Mittman, Stephanie

by The Courtship

  "I'm sorry, little one," he said, studying her with eyes that softened the longer they looked. "Have I been a beast?"

  "Grumpy," she admitted, shrugging it off. "Nothing that I can't handle."

  "You're a good girl," he said, returning to his papers and ignoring Maria so that Charlotte had to once again get up, hand Maria the glass, and gesture for her to refill it. When Cabot read, he didn't like the chaos of chatter, and it amazed Charlotte how the staff could keep silent and anticipate instructions without a word being spoken.

  "His alibi?" Cabot asked when Maria closed the door behind her. Cases were never discussed in front of the servants, as well they shouldn't be. Charlotte certainly wouldn't appreciate her private business bandied about in the back halls. Not that she had any private business. Still, if she had...

  "He seems strangely vague on that," she admitted. "Apparently he was on the ship all night, but he's not too sure who saw him. He mentioned something about coming and going."

  Cabot smiled knowingly and shook his head. "I'll just bet he's not sure. Probably doesn't even know her name or where he picked her up. We'll have to get the investigator to find out where the hell he was. And who it was he took back with him."

  "Good glory! Don't say that in front of your mother. I think she holds him in slightly higher regard than you do."

  "Women, mothers especially, have a tendency to be blind to a man's faults," he said without looking up from his work. "Consequently they overlook the obvious."

  One more thing to overcome. Filed up there with Women have a tendency to talk too much, consequently their point is lost; women have a tendency to dress too warmly in the winter, consequently they become overheated indoors; women have a tendency to ask for the impossible, consequently they are disappointed.

  "Well, no doubt we'll find out who she is if we offer a big enough reward to come forward. Of course, I can't guarantee my mother will like it. Nor will you, for that matter. We might as well start with who rowed them out and back."

  "Wouldn't that be enough?" she asked.

  "Not if I was the DA," Cabot said, and folded his arms across his chest. "Now you tell me why not."

  Charlotte didn't have to think long. She rose and looked down her nose at Cabot. "And can you swear, Mr. Witness, that he didn't leave the boat and come back between the time that you ferried him in and out yourself?"

  "Good girl," Cabot said. "Unfortunately I don't think it will take Brent any longer to see that than it did you."

  "But your brother would certainly remember the woman, wouldn't he? I mean, he'd know her name, would recognize her, she'd know him...."

  She could see from the look on Cabot's face that not only wasn't it a surety, it didn't even appear likely. "I'm sorry, Charlotte, but my brother doesn't take women very seriously. He'd probably be stoned in Wyoming."

  Not even remember who he was with. She tried to hide the shock that must have been written all over her face by busying herself with the library ladder that was resting by the window. Outside a large black man was lumbering up the front walk. On his shoulder was the biggest, most colorful bird Charlotte had ever seen. Had it not been flapping its spectacular wings, she'd have supposed that it wasn't even real. Even Argus, the peacock, was too surprised to make a move.

  "Moss Johnson is here with an enormous red-and-yellow-and-blue—"

  "That's Liberty," Ashford said, coming up behind her to peer over her shoulder. "He's a scarlet macaw. From Peru. I'll let them in."

  "Go easy on him, Ash," Cabot warned as his brother headed for the door. "He was only telling the truth."

  Ashford turned to stare at his brother, his eyebrows lowered in question. "Oh, the statement in court. He must feel bad as"—he paused and looked at Charlotte—"all get out."

  "Mmm," she agreed. "Damned shame."

  "I think I've some cigars in my luggage," he teased. "Should I pull out one for you?"

  "Haven't taken to them," she said, pulling at her lapels and standing straighten "Yet."

  He shook his head at her. "From the looks of my room, it doesn't appear that's imminent." Then, before hurrying out, he had the audacity to wink at her.

  "Charlotte?" Cabot had apparently stopped his work to study her, and was staring hard. "Why, Charlotte... are you blushing?"

  Whipping around so quickly that her skirts tumbled a book off the table, she faced the window and fought with the lock. "Some fresh air might be nice," she said, flipping the catch and throwing up the window sash to invite in the cold wind.

