MB02 - A Noble Groom (27 page)

He halted in front of the door of Ward’s office. The polished glass gleamed in the hot sunshine of mid-July. His reflection stared back at him—the haughty tilt of his head, the jauntiness of his chin, the angled lines of his nose.

It didn’t matter that he was dressed in homespun peasant garments, that he’d gained plenty of new muscles, and that his skin was tanned and weathered from the long days laboring in the sun. Nothing could hide the fact that he was a nobleman’s son—the nobleman who had all but murdered Annalisa’s beloved brother and forced her family to move far away from their homeland.

He was their enemy. How could they ever accept him? Especially if they learned he’d deceived them these past months?

He’d always accepted his nobility, had even taken pride in it. But now . . . after seeing how Ward treated Annalisa and her family, he wasn’t so sure he could be proud of his family or his past.

How could he fault Annalisa and her family for hating his father? And how could he fault them for hating him too? He’d been just as calloused and uncaring, until he’d come to America, to Michigan and lived among them and realized how arrogant he was.

The truth was, he needed to leave Annalisa and Forestville before everyone discovered his true identity.

But he also knew he had to stay until Dirk arrived. He couldn’t leave Annalisa with the heavy work of the farm, not with a newborn, not when the fields needed weeding, not when the spring wheat would soon be ready for harvesting.

He patted his pocket, and the paper there crinkled. He’d finally written another letter to Fritz, telling him of his delay. He knew the university would want to fill the open positions by summer’s end before the start of the fall semester. But there was the chance he might not make it in time. And he had to be honest with Fritz about it.

He would stay until he knew Annalisa was taken care of and safe. Which was why he needed to attempt to end Ward’s bullying once and for all.

He shook his head and opened the door. The musty interior of the dark office greeted him. He clomped across the hardwood floor to a big desk behind which sat a frail, thin clerk.

“I need you to go get your boss. Now.” Carl stared down at the man, hoping he hadn’t lost his ability to intimidate those in a lesser position than himself. “And tell him his worst enemy is here to see him.”

The man shrank in his oversized desk chair. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Ward is unavailable.” He glanced sideways at a back door as if looking for a way to escape.

“Well then.” Carl examined the clock on the wall. “You have exactly one minute to find Ward and make him available to me.”

The man’s face paled. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped it across his brow.

Carl peered at the clock. “Fifty seconds.”

“I’d help you if I could,” the clerk said quickly. “But Ward left Forestville three days ago.”

Carl gave the man his hardest look. “I’ll be able to find out if you’re lying to me. And I’ll make sure you regret it.”

“He’s gone. Really. To his office in Detroit.”

Carl stifled his disappointment. He’d dreamed of nothing else over the past week except coming into town and beating Ward senseless. Every time he’d looked at the heap of charred boards and the scattered ashes—all that remained of the barn—he’d known he couldn’t rest until he confronted Ward and put an end to his designs on Annalisa’s land.

They’d saved the cabin, but fires started by the sparks had claimed sections of Annalisa’s garden. He was grateful there hadn’t been a wind. He shuddered to think of the damage if the fire had been able to spread beyond the clearing.

“I want you to pen a letter to Ward today. And I want you to tell him that when he returns to Forestville, I’ll be waiting to have a meeting with him.”

The clerk shoved aside a stack of papers and pulled out a clean sheet.

“Let him know the meeting won’t be to his favor.”

The man dipped his pen in a bottle of ink and began to scribble the note.

“Inform him that I have influential connections, and if he
wishes to remain whole and in one piece, he should stay in Detroit indefinitely.”

Carl didn’t know if he’d still be living in the area when Ward returned. He didn’t know if Ward had discovered anything about his running away from the duke. But he knew he had to do all he could to ensure Annalisa’s safety from the man before he left, even if that meant threatening Ward with his father’s power and influence.

“You can also instruct him that if he or any of his workers step foot on Frau Werner’s land again, I’ll make sure his property experiences the same fate that he inflicted on hers.”

