Chapter Twelve
By the time a hearty dinner of salt pork and vegetables was simmering on the stove, Alexandra felt tired down to her very bones.
Lisa had taken to the garden, pulling weeds and minding the chickens as they pecked away at the pests on the plants, leaving the house to Alexandra.
She’d scarcely had a moment to sit all day, determined to not only complete her thorough scouring of the house, but also her regular chores.
Alexandra plopped heavily into one of the chairs around the kitchen table.
She pushed some of her errant curls back from her forehead.
On the table lay a copy of Little Women, a new book she’d brought from Philadelphia.
It had flown off the shelves of their bookstore, and she had been meaning to read it for months.
She’d packed it with her belongings in the hope that she would have the time to read it.
It was a handsomely bound book, a dark green cover with gold embossing. It beckoned to her bewitchingly, overriding the call of the endless sweeping and baking and mending. Alexandra worried the inside of her cheek for a moment, then impulsively reached out and snatched the book up.
Just a page, she told herself. Then it’s straight back to work.
Without even realizing it, she was swept away into a house full of sisters who quarreled and annoyed one another and loved one another anyway.
“What’s that smell?”
Aidan’s voice interrupted the serenity of the March home in Alexandra’s mind as loudly as if a cannon had been fired. She blinked up at Aidan. She hadn’t heard him come in, yet here he stood, his hands on his hips, his face lined with disapproval.
“What is that smell?” he repeated, slower this time.
Alexandra, still disoriented from being so deep in her reading, frowned and sniffed. A strange odor hung in the air, like something burning. It was almost like—
“Dinner!” she gasped, leaping up from her chair so quickly it overturned. Alexandra darted over to the stove, quickly put a cloth over her hand, and dragged the heavy pot off the hot plate to the cooler end of the range.
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone and ruined the dinner,” Aidan said with a sigh.
Alexandra glanced at him exasperatedly. “It’s not ruined,” she insisted. Using the folded cloth, she reached up and grasped the lid of the iron pot.
Aidan raised his brows, looking at her expectantly.
Lifting her chin, Alexandra lifted the lid. Immediately, a cloud of smoke and steam billowed out, smacking her right in the face. She coughed once, and then choked the rest of her coughing down, refusing to give Aidan the satisfaction.
“Burned,” he said simply.
“No,” she snapped back. “It’s not burned, it’s just… a little more well-done than I had anticipated.”
“A little more well-done?” Aidan asked, his mouth twisting strangely as he spoke. His dark eyes had a different tilt than usual.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was smiling, Alexandra thought, her eyes narrowing. But as I know him to be incapable of expressing any emotion other than irritation, that can’t be the case.
“It’s just dry, that’s all,” she insisted. To prove her point, she lifted a ladle of water from the water barrel and poured it unceremoniously into the pot. It sizzled and steamed immediately, and she hastily replaced the lid, trying to contain the sound.
Aidan stared at her, then sucked on his teeth. “Well, let me know when it’s charred enough for your liking,” he said at last. He turned and ambled to the front of the house.
Alexandra, unable to help herself, stuck her tongue out at his back, which did a great deal to make her feel better, no matter how immature it was.
“Drina,” Lisa scolded from the back door.
Alexandra whirled around. She’d had no idea she was being observed. I really hope she didn’t see that whole thing, she prayed.
“Aunt!” she exclaimed aloud. “You haven’t called me that since I was a girl in braids.”
Lisa sighed and stepped into the house, carrying a basket of fresh greens. “Well, if you insist on acting like a girl…” she said, letting the thought hang in the air. “Just imagine if one of the children saw you.”
Alexandra turned her attention back to the stew and stirred it. “I know,” she grumbled. “He just makes me so—he’s just so—” she said, gritting her teeth. She stirred the food with a bit more force than necessary, clanging the wooden spoon on the pot. “He just vexes me!”
“Yes, I know,” Lisa said gently, taking the greens to the basin and starting to wash them, pouring water from the barrel over them carefully. “But really, you shouldn’t be sticking your tongue out at his back.”
