“I heard from her a few days ago. Nice letter except for the sad news that her mother had passed. A little gossip then a thank-you for giving her my address. I wrote back with condolences and reaffirmed that it was fine for her to have my address. Signed off with the words that she should get in touch if there was anything she needed. Maybe should have left that off,” James muttered.
“Why? Nice thing to say. Proper.”
“Oh, I know. My mother worked hard to teach us what was proper and courteous and all that. Just wish she’d taught us what the hell to do if someone took us up on it.”
“What has happened?”
“She is dead now, too, might have been dying when she wrote to me. Probably just checking to see if she had the right address. It seems someone hunted her down for that chest of coins. Killed her mother and then tried to beat the truth out of her. Her neighbor came and shot him. She had her injuries tended to, but it wasn’t enough. The beating was too harsh. She asked if we could look after Morgan, save her from the harsh life of an orphanage.”
“Oh, hell. And ye cannae take her in?”
“I could. Even my folks were willing. But Morgan wants you, old friend. She was very clear on that.”
“Why me?”
“Who knows how a child thinks? Could be that accent of yours or that you talked with her or that you helped save her mother from those men on the train. And, it seems, you remind her of her papa.”
Geordie sighed and dragged his hands through his hair. “Damn. Weel, where is she?”
“Over near the carriage, talking to that boy.”
“Abel?” Geordie looked harder and then nodded. “Yup, that’s Abel. Who’s the mon?”
“He is the one who is handling the estate, fulfilling the last wishes of the woman.”
“So, he kens about wills and all of that?”
“He does. He says he needs to talk with you anyway. So, you’ll have a chance to find out what he knows.”
“Better get it over with.” Geordie took a moment to thank the boys who had come from Bennet’s to help, then started to walk toward the carriage, only to have Belle run up beside him and take his hand in hers.
Abel was showing Morgan a frog when James, Geordie, and Belle reached them. The wobbly smile the girl gave Geordie broke his heart. He curled his arm around Belle’s waist to steady himself. James introduced Morgan to everyone and Belle took a moment to quietly tell Abel to put the frog back into the little pond he stood near. Clutching her doll, Morgan told Belle what had happened and why she was there.
Morgan frowned at Abel, who was talking earnestly to the frog, and then looked back at Belle. “Does he think the frog understands him?”
“I don’t know.” She spotted Thor trotting towards Abel. “Abel! Drop the frog. Thor is coming.”
Abel turned to look back, which made the frog in his hands easily visible to the dog. Thor woofed and started to run. Abel tried to run away, glanced back at how close Thor was getting, tossed the frog into the pond, and dropped to his knees. The dog leapt over him and landed in the deeper water with a splash of murky water that soaked Abel. Abel looked at Belle as Thor splashed around, and he shrugged.
“Do you think he got the frog?” asked Abel, then grinned at Morgan as she started to laugh.
James and Geordie caught up with the dog and checked its mouth for any sign of a frog. They told the children that it appeared the frog had escaped. Belle rolled her eyes, took each child by the hand, and started to lead them up to the house. Mr. Hobbs hurried up from the carriage to tell them what they needed to know.
“Come with us to the house, Mr. Hobbs.”
“I’ll see to your carriage,” James offered and hopped into the driver’s seat.
“Come with me, Mr. Hobbs,” said Belle as she took him by the arm. “We’ll go up to the house, have a bite to eat, and see what needs to be done. Geordie will bring Morgan up. So, you are a lawyer and deal with wills and all that, are you?”
By the time they entered the house, Belle was determined to get her aunt to talk to the gentleman. He could be the answer they had been looking for.
After Geordie came inside he found himself nudged to the far side of the kitchen and Morgan came to stand next to him. When Auntie showed up and began to set the table, Belle came to join them. She quietly asked Morgan what had happened, and the little girl told her. She also told Auntie why her mother had sent her to Geordie.
“Ah, hell,” Geordie muttered and edged over to James as Belle took Morgan’s hand.