He waited while the man composed the letter, and he breathed in the smoke that was still strong in the fibers of his clothes, in spite of the recent washing Annalisa had given them.

But the smokiness only stirred his anger once again—particularly at the thought that Ward’s greed had caused Annalisa to rush into the burning barn and drag him out. He couldn’t bear to think of what it had been like for her and the risk she’d taken in her weakened condition. He didn’t want her sacrificing her health and life for him. She was far too important for that.

The more he pondered his feelings, the more he realized he’d let the time they’d spent together during his illness and her birthing draw them together. He’d let down his defenses and had encouraged her affection too much.

He’d seen the trust in her eyes. And now he loathed the day he’d have to break her trust.

The clerk finished, lifted the paper and blew on the freshly inked words.

“I expect you’ll send the letter out today.” Carl turned on his heels. “And I will be spreading the word far and wide that Ward is a criminal. If he returns to this community, he will receive his just dues for what he’s done.”

He didn’t wait to see the effect of his words on the clerk. Instead he held his head high, imitating the manner of his father, and exited the building.

Once outside on the street, he took a deep breath of the dusty air and kept his gaze from lingering on the steamers.

He couldn’t run yet. He couldn’t do anything less than make sure Annalisa was taken care of and secure before he took his leave.

In the meantime, he’d have to do a better job keeping his distance from her and making sure he didn’t lead her to believe there could ever be anything between them.

Chapter
15

Carl didn’t have to worry about keeping his distance from Annalisa. As the heat of July blended into an equally hot and dry August, he found himself too busy and weary to think of anything but working and sleeping and squeezing in eating when he could.

He sowed the buckwheat, hoed thistles out of the corn, drew the wheat, and fought potato bugs off the beets. Annalisa was equally busy, tending to the new baby and Gretchen, drying fruit, and preserving vegetables for the winter.

If he thought he’d worked hard to sow the fields, it was child’s play compared to the harvesting and threshing. He was grateful several other neighboring farmers worked together as a team to accomplish the daunting tasks. They moved from farm to farm, cutting and shocking the wheat and oats.

When the time came to do the haying at Leonard’s, Carl almost refused. Leonard had cleared more land than most of the other farmers, and his harvest was bigger. Carl couldn’t begrudge the man for being a diligent worker, but he couldn’t
shake his dislike of Leonard for causing the bruises Idette often wore.

He’d rather see the man’s hay rot in his field for the way he treated his wife. Yet common sense told Carl he couldn’t alienate any of his neighbors—at least not before they came to Annalisa’s farm to help her.

Carl walked behind the team and rack. Heat waves danced up from the cracked, parched land, reflecting the sun back on his face. The blue of the sky overhead was gone, replaced by a hazy white glare.

Leonard had already raked his hay into windrows to make the job easier. But the hay was short-stemmed from the scarcity of rain and shattered easily. Even so, they pitched the alfalfa up to Peter, who’d taken a turn spreading the hay around the rack after it was tossed to him.

“Surprised the hay isn’t burning up under this scorching heat.” Peter stopped to wipe the seemingly endless sweat that dripped from his face. “Too bad we can’t have a few drops of the forty days and forty nights of rain God gave to Noah.”

According to all the men, the summer had been the driest one since they’d moved to the settlement five years earlier. Although they’d had a smattering of rain here and there, the crops were sparse and brittle. Annalisa’s crops hadn’t made enough profit to pay off her loan yet. Like everyone else, he was praying for an end to the drought so they could salvage the rest of the crops by the October deadline.

Herr Mueller, from the neighboring farm, halted his work and tipped up his hat. “If only there was something a man could do to open up those clouds.” His face was drawn, and his eyes swept the horizon and the dark clouds that taunted them.

“Instead, we’re burning here in this constant heat.” Peter leaned against his pitchfork.

The dry whirring of grasshoppers and the vibrating of the cicadas had grown louder with each passing hour, as if the heat had become unbearable even for them.

“Maybe if we ride over to those clouds, we could tie them up and drag them over here.” Herr Mueller sighed. “Seems the wind always blows them north of us or dissolves them into dry air.”

