Collision of The Heart (11 page)

Chapter Ten

A
yden surged to his feet. “What did you just call him?”

“Jamie.” Mia crouched and held her uninjured hand out to the little boy.

He wobbled toward her on chubby legs, reaching out to her with that grin. “Momma.”

She gathered him against her. “Not yet, but we will find her soon, little one.”

“How did you ever discover his name?” Charmaine looked dubious.

“His initials.” Mia held Ayden’s gaze, her eyes wide and intense. “JMY. It’s sewn on all his clothes.”

“But it could have been anything else.” Rosalie stood. “Jack, Jacob, Joseph . . . I’m sure there are a lot more names. But you pick Jamie, and it’s the right one.”

“It seems,” Charmaine murmured, “Miss Roper has special talents.”

“Not particularly. With the
y
and all . . .” She still looked straight at Ayden, as though expecting him to say something.

Saying nothing seemed like the best course to him—nothing about the ransom note, in any event. The fewer people who knew of the abduction, the better.

“Momma,” the baby said again.

“That’s the first thing he’s said,” Ellie cried.

Roy’s lower lip protruded. “I hope nothing terrible happened to her.”

“I don’t think it has,” Ayden said. “It’s likely that the woman with the broken leg was a neglectful nursemaid who’s afraid to come forward now.”

A nursemaid hired by the criminals?

“Are you all right taking care of him, Mia, Rosalie?” Ayden asked. “That is, neither of you has any experience with small children.”

“We love Miss Rosie,” Ellie said.

Roy gave Rosalie an adoring look. “She’s tho pretty.”

Everyone laughed, except Roy, who turned pink.

“I’m getting practice for when I have my own.” Rosalie grinned at him.

He frowned at her. “Not for at least half a decade.”

“When I’m too old?”

“Ahem.” Mia grimaced. “That would make you twenty-four, which is two years younger than I am.”

“And rather old to be marrying and setting up your nursery,” Charmaine said.

Ayden twisted his head and stared at her. Even if she weren’t a mere year younger than Mia, she wasn’t usually inclined to such spiteful remarks. “Charmaine, shall I walk you home? I find I need to go out again.”

“Please.” Charmaine rose in one fluid motion. “You’ll stay for dinner with us. Your house is so crowded.”

“Always stealing my brother when I wanted him to—” Rosalie broke off on a sigh.

Ayden narrowed his eyes as he rose. “Dinner sounds like an excellent idea, if it’s not interfering with something else.”

“It’s not.” Rosalie’s lips turned down. “Children, let’s go see if my ma can spare some early supper for you two.”

She gathered Ellie and Roy and left the parlor.

“And we should be going. It’s nearly dark out.” Ayden strode to the door. He needed to get away from Mia and the sight of her holding that little boy against her. If she’d married him, they would have had their own child by now, or at least—

He yanked his mind from such inappropriate thoughts and left the parlor to retrieve Charmaine’s fur wraps. He intended to walk her home, then go to the sheriff again and let him know about the initials in the boy’s clothes. That was something more the sheriff could telegraph to other lawmen, before Ayden partook of a hasty dinner with the Finneys, then moved on to tutor some of his students.

“Will you ask Rosalie to come to my house tomorrow?” Charmaine was saying when Ayden returned to the parlor. “She and I can finalize details for the sledding party, perhaps bake some cookies.”

“I’d be happy to help if I didn’t have appointments with a few of my classmates.” Mia spoke from where she half lay on the floor, marching soldiers up and down, much to Jamie’s delight.

If the trains had been running, Ayden would have taken both Mia and Jamie aboard and spirited them to someplace safer than his home, where his open and warm family welcomed everyone. He needed to warn her—warn them—without giving anything away to his family.

“Mia.” He crouched so only she would hear.

“You’re getting my coat on the floor,” Charmaine protested.

“Mia,” Ayden said, “be wary of strangers.”

