Courting Susannah

by Linda Lael Miller

  “You’ll want a warm wrap,” Hollister said as he released Susannah’s hand. “It’s crisp outside.”

  “Winter’s comin’ on,” Maisie put in, still relishing her part in the occasion to the fullest.

  Susannah reached for the blue cloak she’d worn to the store the day before; it was still hanging on the oak coat tree next to the door. Mr. Hollister, ever the gentleman, took the heavy garment from her and laid it gently over her shoulders.

  “We’ll be home around nine o’clock,” Hollister told Maisie, opening the door and standing back to let Susannah precede him onto the porch. Even though it was early, darkness had long since fallen. She smelled salt and smoke and pine pitch in the air.

  Susannah’s instincts about Mr. Hollister proved sound over the course of that quiet, innocuous evening. His first name, he told her, was John, and he would like to be called that, if she was amenable to the idea. He had been born and raised in Missoula, Montana; he had once been married, but his wife had been gone a long time. She’d perished, with their unborn child, when their wagon overturned while crossing the Missouri River. He had a younger sister, Ruby, just back from school in San Francisco, and he beamed proudly when he spoke of her.

  “Tell me about you,” John urged over the main course of thick steaks, each of which would have been ample fare for a whole family, let alone one person.

  Susannah knew—had known from the first—that she would never fall in love with this man, whatever Maisie’s fanciful hopes in the matter might be, but she liked and trusted him and counted those things better than reckless sentiment. Such as she was beginning to feel toward Aubrey, for instance.

  She told John about her childhood at St. Mary’s, about leaving Boston to serve as an elderly lady’s companion on Nantucket, where she had lived a worthwhile, if lonely, life. She explained her closeness with Julia and her hope that Mr. Fairgrieve would allow her to raise the child.

  John studied her, his wine glass in one hand. “But you were never even betrothed? A lovely, intelligent woman like you?”

  Although flattered, Susannah sighed inwardly. Would that love were an easy thing to control, something she could summon in the face of favorable circumstance. “I had many duties,” she said with a little shrug. “Mrs. Butterfield—my employer—wasn’t well, and giving piano lessons took up what little spare time I had.” She thought sorrowfully of her small savings, which had been spent on a train ticket to Seattle.

  “Hmmm,” John remarked thoughtfully. “And who taught you to play piano?”

  Susannah sighed. “One of the sisters at St. Mary’s.” Suddenly, she yearned to play the dusty grand she’d glimpsed languishing in the rear parlor of Aubrey’s house. She needed to start giving lessons as soon as she could. Perhaps tomorrow, after she’d gone to see Reverend Johnstone about Victoria’s christening, she would have time to play awhile and plan a campaign to recruit a half-dozen music students.

  “Ruby used to play a little. Perhaps you might teach her.”

  The attention made her feel warm and a bit giddy, as she had always thought champagne might do, should she ever be depraved enough to taste the stuff. “I’d like that very much,” she said. She sat up a little straighter. “How do you earn your living, Mr. Hollister, if I’m not being too forward in asking?”

  He cleared his throat, looked away, looked back. “I have a private income,” he said, and while Susannah knew he wasn’t lying, something didn’t ring true.

  She withdrew into herself a little way, feeling wary.

  John smiled reassuringly, and she remembered that she liked him, that he was her friend. “I hear they have fine lobster off the shores of Nantucket,” he said. “Do you miss such delicacies?”

  Susannah looked down at the remains of her meal, ordered for her, as custom dictated, by Mr. Hollister. Her mouth watered just to remember eating steamed lobster, bought at the pier and drenched in butter got from a neighbor down the road. “Oh, yes,” she said, wondering if she would ever see Nantucket again. She did not miss Mrs. Butterfield, but her rare walks along the beach were a bittersweet recollection. She told him about the sailboats skimming over blue seas, about the lighthouses and the sand dunes and the spiky grass.

  The remainder of the evening seemed to have wings, and soon Susannah was back in John Hollister’s buggy, being driven back to the grand but solemn house where her best friend had lived and died.

