A Bride at Last (3 page)

What?

Oh right, Lucinda had said her husband was a taskmaster. One who’d worked his wife into the ground. An orphaned boy would substitute nicely for that thankless position. “No, Lucinda left him in my care.”

“I can assume his care.” He looked toward the stairwell as if he could see Anthony dragging his feet to the dining hall.

“If you’ve no proof of being his father, I mean to keep the boy.”

He frowned. “Are you married?”

She drew up. “That matters not.”

“Sure it does.” He glanced back into the room, full of broken furniture and the scant belongings Lucinda possessed. “How could you provide for him better than I?”

She compressed her lips. She’d not tell him she’d been paying for this room for months. The boardinghouse was not impressive, by any means, but Silas hadn’t seen the shack they’d lived in previously. “As a teacher, I’m housed with different families every year. Regardless of whose roof might be over our heads, Anthony will be with someone who loves him.”

“That’s kind of you to be willing to step in, but a boy needs a father.”

“Only if he’s a loving father. I love Anthony with all my
heart. I’ve sacrificed a lot for him already.” She fisted her hands, wishing she could’ve strangled Silas a decade ago for Lucinda. “No man who marries a woman, makes her his slave, and then kicks her out when she doesn’t pass muster should be raising a boy, blood relation or not.”

“Now wait a minute.” Silas pushed away from the wall. “I don’t know what Lucy told you, but that’s not me.” He puffed his thick chest as if making himself look bigger would scare her.

“She told me you worked her night and day. Barely taking time for her. Treating her worse than her parents’ servants.”

He flung out his hands. “I don’t want to sully your regard for a dead woman, but Lucy’s expectations of homesteading were childish. She’d been spoiled in Virginia. Why, she’d never even helped in the kitchen before she came to me, and I certainly didn’t force her to answer a mail-order-bride advertisement. She could’ve stayed in Virginia and found a husband there.”

Silas took a step toward her, all broad shouldered and masculine, but she wouldn’t back down. She tilted her head to glare up at him. Why did men think mail-order brides should accept whatever fate awaited them? “She was your bride, not your slave.”

“She insisted on coming at planting season, and I . . .” He glanced back through the doorway into Lucinda’s room, then shook his head. “When I saw the photo she sent me, I couldn’t deny her.” His eyes snapped back to hers. “Have you worked on a farm, Miss . . . What’s your name again?”

“Dawson. Kate Dawson.”

“Well, Miss Dawson. I know teachers work hard to keep children disciplined and learning, but have you ever been at the mercy of the land for your existence? Where weather, insects, coyotes, and grub-infected dirt could cause you to starve during the winter if you aren’t diligent to till enough land or sow enough seed?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know what real work is. And neither did Lucy.”

Her fists tightened, nails biting into her palms. “Don’t presume my past from a tidbit of personal information.” She forced her clenched jaw to soften before her teeth shattered with the pressure. “I’ve worked far harder in my twenty-five years than most, down on my hands and knees, dawn to dusk, against my will.”

All because of a man like him.

Silas cocked his head.

“And so has Anthony.” She was done with men who thought they could run weaker people’s lives. “When Lucinda took to her bed over a year ago, Anthony worked at the laundry for a time to help me keep a roof over their heads. I’ll not allow him to quit school to labor like that again. He’s got a bright mind, not to be wasted on—”

“I know what it’s like to work as a child. I worked at Wilson’s Mill when I was ten until twelve—no child should work the hours I did, or the jobs. But since the beginning of time children have helped parents with farm chores. It’s not anything like how they’re treated in factories. . . .” He closed his eyes. His hand, seemingly shaky, rubbed at his brow.

“Wilson’s? The huge woolen mill the next town over?” He was from this area?

Silas nodded.

She let out a breath. So he’d had a hard time of it as a child. But if that were so, how would he know what a childhood should be like? She’d had a great one until her twelfth year—she wouldn’t let Anthony lose his the way she had hers. “Farming might not be terrible altogether, but many of my students struggle to attend school regularly because of their parents’ need for them to work.”

