Courting Susannah

by Linda Lael Miller

  He might have slammed the front door when he came in, chased and buffeted up the walk by a seaborne wind, had it not been for the faint, sweet refrain of the piano. The sound, so unexpected, paralyzed him for a few moments; he stood there on the threshold, his hat and coat dripping water while more rain blew in to pool around his feet.

  The word stop swelled in his throat, and yet he was enchanted by the music, drawn by it, like a sailor summoned to his doom by the songs of sirens. Slowly, ever so slowly, he closed the door behind him, shed his hat and coat, and tugged at the cuffs of his shirt. He found himself at the entrance of the rear parlor, where he had not intended to go.

  Notes spilled over him like the crystalline drops of a waterfall, and he shut his eyes tightly, in pleasure. In pain.

  “Stop.” He had barely breathed the command, she could not have heard it, and yet the wellspring of sound ceased. She turned on the piano stool, wide-eyed, to regard him in bewilderment.

  “You’ve come back,” she said. It broke the spell, and for that, at least, he was grateful.

  “Obviously,” he replied, because at the moment sarcasm was the only defense left to him. The pain was still with him, though slowly ebbing away, and he was vulnerable.

  She moved her fingers lightly over the piano keys, just once more, leaving a sparkling trail of sound in her wake, then sighed. A brave little smile faltered on her lips, just briefly, then fell away. “I see your disposition has not improved,” she remarked in tones of cheerful resignation.

  He crossed the room, for something to do and no other reason, and poured brandy from a decanter on the bureau. The painting of Julia, commissioned just after their impulsive marriage, while they were still in Boston, loomed above him in all its glory, and he wondered why he hadn’t consigned it to the attic. Gazing upon it, he felt no vestige of the consuming passion his late wife had roused in him when they were courting—there was nothing left, not even rancor.

  He took another sip from his brandy. Alas, that assessment wasn’t quite true. He felt sorrow, he felt pity, and he felt a peculiar sort of anguish that had more to do with his sense of betrayal than anything else.

  “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?” Susannah spoke wistfully, and she was standing right beside him. He had not heard her approach.

  “Yes. So, they tell me, was Lucifer, before they threw him out of heaven.”

  “You are too hard on her. She was flawed, certainly, but she was not a monster.”

  Aubrey looked down into Susannah’s eyes and wanted, suddenly, desperately, and unreasonably, to kiss her. He reminded himself that he knew even less about her than he had about Julia, and look where that state of blissful ignorance had taken him. “Perhaps you didn’t know your friend as well as you thought you did,” he said with the slightest lift of his glass.

  She did not miss the subtle impudence of the salute; her eyes flashed, and it was plain that she would have slapped him if she’d dared. Instead, she folded her arms tightly against her middle, her hands bunched into fists. “No one knew her better than I did,” she countered. She indicated the painting with a nod of her head, and fragments of gaslight caught in the tendrils of fair hair curling loosely against her cheeks. “I would like to have this painting, if you don’t want it. For Victoria.”

  It was as though a ram had butted him in the stomach; for a few seconds, he couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. The brandy splashed in its glass as he set it aside. “Who the hell is Victoria?” he rasped, though he had a terrible feeling that he already knew the answer to that question.

  “She is your daughter.”

  As he was absorbing her words, he quite literally saw red, was temporarily blinded by it. Had she been Ethan, the only other person on earth who had ever been able to bring on that particular phenomenon, he would have struck her. Because she was a woman, because she was Susannah, violence did not even occur to him. “You went ahead and christened that child while I was gone?”

  “You said I could do what I wanted—”

  He retreated a step, but she had the temerity to follow, even to take hold of his arm, and he did not pull free, even though he was rigid with anger.

  “She’s a child, Aubrey. An innocent little baby. She’d gone without a name long enough.”

  He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, weary to the center of his soul. “You’re right,” he rasped. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Susannah. I don’t know what—”

  She looked up at him with sympathy, and he supposed he would have preferred scorn to that, or even outright contempt. “You were so furious with Julia,” she said gently. “Did you ever allow yourself to grieve for her? For the woman you believed her to be?”

