Courting Susannah Read online

  Susannah closed the doors crisply behind her and made for the kitchen, where she found Ellie rolling out dough for biscuits. Jasper, quiet and well behaved, was sitting on the floor, over by the cookstove, playing with a set of wooden blocks.

  Maisie, of course, would be upstairs in the nursery.

  Susannah mounted the rear stairway and moved along the corridor to the door.

  “Maisie?”

  The answer was nearly toneless. “Come in.”

  Heaving a sigh of relief, Susannah opened the door and stepped into the nursery. Maisie sat in a rocking chair, Victoria in her arms, both of them covered with a quilt. Even in the dim light of a bleak winter day, Susannah could see that the other woman’s eyes were red-rimmed.

  Susannah went to stand beside Maisie’s chair, laying a hand on her shoulder.

  “You mean to leave Seattle,” Maisie ventured after a long time. “You and the baby here.” Susannah offered no denial.

  Maisie hugged little Victoria so close that the child fidgeted. “I heard you talkin’, you and Mr. Fairgrieve.” Susannah nodded. “I’m sorry, Maisie. I thought I could live with a husband who didn’t love me, but—”

  “Hush,” Maisie complained. “He does love you. It’s just that his heart hasn’t told his head the whole truth of things, that’s all.”

  That, Susannah thought, was too much to hope for—a lovely fantasy. She shifted her thoughts from her own problems, her own heartbreak. She was needed in this household, at least until the latest crisis had passed. She drew up a hassock and sat down near Maisie’s chair. “Never mind about Aubrey and me,” she said gently. “Right now, we have to think of other matters.”

  Maisie sat up a little straighter, her expression faintly hopeful as she peered through the gloom. She sniffled. “Turn up the lights, will you?”

  Susannah rose and reached for the key on the nearest wall fixture. The flame leaped to life, spilling a soft glow down the wall and over the quilt, the baby, and Maisie’s tear-stained face.

  “You need to eat something if you can,” Susannah said. “Or at least have a cup of tea.”

  The answer was a negative shake of the head. Maisie stared off into the ether, her gaze fixed, as though seeing a specter in the near distance. “She cursed us all, you know. Mrs. Fairgrieve, I mean. Lyin’ there on her death bed, she damned every last one of us to hell. Seems like she’s got her way.”

  The revelation startled Susannah more than a little, though she tried not to let on. “I don’t believe in curses,” she said after a time with quiet conviction. “Besides, Julia must have been out of her head. She didn’t know what she was saying.”

  Maisie’s brow was furrowed, but some of her color was coming back. “It was the medicine Mrs. Fairgrieve took,” she murmured. “It made her crazy.”

  Susannah’s heart raced. “Medicine?”

  “Laudanum. When the doctor wouldn’t give it to her no more, she’d go down to some place on the waterfront.” She met Susannah’s gaze, looking ashamed. “I wanted to tell Mr. Fairgrieve. I should have. But she said she’d see me and Jasper turned out onto the street if I said anything.”

  Susannah waited, barely breathing. Good God, she thought, what had become of the Julia she’d known, the sunny, feckless creature, always laughing or spinning some happy scheme?

  This information gave her a place to start, though, in making sense of things, something to tell Aubrey and, of course, the police. She had no illusions, after her experience of the wharf, that she could navigate the area on her own.

  “There was one feller came around to the back door with a package sometimes—real short and meanlookinŽ, he was.” Maisie shuddered slightly. “He and Mrs. Fairgrieve, they always talked real earnest like, and she would give him money.”

  Susannah wondered if Maisie knew about the herbal concoction Julia had taken in an effort to bring on an abortion. After a moment’s consideration, she decided to let the subject lie, at least for the time being.

  “You look all done in, Maisie,” she said instead. “You go to your room and rest. I’ll bring you a supper tray and some tea.”

  Maisie nodded and sat back in the rocking chair, staring blindly up at the ceiling.

  Within half an hour, Ellie had taken charge of Victoria, and Susannah had helped Maisie to her room, settling her gently on the bed. She served the promised tea, and Jasper, no doubt sensing his mother’s sadness and exhaustion, stretched out beside her, trying to encircle her with his little arms.

