Morgan got up and went to the drinks cabinet, retrieved two cut glass tumblers and a bottle that was three-fourths full. He poured two fingers for himself then looked over his shoulder at Jane for direction. She held up one finger. He gave her that and a splash.
Jane slipped her needle into the shirt cuff where she could find it easily and accepted the tumbler that Morgan handed her. Her thimble clinked against the glass. Smiling a bit self-consciously, she removed it and dropped it in her sewing box. She moved the box to the table beside her.
“Drink up.”
Jane looked up at him. He was still standing in front of her. When she hesitated, he tapped the bottom of her glass with his forefinger, giving it just a nudge to move it toward her mouth.
“There you go.”
She thought he sounded, if not quite pleased, then at least satisfied. As soon as she took her first sip, he moved back to the sofa. This time he sat in the far corner so that one of his legs could rest on the cushions while the other angled out to the floor.
“Is it going to distress you to talk about your courses?”
Jane hiccupped. Her fingertips tightened on the tumbler until the tips were white.
“I reckon so.” He lifted his glass and knocked back half of his drink. “I only ever had a conversation like this with a woman once before, and she was the one who began it.”
“Was she a…” Jane took a sip, hiccupped, and tried again. “Was she a whore?”
“A whore? No, not so anyone ever had to pay her, but that’s probably a fine distinction. I came around to thinking she was.”
“Oh.” Jane understood enough to know she did not want to hear more.
“Whether she was or wasn’t doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that she told me that the goings-on in a woman’s body shouldn’t be a mystery, and to make sure it isn’t a mystery, it needs to be talked about now and again.”
“The goings-on?” asked Jane.
“Too plain? How about the mechanics?”
“Why don’t we simply say the biology?”
“All right. So I’ve been noticing your biology.”
Jane wished she had asked for more whiskey. Would hiding her face in Morgan’s shirt make her distress more or less obvious? “What about it?” she asked, carefully enunciating the t at the end of every word.
“I already said I’m aware that you’re done bleeding.”
“Oh, God,” Jane said. “You did not say that.” She knocked back what remained of her drink, threw off the shirt, and stood. Morgan held out his nearly empty tumbler as she passed, and Jane smoothly took it on her way to the liquor cabinet. She gave him another generous finger and after eyeing it, poured herself the same. When she went to hand the glass back to him, he caught her wrist and gave it a tug.
“Sit,” he said. “Here.” He patted the space beside him.
Jane looked at her captured wrist, then at Morgan. She realized suddenly that her hiccups were gone. That decided her. She supposed that she had made choices in her life that were influenced by flimsier logic, but she could not recall one of them now.
Her hiccups had disappeared. She sat.
CHAPTER 8
With one hand, Morgan carefully pried his drink from Jane’s cold fingers while holding onto her wrist with the other. He was relieved when she did not attempt to pull away. Her wrist was so delicate under his palm, so fragile, that he was afraid that any attempt to hold her would crush her bones.
He waited until he felt her settle onto the cushion before he let her go. Even then, he released her slowly, unfolding his fingers in succession, not all at once. Her hand hovered in the air for a moment, almost as if it were no part of her. He nudged it. It fell into her lap like a stone.
Morgan did not ask Jane to look at him. He was comfortable looking at her profile, and she was obviously comfortable staring straight ahead. “Soon it’ll be six weeks that we’ve been married.” If he had not been watching her closely, he thought he would have missed her nod. It was that faint. “I don’t guess it ever crossed my mind that you and I would mostly be sharing a bedroom and never a bed. Did it ever cross yours?”
Jane’s lips parted around her answer, but no sound accompanied the word.
“How’s that again?” asked Morgan.
“No.” She used both hands to raise her glass. She sipped quickly. “No, I never thought about it.”
