Chapter 25; Know Who You Are
The song is based off Maid Freed from the Gallows, an old folk tune. The American version usually had a young man on the scaffold as the USA wasn't too keen on hanging ladies. It was also the inspiration for a Led Zeppelin song.
"Oh, Arthur."
The logs were a weathered grey on the exterior, with a peaked roof of wooden shakes. The little yard was overgrown with tall grass and wildflowers Emelia did not yet know the names of. "It's perfect!"
Arthur chuckled. "You ain't even seen inside yet."
Emelia giggled. "But it's ours!"
"For now," Arthur said, soberly.
Emelia looked at him, her handsome retired outlaw, dressed in his Sunday best. A blue felt vest and crisp white shirt. Emelia could not help the soaring optimism that bubbled in her heart, but she sensed the apprehension that clung to him like hair on a dog. "It's ours for now," Emelia amended with a warm smile. "And that is good enough for me." She grasped Arthur's tough hands. "Oh… let's just spend the night here," she suggested.
"You sure?" Arthur stammered. A small frown creased his brow, even as a hopeful little smile teased at the corners of his mouth, and his blue eyes... He blinked and it was gone.
"Let's not waste another moment," Emelia declared. "Let's spend the night and cancel my hotel in the morning. I'll write the address on the chalk board at the surgery tomorrow and people can call on me here and -"
Emelia rushed up the three steps into the shade of the little porch and twirled.
"Yes. We can make this a home," she decided. Emelia looked at the empty flowerboxes. "I'll plant herbs and flowers. Lavender and chamomile and prairie poppies and anything else your mother used to grow."
Emelia settled her hand on the railing. Arthur stood in the little yard. Bathed in fine sunshine, grinning.
"It's perfect," Emelia professed. "Everything is just perfect."
Arthur sighed, shaking his head as he stared up at her in wonder. "You really do make this easy."
Emelia simpered. "Shall you give me the tour, Mr. Morgan?" she asked sweetly.
Arthur's smile faded.
"Emma," he said, gravely serious. Arthur removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair to tame it, the dark waves turned bronze in the sunlight. Arthur climbed the stairs with slow, measured steps to join her on that porch. Anxious like some great, life altering truth weighed on his conscience. It reminded Emelia a little of the way her brother Edward carried himself that day, when he came to tell her father had passed. Worry began to creep into her joy.
"Darlin'."
"Arthur?"
The outlaw took Emelia's hands within his grasp. He took a single steadying breath. Exhaled, and dropped to one knee on empty lungs.
"Arthur," she breathed.
He hinted at it, more than hinted, a few times now and still the sight of Arthur down on one knee left Emelia reeling. His handsome face tipped towards hers, hat over his heart. Her hands trembled within his grip.
"Emma." A nervous little smile pulled the corner of Arthur's mouth. "Now… I know I ain't perfect" he began, self-deprecating as ever. "I've screwed up with my special brand of genius more times than I care to count."
Emelia bit her lip and blinked away her tears. Oh, don't cry, you silly girl. He'll think you're unhappy…
"I don't have anythin' to offer," Arthur continued.
"Oh, Arthur," Emelia sighed, and Arthur looked at her, blue-eyes wide. Oh, would that he could see himself through her eyes. "You've delivered on every single promise you've made to me."
"You have set me on the path to bein' the man I have always wanted to be," Arthur said solemnly. "An' I swear to you, Emelia, I am gonna give this, you, my very best shot. So… you think a fine lady like you could ever consider, maybe…" Arthur faltered a moment, looking away. "What I mean to say, is -"
"Do you swear we'll be partners?" Emelia asked, finding her voice. Arthur met her gaze. "That in anything and everything we embark upon, it will be together? As equals?"
Arthur nodded. "I'd have it no other way." He swallowed his misplaced worry and more firmly he asked, "Will you marry me?"
Emelia's vision blurred. "Yes," she exclaimed, throwing her arms around Arthur's neck, bodily against his solid frame. Arthur almost fell back, chuckling at the sheer physicality of her enthusiasm.