  “Did you know Julia?” she dared to inquire just as they reached the cobbled driveway in front of Aubrey’s mansion. Beyond were the gate, the yard, the lighted windows. “Mrs. Fairgrieve, I mean?” she added, lest her question be unclear.

  John shook his head, drawing back on the reins and setting the brake with one booted foot. “No.” He sighed and looked at Susannah squarely, though his face was in shadow beneath the brim of his hat, and she couldn’t read his expression.

  Susannah wanted to weep, thinking of Julia, and of her baby, and the man who could not admit that he’d sired the child. “But you are obviously acquainted with Mr. Fairgrieve.”

  “We’ve done business together before,” John said with a moderation in his tone that made Susannah think he was speaking guardedly. “I would like to see you again, Susannah,” he told her moments later as he helped her down from the buggy. “Perhaps you might be willing to attend church with me on Sunday? We could picnic near the water afterward, if the weather allows.”

  Because she liked John, and because she knew he had more to say to her, Susannah nodded. “That would be very pleasant,” she said.

  He did not attempt to kiss her at the front door but simply tipped his hat and bowed slightly before turning away to take his leave.

  Maisie was waiting on the other side of the threshold, the baby asleep on one shoulder and Jasper entangled in her skirts like a wiry little monkey. “Mr. Fairgrieve was fit to be tied when he found you was out takin’ your dinner with that Hollister feller,” she hissed, delighted to convey the news.

  Susannah felt a frisson of satisfaction and was immediately chagrined. Aubrey was her friend’s widower, and he had not been kind to Julia. It made no difference that he was as handsome as Lucifer before the Fall, that it made her lightheaded and breathless just to stand close to him, that a glance from him could set her heart to wild fluttering. Of all the men on earth, he was the last one she could afford to love.

  “I don’t see why he should be upset,” she said, shrugging out of the cloak and returning it to the coat tree. “I am a grown woman, after all, and quite capable of looking out for myself.” She started to reach for Victoria, but before Maisie could hand the infant over, the study doors swung open and Aubrey towered in the chasm like an archangel come to pronounce judgment.

  “May I speak with you in private for a moment, Miss McKittrick?” he asked. His jawline looked ominously hard, and there was a glitter of dark challenge in his eyes.

  “I’ll put the babe to bed for you,” Maisie told Susannah, and abandoned her in the entryway, just like that.

  Susannah swallowed, though her shoulders were straight and her chin was at a deliberately haughty angle. “It is late,” she said evenly, “and I am quite tired.”

  Aubrey simply stepped back and gestured for her to precede him into his inner sanctum. She swept past him, all pretense and bravado, feeling much as Anne Boleyn must have done on her way to the chopping block.

  “Sit down,” Aubrey instructed.

  Susannah wanted to flout his command, but that would only prolong the interview. She sat, folding her hands daintily in her lap.

  “What do you know about Hollister?” Aubrey took the leather chair opposite her, behind his large, cluttered desk.

  “That I like him very much,” Susannah replied honestly. “We are going to church on Sunday, and perhaps for a picnic afterward, if the weather holds.”

  From Aubrey’s expression, one would have thought she’d said she planned to run away with the man and live in flagrant sin for die remainder of her days. “I was
under the impression you came here to look after my—Julia’s daughter. Maybe you were looking for a husband instead.”

  A wash of color scalded Susannah’s cheeks, but she managed to hold on to her composure, for all that no suggestion had ever stung her so deeply before or made her angrier. Words crowded into her throat, but she could not force them out, and perhaps that was a good thing, because she wouldn’t have been civil, let alone kind.

  Aubrey sat back in his chair and cupped his hands behind his head. In the glow of the lamp, the masculine grace of his arms and shoulders seemed to be accentuated by a craggy tracery of shadows. His rich brown hair shimmered, even in that dim light, and it was in disarray, which only added to his roguish appeal. “Of course,” he began airily, “if you have set your cap for a husband, you could hardly have come to a better place than Seattle. There’s still a dire shortage of marriageable women here, you know—you could be a bride tomorrow if you wanted.”

