A Reluctant Melody - Will she risk losing everything … including her heart?

by Ardoin, Sandra

  “Thank you, but it won’t be necessary. We can manage.”

  The other men settled their loads next to Kit’s and propped their backs against the wall. Mr. Cox’s gaze wandered up and down Darcy’s frame. After getting his fill of her condition, he turned away. His lip curled with disgust as though he had a right to judge her.

  Mr. O’Connor wiped his damp brow with a handkerchief. One corner of the cotton cloth hung in an awkward manner, torn from overuse. Joanna studied the man with the crooked nose and facial scars. Despite his rough looks, crusty demeanor, and proclivity for alcohol, she sensed a lonely man who wanted respect but didn’t believe it possible to attain. She sensed a kindred spirit.

  What motivated his offer to teach her techniques of self-protection? Given the incident with Liam yesterday, perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to learn ways to defend herself. At the same time, it would provide Mr. O’Connor a purpose in line with his former profession.

  Kit rubbed his hands together. “Well, we’re done. I suppose we should head back.” He continued to stand in the middle of the room looking like he’d misplaced the location of the front door.

  “You men must be thirsty. Darcy made lemonade.” Joanna grabbed the pitcher to fill glasses before Kit declined the offer. “I think we still have some of her peach pie. You’ll like it. She’s a wonderful cook.”

  For some reason, Joanna was as hesitant to let Kit leave as he seemed to be to go. Maybe she wasn’t sure how to say thank you without believing it a form of self-betrayal.

  The men each swigged a glass of Darcy’s lemonade, then Mr. O’Connor and Mr. Cox prepared to leave the house to return the two wagons to the livery. They got as far as the front door before Joanna stopped them. “Mr. O’Connor, may I speak with you?”

  He glanced at Howard Cox. “I’ll see you later.”

  Once the other man had gone, Joanna stepped closer and lowered her voice. “The other day, you offered to show me how to defend myself. Are you still willing?”

  For the first time, he grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then I’m willing to learn.”

  They arranged a private place and time to meet, and Joanna returned to the kitchen. If Liam ever bothered her again, she’d make him bawl like a baby.

  Kit watched Darcy as she toddled out of the kitchen. Joanna followed him to the sitting room. He perched on the edge of the settee while she sat in a nearby chair. An awkward silence filled the space between them. Since he’d glanced at Darcy several times while downing the pie and lemonade, Joanna waited for the same criticism she’d heard from Perry.

  “Is she unmarried?”

  “Yes.”

  He leaned forward. “Not many people would take an expectant, unmarried woman into their home, Jo. Your compassion toward her is admirable.”

  “But?”

  One eyebrow arched slightly above the other. “But what?”

  “But it’s not wise or responsible? It will hurt my reputation?” She almost laughed at the second question.

  His lips flattened, and he rubbed his forehead. “I meant only to relay my admiration for your courage. She’s in a difficult spot right now and needs a friend on her side. There was no other motive for my comment.”

  Joanna ducked her chin. Her over-sensitivity to the opinions of others had spoiled their amiable morning.

  Kit rose from the settee and crossed the room. “I should go.”

  She followed at a sedate pace. If he knew the root of her concern for Darcy, would he still admire her? This ascending harmony between them, if one could call it harmony, was still too brittle for her to want to find out.

  Someone pounded on the front door, and Joanna flinched. She passed Kit and opened the door.

  Perry stomped into the house. “Jo, I came to see if Carter’s story is true.”

  She winced at the deafening statement. In light of Kit’s unexpected benevolence, she had forgotten Mr. Carter’s mission and Perry’s generosity. “If you’re talking about the delivery of my furniture, Kit brought everything this morning.”

  Perry sneered at the suit coat hanging from a hook on the wall near the door where Kit had left it earlier. His face hardened into a flesh-and-blood semblance of the carved granite blocks lining the curb along the street in front of his house. “Where is he?”

  Joanna shut her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This promised to be one long morning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Joanna shut the hymnal and rose from the piano stool, gratified by the opportunity she had been given to play her cherished instrument again.

  For three weeks, with the exception of Sunday, she had walked into the music room to practice. On Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, she played the selections Ben chose that accompanied the theme of his short talk that night. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, she played for the entire household the classical selections she loved.

  At first, Joanna played the required hymns and left the room until needed again. Ben’s reasonable volume and the gentleness in his voice eventually persuaded her to stand outside the door and listen.

  It wasn’t long before she remained in the room while Ben talked to his congregants. He didn’t shout. He didn’t accuse them of vile transgressions. He conversed with them in a non-threatening manner that relayed his belief in God’s grace and mercy. Maybe the struggling inebriates would never be accepted by society, but they were accepted here, and so was she.

  On occasion, Joanna would approach Ben during the day and ask for an explanation of a passage she had read in the Bible he’d given her. He would clarify the scripture and then point her to various other verses that confirmed his answers.

  More and more, she felt in her soul that her father either lied to her about God’s refusal to forgive certain sins, or he was mistaken.

  Kit peeked inside the music room. “Ready?”

  “Let me get my hat and gloves.” In a jovial mood, Joanna tapped out a high C and smiled as she passed him on her way to the parlor.

