Choices of the Heart (39 page)

“They are.” Esther swallowed. “Mostly anyway. And I’m not.”

Zach’s head snapped up. The floorboards creaked beneath Griff’s feet as he shifted. She didn’t dare look at him.

“So you did write that first note?” he asked Hannah. “Did you start the fire?”

“We don’t need strangers here stirring up trouble.” Tears began to trickle down Hannah’s lovely face. “Especially not her kind.”

“Hannah, be quiet,” Zach commanded.

“Did you want to start the fighting again?” Griff sounded accusatory, appalled. “Hannah Brooks Gosnoll, do you want more kin to die?”

“If it’s the right ones.” She twisted her hands together around her apron. Fabric tore, and she kept twisting. Her face twisted.

Esther stared at her. The woman was unwell in her mind. Too much pain from being married ten years to a man she probably was never sure cared for her, a man she knew had helped start a war. Perhaps the deaths themselves.

“Hannah.” Griff took a step toward her, his body and voice controlled. “Did you stab me and your brother to make trouble?”

“I—I—” Hannah raised her apron to wipe her cheeks. “It’s my husband I want dead, the cheating, lying—”

“Hannah!” Zach cried. “Stop it. You can’t mean it.”

“Then who stabbed them?” Esther asked.

Hannah’s gaze slid past Griff. “Ask her.”

They turned to see Bethann standing in the doorway.

“I didn’t do nothing but believe her cheating, lying husband,” Bethann said. “He was going to go away with me, take the money from the mine ore sale this month and go off with me, but he decided to stay with his wife.”

“He did?” Hannah’s eyes widened. “You mean I . . .”

“You what, Hannah? Tried to start the feud again so one of us would kill him?” Griff speared his fingers through his hair. “Oh, Hannah.”

“She didn’t admit to nothing,” Zach pointed out. “You need to ask your sister if she tried starting the feud again.”

Everyone faced Bethann.

She looked paler than ever but held her hands on her hips in a belligerent stance. “Why would I start the feud again when I was thinking Henry was going off with me?”

“But I can’t throw a knife any good,” Hannah said.

“Nor,” Esther murmured, “can you tell the truth. You told me you can’t write, but that’s a fine hand on that note I got. Why should we believe you over Bethann, who has always been truthful?”

“No she ain’t!” Hannah cried, pointing her finger. “She lied about my husband ten years ago, and she lied about him this time. He’s done cheated on me, but not with her.”

“He has!” Bethann cried. “He said he loves me.”

“You’re wrong,” Hannah said. “You couldn’t get into trouble with him ’cause he . . . can’t.”

“Then how is it you are preg—expecting, Hannah?” Esther asked.

“I—I’m not.” Hannah whitened around her mouth.

Bethann made a strangled noise in her throat and stumbled out of the doorway, out of the house.

Zach stared at his sister. “You always said that’s how you knew the Tollivers were lying, ’cause Bethann had a baby and Henry never fathered any young’uns on his women or you. But now, if you—”

“She’s wrong. I’m not,” Hannah protested.

Esther rose and crossed the room to stand over Hannah. “You’ve known since before you stabbed Griff, haven’t you? You are far enough along that everyone would notice if you didn’t wear that apron. But I know the signs. I’ve watched women for all my life. My mother taught me what to look for.”

“I thought you were more interested in watching men,” Hannah spat out. “Or is it having them watch you?”

“That’s enough,” Griff said. “This isn’t Esther’s fight.”

“How could you want to see your baby’s father killed?” Esther persisted. “Or his uncle or grandfather? Life is sacred, a gift from God. We can’t waste it like that, toss it aside like it’s rubbish.”

“And what would you know, with your whoring ways that caused a baby’s mother to die?” Hannah lashed out.

