Edward looked as if was he thoroughly enjoying himself. “And you’ll have your choice of bedrooms, ladies. You can go up the back or front stairs.”
They ascended the curved main staircase. Elisabeth noted her trunks already in the master suite, to the left of the landing. One side of the room had a bay window that overlooked a pine forest. A warm, salt-tinged breeze blew off the glimmering water. The centerpiece was a four-poster canopy bed, still bare of linens. An armoire rested against one wall, a chaise was arranged inside the semi-circular tower with sweeping views of Cape Cod Bay.
He’ll leave you stranded while he carries on with whores in every port in the world.
“Go down the hall, ladies. You can each have your own room, if you like,” Edward said. “Make yourselves comfortable. Once you choose, I shall move your trunks for you.” He strode toward her with a grin like a cat that had caught a bird.
Elisabeth turned to follow Sara and Katherine out, but he held her back. “I’ve dreamed of having you here, in that lovely nightgown. And it’s finally about to come true.”
“Yes, tonight.” Despite the spaciousness, it felt like she was that bird, trapped in a fancy cage. Once again, the hunger in his eyes and the gruffness of his voice set her stomach bubbling. And she’d thought he’d never noticed that chemise.
“Shall we?” Edward gestured toward the door, and they joined Sara and Katherine to explore the five other rooms. While not as large as the master chambers, the huge windows made them seem much bigger. Wood was stacked in front of each fireplace. Katherine played with the pull chain toilet in the hall bath.
Tears bathed her eyes. Could her father’s accusations be true? The misgivings forced their way out. “Edward, I do hope the jewellry in that bag I left helped to pay for all this.”
His smile vanished, replaced by a narrow-eyed glare that pierced the hazy summer aura. “Come with me.” The pressure of his fingers on her elbow wasn’t firm enough to hurt, but it was not his usual gentle touch.
“Edward, I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to appear ungrateful.” She struggled to keep up with his stride.
Once back into their bedroom, he walked to the closet and took out the satchel she’d left amongst his things before her flight had been intercepted.
His voice dropped to a coarse, gritty whisper. “Every piece of your jewellry is here. I’ve been at sea continuously for the last two years and was well rewarded for the services I provided Neville Somersell.” He pushed the bag into her arms, as if it were on fire and burned his hands.
Elisabeth hugged it to herself and turned her back to his disapproving stare. The anger and desperation she’d felt the day he left her in London resurrected itself, spreading through her like a venomous snake. She struggled to suppress her feelings. This was not the time or place to revisit that day. “Edward, I did not mean to insult you or to appear ungrateful. I thought of this as my dowry and would have been quite pleased to know it helped in some way to build our home.”
He came from behind and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I will forever regret leaving you behind that day, and could not bear to look at this satchel let alone take anything from it.” Her husband’s voice choked with emotion, and he paused to clear his throat. “I’ve had this place filled with all the things you deserve. All it needs is a woman’s touch, draperies, and the like. I will get you anything you want. Silks, brocades, damasks. Do the maids sew?”
Tears clogged her throat. How could she have doubted his intentions? She turned to face him and set the bag on the chaise. “We all sew, Edward. And we shall make it even more beautiful.”
His expression softened, and he stroked her cheek with two work-roughened fingers. “Dowries are an antiquated notion. You’ve given up far more than your share to sail across the ocean to a new continent to be with me. Would your parents approve of me now that I’ve provided a home befitting of a lady?”
“My parents approve of almost nothing, except their own selfish wants.” She glanced out the window at horses grazing in the paddock. I’m caught between two men; one who would do anything to keep me as a possession and the other fighting for his honour. She’d chosen the one with honour, but would never see her mother, or her beloved mare, again.
“What’s wrong, Elisabeth?” He rested a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m tired.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “Seeing the horses reminded me of Copper. What must she be thinking since I disappeared?”
Edward’s radiant smile returned. “I fell in love seeing you riding that horse, and I trust she’ll be pampered and well cared for by the groomsmen. We’ve four of our own, broken for saddle, and a cow and a calf, along with some cats to keep them company. Paul lives in the cottage and helps with the upkeep of the stable and the grounds.”