"That's it?" Arthur asked, incredulous. "You sure?"
Emelia braced his head between her hands and kissed him full on his mouth and felt the smile beneath her lips. After pulling away, she bit her lower lip and starred at him and answered him with all seriousness. "Without doubt, Arthur."
Arthur wrapped his arm around Emelia's waist before he stood, pulling her up with him. He frowned a moment, looking at her squarely. "If yer family was upset with you before…"
He did not need to finish the thought. They would loathe him, certainly, without knowing a single thing about him. They would add this 'transgression' to the growing list of reasons for casting her from the family.
Emelia laid her hands against Arthur's chest and stared up into his dear, weathered expression. They were each other's family now. "Oh, let them be upset," Emelia declared cheerfully. Let them suffer in their mansions and through their five course benefits and their wealthy ennui. "I have you. That's coming out ahead, I 'reckon'."
A smile cracked Arthur's face, and he looked off into the distance, blinking away the offending moisture in his eyes. Emelia reached for Arthur, sliding her fingers into the dark hair feathering at the nape of his neck and pulled him down for a much-desired kiss.
"How you always so sure all the time?" Arthur asked as they parted, setting his hat back on his head.
"It might look that way," Emelia said, laying her palm to his cheek. "But in truth I just know that I love you."
Arthur chuffed another bewildered little laugh and reached into his pocket. "Well… it ain't much," he warned, taking her left hand. So humble in everything he accomplished. "About as rough an' unpolished as I am…"
He slipped it on her finger. A single oval turquoise set in a halo of tiny, uncut stones like chips of clean, clear ice. Diamonds in the rough. Held together with a ribbon of thin gold. Emelia's voice failed her.
"It's honest, if you get my meanin'."
Rough and unpolished he said. Like him, indeed.
"It's perfect," Emelia declared ardently, taken up with the wild beauty of it.
Arthur unlatched the door before scooping her up into his arms. Emelia squealed in joyful surprise, swept so suddenly from her feet. As if she weighed nothing at all and Arthur chuckled deep in his throat as he shouldered his way across the threshold.
He set her down lightly before going to pull back the drapes and Emelia allowed her eyes to adjust from the brightness of the outdoors and took it all in. He had been truthful, they had much work to do to get settled here and she felt completely, utterly overwhelmed. She needed to get her things from town. Her clothes and journals and tinctures. She needed to organize and tidy. Tidy… what did she know about keeping a house or being a wife? His wife. Just one more adventure. Easy, compared to practicing medicine and making house calls in downpours. Surely?
"You're finally here!"
The familiar, high pitched voice snapped Emelia out of her reverie. She turned and found Heidi McCourt in the open doorway of the little home and Emelia did not know what to say.
"Howdy, Miss McCourt," Arthur said with a tip of his hat.
"Mr. Morgan," Heidi replied with a supercilious smile.
"Um…hello, Heidi!" Emelia stammered, forcing a cheery smile to her face. Heidi rushed at Emelia, clasping the doctor's hands and wheeling her around. The sugary red-head noticed, with all the instinct of an eager social-climber, the new ring on Emelia's finger. Her green eyes widened.
"What. Is. This?" Heidi asked, dragging Emelia by the hand to a window.
"It's…" Emelia hesitated, apprehensive as to how Heidi may react. "Well, an engagement ring."
"I know what it is," Heidi squealed, staring at the ring and the doctor could not help but regard this cheer with a measure of cautious suspicion. "So? When's the date?"
Emelia cast a glance to Arthur. He stood stock still, hands clasping his gun belt. A strange little smile gracing his lips. He shrugged.
"Um… well, we have not set one. Yet, I mean…"
"I only just asked," Arthur supplied. "But I reckon Emma here'll appreciate yer input on that matter."
"Oh, will you?" Heidi asked, all haughtiness totally stripped away.
"Well… I had my heart set on something small…"
"St. Denis!" Heidi declared. "We must go to St. Denis for the dress, at very least. We can spend a day or two and see a show and -"
"Well, I hadn't thought…"
"Heh, I'll uh, leave you ladies to it," Arthur said. He crossed the room to press a kiss to Emelia's forehead. "I'll catch ya later, darlin'."
