Marry Me (28 page)

Cole waited for Rhyne to comment, but she remained silent, letting her head fall back a few degrees and closing her eyes. Her hand stayed in his. He had no idea what she was thinking, and her silence lasted so long that he thought she might have fallen asleep.

“Why did you come here?” she whispered. Her voice was reedy, the pitch unsteady. “What’s Reidsville got except that it isn’t New York? You could have gone most anywhere. From the things I read, New York’s so big I bet you could have lost yourself in it. And if not there, there’s plenty of places like it. Boston. Philadelphia. Even Chicago, if you don’t mind the smell of the slaughterhouses. I don’t understand why you came here and took it upon yourself to be so damn interfering. Doc Diggins played cards and tended to people that needed him. He didn’t go out of his way to look after people that didn’t ask nothin’ of him.”

Cole decided that Rhyne must have been holding on to that for a long time. He waited until he was sure she’d run out of steam. “When you say ‘damn interfering,’ can I assume you’re referring to the fact that I offered you employment?”

“Employment’s the least of it. You want me to marry you. That kind of meddling could put a busybody like Alice Cassidy to shame.”

“I don’t agree.”

“Well, you wouldn’t, would you? It’s your idea.” “Do you wish our paths had never crossed?” “Just about every other day.” “And on the in-between days?” “I think of all your kindnesses.” “It must be confusing.”

She opened her eyes and stared at the raised pattern of roses and vines on the far wall. After a while the intricate design on the flock paper made her eyes swim. “It puts powerful knots in my stomach.”

He nodded. He was more than a little familiar with them himself. “Do you remember that I told you it was Whitley’s idea to come here?”

“Is it true? Or some version of the truth?”

Cole supposed he deserved that. “It’s true. I was still at St. John’s. I didn’t want to leave as a reaction to ending the engagement. It was important to me to think it through. Whitley, you might have noticed, tends to be more impatient. She saw the search committee’s advertisement in the
Times
and answered it. I didn’t know anything about it until I received their reply along with a contract. I didn’t immediately accept the offer, but the idea of living in a place where no one knew us, well, that was appealing, and I knew Whitley wanted to be out of society. Had she still been in New York, she would have made her coming out a few months ago. It didn’t matter that every girl there would have worn satin gloves that reached their elbows. Whitley knew the kinds of comments that she could expect. Things like:
“Fashion is always about deception, dear. How fortunate you are that your brother can afford to buy you so many elegant gloves.”

“Was that Caroline?” asked Rhyne.

“Yes.”

“You pitched your voice better that time.”

“I remembered what you said: whisper.”

Rhyne smiled faintly, still absorbing all that he’d told her. “Miss Erwin is spiteful, I think.”

That was probably putting it too kindly, Cole thought, but he agreed with her assessment. “I had a letter recently from a colleague in New York. He wrote that Caroline is engaged again, this time to a physician specializing in disorders of the heart and lungs.”

“Did it stir regrets?”

“Not one.”

Rhyne’s nod was barely perceptible. She slid down the headboard a few inches, just enough so that when she leaned sideways, her head rested on Cole’s shoulder. “In the morning,” she said, “when you think about tonight, will it stir regrets?”

Cole blew out a deep breath. “You load a question like a six-shooter.”

“I suppose I do. You don’t have to answer. It wasn’t fair.”

“What would you say?”

She didn’t stir as she turned the matter over in her mind. “I regret that I was selfish,” she said finally. “I didn’t consider your honor, or that you’d feel so bound by it that you’d want me to marry you. I can’t account for all the feelings that welled up inside when you put your mouth on me, but I know how purely stubborn I can be, and I wanted more of what you were givin’. You chase away the darkness, and I got real greedy for some light.”

Cole was glad she was at ease with silence. His chest was uncomfortably tight, and the constriction in his throat barely allowed him to breathe, let alone speak.

The lamp on the bedside table grew dim as the oil wicked away. Shadows flickered across the flock paper, then were still. The coals in the stove needed replenishing, but neither of them moved to tend to the fire.

In time, they slept.

Cole wasn’t particularly surprised to find himself alone when he woke, just disappointed. He recognized the sounds of early morning activity: pots banging in the kitchen; Whitley’s hurried descent down the stairs; the exchange of greetings; and realized he’d slept much later than was his habit.

