Nightingale (41 page)

The dowager’s eyes rounded and she stuffed a napkin to her mouth, muffling a choking cough.

Devlin looked at his mother. “Are you quite well, madam?”

She nodded but kept her eyes averted, her mouth covered, and declined to speak.

Lattie seemed to be having difficulty with his last mouthful of the compote, using his napkin to blot his mouth also.

Jessica’s face hardened. “Your sincerest feelings, sir? You have no feelings where I am concerned. You have bullied me from our beginning. You are a spoiled, demanding aristocrat.” She spoke the last as if it were the epitome of insults. After a moment to gather her thoughts, she continued. “You toy with me as if I were not born to feelings as you and other members of the nobility were. It’s true, I could not afford luxuries like sensitivity before I met you. You provided me that and now you plague me as a cat plays with a mouse, allowing me no place to run.”

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

“I mean that having been spoiled and coddled as you have insisted I be spoiled and coddled, I can scarcely go back to my old life in Maxwell’s kitchens. Before, I planned to wait until the time my mum didn’t need me anymore, pay myself free of John Lout, and make a new life. I planned to earn a respectable living in business or as a teacher or a governess. You have spoiled me even for that. How can I ever be at home anywhere else after having lived with … what I mean to say is … here … in … in … this?”

She sputtered and swiped at a telltale tear seeping from one eye as she awkwardly scrambled to her feet. “How can I teach someone else’s children and deprive myself of the joy, of the reward of rearing and of influencing my own children? How can I …. ?”

As she started for the door, Devlin leaped to his feet. The dowager motioned Lattimore to remain where he was.

This time, however, Jessica flew to the stairs and was halfway to the top before Devlin caught her skirts. She stopped, mopping her face with a tiny lace handkerchief, keeping her back to him. He hesitated a moment to let her compose herself before he gave two tugs at her skirt. Her shoulders shook as she choked on a sob.

Devlin tugged again, moving up a step, placing himself directly behind her.

“Jessica,” he whispered. “Darling?” He paused, allowing her another moment, then said, “My own, most precious, Nightingale?”

She whirled and the pain in her face almost shattered his resolve, but he plunged ahead anyway. He had little left to lose. His pride was already in shambles.

“When I proposed earlier, I failed to mention what may be a rather pertinent aspect of the thing. I love you, you know.”

Her eyes glistened and her mouth quivered, bowing at the ends. Seeing he had achieved an advantage, he added. “To distraction, actually.”

She blinked, trying to clear her eyes. “Oh, Your Grace, whyever didn’t you say so?”

She opened her arms and, from a step below her, he slid easily into her clutches, their faces at the same level. Her tears wet the whole side of his face as she crushed hers to his in a violent collision. He looked heavenward and began laughing. Once begun, he couldn’t seem to stop the rolling, rumbling hilarity.

He could foresee that in the years ahead, the woman probably truly would drive him to distraction — her word — still, he would rather face every riotous calamity with her at his side than live a single tranquil day without her.

• • •

As the four of them, Devlin, Lattimore, Jessica, and the dowager duchess, sat in the duke’s study later, the matriarch smiled at her elder son.

“What is the present you are to bestow in the morning, Devlin?”

“A stylish black filly.” He glanced at Jessica who sat by his side on the divan. “I thought Jessica’s love of horses would somehow translate to me. I had no idea what prevented her agreeing to marry me.”

His mother shook her head. “How could you possibly propose marriage, Devlin, and fail to speak the most important words any bride simply must hear?”

He stretched an arm across Jessica’s lap and marveled aloud. “Naturally, I assumed she knew I loved her. Why else would I ask her to be my wife?”

“Why, indeed,” the dowager huffed. “After all our discussions about arranged, loveless marriages among the nobility, how could you not know she needed to hear those words above all?”

“Is that what made John Lout’s troth superior to mine?” he asked, raising Jessica’s face so their gazes met.

She gave him a watery smile. “You often mentioned that though I did not love him, I seriously considered John’s suit. You did not ask why.”

