Where Love Dwells (3 page)

“I know it well,” Emma replied. She was not surprised that Mother Garrett had refused to be intimidated by this wisp of a young woman, forcing Wryn to take the room directly across the hall from Mark and his family. Emma would sorely have loved being home to watch their encounter, though.

When the young woman abruptly left the room, Emma was tempted to call after her to remind her to store the tin of crullers back in the sideboard in the dining room where it belonged, but decided to let the issue drop. For now. She was too excited about reuniting with Mark and his wife and seeing her two grandsons for the first time to worry about an ordinary tin of crullers.

At the same time, Emma was curious to learn why Wryn had come along with them. To put it gently, this girl had a feisty, but abrasive, temperament. Mark and Catherine, however, were both gentle and soft-spoken by nature, and Emma could scarcely imagine them traveling together, let alone living together here at Hill House.

Nevertheless, just thinking about Wryn matching wits with
Mother Garrett for the next several weeks made her smile, especially since she knew who would survive as the winner in the end.

One muddy cape. Two mud-crusted boots. A sodden bonnet. One nearly ruined riding skirt. A pair of riding gloves destined for the trash heap.

“Not bad, considering,” Emma murmured as she passed the day's casualties she had piled on the porch outside of her office door on her way back to the kitchen. Grateful that the rain had finally stopped, she paused for a moment in the yard to dump the soiled water from the pot and checked the winter chicken coop near the house. She also made a mental note to have the chickens moved to the coop near the woods as soon as the mulberry trees began to blossom—a sure sign that spring had arrived to stay.

She peered into the coop, looking specifically for one chicken she had named Faith. As she hoped, she found Faith roosting with her charges, safe and sound and dry inside the coop. “We're going to need lots and lots of eggs for my family,” she crooned before hurrying off to the kitchen again. Collecting eggs with her grandchildren was only one of the many activities she had missed sharing with them, since they were all growing up so far from Candlewood. Mindful of her many other blessings, however, including the fact they'd all be together very, very soon, she opened the back door and stepped into the kitchen.

Mother Garrett looked up from her place at the cookstove, where she was frying bacon, and grinned. As plump as Emma was slender, the elderly woman wore visible testimony that she was the finest cook in all of Candlewood. “Good. You're back!”

“Barely. I've only had time to slip upstairs to get changed,” Emma replied, relieved that she had also had time to rebraid her
hair and coil it neatly at the nape of her neck before encountering her mother-in-law. She tied an apron over the dark blue work gown she had changed into and shrugged. “We were gone a bit longer than we expected, I suppose, although the weather—”

“Don't quibble about the weather. Start with your good news first, then I'll tell you mine. Just hurry. Tell me, tell me. I'm about to burst with curiosity. Which one did you choose? The bay mare or the chestnut one?”

“Mare? Did you say mare?” Emma asked, completely perplexed by her mother-in-law's questions.

The grin on Mother Garrett's face sank into a frown. “Just because I teased you shamelessly for the past few weeks doesn't give you license to tease me back. I'm your elder. Unlike some other person currently residing in this boardinghouse of yours, who shall remain nameless at the moment because that's part of my news, you're unlikely to forget that. Save for a rare occasion or two over the years for which I've completely forgiven you,” she cautioned before turning back to turn over her bacon.

Emma set the pot into the sink to be washed and joined her mother-in-law at the cookstove. “I'm not teasing you. I simply have no idea what you're talking about,” she insisted and snatched a piece of cooked bacon from a platter on a nearby counter. She took a nibble but stopped almost instantly to stare wide-eyed at her mother-in-law when she realized exactly what Mother Garrett had asked her. “It's the secret! It's the secret you've been keeping with Mr. Breckenwith, isn't it? It's a . . . a horse! He got me a mare. He did, didn't he?” she gushed, completely overwhelmed at the very thought she might have a horse of her own. Although riding had been one of the ways they had enjoyed spending time together, she had been perfectly content using the mare he had rented for her from the livery while he rode the horse he kept stabled there.

