Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“I was,” he agreed, smiling at her and revealing slick-looking teeth. “I would have come in more properly, but I wasn’t dressed for a wedding, y’see.”
Alexandra looked at him steadily. “Mr. Rawlins isn’t about just now,” she said, and then immediately realized that she had made a mistake.
“Mr. Byrne is here, though,” she added quickly. “And I expect Mr. Rawlins will be back shortly.” She uttered up a brief, silent prayer that the children would remain quiet and not contradict her. She kept the door wedged against herself, hoping that it would keep them out of sight.
The man in black hummed. His blue eyes went flinty. He gave Alexandra a bold, appraising look as if he were trying to find a chink in her armor.
For her part, Alexandra lifted her chin, glaring back at him with as grand an air as she could muster.
She couldn’t say whether it worked on this stranger, but he did replace his hat and stare out at the ranch for a moment. The seconds ticked by unnaturally slowly, and Alexandra gripped the door latch tightly.
“I suppose I’d best be on my way then,” the stranger said finally.
He turned back to Alexandra and made a grand, sweeping bow.
“It was an unprecedented pleasure to meet you, Ma’am,” he said, his voice dripping with sickly sweetness.
“Would you be so kind as to tell your husband that Kevin Black paid a call, and remind him of his commitments?” The way he said “husband” was as if the word were bent in three places.
Alexandra bristled again, not caring this time if it showed on her face. “I will,” she said in clipped tones.
The man, Mr. Black, she supposed, touched the brim of his hat and loped off easily toward his horse that was tied at the front of the house. He swung up into the saddle, gave her another strange grin, and spurred his horse away.
Though Alexandra longed to do nothing more than slam the door shut and throw the bolt, she refused to give him the satisfaction. She closed it softly, the latch clicking into place. When it was shut, she placed her hand on it for a moment as if to ward off the man. Her hand was trembling.
The children reappeared then, coming in through the kitchen door with their usual boisterous noise, which seemed in sharp, almost defiant, opposition to the unease prickling at the back of her neck. She shook off the wariness that Kevin Black had infected her with. She had enough to contend with.
***
It was less than two hours later that Aidan reappeared at the house, seeking his lunch.
The children were already at the table with theirs, Bella swinging her feet against the chair legs.
He wasn’t exactly in a jovial mood, but he had a pleasant look on his face that set Alexandra’s teeth on edge.
It seemed grossly at odds with her aunt’s illness, the fatigue she felt, and the pressures of running the house all weighing down on her.
As if that wasn’t enough, Alexandra was still knotted up from Mr. Black’s odd visit. Worry chewed at her insides, relentless. She pounded and minced ham into a spread for fried sandwiches.
So when Aidan popped his head in the kitchen door, his face looking as handsome and unworried as ever, Alexandra was in no mood for any shenanigans.
He looked as though he hadn’t slept, which he hadn’t, and she found she had no charity to spare for it.
Her mood was not helped at all by Aidan cheerfully asking, “So, what have you got for me for lunch today?” as if it were any other day.
Alexandra, standing at the stove as she fried sandwiches in butter, rounded on him with a suddenness that made him draw back. “Who is Kevin Black?” she demanded without preamble.
Aidan’s color shifted. His dark eyes narrowed, and she could see his throat move above his collar as he swallowed. “How do you know that name?” he asked, his voice strained.
Now it was Alexandra’s turn to narrow her eyes. His manner told her all that she needed to know.
“He came to the house this morning,” Alexandra informed Aidan. Behind her, the butter in the skillet sizzled and spat, almost as if it were mimicking her tone. “Knocked on the front door and introduced himself.”
Aidan’s eyes widened for just a fraction of a second before he stubbornly set his jaw. “It’s nothing for you to worry about,” he rumbled, his voice even deeper than usual. “It’s fine.”
While Alexandra had her flashes of temper—which she could admit to—she had never been one for flying into a rage.
