“Thank you. Appreciate the sustenance, I admit.” His shoulders lifted, and he rubbed a hand around the back of his neck before nodding to Jacob. “Mr. Sinclair, I can see you’ve a family blessed by the Lord. May He return your generosity to you a hundredfold. Shall we, Miss Sinclair?”
“Call me Leah,” she snapped as she headed for the house. “With three sisters, it’s ridiculous to stand on ceremony.” His effusiveness annoyed her, yet she couldn’t escape the niggling suspicion that she was being subtly reprimanded.
He caught up with her, moving with a fluid, unhurried stride which he shortened to match hers. “Very well then. Leah,” he said. “Lovely name, despite its original meaning.”
The top of her head scarcely reached his shoulder, making her feel more than ever like a chastened child. By now, Leah was almost as irritated with herself as she was with Cade Beringer. Their respective statures should be a matter of utter indifference; after all, body sizes were ordained by God, and she had trained herself years ago to ignore her diminutive frame with its unremarkable features. What mattered was her iron determination and thirst for knowledge, because with those she was capable of conquering any mountain she chose to climb. The only reason she was a trifle bothered right now was because—and she would never admit it to anyone but herself—she was as tired as Cade Beringer looked.
When they reached the porch, his hand grasped her elbow.
Startled, Leah freed herself firmly. “I’m not likely to trip over steps I’ve been climbing up and down for twenty years.”
“Accidents happen,” was the equable response, though he didn’t try to take her arm again. But when Leah reached the door, blunt masculine fingers closed over the knob just as her hand lifted.
“I’m sure you also know how to open the door,” Mr. Beringer murmured in her ear. “On the other hand, it’s both privilege and pleasure for a gentleman to extend that courtesy to ladies.” He opened the door with another of those gleaming smiles. “It’s a gesture of respect. Allow me.”
Without a word Leah sailed past him into the house, leaving him to follow her down the hall to the kitchen. “Here’s a cloth and towel.” She handed him the items as she retrieved them from the linen closet. “The washroom’s through there. Take your time.” Hands on her hips, she stared him straight in the eye. “Looks like you rolled down the side of a mountain and collected half of it along the way.”
“I might have,” he said. “You’re a very blunt young lady, Leah Sinclair.”
Leah shrugged, turning away to rummage through the mounds of food gathered on every available surface. His quiet tolerance of her shrewish behavior disconcerted her, more so than the ribbings her sisters flung her way when they thought her manner too overbearing. She was ashamed of herself, yet didn’t know how to rectify the situation.
“Leah.”
“Yes?” She stacked soiled tin plates and carried them to the sink, deliberately refusing to face Mr. Beringer.
“Your father didn’t realize how busy you were. Or how exhausted. I’ll wait outside and explain to him.”
“I’m not that busy,” Leah managed, her face hot. She half turned. “Mr. Beringer, I—”
He was gone.
Leah dashed from the kitchen and raced down the hall, catching up with him just before he stepped onto the porch. “Mr. Beringer! Stop—please.”
When he obliged, Leah found she still couldn’t meet his gaze. “I . . . apologize. I don’t know what possessed me, to treat a perfect stranger so rudely. If you’ll—” She finally darted a glance upward, and his look of warm understanding so flummoxed her she forgot what she’d intended to say.
“If I’ll—?” He took a step toward her.
Leah tensed. “If you’ll return to the kitchen, I’ll fix you that plate while you clean up. I’ve apologized for my . . . brusqueness. But as you observed, I’ve a lot to do, and standing here in the hall is wasting time.” She stood aside, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Shall we?”
“Certainly. As soon as you tell me what it is about me that makes you so uncomfortable. Other than my filthy appearance.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A smile softened the ruggedness of his features as he drew abreast and paused, studying her. “You’re very young. I hadn’t realized.”
“I’m twenty years old, not that it’s any of your concern. Could you please step back? I don’t like being crowded.” She edged away.
“I . . . see. Sorry.”
