Louise tugged her skirt. “Clara, sit down!” she hissed. “The hymn is over.”
After Reverend Miggs pronounced the benediction, her sister immediately launched into speech. “You’ve been behaving strangely ever since last night. Willy said when he took you home you acted—and this was the word he used—moonstruck. He told me he couldn’t even provoke you into a quarrel.” With an impatient wave of her hand, she grabbed Clara’s arm and pulled her to the end of the pew, out of the way. “The dress worked, didn’t it? Everyone in town saw the way Dr. Har—” hurriedly she lowered her voice “—Dr. Harcourt’s attentiveness. Tell me, what did he say to you?”
“Louise, I’ve admitted the gown turned out very well, and I thank you. But if you think that entitles you to pry into any conversations I might have with Dr. Harcourt, I’ll tell you—again—they’re none of your business.”
“Piffle. Of course they are. I’m your sister. You like him. Don’t even try to deny it.”
“Of course I like him. So does every other woman in town, and all the men with whom I’ve chatted. Every person in Canterbury likes Dr. Harcourt. For once Albert deserves to gloat.” She smiled at several ladies from the missions committee, thanked them for their contributions to the Festival.
“Clara—Oh, botheration. Now Eleanor’s headed this way. I might as well try to stop a steamship. Very well. Mr. Eppling’s waiting for me, anyway.”
“Honestly, Louise. You’re marrying the man in four months. Can’t you refer to him as Harry, at least with me?”
“You know what Mother would have to say about that level of familiarity.”
“I know that for all our lives Mother has used convention and manners to distance herself from any form of familial intimacy with her children.” Frustration with everything—her sister, her family…with life—pushed through Clara in a strong gust of rebellion. “As a matter of fact, I think of Dr. Harcourt as Ethan. I might even ask him to call me Clara, since I’m thirty-one years old and quite capable of establishing my own set of conventions.”
For a moment Louise gaped at her, then she reached up and pressed a quick kiss against her cheek. “Good for you, sister. I shall take courage from you, and promise to at least call my affianced Harry when I’m alone with you.” After a brief but fierce hug, she slipped past, smiling at Eleanor but not stopping to speak with her.
Before Eleanor managed two sentences, several piano students surrounded Clara, followed by more townsfolk wanting to compliment her on the success of the Christmas Festival. By the time Clara extricated herself, promising to visit Eleanor later in the afternoon, Ethan was nowhere in sight. Hurriedly she fastened her coat, all but running down the now-deserted aisle to the church’s front doors, and almost ran smack into him.
“Whoa! Is the sanctuary on fire, then, Miss Penrose?” he teased, his hands steadying her shoulders. In her flustration Clara probably only imagined that his grip lingered before he set her free and stepped back. Eyes narrowing, he examined her with what Clara thought of as a physician’s analytical intensity. “Is something wrong?”
“I thought you’d left,” she stammered, stupidly. “I wanted to…I wanted to, ah…thank you for your help. Last night, at the Festival. With the gifts. It’s always a melee, as you saw…” Finally she corralled her tongue and lapsed into silence. Regrettably she could not corral her thoughts. Even now the memory of their closeness the previous night produced a surge of warmth. Under cover of all the joyful confusion she and Ethan had shared an unnervingly personal conversation. He had held her hand.
“It was my pleasure,” Dr. Harcourt commented easily. “Miss Penrose—Clara? Are you sure you’re all right? You’re flushed, and—” he hesitated, then added with slight smile, “—you’re not acting like yourself.”
“I know, and I despise myself for it.”
Flirting, she had instructed Louise since her little sister first let down her dress hems, was degrading to both parties. Honesty was preferable to artifice. Since Clara had spent the past twelve hours rehearsing the latter, either God wanted to administer a dose of humility, or He was indulging in a bit of divine comedy. Very well, then. She would try her hand at both honesty and artifice. “I did enjoy your company, last night—Ethan.” She fluttered her eyelashes as much like Patricia Dunwoody as she could manage, and summoned what she hoped was an inviting smile. “I look forward to seeing you this coming Thursday. Bertha told me that you’re joining the rest of our family for dinner with her and Albert. She tries hard to emulate my mother’s formality, but with my nephews and niece you’re more likely to feel like you’ve tumbled back to last night at the Festival.”
