by Kari Trumbo
Back at the office, she sighed and slid onto her hard, wooden stool. The whole room was the same size as their home, but her father had wanted her desk away from his. It sat near the front window, so she could see when people were going to come in and could welcome them. Though, her gaze seemed to look for one man more than others, the one man she kept telling herself she had to avoid, and who shouldn’t be coming in anyway, since he wouldn’t be getting a plot.
Good girls did not fall for rakes. She had to keep telling herself that, or be lost forever.
Her father hadn’t seen much need for her at first, but she’d soon shown him that someone who could dictate messages, keep a tidy office, and follow orders was an asset. Despite all the work she’d done, he’d yet to pay her a cent. Mr. Winslet, in his own wily way, had made sure that she had a few coins in her pocket for delivering things for him, but her own father saw little need to pay her.
As he’d done every day since she started, Victor sauntered by, catching her glance in the window before he ever opened the door. He always seemed to sense when she was about to look up and then he would act as if he’d been standing there for years, smile with one of his lady-tripping smiles, and completely upend her work for as long as he was present.
Victor ambled in the door and flung his hat onto her desk with a leisurely air, just atop all her papers. He’d had it cleaned, or purchased a new one.
“Are you keeping busy, love?” His eyes twinkled at her.
How had he known—for he always knew—when her father was out and he could speak plainly with her? His suit had been freshly laundered and repaired to match his hat. After seeing him for so long with his stained and worn suits, he was far too dashing now. She couldn’t keep herself from taking him in, top to toe.
“Yes, Mr. Abernathy. Father keeps me quite busy. Was there something I could do for you?” Since he couldn’t be there for land reasons.
She regretted the words before they left her lips. A smile spread across his face, so handsome, but a little frightening in its utter honesty and desire. For her.
“Why, you know there is. You could accept my proposal. You only have a week before the time I set runs out and you’ll accept anyway.”
His three-week time frame may have been a sealed deal in his mind, but it was far from finished in hers. Why he persisted in pestering her for a hand he wouldn’t want to keep, eluded her.
“Mr. Abernathy, I will not be accepting the suit of you, or any other man. I have work with my father now, and a long life ahead of me, helping this little town grow. It will be great, you know. You’ll never see it if you move back to London to be with all those beautiful women you talked about on the journey here.”
A twinge of regret hit the back of her heart harder than she expected. There would be no one for her to talk to in all of Blessings once he was gone. For as kind and wonderful as Millie Winslet was, she wasn’t a friend and no one else had made her acquaintance. Victor stepped closer to her desk, lingering over her. Her heart raced as his firm mouth quirked just a bit. Did he always have to be so in control?
“You think I want anything to do with those frivolous ninnies after I’ve had eight months to watch you, to think of nothing but you? You think for a moment that I could settle for little more than a pretty skirt when I could have someone who will challenge me daily? Do you, Lenora?”
Oh, how she ached to believe him. If he’d ever used her given name before, she’d thoroughly missed it, and with his slight accent, the sound of it on his lips gave her heart a sweet stutter. So much so that she could hardly think of the words she should say.
“I know nothing of your English women, only what you’ve said of them.”
She folded her hands in her lap to hide the disquiet in her very soul. “Since I cannot sell you what you ask for … good day, Mr. Abernathy.”
He leaned down low, until his cheek was next to hers. So close that if he’d had whiskers, she would’ve felt them. The heat from him poured over her body, yet she shivered.
“I don’t come in here every day for the land, love. Ten more days.”
He slipped his hat off her papers and donned it as he slid out the door, leaving her completely out of sorts, as usual. Her father came in through the back, shaking his head.
“I wish people would leave well enough alone,” he muttered.
Lenora backed out of her chair and mentally shook off the faltering of her heart. She stood as a sign of respect to her father, but his mutterings were also curious.
“Is someone meddling in your business, Father?”
There was most likely nothing more she could do than listen. Her father had been very weary lately. Mother wanted nothing to do with Blessings, or the family, and had threatened to leave if he didn’t do something quickly. No one had any idea what could be done to make it more hospitable for her, so most of the evenings were spent avoiding her and her temper.
“There are a few miners convinced that one of the other miners is housing a witch. I’ve told those worried to just leave her and her brother be, since they are quiet and not hurting anyone, but people are scared.”
The woman in the woods came immediately to mind, especially after Victor’s concern over her wandering into the woods. The woman had seemed so kind, yet, there was an air of the mysterious about her.
“A witch? How do they know?”
“She wears a cape that covers her in all weather, even when it’s blistering hot, not just a bonnet. She collects plants and when she speaks, no one can understand her. When she does speak, they say it sounds like song. They think she’s cursing them. But what most people mention, are her eyes. Like a cat’s, they say. I’ve yet to meet the woman or her brother because they keep to themselves. That may have done more harm than good.”
Her father would understand rumors, people had talked about her mother behind her back as well. The poor woman was probably lonely. “Father, it isn’t curses. She speaks French. I met her when we first got here.”
