Courting Susannah (19 page)

Maisie's worried eyes settled a moment on Susannah's face, full of gratitude and distress. “What if this is something really bad?” she whispered hoarsely. “They
had the scarlet fever down the street, just a month or so back—”

“Hush,” Susannah said, taking Maisie's upper arms into her hands. “You're borrowing trouble. We'll just do what lies at hand and wait for the doctor. Right now, all we know is that Jasper doesn't feel well.”

Maisie nodded. Her lower lip wobbled. “Thank you,” she said.

“I'll make you some tea,” Susannah replied. “You go and get Jasper settled in bed.”

As soon as Maisie and Jasper were out of sight, Susannah rushed to Victoria's crib upstairs and touched the child's forehead, dreading the very real possibility of a fever, but her flesh was cool to the touch. She murmured a prayer, tucked the blankets more closely around the little form, and hurried back down to the kitchen.

The doctor, a fit man with white hair and dark, insightful eyes, arrived just as Susannah was finishing with Maisie's tea.

“Griffin Fletcher,” he said, extending a hand in greeting. “I came in Dr. Martin's place. My friend is out on another call.”

Susannah introduced herself, welcomed the physician inside, and took his coat. His manner was brisk but competent, and she found his very presence reassuring. She showed him into Maisie's room, where he was met with relief and one very sick little boy.

Susannah brought in the tea tray without a word and went out again.

Dr. Fletcher and Maisie were a long time returning to the kitchen, and when they did, Maisie's eyes were suspiciously red-rimmed.

“Send word if you need me,” Dr. Fletcher said, taking in both Susannah and Maisie in one sweeping glance. “My wife and I are visiting the Martins all this week.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Susannah said when Maisie apparently couldn't find her tongue.

He nodded, put on his coat and hat, and left the house, battered bag in hand.

“Maisie, what on earth—?” Susannah whispered.

Maisie sniffled. “He's got the measles,” she said.

Susannah's knees nearly buckled. The measles were wildly contagious, of course, and when they weren't fatal, they often left their victims hard of hearing or even blind. She offered up a brief, silent prayer, then sighed, pushed up her sleeves, and set to work.

“Everything is going to be all right,” she said, though she wasn't at all sure that was true.

The first order of business was to keep Jasper and Victoria apart, lest the malady spread. She went back upstairs to feed and change Victoria, who was now awake and summoning her quite imperiously, and tucked the pacified baby into a basket padded with a blanket. Then, with the little one nearby, playing contentedly with her toes, Susannah filled the tub in her bathroom with hot water, stirred in some powdered soap, and began to scrub the sheets from Jasper's bed. Maisie had already burned the clothes he'd been wearing in the kitchen stove, along with her own dress, one she could ill afford to lose.

Aubrey found her there some time later, her hair limp from the steam, up to her elbows in yet another tubful of water and soap and soiled laundry. Having gotten off to a good start, she simply continued with the washing.

He grinned. “Very domestic,” he said, with only mild sarcasm. “Didn't Maisie tell you that we have a machine for that?”

Susannah was embarrassed that he should catch her kneeling on the floor, with a washboard in one hand and a sheet in the other. “No,” she said with what dignity she could manage. “She did not. She's been distracted
today.” She had not forgotten that he hadn't come home the night before, among other transgressions, but at the moment, that was the least of her concerns.

He peered into the basket at Victoria, who was now sleeping again, still blessedly free of fever and spots, and smiled in a way that softened Susannah's frightened heart just a little. He turned dancing eyes to her. “I must say, Miss McKittrick, you look a sight.” He extended one hand. “Stand up. If Maisie is indisposed for some reason, then we'll get someone in to do the wash. Or send it out.”

She hesitated, then took his hand, grateful for his help and for the reprieve, although she was indeed accustomed to hard work, had often took refuge in it. Her knees ached as he pulled her up onto her feet. He did not immediately release her fingers and palm from his grasp.

