Choices of the Heart (29 page)

But she had kissed him, and his heart had been so full he wanted her to be as perfect as Zach thought she was.

He retrieved the dress, caught a whiff of her sweet flower scent, and started to shove the gown back under the bed.

That was when he caught sight of the slip of paper.

Maybe she hadn’t simply run off with his horse and no other word. Maybe she had written a note, and his racing into the cabin had sent it sailing beneath the bed.

He reached to retrieve it and felt a stack of papers there. Wrong to look, of course. But she had gone without taking these, which seemed strange if she were running off. Leaving clothes behind was one thing. A body could get new clothes. But these looked like letters, and folk liked keeping letters from family, from sweethearts. Momma had one from her great-grandpa to her great-grandmomma when he was off fighting the English. Nobody could hardly read it now, but Momma kept it anyway.

Griff drew the bundle toward him. He would put these where he could send them to her family if, God forbid, he didn’t find her.

A word on the top sheet of paper leaped out and struck him as though Zach’s fist had landed squarely on his nose.
Jezebel.
That was all. The single word scrawled with thick, black lines.

He couldn’t stop himself from glancing through the other letters after that. Some said more. They couldn’t say less. The meanings were the same, the message clear.

Esther had run from Seabourne for a reason.

Something bad, he’d told Momma. The letters before him were proof. They just didn’t say why.

And now she’d run again.

He shoved the letters between the mattress and bed frame, feeling more paper already there, and charged to the barn. He would take the other horse they’d bought for riding. Bethann used it often, though not so much lately. Of late, she’d been walking out alone, though Griff suspected she was meeting someone. He supposed he should have been following her to find out who was responsible for her trouble this time, but he knew what was expected of him if he learned the truth—a forced marriage at the end of a shotgun if necessary. Unless the man wasn’t free.

Griff didn’t want to know the truth if it was that last possibility.

He tossed a saddle on the mare. She was a bit small for him, and he couldn’t ride her far. He hoped he didn’t have to ride her far. He headed for the gate.

“Griff,” Momma called from the house, waving a bundle.

He rode up and took it from her. “I’ll find her, Momma, never you fear.”

“You’d better.” Momma scowled up at him. “And you’ll do right by her when you do.”

“I can’t do that. She’s made it more than clear she don’t want me.”

“Doesn’t,” Liza called from inside the kitchen.

Zach’s fever started in the middle of the afternoon. Dozing on a sofa, Esther started up at the sound of his restless thrashing and mumbling about heartless wenches.

“I’m not heartless, Zach.” She dropped to her knees beside his makeshift bed and touched his brow.

It burned like a sunbaked stone.

“Water,” she called to whoever might overhear her. “As cold as you can get it.”

Ice would be better, but they got precious little of it there in the winter months, certainly not enough to save for the summer.

“And lots of cloths,” she added.

Footfalls pounded down the hall, those of a child from the sound of it. Someone had been assigned to sit outside the sickroom parlor and wait for her instructions. Esther had gone out only once to freshen up with some cold water on her face, a trip outside, and a bowl of stew. The rest of the time, she remained with her patient, watching, waiting, knowing the fever would come. He was young and strong and he might overcome it, but fevers took a body without warning. They sapped the greatest of strengths, and Zach had lost a great deal of blood, weakening him already. Beef or other red meat broth would help eventually. For now, however, he seemed able to stomach only sips of water.

Hannah entered with a pitcher of water and a stack of cloths. “Is this enough?”

“If you keep replenishing it every few minutes.” Esther took the pitcher and dipped a cloth into it. “He’s burning up.”

“That’s bad, ain’t it?”

“I won’t lie to you. It isn’t good. But you don’t look well yourself.”

Hannah shrugged. “I’ll do.” She sank onto the sofa with a yawn. “Tired, is all. We didn’t none of us get much sleep last night.”

“Did any of you get anything out of him about what happened?” Esther began to bathe Zach’s face and chest with the cold water.

