Dragon Tamer

by Jane Bonander

“No, he’s smitten with you,” Lydia countered. “He’s always saying what a fine, pretty woman you are.”

  Eleanor chuckled. “Horace usually doesn’t stretch the truth.”

  Lydia gave her a sideways glance. “You don’t think you’re pretty?”

  “Not in the least,” Eleanor said, without pity or rancor.

  “Aunt Ellie? Do you remember when you told me that men like Uncle Dante didn’t marry women like you, that instead they married women who were beautiful, like the one at the party?”

  Eleanor paused, remembering the entire embarrassing evening. “I did say that, yes.”

  “Well, then, why did he marry you if you don’t think you’re pretty?”

  At that moment, Horace entered, his face pinched with concern and his skin ashen.

  “Horace? What is it?”

  His hands were clasped tightly in front of him. “A message from Mr. Simmons, ma’am. I’m afraid there is terribly bad news.”

  Willa’s death had not been unexpected, yet Calvin was inconsolable. He couldn’t even comfort his own child. When left alone, Lydia floated through the house in a fog. Eleanor and Butterfly made all of the arrangements, and after a service at Trinity Church, Willa was laid to rest in a cemetery in her hometown of New Bedford, where Calvin also had a plot.

  As Eleanor had expected, and it shamed her to realize it, her own brother was in no condition to care for Lydia. In fact, after Willa’s internment, Calvin put the house with an agent, quit his job, and prepared to leave Boston, apparently giving no thought to his child. Eleanor could have strangled him for his thoughtlessness, but instead she packed up Lydia’s belongings and swiftly moved her into Dante’s townhouse.

  She would do what she could for Lydia, begging Dante to let them keep her, raise her as their own. And she knew that over time, Lydia’s memory of her mother would change, and all of the faults and failings would fade away, replaced by memories of a sensitivity that was never there, a tenderness that was never shown. And Eleanor knew that was the only way a person survived the death of a loved one. She often wondered if her own mother was truly the saint she believed she was.

  But for every gray cloud, there was always a ray of sunshine. Hoshi, Dante’s cook, had been offered a position in New York, where his family had settled, leaving an opening at Dante’s, which Eleanor quickly offered to Butterfly, who accepted. It wasn’t until later that she realized she had taken charge of absolutely everything, even Dante’s household staff! But perhaps the best thing of all was that she had been so busy, she hadn’t given her pregnancy and Dante’s inevitable reaction to it much thought.

  Two days later, however, when she knew Dante’s train was arriving from New York, her own fears and worries began to assail her. She had to warn him of the changes before he happened upon them totally unprepared. Not only her pregnancy, but Willa’s death, Lydia’s permanence in their home, Hoshi’s leaving, and Butterfly’s arrival.

  My, oh, my, he was going to be very surprised. With a rueful smile, she checked her reflection in the hallway mirror, discovering Horace standing behind her.

  “Horace, I’m going to meet Dante at the station. When Lydia returns from the tutor, see that she gets her lessons done right away, and if she balks, remind her that we are all going to spend the evening together, but if she has schoolwork, she will be expected to finish it in her room. Alone.”

  Considering all of the tragedy that had befallen Lydia, Eleanor decided that to send her back to a school that she disliked in the first place was cruel and unusual punishment. She found a bright young woman, a student at Harvard, who was delighted to coach Lydia with her lessons.

  “Madam, are you sure you wouldn’t like me to accompany you?” He wore a rather panic-stricken expression.

  Eleanor tied her bonnet under her chin, then drew on her gloves. “I want you here. Butterfly might need you.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said, almost under his breath.

  Eleanor grinned. “She’s not giving you any trouble, is she?”

  Horace’s brow furrowed. “She’s unlike any person I’ve ever met in my life, madam, and I’ve met my share of unusual people.”

  Eleanor squeezed Horace’s shoulder. “She grows on you. Trust me.”

  Smiling wanly, he opened the front door, walked her out, and helped her into the waiting carriage.

