Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 1) (11 page)

She slipped into a deep exhausted slumber, memories of the past weeks drifting in and out of her head.

      “Rebecca is going to have her supper in her room,” Elgerson informed his son somewhat briskly as he returned to his room to gather the boy.

      Mark’s face showed obvious disappointment. The boy was looking forward to having her join them, certain that Rebecca would appreciate a meal in the fancy dining room. Mother always loved being in town and looked so pretty in the candlelight, her face glowing with pleasure.

      The boy’s mood frustrated Elgerson, having seen Mark’s attitude so obviously improved by the girl’s company. He had planned to visit the carriage stop, and the telegraph office to see if there was any word on the woman he had sent for. An inquiry at the hotel desk assured that the woman had not checked in. Perhaps Bess had been correct and the woman would not make it. The memory of Rebecca’s obvious fondness for the boy made him sure that the boy needed a woman’s attention, perhaps more than that of a father. Elgerson decided that maybe he should think about a woman among those that he knew. If he were willing to marry someone purely for the benefit of his son and not for love it might be worth considering. A picture of Octavia Weintraub popped into his mind and his mood darkened.

      The two began their dinner quietly, Timothy telling himself that the girl had the right to eat where she pleased. Certainly, once she was situated and had spoken to the sheriff, she would continue on her journey.

      Mark was eager to get home and excited that Rebecca was joining them. He began to devise a plan to approach his father with the suggestion that Rebecca stay with them, although he had not figured out just what the woman might do. She could cook a bit, but they had a cook already, a talented woman of whom his father was fond. Mark decided that he had better come up with something else the woman might do. Suddenly he had the perfect idea! Rebecca could tutor him! She had studied with him at the cabin and it seemed like a wonderful plan. Unable to contain himself and his brilliant plan he poured the idea out to his father.

      “Pa!” the boy blurted out excitedly. “Rebecca can live with us!”

      “What?” Timothy was pulled away from his reverie. “Rebecca doesn’t need to live with us, Mark. I’m sure she has her own family somewhere who are worried about her and she’ll want to get home as soon as possible.” 

      Rebecca had spoken so little about her own home and family it hadn’t struck Mark that the woman had anywhere to go before now. He just figured she’d stick around there. He had stopped thinking about her possibly going anywhere else. He had wondered when he first found her where she had come from, but, since she seemed to avoid the topic whenever he had asked, he’d given up questioning her. Now his father’s words made sense and Mark began to realize that Rebecca might move on. He knew she had no money and thought that if she were able to afford transportation she would undoubtedly want to go to her own family and home now. His father would surely give her whatever she needed as soon as she asked. Mark grew silent in the devastating realization that Rebecca would be leaving.

      “She’s going up to the house with us tomorrow though, right?” he asked hopefully after careful thought.

      “Yes, and in the morning we’ll pick up the clothing we ordered before we head up. We’ll take her home and she’ll meet with the sheriff and once he is finished we’ll look into arranging her trip home.” Although he had imagined from the beginning that this would be the plan, Elgerson found he was a little disappointed at the thought of the girl leaving himself, and not only for the boy’s sake.

      Something about the unusual woman made him uneasy, yet he found she was almost constantly on his mind. Soon she’d be gone, he thought to himself, and no longer his concern.

      Timothy watched the boy pushing food about on his plate listlessly and cursed to himself.   

Chapter Fifteen

 
R
ebecca
sat in her coach in the late night fog, wrapping her cloak tightly around her shoulders and listening to her driver curse the cracked wheel. London’s shops were long closed and the street lay damp and deserted. In the mist a fine black carriage approached, its door opening to her.

      “Come in, I’ll get you home,” a masculine voice beckoned.

      She could not see the face of the man, but was sure she recognized the voice and felt safe as she took his extended hand and climbed inside of the rich vehicle. He pulled her in, close to him and held her warmly, driving out the night’s chill and quickening her heartbeat. She turned her face to him, surrendering to his warmth.

      “It’s alright,” the deep baritone of the man’s voice was smooth and comforting and Rebecca felt him pressing his lips hot against her own. He held her tightly and she hungered for his touch as she slipped her hands around his neck and yielded to him. His golden hair felt silky through her fingers as she ran her digits through it eagerly, devouring his kisses as she felt his hand cupping her breast.

      His face was so familiar and she tried to make out his features, writhing in hunger and ecstasy as he stroked her breast and whispered to her.

      “Timothy,” she whispered.

      “Timothy!” the man bellowed. “Timothy?”

      Rebecca pulled away abruptly and recognized David’s angry face inches from her own.

      “You bloody bitch!” he spat at her. “How dare you accuse me of infidelity while you come to me using another man’s name!”

