Her Safe Harbor: Prairie Romance (Crawford Family Book 4) (11 page)

“Who is it?”

“It is the man sent to guard Miss Jolene. He is no threat to
us.”

“Mr. Moran?” she called down the stairs.

“Yes, Miss O’Brien?” Zeb said as he stood.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Zeb glanced at Thomas. “I was hoping to ask you some
questions regarding your attack, Miss O’Brien. I am glad to hear your recovery
has begun.”

“There is no need, Kathleen,” O’Brien said, even as Zeb
heard soft footfalls descending. “Mr. Moran was just leaving.”

Zeb watched as the young woman took two hesitant steps into
the room. Her left eye was still swollen shut, and the entire side of her face
was brown and blue. There was a yellow bruise on her chin, and he could see
where the split on her lip was scabbed over.

“What questions?” she asked him.

“Anything you can remember about the man who hurt you.”

Kathleen O’Brien walked to the massive stove and her father
and brother followed her as if she were going to crumble or faint at any
moment. He watched her shoulders rise and fall when she stopped at the
glass-doored cabinet holding dishes. “Does anyone care for some tea?” she
asked.

“Is this wise, colleen?” her father asked softly.

“I cannot be prisoner in my rooms for the rest of my life,
Father. And I fear the longer I wait the more difficult it will be to ever
leave.”

Thomas wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “Then
it’s tea we’ll have. Sit down now. I’ll see to it.”

Zeb watched as she slowly turned to the table. His first
instinct was to hurry to her, pull out her chair, and help her be seated. But
he was fairly certain she would have crumbled as her father and brother
suspected she would if a man she didn’t know got close to her. Young Sean was
at his sister’s side then, pulling out her seat and unhooking her shawl where
it had caught on the chair. He patted her shoulder awkwardly.

“I’ll stand by the door if you’d like.”

Kathleen smiled and leaned her head against his arm. “I’d
rather you sit here beside me and have some tea. McGuire is outside standing
watch. Who would get past him?”

Thomas filled two flowered cups and set them in front of his
daughter and son. “Are you warm enough, Kathleen? I can add some wood to the
fire or fetch a blanket for your legs.”

“I’m fine, Father. You will have Mr. Moran thinking I’m more
of an invalid than I already am.”

“I think you are far from an invalid, Miss O’Brien. I think
you are a survivor, and I think your brother and father just want you to be
safe.”

She stared at her hands for some time. “I have already told
the police everything I can remember.”

“Do you remember much of the attack?” he asked.

Her head came up sharply. “Yes. Yes, I do. Every night when
I close my eyes, it’s as if it is happening all over again.”

“What are you able to tell me about it?”

“It was dark. He was tall and smelled like the fish market,”
she said as her hand came to her neck. “I tried to scream, I think. Maybe I
did. And then it was black.”

“You were alone?” he asked.

“Yes. I had gone to the Robinson theatre with some friends
and was walking home. I should have never walked down that street. I knew it
wasn’t safe.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” her father said as he came to stand
behind her.

She looked up at him and patted his hand as he held her
shoulder. “I do blame myself. I was wrong.”

“You were at the theatre with friends and they let you walk
home alone? I am surprised.” Zeb looked up at Thomas O’Brien.

“I thought the same thing, Moran. What kind of men were
they? Nothing like what I would have done when I was a young man. These young
people today are lazy.”

“I didn’t want to put them out. They were going the other
direction,” she said. “I’ve told you all of this, anyway. I don’t blame them.”

Zeb stared at her until she looked at him. He was going to
take the risk of being bodily thrown out of the O’Brien home, but his concerns weren’t
with this well-guarded young woman, but rather with Jennifer Crawford, whose
risk he believed was greater than originally imagined.

“Begging your pardon, Miss O’Brien, but I think you’re
lying.”

“Get out!” Thomas screamed. “Get out!”

The door to the house flew open and the man with the shotgun
charged in. “What is it, Thomas?”

Zeb sat purposefully still and stared into Kathleen’s eyes.
Tears were rolling down her face. “You are protecting someone by withholding
the truth,” he said amidst more shouting and threats. “You are protecting
Jennifer Crawford, and perhaps your family as well.”

“Stop! Stop this shouting and screaming,” she said finally.
The room silenced immediately. “Thank you, McGuire. I am fine but would be more
comfortable if you were on the outside watching for intruders. Sean, it is
nearly time to feed the horses. Perhaps you can help the stall boy.”

Thomas sat down. “What haven’t you told me?”

