Collision of The Heart (6 page)

“Rosalie, mind your tongue.” Pa gave Ayden one of his gentle but stern looks. “The least you can do for that young lady is help her today.”

“The least I can do for her—” Mindful of curious glances from Divine and Mrs. Herring, Ayden turned toward the kitchen door.

“Brother?” Rosalie called after him.

He glanced back. “Yes, sister?”

She scowled at him. “If you don’t make hay when the sun shines this time, I’ll never forgive you.”

Ayden stalked into the kitchen. By the time he donned boots and coat, hat and gloves, Mia had arrived in the kitchen with her face surrounded by white fur and that portfolio tucked beneath her arm.

He sighed. “Of course it’s coming along.”

Rather like a third person on an outing for a courting couple. At least it had been that way before. If they were still courting, or even married, apparently it would be that way again.

“Let’s go.” He offered her his arm.

She didn’t take it until they reached the street. Wearing boots looking far more fashionable than useful, she slipped in snow packed by prior feet and sleigh runners. She clung to his forearm, her hand small and strong. Though her wide skirt swirled around his legs with each step, she said nothing to him. A glance down told him she didn’t even look at him. She kept her head bowed as though she was praying. Or perhaps she merely watched her feet, and clutched that portfolio to her front like a shield.

“It always was, wasn’t it?” he mused aloud.

She glanced up, her cheeks pink in the cold. “What?”

“That notebook of yours always was a shield between us. You cover your heart with it like you expect me to stab it.”

“Or twist the knife you stuck in it eighteen months ago.”

“Ouch.”

She turned her head away, then stopped, a gasp forming vapor from her breath.

He followed her gaze to where the rising sun shimmered on pristine snow and icicles dripping from trees and eaves like diamond crystals. It was a sight Ayden saw so often he didn’t think about its beauty. In truth, by February, he’d had enough of winter for the year. Tramping up the hill to the college grew tiresome. Now, however, seeing it from Mia’s perspective, the glory of a sunrise over snow and ice became a fresh vision, a reminder that he had once viewed the display as a promise.

He spun away. “We need to get going.” He started walking without warning.

She stumbled after him, clinging harder to his arm. “And where are you dragging me?”

“You wanted to come.”

“I have an editor expecting articles from me. Of course I wanted to come.”

She didn’t want to come because of him. Good. That was the way it needed to be. This reappearance of hers should be one last reminder to him that her desire to be a journalist was more important to her than anything they had shared.

“So you are working with a periodical?” He made himself ask the question as any former classmate might.

“I’m writing individual pieces, but if I do well with this assignment, I’ll be hired as a regular reporter.” Her voice sparkled like the icicles in the sunrise.

“It’s what you always wanted.”

They reached Howell Street, and he turned toward the church. “We can begin here. No one knew anything yesterday, but things might have changed this morning.”

Suddenly, Mia jerked her hand from his arm and strode away from him. A score of feet away, she swung to face him so quickly her wide skirt lifted in the wind and her hood slipped onto her shoulders. “I can go into the church and ask. Unless you plan to go out to the wreck itself, there’s no need for us to stay together.”

She headed up the steps. Still watching her abrupt departure, Ayden did not notice Charmaine and her father until they halted on the pavement in front of him.

“Ayden.” Charmaine’s smile was bright, but strain tightened the porcelain skin around her eyes. “You look so tired still. Did you get enough sleep last night?”

“Too little, I’m afraid.” He took her gloved hand in his and bowed over it.

It was leather as soft as butter. Everything about Charmaine was soft and sweet, from her hands to her voice to her big blue eyes. Yes, and her heart as well. He adored her.

He just wished he loved her.

He wished he liked her father. Dr. Finney, in contrast to his daughter, was anything but soft. His face was etched in hard lines. His blue eyes resembled something about as yielding as sapphires. Even his physique appeared hard, although he was in his fifties. Students said Finney was carved of stone, not human flesh.

Except where it came to his daughter. He smiled down at her now and patted her hand. “Would you like to invite Professor Goswell to our house for coffee and some of that cake you made? It is sure to make him feel better, just from the smell.”

Charmaine laughed and blushed. “Papa, you are so droll.” She turned back to Ayden. “It would be lovely of you to come by. Some of the other professors are coming over for refreshment and maybe a look at that Egyptian paper someone has acquired.”

“Papyrus, child.” Finney sighed as he corrected his daughter.

