David had learned nothing. Frustrated, he returned to his supply lists. They had run low on brick again. The preferred brick makers constantly fell behind with their shipments, and the army had not given them leave to secure a different source.
He puffed out his breath. If he could suggest a more reliable source, the captain might be able to plead their case. He needed the name of a reliable brickyard. Just six months ago he could name dozens, but the sticky heat muddled his memory.
“Remember,” he urged himself, swatting at yet another mosquito that had taken up residence in his office. The insects were a terrible nuisance, and his skin reacted with fierce red bumps that itched so badly he wanted to tear his skin off. If only the wind would blow strong enough to take the pests away. He scratched at a new bite.
A sharp rap on the door caught his attention. Was one of the men ready to confess?
He crossed the tiny room in three strides and flung open the door.
Every ounce of irritation evaporated at the sight of the man in front of him. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Hundreds of questions flew through his mind, but none nestled on his tongue. Instead he stood like a fool, gaping.
The tall, black-clad figure did not offer so much as a smile. “Good afternoon, son. Are you going to ask me in?”
Clayton strolled toward the marine hospital at six o’clock that evening, content with the way things were going. Over the previous three weeks, Prosperity had given him more and more of her attention. Though she still slipped away the moment they arrived at their destination, she left him with a smile instead of the frightened expression she’d worn following his ill-advised proposal.
Elizabeth said the lieutenant visited his son every evening, but Prosperity avoided him by leaving the house or closing herself into her room. Though Elizabeth was concerned over Prosperity’s inability to forgive the lieutenant, Clayton saw that as an advantage. Soon enough the last of Prosperity’s reserves would fall, and she would be his.
He brought welcome news tonight. Marnie had not contracted cholera and was back on her feet. Mrs. Ambleton had merely gotten the ague. Malaria touched nearly every newcomer, but with treatment, most survived. Prosperity would be relieved.
Under her care, the boy had gained weight. Giggles replaced bawling. If Clayton had any fear, it was that Prosperity would grow too attached to the child.
Another bit of news promised to turn her attention elsewhere. He could not wait to extend the invitation. This time he expected she would accept. That made his step lighter as he approached the hospital. Since his chat with Dr. MacNees, Prosperity allowed him to meet her outside the hospital grounds. The picket fence separated them, and with the surgeon’s approval of the situation, even Miss Stern could not object.
Prosperity was not waiting. That meant either she hadn’t finished her duties or the matron had kept her late due to an influx of patients. Clayton hadn’t heard of any disease-bearing ship, but then he had been busy with one particularly cantankerous invalid most of the afternoon. A ship might have sent men directly to the hospital without word reaching town yet.
In any case, he must wait, and that urged even a seasoned man’s nerves a little higher. He pressed his handkerchief to his palms, but they simply grew damp again. He walked to the small gate used by hospital staff. From here he could see a corner of the building housing the laundry. Smoke trickled from the chimney. Surely the bulk of laundering was done for the day.
Then he saw her, diminutive in her gray gown and spotless white apron, which she was in the process of removing. How Prosperity managed to stay so impeccably clean was a mystery. The moment she spotted him, a faint smile curved her lips and her step hastened.
Yes, she was beginning to enjoy his company. This invitation would only help.
“Doctor.” Her voice was eager as she stepped through the gate.
He closed it behind her. “You look well after a hard day’s work.”
Indeed she did. Her cheeks were pleasantly flushed, and her eyes shimmered in the late-day sun.
“Work was not so difficult today.”
“You ought not work at all.” He held out his arm, and she accepted it.
“I would enjoy spending the entire day with Oliver.”
That was not the direction he wanted to travel. “One day the boy must return to his father, and you will need to direct your attention to other worthy projects.”
Her shoulders drooped, as if she’d just realized this time with the baby would end. “What could be more worthy than caring for a helpless babe?”
He could never counter the maternal need to nurture, but he hoped to distract her from it. “You might discover a new treatment to ease someone’s suffering.”
“Me?”
Her incredulous response made him smile. “It is possible, with the right guidance and assistance.”
Her brow puckered. “Whose?”
“Perhaps someone involved with the botanical society.”
That caught her attention. “A botanical society? Here?”
“What better place? We have much to learn about tropical plants. Some could have unexpected medicinal uses. They might even publish a treatise on what is currently known of native plant uses.”
As he’d expected, her eyes widened. “That would be worthwhile indeed, but how might someone like me publish anything? Surely someone much more learned should study the plants and write the article.”
“I might be persuaded to help.” Clayton didn’t mention that he was the one who’d proposed the society a few years ago and served as its president.
“Help?” Her hand drifted to her throat as it always did when an idea startled her. “I could not lead such an important project. You should do it. You would be marvelous.”
He shook his head. “I am busy with my practice and can’t devote the time necessary to accomplish this.”
