His Adam’s apple raised and lowered as he swallowed. “Yes, of course, I’m pleased for you. You set out to finish your story and achieved just that.”
Perhaps she was being oversensitive about his reaction because she’d only slept two hours last night. Maybe she’d expected too much from him. He’d given no indication he was the sort of man who celebrated such accomplishments. Still, didn’t human decency dictate he should at least congratulate her?
She’d probably surprised him too much. Some men needed a few moments to process news. She cast her gaze about the room to give him time to conjure a response worthy of the interest he’d claimed to possess for her. Her eyes moved from the letterpress to the cabinet of thin drawers to the window with the view of the stone library next door.
He said nothing.
She picked up her bound manuscript and flashed him a smile. “The ending came to me in a dream. I’ve never written anything so quickly in my life.”
He glanced back at the letterpress. “Hannah, I’m pleased with your efficiency, however, this is quite unexpected. I didn’t think we would have to do this for a couple of months.”
What did he mean have to do this? He’d been apprehensive about her writing ability at first, but since the dance he’d seemed smitten with her. Didn’t admiring a person extend to their creations? This story was, after all, as much a part of her as her eyes and voice. She proffered the manuscript. “Don’t you want to read it?”
He pressed his lips together. “I won’t have time to read the whole story until my project for the elders is complete. But I believe a final page can reveal the merit of a work.” He laid the manuscript on the worktable and untied the twine. “And since you’re especially proud of the story’s ending, you should have no problem with me reading only that much for now.”
Her heart skipped from both delight and devastation that he would read her words. She took a deep breath as he flipped the manuscript over and selected the last page. He leaned against the worktable and held the page close to the candlelight as he read. She walked to the window unable to watch him read her work.
The taut silence in the room broke when he shifted his weight away from the worktable. He returned the page to its place in her manuscript. “Is this your best work?”
She walked toward him, ignoring the sickly feeling produced by her fluttering heart. “I believe it is, yes.”
He thumped his little tool against his palm once more and went back to work at his letterpress. He tapped the letter row with the tool. “The ending is trite. It’s ample sign the story is not ready for binding, much less printing. I suggest you work on it more.”
Hannah stared at his back, his words pricking her ears like bee stings. How could he throw out criticism so flippantly then go back to his work as if he’d commented on humidity or stale bread? Her story was not so trivial as hot weather or old food. This story was her lifeblood and writing it had carried her through years of pain and loneliness. Her fists clenched so tightly her fingernails dug into her palms. “How dare you!”
He barely took his focus off his type long enough to flick a glance at her. “Don’t take it personally, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart? She wasn’t his sweetheart and never would be if this was how he treated someone he cared for. She picked up the final page of her manuscript and shook it at him. “You only read one page. You don’t know the whole story.”
“I read enough to know you chose an overused trope. It’s a fairy tale romance.”
“It is not!”
He straightened his spine, blowing out an impatient breath. “You have a prince rescuing his love interest, declaring his love for her, and suggesting they will rule the kingdom happily ever after.”
“So?”
“So, he is returning from a battle where he fought the slave trade. That would leave the kingdoms filled with wounded and scarred individuals. He is reuniting two kingdoms. That would come with political problems. His father is abdicating the throne. That would cause family turmoil and palace chaos. You have ignored the logical consequences of your plot’s complications and instead tied up the story with a romantic happy ending. You might as well sprinkle in a few magic beans because it’s a fairy tale.”
“It is a love story.”
“Sentiment isn’t believable. A reader’s trust is built by the author’s logic. The ending is illogical, and therefore I must assume the rest of the story is too.”
“How could you be so heartless? You’re convinced everything you do is worthwhile, but you criticized my whole work harshly after only reading one page.”
“One crucial page.”
“Are you even capable of loving anyone but yourself?”
He froze with his lips parted and pierced her with his sapphire gaze.
She didn’t care that she’d offended him after the way he’d judged her story. She grabbed her manuscript and stuffed it into her satchel without bothering to tie it first. “I knew you would be a stern critic, but I also thought you would be happy for me. I thought you might show some respect for my hard work even if it wasn’t to your taste. I thought you would—” Keeping her eyes on him, she reached back to grab the candles she’d brought to trade. Her hand bumped the candelabrum, knocking its three burning tapers onto a stack of his printed pages, setting them ablaze. She gasped.
Henry jumped toward the worktable and beat the fire with his leather apron. “What have you done?” His voice bellowed like the roar of a crazed animal as he swatted the flames. “You ruined a month’s worth of work!”
Her voice seized up. She couldn’t have replied if she’d wanted to. Smoke stung her crying eyes. She hugged her satchel to her chest and ran out of the print shop, weeping.
Chapter Nineteen
Henry slammed his fist into the heap of charred pages on his worktable. Ash flew into the smoky air. “More than half of my pages are ruined! What am I supposed to do now, Father? What?”
Matthew calmly brushed a hand broom over the worktable, whisking ash and remnants of Henry’s work into a dustpan. “Now, son, this is nothing you can’t handle—a mere setback. Roberts men have fought fires and infestations and dripping roofs in our print shops for generations. No flame nor storm nor pest can stop our presses.”
