Читать книгу Her Montana Man - Cheryl St. John - Страница 12

It was a warm sunlit afternoon, and they walked the rest of the way home in silence, pausing at the wrought iron gate to admire Sutherland’s finest cherry-red brick, the clean lines of the white window caps and functional green shutters. Eliza loved the irregular Italianate architecture. There were two stories and an attic in the main section and two stories in the jutting side section where the sitting and dining rooms were down and an immense sunroom up. In front, the main part featured a jutting two-story section with windows on three sides on each floor and a balcony atop.

A Queen Anne porch had been added for her mother several years after the original construction. The home and its rooms held memories of her parents and many good times when her sister was young and not feeble. They were memories Eliza treasured, even though her heart broke with each recall. They entered the house, and she sent Tyler upstairs for time alone with Jenny Lee.

Nora Cahill, their neighbor, greeted Tyler on her way down the stairs to the foyer. She turned to watch him climb to the top and disappear along the hallway to Jenny Lee’s room. Nora turned a saddened gaze on Eliza. “I don’t even know what to say to the child anymore.”

Eliza’s parents had lived in this house from the time Eliza had been a toddler, and Nora and her husband had lived next door all those years. As children she and Jenny Lee had played with Nora’s daughter, Vernelle, who had eventually married and moved East. When Eliza’s mother’s heart had weakened and she had lingered for weeks, Nora had been a blessing. Years later Nora had comforted the adult sisters when their father had died.

“None of us thought Jenny Lee would hold on this long. Your mother used to dread her dying. Maybe it’s best she’s not here for the end.”

Eliza loved Nora like an aunt, but that comment silenced her. She would much rather have her mother alive today, no matter what.

“Thank you for these afternoons,” she said with heartfelt gratitude. If Jenny Lee hadn’t insisted a year ago that Eliza take an hour to herself each day, there would probably be weeks at a stretch that she never left the house or her sister’s side. She needed the nourishing time to draw on inner strength, to think and to plan.

And she had a plan.

“You know I’m happy to come over any time,” Nora told her. “I left a couple loaves of bread rising. You can bake them later.”

Eliza leaned to give her a quick hug and then saw her to the door. Closing it, she turned to gaze up the stairway. It had grown more and more difficult to keep a cheerful attitude and guard her expression. Her sister looked nothing like the fun-loving, lovely young girl Eliza wanted to remember, but she steadfastly held her sorrow at bay. Jenny and Tyler needed her now more than ever.

After a difficult moment, she drew a fortifying breath, gathered her skirts and purposefully trod one stair at a time. The worn banister was familiar and comforting to her touch. She knew the number of steps and which ones creaked. The house was her solace, her haven. She could find her way around in the pitch dark without effort. The thought of leaving had always been too much to bear…until now. Any comfort she’d once drawn here had been spoiled by her brother-in-law’s presence.

The door to Jenny Lee’s room was always open unless Royce went in to visit her alone, which happened rarely anymore. A year ago, he’d moved to another room down the hall. Eliza had offered to bring a cot for him if he was afraid of disturbing his wife’s rest; she had even suggested two smaller beds instead of the one that had been her parents’, but he declined.

She thought he could have been more attentive and helpful. His moving from the room caused Eliza more work. Now she needed to check on her sister throughout the night. But she’d learned that defying Royce’s decisions and demands only caused more trouble, and she had to keep things calm for Jenny Lee’s sake.

Tyler was sitting on the side of the bed, his expression animated as he finished telling Jenny Lee something about Timmy Hatcher. Jenny’s adoring smile was already thin. As much as she loved to hear about Tyler’s day and cling to those last vestiges of normal life, she could only mask the pain and fatigue for brief spells. When she saw Eliza Jane, regret and relief warred in her sunken eyes.

Immediately interpreting unspoken clues, Tyler kissed Jenny Lee’s cheek before easing himself to stand beside the bed. “I’ll come back to see you after supper, Mama.”

“I love you, Tyler. You don’t know how much.”

“I love you, too, Mama.”

The sisters watched him leave the room, and then their eyes met. Jenny Lee’s held tears.

“Do you need your medicine?” Eliza asked.

“Please.”

She fed Jenny two teaspoons of the elixir Dr. McKee provided for pain, then helped her turn on her side and adjusted a few pillows for comfort. Eliza pulled the chair close beside the bed and took a seat.

Jenny Lee reached for her hand. Her sister’s cool fingers felt alarmingly slim and frail and Eliza was always afraid of hurting her. Jenny was wearing a smile, though, when Eliza’s gaze rose to her face. Her skin was unnaturally translucent and white, her eyes too shiny.

