Seven Brides - Fern Part 20

"But I don't know how to dance," Fern protested.

"It's not necessary," Madison said. He still wouldn't accept her refusal to go to the party.

"I can't dance, either," Rose said, patting her stomach. "Too clumsy."

"You're as graceful as ever," George said.

"It's sweet of you to say so, dear, but I think I'll find a quiet corner and sit down."

"Why don't you let Madison teach you to dance?" George suggested to Fern.

"We can start now," Madison said, getting to his feet.

"I can play," Mrs. Abbott offered. Everyone looked at her in surprise. "But not very well," she quickly added.

"n.o.body's going to teach me to dance," Fern said, heat rising in her face. I keep trying to tell you I'm not going. But even if I were, I wouldn't let you drag me around the room with everybody watching. I'd feel like an idiot."

They had fallen into the habit of lingering around the table after dinner to talk over the day's events. The dark, flowered wallpaper and the painted wood failed to provide much cheer, but it was better than the stiff formality of the parlor.

"Well, you two can argue it out between you while we're gone," Rose said, getting to her feet. "If I don't get started on my walk, I'll never get William Henry to bed on time."

"You can move to the parlor," Mrs. Abbott said. "I've got to clear away the dishes."

They ended up on the porch watching Rose and George walk down the street arm in arm. William Henry ran ahead pointing at one thing after another and talking excitedly. But his parents were nearly oblivious to anyone except each other.

Fern had never known that two people could be so much in love. It made her feel terribly alone. She wondered if Madison could feel that way about her. He was spending time with her, taking an interest in her, but there were times when she felt like a reclamation project.

She doubted it ever occurred to him she might have good reasons for behaving as she did. No more than he realized he was the only reason she would consider changing. And she wouldn't tell him. What a stupid thing it was to be in love, especially when there was no hope her love would be returned.

"We can start now," Madison was saying.

"Now?" she practically squeaked, jerked abruptly out of her thoughts.

"Sure. It's almost dark. No one will see us."

"If we were having a total eclipse, it wouldn't be dark enough for me to let you teach me to dance on Mrs. Abbott's front porch,'' Fern declared. "I grew up here. I know these people. They'd never let me hear the end of it."

"Then come sit down." Madison took her hand and pulled her toward a bench just big enough for two people.

"I'd rather stand. I've been sitting or lying down for days."

He pulled her down next to him. She thought of standing up again, but decided he'd only sit her down a second time. Better to let him have his way this once.

"I forget you're the active sort. You probably can't wait to get back on your horse."

Oddly enough, Fern hadn't missed her horse.

"If Rose says it's okay, I'll take you for a ride tomorrow."

It made her sick the way her heart beat faster just because she was sitting next to him. She was even more dismayed by the excitement that coursed through her body. She knew what that meant, and she hated it, but she couldn't stop it. It had been getting worse each day. The only cure was never to see Madison again.

But she couldn't do that.

"I can't go riding. What if Papa should see me?"

"I won't let him force you back to work, if that's what you're worried about," Madison said.

Fern felt something inside herself relax. He was still ready to stand between her and the rest of the world. He still cared.

She wasn't worried about going back to work. She didn't even mind the work. But she was worried he wouldn't want to see her enough to come to the farm. She wanted to see him enough to stay here no matter how angry her father got. "Why are you afraid of what people say about you?" Madison asked. I get the feeling you won't feel comfortable until you've hidden yourself from view. You've developed a perfect camouflage."

"I'm nothing but a farmer's daughter."

She was finding it hard to concentrate. His arm was behind her along the back of the bench. Their bodies were only a few inches apart. They seemed like the smallest inches in the world.

"Trying to look, act, and be treated like a farmer's son."

"What's so great about being a woman?" she demanded. "Men are always telling you where to go, what to do, what to say. They don't think you can do anything by yourself except cook, clean, and have babies. You don't even think I can pick out my own clothes."

"Is that all?"

"No, it's not," Fern said, trying to put a little distance between them as she turned to face him. "If you don't want to be the perfect young woman waiting patiently to become the perfect young wife, they try to turn you into a soiled dove, or something just as bad."

