Where Love Dwells (2 page)

“Easy. Don't try to do more than keep your balance at first.”

“I'm terribly, terribly sorry I pulled you down into this mud,” she said when she felt confident that she would not fall back down again, at least not right away.

“You don't have to apologize. If there's any fault to be found, it's mine. I should have been able to keep my footing so I could have prevented you from slipping in the first place,” he insisted.

“Look at the bright side,” Emma suggested.

He cocked a muddy brow.

She grinned. “Mother Garrett might forget to say, ‘I told you so,' because she'll be too busy making sure we don't get more than a step or two into her kitchen—if we even get that far,” she warned.

During the many years that Emma had operated the General Store and now Hill House, Mother Garrett had always reigned supreme in the kitchen, much to Emma's relief, since she was as untalented at the stove as she was with a sewing needle. Mother Garrett also protected her domain with a fierce combination of pride and ability that few dared to question, and Emma loved her dearly.

“I will consider myself fortunate indeed if she lets either one of us inside,” he said as they tentatively mounted the steps to the patio.

Once they reached the top of the steps, they crossed the patio together. Fortunately, the double doors to the dining room were unlocked. She let them into the house, surprised that Mother Garrett was not there to greet them, if only to keep them both from venturing into her kitchen. The boardinghouse itself was quiet, although with no paying guests expected until May, that was not all that unusual.

“If we keep to the floorboards instead of the carpet, it will be easier for Liesel and Ditty to clean up the mud we're tracking inside,” she suggested before she remembered that it was late Saturday afternoon. Both of the young women who worked for her at Hill House had already left to spend the rest of the weekend with their families. Since they would not be returning until Sunday night, Emma would be doing all the cleaning up, which probably was more fair than not.

Side by side, they squished their way past the dining room table on their right, where as many as twenty guests at a time had gathered for one of Mother Garrett's meals. To their left, four high chairs Emma had borrowed sat waiting for Emma's grandchildren to arrive. When they reached the door that led to the kitchen, she took a deep breath and offered Zachary a smile of encouragement. Bracing herself to face Mother Garrett, she opened the door and led him into the kitchen.

Oddly, there wasn't a pot or anything else bubbling on the cookstove, nor more than a weak fire in the hearth. Mother Garrett was not there, although Emma's relief was short-lived.

Straight ahead, a slight young woman she had never set eyes on before was sitting at the head of the worktable.

Not on a chair.

On top of the table itself!

With her legs swinging, she was balancing a tin of crullers on her lap with one hand and holding a half-eaten cruller with the other.

Emma gasped. “Who . . . who are you?”

The young woman grinned. “I'm guessing you'd be the proprietress of Hill House, but as for me, let me simply say that I'm probably the biggest surprise you've had for a good long while.”

Emma stared at the young woman, hard. But the young woman did not even blink. She did, however, continue to swing her legs back and forth while she polished off the rest of her cruller.

“Surprise indeed,” Emma muttered under her breath, convinced with each passing minute of this miserable day that surprises were most definitely overrated.

2

E
VEN COVERED WITH MUD
and with Zachary by her side, Emma easily slipped out of her role as a woman being courted and back into her position as the owner of Hill House. “I am indeed Widow Garrett, the proprietress of Hill House, and this is my lawyer, Mr. Breckenwith. And might I add that a young woman, however much of a surprise she might present herself to be, usually has a proper name and she definitely does not sit on top of a table instead of using a chair.”

Although Emma used the same tone of voice she had always reserved for any one of her three sons while they were growing up and needed to be reminded of their manners, this young woman did not even have the decency to blush with embarrassment.

“My name is Wryn Covington,” the young woman replied with a toss of her head that could have easily knocked off the chip of defiance resting invisibly on one of her shoulders. She did, however reluctantly, slide from the tabletop to her feet, defiance neatly intact.

