I blushed at how close he was to the truth.
“Every day’s an adventure with this one.” Sully grinned at me.
“I was hoping to convince you to pull out your fiddle and give us a song, McKenna. Care to oblige?”
“I’d be honored, sir. Come down and I’ll find me fiddle.”
Moments later, I stood alone across a candlelit room full of the people who had become our family and watched my husband light up the house with his fiddle once again. Music poured into every crack of our bungalow and spilled out into the night, keeping time with the crickets. Everyone loved to hear him play, and none could keep from dancing. The happy crowd clapped and spun as his music overtook the room, yet I lingered in my little corner, watching with a smile.
The doctor approached again. “You truly do look different, Mrs. McKenna. You’ve always had a spark about you, but you look as though you’re holding on to some lovely little secret.”
I merely shrugged, answering with a smile. Certain secrets were meant to be savored with one’s husband first.
He sighed. “I do wish you were able to be in England. The doctors there might have helped you where I failed. You both . . . you deserve children more than anyone. You deserve a good life.”
“We have everything we need, Dr. Price, and I know one thing for certain.” I sighed and watched Sully come alive with his music. “Much is uncertain in life, but with God, anything is possible.”
1
MANCHESTER, 1869
It always came to this, didn’t it? Amid the glittering swirl of music, I looked up into the handsome face of Lord Cumberland and forced a smile as if nothing at all were about to happen.
And things had been going so well between us.
He dipped toward me. “It’s time we spoke privately.”
No. No, not privately. Not this. I looked up, willing it not to be so, but his face was sober. Determined. Decided. I tried to swallow. Tried and failed.
The grand affair swelled around us, but all the chaos faded into background noise as our eyes met over the cup of cider he handed me with a lingering touch, and I couldn’t look away. Good gracious, how I wanted to, but his gaze was relentless. Searching. Full of anticipation. Of course, to make matters worse, he was terribly handsome in that dark and reckless sort of way.
He glanced toward my father, the great Dr. Phinneas Duvall, who was spouting his opinions to a senator and two solicitors across the grand room, then back to me with a self-satisfied smile. The coast was clear. “Suppose we stroll out to the balcony?”
I was going to be sick.
“I’d like to dance before I retire to the balcony.”
“Are there other men with whom you were hoping to dance?”
“Of course not.” Too quick. Too eager. My voice had pitched higher than old widow Tarskin’s roof. I forced a smile and took his arm, looking straight ahead at the dreaded balcony where words would be exchanged and directions altered.
Staring down the barrel of my fourth proposal left me cold and shaky, ready to run away.
“You’d have me catch my death now, would you?” I kept my tone playful and light, without a hint of romance, and swept toward the waiter carrying a tray of tarts. I turned back to make another cheeky comment, but Lord Cumberland’s eyes were brimming with the unasked question. The sight deflated me.
“Just for a moment. I promise to keep you warm.”
My arms prickled inside my long gloves. Words—they were mere words—yet in that low rumble so close to my ear, they were invasive. Overly intimate.
He stepped closer, his hand cupping my elbow. “Come now, you know I’m a gentleman.”
But I didn’t know. How could I? With chaperoned outings and conversations that were puddle-deep, we were strangers. Yet he was about to suggest we share a home, our lives, ourselves, for good. Oh, heavens.
What was wrong with me, anyway? Hadn’t men and women been stepping into such a promise for centuries? Willingly, no less.
With an impulsive smile, I grabbed his hand. “Come. I’ve not given you your dance yet.”
His look darkened. “There’s no need—”
“Of course there is.” I could be relentless too. “I promised you, didn’t I? And I never, ever make a promise I don’t intend to keep. Ever.” I let my gaze linger on his face, but his expression didn’t register understanding. Only frustration.
With a set jaw, he swept me into the dance, and I let the familiar rhythm pull me along.
His voice was terse. Acidic. “I suppose this is the most privacy you will afford me tonight, so I’ll have to pose my question here.”
“What could two friends have to say to one another that couldn’t be said on a dance floor?” He’d been such a good friend too. Diverting and intriguing, kind and good-tempered. I’d rather liked his company.
That all ended tonight, of course.
He spun me close, holding me firmly. “You should know I want more, Charlotte.” His minty breath washed over my face. Deeper meaning darkened his eyes.
Innocent. Look innocent. Smile. “Nothing is greater than friendship.”
“Charlotte—”
“Especially when I’m so busy helping Father. He has more patients than he can tend.”
“You wouldn’t have to do that anymore. I’m offering you a nice little place in Manchester.”
Offering four walls, closing in around me.
“I’m trying to rescue you from what you have now. From him and his work. You don’t deserve any of what’s been heaped upon you.”
Rescue me from a rich and glorious life, working beside a most beloved father? Protect me from saving lives, from pouring myself out for the broken and desperately needy? And he was right—I had done nothing to deserve the beauty and richness that was my current life.
His arms made a frame around me that was neither pushy nor demanding, simply strong and guiding. “Please. I can give you everything you desire.”