  Susannah kept a vigil of sorts, standing at the window and gazing outward as a new snow began to fall.

  “Is that policeman still here?” Maisie asked in a hoarse whisper when some time had gone by.

  “I suppose he might be,” she said, “if he hasn’t taken Ethan to jail.”

  Jasper stirred fitfully beside his mother but didn’t awaken.

  “You reckon he knows, little as he is?” Maisie asked. “What’s happenin’ to all of us, I mean?”

  “Probably not,” Susannah answered at some length, gazing wistfully at the child. “I’m sure he senses that something is wrong, though. He’ll need an extra measure of attention, I suppose—more holding, more soft words and loving touches.” When she looked at Maisie again after a long while, she was surprised to find the other woman smiling at her.

  “You know a lot about motherin’ for a spinster,” she said.

  Susannah assumed a pose of mild offense. “I am not a spinster,” she pointed out. No, indeed, she thought, with a certain sharp grimness. She was neither an old maid nor a bride, for all that she’d entered into the folly of a loveless marriage and given herself to Aubrey with abandon. Her passion for him might well be the ruin of her entire life.

  She stood and collected the tray, ready to leave.

  It was plain that Maisie could see more in Susannah’s face than she had ever wanted to reveal. She smiled a little, though her countenance was one of sadness. “You’re full of love, Susannah Fairgrieve,” she said. “Burstin’ with it. Don’t you give up on that man out there, you hear me? He’s a lot of trouble, but he’s good right down to the marrow in his bones, and you could look the whole world over without findin’ a better husband.”

  Susannah paused in the doorway. “He doesn’t love me,” she said, all misery, and was immediately chagrined for bringing up such a petty problem when Ethan, or even Aubrey, might be facing imprisonment and hanging.

  Maisie waved a hand, dismissing the comment. “He’s like one of them trees out there,” she said, apparently referring to the far-reaching timber rising around Seattle like a green mantle. “He’s been in shallow ground, without enough sunshine or water neither one. You turn some of that love on him, missy, and watch what happens.”

  “Sometimes,” Susannah said, after a moment spent scrambling for her tongue, “you amaze me.”

  “Turn out this here light before you go,” Maisie said, settling in for a sound sleep. “I’d do it myself, but I feel plumb tuckered.”

  With a small smile, Susannah went back, set the tray on the bureau top, and reached up to turn down the gas. Maisie was snoring before she reached the door.

  Leaving Maisie and Jasper’s room, Susannah found that Mr. Hollister and the policeman had gone, taking Ethan with them. Aubrey was there in the kitchen, lifting pot lids and peering beneath them, evidently in search of supper. There was no sign of Ellie or of little Victoria.

  She took two plates from the shelf and set them on the table, then added napkins and cutlery. The food—stewed meat of some sort, dumplings, and corn kernels from a tin—had cooled and had begun to congeal. Susannah served it exactly as it was, pots, kettles, and all.

  Aubrey surveyed the repast with a sort of rueful amusement. While Susannah took the chair opposite, he remained standing, prodding at the brown, stringy meat with a fork. “What is this?” he asked, clearly mystified.

  “I have no idea,” Susannah answered. “Sit down, Aubrey. I’m hungry.”

  “You mu
st be,” he retorted easily, but he sat and served himself generous portions of Ellie’s cooking.

  All of the sudden, she was bursting to tell him what she’d learned about the man who had sold Julia laudanum, but she knew his energies were depleted and he needed sustenance. His brother had just been arrested for the second time, he might be taken into custody himself very soon, and it had not been long, after all, since he’d sustained severe injuries.

  “You look,” he observed between bites, “as if you’re about to shoot out of that chair like a Chinese rocket, spilling sparks on your way to the sky. What, pray tell, is on your mind, Mrs. Fairgrieve?”

  Unlike her husband, eating heartily now, she found the food unpalatable and pushed her plate away. “Maisie told me that Julia used to go to a place on the waterfront,” she confided, leaning forward slightly. “She encountered a man there—”

  Aubrey’s jaw tightened at this observation, but he did not interrupt. She felt like a traitor to her friend’s memory, but she went on anyway. “Maisie said he came to the house several times, with—with laudanum. She described him as small and cruel-looking.”

