Mary Brock Jones (11 page)

Nessa smothered the laugh that rose to her lips, so intent was the look on the man’s face. It wasn’t even her looks he coveted. Her many proposals had taught her it was a cook and housekeeper he wanted most.

“Thank you for your kind offer, but I must respectfully decline,” she said.

“Now see here,” spluttered Philip simultaneously.

“Ah, well, it was worth a shot,” said the gunsmith. “But I can sell you a good pistol at least.” He pulled out a selection from a tray beneath his counter and helped her test the weight of the small, deadly looking weapons until she found one that fit her hand. “It’s a good choice, that one. Easy to fire and quick to reload. Now, if you need help practising with it, I’d be only too pleased to help.”

“I am quite capable of looking after my sister, sir.”

Philip had turned an alarming shade of red. Nessa quickly paid for her new weapon and hurried him out of the shop before the man should say anything else. While Philip was young and naive in many ways, he was also an expert shot and swordsman. Their father had taught both of them as children, in one of his few concessions to the dangers of the places he took them, and Philip had taken to the lessons with vigour. She could have no better teacher than her brother to help her with her new gun.

They turned up the street, heading back to their tent.

“Mr and Miss Ward?”

“Yes,” said Philip curtly.

What now? They both turned to see who was calling out their names right in the middle of the street. A dusty man was leading a packhorse up the stony roadway.

“Jamie MacTavish at your service,” the little man said, coming up to them. “Just to let you know the word’s come to the packers here that you be a friend of Mr John Reid. You get any trouble, you let us know and we’ll sort it.”

Philip’s mouth seemed to be stuck open, but Nessa had learned that guardian angels came in all guises.

“We are most grateful, Mr MacTavish,” she said warmly.

“Jamie’s enough,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be off then, but if you need help, yon Henry Maxwell where you got your desk? He’s a good man and will get a message to us.” With that, he marched on up the street.

“Does every tinker and traveller in these benighted lands have a description of you?” Philip had recovered the use of his vocal muscles, it seemed. “And must you be so familiar with them? Whatever would Father or Mother think?”

“Father wouldn’t have noticed and Mother would have praised our good fortune.” It was long past time Philip faced up to reality. “How do you think she and I managed to keep food on the table and a decent roof over our heads all these years? Have you forgotten the places Father dragged us to?”

Philip was in no mood to back down. “Mother was never less than a lady, no matter the circumstances. And Father always engaged an agent to deal with the tradesmen and such like. He told me so.”

“After the first one fleeced us thoroughly, Mother promptly disengaged him. From then on, she made sure Father dealt with them only in writing, so he never knew they didn’t exist. It saved her, and later me, from many unpleasantries.”

“What do you mean ‘unpleasantries’? You think Father or I would have ever exposed you to anything unseemly?”

“What do you call this place?”

“A bit primitive, but you have had me or someone suitable with you since we arrived.”

“Only thanks to Mr Reid and his lowly packers.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

They stood in the middle of the street, glaring uselessly at each other. How had they come to this?

“Are you going to marry the man?”

“Who?”

“Mr Reid, of course. Whom else does every person we meet assume you are going to marry?”

“Oh.” She felt the blush running up her necks and overwhelming her cheeks. “He hasn’t actually asked me.” Which was true enough. Telling her he was off to get a parson wasn’t the same as asking.

“Would you, if he did?”

Now she could not mistake the sulky anger in his voice. Or the nerves. “I barely know him. And I thought you needed me.”

“God, Nessa, I’m near nineteen.”

“I thought you appreciated my help.”

“Of course I do.” He raked his hand through his hair and marched up the street, then turned and paced back to look her resolutely in the face.

“If I said I didn’t need you any more, would you marry him?”

She sighed, her heart clenching. “I don’t know. I like him, I enjoy being with him, but do I love him? How can I love a man I’ve seen but a handful of times? And the same for him. Yes, he has made sure we are safe, but I’ve talked to enough people here to know that John Reid has a reputation for helping those who need it. Maybe that’s all it is. We were two inexperienced people, ill-suited to this land. That’s why he helped us to settle in here.”