“The reason being because he loved you?”

“That he declared he loved me, shouting it loudly, embarrassingly, to the world. I concluded long ago that the best thing in this world for any woman is to be married to a man who adores her. I saw with my own parents what happens when a woman loves a man more than he loves her. My mother was shattered, her love flung back in her face time and again. I vowed that would never happen to me. What I did not understand about my mother’s situation was the overweening power of love. With you, I was tempted into my mother’s trap. It was a constant struggle not to yield to your will in the matter based entirely on my own passion, but I kept pounding into my mind the images of a family abandoned, denied a husband and father’s love or support.”

“You did not know my feelings for you?”

“You never set them to words. How could I anticipate what you admittedly did not know yourself for a long while?”

“And now?”

“You spoke the words, not only to me, but in front of highly credible witnesses.”

“My mother and my brother?”

“Yes.”

“You found that more convincing than if I had spoken the words to you privately?”

She gave him a sheepish smile. “In Welter, a man often makes such declarations trying to convince a girl to meet him in a barn after dark or to bake him an apple pie.”

Devlin arched his brows. “Sound reasons, indeed.”

She and the dowager laughed lightly. “As a man, you naturally would think so, but in the past you have had women eager for clandestine meetings with you at inns or taverns or places of your choosing. That is correct, is it not?”

He flashed an uneasy glance at his mother. “Well, yes, but I have excellent cooks who produce apple pies at my request.”

Her expression darkened. “So, exactly why is it you need me?”

He looked deeply into her eyes. “To keep me alert, of course, and, perhaps, eventually,” he cast a quick glance at his mother, “to produce a little Miracle or two, or six — heirs to the title and others to share his responsibilities.”

Jessica blushed. “If I agree to that, sir, I shall expect your indulgence until we produce at least one little girl. This family could do with another female or two.”

“A daughter, eh?” He smiled at the delight in his mother’s face. “Perhaps we shall produce several of those. I will have to insist on naming the first little girl after the first woman I ever loved outside my own family.”

Jessica looked crestfallen.

He grinned wickedly. “I will name her Nightingale. Nightingale Miracle?”

And Jessica Blair, Devlin Miracle’s unrepentant, much adored Nightingale, married the Twelfth Duke of Fornay.

Like the prior Duchess, Jessica was disappointed at first to produce only sons, three in a row. With characteristic determination, she finally gave birth to a daughter, a winsome little girl who bore her mother’s dark coiling hair, petite yet captivating chin, and gray eyes. True to his word, her father insisted they christen her, “the lyrical Miracle, Nightingale.”

Once a newspaper reporter, Sharon Ervin has a degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. She now works half days in her husband and son’s law office in McAlester, Oklahoma, and spends the balance of her workdays writing novels. Ten of those have now been published.

Ervin’s writing stems from observing human behavior. She contends that truth is stranger than fiction because fiction requires some measure of believability, whereas human behavior often defies it.

Ervin is married and has four grown children.

St. Louis, July, 1856

Basil Fitzpatrick removed the handgun from the bank safe and put it in the shoulder holster before putting on his suit jacket. As he shut the metal safe door and spun the combination lock, he pictured his father opening the doors of the main branch of the National City Bank in New York City. His father wouldn’t have to strap on a gun to go about his business. But this was the West, not New York. More than miles separated them. He took out the gold pocket watch given to him by his father on his twenty-first birthday, two years prior, when he left home. It was engraved with Basil’s initials, and he ran his finger over the letters.

A noise from the street interrupted Basil’s morning routine. He flicked open the timepiece and glanced at it. The bank was due to open in ten minutes. Time enough for a cheroot on the porch while he explored what was making such a racket. He walked out to the front of the bank and lit his cigar.

He got a wry smile on his face as he followed the path of a wagon that came creaking down the cobbled street. In the couple of years he’d been in the West, he’d seen all variety of transportation as settlers rolled into town to join the wagon trains heading further west each spring, to Oregon or California. There were big, expensive, Conestoga wagons, capable of transporting pianos and other heavy furniture across the vast wilderness, and handcarts carrying only the basic essentials necessary to live. But this one rolling up to the door right now took the prize for the poorest mode of transportation.

