But what made that passion ignite and burn between two people was still a mystery to Duke.
Chapter Six
After lunch, Faith was in the bathhouse pumping water into the tub when three women walked through the open greenhouse door, chatting gaily and bearing... gifts? Surely not. The oldest and shortest of the three spotted Cora playing by the door and gave her a friendly wave.
“Let’s hope they’re customers,” Faith said to Iris, who’d been helping her fill the bathtub. She brushed drops of water off the long apron covering her dress then headed toward the front of the greenhouse with Iris, giving them her warmest smile. “May I help you ladies?”
“I’m Nancy Grayson, and these are my daughters-in-law Evelyn and Claire,” the older woman said, giving Faith a jar of preserves, but her gaze was riveted on Iris. Faith was used to the surprised, intrigued stares cast at Iris, but it made her sad each time it happened. Iris was exotic and beautiful, a rare bird that drew attention with every move. Iris didn’t seem to mind the looks, but she must: she was a woman disconnected from her family and her people, too different to blend in anywhere.
“My son, Sheriff Grayson, said you opened a greenhouse, but I wasn’t expecting anything this grand,” Mrs. Grayson continued, shifting her gaze to the plants as if she realized she’d been gawking.
Faith’s stomach plummeted. Had Sheriff Grayson sent them to spy on her? Or had he sent them here to look her over? She’d seen the spark of interest in his eyes yesterday. And maybe Iris had fanned that spark. Iris should have never told the sheriff Faith was looking for a husband. They couldn’t afford to have a lawman around. Iris had planted that ridiculous notion in Faith’s own head too, and now she was acting like a suspicious goose.
Still, she wished she looked better. She smoothed her skirt, sopping wet at the hem from working in the bathhouse, then hid her hands behind her back because her fingernails were green from pinching stems all morning.
The two younger women were of nearly the same height and dressed in neat, pressed frocks. Evelyn was dark-haired, and Claire was blond, and both were beautiful.
Nancy Grayson’s too-direct gaze made Faith want to shy away, but the remarkable youthful energy that radiated from the woman was surprisingly familiar. The sheriff possessed that same directness and intensity
The blond woman, Claire, handed Faith a deep pot filled with something that smelled delicious. “I thought you might appreciate not having to cook this evening. I hope you like venison stew.”
Faith would gladly toil over a stove if she had money to buy food.
“And I brought a treat for after supper,” Evelyn said, giving a plate of cookies to Cora.
Cora scrambled to her feet and gawked at the mound of oatmeal cookies. “Can I eat one, Mama?”
To refuse the cookies would be rude, and to refuse Cora a treat would be unkind. But Faith hesitated to accept their gifts not knowing the ladies’ motives.
“Of course you can eat a cookie.” Iris lifted the heavy pot from Faith’s hands and held it beneath her nose. “Smells divine,” she said then winked at Faith. “Let’s not wait for supper. Let’s eat it right now.”
Her teasing made the three women laugh. “Thank you, ladies,” Faith said, striving to appear as relaxed as the Grayson women, even as worry flooded her mind. “This is my aunt, Iris... Wilde,” she said, silently berating Iris for blabbing the name in front of the sheriff and locking them into using it.
“There are four of us here with that last name, so call me Iris.”
The younger ladies nodded politely, but Nancy took a bold, sweeping look around the greenhouse. “What is all this?”
“Let me put this on the counter,” Iris said, “then Faith and I will show you what we’re growing here.”
“I’ll show ‘em!” Cora declared, rushing up with a half-eaten cookie in her hand. She looked up at Evelyn Grayson. “You make good cookies.”
The simple, sincere statement filled the brunette’s eyes with tenderness. She opened her hand to Cora. “What should we see first?” she asked.
Cora led Evelyn to a flat of chives that were poking through the soil. “We’re gonna eat those when they get bigger,” she said.
Faith followed, feeling proud of Cora’s knowledge, but she gently took over, wanting the Grayson ladies to see how much her greenhouse had to offer. While Cora charmed them, Faith and Iris answered Nancy’s questions about their business. Iris’s good behavior relieved Faith, but Nancy’s avid curiosity made her stomach queasy.
