“Amen,” several muttered.
“Let us not grow weary of doing good, but be a light unto the darkness.” Mrs. Little shook her fist. “It’s time to sing, ladies!”
The women called back with affirmations, but the knot in Lydia’s throat kept her from adding a simple yes to their chorus.
She swallowed until air found its way into her lungs, then stiffened her limbs until they quit shaking. She’d wrestled with her drunken father many nights throughout her childhood, and she’d won over the tightest miser in Kansas only an hour ago. Singing was nothing to be nervous about.
The women formed a solemn single-file line, and Lydia took the end spot as they marched toward the music that would make a discordant background for their religious hymns and temperance anthems. Would they be heard over the din?
A few doors down from the placard marked Red Star Inn, a woman in a bright yellow gown, its neckline revealing cleavage, passed by the line of darkly garbed ladies and seared Lydia with a look of disdain.
A group of men smoking outside The California whistled suggestively as they marched past.
She worked to keep her face expressionless as she tried not to step on Evelyn’s heels.
A womanly shape limped out from the shadows of an alleyway, her dress hanging off her shoulder, torn. She stepped under a lamp, revealing stringy hair and prominent cheekbones. The woman took another step, leaving the light and coming closer to the group.
“You want to help me?” The woman’s words slurred. “Because I need it.”
Lydia tensed. How often had Papa come home, his words smeared together because of too many drinks, and gotten rough with her? Lydia forced her mind off her father. He couldn’t poison her against all drunkards. Perhaps some really did want help. She gave the woman a slight nod.
“I need food.” A bottle appeared out of nowhere, and the streetwalker took a drink. “And laudanum. Something to dull the pain.”
Lydia swallowed hard against her constricted throat. “God often lets us experience pain to draw us closer to Him.”
“That’s all you’re going to do for me? Save my soul?” Grabbing a handful of Lydia’s wrap, the woman yanked her forward. “I said I was hungry.”
“Lydia, walk on!” Mrs. Little stomped back, gripped her arm, and tugged her forward, but the dirty woman had a tight grip on her cloak. Mrs. Little pulled until she’d yanked the fabric from the woman’s grasp.
The streetwalker sneered. “You’re all the same.”
Lydia faced Mrs. Little. “But I thought we were supposed to talk to them if they asked about repent—”
“She was asking you for a handout.”
“She mentioned her soul.”
“An alley cat is beyond our help. Save your breath.”
Mrs. Little pulled her by the arm, dragging her a few feet until they stood in front of the tallest building on Willow. The women gathered in a huddle, and Evelyn sidled close.
“Did you see that lady who talked to me?” Lydia whispered up at her.
Evelyn shook her head, “Did some—”
“Hearken, you destroyers of men’s souls.” Mrs. Little turned and bellowed to the customers lounging around the front of the saloon. “Cease your drunkenness, your gambling, and your dallying. Listen to what the Lord would have you hear. Ladies, turn to hymn number five-oh-three.”
Evelyn gave Lydia a concerned look before flipping open her bookmarked hymnal.
Lydia scrambled to find the right page. A chorus of booing and laughter sounded from the Red Star’s windows, but Mrs. Little drowned out the crowd’s jeering with a squeeze of her hand organ.
While the rest of the ladies joined the instrument with the first line of the hymn, Lydia glanced back at the streetwalker. The slovenly woman sneered at the assembly, then was overtaken by a violent shiver. She uncorked her little brown bottle, took another glug, and stumbled sideways.
Lydia played with the lapel of her thin wool cloak. Wouldn’t God have her give it to the streetwalker who was obviously in need? But before she mustered the courage to ignore Mrs. Little’s instructions, the drunk woman threw her empty bottle at their feet. Lydia flinched as glass shards sprinkled the sidewalk and the tops of her boots. Feminine shrieks and male laughter cut off the hymn’s melody.
Mrs. Little pressed harder on her accordion. “Last verse, ladies. Then let us sing, ‘The Lips that Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine.’”
