AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Good Lord, she’d had about enough of this. She clenched her fists at her sides and counted to five for patience before she asked, “And what is that?”
“Stay with me until I leave this world. Care for me as you cared for your mother in her dying days. Give me your word, and we’ll sign the paperwork without delay. Refuse me, and I’ll have you tied up in legal matters to do with me for years to come. I will haunt you.”
“Why would you want me, of all people on this earth, to stay with you in your last days?”
Aunt Elizabeth shrugged weakly. “I’m all the family you have left. And as it happens, you’re all the family I have left as well. Now, stop blocking the candlelight with your ridiculous silhouette and fetch me a glass of water. My throat is parched.” Aunt Elizabeth nestled deeper into the pillows and closed her eyes, a cruel smile plastered to her dry lips. Her tongue flicked out to moisten them like a snake testing the air for prey.
It was she who was Aunt Elizabeth’s prey.
Sadness made Eliza’s heart seem as if it closed in on itself. Indeed, returning to Boston had been a mistake. She was destined to forfeit herself in this new and hideous circumstance. For, after knowing freedom, how could she ever go back into such a cage and expect to emerge whole again?
Chapter Forty-Seven
Aunt Elizabeth was bound and determined to go belligerently to death’s door. In fact, Death likely avoided collecting her so he wouldn’t have to deal with her unforgiving mouth while he escorted the woman to the fiery place where she was going.
Of course, Eliza would never wish death upon anyone, but Aunt Elizabeth had pushed her to the brink of her sanity in a very short amount of time.
Now picking her way through the bustling streets of Boston to Tremont Row, a length of shops and boutiques for the wealthy, she couldn’t help but smile. Never before had she possessed a penny to spend, but today her coin purse was full.
Eliza Shaw, Independently Wealthy Woman. A lovely title, but such an odd sensation. The paperwork had all been signed, and the finances transferred into her name. Relief mixed with a twinge of disappointment at her new title. She had been proud that she had never asked Aunt Elizabeth for anything, but with this money, she felt as if she had accepted something extravagant from the harsh woman.
The money, to her limited knowledge, had always been promised and intended for one Elizabeth Hall. Not the red-haired smart-mouthed, bastard child formerly named Eliza Flemm, now Shaw, as Aunt Elizabeth had pointed out just this morning. Where most women tended to grow wiser with age, Elizabeth Hall had taken those years to broaden the pitiless creativity of her vocabulary.
The wind picked up and the sky darkened. Garret would have warned her of an imminent storm and told her to dress more warmly. She knew he would’ve. Gads, she thought of him every spare minute of the day. Having relied on her own poor weather judgment, she was ill-dressed for rain, and had unfortunately refused a carriage in light of a long walk to cool down after her most recent bitter argument with Aunt Elizabeth.
Picking up her pace, she dodged into the nearest shop as the first drop of water splattered on her lightly-freckled forearm.
The store she had chosen for her escape was a fine hat shop. It also boasted silk ribbons and intricate hair pins and brooches, but the main staple was most definitely hats. A monumental difference, between this store and the general store in Rockdale. No spit-cans or assortments of rifles and animal pelts were for sale here. Nor did a stuffed deer backside hang on the back wall with an arrow pointing in the direction of the outhouse.
She smiled at the dissimilarity. She missed Rockdale tremendously. No one in the Boston store talked cordially, as if they had known their neighbor all of their lives. No one asked about harvests, sick animals or new babies, or actually cared about the answers.
Some of the hats in the grandiose store were small and of an attractive nature, but most were large, gaudy, and flowing with feathers, lace, and other such expensive delicacies. The hat in the window was atrocious, only remarkable because it displayed a rather large stuffed bird, complete with nest and three small blue eggs. A fat ribbon with trailing tails matching the color of the eggs adorned it, and an impressive assortment of plumage exploded out of the top. It probably cost more than it took to run the Lazy S for a year.
The thought pricked at her like one of the irritating cactus needles that had once found a home in the flesh of her arm. How could she pretend to be interested in such functionless fashions, much less spend money in such a gaudy place?
A glance out the window showed the rain coming down in hard, fat drops, and she sighed with disappointment. Rain didn’t bother her overmuch anymore. Not since her stay in Rockdale, where crops, livestock, and livelihood revered storm clouds. However, Aunt Elizabeth would have a fit if she heard she had ruined her dress, thus making a fool of herself in a public place. She would have to wait out the weather and hope the storm passed quickly.
Two other ladies and a gentleman must have had the same idea, because they rushed into the shop seeking a similar escape from the weather.
The man tipped his hat as he brushed by her, and she nodded politely. Uninterested in conversation or niceties, she turned and feigned interest in the display of hair barrettes behind her.
“That one would look ravishing on you,” a man said in a low voice behind her.
She barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and fought the urge to tell him to go away. Instead she turned and smiled, if a little stiffly, at a handsome, sandy-haired man with deep brown eyes. “Not my style, I’m afraid.”
“I thought I knew you,” the man said. “You are Elizabeth Flemm. Frederick Hall’s ward. I would never forget that specific shade of red in your hair, if ever I was able to forget your lovely face.”
In confusion, she looked at the man directly for the first time. Recognition made her remember his face, though his name remained in the deep recesses she was yet unable to reach.
“Robert Faraday?” he offered. “We met at your aunt’s party. Last season?”
He’d jogged her memory. “Oh yes!” He’d given her the drink on the balcony all those months ago. “Quite sorry, I hadn’t expected to see a familiar face. You must think me quite rude.”
Robert laughed. “Not rude. Forgetful, perhaps, but never rude.”
He had an easy confidence that was infectious. “Where have you been?” he asked. “I saw you the one time, and then never again. I know, because I looked for you at parties for the rest of the season.”
She had only met Robert the one night she had worn the daring red dress in a bold move to defy Aunt Elizabeth, who only let her attend the party because some rather-pushy younger members of society had insisted and heckled until at long last, Elizabeth Hall gave in and let her go. It was the only night she’d ever been in the drink, until Garret had bought her a drink after Clint Jennings had accosted her in the alleyway. And then again when he passed her his glass of whiskey in that hotel lounge after they’d survived a cattle stampede and worked as a team to bring them ’round to the buyer. Gads, she missed home.
