Silver Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #1) (13 page)

             
His shirt fell open.  His chest was broad, not as tan as his arms, neck and face, but gently furred, the hair on his chest as dark as his dark curls.  I ran my hands over him, looking at what I'd only seen in paintings, on statues, followed my hands with my mouth, my tongue, tasting the day he'd had, the sun and dust and sage, the inside of mines.

             
His hands caressed my arms, my neck, my face.  He pulled me tight against him, fumbled briefly at my underdress then abruptly set me back from him, sitting up on the bed.

             
I lay back, staring up at the ceiling, watching the same fly I'd seen earlier.

             
"You are to be my wife," he said. He sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from me.  "I would not presume."

             
I sat up, draped one arm over his shoulder, and pressed against his back.  "I give you leave to presume but am grateful for your restraint.  It's been such a long day.  Still, I wish that we were already wed."

             
That caused him to turn and look back at me, smiling.  With a sudden movement, he wrapped one arm around me and pulled me to the edge of the bed, onto my back, captive in his arms.  Ducking his head, he kissed me.

             
"Soon enough," he said.  "And now, was I promised supper?"

              My headache having subsided, I moved through the kitchen, finishing supper preparations, mixing the dough for biscuits.  Reaching for the salt, I saw the shaker was nearly empty and went searching for a bag of salt I'd noticed before.  When I couldn't find it, the stupidity of the search became an obsession topping off a bad day.  I went through cupboard after cupboard until I came at last to a small under-bench cabinet I didn't think I'd ever opened.  It was in a corner, inconvenient and stuck tight.  The idea that I'd seen salt in it before was absurd – I'd likely never seen anything in it, having never gotten it open or found time to care that I couldn't. But tonight, frustrated, I took a butter knife to it and leveraged it open.

             
And found myself staring at a collection of delicate porcelain tea pots.

              Hutch left for the mine at sunrise.  I was barely awake, not even focusing on the events of the previous day yet when he was out the door.  Sitting at the kitchen table, trying to order my thoughts, I finally managed a letter to Virginia, filling her in on the trip with Great Aunt Agnes (and strongly recommending against the same, should she for any reason contemplate it) and then describing the house, Hutch, Annie, the town, the Sheriff and the doctor, the mine itself.  I described Matthew, briefly, a little nervously, as if somehow this were an indiscretion.  I told her Annie's recollections of our mother, and about Hutch's family, about Annie, Kitty, and Sarah in Gold Hill, his nephew at the University and the rest of his family on the ranch in California.  Reminiscences of our mother reminded me to tell her about the birth of Mrs. Barnett's son.

             
And of the death of Mrs. Bradleigh's.  I stopped writing then, briefly.  Laid down my pen and thought of Hutch kneading the back of my neck until the headache faded.  I thought of the servant coming to take me to the house and wished I hadn't been home.  Sorrow awoke, at the loss of such a tiny life, and at the loss the Bradleigh's would endure, the sorrow the loss must have awakened in Hutch.

             
At last, I rose and paced, then sat and finished the letter, omitting the child's death and moving on to my wedding, the wedding dress I'd eventually sew, that we were moving quickly now, ready to get out life together underway. 

             
I finished Virginia's letter by begging her to be a more responsible correspondent than I had been and to write me back with her news and that of our sisters, with news of father and my friends in Boston.  Once I folded the letter into an envelope, I started promptly on another to my other sisters, and then one to my father, each more brief than Virginia's letter.  I was in the middle of the letter to my Father when my pen ran dry and the ink well had been lost somewhere along the journey to Nevada.  Sighing, I rose and went in search of ink and finding none, resolved to walk to the general store and purchase some.

             
The day was bright, hotter than the day before, and there were only a few people on the street, none of whom I recognized before I got to the shops.  Lost in my own thoughts, it took me until I was in the midst of the groceries and chemist shops before I realized something was strange.

             
People passing me on the street stared hard at me, blinking and looking away, then turning to their companion if they were with another, their voices lowered and urgent.  Coming toward me on the wooden sidewalk, a pair of young wives arm in arm turned their faces to each other in shock, then looked at me, then whispered as they passed.

