Aaron rubbed at his eyes. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Well, it’s what happened.” Jimmy’s jaw moved as if something were stuck in his craw.
The boy’s words weren’t matching how he was holding himself. Jimmy was the kind of hooligan who’d think nothing of spitting in a person’s face, and yet he couldn’t even look up. “Lies will only catch up with you.”
He shrugged. “You’ll believe what you want to believe.”
It was one thing to try to force him to obey, but another to coerce a confession. He sighed. “We might as well get cleaned up while Mr. Ragsdale packs your things.” He grabbed the boy’s shoulder.
Jimmy winced and jerked out of his clasp.
His shoulder didn’t look dirty or scorched. “What’s wrong?”
“Your shirt rubbed me.” The boy twisted his arm up to look at the skin above his wrist, revealing a reddened, blistering patch.
Aaron shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me you got burned?”
The boy let his arm drop. “Figured you’d say I got what I deserved.”
“If it was an accident, why would I say that?”
Jimmy remained silent, his facial expression hard.
Intentional fire or not, nothing could be done to undo the repercussions. All they could do was move forward. He turned Jimmy toward the barn. “Let’s soak your arm in some cool water, and I’ll see if Mr. Ragsdale has any ointment.” Hopefully Mr. Ragsdale’s neighbor had left some water in the trough.
A horse-drawn fire truck pulled in, followed by Mercy. She pulled the pony up short as the firemen headed for the smoldering haystack.
She ran straight for them. “Oh, I’m so glad you stopped the fire. They took forever to get here!”
Aaron smiled at her running toward them. If only she were racing over because she was worried about him.
She stopped in front of Jimmy and squished his face between her hand and arm. “Are you all right?”
Once he nodded, the worry on her face transformed into a tense scowl. “What did you do?”
Jimmy wrenched out of her grip. “I didn’t do anything.”
Aaron rubbed the back of his neck and pushed Jimmy gently toward the trough. “He won’t admit to anything, but whatever happened, he’s already living through some of the consequences. He’s got a burn we need to tend to.” He pointed toward the water. “Put your arm in there. It’ll feel better until I can get you some salve.”
The boy surprisingly obeyed without protest.
Mercy scanned the field, her eyes narrowing as she took in the firefighters’ activity. “Where’s Mr. Ragsdale?”
“Inside, packing Jimmy’s things.”
Mercy jerked her head toward him, and he could only shake his head as she slumped.
“I’ll go apologize to him.” She turned for the house. “It was our fault since we forced Jimmy here.”
He grabbed her shoulder. “No it wasn’t.”
Even if they somehow deserved some of the blame, letting Jimmy believe so would only make him less likely to own up to his misdeeds.
She stepped from his grasp but didn’t head toward the farmhouse, just stared at Jimmy as he held his arm in the water. She sighed. “Perhaps I need to fetch the police?”
Jimmy’s eyes went wide.
“Uh, no.” Though there was a possibility doing so might scare Jimmy into rethinking his life, Mercy was one of the few people who might have a chance at earning this boy’s trust. “He says it was an accident. One that most likely could’ve been prevented if he’d behaved correctly, but an accident.”
She frowned. “You believe that?”
He wanted to. He sighed and blew out a breath, keeping his eyes on Jimmy. “Mr. Ragsdale might not, but I . . . choose to.” Maybe if he gave Jimmy the benefit of the doubt, the boy would start acting correctly to earn it. He turned to Mercy, who looked so uneasy he nearly reached out to pull her close. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Ragsdale if he’s got burn ointment?”
She nodded and headed off.
Once Mercy disappeared into the house, Jimmy looked at him. “Why are you sticking up for me?” His voice cracked, and his expression fought to stay hard despite how his throat worked overtime.
Perhaps Jimmy really hadn’t done anything malicious. “Because I believe you.”
“You do?” The boy’s voice was so incredulous, Aaron nearly laughed.
But instead he maintained his no-nonsense expression. “I do.” Someone had to or Jimmy was lost.
Jimmy’s arms shook. From the cold water or from someone believing him?
