Choices of the Heart (40 page)

Her hands tensed in his, not trying to free herself, just not relaxing, as he wished she would. He could only hold her tightly and inhale that flowery fragrance of her hair in its tangled mess. He could only hold her to assure her that he would protect her from all the bad things going on around them.

She didn’t let him hold her hands for long. After a few moments, she rose and walked to the cliff beside where the waterfall gushed from the rocks and tumbled twenty feet down to the pool. The dying sun created rainbows out of the spray, a fitting background for Esther’s beauty. He fixed the image in his mind. If one of those limner fellas ever came through, he’d ask him to paint her like that.

If she was around. The way she poised with more weight on one foot, she looked about to run up the side of the ravine like a doe fleeing the hunter’s shot.

But she spun on that foot and returned to his side. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anybody. I think my parents know the truth, but I haven’t given them all the sordid details of my shameful life. I didn’t want to hurt them.” She touched his hand. “I don’t want to hurt you, and that’s why I’m telling you, so you’ll know for certain that I’m not good enough for you.”

“If anyone’s not good enough for a body, it’s me for you.”

“No.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Listen to me, please.” She started to stroke his jaw.

He caught her hand in his. “You don’t need to entice me to listen. I will anyway.” He smiled down at her, the shortened hair making her seem oddly vulnerable, more precious, her pale face warning him he wasn’t going to like what she said.

“I led you all to believe I fled Seabourne because a man broke my heart, and that the letters came from the family of a man whose heart I broke. It’s actually true. I didn’t lie to you as far as that goes.” She moved a few inches away from him and folded her hands in her lap. “Papa talks about the lies of omission, and those I’ve committed aplenty.”

Griff held his breath, waiting for her to speak. She didn’t. She sat staring at the water, her hands still, her shoulders slumped. Cold where she had rested beside him for a moment, he reached out, wanting to take that invisible burden from her shoulders. He brushed back her hair, let his fingers twine a curl for a moment before allowing his hand to drop to his side.

“The sun’s about to set.” An obvious and stupid thing to say, but it filled the silence beneath the burble of tumbling water. “Momma will miss us.”

“Don’t worry yourself. Once she hears the truth about this fine schoolma’am she hired, she’ll not expect you to marry me either, even if we stayed the night here.”

“Esther, stop it. You’re not like—well, you’re not like Bethann.”

“No, in many ways I’m worse. I learned from a young age that I could get what I wanted with a smile, an embrace, a kiss on the cheek. My father was strict with the boys. Fair but strict, but he spoiled me because they so wanted a daughter and I took my time coming to them. And, well, I grew up.” She sketched a female figure with her hands. “I got lots of attention from the male population. I was a shameless flirt. And I wanted to find a man who was good enough for me.” She snorted. “I was the daughter of a man who came to this country as an indentured servant, little more than a slave, and a mother who is a midwife—and nobody in Seabourne was good enough for me. Too tall, too thin, too ugly . . . I let them take me on picnics and out sailing and to every fete the village had and some in Norfolk, but I never intended to marry anybody until—until—” A shudder ran through her. “Alfred Oglevie came along.” She scrubbed at her lips as though she’d tasted something foul and were washing out her mouth. Then she fell silent.

The water continued to flow as it had for hundreds of years or more. The sun glazed the mountains in gold, then dropped out of sight behind towering trees and distant peaks. Still she sat in silence, her hand to her lips.

“Who was Alfred Oglevie, Esther?” Griff broke the stillness.

She jumped. “The man who owns half of Seabourne. Half of the eastern shore, I think. He was handsome and rich and, most importantly, not at all interested in me.”

“You liked him because he wasn’t interested in you?”

Would he ever understand females? Not if that was their logic.

She flashed him a quick smile that said she understood. “It makes sense when you remember that everything was too easy for me. I learned everything quickly. French. Mathematics. Anatomy.”

He didn’t even know what anatomy was.

“And beaux. They came easily. Papa was about to send me off to my relations in England, but I begged him to let me stay. I’d be some kind of provincial yokel in England. I was—well, I was a princess in Seabourne. And I wanted the prince.” She laughed, high-pitched and not at all humor-filled.