The sky was strangely still and devoid of the birds that had been plentiful in the earlier part of the summer. Annalisa had speculated that they’d gone farther north where it was cooler.

“I agree with you, Herr Mueller,” Carl said. “I’ll ride with you and maybe together we can corral those clouds over here.”

“As long as we don’t get any lightning,” another of the farmers said. His brows wrinkled in perpetual worry similar to so many others.

“One spark is all it will take to cause a wildfire.” Carl’s mind lit with images of the hot flames that had consumed Annalisa’s barn and nearly destroyed everything else around it.

Fortunately only two of the piglets had perished in the burning barn. The rest of the animals, including Old Red, had made it out. Carl had managed to construct a lean-to against the cabin to protect the animals, with the promise from the other farmers that they would help Annalisa build another barn before the winter season.

Of course that meant Annalisa would need to take another loan, this one for the boards they would need for rebuilding. But he resolved they wouldn’t worry about how they’d manage the new loan—at least not until the loan on the farm itself was paid off.

If
they could pay it off.

He lifted his face to the heavens and prayed silently as he had many times over the past couple of weeks.
Rain, Lord. Please send more rain.
If they had any hope of saving Annalisa’s farm, they would need more rain. And soon.

Dust gritted Carl’s teeth and coated his tongue. He was more than ready for a water break.

As if reading his mind, Peter straightened and peered into the distance toward the women, who had congregated near Leonard’s cabin.

“Daughter!” Peter waved to Idette. “We need more water. We’re near to falling over from thirst.”

Peter’s booming voice carried across the distance, causing the women to turn their heads. Some were working on the big meal they would eat together at the end of the day. Others surrounded the ash hopper and were making lye from the ashes they’d brought for the occasion so that after hog butchering they could combine the lye with lard to make soap.

Carl wished he were tinkering around with the ash hopper rather than haying. Earlier, when he’d briefly examined the hollowed-out log used as a trough to store the ashes, his mind had designed a more efficient method for turning the ashes into lye.

He rested his pitchfork and wiped his sleeve across his forehead, which was sticky with flecks of hay. He breathed out a sigh of relief as Idette and another one of the farm wives started toward them with buckets of water.

For as long as he remained in this community, he had to remember his primary responsibility was farming, not inventing.

Annalisa’s well-being over the winter depended upon him and his work. He had no time for leisure experiments. He reminded himself that once he was in Chicago with Fritz, he’d have all the time he wanted for his inventions. He could endure farm life for another month, until after they finished the harvesting, couldn’t he? He’d survived spring and most of the summer. In
fact, he was surprised at how he’d not only survived, but how much he’d learned and grown through all of the labor.

If only he had the means to help Annalisa pay off her farm loan. Then he could count his time in Michigan a success.

He was ashamed to think of all the money he’d once expended on his expensive lab equipment, and all the time he’d given to his experiments. Compared to the daily struggles in this place simply to survive, his previous life now seemed frivolous, nothing more than the playtime of a rich nobleman’s son. What he wouldn’t give to have just a fraction of that money back. He’d not only be able to help Annalisa pay off her loan, he’d be able to provide many of the things they needed.

His gaze flitted over the group of women, until he found Annalisa sitting on a bench next to the cabin, changing Sophie. The shade hid her, but even so, he couldn’t deny his attraction to her.

“My daughter Annalisa is a fair and comely woman,” Peter said.

“She is indeed.”

Peter turned to look at Carl, his brow rising. Whenever Peter stared at him with his deeply probing eyes, Carl couldn’t keep from wondering if he was seeing his father there, for certainly he must have noticed Carl’s physical resemblance to the baron, his despised enemy.

“It’s too bad we haven’t received a letter from my brother, Matthias,” Peter said. “I’d like to know what’s happened to Dirk to delay his coming.”

Carl suspected that Peter’s cousin had died on the ship while making the crossing. He could think of no other explanation for why Matthias had not written to let them know of the delay, except that Matthias didn’t know Dirk had died and had assumed the man had arrived as planned.