But her hiding in a corner wasn’t helping anybody. And these people definitely needed help. Sliding out the door, she picked her way around the refuse in the yard to the wagon and yanked on the crate full of vegetables. The vegetables were mostly wilted, but surely Nicholas had brought them for this family. She oomphed when the crate finally wiggled off the back and dropped into her arms.
“Nah-a-a.” The bell around the goat’s neck jangled as the beast came over and inspected her cloak. He rubbed his nose against the wool, then chomped and yanked.
She jumped away, but the goat moved with her, nibbling on her pocket. “Go away.” She tried to elbow him, but he kept after her. She pushed harder, but the animal’s nose stayed buried in her pocket until he pulled out a glove.
After dropping the vegetables, she grabbed for her glove. “Give me that.”
Pulling only proved the animal had strong jaw muscles. Wriggling the fabric side to side only made him dig in his feet. “Let go, you wretched thing.”
Yanking it loose, she stumbled back. Before she could stuff the glove back in her pocket, the goat snatched a carrot from the vegetable box.
She crammed the glove deep down in her pocket and tossed him another carrot to distract him. She hoisted the vegetables, raced toward the shack, and then slowed.
Iona’s guarded gaze followed her as she stirred the washpot near the clothesline.
Her cheeks flamed with the knowledge that this woman had seen her fight with a goat—and lose. To avoid the old woman’s disapproving eyes, Lydia dropped her gaze to her feet and pushed through the door.
The crate thumped loud on the table. She cringed, not meaning to have made so much noise.
“Ah, Lydia, we would have gotten that.” Nicholas’s mouth scrunched to the side, and he turned back to Alec. “Well, I guess we ought to show you what we brought today.”
Theresa peered around Errol and frowned. “Thank you, but I hope it wasn’t much trouble.”
“No trouble.” Lydia wiped her forehead with the back of her bare hand instead of fishing out her tatted handkerchief. “There’s more outside.”
Alec stood. “I’ll bring in what’s left.”
“We’ll help. There’s a lot to haul.” She smiled, but the effort to remain cheery proved difficult when Theresa’s and Alec’s expressions stiffened.
“Yes.” Nicholas stood the boy up. “Errol, we’ll need your help too. We—”
“Now hold on.” Alec stepped in between her and Nicholas, looking at them both. “We aren’t needing no more than that box. I won’t say we can’t use it, but we didn’t ask for it.”
“Of course not.” Nicholas gripped the man’s shoulder. “But my boss lost a bet—a very long story. He sent a wood stove. The vegetables are from me.”
“We’ve got a fireplace.” The man scratched his head and looked back at his wife, who stared blankly.
Surely the man would take what they brought. She glanced over at Errol, who’d gone quiet. They needed so much.
“Theresa got pneumonia twice last winter.” Nicholas gestured toward the wall. “And your chinking will be helpful, but an efficient wood stove will—”
“We cannae be taking it.”
“Well, I can’t take it back.” The two men squared off in a silent duel.
Lydia worried her lip. Nicholas could have given wood to anyone, but here he was bullying a man into taking what he irrationally didn’t want.
The two men stared at each other for so long she feared she might blurt out something just to break the silence—and she’d certainly say the wrong thing.
“Think of your wife and son.” Nicholas turned his eyes to the woman lying stiller than still on the bed. “And your mother, since cooking on a stove would free up some of her time.”
Alec’s jaw flexed a bit, but when he looked at Theresa his shoulders softened.
“The only charity is the efficient stove. The lumber is just the boss man’s trash. We burn the scraps, so why not let you have them? And I’m only to deliver it to you this once. You’ll have to collect the wood from now on.”
The man pulled on his ear. “I suppose.”
Theresa rewarded Alec with a smile, making the big man sigh and smile back.
“There now—thanks for giving in.” Nicholas rattled his arm. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I had to take it back. Lowe doesn’t like being thwarted.” He turned and put a hand on Lydia’s shoulder. “You and Theresa have a lot in common. Why don’t you two talk while we unload?”