      Rebecca fought to free herself from her husband screaming at him in return. “You drunken sot! How dare you! All of those women! If you had given any thought to me, if I had any value to you, you would have never wasted everything on them and the gambling tables! You gave away everything and drank our marriage away. You left me! You left me with nothing but your wretched corpse to identify! Did you ever think that when you owed so much that those men wouldn’t kill you? Did it ever occur to you that I was waiting all those months, all those nights, watching for you sick with worry, knowing you’d stumble in, stinking of alcohol and lying to my face? How could you, David? You were my husband, my partner. How could you humiliate me so horribly?”

      David pulled at her dress and exposed her shoulder with a loud rip. She turned to fend him off and met the glaring face of Timothy, his eyes crazed with anger.

      “What kind of person are you, Rebecca? You picture bride!” he roared.

      Timothy Elgerson rose at sunrise and hurried through a morning bath. He woke his sleeping son, rushed through breakfast and headed out to run his errands in hopes of reaching home before noon. Leaving the boy outside, he checked the carriage stop and found no news of the woman he had sent for by mail order. Stopping by the hardware store, he placed a large order while the boy examined the bins of nails and fiddled with the tools. High above the long expanse of counters was a gleaming black bicycle. The cycles had gained popularity in prosperous Billington and Mark even had the chance to sit upon one once, but never one of his own. Elgerson finished his order with the clerk at the counter, arranged for a wagon at the store and towed Mark off to his next errand.

      After placing a grocery order he rushed to Anja’s shop and he and the boy gathered the armful of parcels and packets and carried them back to the waiting buckboard.

      When they approached the wagon Mark gasped in surprise at the sight of the gleaming bicycle among the parcels and barrels.

      “Oh, Pa!” The boy was overcome with pleasure. “Thank you!” He hugged the man tightly around the waist.

      Timothy was pleased at the boy’s reaction, excited himself in the brisk fall morning for the first time in years to be headed home.

      “You deserve it, boy.” The father looked down at the boy’s wide grin. “I’m sorry I left you at the cabin for such a long time. It won’t happen again.”

      “It’s alright, Pa. It couldn’t be helped. Can I ride it after we unload at the house? I think I know how.”

      “There’ll be plenty to do at the house before the gathering tonight, but if you have time, I suppose so.”

      Mark tried to hurry his father along the street, eager to gather up Rebecca and get home.

      Rebecca woke, her silk robe drenched through and her delicate lingerie clinging to her skin. She covered her face in fear, crying bitterly and she rubbed her eyes hard trying to shake off the terrifying nightmare. For months after David’s murder she had dreamt of him, arguing with him in her sleep in a way they had never done when he was alive. Her anger and frustration had revealed themselves to her in her sleep. Rebecca tried her best to be a loving and accepting wife to him, never speaking about her suspicion of her husband’s disloyalty, even to herself.

      In the time she had spent at the cabin with Mark, the nightmares had disappeared. Evil things had her waking and screaming in the night in terror, always portraying David as a monster, insulting and abusive to her. Rebecca had been sure that the day she had identified her husband’s battered and bloody body that somehow she was responsible for his death. In her attempt to fulfill her responsibilities as a loving wife she tried to ignore all of the evidence. As she looked at David in death she believed she had killed him herself by not loving him enough to protect him from his vices.

      Their match had been so unlikely, David nearly twenty years her senior and given to such boisterous ways, and Rebecca so young, reserved and inexperienced. Her family had loved David and his charming posture and, when her parents had died, he’d asked her to marry him and she had agreed. Youthful and devastated, with no family, it had not occurred to her that David had really fallen in love with her inheritance. Rebecca had been flattered at his proposal and he was the answer to her fears of living alone. She had agreed and they were married immediately. Rebecca’s denial of David’s infidelities had begun straight away when, on her honeymoon, he left their bed and did not return for three days. Almost immediately he showed no interest in intimacy with her and Rebecca blamed herself, believing she was skinny and unappealing and a miserable failure as a wife and lover.

      She could not understand Timothy’s part in her vivid dream and was immensely embarrassed when she recalled him fondling her in her fantasy. How bold of her imagination to conjure up such a thing as making love to the man, but she knew exactly what his insult at her waking moment meant and she vowed to tell no one how she had come to be in the territory. Should anyone ask she was simply passing through when taken by Bedra, on her way to somewhere else, anywhere else, to make a new life. Rebecca shivered in the covers. Soaked with resolve, she heard a soft tap at the door.

      Mark did not wait for her reply but began to call to her announcing that they were ready to travel home.

      Rebecca wrapped herself in the coverlet and opened the door to the keyed up boy.

      “Oh, Rebecca, hurry and get dressed! We’re ready to go home, and wait until you see what Pa has!” The boy bounced around the big room excitedly. “We got you a dress and all that stuff and guess what?”

      Rebecca chuckled and peered out into the hall in search of the boy’s father. “What?” she asked absently.