But no one seemed to know what that was—least of all the men who proposed. My tender heart circulated through memories from the rest of this day. A new child entering the world. A man whose foot had been spared by my work, and a girl whose life had been saved.
I had saved a life. A whole life. How could anyone think I’d wish that taken away from me? We twirled faster and harder, my heart pounding with the rhythm.
I recalled the girl’s mum clinging to my skirts, weeping with gratitude. It was a beautiful moment. One I’d always remember. Even now I had a lump in my throat for thinking about it.
I wasn’t ready to stop having days like this. Not for any man in the world. I lifted my chin and looked directly into his handsome face. “I’m sorry, but I cannot consider your offer.”
He blinked, his surprise evident. “You are refusing me?”
“Most apologetically but firmly.”
His neat mustache twitched. “After all the time we’ve spent together, I demand a reason.”
“For the time together, my reason is simply that I enjoyed your company as another human being. As for the refusal . . . I cannot say.” How desperately I wished to, for the words burned my tongue, but I restrained myself as I always did when these sorts of thoughts burdened my mind. There lay the problem with every failed courtship I’d ever experienced—it was a meeting of one man and one woman, minus her brain. Female intelligence was an unwelcome intruder in every romance and most events in polite society. But why? Why? I couldn’t live that way. And I wouldn’t.
The music crescendoed behind him. “I must request that you do.”
“Do not make me say it.”
“I will know the reason.”
“You do know the reason.” Part of it, at least. I lowered my voice and glanced at the couples dancing near us. “I do not have feelings for you that a wife should possess for her husband.”
He glared at me, pulling me to an abrupt stop.
I collided into his arms. Louder. Firmer. “Peter, I do not love you.”
Words were my greatest, most potent weapon. Yet so often they were launched wrong. Oh, so very wrong.
He took a step back and cleared his throat. “Well, now. It must be true, for you’ve ensured there are about a hundred witnesses to verify your blatant lack of affection for me.”
“Peter, please don’t—”
“Good evening, Miss Duvall.” He bowed deeply. “Good evening, and goodbye.”
I finally escaped up to my bedchamber with a sickened heart, biting conscience, and a burgundy-colored stain on my gown where I’d collided with someone’s drink. My maid loosened the fastenings of my gown, then I dismissed her in a fit of agitation. I had yet to face Father.
Down to my chemise and stays, I perched on my wooden desk chair in the dormer and lifted the little framed portrait.
“Mama, I said no again.” I touched her smiling face, forever preserved in the sepia-colored daguerreotype. It was a strange, starkly empty world when it no longer included one’s mother, but here I felt the barest traces of her memory. I clung to those threads. “I said no this morning when a doctor tried to brush aside my warning, and I saved a girl’s life. Then I said no to a man who wished to marry me . . . and I believe I saved my own.” I laid my cheek on the wood. “Are you terribly disappointed?”
Her warm smile made it impossible to think she would be.
Yet the truth remained. I had a problem. A deep, dire problem. Spinsterhood was setting in, and I had an adverse reaction to the only remedy—marriage. I pulled out my lined notebook of observations and fitted the last nib to my pen. It was time to address the illness, look for patterns, and locate an acceptable solution.
The inevitable result of any friendship with the opposite gender seems to be, unequivocally, romance and matrimony. Therefore, the solution is that I must either give myself over to such a fate or end all friendships with the male of the species.
I watched the bouncing lanterns of what must be Lord Cumberland’s retreating carriage below, and the sickness swelled again. Perhaps a lack of men in my life wouldn’t be terrible.
A door slammed below.
I jerked at the sound, pen digging into the desk. The precious last nib popped off and went flying, disappearing into the dark crevice on the left side of the desk.
With a cry, I attacked the little space with a brandished hat pin, threading it out with trembling fingers.
Something crinkled against my nib as it ascended. I poked more. A lovely vellum sheet appeared, still folded and sealed with wax, corners softened by years. How long had this been in there? I grasped the unmarked missive with delight, only hesitating a moment before breaking the seal and devouring the words meant for someone else.
Dear one,
I have no business writing this to you, but I must open my overfull heart and let it spill out onto the page . . .
I drank them in, the painfully authentic words wrapping themselves around my scarred little heart, drawing me against my will into this love story from which I could not look away. How pure, how earnest and real it was. A burst of desire exploded in my chest, and I knew. I knew without a doubt I’d made the right decision every time I’d said no.
I fitted the nib to my pen and wrote again.
The missing ingredient in the tonic I’m being offered is authenticity. A dabble of that, and I should be able to swallow any marriage without breaking out in hives afterward. Perhaps I need to choose a man from among those I already know.
Alas, most of the men of my acquaintance have already become someone else’s antidote to spinsterhood.
I pushed aside my notes and returned to that wonderful paper, both giddy and enchanted with my find. I had a healthy obsession with love stories, after all—as long as they were not mine. What had happened to the writer, and why had it never been opened? The question bloomed with curious wonder in my head, like an engaging story missing the final critical chapters.
And I dearly loved a good ending.
