Heart of Stone (2 page)

Instead she whispered, “I promise.”

Uncle Tim raised the wrought-iron loop that served as a knocker and let it fall. It made a hollow thud. A moment later, the door was opened by a tall Negress wearing a bright-orange turban and a stiff white apron over a calico gown. The woman took one look at Uncle Tim and then glanced down at Lovie and Megan. A fleeting shadow of concern moved behind her eyes. It passed so swiftly Lovie wasn’t certain whether she actually saw it or not. She tried to tell herself she was wrong. Tried to tell herself the look meant nothing.

The woman said something in a soft, lovely language Lovie did not understand and stepped back. Another woman took her place in the open doorway. This one had red hair the color of glowing embers on a grate and skin as white as rose petals. She wore a long, shimmering ivory robe embroidered with huge bouquets of flowers. It was so loosely tied she held the top closed with her hand.

The woman didn’t ask what Uncle Tim wanted. She merely looked down her nose at him the way he’d always done Lovie and the rest of the Lanes.

“He wants these two,” her uncle said. “We made a deal yesterday.”

Lovie couldn’t take her eyes off of the woman. Her face and features were perfect. She was slender, yet not in the hard-angled way of Aunt Maddie. With her bright-red hair flowing past her shoulders, wrapped as she was in the long silky robe, she reminded Lovie of a delicate wax candle topped by a shimmering flame. She was stunning.

Lovie stopped staring at the woman’s hair and robe long enough to look into her eyes. She couldn’t always trust the things people said, but she’d learned to search for the truth in their eyes. But this woman’s eyes lacked any expression whatsoever. No curiosity, no warmth. No joy, no sorrow. There was none of the bitterness she’d seen in Aunt Maddie’s eyes, none of the eternal hope and bottomless love her mother’s eyes possessed.

It was as if someone had snuffed out all the feeling in her.

Maybe this is why they need some children here
, Lovie thought.
A glimmer of hope sparked inside her. Ma had always called them her angels, her joy. Perhaps she and Megan were here to bring joy to this woman who looked at them with such blankness behind her eyes.

Ignoring Lovie and Megan, the woman said to Uncle Tim, “Wait here,
s’il vous plaît.
I will get him.” Unlike her cold eyes, her voice was warm. It reminded Lovie of the sultry New Orleans air.

The woman walked away, barely holding her robe closed. Lovie peered past her into the room beyond. It was a huge kitchen, larger than Uncle Tim’s two rooms put together. Bigger even than their thatched-roofed cottage back in Ireland. There were two other women inside, both seated at a table. Both wore the grandest gowns Lovie had ever seen. The fabric was bright and shiny—one crimson red, the other the color of a ripe plum. Rows and rows of ruffles cascaded from their waists to the floor.

Steaming cups of liquid sat on the table in front of the women. One yawned and rested her head upon her forearm as the other woman slowly turned to face the door. She noticed Megan first before her gaze finally drifted to Lovie.

When their eyes met, the woman across the room turned away—but not before Lovie saw the flash of anger in the woman’s eyes. A flash of anger quickly replaced by a wash of shame.

She waved them in but Lovie didn’t move. Despite Uncle Tim’s threatening presence, despite the women staring at them from across the room, Lovie wrapped her arm protectively around Megan’s shoulders and pulled her close. She’d made Ma a promise and she intended to keep it.

She whispered, “No matter what, Megan, I’ll watch out for you. No matter what.”

Her uncle pushed them over the threshold.

It wasn’t more than a few hours later that Lovie saw her sister for the last time. Megan lay draped over the shoulder of a tall, long-limbed man who carried her screaming down a lengthy, narrow hallway.

L
aura Foster awoke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and bolted upright. It took a moment for her to realize she’d been dreaming, that she wasn’t eleven years old anymore. That she wasn’t in a brothel in New Orleans.

Her gaze swept the shadowed interior of her room. Momentarily confused, she waited until the foggy remnants of sleep lifted, until she remembered where she was and who she was now.

She threw back the fine Egyptian-cotton sheets and climbed out of the bed that was among her most prized possessions. She’d paid a small fortune for the piece crafted by the famed cabinet-maker, Belter. The side rails were fashioned out of bent rosewood laminate. The headboard was ornamented with a detailed, carved basket of fruit flanked by a pair of cherubs.

If only the bed could ensure sweet dreams, it would be worth the hard-earned gold she’d paid for it.

Barefooted, she padded across the room to her dressing table. A chenille runner covered its marble top, a cushioned base for her feminine paraphernalia—perfume bottles, a silver-backed hairbrush, hairpins stored in collection of alabaster boxes.

She caught a glimpse of her muted image in the mirror above
the table—her long, heavy hair hanging in untamed curls about her shoulders. In the dark, her full white nightgown gave the impression that she was naught but a spirit hovering in the shadows. She turned away, walked to the second-story bay window with its view down Main Street.

Indian summer had arrived. It swept across the Texas plains with a blazing show of heat before fall set in. Her window was open, but the lace sheers beneath the heavier velvet drapes hung limp and still. There wasn’t a breath of air to stir them.

