Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
That night, after a tour of the house and a good supper, which Lizbet prepared herself with meat from the smokehouse, potatoes from the root cellar and fresh eggs from Gabe’s hens, she cleaned up the kitchen while he and the children went outside to bid John Avery farewell.
John had stayed for the meal, and though he had said nothing untoward, there had been a light lingering in his kindly eyes throughout, especially when he glanced at either Gabe or Lizbet.
He was happy for his friend, happy for her, and that knowledge filled her with quiet joy.
Sure, Gabe could have done without a housekeeper, she’d known that from the first, but John would have known how lonely his friend had been.
And, because he’d lived under the same roof with her and the children at Ornetta’s place, and because Lizbet had confided some of her concerns in him, John also knew how badly she had needed work and a place to live for the children as well as herself.
Lizbet sighed, looked around the kitchen in case any task had been left undone and decided to go upstairs to her new room and unpack some of her things. Her spring and summer frocks could remain in their trunks until they were needed.
The room was large and situated at the back of the house, next to Gabe’s.
Knowing this, and feeling foolish all the while, she had nonetheless checked for adjoining doors and found none. She trusted Gabe—wouldn’t have accepted a live-in housekeeping position from him if she hadn’t. Still, it paid to be cautious.
And how well did she really know the man, after all?
There were four windows overlooking the pasture and, in the near distance, a series of small hills, thick with trees. Although the cottonwoods had long since dropped their lovely, shimmering leaves, there were tall pines and blue spruce and Douglas fir.
Above them, on this quiet night, hovered a milky, transparent moon.
Lizbet smiled, remembering how Gabe had pointed out those trees to the children upon their arrival and told them it would soon be time to hike up one of those hills and chop down a Christmas tree.
He had a certain blue spruce in mind, too. Had kept his eye on it for a while now.
She let her mind drift back to the moment he’d raised the subject over breakfast.
“It’s a particularly fine tree,” he’d said. “Tall and full, and it smells like heaven.”
“What does heaven smell like?” Jubal had asked, prompting a smile from Gabe.
Frankie had elbowed her younger brother lightly and said in a lofty tone, “He means the tree smells good, silly. The part about heaven was just a figure of speech.”
“Can we go soon?” Jubal had cried, probably wondering what a “figure of speech” might be.
Gabe had nodded Lizbet’s way. “Whenever your big sister says it’s all right,” he’d replied.
After shifting her thoughts back to the present, though, Lizbet’s smile faded. Christmas was barreling down on her like a boulder just loosed from a mountainside.
She had almost no money, and she had not wanted to ask Gabe when she would start to receive wages. She needed nothing for herself, at least not at present, but it made her ache to think she wouldn’t be able to purchase more than a handful of penny candy for the children.
That would be their Christmas.
Tears threatened, but Lizbet blinked them back. She was tired, that was all. She always got teary when she needed to rest.
Be grateful, Elizabeth Fontaine! she lectured herself silently, and with spirit. You have a place to live and work, and the children are safe. Let that be enough.
Wearily, she sighed and began putting her stockings and nightgowns and underthings away in the drawers of the pinewood chest set against the wall opposite the windows.
As she continued this task, it occurred to her that, while there was an indoor commode downstairs, there was no bathtub and no hot and cold running water in this house, like there had been at Ornetta’s.
How would she bathe, with so little privacy?
Another self-lecture came to mind. Stop looking for problems. You’re bound to find plenty of them if you don’t change the direction of your thoughts.
She paused in her unpacking and listened for Gabe and the children. Were they still outside in this cold? Surely John had gone back to town by now.
Lizbet began to fret.
What was Gabe thinking of, keeping them out there for so long?
She was about to go downstairs, put on her coat, boots and gloves, and investigate when she heard a happy yip from Hector, laughter from Frankie and Jubal, the low rumble of Gabe’s speech, and a voice she didn’t recognize.
Soon the children and the dog were upstairs, and the men downstairs were arguing.
Had William found them? Or had Henry Middlebrook come to castigate her as a loose woman, living in shameless disregard of Christian precepts?
Lizbet’s blood froze at the possibilities, but immediately thawed as good sense returned.
Whoever this man was, he was young.
And he was determined to hold his own.
Frankie and Jubal and Hector all burst into the quiet sanctity of Lizbet’s room, squeezing through the doorway in a cluster.
“There’s gonna be a fight!” Jubal cried, as if delighted.
“There’s another Mr. Whitfield here now,” Frankie added, clearly troubled. “How are we supposed to speak to one Mr. Whitfield without the other Mr. Whitfield thinking we’re speaking to him ?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that right now,” Lizbet told her small brother and sister, though she was worried herself.
What if Jubal was right? It would not do if a physical altercation broke out inside this house. There were children here, for heaven’s sake.
