Fairer than Morning (29 page)

“Tomorrow afternoon or early evening.” Mr. Miller's words were soft. “You'll fare well in my absence. Will is here to help you. You can teach him about the animals, and he'll keep watch tonight.”

With a quick motion like a startled bird, she brushed her hair back from her brow. “Very well. Goodbye, Father.”

“I will return soon. It's not far.” Mr. Miller clucked to Bayberry and she walked away toward the road. “Goodbye, girls.” He lifted one hand from the reins and waved. They called back to him in their little fluting voices.

Will watched Bayberry's swishing tail recede down the road.

“Come.” Ann's tone was brusque. “I'll explain where we keep everything.”

He followed her into the barn. Her trim and graceful carriage was more suited to a ballroom than a floor of packed earth.

“Pull some hay from there.” She pointed to the loft.

He edged past her and mounted the ladder. “How much?”

“About three forkfuls, for now.”

He picked up the pitchfork, threw down the hay, and climbed back to the floor.

When he stepped to the ground and turned, she was watching him with a bemused expression. Clearly flustered, she bent down and tried to get her small hands around the pile of hay at her feet. A few pieces of hay had floated into her hair.

He touched her elbow. “I will carry it.”

Her full, dark lashes lowered for a moment. Then her lips curved—a tentative, tiny smile. “Thank you.” He scooped up the hay easily with his longer arms, and she led the way out of the barn.

He liked her smile. He hefted the unwieldy armload, cheered by his body's returning strength. When they reached the cow byre, he threw the hay in to the black cow.

He trailed around the property after her, marking the storage and the cold cellar. He must treat her with respect. This was his new master's daughter—and he was probably already engaged to another.

“You don't have to care for the pigs,” she said, a shadow flitting over her brow as she walked past the sty. Its familiar smell wrenched at him.

“I don't mind. Especially if I can wash up after.”

Another little smile from her warmed him, and he smiled back with real merriment. Then she glanced away and dusted her skirt off, though it did not appear dusty. That made him smile even more at her unknowing back as she walked ahead of him toward the house. There was no harm in a little teasing.

Emmie
, he reminded himself. But he would have to wait until Mr. Miller returned to write his letter. He certainly would never ask Ann for postage. Or perhaps he could write the letter now and post it upon Mr. Miller's return. He could ask Ann for ink and paper. That was a more respectable request.

“I believe that is everything.” Ann stopped by the barn. The late afternoon sunlight brought rich and varied tones from her hair, which waved softly down her back and around her shoulders. He had not seen her wear it down before.

Her eyes turned opaque with thought. “I'm never at ease when my father is away.” As soon as the words left her lips, she turned her face away as if she would like to take them back.

“I won't fall asleep tonight,” he said. “You will be safe.”

She nodded without saying more and left him standing there as she walked back to the house, her small shoulders very straight in her tailored dress.

He had left the pistol in the barn. Inside the barn door, he paused to let his vision adjust to the dimness. He picked up the pistol from the shelf where he had laid it, pulled back the hammer with his thumb, then released it gently. If anyone threatened Ann or her little sisters, he would not hesitate.

He must set off in search of firewood. Night would come soon.

Twenty-Seven

A
NN'S LAMP GLOWED LONG PAST THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
. Her father's absence had catapulted her to nervous wakefulness.

She propped one elbow on her desk and rested her cheek on her hand, absorbed in the Radcliffe novel. Not, perhaps, the wisest choice of reading for one who needed soothing. She had started it once before, but found herself unable to continue upon reading that the heroine, Emily, had lost her mother and was left with only her father. Now, a year later, having steeled herself to try it again, Ann sympathized with Emily so deeply that it was as if she lived inside Emily's skin and walked every step of her travels with her.

But on this page, Emily's father had fallen ill, which made Ann's uneasiness rise until her palms were moist.

Still, the father's words kept her glued to the story.

“One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world.”

She opened her diary and took her quill from its place on the desk, dipping it in the inkwell and copying the quotation. Through those words, Emily's world rose off the page and mingled with reality. Ann's abstract sentiment had done Will no good in Pittsburgh. But her father's act of benevolence in aiding the Simons had rippled beyond them and somehow, through Providence, had brought Will to their threshold.

Ann must be, like her father, a doer and not just an indulger in sentiment. It was a lesson that smarted as it sank deeper in her; she was not sure why. Perhaps she did not wish to give up all girlish sentiment. Eli understood that. There was still boyishness in his play with words. Would he be a man who acted in benevolence, who made himself useful to others in need? She did not know. He was not lacking in sentiment. But what would he do with his fine poetic feeling?

He still spoke of medical school, but he had delayed his plans two years since he first spoke of it. He told Ann that he had not felt any peace at the thought of going away without her. When he said such things, his intense gaze increased his other worldly quality and left her stunned that such a man would think so highly of her. She had not dared to hope that he would ever speak to her in that way again.

He could not be far from proposing, and then she would have to decide what to do. It made her head ache. God had turned Eli's heart back to her, as she prayed for so many times. It was proof that the Lord must intend her to marry Eli. But she did not know how she would choose Eli over her sisters, or her sisters over him.

