Harlequin Historical November 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2

by Carol Arens

  She cupped her hands over her mouth and started to sing. Her voice trilled up the scale and down, sounding eerie as it echoed through her fingers. She held long high notes, then moaned over low ones.

  Miss Fry screeched. Her heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway. The door to the pleasant part of Hanispree opened, then slammed closed. The key in the lock snapped, its echo whispering down the hallway.

  Clark dashed ahead of Lilleth into Mrs. Murphy’s room. By the time she rushed in behind him, the frail woman was sitting upright with her bindings on the floor.

  “You shouldn’t anger the nurse, Mrs. Murphy,” Clark told her.

  “Oh, I feel quite safe having my say.” She patted Clark’s hand when he traced the red welt the rope had made on her arm. “I knew you were close by.”

  “But I might have been in another realm.”

  “Oh, and there is your bride! What a lovely voice you have, my dear. Please do sing again, but something more cheerful than the melody you sang the other night.”

  “I’ll do that.” Lilleth knelt beside Mrs. Murphy and arranged the thin nightgown across her shoulders. “I sang that one for my sister. She’s locked up here. Her name is Bethany. Maybe you know something about her?”

  “Would she be Mrs. Hanispree?”

  Lilleth nodded, her voice trapped by the lump in her throat.

  “Well, she’ll need your help. I haven’t seen her, mind you, but I do hear things.”

  “What do you hear, Mrs. Murphy?” Clark asked.

  “That nasty doctor tries to get money from her. Every few days they take her out of her room for short periods of time. When they bring her back they are mad as hornets. I reckon she’s not giving them any.”

  “Do they hurt her, do you think?” Clark covered Mrs. Murphy’s knees with a thin blanket.

  Panic cramped Lilleth’s stomach while the woman appeared to consider her answer.

  “Not as far as I can tell. Her spirit doesn’t sound broken yet.” Mrs. Murphy touched a strand of Lilleth’s hair that curled out from under her fur cap. “I used to have pretty hair. Maybe I will again when I pass over. That’s something to look forward to.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Murphy, for telling me about Bethany. What can I sing for you?”

  “Something that I can tap my toe to, if you please. In my time I could dance with the best of them. My dance card was always full.” A distant smile crinkled her lips. She appeared to look inward, perhaps watching that lively girl whirl once more about the dance floor with a dozen hopeful beaux looking on. With a blink and a sigh, she returned to her cold, dark room. “And dear, for Mrs. King in the next room, perhaps a lullaby. Sometimes I hear her talking to a baby. The poor thing doesn’t guess it’s only her pillow.”

  For nearly an hour Lilleth went from room to room, singing, while Clark passed out food and warmed cold hearths.

  The last door she stood before was Bethany’s. Just as before, it had a special lock that looked impossible to breach. No food for her sister, no warmth for yet another night.

  “The children are safe. I’ve got them tucked away in a cabin in the woods not far from here.” Lilleth spoke quietly, digging her fingers into the dirty, splintered door. “Don’t give up, Bethany. I’ll get you out of here.”

  Something in the room hit the floor with a thud. It shattered. No doubt her sister was tied and gagged, with no way of communicating but that. Only a heavy door and a miserable lock separated them. It was enough to make Lilleth want to scream in despair.

  She didn’t, though. She didn’t even whimper, because Bethany needed to know that everything was under control, that there was a plan to set her free.

  “I hear you.” She pressed her forehead to the wood and stifled her grief. “I’ll be back for you, just as soon as I can.”

  Clark touched her shoulder and drew her away from the door. He supported her down the creaky stairs.

  She sniffled into his coat collar while he carried her on his back through the icy woods, all the way to the cabin door.

  He set her down on the first step of the porch and cupped her cheeks in his hands.

  “Please excuse me, Clark. I’m not a weeper, not usually.”

  He wiped a smear of icy tears from under her eyes. He kissed her cheek, grazed her lips, then kissed her other cheek.

  “What would you say if I told you that you might be the woman I’ve always dreamed of?”

  Without waiting for her answer, he turned and sprinted down the path toward the lending library.

  Chapter Eleven

  She would have told Clark that dreams were all well and good. They were the stock and trade of librarians, after all.

  Just now, leaning back against the front door, she watched him tromp homeward over snow that glistened in the cold morning sunshine. The brilliance nearly blinded her eyes, but not her common sense.

  This man was not a librarian, not in the usual sense, at least. Further, she did not want to be the object of his dreams. She wanted to be the object under his fingers, under his lips. What she wanted was to know him through and through, and for him to know her.

  All of a sudden the door opened. A pair of fists grabbed the back of her coat and yanked her inside.

  “Don’t stand out there, Auntie.” Jess slammed the door and shoved the bolt in place. “He’ll see you!”

  “Clark has seen me for the past two days,” she said, wandering to the window and lifting the curtain to watch him disappear around the bend in the path.

  “Not Clark.” Jess yanked the curtain closed. “The man in the outhouse.”

  Lilleth gripped Jess by the shoulders, staring down at him.