She sat up so fast her forehead nearly collided with his nose. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that, but—yes, no strangers.”

“But what if his family comes to claim him?” Charmaine asked. “They’ll be strangers.”

“No one,” Ayden reiterated.

Mia nodded, her mouth grim.

Charmaine’s mouth was grim, too. She said nothing, not even “Good evening” to Mia as Ayden held her coat for her, and she secured her hat atop her crown of curls. She said nothing until they reached the path shoveled through the snow for pedestrians. Then she gripped Ayden’s arm hard and turned her stern expression toward him. “What, may I ask, was that all about?”

“What all about?”

“Don’t play coy with me, Mr. Goswell. It’s unattractive, and you’re too intelligent to play games.”

He still looked at her blankly.

She sighed, forming a cloud of her breath before her face. “That little tête-à-tête on the floor with Miss Roper.”

“It has to do with the child, but I can’t share with you.”

“I see.” Charmaine bowed her head and tramped on in silence, save for the crunch of their footfalls on the crust of the snow. A block from her house, she glanced up again. “I haven’t objected to you running around with Miss Roper. I know you are old friends, and she was practically a member of your family for many years. But, well, it does look rather bad for me. People talk in this town.”

Ayden’s stomach twisted. “Would you prefer I not see her any more than absolutely necessary?”

“Of course I’d rather you not see her any more than necessary or at all. She’s everything you admire in a lady—beauty and intelligence and an education.”

“But not loyalty. She chose a career over me.”

“Ah.” Charmaine’s eyes widened. “So you would rather have a wife with no career ambitions of her own.”

Ayden opened his mouth to say yes but shut it again. If he said Charmaine was right, then he would stop her from pursuing her own interests, which would surely make her life and thus
her
dull. If he said she was wrong, then he sounded as though he disapproved of her life as little more than a fine hostess for her father and organizer of one or more charitable events a year. If he didn’t want a lady who chose to follow her interests, even if those interests meant working at something beyond being a wife, mother, and hostess for him, then he appeared absurd for courting and proposing marriage to Mia in the first place.

“I should warn you.” Charmaine filled in the silence. “I am ambitious. When my father said I had to leave Philadelphia and become his hostess instead of . . . continuing on in the city, I decided then that I would become the first lady of the college before more than a decade or so passes.”

“I’m afraid your father may be getting too old for that position.”

“Not Father.” She shot him a coy glance from beneath her lashes.

“You expect me to be president of the college?” Ayden’s laugh sounded hollow. “Let me get hired as a permanent professor first.”

“You know that is all but official already anyway.”

After he proposed to her.

His stomach twisted again. “I’m not counting any chicks before I see the eggs.” They reached the Finney house, and he paused on the stoop. “I have an errand to run, but I’ll return for dinner.”

“All right.” Still somber, Charmaine entered the house and closed the door without looking at him again.

Feeling as though the piles of snow along walkways and drives had packed themselves into his boots, Ayden tramped to the sheriff’s office. The same deputy at the counter didn’t even ask his business; he immediately escorted Ayden into the back office.

“I just sent Lambert to fetch you,” the sheriff greeted Ayden. “Did you meet him along the way?”

“No, but I expect he’ll be happy to go to my house anyway. What’s wrong?”

“This.” The sheriff held up a sheet of flimsy telegraph paper. “It seems that a child has been abducted.”

“What?” Ayden snatched the telegram from the sheriff.

The message had apparently arrived only minutes before the train wreck. Its message was concise and clear. A child named James Matthew Yardley of Pittsburgh had been taken from his home on Wednesday. Authorities were spreading the word far and wide the longer the child went missing.

“We didn’t get the word until a quarter hour ago,” the sheriff explained. “Seems when the wreck happened, the telegrapher completely forgot about this.” He grimaced. “As though anyone could forget about something like this. Then he had so many messages dealing with the wreck and passengers this one got lost.”

