Yankee Wife (7 page)

Devon's response was gentle, and by that very fact it shamed her. “Is that what makes you so strong, Lydia? ‘Plain, stubborn pride'?”

“Maybe,” Lydia confessed, flushing. He was right; she held tightly to her pride, fearing that she would be weak without it.

When they were halfway up the brick driveway, they encountered Charlotte, who wore a flowing gauze dress and had draped herself in thin silk scarves of all colors. She stared dreamily ahead, not seeming to notice them, and Lydia was amazed.

She started to follow the girl, only to have Devon grip her elbow lightly and stay her.

“Don't worry,” he whispered, his eyes full of warm laughter. “Charlotte is pretending again—my guess would be that she's been reading some story set in Arabia.”

Lydia felt an upsurge of joy. After the horrors she'd seen in Union field hospitals and prison camps, it was wonderful to be reminded that young girls still played dress-up and cloaked themselves in dreams. Being in Quade's Harbor was like waking up to sunshine after a frightening and tempestuous night.

“Maybe she'll be an actress when she grows up,” Lydia speculated.

Devon touched an index finger to his lips. “Don't let Brig hear you say that. He has very conventional ideas where his daughters are concerned—he'd rather see them join the circus than tread the boards, I think.”

They had reached the house, and instead of using the formal front entrance, they went around to the back and stepped into Jake's kitchen. He'd set the big oak table next to the window for five, but only Millie was there.

Devon washed at the pump in the sink, while Lydia used a basin of warm water Jake had set out for her.

The meal consisted of cold meat, bread, applesauce, and vegetables preserved at the height of last year's gardening season. Charlotte drifted in midway through, like a beautiful ghost, and ate delicate portions without ever acknowledging the others at the table with so much as a look.

“We're invisible,” Millie explained in a stage whisper.

“Oh,” Lydia replied.

After they'd eaten, she helped Jake clear the table and tidy up the kitchen, but the cook refused to let her wash the dishes. Devon had gone back to his building project, Millie was curled like a kitten in one of the big chairs in her father's study, sound asleep, Aunt Persephone was reading in the main parlor, and Charlotte was still wandering about looking tragic. Lydia climbed the main stairway and tapped discreetly at doors until she found the newlyweds' room.

Polly was standing at the window, gazing out at the endless panorama of sea and sky and mountains. She was still wearing her dressing gown, and her hair trailed down her back in a gleaming tumble of dark curls.

“Polly?” Lydia inquired softly. “Are you ill?”

When the other woman turned to look at her, Lydia saw pain in the beautiful hazel eyes. A single tear slid down her cheek. “No. No, I'm well enough. Considering.”

Lydia stepped into the room and closed the door, even though Polly had not actually invited her. “Then why are you crying?”

Polly sighed. “It would seem silly to someone like you.” Lydia had told the other woman something of the suffering she'd seen in the war, while they were sailing up from San Francisco.

Lydia shook her head. “No one's troubles are unimportant,” she said.

Devon's bride suddenly covered her face with both hands, sobbed, and collapsed onto the edge of the bed. “Oh, dear God,” she wailed. “You don't know what I've done!
He
doesn't know what I've done!”

Lydia went to sit beside Polly on the mattress, cautiously putting an arm around the woman's trembling shoulders. “What is it?” she asked softly, certain the crime could not be anything really terrible. On the other hand, people often brought secrets with them when they came west; sometimes they were pursued by them.

Polly gave a mournful wail and wept on, so Lydia waited patiently. It was in her nature to give comfort, she thought fleetingly.

“Polly?” Lydia prompted, after a long time.

She swallowed. “I'm in love with Devon!” she choked out miserably.

For a moment Lydia was full of relief. Then she saw the look of torment in Polly's eyes. “Is that so bad?” she asked gently. “He's your husband.”

Polly shuddered. “No,” she said. “It was all a trick.”

Lydia just sat there, staring stupidly, horrified. “A trick?” she asked finally.

Polly bolted off the bed and went to the bureau with resolve. She began jerking open drawers and snatching things out, and for one awful second Lydia thought she was packing to leave Quade's Harbor, and Devon, forever.

“Polly, what did you mean when you said it was all a trick?”

The erstwhile Mrs. Quade disappeared behind a changing screen. “I shouldn't have said even that much,” she muttered. Then she peeked around the ornately carved maple frame. “You're not going to tell Devon or his brother, are you?”

By then Lydia's frustration had mounted to a dangerous level. “Devon Quade is a very fine man, Polly. If you do anything to hurt him, you'll have me for an enemy.”