She covered her mouth with a shaking hand. “He whispered in
my ear, you know. Said that Sean would have an accident and that there were
ways to discredit you. That you would lose your job and we’d be living on the
streets.”

“What did he say about Jennifer Crawford?” Zeb asked.

She looked up. “That she’d be used foully by several men and
she’d be glad that Rothchild would still have her. That she would learn to like
a good smacking before servicing her husband.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” her father asked. “It
must be someone who knows you through your work or knows Miss Jennifer to know
so much about us. We can make inquiries . . .”

“No!” Kathleen cried as she stood abruptly, knocking her
chair over behind her and pounding her fist on the table. “Don’t you see? They
will get to her! You will watch out for me and for Sean, but she has no one!
You must not tell anyone what I have said. There is more to this than . . .”

“Than what? What is this about, Miss O’Brien?”

She shook her head. “Leave it alone. You must not
interfere.”

“I can’t. I
won’t
leave it alone. I’m going to keep
her safe. Do you know who attacked you?” Zeb asked.

She gathered her shawl around her and walked to the steps.
“I am tired and want to rest. Good day to you.”

Thomas watched her retreating footsteps. “Contrary like her
mother. Thinking she needs to keep me safe. As if I wouldn’t work in the sewers
to feed my family.”

“She’s a very brave young woman. She feels she needs to
protect Miss Crawford. Please pass on to her that I will be seeing to Miss
Crawford’s safety personally,” Zeb said as he let himself out. He had much to
think about. But he was unable to sort out his thoughts sufficiently to begin
to plan. All he could hear repeating through his head was “she would learn to
like a good smacking.” It made him want to puke in the trimmed hedges as he
made his way back to the main house of Willow Tree.

Chapter Ten

Jennifer waved to her friend Ruth
Edgewood Mullens across the dining room of the Parker House Hotel dining room.
She’d left Eliza in the lobby with enough coins to find a suitable
establishment for her luncheon and instructions to return in an hour. Her
father’s insistence over the years that she have a maid accompany her in public
seemed silly for a modern young woman near the turn of the century, but
Jennifer did not resist the company any longer. After O’Brien’s beating she was
hesitant to move about the city alone even during daylight hours as she had
been doing for years.

“How glad I was to receive your note, Ruth!” she said as she
kissed her friend’s cheek.

Ruth squeezed her hands. “It is so good to see you. Our
sporadic luncheons and brief moments spent together at a tea or a dinner just
don’t do.”

“I agree.” After they had perused the menu and gave their
orders to the waiter, Jennifer said, “So tell me about Harry, Mr. Mullens, that
is. How is married life?”

Ruth smiled. “It is wonderful. I am very happy and
contented. Of course, Harry is so gentle and kind and considerate of me, I
could hardly be otherwise!”

“I am so very glad for you,” Jennifer said, and listened as
her friend described the excitement of her recent wedding trip and Harry’s
business success.

Jennifer wasn’t sure when, but she had given up on having
the kind of closeness and adoration Ruth felt for Harry for any partner she
might have. It was increasingly mentioned how fortunate she was to be engaged
to Jeffrey Rothchild. It was as if because it had been said at the Randolph
party it was now real and true. She didn’t know what to say when an
acquaintance said something about it. If she denied it, she would embarrass the
speaker and herself, and she didn’t really know how to explain it away. She’d
told a friend of her father’s that she and Jeffrey were not engaged, and the
fellow commiserated with her over having to break off something as formal as a
marriage engagement in such a public way. She hadn’t the heart or the stomach
to tell him there’d never been an engagement to begin with.

“I’ve been asked by several people if you and Mr. Rothchild
were engaged, and I told them absolutely not as you would never become engaged
to be married and fail to mention it to me,” Ruth said and smiled. “Unless of
course there is some happy news you would like to share now?”

Jennifer shook her head. “No. I am not engaged. I will never
marry Mr. Rothchild.”

“Oh. That is rather final. I am sorry to hear that things did
not turn out as you anticipated. I remember speaking to you this past summer
and you seemed quite taken with him. I was so hoping you’d found your special
someone as I have.”

“He is not special. Nor is he anything like I’d thought he
would be. It is strange, though, that he
seemed
to be a perfect fit for
me, and knew so many of the same people, and just, well, looked like he would
be the perfect husband. How silly of me to think that what a person looks like
would be indicative of their character.”

“It sounds as though your opinion is quite set, but just a
few days ago someone mentioned your relationship with Mr. Rothchild to me. Yet
it appears that there never was much of a relationship to begin with. Gossip
about your family doesn’t ever seem to end,” Ruth replied.

