The Doctor's Lady (6 page)

But now . . . he wasn’t so sure what the Almighty wanted for him.

Eli surveyed the lines of pelts, already bated and hung to dry. His gaze traveled to the log house situated too close to the tannery to escape the wretched smells. An emaciated wisp of smoke arose from the chimney, but otherwise there was no sign of his ma’s presence. Even the chickens pecking among the rubbish that littered the muddy ground clucked as if their will to live had been cut from them.

His ma had never been strong, hadn’t ever stood up to Walt to protect his sisters. She’d always been a weak woman. Over the years Walt had battered her down even more. Now she was all but gone, and his sisters were married off to men just like Walt.

Eli had vowed that when he married, he’d find a woman who could stand tall under the hardships of life.

With a frustrated breath, he hoisted himself up into his saddle. He’d run out of time and choices. He had no other option but to put aside his reservations about Priscilla and set his horse on the road to Angelica.

Even though Priscilla wasn’t particularly interested in the West, he’d have to find a way to convince her to join him. . . .

And he’d pray she wouldn’t be able to resist his charm once he laid it on her.

Angelica, New York

P
riscilla drew another small circle on the board to illustrate the newest planet. “Quiet, children. No more talking.” She tossed the halfhearted instruction over her shoulder while she stepped back to examine her diagram.

“As you can see,” she continued, “Ceres orbits between Mars and Jupiter.”

The giggles grew louder.

“Children!” she chided and then stepped forward to trace her finger along the ellipse she’d drawn. If only they could know for sure whether any other planets existed beyond Uranus. What she wouldn’t give to be the one to explore the far reaches of the unknown.

She chewed her bottom lip.

Sure, she could dream about exploring planets and other distant places of the universe. But was she
really
willing to go into the unknown anywhere? If she couldn’t teach in India, would she be willing to go someplace else? Had she set her heart too much on one place when perhaps God had other plans for her?

A burst of laughter near the back of the narrow schoolroom finally commanded her return to earth and to her classroom.

“Now, children. You are disobeying our rule for silence.” Her gaze lingered on the board for a second longer before she tore herself away and pivoted to face the class.

The younger children perched in their desks near the front of the room, and the older children sat in the back near the entrance—mostly the girls who weren’t privileged enough to attend Female Academy in Troy, where she’d done a significant amount of her own schooling.

The students’ wide smiles greeted her, and the afternoon sunshine pouring in the large windows lit their faces. She had only to follow their glances to the back row to see the source of their laughter.

Her fingers flew to the cameo at her neck.

With his long legs tucked awkwardly under a desk and his hand raised, Dr. Ernest was watching her with a solemn expression that didn’t match the merriment in his eyes.

“Miss White.” He lowered his hand. “I have a question.”

She stared at him speechless, a strange mixture of excitement and apprehension stirring in her stomach.

“Some scientists say that Ceres isn’t really a planet.” He hunched his back to fit onto the small bench, and his knees pushed against the flimsy desktop. “After all, it’s located in the asteroid belt.”

What was he doing back in Angelica? And how had he managed to sneak into the school without her hearing him?

His shirt and waistcoat were crisp and clean. Without his hat, the wild, untamable waves of his hair had rebelled against his obvious attempts to smooth them down. He’d shaved the shadowy layer of stubble, but his smooth, tan skin had a scruffiness he couldn’t shed. He was as well groomed as any gentleman she’d ever met. But for all his efforts, there was still something rugged about him—and something dangerously appealing.

Her hand fluttered to the wisps of hair that floated about her face. Surely he wasn’t back to carry out Mother’s marriage charade.

Even from the furthest row of the classroom, his winter blue eyes caught hers with their intensity. For a long moment she couldn’t breathe. Nor could she look away. He was a flame, and she was the little girl who’d been warned not to touch. Only she couldn’t remember why she ought to stay away, especially when every nerve in her body urged her to reach out.

“And Ceres is too small.” A grin teased the corner of his mouth, almost as if he knew he was getting the reaction from her he’d intended.

She forced herself to start breathing again, calmly. If he thought he could steal into her classroom and flirt with her, then just wait until she joined in. . . . She’d had plenty of practice in her younger days, when she’d been much more carefree. He’d be no match for her ability to beguile.

“Why, Dr. Ernest.” She tilted her head. “You said you had a
question.
And all I’ve heard are
statements.
”

“Excuse me, Miss White.” His grin widened. “’Course, you’re right.”