  A month and a half earlier, Joanna would have berated anyone who suggested her heart rate would quicken with pleasure at the thought of a social outing with Kit Barnes. But since the morning Kit and Perry eyed one another in her sitting room like warriors prepared to battle, hardly a day passed when she and Kit had not spent leisurely time together. They strolled through the garden or sat on the veranda. They watched bursts of light from fireflies and listened to squirrels as they rustled through the underbrush. When he walked her home in the evenings, their minutes together felt like the honorable courtship she had dreamed of long ago.

  She pinned her hat on her head and met Kit in the foyer. He opened the front door for her. “Annie’s waiting outside with all the patience of a six-year-old.”

  Joanna stopped under the porte-cochere. “How do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Talk Rose into allowing Annie to go for ice cream so close to suppertime.” Joanna still hadn’t figured out how he had talked her into going with them today.

  “We bring ice cream back for Rose. Of course, by then, it’s usually melted.”

  Kit’s silver tongue had gotten Joanna into trouble once before. She shouldn’t give him a second chance, but where he was concerned, she had no more control over her response than ice cream had against the summer heat.

  Outside, Liam passed a scythe back and forth over the grass and gave the impression he paid no attention to them, but her experience said he knew every move she made. So far, the intensity of Kit’s watch over both of them kept him at a distance. She dreaded the next time Liam found her alone.

  Kit made no secret of the fact he no longer trusted Liam, but to question why he allowed the man to stay might lead her to reveal the blackmail and, worse yet, the reason for it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Joanna raised her gaze to Kit’s. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”

  He grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that, if you get any closer, you’ll walk
in my shoes.”

  She sidestepped. “Sorry.”

  “I wasn’t complaining.”

  Annie slipped into the space between them and grabbed each of their hands, pumping them up and down as she skipped down the drive with her freshly-brushed hair bouncing against her back.

  Kit glanced over his shoulder toward Liam. “One day, I hope you’ll trust me enough to tell me what happened on the Fourth.”

  Joanna had paid close attention to both Kit and Ben lately. In particular, she watched and listened to the things Kit said. For her, his actions spoke with more power than his words, but she wasn’t ready to bare her soul.

  As they reached the street, a surge of melancholy washed over her. To anyone watching, they could be mistaken for a happy family.

  ***

  The clock in the foyer struck with seven bongs. Kit waited in the front hall while Joanna, Annie, and Rose went through their nightly routine, hugging goodbye and acting as though Joanna planned a trip across the sea.

  Let her take her time. Every day she lingered in Banesville blessed him with another chance to prove himself trustworthy. Every day she lingered, his feelings for her grew deeper.

  He’d tried to show her the difference in his life and believed he was making headway. Too often, though, she held back both her feelings and whatever secrets she protected. Did they involve her relationship with Perry?

  A barrage of regrets assailed Kit. Resentment, envy, and anger had cost him dearly during his Philadelphia days. He couldn’t allow himself to be carried away with jealousy this time and let it exact its price while Perry accelerated his pursuit of Joanna.

  After their encounter at her house the day he delivered the furniture, Kit resolved to be more affable and less challenging when it came to Perry. The man didn’t make it easy, especially on days when he treated Joanna to lunch in town then delivered her to Kit’s door. One good thing happened. Between the two men, her reclusive tendencies were falling by the wayside.

  Once they were outdoors, she said, “You don’t need to walk me home every night, you know.”

  “If that’s the way you feel ...” He turned and took two steps back toward the house.

  Joanna grabbed his coat sleeve and yanked him to a stop. “Where are you going?” Her voice wavered with amusement. She slipped her arm around his and held on tight. She was different from the young, coy woman who made it easy for him betray his brother, but she still possessed the ability to dazzle him with an engaging smile. “You can’t leave me alone in the darkness.”

  “Never again, Jo. Never again.”

  They ambled past the park. A narrow sliver of moon cast a yellow glow across the water. Kit paused to stare at the pinpoints of light that dotted the blackness above his head.

  “‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. … O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth.’” Kit shut his eyes and whispered the final words, his throat tight with thanksgiving.

  “At times, I wonder why God bothered.” Joanna’s soft voice complemented the peaceful surroundings and contradicted the troubling words she spoke.

  “Because He loves us.”

  “Even when we’re not worthy of that love?”

  Kit’s heart may as well have been made of paper. She’d torn it in two with her question and his responsibility for its cause. He covered the hand she’d placed on his arm and issued a silent appeal for the Creator’s wisdom.

  “The death and resurrection of Christ makes us worthy. God’s grace is a gift, Jo. With our acceptance, the old sins—all the old sins—cease to exist in His eyes. We’re new creations.”

  “Redemption?”

  “Yes.”

  “My father teaches that certain transgressions cannot be forgiven.”

  Kit vacillated between loathing the spiritual perversion that deceived Joanna and loathing the physical perversion he’d committed that held her faith prisoner to that deception. “From what I’ve heard of your father, I think he distorts scripture to fit his own outlook on life.”

  She nodded. “You and Ben offer imperfect men the opportunity to change. They come to you in all physical and moral conditions, yet you don’t demand they be sober and respectable first.”

