She sat with him for some time, looking at him occasionally, willing him to return her gaze. He never did. Her emotions swung erratically, and she couldn’t figure out which to lock on to—anger at what he had done or pity over what had happened to him. A great surge of shame and grief welled up inside her, threatening to burst forth like a flash flood during a spring thunderstorm. She managed to swallow most of it, but a stray tear escaped and splashed onto her free hand. Someone knelt at her feet and offered her a handkerchief. She looked up to find herself gazing into green eyes that were as filled with compassion as much as her own were filled with tears.
Anne took the handkerchief and used it to cover her face. She heard her father’s attendant move forward.
“I should take him back to his room now, Miss Wells,” he said.
She felt her father’s hand slip from hers as his attendant picked him up to take him back to his room. As the footsteps faded away, Mr. Ward took the place beside her. He didn’t speak, but Anne could feel the questions he wanted to ask. Who was that man? Why was she here? Why had the attendant called her Miss Wells? She took a shaky breath.
“That man’s name is Robert Wells. He’s my father. He lost his senses fighting the war … that’s why the Kirbys adopted me. They never told me.” She tried to go on, but months of pent-up emotion suddenly spilled out and she found herself leaning against Mr. Ward’s shoulder sobbing uncontrollably. She was dimly aware of his arm coming around her shoulders and pulling her close.
How long they sat there that way she didn’t know. Her tears lessened, and he pulled her to her feet. He handed her the bonnet, and with wooden fingers, she put it on. He took her gently by the elbow and walked her out to the streetcar. Before she knew it, they were home. Mr. Ward walked her up to the door, and she looked at him, apprehensively. What would he do now? Would he tell her uncle where she’d been?
“Get some rest, Miss Kirby,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”
She went up to her room and lay down on her bed, but rest was the last thing on her mind. Just what was Peter Ward planning to do?
Peter ran his hand down Scioto’s leg. It still looked sound, and he smiled at the professor. “He’s fine. It’s healed nicely.”
The professor smiled. “Good, then I must have been imagining things. I swore he started to limp a little.”
They were outside the stable, the professor having just returned. Miss Kirby had joined them and looked on. Peter handed the bridle to her.
“Would you mind walking him around for me? I want to be sure he’s sound.”
He saw the questioning look in her eyes but didn’t react to it. Pursing her lips, she took the reins from him and did as he’d asked. Peter watched them both as she walked Scioto back and forth. He’d hoped she would get some rest, but looking at her now, she still seemed troubled. When he had gone to the asylum today to visit Uncle Billy, he’d never dreamed he’d find her there. He was relieved that her problem was not what he’d originally imagined, but that didn’t make it any less delicate. It was clear she was shouldering this burden by herself. As much as he was trying to keep her at a distance, she clearly needed to talk to someone, a person and not a horse. A thought occurred to him just as the professor’s voice invaded his thoughts.
“Peter?”
He blinked. “Yes, sir?”
“I said he seems fine to me.”
“Yes, sir, he is.” He smiled apologetically as he took Scioto from Miss Kirby. “I’m sorry. I was a little lost in thought.”
“What about?”
“Your niece.” They both stared at him, and he quickly rephrased his answer. “I meant I was wondering if I might trouble your niece to help me with something.”
Miss Kirby arched an eyebrow at him then looked at her uncle. “What can I do for you, Mr. Ward?”
“As you know, I like to cook Scioto’s feed in the morning and evening. But that takes time. Would it be possible for you to cook it and bring it out to me?”
She pursed her lips. “I would if I could cook, Mr. Ward.”
The professor chuckled at Peter’s surprised look. “Sad to say, it’s true, in spite of my sister-in-law’s best efforts.”
“Well, I’m willing to give it my best effort.” Peter smiled at Miss Kirby’s doubtful look. “It’s not hard, I promise. I’ll be happy to show you after dinner if, of course, this is agreeable to you, Dr. Kirby.”
