Choices of the Heart (11 page)

“Did you just find that?” Griff asked.

Esther jumped as though he’d pulled her hair down. She turned on him. “You shouldn’t creep up on people.”

“I’m right sorry, Miss Esther, but I never creep anywhere.”

“He just walks quiet,” Ned said. “I wanta walk quiet too. Better hunting that way.”

“Do you know where this came from?” Griff kept his gaze fixed on Esther’s face, her eyes with their gold lights in the morning sunlight, her skin flawless and glowing as though some of that sunlight shone from within, her hair shimmering with hints of copper and bronze amidst the glossy deep brown like polished wood. It all made his mouth go dry. And if he dared look at her mouth or her form, he would want to take the advice of the note writer and keep running.

She clasped her arms across her middle, held on to her upper arms, and gazed past his shoulder. “I don’t know. I found it when the boys came to fetch me.” Her vibrant voice had taken on a bit of a tremor. “I don’t know who wrote it or where it came from or when it got here or—or anything but what you see.”

“It don’t—doesn’t look like the writing of anybody around here.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you—Ned, Jack, go back to the house and get your breakfast.”

“We have to gather the eggs,” Jack said.

“Then gather them and go back to the house.”

The boys, raised more by Griff than their father, obeyed.

Griff turned back to Esther, who hadn’t moved. Even the light tendrils of hair framing her face seemed to hang motionless in the breeze off the ridge.

“Do you have enemies, Esther Cherrett?” he demanded. “Did you bring trouble to my family?”

“No.” She didn’t meet his eyes at first, then shifted her gaze to hold his with an intensity that turned his insides to pine sap. “I can’t say I have friends either, Mr. Tolliver, but I couldn’t bring more trouble to your family than you already have.”

“You’d best be right.”

“A warning of some kind, Mr. Tolliver? Or else what?”

He shrugged. “You can find your own way back east, and fast.”

“You’re telling me—” Her voice rose in pitch, and she paused to take a deep breath. “You have someone stab you. You tell me there’s a feud. Your older sister isn’t married and is likely . . . in trouble she shouldn’t be in, and you’re concerned about me bringing you trouble? I have never in my life known anything like this, and gunshots in the middle of the night and women screaming in the woods without anyone caring to find out—you’re laughing at me.”

He was. He couldn’t help himself. “Women screaming in the woods?” He held his side, which suddenly didn’t feel as healed as he thought it was. “Oh my, that’s a good one.”

“What is so amusing?” She took on that high and mighty city lady voice, and surely her nose went a bit elevated. “I did not imagine it.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t.” Griff made himself stop grinning. “I expect the gunshot was someone keeping a fox away from their chickens, and the screaming was a mountain lion.”

“A mountain lion?” Her cheeks took on the same rosy hue as the sunrise. “Only a mountain lion?”

“You wouldn’t say
only
if you came face-to-face with one when it’s hungry and you’re hunting.”

“But they don’t hurt people, do they?”

“Not usually. They just kind of make the skin crawl when you hear them.”

“Yes, that’s just it. Like spiders all over.”

Griff grimaced. “I don’t much care for that. Don’t much like spiders.”

“Me either.” She smiled, and tension seemed to drain from her. “Did you say something about breakfast?”

“Yes, ma’am. Momma said to bring you to the house so it’ll be hot. And you can meet Pa.” Griff hesitated. “I should warn you that if Pa’s in pain, he can be kind of ornery.”

“People in pain usually are.” She spoke with the authority of someone who held experience in that area.

Griff opened his mouth to ask, then thought better of it. He was leaving her to Zach. The more Griff talked to her about herself, the more difficult that could be.

Except he needed to know a bit more to understand why someone would pin that note to the schoolroom door. No, he’d tell Zach and leave that to him. The less Griff had to do with her, the better, which meant he should be taking his meals somewhere else. Seeing her over the dinner table three times a day might be a bit too much time looking at her face, listening to her voice.

