Hearts Awakening (34 page)
Ellie stiffened. “If you were in love with someone else, why didn’t you just marry her instead of Rebecca?”
“Because she rejected me and married someone else— someone who could give her the kind of life she wanted, one I could never hope to give her,” he admitted.
“So you married Rebecca instead,” she said. “Why?”
He drew in a long breath. “To please her father more than any other reason, I think. When he asked me to marry his daughter so he would have grandchildren who would want to make this island their home, I agreed, because I wanted the future that the marriage would give me and the children I hoped to raise here.”
“Did Rebecca know this when she accepted your proposal?”
He took a deep breath. “No. I think she may have actually loved me, in her own way, but she eventually realized I wasn’t free to love her, because I was still in love with a woman who was nothing but a memory.”
“Was this woman Dorothea?”
“How did you know her name?” he blurted as his surprise gave way to disbelief.
“From Mrs. French,” she replied, recounting her visit to the woman’s shop.
He listened carefully and resisted the urge to interrupt her more than once. When she finished her tale, which answered all the questions he might have posed, she turned and stared into the fire. Although he was shocked by what she had told him about Madeline French’s relationship to Rebecca’s lover and chagrined that the woman had told Ellie about Dorothea, at least the woman had given him the opportunity to tell Ellie the rest of the truth himself.
He studied Ellie’s profile carefully. With her shoulders slumped and her hands trembling ever so slightly, he knew he had clearly disappointed her yet again. “Dorothea’s full name when I knew her was Dorothea Blake, but her name is Cunningham now. Mrs. Stanford Cunningham,” he said. “Christina never really approved of us.”
“Are you still in love with Dorothea?”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. One minute I think I’ve forgotten about her. The next, I think of her and need to remind myself that she’s another man’s wife. But there are times when I still wonder if someday she might be free and come back to me.”
“I see.”
“But I doubt Dorothea has given me a single thought in the past nine years—although I can’t say the same for her sister. Christina seems to take great pleasure in reminding me that Dorothea is extremely happy with her new life,” he said, anxious to ease the distress he noted in his wife’s dark brown eyes.
Ellie dropped her gaze for a moment before looking at him again and shaking her head. “And all this time I thought Mrs. French was mistaken and that you were grieving for Rebecca or trying to forget that she had rejected the love you offered her. But it wasn’t that at all, was it? You were really grieving for Dorothea.”
Her gaze was misty. “You betrayed Rebecca, just as surely as she betrayed you, by marrying her knowing full well that you could never love her because you still loved Dorothea. You’ve betrayed me, as well, by not being honest with me. And you’ve betrayed your boys, too.”
He stiffened. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve never betrayed my sons—”
“Daniel and Ethan both deserve more from you than you’ve given them,” she insisted. “Regardless of how it might affect them, you’ve made it very clear that you’d marry Dorothea, if that were possible, which means you’d set me aside and put me out of their lives in order to do that. Perhaps someday you’ll get that chance, and if you do, you could have our marriage annulled quite easily, couldn’t you? That’s really why you insisted on those legal papers you’ve got so safely stored away—because you haven’t given up hope that you’ll be with Dorothea someday, a hope you kept hidden from me because you knew . . . you knew how hard it would be for me to stay once I knew that no matter how well I followed every one of the rules you set forth in those papers, it really wouldn’t matter in the end, would it?”
She had spoken insistently, yet so softly, he barely heard her, but he did not miss the sound of disappointment in her voice—disappointment that he was not the man of good character she had thought he was.
“I’m sorry, but it’s pointless to argue about something that will probably never happen. Granted, I should have told you about Dorothea before now, but she’s happily married and quite content with her life in Philadelphia, which makes my feelings for her irrelevant. I didn’t tell you about her tonight to make your life with me uncertain,” he added defensively.
She huffed. “Really? Pray, why
did
you tell me?”
“Because I don’t want any secrets between us. And because . . . because I trust you and depend on you to help me raise the boys. And because I want you to be able to trust and depend on me, too. You’re a good wife. I don’t want to lose you.”
“At least not until Dorothea shows up on our doorstep and you decide you don’t want me or need me anymore.” Ellie rose from her seat.
“That’s not true,” he countered as he got to his feet.
But instead of answering him, she went directly to her room without once looking back at him and closed the door, a habit he was too distraught over to complain about.
Another note?
Sighing, Ellie unfolded the scrap of paper she had found tucked under her bedroom door again this morning. Anticipating yet another Bible verse that lauded the value of a good wife, she read Jackson’s neatly inscribed message:
Proverbs 31:25
Strength and honour are her clothing;
and she shall rejoice in time to come. J
Her heart skipped a beat. This verse, above the others he had left for her to find under her door over the course of the past week or so when she rose to start her day, reached out to her the most. This verse, like the others from Proverbs, did not just recognize her good qualities or her value to his household. This particular verse offered hope that her future here as his wife would be joyful.
“Which is highly doubtful,” she whispered, unable to forget that her future depended on whether or not Dorothea ever waltzed back into Jackson’s life. She refolded the scrap of paper and put it alongside the others he had written in the trunk at the foot of her bed. She caught a glimpse of the stack of wood he had started carrying into her room each day to make sure she had enough to keep warm now that the nights were growing chillier and sighed again.
