Courting Susannah

by Linda Lael Miller

  She retreated a step, pale behind her rouge. “I can’t afford to get in trouble with the law, Ethan,” she fretted.

  “I guess you should have thought of that before you had my brother beaten to a bloody pulp,” he replied, opening one of the trunks that crowded the small stateroom, jerking out some sort of garment without looking to see what it was, and thrusting it at her. “Get dressed, or I swear to God, I’ll take you to the police in that flimsy thing you’re wearing now.”

  She nodded toward a changing screen in the corner of the room. “All right, then, if you insist. But I don’t want you looking at me while I change.”

  He should have been suspicious of her sudden acquiescence, but in point of fact, his mind was on other things. Aubrey, mostly. Susannah and the baby, too. She stepped behind the screen, and when she came out, only an instant later, there was a derringer in her hand.

  Ethan felt the bullet rip into his side as he stumbled forward, grabbed the gun, and wrestled it out of her hand. He was leaning against the cabin wall, one hand covering his wound, when two men rushed in. Seeing them, he allowed himself to pass out.

  “Ethan is in jail?” Susannah echoed in disbelief after a grim Maisie delivered the news. She had vowed not to leave Aubrey’s side, and she had kept her word, despite pleas and protests from her friend.

  Maisie nodded. “Shot, too. In the side. There was a lot of blood, but I guess he weren’t hurt too bad, when it came right down to it.”

  Susannah felt ill. First Aubrey, now Ethan. She could not shake the feeling that she had somehow brought bad luck to both the Fairgrieve brothers, though she wasn’t usually a superstitious person. “Wh-what happened?”

  “According to Hawkins—he was the one what brought the news—that Parker woman claims Ethan tried to force himself on her, on-board one of the steamers down at the harbor. She says she shot him to protect her virtue.” Maisie gave a disdainful harrumph.

  “Nonsense,” Susannah replied. “Ethan wouldn’t have done a thing like that. He probably found some connection between her and what happened to Aubrey.” The reminder brought fresh tears to her eyes; she took in his injuries once again and wished she could do something more than sit beside him, holding his hand, offering silent prayers and hoping.

  “We know that,” Maisie agreed, “but I ain’t so sure about the police. Folks around here tend to think of Ethan as somethin’ of a hell-raiser.”

  “Why?” Susannah asked, honestly puzzled. He had never behaved in anything but the most gentlemanly fashion in her presence.

  “He got into some trouble when he was a boy; no worse than most, though. Then there was that Chinese girl. He wanted to marry her, and to plenty of people, that was reason enough to give up on him for good.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Susannah muttered.

  Maisie raised and lowered one bulky shoulder in a shrug. “Be that as it may, that was the way of it. Only thing worse than their bein’ torn apart the way they was would have been for them to be together.”

  Susannah had suspected all along that Maisie knew more than she was letting on, and here was the proof. It was small comfort, given the situations in which Ethan and Aubrey found themselves now. “What happened?”

  “Her family sent her back home to China,” Maisie said in a gruff whisper. “She married some man over there, I reckon. There was never any word from her.”

  “Oh, Maisie.”

  “Ethan ain’t been the same since, ’course,” Maisie reflected, her gaze resting sorrowfully on Aubrey. “They’ve neither one had his rightful share of happiness, neither Aubrey nor Ethan.”

  Susannah watched as her friend went around the room, moving from one fixture to the next, turning up the gas, setting bluish flames dancing. Dispelling some of the shadows—the outward ones, at least. “And then there was Julia.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Maisie agreed wearily. “Then there was Julia.”

  The subject lay between them, a great gulf of secrecy and silence that neither woman wanted to breach just then.

  “What will happen to Ethan?” Susannah asked after a long time.

  “Hawkins’ll get him a lawyer,” Maisie answered. “I sure hope he does better than he did when he went to round up that doctor feller.”

