Refining Emma

by Delia Parr

  She smiled. “I’m not thoroughly unreasonable.”

  “Only occasionally,” he retorted with a laugh and left her to enter the tavern to find Mr. Gray.

  Half an hour later, Emma was chilled to the bone. Her feet were numb. So were her hands, despite the leather gloves she wore. She had spent the first twenty minutes waiting outside of the tavern, sending away two potential customers who wanted to see the panther.

  The last ten frustrating minutes, however, she had spent arguing her concerns with Mr. Gray. A massive man, he towered over her, and his girth matched his impressive height. He probably would have taken the box of coins, spewed his outrage at her audacity for having dismissed the boy he had hired, and sent her away without a second thought, had it not been for Zachary Breckenwith’s very lawyerly presence, although he had kept his word and held silent.

  “In sum, madam,” Mr. Gray concluded, “while you might disagree with me from now until Judgment Day, there’s little you can do to stop me. I paid the bounty. The animal belongs to me. No one has the right to stand in a man’s way to earn a profit, as long as he’s within the confines of the law,” he snarled, casting a disgusted look at Zachary Breckenwith before staring down at Emma again.

  She held his gaze and stood her ground, refusing to be intimidated by his size or his glower. “Even if that profit comes at the expense of a helpless animal?”

  “Profit is profit,” he spat. “When a man’s family is hungry, he has to feed them.”

  “And exactly what profit do you expect you might lose in the next day or two, which is probably all the time that animal has left?” she asked in a steady voice.

  His eyes began to glitter. “Between viewing fees and the like, not to mention the tendency of the curious to come inside the tavern for a bit of refreshment and to hear tales of the animal’s capture . . .” He scratched the side of his head with one of his fleshy fingers. “I suspect I might earn thirty dollars. Hard cash.”

  She swallowed hard. The sum was outrageously exaggerated, and she had no way near that amount in her purse. “I’ll pay you fifteen dollars if you’ll agree to sell the animal to me.”

  Mr. Gray tightened his hold on his coin box. “Fifteen dollars? In hard cash?”

  She nodded.

  “The panther is yours.”

  She held back a smile and turned toward her escort. “Mr. Breckenwith, I wonder if I might ask for your help.”

  He edged closer.

  “I need to get to the bank to make a withdrawal. While I’m gone, would you be kind enough to draw up a bill of sale for the panther?”

  “Yes, of course, but I wonder if Mr. Gray would be willing to accept a note for fifteen dollars, payable no later than tomorrow. I’d be happy to deliver the funds for you before I leave. You’d find that acceptable, would you not, Mr. Gray, out of deference to Widow Garrett, who has been standing out in the cold for a considerable period of time.”

  “I . . . I would. Naturally, I would,” the man sputtered.

  “Thank you. I’ll meet you inside in a few moments and we’ll take care of the necessary paper work.”

  Without another word, Mr. Gray turned and went back inside the tavern.

  Zachary Breckenwith smiled at Emma. “I shouldn’t be very long. Will you be all right waiting here in the cold again, or would you rather I take you back home first?”

  “I’d like to come inside with you,” she countered. “While you’re drawing up the papers with Mr. Gray, I think I should see if I can recruit some of the men inside to destroy the panther and take it back to Hill House, where I can be assured it’s been buried properly; otherwise, I’m afraid that poor animal will be exploited, even after death, with any number of people willing to pay for a piece of fur or something,” she explained.

  “Think about what you just said,” he urged. “Your plan has some merit, but in the end it’s self-defeating.”

  “My plan is perfectly good, but your objection is self-serving. You’re just bound and determined to keep me from going into that tavern.”

  He stepped aside. “Enter as you wish, although I caution you to consider something first. The men you might recruit inside to bury the animal, which is going to be no easy task with the ground frozen, are the very men who would be tempted to return later to dig it back up to get any sort of morbid treasure they might want from the carcass. That’s why your plan is self-defeating.”