  Dante saw it happen: Eleanor waving from the street outside Fitchburg Station, completely unmindful of the traffic, oblivious to the runaway team that pulled the careening vegetable wagon. Before he could reach her, she was knocked off her feet and had gone down like a sack of flour, hitting her head on the cobblestones.

  Now, at home, he paced the library floor, waiting for the doctor to give him some news. Lydia sat quietly, perched on a chair by the fireplace.

  “She’ll be all right, won’t she, Uncle Dante?”

  Her voice was soft, fearful. Dante suddenly realized that his infernal pacing was frightening her, so he stopped and squatted in front of her.

  He’d been met at the door by a harried Horace who, while helping him get Eleanor upstairs to bed, had filled him in on what had happened while he was away. Lydia needed someone, and for the moment, he was it.

  “Your Aunt Ellie is a strong woman, princess. She’ll be fine. Just fine.” He hoped and prayed it was true. Aside from the fact that he didn’t know how he would cope if he lost her, he knew that poor Lydia couldn’t bear losing another loved one.

  When he learned what Calvin had done, he had sworn to hunt him down and knock some sense into him. Or carve out his heart. For as much courage as Ellie had, Calvin had that much cowardice.

  Butterfly whisked into the room with a tray, a bottle of brandy, and two glasses. She poured one for Dante. “Where’s that ‘Horse’ fella?”

  Dante lifted one eyebrow as he scrutinized the woman, remembering a day long before when Lydia had marveled that Butterfly and the giant tortoises in the Galapagos were very nearly in the same weight class. It wasn’t much of an exaggeration.

  Not one to play down her size, she wore a long, loose dress in a garish orange with a pattern of enormous yellow flowers on it. Her hair was pulled tightly into a bun, and her wide, brown forehead was beaded with perspiration.

  “It’s Horace, Butterfly, not ‘horse,’ and are you working too hard? You look tired.”

  Butterfly made a beeline for the overstuffed chair and plopped into it. The chair expelled a “whooshing” sound of protest.

  “I ain’t seen a kitchen so fouled up since I took over at the Simmons. Whose been doin’ your cookin’ and cleanin’ up, a gorilla?”

  Dante hid a smile. She was colorful, if nothing else, and he already knew that she and Horace would butt heads.

  He poured her a shot of brandy. “Here, better take this. You look like you need it.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, she took the glass and downed the contents in one swallow. “Oh, by the way, Mister Dante, at Miss Ellie’s request, I removed most of the—pictures from your bedroom, because of ‘you-know-who.’” She covertly nodded toward Lydia.

  His erotica. Thank God for Eleanor. “Yes,” Dante answered. “That was a good idea.”

  Butterfly snorted an indelicate laugh. “Looks like you musta had some mighty good times up there.”

  Dante hoped his look was censuring, but if it was, Butterfly ignored it.

  They heard steps on the stairs and Dante stood, his gaze riveted at the door, his body tense.

  “Well?” he demanded, as the doctor and Horace stepped into the room.

  Horace eyed the sprawled Butterfly with disdain and poured the doctor a small shot of brandy. The doctor, like Butterfly, downed it in one gulp.

  “She hit her head quite badly. Has a concussion, I’m afraid.”

  “And what does that mean?” Dante interrogated further.

  “It means she could be unconscious for a few hours, or a few days. Only time will tell.” The doctor wiped his forehead and shoved t
he rumpled handkerchief into his waistcoat.

  Behind him, Dante heard Lydia start to cry.

  “There, there, darlin’,” Butterfly soothed, taking the child into her arms and rocking her. “God ain’t gonna take her from us, too.”

  Dante wanted to ask what kind of a greedy God took so much from one family. Instead, he gathered his strength and went to the child, who quickly transferred her affections, clinging to him so tightly she wouldn’t have fallen if he’d let go of her.

  “What can we do?” he asked.

  The doctor handed him a sheet of instructions. “She shouldn’t be left alone, just in case she regains consciousness,” he advised. “And because of the pregnancy—”

  Dante’s heart stopped. “The what?”

  The doctor gave him a quizzical look. “You didn’t know she was with child?”