A cloud darkened her eyes. “My duty is to little Oliver.”
Clayton groaned. It would be months before the baby could be weaned.
“And the hospital,” she added. “I cannot leave them short of help during fever season.”
“It is the opportunity of a lifetime.” He could not let this go so easily. A dream must first be planted. “If you discover a new species, you would have the honor of naming it. You might name it in memory of a loved one, such as your mother.” That got her attention. “Think about it for a few days. There is no hurry. In addition, you might wish to meet the members of the society. They gather once a month, and this month is their soiree.”
Her head bowed, and he could no longer gauge her reaction.
“I could present you to the members,” he offered.
Her head snapped up. “What do I have to offer? I know so little about native plants.”
“You know more than you realize, and you would learn. Speak with the members and listen to the lecture.”
She gnawed on her lower lip, a sign he had begun to sway her. “I would enjoy that.”
“Then say you will join me.” He would bring up the dinner and music later, after he spoke with the seamstress about the gown he’d commissioned for the occasion.
“I would like that, Doctor.” She even smiled.
He only wished she would call him by his given name, but his attempts to guide her in that direction had failed.
Patience. That was his advantage. The lieutenant rushed and blundered, chasing his quarry away. Prosperity was a skittish doe. It would take patience to gain her trust.
21
David stared at his father as if he were an apparition. Had Father not cut him off with his last letter? Not one note had followed that caustic missive denouncing his marriage, not even after David sent word of Aileen’s death. Had Father received that news? He quickly calculated in his head. Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Why was Father here? He never traveled, even to the mainland. That he stood at the door of David’s office was inconceivable. Yet here he was, older and grayer but still form
idable.
“Are you going to invite me inside?” Father’s blunt question harbored no compassion.
The Reverend Myles Latham never smiled. Like his fiery sermons denouncing vice, he confronted opposition with force. This afternoon his expression betrayed no kindness, forgiveness, or joy at seeing his eldest son. David was expected to obey. By choosing his own path, David had run astray. This would be no prodigal son reunion.
David stepped back. “Of course. Enter.”
His father ducked through the doorway just as David always did. Temporary military structures were made for shorter men than the Lathams. The minister’s black shoes clattered on the wooden floorboards. His assessing gaze traveled the room, settling on its chief attributes: the desk and the plans for the fort, which were nailed to the wall and strewn across the surface of the desk.
“Efficient.” Father’s steel-blue eyes settled on him.
David swallowed. He ought to invite his father to sit, but that could usher in a lengthy discussion. Moreover, the room had only one chair. The afternoon sun had heated the structure to boiling, and little breeze blew in the open window. A pleasant conversation was not likely.
“Mother came?” David could not imagine her leaving his brothers, though all were old enough to care for themselves, the youngest now fifteen. Like Father, she had not set foot on a ship since their arrival on Nantucket Island before David was born.
“Of course not. Why should I drag her away from home and children merely to witness her eldest child’s debauchery?”
David bristled. “Marriage is hardly debauchery.”
“Breaking one’s word is sin—both against your honor and against the woman you pledged to marry.”
Since Father made no mention of Aileen’s death, he must not have received David’s latest note. Then what had driven him to leave his congregation and sail fourteen hundred miles south? Certainly he had not endured the discomfort and expense simply to berate his son in person. Yet that was precisely what he was doing, despite having denounced David’s engagement two and a half years ago.
“You never liked Prosperity.”
His father brushed that away with a wave of his hand. “I thought you could have done better, just as I believed you made a mistake joining the army. Building forts? The efforts of men always fall short. True protection comes from the Lord.”
David gritted his teeth, though he could not disagree with the sentiment. “God didn’t call me into ministry.” Yet he’d felt the need to rescue Aileen from her sinful ways. “Can we not serve God elsewhere?”
Father ignored his question while taking a more thorough assessment of the office. “I never thought you would throw away everything and everyone dear to you. I should have guessed, considering you rebelled against my authority in the first place.”
“I am a grown man. My decisions are mine alone. They do not affect you.”
“Everything you do affects your family.”
“Is that why you came? To criticize?”
His father’s gaze narrowed. “You are to honor your father and mother.”
“Why are you here?” The stark question filled his limbs with strength, like the rush of a brisk wind on a hot day. When his father did not answer at once, the momentary courage seeped away. “It is a long journey.”
“I came to meet your wife. A peace offering.”
Father didn’t know.
“You will introduce us.” Father did not ask—he stated.
David swallowed. “There is something you should—”
Father cut him off with a lifted hand. From David’s earliest remembrance, that had been the signal that no further discussion would be tolerated. One time he had continued to plead his case. Just once. For the next two days he’d felt the sting of the strap every time he sat down.
“Your mother convinced me that I might have written in haste.” Father squared his shoulders. “A closer examination will tell.” He glanced at the window. “The light is low. The guard said the workday ends at sunset.”
