Swallowing, she returned her attention to her prey. “You could find other ways to fill your time. I’m happy to tell you that this is precisely what I did.”
“But—”
“My mother also passed away when I was a young girl. After that my life consisted of living in our home in New York City, while making a life for my father and my older brother. They were helpless when it came to running a household, so I took over. My childhood ended at that time, but later on, I made sure I would have something to show for it.”
“Ohhh,” Lydia said, clasping her hand to her heart.
Savannah ignored the audible grunt from the back of the room and continued, “One day I simply found the endless duties and tasks, many of which I was uninterested in, to be so monotonous as to make my life seem worthless. I forced myself to search for meaning—a cause, if you will. I attended my first women’s rights meeting the next afternoon.” She failed to mention she had been all of sixteen and had nearly broken her ankle jumping from the window of her bedroom to the closest tree limb outside. After dragging her home from the meeting, her father had locked her in her bedroom for two days.
Without food or water.
He didn’t let her out until that lovely old tree outside her window no longer stood tall and proud.
“Miss Connor, I couldn’t possibly attend a meeting like that here.”
Savannah dabbed a muffin crumb from the desk and licked her finger. “Why ever not?”
“It’s not... I’m not....” Lydia’s voice trailed off.
“You’re not resilient enough? Oh, you are. I could tell right away. Can you honestly say that you are satisfied with your life? What, pray tell, are you doing completely for yourself?”
“Redecorating my father’s stu—”
“That’s for him. Try again.”
“Cooking.”
Savannah smiled and shook her head.
Lydia snapped her fingers. “Oh, I have one! I host an information-gathering tea in the historical society office one morning a week. Although Papa feels it’s shameful for me to work, even when the position is entirely without compensation.”
Savannah relaxed her shoulders, dabbed at another crumb, as if the news weren’t simply wonderful. The glow of heat at her back seemed to increase. “And how do you feel about working?”
“I love it. I’m very good at keeping records and tallying donations. I raised more money for the society last year than any other volunteer, even though Sallie Rutherford’s total arrived at five dollars more than mine.” She leaned in, cupping her hand around her mouth. “Hyman Carter is her uncle, and he gave it to her at the last minute to lift her total past mine.”
The wonder
, Savannah thought, dizzy with promise. “Miss Templeton, this is a propitious conversation. I need a co-leader for my efforts and until this moment, I wasn’t sure I would be able to locate the right woman in a town the size of Pilot Isle.” She smiled, placing her hand over Lydia’s gloved fingers. “Now, I think I have.”
“Me?” Lydia breathed, hand climbing to her chest. “A co-leader?”
Savannah nodded. “I have to govern Elle Beaumont’s school in her absence. Teach classes and mentor her female students until her return. You may have heard that she’s returned to university in South Carolina. Yet, I couldn’t possibly stay here and watch women live in a state of disability and not try to improve their situation. Women working exhausting hours for half the pay a man receives, for instance. Did you know about that?”
“The oyster factory? Well, I have to say, that is, yes.” Her gaze skipped to the constable and back. “Although, I haven’t ever been employed. Not in a true position of payment. And the factory,” she said, voice dropping to a whisper, “isn’t where any ladies of, what did you call it,
consequence
are likely to pay a visit.”
“As co-leader of the Pilot Isle movement, you should make it your first stop. Let’s plan to meet there tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock sharp. Bring Miss Rutherford, who even if she is a bit of a charlatan, might prove a worthy supporter. Too, she can gain access for the group without the burden of another impassioned assembly.”
Savannah smiled and added, “Surely her uncle doesn’t want that.”
“Now wait a blessed minute.”
Savannah glanced up as Zach’s shadow flooded over them. Bits of dust drifted through the wide beam of sunlight he stood in, softening the intensity of his displeasure. No matter his inflexibility, the man was attractive, she thought.
“A problem, Constable?”
“You’re damn right there’s a problem.”
A soft gasp had him bowing slightly and frowning harder. “Beg pardon, Miss Lydia. I apologize for the language, but this doesn’t concern you.” He swung Savannah around on the desk, her knees banging his as he crouched before her, bringing their eyes level. “It concerns
you
, and I remember telling
you
I wasn’t putting up with this foolishness.” He stabbed his finger against his chest. “Not in my town.”
She drew a covert breath. Traces of manual labor and the faintest scent of cinnamon circled him. Savannah valued hard work above all else and never minded a man who confirmed he valued it as well, even if he smelled less than soap-fresh and his palms were a bit rough. Forcing her mind to the issue at hand, she asked, “Are we prohibited from visiting the factory, Constable?”
“After today, you better believe you are.”
She arched a brow, a trick she had practiced before the mirror for months until it alone exemplified frosty indifference. “My colleagues, Miss Templeton and Miss Rutherford, will attend in my absence, then.”
“No.”
She scooted forward until the stubble dotting his rigid jaw filled her vision. “You can’t stop them and you know it. In fact, I’m fairly certain you cannot stop
me
without filing paperwork barring me from Mr. Carter’s property. That takes time and signatures, rounding up witnesses to the dispute. However, I’m willing to forgo this meeting. During the initial phase at any rate. For everyone’s comfort.”
Sliding back the inch she needed to pull their knees apart, she decided that for all Zachariah Garrett’s irritability—a trait she abhorred in a man—he smelled far, far too tempting to risk touching during negotiations. “Don’t challenge my generosity, Mr. Garrett. You won’t get more.”
“Are you daring me to do something, Miss Connor? Because I will, I tell you.”
“Consider it a gracious request.”
“You can take your gracious request and stick it....” Jamming his hands atop his knees, he rose to his feet. “Miss Lydia, will you excuse us a moment?”
