A Touch of Frost

by Jo Goodman

  Thaddeus shrugged, stretched his arms wide. “I thought so.” He finished his coffee and stood. “I’m going to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream.”

  “That’s not the kind of sleep Hamlet had in mind.”

  Thaddeus looked at Ellie. “You ever notice that college knocked the stupid right out of him? Sometimes I think it’s a damn shame.” He chucked Remington on the shoulder as he skirted the table. “Thank you again for seeing after her,” he told his son. “You, too, Ellie. She needed wrangling in the worst way.”

  When Thaddeus was gone, Ellie’s candid gaze fell on Remington. “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Are you going to feed me?”

  “Fried eggs or flapjacks?”

  “Both. It’s a long story.”

  • • •

  By nature, Phoebe was an early riser. The long nights demanded by the theater had never translated into lingering in bed come morning. Ellie had closed the curtains in her room—Ben’s room, she reminded herself—so that contributed to the lateness of the hour when she woke. She knew it was late because somewhere in the house a clock chimed and she counted out nine on her fingertips.

  She turned onto her back, pulled the quilted coverlet up to her shoulders, and took inventory of the parts of her that didn’t hurt. As it happened, it was a short list, and she finished it before she was ready to leave what she determined was an extraordinarily comfortable nest.

  The choice was taken from her when the bedroom door opened in a grand manner that could only mean that Fiona was about to make an entrance. In Fiona’s hands, the door had such a significant supporting role that Phoebe was always tempted to give it credit in the playbill. Such was Fiona’s gift.

  “Ah, you’re awake. You are, aren’t you?”

  Phoebe raised herself up on her elbows to prove that she was but did not fool herself into believing that it mattered. Fiona was obviously determined that she should be awake and would have made it happen.

  “Good.” Fiona closed the door and crossed the room. The hem of her satin robe swept the floor behind her. “Are you comfortable like that? You can’t be. Sit up.”

  Phoebe did, resting against the headboard after she stuffed a pillow behind the small of her back. “Is that better for you?”

  Fiona made a moue. “Don’t be cross.” She sat on the edge of the bed, turned slightly so she could draw up one knee, and set her hands on Phoebe’s shoulders. “Let me look at you. Suffer the examination if you must, but I am determined.” After several long moments of serious study, Fiona removed her hands from Phoebe’s shoulders and placed the back of one of them against her forehead. “You don’t have a temperature. You are simply quite fine, aren’t you? No ill effects from your ordeal?” She dropped her hand to her lap. “Thaddeus told me all about it. How awful it must have been. Was it awful?”

  Phoebe did not expect Fiona to wait for an answer, and she was not proved wrong. Fiona launched into an explanation of her absence at the station and then her absence from the front porch when Phoebe arrived. Further, she explained why she had written so few times and why the invitation to visit had come from Thaddeus and not her. Phoebe listened with half an ear to what was likely only a quarter’s worth of truth. She would sort through it later, parse what she thought she could trust. Fiona needed time to settle with the truth as well.

  Phoebe waited for the spring inside Fiona to completely unwind before she asked, “What about you? Are you well?”

  “Now that you’re here, I am. You cannot imagine how I worried.”

  “Oh, I think I can.”

  Fiona’s amethyst eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I’m not sure I like your tone.” She held up one finger. “No, wait. I am sure, and I don’t like it.”

  Phoebe flushed. It was a reminder that Fiona could still make her feel like a child. “I’m sorry. Of course you were worried.”

  Fiona tilted her head to one side, thoughtful now. “Perhaps you are more overwrought than your appearance suggests. I think a hot bath and a hotter meal are in order.” She stood, put out a hand to forestall an argument. “Put your robe on and I’ll have a couple of the hands move the tub in here. Once Ellie’s heated the water, they can fetch and carry. I have bath salts.”

  Phoebe admitted it sounded wonderful. “I should help.”

  “Ellie won’t let you,” Fiona said. “Doing for others is her domain.”

