The Marriage Bed (9 page)

"You think you're all grown up and I'm not? All you are is old. I've been raising two children since my mama died. All you know how to do is make them cry."

Well, Livvy thought, good start. Both of the girls hated her, and Neil hated Spencer.

Spencer, meanwhile, was making his way out of the bedroom carrying several blankets and pillows, which he threw down onto the couch. "You'll have to make do for tonight," he said. He turned on his heel and apparently noticed Remy. "What are you still doing here?" he asked.

"I got the crate Livvy wanted," Remy said defensively. Then in a whisper he added, "And the book."

"What book?" He opened the door and gestured for Remy to precede him outside.

"You know," Remy said. "The one by that doctor fellow. To help you. You know."

"Jeez," Spencer said loud enough for everyone in the house to hear him even though he and Remy were halfway to the wagon. "Does it look to you like I need any more children in that house? Let's just get the damn crate in so I can get to bed."

"Who wants some tea?" Livvy asked in as cheerful a voice as she could muster. "And I've some plum pie." Finally, she thought, someone to eat the desserts she kept making as if they could make her life sweet.

"What do you say?" Julian said, slapping the top of Neil's head when the boy stood sullen and silent. His eyes shined brighter, but he didn't cry.

"No thank you, ma'am," he said quietly.

"You can call me Aunt Liv." She tried to cup his chin, but he backed away just enough to avoid her contact.

"And what should we call him?" the boy asked, gesturing toward the door. "Uncle Die?"

Spencer stood in the doorway, staring at the boy. There was something in his hand, a stone perhaps, and the child ran his thumb back and forth over it like a whittler smoothing a piece of wood. He stood defiantly staring at Spencer, who noticed that the buttons on his jacket pulled and the sleeves were a good two inches too short for his arms. He could just hear Kirsten saying how Peter seemed to outgrow things on the way home from Zephin's Mercantile. , Without bothering to answer the boy, who obviously hadn't meant to be overheard anyway, Spencer headed for the high cabinet in the kitchen, feeling Livvy's eyes on him the whole way. She couldn't really expect him to get through this without a drink, could she?

"Spencer?"

She could.

His fingers were looped around the little metal door handle.

"Spence?"

He let his hand drop to his side and turned to face his wife. She looked more in need of a drink than he felt. Her face was covered with blotches of red skin where the ice had been pressed against her, there was dried blood like a mustache above her lip, and her bodice was splattered with deep red dots.

"Come by the sink, Liv. I'll warm a little water and clean you up."

She raised a hand to cover her face, scurrying to the sink and reaching for a cloth to see to the mess herself.

He grabbed the wet rag from her hand and tilted her face toward the lantern. "I said I'll do it," he said through gritted teeth as he examined her bruised nose. He looked over at Neil, noticed the thumb still rubbing away at the stone, and tried to catch his eye. The boy just looked at the floor, so Spencer spoke, more gruffly somehow, than he intended. "Bring a chair over here, boy. Make yourself useful."

The boy was quick to obey, lifting the chair with difficulty and placing it just behind his aunt so that all Spencer had to do was ease her down and tilt her head back. The boy continued to stand behind the chair as if waiting for further instructions.

"The kettle's still hot. Maybe you could put a little hot water on a clean towel and then add some cold till it's not too hot for your Aunt Liv's face."

The boy jumped to obey.

"He's a good boy," Julian said, reminding Spencer he was there. "Not much appreciation for the finer things in life, but he'll learn."

"Jeez," Spencer said. "The finer things, huh? Well, you "always appreciated the
finer things
, didn't you, Bouche? And you always wanted them now." He grabbed the cloth from Neil's hands and waved it once in the air to cool it down a little more. "Perfect. Now just be patient with me, Livvy. It's been a while since I washed a dirty face other than my own,"

He cupped her chin, tilting her head back, and gently patted her nose, easing up when he saw the pain in her face.

"Sorry."

