Griff held up his hand for Bethann to halt and reined in his own mount. “Zach? Hannah?” he called to them without approaching.
The merriment stopped. Underbrush rustled, and Zach’s mop of yellow hair emerged from the trees. “Griff, you’re a’right.”
“Looks like it this time.” Griff dismounted and paced toward his cousin, his hand on his own knife. “You got the lady?”
“Yep. Come have some dinner. Hey, Bethann.” Zach lifted aside branches to reveal a flickering fire and two females perched atop a log on its far side.
Bethann didn’t move off of her horse. “I’m not hungry.”
“Bethann.” Griff shot her a warning glance. “We’ve got a friendly invite. Step down and say hey to your cousins and the schoolma’am.”
Not waiting for Bethann, Griff tethered his horse, then stepped into the clearing. Hannah lifted a hand to him, but the other female stood.
“Miss Esther Cherrett,” Zach said with a soft look toward the young woman.
A shaft of late afternoon sunlight fingered its way through the branches to find her face and make it glow as though she were lit from within. Even her eyes and hair, for all their dark brown color, sparkled with golden lights. Her skin looked like some fine bowls Pa had brought Momma from a trip to the city after they’d excavated the lead—as smooth as the glass they were putting into the new house, but with shades of cream and roses. His gaze flicked down a dusty riding dress, then quickly back to meet her eyes to stifle thoughts of how fine even a grimy dress could look on the right female.
She looked away from him, and her face lost the rose color. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Tolliver.”
Not half as pleased as he was to meet her.
He cleared his throat. “It’s right glad I am to meet up with you all. Bethann?”
He turned to introduce his sister, but Bethann was gone.
4
Esther watched Griff from beneath her lashes, her body tense. She’d seen the flare of interest in his blue eyes—eyes the same sky-blue as Zach’s, but more striking against his curly, dark hair and sun-darkened skin with the shadow of dark whisker stubble. Bold blue eyes that took her in at a glance, as though he assessed a horse for possible purchase at a fair.
She glanced at her mount. “Do we need to go look for your sister, Mr. Tolliver?”
“Not Bethann.” Griff shrugged. “She’ll get here when she chooses and not before. But I’m right happy to see you’ve come this far unscathed.”
“Did you think we’d dump her in a river for the load of books she’s carrying?” Zach stood with his legs splayed and his hands on his hips, not quite in fists but halfway there.
Griff laughed and strode forward to slap his cousin on the back. “I didn’t know if she could ride all this way without one of those fancy eastern saddles.” He stood with one of his soft leather boots a finger’s breadth from Esther’s long skirt.
“I’ve managed perfectly well.” She swept her skirt behind her. “Thank you.”
Griff smiled at her, a smile that reached his eyes, then glanced at his cousin. “Her voice is as pretty as her face. Is she of a good temperament too?”
“Not at the moment.” Esther enunciated each word with the English diction her father had fruitlessly tried to teach his children to use all of the time. They had sounded too out of place in Seabourne. There in the mountains, she sounded outright ridiculous and fumbled for something less clipped.
But the others were laughing as though she’d made a great joke. Zach’s stance relaxed, and together the two men turned toward the fire.
“Does she always talk like that?” Griff asked.
“Naw.” Zach glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “She’s been perfectly amiable.”
She’d been too weary to be anything else. Talking proved a staggering effort. And she ached in every limb. But they would reach the ridge in two more days, Zach assured her. If only she could survive for another forty-eight hours without collapsing in an ignominious heap under the hooves of her horse.
“I think it’s right pretty,” Griff said. “Kind of sweet and sharp at the same time.”
“Like those oranges we had a couple Christmases back?” Zach suggested.
Cheeks hot, Esther snatched up the water bucket and headed for the sound of running water. Behind her, Hannah and then the men made a perfunctory offer to go instead. Esther ignored them and pushed aside some fir tree branches to another clearing with a stream sparkling through it over a jumble of rocks—the endless rocks of the mountains catching one’s heel, blocking the straightness of a path, rising like monuments in the middle of a patch of wild strawberries.