  Alone in his cell, a clean bandage bulging beneath his shirt, Ethan lay stretched out on his cot. The doctor—not Sutherfield but some other stranger—had slipped him a flask full of whiskey after tending to his wounds, and he’d been taking regular drafts from it, but the stuff didn’t do much to soothe the throbbing ache in his side. Still, it gave him something to do, and without it he probably would have flung himself against the bars, yelling like a wild Indian, until he collapsed in exhaustion or passed out from the pain. Being behind bars was too much like being shut in the root cellar as a boy—one of his pa’s favorite punishments—though at least there was light in the cell and a modicum of fresh air coming in through a high, narrow window.

  “Ethan?”

  He recognized the voice, looked over to see John Hollister standing on the other side of the bars. Hollister was a family friend, of sorts. He and Aubrey had gone to school together for a short while over in Montana, and they’d had their share of scrapes before and after class, bloodying each other’s noses and blackening each other’s eyes. While Hollister had read the law, Aubrey had returned to Seattle to seek his fortune.

  “Hullo, John,” he said, easing himself upright with a painful effort. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m about the closest thing you’re going to get to a lawyer,” Hollister answered. He cleared his throat, and Ethan saw strain in his face, and sorrow. He sighed. “It’s what Aubrey would want,” he said, as though reminding himself, dragging up a chair, sitting down, and regarding Ethan through the bars. “What happened on that boat?”

  Ethan sat on the edge of his cot, braced his elbows on his knees, and rested his face in his hands. “That should be obvious,” he said affably, “even to you. Delphinia shot me.” He raised his head. “No more than I deserved, letting her get the drop on me like that.”

  “She says she did it because you were about to rape her. Is that true?”

  “You know damn well it isn’t.”

  “Do I?”

  Ethan stood with difficulty and crossed the cell to grasp the bars, taking so tight a hold that his knuckles went white and the joints in his fingers ached. “I went there to find out who she hired to beat my brother half to death. That’s all I went there for.”

  Hollister winced at the mention of Aubrey’s beating, knew he might not survive. “And what did she say?”

  “She admitted she’d hired the thugs but claimed she’d only asked them to rough him up a little. I told her I was bringing her here, to account to the police.” He paused, gave a humorless chuckle at the irony of that. “Then I made the mistake of letting her out of my sight. She got a derringer from somewhere and shot me.”

  Hollister gave a low whistle. “You’ve always had a special talent for getting yourself into trouble, Fairgrieve,” he said. “Some things just never seem to change. Your brother’s bookkeeper, Hawkins, has given me free rein as far as your bail is concerned. Soon as Judge Silvertrees sets an amount, you’ll be out of here.”

  “How is my brother?”

  “Holding on,” Hollister said with quiet sympathy. “I want your word on something, Ethan. When you’re released, you have to stay away from Delphinia Parker and let the police figure out who assaulted Aubrey.”

  “I can’t promise you that,” Ethan said with some regret. “If I find those sons-of-bitches, I mean to rip their livers out.”

  Hollister sighed and gave Ethan’s bandaged middle a pointed glance. “In your condition,” he said, “you’d lose for sure.”

  “Just get me out.”

  “I meant what I said, Ethan. No promise, no bail.”

  “You are one stubborn bastard.”

  “So are you,” Hollister answered, but he was grinning. “I�
��ll take you to my place when you leave here. We’ll talk about what happened and plan your defense over a hot supper. You remember my kid sister Ruby?”

  Ethan had a vague recollection of a kid with red pigtails, a face full of freckles, and teeth that were too big for her mouth. If he hadn’t found the prospect of a home-cooked meal such a comfort, he would have refused the invitation outright. “I remember,” he admitted grudgingly. “How old is she now, anyhow?”

  “Eighteen,” Hollister answered. “She went to normal school down in San Francisco. Means to teach school awhile, though I reckon she’ll be married pretty soon.”

  Ethan retrieved the whiskey flask. He was largely disinterested in Hollister’s little sister’s life story, the dull thrumming under his ribs had grown to a pounding ache, and he was worried sick about Aubrey. “That so?”

  The jailer arrived with keys.

  “You promise or not?” Hollister demanded of Ethan, barring the guard’s way when he moved to open the cell. The man could be obstinate as a bulldog when he had his mind set on something.

