Where Love Dwells (6 page)

Emma patted her son's arm and smiled. “You have every right to be concerned and you have every right to be upset with Wryn, but please don't worry. I'm certain she hasn't gotten into any trouble yet.”

An hour later, after Emma and her son had followed Wryn's trail from one shop to another down one side of Main Street all the way to Emerson's Hotel at the far end, Emma was no longer smiling.

Neither was Mark.

In point of fact, Mark was coldly silent when they left the hotel and headed for the General Store.

“It's not your fault,” she said. “At least she didn't register at Emerson's, too.”

“If she had, she would have insisted on a suite. You can be sure of that,” he gritted. “We should never have brought her here. Never. We should have left her at home. She can cook better than women twice her age, and she's proven she's certainly old enough to be able to fend for herself otherwise for a few weeks.”

“That may be true,” Emma replied. “But if you had left her home, how much debt do you think she could have accumulated in your name while you were gone?”

“I'm not certain, but at least it would have been in my name instead of yours,” he grumbled. “I'm so embarrassed that she's done this to you. I'll . . . I'll find a way to pay you back. I will. It may take some time—”

“It's not your fault,” Emma repeated more insistently as they started to cross the street. She paused for a moment until they made their way around a rather large puddle of mud, since she had already enjoyed the dubious pleasure of sliding into one earlier today. “It's not your debt, either,” she continued when they had put the mud puddle behind them. “It's Wryn's debt, which means
she'll
have to pay me back, not you.”

“And just exactly how do you expect a fifteen-year-old girl to
pay for a new bonnet from the millinery, not one but
two
boxes of Belgian chocolates, a French lace shawl of some sort, and a . . . a beaded reticule?” he charged.

“She'll have to work it off,” Emma stated as they mounted the steps to the planked sidewalk in front of the General Store.

He threw one hand up into the air. “Work it off? She'll be thirty years old before she could possibly work off the sum she owes you.”

“At least,” Emma quipped.

He stopped just outside the door to the store and shook his head. “I still don't understand why all those shopkeepers let her put her purchases on your account.”

“Since we haven't passed a single other soul so far, I'd venture to say it's been a very slow day for most of the businesses. Wryn was probably but one of a handful of shoppers today, which means the shopkeepers would have been anxious for any kind of sale.”

“Still—”

“Candlewood isn't Albany, Mark,” Emma continued, anxious to get into the General Store to see what kind of damage Wryn had done there to her account. “The town may have changed a lot since you've been gone, but it's still a small town. Everyone here knows Hill House, and they know me. Most everyone has heard by now that you and Warren and Benjamin are all bringing your families home for a visit, too. Even if you hadn't driven down Main Street earlier with her today, they wouldn't suspect Wryn wasn't who she said she was—part of our family.”

“The gossipmongers are still as ravenous as ever, I suppose.”

She chuckled. “That much hasn't changed, but like I've warned you all along, Wryn's little misadventure today isn't something I'd like to have them chew on. That's why I want you to act as if everything Wryn has bought here at the General Store is perfectly
legitimate, just like you've done at the other shops. How or why Wryn decided to go on a little shopping adventure without permission is something we'll handle privately, within our family,” she said, even though she considered Wryn to be part of Catherine's family, not her own.

He scowled. “I'd like to send her, bag and baggage, straight back to her mother where she belongs, whether Georgina likes it or not. Georgina got herself and Wryn into this predicament of theirs, and I have a good mind to let them get themselves out of it.”

“We may eventually have to do that,” Emma said. “In the meantime, let's go inside. Maybe this time we'll find Wryn hasn't left yet.”

“Unless she's hurried off and moved on to the stationery store we passed on the other side of Main Street. Wryn has an obsession of sorts with writing,” he grumbled while he opened the door for his mother, setting off the bell.

“Good. Then she won't mind writing a very sincere, very lengthy letter of apology. One for each of us,” Emma suggested.