  "I haven't been up in that room in nearly twenty years," Cabot said, his voice soft and distant behind her. "I suppose it's still too messy for him to find anything as small as a cigar."

  "I'm sure that's what he meant," she said, willing the flame in her cheeks to pass. Had they only had some warning, she could have removed her things from the high room before Ashford discovered her... her what? Treason to her calling? Her weakness for frills and lace? Her affinity for...

  "Oh, my word!" Kathryn gasped from out in the hallway. "Have you ever seen anything so lovely?"

  "If you two could come out here for a moment," Ashford asked, tipping his head into the office and beckoning them with a crooked finger. "It isn't quite the way I'd planned my homecoming, but I've a few gifts and such...."

  Charlotte tamped down the excitement that bubbled in her chest. Ashford had brought her presents before. Her wonderful Gladstone from Argentina, a silken nightgown from China, a beaded reticule of ocean pearls—not much she could use, of course, but all of them treasures to own. She just hoped that the parrot wasn't their gift. If Argus the peacock was any indication, birds didn't seem to like Cabot overmuch.

  "You coming?" she asked Cabot as she came down from the library steps with a volume of Black's Law Dictionary in her hand.

  He backed up from the desk and turned his chair slightly, backed up and turned the chair again. Charlotte knew better than to offer him any help. She understood his pride, but it hardly explained why he insisted on keeping the desk at what he perceived to be a "normal" distance from the wall when it meant that he could barely maneuver his wheels in and out of the narrow space intended for an office chair. Without assistance it was difficult, and Arthur was the only one ever permitted to help him. She supposed it was that Arthur was paid to see to Cabot, and Cabot respected the man's desire to do his job and do it well.

  When she'd first assessed the situation, she'd accused him of being stubborn and pointed out how much simpler it would be to move the desk an extra foot or eighteen inches into the room. But no, he'd told her, the world does not adapt itself for a cripple. It would rather inconvenience those who can't, than remind those who can of our existence. Quickly she'd learned to allow Arthur to help or to stand to the side and let Cabot do it himself.

  And so she waited while he extricated himself, hands jammed into her pockets to keep from helping him.

  "Go ahead," he said when he was free of the desk. "Let's see what we have no use for this time."

  ***

  Liberty hopped happily from Moss's shoulder to Ash's own as Charlotte came into the foyer. The bird gave out with his usual complimentary whistle that he reserved for females, and added, "Oooh! Pretty! I want some of that!"

  Knowing the rest of Liberty's vocabulary, Ash considered the immediate removal of the bird's vocal cords.

  "It talks!" Charlotte said, her normally husky voice coming out a high-pitched squeal of delight.

  "Oh! Oh! Oh! Don't stop!" the bird said in his best falsetto. Dropping his voice several octaves, the parrot added, "Shut up, you stupid bird!" just moments before Ash would have said the same thing. "Don't stop!"

  Jeez, but that bird was looking to be stuffed like some piñata from South America.

  "What does it want?" his sister-in-law asked, craning her neck at the bird and biting on that little pink tongue of hers.

  Ash stared at her, trying to decide if she was just feigning innocence, while Moss Johnson coughed loudly and p
ulled several nuts from his pocket, shoving them at the bird and encouraging him to eat. "This ought to keep your mouth busy," he grumbled at the bird. "Don't you know a lady when you see one?"

  "Hats off," the bird said, taking a peanut in one of his claws and deftly manipulating it until it was ready to be eaten.

  "Oh, Cabot, come look!" Charlotte said, taking the nut Moss offered her and holding it out bravely to Liberty. "What do you say?" the bird asked, still unable to get the idea that thank you was the appropriate response. He took the nut from Charlotte and left a smile in return. For a moment he was quiet, chewing on one nut, studying the other, until Cabot rolled into the room and sent the feathered monster into fits of apoplexy. Flapping his enormous wings dramatically, Liberty set about squawking as if someone had set his tail on fire.

  Now, even under the best of circumstances Liberty's voice was not what one would call soothing. He was, after all, a parrot, though Ash had to admit that there were times the stupid bird did double duty as his priest, his friend, and even his conscience. But when he was frightened or unnerved, as he was now at the sight of Cabot's wheelchair, Liberty's call was a deafening caterwaul that went through a man's head like a toothache.

