River

August 1811, Natchez, Mississippi Territory

Gregor

The sweat is pouring into my eyes as I help the crew unload the heartwood logs that have arrived on the Mississippi River by flatboat from a longleaf pine forest to the north. The huge logs will form the pilings for the dock extension that I have hired a crew to build at Natchez-Under-the-hill.

I know that it is unseemly for a gentleman to engage in manual labor like this, but this community seems to have grown to expect unconventional behavior from me. Behind me sits the brothel where I met my wife, although of course nobody mentions that anymore. At least not in my presence.

So, I am not letting the question of my respectability prevent me from participating in this task. I enjoy such labor, even in the blistering and humid heat of this bright summer day. I have doffed my fine coat, and am laboring alongside the other men in my shirtsleeves and breeches, getting as thoroughly filthy as they are.

Good thing that big metal bathtub which I ordered after my wedding has arrived.

When we get the logs shifted off the flatboat and stacked nearby, I call an end to the work for the day. Most of the men head into the nearest tavern, mopping off their faces and looking forward to an evening of drinking and ribaldry.

I have better things to do.

I retrieve my coat but don’t want to put it on over my sweaty shirt. I’m willing to risk the scandal of being seen in such informal attire walking through the respectable part of Natchez up on the hill over the docks. My Guardian will warn me if I need to put it on quickly if somebody fastidious enough to require it approaches.

He walks beside me, invisible to everybody else, in the form of a shining wolf.

I intend to stop by the post office to retrieve any mail on the way home, but Wolk tells me, “Rosalind has already gone to the post office for the mail.”

Ah. Helpful Guardian, helpful wife. How can my life get any better?

Wolk laughs, his wolfish face grinning.

Rosy

The afternoon is wearing on, and I have asked the servants, Moses and Nadine, to get a bath ready for him. I know that he will want one when he gets home from the docks. I’m sure he is down there working as hard as anybody else on his dock expansion project, rather than supervising from the side like any other gentleman would do.

It’s one of the things I love about him. He is not afraid to get his hands dirty.

But he also loves his baths. It’s another thing to love.

So Moses has been carrying buckets of water inside, from the pump that we have in our garden. Nadine has water boiling in pots, so that the bathwater will already be warm and ready when he gets here. Although honestly, it’s such a hot, muggy day, he probably won’t want the water too warm.

I have to suppress a laugh when he enters the side door from the garden to the kitchen, because I was seriously underestimating how very dirty he would be. My goodness, what a sight!

He laughs, though, when he sees my expression, and says, “I know, I’m a disgrace!” Yet another thing to love, the way he often guesses exactly what I’m thinking. He shakes his head and chuckles, clearly guessing that as well.

He lays his coat over the back of a chair, and moves over to embrace me. He lifts his sweat-stained arms and comes within an inch of me, then backs off, laughing. “I’m just teasing, I wouldn’t dream of inflicting myself on you in this state. I need a bath.”

It makes me laugh along with him. More to love. “I would let you, you know. I wouldn’t mind.”

We are so comfortable together. It always feels like this, with him, light and happy and pleasant. Sometimes I can hardly believe that this is my life now, so different from just a few months ago.

Nadine hears him say he needs a bath, and says, “Mister Gregor, I have your water boiling for your bath right now. It’s all ready.”

“Wonderful!”

“Will that be all, sir?” she asks. She and Moses know that Gregor likes to be alone with me in the evenings, so they make sure to finish all of their work long before the sun has set. She already has the dinner nearly ready for us, a stew simmering in a pot on the cast iron stove alongside the water boiling for his bath. There is a fresh loaf of bread cooling on a rack next to a pie. I’ll finish getting it all on the table later. Moses has done all of his tasks as well, tending the garden, splitting some firewood, carrying any heavy burdens around the house.

Gregor looks at me inquiringly, to see if I need anything else from the servants. When I shake my head, he says, “That’s all for tonight, thank you.”

Before Nadine goes, she indicates a washtub partially filled with water along the side of the kitchen, near the side room where we keep the bathtub. She says, just before she walks out the door to join Moses who is waiting in the garden, “Sir, if you wouldn’t mind just leaving your clothes in the washtub, I will get to washing them in the morning.” Considering the condition of his clothing, I fully understand her desire to have it soaking overnight.

He grins. “I promise. Thank you. We will see you tomorrow.” We see them leave together, but know they will be going in separate directions, she to the small house she shares with her husband, and he to the boarding house where he rents a room.

When they are gone, Gregor says, “Ahhhh! Alone at last.” He leans in to give me a kiss, but fastidiously keeps his hands away from me. I can tell he thinks he’s too dirty to even touch me.

I’ll fix that.

I close the distance between us, running my hands across his sweaty chest, starting at his shoulders and sweeping all the way down to the bottom of his cotton shirt. I begin drawing it slowly back up his body, trailing my fingers along his hot skin as I go. He sucks in a breath. When I get his shirt up to his shoulders, I tell him, “Up,” and he obediently lifts his arms so that I can pull it over his head.

He is waiting for me, delight in his eyes, to see what I will do next. As always, he seems to be in no rush, simply happy to enjoy the moment that he is living in. I boldly rake my eyes across his slender, muscular chest, then impulsively lean in to take a little lick, just under his collarbone. “Mmm! Salty!” I tell him.

“All right, now you’ve done it!” he laughs, finally giving up on his determination not to get me dirty. His hands are on me now, just as I wanted, and I clutch him to me as he kisses me again, running my fingers up and down his bare back. When he comes up for air, he says, “Now you’re going to be joining me in my bath!”

