The Sugar Queen

by Tess Thompson

  “Evening, Lord Barnes.” Clive shared the same light blue eyes with his brother. Tall and broad, made from German stock, they owned the butcher shop in town. The Higgins Brothers Butcher Shop was clean and well-run. They sold their cuts of meat at a fair price. I’d known them from the first day they move here. I happened to know, too, they gave away scraps and day-old meat to the hungry.

  “I think she’s bumped her head real good.”

  I stepped forward. “I’ll take her.”

  “Yes, sir.” Clive transferred her to me. I gazed down at the lovely face that belonged to Miss Cooper. This was not the old lady spinster I’d expected. For one, she was a young woman. And my, she was a beauty, with alabaster skin and delicate bone structure. Her cheeks, flushed from the cold, were the color of cherry blossoms in the spring. She had long dark eyelashes and hair the color of wheat. A small mouth suited her small oval face.

  Clive and Wayne hovered by the front door, holding their hats in their hands. “We sure hope she’s not hurt too bad,” Clive said.

  “Would you like to come in?” I asked. “Lizzie can get you something warm to drink before you go back out in the cold.”

  “No, sir. We best get back into town and send the doctor out,” Wayne said.

  “This time of night he’ll be at the saloon,” Clive said.

  “Thank you. It’s very kind of you,” I said, holding back from making a comment about the doctor’s gambling and whiskey habits.

  “One more thing before we go,” Clive said. “The shots sounded like they were down by the Coles’ place. It might be best to send someone out there in the morning to make sure they’re all right.”

  Samuel Cole and his family lived on the other side of the creek that separated our property. He and Rachel were good friends and neighbors. I doubted there was anything amiss. Samuel knew these parts better than anyone. The shots were most likely from him. He hunted or trapped almost all their meat. Deer were particularly abundant this year.

  “Thank you. We’ll take care of it,” Jasper said as he clasped his hands behind his back. A habit from the old days when he’d been trained as a footman on my father’s estate.

  “Yes, sir,” Clive said, without making eye contact.

  At first glance, one wouldn’t have thought Jasper to be intimidating. He was quite ordinary-looking—tall and slim with sandy-colored hair and light blue eyes. It was the unfortunate way his lips often puckered, as if he smelled something foul, and his posh British accent that made him seem haughty and disdainful.

  “Thank you. That’ll be all,” Jasper said to the Higgins brothers.

  The young men put their hats back on and inched backward before escaping into the night.

  Jasper shut the door as I headed toward the library with Miss Cooper.

  My cook, Lizzie, appeared, poking her head out of the door that led downstairs to the kitchen, bringing the scent of garlic and butter with her. “What’s all the commotion?” She placed her flour-covered hands over her round cheeks. “Who is that?”

  “The new schoolteacher. Harley had an accident on the way back from the station,” Jasper said. “Don’t worry, he’s all right.” He often anticipated a question before it was asked. “But he’s got a gash on his hand. Can you send Merry over to check on him?”

  Merry, who had appeared from downstairs before she could be summoned, nodded and scuttled to the closet for a coat. “Yes, yes. I’ll go right away.” Not that I would have discussed such a topic, but I assumed I wasn’t the only person in this house who’d observed young Merry’s crush on Harley. In fact, the only person who seemed oblivious to the pretty Swedish immigrant’s devotion was Harley himself. If he didn’t come to his senses soon, I couldn’t imagine the strong, tall woman with golden skin and hair would remain single for long. The town was full of men only too happy to entertain her.

  As Merry bounded out the door, I headed into the library, Lizzie and Jasper close at my heels.

  I set Miss Cooper on the east-facing couch. In the lamplight, she looked even younger. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty. In our correspondence, Quinn Cooper had never mentioned her age, but I’d assumed she was an old maid—a spinster with a silver bun and a long nose with a wart.

  Jasper had already fetched a blanket. I grabbed one of the square pillows from the settee and placed it under Miss Cooper’s head.