“I won’t deny him school.”

Wait.
Why were they even debating? Arguments were mere words; they proved nothing. He might not even be Anthony’s father. “Maybe so, but as you heard, Anthony wants to stay with me.”

Silas put a hand to his jaw and rubbed.

Had reminding him of Anthony’s desire given him pause, or was he preparing a different argument?

If her sister had been here, she’d be sending her evil glares. Violet had always accused her of arguing for argument’s sake and chastened her to hold her tongue, and maybe avoid another beating from Violet’s heavy-handed husband.

Of course, losing an argument with her brother-in-law only landed her in the attic with a bruised body. If she couldn’t win this one, Anthony’s life was at risk. Mourning his mother was more than enough for him to deal with right now. “So we agree. Anthony’s desire to remain with me needs to be adhered to—”

“No, we don’t agree. I was just trying to figure out how I’d earned your ire.”

“You don’t think Lucinda would’ve told me about you?”

“I don’t think she
could
have. She didn’t know me.”

Didn’t know him? What did that mean? She was his wife. “So I’m to ignore everything she ever said about you and pretend you’re a saint?”

“I’m no saint.”

She crossed her arms. “Well good. We agree on something.”

He chuckled, and she blinked. Her brother-in-law never would’ve laughed during an argument.

“I do believe you could sear off skin quicker than a firebrand.”

“What?”

“Right. You’re not a farm girl.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Look, I think we’ve gotten off the tracks and bogged
ourselves in a mud pit. Let’s start over. I know you’ve feelings for the boy, and Lucy probably did ask you to see after him, but he’s likely mine. The fact of the matter is, I’ll be the most capable of providing for—”

“Children need more than food and clothing. They need to be loved for who they are, not what they can do.”

“Of course they do—”

“I can provide for Anthony. I assure you.” She straightened, trying to add at least an inch in height. “I can offer him what he needs most.”

“In the future, he’ll need more than love, Miss Dawson. He’ll need to learn how to work, and—”

“Exactly why he can’t go with you!” She sliced her hand through the air. “I won’t let you get ahold of Anthony and
teach
him how to work the way you taught his mother. Over my dead body.”

Silas flinched at the dead body reference.

Kate slapped a hand over her mouth.

He tried not to imagine Lucy’s form lying beneath her threadbare sheet on the other side of the wall, but failed.

She dropped her hand and cleared her throat. “I think I might have gotten a little carried away there.”

He’d heard redheaded women could be spitfires, but this woman only had a hint of auburn in her tangled locks. Good thing God saved the world from the wrath of a full-blown redheaded Kate Dawson.

He wasn’t close to righteous—he basically fouled the air standing beside anything godly. Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t right for the boy. But how to convince this pretty little firebrand to give up her claim?

“I know I’m a stranger to you and Anthony, but if you consider
the situation practically, a man’s protection and provision will give him the best future.”

“I don’t worry about tomorrow. ‘For the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.’”

A Scripture-spouting woman. “True. We shouldn’t worry about tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan for it.”

“I won’t let Anthony live with a man who treated his mother so poorly. Do you deny it?”

“That I treated her poorly?” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “No.”

“Then Anthony won’t be a part of your future. Excuse me.” Kate marched toward the stairwell, where a flicker of movement caught his attention in the shadows.

Anthony.

The boy’s eyes narrowed before he disappeared down the stairs.

Had they said anything the boy shouldn’t have overheard?

His feet urged him to go talk to the boy, but what could he say right now, when Miss Dawson was clearly not in the right frame of mind to hold a genial conversation? Whatever had he done to make Lucy paint him so badly to her friend and son? He might not have been the best husband, but he certainly hadn’t been an evil one either.

