Henry was close enough his arm brushed hers. “What promise?”
She had never told anyone about her last conversation with her mother, except David. Shortly after their mother’s death, she’d found her brother crying in the barn. He was only twelve at the time, and she’d tried to comfort him by assuring him she would take care of him and all their siblings just as she’d promised Mother. David had often used that conversation against her, throwing it in her face anytime she was doing something besides cooking and cleaning.
Could she trust Henry and tell him?
She studied his profile. He was six years her senior, and would one day take his father’s place as a village elder. Though stern in his logic, he’d proven tenderness when she spoke of her mother. Still, she’d never confided in a man outside her family before. She fixed her eyes on the water and let her vision blur. “When my mother was dying, she told me it was up to me as the oldest to take care of our home and my brothers and sisters. She made me promise her I would put our family first. She said to keep writing my stories but put them first.”
“That’s an unfair burden to put on a young woman.”
“What choice did she have out here in this isolated settlement? She was dying and leaving behind six children—two of them toddlers—and I was the closest thing to a mother they had. I’ve raised them thus far. David and Wade don’t need me much anymore—just cooking and cleaning and mending. Doris needs me in a different way now that she’s thirteen. I still have years to go with the twins.”
He didn’t speak, and she liked his silence. The quiet togetherness suited her. After a moment, he leaned his palms on the mossy ground behind him. “Then what will you do… when they are grown?”
A surprised chuckle escaped her throat. “I’ll be too old to care.”
“Certainly not.”
“I suppose I’ll have more time to write. Although, since David will inherit my family’s home and orchard, he will probably keep me cooking and cleaning all day to earn my keep.”
“Unless he marries.”
“Ah, yes. Then he and his happy bride will banish me to the cellar.”
Henry grinned and lifted a sarcastic eyebrow. “A cellar would make a fine home.”
She smiled, happily playing along. “Yes, quiet and cozy. It would be the perfect place to write.”
He raised a finger as if making a point. “And since you’re so good at making candles, you would have plenty of light down there.”
“I suppose so.” She swished her feet in the water, upsetting a turtle that was sunning itself on a nearby rock. “See, my spinsterhood won’t be so bad. How about you?”
His smile grew. “Oh, I’d make a frightful spinster.”
They both laughed. She nudged him, liking that he was close enough to touch. “No, I meant: what will you do now that your father has given you the print shop and Simon will take over the farm? Where will you live?”
“Perhaps Simon will offer me the cellar.” He glanced at her and when she didn’t laugh, his smile faded too. “I might ask Gabe to help me add a room onto the print shop. I don’t need much space.”
“What if you have a family someday?”
He lifted his palms from the ground and stared at the bumps on his left hand where he’d lost two fingers. “That’s not something I’ll ever have to worry about. I haven’t had…” He kept looking at his hands and rubbed his palm, but he didn’t finish his sentence.
Though she wasn’t sure what he’d stopped himself from saying, she knew the feeling behind his unspoken words. “I’ll never have to worry about it either.”
Whatever thought had come to his mind had locked him away in some dark place. She wished she had said nothing about him someday having a family. Surely there was something she could say to lure him back to the present. Nothing came to mind. She watched him rub his scarred palm. “Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes. Not now.”
“You were rubbing it like it was sore.”
He drew an outline of his missing fingers. “Phantom itching. Sometimes rubbing my palm makes it stop.” He folded his hands and looked out over the water. “Sometimes nothing makes it stop.”
She remembered back to when he’d injured his hand while helping raise the new barn on his family’s property a few years ago. Both of the Doctors Ashton had worked through the night to save as much of his hand as possible. Then the fever had set in, and everyone feared he would die of infection. “You are stronger than all of us. At one point, you weren’t expected to live through the night, and then there you were, sitting in the church the next Sunday morning.”
His back straightened. “It wasn’t by my strength.”
“Right, God healed you. Even still, I remember being amazed by your recovery.”
“It was God, yes, but through the medicine He has surrounded us with.”
“What do you mean?”
He turned his gaze to her. “If I am to tell you, I must swear you to secrecy.”
A quick thrill tightened her belly. “Secrecy?”
He nodded, his expression more serious than she’d ever seen.
She matched his gaze. “All right. I won’t tell anyone. What medicine?”
He motioned to the trees overhead. “Tea made from the gray leaf tree.”
“Tea?”
“Jonah made tea for me from the gray leaf. It saved Marian’s life once, but it put her in a coma, so the senior Doctor Ashton forbade Jonah ever to give it to a patient again. When Jonah knew I would die from the infection, he told me about the gray leaf tea and the potential danger.” His eyes darkened. “At that point, I didn’t care if I lived or died. I hoped the gray leaf would put me to sleep and I’d never awaken. But I did. Two days later. The infection was gone, and my wounds were healed.”
Amazement dropped Hannah’s mouth open. When Henry looked at her, she promptly closed it. “What was it like… the gray leaf medicine?”
“Blissful. It removed my pain. For a short time it made me forget I’d ever been hurt. And it sped my recovery by one hundred times.”
She thought about her mother’s illness. “Do you think it might have helped my mother?”
