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“Aw, Pa, this is boring.” Teddy stomped across to the loft ladder and started to climb.
“No, it isn’t, son,” Thad returned in a quiet voice. “Just listen.”
Leah skipped some pages ahead. “They stood before the castle of Cedric, a low irregular building containing several courtyards and turreted and castellated towers.”
Teddy plopped down on the bottom rung of the ladder. “What’s ‘cast’llated’ mean?”
On the back of an old calendar, Thad quickly sketched a castle with square stone towers, surrounded by a moat. “This is where Cedric the Saxon lives. Looks a bit like Scotland,” he commented.
Leah glanced up at him. “You have read this, have you not?”
“Yeah. When I was about Teddy’s age. That copy belonged to my father.”
“What’s a Saxon?” Teddy blurted.
Leah explained about Saxons and Normans, and Thad sketched the Battle of Hastings and a Templar knight in full armor. Teddy pulled his face into a scowl but kept listening.
She continued reading until the boy’s eyelids drooped. Finally, at his father’s suggestion, he dragged his thin frame up the ladder, and Leah found herself alone with Thad.
She waited for him to say something. Instead, he stood up, stuffed his hands in his jean pockets and began to pace from the living room to the kitchen and back, studying the floor.
What was wrong? Why would he not meet her eyes?
“Thad?” He kept pacing.
“Thad, have I done something wrong?” Perhaps she should not have made the biscuits for supper? Or read from Ivanhoe? Goodness, there were so many things in America she did not know about. How was she ever going to live in this house with him and his angry, hurting son, in this unfamiliar town, without making mistakes?
“Thad, what have I done?”
He stopped abruptly and swung to face her, his expression shuttered. “Wrong? Leah, you’ve done nothing at all wrong. Except,” he added with a fleeting smile, “maybe yesterday’s coffee.”
“Then why are you walking back and forth like that instead of—”
“Going to bed,” he finished. “Damned if I know. Just worried, I guess.”
“Is it about our marriage? About me?”
“Naw, not about you. Not exactly, anyway. I’ll explain later.”
Before she could think what to say, he was out the front door, his boot heels rapping down the porch steps. She choked off an involuntary cry.
Something was wrong. Something he would not tell her, which made it more disturbing. She could do nothing if she did not know what the problem was. She thought back over the evening. He had liked their supper, or at least she thought he had. And he did like Ivanhoe, otherwise he would not have drawn those pictures of the castle.
And then she remembered Verena Forester’s words. I’d never forget a man like Thad.
It was frightening, this not knowing, like feeling eyes upon her, following her every move. She could not escape the fear, but she could not let it smother her.
She sucked in a breath, pushed the black, frightening thoughts to the back of her mind, and resolutely made her way down the short hallway to the bedroom.
Chapter Nine
Leah lay unmoving on the far edge of the double bed, her mind in turmoil. She knew Thad was not asleep; she could hear his measured breathing in and out, and she guessed that he lay staring up at the ceiling, as she did.
She could not begin to sort out her own feelings, let alone Thad’s. Was he disappointed in her? She thought she had made some progress toward being a wife. With the help of Miss Beecher’s book She was learning to cook the American way. She could learn to milk the cow and ride a horse. She could even learn to ignore the hurtful and unsettling comments from the dressmaker, Verena Forester, and Carl Ness at the mercantile in town.
She tightened her lips. Given enough time and luck, she might even befriend Thad’s disgruntled son. Perhaps he would want to hear more about Ivanhoe. Perhaps she could learn to make cookies. American boys liked cookies, did they not?
No matter what, she was not going to give up.
But at this moment, lying here with Thad close enough to touch if either of them moved an elbow, she did not know what to do or say. Did he want to touch her? Did she want him to touch her?
He had returned to the house very late, undressed in the dark and climbed into bed without a word, his chilled skin smelling of pasture grass. She drew in a long, slow breath. She was not going to give up on Thad, either. After all, he had been her husband for only two days.
His low, rumbly voice washed over her roiling thoughts. “You’re kinda quiet tonight, Leah. Anything troubling you?”
She thought for a moment. Should she be honest or evade the question? “I am trying hard to be a good wife and a good mother to Teddy, but—” she clenched her fists beneath the covers “—for each thing that goes right, something else goes wrong.”
