Indigo (9 page)

"I'd like to keep it in my room, if that is agreeable."

"Whatever you need, Galen."

She showed him where she kept the cartridges, and he placed the small wooden box of ammunition on the kitchen table beside the pistol. He'd take them up to the room later. Having a firearm gave him some measure of assurance. At least now he'd be able to defend himself should the circumstance arise.

Hester's voice interrupted his thoughts. "I have some errands in town tomorrow. Will you be wanting anything?"

Galen had met women all over the world but none drew him like this woman with her diamond-black eyes and indigo hands. She could become a distraction if he weren't careful. "Do you think you could manage some barber supplies, without attracting too much attention?" The hair on his face had begun to grow, shadowing his face like a pirate. He decided he'd let the beard grow as a way to mask his real features, but it would need grooming regardless.

"Not necessary. There are supplies here which I keep around for my passengers. I'll get them for you."

She left the kitchen but returned a few moments later and handed him a small canvas bag. Inside he found a razor, a soap brush, and scissors. "Thank you," he said. "Now I want to inspect those inclines and the tunnel."

"Today?"

"Today."

By the time they were done, Hester could see weariness restaking its claim on his body. He'd made her lead him up and down the secret inclines, after which he looked over every inch of the earthen tunnel beneath the house and its branch-covered entrance from the river bank.

Afterward, Hester said, "Galen, maybe you should go on upstairs to bed. I'll clean up down here."

Galen didn't argue. He climbed the stairs with the sound of her whispered "Sleep well" caressing his ears.

The next morning, as Hester was preparing breakfast, Bea Meldrum stopped by to remove the stitching from Galen's side. When Hester informed her Galen hadn't awakened yet, Bea promised to return later in the day.

After Bea's departure, Hester cracked three large eggs into the sizzling skillet which had just fried five hardy slabs of back bacon. When the eggs were done, she removed them from the hot skillet and gently set them on a plate beside the bacon. Also on the plate sat a mound of steamed, seasoned potatoes and two large wedges of the bread she'd baked last night after Galen retired to bed. She couldn't help marveling at the size of the portions and wonder who fed him on a regular basis. She couldn't believe how much he ate.

She set the plate on a tray, added a large steaming cup of coffee, silver, and a clean linen napkin. Because she and the women of her circle practiced Free Produce, Hester didn't keep sugar in the house. Free Produce supporters hoped to strike at slavery by affecting the slave owner's profits. Supporters did not use or consume any products made by slave labor, and so did without items such as sugar, rice, and American-raised cotton. The women who could afford them purchased the higher-priced English or Egyptian cotton fabrics, even though they were in some instances coarser and not as finely woven as their American counterparts. Those women unable to afford the imported fabrics made do with their old gowns, choosing principle over fashion.

To sweeten tea and coffee, Hester used either honey or maple syrup. Galen preferred the syrup, so she poured a bit into a china demi-cup. She picked up the tray, turned, and was so startled by the sight of him standing in the doorway she almost dropped the tray. "You frightened me to death!" she gasped. How long had he been standing there observing?

He simply smiled. "Good morning. That tray for me?"

Looking at his smile, Hester noted that in spite of his still healing face, he had a presence about him which made her believe women found him hard to resist. He exuded a masculinity that flowed around her like fading tendrils of smoke. "Um, yes—I was just on my way up."

Still smiling, he gently took the tray from her shaking hands.

Galen was well accustomed to flustering women, but Hester made him feel differently about his prowess. Unlike the calculating women he sometimes attracted, Hester's show was no act. She drew him to explore what else that innocence might encompass. Had she ever been kissed?

They left the kitchen to go into the dining room where Galen set down the tray and took a seat. She sat also, but he noticed she had no plate in front of her. "Aren't you going to join me?" he asked.

She shook her head no, then said, "I ate earlier."

For some reason, Galen didn't believe her, probably because she looked so guilty.
She'd never make a convincing liar,
he thought to himself. He made a point to remember that for the future. He said softly, "Tell me the truth. Have you eaten this morning?"

Hester knew if he'd seen through the initial lie he would undoubtedly see through another one. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "No," she confessed.

Galen wondered why on earth she would lie about something as mundane as eating. As the possible answer came to mind, a chill ran over him. He slowly got up from the table and went back into the kitchen. In the small sink he spied one lone coffee cup. He walked over to her cupboards.

Hester came into the kitchen and found him opening up drawers and bins. "What are you doing?"

"Seeing how much food you have, Indigo."

That name again. He spoke it as if she were someone he cherished. But she immediately let that thought slide away. "Why?"

"Because you haven't eaten. You didn't eat much last night either."

His inspection now complete, he took down a clean plate and went back out to the dining room. Hester followed, then watched him spoon portions of everything on his plate onto the second plate, then he pushed the plate in her direction. "Sit. And eat," he ordered.

Hester sat. He looked so upset, she didn't dare argue. She supposed he'd discovered the true state of her larder.

He asked, "Why have you let me eat you out of house and home?"

"You needed the food."

"Never go without for my benefit again."

She didn't like being dictated to, not even by someone who thought they had her best interests at heart. "You wouldn't have recovered as quickly if I hadn't gone without. You were certainly in no position to write me a bank draft."

"But I am now."

"That's hardly the issue, is it?"

"It is as far as I'm concerned. How do you support yourself?"

"I do, that's all you need be concerned with."

"Obviously it isn't. You don't have enough food in this house to keep crawdads alive!"

"I can hardly do the work I do without some sacrifice."

"I understand that, but never sacrifice yourself. You're no good to anyone half starved."