Mother Garrett's eyes widened. “Please don't tell me you didn't know. I saw you both leave together and—”

“We never got to finish our outing. The weather slowed us down and then got worse, so we had to turn around and come home.”

Mother Garrett dropped her gaze and let out a long, sad sigh. “I did it again, didn't I?” she whispered. “I've been trying so hard lately to keep secrets people tell me, but now I just let this one slip out. I didn't mean to do it. I truly didn't, but now I've ruined his surprise for you. I just thought—”

“You just assumed that since I'd been gone so long he must have taken me to see what he'd gotten for me, that's all,” Emma said gently, putting her arm around her mother-in-law's shoulders. “You couldn't have known, any more than you could have warned me it was going to hail this afternoon.”

“Hail? We didn't have any hail today.”

“Perhaps not, but
we
did. Now let's get back to that mare you mentioned,” Emma prompted, anxious to know more. “I think you said one was a bay, but I didn't quite catch the color of the other one I could choose from.”

Mother Garrett focused her attention on her work. “I don't believe I remember precisely.”

“Don't be silly. Of course you do.”

“Even if I did remember, I couldn't tell you. It's supposed to be a secret, and I'm still bound by my promise to keep Mr. Breckenwith's secret, although there isn't much left of it now.” She paused, stared at the bacon she was frying for a moment, and looked up at Emma. “You won't tell him I blabbed a little, will you?”

Emma planted a kiss on the elderly woman's cheek. “No, I won't. It'll be our secret.”

Mother Garrett smiled just a little. “Good. And don't worry—I'll
keep this secret for sure. I hope he doesn't wait too long, though. And you have to promise me that you'll act surprised.”

“I promise,” Emma said, although she doubted she would be able to fool Zachary. He knew her too well. “We're going to try again Wednesday afternoon, weather permitting, of course,” Emma offered before she polished off her piece of bacon. “This bacon is delicious, but it's nearly suppertime. Why are you cooking bacon now?”

Mother Garrett smiled. “I need the grease to make those potatoes Mark loves. That's the good news I've got for you. Mark and Catherine and the boys arrived while you were gone. They brought a surprise with them, too.”

Before Emma could reply, the door to the dining room burst open. When Wryn charged into the kitchen, Mother Garrett leaned toward Emma. “Speaking of surprises, here she is.”

“You've got to help me,” the young woman cried, panting for breath. “Please, please help me!”

3

H
E'S . . . HE'S MISSING . . . HE'S
gone! I've . . . I've looked everywhere, but I can't find him. I've gone into every room upstairs. I've looked under the beds. But he's gone . . . gone! We have to find him. Please, help me. Help me find Jonas,” Wryn gushed and wrung her hands together as she gulped to catch her breath. With her face flushed and her eyes filled with panic, she bore no resemblance to the overconfident, defiant young woman Emma had met less than an hour ago.

Emma's pulse quickened with alarm the moment she heard Wryn say the name of one of her twin two-year-old grandsons. “Calm down. Take a deep breath. Now another one,” she said firmly. Although Emma had yet to meet either of her grandsons, Mark and Catherine had written enough about them in their letters that she felt as if she knew them. Both boys, according to Mark, were sweet, gentle souls, much like both of their parents. Although he was the younger of the two by all of twelve minutes, Jonas was the leader of the two, so it did not surprise Emma to learn that he was the one who had wandered off.

“Tell me what happened,” she said when the young woman was breathing normally again.

Wryn blinked back tears. “I . . . I did what you said. I went upstairs to wait for Uncle Mark and Aunt Catherine and the babies to wake up. About twenty minutes ago, I peeked into their little sitting room to see if anyone was up yet, but they weren't. Except for Jonas.”

“Jonas was in the sitting room? By himself?” Emma asked as Mother Garrett moved the frying pan off the stove and began wiping her hands on her apron.

“He and Paul are pretty quiet babies, especially for boys. He must have woken up and wandered out into the sitting room. That's where I found him playing with the latch on one of the trunks Uncle Mark had brought upstairs.”

“How did he get away from you?” Mother Garrett interjected.