She swallowed hard as he steered her toward his vacated seat. Talk? What could she possibly have in common with this woman? The little boy stared at her from his perch near his mother’s feet then ran off to join the men.
“Well.” Lydia cleared her throat. Her lips twitched, trying to find words.
Theresa canted her body to the side to look her in the eye. “Do you read?”
“Read?” She blinked. Of course she read.
“Books?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose that’s what Nick meant when he said we had things in common.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Unless you’re a paraplegic in disguise?”
Lydia blinked. “No.” She caught the glimmer in Theresa’s eyes and let out a nervous chuckle. “I don’t think so anyway.”
Theresa rewarded her with a smirk.
Scanning the little library shelf next to the bed, Lydia read the titles. The Bible, a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets, The Invisible Man, and . . . “Why that’s Mr. Gr—” She stopped herself with a cough. She’d almost revealed she recognized her former teacher’s copy of Pride and Prejudice, though she was supposed to be new to town . . . or was she just supposed to be a new acquaintance? Anyway, that was certainly the same green spine, bent up at the bottom from when she’d dropped it the third, or maybe fourth, time she’d borrowed it from her teacher. “I mean, that’s Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a favorite of mine.” Did Harrison and Charlie Gray already help this family? Why hadn’t Charlie or her mother mentioned the Blairs’ needs to the women in the moral society? They lived just about a half mile west of here. Lydia would’ve remembered Charlie talking about a paraplegic neighbor.
“Mine too. I read it a while back and can’t wait to read it again.” Theresa pushed herself higher on her pillows with a groan. “Charlie Gray loaned it to me. She’s a neighbor. She came over last week with a bottle calf for Errol to nurse, just like she did last year.” A twinkle brightened Theresa’s eye. “Alec knows she only claims to be too busy to take care of it to get him to agree to take half the meat, but Errol’s absolute joy over getting to care for another calf kept my husband from turning her away.”
Lydia played with her lip. Did Nicholas know Charlie was in the moral society? Seems he might like at least one member of the group.
“So what have you read recently?”
Lydia talked with Theresa, trying to figure out what they’d both read and loved as the men unloaded and then set up the stove using the existing chimney. Iona glared disapprovingly at everyone except Errol as they bustled in and out of the shack, and sporadic goat bleating accompanied the ladies’ book discussion. Theresa, forced abed, seemed to have read as much if not more than Lydia, despite having only four books on her makeshift bookshelf.
Too soon, Nicholas, a little out of breath and with pink in his cheeks, lowered himself onto a nearby stump, and Alec dropped one last armful of scrap wood upon the misshapen stack beside the stove.
Theresa reached over and squeezed Nicholas’s hand. “Thank you for bringing the stove, and thank your boss for it, if you would.”
Nicholas swiped at his forehead with a rag. “I wouldn’t bother thanking him. He did it under duress.”
“Yes, he’s a miserable wretch, from what I’ve heard.” Lydia glanced at Nicholas, expecting him to smirk.
But his frown seemed sincere.
“Well then, I hope to thank him myself one day.” Theresa pushed herself up farther on her pil
lows. “Did you know Lydia has a copy of Roughing It?”
“She does?” Nicholas’s smile reappeared, though his eyes didn’t look as bright. “Maybe she’ll lend it to you.”
“Oh, well . . . that’s not necessary.”
Lydia squeezed Theresa’s shoulder. “I’ll give it to Nick to bring next time he visits.”
Errol scooted closer to his mother, and she gathered him up and rubbed her cheek against his dirty hair. Her eyes closed, exhaustion written on every line around her mouth.
Nicholas stood and offered Lydia his arm. “Seems you’ve lulled her to sleep with all your literature talk.”
Theresa’s eyes fluttered open. “Of course not. I enjoyed it immensely. I haven’t discussed books with anyone for a while—Alec hasn’t much time for it with his job and the work around our place.” Theresa’s lips wriggled slightly. “And Mother refuses to read.”