  Deflated by his argument and miffed she had not fully thought through her idea, she had no choice but to admit he was right. “I assume you have a better plan.”

  He smiled. “In point of fact, I might, but I’ll need your help and I’ll need to know more about where you think you might bury the panther back at Hill House.”

  As they had planned together, Emma waited for Zachary Breckenwith in the woods behind Hill House near a narrow trail where it crossed the northernmost end of Main Street just beyond the town limits. In the distance, beyond the stark, barren woods, softened only by copses of candlewood and other evergreens, the frozen canal waited for spring.

  Directly behind her, the woods were thicker with candlewood trees, which created a barrier between the roadway and the gazebo centered on the grassy plateau nestled at the base of the rose gardens that bordered the granite steps that led up to Hill House.

  Shivering, she looked up at the thick gray cloud cover that blocked the late-afternoon sun. The temperature had dropped significantly since midday. The air was still and expectant.

  Snow was coming.

  Both blessing and curse, snow was definitely coming.

  Emma hugged her gloved hands together at her waist and walked back and forth behind a pair of massive candlewood trees to keep warm. In the several hours since she had parted company with Zachary Breckenwith, she had returned her mount to the livery and made her withdrawal at the bank before heading for home.

  If she had not stopped at the General Store to have a chat with Mr. Atkins and warm up a bit, she never would have been able to withstand the cold for so long. She never would have gotten a tidbit of news that was bound to both gladden and irritate the two elderly matchmakers waiting for Emma at home, either.

  Grinning to herself, she was not sure which tidbit to announce first—Mr. Atkins’ news or the tale of how the panther had come to be buried at Hill House.

  The moment she heard a rider approaching from the north, she stopped in her tracks. She peeked around one of the trees, recognized him immediately, and hurried into view to wave to him. “Over here. The trail is over here!”

  Zachary Breckenwith headed directly toward her with a smile on his face. Behind him, a shovel rested on top of a long, narrow canvas sack that straddled the horse’s rump. The closer the man got, the more she could see evidence that he had been able to carry out the initial phases of the plan they had devised together.

  The front of his winter coat and his trousers were filthy, his gloves and boots caked with dirt. Though his shoulders slumped, his gaze, however, was sharp and alert.

  When he was but a few yards away, he reined up, dismounted, and brushed what he could from his outerwear.

  “Did you have any trouble?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t describe the crowd this whole affair attracted as troublesome—just curious. Digging the first two graves in frozen ground wasn’t easy. I do hope you were serious about that dry creek bed. I’m not sure I can dig another hole.”

  “You dug two graves?” she asked a bit incredulously.

  “The first one is just south of the old toll collector’s cabin. For good measure, since I convinced Gray to sell me all of the canvas he had, I had enough to fashion three sacks and rode a little farther south to dig another hole. Then I crossed the canal, skirted west around town, and crossed the bridge over the canal just north of here.”

  He stopped and grinned. “I doubt anyone who tried to follow me will have the energy to get past that second grave. If they do, they’ll continue looking south, not here.”

&nbs
p; “I hope so. If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you the way to the creek bed,” Emma said, anxious to be done and back inside out of the cold. Zachary walked alongside her, holding the reins so the horse followed behind him. “At least I had the opportunity to warm up a bit. You must be frozen.” Remembering the money she had withdrawn from the bank, she handed it to him.

  He slipped the money into his pocket. “Not really. Between the physical work of digging as much as I did and riding a good ways, I’m fairly comfortable. I’ll see that Gray gets his money on my way home,” he promised and looked up at the overcast sky. “There’s a snowstorm coming. That should help keep our tracks covered and the real grave hidden for a good while.”

  “Snow usually accumulates fairly quickly. You may have to delay your trip,” she noted as they followed the trail back toward Hill House.

  “I hope not. In any event, if I leave at first light and head south, I might be able to outride the worst of the storm before heading east.”