A woman knelt on one of those rocks, a flat one worn smooth by years of spring floods. She splashed water on her face but still looked pale.
“May I help you?” Esther made the offer by instinct.
The woman jumped and lost her balance. She caught herself in the shallow water, but the rippling stream soaked the front of her dress.
“I’m so sorry.” Esther dropped the bucket and rushed forward to take the woman’s arms to help her upright.
She jerked free and crossed her arms over her middle. “I don’t need no help like you’ve given me already.” Her voice was high, a little nasal, her features sharp. She’d be rather pretty with a little more flesh on her bones. Flesh and a smile. Her pursed-up lips tightened the skin over her cheekbones into the semblance of a skull mask.
Esther shuddered and retrieved the bucket. “Suit yourself. I’ll be here for a few minutes if you need someone to help you up.” She selected her own flat rock onto which she could kneel and set the bucket to fill with the swiftest part of the creek flow. “Are you Bethann Tolliver?”
“I am.” The woman hadn’t moved except to commence shivering.
“I’m Esther Cherrett.”
“I know.” Bethann stood and turned her back on Esther. “You’re too pretty for anyone’s good.”
Esther sighed from the depths of her chest, where a constant ache reigned. “I know, especially mine.”
Bethann cast her a narrow-eyed glance over her shoulder. “You making fun of me?”
“No.” Esther stood and lifted the bucket. “I’d rather look like—”
She stopped at the sound of footfalls crunching along the path.
“Me?” Bethann suggested.
“No, you’re much too pretty.”
Bethann snorted with a hint of genuine amusement. “Maybe you need glasses, child.”
“Do you think they’d make me ugly?”
“Nothing,” Griff Tolliver said from the trees, “could make you ugly, Miss Esther. Bethann, you all right?”
She faced her brother and shrugged, emphasizing the sharpness of her collarbone and shoulder points. Unlike her brother and cousins, the former of which had been laid low by a stab wound, she looked unwell, pasty-faced, and red-eyed.
Consumption? A cancerous growth? A blood disorder? The latter required lots of meat. Red meat. And red fruits like strawberries and grapes. People got well from some blood disorders that way, but not the other two. Esther could try to persuade Bethann of—
Of nothing. She was on this journey to teach younger children how to be—to use their mother’s and aunt’s words—civilized and book-learned. Esther had given up her role as healer. Bethann had summarized why in three words: You’re too pretty. Mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts didn’t want Esther around their menfolk.
Esther ground her teeth and took a step toward the path. “If you all will excuse me, I should get this back so we can get some food cooking.”
“I’ll take it for you.” Griff closed the distance between them in a few long strides and removed the bucket from her hands. Then he glanced back at his sister. “You’re going to join us, aren’t you, Bethann?”
“I s’pose.” Bethann’s voice sounded choked.
Esther’s training tugged her toward the stream. Griff’s hand on her arm tugged her toward the
path.
“Let her go,” he murmured.
“But she’s ill.”
“Yea. Yes, I expect she is. But she’ll be all right once we’re home.”
“If you’re certain.” Esther glanced back again.
Bethann had raised her hands to her face, and Esther caught her breath. She now knew why Bethann was so thin and unwell. Esther could help her. She must help her. If she continued to be ill and lose weight, she would die.
Later. Esther would talk to her later.
“Have a care of the rocks, Miss Esther.” Griff grasped her arm above the elbow.
Esther flinched away. “Please, don’t.”
“You were about to step onto that rock break.”
“I’ll . . . be more careful.” Esther ducked her head under the pretext of watching for loose stones and more outcroppings of rock along the path, but it was more to mask her face, her muscles feeling tight enough to crack if she so much as brushed her cheek with a finger. Her head spun a little, and she felt queasy.
