***
“Is the hotel always this busy?” Susan asked, glancing around at the crowded dining room. “The food must be exceptionally good.”
“Dot is a wonderful cook,” Lila said. “But I’m afraid you and Douglas are more of an attraction than her roast beef. Other than miners and gamblers, we don’t get many visitors in Paris. You know what small towns are like.”
“Yes, we do,” Douglas said, his bland agreement seeming to carry an accusation.
Lila flushed and Bishop’s jaw tightened. If it hadn’t been for the fact that anything he said or did would add to her embarrassment, he would have taken great pleasure in punching his brother-in-law on the nose.
“I guess some things don’t change, no matter where you live,” Susan said lightly, as if Douglas hadn’t made his dour comment.
“That’s true.” Lila’s smile was forced. “Bishop kept telling me how different things would be from what I was used to, but I’ve found more similarities than differences. People are much the same everywhere.”
“Not quite. I can’t recall the last time Beaton was privileged to have a gunfight in the middle of the street,” Douglas said, addressing the remark to no one in particular.
There was a moment of dead silence, broken by Susan. “I don’t know, dear. Occasionally, the meetings of the Ladies’ Aid Society become so vituperative that I’m afraid disagreements can only be settled by pistols at dawn. At the last meeting, I thought Ethel Jane Cranston and Eugenia Stevens were going to come to blows over what to serve at tea.”
Bishop didn’t know the women she’d mentioned but he assumed that the image evoked must be fairly unlikely, since both Douglas and Lila were momentarily struck dumb. Then Lila laughed and even Douglas was startled into a genuine smile, and the tension was eased, at least for the moment.
Leaning back in his chair, Bishop let the conversation flow around him. It was mostly Susan and Lila talking. Douglas spoke occasionally but his mood was such that neither woman sought to bring him into the conversation. Sitting next to Lila, Bishop could feel the tension in her. She was nervous as a one-legged man at fanny kicking, and the careful way she avoided looking at her brother made the source of the her tension obvious.
Bishop hadn’t needed their conversation this morning to tell him how much the estrangement with Douglas bothered her. Though he’d spent only a few days at River Walk, it had been enough for him to see how close the two of them were. Of all the things he regretted about what had happened between him and Lila, the rift between her and Douglas was one of the deepest. And one that he, of all people, could do nothing to correct.
“It just seemed like such a perfect opportunity to come visit, what with my brother getting married in San Francisco next month,” Susan was saying. It was a measure of her own uneasiness that this was the second time she’d felt obliged to explain how it was she and Douglas had come to be in Paris. “We probably should have written to let you know that we were coming, but I thought it would be more fun to surprise you.”
“It was certainly that,” Bishop said, smiling at her to take any sting out of the words.
“It’s wonderful that you’re going to be able to be at your brother’s wedding,” Lila said.
“Yes, I’m—”
“They’ve been engaged for almost a year,” Douglas said, interrupting his wife. “No need for a hurried wedding.”
“Douglas!” Susan kept her voice low, but there was no mistaking the reprimand.
Out the comer of his eye, Bishop saw Lila’s fingers tighten around her fork until the knuckles turned white with the force of her grip. He leaned toward his brother-in-law. “One more crack like that, Adams, and you can spend the rest of the evening picking your teeth up off the floor. If you have something to say, say it to me. In private. But I won’t tolerate you upsetting my wife.”
“Your wife?” Douglas’s eyes, as clear and green as Lila’s, flashed with anger. “She’s my sister.”
“If that wasn’t the case, I’d already have fed you your teeth.”
“Douglas.” Susan’s tone was less a plea than a demand, and her usually soft mouth was tight with annoyance. “If the two of you want to brawl like a pair of children, you can go outside. But I don’t think it’s too much to expect a little civilized behavior at the dinner table.”
“The choice is yours, Adams,” Bishop said, deliberately baiting the other man. He couldn’t think of anything that would give him more pleasure than to bury his fist in Douglas’s face.
