Olivia danced with Armsworth, and he proved again to be a pleasant companion. They danced the first dance, a vigorous polka, and went to find refreshments. She sipped lemonade while a gentleman poured whiskey from a flask into Armsworth’s glass, the second he’d had so far that evening. He had left her for a moment to speak to his friend, Mr. Armond, and she was relieved when he did not bring Armond around to speak to her. At the end of the third dance, Jasper Englebright, Winchester’s only attorney, asked her to dance, but Armsworth spoke first.

“Miss Gentry and I have just agreed to take a turn outside in the cool air,” he said to Englebright. “Next dance maybe.”

“A turn outside?” she said uncertainly when Mr. Englebright left them.

He smiled at her. “Please forgive me. I’ve been thinking about you for three months. I cannot bear to part with you just yet.”

“How ridiculous you are!” she said and looked up at him with a smile. He was not smiling back. In fact, he was looking murderous. He smiled then suddenly, but Olivia’s stomach was still in a knot. Had what she’d meant as a tease been taken seriously by him? Why did she feel that the more time she spent with Richard Armsworth, the less she knew him?

“Let’s just walk out into the fresh air, my dear. It is stifling here,” he said and ran a finger under his collar.

“The fresh air will feel good,” she said and laid her arm on his.

There were other couples walking in the grassy area between the church and the meeting hall that had been cleared of its furniture for dancing. Armsworth led her out one of the open side doors. It was nearly dark outside but lanterns had been hung in trees and on poles. Couples and families escaping the heat or taking a moment from the dancing were mingling. He led her slowly through the crowd, toward the back of the main street, where soon they were very alone.

“Ah,” she said and stopped and looked up to the starlit sky. “It is lovely and cool.”

“It is lovely,” he said and stepped close to her. He gathered her hands in his and leaned forward and touched his lips to hers.

Olivia concentrated on relaxing and letting the moment just be. Allowing herself to feel what it was like to be close to this man, to have a taste of some future intimacies. But there was no spark of passion on her side, no image of some yet to be reached plateau even as he pushed tightly against her and ran his tongue over the seam of her lips. She broke the kiss.

He kissed her forehead. “And what will we plan for our future, my dear?”

She stepped back in order to see his face. “Our future? I’m not sure our future includes anything past this evening for now, sir.”

He tilted his head. “Nothing past this evening? Surely you don’t misunderstand my intentions?”

“Any intentions you may have have not been shared with me or with my family.”

Armsworth put his hands around her upper arms and closed on them. “Don’t be a tease, Olivia. My intent has always been to make you my bride. I may have been high-handed to some degree, but I have allowed some girlish sentimentality over these perceived slights. I have apologized. That is behind us now.”

Olivia arched her brows. “Perceived slights? That is your interpretation of past events between us?”

Armsworth frowned. “Never mind. I can see that I’ve upset you.”

She wasn’t upset. She was furious. “Please release me.”

But he didn’t. He pulled her tightly against him and ran his hand down to her bottom. “Quit fidgeting. This marriage will be advantageous to us both.”

“No,” she said and shook her head, pulling her mouth from his. “No. Let me go.”

But he held her tightly and had backed her up against the darkened boards on the back of the telegraph office. She was thinking she’d have to shout for help. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to be in the middle of another public drama. But she was starting to panic even with hundreds of neighbors nearby who would help her if necessary. Her heart was pounding in her chest, fast and hard, and she heard each beat as a boom in her ear. A lantern lit near her, blinding her and making her unable to see who was holding it.

“Miss Gentry,” Louis Armond said. “This is such a public setting for such a passionate embrace. What would your neighbors think?”

“There was no need for this, Armond,” Armsworth said and shielded his eyes with one hand. “Put the lantern down. I can’t see.”

Olivia pushed with all of her might against Armsworth when he let go of her arm to cover his eyes. She barely slipped past him, feeling the touch of his hand on the shoulder of her dress. If he came after her now, she would scream. She would scream at the top of her lungs. She could see lanterns swinging in the breeze and people milling about straight ahead. They would help her. She tried to calm her breathing even as she hurried.

Jim saw her coming across the open grass past where folks were standing together in small groups, drinking or just talking and laughing. He could tell there was something wrong with her as she walked up to him, a false smile on her face, her hands visibly shaking. He looked over her shoulder to where she came from but didn’t see anyone. She almost walked directly into him even though she was looking right at him.

“Oh,” she said as if she’d just noticed him. “This is our dance, isn’t it?”

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“What do you mean? Has someone said something to you?”

