Carpenter's Inheritance

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “I think you have a grand case. I think you’re likely to win. But I can’t help you with it for two reasons.”

  “Which are?” The chilled atmosphere in the chamber had nothing to do with the temperature but everything to do with his tone of voice in those two words.

  Lucinda hugged herself. “I can’t tell you exactly.”

  “Why not?” The ice outside could take refuge from the sun in her office.

  Lucinda held out her hands to him. “Matt, I can’t tell you because it involves another client of mine and I’m not allowed to say anything or represent someone who might be in direct conflict with you. Does that make sense?”

  “Not particularly, but I guess you can’t tell me.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “All right, then.” A slight thawing. “That’s one reason. What’s the other?”

  “You and me. That is—” Her cheeks heated. “I can’t represent you if we—if you still want to court me.”

  “Still want to? Of course I still want to.” He strode forward and clasped her hands in his. “I’ve wanted to court you practically since I met you, but you’re a lady, educated and refined. I never would have considered courting you if I hadn’t found those papers, thought there was hope. I just couldn’t think what to do with them. I didn’t want to give them to you straightaway, and I— Lucie, if I can’t prove my claim, I am always going to be fatherless for reasons people here gossip about despite my mother’s change of heart.”

  “And you think I care about that? I didn’t look at those papers until I got home last night, if that tells you anything.”

  “You may not care, but I do. I don’t want to bring you down. You need clients with money, not the sort who are paying you in eggs and roasted chickens.”

  Lucinda smiled. “I appreciate the eggs and roasted chickens.”

  “They don’t pay the rent. They don’t get you out of these awful rooms and into something better.” His fingers tightened on hers. “They don’t get you what you’re used to having.”

  “I’m getting used to having this.” She pulled one hand free and swept her arm out to encompass her office and room. “It’s worth it to do what I love.”

  “It’s not a home.” He turned away from her, paced to the back window, stood with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched and head bowed, then returned to her. “Lucie, I was praying about what to do about my being attracted to a lady like you, and then I found them. If I’m still only the son of the town’s reformed fallen woman, I’m not good enough for you.”

  “Matthew, that’s absurd. You are God’s son, His beloved son. An earthly father doesn’t matter.” Her throat closed before she could say more in protest.

  He shook his head. “Not absurd at all. It’s fact, my dear. People like the Howards will never come to you.”

  “They go to Stagpole anyway.” She blinked to keep the tears behind her eyelids. “And I have the Floyd sisters.”

  “Who everyone thinks are eccentric at best. Yes, their money gets them invited everywhere, but no one listens to them.”

  “And Samantha Howard—” She stopped.

  Not good to mention his former love, whom he had given up for a parcel of land, the price her father was willing to pay to get rid of him. Because he wasn’t good enough for his precious daughter, the artisan son of an unmarried woman.

  Except he wasn’t unless those papers were forged. He needed an investigator, a detective, to find out the truth.

  “My father isn’t going to come after you for courting me,” she added.

  “But will he be happy about it?”

  “If I love you, he won’t care. Not unless—” She drew her lower lip between her teeth.

  Matt raised a brow.

  Lucinda sighed. “Unless I stop practicing law. I had an inheritance from my grandmother that paid for my education, but Daddy doesn’t want me to waste it.”

  “And you’ll waste it lowering yourself to my level.”

  “Matthew.”

  “Lucinda, it’s true and you know it. You’ve been here long enough. Even the Floyd sisters don’t invite me to dinner parties.”

  “You.” She jabbed her finger at his chest. “Why did you even court me if this is how you feel?”

  “Because I thought you could help me prove my identity.”

  “You thought—” Lucinda grabbed for the back of her desk chair behind her. “You thought I’d help you if you courted me?”

  “No, Lucie—”

  “You thought you could pay me with kisses instead of chickens, did you?”

  “Lucinda, no, I only meant—”

  She marched over to the door and flung it open to a blast of wind not yet warmed by the sun. “I think you need to leave. I have work to do.”