He rested a large hand on her shoulder and his tired eyes gazed into hers for a moment. “You’d best stay away. I don’t believe the nonsense, but our reputation is at stake. People here need to trust us. I can’t control you, and I won’t. You’re a capable young woman, but having this job also means you must think of me and my reputation at all times, even above your own.”
A reputation that could be easily tarnished. If Mr. Abernathy continued to come in when her father was out, and continued pestering her for her hand, she could risk hurting her father’s business. There had to be a way to deter him, keep him busy so he could give her a few days’ peace.
“Have you granted Mr. Abernathy and Mr…,” she’d only just learned that Cort had a surname, “ …Nelson, the land to build the livery?” Everyone had called him Mr. Cort for the entire journey.
Her father turned and made his way to his desk, completely covered with paperwork, at the back of the office. “Yes, just yesterday. Mr. Winslet wanted the plot well away from Blessings proper and far away from any of the mines, lest Abernathy had ideas about using his plot for digging instead of building. I was going to finish the papers and deliver them to him later. But, I think that might be a good job for my assistant.” He glanced up at her and, for a moment, his warm old smile was back in place.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. What would people think of me, visiting the tent of two single men?” Not to mention she wasn’t even sure where they camped now that she wasn’t living in a tent near him. He had to still be out there, but had he moved now that he wasn’t needed?
Her father sat down in his chair and moved some papers around. “I should be done with this within the hour. Finish up whatever you’re doing, then you can deliver this. The men are expecting it. You can find them at section 37.”
She knew better than to test her father when he gave an order, while her belly was alight with pleasant excitement at the idea of seeking Victor out. And this time, she wouldn’t have to pretend she wa
sn’t.
In Blessings, a man could throw away his razor, or so Mr. Atherton, the friendly benefactor of the entire town would always say, but not Victor. At least, not yet. He scratched his chin, still hot from the morning’s ministrations. But, it wasn’t as hot as his blood. Cort would claim it was just because it had been too long since he’d spent an evening with a fine woman, but he couldn’t even think of any other anymore. Blessings had no such establishment, even if he could consider such a thing. But he couldn’t, none other would do. Only Lenora. He wanted those blue eyes to snap at him with both fury and passion, in equal measure.
But that wouldn’t happen without a plot. He’d have to think of another option now that Winslet had turned him down. How could he be good enough to court Farnsworth’s daughter, but not good enough to mine for gold? Farnsworth had given him permission, if not outright approval to ask his daughter for her hand when the time came, as long as she was amenable to it. She would be if he could just keep seeing her, keep pushing his advantages, play his hand right.
As he approached the humble tent where he and Cort had set up home, Cort raised a tin cup to him with an offering of coffee. They didn’t have much of anything. A few cups, two plates, one pot, and lots of other makeshift equipment. They had fashioned a hanger for their cook pot out of three sticks and a bit of hemp rope because they could find no chain. So far, the handle had resisted burning the rope too extensively. Their seating was no more than two large rounds of wood.
“Thank you.” Victor was happy for the brew. At least he hadn’t been the one to have to make it. Cort was better at that sort of thing. Victor never had to cook, and even now would settle for travel rations before he’d try cooking anything.
He slid his coat off and threw it onto his pallet to keep it from the mud, and sat on a stump alongside Cort. Cort had a lot on his mind that morning, if the intense look in his eye was any indication.
“You went to the land office, was the paperwork finished? Can we start clearing the area and putting down stakes?”
Cort was eager to get off the ground and Victor couldn’t blame him. This would be the closest either of them had to a home in years. After the livery was built with lodging for the two of them inside, he’d take the tent and move it back out where the Farnsworths had been before. Having the witch and her brother so close by would keep people from getting too interested in what was going on, yet it was just far enough away that they could gamble there without Winslet getting wise to what they were doing. Winslet couldn’t claim they didn’t allow anything like it in Blessings, because there was a saloon. Blessings wasn’t immune to gamblers.
“He wasn’t in, and his assistant didn’t know anything about the paperwork.” Not that he’d asked her. In fact, all thought of the paperwork had fled his thoughts like hounds after a fox as soon as he’d seen her through the window. Her lovely head had been bent ever so slightly over her work, her lip tense… He had to stop thinking about her.
“She didn’t know … or you didn’t ask?” Cort tossed the dregs from the bottom of his cup into the grass and leveled him with a steely gaze. Both of them were tired of cooling their heels and using what they had to buy food instead of supplies. Watching the town forge ahead without them was harder than Victor had thought it would be. Now that he was here, and his mother would know where he was after the letter he’d sent before leaving Boston, it suddenly felt like time was of the essence, that if he didn’t hurry, something would happen.
“She didn’t have the papers. They were still on her father’s desk.” At least, he was pretty sure they were. Farnsworth could be trusted, he’d shown that so far with all their other dealings. Farnsworth had told them the papers would be ready, so they would be. They may have even been ready while he was there, but Cort wouldn’t know that.
“I don’t see why we need to wait for his paperwork. We’ve paid, we’re already staked on the land. Are they going to take it away now if we show that we want to stay, to live here, to invest here?”
Cort was getting more agitated by the moment and it was time to calm him down before his temper got the better of him. He didn’t need Cort going back to the land office and making things more difficult, or scaring Lenora. Bad things happened when Cort got mad.
