by Lisa Plumley
Gratefully, Rosamond patted Judah’s hand. “I’m fine. Thank you, Judah. I’ll be back directly.” If I survive, that is.
Judah’s gaze dropped to her consoling hand. He gawked.
Vaguely, it occurred to Rosamond that was the first time she’d touched Judah since she’d hired him. That was progress, wasn’t it? Next thing she knew, she’d be hugging people.
“That’s enough dillydallying,” Miles broke in. “Off we go.”
He whisked away Rosamond through the gate before she had a chance to anticipate and fear those first few steps. Before she knew quite what was happening, she found herself walking along the side of the street with Miles. The breeze toyed with her upswept hair, teasing tendrils from her chignon. The sun shone on her shoulders, warming her suddenly rigid neck muscles.
After all the time she’d spent sequestered inside her safe household, it felt decidedly unreal to be outside again.
“Well,” Miles said cheerfully as they walked onward, “Judah will never let soap and water touch that hand of his again.”
“Hmm?” Focusing on completing one wobbly step after another, Rosamond looked up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, ma’am, that your youngest security man has gone one hundred percent spoony over you.”
Rosamond laughed, distracted from her racing heartbeat for a minute. She even forgot to concentrate on practicing regular breathing, the way she had been doing. In, out. In, out.
“Judah? Don’t be silly.” She and Miles passed by a few houses, rapidly nearing Morrow Creek’s main street. Rosamond’s neighbors waved. Shakily, so did she. “He’s not sweet on me.”
She wasn’t entirely certain she could do this. Already, as the false-fronted buildings and busy streets of Morrow Creek closed around her, Rosamond felt a rising sense of trepidation.
“I’m not being silly.” Miles moved his fingers from her back to her hand. He gave a comforting squeeze. “As a man myself, I guess I can recognize all the signs.”
Oh. That was intriguing. But, more pressingly, “We have to go back,” Rosamond said urgently. A wave of nausea swept over her, making her feel clammy and cold. “I can’t do this.”
She was defenseless out here. It was getting darker.
Miles kept going. “You can do this. You already are.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Stiffly, still moving, Rosamond shook her head. “I’m only pretending to do this.”
“Well, you’re being remarkably convincing.” Hearteningly, Miles led them both through the alleyway that led past Molly Copeland’s small bakery. Its elaborate gables and sweets-filled windows beckoned, reminding Rosamond of happier times.
She absolutely adored Molly’s cinnamon buns. Even now, she fancied she could catch a whiff of spicy cinnamon in the air.
“Where should we go first?” Miles asked in a bracing tone as they emerged onto the street. Jovial and gallant, he helped her onto the raised-plank boardwalk. “The mercantile?”
“It will be full of people.” I won’t be able to escape.
“The general store, then. I’ll need pots and pans.”
As if he could cook. She doubted he could open a tin can.
“I can’t.” Inundated with rising terror, Rosamond clenched Miles’s hand. She turned to him, longing to bury her face in his shirtfront and pretend they were safe in her parlor. “I can’t!”
“You already are,” he protested. “Everything is fine.”
“It’s not fine!” All at once, she wanted to smack him, to kick him, to pound her fists against his big, dumb, outlandishly strong chest. “Can’t you see? I’m faint, I’m seeing stars—”
“I sometimes have that effect on women.”
“—and my heart is about to gallop straight out of my chest.” Fretfully, Rosamond tugged at her dress’s collar. She glanced around, convinced her friends and neighbors could see her distress. “This isn’t good for me, Miles. I might be dying.”
At her doomed but stoic tone, he actually chuckled.
“You are not dying.” He framed her face in his hands, giving her a determined and magnanimous look. “I won’t allow it. Not after I spent so long finding you.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m dying, and you’re worried about having wasted all your westward traveling time.”
“A man’s got to have his priorities.”
“I can’t believe I trusted you to bring me here.”
“I can’t believe you ever doubted you could.”