      “Look, Rebecca! Pa got me a bicycle!”

      “How exciting, Mark!” Rebecca turned her attention to the lively child and rubbed the sides of his head briskly.

      “I’ll hurry and dress. Where’s your father now?”

      “He’s waiting downstairs. He’s got the wagon loaded up and he’s checking us out of our rooms now. Hurry! We’re going home!” The boy pushed the petite woman towards the bathroom handing her the neatly folded boy’s clothing from the nearby chair.

      Rebecca dressed hastily as she thought about Timothy, still wrestling with the vivid memory of her dream. She tried to fill out the details of the story she had decided to tell, hoping that careful planning would make her lie seem more believable. Rolling her moist lingerie carefully in a bundle, the delicate pieces being too damp to wear, she grabbed a handful of fruit from the bowl, filled her pockets, stuffed her hair into the felt cap and followed Mark down the hall.

            Rebecca was seized by the boy’s excitement, and her relief at devising her lie. No one had to know why she came and she felt set free by the thought. She was no longer a ‘picture bride’. She was simply a young woman who had met with a terrible accident on the way to another world.

      Mark ran around the corner of the hall towards the stairs and Rebecca bounded after him. She landed with a thud against the solid chest of Timothy Elgerson and he caught her by both arms as she bounced off of him from the sudden impact, nearly losing her footing.

      “Good morning!” he grinned, standing  Rebecca up in front of him.

      Rebecca felt her face flush as she faced the man and his deep voice brought her back to her dream. She stood for a moment looking into his eyes and Timothy froze in her gaze.

      “Hurry up!” Mark called from the bottom of the stairs and Rebecca broke off her exchange with the towering male and tried to compose herself as she headed down the stairs.

      Outside Mark was chattering on about his gift, attempting to pull Rebecca up into the seat of the old buckboard, while the girl seemed to unable to get good footing in her boots. Hesitant as exactly how to help the girl, Timothy offered his hand, resisting the temptation to grab and lift her from around her waist. Rebecca looked briefly into his face and placed her tiny hand into his firm palm delicately. Her touch unnerved Elgerson and, as she stepped up to the vehicle’s bench, Rebecca’s boot slipped and she fell back against his chest. With no alternative in the girl’s awkward position, he was forced to grab her by her slender hips and deposit her into the seat.

      Rebecca brushed herself off absently and settled into the seat quite properly as Timothy stood watching. Even in her laughable clothing and the comical hat, the strange girl behaved as if she were some kind of royalty and he shook his head and circled behind the backboard, checking the tethers of his two horses behind the buggy. He was sure he’d never fathom the young woman.

      As Timothy lifted her into the seat, Rebecca thought how strange it was that the man had her feeling so on edge one moment, and so at ease the next. Tall as an oak in his stacked leather boots and wearing a well-traveled oilcloth duster he was an imposing figure, but Rebecca thought it was more than his tall stature that made her feel so flustered. For all of his impressive size he seemed warm hearted, if puzzling, in his mannerisms. Although she had seen him at his most violent she thought that he was probably not easily angered and his fondness and patience with his son was often apparent.

      Both adults rode in silence, Elgerson going over his plans for meeting with Sheriff Ben Carson and bracing himself for the evening’s gathering. He glanced sidelong at Rebecca occasionally as she perched upright studying every detail of the landscape.

      Mark chattered on, pleased over his new bike and anxious to at last be going home.

      Watching the countryside expectantly, Rebecca marveled at the dazzling blue skies and towering pines. They passed rivers blocked expertly by beaver dams and she often caught sight of the tiny white tails of deer fleeing into the forest. The woodland opened to a wide meadow, exposing a vast lake, hectic with the honking of trumpeter swans, pure white and glistening in the morning sun.

      Timothy gestured towards the sky in the distance as an enormous eagle circled overhead and Rebecca pulled the brisk air into her lungs and sighed. For the first time in this rugged land she felt the exhilaration of the beautiful landscape and virgin wilderness and she began to look ahead expectantly to Mark and Timothy’s home. She felt that even if they lived inside of logs it might be acceptable in the astounding surroundings.

      Mark began to squirm excitedly as they entered a dark road leading into deep woods, announcing that they were nearly there and tugging impatiently at Rebecca’s arm. His exuberance was so engaging and the girl so expectant that Timothy Elgerson, too, began to feel excitement, seeing his home for the first time through the eyes of a stranger, as he pulled the buckboard around a tight bend toward his property.

      Towering rows of black maple bordered the road, spreading dense branches, which arched above their heads. As the road widened broadly before them, it seemed to Rebecca as if something, somehow was anticipating their approach. A vibrant red cardinal flew across the back of the horses chirping sharply and disappearing into the trees. Leaves drifted down upon the riders from the thick canopy of vivid foliage of bright greens, vivid oranges and deep reds.