“Quite impressive,” Mrs. Grayson said, touching and sniffing everything until Cora scolded her and warned her she could go blind. Nancy chuckled, but she continued asking questions in a forthright manner that convinced Faith the sheriff had sent his mother to snoop.
Faith showed them the herbs, vegetables, and flowers then guided the ladies to the front counter where she kept her jars, bags, and tins of herbs and balms.
Aster and Tansy were working near the counter, preparing a flat of baby tomato plants for transplanting to their garden. Faith wasn’t sure she could trust her aunts to behave, but they had to begin settling into their new town. “Come meet these lovely ladies,” she suggested to her aunts.
The pair washed their hands in a bucket of water then dried them on their aprons as they walked to the counter.
“This is Evelyn and Claire Grayson, the sheriff’s sisters-in-law,” Faith introduced. “And his mother, Nancy.”
Cora puffed up with importance. “Aunt Iris says Mama’s going to marry the sheriff.”
Faith nearly choked, but Nancy Grayson laughed.
“Who brought those delicious cookies?” Aster asked, her interruption allowing Faith a moment to recover.
Living her life behind a brothel and learning everything from books had filled Faith’s head with knowledge of trees and herbs and flowers. She could name every muscle in the body, but she didn’t know how to navigate through an ordinary conversation.
“Evelyn baked them,” Nancy said. “Claire made the stew. You’ll soon see one of the many reasons I’m glad my sons married these gals.”
Aster nudged Faith’s arm. “Marry the sheriff so we can claim our place at this woman’s supper table.”
Faith wanted to clap her hand over her aunt’s mouth, but the Grayson women laughed. Nancy and Aster exchanged a look of frank appreciation. Aster had a harder, grittier edge than Nancy, but they were two of a kind with their plainspoken manner.
Iris handed Nancy a small jar of lavender oil. “Let us return your gifts by giving you a peek at the other side of our business.”
Faith shook her head, but Iris ignored her and upended an empty metal pail. “Tansy, round up a couple more buckets for the ladies.”
Tansy hurried off in a swish of skirts.
“Iris, we’ve kept the ladies too long already,” Faith said, warning Iris not to cause trouble as she had with Sheriff Grayson. “I’m sure they have to get back to their families.”
“Oh, I hope not.” Iris clasped her hands in front of her like an excited girl. “Say you’ll stay for a few minutes and let us treat you to something special.”
“You’ll love it,” Aster added, nodding for Nancy to sit on the bucket.
“All right. Why not?” Nancy Grayson sat her small, slightly plump body on the pail. “What do I do now?”
“Close your eyes,” Iris ordered, moving to stand behind her.
Faith wrung her hands. “Aunt Iris, please.”
“To be surprised at my age is an immense pleasure,” Nancy said. “Let her be.” With that, she shut her eyes, and Faith shut her mouth.
“This is best done with oil and herbs, but you can still enjoy it this way.” Iris pushed the pads of her thumbs into the flesh between Nancy’s shoulder blades. “There is an art to massage,” Iris explained, her voice smooth and mesmerizing as she rubbed slow, small circles on Nancy’s back.
The woman’s shoulders lowered and her head sagged forward. “I’m gaining a ne
w appreciation for art,” Nancy said.
Evelyn and Claire exchanged a sisterly grin, as if seeing a side of their mother-in-law they hadn’t known.
Iris worked Nancy’s trapezius muscle between her thumb and index finger, relaxing the muscle one delicate pinch at a time. Tansy returned with Dahlia, each of them carrying a bucket. Faith introduced Dahlia to the ladies, but Nancy could barely open her eyes to greet her.
She moaned and hunched her back like a cat. “This old body hasn’t known this kind of comfort since my husband was alive.”
Evelyn and Claire laughed, and Faith couldn’t stop her smile. Like Aster, Nancy Grayson’s candor was growing on her.
Tansy overturned a bucket in front of Evelyn. “I’m good at this, too.”
Evelyn held out her hands as if to ward her off. “I’m happy to watch my mother-in-law melt off that pail.”
Tansy caught Evelyn’s hand and peered at her palm. “My, child, how did you get these calluses?”
