Abigail's Secret (A Whimsical Select Romance Novella) (6 page)

Brice gritted his teeth
when he gently shrugged his jacket off.  Abigail rushed to his side to help him. “Is it paining you that much?”

“That and then some,” he grimaced.

“The bullet may have hit the bone,” she feared.  “Perhaps we should wait for a physician to be called,” she said as Brice began to unbutton his shirt.

“It went straight through and missed the bone. No need to call and disturb the doc at this late hour.”  He slid out of his white cotton shirt and tossed it on the other side of the room.  It landed atop the floral coverlet that was spread across her mother’s four poster bed that lay beneath a foliate carved canopy held up by
ornately engraved supporters.

Abigail stood frozen and unable to proceed.  Although she initially wanted to admonish him for throwing his blood soiled clothing onto the clean bed, she found herself in awe over his masculinity.  It dazed her into silence. She had never seen a man in such a state of nakedness.  His chest was broad and tapered down into a well-defined stomach.  He looked to have been molded from clay by an artisan who favored perfection.  Abigail silently ordered herself to breathe.

“Abilene,” Brice softly called out to her and sufficiently pulled her from her musings. “Are you all right?” In two steps he had closed in on her and reached for her hand.  “You look pale.”  He guided her to the bed and sat her down.  Still holding onto her hand, he knelt down in front of her.  Brice glanced at his shoulder that was smeared ghastly red with blood.  “Truly, it’s barely a flesh wound.  Surely nothing so great that you and Abigail should find need to swoon for,” he grinned.

She wasn’t sure wh
ich was worse; Brice believing she was fragile and hindered by a poor constitution, or the thought of what he would say or do if he knew she was woolgathering over his virility.  She didn’t need to ponder it long.  He didn’t afford her the time to do so.  Brice sat next to her on the bed and her mouth went dry.  She felt her breath start to labor and heart raced in wild secessions when Brice caressed her hands within his.

“I dare say,” Brice said concerned, “I believe you are going to faint.” He released her hands and cupped her face with his strong,
warm hands. “We shall call for one of your maids to dress this wound.  I believe it’d be best if you lie down and rest.” He scooped her into his arms and laid her out onto the bed. He leaned over her and their eyes met. At first he looked startled but his face softened and he smiled down at her. They looked at one another for a spell, and it was well longer than what society would deem proper. But there was something sweet and gentle in the way he caressed her with his stare and Abigail was reluctant to look away.  Brice lowered his head and his lips verged on touching hers.

She was so
mesmerized by Brice that she hadn’t heard Thomas enter the room.  Her brother hemmed and loudly cleared his throat and made his presence known.  Abigail guiltily jumped from the bed.

“We weren’t doing anything improper,” she
rushed out.

“You’re
an unmarried woman who is laying in a bed with a half-naked and nearly betrothed man, my dear.  That is the epitome of impropriety.”

H
er cheeks heated in a blush. Although Thomas gave a hint of a smile, she didn’t find any relief from her embarrassment. Abigail quickly gathered the linens and water and started working on the task that had sent her into the room from the start.  “I’ll be done here shortly,” Abigail supplied.

Thomas looked at Brice. 
“Tess asked me to check on her, ‘dear Mister Winslow.’” He imitated Tess’s honeyed voice which was more soothing than listening to breezes rustle the tree leaves.  “After today’s events and your gallantry, I can’t imagine her choosing anyone else to take her hand,” Thomas said. “She is beyond smitten by you now.”

Brice sat up a little more erect. “Is that so?” he
amusingly asked and smiled.  “I’ll go to her as soon as Abilene is done here.”

Abigail
reached into the medicine bag and retrieved the carbolic acid.   She saturated his wound with the stringent liquid and Brice nearly flinched so hard that he jumped from his seat.  He sucked in a deep breath.

“
By God, Abilene, you did that on purpose,” he said between tightly clenched teeth.