Ayden would love to get a look at the scroll, even though medieval weaponry was his favorite type of history. And Charmaine’s cakes tasted better than anyone else’s in town, including the baker’s.

He shook his head with regret. “I’m afraid I’ll have to indulge myself with one of your cakes at another time. I have work to do to help the wreck victims.”

“What sort of work?” Finney’s voice rang like an ax on stone. “It’s bad enough your parents saw fit to take half a dozen of those people into your house, but for you to be expected to help is not acceptable.”

Ayden ground his teeth behind a plastered on smile. “I am not expected to help. I’ve chosen to help.”

“Is that Miss Roper I see going into the church?” Charmaine broke in a little too quickly. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize the name last night. But I picked up one of my ladies’ magazines after you left last night, and there was an article by her about women going into nursing.”

“Vulgar.” Finney wrinkled his nose as though the idea were also noisome.

“She’s proud of women who find careers of their own,” Charmaine persisted.

“Hardly sounds like fit company for you, Charmaine.”

An odd remark from a man who worked at a college dedicated to giving women the same educational opportunities as men.

Ayden thought perhaps he should defend his female students, if he would not defend Mia. But with the decision about the full-time professorship imminent, now was not the time to raise the ire of the Classics Department director.

Finney stomped his feet. “Standing here in the cold is not acceptable either. Let’s deliver those pastries and be on our way home.” Another indulgent smile for his daughter. “She insisted on bringing some pastries to the church.”

“That’s kind of you.” Ayden kept his gaze on Charmaine. “And I do apologize for turning down your kind invitation, but I have to find the mother of that little boy we took in.”

“That.” Finney made a chopping gesture with his right fist. “You should bring him here to the church and let the town council find a home for him. Then you can come to our house and accomplish something more useful than associating with the train riffraff—like securing your future at the college.”

Chapter Five

I
ce spotted the church steps, and Mia took her time ascending. The last thing she wanted to do was fall on her face in front of Ayden and the Finneys. On the other hand, not overhearing the dialogue on the pavement might have been worth the risk of humiliating herself, especially the last bit. As she turned to close the church door, Mia caught the words of Dr. Finney regarding train riffraff and noticed his eyes fixed upon her. She pursed her lips to avoid the childish impulse to stick her tongue out at him.

“I graduated from your precious college, Dr. Finney,” she muttered through her clenched teeth. “You thought I was an excellent student.”

She had never liked Tobias Finney. She liked him even less when he took over the Classics Department, as he was the reason why Ayden had stayed behind instead of coming to Boston with her. He had invited the brilliant young scholar to join the faculty at the college, when it reformed as Hillsdale College, until they could fill the position with someone more qualified to make the position permanent.

Now the time had come to fill the position with a full-time professor, and Ayden was the front-runner for the permanent position. Marriage to the director’s daughter, according to Rosalie, would ensure Ayden acquired his lifelong dream of becoming a history professor with little fear of not having work the next year.

And if Mia didn’t get her articles written, she wouldn’t achieve her dream of becoming a journalist earning a salary instead of one paid whenever the editor chose to buy one of her articles. She would be forced to continue with her if not Spartan, far from secure existence, making enough money to live on however she could in a respectable manner.

The train wreck was not, of course, her assignment. It would, however, make a fine addition to the story about how Hillsdale College allowed female students to study right alongside male students. Most institutions of higher education considered women incapable of learning the same subjects at the same time in the same classroom with men.

“We proved them wrong.” With a smug little smile curving her lips, Mia strode into the church. Her right hand gripped a pencil. Her left balanced her open portfolio, ready for receiving notes on what she saw.

Chaos. Not as much as the night of the wreck, but there were still far too many people crowding the entryway and sanctuary, children crying, women looking like they wanted to weep, and men with faces a little too stony to be their natural expressions. They were stranded hours from any city of note, without proper shelter, food, or clothing. The room stank of wet wool, babies needing to be changed, and hot soup. She wondered when these people would be able to continue along their journeys. The railroad men would have to answer that.

Visit depot,
she added to her list of impressions.

She began to move around, jotting down snippets of dialogue. “Momma, is my doll burned up?”

“What do you expect me to do, build you a house right here and now?”

“I just want to sleep.”

A hand caught at her skirt, halting Mia in her tracks. “Help me.”

She looked down at an older woman perched on a low chair. “What do you need?”

