Kitabı oku: «The Ranger's Bride», sayfa 3
Gratefully,
Addy Kelly
Then she tiptoed to the back door and stealthily lifted up the latch and let herself out. So that no one would see her, she would go down the back street, which connected up with the main road at the edge of town. Once she crossed the bridge over the rocky-bedded Llano, it was just a short walk to her house.
Chapter Five
The house was quiet—much too quiet—when Addy entered it. Dear Lord, had his wound somehow started bleeding again? Had Rede Smith bled to death?
The thought pierced her with guilt for having left him, even at his direction and for so brief a time. Addy hurried down the hall and through the kitchen to the back bedroom.
“Judas priest, woman, where have you been?”
Rede Smith was sitting up in bed, propped up by her two feather pillows, his color pale but no paler than when she had left him.
She let out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding.
“It took considerable cunning to escape a woman like Miss Beatrice Morgan, I’ll have you know,” she informed Rede tartly, and then explained how the sheriff and the old woman, determined to coddle her after her ordeal, had conspired to keep her in town.
He frowned as she described Asa Wilson’s concern for her.
“Don’t worry,” she said, assuming he was just worrying about the bandits’ trail getting cold, “he didn’t remain any longer than he had to, once he’d gotten the facts and seen to my welfare. He’s already out there with a posse, looking for the Fogartys. It was the Fogarty Gang, you think?”
He gave her a baleful look. “I don’t think, I’m sure of it,” he said. “You didn’t tell him about me, did you?”
She was already exhausted from the day’s events, and his scornful tone sparked her ire. “No, I most certainly did not, though it felt despicable to be lying to that good man, not to mention the whole town—telling him the Ranger was dead, when you’re lying right here in my bed!”
She felt herself blushing at what she had said, and hoped he hadn’t noticed, but of course the Ranger missed nothing.
He scowled. “What’s the matter, is the virtuous Widow Kelly the sheriff’s secret sweetheart? Are you afraid he’ll find me here and think he has a rival?”
Her temper reached the flashpoint and ignited.
Hand raised to slap his face, Addy took one step toward the bed before she realized what she was about to do and stopped dead in her tracks.
Addy saw in his eyes that he fully realized her intention, and wanted to die of shame. She took a deep shaky breath. “I won’t do it. I won’t slap a wounded man, though you richly deserve it after what you just said.”
He looked away first, scowling again. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business who visits your bed, Mrs. Kelly,” he said stiffly.
“No one—” she started to say, and then stopped herself. He was right. It was none of his business. Let Rede Smith think Asa Wilson was her lover, if it would keep him from behaving improperly toward her. He didn’t have to know Asa was the last man who’d make an ungentlemanly move toward a woman he thought was a six-month widow and whom he considered a lady. But if she expected meekness out of Rede Smith now, she was doomed to disappointment.
“Are you a good liar?” he demanded. “Did they believe you?”
“I think so,” she said, striving for a level tone. Oh, you don’t know how good a liar I am, Rede Smith. I’ve been living a lie ever since I came to Connor’s Crossing.
“All right, good. I need you to get this bullet out, now that you’re back. And I’ll take that whiskey now, if you don’t mind,” he added.
Addy bristled anew at his brisk tone, and again when she had brought in the bottle and a freshly washed glass, only to hear him say, “I need you to boil whatever knife you’re going to use for several minutes.”
She started to bark back a sarcastic reply, then saw the apprehension that lurked within his dark gaze. Rede Smith was worried about how he’d react to the pain of having that bullet removed. The realization rendered him more human and made her stifle her stinging retort.
“Certainly.” She turned on her heel and left the room.
It took her half an hour to get ready. She had to light a fire in the stove, pump a kettle full of water, set it to boiling, and after selecting a knife she normally used for paring fruit, boil it for several minutes. While she waited she washed her hands thoroughly, using the lye soap she used on laundry days.