  Lizzie, never exactly calm in normal circumstances, stood over Miss Cooper, tutting and fussing. “Is she breathing?” Short and round with curly brown hair that was forever springing from her bun and freckles that covered her fair skin, Lizzie looked very much like her Irish mother. Both her parents had worked for my father at our country estate. When I left for America, she and Jasper had asked to join me. Initially, I brought only Jasper but sent for her as soon as I was settled here in Emerson Pass. She’d been making delicious meals ever since.

  I knelt at the side of the couch and picked up one limp arm to feel Miss Cooper’s pulse. “Strong,” I said.

  “Shall I fetch tea?” Lizzie asked, looking as if she were about to burst into tears. “For when she wakes?”

  “Yes, and smelling salts,” Jasper said. “We need smelling salts.”

  “And loosen her corset,” Lizzie said. “God knows that’ll help.”

  Jasper coughed and turned red.

  “Let’s try smelling salts first,” I said, almost laughing despite the gravity of the situation.

  Lizzie nodded and flew from the room and down the stairs to the kitchen.

  “I had no idea she was young,” I said to Jasper.

  “It’s not proper for her to travel alone,” Jasper said. “Americans have no sense of propriety.”

  At times, I found Jasper’s reluctance to accept America’s ways irritating, but this time I agreed with him. A wave of shame washed over me. Why hadn’t a companion accompanied her? It wasn’t proper. Every young woman should travel with a companion. I should have paid for someone to chaperone her. Dangers lurked around every corner on a train headed west. Not to mention here in Emerson Pass. Rough and lonely men would do terrible things to her if given the chance. How could I have possibly suggested she stay at the boardinghouse? She wouldn’t be safe there. Miners and prospectors stayed there, forever enraged that the gold they hoped for never appeared. They stumbled home at night from the saloon, drunk and violent. It would be fine for an older woman who had more than likely seen a thing or two, but this innocent woman would be in constant danger.

  She would have to stay here in the house. We had more than enough rooms to accommodate her. I’d built this house with three extra bedrooms, hoping for family and friends from England to come for extended stays.

  I heard the clamor of my children filing down the stairs. They’d come to say good night. Would seeing their teacher splayed out upon their couch scare them? I feared it might. Especially after what had happened to their mother. I glanced at Jasper, who uncharacteristically seemed as rattled and unsure as I. Before I could decide upon a diversion, the children burst into the library. All five of them. Wearing their flannel nightgowns, they looked clean and shiny and smelled of lavender soap. I loved them after their baths.

  For once, the children seemed stunned into silence. They gathered around the prone body on the sofa and stared.

  Flynn, one of the nine-year-old twins, not unusually, found his voice first. “Who is she, Papa?”

  Before I could answer, Cymbeline, only six years old but particularly articulate, stepped closer to Miss Cooper and whispered, “Is she a princess from a faraway land?” Cymbeline’s dark curls, still damp from her bath, stuck to her rosy cheeks.

  Nanny Foster, from behind, spoke in a sharp voice. “Cymbeline, don’t get too close. She might be sick.”

  “No, it’s all right, Nanny,” I said. “She’s only bumped her head.”

  “Is she a stranger, Papa?” Josephine asked in a voice much too old for only being thirteen. “Have we taken her in from the cold?”

&nbs
p; “No, this is our new teacher. Harley had an accident in the sleigh.”

  “The small sleigh?” Flynn asked.

  “What does it matter?” I asked.

  “I’m just wondering,” Flynn said, grinning. “Because if the larger one is wrecked, then we wouldn’t be able to go into town for school.”

  “You’re out of luck. It was the small one,” I said.

  Fiona, my smallest daughter, slipped her hand into mine. At three, she still looked like a doll, with dark ringlets and round blue eyes that could melt the heart of the fiercest man. Especially her father. “Papa, I’m scared.”

  I lifted her into my arms. “No need to be afraid, my darling. Doc’s on his way. He’ll fix her right up.”

  “What if he can’t?” Theo asked. The quiet, worried half of my twin set didn’t have to explain his question. He would be thinking of his mother, who had walked into a blizzard and died when Fiona was a baby. Theo had been the one to find her. The doctor had come then, too.

