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Both women gasped.
“What were you saying?” I asked.
“We will tell, about the town council, Mr. Nevil, how you had to flee,” Tara said.
Marina nodded. “All of it.”
With the tinkling of the bell on the front door, Jed and Knox came into the store, followed by Thomas. Obviously, Mr. Beebe had sent him to fetch my men.
“Oh, please do. Jed, Knox, we’re over here having a little chat.”
My men loomed over Marina and Tara, not only casting them in shadow, but blocking their exit.
“Marina and Tara were about to impart how I came about leaving Clancy and marrying Mr. Thomkins.” I turned and smiled to the miners. “Ed, Tanner and Ezra, please join us. And, ma’am, I apologize but we have yet to formally meet.”
The church lady turned about, put her hand to her chest in surprise. “Mrs. Percy.”
“Mrs. Percy, please join us. Mr. Beebe, you can hear from behind the counter?” I called.
He cleared his throat, then replied with a swift, “Yes.”
“Good. Begin then, Tara. Or Marina, do you wish to start?”
Marina turned pale, swallowed, then lifted her chin. “Eve was refused the position of schoolteacher because of a torrid affair she had with her gardener.”
“Torrid affair?” Knox asked.
“Indeed,” Tara replied, clearly willing to stand
behind her sister’s lies.
“Is that why you hurried to marry us, so you could cover up any… consequence of your actions?”
If I didn’t know that my husbands knew the truth, I would have been afraid. What he asked made sense and the others in the room were on bated breath waiting for my response. So were Tara and Marina. Their shoulders were square and I could detect the familiar upturned lips indicating their power was returning.
Jed winked at me, and since he stood behind the women, they couldn’t see.
Mrs. Percy gasped, the miners grumbled.
Tara said, “You’re pregnant?”
“Certainly vomiting on your dress is evidence enough.”
No one could argue with that.
“Besides, I am a hussy. Isn’t that right, Marina?”
“A hussy?” Jed stiffened and I saw his hands clench into fists.
“Yes, Mrs. Dare was called a hussy,” Mrs. Percy offered.
“Don’t worry, husband. I told them you liked me that way.”
“My husband, bless his soul, liked me to be a little wild,” Mrs. Percy added. She leaned in toward me, whispered, “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
I bit my lip, trying not to grin. This older woman would be getting an invitation to dinner as soon as this fiasco was over. Marina and Tara, however, both looked as if they’d swallowed a few summer flies.
Jed’s ears turned red at the woman’s admission.
