And quiet.
Too much quiet. All the novels and law books in the world couldn’t diminish the fact that she was alone. She would have to get a cat. If she talked to a cat, no one, including herself, would think her talking aloud odd.
“Why didn’t you come, Trudy, or invite me west?” She slammed down her book and made up her bed. “I’d have gone had you told me.”
She shoved the next thought aside and pondered pending work for her clients, then fell asleep composing a letter to her father. She slept until the church bells woke her, a pleasant alarm, background to her coffee and bread, carefully toasted over the spirit lamp flame. Breakfast eaten, she hastened to dress so she wouldn’t be late for the service.
The day was, in truth, beautiful; cold, but sunny with a clear sky. She dawdled down the street to church, and arrived mere seconds before the organ slipped into the first hymn. A few people glanced at her with disapproval as she tucked herself into a rear pew, but others smiled with genuine warmth.
“I didn’t think the lady lawyer would go to church,” one woman whispered. “But she’s here every week.”
Lucinda’s lips twitched. Going all the way back at least to Shakespeare, people thought lawyers some kind of evil beings. They weren’t. Well, not all of them. She intended to do good, help women, especially, protect their property for their children, gain pensions so far denied them, get the vote. It was what God wanted her to do with her life.
So why had He denied her the right to practice where she wanted?
She didn’t have an answer to that. The sermon was on loving one’s neighbor as oneself, so when Matt approached her outside the church, she didn’t turn him down.
“Good afternoon, Miss Bell,” Matthew Templin said.
“Good. . .afternoon.” Shyness swept over Lucinda. “I must don country garb before our walk.”
“You’re still planning to go?” He sounded surprised.
She glanced up at him. “Of course. I said I would.”
“If you’d rather not. . .”
She would rather not. A few people were giving her dis-approving glances. She looked back with her own disapproval of their behavior then smiled at Matthew Templin. “Just let me put on something warmer and sturdier than this.” She plucked at the soft merino of her skirt.
“Then I’ll fetch my wagon.” He touched his hat brim and turned down a side street.
Lucinda hastened to her rooms to change into a serge skirt and find a pair of stout leather boots made for walking. Hooking the buttons took twice as long as she intended, for the faster she hurried, the slower she seemed to move. The button hook slipped from her hand twice, sliding across the floor, and then the leather loops eluded her grip. If she lost a button. . .
She didn’t; at last the boots fit snugly on her feet. She tugged on the jacket that matched her skirt and skewered a small felt hat to her head. Without knowing the temperature outside for certain, she brought her cape along as extra warmth, though she hoped they could walk fast enough she would be plenty warm in the sunshine.
Matthew had just reached the front of the harness store when Lucinda descended the steps. People headed down the street, on their way to dinner, slowed to look. Lucinda ducked her head, but everyone would know who she was, would tell others they’d seen her climbing into Matthew Templin’s wagon on a Sunday afternoon. This was why she regretted accepting his invitation. Being with him could hurt her business, if other women like Mrs. Howard disapproved of associating closely with him. Unlike the Floyd sisters, Lucinda didn’t have the family and monetary connections to protect her. Too late now to think of leaving earlier, while everyone was still home or at church. She may as well enjoy herself.
“I’m looking forward to a walk,” she said with complete truth. “I feel odd walking in town. People might think I’m too bold if I don’t have an escort.”
“They might.” Matthew guided the draft horse down a side street. “This route will take a little longer but will keep us out of the crowd on Main Street.”
Lucinda said nothing, as thank you seemed rude.
“Did you get your heat back last night?” Matthew asked.
“I did, thank you.” She smiled at him from beneath the narrow brim of her hat. “Did it take much persuasion?”
To her surprise, Matthew said nothing as they drove past shops that grew poorer-looking with each block, then melded into small but mostly neat and well-maintained houses. Lucinda shifted on the bench, feeling each jolt of the broad wheels over the brick street, feeling the tautness of the man beside her.
“You didn’t get him to turn on my heat?” she ventured.
Perhaps he was embarrassed that she’d thanked him when he’d done nothing.
“I did.” He frowned, perhaps thinking of that encounter, perhaps because of a sudden rise and turn in the road, and the need to concentrate to maneuver the wagon around and up the hill.
Once he had, the view drove thoughts of heat out of her mind. Spread out at the base of the hill like an oriental carpet, the reds of maple, golds of oak, and greens of fir spread to the horizon, a crystal-blue horizon. The sharp sweetness of dry leaves perfumed the air, along with occasional whiffs of an apple-wood fire.
“Oooh,” Lucinda said, her voice breathy through half-parted lips.
“I arranged this just for you.” He flashed his toe-curling grin and started the horse again, taking them down the hill with care. “We’ll leave this nag in my pasture and walk from there. That is—um, you needn’t come into the house. I’ll just be a minute or two.”
“Of course.” Despite the briskness, though not chill, in the air, Lucinda’s cheeks felt hot. “Will Growler and Purrcilla be out?”
“Yes. They’ll be happy to see you.”