Squatting beside him, Aaron waited for Jimmy to look at him again. “You might not like Mercy or anybody else at the mansion, but it’s not because of anything they’ve done to you. I know. I once hated everyone because I couldn’t stand myself. But let me tell you, if you scare off all the people remotely interested in helping you, you’ll be miserable your whole life—just as miserable as you are right now.”
Aaron swished his hand in the water, wishing it could wipe away the guilt that still plagued him. “I know how it feels to believe nothing but misery awaits you in this life, but that’s a lie from the devil. And hurting others will never make up for the hurt someone caused you.”
Jimmy tilted his chin. “Who said anyone ever hurt me?”
They stared at each other for a while, and the boy’s gaze never faltered.
There were probably plenty of people born into this world who were mean for no reason, but even if Jimmy was one of them, that didn’t mean no one should try to talk him out of it. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll still be miserable if you hurt the people who care for you, because you’ll be alone in your hatred.”
The boy stared at his arm in the water.
What had it been about Mr. Gray that had made Aaron reconsider how he’d behaved? It had been so long ago, he couldn’t exactly remember. Maybe Mr. Gray had just been the right person at the right time. Or maybe there’d been a supernatural hand at work. “You might feel like you’ll lose who you are or end up failing more if you try to be better, but real change can happen. God helped me change. He can help you.”
Jimmy refused to look at him.
Aaron held his sigh as he put his hand on the back of the boy’s neck and squeezed gently, hoping at least the reassuring touch, even if shrugged off, might help him realize someone understood and wouldn’t give up on him.
God, please help me get this boy to see your light before he lands himself in jail.
18
“No, no, no, no, no—”
Splat.
Mercy grimaced as the Lowes’ infant son threw another handful of mashed potatoes on the dining room floor with a giggle.
Patricia sniffed and resituated her napkin on her lap. “And that is why babies should be fed in the kitchen.” Though she was muttering under her breath to Timothy, who sat beside her, no one at the table could’ve missed hearing.
Lydia turned to Patricia with a sigh. “As I said, the nursemaid is sick.”
“Gah!” Jimmy jumped from his chair and wiped at a glop of potato now decorating the side of his face. “That went in my ear, you varmint.” He turned to glare at Jake, who had no misgivings about slathering his own head with potato.
Robert burst out laughing.
Lydia took Jake out of his high chair. “I’m sorry, everyone. Please tell Nicholas I won’t be eating with you tonight.”
Patricia huffed and took a sip of tea as Lydia left with her children. “What was she thinking?”
Mercy grabbed a roll. “She was only trying to accommodate her husband’s desire to eat with his wife.”
Lydia did most of her own parenting, but Miss Rivers, the nursemaid, usually fed the children in the kitchen while Lydia ate with the adults.
Jimmy snarled as he dug the potato out of his ear with a napkin.
Timothy eyed the boy from across the table. “If you’re going to act like an animal, you’ll be asked to leave.”
Mercy shook her head. Prior to the Lowes’ moving in, Timothy rarely took dinners with them, but now he was there every night, playing table-manners dictator.
Nicholas walked in with a frown. He pulled out his chair but stopped before sitting while a maid placed a plate in front of him. “Where’s Lydia?”
“Miss Rivers is sick, so she’s with Isabelle and Jake in the kitchen,” Timothy answered.
Nicholas’s face fell, but Mercy’s heart couldn’t help but warm a touch. Not since the death of her parents had she seen how special a love between a man and a woman could be. Timothy and Patricia’s lovebird days had been over for some time.
“I wish she didn’t take Jake away.” Owen let out a giggle and looked at Nicholas. “He’s got good aim. You should’ve seen the potato fly into Jimmy’s ear.”
“Couldn’t have happened to a better person.” Robert sneered.
“Shut up, you—”
“Enough, Jimmy.” Timothy hit the table, clattering his and Patricia’s silverware. “If you can’t keep your mouth shut while we eat like civilized people, you will eat in your room.”
Jimmy opened his mouth wide, showing off the food he was chewing.
