All the Trees in Pearl by Emily Ryan-Davis

Author:Emily Ryan-Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2008-03-20T19:56:14+00:00

Chapter Four

Ethan left long before the sun came up. Margaret remembered his exit hazily. A blanket drawn up over her shoulders. A caress from the nape of her neck to the backs of her thighs. She flushed now as she brushed and plaited her hair—she’d asked him not to go.

“I’ll be back,” he promised. “Have some things to do.” He’d kissed her cheek and locked the door behind him. The key was still on the floor where he’d slid it under so she could use it later if she wanted.

Where would she go? More important, where could she go and not encounter the facial evidence that the entire town knew of her hasty marriage to and endless night of fornication with a veritable stranger? No matter. She had to leave the small room.

The scents of her and Ethan’s lust did nothing to ease the hunger. It didn’t matter where she went—she had to escape the room. She didn’t pause to exchange greetings with the boarding house’s owner. The allure of fresh, rain-clean morning air lent her feet wings.

The rain had come sometime between the moment she collapsed upon Ethan and the narrow predawn hour that woke him. In turn he had woken her with that tender lover’s kiss. The kiss remained a puzzle. Wives deserved that kind of intimate farewell.

She wasn’t a proper wife.

“Miss Margaret?”

The woman’s voice jerked Margaret into the present. She stared mutely at the oval face turned toward her—a stranger. Manners overcame her surprise and she nodded acknowledgement.

The other woman tsked. “That boy’s a fool.”

31

Emily Ryan-Davis

Margaret flinched. Gossip, she expected. This bluntness filled her with a new breed of shame. She glanced away. “Excuse me, I—”

“Oh—forgive me—I didn’t—”

She couldn’t bring herself to lift her head as she muttered, “I’m late for an appointment,” and tried to edge past the stranger in the narrow channel between her skirt and a muddy puddle.

“Please wait!” A small, work-rough hand clasped Margaret’s elbow. She stared at the red knuckles and ragged nails and hid her own soft fingers in her palms. Why had she ever believed a life out West would suit her?

“I didn’t mean that as it sounded! James was a dear friend—I only meant to say that you would’ve pleased him. You’re so beautiful.”

A headache snuck between Margaret’s eyes. “I wish I had known him,” she said, unsure whether she meant it. She wanted to know the man portrayed in the letters she received, written by James, signed Ethan. The confusion of identities left her bemused and unsure of her own judgment. What if James had not left? If he’d been waiting, ready to greet her upon her arrival? Would she have wanted him as strongly as she wanted Ethan?

She brought her head up and fixed the brunette with a small, false smile. A sudden need to see what would have been her home—to learn something of the man who penned the letters—prompted her to ask, “Can you show me where he lived, Miss…?”

“Call me Darla. My husband’s a Swede—I can barely pronounce my own married name.

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