Hill Country Courtship (Brides of Simpson Creek Book 8) Page 15

  Juana studied him with unblinking black eyes. “I will ask her.” Then she backed into the door, never taking her gaze from his as if she feared he would try to force his way in after her.

  He heard murmuring as he waited, seemingly for an eternity, and then Juana reappeared again, without Hannah.

  “She says she will come,” Juana said. “But before I let my friend do that, senor, I shall require a promise of you.” Again, her stare was steady and unblinking.

  “Anything, Miss Juana.”

  “I require that you will respect Maude’s decisions, even if you do not like the response she gives you to whatever questions you have for her. While you are her employer, that does not give you the right to overrule the choices she makes with her life. I must know that you will honor that.”

  “I promise. I wouldn’t dream of forcing any decision on her, no matter what she says to me. I will respect whatever choice she makes. You must believe me.” He prayed she would accept his word, though he would not swear on anything holy, or on his father’s grave—he wasn’t worthy to make such a vow.

  “I do believe you, senor,” Juana said. “I wish you well.” Then she disappeared behind the door again.

  * * *

  Somehow, Jonas managed to contain himself until the hour arrived, listening as the myriad sounds of the big ranch house gradually devolved into silence as the household retired. He felt simultaneously eager to see Maude and tempted to run—to shut the door to his room behind him and pretend he had never arranged this meeting. What if his mother had revealed everything to Maude, and she came to this meeting to tell him she hated him? Could he bear to hear such a thing from her? But he would not for the world have her show up in the parlor, only to find it empty. She may choose to turn herself away from him, but he would not voluntarily turn from her.

  He heard the soft sound of her footsteps approaching down the hall before the grandfather clock had struck its last tone, and then Maude was in the parlor. She carried a single candle, which wavered in its pewter holder and cast a quivering light on her.

  Maude wore a simple, high-necked white shirt with her usual dark skirt, but her hair was down, an impossibly glorious dark red bounty spreading across her shoulders. He wished he could just go to her and bury his hands in it.

  “You...you wanted to see me, Mr.—that is, Jonas?” she quavered.

  “Yes. Sit down, won’t you?” he invited, gesturing to the big horsehair sofa drawn up before the fire.

  He waited until she did so, then sat down next to her—close, but not so close that she would feel threatened by his nearness.

  He waited only a moment, until he felt her expectant gaze fasten on him.

  “Maude, I wanted to speak to you because I believe my mother said something to upset you this afternoon, am I right?”

  Eyes downcast, she nodded. “She thinks I’m scheming for your affection.”

  “You? A schemer?” He chuckled. “You don’t have a scheming bone in your body, Maude Harkey.”

  “Nevertheless, that’s what she thinks. And she says you have no affection to give me after losing the love of your life, Annabella MacKenzie.”

  Hearing Annabella’s name on Maude’s tongue stole Jonas’s breath for a moment. But Annabella was gone, and he was not, and here was a living, breathing woman whose honest feelings shone from her blue eyes. A woman whom he sensed was not capable of hurting him as Annabella had.

  He took a deep breath. “’Tis time for the truth you asked me for once, if you’re willing to hear it, Maude.”

  Slowly, she nodded.

  “Back in Scotland, I didn’t grow up with a father like yours, Maude, a father who loved me and wanted to teach me things.”

  He saw that she was listening intently, no doubt wondering why he was speaking of fathers when she was expecting to hear about Annabella. He looked away from her clear, trusting eyes so he’d have the courage to say what must be said.

  “James MacLaren, my father, was a hard man, a tavern keeper who loved his whiskey much more than he loved his wife and son. I was an only child. I’d had a sister who died young of a fever before I was old enough to remember her. Ma said Katie was the apple of Father’s eye, that he only grew harder and meaner and more given to drink after she passed.”

  He saw pity fill Maude’s blue eyes then.

  “Jonas...” She reached out a hand to him. He took it, and was surprised by the strength it gave him to be touching her.

  “He was selfish as the day was long, my father. Always insisted that he have the best chair, the best cut of the meat, the best clothes, never mind what was left for Ma and me, and there was a beating for us if we so much as looked at him cross-eyed. Anything he wanted, he took, whether ’twas rightly his or not. He could charm where he pleased, when he had a mind to, but the charm always turned sour in the end. He had an easy time making friends, but as you can imagine, he never kept them for long. There were none my mother or I could turn to for any help against his cruelties.

  “I grew up running the wynds, the narrow streets of Edinburgh, a wild young lad, seizing any chance I could find to be away from my home. Then I grew up and met Annabella MacKenzie. She was a pretty thing, and I fell in love as only a foolish boy can do. I thought she hung the moon and was pure as its light. We were to be married, Annabella and me. And then she...she met my father.”

  Nausea churned inside him. Did he really have to tell her this?

  He’d gone too far to turn back now. He had to rid himself of the secret that was poisoning him.

  “It was hard to wait for our wedding day—for our wedding night,” he admitted. “I was not religious, as you know, and cared little for the idea of the sin in it. But I was resolved to wait, because I respected Annabella’s honor and wanted her to know it. But something changed in Annabella after she met my father. She became—what was your word?—secretive. Something was wrong, I knew it deep in my bones. And then she told me she was with child.”