             
I slowed, and looked around myself.  Across the street, a man had stopped hitching his horse to a wagon and was watching me with a scowl.  A middle aged couple moving past him followed his gaze and looked away from me instantly.

             
Caught between the desire to somehow go unnoticed and the need to know what was happening, I turned in a circle, taking in everyone near me on the street.  For a brief, insane moment, I thought there were possibly men behind me, guns drawn, about to fight, but the sidewalk held only more pedestrians, all of them staring and talking.

             
It's your imagination,
I told myself.  Of course, I hadn't spent much time in town as yet.  People were just getting used to me.  Probably knew who I was by now.  But introductions would be nicer than stares and whispers.

             
Moving into the grocers was a relief.  The grocer's little round wife was behind the counter, finishing up with a customer before me.  I waited my turn, then asked if she had ink as I'd run out.  She pointed wordlessly and turned to the man behind me.  A little chill chased down my neck.  I fetched my ink, thinking of the last time I'd been in the shop, and when I was back to the counter, I offered up coins for the ink and asked, "How is your daughter?"

             
"She fares well, thank you for asking, but she won't be using your services when the time comes.  And in the future,
miss
, we would prefer it if you would take your trade somewhere else."

             
I stepped back, confused. "Excuse me?  I don't understand."

             
Her glare almost stopped me from asking.  "We need the Bradleighs in our town, missy.  What you did was unforgivable."

             
My mouth snapped shut.  Surely this woman couldn't hold me responsible for the death of the Bradleigh's son?  But turning slowly to observe the store, I saw more than one person hastily looking away from me.  No one met my eyes.  I thought again of everyone on the street, of being told people were talking and Hutch saying that people will always talk, so unconcerned.

             
The red rage tried to rise again.  I hadn't sold my services to the Bradleigh's household, I had been fetched by their servant, sent for by a family that wanted me to come.  The child had been dead by the time I got there.  The mother would have been dead before much longer had I not arrived. She would not have survived until the doctor was brought from Virginia City.

             
I took my parcel and my change but did not move.  The anger was strong.  Too many people had judged me more stringently than they might judge the whores on C Street or the drunk miners who started fires in mines and caused cave-ins.  This was going to be my home.  I had wanted friendship.  If that was impossible, at least I wanted truth.

             
Leaning forward over the counter, I said clearly enough for all to hear: "The mother is alive for her other children because of me.  My training was not at fault for their loss.  My training was the reason for her life.  The child was dead before I arrived.  The mother is alive
because
I arrived.  If you choose to slander me, Missus, I will take action.  And rest certain, I will take my trade elsewhere."

             
And left the store without losing to the tears that welled up in my eyes.  The other shoppers watched me go. 

             
No one spoke.

              I didn't run home, but I wanted to.  I forced myself to walk slowly, showing my pride every step of the journey until I could open the door to the house, let myself in, and lean against the door with the rest of the world sealed outside.

             
I cried then.  Because I couldn't help Hutch this way.  Because I couldn't even create a life for us this way.  Because I was lonely and wanted to go home and because I missed my mother and because people in this sad place I'd come to blamed me for the death of a child I'd have done anything to save.

             
Hutch found me sitting at the table with the letters finished, in envelopes, addressed, neatly stacked.  They were all lies.  All of them said I was happy.  They referred to the Barnetts and their child and to the doctor and his reticence, to Matthew and his trials, though I downplayed the shooting for fear Father would send Great Aunt Agnes to collect me and bring me back safely to Boston.

             
I would not run back to Boston.

             
Hutch was tired.  There had been no good news at the mine, no new veins of silver, just digging throughout the day at the same dwindling supply and looking for more.  I thought he missed Matthew and I feared he probably had heard the news but was in no mood to discuss it.  At least let us have one night without him comforting me for some injury.

             
In the morning, Mr. Toomly from the bank came to appraise the house.  Hutch refused to let him in. 