“There is no way of knowing. I’m certain Doctor Ashton did everything he could for your mother.”
“I’m sure he did,” she said, but still wondered.
“He truly believes the gray leaf medicine is more poison than cure. That is why he’s forbidden Jonah from using it.”
“What did your parents say?”
“They don’t know it’s what cured me. No one does other than Jonah and Marian… and now you.”
Struck by the sweetness of him sharing his secret, she inched her arm over until it pressed against him. The breeze rustled the gray leaf tree limbs overhead. She looked up with a new appreciation of the remarkable tree that grew all around them but nowhere else on earth.
They sat quietly for a moment while shadows played across the water and their legs and the rocks. Without a word he scooped her hand into his and held it lightly. They both watched their joined hands. He let out a long breath, and when he spoke his voice was barely louder than the water that flowed by. “Hannah, I’ve thought about you every moment since the dance.”
Despite the warmth in the air, all the muscles in her body froze. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her in nearly two weeks? Was he in love with her? She too had felt something between them that night under the oval moon and even now sitting together by the stream with their feet dangling in the water. But was it love?
All at once the emerging feelings in her heart gurgled to the surface like the springs bubbling nearby. Henry Roberts hadn’t simply inspired her to write, he’d awakened her heart. Was that what had fueled her writing these past few days? Her attraction to Henry Roberts?
She opened her mouth to respond to him, but her words dissolved on her tongue.
Disappointment flashed across his face. He loosened his hold. “I’m sorry.”
He be
gan to pull away, so she entwined her fingers with his to stop him. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t apologize. Don’t go.”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “I won’t.” He looked at her with both hope and regret in his eyes. “Until you tell me to.”
His gaze moved to her lips, just as it had at the end of their dance, but this time he leaned in and kissed her. A nervous quiver fluttered her insides as he pressed his lips to hers. Unsure of what to do, she closed her eyes, but before she could absorb his kiss, men’s voices rumbled in the distance downstream. She quickly pulled away.
Feeling caught in mischief, she scampered to her wet feet and peered around the thicket. Mr. Roberts and Simon were traipsing up the path along the stream. She slipped back into her shoes and pretended to watch the waterfall while Henry casually dried his feet and tugged on his boots.
“Oh, you’re still here,” Mr. Roberts said as they rounded the bushes. He glanced from her to Henry and back again. “Sorry to interrupt. Turns out the fish aren’t biting downstream.”
Hannah forced a smile though she was certain her cheeks were cardinal red and Mr. Roberts knew she’d just been kissed. She hugged her satchel to her chest. “I really should be on my way home.”
Henry unrolled his trouser cuffs and sent his father a dour look. “I’ll walk her home.”
“No, thank you,” she said more insistently than she’d intended. “I should go alone.”
Henry caught her eye, and her forced smile melted. For an instant it was only the two of them again. His expression changed slightly, but the connection was undeniable. He took one step forward then stopped, his air of formality returning. “Very well. Good day, Miss Vestal.”
Chapter Thirteen
Henry stabbed a chunk of venison with his fork and glowered at Simon. He wanted to lunge across the dinner table and rip the smirk off his brother’s face. Instead, he chewed his dinner, grinding the seasoned meat until his jaw ached.
Simon chuckled like a ninny as he told their mother and siblings about Henry and Hannah at the springs. “We gave Henry plenty of time to walk Hannah home, but when we came back upstream, there they were, soaking their feet in the water, sitting close like a couple of lovebirds.” Bits of potato stuck to Simon’s fat lower lip. “You should have seen Henry’s face when we caught him.”
“Caught nothing,” Henry mumbled. Thank heavens Simon hadn’t seen them kiss. He would have gotten an even bigger laugh at that. And Henry wouldn’t have been able to restrain his anger so well.
For a time Henry had thought it was Simon who left the note at the print shop telling him to stay away from Hannah, but if Simon were in love with her, he wouldn’t be having this much fun mocking them.
“A couple of lovebirds,” Simon repeated himself, laughing.
Ellenore’s eyes were rounded happily, but she wasn’t laughing with Simon. “Are you courting her then?” she asked Henry with a hopeful tone in her voice.
He would answer his favorite sister’s questions later, but not now, not in front of the whole family with Simon’s battle-ax of mockery in full swing.
He gave Ellenore a look, hoping she understood. Ellenore sent a smile across the table to Hazel, who passed the happy expression to their mother. The three younger children were oblivious to the meaning of the glances.
Priscilla lifted a ceramic bowl of cheesy potatoes and offered it to Simon. “Here, son. Finish these off while your father tells us about the… village business.”
With Simon’s attention on his food, Priscilla nodded at Matthew. He took his cue and told the family about the elder’s latest plans.
Henry wasn’t listening. His mind drifted back to the springs and to Hannah. It was illogical for a man of his intellect and satisfaction in bachelorhood to be preoccupied with a woman, but he’d thought of nothing else all afternoon. Sitting beside her on the rock, he’d been close enough to hear the change in her breath when he touched her, close enough to count the golden specks in the brown of her eyes, close enough to know she wanted to be kissed.
