Hearts Awakening (23 page)

The following Wednesday, Ellie missed Market Day to stay home with Ethan, who was a bit feverish and gesturing he had a stomachache.

Even though it was barely light enough yet for anyone to see her standing at the kitchen window, she gave a final wave to Jackson and Daniel, who had promised to take good care of the baked treats she had made again this week, despite the fact that she had had to punish him earlier for playing too roughly with his brother. Jackson had also promised to make time to stop at Caden James’s shop to ask the man to visit the island soon to teach Ellie how to properly use the cookstove.

She was just as anxious to make the best use of this unexpected day at home, especially now that the stitches in her finger had been removed and her hands had almost fully healed.

Humming softly, she filled a bucket with fresh water and carried it upstairs, where she had already put her broom, cleaning rags, soap, and fresh linens for the beds in the hallway. She glanced down at the apron Gram had given her, frowned, and loosened the ties on one of the aprons so she could tug it down to cover more of her dark brown gown, and sighed. The delicate blue flowers embroidered on the apron, as well as the ties, only made the stains she had not been able to launder out of her gown look worse, and she deeply regretted not being able to buy some fabric today to make herself a new one.

She made a mental note to let the hems down on both the aprons from Gram when she had the sewing basket out later today to finish sewing the boys’ new clothes and the ribbons on the Jacob’s Ladder.

When she peeked into the boys’ room and saw that Ethan was lying on his back, sleeping soundly for the first time since last night, she said a quick prayer of thanksgiving. The winterberry tea she had made for him finally seemed to be working. She tiptoed across the hall and opened the door to Jackson’s room very slowly to avoid waking the boy.

After she moved her cleaning supplies into the room, she left the door slightly ajar so she would hear Ethan if he cried out in his sleep or woke up. She did not come to the second floor very often. In fact, this was only the second time she had come upstairs to clean and change the bed linens. It was also the first time she had been upstairs without Daniel at her skirts, watching and criticizing every move she made, especially when she was in the room his mother had shared with his father.

She quickly surveyed the room to see what had to be done, even though she felt as if she were trespassing. Other than the quilt bunched up along one side of the rumpled bed and the shaving stand he used each day, there was little else in the room that appeared to be personal in nature. None of his clothing lay strewn about, and there was nothing lying on top of the chest of drawers.

There was, however, a good bit of dust and dirt on the floor. Feeling too warm already, she opened one of the windows to let out the heat still coming from the warming stove. She bunched the hem of her apron together to protect her hand and opened the stove to see if she needed to empty the ashes once the embers died down.

There were no embers at all, only cold ashes, which meant there was only one reason she was feeling so warm. She shut the door but also closed off the very idea she was flustered from being in his room where Jackson slept in the marriage bed he had shared with his first wife.

Unfortunately, changing the man’s bed linens and wiping down his shaving stand only left her feeling more overheated. She opened a second window, swept out the room, and washed the floor. Convinced she was acting like a silly schoolgirl instead of the matron she was, she leaned against the doorframe and brought to mind the documents stored in the parlor and the initials carved into the ancient tree at the far end of the island.

Legally, as long as she kept to the guidelines she had agreed to follow, she had the right to reside here. Ellie twisted the gold ring she now wore on her finger. She could never deny that Jackson was an attractive man, because he was. She also could not deny that he could be a caring, giving man that any woman would treasure as her husband—if he ever truly learned to control his anger.

Unfortunately, the longer she lived here with him, the more often she had to remind herself that their marriage was based on nothing more than mutual need and duty. And the longer she lived here with him, the more difficult it was becoming to deny that her feelings for him had changed and grown into affection—true affection that urged her to want more than just his name or the status of being a married woman.

She wanted his heart.

She let out a long sigh and turned away from the window and the impossible dream that he might come to love her, too. He wanted a housekeeper. He wanted a caregiver for his sons, but he most definitely did not want a wife. Even though their relationship had eased into a comfortable companionship and he was more open and honest with her now, he had made it very, very clear there was no room in his heart or his life for anyone other than his sons.

“Unless he made room,” she murmured. Perhaps if she knew more about him, other than the fact that he had been an orphan, she might find a way for him to open his heart to her. There was only one person on this island she knew and trusted who could tell her what she needed to know: Gram.

Feeling hopeful and determined to make another visit to the Grants soon, she crossed the room, stepped into the hallway, and eased the door to his room closed. She tiptoed between the pile of soiled bed linens and her cleaning supplies and returned to the boys’ room.

Curled beneath the covers now, with his stubborn little cowlick sticking up from the pillow, Ethan was sleeping with his face to the wall nearest the hallway. She tiptoed to his bedside and gazed down at him. His cheeks were paler now, only slightly flushed. His breathing was even and deep. Ever so lightly, she placed her hand on his forehead and smiled. His fever was gone now.

Relieved, she closed her eyes and prayed over him to thank God for helping him to recover, although she suspected his fever might return again in late afternoon. She had seen that happen often enough with her mother when she cared for her and decided that when he did wake up, another dose of winterberry tea might be in order.

The boys’ room did not feel nearly as warm as their father’s, and she checked the stove, where she found a good bit of embers that would keep the room comfortable for a few hours yet. She dismissed the obvious difference in how she felt in the room, turned around, and looked about to see how much work it would take to clean it.

Because Jackson insisted on keeping the blocks downstairs, there were none scattered on the floor, but it was as dirty as Jackson’s had been. Daniel’s bed, set on the other side of the room along the outer wall, was also in total disarray.