The boards around the sides of the wagon were held in place by strips of leather, but the warped boards were weathered to a gray color. They jostled and sagged with every step made by the two skinny mules struggling with their load. The wagon was covered with a large piece of waterproofed canvas worn thin and stretched tightly against the wooden ribs overhead so that it seemed as starved as the mules did. Holes in abundance dotted the canvas, so it could barely provide shelter.

A young woman sat on the wagon seat, holding the reins, and the rest of the group walked alongside, slowly. A woman and five children formed stair-steps in their heights as they shuffled one behind the other. To Basil’s eyes, they were tired and beaten down, even at this hour of the morning. Their clothing was as tattered and threadbare as the wagon’s canvas, and the color had long ago been washed out of the materials. The sunbonnets, perched on the heads of the women and girls, were bleached out and drooped onto their foreheads. Everyone, women and children, resembled a faded watercolor. He snuffed out his thin cigar as the wagon rolled to a stop in front of the establishment.

The older woman gave directions. “Justice and Prudence, look after the little ones while I go inside. Temperance, you come with me.” The young woman behind the reins climbed down from the wagon.

The two women shifted their gazes from the children who remained by the wagon and cast their glances at Basil. “Good day, sir,” the eldest one said. She moved past him and put her hand on the door.

“Here, let me get that for you, ma’am.”

Basil allowed the women to lead the way into the cool, quiet room, as he followed behind them. The oak floors gleamed with a high gloss, and the scent of lemon wood polish permeated the air. The teller booth was straight ahead and Basil’s desk was off to the side.

The elder woman then turned to Basil. “I need to talk to the manager of the bank. Can you direct me to him?”

“I’m the owner of the bank, ma’am. Basil Fitzpatrick, at your service. How can I help you today?”

The woman drew a long, shaky breath. “Pleased to meet you, sir. My name is Martha Jones and this is my eldest daughter, Temperance.”

Basil gestured to a small office off the main room of the bank. “Why don’t we sit over here where we can have some privacy, and you can tell me what your business is?”

The lone bank teller, Herbert Walker, strolled across the room before Basil could close the door. “I can handle this, Mr. Fitzpatrick. There’s no need for you to bother yourself.”

Basil glanced from the women in front of him to the teller. A thinly veiled look of distaste and judgment crossed Herbert’s face. The younger woman’s spine stiffened and her chin rose a few notches. These were proud people, regardless of their circumstances, and Herbert had offended them, he could tell. Basil didn’t conform to the viewpoint of his teller. If a person had a reason to be in his bank, they were important to him.

“I’ve got this, Herbert.” He glanced at his employee. “You may return to your duties.” He turned back to the women but kept the door open so he could keep an eye on Herbert. “I am sorry for the intrusion. Please tell me how I can be of assistance.”

“My husband, Samuel, and I ran into a bit of trouble on our way here. We are supposed to have some money waiting for us at your bank, from our kinfolk back in Pennsylvania.”

“Is your husband with you?”

“He is in the bed of the wagon. He’s been ill almost the entire trip.”

“Let me check into this first. If we need his signature, I can take the paperwork out to him.”

The younger woman said between gritted teeth, “Even though my father is sick, he will come inside. We want no special treatment. We make our own way.”

Basil turned to Temperance, studying her carefully. She was a true beauty — petite, with soft, light brown curls escaping from her serviceable bun and swirling around her face. Her moss green eyes snapped in anger before she lowered her gaze, which emphasized her long lashes. He judged her to be in her late teens, perhaps a bit younger. Basil’s breath caught in his throat as he studied her. It wasn’t just her lovely face that captured his attention, but her proud attitude and resoluteness.

Reluctantly, he brought his attention back to the older woman.

“Temperance, please.” Martha Jones touched her daughter’s arm. “Mr. Fitzpatrick is only trying to help.”