The Farmer Takes a Wife by Genevieve Turner

Author:Genevieve Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER SEVEN

The pain was worse than Laura had thought it would be.

Marcus’s face when she’d said no—that tight, pale mask of shock and hurt—refused to leave her mind’s eye, appearing at unguarded moments as if summoned by an evil spirit.

Now, twenty minutes after she’d insisted he take her home, she was scrubbing at the kitchen counter with all her might, grimly enjoying the ache in her arms, the tightness in her belly.

She and Marcus had walked back in the most absolute, terrible silence. As soon as she’d seen the familiar façade of the mercantile, she’d run for its promised safety as if a pack of dogs were on her heels rather than one rejected suitor.

She’d dashed past them all—her brother, Rose, her parents, ignoring their stares, their calls to her, and fled until she reached the kitchen and could go no farther. Then she began to scrub, heedless of her Sunday best, needing only to keep her hands busy.

But his face kept appearing, despite her attempts to scour it away.

The steady, heavy thud of steps came down the hall—Frank, heading toward the kitchen. She kept her head down, eyes fixed on the counter, mouth tight.

The toes of her brother’s black shoes came into her line of sight, all that she could see of him, all that she wanted to see of him. She concentrated very hard on ignoring those shoes—the shoes of a shopkeeper—in her periphery.

She didn’t have to speak if she didn’t want to.

The silence stretched out, broken only by the skritch-skritch of her rag against the counter.

“Did something happen?” Frank finally asked.

“I don’t wish to talk about it, Francis.” She rubbed violently at a speck that had been on the counter for years.

“Did Marcus—?”

“Yes, he did,” she gritted out between swipes, “and I told him no.”

That Frank—her own brother, of all people—had known all along what Marcus was planning and had even encouraged him… It added the bitter taste of betrayal to the anger souring within her.

“I see.”

“No, you don’t,” she snapped. That blasted speck wouldn’t budge. “And I said I didn’t wish to speak of it.”

The toe of that black shoe remained right where it was, unmoving. She had a sudden vision of smashing it with her heel. And then a cloud of despair broke upon her, that she should think such unkind thoughts about her own brother.

That toe disappeared after a time, its owner moving away back down the hall, even as she kept at her scrubbing. She wished she could wash away her rage and anguish with each swipe of the rag. Wished she could wash away her entire life, really.

But the hurt, the anguish, wouldn’t disappear.

After that Sunday, the Kemper household settled into an even deeper gloom. Frank continually threw her the queerest glances while Rose looked guilty, of all things. And of course her mother continued with her usual rain of complaints, never even suspecting the victory she’d won when Laura had refused her first and likely only marriage proposal.

As for herself, she

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