Carpenter's Inheritance

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Lucinda hastened to change into her boots, pin on a felt hat, and wrap up in her warm wool coat and scarf. Seeing that Mrs. Carr donned no scarf, Lucinda took a second knitted strip out of the armoire and gave it to her. “You don’t want to risk getting sick.”

  “No, ma’am.” Mrs. Carr ducked her head as she wound the muffler around her neck. “About your fee. . . You are spending quite a lot of time on me.”

  “Never mind about that. Let’s get your pension straight.”

  “I can pay you as soon as you do, but if we lose. . .”

  “The Lord will provide. He has so far, and I don’t see why He’ll stop.”

  “True. True. For all we may have gone without other things these past two years, my children and I have had food and shelter.”

  They stepped out of the office door into slanting, stinging pelts of snow and icy rain. Lucinda closed the door and locked it, then turned, slipped on the icy treads. Her right foot shot out over the edge of the step. Laughing, she grabbed the railing and steadied herself. “Yes, I am most certainly going with you.”

  Slowly, they descended to the sidewalk. They held one another’s arms and, slipping and sliding, heads bent against the buffeting wind, walked the two blocks to Gertie’s café.

  It was still open, with several men, some with their wives, crowded around the tables drinking coffee and eating something savory smelling. Warmth enveloped the room, and Lucinda spread out her arms as though the entire chamber were a fire.

  In a way, it was. It was the fire of community and friendship, the closest thing to a home she had. Except she wasn’t quite a member yet. The conversation didn’t stop at her entrance as it had her first time there. A handful of people glanced up and smiled; two women she’d helped with minor legal issues raised hands of acknowledgment. Still, no one invited her to join their table for conversation. She was still too much of an oddity. She was not a housewife or even a lady seeking a husband. She was more educated than most of these people, and she came from a good family in the South. Yet with the mayor and his wife rejecting her for their gatherings, no one quite knew where Lucinda fit into the scheme of things.

  Gertie pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen carrying an enormous teapot, and, of all people, Matt came behind her holding two coffeepots. They both bypassed everyone calling for more coffee or tea. Smiles warm and welcoming, they headed straight for Lucinda and Mrs. Carr.

  “Lucinda.” Matt set the coffeepots on a table and clasped her gloved hands. “I’m glad you came early. I’m glad. You don’t need to be in those rooms eating cold food in this weather.”

  Suddenly, she didn’t care that no one in the room invited her to their table. Matt held her hands in his, warmth seeping through her gloves to her frozen fingers, warmth running up her arms, into her cheeks, into her heart.

  Oh no. It couldn’t have happened to her. Yet as she gazed into his brown eyes, she accepted that it had.

  She’d fallen for him—hard.

  She drew her hands free. Still the warmth lingered. The glow inside her continued to burn. “I, um, couldn’t let Mrs. Carr walk down here alone. I didn’t intend to stay.”

  “But now?” His gaze traveled over her face, intense, questioning.

  She licked cold and dry lips. “I can’t imagine wanting to leave.”

  “Lucinda.” His soft utterance of her name caressed her ears. “Will you sit down? I can get you some coffee. Gertie is busy taking care of Mrs. Carr’s children, so I offered to help.”

  “Then I’ll help, too.”

  He arched a brow. “Miss Lucinda Bell of Middleburg, Virginia, will help serve tables?”

  “No one is more a servant of people than a lawyer, Mr. Templin.” She picked up one of the coffeepots and began to circle the room, jetting arcs of the dark, rich brew into cups with the expertise she’d learned as part of her hostess training as a girl growing up with a father who often entertained clients and other important people in the community. Customers did stop talking now. Their gazes followed her, eyes wide, a few jaws dropped. Did they think she was some kind of snob, above helping Gertie, who had been kindness itself to her? Or did it stem from her being a lawyer and a lady one at that?