“No. What is the matter?”

She shook her head as tears came to her eyes. “Please,” she whispered. “Please. Just dance with me.”

She took his arm when he held it out and walked her into the hall as the musicians were starting. He put a hand at her waist and waited until she put her hand on his shoulder so he could lead her onto the floor. Others were twirling by but he chose a half-tempo rhythm much like many of the older couples near them. He was worried she’d stumble or even fall. He’d never seen her look so fragile, and frightened even, in all the time he’d known her. She looked up at him with wide eyes and trembling lips. He wasn’t sure if he could continue dancing, as he’d far prefer to pick her up and carry her away from here or from whatever troubled her.

“You must tell me,” he said finally when he could no longer be silent. “Has someone hurt you? What has happened? Shall I take you to Matt or Adam?”

Her face reddened and she shook her head. But her eyes stopped and widened at something over his shoulder. He looked back and saw Richard Armsworth staring at her.

“Do not bow your head. Look up at me and smile even though it’s not what you wish to do,” he said softly.

She responded to him with a tentative smile, her hand quivering against his palm. She was a singularly beautiful woman. She was dressed in a gown the color of honey, accentuating her dark red hair and matching the pale freckles across her nose. It was then he noticed a tear in the fabric of her dress, a few threads sticking out at odd angles, at the corner of her squared neckline. She looked down to where he was looking and peered up at him with panicked eyes. He danced her right out of the large, open double doors at the back of the hall, and to the deserted side of the building.

“Why is your dress torn? What has happened?”

“Nothing . . . I can’t . . . nothing.” But she was gulping for breath and did not finish her words.

“Armsworth? It’s Armsworth, isn’t it. Has he hurt you?”

She grabbed his forearms. “Don’t do anything. Please.”

His skin itched with the desire to do violence. His heart was beating hard in his ears and his fists were clenched. But she was pleading with him, and he didn’t have the heart to deny her anything, especially when she was in such a state.

She took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes. “He kissed me. I let him, but he didn’t stop when I asked him to, and then Mr. Armond was there with a lantern and my dress must have torn as I pulled away. Armsworth told me we were going to marry and that I knew and understood that from the beginning.”

And then she crumbled into his arms, weeping. He held her to him while she cried, soaking his shirt while he petted her hair and told her softly to hush. That he was there holding her and that no one would get past him to harm her.

She stopped then, wiping her face on his handkerchief and taking deep breaths. “I’m fine. Would you take me to my mother? I’ve panicked for no reason. None at all.”

“Will you tell your mother what happened? Your brothers? They should know.”

“Please say nothing. I beg of you,” Olivia said and looked at him with pleading eyes.

“I won’t say anything for now, but that doesn’t mean I may not kill him.”

She looked up sharply, took his arm, and walked back into the hall, unhurriedly. He found Mrs. Gentry with his own mother and some other women from town. He released Olivia’s arm and leaned close to her.

“I won’t tell Adam unless I hear that Armsworth has visited Paradise or that he has bothered you in some other way.”

“Please . . .”

Jim shook his head. “If it were one of my sisters, I would want to know. I would need to know.”

She nodded and turned to her mother. Jim wound his way through the crowd until he was in sight of Richard Armsworth. He would stay on the man’s tail and let him know he had best stay clear of Olivia Gentry without ever speaking a word to the man.

* * *

“What’s this about you and my sister?” Matt Gentry asked from where he sat on the bank of the creek near the dammed-up area that they had swum in earlier that summer.

Jim pulled a worm from a tin can and threaded it on his hook. He shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ha!” Matt said and barked a laugh. “I said the same thing, then Annie and Adam confirmed it, and even my mother implied it. Adam said I was too busy looking at my wife to notice anything, and I think he might be right.”

Jim dropped his fishing line in the fast-moving water and said nothing.

“If you won’t even talk about it, you must have it bad.”

“Do you really want me to say something about your sister?”

“Well, hell, no, nothing like that!” Matt said and shuddered and then turned his face to him. “But you care for her, don’t you?”

“I have the utmost respect for your sister. She’s a lady.”

He didn’t want to look at his friend Matt. He was afraid his feelings would be written all over his face and that Matt would be unable to be silent about them once he understood. But he did finally glance at him. Matt was staring at him with narrowed eyes.

“I had my first woman somewhere outside of Spotsylvania shortly after I’d been ordered to take my men to join the Army of the Trans-Mississippi. Maybe eight or so months after I’d left home. I thought then that I’d like to brag about it to you, even knowing I barely got the clothes off that girl and my buttons undone before I’d disgraced myself. I was certain you were as much a virgin as I when I left Winchester, but you were here and I spent the next few years climbing in and out of beds from Dallas to Lexington. I was an embarrassment to myself and my family.”