If she said the words loudly enough, she might just come to believe them.

She seemed to have convinced Philip at least. “So you don’t want to leave me and go back to him?”

She managed a shake of her head. He grabbed her in a hug such as he hadn’t given her since still in short coats. “ Not need my family? I’ve been so scared of losing you, too. Every man needs a home, and my big sister has been making me one since before I can remember.” He released her and stood back, his hand still on her shoulders. “Friends still?”

“Always, little brother.”

The smile she had been unable to resist ever since he was a baby lit up his face. “Then let’s finish getting you safely established so I can get back to making our fortune. Come on, Sis, don’t dawdle.”

For the first time in a long while, Nessa found herself thoroughly in sympathy with her brother.

An hour later, the charitable glow had vanished. “What do you mean, I must have a suitable chaperone?” She should never have pointed out to Philip the realities of life here. “I’ve never had one before.”

“And look at the types with whom you rub shoulders.”

She looked sideways at her brother. No, he had not suddenly grown a beard and grey hair. He just sounded that way.

“Mrs Campbell is a perfectly respectable woman and offered me a tidy, clean room of my own.”

“In return for you acting as her servant.”

“Helping out with running the household is not being her servant. It’s just doing what is needed. The woman has five children, including a wee baby, and a husband to care for. She needs a hand.”

“Well, my sister will not be providing it. We will find you a situation more like you had with the Johnstons.”

Nessa was about to retort:
did he think she had not lifted a finger to help there?
then thought better of it. The sooner she got Philip out of town and properly occupied hunting for gold, the better for them both. What she would really like is to join her tent with Maggie’s next door and get on with her life. She liked what she had seen of her hard-working and cheerful neighbour, and she certainly was experienced enough to manage on her own. How she would love the independence of it.

But she and Philip were already as near to blows as ever they had come. They had both had to deal with the life their father left them, and Philip had no need to feel guilty for their situation, but this new urge he had to protect had to be part of his emerging manhood, she guessed. If he needed to suffocate her with his care, Nessa must let him. She stifled a weary sigh.
Patience
, she told herself.

By the middle of the next day, her patience was wearing decidedly thin.

“Why don’t we seek out a parson or doctor or town official? Someone must know of a respectable lodging,” she made herself ask quietly.

“We’ve asked every respectable person in this town.”

Nessa literally bit her tongue. An itinerant gambler, a smooth talking salesman and a dour, disapproving woman did not make for all the respectable people in the busy township. They were merely the only ones who spoke the Queen’s English in a manner of which Philip approved. In the same, clipped manner he did.

It took a great deal of effort to keep from retorting further, no matter how useless it would be. “Let me make you some lunch, then I have to get down to fix up my new office area,” she said instead.

She slipped over to Maggie’s shortly afterwards, on the pretext of needing some pepper for lunch. “He’s driving me mad, Maggie. You have to find me someone to stay with that Philip will approve—only until he leaves town, then I can organise something that truly suits me.”

The other cackled in laughter. She had a parcel of young brothers of her own back home. “Leave it to me.”

“You are a saviour. How long will it take?”

“This very afternoon be soon enough for you?”

Nessa could only hug her gratefully. Maggie’s speech might be rough, her background not one it was wise to ask about, but to Nessa she was solid gold.

Maggie was true to her word. No sooner had Nessa and Philip arrived in her office that afternoon to set up her desk and writing paraphernalia than a large and undoubtedly formidable-looking woman bustled in the shop door, demanding, in a voice that could have come direct from Belgravia, to see the young lady in need of lodgings. Nessa bit down hard on her grin, recognising the cheap material under the dark and respectable coat. The woman might look like a lady, but her business, Nessa would swear, was far otherwise. Fortunately, Philip saw nothing amiss and walked forward, holding out his hand in welcome.

“Philip Ward, at your service, ma’am. It’s my sister here who is in need of safe lodgings while I am out at the diggings.”

Nessa thought for a moment the woman was going to betray herself. Her undoubtedly handsome brother was wearing the pleased smile that brought out the best in him. She hurried forward, curtseying to their visitor as if in a drawing room. It surprised the woman enough to make her remember her role, and she gave a quelling nod back.