“Bishop.” Lila set her hand on his sleeve, her voice pleading.
The light touch reminded him that his main concern was her peace of mind. And, much as he hated to admit it, it probably wouldn’t make her feel any better to have him punch her brother in the mouth. A pity, really, he thought wistfully. Reluctantly he sat back in his seat. Lila’s hand still rested on his sleeve and he set his own fingers over it.
It was hard to say just where the evening might have gone from there, had the four of them been left to their own devices. It was perhaps fortunate that Sara Smythe chose that moment to sail up to the table. Wearing a deep-blue dress adorned with ivory lace and a four-inch ruffle at the hem, she looked every inch the successful matron. Her husband trailed behind her, with his usual look of vague surprise, as if, even after all these years, he wasn’t sure how he’d come to find himself married to the forceful woman at his side.
“Good evening, Sheriff McKenzie. Mrs. McKenzie." She nodded at both of them, like a queen acknowledging her subjects, Bishop thought as he pushed back his chair and rose courteously.
“Mrs. Smythe. Franklin.” He made the introductions, amused to see Sara’s reaction to meeting Douglas and Susan, two people obviously and comfortably ensconced in the level of society to which Sara so blatantly aspired. Some women might have treated them with deference but not Sara. Typically, she reacted by becoming even more overbearing.
“I do hope you’ll forgive me for interrupting your family dinner,” Sara said, looking as if she didn’t particularly care whether they forgave her or not. “But I felt I should take this opportunity to express my concern about your son, Sheriff.”
“Gavin?” Bishop raised one brow in question. “What about him?”
“I’m afraid he’s encouraging my son, William, in this ridiculous fantasy of his.”
“What fantasy?”
“This idea that he’s going to grow up to be a ... a shootist such as yourself.” Sara made the word an accusation. There was a moment of silence, broken by Lila.
“William is very young, Sara. He’ll change his mind half a dozen times before he’s grown.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Sara waved one hand in a gesture that dismissed Lila’s opinion as being of absolutely no importance. “But your stepson is the one who’s encouraged William in these ridiculous notions. Not that I blame the boy. When his own father seeks out gunfights in broad daylight in the middle of the street, it’s not unexpected that he should admire such behavior.”
And now they got to the real point of the conversation. Bishop wondered idly what had taken her so long to get to him. From the moment Dobe Lang hit the dirt yesterday, a visit from Sara had been inevitable. She’d never made any secret that she disapproved of the town hiring him. Her contention from the start had been that a man of his reputation would bring trouble with him. In this case, she’d been dead right.
“From what we were told, the gentleman who was killed brought the fight to Bishop, rather than the other way around.” Surprisingly, it was Douglas who spoke.
“Conflict can always be avoided if one is sufficiently motivated to do so,” Sara said, speaking with the complete confidence of someone who’d never done anything to avoid conflict in her life. “But that’s neither here nor there. I’m not concerned with that poor, unfortunate man who perished in the street yesterday.” Her tone made Dobe Lang sound like an innocent bystander. “I’d like to know what you plan to do about your son, Sheriff.”
/>
“I’m not sure I follow you, ma’am.” Bishop raised both brows in inquiry. “Just what is it Gavin has done?”
“I told you. He’s encouraging William in this ridiculous notion that you’re some sort of hero.”
Despite his annoyance at her bullying attitude, Bishop couldn’t suppress a twinge of amusement. His mustache twitched as he suppressed a smile. “That is a ridiculous notion,” he murmured.
“I seem to recall that William was the one who’d been cutting out newspaper clippings about my husband long before he met Gavin,” Lila said sharply, not sharing Bishop’s appreciation of the moment. “From what I’ve heard of their conversations, William doesn’t need any encouragement.”
“I’m sure William would never have come up with this ridiculous idea on his own,” Sara said, her face flushing with annoyance. “I’ve forbidden him to talk about it anymore yet I overheard him speaking to your son about guns just this morning. William has never disobeyed me before.”