They were. While Matthew took care of the draft horse, his dog and cat swarmed around Lucinda’s skirts—the former growling in his throaty, affectionate way that was nearly a purr; the latter trying to climb her skirt. To save the serge from claw snags, Lucinda picked up the feline and cuddled her close.
“You’re fat, madame. Is that an insult to a cat?”
“Probably not.” Quiet-footed, even on the gravel, Matthew appeared from around a small barn and bent to pat Growler’s head. “She’ll be fatter soon, I’m afraid.”
“How do you— Oh.” Lucinda’s cheeks felt as fiery as the woods appeared when she realized Purrcilla was going to have kittens.
“Should we go?” Matthew took Purrcilla from Lucinda’s arms and set her on the other side of a fenced yard. “She can probably climb this, but I like to think she doesn’t.”
He did the same with Growler then offered Lucinda his arm.
She took it reflexively. It was a fine arm for holding on to while one strode along a country lane. It was the kind of arm that would hold a woman upright if she stumbled, quite unlike the elegantly slim arms of other men who had escorted her on outings.
“Are you warm enough?” For the briefest moment, Matthew pressed his free hand over her fingers that rested on his arm. “It will get a little chilly beneath the trees.”
“No, I’m quite all right.” Lucinda bit her lip then admitted, “I was thinking about all the parties I’d have to attend if I were back in Virginia.”
“You don’t like parties?”
“Do you think I’d have gone to law school if that’s what I like?” She slanted a sidelong glance at him. “Lady lawyers aren’t invited to many places.”
“Neither are carpenters who—” He broke off, cleared his throat. “You will be with the Floyd twins on your side. If they want you invited to something, you’ll be invited. And if you make friends with Samantha Howard, she will give you the right introductions, too.”
He’d said the name without a hitch today.
“Not if the mayor’s wife doesn’t like me.”
“Is it the mayor’s wife, or the mayor telling his wife not to like you?”
Lucinda stopped beneath the canopy of an oak that had to be at
least two hundred years old; its trunk and crown rose so broad and high. “Do you know something you’re not telling me, Mr. Templin?”
“I expect I know a great deal I’m not telling you.” He touched her hand again; then he turned beneath the enormous oak and led them onto a path wending its way through the trees like a tunnel with a sun-dappled roof.
Lucinda pressed the tips of her fingers into his arm. “You know what I mean.”
“I expect I do.” He said nothing for at least half a mile, or perhaps only half of that, and then paused in a clearing with fragrant dry grass baking beneath the brilliant autumn sunshine. “Miss Lucinda.” He turned to her but held her hand against his side. “Shannon told me something that concerns me.”
“Something to do with me?” A shiver ran up Lucinda’s spine and out through her limbs.
Matthew released her hand and held it between his, engulfing it. “Yes, about you. He said he’s been turning off your heat because the mayor suggested it’s a good idea to make you uncomfortable with staying here.”
eight
The stricken look on Lucinda’s face encouraged Matt to keep holding on to her hand, maybe both of her hands. But he placed her fingers on his forearm and resumed walking instead.
“I know you’re going to ask why when you can think again.” He tried to keep his tone light. “I wish I knew the answer.”
“It can’t be just that I’m a lady lawyer and he doesn’t like ladies or lawyers, and especially not the two together.” She, too, sounded as though she were keeping her tone lighter than the subject. “It simply makes no sense to me, Mr. Templin. I’ve never even met the mayor.”
“I grew up in, or I wouldn’t know him much, either.”
She stumbled, gripping his arm hard to keep her balance. “Will associating with me make him discharge you, if he has taken me in dislike?”
“It could.” Matt felt kind of queasy at the idea. He needed the money. “But it’s not likely. The work’s only half finished, and there’s no one close who can finish what I’ve started.”
That remark sure sounded arrogant.
“I didn’t mean to sound so—what is that word? Egotistical?”
She laughed, a true, bubbling sparkle of sound. “Yes, that’s the word, but I don’t think you sounded full of yourself, just confident in the quality of your work compared to that of other carpenters around here.”
“Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary.” She strode beside him in silence for a few minutes, their heels crunching on leaves that had fallen that morning, silent on ones that had already created a loamy carpet along the path. Then she paused to pluck a particularly large and bright red leaf from a low-hanging limb and, as she stuck it into the shiny band of ribbon around the crown of her hat, looked up at him. “Why did you become a carpenter?”
“Someone was willing to teach me, and I figured out I was good at it and liked it.”
“Did you want to do anything else? I mean, you seem to have gotten this by accident or coincidence, not because you chose it.”
Matt walked along, his gaze on the trees—most turning to plain brown deeper in the woods—and pondered his words.
Lucinda’s fingers tightened on his arm. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me to say.”
“Maybe, but it’s all right. I didn’t choose it.” He hesitated. With the way he felt about her, his insides leaping and twisting at her voice, her laugh, the light touch of her hand, he may as well be honest about himself. She would never come walking with him again, and his heart would be safe from another blow. “I wanted to be a teacher, but I couldn’t pay for more schooling.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. You should be able to get an education if you want one. And do the work you want to do.” She plucked another leaf, curled and brown, ready to fall, and then crunched it between her fingers. “I love that smell of dried leaves.”
