Love Inspired Historical November 2014

by Danica Favorite

  He seemed particularly determined that day, sketching pictures in the air with his hands as he spoke.

  “On the edges of the settlements, you have the Cascade Mountains with plenty of opportunities for trappers and prospectors,” he explained. “Those gentlemen come into town a few times a year.”

  “A rather uncivilized existence,” Catherine murmured to Allie.

  Allie hitched Gillian closer on her lap. “And a lonely one,” she murmured back to her friend.

  “As you head west,” Clay continued, gaze roaming his students as if to make sure everyone was attending, “among the foothills, you’ll find coal mines. Good money in mining, but it’s dirty work. Those families come into town maybe once a month, after they’ve been paid.”

  “My father worked the mines in Pennsylvania for a time,” Maddie said. “The black soot has a way of worming into your skin and lungs.”

  Several of the women shuddered. Allie felt a similar revulsion. Besides, she’d never heard of a woman who trapped animals for their fur, prospected for precious minerals or worked deep in the mines. She certainly didn’t have those skills.

  “Next come the river valleys,” Clay told them. “The land offers deep, rich soil, and the rivers make getting from place to place much easier than breaking new trails. Some areas still need clearing, but you’ll find any number of people interested in buying the timber. Logging camps and farming outposts are cropping up all over, with two or more claims working together. Generally they send someone to town a couple of times a month.”

  More of the women brightened at that, but Allie still couldn’t see herself in such a role. She’d never felled a tree, and the closest she’d come to farming lately was to arrange roses for the dining room table. Frank’s mother hadn’t even trusted her to tend to the thick bushes that bloomed along the front of the house, for all Allie had learned how to cultivate roses at her mother’s knee. The Howard roses, it seemed, could only be tended by a true Howard.

  “What about the city itself?” she asked Clay.

  He smiled at her as if he knew her thoughts. “Seattle grew from the inside out. A number of the people have built fine houses along the tops of the hills. If the city prospers as we hope, those folks will soon need housekeepers and gardeners.”

  “And bakers and laundresses,” Maddie declared with a grin.

  Clay grinned back. “Quite right, Ms. O’Rourke. Perhaps a seamstress, as well.”

  A number of women nodded happily. Just as Allie had suspected, she wasn’t the only one looking to ply a needle. But surely Seattle couldn’t keep so many seamstresses busy. She supposed she might be able to serve as a housekeeper, but would her employer allow her to keep Gillian with her? And how would she care for her daughter if she was busy tending to a large household?

  “And what of the town itself?” someone called. “Are there shops, playhouses, churches?”

  “We have a few dry-goods stores,” Clay answered. “There’s a good hotel, and Mr. Yesler has a cookhouse at the mill he rents for civic meetings and traveling shows.”

  “And you have a university,” Catherine reminded him.

  She seemed so enamored of the idea. From Clay’s earlier description, it didn’t sound nearly as impressive as Allie would have once thought. Still, perhaps there was need for instructors. She might be able to teach history.

  “Indeed, Ms. Stanway,” he acknowledged with a nod in her direction. “But if you want more details on it, talk to Mr. Mercer. He helped construct the building, then stayed on as its president and only professor.”

  Allie felt as if each bubble of hope was popping around her. Maddie snorted. “Sure’n there’s no surprise. The man’s an opportunist if there ever was one.”

  “You’ll find plenty of those in Seattle,” Clay promised her as some of the women nodded agreement on Mr. Mercer’s character. “And you may find opportunities that surprise you. Just know that you won’t find many jobs fit for a lady once you cross the skid road.”

  Allie frowned.

  “What’s a skid road?” Gillian asked from her lap.

  Clay moved closer as if to speak to her alone. “It’s the dirt track the loggers use to drag the logs down from the hills to Yesler’s Mill, Captain Howard. And it’s no place for a lady like yourself.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  Clay’s cheeks were turning pink again. Allie had pity on him. “I’m sure your uncle will explain, Gillian, if we let him talk.”

