Annie's Song (12 page)

“The nice thing about idiots, missy, is that they can’t carry tales. If Alex Montgomery notices ought amiss, I’ll tell him you did the injury to yourself.” Arching a black eyebrow, she added, “You’ll not be difficult. Not with me. Do you understand?”

Annie understood, all right. This woman was as vicious as she was ugly.

Rebellion was usually completely foreign to her nature, but this had been no ordinary morning. In the space of two hours, she’d been tricked by her mama, betrayed by her papa, and roughly handled by a man who frightened her half to death. And now she was being jabbed with a fork? An awful, hot feeling washed over her. Short of grabbing the other fork and jabbing the woman back, there was little she could do but take the abuse.

And take it, she would. Nothing this woman or Alex Montgomery did was going to make her eat.

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Nothing.

When another jab with the fork tines didn’t encourage Annie to open her mouth, Mistress Perkins chose other forms of persuasion that wouldn’t be quite so evident to her employer. She pulled Annie’s hair, slapped her sharply on the back, and then resorted to pinching her in places where the resultant bruises would be hidden by her clothing.

Through it all, Annie sat there glaring up at the nurse with her teeth tightly clenched.

Just before dawn the next morning, Annie slipped from her bed and crept across the room on her tiptoes, wincing every time she felt a floorboard give beneath her weight. One of the disadvantages of being deaf, of which there were many, was that it could be very difficult to sneak about. She couldn’t tell, with any accuracy, whether she was making noise. It was ever so bothersome, especially when she wanted very much to do something and was afraid she’d be punished if she were caught.

Like right now ...

Reaching the window, Annie carefully inched the table to one side. When there was adequate room before the double-hung panes, she unfastened the lock and braced the heels of her hands against the lower sash bars. Quietly, Annie, quietly. Momentarily forgetting her run-in with the fork yesterday, she caught her lower lip in her teeth. At the ensuing pain, she opted to bite the inside of her cheek instead.

She wasn’t sure why, but in her experience, to do something exactly right, she had to hold her mouth just so, and biting the inside of her cheek seemed to work best.

Slowly, she pushed the window open, almost afraid to breathe. She could only hope that Alex Montgomery was one of those fussy sorts who kept the window jambs in his house well-oiled. If not, she was probably making enough noise to wake the dead.

Not that the dead were her concern. It was Mistress Perkins she didn’t want to wake up. Last night before retiring, the crazy woman had tied her to the bed, of all things, with strips of linen. From things the nurse had said, Annie knew she believed her to be hopelessly stupid. And maybe she was. But even a dummy was smart enough to untie knots.

Fresh air wafted through the iron bars, molding Annie’s zephyr nightgown to her body. Before she allowed herself to relax, she “listened” for any movement coming from the room adjoining hers. Nothing.

No footsteps vibrating through the floor. No tingles at the nape of her neck. Nothing. She allowed herself a satisfied smile. The fat old thing was still asleep.

Grasping the bars and letting her hands slide down their length, Annie knelt on the wooden floor.

Ignoring the grit that pricked one bare knee, she fastened her gaze on the heavens. Dawn. To her, it was the most beautiful part of the day, and unless she was sick, which was hardly ever, she never missed watching it. Right now the sky looked blue-black, just as it did in the dead of night, but she knew by the lackluster glimmer of the stars that day was about to break.

It never ceased to amaze her when it happened. Catching her breath, she watched as a rose-pink crack zigzagged across the horizon. A few minutes later, glorious shafts of light spilled forth from it, lending everything they touched a magical luminance. When the mountains became visible, their peaks were wreathed by a low-hanging mist the color of pale pink rose petals. Then, like a smile that slowly gained radiance, the light beams streaking the sky began to turn a brilliant gold.

Awestruck, Annie tightened her hands on the iron bars, thinking that, in place of music, God had given
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her the sunrises. Even without her ears, she heard the song in her heart, but it was no less moving for all that. Beautiful music made of light.

