скачать книгу бесплатно
“Is something bothering you, sweetheart?” Concern and amusement filled the Virginia drawl her mother hadn’t been able to shake after twenty-five years of living in Texas. “You’re awfully quiet this morning. Besides, if you rub that dish any harder, you’ll make a hole right through it.”
“Oh.” She glanced down at the serving plate she was drying off, then poured the scrambled eggs onto it. “It will just be extra shiny this morning, I suppose.”
Her mother’s searching blue eyes met hers. “You can talk to me about anything. You know that, don’t you?”
She knew her parents wanted her to feel that she’d be able to talk to them about anything. However, she couldn’t help feeling as though confiding in them would be dangerous. For instance, did they really want to know that she’d kissed a man on a rooftop last night? The same man, by the way, who was now occupying her father’s study? Absolutely, they would want to know that. What would it get them once they knew? A bunch of worry and anger, that was all. Rhett would end up on the street. Isabelle would end up in Virginia.
“Isabelle?”
Her gaze refocused on Beatrice’s. Thankfully, her father provided a timely distraction by entering the kitchen without his spectacles and with his vest unbuttoned. “I was getting dressed when I thought I heard Violet crying in her room. I asked her what was wrong through the door. She said something about her hair looking horrid and her dress being dumb. All I know is she’s going to be late for her book-club party, and I’m going to be late for my meeting at the hotel if she doesn’t come out of her room soon.”
Isabelle frowned then glanced at her mother. “Ma, you know I’m no good with hair. Amy always did mine for special occasions. Violet’s been so excited about wearing it up for the first time. I’d hate to bungle it.”
“Oh, dear.” Beatrice wiped her hands on her apron then removed it entirely and placed it on the hook beside the door. “I’d better go see what I can do. Thomas, you need to finish getting dressed so you’ll be ready to go when she is. Isabelle...”
Isabelle followed her mother’s gaze toward the breakfast they’d prepared. “I can handle this.”
Her mother gave her a grateful smile on the way out the door. Already buttoning his vest, her father followed Beatrice out. Isabelle was left to pull in a deep breath and figure out what was left to be done to get breakfast on the buffet for the boarders who should be wandering downstairs within the next few minutes. She’d just placed the last biscuit in a serving bowl when a knock sounded on the kitchen door that led to the dining room. She turned in time to see two of the boarders enter. “What are y’all doing in here?”
Hank Abernathy, a clerk at the hotel, grinned unashamedly. “We saw Mrs. Bradley go into the family wing of the house and thought you might need help carrying food into the dining room.”
“I’m surprised at you boys.” She crossed her arms and lifted a brow. “Y’all know the rules. Absolutely no boarders allowed in my ma’s kitchen.”
Peter Engel, who worked in the telegraph office, blushed bright red. He lowered his gaze to the floor as though wishing it would swallow him whole. Unable to let him suffer for long, Isabelle allowed a smile to warm her voice. “Now, take this food and get out.”
Peter’s head shot up. Hank chuckled as he stepped forward to take the serving plate filled with eggs and bacon along with a bowl of fruit. She gave Peter the pancakes and biscuits before following behind the men with the steaming carafe of coffee. Wesley Brice entered the room from the hallway as they placed the food on the large oak sideboard buffet. “What’s all this?”
She gave him a cheery smile but the Texas and Pacific Railway worker was too busy frowning at the other boarders to notice. “It’s breakfast.”
“I meant the rule breaking.”
Hank rolled his eyes. “Good morning to you, too, Wes.”
“Mrs. Bradley was busy,” Peter said, standing frozen with a serving spoon of fruit hovering above his plate. “Isabelle needed help.”
“She kicked us out of the kitchen right quick, too. She just sent the food with us on our way out.”
“Yes, but I forgot a few things. I’ll be right back.” Isabelle returned to the dining room a few moments later with butter, syrup, cream and sugar.
Wes poured exactly the right amount of cream and sugar into a cup of coffee before giving it to her. He then handed the cream to Hank and the sugar to Peter since they were already sitting down. Returning both items to the sideboard, he met Isabelle’s gaze with concern. “Where did you disappear to last night?”
A sudden vision filled her mind of Rhett’s amber gaze catching hers as they whirled around each other on a rooftop beneath a million stars. She shook it away and glanced back at Wes. Mindful that the other boarders were listening, she stalled to gather her thoughts. “What do you mean?”
