” Mrs. Buckland said, reached over, and patted her hand. “We are private without the gentlemen. Tell me what happened, Eleanor.”

She recounted the night of her parents’ deaths, without revealing her mother’s humiliation, as she had no intention of this woman having any vision of her mother and her family that was not completely proper and upright, even knowing her mother had done nothing but try and shield her children. But the reverend’s wife was of the temperament her father abhorred, and she knew full well that the woman would share everything that was said between them. Eleanor intended to guard her family’s dignity.

“And then I went to our wagon to bury my family and was kidnapped.”

Mrs. Buckland titled her head. “Why did you go alone, dear? What could you have been thinking?”

“I had no one to ask after Mr. Dodgekins refused to help me, ma’am, and my family needed a proper burial.”

“I’m sure William would have gone with you eventually. He was very upset about the entire event, as I’m sure you know. Sometimes we just need to be patient with our men while they sort out the best path forward for themselves and their womenfolk.”

“I don’t believe that is true,” Eleanor said and sat her china teacup on the cart. “And I had no intention of letting animals prey on their bodies, although that is what happened anyway.”

“William did say you came here after you’d been freed from your kidnapper but that he was startled at the sight of you. He did believe you’d been killed and was mourning you deeply, you understand that he was in shock, rightfully so, and perhaps did not answer your questions well. And then that barbarian hit him! A man of God!”

There was so many falsehoods in what was just said, Eleanor was at a loss as to how to correct the woman, but she couldn’t be silent. Her father had preached many a sermon whose lesson was to honor and defend the truth and righteousness, even when it was easier and advantageous to be silent.

“No, Mrs. Buckland. That is not what happened at all. I was there, you see. Mr. Dodgekins was not mourning me; he was disgusted by me and told me so to my face.”

The woman shook her head vigorously. “No, no. I am certain you have misinterpreted what was said. How did you eventually get free?”

“I was moments away from being sold to bandits when Mr. Gentry saved me. He killed the men and my kidnapper. He took me to a cabin and let me rest and heal until I was well enough to travel. I don’t remember all of it, as it had been several days that I had gone without food and had hit my head somewhere along the way, I’m not sure where. And then he brought me to Winchester, and I came here immediately.” Eleanor looked up at the woman and held her gaze. “I expected to be welcomed by the church family I’d met here and by Mr. Dodgekins, who was, to my understanding, intending to marry me and assist my father when we arrived in Charleston.”

“William, I am certain, will be asked to travel to Charleston and lead the congregation there since your father’s unfortunate demise. He will need a wife, Eleanor. A sensible wife who understands the church and the exalted place her husband holds in it. Even with this minor setback, you are the perfect wife for him.”

“I would not characterize my family’s murder as a minor setback, and it is an impossibility anyway, as I’m already married to Mr. Gentry.”

Mrs. Buckland moved her chair close to Eleanor until their knees nearly touched and held both her hands. She leaned forward and then began to speak in a soft voice near Eleanor’s ear.

“There is a way forward on God’s path for you.” She paused. “Did you lay with this man while you were in the woods?”

Eleanor felt herself redden. “Of course not,” she said quietly. “I was injured, and he was a perfect gentleman.”

Mrs. Buckland backed up just an inch or so to see Eleanor’s face. “And have you lain with him since?”

Eleanor shook her head and immediately knew her mistake, although was it ever a mistake to tell the truth? “No, ma’am. We are preparing our home on his property, even today. I must go, in fact. Mr. Gentry will be concerned about me.”

“Let us pray over this. Dear Father . . .”

Eleanor closed her eyes and willed herself to be humble and contrite in prayer, even though she was horribly angry. Shortly after they loudly said “amen,” Reverend Buckland and Mr. Dodgekins came into the parlor.

“Ah, my dear,” the reverend said and took both of her hands in his while his wife moved her chair back. “How well you look today. And see who is here to make his greeting to you.”

Dodgekins pulled a chair close to hers and reached for her hand. Eleanor looked at him sharply and laced her fingers together. “It would be improper for me to hold your hand, sir, and please move your chair away from mine. I am married.”

“To that brute? Certainly you realize that he is not suited to you. I am a man of God as you are accustomed to, just like your dear father who has gone on to his reward.”

“I was not suited to you when I came asking for your help, was I?”

“I was out of my mind with worry, Eleanor, and not thinking clearly.”

“Mrs. Gentry, if you please.”

Reverend Buckland cleared his throat and then spoke up from beside his wife. “An annulment will not be difficult. You were not married in the church, and there were extraordinary circumstances surrounding the events that may have lead you to make an undesirable decision. And, well, the marriage, I understand, has not been . . . made sacrosanct.”

“That beast,” Dodgekins said scornfully. “It pains me to think of him and you, the most delicate and pious of women.”

“I must be going now, Mrs. Buckland. Thank you so much for the tea,” Eleanor said as she rose.

