The True Love Wedding Dress (35 page)

Charity’s eyes widened. “Surely not. Ladies don’t do such things.”

“It’s different here, I’m afraid. I’m beginning to realize that learning to cook is the least of my concerns.”

Charity stood at Faith’s elbow and stared at the list. “What else does it say, Maman?”

Faith swallowed, hard. “After I milk the cows, I must skim the cream and make butter.”

Charity’s eyes grew even rounder. “How does one make butter?”

Faith had only ever just spread the stuff on hot bread. “I believe it’s made in a churn.”

“Out of what?”

“Cream.” Which Patrick O’Shannessy expected her to collect from a cow.

“Perhaps we can find the churn.”

First, Faith had to catch the cows and convince the huge beasts to give over their milk. In that moment, she accepted that she didn’t have what it took to be Patrick O’Shannessy’s housekeeper.

“It’s no use, darling.” Faith struggled to keep her mouth and chin from trembling. “Your maman is hopelessly inept, I’m afraid. That being the case, we shall have to leave. We cannot expect Mr. O’Shannessy to feed and shelter us out of the goodness of his heart.”

“Where will we go, Maman?”

“Back to No Name. I shall apply for a job at the saloon.”

“What sort of work will you do there?”

“I shall be a dancing girl,” Faith replied shakily.

Charity beamed a smile. “That is
perfect,
Maman. You’ve always loved to dance.”

 

Patrick half expected to find his housekeeper still abed when he got up the next morning. He was pleasantly surprised when he heard sounds of activity downstairs. He smiled at himself in the shaving mirror as he sloshed water from the pitcher into the bowl.
A housekeeper.
He was going to enjoy having hot meals on the table again. Yet another luxury would be clean clothes.

When Patrick hit the bottom of the stairs, he sniffed the air, expecting to smell breakfast cooking.
Nothing.
Frowning, he entered the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks. Faith stood by the table. The two satchels that he’d fetched from town yesterday sat at her feet. Charity was nowhere to be seen.

“Mr. O’Shannessy,” she said in that hoity-toity way of hers. In the space of twenty-four hours, her strange accent had started to grow on him. “I am tendering my resignation.”

Patrick closed the door and leaned against it. Most times, folks in Colorado just threw down their hats and said they were quitting. How like her to find a fancy way to say it.

“What brought this on? As of last night I thought we had agreed that you’d be staying.”

“I’m afraid I’ve misrepresented myself.” She held up a hand to stop him from interrupting. “In my defense, I must say it was unintentional. In Brooklyn, housekeeping is a far different undertaking than it is here.”

“I see.” He had suspected as much. Faith had “fine lady” written all over her.

She pushed at her hair. Black soot streaked her delicate wrist. “I have never milked a cow or slopped hogs, I’ve never skimmed cream or made butter, and I don’t really know how to cook. With recipe books, I’m sure I could learn, but I searched your kitchen, high and low, without finding any.”

“I cook from memory, a little of this and a little of that.”

She nodded regally. Then with a lift of her hands, she said, “So there you have it. Charity and I must be on our way. I am ever so grateful for your kindness. I only wish I had the experience you require in a housekeeper.”

A strange, achy sensation filled Patrick’s throat. From the first instant he’d clapped eyes on Faith, he’d felt attracted to her. Now the feeling had intensified and become something more, something that he couldn’t readily define. He knew only that she was beautiful and that her sense of fair play touched him deeply.

“You can’t leave, Faith. Where will you go? What will you do?”

“That is not your concern, Mr. O’Shannessy. I shall manage somehow.”

It was sheer madness, but he couldn’t let her go. He knew where she would end up. Five years from now, she’d be old before her time, the innocence in her eyes shattered by one awful experience after another. Even worse, Charity would suffer as well.

“I can’t let you do this.”

She brushed at her cheek. “You’re very generous.” Her eyes luminous in the lantern light, she searched his gaze for a moment. “You frightened me when I first saw you. You have the air of a dock ruffian about you.”

“Do I, now?”