By the time she returned to her bedroom, carrying the kettle with the aid of two clean cloths, the whiskey had apparently mellowed his mood.
“Will this do, do you think?” she said, holding the kettle so he could see the paring knife in the still-bubbling water.
He darted a glance at it in the steaming water, then quickly back at her. “I guesh sho—so,” he said, his exhaled breath sending a cloud of whiskey fumes in her direction.
He was apparently aware that some of his words were slurred. “Shorry—I mean, sorry I was so gr-grouchy, Miz Addy. I r-reckon I’m not lookin’ forward to this little bullet-huntin’ exspedition we’re ’bout to go on.”
His face was flushed, his dark eyes dulled. She glanced at the liquor bottle, and saw that he’d drunk over half the contents of the bottle, which had been nearly full. Heavens! It was amazing he was still conscious, let alone talking.
“I can understand that,” she said.
He sighed, and said in a resigned tone, “Well, le’sh get thish over with, then,” he said, and sank back in the bed. “D’you have anyshing—thing I can bite into?”
She stepped over to her chest of drawers, pulled out one of her handkerchiefs and rolled it up, but when she stepped back to the bedside, his eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply and evenly. She hoped he was unconscious from the prodigious amount of whiskey he’d drunk so fast, and that he wouldn’t come to until she was done.
She reached inside the pocket of the apron she wore and brought out the lump of lye soap. Dipping one of the clean cloths with which she had carried the hot kettle into the hot water, she rubbed it over the lump of soap until the cloth was soapy. Then she used it to cleanse the remaining dried blood from around the wound’s edges. He winced slightly when she rubbed hard at a stubborn clot, but otherwise did not stir.
Once she had cleansed a wide circle of skin around the raw red edges of the arm wound—making it ooze a trickle of blood, she noted—she touched the flesh gingerly, feeling for the spent bullet within.
For a moment she could feel nothing, but then she closed her eyes and palpated his upper arm again, using just the ball of her index finger, exploring a widening circle around the arm. Finally she found it—a hard lump about half an inch beneath the surface of the back of his arm. She sighed in relief that she would not have to probe blindly with her makeshift scalpel. But the wound was awkwardly situated. How was she to get to it without standing on her head?
After a moment, she tucked Rede’s hand, palm up, under his head, which exposed the posterior of his upper arm perfectly. Movement of the wounded arm made him flinch and mutter something unintelligible, but once she let go of the arm, he seemed to sink back into insensibility.
She turned to retrieve the knife.
But the water was still too hot to dip her hand into. Crossing the room, she raised the windowsill and dumped most of the water onto her kitchen garden below. A couple of radish plants might never be the same, she thought, but it couldn’t be helped.
Now she could reach the knife. Using the other clean cloth to pick up the still-hot handle, she moved back to the bedside, her insides churning within her.
Gently bred ladies did not do such things. Extracting a bullet was a job for a doctor, or at least a tough frontier woman, not Adelaide Kelly of the St. Louis Kellys.
But he didn’t want her to call a doctor or anyone else. He believed it was important for his presence here to remain a secret. If the bullet was not removed he might very well develop gangrene and die. So it was up to her.
Uttering a prayer that God would help her do this without causing him too much pain, she bent to her work.
Her first tentative slice into his skin brought him yelping up off the bed, both fists clenched. “Whaddya think you’re do—”
She sprang back, but before she could say anything, his bloodshot gaze focused on her and he muttered, “Oh. ’S you, Miz Kelly. I…’member. G’wan, finish it.”
She darted close and threw him—much as one would throw a hunk of meat at a vicious dog—the handkerchief she’d gotten out for him to bite. He thrust the rolled square in between his jaws, closed his eyes, and replaced the hand of his wounded arm underneath his head. He gestured with his other hand that she was to go ahead, then grabbed hold of the bedpost. Gritting her teeth and holding back the sob that threatened to choke her, she did just that.
Five minutes later, drenched in perspiration, she straightened, her bloodstained fingers clutching the bloody, misshapen slug.
