“I can see that,” he ground out.
“Why don’t you ask her to dance? I don’t like the way that Cavendish boy is monopolizing her,” Amy said.
“Monopolizing?”
“Yes, he’s had at least three dances with her. She seems to like him.”
“He can’t be more than twenty years old,” Josh snapped.
“Old enough to take a wife.” Tom smirked. “Wealthy enough to support one, too.”
Josh swung away. Between the two of them, they’ll have me in the lunatic asylum.
He stalked across the floor to the refreshment table. Fruit punch or coffee were the only drinks available. I might have known, with Mrs. Cavendish being a member of the Temperance Society. He could just about kill for a whiskey.
He picked up a sandwich, and munched on that. The sickly cakes and jellies turned his stomach. He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms across his chest. Dang, why had he even bothered to come to this shindig? Not to watch Edwina flirting with all these young bucks. Cavendish was holding her much to close. Hell’s bells, her head almost rested on his chest.
Anger exploded inside him. He marched through the swaying throng. “Must be my turn.” He tapped Cavendish on the shoulder then elbowed him out of the way for good measure. He took Edwina into his arms, and was shocked when she stiffened away from him.
“What did you do that for? I was enjoying myself.” She tossed her head. “You had no right.”
“Didn’t I?” He pulled her close as they waltzed. The scent of her, intoxicated him. “You look very fetching.” Inwardly he gloated because she had now become pliant in his arms. They fitted together perfectly, swayed and sashayed as one. They were an imposing couple. Hell’s bells, what was wrong with him?
“Tom came up to the cabin the other day and told me what happened at Simon’s place.” His breath moved the loosened tendrils of hair on her forehead. “You’re not safe to let loose, either of you. What on earth possessed you?”
“Possessed me?” She stopped waltzing and glared at him. “Would you have preferred me to stand by and let those creatures kill Simon?” She twisted away from him, but he grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her back into his arms.
“I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I meant the pair of you are a magnet for trouble. Thank God you were there.”
She softened in his arms, and daringly he rested his chin on her hair, at this very moment he didn’t care what people thought. “You certainly have an admirer in Simon.” A good thing the man was in his fifties, and past courting women. “He went on and on about how he’s never seen shooting like that before.”
“Pa always said I inherited the gift of having a good eye. Tom set up a target for me, so I practice to hone my skills.”
The music stopped, and Josh realized they were the only couple left out on the dance floor. “Looks like supper time.”
He placed his hand under Edwina’s elbow, and escorted her over to the food. The smell of sizzling steaks reminded him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, except for a stick of beef jerky, and a couple of biscuits around midday.
“Like a steak?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you. A small one.”
Josh picked up two plates and joined the queue. From the corner of one eye he saw Edwina walking over to sit next to Amy.
“You don’t want to be spooning with that gal unless you mean it.” Tom thumped him on the back, and he almost dropped the plates.
“Spooning? We were merely dancing.”
“Didn’t look thataways to me.”
“Hell’s bells, you’re getting as bad as Amy. I am not getting hitched.” He snatched up a large steak for himself, and a small one for Edwina. Scooping up a pile of fried potatoes, he gave her half a dozen, and kept the rest for himself.
It had been a dang fool thing coming here tonight. Talk about adding fuel to the fire. Edwina’s eyes sparkled, her lovely smile lit up her face, and he suddenly hated himself for giving her hope that he might have changed his mind about marrying her. When it came to women he was obviously as slow as molasses in January.
“Here we are.” He tried to sound cheerful.
The hopeful light in her eyes was doused, the wounded looked returned, and her shoulders slumped. He didn’t know how, but she knew what he was thinking.
“I’m sorry, Edwina,” he whispered. “I can’t seem to fight off these demons of mine.”
“I understand.” There was sincerity in her voice, but she didn’t really understand. How could she when he didn’t understand it himself? He hoped Amy wouldn’t start on him right now, because he was like a cornered bilge rat, ready to strike out.
The succulent steak suddenly tasted foul. He forced it into his mouth, and chewed it over carefully. He had ruined the night for both Edwina and himself. He sat with them for a few minutes more then stood. “I’ll be staying the night at the farm, but I’ll be leaving for the cabin at first light. Goodnight, ladies.” He strode from the barn.