  Gillian settled back against Allie as if waiting. Clay tugged at the collar of his shirt.

  “Let’s just say that the businesses south of the skid road cater to the whims of the working man.”

  Allie wasn’t sure what he meant, but Maddie shrugged again. “Whiskey establishments need tending and sweeping in any town. Such work pays the rent.”

  Immediately gasps echoed on all sides.

  “For shame, Ms. O’Rourke,” someone cried. “As if a good Christian woman would be found in such a place!”

  Maddie’s face turned nearly as red as her hair, and she turned to glare at the woman. “Begging your exalted pardon, to be sure. But I’d rather take some low-thought job than see my brother and sister starve.”

  Allie reached out and gripped her hand in support. The other women might not notice, but she could see tears brimming in Maddie’s eyes. Her friend didn’t like to discuss what she’d left behind. Had she been forced to watch her family starve? Allie knew she’d have been willing to take most any job if it meant food and safe living conditions for Gillian.

  As if her daughter thought so, as well, she crawled from Allie’s lap into Maddie’s and pressed a kiss against her cheek. “You’re a nice lady,” she said, her little face pinched as if she felt Maddie’s pain.

  “Sure’n you and your ma are the nice ones,” Maddie murmured back, giving the little girl a fierce hug.

  “A willingness to do what’s needed to survive is the hallmark of the Seattle pioneers,” Clay put in, his deep rumble silencing all other voices. “Those of us who call Seattle home now aren’t afraid to roll up our sleeves or dirty our hands if it helps our families and friends.” He nodded to Maddie. “I think you’ll fit in just fine, Ms. O’Rourke.”

  Maddie hugged Gillian close and gave him a nod of thanks.

  Allie was surprised when Catherine piped up. “What about me? I’m a nurse. You claim your doctor can’t keep his hospital solvent. What am I to do?”

  “We’re a hardy lot,” Clay agreed. “But every settlement has someone who can be called on to help nurse an injured man, bring a new baby into the world. Unfortunately they aren’t generally trained to the task, so the mortality can be high. I expect many of them would be glad to have someone with more credentials available to help, so long as she didn’t mind working on all types of people and getting paid with venison and homespun.”

  By the pallor on Catherine’s face, Allie was certain her friend wasn’t enamored of the idea.

  Other voices rose, begging Clay to predict their likelihood of success, but Allie didn’t dare ask him such a question. Each day it was becoming clearer to her that she would be hard-pressed to pay her way in Seattle. She didn’t want to hear Clay agree with her assessment.

  *

  Clay was rather pleased with how the lesson had gone that morning. He’d shared the truth about Seattle, and Maddie’s comments had helped him make his point about the attitude needed to succeed. He truly did think the redhead had the gumption to make good on the frontier. Catherine also had something to contribute, if she could let go of her highfalutin ways. And he was beginning to realize there was nothing Allegra couldn’t do if she set her mind to it. That determination would make her future.

  He offered her a smile as the lesson ended and she stood and retrieved Gillian from Maddie’s lap. The smile she returned lacked its usual warmth. In fact, the lesson seemed to have troubled her, if her stiff movements were any indication. He watched as she led Gillian down the stairs near the smokestac
k.

  “You’re going about it all wrong,” Maddie said, moving to his side.

  Clay turned to frown at her. “I thought you enjoyed the lessons.”

  “Oh, I do,” Maddie assured him.

  “As do I,” Catherine said, coming up on his other side. “But for such an accomplished teacher, you are remarkably obtuse.”

  Clay leaned his hip against a chest of life preservers and eyed the pair of them. Maddie’s head was cocked, her hands on the hips of her green wool gown. Catherine was standing as tall and serene as always, though he thought a toe might be tapping beneath her lavender gown, if the sway of her skirts was any indication.

  “So what am I missing?” Clay asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Maddie raised a finger. “You’re going out of your way to show Mrs. Howard that she won’t fit in,” she scolded.