  “Lucinda, stop and listen to me.” His tone was firm, his face resolute. “Please,” he added like an afterthought.

  Certain she was going to burst into tears at any moment, Lucinda didn’t budge. The wind could account for any excess moisture in her eyes.

  Matt didn’t move, but someone headed up the steps, a man Lucinda had known existed since before her arrival in Loveland, a man whom she had seen on the street but who had never deigned to speak to her.

  “Mr. Stagpole,” she said with admirable calm, “to what do I owe this honor?”

  Stagpole entered the office and removed his silk top hat to reveal a shock of beautiful silver-white hair still thick and wavy despite his probably sixty or more years. “Good day, Miss Bell. I need a word with you.” He glanced at Matt. “A private word.”

  “Of course.” Lucinda smiled, though her insides quaked. “My carpenter is just leaving. It’s really too cold for him to be building me a vestibule, don’t you think? Thank you for coming, Mr. Templin.”

  “You’re welcome, Miss Bell.” He stepped over the threshold, then turned back. “I’ll return when the atmosphere is warmer.”

  The look in his eyes warned her he didn’t mean the outside temperature.

  Inclining her head graciously, she closed the door in his face, then gave Mr. Stagpole her attention. “How may I help you? Feel free to sit.”

  He was looking around the small, shabby office, from her chairs, to her scarred desk, to the fine shelves full of books. He pulled one from the shelves. “I understand you attended the University of Michigan for law school.”

  “Yes, sir. They’re quite open to admitting women.”

  “Provincials,” he muttered, then elevated his nose. “I read into the law. I didn’t attend school. We didn’t attend school back then. Reading was good enough.”

  “I expect it was, but nowadays, we have to compete with people going to law school, if we don’t have your vast experience.”

  She wanted to gag on her flattering words, even if they were true.

  “There’s a woman in the capital—that’s Washington City—who learned law from her husband and is now teaching other women the law. There’s even talk of opening up a law school for women in Washington.”

  “Humph,” Stagpole snorted. “Good idea, keep ’em separate from competing with men.”

  Lucinda bit down on her tongue until it hurt.

  Stagpole slid the heavy tome back onto its shelf and faced Lucinda. “Enough chitchat, girl. I have serious business to discuss with you.”

  “Of course.” Lucinda gave him a brittle smile and sat down behind her desk.

  He might choose to tower over her if he wished to intimidate her with his greater size and louder voice, but seated, she could hide her shaking hands. “What is it?”

  “John Paul Daggett. You’re representing him, are you not?”

  “You know I can’t tell you.”

  “Don’t go all prim on me, missy. I know you are.” He placed his palms on her desk and leaned over it until his face was close enough for her to count his nose hairs and she could smell cigar on his breath. “Don’t do it if you know what’s good for you.”

  His breath was t
urning her stomach. His words went further, raising bile in her throat. She couldn’t move away or he would take it as her backing down. She remained stiff and steady in her chair, meeting his eyes full on. “Mr. Stagpole, are you threatening me?”

  “I don’t need to be that crude, Miss Bell.” He leaned a bit closer. “If you continue to help the boy, it won’t be good for your career.”

  “That’s utterly fascinating, Mr. Stagpole.” Lucinda pushed back her chair and rose. “Now, if you’ve no further business, I have someone waiting for me.”

  Stagpole straightened like someone had pulled a string at the back of his neck. “I didn’t realize you weren’t alone. You should have told me.”

  Lucinda smiled. “You should have asked.” She stalked to the inner door and pulled it open. “Good day, Mr. Stagpole.”

  His face darkening, he swiveled on his heel and marched out of her office.

  Lucinda reached one of her dining chairs before her knees gave way.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Carr asked. “You look unwell.”

  “I think I am.” Her breakfast toast and coffee felt more than a little unsettled in her stomach. “I think I’ll close the office and lie down for a while.”

