The Romancing of Evangeline Ipswich Read online

  Hutch stepped aside, and as Heather Griffith jealously studied Evangeline from head to toe, Evangeline understood exactly what he intended the young woman to think.

  “Why…why yes, he did,” Evangeline said, brushing a long strand of unpinned hair from her face. She nervously began to fiddle with the open collar of her shirtwaist. Stepping forward, she said, “Hutch and I have known each other since we were children, you realize,” she explained, forcing a smile and taking Hutch’s arm. “And when I came out to see Jennie…” She shrugged, feigning naïveté. She looked to Hutch and smiled, “Well, the moment I saw him…it was as if we’d never been apart.”

  Hutch released Evangeline’s arm where she’d been holding it and instead placed his hands at her waist, turning her to face him. There was nothing she could do but place her hands on his warm, broad chest and smile at him—for Heather Griffiths’s sake, of course.

  “You married this woman?” Heather nearly growled.

  “I did,” Hutch said, placing a firm kiss to Evangeline’s cheek. “I couldn’t help myself. She’s so beautiful, and I’ve loved her for so long. And once she stepped off that train and back into my life…”

  Evangeline startled when Heather screeched with anger and frustration. “You’ve ruined everything, Hutch!” the girl growled. She looked to Evangeline, hatred fairly spitting from her eyes. “Fine,” she said to Hutch then. “You could’ve had me, Hutch. But you chose her instead. Therefore, all I can tell you is…well, you’ve made your bed, so you’re the one who’ll have to lie in it!”

  Hutch smiled, however, saying, “Oh, I have, Heather.” He looked to Evangeline, pressed a long, lingering, warm kiss to her mouth, and then said, “I have,” and closed the door in Heather Griffiths’s face.

  Evangeline heard Heather squeal a bit with fury, stomp down the front porch steps—and then she was gone.

  “You’re terrible!” Evangeline scolded Hutch, though she couldn’t keep from laughing. The truth was, she’d been somewhat thrilled when she’d realized just what Hutch was trying to make Heather assume. Oh, it was devilish of her to willingly play a part in his deceit, but she was glad she had.

  Hutch shrugged, however. “That woman has been driving me near to drink for over a year now,” he explained. His smile broadened. “But…I expect she’s finished with me now. Don’t you?”

  “I would hope so,” Evangeline admitted. The truth was, she could hardly think straight! Hutch had kissed her! His warm lips pressed so firmly against hers had turned Evangeline’s innards to spring-day slush. Not to mention the fact that he still held her against him—that her palms were still pressed against the warm, solid contours of his chest.

  “Now wasn’t that fun?” he asked her. “A little mischief always puts an extra sparkle in your eye, you know, Evie. It always has.”

  “Well, you’re not the one who has to sew three buttons back onto this shirtwaist, now are you?” she teased.

  Hutch’s gaze was so mesmerizing! He was staring at her intently, rather as if he didn’t plan on releasing her any time soon. The deep, cool blue of his eyes seemed to boil somehow as he looked at her. His expression thoroughly thrilled her, caused her to quiver with wanting to kiss him—to think of the bed Heather Griffiths had accused him of making—and of lying in it with him.

  “Oh! I forgot to tell you,” Evangeline exclaimed, however—too uncomfortable to continue with the train of thought she’d begun. Whether or not Hutch was, by law, her husband—whether or not her feelings were so strong for him that she hated every moment he was away from her, longed to be in his arms with every breath she took—she didn’t quite know how to surrender to his teasing implications. For always in the back of her mind was the question of how sincere his teasing was.

  Therefore, she casually stepped out of his grasp and said, “I found a spider this morning—a huge, huge, enormously monstrous wolf spider—and I couldn’t find the courage to step on it. So I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind getting rid of it for me. Otherwise, I’ll never be able to sleep again, you know.”

  Hutch shook his head and chuckled, obviously amused. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now, Evangeline?” he asked. “We just sent one of our neighbors off into the world thinking scandalous thoughts of what you and I are up to in here…and you want me to kill a spider for you?”

  Evangeline nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind,” she assured him. “I abhor spiders.”