“I don’t see the harm in it.” The professor smiled at his niece, who still seemed hesitant. “Go on and try. It can’t hurt.”
A few hours later, the two of them stood over the stove in Mrs. Werner’s sparkling kitchen. Dr. Kirby, wishing them well, went into the library to grade papers. Miss Kirby looked around her with pursed lips. “I hope you’re prepared to scrub this place down once we’re finished, Mr. Ward.”
Peter gave her a droll look and peeked into his worn cook pot. “We’re just boiling water right now, Miss Kirby.”
She shook her head. “You haven’t seen me in action.”
“Here,” he said, bringing forth a bucket of oats. “Put about two scoops of this into the water.” She did so, and he handed her a flat wooden paddle. “Keep stirring it so it won’t scorch.”
“Is this all we put in?”
“We need to add equal parts of wheat bran and salt, but not quite yet.”
While she did spill some of the bran and the result was slightly scorched, Scioto didn’t seem to notice. He munched away unconcerned, and a small smile graced Miss Kirby’s face.
“You seem to be feeling better now.”
The smile disappeared, and he instantly regretted his words. Her face was so much more beautiful when she smiled. “I hope we can forget about what happened earlier today, Mr. Ward. Thank you for your kindness in seeing me home, but it’s really no longer your concern.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Miss Kirby.”
“Why?” Her brown eyes grew dark.
“No one should have to carry such a burden alone.”
“I’m not carrying it alone,” she retorted. She reached out and stroked Scioto’s neck.
“As much regard as I have for Scioto, he’s not going to answer you, and he’s not going to help you solve anything.”
“I don’t need him to solve anything. I just need him to listen.”
“That doesn’t seem to be working out very well.” He grasped her elbow, forcing her to face him. Her eyes were dark pools, glimmering in the lamplight. “It isn’t, is it?”
“No,” she whispered, and lowered her head against his chest.
Peter couldn’t help but allow himself to wrap his arms around her. When he had asked God to send her someone who could help her, he hadn’t imagined that He intended on sending him. I don’t want to hurt her, Lord. I don’t trust myself not to.
“Then trust Me.”
Steeling himself, he gently pulled her away and led her over to a small bench across from Scioto’s stall, near the harness room. He offered her his handkerchief. She took it with a small, humorless laugh.
“I still have your other one.”
“It’s all right. I have plenty.” He patiently waited for her to dry her face before speaking again. “Tell me about him.”
Chapter 12
Anne looked at him for a long moment. He returned her gaze, his eyes filled with the same compassion he’d shown her as she sat beside her father at the asylum. Where was the fear, the revulsion? He doesn’t know all of it yet. No, he didn’t know everything. He might understand her natural father losing his senses, but he’d never understand the rest. She’d just have to be careful.
“I only found out about him a few months ago,” she said. “The Kirbys had always told me I was adopted but never told me about him.”
“To protect you,” he stated.
Anne nodded.
“How did you find out?”
She shut her eyes against the memory. It had been a warm spring day, and Pa had sent her to find a letter from Un
cle Daniel.
“Pa asked me to fetch a letter from the desk in the parlor. I thought I found it, and when I opened it to be certain, I found a letter from … the asylum.” The words she’d read still haunted her. “Mr. Wells’s condition has not improved. … He still has no knowledge that you and your wife adopted his daughter, Anne.” How she managed to find the right letter and give it to Pa with any measure of composure, she didn’t know. “The asylum sends yearly updates to Pa through my uncle. I found most of them.” Afterward, she’d slipped downstairs every night, piecing together the whole story.
“What about your natural mother? Did you find out what happenedto her?”
Anne looked down, lest something in her expression tell him more than she wanted. “She died.”
“Have you been praying about this?”
“I did at first. But the more I prayed, the more I realized—” She stopped, acutely aware that she’d almost revealed too much.
“Anne?” At the sound of her uncle’s approach, relief seared through her, until she saw the expression on Mr. Ward’s face. “Please don’t tell him.”
