Where The Heart Is (Choices of the Heart, book 1) (7 page)

Mr. Rainnie held his daughter close. As formidable as Chelle had ever seen him, he faced Caroline. “As soon as I can find a housekeeper, Leah’s comin’ home with me.”

Chelle’s stomach knotted when her aunt’s mouth drew into a thin line. Caroline could be as stubborn as Mr. Rainnie when she chose.

“Martin, you can’t think we’ve neglected her.”

He spoke in an urgent whisper. “I’m the one who’s neglected her, can’t you see that? I’ll always be grateful for all you’ve done for her, but she belongs at home.”

There wasn’t much Caroline could say. After all, Mr. Rainnie was Leah’s father, but she wouldn’t yield immediately. Chelle knew her aunt had little faith in men when it came to caring for children. “We’ll discuss it over breakfast. Now put the child back in her bed and come downstairs. She needs to rest.”

While Caroline and Jean made porridge and toast, Mr. Rainnie sat quietly at the table, absorbed in his own thoughts. Colin and Jack came in from the yard. They both broke into relieved grins when Caroline told them that Leah was better.

“Good news.” Colin scraped a chair back and sat next to Mr. Rainnie. “She’ll pick up as quick as she took ill. She’s got your constitution, Martin, as well as your temper. Caroline, what’s the matter?”

Caroline had been bustling around the kitchen in silence. Her wooden spoon rattled against the porridge pot. “Nothing’s the matter, except that Martin needs to find a housekeeper as soon as possible. He’s decided to take Leah home.”

Jack crossed the room and laid his hands on Caroline’s shoulders.

Mr. Rainnie faced her, looking just as determined as he had upstairs. “Not long after Leah was born, Jessie Mason told me she’d be willing to keep house for me. I said no at the time, and I’d all but forgotten the offer until now. Jessie’s still living with her sister’s family, isn’t she? I haven’t heard otherwise.”

Jean set a plate of toast on the table. She looked tired and a little sad. Chelle felt a pang of guilt at her own selfish regrets. Jean would miss Leah the most of anyone at the forge, having nursed her along with her own child.

“Aye, she is. Jessie likes children, but I think she’d be pleased to have just one to look after instead of her sister’s six, and pleased to be paid in the bargain. Her husband didn’t leave her much, and you know her brother-in-law doesn’t exactly have his name up for generosity.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Martin said. “Jean, I told Caroline upstairs, but it should be said to you most of all. You’ve mothered my child along with your own, and I can never repay you for what you’ve done for her. Thank you.” So he’d noticed Jean’s sadness. Chelle liked him better for it.

Caroline stepped away from Jack and started dishing up porridge. She threw Mr. Rainnie a challenging glance over her shoulder. “What about Eleanor’s parents?”

He shrugged. “I’ll pay them a call and tell them what I’ve decided. I doubt they’ll be pleased, but I’m not sure how much they really want Leah when it comes to that. More than anything, I think they don’t want their neighbors talking, saying they let their granddaughter be raised by strangers. Anyway, it isn’t up to them. I’m Leah’s father.”

Watching him, it came home to Chelle that this was no overnight change. If Mr. Rainnie hadn’t always cared for Leah, even though he didn’t know it, his daughter’s illness wouldn’t have been enough to make him decide to take her home. Knowing that she’d be loved made it a lot easier to see Leah go.

* * *

Out in the yard with the children in the sweet-smelling August dusk, Chelle glanced up at the sound of the gate clicking shut behind Mr. Rainnie. In the two weeks since Leah had fallen ill, he’d stopped by every day, until even Caroline began to believe he deserved to take his daughter home.

The little girl toddled to meet him. Eleven months old now, she’d mastered her legs, and she’d already gotten over her shyness with her father, helped by the treats he usually brought for her. As always, his face lit up with a smile as he squatted down in front of her and touched the tip of her nose. “How’s my lass today?”

Chelle never saw him smile like that for anyone but Leah. To everyone else, he remained as gruff as before, but perhaps this one chink in his armor would widen with time to include others. If it did, no doubt that smile would melt the heart of some local girl and Leah would have a mother again.

