Julia London (55 page)

“
Hill.
Miss Hill,” Lauren corrected. Much to Ethan’s distress, she insisted on using her maiden name, believing she had no more claim to her title than she did the Bergen inheritance.

“I was given to understand from Mrs. Peterman that as you are now a widow—”

“
Oh!
Mr. Goldthwaite! Please, before you go any farther, you must understand my place is here at Rosewood. These children need me.”

Fastidious Thadeus had puffed his barrel chest. “Indeed I
do
understand, madam, and I applaud your charitable disposition. I think such qualities are to be looked for in a wife, and you have those qualities in such abundance that I fully intend—”

“Mr.
Goldthwaite
, stop right there!” she had shrieked in horror, lifting her hand. “Please excuse me, sir. There is something I must do right away,” she said unconvincingly, and had turned, intending to flee, but Mr. Goldthwaite had grabbed her hand and held it tightly. She had hastily jerked her hand from his grasp. “Mr. Goldthwaite, you must put all thoughts of me from your mind—”

“Miss Hill, you cannot begin to imagine how my heart—”

“I really
must
go inside!”

“But Miss Hill, there is something I wish to
say
to you!” he had shouted earnestly. Lauren responded by turning on her heel and fleeing the garden, her last sight of Mr. Goldthwaite tipping his hat after her.

When she flew into the kitchen, Mrs. Peterman greeted her with a strange, gleeful look. “
Well?
Did Mr. Goldthwaite have opportunity to speak with you?” the gray-haired housekeeper had asked, grinning unabashedly.

Lauren had collapsed onto a wooden bench. “God help me, but Thadeus Goldthwaite wants to
marry
me!”

“That’s
wonderful!
” Mrs. Peterman squealed, clapping her dough-caked hands.

Lauren had gaped at her; she had obviously lost her mind. It was the most inconceivable, incredible, fantastic idea! “Mrs. Peterman, it is
impossible
!”

“Impossible?” the housekeeper had shouted. “It is
perfect
. You need to consider the practicalities of such a match, Lauren. He is a good man and a good provider. And he cares for these children—you cannot overlook that,” she had blithely instructed her and had launched into such praise of Thadeus Goldthwaite that Lauren had begun to think the rotund apothecary must be kin to Hercules himself.

Sitting in Dr. Stephens’s foyer, Lauren almost choked just thinking about how intent everyone seemed on her marital state. She would rather walk off a cliff than marry Mr. Goldthwaite or anyone else.
If
she ever married again, it
would be for love. Yet it seemed the entire adult population of Rosewood wanted to see her married because of the
practicalities.
Oh, she understood their thinking. Obviously, the best hope for Rosewood was for her to marry someone of means, and as it was apparent that Ethan and Mrs. Peterman would struggle with one another to marry her off, she had desperately searched for another idea. If only she could make the farm profitable again, she reasoned, she could end this mad race to the altar.

Well, she had at last hit upon an idea, and it was that which brought her to the doctor’s house today. The two children who accompanied her, despite their obvious energy to tumble on the carpet, were suffering from a cough that would not go away.

A door suddenly opened; Lauren shifted her gaze from the children to an elderly gentleman who was peering at her from above the tops of his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Who are you? Don’t recall seeing you about,” he said gruffly.

Lauren stood, and with a gentle command to the two children, politely extended her hand. “I am Lauren Hill.”

“Hill? I knew a Miss Hill—Dear Lord, are you her? My, you have changed!”

“Yes sir,” she said graciously, then glanced meaningfully at the children.

The doctor followed her gaze and peered at her charges. “Your children?”

“They reside at Rosewood.”

“Ah, Rosewood, of course.”

“They have a cough that will not go away,” she informed him.

The doctor stepped around her, and with hands on hips, stared at the two children. Leonard, with the unsightly birthmark, looked him squarely in the eye. The younger boy fidgeted with his frayed belt. “Well, Miss Hill, bring them in and we shall see what can be done for a cough that will not
go away,” he said brusquely, then turned and marched back into the spacious drawing room.