“Now, Jimmy.” Mercy held back her sigh. Could they not have one conflict-free dinner? Jimmy had been doing so well after he’d returned from Mr. Ragsdale’s, but her brother’s attempts to appear as if he’d always been in control were rubbing Jimmy the wrong way. “We want you to stay—”
“No, we do not want children who act like animals at the table. Go to your room.” Timothy stood and dropped his napkin. “Just because the women let you get away with this kind of behavior doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate it.” He pointed toward the doorway.
Jimmy eyed him for a second but then shrugged and left the table. Timothy followed.
Oh dear.
Nicholas watched them walk out the door before taking a deep breath.
He’d been watching her brother closely the past few days, but Timothy hadn’t seemed to notice. Did Nicholas know about her brother’s trips to the district? Surely not, for wouldn’t he have fired him? Maybe he was just realizing the lot of them had no parenting skills whatsoever.
Nicholas scooted closer to the table. “Have we said grace?”
“Yes, sir,” Max said, then looked down at the book he had open beside his plate.
“No reading at the table.” Patricia glared at Max.
Patricia had never complained about his reading before. Mercy rubbed her forehead. Must everything with her brother and sister-in-law be some sort of show for Nicholas?
Max looked at Patricia, then Mercy.
She nodded slightly. No use provoking her sister-in-law.
Thankfully, Max didn’t complain or point out Patricia’s inconsistency and closed his book.
Patricia grabbed her fork and knife and beamed a smile toward Nicholas. “And how was your day, Mr. Lowe?”
He looked up from the prayer she’d likely interrupted, heaved a sigh, and pulled his napkin off the table. “Long.”
“I can sympathize. Today has been quite taxing.”
Mercy covered her snort with a cough. Turning her head to cough again, she composed herself. She supposed it had been quite the day for Patricia, considering she’d watched the youngest children while the other ladies in the house attended the moral-society meeting before taking a trip to the library. The poor woman had to watch three children all on her own for two whole hours!
“I wanted to tell you I am enjoying your gardens immensely.” Patricia ladled out some gravy for herself. “They’re a little . . . wild, but lovely nonetheless.”
Mercy turned to look out the windows at those wild gardens Jimmy had started helping tend again. The flowers certainly weren’t growing wild from Aaron’s lack of trying. Most days, the whirring of the mower’s rotary blades didn’t stop until it was too dark to see.
If Patricia or Timothy had one ounce of Aaron’s dedication, well . . . Jimmy might’ve learned how to behave already. Everything good about Jimmy’s progress stemmed from Aaron working with the boy, not them. Timothy would’ve been better off sending Jimmy outside to Aaron than to his room.
She looked at Owen, who was quietly shifting around his mound of green beans. If Aaron was going to get to know Owen well enough for the boy to feel comfortable living with him—which might be soon with how her brother was behaving—he needed more time with the boy, but the grounds were his master. Surely Aaron wouldn’t agree with Patricia about how children should be seen and not heard at table.
She looked to Nicholas. “What would you say to Mr. Firebrook joining us for dinners?” She tilted her head toward Owen to let Nicholas know what she was thinking.
Patricia pshawed, then blotted her lips with her napkin. “Why would we invite staff to the table?”
Mercy looked at Nicholas, but he’d shoveled a mouthful of food into his mouth instead of reminding Patricia she was staff, just like Aaron.
Owen didn’t know Aaron wanted to adopt him, so she couldn’t remind Patricia of that now. “Mr. Firebrook seems to be having some success with getting Jimmy to obey—”
“Timothy’s in charge of the boys’ discipline, is he not?” Patricia’s voice was practically dripping with condescension. “He doesn’t need the gardener’s help.”
“I have no reservations about Aaron joining us.” Nicholas gave Mercy a tilted grin that slowly grew bigger. “Why don’t you invite him in?”
“Well, I . . .” Now? She squirmed in her seat.
“I think I hear Mr. Firebrook in the kitchen.” Robert spoke around a mouthful of food, unaware that Patricia glared at him for doing so.