  “When you should be assuring her that she will always have a place at your side,” Catherine added.

  Clay straightened away from the chest and held up his hands. “Ladies, please! I’m not trying to court Allegra.”

  “Not the way you’re going about it, you aren’t,” Maddie agreed.

  “That’s why we’re here to offer our help,” Catherine assured him. “We’ve come to know and admire Mrs. Howard, and we want to see her happy.”

  Maddie elbowed him in the side. “And she’s taken a fancy to you, no doubt about it.”

  Clay glanced between them. The redhead was beaming at him, and Catherine was nodding her assent. Were they mad? Did Allie really have feelings for him? He couldn’t deny the way his heart beat faster at the thought.

  But the same problems reared their heads, hissing at him like a many-headed dragon. He hadn’t been able to settle down at Allie’s side in Boston. What made him think it would be any different in Seattle? Besides, she seemed so set against marriage, so certain he meant his protection as control. And to keep from protecting her? Impossible!

  “I’m honored if Allegra thinks well of me,” he told her friends. “But I doubt she’d welcome my suit.”

  “Ho!” Maddie declared, peering closer as if she would see inside him. “I’d never have taken you for a coward.”

  Clay stiffened. Catherine pressed her hands together fervently. “Indeed, sir. Faint heart never won fair lady.”

  He should protest. He’d faced down his father, left everything he’d known to strike out on his own, given away a fortune with no guarantee of its return. He’d learned to deal with other cultures some people feared; survived windstorm, fire and flood. Him afraid?

  Terrified, more like.

  “Ladies,” he said, “I’m just not husband material. I take risks few wives would countenance. I live simply in a two-room log cabin I built with my own hands. Every cent I make I reinvest for the future. I’m no longer the sort of fellow who courts women like Allegra Howard.”

  “Ah, but you could be,” Maddie crooned, laying a hand on his arm and gazing up at him with her warm brown eyes.

  “It isn’t always money or position that draws a lady to a gentleman,” Catherine agreed, setting her hand on his other arm.

  “Though, mind you, those are nothing to sneeze at,” Maddie countered.

  “To be sure,” her friend said with a warning look her way. “But more important is a gentleman’s character. That is what makes us fall in love. You have a fine character, Mr. Howard.”

  Why didn’t he believe that? Few Boston ladies he’d ever met agreed with her. He was Clay Howard, the wild man, the unpredictable, the disloyal. He’d put his own desires before family.

  “You didn’t care much for my character when we first met,” he reminded Catherine. “What makes you think it any better now?”

  She blushed and dropped her gaze. “I was mistaken, sir. I thought you were bent on mastering Mrs. Howard. I see now that you have ever only wished to protect her and dear Gillian. I find that most admirable.”

  He only wished Allegra saw it that way.

  “So, what do you say?” Maddie asked, giving his arm a squeeze. “Will you try your hand, speak your mind?”

  “Will you be guided by us in the best way to court Mrs. Howard?” Catherine pressed.

  Clay shook his head. He’d never thought to take a wife in Seattle, even when men had suggested their daughters or sisters, rare as those were. Now, when he tried to picture his world with a wife beside him, the vision had one face.

  Allegra’s face.

  Lord, is this Your will? You know I’ve tried to live by Your principles since I left home. You’ve taught me so much. I know Your book says it isn’t good for a man to be alone. Everyone needs friends, helpmates. But a wife? And even if having her at my side pleases me, can I make her happy? Can I be the husband for her?

  Every thought built an assurance inside him. He’d sworn to protect her. What better way than to offer himself as husband? She wouldn’t have to worry about how to make her way in Seattle. She’d complained about being nothing more than a decoration for her husband’s parlor. That wasn’t the sort of wife he wanted; he didn’t even have a parlor! But he did have enough income that she’d be free to try her hand at whatever sparked her interest. Surely that was what she deserved.

