Traces of Mercy (9 page)

“Have I given you reason to think otherwise?” Mother Helena asked.

Mercy shook her head, relieved that she hadn’t completely taken herself out of the nun’s good graces. “No, Mother Helena, you haven’t. Thank you.”

“Good. Now there’s something else.” Mother Helena looked toward Lucky. “When the time comes to get the children, I have a very important job for you.”

“Oh?”

“You must be the one who harnesses Lucky and drives the wagon. That special bond you share will ensure the trip will go smoothly and the children will have safe transportation here.”

“Of course, Mother,” she said, pleased to be asked. “Lucky will behave perfectly.”

“With you—yes. I believe that.”

They started to walk toward the house. “You know, Mercy, running from your anger is never the answer,” Mother Helena said.

“I don’t think I was running from it,” Mercy admitted. “I think I was running straight into it.”

Mother Helena stopped walking and turned to face her. “And what did you find when you stopped?”

Mercy thought for a second. “I found pond water is very refreshing after a long, hard ride. I found Lucky listens to every move I make and I don’t have to say a word. I found a very irritated young man who disapproved of me being on his land and swimming in his pond.”

Mother Helena’s eyebrows disappeared into the bandeau across her forehead. “Anything else?”

Mercy smiled. “I found out that a handsome man can make it feel as if hundreds of tiny little butterflies are trapped in your stomach when he looks at you a certain way. Even when that man is annoyed.”

Mother Helena smiled widely. “Ah. Butterflies.”

“Do you think that’s a good thing?”

Mother Helena put a hand on Mercy’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “I think that is a very good thing.” As they started walking again, Mother Helena said, “You may wait until tomorrow to work in the garden, unless you think the punishment is too harsh. I don’t want you to think me unfair,” she continued. “I suppose I could ask you to finish the needlepoint sampler Sister Gertrude had you start last week.”

Mercy shook her head. “Oh, no, please, Mother. Not the needlepoint. It’s much too easy—and I don’t think I’d learn my lesson if I were to just sit in the chair with the needle and the fabric. I think the garden is a much better proposition for my offense.”

Mother Helena pretended to think it over. “Very well. All day tomorrow in the garden, then.”

Mercy smiled in relief. “Yes, Mother.”

C
HAPTER
N
INE

Running away doesn’t solve problems. It only postpones the moment when you have to face them. I can’t shake the feeling that this is a lesson I’ve had to learn before.

Sisters are not perfect. In some strange way, that is a burden lifted from me. If women who devote their lives to God aren’t perfect—I guess I can feel better about myself.

Apparently, I have quite a temper. Anger I couldn’t stop bubbled up and out of me today (partly because of those imperfect sisters), and I was powerless to stop it. I felt as if I was running down a hill, going faster and faster, and I knew when I got to the bottom I was going to fall and it was going to hurt—but I kept running anyway. The terrible thing is the anger feels good somehow. As if it’s a second skin I’m used to wearing. I don’t want the thing that makes me feel good to be something so bad. I don’t know how to make that part of me disappear like my memory. Mother Helena knows it’s there inside me—but like me, she doesn’t know why. After the way I behaved today, I had to count on something Oona once told me: nuns are supposed to forgive. It’s a commandment, and they have to do it. That is a very good thing for me, or otherwise I may very well have found myself living under a bush.

Deirdre sighs rather loudly when I’ve spent too much time with the candle burning and she’s trying to get to sleep. I shall quit writing for now.

Rand Prescott detested procrastination in others, but he especially despised it in himself. So when he knew it was inevitable he would pay a visit to the Little Sisters of Hope, he set out early in the morning before the heat of the day soaked into his silk shirt and caused him to look like a dripping sop of a human being before he even arrived. He had met most of the sisters during two separate visits with his father to the convent and had on several occasions chatted with the two youngest of the order, Oona and Deirdre, when they made trips to town for supplies. Why young women wanted to be nuns was beyond his understanding, but he did admire their fortitude and faith.

Rand slowed his horse, Sherman, to a trot as the convent came into view. He saw the cross rising out of the roof like an apparition and wondered at the mechanics that must have been involved in getting that heavy piece of wood on the roof.

