The Bridal Veil by Alexis Harrington Read Free Book Online

the big kitchen.
    “ I hope I didn’t keep you
waiting,” she said, clutching to her heart the most basic rules of
entering a room. At times of her greatest stress, she clung to the
tenets of civilized living the way others sought solace in their
faith. In her opinion, good manners were what set humans above the
animals, and were all that kept the world from social and moral
collapse. If one followed the rules of polite behavior, one could
survive. Show no fear was not one of them, but she kept it uppermost in her mind as
her skirts brushed the doorframe. “I’m sorry if I was too
long.”
    Luke bounced up from his chair. His
white shirt sleeves were rolled up and the tie he’d complained of
was gone. Once again, his rugged handsomeness dried her throat.
Under different circumstances, she knew that he wouldn’t even have
acknowledged her. Despite her height, or more likely because of it,
she had always been nearly invisible to men as attractive as Luke.
“No, ma’am.” He indicated her place at the opposite end of the
table. “We’re just now sitting down ourselves.”
    Cora’s champing jaws and full mouth
belied his statement but Emily took her seat and delicately put her
napkin in her lap.
    “ You found your room? The
nice one at the end of the hall?” he asked, handing her a bowl of
green beans. His eyes didn’t meet hers.
    “ Yes, thank you. Mrs.
Hayward showed me upstairs.”
    Luke only nodded.
    Serving dishes were kept in motion in
a circle around the table, and Emily soon found herself with a pile
of food that was mostly white: white potatoes, white bread, white
gravy. The only color came from a pink slice of ham and the beans.
The meat was dry and tough, the beans boiled to a pale, sickly
green.
    Luke pushed around his piece of ham
with a noticeable lack of interest. Cora gobbled her food as if she
feared it being taken from her, and Rose busied herself by seeing
how many string beans she could stack on the tines of her fork. No
one told the girl that playing with one’s food, especially at her
age, was not acceptable, and only two hours a wife, Emily didn’t
feel it was her place to correct her yet.
    She cut her own leathery meat into
small, chewable pieces and dabbed them in the gravy to give them
some moisture. The meal was ruined and she knew it was her fault.
She’d made them late—she’d made them wait.
    But her guilt was short-lived. Cora
interrupted her feeding long enough to comment, “Well, at least the
ham is still good. I was afraid it would be overcooked.”
    Dear God, this was awkward, Emily
thought. She took a bite of bread and did her best to hide her
surprise over the taste of the butter. It looked all right, but it
had a stale, rancid taste. No one made pleasant small talk, such as
asking about her trip, or for that matter, anything else about her.
She was an outsider among them, and apparently was destined to
remain so, at least for the time being. They showed no curiosity at
all. Outright prying would be rude, but a little interest on Luke’s
part would be welcome. He simply kept his eyes on his plate. Didn’t
he want to know something about his new wife? She certainly wanted
to know about him, more than she’d learned from his letters to her
sister. Little things, like how much cream did he like in his
coffee, or did he like to dance? For a moment, it seemed that it
was just the two of them sitting there in uncomfortable silence.
Then she remembered that they were not alone, and that it was rude
to ignore the others at the table.
    The ability to make pleasant small
talk was a basic and vital social necessity. Feeling much less
confident than she was willing to show, she plunged ahead into
polite dinner conversation. “The landscape in Oregon is
breathtaking. I was amazed by the change from near-desert at The
Dalles to the lush vegetation here. Have you always lived here,
Mrs. Hayward?”
    Cora sopped up some white gravy on her
plate with a piece of white bread. In her