Susannah's heart beat faster, rising until she thought it would choke her, flailing in her throat the way it did. She pulled free and smoothed her skirts, then her hair, knowing all the while that both gestures were futile.

“You are not a housemaid, Susannah,” he said quietly. “I expect you to look after the child. Nothing else.”

She wondered if he'd been to the kitchen, seen the laundry stretched across it on lengths of twine she had found in a cupboard and secured with considerable difficulty, stringing them between the gaslight fixtures on the wall, suspending them from the backs of chairs. She had had no choice but to hang the wash inside, given the state of the weather, and the room was a steamy maze of wet shirts, towels, and other items.

“Where is Maisie?” he asked patiently, as though speaking to a person who barely understood English.

Susannah felt like weeping, all of the sudden, and wondered if her time of the month was near. She was not good at keeping track of such things anyway, and
her life had been in upheaval for a while. “She's with Jasper,” she said. “Oh, Aubrey, he has the measles!”

“What?”

She couldn't repeat herself, she just couldn't. The news was too terrible to relay a second time.

He crouched beside Victoria's basket and touched her face, a gesture that moved Susannah deeply. “Get your things,” he said. “You and the baby can go to a hotel—”

“It's too late for that,” she said. “There's nothing to do now but wait and hope.”

“Poor Maisie,” Aubrey reflected, rising to his feet again. “And you. Susannah, are you all right?”

She nodded. Now, in such close proximity to Aubrey, she saw that he hadn't shaved, and his clothes were rumpled, as though he had worn them for days. “Perhaps I should be asking that of you.”

He chuckled, but without humor. “Do you care how I am?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. Then, flustered, “No. Well, only insofar as you are Victoria's father.”

“Ah,” he said.

“You do look a little the worse for wear,” she allowed.

“I went to Ethan's place, to square things with him. We talked all night.”

Susannah believed him. “And did you? Square things, I mean?”

Aubrey sighed. “We made a start. I spent the day helping him saw wood to show I was committed to a truce. As a consequence, I'm hungry enough to eat a side of beef. Come downstairs and have supper with me, Susannah.”

It was an ordinary request, really. So why did she feel as though he had suggested something outrageous, something wild, something scandalous? She fussed with
her hair again, lowered her reddened hands as quickly as she'd raised them to her nape. “I couldn't take a bite,” she said. “But I'll make something for you.”

“What good will you be to Victoria or to Maisie and Jasper if you don't keep up your strength?” he asked reasonably.

At last, she relented. “Perhaps a little soup,” she agreed.

He hoisted the baby, basket and all, and headed out of the bathroom. Reaching the laundry-draped kitchen, with Susannah just behind him, he gave a low chuckle. “This looks like one of those Chinese establishments down on Water Street,” he said.

“Sit down,” Susannah ordered, and he obeyed, to her surprise.

She took leftover soup from the icebox, spooned it into a kettle, and set it on the range to heat. Then she made coffee and brought preserved peaches and tinned meat from the pantry.

“How is Maisie holding up?” he asked quietly, taking Victoria from the basket and bouncing her on one knee.

Susannah sighed. “She's terrified, of course. I don't mind admitting that I am, too. For Jasper and for Victoria.”

“This one?” he countered gruffly, leaning to kiss the top of the baby's downy head. “She's tough as a lumberjack. So's Jasper, for that matter. It's you and Maisie I'm worried about.”

She smiled a little, in spite of herself, comforted by his presence, by his banter, even though it made no sense at all. When it came to the measles and other such diseases, the great Aubrey Fairgrieve was as powerless as everyone else.

“There's talk, you know,” he said.

Susannah sighed, opened the icebox again, and
brought out two eggs, which she cracked into a skillet. It would be a hodgepodge of a supper, but it would fill their stomachs. “That's nothing new.”

“Because you refused to marry me,” he went on as if she hadn't spoken. “The Ladies' Christian Benevolence Society is up in arms.”

“Let them fuss,” Susannah said. “I have more important matters on my mind just now.”

“Still, we could spoil some of the fun by getting married.”

