Twice Loved (copy2) by Lavyrle Spencer Read Free Book Online Page A

first got here.
    Josh galloped over and flung himself across his mother’s lap. “Are you scared of that man, Mama?”
    “No, darling, not at all.” She ruffled Josh’s hair.
    “You looked like you was. Your eyes was big and you jumped away from him like you make me jump away when I get too close to the fire.”
    “I was surprised, not scared, and I did not jump away from him. We were talking, that’s all.” But guilt flared Laura’s cheeks to an even brighter hue, and she could tell Dan was studying her carefully. She lit into her crocheting as if the doily had to be finished by bedtime. “I think it’s time you marched your soldiers to the shelf and got your nightshirt on for bed.”
    “You and Papa wanna talk grown-up talk, huh?”
    Laura couldn’t hide her smile. Josh was a bright and witty child, though there were times when she’d cheerfully have gagged him for his innocent comments. But there was a new discomfort between Laura and Dan that would have been there with or without Josh’s remark, and as the evening rolled on toward bedtime, it became more and more palpable. By the time they retired to their room, Laura felt as if she were walking on fishhooks. And to make matters worse, there was the problem of disrobing.
    Clothing of the day was styled for ladies with maids; both dresses and whalebone corsets were laced up the back, so it was impossible to don or doff them without aid. Laura had protested when Dan insisted on her purchasing such dresses instead of making her own, but he had a fierce pride in his ability to provide for her, thus she’d obliged and bought the inconvenient garments, though twice daily she needed his assistance to get the infernal things on and off.
    But tonight she felt a disquieting reluctance to ask the favor, though it had come to be part of their bedtime ritual, as automatic as the pinching of the last candlewick.
    But tonight was different.
    Dan set the candle on the commode table, untied his cravat and hung it on the bedpost, followed by his shirt. Laura, trussed up like a stuffed turkey ready for the spit, silently rebelled at women’s plight. Why did women dress in such absurdly restrictive clothes? Men had no such inconveniences with which to contend.
    How she wished she might unobtrusively slip out of her things and into her nightie and quickly duck beneath the covers. Instead, she was forced to ask, “Dan, would you loosen my laces please?”
    To her horror, his face went red. She whirled to present her back. After nearly four years of unlacing her, Dan was blushing!
    He released the brass hooks down the back of her dress and tugged at the laces, which were strung through metal grommets along the back of her corset. She felt him fumble, then he muttered under his breath. When at last she was free, she stepped from the garment, laid her corset over the cedar trunk, and unbuttoned her petticoat. That left only her pantaloons, which buttoned at the waist, and the chemise—it tied up the front with a satin ribbon.
    The wrinkles of her chemise had been pressed into her skin all day, leaving a crisscross of red marks that itched terribly. Often Dan teased her when she slid into bed and immediately began scratching.
    But tonight all was quiet after they’d dressed in nightgown and nightshirt-standing back to back—and lay beneath the coverlets, with only the after scent of candle smoke remaining. From outside came the incessant wash of sea upon land, and from nearer, the cluck of a whippoorwill that always precedes its song. Again it clucked, and Laura lay in the dark, equally as tense as Dan, telling herself there were many nights when they went to sleep without touching. Why was she so aware of it tonight?
    She heard him swallow. Her ribs itched, but she forced her hands to be still. The silence stretched long, until at last, when the whippoorwill had called for the hundredth time, Laura reached for Dan’s hand. He grasped it like a lifeline and squeezed so hard,