Tracie Peterson (22 page)

“Amelia, Sir Jeffery has agreed to release you from your engagement.”

Her mouth dropped. Recovering her composure she asked, “He did? But what of the money?” At this Mattersley took several steps away from the earl and pretended to be preoccupied by studying the ceiling.

Her father shrugged. “He dismissed the debt as well. I have no idea what you said to him, Amelia, but there it is.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“It would seem that you have won this round. I … well … perhaps I was overly influenced to marry you off because of the debt.” He looked at her intently. “I never meant any harm by it, Amelia. I thought you could be happy in time. I suppose now you are free to remain unmarried.”

“But what of the inheritance and your concerns for the family coffers?” she asked warily.

Weariness seemed to mar his brow. “You gave your word that you’d not see us suffer and I’ve always known you to be a woman of truth. Having you stay on with me as your sisters marry and leave will no doubt be a comfort in my old age.”

How strange,
Amelia thought wondering how she might broach the subject of Logan’s proposal and her own desire to remain in America. How could she explain the change in her heart when she’d been the one to protest leaving England in the first place?

“Ah, good, you’re all here,” Logan said, striding into the room as though he were about to lead them all in a lecture symposium.

Lord Amhurst looked up with Mattersley doing likewise, but Penelope and Margaret remained in animated conversation with Sir Jeffery. Lord and Lady Gambett stared up wearily from their chairs, while Henrietta and Josephine looked as though they might start whining at any given moment. Amelia dared to catch Logan’s gaze and when he smiled warmly at her it melted away some of the fear she felt.

“Your trunks are outside,” he announced, “and the stage is due in two hours. I’d suggest you take your breaks for tea and cakes before heading to Denver. There isn’t much in between here and there, and you’ll be mighty sorry if you don’t.”

“I believe this will square our account,” Lord Gambett said, extending an envelope.

Logan looked the contents over and nodded. “This is mighty generous of you, Gambett.” The man seemed notably embarrassed and merely nodded before muttering something about seeing to the trunks.

“And this should account for us,” Lord Amhurst announced, providing a similar envelope.

Logan tucked the envelope into his pocket without even looking. “If you have a moment, I’d like to speak with you privately, Lord Amhurst.”

“I dare say, time is short; speak your mind, Reed. We haven’t even secured our tickets for the stage.”

“They’re reserved in your name, I assure you. Five tickets for Denver.”

“Five? You mean six, don’t you? Or did you reserve Sir Jeffery’s separately?”

“No, I meant five.” Logan looked at Amelia and held out his hand to her.

Amelia hesitated only a second before joining Logan. Even Penelope and Margaret gasped at the sight of their sister holding hands with their American guide. Mattersley was the only one to offer even the slightest look of approval and that came in the form of a tight-lipped smile.

“I’ve asked Amelia to marry me, and she said yes. Now I’m asking for your blessing, Lord Amhurst.”

“Why I’ve never heard of such rubbish!” the earl exclaimed. “Amelia, what nonsense is this man speaking?”

“It isn’t nonsense, Father.” Amelia noted that her sisters had gathered closer, while Lady Gambett, seeing a major confrontation in the making, ushered her girls into the dining room. Jeffery stood by looking rather bored and indifferent. She smiled up at Logan and tried to calm her nerves. “It’s all true. I would very much like to marry Logan Reed and since Sir Jeffery has kindly released me from our betrothal, I am hoping to have your blessing.”

“Never! You are the daughter of an earl. You’ve been presented at court and have the potential to marry … well … to certainly marry better than an American!”

“But I love an American,” Amelia protested. “I can do no better than to marry for love.”

“I forbid it!”

“Father, I’m nearly twenty-one,” Amelia reminded him. “I can marry without your consent, but I’d much rather have it.”

“You marry this man and I’ll cut off all inheritance and funding from you. You’ll never be welcomed to set foot on my property again.”

“Isn’t that what Grandfather Amhurst told you when you decided to marry Mother?” Penelope and Margaret both gasped in unison and fanned themselves furiously as though they might faint.

The earl reddened at the collar and looked quite uncomfortable. “That was a different circumstance.”

