by Isabel Morin
Rose glanced over at Jeremy, who stood holding the reins of both horses, staring wide-eyed at Rose. It was only then that Rose realized she was crying. Her confession would have to wait until they had some privacy.
Olivia quickly took the situation in hand, directing Jeremy toward the barn to care for the horses before coming inside the house for a meal. As soon as he was out of earshot, Rose looked at her aunt.
“The very worst thing has happened. Or one of the very worst things. There are so many of them now it’s hard to say which is more horrible.”
“Come inside where it’s warm and you can tell me everything over tea,” her aunt said, as sensible as ever.
Gratefully Rose followed her into the house, her tears renewing as she laid eyes on the place she’d called home for so many years. Here she had no secrets, she was only herself, with all her hopes and flaws.
Ten minutes later her aunt set a cup of steaming tea in front of her, exactly as she’d done so many other times when Rose was feeling low. Then she sat down across from Rose at the kitchen table and listened without interrupting as Rose recounted the events of the previous night.
“Heavens. What happens now?” Aunt Olivia asked.
“Tomorrow morning I’ll ride out and find Luke so I can tell him the truth. After that, I hardly know.”
“The crew is working in Stockbridge, not fifteen miles away, from what I hear. Some of them are being put up by families in town. It shouldn’t be too hard to track him down. Mind that a storm is coming tonight, be it rain or snow.”
“If travel is possible, then I’ll be going regardless. I can hardly stand to be in my own skin anymore.” She paused, looking down at her hands. “I’m sorry this isn’t a proper visit. I’ve wanted to see you for such a long time, but somehow…” She stopped, guilt overwhelming her as she tried and failed to explain the last few months.
Aunt Olivia took Rose’s hands in hers and looked directly into her eyes. ”It’s been too long since I’ve seen you. Let’s not waste our time on regrets. You know how I felt about you going to Boston, but I understand why you had to.” She sighed and shook her head. “You’re brave and loyal, and not many could do what you’ve done. But I can’t help worrying that you married Luke Fletcher to avenge your father. He would never have wanted you to throw your life away on his account.”
“It’s not like that at all. I love him, which may be even worse, because he doesn’t love me back.”
“Oh, honey. If he doesn’t he’s a fool.”
Olivia, Jeremy, Rose and several farm hands sat down to supper, the farmhands wanting to know all about Boston while Jeremy wanted to know all there was to know about the wilds of the Berkshires. Rose had trouble holding up her end of the conversation. She was too busy imagining what the next day would bring. Would Luke forgive her? Would she forgive him if the circumstances were reversed? Perhaps it wasn’t a fair question. After all, was not a person more likely to forgive someone they loved?
After supper she did the chores while her aunt took several dishes of food and headed over to the home of an ill neighbor. Jeremy headed out to the barn to see to the animals and the house quieted around her.
Chapter Fourteen
Luke was tired – tired of riding, of sleeping rough, and most of all of being away from Rose. This time out, traveling hadn’t given him his usual sense of freedom. Instead he’d thought about little but her since he left Boston two weeks ago.
He couldn’t wait to get back home and tell her about the fifty acres of land for sale in Great Barrington. If she liked the sound of it, he’d purchase the land immediately and build on it come spring. He was fairly certain she’d be excited, as it would mean being closer to her aunt, though come to think of it, she’d never said exactly where her aunt lived. In any case, it would suit both their purposes. They could even keep the house in Boston and live there for several months out of the year.
But his surprise would have to wait at least five more days, and from the looks of it he would not make great progress today. The sky had darkened in the last hour and now looked as if it would open up any minute.
He was miles from the nearest inn and didn’t relish the idea of getting caught in a freezing rain. Looking around, he realized he was no more than three miles from the Harris farm. Perhaps Mrs. Harris would consent to letting him bunk down in her barn for the night. She’d been cordial enough with him. Hopefully that would extend to providing him shelter.
