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Not quite yet…
The horses snorted and swished their tails, their breath misting in the morning air. That ugly storm had preceded one of the most beautiful dawns Rachel had ever seen. She watched the long yellow fingers of the sun crawl over the rooftops to the east, and murmured a silent prayer for her mother.
The village awakened as Rachel watched. She could smell bread baking not far away, hear the creak of wagon wheels, see vendors pushing their carts down the wet street.
Strange how life goes on even when the world is falling apart.…
She was about to turn and head inside when the door opened and the earl stepped out. He watched her for a few moments without speaking before glancing into the distance as if searching for what she saw.
Rachel didn’t break the silence until he met her eyes. Then she squared her shoulders. She sensed he had something to say. “Is she dead?”
He looked behind them as though wishing someone else would come through the door. When no one emerged, he said, “I’m sorry, Miss McTavish. She died moments before we arrived. There was nothing Jacobsen could do.”
Pain stabbed Rachel in the chest, feeling like a shard of broken glass. Unwilling to let the man she blamed for all three deaths in her family witness her grief or delight in her suffering, she sucked in a gulp of air to help her bear it. If only he had sent the doctor earlier, instead of forcing her to bargain for her mother’s life, perhaps her mum would have been spared.
If only she had capitulated earlier…
Damming such thoughts, Rachel forced back the questions and accusations that whirled in her brain like the eddies of a deep pool. She wouldn’t think of “what if” now. There would be time enough for regret in all the long years she would live without her mother’s comforting presence.
She felt the earl’s hand on her arm and jerked away. “You can take your doctor home, my lord,” she said, amazed by the formal, steely quality of her own voice. “I will not trouble you further.”
Numbly, she removed his cloak and held it out. When he hesitated, she dropped it in the snow and turned, walking past him to meet her eight-year-old brother at the door.
“Rachel, she’s gone,” Geordie cried, his young shoulders shaking under the weight of his grief.
Rachel stooped and took him into her arms. “I know, love, but there’s always me. I’m not going anywhere, now am I? I will take good care of you; see if I don’t.”
Mrs. Tate came to the door, her face a vision of weary sadness. “Rachel, child! It’s sorry I am. But she’s better off now. She’s finally at peace.”
Faced with Mrs. Tate’s sympathy, Rachel feared she would succumb to the tears that burned behind her eyes. She longed to release them, to let her grief escape before she simply blew apart. But she felt the earl watching and could still picture the inscrutable expression he wore.
“Thank you for tending her,” she heard herself say. “I will dress her for burial.” Keeping one arm around Geordie, she straightened and led him into the house, past Mrs. Tate to where their mother lay, white as the chalky cliffs of Dover.
Dr. Jacobsen was washing his hands at the basin. “You have my condolences, Miss McTavish. And, if it makes you feel any better, I doubt I could have saved her even if I had nursed her from the beginning.” He gave her a kind smile. “I’m afraid little can be done for cholera victims. You must burn her clothes and her bedding to minimize the risk to you and the young lad here. And I suggest you have the burial as soon as possible, today if you can and no later than tomorrow.”
Cholera. So it was as Rachel had feared.
“Thank you for coming,” she murmured mechanically. “I will take care of her. I will take care of everything.”
Dr. Jacobsen shot Rachel a curious look. “Where is your father?”
“Dead.”
“Have you no other family?”
Rachel ruffled little Geordie’s hair. “We have only each other now. But that is all we need. I will see to it.”
The scrape of Lord Druridge’s boots sounded on the floor behind her. She didn’t turn. She continued to study Jillian’s serene face, to gaze upon the loveliness of her good mother for the last time.
The earl spoke quietly to Mrs. Tate, who said something amid her tears that Rachel couldn’t make out. Then he left, and Rachel didn’t know how much longer it was before Dr. Jacobsen followed. She knew only the quiet sobs of her brother, and the silent screams that were entirely her own.
Chapter 4
The next day was one of the longest and most painful of Rachel’s life. Having buried two members of her family in the previous three years, she stumbled through the motions all over again, feeling as empty as a hollow log and just as separated from her life’s sustenance. This time, the person she laid to rest was her mother—her strength, her wisdom, her support.
Standing in the church graveyard less than a mile from her home, she stared down at the top of Geordie’s head while the village blacksmith and Mrs. Tate’s son shoveled frozen clods of dirt over her mother’s coffin. Besides the twenty or so mourners, friends and neighbors and fellow church members, headstones surrounded them like a second audience, a congregation of the deceased gathered to welcome a new soul into their ranks.
As the metal of each shovel struck and scraped the ground, Rachel wondered how she and her brother would survive. Her mother had tried to persuade her to marry. Now she almost wished she’d taken Jillian’s advice and accepted the blacksmith’s apprentice. A clean-cut, sturdy young man only a few years older than herself, he had a vocation, one far less humble than her own father’s, and would certainly have helped her finish raising Geordie.
But she couldn’t stomach the thought of marrying someone she didn’t love, any more than she could fathom sharing his bed. Somehow she and Geordie would get through the ensuing years, and they would do it without trading her freedom for bread on their table. The bookshop earned a modest living when her mother stood at the helm. Rachel had much to learn about making it a success, but she was more prepared after helping out as much as she had. She would not fail her brother, or her mother’s memory, by letting go of the shop and their dream of educating the miners.
The blacksmith’s apprentice was one of the first to clasp her hand after the funeral. Shy and rather awkward, he mumbled some words of consolation.
Rachel nodded, but she couldn’t help noticing that his touch struck no chord in her. He was a fine, upstanding member of the community—honest, hardworking and not unhandsome. And he had professed his love for her on more than one occasion. Her mother had called him besotted. Yet it was Lord Druridge’s touch, the touch of her enemy, that had warmed Rachel’s blood and caused an odd awakening.