  Clay took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m your man, ladies. Tell me, what do you advise?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  In the days that followed Clay’s lesson on occupations, Allie couldn’t help noticing a change in him. For one thing, even though the air started to cool as they sailed south along the coast of Argentina, he began sporting a tailored wool suit that was clearly of Boston make. He must have found someone to trim his hair, for it no longer brushed the back of his collar, which was stiff with starch. And not a trace of gold could be found on his square jaw.

  “If I didn’t know better,” the widow Hennessy commented to Allie at dinner one evening, “I’d say he was bent on impressing a lady.”

  Allie wasn’t sure. She couldn’t see that he showed any preference for a certain lady’s company, despite the number of fluttering lashes aimed in his direction. Indeed, he seemed to be going out of his way to be chivalrous to everyone, opening doors, pulling out chairs, tipping his hat or inclining his head when a lady passed him. He quoted poetry at the least provocation, earning him sighs of delight from the other female passengers.

  “He even smells like lavender water,” Allie marveled to Maddie one day after he had set out deck chairs for them and tucked blankets around their skirts.

  “That’s the mark of a gentleman, that is,” Maddie informed her with a nod as Clay went to perform a similar service for two of the elderly widows.

  “I miss Papa’s brother,” Gillian said with a sigh where she sat on Allegra’s lap.

  That was perhaps the most significant change in Clay. Where before he had teased Gillian, tossing her in the air and letting her perch on his shoulder, now he stood respectfully a few feet away and spoke in a calm tone as if he’d been promoted to Sunday-school superintendent. As he became more proper and stilted, so did her daughter. She didn’t like seeing Gillian retreat into her shell.

  And she refused to let him go back on his promise to her.

  “I thought we had an agreement,” she told him when he offered her his piece of the pecan pie Maddie had baked with the last of the nuts from Rio. “If I want more dessert, I am perfectly capable of asking for it.”

  “‘The chief joy of man is to serve the flower of womanhood,’” he replied.

  Allie shook her head. “Quoting Vaughn Everard will not avail you, sir. Admit it. You are trying to help me again.”

  Green eyes met hers, surprisingly warm. “When it comes to helping you, Allegra, it seems I cannot help myself.”

  How could she be mad at him when he had such a charming answer to every question she raised, every argument she mustered? But the more diffident he became, the more distance she felt between them. His behavior was too much like Frank’s.

  Perhaps memories of her late husband
were why she opened the trunk one night after Gillian and Maddie were asleep and drew out Frank’s letters.

  The paper was creased with folds, speckled with the dust of the battlefield camp where he had written them. In places, the words were stained by the drops of her tears. She and Frank had grown up together; she had considered him her best friend. But marriage had driven them apart instead of drawing them closer.

  “It is perhaps louder here than I am used to,” he had written in the first letter she opened. “All around me men prepare for battle accompanied by the sound of distant guns. I think of you and Gillian snug in our home, and I am glad you are safe and well.”

  That was Frank. He never complained. But for the first time, she noticed the concern behind his words.

  “We are fortunate to have a family,” he’d said. “So many I meet have lost mother, father, sisters, brothers. If anything should happen to me, my dearest wife, I know you can count on Clayton to take care of you and Gillian. He was in California last our agents heard. Contact him. He’ll know just what to do.”

  Even in the end, it seemed, Frank had never lost faith in his brother. Why couldn’t she extend the same trust?

  The thought was still on her mind the next day when she attended one of Mr. Mercer’s worship services. The Continental had entered the Straits of Magellan, and dense forests crowded to starboard, rising to mountains in the distance, while rocky barren wastes stretched away to port. A fitful breeze darted along the deck, cold and lonely. She had thought the solemn surroundings might bring people to the service, but only some of the passengers joined in. Though Allie still took comfort from the hymns and Clay’s deep voice blending with her alto, she couldn’t seem to focus on Mr. Mercer’s flat reading of another man’s sermon. She found herself closing her eyes and searching her heart.