  And Moss's screaming at the bird to shut his beak wasn't helping matters. Kathryn had her hands over her ears, motioning for Charlotte to do the same, though his sister-in-law seemed to be taking her cue from Cabot rather than the older woman. She took far too many cues from her husband in Ash's opinion, but it wasn't any of his business what pains she took to hide her lacy stays beneath a show of manly-looking business suits. Perhaps it was exciting to Cabot to know that, under it all, his wife was just as feminine as any other woman. But it surely didn't float Ash's boat.

  To his mind (what there was left of it with Liberty flapping wildly as if he could get up enough steam in the small confines of the hallway to actually take off and fly), there were enough tough-minded men in the world going around swashing their buckles. The fact that a woman could be strong and still be soft, be worldly without being jaded, that she could see things with equal clarity but from a different point of view—that was a woman's strength, as surely as a man's need to protect and guide was his.

  In an effort to prevent them all from becoming deaf, and himself from being beheaded by one of Liberty's powerful wings, Ash lifted his arm and somehow managed to get it wrapped around the fully hysterical bird. "I'll put him upstairs," he shouted over the din while trying to calm the macaw down.

  He was close to deaf, but not blind, and he couldn't miss the panic in those wide eyes of Charlotte's, or the slight gesture with her hand pointing up the stairwell and making tiny flapping signs. The little chickadee. He'd forgotten all about it. Clearly putting Liberty in the same room as that runt would be the end of it.

  "On second thought," he said, pushing the screeching pile of feathers at his foreman, "take him out to the kitchen, will you, Moss?"

  Moss took him, the bird turning his head clear around to keep an eye on Cabot, but at least quieting some so that all they heard now was the ringing in their ears.

  "And tell Mrs. Mason if he doesn't stop that noise she can start plucking him for dinner," Cabot called after the big man's lumbering back.

  "That's not funny," Charlotte said distractedly. Ash supposed there weren't many things Cabot said that anyone would consider funny.

  "Tell me that squawking psittacine isn't your idea of a gift," Cabot shouted, pressing with his palm against his left ear and then releasing it as if that would restore his hearing.

  "We've hardly room," Kathryn agreed, equally loudly. "Unless, of course, he could stay in the conservatory."

  "Out of the question," Cabot yelled. "He'd eat my best specimens."

  "Aren't some plants poisonous to birds?" Charlotte was rubbing both her temples as she spoke. "I've been doing some reading—"

  "You don't have to yell," Ash said softly. "I can hear you just fine."

  "A miracle you're not deaf," Cabot said. "That bird has got to go, Ashford. Naturally, I thank you for the thought but—"

  Ash reached down for the sack that Moss had brought in along with the bird and pulled out a small wooden box. "Cigars," he said, handing the case to his brother and winking at Charlotte as if they were friends. "The bird's mine. Lives on the Bloody Mary with me and goes with me everywhere since I won him from a coffee merchant down in the Andes. I expect you to be a good boy, Cabot, and share these with your wife."

  Cabot left the box in his lap, unopened. Ash knew he loved cigars, especially these Cuban ones. He also knew his brother was an ungrateful bastard who wouldn't want Ash to think his gift was truly appreciated and so he tapped the box, said a perfunctory thanks, and added that Ash "shouldn't have," as if he truly meant it.

  "And this is for you, Mother." Ash found the small velvet pouch within the large burlap sack and placed it in his mother's upturned palm. He'd planned this gift for a long time, ordered it the last time he was in the islands, and had to wait months for it to be ready. Finding an Italian cameo carver who had relocated to the South Seas was a stroke of luck, but the design on the piece of jewelry was quite deliberate.

  "Oh, my!" His mother's eyes misted over. "Look, Cabot!" she exclaimed, holding out the pale pink shell with four children glistening in cream on the cameo's face.

  "How lovely," his sister-in-law said as she leaned over Cabot's shoulder to get a better look. "I've never seen one with any children on it. Wherever did you find it?"