  Whatever the answers, people’s voices dropped after she passed, returning to the kitchen to replace the empty pot with a full one, pausing to fill more cups, even accepting someone’s payment before he braved the storm. She didn’t catch the remarks until one older gentleman whose hearing was obviously impaired and voice louder than he intended said, “Never thought I’d see a lawyer giving anything to anyone. All I ever thought was that they took out of others’ pockets.”

  The room fell silent. Slowly, Lucinda set her pot on a table and faced the man, her voice pitched a little louder so he’d be sure to hear her. “Mr. Kingswell, you own the green grocer, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course I do,” he snapped. “What of it?”

  “Do you give your groceries away?”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “Then why, after I have spent six years of training, should I give my goods away just because they come from my knowledge and my brain?” Smiling sweetly, she proceeded to fill more cups.

  A few people laughed and teased the old man about being bested by a female.

  Mr. Kingswell bellowed out, “Because you’re a woman. It ain’t right.”

  Lucinda didn’t need to respond. Half a dozen women jumped in saying a woman could charge for what she produced in work as much as a man.

  “It’s even in Proverbs,” Gertie declared. “A woman sells what she makes in the marketplace. Miss Bell’s marketplace happens to be people’s legal needs.”

  “Then tell her to do some good instead of encouraging our women to have their own wills,” one man called out.

  Lucinda overfilled the next cup. Hand shaking, Lucinda dropped her pot onto the table and fled into the kitchen. She yanked open the back door, but a blast of wind, laden with more ice than snow now, slammed into her face, reminding her she wore neither coat nor hat. No matter, she could get home two blocks without them.

  A hand fell on her shoulder, holding her in place with firm gentleness. The door was pushed out of her hold, the bar dropped into place.

  “Why are you running away from us and into that?” Matt steered her toward the stove’s heat. “You’ll be a block of ice before you reach your rooms, if you even get that far and don’t fall down and break something on the way.”

  “Would anyone come to my rescue if I did?” The instant she said the words, she wanted to pull them back inside. “That was childish. I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. You know I would.” He turned her so her back was to the blazing stove and she faced him. “Are you letting them scare you off? The lady who moved hundreds of miles from home to a strange town so she could answer the calling of the Lord?”

  “Perhaps I was wrong in that. Perhaps I wanted to be a lawyer and the Lord doesn’t want me to be one at all. People here don’t like me.”

  “The women like you. Their husbands are a little afraid of you.”

  “Me? But I’m so—so—”

  “Sweet. Kind. Strong.” He rested his hand on her cheek and lowered his voice. “Pretty.”

  “Pretty useless as a lawyer.” She stared down at the toes of her boots peeking from beneath the hem of her serge skirt. If she looked at him, saw the same tenderness in his eyes as she heard in his voice, felt in his hand, she might weep. Worse than weep, throw herself against his chest and sob. It was such a solid-looking chest. She shook her head to try to clear that thought, noting as she did so that her hair was coming loose. “I can’t even afford to live someplace where I can cook a pot of hot soup on a cold night.”

  “But God’s given you neighbors to rely on when you need that hot soup, hasn’t He?”

  “I’ve never had to ask for anything in my life.”

  “Including the Lord?”

  She sank her teeth into her lower lip.
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br />   He nudged her chin up with gentle pressure from his thumb. “You’ve had everything handed to you, haven’t you? A fine education, admittance to law school in spite of being a female, and then things got harder.”

  “I’m sure I’m supposed to practice law, but if people here don’t like me, they won’t come to me.”

  “Sure you’re supposed to practice, but why do you think you should be wholly independent in doing so? Let others help you.”

  “How?”

  Almost absently, his thumb stroked across her lower lip, and he smiled. “Don’t be so secretive about walking out with me. Go to church with me.” He raised his other hand to her face. “Go to the Christmas ball with me.”

  “I. . . How. . .?” The right question eluded her. Blood roared through her ears. Her heart raced. She raised her hands to push him away but clung to his lapels. You can’t. Not here. Not now. Surely she said those words, yet no sound emerged.