He turned Sherman onto the road that led straight to the door of the house, then settled his thoughts on his task at hand. He planned to say his piece as quickly and painlessly as possible, have a drink from the well, then put the convent and the sisters out of his mind. He had a dinner engagement with Cora that evening, and it wouldn’t do for him to be preoccupied with anything else. Sometimes it was hard enough to give Cora his full attention. Her endless banal statements and predictable replies in conversation sometimes made the time he spent with her drag. He frowned and quickly tamped down such thoughts. Cora was a sweet, beautiful woman—everyone said so.
That
thought made him smile—and he left that smile in place as he rode up to the front of the convent.

It was Mother Helena who opened the door to his knock.

“Rand!” she exclaimed. “What a lovely surprise. Is your father with you?”

He swept off his hat and shook his head. “No, Mother Helena, he’s not. I’m here on a solitary errand.”

“Is that right?” she asked with a puzzled expression.

“You have a woman staying with you that isn’t … like the rest of you. Isn’t a sister,” he said. “At least that’s what she told me.”

Her expression remained blank, carefully neutral. He squirmed with the sudden thought that the rogue woman had lied to him. Of all the humiliating, exasperating, time-wasting—

“You mean Mercy,” Mother Helena finally said.

“Mercy?”

“Yes. We only have one woman here who isn’t of the order, and her name is Mercy.”

“Might I have a word with her?” he asked.

“Might I ask why?” Mother Helena countered. “She’s a little fragile right now, and I wouldn’t want you to upset her.”

“I just wanted to apologize to her,” he said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much of a gentleman when I encountered her on my property.”

“Ah,” she said knowingly, “so
you
are the annoyed, handsome man.”

He frowned. “Pardon?”

“You may follow me,” she said.

He asked no more questions as he followed Mother Helena to the back of the convent. She led him to the large, overgrown garden.

“You’ll find her over there,” she said succinctly, waving to the tall rows of green.

He squinted. “Are you sure? I don’t see anyone at all.”

“Mercy?” she called.

“Yes?” a voice answered from somewhere unseen.

“There is someone here to see you,” Mother Helena said, then turned to Rand. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m writing a letter to the governor. We need money to finish our orphanage, and I’m trying to get him to loosen his grip on some badly needed funds.”

As Mother Helena walked away, Rand heard rustling in the garden.
Just hurry up and let me get this over with
, he thought. Apologies had never been his strong suit, and even though he knew it had to be done, he chafed at doing it.

She stepped out of the garden, wearing a yellow dress with spots of dirt around her knees. She stopped when she saw him—her bare feet poking out from the hem of her skirt—her hazel eyes looking both indignant and wary at the same time. She pushed a wayward curl away from her face and left a smudge of dirt across her cheek.

“Are you here for more target practice?” she asked without preamble.

He shook his head, found his voice. “I … I wasn’t expecting you to be … to look …”

“Like a girl?”

He had a sudden flash of the way she had looked coming out of his pond the day before and felt his face grow hot in embarrassment.

“Yes,” he admitted.

She took a few steps toward him, brushing the loose dirt from her hands across her yellow skirt. He had never in his life seen another woman do that. “Well, I
am
a woman. And I like things women like,” she said, tipping her head to the side and pushing again at the hair that was clinging to her cheek. “I like cooking and sewing and needlepoint and singing and …”

She stopped and looked toward the sky, then sighed and turned her enormous eyes directly at him. “I’m lying to you. I hate doing all those things.”

He raised his brows at her bluntness. “Really?”

“I may have liked doing them once,” she said, “maybe I was even good at them, but now—now I simply detest doing any of it.”

This woman was Mother Helena’s idea of fragile? “I believe you are the strangest woman I have ever met,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said seriously. “Is that what you came here to say?”

“No. I came to apologize for the way I behaved toward you yesterday.”

“I didn’t know it was your pond,” she said. He could hear the defensiveness in her voice.

“I know that now. It’s just that with the end of the war and the lingering animosity between the North and the South … you just can’t be too careful when you stumble upon a stranger,” he said. “But in all fairness, I should have given you more of a chance to explain yourself.”