  Hutch sighed, chuckled again, and asked, “All right. Where’s this monster spider you need squashed?”

  “In the kitchen,” Evangeline told him.

  She was a coward! A spineless coward! She knew neither of her sisters would’ve backed away so hastily from the men that they loved, and it made her wonder what was wrong with her. And yet Amoretta’s and Calliope’s circumstances of marriage were vastly different than her own. They’d been proposed to by the men they loved, planned weddings, been married properly with many witnesses, had photographs as proof that their men loved them enough to marry them. It wasn’t the same—wasn’t the same as Hutch actually wanting to marry her of his own free will.

  “I did manage to put an empty peach bottle over it,” Evangeline explained as she followed Hutch into the kitchen. “But I swear it’s so big its legs were still sticking out of the bottle rim at first.”

  Evangeline shivered with wild discomfort as Hutch approached the large glass jar sitting over the spider on the kitchen floor. She watched as he hunkered down in front of the jar and placed a hand on it.

  “Ahhh!” Evangeline screamed, hopping up onto one of the kitchen chairs. “What are you doing? Are you insane?” She wished she’d put on her shoes before she’d dressed, for now her bare feet were at the mercy of being crawled on if the spider escaped its glass prison.

  Hutch looked up at her a moment and smiled. “Well, I gotta move the jar if I’m gonna stomp the spider, sugar,” he chuckled.

  But as Hutch lifted the jar, the unusually large wolf spider did indeed fulfill Evangeline’s fears by quickly scampering across the floor toward the very chair on which she was standing.

  Horror-struck, Evangeline hopped from the chair she’d been standing on onto the kitchen table, squealing and dancing about as if the tabletop were a bed of hot coals instead of just an ordinary (and harmless) piece of furniture.

  Even after she heard the hard stomp of Hutch’s boot on the floor—even after he’d assured her the spider was dead and he’d gone to the stove to scrape its remains from his boot on the pile of wood in the wood bucket there—Evangeline’s skin was swarming with the residual goose bumps, goose bumps of terror.

  “My skin is crawling!” she said as she remained standing on the table. “I’ll never, ever get to sleep tonight! How many other monsters like that are in here, do you think?”

  Evangeline watched as Hutch turned back toward her, bending to one side as he studied something. It took her only an instant to realize he was staring at her legs—her scandalously bare feet and legs! When she’d leapt up to the chair (and then the table), she’d been clutching her skirt and petticoats, keeping the hem lifted to nearly her knees for fear another spider might appear and endeavor to scramble up her legs. Even her pantaloons had somehow managed to bunch up above her knees, so that her knees were visible as well—visible to Hutch!

  Evangeline dropped her skirt and petticoats at once, properly covering her calves, ankles, and feet. Her goose bumps of terror were quickly spiraling into goose bumps of embarrassment and a scarlet blush of humiliation.

  Hutch straightened to his full height, smiled, and said, “Mercy! I’ve never seen a woman’s bare, naked legs before. It’s a beautiful sight indeed…yes, indeed it is. At least your bare, naked legs are a beautiful sight.” His smile broadened as he added, “I’m finding there really are quite a lot of advantages to being married to you, Evangeline.”

  “You are a terrible tease, Hutchner LaMontagne!” Evangeline scolded, blushing to the very core of her being. Quickly sh
e stepped off the table, onto the chair, and then from the chair to the floor, carefully glancing about just in case any more morbid, horrifying spiders were lurking about. “You’re no gentleman at all.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, feigning ignorance. “I killed the spider, didn’t I?” he chuckled.

  “Yes, you did. And thank you,” Evangeline said, nodding at him. “But you shouldn’t have taken advantage of my…my state of undress and…and looked at my legs the way you did.” Evangeline wondered if Hutch really did think her legs were beautiful. She certainly hoped he did. Still, a proper woman was bound by society to feign horror at having had a man see her legs.

  Hutch shook his head and laughed. “Evangeline, when in the world are you gonna get it through your head that I’m your husband?” he playfully reminded her. Striding over to stand directly in front of her, he took hold of her shoulders, smiled, and said, “I’m your husband, your man…forever. I could stand here, strip you down to nothing, and look at you all day long if I wanted to, and no one would fault me for it.”