A blush surged into Susannah's face; she had no illusion that it went unnoticed. “I have told you,” she said carefully, struggling against that part of her that wanted to fling both arms around his neck and surrender to him, “that I will not make sacred vows for the sake of convenience.”

He thrust out a sigh, and the lines of his jaw tightened slightly. He was on his feet now, the baby in the crook of one arm. He leaned down, aligning his nose with hers, and she reflected that he smelled pleasantly of wood sap. “You are a contrary female. There is no
better
reason to be married than convenience, and if you weren't such a stubborn bluestocking, determined to counter everything I say, you would admit it.”

Victoria began to whimper just then, bless her soul, and Susannah busied herself with the rituals of cooking. “She needs her diaper changed,” she said.

“Again?” he replied.

She merely smiled.

He put the baby down in the basket, which immediately got her squalling again, and hurried up the back stairs. In a few minutes, he returned with a tin of talcum powder and stood hovering a few feet away.

“You'll have to do it,” she said over the baby's cries. “I'm busy.” Although she pretended to be barely aware
of Aubrey's presence, in truth she was conscious of him in every part of herself, whether of substance or spirit.

“Do you find me objectionable?” he asked, as if there had been no interruption.

Susannah slanted a look at him. He'd dropped to one knee beside the basket and was now trying to change the diaper. “Yes,” she answered. “See that you don't stick her with a pin. And wash your hands when you're finished.”

“Why?” he persisted.

“Why wash your hands?”

“Why do you find me objectionable?”

He followed her with his gaze as she worked, moving back and forth among the table, the sink, and the icebox.

“If I'm to go to all the trouble of having a husband, I want one who loves me. Madly. Desperately.”

Aubrey laughed outright. “Come now, Susannah. For all your sheltered upbringing, you surely know the truth about such things.”

“And that truth is—?”

He was back on his feet, washing his hands at the pump in the sink, then coming to stand directly behind her, a moving wall, hard and warm and full of strength. “That ‘love'—the way you're thinking of it, at least—doesn't exist. It's the stuff of pretty stories, told to children and cherished by naive maidens, and you know it. You are too intelligent to think otherwise.”

She did not know whether to feel flattered or insulted, and she was well aware that he knew she was confused. That he was enjoying the exchange. She got lost in a flurry of wet laundry and almost started batting at the lines with both hands, out of pure frustration. “If you aren't going to be helpful, kindly just go away.”

He paused, took in the array of freshly washed bedding, shirts, and undergarments for a second time. “You
have been busy,” Aubrey said. “This place looks like an army camp.”

Susannah took two chunks of dry pine from the woodbox, opened the stove, and shoved them in. “My options,” she said, “were somewhat limited.”

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping the fire going,” she said, rounding on him with a lofty coolness surely belied by the throbbing heat in her face. “You are starving, and I've just come to realize that I am, too. Would you mind stepping out of the way?”

He looked around at the lines of laundry again, and when he turned his gaze back to her, she saw the shadow of a smile moving in his eyes. “I'm not sure we should separate,” he teased. “Not unless one of us leaves a trail of crumbs behind, in any case.”

An unexpected laugh escaped Susannah, for all that Jasper was sick and she was terribly worried, about him, about Victoria, about all of them. “I'm beginning to wonder if these things are ever going to dry,” she confided, blowing a strand of hair up off her forehead. “And there's still the ironing to do.”

His expression had changed in an instant, diametrically opposed to her own. He looked serious, a little sad, and dreadfully, wonderfully competent. He'd taken Victoria out of the basket again, and he held her as easily as if he'd already reared a dozen children. He was comfortable with a baby in his arms, though he did not seem to know this about himself. “Susannah—”

She broke the spell that had held her immobile for several seconds and made yet another trip to the icebox, this time for butter. When she returned, he was right where she'd left him. “You can put Victoria in her basket while you eat,” she said.

He stared at her for a few moments longer, then placed his daughter in her improvised bed and took a
place at the table. Susannah soon set a large bowl of soup in front of him and brought eggs and toasted bread after that.