Courting Susannah (17 page)

“Be that as it may,” Maisie replied, “you know it's true.” With that, she turned and left the room.

For a few moments, Susannah just sat there, motionless, in a state akin to shock. She had no doubt that Maisie's theories on the declining quality of suitors were sound ones, but the implications of being described as beautiful were harder to sort through. She went to the bureau and stood looking at herself in the wavy mirror above it.

She was tall, for a woman, and her hair was a nice, pale wheat color. Her eyes were gray and quite large. She had a good, straight carriage. She frowned critically. But, no, she was decidedly
not
beautiful—her mouth was too wide and her cheekbones slightly too prominent. A faint spray of freckles spattered her nose, evidence of too many summers spent playing kickball in the dooryard of St. Mary's.

Julia—
Julia
—had been the beauty. And that very distinction had destroyed her, in the end.

Susannah turned her back on the mirror and went to stand at the window, looking out, watching darkness gather, while the snowfall intensified. A little old man moved along the street, lighting the wicks of the tall lamps. Their glass doors creaked on metal hinges as he opened and closed them.

She was still standing there, some minutes later, when Maisie sounded the dinner bell from the base of the kitchen stairs. Victoria stirred, cooed, and went back to sleep with a fluttering of lashes and a tiny sigh that pinched the back of Susannah's heart.

After making certain the baby was dry and covered, she washed her hands and face in the elegant bath
chamber, tightened the pins holding her hair in a loose bun at the back of her head, and made her way to the first floor. She had discovered that she could hear Victoria from the kitchen if she left the door of her bedroom open.

Maisie was bustling about, setting bowls and platters on the table, and Susannah immediately noticed that there were two places set. One was surely hers, but the other would belong to a visitor, since Aubrey generally insisted on taking the evening meal in the dining room.

She tossed a questioning glance at Maisie, who was pummeling boiled potatoes with a metal masher. The older woman stepped around Jasper and his toy fire wagon without so much as looking down, setting the large crockery bowl on the table, where a platter of fried chicken and a dish of baked squash awaited.

“Ethan's here,” Maisie said. “Mr. Fairgrieve sent word that he'll be workin' late tonight.”

Susannah felt an unfounded twinge of jealousy; was Aubrey really at the store, or had he already resumed his relationship with Delphinia Parker?

“Don't be lookin' like that,” Maisie scolded, evidently as skilled at mind reading as she was at cooking and cleaning, as Jasper came over to the table and assessed the contents of the chicken platter. “It ain't just the store, you know. Mr. Fairgrieve has interests all over the state. Why, he's got stocks and bonds, and he's even a partner in one of them gold mines up north.”

Susannah handed the little boy a drumstick, after making sure it wasn't too hot. Before she could think of a retort, Ethan strolled in, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, his muscular forearms still glistening from a recent washing. His fair hair was neatly tied back, and he wore lightweight woolen trousers and polished boots.

“Evening, Susannah,” he said.

Maisie snatched up Jasper and the chicken leg, making a hasty assessment of the table and the state of the kitchen in general. “That's a good day's work as far as I'm concerned,” she declared. “Just leave them dishes, Susannah. I'll do 'em up in the mornin'.”

Within a few moments, Maisie had retired to her room, taking the reluctant Jasper along with her.

Alone with Ethan, Susannah couldn't help thinking of the hours she'd spent poring over his most private thoughts, and she felt like a sneak thief. At the same time, it wasn't in her to pretend ignorance.

“I have something that belongs to you,” she said obliquely, and retreated back up the stairs to her room. Victoria was still sleeping, so Susannah snatched up the handwritten volume of poetry and went again to the kitchen.

Ethan had not taken a seat at the table, though the food was cooling off, but instead waited politely, arms folded, leaning back against the sink. When he saw the book, his eyes narrowed, and the warmth of his manner gave way instantly to a bone-biting chill.

“Where did you get that?”

She surrendered the book. “Aubrey gave it to me.”

Ethan held the volume in both hands, as though to lose his grasp would be a tragedy, like dropping an infant or a precious piece of porcelain.
“Aubrey?”
he asked, apparently dumbstruck.

