“I do. One Mrs. Randolph wore it, and now another one should.” He touched her face. “I have other pieces, too. What I have is yours.”
She wrapped her arms around both dresses. “I don’t have anything special for you!”
“You’re my something special, Suzie. I don’t need anything else. Try it on.”
He didn’t need to ask twice, unbuttoning the plaid dress she had worn several days now, and helping her step out of it. The blue dress buttoned up the front, but her fingers were shaking, so he helped her. It fit perfectly.
“How did … how did …”
“I asked Emily for your measurements.” He was unbuttoning the blue dress now, his hands inside the tight-fitting basque, gentle on her breasts. “Perfect. Want to try on the other one, or do we go right to the payment?”
She gave him such an arch look that he burst out laughing. “All right! Let me help you into the next one.”
The summery dress fit as beautifully as the dark one. “Oh, my,” she breathed, looking in the mirror. “I’ve never had such a pretty gown.” She stopped and turned to him. “How on earth did you find a dressmaker in Cheyenne? That can’t have been part of your general wisdom.”
“Certainly not.” He looked all around the room, anywhere but at her. “Fifi and Claudine suggested her.”
Susanna gasped, then put her hand over her mouth as the implication sank in. “If Claudine was still alive, that had to have been before you proposed!”
“It was.” He began unbuttoning the dress, pulling it down from her shoulders and kissing them. “I guess I was just waiting for a romantic spot to propose, like a ward full of wounded men. Oh, Suzie.”
He didn’t say any more; he just held her.
Chapter Nineteen
They left in the ambulance early the next morning, sharing it this time with Major Townsend, who had also been part of the court-martial board. If Susanna thought she would feel uncomfortable around him—she had barely spoken to him since the Dunklins’ house—it never happened.
The weather was a far cry from the bleak January when she’d made this same trip, sad, defeated and trying to start over. This time she sat close to her husband, deriving so much simple comfort from the pressure of his arm that she had no fear of the man who had commanded Fort Laramie.
And who would again, apparently. She listened as the two officers discussed the coming campaign, with Townsend’s Ninth Infantry taking the field this time.
“That means you’ll be losing Private Benedict,” Townsend said.
“Anthony … Private Benedict and I have been planning a special day for our pupils and their parents. Would the quartermaster let us build a small stage in his warehouse?”
“Consider it done, Mrs. Randolph,” Townsend said. “The fort’s best carpenter is languishing in the guardhouse. He’ll do it.”
She hesitated, wanting to ask one more thing, but still not sure of herself. Major Townsend’s eyes were kindly, though, so she worked up her nerve.
“Sir, I know I was only contracted to teach through the middle of May, but I would like to continue teaching, even though it will be summer.”
“Why?”
“It’ll keep the children occupied and not thinking all the time about their fathers,” she replied, her voice soft. “I know what it’s like to dwell on someone absent.”
The pressure on her arm increased and she silently thanked God for her husband.
Townsend considered the matter. “Why not? We have the funds for another term. Do it, but it can’t be mandatory in the summer.”
“Thank you!” she exclaimed, delighted, then remembered something she should have told him earlier, but was too shy to say. “I should also thank you for that extra ten dollars a month you have been giving me for teaching the women. They’re ever so …”
She stopped, watched the significant glance that passed between the two men, and smelled a rat. “What has been going on?”
“Nothing,” the majors said together.
“I don’t believe either of you,” she replied, suddenly aware of what her husband had been up to. “Not for a minute!”
“Blame your husband, not me.”
She turned slightly, but not enough to escape the touch of his shoulder. “Well, let’s see,” she said, thoughtful. “Obviously, you’ve been paying that ten dollars from your own money, Major Randolph.”
“Fooled you, though, didn’t I?” he teased.
She turned her attention to Major Townsend. “And you, sir, probably have it written in stone somewhere that the army will pay for only one teacher for the enlisted men’s children, no matter what the circumstances.”