Sophia let go of Nicholas and scurried backward.
The men froze. Their unreleased anger pulsed through the room. Nicholas slowly lowered his clenched fist. Neither man spoke. Sophia’s heartbeat thumped in her throat.
Sugar spilled from the cup Lydia held. “I don’t know what this is about, but I won’t have it in my office.” She pointed at the open doorway. “Both of you must leave this instant.”
Nicholas stomped out first. Sugar crackled beneath his boots. James glanced from Lydia to Sophia and then walked out too.
Lydia set the half-empty sugar cup on her desk and turned to Sophia. “Are you all right?”
Sophia stood with her hands clutched to her chest, waiting for her breath to settle. “I—I’m all right.”
Lydia leaned out the doorway and looked toward the road for a moment then closed the office door, shaking her head. “What was that about?”
Sophia swallowed air. “Me.”
“You?” Lydia’s countenance hardened as realization set in. “They were fighting over you?”
Sophia wanted to look out the window to see if James and Nicholas had left the property or were still fighting or had made amends, but the disappointment emanating from Lydia kept her eyes on the floor. “James came to talk about the other night, and Nicholas walked in while we were talking. He heard… something that upset him.”
Lydia crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Something? What did he hear?”
Sophia wanted to answer, to defend herself, to say it was all a misunderstanding. Her tongue swelled inside her mouth. It did no good to make a defense. People never listened. They yelled. They hit. They locked her in the cellar, but they didn’t listen.
Lydia sat at her desk and pointed at the chair beside it. “Have a seat.”
Sophia obeyed and wished she could speak as confidently as any other woman would but no words came.
Lydia propped her elbows on her desk. “Sophia, I need to be able to trust you. I can’t do that if you aren’t honest with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What happened here the other night that upset Nicholas?”
“James kissed me.” Her voice broke as it always did when she had to defend herself to someone in authority. “And Nicholas asked me to court him.”
Lydia’s confused brow crinkled. “At the same time?”
Sophia almost laughed. “No. While I was in the kitchen boiling water, Nicholas asked me to court him. I didn’t accept his offer, so I don’t know why he came here today.”
“And James?”
“He kissed me later that night. The gray leaf tea made him anxious, and I was talking to him to calm him, and he kissed me. It didn’t mean anything, and neither of us said anything about it until now.” Raindrops began to rap the windows. “After James dropped off Revel today, he came out here to apologize to me. That’s when Nicholas walked in. He became upset when he heard James had kissed me.”
“So I saw.” Lydia paced to the window and peeled back the curtain, gazing toward the road. “Sophia, I work very hard to protect my reputation and the reputation of this cottage. Do you know why?”
Sophia chewed her bottom lip while she waited for the doctor to answer her own question.
“Because it is important as a physician to keep the workplace professional, especially as a woman. If this cottage gets a dubious reputation, people won’t come here for medical care.” She dropped the curtain and turned. “The fact that a patient kissed you and you said nothing about it would have ended your training if you weren’t showing such dedication to research. I don’t want to let you go, but I have to do what’s right for the village and—”
Sophia shot to her feet. “Dr. Bradshaw, I promise I wasn’t behaving indecently.” She replayed the incident in her mind, searching frantically for anything she could have done differently. “I stayed with James like you told me to, and I talked to him and tried to comfort him, and he kissed me but that was all. It was out of nowhere. I got up and went to the desk, and he fell asleep on the patient cot. He came here today to apologize, and I forgave him and nothing would have come of this and no one would have known if Nicholas hadn’t walked in. He’s the one who—”
Lydia held up a hand, halting Sophia’s defense. “I know. But that’s how rumors are born. I will have to dismiss you over this if word gets around the village. When I took on a pretty and available young woman as my assistant, I didn’t realize the cottage would be crawling with fighting tomcats. It isn’t your fault, and we never talked about it, but you must keep your… man friends away from this office.”
“Man friends?”
Lydia walked back to the desk, and her worry lines softened. It was slight but enough to give Sophia hope. “If men want to see you, please arrange to meet them in the village or after church or even in the house… anywhere but here, please.”
It was never her intent to have a man come to see her in the first place. She would agree to anything to keep her job and her home, anything to never have to go back to Alice’s house or, worse yet, her parents’. “I’m truly sorry, Dr. Bradshaw.”
Lydia nodded. “I forgive you personally and I must do what is right professionally. I will take this into consideration when I prepare your evaluation at the end of your trial period. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lydia sat at her desk again and reached for her silver pen. “You aren’t chained to this office. When you need to socialize, go out. Just don’t let this happen here again.”
* * *
Nicholas wadded his quilt in a ball and stuffed it inside his bulging knapsack. He’d been nothing but loyal to that rat of a shepherd—even saved his life—and how was he repaid? By his chances with Sophia being ruined. The second James had her alone, he made a move on her and crumbled Nicholas’s future. Now there would be no sweet courtship or afternoon wedding or lifetime of protecting and providing for an adoring family. And it was all because of James’s disloyalty.
