The Nanny Solution, page 17
But here, well, the wood had to be outside. But she should first stir the embers to see if they would light.
They didn’t. She needed a match and kindling. Still stooped, she waited for Mitchell to leave the house. Then she’d find what she needed. She was not going to ask him.
Laughter peeled through the kitchen and Victoria spun. Seeing Mitchell throwing back his head, she stood. He’d laughed at her portmanteau, and now was laughing at her.
“What’s so funny now?”
“You. You took notes, no doubt watching a servant make a fire and now you think you can do it.”
“I can, oh, ye of little faith. I’m here to help you and the children.”
His laughter died. Then, keeping his focus on her, he took the few steps needed to stand far too close to her. His voice dropped. “I know you want to help, Victoria. And, yes, I shouldn’t laugh. This is serious.”
Her chin wrinkled. “You obviously don’t believe that.”
“I do. I just didn’t want you here because I thought you’d most likely take one look around you and turn tail back to your uncle’s house.”
“I would like to think that I am made of sturdier stock than that,” Victoria answered with arched brows.
“Are you? You needed to write down how to make a fire.”
“Ignorance isn’t the measure of a sturdy character, Mitchell. It’s what you do with your circumstances.” She tilted up her head to study his face. “Please let me try this.”
He shook his head gently. “And when you realize that you can’t do it and dash away home? Where will that leave my children?”
“I won’t go. But I can’t prove that to you because you refuse to swallow your pride and let me help.”
Mitchell stiffened. “I allowed you to come here, didn’t I? Isn’t that proof enough that I have swallowed my pride?”
She clicked her tongue. “Your consent wasn’t founded on conquered pride, Mitchell MacLeod. It was part urgent need and part expecting me to fail. Hoping I would fail.” Foolish tears stung her eyes. “I don’t think you’ve let go of an ounce of the pride in your heart.”
“Like you have?” he answered softly.
She lifted her chin. “Yes. I’ve learned a lot about myself these past few days.”
“And the pride and snobbery I saw on the train? I’d say it’s been replaced by pride in your accomplishments.” He flicked his head to indicate her notebook on the plain, planked floor. “But, Victoria, it’s still pride.”
Her throat tightened, a sure sign those ridiculous tears were going to spill out and run down her cheeks, making a mess of her face and dissolving her struggling courage.
No, she would not allow any failure. She wanted to help. He needed help. That was enough.
With an unladylike snort, she marched past him toward the kitchen door.
Outside, Victoria glanced around, her focus falling on a stack of firewood and the scraps of kindling raked beside it. She marched over to it, stooped and began to load up her arms. It was awkward and heavy. As she struggled to her feet, she felt the wood lifted from her.
Mitchell was taking her share. “Why, Victoria?”
“Why what?”
“Why come here and help me? You owe me nothing. In fact, I have yet to pay you the remaining salary I owe you because I didn’t want to leave the money with a servant and, frankly, I was too mad at you at the recording office. So, why try to learn things you will never need to know?”
Again, the heat of embarrassment rose in her, no doubt cementing Mitchell’s belief that she still had far too much pride. She wouldn’t stand there with her hand open, expecting him to pay her now. Still, she heard her stiff reply. “You know my situation.”
He shook his head. “I can presume some things, but I don’t know as much as you think I do.”
On the train, she had been sure that he had told her that he knew her plan. But now she wasn’t sure what he’d meant. What plan was he thinking of?
Did it matter? They stood there in the warmth of a fall sun. This morning had been brisk, with the hint of a light frost. The nice weather was ending. But in that moment, Mitchell’s gentle manner, his care for his children coaxed her to trust him with her deepest shame. Victoria could think of nothing but spilling out all her misfortune.
“My stepfather gambled away my entire inheritance. My mother had allowed him free access to my money because she felt it was unladylike to deal with it.” She blinked back fresh tears that threatened to water her view of Mitchell’s handsome face. “And when his debts became too large, he committed suicide. My mother was horrified, not because she’d lost a loved one, but because of the social stain it left on our family. She had been hoping that I would marry into one of the wealthy Brahmin families in Boston.”
“She actually abandoned you? Left you to deal with all of her husband’s mess?”
Victoria bit her lip. Suddenly, it felt important for Mitchell to understand the situation. She didn’t hold any malice toward her mother. Abigail was who she was, a woman who’d been taught to aim high on the social scale. In a way, Uncle Walter did the same here, vying to have the best home, the nicest things, to keep the money in the family by trying at first to marry his daughter, then his niece, to his business partner.
No, she wouldn’t focus on that.
She continued her story. “She couldn’t take me to her sister’s house in the Carolinas because my aunt is trying to marry off her unruly daughters.”
Understanding dawned on Mitchell’s face. “And you would be competition. I can see that.”
Her cheeks pinkened further. He thought she was beautiful enough to be competition? “My mother arranged to have the remaining assets, the house and summer home, liquidated to quietly pay off Charles’s debts so we didn’t become the scandal of the season. Mr. Lacewood had suggested that, I think in part because of my mother’s desire to keep the disgrace private. It was the only way out for her. She sent a telegram to her brother, Uncle Walter, and he agreed to take me in.”