Could she sing? With a voice that rich, she should be able to sing. If he pulled out the dulcimer one evening—

He drew himself up short and turned his back on her. “Come on. The day is wasting.” He didn’t wait to see if she followed him but strode across the hard-packed earth of the ground between the old cabin and the new house, scattering half a dozen cats feeding on something feathered. He wished he had one of those fine gardens like some of the houses close to town had, not herbs and vegetables like Momma and the girls kept, but flowers and bushes and useless things. Everything here was for use, not beauty.

And he’d never cared until the woman behind him had stepped from the cloud of fire smoke and leaf shadow and into the sunlight before him.

Esther’s cheeks felt too warm for the temperate morning air. Likely she would blush forever over being so panicked about a mountain lion’s cry. Not that she wanted to encounter one. The idea sent a shiver up her spine. They might not have much to do with people, but they were still potentially dangerous wild animals. The most she’d had to worry about before was the occasional poisonous snake—easy to spot, easier to avoid, and not terribly difficult to kill. One couldn’t outrun, outclimb, or outkill a mountain lion.

Tangling her feet in her petticoats to keep up with Griff’s long stride, Esther rubbed her arms inside their narrow sleeves. Woman in peril or not, those screams were going to give her nightmares.

If the note didn’t.

Another missive. Cryptic. Mean. Too similar to the ones she had brought with her to keep her parents from finding them. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but then, she hadn’t recognized the handwriting of the letters she had secretly received back in Seabourne. Yet surely no one could have located her. Not so soon.

She slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the scrap of paper she had tucked into it. Regardless of who had sent it, she would add it to the others tucked away beneath her mattress. She would say nothing about it, pretend she hadn’t received it, as she had pretended she hadn’t seen the others. Griff wouldn’t say anything either if she asked him not to—perhaps.

She’d forgotten about the younger boys having seen the note. They said they couldn’t read much, but they could read enough, and they brought it up the instant they slid onto the bench at the far end of the breakfast table.

“Miss Cherrett got herself a note this morning,” the younger one, Ned, said.

“It weren’t nice,” Jack added. “Said she was to keep running.”

“I’m sorry.” Griff met her gaze from across the long table, which was polished and embellished with carving enough to belong in a mansion dining room but handmade by Mr. Tolliver. “I should have warned them not to speak up.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Mrs. Tolliver glanced around the table. “What is this about?”

“Nothing important,” Esther said at the same time Griff said, “Likely a prank.”

“But why would someone want her to keep running?” Ned asked. “I ain’t seen her run nowhere.”

“I haven’t seen her,” Liza corrected him. “You gotta speak good in front of the teacher.”

Esther would have to tell Liza that one spoke well, not good. At that moment, though, she appreciated the distraction and offered the middle Tolliver daughter a bright smile. “That’s what I’m here to teach, I think.”

“Only if we want to go to school in a city,” Jack, somewhere around twelve years old, pointed out. “I don’t wanta go to the city. They smell bad and got too many people.”

“But the ladies wear such pretty clothes.” Liza sighed. “Like your dress, Miss Cherrett. What do you call this stuff?” She touched one finger to Esther’s sleeve.

“Muslin.” Esther shifted on her chair.

One didn’t talk about clothes and the like with men seated at the table. At the same time, it stopped them from talking about that note burning a hole through her pocket.

“Can we have some, Momma?” Liza asked.

Mrs. Tolliver glanced toward her husband.

He sat silently in his chair, his shoulders hunched like someone trying to hide. Pain lines etched a face that bore the same spectacular bone structure that had produced his beautiful children—all beautiful except for Bethann. His hair was red like hers, his eyes green. The children’s eyes too. Like Bethann’s, his mouth was thin and pursed.

He pursed it further. “We didn’t bring her here to give our girls notions about wearing fancy clothes. They can wear those if they get themselves husbands who can afford it.”

“But Pa,” Brenna whined, “those kind of men don’t go for girls in homespun.”

