Lucy's Liberation [Elk Creek 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (4 page)

“You call it jaded and I call it prudence.”

Ki listened to his mother, but he had already made up his mind that she was not going to win this battle, not this time. He needed a new adventure, something to do other than reading legal briefs and arguing cases inside the sacred, sterile, and stifling halls of justice. He was slowly losing his spirit, vanishing into nothingness in the family business.

Not that this trip out west was anything close to what he would consider an adventure, at least not the equivalent of any of his past escapades, far from them. On the face of it, the venture to settle his uncle’s estate wasn’t any more exciting than working with his stepfather at the firm. Of course the firm didn’t have Lucy Peyton as an enticement.

Ki tapped the infamous letter against his temple, contemplating.

Why would Uncle Rance mention
him
in his will and not his own sister, Ki’s mother?

Ki had had nothing to do with the man since he’d been ten years old and his mother and stepfather had banished Uncle Rance to parts unknown and as far away from Ki as possible. Before the first letter from the lawyer in Elk Creek had reached their house at Gramercy Park, it had been close to twenty-two years since Ki had thought about Uncle Rance.

“Hezekiah Benjamin, are you listening to me or are you trying to discern that envelope’s contents through osmosis?”

Ki immediately stopped his tapping. “I’m sorry, Mother. You said something?”

She sighed and shook her head. “What is it exactly this woman said in her…petition to make you want to make a trip to that godforsaken town when none of the lawyer’s correspondence demanded your consideration, much less a personal visit?”

That was a very good question, and one Ki didn’t have an answer to.

He had reread Mrs. Peyton’s letter several times, well-nigh knew its content from beginning to end, word for word. In fact if he had been memorizing lines for a starring role in a Broadway play, he couldn’t have been anymore prepared to give an award-winning performance.

My Dear Mr. Benjamin, I am writing to appeal to what I hope is your sense of fairness…

She had thrown down the gauntlet and put him on the defensive from the first line of her missive. She’d challenged him to prove her wrong about his presumed neglect.

Ki grinned. He loved a challenge, had never been a man to turn his back on one. Despite not even having met her yet, Lucy Peyton presented a challenge. With several swipes of her pen against paper, she had called his ethics and dedication into question, had in fact questioned his sense of justice and cast aspersions on his integrity.

He had his faults like anyone, but Ki had never been able to ignore a lady in distress.

This inability was, in his mother’s estimation, a regrettable weakness and one of the main reasons she had intervened in the Mirabella matter. His mother thought he was just too sensitive for his own good, making himself an easy target for people with unscrupulous motives.

Ki couldn’t imagine Lucy Peyton having unscrupulous motives. Her letter had seemed so…sincere. Perhaps his mother was right and his judgment couldn’t be trusted. He’d never been so taken with anyone before, especially someone he hadn’t yet met.

He closed his eyes now, trying to picture what Lucy Peyton looked like and couldn’t.

Knowing his uncle as he did and something in his mother’s whole attitude about Ki going out to Elk Creek told him that his uncle’s widow was a young woman, certainly much younger than Uncle Rance had been. This conclusion led Ki to wonder what would make a young woman,
any
woman, choose to marry a man like his uncle.

According to his mother, Lucy had to be some kind of fortune hunter, more than likely some local yokel hoping to elevate her station in life marrying a besotted older man who would leave her everything he owned upon his death.

Uncle Rance’s will must have been quite a shock to little Mrs. Peyton. She probably thought she had struck it rich at his death, that she would get everything free and clear, but Uncle Rance had exercised cunning and must not have been as besotted as Lucy had hoped.

Ki conceded that fortune hunters of this ilk—the ambitious bumpkins, the scheming gold diggers, the aspiring socialites—must lurk around many corners, infiltrating plenty of social circles, just as his mother maintained. He just didn’t want to believe that Lucy Peyton fell into this mercenary category of con artists and frauds.

“Hezekiah, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you put a stop to your woolgathering this instant.”

“I must apologize, Mother. I’m not quite myself this evening.”

“And you haven’t been since you received that letter.”

Ki didn’t answer, didn’t know what more to say.

“You never answered me, Ki. What is it you find so special about this woman you have still to meet?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

He intended to find out soon enough, though.

Lucy jerked up in bed and flung off the covers with an unaccustomed grumble.

She hadn’t slept well. She’d tossed and turned most of the night, thinking about the mess her life was in and wondering what she was going to do to straighten it out.

She should have slept like the dead, seeing as how tired she was once she’d gotten home from an evening shift at Winchester’s after a daytime shift at Healing Magick. This had been her routine for the last several months as she tried to make enough money to meet her current needs
and
save for her future. She wanted to eventually get a little place of her own, rather than live at Sabrina’s boarding house, but Sabrina insisted that as long as
she
had a place to stay, Lucy had a place to stay. The sentiment was awful generous, but Lucy wanted
something
in this world that belonged just to her and a place to rest her head at night was a good start.

She hadn’t totally given up on overturning her husband’s convoluted last will and testament that left her nothing unless she agreed to meet certain stipulations. Agreeing to the stipulations felt a little like selling her soul to the devil at this point, and she was so tired of being traded back and forth like chattel.

Lucy wanted to settle down and have a normal life like all the other women she saw in Elk Creek pushing baby carriages with devoted and loving husbands by their sides. She hadn’t totally given up on that dream despite her unworthiness in Rance’s eyes. Not being worthy didn’t mean she didn’t want or need nice things for herself like everyone else wanted and needed.

Someone knocked on her door.

“Day’s a-wasting, sleepyhead! Come on down to breakfast before everything gets cold!”