Susannah had certainly not intended to cause more trouble between the two brothers, but the poetry belonged to Ethan—he'd conjured every word in the innermost regions of his heart, after all—and she would not keep it from him. Seeing his reaction to recovering the volume, she knew she had been right to return it, whatever the consequences. “Sit down,” she said gently.
“Maisie worked very hard making supper, and, besides, you looked hungry until you caught sight of that book.”

He drew back her chair, waited while she took it, then went around to sink into his own. He laid the tome beside him on the table, pondering it with a frown. “Where did Aubrey get this?”

Susannah offered a silent prayer, not only in gratitude for the plentiful food set before her but that she might say the right things, the gentlest things, without betraying the truth. “Julia gave it to him.”

Ethan gave up all pretense of eating and stared at Susannah as though she'd just announced that she was growing another index finger. “Julia?” he echoed.

“He believes you wrote those poems for her.” She speared a piece of chicken, scooped out a serving of mashed potatoes, helped herself to squash—and touched none of it.

Ethan closed his eyes and sat back in his chair for a long moment, keeping his own counsel. When he looked at Susannah again, he was much more composed. “That little—”

Susannah cleared her throat quickly. Whatever Julia might have done, it wasn't right or fair to speak ill of the dead.

“It's a lie,” Ethan said miserably.

“I know,” Susannah said. “You were writing about Su Lin, weren't you?”

He gave a taut nod, frowned again. “You've read them?” A raspy sigh escaped him. “Of course you have. And so has Aubrey, if he's convinced himself that they were composed for his wife. Damnation.”

Susannah dared to reach across the table and touch his hand, though in a sisterly way. “They're wonderful, Ethan,” she said. “I've never seen anything quite like them.”

He pushed his plate away, propped his elbows on the table's edge, and rested his head in his hands. “Sweet God,” he breathed wearily. Almost brokenly. “How could she do that?”

Susannah waited; she knew he didn't expect an answer, and she wouldn't have had one to give if he had.

After a long time had passed, Ethan met Susannah's steady gaze again. She wanted to look away, but she had pried into his private affairs, and she would not flinch from the responsibilities entailed in such an intrusion. “After Su Lin left for China, I started writing those verses,” he said. “It was all that kept me from losing my mind. I had to have a place to put all the things I wished I'd said to her.”

Tears sprang to Susannah's eyes, and she was inspired, once more, to touch Ethan, this time taking his hand in her own. She was a romantic at heart, and for all its tragedy, the story was a poignant one. “She must have known how you felt—”

“Isn't this cozy?” The intruding voice, sharp as a freshly ground blade, was Aubrey's. He stood in the inner doorway, still wearing his great coat, snowflakes melting in his butternut hair and on his broad shoulders. He wrenched off his leather gloves, one at a time, and stuffed them into his pocket. “Once wasn't enough, Ethan?”

Ethan shot to his feet, but not, Susannah could see, because he was afraid. No, he was coldly angry, perhaps angrier than Aubrey. His chair tipped over with a clatter, and upstairs Victoria began to wail.

“You should both be ashamed,” Susannah cried, rising herself and snatching up her skirts. “You've frightened the baby!” With that, she turned her back on the pair of them and hurried up the stairs to collect and comfort Victoria. Below, in the kitchen, she heard Aubrey and Ethan speaking in more moderate tones,
but the whole house seemed to reverberate with their combined fury. It was as though two thunderstorms were about to collide in the middle of an open sky.

“You had no right!” Ethan snarled, tapping Aubrey in the chest with one end of the volume of love poems.

“
I
had no right?” Aubrey countered in a furious rasp. Keeping his voice down was the second hardest challenge facing him at the moment; the first was keeping himself from knocking his younger brother on his ass. “Julia was my wife!”

“Yes,” Ethan growled, “God help you.” He made for the doorway, and Aubrey stopped him by grasping his arm. He immediately wrenched free. “I will tell you this once, brother, and once only. Your precious Julia was a selfish, scheming little bitch with a mean streak wider than the best vein in the Klondike, and I wouldn't have had her on a bet.” He waggled the slender book between his fingers as evidence. “Looks like she was a thief in the bargain.”

