“Yes.” His eyes narrowed as if he wished he could peer into her mind. Eyes so clear and blue Lettie wondered why they gave the impression of allowing a person to see through to his very soul, while in reality they hid any hint of emotion or vulnerability.
“I don’t know,” she answered, her voice echoing with sincerity. She gestured to the hand cradled against his lean stomach. “But it appears you need some protecting.”
The curve of his lips twitched in an unwilling smile.
“Sit,” she whispered again.
With obvious reluctance, the stranger sat, but not before setting his revolver on the table beside him.
Lettie’s eyes bounced from the revolver to the man’s face. Once again, he regarded her with inscrutable eyes.
Hunted eyes.
Drawing away, Lettie gathered her mother’s basket of ointments and bandages from the kitchen hutch, placing them on the table beside him before retrieving a basin and filling it with warm water from the stove.
She reached for his hand, surprised by the sudden burst of need she felt to touch him.
Just to see if he’s real
.
Her glance darted up to see his reaction to her touch and became entangled in his own gaze. Her fingers trembled slightly. She looked away.
Though it should only have taken a moment to wash the wound, apply an herbal ointment, and bind the cut, Lettie found herself lingering over the task. Never had she realized that a man’s hand could be so fascinating. So absorbing. His fingers were strong, blunt-tipped. His hands broad, his wrists supple.
Soon, however, her task was completed, the wound covered. And Lettie had no excuse to touch him.
“You have a gentle touch.”
At the unexpected sound of his voice, she glanced at him, then quickly looked away and busied herself with tidying the basket and putting it back on the hutch. When she turned, it was to find that the stranger was making preparations to leave.
“Thanks for the kindness.”
“No!” When he stepped past her, Lettie reached out to grab his arm. She couldn’t let him go. Not yet. “You’ve got to stay.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. Despite the shadow of beard beginning to darken his skin, the square stubborn shape of his jaw was clearly evident. “Why?”
Why?
She couldn’t tell him how she’d begun to embroider her abduction into elaborate proportions. She couldn’t tell him how she’d hungered for his return to break the endless pattern of her days, how she’d dreamed of kissing him, just to see if the tingling sensations she’d imagined with the Highwayman could also become reality.
She hurriedly scrambled for a logical excuse. “I—I told you: My brother worries about me like an old maiden aunt. He probably has someone watching me from just beyond the house. The minute you step out that door, you’ll have a posse breathing down your neck.”
“I can’t stay in the cellar.”
Lettie frowned, realizing that was true.
From out on the road, she heard the distant scrabble of hooves on the gravel and the muffled chatter of people beginning to drift home from the poetry reading.
“Come on!” she whispered fiercely, dragging him out of the way, slamming the trap closed, and moving the rug and table back into place.
“Where?”
“My room.”
“Lettie? Where are you, child?”
Lettie just managed to shove the Highwayman into her bedroom, slam the door, and race down the back staircase before the front door creaked open and her mother began to search for her.
Moving as quickly and quietly as she could, Lettie darted through the kitchen, then slowed to a more respectable pace as she moved through the hall to the vestibule. “Here I am, Mother.”
“But I just—” Celeste Grey regarded her daughter in confusion, her lips tightening in disapproval. “Were you in the pantry? I went—” She waved her hand in a dismissing gesture. “No matter. I met your brother on the road; evidently there’s been more trouble.” Shaking her head at the audacity of the world outside the boardinghouse, Celeste drew her cape from her shoulders. “I don’t want you out alone until this is settled. Day or night. Understood?”
“Yes, Mama.”
The door burst open and the Beasley sisters spilled inside, their faces flushed and their eyes bright with excitement. Both Alma and Amelia Beasley had lived at the boardinghouse for years, and Lettie couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t seen their sweet, apple-withered faces wreathed in smiles and breathless excitement. With hair the texture of spun sugar and a suspicious shade of pale blue, no one could guess the age of the two sisters—though Lettie had an idea that they were much closer to seventy than either would admit.
“Oh, my! Lettie, you should have been there tonight. It was so…
magnificent
,” Alma, the elder of the two, breathed, regarding Lettie from her unusual height.
Amelia, who served as her sister’s endless echo, smiled and nodded, her petite frame fairly quivering with remembered enjoyment. “Magnificent!”