“In return for what?”
Surprised he’d pegged Walter Smith so easily, she gave a vague shrug. “He’d hoped to pay for my train ticket so that I could repay his generosity by marrying his business partner.”
“Clyde Abernathy.” The name was spat forth in a disgusted tone.
“Yes.” She took back a few sticks of wood. “Mitchell, my mother also thought that Clyde would be suitable.”
“Is he?”
“Absolutely not! I want to live my own life and be responsible for it and not be owing to anyone. I don’t want to have to go to someone else just for a coin or two!” Feeling suddenly angry, she hauled back even more firewood and marched into the house. Having left the door and the window in the front room open, Victoria could already smell an improvement in the air. She dumped the firewood beside the stove and then peeked into the front room. Matthew and John were sleeping, while Mary and Ralph sat on the far tick, playing with some small wooden toys. Craning her head, Victoria peeked into the basket. Emily remained asleep.
She returned to the stove just as Mitchell entered. As they stooped in front of the fire, Victoria consulted her notebook again. She found the smallest scraps of wood and grass and made a bed of them inside the firebox. Then she carefully stacked the smallest kindling around it. Now she needed a match—
“Here, I use a fire piston.” Mitchell reached up and took down a small cylindrical metal and glass tube. “I don’t always have matches, but I have plenty of fine tinder to use for fire cloth.”
He pulled a metal box from behind the stove and opened it. It held torn pieces of rope. “I’ll show you.” He removed the piston and stuffed its small hollow end with a tiny piece of rope. Then, after reattaching the lid, he shoved the piston down hard. Immediately, the glass cylinder glowed, and just as quickly, Mitchell pulled out the piston. Then, while holding it in one hand, he freed his knife from the small scabbard on his belt, and picked out the burning ember and dropped it onto her bed of fine tinder. He leaned forward and gently blew until smoke trailed up.
Victoria started when a flame burst forth. Leaning back, Mitchell smiled at her.
“What a wonderful invention! I was just going to use a match.”
“Matches are a great invention, too, but they run out and are expensive. I keep this handy instead.”
Victoria glanced into the firebox, happy to see her bigger kindling already burning on the bed of old coals. She beamed back at Mitchell.
“Here is the stove’s damper. You can control the burning by opening it or shutting it.” He stood, showed her the handle, and then stooped again. He was still smiling at her, just inches from her face. “Thank you for coming, Victoria. I do appreciate it.”
Her own hesitant smile widened. “You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure.”
“Exactly what you want, then. To make your own decisions about what you want to do.”
“Yes!”
“What would your mother say?”
“I don’t plan to tell her.”
“You must be upset with her.”
She shook her head. “I’m not. She can’t help being who she is. And in a way, she believes she’s looking after me. Mother didn’t make the best decision, but I haven’t sometimes, either. I accepted your offer of employment to spite her. Oh, and to not be beholden to my uncle.”
Mitchell lifted his eyebrows and smiled. “No, really?”
The moment of companionable silence lingered. Victoria felt her heart thudding in her throat, but the doubt her aunt had seeded in her head sprouted again. Behind her, she could hear Emily cry out softly in her sleep.
“Mitchell, I need to know something. No, I mean I really need to know this.”
His guard rose. “Know what?”
“Why did you bring Emily here? You must have realized how difficult it would be for you to care for her and the other children and ranch at the same time. It’s just that Aunt Louise—”
“Your aunt may be a faithful supporter of our church, but she’s really not, how shall I say it? The most prudent woman.”
Victoria reluctantly agreed. What Mitchell was trying not to say was Aunt Louise liked to gossip. “But she raised a good point. One that has been unwittingly cultivated in her by my uncle’s behavior. She asked what your motive might be for bringing Emily here. Then when I discovered, quite accidentally, I assure you, even though you may not agree, that Emily has inherited her mother’s share of your ranch, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the reason.”
“As opposed to what? Bringing her here out of the goodness of my heart? You can’t find that possible?”
Her watery smile dissolved. “You have a great deal of goodness in your heart. But was that the reason, or was it so you would have full control of the ranch? I know it means a lot to you.”
Mitchell didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, as the heat in the stove grew, he said, “You’re right. I do care about this ranch, but I’d already decided I wouldn’t abandon Emily long before I read Lacewood’s letter saying Emily was half owner.”
Relief washed through Victoria. “So why did you bring her out here?”
“My family needs to stay together, now more than ever. It’s hardly the child’s fault that her mother—” He paused. “I’ve heard about children getting fostered out, only to die mysteriously. I couldn’t take that chance.”
He sighed. “Agnes and I didn’t love each other. Not like a husband and wife should love each other. Ours was a marriage meant to help Agnes out of dire poverty and help me settle down. You see, my parents wanted to leave me their farm, but I was a restless teenager. I wanted my own land, to build my own life, not to take over my father’s dream. In fact, that’s the last thing I wanted.