She smiled up at him, her wet face glistening in the lamplight and he quickly looked away. What had happened to his resolve not to touch her any more? God, her skin was soft.

"Where's that little one?" he barked, looking for the child who had tried to put his wife's nose right through her bun. With a deftness that seemed borne of habit, Louisa slipped the little child behind her skirts.

"If you were thinking of hitting her," Louisa began, sounding at least twice her twelve or so years, "you can—"

"What I was thinking, Miss Louisa, was that she ought to take a good close look at what she did to her aunt here, and maybe she'll be a little slower to raise her fist again. Maybe a good closeup look at her aunt's pain is all she needs to show her the error of her ways."

Louisa's mouth dropped open slightly, making a small O. Her little brows knit together and then she pulled the child from behind her back with a firm hand. "Go see what you did, Josie. And mind, he's cleaned her up. She looked even more awful before."

Josie made her way to Livvy, one finger in her mouth. Her chin was stuck out as if she didn't care what she'd done, or what she was about to see, but her squinted eyes gave her away.

After one look, Spencer was convinced that Josephina Bouche had learned her lesson about hitting people in the nose. He wondered where she would strike next.

"Well, it's getting late," Julian said, looking around the room. "And as you said, you're not quite prepared for overnight guests."

"We weren't expecting you so soon," Livvy said, trying to smile without moving any part of her face but her lips. Spencer reached for the handle of the high cupboard, this time ignoring the narrowed eyes with which Livvy was watching him. Instead of the whiskey, he pulled down a bottle of Port and poured her a small wineglass.

Handing it to her, he said, "It'll ease the pain some."

She raised one of those fine dark eyebrows at him in doubt, and he knew she was reading more into his words than he intended, but he let it go. His drinking habits were no concern of Julian Bouche's and his children.

"Well," Louisa said, tapping her chin with her forefinger as she assessed the room. "Papa and I can sleep on the couch and the children can sleep on the floor."

The sofa was small. In fact, it was really a tê
te-à-t
ê
te, but Kirsten had been so taken with the picture in the Sears' catalog that they'd ignored the fine print. The backs of each piece of furniture in the parlor suite had reminded her of hearts and so he'd ordered it in the crushed plush for what had seemed like a bargain price of $25.50. When it had arrived there seemed to be barely room for the two of them on it, but Kirsten was small enough to fit next to him, and if they had to squeeze, so much the better. He couldn't recall ever sitting on it with Livvy.

The thought of Julian Bouche and his daughter cuddled on the couch turned Spencer's stomach. He exchanged a look with Livvy and then watched as Louisa expertly covered the small sofa with a quilt and placed a pillow at one end.

"You'll sleep with the baby on the couch," he announced when he could finally find his voice. "Josie on the inside so she doesn't fall off. Bouche, you and the boy'll sleep in the barn."

Neil picked up a blanket from the pile Spencer had carried out from the bedroom and headed for the door. "You got cows in there? Or sheep or anything good like that?"

Bouche eyed the couch and studied his daughter's face. Spencer thought he saw the man shake his head at Louisa, but he wasn't sure.

"Maybe you wanna help the girls get outta their traveling clothes, Liv," he said, giving her a hand to help her up from the chair.

"Papa can help us," Louisa said. "He gets my buttons and I undress the baby."

Bouche cleared his throat. "One makes do, Louisa, with what one has at hand. Now that Aunt Olivia is available, she can assist you."

Spencer picked up a blanket, the thinnest one on the pile, and thrust it at his brother-in-law.

"It hasn't been easy since Marion died," Julian said to Livvy as he took the woolen cloth from Spencer and headed for the door. "But we've managed."

They stood and watched the door close behind Julian Bouche, each with thoughts of his own. For Spencer's part, he had a lot of questions, and he had a strong feeling in his gut that he didn't want to know the answers. He searched Livvy's face, wondering if her mind had gone down the same depraved path his was wandering.