“One second you were dancing with Mark Antony. The next, you were gone.”
“Oh. Well, Mark turned out to be Chris.” She paused to blow on the steam from her coffee as Wes grimaced, Peter lifted a brow and Hank shook his head in sympathy. The boarders always seemed to be around when her sister’s suitors decided to try to pay her court. It was downright embarrassing having an audience for those types of things. “Then, John Merriweather decided to cut in. Chris wouldn’t have it. They started arguing, so I left them on the dance floor.”
Hank toasted her with his coffee cup. “Good for you. I see why you would’ve wanted to make yourself scarce after that. You should have come to one of us, though. We would have been glad to dance with you.”
“Too glad, maybe,” Wes muttered as he threw a meaningful glance toward Hank and began to fill a plate with food.
Gabriel Noland must have heard the conversation out in the hall for he sent Isabelle a sympathetic glance as he entered the room. “I’m surprised Isabelle got to dance at all with you three standing around like guard dogs.”
Isabelle seized the opportunity to change the subject to something that might ease the odd tension filling the room. “And what were you doing all evening, Gabe?”
“I thought you might want to see.” He handed her the sketch pad that had been tucked beneath his arm. “The latest ones are near the back. I stayed up almost all night finishing them.”
Sitting in the nearest chair, she set her coffee on the table and wiped her hands on a napkin before flipping to the back of the book. Images from the previous night filled each page in startling detail since each could have only lasted a few moments at most. She was aware of Gabe taking the seat beside her, but didn’t bother to look up. The boarders had moved on to talking about the fire and Rhett coming to stay with them. She figured as long as she looked busy, no one would ask her any more questions that she’d rather not answer.
She froze as she recognized the tableau playing out before her on a page of the sketch pad. It featured her caught in the throes of indecision. Her hand was in the grasp of Mark Antony, who bowed over it with old-world elegance. Meanwhile, her gaze and attention were consumed by the pirate behind him. There was a shared longing on their faces that surely couldn’t have been there last night. Isabelle almost jumped at the sound of her father’s voice. “Are those your sketches from last night, Gabe?”
She casually turned back to a much less incriminating sketch of someone else as her father stepped up behind her. She lifted her gaze to Gabe’s, suddenly aware he’d been watching her reaction. Gabe smiled. “Yes, I think I’ll get several good paintings from my efforts last night.”
Her eyes widened then narrowed into warning slits. “In that case, why don’t I put this somewhere safe for you? We wouldn’t want it to get stained by being around all this food.”
“I’ll sit on it. How’s that?”
She had the distinct urge to pop him over the head with it. Gabe had no idea how blessed he was that her mother entered the room to distract her father with the news that Violet was ready to go. Beatrice decided to take a breakfast tray to Rhett. Isabelle would have volunteered to do it in her stead, but didn’t have the nerve to suggest it in front of Gabe. The boarders lingered over breakfast since none of them had to rush to work on a holiday. However, once the plates were taken to the kitchen, they all slipped away to their various amusements outside the house.
With the dishes washed, Beatrice pulled out her baking supplies. “Poor Rhett must be bored to tears in the study by now. Why don’t you play a game of spades with him or something? Be sure to leave the door open. I’ll join y’all in a little while. I want to whip up some plum pudding and a bit of wassail in case we get any callers.”
“All right, Ma. Let me know if you change your mind about wanting my help in here.” Isabelle removed her apron and gathered a deck of cards from the parlor. She was right about to knock on the study door when the front door opened and Violet walked into the foyer. Isabelle changed course to greet her. “Violet, how was your literary circle’s New Year’s Breakfast?”
“Positively exquisite.” The fifteen-year-old’s blue eyes danced as she removed her hat and scarf. “We’ve decided we’re going to have one every year.”
“And how did your hair turn out?”
Violet spun to show off the elaborate chignon. “What do you think of it?”
Isabelle winked. “Gorgeous, darling.”
“I’m almost glad Ma and Pa said I can only wear it up for special occasions. All these pins digging into my brain...” She gave a little shudder before shrugging out of a familiar navy coat.
Isabelle frowned. “I thought you were going to wear your new coat? It’s so much nicer than this old one. It was Amy’s first, you know—”
“Oh!” Eyes wide, Violet turned to stare at the floor by the front desk. “Oh!”
“What?”
