Lisa Kleypas - Give Me Tonight

Addie scrambled out from under the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes wide. The bedroom was blue and white. There was an electric lamp in the corner. She stared at the poster on the wall, at Rudolph Valentino's slicked-black hair and smoldering eyes. She felt as if she would suffocate.

"No. No, don't let this be happening to me."

Standing up unsteadily, Addie went to the door and tried to turn the knob. It was Iocked. "Let me out," she said, although there was no one to hear her, and she pulled harder at the doorknob. "Let me out!" Her voice was shrill with panic. "Ben, where are you? Ben! Ben-"

She jerked awake with a muffled sound, her heart pounding high in her throat. Trembling, she looked around at the pink-and-white bedroom and stumbled out of bed, going to the middle of the floor and turning around. It was all here. Her shoulders and spine relaxed. She went to the mirror and looked at her own chalk-white face, at the naked fear that still lingered there. It had only been a dream.

"I belong here," she said out loud, her voice shaking. "I belong here and I won't go back. I won't. " The brown eyes that stared back at her were full of desperation and doubt.

"Ahh… here comes the sleepyhead," Caroline said affectionately as soon as Addie came downstairs. Addie smiled wanly, sitting in her chair at the table. May poured her coffee and fussed over her, and a sense of comfort and ease began to steal over her.

"You did sleep late this mornin'," May said with a smile. "Did you have a good night?"

"I… I… What do you mean?" Addie asked nervously.

"Well, we've spent the last few days at the Fanins'. It certainly is nice to be back in your own bed, isn't it?"

"It's wonderful to be back in mine," Caroline remarked, putting a hand to her back. "Those beds at the Fanins' were so hard. These days I can hardly find a comfortable position to sleep in."

Addie regarded her sympathetically. "Poor Caro. But I al-most envy you, looking forward to having a baby to take care of and love."

"They're somethin' to envy when they belong to someone else," came the wry response. "It's only when you have one of your own that you understand what trouble they are. And this one is givin' me more trouble than Leah did. Or maybe it's just that I'm older. "

"Thirty isn't old at all."

"Tell that to Peter." Caroline smiled faintly. "I think he's gettin' ready to put me out to pasture."

"What do you mean?"

Caroline's smile disappeared. "Oh, nothin'. Just makin' noise."

"I don't understand-"

"You'll understand many things when you get married," May interrupted gently. "Includin' some of the little discomforts and worries a woman has to face."

"But it would be wonderful with the right person," Addie said dreamily, resisting the temptation of looking to see May's reaction as she spoke. "I can't wait to be married. "

"And just who is it you're plannin' on marryin'?"

"Oh… no one right now." Addie interjected just the right amount of confusion in her voice. The subject was dropped, but May's eyes remained on her, watching her warily all morning.

RUSSELL LIKED TO GRUMBLE LOUDLY ON THE EVEnings when he worked in his office. The sounds of his counting and frustrated exclamations penetrated the walls and wafted down the hallway, clearly audible in the parlor where May, Caroline, and Addie did needlework. May and Caroline mended clothes while Addie embroidered the border of a pillowcase.

They had been sewing a long time, long enough for Addie to have grown sore from sitting. She shifted in her chair and contemplated the scene around her. Cade had finished his homework and gone upstairs for the night, while the rest of the household was already sound asleep. It was quiet in the parlor, too quiet for Addie's peace of mind. She bent her attention to the half-formed flower on the pillowcase in her lap, but her thoughts wandered restlessly. May and Caro's blond heads were bent over their work. It amazed Addie, how remarkably alike they were in their outward serenity.

She wondered how they could look so tranquil, when they really weren't any more peaceful than she was. Inside they were restless too. Addie had seen and heard May's bitterness as she had talked about the life she could have chosen so long ago, a life very different from this one. And Caroline was more complex than any outsider would guess. Addie shook her head slightly, staring at May and Caro. Why were they so much better at hiding their real feelings than she was?

At least I dare to say what I really think most of the time. But they almost never do. None of the women around here do. Who had made up the rule that women were never supposed to get angry, that they were always supposed to be tolerant and calm and forbearing? Men had decided that. Men liked their women to be just short of saintly, while they themselves never bothered to control their tempers or choose their words carefully. They could stomp all over other people and be as rude and coarse as they wanted, and then the women had to smooth things over afterward and make everything right again. May and Caroline were perfect examples of nineteenth-century womanhood. Caretakers, peacemakers.

I won't be like them, Addie thought moodily. I couldn't even if I wanted to. It would mean playing a part all the time. And I'm not that good an actress.

Caroline, however, played the part to perfection. Addie moved her attention exclusively to her sister. How different Caro's inward and outward selves were. She looked as if she'd never done or said anything improper in her life. Blond, serene, passionless… it seemed Caro had inherited little of her father's lusty nature. She appeared to be perfectly content to have a husband who didn't share her bed. A few weeks ago Peter and Caro had moved into separate bedrooms, using Caro's pregnancy as an excuse. At this very moment Peter was sleeping upstairs, with no expectation of seeing his wife until tomorrow morning at the breakfast table.

Addie had been astounded by the Warner family's lack of surprise at the situation. They had all taken it for granted that Caroline had no need to be intimate with a man unless it was for the purpose of conceiving children. But Addie knew about Caro's affair with Raif Colton. Caroline was a woman of flesh and blood, not marble, and she had a need to give and receive love.

Addie felt sorry for Caroline. Was that all her sister intended to have for the rest of her life, a lifeless marriage and a few memories of passion? Addie had the feeling that inside Caro there still burned a love for the hot -tempered cowboy who had been her lover, the father of her firstborn, a man who'd been killed as violently as he had lived. As she sat there sewing placidly, did Caro ever think about him and what they'd shared? Maybe she couldn't let herself.

I could never make the kind of mistake she did, Addie thought in wonder. I could never give Ben up for someone else, no matter how right or wrong it seemed. I guess I don't have the strength.

Addie had never been so conscious of the differences between herself and the other two women as she was at this moment. Long ago they had accepted the role that women were supposed to assume. Sacrifice, submit, put your own needs behind everyone else's. Tolerate the things that bring you pain, bend like a reed in the wind. That took a different kind of strength from what Addie had. She had been raised to respect her own needs just as men respected theirs. She wouldn't last long as a martyr. She didn't have the quiet, steely patience it took to suffer uncomplaining day after day.

The days of her childhood were gone, but they were still a part of her. Living with Leah during those years after the war, she had learned to work and scratch for pennies, had discovered she could carry the weight of many burdens on her shoulders, just as long as she had the freedom to make her own decisions. That freedom of making choices must never be taken away.