Standing but an inch or so over five feet tall, the young woman had a slim, almost waif-like build. Her thick, wavy brown hair
had been tied at the back of her neck. Above the dark cloud of freckles that stretched across her cheeks, deep doe eyes stared right back at Emma. Behind the challenge in Wryn's gaze and the fierce determination in her stance, Emma sensed a lifetime of deep hurts and disappointments that would take a miracle to heal.

Emma, however, was shy of patience at the moment, let alone a miracle.

Why this particular girl was in her mother-in-law's kitchen, if not the boardinghouse itself, concerned her most. “Are you here with your family as a guest?” she ventured, wondering if the inclement weather might have forced some travelers to take shelter at Hill House while Emma had been on her ill-fated outing.

Wryn shook her head. “No, I'm not a guest. I'm family—of sorts. Do you always wear so much . . . mud?” she asked, her eyes flashing with amusement.

Emma clenched and unclenched her jaw. “As a matter of fact, I don't. Are you always so flippant when speaking with adults?”

“Not usually. At least not with strangers, but since we're family—”

“Exactly how are you related to Widow Garrett?” Zachary asked as he took a step forward to stand closer to Emma.

Wryn put her finger on the tip of her chin for a moment. “Hmmm. Legally, I'm not sure exactly how I'm related to her. I suppose she might be my . . . what? Grandmother, maybe? Or my great-aunt? It's all very confusing to me, but since you're a lawyer, maybe you could tell me.”

“As confusing as it is, try your best to enlighten us,” Emma said. Certain that this young woman was not any part of her family at all, she directed Wryn's attention away from Zachary and back to herself.

“I'll try. Let's see if I can explain this right,” Wryn began.
“Uncle Mark is my uncle, of course, because he's married to my Aunt Catherine. I'm related by blood to her because she's my mother's sister. I'm just confused about how I'm related to you since you're Uncle Mark's mother. If you were Aunt Catherine's mother, you'd be my grandmother, of course. But since—”

“Mark? And Catherine? They're here?” Emma exclaimed, stunned to learn that her youngest son and his family had apparently arrived more than two weeks earlier than she'd expected.

“Yes, they're here. We're all here. As we speak, Uncle Mark is upstairs with Aunt Catherine. The twins needed their naps and poor Aunt Catherine was completely tuckered out from our travel, so she's napping, too. By the time Uncle Mark had unloaded our trunks from the wagon and lugged them upstairs, he said he needed to rest awhile, as well. It's been a nasty few days of traveling, especially with today's weather, but I don't suppose I have to tell you that, do I?” she asked, eyes dancing.

“Obviously not,” Emma snapped. At this point, the mud was making her skirt and cape awfully heavy. She was dirty and tired and cold. She could still taste the grit of the mud on her lips, and she had little patience left for dealing with this little snip. “I don't suppose you could tell me where I might find Mother Garrett, could you?”

Wryn fished another cruller out of the tin and nibbled off the end. “She went into town.”

“Alone? In this weather? Why on earth would she do that?”

“Since we arrived a little earlier than you all expected us, Mother Garrett said she needed some supplies from the General Store,” the young woman explained. “But she didn't go alone, if that's what is putting you into a bit of a stew. She went with a man. Mr. . . . Oh, I forget his name. Anyway, he was here visiting with her, so he drove her into town. I'm sure you know who he
is. Since he seems to be smitten with her, he's probably been here a lot. You do know who I mean, don't you?”

Emma noticed her jaw was clenched again and prayed this new habit would not be an integral part of her relationship with this young woman. Obviously, Widower Anson Kirk had stopped by to see her mother-in-law. He had moved into Hill House for several months this past winter after his family's home had been one of those destroyed when the match factory exploded, and he eventually set his sights on Mother Garrett.

Although her mother-in-law was decidedly outspoken about her refusal to ever marry again, she did seem to enjoy being courted, albeit unofficially, by the widower Mr. Kirk, who seemed impervious to her repeated rejections.

Staring at Wryn, who seemingly had no sense of what was proper for a young woman to discuss with her elders, Emma tried to remain calm. After raising three sons, she had always felt confident dealing with young men. Handling young women was quite another matter, as her initial difficulties supervising Liesel and Ditty had proven in the past. Unfortunately, this young lady offered a challenge far beyond Emma's experience and well beyond her interests at the moment.