  When Evangeline gasped with astonished chagrin, Hutch simply laughed again, however, adding, “Oh, and you’re more than welcome to do the same to me anytime you want.”

  The thought of Hutch in any more of a state of undress than he already was—usually parading around in nothing but his trousers and boots—was so startling to Evangeline that she found she couldn’t speak.

  Therefore, having either misunderstood her silence as approval of the idea or simply wanting to mercilessly taunt her again, Hutch said, “Just say the word, my beautiful, very blushing bride.” His voice was lowered to an outrageously provocative voice. He then proceeded to unfasten his belt, strip it from his trouser waist, and toss it to the table, as well. “Just say the word, and I’ll—”

  “Oh my! No!” Evangeline gasped. “I swear, Hutch! What is your obsession with nudity?”

  But Hutch only laughed low in his throat and winked at her. “It ruffles you bloomers, honey, that’s all. I like to see you bashful and nervous. You’re extra delicious when you’re like that—vulnerable and girly, instead of so proper the way you sometimes feel you have to be.”

  Even for the fact that she was so casually attired—that her hair was down and her feet bare—Evangeline straightened her posture with an air of defiance. “What do you mean? I am proper.”

  “No, you’re not,” Hutch countered. “You’re fun and frivolous.” He leaned closer and bent down until his face was level with hers. “You’re passionate and playful, just like me.” He straightened his own posture then. “But you weren’t expecting to have to marry over my sister’s deathbed the way you did. It kind of took the fun out of it for you—turned the fairy tale wedding all little girls dream about into a…well, sort of a mess. So I don’t think it’s ever really sunk into your brain that we really are husband and wife.”

  Evangeline found herself shaking her head, her brows arched in astonishment. “It sunk in. I mean, I’m living with you, aren’t I? I wouldn’t be living in your house with you, and sleeping next to you in your bed, if it hadn’t sunk in.”

  “I don’t know,” he attested. “For instance,” he began then. Evangeline stiffened as his hands moved to her waist—as he pulled her body against his. “Right now, you’re thinking you like me. But part of you doesn’t believe I’m really your husband…being that the reverend married us in less than a minute, in truth.”

  Evangeline’s breath felt labored; her heart was racing like a train engine! He was so very, very handsome! So alluring—so wholly seductive! And every inch of Evangeline wanted to reach out, throw her arms around his neck, and beg him to kiss her—to love her as thoroughly as she loved him! But she just couldn’t. For some reason, her body wouldn’t obey her mental commands to reach out and take Hutchner LaMontagne for her own.

  “I don’t know much about much,” Hutch said then. “But I do know a fair amount about you, Evangeline.” His eyes narrowed, smoldered with mischief. “You forget that I watched you grow up from just a little thing to a young woman. And now…now you’re a woman—full-grown, beautiful, and so enchanting as to make a man’s head spin near clean off his body…especially mine.”

  Evangeline felt tears welling in her eyes. Oh, how desperately she wanted to freely express her feelings for him—to reveal the tenderness of her heart to him and let him keep it as his own!

  Yet it was hard to believe—to believe that Hutch could care for her the way she cared for him—especially when he’d basically been forced to marry her.

  Unexpectedly then, Evangeline found herself asking, “What do you want from me, Hutch?” If he just told her that all he really wanted was for her to give herself to him physically, maybe she could find a way to do that for him and still protect herself from a measure of heartache in knowing he hadn’t chosen her. Maybe if he told her exactly what he did want from her, she could endeavor to win his heart and sincere affections. “Do you want me to…to…” She nodded toward their bedroom.

  But Hutch suddenly took her face in his hands, gazing into her eyes with a wanton expression, yes, but also an expression of deep emotion and caring. It so startled Evangeline, and she stood stuck to the place she was, trembling with a sudden wave of desire washing over her.

  “I just want you to trust me, to accept me,” he mumbled against her ear. “I want you to know that I married you, willingly…and that I’m your husband…and that I want you for my wife.”

  Evangeline felt warm all over—warmer than she’d ever felt before in all her life. She felt her body relax a bit against his and found the courage to say, “I do know we’re legally married, you know.”