Closing her eyes, Annie remembered all the sounds that usually came with first light, the crow of a rooster, the strident outbursts from little birds, the distant barking of a dog, the whisper of the morning breeze as it picked up. Those sounds were forever lost to her, and yet she had filed them away in her memory, hers to recall and enjoy whenever it pleased her.

As she opened her eyes, a movement in the yard below caught her attention. She focused on a flash of gold that rivaled that of the sunbeams: Alex Montgomery’s hair. She knew with absolute certainty that it was he by the way he walked, his strides long and sure, the muscles in his thighs bunching and stretching the cloth of his biscuit-colored riding breeches.

Moving alongside the house as he was, he presented her with a frontal view. He wore a white cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled back over his thickly roped forearms, the front hanging open, the tails loose around his narrow hips. Annie had never seen a man’s bare chest, and she stared with curious fascination. Instead of pale bubbies with pink tips like hers, he had sun-burnished ones that not only looked hard but rippled peculiarly when he moved. In the center of each was a brown splotch about the size of a copper penny. Upon closer inspection, she saw that he also had golden hair on his chest, short, furry-looking stuff that she felt sure had to itch. It ran clear to his bellybutton, then narrowed into a line that dived under his belt.

As he passed beneath her window, which gave her a rear view of him, he began shrugging out of his shirt. Craning her neck, she stared in startled amazement as he wadded the white cotton in one fist.

Across his back, under bronze skin that gleamed as if it had been rubbed with oil, muscle worked, bunching in one place, flattening out in others.

Leaving the yard, he went to a small outbuilding near the stables. Beside it stood a rusty old pump, the spout of which was positioned over a weathered washstand. After tossing his shirt over a nearby fence, he worked the pump handle until water spewed forth, then thrust his head and shoulders under the flow.

Annie shuddered, imagining how cold it must feel. When he straightened, he shook himself like a doused raccoon and rubbed the water from his eyes.

His hair stood out from his head as if someone had stirred it with a whisk. She couldn’t help but smile at how silly he looked. He quickly remedied the situation by raking his fingers through the darkened strands.

His upper torso still sparkling with droplets of water, he grabbed his shirt and put it back on, evidently not caring that the cotton absorbed the wetness and clung to him like a second skin.

Mesmerized, Annie watched him brace a hand on the top fence rail and vault over it without any apparent effort. There was a brown horse in the enclosure. When the beast saw him, it flung its head and repeatedly struck the earth with a front hoof. Alex approached the animal slowly. When he came within about ten feet of it, the horse pivoted on its hind legs and galloped away. Making no sudden moves, Alex followed. As before, just when he had almost closed the distance between himself and the animal, it bolted.

Again and again, Alex made his approach. Annie’s sympathies were all with the horse. While Alex wasted no energy, the animal kept breaking into a gallop, and in its panic was making unnecessary circles inside the fence. Soon its coat glistened with sweat, and its sides heaved with exhaustion.

Annie realized that Alex intended to keep approaching the animal until it no longer had the strength to run from him. The poor horse seemed to realize it as well and watched him warily, its body aquiver with
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overexertion.

To Annie, it seemed a cruel game, and seeing him put the animal through such an ordeal cemented in her mind that he wasn’t a very nice man.

At the thought, Annie’s throat tightened. She pushed to her feet with a suddenness that made her head swim. Turning her back on the window, she hugged her waist and swung her gaze to the locked door. At her back, sunlight spilled through the window, throwing the striped pattern of the iron bars across the floor. Trapped. That was how she felt.

Perhaps it was simply memories of that day at the falls getting the best of her, but she could almost see Alex Montgomery entering this room and stalking her, just as he did the horse, with that same relentless determination, until she was too spent to run anymore.

Unable to stop herself, she glanced back at the window. Through the bars, she saw that the inevitable had finally happened. The horse stood with its rump pressed into a V of the fence line, trembling but no longer able to resist the touch of its master’s hands upon its body.

For the remainder of that day and the two following, Alex studiously avoided the upstairs nursery but met daily with Mistress Perkins to be updated on Annie’s progress. Edie Trimble visited, and after a lengthy stay, she seemed satisfied with the nurse’s credentials and performance.