She tiptoed closer. Two pillows, including the one he had brought home from the Sunday house, lay in the middle of the bed under the quilt, which had been used to make a tent large enough for both boys to sleep under. She smiled and tried not to feel self-righteous. Maybe this is why Jackson never heard the two boys talking together at night. They were on the side of the room farthest from the hall under a quilted tent that would keep their voices from being heard.

Reluctant to start cleaning and disturb Ethan’s much-needed sleep, she returned to the hallway, carried Jackson’s bed linens downstairs to the kitchen to be laundered later, and scrubbed the stairs and hallway clean. When she finished, it was nearly midmorning. Ethan was still asleep, so she went back down to the kitchen for her second breakfast of the day but kept the door at the bottom of the staircase open so she would be able to hear him if he woke up.

She returned to the boys’ room an hour later. Ethan was in the same position, still sleeping soundly. At this point, she probably should give him another dose of tea, but she did not have the heart to wake him just yet.

Instead, Ellie simply decided to start cleaning the room. If he woke up from the noise, fine. She would stop to care for him. If not, she would wake him up when she finished. By then the rest of the room would be done, and she would only have to change the linens on his bed to have the upstairs finished by the time Jackson and Daniel returned late this afternoon.

She tackled Daniel’s bed first. After folding the quilt, which had been the makeshift tent, she set it on the foot of Ethan’s bed and returned to Daniel’s. The lace-trimmed pillowcase on Rebecca’s pillow definitely needed to be laundered, but she did not want to upset Daniel by replacing it with a new one.

Ellie hesitated and glanced out the window. The sun was getting stronger now. If she laundered the pillowcase right away and hung it outside, it might be dry in time for her to put it back on the pillow before bedtime. She picked up the pillow, felt something hard beneath her fingertips, and knew immediately there was something else inside the pillowcase other than a pillow.

Curious to know what treasures Daniel had hidden inside, she sat down on the bed, put the pillow on her lap, pulled the pillow free, and set it alongside of her. She held the remaining pillowcase open with one hand and reached inside to retrieve his treasures so she could put them in a safe place until the pillowcase had dried.

When she finally had the treasures on her lap and set the pillowcase aside, however, she did not know whether she wanted to shout with joy or to cry with disappointment. She only knew that she could not put the treasures back, regardless of how Daniel might feel about losing them.

Swallowing hard, she stared at the wooden wedding ring she thought she had lost. Apparently, Daniel had either found it or taken it and hidden it here, oddly enough, with his mother’s pillow. But it was the silhouette of her mother lying on her lap that forced Ellie to blink back tears. She had not realized the silhouette was even missing, yet here it was. She caressed the outline of her mother’s loving face with her fingertips as her tears fell free.

To think that Daniel would take her ring and something as precious as her mother’s silhouette made her heart ache. He must be far more troubled by his mother’s death and much angrier with Ellie than she suspected. She had done everything she could to befriend the child, and he had repaid her with behavior she could understand but not condone.

Until a sudden thought made her stop and think and wonder.

She did not know how Daniel had come to have her wooden wedding ring, but she was certain he had not been with her when she had unpacked her travel bag and stored away her things, including her parents’ silhouettes. Ethan had been with her, but not Daniel. He had been with Jackson in the orchards the entire time, and she and Ethan had been in the kitchen, not her room, when Daniel and Jackson had finally returned.

Ellie thought long and hard about the last few weeks, but she had never once mentioned the silhouettes to anyone. In point of fact, she had not even looked at either of her parents’ silhouettes again, or she would have noticed that one of them was missing.

Other than Ellie, Ethan was the only one who knew the silhouettes existed, that this silhouette was of her mother, and where she kept the silhouette stored. Since the drawer where she kept the silhouettes was too hard for Ethan to open, she could draw only one conclusion: Ethan had to have told Daniel about the silhouette, who it was, and how important it was to her; otherwise, Daniel would never have known about it, let alone taken it.

“He had to have told him. Ethan had to speak to Daniel to tell him,” she whispered. She had proof that Ethan could talk and did talk to Daniel, exactly as he claimed.

Ellie wondered how Jackson would react when she showed him proof that she had been right to believe Daniel’s claims that Ethan talked to him. Was there a way to tell Jackson that wouldn’t result in punishment for Daniel—hardening his heart toward her even further?

Unless . . . unless she did not tell Jackson at all. But that made no sense, since she was the one who insisted they should not keep secrets from each other. Besides, even if she did not tell Jackson, Daniel would know she had found the ring and the silhouette when she changed the pillowcase. When his father did not confront him, Daniel would know she had not told his father, which would only condone the idea that married couples keep secrets from one another, a lesson she definitely did not want to teach him.

Troubled and confused about what to do, she slid the pillowcase back over the pillow and tucked the ring and the silhouette into her apron pocket before she did the only thing she was certain she should do: She bowed her head and prayed.

Twenty-Two

When a sobbing, hysterical young woman barged through the back door later that morning, Ellie instinctively leaped up from the worktable to stand in front of Ethan. He was sitting in his usual place on the window seat, apparently fully recovered from his malady. But the woman’s shocking appearance had startled him into a full wail.

“Help us. You have to help us,” she pleaded, tugging at Ellie’s hand. “Please, you have to hurry.”

Only now, when she noticed the young woman’s spectacles, did she realize the young woman was Grizel. She pulled her hand free, put Ethan on one hip to calm him, and tried to hug Grizel to her. “I’ll help. Of course I’ll help,” she said calmly, even though her heart was pounding in her chest. Her current worries about when to tell Jackson about what she had found upstairs in Daniel’s pillowcase quickly evaporated, replaced by concern for Grizel that was much more urgent.