  “Hell,” said Ethan. The walls were starting to close in. “All right, damn you, you’ve got my word.”

  Hollister grinned and stepped back. “Let him out,” he told the jailer.

  Chapter 14

  “I can’t get her to leave him, not even to look after the baby.” Maisie’s worried voice came from the corridor outside Aubrey’s bedroom. “She ain’t slept a wink, far as I know, and when I brung her a tray a little while back, she wouldn’t take so much as a bite of food.”

  The door opened, and Susannah straightened her spine but did not look around. Reverend Johnstone came to stand beside the bed opposite her, but his attention was fixed on Aubrey. He lay a hand on that still shoulder, and Susannah watched as the older man’s lips moved in silent prayer.

  Only when his petition had been made did he meet Susannah’s eyes. “Child,” he said, and the word carried the gentlest of reprimands. But there was tenderness in it, too, and a vast, quiet faith.

  Susannah began to cry. “I keep thinking that if I can somehow share my strength with him—”

  “Aubrey knows you care for him,” the minister counseled, drawing up a chair, sitting with his fingers loosely interlocked, clearly prepared for a vigil of his own. “However, you’ll do him no good at all by exhausting yourself. This is a battle only the angels can fight, Susannah.”

  “But suppose I leave and—and—” he dies. She could barely think the words; saying them was beyond her.

  “Then God will receive his spirit,” the reverend said.

  She shook her head, refusing to let go. Another tear slipped down her cheek, and she dashed it away with the back of one hand.

  “Susannah,” the visitor pressed. “At least go downstairs and have some tea with Maisie. She’s in a frenzy, between worrying over Aubrey and fretting about you. I’ll sit with our patient here for as long as necessary.”

  She stood then, her knees wobbly and stiff from sitting through the long night, her lower back and shoulders knotted with tension. Perhaps a cup of tea would restore her a little, and of course she was not indifferent to Maisie’s concern. “You’ll summon me, if—if I’m needed?”

  Reverend Johnstone nodded, took a battered Bible out of his pocket, and began to read from it, under his breath.

  Susannah hesitated a moment longer, then forced herself to leave the room, descend the rear stairs, and assemble a shaky smile for Maisie’s sake. Her friend was rocking a sleeping Victoria, while Jasper sprawled on the floor on a warm blanket, taking a nap of his own.

  Maisie’s face quickened with both alarm and hope when she saw Susannah. She raised her eyebrows in question.

  “There’s been no change,” Susannah said softly, to keep from waking the little ones. She envied Jasper and Victoria their peaceful repose as she put water on to boil and measured tea leaves into a crockery pot. Although she was worn out, she thought she might never sleep again.

  “Look at you,” Maisie scolded in a gruff voice barely above a whisper. “Them eyes of yours look like two burnt holes in a blanket, and you’re pale as a haint.”

  Susannah ignored the remarks, though she knew them to be true. “How is Ethan? Have you heard from him?”

  Maisie withheld her answer for a moment, her mouth pressed into a thin line of frustration. Then she took pity on Susannah and relented. “I reckon he would have got out of jail last night if Hawkins found a lawyer. Like as not, he’ll show up here in the next little while. If he ain’t gone lookin’ for whoever it was that hurt Mr. Fairgrieve, that is.”

  Something quivered in the pit of Susannah’s stomach. There had been more than enough tragedy in the Fairgrieve family over the years, without Ethan getting himself hanged or taking another bullet. Doubtless, Aubrey’s assailants were better shots than Mrs. Parker; they would aim to kill. Before she could say as much to Maisie, there came a knock at the back door, and Ethan stepped inside, wearing a leather coat lined with sheepskin and a stockman’s hat that had seen better days. His pants and boots were those of a working rancher, and his shirt was unbuttoned to the waist, revealing the thick bandages that swathed his middle.

  Without a word, he crossed the room, took Susannah by the shoulders, and placed a light, brotherly kiss on her forehead. The tenderness of the gesture made her eyes swim again; she blinked rapidly, sniffled, and raised her chin.

  “He’s so still,” she said, despondent.