Again Polly looked around the screen. This time her eyes were narrowed. “Say. You'd better not have your cap set for my Devon,” she said. “If you do, I'll pull your ears off!”

Lydia wasn't intimidated. “
Is
he ‘your Devon'?” she Persisted.

Again Polly's pretty face crumpled into tears. “I do love him, I swear it.”

“But you tricked him somehow,” Lydia pressed. “What happened back there in San Francisco?”

Polly came out from behind the screen, wearing a dramatic green gown that set off her dark hair and lovely pale skin. She turned her back and Lydia automatically began fastening her buttons.

“Nat Malachi and me, that's the man I've been with since I came out to San Francisco, we had a good business going. He'd pose as a preacher and pretend to marry me to a miner or a timberman, and I'd steal hiS wallet after—well, when he was sleeping. We intended to do the same thing to Devon, except—except when he touched me, something changed.
I
changed.”

Lydia was stunned. She'd read of such doings in the penny dreadfuls, but she'd certainly never encountered a perpetrator. For a long interval she just gaped at Polly in wonderment.

“You've got to tell him the truth,” she finally said, when Polly began to snuffle again.

Polly shook her head wildly. “No. And don't you tell him, either. He'd throw me out in the street!”

Lydia had a hard time imagining such a scene, although there could be no doubt that Devon would be furiously hurt when he learned of the deception.

Polly approached, gripped Lydia hard by the shoulders. “You won't breathe a word of what I've said!” she cried in a hoarse whisper, the words forming both an angry plea and a piteous question.

Rising, Lydia shrugged away the other woman's hold, forcing Polly to step back. Lydia's dignity was one of the few graces left to her. “I can't promise that I won't speak up,” she said evenly. She was still human enough, she noted, for an unseemly sense of triumph to race through her spirit, making her drunk with the knowledge that Devon was unmarried after all. This was fleeting, though, for Lydia knew he loved Polly, she'd seen it too clearly.

Polly's hazel eyes filled with tears. “Dear God, he'll never forgive me,” she whispered brokenly.

Lydia had no way of knowing whether that was true or not. She touched Polly's arm in an effort to lend some small reassurance, and left the room.

The bright shine of the day had been tarnished, and Lydia wanted only to retreat to her room and remain there until dinner. She had a personal rule, however: when she wanted most to hide from the world, she must instead wade right out into the middle of it and play her part in things.

Lydia found a shawl, as there was a breeze coming up from the shore, and left the house. Since she didn't want to encounter Brigham, she avoided the mill and his tree-stump office. And of course she wasn't ready to face Devon, either, knowing what she did, so she steered away from his building site as well.

Lydia followed a path behind the great house, through a thicket of blackberry vines that snatched at her skirts, past giant ferns and clusters of hemlock and cedar and pine. Gossamer sunshine soaked through the leaves and, here and there, hearty ivy grew up the trunk of a tree like a green coat. Through it all was woven the secret songs of the birds.

At the top of the high knoll there was a small, tree-sheltered clearing, and Lydia drew in her breath in surprise. There, square in the center, was a tiny cabin of unplaned logs. The door was at the far left, with three stone steps leading up to the high threshold, and a single window was set in at the opposite end.

The place seemed oddly enchanted to Lydia, perhaps because she'd come upon it unexpectedly. It wouldn't have surprised her if Hansel and Gretel's witch had come hobbling out to greet her.

Smiling at the fancy, she put her hands behind her back and called out politely, “Hello? Is anyone at home?”

There was no reply, except for the irritable complaints of the birds, who were no doubt remarking to each other that she had a nerve, coming to call without an invitation.

Lydia walked around the outside of the small house, looking at the neatly made brick chimney of the fireplace. There was no back door, she found, and no other window besides the one in front, but that wasn't surprising. Indian attacks were not unheard of in this part of the country, and the fewer points of entry a place had, the less vulnerable were its inhabitants.

She recalled Millie's story, about her mother and Charlotte hiding under the floorboards when Charlotte was a baby, and laid one hand to the sturdy frame surrounding the door. Surely this was the same cabin, the home Brigham had built for his young bride.

The thought gave Lydia an unexpected sting, and she sat down on a flagstone step, resting her chin in one hand. Sweetbriar clambered lushly up a crude trellis beside her, covered in fragrant pink blossoms, and she watched solemnly as a fat bee fumbled from one flower to another.

She tried to imagine Brigham's wife, but no picture came to mind. She hadn't noticed a likeness on display anywhere in the big house, at least not those parts that she frequented, but then she hadn't been looking for one.

