Chapter Seven
Aidan wasn’t used to having someone trail along behind him. He couldn’t accuse the new Mrs. Rawlins of dogging his steps exactly, since he was meant to be showing her around the house. Even so, it put him on edge.
He led her out of the back of the house to where there was a small kitchen garden.
The plants were wilting in the heat, sad and limp.
Brendan’s wife, Caroline, had put it in, and Brendan had kept it watered after her.
Aidan had not so much as looked at it since May.
He gestured broadly and turned to his… wife.
“This here is the garden. There’s a water pump just—” He stopped short, staring at her.
She had produced a small notebook with an engraved lead back and a pencil, both attached to the jingling chatelaine at her waist. She was writing vigorously.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking notes,” she replied without looking up.
“Why?” he demanded.
“I don’t want to forget anything,” she answered. She glanced up at him over the top of her spectacles. “I mean to try my best.”
“Right. Well.” Fantastic, I’ve married a secretary, he thought sardonically.
“The water pump is to the side of the house, over there,” he said, gesturing vaguely.
“You’ll have to haul water to the garden.
The chickens will also need tending to. The coop is just there.
Be sure to lock it up tight every night, or you’ll have coyotes. ”
He walked briskly toward the chickens, knowing she’d have a hard time keeping up and writing at the same time.
He didn’t understand someone who needed to take notes about something as simple as chores.
He could envision it now: She would squeal the first time she saw a mouse; a snake would send her into fits.
She’d likely melt into a puddle of feminine helplessness when she had to break a sweat.
“There’s a goat that needs milking every day,” he continued, pointing at a small enclosure next to the chicken coop. “The wood pile is just there, behind the kitchen. When the children are in school, you’ll have to ensure they have a lunch to take with them.”
Alexandra, some steps behind him, paused her writing to look up at him. “They will be attending school, then?”
“Yes. It’s in town, so you’ll have to take them. I’ve arranged delivery of a governess cart for you.” Aidan paused on his way to the stable. Brendan had insisted the children attend school, rain or shine, determined they be as educated as possible. The memory made Aidan’s back teeth clench.
He glanced at Alexandra, who was looking at him attentively. “Do you know how to drive?”
“Not really, no,” Alexandra admitted. “I mean, I’ve read manuals on the subject, but I always walked everywhere in Philadelphia or took the omnibus.”
Aidan absorbed this. “Right, well, we’ll get that sorted too, I suppose.” He shaded his eyes and consulted the sun. “Getting to be about lunchtime, I think.”
“Lisa was going to begin preparing luncheon for us,” Alexandra said. “It’s a good thing I have a helpmate.”
Aidan grunted, not waiting for her as he walked back to the house.
He could hear her walking quick-step behind him, her shorter legs struggling to keep pace with his long strides.
He knew the correct thing was to slow down, and he refused.
He wanted to keep as much distance between them as possible.
They entered the house, and Aidan paused and held the door for her out of habit. His father had drilled manners into him as a boy, and it was difficult to abandon those lessons entirely.
The house smelled good, and Aidan couldn’t stop himself from taking an appreciative sniff. It had been a long time since he’d had a good meal, and his stomach growled.
“Lisa’s a great cook,” Alexandra told him.
“She’s a wonder with pies of all sorts.” She was perusing the front sitting room, taking in its state.
There was a cowhide rug underneath a modest set of upholstered chairs and a sofa that faced the stone fireplace.
Above it, a mantel held the family’s few keepsakes: a clock that ticked away the seconds, a real china plate, a small card with flowers painted in watercolor, and the old family Bible.
Aidan watched her. Her curiosity was a stark reminder that all of this was new to her, and that wasn’t really her fault.
She had a way of smiling at a room before she had decided anything about it.
It came to him that a man could know her a good long while and never once look at her long enough to catch it, and that he had nearly managed that himself, twice now.
His cheeks felt warm in a way that had very little to do with being out in the sun all morning working.
“It might be a good idea if you could give the children some schooling before the autumn,” he said. “Put all of your book learning to good use,” he added, unable to entirely let down his guard and speak kindly to her yet.
Alexandra nodded. “I would be happy to do that. I believe in the power of reading.” She paused before the mantel, her fingers touching the old Bible.
The leather cover was worn with age, the edges fraying slightly, and the gold-embossed lettering fading.
She lifted it down, opening the cover. “I first learned my letters reading the Bible by candlelight. The stories seemed so alive in my mind when I read.”
Aidan only half-heard her. There was a rushing in his ears like just before a creek bed fills during a flash flood. She stood there, idly flipping through the pages of the Bible that had been held by generations of his family as if it were just another book on her shelves.
He could already see the inside cover, where they’d written their names one by one as the years passed.
Sarah Rawlins in his father’s hand. James Rawlins in Brendan’s.
Caroline Rawlins in Brendan’s again, five years back, the date not a fortnight from Gary’s, and the letters gone shaky between the one entry and the other.
And then nothing. There was room on the line and no name to put on it, because there was no date to set beside a name.
For just a moment there was a strange shimmering in the air, and Aidan could almost swear Brendan was standing before him, smiling his devil-may-care smile.
Brendan as a younger man, before worries had begun to drag down the corners of his mouth.
He had taken the Bible in hand once, looking at that same list, and sworn that he and Aidan would do better.
They’d be the generation that made it, that secured the family name.
Aidan blinked hard, his eyes burning. Alexandra was still talking, and he didn’t hear a word of it. She looked at him hopefully, and it was too much; there was a brightness in her face too much like Brendan’s had been. His teeth clamped together so forcefully it was a wonder they didn’t crack.
Alexandra jumped, pulling her hands back and folding them against her chest. Aidan didn’t care.
What he could not get past was that his brother must have gone somewhere out on the range and finished there, alone, without a burial.
They’d always done everything together. It was unthinkable that Brendan should have done that one thing by himself.
Alexandra was staring at him, wide with concern and a tinge of fear.
Aidan hated it, hated that he’d reacted the way he had.
He didn’t know how to bridge the canyon that had just widened between them.
He had the Bible in his own hand and no memory of taking it from her. He gestured vaguely at the house.
“Y’can figure out the rest of the chores on your own,” he muttered gruffly. He’d meant it as a sort of apology, an acknowledgment that he understood that she could manage things on her own. He suspected that instead it had only pushed her farther away.
With her eyes still on him, he turned and fled from the house, telling himself that it was because he couldn’t stand to be around her anymore, to be studied like an insect under glass. It most surely wasn’t because of who he became in that house.