“
Quit bellyaching and sit still, Brice,” she chided. Abigail finished wrapping his wound, which was as Brice stated, a flesh wound that hadn’t penetrated the bone.  Despite being annoyed with him, she was relieved it wasn’t worse.

Brice reach
ed for his shirt and dressed.  “It’s getting late.  Best if I say my farewells to Abigail and head back home.”

“Be careful,” Thomas warned.

His gaze met Abigail and he looked catawampusly chewed up.  Brice observed her for a dreadfully long time and Abigail wondered if he was ruminating about what she did with the carbolic acid or thinking about their near kiss.  She was beginning to believe he was just as displeased with her by both.  It was then she realized that that it was going to be a hard row to hoe if she was going to win Brice’s heart.

Abigail
considered telling him the truth.  She wanted to remove all the deception between them as well as prevent another attack that may prove more fatal. But before she had the chance to cleanse the air, Brice walked out the door.

“So what are your thoughts on what transpired this evening?” she asked Thomas.

“I believe someone wants to eliminate the biggest competition.”

“
I agree.  It’s best if we just end this charade, Thomas.  I never imagined something so dreadful could come of it.”

“There’s no need to go to such lengths due to this evening’s event
s.  I’ll send some inquires and I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of who was responsible for tonight.”

“I believe we’re getting nowhere with this plan.  As you undoubtedly viewed upon entering, there was a tender moment shared between Brice and myself, but the instant you reminded him of Tess and
my
dowry, he couldn’t leave the room fast enough.”

Thomas smiled. “Indeed, he did.”  He walked to her and gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “But who was the first person he saw to safety when that first shot rang out?  It wasn’t the one
he thought held his fortune, was it?”

Indeed it wasn’t, Abigail
appreciated.  Perhaps she’d give Brice a few more days before determining his lack of worthiness in receiving her heart.

             
Four days had passed and Abigail hadn’t seen hide or hair of Brice Winslow.  She discreetly inquired in town but no had seen him in days.  She had planned on checking several other businesses that he may have frequented, but with the crowds in town for the
Abigail Affair
, she couldn’t make her way pass the thresholds without waiting in line.  Instead, she took her concerns to Thomas, but as the shopkeepers had done, he brushed her worries off as unnecessary although he’d nearly been killed days before.  Thomas tried to convince her that Brice was seeing to his labors, reminding her that he had a responsibility to his plantation.  Yet despite his lack of concern, Abigail fretted over his wellbeing.  Although the Winslow Corn Plantation sat outside the city and was a good twenty minute ride, Abigail set to the task of making her way there.

The lane
that led to his modest farmhouse was narrow and framed on either side by overgrown stalks of corn.  From the distance, Abigail saw a Conestoga wagon pulled in front of his home.  She wondered if perhaps he had guests who arrived from out of town or if Brice Winslow decided to pull stakes and leave Mecklenburg.

Abigail
gnawed on her bottom lip and questioned whether she should have come.  After all, the last she saw Brice he had nearly kissed her.  What if he thought her true intent was for the purpose of receiving it now?  The thought made her consider turning her rig around and set back home.  She gently pulled back the reigns and slowed her horses to a stop.  She looked toward his house and saw Brice near the wagon fiddling with the canvas cover.  A young woman ran to Brice just as Abigail had made the wavering decision to make her way to him.  The woman was slender and dressed in a modern blue walking dress that perfectly fit her curves.  Even the black laced ruffles that tiered down her back couldn’t hide the woman’s shapeliness. Although Abigail was nearly as thin as the woman, she couldn’t help but begrudge the woman for her size due to habit.  The woman jumped into Brice’s arms and Abigail glared at the happy couple before her.  The blue ribbons on the woman’s straw hat flowed in the air as Brice twirled her around in his arms.  After a moment, they stopped and hugged.  She expected the anger but not the sickening feeling within the pit of her stomach.  Not only did she feel betrayed, but she felt for Tess’s unwarranted disapproval as well.

