“Make sure they stay there.”
They both flinched when the knocker on the front door sounded. With trembling fingers, Audra tucked a loose strand of brown hair into her bun and made a final inspection of the room for loose papers and reference books. Everything appeared in order.
She faced the stout, dark skinned woman who was old enough to be her mother, and since Audra’s sixth birthday, had served as such. In the twenty years since, Winnie had added housekeeper, cook, nurse, and benevolent tyrant to her duties, ruling the household with sharp criticisms and gentle hugs. Audra was terrified of what might become of her and Curtis and Father if she went to jail. “How do I look?”
“Best remove those.” Winnie waggled a finger at the cloth shields tied around the cuffs of Audra’s sensible at-home dress.
Quickly stripping off the protectors, Audra stuffed them into the cabinet with the papers and slammed the door shut again. “Anything else?”
“Spectacles.”
Audra slipped those into her skirt pocket then smoothed her hair again with trembling hands. “Better?”
“You might at least try to look pleased. Not every day you get callers.”
“Especially ones who have come to accuse me of fraud.”
“Smile anyway. Wouldn’t kill you and might fool them.”
Audra pasted on a stiff smile. “How’s that?”
“Make an undertaker proud.”
Another wave of panic rolled over her. “Oh, Winnie, what if they—”
“Calm yourself, child. And quit twisting your hands. I can hear your knuckles cracking from over here.”
Audra struggled to breathe. Her throat was so tight she felt suffocated. Excuses and explanations and lies tumbled through her head.
She could tell them she had always transcribed Father’s papers and that when he became ill and she had found his notes in his desk, she had continued to do so. It was his research, not hers. She had just put it in readable form.
And signed it with his name. And forged his signature on the royalty checks. And lied to anyone who asked about him.
Another knock almost buckled her knees.
She took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded. “You may let them in, Winnie. Then go tell Curtis under no account is he to allow Father to come into the house. Understand?”
“‘Course I understand. I’m not a nitwit like some in this house.” Muttering, she crossed the entry hall and flung open the front door. “Afternoon, gentlemens. What a fine day for visiting. I’ll tell Miss Audra she got company.”
“Actually,” a deep voice said, “we’ve come to see the professor. Is he in?”
“No sir. He off studying whatever it is he study. But Miss Audra here.”
A moment later, they filed into the room. Audra recognized them all, and knew the youngest quite well. Scarcely daring to breathe, she studied their faces, but saw nothing to increase her alarm. Richard even smiled at her.
Audra’s father, Professor Percival Prendergast Pearsall, had once been a revered member of the group that these men represented. He had been the driving force behind the Baltimore Society of Learned Historians for so many years he had become the yardstick by which all other members were measured. “Mind your Ps” had become the frequently heard admonishment whenever a contributor offered his treatise or essay for consideration in the esteemed annual historians’ publication. It had been her father’s exacting standards that had made the society and its annual competition the final word in historical analysis.
And now all that was in jeopardy because of her.
Fearing the worst, she positioned herself so that the callers faced the front windows rather than the buggy house and stable in back. “May I offer you refreshment, gentlemen?” she said, nodding in welcome to Misters Uxley, Beamis, Collins, and her onetime suitor, Richard Villars. It was a struggle to keep her smile intact and her voice steady.
Hiram Uxley, the president and most officious member of the group, shook his head. “We cannot stay long, Miss Pearsall. But it’s imperative that we see the professor. Do you expect him soon?”
Heat flooded her face. “I regret not, sir. He is still visiting the ancient pueblos in New Mexico Territory and will be gone for several more months.” This was the third time she had put off her father’s colleagues with that excuse. Had they finally seen through her lies?
“Several more months?” Uxley’s muttonchops trembled in agitation. “He’s already been gone over two years. What on earth could he have found?”
“I ca-cannot tell you, sir. He’s been very secretive about it.”
