On the third morning, to pass the time, she struggled through knee-deep snow to purchase items at Menson’s, and in the evening she worked in her tiny room, fashioning another hat.
As she stitched the finishing laces and bows, she sat back on her cot and admired her creation. She couldn’t imagine how she’d thought of the design. The women in camp never wore such finery, but she’d wanted to make a new hat for each and every one of them. However, that would take time, so she decided to wait until they were all finished to give them the gift. Until then, she intended to tell no one of her secret project.
She remembered when the idea had first sprung to her mind. It was during a spelling bee one long afternoon. One minute she was doodling in the margin of her speller, and the next moment she was sketching a hat. A large elaborate design made of lace and silk and ostrich feathers. She snickered. That particular one would have to go to Bernice.
Of course, Menson’s didn’t carry ostrich feathers and silk, and certainly not the intricate lace she had drawn. The camp store had a small selection of ribbons and buttons and such, but she’d substituted where she could. She’d gone in search of crow feathers in the forest and found a few in the snowdrifts.
I have a knack for this sort of thing. Where did I get this gift? Perhaps I inherited it.
She knew the talent was God given, and she appreciated it.
Holding the completed hat in front of her, she sighed. Lovely. Simply lovely.
The ice thawed, but lakefront snow persisted. The men went back to work. The middle of January turned bitterly cold, and the children grew more unbearable with each passing day. And it snowed and snowed and snowed. And snowed.
Drifts mounted to alarming heights, and the road monkeys were having a hard time keeping the paths, roads, and planked walks cleared. Tess fell asleep at night listening to the wind batter the log bunkhouse. She might not recall her past, but she was convinced she didn’t like cold and snow.
Not in either life.
The door to the schoolhouse slammed shut when Scooter Wilson ran outside. Tess stepped to the window and heard his feet thundering purposefully down the ice-covered path. He hurriedly unbuttoned the front of his pants while making a beeline for the outhouse.
Four of the children had complained of having bellyaches after eating their lunch. King Davis had passed out dried apples all morning, and Tess was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t playing one of his pranks again. She’d wisely refused the treat, saying she didn’t feel well herself. She had learned she could trust King about as far as she could throw him.
Tirzah Reynolds’s hand shot up in the air and frantically waved.
“Yes, Tirzah?”
“It’s hit me again!”
“Scooter, Quinn, and King are all using the—”
“I can’t wait!” Tirzah’s pained expression convinced Tess that she would have to make an exception this time. Ordinarily, only one child was allowed out of the room at a time.
“All right, Tirzah. You may be excused—”
Tirzah shot out of her seat and bolted for the door. Cautioning the class to settle down, Tess continued with the lesson. “And George Washington was who?”
Five minutes later, the door opened, and Quinn stuck his head in.
“Guess who has her tongue stuck to the outhouse door handle?”
Tess glanced up. “Who?” she asked, as if she didn’t know the answer.
“The ol’ cypress tree. You’d better come get her. She’s screaming her fool head off.”
She laid her book aside and stood up. “Thank you, Quinn. You may return to your seat.”
Quinn went to his desk, and a moment later Scooter burst through the doorway and scrambled back into the room. Slipping into her coat, Tess called over her shoulder, “I shall expect your best behavior while I’m gone.”
The newest crisis failed to disturb her, and neither did the persistent hammering that had suddenly started on the outside of the schoolroom door. The children’s incessantly bad behavior tried her patience hourly, but she learned that it was far better to try to outwit them than give in to them.
While she was putting on her mittens, an eraser whizzed by her head and smacked the door, creating a fine sheen of chalk dust to powder her face. Ignoring the deliberate provocation, she calmly reached for the door handle and gave it a pull. The door refused to budge.
She tugged harder, and the children started to snicker. Undoubtedly, one of the boys had tricked Tirzah into touching her tongue to the metal handle on the outhouse, and Quinn had then been sent to inform her of Tirzah’s plight while King nailed the front door shut. King. Tess realized she hadn’t seen him eat any of the apples, so he had fooled her into thinking he was feeling poorly in order to pull off this shenanigan.
It was hard for her to control the knot of building anger in her throat. This was going to be a long afternoon. Being stuck inside in a tiny room with no ventilation, the windows frozen shut, and seven children, four of whom were suffering from a roaring case of intestinal fright, was not going to be pleasant.
Taking a deep breath, she removed her mittens and coat, and then she dragged the slop jar to the far corner behind the wood pile for privacy.
“Please open your poetry books.” Pained groans filled the room, which she ignored. They were going to do their work no matter what. “We shall read from the works of Robert Burns loud enough for both Tirzah and King to enjoy while we wait.”
“Oh, horse feathers!”
“Do we have to read that ‘My love is like a red, red rose’ stuff?”
Hostility rose in the boys’ voices.
Juice Tetterson’s hand flew up. “I-I…ha-have… to… thunder… Miss…Yard-Yardley!”
Motioning her permission for the child to leave her seat to use the slop jar, Tess summoned a brave smile. “Yes, we might even have time for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets.” She gazed off pointedly. “How do I love thee?” she quoted. “Let me count the ways...”
