Spirit of Love

by Duncan, Alice

  She was still too unsettled to give up the insanity theory altogether, but Georgina did begin to feel the tiniest fragment of relief. “You may be right, Aunt Vernice.”

  “Of course, I’m right. You’ll realize it soon. Georgina.

  “It’s still very difficult to come to terms with having a ghost in the family.”

  “It is indeed. Especially that one. Although, it’s true, he isn’t actually a member of the family. Not even by marriage.” Vernice sounded grim, then let out a heavy sigh. “I’ve found the task becomes easier when I pray a lot.”

  Georgina nodded. She could see the sense in that. One needed to confide one’s problems in someone, and God wouldn’t have one locked up as a danger to society if one went to him with tales about ghosts and hauntings and so forth. Another, less perfect, person might not show the same tolerance.

  “Sunday is only a few days away. Since your grandmother can’t get around very well, yet, she hasn’t been attending church services with me, but I’d be very happy if you’d ride into town with me. I’m in the choir.” Vernice blushed charmingly. “I fear we aren’t the best choir in the world, but it does lift one’s spirits to sing praises to our Lord. We’d be very happy if you’d like to sing with us, dear.”

  “What a wonderful idea.” Georgina was genuinely pleased. “I used to sing in the choir at home—in Grace Church.”

  Grace Church, a gorgeous structure testifying to the general wealth of New York’s Episcopalian community, had been almost a second home to Georgina. She’d taken piano lessons from the organist, sung soprano in the choir, and played piano for Christmas and Easter concerts there. She loved music and perceived Vernice’s offer as a wonderful opportunity to lift her spirits.

  Georgina’s outlook was bright a few days later when she and Vernice set out for the little adobe church in Picacho Wells. Her mood didn’t even suffer too much of a setback when they met Ashley Barrett on their way.

  “So, you’ve finagled your niece into going to church with you, eh?”

  Ash tipped his hat and winked at Vernice. Georgina was shocked. She considered winking, at ladies a practice only indulged in by extremely unrefined rowdies. And the man was supposed to be the upholder of law and order! Well . . . Georgina just didn’t know, that was all there was to it.

  Vernice didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she blushed and giggled. Georgina was sorry to learn that her aunt was susceptible to the charms of a handsome man, particularly since a pretty face was all he was.

  “Yes indeed, Sheriff. Georgina is a wonderful musician. Why, she sings and plays and has a lovely voice.”

  “Does she?” Ash’s jovial expression turned sour when he glanced at Georgina She lifted her chin and stared back, defiant.

  Let the brute think whatever he wanted to think Georgina wasn’t about to let herself be daunted by him.

  “Oh, my, yes. In fact, I’ve asked her to join our choir.”

  Ash’s eyebrows lifted, and he sort of half grinned, as if he knew something about the choir Georgina didn’t. Incensed by his attitude, she snapped, “Yes. I’ll be very happy to sing in the choir, Mr. Barrett.”

  “You will, will you?”

  The rat! He sounded so smug and superior, Georgina wished she could hit him.

  “And she has the clearest, sweetest soprano voice you’ve ever heard,” Vernice declared, although how she knew Georgina sang well was a mystery, since Georgina hadn’t sung a note since she’d arrived in the territory.

  The sheriff didn’t seem to find a discussion of Georgina’s musical accomplishments very interesting. He changed the subject and directed a question at Georgina. “How are your hands?”

  She frowned at him, peeved that he should have brought up her encounter with the butter churn. “They’re fine. Thank you.” She added the thank you because she knew she should. She really didn’t want to thank him for anything, no matter whether it was proper or not.

  “Better go easy on ‘em for a while. Don’t want them to get infected.” He swung his horse around and began to trot Shiloh alongside the Murphy buggy.

  Vernice was driving, although Georgina now regretted not taking the reins herself. She was a wonderful driver, and she’d have loved to show this awful man how adept she was at some things. The fact that she’d not driven today because her hands were blistered galled her.

  “I do so appreciate your helpful advice, Sheriff.” Georgina might have chipped the words from a block of ice and flung them at him. She hoped he’d freeze to death on them.

