Yankee Wife Page 3

  “That's what I'd like to know,” put in Polly. Lydia thought distractedly that the other woman had shown amazing restraint by waiting so long to enter the conversation. “How could you, Devon?”

  Mr. Quade let go of Lydia's shoulders to run one hand through his windblown, butterscotch hair. He sighed gravely. “I thought I'd made the situation plain,” he reiterated, and to her own great amazement, Lydia believed him. “I'm sorry. You'd be a fine companion to Brigham's children, and you're a handsome woman in the bargain. I'm certain it will only be a matter of time before my brother recognizes your many fine qualities and asks you to marry him.”

  Lydia nodded woodenly, turned and groped her way a little distance down the railing. Her thoughts were spinning around her like so many chattering birds, and it was a moment before she could settle her mind enough to think.

  Soon, for Lydia was no stranger to crisis, she was able to examine the situation calmly. She did not love Devon Quade, though there was no denying that he was a spectacular-looking man with exceedingly fine prospects. She would not be required to pledge eternal loyalty and obedience to him, nor to share his bed.

  Furthermore, since Devon's brother wasn't expecting a potential wife to be delivered to his doorstep, he wouldn't be waiting at the base of the wharf with a preacher and a handful of wildflowers. Lydia had been given a reprieve, uncertain as it was, and perhaps Mr. Brigham Quade would hire her as a governess to his children and expect nothing more of her.

  Lydia drew in a deep, restorative breath, watching San Francisco recede from sight, feeling the sea roll beneath her like some great, undulating beast.

  Lydia had become expert at adjusting herself to reality, however harsh. For the next few days, she kept to herself, contemplating the adventure that lay before her. She ate, though very lightly, walked along the decks, and was civil to Devon whenever he dared to address her. Which wasn't often.

  Seattle turned out to be a ramshackle town, just a few unpainted frame buildings clinging to impossibly steep hills and flanked by dense, primordial forest. Here and there the stump of some ancient evergreen rose in the middle of a muddy street, and piles of clay-streaked dirt, sawdust, and scrap lumber attested to great personal industry on the part of certain citizens. The beer halls, doing a rousing business in those drizzly morning hours, gave raucous comment on the habits of still others. Mill saws screamed and the misty air was thick with the smells of newly sawed wood, fir sap, smoke, and horse manure.

  Lydia felt a vague stirring in the depths of her heart, a heart she'd deliberately rendered numb long since, when she'd looked upon her first wounded soldier.

  A tendril of hair danced against her cheek, and the wind brought a taste of saltwater to her lips, faintly reminiscent of tears. Lydia could not remember the last time she'd really cried; perhaps it had been at her mother's funeral, when she was a small child.

  She stood a bit straighter in her accustomed place at the railing of the steamer San Francisco, and even managed a smile for Polly, who beamed upon the crude little country town as though it were Paris.

  Apparently, the new bride had found marriage to a complete stranger to be all she'd hoped for. Polly had formed a habit of humming cheery little tunes under her breath, and there was a pinkish glow to her cheeks and a bright shine to her eyes.

  The small party transferred to another boat at Seattle's busy harbor, and the last leg of the journey began. In an hour, Devon had told the ladies, they would reach Quade's Harbor, across the Sound.

  “You brought me what?” Brigham Quade would have bellowed the words, but shock had knocked the breath from his lungs, and a furious rasp was all he'd been able to manage. He stared at his brother in horrified disbelief, praying he'd misunderstood.

  Devon was perched on the edge of Brigham's enormous cherrywood desk, a valuable piece that had come from China aboard a trade ship. “I brought you a wife,” he said placidly. “Believe me, Brig, you're going to like Lydia.” He held out one hand, palm downward. “She's about this high, with purple eyes and yellow hair, and she's healthy.”

  “Next you'll be telling me she has good teeth!” Brigham burst out, nearly upsetting his chair when he stood. “Good God, Devon, you make this woman sound like prize breeding stock!”

  His younger brother, generous to a fault but often misguided, shrugged. “Lydia is no brood mare, of course,” he allowed, “but she would produce strong children. I have no doubt of that.”