“Feel free to ask him to join us, Miss McClain.” Nicholas’s eyes sparkled as if something about the idea gave him pleasure.
“Right now?” They’d already begun eating.
Max wiped his lips. “I wouldn’t mind asking him about tomorrow’s work. He’s been having me graph functions, but I’d rather practice matrices.”
Nicholas looked at her with eyebrows raised.
She scooted back from the table. “All right, I’ll see if he’ll come.” It would be more embarrassing not to at this point.
In the kitchen, Lydia was having no more success in keeping Jake’s food off the floor than she’d had in the dining room.
Aaron was making himself a plate, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his arms still wet after washing up.
She cleared her throat, and he turned around. The smile he gave her was so wide it crinkled his eyes, but his grin quickly shrank, as if he’d realized he’d smiled too big.
“I, uh, came to invite you to the table, Mr. Firebrook, if you’d like. I . . . we figured you and Owen could use time together, plus Max has a math question.” Which she couldn’t reiterate since she had no idea what he’d been talking about.
Aaron frowned at his clothing. His shirt was damp, wrinkled, and dirty, along with being slightly askew under his suspenders. “I don’t have anything suitable to wear, and even if I did, I’m heading right back to work.”
“Oh, well . . . perhaps we could have Owen eat with you instead?” If he adopted Owen, the boy would no longer be eating in a fancy dining room.
He shook his head. “I don’t think forcing him to spend time with me would be a good idea. He’s barely talking to me at this point.”
Which was what she was trying to remedy. “What if we ate on the porch?”
“We?”
“Yes. If I ate with you, he’d be all right.” She looked out the windows since Aaron’s gaze was a touch too intense.
“That’s nice of you, but I don’t expect you to deal with the wind and insects for me.”
“But I’d rather eat with you.” Oh dear, that sounded like she wanted to eat with him . . . though she sort of did, just not like that . . . exactly.
He made no answer, and she turned to see his head cocked to the side as if studying a fascinating creature.
She shrugged. “I’m
sure Max and Robert would rather eat out there too, but since we’re doing this for Owen’s sake, I wouldn’t give them the option. Max can ask his math question later.”
Why did Aaron look sad all of a sudden?
“Unless you wanted Robert and Max to eat with you?”
He shook his head and took in a deep breath as he stared down at the plateful of food he held. “No, as you said, this is just for Owen.” He passed her, shoulders slumped, and exited through the servants’ door to the porch.
She ran a hand over her hair and exhaled. She’d expected at least a small smile for wanting to help him with Owen, but he’d walked out as if she’d hurt him.
Had he hoped she wanted to eat with him for another reason?
Knowing what kind of man he was now—maybe the man he’d always been deep down—he’d not have kissed her unless he liked her, just as Owen had said. But surely he’d changed his mind now after how she’d reacted.
“Eat outside?” Little Isabelle’s voice made her jump.
She turned to find the dark-eyed chubby girl looking up at her from her mother’s lap. Mercy forced herself to look at Lydia, hoping her cheeks didn’t look as warm as they felt.
“This might seem as if it’s coming out of nowhere,” Lydia started, “and perhaps it’s strangely personal, but my husband, at one time in his life, was terrible to his late wife. He says he treated her in ways I cannot fathom, knowing the man that I know now. I . . .” She turned to look down at the floor, as if looking for words. “I, of course, questioned if I could be with someone with such a history, but by the time he’d told me, I’d gotten to know him well enough to realize those mistakes and the turmoil that followed had formed the man I knew.”
Lydia looked back up and met her gaze squarely. “I barely remember Aaron from school—I was older and wrapped up in my own world—but Nicholas told me how Aaron once treated you.” She put her arms around Isabelle and pulled her closer. “I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would’ve been to believe Nicholas had changed if I’d been the one he’d hurt.”
It certainly was difficult to believe the George she knew was the Aaron getting ready to eat with the five-year-old he wanted to adopt in order to make up for how he’d once treated the boy’s mother. Mercy pursed her lips and had to look away from Lydia’s intense gaze.
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