“And are you planning to take me with you?”
“Ain’t no reason for you to go. It’s just business, Camellia.”
“I see.” Ice floes from the North Atlantic could have been no colder than her tone, her expression, or her attitude. “One day after we were married, you now plan on deserting me.”
“No such thing, so stop fussin’. I’ll prob’ly only be gone about a week—plentya time for you to settle in here, make some friends, get to feelin’ comfortable with things. The house might not be to your design, so you can make whatever changes you want. Some new—”
“Do not, I beg you, try to fob me off with petty little things that ought to occupy my time!”
“Sssshhh!” As the tenor of her voice had heightened, he glanced furtively around. Hard telling which neighbor might be eavesdropping on a conversation that should be kept private! Clearly disclosing his plan now, at this precise moment, had been a great mistake. “We can talk some—”
“Benjamin,” she hissed in rising anger, as he hauled on the reins to halt their horse. “Do you realize how that will look? Do you realize the gossip I will have to face? Do you realize what you are leaving me to deal with, on my own?”
Given the tightening of mouth and narrowing of eyes, his temper was sparking to match hers. “You’re makin’ a mountain out of a molehill, ma’am. This is business, nothin’ more, and I’m used to takin’ care of it myself, without no woman trailin’ along. The timin’ may be off a bit, but—”
“You’re running away.”
Flinging aside the reins, he climbed to the ground and stalked around to reach for her hand. Which she furiously pulled away. “C’mon, I’ll help you down.”
“I’ll help myself down, thank you very much. Kindly move aside.”
“Aw, Camellia, don’t be hard-nosed. Just take—”
“I said, move aside!” she snapped at him.
Proving the strength of her words, she grabbed her skirt and all her accessories and, holding onto the rail, swung carefully onto the step and thence to the packed earth below. With only the tiniest of hesitations, the tiniest of stumbles. Chin in the air, she sashayed to the front porch and inside the house without a backward glance.
“Oh, fire and brimstone,” he muttered.
Beating his hat against one thigh in what might have been frustration, he stared at the closed door for a long soundless few minutes. The horse, switching his tail at several bothersome flies, sent an inquiring look sideways. Well, are we going to do this, or not? I’m ready for my afternoon nap.
Ben felt irritated beyond measure. Married barely twenty-four hours, and already at loggerheads. A standoff that could end up nearly as bloody as one of the lesser battles of Tennessee, or Georgia. This did not bode well for the future. Wasn’t his wife supposed to obey him? Intelligent or not, shouldn’t she keep some of those opinions to herself—especially when they related to his own behavior? Stars above, she ought to have enough respect for her husband, especially when they were so new to each other, to keep quiet. She ought to follow his guidance!
And that made him mad all over again.
The quarrel had blown up out of nowhere, fierce and engulfing as a summer storm. Pray Heaven it might blow away just as quickly, without any damage left behind.
A light slap on Balaam’s rump dispatched a small cloud of dust and horsehair.
“All right, boy. Let’s get you back to the stable. At least one of us might’s well have themselves a peaceful few hours.”
Chapter Ten
“I TRULY BELIEVE, IF she’d held a Colt .44 in her hand, and known how to fire it, I’d be a dead man, right now.” Ben’s aggrieved pronouncement was made in low tones to an attentive Gabriel Havers, in the farthest corner of the area to which they had retired.
“That hot under the collar, eh?” The doctor clucked his tongue and shook his head, both at the same time. An admirable talent. “Reckon you’re lucky that you’re still standin’ upright, then, insteada bein’ measured for your coffin. That girl does seem a feisty one.”
“How could I have gone so far wrong? We’ve been married one day. One blasted day! And I couldn’t feel less married than—well, than ol’ Balaam, that I rented this mawnin’ from the stable!” Ben took a long hard swallow of whatever kind of bootleg bourbon resided in his glass.
Gabe snorted, not unsympathetically. “Must be some kinda world record, I would say.”
From returning the horse and buggy to Norton’s Livery, the hapless newlywed had wandered to his own mercantile, dolefully unlocking the door and sneaking inside, only to potter from this to that to the other. Finally, putting away what he had disturbed, and writing out a few last-minute instructions for his capable assistant manager, he had locked the door again and taken himself over to the Sarsaparilla for an early supper. It was a fair bet that there was no way on God’s green earth he would get a meal from Camellia tonight. No matter how poor a cook she might be.
Fortunately the Café provided not only a hearty bill of fare but also liquor, in unending supply.
It was with a plate full of good hot beef stew and a half-empty bottle that Gabriel, stopping by to reward himself after attending to a difficult labor on one of the neighboring farms, found him.
“Man, you look like you lost your best friend,” he observed. “And since, to my knowledge, it is me, myself, and I who serve as your best friend, I know that ain’t true. What’re you doin’ here, when you got a wife at—”