By the time he arrived at the dining room table, Whitley and Rhyne were almost done with their breakfast.

“He rises!” Whitley said, pointing her knife at him. A dollop of orange marmalade dropped on her plate, narrowly missing the tablecloth. She scooped it up with her finger and plopped it in her mouth. “I told Rhyne it was all right to let you sleep late because you
never
do, and you’ve been looking so peaked lately that I was
sure
you needed sleep to recover your color and remove those sadly abused bags from under your eyes. Do you see, Rhyne? I was right. Coleridge is looking fine, and I think his disposition is improved.”

Cole dropped a kiss on Whitley’s proffered cheek. Straightening, he touched his tongue to the corner of his mouth. “I believe that’s a spot of marmalade you have there, Whit. Good morning, Miss Abbot.”

“Good morning.”

Cole pulled out his chair at the head of the table and sat. “I looked out my window and saw we were blanketed with another foot of snow. Does that explain why the only sunshine we’ll see today is in your face?”

“Rhyne says I can stay home. Didn’t you, Rhyne?”

“I did,” she said. She glanced at Cole. “The wind’s still blowing a lot of snow around. There will be drifts as tall as Whitley. It’s not safe. Mr. Cassidy won’t open the school.”

“Well, you would know.” He uncovered a serving plate of scrambled eggs and helped himself. There was toast and crisp strips of bacon under another dome. “The marmalade, please.” Whitley slid it across the table. He spread some on one triangle of toast and turned his pointed gaze on his sister. “Bags under my eyes? Medical bags, I hope.”

She giggled. “Of course.”

“So what is the plan for today?”

Her face sagged. “You’re talking about schoolwork, I suppose.”

“Not necessarily. Just something to occupy you.” Rhyne spoke up. “I was thinking that Whitley could help me. I have some recipes that I’ve scribbled on bits of paper here and there. Whitley’s got such an elegant script, it seemed to me that she could write things down so I could read them plainly.” She looked at Whitley. “That’s after we finish the regular chores, you understand. If you’re here, there’s no reason you can’t give me a hand.”

“There’s our plan,” said Whitley, beaming at her brother. “What’s yours?”

“I have to go to the telegraph office and send a wire about getting some books, then there are patients to call on.” He picked up a forkful of eggs, ignoring their surprised stares. He imagined they both thought he’d be spending the day in the surgery bent over his microscope. “Mrs. Ferris has a troubling cold in her chest. John and Eleanor Best’s youngest boy has the whooping cough. Ezra told me his stump’s been giving him some pain. I told him to come see me, but he shouldn’t expose his arm on a day like today.”

“You shouldn’t go out either,” Rhyne said. “You don’t really understand what can happen. You can lose your way going from here to the woodshed.”

“I’m not discounting the danger,” he said. “But I made promises. This is what I do. I’ll be careful.”

And there was no arguing with that.

Rhyne and Whitley spent the day attending to household tasks. They ate lunch in the kitchen, and Rhyne showed Whitley the scraps of paper where she’d recorded the recipes. She baked an applesauce cake that she would serve after dinner while Whitley copied the recipes in her beautifully refined style. They each found reasons to go to the parlor to check the clock on the mantel. Sometimes less than a half hour passed between visits.

They settled in the library while the dinner roast cooked. Neither made an effort at small talk. Rhyne found Whitley’s quiet alarming. It seemed to her that Cole’s sister had passed through worry and arrived at dread. She didn’t know what assurances she could offer Whitley, not when she wasn’t feeling them herself. Whitley would see straight to her own concern; she probably already had.

“Would it help to sit at the window?” she asked.

Whitley shook her head. “It’s already too dark. I wouldn’t be able to see him. Why isn’t there a moon tonight, Rhyne? A fingernail of moon would help him find his way home.”

“Lamps are burning all over town. We have one in every window. He can’t mistake this house.”

“What if he’s lying in a drift? You said they’d be as tall as me.”

“Then it’s a good thing your brother’s taller, isn’t it?”

Whitley jumped to her feet and began to pace the room. “Why’d he have to be a doctor anyway? He could have been a soldier.”

“I don’t see how that would ease your mind.”