  “And?”

  Susannah felt her face go warm with conviction and shame, though she couldn’t quite pinpoint the source of the latter. “Don’t you see? If Mr. Su was murdered because of something he knew—well, isn’t it possible that he was acquainted with the people involved in Mrs. Parker’s killing as well as your beating?”

  “That’s quite a leap,” Aubrey remarked, pondering the unnamed meat, then opting for a second helping of dumplings instead. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you what Hollister is going to say—that Ethan and I—even you, for that matter—all had viable reasons to commit the crime.”

  “Well, we didn’t,” Susannah said, “and that’s the point. I think this man Maisie told me about might know something. Mr. Hollister has got to find him.”

  “Hollister has his hands full as it is. I’ll find him myself. Did Maisie have a name?” Susannah shook her head. “Ethan—Ethan’s gone back to jail?”

  “No,” Aubrey said, surprising her. “He’s in John Hollister’s custody for the time being.”

  “Is he all right?” She wondered how Ethan’s discovery about Su Lin would affect his tender alliance with Ruby.

  Aubrey’s mood darkened slightly; he looked grim and not a little discouraged. “No,” he answered with a shake of his head. “He will be, in time, I think. In the meantime, we’ve managed to strike an uneasy truce, he and I. Ethan has a long memory where my transgressions—be they real or imagined—are concerned.”

  Susannah took a breath, let it out. “Not so long ago,” she began, “you were the one holding the grudge, remember? You thought Ethan and Julia had been intimate.”

  Finished with his meal, Aubrey stood, without responding, and pushed his chair back into place with one hand. In the other, he held his plate, which he carried to the sink.

  “It’s time there was peace in this family,” Susannah said gently. “And happiness.”

  Aubrey’s eyes were solemn when he looked at her. “I agree,” he said. “Perhaps you can tell me how to achieve those worthy objectives?”

  She sighed but made no answer, for she had none.

  Aubrey came to her, bent, and placed a gentle kiss on top of her head. “I won’t be out late,” he told her, and then, as simply as that, he was gone.

  They came in the depths of the night, the men who had killed Delphinia and attacked Aubrey in his office over the store; Susannah heard them on the stairs, in the corridor. For one brief, desperate moment, she thought she was merely dreaming, but when she opened her eyes, the sounds did not stop.

  She reached out automatically, reached for Aubrey, but his side of the bed was empty, and the covers had not been disturbed at all. Worse still, Victoria was nearby, in the nursery, and the intruders were sure to find her.

  That thought galvanized Susannah, broke the paralysis of fear that had held her pressed to the mattress, her hands clenching the blankets. Heart pounding at the base of her throat, she rolled out of bed onto her feet and made her way toward the child. The murmur in the hall intensified, shaped itself into the occasional word or a low chuckle. Plainly, these outlaws did not fear discovery, and the implications of that scared Susannah almost as much as the situation itself.

  If only she’d locked the bedroom door, she thought frantically, uselessly, as she groped her way through the darkness, arms extended before her like a sleepwalker in a melodrama, she might have gained a few minutes in which to save Victoria and herself. Because Aubrey had been out when she retired, because, right or wrong, she had wanted him to lie beside her, to hold her, it would not have occurred to her to turn the key.

  Using the passage adjoining the master suite to the nursery, she rushed to the crib and gathered Victoria, a warm and solid bundle, into her arms and dashed back into her own room and Aubrey’s just as the door sprang open. She clutched the baby against her chest, brushed her lips across the small, downy head, and prayed silently. There was no way out, no place to hide.

  Two men entered the master chamber, shadows in the gloom, and one of them turned up the gaslights.

  “He ain’t here,” sputtered the smaller of the pair, glaring around him until his gaze fell on Susannah and Victoria. If he wasn’t the person Maisie had seen at the back door with Julia, he certainly resembled him. He had small, colorless eyes, pitted skin, and a hard mouth, thin as the slash of a knife.

