Read Online Resurrection by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online Page B

the semblance of a smile rooted in irony rather than humor, exactly where she would have planted Mr.Montgomery—had she married him, of course. She hadn’t, and for that Gil, who had learned to expect little in the way of miracles, was wondrously grateful.
    He folded his arms, his new clothes soaked and his hair dripping. His body, still throbbing for want of the satisfactions he had denied it on Miss Emmeline’s screened porch, found some small mercy in the dousing, and was eased.
    For a time, Gil considered the world and its ways. Then, as mystified as ever, he squatted to trace the letters of his name, chiseled with Old World precision onto the face of the fine stone. Below was his birth date, followed by that of his supposed death—in a tragic twist, the day he’d been shanghaied. In many ways, he had indeed perished then, so he supposed it was fitting that there should be a grave for his old self. He might have come here to mourn the Gil he had been in the innocent arrogance of his youth, believing himself invincible and feeling so damn certain of everything.
    He smiled bitterly at the memory. “Rest in peace,” he said, rising and laying a hand to the smooth, curved top of the headstone. And then he turned and walked through the puddles and the thick, claylike mud to his wagon. The mule stood shivering in the rain, head down.
    Gil climbed into the box, pushed the brake lever down with one foot, and took up the reins. The mule, glad to be moving, slogged patiently over the slippery, rutted track, hauling his master home.
    •  •  •
    Gil did not come to town on Monday, or at least he didn’t pay Emmeline a call, and she told herself that was for the best. The rain had stopped sometime in the night, but the shrubs and the grass were bejeweled with water droplets, quivering prisms flinging off light. After her ten o’clock piano lesson, Emmeline went out into the garden and carefully tookdown the Chinese lanterns, now mere globs of brightly colored pulp.
    On Tuesday, Reverend Bickham came to call. He was a good man, attentive to his flock, and Emmeline gave him tea and tried to reassure him that her soul was safe in the bosom of the lamb. He departed in some doubt, she suspected, despite her efforts.
    By Wednesday, the prairie grasses were lavish, nurtured to a dazzling shade of emerald by Sunday’s rain, and Brother Joy arrived, with his wagons and barkers, and set up his gypsy camp just outside of town. The rhythmic sound of hammers rang through the weighted, fragrant air as the faithful pounded nails into the speaking platform inside the main tent.
    Plentiful buzzed with delighted expectation, and Emmeline was pleased. For a little while, at least, people would talk about Brother Joy and his good friend, the Lord, instead of her. Like everyone else, she cooked extra food, and she and Izannah cleaned the house from top to bottom, even though it was unlikely that either Brother Joy or the Lord would come to call. All the while, Emmeline thought about Gil, alternately blessing and cursing him, wondering if he was eating properly and if he’d taken a cold from walking her home in the rain.
    With disturbing regularity, she caught herself halfway to the carriage house, bent on hitching Lysandra to the surrey and driving out to see how Gil was faring. Each time, however, Emmeline turned around and marched right back to whatever task she had just abandoned. She’d played the fool as it was, letting that man kiss her the way he had in the parlor that first night, allowing him to stroke her bare ankles beside the stream, and, finally, submitting to him as he’d stripped her naked on the screened porch. Not for all the rubies in India would she go to him again, just asking to be cast off like some strumpet.
    The problem was that her body burned for her husband’s touch, and the flames of her desire threatened to consume her.
    On Thursday afternoon, summoned by the blare of a trumpet loud enough to be