  He turned away from her to gaze out into a dark, leafstrewn corner of the garden Julia had so cherished. It had been the one thing she seemed capable of nurturing, that crop of roses and shrubs and small trees. Soon enough, he would have Hollister’s report on his investigation of Susannah. He would know whether or not it was safe to turn the baby over to her for good, to send them both away, once and for all, out of his sight, with nothing to connect them but a monthly draft on one of his bank accounts.

  “I did all my grieving before she died,” he ground out.

  “Why do you hate the sound of the piano?” Was there no end to her infernal questions? He wished she would go away, and, at one and the same time, he drew a kind of heated sustenance from her presence. “Julia didn’t play, at least not well, so it couldn’t be—”

  “You’re wrong, Miss McKittrick. Julia became quite accomplished, in lonely hours, which were, for her, relatively rare. All the same, she played until I thought I would go mad. Played and wept and yearned for her lover.”

  “Maybe it was you she was yearning for,” she suggested. She had brass, Susannah McKittrick did, there was no denying that, and no apparent idea when to hold her tongue. “Julia adored you—early on, at least. I have letters from her, extolling your virtues.”

  “And later?”

  Her eyes darkened. “She became more and more unhappy as the months passed. She wished she’d never married you.”

  “God, that was certainly mutual. Tell me, did she mention my brother?”

  “No,” Susannah shot back immediately. He saw in her eyes that it wasn’t true.

  “I suppose he told you that it was all a lie. That Julia had accused him out of spite.” He could not hide his derision, not now. He was too thoroughly caught, a man flailing in a web. “If you believe that, you are a fool.”

  “I do believe it. Julia was capable of that sort of deception, when she was angry or hurt. However, it would have passed with her fit of temper.”

  Upstairs, the baby—Victoria—began to squall. Aubrey felt a wry, weary sort of envy for the child. What a luxury it would have been, to bellow, again and again, until all the pain was gone. To have Susannah McKittrick rush to one’s side, bearing comfort.

  “Excuse me,” Susannah said primly, and swept out in a flurry of skirts and conviction. He went to the doorway and watched as she hurried up the stairs in reply to that imperious summons. Oh, yes, he was envious, all right.

  Miss Victoria Fairgrieve was one lucky baby.

  Even during the brief time Aubrey was away, Victoria had grown significantly. Delighted by every task, Susannah changed the child’s diaper, washed her hands, and then lifted the warm, plump little bundle out of the cradle.

  “There, now,” Susannah said, patting Victoria’s tiny back as she headed down the corridor toward the rear stairs. “Your papa is home, safe and sound.” Some consolation that is, she thought with sad frustration. He thinks you’re his brother’s child.

  In the kitchen, she prepared a bottle while deftly shifting Victoria from one arm to the other. The baby fussed and tugged at Susannah’s hair, nearly causing it to fall from its combs, and settled down only when the milk was ready. Rocking Victoria in Maisie’s chair, Susannah felt deeply calm, despite the recent confrontation with Aubrey in the rear parl
or.

  She rested her cheek against the baby’s downy head, humming softly, and went to sleep. That was how Aubrey found her, some time later.

  “Susannah.” He touched her shoulder gently. “Susannah, wake up.”

  She sat up very straight, groping for the child, finding her arms empty. Panicking.

  “It’s all right,” Aubrey said in a quiet voice. “I put—Victoria to bed.”

  She was first relieved, then befuddled. “You did?”

  He smiled, and she was shaken by that, as always. “Go and get some sleep, Miss McKittrick,” he said. “You are plainly exhausted.”

  She nodded and took his hand when he offered it. As she rose, her fingers curved around his palm, and a shiver of sweet fire raced through her. Why, she wondered, did she have to react to Aubrey Fairgrieve in such a way, when it would have been so much more convenient to be so affected by Mr. Hollister?

  She was still pondering the question when either she tripped on the hem of her dress or Aubrey pulled her close. Whatever the case, she collided with his chest, and when she would have righted herself, he bent his head and caught her mouth with his own.

