Homespun Hearts (50 page)

"You must play for us while we are here," Ben entreated.

"I planned on it," the older man said easily. "Why, I intend to have you two city boys cutting up the rug afore morning."

Esme was stunned and shocked by the direction that the conversation had taken. This was not going to be nearly as difficult as she had thought. If she'd known that lying was so easy, why, she'd have started doing it years ago.

The last of the fish was being separated from the still-warm chafing dish as the conversation turned once again to pisciculture.

Esme rose to retrieve the peach crisp, allowing the twins to continue their concerted attempt to pretend that they knew and were interested in the subject of fish.

Feeling herself relax, Esme began to gain confidence. The gentlemen were not so different from the people in Vader. The twins had made no horrific blunders, and even her father had managed not to make himself a family embarrassment. Cleav seemed quite pleased with her, and she could only sigh a thankful prayer for Sophrona's help.

Passing around the dessert, she began, at last, to get caught up in the conversation.

"Trout need cold running water to live," Theo was explaining. "That's why the ponds must be set up to drain into each other, keeping the temperature and oxygen level adequate."

"Once the fish are raised to fingerlings," Westbrook continued, "they can be let out into the river or transported to areas where trout have not been or are now unavailable."

"It must be hard to move those little fish across country," Adelaide said. "Looks like there would be an easier way."

"Some have tried easier ways," Theo told her. Then, with a teasing glance, he turned to Cleav. "What do you think of the Reverend Dr. Bachman's experiments?"

Cleav's grin was infectious. "I think they worked best in his own imagination."

"What were Reverend Bachman's experiments?" Agrippa asked.

Theo leaned forward slightly to get the pretty young woman more fully in his line of vision.

"The gentleman from South Carolina insisted that he managed to fertilize eggs that were kept dry for ten days and actually produced offspring."

At the twins' puzzled expression, Cleav explained. "A trout egg can't live more than a few hours without water. Still, Dr. Bachman assures us that he managed to fertilize dead eggs."

"Don't you have to have fish to make fish?" Adelaide asked Mr. Westbrook, her eyes wide open with sweet innocence.

"Of course you need fish to make fish," Esme answered the foolish young woman easily. "Cleav uses a natural method of propagation, but many trout breeders simply strip the ripe females of their eggs, throw them in a pan, and then cover them with milt."

"Milt?" Agrippa asked curiously. "What in heaven's name is milt?"

"Milt is the stuff that comes from the male fish," Esme explained easily. "It's like the man's—"

Stopping abruptly in midsentence, Esme glanced in horror around the table. Pa was staring at her curiously. The twins looked puzzled. Eula Rhy's expression was sympathetic. Theodatus Simmons sat stone still, his mouth hanging open in shock, and Ben Westbrook seemed ready to choke on the spoon that was frozen in his mouth.

Finally her eyes met Cleav's. As her final humiliation, her husband looked ready to burst out laughing.

"I . . . I . . ." Esme struggled valiantly for a way to save her disgrace but failed miserably. Giving in to tears, wordlessly she fled the room.

Down the hall, out the back door, Esme had to get away.

She was running to the hills. She had never run from humiliation, but she was running now. She was running and she was never coming back. She had embarrassed herself. That she could stand. But she had shamed her husband. He deserved better. She was going to keep right on running forever more.

A strong brown arm encircled her waist, capturing her before she made it past the azalea bushes.

"Esme, Esme," he whispered, pulling her against his chest. "Don't cry, Hillbaby, it wasn't that bad."

"I'm so ashamed," Esme managed to choke out before she buried her face in the warm, familiar shirtfront of the man she loved.

"You shouldn't be ashamed," Cleav told her, rocking her slightly back and forth. "Embarrassed, maybe a little, but never ashamed. When we're talking about fish breeding, it's hard to remember to be delicate."

"I'm so sorry, Cleav," she moaned. "I'm so sorry."

"What in the world are you sorry for? A few silly words aren't anything to make a fuss about."

"I'm not just sorry for that," Esme admitted. "I'm sorry for all of it. I'm sorry that you had to marry me. I'm sorry that I'm not the wife that you needed. I'm sorry that I'm not the woman that you wanted."

"The woman that I wanted?" Cleav held his wife at arm's length and looked down at her.

"Esme, my sweet Hillbaby," he said softly, "you are the woman that I wanted. The only woman that I've really ever wanted."

Esme shook her head.

"I don't mean that way," she insisted. "I know you want me that way. I mean the woman that you wanted for a wife."

"You are the woman I want for my wife," he said firmly. "I want you that way and every way."

Clasping his hand under her chin, he raised her face to look at him. "I love you, Esme Rhy."

"Don't joke about such a thing," she admonished him as another tear sneaked out of the corner of her eye. "It may be just funning to you, but a gal can take such a declaration plumb serious."

"I mean it 'plumb serious,' " Cleav replied. "I've never said it before because I didn't think that you loved me back."

"Loved you back?" Esme looked confused. "You know I love you, I've never made a secret of it."

"You did make a secret of it. A secret that got out of the bag tonight."

Esme looked puzzled.

"You said you married me to get this house," he reminded her.

"This house?" she asked, not quite recalling the conversation.

"Yes," he insisted. "You said you wanted to marry me to get this house for your family."

"Well, sure I wanted this house for my family," Esme tried to explain. "But I wanted you just for myself. I was downright selfish about it. I didn't think about Pa or the twins, or even poor Sophrona, your sweetheart. I didn't even care about your feelings. I just loved you so much, I said I was going to have you by hook or by crook."

