Chapter Sixteen
“Hannah, I don’t know how you do that,” Grace said, shaking her head.
Hannah’s laughter rang out like church bells. “Like what?” she asked.
Grace eyed the young woman, who stood adjusting the harness on a massive ox without the slightest trace of fear.
All Grace could think about was how tiny Hannah was and how easily she could be trampled, yet the woman seemed completely calm as she easily tightened the leather straps around the animal.
“That ox looks like he could eat you.”
“Oxen don’t eat people,” Hannah said, “so unless you’re hiding a bundle of hay inside your dress, you are entirely safe.”
“Not entirely,” Grace argued. “He could still trample you.”
Hannah’s eyes flitted to something beyond Grace’s right shoulder. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
“No?”
Grace eyed the ox standing near her that was still unharnessed. The animal shifted a bit, and Grace started so badly that she stumbled over her own feet.
“Perhaps you should ask Zachariah Sterling to come help,” Hannah said slyly. “Men like to feel useful.”
“I don’t need his help.” Grace paused. “Why would you suggest Zachariah?”
“Because he’s been watching you with rapt attention for the past several minutes,” replied Hannah, grinning brightly. “I think Zachariah likes you.”
“He’s probably just curious,” Grace said. “I imagine Zachariah wants to know if I’m actually capable of putting a harness on this beast at all.”
Hannah raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”
Grace took a deep breath, steeled herself, then gingerly tried to copy what she had seen Hannah do. The ox stamped a heavy hoof as soon as Grace touched him, and she flinched.
“I can do it,” Grace insisted as she felt Hannah’s gaze on her. “I’m just being careful.”
“Of course,” Hannah said, coming around to join her, though she didn’t offer to take over for Grace just yet.
“Besides, I’m not interested in anything a man has to offer,” Grace continued. “Men are always charming when they want you, but when they have you it’s another matter entirely.”
“What a dour view on the subject,” Hannah said, giving her a curious look. “Are you speaking from experience?”
Grace bit the inside of her cheek, considering whether she wanted to tell Hannah the entire truth or only part of it.
They were good friends now, and Grace trusted that Hannah wouldn’t judge her too harshly.
She couldn’t imagine Hannah judging anyone harshly, really.
Part of Grace’s reason for going on the trail, though, was to start fresh with people who didn’t know all about her sordid past and failed marriage.
Telling Hannah about it rather defeated that purpose.
Hannah gestured for Grace to step back, and she did, relinquishing the harness to Hannah’s practiced hands. Grace watched carefully as the other woman quickly harnessed the animal so that when the oxen needed harnessing again, Grace could try to do it herself once more.
“There was a woman back in Lexington I knew,” Grace said, now forming a plan of how to explain things to Hannah. “She married a man, a man who was the love of her life. He was good to her at first.”
Grace held her breath, waiting to see if she had been too obvious.
Or maybe it was because Grace had so seldom discussed her life with Charles since he left Lexington that she felt so nervous.
Grace’s desire to be honest warred with the fear that she’d hurt herself, like picking at a scab until the wound bled.
Hannah grew still. “At first…”
“Yes. But over time, he became intolerably cruel. She was forced to leave him, and he…eventually, he just ran off.” It was the gentlest version of the truth, the one that omitted all Grace’s heartache and all her father’s threats and influence.
“I saw how heartbroken that woman was, and ever since, I have found it difficult to be enthusiastic about the idea of marriage. What if I marry a man like that? What if he is kind at first, so charming that I decide to devote my entire life to him? And then, once there’s little chance of getting out, he just… becomes a monster?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said in a hushed voice. She looked at Grace as if seeing her for the first time, as if Hannah had never before considered the horror that Grace spoke of. “I suppose you would survive. What else could you do in such a terrible situation?”
“You’re right,” Grace said. “I would survive. But would that be enough? Just surviving?”
Ethan approached them, and Grace fell quiet.
While she might have been willing to offer Hannah some version of the truth, Ethan was different.
He knew what it was like to be in a difficult situation and to survive it, but she didn’t know if any man could really understand what it was like to be a woman with far fewer options than any man would ever have.
In Lexington, there had even been a few residents who whispered that Grace should have stayed married to Charles and been a dutiful wife. They had blamed her.