“I’m not . . . like that.” Esther wrapped her arms across her middle as though Hannah’s words were physical blows. “It’s lies. What you heard, it’s all lies. I never . . . I didn’t . . .” She wanted to curl up on the floor and hide. She remained upright and facing the other woman straight on to watch her, to avoid seeing Griff’s reaction to Hannah’s words. “I made a mistake in going to the Oglevies’ without my mother. I knew what he was like. I thought it was my duty, but I was wrong, and the consequences were tragic.” She gasped for air, battered by the shock and horror on the others’ faces. “Please, listen to me. What happened is how I know that this can’t go on. Griff and Zach nearly died. I could have died in that fire. Many people could die in a feud, not just your husband. Maybe not him at all. He survived so far. How can you throw away the gift of life God has given us, given you now?” She dropped to her knees and laid her hand on Hannah’s belly, firm and starting to round. “You can’t carry this hate to another generation.”

“Are you Saint Esther recommending forgiveness?” Hannah’s lip curled in a sneer.

Esther’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Yes’m, I guess I am.”

Good advice she could never carry out, as she would never have another generation to bring up the right way—in love and forgiveness—now that Griff had heard too much about her and would want to know more. Regardless, she couldn’t continue to hate Alfred Oglevie.

Some of her burden lifted.

“My own s-sister.” Zach’s voice shook. “Me trying to keep you from Griff is one thing. I did care for you, Esther, before Hannah told me what she’d learned, but this . . . my own sister . . . Griff, what do we do with her?”

“I think she and Henry need to go away from here.” Griff’s voice was too quiet, too calm. “We’ll tell him the truth about what she’s done and intended, and he can see to her.”

Esther swung around and stared at him. “But she’s not right, Griff. There are places, special hospitals—”

His jaw hardened. “We take care of our own kin here.”

“I’ll give them my profits from the mine,” Zach said.

“That’s right generous of you, Zach.” Griff bent down to shake Zach’s hand, then crossed the room to take Hannah’s arm. “Come along, Hannah.” His demeanor, his voice, held that tenderness that would forever melt Esther’s heart when she thought of it. “You need your momma right now.” And he led Hannah, docile as a kitten, from the room.

Esther glanced at Zach. “What exactly did Hannah tell you?”

“She found your letters. She read them, even though she claims she can’t read. They said enough to let me know you’re not good enough for Griff.”

She flinched and gave him a smile that quivered at the corners. “I knew that all along. I tried not to love him. But I failed.”

34

Griff caught up with her before she reached the thickest part of the forest. The hooves of his horse beat against the hard ground like a drumbeat of warning, and Esther reined in to wait for him.

“When are you going to stop running away?” he asked.

“When my past stops catching up with me.”

“Yes’m.” He looked at her, his eyes luminous beneath the trees. “I can’t believe you have a past worthy of such meanness.”

“Believe it,” Esther said. “It’s what drove me here. It’s what will drive me somewhere else.”

“Nobody’s driving you anywhere.” Impatience edged his tone. “You’re going on your own.

“In the end it’s the same.”

“Esther . . .” The path narrowed. He dropped back behind her and called out, “You’ve got to tell me, you know.”

“I know. I should have a long time ago.”

But they went back to the house first to put up the horses and see if anyone had seen Bethann.

“She’s in her room,” Mrs. Tolliver said. “Came home looking like she was in one of them there trances and went right up. What happened?”

Griff told her.

“Is it over then?” Mrs. Tolliver asked, wiping tears from her eyes. “Will the fighting stop now?”

“I reckon it will without anyone fanning the flames.” Griff kissed his mother’s cheek. “I’m taking Esther up to the waterfall. She needs a swim to get all that soot off of her.”

“It ain’t right,” Mrs. Tolliver said. “I should send Liza along.”

“If you trust your son, Mrs. Tolliver, I’m safe with him.” Esther retrieved the only bar of soap she had left, one salvaged from her satchel, and slipped it into her pocket.

The swim in the pool she would enjoy. Talking to Griff she would not. For the time being, she savored their closeness. Side by side they headed out of the compound. He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, then covered it with his free one as they climbed the wide part of the track in silence. Not until the path narrowed, and he indicated that Esther should follow so he could clear the way of branches fallen from the storm, did he speak.

“I’ve been a poor cousin to Hannah. I didn’t realize how much she hated her husband for his wandering.”

“Could you have stopped him?”

“I s’pose not. But maybe reined him in.”

“He’s a man grown, Griff, and not your responsibility.”

