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He looked away. “I have to find out who did this to him.”
“Is there a sheriff?” I asked.
“Yes. Joseph Lancaster. He’s new. Our governor sent him out here.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“We’ve had our share of trouble.”
I had the distinct feeling there was something Lord Barnes wasn’t saying. As much as I wanted to ask, I stayed quiet. If he needed me to know, he would tell me. Otherwise, I would keep my curious nose to myself.
The horses went from a gallop to a walk as we entered town. Emerson Pass was nestled between two mountains that rose majestically toward the cerulean sky. I did a quick assessment and discovered a drugstore, dry goods store, post office, and butcher shop on one side of the street. The other had a saloon, the boardinghouse, and restaurant. They were all built of brick and in the same height and style. Attractive streetlamps were placed in front of each building, making a line of soldiers on each side.
We turned down a side street and there, positioned at a slightly higher elevation than the businesses on the main street, stood a brick schoolhouse. There was a skinny front porch with a bell that hung from the rafters. My chest swelled with pride at the sight of the double doors. “Lord Barnes, it’s perfect.”
“I think so too.”
“Will I get to ring the bell?”
His eyes twinkled at me. “Every morning at nine. After church, we’ll stop by and take a look inside. You can see if there’s anything I’ve forgotten.”
We continued past the school and stopped in front of a white church with a tall steeple. The walkway had been shoveled, and people were headed inside the red doors. “Did you build this, too?”
“The men who worked for me did, yes. Do you like it?”
“I can’t think of a prettier church.”
“Thank you. We’re proud of it.” He lifted the blankets from our laps and offered his hand to help me down from the sleigh. “Would you mind getting the children settled inside while I talk to Pastor Lind?”
“With pleasure.”
He tipped his hat. “Thank you, Miss Cooper. You’ve come just when I needed you.”
The children had all jumped down by then. Poppy and Josephine waited by the front steps with Fiona between them. Flynn and Cymbeline were over by a tall snowdrift with their heads together, as if discussing their plan for escape. Only Theo remained near. He offered his arm to me. “I’ll walk with you. It’s slippery.”
I smiled down at him. “Thank you, kind gentleman.”
He beamed up at me. “You’re welcome, Miss Cooper.”
Chapter 8
Alexander
* * *
I knocked on the door to Pastor Lind’s office. “It’s Barnes, Pastor Lind. May I have a moment?”
“Come in, come in.”
Taking a deep breath, I entered, then closed the door behind me. Lind sat behind his desk. He was a small, round man with thick white hair that sprouted from his head in unruly clumps. He had a handlebar mustache and thick eyebrows and wore a pair of round wire-framed glasses that perched on the end of his nose. The office smelled of coffee from the cup next to a notebook containing his handwritten sermon. He claimed it made him a better orator if he consumed a cup right before services began.
“Lord Barnes, to what do I owe this pleasure?” His hazel eyes gazed at me from over his glasses. I always had the urge to push those flimsy glasses up to where they belonged. They agitated me, perched like that on the bulbous part of his nose.
“I’m afraid I have bad news,” I said.
He tutted as he leaned forward over the desk. His thick brows came together to form a long white caterpillar. “What’s happened?”
Simon Lind and his wife, Pamela, were in their fifties and had spent most of their lives building churches in small towns like Emerson Pass. Lind had wanderlust. Pamela had told me he could never be happy in one place. Once the church was built and the flock firmly settled in the pews every Sunday, he grew restless. When they’d come through here to visit, looking for a new place to build a church, I’d made him a deal. I’d help them build a church and rectory and pay him a decent salary even during years when donations were scarce, but he needed to commit to staying. His wife, worn out from the years of moving, had convinced him to take my offer. Five years later, it was as if they’d always been here. She’d made the rectory across from the church into a pretty home, with flowers and a vegetable garden during warm months. Pam Lind had such a green thumb she kept half the town in tomatoes and beans during July and August. She’d told me once that her inability to have a child had fueled her need to grow living things. “Cucumbers and tomatoes are no substitute for a child, but they can at least feed other women’s sons and daughters,” she’d said to me once.
