скачать книгу бесплатно
Cecilia bit her lip thoughtfully. No, there was something else....
Before she could finish her thought, Buck took another troubling step forward and then pulled her to his chest. Cecilia freed herself with one firm shove.
“Buck, go home,” she repeated. “I’m staying here.”
He crossed his arms, growing petulant. “How are you going to pay for your room?” he asked. “Your father won’t give you money for that.”
“Leave my father out of this. As far as you’re concerned, the new schoolteacher still hasn’t arrived. I’ll figure out a way to pay Dolly.”
“Your father’s going to find out sooner or later, you know,” Buck warned sensibly, “and he’s going to be madder than a hornet when he finds out you didn’t come back to the ranch first thing.”
“I know, I know.” First she was kicked out of Miss Brubeck’s, now this little deception. When he found out, her father would probably lock her in her room till the turn of the century. Well, she’d cross that tedious little bridge when she came to it. At least locked in her room she wouldn’t have to deal with randy ranch hands.
“Let me worry about my father,” she said with finality. “If nothing else I’ll tell him that I still have work at the school. You heard what Beasley said about helping Pendergast get settled.” As if anyone would need help running that ragtag little school—and as if she would actually do it!
Buck looked away, trying to think of an argument to dissuade her. Not surprisingly, nothing came to him. “It’s your funeral,” he said at last. Smashing his hat more firmly on his head, he turned and ambled away. Toward Grady’s saloon, no doubt.
Freed from that appendage, if not from her worries, Cecilia continued full steam toward Dolly’s. Oh, she had known it would be hard to give up her teaching job—though during the past week, when the man failed to show up, she was beginning to hold out hope that he would never arrive. Now his breezing into town late made losing her position all the more agonizing.
Eugene Pendergast! She didn’t know why he struck such a chord in her, but something about the man wasn’t right. He didn’t look right. He didn’t talk right. His clothes fit funny.
Damnation! This temporary teaching job had been such a godsend. After being sent home from New Orleans in disgrace, she’d desperately needed a way to get out from under her father’s disapproving glare. She and her father had clashed ever since she’d been old enough to wear long skirts. He thought her only purpose in life was to get married, preferably to a rich rancher, and since her mother had died when she was twelve, there was no one to take her side.
No, it was always Cecilia against the world. Convincing her father to send her to New Orleans had seemed such a coup, so freeing. Then, due to her own stupidity, she’d been sent home for “rowdy behavior.” Just because she sneaked out one night—just that once! But what was the point of being in New Orleans, she’d insisted, if you could only see a tiny, well-manicured portion of it, and then only during the daytime with a fussy old chaperone?
Her father had been livid. She’d jumped at the opportunity to move into town and serve as schoolteacher until the real one came along. A room of her own in Dolly Hudspeth’s boardinghouse wasn’t like living in New Orleans, but it was as close to it as she was going to get in the foreseeable future. Now the schoolteacher had arrived—supposedly—disrupting her life yet again....
But she wasn’t willing to admit defeat yet.
Cecilia marched up the dirt path to Dolly’s, the only two-story house in town. Dolly’s husband, Jubal, had been the first blacksmith in the area, so they had been prosperous before his untimely death. Now Dolly made do by renting out the extra rooms in the generous house her husband had built for her.
Grateful to finally have some privacy to think through her troubles, Cecilia headed straight for the stairs. Maybe she’d prepare herself a bath, she thought. No, that was too much trouble. Her imagination settled for a quick wash, then a leisurely afternoon nap on her soft mattress.
“Cecilia, is that you?” Dolly’s head poked out from the parlor.
“Hello, Dolly,” Cecilia said, only slowing as she single-mindedly headed for her haven of a room. “I’m bushed. Will you call me for dinner?”
“Oh, dear...”
Cecilia heard a rustling of skirts behind her and stopped. Dolly Hudspeth was still a young woman, not yet thirty, and the closest thing to a confidante Cecilia had. Her light brown hair was swept back from her face and pulled into her usual economical bun. As she caught up with Cecilia, she looked as put-together as always, except that her high forehead was wrinkled in dismay and her bow-shaped mouth puckered into a frown.
“Is something wrong?” Cecilia asked, continuing up the stairs. Dolly was always in a snit about something.
“Oh, I do wish I’d had some warning!” Dolly said, keeping one pace behind her friend.
“Warning about what?” Cecilia asked.
“I’m sure we could have handled this better.”
Confused, Cecilia walked to her door and turned the knob. “For heaven’s sake, Dolly, you’re not making any sense. What is the matter?”
