Speak My Love Read online

  Patrons from all around the crowded room called greetings to Milo. It was patently obvious that he had the respect and affection of his constituents.

  Milo waved and called to them in a hail-fellow-well-met manner. Equally apparent was his fondness for his fellow citizens.

  Mother M., as she was affectionately called, showed the two men to a table in a corner. "I'll send Mabel over to take your orders. What do you want to drink? It's on the house."

  Milo sank into a chair and leaned back. "I'll have a beer and cook us up a couple of steaks."

  Ian asked, even though he knew the answer already. "Do you have any wine?"

  Mother M. spoke to Ian with a deference that was sadly lacking when she addressed Milo. "No sir, Mr. Alwin, if you want anything stronger than beer you'll have to go to Pete's Bar." She rubbed her hands along the sides of her dirty apron and stood waiting for Ian's reply.

  "I'll have a beer."

  As Mother M. hurried away, Milo scooted his chair nearer the table. After looking around the room he asked in a hushed voice, "Can you imagine what will happen to my popularity when old Rawhide starts tryin' to close Flossie's place, shut down Pete's novelty store and then goes about insulting a good portion of the city's population with his complaint against buggery?"

  Ian could indeed. "It could cause problems."

  Milo grimaced. "It could do worse than that." He leaned across the table. "About this here plan of mine...."

  Chapter Two

  Dastardly Dilemma or Hots for a Hunk

  Priscilla Murray couldn't take her eyes off the tall, blond and very handsome stranger the mayor had brought to dinner with him. The man's classic good looks were enough to take her breath away. His air of sophistication and urbane manner were more captivating than his impressive manly beauty.

  Milo made introductions. "Miss Murray, may I present my assistant, Mr. Alwin?"

  The man extended his hand. "Miss Murray, I'm so pleased to meet you." His voice was deep and richly textured with caressing undertones. He smiled and Priscilla's heart skipped a beat. Their fingers touched. An electric charge traveled up her arm.

  Priscilla hid her confusion behind a cool façade. "Welcome to our home, Mr. Alwin." Turning, she extended one hand in the direction of the parlor. "Gentlemen, won't you come in? Father should be here any minute." She hoped that was true. It was not like her father to be late when he was expecting dinner guests.

  She followed the men into the tidy parlor and invited them to sit down.

  Milo sank immediately into her father's comfortable leather chair and with one sweeping glance surveyed the dimly lit room. "This is a mighty pretty sittin' room, Miss Murray."

  Priscilla prided herself on her abilities as a decorator, cook and homemaker. She murmured, "Thank you." As she perched on a straight backed chair near the door she added, "I decorated it myself." The fact that Mr. Alwin stood until Priscilla was seated was duly noted and greatly appreciated. She looked toward the door. Where was her father?

  The stranger's rich baritone impinged on her worrisome thoughts. "Are you a professional decorator, Miss Murray?"

  Priscilla wasn't, but she was flattered that Mr. Alwin would think so. Once again she felt her heart flutter. This time the flutter was accompanied by a most unwelcome tingle in the suddenly damp spot between her legs. Crossing her ankles she squeezed her thighs together hoping to suppress those erotic sensations. Much to her chagrin they only increased, spread to her stomach and tickled all the way up into her throat. She tried to recall Miss Hockley's teaching about how to relieve abnormal sexual excitement and found her mind was blank. Shame finally conquered her stirred emotions. Decent women didn't experience such degrading sensations. Because she couldn't admit to culpability, she transferred the blame for her temporary lapse into baser feelings to the handsome young man with a voice like a crooning melody. He had no right to tamper with her precarious sexual equilibrium. She said in a tone that seemed even in her own ears, cold and remote, "No, Mr. Alwin, I am not."

  Mr. Alwin opened his mouth but before he could get one word out, Milo intervened. "Do you think I should go looking for Rawhide?"

  As if the scenario had been planned, at that precise moment Rawhide Murray came through the door, calling as he entered, "Prissy, I'm home."

  Priscilla jumped to her feet and hurried to the entrance way to greet her father. "I had begun to worry about you."

  Rawhide Murray's eyes shone with delight at the sight of his lovely daughter. "I'm sorry to be late. I was working on the speech that I will be delivering to the city council next week and forgot to watch the clock."