Mistress Perkins, a kindly, middle-aged woman, had come to Montgomery Hall with glowing letters of recommendation and appeared to be the epitome of efficiency. She informed Alex that Annie was settling into her new routine quite nicely, and that he shouldn’t have a moment’s worry about her welfare. From now on, she said, that was her concern.

Alex was more than willing to leave the woman to it. He couldn’t forget his physical reaction to Annie in the carriage, nor could he forgive himself for it. The farther he stayed away from the girl, the better.

Fortunately his was a large, rambling old house, and as Dr. Muir had predicted, Annie’s presence there could be virtually ignored. Alex went on with his usual routine, working days in the stables and fields or at the rock quarry, spending the evenings doing accounts or taking his leisure in the study.

On the third evening, he had just settled into his favorite chair with a snifter of brandy and a recent issue of the Portland Morning Oregonian when a piercing screech reverberated through the room. He shot straight up in his seat, the hair at the nape of his neck standing on end. The screech was soon followed by screams.

With a curse, Alex rushed from his study into the hall where he collided with his housekeeper Maddy, who had also been alarmed by the noise. After a bit of scrambling to regain their balance, the two of them made for the stairs, Alex gaining a considerable lead in the ascent; Maddy, plump and short of leg, huffing for breath behind him. When Alex reached the nursery door, he found it locked from the inside.

Rapping sharply on the thick panel of oak, he yelled, “Mistress Perkins! What the blazes is—”

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“Help me!” the woman shrieked. “Oh, God, have mercy! Help me, please!”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Maddy cried, and quickly crossed herself.

Alex shouldered her plump form aside. Rearing back, he gave the door a sharp kick. The thick slab of oak stood fast. Prodded by the screams coming from the room beyond, he withdrew several steps and put all his weight into butting the door with his shoulder. Upon impact, he reeled backward with such force he nearly had to peel himself off the adjacent wall.

“Son of a bitch!”

Maddy pressed her hands to her temples. “Dear God, what’s happenin’ in there?”

From the sound of things, ail hell had broken loose. Alex eyed the door, grimly determined. All his life, he’d heard stories of men kicking their way into locked rooms, and he was a larger man than most. There had to be a trick to it. Focusing on the doorknob, he backed up as far as the opposite wall would allow, took two steps to get momentum, and planted his foot directly beneath the brass backplate. The wooden frame splintered, the door gave way, and Alex entered the nursery in a staggering rush. He swayed to a stop only a few feet shy of Mistress Perkins and Annie, who seemed to be locked in mortal combat.

Such was the confusion of writhing bodies that it took Alex a moment to figure out what was going on.

When he finally did, his eyes widened in amazement. Annie, the docile little creature whom Dr. Muir had assured him would never cause any trouble, had her teeth sunk into Mistress Perkins’s finger, her intent apparently to relieve the woman of the appendage. The nurse, dancing about in agony, was slapping her charge about the head and shoulders in an attempt to get free. Before Alex could step in, the woman evidently decided mere slaps weren’t going to work and resorted to using her fists.

“Say now!” Alex shouted.

He leaped into the fray, not at all certain whom he meant to save—Annie, who was being bludgeoned, or Mistress Perkins, who was in danger of being dismembered. Dimly he realized that Maddy skirted the battle, grabbing clothes here, arms and hair there, her shrill Irish brogue adding to the din. There ensued a four-person bout, Annie and Mistress Perkins in an inseparable tangle, Alex and Maddy trying, without much success, to separate them. Just as Alex was finally managing to pry Annie’s clenched jaws apart, the frantic nurse missed her mark and dealt him a blinding blow to the nose.

Freed at last and holding her injured finger, she staggered backward, her black eyes blazing. “You little she-bitch!”

“Now, just one minute!” Alex cut in. “I’ll have no talk like that.” He swiped at the blood pooling on his upper lip. “What in blazes prompted the girl to bite you?’’ Turning, he saw that Annie had fled to a far corner of the room, where she huddled on the floor with her back pressed to the wall. He shifted his gaze back to the nurse. “Well?”