Once Mark followed his mother into the store and shut the door behind him, he stopped for a moment and took a long look around. “It hasn't changed. Not one bit. The tables are just as neatly stacked with goods and the glass in the display cabinets is just as clear. Even the curtain behind the counter is the same. I can almost see that old cash box right on the middle shelf below the counter where you always kept it,” he murmured.

Emma smiled. “It's still there. Or it was just a few months ago,” she replied.

Indeed, it was only last fall that Mr. Atkins had purchased the General Store from the man Emma had sold the store to some four years ago. A single man with limited business experience, he had been overwhelmed by his new responsibilities.

The store had quickly become a disorganized mess, as well as a haven where less-than-honest travelers, canal workers, and factory workers learned how easy it was to pilfer what they wanted instead of paying for it. Emma and Mr. Atkins had had a rough start to their own relationship due to a misunderstanding between him and Mother Garrett and Aunt Frances, but she now considered him to be a friend.

Since then, much to Emma's chagrin, as well as his own, he had also become the focus of matchmaking attention for Mother Garrett and Aunt Frances.

To the surprise of nearly everyone in Candlewood, including the two determined matchmakers, Mr. Atkins had married Addie Doran last week after a very short courtship. A young widow with three young daughters, she had gone to work for Mr. Atkins in the General Store after the man he had hired to help him, Steven Cross, left to take a job at the piano factory with his brother.

When the curtain parted and Addie stepped behind the counter, she greeted Emma with a broad smile. “I didn't expect to see you today, but I did so enjoy meeting your niece. Wryn is a lovely, lovely young woman,” she offered as Emma approached the counter with her son. “Mark? Is that really you?”

Mark smiled. “It's me. How are you, Widow Doran? Mother wrote to tell me about your troubles. Please allow me to extend my condolences,” he said gently.

“Thank you, Mark, but I'm doing very well. And it's Mrs. Atkins now,” she said as a blush stole up her cheeks. “How good to see you again. I'd heard you and your brothers were all coming home for a visit. Mr. Atkins just left to deliver the supplies to Hill House that your mother-in-law ordered earlier today,” she explained, turning her attention to Emma. “Did Wryn forget to get something you wanted?”

“I'm not certain,” Emma replied. “Mark and I were on our way home, and I thought maybe we would stop in to make sure Wryn got everything. Do you have a list of what she purchased in the account book?”

Smiling, Addie reached under the counter to get the account book, set it on top, and opened it up. “Here is it,” she said and pointed to the center of the page. “She didn't get all that much. Just two tins of sweets and some beef jerky. A bone-handled knife, which I wrapped up real good for her, and some needles and thread,” she said before looking up again. “Was there anything else you needed?”

“Only Wryn,” Emma muttered under her breath. “I'll be back early in the week to settle up the account,” she promised.

Addie closed the book. “That's fine. How long will you be staying in Candlewood, Mark?”

“For a few weeks.”

“I'm looking forward to meeting your wife and your boys.”

“I'll be sure to stop in with them. Did . . . did Wryn happen to mention before she left if she was heading back to Hill House?”

“With all those packages she was carrying, I thought she would be, but she said she still had a few stops to make. I offered to let Mr. Atkins take her packages to Hill House for her when he left to take the other supplies, but she insisted on keeping them with her.”

“Thank you for offering to help her,” Emma said before departing. Amazingly, they found that Wryn had made only one other stop along Main Street, at Carson's Stationery Store, where she had purchased a day book and several writing tablets.

Unfortunately, her trail ended there.

Standing at the corner of Hampton and Main Streets with her son, Emma was cold and exhausted. She also knew that if she didn't get these boots off soon, she would be sporting a whole family of
blisters on her feet. “It's still a long walk back to Hill House,” she said as a shiver raced down her spine. “I'd dearly love to warm up with a cup of tea.”

“If you like, I can take you back to the hotel, where you can have your tea while I go back to Hill House and get the wagon to take you home.”