“I’ll try to look forward to the experience.” Perhaps it was only a cloud passing in front of the sun, but to Clara his face seemed to darken. “I must go. I promised to stop by the Browns’ after church, to check on Mrs. Brown and the baby.” After touching the brim of his hat, he turned and rapidly departed, disappearing around the corner of the church.
“So,” Clara murmured aloud, shivering a little in the nippy winter day, “was I too obvious, or too subtle?”
Scowling, Ethan climbed into the buggy, his scowl deepening because he was forced to shove aside several more envelopes, along with a brightly wrapped mason jar full of pickled cucumbers. He had never been the kind of man who believed he understood women, except from a medical perspective, and Clara Penrose was tempting him to go search out that band of outlaws in the Nevada Territory.
Last night she had been everything he’d ever wanted in a woman—and he’d come dangerously near to making a fool of himself again. He had felt safe with Clara. Free. Unlike most women, including and especially Lillian, Clara did not dissemble, or batter him with admiring glances and honeyed words.
Until today.
Ethan seldom swore, but he was tempted to now. What was she trying to do, anyway, batting her eyelashes like a professional floozy, flashing him those bright and utterly artificial smiles? On the church steps, of all places! And to think he’d been entertaining the notion of courting her. Angrily he rifled through the scattered missives beside him, thinking with the only portion of his brain still capable of rational thought that he needed to calm down before he visited the Browns. After sucking in a deep breath and holding it for a moment, he picked up the note on top and read the cheery Christmas greeting. By the time he made it through another two unpretentious notes he felt his pulse slowing down to a healthier rate.
Then he opened the envelope with the fourth note, and the hair on the back of his neck lifted as he removed the neatly folded vellum: Somebody plans to give you something special this Christmas. As with the other two notes locked in his desk drawer, there was no signature, no other greeting.
Had Clara been running because she’d slipped out the side door, left the note in his buggy, then dashed back out the front door to waylay him? The prospect sickened his gut. He wasn’t sure which of them suffered from a mental malfunction—Clara or himself—for believing she was capable of such aberrant behavior.
Enough, Ethan vowed to himself. He’d endured quite enough. On Tuesday afternoon, when he closed the office at noon, he would pay Clara Penrose a visit. In his thirty-seven years he had suffered enough from the clandestine intrigues of females to last thirty-seven lifetimes.
Tuesday, in the way of weather in this corner of Virginia, dawned mild, with skies the color of aged pewter.
“Rain by tomorrow,” Mrs. Gavis pronounced stoutly when Ethan finished his examination. “My shoulder’s set to aching. It’s never wrong when I get that ache.”
“Mm…” Ethan had learned which patients to coddle, which to lecture, and which few to simply agree with because he would never change their minds.
“You’re a bit down in the mouth today, Dr. Harcourt. Something besides my lumbago troubling you?”
“I’m fine,” he lied, courteously cupping her elbow as he escorted her down the hall to the door. “But I will take my umbrella tomorrow, when I do my rounds.
”
After Mrs. Gavis departed, Ethan turned off all the lights and, eschewing the buggy, set off for Clara Penrose’s cottage at a brisk walk.
A block away a woman watched from the one-horse trap she’d rented at the livery stable. Her hands, slippery and trembling, clutched the reins too tightly; the livery horse back-stepped, his tail swishing. The woman spoke to the animal, apologizing, then nervously edged the trap closer to Dr. Harcourt’s office after his tall figure disappeared around a corner several blocks down the street. Her movements clumsy with haste, she set the brake, secured the reins and, after climbing down, turned to pick up a large basket from the floorboards. The putrid odor of rancid fruit brought tears to her eyes. She darted several glances around to ensure that nobody was in sight before carrying the basket down the brick path, up onto Dr. Harcourt’s wraparound porch. One of the broad planks squeaked when she stepped on it. She froze, holding her breath. She’d never seen a servant loitering about the place on Tuesday afternoons. The daily maid he hired to clean and cook meals was allowed Tuesdays off, she’d discovered.
She was safe, if she hurried.