Dr. Stephens walked to a shelf holding vials of various shapes. “Bring me a boy,” he said absently as he studied one vial. He was not a man given to sentiment. He had gotten over that particular affliction several years ago. As a young doctor, it had occurred to him that he could not very well perform his duties if he was going to be emotionally affected by every unfortunate he saw. He knew Leonard, had known him since he was a baby and Leonard’s mama had tried to drown the poor child. He had seen him sporadically throughout the last ten or twelve years and as would be expected, the boy was traumatized by the large port-stain that marred his appearance. As if being born to a whore and then orphaned were not enough strikes against him, he bore an ugly mark that made heads turn.

When he turned back to see what held the child, he could not keep his jaw from dropping. Miss Hill had apparently worked magic on the unfortunate little boy. Kneeling beside him, she was brushing his red hair from his eyes and whispering something to him with a smile that made even Dr. Stephens sit up and take notice. Leonard was standing tall, and, Dr. Stephens would later swear on his medical journals, the lad was smiling. He had never seen Leonard smile. Amazed, he watched as the lad marched toward him with a strong, proud countenance.

“Miss Hill says I might have a spoonful of delight,” the lad announced.

“Beg your pardon?” Stephens managed to choke out as he looked down at Leonard. Miss Hill cleared her throat; Dr. Stephens glanced up in time to receive a pointed look from her.

“A spoonful of delight. To clear the cough,” Leonard repeated.

“A spoonful of delight, is it? Well, let me hear you breathe, boy,” he said, and pressed his ear against Leonard’s
chest. He checked the child for fever. “Yes, a spoonful of delight is just the thing,” he said, astonished that he, notorious for his less than sympathetic bedside manner, should call the foul liquid he was about to pour into that child a
spoonful of delight.
He retrieved a bottle from the shelf and poured a large spoonful. “Well then, open wide,” he said, and tossed the liquid down the boy’s throat. Leonard swallowed, then turned to Miss Hill. She smiled charmingly and held out her hand. Immediately, he went and slipped his hand into hers, then pushed the other boy forward, who marched resolutely to Dr. Stephens’s side.

“Miss Hill said I might get a
double
dose of delight,” he said proudly. With a
humph
, Dr. Stephens bent to listen to the boy’s breathing. She was right; Horace’s rattle was worse than Leonard’s.

“A double dose, then,” he muttered, and poured the pungent medicine.

Horace swallowed the first mouthful without expression or comment, waited patiently for the second, then turned and walked back to Miss Hill. “How long will the delight last?” he asked her.

“I should think until tomorrow, would you not agree, Dr. Stephens?”

“I would,” he said curtly.

“I think—and please correct me if I am wrong, sir—but shan’t the boys begin to feel the delight tingling first in their toes in just a few moments? I thought so. Now boys, please have a seat near the door and do
not
touch anything. There is something I would discuss with Dr. Stephens,” she said. Like perfect little gentlemen, the boys obediently took seats near the door.

By Dr. Stephens’s account, everything he had just witnessed was a bloody miracle. Whatever she had done to bolster the confidence in the two young lads was worth every ounce of effort with which he could support her. Hell,
he would just like to know how she had done it, if nothing else. “Miss Hill, I do not know what you have done—”

“You mean the flowers,” she smiled with an airy wave of her hand. “I am dreadfully sorry about that; I am afraid I was a bit preoccupied,” she said sweetly.

“Pardon?”

“The flowers. Unfortunately, I do not have any coin, or I would gladly replace them, but it’s a condition I’m afraid I shall not see remedied for a time. Please don’t say anything yet, because I come with a proposition. You see, the children of Rosewood are not receiving the medical attention they need.” He must have looked puzzled as he adjusted his spectacles, because she explained quickly, “Oh, not bumps and bruises or
that
sort of thing. But the cough, illnesses of a more serious nature, are not called to the attention of a doctor until it is much too late, and the children spread those ailments so quickly that before you know it, the whole of
Rosewood
is infected, and I was thinking that perhaps we could agree to an arrangement whereby you might visit from time to time, not necessarily for coin, but something infinitely more agreeable, I should think.”

