Authors: Eleanor Kuhns
“More questions?” she asked.
“Not today,” Rees said, helping himself to a slice of the bread and slathering it with butter. “What’s the matter?”
She gestured around the coffeehouse. “Isn’t it obvious? I just don’t cook as well as Ruth.”
“This is good,” Rees said, waving the bread at her. But he did not tell the entire truth; the bread was neither as light nor as tasty as Ruth’s.
Susannah smiled without humor. “You’re a good friend, Will.” After a pause, she said, “I heard a rumor that Nate retained another lawyer for his will.”
Rees nodded. “The reading is tomorrow.”
“Do you think it will help you find his murderer?”
“No, I…” Rees almost told her about James Carleton but stopped himself just in time. “Nate was a different person than the boy I remember,” he said instead, thinking that saying it shouldn’t hurt so much.
Susannah smiled. “We all grow up, Will. Nate made a success of himself, and I fancy he was happy with his life. I’m glad you like the Sally Lunn.” She turned and dashed away.
Rees chewed automatically, his thoughts turning to Nate. Had he been happy? It certainly did not appear that he’d been content. And someone somewhere had hated him enough to kill him; Rees still didn’t know who.
Chapter Twenty-five
The afternoon flew by in a flurry of shifting furniture and bedding between the house and the cottage. Moving Lydia’s few bit and pieces took only one trip, but shifting the heavy loom to one corner to clear a space for the bed ate up over an hour. Both David and Rees struggled with it.
But by nightfall, everyone had a bed to sleep in or, in the case of the three Prentiss children, pallets on the floor. Lydia and Abby had put on a nourishing soup for dinner and when the girl left at three, the cauldron was bubbling over the fire and a large pan of corn bread waited to go into the oven.
Rees came down the stairs from the master bedroom to find the table set for seven. Only Lydia and Caroline remained in the kitchen. The older boys were still finishing chores, and the younger girls were playing quietly in the parlor, their voices rising and falling contentedly. “Why isn’t there a plate for Augustus?” Rees asked.
“I can’t believe you expect me to sit down at table with one of those people,” Caro said with a sniff.
Rees turned to his sister, his mouth opening to shoot her some crushing remark. But Lydia jumped in before him. “Augie elected to eat after we finish,” she said. “For tonight, anyway. Tomorrow he will sit down to breakfast and the other meals with us as usual.”
“He will not,” Caro said, straightening up from her position by the fire. “I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t allow it?” Rees repeated.
“Since you and your children will be eating your meals down at the cottage,” Lydia said, her voice calm but with a hint of iron, “I don’t understand why you care.”
“We’ll be eating here, of course,” Caro said. She looked at Lydia with disdain. “You and the other girl are working for my brother; it won’t be much trouble to add me and my children.”
Rees ignored Lydia’s warning glance and shouted, “That is my future wife, Caro! She will be the mistress of this house, not you.”
In the sudden silence, the bubble and pop of the soup sounded as loud as a fusillade of shots. Rees didn’t know where those words had come from and for a moment he wished he could take them back. But Lydia was beaming with joy and he knew he couldn’t wipe that astonished happiness from her face.
He glanced at Caro, expecting some nasty remark, but she stunned him. “Well, it’s about time,” she said. “All these years mooning after Dolly. A wonderful woman to be sure, but no longer among us. It’s time for you to remarry and settle down.” Rees was too staggered to speak.
Lydia moved forward. “I hope we shall become as close as sisters,” she said, although her expression was wary. Caroline stared at Lydia and suddenly burst into deep chest grinding sobs.
Rees stared at her. His sister never wept, and certainly not with such abandon. “You’re safe here,” he said. She nodded but the weeping didn’t cease.
Lydia fetched a cup of coffee and helped the sobbing woman into a chair at the table.
Caro struggled to control herself. When she calmed enough to sip her coffee, she said, “When is the date of the wedding?” Although her voice trembled, she strove to sound as usual.
“We haven’t selected one,” Lydia said.
“I thought Christmastime,” Rees said at the exact same moment.
Caro managed a chuckle. “Very well.” She dashed the tears from her eyes and although she didn’t rise to help Lydia finish dinner, she made no further criticisms. The next awkward moment came from David.
“How long is she staying here?” he asked, tipping his head in Caroline’s direction.
“Manners,” Rees said in reproof.