  He heard Maude’s gasp, her whispered, “Jonas, no...”

  “She wouldn’t tell me who the blackguard was, not until she lay in childbed, dying, and the babe perishing along with her. It was my father. He’d come to her with sweet words and little presents, using that fiendish charm of his to get what he wanted, promising her the earth, until she’d given in to him.”

  He felt as if the remembered rage and grief was about to swamp him. Her grasp tightened in his, as if he was drowning, and her hand was the only thing that could pull him to safety. He didn’t dare let go.

  “I waited till she breathed her last, and then I ran down to our home over the tavern and confronted him. Unfortunately he’d heard that Annabella was in labor and wasn’t doing well, and he was sodden with drink. I went after him with a poker from the hearth, though my mother screamed at me to stop. My father was too startled to retaliate at first—I’d never fought back against him before. But when it sunk in that I had ‘dared’ to raise my hand against him, his temper boiled over. I was no match for my father in one of his whiskey rages—he yanked the poker from me and began to beat me with it. I remembered him yelling that he was going to kill me. He would have, too, but there was another poker that my mother grabbed. In his rage, my father did not notice when she came up behind him. The last thing I remember before I passed out was the sight of her raising the poker over my father’s head...”

  “Jonas...” Maude whispered, and he realized he’d been staring into the flames.

  “The next thing I knew,” he said with a lifeless voice, “was my mother waking me with a cold wet cloth to my face and saying that she’d killed my father and we had to flee or she’d be hanged. We threw what clothes we could quickly gather into a valise and ran for the docks, determined to take the first ship out of port that would let us aboard before the body was found and the hue and cry began. We finally fou
nd a ship that would take my mother’s ring in exchange for passage for the both of us, as long as she agreed to cook for the crew and the other passengers. We’d have sailed no matter where the ship was going, but fortunately for us, it was bound for New York.”

  Maude buried her face against his chest, then, and wept. He held her until the storm passed.

  “Oh, Jonas. How unspeakably horrible for you,” she murmured, when she could talk again.

  How horrible for you, she’d said. Not, how horrible of you. And he noted with dazed amazement that she did not pull away from him, as he had expected her to do.

  “That cannot have been easy for you to tell me,” she said at last. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll...I’ll understand if you don’t feel you can stay, after what I’ve told you,” he said, wanting to make it easier for her to utter what she must surely be trying to find a way to say.

  “I...I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “Why would I? Nothing you told me about is your fault. What a burden you’ve been carrying all these years.”

  He hadn’t realized it, but she was right. The burden of his guilt had weighed him down ever since that night of horrors.

  “Shouldn’t I feel guilty? If I hadn’t gone after him, my mother wouldn’t have had to intervene, and she wouldn’t have had to flee the gallows.”

  “No provocation on your part justified what he did. He would have killed you,” she pointed out. “Surely it wasn’t wrong for a mother to save her son’s life.”

  He allowed himself a mirthless bark of laughter. “I doubt the magistrate would have seen it that way, but bless you, Maude, for saying that. You’re a sweet, innocent girl, always trying to see the best in a person.”

  She turned to look at him full in the face. “I see a good man when I look at you, Jonas MacLaren,” she said to him. “But it’s time to lay your burden of guilt down. There’s someone willing to take it for you.”

  At first, he misunderstood. “You can’t make up for what I did, Maude. How could you?”

  She smiled a gentle smile, despite the tinge of disbelieving scorn in her voice. “No, not I, Jonas. The Lord will take your guilt, if you’ll give it to Him. He’s been waiting all these years to take it from you—to heal your heart and make you feel whole again.”

  All he could do was stare at her. “I know you’re a woman of faith, Maude Harkey. But I would have killed my father, and I’m not sorry he’s dead. I don’t believe there’s anyone up there,” he said pointing toward the ceiling, “who cares what happens to me.”

  “But you’re wrong, Jonas,” she insisted. “I understand now why you’d have trouble believing in a loving heavenly Father when your earthly father was so horrible to you, but He’s there, Jonas, just waiting to hear from you.”

  There was silence between them in that moment, and only the hiss and pop of the flames in the fireplace punctuated it. Maude rose.

  “It’s late, and you’ve given me a lot to think about, Jonas, so I’ll bid you good-night. Please think about what I said, too. But don’t be afraid you’ll awake to find me gone in the morning.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  She understood so much more about these bewildering MacLarens now, Maude thought as she lay in bed that night, listening to Juana and Hannah’s soft, even breathing.

  What she had learned explained so much about this troubled household and the man and woman who owned Five Mile Hill Ranch.

  First, she now knew what Jonas had meant that first night about Coira being a woman who would kill to protect her child. Perhaps fury about her own treatment at the hands of her husband had lent her the strength to make that fatal blow, but Coira MacLaren had completely believed her husband would kill her son if she allowed him to live. She had acted to save his life, to protect him from being hurt. And she had continued to act that way in regard to Maude, worrying that Jonas’s trust might be betrayed again, as it had been by Annabella. She understood now why Jonas’s mother was so jealous and possessive of Jonas—and why he was so cynical about tender relationships between men and women. Love—or at least, any love other than the love a mother had for her son—seemed to bewilder him.

