Two Brothers (19 page)

Aislinn sat down on the step below Eugenie’s. “He’s out of bed and determined to get himself killed as soon as he can.”

Eugenie gave a grim chuckle. “He’ll be all right, Shay will.” She paused, and when she went on, her tone was more serious. “You’ve got to believe that, because believin’ has an effect on things.”

“I’m in love with him,” Aislinn said, with as much gravity as if she were confessing a mortal sin to a priest. “Dear heaven, Eugenie, what am I going to do?”

“Marry him?” Eugenie suggested. “He’ll give a woman good, strappin’ babies, a man like that, and show her a fine time in the process.”

Aislinn blushed wretchedly. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of bearing Shay’s children, not consciously at least, but now all the attendant images rushed into her mind in vivid detail. “He hasn’t asked me to marry him.”

“Maybe you’d better ask him, then,” Eugenie said, sounding utterly serious. “You wouldn’t want to let him get away, like poor Dorrie’s Leander.”

Grateful for a change of subject, however tenuous, Aislinn picked up the thread of Eugenie’s statement and followed it. “She offered to show me that last letter you gave her,” she said, with a sigh. “She’s expecting him back shortly.”

Eugenie made a sound that was both sorrowful and skeptical. “It’s pitiful,” she said. “The way she’s kept sendin’ off them letters all this time, and never a one back. The man’s probably dead.”

Aislinn frowned. “But she got one just recently—”

The older woman look a sip of coffee and savored it, her gaze fixed on something long ago and far away. “He wasn’t worth much, poor Leander. A weak-minded man he was. And a rounder. Old Shamus was right to run him off, though it broke the girl’s heart.”

“But you yourself gave her the letter,” Aislinn protested.

Eugenie sighed. “That was from some lawyer, back East.”

Aislinn put a hand to either side of her head, drew and expelled a deep breath, and tried to slow her thoughts down. The love Dorrie cherished, indeed lived for, was fraudulent, imaginary. And yet her expectations were very real. “You’re not saying she’s mad?”

“Just a mite strange,” Eugenie said tolerantly. “She wouldn’t be the first spinster to build herself a pretty dream to live in.”

Aislinn bit her lower lip, miserable.

“Is there somethin’ wrong?” Eugenie wanted to know.

“Dorrie’s not pretending,” Aislinn said. “She’s all but packed her bags.”

“Land sakes. I’d best get this straight with her right now. Drat it all, I knowed she shouldn’t be livin’ a lie that way, but poor Dorrie was so brokenhearted after her pa brought her back here—” Eugenie was on her feet, ready to go in search of her friend, but before she could take a step, Cook called to her from inside the kitchen.

“Eugenie, you better come quick. One of them girls of yours is bent over a commode in one of the rooms, sicker than a saloon dog.”

Clearly, Eugenie was torn, but she chose the most immediate duty and went to look in on her ailing employee. Aislinn, on the other hand, set out for the general store at a brisk march.

Fortunately, there was no sign of Dorrie, but Cornelia was at the dry-goods counter, taking payment for ten pounds of flour and some canned meat from a wornlooking woman in a calico bonnet and colorless dress. A man in a fancy suit was examining a box of cigars with intent concentration, while a farmer ran a loving, callused hand over the handle of a new plow.

The smile Cornelia offered Aislinn was brittle, and too bright by half. “So there you are. I was beginning to think you were being paid for mooning over my brother instead of helping out here in the store.”

The woman in calico accepted her purchases, gave Aislinn a look of helpless sympathy, and scurried away. Aislinn leaned over the counter and spoke in a soft voice.

“Why have you let Dorrie go on making believe that Leander would come back?” she demanded.

Cornelia looked taken aback for a moment, but she recovered quickly. “I don’t have to answer your questions, you ungrateful little snippet. In fact, I’ve had quite enough of you. I’ll thank you to get your things and leave my house and my place of business!”

The cigar man and the farmer turned around at this shrill outcry; Cornelia treated them to an icy, unfocused smile that skimmed over them both but never actually landed.

“I would rather sleep on the street than accept anything from you,” Aislinn said truthfully, keeping her tones mild and melodious. She didn’t care enough about Cornelia McQuillan to hate her. “Shay is very fond of Dorrie. He’ll help her, if you won’t.”