  He grinned at her, as if he knew his show of concern and proffered advice irritated her. “Yeah, you’ll probably need a lot of advice from folks, since you’re not used to the work we have to do out here.”

  “Oh, yes. But she’s so clever, Sheriff.” Vernice obviously didn’t notice the hostile undercurrents that seemed so glaring to Georgina She sighed happily. “We’re going to Betsy Bailey’s house on Thursday for the ladies’ quilting society.”

  “That’s useful.” Ash eyed Georgina slanty-eyed, as if he couldn’t feature her with a needle and thread in her hands unless, perhaps, she had to mend a torn silken ruffle because it was her maid’s day off.

  Georgina gritted her teeth. She wished she could snatch the buggy whip from its holder and slash the sheriff to bloody strips with it. She’d never been subject to violent urges before, and this one surprised, and rather dismayed her. She tried to force a sweet smile and almost succeeded.

  “Quilting is a very useful occupation,” she ground out.

  “And we’ve begun braiding scraps for rugs, as well.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’d need to do that. We don’t have any fancy carpet manufacturers out here like they do back East.”

  If he threw one more reference to her New York roots in her face, Georgina feared she might just scream. Since she’d die before she gave him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to her, she sugared her smile up a notch and decided she’d outmaneuver him. “Indeed. No electricity, no indoor plumbing, no gas heating. It’s not what I’m used to, and yet I’m loving every minute of it.”

  “Are you now.”

  Georgina was pleased to hear the trace of vexation in his tone.

  “Oh, my, yes. Why, I’ve not only met my dear grandmother and aunt, but I’m learning all about the West. It’s quite an adventure for me, I can tell you.”

  “It must be.’’ His voice had gone vinegary.

  “In fact. Georgina said in a burst of sudden inspiration, I think I might just stay here forever.”

  “Oh, Georgina! That would be simply wonderful!” Vernice looked happy enough to burst.

  The sheriff did not.

  Chapter Five

  The choir really stank. Ash tried not to grimace as it warbled its way through “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” The only female choir member under seventy in the whole outfit was Frank Dunwiddy’s wife, Beatrice, and she couldn’t carry a note in a bucket. The rest of the old dears had voices that might have been all right forty or fifty years ago. Now they wobbled and screeched all over the place.

  Oh, if one wanted to get particular—and as much as it pained him to admit it, Ash supposed Payton Pierce, Picacho Wells’s sole banker, had an all right voice, if you like squeaky tenors. Ash didn’t.

  Payton Pierce was the only man in the choir, and the old biddies loved him. Ash had a feeling that was the reason Pierce had joined the choir in the first place: because he liked to be fawned over, even if the fawners were all II0 years old. That, and because Pierce liked people to think he was an honorable Christian fellow. As if a banker could be. Ash struggled to contain a snort of disgust. He wasn’t an admirer of bankers, and he wasn’t an admirer of Payton Pierce in particular.

  Ash thought Picacho Wells’s faithful should be grateful to Mrs. Dunwiddy’s mother, who’d shipped a piano to the territory from New Hampshire. The Dunwiddys didn’t have room in their house for the instrument, so they’d let the church borrow it. The minister’s wife, Sally Voorhees,
played the thing so the parishioners—what few there were of them—could pick out the hymn’s tune if they listened hard enough. They’d never get it if they listened to the choir.

  Ash wondered what Miss Georgina Witherspoon thought of the choir she’d so rashly, agreed to join. He sneaked a peek at her hoping to find her grimacing in repugnance. She wasn’t. He did not despair. There’d be plenty of time to upset her later if she managed to remain sanguine through the choir. Since he’d known his presence would annoy her, he’d sat next to her in the congregation.

  Not that there was much of a congregation. There were maybe seventy-live or eighty people who attended this church regularly. The rest of the town either went to the Catholic church, or adjured church altogether. Ash usually considered himself one of the latter. Today, however, he’d come to church. Not because he had hoped to see Miss Witherspoon. Hell, no. In fact, he’d been dunking lately that his presence at a church service on Sunday morning might act as an example to the citizens.