Dr. Stephens had quit trying to understand the connection to flowers and had come to his senses, or so he thought. “Miss Hill, I cannot imagine what you’ve done, but you must know that I—”

“I am speaking of tomatoes, sir, tomatoes as big as
hams
! And beans, and pumpkins and cabbage! It seems that there is
some
talent to be had at Rosewood, and I daresay it is in the growing of fruits and vegetables. And we cannot possibly eat all the vegetables we grow, because they grow rather quickly, you see, and sadly, Mrs. Peterman has been throwing what we cannot eat to Lucy—I mean to say, to a rather enormous old hog. I am sure you are aware that hogs will do quite nicely on something less valuable than fruits and vegetables, so I am suggesting a trade of sorts—”

“Miss Hill!”
Dr. Stephens fairly shouted. The young
woman blinked. He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Honestly, Dr. Stephens,” rang another feminine voice, “anyone with an ounce of sense knows it is a waste to give anything more than slop to a hog!”

Dr. Stephens groaned and opened one eye to see the Marchioness of Darfield standing in the doorway with her young daughter Alexa. The marchioness was a favorite of the doctor’s, despite her very exasperating habit of ignoring his sound advice. With dark hair and violet eyes, she was as unusually pretty as the mysterious Miss Hill. He could not help noticing that standing side by side, the two women made quite a remarkable picture. “Lady Darfield, I was just about to say—”

“I think your idea is simply wonderful. My name is Abbey Ingram, and I should very much like to help.”

Miss Hill smiled gratefully. “I am Lauren Hill. Are you familiar with Rosewood? It’s a small estate, just a few miles from here, and I have been thinking how to make it a bit more self-sustaining. The children who live there—Well, I think they should learn as much responsibility as they can. But they cannot learn if no one trades with them, and unfortunately, no one comes to Rosewood. That is, with the exception of the
apothecary
, but
he
can hardly be counted on to take so many vegetables in trade, and—”

“Miss Hill! If you please, I was
trying
to say what you have done for those two boys is quite remarkable, and I would be more than happy to help you in any way that I can, including taking
tomatoes
as big as
hams
in trade!” Dr. Stephens bellowed.

The two women looked at him as if he were mad. Lady Darfield lifted a censorious brow and muttered in a soft aside, “I was quite certain he would agree.”

“Really? I was not at all certain, but I had rather hoped he would. Unfortunately, we are rather short of funds,” Miss Hill responded.

“Oh, you mustn’t worry about that!” Lady Darfield said cheerfully. “Dr. Stephens should hardly be concerned about payment; he does quite nicely for himself. He will gladly look after your wards!”

Miss Hill beamed at him. “I rather suspected he was not as crabby as he would have me believe. So you think he could be counted on to help?”

“Absolutely!” Lady Darfield nodded enthusiastically.

Incredulous, Dr. Stephens looked from one woman to the next, both wearing alluring smiles that would have sent a lesser man to his knees. Without a word, he turned abruptly and marched back to his desk.

By the time Lauren Hill finally left—with
two
bottles of delight in exchange for a crate of tomatoes to be delivered the next morning—the women had agreed to meet at Rosewood the following day to discuss further what could be done. As with everything, Abbey Ingram had jumped in with both feet. She beamed happily at Dr. Stephens as he examined a cut on Alexa’s knee, insisting that she, too, knew all along that he was not nearly as “crabby” as he would have her believe.

   Over the next few weeks, Lauren established a trade of produce for medicine, flour, and twice weekly help with the sewing. Barren wheat fields were given over to pumpkins and gourds, and tomatoes and berries flourished along every fence. Each morning after completing their lessons, Lauren and the children would weed and water their little vegetable fields.

The children delighted in their work. They measured the growth of the melons each day, searched for cucumbers hidden among the leafy vines, and arranged the pumpkins to their satisfaction. Their little kitchen garden was soon large enough to support a few more kitchens, and with the help of Abbey, who made a point of engaging in the trade herself,
the townsfolk of Pemberheath slowly began to soften toward the children and their “trade.”

As late summer turned to fall, Rosewood began to show signs of resembling the modest country home it had once been. Lauren managed this despite having to care for her slovenly uncle while intermittently arguing with him about her future. Paul was very silent about what
he
thought she should do, but at his request, she had bargained for two books on investments. He was very mysterious about his plans, but every once in a while he would look up from his books, run a hand through his dark brown hair, and smile. His light blue eyes twinkling with excitement, he would assure her that all at Rosewood would soon be well.