“Life will be ever so difficult without friends to help you,” the woman said, staring up at Eleanor with pursed lips.

“We feel obligated to ensure your well-being with your dear father cold in the grave. There are papers for you to sign in my office that will put the matter behind you,” Reverend Buckland said.

“There is no matter to put behind me. I am married to Mr. Gentry and have no wish to annul it.”

Dodgekins stared out the window, legs crossed, his hand at his chin. “It is difficult to lead a faithful life to the Lord. We must admit our mistakes and allow those with experience and wisdom to lead us to what is good and right in His eyes.” He looked up at her then. “Isn’t that what your father said when he spoke to the congregation here that fateful Sunday?”

Eleanor choked back a sob and dropped into the chair behind her. Father!

They all turned when there was a knock on the main door of the house, followed moments later by pounding. The reverend opened the door to the sitting room, and Eleanor saw an elderly woman hurry by in the hallway.

“Eleanor!” she heard from outside.

She stood quickly. “Beau! I am here. I am coming.” She maneuvered her way through the chairs, past the tea cart, and pardoned herself to the reverend, who was blocking the doorway.

The elderly woman opened the front door, and Eleanor rushed by her.

“I am so very glad to see you,” she said and led him down the rectory’s stone path.

Beau followed his wife, matching her hurried pace. She slowed down finally. and he cupped her elbow. “Your face is pure white. They have upset you. I swear I will never set foot in that place again or even speak to those vermin.”

“Please take me somewhere private where we can talk without interruption.”

“We’ll go back to your room.”

Eleanor sat down on her bed in her hotel room and removed her hat. Beau leaned against the wardrobe near the door. She looked up at him, still white-faced, and licked her lips.

“I went with Mrs. Buckland because she was making a scene in the mercantile. I wanted to quiet her and felt in some way that I owed her an explanation or at least the whole story as my family had been guests in their home many times for meals and fetes. Father had preached from their altar.”

“And?” he said when she said no more.

“Mrs. Buckland said that William Dodgekins was shocked only, accounting for his blunt words on both occasions that I asked for his help, and that I needed to be patient with him until he decided our future. Mr. Dodgekins himself told me he was quite out of his mind with worry for me.”

There was little Beau could do to tamp down the anger he was feeling. It was coming from an unknown place, perhaps his heart, he thought suddenly. He felt the blood rising on his face, and sweat bead on his forehead, although it was not hot in the room. His arms hung loose at his side, as if anticipating an attack. He cracked his neck from side to side.

“What else?”

“Mr. Dodgekins reminded me of part of my father’s sermon when he spoke about leading a faithful life and bowing to the wisdom of elders after one has made a mistake. It was the last sermon he preached. The words were dear to me, and I believe that Mr. Dodgekins realized that. I could hear father’s voice in my head and feel my mother’s hand as if . . .”

Beau heard Eleanor’s plaintive words over the red, hot fury that he was feeling and forced himself to take a few breaths. But it was alive in him, this rage that was making him want to kill William Dodgekins, strangle him, and watch the bastard’s eyes pop out and eventually roll back in his head.

“Have you made a mistake, Eleanor? Would your father want something different for you?”

“No. I have not made a mistake. I have not. You have done nothing but honor me and protect me since I have met you. Father would be pleased, I am sure.”

There was a long silence that Beau hesitated to break. “But are you pleased?”

She stood then and faced him. “I am happy with my choice. Very happy. Even still, I would honor our commitment regardless. We are married.”

She turned away quickly and busied herself with her hat and bag and smoothed the spread on the bed where there was not a wrinkle to be seen.

“What else did they say, Eleanor? There is something you are not telling me.”

She worried the strings on her cloth purse and spoke softly. “She asked me . . . she asked me if we’d lain together, and I said no. Reverend Buckland said the marriage had not been made complete in the eyes of the church then. He had papers in his office for me to sign to annul our marriage.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No. No.” She looked up at him. “I do not want an annulment. I would have never signed anything. It was just difficult with all of them talking. It felt like what I was used to hearing—church folks talking. I wanted to leave, I’d even stood to leave, and then William quoted my father’s last sermon and it was clear to me then that I have chosen a life divorced from all I’ve ever known. It was an uncomfortable moment. But still just a moment.”

Beau knew his wife was talking. Knew rationally that she was explaining something to him, but he could not hear any of it. He could only hear “annulment” and “had not been made complete” reverberating in his head. She was not yet his woman in their eyes, their union not solidified enough, and his anger suddenly had a new direction. A raw, unchecked passion. He would not give her up. She was his for time immortal, and he would make his mark on her and put to rest any thoughts from any other man that she would be anyone’s but his.