  Priscilla wanted to ask more about the speech her father had been laboring over for the past two weeks. She didn't dare. That was a part of the outside world and a woman's place, or so she had always been taught, was in the home. She kissed Rawhide on the cheek. "Your guests have arrived."

  "Yes, my dear, I can see." Rawhide Murray came into the parlor and scowled. Priscilla didn't have to ask the reason for his displeasure. Mayor Stanton was seated in the chair he occupied each evening as he smoked a cigar and enjoyed a mint julep before dinner. Rawhide shook the hands of the other two men before sitting on the brocade settee. "What would you gentlemen like to drink?"

  Milo was quick to say, "Whiskey straight."

  Rawhide addressed Mr. Alwin. "And you, sir?"

  Mr. Alwin was staring at Priscilla in a way that made her face flush and her hands feel sweaty. "I'll have a glass of wine, please."

  Rawhide addressed his daughter. "I'll have my usual and see to it that Beulah has dinner on the table in exactly thirty minutes."

  Priscilla excused herself and sped to the kitchen where she delivered her father's message to Beulah, the Murray's acerbic housekeeper. Hauling her corpulent body from a kitchen chair, Beulah complained, "Your papa is one demanding man." She waddled toward the cook stove.

  Priscilla nodded her agreement before she raced from the kitchen and into her bedroom. She usually wore her household keys on her belt but since her dinner dress had no belt, this one time she'd left them on the bureau in her room. She retrieved the keys, hurried to her father's office, unlocked the liquor cabinet and began to prepare drinks. Rawhide would be upset if she took too long. She was pouring wine into a long stemmed glass when she heard footsteps behind her. Turning, she saw Ian Alwin standing just inside the door. He was wearing a shirt with a winged collar, a casual jacket, checked trousers and tan boots with brown tipped toes. The sight of him was enough to make her pulse race and her hands shake. She set the wine decanter on the sideboard and pushed a stopper into its top before speaking. "Mr. Alwin, you startled me."

  Ian leaned his tall frame against the door casing and crossed one booted foot over the other. "Your father asked me to come and assist you in bringing the drinks back to the parlor."

  Priscilla straightened her shoulders. "My father's impatience seems to have taken precedence over his good manners." That sounded like a criticism of Rawhide. She hadn't meant it to be. "Father likes things done in a punctual manner."

  "Your father's request was at the behest of the mayor." Ian took a tentative step in Priscilla's direction. "Is your father's penchant for punctuality the reason he was late for dinner?" Stopping, he smiled. "Sending me to aid you had nothing to do with punctuality. It was the mayor's way of getting me out of the room so he can talk to Rawhide for a few moments in private."

  Priscilla turned to face the liquor cabinet and tried to concentrate on putting away the bottles she'd used to make drinks. As she worked she searched through her mind, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't make her sound like a total fool. "Father is not always subtle. He...." When she turned, Ian was standing directly in front of her. His nearness startled her into cold silence even as it stirred inside her a bevy of strange and frightening emotions. "There is a tray on Father's desk. Would you bring it to me, please?"

  Ian asked as he made his way across the room, "What do you think of the pro
posals your father plans to make to the city council?"

  Priscilla knew nothing of Rawhide's proposals. "Father doesn't discuss political matters with me." That sounded like an indictment of her father. Quickly she added, "He's very protective."

  Ian had retrieved the tray and was coming back across the room. "Don't you think a better word would be possessive?"

  The temper that Priscilla usually managed to keep under control suddenly flared. "My father believes that females should be sheltered and protected."

  Ian arched one winged eyebrow. "Protected from what, Miss Murray?"

  "Father says...."

  Ian had traversed the short distance between the desk and the liquor cabinet and was standing so near that she could see the little lines that fanned out around the corners of his eyes. Those magnificent eyes were an incredible shade of pale blue. "I'm not interested in what your father says. I want to know what you think."

  Priscilla didn't know what to think. She smiled as she echoed words she'd heard her father say so many times. "Females should be protected from the many vicissitudes of life."