When a man had cheated Cort out of his winnings in a high stakes card game—winnings that he could’ve lived on for quite some time—Cort got angry. Then he got even. The cheat woke up the next morning with his prize stallion, a gorgeous Morgan, already in the next state. Cort had taken it, sold it under the owner’s name, and left. That was part of the reason Cort was on the run. Coleman Gale, the former owner of the horse, put a price on his head at five times the value of the horse. Cort was to be caught alive and brought back to face a hanging judge. Since Cort couldn’t prove he’d been cheated out of more than the horse had been worth, he ran.
Victor went inside the tent and changed into his older suit. He slowly rolled up the sleeves on his newly laundered white shirt to above his elbows. The seamstress, a Mrs. Pati Jones, hadn’t wanted to become a laundress, but he’d sweet talked her into washing his two suits. She’d also taken out the sleeves in his shirts and jacket a bit. Though he hadn’t had to work much in England, in the last years, he’d had to acquire a taste for manual labor. His arms had grown thicker, chest wider, and hands more callused, but he was also more self-sufficient. Money hadn’t bought that, but lack of it had.
Cort stood from his stump with a growl. “I can’t believe we’d be expected to wait when everything’s been approved.”
“No,” Mr. Winslet replied from behind Cort. He spun around and the old man waited, scratching his beard and glancing at the area around the tent. “I think you picked a nice area. Away from town, so Blessings won’t smell like a horse barn. Your paperwork should be done soon.”
Even though it was Cort who’d been rude, Victor needed to make sure Winslet knew they wouldn’t start anything without approval. Victor was no fool.
“Cort didn’t mean any disrespect.”
Winslet laughed. “It’d take a lot more’n that to rile me. I gave the approval, you start when you’re good and ready.” He met Victor’s eyes and the old man narrowed his focus and something passed between them. He hadn’t felt that depth of understanding since his own father had cast him away. It widened the hole he didn’t realize had been there.
“I know you think you can pull one over on me, Abernathy, but there’s more in store for you in Blessings than you think.” With that, he turned and left. Victor couldn’t help but wonder what he meant, and how he could know what he’d planned when he hadn’t even told Cort.
He and Cort took out the tools to start clearing the few trees from their large plot, a plot that would hold a ten stall livery, with a loft for both straw storage and places for he and Cort to bed down. It would also have a large corral. He turned in time to see a vision in a green skirt with a matching velvet shawl tucked into the front, heading right for them, her dark hair was held in place at her nape in a large bun. Though he’d just seen her not a half hour before, he couldn’t keep his chest from squeezing tightly. She’d come to him, finally.
He stepped forward and she glanced at him with laughing eyes that dared him to come closer. She veered for Cort and handed him a sheaf of paperwork. Though her voice was all business, even calling her father by his proper name.
“Mr. Farnsworth told me to tell you that everything has been signed and is in order. You may now start building.”
Cort tossed the expensive papers into the tent with a grunt. “Thank you, now git. You’re a distraction to Victor.”
She gasped at Cort’s comment and her eyes sought his. Victor was so used to Cort’s natural cantankerousness that he had to laugh, and that lit the fire in her eyes even more. Eyes that never stopped captivating him.
“Are you laughing at my expense?”
He smiled and she flushed ever so slightly, her eyes dropped from his and she stared at his bare arms. He almost la
ughed again. The pretty miss had seen plenty of exposed arms of the crewman at sea and hadn’t bothered to give them a second glance, that he’d noticed—and he would’ve noticed—but his arms enticed her eyes?
“Was there something else you needed, love? Cort may have been a bit off-putting, but ever so right. With you standing just there, I will get nothing done.”
Her little pink tongue slid over her lips in a quick motion, her glance nervously darting from him back to Cort. It took everything in him not to frame that pretty face with his hands and take a taste of those lips. Would she be smooth like butter, or give him a kick like strong coffee?
“No, nothing. Good day.”
She almost curtsied before she remembered the mud and just turned on her heal with her skirts lifted slightly. He took a calming breath as he watched her sway all the way back to her father’s office.
“Are you done wool-gathering, so we can work now?” Cort’s voice slapped him back into his own mind.
If he didn’t convince that woman to be his soon, he’d never get a lick done.
Chapter 7
It was wrong to feel as she did, hadn’t she sat through Bible lessons for years that told her desiring anyone was wrong, much less someone so … worldly? Lenora sat at her desk facing the window out into the street. Even knowing Victor would be busy building the new livery didn’t stop her from glancing up from her work every few minutes to see if he was coming around the law office to see her. He’d hardly missed a chance to visit her for months, yet the afternoon was wearing thin and soon, she’d have to go upstairs and help mother with supper.
Father had agreed to let her work for him under the condition that she would quit if Mother needed her more. Since Mother refused to cook any more meals, that meant Lenora had to be prepared and have luncheon ready before she came down for work, and she had to leave early in order to prepare supper. It was only a matter of time before her father tired of the whole mess and just asked her to stay upstairs, but she prayed he would see her usefulness before that happened.