He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. Leah would have to practically brush up against him in order to return to the kitchen. She eyed him in growing consternation.
“You haven’t answered my question,” he said.
“Mr. Beringer, I’m ‘uncomfortable,’ as you phrased it, because I was rude to you. But I was rude to you, if you must know, because I don’t appreciate fatuous demonstrations of faith designed to impress people you know nothing about.”
“You know equally little about me, Leah. What made you conclude that I was a hypocrite?”
“I didn’t say—”
“Yes,” he interrupted firmly, “you did. Have you run across so many hypocrites that every stranger who speaks of the Lord becomes suspect?”
Leah’s biology professor at Mary Baldwin would challenge her by using the same formidable logic, using her own words to try and twist her into a knot of contradictory conclusions. Within the classroom the experience was exhilarating. Nobody at home had ever been able to meet Leah on equal intellectual grounds, and the intense love she felt for her family precluded a ruthless dissection of their faith.
Cade Beringer was not family.
“The answer to your question is yes,” she said. “Every person I meet who spouts pious phrases about God’s goodness is suspect in my mind. Most of the time, they use their faith as a shield against their fears of a world they can neither control nor understand. Or they use it to inspire guilt in those who do not share their views.”
“I don’t, Leah. My faith in God defines who I am as a man. For me, Jesus is friend as well as Savior. Do you have friends?”
“Flesh and blood friends, yes. If you insist on a religious debate—proving, by the by, the truth of my statement—you’ll have to follow me back to the kitchen. I’ll fix you something to eat, but it’s your choice whether or not to clean up.”
Leah retreated toward the kitchen, uncomfortably aware of the man close on her heels. Close enough to make her feel . . . herded. Mr. Beringer, she told him in silent declaration, you’ve made a serious miscalculation.
“Do you prefer ham, turkey? Some cold fried chicken? Do you make it a habit of forcing your faith on everyone with whom you come in contact?” She whisked about the room, gathering food and utensils as she hurled a barrage of questions. “What would you like to drink? We have iced tea, limeade? There’s some buttermilk in the springhouse out back. Can you prove that your ‘salvation’ experience provides you with greater insight into spiritual truths than my own?”
“Leah.” He halted her by the effective method of stepping between her and the worktable where she was preparing his plate. “If there were more time, I’d find out why a twenty-year-old young lady on the springboard of life possesses the mind of a cynic.”
In a move that silenced her completely he grasped her wrist, pried free the knife she’d planned to slice some ham with and laid it on the worktable. Then he cupped her hand in between both of his and held it against his chest. “I’ll eat and drink whatever you offer,” he said, his voice calm as the air before a thunderstorm. “As for the rest . . . I don’t have to prove the reality of my relationship with the Lord to you or anyone else. And you”—he squeezed her hand, then gently released it—“will never be able to prove that it isn’t as tangible as the relationship you share with your father and sisters.”
Stepping back, he crossed toward the back washroom with the smooth, soundless power of a man of utter authority. L
eah stared after him, dumbfounded for the first time in her life, the hand Cade had clasped still suspended in midair.
Throughout the journey back to Winchester Meredith held her heartwood chest on her lap. She was grateful Clyde had insisted on riding up top with Mr. Beringer, affording Meredith privacy along with time to collect her thoughts.
The time to pray.
She sat in the corner of the plush goatskin cushion, her body swaying with the motion of the carriage, hands folded across the sturdy lid of her chest, her heart straining to recapture that elusive sensation she’d experienced on the porch. Lord? I don’t know how to listen very well.
For most of Meredith’s life, if she were brutally candid—and since she was trying to talk to God she knew absolute honesty before Him was not only unavoidable but required—she had talked to Him without ever waiting to hear what He might have to say. I do that a lot, don’t I, Lord? And she knew in her heart that her stubborn nature would never change, that her only hope lay in making a continued effort to . . . to wait. To cultivate a listening ear, as her father would say.
She didn’t like waiting.