I ran my fingertips along the most scarred and ancient piece of furniture I owned, which now held even more enchantment as the capsule of this lovely letter. How much the desk resembled the aura of Crestwicke, the house from which it had come.
In that moment, an idea sparked. It was the sort of notion a sensible girl would have laughed away, but I seldom allowed myself to be hindered by sensible thinking. That seed of an idea grew, sprouting like an uninvited weed ready to strangle my common sense.
Boot clomps in the hall shook the door. Father was coming. I shoved the letter into a drawer and rose, wrapping a dressing gown around myself.
Bang, bang. “Charlotte!”
I stiffened. He’d want to know about Lord Cumberland. “I need to dress.”
He shuffled outside the door, as he always did when presented with such awkward declarations. He used to pass me off to Mother at this point, God rest her.
“Things went well with your young suitor?”
I buried my face in a clean dress and cringed, then slipped the simple front-buttoning cotton gown over my stays. “I should say not.” Please don’t ask, please don’t ask.
More shuffling. “So, he did not propose yet.”
I braced myself, awash in prickly heat. The silence answered his question.
He growled and banged the door with his fist again. “What were you thinking? Three proposals, Charlotte. Three!”
I gulped. Apparently one had escaped his notice. My nervous fingers fiddled with the buttons down the front of my dress as I tried to fit them into the little buttonholes that seemed to have suddenly shrunk. “What of it?”
“That’s three fine men who have come to this door and left empty-handed.” Then he asked the one question I had dreaded all this time. “Why?”
I leaned against the bed rail, feeling every rough inch through my dress. “Oh Papa, we weren’t suited.” When faced with the men who had offered for me to share their various townhouses and respectable family estates, freedom always seemed sweeter and ripe with possibilities in comparison.
“Aaargh. At least come up with a new excuse! Some man pours his heart out and asks for your hand, and the only word in your foolish little head is ‘no’?”
“My soul cringes at the very idea of marrying any of them, Father. I beg you to understand.”
He exhaled and I could see him look heavenward as if begging the Almighty for patience. “What am I expected to do with you? You are breaking hearts, you wretched girl, and I won’t stand for it.”
“You overestimate their affection for me, Father.” The only reason they’d offered for me at all, I was convinced, was because I’d kept my hands busy and my lips closed. They merely noticed my vigorous efficiency about the clinic, my prudent nature as Father’s assistant, and they thought how those skills would be so well applied in their own homes. Yet there was so much about me they didn’t know—or care to know—after the brief acquaintance I’d shared with each.
“How is your dear mother these days?” “She’s well, thank you, but a touch of stiffness.” “Did you enjoy the jaunt into town?” “It was a fine day, was it not?” That’s all my courtships had ever amounted to, and every fiber of my being craved to be worth more.
Explaining this to Father would be useless, for he had picked my own dear mother after their second meeting, and they had been inseparable. Embarrassingly so, at times. His second wife, my honored stepmother, had wheedled her way into our home after over two years of “assisting the widowed doctor,” and theirs was a functional relationship, but lacking in the tender humor and delight my parents had shared.
It’s good to have someone, he’d said when announcing his engagement, and my ten-year-old self had wondered why I was not a “someone.” Now I’d become worse
—a burden.
Only I could change that. I crossed to the door, leaning against it. “Let me make a go of it, will you? Let me try nursing.”
A growl rumbled deep in his chest. “What’ll you do then, become a spinster?”
“There are worse things a body could be.” I rested my fingertips on the paneled door. I saved a life today, Father. Fought for a little girl and won. She’s with her mother now, because of me. Because of what you taught me. Even though I am not engaged tonight, aren’t you proud?
“You’ll be forever shuffling about my house, eating at my table when you’re thirty. When will you ever pull yourself together and grow up?”
I stepped back and perched on the edge of my bed, the burden of my very existence weighting me to the quilted bedspread. How did he do that? Everything this man said had the ability to pierce deep and remain lodged in my heart, my identity forming around them.
“Peter has offered you security, comfort, and rest.”
“None of which I want.” I closed my eyes, willing this man who raised me to understand. “I’d never make a suitable wife, Father. I’m not cut out for it. I’m meant to heal and serve and study medicine.”
His voice had a gruff edge to it. “It’s time you find your own way. Not mine. You’re four and twenty, and you need your own home with a husband and children.”
“Won’t you let me—”
“No.”
“Not even a small—”
“No! You’ll do as you’re told or you’ll leave this house. Is that clear?”
“But, Father—”
“What part of ‘no’ was not clear?” He spun, mumbling down the hall. “I’ll not have a failure of a daughter on my hands for the rest of my life.”
“Papa, wait. What if I promise . . .” I gulped. His boot clomps paused. “Promise to consider marriage if it does not work?” That’s how drastically I believed in my abilities and passion. I staked my freedom on it.
A shuffle. “Without argument?”
Rising, I walked to my maple writing desk and perched on the chair, fumbling to put the rescued nib to pen tip again.
Finding Lady Enderly Page 31