“You mean like who did it?” Hannah returned. “No doubt about it. It was a Tolliver.”

“Did he say so?”

“It weren’t no Gosnoll or Brooks. Might have been a Neff since they’ve sided with the Tollivers, for all they’re my mother’s people too.”

“Why are there sides, Hannah? You’re all family. This isn’t medieval Scotland.”

“What?”

“Scotland a few hundred years ago when the clans feuded with one another for territory. There’s lots of land here.”

“Not good land. Can’t hardly grow a thing here, and the ferry don’t bring passengers all the time.” Hannah curled her legs beneath her on the hard cushion of the sofa. “The trees might be valuable. Walnut makes for fine furniture. But they’re too hard to get out to folk.”

“So there’s the mine.” Esther continued to sponge cold water over Zach.

He continued to mutter and try to thrash.

“He’s gonna break open that wound,” Hannah said, her voice tight.

Esther nodded. “I’m concerned about that too. It’s like he’s trying to get away from something.”

“He was trying to get home,” Hannah said. “He kept saying he had to get home for his lesson. Don’t know what he was talking about.”

“His reading lesson.” Esther’s eyes swam just a little. “Didn’t he tell you I’ve been giving him reading lessons?”

“No.” Hannah shook her head, grimaced, and pressed her hand to her brow.

“Headache?” Esther asked.

“Like a horse galloping through my skull.”

“I have some willow—horse!” The cloth dropped onto Zach’s chest with a splat. “What’s happened to Griff’s horse?”

“Griff.” Zach spoke loud and clear. “May that horse break his neck.”

“Zachary Brooks!” Hannah exclaimed. “I don’t care if he is a Tolliver, you don’t talk thatta way if you’re a-dying.”

“He’s not dying,” Esther said to convince herself as much as Hannah.

The fever had come on too fast, too strong for her comfort and skill.

“But you still shouldn’t talk that way.” She recommenced bathing him in cold water. “He’s your cousin.”

Clarity shone in Zach’s eyes at that moment, a good sign. “He stole you.”

“I’m not yours, Zach. I’m not Griff’s either.”

“He kissed you.”

Hannah caught her breath.

“He was distracting me from the behavior of his drunken cousins, is all. And I’m a passably pretty girl he was alone with in the woods at night. It meant nothing to him.”

There, she’d said it aloud, put voice to her fears about Griff’s intentions.

But Zach wasn’t listening. His eyes clouded. His lids drooped.

“About Griff’s horse?” Esther asked.

“Mattie took care of it,” Hannah said. “He walked it back over the ridge and let it go.”

“He just let it go? That’s a valuable animal.”

“It’ll go home.”

“I’d have sent a message if I realized. Since I left without a word, they’ll be wondering where I am.”

Or would they? She had told Griff she would leave. No doubt he thought her capable of wanting away from him so badly that she would abandon her possessions save for her medical bag, that she would ride off the mountain on his horse, then send the beast back. He would no doubt be relieved to have her gone, especially if someone unearthed those letters beneath her mattress. They would confirm his belief that she was everything he thought of her and worse.

All the preaching about how a body could make a clean start in life was false. She had traveled about four hundred miles from home, gone to a place remote from anywhere else in the country, and yet her past had followed her.

She picked up the pitcher of water and a packet from her satchel. “I’ll get some fresh water and make you some white willow bark tea.”

“Can’t you use it on Zach if it helps the pain?” Hannah asked.

“I’ve given him an opiate. I don’t have much or I’d give him more.”

It wasn’t enough, with the way he kept mumbling and moving as though trying to escape the ache in his side.

“And I’m not certain if I should mix the two.”

Perhaps a little wouldn’t hurt. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what Momma had said about that. They only used the tea for headaches and when a woman’s cycles pained her too much. Surely a little would be all right.