“Darling, I am so very sorry. Of course you can stay here. You will have to learn how to get along with frog boy though,” Belle said.
“Ah, so that is why Abel is such a mess. Thor tried to get a frog?”
“Yes, Auntie. Thor saw the frog Abel was holding and thought it was playtime.” She saw Mr. Hobbs at the back of the crowd in the kitchen and nudged Geordie. “Bring him forward. He said he has things to say that you need to know.”
Geordie slipped through the group and grasped Mr. Hobbs by the arm, urging him forward. “Mr. Hobbs has a few things he needs to say concerning Morgan. Sorry to put ye on the spot, Mr Hobbs.”
“No trouble. Got me through the crowd.”
Everyone sat down and Auntie poured coffee, plus juice for the two children. She then began to bring in the platters of food. Mr. Hobbs slowly laid out all his information as he ate and put the papers on the table in case anyone wished to read the dry legal words about what he had just said.
“I don’t need a house,” said Morgan. “I would rather have my mother and Nana back.”
Belle felt tears sting her eyes and fought them back. “I know, darling, and I wish that was something we could do, but we can’t. This is your mother’s way of being sure you are well taken care of when she can’t do it anymore. Sometimes it is all a parent can do. My father left me this house, and although I love it, I would also much rather have him. So would Abel.” Belle saw her brother vigorously nod.
“I would really like my father to come back so we could catch frogs together,” said Abel.
“Aye, that would be a fine thing,” said Geordie. “My brother Iain did things like that with me and my brothers sometimes.”
“Well, he probably was not all that much older than you,” said Belle.
“Even a year older seems a lot to a younger brother. And when there are six of us and half are older than you are, it makes even more clear that you are younger.”
“But older brothers can do more for you,” said Abel.
“If they feel like it.”
“Well, I think that all pretty much covers the joys of having a brother, don’t you, Mr. Hobbs?” Auntie said sweetly and smiled at Mr. Hobbs, causing the poor man to blush. “I will admit to an interest in the work you do. In truth, I am having a bit of trouble over a will, or rather, over how my brother is using what a will says.”
Belle rolled her eyes and looked at Geordie. “I believe I heard the sound of patients gasping from hunger.”
“Or lack of morning coffee. You get the coffee and I’ll get the food.”
“Will do,” said Geordie as he followed Belle into the kitchen.
Belle and Geordie started to walk by the table, pausing only to add a few things to the trays they were carrying. Then Morgan tugged on Belle’s shirt. “Are you taking food to Robbie?”
“We are. How did you guess that?”
“It was not that difficult, and I also heard him laughing with someone else just down that hall.” She pointed down the one that led to the infirmary. “Can I come with you so I can say hello to Robbie?”
“Of course you can,” said Belle.
As they walked into the infirmary, Belle and Geordie were greeted with a few loud complaints. “Whine, whine, whine. Food is here now and it is not that late. Still only a few hours after sunrise.” She handed each young man their coffee and placed a plate of food on the table by each bed.
Belle tugged Morgan over to the side of Ro
bbie’s bed. “We have Morgan staying with us now. I fear that tale of men hunting a certain chest finally brought the men to their door, but Morgan escaped. Your brother Geordie was named guardian.”
“I am sorry for ye, Morgan. Your mither was a lovely woman. The world is made less by her loss.” Robbie reached out and gently rubbed his hand over her hair. “Geordie isnae such a bad choice.” He smiled when the little girl actually laughed a little.
“No, I rather like him.”
“Good. Maybe ye will get to see where I live soon.” He glanced at Belle, who studiously ignored him.
“I am sure it is nice.” Morgan glanced at Belle. “I like the ocean too, though.”
After Robbie and Morgan talked for a bit and then she met and talked with Will, Belle took her back to where the others still sat at the table nibbling on what food was left. Then she grabbed Geordie’s hand and tugged him off to the back porch. She sat on the steps and he cautiously sat down beside her.
“So, you now have a child.”
“It seems that I do.”