Aubrey had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach; the kind he got on those relatively rare occasions when he found out he'd been wrong about something. He hated being wrong. “Ethan—”

His brother replied with an expletive better suited to a saloon than a decent household, but Aubrey didn't blame him. He felt like shouting out the same oath and was prevented only by the sure and certain knowledge that Susannah would have his hide if he did. He watched in silence as Ethan walked out of the kitchen.

Presently, the front door slammed, and the sound caused Aubrey to flinch.

He was still standing there, in the center of the room, when Susannah reappeared, feathers smoothed, baby bottle in hand.

“I hope you're proud of yourself,” she said as she
washed the bottle, took milk from the icebox, and poured it into a pan to heat.

Aubrey said nothing. For once in his life, he was at a loss for words.

After setting the pan of milk on the stove, stirring up the embers in the grate, and adding a chunk of firewood, Susannah turned to glare at him, arms akimbo. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Have you driven him away, once and for all? Your only brother?”

Aubrey thrust a hand through his hair. Ethan. His brother. What had he done? “I don't know,” he admitted, feeling an overwhelming weariness settle over him. Then, again, “I don't know.”

“Sit down,” Susannah said.

He sat. He'd used up the last of his fight on Ethan.

Susannah crossed to the table and began clearing away the food, removing the platter of chicken just as Aubrey reached for a thigh. He wasn't quick enough.

“If you had any sense at all, you'd go after him,” she fumed. “Apologize. Talk this thing through, settle the matter once and for all.”

He refused to reply, mostly because he didn't know what to say. His pride was lodged in his throat, dry and scuffed as an old boot.

She had scalded the milk in her earnestness and had to start the whole process over again. Upstairs, Victoria's wails intensified, and in that moment, it came to Aubrey that he loved the child, whether she was his or not.

“Go and get her,” Susannah said.

He was halfway up the stairs before he realized he'd just obeyed an order. He couldn't remember the last time he had done that.

Entering Susannah's room, Aubrey was immediately struck by an intrinsic sense of her most private self. Her
petticoat lay spilling across the foot of the bed, in intriguing disarray, and there were books, purloined from his study for the most part, piled on every surface. Her soft, unique scent teased his nostrils.

Victoria squalled, effectively regaining his attention. He went to the cradle and lifted the baby into his arms. He'd held the infant fairly often, out of necessity, but never with the certain knowledge that she was his own, whether she was his flesh and blood or not. “Hush,” he said awkwardly. “There's a bottle brewing downstairs.” They were midway down the rear stairway when she wet on his shirt, a christening he supposed he deserved, all things considered. “Susannah,” he said.

“What?” she asked testily.

He reentered the kitchen. “She's wet.”

“Then change her.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know. Take Victoria back upstairs and put a fresh diaper on her. Then bring her back down, and I'll feed her in the rocking chair by the stove.”

“Couldn't you—?”

“You,” Susannah said pointedly, testing the contents of the bottle on the inside of her left wrist—a place Aubrey wanted very much, all of the sudden, to kiss, “are her father.”

Aubrey sighed and did as he was told. Only after he'd presented Susannah with a clean if crotchety baby did he go to his own room to wash and change his shirt. When he returned to the kitchen again, Victoria was snuggled against Susannah's shoulder.

“Are you asleep?” He was filled with a wild, careening sort of tenderness, seeing the woman and child in such an ancient, ordinary pose. It frightened him, how much he might come to care for them, if things progressed as they had been.

Susannah opened her eyes. “No.”

He stood with his back to the stove, pretending to warm his hands. In fact, he merely wanted to be near Susannah for a while, near his daughter. “What have you decided?” he asked quietly.

“About what?” Susannah asked, her voice very soft. Not for his sake, he knew, but for Victoria's.

“Our getting married,” he said, surprised that she'd forgotten. He knew what Maisie had said was true; there were a great many men in Seattle who would give their last good tooth to have Susannah for a wife, Hollister included. Still, she was a spinster by her own admission, damnably fetching or not, and certainly penniless.