She would not be sick. The only thing worse than being touched was being sick in front of others. Neither must she show her weakness. Griff or Zach, once they returned to the clearing, would believe she needed assistance and would try to help her, take her arm again, hold her hand, lead her to a fallen log to sit.
Hungry. She was merely hungry. The sooner she helped Hannah prepare dinner, the sooner she could eat.
“I make the coffee,” she announced to Griff.
“They make you work?” He shook his head as though disapproving.
“I volunteered.”
“And a good job of it she does,” Zach said.
He and Hannah already had bacon frying. Esther’s nose wrinkled. She was hungry enough to eat it, but if she never saw another slab of pork after this journey, it wouldn’t be too soon.
“I hope your coffee is better than Bethann’s,” Griff said. “She likes it so weak you may as well save money and have hot water.”
“Is she all right?” Hannah asked.
“Are you all right?” Zach asked Griff.
Esther set about making the coffee while the three cousins talked. She’d thought earlier that Hannah didn’t like Griff, but now she smiled with warmth when he assured her he was fully healed from his stab wound and the lump on his head.
“Who would’ve done that to you?” Zach asked. “We’ve been pondering that since we had to leave you.”
Hannah paused in the middle of measuring cornmeal for the fried corn cakes they mostly ate, and Esther nudged her aside. “Go talk to him.”
Hannah nodded and smiled her thanks, then joined her brother and cousin on the far side of the fire as Griff answered.
“I don’t know. Someone thinking to rob me, I suppose.”
“But they didn’t.” Zach stooped to add more wood to the fire. He met Esther’s eyes across the flames and gave her his gentle smile.
It warmed her a bit, almost like when one of her brothers winked at her across the dinner table—but not quite. Just the message seemed the same. It was a gesture of “I’m not ignoring you.”
She didn’t care if the cousins talked while she worked. Zach had said something about needing them to get along, both families to get along, better than they had been. These three looked to be on the right path for that.
Then Griff said, “Bethann says it was you, Zach.”
Zach dropped his armful of kindling with the crack and crunch of wood snapping.
Hannah gasped and pressed her hand to her throat. “That’s nonsense. Zach wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“I will if it gets in my dinner.” He swiped at a handful of insects heading for the sweet cornmeal Esther was about to drop into the hot fat.
“You know what I mean.” Hannah took a step backward and narrowed her gaze at Griff. “You don’t believe it, do you?”
“No. But I’ve seen him kill a lot of fli—”
Hannah smacked his arm.
He grinned and caught her wrist. “You might be older, but you’re smaller.”
“Let her go.” Zach’s face was white, his mouth tight. “You know I wouldn’t harm you. We took the vow together.”
“I know.” Griff patted Hannah’s hand and released her. “Never fear, cousin Hannah, I’m not about to start thinking that Zach wants to start the feuding up again.”
Esther’s hand shook. Cornmeal batter slipped off of her wooden spoon and into the fire. It smoked and stank, and she jumped away. “I’m so sorry.” She raised her hand to wipe her streaming eyes.
Griff caught hold of her hand. “You’ll get that in your hair.” He removed the batter-coated spoon from her hand but didn’t move away. “Is something wrong?”
He held her gaze from six inches back. His breath brushed her lips.
She shut her mouth tight and turned her face from him without speaking.
“Of course something’s wrong.” Zach punched Griff’s arm, breaking his hold on Esther’s hand. “You just talked about the feud.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Bethann stalked into the clearing, a beautifully woven shawl wrapped around her shoulders and hiding the wet front of her dress. “She’s coming into it.”
“There is no feud,” Griff insisted. “No one’s been hurt in over a year.”
“’Cept you,” Zach murmured. His face twisted as though he were being stabbed.
“And he almost got dead,” Bethann said. “’Cause of you, Zachary Brooks.”
“Bethann,” Griff barked.
She ignored him and leaned over Zach, where he still squatted by the fire. “You stabbed my brother. I found the evidence. Your hair. Your—”
“Bethann.” Griff reached out a hand as though intending to grasp hold of her and draw her away.