David looked at his father. “How can you side with her?” he said fiercely.
“I’m not—,” Rees began.
“Until we find a safe place for them,” Lydia said at the same moment. She drew David aside and spoke to him in a low voice, so low, Rees heard only a few words. “Difficult” was repeated several times but “Christian charity” was spoken with emphasis. David cast Caroline a dark glance but said no more.
Caro did not offer to help with the dishes either and Rees did not suggest it. As his sister and her children walked down to the cottage and David and Augustus retreated upstairs, the kitchen cleared, offering him his first private moments with Lydia all day.
She turned to look at him, the dishrag dripping water onto the floor. “Are you sure you want to marry me?”
“Are you sure you want to say yes and marry me and my overbearing family?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “If you promise to mend your ways.” Rees put out his arms. When she did not immediately react, he feared she would not accept his invitation but then she rushed forward, enveloping him in her scent of lavender and honey. Their first kiss was tentative and they broke apart immediately. Anyone might come upon them here in the kitchen and their passion for one another was too private, and still too fragile, to risk the intrusion of another person.
“You know what kind of man I am,” Rees said. “I’m a wanderer; I’ll never stay home all the time. But I will always return to you, securing our future with the money I’ve made as a weaver. And I’ll always be faithful.”
“I know,” Lydia said with a smile. She moved away, keeping herself busy washing dishes. “And I will be your partner.” She looked at him questioningly, checking her statement.
“You will be my partner,” he agreed.
She smiled at him, radiant with joy. “So, did anything of note transpire in your conversation with James Carleton?”
“He swore he didn’t murder Nate,” Rees said. “I believe him, although I wish I didn’t. And he didn’t deny losing most of the property at cards. He claimed he wanted to marry his daughter to Richard Bowditch for that reason, to regain the property for his family.”
Lydia poured soapy water into the soup pot. “That makes sense,” she said. “What exactly did he say?”
Rees tried to repeat the exact sequence of his conversation with James, Lydia listening intently. “I made a hash of that, didn’t I?” he asked.
“He never said he wasn’t at the cottage that night,” Lydia pointed out. “He just said you couldn’t prove it. Perhaps he was there and he saw something.”
“More likely he’s lying.”
“You know him far better than I do. Will he come after you now, and try to silence you?” She turned to look at him her forehead creased with worry. “I don’t want to become an early widow.” She smiled at him but he saw the anxiety behind it.
“That’s a good question,” Rees said. “But no, he won’t. I mean, I suppose it’s possible but I can’t see it of James. His father, now I could see him as a murderer. But James … no. He went to England during the Revolutionary War; I doubt he even owns a gun.” His words slowed as he realized what he was saying. If that were true, how could he believe James murdered Nate?
Lydia realized it, too. She turned to face him. “He doesn’t sound a likely murderer.”
“He had good reason.”
Lydia threw him a skeptical glance. “Several people had good reason.”
Rees nodded, thinking. “Why hasn’t anyone else come after me?”
“Maybe he can’t?”
Rees pondered. “Marsh?”
“Yes, like Marsh, who is kept busy until almost midnight and arises again at dawn. But I won’t believe it of him. He is a good man, Will.”
“Maybe James simply lost his temper and lashed out? But he doesn’t own a murderer’s heart—”
“Or a gun,” Lydia put in.
“—and can’t bring himself to menace someone else? Even me.”
“Then what about the burning of the jail? That was clearly intended to kill Augustus,” Lydia objected. “And did Marsh even know about Augustus?”
“He said not.” He sighed. “Caldwell blames the slave catchers.”
“Maybe he’s right?”
“Maybe. But I refuse to believe in such coincidence.” Was he back to Richard? Or was it still about James? Or someone else entirely? “Maybe James is right and I am stupid,” Rees said.
Lydia turned a flicked the dish towel at him. “Stop. Stop right now. You’ll see the way of it.”
Rees nodded, his thoughts turning to Nate and the secrets he carried.
* * *
After dinner on Thursday, Augustus and Rees set off for Dugard. Like Rees, Augustus appeared on Mr. Lattimore’s list and Rees decided that should not surprise him. After all, everyone thought of the lad as Nate’s son, probably even Nate. Lydia, who joined David and Abby on the front porch to see the two men off, returned inside as soon as Rees climbed into the buggy and picked up the reins. But Rees noticed that David and Abigail remained outside, standing shoulder to shoulder, already a couple despite their youth. When he caught David’s gaze, the lad stared back defiantly.