When the sound of both of their footsteps faded, he entered Lucy’s room and crossed over to her bed, taking a long look at her sad, still form. Would Kate return with Anthony, or would she take him away so he couldn’t find him? He shouldn’t have let them out of his sight.

But he couldn’t abandon his wife with the coroner on the way either.

Nothing about Anthony’s features shouted that he was his offspring, but if his praying for the last four years hadn’t gained
him the forgiveness he’d sought from his wife, surely God was consoling him with the one thing he wanted even more.

A family.

He pulled the threadbare sheet up to cover his wife’s motionless form.

If this Kate Dawson thought heated words would deter him from raising the boy, she was mistaken.

Chapter 3

Shivering in the ice-cold drizzle, Kate eyed Silas across the open grave. He wasn’t the tallest person in the small group gathered to see Lucinda interred, but he certainly was the broadest. Farm work had to be demanding to bulk up a man like that.

The pastor called for silent prayer while the gravedigger covered the coffin. Kate squeezed Anthony’s cold hand and stared at their feet.

Lord, please help me figure out how to deal with Mr. Jonesey. I can’t let Anthony go unless I know he’s going with someone who’ll care for him—I just can’t.

A flicker of movement across the way made Kate peek from her prayer. Silas wasn’t praying like the rest of them—he was walking. Was he leaving? Hopefully.

She pulled Anthony closer, his right shoulder damp from jutting out from beneath her small umbrella, his little frame shivering. She rubbed her hand briskly against his well-worn, too-short sleeve, keeping her eye on Silas.

Please help me know what to do. I mean, Lucinda knew who Anthony’s father was, yet she wanted him left in my care. That has to mean something. How can I let
a stranger take a boy who’s already escaped one
man’s loveless household, to live with another who’s more likely to give him a hoe than a hug?

Last night, she’d found Anthony in the stairwell though she’d told him to go downstairs. She couldn’t chastise him for eavesdropping though; the poor kid was likely more uncertain about his future than she was.

He hadn’t been impressed with Silas and had begged her not to let him take him home.

She’d fully expected Silas to put up a fuss when she told him she was taking Anthony to stay with her at the Logans’ last night, but he’d said that was a good idea.

What if he wasn’t the man Lucinda had painted him to be? Or what if he truly was Anthony’s father? Could she let this precious boy go? She held Anthony tighter with each step Silas took.

He walked straight toward Anthony while pulling off his slicker.

“What are you—” Kate bit her lip. Her strangled voice had ruptured the reverent silence and drawn people’s narrow-eyed glares.

Silas walked behind them and wrapped the coat around Anthony. The boy tried to shrug the slicker off with exaggerated movements, but she squeezed his hand.

“Be civil,” she whispered into his ear. They shouldn’t cause a scene, and well, Anthony needed the warmth. He was too skinny and his coat inadequate.

“Thank you for coming.” Reverend Beasley finally nodded from his reverie. “I’m sure Lucinda’s son would welcome your prayers and condolences, and her husband as well.”

A few looked at them in surprise. Their gazes locked onto Silas. Did they wonder why he’d bothered to come when he’d left Lucinda alone for so long?

Yet there he stood, coatless with no umbrella, acting as if the rain and cold didn’t bother him, staring at his wife’s resting
place, his hands shoved deep inside his pockets, as if warmth could be found inside his pants’ soggy fabric.

What a pitiful sight he was. If she had a hat, she’d have handed him her umbrella.

Mr. Yi, the owner of the laundry, walked over first. He held out his hand to Silas. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Riverton.”

Silas grasped the man’s hand but said nothing to correct Mr. Yi about his name.

“Sorry about your mother.” Mr. Yi laid a lye-scarred hand on Anthony’s shoulder. “I wish I could have employed her for longer time, but it is good thing you have an angel.” He grasped Kate’s hand and pressed something into her palm. He threw a glance at Silas before leaning closer, the smell of onions and cloves residing in his skin. “Please use this for care of boy,” he whispered. “I wish I had more to give you.”