She put her quill away and closed the novel, finally weary. Stifling a yawn, she went to her window and peeped around the shutter she had left ajar.

Will sat in profile against the firelight, his head bent to a book—her father's Bible. She had seen it on a rock beside the fire when she brought Will his supper.

She must feel so close a kinship with the apprentice because of the strange accident of the letters, and because she had seen him sorely abused. That would explain why her heart went out to him and why she had been robbed of her power to speak when he first arrived at their home.

Yet, despite all his suffering, he had still tried to ease her burden today during her chores—to lift heavy things for her, to look after her needs.

When he was near, she did not feel moved to pity, as she once had. Instead, time grew slow and simultaneously wild, as if something unexpected was bound to happen, as if he had something to tell her and she him, but each waited on the other. Perhaps that sense of expectation was only in her imagination, a trick of the mind caused by sharing his mother's letters. In fact, she could now return the letters to his possession permanently. Perhaps doing so would dissolve their unusual secret and remove that oddness she felt in his presence.

She withdrew from the window and went to the loose floorboard over the hole where she kept her diary. Out of habit, she had hidden the letters there upon her return from Pittsburgh. Under the raised board, the little bag nestled against the bare ground. Now that Will sat only yards away instead of in the gloom of Master Good's barn, the letters seemed like a message of promise for his future. Ann pulled out the bag and stood to check her reflection in the glass before she headed outside.

She took her lamp and carried the bag of letters down the dark hallway and through the parlor. When she stepped outside, Will looked up quickly.

Now that his deep-set eyes were fixed on her, the same paralyzing shyness stole over her as on his arrival. Why had she thought it necessary to return these letters in the dark of night, when she would have to speak to him alone? At least the wavering firelight only reached one side of his face, leaving him in dancing shadows, so she did not have to read his expression.

She would keep it swift and practical. She marched up and held out the bag to him, where it dangled like a flag at the end of her stiff arm. “Here. These belong to you.”

He took them slowly. “Thank you.” If he wondered why she had come out after midnight to deliver them, he kept mercifully silent.

“Good night.” She spun around and hurried back inside, cringing at her own awkwardness. Her ears were still tingling when she reached the refuge of her bedroom and closed the door. He would think her a mannerless eccentric.

At least her mortification had driven away some of her worry.

She assured herself twice that the shutter was completely closed before pulling her dress over her head, untying her stays, and stepping out of her petticoat. She hung the garments carefully in her wardrobe and donned her nightgown.

She should not be nervous. Her father thought there was no reason for alarm. And she was not alone; Will was here.

She blew out the lamp and climbed into her bed. She must not think of Will anymore if she wished to forget her foolishness and find any rest tonight.

She hoped the Simons were well at their cabin. Clara had seemed so ill yesterday.

Lord, please heal Clara and guard the Simons. Protect us all from evil men this night. Please help me to know why you have chosen Eli for me, and how I can marry him without leaving my sisters. And calm my nerves and send me sleep. In your Son's holy name, I ask you these things. Amen
.

A stick cracked. Will's head jerked up. He could not tell how close or far away it was, though it came from the woods beyond the field.

It could be anything—a deer, a bobcat. But as he gazed at the indistinct trees, the hair rose on his arms.

There
. Something moving, a blot of deeper darkness in the moon shadows.

He rose to his feet, gripping the pistol. But he saw and heard nothing more.

He could not stay here. He had to discover whether that was human or animal. He half ran into the field and over the bare furrows in the darkness.

When he reached the trees he paused, assaulted by the memory of his run across Master Good's yard to the woods.

Still no one in sight. He slipped through the grove, skirting knotty bushes, alert for any sign of motion. It must have been an animal. There was nothing to see.

He would go to the cabin and be certain that John was still awake, then get back to the house.

As he arrived on the border of the clearing, he froze. Thumps and thuds sounded from inside the cabin. The door was ajar, revealing faint light from a banked fire. John was nowhere to be seen.

He clutched the pistol and ran.

He kicked the door, throwing it back on its hinges. A man leaned over the bed, tying Clara's hands. Her eyes were wide and terrified, her mouth stopped with a strip of cloth. John lay sprawled on the floor.

“Stop!” Will cocked the hammer and raised the pistol. The man arrested himself in mid-motion. He turned slowly to Will, hands in the air.

“Now, don't be getting' excited, boy.” He wore a beaver hat low on his forehead. “I'm just claimin' some stolen property.”

Will darted a glance at John, who was silent and motionless. “Get away from them.”

“There ain't nowhere to go.”

“Come out here.”

The man grabbed something from the bed. Will ducked. A pistol blast deafened him, and the breeze of the shot puffed past his ear. He dodged behind the wall and dropped to the ground.

Complete silence in the vacuum left by the gun's report.

He waited. The bounty hunter would not kill John or Clara—they were good for a reward alive, not dead. But if Will went in there, the man would pick him off like a duck. Will would have to wait him out. He trained his pistol on the door and waited.