Elizabeth Grayson (14 page)

Chase wasn’t going to send her back—at least not as long as she held to the lie she’d told him. At least not as long as Chase believed her baby wasn’t going to be born until after they returned from Fort Benton.

CAN ALL THESE PEOPLE POSSIBLY BE CHASE’S KIN? ANN wondered as she stared at what must be the entire population of Hardesty’s Landing, gathered at the foot of the tiny settlement to welcome them.

A band of children had been waiting half a mile up the trace that skirted the river, and they’d done their best to keep pace with the slowing steamer. The men in the crowd looked as if they’d come straight from the woodlot, a few with splitting axes still balanced on their shoulders. A cluster of women and younger children stood well back from the edge of the bank, shouting and waving exuberantly.

The passengers and crewmen not involved in landing the vessel waved back. From her perch on the Texas deck Ann couldn’t seem to do more than stare at the crowd. In a few minutes, Chase was going to escort her into that mob and introduce her as his wife.

It
almost
made her wish she was back in St. Louis.

From the roof of the hurricane deck, Chase was shouting orders. When Rue had nudged the
Andromeda
in as close to the bank as possible, two deckhands jumped ashore. Goose Steinwehr threw each of them a line to make fast to the big old cottonwoods at the edge of the river. Rue cramped the wheel around, making the engines grumble, as the rest of the deckhands took up the slack in the mooring ropes.

Finally satisfied with their berthing, Chase gave the order to run out the landing stage and blow off steam.

In spite of being busy piloting, Rue somehow managed to be one of the first people off the boat and was immediately engulfed. Men patted him, women hugged him, and children climbed up his legs, clamoring for the licorice whips he produced from his pockets.

It was a more openhanded and affectionate greeting than Ann had ever imagined anyone would get.

Gradually Rue worked his way toward an older couple standing at the base of the steep stone steps that ran up toward a house at the crest of the rise. Ann hadn’t noticed the pair before, but she knew in a single glance they were Chase’s parents. Enoch Hardesty was a granite block of a man, standing straight and stalwart beside a wisp of a woman who barely reached the center of his massive chest. Yet even from this distance Ann could sense the wiry strength in her, a toughness that defied the impression of her physical delicacy.

Ann couldn’t stop wondering what Enoch and Lydia would think of her—a woman whose father had bought her a husband. A woman who’d come to their son carrying another man’s child. She wished all at once that things were different. She wished Chase didn’t feel obliged to tell them the truth. She wished...

“So,” her husband said, coming up behind her. “Are you ready to meet my family?”

What she longed to do was give in to her sudden queasiness and retire to the cabin. She forced a smile to her lips instead. “Of course.”

Pressing his hand to her waist, Chase propelled her down two flights of stairs. As they crossed the landing stage, he bent his head. “Don’t let them scare you,” he whispered.

Just as she turned to thank him for the reassurance, several children came whooping toward them.

“Chase! Chase!”

Chase scooped a boy of five or six up in his arms.

A delicate strawberry-blonde wormed her hand through the crook of his elbow. “We thought you’d
never
get here!”

Another boy of eight or nine backpedaled in front of them, talking a mile a minute. “Is
that
your new boat, Uncle Chase? How fast will she go? You won any races yet?”

Laughing at their antics, Chase turned to Ann. “The talkative one is my nephew Matt. This one here”— Chase jostled the boy in his arms—“is my brother Tim, and this young lady is my sister Mary Alice.”

A lovely mulatto girl of about fourteen came and danced along beside them. “Ooooh, Chase, your new riverboat is very grand. May I go aboard and look around?”

He introduced the curly-haired young woman as his sister Evangeline.

“I’ve got passengers to think of, Evie. I can’t have strange children tearing all over the boat. I figured I’d take everyone aboard once we finish supper.”

Evangeline pouted prettily, then took Tim into her arms as Chase and Ann moved deeper into the crowd.

Chase introduced Ann to Will and Stuart and John, the three Hardesty boys who worked in the woodlot. She met Will’s wife, Etta Mae, who was balancing baby Samantha on her hip. Ann couldn’t help but stare at Chase’s sister D’arcy, whose broad face and hazelnut-colored skin hinted at Indian parentage.

Chase introduced his sister Suzanne, Matt’s mother, and the twins, Benjamin and Bartholomew. She met a score of other people—men who worked in the woodlot and their families—people whose names she knew she’d never remember.