He had a point there, given all they’d shared. Still, “It hasn’t been easy for me, Miles,” Rosamond protested, momentarily distracted from her perspiring palms and tunnel vision by the need to explain exactly how wrong he was about this. “I’ve been through a lot, you know. First I had Arvid to worry about—”
Beside her, Miles instantly went alert. She scarcely noticed. She was too absorbed in her near-hyperventilating breath, her trembling knees and her overall looming demise.
“—then I had Genevieve offering me the preposterous choice of either being blackballed from Boston service or being sold into marriage to a man who was really no better than a common brothel owner.” She waved her shaking arms, channeling all her anxiety into indignation. It felt better than helplessness. “Elijah Dancy liked to call himself an ‘entertainer,’ but it was his ‘girls’ who were expected to entertain people.” Rosamond gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t know how he was connected to Mrs. Bouchard, but he definitely understood what she wanted.”
Miles stood near her, not speaking, just…being there. Comfortingly, he took her hand again. He held it in his securely.
“She wanted revenge, plain and simple,” Rosamond assured him with another unhappy laugh. “She thought I’d seduced Mr. Bouchard, but I swear nothing could be further from the truth.”
Staunchly, Miles nodded. His grip tightened on hers.
He said, “I can’t believe you didn’t thrash them both.”
This time, Rosamond’s laugh was genuine. It was hoarse and full of disbelief, but it was real. She loved Miles for that.
She loved him for standing by her this way.
“Well, I wasn’t always the woman I am today.” Ironically, she gestured at her trembling posture, her sweat-dampened dress and her breathless, heart-palpitating demeanor. “I used to be much less assertive and composed than I am right now.”
“You were always capable of speaking your mind,” Miles disagreed. “As far as being composed goes…” He studied her, fully taking in every inch of unsteadiness, wooziness and irrational fear. “Well, I guess being brave beats being poised.”
“Brave?” she scoffed. “If wanting to run from this place and never come back counts as brave, then yes. I’m fearless.”
Someone brushed past her, coming from behind. Rosamond jumped, her heart rate instantly tripling. She clutched Miles.
“You are brave.” Gently, he maneuvered them both safely out of the way of the foot traffic. All around them, dust kicked up and horses clip-clopped past and the noon church bells rang, but Miles only had eyes for her. “You are the bravest woman I’ve ever known. To have endured what you did, to have come all the way out here to Morrow Creek…it’s nothing short of amazing. You saved all those ‘girls.’ You gave them a home—”
“That wasn’t bravery. That was common-sense survival,” Rosamond argued. “After Dancy got shot over that faro game, we had one chance to skedaddle. So we did, one step ahead of the sheriff.” She frowned, remembering it. “In the kerfuffle, I thought to take Elijah’s winnings. Because they were rightfully his, and I was officially his wife. I didn’t have any other way to get by anyway. I convinced everyone else to come with me—”
“I know they were relieved you did. They’ve told me so.”
“—but it wasn’t to save them,” Rosamond confessed. “It was just so I wouldn’t be alone! That’s all it was.” She was ashamed to say so, but it was the truth. “I was far from Boston by then. You know I don’t have any family lef
t anymore. It’s hard to get a job in service without a reference—at least to anyone who’d treat a housemaid decently, that is. What else could I—”
Rosamond broke off, her semidistracted tirade coming to an abrupt conclusion. Cautiously, she eyed Miles. She frowned.
“You questioned the women in my household?”
“You look a little less pale,” he pointed out approvingly—not to mention distractingly. He didn’t want to answer her. “That’s excellent, Mrs. Dancy. You must be doing better.”
Mrs. Dancy. It bothered her every time he addressed her that way. But as long as she kept Miles calling her by her married name, she retained a necessary distance between them.
“I’m not ‘doing better,’” she argued. “I’m merely too preoccupied to think about my imminent collapse right now.”
“That seems like progress to me.”
“What about my question? You were spying on me?”