  “Let’s not worry ourselves,” Nanny Foster said in her brisk, unemotional way. “This looks like a strong but rather foolish young woman.”

  I wasn’t sure how a bump on her head made her foolish, but I’d learned not to follow up with Nanny Foster’s observations unless I wanted a few more paragraphs of her opinions.

  The children all gathered close, inspecting our patient.

  Fiona wriggled from my arms, forever worried she’d miss something her older siblings were privy to.

  Jasper appeared with a piece of ice wrapped in a cloth and placed it gently on top of that mound of shiny hair.

  Miss Cooper’s eyes fluttered open. I took a step backward, stunned by the beauty of those eyes, brown and shiny as polished stone. They widened with alarm as she took in her surroundings. Here we were, staring at her like she was part of the circus. “Children, step away. Give Miss Cooper some room to breathe.”

  “Oh, dear,” Miss Cooper said. “What’s happened? Where am I?”

  Chapter 3

  Quinn

  * * *

  Five sets of eyes peered at me. Was I in heaven? Dead at the mercy of a horse and sleigh on my very first day in Colorado? With five child angels surrounding me? Yet, no. The pain in my head and midsection told me I was still very much on earth. There was no pain in heaven.

  Nevertheless, these children indeed looked like angels. The two smallest possessed adorable cherubic faces with brown ringlets and eyes the color of the ocean on a summer day. There were two boys, identical twins, I quickly gathered. Their faces seemed carved from the finest birch tree, pale and smooth. They had dark hair like their sisters, but their eyes seemed almost black in the dim light. I might have had trouble telling them apart, except that one had a scar above his left eye. Ridges from a comb in their damp hair and glowing skin told me they’d just come from a bath. The oldest child, a girl, was the only one with fair hair and light green eyes. She was slighter than the others, daintily built, as if a slight breeze could knock her over. She held a book to her chest and gazed at me with a somber, inquisitive expression. A reader. This was my favorite kind of child. Well, they were all my favorites, really, other than the spoilt or mean ones. However, the world was to blame for those. Most children were born sweet.

  A man appeared in my sight line. A particularly handsome man with high cheekbones and a mouth that naturally curved upward so that he appeared to be smiling even though his eyes were serious. Faint laugh lines around his eyes were evidence of a life lived.

  And those eyes of his. They were a spectacular shade of dark green and seemed to exude intelligence and curiosity. At the moment they were fixed on me, holding my gaze. He was obviously the father of these children. Other than their brown eyes, the twins were the spitting image of him. I could imagine him as a boy, which made me like him immensely before he even opened his mouth. The twinkle in his eyes contributed some too, I suppose, other than they seemed to be laughing at me. If eyes could laugh. They can’t. They’re only meant for seeing or producing tears.

  “Miss Cooper, we do beg your pardon for this most inauspicious meeting.” A deep, resonate voice and, God help me, an English accent. “It seems you’ve had an accident. The Higgins brothers brought you to the closest home. Ours. We’re the Barnes family. I’m Alexander Barnes. We’ve corresponded, as I’m sure you remember.”

  Silently, I groaned and fought an outward wince. This man was Lord Alexander Barnes. How unfortunate he was handsome. I mustn’t let my romantic mind get the better of me. I’d been prone to that kind of behavior before. Daydreaming of a love that existed only as a figment of my imagination. Charles, whom I’d been in love with since I was a little girl, loved my friend Betsy, not me. I’d never told a soul of my longings. For which I was grateful. At least the humiliation was only in my mind, not out for the world to see. I shoved that thought aside and focused on the scene in front of me now.

  “Do you remember? Or has the bump on your head given you amnesia, like in a story I read?” the oldest girl asked.

  I managed a smile, even though my head throbbed. “Yes, not to worry. I remember everything, other than the moment after I flew from the sleigh.” I closed my eyes as images from those last terrifying moments flooded my consciousness. Harley shouting to me to hold on and I’d thought, hold on to what exactly? and then the cries of the horses. “Are the horses all right? And Harley?”

  “All fine,” Lord Barnes said. “You seem to have taken the brunt of it.”