  Phoebe thought that the way Fiona said it, it was a matter of fact, not opinion. She wondered, then, about the faint thread of bitterness that stitched the words together. She did not think she imagined it, but it was also difficult to believe that Fiona longed for purpose in her life that included doing for others.

  Fiona rose and picked up Phoebe’s flannel robe from where it lay over the spindle rail of a rocker. She handed it over. “I’ll see that everything’s made ready.”

  Then she was gone.

  • • •

  Phoebe was already wearing her robe but still searching for her slippers when there was a knock at the door. The knock was a sure sign that it was not Fiona returning. She padded to the door and opened it a few inches. When she saw it was Ellie Madison, she stood back and let the housekeeper in.

  Ellie wiped her damp hands on her muslin apron. “I was washing up,” she said. “Your sister’s corralling a couple of the boys to set up a bath.”

  “I know.” Phoebe was apologetic. “I hope it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No such thing. Trouble’s trouble. You can’t have too much of it. I just came to make sure you had some privacy for personal matters before they came traipsing in here. Outhouse is in the back, about a hundred feet downgrade from the stream, but like I said, there’s a pot under the bed.”

  “I remember. I think I’ll use the privy. I need to stretch my legs.”

  “Suit yourself. I don’t know how it is in the city, but there’s a bucket of wood ashes inside. Pour a handful down the hole when you’re done. Keeps things smelling like the good earth.”

  “Um. Yes. I’ll do that. Do you know where my slippers are?” When Ellie’s gaze dropped to the bedside, Phoebe realized Fiona must have accidentally pushed them under the bed. “Never mind,” she said. “I know what happened to them.”

  “You probably want to put on shoes to go out and keep your slippers for indoors.”

  “You’re right. Thank you.” Phoebe found her ankle boots on the floor of the wardrobe. She sat in the rocker to put them on, aware that the housekeeper was waiting to provide an escort at least part of the way. “Has everyone else eaten?”

  “That’s neither here nor there. You haven’t.”

  “I can make breakfast for myself.”

  “Never thought you couldn’t, but it’d give me pleasure to do it just the same. You don’t mind that, do you?”

  “No,” she said. “At least not this morning.”

  “Good. Come now. Let me point out the way.”

  • • •

  By the time Phoebe reached the privy, she had met three of the five hands working the ranch since winter passed. Ralph Neighbors, a bow-legged cowpoke in his early forties, tipped his hat and murmured his name as he sauntered by on his way to the house. Scooter Banks, closer to Phoebe’s age, walked like his boots had springs, not spurs, and introduced himself with a firm handshake and a toothy smile. Arnie Wilver’s age was indeterminate, but it fell somewhere between Ralph’s and Scooter’s. He was carrying a coiled length of rope on his shoulder and he merely raised a gloved hand in her direction. It was Scooter who supplied his name.

  Working in the close quarters of the theater, rubbing elbows at almost every turn, slipping between actors in various states of dress—or undress—Phoebe allowed that she was on loose terms with modesty. Perhaps it was just as well if she was going to be presented like a debutante every time she walked to the privy.

  She smiled arou
nd a bubble of laughter, but that faded as she recalled a moment in the cabin at Thunder Point right after Remington had cut her loose. The first thing she had done was rearrange her skirt so that it covered her legs. She wondered that she had felt the urge at all. Was it because she knew that it was expected or because he was watching her?

  Phoebe also remembered that her reserve, such as it was, was short-lived. How else to explain that she had allowed herself to be fitted against the curve of his saddle and in the cradle of his crotch? And when he suggested that she put her arms around him? Not a second thought; not a moment’s hesitation.

  She sighed. She could not have given him a good opinion of herself. On the heels of that thought, she wondered if that mattered and whether it should. He had been quiet on the ride from Frost Falls to the ranch. Thaddeus asked him some about his business in Chicago, and Remington responded but kept his answers brief. Ben wanted to know more about the men on the train, and here Remington deferred to her. That was when she realized that she preferred the quiet as well.