Zachary cleared his throat, which broke the tension of the standoff between the two women. “I'm certain you'd like to freshen up before reuniting with your son and his family. Since you're safe and sound inside now, I think I should get the horses back to the livery,” he suggested.

Emma looked up at him, noted the hint of amusement in his gaze, and frowned. “Are you sure you wouldn't want to wash up a bit here first?”

“I think I'll wait. I still have to cross that mud slick to get to the horses again, remember?”

“Then be careful. And thank you for today. For everything,” she murmured.

He smiled. “I'll see you at church in the morning. If the weather improves, we might try finishing our outing in the afternoon, although you're probably more inclined to stay home with your son and his family.”

“Yes, I am. Perhaps we might go later in the week on Wednesday. Would the same time suit you?”

“I don't have to leave on business until Thursday. I'll bring the horses at one o'clock on Wednesday,” he agreed and took his leave.

Emma closed the door to the dining room again, ready to pose a host of questions to Wryn, but the young woman took the initiative.

“Is he really your lawyer? Or is he a lawyer you know who also happens to be interested in you, which was very apparent by the way he—”

“He's just my lawyer,” Emma replied, more annoyed at herself for answering Wryn's question than she was at Wryn for having the audacity to ask it. Without offering any further explanation, she tiptoed past Wryn to get to the sink, where she pumped water into a pot that had been resting on the counter.

“Even I can see he's more than just your lawyer, although he isn't a very good one,” Wryn stated before wiping her sugared hands on her skirts.

“And after living all of what—fourteen years?—you can tell how good a lawyer he is?” Emma snapped, unable to juggle both her patience and the heavy pot of water she was now carrying to the cookstove.

“Fifteen years. I'm fifteen,” Wryn said, completely unaffected by Emma's curtness. “And yes, I can tell he isn't that good of a
lawyer, because he couldn't answer my question. Or he didn't want to answer it, which means I still don't know how we're related legally. Mother Garrett had no problem telling me what to call her, but I still don't know what to call you. Would you prefer Grandmother or Aunt?”

“Widow Garrett will do quite nicely for now,” Emma insisted, more concerned about how she was going to get washed up than she was about how Wryn might address her. Once she set the pot of water onto the cookstove and set it to heat, she stared long and hard at the water, as if she could will it to heat faster.

With Mark and his family staying here at Hill House now, she could hardly clean up right here in the kitchen. Tracking mud through the rest of the house to get to her room upstairs made no sense. She would only make more unnecessary work for herself, since she could not very well leave it until tomorrow night, when Liesel and Ditty would be coming back.

Instead, once the water had heated, she decided she should carry the pot with her, slip out the back door, cross the yard, and enter her office by using the door that opened on the side porch, which was the same door guests usually used when they arrived to register. Once she was inside her office, she would have the privacy she needed to get out of these muddy clothes and wash up just enough to use the private staircase that connected directly to her bedroom upstairs so she could change.

With her problem solved, at least in her own mind, and anxious to get started so she would be presentable by the time Mark and his family were awake, she returned her attention to Wryn. “As soon as this water is warm enough, I'm going to freshen up and change. In the meantime, I'd like you to go back upstairs. Once Mark and Catherine and the boys are up, you can let them know I've returned and that I'll be waiting for them in one of the front
parlors. I assume that Mother Garrett made sure you had a room of your own close to them,” she said, confident that her mother-in-law had put Mark and Catherine and the twins in the suite of rooms they had prepared for them on the west side of the house. Hopefully, she had put Wryn into one of the rooms directly across the hall from them.

Wryn shrugged, put the lid back on the tin of crullers, hoisted the tin to one hip, and set a pout to her lips. “I liked one of the rooms in the opposite hall, but I wasn't allowed to have that one.” She let out a long sigh. “She made me take that bland, boring room. You must know the one. It's completely beige and without any spirit at all.”