  And then she couldn’t talk, for his lips covered hers. His scent of fresh-cut wood and fresh air filled her senses. The floor must have vanished from beneath her feet, for surely she floated on air, with only his hands on her face and her fingers gripping his coat keeping her from banging her head on the ceiling beams.

  “Ahem.”

  The thunderclap of someone clearing her throat brought the floor slamming into Lucinda’s boot heels. She would have leaped backward if Matt hadn’t held her in place.

  “The stove is behind you,” he murmured, then looked past her shoulder and smiled. “Are we in your way, Gertie?”

  Only Gertie. Good.

  Except she stood with the door to the café wide open and half a dozen lingering patrons able to see straight into the kitchen.

  Not good.

  Gertie was grinning, though. “About time.”

  “About time for what?” Lucinda asked.

  That broke the paralysis of the coffee-drinking audience. They burst into laughter. A couple of men called encouragement to Matt.

  Lucinda ducked beneath his arm and darted to the counter out of sight of the dining room doorway. She needed the chill away from the stove to cool her heated cheeks, steady her charging heart.

  Matthew Templin had just kissed her. She had just let Matthew Templin kiss her. She had welcomed it, perhaps even invited it. Goodness, what was she thinking?

  The same thing she’d been thinking when he met her at the door—that she’d fallen for him, that she might even go so far as to say she loved him.

  This. Would. Not. Do. She was supposed to practice law, not enter into a courtship with. . . Well, with a highly respected artisan in the town, but one whose parentage was in serious question, thus making him the ridicule of many, scorned by the sort of people she wanted, she needed, as clients, if she was to succeed.

  She grabbed her coat and hat off of a stool where they’d been drying. “I must go. I have work to do.”

  “You can’t go out there,” Gertie and Matt protested.

  Gertie closed the door to the café. “Don’t run away from this, child. It’s nothing to be ashamed of if you care for him.”

  “I do. Of course I do. That is—” She made herself face them. “I’ve never kissed anyone in my life. I need some time to think.”

  “Ah, I understand.” Gertie strode forward and hugged Lucinda. “Then go home and think, but I’m sending some soup with you and Matthew to ensure your rooms are warm enough.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And behave yourself, young man.” Gertie punched Matt on the arm, picked up a pot of coffee, and left the kitchen.

  Matt took the coat from Lucinda’s hands and held it out for her to slide her arms into the sleeves. “I’d apologize except I don’t think I need to.”

  “No, you don’t. I didn’t object.”

  “You didn’t seem to.” He began to shrug into his own coat. “I’ve been in love with you since you were at my house with the Floyd sisters and you cuddled Purrcilla on your shoulder.”

  “Don’t tell me that.”

  “What, that I love you?” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “It’s not mutual?”

  “No. Yes. I mean—” She laid her head against his chest. “I’m so confused.”

  “I understand.” His arms closed around her, so wonderfully strong, sheltering, a shelter from the storm outside and the one within her.

  How simple life would be if she were simply a girl from the town, perhaps someone serving in Gertie’s café to make her living instead of someone every bit a professional as any male attorney. If only she didn’t believe she was supposed to practice law rather than be a wife.

  If only love hadn’t crept up on her and conquered her heart.

  “Let me get that soup.” Gertie poked her head around the edge of the door.

  Matt let Lucinda go, and Gertie entered the kitchen. “You’re going to stay here for the night, aren’t you, Matthew? You can’t be going back home in this.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to my horse.”

  Gertie ladled soup into a jar, wrapped it in a towel, then tucked it into a pail. “That should keep it from getting too cold on the way to your place. Now you come straight back, Matthew.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Lucie?” He offered her his arm.

  She took it, clung to it as they entered an ice-coated world. He was sure-footed and sturdy. She slipped and slid, but remained upright clinging to his arm.

  Two are better than one. . . .

  Beyond commenting about the weather, they said little on their way down the two blocks. When they reached her steps, Matt said he’d bring salt by in the morning. He walked behind her, steadying her up each icy tread.