“Not so very different to my way of thinking.” Amelia dropped her hold on Logan and gently touched her father’s arm. “Father, don’t you want me to know true love as you and Mother did?”

“And you love this man enough to lose your fortune?”

“She doesn’t need a fortune,” Logan interjected. “I have enough for the both of us.” This drew everyone’s attention. “Look, there doesn’t need to be any pretense between any of us.” Logan drew out two envelopes and handed them to the earl. “I won’t take your money for the trip and you can give this back to Lord Gambett, as well. Also, he said reaching in for yet another envelope, “this is yours Chamberlain. You will find one hundred thousand dollars awaiting you at the bank in Denver.”

“One hundred thousand?” Amelia questioned.

Logan smiled. “I had to make it worth his trouble.” Jeffery said nothing but tucked the envelope into his pocket. Lord Amhurst stood staring at his own envelopes while Logan continued. “As I said, Amelia doesn’t need the Donneswick fortune. She’ll be well-cared for by me and she won’t want for anything, unless of course, it’s your blessing.”

The earl looked positively torn and Amelia instantly felt sorry for her father. “I love him, Father,” she said, tears glistening in her eyes. “You wanted me to marry before my twenty-first birthday and I’m finally agreeing to that.”

“Yes, but—” he looked at her and suddenly all the harshness of the last year seemed to fade from his expression. He looked from Amelia to Logan and seemed to consider the idea as if for the first time. “I say, you truly wish to be married to him and live here, in America?”

“I truly do.” She leaned over and kissed her father on the cheek, whispering in his ear, “Logan makes me happy, Papa. Please say yes.”

He smiled and touched Amelia’s cheek. “You will come for visits, won’t you?”

“Of course we will,” she replied. “So long as we’re both welcomed.”

He sighed. “Then you have my blessing, although I offer it up with some misgivings.”

“Oh, thank you, Father. Thank you!” Amelia gave him an uncharacteristic public embrace before throwing herself into Logan’s arms.

Logan hugged her tightly and happily obliged her when Amelia lifted her lips for a kiss.

“Ah, I say,” the earl interrupted the passionate display, “but I don’t suppose we could find a man of the cloth in this town, what?”

Logan broke the kiss and nodded. “Parson’s waiting for us as we speak. I didn’t figure you’d much want to leave her here without seeing her properly wed.”

The earl very ceremoniously took out a pocket watch and popped open the cover. “Then I say we’d best be going about it. I have a stage to catch shortly, as you know.”

I
thought you said May around here would signal spring,” Amelia said, rising slowly with a hand on her slightly swollen abdomen. She looked out the cabin window for the tenth time that morning and for the tenth time found nothing but snow to stare back at her.

“Hey,” Logan said, coming up from behind her, “we didn’t make such bad use of the winter.” He wrapped his arms around her and felt the baby’s hefty kick. “See, our son agrees.”

“What he agrees with,” Amelia said in her very formal English accent, “is that if his mother doesn’t get out of this cabin soon, she’s going to be stark raving mad.”

“We could read together,” Logan suggested. “We could get all cozied up under the covers for warmth, maybe throw in some heated rocks from the fireplace to keep our feet all toasty… .” His words trailed off as he nuzzled her neck.

“I believe we’ve read every book in the cabin, at least twice,” she said, enjoying his closeness.

“We could play a game of cards. We could get all cozied up—”

“I know. I know,” she interrupted. “Under the covers for warmth and throw in some heated rocks, but honestly Logan I’m going to throw one of those rocks through the window if we can’t do something other than sit here and count snowflakes.”

“Maybe, just maybe, if you can bear to be parted from me for a spell, I’ll ride down to Mary’s and see if she can come up here for a bit. Maybe you ladies could share quilting secrets.”

“But I want to get out! I want to walk around and see something other than four walls and frosted windows. I may be with child, but that certainly doesn’t mean I’m without feet on which to walk. Please, Logan.”

Logan sighed and laid his chin atop her head. “If you promise to dress very warmly and to wear your highest boots, and do everything I say, then I suppose I could be persuaded to—”

“Oh, Logan, truly?” Amelia whirled around, causing Logan’s head to snap back from the absence of support. “When can we go? Can we go now?