  She thought he had fallen asleep in the saddle, but then they reached the house and he made the leap to the porch effortlessly. His affection for Ben’s mother was real and transparent. It had not occurred to her until that moment that if Thaddeus had come to treat Ben as a second son, then Ellie might feel similarly toward Remington.

  It made Phoebe wonder what kind of feelings Remington might harbor for Fiona, but she did not speculate on the subject long. There was a bath waiting for her inside the house and two more hands that she still had to meet.

  One of them, Les Brownlee, was shifting his slight weight rather urgently from side to side not above twenty feet from the privy. As soon as he saw her, he blushed red to the tips of his ears, tucked his receding chin against his chest, and mumbled his name as he passed without looking up.

  The other, who told her his name was Johnny Sutton, was helping Remington carry pails of water down the hall to her bedroom. He was so young and such a skinny thing, and laboring mightily under the weight of the water, that Phoebe was tempted to take one of the buckets from him. Truly, she was tempted to take both. He was lightening his load by sloshing water each time he took a step.

  Phoebe hurried back to the kitchen for a mop, took it over Ellie’s protests, and followed the wet trail to the bedroom. She thrust the mop into the young man’s hand and pointedly directed him to the door. Remington chuckled until she gestured at him to do the same.

  He held up his hands, an empty pail in each. “What did I do?”

  “You let that boy make a mess.”

  Remington lowered the pails. “That boy is seventeen and has to learn to carry more than his weight in water if he’s going to last the summer, and since his ma is depending on him to help support the family, he needs to stay motivated. I swear if you had asked him to hand over a bucket, he would have done it.”

  Phoebe pressed her lips together. “Mm. I came close to telling him to give me the pair. I didn’t because I thought it would embarrass him.”

  “Unlikely.” He set the pails down. “I still have to make a couple of trips but the water’s heating now.” His dark eyes took her measure from head to foot. “How are you?”

  “Sore. A little achy. Nothing that won’t pass.”

  “Ellie makes a balm that will put heat under your skin. You rub it in and wait a minute or so. I’ll tell her to give you some. It will work best after you take your bath. Oh, and I’m going to ask for a salve for your wrists. They’re still chafed.”

  Phoebe nodded. Of course he would notice what no one else had. She fiddled with the belt of her robe. It was happening again—an odd sensation of shyness was rooting her feet to the floor but making her want to twist in place like a silly schoolgirl. She managed not to do that, but only just. His eyes were not looking anywhere but into hers, and yet Phoebe felt as if his gaze was wandering over her again, touching the soft hollow of her throat, glancing off her shoulder, lingering just a moment past decency on the curve of her breasts. The sensation that his eyes were moving over her had a tangible quality. There was pressure on her waist, at her wrist, on the curve of her hip. Impossibly, she felt his touch at the backs of her knees.

  Phoebe did not blink as much as she slowly and deliberately lowered and then raised her lashes. The effect was owl-like, and when her vision cleared, she saw he was regarding her with both amusement and curiosity. The curiosity faded, leaving only amusement, when she swallowed hard and pointed to the pails.

  “Right. More water.”

  Phoebe swore she heard him chuckling as he exited stage left.

  Chapter Twelve

  Phoebe found Fiona reading in the parlor. She did not invite herself in but stood in the doorway until Fiona looked up from her book.

  “Already finding yourself at sixes and sevens?” asked Fiona. She marked her place with a green grosgrain ribbon before setting the book aside. “Thaddeus has a surprisingly varied selection of books. It cannot compare to the library you frequented in New York, but I believe you will find something to enlighten or entertain, depending on your mood. Shall I show you to his study?”

  Phoebe shook her head. She pointed to the fringed shawl that was folded over her forearm. “I thought I would like to go out. It’s a beautiful day. I wondered if you would show me around?” She was unsure of Fiona’s response, but she thought she should make the overture. Phoebe knew she would not receive an answer of any kind until Fiona had finished inspecting her. Like a good soldier, she stood at attention and waited for the pronouncement.