“I got better things tae do,” Iona barked from the corner.
“And taking care of me consumes enough time.” Theresa leaned over and clasped Lydia’s hand. “If you ever have time to stop by again, know you’re welcome. Even if all you do is talk about tiresome old books.”
Iona grunted.
“I hope to see you again, Theresa.” But would she? Lydia exchanged good-byes with the others before leaving. Maybe she could drop by next time she visited Charlie. Then again, if Nicholas didn’t bring her, could she show up uninvited?
Nicholas waited for her on the ramp, and she closed the door behind her.
“Don’t you feel bad about lying to them?”
He looked as if he’d been waiting to take her arm, but he sort of wilted and then tramped down the rest of the ramp. “I didn’t know they were going to become such good friends when I met them.” His voice was low, barely above a whisper. “They started out like all the others—just people needing help.”
He tilted his head toward her but didn’t quite look her in the eyes. “I’m worried that I’ll lose their friendship if they find out before I tell them. Though I’m not sure it will matter how or when they find out now—I’ve misled them for too long.”
She’d never imagined herself feeling even a teensy bit sorry for the town’s miser, but the gravel in his voice tugged at her heart. She stepped off the ramp. “When do you plan to tell them?”
“Once Alec has this house fixed up so it’s worthy of Theresa.”
The goat looked up from ripping apart a gunny sack, and Lydia stepped behind Nicholas, hoping the thing hadn’t spied her.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a nanny goat.”
A girl was it? “She eats gloves.”
Nicholas laughed—though the sound wasn’t as joyous as it had been earlier—and helped her up into the wagon. “Besides encountering a vicious goat, this visit wasn’t as bad as you expected, was it?”
“You act like you’re trying to teach me something.”
He crossed his arms, legs spread wide. “Do you still think your quilting project deserves to be funded?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’m a terrible teacher.”
So he was trying to teach her something. “How’s that?” Perhaps he was teaching her to be less squeamish of filthiness? One day, if Papa didn’t wise up and Sebastian decided against her, they could end up in a shack like this.
Nicholas pulled Buttons until she dragged her feet forward as if slogging through glue. “If I tell you what I’m trying to teach you, you’ll say you already know it. And then you’ll focus on proving it instead of letting the lesson change your heart.”
She crossed her arms. So he had ulterior motives for his acts of charity as well. Of all the high-handed . . . “Then how do you expect me to pass your test?”
He huffed and yanked on Buttons’ harness. “Come to the lumberyard next Monday after breakfast. Wear the dress, cloak, and hat with nothing ostentatious. No jewelry, no fancy hairdo, no colors. We won’t want to be noticed. Then I’ll give you your next lesson.”
15
As she scuttled toward the shed behind Lowe’s Lumberyard, Lydia clutched his copy of Roughing It with her grandmother’s gloves, which she’d taken from her mother’s trunk. Old and dingy, they went well with the threadbare dress Nicholas had sent home with her. She walked quickly, partially out of fear of being recognized, and partially because her nerves tingled clean down to her toes the closer she got.
Would Nicholas be as jovial as last week, or had he simply been in a good mood because he was visiting friends? Would all these visits be to people with whom Nicholas shared books? But even if not, she’d be less standoffish this time. Nicholas must think she looked down upon the poor or those improperly groomed, and she’d likely reinforced his assumptions with her awkward behavior at the Blairs’ house last week—until Theresa mentioned reading. But this time, even if whatever family they visited was entirely illiterate, she’d behave superbly, and he’d realize her previous ill manners were simply because she hadn’t known how to act.
A beaten-up post coach was parked behind the lumberyard in an alley. A gray-haired man sat on the box seat. She’d expected a wagon—to haul firewood and a stove again—but maybe things were stuffed in the boot. Neither of the two dappled horses shifting their feet was Buttons, and the driver wasn’t Nicholas . . . unless he’d powdered his hair.