  Brigham rounded the desk. “I already have children, Devon,” he pointed out. “Two. Or has that fact escaped you?”

  Devon's eyes were clear of any guilt or guile. “Charlotte and Millie are girls,” he reasoned. “They'll marry and set up households of their own. You need sons to take over the timber business when you get old and—”

  “Devon,” Brigham broke in quietly. It seemed to him a miraculous thing that he hadn't strangled his brother already. “I've still got a few good years left to me, believe it or not.” Beyond the windows of his study a soft summer rain shrouded the view of the snowy mountains, the dark indigo water, the thick, seemingly endless carpet of evergreen trees spilling over the land to the horizon. He stood looking out at the spectacle, which was beautiful to him even in that gloomy weather. “We built the company together, you and I,” he said finally. “And we'll run it together.”

  He heard Devon's sigh behind him, knew what was coming next.

  “We didn't build this business, Brig—that was your doing. My only contribution was some fetching and carrying, and we both know it. I want something of my own.”

  Brigham's disappointment came out as impatience. “A general store,” he said, with a touch of mockery to his tone, as he turned to glare at his brother.

  Devon was the one man he'd never been able to intimidate, and it was plain that nothing had changed in that respect. “A general store,” Devon confirmed, raising one eyebrow.

  “Damn it, Quade's Harbor has no need of a mercantile,” Brigham insisted, shoving a hand through his dark hair in frustration. “There's a company store!”

  “Afraid of a little competition?” Devon asked, grinning now.

  God in heaven but the man had balls, Brigham reflected—walking away from a half interest in one of the largest timber outfits in the territory, starting up a business no one would patronize, bringing a strange woman home for a wife and another to foist off on his unsuspecting brother.

  Brigham swore, stormed over to the teakwood liquor cabinet he'd had sent up from San Francisco a few months earlier, and poured himself a brandy. “Competition,” he spat. “The company store has everything a man could want. What will you sell, Devon? Tell me that.”

  “Maybe some things a woman could want,” Devon replied, still unruffled, gesturing toward the mountain where Brigham's crews were even then cutting timber. “The Northwest is a lonely place, Brig. Those workers of yours need wives. Women will be arriving from the East—there's a shortage of marriageable men back there because of the war, you know—and from San Francisco, too. They'll want dress goods and flower seeds and paint for picket fences.”

  Brigham sighed. He couldn't deny his brother's reasoning, much as he would have liked to do just that. The Puget Sound country was changing, day by day, and the few hearty men who were willing to work in the mountains yearned for the comforts of female companionship. Devon himself had spent the winter pacing and drinking, restless as a tomcat closed up in a hatbox, and now there was a woman upstairs, a bargain bride.

  This Polly-person was of no consequence to Brig, though; such things were private matters, and if Devon wanted to give a stranger his name, that was his business. The other woman, however, the one Devon had so thoughtfully brought home for him, like a souvenir from some exotic attraction, was most definitely his concern.

  Isabel, his first wife and the mother of his daughters, had permanently cured him of all misconceptions about wedded bliss. Her death from pneumonia, nine years before, had been a tragic one, and even though he and Isabel had
never loved each other, he'd grieved for her. Even after all that time, however, he still felt anger whenever he thought of Isabel, because he knew she'd willed her passing. She'd given up, thrown off her life like a garment no longer needed, forsaken her children and husband without even attempting to survive.

  He shook off a swarm of troubling memories and took another sip of his brandy. “The other one—Lydia, I think you called her—will have to go back. That is, unless you're planning to start a harem.”

  Devon rose from the edge of the desk, at last, and went to pour a drink for himself. His motions were pointed, meant to highlight Brigham's rudeness in failing to offer him a brandy when he got his own. “Lydia is beautiful enough to spawn such thoughts in a man's mind,” he conceded. Holding a snifter in his right hand, he turned to face Brig, his blue gaze slightly narrowed. “Open your eyes and look at your life, Brig. You're in dire need of a wife, and your children want for a mother.”

  Brigham had returned to his desk. He set aside his snifter with a thump and reached for a stack of papers. “Aunt Persephone provides all the female guidance and companionship Charlotte and Millie require.”