  "Like a newsman, an importer never reveals his sources," Ash said, sorry he hadn't brought her back a cameo as well, since she was so obviously taken with it. Perhaps when he got out of his present troubles and had the chance to return to the islands he could have one carved for her with a little bird upon it.

  In the meantime he had something he was sure she would like just as much. Especially now that he'd been up to his room and seen her fondness for lace.

  He took out the carefully wrapped package from the sack, neatened the ties on it to more properly present it, and bowed slightly at the waist. "For you, madam."

  Charlotte fingered the strings, savoring the moment as if she'd never before received a present. Delicate fingers toyed with the crisp brown wrapper until Ash feared the gift would disintegrate with age.

  "Charlotte, we've work to do," Cabot reminded her. "Unless he's brought gifts for all the jurors, I think he'll be relying on us to save his hide."

  "You just have to spoil her moment, don't you?" Ash didn't mean for the words to come out, but once they had, he realized that it was something Cabot did with great regularity.

  Charlotte looked tentative now, fingering the package more gingerly than before, as if it might be the last he ever brought. Just as disconcerted with the idea as she was, Ash cleared his throat. "Open it," he encouraged.

  Without further ado Charlotte pulled at the strings and removed the wrappings. Her intake of breath was all the thanks Ash required and then some. Small, well-manicured fingers caressed the white silk reverently, then traced the lacy insets, one row after the other, with awe. She held it up by the shoulders against herself and stood on tiptoe to get a glimpse in the mirror. Then she turned to face the rest of them with a smile on her face that could have led sailors safely into port in the dark.

  "Do you suppose it would fit Mother?" Cabot asked, tilting his head and looking from his wife to Kathryn. "She's nearly as small as you."

  "What?" The smile was gone from Charlotte's face. Replacing it was a nervous gnawing at the edge of her bottom lip, which seemed fuller every time Ash bothered to look at it.

  "It doesn't have to fit Mother," Ash said. "It's for Charlotte, who it suits rather well, I think."

  "Shows how little time you spend around here," Cabot said. "Not that it isn't a lovely... whatever... but it's much too frivolous for a woman of Charlotte's position and taste. Why, can you imagine a courtroom taking a woman seriously in that?"

  Ash bit his tongue to stop himself from remind
ing Cabot that a courtroom took a man in a chair with wheels rather seriously and he doubted that a woman in lace would fare much worse. "There's always the weekend," he said instead. "You do let her have the weekends off, don't you? Church and all that? Wouldn't look good if she didn't get out to pray."

  Charlotte took one last wistful look in the big gilt mirror, which was hung too high for her to see anything but her very sad face. Then she folded the blouse and held it out to Kathryn, blinking furiously as she did.

  "Cabot's right. I thank you for thinking of me, Ashford, but a woman can't be all frills and lace one day and starch and wool the next. I've a reputation I'm proud of, and my image is a part of it."

  "Isn't there somewhere you could wear it?" Ash asked, rolling his eyes toward the stairwell.

  "No," she said with a sigh that would have broken a lesser man's heart, but seemed to go unnoticed by her husband. "It would be a shame to hide so lovely a blouse in my armoire. You enjoy it, Kathryn."

  "It's a pity," Kathryn said as she took the blouse and, just as Charlotte had done, covered her chest with it. "But I don't suppose anyone would take you seriously if you wore it."

  Ash wasn't so sure that was so. He stared at his sister-in-law, knowing that beneath the navy boiled-wool jacket and under the starched white shirt, covered by the serge skirt and above the no-nonsense boots, there was at least one band of lace on her stockings. And, if his room was any indication, yards more of it intimately caressing her body.

  And there was no question about it. He was taking her seriously. Damned seriously.

  CHAPTER 3

  It had taken Cabot only a day to break down and enjoy one of the cigars that Ash had brought him. His face was nearly lost behind a cloud of smoke that Charlotte swore he was purposely blowing in her direction. Burning the soles of her shoes couldn't smell any worse, but she smiled at him as though swallowing in gobs of putrid air didn't bother her at all. She even took a few deep breaths before sitting back smugly in the wing chair in Cabot's office. It would take more than one rotten cigar to make her cough and wheeze and complain as if she were some delicate little flower that was being choked by an infernal weed.