She threw wide the door and saw immediately what was wrong—her things were gone!
“What happened!” she cried, surging forward. Her trunk, her clothes, even her silver comb set that had been on the washbasin stand—all were gone.
“Now, Cecilia,” Dolly began. “You know that this is my best room. It’s always been reserved for the town’s schoolteacher. Always, even when Jubal was alive.”
Cecilia’s gaze narrowed in on the black leather valise on the floor next to the bed. It belonged to Pendergast, that snake. He’d usurped her job, and now her room.
But not for long, she vowed.
Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she turned to Dolly with a warm smile. “Of course,” she said, even managing a gay little laugh as if she didn’t care a fig about losing her prized accommodations. “How stupid of me to forget. Just tell me, Dolly, where are my things?”
Dolly looked at her anxiously, not quite trusting Cecilia’s sudden change of mood. “Well, I stowed them downstairs. I imagined you’d probably ask Buck to give you a ride home this evening.”
“Home?” Cecilia asked, blinking innocently. “With Buck? Whatever for?”
Dolly put her hands on her hips. “Cecilia,” she said sternly. “Now, you know how things are. I have three rooms to let. One to the schoolteacher, and Miss Fanny’s been here since you were in school yourself. And I couldn’t put Jubal’s cousin Lucinda out. He’d come back to haunt me for sure.”
Panic began to seize Cecilia. Home. She was being sent home, back to the ranch, when she had so much to do right here in Annsboro. If no one would believe her suspicions about Pendergast—who she was willing to bet money wasn’t a schoolteacher at all—then she needed to stay close by and gather her own evidence. In the end, the town, even Beasley, would thank her for her pains.
But there was no way to stay if Dolly didn’t help her. She wouldn’t be able to spy on Pendergast. She’d never get her job back, or her independence. She’d be trapped on the ranch to wither away until she finally gave in and married some rancher who would take her off to another patch of dirt. And then she’d still wither away, just like her poor mother.
She practically threw herself at the older woman’s feet. “Oh, Dolly, you must have a place for me somewhere! Anywhere!”
Dolly shook her head worriedly. “I can’t think of a thing. The house only has four bedrooms, Cecilia, apart from the tiny room off the kitchen for my laundry girl, and that’s no bigger than a cupboard.”
Laundry girl? Cecilia remembered Lupe, the young woman who’d been doing laundry before she’d married one of the poor farmers in the area. Her heart surged with hope. “Cupboard?” she asked excitedly. “I can sleep in a cupboard, I don’t mind!”
Dolly’s face fell. “Oh, no, Cecilia.”
“I could even have some of my things sent home—I’ll tell Buck to take my trunk this very evening!”
“Absolutely not,” Dolly said, shaking her head. “That room is for the laundry girl. I’ve always done the wash for my boarders. And if I pay the girl room and board, I don’t have to come up with as much cash money.”
She was right, Cecilia realized, her spirits plummeting fast. About the only thing to hope for now was that Buck hadn’t left the saloon yet. What a miserable day this was turning out to be!
Dolly giggled.
Annoyed by the other woman’s laugh, Cecilia lifted her head slowly and caught her doing it again. “I fail to see anything amusing about this situation,” she snapped.
Dolly shook her head and then laughed outright. “I’m sorry, Cecilia,” she said, breathing hard to hold back a chuckle, “it’s just...” A rumbling laugh exploded from her chest, cutting off her words. “Oh, it’s too silly!”
Cecilia bit her lower lip and waited for Dolly’s laughter to subside. “What is?” she asked impatiently.
The other woman wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, Cecilia, I just had this picture in my head of you leaning over a washboard.”
Cecilia laughed along heartlessly for a moment—until she was struck, rather violently, by the obvious. She snapped her fingers and turned joyfully to Dolly. “That’s it!” she cried, circling the older woman in a playful little jig. “Dolly, you’re a genius! When can I start?”
Dolly wasn’t laughing anymore. “Oh, no, Cecilia, I was just joking you.”
“Joke or not, I’ll take the job.”
“But I can’t offer it to you,” Dolly countered firmly. “Your father would have my hide, not to mention yours, if I hired you to do the wash. Do you even know how to do wash? The idea!”
“What’s wrong with my doing a little work? Father didn’t mind me teaching!”
Dolly sent her a wry look that made it clear she wasn’t buying into that line of thinking for one second. “There’s a whopping difference between teaching and being a washerwoman.” She laughed again. “Imagine if your father found out you were rinsing out my boarders’ underclothes for a living!”