             
"You can judge value when it's in the hands of the bank, or in the hands of that villain Seth.  Until then, this is my house and my property and you are trespassing."

             
When Mr. Toomly tried again, the man was nothing if not persistent, Hutch fetched his rifle from the closet and went out onto the porch with it.

             
"I'll bring the Sheriff," Toomly sputtered from the bottom of the steps.  He backed toward his carriage, which was almost as showy as the one belonging to the Bradleighs. 

             
"You do that," Hutch returned.  "Even Bill Townsend isn't stupid enough to believe he can take action before the 30 days are up."

              Mr. Toomly left without further protest, and he did not return with the Sheriff.  Hutch didn't leave for the mines, choosing not to leave me alone. 

             
We sat out on the back porch as the sunlight climbed toward it, staring into the garden.  It felt as if we were living in a medieval castle, under siege.  There weren't very many options we hadn't discussed the night before, from the sublime to the silly.

             
There was one.

             
"We could leave here," Hutch said.

             
My response was immediate, and negative.  This was his home.  This was my home, or at least I wanted a chance for it to become so.  His brother was here, or would be again, and Annie, and his nieces and nephew.  He was established here, it was his home; how could he leave?

             
Though, of course, I had ruined that.

             
He took hold of my shoulders when I said that, and stared deep into my eyes.  "You are never to say that again.  A home that doesn't welcome you could never be my home now."

             
And before I could properly absorb that, he continued.

             
"And they're wrong.  You did everything to save that child."

             
"How do you know?" I asked.  I was sitting next to him on the bench, and I didn't look away from the corn when I asked.

             
"Because you said you did."  Simple, forthright.

             
I sighed. 

             
"My home is to be with you," Hutch said.  "We could leave here.  We could go to California.  Or Arizona.  We could go to Europe."

             
"On what money?" I asked, dazed at the thought.

             
"Your inheritance to the throne?"  His voice was light.

             
"Oh, that.  I forget, sometimes."

             
"Careless of you to forget your kingdom."

             
"I've been busy," I said.  "Hutch, what becomes of Annie and Matthew if we leave here?"

             
He leaned back against the polished wood bench, his feet crossed at the ankles.  For all his appearance of being relaxed, I didn't think he was.  But I needed to know.  I'd come between brothers who were close friends.  I needed to know how much damage was still done, and how they would move past it.

             
"What have I told you about my presupposing what Matthew will or will not do?"

             
"That you try not to do it," I said.  "But, he's your brother.  And you love him.  And I think he's your closest friend."

             
He was silent for so long, I finally said his name again. 

             
In response, he said, "If we go, Matthew will come too."

             
And much later, as we watched crows investigate the garden at the foot of the ragged scarecrow, he added, "I hope."

              The next day, Hutch returned to the Silver Sky and I found our household in need of various staples.  With his blessing, I found the change and the list and set off for town, only to find doors closed to me, businesses unwilling to trade.  Unless I wanted stiff whisky or admission into a whorehouse, I was bade take myself elsewhere.

             
Which I did.  I went back to the house and forced myself to learn to saddle a horse, then I tucked my skirts up out of my way, too furious to worry about fashion or custom, and road to Virginia City. 

             
Where I promptly felt overwhelmed.  It wasn't the size of Boston, but it was so very different from either Boston or Gold Hill, so many people and wagons, carriages and horses.  Though, best of all, no one knew me.  I found the food items we needed, at better prices, and thought perhaps the price of pride would weigh heavily on the shopkeeps in Gold Hill.  When I had gathered what I needed from grocers, I left my packages in the wagon and went to the dressmaker's, looking for prices on the cloth I'd need to order for my wedding dress, the seed peals, the embroidery floss. 

             
"Is it your wedding?" the woman in the dressmaker's asked.  She was my age, with red hair and dimples, and not the slightest idea who I was.  It was a relief and a pleasure. I hadn't realized how much it bothered me, even over such a short period of time, that no one would talk to me, that they blamed me for the death of a child.