“Good morning,” she said in a cool, remote voice, with no enthusiasm or laughter in it.
Taylor put his paper down and looked at her as she seated herself beside him. The maid appeared with a poached egg and a dry piece of toast. Taylor waved it away. “Bring Miss Caulden bacon and scrambled eggs and biscuits with butter and honey. Tea or coffee?” he asked Amanda.
“T-tea,” she managed to say.
When the maid was gone, Taylor looked at Amanda. “I believe we need to talk.”
For some reason, Amanda felt a forboding about what was coming. She wanted to postpone hearing what he had to say. “I need to get to the Union Hall. The people will be arriving and I need to talk to them. By our calculation there are sixteen languages spoken. I really don’t know too many of them, but sometimes we can find one person who speaks a language I do know and we can tell the person about the union. Sometimes it’s almost humorous. It will take as many as five of us to reach a man who speaks, say, some Chinese dialect. It’s really very interesting, and I’m needed—”
Taylor put his hand over hers. “Amanda, I love you.”
“Oh,” Amanda said. “Oh.”
He removed his hand when the maid placed the heaping plate of food before her. Amanda began to eat, but the flavor of the food made her think of Dr. Montgomery. Usually, when she was eating delicious food, she was with him. Dry, tasteless food was what she ate when she was with Taylor.
Taylor started talking again when they were alone. “I don’t think I’ve done very well in changing from being your teacher to being a suitor. There are things in life that are difficult for me, and one of them is expressing my feelings.”
She could see how difficult this was for him, and part of her wanted to tell him not to express himself. She wished she could get away and go to the Union Hall, then to the carnival tonight. Please, she prayed, don’t let anything ruin the carnival tonight.
“I was awake all night,” he said. “I heard you come in.”
Who didn’t? she thought.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to be told what kept you out so late last night, but I can’t help but feel that some of it is my fault. I don’t know if you realize that the reason I have kept you under such strict discipline is because I have been afraid of losing you. I know you believe the ranch has a great deal to do with why I asked you to marry me and, to be honest, financial security is important to me, but I asked you to marry me because I love you.”
He looked at her, and his dark eyes that Amanda had always feared were full of hurt and pain. “You have given me back my faith in women, Amanda. My mother—” He stopped and turned his head away.
Her eyes widened. Amanda knew nothing about his family. “Your mother?” she asked softly.
He looked back at her, and Amanda thought perhaps she saw tears in his eyes. She put her hand over his.
“My mother betrayed me, and I thought all women were like her, but you’re not, Amanda. You’re good and kind, and I…I have treated you abominably.”
“No you haven’t,” she protested, squeezing his hand. “You have taught me so much. I am probably the best educated female in America.”
He gave her a grateful little smile. “Then you don’t hate me?”
“Hate you? Of course not. We’re engaged to be married, remember?” She started to hold up her ring to show him, but she’d left it upstairs again.
His smile broadened. “Amanda, I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t really know much about courting, but I’m going to try. From now on you’re not my pupil and I’m not your teacher. No more schedules; no more lessons. We’ll just do what other engaged couples do. Amanda, I want us to be happy.”
So why aren’t I happy? Amanda thought. Why do I want to run into my room and cry for about four years? “Th-that sounds wonderful,” she said.
“You don’t look very happy,” he said teasingly. “Maybe you need some proof.” He turned in his chair and patted his knee. “Come sit on my lap.”
Horror was the only word to describe what Amanda felt at his suggestion.
“Don’t look so shocked, Amanda. It’s a perfectly proper thing for an engaged couple to do.”
Stiffly, she stood, and he reached out his hands and pulled her onto his lap.
“Now, doesn’t that feel nice? Amanda, you really are beautiful.” His hands went up her arms and he began trying to pull her toward him to kiss her.
Images were going through Amanda’s head: She was sitting on Hank’s lap in the cleaning closet. “I guess I would kiss him,” she’d said. “No,” Hank had answered, “start subtly. Kiss my neck, unbutton my shirt, put your hands in my hair.”
Taylor kissed her, but nothing about the kiss made her relax at all.
He pulled away and looked amused. “I can see it’s going to take some time. Amanda, I know that you’d probably prefer to be in your room studying, but there’s more to life than books. After we’re married, there are certain duties a wife performs for her husband. Not duties, exactly, but I do believe you could come to enjoy what happens between a man and a woman.”