  Ian had the audacity to throw back his head and laugh. He was still smiling when he said, "Vicissitudes of life--that has to be the most over-generalized and ambiguous answer I ever heard." He sobered suddenly. "That's your father's outlook. What do you think?"

  Priscilla's anger vanished as she realized that he was laughing with her, not at her. And he was asking for her opinion, no one had ever done that before. "Does it matter what I think?"

  "It matters to me and it should matter to you too."

  Rawhide's booming voice shouting from the parlor fractured the air, "Prissy, get in here with those drinks."

  Priscilla picked up the tray. "I must go. Father is calling."

  Ian fell in step with her. "Do you suppose we could continue this conversation some other time?"

  Pricilla was a loss for words. "I... don't know."

  "I'd like to take you to dinner at Mother M's some evening next week."

  Priscilla suddenly realized that she would like very much to have dinner with this man. She also knew that going out in the evening would mean leaving Rawhide to dine alone. He wouldn't like that. Much to her own surprise she heard herself saying, "Perhaps you could come to our church's box supper next Sunday evening." Was this prim and proper Priscilla Murray talking? It sounded more like some brazen hussy. She quickened her step and hurried down the hall.

  Ian kept pace with her. "I would love to attend your church's box supper. Tell me where and what time."

  "At the First Baptist Church on Hickory Street, the bidding starts promptly at five-thirty." Carefully balancing the tray of drinks, she stepped in front of Ian and entered the parlor.

  Twenty minutes later Beulah came to stand in the dining room doorway. "Dinner is ready, Mr. Murray."

  "Thank you, Beulah." Rawhide nodded as he rose and came to stand beside Priscilla's chair "Come along, my dear." He offered his daughter his arm. It was a custom that Rawhide had observed since Priscilla had been a little girl. Until now she had always thought of it as being proper and respectful. At this moment with Ian watching their every move with a look of disapproval darkening the blue of his eyes, the ritual seemed at best an empty gesture and at worst no more than a meaningless formality.

  They were seated around the dining room table before anyone spoke again. Milo ran his hands over the fine linen table cloth with its ecru undercover. His eyes took in the sparkling china, the properly placed flatware and the centerpiece of beautifully arranged zinnias and marigolds. "This here is sure first-class, Rawhide."

  Rawhide smiled indulgently at his daughter. "My Prissy is a fine homemaker."

  Priscilla returned his smile. "Thank you, Father, but it's no more than a woman's duty to make a comfortable home."

  The meal was delicious. Priscilla had made her specialty, baked chicken with mashed potatoes. She'd also supervised Beulah's preparation of fresh squash and creamed corn.

  Milo and Rawhide had high praise for her abilities as a cook and homemaker. Ian Alwin was strangely silent but Priscilla noted that he took seconds of baked chicken.

  Dessert was Priscilla's incomparable peach cobbler. As Rawhide poured thick cream over his generous serving, he declared, "Prissy makes the best peach cobbler in the state."

  Milo was quick to agree. "You can say that again, it's damn--'scuse me, very delicious."

  Priscilla glowed with pride. After duly thanking the two gentlemen she cut her eyes in Ian's direction. "Mr. Alwin, what do you think of the cobbler?" Even as she asked she thought that she was behaving in a way that was completely out of character for a properly brought up young lady.

  Ian laid his spoon across his dessert dish. "The cobbler is a culinary masterpiece. You are indeed an accomplished person. I am sure you soon master anything you undertake to do."

  Priscilla murmured, "Thank you." Was he laughing at her, being sarcastic, or were his pretty words spoken as praise?

  Before she could frame an appropriated response, her father declared, "My Prissy is talented and skillful in many of the womanly arts. She sees after the house and the cooking and tends a garden. She not only embroiders lovely samplers and tats beautiful hand-made lace, she teaches classes in sewing and lace-making to other young women. Besides all that she sees after my creature comforts and teaches a Sunday school class."

  Before Priscilla could respond, Rawhide said, "Enough of this small talk. It's time we got down to the business at hand. Priscilla, if you will excuse us we will retire to the parlor."

  What could Priscilla say to that except good night? She excused herself and withdrew to her room.

  As she prepared for bed she let her brief encounter with Ian Alwin play through her mind. He stirred inside her feelings that both frightened and fascinated, frightened because they were sensations that did not befit a decent young woman and fascinating because they aroused in her a sweet hunger that she scarcely dared to own.