The street nymph glared straight at Lydia, swore loudly, and disappeared into the alley.
Lydia hugged herself and tried to join in with the song, but it was all she could do not to run home. Mrs. Little was right. She never should have made eye contact.
13
Nicholas walked beside his nag, Buttons, until she stopped to avoid another mud hole. He pulled on the cantankerous horse’s halter. “Come on, girl.”
Buttons resisted until he couldn’t put any more tension on her harness without breaking it, then she lurched forward and plodded on as if she’d been walking at that pace all day.
“You’re lucky I need you.” He scratched her dirty white neck through her matted yellowed mane, his fingertips poking through his holey gloves. The tiny wagon behind her thumped into a pothole and stopped her progress. He stooped to yank on Buttons’s halter to get her moving again.
“Lydia might think we forgot her if you clomp any slower.” And he definitely hadn’t forgotten her, nor the feel of her hand in his or the light in her eyes when he’d given in to her wishes. Those pale blue irises had turned vibrant in triumph—just as he’d suspected they would.
He rubbed his face, the grit from his hands scouring his cheeks. She was too attractive for her own good. Hopefully God would help him help Lydia discover true charity, otherwise he’d be highly frustrated for the next few weeks, fighting the urge to both caress and wring her beautiful, stubborn neck.
He towed Buttons over the knoll on the outskirts of town and toward the Verdigris River. On the bridge, Lydia sat upon the edge, leaning against a column. Her fitted navy coat contrasted sharply with her light pinstriped skirt, and her cream-colored straw hat called attention to her dark hair. Was that what she’d worn to church earlier? Had his secretary forgotten to tell her to wear work clothes? Good thing he had an old cloak and cap for her or he’d lose another hour taking her back home to change.
He stopped in front of her and grinned at her blank stare. Walking around in disguise was too much fun. “My lady, you’re looking too beautiful this afternoon.”
“I beg your pardon?” She jutted out her chin. Her fists bunched as if readying to land him a blow if he stepped nearer.
“Begging for more?” He dared to step closer and couldn’t help his grin. “Aren’t we greedy? I’ve already given you what you want.”
Her eyes widened, and then one eyelid scrunched. Her mouth pursed like a young child who’d been told to go to bed early. “Nicholas?”
His name on her lips only warmed the already mild autumn day. He bowed. “At your service.”
She leaned back and pinched her nose. “You smell as if you’ve lived in those clothes for a year.”
“That’s because I haven’t washed them in about that long.”
“You reek of death.”
“I don’t smell that bad.” He’d only smeared his mackintosh and trousers in dirt and splashed them with whiskey last fall.
“I don’t know what you’re doing—”
“Of course not, or you’d have argued. This saves time.”
He offered her his hand, but she turned her nose up and hopped off the bridge’s wall herself.
Maybe she thought she was wearing work clothes. After all, a cleverly hidden patch was visible near her knees, but her coat was much too nice. He trailed his hand along Button’s dusty side as he ambled back to the wagon and fished out an out-of-fashion cloak. “Exchange your coat with this.”
She gave the item a wary look. “Does it smell as bad as you?”
“Worse.”
He grinned. Hopefully she’d relax. When he disguised himself as Nick, he tried to leave tense Nicholas behind. “It’s been in a trunk in the attic for decades.” Actually the garment smelled delightful compared to him.
“Why is this necessary?” She took the cloak but held it out as if holding a rat by the tail.
“The people we’re visiting won’t take charity from high society.”
“Charity’s charity.”
He set the conditions, not her. “I decide how these wishes are meted out, or they don’t happen at all. Your pick.”
She glanced between the weathered wagon attached to his sorry nag and the ugly cloak in her hand. Several times.
He forced himself not to tap his foot impatiently. Maybe he was asking too much from her too soon. If she went into the Blairs’ house looking as if she’d stuffed rotten eggs up her nose, she’d make things worse. “You can do this, Lydia. Remember, you got three wishes out of the stingiest man in town, and he even brought you gifts.” He reached back into the wagon and pulled out a limp black bonnet. “Here’s another. I promise you, these clothes smell like heaven compared to the places we’re going.”
