A Lady of the West by Linda Howard Read Free Book Online

moment?” Despite her efforts at control some of her despair must have shown for Carmita stopped smiling and rapidly came to her side.
    They walked out into the courtyard, so pretty with its multitude of yellow roses. Victoria pretended to look at the roses, fingering some of the velvet petals. She said, low, “If my questions embarrass you, please don’t feel you have to answer. It’s just—I don’t have anyone I can ask, except for you.”
    Carmita looked puzzled. “Of course, señora.”
    Victoria flushed again. “Carmita … when a man—that is, what does a man—how are babies made?” She was beet red by the time she finished, and felt utterly helpless.
    Carmita gaped at her. Victoria hurriedly turned away, but Carmita laughed and put her motherly arms around the tense young woman. Her brown eyes were warm. “No one thought to tell you the way of things? Poor señora! Yes, sit down, and I will tell you about men and babies.”
    She did, very succinctly, and Victoria heaved an inner sigh of relief. It was as she had thought, the man did enter a woman’s body and there emptied himself of his seed, which sometimes resulted in a baby, though not, Carmita said with heartfelt thanks, every time. The Major had not done that to her, so she would not be having his baby. At least, not yet. She didn’t know what had gone wrong last night, and she knew he could return to her bed at any time. They had a lifetime together for him to consummate the marriage. But for today, at least, she was safe.
    Another question occurred to her, and she saiddiffidently, “How does a woman know if she is to have a baby?” She knew they didn’t have to wait until they grew big, because she had known several women who had announced their expectancy long before there had been obvious evidence.
    Carmita patted her arm. “Your monthly bleeding won’t come, señora.”
    Victoria considered that. Her monthly cycle was so regular she always knew to the day when to expect the onset. It appeared she would have a reliable means of telling, if the worst happened.
    â€œYou will also cry a lot, and sleep a lot, and feel so sick that no food stays down,” Carmita continued cheerfully. “When you do feel like eating, you will want strange things that, of course, Lola will not have, and someone will have to go to Santa Fe to buy it. That’s the way of it. When I carried my Juana, I felt as if I had to have oranges, every day. Señora, I don’t like oranges, but every day I ate them, five and six a day. Then Juana was born, and I didn’t like oranges anymore.”
    Victoria sat in the courtyard after Carmita had returned to the kitchen, enjoying the early-morning coolness and the bright sun, calming her frazzled nerves. She had survived the night, as horrible as it had been, and the new day was fresh and sunny. If the coming night brought a repeat of the horror, well, she would survive that, too.
    She thought about the things Carmita had told her and wondered why well-bred young women were kept so abysmally ignorant of such basic facts. She would far rather have known what was going to happen, as unpleasant as it had been, than to have suffered in the dread of the unknown, which had made it just that much worse. Her mother had known what she would face, yet had left her in ignorance. Victoria found that hard to forgive.
    She would tell Emma. Not about the Major’s failure,but the true facts of what men did to women in the marriage bed. She would tell her how babies were made and how a woman knew if she were pregnant. And later, if Celia were ever to think of getting married, Victoria would tell her, also.
    She thought of the way Garnet watched Celia, and bit her lower lip. Now she knew what he wanted, and she was more determined than ever to keep Celia away from him.
    Roper. He, too, had known what the Major would do to her.
    Stunned, she realized