  “Are you certain there’s a man in there? You haven’t gone out, have you?” She tapped her boot toe on the floor.

  “Didn’t need to, Auntie. Until you and Clark walked up he was hollering and thumping against the door.”

  “Serves him right, getting trapped in the privy.” She lifted the curtain again and watched the outhouse. Even from fifty feet away she saw an eye peering out of the moon-shaped cutout in the wood. It might be days before the snow that had accumulated in front of the door melted enough for him to get free. “I suppose I’ll have to let him out.”

  “He’s the one who was watching me that day. It has to be him. Don’t go out, Auntie Lilleth, he’s probably dangerous!”

  “Considering where he got himself stuck, I don’t believe he’s overly bright.” She dropped the curtain.

  “I’ll go for Clark.” Jess reached for his jacket.

  “You most certainly will not, young man.” She cupped his face with gloves that were still crusted with ice from her trek home perched on Clark’s back. Worried eyes blinked at her. They looked equally like his mother’s and his father’s. “I’d let that miserable wretch freeze before I’d allow you to risk yourself in the cold.”

  “You might get hurt.”

  “Don’t you worry.” She ruffled his hair and wiped the frown from his forehead. “Your mama and I have been outwitting mean, stupid men from the time we could crawl.”

  “I can help.”

  “Well, naturally, I’ll be depending on you.” She tugged at her gloves and flexed her fingers. “First, go check on Mary to be sure she’s still sleeping, then stand by the window and watch. If anything goes wrong, take your sister out the back door and run for Clark.”

  While Jess checked on Mary, Lilleth got a shovel and a rope from the back porch. She wrapped the rope around the shovel’s handle, then gripped it in both hands.

  She grinned at Jess to show him that he didn’t need to be afraid.

  She was, though. Over the years she’d learned that a woman needed that edge to keep the upper hand. Have confidence, but never underestimate your opponent.

  Jess grinned b
ack at her, and she was certain he was also hiding his fear.

  She went outside and closed the door behind her.

  “Lock the door, Abigail,” she called loudly, going down the front steps.

  The outhouse was fifty very long steps from the cabin. Snow nearly reached her knees. She high-stepped and struggled every inch of the way to the little wood building.

  Wind whispered in the treetops and a beating of bird wings ruffled the air. Only silence came from the outhouse now. The eye no longer peeked from the moon-shaped cutout.

  No doubt the moron planned to rush out at her, a helpless woman, and take her by surprise.

  At least she hoped that was what he planned.

  “Oh, my word, this trek to the privy is exhausting! Soon as the ground thaws I’m going to have my husband move it closer to the house.” She stopped to wipe her brow and appear winded in case Alden’s minion might be spying on her through the moon. “Next time my four little girls need to visit the privy, he is the one who will carry them all this way.”

  She rested her hand on her breast to make sure the man had time to plan his assault on her helpless self.

  At the outhouse door, she began to shovel the snow away.

  “All this shoveling is too difficult for poor little me. I may just squat right here in the snow, then holler for Harvey to come out and carry me back.”

  With most of the snow cleared away, she removed the rope from the handle of the shovel. She glanced up to make sure the eye was not watching while she wound the rope about the outhouse and across the top step. She tied a knot, good and tight.

  “Only another minute until I have this door free. I doubt if it will be soon enough, though.”

  In fact, the door was completely clear. She took a few seconds to strike a helpless pose, while gripping the shovel behind her back.

  Thirty seconds later the door burst open and the same face that had been leering at her through the mercantile window glared at her, blue lips snarling and teeth chattering.

  He lunged and she stepped to the right. One of his shoes snagged the rope. He toppled. She swung the shovel and walloped the back of his head before he hit the ground.

  Sprawled, with arms and legs pointing north, south, east and west, he lifted his head. She whacked it again, but not hard to do enough to do lasting harm. He would need some strength to stumble back to town, after all.

  And really, had she wanted to kill him she would not have gone to this trouble. She would have simply left him in the privy to freeze.

  “Harvey! Come quick,” she called. “There’s a stranger in the outhouse!”

  She poked the shovel at his nose, while making sure to stay well out of his reach, just in case he was not as dazed as he appeared.

  “You’d best not have been planning harm to me or my little girls, stranger.” She walked backward toward the cabin with the weapon in front her, at the ready. “If I were you, I’d run away quick before Harvey comes out. My man is half bear and half cougar, and he eats strangers for breakfast.”

  She backed up the stairs and across the porch. The door opened behind her and she stepped inside.

  Jess slid the lock closed, then hugged his arms about her middle.

  “I almost felt sorry for him, Auntie Lilleth.” He squeezed hard. “We didn’t need Clark at all.”

  Hopefully, Jess didn’t notice her trembling. Alden’s spy had been weak because he was so cold, but the rage boiling in his eyes had all but burned her.

  The men she had dealt with in the past were greedy leches, but none of them had such an aura of malevolence about them.

  Had she been able to convince him that she was not the person he had been looking for? That a woman with four little girls and a beast of a husband lived in this cabin?

  Or would he wire Alden and report that he had found Bethany’s children? Worse, was Alden here already?