  Dante all but stumbled to a chair by the fireplace, still holding Lydia. “No. I didn’t know.”

  “Well, I would venture to guess that she is perhaps two months along,” the doctor speculated.

  “And…and the fall, it didn’t harm the child?”

  The doctor shrugged into his coat and shook his head. “There’s no bleeding, but I would watch that as well. Perhaps your cook could—”

  “I will tend to her myself,” Dante nearly snarled. “No one will go near her but me.”

  He felt a tiny warm hand on his cheek. “Uncle Dante, can I help, please?”

  He looked into Lydia’s large, sad, eyes and her tear-streaked face, discovering the fragility and vulnerability that was just beneath the surface of her quick, clever mind, and felt a weakness completely foreign to him. She had become his responsibility, his to defend, and his to nurture. From that moment, he knew he would protect this child, raise her and love her as his own, always and forever.

  “Of course, princess. Of course. We will tend to your Aunt Ellie together.”

  Twenty-five

  Dante was finally alone with her, on his knees beside the bed, praying—something he had rarely done—it was not too late.

  While he was away, he had thought of little else but Ellie. He had been in a meeting and found himself gazing out the window, remembering a day similar to that one when they had first met. It had been blustery, yet when he’d watched her stride purposefully down the street toward the bank, a shaft of sunlight had landed on a stray lock of her hair, and it had shone like gold.

  That was his first realization that there was something more beneath the starchy clothing and grim demeanor.

  Early one morning, he had taken a walk along New York harbor, and remembered the day they had set sail and were marooned together on Middle Brewster. With a warmth new to him, he recalled her wish to learn to please a man. He would never forget the softness of her skin, the willingness of her body, and how at odds it was with her sharp, sometimes acerbic tongue and quick mind.

  That was when he began to understand that a woman could be both beautiful and intelligent, although he certainly hadn’t admitted it then.

  He had sat on a bench at the end of a long pier and was reminded of their week on Nahant. Their walks, their intelligent, lengthy, sometimes spirited discussions, and most of all, their lovemaking.

  That was when he realized he felt something for her that frightened him and he briefly pulled away.

  Everywhere he looked, something prompted a reminiscence of her. Everything he smelled, tasted, or saw brought back a memory.

  Sleeping alone brought little rest, for he missed being able to reach out and touch her, draw her to him, run his hands over her soft, warm body.

  He loved her. He knew it the moment he left her. Maybe he had known it before that, but he hadn’t admitted it.

  It was the first thing he was going to tell her when he came home, and now she might never awaken and know the feelings in his heart.

  And she carried his child.

  The ache in his chest was unbearable. Never had there ever been a woman with whom he had wanted a child. Never, before Eleanor.

  And she loved him. This brave, courageous, beautiful, intelligent, intrepid woman loved him, and was carrying his child.

  Tears dropped onto his hands, and he turned from the bed to find Lydia standing in the doorway, her expression horrified. “Is she dead?” she all but whispered.

  Dante went to her and drew her to him. “No. She’s still sleeping, princess.”

  Lydia wiped his cheek. “Then why are you crying?”

  “Because there was something I wanted to tell her, and now I only hope I have the chance.”

  “You wanted to tell her you loved her?”

  Dante smiled down at the intuitive child. “How did you know that?”

  Lydia gave him an ageless look. “Because I just know. Aunt Ellie is the kind of person that everyone loves, once they get to know her.”

  “You’re right about that,” he agreed.

  Lydia turned pensive. “Uncle Dante, now that Aunt Ellie is going to have a baby of her own, will I go to the orphanage to live?”

  Dante leaned away from her and stared. “Why would you think that?”

  With a tiny shrug, she answered, “I might be too much trouble. Mama always said that another baby would have been too much trouble for her, so I just thought—”

  “Your Aunt Ellie isn’t like that, princess. You will always have a home here, with us, and we will love you like you’re our own.”