"Must you?" Emelia asked, gripping his hand like a lifeline.
"I would not dare intrude on a meetin' of the minds," he drawled with a little smirk. "Besides, I really ought to check on that fool stallion o' theirs."
Emelia forced a smile and nodded, holding her tongue. More than a little disappointed that they would need to wait before nesting or savor the freshness of engagement. She soothed herself that Arthur had not declined the offer of staying there together and, as he gallantly tipped his dark hat to Heidi, Emelia resolved to make it reality.
"Okay," Heidi said once they were alone. She turned her attention back to Emelia with a sincere smile. "I understand now."
"Understand what?"
"Mr. Morgan," Heidi clarified. "He's got as much breeding as a mustang, but he is strapping, and tolerably handsome and…" She rolled her vivid green eyes. "Charming in an 'aw-shucks' sort of way."
Emelia smiled, so persistent and genuine her cheeks hurt. "Oh, he is. All those things," she said, "and so much more."
"You really are happy with him?" Heidi asked.
The doctor sighed. "Incandescently," Emelia said. "He's gentle and intuitive and utterly unthreatened by my intelligence. And so supportive..." A little laugh bubbled out of her. "I came out here to escape a marriage, and yet here I am, running head long into one!"
"It's been awfully quick," Heidi allowed.
"He has defied or exceeded all of my expectations. I never thought I could love anyone even half as much and yet -"
"Alright!" Heidi put her hands up in surrender. "I get it. Well… if you really are happy with that old drifter who am I to argue? I mean, Elizabeth married 'well' and her fella keeps falling into different beds."
Emelia blushed. "I… I'm not privy to the details of Elizabeth and Harold's marriage."
"I guess it's rude to talk about it," Heidi conceded. She paused and looked around the building. "So. What do you think of this old shed?"
"I love it!"
Heidi crinkled her nose. "Is there anything you don't love?"
"Oh, I appreciate how crazy it sounds," Emelia admitted. "Considering my upbringing but this is mine, ours, in a way my mother's home never was. Does that make any sense?"
Heidi laughed. "I suppose."
"But I… well." Emelia looked around the open room, wringing her hands. "I honestly have no idea where to start. I've never so much as dusted all my life." Her eyes settled on the stove. "I've never even lit a fire."
"Well," Heidi said, linking her arm with Emelia's. "I guess you're just going to have to let me help you."
Heidi, despite all the airs she put on in town, proved to be a rancher's daughter after all. She rolled up her sleeves and showed Emelia how to start that monstrosity of a black stove, removing the mess of ashes. Showed her how to place the kindling and how to work the dampers and flues. How to tend the fire.
"Cooking," Heidi warned, "will take some practice."
Everything would take practice, Emelia knew, thinking now of all the different goods women had offered in exchange for services over the last few months. Preserves and butter and cheeses. Offers of washing or darning and patching. Exchanges of sweat she could now use or keep or share.
Heidi dragged Emelia to the ranch house, to meet her parents under the pretense of borrowing linens and a broom and lye. They invited the young doctor to join them for dinner, and while Emelia balked at so quickly becoming a burden the McCourts would hear none of it.
"You've only just arrived," Mrs. McCourt insisted. "And there's always more than enough."
The young women spent the day opening the cabin. Beating rugs, washing windows, sweeping floors, all to the steady flow of chatter. Talking about the sprawling mansions and shops in St. Denis and Heidi teased her in good nature, calling her 'Doctor Morgan'. Emelia did not think it feasible to change the name on her medical degree, but in the shadow of her disinheritance, she did fancy the notion and smiled along.
Only the bed was made with an awkward silence.
They returned to the main house for dinner to find Mrs. McCourt pulling the beef roast out of the oven. To be accompanied with roasted root vegetables and peach cobbler. Mr. McCourt had dragged Arthur in from the stables and the evening passed with a strange sort of normalcy that Emelia found promising. Despite the truth of Arthur's violent past, he seemed perfectly at ease in such domesticity, listening as Eric McCourt related the trials and tribulations of early homesteading. Of building the cabin Emelia already considered home, and those first tough years.