“Yes, I know. I shan’t stick my tongue out again,” Alexandra sighed.
“Well, I didn’t say that,” Lisa countered, frowning at a bit of cabbage. “I just think next time that you ought to do it directly to his face.”
Alexandra nearly dropped the spoon. She looked up at Lisa, alarmed. “I beg your pardon?”
Lisa half-turned to give Alexandra a knowing look. “I saw how he was looking at you out by the laundry,” she said. “I think he’d quite enjoy it if you gave him more sass directly.”
Alexandra stared at Lisa, trying to determine if her aunt was entirely well. “I think you’ve been out in the sun too long,” she said at last.
Lisa shrugged. “I just know what I saw—Mr. Rawlins seems to be the sort of man that likes a woman with spirit.”
“Well, he could have fooled me,” Alexandra muttered. She dipped the spoon into the pot and tasted the broth. She grimaced. “Not sure I can save this.”
“Try a bit of goat’s milk,” Lisa advised. “There’s some salt and dried pepper on the shelf, too. That will help.”
“Dried pepper, really? Isn’t that ill-advised for women?” Alexandra said, her gaze shifting to the shelf of glass and tin jars that held the spices.
“It doesn’t seem to do our southern neighbors any ill,” Lisa answered. “I’m sure it will be fine.” Lisa paused. “I think, given what I’ve seen of him, Mr. Rawlins might like a bit more pepper in his life.”
Alexandra stared at Lisa again, the glass jar in her hand.
After a moment, she shook her head, loosened the lid, sprinkled in a few red flakes, and gave the food an experimental stir.
It had become less of a steamed dish and more of a thick stew.
A piece of cabbage hung limply from the wooden spoon when she lifted it.
“It’s not the most appealing-looking dish,” she admitted with a sigh.
Lisa came to peer over Alexandra’s shoulder, taking an experimental sniff.
“I don’t think Mr. Rawlins will mind.” Alexandra snorted in disagreement, but Lisa looked thoughtful.
“In fact,” she said carefully, “it seems to me that Mr. Rawlins is exactly the sort of man who cares much more about the content of a dish than how it looks.” She gave Alexandra a meaningful look. Alexandra gazed back blankly.
“I suppose that’s for the best?” Alexandra said uncertainly. “I don’t imagine we’ll be having too many pretty dinners.”
“Alexandra.” Lisa grasped Alexandra’s arm, forcing her to look at her. “I am telling you that Mr. Rawlins is intrigued by your personality and spark. He enjoys your arguing with him,” she said, enunciating each word clearly as if Alexandra were a child.
“What? That’s preposterous!” Alexandra objected, her face heating in a way that had nothing to do with the warmth of the kitchen.
“Why would any man be interested in my personality? You know what they used to say about me back in Philadelphia.” She could still hear the accusations of bluestocking following her.
Lisa sighed and released her arm before she went back to the greens. “Well, the good news is that the turnip greens seem to grow well out here. They’ll be fine tomorrow with some boiled eggs.” She stopped and considered. “I wonder if we can find any dandelions out here?”
Alexandra nodded, not really listening.
Lisa went to the cold larder to fetch some of that morning’s goat’s milk, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Could he actually like something about her? The idea did not bear thinking about. The man was a miserable, cantankerous brute who plainly viewed her as an inconvenience. To suggest that he viewed her as anything more than an inconvenience stretched belief to the absolute limit.
I’d be more likely to believe that we’re going to start raising unicorns instead of horses, Alexandra thought.
At dinner he’d taken a mouthful, stopped, and looked down into the bowl.
“There’s pepper in this,” he’d said.
“There is.”
He didn’t say anything more. He’d had a second bowl, though, and Alexandra had caught her aunt gazing at nothing in particular with a great deal of satisfaction.
It wasn’t just the notion of him liking her that she didn’t believe; it was that any man would be intrigued by a woman who argued with him.
It flew in the face of every advice manual and societal common sense.
It was especially perplexing, then, why Alexandra felt a small thrill of anticipation when she thought about it happening again.