Chapter Eight
Two days after Thanksgiving, Eddy changed into her buckskin trousers and coat so she could go for a ride. Joshua had not shown up for Thanksgiving, much to Amy’s disappointment.
Tom encouraged her to get away from the house for a while. “I’ll stay around here for the rest of the day with Amy. Simon can do the milking this afternoon on his own if you’re late back. It will give me a chance to do much needed work around here.”
“Thanks Tom, as long as you’re sure. If you want me to stay with Amy, I will.”
“No, you go off, you deserve a break,” Amy said. “Tom can keep me amused.
“I sure can darlin’.”
Eddy wore her buckskin coat and trousers whenever she went riding. With her hair pushed under her hat, unless anyone came up close, she could easily pass for a youth. Safer for getting around and, oh, the freedom it afforded.
As always, she promised Tom and Amy she would stay near the main road at all times. They didn’t put it into words, but she knew they were reminding her of the Nesbitts. As if she would go anywhere near those vile creatures. The hand gun she wore securely tucked in her belt, and hidden by her coat, added to her confidence. She could look after herself if the need arose. Hopefully, it wouldn’t.
The morning frost was still on the ground when she set out. A couple of apples and two biscuits in her pocket would stave off any hunger pangs should she be late back for lunch. Mabel, she didn’t know why she had chosen that name for the mare Tom had given her, was happy to canter along. Eddy had no desire to gallop. She wanted to relax, take in the countryside, and contemplate her future. One without Joshua in it.
Could she stay with Amy and Tom? Risk seeing Joshua, knowing he would never marry her? Could she withstand the torture if he were to wed another? Maybe he wouldn’t. He was adamant he didn’t want to get ‘hitched.’ He made the institution of marriage sound like a prison sentence. Returning to Tennessee was still an option after Amy had the baby and regained her health. As for Boston, she would never set foot in that city again.
Eddy suddenly spotted a pile of rags near the side of the road. About to ride past, she noticed a slight movement. She reigned Mabel in and dismounted. Dashing over to the object, she was shocked to find child.
“What are you doing here?”
A small, pinched face, framed by matted brown hair turned toward Eddy as she squatted down beside the child, a little girl of about six or seven years old.
“I be lost.” The child’s teeth chattered, shivers racked the skinny little body. She looked half starved.
“I’m Eddy.” She picked up the little girl’s hand. It was ice cold. “What’s your name?”
“Lizzie.”
The child wore only a ragged long-sleeved dress in a dirty brown color. Her little bare feet were blue with the cold, and by the abrasions on the soles, she had been walking for some time
“Are you hungry?” Eddy pulled a biscuit from her pocket. The child snatched it out of her ha
nd, and gobbled it down. The second biscuit quickly followed the first one. Poor Lizzie was starving.
“How long have you been lost?”
“Since morning I fink. Me snuck into Pa’s wagon and hid under the beaver skins. He be going to sell them. I jumped off to pee and hurt here.” She touched the side of her head. “When I woke up Pa be gone.”
“Where do you live?” The poor little mite must be terrified. I have to get her home somehow, it would be criminal to leave her out here alone.
She pointed to a mountain that looked as if the top had been sheared off. “We be the canyon people. I be Lizzie Nesbitt.”
Eddy’s mouth dried up, fear clogged her throat until she almost choked on it. She couldn’t go near them. Didn’t want to go near them. Jeb and his brother had threatened to kill her. What could she do? Think Eddy, think. Lizzie was sobbing now.
“I wanna go home. Wanna go home.”
How could she leave the child out here all alone, at the mercy of the elements? The canyon was three or four miles away. Lizzie’s lacerated feet wouldn’t carry her that far.
If I take her to the farm, Tom would have to take her home, and he probably wouldn’t fare much better than me. I’ll take her somewhere close to the canyon, perhaps fire a couple of shots in the air, so someone would come out. If she rode off straight away, she could be well clear of the area by the time they came out to collect the child. It was the best idea she could come up with.