“Something to eat.” Rheumy eyes moved behind rimless spectacles. “I couldn’t get to the line when they served the food.”

“And no one’s with you?” Mia’s gaze strayed around the room in search of someone from the town aiding those stranded in the church.

She saw no one she recognized except for Ayden coming through the front door with Miss Finney. The latter’s smile appeared a bit stiff, and she pressed her back against the wall beside the door while Ayden carried a basket toward a table that still bore the decimated remains of toast and porridge.

Mia raised her right hand, still clutching the pencil, and waved to him, then dropped her gaze back to the diminutive old lady. “I’ll get someone to help you. Were you traveling alone?”

“On my way to see my daughter in Chicago.” The lady smiled, showing a fine set of porcelain teeth. “She’s having her eleventh child.”

“How . . . prodigious of her.” Mia shuddered at the notion of so many children breaking into her thoughts and work.

“I wondered what happened to you.” Ayden appeared beside her, his nearness reminding her that she hadn’t always felt that way about children. Once upon a time, the mere echo of that deep, resonant voice sent shivers of anticipation down her spine.

But “once upon a time” belonged in fairy tales, which weren’t real—just like their love.

She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “This lady hasn’t eaten. Apparently getting to the food line is too difficult for her. I thought that basket might have some food in it.”

“Quite a lot.” Ayden crouched to be at eye level with the lady. “I have some apple fritters and some muffins. Would one apiece be enough, or would you like two?”

“Just one or the other.” Tension around the lady’s eyes vanished as though she were a drawing and the artist had taken an eraser to the tightness.

“Two apiece—to tide you over.” Ayden wrapped the pastries in a sheet of newsprint and handed them over. “And there’s the reverend bringing out more coffee. Would you like some, or would you prefer tea?”

The old lady nearly turned into a puddle under Ayden’s warmth. She smiled. She giggled like a schoolgirl.

The corners of Mia’s lips twitched. The edges of her heart twisted. She turned away and began to move through the crowd. Pitching her voice a little above the hubbub, she asked, “Does anyone know anything about a missing child?”

The tumult lowered as though someone had dropped a blanket over them.

Mia paused. “Anyone? We found a little boy on the train the other night, but his people seem to have vanished.”

A chorus of denials of knowledge rose in the entryway, the fellowship room, the sanctuary. No one had seen the child or heard of anyone seeking one.

“If you do,” Mia said in each room, “send them to the Goswells.”

“You’re staying at the Goswells’, Mia Roper?” A vaguely familiar female voice rang through the church.

Mia spun on her heel, her wide merino skirt belling out around her. “Genevieve Perry?”

“Genevieve Perry Baker now.” The smiling, petite redhead threw her arms around Mia, portfolio and pencil and all. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“I never thought I’d be here again.” Mia kissed the other woman’s cheek. “You look beautiful. Is marriage to Jonathan Baker suiting you, then?”

“Quite, quite well. And you? No fiancé or even husband back there in the East?”

“No time for love.” Mia stared at the muddy, water-stained floor. “I work too much and travel.”

“How exciting. Did you come in on one of the trains?”

“I did.” Mia nodded to her left wrist. “A relatively minor injury, but a nuisance.”

“A rather painful nuisance, I should think.” Genevieve’s vivid-green eyes narrowed, and her lips bowed. “Is there any significance to you staying with the Goswells?”

“Nothing beyond the idea that God may have a rather unpleasant sense of humor, though I suppose that’s blasphemous to say in a church.”

“Or anywhere.” Genevieve tucked her arm through Mia’s and began to shepherd her toward the front door. “You must come to our house for coffee and catch me up on everything. Catch
us
up on everything, to be more precise. A dozen of us are making gallons of soup and pounds of bread rolls for these people’s lunch.”

Mia smiled at her friend from the years she spent teaching school before receiving the opportunity for journalism work in the East. “Not today. I have work to do.” The instant the words emerged, an ache opened in her chest, a chasm in which lodged a cold, hard boulder into which she had long ago tucked all her wishes for friendship, family, and a home. “I’m only here on assignment.”

“Ah, your journalism career.” Genevieve sighed. “I thought maybe you were here to renew . . .” Her gaze strayed across the room to where Ayden poured coffee for a line of men and women.

Mia flicked her attention to Charmaine, who was still positioned against the front wall like an ornamental bit of statuary. “That’s over and has been for a year and a half.” Her voice was cold, her heart frozen enough to hurt.