  “Shall I make you some tea?” Mrs. Carr began to gather up a beautifully embroidered handkerchief, needles, and colorful threads. “I don’t mind at all.”

  “No thank you. I’ll get some later. Thank you for coming. That was an excellent notion of Gertie’s.”

  “But Mr. Templin is gone.” Mrs. Carr’s pale eyes tightened at the corners. “I thought he was staying to work.”

  “It’s too cold.” Lucinda rose and headed into the office to signal she wasn’t going to talk about Matt. “I’ll send some telegrams if the telegraph wires aren’t down from the storm.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.” Mrs. Carr glided past Lucinda and reached for the handle on the outside door.

  Her own hand on the edge of the desk, Lucinda exclaimed, “Wait. Please wait.” She yanked open the drawer and removed Daggett’s file. “Will you please take this down to Gertie? Please ask Gertie to put the other one in a safe place.”

  New locks or not, someone had broken into her office before. Nothing stopped them from trying again and succeeding with more case files this time. The file was the work she had done on behalf of John Paul Daggett.

  Mrs. Carr looked puzzled, but accepted the file and slipped it into her enormous bag. “It’ll be safe with Gertie and me.”

  Safer than in Lucinda’s office.

  “I know. Thank you.” Lucinda closed and locked the door behind Mrs. Carr, then drew the curtains across all three windows. In the twilight gloom, she undressed to her chemise and petticoat and wrapped herself in a quilt upon the sofa that served as her bed. She wouldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep. Her mind raced around and around like a carousel horse with a broken gear sending it spinning out of control. Matthew. Stagpole. Matthew. Stagpole. Thoughts of Matt turned her heart into one giant ache. Thoughts of Stagpole left her tense with the desire to strike something or someone.

  “How dare he.” She beat her fist against her already-abused sofa. “How dare he and Mayor Woodcocks threaten me like that.”

  If she had been slow with her work for John Paul before, she would be no longer. She would accelerate her work on his case, get a hearing before the end of the year. Before Christmas. And she had a lot of work to do for Mrs. Carr. Between the two of those and the little assignments that came to her, she would be busy enough to forget about Matthew Templin.

  But of course she couldn’t. He had left his mark on her office with his shelves and door and his locks and his chairs. He had left his mark on her heart.

  “How dare he use me like that. Protest all he likes, it doesn’t change what it is.” This time her desk took the force of her fist, but only once. It hurt her knuckles too much.

  She sucked on a bruised finger and stared out the window. From her desk, she could see nothing but the chimney on the building across the street, and a patch of leaden sky. More rain or snow if the temperature dropped. The latter was likely near the end of November in this unforgiving climate.

  For the first time in her adult life, she had let herself care for a man beyond friendship. An unlikely man at that. She had let him kiss her because she was convinced he cared. But he’d done so after giving her the papers saying he was, in all likelihood, Mrs. Woodcocks’s son by a former husband, a husband before John Paul’s father, Paul Daggett. The question was: Why had Mrs. Woodcocks given up that son, and how much of her money, if any, was Matthew entitled to?

  He needed to find out for his sake. She simply couldn’t do it for him and help John Paul, too.

  She concentrated on those two major cases over the next few days through weather that couldn’t decide to be autumn clinging or winter begun. She wrote letters and she sent telegrams. She went to church on Sunday, arriving just before the service started and leaving immediately upon its conclusion to avoid talking to Matt.

  She saw him there, talking to Gertie and two rather pretty girls who waited at the tea shop. She saw the Howards and Woodcocks, too. Only Samantha raised a hand in greeting.

  And she didn’t slip out quite fast enough, not before hearing someone whisper behind her back what her mother had seen happening in the café kitchen the night of the storm.

  Cheeks burning despite the frigid wind from the north, Lucinda walked as quickly as she could without running, and hid herself in her office. She would never recover from the shame of kissing a man who had only done so to persuade her to help him.