Color surged into Cornelia’s face, then receded again, leaving a bloodless shore of white in its wake. This time, she made an effort to keep her voice down. “Of all the impertinent—” She paused, huffed out a fiery breath, hot as a dragon’s. “I let my sister play her silly games because it kept her occupied. She was in despair. The whole town was whispering about her, snickering behind her back, after Papa went and fetched her back here. I thought it best to leave her be.”

Aislinn stared at Cornelia. Sandwiched between the woman’s protests of concern for Dorrie was the staggering truth: she, Cornelia, had been embarrassed by the gossip and the scandal. “You simply didn’t want to be bothered,” Aislinn accused. “You were
ashamed
.”

“Nonsense,” said Cornelia. “It’s kept her calm all these years, my going along with her delusions. Kept her from making a fool out of herself all over again.”

Before Aislinn could respond, Dorrie stepped out of the storeroom behind the counter, looking white and shaken. She had one hand pressed to her mouth, and tears glistened in her eyes. “Leander isn’t coming back?” she asked, in a child’s voice.

Cornelia recovered first. “Are you happy now?” she asked, practically baring her teeth at Aislinn.

Aislinn was looking at the other sister. All her concern was for her friend. “Dorrie, please, listen to me—”

Aislinn rounded the counter and put an arm around Dorrie’s thin waist, felt her trembling. Again she was
reminded of a bird, a wounded one this time, fallen from a high nest and irretrievably broken. “Come along,” she said gently. “I’ll see you home. Make you a nice cup of tea.”

“Don’t you set foot in my house, Aislinn Lethaby,” Cornelia warned, shaking her pointing finger. “If you dare, I’ll—I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Aislinn asked calmly, raising an eyebrow. “Have me arrested?”

“Tea won’t bring Leander home. I don’t want any tea,” Dorrie protested.

“Yes,” Aislinn said. “You do. I mean to add some sherry to it, too.” With that, she led Dorrie down the center aisle and out into the sunshine.

“Leander is dead,” Dorrie said.

“I think so,” Aislinn replied. She wanted to weep with pity and with sorrow, but she would do that later, when Dorrie didn’t need someone strong to lean on.

“But she’d convinced me that I wasn’t wrong to think he’d return. That he truly had loved me.”

“Oh, Dorrie, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not sure I will ever forgive her. It’s like she gave Leander back to me just so she could take him away again, the spiteful thing. She never liked him any better than Papa did.”

Aislinn didn’t speak except to make encouraging noises. Dorrie prattled on as they walked toward the McQuillan house, but she wasn’t rambling. She was quite sane, whatever anyone else thought, and talking was her way of sorting through the wreckage of a collapsed dream.

“She did something awful, you know,” Dorrie whispered, when they entered the kitchen. While Aislinn pumped water to fill the teakettle, she sat at the round oaken table in the middle of that spacious, sunny room. “Cornelia, I mean.”

“What?” Aislinn asked. Dorrie was probably referring
to her sister’s relationship with Mr. Kyle, a tidbit Aislinn had forgotten to mention to Shay, for all the time they’d spent together during his recovery.

“I’ll show you,” Dorrie said. There was a strange, hunted glimmer in her eyes, but she wasn’t mad, Aislinn was convinced of that. Dorrie got up and led the way to the top of the cellar stairs, where she took a kerosene lantern down from a hook and lit the wick with a wooden match.

Aislinn glanced back over one shoulder and shuddered. She might not be afraid of Dorrie, but she wasn’t keen on the idea of letting Cornelia sneak up behind her.

The old steps creaked mightily as they descended, and the air was dank and moldy-smelling. Dorrie led the way through a labyrinth of chests and crates and shrouded pieces of furniture, finally coming to an old wooden trunk draped in cobwebs and piled high with dusty bluegreen fruit bottles.

Dorrie handed the lamp to Aislinn and began clearing the surface of the chest. The hinges shrieked when she raised the cover at last, and Aislinn felt a shiver wind its way down her spine. For a moment, she could almost imagine that they were about to peer into a coffin.

Covered in cobwebs, Dorrie took the lamp back and looked inside the old trunk. Something skittered in the bottom. “There it is,” said Dorrie, in a state of harried, fragile triumph. “Hold the lamp again, will you?” When her hands were free, she reached inside to retrieve some object Aislinn couldn’t see. It turned out to be a heavy strongbox—the sort merchants and other business people used to store valuables and important documents.