The farm came into view a mile ahead, an orderly array of buildings and a patchwork of fields, some shorn of their harvest, others bearing the fruits of a fall planting. His horse picked its way down the steep path to the main house where he dismounted. As there was no one about, he walked up to the front door and knocked. He heard the sounds of feet approaching and took off his hat, ready to flash his most agreeable smile for Mrs. Harris.
Except when the door opened it was not Mrs. Harris but Rose.
Dumbfounded, he stared at her, unable to conceive of why his wife was here when she should be back home in Boston. Rose looked even more shocked than he felt. She had gone deathly pale and one hand fluttered to her throat. She was wearing one of the plainer dresses Madam Beauchamp had made, a rich brown wool with a high collar. A red checked apron was tied around her waist and her glorious hair was plaited and pinned in a coil at the nape of her neck.
A feeling of dread fell over him, the dull knowledge that what he was about to learn would change everything.
Wordlessly she opened the door and came out, her movements stiff. She looked at him directly and took a deep breath, as if stealing herself for what she was about to say. Finally she spoke, her words halting and unsure.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen this way. Please believe that. I wanted to tell you so many times, but I was afraid.”
“What the devil is going on here?”
“I’ve lived here since I was fifteen years of age. My father and I moved here to live with my aunt and uncle after my mother died.”
Luke could do nothing but stare at her as comprehension slowly dawned. Still he said nothing, his body rigid with tension.
“This past February my father died. I told you about that.” She took a deep breath. “What I didn’t tell you was that he was murdered. I found him in the wood back there,” she said, pointing behind the house. “He was shot in the chest and I couldn’t save him. But before he died he said the name ‘Fletcher.’ I didn’t understand what that meant until I learned of the letters from your father offering for this land. At the time he was killed he was expecting a visit from someone with the railroad.”
“What does this have to do with you and me?”
“It has everything to do with us. Don’t you see? I had no choice. The sheriff wouldn’t listen to us, wouldn’t even talk to anyone from the railroad company. I felt so helpless, and I couldn’t bear that whomever killed my father should get away with it. So I found a way to work in your father’s house. I wanted to find out who was responsible. And I did.”
Luke heard nothing beyond the fact that everything had been a lie.
“You were spying on us.” he said, his voice flat and emotionless, as if coming from someone else.
“I had to do something. If your father bled to death in your arms, then you’d understand why I did what I did. He was taken from us and no one would help me learn the truth. I know I should have told you sooner, but I was afraid to. And when I tried to tell you before you went away, you wouldn’t listen.”
“So all this time you’ve suspected me, my family?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. I realized soon after I met you that it couldn’t have been you.”
He stopped for a moment as a realization hit him like a fist to the gut.
“When I kissed you in my father’s study, you weren’t cleaning at all, were you? There I was, falling all over you like a fool, and you’d been searching through my father’s things.”
Her eyes fluttered closed and she nodded her h
ead. The feeling of betrayal was so swift and sharp he nearly doubled over. Turning away he headed for his horse.
“Luke, wait!” she called, but he didn’t stop.
He reached his horse before she caught up to him. “Please let me explain. It’s not like you think. I care about you. I love you.”
The pain of hearing those words now, when she had just exposed her deceit, seared through him. They were a lying woman’s desperate attempt to keep him from seeing the truth. She was crying now, the tears streaming down her face making her somehow more beautiful and more treacherous. If he hadn’t known better he would have thought she actually felt something. But now he knew what a good actress she was. His mind raced, looking back over the months he’d known her, reconfiguring it with the knowledge he now had.
“Luke, I was right. I suspected it was Nathan and it was. I’ll explain everything if you’ll just listen. Please.”
Luke swung onto his horse and took up the reins. Her hand reached out to touch his. That touch, those elegant, sensitive hands.
“I’ll have your things sent here as soon as I can arrange it.”