Most of the men greeted Chase with a slap on the back or a clasp of his hand—then they invariably asked about the
Andromeda.
The women hugged him and bussed his cheek. Every single one of the Hardestys stared at Ann as if she had dropped out of the sky, their eyes round with speculation.

Chase exchanged a word or two with everyone, but kept pressing toward where his parents were waiting. Lydia Hardesty came forward to greet them, pushing up on her tiptoes to throw her arms around her tall son’s neck and claim a kiss. Chase bent so he was easier to reach and hugged her back.

Once Lydia withdrew from her son’s embrace, she led both Chase and Ann toward where Enoch Hardesty stood waiting.

As they approached his father, Chase’s grip on Ann’s hand tightened, and she felt what seemed like reticence flare up in him. Now that the moment was upon him to present her to his family, was he sorry he’d married her?

But when he spoke, his voice rang clear and level. “Ma, Pa,” he said, “this is my wife Ann.”

Ann heard his family’s collective gasp of surprise, followed by a staccato burst of whispers. She spotted Rue standing a little to his parents’ left, grinning at the uproar. This was exactly the reaction he’d expected.

“Ann,” Chase continued, “I’d like you to meet my mother, Lydia, and my father, Enoch Hardesty.”

Up close, Enoch Hardesty wore the hard, furrowed face of a man who’d seen the best and worst life had to offer, and the bright, dreamy eyes of an adventurer. Even in his work clothes and with sawdust sprinkled in his graying hair, there was something vital and romantic about him.

Standing between her husband and her tall son, Lydia Hardesty’s fragility was even more pronounced. Her face was angular and sharply molded, her nose high-bridged and narrow, her mouth firm. Her brows arched over incredible eyes, green as bottle-glass and clear enough to see all the way to the bottom.

Lydia caught her son’s big hand in one of hers and Ann’s in the other. “Congratulations, Chase dear, for finding such a lovely young woman to be your partner in life. And, Ann, I want to welcome you to the Hardesty family.”

Ann sensed genuine warmth in Lydia Hardesty—and a germ of real acceptance. Pure unadulterated gratitude made her eyes burn with tears.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hardesty,” she managed to murmur and gave Lydia’s hand a grateful squeeze before she let it go. “It’s an honor to be so warmly welcomed to your family.”

But would Mrs. Hardesty be as sanguine about her marriage to Chase once she learned about the bargain her son had made, and that the baby Ann was carrying belonged to someone else?

Beside her Chase stood straight as a jackstaff as Enoch Hardesty’s gaze moved over the two of them. It lingered on Ann’s face, dropped to her belly, then fixed on his son.

“Both Lydia and I,” he finally said in a voice that resonated like a pipe organ, “hope you’ll have a long and happy life together.”

Ann waited for Chase to respond, but when she glanced across at him, she could see he was caught up in something more complex, something she didn’t understand. Nor could she think when she had seen such uncertainty in her husband’s eyes—or such hope for approval.

His reaction unnerved her, but somehow she managed to find her tongue. “You’re very kind, Mr. Hardesty.”

“Thank you, Father,” Chase finally managed.

Enoch reached across and patted his son’s shoulder. Ann could see that wasn’t all Chase had hoped for, but he masked his disappointment and grasped his father’s forearm in return.

“We’ll fete Chase and his new wife properly at supper,” Lydia announced, forestalling another round of greetings and congratulations. With that declaration, she dispatched the women up to the house to get the meal on the table while the men and children went to wash up.

Chase escorted Ann up the stairs and around to the front of a house that rambled along the top of the bluff. Built of blocks cut from the surrounding stone, it looked as if it had sprouted from the rock itself. Wings of matching stone had been added to the right and left, and a number of smaller stone houses and outbuildings were scattered in the meadows on the high ground at the top of the palisade.

“There’s a fine orchard over back of the barn,” Chase told her, pointing. “Will’s started a vineyard just upstream. And then there’s my favorite place, a point at the top of the bluffs where you can see for miles. Maybe we’ll walk up there later.”

The main section of the Hardestys’ house was built foursquare, two stories tall with a wide central hall and two rooms to the right and left. Tiers of wooden porches ran across the back, offering lovely wisteria-draped views of the river.