Jim stretched a leg out in front of him and poked a stone with the heel of his boot. He stared gloomily across the water. He didn’t want to hear Matt’s confessions or think of anything untoward as it inevitably led to thoughts of Olivia.

“Is that why you asked me to come fishing? So you could confess some old indiscretions? I’d rather not hear about them,” Jim said. “Do you think we’ll have a hard winter? The almanac is saying not.”

“Do you ever go over to Romney or Middletown?”

He shrugged. “Why would I go there?”

“Because you don’t diddle with a woman in your own town. Didn’t your father ever tell you that?”

Jim shook his head.

“You never spent a night away and told your family you were looking at something for the forge or some other made-up story?”

He went to stand but Matt held his shoulder.

“My God, Jim! Are you saying you’ve slept with someone right here in town? June? Not June from over at the saloon. Dear Lord! She’s got to be fifty if she’s a day!”

“No! June? No!”

“Well, who else then? Is there a widow about that I don’t know about?”

“I’m not talking about this to you.” Jim stood up, pulled his line out of the water, and dumped the worms remaining in his can near the creek bank. “I’ve never been interested in a widow or a woman like June.”

“You’re not like the Romans, are you?” Matt said as he looked up.

“No, Matt. I’m as interested in women as much as you are. I just don’t think . . . it’s not right somehow . . . doing that with whoever . . . she’ll be special.”

“So, you’ve not . . .”

Jim glared at him, willing him to shut up. Matt jumped to his feet.

“But somebody’s got to know one end of the thing from the other! You’ll be marrying a virgin. Who’s to say what to do if you’ve not done it before!”

Jim shook his head and laughed. “You’re lucky you married Annie, because she may be the only thing that keeps you from being a complete idiot. Humans have been procreating for thousands of years and so far nobody’s looked about on their wedding night and said, ‘What do I do now?’ I imagine my bride and I, if I am so fortunate to marry, will figure things out in our own way with no prior instruction or demonstrations.”

Matt grinned and then laughed. “Can you see it? Can you see it in your head? Jeremiah Finch hollering from the second-story window of the hotel on his wedding night asking what goes where?”

Jim laughed again, thinking about the skinny young man who worked for the postmaster, always reading a book and bumping into walls. “I imagine he’s got the same parts as you and me. Even he’d figure it out.”

He picked up his fishing pole and walked to where his horse was tied to a tree and quietly chewing on a shrub. He mounted and fit the pole in his saddlebag. Matt pulled the reins from the tree and handed them to him.

“So, you’re not going to take a ride over to Romney or Middletown,” Matt said.

Jim took the reins and put his hat on his head. He looked down at his friend and touched his knees to his horse. He wasn’t about to say out loud to his oldest friend or to anyone really that he had never had a woman.

There were a few times he’d been close over the years, once with a young woman who served meals at the hotel. She’d made her availability known to him subtly and then more overtly when he didn’t respond to her shy comments. Finally, she told him to meet her at her house just outside of town where she lived with her invalid grandmother and young brother. She’d pulled him inside the cabin when he arrived, pushing his shirt from his shoulders and telling him her brother was out in the woods and her grandmother was deaf and asleep. He followed her behind a curtain to a small metal bed. She’d pulled her dress over her head and stood before him naked. She’d waited as he stared, until she finally picked up his hand from his side and placed it on her breast. She’d shivered and closed her eyes.

He was tempted. Oh, he was tempted. But in the end, or rather before anything had really started, even with a pulsing, erect cock, he couldn’t do it. He didn’t know her. He just didn’t think he could join himself to her and walk away. And a quick glance around the room confirmed that he wouldn’t stay. He’d picked up her dress and handed it to her and apologized. He told her he loved another and couldn’t betray that woman. The woman in his heart. The girl had teared up at the same time as they both heard a young boy’s voice calling her name. He pulled his shirt over his shoulders and slipped out the door before the brother saw him.

He took her a basket of food a few times a year after that and dropped off clothing his sisters and brother had outgrown. She married a local dairy farmer a few years back, and when he saw them in town together on occasion, he always tipped his hat to her and spoke to her as if they were old friends. She was clearly happy with her husband, who’d moved her, her grandmother, and her brother to his farm. What would those meetings have been like if he’d put her under him on that metal bed and used her body to satisfy his urgings? He could hardly bear the thought of it.