Carefully she set her gift down directly in front of the door, where he’d be sure to see it—or, perhaps better, to trip over if he returned after dark. After wiping her eyes, she reached into the pocket of her long overcoat and tugged out the note, which she placed between two brown-specked, soggy apples to ensure a breeze wouldn’t blow it away.
All the way back to the livery stable she sang, her heart pounding with victory and grief.
Chapter Six
Clara lived in a quaint stone cottage with tall brick chimneys at either end. She didn’t answer Ethan’s knock, but as he turned away from the door a slender cat with the most unusual markings he’d ever seen materialized from beneath a pruned-back rosebush at the corner of the cottage. Wide, myopic blue eyes appraised Ethan unblinkingly. Fascinated, Ethan knelt, stretching out his hand. “Hey, fella. What kind of feline might you be?”
As though his voice was a signal, the cat strolled over, sniffed Ethan’s hand, butted its head against the fingers, then commenced purring.
“You sound like a sawmill,” Ethan remarked, obliging the animal by scratching its seal-colored ears and then under the chin. “Where’s your mistress?”
The cat turned and whisked with silent grace around the corner. Slowly Ethan stood, dusted the knees of his trousers and followed, telling himself that the animal was not responding to the question, but for whatever reason had decided to run off. When he turned the corner he stopped, his mouth dropping open. Though it was winter, he could still see the gifted hand of a loving gardener everywhere he looked. Beneath several massive oaks, an English-styled garden had been laid out, with neatly pruned-back shrubs and mulched flower beds lying dormant, waiting for spring. The grounds were tidy, as scrupulously tended as Ethan’s examining rooms.
The cat waited for him in the center of an ancient flagstone path. When Ethan approached the friendly feline greeted him with a meow that was part growl, part purr and part an indescribable conglomeration of sounds that nonetheless emerged as though the cat were, well, speaking to him. Then it darted down the path, chocolate-tipped tail waving.
“Lewis Carroll must have used you for his model in Alice in Wonderland.” Smiling despite himself, Ethan trod along the uneven stones half buried in the ground to the rear of the cottage. An immense thicket of lilacs crowded the back corner of the structure. Peering around the branches, Ethan glimpsed a small shed, a large pile of composting leaves—and Clara Penrose. Her back was to Ethan, but he could hear her talking, and assumed it was to the cat until the animal burst from the lilacs, streaked across the dead grass and leaped into the pile of leaves.
“Nim! You are such a spoiled-rotten boy! Bad kitty. You know this is the first time I’ve been out here in a week.” She picked up the cat—Nim?—and despite the scolding hugged him close. “Go along now, and let me have a few more moments. Methuselah was about to provide some illumination, I believe. I haven’t perfected turtle talk, so you’re just going to have to be patient.”
Methuselah? Turtle talk?
Head shaking, Ethan stepped around the lilacs. “I’m afraid Nim’s not the only one you’ll need to scold.”
She’d been sitting on a crude bench, and sprang to her feet so rapidly the cat panicked. With a hiss and a yowl Nim catapulted from Clara’s arms, then vanished behind the garden shed.
“Sorry I frightened everyone,” Ethan began as he walked over to her. “I knocked on your door first. You didn’t answer, but your butler showed me back here.”
“I don’t have a butler. Oh…you mean NimNuan.” She grimaced. “He’d be insulted if he heard himself relegated to the status of a servant. He’s a new breed of cat known as Siamese. It’s my understanding they were originally bred by royalty to guard the temples of Siam. A friend of our family knows the British Consul General. The King of Siam gave him a breeding pair of the animals. Nim’s descended from them, and he takes his royalty seriously.”
“I’ll humbly beg his pardon the next time I see his majesty. Here—what’s this?” He dropped the banter and reached for Clara’s arm. “Don’t flinch away. I’m not initiating an improper advance. But you have a scratch on your neck, courtesy of your royal cat Nim—Noon, did you call him?”
“NimNuan. It means supple and graceful in Siamese, despite what you just witnessed.” She drew in a sharp breath as Ethan took hold of her chin and turned her head so he could examine the scratch. “I—It’s nothing, I’m sure. He’s usually very careful not to use his claws on people.”