  “I won’t come in, but I’ll wait in the event your rooms aren’t warm.” He kissed her cheek. “Good night, my love.”

  “Good night.” She unlocked her door and entered her office.

  She didn’t know if the radiators were working or not. That kiss on the cheek had warmed her enough.

  Still, she reheated the soup over her spirit lamp; then, unable to settle with ice pellets pinging against the windows and wind whining around the corners of the building, she sat at her desk and opened the drawer to take out some work.

  She found the papers Matt had delivered earlier. Even before she began to read them, her stomach dropped with a sickening jolt. She couldn’t represent him legally and walk out with him at the same time. It wasn’t illegal; it was just unethical and lawyers frowned on that kind of behavior. It was another mark against females practicing the law. She must make a choice between representing him and continuing a relationship with him.

  With her cheek and her lips still feeling the imprint of his kiss, she opened the packet of papers and began to read. The first one was a birth certificate.

  Her heart dropped to the bottom of her belly along with her stomach. The further she read the documents, the more her organs seemed to desert her body altogether.

  If she represented Matthew, which he certainly needed, she couldn’t help John Paul, which he certainly needed, as their claims were in direct opposition to one another, but both centered on the Woodcocks fortune. Or, more accurately, the Daggett fortune.

  Both men laid a claim to it.

  thirteen

  The next day dawned to sunshine turning the world into a crystal palace complete with glistening trees and shimmering roofs. It would all melt soon with that kind of sunshine, but Lucinda stood before her office window and gazed into the glorious brightness feeling like Sleeping Beauty the day after the prince awakened her.

  “Is this why You brought me here, Lord? So I could meet him?”

  He wasn’t the sort her father expected her to marry. He thought another lawyer, his partner’s son, for example, would be an excellent match. She liked Philip Long well enough, but he spent more time on the tennis court or golf course than practicing law. Matt. . . Well, Matt was as solid in his mind and spirit as he was in his form. Who cared that he was a carpenter and not a professional man
. He was an artist at his work, and he loved animals. He talked to the Lord more than he talked to a fellow sportsman, and he looked at her like she was the most precious thing on the earth. With all those qualities, his parentage didn’t matter to her.

  It mattered to him, though, and when he arrived, she must tell him she couldn’t help.

  He arrived bright and early, with Mrs. Carr in tow.

  “Gertie said we need a chaperone,” he told Lucinda.

  “Probably good advice, except. . .” Lucinda glanced from Mrs. Carr to Matt. “The nature of my business, I really can’t have another person around I’m not paying, and, well, the coffers don’t run that deep yet.”

  “They will.” He touched her cheek and smiled, and it was nearly as good as a kiss.

  Her insides jellied, Lucinda opened the door to her living quarters. “Why don’t you wait in here, Mrs. Carr. That way you won’t see any clients or hear anything, and we will still be looked after. I have a few novels you can read. Help yourself to tea or coffee.” Realizing she was talking too much, she shrugged. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “I will be, Miss Bell. I have my needlework.” She held up a tapestry bag nearly as big as a carpetbag. “And I can watch the street. Watching people is forever entertaining.”

  “Thank you.” Lucinda closed the door and turned to Matt. Their eyes met, held, urging her to run to him, see if last night was a mere dream.

  “We, um, have a chaperone,” she managed to say.

  “I suppose this is why.” He closed the distance between them in three long strides and kissed her quickly, lightly.

  No, the previous night was not a dream. Even that brief contact sent her head spinning, her knees weakening.

  “Should I get started on your vestibule?” he asked.

  “My—? Oh yes. No, I need to talk to you first.” She made herself walk to the desk and open the drawer. Her fingers fumbled at the packet of papers he’d brought her. She retrieved them at last and held them out to him. “I can’t help you, Matthew. I wish— Don’t look at me like that.”

  His face had fallen as though she had slapped him. “I have no case?”