Wryn gulped. “The door to the bedroom was ajar, and I could see everyone else was still sleeping, so I took Jonas with me back to my room. I played with him for a bit, then I went back again to see if anyone was up yet. I . . . I only left him in my room for a minute. Not even a minute! When I got back to my room, he was gone. Please! Can't we stop talking and start looking for him? We need to find him before Uncle Mark and Aunt Catherine discover he's missing!”

“Mark and Catherine need to know, and they need to help us find Jonas,” Emma insisted, less concerned about Wryn having to explain herself than she was about finding her little grandson. “Go back upstairs. Wake them up if you have to, but tell them exactly what happened and have them help you search the upstairs again. In the meantime, Mother Garrett and I will start searching here on the first floor.”

“He's only two years old. I don't think he could have made it all the way downstairs by himself. Not that quickly,” Wryn argued.

“You'd be surprised how fast a two-year-old boy can move if he wants to, which is why you can't ever take your eyes off of him, not even for a minute,” Mother Garrett countered. “I'm sure he's fine, just having a bit of an adventure for himself. He's got to be in the house somewhere, since he couldn't let himself outside. I'll check the front parlors and the dining room. Emma, take the rest of the rooms downstairs. And you come with me,” she said to Wryn, ushering her out of the kitchen before the young woman knew what was happening.

Emma closed her eyes for a moment, prayed that they might find little Jonas safe, and followed the others out of the kitchen. She hurried through the dining room and when she reached the center hall, she turned and went directly into the library. Since the door was closed, she doubted she would find him there. Once inside, she quickly looked behind the leather chairs grouped in front of the fireplace and the glass cases of books. No Jonas.

Next, she headed to her office by way of an adjoining door that was also closed, which offered little hope that Jonas could have wandered there, either. When she opened the door and looked inside, however, hope blossomed into sheer joy and her heart sent a prayer of gratitude straight to heaven.

There he was, straight ahead! He was standing on the chair behind her desk, pencil in hand, doodling on the cover of the guest register she kept there, and completely oblivious to her presence, at least for the moment.

Blinking back tears, she gazed at him. With her spirit surging with the deep, deep love that only a grandchild could inspire, she stored the image of her husband's namesake, with his chubby cheeks,
dark wavy hair, and intense hazel eyes, deep in the scrapbook of her heart.

Fearful that she might frighten him into tumbling off the chair and that he might hurt himself with the pencil in the process, she held her place just inside the doorway. “Precious, precious Jonas,” she crooned, just above a whisper. “Hello, baby. I'm your Grandmother Garrett.”

He looked up and grinned at her, wide enough to show off his baby teeth and to deepen the dimples in his cheeks. “Papa!” he said, before turning back to the register to scribble a bit more.

“Papa likes to write, doesn't he?” Emma murmured as she took several slow steps into the room. “Grandmother likes to write, too. Do you like Grandmother's book?” she asked once she was within arm's distance.

He was too intent on his scribbling to reply.

She edged closer, satisfied that if he tumbled now, she would be able to catch him. Ever so slowly, she reached out to put her hand on top of his, hoping to take the pencil away from him, but he yanked his hand away and scowled at her.

“Mine!”

“That's not your pencil. That's my pencil,” she said gently. “You're too little to be using a pencil, especially when you're standing up. You could hurt yourself.”

His cheeks reddened and he tightened his hand around the pencil to make a fist. “Mine!”

“Typically two,” she muttered to herself. She could simply take the pencil away from him, but that was bound to upset him, which was hardly the way she wanted to introduce herself to him. Trying to explain why something was dangerous to a two-year-old was pointless, and she suspected it would simply be easier all around if
she was able to distract him, a tactic which worked when she was dealing with her guests.

Smiling, she slipped her arm around his little waist and opened one of the drawers in the desk. “Let's see what's in here, Jonas. Is there something in here you'd like to have?” she asked. She was hoping she could find something in the clutter she kept hidden in the drawers that would be safe enough for a two-year-old to handle, but interesting enough to make him forget about the pencil he was gripping in his fist.