"Can I help you two get ready for bed?" she asked as she cautiously neared the little hellion who had bashed her pretty face.

"I'll see to Josie," Louisa said sharply, grabbing Josie's arm and shepherding her toward the couch.

"Well then," Olivia said, trying as always to hide her hurt. "How about you? Can I get those buttons for you?"

"It's not necessary," Louisa said with the same highhanded tone with which she said everything else. Spencer balled his fists and shoved them in his pockets to keep himself from smacking her across the face for the way she was treating her aunt. Didn't she realize Olivia was only trying to help?

"Good night, then," Olivia said, her voice a little weak. "If you need anything ..."

Louisa opened her mouth, but Spencer didn't need to hear her say the words to know her response was "We won't."

"Come, Aunt Olivia," he said solicitously, trying to set an example for how the children ought to treat a woman of Olivia's good mind and heart. "We best get you settled for the night. It's been quite a day."

He put his arm under her elbow and guided her into their room.

"They hate us," she said after he shut the door. Undoubtedly she was right.

"Of course they don't hate us," he said anyway. "They're children. They've lost their mama and they've been dragged from their home. And all the security they've got is that poor excuse for a father that's bedding down with the pigs where he belongs."

She had slipped behind the screen where pieces of her wardrobe were gathering over the top. She stuck her head out and shook it at him. "Spencer, that's my sister's husband you're talking about, the children's father . . . "

"Yeah, well, he'd do well to remember both those facts. Seems to me he's the one that needs reminding." He sat down on the edge of the bed and began unlacing his boots. He could sense his wife's movements behind the screen and couldn't suppress a smile when he saw her frilly white chemise come up over the top, slide down, and get tossed back up a second and then a third time.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked finally, peering around the screen to look at him in complete innocence. He could see one bare shoulder and found himself leaning so far over to see what else she was hiding that he nearly fell off the bed.

"Well," he said as calmly as he could under the circumstances, "didn't it strike you as odd when the girl suggested she and Bouche sleep together on the tête-à-tête?"

"You mean because it's so small?" she asked, and the nightdress that hung on the edge of the screen vanished behind it.

She'd just been smacked in the face and had lain bleeding for a good quarter of an hour. He'd already sworn that he was never going to touch her again. And yet he was quite literally holding his foot in both hands to prevent it from touching the floor and carrying him over to the screen to get a good look at the charms his wife was right now hiding from him.

He had a dirty mind. No question about it.

"Spencer?" She stepped out from behind the screen, her dark hair loosely falling on her white cotton—clad shoulders. Even without a corset she had an hourglass figure.

He closed his eyes, but the sight of her didn't go away.

"Spencer? Why do you hate Julian so much?"

He thought about Julian Bouche and what he knew as well as what he simply suspected. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her, and he supposed he would have if he'd kept his eyes closed and never seen that innocent face. That trusting face.

But he'd be damned if he'd rob her of that, too.

Chapter Five

When trouble broke out three days later, it didn't surprise Olivia at all. But she'd expected it to be between Spencer, who paced around the house like a caged bear with only an occasional pause in his tracks to growl, and Julian, who spent his days bent over maps that Spencer kept pushing him to follow. Instead the yelling came from outside the house, and Olivia looked up just in time to see her birdbath come tumbling down with Neil on top of it and Philip, Remy's middle boy, on top of him.

By the time she got to the door, Remy's youngest had joined in, too, and she ran out after them, Spencer and Julian on her heels.

"It ain't your farm, neither," Philip was yelling, while his little brother Thomas tried to climb on Neil's back and hold him for his big brother.

"Stop it, all of you! Thom-Tom! Philip! I said stop it!" Olivia reached out to separate the boys, then screamed when Philip backed up and accidentally came down hard on her instep with his heavy work boots.

"For Christ's sake, boy," Julian shouted at his son. "To the eye! The nose! Not his chest if you want to hurt him!"