She smiled. “You do, Mr. O’Shannessy. Having met you and come to know you this little while, I shall never again judge a man’s character by the outward trappings.”

“Thank you. That’s a fine compliment.”

“Sincerely meant, I assure you.”

Patrick pushed away from the door. “So how’s about staying and letting this dock ruffian teach you how to cook and milk a cow?”

She shook her head. “I’ve far too much to learn. In order to remain here, I need to feel that I’m earning our keep. It wouldn’t be fair to you otherwise.”

“So you’ll go back to No Name and end up at the Golden Slipper? You’ve no idea what awaits you there, Faith. Men will use you as if you’re nothing, and they’ll never look back. In exchange for a coin, you’ll sell your soul, not once but a dozen times a night. The next morning, the saloon owner will take half your wages. You’ll earn just enough to survive, but never enough to leave. And one day soon you’ll feel so used up and exhausted you’ll no longer care.”

Her face drained of color. “Nevertheless, I cannot in good conscience prevail upon your kindness when I’ve nothing to give in return.”

“You’ve everything to give. If you’re going to prostitute yourself, damn it, do it here.” Patrick had no idea where that had come from. He only knew that she was about to make the worst mistake of her life, and he couldn’t allow it to happen. “I’ll pay you a dollar a pop and take half your wages for your room and board. At least here, Charity will be safe.”

“Are you asking me to become your paramour, Mr. O’Shannessy?”

That was a fancy term for it, and Patrick had no such intention. But for the moment, it was the only reason he could come up with to keep her there. “In the meantime, I can be teaching you all that you need to know about keeping my house. In time, after you’ve learned everything, we can renegotiate.”

“So I’ll only be your paramour temporarily?”

“Trust me, it’s a better offer than you’ll get at the Golden Slipper. And no one need ever know, either. When it comes time for you to leave, your reputation won’t be in complete shreds, only a bit tarnished.”

She nodded slightly, which gave Patrick reason to hope. Then, her lovely eyes dark with shadows, she asked, “When you say no one need ever know, will that include Charity?” Her chin came up a notch. “I would very much like to maintain her high regard.”

In that moment, Patrick almost leveled with her. She held herself so rigidly that he fancied she might shatter like fragile glass if he touched her. “Of course it will include Charity. She’ll never know—or even guess that anything untoward is going on between us.”

It was a promise Patrick felt he could keep, not because he considered himself to be the soul of discretion but because nothing untoward ever
would
occur between them. He’d told Faith yesterday morning that he’d never claimed to be a gentleman, and that was true. But he did have standards that he lived by, one of them being to treat women with respect. He’d broken that rule many times in his younger days, the crowning glory being two years ago when he had gotten too cozy with a whiskey jug. Carrying the guilt of that with him to the grave was, in his estimation, burden enough for any man to bear.

“I accept your proposal, Mr. O’Shannessy.” Acutely conscious of how greatly it pained her to say those words, Patrick searched her pale face, nodded, and moved away from the door. In as jovial a voice as he could muster, he rubbed his hands together and said, “Well, then!” She jumped as if he’d poked her with a pin. “Let’s begin this arrangement with a cooking lesson, why don’t we?”

 

All that day, Faith’s stomach felt like a wet rag that gigantic hands were wringing out. While learning to mix flapjack batter, she could barely attend Patrick’s instructions. Later, when he led her to the henhouse, she was so distracted that she barely even noticed the pecks of the chickens or the horrid green yuck on the eggs. When the hogs clambered into their trough as she poured slop from a bucket into their feeding chute, she didn’t even flinch. In that moment, she almost wished the horrid beasts would break through the wire and trample her to death.

Faith’s employer kindly excused her from the milking that morning, saying she might be overwhelmed if he threw too much at her the first day. As a result, she was left to tidy the kitchen while he went to the barn. She managed to heat water on the stove, and then she and Charity experienced for the first time the joys of washing, rinsing, and drying dishes.

“This isn’t so bad, Maman.”

Faith had to agree. Under any other circumstances, she might have found the task relaxing. As it was, she could think of little else but the coming night. Once she visited Patrick’s bedchamber, there would be no turning back.