The hysteria too obvious, Griff took her hand in his. She didn’t resist. Nor did she curl her fingers in his. The poor, blistered fingers lay curled against his palm like a wounded creature.

Wounded, yes—his Esther was wounded deep inside. He’d known it since they met, had seen a grief and pain inside her beautiful eyes and wanted to rescue her, spare her more grief. He never should have gotten even a little close to her, let himself care, fall in love with her. Zach was so much better at caring for wounded creatures. He let fallen birds learn to fly on their own. Griff tried to give them wings.

“Did you give up on him?” he prompted.

“I did.” Her fingers suddenly tightened on his. “I all but threw myself at him at a party. No, I did throw myself at him. I asked him to dance. It was a leap year, after all, so it was all right for the lady to do the asking.”

“I beg your pardon?”

This time her laugh held true amusement. “You don’t know that tradition? Yes, every four years the female gets to do the asking.”

“That sounds right silly.”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “Humph.”

“Though you could ask me even when it ain’t a leap year.”

“In Seabourne I wouldn’t have, you know.” She lowered her gaze. “Though you’re so pretty I might have.”

“Pretty? I think that’s the meanest thing a female’s ever said to me.”

“It’s not meant to be. You are. All those black curls and those eyes, and your manly form and—”

He touched his finger to her lips. “Stop. You’re embarrassing me.”

“You could have any female on this mountain in a minute.”

“Except you?”

“Except me.”

“Because I don’t talk right and don’t have book learning and money and—”

“I said I’m not the sweet female you thought I was. I’m a snob. I thought I should be the mayor’s wife at the least.”

“Did you ever ask God what He wanted you to be?”

“I did, and Alfred Oglevie decided to take up residence on the seaside.” She flashed him a twisted grin. “I thought that was God’s answer and Mr. Oglevie just wasn’t listening. So I asked him to dance, and he did, and it was a waltz, and he held me too close. We went outside and—” She shrugged. “Who kissed whom doesn’t matter, does it?”

That she’d kissed anyone else mattered a great deal. His gut twisted like rope.

“What matters,” Esther pressed on, “is that I didn’t like it. Suddenly there he was admitting he was playing hard to get because of my reputation for being a heartless flirt, and there I was finding out he tasted like tobacco and smelled like he didn’t wash quite well enough. And kissing him felt like absolutely nothing to me. Worse, he was . . . crude. So when my father came out to take me home and probably lock me in my room, I said it was all a mistake. I made a fool of Alfred Oglevie, and he vowed he’d get even with me.”

“He did.”

She nodded.

“But that was two years ago.”

She nodded again. She returned her hand to her lap and began to twist her fingers together, probably using some special skill to be performing the action on his innards at the same time.

“Esther, tell me.”

“I will. I must.” She breathed deeply. “Alfred Oglevie married someone else. A dear, sweet girl who was so very kind and pretty. She got . . . well, the natural outcome of most marriages occurred last year, and Momma and I attended to her. Mrs. Oglevie was a bit . . . nervous about the upcoming event and called us on the most ridiculous things. I shouldn’t be telling you this much about a patient, but everyone in Seabourne knew anyway. And when I went over, her husband . . . was too friendly to me. He started out just touching my shoulder or my hand, and then he caught me in the kitchen making his wife some tea when he came home one night, and he cornered me and kissed me.”

Griff’s hands fisted on his thighs. “What kind of man does that when he’s wed, let alone when she’s bearing his child?”

“A despicable man. But Momma was with me that time and stopped him. She and Papa told me not to go over there again.” She covered her face with her hands. “They told m-me.” Her voice shook for the first time.

Griff speared his fingers through his hair, certain his head would explode if he didn’t hold it together. He knew the rest. He knew with every bit of his being what she was about to tell him.

And she did. Sobbing, she told him the rest. “I went anyway. We got a message from them, and Papa said I should wait for Momma to come home, but it was near Mrs. Oglevie’s time. Early, but close enough I thought I knew best and went. Except she was in bed sleeping, he told me when he let me into the kitchen. He had a plan for the two of us. We could have a little private supper together and discuss how I could repay him for humiliating him.”

Griff couldn’t breathe for wanting to ride straight for Seabourne or simply to tell Esther to stop talking. He couldn’t speak.