“This certainly puts a twist in our plans.” With a huff, he turned to the other three gentlemen and engaged in a low voiced conversation.
Audra watched them, terror pounding through her. A familiar bark sounded, and she looked out the window behind her guests to see Winnie chasing after Curtis, who was chasing after her father, who was shuffling after Cleo, his little dog.
Horrified, she glanced at the others to see if they had noticed, and found Richard Villars also watching the drama playing out beside the buggy house.
She watched puzzlement come over his face.
Then recognition.
Oh God. He knows.
He turned to her and started to say something, but Uxley interrupted. “Well, Richard, there’s no help for it. Present the award to Miss Pearsall, and she can inform her father when next she sees him.”
Award? Her mind still trapped in fear, Audra watched Richard pull a folded paper from the inside pocket of his frock coat.
“As treasurer of the Baltimore Society of Learned Historians, Miss Pearsall, I am pleased to present our annual Historian of Merit Award, as well as the Peabody Grant, to Professor Percival Prendergast Pearsall for his very excellent essay on ‘The Development of Gas Artillery Capsules and How They Might Have Altered the Outcome of The War of The Rebellion.’” With a bow, he offered the paper to Audra. “Please convey to your father my congratulations, Miss Pearsall. His article was one of the most articulate and compelling I have ever read.”
Audra stared at the paper in his hand, her mind slow to take it all in. They didn’t know? They hadn’t come to have her arrested?
“Miss Pearsall?”
She blinked, looked up into Richard’s worried face, and forced a smile. “T-Thank you.” She took the folded paper in trembling fingers and slipped it into her pocket. “I-I wasn’t aware he had entered it in the competition.” She had certainly not done so, and had only transcribed her father’s notes in hopes of gaining another small royalty to augment their meager income.
Mr. Uxley stepped forward. “That was my doing, Miss Pearsall. With so few entries of true merit,” he sent Richard a pointed look, “I thought it wise to put the society’s best work forward. Reputation is all, you know.”
Color flooded Richard’s face, but he didn’t respond.
“It’s an excellent piece,” Mr. Beamis offered.
“Here, here,” Mr. Collins seconded. “Does us all proud.”
Audra felt wretched. One of the reasons she hadn’t entered the article in the contest—other than the fact it would have been even more dishonest than offering it for publication—was that she guessed Richard would be submitting his own paper on cave drawings in the southern Appalachians. He was so desperate to establish himself as a leading American historian it was almost painful to watch. Sadly, he was a much better researcher than writer.
Uxley waved the others toward the door. “We must be off, Miss Pearsall. Our congratulations again to your father.” He glanced at Richard, who hadn’t moved. “Are you coming, Villars?”
“I’ll be along in a moment.”
As the other men filed out, Richard frowned at Audra, then at the buggy house, although, thankfully, neither Winnie, nor Curtis, nor Father was in sight. “Was that your father I saw, Audra?”
“My father? When?”
“Just now. Out back.”
Audra pretended confusion as her mind raced
for a plausible lie. Then she smiled and shook her head. “You must have seen Uncle Edward, Father’s older brother. He took ill not long after my aunt died, and has been slow to recover. We’ve taken him in until Father returns.”
“I could have sworn he was the professor.”
“They do look very much alike, don’t they? Although since his illness, Uncle Edward has become alarmingly frail. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep him here, although I would hate to put him in a home. I’m quite worried about him.” She realized she was babbling but couldn’t seem to stop herself. She was a horrid liar.
Richard’s dark eyes bored into hers in that intense way she had always found intrusive. “Perhaps on my next visit I might meet him. The coming week, perhaps?”
Audra held her smile, the muscles in her face trembling with the effort. “That would be lovely. But do let us know when you plan to come so we can be sure he’s up to a visit.”
“Of course. Until then.”
After the door closed behind him, Audra collapsed into the chair at the desk, tears further blurring her faulty vision. “Now what am I going to do?”
Winnie came in. “What happened?”