“Is that supposed to entice me to put them on?”
“I shouldn’t have to entice you to do anything. You wanted me to provide for three poor families, yes?” This was going to be a long day. “Do you think I should’ve chosen families who bathe in scented water and send out their laundry every week?”
“No.” She sighed and dropped the items he’d handed her onto the ground. She wiggled out of her coat and unpinned her hat.
He stooped over to pick up the clothing and handed her each piece. She stuffed her arms into the cloak and jammed the bonnet on her head.
“You need to act as if you aren’t wearing a bloody carcass around your neck or a raccoon on your head.”
She scowled at him.
“My grandmother always said, ‘Be careful or your face will freeze like that.’ So keep that up, it goes well with the ensemble.”
“I still don’t look as poor as you.” She poked out her little leather shoes.
“Today, doesn’t matter that much. As long as you don’t look so far above me the Blairs wonder why we’re together.” He pointed over his shoulder. “I have a servant’s dress in the wagon that should fit you for next time.”
“You mean we aren’t doing this all in one day?”
“No, this family lives in the opposite direction of the other two. We need to hurry though—we only have so much time before dark.”
“But it’s only three o’clock.” She looked out over the river valley. “How far must we go?”
He pointed across the water. “A shanty on the other side of that rise.”
Her face relaxed. “That won’t take more than an hour.”
“We’re visiting, not just dropping things off and running home.”
She stared at the little bump in the landscape, her jaw hard. “For how long?”
“No less than an hour.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be rude not to. They have few, if any, visitors. They aren’t comfortable with charity to begin with, and they’re as valuable in Christ’s sight as you are—so we’re going to treat them as such.” Maybe he was wrong about Lydia. If she couldn’t muster up a respectful manner toward these people, she’d ruin the relationship he’d developed with them.
“All right.” Her face was still scrunched with repugnance.
He rolled up her coat and crammed it under the wagon’s seat. “There isn’t enough room up here to ride with you, so I’ll walk.” Actually, if they sat hip to hip, they could fit. But they shouldn’t—for more reasons than him smelling like a wet dog. Plus he’d need to yank on Buttons occasionally.
She put her hand in his, her eyes wide and uneasy.
He placed his other hand atop hers. “Don’t worry—you’ll be fine. Just stop gnawing off your lower lip. But then again, if you have no lips, they won’t notice how awful you smell in that cloak.”
14
Lydia struggled to keep her seat as Nicholas fought with the ugly white horse pulling a sorry excuse for a wagon up an incline. He’d probably save time by unhitching Buttons and pulling the cart himself. Was this animal really his? He certainly talked to the nag as if he’d known her his whole life. Once he got Buttons to move again, Nicholas began whistling.
He must have skipped shaving this morning, smeared some dirt across his forehead, and oiled his hair. She wouldn’t have given him a second glance if he hadn’t stopped and teased her, so good was his disguise. How often did he run around in this getup?
And where had this jovial man come from? Loose and familiar—not cold and hard-nosed.
After cresting the hill, Nicholas pointed at a residence in the valley. “There’s the Blairs’ house.”
Was house truly the right word for the structure in front of them? Her grandfather’s pig shelter looked sturdier than both the hovel and small barn squatting in a wide circle of mud. The only vegetation in the yard was a cluster of thorn bushes that a black-and-white goat was busily stripping of brown leaves. Broken pottery and jagged tin decorated the grassless lawn.
After three or four more stops and starts, Buttons finally managed to make it down the hill.
“Ho there, Alec?” Nicholas called, a dirty hand cupped against his mouth. “Iona, are you home?”
He knew them by first name? How many times had he visited? She clenched tightly to the seat as Buttons yanked the wagon to the left and nosed at a half-eaten, muck-covered apple.