“When my mother traveled to Boston once, she met Agnes’s family. My parents then arranged my marriage to Agnes because her family was desperate and my mother knew that marriage shouldn’t be about the money, but about God’s will for us. My wife’s family had too many daughters. At first, we tried to make a normal life for ourselves, outside of Boston, with me working at a stable, but it wasn’t enough for me, and I think Agnes knew she wasn’t, either.”
“So you left?”
“It was only temporary. I came here to build this place. I even hoped for a while it would help our marriage. But it was doomed long before I moved out here. I don’t know who she met, or if that relationship meant anything to her, but when I returned, I discovered she’d died in childbirth and I knew I wasn’t the father. It still feels so strange. She did all that, and yet still took our children to church. It goes to show you that I don’t understand women, especially her.”
“Perhaps you feel responsible for Emily because you made mistakes where Agnes was concerned?” Victoria paused. “Have you forgiven her?”
His mouth thinned. She’d hit a nerve. A proud, tattered nerve.
“Do you forgive your mother for abandoning you?” he snapped back.
Her heart faltered a little but she knew the answer. “Yes. How can I call myself a Christian if I don’t? How can I think that her sins are worse than mine?”
“You can’t.”
Victoria shrugged. “No. Besides, she is still my mother. She hurt me because I care for her. I have to decide what is more important. My love for her, or her mistakes. It’s my love that’s more important. Do you understand? I have to learn to forgive those I care for.”
* * *
Mitch stilled, then stood abruptly, Victoria’s words ringing in his ears like the church bell on a crisp morning. He’d cared for Agnes. He hadn’t loved her, but he had respected her. Then she’d torn apart that respect and shamed him. It was different than what Victoria had experienced. The shame was more on her stepfather than on her mother. He’d been trying to explain how he felt to Victoria and she’d posed an unanswerable question.
Much more slowly, Victoria rose. “What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“No, it’s something. I’m here to help you, not just around the house, but in other matters, too. Is it about someone you loved? Or your late wife?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He hastily closed the wood stove’s door. “You’ve got your fire. Now you can do all those things you’ve learned. I have other things that need tending. My dog has been injured.”
“Your dog? What happened?”
“He was attacked by the neighbor’s dogs. They were set loose in my pasture to disrupt my herd. In fact, they caused a stampede that killed several of the heifers that I had sold but not yet delivered. I have to decide which of the others I should offer as replacements. But the heifers that died had been hand-picked, so I don’t know what the other ranchers will want to do.”
Victoria gasped. “I’m so sorry. And your poor dog. Will he recover?”
He walked to the door. “He’ll be fine soon enough, but I need to see to the herd.”
“Those men, especially the brothers, will they accept your other heifers? They were reluctant to buy from you in the first place. They wanted older, good stock heifers that had been bred early.”
At the door now, he turned back, sharply. “How do you know all that? I only mentioned heifers to you, not that they were older and from good stock.”
Victoria clamped shut her mouth as her eyes widened. She finally asked, “Didn’t Jake tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
She bit her bottom lip.
“Victoria,” he warned. “What did you do?”
Victoria swallowed and smoothed her dress. “I arranged for the sale of your heifers. Jake told me those ranchers were too intimidated to buy them directly from you, so I worked as an intermediary.”
His brows shot up. “You know how to do that?”
“Of course. A good marriage arrangement is often facilitated by a third party who knows both sides, usually after a courtship to see if the couple is compatible. You said your marriage was arranged, so didn’t you know the intermediaries?”
“Yes, they were my parents and Agnes’s parents. But I hadn’t realized that you would know so much.”
“I’ve watched my mother and stepfather act as the third party several times.” Her expression saddened. “Selling a bride isn’t much different than selling heifers. And sometimes, like when I sold your heifers, it’s done quietly because the bride’s reputation has been compromised.”
“Too bad you lost your fortune. You could have arranged a suitable marriage for yourself.” Despite knowing his pride had been pricked, Mitch cringed. He hadn’t meant for his comment to make it sound as if Victoria was some conniving old woman. Or a heifer.
Victoria, to her credit, blushed and appeared to take his accidental insult with a grain of salt. “I had started a courtship with a young Brahmin man, but even Boston’s elite prefer wealth over anything else. I should have read the writing on the wall when Mother told me she was sending me here. She told me she couldn’t arrange a hasty marriage. I know now that if the wedding had gone ahead, there would have been a terrible disgrace once the family discovered I had no fortune and yet if they’d learned beforehand of my dire financial straits, they’d have backed out and there would have been an embarrassing situation the likes of which we hadn’t seen before.”
“There is more to a decision to marry than just wealth.” He frowned and stared pointedly at her. “But let us stick to the point, Victoria. This isn’t about marriage. It’s about my herd. You sold my heifers?”
* * *
Victoria couldn’t believe her ears. Was he still on about that? “I only acted as intermediary. I convinced the ranchers your livestock was well worth the money, and no one was going to threaten them because they couldn’t prove the heifers came from you. I actually bought them using Rachel’s money, sold them to those ranchers, and then returned the money to Rachel. So technically, Rachel bought and sold them.”