Lydia sat awhile, enjoying the scent of the sweetbriar, then stood, her hands on her hips. The whole time, of course, her newest dilemma had been churning beneath the surface of her thoughts. She could not go to Devon with what she knew about Polly, for he had been kind to her and she wouldn't hurt him so cruelly. Perhaps she might tell Brigham, since he was clearly the head of the Quade family, but she feared his reaction. It was only too easy to imagine him in a towering rage, shouting at everyone, perhaps alienating his brother forever.

Walking back down the path toward the main house, Lydia considered speaking with Aunt Persephone about the matter, but she ruled that idea out as well. The whole situation was simply too delicate, and besides, she knew so little about the old woman's temperament. Perhaps such news would vex her to the point of hysteria, or even apoplexy or heart failure.

Jake Feeny was sitting on the back step, a cigar jutting out of his mouth and a huge basin of potatoes at his side. He peeled one deftly with a paring knife and dropped it into a pot of water as Lydia approached.

Lydia smiled. The cook's methods looked none too sanitary, but she'd already surmised that Mr. Feeny kept his kitchen clean and his person tidy as well. On the frontier, one had to make certain concessions.

She joined him, smoothing her skirt beneath her before she sat. “Is there another knife?” she asked, reaching into the basin for a potato.

Mr. Feeny surrendered the blade he'd been using, giving Lydia a pensive but not unfriendly look as she began to scrape away the thick brown peel. “You scrape many spuds back where you come from?”

Lydia laughed and nodded toward Brigham's peak, with its long, noisy flume and rich stands of timber crowded so close together that it seemed there would be no room for a tree to fall. “Enough to make a pile the size of that mountain over there, Mr. Feeny,” she said.

The cook didn't return her smile, but he rubbed his beard-stubbled chin and looked her over with solemn respect. “Jake,” he replied gruffly. “Call me Jake.”

B
RIGHAM SWEATED AS HE WORKED HIS END OF THE CROSS-CUT
saw. Despite years of such labor, the muscles girding his stomach and lower back ached with a poignant violence, and the flesh beneath the calluses on his palms stung where he gripped the handle. He set his jaw and continued to thrust and draw, but his mind would not be so easily controlled as his body; every time he let down his guard for so much as a moment, his thoughts went meandering off after Lydia McQuire.

He'd already considered her womanly figure, which needed some plumping up, in his view, and her soft, glimmering hair, but it was her violet eyes that haunted him. They'd seen much suffering, those eyes, and there were still faint smudges beneath them, shadows of the bitter sights they'd looked upon. And yet he glimpsed a capacity for joy in their depths, as well as an almost pagan capacity for passion.

Brigham shook his head. He was imagining things, he told himself. Lydia was tough and strong, but all the whimsy and the poetry and the fire that went into the making of a woman had been crushed by the ugliness she'd encountered.

If he had any sense at all, he decided grimly, he'd write out a bank draft, load her on the next mail boat out of the harbor, and forget she'd ever existed.

He smiled and ran one arm across his brow to soak up some of the perspiration burning his eyes. Then he took a firm grip on the saw handle again, falling gracefully back into the rhythm. Trust Devon to bring home the sauciest little Yankee ever to sprout in New England, and hand her over like one of those souvenir cards with the silly pictures on the front.

His partner let out a yell, and Brigham was so distracted that he barely thrust himself back away from the tree in time. It fell with a rushing sound, made thunder as it struck the ground, and for a moment the earth quaked beneath Brigham's cork boots.

“Damn it, Brig,” the other man yelled, gesturing furiously toward the tree, “that was my own personal lucky saw, and you let it go right down with the timber!”

Brigham wiped his face again. He would have liked to strip away his shirt and work bare-chested, but that was dangerous; the branches of a falling tree could rip a man's hide open like the point of a fine sword. “Quit grousing and try to pry it out,” he said shortly. It wasn't Zeb he was riled at, though; he was angry with himself for breaking one of his own rules: a man should never think about whiskey, food, or women when he was working in the woods. The indulgence could get him, or someone else, killed.

Zeb, a skinny young South Carolinian with the testy temperament of a bullwhacker, plunged into the fragrant branches to search for his saw.

Brigham turned away, only to find his nervous clerk, Jack Harrington, hovering behind him. The boy's round spectacles had slid to the end of his nose, and he pushed them back with a practiced middle finger. He had a pencil over one ear, and he clutched a pad of paper to his bosom as though it were the Holy Writ.

“God's balls, Harrington, don't sneak up on me like that! If I'd had an ax in my hand, I might have cut you down like a blue spruce!”