It was unseemly, and for all of Aunt Lisa’s unconventional parenting, Alexandra had been molded into a polite young lady.
Polite young ladies didn’t yell or throttle aggravating men, no matter how much they might be tempted to do so.
This turned out to be her breaking point, the last straw in a pile of anger that had been building for weeks.
“Are you really that thick?” she asked, her voice rising in a way that she didn’t know she was capable of.
“You have a wife, children, and an aunt who is unwell! It’s not just you here—we are all depending on you, and your actions affect us all!
Stop being such a selfish wretch, and stop trying to hide your problems.”
Aidan stared at her for a split second before his own anger flashed across his face. “Don’t presume to tell me what to do, woman! You’ve been here all of five minutes, and you think you’re an expert and can tell me how to live my life! You know nothing of what’s at stake here,” he thundered.
Alexandra refused to shrink back from him.
She’d had enough of his mercurial behavior.
Behind her, the sounds of three children eating had stopped.
She inhaled, ready to return fire, when a smell from the stove caught her attention.
Pivoting quickly, she flipped the sandwich in the skillet as it was starting to blacken at the edges.
Without missing a beat, she turned back around, stabbing at the air with the wooden spoon in her hand.
“And whose fault is that?” she demanded.
“You come in here long enough to tell us all what we’re doing wrong, and then vanish again out to that barn in a cloud of self-righteousness.
If you know so much about everything, why did you need someone to come and take charge of the house and the children? ”
“Because believe it or not, I have more pressing concerns than bringing up someone else’s children!” he snapped. The minute the words were out of his mouth, Alexandra could see that he regretted them. His expression froze, and he stood as still as a statue.
“You don’t like having us,” Bella said quietly. Her voice, soft enough to be almost drowned out by the sounds from the stove, nevertheless landed like a mortar shell in the space between Alexandra and Aidan. The worst part was that it was a statement of fact and not a question.
Without a word, Bella was scraping her chair back from the table, her half-eaten lunch completely forgotten. In a flurry of pinafore ruffles and braids, she darted from the room, all the way out the front door.
“Bella!” Alexandra called after her, her own heart stinging from the hurt. She hadn’t intended for the children to get caught in the crossfire of her argument with Aidan.
“We’ll get her,” Danny said, taking Gary by the hand and gently pulling him off his own chair. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Alexandra—she can’t get far.”
Before she could object, the boys were gone, hot on the heels of their sister. Alexandra blinked at the table, lunch abandoned, the chairs askew. She lifted her eyes to Aidan, somewhere between anger and disappointment.
Aidan’s own countenance was mortified. That he knew how badly he’d behaved hampered her enthusiasm for scolding him. He shook himself all over like a wet dog.
“They shouldn’t be running around out there on their own,” he said, half to himself. It was more alarm than three children in a yard called for, and Alexandra put it down to shame. He withdrew from the doorway, and Alexandra could hear his footsteps as he chased after the children.
Alexandra hissed out a sigh and turned back to the stove.
“They’re just being children,” she said.
She flipped the sandwich again, then reached for a plate and slid it onto the plate before removing the skillet from the heat.
Her hands twitched, still full of energy and purpose, but she had nowhere to put it.
Her foot tapped out a rapid, anxious rhythm.
And then she had the barest seedling of an idea that quickly took root.
If he won’t tell me what’s going on around here, I’ll find out myself, Alexandra resolved. She jerked her head in a decisive nod to herself.
She’d been in most rooms of the house, for cleaning usually, but there was one room she’d yet to set foot in: the study-cum-office.
Aidan was insistent that no one enter, which Alexandra could understand regarding the children.
It was a little insulting in her regard, however, as the few glimpses she had managed revealed an avalanche of papers on every available surface.
Moreover, he seemed to have forgotten that both she and Lisa had run their own business—it was down to them to do all the bookkeeping required to keep themselves afloat. Alexandra was positive she could have been an asset for all these weeks.