“You’re too young anyway.” He pushed back his chair. “I’m going to the workshop.” He stalked from the room, every footfall sending a twitch through his shoulders as though he flinched from the pressure of putting each foot down.

Perhaps she could persuade him to drink an infusion of white willow bark. Or get him to go to the mineral baths in Bath County or Berkeley Springs. Many people with painful backs enjoyed relief—

But she was no longer a healer.

Esther stared down at her half-empty porridge bowl. It was corn porridge, something she wasn’t fond of, but she’d eaten as much as she could to be polite. Sweetened with molasses, it wasn’t too bad, though now that she couldn’t swim, as she’d loved to do in the ocean, she would have to walk a great deal so she didn’t get too plump for her gowns, or she’d be wearing homespun too.

“Maybe for Christmas,” Mrs. Tolliver was saying.

“But the Independence Day celebration is coming,” Liza protested. “I’d like something nice for that.”

“You have something nice for that.” Mrs. Tolliver stood and began to gather up dishes. “Brenna, it’s your turn to wash, then get out there and weed—”

Griff slammed his coffee mug onto the table hard enough to rattle the flatware on the plates. “We were discussing someone sending Miss Cherrett a note. Since the boys mentioned it, we need to talk about it.”

“We don’t know nothing about it,” the children chorused in a way that sounded rather too practiced and coordinated not to have been performed before.

Mrs. Tolliver scowled at them. “I’ve heard that once too often to believe it. If I find out any of you know—”

“We don’t this time,” Liza said. “We never left the house until the boys went to fetch her, except for Griff last night.”

“Bethann wasn’t even gone,” Brenna added.

“Where is Bethann now?” Griff asked.

Liza curled her upper lip. “In bed. She says she has a headache.”

Esther started to rise, certain she knew what ailed Bethann. Perhaps if the sickness was bad enough, she would accept help, a cup of ginger tea, or some mint—

She gripped the edge of the table as though a riptide would suck her up the stairs to Bethann’s bedside. “May I help with something?”

“No, ma’am.” Mrs. Tolliver smiled at her. “You go on and tell us what you need for the schoolroom. We got our four youngsters here, and my sister is sending her two boys. If you need supplies, Griff can go up to Christiansburg to get them.”

“Christiansburg?” Esther’s head shot up. “Aren’t there any other towns closer?”

“Not that’ll have schoolbooks and things,” Griff said, watching her from beneath half-lowered lids. “Is something wrong with that?”

Only the doctor and midwife, who had literally known Esther since her birth. One of them, Phoebe Lee Docherty, had delivered Esther into the world.

“No, I just thought it rather far away.” Which was partly the truth.

“It is. Seventy-five miles will take me more time than I should be away after being gone these past six weeks.” Griff rose. “I’m off to the fields and may look in on the mine. Don’t expect me for dinner.” Without a word or a glance at Esther, he strode from the house, his curls lifting from his head in the breeze from the opening door.

He needed a brush and a pair of shears. Esther could neaten up those curls. She’d done so for her brothers often enough.

But Griffin Tolliver wasn’t her brother. She had no business touching his hair, let alone running her fingers through it. But it looked soft and springy. Pulling out one of those curls and watching it rewind itself—

She jerked her shoulders straight and clasped her hands behind her back as though they had actually reached for a curl. “If you have some black paint and a smooth board, I can make do without books and even paper for a while. I have chalk.”

“We got slates,” Jack said. “The chalk’s kinda broke into small pieces, but we got it.”

“Then we’ll manage fine.” Esther smiled at him.

A flush ran up his neck.

With a silent sigh, she turned away. “I’ll go inspect the school and see what supplies are there.”

“We’ll come with you,” Ned offered.

“You have chores,” Mrs. Tolliver reminded them. “Get to ’em.” She flashed a sympathetic glance at Esther. “Just tell them to get out of your hair if you need to. And make ’em work hard at their schooling. The younger ones need to get off this mountain if they can. There ain’t room for everyone now, and if the fighting continues . . .” She raised the corner of her apron to her eyes. “God surely sent you to us.”