Before Olivia could turn her shocked face in her brother-in-law's direction, she heard Spencer's even voice.

"Want my shotgun?" he drawled.

The boys stopped fighting and stared at him. Philip swallowed and found his voice first. "Your shotgun? I don't wanna kill 'im, Uncle Spence."

"Oh. Just hurt him, huh?" He crossed his arms and tapped one booted toe as if he were carefully considering the boy's position. "How much?" he asked finally.

All three boys shrugged in unison.

"Well, a whole lot? Like broken bones and bloody lips?" Spencer asked, suddenly finding the palm of his hand very interesting and examining it closely.

Philip shook his head. Thom-Tom made a face as if the whole idea gave him the willies. Only Neil remained unrepentant.

"Well, seems to me if you're not gonna do it right, it's just not worth doing. Maybe it's something you ought to talk about with words instead of fists." He seemed wholly disinterested."

"He says our farm is really his," Thom-Tom said.

"That so?" Spencer looked first at Neil and then at Julian. "Wonder where he got that idea."

"My pa told me so," Neil said, and Olivia could sec when he spoke that there was blood in his mouth.

"Go rinse your mouth, boy," Spencer said. "And you," he added, glaring at Philip. "You proud of yourself? You got nearly two years and a good twenty pounds on him and you probably managed to loosen a tooth or two. Jeez."

"Well, he said—" Philip began.

"Yeah, yeah, I know what he said. I'll get to that in a minute. But first I wanna be sure you understand things here. The boy with the bleeding mouth? He's your cousin. The blood he's losing flows through your own veins, Philip. Now I understand that you haven't had cousins around before, but you do now, and I won't understand should there come a next time. You get me?"

Philip nodded his head.

"You?" he asked Thom-Tom.

Thom-Tom nodded his head, as well, and wiped at his nose with his sleeve.

Livvy stood there in amazement. Where did a man learn to father like that? Surely not from Spencer's father. Max Williamson was just an average man, who lived a very mediocre life and died a mediocre death. And the way Spencer was handling these boys was nothing short of miraculous.

"Livvy?" Spencer asked breaking into her reverie. "Louisa in the house with the little one?"

Oh, some mother she was making. While Spencer was winning Father of the Year contests, she would be brought before a magistrate for neglecting the very same children. She hadn't given a moment's thought to the baby. Lucky thing Louisa was around. "Of course," she said, trying to imply that Spencer was foolish for asking.

"Oh, you needn't worry about Josephina," Julian said. "Louisa is quite the little mother to her. She won't let anything happen to her.''

"She's not the girl's mama, Liv. Maybe you best go inside and see to her."

Livvy nodded reluctantly. In the past couple of days she'd watched her two nieces and come to the conclusion that there was no room for her in their relationship, and no need for her, either. "You'll explain to the boys about the farm, then?"

"Your pa on his way over?" Spencer asked the boys. "I'd like him here to make things clear as crystal to everyone."

"He's staying with Ma," Thom-Tom said. "She's not feeling too good this morning."

The sky was bright and clear, the weather warm. It was the kind of day Bess was at her best. "Your mama's hip bothering her today?"

"No, ma'am," Philip said, his eyes on the ground. "But she's not feeling so good, all the same."

"Maybe I'll take her a little supper," Olivia said, trying to draw out from Philip what could be wrong with Bess. "For her and your pa and Henry."

"Henry's over to Jenny's, like always," Thom-Tom said. "He's always there and Philip is always down at Zephin's. Spends every spare minute there workin' for old man Zephin for stuff the man don't want anymore. And I gotta do all the real work."

Spencer did a pretty poor job of trying to hide his smirk, and Livvy kicked his foot gently to remind him not to embarrass the boy, who already felt like the runt of the family and of very little use.

"Mr. Zephin doesn't pay him?" Julian asked, examining Neil's mouth and shaking his head in annoyance.

"Oh, Philip says the stuff he gets is better than the few pennies old miser Zephin'd give him, don't you, Philip? Last week he got some old balls with the bounce gone out of them."