Beau pulled her into his arms and kissed her roughly, pulling pins from her hair as he did and twisting his hand in the loosened strands to hold her head still and allow him to kiss her at his pleasure. He felt her hands around his waist circling up to his arms, lightly touching his shoulders. He ran a hand up her side, cupping her breast and rubbing the hard peak through the starched pleats of her blouse. She moaned in his mouth and he swung her down until she lay across the bed, her chest heaving as she drew each breath through an open mouth, her eyelids drooping. With one knee on the bed, he pulled her skirts to her waist and ran a hand between her legs ’til he found the opening in her drawers. She was wet already and hot to the touch, groaning with each stroke. He pulled his belt from his pants and opened the button fly. With his cock in one hand, he watched her moving on the bed and gripping the coverlet while his fingers stroked her. He meant to bury himself in her deep and hard.

“Beau,” she said softly.

And that one word from her stopped him cold. It was his Eleanor he was doing this to. His wife. Surely virginal as much as the stars were in the sky, and here he was going after her as if she were a two-penny whore.

He pulled her skirts down and his shirt out to cover his erection and lay down beside her, one arm across his face. “Oh God, Eleanor. I am so sorry. I am treating you roughly, something I swore I would never do.”

“It is alright. You are my husband,” she said breathlessly.

“When you said they wanted you to get an annulment because we had not had relations, I went a little crazy,” he said with a half laugh. “But you are not a mare that I will brand. You are my wife and deserve tenderness and care.”

She rolled up on her side against him. She put her lips on his and touched her tongue to his bottom lip. “I don’t know what to do, husband, other than what you have already shown me. But I want more. I want all of it,” she said. “Reveal the mystery to me.”

Eleanor had never had anything feel the way it did when Beau touched her with his fingers. It seemed as though her entire lower insides were going to explode, as if his fingers were a match to tinder. She had watched his face and the change in him from furious anger to a passion for her that ignited her need for him. He was going to make sure there was never a possibility of an annulment. They would be truly man and wife, and she craved it. He held her in an embrace she would not be able to break physically, yet one word from her had stopped him. But she wanted his passion, she wanted his hands on her bare breasts, holding her head still with a fistful of her hair. She wanted his hand lower. Even thinking about it made her legs shift restlessly against him.

“Show me,” she whispered against his ear.

Beau rolled and loomed over her. He unbuttoned her blouse with shaking fingers, glancing at her and finally pulling her chemise down until her breasts were bare. Breathing hard, he licked his lips and leaned down, sucking her nipple into his mouth. She called out and arched off the mattress as his hand went back under her skirts. Within moments, her legs were open to him, and she pushed off of his fingers as he moved them inside of her and out. There was a tempest building in her, swirling her up in its path, quickening in rhythm and intensity, her hands digging in his hair as if it would hold her grounded.

He climbed on top of her. She looked between their bodies to where he was guiding himself, into where his fingers had been. He slid in slowly, stretching her as he went until he breached her virginity, finally taking the last bit with a lunge that arched her back. He moved in and out of her, and she felt the storm rise again. She met him thrust for thrust, hearing some wet sound and tasting his mouth as he found hers again in an urgent kiss that matched the movement of his hips. This was the mystery. This joining of him and her to be one, she thought as she exploded and cried out. Then he stilled above her with one violent thrust and a last shudder, dropping his head to her breast and kissing her neck and ear.

He rolled off of her then, sweating and panting, red-faced and still breathing hard. He ran a hand under her neck and pulled her toward him until she was tucked against his side, her head on his shoulder, reveling in the heat and the smell of him.

“It is daylight, Beau,” she whispered. “We have not yet eaten our noonday meal.”

His shoulder shook under her head as he barked a laugh. “There is no right or wrong time to do this, Eleanor. We can make love in the light of day and in the still of the night. And I intend to do just that.”

“Is that what this is? Making love?”

He tilted her head up with his hand and kissed her open-mouthed, and spoke even as their lips still touched. “I don’t know of any other way to describe it—not the act or how I feel about you—as anything but love. I never imagined myself loving anything or anyone. But I will love you until the last moment of my life and beyond into the evermore. I am sure of it.”

She stared back at him. “My mother told me that most times love comes slowly to a married couple. I cannot see that. I could not have done what I have just done with you without my heart engaged. Without love.”

“We are well and truly married.”

“We are,” she said and sighed contentedly.

“Perhaps I will stop to see the reverend and his wife and let them know.”

She propped herself on an elbow. “Beauregard! You wouldn’t dare! I would be mortified!”

He rubbed her back. “I would never embarrass you, Eleanor. I was teasing you. But that does not stop me from imagining the looks on their faces when I announced that I’d been under your skirts!”

Eleanor felt her face redden and laughed. “It would be a sight!”

“Shall we go and see our property?” he asked.

“Yes. Let me straighten my hair and rinse my face,” she said as she sat up. She looked back at him, still stretched out on her bed, looking manly and satisfied with his life. What a marvel, she thought to herself, to be married to a man she could laugh with, who made her feel wanted and precious, who protected her with his hands and his heart. Who did that to her body.

“We could have a child growing in you right this moment, Eleanor,” he whispered. “Did you realize that?”

She nodded. “I will pray it is so.”