“Please stay here and enjoy all the fruits of your labors with me.” She nestled against him.
Edward kissed the top of her head. “Unpack, settle yourself, and rest. I want to spend as much time as I can here in Brewster. With you.’
She fumbled for a handkerchief.
He dabbed her cheeks with a square of cloth retrieved from his breast pocket. “Tomorrow is Sunday. The parishioners are eager to welcome you at services. Afterwards, I’ve invited a neighbour for luncheon.”
Startled, and pleased, Elisabeth squirmed out of his grip. “So, you’ve been attending church?” He is a gallant, God-fearing man and I must remember that always.
“Whenever I’m here in Brewster. We’ve a pew in the First Parish Church, and everyone is most anxious to meet you. Let me fetch Paul to help move the maids’ trunks. I suppose they’ve chosen by now.” His smile was tightlipped, subdued, and his gaze content.
“All right.” Her attention returned to the back yard, and she surveyed the bucolic scene as if watching from a balcony above a theatre stage.
Edward released her, then conversed with Sara and Katherine in the hall. His footsteps clattered down the steps and disappeared.
The maids wandered in and sat on the bed.
“We’ve thanked the Captain for his warm welcome, my lady. I’ve never in my life had my own room.” Katherine’s cheeks were flushed with excitement.
Sara took a deep breath. “I was disappointed to see that Mr. Vauxhall is married. But I wonder about Paul, Katherine. He regarded you with some interest, I noticed.”
The younger sister blushed crimson.
Their banter brought Elisabeth back to herself, to reality. After all the fear and anguish, they were free and happy and on solid ground again, home, safe. “I’m sure there are single men in this town for you both to court. I doubt any will be British, but I hope some have the manners of Mr. Vauxhall and the generosity of Captain Barrett.”
The maids seemed to need no further reassurance. Katherine opened a trunk, took out bed linens, and tossed them to Sara. They giggled and set to work making up the bed.
How, and where, had he gotten enough money to pay for all this? Elisabeth retrieved the bag of jewelry she’d essentially stolen from her father without a second thought. I should not be so self-righteous. Her hands tingled as she took each piece out of the satchel and arranged them on a dresser.
Chapter 14
June 25, 2009
Brewster, Massachusetts
Liz walked across the wrap-around porch. Rotten wood sagged under her feet. She peered through the bullseye glass sidelights. The knobby circles, muddied by layers of dirt, distorted the view of the central staircase that ascended into nothingness.
Her hands fumbled with excitement as she struggled with the old brass lock. The double doors creaked apart. She took a deep breath and stepped inside. Looking past the neglect, she blew the fly carcasses away and caressed the wainscoting with the touch of a woman in love. A sense of déjà vu, a chill, a fleeting v
ision of the house bustling with activity vanished into the silence.
She wiped her palms on her sweatpants and opened the mullioned windows, banging until her wrists hurt, to loosen the swollen wooden sashes. The water had been turned on as promised, but the tap in the kitchen burst out in spurts, so rusty it appeared tinged with blood. Liz left it running so it would clear and went upstairs to do the same in the bathrooms. New mattresses were still covered with plastic, but the deliverymen had put them on the bed frames. She went back to her car and dragged the bags of new pillows upstairs, turned off the taps that now dripped yellow, and went back down.
There was so much to do to make things comfortable, but purposeful activity and moving forward made her feel at home. She unloaded the contents of the car into the hallway, then began tearing dustcovers off the furniture in the cavernous rooms. Her footsteps echoed like leaden boots on the bare wood floors. A dust ball under an end table turned out to be the remains of a rat, eye sockets empty, teeth visible in a jawbone, desiccated fur barely holding onto the long tail. Bile rose into her throat.
After a fruitless search for a dustpan and broom, she fashioned a rodent scooper from a piece of cardboard and a newspaper dated January 26, 1991. Holding it at arm’s length, Liz jiggled open the back door and thanked God it wasn’t swollen shut.