  Devon swirled his glass, gazing down at the eddy of amber liquid in its bottom as though it could explain some personal mystery that troubled him greatly. “That still leaves the other. And don't say the whores in Seattle are enough, because that's a load of horse shit and we both know it. Lydia is a beautiful and very feminine woman,” he said slowly, after a long interval of further consideration.

  “If she's such a paragon,” Brigham growled, bracing himself against the inner side of the desk with both hands, “why the hell didn't you marry her?”

  His brother was thoughtful, unmoved, as usual, by Brigham's quiet rage. “She's very strong, both mentally and physically. To tell you the truth, I wanted someone who would lean on me just a little. I think Lydia's been taking care of herself for most of her life.”

  Giving another sigh, Brigham gathered up some documents and slapped the shiny surface of the desk with them. Why any man would want some wilted violet clinging to the back of his collar with clenched fingers, choking him, was beyond his imagining. It seemed to Brigham that a wife should be a partner of sorts, as well as a bedmate. Which wasn't to say he found the militantly self-reliant types all that attractive, either. If there was one thing he couldn't tolerate, it was a horse-faced bluestocking ranting about her rights.

  He decided Lydia McQuire probably fell into the militant category and shuddered. He'd just as soon encounter the ghost of Hamlet's father in an upstairs hallway.

  Devon, who had been able to read Brig's thoughts since they were boys, or so it sometimes seemed, laughed aloud. “You'll be pleasantly surprised when you finally see her,” he said. Then he set his empty snifter on the liquor cabinet and left the study.

  Brigham might have worked happily over his ledgers for the rest of the afternoon if it hadn't been for the encounter with his brother, and for the troubling knowledge that there was a woman upstairs who no doubt expected to become Mrs. Brigham Quade before the week was out.

  His charcoal gaze kept shifting to the ceiling as the spare bedrooms were directly overhead. Finally, he gave up trying to work, wiped his pen and returned it to its stand, carefully closing the bottle of black ink he'd been using.

  He crossed the room to the double doors of the study, opened them, and was startled to find a small, feisty-looking blonde woman standing there, one hand poised to knock. Her eyes were a dark, velvety blue, almost purple, and a fetching blush pinkened her high cheekbones. Her chin was set at a stubborn angle, and Brigham found himself hoping against all good sense that this was not Polly, the woman his brother had chosen for a bride.

  The violet eyes widened, the small fist descending slowly to her side. She was wearing a prim gray dress with plain sleeves and collar. “Mr. Brigham Quade?” she inquired, with all the dignity of a princess who's lost her way among peasants.

  Brigham was holding his breath, feeling as though he'd just stepped onto a rapidly rolling log in a treacherous river. Still, a stern and solemn countenance came naturally to him, even when he was feeling cheerful. He was sure the wench could not guess from his sober nod of acknowledgment how she'd unnerved him.

  “I am Miss Lydia McQuire,” she announced, putting her chin out as though she expected to be challenged on the matter.

  Relief Brigham would never have admitted feeling rushed through him with the force of a prairie wind. “I believe you,” he replied.

  The lovely eyes widened, then narrowed, but her color was still high. It was some consolation to Brigham to know she also felt the strange and dangerous dynamics at work between them, that he was not the only one to be stricken.

  “You wanted something?” he asked, with exaggerated politeness, putting his hands on his hips because he was afraid he would lay his palms against her soft cheeks, or the gossamer cloud of her hair.

  The query seemed to befuddle her for a moment. Then, summoning up every inch of her strictly average height, she gave him another regal assessment. “I will not marry you, Mr. Quade, under any circumstances,” she informed him. “I would, however, like to discuss your objectives concerning the education of your daughters.”

  Brigham smiled indulgently. “I don't recall proposing, Miss McQuire,” he replied.

  Again, rich color flooded her face. “Very well,” she said briskly, after a moment of obvious grappling for composure, “that's settled, then. We can discuss what is to be done about your children's schooling.”