Miles held up his palms in an ostensibly innocent pose. Unwisely, Rosamond wished he hadn’t. She missed his hand on hers. It had been nice when Miles had been holding her hand.
Also, it occurred to her, she’d survived at least five or six minutes outside in town. That was improvement. Wasn’t it?
“I didn’t have to spy on you. The women in your household couldn’t wait to sing your praises to me.” He gave her an artless look. A smile. “I think they’re trying to pair us up.”
“I think they’ve lost their minds.”
He appeared offended. “I’m not such a bad catch.”
“I’m not a part of my mutual society, remember?”
“Then I no longer want to be a member.”
“You’re not a member yet. You’re a provisional applicant.”
Miles waved off that technicality. “I’m in. I know it.”
“I hold your fate in my hands. So you’d better please me.”
His gaze swerved to hers. Held. “I’d be happy to. Just tell me where and when. I have a few ideas how to please us both.”
“I’m not as naive as you think.” Sadly. She wished that wasn’t true. “But if you’re implying I’m going to kiss you—”
“I’m ardently hoping you’re going to kiss me.”
“—then you’re in luck. Because I just might, one of these days.” I think I would like to. “Just as soon as I—”
A flash of movement caught Rosamond’s eye. In the distance, she spied a mustachioed, stocky man wearing a fancy suit.
Arvid Bouchard. Arvid Bouchard was walking this way, coming from the direction of the Morrow Creek railway station.
Catching her undoubtedly fearful expression, Miles looked around, too. He seemed unbothered, though, except for…
“I recognize that look of yours. If you’re fixing to have someone clobber me or drug me again, here’s fair warning,” he said. “I’m getting fed up with all this. I’m a patient man, but pretty soon I’m going to have to fight back. And when I do—”
“It’s Arvid Bouchard.” Automatically, Rosamond put her feet in motion. She stumbled off the raised sidewalk in the opposite direction, twisting her ankle in the process. Limping, not caring that it hurt, she kept going. “He’s here. He’s found me.”
“No. He hasn’t found you. He can’t have found you.”
“This was a terrible idea.” Waves of nausea rolled over her. Panting, Rosamond veered into the alleyway. She braced her hand on the exterior wall of Mr. Nickerson’s Book Depot and News Emporium, fully expecting to spew her guts. When that didn’t happen, she made herself start walking again. Blindly, she kept moving. It wouldn’t be long now before her shaky legs gave out.
“Wait!” Miles trailed her, sounding confounded. “Stop!”
If he thought she could do that, he didn’t understand a thing. Rosamond lurched away from the town’s clustered central businesses, headed for the quiet district where she lived.
*
Casting another watchful glance over his shoulder, Miles followed Rosamond down the alleyway and onto the next street.
Mindless of his pursuit, she just kept walking. As he watched, she staggered unseeing into the path of an oncoming wagon. He saw its team of horses bearing down on her, heard the driver’s surprised shout and felt nothing but terror seize him.
If Arvid Bouchard killed Rosamond without even being there…
Miles couldn’t let that happen. Not the least because Bouchard could not be there. Miles had had a telegram from his former employer just a day ago, delivered surreptitiously from Boston via the adjunct telegraph office located outside Morrow Creek and run by Savannah Corwin and her husband Adam. That missive from Bouchard had been terse and threatening, but it had been evidential, too. Arvid Bouchard was home in Boston.
Miles still had time. He had time to be with Rosamond.
At the last second, he heaved forward and pulled her to safety. She landed in his arms with a yelp and a whoosh of exhaled breath. Her whole body trembled uncontrollably. She twisted, trying to get free. Then she just started whaling on him, kicking and yelling and pounding her fists on his chest.
“Get off! Get away!” Rosamond cried in a frightening raspy tone. It was evident she didn’t know who’d grabbed her. Even as Miles tried to comfort her, she punched him. “No. No!”
“Stop it. Stop,” he soothed. His heart broke a little bit more at her distress. “It’s just me. Everything’s all right.”
