Not that it helped her escape at all.
Cursed broad-shouldered husband.
Chapter 5
“Eliza, this is lovely!”
Diana sighed as she looked about the simple but charming kitchen of Sheriff George’s home, which could have fit into a closet at the Gleason home in Baltimore. Yet it didn’t feel in any way crammed or lacking. It had the same sort of attraction a small town seemed to: warmth, comfort, and a touch of old-fashioned hospitality.
Eliza George, tall, slender, and somehow perfectly motherly, turned while removing biscuits from a pan to give Diana a disbelieving look. “I hope you’re joking, Diana. Or maybe you’re blind and can’t see the stains on my floors or the bits of food I’ll never get off of this stove.”
“I can’t see any of that,” Diana dutifully replied with a firm shake of her head, setting her hands in her lap while she sat helplessly at the table. Eliza had adamantly refused to let Diana do anything, which was probably for the best as Diana had never spent more than five minutes around an oven or a mixing bowl, but it didn’t help her attempts to fit in here. She felt as out of place as a stain on her mother’s silks, despite Eliza’s infectious good nature.
And no amount of agent training would fix that.
Eliza’s look turned more searching. “You look a little lost, dear. Let me guess—you come from money.”
Heat raced into Diana’s cheeks. “How did you know?”
A soft, wry smile appeared. “Nobody finds my kitchen lovely. Or charming or sweet, or any of the other words floating around in your mind and in your mouth. This is exactly like a dozen other kitchens in Indiana, and probably some other places. You’ve never really seen anything like this, right?”
Diana laughed and shook her head. “Not really, no. But I do like it. There’s just something about it that makes me smile.”
Eliza laughed in return. “That could be from the stains on my apron, making me look a complete mess.”
“A complete and adorable and admirable and incredible mess,” Sheriff George corrected as he and Wyatt entered the kitchen. He moved to his wife and kissed her cheek quickly.
His wife was quick with a slap to his chest. “You are incorrigible.”
The sheriff shrugged. “You knew that already.”
“And you passed it on to our boys.” Eliza sighed and returned to the biscuits. “What was I thinking?”
“I don’t think thought went much into it,” the sheriff replied with a wink at Diana, who snickered as Wyatt moved to stand behind her.
Eliza smiled, then sobered. “How was town, Stephen?”
“About how you’d expect,” he replied with a shrug. “Lots of stares, lots of frowns, and Fred Halsey made sure I could see his rifle from his porch.”
“Lovely,” came the stiff reply.
Diana glanced up at Wyatt, who met her eyes briefly, then put his hand on her shoulder as they both looked at the Georges. “We, uh, encountered some interesting looks and remarks ourselves when we were back at the boarding house, and they found out where we were going.”
“It was so strange,” Diana added, awkwardly moving her hand to cover his where it rested, trying for that comfortable couple touching that seemed to natural to others. “Everyone had been so warm and friendly since we’ve arrived, but when we said that…”
“I’m not surprised,” Eliza said on an exhale as she turned, handing the basket of biscuits to her husband before removing her apron. “The last year or so, things have really turned against us down here. All because Stephen won’t let people do as they please.”
“Eliza,” her husband murmured in a low voice.
She looked at him, her mouth set in a firm line. “Don’t deny it, Stephen. I’m not going to pretend everything is fine anymore. We both know what happened to the Crofters, and we knew coming in here that it could happen to us. Now we’re headed that way again, and anybody can see that.”
The sheriff looked uncomfortable by the turn of conversation, and took the biscuits to the table. “Maybe so. But this is the sort of conversation you save for after dinner.” He met Wyatt and Diana’s eyes in turn. “If you have any interest in it, we can come back to it when we send the boys to bed.”
Wyatt pressed his hand into Diana’s shoulder harder, and she squeezed his hand in response.
“I’m the son of a sheriff myself, sir,” Wyatt admitted, surprising Diana with the raw tone in his voice. “I’m well aware of the risks. And we’d be happy to help, if there’s any way we can.”
Diana could only nod, her heart skittering unsteadily with a mixture of excitement and shock.
If Wyatt had a past like Jesse Crofter, or like the George boys might have in their future, then all this could take on a very different shape for them.
Why would he not tell her about this? If they were partners, she needed to know all of the pertinent facts.
And this was certainly pertinent.
She forced a smile as Sheriff George moved passed them both. “Boys! Wash up and come down for dinner!”
An accompanying thundering came from the stairs, and the smile wasn’t so forced at hearing it.
“Now that is a sound I know all too well,” Wyatt laughed, sounding more like himself, and sliding his hand from Diana’s shoulder.
Odd how she could miss the weight of it so soon.
Three boys soon appeared in the kitchen, standing in a line of descending height of nearly the same amount. They were complete copies of each other, and all bore the solemnity of their father with the warm energy of their mother. The youngest was a bit more towheaded than the rest, and a faint dimple in his left cheek spoke of a proclivity towards smiling, no matter how stern his brothers were.