She stepped onto the porch and tossed the whole thing into the yard. The rat broke into two pieces as it bounced off the chest of a man coming up the path through the pine grove.
He watched it fall to the ground, brushed off his shirt, and shook his head. “Now there’s a brave lady,” he said with a heavy Cape Cod accent. “Not only doesn’t she scream for help when she sees a mouse, she heaves it at the fella who’s got the nerve to come walking up to her back door unannounced.”
“I’m so sorry, sir!” Liz looked up as he ascended the rickety steps. About six feet, he sported a neatly trimmed gray moustache and beard. His voice was more lilting than his broad chest and arms suggested. Muscles bulged under a ‘Yankees Suck!’ tee shirt. His eyes, framed by delicate laugh lines, were the same shade of blue as the sky.
“You must be from New York.” He removed his Red Sox cap. “The ladies from down there don’t put up with anything.”
“It was a rat, and I wanted to get rid of it. And I’m from Boston. Liz Levine.” She extended her hand.
He grabbed it in a gentle, but firm handshake and winked. “And I didn’t even ask which hand you used to pick up the rat.” He backed down the stairs and kicked the carcass under the privet hedge bordering a broken picket fence.
“Now it’s fertilizer. Mike Keeny. I live up Stony Brook Road and came to see who bought the house. I’ve had my eye on it for a while, but the cost of real estate in Brewster is sky high, and this place needs some restoration.”
His gracious humor eased Liz’s mortification. “So you appreciate historical property, Mr. Keeny.”
“They don’t build them like this anymore. And it’s Mike. My mother called me Michael, and only the nuns and priests called me Mr. Keeny.” His voice deepened, and he paused, as if being drawn back into memories of happier times.
Liz noted a tiny gold crucifix on a chain around his neck. “Yes, they called me Miss Mulcahey and my mother, the prim and proper Brit she was, insisted on calling me Elizabeth.”
“So where is Mr. Levine?”
The warm feelings toward her new neighbor evaporated. She looked down and struggled to hold back her own tears. Damn, when will it be more than two hours that I don’t cry? “He’s deceased.” She’d moved to get away from people who compounded her misery and now wished he’d leave.
“Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry.” He massaged the back of his neck. “Is it okay for me to call you Liz? Or do you prefer Mrs. Levine?” Mike took her hand. “I lost my wife two years ago. I know how terrible it is.”
“Liz is fine. And yes, it’s awful.” Her hand slipped from his grasp. She took a couple of steps back toward the door.
“Well, I better get going. I live at 68 Stony Brook, the small colonial. Nothing as grand as your 1875 Victorian, but Brewster is the prettiest town on the Cape, nonetheless.” He ran his hand along a gingerbread-encrusted railing, smiled, and nodded. “I’d like to see the place once you’ve fixed it up.”
“Of course. I’m going to be running a bed and breakfast and museum, so I’m sure there will be an open house. I’ll also be on the house tour circuit.” Liz turned to go back inside, hoping he’d take the hint. “Thanks for stopping by, Mike.”
“Sure. If you need to use the phone, or anything else, it’s a short walk.” Mike fumbled with his hat.
“I have a cell, thanks.”
“I don’t have much technology. Just an old-fashioned kind of guy.” He tipped his finger in a lopsided salute, put his Red Sox cap on, and strode back through the pines.
Feeling bitchy and overwhelmed, Liz stood staring at the deserted path Mike had taken. He was just being neighborly, and she’d been rude. Gravel scrunched in the driveway, and she scurried along the porch towards the front yard. An army of young women jumped out of a van and retrieved an assortment of buckets and mops. A stout redhead, about Liz’s age, got out of the driver’s seat and bounded up the path. “I’m Mae of Mae’s Irish Maids. You must be Missus Levine.”
“Yes, please call me Liz.”
“I’ve got my best crew with me, Lizzy. This place needs a bit of freshenin’, don’t she now?” Mae grabbed her hand and shook it; the grip of her calloused, cracked hands firm.