She took immediate offense. "I am not half starved."

"When was the last time you had a full meal?"

She didn't answer. He hadn't raised his voice during any part of the confrontation, but Hester felt as if they were shouting loud enough to be heard in Ohio.

"Well?" he asked, still waiting for her to answer. From her continued silence, he knew it had probably been some days ago. "Get a fork and eat all of that."

A tight-lipped Hester complied, then came back and took her seat.

Galen observed the mutinous set of her jaw. She was eating, grudgingly, but he didn't pay her manner much mind. Instead he found himself lingering over the features of her face. God she was beautiful. Even with his limited vision, he had no difficulty discerning that fact. Her skin looked like the gift of an African night goddess. Dark with the true colors of her ancestry, the sable highlights beneath added to the luster of a face as clear as precious obsidian. The jet-diamond eyes sat beneath lashes so long they brushed her cheeks. He knew it would only be a matter of time before he succumbed to the urge to touch her. He shook himself. For all his musing, he had no business thinking along those lines; he would be leaving Whittaker as soon as it could be arranged, and once gone would probably never see her again. He was surprised at how disturbing those thoughts left him feeling. "When you're in town today, do you think you can send a wire for me?"

"Yes." Hester was still smarting from his lecturing. "Bea may stop in later, she wants to remove those threads."

He nodded, then asked very seriously, "Hester, how do you support yourself?"

Hester would have preferred her finances, or lack thereof, not be a topic for discussion, but she knew he would not let the subject rest until he received a satisfactory answer. "I write antislavery tracts for an English publisher. I offer piano lessons to the children in the area. I have a bit of a pension from my aunt and father. And I sell apples," she explained.

"That's it?"

Hester cut him a look which instantly made him contrite. "I'm sorry," he said genuinely. "I'm prying I know, but it's only because I'm concerned."

"I'm doing fine, Galen. Foster has some income. Should the purse become truly empty, I can always sell some of the land. I'd hate to, but even I know I must eat."

Her frank eyes held his own. Galen experienced the overwhelming urge to protect her, but knew the prideful little Indigo would toss him out on his ear should he even propose to help her escape the pinch of poverty. He didn't know why he hadn't figured out her strained position sooner; her clothing stated her need quite plainly. Her garments were always clean and pressed, but the cuffs at her wrists and the hems of her skirts were frayed with age. He knew she practiced Free Produce and he thought the vow she'd taken to be a noble one, however, the women of his circle back home would have reduced such clothing to polishing rags long ago; Hester carried herself as if the old gowns were made of woven gold.

"Galen."

He shook himself free of his musings. "I'm sorry Indigo, did you ask something?"

Once again the name rolled over Hester like the brushing of a cloud. She struggled a moment to remember what she'd been about to say. "Yes. My plate is clean, may I be excused now?"

He raised an eyebrow at her sarcastic little dig and the light shining in her dark eyes. He decided her wit was just one more of her attractive attributes. He smiled. "Yes,
petite,
you may be excused."

Hester spent most of the day in Ann Arbor, the town situated only a few miles west. She stopped off at the post office only to be told the draft she'd hoped to receive from her English publisher had not arrived. She swallowed her disappointment, then crossed the street to post Galen's wire. His note seemed innocent enough—a message alluded to the ordering of lumber and nails— but Hester assumed it was a code. Afterwards, Hester stopped by Kate Bell's boarding house for lunch, after which she sat a spell to gossip with the women in Kate's back room parlor. Most of the gossip centered around Bethany Ann Lovejoy, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Vigilance Committee member William Lovejoy. Bethany Ann had run away from home rather than marry her father's hand-picked groom, a middle-aged business associate named John Royce. That she had disappeared on the night before the wedding had tongues wagging as far east as Detroit. No one had heard a word from her since. Lovejoy had spent a fortune on the construction of one of the largest and grandest homes in the county for the newlyweds to reside in, but with Bethany Ann's flight, it sat empty.

The dusk of late afternoon had already fallen by the time Hester completed the trek home. She put the buggy in the barn, then went into the house. On the kitchen table she found a note left by Bea indicating the threads had been removed from Galen's side. Beside the note lay a smoked ham Bea had dropped off courtesy of Branton Hubble, along with two rashes of bacon. Hester silently offered thanks for the generosity of her neighbors, then went to call up the stairs after Galen. When she received no reply, she assumed he was sleeping. She decided to start dinner, then go up and check on him.

Carefully balancing the tray holding Galen's meal, Hester knocked lightly upon the attic room's door and entered when he called. She found him lounging in her grandfather's big black porcelain bathing tub. The sight of his bare chest rising golden above the water threw her into such an embarrassed disarray, she instantly spun her back on him. "I thought you said come in!" she gasped.

Galen couldn't help smiling at her scandalized manner, but said truthfully, "I'm the one who should apologize. This warm water had me so lulled I forgot where I was. I answered your knock without thought."

"Are you saying you commonly invite females into your bath?"

"At one time in my life, it was not uncommon for me to invite females to share my bath."

Hester's eyes widened.

Galen chuckled inwardly, wishing he could see the look on her face. He guessed he'd shocked her silly with his truthful revelation, even if that had not been his intent. He told himself he should remember just how sheltered a life she probably led.

Hester was indeed shocked—both by finding him in the tub, and by the startling admission. She knew men were allowed to conduct their lives in ways far outside the strict boundaries governing female behavior, but would a woman of good reputation cavort with a man in a tub? She wondered what kind of man Galen really was and what social circles he traveled in when he was not the Black Daniel. Still standing with her back to him, she said, "I'll just leave the tray here by the door and return for it later."