“He won’t find out,” Cecilia said, her usually merry voice dropping an octave. Having seized on this improbable solution, she was not about to budge.
Sensing that she was moments away from hiring the Summertree heiress into a position of manual labor, Dolly’s eyes widened in alarm. “There are no secrets in Annsboro, Cecilia.”
“I know,” Cecilia said, more brightly. “But Daddy doesn’t live in Annsboro, does he?”
Chapter Two
Because her new quarters lacked the generous wardrobe of the teacher’s room, during the next few hours Cecilia weeded out what essential items she would need for the next weeks, packing the rest to send home with Buck, who was under a strict oath of secrecy. Once Pendergast was gone, and it was her intention to make sure his departure was close at hand, she would send for her things again and be comfortably reinstated into her old room.
Dolly filled her in on her other duties; apparently, the “laundry girl” was also the cook’s helper, maid and woodcutter. But Cecilia didn’t mind hard work—not that she’d had much experience in that area—as long as it had some reward. In this case, the prize was her little room behind the kitchen.
The room, which had originally been built as a pantry, consisted of a tiny bed, a table for a washbasin and a half window overlooking the privy. Despite the heat, Cecilia immediately shut the window. So much for fresh air.
By the time dinner was served, she also discovered that the situation of her room actually put her in a double bind. The kitchen’s wood stove was not ten feet away, which, without the window for ventilation, turned her bedroom into something like an oven itself. After taking only ten minutes to freshen up for the meal, Cecilia felt a kindred spirit to the baked chicken lying on the center of the table.
When all was ready, Dolly looked proudly at her spread. She’d used her best china, which had been her mother’s, and had put little cordial glasses by each plate. “For after dinner,” Dolly explained in a prim low voice. “I thought we should welcome Mr. Pendergast properly.”
“Everything looks fine,” Cecilia said without enthusiasm. Greeting this particular guest properly, to her mind, would have entailed meeting him at the door with both barrels loaded.
Steps sounded on the staircase, as well as the ker-thlump footfall of Fanny Baker and her cane coming from the parlor, where the elderly widow spent most of her days. Jubal’s spinster cousin, Lucinda, quietly made her way in, her nose wrinkling nervously at the sight of the china. Lucinda was shy.
At the sound of approaching heavy footsteps, Cecilia hastily straightened her clothing and ran a smoothing palm over her hair, which she’d pulled in a high bun, much like Dolly’s, away from her neck. If only it wasn’t so hot! She would have felt much more confident meeting her adversary if she wasn’t half-wilted.
When Pendergast finally appeared, she was glad to note that he was wilted, too. Dust still showed on his brown suit, although it was obvious he’d made an effort to brush it off, and his hair was damp with sweat. He’d changed his shirt underneath that awful herringbone vest, which served to work Cecilia up to the proper level of annoyance.
More laundry.
“What a beautiful table, Mrs. Hudspeth,” Pendergast said with a gusto that surprised Cecilia. “I had no idea you were planning a feast for this evening.”
In Dolly’s modest parlor, Eugene Pendergast appeared much taller than Cecilia had remembered, and as much as she hated to admit it, he was nearly handsome. His thick brown hair had a rakish curl at the brow, if the word rakish could be used in context of the schoolmaster. Not only that, but his build was much more impressive than Cecilia had noticed before. This made her more suspicious still. A person didn’t develop muscles like that by reading books!
But more than anything else, his dark eyes captured her attention, eyes as dark as two glistening coals. Their gaze was intense, wary...and very much interested. A little shiver of awareness worked its way down her spine, but Cecilia wasn’t so overcome that she overlooked the tiny lines in the man’s weathered face, especially around those dark, fascinating eyes. Up close, it was clear the man had spent a great deal of his life in the outdoors.
In a dither over her big dinner, Dolly blushed and smiled and showed Mr. Pendergast his place as Fanny Baker entered the room and went directly to hers. Cecilia stood behind her own chair, anticipating the moment when her foe would address her. They awaited Mr. Walters, who, other than working at Beasley’s store and taking his meals at Dolly’s, was rumored to be something of a recluse. This label never failed to confuse Cecilia, since practically all of the man’s waking hours were accounted for and spent in public.
“I suppose you don’t think much of our town, Mr. Pendergast,” Cecilia said, irritated further that the man had yet to greet her.
“Ah, Miss Summertree.” He looked upon her as though she was an annoying little gnat that had landed behind a place setting. “I had thought you would be back on the ranch by now.” Pendergast kept his expression veiled, but his words made it clear that he had hoped not to see her.