Outside all was quiet, the street deserted. Wooden structures lined both sides of the two-block thoroughfare. None of them were as well built or fancy as Foster’s Boardinghouse. Her home graced one end of Main Street. With its wide veranda and rococo trim and detail, it had taken over a year to build—something unheard of in these parts where people raised a barn in an afternoon and generations shared small split-log homes.

Everything in the house had been her own personal choice, from the detail in the plaster medallions in the ceiling to the hand-carved chair rail in the dining room. She’d chosen every drawer pull, every doorknob, every lamp, drapery, piece of linen, each and every finely woven carpet. Expensive wall coverings lined the walls of almost every room. Ornate furnishings made of hardwoods were waxed and polished to a high shine. The finest items money could buy had come together to impress visitors and leave no doubt that the widow Foster was a lady of fine quality.

Her grand home was just as she’d planned it: a place fine enough to disguise the woman she’d been, the life she’d led.

In a sense she had designed her very own gilded cage. It was a lovely place of refuge. And yet never far from her mind was the truth—that this life she had so carefully planned and seen to fruition could unravel in an instant, for it was a life built upon a lie.

Laura was proud of what she’d accomplished here, but it had come at a price. She had suffered untold indignities doing the only thing she knew how in order to amass her fortune and establish her
independence. And although she no longer lived the life she had and no one could force her to do anything against her will, not a day went by that she didn’t wonder if the truth would come out.

That Laura Foster was nothing more than a former whore.

When the clock in the parlor below struck four, Laura ran a hand over her eyes and sighed. Well acquainted with bouts of insomnia, she knew there was no going back to sleep. There was nothing to do but wait for dawn, when Rodrigo, the handyman, and his wife, Anna, arrived and started to prepare breakfast for her guests. Thanks to Rodrigo and Anna and their son, Richard, Foster’s was known as much for the hearty and delicious meals she planned as it was for the fine table she set.

She walked back to her bed and lit the lamp on the bedside table, then picked up the novel she’d been reading.
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas reminded her of herself. Determined to succeed in escaping the life fate had handed her, she’d educated herself, first by begging one of the other whores, a woman named Jolie, to teach her to read. The process had been painstaking at best, for there was little time to “waste” on something as frivolous as reading. Yet she’d persevered. She’d never forgotten Jolie’s advice:
“Study hard, little one. For if you can read, you can slip into the pages of a book and escape into your mind.”

Her efforts to better herself hadn’t gone unnoticed. She was chided by the other women in the brothel where she was forced to grow up overnight. She was accused of being aloof and arrogant because she walled off her heart and her soul in order to survive. Through it all, she had cultivated her mind—for it was the only place she could escape to.

No one could touch her there. No man could put his hands on her mind.

She didn’t care what any of the other women thought of her. She was too focused on fighting for survival and winning her independence in the outside world. And she’d succeeded. But at great cost. She had everything she could want. Yet every pretty and
expensive thing she owned was like her—lovely on the outside, incapable of feeling on the inside.

She’d loved once. She loved her Da and Ma, her sisters. But now…

Now it was easier to feel nothing.

Laura had been up for six hours before breakfast was over and the dining room was finally cleared. Two visiting families had departed to return to their hometowns and it was time to prepare for the next.

She was lucky to have a steady stream of guests. Hers was the only boardinghouse in a town quickly spreading in all directions—thanks to its founder’s descendants and their offer to sell homesteaders two tracts of land for the price of one. With more settlers came more business, and the threat of renegade Comanche attacks diminished. The stage lines were doubling their schedules, and with luck a railroad spur might one day cut through Glory.

The scents of cinnamon and bacon still lingered in the kitchen as Laura went over the dinner menu with Rodrigo while Anna worked upstairs changing linens. Though she normally trusted Rodrigo to do the daily marketing—he’d taught her how long various cuts of meat should hang in order to reach their peak tenderness, which fruits and vegetables were just ripe enough, how to bargain for a fair price—today she wanted to escape before the walls closed in on her.

In her room, she tried to tame her curly hair into a chignon before choosing a ruffled gray bonnet and a beaded reticule. She made sure the silver derringer she never went without was safely within the purse, then slipped the silk cords over her wrist and collected her parasol from the hall tree near the front door. Armed with her list and a basket for carrying her purchases, she was soon on her way.

The Texas sun was already brutal. She used the parasol to protect her complexion as she headed to the mercantile. As she strolled along, her footsteps sure and confident, she gazed at the familiar
landmarks, the neat rows of false-fronted stores on either side of the street, the boardwalk that kept passersby out of the dusty road.

Glory was a fine town, far enough from New Orleans that she felt somewhat safe from recognition, yet small enough to have room to grow her business.

Laura smiled and made it a point to stop and chat with all the merchants she’d come to know: Patrick O’Toole, the butcher, always saved the finest cuts of meat for her. Big Mick Robinson, the smith, made certain her horse was properly shod and her carriage wheels well greased. Harrison Barker, who along with his mother owned the mercantile, was always willing to please.

They all knew her as Mrs. Laura Foster. The respectable, wealthy widow Foster.

She hoped to keep it that way.