  “I’d have helped you anyway if not for John Paul.” She proved that to herself by reading up on inheritance laws.

  Matthew’s staying away from her proved to her that she was right. When she said she couldn’t help him, he stayed away. A lady lawyer was more than he could manage in his life.

  If this is how it is, would you give it up for him? she asked herself on the way to the post office on Monday morning. What do you love more—him or the law?

  But should she have to give it up just to win him? That didn’t seem right. If he didn’t want her as a lawyer, then did he want her at all?

  And this is my calling, she reminded herself.

  She arrived at the post office and mailed the final papers to get a hearing for John Paul.

  “You got a package,” the postmistress told her. “Was going to send it down to you, but you may as well take it.”

  “Yes, and the rest of my mail, if there is any.”

  There was—an envelope from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that could only have to do with Mrs. Carr’s pension. Lucinda could scarcely wait to get back to her office to read it. Surely this time they would say the pension was granted. Lucinda didn’t really want to go up to Boston to argue before a judge.

  She knew what the parcel was—two ball gowns from her clothes press at home. She had told her father’s housekeeper which ones would suit for a ball in a Massachusetts winter. Except she wouldn’t go now.

  At her office again, she set the letters on the desk, then carried the ball gowns into the back room—and found her door there ajar with snow-laden wind making a mess of the floor.

  The lock had been broken.

  fourteen

  Slipping and sliding in the fresh snow, and once landing on her hands and knees in the middle of the sidewalk, Lucinda raced to Gertie’s café. She knew she was likely to encounter Matthew there, but she needed help replacing the lock.

  For the time being, she had pushed the chair Matthew had made for her in front of the rear door. It wouldn’t hold back a determined thief for long, but probably long enough for someone to notice him trying to intrude.

  In the event Matthew was at the café, Lucinda entered through the kitchen door. Gertie stood at the stove flipping an omelet with effortless skill. She glanced up at the blast of cold air rushing through the warm room, and gave Lucinda a tight-lipped smile.

  “He isn’t
here,” she said.

  “I need someone who can change a lock.” Lucinda clasped her hands, removed her gloves, and clasped her hands again. “Someone’s broken into my office again.”

  The omelet shot past the waiting plate and landed on the floor.

  “Girl, you shouldn’t surprise me like that. Now Ted Johnson is going to have to wait longer, and he’s already impatient.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up.” Lucinda grabbed up a spatula and began to lift pieces of egg and mushroom and onion into the slop pail for the pigs. “Doesn’t Mr. Johnson own the hardware store?”

  “He does.” Gertie beat at a bowl of eggs.

  “Then do you think he could come fix my lock?”

  “I think Matthew would do a better job in the event the door is busted.”

  “But Matthew isn’t here.” Lucinda sounded as frosty as the day.

  “I expect him in about—ah.” Once again, Gertie glanced toward the door swinging open to wind and feathery snow.

  He stomped snow from his boots, removed his coat, then faced the room and Lucinda on her knees cleaning up spilled omelet. His eyes met hers, and her mouth went dry. Her heart must have stopped beating, for she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, could only stare at a clump of snow sliding from the crown of his unprotected head and long to jump up and brush it away before it plopped onto his nose.

  He raised his hand and brushed it away himself. “Good morning, Miss Bell.” His tone matched the snow. “What brings you here to clean Gertie’s floor?”

  “She had a break-in,” Gertie said. “Startled me into dropping—”

  “When? Where?” The coldness melted away and he closed the distance between them and crouched before her. “Lucie, what happened?”

  “The. . .back door.” Her voice was a mere whisper. “I was at the post office.”

  “Did they take anything?” he pressed.

  She shook her head. “But they rifled my desk.”

  “You need to tell the constable,” Gertie said.

  “Yes, you do, but if nothing’s been taken, they’ll put it down to high jinks.” Matt reached out for her hands. “I’ll clean that up. Were you here looking for me?”