She lifted her lips into her sweetest, most practiced smile. “Would you like to try rephrasing your statement and show the children how to ask a proper question?”

“Certainly,” he drawled. “For such a pretty lady like you, how could any man say no?”

The older girls tittered. Their flashing smiles and flushed cheeks were evidence they had already fallen prey to his winsome ways.

She braced herself. He wouldn’t so easily sway her. After all, he’d made it quite clear he wasn’t interested in her.

“So . . .” he started.

If he wasn’t back because of her, why was he sitting in her classroom intent upon engaging her in playful banter?

“So, my question is this.” A shadow filtered through his eyes and snuffed the laughter in them, making them too serious. And when he extricated his legs from the desk, instead of rising to his feet, he lowered himself into the aisle onto one knee.

She stifled a shiver.

“Miss White?” His gaze found her again.

The intensity sent her heart into a wild dash. Her fingers went back to her throat, to the delicate cameo, to the pattering of her pulse beneath.

His eyes spoke the words before he could get them out. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

For a long moment the world crashed to a halt and ceased to exist—except for Dr. Ernest and her. The sincerity in his eyes reached across the room and wrapped around her heart, around insecurities she’d held there the past years. It was soothing balm upon the open lesions she’d tried so hard to hide.

Did he truly want to marry her? Even with the knowledge that she was incomplete as a woman and could never give him a child of his own?

She wavered and took a step back. The solidness of the blackboard met her.

“Say yes!” shouted one of the boys in the front row.

Several others chimed in until the room was alive with laughter and calls of encouragement.

Hadn’t he told her he didn’t want to marry her because he thought she’d be an inadequate missionary? How could he have changed his mind about her so soon?

He cocked his head and gave her a lopsided grin, the kind that tickled her stomach and made her want to ignore all the nagging questions demanding her attention.

The shouts of the children bounced off the walls. “Children!” she called, but her voice was lost in the din. She didn’t know how to answer Dr. Ernest, but she did know she needed to bring order to her classroom.

She reached for the bell on her desk and swung it. The clanging rose above the voices, and silence descended over the room.

“It seems to me,” she said, once she had their attention, “that we have a troublemaker in our midst today.” She looked pointedly at Dr. Ernest and batted her lashes at him. She could think of no other solution to her dilemma than to continue to banter with him. At least it would buy her some time.

When his gaze wavered, she sauntered down the aisle toward him. Her boots tapped a slow rhythm with the squeak of the floorboards. “And when someone is naughty, he must suffer a penalty for his misbehavior.”

His eyes widened and his brows lifted with surprise.

She let a satisfied smile curve her lips.

He watched her for a moment before his eyes took on a teasing glimmer. “Why, Miss White, I didn’t know you were such a strict teacher.”

Her heart faltered along with her steps. The soft giggles of the girls rang in her ears as a warning to stop, but something about his presence drew her. “Of course I am. Aren’t I, class? I always issue the strictest of discipline.”

He leaned onto his knee and flashed her a grin. “I’m shaking in my boots.”

“As you should be.” She stopped in front of him, praying he couldn’t hear the wild thudding of her heart. “Just because you are a doctor doesn’t mean I’ll let you off easily.”

She caught a whiff of his freshly groomed scent, the woodsy sweet and spice of bay rum. “I think perhaps . . .” Her gaze skimmed over the long, thin scar beneath his eye and then over the ones on his hands. How could she agree to marry a man she’d only just met—about whom she knew so little?

“So what’s my punishment?” His voice was too eager for someone awaiting punishment.

She wanted to giggle with the girls but instead lowered her chin and tried to give him her most stern schoolteacher look. “You must stay after school and write one hundred times on the board, ‘From now on I promise to be a good boy.’”

“Promise to be a good boy? Me?” He gave a short laugh.

“Don’t tell me your wayward deeds are beyond rehabilitation, Dr. Ernest?”

He shrugged. The gleam in his eyes stoked a strange warmth in her belly. “I think you’ve a mind to torture me, Miss White. Staying after school with the teacher is indeed the worst punishment I could ever imagine.”

The warmth swirled throughout her middle and fanned to her neck and cheeks.

Somehow she managed to dismiss the class, and when the last student had finally taken leave, Dr. Ernest made his way to the front of the room.

“So, Miss White.” Now it was his turn to amble toward her, as if he made an everyday occurrence of proposing marriage to young women.