Harrington trembled inside his cheap mail-order suit, and Brig wondered why the little squirrel couldn't wear oiled canvas pants, work boots, suspenders and cotton shirts, like everybody else. “It's about Miss Lydia McQuire,” he said. “Mrs. Chilcote tells me the woman has been engaged as a governess, but I can find no written record of your authorization.”

An oversight like that could keep Harrington awake nights, Brig supposed, feeling a sort of wry sympathy. “That's because I haven't decided whether to put Miss McQuire on the payroll or buy her passage back to San Francisco. I'll let you know when I make up my mind.”

Brigham looked back toward the tree he and Zeb had just felled. Already, men were all over it like two-legged bugs, sawing away the branches, shouting to each other, some of them singing a bawdy song in rough chorus. Then he turned to stride back down the mountain to his office, and Harrington scrambled along beside him.

“I don't know, sir,” he blithered. “I don't much hold with such loose ends. It seems to me that a decision should be made and acted upon.”

Brigham sighed. “I'll have to speak with the lady before I give you an answer,” he said reasonably.

“Does she want to stay?”

Brig's heart swelled slightly. “I don't know,” he answered, always pragmatic. “For all I can say, she might be swimming out to meet the next boat even as we speak.”

Harrington blinked three times rapidly, smoothed his slicked-down hair with one palm, and said, “Oh. You were
joking
, sir. That was very humorous. Very humorous indeed.”

Brigham rolled his eyes. “Haven't you got anything better to do than devil me?” he asked. “Go find the McQuire woman yourself, and ask her if she wants to stay on as a companion to my daughters. Tell her I'll pay her a dollar a week and provide her with board and room.”

The clerk nodded again, and scurried off. Harrington was never happy unless he had some crisis to fuss about, be it manufactured or otherwise, but he did his job well enough, and that was all Brigham cared about.

Reaching the bench where the water buckets sat, lined up and kept brimming by a full-grown Chinaman no bigger than Millie, Brig dipped out a ladleful, lowered his head, and poured the icy liquid over the back of his neck. He spat out a swear word at the chill and then shook his head, sending droplets flying in every direction, like a dog that's just been sprung from a washtub.

He was hot and bone-tired and, for the first time since the start of Isabel's decline, he was actually looking forward to going back to that grand house he'd built with such confidence. He went into the office, gathered up a stack of ledger books, and started for home.

Millie was swinging on the gate at the base of the walk when he reached the fence, and the delighted surprise in her small face shamed him. So did the worried expression that quickly chased the joy from her eyes.

“Are you sick, Papa? Did somebody get hurt up on the mountain?”

The questions stung, and he would have hoisted the little girl up into his arms if he hadn't been covered in fir sap and drenched with sweat. “No, child,” he said, ruffling her hair as the gate creaked backward, carrying her with it, so that he could pass.

Millie hurried after him, and he slowed his pace so she could keep up. “We could go fishing,” she said, with such breathless daring that Brigham stopped in midstep and crouched to face her. “The sun will be up for a long time yet, and I'll bet the trout are biting real good.”

Brigham smiled. He wanted a bath, a drink, and some time to assemble his thoughts, but he couldn't bring himself to extinguish the eager light in his daughter's eyes. “Do we have any poles around here?” he asked.

She bounced on the balls of her feet in her excitement, and Brigham thought of all the times he'd told himself it was enough to provide well for his daughters. Foolishly, he thought, he'd expected Charlotte and Millie to realize he loved them because he gave them food and shelter. “Yes!” she cried. “They're out in the shed, and I know where to dig for worms, too!”

Brigham kissed the child lightly on the forehead and rose to his feet. “You go and find what we need, and I'll clean up a little. Then we'll catch a mess of trout for dinner.”

With a whoop, Millie shot off toward the rear of the house, a streak of blue calico crossing the lawn, and Brigham followed at a slower meter. He had never guessed that so little notice from him would please the child so greatly.

Reaching the back porch, he entered the empty kitchen, filled a large basin from the hot water reservoir attached to the big cookstove, and went back outside. He'd stripped off his shirt and was splashing his upper body industriously when he became aware of her, stiffened, and turned his head.

Lydia was standing directly behind him, still as a doe scenting danger, her arms full of kindling, her glorious, tousled hair like a honey-colored cloud around her face. Her breasts rose and fell with the rapid course of her breathing, and her cheeks were as pink as if he'd caught her in some scandal.