Losing the pages fueled only half of Henry’s anger; his quarrel with Hannah fueled the rest. He ground his teeth until they ached. “I never should have gotten involved with her.”
“The fire was an accident.” Matthew’s eyebrows arched high, sending a wave of deep wrinkles through his forehead. “Let’s not blame the girl.”
“I don’t. I blame myself.” He glared down at the mess. “Almost a month’s work wasted.”
“On the printing project or on Hannah?” Matthew held the dustpan outside the open door and knocked the ashes into the wind. As he returned to the worktable, he caught Henry’s eye as if expecting an answer.
When Henry said nothing, his father whistled one long flat note. “I see. If you have committed to pursuing Miss Vestal, go to her and beg forgiveness. No woman in love can resist a sincere apology from her suitor.”
If only it were that simple. He hadn’t wronged her by doing something he ought not do but by being true to his principles. What would he say in his apology? That from now on he would ignore his professional standards, forgo logic, and swallow his truthful opinions? What would be left of him then? A shell of a man. A printer who produced volume after volume of rot. A spineless romantic with an overflowing library from which no one with a modicum of intelligence would want to read.
Once again, a woman had asked too much of him. He shook his throbbing head. “She wants something I cannot give.” He motioned to the blackened pages. “You needn’t worry yourself with this, Father.”
“You’re right. This is your print shop now.” Matthew laid the hand broom and dustpan on the table and held up both palms in surrender. “Forgive me for trying to clean your mess.”
Henry turned his back on the burnt
pages and looked out the window. The empty stone library next door stared back, mocking him. He didn’t think it would be this difficult. “I should tell the elders tonight.”
“No meeting tonight, son. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and the men want to spend time with their families.”
“Doesn’t feel like Christmas.”
Matthew scratched his white side whiskers. “Never does to me, not since moving to the southern hemisphere. Warm Christmases and snowy Junes. Seems unnatural after so many years of my life spent on the other side of the earth.”
Henry blew out a breath. “Those born in the Land will never know the difference.”
“Those born in the Land will never know a great many things,” Matthew motioned toward the building next door, “especially if the shelves of our library remain empty.”
As if anger and frustration were not enough, his father was ladling guilt into the cesspool of self-loathing already churning within Henry. Why did people think they could appeal to a man’s logic by trying to force more emotions upon him? Perhaps it worked on lesser intelligent men. He’d had his fill of conversation for the day.
He returned to the worktable, scooped up the last of the ruined pages, and carried them to the stone fireplace in the back corner of the cabin where the previous tenants once cooked their meals. With the strike of a match, all physical evidence of Hannah’s accident was gone. If only the fracture in their relationship could be fixed as easily.
It couldn’t.
He stood from the hearth and straightened his spine. “Thank you for stopping in, Father, but I’m quite determined to get back to work.”
“That’s the boy.” Matthew smiled, flashing his porcelain false teeth. “I’ll be at my paper-making station in the barn at home if you need anything. If we don’t see you by supper, I shall send Ellenore with a plate.”
Henry didn’t want to see anyone for the rest of the day, even his favorite sister. He dusted his hands together. “I’d rather be alone.”
“Very well, son,” Matthew turned to leave, taking his good intentions with him.
Henry leaned against the worktable for a moment. Then he checked out the door to make sure he was alone. His father had already passed the library and was almost to the schoolhouse on the road home. No one else was in sight. Smoke billowed from the chimney of the Owenses’ smokehouse, and the scent of venison filled the air.
He’d had enough of smoke for the day too.
Stepping back into his shop, he lifted the little glass lantern Dr. Ashton had given him. He sniffed the strange fuel. He’d been so determined not to use the light source since highly flammable oil fueled it, but candles had done enough damage, not only by their fire ruining his pages, but also by his need to trade with Hannah to obtain them.
He lit the lantern’s wick and turned the dial as Dr. Ashton had demonstrated. A white-hot flame with a blue center grew and cast its light across the shop.
He set the lantern on his letter cabinet near the press and opened the drawer where he kept the plans for each page. Beneath the plans was the sketch of Mrs. Susanna Vestal. He’d brought it to the shop intending to show Hannah next time she came to trade candles. Before he’d been able to show her the only existing image of her late mother, she’d shown him the last page of her completed manuscript.
Ghastly story it was too, or must be to have such an ending. Every word he’d said to her about it had been true. If their positions were reversed, he would have wanted to hear the truth. So why had she become so offended?
There was the crux of his loneliness; he did not understand the fairer sex nor ever would. His sisters were easy enough to please. They simply wanted courteous men and generous compliments. His mother was the same but also required the occasional display of gratitude. Above all, the women in his family seemed to value honesty, especially Ellenore, which was why they preferred each other. She wanted his honest opinions, and he respected her for it.
But not the girls he tried to court.
They wanted flattery, constant approbation, and a man who lived to engage in petty placation.