Violet dropped to her knees by the coatrack. Her hands swept back and forth across the floor as she crawled toward the front desk. Isabelle watched mutely then glanced around to make sure that no one else was around to see her little sister’s strange behavior. “Violet?”
“Isabelle!”
Holding back a laugh, Isabelle knelt beside the desk. “What are you doing?”
“Did you find it?” Violet crawled from beneath the desk to search her eyes. “Did you find Ma’s bracelet—the one she lent you to wear to the masquerade?”
“Ma’s bracelet?” Isabelle glanced down at her bare wrist, remembering seeing Rhett push back the extra length of his coat sleeve to reveal the bracelet. She recalled the soft imprint of it upon her skin as he smoothed closed the clasp that had eased open without her realizing it. She couldn’t remember anything about it after that. She slowly shook her head. “I haven’t seen it since last night.”
Violet groaned. “Isabelle, I’ve done something terrible. Truly, I have. I was going to wear my new coat this morning, but Pa said it was too thin since it’s really only supposed to be a raincoat. He said I’d catch cold and made me come back inside to change. I didn’t want to go all the way to my room for my other coat, so I took yours.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“The bracelet was caught inside your sleeve. It fell out when I put your coat on. It slid across the floor and lodged halfway under the desk. I was in such a rush that I didn’t stop to pick it up. I just...left it there thinking no one would see it. I planned to get it as soon as I came back. Now it’s gone.”
A cold, sinking feeling settled in Isabelle’s stomach. “No, it has to be here somewhere.”
They searched every inch of space in the foyer but found no trace of the bracelet. Isabelle caught her sister’s hands to still their wringing. “Calm down, Vi. We need to think this through.”
“There’s nothing to think through. Bracelets don’t disappear. Someone must have taken it. It had to be one of the boarders.”
Isabelle shook her head. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“Well, I don’t have it. Neither do you. Pa left the house before I did. He hasn’t returned yet, so he couldn’t have taken it. Rhett can hardly walk. What about Ma? Have you been with her the whole time?”
“No. She brought Rhett his breakfast and retrieved the tray. Perhaps she found it.”
“Then wouldn’t she have mentioned it?”
Isabelle frowned. “Probably, but we should check her jewelry box to be certain.”
“And if it isn’t there?”
“Maybe whoever took it will return it. Meanwhile, we can’t let our parents find out about this. Or anyone else for that matter.”
Rhett’s voice filled the hallway. “Why is that exactly?”
Gasping, Isabelle whirled to find him balancing against the doorpost of the study with curiosity wrinkling his brow. She glanced back to exchange a panicked look with her sister. Violet recovered first. With a quick glance toward the kitchen, she caught Isabelle’s arm and towed her across the hall toward Rhett so they could speak more quietly. “Because if our parents find out there’s a thief in the boardinghouse, we might as well kiss Peppin goodbye.”
Concern filled Rhett’s eyes as he turned to Isabelle for confirmation. “You’d have to leave town?”
She nodded. “After Amy’s elopement, they said if anything else goes wrong, they’re going to sell the boardinghouse and move us back to Virginia, where they’re originally from.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” He frowned. “We need to figure out who took the bracelet and find a way to get it back.”
Violet wrinkled her nose. “How are we going to do that?”
“First off, y’all had better check your ma’s jewelry box like you said. The other thing we need to do is to keep a close watch for anyone behaving oddly or guiltily. Y’all would be better judges than me on that since I don’t know the other boarders well. Let’s see how all of that works out, and we’ll go from there.”
Isabelle nodded, then blinked, unsure of how “we” suddenly included him. She wouldn’t complain, though. Having him on their side was far better than letting him tell their parents about the missing bracelet the first chance he got. She could only hope that the three of them would be able to curtail this problem before it became a situation requiring her parents’ attention. The last thing she wanted to do was, as Violet had put it, kiss the boardinghouse and Peppin goodbye.
Of its own accord, her gaze drifted to Rhett’s smile. She shook her head to keep her thoughts from straying where they didn’t need to go. He caught her gaze and his eyes seemed to darken. She swallowed hard. She’d get the bracelet back, find Rhett someone else to court and her life would go back to normal. End of story.