Stooping, his daughter’s tiny hand engulfed in his, Mr. Rainnie crossed the yard. He sat beside Chelle on the doorstep. “Evenin’, Miss Rochelle. This one seems right as rain again, doesn’t she?”

Leah and Peter both climbed into Chelle’s lap, but Leah reached out to grasp her father’s sleeve. Chelle couldn’t help grinning at the gratified look on his face. “Yes, she does. She likes you, Mr. Rainnie.”

“She seems to be getting used to me, anyway.” He paused, held Chelle’s gaze. “Lass, there’s something I want to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

Mr. Rainnie took a deep breath as if he needed to gather his courage. “Jessie Mason has agreed to come and keep house for me, startin’ on Monday. So, I’ll be taking Leah home then, and I was thinking the move would be easier for her if you could come with her for two or three days, to help her get settled.”

Clearly uncomfortable with his request, Mr. Rainnie raised his eyes to Chelle’s for a brief moment. “If you’re willing, I’ll step in and see if it’s all right with your father and Caroline.”

Chelle’s heart lifted at the thought of being able to help Leah adjust to her new home, but she couldn’t imagine her father or her aunt agreeing. She’d created enough talk in Mallonby already by befriending Kendra, and staying at the farm with only a housekeeper there would surely cause more. There would be too many opportunities for her and Martin to be alone.

“I’m willing, but I can’t speak for Dad and Aunt Caroline. Come in.”

Caroline reacted as Chelle expected when Mr. Rainnie broached his idea. “It wouldn’t be proper, Chelle, a young girl like you, with only Jessie Mason there. No offense meant, Martin, but people would likely talk.”

Chelle’s father surprised her. “It’s only for two or three days, hardly something for the old hens to cluck about,” he said with a shrug. “Caroline, you’ve known Martin and Jessie all their lives, and so has everyone else in Mallonby. I’d say go, lass, if you want to, and let the hens cluck if they choose.”

Before Chelle could respond, Mr. Rainnie held out his hand. “All right, then. I’ll come in for you and Leah after chores on Monday morning.”

His warm, hard fingers closed around hers. Something in her thrilled to the happiness she sensed in him. Any doubt that he’d be good to Leah melted away. As for the hens, Chelle agreed with her father. Let them cluck if they chose.

* * *

“You’ll like Jessie. That’s what she prefers to be called, by the by. She’s as good a cook as you’ll find hereabouts, and she has a mother’s heart when it comes to children, though she never had her own.”

Chelle shifted the baby on her lap and let her shawl slip from her shoulders. The day promised to be warm, with the sun burning away the delicate mist that hung over the rolling hills. It still blanketed the river, adding allure to the fine morning as they rolled along in Mr. Rainnie’s pony trap behind the black cob, Major.

“Mr. Rainnie, how long have your parents been gone?”

He gave her a long look. “If you’re going to be staying under my roof, it’s time you started calling me Martin. The rest of your family does. As for my parents, Mam passed on nearly ten years ago, and Dad’s been gone for six.”

“All right, then, Martin. And you call me Chelle.” His name came off her tongue with ease. Was that because she’d heard her family use it or because the distance between them had narrowed since Leah’s illness?

Ten years. He’d been younger than Chelle when he lost his mother. She went on in a softer tone. “I miss my mother so much. When I was seven or eight, a girlfriend of mine said that Maman had ‘charmth.’ Warmth and charm. That described her pretty well.”

Martin glanced sideways at her. “I’ll warrant you’re more your father’s daughter.”

Chelle lifted a brow at him. “Meaning?”

He shook the reins, a hint of a grin on his face. “You look like him, and I’d wager that you can be just as hard-headed as Colin when you choose.”

Chelle had been told all her life that she had her father’s stubbornness and temper, but it surprised her to hear it from Martin. After all, he hardly knew her. “I suppose so. People have always said I’m like Dad, and Trey, my brother, is more like Maman.”

Getting too warm in her coat, Leah started to squirm. Her fussing progressed to annoyed shrieks by the time Chelle got the garment unbuttoned. “She has a temper, but it never seems to last for long. A bit of a storm, and then the sun comes out. And she’s determined. When she wants something, she doesn’t give up easily.” Chelle flashed Martin a smile. “It goes with the hair, I suspect.”