She didn’t listen. She squirmed harder, her motions making her hair come partway undone. Those red strands flew in his face as he fought to hold her, still speaking calming words. As he did, the errant wagon and its driver clattered past, joining the traffic coming to and leaving town. Birds chirped in the trees.
The ordinariness of it all contrasted sharply with Rosamond’s pain and distress. Miles wanted to fix all of it.
“Get off me!” She wriggled, then stomped his foot.
Ouch. Reflexively, Miles released her. She ran.
“Rose!” He chased her. He caught up but was afraid to touch her again, lest he frighten her even more. “Rose, wait.”
Somehow, his voice breached her panic. She stopped.
Her face turned to his, dusty and tear streaked.
Her eyes were wild, her expression mulish. “If you brought him here, Miles,” she said, “I swear I’ll never forgive you.”
At her words, something inside him gave way. In that moment, Miles felt a fraction of what Rosamond must have experienced in town when she’d been overcome by dread.
Because Miles had an overwhelming fear, too, he learned in that moment. His fear was that Rosamond’s threat would come to pass. That she would find out how he’d come to be there. That she would never forgive him. That he would have followed her for nothing.
That he couldn’t save her after all.
What else did he have to offer her besides his help? He couldn’t give her the security she needed. That was in her power to grasp. Or not. No one else could make her feel safe again.
But Miles sorely wanted to try.
“How could I bring him here?” He didn’t need to clarify who they were talking about. Miles spread his arms wide in surrender, trying for that second chance he needed. “Why would I bring him here, when you’re not even yourself? When the runaway housemaid I was looking for never even came to Morrow Creek?”
Her stubborn expression only intensified. If he’d thought to force her hand…well, that was plainly impossible to do.
She crossed her arms. “You don’t believe that.”
“You can’t say for sure that I don’t.”
“I believe I just did.”
“Ah, but you’re not sure, are you?” Deliberately relaxing his shoulders, Miles meandered a little closer. “You think maybe you’re clever enough to pull off your deception. You think maybe that stableman you knew could no more tell who you are than he could remember a list of arcane rules for your marriage bureau.”
“Mutual society. And you did remember the rules.”
“That doesn’t prove much except that I want to be with you.” Miles reached her. He stood with his hands at his sides, defenseless and serious and full of yearning. “I want that so much that I’m willing to act like a house servant, polishing silver and fixing chairs for you. I want that so much that I left behind my whole life. I want that so much that I can’t think of anything else. I sleep with it and wake up with it.”
Her eyes flashed. “I’m sorry if you’re disappointed.”
“Not disappointed. Frustrated. I’m frustrated, Mrs. Dancy.” He observed the irate way Rosamond glanced away and knew that he still understood a few things about her. “Either I have a chance to be with you…or I don’t. So why don’t you tell me which it is, before I make myself into an even bigger fool for you.”
Still looking belligerent, Rosamond hesitated.
A million years crawled by while Miles waited.
Then, unbelievably, she chose that moment to do something he didn’t expect. “Please,” she said, “call me Rosamond.”
Miles was so pleased and so surprised that it took him a second to realize… “You didn’t answer my question.”
Did he have a chance with her? Or didn’t he?
Would he ever?
But Rosamond had already hobbled down the street, leaving Miles alone to watch Judah rush to help her, still limping, inside her yard. The security man scowled in Miles’s direction, but once Rosamond was safely inside the fence, she waved.
She seemed to believe she had the upper hand. Again.
Damnation, but she was an extraordinary woman.
Luckily for Miles, she seemed halfway clear to trusting him, too. For now, that was all the encouragement he needed to persevere.
Chapter Ten
Rosamond glanced up just as Bonita Yates carried in another cool compress for her twisted ankle. She couldn’t help grinning.
“I declare, Miss Yates. You’re going to spoil me rotten with all this mollycoddling you’re doing.” Rosamond set aside her account book along with her financial worries. She waved for her friend to come forward in the lamplight and give her the compress she’d brought. “It’s a hurt ankle, nothing worse.”