  Picacho Wells’s citizens, for the most part, didn’t really need an example from him. They were a peaceful lot, mainly, and Picacho Wells itself was a peaceful place, considering it sat smack in the middle of the roughest part of a rough territory.

  The town had sprung up sort of spontaneously around a little Mexican settlement in the last twenty years. It was, however, far from huge. Most of its newer citizens, until recently, hadn’t attended church at all. Folks from the East had started moving in only a few years ago, and only because New Mexico Territory had come to be known as good cattle country. Picacho Wells was one of the several small villages catering to the cattle industry in the area but virtually all of the ranchers were men. It had been Ash’s observation that men weren’t as likely to crave churches as women.

  Females, as a recognizable portion of the population, were a relatively recent phenomenon. Ash could recall a time when there had been almost no women living in Picacho Wells. That was back in the bad old days, he reckoned, although he remembered them with a certain fond nostalgia. What women there were had possessed no morals to speak of, and there wasn’t a man living in Picacho Wells then who would have dreamed of going to church on a Sunday morning.

  For one thing, their hangovers wouldn’t have let them. For another, there hadn’t been any churches. Even the Catholics—and most of them spoke only Spanish—had to go all the way to Roswell if they wanted to worship, and that was a good twenty miles off.

  Not any longer. About ten years ago, the local ranchers began pining for civilization and had started to find themselves wives. Even Ash, who had been a soldier fighting in the Indian War at the time, had finally succumbed to the lure of a permanent female body in his bed.

  Unfortunately, he’d met Phoebe at the time his urges were at their peak, and eight years ago he’d leaped of his own free will into the inferno that had been his marriage If Phoebe hadn’t succumbed to a bout of influenza in the third year of it Ash would be married still. The very notion made him feel sick to his stomach. He put a hand over his belly and let out a soft moan.

  He shouldn’t have done that. Miss Georgina Witherspoon had seen him do it and she turned in her seat to glare at him He grinned back, as pleasant as you please, hoping in that way to aggravate her. He was happy to note he succeeded. She pinched her pretty mouth all up and turned her head away from him again. She was sure fun to rile. Smelled good, too. He wished he hadn’t noticed that.

  Hoping to get a bigger rise out of her he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Not exactly the kind of choir you’re used to in New York, I’ll warrant.” She smelled even sweeter up close. Ash breathed her fragrance in deeply, and tried to place it. Some kind of flower, he thought.

  She jerked away from him as if she suspected him of carrying the plague. While Ash had been trying to annoy her, he hadn’t expected her to react so violently to his nearness, and he realized he didn’t like it. She hissed, “Please, Mr. Barrett! If you must speak to me, do so after the service is over.”

  “Right.” Nettled, Ash settled back into his pew. The pew had been shipped in from a church in Amarillo that hadn’t needed them after their sanctuary had been renovated. The churchgoing citizens of Picacho Wells were happy to get other people’s leftovers.

  Because he was so sore at Miss Georgina Witherspoon and her hoity-toity attitude, Ash stuck to her like a burr on a beagle after the service ended. He politely stood aside to let her go ahead of him up the aisle, and then took her arm—very gently and much to her displeasure—when she walked out the door.

  “Unhand me!” she whispered.

  He whispered back, his own whisper as grating as hers, “I’m going to introduce you to the preacher, for God’s sake.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t appear reconciled, but she stopped trying to yank her arm away from him.

  Because he was peeved with her, he tugged her a little too hard, making her skip to keep up with him. She didn’t say a word. Proud little baggage, Miss Witherspoon. Her attitude both tickled and aggravated Ash.

  The Reverend Mr. Voorhees turned as Ash and Georgina approached. He smiled the smile of preachers the world over. Ash had never yet met a preacher who didn’t try to appear sincere and holy on Sunday morning, no matter what devilry he got up to the rest of the week. Actually, Voorhees was all right. Ash hadn’t even heard a whisper of anything improper in his behavior.

  “Miss Witherspoon, allow me to introduce you to the minister of our church, Reverend Mr. Voorhees.” He put on his smoothest, most dignified and sheriff-like expression, and smiled chivalrously at Georgina.