  The other stared at Susannah. “But she is,” he said, and smiled.

  A searing chill rushed through Susannah. “Don’t come any closer,” she warned, all bravado. They were armed; both carried a pistol, and the little one had a blade thrust beneath his belt. She had no weapons at all except her instincts. Her concerns had all boiled down to one, in just an instant: she had to protect Victoria.

  “Pretty little thing, all right,” the second man mused, as though she hadn’t spoken. He let his gaze drift over Susannah’s trailing hair and practical flannel nightgown with slow impudence. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

  Susannah had never in her life been so frightened or, conversely, so deadly calm. She held Victoria more tightly, and the child began to cry. There were others in the hall; she heard their footfalls, heard a curse and the crash of a vase falling to the floor.

  Where was Aubrey? Dear God, Susannah thought, don’t let him be dead.

  The tall man took a step toward her.

  “Stay back,” Susannah warned. Victoria began to scream.

  “Do something with that kid,” the short one commanded.

  Susannah bounced the child in her arms and patted her back, trying hard to comfort her. “What do you want?”

  The ringleader merely smiled at her, sending another chill skittering along the length of her spine. Then, incomprehensibly, he started making his way around the room, turning up the gaslights. It was then that Susannah smelled the first fumes, just beginning to roll in from the hallway.

  The little man pulled a bandanna out of his pants pocket and pressed it to his face, then went to the door and shouted, “Send that woman in here to get this kid—my eardrums is about to split wide open!”

  Maisie, Susannah thought in despair. Were she and Jasper safe in their room, undiscovered? Or had they already been asphyxiated by the escaping gas? How long could Victoria breathe the stuff without being overcome?

  Ellie stumbled over the threshold, looking more sullen than surprised, and Susannah realized with a shock that the woman knew these men. She was fully dressed, and she did not meet Susannah’s gaze as she crossed to her and reached for the squalling baby.

  “Let me take her,” she mumbled. “I promise she’ll come to no harm.”

  Susannah had little choice, given the fact that the leader had begun to retrace his steps from one light fixture to another, calmly blowing out each flame without turning off the lethal vapors. “I swear by all that’s holy,” she vowed in an angry whisper, surrendering
the precious child with the greatest reluctance, “if any harm comes to this child, I will find you, and I will kill you with my own hands.” By then, Susannah was coughing intermittently, and her eyes burned. She wondered how long she could remain conscious.

  “Why are you doing this?” she demanded of the two men.

  “Tie her up, and let’s get out of here before the place blows,” urged the leader.

  His partner was standing directly in front of Susannah now. He clasped her chin hard and forced her to look up at him. “It’s a shame,” he mused, ignoring his partner’s insistent plea. “A damn shame.” Then, without further warning, he raised one hand and struck Susannah with such violence that the very darkness itself came inside her, entering through every pore, snuffing out all conscious thought.

  The smell of gas struck Aubrey like a cudgel the moment he opened the front door. “Jesus God,” he gasped, and, pulling a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his coat, covered his nose and mouth.

  “Get Susannah and the baby,” Ethan said, coming in behind him. “I’ll look for Maisie and Jasper.”

  Aubrey was already taking the stairs two and three at a time. “For God’s sake, hurry!” he yelled over one shoulder. “And be careful!” The house was as black as the inside of the devil’s heart, but he dared not strike a match, of course; he felt his way along the corridor, cursing himself for a fool as he went and, at the same time, begging God’s mercy for his wife and child.

  Stumbling into the bedroom at last, already choking on the poisonous air, he went to the bed first, found it empty. Then he saw her, because of the whiteness of her nightgown, lying on the floor near the hearth. He did not bother to feel for a pulse but simply draped her limp and motionless frame over one shoulder.

  The crib in the next room was empty, a fact that terrified him; he deliberated for a few moments, then set Susannah on her feet, holding her by the shoulders, and shook her hard, shouting her name. Her head lolled.

  “Susannah!” he bellowed. “Where’s the baby?”

  Miraculously, she answered, murmuring like someone talking in her sleep. “Gone—Ellie took her—gone—”