As the voices belowstairs rose, Lizbet’s consternation increased. No doubt, this other Mr. Whitfield was Gabe’s younger brother, Finn. The one he’d told her about, on the way out of town.
Why did he sound so angry?
Wasn’t he glad to see his brother again?
“Stay here,” Lizbet told the children, shaking the dreaded finger of warning in their small, bewildered faces. “And know, both of you, that if you disobey me, you will go to bed directly after you get home from school every single day for a solid week!”
They both shrank back in surprise.
Gabe would be driving them to school every morning, as weather permitted, and then going back to fetch them in the afternoons. Which begged the distracted question of whether or not their presence—and her own—were more hindrance than help.
Two minutes later, she had stormed down the stairs and across the parlor to thrust open the door to the kitchen.
“ Don’t you dare come to blows in this house!” she heard herself shout. And despite the accompanying chagrin, she did not retreat or lower her voice. “There are children right upstairs!”
Both Gabe and the other man turned to stare at her, evidently shocked to silence.
Lizbet was already losing her steam; ordinarily, she did not give in to fits of temper. “Honestly!” she added, with conviction.
Gabe’s anger faded almost instantly from his face and countenance, though he didn’t move. The other man, handsome with light brown hair and clever hazel-colored eyes, grinned at her and then bowed.
Lizbet, so vociferous only moments before, was stricken silent.
“I’m Finn Whitfield,” the young man said, “and you shouldn’t believe a word my brother has said about me.” Then, after straightening, he put out a hand to her. “And you are most certainly the woman who has poor Henry Middlebrook on the verge of a stroke.”
The mention of Mr. Middlebrook took Lizbet further aback and renewed Gabe’s anger. He turned Finn to face him by wrenching hard at his left arm and then gripped him by his snow-dappled lapels and shook him hard.
“ Enough,” he hissed into his younger brother’s implacable face. “Don’t say that man’s name under my roof!”
Finn shrugged free of his brother’s grip, although Lizbet knew he only managed it because Gabe had loosened his fingers.
“Easy now, Big Brother,” he nearly crooned, although he was looking at Lizbet. Assessing her with a look of polite appreciation. “I was just running off at the mouth. I’m not here to criticize your immoral behavior.”
Gabe grabbed hold of him again, this time by the front of his sodden shirt, up close to the throat.
“Miss Fontaine is my housekeeper,” he growled, never looking away from Finn’s now-solemn face.
“Nothing more. You can say whatever you want about me, but you will not imply that there’s anything immoral going on here. Do you understand me?”
Finn said nothing, and his cheerful attitude had vanished.
In fact, Lizbet felt sorry for him.
“ Do you understand me?” Gabe repeated, in a raspy voice.
Lizbet, fearing he meant to choke an answer out of this brother of his, decided to step in.
“Gabe,” she said, forgetting all about her determination to address him only as Mr. Whitfield. “Calm down, please. We all need to calm down. The situation has clearly gotten out of hand.”
Gabe released Finn with such force that the fellow almost lost his footing. If the kitchen table hadn’t been there to collide with, he surely would have landed on the floor, backside first.
Lizbet was beginning to wonder if she ought to be concerned about Gabe’s temper. Suppose he became angry with her, or with one or both of the children? Would he raise his hands to them?
Perhaps his gentle manner had been a facade all along, calculated to lure her to Whitfield farm. Did he mistreat the animals, whip the horses or punish poor Hector with violence when the critter misbehaved?
Of course not. She was getting carried away, that was all.
With that thought, reason returned to her tired mind, and she watched Finn sink into a chair and gaze up at his brother with an expression of plaintive fatigue.
Gabe subsided, breathing hard. He was not a violent man.
“Are you going to make me sleep in the barn?” Finn asked his older brother, with new mirth in his changeable eyes. Obviously, he knew the answer.
“You can sleep in the parlor on the sofa,” Gabe allowed, still endeavoring visibly to regain his self-control. “Jubal’s sleeping in your old room now, and I won’t ask him to leave it.”
Finn shrugged. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’m half starved, though. I’ve been out of work for a while, and my funds are running low. I’m back to try my hand at being a farmer—if my brother will give me the chance.”
Gabe said something in response to that, something not especially polite, but Lizbet didn’t register his words for a few moments.
When she did, she closed her eyes and gripped the back of a chair to steady herself and stiffen her suddenly wobbly knees.
You’re here because you and Henry and that partner of his want to mine this land for silver, not because you’ve finally decided to take on your share of the responsibility for keeping this farm going.
Lizbet nearly wept, because she knew instinctively that the partner Finn had mentioned was her stepfather.
It was happening. William was coming back.
She knew it.
With or without Marietta, William was coming back because he and Henry Middlebrook had reached yet another evil accord and worse, Finn, whom she was inclined to like, was in cahoots with them.
And now she might lose the children, once and for all.