Logan laughed, rubbed his chin and gave Amelia a look that said it all. She liked the way he was looking at her. It was a look that suggested that she alone was responsible for his happiness and if they remained snowed in the cabin for another six months, he’d still smile in just exactly the same way. He touched her cheek with his calloused fingers and smiled. “Good things take time, Lady Amhurst.”

“Mrs. Reed,” she corrected. “I’m happily no longer a lady of noble standing.”

He grinned roguishly. “Oh, you’re a lady, all right. But you’re my lady now.”

She smiled and felt a surge of joy bubble up inside her. “God sure had a way of getting my attention,” she said, putting her hand over his.

“The stubborn, impatient ones are always the hardest,” he whispered before lowering his mouth to hers.

Amelia wrapped her arms around Logan’s neck and returned his kiss with great enthusiasm. She’d found the happiness that she’d never thought possible, and come September, she was going to have a baby. Logan’s baby—and she was Logan’s lady, and somehow that made the long winter seem not quite so unbearable.

Hear, O Israel: The L
ORD
our God is one L
ORD
.
D
EUTERONOMY
6:4

D
arlene Lewy hurried to pull on warm woolen petticoats. It was a frosty January morning and living so close to the harbor waters of New York City, the Lewy house always seemed to be in a state of perpetual cold. Shivering and slipping a dark-blue work dress over her head, Darlene could hear her father in his ritual of morning prayers.

“Shema Israel, Adonai eloheinu Adonai echad,”
he recited the Hebrew in his heavy German accent.

Darlene embraced the words to her heart. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” She smiled. For all of her years on earth she had awakened each morning to the sound of her father’s faithful prayers.

Humming to herself, Darlene sat down at her dressing table. Taking up a hairbrush, she gave her thick, curly tresses a well-needed brushing, then quickly braided and pinned it into a snug, neat bun on the top of her head. She eyed herself critically in the mirror for any escaping hairs. Dark-brown eyes stared back at her from beneath shapely black brows. She was no great beauty. At least not in the eyes of New York’s very snobbish social circle. But then again, she wouldn’t have been welcomed in that circle, even if she had have been ravishingly beautiful and wealthy to boot. No, the upper crust of New York would never have taken Darlene Lewy into its numbers, because Darlene was a Jewess.

Deciding she made a presentable picture, Darlene hurriedly made her bed and went to the kitchen to stoke up the fire and prepare breakfast. Her kitchen was a sorry little affair, but it served them well. Had her mother lived, perhaps they would have had a nicer house, instead of sharing the three-story building with her father’s tailoring shop and sewing rooms. But, had her mother and little brother survived childbirth, fifteen years earlier, Darlene had little doubt they’d still be living in Germany instead of America.

“Neshomeleh,”
Abraham Lewy said, coming into the room. Darlene could not remember a time when he had not greeted her with the precious endearment, “my little soul.” “Good morning, Tateh, did you sleep well?” She gave him a kiss on his leathery cheek and pulled out a chair for him to sit on.

“It is well with me, and you?”

Darlene laughed. “I’m chilled to the bone, but not to worry. I’ve stoked up the fire and no doubt by the time we get downstairs to the shop, Hayyim will have the stove fires blazing and ready for the day.” Hayyim, her father’s assistant, was a local boy of seventeen who had pleaded to learn the tailoring business. And, since Abraham had no sons to carry on his tradition of exquisitely crafted suits, he had quickly taken Hayyim under his wing. Darlene knew that the fact Hayyim’s father and mother had died in a recent cholera epidemic had much to do with her father’s decision, but in truth, she saw it as an answer to prayer. Her father wasn’t getting any younger, and of late he seemed quite frail and sickly.

Darlene brought porridge and bread to the table and waited while her father recited the blessing for bread before dishing up their portions.

“Baruch ata Adonai eloheinu melech ha-olem ha-motzi lechem min ha-Aretz.”
Praise be Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth. Abraham pulled off a chunk of bread while Darlene spooned cereal into their bowls.

“There will be little time for rest today. Our appointments are many and the work most extensive,” he told her.

“I’ll take care of all of the book work,” she answered as if he didn’t already know this. “I’ve also got Mr. Mitchell’s waistcoat buttons to finish putting on. Is he coming today?”