Her whole body shivered as if the temperature had dropped fifty degrees. Memories of that night eight years ago flooded her mind. With fierce determination, she shoved them back into the dark corner where she kept them locked away.

"That's not it," Madison said. "You're no more afraid of the people in this town than I am. It's your father."

"No." Fern wanted to defend her fatherMadison blamed him unfairlybut she couldn't tell him about that night.

"Rose told me what he said. If he ever lays a hand on you, I'll break both his arms," Madison swore. "He wouldn't hurt me. He loves me," Fern insisted. Madison moved closer. Not much, but it seemed like a lot.

I doubt your father is capable of loving anything except his bank account. What would he do if you put on a dress and refused to do anything except the housework?"

I can't afford to stay in the house, not with just two of us," Fern insisted, unwilling to admit, even to herself, the doubts in her heart.

"He could hire a couple of hands. Your herd brings in more than enough to pay the wages of two men like Reed and Pike."

Fern didn't know whether to be angry that Madison had been prying into her father's financial affairs or pleased that he was so concerned about her. She decided to be pleased. That made everything different.

It allowed her to react to him purely as a woman.

That meant he was no longer her adversary but instead an object of limitless curiosity. She wanted to look at him, to absorb him through her eyes and ears. Though she didn't dare, she wanted to touch him. She wondered how it would feel to place her hand on the strong arm that had supported her on the long ride from the Connor homestead.

She looked at his face as if for the first time. She wondered how eyes that black could seem so alive, so full of fire. She wondered what he would look like when he wasn't so perfectly groomed, if his hair fell in his eyes, if he ever went unshaven.

She wondered if he ever got tired of being so independent, if he didn't occasionally long for someone to lean on. She wondered if Boston women expected their men to have the answers to everything. She wouldn't stop caring for a man just because he'd made a mistake.

Of course, people like Madison never admitted to a mistake. That must be a terrible burden. He ought to have somebody with whom he could be himself, somebody who could love him for himself.

She wondered how just being around him could make her feel like somebody else. She didn't understand why everything she had tried to accomplish for so many years should suddenly prove to be the opposite of what she wanted, Most confusing of all, part of her wanted these changes so badly she didn't know if she could deny herself.

Whenever she was around Madison she could feel heR resistance eroding. And she didn't seem to have the energy or the inclination to build it up again. Slowly but surely he was tearing down her defenses, stripping away her camouflage, exposing the soft inside she neither wanted to admit existed nor wanted anyone to see.

Fern s.n.a.t.c.hed up the loose reins on her wandering thoughts. They embarra.s.sed her. They even frightened her a little. She averted her gaze for fear that Madison could see her thoughts in her eyes.

She felt his arm brush against her, and her whole being reacted as if she had been stung by a thousand pinpoints of ice. Every atom in her body was aware of his presence.

I think I'll have a talk with him tomorrow," Madison continued.

"I can talk to my own father," Fern said, gratified that Madison would go to so much trouble, worried about her father's reaction, and a little irritated that Madison would decide to talk to her father without asking her first.

"But you won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because you've got it into your head that the only way to be treated the way you want is to do more work than a man. You'll never be more than a poor imitation of a man. But I suspect that if you gave yourself a chance, you could be a very special woman. Good-looking, too."

Fern was speechless.

Madison's scorn for her accomplishments made her furious. Did he know how really well she could ride, rope, or use a gun? No. Did he have any idea how hard she had worked to achieve the position he was blithely dismissing in a single sentence? Absolutely not.

He just made an a.s.sumption as he always did, based upon his experience in hoity-toity Boston, and took it for granted he was right.

But it was impossible for her to be angry at him. No one had ever called her a very special woman, or said she could be nice-looking. And he had never seen her in anything except pants. It wasn't until today that she had stopped wearing her hat inside the house.

"What makes you say that?" Fern asked. She knew she shouldn't be so curiousknowing Madison, he was bound to say something she wouldn't likebut she couldn't resist.

"What?"

"That I might make a good-looking woman." It was difficult to confess her curiosity. He would know she cared.

"You'd have to stay out of the sun and wind long enough for your skin to stop looking like old parchment." A slow smile curved Madison's lips. "You look more like an Indian maiden than a Boston miss."

His finger touched her shoulder through her shirt, and her body burst into flame like dry tinder.