Lydia cleared her throat and backed up two steps. Before she left, she looked at Savannah and smiled, her eyes bright with excitement. Savannah returned the smile, knowing she had won that series if nothing else.
“You must be crazy,” Zach said the moment the door closed. “Look at the blood on your dress, the scrapes on your hands. Do you want Miss Lydia to suffer the same? The things you want her to experience are things her father has purposely kept her from experiencing and for a damn good reason.”
She gazed at the torn skin on her hands and the traces of blood on her skirt as she heard him begin to pace the narrow confines of the office. “It’s a mockery to talk of sheltering women from life’s fierce storms, Constable. Do you believe the ones who work twelve-hour days in that factory are too weak to weather the emotional stress of a political campaign? Do you believe Lydia cannot support a belief that runs counter to her father’s? A child is not a replica of the parent. The sexes, excuse my frankness, do not have the same challenges in life.”
Watching him, his hands buried in his pockets—to keep from circling her neck she supposed—she couldn’t help but marvel at the curious mix of Southern courtesy and male arrogance, the natural assumption he shouldered of being lawfully in control. “Engaging in a moral battle isn’t always hazardous to one’s health, you know.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s doing wonders for yours.”
“Saints be praised, it can actually be
rewarding
.”
Looking over his shoulder, he halted in the middle of the room. “Irish.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You. Irish. The green eyes, the tiny bit of red in your hair. Is Connor your real name?”
“Yes, why,” she said, stammering.
Oh, hell
. “Of course.”
“Liar.”
She felt the slow, hot roll of color cross her cheeks. “What could that possibly have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling it means something. It’s the first thing I’ve heard come out of that sassy mouth of yours that didn’t sound like some damned speech.” He tapped his head, starting to pace again. “What I wonder is, where are
you
in there?”
“I’m right here. Reasonable and... and judicious. Driven perhaps but not sassy, never sassy.”
“You’re full of piss and vinegar, all right. And some powerful determination to cause me problems when I have more than I can handle.” He halted in the middle of the room. “And here I thought Ellie was difficult. Opening that woman’s school and teaching God knows what in that shed behind Widow Wynne’s, putting husbands and fathers in an uproar. Now you’re here, and it’s ten times worse than it ever was before.”
“Do women have to roll over like a dog begging for a scratch for men to value them?”
“That and a pretty face work well enough for me.”
She hopped to her feet, her skirt slapping the desk. “You insufferable toad.”
“Better that than a reckless nuisance.”
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling passionate about freedom, Constable Garrett. And I plan to let every woman in this town know it.”
“If it means causing the kind of scene you caused today, you’ll have to go through me first.”
Savannah laughed, wishing it hadn’t come out sounding so much like a cackle. “I’ve heard that several hundred times in the past. With no result, I might add.”
“Guess you have.” Halting before a tall cabinet scarred in more places than not, he went up on the toes of his boots and came back with a bottle. Another reach earned a glass. “With thirteen detentions, I can’t say I’m surprised.” She watched him pour a precise measure, tilt his head, and throw it back. “Did any of them happen to figure out you were working Irish underneath the prissy clothes and snooty manners?”
She lowered her chin, quickly, before he could spotlight her distress.
Working Irish
. A term she hadn’t heard in years. Every horrible trait she possessed—willfulness, callousness, condescension—her father said came from the dirty Irish blood flowing through her veins. Her mother had been the immigrant who had trapped him in an unhappy marriage.
A marriage beneath his station, thank you very much.
And he had never let his family forget it.
“Would you like a medal for your perspicacious deduction, Constable?” she asked when she’d regained her composure.
He laughed and saluted her with his glass. “Heck, I don’t even know what that means.”
“
Astute
, Constable. Which you are. Surprisingly so.” She closed the distance between them and took the glass from his clenched fist, ignoring the warmth of his skin when their fingers touched.
“May I?” she asked and drained the rest, liquid fire burning its way down. Looking at him from beneath her lashes, she smiled. “The Irish like the taste of whiskey on their tongues, did you know that? O’Connor was my mother’s maiden name. Her grandfather changed it to Connor when he came through Ellis Island. When my father asked me to vacate his home the first time, I claimed the name because he said if I must disgrace the family, I could disgrace her side of it. So I did.”
She handed the glass back. “Now that you know one of my secrets, I should know one of yours.”
He went very still, the arm that held the bottle dropping to his side. Before he pivoted on his heel, his face revealed such wretched grief that she felt the pain like a dart through her own heart. It wasn’t enough to offer an apology for the offense.
How could she when she wasn’t sure what ground she had trespassed on?
* * *
“After she got released from jail, we had coffee she bought specially in New York City. About the best coffee I’ve ever tasted, too. And these hard, bready cookies that Savannah”—Lydia cupped her hand around her mouth—”I call her that now you know, said she has to go to a place called Little Italy in New York City to buy. Can you imagine? And I’m to be her co-leader. My goodness, I never would have thought anything this exciting would happen in Pilot Isle. Not in my lifetime.”
“Your father?” Sallie Rutherford asked in a hushed whisper, pleating her skirt with shaky fingers.
“Oh, he’ll shoot me dead when he finds out.” Lydia fanned her warm cheeks, trying hard not to envision her father’s certain fit of temper. “But I’m strong enough to handle him. Resilient, yes.”
“And you’re still planning to go tomorrow morning?”
She nodded. “With you.”
“Oh dear me, no. Dwight looks like he’s sucking a lemon most days as it is. Do you want him to move back to his mother’s for
good
?” Dwight Rutherford had married Sallie Smithe on the eve of his fortieth birthday and any disturbance on the calm sea of life sent him running back to his boyhood home and the welcoming arms of his mother.