The carriage dipped suddenly, and Meredith braced herself against the forward pitch, relaxing her death grip enough to push aside the curtain. They were descending the hill to Cedar Creek; they should arrive at the hotel within the hour. The wheels rattled across the covered bridge, then emerged on the other side for the climb to the top of the hill. Through the glass she heard Mr. Beringer’s melodious baritone, coaxing the laboring horses along much in the same manner he had coaxed a babbling, uncertain Meredith into the carriage.
Above her the jet black sky was peppered with stars, tiny points of light thicker than the sugar sprinkles Leah dusted over the tops of her snickerdoodles. Garnet, she remembered with a lonely pang, used to lie outside on starry evenings and count stars until she fell asleep. Leah, on the other hand, pestered Jacob until he hauled home every book on astronomy he could lay his hands on. Stars, Leah informed her family when she was eleven years old, were nothing but balls of gas in the heavens.
As for Meredith . . . until this moment, she’d considered the stars about like she considered God—always there, but taken for granted. She’d never paused to contemplate the mystery or majesty of this facet of creation, any more than she’d noticed the air she breathed.
Now, heedless of wind and road dust, she opened the window and craned her head outside, soaking in those sparkling points of light. Their incalculable number infused Meredith with a peculiar emotion that both humbled and exalted. Placed within the context of the universe, her own insignificance struck her with an intensity that made her want to weep.
Yet she also felt safe somehow, secure in the knowledge that she was . . . loved. By her family and friends. By—please, God?—by Benjamin.
But most of all, by the almighty Creator of the heavens and the earth. Oh yes . . . there it came, dispersing warmth and affirmation like perfume. Meredith closed her eyes. Come what may with Benjamin, she was God’s beloved child, just as she was the eldest beloved daughter of Jacob Sinclair.
Finger by finger she relaxed her grip, allowing the peace to filter deep inside even with wind stinging her eyes and dust filming her throat and nostrils. In this moment, nothing could separate her from this reverent communion with her Lord.
Nothing, that is, until the carriage rounded a curve, throwing her off balance. Meredith grabbed the strap, then regretfully opened her eyes and closed the window. Almost at random, her attention wandered to her heartwood chest, coated courtesy of the open window with a fresh layer of dust. Her lips curved in a wry smile. Sorry, Papa.
Each motion tentative, she opened the secret drawer and withdrew the cookie cutter. “Why did you choose this, Papa?” she wondered aloud, picturing his lined face and work-scarred hands, hearing his oft-repeated answer.
That’s between me and the Lord, Merry-go-round. You’ll figure it out, one of these days.
Perhaps that day had arrived. Perhaps the answer waited in Winchester with the man who had called her name from the depths of his pain and his need.
She wanted to heed the reawakened awareness of God’s Spirit, with its faint but irresistible urging. Prayed that she could listen. Please, Lord. Don’t let me make another mistake.
Forty-Seven
Ben surfaced from a drugged sleep with a sensation akin to fighting his way out of the airless hold of the sinking merchant clipper that had tried to take his life when he was sixteen. When something snagged his arm he fought back, twisting to free himself. The relentless pressure never wavered.
Only gradually did the jumbled noises separate themselves into recognizable sounds—words. The same ones. Spoken over and over in a ceaseless cadence that gradually penetrated his brain.
“ . . . all right. You’re all right, Mr. Ben. I’ve got you. Easy, Mr. Ben. It’s all right, you’re all right. I’ve got you.”
The panic dissipated. Ben ceased struggling, his muscles going slack in relief. Hominy. It was Hominy’s voice, Hominy’s hand holding him still. He wasn’t trapped in that stinking hold, wasn’t going to drown. He was in his bed, and instead of seawater his body was soaked with sweat, torpid from medicine the infernal doctor had insisted he take.
But where was Meredith? He needed her desperately, yet retained no memory of her presence at any time over the last . . . the last . . . Ben groped in his mind for an accounting of the time lapsed since he’d broken his fool ankle. Gave up the exercise because his brain was a rock. Couldn’t even force his eyes open, and his mouth was dry as a parched cotton field.