Her hand dropped to her side and she looked at him helplessly, heartbreak in every line of her face. Except everything she did and said, every expression was a mask, a false front. The woman he knew had disintegrated before his very eyes.
Wheeling Arturo around, he urged him into a gallop and rode as if his life depended on it, easing up only when he reached the steep ascent to the trail. He told himself not to look back, that she was as good as dead to him, but even now he was as drawn to her as he always had been.
Looking down from his perch atop the hill, he saw her sink to the ground as her skirts pooled around her, her hands clasped in her lap. She looked straight ahead without moving even as the first cold drops of rain fell. He watched for a few minutes, expecting her to rise as the storm began in earnest, but she remained utterly still, as if not even a breath passed through her. He turned back around and urged his horse on, but the image haunted him for miles.
***
Despair immobilized her. There seemed no point in moving, though some part of her registered that she was wet and cold. She didn’t know how long she sat there on the hard ground, the chill soaking through her skirts, but finally she roused herself to move, fearing that Aunt Olivia would return and find her there. Slowly, as if she’d aged many years since Luke’s departure, she got to her feet and wandered away from the house, seeking the solitude of the lower fields.
Dazedly she headed past the house and barns, across the gardens to the wood that bordered the fields. When she first arrived at the farm she’d often come this way to mourn her mother in private. She felt as if she were mourning Luke now, for if he meant what he said, she would likely never see him again.
An overwhelming sense of loss descended on her at the thought of never falling asleep in his arms. Never again knowing his touch on her skin, seeing his smile or his beloved face. She felt as if she might break apart, as if every step she took were the last she would ever take.
Without realizing where she was going, she found herself in the place where she’d held her father as he died in her arms. She fell to her knees, seeing her father’s face as the life passed out of it, and then Luke’s face, his expression hard and unforgiving, before he rode away. When the tears came it was with such force that they shook her, her sobs tearing through her as if they would never stop.
Which was why she didn’t hear Nathan until it was too late.
“Hello, Rose.”
Rose looked up, horrified to see Nathan standing over her, his face haggard, his clothes and hair dirty and disheveled.
Unsteadily she got to her feet. Her heart, which had seemed a moment ago all but dead, began to race.
“That was quite a trick you played on us. Only my mother suspected you were so conniving. The amusing part is that my charming stepbrother isn’t so lucky after all. You aren’t quite the prize we both thought you were.”
“Why are you here?”
“I should think that would be obvious. I know who you are now, and after witnessing your little tiff with Luke, it’s clear you know what I’ve done. I could hardly just let you go without first having a little chat about it.”
“Tell me why you did it,” she demanded, her fists clenched at her sides. “Why kill him?”
“You can’t imagine how much pressure I felt when Jonas asked me to meet with the widow. All I wanted was to prove that I could do as well as the exalted son I heard so much about. I made the miserable journey here just as he asked, but before I reached the house I ran into Peter Stratton.”
Rose felt lightheaded as he spoke. She knew what came next, knew she couldn’t change what happened, and yet she wanted with everything in her to hear a different ending. Nathan looked up as a sob tore from her throat, but his gaze was abstracted and indifferent to her suffering. He continued on.
“Before I even had the chance to introduce myself, he told me he was sorry I’d wasted my time coming all that way out. Nothing I said made a difference. He cared nothing for the money we’d lose, the plans we’d made. I picked up the rifle that was leaning against a tree and threatened him, thinking to scare him into selling, but even that didn’t work. A moment later he was lying on the ground, bleeding before my very eyes. I don’t even remember pulling the trigger.”
He looked at her then. “If he’d only agreed as he should have, none of it would have happened.”
“You killed my father on his own land and you dare say it was his fault? I see no remorse in you, no regret. How do you live with yourself?”
“Oh, I felt both remorse and regret at first. But I soon realized what useless emotions they are. They change nothing. And oddly enough, after a time I found what I’d done almost liberating. I had already done the worst by taking a man’s life. What I did after that hardly mattered.”