“I don't want you to go to all that bother.”

“After all the trouble I've brought home with me, it's the least I can do,” he said. “I don't mind. Truly.”

“I know you don't, but . . . wait. I think I have a better idea,” she said after rejecting any notion of stopping in at Zachary Breckenwith's. He had not been supportive, at first, when she had taken in Aunt Frances. He was the last person she would expect to support her when it came to taking in Wryn, especially once he found out about the young woman's shopping adventure today.

Emma did, however, know where she and Mark could get the advice they both needed. “I know exactly where we could both warm up in front of a nice fire with a good strong cup of tea,” she said as she urged him to turn around. “Remember when I wrote to you and Catherine about Reverend Glenn getting married and working again as our assistant pastor?”

He nodded. “We got the letter just before we left.”

“Well, his cottage is only a few squares away. I know he would love to see you and introduce you to Aunt Frances. With the weather as it is, it's not likely they've had a single visitor today. Besides, I haven't been to check up on them for almost a week now, and I want to make sure they're faring well on their own.”

“But what about Wryn?” he asked as they started back the same way they had just come.

“She's probably made her way back to Hill House and hidden all of her booty by now. If she has, then Mother Garrett will be
sure to keep a close eye on her. If she hasn't, then we're both going to need to warm up before we walk back to Hill House and get the wagon to start searching for her again.”

Emma and Mark arrived at Reverend Glenn's new home within five minutes. The cottage itself was small but boasted four small rooms instead of two, as Reverend Glenn had originally thought. The moment she stepped inside, however, she knew she had been wrong about a number of her assumptions today.

First, Reverend Glenn and Aunt Frances did not have a single visitor. They had two.

Second, any hope she had of trying to decide what to do with Wryn without involving Zachary Breckenwith was futile, since he was right there sitting next to Reverend Glenn.

Third . . .

She let out a sigh. She was too tired to think anymore. She simply smiled and wondered how unkind it would be to wish that the young lady who was sitting on the settee next to Aunt Frances might simply disappear.

6

W
ITH FIVE PEOPLE
and one very large, very ungainly dog cramped together in the small parlor, there was little room for anyone to move about, let alone escape.

After introducing and reintroducing her son to everyone, Emma settled down in a chair across from the fire, where she could see that the doors to the two tiny bedrooms had been closed shut. Mark sat next to her in the other of the two chairs he had carried in from the kitchen. Fortunately, her son had shown the same quiet self-control as his father by not exploding into a diatribe the moment he saw Wryn. Emma suspected, for now at least, that Mark was more interested in studying the man who was courting his mother than he was in confronting his wayward niece in front of the others.

Butter, the aged mongrel who had become Reverend Glenn's constant companion, slept at his master's feet. Zachary sat in a chair on the other side wearing the closed expression he usually reserved for handling his clients, although the amusement she detected in his gaze was most definitely reserved for her.

Between them all, Aunt Frances sat with Wryn on a small
settee. The two, both unusually small and finely boned, offered a striking vision of the opposite ends of the life cycle. Both set of cheeks were also bright pink. Emma assumed Aunt Frances' cheeks were flushed with the excitement of having so many visitors at one time, but she hoped Wryn's cheeks were flaming with nervous embarrassment, if only to reassure herself that the young woman possessed any sort of conscience.

After sharing a few pleasantries, Emma smiled. “What a lovely shawl you're wearing, Aunt Frances,” she said, anxious to have her suspicions about the source of her shawl confirmed or denied.

Aunt Frances reached up to touch the exquisite lace and smiled. “It's a bit more delicate than I'm accustomed to, but I can truthfully say that I've never owned anything quite as beautiful. Wryn gave it to me just before you arrived. She's as sweet and thoughtful as you are.” She patted the girl's hand.

Smiling demurely, Wryn turned her hand over to clasp Aunt Frances' hand. “You're very kind.”

“Apparently, you've been very, very busy today,” Mark said calmly to his niece.