She slapped at him. “He may as well know we know the truth and you’re just trying to protect him so’s not to start the fighting again.”
“No.” Griff set his hands on his hips. “I don’t believe it.”
Zach and Hannah remained motionless, silent. Esther glanced from brother to sister. Their eyes were wide, their jaws tense in nearly identical expressions save for a muscle ticking at the corner of Hannah’s jaw and her fingers twisting in front of her.
In the pan, the corn dodgers began to blacken and smoke. Esther dragged the spider off the flames and tipped it over into the dirt. The reek of scorching corn stung her nostrils. Her stomach heaved. She swallowed and returned her attention to the tableau on the far side of the now dying flames.
“What is this all about?” she managed to croak out past a parched tongue and lips.
The four cousins jumped and turned toward her as though they’d forgotten her presence.
“The feud,” Bethann said. “Ever heard of one of those?”
“In Scottish history, yes, but not in Virginia.”
“Told Momma it was a bad idea to bring her out here.” Muttering something else, Bethann tramped to the far side of the clearing and the tethered horses. She began to rummage in a saddlebag.
“Well?” Esther challenged the other three with her eyes. “What’s this all about?”
“I thought Momma told you.” Griff scrubbed his hands over his face. His calloused palms rasped on his day or two growth of beard.
“She should have.” Zach sighed and rose to join Esther. He reached out his hand to her, then let it fall to his side before he touched her. “We had no business bringing you out here without telling you the whole about the feud.”
“It can’t be a true feud.” Pads of bandaging lint seemed to surround Esther. She brushed at her cheeks as though she were pushing them away. She took two deep, slow breaths. “You don’t go to battle or anything, do you? Please tell me no.”
“Do you want the truth or not?” Griff asked, his hands back on his lean hips.
“Truth.” She could barely get out the word.
“Then yea, we do.” Griff cleared his throat. “Yes’m, we did. Fifteen members of four families have died in the
past ten years. That’s why our mothers want you here—to learn—to teach the young’uns to grow up civilized.”
“She knowingly brought me into a war?” Esther began to back toward Bethann and the horses.
She might manage to get back to Seabourne, or maybe Charlottesville. That wasn’t far off. She could surely find work there as a serving maid in a tavern, if nothing else. Surely a town with a university would have lots of taverns needing maids to serve. Her parents wouldn’t like it, but they’d like this situation less.
“Mrs. Tolliver wrote there was some roughness up here, but not . . . fighting like that. I thought—” She took another step backward and trod on the overly long hem of her riding habit. It drew her up short. She stood on one foot in an attempt to free herself, tottered—
Zach’s arm around her waist stopped her from falling. “Told you that dress was stupid.”
She shuddered and glared at him, then Griff, then Hannah. “Why didn’t one of you tell me before now?”
“You wouldn’t have come,” Hannah said. “Would you?”
“No. That is—”
If she admitted that she would possibly have done so even once she knew the whole tale, she would be admitting to them how much of a fix she was in at home. She had already let on too much.
“I expect I need to know more about this before drawing a conclusion.” She sounded like her father again.
Griff laughed and grinned at her. “If you don’t run away, I hope you’ll teach me to talk like that. It’ll give me something to confound those mineral factors.”
“She sounds like some kind of uppity—” Hannah’s mouth pinched. “We don’t need to have her kind looking down her nose at us.”
“Her kind is what Momma wants,” Zach said. “And she’s pulled her fair share on this journey, so she’s not that uppity.”
“Nor is she deaf,” Esther interjected. “But she hasn’t heard an explanation yet.”
“Sit down,” Griff directed. “Please.”
Esther obeyed. She wobbled.
Griff poured her a cup of coffee and brought it to her. He squatted, his knees a hairbreadth from hers, and placed the tankard into her hands. Their fingers touched. He could have given her the mug without any contact. The contact was deliberate and lingered a second or two too long.
Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 03] Page 4