“At least he’d have a gun,” she said. “He’s a fine shot, did you know that? He was the best with a rifle in his class at the Point. Papa said he was admired for it, not just by the other cadets, but the commanders, too. Instead of staying with his rifle, he gave it up to walk straight into sickness. There’s no weapon for that. He sits with people who have the croup and the measles and fevers so hot they can scald a person’s brain, and he can’t shoot at any of it.”

Tears flooded her eyes, and she pushed at them with the heels of her hands. “Our mama died because she visited the sick wards. The poorest people go there, Rhyne. It’s the only way they can see a doctor, and most of the time they wait until they’re so sick they have to be carried in. I don’t blame them. They’re afraid, and it’s an awful place. Sometimes their own family won’t visit them there, but our mother went because she said no one should die alone. She sat at their bedside to give people peace of mind and she caught her own death.”

Rhyne sat back in her chair. Stunned, she stared at Whitley. “Does your brother know how you feel?”

“No! No, and you can’t tell him. Promise me that you won’t tell him.”

There was no mistaking Whitley’s very real horror at the prospect of being unmasked. “But, Whitley, it grieves you.”

“It doesn’t matter. If he knew, it would be awful for him. He would feel as though he should give it up.” She held up her hands, showing the backs of them to Rhyne. “Because of these. He blames himself, and I don’t know if anything will ever change that. I can’t put him in a position where he believes he has to choose between the two things he loves best in all the world.”

“Oh, Whitley.” She stood and opened her arms, inviting someone into them for the first time. She had no idea what she would do if the overture was refused, but it didn’t come to that. Whitley launched herself at Rhyne and threw her arms likewise around her.

So much was plain to Rhyne now. She understood what prompted Whitley to answer the
Times ‘
advertisement. Cole was probably not wrong that his sister wanted to be gone from New York society, but that told only half the tale. She wanted him in a safe place, away from the hospital, away from the crowded wards that had killed their mother. Whitley was still trying to save him.

“You must be the very best sister,” Rhyne whispered against Whitley’s ear. “I wonder if he knows that.”

Whitley sniffed. “He does. I tell him regularly.”

Rhyne smiled. She stroked Whitley’s hair while she blinked away her own tears.

It was this scene that Cole interrupted as he parted the library doors. Startled, Rhyne and Whitley stepped away from each other and stared at him. There was a dusting of snow in his copper hair and ruddy, windblown color in his cheeks. Bits of ice at the hem of his trousers melted and dripped on the floor. The tips of his boots were wet. He still seemed to be in possession of a complete set of fingers and toes. In fact, he looked rather pleased with himself.

Arm in arm, their shoulders braced as if for battle, Whitley and Rhyne marched past him as if he weren’t there.

“I hope you intend to explain it to me,” Cole said later that evening. He accepted the cup of hot cocoa that Rhyne brought to him in the surgery. “It was extraordinarily quiet at dinner this evening.” He pushed out a stool for her and invited her to sit. “Has Whitley gone to bed?”

“Yes.”

“She didn’t say good night. She usually does.” “She will tomorrow. Whitley doesn’t hold a grudge for long.”

“I know she’s angry at me. What I don’t understand is why.”

“She was worried about you.” After a moment, she added, “We both were.”

“Then I thought you would have been glad to see me.”

Rhyne shrugged. “I suppose we had to know you were all right before we could allow ourselves to get properly riled.”

Cole lifted a single eyebrow. “I’m not sure that even makes sense.”

“It does from where I’m sitting.”

“A woman’s mind is a considerable mystery.”

She liked the sound of that. “That’s what I have, don’t I? A woman’s mind.”

He saw that it pleased her. “You do.” He sipped his cocoa. “Have you given any thought to the arrangement I offered yesterday?”

All day.
What she said was, “No. I gave you my answer.” Cole nodded and offered no pressure to change her mind. He pushed aside a tray of test tubes and another of glass slides to give him room to set his cup and saucer on the table. “I saw Wyatt Cooper today. He was in his office. I stopped in to say hello.”

“Did you talk Latin or speak like regular folks?”

“Like regular folks, I expect. I asked him if he was able to make his usual Thursday rounds. I know sometimes he stops in to see the outliers.” He watched Rhyne carefully for some reaction, but she gave nothing away. “He told me the snow wasn’t a problem until he headed back. It didn’t keep him from visiting Judah.”