"Old balls?" Livvy said, wondering how her nephew could have made such a bad deal.

Philip picked up the story. "And I took them to the Widow Grillot, who said they were just the right size for darning socks and she gave me her old Gem pan for them. Then I took the old Gem pan to that new bakery on the corner of Main and Aspen and got two day-old loaves of bread for it." He looked very satisfied with himself for someone who had put in a lot of work for two day-old loaves of bread.

"What did you want with two old loaves of bread?" Neil asked. "You couldn't eat that much."

"No, but Mrs. Cote's birds sure could, and she gave me the old wheels from her son's carriage,, now that he's grown and all."

"And what did you do with the wheels?" Spencer asked, obviously fighting to keep a straight face and losing.

"Made a wagon," Philip said.

"And for a penny a ride he's takin' the little ones all over town," Thom-Tom said.

"And deliverin' the papers for Mr. Seaton for a nickel a day, too," Philip said, by now rocking proudly on his heels.

He was a born salesman, Livvy thought, buying and selling from the time he was old enough to trade a rattle for a ball. If only he liked farming half as much as wheeling and dealing he could be a real help to his ma and pa.

"You leave your mama in bed?" Olivia asked Philip as they all headed into the house, where Louisa stood watching with Josie on her hip.

"She was on the sofa when she shooed us out," Thom-Tom said. "Looked to be crying, to me."

"I think I'll just head over there," Olivia said, reaching for her coat.

"Take the baby with you," Spencer said. "So Louisa can get to know her cousins."

Olivia hesitated, knowing that Josie wouldn't like leaving her sister any more than Louisa would like letting her go.

"I don't think that's a real good idea," Philip said, looking at the floor and playing with the corner of the rag rug with his toe. "I wouldn't bring a baby over there today."

"But your mama loves babies," Olivia said, confused by Philip's sudden shyness.

"Tell her what Henry said," Thom-Tom prompted his brother, but Philip shook his head.

"That's not for us to say."

Well, she could take Josie and head on over to Bess's, but for some reason that didn't seem to be a very good idea. In truth, she was relieved that the boys had advised against bringing the baby, since she wasn't sure she could stand another bloody nose. The one she'd already gotten was just healing and still smarted when she washed her face.

She stood, her hat hanging from her hand, not sure what she should do. What a difference three days and as many children made in a person's life. She'd have been out the door and halfway to Bess and Remy's by now if it was still just her and Spencer.

"Go," Spencer finally said. "Bouche'll watch his daughter while Philip and Thom-Tom show Louisa around."

''All right," Olivia agreed, anxious to see what was wrong with Bess. "Be sure to show her where the school is, boys. I'll be signing the children up come Monday."

"The children?" Louisa asked. "You mean Neil, don't you?"

She looked positively indignant, as if Olivia had suggested she suck on a nipple and sleep in a cradle.

"She means
you
, Miss Louisa," Spencer said, reassuring Olivia that she was right to expect Louisa to attend school. "All children go to school, no matter how fancy they talk."

"Yes," Louisa agreed, "but I'm no child. I'm too old for school. I've got responsibilities. I've got to watch Josie. I've got—"

"You, Miss Louisa Bouche," Spencer said in a voice that brooked no argument, "are most certainly a child. You are one, you're gonna be
treated
like one, and you're gonna learn to act like one while you're living here under my roof. How old are you, anyways?"

"She's eleven and a half," Neil said, his eyes following the exchange between his sister and his uncle.

"Eleven and a half? Jeez. You ought to have a doll baby instead of a real one," Spencer said. He turned to Julian and opened his mouth, then thought better of it.

"I'm almost old enough to have a real baby," Louisa said, blushing despite her attempt to appear nonchalant. "And I have to take care of Josie." She hugged the child tightly to her chest.