  The master of the house leaned indolently against the doorjamb, arms folded. He was more comfortable now, feeling that he had the upper hand. “Aunt Persephone has taught them to read, write, and cipher quite nicely. To be forthright, Miss McQuire, neither Millie nor Charlotte possess any aspirations that set them apart from other young ladies. To my way of thinking, the practical thing would be to teach them to run a household.”

  For one delicious moment Brigham actually thought his luscious house guest might kick him in the shins. Wisely, she reconsidered. “Naturally, your daughters would not have aspirations, Mr. Quade. Children tend to regard themselves as their parents do, which means Charlotte and Millie probably feel about as capable as a pair of long-haired lapdogs.”

  Instantly furious, Brigham leaned down so that his nose was within an inch of Lydia's and practically snarled, “I will not have my daughters taught to be ambitious! I won't see them hectoring politicians for the vote and making speeches in public places!”

  She didn't retreat, even though he was leaning over her, deliberately trying to make her take a step backward. No, she stood her ground, like a small soldier, evidently unable to speak for her fury. Her chin quivered and tears glistened in her eyes, and somewhere in the far, far distance, Brigham could have sworn he heard a bugle blow a call to battle.

  3

  LYDIA'S DISLIKE OF BRIGHAM QUADE HAD BEEN BOTH ARDENT and instantaneous, and her cheeks pulsed with the anger he'd stirred in her as she turned, sped up the stairway in high dudgeon, and took refuge in her room.

  It was a moment before she noticed the child sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed.

  The girl was about ten, and beautiful, with familiar coloring—dark hair and gray eyes, like Brigham's. Her tresses fell in ribbon-woven ringlets well past her waist, her fragile cheeks glowed with good health, and her gauzy white dress with its yellow satin sash made her look as though she'd just stepped out of some sentimental French painting. All she needed was a hat with a floppy brim, and a small dog to rest in the crook of her arm.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name is Millicent Alexandria Quade, but you may address me as Millie.”

  Lydia's mouth curved wryly and she executed a half curtsy. “I am Lydia McQuire,” she replied, “and you may address me as ‘Miss McQuire.’”

  Millie frowned, tugging at one of the golden ribbons in her hair. “I had quite expected to call you ‘Aunt Lydia,’” she confided, bemused. “Bu
t I'm ten, after all, and I realize Uncle Devon couldn't have brought home two wives. Are you to be second choice, just in case the other one doesn't suit?”

  Lydia might have been insulted, were it not for the guileless puzzlement in the child's eyes. “I'm to be your governess,” she answered, regretting the words a mere instant after she'd uttered them. For all she knew, Mr. Brigham Quade intended to put her on the next outbound ship.

  The little girl sighed. “Oh, fuss and bother. I've already learned quite enough from Aunt Persephone,” she said.

  Lydia had heard that name before, from Brigham, and she anchored it in her mind by repeating it silently. Per-seff-any.

  “I can read grown-up books,” Millie went on, “and do sums as well. I know how to play the spinet, too.” She extended one foot, which was shod in a small velvet slipper, and wriggled it. “I'll be better when I can reach the pedals, though,” she speculated, with a frown. Her face was bright, however, when she looked up at Lydia again. “Do you know how to fish, Miss McQuire?” she asked hopefully.

  Lydia laughed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes,” she answered. “When I was a child in Massachusetts, I used to fish for brook trout sometimes, with my father. I always caught more than he did.”

  Millie looked very pleased, but then her smile faded. “Did your father like you?” she asked in a small voice.

  The pang of anger Lydia felt then was, of course, directed at Mr. Quade and not his daughter. “Yes,” she replied forthrightly, but in a gentle voice. “I believe he did. Does your father like you?”

  “Papa is very busy making lumber,” Millie said with resolve, sitting up straight and smoothing her small skirts. “And I don't imagine he finds me especially interesting. Not like that woman he visits in Seattle sometimes.”

  Lydia felt mild heat touch her cheeks from the inside. She reached out and took Millie's hand lightly in her own. “I think you're very interesting indeed,” she said. Millie Quade was by all accounts one of the brightest children she had ever encountered. “Perhaps you and I can be friends.”