“One who does not know where she is going to live.”
“I thought she would live with us,” he said quietly as he took her hand in his.
“All right, so you have decided I will be there with you—but, Geordie, where is there?”
“Ah, well, I have not made up my mind on that.”
When she growled he tugged her into his arms and kissed her. “I ken it. I need to make up my mind. But got one answer already.”
“What?”
“That ye will be there with me.”
“I did not actually say that, just commented on your assumption.”
“Weel, I certainly dinnae want to be there unless ye are, even when I figure out where there will be.” He pulled her into his arms. “I love ye, lass. I want ye to be where I am. It is just that the choice to make is a demmed hard one.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “I know. I also love you,” she confessed and grinned when his hug grew tighter for a bit and he kissed her neck, “but, just like you, cannot decide which part of the country to live in. Your hills sound lovely, as does your large family, but I also love the oceanside and my large family. But then I get to pondering silly things like how it is always the woman who follows the husband.” She glanced towards Bennet’s home. “I could do with new neighbors though.”
He chuckled. “Aye, ye could, but I cannae say all of ours are much better, and there is that lingering friction about what side you were on in the war. I think we should just allow that decision to ride for a while.”
“But you were going home with Robbie when he is ready to travel.”
“I am, and ye are coming with us, to meet my family and have a good look around. Breathe in the air, meet the neighbors, all that sort of thing. Then come back here and see if ye can give up this to go stay with me there, or I can decide if I want to give up the hills to live here.”
“Okay. A deal. I will go and see your hills and you will come back here after being well reminded of them, so we can both make a better decision.”
He kissed her again and then, hand in hand, they went back into the house. “Ye do realize that all we have decided means we should get married, dinnae ye?”
“Maybe,” she said and skipped off into the kitchen.
After a moment of stunned surprise, Geordie growled and hurried after her.
* * *
Geordie having caught her in the kitchen and dragged her up the stairs, it was much later in the day before Belle got a chance to sit with her aunt. The woman had spent a lot of time talking to Mr. Hobbs. Belle was curious about what she had found out. Judging by the happy tune her aunt was humming as she mended some of Abel’s clothes, Belle suspected, and hoped, her aunt had received some good news.
Sitting down on the porch swing next to her aunt, Belle nudged the woman with her elbow. “Did you and Mr. Hobbs have a good talk?”
“Harold did answer a lot of questions for me.”
“Harold, is it?”
“Hush. Yes, it is Harold.”
“But was there good news in those answers?”
“Good possibilities.”
“Did he need to see all the papers we found?”
“He asked, and I handed them right over.”
A little annoyed at how her aunt was answering the questions so curtly, with absolutely no embellishment or even hopeful talk of possibilities, Belle wanted to scream. A narrow-eyed look at her aunt’s face told her the woman knew it, too.
Then Belle noticed a faint blush on her aunt’s cheeks. Was there a hint of romance in the air? she thought. Then she thought about the men who had attempted to court her aunt after her husband died. Harold was nothing like any of them. Harold was a bit overweight, with thinning hair, and might even go bald in the near future, quiet, somewhat studious, and just a bit shy.
Then she thought on it a bit more and realized her aunt had never shown much interest in those men. Belle could recall how insulted they had been by her disinterest. She would never have called any of them studious and certainly not shy. In truth, Belle’s late uncle, Mary’s husband, had been the complete opposite of those men as well.
“Huh.”
“Huh, what?” asked Mary.
“Nothing. I was just waiting to see if you found out anything useful in all the talk you shared with Harold.”
“The only thing that might be useful is if he finds anything in all those papers I had.”
“No hint that he thought he might?”
“Not really, because he said he really needs to see the papers, as they are what judges go by when it all ends in court. I so want it to end in court.” Then Mary turned to stare at Belle. “So, what have you and Geordie decided, now that you are parents?”
“We aren’t. We are like an uncle and aunt.”