“Remember when we were girls, Liza, and we couldn’t wait to get home from school with Vernelle? We’d all go up into the attic room and play for hours. Mother used to shoo us out of doors for fresh air, and we’d take the same fantasy game we’d been playing to Nora’s backyard behind those big lilac bushes.”

“I remember,” Eliza answered. Nora had brought bouquets of lilacs from those very bushes into Jenny Lee’s room all that spring. “You always wore Grandma Pritchard’s rose evening dress and the bead necklace.”

“Those were pearls,” Jenny Lee insisted. “And you liked Mother’s blue dress with the ruffled sleeves.”

“We were quite the fashionable ladies, weren’t we?”

“I felt rather deserted when Vernelle married Robert and moved East,” Jenny Lee confided.

“As did Nora.”

“And then I married Royce.” Jenny Lee’s gaze wandered away for a few moments and then returned. “Did you feel I’d deserted you?”

“Of course not. You were only across the neighborhood.”

Royce and Jenny Lee had rented a small home. Shortly after Henry Sutherland’s death, Jenny Lee’s health had declined to where she needed more and more attention, and she was unable to care for Tyler. Moving here had been the practical and necessary thing for all of them. Eliza had quit her bookkeeping position at the brickyard and devoted herself to her sister and Tyler. She’d never been sorry, and she never would be.

Confirmation of Royce’s true nature had come soon after. The truth of what she’d suspected for some time had been unraveled in startling increments and ugly realizations. Eliza covered up his disinterest in Jenny Lee and Tyler to protect them. Her sister was dying. She didn’t need the hurt of knowing her husband had married her to get his hands on The Sutherland Brick Company and their other investments.

Henry had left a portion of the business to each of them, and they’d had equal say in decisions. Most often Royce had been able to sway Jenny Lee to his point of view on investments and holdings, and Eliza hadn’t been willing to fight him in front of her sister. The few times she’d tried, the hurt look on Jenny Lee’s face had discouraged her.

She didn’t want to plan for her sister’s death, but she had to be realistic. Once Jenny Lee was out of the triangle, Royce would own the major share of the brickyard and could do whatever he pleased.

His intentions didn’t stop there. A shudder ran up her spine and infused her with ominous panic. With controlled effort, she fought down the feeling.

Eliza Jane had a plan.

She’d stashed away and hidden her savings—not in the bank, because they owned a share of the bank and Royce could look at accounts anytime he wanted. But in a safer place. When the inevitable time came to escape, she would be able to take care of herself and Tyler.

“Remember how Father used to read to us in the evenings?” Jenny Lee asked, and Eliza was grateful to return to a happier time with her. “Mama would sit in that brown wing chair and work on her quilts while he read us stories. He was a good father, wasn’t he?”

Eliza sensed the disappointment her sister felt that her husband had never been a caring or loving father to Tyler. It had always seemed to Eliza that he’d tolerated the boy just to pacify Jenny Lee and her father. Now she knew it was so.

“It’s so unfair that I got this puny heart,” Jenny said with a catch in her voice. She rarely spoke in such a hopeless fashion.

“I’m going to take care of Tyler.” Eliza looked right into her sister’s eyes and assured her.

Jenny Lee squeezed her hand without much strength. “I know you will.” The medicine had taken its effect, and her eyes drifted closed. “I’m going to rest for a few minutes.”

Her lashes lay against the dark hollows under her eyes. With her blue eyes closed, she didn’t even look like herself. Eliza often washed and curled her hair, but it was thin and lank. Eliza swallowed a painful lump in her throat and fought tears. A show of emotion wouldn’t help a thing. Strength would.

“I love you, Liza.” Jenny hadn’t opened her eyes, for which Eliza was grateful. Pain was sure to be evident on her face.

“I love you, Jenny.”

Once she was sure her sister slept comfortably, she slipped out of the room. In the hall, she stood with her back against the wall, a great weight crushing her heart, and the pull of tears threatening her last shreds of composure. As sorrow washed over her in cresting waves, she clasped both hands to her breast, and pressed her fingers to her lips to hold back sobs. If she started now, she would never stop.

After several minutes, she took a deep breath, collected herself and made her way downstairs. She found Tyler working on his arithmetic assignments in the kitchen. She stoked the oven and checked the temperature to bake the bread. “I remember sitting here doing my schoolwork when I was your age.”