His eyes settled on Leah, full of possessive pride. “No doubt.”

When they reached the farm, a stout woman of fifty-odd came out of the house to greet them. With her salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a tight bun that accentuated her narrow face, Jessie Mason would have looked rather grim if not for the twinkle in her hazel eyes.

“So this is Leah.” She smiled when the baby hid her face against Chelle’s shoulder. “She’ll come around soon enough.” Jessie’s gaze followed Martin as he took the horse to the barn. Her voice dropped to a conspirator’s whisper. “I’m glad to see her father starting to come around, too. Come in, lass. I expect you’re ready to put that one down. She looks heavy enough.”

Martin brought Chelle’s bag and the baby’s things in, then took the sandwich Jessie made for him and headed out to the fields to make up for lost time. “I’m cuttin’ the oats today, so don’t expect me before dark.” After he had left, Jessie led Chelle upstairs to the room she and Leah would share. A crib stood ready in the corner, obviously old and well-used. Jessie ran a hand along one dark-stained side rail. “It’s the one Martin slept in himself. He told me so.”

Chelle struggled to imagine Martin’s long legs and broad shoulders ever having been small enough to fit in the crib. The room was larger than her room at Uncle Jack’s, with a crabapple tree outside the window that would be lovely in its spring bloom. Now, the leaves and branches filtered the incoming light, making shadow patterns on the floor.

Together, taking turns holding Leah, Jessie and Chelle made up the crib with the linens Jessie had bought in the village. Chelle opened the window to let in the breeze before they returned downstairs. The house didn’t have the airy feel of her old home, but it had the same warmth. Right now, it smelled of the soup simmering on the stove for lunch. When Jessie set about making scones, Chelle offered to help, but Jessie waved her away. “You just keep an eye on the little one, lass, and leave the cookin’ and the house to me. That’s what Martin’s payin’ me for.”

With nothing else to do, Chelle settled Leah on the sofa with a doll, then scanned the books on the long mantel. She found an old copy of
Ivanhoe
, curled up beside Leah, and started leafing through it. The story took her back to the winter she was eight, when her mother had read it to her and Trey in the kitchen at home, while the fire snapped and the wind rattled around the house. “Jessie, have you ever read this?”

Jessie looked up from her dough with a shrug. “No. I’ve never had much time or inclination for novels.”

“My mother read it to my brother and me when we were small. She had a knack for telling stories.”

The woman shrugged again as she kneaded. “You’ve got an imagination, lass. I was born without one.”

“No one’s born without an imagination, Jessie.” Chelle smiled at her memories. “There was one story Maman used to tell, about a phantom wolf—
loup-garou
, she called it—the story always scared Trey and me half-silly, but we asked her to tell it over and over again. She had a gift. She could use her voice to make you feel a dozen different things at once.”

Jessie wiped her hands on her apron and began cutting her dough into neat triangles. “These will be a treat with the strawberry jam I brought from my sister’s. I suppose you’d say Martin has a gift. When he plays his fiddle, he can make you feel a dozen things at once, like you say.”

“See, Jessie, you do have an imagination. What did you put in that soup? I’m getting hungry just smelling it.”

* * *

Martin stopped on the track in the late twilight, scythe in hand, watching the lamplight glowing from the windows of his house. It hurt him and drew him closer, both at the same time. It wasn’t the same, never would be the same as coming home to Eleanor.

But now Leah was there. He started off again, quickening his stride at the thought of seeing her. He still didn’t understand what had happened to him or why, but something inside him had shifted the night Leah was ill. He had no choice but to accept it, even while he acknowledged that it scared the hell out of him.

He came in to the aroma of Jessie’s ham and leek pie and the sight of Chelle on the sofa, cradling his sleepy daughter on her lap. When he crossed the room and crouched beside her, Leah turned away with a whimper.

Chelle rocked her slowly back and forth, stroking her back. “She doesn’t want me to put her to bed. I tried, but she started screaming. This is the first time she’s been away from Uncle Jack’s overnight.”