What have I done?
In her wildest imaginings, Faith had never dreamed she might come to this. She was a
kept
woman now, the lowest of the low. Patrick O’-Shannessy would expect her to warm his bed tonight, and rightly so. That was their bargain, after all. And no matter how she circled it, she knew she was extremely fortunate that he’d made the offer. Better to suffer the attentions of one man than dozens.

I’m lucky,
she kept telling herself. He was a handsome man, and he kept himself clean, donning fresh clothes each morning and washing up several times a day. His breath wouldn’t smell of tobacco and whiskey, there was no grime under his fingernails, and for all his rough manners, he seemed to be a kind man.

In her present circumstances, she should be grateful that he even wanted her in his bed. She had it on good authority from her late husband that she lacked the voluptuous curves that pleased a man’s eye. Harold had also given her poor marks as a lover, often chiding her for an unsatisfactory performance. As awful as that had been, she had lived through it.

And she would live through this as well, she assured herself. After Charity fell asleep each night, she would visit her employer’s bedchamber, allow him to do his business, and then creep back to her own room. Charity need never know, and perhaps one day, when Faith had put this place far behind her, she herself would be able to forget.

T
hat evening, after hearing Charity’s prayers and reading the child to sleep, Faith crept down the hall to prepare for her last and most distasteful duty of the day. By the soft glow of a lantern and with shaking hands, she ran a cool cloth over her nude body. Waves of sick dread washed through her when she thought of Patrick O’Shannessy’s hands following the path of the cloth, touching her in places only a husband should.
Oh, God.
She squeezed her eyes closed and prayed for strength.

It’ll be over with quickly,
she assured herself repeatedly as she pulled on a nightgown, spent an inordinate amount of time brushing out her hair, and dabbed perfume behind her ears. She would simply tap on his door, slip inside the dark room, and join him in his bed. When he’d grunted his last grunt and collapsed beside her in a pool of sweat, she would be able to return to her own room and hopefully find oblivion in sleep.

She could do this.
For her daughter’s sake, she
would
do this.

 

Patrick had just stripped off his shirt and loosened the top button of his Levi’s when he heard a light tap on his bedroom door. Bewildered, he stepped across the room and cracked open the portal to find Faith in the hallway. Without a word, she pushed her way inside, cast a disgruntled look at the lighted lantern, and softly closed the door behind her.

In that moment, Patrick knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever clapped eyes on. Her hair fell almost to her waist in wavy ripples of sable. Her sleeveless shift, though modestly made, revealed just enough flawless ivory skin to make his heart pound like a sledgehammer.

Her lovely eyes almost black with shame, she whispered, “I am here.”

For an instant, Patrick was sorely tempted to take what she offered. Only a strong sense of decency forestalled him. He retreated a step to put her beyond easy reach, rubbed a hand over his bare chest, and managed to choke out, “I’m sorry, honey, but I’m flat tuckered.” He feigned a yawn. “Maybe tomorrow night.”

She fixed him with an incredulous gaze. After staring up at him for several tense seconds, her eyes filled with tears. “It was never your intention to carry through with this, was it?”

“Shh,” he countered. “Don’t talk so loud. You’ll be waking Charity.”

Her chin started to quiver, and her mouth twisted. “It was a ruse to keep me here, nothing more.”

The way Patrick saw it, he had two choices, either confessing the truth or taking her to bed. “You’re not leaving,” he warned, his voice still pitched low. “If that’s what you’re thinking, get it straight out of your head. If I have to tie you to the bedpost, you and that child are staying right here.”

She cupped her slender hands over her face, and her shoulders started to jerk. For an instant, Patrick thought she was laughing. Then, to his horror, she dragged in a taut breath, making a sound like the shrill intake of a donkey right before it brayed. Awful sobs followed, the eruptions coming from so deep within her that he feared she would damage her insides.

“Faith,” he tried. Then, “Sweetheart?”
Jesus H. Christ,
she was going to wake Charity. “Faith? Hey?”

She made the donkey sound again, more loudly this time.