16
Jake walked into the office late in the afternoon, stomping snow off his boots and heading straight for the stove to thaw out. He noticed that André was deeply engrossed in a wire he was reading.
“What has you so preoccupied?”
“We just received another telegraph from Monsieur Talbot Wellington-Kent.”
Jake shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the peg. “Oh?”
“He is worried sick about his fiancée, Jake. He is trying to get here, but the weather has brought train travel to a halt. I am afraid he is thinking the worst.”
Reaching for his coffee cup, Jake walked back to the stove, parroting his usual answer when the subject of Tess Wakefield was brought up. “We’ve told him everything we know. The rivers are frozen solid. It would be a miracle if any bodies were found now. When the weather clears, he can come and confirm Miss Yardley’s identity.”
The Frenchman shook his head. “You can see why he is upset. Miss Wakefield has not contacted him since she left Philadelphia. Talbot says here that her engagement ring alone was worth more than ten thousand dollars.” André laid the telegraph aside thoughtfully. “I sympathize with the poor man.”
Jake walked to the window to stare out at the falling snow. Tess wasn’t wearing a ring, nor had she been the day André fished her out of the water. He’d checked—but the ring could have slipped off during the accident. He frowned as his conscience pricked. What if he was mistaken and the schoolteacher was in fact Fedelia Yardley?
A sick feeling formed in the pit of his stomach. If he was mistaken, he was deliberately driving her away—not to mention he was getting mighty attracted to the woman, whoever she was. He shook his head to clear his brain.
The woman in that schoolhouse had tenacity. He had watched her struggle to perform a job he suspected she wasn’t trained to do without a word of complaint. Her predecessors had been in his office every hour on the hour demanding to be replaced, but this woman, facing an overwhelming task, was quietly
gritting her way through it.
When we find out her true identity, let her be Fedelia Yardley.
Jake could deal with falling in love with a stranger, but not Wakefield’s granddaughter. And yet, in his heart, he knew who she was.
Tess had adjusted to living among one hundred and twenty-five rough, barely civilized woodsmen, and only rarely did she show signs of losing her sunny disposition. Her aristocratic behavior and refined breeding were making gentlemen out of the burly lumberjacks, an enviable accomplishment for anyone.
The crew had even ceased their constant harping about her not allowing them to smoke in the bunkhouse. They good-naturedly bowed to her wishes and had taken their pipes and tobacco outdoors.
He was beginning to be deeply ashamed for what he was putting her through. That feeling had grown ever since the afternoon she helped him take care of Frank Kellier’s leg. Though her face was pale and her hands shook, she had worked beside him even when grown men hadn’t been able to render assistance.
He’d watched her sit by Frank’s side like a mother hen, sharing her strength until the man found his own again. And the way she was standing her ground with her students—he had to hand it to her. Everyone knew that took perseverance.
Jake moved to his desk, sat down, and tried to get his thoughts off the woman who had come unexpectedly into his life. Staring blankly at the mound of paper before him, he admitted he knew she was falling in love with him. And he was feeling the same. The concession left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Under other circumstances, he would have welcomed her attentions. She was so beautiful. She possessed a cloud of flaxen hair, arched brows, long blond lashes, a pretty mouth, and ivory skin, yet there was more to Tess than mere superficial beauty. She had an inner strength he found compelling.
Her ability to accept whatever came her way without complaint, her kindness to offer a helping hand to anyone who needed it, her willingness to pray for those afflicted—those were the qualities he was discovering about her. He should have known she would be a special kind of woman, especially because she had Tip Wakefield’s blood running in her veins.
What would she think now of Jake’s dream to replant the trees? Somehow, he knew what man was doing to the land was starting to gain her attention, and he’d bet she shared his concern about the future.
He was starting to dread the day Tess regained her memory. What would she think of him then? She was drawn to him, yes, but she had no idea she was engaged to marry another man, and her eventual discovery that he had suspected her identity but done nothing to confirm it would surely alienate her.
He’d tried to discourage her attentions, but he couldn’t deny he recognized love shining brightly through her eyes whenever she looked at him. And he couldn’t deny that it gave him a certain sense of pride to see it there.
Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, he tried to concentrate on his work, but his mind kept drifting back to her.
She had a way of popping into his office on her way home from school, and he found himself looking forward to the daily visits. These impromptu calls were usually short and served no practical purpose. He usually ended up walking her back to the bunkhouse, and they talked about the day’s events.
The kiss they had shared the night of the sleigh ride had left him restless, thinking what it would be like to be her husband. What would her hair feel like if he could loosen the pins and bury his hands in the shiny, sweet-smelling mass? He dreamed of this, yet at the same time he realized that Tess was in love with another man—now forgotten, but surely when her memory returned…
It was a mess, one big mess of his making, and he could see no clear way to correct it. Once she regained her memory, she would leave Wakefield Timber and return to Philadelphia to marry Talbot Wellington-Kent.
If he told her now he suspected she was Tess Wakefield, she would find a way out of camp despite the heavy snow, despising him for his part in the charade. If he waited until her memory returned, she would still leave, despising him even more.