She inched behind her desk, needing to put something between them.

He stopped on the opposite side, proceeded to shove aside a stack of books, and perched half his backside on the edge. “You haven’t answered my question yet.” He grabbed the apple she’d forgotten to eat at lunch and rubbed it on his trousers.

“And what question was that?” She fidgeted with the astronomy pamphlet still open to the page she’d abandoned.

He crunched into the apple. “Didn’t know astronomy was a standard subject in school these days,” he managed between bites.

“It’s not a standard subject. But I like to squeeze in science when time allows.”

He ceased chewing and raised his brow.

“Is it so hard to believe a woman could like science?”

He bit off another hunk. “Not hard to believe. Just unusual.”

She turned a page in the booklet. “Dr. Ernest, why do you want to marry me today, when a week ago you told me you never would?”

He chomped for a moment and then set the half-eaten apple on the desk. “In other words, you want to know what made me change my mind?”

“Yes, I do.” She looked up at him, and he met her gaze straight on.

“I’ve had a desire to go west since I was a boy and heard the tales of Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their overland trip to the Pacific Ocean. Now, after my own exploration trip and after spending time with the Nez Perce, I can’t imagine doing anything else but opening a medical clinic in Oregon Country. And I can’t do it unless I get married.”

“But why me? Especially after the things you said about my not being qualified.”

“I’ve run out of time and don’t have any other options.”

Even though his words didn’t surprise her, they still hit her chest and left a painful indentation. “So . . . you want to use me?”

The clearness of his eyes allowed her to see all the way inside—to the truth in the far reaches of his soul. “I promise I won’t use you, Priscilla.”

Her hands trembled, and she clasped them together within the folds of her dress.

“I’d like to think of it more like a business arrangement. We both have our hearts set on being missionaries. But we’re both lacking the one thing the Mission Board requires: a spouse.”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure—”

“It’ll be a marriage in name, nothing more than that. Instead, we’ll be business partners. You can help me achieve my dreams, and I can help you. That’s it. No romantic notions, no conjugal demands, no emotional entanglements.”

“That sounds so cold—”

“Look—” he blew a long sigh and then leaned toward her—“neither of us really wants to get married, but the Board is making us. We don’t have to like each other, and we don’t have to, well—you know—consummate . . .”

Heat rushed to her face, and she wished she could shrivel up and disappear through a crack in the floor.

“What I’m trying to say,” he said, “is that we can be friends if we want. But we don’t have to make a big deal about the marriage. It’s just a means to get what we want.”

“What
you
want.”

“And you too.”

“I’d planned on teaching in India.”

“Does it really matter where?” The earnestness in his voice stripped away the little resistance she had left. “If God’s placed a burden on our hearts to reach out to people who’ve yet to experience His saving love, then why would it make a difference if we reach out to the Indians of India or the Indians of the West?”

He was right. “But the West is practically uninhabitable. How would we survive?”

“I won’t lie to you. It’ll be rough.” His eyes probed hers. “But I promise you, if it’s too hard and too dangerous, I’ll make provisions for you to return home. I’ll find a ship to bring you around the continent—”

“Priscilla!” A call from outside the schoolhouse door made her jump. “Priscilla, hurry! Mother wants you to come home right away.”

She took a step away from the desk, away from Dr. Ernest. She hadn’t wanted to get married, and she’d wanted to go to India. How could she make such an enormous switch? Did she even want to?

His eyes pleaded with her to say yes.

“Exciting news!” Her sister’s voice came again as the door at the back of the room swung open. “Dr. Ernest has returned to town, and he stopped by and told Mother he would come to dinner tonight.”

Mary Ann stepped inside and came to an abrupt halt. She glanced from Dr. Ernest to Priscilla and back and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“I agree. It’s
very
exciting.” Dr. Ernest grinned.

Mary Ann blushed.

Priscilla stacked the books scattered on her desk. “Would you please tell Mother I’ll be home shortly.” She shot Dr. Ernest what she hoped was a censuring glare. Was he enlisting the aid of Mother in his marriage proposal? She would have no hope of resisting Mother once she discovered Dr. Ernest’s intentions.

His grin widened, and he nodded, as if he could read her thoughts.

“So I ran all this distance for nothing?” Mary Ann rubbed a hand over her protruding stomach until her fingers rounded the underside of her belly and lifted it, giving aid to the weight of the baby. “I wouldn’t be surprised if all this activity causes me to go into labor tonight.”