  Emma knew him well enough not to argue, but she decided to press him on another matter. Curious about his original plans for their outing today, she smiled up at him as they continued walking along the trail. “Can you tell me where we were going before we got sidetracked at the tavern?”

  He shrugged. “I could, but since I’m still planning to take you there, I don’t believe I will.”

  “Then it’s a secret,” she offered, growing more curious.

  “No,” he countered, “it’s a surprise.”

  She stepped over a branch that had fallen into the trail in front of her. “There’s hardly a difference between one and the other.”

  He chuckled. “I beg to argue, but there is. It’s a surprise because I’m the only one who knows where I wanted to take you today. If it were a secret, we’d both know, but no one else would.”

  She pursed her lips. “I should have known you’d enjoy yet another opportunity to play with my words. You’re not going to tell me where we were going, are you?”

  “Not today. It’s a surprise, remember?”

  She sighed, spied the outline of the see-through tree that stretched a good thirty feet into the air, and pointed to her left. “If we leave the trail up ahead by that see-through tree, the creek bed isn’t far.”

  “A see-through tree?” he questioned.

  “The oak tree that appears to have two trunks. That’s the see-through tree. I suppose it’s hard to see from this angle,” she explained. When they got closer, she hurried ahead and around to the right side, where she waited for him. “See? It’s one single trunk. There’s just a huge hole in the center, like a window. From this direction, you can literally see through the tree.”

  He poked his head inside the opening, glanced around, and shrugged. “I’m surprised the tree can survive like this, but I can imagine any number of critters who might want to hole up here in a storm.”

  “Probably,” she agreed, wondering if the chickens had found this hideaway when they had escaped from the panther. Anxious to get to the task at hand, she led him off the trail and through the woods. When they reached the place she had in mind, she stopped and drew in a long breath. Beneath the canopy of barren branches and evergreen candlewood trees overhead, pine needles and broken tree limbs littered the dry creek bed. The air was laced with the heady scent of timber and pine. “Will this do?” she asked.

  “This will do,” he murmured. After tying up the horse, he made quick work of clearing a section in the creek bed, untied the canvas sack, and laid the panther’s body in place. When he started breaking up the frozen soil along the creek bed to cover the canvas, he nodded toward a number of dead tree limbs. “If you could collect some of those, along with some pine needles, we can cover the dirt.”

  She did as he asked and lugged several tree limbs over to the site while he finished shoveling the dirt. While he positioned the tree limbs, she used her cape as an apron and filled it several times with pine needles she dropped on top of the branches.

  By the time they finished, there were so many pine needles stuck to her woolen cape, she was not sure she would ever get them all out. Her gloves were stained with dirt, but working hard had helped to warm her up. She glanced at the panther’s final resting-place with a heavy heart.

  “What’s wrong?” Zachary asked as he moved to face her. “I can’t imagine that anyone will be able to tell there’s anything buried here.”

  Emma sighed. “I can’t help thinking that this was all my fault. If I hadn’t rushed outside that night, I’d never have seen the panther. And I never would have sounded the alert if I had had any inkling of the suffering that poor animal would have to endure.”

  “You had to alert everyone,” he said. “That animal posed a very real threat. Someone could have been killed or badly hurt.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself,” she whispered. When she looked up at him, she found his gaze was both gentle and understanding. “I’m so grateful for your help today, and I really should apologize. I’m afraid I quite spoiled the plans you made for our outing today.”

  His gaze became so tender, he almost took her breath away. “I wanted to spend my afternoon with a spirited but very kind and very good woman,” he countered. “And I did.”

  She held his gaze but a moment before she dropped her eyes, warmth filling her cheeks.

  “There will be other days and other outings we’ll share together as soon as I return,” he promised.

  Silently, Emma made a promise to herself to hold him to his word . . . if only to discover whether or not she could spend the rest of her life with this spirited, very kind, and very good man.