  Lydia hugged him, then glanced at the bed. With a sly look, she said, “And you will always love Aunt Ellie, won’t you? I mean, always and forever you will love her and sleep in the same bed with her, and let her warm her feet on you when she’s cold?”

  He laughed as quietly as he could. “I will love her always and forever, you little minx, and she can put her cold feet on me anytime she wants.”

  Lydia beamed. “Did you hear that, Aunt Ellie? Did you hear?”

  Dante turned and found Eleanor gazing at him, her eyes wide and shiny with unshed tears. “You’re awake,” he said, inanely.

  “And you love me,” she answered, biting down on her quivering lower lip.

  He whispered something to Lydia, who ran to the bed, kissed her aunt, then hurried from the room.

  “I love you. I adore you. There wasn’t a moment that I didn’t think of you while I was away, Mrs. Templeton. Everywhere I turned, there you were, invading my dreams, interrupting my train of thought at a meeting, reminding me how cold and lonely it is to sleep without you beside me.”

  Eleanor sniffed and wiped her eyes on the sheet. “Oh, Dante, I’m pregnant.”

  “I know,” he said, unable to stop his smile.

  Inhaling deeply, she looked him squarely in the eye. “I will not share you with that Banning woman or any other. So help me, Dante, if you turn to a mistress, I will take Lydia and our child and join a convent. I mean it.”

  He snorted a laugh. “Barely out of an unconscious state, and already you’re issuing your demands.”

  She studied the quilt that covered her. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Ellie, I haven’t had a woman since before you walked into my life, and I will not have another woman but you for the rest of it.”

  “Oh, Dante.” She sighed and scooted over in bed, wincing slightly. “Come here.”

  He paused, concerned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I just have a headache. And you’ll hurt me far more if you don’t hold me.”

  He crawled onto the bed and took her into his arms, drowning in the feel, the smell, the warmth of her. He pressed his nose into her hair, dragged his lips to her neck and kissed her repeatedly.

  “You meant what you said to Lydia? About letting her stay with us?” Her voice was tentative.

  “Of course I meant it. I could strangle that brother of yours, and if he ever does come back, I’ll see to it that he doesn’t get her.”

  “But what about Victor?”

  “Victor will be ours, too.”

  “And…and what about y
our trips to sea? I won’t have you gone for months at a time, Dante Templeton. I simply won’t have it.”

  “Good. Because I’ve already decided that when and if I venture to sea again, we’re going as a family.”

  She pulled his hair back and looked into his face. “All of us? Aboard ship?”

  “Yes. We’ll sail to the Galapagos Islands and let the children run around naked. Hey, maybe we’ll run around naked too.” Like a lecher, he wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  She smiled, unbuttoned his shirt, and rubbed her small, warm hand over his chest. “You are a wonderful man, even if your tattoos could frighten small children.”

  “And you, my wife, have done something no one else has ever attempted to do. You have tamed me. You are the dragon tamer.”

  Epilogue

  SUMMER 1870, NAHANT

  Eleanor opened the east window above her desk, allowing the ocean breeze to drift into the house. She opened her journal and began.

  JUNE 24, 1870

  Young Damien is out in the yard, intent on finishing the boat he and Dante are building before fall. At nine, he is both mischievous and thoughtful, serious and carefree. Dante says he is a combination of himself and our son’s namesake. My heart warms at the sight of our Damien, who is handsome, healthy, and strong.

  She paused, remembering that it was five years ago this month that they all returned from Ecuador and the Galapagos, where they had spent more than three years exploring, discovering, and drawing the plant and animal life that somehow survived on those rocky, lava-ridden spots of land.

  They had just completed thorough studies of the flightless cormorant and the only penguin to live at the equator when they learned of the war at home from a visiting ship to Guayaquil, a sea port on the western coast of Ecuador, where Whispering Winds was normally moored at a pier in the bay when it was not sitting off the coast of one of the islands. By the time they returned, the war was all but over.

  She bent over her journal again.

  Victor and Lydia will return from school soon to spend the remainder of the summer. It’s different around here without them, but certainly not quiet, with the twins constantly galloping—as Butterfly calls it—through the house.