  Had Maude gone too far, though, when she’d tried to explain that the love of the heavenly Father was nothing like what a far-from-perfect man might feel for his son? Surely a man’s relationship with the Lord was something that should be explained to Jonas by Reverend Chadwick or some other official religious figure who was way more qualified than she. Surely she’d overstepped her bounds, and should have waited until she could arrange for another visit from the Simpson Creek preacher.

  But when could that happen? She had no way to get a message to Gil Chadwick, and Jonas might refuse to see him anyway. Surely she had done the right thing to speak the truth at the time when it had been so sorely needed. Perhaps, when she next saw Jonas, she would be coldly told to mind her own business in the future, or that she no longer had a job at Five Mile Hill Ranch. She didn’t think that was likely, based on what he had said, but she knew she had taken a risk.

  Hannah made a grab for a tendril of Maude’s hair that had escaped its knot at the back of her head, and she chuckled. “Oh, no you don’t, little Miss Clever One,” she murmured, feeling a surge of love for this child as she pushed the lock of hair back into place. Even if she was shown the door by the MacLarens, she would do whatever she must to provide a home for this child.

  But she knew now she would regret it if she never got to see what came of the promising feelings that had sprung up between Jonas MacLaren and herself.

  She heard a light step in the hall and then Juana, fresh from taking Mrs. MacLaren her breakfast, entered.

  “Did I hear you laughing?” she asked, smiling down at Maude and the baby.

  Maude nodded. “Little Miss Mischief is trying to pull my hair down already and it’s not even nine o’clock.”

  “Ah, she’s full of tricks, that one. And here’s something that might make you smile some more,” Juana added, pulling a folded piece of paper from her apron. Maude could see her name inscribed on the front; on the back it was sealed with a blob of wax with the MacLaren seal impressed into it. “Senor Jonas gave this to me to give to you as I passed him in the hall,” she said.

  Maude froze. Was this written notice that she was being fired?

  “Don’t think the worst, mi amiga. Senor Jonas looked happy, not like a man handing out bad news,” Juana said. “Besides, you know he is a direct man. If he was going to fire you, he’d tell you so to your face, no? Not on paper. Now, open it and tell me I was right.”

  Maude’s hands shook as she obeyed her friend, unfolding the stiff writing paper. It took a moment before his elegant copperplate script arranged itself into comprehensible words:

  Mr. Jonas MacClaren requests the pleasure of Miss Maude Harkey’s company on the veranda at two of the clock today for a reading of the poetry of Robert Burns. Refreshments will be served.

  Wordlessly, she handed the missive to Juana.

  Juana grinned as she read it. “Ahh...I guess we’re not being fired, eh? Quite the contrary—he is courting you. He didn’t tell me what he wrote, but he did say to tell you that his mother would not be needing you this afternoon. I will be listening for her bell.”

  * * *

  “Ah, Miss Maude, I’m glad you could make it,” Jonas said, rising as Maude came out onto the sunny veranda at precisely two o’clock.

  “I had many invitations, but I’m glad I was able to fit you in,” Maude quipped. She had dressed with care and wore a becoming gown of rust-colored nun’s veiling, a lightweight wool-and-silk blend that perfectly suited the sunny day, but was warm enough for the occasional chill breeze.

  Jonas grinned in response to her teasing tone. “In all seriousness, I wanted to do something approaching what I would have done if your parents were still livin
g and I was paying you a proper call—after asking your father’s permission, of course. We would sit on your veranda and have genteel refreshments just as Senora Morales has provided,” he said, gesturing to the plate of cookies and cold tea that sat on a little table in front of the chairs, “and make discreet conversation while your mother frequently looked out the window. This is as close to such an experience as I could manage.”

  Her heart warmed as she understood his endeavor to provide her with what could have been, what should have been, had death not intervened and taken her parents from her too soon—the ordinary ritual of courting. His understanding of what she had missed touched her, so much so that she found herself momentarily at a loss for words and hoped her smile was enough to convey what was in her heart.

  “I thought I might read a poem by Robbie Burns that I always liked,” he said, and began to read.

  “O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,

  That’s newly sprung in June:

  O my Luve’s like the melodie,

  That’s sweetly play’d in tune...”

  She began to blush as he read the next stanza.

  “As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

  So deep in luve am I;

  And I will luve thee still, my dear,

  Till a’ the seas gang dry...”

  Was it possible that he was letting the poet make his declaration of love for him? Could he really love her, Maude Harkey?

  “That’s beautiful,” she said, when he had finished, loving the way his voice had caressed the Scottish words, such as gang for go.

  He smiled at her. “Perhaps you’d pour me a glass of that tea? My mouth’s gone dry, but I thought you might like to hear ‘A Rosebud by My Early Walk,’ as well.”

  She poured the tea, and he drank, then began to read the next poem, only to break off as they heard the sound of horses’ hooves coming up the lane from the road.