  Ethan nodded and shrugged out of his coat. With a muttered greeting to Maisie, he hung the garment from a peg beside the door and started toward the back stairs. At their foot, he turned and looked back. “When Aubrey comes to, Susannah, he’ll want to find you well. He’ll need you more than he’s ever needed anybody. So get some rest, will you?”

  She couldn’t fight them anymore, couldn’t deny the logic of what Maisie, Reverend Johnstone, and now Ethan had all said. “All right,” she said, and he nodded again and went upstairs.

  Thereafter, Susannah ate the poached egg and toasted bread Ellie made for her, then went up to her own room and flung herself down on the bed, fully clothed. She was asleep almost before she reached the mattress.

  Ethan shook her awake at sunset; she sat up, blinking and dazed. Terrified and hopeful.

  “Aubrey’s come around,” Ethan told her with a weary grin. “He’s asking for you.”

  She gave a small, strangled cry of urgency and of desperate joy, bounded off the bed, and raced into the hallway. Sure enough, Aubrey lay with his eyes open, and when he caught sight of her, his swollen mouth formed a semblance of a smile.

  “Hello, Susannah.” His voice was hardly more than a croak, but the sound of it was infinitely beautiful to her. She approached him slowly, knelt beside the bed, took his hand in hers. That same hand she had held through long, dark hours of despair.

  Without speaking, she kissed the backs of his fingers.

  The Reverend Johnstone stood, clearing his throat, and Susannah heard both him and Ethan leave the room, closing the door behind them. She was grateful, overwhelmingly grateful, for so very many things.

  In a painful motion, Aubrey brushed her cheek with his thumb, their fingers intertwined. His eyes, blackened and practically swollen shut though they were, twinkled. “I may not be able to dance at our wedding,” he said.

  Susannah made a soblike sound with something in it of both joy and sorrow. “How do you feel?”

  He looked at her for a long time, his regard at once curious and tender. “As if I’ve been stomped by a team of horses and then dragged a half mile over rocky ground,” he answered, and it was plain that merely speaking was a great effort. “Even so, I don’t see how I could look much worse than you do.”

  She pretended to be insulted, but she knew her eyes were shining with happy tears. “Such flattering words. Are you trying to seduce me, sir?”

  He chortled. “I would love to seduce you, lady, but I’m afraid I’m in no fit condition for it.” His expressi
on turned serious, and she knew the pain was gathering momentum. “Lie down beside me, Susannah,” he said. “Just lie here, so I know you’re close.”

  She didn’t hesitate, although she was careful not to jar him as she took her place next to him on the mattress, fitting her shape to his as closely as she could, her lips and the tip of her nose just brushing his neck.

  “Oh, Lord,” he groaned. “Suggesting this might have shown poor judgment on my part,” he said, and chuckled again. His amusement was immediately followed by another moan of pain.

  “I never thought I’d hear you admit to anything less than perfect judgment,” Susannah retorted. She was smiling, but her eyes were still stinging with tears. She could not seem to stop crying.

  “The Ladies’ Benevolence Society would not approve of this,” Aubrey said. Perhaps, Susannah thought, talking distracted him from his pain, though it was equally plain that every word came at great cost.

  Susannah laid her hand lightly upon his chest, fingers splayed, and felt his heart beating strong and steady, as though rising to meet her touch. She aligned her breathing with his and closed her eyes. “A pox on them,” she said cheerfully.

  She felt his left hand find and cover her right, lying there over his heart. “For shame,” he said. Then they both slept, soundly and without dreams.

  There was something different about Ethan, Aubrey reflected, a week after he’d come to and found himself in his own bed, swaddled in sheets like a mummy in some pharaoh’s tomb. He was sitting up, plumped pillows supporting his back, and though his ribs were still trussed, his bruises were fading, and the pain was becoming more endurable with every passing day.

  His brother stood at the window, his back to the room, light shining around his lean frame like a halo. He smiled at the irony; Ethan was a lot of things, but an angel wasn’t one of them.

  “Delphinia’s long gone,” he was saying, “but those thugs she hired are still around someplace, I’d bet the ranch on that.”