Griff snorted. “Sometimes I think everyone on this mountain is my responsibility.”

“And you take the burden upon yourself rather than letting the Lord do it for you?” Esther couldn’t help but tweak him a bit.

“Miss Esther Cherrett preaching to me.” He moved beside her and squeezed her hand. “I thought you believed the Lord doesn’t care about us as individuals anymore.”

“I think He must care about you, you’re so good and kind.”

“But not you?”

“I’m . . . lost somewhere.”

The darkness beneath the trees surrounded them, a hush between birdsong and cicada chatter. Griff’s muscled forearm rippled beneath her fingers, so sturdy, so dependable, carrying too much weight with even her hand.

“We are never lost to the Lord, only to other people and ourselves.”

“I used to believe that.” The constant ache of emptiness inside her tore a bit wider with the knowledge that she would lose this man too—all part of her folly that began two years earlier.

Griff stroked her hand. “Surely your parents have told you otherwise.”

“My parents are the most loving people I know—next to you.”

“That’s kind of you to say so, but it ain’t true, you know. If I’d been a better, more loving brother to Bethann, if I hadn’t wanted rid of her, she wouldn’t have drunk that laudanum.”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps she would have. Most families would have gotten rid of her as soon as they knew she was, um, increasing.”

“As I said, we take care of our own here.” Griff lifted a limb as thick as his arm that hung precariously over the path. “Go ahead. I’ll take this down before it falls on someone.”

Esther took several steps beyond him, then turned back. He snapped off the limb as though it were a twig, then cleared it off the path, alongside a sapling half uprooted and leaning against its neighboring brother spruce. His powerful muscles moved as smooth as water beneath his simple clothes. He apparently had taken a swim earlier, for not a speck of soot marred his skin or dulled his hair. He was a strong man in body and spirit, intelligent and kind, sensitivity showing through his music and his love for his family. She would have thought him beneath her back home. Here he was a prince amongst other men. Back home he would still be a prince amongst other men, but she wouldn’t have seen it there as the pastor’s pampered daughter. Unlike all the others who had courted her, this one man had won her heart.

“I don’t think you helping Bethann go away is why she took the laudanum,” Esther said. “I think she wanted to avoid shaming all of you, but being alone was too bleak for her to face. You have such a loving family. When you all sing together—” She spun away from him as tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

With more haste than prudent in the fading light, she descended the slope until the trees gave way to the rocky hollow through which the stream gushed and then dropped into the foaming cataract of water and the deep, dark pool at its foot.

“No wonder you want peace so badly.” Esther poised on the edge of the water, staring into the clear, fathomless depths. “How far down do you think it goes?”

“I reckon it’s about a hundred feet or more.” Griff remained on a rocky ledge above her. “If you want to swim, I won’t look.”

“Thank you.”

He turned his back on her, and she removed her gown and petticoat, then plunged in with her chemise for a bathing dress. After the sultry heat of the day, the pool felt like diving into a vat of ice. It chilled her. It sent her blood racing through her veins. It cleansed her of grime and sweat and soot. She washed her hair with the cake of violet soap from her satchel. The grime and bubbles floated away on a current that drew them into an invisible channel to disappear and never be seen again.

Like Jesus’s death on the cross washed away her sins. Yes, she knew it. She had accepted it. But she couldn’t scrub the sins from her heart enough to believe God hadn’t grown disgusted with her and left her to her own devices.

“It’s not what the Bible tells us, Daughter,” Papa had reminded her.

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t get clean in her heart.

She glanced up at Griff. How could she think for a moment he would want her? Oh, he thought he did in part—wanted to touch and gaze at her. But for her to be his wife and raise his children? She was spoiled goods like a meat pie with a fine crust and rancid filling.

She dove again and again until her hands and feet numbed from the cold. Then she clambered onto the rocks, used her petticoat for a towel, and dressed.

“I’m decent,” she said. “If you don’t mind my hair.” It hung in curling tangles around her face, surely nothing a man would want spread out on his pillow.

Griff leaped down to the rock she sat on and took her hands in his. “I reckon it’s time for you to talk.”