Arthur and Emelia later walked to that little cabin arm in arm by the light of the moon. A slight chill to the spring air. Arthur sang a folk song. A dark little ditty set at a strangely upbeat pace. About a young man facing a hanging, and his friends and family coming to watch. She may have blamed his high spirit on liquor had she not known, with certainty that he and Mr. McCourt had only enjoy a single glass of whiskey after dinner.
Arthur's gravelly voice fractured a little, beneath the weight of his own mirth. She giggled, trying to pick up the tune, but unable to keep up with the quick clipped pace and unfamiliar lyrics. Never had she heard anything like it before.
"Hangman,
"Hangman, slack up your rope, oh slack it for a while.
"I look down yonder to see Pa comin', he's rode for a many long mile.
"Oh Pa, say Pa, have you brung any gold, any gold or pay my fee?
"Or have you ridden these many long miles
"See me on the hangin' tree?
"No son, no son, I ain't brought any gold, no gold nor pay your fee.
"But I just rode these many long miles
"See you on the hangin' tree.
"Hangman,
"Hangman, slack up your rope, oh slack it for a while.
"I look down yonder t'see my true love comin', she's rode fer a many long mile."
Arthur paused in his stride on the words 'true love'. He squeezed her hand and Emelia looked at him. A smile stretched his fine lips.
"Oh true love, say true love, have you brung any gold, any gold or pay my fee?
"Or have you ridden these many long miles
"See me on the hangin' tree?"
Arthur pulled Emelia in close and she giggled.
"Yes love, yes love," he crooned close to her ear. "I've brung some gold, some gold and paid yer fee.
"An' I've just come to take you home so's we can marry be."
Arthur swung her round and dragged out that last word until his voice cracked and then he barked out a hearty laugh and Emelia laughed with him. "Oh, Arthur," she sighed. "I didn't save you. You've saved yourself."
"No, love," Arthur drawled. He kissed her and she savored the now familiar taste of him, all smoky and warm. Then he said, "Reckon I'd still be workin' my way into a noose if not fer you."
They entered their home, and Emma went to light the lamp on the table. As the room came to light, she saw Arthur still at the door and remembered that he had not been back since that early afternoon. He let out a low whistle.
"Darlin', you're a wonder."
"Heidi helped," Emelia admitted, blushing. "I'd have been lost without her."
It had been more work than she anticipated, truth be told. Emelia held new appreciation for the effort, the long hours put in by the Griswolds' household staff. How they kept the furnaces stoked and the rooms spotless and so perfect.
But Emelia also felt a sense of accomplishment now that she looked at it with him. The little cabin seemed a little more like home, now that cobwebs had been evicted and the bed made up in clean linens.
"There ain't nothin' you can't do," he said.
Arthur gave himself to the job of splitting more wood and stoking the stove as Emelia drew the curtains closed. She turned down the bed with fumbling fingers, her heart beating wildly in her chest as her mind raced. What now? Did she strip down to her undergarments and crawl into bed? Did she wait for him? She smelled the bit of smoke that escaped the stove. Listened to the cozy crackling of the wood catching fire and then the squeal of steel hinges as Arthur closed the stove door. The thud of his steps approaching, and Emelia froze. Afraid to turn and look at him, despite her anxious and eager heart.
Why was she so nervous?
A pregnant hush settled over them, neither speaking for what felt like an age. Into this strange, unfamiliar silence, Arthur finally spoke. "I can sleep out on the porch," he offered, his voice rough and uncertain. He clearly sensed her internal struggle, as he sensed everything.
"The porch?" she said, turning to him. No, no don't go, she thought. She shook her head. "You're not a dog!"
"It ain't much worse than the lean-to I enjoyed back in camp," Arthur said, so cavalier and motioning towards the door. "I got a roof over my head so I won't get rained on, an I'm up off the ground…"
"No!"