He felt his heart thud against his chest, as though trying to break free and somehow bond itself with hers. He shook his head, to clear his mind of the fancy, flung the contents of the basin into the blackberry bushes, and reached for the towel he'd hung over the railing beside the step.

She approached the porch resolutely, giving him as wide a berth as she possibly could, but in the end the whole effort proved futile because he didn't move and neither did the kitchen door. Lydia hesitated again, glanced from Brigham to the doorway and back again, then started for the steps.

He waited until she was so close he could have touched her by taking a deep breath, then stepped back to let her pass. He felt her skirts brush against his thigh, even through the thick fabric of his trousers, and the contact sent a subtle heat surging up into his groin. The scents of castile soap and pine pitch lingered behind her, and suddenly Brigham was overwhelmed by a desire so keen that he broke out in a fresh sweat.

After a few moments of effort, Brigham went inside the house. To his isappointment, as well as his relief, Lydia was nowhere in sight. He climbed the rear stairs, strode along the hallway to his bedroom, and found a clean shirt. When he returned to the back porch, Millie was waiting patiently, a wooden fishing pole in each hand, while Charlotte stood a short distance away, watching.

Brigham whistled as he led the way toward the pond high on the hillside, beyond the old cabin and the Indian burial ground. “Come along if you want, Charlotte,” he said easily, and she immediately fell into step beside him, although she kept her chin high and offered no comment on the proceedings.

When they reached the pond's edge, Millie rushed off to dig for worms, and Charlotte and Brigham sat side by side on the grassy bank. Brig was making sure the hooks were secure on the fishing lines, and Charlotte started weaving wild honeysuckle into a chain.

“Are you going to marry Miss McQuire?” she asked presently, without looking at him.

Brigham smiled to himself, making certain his amusement wasn't audible in his voice. “No, Charlotte, I don't think so.”

The girl sighed and went on with her weaving, frowning intently as she worked. “She wouldn't be suitable,” she declared. “Miss McQuire was a nurse in the Great Civil War and she's seen naked men.”

This time Brigham couldn't help chuckling. “And that makes her unsuitable?” he asked, setting the poles aside, stretching out on the grass with a sigh and cupping his hands behind his head.

Charlotte looked over at him with soft brown eyes. “Of course it does, Papa,” she said, enunciating the words carefully, as though he'd lost either his hearing or his good sense since breakfast. “No proper lady has ever seen a man without his clothes!”

He raised himself onto one elbow. “In a way, Charlotte, I'm glad you hold that particular opinion. But there are exceptions, and tending the sick and injured is one of them. Miss McQuire could hardly be expected to treat only wounds that weren't hidden under clothing.”

Charlotte's high, finely sculpted cheekbones flushed with color, and she averted her eyes. Once again Brigham was quietly angry with Isabel for leaving their daughters the way she had. There were certain things he simply didn't know how to discuss with them.

“You like Miss McQuire, don't you?”

Brigham sighed, recalling the way he'd reacted when Lydia had stepped past him on her way into the kitchen earlier. “I think she's a bullheaded little tyrant with a high regard for her own opinions,” he answered honestly. Then, sadly, he smiled. “Yes, Charlotte. I like her.”

Charlotte had finished twining the honeysuckle into a floral wreath, and she laid it on top of her head like a crown. “Well, I've decided to keep my distance,” she said, making a face as Millie came running back with a handful of squirming pink and brown earthworms. “You can just bet Miss McQuire will decide she misses her naked men and go right back to the war.”

“The war is over, Charlotte,” Brigham said, grinning as his younger daughter thrust the bounty of the soil into his face. He took a fat worm and baited one of the hooks. “And all the naked men have put on their clothes and gone home.”

Millie's gray eyes went wide. “What naked men?”

Brigham laughed, rolled to his feet, and cast a line into the calm waters of the spring-fed pond. “Never mind,” he said.

Charlotte flung herself backward with a dramatic sigh and cried, “Oh, life, oh, life, thou art agony of the keenest sort!”

Millie looked askance at her sister, after tossing her own fishing line in after Brigham's. “Oh, Charlotte, oh, Charlotte,” she countered, in a high, prissy voice, “thou art stupid as a stump!”

“Enough,” Brigham said sternly, when Charlotte jumped up, prepared to defend her honor, and Millie let out a shriek of delighted terror. “You'll scare away the fish.”

As it happened, they returned to the house an hour and a half later with enough fresh trout for a fine supper. Millie was wild with excitement, her cheeks sunburned, her hair all a-tangle, and Charlotte was absorbed in one of the parts she was constantly playing. Brigham's bruised heart felt as though it had been dipped in light.