Traces of Mercy (23 page)

Captain Hale grabbed the bucket from the servant and pointed for him to go back for another.

Shoot him
.

He turned and threw water on the fire.

Shoot him
.

Back to the well with the empty bucket, John on his heels.

Her finger hovered over the trigger; she felt it start to give.

Orange sparks spiraled into the sky.

Hale doused the fire again and turned as if to face her.

Shoot him. End it
.

A cornet played in her head; the loneliness of it shattered her.

Her knees hit the ground as she realized she was going to fail—but then the butt of the rifle jammed into the dirt behind her, and the finger still hovering on the trigger actually squeezed it. The shot rang out over the sound of the fire. She looked up to see Captain Hale look toward the darkness. Toward her. Into the worn shallows of ground where she kneeled. She saw rather than heard him yell to the others, gesturing at the distance between them.

Scrambling onto Lucky’s back, she spurred him hard, and he broke into a full gallop. She was reeling from her failure when she misjudged a tree, and the branch not only tore into her right shoulder but tore her from the saddle as well. She felt the searing heat of the pain from her ripped skin and the warmth of the blood that immediately ran down her side. Lucky whirled around and came back for her as she pushed herself to stand. She could hear Hale yelling in the darkness behind her—he was getting closer. He was going to catch her. She scrambled into the saddle when he was almost upon her and leaned low over Lucky’s neck. She pressed her knees tight against the horse’s side, and they galloped hard away from the fire.

Everything was going to change now. Everything had to change. She had failed at her mission.

He wasn’t dead.

Fear of discovery was greater for the moment than the pain she felt from her shoulder. Mercy managed to get Lucky back into the barn at the cottage and stifled a scream of pain with a rag in her mouth as she lifted the saddle from his back. She told herself not to hurry, not to rush—not to make a mistake that would bring one of the servants running outside to check on them. She forced herself to go through the motions of Lucky’s care, then made her way to the cottage with the rifle under her good arm.

Mercy put the Springfield back in the cabinet with all the other guns and shut the door with a firm click. Moving carefully, slowly, quietly through the dark cottage, she made her way to her room and dropped her clothes on the floor. She winced when she saw the bloody mess that was her shoulder and found some of the unused rags from Letty. She did the best she could with her wound, crawled under the quilt, and started to shake.

Then the tears came—and along with them, a prayer that morning would never come.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
S
IX

In the predawn hour, Mercy wrapped herself in a quilt from the bed and dipped her quill into the inkwell. She was anxious to get the dreaded note to Rand composed before she lost her nerve or—at this point—her mind. By candlelight, she scratched the nib of the pen across the linen paper.

Dear Rand: I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive me for ending our relationship this way, but believe me when I say it’s for the best. I cannot marry you. The decision has been painful and not without considerable thought—but it’s the right thing for me to do. I cannot be the wife you deserve. I cannot be the woman you need by your side in the future you will have in your father’s business …

This was the last glancing blow to what had promised to be a happy future. She had been a fool to think she could lose so much of her past—herself—and still skip happily on as if it didn’t matter. What else lurked in the dark corners of a mind that couldn’t remember? What would have driven a woman to war?

She found she had a talent for lying, and she called on it now to finish her good-bye to Rand. She ended the note with words like
resolute
and
unyielding
and begged him to accept her decision. She didn’t even realize she was sobbing, weeping so hard her throbbing shoulder shook from the effort.

There was a sudden knock on her bedroom door.

“Miss Mercy?” Letty’s worried voice boomed through the wood. “Is you all right?”

Mercy’s eyes flew to the window, where she could just make out the earliest dawn light. She forced her voice to sound normal and called back, “Yes, Letty. I was having a terrible nightmare. Thank you for waking me from it.”

“Would you be wantin’ some tea now?” Letty wondered. Mercy couldn’t tell from her voice if she had believed her story or not.

“No, thank you,” Mercy said. “I think I’ll try and sleep a little longer.”

“Yassum,” Letty said.

Mercy heard her footsteps retreat and then used her quilt to wipe her face. She folded the note for Rand and sealed it with the wax Ilene had given her for the purpose of correspondence. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to imagine Ilene’s face when she heard the news that her beautifully planned wedding was off. Mercy trembled at the thought.

She dropped the quilt from her shoulder and studied the wound in the mirror. There was a gaping three-inch gash, and the skin around it was bruised blue and purple. She tried to rotate it and bit down on her lip to keep from crying out. The wound needed to be tended to, wrapped and bound with something clean. No one could see it; no one could know. The basin of water on the washstand would suffice. She could stuff her bloodied shirt into the satchel she would take when she left. She looked for any evidence of blood on her sheets and saw traces of red.
With any luck, I’ll be able to wash them out—and Letty will never be the wiser.
She nearly laughed at her use of the phrase.
With any luck
her body would do her a favor and her heart would simply stop after she rode away from the cottage.

It was midmorning by the time Mercy came out of her room. She hoped she looked no worse for the wear—other than the dark circles under her eyes—after her eventful night. Kizzy, in the kitchen, looked at her with a small frown. “Mornin’, Miss Mercy,” she said. “You be ready for yo’ breakfast now?”

Mercy shook her head. “I’m not hungry, Kizzy.”

“’Scuze me fo’ sayin’ so, ma’am, but you look mighty tired. Letty tol’ me ’bout your pain.”