“About my family? Have you heard something other than
Jeffrey and me?”

Ruth’s face reddened. “That was poorly said. I didn’t mean
to imply . . .”

“I think you have heard something else. Please tell me.”

“It is nothing, I am sure,” Ruth said and shrugged.

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“It’s just that my mother heard that your mother was unwell
at the Randolph dinner. Mother was unable to attend as my sister Lydia had just
presented her husband with their first child and Mother had not yet traveled
back from Ohio. But she was at one of her committee meetings last week and
someone there, well, several ladies there, remarked that your mother became ill
at the dinner party. I’m hoping she is feeling better.”

“Ruth. We have known each other since we were girls at
Ramsey. There is something you are not telling me. I can see it in your face.”

Ruth looked down at her plate and put down her silverware.
She looked up at Jennifer. “It was said that your mother was acting strangely.
That is all. I’m sure it was just because she was feeling unwell.”

“Tell me.”

“I have no wish to hurt your feelings, nor do I feel right
about carrying tales that are surely spoken out of malice. You must believe
me.”

“I don’t believe for one moment that you intend to hurt my
feelings, but it really is best that I know what is being said.”

Ruth looked away and back at Jennifer with such a pitying
face that it was all she could do not to shake her oldest and dearest friend by
the shoulders until she sputtered out all the worst things that she imagined
people were saying about her mother.

“It is being said she is a devotee of Benedict Fitzhugh and
that she defended him and believes all of his tales. It is being said that she
attended one of his speeches here in the city with Jeffrey Rothchild and that
Mr. Rothchild said that he had no idea who this Fitzhugh fellow was and that he
was just doing a favor for his fiancée by taking her mother to what he thought
was going to be an academic lecture. It is being said that she believes in moon
creatures and that perhaps she is not mentally well.”

Jennifer took a deep breath and thought about all the
falsehoods contained in those few sentences and how they were close enough to
the truth to be quite believable. “Has there been any mention of my father?”

Ruth slowly patted her mouth with her napkin. “Only that he
found his wife’s behavior unremarkable.”

“And by not denouncing it, he is condoning it.”

Jennifer ate her food and listened to her friend attempt to
lighten the mood with stories about her brothers and sisters, whom Jennifer had
been acquainted with as long as she knew Ruth. She waited with Eliza under the
massive gold-colored canopy of the Parker House Hotel for their family carriage
to be brought in front. Eliza was talking about a dress she’d seen in a window
as she’d walked back to the hotel. Jennifer nodded in the appropriate places as
her maid elaborated on her find, but she replayed in her mind all that Ruth had
said. All that was being said about her, about Jeffrey and Mother, and her
father. She was going to visit O’Brien that evening and share with her all
she’d discovered lately about the Dorchester portfolio and ask her directly who
had attacked her. At each of her visits with O’Brien, they’d shared knowing
looks when the subject came up but nothing was ever spoken aloud, nothing was
for certain. Jennifer needed certainty.

* * *

“I’m going to visit Miss O’Brien,
Mrs. Gutentide. Is there anything I can deliver for you?” Jennifer said later
that day in the kitchens of Willow Tree.

“Yes, Miss Crawford. There are these cleaned clothes to be
returned. But they may be too heavy for you. I’ll get Luther to carry them for
you.”

“I’ll carry them for Miss Crawford,” Zeb Moran said.

Jennifer turned. “I did not hear you behind me, Mr. Moran. I’ll
be fine. There are only a few things, and Mrs. Gutentide has them folded neatly
in a bag.”

“All the same,” he said, and reached past her and picked up
the cloth sack.

“Thank you, Mrs. Gutentide,” she said, and went up the stone
steps that opened to the walkway between the stables and the main house. She
stopped, turned, and held out her hand. “I can carry the bag.”

“I’m happy to carry it for you. Will you mind company on
your walk? I was hoping to talk to you.”

“I do not need nor do I want your help. You are employed by
my brother-in-law, not my father!”

Jennifer felt tears at the back of her eyes and her hands
were tight fists at her side. She’d been nursing an ache in her head since
early that morning, mostly she imagined because she slept little as of late and
inevitably woke with stiff, clenched shoulders, in a cold sweat, regardless of
how thin and light her sleeping gown. Zeb Moran was staring at her, watching
her take deep, gulping breaths.

“It is as though I opened my mouth and my sister Jolene spoke,
was it not? I did not mean to sound shrill or rude. Please just give me the
laundry,” she said.