“I don’t know your son, Mrs. Smythe, so I can only speak in the most general terms, but, as a teacher, it often seems to me that the brightest children have the most active imaginations.” Susan’s smile was filled with sympathy and understanding. “And often, the most intelligent among them are the most high-spirited. I’ve always thought it was the Lord’s way of offsetting the blessings of having a gifted child. Blind obedience is only for the slow of wit, don’t you think?”
Sara stared at her a moment. From her expression, it was clear that she saw the trap yawning in front of her. If she agreed with Susan, she was admitting that William’s fantasy might not be Gavin’s fault. If she disagreed, it was going to imply that her son was slow-witted, which was most certainly not the case. The silence stretched as everyone waited for her response.
She settled for a noncommittal and not entirely ladylike “Humpf.” Which, Bishop guessed could be interpreted anyway you pleased. “I must be going,” she announced, as if she’d just remembered a terribly important appointment. She departed on a wave of rustling blue silk, Franklin trailing somewhat apologetically in her wake.
She left behind a thick silence that lasted until Bishop and Douglas had both taken their seats. It was left to Douglas to sum up the encounter. “What a thoroughly unpleasant woman.”
“She reminds me of that governess I had when I was eight,” Lila said. “The one Father fired after you put a snake in her bed. I’ll never forget the way she screamed.”
“Lord, I thought the house was going to come down around our ears before she shut up.” Douglas grinned reminiscently. “I think old Thomas threw a pitcher of water in her face finally.”
“And then she stood there, soaking wet, and cursed us both up one side and down the other, using language that would have made a sailor blush. And Father fired her on the spot.”
“Why did you put a snake in the poor woman’s bed?” Susan asked, looking less than amused by the thought that the childish prank had resulted in the woman losing her job.
“Douglas found out she’d been taking a belt to me,” Lila said. “Not that I could blame her, I guess. I was, on occasion, a bit willful.”
Douglas snorted. “You were impossible.” But there was affection rather than condemnation in his voice.
“Willful,” she insisted. “Miss Gillyflower had come so highly recommended that Douglas wasn’t sure Father would believe him if he told him what was happening so he decided to force her to quit.”
“I thought it might take weeks.” Douglas picked up the story. “But it turned out she was terrified of snakes and that she had a shocking vocabulary, so we were rid of her the next morning. Father was so upset over her language that he never even questioned how the snake had come to be in her bed.”
The silence this time held a different quality. The anger was gone and in its place was the warmth of shared memory.
“I could always count on you,” Lila told her brother softly.
Douglas’s eyes shifted from her to Bishop and abruptly his expression became shuttered and cold. “Not always.”
Beside him, Bishop felt Lila sag back in her chair as if her brother’s rejection had been a physical blow. He knew what Lila wanted—to make peace with Douglas and repair some of the damage that had been done to their relationship. He only wished he could be sure that Douglas wanted the same thing.
***
If idle hands were the devil’s playground, then Satan must certainly be playing somewhere else today, Lila thought the next morning as she stirred together the ingredients for a batch of bread. Her hands hadn’t known an idle moment all morning. From the moment she got up, she’d been cleaning or cooking. She couldn’t fool herself about the origins of this sudden burst of domestic energy. It had nothing to do with wanting to get ahead on her chores and everything to do with Douglas’s sudden arrival in Paris.
It had been such a shock to open the door and see him and Susan standing on the porch. For a moment, she’d half believed they were an illusion conjured up by her talk with Bishop. Hard on the heels of the realization that they weren’t a figment of her imagination had come the realization that, whatever their reason for being there, it wasn’t to tell her all was forgiven. Douglas’s cool greeting had made that abundantly clear.
