Read Online Mud and Gold by Shayne Parkinson - Free Book Online Page B

want me and Lizzie to have Ma and Pa’s
old room,’ he began again boldly. ‘I think Lizzie should have the
best bedroom. Do you mind?’
    ‘I don’t care a damn,’ Ben said. ‘Just as
long as you keep her out of my room—even that doesn’t matter, come
to think of it. Not after tomorrow.’
    Ben was beginning to sound mysterious.
Perhaps he was just trying to be annoying. ‘Lizzie won’t go in your
room, Ben—not unless you want her to make your bed or something.
But you’re still the oldest. If you get married, you can have the
good bedroom and Lizzie and me will move out of it.’
    ‘Huh! I’ll never be that bloody stupid—no
woman’s ever going to get her claws into me.’
    ‘Please yourself, Ben.’
    Frank suspected that the parlour would start
being used a lot more once Lizzie arrived. He opened its windows
and waved a cloth around the furniture, raising clouds of dust.
That looked good enough, he decided, as he made his way out of the
room in a fit of coughing. He couldn’t possibly get all the dust
off the mantelpiece and tables; much of it seemed to have set in
place.
    He opened the window in the front bedroom
and gave its furniture the same cursory attention the parlour’s had
received, but when he shook the mattresses they made so much dust
that his work was undone at once. He dragged the mattresses out to
the verandah, where they could have a good airing. After all, the
bed had not been slept in for years.
    That afternoon Frank hunted out clean sheets
and made up the bed. With its pretty blue coverlet, the brass
bedstead looked inviting. Frank could picture his mother propped up
against the pillows, smiling at him. She had often let him sneak in
to have a cuddle in the morning, while Frank was still too young to
go off with his father and Ben. In the last few years of her life
she had had to spend more and more time in that bed, and in her
final months she had been too weak to get out of it at all.
    But after tomorrow it wouldn’t be his mother
smiling up at him from the pillows. It would be Lizzie. At least he
hoped she would be smiling; that would depend on how good a job he
made of things.
    Frank sighed. He would do his best, and that
was all he could do. He ran through his scraps of information and
made his plans. Tomorrow morning he would leave a clean nightshirt
under the pillow; no, he would leave it in his own bedroom. Lizzie
might be shy the first night; Frank was quite sure he would be. He
would let her get undressed in private.
    He hoped Ben would stay out late the night
of the wedding; either that or go to bed very early. Despite
Arthur’s comments about not wasting time, Frank had decided it
would be a good idea for him and Lizzie to share a cup of tea
before they went to bed, and he was sure Ben’s presence at the
table would do nothing to help them relax.
    After a nice, quiet supper together, he
would suggest that Lizzie get ready for bed while he got undressed
in his old room. When she was ready, he would join her in the
bedroom; in the bed, in fact. Then what? Put out the lamp, of
course; neither of them was going to want to be seen. Cuddling in
the dark would be fun, and he knew Lizzie would let him fondle
anything he liked once they were safely married.
    His step-by-step plan gave Frank a small
amount of confidence. Now all he had to do was pray that by the
time his knowledge ran out, at the cuddling stage, ‘Doing what
comes naturally’ would have taken over. He smiled at the thought of
Lizzie’s body snuggling up against his. Even if he couldn’t figure
it all out at first, they were going to have some good cuddles.
     
    *
     
    The day of Lizzie and Frank’s wedding dawned
beautifully clear and sunny. After breakfast Amy timidly asked
permission to go to her uncle’s house in time to help Lizzie get
ready. To her relief, Charlie gave his consent with nothing more
than an admonition to ‘Behave yourself’. She put the slight feeling
of nausea with which she had