She’d nearly reached the mercantile when a cowboy caught her eye as he sauntered across the street and started down the sidewalk toward her. When he tipped his hat, she gave him a quick, cool nod and then angled her parasol so that her face was hidden from his view. She picked up her pace a bit—not noticeably, just enough to put distance between them.

Tempted to glance over her shoulder, she forced herself to keep her eyes on the walk ahead of her and tried to convince herself she was being foolish. What were the chances that even one of the countless men she’d known in New Orleans would show up here? Let alone recognize her now? The odds were a million to one.

When she finally reached the mercantile, she experienced a wave of relief. She folded her parasol and paused on the threshold for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the light inside. Across the room, Harrison was busy helping a woman select canning jars. A cowpuncher in a filthy shirt with tattered cuffs, well-worn denim pants, and sweat-stained ten-gallon hat waited for service. He had piled a small stack of goods—a pound bag of dry beans, a few tins of sardines, and a half dozen potatoes—on the counter.

A child stood alongside him, a little girl in a ragged homespun
jumper that sagged off her thin shoulders. Beneath it she wore a soiled white blouse. She was standing in front of an open candy jar full of lemon drops. The child’s hand was curled into a fist, no doubt closed around a piece of candy she’d sneaked from the jar.

Laura understood the scene in one glance. The sight reminded her all too much of herself at that same age. It was an image that conjured up memories of Megan too. She turned away, but not before she felt a desperate squeeze in her chest where her heart had once been.

She tried to concentrate on the list of things she needed and was about to move on when she heard the crack of flesh against flesh.

“Drop those sweets ‘fore I tan your hide!”

The harshly uttered threat stopped her in her tracks.

She whirled and caught the man towering over the child, his hand still raised. A lone lemon drop lay on the floor beside the little girl’s dirty bare feet. She stood silent, but her dark eyes were wide as saucers. Beneath her small fingers, pressed against her cheek, a large, red handprint told the tale.

Without thought, Laura hurried over to the counter and barged in to the small space between the man and the child.

“If you lay another hand on her you’ll regret it until the day you die,” she said.

The man looked as stunned as his daughter, but he recovered in a heartbeat.

“She’s mine and I’ll not have her stealing.”

The child peeked out from behind Laura’s skirt. “I wasn’t stealing, Pa. I was gonna ask the man if I could have one.” Her tremulous voice broke on the words as she fought back tears.

“We’re not thieves
or
beggars. Now get over here.” He pointed to a spot on the floor beside him. The little girl slipped around Laura to stand beside her pa. She dropped her hand but the palm print on her face flared red and angry.

The man ignored the child as he tried to stare Laura down. She stared right back, determined to let him know he’d met his match.

“Do you have brothers and sisters at home?” Laura turned her attention to the little girl.

The child glanced up at her father before she nodded yes.

“I’m sending you home with a half pound of lemon drops. Share them, will you?”

“I don’t take charity,” the man growled.

“It’s not for you. It’s for your children.” Laura knew there was probably very little light in his children’s lives. If the girl was any indication, the joy had been beaten out of them a long time ago.

“How I raise my young’uns is my own business.”

“You don’t have any business hitting a child, mister.”

She watched his jaw bunch, knew instinctively that his hand had tightened into a fist.

Just you try, mister.

As she met his hard stare, she felt someone move to stand beside her. Then she heard a voice she recognized. A voice filled with confidence.

“Think twice before you do something you’ll regret.”

Laura turned and found herself staring into the eyes of Reverend Brand McCormick, the minister of Glory’s only church. He was standing as close as he could get. A united front, they stood shoulder to shoulder facing down the cowhand.

“I suggest you graciously accept this lady’s kind offer to purchase a bit of candy for your children and in the future you hold your temper,” the reverend said.

Used to listening to this man deliver his Sunday sermons, she had no idea that beneath McCormick’s confident, smiling exterior lay such courage and strength. Relief swept through her when she realized she was no longer alone. She had reacted to the homesteader’s assault on the child without thinking.

She had no desire to even contemplate what might have happened if the good reverend hadn’t stepped in.

The man stared back and forth between the two of them, opened his mouth, thought better of what it was he might have said, and closed it.

Harrison hurried across the room and quickly began tallying up the homesteader’s small order of goods. He bagged up a half pound of sweets and set them atop the order. Laura reached for the sack and held it out to the child. The little girl looked up at her father for permission to accept, and he gave a slight nod of his head in acknowledgment. She reached out and Laura placed the sack in her hand.

“Thank you, lady,” the little girl whispered.

“You’re welcome.”

There was so much more Laura wanted to say, so much more she wished she could do for the child, but she already feared she’d done too much. She could only hope the man wouldn’t take his shame and embarrassment out on the girl after they had left the store.

Laura refused to walk away until the man and child left. When they were finally out of sight, she released a sigh of relief and turned to Brand McCormick.

“Thank you, Reverend.” She was well aware that he was staring speculatively. “I really had no idea what I was going to do next.”

Short of shooting the man.

His smile lit up his face. “After what I just saw, there’s not a doubt in my mind that you could have handled things.”