Then, before she’d had a chance to do more than absorb the reality of having her brother here, in Paris, in her home, Bishop had arrived and the atmosphere—not exactly cozy to start with—had taken a decided turn for the worse. And then Susan had insisted that they all have dinner together at the hotel where she and Douglas were staying. Lila had jumped at the invitation, thinking that nothing could be worse than having them all sit down to stew and bad biscuits in the kitchen. Not that her brother would turn his nose up at eating in the kitchen. Snobbery was not one of Douglas’s flaws. But she thought the hotel might lighten the atmosphere a bit.
“If that was a lighter atmosphere, I shudder to think what it would have been like if we’d stayed here,” she muttered to the mound of dough into which she was working flour. And, as if the evening hadn’t already had more than its share of unpleasantness, Sara Smythe had to show up, worried that Gavin might be corrupting her precious son. “As if having a mother like that wouldn’t be enough to drive the poor boy to a life of crime all on his own.”
Before she could finish mulling over the list of the evening’s disasters for the fiftieth time, someone knocked on the front door. Douglas. The fact that he’d used the front door told her who it was. Everyone else knew to come around to the back of the house. Besides, Bridget was the only one likely to come calling, and when Lila had taken Angel to visit Mary not more than half an hour ago, Bridget had settled the little girls at the kitchen table so they could “help” her bake cookies. Just the thought of the mess that was sure to result was enough to make Lila shudder with sympathy.
Her hands immersed in the sticky dough, she drew a deep breath and then yelled for her visitors to let themselves in. “I’m in the kitchen,” she called when she heard the door open. Moments later Douglas and Susan appeared in the doorway.
“I’m sorry to greet you so informally,” she said, forcing a bright smile. “But as you can see, I’m up to my elbows in bread dough. If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, I’ll put some water on for tea.”
“I can put the water on if you’ll just tell me where everything is,” Susan said as she reached up to unpin her hat.
“What are you doing?” Douglas asked by way of greeting.
“I’m making bread.” Lila dusted more flour over the end of the table where she was working and rolled the dough into it. The dough was starting to get that smooth, satiny feel that made kneading one of her favorite things to do. She leaned her weight into the task, pushing on the heels of her hands as she rolled the dough away from her.
“I recognize the task,” he said irritably. “What I don’t understand is why you’re doing it. Shouldn’t you be resting?”
Lila glanced up from her task. “We w
eren’t out all that late last night,” she said, surprised by the question.
“That’s not what I meant.” Douglas glanced at Susan, but she was busy getting cups off the shelf and didn’t meet his gaze. “Is it wise to be doing things like this in your condition?” he clarified, his eyes touching momentarily on her stomach. It was the first time he’d referred to her condition, which was certainly not something one could overlook.
“I’m fine, Douglas.” Lila lifted the dough and slapped it back down on the table before continuing to knead.
“Don’t you have someone who can do this sort of thing for you?” he asked. “A maid or housekeeper perhaps?”
“Maids and housekeepers aren’t exactly a common item around here,” Lila told him. “Besides, I don’t really need one. The house isn’t that big and there’s only the four of us. Gavin is good about helping out, and even Angel does what she can.”
Glancing at her brother’s face, she saw that he looked less than convinced. He was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of her doing manual labor. A few months ago she might have felt much the same way Lila thought, but she’d changed a great deal since her marriage to Bishop. She’d discovered that she enjoyed doing things for herself. She enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment that came with pulling a golden loaf of bread from the oven or making the bed with sheets she’d just taken down off the line.
She couldn’t deny that she missed some of the creature comforts she used to take for granted. Most especially she missed being able to take a hot bath whenever she wanted with no more effort needed than requesting that it be prepared. Just thinking about it was enough to make her feel wistful. But she was, she realized with some surprise, happier than she’d ever thought possible in this new life.
“I still can’t get used to the idea that you’re mother to two children,” Susan said as she set the tea kettle on the stove. “They seemed very polite and well spoken when we met them yesterday, don’t you think, Douglas?”
Schulze, Dallas Page 28
