Flora's Wish (16 page)

“So this man you'll wed, he is the one watching you on the porch?”

“He is.”

“Not an altogether unpleasant man to look at. A pity he's disposable.” She lifted her bejeweled hand to her chin and appeared once again to be deep in thought. “I must say of the two, I vastly prefer your Pinkerton agent, however.”

“
My
Pinkerton agent?” Flora shook her head. “He's nothing of the sort.”

“What is he, then? And why did he think it prudent to decorate your wrist with a handcuff?”

“As to what he is, I could give you a long list of thoughts I have on the matter. Suffice it to say he is bullheaded, arrogant, and…well, I won't go on.”

“And the handcuff?”

“Yes, that is an interesting story. Before he knew I would cooperate, he thought he might secure my help by placing me in his custody.”

“That explains why it was put on.” She gave Flora a look. “Now tell me why it wasn't immediately removed.”

“We had a little disagreement and then he was called away.” She offered Grandmama a view of her wrist. “The cuff is gone now.”

She conveniently left off the remainder of the explanation where she admitted that while the cuff was gone, apparently their custody arrangement was not. Grandmama did not need to know this.

“And so is your Pinkerton. Again.”

Flora smiled. “I don't mind if he stays gone for a while.” She settled back in the chair to enjoy an unguarded moment with her grandmother. Golden threads of afternoon sun wove a youthful color into her elaborate coiffure and traced a pattern across her refined features. A beauty in her day, Millicent Brimm was still quite a handsome woman.

Blue eyes that once had matched her own and a profile that could belong to Flora decades from now attested to the family ties between them. But a bond stronger than appearance held her to her imperious grandmother.

Flora reached for the agreement Mr. Tucker would sign tomorrow. “You're wondering why I would go to such lengths?”

“No, dear. I was wondering why your grandfather went to such lengths.”

The will. It always came back to Grandfather Brimm's will. The stack of parchment pages decorated in handwriting almost unreadable in its masculine scribble. And yet it was readable. And legal.

“He never much liked how your father turned out, you know.” Grandmama was looking beyond her, peering into a memory rather than anything actually present in the room. “But you. Oh, my, he did adore you.” Now she was watching Flora carefully. “And Violet. She was his favorite.”

The air seemed to go out of the room at her grandmother's pronouncement. “It's not your fault,” Grandmama added. “None of it. Winny egged the both of you on.”

“How did you know?”

She patted Flora's hand. “Because I know. And your grandfather? He was as stubborn as your father. And Violet? Darling, I wager she was the one who talked you into joining her on that climb atop the old barn.”

There it was. The statement absolving guilt that Flora had hoped to hear from someone. Anyone other than Violet, who regularly proclaimed her own guilt in the fall that rendered her housebound.

Only she and Violet knew the truth. Knew that though Violet was the better climber, it had been Flora's inattention and near fall that had propelled her elder sister to come to her aid. A choice that changed Violet's life forever. And her own. That Winny sat on the ground and shouted encouragement was merely the final straw.

As much as she felt as though Grandfather Brimm's will had been the punishment, it was also his affirmation that she could make the situation right again. That she could lay her life down for the life of her sister. For what might have been had Violet's body not been irreparably broken.

All the more reason that she would not allow Brimm lands to leave this branch of the family tree. Her grandmother's image swam in a pool of unshed tears as Flora willed away the emotions threatening to tumble with them.

“Come and sit with me, child.”

Flora complied, as much to seek absolution as to recall what it had been like as a little girl to have a grandmother who could make all the problems of the world go away with a single lilac-scented embrace.

“So many years ago,” Grandmama murmured as she gathered Flora in her arms. “So very many years to be carrying the burden of it all. Your sister will leave her nest. I promise it.”

“Promise it or require it?” Flora said with a half grin.

“The truth of the matter is I am more than ready to require it.” She shook her head. “The Lord is taking His sweet time in moving that mountain.”

The parlor door flew open and Lucas McMinn barged in, both to the room and the memories. “So sorry ladies. I thought I had a situation to handle, but it turned out to be a false alarm.” He stalked toward them as the door slammed shut.

Flora accepted the use of her grandmother's handkerchief to dab at her eyes. Did this man not do anything quietly? Or with any sort of manners?

His sharp gaze landed on Flora. “What did I miss?”

Grandmama waved away his question with a sweep of her hand. “Nothing but the things women discuss when no men are around.”

He looked perplexed, but only for a moment. “Fine. I'll just be going. Miss Brimm, I'll remind you to recall the terms of our agreement and the time I'll be meeting you in the morning.”

“Certainly,” Flora said. “And if anything should change, where can I find you?”

He glanced around, picked up a chair, and nodded toward the door. “Right outside,” he said as he walked toward the exit.

“Young man,” Grandmama called. “I refuse to allow you to sit out there all night. It's most improper.”

He set the chair down to open the door and once again picked it up. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Brimm, but this is government business and nothing you can have any say in.”

“I assure you I've had plenty of say in government business,” she said as the door closed with the lawman on the other side. “He's quite insistent on getting his way, isn't he?” she asked Flora.

“He is at that.”

Grandmama smiled. “I like that in a man. Now if you'll excuse me, I must prepare for the evening. Would you mind fetching one of the girls to help me dress? I'm afraid when I told the general's wife I was unexpectedly unavailable for tea, she insisted I come around for dinner.”

“But we're to stay in tonight,” Flora protested. “Unless you wish to have that man out in the hall following us and causing a scene. And what of the packing you were going to have them do?”