"By hook or by crook?" Cleav repeated, a smile stretching across his face. "Or by garters."

"Cleavis!" Esme protested. "How could you believe that I married you for your house?"

"I don't anymore," he said. "When I saw you this evening, my proud, imposing Esme, who knows she's just as good as everybody else, trying to hide her light under a bushel of meaningless manners, I knew you loved me."

Reaching for her, he pressed her tightly against his shirt as if he wanted to fuse her self with his own. "Nothing but real, true love could have made you humble yourself."

"I am humble! I failed you," Esme whispered against his chest. "I've embarrassed you in front of your friends. I know how much their opinion matters to you."

Cleav shook his head. "No, you don't, Esme," he said. "Because it doesn't matter. You love me for myself. That's a hundred times more fulfilling than having the whole world love me for something I can pretend to be."

"Oh, Cleav," Esme wailed. "You deserve to have a lady, a real lady."

Cleav smoothed her brow with one long finger.

"I have a lady, Mrs. Rhy," he whispered. "I have you."

"I'm no lady! You saw that tonight."

"You are a lady, and you always have been. I saw that one morning in church."

"In church?"

"The day they gave your family that charity basket," he said. "We humiliated you. But you never cowered or cried or hid your face. You raised your chin and just looked right past us. You knew you were as good as anybody. And you've taught me that I am, too."

His lips found hers, and he tasted her gently.

"All this to-do about being civilized and proper," he said. "It's kept me in a stew for too many years. Finery and genteel conversation don't make us ladies or gentlemen. City folks have their ways and we have ours. When we try to be what we're not, we only shame ourselves."

"You mean you want me to be just Esme Crabb?"

Cleav smiled. "I want you to be Esme Rhy," he said. "I want you to be the lady that I love."

He kissed her then, and the sweetness was such that Esme couldn't let it go. She answered his lips with urgent exploration of her own.

Their bodies strained against each other in passion both remembered and renewed. Esme felt the now familiar warmth melting her loins, and she eagerly squirmed to meld that fire against the evidence of his response.

"I love you," Cleav whispered. "I've wanted to tell you that every day, every time I've touched you. I've wanted to say it and now I can't stop."

"I love you, Cleav," Esme answered. "I don't know if it was that first day in the store or later when I got to know you. But I couldn't live without you, and I would have done anything to keep you, to help you, to make you happy."

"Even pretend to be something you are not," Cleav said accurately.

"I'd swim like a fish if it was what you wanted," she declared.

Cleav's smile was naughty. "Swimming was not quite what I had in mind," he said. "But if I take you upstairs, will you promise to wiggle like a trout out of water?"

Esme giggled and then shook her head reprovingly. "Only if you promise to give me another of those no-hands fish looks."

"Can't promise that, ma'am," he answered. "Tonight I'm planning to put these hands all over you."

"Well," Esme suggested. "How about prissy talk? Can I expect some of that at least?"

"My dear Mrs. Rhy, I vow to eloquate with such magnificence that you will find yourself incapable of resisting supine repose for the remainder of the evening."

"Mmmm," she replied appreciatively.

Cleav grasped her hand, and they hurried to the house like eager children.

"Wait." Esme hesitated at the doorway. "Can we go upstairs?" she asked him. "We have guests in the house."

"Mrs. Rhy," he said smoothly. "In this house you make up the rules of etiquette. What do you deem proper?"

Esme was thoughtful for only a moment.

"Our guests might be scandalized," she told him. "And I always try to keep a watchful eye on Pa and the twins."

Cleav acquiesced easily. "Whatever you think, Mrs. Rhy."

Esme's thoughtful expression slowly became a confident grin. "But I think I've been taking too much care of my family," she said. "It's time that Pa and the girls start facing the world all on their own."

"Now, that's a very good idea," Cleav said.

"And your gentlemen friends from up north should really get some opportunity to find out about real Tennessee people."

Cleav nodded. "So we go straight upstairs?"

As if suddenly remembering what happened, Esme sighed in dismay. "No, after making such a fool of myself, I'd better go back in there and face them tonight."

Cleav placed a strong arm around her waist and grinned at her.

"Just stick close to me, Mrs. Rhy," he said. "It's a husband's right to rescue his wife from social blunders."

"Who made that rule?"

"I did," he replied easily.

Esme walked nervously beside her husband as they entered the house. The company had left the dining room for the informality of the back parlor, and she could hear Pa fiddling a happy tune.

Reaching the doorway, she saw the twins gleefully instructing the gentlemen from up north on the proper steps of mountain clogging. There was much laughter and clapping, and the two somewhat bookish gentlemen were clearly having the time of their lives.

"Excuse us," Cleav interrupted their revelry.

Every eye focused on them, and Esme felt her courage drifting away. Only the strength of Cleav's arm kept her beside him.

"My wife and I would like to apologize for our abrupt departure from dinner," Cleav began civilly.

"Quite all right," Theo said eagerly.

"We're perfectly fine," Ben insisted.

"Wonderful," Cleav replied with a pleasant smile. "Do go on and enjoy yourselves," he said. "Mrs. Rhy and I must retire early, it seems."

Esme glanced up at her husband in surprise.

Cleav smiled at her before he said calmly, "You may find this difficult to believe, but my wife and I have both suddenly developed an unprecedented infestation of fleas."