Ayden opened the door to ensure no one was within listening range, then closed it and turned back to the sheriff. “He answers to the name Jamie.”

He explained about the initials in the child’s clothing and how he had responded to Mia calling him Jamie.

“Then you need to bring him to us,” the sheriff declared.

“Here? The sheriff’s office is going to take in a little boy. Where will you keep him? A jail cell?” Ayden couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his tone.

The sheriff scowled. “I was thinking my house. He could be in danger.”

“With your wife home alone when she’s there?” Ayden shook his head. “Sir, he’s much safer in our house. It’s full of people right now.”

“Mostly females.”

“Would you want to tangle with my mother?”

The sheriff laughed. “She should know the danger. And don’t you have other children there?”

“We do.” Ayden sighed. “As well as your youngest deputy, more than I like.”

“And he’ll be there even more than you like if I agree to you keeping this boy.” The sheriff tapped his fingers on his desk, then nodded. “Why don’t you talk to your family and Miss Roper. If they agree, then you can move that other lady and her two children into our house so as not to cause any risk for them. When Lambert returns, I’ll send him back with you.”

“If it means Lambert will be around more often, I know what Rosalie will say.” The corners of Ayden’s mouth twitched.

He was getting the message loud and clear—stop trying to manage Rosalie’s heart for her. If their parents approved, opposing her choice for a mate would only damage his relationship with his sister. His smile faded quickly, though. Needing to take these steps meant he would have to cancel dinner with the Finneys.

“Will you send Lambert to the Finney house? I have to go tell Charmaine I won’t be staying for dinner after all.” And he couldn’t tell her why.

Unfortunately, her father had come home to hear the announcement. While Charmaine’s face showed no expression, Dr. Finney’s turned the color of a plum.

“I don’t appreciate you disappointing my daughter, Ayden, especially if it has anything to do with the train riffraff.”

“It has nothing to do with riffraff from the train or elsewhere.” For good measure, in the event Finney did not receive the message strongly enough, Ayden added, “Nor does it have anything to do with Miss Roper.”

“Hmm. Well”—Finney still scowled—“I suppose if this is a family matter, you are not able to share, but you must later. I do not like secrets between courting couples or Charmaine being left here alone for an evening. She is young. She should have a host of people around her.”

“Then you should have left me in Philadelphia,” Charmaine muttered.

Ayden gave her a sharp glance, one eyebrow raised.

“What was that?” Finney demanded.

“Nothing, Papa.” Face flushed, Charmaine laid her hand on her father’s arm. “I’m just urging you to drop the matter. If Ayden said he has something important to do this evening, he has something important to do this evening. I’ll punish him by making him help bake cookies tomorrow for the sledding party on Wednesday.”

“Sledding party?” Dr. Finney’s brow puckered. “What sledding party?”

Ayden shot Charmaine a look of gratitude for changing the subject. “Something I thought we and some of the students could do for the children from the train. They’re restless from being shut in for days.”

“Hmph. I have no authority to stop the students or you from doing something so foolish,” Finney said, “but you will not attend, Charmaine. It’s too undignified for a lady about to be married.”

“But, Papa, I dearly love sledding.” Her face turned so pink and her lower lip quivered so much Ayden sought for something to make her smile.

He took her smooth white hand between both of his, which were still clad in gloves. “You and I will go on a private sledding party on Saturday. Would that suit?”

“I’d love that, Ayden.” She smiled, all right. Her perfect teeth flashed, and her eyes lit to a startling blue.

Her father smiled, too. “Most suitable, especially by Saturday.”

When they would be engaged.

The notion should please him, fill him with the excitement and anticipation he had felt before—and after—he proposed to Mia. Instead, a hard ball of anxiety wound through his gut. This felt more like when he told Mia he would not be going east with her.

A knock sounded on the door, and, for the first time since the deputy began to court Rosalie, Ayden was happy to see him.