“May I speak boldly?” he asked.

“Would there be much I could do to stop you?”

“Very little. Can we sit at the bench there?”

She led the way and pulled her wool cape tight around her as
she seated herself. “What is it? I have promised my friend O’Brien I would
visit this afternoon.”

“I have recently visited with Miss O’Brien. I would be happy
to go with you and see her again.”

Jennifer looked up. “I’m sure you have not. She has been
very particular about whom she sees and Mr. O’Brien guards her closely.”

He sat down beside her and looked her in the eye. “But I
have. I have sat with her father, met her brother, Sean, and had a rather
enlightening conversation with Miss O’Brien herself.”

Jennifer looked away. “I hope you did not frighten her.
Aside from her injuries, she is still not . . . herself. What could possibly be
enlightening about a conversation between total strangers?”

“Perhaps I went as a gentleman, concerned for a young woman
who is recovering from an attack.”

“But you did not, did you?”

“I asked her what happened the night she was beaten.”

“I do not understand why any of those details would interest
you, but she has spoken to the police and to the Pinkerton agents about that
night. It is hardly kind to make her relive it.”

“I asked, and she told me that her attacker was tall and
smelled like a fish market.”

“Then she has told you the same as she has told everyone
else.”

“I told her she was a liar.”

“You what?” Jennifer cried as she stood. “How dare you? How
dare you badger a young woman who has been brutalized?”

“Please sit down.”

“I will not! I will not sit, and I won’t allow you to speak
so cruelly to my friend!”

“Calm yourself and let me talk to you. Easy does it,” Zeb
said as he stood and wrapped his hands lightly around her upper arms.

“She has done nothing to you. Why torment her?”

“She has done nothing to me, but she has done something
for
me. She has confirmed my deepest fears. She told me and her father that you and
her brother and father are in danger. Serious danger. She pounded on the table
when her father said he’d share this information with the police. She feels
there is no one to guard you and that you will make an easy target. She has been
protecting you all along.”

Jennifer stilled. “She must be mistaken.”

“No, she’s not. She’s not mistaken. She told me what the man
said to her, but there is something she is not telling me. I can’t protect you
if I don’t know all the details.”

“What did she tell you?”

“She told me that her attacker said that her brother, Sean,
would have an accident and that her father would be discredited,” he replied.

“She is terrified that her brother will be hurt. I think
that is the thing that most haunts her. Although the idea of something
happening to the horses in her father’s care is very upsetting to her as well.
She has grown up riding and caring for these animals and is very attached to
them.”

“I believe Miss O’Brien and her family and the horses are
reasonably well-guarded. I understand Mr. O’Brien has friends who take shifts
guarding the house and the stables.”

“Yes, they do,” Jennifer said.

“What I don’t understand,” he said, “is why the guards were
not hired by your father?”

“There is no need to understand as this is none of your
business.”

“What is truly puzzling, though, is why you are angry with
me and do not hesitate in the least in telling me so but you continue in a
relationship with a man who treats you badly. Is hitting you and threatening
you, I think.”

Jennifer felt the blood drain from her face, but did not
consciously feel her arm lifting and her hand landing, open palm, on Zebidiah
Moran’s face. Nor did she anticipate her fingers stinging with the blow or the
look in his eyes. In an instant, she was frightened, and horrified at what she
had done. She turned and ran toward the staff entrance, praying the kitchens
would be empty. She did not make it far, though. He was suddenly in front of
her.

“Stop running, Jennifer. Talk to me,” he said.

She could not explain, or begin to understand, why she was
doing exactly as he described. Why was she rebuffing the care of a man, and “rebuffing”
was too small a word to describe what she had just done, to keep peace with a
man who was threatening her very existence and the security of her family? “Why
are you asking me these questions?”

“Perhaps because you won’t ask them of yourself.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I am a coward. I know I am. But I’m
unable to change. I’m afraid and silly and cannot seem to . . . t-to,” Jennifer
stumbled. “Why do you continue to be kind to me?”

“I was raised a Southern gentleman. My mother would have
tanned my hide had she heard me being anything less than that,” he said and
smiled at her. “I may earn another slap, but you have not been yourself since
coming here. Although you were quiet when you first arrived, you were different
when you were staying with your sister. You were happy and relaxed. You seem to
me to be everything
but
happy and relaxed here in your own home.”

She dabbed her eyes. “You cannot understand the implications
of the situation I am in. You know nothing of Boston society or our family
business. I must solve these issues in my own way, on my own.”