The Whole Valley Called Her the Plain Fiancee, So She Let the Banquet Read the Deed novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Terms

Signe's POV

I drove to the vineyard instead of home.

It was past eleven, and a cold rain had come in off the Blues and was running sideways across the county road.

My wipers could not keep up.

I did not turn on the radio.

I thought about a table by the kitchen doors, and the way his hand had closed on the cloth, and the way his mother had laid two fingers on his sleeve.

I thought about how badly I wanted to hit something.

The old vineyard house sits on a rise above the barrel room, a square brick farmhouse with a deep porch and one light burning.

His car stood in the gravel with its engine ticking.

He had beaten me home.

I got out and walked up the steps through the rain in my navy dress, and I did not knock.

The door was unlocked.

He stood in the front hall with his coat still on, and his hands hung open at his sides.

He looked at me, soaked to the skin, with my braid dripping down my back and my mother's glasses fogged.

"Signe," he said.

I did not answer.

I took the glasses off and wiped them on my sleeve and put them in my pocket, so I could see him clearly.

"I'm going to say my terms," I said.

"Please," he said.

"You let her do that to me tonight."

"Yes," he said.

"You sat there and let her say local touch, and you let two hundred people laugh, and you looked at your plate."

"Yes," he said again.

"I could not..."

"I know you couldn't," I said.

"I watched you try.

"I saw what it cost, and I know there's a reason, and I'm not asking you for it tonight.

"But I stood up in that ballroom for you, Rhys, and you sat down."

He closed his eyes.

"I know," he said.

"Don't tell me you're sorry," I said.

"I will not," he said.

"Don't say anything else, either," I said.

"I don't want you to say anything for the rest of the night."

He opened his eyes.

They were gray and burning, and for once there was nothing in them that he was holding back.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want you to take me upstairs," I said.

"I want it tonight, without a word about your mother or my father or the water.

"I want it without the ring.

"Nothing tonight is a promise.

"It's only what we do."

He did not say anything for one long breath.

Then he took off his coat and dropped it on the floor of the hall.

He crossed the space between us and put both his hands on my face.

They were warm, and they were not quite steady, and he looked at my face for a long time.

"Whatever you want," he said.

"You're mine tonight, Signe."

"Don't hold back," I said.

He kissed me.

It was not like the barrel room.

There was no hurry in it.

He kissed me slowly and thoroughly, with his thumbs on my cheekbones, until my knees went and I put my arms around his neck.

When he lifted me, I did not protest.

He carried me up the wide, dark stairs with the rain drumming on the windows.

His bedroom was at the end of a long hall.

It was a plain room with white walls, a big iron bed and one lamp on a table.

He set me down at the foot of the bed and did not turn on the overhead light.

I stood in the lamplight in a wet navy dress that clung to me.

He went down on one knee and unlaced my boots.

It was such a quiet thing to do that I could not breathe.

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