“It’s one of the nicest things about fall.”
“Yes. But about your schooling. Weren’t there scholarships available?”
“Not for me.” He heard the edge in his tone and strove to soften it. “Not because I wasn’t good in my studies. I was. But. . .Miss Lucinda, you may as well know now. My mother was not a nice woman, and no one knows who my father is, including her.”
“That must have made your childhood difficult.” Her voice, her face, held none of the contempt he expected. She even tightened her hold on his arm as she paused and looked at him, her big eyes full of compassion. “I don’t understand why the child is punished for what the parents did.”
“Something about carrying the taint in our blood.” He summarized the words he’d heard directed at him all his life, yet they meant nothing when he looked at her. His voice sounded like someone else’s, far away and disinterested. All his interest focused on her pretty face, her shining eyes, her soft mouth.
And the way his heart tumbled over and over and over. He’d just slipped the rest of the way down the slippery slope he’d tried to avoid since meeting Miss Lucinda Bell, and fallen head over heels in love with her.
“That’s nonsense.” Her voice came as clearly and strongly to him as Sunday morning church bells. “I see no logic in that kind of thinking and never have. You are who you make yourself, and you seem to be doing well.”
“Thank you.” His chest felt so tight he couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he set off on a trot through the trees that had her laughing and gasping alongside him.
“Are you going to a fire?”
“I’m sorry.” He slowed his pace. “I was thinking.”
“About what, may I ask?”
About her voice, her face, her acceptance of his past.
“You can ask,” he answered. “But the answer probably makes no sense.”
Or too much sense for her comfort. Or his. He must not forget that while she might not hold his parentage against him, that didn’t mean she could care about him, too. Compassion wasn’t a relationship. She still didn’t want him sitting in his wagon in front of her quarters. She came out with him only because it was away from town, and maybe his company was better than nobody’s. She might care about him as a person, but she would never respect him enough to love him.
“Ask me why I became a lawyer, if you want answers that make no sense.”
He asked. She told him about her father’s work, how she enjoyed his books and papers, and the importance of the work. They walked and talked about that work, about her books, and finally, about books they’d both read and enjoyed. By the time the path led them back to the road, Matt’s tension had eased. Their dialogue flowed freely, and he thought, maybe, if she could get past his being an uneducated carpenter, she might accept him as a friend.
The sun was dropping rapidly in the western hills as he hitched the horse to the wagon and then helped Lucinda onto the seat. She glanced at the sunset with a worried frown.
“We’ll be back before dark, won’t we?” she asked.
“We have more than an hour of daylight, never fear.” He climbed up beside her and gathered the reins.
Her stomach growled. She clapped a hand to her middle and her cheeks grew pink.
“Have you eaten today?” He clucked to the horse, which started obediently as ever.
She ducked her head. “I had some coffee and toast this morning. Only the hotel restaurant is open on Sunday, but people have invited me to dinner.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” He gazed out across the fields and trees. “I probably shouldn’t admit to this, but much of the time in the winter, I work on my chairs on Sundays. In spring and summer, I work in the garden.”
“You can grow things? I can’t.”
“Vegetables and herbs. Gertie uses what I can’t eat myself.”
“Ah, is that why she’s always willing to feed you?”
“Gertie likes feeding people. You should take advantage of that.”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“I know. She’s hurt.”
/> “I thought she was offended.”
“No, not Gertie. She’ll speak her mind then be done with it.”
“Well, perhaps tomorrow.”
“Or tonight. There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you, and I’d trust her hearing it, too.”
“What do you want to ask me that you can’t now?” She hesitated between each word, cautious, a little cooler than before.
“This is work related—for you, that is, and I didn’t think it right to bring it up today on your outing.”
“Thank you.” She rubbed her arms. “It’s getting cold.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Did she use the excuse of pulling on her cape to edge away from him?
“I shouldn’t have mentioned that I wanted to speak with you about a legal matter.”
“It’s all right. If it’s personal, though, you should only discuss it in my office, not even in front of Gertie.”
“But Gertie doesn’t gossip, if you tell her something is private.”
“Mr. Templin, that doesn’t matter. If it’s something that could end up in court, she could be forced to disclose what you said under oath. No confidentiality rules apply to her.”
He swallowed, feeling stupid, seeing the gulf of knowledge and education between them. She was a professional woman, a professional person. He was a worker, a laborer.
“All right, then, I’ll come to your office during working hours.”
“Anytime. Just leave a note, and I’ll tell you when I’m available. Clients are lining up down the block, you know, so it may be a week or two.”
He laughed at her attempt at humor, and they slipped back into the comfort with one another that they’d enjoyed on the walk. The drive wasn’t long, and the sun still hovered well above the horizon as they reached her doorsteps in time to see someone descending them, a gloved hand resting on the railing, long, fluffy skirts trailing the treads.
“Good evening, Miss Bell, Mat–Mr. Templin,” Samantha Howard greeted them.
Carpenter's Inheritance Page 7