Jenny’s talk had kindled memories, and Eliza ached for happy carefree times. Jenny Lee had never been strong, not even then, but the seriousness of her heart condition hadn’t been apparent. They’d simply been two young girls with two parents, sharing the comfortable home their father had built for them and that their mother ran with aplomb.

“And Mama, too? Did she do her arithmetic right here?”

“That she did.” She cut him a wedge of cheese and poured him a cup of milk.

“Is she as good at numbers as you are, Aunt Eliza?”

Eliza put on a kettle of water for tea and sat across from him. “Her strengths tend to lie in word studies, subjects like spelling and English. As I recall she was very good at geography, as well. We always dreamed about the faraway places we would see one day.”

“Did you ever?”

She studied his fingers on the pencil. “No. We never traveled farther than Denver.”

“Maybe we could all go.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. He had confirmed his understanding that Jenny Lee would not get better, but did he truly comprehend that she was going to die?

A stab of pity snatched her breath and formed an aching knot in her chest. He was too young to learn this particular life lesson. “Tyler,” she said, approaching the subject cautiously. “You understand that Mama is very, very sick, don’t you?”

He nodded, keeping his gaze on his paper.

“And you know that…” She pursed her lips to keep them from trembling. “You know she won’t be with us much longer.”

He didn’t look up. “She’s gonna die.”

“Yes.” She barely managed a whisper.

“She told me.”

Eliza studied the curve of his cheek, the delicate sweep of his pale eyelashes and experienced a swell of love. Of course her sister had prepared him. Jenny Lee loved him more than life. Again, she blinked back the sting of tears.

At last he raised those bright blue eyes to hers. Eyes as earnest and clear as Jenny Lee’s had once been. “She said not to be afraid ’cause you’d take care of me always. Will you?”

Nothing could stop her. Nothing. And no one. She got up and placed her cheek against his. “Of course I will. Always. I promise.”

Jenny Lee didn’t have much appetite, but that evening Eliza managed to get her to sip a cup of broth and take some tea before giving her the medicine and making her comfortable.

She had tucked Tyler into bed and returned downstairs where she sorted laundry in the washroom beyond the kitchen. She sent out bedding and most of the clothing, but she washed her own and Jenny’s Lee’s delicate garments herself. She packed the laundry into bags, which would be picked up the following morning, and set her wash load aside.

A sound alerted her to her brother-in-law’s presence, and her senses went on alert. Alarm prickled along the skin on her arms and neck. She stepped to the doorway.

Royce stood on the far side of the kitchen. His shrewd gaze crawled over her. He was dressed as impeccably as always in a dark coat and white shirt, his brown hair parted so that it waved away from his forehead. “I’ll take my supper now.”

“I’ll get your plate from the oven.” She walked around the opposite side of the table and grabbed one of the flour sacks Nora had layered and sewn for protection from hot pot handles.

Royce’s boot heels struck the wood floor in a rapid cadence a split second before he reached her.

She whirled to face him, her body stiff.

He stopped inches from her. He wore closely trimmed sideburns and a ribbon-thin mustache on the very edge of his upper lip.

Eliza turned her face to the side to avoid his unbearable nearness and drilling gaze. His breath touched her chin. Hairs rose on her neck and arm.

“You’re looking lovely tonight.”

“You’re married to my sister.”

“A tenuous bond at the very least.”

Her heart thundered against her rib cage. “How can you treat her death so callously?”

He leaned forward without actually touching her until his heat scorched her cheek and seared her body. “It’s business, my dear.”

The sensation of being trapped sent a shudder of revulsion along her spine. She closed her eyes in the futile hope that she’d open them to find this encounter had only been another menacing nightmare.

“Don’t be so priggish, Eliza Jane. You’re no unblemished paragon of virtue.” She started at the touch of his finger as he ran it along her jaw. “I expect you’ll be quite an enthusiastic partner once you’ve resigned yourself to the next phase of our relationship.”

“We don’t have a relationship.”

“Ah, but we will.” His hand circled her wrist, and she spun away from him then, escaping from the heat of the oven behind her and his menacing overtures.

She darted to the opposite side of the table and stood with her hands on the spindles of the chair back, bile rising in her throat. “You disgust me.”

“I find the chase quite titillating, actually.” With a swagger, he moved to a chair and seated himself before the place setting she’d prepared. He adjusted the cutlery in precise alignment before leveling a warning gaze on her.

“Don’t get carried away, however. There’s a time and a place for everything, and soon your time for coy resistance will run out. Once Jenny Lee is gone and we’ve served a respectable mourning period, you will become my wife.”