God, I don’t know what I was thinking…
“Do you mind?”
Jake glanced up blankly. André was looking at him as if he expected an answer. “Mind what?”
“Do you mind if I ask her to go?”
“Who?”
“Fedelia. Where is your mind, Lannigan?”
Snapping back to the present, Jake picked up the work sheet on his desk and shook it irritably. “It’s on my work, where yours should be.”
“My, my,” André said with a curious look. “The man is edgy.”
Jake realized his guilt had put him in a defensive mood. “Sorry. What was it you asked?”
“I want to know if you thought it would be improper for me to ask Miss Yardley to go for a walk Sunday afternoon.”
“Yes. It would be improper.” Jake got up to file the document.
André twirled his pencil between his fingers thoughtfully. “You claim to have no interest in the lady, but your actions of late would indicate otherwise. Am I not correct?”
“You’re correct, but her contract states she isn’t to socialize with men.”
“Mon ami, are you serious? She has the run of the town and you know it. Besides, I do not believe you have been overly concerned about her following the rules. I seem to recall the Christmas sleigh ride and the many times you have walked her home lately.”
“I haven’t walked her home,” Jake dismissed curtly. “We happened to be going in the same direction at the same time.”
“Ah, oui. Every afternoon at five you just happen to be going to the bunkhouse—not that you live there or have any particular business in that direction—but every afternoon, around five?”
Jake met his skeptical gaze. “So what?”
The Frenchman shrugged. “Your behavior appears questionable.”
Jake returned to his desk. He wasn’t in the mood to talk about the subject and was glad for a few minutes of silence.
“Are you telling me to stay away from Miss Yardley?” André inquired at last.
“No.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Jake sighed deeply. “I’m saying it isn’t any of my business what she does. If you want to ask her to go for a walk with you, do it and stop bothering me.”
“I think you are saying you are interested in her and for me to back off. Is not that more like it?”
“If that’s what I was trying to say, I would say it.”
“Would you now?”
Jake glanced up. “Montague, how would you like to be head chickadee from now on?”
André grinned. “Now the man threatens to have me shoveling horse droppings off the roads. Could this not possibly lead me to conclude that our lovely Miss Yardley has done what no other woman has been able to accomplish? Has the new schoolmarm captured big Jake Lannigan’s heart?”
Reaching for his coat, Jake slammed out of the office.
17
The office door opened late that afternoon, and a rosy-cheeked Tess sailed inside. The wind had stung her face a bright red.
“Does it ever stop snowing around here?” She reached to brush the snow from her new hat. Steadying the brim, she then tried to blow feeling back into her numb fingers.
Jake turned back to his desk. André got to his feet. “Hello, ma chère. Allow me to get you a cup of coffee to ward off the chill.”
“Thank you just the same, André, but I don’t care for coffee today.” Though she glanced at Jake, he refused to look her way. Recognizing he was in an aloof mood, she ambled over to his desk and perched on the corner. Resting her hand over his, she greeted softly, “Fine day, isn’t it?”
Reaching out to prevent a bundle of papers from spilling to the floor, he grunted something that possibly could have been “ifyoulikeyourweathercold.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Are you busy?”
“Yes.”
She sighed and absently swung her feet, noticing he’d fixed his
gaze on the hat she was wearing “Do you like it?” she asked. “I made it myself!”
“Really.”
“I did, and I’m rather proud of the result.” She sighed. “I’m discovering all sorts of interesting things about me. Losing one’s memory isn’t so bad. You can assess your natural gifts with complete objectivity, and if you don’t care for what you see, you’re able to change without the slightest hesitation and become someone you really enjoy.” She met his gaze. “Correct?”
“If you say so.”
“If there were one thing that I could change, it would be my chosen profession. What a day I’ve had! Tirzah, Scooter, Quinn, and Juice had frightful stomach issues, and wouldn’t you know it, Tirzah stuck her tongue to the frozen outhouse handle, and then King nailed the schoolroom front door shut from the outside.”
André whistled sympathetically under his breath. Jake bent lower to his work.
“It was horrid, but the dismal day finally ended. King knew he couldn’t leave us nailed in the schoolroom forever, so a little before four he removed the nails. Tirzah had managed to get her tongue loose from the door handle sometime during the afternoon and set out for home, bawling. I’m going to have to stop by and explain the situation to her mother.”
She paused, taking a deep breath. “So, needless to say, I’m glad to see this day over.” She glanced at Jake and smiled. “I thought if you had business near the bunkhouse, we could walk there together.”
Jake shook his head. “I’ll be tied up here at least another hour.”
“Oh.” Tess frowned when she saw André shoot Jake a grin. “You work too hard, Jake. Can’t you finish whatever it is in the morning? I have something very important to talk to you about.”
“No, it can’t wait.”
André raised an eyebrow. “You can go.”
She glanced at André, who now was walking over to Jake’s desk, still grinning. “Whatever it is, Big Say, I will finish it for you. I have not a thing to do but polish up my chickadee skills.” André’s grin widened.
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