  The change in his manner took Susannah very much off-guard. He’d seemed profoundly annoyed when confronting her in the entryway minutes before, but now his aspect was quiet and calm. “Let me assure you,” she said when she found her voice, “I had no such intention, at any time. Nor have I changed my mind—however plentiful the prospects might be.”

  He made a steeple of his fingers and rested his chin on the tip, smiling a little. His eyes were narrowed, but Susannah could not tell whether he was conveying suspicion or merely pondering her statement. “Why,” he asked after some time, “would you wish to remain unmarried all your life?”

  The question was plainly intrusive, and yet, strangely, Susannah’s irritation had ebbed away, and she could not seem to revive it. She sat up a little straighter. “That should be obvious,” she said. Surely Julia had told him, when things were still good between them, that her dear friend Susannah had been left on the shelf, for all that she was passably pretty.

  “It isn’t,” he replied. Obdurate man.

  “No one asked,” she said.

  “Would you have accepted, if someone had?”

  She paused to consider her reply. “That depends. I would have had to love the man very much.”

  He was leaning forward in his chair now, looking at her intently, turning a pencil from end to end on the surface of the desk. “Love is an unreliable measure, in a matter so practical as marriage, Susannah. Far better to be wed for sensible reasons.”

  “Sensible reasons, Mr. Fairgrieve? And what would those be?”

  He shrugged. “Money. Property. Heirs. Companionship in old age.”

  Susannah’s fingers tightened on the arms of her chair. “Julia could never have given you property or money,” she pointed out evenly. “You deny your child, and Julia will never see her old age, let alone provide comfort in yours. Why, then, did you marry her?”

  The strong brows drew together for a moment, but when Aubrey met her gaze, she saw misery in his eyes. “And so we come back to the point. I married Julia because I loved her—and I thought she loved me in return. As things turned out, that was a misconception on my part. I paid a high price for my foolishness.”

  “So did Julia,” Susannah said quietly and without rancor. Aubrey flinched at her words, all the same, though almost imperceptibly, and she regretted causing him pain.

  “Do you think I ever forget?” he asked. “I came to despise her in the end, I admit that. I fully intended to divorce her. But I would never have wished her dead.”

  Susannah knew he spoke the truth. “I’m sorry,” she said with a deep sigh, rubbing her temples. “I’m very tired, and that tends to make me short-tempered.”

  Aubrey rose from his chair and indicated the study doors with a gesture of his hand. “By all means, go to bed. I merely called you in to tell you I’m leaving for San Francisco tomorrow. I’ll be away a week. If you need anything, you have only to contact Hawkins, my secretary, and he’ll see that your requirements are met.”

  She should have been relieved, she supposed, to learn that she was to have a respite from Aubrey Fairgrieve and his overwhelming presence, square in the middle of her life, but instead the news of his departure saddened her. She would miss him, even worry about him until he was safely back in Seattle. She wasn’t about to admit to anything of the sort, of course.

  She rose from her chair and nodded coolly. “Very well. Enjoy your travels, Mr. Fairgrieve, and rest assured that I will look after your daughter while you are away.”

  He thrust his hands into the pockets of his finely made trousers. “When did I become Mr. Fairgrieve again?” he asked.

  Susannah paused at the door, one hand resting on a brass knob. “Good night, Aubrey,” she said, and left him to himself.

  The following morning, when Susannah brought Victoria downstairs for breakfast, she knew without being told that Aubrey had left. The vast house seemed to pulse with his absence, as though every room had been stripped bare of furniture and all adornment.

  “Mornin’,” Maisie greeted her, taking the child and carrying her to the rocking chair near the stove for a bottle. Jasper had already been delivered to the schoolhouse, evidently.

  Susannah set about brewing a pot of tea and slicing thick wedges of bread to toast in the oven of the cookstove. “Good morning,” she grumbled, grimacing at the frost-covered windows. It would be too cold to take Victoria out for a walk, that much was certain, and yet the idea of staying inside was almost more than she could tolerate. She craved fresh, salty air, blue skies, and the smell of garden soil turned up for planting.

  She wanted spring, with all her heart and soul, and it was months away.

  “He’ll be back right quick,” Maisie put in, and while her voice was gruff, the words were gently framed.