“Taking care of a livery full of horses.”
Cora’s eyes goggled. “You have horses?”
“Twelve of them.”
“Can I see ‘em?”
“If it’s all right with your mother.”
“We’ll talk about it later, honey.” Faith put her hand on Cora’s tiny shoulder, her silent way of telling the child to hush, that she was being ill-mannered or inappropriate.
Tansy opened a jar on the counter. “I have something that will make your hands as soft as a baby’s behind,” she said, scooping cream onto her fingers then slathering it on Evelyn’s hand. “It’s honey, lanolin, almond oil, and wax.”
“It smells wonderful,” Evelyn said.
“It is, dahlin’, now sit down and let me do this properly.”
Like an obedient child, Evelyn sat on the pail.
“We mix mint and lavender in to make it smell good,” Tansy said.
“It’s lovely” Evelyn glanced at her sister-in-law. “You don’t know what you’re missing, Claire.”
The other woman shook her head. “My aching feet are jealous.”
“Not for long.” Dahlia slid a pail behind Claire. “That cream will soften your feet and soothe the ache, too.”
Claire gasped and laughed in the same breath. “I was jesting.”
Dahlia dipped her fingers into the jar and scooped out a dollop of cream. She gestured for Claire to sit. “Let me show you how to apply it.”
Nancy glanced at her daughter-in-law. “It’s been ages since anything has felt this good, so sit on that pail and let this lovely woman rub your feet while I enjoy myself for a spell.”
Grinning, Claire sat on the pail, hiked her dress to her knees, and stuck out her foot. “Cora, do you know how to unlace shoes?”
“Mama showed me how,” the child said, and joyfully helped remove Claire’s shoes and stockings.
Dahlia slathered cream over Claire’s slender foot and began kneading her toes. Cora sat knees-bent, heels-out on the floor beside Dahlia, rubbing Claire’s other foot.
Nancy hunched her back. “Iris, you must come live with me,” she said.
Warm laughter filled the greenhouse, and Faith let herself relax for the first time since moving to Fredonia. Maybe her aunts weren’t too outrageous. Their naughty sense of humor had won over the Grayson women. And maybe Nancy, Evelyn, and Claire would tell their friends about her business.
Maybe everything would work out after all.
“You all look so different,” Evelyn said, eyeing Faith’s aunts. “It’s hard to believe you’re sisters.”
Faith’s stomach plummeted.
“It’s a remarkable story,” Dahlia said, calmly reaching over to guide Cora’s hand. “Slide your thumbs around her ankle bone like this.” After she demonstrated, the woman lifted an amazingly serene face to Evelyn. “We all share the same father.”
Faith scoured her mind for a way to change the subject, wishing they’d taken time to think this through and invent a new history for themselves.
“Our father was a big, handsome, American-born German,” Dahlia said in the mystical sounding voice she used when telling a tale to Cora. “There wasn’t a woman alive who could resis—”
“Aunt Dahlia, the ladies can’t possibly be interested in... all that. It’s a painfully long history,” Faith said, doing her best to dissuade them from pursuing the topic. “Dahlia could waste half a day trying to explain it all.”
Nancy fairly purred as she closed her eyes. “Take all the time you like, Miss Wilde.”
Dahlia’s lips twitched. “As I was saying, we share the same father, but—”
“The sheriff’s here!” Cora leapt to her feet and ran to greet him.
Faith’s day went from bad to disastrous. The sheriff hadn’t taken five steps inside the greenhouse before his eyes widened and he jerked to a halt. He looked from Claire, barefoot with her dress hiked to her knees, to his mother, who sat with her back hunched and her head hanging, to Evelyn, who lounged cross-legged on her pail like a queen getting a manicure.
Evelyn waved him over. “Pull up a pail, Duke. You’re just in time to hear what promises to be an interesting history of the Wilde women.”
The instant the words left Evelyn’s mouth, Faith’s aunts howled with laughter.
Under less worrisome circumstances, Faith would have appreciated the wild women pun, but to risk stepping beyond the bounds of social etiquette was foolish. And that is exactly what Iris had done when she came up with that suggestive last name.