Mercy was aware that she was holding herself very still. She purposefully relaxed her painful shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

“She said you had a bad headache,” Kizzy continued. “Ain’t it better?”

“Oh, yes. It’s better, thank you,” Mercy said.

Kizzy turned to leave the room, but Mercy stopped her. “Kizzy? I may not be hungry this morning, but I want you to know I think you are a wonderful cook.”

Kizzy looked both surprised and pleased at the unexpected compliment. “Thank you, Miss Mercy. I try.”

“And please tell Letty that I appreciate how well she took care of me.”

“She be pleased you say that, Miss Mercy.”

With her satchel in hand, Mercy found Ezra in the barn, giving Isaac an earful about his lackadaisical ways. Isaac was actually cowering in the corner, his eyes wide and scared as Ezra continued his tirade. But when Ezra raised his hand to hit Isaac, Mercy, despite the pain in her shoulder, grabbed his arm.

“Don’t!” she said with as much force as she could muster.

Ezra spun around. “’Scuze me, Miss Mercy, but this here business be between me and the boy.”

“It will be between you and Mr. Rand if I tell him that you’ve been abusing this poor boy,” Mercy said. “There is no excuse for hitting him, Ezra, and it needs to stop.”

Isaac’s eyes widened at her words, and he scrambled out of the corner of the barn. Mercy could see Ezra trying to control his anger. “Yassum.”

“I’d like your promise that you won’t hit Isaac anymore,” she said.

“Boys gots to be taught …”

“Ezra …”

“All right, Miss Mercy,” Ezra said, even as he glanced at Isaac. “No more hitting on the boy.”

Mercy didn’t believe him, but she nodded. “Fine. Now, I have something for you to do.”

She handed him the wax-sealed note. “I need you to see that Mr. Rand receives this.”

He nodded. “I’ll leave directly.”

“No. I want you to wait until nearly sundown before you deliver it,” she said.

Ezra’s expression remained carefully blank, but she saw his eyes flick to her satchel. “Yassum.”

“Make sure you hand it to him—and no one else. I believe he’ll be at his office in the city. Don’t forget—the note is for his eyes only. You understand?”

“I only gives the note to Mr. Rand and not nobody else.”

“That’s right.”

Ezra tucked the note into his pocket and nodded at Mercy. “I’ll see to it,” he said. “Now I gots wood to stack.”

Mercy and Isaac both watched him walk away. Mercy crossed to Isaac. “Are you all right, Isaac?”

“Yassum, Miss Mercy,” he said. “Thanks be to you he didn’t get a chance to hit me this time.”

For a moment, Mercy looked conflicted. “I hope I didn’t make things worse for you by saying something.”

“You was jes tryin’ to help me,” Isaac said. “Ain’t no one done that before.”

“Promise me you’ll tell Mr. Rand if he hits you again, Isaac.”

Isaac’s eyes filled with tears. “I could tell you.”

Mercy hesitated, then shook her head. “It needs to be Mr. Rand.”

“Ezra say Mr. Rand will send me packin’ if I tell. He say I be too much trouble to keep on here.”

“Ezra’s wrong, Isaac. Mr. Rand won’t want you to be hurt. Do Kizzy and Letty know about this?”

Isaac looked down at the ground. “It just be the way things is.”

Mercy put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, wincing with the pain from her own wound. “It’s not how things should be, Isaac. You’re a good boy. A good worker. You don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

Isaac nodded but didn’t look up. Mercy stepped back. “Would you saddle Lucky for me?”

“Yassum,” he said. “Won’t take me but a minute, Miss Mercy.”

While Isaac made short work of saddling Lucky, Mercy took a last look around the cottage grounds. She should have known things were too good to be true.

Isaac brought Lucky to her. “I be ready to brush him down when you get back from yo’ ride, Miss Mercy.”

Mercy handed him the satchel and then tried to steel herself against the pain it would cause as she reached for the saddle horn and mounted the horse. Once astride, she held out a hand, and Isaac gave her the satchel.

“I thank you for the way you’ve cared for Lucky, Isaac. You have a way with horses,” Mercy told him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Isaac said.

Mercy nodded, then gave Lucky a kick in the side, and they rode away.

Mercy’s eyes were swollen and red when she knocked on the convent door. Deirdre answered and couldn’t hide her look of surprise.

“Mercy?”

“I need to see Mother Helena, Deirdre. Please.”

Deirdre nodded but looked past her. “Is Rand with you?”

Mercy shook her head and fought against tears. “No.”

Deirdre drew her inside. “Wait in the common room. I’ll find Mother.”

Physically and mentally exhausted, Mercy dropped onto a wooden bench, wincing from the jarring pain in her shoulder. She wanted to be strong when she talked to Mother Helena. Wanted the nun to see she had grown and matured since her departure from the convent. All she needed was a place to stay for a few days until she could decide what to do with the rest of her life.

“Mercy?” Mother Helena stood a few feet away. Her musical voice was all it took for Mercy’s carefully held reserve to crumble.

“Mother.” Her voice cracked, and tears began to flow again. Mother Helena hurried toward her and kneeled at her feet. Mercy gripped the older woman’s hands. Her voice was choked with emotion when she spoke.

“I didn’t have anyone else to turn to,” she said.

Mother Helena’s brow creased as she looked up into Mercy’s tear-streaked face. “What’s all this about, child? What’s happened?”

Mercy drew in a steadying breath, trying to stop the flow of tears. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m not marrying Rand.”