The pit of Aislinn’s stomach wobbled a little. “Dorrie, I don’t think—”

Dorrie had already hunkered down on the floor to fiddle with the catch on the box. Curiously, there was no padlock, but whoever had hidden it probably hadn’t
thought such a precaution would be necessary, given the difficulty of reaching the hiding place.

The top of the box fell back and revealed stacks and stacks of currency; there must have been thousands of dollars there. Aislinn gasped and pressed her free hand to her heart, nearly dropping the lamp. “Good heavens, Dorrie,” she choked out. “You shouldn’t keep such a sum at home—it isn’t safe!”

Dorrie looked up. “It’s not my money. Nor is it Cornelia’s.”

“Then—?”

The other woman’s eyes gleamed in the gloom, feral and bright, and Aislinn was forced to review her prior appraisal of Dorrie’s sanity. “Billy Kyle took it from the stagecoach, that one that fell down in the ravine. Grace died that day. She was a sweet thing. Real sweet, and pretty, too.”

Aislinn swayed slightly, reached out to grasp the edge of the chest to hold herself upright. “What does Cornelia have to do with what happened?” she asked carefully.

“She knew how Shamus loved Grace. She wanted to take away his reason for staying here in Prominence.”

“My God in heaven,” Aislinn murmured.

“You see, Papa loved Shamus the best of us all. He left him the house and the store—all of it. He knew he could trust him to look after Cornie and me. Shay didn’t have much interest in any of it, though, until he met Grace. Then he started to talk about settling down.”

Aislinn groped for a crate and sat, unable to trust her knees to support her any longer. “Dorrie, you’re talking about murder, here. Not just robbery, which is bad enough, but
murder
. If you knew these things, why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t you tell someone?”

A tear shimmered in the light as it slipped down Dorrie’s cheek. “I wanted to pretend it wasn’t true. Like I wanted to pretend about Leander.”

Aislinn knelt beside the other woman on the cold dirt floor and wrapped her arms around her. The lantern sat nearby, within reach. “Oh, Dorrie—Dorrie.”

Dorrie began to cry, and the sound was heart-wrenching, childlike and at the same time as ancient and elemental as rain. “Tapa should have left us alone, Leander and me. If only he’d left us be.”

“Shhh,” Aislinn said, weeping too. “It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”

A spill of daylight from the top of the steps made both women turn their heads and gave the lie to Aislinn’s assurances. Cornelia stood in the doorway above, a shadow, a figure rimmed in fury. “Theodora, what have you done?”

Aislinn stood, hauled Dorrie up, too.
God help us
, she thought.

“I’ve told, that’s what,” Dorrie cried defiantly. “Aislinn knows what you did, how you got Billy to blow up that bridge when the stagecoach was passing over it and kill all those people. Shay’s right to hold that monster and his father in jail, but you should be in there with them!”

Cornelia didn’t say a word. She merely took another lantern down from the wall, lit the wick and tossed it to the bottom of the stairs. Flames flared instantly to life, gobbling the rotting cloth that covered the furniture, catching easily on wooden boxes and even on cobwebs draped from the ceiling in great looping scallops.

Through the smoke and blazes, Aislinn saw Cornelia shut the upstairs door, heard the bolt slam into place. Dragging Dorrie by the hand, she looked wildly around for a path of escape.

A fire. She had worked so hard and come so far, only to perish in an inferno, precisely as her parents had. Her brothers would truly be alone in the world now; in time they’d be dismissed from their school, sent to live in an orphanage or even turned out onto the streets to make their own way as best they could. Worse still, she would
never see Shay again, never lie down with him, never carry his baby in her body.

“Is there an outside door?” she shouted to Dorrie, over the din of the fire, reasoning that if the entrance to the kitchen had a bolt, there must be a way into the house from the yard.

Dorrie was coughing violently, and the heat of the flames was already blistering. “Cornelia had it boarded over a long time ago,” she choked out. “She said she didn’t feel safe of a night, after Papa was gone.”

“Get down,” Aislinn cried, remembering something her father had once told her, about how the air was better down close to the floor, since smoke tended to rise, like heat. Crouching, she turned to look into Dorrie’s face. “A window—Dorrie, is there a window?”

They were surrounded by flames by then; tongues of fire danced all around them like demons, consuming the air, licking at the support beams overhead. Dorrie did not answer, but simply collapsed in a spasm of coughing. Aislinn searched frantically for a way out, but the smoke made it impossible to see clearly.