“I’ll take you close to home, and drop you off, then you should be able to walk from there.” To make it easier for the child to walk, Eddy ripped a couple of strips from the bottom of her chemise, and bandaged the child’s badly lacerated feet.
Lifting Lizzie on to the horse, she swung up behind her, and picked up the reins. Exhausted, the child slumped against her, and Eddy hated herself for being glad her hair was pushed up under Tom’s hat. The child’s hair was probably riddled with lice.
“Will your ma be worried about you, Lizzie?”
“Ma be dead, granny be worried. Pa gonna whup me. I not allowed to leave the canyon.”
Eddy urged Mabel into a fast trot. She wanted to drop the child off and return home as quickly as possible so as not to worry her friends. Amy carried the baby low now, and according to the birthing book they had studied, this was a sign the birth would be soon.
Mabel trotted along now. Fortunately Lizzie was a light weight. The closer they came to the mountain top, the more fearful Eddy became. She kept touching her gun for reassurance.
On either side of the dirt track, the area was wooded. Directly in front of them, the lowest portion of the mountain was devoid of vegetation. For a width of a hundred feet or so, it looked like a huge hole had been gouged out and some sort of poison had leached into the ground killing every living thing. Even in winter, the earth look baked, desolate. She could not see any entrance in the rocky, creviced walls.
“I won’t go any closer. Can you find your way home from here?”
She nodded. Eddy dismounted and lifted the little girl down, and the child limped up the barren stretch of hillside, clambering over the boulder strewn ground.
Lizzie stopped, turned around and waved, before disappearing through one of the crevices gouged into the hillside.
Wheeling Mabel around, Eddy galloped off. A sudden pain shot through her head, and she had the sensation of flying.
***
Eddy woke up. Her skull ached, and her vision was blurry. What was that foul smell? She blinked several times to clear her head. She heard a loud groan, but barely recognized the guttural sound as coming from her mouth.
“She be awake, Ma.” Eddy wouldn’t have believed even in her worst nightmare she would hear that voice again.
“C’mon, Jeb, she can be my woman. Ya got four wives, I only got one.”
A toothless old crone shuffled over to her. “Here, gal, drink this.” The gnarled, weather-beaten hand held a dented tin mug to Eddy’s lips, and she gulped down the brackish tasting water.
“What ya name, gal?” the crone asked.
“She be Eddy.” Lizzie pushed her way through the two men and received a cuff across the ear from Jeb.
“Git,” Jeb snarled, “or I’ll whup your hide good.”
“You leave Lizzie alone, she’s all I got left of my Susanna.” The old woman swatted him with a short handled broom made from reeds tied together. “Is this the gal what helped ya?”
“Yeah, granny, she done help me.” Lizzie peered into Eddy’s face. “She be Eddy. Her fell off her hoss?”
“Nah! I shot her,” Jeb boasted.
“Should of killed the bed faggot while you got the chance,” the other man said. “She done saved that nigger…”
“Shudup,” Jeb snarled. “You ain’t got no brains Zeke.”
“What ya mean, saved the nigger? What ya boys been up to?” The old woman shook a fist at them.
“Nothin’, Ma,” Jeb said, and Zeke vigorously nodded his head in agreement.
Eddy opened her mouth to tell the old woman what her sons had done, then clamped her lips together on seeing the crazed menace in Jeb’s eyes.
“I wanna have her for a wife,” Zeke whined, stabbing his finger at Eddy who couldn’t decide which of the two she detested the most. They had to be the most revolting men she had ever encountered. Dirty, smelly, long matted hair and beard. They had no redeeming features whatsoever.
If only her head didn’t throb so badly, but the fog was slowly lifting from her brain. Escape was paramount. Instinct warned her, if she didn’t get away soon, she would be stuck in this purgatory for life.
“Call me Ma. Ya hungry, gal?”
“No thank you.” She tried not to gag on seeing the revolting stew-like muck being slopped on to a tin plate. Lizzie’s hand shot out for it, though.
“Gimme some, Ma,” Jeb said.
“Ya got wives, let ’em feed ya. And no-one touches this gal until Pa gets back.” She shook the spoon at them, splattering some of the stew on to the earth floor.