He was making every effort to convince her that he valued her as his partner in this odd marriage of theirs, but she still could not let go of the fear that he could easily set her aside one day, in spite of her constant prayers.
Slipping out of her room, she hurried past the silhouettes now hanging on the wall in frames Jackson had made for them, yet another effort on his part to please her. She closed the door at the foot of the staircase, then went directly to the porch to get more hickory wood for the cookstove. Shivering from the morning chill that promised a cold rain by the end of the day, she carried the firewood back inside and thought about asking Jackson to do that chore for her, too.
She headed for the cookstove but took one look at Poor Thing lying in a bed of her aprons and drying cloths and rocked back on her heels. Trembling, she laid the wood down on the floor by the worktable and approached the dog on tiptoe. She stopped when she was an arm’s length away and knelt down to get a better view.
“What’s all this?” she crooned as she gazed at the two tiny creatures lying together and suckling at their mother. With their eyes closed and their smooth brown-and-white-spotted bodies, they looked more like baby rats than puppies. They were, however, utterly adorable, if not totally helpless little things.
She sat back on her haunches and shook her head. Now it all made sense. The aprons and cloths the dog had been taking. The scratches at the floor. The need to stay by the cookstove where it was warm.
“You were making a nice bed for your babies, weren’t you?” she said and chuckled. Jackson had agreed to take a female dog because there was no other dog, especially a male dog, on the island. Poor Thing, however, had fooled everyone. She was already carrying her pups when she came here.
Ellie could guess what Jackson might say when he saw the puppies, but she had no doubt that the boys would be absolutely thrilled.
Until she spied the lifeless little body tucked in the corner of the bed.
Poor Thing growled low as Ellie reached in for the dead pup. “Shhh, I won’t bother your babies,” she whispered, quickly took the cold pup, and laid it on her lap. She was not certain whether to simply hide the pup and bury it later or to let the boys see it so they would know that death was part of all life, even for animals.
She had just decided to let Jackson decide that matter when she heard the thunder of footsteps coming down the staircase. The door at the bottom opened so fast it banged against the wall, and she cringed, hoping the door had not hit the silhouettes.
“Today’s the day! We can have griddle cakes today!” Daniel cried as he tore into the kitchen with Ethan right behind him and Jackson following them both.
Ellie instantly covered the dead pup with her apron. If Jackson wanted the boys to see it, there would be time for that later. “You have more than griddle cakes to be excited about,” she said as they raced over to her.
Jackson chuckled. “I doubt there’s anything these boys of ours could want more.”
“What about puppies?” she offered, knowing there was not anything their father could want less, and her heart leaped when she realized he had referred to the boys as “ours.”
Amazed by the sheer number of griddle cakes both boys were managing to eat for breakfast, Ellie enjoyed the last bit of her warm cider while they battled with their father over naming the two new puppies.
“You don’t need to name them,” Jackson argued again, although much more halfheartedly than before. “The people who get the puppies will name them, just like you named Poor Thing.”
Daniel pouted and pushed his food around his plate.
So did Ethan.
“Poor Thing doesn’t want her puppies to go away,” Daniel said dejectedly.
Ellie glanced at Daniel’s and Ethan’s faces, and her heart trembled. Separating Poor Thing from her puppies would only remind the boys how their mother had been taken from them. But even she had to admit that the prospect of having three dogs in the house for the boys’ sake would be a bit unnerving.
Jackson took another bite of the apple fritters Ellie had made for him and gave both boys a stern look that closed that much-discussed topic again. “They can’t stay here. Period.”
“Poor Thing has a name. The puppies need one, too,” Daniel argued, turning the conversation back to a topic he must have thought he could win.
When Jackson looked to Ellie for support, she shrugged. “I don’t suppose naming the puppies would do any harm. The new owners can change their names. I’m certain Poor Thing had a name before we named her,” she offered, hoping to talk to Jackson about keeping the puppies later when they were alone.
Daniel grinned at her before looking at his father. “Can we name them, Pappy? Please?”
Ethan grinned, too.
“Fine. Name them, but mind my words: Those puppies are going to leave and get new homes, where they’ll get new names, just as soon as they don’t need Poor Thing’s milk anymore,” Jackson cautioned.
“Just because you name them doesn’t mean you can play with the puppies yet,” Ellie added. “Poor Thing has enough to do without worrying about having the two of you handling her new puppies.”
Daniel dipped a last forkful of griddle cake into the syrup on his plate and devoured the food in a single bite. “We know. We can’t play with the puppies until they open their eyes, but me and Ethan got names for them already. Wanna hear them?”
Ellie laughed.
Jackson did, too. “Why not?”
“Griddle cakes,” Daniel said as he pushed his plate away.
“You say please when you want more to eat, and you can’t have a third serving of griddle cakes. You’ll get a tummy ache,” Ellie cautioned.
“I don’t want more griddle cakes. That’s what me and Ethan call the puppies. Griddle and Cakes. Can we name the dead puppy, too?” he asked, his expression as innocent as his question as he looked from his father to Ellie.