David crossed to the window, buying time while he figured out how to tell his father what had happened. Aileen’s death was easy enough, but after that would follow questions. Soon Father would unearth her less than respectable past, not to mention her illegitimate baby. David had failed Aileen in life. He could grant her a measure of dignity in death.
“Shall we leave?” Father demanded.
David focused on the workers. Lieutenant Ambleton had called his men to the west side of the site, where the walls afforded a bit of shade. He was probably giving final instructions. David ought to do the same with his men, but he had no instructions to give beyond the admonition not to steal. A moment later, the men scattered to their quarters, whether at the fort, in town, or at the garrison.
“The men have been dismissed.” He turned from the window only to meet the piercing gaze of his father.
“We shall go then.”
There was nowhere to go. He must tell his father what had happened. This was as good a place as anywhere.
He pulled out the room’s single chair. “Please sit.”
Father eyed it with suspicion. “Your wife will wonder where you are.”
That was one thing Aileen had never done. She’d pouted and begged, but she never cared where he’d been or what he’d done. When he talked about work, she didn’t listen. At first opportunity she interrupted to demand he get her something or do her bidding. He drew in a shaky breath. He should have realized that their conversations were always about her.
“No, she won’t wonder where I am.” Truth was bitter. “I must speak with you before returning to the garrison.”
Father removed his black hat and eyed the stiff wooden chair. “I will stand. You sit.”
David sat. With his father towering over him, he felt like a child about to get a scolding. He stood. “I need to tell you about Aileen.” He paused, uncertain how much to reveal.
“What about her?”
David had forgotten how direct his father could be. He never tossed out pleasantries or compliments. David’s mother must pass inspection before appearing in public, but even when every article of clothing was in order and every lock of hair covered, he did not praise her. David wished more than anything that he had told his mother she was beautiful and kind and loving before he left. She more than made up for Father’s sternness with her deep well of affection.
David swallowed. “Mother is well?”
“When I left her nearly a month ago. Speak, boy. What do you have to tell me about this woman you wed?”
David could hardly reveal the whole truth. The olive branch would be withdrawn the moment Reverend Myles Latham learned his eldest son had married a fallen woman. He stared out the window at the orange sky. There was only one way to say it.
“She is dead.”
“What? How?”
David drew his attention back to his father’s dark form. The man never wore anything but black. With his height, he created an imposing, fearful presence. In this heat, he must also be sweltering. “From fever.”
Father blew out his breath. “God’s will.”
David could not see divine will in the death of someone so young, nor did a simple statement dismiss the agonies and pain of that moment.
“One of those tropical fevers?” Father asked.
“I do not know.” David held back revealing the baby. His father would calculate the timing in an instant, and any chance for reconciliation would be lost.
“When?”
David hesitated. Would his father visit the graveyard? If so, he would see the stone David had placed on Aileen’s grave calling her a wife and mother. Then he would know of the child that David had not mentioned in the note. At the time, the morning after Aileen’s death, he had wanted nothing to do with the baby. Fatigue led him to think the child would somehow go away, perhaps taken by someone. His thoughts had been so confused.
Yet he must answer, for his father waited. “A month and
a half ago.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I wrote. You must have left before the note arrived.” Just like Prosperity had. David’s mouth grew dry. The similarity was eerie.
Father rapped his hat against his thigh. “Then all is over.”
David nodded. In many ways, it was.
“You have resumed your courtship of Miss Jones?” The formality of the question and the look of distaste betrayed his father’s low opinion of Prosperity.
David licked his dusty lips. Prosperity had given him no opportunity. He had tried to see her when he visited Oliver, but she was always gone. Avoiding him. But he would not give up hope. He had written an apology a dozen times, but the words were never quite right. When he managed to get them perfect, he would go to her with the note and the most expensive necklace he could afford. Until then, he could neither confirm nor deny his father’s question.
“I saw her,” he said carefully.
“Then you will marry as originally planned.” Again the piercing gaze.
David looked out the window. The blaze had dulled to a pale peach color. “I hope to.”
His father grunted. “Do not let this gift slip away, son. You have been given another chance. Use it wisely.”
“You approve of courting Prosperity?” He’d never dreamed to gain his father’s approval.
“I was not speaking of courtship. God has given you a chance to redeem your life. Get on your knees and pray for direction.”
God would not speak with him. Though David had not fathered Oliver, he had still fallen.
“I should return to quarters.” Hopefully his father did not expect to stay with him, for then David could not visit Oliver—and possibly Prosperity—this evening.
“Won’t they let you dine with your father?”
David breathed out shakily. Father must have let a room. Though supping with him would be painful, he could not compound his sins by lying. “I know a decent eating establishment at the Admiralty Inn.”
Honor Redeemed Page 21