“Richard Villars saw Father. I told him it was my Uncle Edward, but I don’t think he believed me. He’s invited himself back next week to meet him. What should I tell him?”
“The truth.”
Audra pressed fingertips against her throbbing temple. “I fear it’s gone too far, Winnie. If Richard tells Uxley, he’ll feel honor bound to bring my deception to light. Father’s reputation will be ruined and all his hard work will be forever shrouded in doubt. And if I go to jail for fraud, you and Curtis will be on the street, and Father will be shuffled off to one of those wretched institutions for mentally impaired indigents. I can’t allow that to happen.”
Winnie gave it some thought. “Mr. Villars cared enough to propose to you last year. Maybe he’ll go along and not tell.” She gave Audra a critical look. “‘Specially if you fix up.”
Audra doubted it. Richard didn’t like being thwarted and had taken her refusal hard. But how could she have accepted him—even if she’d wanted to—without revealing Father’s dementia? And if he now found out she’d been lying to him and had fraudulently cheated him out of a coveted award, no telling what he might do. He had more to gain by exposing her father than by covering up for her. And Richard had always been ambitious.
“Or you can leave.”
“Leave? How? You know I have barely enough money to keep the four of us fed. And even if I could afford it, where could we go?”
Winnie dug through the waste basket, then straightened, the sealed envelope Audra had thrown away earlier in her hand. “How about here?”
“Heartbreak Creek?”
“Why not? You say your daddy inherited a cabin there. Dismal sounding town like that would be a fine place to hide. Doubt anybody there ever heard of your daddy, or would care that you wrote his papers for him.” Tossing the letter on the desk, Winnie turned toward the door. “Your choice. The truth and marriage to Mr. Villars, or Heartbreak Creek. You pick. Though after thirty years married to that no-account Curtis, if I had the choice, I’d pick jail. Yes, ma’am, I think I would.”
Audra pulled the society letter from her pocket. Richard had said something about a grant. If it was enough . . .
She unfolded the letter then gasped when she saw the amount. With that much money, they could cover a lot of miles . . . assuming Father was strong enough to make the trip, and the cabin was even habitable, and she was willing to leave everything she’d ever known.
A ghastly prospect, but what other option did she have?
Pulling out her pen and a fresh sheet of paper, she began to write.
Dear Richard, I know this comes as a surprise, but Father has asked us to join him in New Mexico. By the time this reaches you, we will already be gone, and I doubt we’ll return in the near future . . .
Chapter 2
March 1871, Colorado Territory
He should offer assistance. That would be the neighborly thing to do.
Instead, Ethan Hardesty crossed his arms and his outstretched legs and settled back on the bench outside the depot. The woman was clearly out of her depth. Yet she kept at it. He’d give her marks for that, at least.
A gust of wind flipped up the hem of her skirt, giving him a fine view of narrow feet encased in delicate low-top shoes. City people. They never understood that in hard country like this, sturdy footwear was second only to a good jacket, no matter the season.
Hearing a ruckus toward the end of the idling train, he glanced back to see a drover lead a fractious bay down the ramp and hand the lead to an elderly African man who was clearly frightened of the animal. Sawing on the lead and stepping lively to keep his feet from beneath the prancing hooves, the man wrestled the horse over to where the woman was supervising the unloading of a closed four-wheel, single-horse buggy in the Amish style.
It wasn’t going well.
In addition to getting in the way of the freight handlers, she was busy trying to calm the horse and the old man holding him, attend questions and complaints from a cantankerous Negro woman she called Winnie, keep an eye on a mumbling old man—probably her father—and hang on to a squirming badger-sized dog that barked continuously.
It was like watching a circus. A poorly run circus.
Ethan couldn’t remember the last time he had been so entertained.
The man he assumed was her father made a shuffling escape, heading purposefully down the track toward the outskirts of town. Ethan kept him in sight, knowing there was nothing out that way but rough mountain country and waiting for the woman to do something.