  24

  AFTER ZACHARY BRECKENWITH LEFT to deliver the money to Mr. Gray, Emma entered the boardinghouse through the front door. Instantly she knew that unless she literally secreted herself in her bedroom, enjoying any semblance of privacy at Hill House was a bit like trying to find peace and quiet during the Founders’ Day celebrations last fall—difficult and tedious and nigh impossible.

  She had scarcely shut the door behind her when she encountered the Masseys and Reverend Glenn sitting together in the west parlor. Judith Massey smiled and waved to Emma. “Did you enjoy your afternoon with Mr. Breckenwith?”

  “Very much,” Emma replied.

  “As soon as you’re able, do come and tell us all about it,” the young woman urged.

  “I will,” Emma promised, not quite sure how much or how little she was willing to share about her remarkable outing. After removing her soiled gloves and bonnet, she stored them on the oak rack just inside the door and savored the heat coming from fires burning in the parlors on either side of her. Once she noticed all the pine needles still stuck to her dark green cape, she simply removed the garment, turned it inside out, and folded it over her arm to carry out to the kitchen for brushing.

  “Widow Garrett! You’re back,” Malcolm Lewis noted, calling out to her from the east parlor he was sharing with the Ammond brothers. His gaze was both curious and anxious for details. “I trust your ride went well?” he asked.

  “Very well,” she managed, nodding to the other two men who were listening with rapt attention, “but I’m afraid I need a hot cup of tea to warm up.”

  “I don’t doubt it. When you have a moment, I’d like to show you the hallway design. I finished sketching it earlier this afternoon.”

  “Mr. Burke wasn’t sitting for his portrait?”

  “He insisted on starting the suit of clothes he promised to make for me. Just be careful of the scaffolding in the hallway. I moved it a bit,” he cautioned.

  “I will,” she promised. Carefully she made her way down the hallway and slowed down to skirt the scaffolding. As anxious as she was to see the contraption removed, she had yet to decide exactly how to tell the artist she could not, as a matter of good conscience and fiscal prudence, allow him to proceed with his plans to stencil the hallway without being certain she would be here long enough to enjoy it.

  She cleared
the scaffolding but had barely passed by the center staircase when the library door opened and Orralynne Burke poked her head out. “I thought I heard your voice. My brother and I wish to speak with you, but you seem to prefer prolonging your outing with Mr. Breckenwith instead of seeing to your responsibilities as proprietress,” she noted sourly.

  “As you know, I had an appointment with my lawyer,” Emma retorted truthfully. He was, in fact, her lawyer, at least until tomorrow. “If you like, I can stop in the library to speak with you both once I warm up a bit.”

  “Yes, but don’t be too long. It’s close to time for supper, and my brother has needs that must be tended before we eat,” she snapped and shut the door.

  Ignoring the woman’s rudeness, Emma proceeded to the dining room, where Liesel was busy setting the table for supper.

  The young woman stopped, looked at Emma, and grinned. “Mother Garrett and Aunt Frances have been in the kitchen for over an hour waiting for you to return, but I told them you probably wouldn’t be home until closer to supper. Ditty thought you might even have supper with Mr. Breckenwith at his home, but I guess she was wrong, too. Would you like me to hang up your cape for you?” she asked as she laid out the last of the silverware.

  Emma shook her head. “It needs a good brushing first,” she said, wishing she could dispel the notion that absolutely everyone seemed a bit too preoccupied with how she had spent her afternoon.

  To be fair, Zachary Breckenwith had made no secret at dinner that they were spending the afternoon together. To be honest, she found it unsettling to find both the guests and the residents and staff so interested in the details, except for the Burkes, who typically only thought about themselves.

  A loud crash overhead made Emma flinch, and she glanced up at the ceiling. “If I hadn’t been proved wrong lately, I’d suspect Ditty might be having a problem upstairs.”

  Liesel frowned. “Actually, Mother Garrett sent her up with the warm water and linens for Mr. Burke’s room. He prefers having them brought up before supper,” she explained as she set out the last of the utensils. “I’m finished here. Would you like me to go up and see if Ditty needs help?”