  “I should take you into town,” said Fiona, rising from the sofa. She wore a pink-and-white-striped silk day dress with three-quarter-length sleeves that puffed high at her shoulders. There was nothing fussy about the dress, no ruching, no flounces, but none was necessary when she filled the bodice so admirably. “That’s what I should do. Take you shopping. Thaddeus established a line of credit for me at the shops I told him I would like to frequent, not that there were so very many choices, you understand. I know he won’t mind if I make purchases for you.”

  Phoebe watched Fiona’s complexion bloom pink with excitement and wondered how it was possible that the roses in her cheeks complemented the pink stripes in her dress so precisely. “Fiona,” she said gently. “I couldn’t possibly. I would be very uncomfortable.”

  “I mean it. Thaddeus won’t mind, but if you like, I will ask him. He’ll give it his blessing.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “No, I’m sure you’re right, but I meant that I would not be comfortable riding.”

  “Oh, we wouldn’t be on horseback. That’s absurd. We will take the buggy.”

  “Fiona.” Phoebe saw Fiona blink. It was the reaction she had hoped for. “I do not want to go anywhere that my feet won’t carry me.” To emphasize her point, Phoebe placed one hand on her backside. “I have bruises.”

  “Oh. Well, there’s no need to be crude about it. Please remove your hand before someone sees you.”

  Phoebe did not address the fact that there was no one around since everyone else was engaged with work. To appease Fiona, she let her hand fall to her side. “And to the other point, while I appreciate that you would like to take me shopping, I don’t need anything.” There was no missing Fiona’s skepticism, not when the highest point of her arched eyebrow was halfway to her hairline. “Before you find fault with what I am wearing, perhaps you’ll want to remember that you chose it for me. The pattern. The material. The trim.”

  “Did I?” She sighed. “Was I in a mood?”

  “You are always in a mood.” To give her hands something to do, Phoebe smoothed her lichen green skirt at the front. The tailored bodice required no attention. The fit was exact, following the line of her shoulders, her arms, the curve of her breasts and waist. Armor would not have protected her so well, she thought, which was why Fiona had suggested it. Phoebe had added a black tie around the high co
llar and arranged the tails so that they lay flat against the bodice. The knot she had fashioned at her throat was secured with a mother-of-pearl stickpin. The accessories were masculine; the effect was entirely feminine.

  “I suppose it’s not completely wrong for you,” Fiona said. Her eyes narrowed on the stickpin. “Is that the pin that Jonathan Halstead gave me?”

  Phoebe put her hand to her throat. “I don’t know. It might be, but you gave it to me.”

  “Did I? I’m sure it’s the one I had from Jonathan. I have fond memories of him, you know.”

  “I’m sure. Do you want it back?”

  “No.” She waved one hand airily. “You must keep it. I will think of him when I see you.” She frowned slightly. “When I see you wearing it, I mean. I don’t think of anyone else when I see you.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Fiona set her jaw. A muscle jumped in her cheek before the line of her mouth relaxed and her lips parted. “My, now who is in a mood? You are entirely disagreeable, Phoebe. I wonder that you are here at all since you are clearly out of sorts with me.”

  Phoebe spoke quietly, which was always the better course when Fiona was winding herself up. “I came at your husband’s invitation, not yours. Remember?”

  “So you mean to punish me? That’s unfair, Phoebe, and beneath you. I told you this morning that I did not extend an invitation because I had it in my mind to go to New York and escort you here myself. That is not the sort of thing I could do without my husband’s permission, and I wasn’t confident that Thaddeus would agree. I was still working out the best way to approach him when he told me about the letter he had written to you. Do you see? While I cared enough to seek his approval, he presented me with a fait accompli. That was very wrong of him.”

  “Are you still angry with him? Don’t you have what you wanted? I’m here.” Something flickered in Fiona’s lovely amethyst eyes and it was then that Phoebe understood the whole of the truth. “Oh, forgive me. I see now that I was a secondary consideration, really nothing more than a convenience you could use to explain your desire to go back to New York. Do you ever miss me at all, Fiona, or is it the city you miss, the theater, the applause?”