"Darlin'," he said, voice thick as smoke. "Emma. I… I can wait. This way… if…?"
"If what?"
"Well," Arthur began, only to pause. He shrugged in a weak attempt at indifference. "You know…"
Emelia blinked, not knowing. She took in the distressed frown of Arthur's dark, expressive brows and the worry in his eyes. How he shifted his powerful body, usually so controlled and measured, now skittish as a young horse. For all his age and experience he was as nervous as she. Perhaps even a little afraid. She could only think this had something to do with a life of abuse and a first love who wed someone else. Despite accepting his ring. As she herself had done so easily that very afternoon.
"I won't abandon you, Arthur," she said.
He looked at her a long moment. Emelia did not quite know why she said it and just as she began to worry she had offended him, Arthur chuffed a little laugh. He closed the gap between them, coming around that table, in full strides. He gently cradled her head in his rough hands and brought his lips to her brow. Emelia's eyes fluttered shut, and again she wrapped her fingers around his thick wrists and gripped tight. Felt his steady pulse beneath her fingertips and longed to feel him closer. Please, she prayed. Please stay.
"I reckon you won't," he said. Emelia opened her eyes to find Arthur searching her face. "My brave girl."
Arthur held Emelia still to tend to her lips, bending to her. Tender at first. A gentle lick, the soft tease of his tongue at the seam of her mouth, beseeching without word and Emelia opened to Arthur with a sigh and the hotness of his mouth. Arthur's fingers treaded in her hair, pulling her tresses from the neat chignon before drawing the lines of her throat and that strange pleasant warmth began to pool in her belly. That same sensation, both strange and natural, that began to stir in the meadow and the night he promised her a home.
"I want you," Emelia sighed on a breath. Slowly, as if trying to approach a deer, she moved her hands down Arthur's chest. Popped open the buttons of his vest one by one and he did not stop her. Arthur, in turn, clumsily pulled off his boots before working at her clothes. "Do you want me?"
Arthur swallowed and could only manage an unequivocal nod before drawing her in close and laying his lips to her pulse point, open mouthed and starving, and she felt that heat sink lower. Blindly she untucked his shirt, inching the fabric from his pants. So dizzy with desire her fingers fumbled on every button and fastening. Her corset snapped free.
Emelia pushed the fabric from his broad shoulders, peeling Arthur out of his shirt. She had seen and touched naked men before. Cold and lifeless on a lab table. Not this combination of tan-lines and muscle and robust heat. A physique built from hard work and worn trim with honest hunger. Coarse burnished hair, the same shade as the scruff on his chin, dusted his pale skin. Accenting the sculpting of his chest, flowing into a treasure trail that ran down the center of his lean stomach and lower still. She skinned Arthur out of his dark work pants and then her tummy tumbled. Emelia did not know how to touch Arthur, illogically afraid of being wrong or somehow improper.
She startled at the feeling of cool air against her backside. Her undergarments pooled at her feet and Arthur pulled back.
"Jesus," he whispered, wide-eyed and blinking.
Reverently, Arthur settled his large hands upon her hips and Emelia sighed when he pulled her close and enveloped her in his arms. Attuned to her, Arthur handled her with an ardent and raw sort of love that she could feel right to the end of his deceptively gentle touch. Like she had been made for him, she arched into his rough palms and kissed the plush of his mouth, echoing his own fervor, so eager to reciprocate that she finally allowed her hands to travel across the hard curves of his body. He shivered and sighed beneath her careful touch and Emelia grew bolder. Her fingers trailed further down his core in a sightless instinctive caress until she found him, hard and hot, and when Arthur groaned beneath her rudimentary efforts Emelia felt a thrill. He backed her to the bed, drinking of her lips with a desperate thirst, pressed skin to skin and still Emelia only wanted Arthur closer. Under her skin.
When she felt the bed at the back of her legs, Emelia leaned back, couching herself upon the mattress. Arthur gazed at her. She could see his chest rising and falling, muted and transfixed, and would have felt foolish if not for the awed expression etched on his handsome face.