  She smiled sweetly back at him, then turned and held a little gloved hand in the direction of Voorhees. Ash frowned, not sure why he should be vexed that she hadn’t taken his bait.

  “How do you do, Reverend Mr. Voorhees?”

  “Very well, thank you. And how are you, Miss Witherspoon? Your aunt, Miss Murphy, has been telling us all about you.”

  “She has?’’ Georgina didn’t seem awfully happy to hear it.

  Ash smirked and said, “She probably didn’t mention the butter, Miss Witherspoon. Or the dead chicken.”

  She gave him a look that would have killed him, or at least done him serious injury, if looks could do that to people. “My aunt, Mr. Barrett, is a wonderful person and only speaks well of others. I fear she’s probably given Reverend Mr. Voorhees an exaggerated notion of my virtues and neglected altogether to tell him of my many failures.”

  Reverend Voorhees smiled a ministerial, self-satisfied smile. “My goodness, yes, Miss Witherspoon. Why to hear Miss Vernice talk, she looks upon you in light of her salvation.” He let out a rich, unctuous chuckle to show that he didn’t really mean it.

  Georgina smiled back. Actually, it was more like a simper. Ash gawked at her. He didn’t like the woman much, but he’d never seen her simper before. Hell, until now, he hadn’t known she had a simper in her. She was faking it; he knew it. Before he could pounce and turn her simper into a tantrum, Frank Dunwiddy walked up to them.

  “Howdy, Ash. Don’t gen’ly see you in church of a Sunday morning.”

  Confound it, why did Frank have to show up now and expose him as the Sunday morning shirker that he was? Ash frowned at his deputy to let him know he didn’t appreciate his comment Frank paid no attention to his frown, which was normal behavior on Frank’s part.

  Georgina turned, saw Frank, took note of his wife Beatrice and the seven little Dunwiddys, and blinked furiously. Ash knew how she felt. Meeting the Dunwiddys for the first time did that to people. Frank was all nose. Beatrice was all ears. Their children, every one of them, had inherited both exaggerated characteristics, and they’d every one been passed over for a chin. It was as if God had decided to fashion a joke for Himself. They were good people, though, the Dunwiddys. And they weren’t ugly, taken individually. Together, they were a sight.

  Reverend Voorhees introduced Georgina to the Dunwiddys. She made a valiant recovery of her wits and Ash was disappointed to see her behav
e as if she were truly glad to meet the unusual-looking family. “It’s so nice to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Dunwiddy. Aunt Vernice has told me you’re the best quilter in Picacho Wells. Your daughters are very, lucky to have you as a guide.”

  Beatrice blushed. Ash clamped his lips together to hold in a savage curse. Dad-blast it, that was the one thing the snit could have said that would have endeared her to Beatrice forever. She hadn’t yet behaved like a spoiled city girl, even though he knew good and well she was one. It was extremely irksome behavior on her part and Ash was becoming incredibly irritated with the whole situation

  “Oh, Georgina, there you are! I wanted to talk—oh, I see you’ve met—dear me, I hurried so—I didn’t want you to—let me introduce you to—oh, I have to catch my breath.”

  Ash gave Vernice Murphy one of his more polished bows. “Good morning, Miss Vernice. How are you today?”

  Vernice skidded to a halt in front of the Dunwiddys, slapped a hand over her heart, and panted. She was really kind of cute when she got into one of her dithers. “Oh, my!”

  Georgina smiled at her aunt. “This is such a pleasant little church, Aunt Vernice. I’m so glad you invited me to attend services with you and to join the choir.”

  A huge smile spread over Vernice’s face and she calmed down at once. Beatrice Dunwiddy looked as if somebody had just told her that her children were beautiful. The Reverend Mr. Voorhees preened. Ash uttered another silent curse. He very nearly slipped up and let it hit the air when he noticed Payton Pierce, appearing bankerly and dignified and smiling like the snake-oil salesman he was, walking up to the group.

  “I see you didn’t exaggerate your niece’s charms, Miss Vernice.” The banker gave a practiced bow.