Nicholas cinched the cords of his knapsack then stomped out of the shepherds’ cabin and into the night. One of the herding dogs ran toward him from the rain-soaked yard near the Foster house. Water streamed off the rim of his hat as he looked down at the dog. “Not now, Dutch. I’ll be back in the morning. I promise.”
“Wait!” James yelled as he hurried from the barn.
Nicholas tightened his grip on his bag’s shoulder straps and marched toward the road. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“Then just listen.” Boots sloshed in the puddles behind him. “You can’t leave like this.”
He charged ahead. “I can and I will.”
“You owe Everett a proper resignation.” James caught up to him. “He has been good to you. You can’t just leave the farm without giving him notice.”
“I’m not quitting the farm. I’m moving to my house in the village.”
James was silent and matched Nicholas’s pace despite the rain and darkness and uneven turf. “I wasn’t making a play for Sophia. I went there today to tell her I was sorry about the other night.”
“Good for you.” He spat on the ground rudely close to James’s feet, just like his father used to do to him when he was mad.
James halted abruptly. “You don’t deserve her.”
“How dare you?” Nicholas turned on his heel and leveled his gaze on James. “I saved your crummy life, and you used the opportunity to take advantage of that precious woman.”
“It wasn’t like that,” James jabbed the air with a finger, “and if you had listened to either of us, you would know the kiss was a mistake.”
Nicholas’s forehead burned beneath his hat. “You betrayed me.”
“I’m not your problem.”
“I trusted you.”
“Look, I’m sorry for what happened with Sophia. If you don’t want to be around me anymore, leave after the wedding. Will two days be insufferable? And come Monday, I’ll be moving the flock to the western pastures
anyway, so I won’t even be around here for a while.”
“I don’t want to sleep under the same roof as you for another night.”
James held up both hands. “Forget it. I was trying to protect you from making a mistake by slinking off in the night, but if you want to act like a child, I can’t stop you. Go ahead and disappoint Everett two days before his wedding. Give Bethany something to worry about right before she gets married. Make a mess out of nothing.” He flipped a hand in resignation. “Do what you want. I’m going inside.”
Nicholas stared at the muddy road, barely visible in the dark. Rain pelted his hat. He was wet and tired and hungry. There was no food at his house in the village or warm water. It would be dark and leaky. And Everett didn’t know what had transpired today. Yet. He would soon as would Bethany and Mrs. Foster.
If he left like this, the Fosters would tell the Colburns and then Sophia would find out. She would be disappointed in him. More disappointed. That would be worse than spending one more night in the same cabin as James.
Dejected, he turned from the road and slogged back to the shepherds’ cabin.
Chapter Seven
Bailey scanned the shadowy space between the brick buildings as she knocked on the alley door of Eastern Shore University’s botany lab. During the quarter hour she had phone service during the night, she’d called Timothy Van Buskirk, her former botany professor and the one man she trusted in this fallen world. Though the call had been connected, every other word was eclipsed by the white noise of the faulty network. Still, she was sure he’d said to meet here today.
In the morning light, her arm cast a thin shadow on the door’s flaking paint as she knocked again. When there was no answer, she checked the knob. Locked.
She walked to the faculty parking lot. Professor Tim’s compact electric car was parked precisely between the faded white lines in the otherwise empty lot. As she turned back to the building, the lab door cracked open.
“Bailey,” Tim called, waving her back to the lab. He stepped away from the door and sunlight gleamed off his head’s bald upper third.
“Sorry I’m early. I still leave enough time for traffic. Old habit. I only passed two moving cars during the drive out here. It’s like a ghost town.”
“It’s like that everywhere.”
“I’ll never get used to there being so few people.” She clipped her keys onto her backpack as she stepped into the musty lab. All but one of the steel worktables had been pushed against the far wall. A sleeping bag covered mattress now filled the space between the laminate cabinets and Professor Tim’s book-strewn desk. She looked into her former teacher’s bloodshot eyes. “Are you living here now?”
“I got tired of going home to a looted house… an empty looted house.” He turned the deadbolt on the lab door until metal clicked harshly into metal. “I’d rather be here when I’m not in the city for PharmaTech. The lab’s electricity stays on more often than it does at home. Plus, I can access a couple of online news sites and I get my pick of the showers in the gym.” He mocked an adoring glance around the florescent-lighted space. “What’s not to love?”
The antique-filled bungalow he’d shared with his wife and teenaged sons before the war was a palace compared to living in a laboratory on the empty university campus. If it weren’t for his work, he would have nothing left. She unzipped her backpack and withdrew a bag of peanuts. “Then consider this a house-warming gift.”
The professor grinned, raising the edges of his gray mustache. “You always were my favorite.”
“Me or the peanuts?”
“Both!” He laughed a throaty chuckle as he set the bag on a stack of botany books on his desk. Then he opened his palm to a plastic chair. “Now tell me, what is this PharmaTech project you were talking about last night before the phone service went out?”
“The job isn’t with PharmaTech. The guy who came into the bar yesterday said he saw my name on a PharmaTech list of plant biology researchers. He needs more information on a specimen before he signs his project with PharmaTech.” Bailey lowered herself into the plastic chair beside Tim’s desk. “His name is Justin Mercer. Have you heard of him?”