She smiled in triumph. It was obvious he’d assumed he had turned her out. Good. “Not at all. You see, Mr. Pendergast, I’m very resourceful.”
“Then how lucky for myself and all of Annsboro to be graced with your lovely presence for...how long, did you say?”
Cecilia looked at him squarely. “Indefinitely.”
The word went down like a bitter pill. It took all the fortitude Jake could muster not to let out a weary sigh. He’d finally guessed that the man named Watkins, Pendergast’s old school chum, didn’t live in Annsboro. At least the man hadn’t made an appearance, and no one else had mentioned his name again. Maybe he was the old schoolteacher. Jake had hoped that Cecilia Summertree wouldn’t live in Annsboro much longer, either.
“So you see,” Cecilia said, smiling wickedly, “I’ll be able to help you along, just as Lysander Beasley instructed.”
He knew that nothing would have pleased Cecilia more than seeing him squirm, so Jake kept his disappointment to himself. The woman had him up a tree, but maybe it was for the best. As long as she was around, his guard would be up. Her presence reminded him that he couldn’t afford to lapse into his old self. Not for a while, at least, until he was no longer a stranger in town, or even better, when he actually left Annsboro.
Already he was praying for that day.
Uncomfortable chitchat followed until Walters finally arrived. The balding man nodded mutely when presented to Pendergast, and finally the company sat down to devour the chicken, snap beans and rolls that Dolly had prepared. Jake was happy to eat the tasty meal in silence, although he should have known such good fortune couldn’t last.
“I wish you’d tell us about your home,” Cecilia said, not two minutes into the meal. She primly wiped her lips with her napkin. “I’m sure Annsboro is a far cry from Pittsburgh.”
“Philadelphia,” he corrected.
“That’s right.” She smiled, though Jake could have sworn she looked disappointed that he actually remembered the city he’d supposedly come from. “Still, it must be a far cry from here.”
Even without having come within a thousand miles of Philadelphia, Jake knew her words to be an absurd understatement. Annsboro was a far cry from any town he’d ever been in.
Pleasant, you have to be pleasant. Buying time, he cleared his throat and swallowed. “The chicken is wonderful, Mrs. Hudspeth,” he said, enjoying both Dolly’s warm smile and Cecilia’s expectant fidgeting across the table. Before she could pounce on him for not answering, he said, “All I can say about Annsboro is that it seems a...one-of-a-kind sort of town.”
Dolly nodded eagerly. “You wouldn’t believe how much development we’ve seen here, Mr. Pendergast.”
No, he wouldn’t have believed it. “I heard Beasley’s building a drugstore.”
“And just in time, too,” Dolly said enthusiastically. “We have nearly thirty families in Annsboro now.” She darted a glance toward Cecilia, who couldn’t keep a frown off her face at the blatant lie. “Well, in the environs, anyway,” Dolly explained.
“Dirt farmers,” Fanny Baker said flatly. Fanny had been among the first ranching families to settle the area over a decade before, and although the Bakers had since lost their land, she still retained her rancher’s snobbery toward the late-arriving farmers. “Most of them probably won’t last through the winter, but there will be more to replace them when they leave. Everyone wants their own land, even if it’s just a parcel of dust. Only the really large ranchers, ones whose lands encompass enough water, can survive out here.”
“I suppose that includes the Summertree ranch.” Jake couldn’t quite keep all the sarcasm out of his tone as he turned on Cecilia. He’d known big ranchers, and worked for them. He’d also sent one to jail, and was paying highly for it.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean that some of us don’t sympathize with the smaller farmer,” Cecilia said, bristling. How dare he attempt to insult her! What did this man from Philadelphia, if he truly was from there, know about this world?
Now more than ever, she hoped to make short work of getting this man out of town.
Dolly laughed nervously in an attempt to calm her feuding diners. “I’m afraid we’re all very opinionated here, Mr. Pendergast.” She frowned at her young friend. “Even the women.”
Jake smiled warmly. “It’s a very interesting town. I’d like to learn more about it someday.” Once again, he raised the false hope that he would be able to eat in peace.
But before he’d managed another bite, Cecilia piped up. “Well, maybe we should tell him about the Indian massacre, then.”
“Oh, Cecilia!” Dolly’s hand flew to her mouth. “Not at the table, please!”
Jake bit back a smile. Cecilia had gotten his attention, and he could tell by the way her eyes danced mischievously that she was pleased with herself. He almost enjoyed putting on an anxious Pendergast frown for the company’s benefit. It wouldn’t do to have a Philadelphia man hear about Indians without quivering in his too-tight boots. “Indian massacre?” he asked nervously.