“Mother Helena and the nuns are commanded to forgive,” she said. “I imagine the same commandment applies to river urchins.”

Beauty and a quick wit, he decided, could prove to be a lethal combination.

He cleared his throat. “A bit unorthodox in the way of accepting my apology, but I’ll take it.” He offered a half smile. “And just so the record is accurate, I wasn’t the one who called you a river urchin.”

“No, you were the one who didn’t correct her,” she said.

He dipped his head in concession. “Guilty again, I’m afraid.”

She made no comment but simply smiled instead. He crossed the few steps between them.

“Let’s start over,” he said, offering her his hand. “I’m Rand Prescott.”

She hesitated, then shook it. “I’m Mercy.”

He smiled. “Just—Mercy?”

“Yes. It’s what Mother Helena named me.”

He frowned, his mind reeling in confusion. “I don’t understand …”

“I have no memory of anything that happened to me prior to the last two months,” she said succinctly. “I can’t recall my name, where I come from, what I was doing, if I have a family … it’s called amnesia.”

“You’re joking.”

She shook her head. “I’m not. The sisters were good enough to take me in.”

He looked shocked. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Will your memory ever return?”

“I go to sleep each night hoping to wake up knowing my past. But so far …” She shrugged, then turned her attention to something over his shoulder. He followed her gaze to see one of the young postulants hurrying toward them.

“Hello, Rand!” she called out.

“Miss Deirdre,” Rand said. “How nice to see you.”

Deirdre smiled. “’Tis nice to see you, too. Mother Helena sent me to see if you were still here. She thought you might be thirsty—and maybe you might like to see our new addition.”

“I would appreciate some water,” he said, glancing at Mercy. “It’s awfully hot out. You must be thirsty too.”

“I’ll be along soon,” she said. “Just a few more weeds to pull.” She turned and disappeared back into the overgrown garden, leaving him with little choice but to follow Deirdre inside.

Mercy never appeared inside the convent—much to Rand’s disappointment. He was given the grand tour of the impressive addition, built entirely by the nuns themselves. But even he could see that they were far from ready to house any orphans. They still needed beds, linens, rugs, dishes—the list went on and on. Mother Helena told him of her letter-writing campaign asking public officials of the state for monetary help, but she didn’t hold out much hope. In the next moment, Rand had an idea he shared with Mother Helena—and the old nun had been delighted. Now that he thought about it, he wondered if he’d been manipulated by a woman of God. The thought that Mother Helena had taken advantage of his visit made him smile. He approached the garden to say his good-bye to Mercy. A visit with Mother Helena had garnered precious little information about their boarder, other than what he’d already learned from the woman herself. As he rounded the corner, he saw his own horse standing in front of her, enjoying a good deal of attention.

“Is he yours?” she asked as she stroked the horse’s nose.

“Yes. For some reason, that horse renders any tether useless,” Rand said, unable to keep the pride and fondness from his voice.

“He must have been looking for you,” she said. “What is he called?”

“Sherman. After General Sherman.”

“You are very handsome, Sherman,” she said.

Rand was completely shocked to discover he felt a little jealous of Sherman at her light caress and heartfelt compliment.

“I’ve invited Mother Helena and the rest of the sisters to the theater tomorrow night to see a performance of
Society
,” he said casually. “The proceeds of the evening will be donated to a worthy charity, and since I am on the board of trustees, I promised Mother Helena to petition the money be given to the Little Sisters of Hope Orphanage.”

“I’m not sure what all that means,” she said, “but it sounds like a nice thing to do.”

“I hope you’ll join them,” he said.

“Do you think I’d like the theater?” she asked.

“It’s not sewing or cooking. So maybe—yes,” he said with a smile. “Now, I really must be getting back.” He swung himself into the saddle. She held up a finger at him.

“Wait,” she said. She ducked behind some greens and emerged with a fat carrot in hand. She offered up the treat to Sherman, who finished it in two bites. Mercy smiled and, without any complaint or self-consciousness, gathered her skirt to wipe the horse’s spit from her hands. And it was that gesture of hers that went straight to Rand’s heart.