"Come here," Emelia beckoned, trying to quell the tremulous feeling of exposure, and Arthur followed. Crawling onto the bed, the mattress creaking under his weight. Over her. Settling between her thighs, his body coarse and hot and heavy. Emelia shifted beneath him, putting her arms around him and she felt Arthur rigid as a rifle barrel against the inside of her thigh and again her stomach flipped nervously. Emelia understood the crude mechanics of what they were about to do and met his true, blue eyes.
"You sure?" Arthur asked.
Emelia trusted him, but she did not trust her voice. She swallowed nervously and nodded. Arthur watched her face. He reached down between their bodies and guided himself in and as he pushed, all slow, gentle though firm his lids slid closed and he sighed. Emelia's breath hitched at the sudden inexorable discomfort, all tight stinging sensation. She could not help but whimper and Arthur stilled.
"I know," he soothed, kissing Emelia with relaxed tenderness though the muscles beneath her palms trembled with fragile patience. She did not know what Arthur waited for and with every rasping breath, every quiver of muscle, Emelia felt him holstered inside her. After several minutes of this luxuriating embrace, whether from the constant pressure of him or his shivers of movement or the thoughtful kissing, Emelia felt a whisper of pleasure. She moved her hips, driven by some primordial instinct, tested the slide and feel of him inside her and marveled at how Arthur shuddered and moaned and how her boldness spurred him into splendid motion. He rolled his hips, pushing deep and grinding at a heedful, steady pace. Emelia curved against him, lifting her hips to receive him and Arthur sank deeper with a contented groan.
They eventually found a sweet rhythm, savoring the warm, silken sliding of their coupling. Fused together, kissing between panting breaths. His fingers, tangled in her hair, softly tugging in time to their motion. Arthur's steady prodding began to feel so, so good, setting a strange heaviness to build, coiling at the base of her spine, spreading all tingling warmth, driving Emelia's panting to uninhibited mewling.
When she moaned his name, Arthur lost his stride. His pace increased, urgent, insistent, until he punctuated each thrust with his own desperate grunting. He staggered to an abrupt halt with a cry and all the built-up tension seemed to flow out of him then, melting into her, like butter on warm toast. Arthur rolled to her side, pulling Emelia atop him and then he let out a great shaking sigh.
Emelia lay there, hot and sweating, her cheek pressed to his heaving chest, listening to the soothing tempo of his heart. Trying to catch her breath and slow her own and feeling dazed that it was over. Emelia had not known what to expect. That lovemaking would be so passionate and messy in such equal measure. Emelia could not ignore the sticky pleasant ache between her thighs, or the scent of his musk, or having the man she loved so gloriously close.
"I'm sorry, Emma," Arthur murmured between breaths though she had no idea what he apologized for. A hand in her sweaty hair, at the back of her head, stroking. The trailing of fingers along the curve of her spine. Peaceful. Loving. After a moment he added, "It's, uh… been awhile."
Emelia considered the lingering sadness that followed him like cloying incense. How he bristled or made light rather than share how he felt. Could it all really link back to this Mary Gillis? She wondered and hoped that he would continue to open to her, slow though it had been. Emelia propped herself up on Arthur's broad chest, safe in the circle of his arms and peered down at him. A soft, fragile smile graced his lips. She swept Arthur's hair back from his forehead, carding her fingers through the thick, damp strands. He basked in the affection, his eyes slipping closed, dark lashes tipped with moisture.
"Oh, Arthur," Emelia said, smiling tenderly.
He opened his eyes. "Never thought I'd get a chance like this."
She faltered a moment, smiling. Still pushing her fingers through his dark honey-brown hair. "You just needed a chance to be yourself."
Arthur blushed, and Emelia wondered how his confidence could be so brittle when with horses or a gun he could not be shaken. He cleared his throat and for once Arthur did not tell her she needed to know more men. Emelia observed the small victory in silence.
"I love you," he said instead. In that warm, gravely twang. Emelia kissed Arthur slow and decided, happily, that lovemaking would be instrumental in his convalescence.