“I doubt that was what that poor woman was trying to find for her girl. She wanted a family for young Morgan. I suspect the child spoke of Geordie and even Robbie a lot after they got to Boston. Morgan’s mother decided after hearing about his family and all, and seeing how he watched over his brother, that he would be a perfect parent for her child if ever needed.”
“Well, we have her and we will keep her. Now we just have to decide where.” She eyed her aunt closely, but the woman just calmly kept sewing. “What? No opinion on that?”
“I have opinions, but you know I keep them to myself when it is a life decision.”
“A what?”
“A life decision, like Where will I live? Should I marry him? Should I have a baby? Should I buy a house or rent one? Questions like that.”
“I am sure I have heard you give opinions on things like that,” Belle said.
“I may have, but I do try not to. I will say I tend to have strong opinions”—she ignored Belle’s snort of badly choked-back laughter—“but I try very hard to stick to that rule about not pushing my opinion on any decision other people are making for their lives. I learned what a bad idea that is, and what bad consequences come from it. After all, I told my brother not to marry that wife of his and look what has happened.”
“Oh! Oh, dear. Is that why you say she heartily dislikes you?”
“It is and she does. But you will let me know what you decide, right?”
“Of course I will. Exactly where is Mr. Hobbs? I haven’t seen him around since we all ate together.”
“I told you, I gave him the papers and he is studying them. I can only hope he finds what he needs to plan a strategy. What is that look for?”
“What look?”
“A surprised look. You don’t think the man can come up with a strategy?”
“He may be perfect for it, but I just can’t think of legal business and strategy together.”
“Truth is, neither can I, but Harold assures me all good lawyers have one before they face a judge.” She put aside the pants she had been patching for Abel and stood up. “I am going to bake some biscuits and sweets.”
>
As her aunt walked off, Belle hoped she had enough of the ingredients her aunt needed, because the woman used up a lot when she got the baking urge. She then went to look for Geordie.
Chapter Seventeen
Belle held Abel’s and Morgan’s hands as Geordie went to buy them tickets. She watched as James took their horses to the stock car. Her stomach was tied into knots as she failed to push aside the nerves twisting her up inside. She looked at Robbie, who sat so calmly on a bench she wanted to slap him. He had nothing to worry about as he was going home to show his family how much he had improved. She was going to meet Geordie’s family, and then take him away from them when she left.
She felt a small, soft hand pat hers and looked down at Morgan. “Am I holding your hand too tight?”
“No,” Morgan answered. “I was just trying to calm you down.”
“I am fine. But I haven’t traveled on a train before.”
Belle wondered if she should pretend she did not notice the way Morgan looked at her. Since Morgan did not actually roll her eyes at her, she decided she could pretend that look was not equal to her doing so. The child was very good at sensing people’s moods. She was also very skilled at letting one know how she felt about things. Not always a welcome gift in a child.
“Here comes James,” said Abel. “Where’s Geordie?” he asked as James stopped in front of them.
“Trying to strike a bargain on the tickets.”
“Why? They have a list that tells you what everything costs.”
“They do indeed, Abel, but the man is a Scot and I think they always feel compelled to try to deal.” James grinned at her. “Something you might wish to become accustomed to.”
“I am accustomed. My aunt does it too. She claims it is the Yankee in her.”
James frowned in thought. “We had a few hard-nosed ones in our troop and they did the same. I can’t be bothered. I either think the price is reasonable and pay it, or it isn’t and I walk away. And here is our bargainer.”
“And here is Robbie,” said Geordie as his brother joined them. “Where have you been?”
“Getting us something to eat on the train.”
Before Geordie could try to see what he got, the call came to board the train. They hurried onto the train to find enough seats so they could sit together. Geordie and Belle sat with the two children while Robbie and James sat across the aisle from them. Robbie gave each of the children a sweet and Belle read to them. Before long Morgan was sprawled against Geordie, sound asleep, and Belle had Abel sprawled on her legs. She looked at Morgan, then at her peacefully sleeping little brother, before she finally looked right at Geordie.
The Scotsman Who Swept Me Away Page 18