“Can I play with your handcuffs?” Cora asked, poking at the sheriff’s thigh.
He pulled the cuffs off his belt without looking away from his mother. “What is going on here?” he asked.
Nancy half-raised her eyelids. “I’m having one of the best moments of my life. Now sit down and let Dahlia finish her story about how these lovely ladies came to be sisters.”
Faith scooted around a flat of wintergreen and stopped before him. She tried her best to get things on her own terms once more: “I assume you’re here to report on Adam’s first day at the store, so why don’t we go outside and talk?”
Duke heard Faith’s request. But, after walking in here and finding his respectable mother and sisters-in-law looking intoxicated, he wasn’t budging from this spot even if Faith. He was going to stand right here beside this flat of smelly green stuff until he figured out exactly what was going on. His mother looked drugged out of her head. Had these crazy women fed her some of that jimsonweed Adam mentioned?
Duke nodded to Dahlia—at least, he believed the buxom woman was Dahlia—who was rubbing Claire’s feet. “Don’t let me interrupt,” he said.
Dahlia turned her attention to manipulating Claire’s toes in a way that made his own toes jealous. “I was saying that the five of us had the same father.”
His mother’s head lifted. “Five?”
Dahlia nodded. “The four of us and Rose, Faith’s mother.”
“Rose? Oh, of course.” Duke’s mother’s lips pursed as if she were holding back a smile while listening to one of her grandchildren spin a wild tale, but she waved her fingers for Dahlia to continue.
Duke shifted his gaze between his mother, who was an excellent judge of character, and Faith, whose scowl said she didn’t like Dahlia sharing this information.
“Papa first saw Rose’s mother, Violet, dashing through a field of wildflowers—that’s why we’re all named after flowers,” Dahlia said. “She was running away from her dreadful parents.”
Faith closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Papa said Violet was a beauty beyond compare. He married he and they named their first child Rose.” Dahlia rested Claire’s foot in her lap and sat back on her heels. “For some reason Violet left Papa before they had any more children.”
Duke watched Faith brush Cora’s hair off her forehead. “Sweetheart, go see if you can find that plate of cookies,” she suggested.
“Can I eat one?”
“Yes, but wash your hands first.”
When Cora dashed down a plant-shrouded aisle, and out of earshot, Faith blocked Duke’s view of Dahlia. “I’d like to talk with you. Would you step outside with me?” she asked him.
“Of course,” he said, “as soon as your aunt finishes her story.”
A sick look washed across Faith’s face, and she lowered her lashes.
“What happened to his daughter Rose?” he asked, prodding Dahlia to continue.
“She remained with Papa, which encouraged him to find a new wife fast.”
Duke frowned. “Wasn’t he still married to Violet?”
“He surely was, but he married his neighbor’s spinster daughter anyhow, and added Aster to his brood.”
Duke saw the soldier-like woman with white hair lift her snowy eyebrows as if this was news to her, but she didn’t comment.
“For some reason Aster’s mother took Aster and went back to her father’s house, leaving Papa alone again with Rose. Papa moved to Georgia and promptly added a wealthy southern belle to his arrangement.”
“Oh, Dahlia! Honestly,” Faith exclaimed, her face flushing crimson. “This is more than these poor ladies need to know.”
But it was nowhere near enough for Duke—or for his mother, if her now-keen gaze was any indication of her interest.
“Well, it’s the truth.” Dahlia stood and wiped her hands on her apron. “Papa was married to three women at the same time. But the problem was diminished when Tansy’s mother died during childbirth.”
The blond woman gasped, her hands flitting to her throat, reminding Duke that Tansy was the butterfly of their group. Aster was the white-haired soldier, Iris the Japanese flirt, and Dahlia was the buxom one. Crude, but it was the only way he could keep these women straight.
Dahlia planted her hands on her ample hips. “You didn’t know Papa was a bigamist?”
Tansy squinted. “A what?”
“A three-timing rat,” Aster said with an odd gleam in her eyes. “But the story gets worse. You see, Dahlia’s mother was the robust Italian kitchen maid who worked for Tansy’s mother.”
My Heart's Desire Page 5