“He should know.”
“No, please. He’ll tell my parents, and I don’t want them to get hurt.”
He hesitated then nodded reluctantly. “But you know you can’t keep this from them forever.”
“I know, and I won’t; I promise.” It was the truth. She’d always intended to tell her family, but only after she and her father were safely out West—when what he was and what he’d done couldn’t threaten their reputation any longer.
A clear, cold December day had given way to a fiery purple dusk as Anne made her way to the stable with Scioto’s feed. She’d been fixing it for two weeks now, and when she delivered it in the evenings, she always lingered in the stable, watching Scioto eat and afterward talking with Peter as he groomed him. She smiled as she knocked her foot against the door. When had they started calling each other by their Christian names? She couldn’t be sure, but she knew that because of their talks, her heart felt lighter than it had in months. It didn’t make her departure any easier, but it didn’t hang over her head like it had been. The door to the stable opened, and she came face-to-face with Peter’s devilish grin.
“What took you so long?”
Anne smiled reprovingly as she walked in. “I’m right on time as always.”
“Of course you are.” He shut the door. “I could set my watch by you.” He lifted the latch that secured the top half of the stable door and pushed it open, as always. It made the stable a little chilly, but at least no one could accuse them of impropriety. Mrs. Werner had a clear view of them from the kitchen window.
“Here, let me take that from you.” He poured the feed into Scioto’s tub and set the pot down near the door for Anne to take with her when she went back inside. He leaned against the stable door next to her as they watched Scioto eat. “How’s life in the library?”
Anne rolled her eyes. “Suffocating, literally.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the Main Building isn’t one big block of ice, it stinks of sulfur fumes. Our new janitor can’t seem to get the gas to work right.”
Peter shook his head. “Mike tried to warn the board Mr. Pryce wasn’t the man for the job.”
“Well, it goes without saying that everyone misses you and Mike. I wish someone would help the poor man.”
“Maybe I should go see him tomorrow after I have Scioto settled.”
“Are you sure you should do that?” Peter had told her about his run-ins with the man. She didn’t like the idea of him possibly being goaded into a fight.
“I might be able to help him. It’s the right thing to do.” Scioto finished eating, and Peter fetched the grooming kit from the tack room. Anne watched him in silence for a few minutes.
“Peter, what happened that made you become a tramp?”
His back was to her, but she could tell the question bothered him as his brushstrokes slowed. In all their conversations, he’d never really brought up his past. He’d told her a few stories about working with Mr. Farley, but never anything about his childhood or who had raised him.
“Necessity,” he replied.
“Did your family fire you? Or sell the stable?”
“The stable was sold.”
“Then why didn’t you get a job at another stable? I don’t understand why your family would let you go homeless.”
Peter turned and came over to the stall door. He looked gravely into her eyes. “Anne, my family and I had a falling out. I wasn’t the best of men before I came here, and there are things in my past I’m not proud of. But I’m different now—a new creation, thanks to God—and I just want to leave all that behind me.”
Anne nodded. She certainly understood what he meant about being ashamed of things in his past. Her eyes flicked to the stable floor. Her natural father had certainly given her nothing to be proud of. Peter ducked his head, catching her eye. She raised her eyes, and he cocked his head at her. “Are you all right?”
She smiled slightly. “Yes, I’m fine.”
He studied her face. “You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“All right.” He squeezed her hand then turned to continue grooming Scioto.
Anne was glad his back was to her again, so he wouldn’t see the effect his touch had on her. Heat flew to her cheeks and a delicious thrill flowed from her head to her toes. She bit her lip as she tried to tamp it down. She had no business letting herself feel something for this man—this handsome, wonderful, faithful man who sometimes let her groom Scioto when there was time before dinner, and who seemed to actually admire her ability with horses. He was everything she’d ever wanted in a man and more. She screwed her eyes shut. Stop it.