Chapter Four (#ulink_049f8133-7d23-5379-979b-46d68520fa30)
Rhett hadn’t intended to eavesdrop on Isabelle and Violet’s conversation. It had simply been nigh on impossible not to since it had taken place only yards from the study door. Of course, once he’d realized what he was listening to, he hadn’t exactly tried not to hear it. He didn’t like the idea of the Bradley girls dealing with a possible thief by themselves, which was why he’d inserted himself into the situation. That and the fact that, prior to overhearing them, he’d been staring at the ceiling for thirty minutes after giving up on his attempts to read one of the few books he’d been able to reach. Being an invalid was duller than he’d ever imagined. He needed a project to keep his mind occupied.
Isabelle had checked her mother’s jewelry box, but the bracelet was still nowhere to be found. Knowing there was nothing else they could do to search for it at the moment, she and Violet stayed around to play a few card games with him. Eventually Mrs. Bradley brought his lunch and took her daughters with her when she left. Only a few minutes later, Isabelle returned to announce that he had a visitor. “It’s the sheriff. He’s waiting in the parlor. I thought you might be lying down and figured you’d want to sit in the chair with your leg propped up while you talked with him, like you did for our card games.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
After helping him get situated, she straightened the bed then sent him a pointed look on the way out. “I’ll go get him so y’all can talk about your business.”
He grinned, easily catching her subtle warning not to mention the thief. “My business, meaning not yours?”
“Exactly.” She smiled.
She was out the door before he had a chance to respond. Sean entered only a moment later, with a pair of freshly hewn crutches in his hand. “I come bearing gifts. Made them myself. Although, I see you’ve already got a pair.”
Rhett glanced at the set already leaning against a nearby wall. “They worked great in a pinch but they’re a bit too short for me.”
“I pegged you at about six-two and fashioned these accordingly. Want to try them out?”
“Sure thing.” He rose from the chair, where he sat with his leg propped up. Setting the new crutches in position, he moved back and forth across the room. “These are perfect, Sean. Thank you.”
“Glad I could help.” Sean waited until Rhett sat down, then took the chair opposite him. “I wanted to let you know what I’ve learned about what happened last night. It seems that a couple of teenagers weren’t satisfied with the fireworks display the town had planned, so they stockpiled enough for one of their own. They’d planned to set them off farther outside of town. However, the load fell out of the wagon right at the corner near your house. No one is sure how a spark hit one of the fuses, but it set off the whole lot.”
“I hope no one got hurt.”
“A minor burn here or there is all. It could have been a lot worse. As it is, the boys have been scared out of their wits more than anything.”
“I can imagine. It was scary enough as far away as I was. What’s going to happen to them now?”
“Setting off fireworks within the town limits is a misdemeanor, so ultimately that will be for the judge to decide. Do you think you’re going to press charges?”
Rhett grimaced. “They’re so young. I’d hate to do it.”
“I know. Unfortunately, their age doesn’t change what happened. People could have been seriously injured or even killed. Your house was destroyed. Several others were damaged. If you don’t bring charges, someone else probably will.”
“Yes, but those wouldn’t be as bad.”
“True. It’s up to you. Judge Hendricks is a fair man—kind, wise and has a knack for coming up with the right solution.”
“I’m sure he is, but I’m probably going to forego any legal proceedings. I had insurance on the house, so I ought to be all right without adding to whatever those kids will have to face from everyone else.”
Sean nodded. “Meanwhile, you have an army of volunteers working to clear the debris off your lot. Anything salvageable will be placed in boxes for you to look through later. Once that’s done, better prepare yourself for some visitors. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of folks dropping by to check on you.”
Though he was embarrassed at the thought of all the attention he’d be getting, Rhett couldn’t help but appreciate the way the town was rallying around him. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, what the others are doing now and all of the support I’ve gotten. Please, let everyone know that.”
“You’re our neighbor and our friend. It’s the least we could do. Actually, there’s one more thing. The town got together and... Well, here.”
Rhett took one look at the money inside the envelope Sean handed him and shook his head. “I appreciate this, but it isn’t necessary.”
Sean held up his hands when Rhett tried to hand it back. “Don’t give it back too quickly. You might not be able to work for a while. It might come in handy.”
“I’ll be fine.” Rhett frowned. “Tell you what. Why don’t we start a fund to buy a new fire wagon for the town with this money? That way the whole town would benefit.”
“You’re really going to refuse to take it?” At Rhett’s nod, Sean finally accepted the envelope. “Then I think your idea is a good one. This amount isn’t quite enough, but it’s a good start.”