  She slept fitfully waking often with an ache in her groin and tightness in her chest and awoke the next morning feeling a vague sense of unrest that lingered far into the day.

  Priscilla held her tatting and embroidery classes in the church. That afternoon on her way there, the young woman who seldom acted on impulse, decided to pay a visit to her dear friend Hattie Monroe. Hattie had been Priscilla's roommate at Miss Hockley's School. During the eight years that they had shared a room on the third floor of Miss Hockley's home, they had battled homesickness, shared girlish secrets and confided dreams. In the process they had become fast friends.

  Hattie welcomed Priscilla with a bright smile and open arms. "Priscilla," she screeched as she pulled her friend into a tight embrace. "What a pleasant surprise." Then a frown replaced the smile on her pretty face. "Is all well with you?" She spoke in the stilted, affected style that marked her as a graduate of Miss Hockley's School for Young Ladies.

  Had anyone else asked her that question, Priscilla would have lied and assured them that she was well. This was Hattie. She could tell her dear friend the truth. Laying her hand over her breast, Priscilla replied, "Oh, Hattie, I am in need of your council and advice."

  Hattie was small and fair with a mop of curly blonde hair that she could not seem to tame. She motioned with her hand. "Dear Priscilla, do come inside."

  Hattie brewed a pot of tea and the two young women sat by the parlor window sipping from dainty china cups and exchanging bits of gossip. Eventually the conversation turned to a more personal matter; Hattie's recent engagement to Percival Throckmorton the only son of Winthrop and Sarah Throckmorton, the most socially prominent couple in Cactus Gulch.

  Priscilla drank the last of her tea and set her cup on the table. "When will the wedding be?"

  Hattie blushed. "Not until next April although Percy is most anxious to be married, Mamma insists that we should have at least a six months engagement before we exchange vows." She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "But you didn't come h
ere to talk about my anxious Percy. Tell me, dear friend, what is on your mind."

  Priscilla welcomed the opportunity to unburden her troubled soul. "I have met this man whom I like very much but he stirs in me all the baser sexual emotions that Miss Hockley warned us against and I am so afraid."

  Hattie leaned forward. "Oh, my dear, how I sympathize, I have the same problem."

  Priscilla couldn't believe that Hattie, the epitome of womanly virtue, would experience such emotions. "You too, how do you alleviate them?"

  "Yes, me too, it's really all Percy's fault. He is such an exciting man." Hattie sighed as a pained expression crossed her pretty face. "I have tried long walks, reciting poetry and the reading of scriptures. I have even resorted to Miss Hockley's remedy of putting pure carbolic acid on my womanhood. None of these measures is an effective cure."

  Perspiration broke out across Priscilla's upper lip. "How do you cope?" Laying her hand over her heart, she gasped, "Surely you have not resorted to the solitary vice."

  Hattie hung her head. "On occasions, I have."

  Priscilla was appalled. "Don't you know that such abuse can cause dangerous diseases and disorders?"

  Hattie swallowed the last of her tea. "I know, but sometimes after being with Percy and kissing him and... other things, I lose control."

  Priscilla's fear for her friend was genuine. "Oh, Hattie, you could go blind."

  A tear slid down one of Hattie's china-doll cheeks. "I know." Reaching across the table she grasped Priscilla's hand. "Or in later years I could suffer afflictions of the liver, lungs, spine or kidneys."

  The text book for feminine hygiene classes at Miss Hockley's school had been Mrs. Ellen G. White's Solemn Appeal to Solitary Vice, and the Abuses and Excesses of Marriage Relations. Priscilla recalled how Miss Hockley had insisted that each girl commit to memory some of Mrs. White's more vividly descriptive passages. One of those committed passages leaped unbidden into Priscilla's mind: If the practice is continued by young ladies from the age of fifteen and upward, nature will protest against the abuse she has suffered, and continues to suffer, and will make them pay the penalty for the transgressions of her laws, especially from the ages of thirty to forty-five, by numerous pains in the system and various diseases... "Oh, my dear, you must try harder to control your desires." She felt not only sympathy for, but empathy with her friend.