An older woman in a worn navy dress and a thin purple shawl poked her head out the door, and Nicholas’s face brightened. How could he look so comfortable in this dirt yard when he wouldn’t condescend to leave his mansion to mingle with the middle class?
When he reached up to help her down, her hands trembled. He winked at her, set her on the ground, then walked straight toward the woman and snatched a dirty urchin out from behind the shabby folds of her skirt.
Spinning the boy around, he tickled his ribs.
The boy’s laughter rippled out from deep inside.
“Come now, Errol, if you’re laughing”—he dug his fingers into the boy’s armpit, causing another round of giggles to escape—“you can’t greet Miss King properly.”
The little blond boy, four, maybe five years of age, wriggled away and ran back up some kind of ramp to the front door and hid behind what must have been his grandmother’s skirts. “Can’t catch me!”
Iona harrumphed at the boy, then turned toward Lydia. “Pleased to meet a friend of Nick’s.”
Nick? So familiar. “Me too.”
So he had an overly talkative friend in town and a family of friends poorer than his mansion’s mice on the outskirts of town. . . . Somehow she doubted this would be the most surprising thing she’d learn about him today.
“Miss King’s a new acquaintance from town.”
“Yes. Call me Lydia.”
“I’m Iona.” She scanned Lydia up and down, frowned, and took a second look. “My son and Theresa are inside. Won’t ye come in?”
Nicholas tromped up the ramp and ducked to pass under the doorway, which even she had to stoop to enter. The floor was smooth cement—not what she’d expected for a hovel. The smell of must and burnt wood mingled with the scents of the dried herbs and plants hanging from four bare rafters.
A thin woman with large eyes lay propped up in a bed, her long, light brown hair lying loose over her shoulders. Her frayed quilt covered what looked like a wasted lower body.
A strawberry-blond man with dirty, exposed forearms handed the frail woman a steaming mug. He gave her a quick kiss on the hairline before turning to greet them.
Nicholas shook hands with the man, then knelt beside Theresa. “How are you today?”
“Not too bad, now that the rain has stopped.” She patted his hand on her shoulder.
Why did these people live in such crude conditions if they were
indeed Nicholas’s—er, Nick’s—friends?
After he briefly introduced her to Errol’s parents, Alec and Theresa, Lydia bumped against the unusually low sink table and knocked a glass onto the hard floor. “Sorry.”
Iona glared at her but swept up the broken pieces before she could lean over to lend a hand. The incident with last week’s streetwalker jumped into her mind. Besides the low-cut neckline of the prostitute’s dress, she’d been as pitiful and dirty as these people.
Beside the bed, a cheap oil lamp sat atop a crate nailed to the wall, making a crude shelf for a few books. The fire in the fireplace was stoked, but despite the sulfuric stench of coal smoke in the house, only wood burned there. She scrutinized Alec again. Perhaps he worked a forge, which would explain the dark smudges on his muscular arms and the coal odor.
A long table, two stools, and a straw pallet took up the space against the opposite wall. Lydia folded her hands together, wondering where she should stand—there certainly weren’t many places to sit.
Nicholas pulled one of the stools over to Theresa’s bedside, snatched Errol onto his lap, and turned to Alec. “Were you able to chink your siding?”
“Aye. Thankfully the cold weather’s taking its merry time in getting here.” The man’s heavy voice boomed with a pleasant musical quality. “Felt a lot like early summer last Lord’s day.”
Iona took a basket of wadded clothing outside, and the rest of the family hovered around Nicholas, who bantered with them as he had with her on the bridge.
When Alec and Nicholas started discussing Alec’s job, which Nicholas had evidently obtained for him, Lydia lowered herself onto the empty stool. The entire family’s attention was glued to Nicholas—a man no one in Teaville liked. They’d forgotten all about her.
She closed her eyes and folded her hands. She felt like a little girl in desperate need of a bed to kneel beside. Lord, you knew his heart all along. How stupid I must have looked to him, insisting he stop shirking his Christian duty and help the poor. Why did he agree to help me since I admitted I had selfish reasons for wanting him to grant my wishes?
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