  “If that were the case, we’d be useless, and the house would be empty. God doesn’t demand perfection from us first, Jo. He perfects us through our faith in Christ.”

  She squeezed Kit’s arm in a way that communicated more than words. It spoke of her understanding.

  They rambled along the residential streets, carrying on frivolous conversation. For Kit, it hid an anticipation coiled inside, prepared to spring at the right time.

  Once they reached her porch, she pulled away, ready to leave him at the bottom of the steps. He stayed her with the clasp of his hand over hers and inhaled a fortifying breath, never this unsure of himself around a woman. “Jo.”

  “Yes?”

  Kit untangled a thread of courage from the fear balled in his stomach. “May I kiss you?”

  She said nothing for several agonizing moments, and he let her hand go. Was there a chance, or was she looking for a nicer way to reject him than he had once shown her?

  Her chin dropped. “I need more time, Kit.” She reached the porch in three heavy steps.

  Kit waited until she went inside and lit a lamp in the front room. Time. Even though she hadn’t agreed to a simple kiss, she hadn’t rejected the idea. She hadn’t shamed him for asking. He would give her whatever time she needed to see him as worthy of her affection—maybe her love.

  He turned and had journeyed halfway down the front path when she screamed his name.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Joanna dashed to the front hall from one direction and Kit burst into the house from another. He gripped her arms, and her neck jolted with the sudden stop.

  “What’s wrong?” Worry etched lines between his eyes, the kind of concern for her that she had longed to see on his face years ago.

  Joanna slapped a hand against her chest, which ached with the swift pace of her heartbeat. “It-it’s Darcy. Back there.” She pointed in the direction of the bedrooms.

  Kit paused in the midst of rushing around her when he caught sight of the sitting room. His hold loosened and his jaw slackened. “What happened here?”

  Joanna pushed away. No need to look at the upset chairs and toppled table or the papers and books strewn across the floor. The scene was imprinted in her mind. The bedrooms were worse. She pressed her hands together to control the shaking.

  He stared at the shambles in the sitting room. After another two-beat pause, he blinked away the dismay. Holding a lamp, Joanna picked her way through the mess to the second bedroom. Kit followed so close to her his warm breath fanned the sliver of skin at the back of her neck between her collar and hairline. His nearness provided the conflicting senses of security and anxiety.

  They found Darcy propped against the wall next to her bed. Her chin touched her chest, and her unruly hair covered her face. With the tip of his finger, Kit raised her chin and tucked the hair behind her ears to examine her face. Though both eyes were shut, the reddened area around the left eye bulged with swelling. He held his hand under her nose. “She’s breathing.”

  Joanna sighed with relief. “Will you fetch Mrs. Samuels? She lives across the street. Then, please find a doctor.”

  The low light from the lamp created shadowed hollows under his cheekbones. “I’m not leaving until I’m sure whoever did this is long gone.”

  Joanna waited with Darcy while he searched the five rooms in swift order.

  “I’m still not comfortable with leaving you here unprotected.”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s Darcy and the baby who should concern us. We can worry about what happened here la
ter.”

  Kit cupped the side of her face and ran his thumb over her cheek. “Be careful.”

  His reassuring touch tempted Joanna to close her eyes and enjoy the sensation, to beg for the kiss he’d wanted to bestow and let it soothe her fear. Instead, she forced her eyelids to remain open like those of a china doll, refusing to even blink. The feel of his fingers lingered well after he ran out the door.

  Now alone with an injured woman and a house torn apart by an intruder, Joanna pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at the trickle of blood running from a minor gash over Darcy’s left cheekbone. She felt along the back of the woman’s scalp and stopped at a penny-sized bump. Her index finger came away sticky with a spot of blood. “Who did this?”

  Could it have been the child’s father? Darcy had never mentioned a tendency for violence in the man. In fact, she’d said nothing but that he was married. Joanna hadn’t asked for more. If she had, could she have prevented what happened?

  While it unnerved her to think a stranger entered her house and produced this damage, her greatest concern was with Darcy’s baby. The woman wasn’t due to give birth for another week or so. What impact would the attack have on the child?

  A groan pierced the quiet of the room. Darcy’s eyelids fluttered open, and she stared at the wall behind Joanna.

  The clump-clump of uneven footfalls echoed in the hall. Mrs. Samuels hobbled into the room and gasped. “Oh, the poor girl.”

  Darcy bent over, grasping the bulge in her midsection. She squealed and began to pant. “Hurts.” As the pain faded, she relaxed against the wall.

  Joanna glanced at Mrs. Samuels. “What do we do?”

  “I’m guessing it’s her time. Let’s try to move her to the bed.”

  Joanna grabbed one arm and Mrs. Samuels the other. Together, they lifted Darcy with cautious movements and helped her to the mattress.

  “Your young fella went to fetch Doc Hazard. He lives the closest.” Mrs. Samuels caressed Darcy’s hand before limping toward the door. “Reckon I oughta heat a kettle of water to clean her up … and for whatever else’ll be necessary. Better make coffee, too. I think we got us a long night a-comin’.”