“Jack, Tommy, Davey, this is Mr. and Mrs. Henderson,” the sheriff said with the same droll tone he seemed to say everything. “Say hello before you go to wash.”
“Hello,” they all said in chorus, enthusiasm at a constant noncommittal level that amused Diana immensely.
Sheriff George snorted softly and waved them away, the boys immediately traipsing off to wash.
“Aren’t they excited to have us?” Diana laughed to Wyatt, keeping her voice down.
Wyatt shrugged a shoulder, smiling a rather nostalgic smile. “They’re boys. I was the same at their age.”
“You’re the same now.”
He gave her a look, then gently took her arm and led her to the table. “That’s enough, Mrs. Henderson. Behave yourself, put on your prettiest manners, and let’s see what we can do about making some friends, hmm?”
Diana faux glared up at him, making the Georges laugh, and the pair of them were situated across each other for the meal, Sheriff George to Diana’s left, Wyatt’s right. The boys filed back in moments later, helping their mother lay out the rest of the meal on the table before sitting themselves. The sheriff offered a brief, but sincere grace, and then the madness commenced.
There was a great difference between the way hungry sons of a sheriff eat and the way Baltimore’s finest daughters did, and it had nothing at all to do with the lack of formality at this particular table. Oh, the manners were fair enough, and nothing was ill-behaved, to be sure, but there was an eagerness and haste to this group she had never quite seen, and it was amusing, to say the least. Eliza and the sheriff were clearly used to the melee, and kept up a steady stream of conversation throughout the meal.
Even Wyatt wasn’t at all perturbed and carried on in the conversation easily, even including the boys somehow.
Diana did her best, but between the random kicks to her chair from the overeager boy beside her and the subtle nudges against her foot from her husband, she found herself more distracted than casual table habits alone would have done. Particularly Wyatt’s nudges, as she had no idea what he wanted her to do. She tried to give him inquiring looks as surreptitiously as possible when the nudges came, but he never gave her any answers.
There wasn’t any sort of information she could get from thi
s dinner, and she had nothing at all to add that could lead them into anything useful. She was all for building beneficial friendships, especially if it could get them what they needed for their assignment, but all she could do at this point was smile, laugh, and pass the potatoes that were out of Davey’s reach.
No relationship in the world would go anywhere built only on that.
Another nudge against her foot, and she put down her spoon, looking across the table at Wyatt in exasperation. If it were possible to scream “What?” at him with only her eyes, she was doing so.
This time he was looking at her and he smiled. Not a tight, pretend, ‘do something,’ insistently encouraging smile of her partner.
The curve of his lips was softer, the crinkle of his eyes gentler, and the set of his jaw perfectly relaxed. She couldn’t make out the blueness of his eyes in the fading light of evening, but there was something there that quite simply took her breath away.
And her lips curved of their own accord, for absolutely no reason at all.
“Do you have any children?”
Diana jerked and stared down at the boy sitting to her right. “Pardon?”
“Davey!” both of the boy’s parents shrieked as one.
“What?” the boy asked, looking down both ends of the table. “They could. They’re married, and married people have children. And it wouldn’t be so boring if they had children.” He looked up at Diana with a knowing expression. “You should have children. Probably soon.”
“Jack,” Sheriff George broke in mildly, “take your brothers and finish up the chores, then go up to bed.”
Jack, who clearly took after his father more than the others, silently nodded and rose, then pulled his youngest brother by the ear from the table and jerked his head at the other, who obediently followed without half as many complaints as Davey.
Eliza put her head in her hands and groaned, something almost like a laugh escaping. “I am so sorry. The boys are absolutely boys, but Davey…”
Wyatt suddenly covered his mouth with his napkin, and began laughing hysterically, his eyes squeezing so tightly the lines stretched nearly to his ears. Diana began to giggle, more at Wyatt’s hysteria than Davey’s antics, though her cheeks were still flaming from embarrassment.
Which was ridiculous, as she had nothing to be embarrassed about. She and Wyatt weren’t really married, so there was no need to be defensive about children. Of course, legally they were as married as married could ever get, but it wasn’t real, and it wasn’t lasting.
Wyatt’s laughter sounded over her thoughts, and the warmth from her cheeks spread into her chest, then out to the tips of her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Wyatt eventually said, his laughter fading. “I’m sorry, but that was just perfect. And honey, your face…” He chuckled again as he met Diana’s eyes.
Honey. Why in the world would such a simple word, so casually and naturally said, give her the strangest sense of a hiccup that never actually happened?
“Well, I’m sorry,” she eventually mustered, spreading her hands on the table. “But you know I react exactly the same way when my mother says it.”
Eliza was doubled over in laughter now, while Sheriff George just swung his head from side to side in a continuous series of disbelieving motions.