And how he’d wanted to kiss her too.
He hadn’t planned it, but when he saw her by the springs, he had to know if she felt the same way about him. Now it was clear. Yet, the more his affection for her grew, the more his thoughts clouded.
With one simple kiss he’d complicated their relationship. Did this mean they would court? If so, he should do the honorable thing and speak to her father first. It seemed too soon for that. He’d become attracted to Hannah, kissed her, couldn’t stop thinking about her, wanted to pummel his brother for mocking them, but did any of it mean he should change his life and plan for marriage?
He’d never felt like this when he wanted to court Peggy Cotter, or even with Cecelia Foster. For some enigmatic reason everything was different with Hannah. Hannah was different. So much thought and passion churned beneath her surface, and he ached to investigate. That investigation would require courting. But there was more to courting than spending time together. The elders had made it clear that in the village of Good Springs, the purpose of courting was to determine if the couple was well suited for marriage. We are too small a population to toy with each other’s affections, Reverend Colburn always said.
So he hadn’t asked Cecelia to court and look how that turned out.
He shouldn’t move forward blindly and risk hurting Hannah or himself. But did he want marriage? Was he capable of loving Hannah how she deserved to be loved?
At some point, Matthew stopped telling the family about the mundane village business. He sopped up the last drips of gravy on his plate with a heel of bread then ate it. After everyone finished dinner, the youngest girls cleared the table.
While the women chatted and washed dishes, Henry needed to be alone and think. He stood from the table and looked at Priscilla. “Thank you for dinner, Mother.”
She tilted her head a degree the way mothers did when they knew something was wrong. Without giving her a chance to ask, he climbed the narrow staircase to the bedroom he shared with Simon to get his satchel before he went back to the print shop. Pausing in the corner of the room, he knelt to pull a wooden box from under his bedstead. After a check of the doorway, he opened the box.
Beneath a stack of nature sketches, he found the portrait he’d drawn after Mrs. Susanna Vestal’s funeral six years ago. Mrs. Vestal’s appearance had changed rapidly in the months before her death, but this portrait was how he remembered her. Face full of life, noble cheekbones, and light in her golden brown eyes. She’d babysat him when he was a young boy back in Virginia, and he’d enjoyed the way she told all the children stories to amuse them. He would never forget her ability to make up the stories as she told them.
Hannah had inherited more than her mother’s features. She possessed her mother’s creativity and gentle spirit. He’d soon find out about her storytelling skills. For both of their sakes, he hoped her story was worth printing.
The more he thought of Hannah, the more he wanted to be with her. It was both noble and a pity she had committed her life to raising her siblings. I still have years to go with the twins, she’d said.
Henry lowered the sketch and stared at the wall. What was he doing by interfering with the Vestal family? They needed Hannah. He was allowing his attraction to her to drive his thoughts.
“She looks just like her mother, doesn’t she?” Priscilla said from the doorway.
Henry laid the sketch back in the wooden box and slid it under the bed. “She does.”
“Have you shown Hannah that sketch?”
“No.”
Priscilla stepped into the room. “You should. She might like to see it.”
Though his mother meant well, he didn’t want her telling him what he should and shouldn’t do with Hannah. He slid the sketch into his satchel as he rounded the bedstead. “I need to go back to work.”
Priscilla sat on the edge of his bed and smoothed the pleats in her skirt. “Hannah’s a spe
cial girl,” she said, trying to lure him into a conversation he didn’t want.
“Yes, she is.”
“She has worked diligently to take care of her family. It takes a special kind of faithfulness to raise children that aren’t your own. She is strong but delicate too.”
He stepped toward the doorway. “Indeed.”
“Take care that you don’t hurt her, son.”
He stopped and turned on the ball of his foot. “I have no intention of hurting her.”
Priscilla lifted an innocent hand. “No one ever does. These things begin sweetly, but someone always gets hurt.”
Someone always got hurt when he was involved. She didn’t say that part, but that’s what she meant. And it was always the girl who got hurt. Women took offense so easily, but he didn’t want to talk about it. If any person besides his mother had brought up his flawed past, he would have harangued them with cunning wit until they regretted it.
But it was his mother, and she was right.
He took a slow breath and tried to relax his aching hand. He didn’t want to hurt Hannah. By kissing her he’d moved their relationship into dangerous new territory. He couldn’t forget what had happened or ignore his growing desire to be with her, but neither of them had circumstances that suited courting. He was busy with the press and didn’t have the time to build a house and feed a family. She couldn’t leave her responsibilities, and he would not ask her to.
“I care for Hannah a great deal.” He looked away so his mother wouldn’t see the doubt in his eyes. “And I won’t hurt her.” As the words left his mouth, he left the room.
Chapter Fourteen
Hannah walked into the church behind her father, brothers, and the twins. Though not yet nine o’clock in the morning, the warm air had thickened with humidity overnight. Heavy rain was coming. It couldn’t dampen her enthusiasm for her nearly completed story or for the chance to see Henry.
All Things Beautiful (Uncharted Beginnings Book 3) Page 9