A bolt of fear pierced through her horror and fury. He was looking at her with speculation, and it struck her that he was in more command of himself than she’d ever seen him.
“You may as well go now and leave me in peace,” she said. “The sheriff paid me no mind before, and Luke doesn’t believe me. You have no reason to fear me.”
“Oh, but I do. Your precious husband may still put two and two together, and then Jonas will become involved. No, it’s far too risky to go back to Boston. Besides, this is the perfect opportunity for us.”
“If you think I’d have anything to do with you –”
“You’ve lied and deceived everyone around you for months. You even swore before God to love another under false pretenses. I’d say we’re perfect for each other.”
Bile rose in her throat at Nathan’s portrayal of her. She backed away from him, her mind whirling as she tried to work out a way to escape him.
“Come now, Rose,” he said, closing the gap between them and grabbing her wrist. “You know I can’t simply let you go.”
A chill coursed along her spine at this.
“You’re hurting me,” she said, trying to pull away from him. His grip tightened.
“I won’t hurt you if you do as I ask. Come with me,” he said, directing her towards his horse.
“Yes, of course. But I must tell my aunt or she’ll wonder where I am,” she said, hoping to get free of him. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll just be a moment.”
“No, that won’t do at all. I’m afraid I can’t let you go and risk losing you again, not after all I’ve been through. You can send your aunt a note when you’re settled.”
Rose looked at Nathan’s burning blue gaze and saw there was no reasoning, no way out.
Without looking back, she ran toward the house, hoping her aunt was not yet returned. Her wet skirts clung to her legs, hampering her, and her corset restricted her breathing. She ran until she felt as if she would faint, her heart pounding in her ears, her breathing so labored she could hear nothing else.
She didn’t get far. Nathan caught up with
her in seconds, jerking her back by her hair and spinning her around until she faced his maddened eyes. She tried to wrench free, but he only twisted her hair tighter until she cried out. Desperately she fought, twisting and lashing out.
She heard a furious yell from the woods and then Jeremy came out of the trees and launched himself at Nathan, knocking him off his feet and sending Rose tumbling to the ground. Looking up, she saw with surprise that Jeremy had gotten the upper hand and was punching Nathan with all he was worth. Rose moved to help but Nathan, recovered from the surprise attack, threw Jeremy off and regained his footing. He kicked the boy hard in the side and Jeremy curled himself into a fetal position, wheezing for breath.
Sickened, Rose flew at Nathan, and the next thing she knew was a blinding pain across the right side of her face. Dimly she realized he’d hit her, hard enough that she would have fallen over had he not grabbed her. When she looked up he was pointing a gun at her.
Would this be her fate, to die by his hand? For surely a man who had killed once might do so again, perhaps more easily the second time.
Numbly she did as he insisted and climbed onto his horse until she sat astride, her sodden skirts clinging to her chilled skin. She thought she might scream when he climbed up behind her and, reaching around her, took hold of the reins. She looked over at Jeremy, terrified he was too hurt to get up, but he stirred and rose shakily to his feet with a groan. He took a few steps after them and fell to his knees, rising again with a cry as Nathan urged the horse into a gallop and out of sight.
Chapter Fifteen
Luke rode hard at first, pushing Arturo to full speed along the trails, as if he could outrun his thoughts. But gradually he realized how risky and foolish it was to make his horse run full out on such wet and dangerous footing, and at the start of a long journey as well.
And his thoughts could not be outrun. They raced from one memory to the next. Rose in bed, her flaming hair cascading over her shoulders and onto his chest, the feel of her as he moved inside her. Her silken depths, her sighs and moans. Rose opening the books he’d given her, full of yearning and anxiety. Rose beaming with pride as her students performed Shakespeare. Then he pictured her rifling through his papers and the feeling of betrayal was so intense he could hardly see.