She would be gone in a few weeks. The school outside Topeka expected her, and the Topeka Insane Asylum had written to tell her they had room for her father. The letters were tucked in the waist of her skirt, beneath her bodice. She patted them to make sure they were still there. The only thing she had yet to do was speak to her father’s doctor in Columbus. She wondered if Peter planned to go back to the asylum to visit the friend he’d told her about. The question was on the tip of her tongue when he spoke first.
“I enjoyed Reverend Aylsworth’s lesson, yesterday.” He smiled at her over the top of Scioto’s back. Reverend Aylsworth was their pastor at Central Christian Church in Columbus.
“He preached on your favorite passage, didn’t he? The Twenty-Third Psalm.” As hard as it had been to hear the sermon, she was glad Peter enjoyed it.
“It helped me keep my head together before I faced Mayor Walcutt.” He finished grooming Scioto, unhooked the lead, and took off his halter. The horse nuzzled him, and he rubbed Scioto’s nose in return. He stepped out of the stall and paused in front of her. “I’ve been praying that for you.”
“What?” She wished he’d tell her as he took the grooming bucket back to the tack room. It would be so much easier to breathe.
“That God would restore your soul. You still seem sad sometimes, like you were a minute ago.”
“I’m fine, Peter.”
“Are you praying again?”
She nodded. She had started to pray again. Sort of. She prayed God would take away these feelings she had for him. If He didn’t, leaving in a few weeks would be sheer torture.
“I’m glad.” He didn’t move, and Anne found herself getting lost in the green of his eyes. Mesmerized, she took a step closer to him. Just then, a nicker and a dark head appeared between them, and she all but cried out in relief.
“We should get inside. I’m sure Mrs. Werner has dinner ready,” she said.
Peter shook himself, looking almost as relieved as she, and as she watched him walk to the tack room to put away the grooming bucket, she couldn’t help wondering why. Was it because he also felt something? Or because he didn’t?
“I still don’t believe I did it,” Anne said. “I actually fried an egg!”
>
“And I actually ate it,” Dr. Kirby remarked, grinning. “And I’m still breathing.”
Peter grinned at the semi-withering look she sent her uncle as the three of them walked toward the Main Building. Since he’d wanted to help Harvey with the heat today, he’d gotten up extra early and beaten Anne to the kitchen. Once he fed and watered Scioto, he came in to find her disappointed that the chore was already done. To make up for it, he taught her how to fry an egg.
“I told you it wasn’t that hard,” he said. “If I can do it, anyone can.”
“If you can?” Dr. Kirby mused.
Peter looked over Anne to the professor, expecting to see that curious look of his. Instead, he was greeted by a knowing smile. Uncertain what to make of it, Peter gave him a half grin and looked out at the new coat of snow.
“Looks like Christmas will be white if the weather holds,” Peter said.
“Yes,” Anne replied softly. He glanced down at her. She had that sad, wistful look on her face again, the same one he’d tried hard not to kiss away in the stable yesterday.
He returned his gaze to the snow-covered campus. Thank You for letting Scioto interrupt, Lord. A few seconds more and she’d have been in his arms. You sent me to help her, not break her heart. I’ll try to be more self-controlled. But even as he prayed, he felt a disappointment he didn’t quite understand. He pushed it away as they approached the Main Building.
“Well, Peter,” the professor said. “I sincerely hope your time with Mr. Pryce will be fruitful.”
“Thank you, sir. I hope your day goes well, too.”
“Oh, it will, my boy, it will.” He looked almost gleeful.
Anne noticed it as well and gave him a quizzical look as he kissed her cheek. “Are you feeling all right, Uncle Daniel?”
“The difficulties with the heat have given me the beginnings of a cold, I’m afraid,” he replied. Peter couldn’t help but grin at the look of consternation on Anne’s face. That hadn’t been the answer she was looking for. Dr. Kirby either didn’t notice or pretended not to as he went on. “Are you coming up with me?”
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