Eliza stood with her heart in her throat, trapped in this house and under this man’s rule for the time being. She couldn’t leave Jenny Lee or Tyler. They needed her. He knew it. And he used her love for them to his advantage.

“It’s the natural course of things in anyone’s eyes,” he added.

A hundred nights she’d lain awake into the wee hours of morning, listening for him, dreading his next move, imagining endless scenarios of telling Jenny Lee the ugly truth, of going to the marshal, yet always coming to the same hopeless conclusion: she could not break Jenny Lee’s heart. She would never let her sister know that Royce had married her for a percent of the brickyard…and that he was awaiting her death to amass the final ownership.

Once that happened, he would have control. All Eliza could do was bide her time and endure. Shelter her sister. Protect Tyler. And avoid this deplorable excuse for a human being until—until their situation changed.

She moved to the oven, took out the hot plate and set it in front of him while guardedly keeping her distance. Sometimes she was so angry with her father for allowing this to happen that she didn’t know what to do with those feelings.

“You’re quite transparent, Eliza Jane,” he said. “But resenting me isn’t going to do any good.” He picked up his fork and knife and sliced the roast. “We both know why you’ll comply.” He took a bite and chewed before looking up at her again. “But you’ve already figured that out, haven’t you?”

Her heart skipped a beat.

Anger distorted her vision for seconds and she clenched her teeth, unable to speak.

“You have no legal rights to Tyler unless you marry me.”

“You aren’t human,” she finally replied, venom lacing her tone.

“And you will marry me. Because I have knowledge that will hurt both of you. And you don’t want me to tell.”

“I could kill you in your sleep,” she said. And God help her, she’d already thought of it. But she was too much of a coward. What if she went to jail and left Tyler here alone?

Royce actually smiled, something he did rarely, and she suspected it was because one of his front teeth overlapped the other. “I shall remember to sleep lightly.”

Why should he sleep any better than she?

Once Jenny Lee was gone, Eliza would be forced to put her plan into action, take Tyler and escape. This house her father had built, the town she called home, all the precious memories, none of it mattered as much as protecting Tyler.

The bell on the front door screeched as a visitor twisted the handle. Relieved at the interruption, Eliza tossed down the towel and hurried to answer the call.

A young man in a flannel jacket and mended dungarees stood on the porch holding a fistful of white daisies. “Miss Sutherland?”

“Yes.”

“These is for you.” He thrust the bouquet into her hands and turned away.

“Wait!” she called, but he was already out the gate and running down the street, where dusk was turning Silver Bend to shades of gold and deep lavender. She glanced at the rocky buttes in the distance, then down at the flowers she held.

“Who was it?”

Royce stood behind her. She turned to meet his thunderous expression. He spotted the bouquet. “Who sent those?”

“I don’t know.”

She spotted the small note tucked between the blooms at the same time he did. He snatched the card, catching several delicate white petals that fell to the polished wood at their feet.

Royce read the note, then his ominous gaze rose to level on her. He set his mouth in a disapproving line and grabbed the bunch of flowers from her hand. “Don’t be getting any ideas. You’ll be sorry if you cross me.”

He threw the daisies to the floor and crushed them beneath the heel of his boot, grinding until stems and petals and leaves were a mass of ruin.

With deliberate intimidation, he tore the note into pieces and tossed it onto the debris.

“I want coffee in the study after I’ve eaten.” He turned and walked back toward the kitchen.

Confused, Eliza looked down at the trampled flowers. She would have to get a broom and dustpan. Kneeling, she picked up the strewn scraps of paper and fitted them together on the floor like a jigsaw puzzle.

The handwriting was square and neat, unfamiliar.

“Hopefully these will make a better impression,” she read. No signature. Nothing that should have angered Royce to the degree it had. But then he didn’t need much prompting.

She tucked the bits of paper into the pocket of her skirt. No signature had been required for her to know the daisies had come from Jonas Black. He’d already thanked her for telling the marshal what she’d seen. This gesture had been unnecessary…but she found it touchingly kind.

There was no way Royce could have known who sent the bouquet. He’d have been even angrier if he’d suspected they’d come from the “slave trader,” the man she’d seen fighting in the street that day.

Jonas had sent flowers. She didn’t know what to make of that, but she didn’t have the time or energy to figure it out. She had too much to handle right here. A faint regret for what she could never have, tried to edge its way into her thinking.

The rapid echo of bare feet in the upstairs hall drew her attention, and she lifted her gaze to see Tyler slide to a halt and grip the banister. “Aunt Eliza!” he called down, his young voice squeaking with urgency. “Come quick! It’s Mama!”