And Grace had been the one who had borne the shame. A woman with a child would be scrutinized everywhere she went, but a man was free. No one thought much of a lone man on the move, wherever he went.
“How are you so afraid of the oxen?” Ethan asked. “You’ve been traveling with them for weeks now.”
Grace’s face flushed with heat. “They’re very large and strong.”
“Are you this afraid of the horses, too?”
“No, but horses are different.” Grace crossed her arms. “Did you come over here just to criticize how I handle the oxen? If anything, I would imagine that you’d be delighted.”
“Why?”
“Well, you evidently don’t have to worry about me trying to drive any of the wagons,” she said.
“I’m sure the prospect of me at the head of a wagon would fill you with terror.
” As soon as Grace had spoken, she wished she hadn’t.
She had meant the remark to be in reference to Ethan’s persistent attempts to help her, whether she wanted his aid or not, but she found herself recalling Derek’s wagon crash earlier in the week instead.
It seemed like Ethan’s thoughts hadn’t gone in that direction, though. He actually grinned at her, mischief gleaming in his eyes. “The prospect of you driving a wagon does fill me with terror, that’s true. But I reckon I know how to fix that problem.”
She narrowed her eyes, suspicious of how he might “fix” anything, and by this new, eager side of him that she’d never seen before.
“There’s nothing to fix,” she said. “I’ll never drive a wagon.”
“I don’t think that will hold true,” Ethan said, climbing into the driver’s seat of his and Hannah’s wagon. He extended a hand, still grinning.
Grace looked at Ethan as if he might bite her, rather than the gigantic and formidable oxen that were now hitched up. Fear and suspicion warred in her expression.
“No.”
“Yes,” he said. “Come on. I don’t have to fear you driving a wagon if you’ve been taught by me.”
Hannah smirked, clearly amused, and Grace cast her a withering look.
“And I suppose you’re an accomplished driver,” Grace said dryly.
“I’ll have you know I’m the best wagon-driver in the whole country.”
“Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Come on,” Ethan said. “You’re wasting time. This is an important skill to learn. What if your father is sick or injured and he needs someone to drive the wagon? Are you going to make someone else do it?”
Grace clenched her jaw. Of course she wouldn’t want to leave that responsibility to someone else, and she suspected Ethan knew that.
It was kind of him, really, beneath his joking.
Grace decided that she could oblige him.
Hadn’t she wanted him to show her some kindness, after all?
She took his hand and let him help her into the seat.
“You’re a terrible man, I hope you know that,” Grace said as he handed her the reins.
“Thank you,” Ethan replied, smiling brightly.
He shifted in the seat, causing his knee to brush against her own, and Grace just barely managed to disguise a gasp as a cough.
Her mind went back, unwillingly, to Lexington and to all the nicely dressed couples she had seen driving carriages together down the street in the springtime, when the air was sweet with magnolia flowers and jasmine.
This wagon ride was about as far as one could get from that, but once Grace had thought of those Lexington drives, she couldn’t manage to vanquish them from her mind.
“Now,” Ethan said, snaking one arm around her and gently folding his hands over hers. “Loosen up with the reins.”
The heat of his body pressed against Grace’s side.
It wasn’t unpleasant, but she was acutely aware that others were watching them.
She was still thinking about Lexington, which made her wonder if Ethan had ever taken some pretty girl on a ride like that before.
Grace’s face was so hot that she just knew her cheeks must be breaking out into the unsightliest flush of bright red.
“Now,” Ethan said, shifting back a bit. “Just a little snap on the reins. Be firm, but gentle.”
She tried to do as he said, snapping the reins with as much confidence as she could, and the oxen ambled forward.
An embarrassing squeak of surprise escaped her lips, and Ethan laughed.
He stayed right near her, his knee just a hairsbreadth from her own.
In another life, Grace wondered if she might have been attracted to a man like Ethan.
Sure, she still didn’t understand him, and he was a little cold, intimidating, even; but something had changed after the wagon accident, when he’d told her about his childhood.
Ethan had become softer to her; he smiled at her differently and tried to blunt the edges of his speech.
If Charles hadn’t broken her heart, Grace wondered if she might have eventually been able to reimagine Ethan into a man like Mr. Darcy, someone who was similarly utterly unlikable at first, until he revealed the devotion and charm beneath his outer shell.
Ethan shifted in his seat.
“Are you ready to flee?” Grace asked.