Unlike Watson in a few Sherlock Holmes stories, her partner’s disguise wouldn’t fool her again. Since Thursday, she’d taken a second look at every gentleman who scuffled past her.
Holding her hand against her forehead, she shielded her eyes from the sun and called up, “Are you for hire?”
The man startled on his seat and looked down at her. “Excuse me?”
Unless Nicholas was a magician, that wasn’t him.
The battered coach’s door swung open. “Get in here before you get us in trouble,” Nicholas whispered loudly.
After she’d settled in the seat across from him, he pointed to her face. “I see you’ve had fun.” The tilt of his brow gave away his amusement.
“I thought it would help.” She refrained from touching her face despite the itch to rub off the faint wrinkles she’d painted around her eyes with a grease pencil. She’d also applied a little oil into her hair so no one would suspect she’d washed it two days ago. “Who’s the old man?”
“My driver.”
“I’m glad you’re giving him work.”
“How’s that?”
“Just . . .” She twisted a button at her wrist. Nothing she’d thought about Nicholas was proving true. Her previous assumption that he was too stingy to adequately employ his driver probably wasn’t either.
His intense stare made her squirm.
“Well, many assume, with all the walking you do, that he has little opportunity to earn money because you’re too tightfisted. Yet you require him to be at your beck and call, taking away his ability to find more work.”
He snorted. “I love these stories about me. Don’t ever stifle them. They’re good for my cover.”
So that’s why he never defended himself against rumors. “I suppose you pay the driver a handsome salary.”
“No.” He leaned back in his seat and laced his fingers behind his head. “Only what would be expected for a man in his position, but he can’t work most afternoons. His wife has dementia, and the daughter who attends her the most has to return home to cook supper for her family. If they don’t keep an eye on Mrs. Parker, she wanders.”
“The poor man.” One day soon she’d lose her mama to illness, but losing a loved one by loss of mind had to be tougher. “Will we return in time for him to get home?”
“His other daughter can help some evenings, as she will today. I got her a flexible position at Beauchamp’s mill so she could assist occasionally without fear of losing her job.”
First the Blairs, then the driver and his daughter, plus whomever they were going to visit next. How many more people did Nicholas help that she’d assumed he despised? “Yo
u’re turning out to be a regular Robin Hood.”
He raised a brow. “I do not steal from the rich.”
“You’re rich, and it seems you distribute more of your wealth to the poor than anyone would’ve guessed.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No, but it’s more than I gave you credit for.” She fiddled with the lint on her sleeve. “More than most do—even Bernadette and Evelyn.”
“The Wiselys are good people.” Nicholas frowned, the coach’s shadows making him look fierce. “I can’t believe they’d gossip about such things.”
“The only woman in the moral society who defends you is Evelyn. Not because she’s certain you deserve it, but because she tries to find the good in everybody.”
“And you think Evelyn’s naïve for finding good in me?”
“No, she’s been right to stick up for you. I’m sorry I haven’t joined her, that I assumed the worst, just because . . .” Why had she assumed the worst of him when she’d never even spoken to him? She’d prided herself for abstaining from gossip, but maybe the rumors swayed her more than she’d realized. “I’m sorry I didn’t wait to judge what kind of man you were until after I actually met you.”
“And what kind of man am I?”
The sharpness in his eyes made her uncomfortable. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll erase what I thought I knew of you and form my opinion based on our time together.”
He hummed affirmatively, but his expression looked unconvinced. When the coach turned, he lifted the leather curtain to look outside.
Lydia caught a glimpse of Beauchamp Mill before he dropped the curtain. Then about a block later, the driver turned west. After a few minutes, she dared to lift the curtain to look herself. “We can’t be where I think we are.”
He turned toward her. “And where do you think we are?”
“A block away from The Line.”
“Correct.”
“Why on earth would your driver take us through this part of town?”
“Because we’re going to it, not through it.”
“I can’t go there.” She grabbed her collar. “We—”
A Heart Most Certain Page 10