“No, dear.
You're
to stay in tonight. I don't recall Mr. McMinn offering an opinion as to where I might go. I am keeping my appointment as scheduled. The packing can be done when I return. Surely you wouldn't expect otherwise?”

Flora let out a long breath. “No, of course not.”

“Don't pout, dear. It causes wrinkles.” Grandmama shrugged. “You'll be fine here with your Pinkerton agent. Though I would suggest you order him up a meal when you get one for yourself. It would be the nice thing to do.”

“Dinner with Mr. McMinn without a chaperone?” she asked as she affected a dramatic pose. “Whatever would the gossips say?”

“Tomorrow you'll be married and no one will care what the gossips say. Now the maid. Please fetch her.” Grandmama stood and began moving toward her room. “Oh, and Flora?”

“Yes?”

“Having the man you're marrying tomorrow up to your hotel room tonight is a risk you don't need to take, so do not assume that my statement applies to him.”

“You trust Mr. McMinn but not my fiancé?”

“The Pinkerton agent does not appear to be the type who would be willing to sign away his rights as a husband. I like that in a man as well.” She paused to stare at a marble statue of Cupid, bow drawn, that stood among several other decorative items on the table. “A husband by contract is so much less complicated.”

“Well, there's nothing to worry about,” Flora whispered to her grandmother's closed bedchamber door. “It's likely I couldn't find Mr. Tucker to invite him if I tried.”

That admission should have worried her. Instead, the words she had prayed returned to offer a balm of peace wrapping her heart. If tomorrow's marriage was not to be—if God closed the door—there would be another solution.

For the life of her, however, she couldn't figure out what that might be.

She picked up the statue, surprised by the weight of what appeared to be such a delicate work of art. “Maybe you can tell me, Cupid,” she whispered as she returned the piece to its place on the table. “If only you could shoot an arrow in the direction of the man God has for me.”

She rang for the maid and settled into a quiet corner of the suite with
Pride and Prejudice
and the hope that her grandmother and all the activity surrounding her would soon be gone for the evening. Yet after the whirlwind that was Millicent Brimm departed, Flora found the quiet extremely disquieting.

She rose to pace the parlor, allowing the details of the afternoon to return in snatched thoughts and uncomfortable recollections. Seeking out her writing desk, Flora began and tossed aside a half dozen versions of the same letter.

Each began with:
Dear Violet, tomorrow I am to be married.

None continued past the second line, where she struggled to explain why.

Instead, Flora decided to begin at the beginning. To tell her sister the how instead of the why.

Dear Violet, tomorrow I am to be married. The man's name is Will Tucker, and he made me laugh once when I desperately needed to.

“Much better,” Flora said as she rested the pen against her cheek. “Now what?”

She closed her eyes and thought of that afternoon. Of Clothilde Brimm's funeral and the steamboat
Archness
and the Mississippi River with the damp New Orleans air that swirled over the brown water to stir it up like fresh-made gumbo. Air so thick a soupspoon would likely cut it, and so warm it almost pained Flora to breathe it in.

As the vessel began its upriver trek to Natchez, Flora remembered finding solace in her stateroom, where headache powders and iced coffees had failed to ease an ache that rested partly between her temples but mostly in her heart. Sleep was fitful, owing as much to poor weather as to her other complaints.

Worse, she'd traveled with a new maid, who spent most of the voyage downriver with her head over the side plagued with seasickness. Thus, Flora was well and truly fending for herself.

Loneliness, the specter that plagued her girlhood and haunted her still, now chased her down the passageway into the grand salon. Owing to the late hour, only a few passengers still sat at tables or relaxed in the seating groups situated near either end of the ballroom-like space.

Though the calliope had played jaunty tunes all during the meal earlier, the room now hummed with the voices of those in conversation, punctuated by the rhythmic splash of the paddle wheel and the patter of rain against the windows. Outside the river ran past in a wide and muddy torrent of water and tree stumps—this much Flora knew from the many trips she'd taken on this route. Now, however, nothing but blackest night showed beyond the rain-spattered glass, a tribute to the hidden moon and the weather that mirrored her thoughts.

Flora selected an oversized stuffed chair of brilliant scarlet in a less busy section of the salon and fitted herself into its velvet embrace. From her vantage point she could watch the goings-on, what little there were, without being easily seen. It was a viewpoint she preferred, for people watching had always been a favorite sport between her and big sister Violet on these excursions.

If things had been different, would they now be huddled together wondering about the young couple dancing, though the music had long stopped? Clandestine romance, Flora would assert, though likely Violet would have called them newlyweds. Or the three elderly men up long past their bedtime to hold some sort of seriously animated discussion that involved cigars and amber-colored beverages? Politicians or pensioners? Elderly travelers or clandestine spies in costume? Their stories had known no bounds.

Now it was her grief that felt boundless.

Flora blinked away the thought and cast about for another passenger, another story to surmise. Finding a fair-haired man at the opposite end of the salon, she allowed herself to wonder what might have captured his attention so intently out the window. She studied his lean, broad-shouldered frame and decided he was of the athletic sort. Perhaps one of those fellows who enjoyed a bracing walk after dinner or a day's hike in the woods.

No, she decided, for his well-tailored clothes told her he could just as easily be a man of leisure. Or perhaps an up-and-coming captain of some sort of industry.

He shifted his position to check his watch and then returned to his vigil. About now Violet would be making guesses as to his reason for waiting. What caused him to watch the river, though it was obvious he could not see it.