“I simply adore Poe.”
“Adore him!”
“I shan’t sleep a wink tonight. I just know I shan’t.”
“Nor I!”
Lettie merely smiled. The Beasleys were always losing sleep over something, whether it was a serial story in the
Atlantic Monthly
or a new hat they’d seen at the milliner’s.
“I’ll bring you some hot milk,” Celeste offered, moving to hang her cape on the coat closet under the stairwell. The stiff fabric of her gown rustled as she walked, and the scent of lemon verbena sifted into the air behind her.
“Oh!” Amelia gasped in delight. “Hot milk! I’d just love a cup of hot milk.”
Alma pinched her smaller sister for her lack of manners in accepting so quickly, shooting Amelia a warning glance. “Celeste, we couldn’t let you do that,” Alma demurred politely, though the sparkle of her eyes clearly revealed the fact that a hot cup of milk before bed was a special treat at the boardinghouse and not something to be denied.
Celeste’s lips twitched, but she managed to control her smile. “I insist. It will only take me a moment.”
“No!” Lettie burst out. Then she smiled, adding graciously, “Let me.” She had to keep her mother out of the kitchen until she could mop up the droplets of blood and hide the stained towels. Moving to wrap a concerned arm around her mother’s shoulder, Lettie turned her away from the kitchen and led her toward the staircase. “You’ve had a late night, Mama. You should go to bed.”
“Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”
“I’m sure.”
“Thank you, dear.” Her mother smiled. “I am a bit tired. And with all the baking tomorrow…”
“You sleep. The Misses Beasley don’t mind if I heat their milk, do you?” Though the boarders were rarely given kitchen privileges, the Beasleys had been staying in the house so long that they were regarded more as family than paying guests, and her mother occasionally stretched the rules on their behalf.
“Oh, no.” Alma made a fluttering gesture with a slightly withered hand. “You go to bed, Celeste.”
“Please,” Amelia chimed.
“Very well.” Celeste leaned close to plant a kiss on Lettie’s cheek. When she drew back, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly and a suspicious light gleamed in her hazel eyes. “Just don’t take too long going to bed yourself, Letitia. None of your daydreaming, and none of your poetry. Not tonight.”
“Yes, Mama,” Lettie answered meekly, hoping her mother wouldn’t take it upon herself to check on her. Since the man upstairs was probably hungry, Lettie intended to see to it that he got a slice of her famous gooseberry pie once she’d cleaned up the kitchen. Then she’d go about finding him some extra linens and blankets.
“Lettie?”
“Mmm?”
“Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Abernathy are bringing Mrs. Rupert and the Grubers. Once they’re inside, I want you to bolt the door, then go straight to bed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Celeste stepped onto the first tread, turned, and offered a slight smile. “Good night, then.” And she climbed the rest of the stairs, the train of her dress rustling behind her.
“You should have been there, Lettie,” Alma whispered when Lettie’s mother was out of earshot. “Jonathan Brooks gave an inspiring performance.”
“Inspiring!”
The two sisters removed their cloaks and handed them to Lettie, then climbed the stairs at a snail’s pace, talking to Lettie over the edge of the railing.
“For his rendition of ‘The Mask of the Red Death,’ he came onstage wearing nothing but a pair of tight,
tight
, leggings—I swear they looked like a pair of long johns—and a flowing shirt slit clear down to his—” Her hand waved in the general direction of her stomach, and she giggled.
“It’s true!” Amelia gasped in delight. “I’ve never seen such legs on a man before, all tight and muscled. And his—”
“Amelia, you go too far!”
“But Alma, you yourself said on the way home that the man had a—”
“Amelia! Letitia is a little young to be hearing such talk from you.”
Amelia blushed and then giggled. “Pardon me. I forgot myself. You shouldn’t participate in the talk of such things until after you’re married.”
Lettie chuckled and turned toward the kitchen, intent upon hanging up the Beasleys’ wraps, then heating their milk. “How can that be, ladies?” she teased. “You two aren’t married, but you seem to talk about such things all the time.”
Dissolving into girlish giggles, the Beasleys disappeared up the stairs toward their rooms, still whispering to each other. Letitia had just hung up their capes beside her mother’s when the door opened again and Mr. Goldsmith gallantly stepped aside to usher Dorothy Rupert into the house.