“Ah, the perfect Charmaine. If she weren’t so kind, we’d all hate her.”

“I don’t see what’s kind about standing by the door instead of helping.” Mia’s tone held an edge of asperity.

Genevieve laughed. “Methinks you have a few claws still extended in that direction.” She slanted a look toward Ayden.

“Not in the least. I only accepted the Goswells’ invitation to stay with them so others could use my room at the boardinghouse. But I have no intention of renewing any sort of relationship with Ayden Goswell.” She gestured around the room with the point of her pencil. “If this hadn’t happened, I would have avoided him.”

“Avoided someone in Hillsdale?” Genevieve hugged Mia’s arm to her rather plump side, where once she had been slight.

Mia gave her once-upon-a-time friend a narrow-eyed glance. No, Genevieve had not gained a great deal of weight, at least not the kind that would stay. Genevieve disguised her expectant motherhood beneath the shielding layers of a woolen gown, bulky coat, and oversized scarf.

“Congratulations.” Mia’s throat tightened. “I thought you were going to continue to teach school.”

“I was. I did. I find I prefer domesticity, though I do still tutor for the college.” Genevieve grinned. “Can’t let that education go to waste, as all the detractors of educating women say it will. Think how intelligent my children will be.”

“Your children would be intelligent even if you’d never taken a class.” Mia glanced around the room again, wondering if she could leave by the church’s other door. She didn’t want to walk past the beauteous Miss Finney to leave.

Not that she knew where to go next. She could go out to the wreck, but she didn’t want to walk all that way in the snow. Walking to the wreck alone was not a good idea. Ayden had been her escort. He, however, had relinquished his coffee-serving duties to the wife of a science professor, a woman known for her generosity in feeding students. He was heading straight for Charmaine Finney, whose face lit up at his approach.

Mia turned her attention to Genevieve. “I think I would like to go to your house after all, if I may, if the invitation is still open.”

“It is.” Genevieve winked. “We’ll slip out the back. Our house is almost directly behind the church.”

Genevieve led Mia through the sanctuary to a narrow side door. Beyond it, a flight of steps led down to another door. The instant the first door closed behind them, the din inside the church diminished to a dull roar. Beyond the second door, the snow-clad world enveloped them in a calming hush.

“That’s better.” Genevieve’s footfalls crunched on the ground. “Now tell me what you’re doing back here if not to see the Goswells and why you haven’t written to any of us even to tell us you were coming and what have you been doing with yourself—”

“Enough.” Mia laughed. “One question at a time.” She kicked her feet through the powdery surface snow. “I’m here on assignment for the magazine I write for. If the editor likes my article, she’ll hire me as a full-time reporter.”

“That’s exciting. Have you been writing all along, though?” Genevieve unlatched the gate in a fence across the lane.

“I have. Quite a lot between periodicals in Boston and New York and even one article in a Philadelphia magazine.”

“Godey’s?”
Genevieve’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

Mia shook her head. “I haven’t been that blessed yet. But this new magazine might end up even better than
Godey’s
. We want to show women they can make other choices in their lives than being wives and mothers and to consider that before they think marriage is their only option.”

Genevieve closed the gate behind them with a decisive click. “Being a wife and mother is a noble calling for a lady. Just as noble as being a teacher or a doctor or a telegraph operator.”

“Well, of course, but some of us . . .” Mia trailed off.

Her gaze fixed on Genevieve’s house, which had smoke curling from chimneys into the blue-white sky, dispersing the aroma of roasting meat. Yellow gingham curtains hung in ruffles from the kitchen windows. At one side of the door, a trellis promised a bower of fragrant climbing roses in the summer, and lace draperies graced the windows of what was likely a parlor.

“I know this house.” Her voice emerged as a mere whisper. “It’s across the street from the Blamey house.”

“It is. Sadly, Professor Blamey retired and moved himself and his wife to Pittsburgh to be closer to their children.” Genevieve started up the steps of the back porch but hesitated before opening the kitchen door. “No one lives there now, but there’s talk Ayden Goswell intends to buy it for when—that is, if—he and Charmaine marry.”

“That,” Mia said between her teeth, “would be foolish.”

Ayden had proposed to her in the rear garden of that house during a summer barbecue. They had settled in a gazebo as the sun dipped below the horizon. With all the courtliness of the medieval knights he studied, he had dropped to one knee and pledged his undying love no matter what life tossed their way.