"I'd much rather be an Indian maid than a Boston miss," Fern snapped. "At least there'd be some gumption in me."

"You've got plenty of gumption. It's one of the things I like about you."

"You didn't used to like anything about me."

"I've changed my mind."

"About what?"

"Just about everything. I still wish you wouldn't dress the way you do, but you've got a very nice shape. It wouldn't be so easy to see all covered up in yards and yards of skirts."

Fern turned crimson. Until this minute, she'd have ridden her cutting pony over anybody who had dared comment on her body. But Madison's fingertips were rubbing ever so gently against the fine hairs at the back of her neck. It drove her crazy. She couldn't concentrate enough to find the words to answer him.

"I like you without the hat, though. You've got nice eyes. They used to be bloodshot from the sun, but they look pretty now. Most of the time they're hazel, but they turn pure green when you get angry."

He took a lock of her hair between his fingers.

"I'm surprised you didn't cut your hair. I'd like to see it falling down your back, billowing in the wind."

Fern wasn't about to tell him that her hair was the one feminine attribute she had been unable to part with. She considered it a weakness, and she already had enough weaknesses where he was concerned.

"It would catch in the first tree I pa.s.sed."

"I was thinking of you riding with me, not chasing those poor bull yearlings. Can't you think of anything else?"

"I wasn't thinking of"

"I like it when you smile. It changes your face entirely. You're not meant to frown." Boldly his fingers caressed her neck. Fern wondered how his touch would feel on her bare shoulders.

"You should take your own advice," Fern managed to slip in before he plunged on.

"You've got dimples. I didn't notice them at first." Fern had despised them for years.

"They're cute. They make you look less like a trail boss chewing out a green hand for stampeding the herd."

If he kept on like this, she was going to be sorry she'd asked him anything. She'd never known anyone who could make the things he liked sound so unattractive. At this rate she wouldn't be surprised to hear him say he was glad she looked like a bulldog calf, that he'd been looking for a girl like that for years and couldn't find a single one in Boston to fit his requirements.

"I'm relieved to hear that," she answered, "since all my sympathies would be with the green hand. My experience with Texas drovers has been something less than wonderful."

"You haven't met my brother Monty."

"Rose keeps saying that. She seems to think I would prefer him to you."

She hadn't meant anything by that remarkshe was just repeating what Rose had saidbut it had an electric effect on Madison.

He jerked his hand back as he sat up and pulled away. She felt shock at his withdrawal.

Madison could hardly believe that Fern's idle words would irritate him so much. He had never gotten along with Monty, but until now he'd never felt like strangling him. He didn't care if Rose liked Monty ten times as much as she liked him, but it hurt to think that Fern might prefer his roistering sibling. He had come to think of Fern as belonging to him alone, and he'd tolerate no poaching, not even by long distance.

Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? If you heard anybody else talk like this, you'd take him for a fool.

Maybe so, but he couldn't help the way he felt. Neither could he help the desire that uncurled in him like slow-rising heat.

He'd been intrigued by Fern from the very beginning, but now he felt an overwhelming desire to touch and hold her. For some time he'd been aware of a strong desire to protect her, to help her find some of the happiness she deserved, but now he felt much more.

It hadn't taken many days before the allure of her body had seduced him into forgetting his disapproval of her pants. She had a trim waist, rounded hips, and long slim legs, the image of which had taken up permanent residence in his thoughts and dreams. There was just enough sway in her walk to tantalize any red-blooded male.

He liked the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her lips, the warmth of her body. He found himself dreaming of holding her close, of making love to her, slowly, thoroughly, with satisfying attention to every part of her body.

He no longer saw her as a female who defied custom. Neither did he see her only as a person with whom he felt a strong bond of sympathy. He saw her as a woman who excited his desire, a woman longing to be loved.

But even as he felt tension pull his muscles taut, he held back. Something about the way Fern always kept her distance warned him to proceed with caution. Instinctively he knew that some experience had hurt her badly. In his ignorance, he could hurt her just as badly again. And Madison didn't want to do that. Her life had already given her too much pain and too little pleasure. As much as he would like to make love to her this very minute, he would condemn himself to celibacy before he would hurt her.