“You
scoundrel,” she harshly whispered under her breath.  The lane was narrow and Abigail knew it’d be a difficult task to turn her wagon around, especially unseen and unheard.  There was no doubt that she’d take quite a few of his corn stalks with her in the process.  But she didn’t care.  She couldn’t face him.  Seeing him with another woman so intimately reminded her of the horrible events that occurred prior to her leaving Mecklenburg. And here he was, again, making a fool out of her.  “Not this time, Mister Winslow,” she muttered.  She slapped the reins onto the horses’ backs and hoped that they’d equal her determination in wanting to hastily leave.

The ruckus she made in the process gained Brice and his companion’s attention.
  He had called out something to her, but Brice was too far away for his words to take on distinction.  Not that she cared what he had to say.  All she wanted was to remove her person from the Winslow property and the sight of Brice from her near-to-crying eyes.

Her
stallions had another idea.  They led her wagon into a soft patch of dirt and the cart’s wheel sank and buried itself deep into the earth.  She looked toward Brice’s house and watched with dismay as he mounted his horse.  He was coming to her rescue.

“Please,” she pleaded to her team.  “I’ll give you whatever you want.  Carrots, sugar,
anything, “she begged.  “Just get us the blasted Hell out of here.” Yet as she suspected, it did no good.

“What are you doing
alone this far out of town?” he yelled out at her.

His question and tone
raised her ire in spite of the fact that he looked dash-fire fetching. Finer than she’d ever seen him. The waves of his coal black hair rested unfashionably wild to his shoulders and Abigail thought the societal blunder suited him well.  It afforded him the appearance of having boyish charm, yet the firm creases aside his emerald green eyes provided testimony to his manliness.  He stood before her jacketless and wearing only a shirt and vest with baggy grey trousers.  Abigail steadied her breath and forbade her inner yearnings to surface.

On
ce gaining her composure, Abigail finally said, “As I am a grown woman and not a child, I have it on my own authority to go wherever I wish.”

“Well your
cousin should be flogged for alloying you such liberties,” he said angrily.  “Of all places in Mecklenburg this is the last place you should find yourself.”

Abigail looked
back toward the house and saw the woman standing in the middle of the path.  She waved at Abigail and called out a greeting.  Abigail reluctantly returned a nod for her salutation, but all she truly wanted to do was pull each tress from the woman’s head for laying her hands so familiarly on Brice.  It was then she realized that she agreed with Brice.  Being at his home was the last place she should have been on that day, or any other.

“
I’ll be remedying my poor judgment once my wagon is freed.”  She snapped opened her silk gilded fan and drove the heat away, regardless that the weather didn’t dictate the need.

“The
hell you are.” Brice maneuvered the horses back and forward until the wagon pulled from the hole it had been buried.  He then looked at her thoughtfully.  “Give me a moment to say goodbye to my guests and I’ll see you back to town.”

“You can go back to your
guest
now, Brice
. 
I can return just as safely as I came.”  She looked down the lane and saw the woman still lingering there.  Abigail wondered if the woman was as equally jealous as she was of her.  “You can go back to your dallying with that woman.”

His lips bowed into a smile.
Brice looked down the lane and nodded his head toward the woman who anxiously awaited his return.  “Dallying?  Lily Sue?”

“That’s my daughter,” a harsh voice came.  The corn stalks opened up
and revealed a very large, rusty gut of a man with an exceptionally wide chest and neared to stand seven feet tall.  If his size wasn’t intimidating enough, the iron-branded scar on his face was.  The letters
MS
had at one time been seared into his skin and left behind a permanent mark to publicize his shame and crime.  She immediately wondered who he had killed.

“This is Edward
Smith,” Brice said.  “He’s Lily Sue and my late wife’s father.”

“Oh,”
is all Abigail could manage, whether out of embarrassment or intimidation from the man’s size and manner, she wasn’t sure. She curtsied and respectfully lowered her head, but Abigail looked away when the man sneered at her.