Tim tapped a few keys on the computer. “No, but I went through the file he sent me.”
“File?”
“It came through in a message on my phone right after our call was disconnected last night. Strangest thing too because I didn’t have any phone service.” Tim pushed his wire-rimmed glasses higher on his nose. “I’m still going through the information he sent. So far it’s all Accomack land records and genealogy.”
“His genealogy?”
“Nope. Yours.”
“Mine?” She thought back to the barrage of awkward information Justin Mercer had dumped on her at the bar yesterday. “He said something about my ancestors settling in Accomack three centuries ago.” The ever-present desire for connection floated to the top of her heart. “Do you think he might know someone from my family?”
Tim shrugged and pointed at the screen. “Your new friend highlighted this Colburn ancestor here… eight generations back. Walter Colburn born in eighteen hundred.”
Bailey scanned the information on the screen then chuckled. “Hey there, Great-Grandpa Walt. Let’s do Christmas at your house this year.” She tried to ignore the pull inside her. “Look, this is interesting and all, but I don’t need relatives. I need a better job.”
He took a hand off the keyboard long enough to pat her shoulder. “Hang on, Bailey. There’s more… Walter had two sons, George and William. You are descended from George Colburn.”
As his fingers danced across the keys with more verve than he’d displayed in years, a cockroach scampered past Bailey’s feet. She curled her legs onto the chair. “Great. Maybe Grandpa George will join us for the holidays too.”
“It’s not your George he wanted us to notice.” Tim wagged a finger. “It’s William Colburn.”
“My—what was it—seventh-great uncle?”
“He and his family disappeared—”
“Not surprising, if you know my relatives.”
“William Colburn, a minister, and his family disappeared from Accomack County in December of eighteen-sixty. That’s why Mr. Mercer’s file includes these.” Tim expanded a document on the screen, revealing scans of ancient-looking handwritten documents.
Bailey squinted as she tried to read the Spencerian scroll. “What’s that… the old Constitution?”
“No, it’s a county administrator’s report on the simultaneous abandonment of property by eight Accomack families, including Reverend William Colburn’s. People were leaving the area in droves to go out West at the time, but this report says a schooner owned by Weathermon Shipping was seen being boarded by the Colburns and the other families, including the wealthy Ashton family of Chincoteague.”
Bailey checked the time on her phone. Justin had said if she wanted the job, to be at his Norfolk address by eleven. No matter how badly the little foster girl inside wanted to track down William Colburn’s descendants and connect with her distant relatives, she didn’t have time to waste. “What does this have to do with PharmaTech and me and researching therapeutic biologicals?”
Professor Tim leaned back in his chair and removed his eyeglasses like he used to in class when students asked difficult questions. For a moment, Bailey thought she’d stumped him. His mustache twitched and the slow grin reached his eyes. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”
Chapter Eight
The wagon bench vibrated beneath Sophia as she rode to the chapel to help decorate it for Bethany’s wedding. The bumpy ride made it hard to think. Revel Roberts drove too fast and veered at impulse. The Colburns’ horses twitched nervously as they obeyed Revel’s haphazard commands. She almost said something to him but decided it was preferable to endure the ride than criticize someone she’d just met.
Not only was James’s gallivanting older brother unlike him in spirit, but also in appearance. While James’s thin build
and longer hair bespoke a shepherd who spent weeks in the fields, Revel’s hulking forearms and sunburnt brow hinted at rogue and risky professions. She sent him a sidelong glance. “What sort of work do you do, Mr. Roberts?”
“This and that.” He grinned, creasing the tanned skin at the outer corners of his eyes. “And my father is Mr. Roberts. Call me Revel.”
“Very well, Revel.” She returned his easy grin. “Is it hard to find work doing this and that?”
“Not for me.” He clicked at the horses as they pulled the wagon across the cobblestones in the village. “I’ve worked on farms and boats and trade wagons. I even spent a summer feeding the furnace for a glass blower.”
“It sounds like you lead an interesting life.” The jarring ride gave her voice a vibrato. She looked back to check the crates of flowers in the wagon bed. Their water-filled vases were cushioned with rags, and the crates were packed between painted trellis parts. A few petals flew in the air behind the wagon. “How long do you plan to stay with the Colburns?”
“Hard to say.” Revel lifted his chin at the busy churchyard ahead. “It looks like we’re the last to arrive.”
Connor was carrying a ladder to the landing at the top of the chapel’s stone steps where Lydia’s two older sisters, Adeline and Maggie, were unwinding ribbon. Mandy leaned against the black iron railing at the bottom of the steps and rubbed her pregnant belly while her mother, Roseanna, tied ribbon into fluffy bows. A brood of Colburn children ran around the churchyard, playing hide-and-seek.
People were flowing in and out of the chapel with hammers and mops and streamers. Lydia descended the steps, carrying little Andrew on her hip and a wad of gauzy blue fabric in the other arm.
Revel chuckled. “Half of the Land’s population must be Colburns, and every one of them came to Good Springs for the wedding. I guess I’ll be sitting on the empty side of the chapel with Everett’s family tomorrow.”
“I’ve seen plenty of Fosters in town this week too.”
“Good Springs must be the place to be.”
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