I look down at my body. “I hate to tell you, but I think I’m getting too big for that.”

His hands move around from my back to my front, cradling my swelling stomach where the baby is growing. “Nah,” he says, pretending to carefully measure and evaluate my form, “we can still make it work.”

It makes me giggle, remembering the first time he told me that, just about a year ago at the brothel where we met. I didn’t believe him, but he demonstrated it beautifully. He smiles at me, obviously knowing what I am remembering.

He lets go of me and moves into the little side room, which probably is meant to be a pantry for the kitchen, but we have been using as the bathing chamber. It might be a somewhat less romantic location to have the tub than our bedroom, but it makes more sense to have the bath downstairs where it won’t be such a chore to fill and empty it. We don’t have a big enough crew to lug buckets up and down the stairs like Madam Beverly had.

He looks down into the bathtub, sees that it is already partially filled with cool water, and is just waiting for the hot water from the stove. “Just give me a minute,” he tells me, heading back into the kitchen.

“I’ll help,” I say, but he shakes his head.

“Nope. I’ll do all the heavy lifting around here, Mama.” I have to laugh. He has been very insistent on taking care of me, and making sure that I am not doing anything that would strain me at all while I am carrying this baby. It’s adorable, and unnecessary, but it seems to make him happy to pamper me. He looks at me and grins wryly, nodding his head. Yep, he’s guessing my thoughts again.

Fine, then. I lean against the wall and let him do all the work, enjoying the view of his shirtless form lifting the heavy pots of water and pouring them into the bath.

When he’s done, his happy expression transforms into something far more serious, and he approaches me with a gleam in his eye.

Yes, this is exactly what I wanted.

Gregor

I think I’ll be able to sleep again tonight. It’s almost miraculous, how much rest I’ve been able to get, now that Rosalind is with me every night. Her touch is magic for me, just the thing I need to get the sleep that usually eludes me. I’ll go for weeks without, and end cranky and disoriented before I finally collapse. But she is able to wear me out just enough that sleep comes easily to me afterwards. Two months into our marriage and I feel better and more well-rested than I have in years.

But no sleeping quite yet tonight. After we are done with the bath, and the deep enjoyment of each other that usually comes along with it, Rosalind is sitting breathless in a wooden chair next to the bathtub. We’ve just been engaging in one of my very favorite activities. Hers too, by the looks of it. I gently untangle her hands from my hair, and kneel back up next to her to take her in my arms. “I’ll want more later, darling, but for now I am hungry.” I wave my hand over her nude form, and add, “But, you know, for actual food this time.”

She bursts out laughing. I reach over to the nearby shelf to pull out one of the cotton bath sheets and wrap her with it. Grabbing one of my own, we run giggling like children through the house and up the stairs to our bedroom, to find clean clothing to put on before dinner. This is one of the reasons we have to send our servants home at night. We’d never be able to conduct such outrageous activities if there were other people here.

I suppose after her baby comes things might change. The baby. Our baby. Wolk has told me that Rosalind is finally acclimating to the idea that I intend for this baby to be my own, regardless of when or with whom it started. I never thought to have the privilege of raising a child, and I am deeply excited for this opportunity. I can’t father children, so I am nothing but grateful for whoever did the favor for me while she was still working at the brothel. Even if it was “the beast” as she called him. It doesn’t matter. It will be our child.

“Sit down,” she tells me as we come into the dining room. “I’ll get the food. Nadine made stew.”

Wolk settles his wolf form down on the floor near the table, looking as pleased with himself as I feel. He always reflects my emotions, and I feel such contentment right now that I could burst. I think about how this came about, how in Pittsburgh the Roosevelts made me see that I was stubbornly resisting what I needed to do. I had never intended to get married, even to develop a true relationship, because I was too much of a coward to face heartbreak again. Wolk made me realize on the journey back to Natchez that all of my objections, my fears, my hesitation, were nothing more than what ordinary humans overcome every day. My situation might be unusual, but my concerns are the same ones that other people have. When I saw it from that perspective, it gave me the resolve to propose. And I am far happier for it than I had ever expected to be again.

Rosalind brings the delicious smelling stew and bread to the table. Before she sits down, she reaches over to the sideboard and picks up some papers, laying a little stack down before me. “I picked up your mail,” she tells me.

“Thank you,” I say, “for the mail, the food, the sex. For it all.” I am perfectly sincere, but it makes her giggle anyway.

I leaf through the mail and am delighted to see the letter from Pittsburgh. “Ah!” I say. “Nicholas and Lydia Roosevelt have responded to my letter!” I have told her about them, and she is prepared to be just as fond of them as I am when she finally meets them.

“When did you write to them?” she asks.

“A couple of days after our wedding.” I grin at her, starting to open the letter, “After you finally let me get back out of bed.”

She shrieks with laughter and throws the piece of bread in her hand at me. I swiftly snatch it out of the air and start munching on it while I scan the letter. “They send their congratulations on our marriage. As well they should. I am clearly the luckiest man alive.”

She shakes her head and chuckles while she spoons some stew into her mouth. I continue reviewing the letter. “They’ve gotten most of the steam engine parts, they are framing the ship, everything is coming along. They hope to have it finished in a couple of months.” I start slurping stew too. “I’d better get a move on with the dock!”

“Slow down, Gregor,” she laughs at me. “You’re not going back out there tonight. You have to finish what you started in the bathtub.”

“Oh, I will. Believe me.”

“I can’t wait.”