“He be gone ten days.” Jeb glared at his mother.
“Too bad. Pa decides what happens to her.”
Eddy’s blood ran cold. What if… She would kill herself rather than submit to these animals. She glanced around, making note of her surroundings. This hovel had a window and a door, also a stone fireplace. Skins covered the earthen floor in some places, also the walls. No furniture except for a couple of wooden boxes. A pile of skins in the far corner of the room where she lay, was obviously the sleeping quarters.
Lizzie stopped eating long enough to peer into Eddy’s face. “Ya gotta sore head?”
“Yes.”
“Pa hurt Eddy’s head.” The child glared at Jeb.
Bile rose up in Eddy’s throat, pungent and bitter, and she had to swallow it down. Lizzie’s mother and father must have been brother and sister. She dry retched. What kind of fiends were these people?
Jeb raised his fist to punch Lizzie but Ma stepped in front of the child. “Ya leave this little angel alone. Ya Pa is gonna hear about this. Now git.”
The men stomped off.
“Jeb and Lizzie’s mother are brother and sister?” Eddy croaked the words out before she could stop herself.
“Half,” the old woman grunted.” Lizzie now sat on Ma’s knee with her thumb stuck in her mouth.
“What do you mean half?”
“I be Jeb’s stepmother.”
“Even so, you let him marry your daughter?”
Ma spat on the floor, and Eddy shuddered. “He forced himself on her. Pa gave him a whupping when he found out, but it was too late, she already be breeding. She was only thirteen, too young to birth Lizzie proper, and she died. Jeb killed my Susanna. She the only gal child I had. I’ll make him pay one day,” she vowed. “Even if it kills me.”
“I’m sorry.” Eddy didn’t know what else to say. If he raped his sister, what would he have in store for her?
“Please, Ma, you have to help me get away from h
ere.”
“Can’t.” Ma glanced at Lizzie. “She be asleep. She not be strong, weak in the chest. Wouldna lasted long out there on the flats.”
“You owe me for saving her, you know you do.” Eddy hated herself for using a child as a bargaining chip, but she had to escape from this evil place.
“I can’t do nuthin’ ‘til Pa comes back. He’d skin me alive if I let ya go. We don’t have no outsiders here. That way this place stays hidden.”
“But it wasn’t my fault. I was unconscious. I don’t know the way in.”
“Everyone here is kin.” Ma got up and carried Lizzie over to a pile of skins, and gently put her down, covering her with a blanket made from two sheep skins stitched together.
Would Pa be as evil as his two sons? Would he show her any pity? Or would he leave her to the mercy of Jeb?
Ma shuffled over to the fire to throw on a couple of logs. Because they were wet, they sizzled on hitting the flames. This place was a hovel, but at least it was warm. From the look of the sleeting rain, it would be freezing outside. She poured out two mugs of coffee and handed one to Eddy.
“How many sons do you have?” Eddy asked. Her only realistic hope of escape was getting the old crone on side. Dirty, smelly and rough as bags, nevertheless she had been kindly enough. Had sent her stepson packing, and was obviously devoted to her granddaughter.
“Six livin’ five dead,” she said.
“Oh.” Eddy stifled a shocked gasp. “Where are your sons now?”
“They be at the Swapping.”
“Swapping!”
“Once a year, all the women of child-bearing age, who ain’t already breeding, travel to the springs. They spend a week there being mounted by men from another clan.”
“What!” Eddy couldn’t believe she heard right.
“I give them a special potion to make sure it be their fertile time. Most are breeding by the time they get back here.”
“What do their husbands have to say about it?”
The situation was becoming more hideous by the minute. Multiple wives, sleeping with members of another clan just to impregnate women. Eddy listened in fascinated horror.
Ma cackled. “They be too busy mounting women of the other clan. Been too much inbreeding ya see. Swapping fixes that.” She picked up a clay pipe, lit it with a glowing twig from the fire, and took a couple of puffs. “The men don’t complain. A different woman they can mount as often as they want. Some women come back here hardly able to walk, they been mounted so hard.”
Edwina: Bride of Connecticut (American Mail-Order Brides 5) Page 8