"That's why you're here," Spencer said, shooing Livvy out the door. "So you don't have to take care of Josie. So you don't even have to take care of you. Go on now, Aunt Liv. You go see to Aunt Bess. Oh, and Liv? Say good-bye to Bouche. He'll be gone by the time you get back."

Before she got a chance to open her mouth, he'd shut the door. If she had to guess, she'd suppose he was leaning against it, too.

His house, his sanctuary, was overrun with his wife's relatives. Before him stood two nieces and three nephews, all belonging to her sister or her brother. Behind them, at the table, sat her late sister's husband.

To his knowledge, with the exception of distant relations, there wasn't a soul in Wisconsin with blood ties to him. The thought might have cut him to the quick a week ago. Today he simply wished the same might be said of his wife.

Not that he didn't love Remy and Bess and the boys. He did. He just loved his privacy, too. Since Bouche and his brood had shown up there had been nothing but chaos reigning in his house. It didn't even feel like it was
his
house anymore.

"Now," he said, and pulled a chair away from the table, swung it around, and straddled it backward, "as to the matter of the Sacotte Farm."

"The
Remy
Sacotte Farm," Philip corrected. If he'd been younger, Spencer would have expected the boy to stick his tongue out at his cousin.

"The
Henri
Sacotte Farm," Julian said, invoking the name of his father-in-law.

"The
Xavier
Sacotte Farm," Spencer said, going back a generation further.

"Who?" the boys asked.

"Xavier Sacotte was your great-grandfather. All of yours'. He came over here from Belgium with his three sons: Henri, Constant, and Wolfgang."

"Wolfgang!" The boys laughed, making howling noises and jabbing each other in the ribs. Neil moved a little closer to Thom-Tom, who seemed to make room for him without moving away.

"That'd be your pa's Uncle Wolfgang, boys," he said, pointing to Philip and Thomas. He gestured at Neil. "And your ma's. Well, the boys were young at the time, maybe just about in their teens."

"Like Philip's age," Thom-Tom said.

Spencer nodded. "Well, the way old Henri—that was your grandpa—told it, Xavier came to Wisconsin to buy some land, along with a whole shipload of Belgians. But the Dutch who they met on the way over from the old country already had relatives here who'd saved all the best land for them. So Xavier and the rest of the Belgians moved on until they came to Door County, where Xavier found just the piece of land he wanted and settled right in. Everything was going just fine until Wolfgang—he was the oldest—decided he was ready to marry."

"Like Henry and Jenny Watchell are gonna do," Philip said, and Thom-Tom roared with laughter.

"Henry thinks Jenny's got wings, but she don't want anything to do with a farmer boy," Thom-Tom explained to Neil, then added, "but don't tell him I told you so."

"The truth of the matter is," Julian interrupted, keeping his eyes fixed on the cigar he was lighting, "that Henri Sacotte left the farm in equal parts to his three children and that as the surviving husband of one of those children, that farm, if it were worth anything, is one-third mine."

"Livvy don't like cigars in the house," Spencer said. "Mind smoking that on the porch?"

Julian shrugged and headed for the door, opened it and remained in the doorway, waiting for Spencer to dispute his claim.

"See? Your farm is one-third mine," Neil said. "I want the part with the animals."

"Heck, no," Thom-Tom said, and raised his hand once again.

"Thomas," Spencer said quietly. "You don't weigh as much as a cock's sickle feathers, and Aunt Liv's not here to see to the scars. You sure you wanna put that fist anywheres beside your pocket?"

"But he's gonna take Blackie and Whitey and Spotty and . . . "

"He ain't taking nothing," Philip said, his tone quite menacing for a twelve-year-old.

"No, he's not," Spencer agreed. "See, even if he wanted to, and I don't believe for one minute that Bouche here has an ounce of farmer's blood in his veins, that's not the way the will reads."

Julian puffed a cloud of cigar smoke toward the sky and said, "The land is mine, Williamson. Says it right in the will
'in equal shares to my children and their heirs.'
"