The Brooks kitchen lay quiet in the mid-afternoon, too early for supper preparations. Finding the water in a bucket by the door too warm, she set a kettle to boiling for the tea and went outside to pump fresh water.

Mattie appeared and took the handle from her. “You shouldn’t be doing that, Miss Cherrett. You’ll blister your hands.”

“Thank you.” She returned to the house and made the white willow bark tea for Hannah, stirring in some honey to counter the bitterness. She added honey to another cupful and carried both cups back to the parlor, Mattie following with the water.

“Drink this.” She gave Hannah a cup of the tea. “It tastes rather awful, but it works better than anything except for maybe feverfew, which isn’t as easy to get.”

“You’re talking a funny language to me.” Hannah smiled. “So tired of these headaches. Do you know what makes them happen?”

“Perhaps.” She glanced at Mattie in the doorway, gazing at his brother. “We can talk about it later.”

Hannah nodded, sipped the tea, and grimaced. “You sure this ain’t poison?”

“I’m sure.” Esther returned to Zach’s side.

She spent another half hour bathing him with cold water, then inspected the bandage and the wound beneath. It was puffy and red but showed no sign of a serious infection. Along with the fact that the wound wasn’t deep, her hope of his survival grew.

But he woke later and complained of the pain. He clutched at Esther’s hand hard enough to hurt. “Like I keep getting stabbed,” he whispered.

“I’m afraid to give you more opium. A man can become dependent on it too easily, I know, but I don’t know how much that takes.”

She didn’t remember that part of Momma’s lessons either. She was forgetting too much.

No, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t supposed to be doing this anymore. She was a teacher now, not a healer, not a midwife.

“Give him the willow stuff.” Hannah spoke up from the sofa, where she half reclined. “It’s made my headache go away. Sure enough it’ll help him some.”

“Well, perhaps it won’t hurt.” Esther leaned down to tuck her arm beneath Zach’s shoulders and lift him, as she’d been doing all day to give him sips of water. “It tastes awful, but it helps other kinds of pains, so it might work.”

“Anything.” He sipped at the cooled tea and coughed. “Bitter.”

“Very.”

He sipped some more. “But I can think it’s sweet because you gave it to me.”

“You’re feverish to say such nonsense.” Esther tipped the cup to his lips again so he ceased speaking of her. “But if you’re awake enough to give me compliments, you are awake enough to tell us what you know of who did this to you.”

“Didn’t see nothing.” He slumped against her. “Nobody around, then—whack. Gotta be . . . someone . . . quiet.”

“Like Griff,” Hannah said.

Esther eased Zach onto the pillow but remained with her face close to his, staring, watching for signs of him hiding something. “Like Griff?” she repeated as a query.

A caterwauling was set up in the yard, a dog barking, someone yelling.

Zach’s eyes drifted shut. “Griff.”

The parlor door banged open, and there he stood in the opening. “I didn’t stab him,” Griff said. “Which of us are you going to believe?”

25

Griff clasped his hands behind his back to stop himself from striding forward and yanking Esther from Zach’s side. The man was clearly ill, and she was tending him. Yet the sight of her face so close to Zach’s on a pillow sent Griff’s innards churning like the water of the pool beneath the waterfall. Waiting for her response turned that water to acid burning through him.

She took too long to extricate herself from Zach, set a cup of something on the floor, and rise with only slightly less grace due to her bandaged foot. She faced him, though, her hands before her, palms up. “I think Zach is out of his head with fever and doesn’t know what he’s saying. And no one left your house last night. So no, I don’t believe you did the stabbing.”

Hannah emitted a snort of derision.

Smiling, Griff took a step toward Esther. “Thank you.”

She raised her hands to ward him off. “But I do think it was one of your kin. I heard those men talking—” She glanced at Hannah and shut her mouth.

“You know something?” Hannah demanded.

“A group of drunken fools is all I know of.” Esther waved one hand as though erasing a slate. “Nothing important.”