Rees twisted to look at Augustus, who had chosen to sit in the backseat, where the buggy walls hid him from view, and said, “Are you set?” Augustus nodded. He looked queasy with trepidation. “It’ll be fine,” Rees said, trying to reassure him. But the lad did not look comforted.
They arrived in Dugard just before one thirty and Rees, as he planned, pulled his buggy into the back alley behind George Potter’s office. There was a little space remaining out front but the weaver didn’t even consider stopping there; he suspected there were people in town who still believed Augustus was the guilty party, and so Rees wanted to sneak him up the back stairs unseen.
Molly Bowditch and her two eldest children were already there, seated on the side of the room opposite the door. Their position told Rees they’d arrived first. Both Richard and Grace looked resigned, but Molly, lovely in pale gray with a lavender pelisse and matching bonnet, glowed with excitement. George Potter sat next to them, his sulky expression resting upon Mr. Lattimore, who’d captured the chair at the desk.
Thomas Bowditch and his wife sat in the opposite corner, as far as they could get from Nate’s wife and still sit in the same room. Marsh and Rachel stood in back of the chairs, lined up in front of the windows that looked down upon Main Street.
When Molly saw Rees and Augustus, she leaped to her feet with a little scream. Both Rachel and Marsh looked at the door and Rachel rushed to her son’s side. “I’ve been so worried.” She clung to him, tears filling her eyes. Augustus, looking embarrassed, patted her shoulder awkwardly. Richard rose to his feet, shaking off his mother’s hand, and went to embrace his brother.
“Now that everyone is here,” Mr. Lattimore said, looking up from the papers upon his desk, “I’ll begin.”
“No. What are they doing here?” Molly said, gesturing disdainfully at Marsh, Rachel, and Augustus.
“They are named in the Last Will and Testament of Nathaniel Bowditch,” Mr. Lattimore said. If he expected to crush Molly into silence, he failed.
“They have no rights…,” she began. This time the attorney just looked at her with stern impatience and she subsided.
“I will begin with the smaller bequests,” he said when the rustle of soft breathing faded. “He leaves a sum of two hundred dollars to my good friend and companion Marshall Thompson.” Rees gasped; two hundred dollars was an enormous sum. He looked over at Marsh, but his dark face did not reveal his emotions. Molly, however, glared at Marsh and seemed ready to burst into speech. Mr. Lattimore turned his steely gaze upon her. When she thought better of speaking and settled silently into her chair, the attorney continued. “I give the farm left me by my father to my brother, Thomas Bowditch, to own free and clear of all debt.” As Mrs. Bowditch burst into excited sobs, Mr. Lattimore looked up at Tom. “Nate asked me to tell you that your father always wanted you to have the farm.” Tom rubbed his eyes, too overcome to speak.
“That should belong to Richard,” Molly declared.
Rees, who knew how wealthy his boyhood friend had been by the time of his death, frowned at her.
“Rachel: I give you your freedom. No person should be sold or be forced to serve another as a slave.”
She and Molly gasped in concert, Rachel looking both alarmed and frightened.
“To Augustus, the son of my heart, I leave the sum of one hundred dollars. I hope this will prove sufficient to purchase the remainder of your contract and the smithy from Mr. Isaacs.”
“No,” Molly cried. “This is outrageous. These sums will beggar me.”
“Of course you may contest the will,” Mr. Lattimore said, his mouth pursing as though he’d bitten into a lemon. “Or rather, Richard may contest the will; that is his right.” His gaze rested upon the young man. Richard nodded but not as though he cared very much. An involuntary smile tugged at his lips, immediately suppressed, but breaking out once again.
Rees stared at that puzzling grin. What was wrong with the boy?
“Now we come to the substance of the document.” Mr. Lattimore looked around the room. “To my daughter, Grace, I leave my farm, bordered on the northern side by the Rumford road, on the south by…”
Rees stopped listening. Except for Molly’s disgraceful behavior, the will presented nothing unusual at all. He focused his entire concentration upon Molly Bowditch. Her disbelief and horror had now segued into fury. Jumping to her feet, she began screaming. “What about Richard, his eldest son? What about me? And Ben?”