  If the touching of palms had set Susannah’s senses ablaze, Aubrey’s kiss fairly consumed her. He was very skilled; she had only to receive and accept, it seemed, which was a good thing, because she would not have known how to do more.

  After a thorough introduction to the intricacies of the form, Aubrey drew back, looking bemused. “Have you ever been kissed before?” he asked. She blushed, mortified that her inexperience was so obvious, and tried to flee, but Aubrey held her firmly by both arms. “Susannah,” he insisted.

  “No,” she cried in an indignant whisper. “No. Are you satisfied?”

  He tilted his head back and laughed softly, and the sound was wholly, implicitly masculine. “Far from it,” he replied, and his chameleon eyes, now green, now amber, now clear as water, glittered with pleasure. “We have a problem, Miss McKittrick.”

  She stepped back, and he released his physical hold on her, though his gaze held her just as effectively. “And what is that, Mr. Fairgrieve?”

  “I believe I just demonstrated the difficulty.”

  Susannah squared her shoulders. “You kissed me,” she said. “I forgive you.”

  He laughed again. “Ah,” he parried. “That is magnanimous of you. But I did not ask for your pardon, did I?”

  She drew herself up, incensed—and secretly excited—by the utter impropriety of his attitude. “I think, sir, that you are drunk,” she said, although in truth she thought nothing of the sort. Even though he’d taken brandy earlier in the rear parlor, he was anything but intoxicated. For all her lack of experience in such matters, Susannah knew that much.

  “I never get drunk,” he replied, a little smugly. “Believe me, I’ve tried many times, but no amount of liquor will drown my damnable good sense. I am condemned, more’s the pity, to a life of raw-nerved sobriety.”

  Susannah did not know how to respond. She smoothed her skirts, patted her hair, and realized too late that the gesture had displayed the lines and form of her bosom in a most provocative way. “Good night,” she said. And this time, when she started toward the stairs, he made no move to stop her.

  When she came downstairs the following morning, carrying a freshly bathed and dressed Victoria and feeling frazzled for lack of rest, there was a place set for her at the table. Beside it was a volume, bound in fine leather.

  She frowned. “What’s this?”

  Maisie took Victoria and set her on the blanket in the center of the room, alongside Jasper, who was home from school that day because of the sniffles. The two children studied each other with wide, curious eyes. “Mr. Fairgrieve left it for you,” Maisie said with a shrug, and went back to the kettle of corn mush on the stove. “You want some toast?”

  “Yes, please,” Susannah said distractedly, taking her chair and reaching for the book. The name on the inside cover was Ethan Fairgrieve.

  Maisie brought coffee and went back to prepare the toasted bread. Susannah turned the first page and found herself immersed in line after line of spare yet vivid poetry. The verses were a tribute to a love so deep, so total, that reading them was tantamount to eavesdropping on the author’s very soul.

  Susannah read on, ignoring her breakfast, one hand pressed to her heart, her eyes blurry with tears. She was three-quarters of the way through when Victoria demanded her attention. Reluctantly, she put the volume away and carried her charge back upstairs, for a change of diaper and the addition of several layers of warm clothes.

  She and Victoria were returning from their third turn around the neighborhood with the pram when Aubrey rode up on a handsome black gelding.

  “Are you trying to give that child pneumonia?” he demanded, dismounting and tossing the reins to a waiting stable hand.

  “She is bundled up like an Eskimo baby,” Susannah said, undaunted. She was a great believer in fresh air. “Why did you want me to read Ethan’s poetry?”

  A muscle flexed in his jawline, and for a few moments, his gaze was fixed on something far away, beyond the sound and the snowy mountains framing it. “Because he wrote it for Julia,” he said.

  Susannah felt sick. She was going to be terribly disillusioned if Ethan turned out to be a rascal; she liked him and did not want to change her opinion. If she’d had to hazard a guess, she’d have said the lines were written for Su Lin. “I read most of the verses, and there was no mention of her name.”