Diana sighed, and looked at the sheriff in pity. “Is it always like this, Sheriff?”
“It is, yes,” he replied on a longsuffering exhale. “Someday I am sure the good Lord will show me why, but for now, I just try to patiently endure.”
“That is all any of us can do. You are very good.” Diana gave him a pitying smile, trying to ignore how Wyatt’s foot kept pressing against hers.
Eliza dabbed at the corner of her eyes, sitting back in her chair. “No, he is very droll. He’s playing it straight at the moment, but you’d find on any other occasion that he is the worst of the lot.”
Sheriff George sniffed once. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
Diana looked between the two of them with a fond smile. “You must all laugh a great deal in this house.”
Eliza nodded, sobering at last. “We try to. It’s quite a blessing to be able to do so, considering.” She fidgeted with her fork, all traces of humor vanishing, then looked over at Wyatt. “Your father was a sheriff, you said.”
“He was, ma’am,” came the reply, accompanied by a polite nod, but Diana sensed a newfound tension in him that made her curious. “For twenty years at least.”
“Did he experience much trouble where you lived?” Eliza asked without any hesitation. “From the locals, I mean.”
Wyatt smiled, but it was purely superficial. “It was in Texas, ma’am. There was always trouble. Half of the town hated him at any given time.”
Eliza nodded, then looked across the table at her husband. “Stephen and I talked at great length before he accepted the position here, given what happened with the Crofters. We were assured that everything had been dealt with, and for a while, we thought it had. Things were quiet at the beginning.”
“Not that quiet,” the sheriff murmured, eyes lowered to the table. “But everything that was brought to my attention had usually been dealt with by the time I arrived. It was a relief to not settle so many disputes, but unnerving to have so little to do at the same time.”
“That would be very strange,” Wyatt agreed. “What was happening?”
Sheriff George lifted one shoulder. “Didn’t know. Still don’t for sure, but I know enough to suspect that it’s the same thing that was going on with the Crofters. Justice being taken in hand by those without authority to dispense it. I was quite certain of the fact when the fire happened with Mrs. Chelsey and George Larkin.”
“I thought that was a housemaid leaving a candle unattended,” Diana breathed, her toes curling into the rug beneath her with sudden anxiety.
“It was ruled to be that way, yes,” the sheriff told her. “Maggie O’Donnell lost her position and it was all I could do to ship her out of town before she came to harm. But the truth of the matter was that the feeling among certain parties in town took affront to the adultery and saw that the sinners would burn, quite literally.”
“Stephen could never prove it,” Eliza finished with a slow drum of her fingers against the wood. “He received threats for trying to investigate it, so he had to give it up. And since then, he has had no respect from the town. No one actually shuns us, but in all other respects, we are quite as cast out as the Walshes down the lane.”
Diana frowned and looked over at her friend. “The Walshes? That’s an Irish name.”
Eliza nodded with a sad sigh. “It is, and they are as Irish as they come. Poor Mr. Walsh can’t find work in the town and has to take what he can get when it can be had. Eight children to feed, and nothing to feed them with. There are rumors that he was a criminal of sorts back in Ireland, but the general feeling against the Irish is so cold anyway that it…”
“It’s just shameful,” Sheriff George overrode, sounding irritable for the first time. “Jesse Crofter is able to take him along for some of his deliveries when he passes through, and that does well enough, but it leaves Mrs. Walsh and the children alone and unprotected. I don’t like it, and with what Jesse tells me about what’s going on in Salem, I’m afraid it might leak over.”
Wyatt’s foot twitched against Diana’s and set her even more on edge. “What’s going on in Salem?” he asked at once, rather tersely.
Diana immediately reached across the table and put her hand over his before it could fully form into a fist. “His sister and her husband have just settled in Salem,” she said quickly, rubbing gently against his skin as she impulsively added to their cover story. “We’re meant to surprise them in a day or two, as soon as we can find a way to get there.”
If the sheriff noticed Wyatt, he gave no indication. “Things are rather like they are here, only Jesse says they’ve had lynchings lately, and they aren’t shy about it. If I were you, I’d hitch a
ride with Jesse when he goes out tomorrow and see to it that her family is safe. One can never be too careful these days. Not in places like this.”
Diana met Wyatt’s eyes, and for the first time, she caught a glimpse of the calculating, stern, dangerous agent she’d married. There was a cold sort of satisfaction in that, complete with walls, distance, and formality.
He dipped his chin once, and she lowered her eyes in response, staring at their touching hands, wondering when she had ceased to feel him.
Instinct told Wyatt he could make conversation and make some decent headway. Training told him he needed to take advantage of every opportunity with potential assets.
Training and instinct weren’t anywhere near the forefront of his mind at the moment.
An Agent for Diana (The Pinkerton Matchmaker, Book 10) Page 7