She kept talking in a voice that had turned to gravel. “I tried to leave. I screamed, and he kissed me to stop me. Then he knocked me down. My head hit the floor and—I don’t remember much after that. I guess I can be grateful for that. But then Mrs. Oglevie walked in and saw—excuse me.” She sprang to her feet and ran up the rocks like a mountain goat. She disappeared into the blackness of the trees at the top of the ravine.

Griff let her go for the moment. Sickness clawed at his own belly at the image she conjured—a gentle, pampered girl trained to heal, a strong man trained to have his own way.

His mouth tasted sour. He walked to the edge of the water and scooped up the cool, sweet liquid to drink, to wash his face.

He sensed her proximity before he heard her. She slipped up behind him, then around to splash water on her face and drink the cold, clear liquid as well.

“I’m sorry.” She rocked back on her heels. “It happens sometimes.”

“Like when my cousins got too friendly.”

“Like then.”

“Why not when I kissed you?”

She looked away. “Gratitude, I guess.”

He wanted to call her a liar. He wanted to believe she was lying so he’d think she didn’t care.

“Do you think this makes you not good enough for me?” he asked her instead.

“I’m ruined. I’m not pure and innocent as a proper wife should be. And there’s more.” She rose and turned her back to him so he couldn’t hear her.

He moved up close behind and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I hear you, Esther, and thinking you’re not good enough isn’t so.”

“If you think that, then no you don’t hear me. But I’ll tell you anyway.” Her shoulders felt banded with steel rather than muscle. “Mrs. Oglevie started screaming—at me. She started calling me every horrible name I’d ever heard the fishermen use and then some. And then her water bro—oh, I’m sorry. I forget I shouldn’t talk about these things to a man.”

“I’m not going to faint.” He smiled. “Blush maybe, but not faint on you.”

“Oh, Griff, I—” She pressed one hand to his over her shoulder. “It was awful. She was early and the baby wasn’t positioned right at first, and I was half dazed from my head hitting the floor and . . . everything. And by the time Momma got there, Alfred was pacing the floor like any expectant father and Mrs. Oglevie was—was—gone.”

“She died?”

Esther nodded too vigorously, her curls bobbing against his hands. “I saved the baby, but she . . . well, sometimes women bleed a great deal and it can’t be stopped. Alfred Oglevie blamed me, of course, said I was incompetent. I told about the—the—” Her shoulders spasmed, and the next word was inaudible, though he knew it in all its ugliness.

He rubbed her shoulders with just his fingertips, more simple contact than in any hope of easing her tension. “From those letters, I guess nobody believed you.”

“No, they said I made it up to put the blame on someone besides myself. And it’s worse.”

How could it be worse?

“Someone saw us through his kitchen window and said I was trying to seduce him.”

“He lied.”

“No, Griff, not really.”

He jerked away. “’Scuse me?”

She laughed and faced him. “I pretended to go along with him before I tried to get away. No, that’s not quite right. I didn’t fight him off at first, so it must have looked like I was compliant. I thought it would work, that he’d be softened up and let me go without anything for us to remember later. But it didn’t work. It made things . . . worse.”

“Then it wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course it was. I started it by my bits of flirting two years earlier. And everyone in Seabourne knows the truth they want to believe to save their livelihoods, and now Hannah and Zach know it and are likely to talk. Wherever I go, someone will know that I am little more than a—a—”

He pressed two fingers to her lips. “Don’t say it, my dear. Don’t call yourself that. You’re not.”

“Good wife material? No, I’m not.”

“Esther.”

“Griff.” Her tone turned sharp. “Your mother wants her children to have a better life than they’ve had so far. She doesn’t want Liza and Brenna to go the way Bethann did because she wasn’t good enough for the man to marry her. She wants Jack and Ned to have more than the fighting and scraping a living out of these rocks. Do you think for you, her favorite and most reliable son, she will want a wife with my reputation?”

Gazing at her, loving her, he wanted to say that what Momma wanted didn’t matter. With every fiber of his being, he ached to tell her that her past was in the past and they must leave it there, accept forgiveness for what she had done wrong, and forgive for what had been done wrong to her. But he’d known since he found the letters, as someone intended him to find them, that as much as he wanted to spend his life with her, he couldn’t do it if his family disapproved.