Love's Reckoning (43 page)

“Nay. The plan is in place.” Jack's voice resounded to the room's damp corners. “I'll wager there's little business being transacted this day short of saws and ox trains. For now, we're ready to escort the wounded into Pittsburgh. All else can wait.”

A few children began crying, making him second-guess his decision, if only briefly. Returning outside, he helped load the hurt onto what wagons hadn't been damaged, trying not to linger on bleeding limbs and gashed faces. Some contraptions were in dire need of repair. Given there were a good hundred people left to transport, it could take far longer than planned.

Toward noon he returned to the public room, the stench of spirits and unwashed bodies colliding in a sickening rush. A bit light-headed from hunger, he began assembling women and children, keeping families intact for travel. A few genteel ladies murmured in complaint at being made to wait, but he gave them no notice other than a cursory reassurance they'd not linger long. The room had emptied by half now, and he could better assess the situation.

“Mr. Turlock, sir, what d'ye want me to do with Cicero?” The stable boy at his elbow shifted from one bare foot to the
other, looking befuddled beneath his many freckles. “Ain't like ye to stay on.”

“See that Cicero gets an extra nose bag of oats.” He pulled a coin from his pocket and flipped it into the air, and the boy caught it with a grin. “I hope to leave come morning.”

Truly, he rarely lingered long, his restless nature never settling. He only needed a tankard of ale. A meal. Mayhap a bath. Aye, that was a necessity. His mother tolerated no mess at Broad Oak, nor did her housekeeper. Glad he was that he had a change of clothes in his saddlebags.

It was twilight when the last of the wagons and coaches pulled away and he arranged for a room. There were now mostly men and a handful of women left, eating and making low conversation at the surrounding tables. As he stood by the counter, sipping from his tankard, his attention was drawn repeatedly to a corner cast in shadows. Had he overlooked someone?

A young woman sat alone, back to the wall, her gray cape reducing her to shadows. He'd noticed her earlier helping with the children and assumed she was part of a family. He drew closer, breathing past the tightness crowding his chest.

Aye, he'd overlooked someone. But he couldn't believe it was she.

Although Ellie had kept her eye on Jack Turlock, if only to stay clear of him since he'd first set foot in the tavern, she now looked away. Toward the gaping kitchen door, where the smell of roast goose and apple tansy and bread she had no coin for mingled with the smell of pipe smoke and spirits. Folding her hands in her lap, she sat as erectly as she could despite spending the previous night in the chair, her backside as stiff as the splintered wood.

Mercy
,
it couldn't get any worse
, she thought, as her sister Andra was wont to say.

But yes it could, and he was coming straight for her.

She'd not seen Jack Turlock in years. Last she heard he was touring Europe, taking inventory of distilleries in Scotland, Ireland, and France, or so the papers said. In that time she'd nearly forgotten all about him. Clad in mourning garb due to his grandfather's passing, he'd cut a sober if striking figure when she'd seen him on the streets of Pittsburgh. As the younger son and not the heir, he wasn't nearly as interesting as his brother Wade, at least not to meddling society matrons. Jack shunned social functions, preferring the gin rooms along the waterfront to genteel ballrooms. Little wonder he'd not noticed her till now. His taste ran to tavern wenches.

As he walked her way, their many childhood encounters came rushing over her like the rivers at flood stage. She felt like a little girl again, about to be struck with a stone or at least belittled by his terse tongue. They'd often faced off at the creek dividing Turlock and Ballantyne land back then, her brothers Ansel and Peyton the same age as Jack and Wade. Sometimes Andra had been there—and Daniel Cameron. As the youngest, Ellie had escaped most of their wrangling. The look on his face assured her she'd not escape now.

He stared down at her, his low voice skipping any pleasantries. “Why didn't you tell me you were here?” She stiffened at the censure in his tone, then softened when he said, “I'd have put you on the first wagon out of here.”

“There was no need. I'm not injured.” Her gaze fell to her lap.

I'm simply a bedraggled mess, without coin or comb.

As badly as she wanted to be home, she did not want to be singled out. This preferential treatment was what she was running from. Rose, her former maid, usually handled all the
details of travel. Without her capable, plucky presence, Ellie hardly knew what to do.