“Miss Ward. Happy to make your acquaintance. I am Mrs Matilda Fleming.”

“Ma’am,” murmured Nessa. Maggie had excelled herself. Mrs Fleming was somewhere in her thirties, she guessed, but it was difficult to say. The hard glint that never entirely left her eyes said they had not seen easy years. Philip would have been shocked if he had any idea of the truth. But the woman was well used to bewitching naive young men. Her matronly and autocratic manner fooled Philip completely.

Within minutes, it was arranged that Mrs Fleming should take Miss Ward to show her the lodgings and, no, there was no need for Mr Ward to trouble himself. He must have many more important tasks to attend to if he intended to leave for the diggings on the morrow. She had her manservant right outside and promised faithfully to return Miss Ward to the store within a half hour at most.

The eagerness of the storeowner to accommodate Mrs Fleming only added to the illusion. She must be one of his best customers, surmised Nessa. In short order, she and the redoubtable madam were out the door and down the street, leaving Philip happily marching into a general goods store to stock up for the diggings. Behind Mrs Fleming walked the largest men Nessa had ever seen.

“My man, Joe,” was all Mrs Fleming introduced him as.

For the first time, she began to wonder just what she had got herself into.

“I can’t thank you enough for helping me out in this ruse, Mrs Fleming.”

“Not a bit of it, dearie.” The frigid language of Mayfair disappeared as easily as it had been assumed. “Maggie Smith is one of my oldest and dearest friends. You should have seen her in her heyday.” Nessa didn’t enquire further. “So you need a place to stay? Not that I wouldn’t mind taking you on, if you wanted better work than that dreary desk of yours. A right pretty lass you be, and I know a power of men who would be lining up to do business with you. Or wed you,” she added glumly.

“I’ve had quite enough of that already—men with weddings on their mind, I mean. Is that all a man here thinks of, when he’s not dreaming of gold?”

“Call me Tildie. Everyone else does. Ain’t answered to Fleming for a long time. And as for the Missis, well, between you and me, that’s a trap I don’t never plan to take on. As for the men here…” She sighed, pausing not a step in her determined stride. “It’s a hard life chasing the gold. A man needs a hot meal and a warm bed at the end of the day. Once the bairns come, well, a man has more reason to work hard then. It’s them that makes their fortunes, not the young ones who care for naught but the glitter of the dream and how to spend it.”

“Like your clients?”

The woman chuckled, nodding in agreement, but then turned serious, halting her onward march and turning to face Nessa. “You seem a good-hearted girl, so I’ll give you some advice for free. And that’s something not many can say they’ve got out of Tildie Fleming.

She took a breath, looking back down the street to where Philip was haggling with a merchant. “Your brother there. I’ve seen too many of his like before. He won’t settle to work yet, not that one. There will always be a bigger strike over the next hill calling him. Forever traipsing after him, that’s what you’ll have, and that’s no life for you. Next time a good man asks you to wed him, just be plumb grateful and say yes.”

“My brother needs me.”

“You needn’t put that hoity look on your face, neither. I ken well it’s your business what you do, but I been dealing with prigs like him since you were but a bairn in ringlets, and I ain’t telling you nothing you don’t know already. Word I hear is that Mr John Reid of Bald Hill, no less, is mighty interested in your well-being. A sensible young lady would get her brother to hop skip her back there and get that man hog-tied before some other woman snatches him up. Those run holders, them’s the ones will be right and dandy once all this madness is done and gone, you mark my words.”

This was the strangest conversation Nessa had ever had.

“Mr Reid has been kind to two strangers in need. That is all.”

Tildie Fleming leaned over and tilted Nessa’s face by the chin to study it. Nessa was too startled to protest. Then the women released her, seemingly having found what she sought in her face.

“Well enough then,” she muttered, then changed the subject completely. “Now, let’s see about getting you settled.” She set off again, turning into the next street heading to the hill, away from the lake and the raucous town centre. “Not far to go now.”