“Water?”
The pressure on his arm vanished. He felt his head being lifted, and the rim of a glass pressed against his bottom lip.
“Thanks.” At last he was able to open his eyes, as though the water had moistened his eyelids along with his tongue.
Above him Hominy’s gleaming black countenance blurred for a moment then cleared. Ben had never seen his manservant look so worn, showing every one of his almost fifty years. When had the wiry hair sported all that gray? “Hominy . . . feel like—” No. Better not confess how he felt. His mother might have been dead for over a quarter of a century, but he’d never been able to get out from under her lessons in gentlemanly conduct.
“Mr. Ben? Sure is good to hear you, talking like you’s who you is again.”
Incredibly the urge to smile twitched the muscles on either side of Ben’s mouth. “Must have been bad, to hear you talk like that.”
Hominy’s face split in a grin the size of a half-moon, and about as brilliant. “Don’t you go to badgering me about my grammar. I might be tempted to break your other ankle.”
“You’d just have to play nursemaid for me twice as long.” He shifted, then stilled when a bolt of pain arched up from his ankle. “By the way, how long have I been out of it?”
“Ah, let’s see. It’s going on midnight, Wednesday. Mr. Beringer toted you in here early this afternoon. I swan, Mr. Ben, he looked near about as bad as you.”
“He carried me down the mountain. We spent the night . . .”
“I reckon I know that. Don’t want to pass another night like that ever again, Mr. Ben.”
“I don’t reckon I do either,” Ben drawled back. “Though I don’t remember a lot—I was pretty much out of my head, I’m afraid.”
“Mr. Kingston and Miz Biggs, they were ready to call out the militia.” Hominy paused. “I even had a look-see about Mr. Clarke’s place, to make sure you, ah, weren’t there.”
“I am sorry, Hominy. For all of this. But it was worth it—I’ll tell you why when I’m not so muzzy-brained. As for Preston Clarke, let the undercover private detectives we’ve hired for the season do their job. They’re here not only to protect the hotel, Hominy. I don’t want anything to happen to you or to the rest of my staff.”
His voice gruff, Hominy leaned over to adjust the twisted covers and plump the pillow. “Well, next time you hare off with Mr. Beringer, I’m c
oming along so nothing else can happen to you.”
Ben grimaced. “Sometimes, my friend, all the care in all the world can’t prevent life’s unpleasantries from intruding.” Especially when there were compensations. No—treasure more precious than a pirate’s horde. “Frankly, I’m relieved it’s nothing worse than my ankle. Better that than my ribs. At least I can breathe.” His entire body ached dully, but he’d break his own ribs before he complained. Hominy had suffered enough.
Yet despite Ben’s present physical misery, there were snippets of peace, patches of utter contentment to cling to, together with an anticipation bubbling inside like the springs he and Cade had discovered.
The faint sound of voices drifted into the quiet room. Ben turned his head toward the doorway. Hope leaped inside his chest, because in spite of their hushed tones, one of those voices was female. Meredith . . . He tried to speak her name, but the longing was too intense. He waited in an agony of suspense until Cade’s golden head appeared.
“I don’t care if he’s asleep,” that light feminine voice whispered behind Cade, its vehemence zinging across to the bed, straight into Ben’s heart. “I want to see him . . .”
In a flurry of rustling skirts Meredith shimmied past Cade’s arm. She took two quick steps toward Ben then stopped. He drank in her anxious expression, the tremulous mouth. The endless weeks of separation evaporated as though they’d never occurred. Ben didn’t notice Hominy’s silent retreat, didn’t hear the quiet closing of the door behind Meredith. His gaze locked on her face, and he managed to lift an unsteady hand in a beckoning gesture.
“B-Benjamin?” She flew across the room and sank to her knees on the floor. Their faces almost touched. “Benjamin?”
Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1) Page 39