She continued to harass the freight handlers.
Ten yards. Thirty. Was anyone watching the old fellow?
Hell. With a sigh, he rose from the bench and walked toward the woman. On the way, he stopped beside the dancing horse. Grabbing the lead just under the halter, he gave it a yank to get the animal’s attention then looked him hard in the eye. “Stand,” he said with calm authority.
The horse blinked at him, nostrils flared. After a brief staring match, the animal slowly let his head drop enough to ease the pull on the halter. And stood.
Ethan gave his neck a friendly pat and turned to the surprised Negro. “And your name would be . . . ?”
“Curtis. How’d you do that?”
“Hold him closer to the halter ring, Curtis.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the barking of the dog. “And stand by his head where he can see you. That way he’ll know where you are and will be easier to control. And talk quietly to him. He’s just afraid.”
“Me, too,” the old man muttered, but did as instructed.
Stepping around the African woman—Winnie—who looked to be near in age to Curtis—spouses, perhaps?—Ethan approached the circus ringleader.
She was surprisingly small to be generating such a fuss, yet was able to convince two hulking railroad workers to do her biding. Ethan realized why when he stopped beside her. Even with that furrow between her dark brown brows, she was uncommonly pretty . . . in a fine boned, delicate, citified sort of way . . . hardly the type of woman he normally found attractive.
“Would you like some help, ma’am?” he asked.
She gave him a distracted look. “What?”
Remarkable eyes, even with the squint. A greenish hazel that he suspected would look greener if she wore something other than that drab gray dress that did little to set off her gold-streaked hair. Although why he would notice such things was beyond him. He was more partial to breasts, himself. And she had a nice pair of those, too, he was pleased to note.
She noted him noting and narrowed her eyes even more.
Removing his Stetson, he gave a slight bow. “May I help you?”
“With what?”
He tipped his head toward the old man scurrying along the tracks. “Him?”
“Oh, Lord!” Almost crushing h
is hat, she shoved the yapper against his chest and she raced off, calling “Father,” in a high, panicky voice.
Ethan looked down at the dog in his arms, which had thankfully paused for breath, realized by the cloudy eyes it was blind, and thrust it toward the Negro woman.
She backed off, pink palms upraised. “Not me, suh. I’d as soon throw it under the train, and that would upset Miss Audra, sure enough.”
“Do you want the buggy unloaded, or not?”
She thought about it, then reluctantly took the dog.
By the time “Miss Audra” returned, leading the mumbling old man by the hand, the buggy was on solid ground, Ethan had almost finished harnessing the bay into the traces, and Curtis was tying valises and boxes to the back of the buggy under the barked supervision of both the badger-dog and the Negro woman.
A forceful pair, Winnie and Miss Audra.
Waving Ethan aside when he stepped forward to help, Miss Audra opened the door of the buggy and dropped down the mounting step. “There you are, Father,” she said in a voice much gentler than the one she’d used on the freight handlers or himself.
The old man frowned at Ethan. “Come for the transcripts, have you, Mitchell? They’re not yet ready. The girl has been dreadfully slow this time. You must talk to her, Mary,” he added to the woman waiting for him to board.
Mary? Ethan thought her name was Audra.
“I will, Father. In you go.”
Once she got him settled with a lap robe over his legs, she took the squirming dog from Winnie and set it in the old man’s arms like she was presenting a precious newborn. “And here’s Cleo.”
The old man grinned. The dog shut up. And the show was over.
If Ethan had expected a ‘thank you’, he didn’t get it. But feeling ornery, he couldn’t let the oversight pass unnoticed. “You’re certainly welcome, Miss Audra. Or is it Mary?”
“Mary was my mother’s name.” She turned to squint up at him. “How do you know me, sir? Have we met?”
“Alas, no. And I admire your ability to disregard those pesky social courtesies and accept my help anyway. If you have no further use of me . . . ?”
Kaki Warner Page 13