  They did need Clark, more than young Jess knew.

  * * *

  On occasion, Trace’s pen got him into trouble. Luckily, a fact reported incorrectly could be easily revised, or apologized for in the next edition of the paper.

  This morning, as he’d dropped Lilleth at her front door, the trouble had come from his mouth. He had blurted out the truth. Lilleth was the one he had waited for all his life.

  Luckily, she couldn’t have known what he really meant by that admission.

  There was that part of him, though, that wished she had. That she would toss her arms about his neck and tell him she knew exactly who he was and that neither time nor distance had changed her love for him.

  With slush soaking his boots, Clark marched through the twilight toward the cabin.

  The day had warmed and melted much of the snow. Come dark, when the temperature froze again, he’d probably be able to slide all the way home on the ice.

  He carried the snowshoes over one shoulder and a bag of meat pies from the hotel slung over the other. Chances were Lilleth had taken every bit of food from her pantry this morning to give to the inmates at Hanispree.

  As soon as he rounded the bend in the path, the front door flew open and Jess rushed outside.

  “You should have seen it, Clark!” The boy waved and shouted from the porch. “Uncle Alden’s spy got caught in the outhouse and Auntie walloped him good!”

  Fear cramped Trace’s gut. A picture flashed through his mind—of a young Lils on the ground, a pair of ruffians hovering over her and intending to do her harm. The scar on his chest began to throb with the memory.

  Lilleth stepped onto the porch with Mary riding her hip.

  “You should have come for me,” he said. Why would she, though? No doubt she considered bumbling Clark too inept to handle the situation.

  Jess answered first. “Auntie wouldn’t let me. Said she would let that no-good fellow freeze to death before she’d allow me out.”

  She should have let him freeze. The man could only be Perryman. Mrs. O’Hara was not all that discriminating about her customers. If the purpled-haired madam tossed him out, he must be as vile as he had seemed that night.

  “The fellow was a dimwit,” Lilleth told him while he came up the stairs. “Baby Mary could have ousted him with ease.”

  Young Lilleth had never asked for help in dealing with her mother’s unprincipled men. There was no reason to think she would now.

  It hardly seemed possible that he could love her more now than he did then, but he was a man of facts and this was a fact.

  “I brought dinner, since you must have emptied the cabin of food this morning.” Trace went inside and set the meat pies on the dining table.

  “Nearly,” she answered.

  “Auntie made biscuits for lunch.” Jess opened the bag and drew in a lungful of aroma. He sighed over it. “Not that they weren’t grand, mind you.”

  The four of them sat at the table, Jess beside Trace, hip to hip, and Lilleth across, with Mary on her lap. They asked a blessing for those shut up in Hanispree before they ate.

  During dinner, Jess recounted how his auntie, armed with only a shovel and pretending to be helpless, had made the villain flee.

  Trace asked if she’d ever done any acting with the traveling troupe and she replied no, but she’d been exposed to actors long enough to learn a few things.

  They spoke of this and that while the fire snapped and the full moon cast a beam of light through the window.

  This might be his world if he told Lils the truth...and if she forgave him.

  With the four of them snug and safe, life had never seemed so right. Villains might be cavorting on the streets of towns across the country, needing to be written about and exposed, but for this one night, in this peaceful cabin, he would put that away. Troubles would still be waiting tomorrow.

  For tonight life was as he had o
nly dreamed it could be.

  In time, the fire grew low. The beam of the moonlight crept across the cabin floor and Mary fell asleep in Lilleth’s arms. Jess yawned and stretched.

  “It’s off to bed with you, young man.”

  “But Auntie, I’m not tired.”

  “Nonetheless, it’s bedtime.” Lilleth stood up and Jess followed her into the blanket bedroom.

  Trace added another log to the fire and stirred the coals.

  If Lils invited him to her bed again tonight, would he be able to walk away? Not very likely. Alone together, it would only be a matter of seconds before clothes came off.

  How would he explain the scar that cut an L across his chest? Even though it had been many years, she might recognize it.

  “Have you ever been swimming at midnight, Clark?”

  He looked away from the orange glow of the coals to see her walking toward him with a bright, mischievous smile on her face. She truly was an exceptionally beautiful woman with her full bosom, her tiny waist and that mane of red curls shimmering over her shoulders.

  “A long time ago,” he admitted. With her.

  “I had a friend once.” She reached her fingers toward the flames. “We used to do that.”

  “Is he the one you mentioned in your sleep?” Trace wanted to cover his shirt so she wouldn’t see how his racing heart made the fabric shiver.

  She nodded. “Can you believe that I still miss that boy? His name was Trace. For some reason I’ve been thinking of him more often lately.”

  She gazed into the flames. He was grateful that she did, because he wasn’t sure how he would react if he saw the memory of the young man he had been in her eyes.

  “We thought we’d marry one day.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed, shrugged and glanced up, spearing him with her gaze.

  And there it was. He saw it in a blink. After all these years she still hurt over their separation. Then as quickly as he’d glimpsed that sadness, it vanished. She grinned.