alley, and held his handsome new suit coat over her head like a canopy. His shirt was saturated, front and back, revealing the splendid masculine chest beneath, and Emmeline felt yet another surge of heat.
How on earth was a woman to keep to the straight and narrow, she asked herself, when she was faced with subtle temptations at every turn?
Perhaps, she reflected bitterly, Reverend Bickham had been right, after all, in aiming that blistering sermon of warning directly at her. She could not deny, to herself at least, that she harbored wanton thoughts.
Emmeline allowed Gil to escort her all the way to the mud porch of the judge’s house, where they stood under the slanting shingle roof, staring at each other, drenched and dripping. Gil had gotten the worst of it, of course, since he’d used his coat as an umbrella for Emmeline.
“You shouldn’t have followed me here,” she said, lamenting the muddy splotches lining the hem of her good brown dress. “I lost my temper and made a fool of myself by storming out that way, but there was no need for you to join in as well. The gossip will be even worse than before.”
A smile lurked in Gil’s blue eyes as he shook out his coat and hung it on the peg next to the one that supported Emmeline’s bathtub. Then he reached out, bold as you please, peeled the sodden bonnet off her head, and set it on the bench beside the back door. “Gossip has its season,” he said, “like everything else. Sooner or later, the good people of Plentiful will turn their busy tongues to some other subject.”
“You only say that because you’re a man,” Emmeline responded, wiping her shoes before proceeding into the kitchen to put a kettle on to boil. “Men don’t mind what folkssay about them. In fact, something like this can only improve your reputation. For a woman, things are quite different.”
Gil drew a chair from the kitchen table, turned it around, and sat astraddle of it, with his arms folded on the back. Even wet through to the skin, with his hair plastered to his head, he was at ease. He’d always had a gift for living in the moment, and it seemed he’d perfected that during his years of alleged captivity.
“What do you suppose folks are saying about us, right this minute?” he asked in a teasing voice.
Emmeline got the yellow crockery teapot down from a shelf, dumped in two scoops of loose-leaf orange pekoe, and leveled a frown at him. “It’s not what they’re saying,” she pointed out coolly. “After all, they wouldn’t dare speak of such things in Reverend Bickham’s presence, lest they get themselves a sermon of their very own. No, Mr. Hartwell, it’s what they’re thinking that mortifies me to the bone!”
“And what are they thinking?”
Emmeline flushed; it was a flaw she had often attempted to overcome, without significant success. “That by now you’ve ripped my clothes off—and your own, of course—and we’re rolling about on the kitchen floor, our two bodies entwined in passion.”
Gil’s eyes twinkled, and he grinned that slight, one-sided grin of his. “Miss Emmeline!” he scolded, and then made a tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. “I’m surprised at you, crediting the townsfolk with an image like that when you so obviously conceived it all by yourself.”
Emmeline went crimson and whirled away to shove wadded newspaper and bits of kindling into the cookstove. The cast-iron lid clanked in a satisfying fashion when she slammed it into place. “Did you follow me home just so you could torment me?” she demanded, and it was only after several deep breaths that she trusted herself to turn and speakto the man who was—and at the same time wasn’t—her husband.
Elbows resting on the table, fingers steepled under his chin, Gil regarded her with both amusement and something else, something that kindled a flame deep down inside Emmeline, even as the fire caught and then blazed, crackling and fragrant, inside the stove. “No, ma’am,” he
How on earth was a woman to keep to the straight and narrow, she asked herself, when she was faced with subtle temptations at every turn?
Perhaps, she reflected bitterly, Reverend Bickham had been right, after all, in aiming that blistering sermon of warning directly at her. She could not deny, to herself at least, that she harbored wanton thoughts.
Emmeline allowed Gil to escort her all the way to the mud porch of the judge’s house, where they stood under the slanting shingle roof, staring at each other, drenched and dripping. Gil had gotten the worst of it, of course, since he’d used his coat as an umbrella for Emmeline.
“You shouldn’t have followed me here,” she said, lamenting the muddy splotches lining the hem of her good brown dress. “I lost my temper and made a fool of myself by storming out that way, but there was no need for you to join in as well. The gossip will be even worse than before.”
A smile lurked in Gil’s blue eyes as he shook out his coat and hung it on the peg next to the one that supported Emmeline’s bathtub. Then he reached out, bold as you please, peeled the sodden bonnet off her head, and set it on the bench beside the back door. “Gossip has its season,” he said, “like everything else. Sooner or later, the good people of Plentiful will turn their busy tongues to some other subject.”
“You only say that because you’re a man,” Emmeline responded, wiping her shoes before proceeding into the kitchen to put a kettle on to boil. “Men don’t mind what folkssay about them. In fact, something like this can only improve your reputation. For a woman, things are quite different.”
Gil drew a chair from the kitchen table, turned it around, and sat astraddle of it, with his arms folded on the back. Even wet through to the skin, with his hair plastered to his head, he was at ease. He’d always had a gift for living in the moment, and it seemed he’d perfected that during his years of alleged captivity.
“What do you suppose folks are saying about us, right this minute?” he asked in a teasing voice.
Emmeline got the yellow crockery teapot down from a shelf, dumped in two scoops of loose-leaf orange pekoe, and leveled a frown at him. “It’s not what they’re saying,” she pointed out coolly. “After all, they wouldn’t dare speak of such things in Reverend Bickham’s presence, lest they get themselves a sermon of their very own. No, Mr. Hartwell, it’s what they’re thinking that mortifies me to the bone!”
“And what are they thinking?”
Emmeline flushed; it was a flaw she had often attempted to overcome, without significant success. “That by now you’ve ripped my clothes off—and your own, of course—and we’re rolling about on the kitchen floor, our two bodies entwined in passion.”
Gil’s eyes twinkled, and he grinned that slight, one-sided grin of his. “Miss Emmeline!” he scolded, and then made a tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. “I’m surprised at you, crediting the townsfolk with an image like that when you so obviously conceived it all by yourself.”
Emmeline went crimson and whirled away to shove wadded newspaper and bits of kindling into the cookstove. The cast-iron lid clanked in a satisfying fashion when she slammed it into place. “Did you follow me home just so you could torment me?” she demanded, and it was only after several deep breaths that she trusted herself to turn and speakto the man who was—and at the same time wasn’t—her husband.
Elbows resting on the table, fingers steepled under his chin, Gil regarded her with both amusement and something else, something that kindled a flame deep down inside Emmeline, even as the fire caught and then blazed, crackling and fragrant, inside the stove. “No, ma’am,” he
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