She raised wary eyes to Jack's, finding him more mud than man, his clothes in tatters. He managed to look bemused . . . and apologetic. Odd for a Turlock. He broke her gaze and leaned into the table, motioning to a serving girl in a checkered cap and kerchief.

“Tea,” he said quietly. “Some bread.”

With a smile she disappeared as if taking orders from the inn's owner. But the owner, Ellie realized, was busy pouring Turlock whiskey behind a long, scarred counter hedged with a cage. Business, from the looks of all the thirsty gathering there, was brisk.

“You're in want of a room,” he told her. “Then we'll leave in the morning.”

“We?” Her mouth formed a perfect O as she said it.

His sharp gaze pinned her so there would be no mistaking his meaning. “You're in need of an escort to take you home—a chaperone.”

“I'm in need of a chaperone?” she echoed in disbelief.

To keep me safe from the likes of you.

Humor lit his gray eyes and warmed them the color of molten silver, as if he well knew what she was thinking. “I'll return you to New Hope myself, out of respect for your father.”

My father?
The man who jailed you countless times?

Speechless, she felt a swell of gratitude override her surprise as the requested tea and bread arrived, the latter slathered with butter and honey. Her stomach gave a little lurch of anticipation, but she pushed the plate his way. He'd not said they were hers, so she'd make no assumptions.

With a long, grubby finger, he pushed the plate back toward her, along with the steaming tea. Famished, she bent her head and breathed a quick prayer before biting off a cor
ner of stale bread, a cascade of crumbs spilling down her wrinkled bodice.

“I can do little about how you look, but I can certainly feed you,” he said drily.

She stopped chewing, heat creeping into her cheeks, and remembered her trunk. Had the coachman ever repaired the axle and gotten this far? Or was he still stuck, hemmed in by countless fallen trees—or worse? Concerned for his safety, she nevertheless rued the loss of her belongings. Perhaps she could beg a comb. Some hairpins. Taking a sip of tea, she felt immediately better. Tea was comfort. Tranquility. Civility.

“I can walk home,” she said, setting her cup aside and brushing the crumbs from her dress. “'Tis but a few miles more. I don't need an escort.”

Quirking an eyebrow, he looked beneath the table at her feet. Ever-practical Jack. Quickly she drew her sodden shoes beneath the muddy hem of her skirt.

“Five miles and you'd be barefoot. Ten and you'd end up begging a ride. There's a sidesaddle in the stable—or a coach.”

Those were her choices then. Since her riding clothes were in her trunk, she'd have to take a coach. Only she had no coin . . . “My belongings were atop the stage that broke down a few miles east of here. The driver—I trust he's all right—”

“There's been no loss of life that we know of, just injuries. But I'll send someone back that way to be sure.”

Relieved, she confessed, “My purse is missing—lost in the storm.”

His gaze was like granite. “Why aren't you in Philadelphia?”

She nearly winced at his bold question. Her father would soon ask her the same, only his tone would be more gracious, surely. “I—I'm done with finishing school. 'Tis time I return home.”

“You picked a poor time to do it,” he murmured.

She took another sip of tea, unable to refute this fact, glancing toward the kitchen but snagging on his profile instead. He was looking up at the men repairing the roof, the feeble light framing him as it spilled through. His coloring shocked her, so deeply tanned one would think he was a common laborer and spent all his time outdoors. His features had always been sharply handsome, almost hawkish, his hair the color of summer straw, not whiskey-dark like Wade's. That he was a worldly man there could be no doubt. He even moved with an ease and agility far removed from the stiff formality of society's drawing rooms. He was, in a word, different. And dangerous.

Papa would not approve.

Laura Frantz
is the author of
The Frontiersman's Daughter
,
Courting Morrow Little
, and
The Colonel's Lady
. A two-time Carol Award finalist, she is a Kentuckian living in the misty woods of Washington with her husband and two sons. Along with knitting, cooking, gardening, and long walks, she enjoys connecting with readers at
www.LauraFrantz.net
.

The Frontiersman's Daughter

Courting Morrow Little

The Colonel's Lady

The Ballantyne Legacy

Love's Reckoning

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