Liz chuckled in spite of the sour mood. The brogue brought back memories of Grandmother Mulcahey, who used to call her little Lizzy. “Yes, it’s in need of some love.”
Mae turned back toward the van. “Okay, girls, two to each room. When yer done with the downstairs, we’ll take a wee break, then to the upstairs. Just the major cleanin’ today. Tomorrow ‘twill be the finishing touches.”
“All the rooms are going to be re-painted and re-decorated. They just have to get rid of the major dust and grime.”
“Miss Lizzy, paint won’t stick to these here walls unless they’re clean. And the windows, surely ya won’t be replacin’ them now! Ain’t too many houses that have the original glass. When we’re finished, you may have less to fix than ya planned.”
The girls crowded through the door, giggling as they put on work gloves. Irish brogues echoed through the house. Mae trundled a vacuum cleaner into the kitchen. Resigned to her new nickname, Liz followed in their wake.
“Kitchens and baths are my specialty, Lizzy. If ya like my work, perhaps you’d be needin’ a permanent housekeeper and handyman? This is a big house. My husband and me can help ya out.” She put on work gloves.
“As a matter of fact, Mae, I will need regular help. I’m going to be opening a bed and breakfast.”
Mae peered out the window. “Would ya look at that pretty little cottage?”
“Yes, that’s where the caretaker lived, so it’s in better shape than the house. And there’s a big barn, too. I was thinking of getting horses.”
A bright smile lit up Mae’s face. “My Kevin used to do stable work. It costs too much fer folks like us to live here in Brewster. The girls, well they come for the summers, they clean, they baby-sit, they wait tables. When the season’s over, the work dries up. Kevin and me had to move into a shack near the Bourne Bridge. My sister went back to Ireland. The economy is better there than here, if ya kin believe that.”
Having Mae around all the time might be too much, especially if she was living on the grounds. “I’m not going to be opening until next year. I have restoration experts coming in to redo the roof, the shingles and trim, repair the windows, and upgrade the electric and plumbing.”
“Ya’ll be staying at ya place in Boston then?”
“No, it’s sold. I’m living here, starting today.”
“Brave lass, moving from Beacon Hill ta this. And yer husband?”
Again! It hadn’t even been an hour, and her fresh start had already been reversed-twice. “I’m a widow, Mae.”
Her entire face scrunched. “Ya don’t look old enough for menopause and yer a widow! Accident?”
“No, cancer.” Liz tried to be angry, but this woman was too genuine. “And no, I’m not menopausal yet.”
“We best be findin’ ya a nice fella to keep ya company. That menopause don’t matter a twit. Believe me, it only gets better. Children?”
“One son, eighteen. He’s in New York City now. Starting college in the fall.”
“Kevin ‘n me, well we never got to have kids. The priests told us none of that stuff doctors do to help out with infertility is acceptable. I shouldn’t have listened.” Mae’s battery seemed to have run down. She surveyed the grimy kitchen, then picked up a bucket and filled it with water in the sink.
“A lot of things priests say aren’t realistic,” Liz said.
“Is it like that fer the Jews?” Mae took the bucket to the stove. “They don’t make things like this anymore either. Don’t ya be replacin’ it, Lizzy.”
“I won’t, it’s beautiful. I’m Catholic. My husband was Jewish, but not religious. My son had a choice of what he wanted to be, and chose to be like his father. I haven’t gone to Mass lately. Saints Jude and Anthony didn’t help out with Gerry’s illness, but maybe I didn’t deserve any miracles.”
Mae had another power surge while removing the burner plates and dousing the stovetop with an orange-scented cleaner. “Now don’t ya go startin’ that, Miss Lizzy. With all the mischief the good fathers been gettin’ into, Cardinal Law included, I can’t imagine that the likes of you would be on the Lord’s shite list now would ya? I’ll be happy to take you to Our Lady of the Cape to meet the pastor.”
Breakwater Beach Page 14