Lucy listened to Sabrina’s cheery and chirpy voice and sighed before instantly chastising herself for her bad attitude. “I’ll be down directly!”

When had she become so cantankerous? When had she turned into her father? Was it the six years she’d spent married to Rance? She thought for sure that should have turned the happiest saint into a crabby malcontent.

Lucy got out of bed to tend to herself, washing in the basin Sabrina provided all her boarders, and the water in it was still nice and warm to boot.

She slipped one of the few nice dresses she owned on over her bloomers and camisole. She’d hazard to guess the entire process of getting washed and dressed had taken all of ten minutes, but Sabrina was back at the door banging again as Lucy tied her granny boots.

What was the dang emergency?

“Get a wiggle on, Lucy! Don’t want life to pass you by!”

No, she certainly didn’t want that. Look what had happened to poor Ethan Crawford.

She’d be willing to wager he’d thought he had all the time in the world to live his life before someone plugged
him
full of lead.

The thought of Ethan getting cut down in his prime was powerful depressing, especially considering he had been the same age as Lucy.

Good Lord, she didn’t want to die an old maid! Not that she could be considered an old maid since she had been married to Rance, but she wanted to forget that part of her life altogether, wished it had never happened. Seeing as how Rance had treated her, it was probably better to be an old maid than married to the wrong man.

Was it powerful wrong of her to not want to wallow along in her widowhood? Did it make her a bad person to want to move on with her life as if Rance had never been in it?

Lucy finished tying her boots then checked her face in the mirror over the bureau before she left her room. It wasn’t like she was one of Winchester’s painted ladies and had to be at her fetching best, but she at least wanted to make sure she wasn’t looking like an utter frump.

Lucy had been such a tomboy as a girl, running and climbing fences with the boys after school, that her momma used to get at her something fierce about her smudging and ripping her good clothes. Now she had Maia and Sabrina to get at her about her appearance. They told her she needed to be more presentable to appeal to Healing Magick’s clientele, no mean feat with Lucy’s limited wherewithal.

She opened her bedroom door and finally made her way down the stairs to the kitchen, where breakfast was in full swing and the rest of the boarding house’s occupants were all abuzz about some of the latest gossip from town.

Lucy usually got up with the cows and chickens like everyone else in Sabrina’s house despite her two jobs, but lately she was feeling bluer than a bruise and plumb tuckered out, the long hours finally catching up with her.

“Well, if it ain’t Sleeping Beauty finally making an appearance,” Sabrina teased as Lucy stopped on the threshold of the kitchen and took in the scene.

Sabrina was up and circulating around the table, refilling everyone’s coffee cups, already doling out second helpings of pancakes, bacon, and eggs and just generally being her usual ball of motion. She fit right in with her brightly-painted, lemon-yellow surroundings and everyone at the large oak table seemed to flourish from her energy—except Lucy.

She mumbled a good morning to everyone before crossing the room and taking her usual seat beside Maia, who gave her one of her famous dazzling smiles. Sabrina’s two regular boarders, Joshua and Luke, likewise gave Lucy friendly salutes.

“Well, settle down now and start your breakfast. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“More plans for Lily’s baby shower?” Lucy asked, watching as Sabrina piled her plate with a stack of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and grits. She wondered how in the world she was supposed to eat all the food. She usually secretly slid what she couldn’t finish over to either Joshua or Luke, but she suspected that Sabrina realized exactly what she and the men were about. Even when Sabrina had her back to the table, bustling at the stove or rummaging in one of the overhead cabinets, she seemed to know exactly what was going on behind her. Lucy swore the woman had eyes in the back of her head.

She often wondered how any woman who worked as hard as Sabrina did could look so peppy and beautiful so early in the morning, merrily tending to everyone’s needs with an unwavering smile on her face.

Despite her not being much older than Lucy, Sabrina’s good nature and get-up-and-go reminded Lucy of her momma.

That woman had always known when Lucy was up to mischief. Not to mention she more often than not had a good word or a smile for everyone, even Lucy’s daddy, who didn’t have a good word to say about anyone.

Thirteen years after her death, and Lucy still missed her momma so bad. The woman had deserved much better than she had gotten, but then sixteen years of living under her daddy’s thumb and six more years living under Rance’s had taught Lucy that everyone didn’t always get what they deserved.

“Oh, we’re still working out the particulars, but there’s more than just the baby shower afoot in this town. Much more,” Sabrina said, her tone cryptic.

“We were wondering when you were going to drag your tail from bed and join the living. You’re missing out on all the excitement.” Maia nudged Lucy in the shoulder as Sabrina poured tea in Lucy’s cup. Lucy and Sabrina were about the only ones in the house who drank the stuff. Everyone else usually liked their Arbuckle’s, the hotter and stronger, the better.

Despite having moved out of the boarding house after her marriage to Thayne, Maia showed up at Sabrina’s boarding house at least three or four times a week to partake in meals and just general chitchat before they and Lucy all headed off to work at Healing Magick.

Maia and Sabrina seemed to have so much in common to chitchat about, like their business concerns, and each having not one but two men doting on them.

She knew Sabrina would deny the latter of course, but it was so obvious that Joshua and Luke had hankerings for her. Everyone in Elk Creek seemed to know it but Sabrina.

Lucy wondered when she would realize how her two boarders felt about her. Not that Sabrina was hurting for male attention. She had her share of admirers wherever she went, so she certainly wasn’t lacking in that area of her life. Maybe she was so busy fending off all her other suitors, she actually
didn’t
realize Joshua and Luke were likewise keen on her.

Lucy knew. She well recognized the lovesick looks the two men gave Sabrina. She had seen similar looks of desire on the faces of Thayne and Cade whenever they looked at Maia.