“There you are, madam. Safe and sound, just as I promised.”
“Thank you, Mr. Goldsmith. Good evening, Lettie.”
Lettie smiled and moved forward to take the older woman’s wrap. Dorothy Rupert was a fairly new member to the boardinghouse, having lived there for only a few months. Tall and graceful, a sadness lingered in her pale blue eyes, and the somber colors of mourning she wore denoted some tragedy that she’d never confided in any of the residents.
“Did you enjoy yourself, ma’am?”
Dorothy offered her a small smile. “As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve always adored Poe’s poetry. Of course, his stories are a little gloomy.”
“But since I spent the evening at your side, what could a woman such as yourself fear?”
Dorothy’s eyes gleamed briefly with secret amusement. “Yes, of course, Mr. Goldsmith. You were very gallant. But now I must see about preparing for bed.” She nodded to them both and climbed the stairs, her black dress melting into the darkness at the top of the stairs.
Randolph Goldsmith waited until the lap of her skirts had disappeared down the hall before leaning close to Lettie and whispering in her ear, “I think she likes me. Don’t you think so?”
Lettie bit back a smile as he hurried up the staircase, one hand clamped over his hairpiece to keep it from slipping off the back of his head.
The door swung open again. “But dear, I wish you had abandoned your duties to attend. Then even
you
could have seen the inherent symbolism of the piece.” Natalie Gruber smiled regally at Lettie, turning her back to her stocky husband.
Silas Gruber reached out to clasp her wrist, his thumb brushing back and forth beneath the edge of her sleeve. His voice dropped to a murmur: “Perhaps you and I could discuss it more tonight. In my room.”
Natalie threw her husband a look of barely concealed impatience. “I think not. I’m very tired tonight, Silas.
Very
tired.”
Silas’s lips tightened in evident irritation, but he did not speak.
Natalie twisted free from her husband’s grip and swept her cape from her shoulders in a single elegant movement. She draped the garment over her arm in such a way that Lettie could not help noticing it was new, as was Mrs. Gruber’s gown, her shoes, and her hat. “Good night.” Lifting her skirt ever so slightly, Natalie climbed the steps. “Oh, Lettie?”
“Yes, Mrs. Gruber?”
“Could I entreat you to bring me a cup of tea?”
Lettie opened her mouth to refuse; her mother would not have granted the request of a special pot of tea being made at this hour of the night. But since Natalie would no doubt see the hot milk she brought to the Beasleys, there was no way to refuse without appearing churlish. “Of course. Just this once, Mrs. Gruber.”
Natalie regarded her in evident surprise when her request was accepted. “Well! I’ll be waiting for you, then.”
“Yes, Mrs. Gruber,” Lettie mumbled under her breath, then she pulled a face and turned toward the coat closet as Mr. Gruber followed his wife toward their rooms. Separate rooms.
Since Ned Abernathy would probably be coming in through the kitchen after putting Mr. Goldsmith’s horse and buggy in the barn, Lettie hung up the wraps, bolted the front door, and then rushed into the kitchen. Using some of the hot water on the back of the stove, she mopped up the blood from the floor, muttering to herself when she discovered the stains had soaked into the wooden panels. But soon she had washed them enough so that the darker spots blended into the wood and were hardly noticeable. She was just about to hide the dishcloths with the other dirty linens when the door creaked open behind her.
Lettie whirled, hiding the cloths behind her back as Ned stepped into the room. He regarded her with silver-gray eyes, closing the door behind him and twisting the latch. The click seemed loud in the deserted kitchen, reverberating like the snap of a trigger.
“G-good evening, Ned.”
He merely nodded, his eyes quiet and warm.
“Mr. Goldsmith told me you enjoyed the poetry reading.” Brushing past him, Lettie shoved the towels into one of the drawers in the hutch and turned with a smile. “I was just about to make some tea for Mrs. Gruber and heat some milk for the Misses Beasley. Would you care for anything?”
Ned shook his head. “No. Thank you.” He hesitated for a moment, his fingers curled tightly around the brim of his hat. Finally he stepped toward her, lifting a hand toward a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek. Long before he actually touched her, his hand dropped and he turned away, moving toward the hall door.
“Miss Lettie?”