  I sat up and winced from the pounding in my head. Black dots danced before my eyes. “I’m sorry to cause trouble at our first meeting.”

  The second-to-smallest girl stepped forward with a distinctly disappointed look on her round face. “You’re not a princess, are you?”

  “Cymbeline, hush, child.” I looked in the direction of the voice to see a plump, middle-aged woman with silver hair and a thin mouth.

  Cymbeline. The name suited her.

  “Yes, Nanny Foster,” Cymbeline said.

  The smallest one drew close enough that I caught the scent of soap on her skin. “I’m Fiona. I’m the baby.” She picked up a lock of my hair. “Pretty, like Josephine’s.”

  “Josephine?” I asked.

  Fiona pointed to the oldest daughter. “My sister. She has hair like yours.”

  Josephine curtsied. “Hello, Miss Cooper. I’m pleased to meet you. I can’t wait for school.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Josephine,” I said.

  “Fiona,” Nanny Foster said. “Step away.” I could see right away that Nanny Foster had a most unpleasant disposition. Why did women who hated children become nannies and teachers? “We don’t touch other people.”

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  “No,” Nanny Foster said. “Obey me, Fiona, or you’ll be sent to bed without a cookie.”

  Fiona backed away but not without a conspiratorial glance toward Cymbeline.

  I stayed quiet, glancing behind the children to take in the dark walls and plush furniture. Rows and rows of books lined the shelves. A roaring fire warmed the room. For the first time in ten days, I started to unthaw. I unbuttoned my coat.

  “Jasper, please help her with her coat,” Lord Banks said.

  Jasper, who was obviously the butler or valet or some kind of fancy servant, leapt forward. I moved my feet to the floor and then tried to stand, but the room seemed to tilt. I sat back down, shrugging out of the coat and handing it to Jasper.

  The door opened and another woman entered, carrying a tray with a teapot and, glory be to God, a stack of cookies that smelled of butter and sugar. My mouth watered, accompanied by a loud growl of my stomach. I glanced around to see if anyone heard, but they were all fixated on the cookies.

  “I’ve brought tea and biscuits,” the woman said. She also had an English accent. Cornflower-blue eyes gazed at me with such sympathy I immediately wanted her to be my best friend. “You poor dear. I’m Lizzie, the family cook. You’ve given us quite a fright.�
� She said all this as she set the tray on the table in front of me. I tried not to feel jealous of her curves and glowing ivory skin peppered with freckles, but I didn’t quite manage it. “Are you hungry? You look half starved.” Her white cap hung lopsided over corkscrew brown hair that escaped from its bun. A white puff of flour wafted from the front of her apron as she leaned over to pour the tea.

  “Allow me, Lizzie,” Jasper said.

  “Yes, right. Of course.” Lizzie straightened and touched her pink cheeks with the palms of her hands. “I’m quite undone. We don’t often have visitors.”

  “Especially ones with a broken head,” said the twin with the scar as he squinted and moved closer. “Does it hurt?” Given the sparkle in his eyes, he appeared quite thrilled over the turn of events. I half expected him to pull out a notebook and start jotting down field notes about the strange woman who had appeared in their library. A curious child. I felt certain I would adore him even though he was obviously a rascal.

  “Didn’t they feed you on the train?” Lizzie stacked a plate with cookies and thrust them into my hands.

  “I was on a strict budget,” I said before I could stop myself. This Lizzie was a woman who wrapped you in a warm blanket, fed you hot tea and biscuits, and made all your secrets spill forth.

  “Sugar, Miss Cooper?” Jasper asked.

  “Yes, two please.” If someone offered free sugar, one should take it.

  Jasper poured the tea and added two scoops of sugar from a bowl on an ornate silver tray, then stirred with a different tiny spoon. Two spoons for one cup of tea? I was in a new world compared with the one from which I’d come. “Here you are, Miss Cooper.” He set the cup and saucer on the table in front of me.

  I took a grateful sip. “Thank you, Jasper and Lizzie. Everyone. I’m sorry to have interrupted your evening.”