  “Do you?” he asked, kissing her cheek again.

  Evangeline smiled—sighed with momentary contentment.

  Contentment until Hutch added, “Well then, why don’t you pucker up and give me some sugar? After all, you did just admit that you know we’re married. I swear, Jones gets more attention from you than I do.”

  “Jones does not get more attention from me than you do,” Evangeline told him.

  “Yes, he does,” Hutch corrected, grinning at her. “You’re always petting him, talking to him in that sweet voice of yours.”

  “Well, fine then,” Evangeline said. “I’ll try to give you more attention than I give to Jones, from here on out.” She smiled, reached up, and patted Hutch on the top of the head.

  Hutch rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “Oh, and Jones likes when I do this too,” Evangeline giggled, reaching behind both of Hutch’s ears and gently scratching him there. “Satisfied?” she teased.

  “No,” Hutch mumbled, still grinning at her.

  His patience was wearing thin. And besides, Hutch could see that Evangeline cared for him. He could feel it in her touch—even the way she teasingly scratched behind his ears.

  “Evangeline,” he began. He couldn’t keep from staring at her mouth. He’d meant to tell her what he’d been up to during the past week—about the telegrams. And yet part of him wanted her to fall in love with him then and there, before he told her his plans.

  “Yes?” she asked, staring up at him with an expression of invitation. But an invitation to what?

  She wanted to kiss him—to fairly smother him with kisses! To be wrapped in his arms, held against his strong, warm, protective body. But she didn’t know how to begin! Evangeline could see in Hutch’s eyes that he did care for her. It was all so ridiculous, the discomfort she felt. She knew she could trust him and that he would eventually love her—if he didn’t already. And by the expression in his beautiful eyes, she was beginning to believe that he did.

  Hutch sighed, grinned a little, and said, “It’ll keep.”

  Disappointed—for she had hoped Hutch had been about to confess to her that he loved her—Evangeline said, “Well, do you want your breakfast now?” After all, what else could she say? And she knew Hutch must be hungry.

  Hutch grinned—the sort of roguish grin that
caused Evangeline’s heart to quiver with delight. “Yes,” he said. “I do want my breakfast.”

  And then—oh, blessedly then—it happened. Taking her face between his hands once more, Hutchner LaMontagne kissed Evangeline—thoroughly kissed her! In fact, his kiss was so affecting to her entire being that she was struck breathless and dizzy and simultaneously whisked into such a flurry of pleasurable emotions and physical elation that she quite thought she would faint for a moment.

  This kiss was not the quick, fierce sort of kiss that Evangeline had experienced when Reverend Lloyd had pronounced her and Hutch married, nor was it the soft, lingering kiss she’d experienced from him just minutes before in front of Heather Griffiths. This kiss was wildly passionate—hot, moist, and invigorating to her very core! This kiss was driven, wanton, and busting with barely bridled emotion!

  Over and over and over Hutch’s mouth worked to blend with Evangeline’s! And over and over and over Evangeline’s worked to blend with his—until such a fever of fervor was burning between them that Evangeline thought that if the house were burning down around her, she wouldn’t care—wouldn’t pause their ardent exchange.

  Never had Evangeline known such a kiss! Oh, she’d been witness to similar moments between her sisters and their husbands—even between her father and Kizzy. But to experience it with Hutch—oh, even her dreams of him had not been near to what the reality was!

  Another knock on the door disturbed their rapture, however.

  “Dammit!” Hutch growled as he released Evangeline, stormed to the door, opened it, and nearly shouted, “What?”

  It was Mrs. Swayze, and her eyes bugged out like a mouse caught in a trap as she studied Hutch from head to toe.

  “Oh…oh my!” she breathlessly exclaimed. The doctor’s wife blushed, gulped, and looked past Hutch and his magnificence to where Evangeline stood behind him. “Pardon me, Mrs. LaMontagne,” she began—her eyes darting back to Hutch’s chest, her blush deepening. “But Patrick needs me to assist in another birthing, and I thought you might want to run over to be with Mrs. McKee and the baby while I’m gone. Though I do think she’s quite on the mend. She seems more herself this morning.”