Only because Chase insisted, did Ann send one of the children back to the
Andromeda
for a few loaves of the bread she’d spent half the previous night baking. Shyly, she presented a basket of fragrant, richly browned loaves to Lydia.

D’arcy sliced the bread, then added a plate of it to the ranks of other dishes spread out on a slabbed-pine table that ran the full depth of the basement kitchen. The whole family—twenty people, more or less—settled down around it and waited while Enoch offered a devout but hasty grace.

The moment he said, “Amen,” the Hardestys began helping themselves from crocks of beans, bowls of boiled potatoes, and platters draped to overflowing with slices of country ham and fried chicken. There were stewed apples, carrots en casserole, vinegary cold slaw, and two kinds of pickles.

“Try some of Ann’s bread,” Chase encouraged as he passed the plate to Silas Jenkins, Suzanne’s husband. “Frenchy’s been teaching Ann to bake. These are the first loaves she’s made all by herself.”

“Frenchy Bertin is teaching you?” John Hardesty asked, clearly impressed.

Ann nodded and everyone took a slice of bread when the plate reached them. Her stomach fluttered with nervousness as Chase’s family buttered and bit and chewed. For one long moment no one said a word.

“Frenchy Bertin
taught you to make
this
?” Chase’s brother Stuart asked skeptically.

Ann’s heart dropped into her shoes.

“Look how nicely browned the crust is,” Evangeline offered sympathetically.

In spite of the girl’s kind words, heat flared in Ann’s cheeks.

“It’s certainly not bad for a first try,” Rue pointed out.

Beside her, Chase chewed determinedly.

Needing to know what was wrong with the bread, Ann helped herself to the last slice, broke off one corner, and put it in her mouth. At first the bread tasted exactly the way it was supposed to, but as she chewed, an odd bitterness filled her mouth, drying the saliva on her tongue. She swallowed hard.

“Pearlash,” she murmured after a moment.

“Pearl what?” Chase whispered.

“The sponge, the yeast, was rising too quickly when I made the bread,” she explained. “So—so I added a teaspoon of pearlash to slow it down, but I must not have mixed it as carefully as Frenchy said. That’s why the bread has bitter spots.”

For a moment they all sat watching her, then D’arcy spoke up. “Well, that’s an easy mistake to make.”

Suzanne chimed in. “I’ve done the very same thing myself, haven’t I, Silas?”

“Oh, yes,” Silas agreed amiably. “Suzanne is quite the worst cook in five states. The children and I would starve if it weren’t for Lydia.”

Across the table Matt and his sister Katie started to giggle. Suzanne bit her lip to hide her smile. Three places down, Rue gave a snort of suppressed laughter. Enoch chuckled under his breath, and a moment later everyone was laughing.

Even Ann.

She chanced a look toward where Lydia Hardesty was sitting beside her husband at the head of the table, her mouth pursed with mirth and her eyes shining. Across the expanse of crocks and platters their gazes held. The older woman gave an almost imperceptible nod.

At just the hint of Lydia’s approval, warmth surged through Ann’s veins, turning her breathless and giddy with relief. Maybe she was going to survive visiting with Chase’s family, after all.

Her sense of well-being lasted until Lydia and Enoch rose from the table at the end of the meal and suggested she and Chase join them in the sitting room.

The parlor at the front of the main floor of the house was papered with a blue and yellow sprigged wallpaper and tastefully furnished with a petit-point settee, a massive wing chair, and several lovely pieces of rustic cherry furniture. The fire burning in the cut-stone fireplace gave the room a cozy glow, but at a second glance, Ann suspected it was a sitting room that didn’t see much sitting. The upholstered pieces looked too crisp and perfect to have been used by this rough-and-ready family.

Lydia motioned for Ann to take a place beside her on the settee. Enoch made himself comfortable in the wing chair, then set about filling his pipe.

Chase circled the room twice, then finally lighted at the edge of the hearth.

Silence fell, a silence thick enough that the ticking of the iron lantern clock on the shelf in the corner and the scrape of the match as Enoch lit his pipe seemed almost deafening.

Ann resisted the urge to squirm. Chase stood stiff and brittle as broom straw, his forearm braced against the mantel.

“Since your marriage has come as such a surprise to all of us,” Lydia began evenly, “why don’t you tell us how the two of you became acquainted.”