  Susannah stiffened. “Who will?” she countered, though she knew full well, of course, that her friend had been referring to Aubrey.

  Maisie chuckled, stroking the baby’s downy head with one work-roughened hand as she rocked the chair back and forth. The infant drew hungrily from the bottle. “You don’t need to pretend with me, miss,” she said. “I ain’t lived all this while ’thout knowin’ a thing or two. Until last night, when Mr. Fairgrieve waited for you in his study the way he did, I had Hollister in mind for your match. Now, though, I’ve started seein’ things from a different angle.”

  Once more, heat filled Susannah’s face. She slammed the tea canister down on the work surface beside the big cast-iron sink. “And what angle is that?” she asked, more tersely than she had intended.

  Maisie was unfazed. In fact, she looked downright smug. “I reckon you’re the reason the mister got shut of his fancy woman. You could do a lot worse than Aubrey Fairgrieve, you know.”

  Aghast, Susannah stared at her friend. “You can’t be serious! This is my best friend’s widower we’re talking about—why, it would be—it would be—”

  “It would be what?” Maisie prompted. “Mrs. Fairgrieve was your friend, but she’s dead and gone, and you’re alive. She wanted you here, begged me to send for you. Maybe she knew—”

  “Stop,” Susannah pleaded.

  “Like I said, Mr. Fairgrieve would be a mighty good catch. Even in Seattle, there’s plenty of women who’d bless their stars if he wanted them.”

  Susannah regained control of her outward manner, though still swept up in the confusing maelstrom of emotion Maisie’s remarks had aroused in her. “They can have him,” she said, perhaps too hastily, “with my blessings.”

  Maisie only laughed.

  An hour later, the weather had not cleared, and the baby was sleeping soundly in her basket. Susannah, always ready to snatch any opportunity for a walk, rain or shine, kept going to the steamy windows, wiping with her apron, and peering out.

  “Go on with you,” Maisie said, busy chopping vegetables for a supper of stew. “I’ll look after the little one till you get back.”

  Susannah flung her friend a grateful glance and fled toward the front of the house, grasping the cloak and swirling it around her
as she went. Outside, the sun struggled behind a curtain of clouds, and there was a distinct chill to the atmosphere, yet she was jubilant with excitement.

  She strolled the neighborhood for some time, at a brisk and bracing pace, before winding up in the churchyard, beside Julia’s bleak, elegant grave. There was no sign of Reverend Johnstone or anyone else, which was just as well.

  Susannah sat down on the stone bench nearest her friend’s resting place and held the cloak closed with a tightened fist. The wind was rising, stinging her skin, and the cold seemed to reach past flesh and fiber to hollow out her bones. She had shed many tears for Julia. Now, she was left with a sort of emptiness, and she had to practice remembering the other woman’s features, the same way she made her piano students go over and over the scales, in order to keep herself from forgetting.

  “I’ve come to look after your baby, Julia,” she said quietly, although she knew the essence of her cherished friend, the life force that had animated her and made her an individual, was not in this grimly beautiful place. “And I’ve got to admit, I’m not sure I understand why you found your husband so objectionable.”

  There was no answer, of course—just the wind whispering in the dried and falling leaves of the churchyard’s few deciduous trees. Most were evergreens, venerable and pungently scented.

  “I’m going to give your daughter a name,” Susannah went on presently. “Victoria. I’ve bought her a christening gown, and lots of new clothes as well. She’s growing so fast, Julia! Why, Maisie told me she’s three times the size she was when she was born. Pretty soon, she’ll be walking and talking and going to school.” Sudden tears stung her eyes, and she paused to dry them with the back of one hand. “I’m so sorry you won’t be here to see her. It isn’t fair, that you have to miss even a moment—”

  Behind Susannah, someone coughed diplomatically, to let her know she wasn’t alone. She turned on the bench and was startled to see Ethan standing there, cattleman’s hat in hand, ears red with the cold. He looked every inch the cowboy, in his boots, denim trousers, and fleece-lined leather coat. Between the lapels, she glimpsed the blue chambray of his shirt.