Well, he wasn’t the right man for them—any of them, especially Hannah Vestal. He looked into the eyes on the sketch. They were Hannah’s eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at it another moment. He slid the sketch back into the cabinet then stood by the window, staring northward. The scarred tendons beneath the lumpy skin of his left hand stung, so he curled and stretched his fist as he stared out the window. It didn’t relieve the pain.
He’d known this would happen with Hannah. He’d tried to warn her. Neither of them had listened. He’d thought loving a woman might improve his life, but it had not.
Though a hollow pit in his chest ached and always would, Hannah Vestal was better off without him.
Chapter Twenty
Hannah stared at the gutter of her open Bible for the length of the Sunday service. Beside her, Minnie and Ida fidgeted on the pew, but she didn’t care to correct them. Occasionally, her father’s hand would still whichever twin became too wiggly.
Reverend Colburn’s authoritative voice filled the chapel like the hum of floodwaters. It reminded Hannah of the evening she’d been trapped behind the waterfall. Henry had saved her then; he had calmed her and led her to safety. He’d been different that night. She liked that side of him, but there was no bringing it back. After rejecting her story and humiliating her, she’d spent the better part of a week seething at the thought of Henry Roberts.
When the sermon ended, she couldn’t have repeated a word of it, for Henry was sitting three rows behind her. She didn’t need to look back to know he was there. She could sense him like one feels a storm coming before a single cloud has formed. And like a storm, Henry had blown into her life with his wit and confidence and left her reeling from the same.
She may have accidentally started the small fire that burned a few papers in his shop, but he was the betrayer. She’d believed him when he’d said whatever was between them was too important to ignore. She’d trusted him with her heart—not that they had confessed their love for one another, but she opened her soul to him by sharing her writing.
His reaction to her writing was the most severe point of his betrayal. She’d trusted him with her story, and he’d flippantly scanned one page before declaring the whole work rubbish. Maybe he deserved to have some of his papers burned.
No, even though he’d hurt her she didn’t want his work to be ruined.
When the reverend dismissed the congregation, Hannah’s father stood. Both of the twins shot to their feet with the sudden realization they were free to move. They squeezed past Hannah and Wade to get out of the pew. Hannah didn’t stop them.
She glanced at Wade as he shuffled between the pews to the aisle with her. “I’m surprised you didn’t sit with Ben and Judah today.”
Wade shrugged, not listening. His gaze was fixed on someone a few rows back.
She followed his line of sight to the one man who was standing still in the moving crowd at the back of the chapel. Henry looked away as soon as their eyes met. If only she’d been the one to look away first.
Wade scowled at Henry.
Hannah nudged him. “Would you stop that, please?”
“I want him to leave you alone.”
“You needn’t worry about that.”
Wade faced her and seemed less like the boy she’d helped raise and more like a man. His fists were balled so tightly his knuckles were white. “I’ll always worry about you if someone wants to court you.”
She adjusted the ribbons on her church bonnet. “Well, he doesn’t want to, and no one else in the settlement has ever been interested in me, so your worrying is needless.”
Wade’s hands relaxed. “Good.”
As Christopher walked ahead of them toward the chapel door, Hannah waved to Doris and the twins. “Come along, girls.” She tried to appear occupied with her sisters as they neared the back of the chapel where Henry stood talking to Gabe and Olivia, but for once n
one of the girls needed her attention. She hugged her Bible to her chest and pressed her fingers into the book’s spine.
Her father greeted Henry and patted his shoulder as he passed. If she looked for long, they might make eye contact again. If they did, he might see the sadness looming behind any angry expression she’d be tempted to make. She looked at Olivia and Gabe, who had little Daniel hanging on to both of their hands.
Olivia held up a finger to Henry to pause their conversation. She reached for Hannah’s arm, stopping her slow procession to the door. “Do you have anything… new to show me?” She followed her question about Hannah’s writing with a secretive smile.
Hannah shook her head. “I won’t have anything to show you for a while. Maybe never again.” Her eyes moved without her permission to Henry’s face. A flash of sorrow darkened his expression. He’d been so arrogant and then angry last time she saw him, she hadn’t considered that he might regret his behavior. The hint of guilt seemed to vanish as quickly as it had come. He checked his pocket watch.
Olivia glanced between Hannah and Henry. Her porcelain forehead crinkled beneath wisps of straight black hair. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Minnie pulled on Hannah’s sleeve. “I’m hungry.”
Hannah smoothed her little sister’s hair then forced a smile for Olivia. “It’s for the best. My time is committed to my family. I wasted too much of it on… that diversion.”
Her father and Wade were standing at the door waiting, so she walked on. She glanced back as she left the church with her family. Olivia and Gabe were exchanging a concerned look. Henry was already speaking with someone else. After all she’d been through, he wasn’t affected at all. She’d meant nothing to him.
A cloak of numbness shrouded Hannah as she walked home with her family. It didn’t matter that the warm sun had ignited summertime in the Land with lush foliage, swooping songbirds, and fragrant wildflowers blossoming in every meadow. It didn’t matter that she had her family’s love and approval. She had lost someone close to her. Again.
All Things Beautiful (Uncharted Beginnings Book 3) Page 13