  “She kept the book in her bedside table,” Aubrey said, as though she had not spoken. “She asked me to read aloud from it the day she died. Really very romantic, don’t you think?”

  “Aubrey—”

  He stepped back, holding his hands at his sides, palms out. “No, Susannah. The words in that book are Ethan’s, and Julia was their subject. Nothing you can say will change it.” With that, he turned and strode toward the house, leaving her to stand watching him in consternation and despair. Only when Victoria began to cry did she push the pram through the open gate and up the walk.

  Mr. Hollister arrived just in time to help her maneuver both baby and buggy up the steps onto the porch and through the doorway. She was relieved, if anything, when, instead of inviting her on another outing, he asked to see Aubrey.

  Susannah gathered up Victoria and made herself scarce.

  Chapter 7

  The contingent of church women came to call the following morning, moving in single file up the walk, through a wispy fall of snowflakes and the pluming fog of their own labored breath. They resembled a train of freight cars, steaming determinedly along behind the engine.

  “Oh, lordy,” breathed Maisie, who had seen them gather into a flock at the end of the street when she was returning from taking Jasper to school, and summoned Susannah from the piano with a hissed, “Come quick!” and an excited gesture of one hand.

  Even before Maisie gave their official title, Susannah had known who the women were. Their black sateen dresses and bonnets, their grim and implacable expressions, said it all. Each carried a Bible; they had clearly put on the full armor of God before making their assault upon the house of sin.

  “Bunch of fusty old crows,” Maisie muttered.

  Susannah smoothed her skirts and patted her hair. “Let them in, please,” she said. “I shall receive them in the parlor. And make tea, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Hell, yes, I mind,” Maisie retorted, “but I’ll do it for you. Can’t say as I understand what you’re up to, though. Them old biddies ain’t here to welcome you to town, you know. They want to find out whether or not you’re the mister’s new fancy woman.”

  Susannah let out a sigh as the doorbell chimed. “I know,” she said, and, assuming what dignity she could, turned and swept into the parlor to receive her grimfaced guests. Had it not been for the circumstances, she might have been a little flattered by their suspicions. She was not sophisticated in such matters, but she knew that not even Delphinia Park
er would have dared to live openly with a man who was not her husband. The good ladies saw themselves as guardians of Seattle’s morals, at least in the stratum they occupied.

  There were six of the visitors, and not one spared so much as a smile when Susannah, stirring the fire to warm the room, offered a cheerful greeting.

  “I,” announced the leader, “am Mrs. Charles Fielding Shimclad. President of the Ladies’ Christian Benevolence Society. I believe you know our pastor, Reverend Johnstone, and have even attended our services.” There was a faint note of recrimination in the woman’s words, as though she believed Susannah might have overstepped her bounds merely by crossing the threshold of their church but was reserving judgment.

  She recalled all of the women from Victoria’s christening but made no mention of the fact. “Susannah McKittrick,” she said with a cordial but reserved nod. “Julia—Mrs. Fairgrieve—was my schoolmate and friend. Won’t you sit down? Maisie will serve tea in a few minutes.”

  The Benevolence Society, having paraded through the icy morning air, was not quite stalwart enough to refuse tea and seats near the fire, although it was plain from their manner that they would have preferred to state their mission, issue their demands, and depart in a blaze of Christian indignation.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Shimclad with the utmost reluctance. At her signal, the other ladies found places around the room, while Susannah remained standing, just to one side of the fireplace, wanting to keep the slight advantage of being on her feet.

  “I suppose you know why we’re here,” submitted another delegate, a skinny creature with a spray of pockmarks down one side of her face and a pair of protruding front teeth.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Susannah lied airily. She was an unmarried woman, living in the home of an unmarried man, and such arrangements were not looked upon with favor by Mrs. Shimclad and her ilk. Not in Boston, not even in frontier cities like Seattle.

  The formidable leader cleared her throat. Her many chins quivered, and Susannah was momentarily—and unkindly—reminded of a turkey’s neck. “We are here on an errand of the Lord,” Mrs. Shimclad said.