The skin beneath Ethan’s fingers felt soft as a newborn’s. The chin he held, however, was an uncompromising one and her eyes, the same dark bitter chocolate as her cat’s paws and ears, searched his with alert wariness. He reminded himself forcefully that this woman might have left him three very disturbing anonymous notes over the past two weeks, and the purpose of his visit was to have a serious conversation with her, not only as a man, but as a doctor.
He dropped her chin and stepped back. “You’re right. Skin’s a little puffy from the scratch, but unbroken. You still ought to clean it before bedtime. Cat scratches can turn nasty—they’re actually more open to infection than a dog bite.”
“Unless it’s a rabid dog. Why are you here, Dr. Harcourt?”
Ethan contemplated his answer, finally countering with a question of his own. “Do you often talk to piles of dead leaves, Miss Penrose?”
“Only when a box turtle is hibernating in them.”
A box turtle? “You’re telling me you were talking to a turtle?”
A faint blush dusted her cheeks. “I inherited this place from my grandparents. My grandmother loved gardening. When I was a child, I helped her plant over a thousand daffodils imported from Holland. Come spring—”
“Clara…” he emphasized her name deliberately “…answer the question.”
“I’d rather not. You might conclude I’m dotty, not eccentric.”
Despite his suspicions, Ethan smiled. “Possibly. But I’d like to know about Methuselah anyway. That’s what you called him, isn’t it?”
“He’s a biblical and godly man in the Bible who lived for a very long time.” The color in her pale cheeks deepened.
His mouth twitched, but Ethan clamped down the laughter. Her evasive manner might be shyness, but it could just as well be shrewdness. Thoughtfully he studied her. She was tall for a woman, slender—almost bony, her skin pale as alabaster. As usual, her hair was scrunched up in the unattractive bun. More unusual was her attire. In stark contrast to the bold jewel tones to which he’d become accustomed, and especially to Sunday night’s elegant gown, today she wore a plain gown faded to an unattractive gray, with only a shawl woven in equally depressing shades of gray over it.
There was nothing about her of glowing beauty or curvaceous femininity or elegant sophistication.
Yet Ethan didn’t care a flea’s whisker about her appeara
nce, fashionable or not. He did care about self-preservation, which seemed to evaporate around Clara. Something about this maddening, confusing woman appealed to him on such a visceral level he was rapidly losing any semblance of control. He needed to reclaim his objectivity, immediately. After finishing his appraisal, he folded his arms and drawled, “I have the afternoon off. I’m quite content to stand here until dark. Since I’m blocking the path, we might as well indulge in a useful conversation. Learn a bit more about each other.”
Her gaze flicked over her shoulder.
Uh-uh. No escaping like your cat. “Don’t bother dashing around the garden shed,” he warned. “Come now, Clara. You were more intrepid three years ago, not to mention the other evening. Here—I’ll start. I’m intrigued—and irritated—by you. And I’m not feeling noble. I came to have an honest conversation without interruption. Now it’s your turn. Tell me about the turtle.”
For a moment she stood in silence, hugging the shawl closer around her shoulders, her hands restlessly smoothing over its fringe. Finally she shrugged. “Box turtles can live half a century or more. The one hibernating under those leaves was already a permanent resident thirty-odd years ago, when my grandparents moved into the cottage. I named him Methuselah. Sometimes I need to—to clear my head. After I moved here and started gardening, I used to meet up with Methuselah quite a bit. Some years ago, when I was having trouble praying…” she stopped, searched his face, and finished simply “…I started talking to Methuselah instead of God. I’ve come to believe neither of them mind.” Her chin jutted out. “I warned you that you’d think I’m dotty.”
Not a single individual out of all the people Ethan had ever known—not one of them—would share such a bizarre confession, even with their physician. A decade earlier, he might have been smug and insensitive enough to label that person as mentally deficient.
Life, however, tended to beat the starch out of a body; he was also coming to accept that while God usually didn’t prevent the beating, He at least dispensed grace to make it possible to survive it. “I don’t think you’re dotty,” he told Clara, his voice gruff. Because she stood there as unmoving as one of the old oaks around them, he reached for her hand and looped it through his arm. “Introduce me.”
Mistletoe Courtship Page 17