“I got it, Rede,” she said softly. “It’s out.”
He opened bleary eyes and sagged in the bed, letting out a long gusty breath.
“Quick, pour the rest o’ that whiskey over my arm,” he growled, closing his eyes and setting his jaw. He flinched as she obeyed, but made no sound.
She had done it. The room spun, and she leaned on the bed for support. Then she felt his hand on her wrist.
“You did real fine, Miz Kelly,” he said. “Thanks. Now maybe you better sit down. Oh, an’ you might oughta open up s’ more whishkey. You’re lookin’ a mite pale.”
Rede lay in Adelaide Kelly’s bed, hearing her rooster crow and watching dawn gradually light the square of glass opposite his bed. The ache in his arm—and the matching throb in his head due to the whiskey he’d drunk the evening before—had awakened him an hour ago.
He’d been a fool to think that he could steal back into the area by taking the stage. He should have just taken his chances riding in—traveling under cover of darkness, perhaps, and making cold camps in gullies. Now, because someone had had loose lips, five innocent people were dead. And the sixth had had to dig a bullet out of him and was going to have to play hostess while he laid low here and recovered.
The whiskey had made his memories of last night fuzzy around the edges, but he remembered enough that he could still picture her bending over him, her pale, sweat-pearled brow furrowed in concentration as she clutched the paring knife that had eventually rooted the bullet out of his flesh.
She’d done a hell of a job, he thought, for a refined lady who’d obviously never planned on performing surgery. Captain McDonald couldn’t have done any better, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have bothered apologizing up and down for each and every twist and turn of the knife, as Addy Kelly had done. Yessir, she had grit, Addy Kelly did.
But she did do one thing better than his captain: snore. He’d camped out plenty with the Rangers’ commander when they’d been in pursuit of outlaws or marauding Indians, so he should know, and Addy Kelly could outsnore all of his company any night of the week.
Possibly it was the uncomfortable position she had slept in, Rede thought, eyeing her sympathetically. She hadn’t left the room but had passed the night in the chair next to the bed. She was there still, her head resting against the wall, her hands clasped together in a ladylike primness that was entirely at odds with the buzzing noise coming at frequent intervals from her mouth.
Sometime during the night she’d left him long enough to wash up and change out of her bloodstained dress and into a violet-sprigged wrapper. She’d let her hair down and braided it, and now the thick chestnut plait hung over the curve of her breast.
All at once she gave a particularly rattling snore. It must have awakened her because she blinked a couple of times, then shut her eyes again and still sitting, breathed deeply, stretching long and luxuriously.
The action stretched the flowered cotton across her breasts, and he luxuriated in the sight. Lord, but he loved the shape of a woman not wearing a corset.
Something—perhaps the groan of pleasure he had not succeeded in altogether smothering—must have alerted her she was not alone, for Addy’s eyes flew open and she caught sight of him watching her.
She uttered a shriek and jumped to her feet.
“Whoa, easy, Miss Addy,” he murmured, and put out a hand in an attempt to soothe her. He tried to relieve her embarrassment by making a joke. “I don’t look that frightenin’, do I?”
He watched her face change as she reoriented herself.
“No! That is…well, you do look a bit haggard…but I expect that’s natural after what you’ve been through! I’m sorry—I couldn’t think where I was!”
“That’s natural, too,” he assured her. “A day like yesterday would buffalo anyone.” He knew she couldn’t feel very rested after sleeping in a chair, but no lady wanted to be told how tired she looked.
Addy blinked as if surprised by his understanding.
“Did you…that is, are you having much pain?” she asked.
He remembered to shrug with just his uninjured shoulder. “Well, I wouldn’t say I feel like running any races,” he admitted. “But it’ll get better.”
“I should examine your wounds.”
He lay still while she pulled back the makeshift bandage, trying not to look at her while she bent close to him so she wouldn’t be self-conscious. He couldn’t help but breathe in her womanly scent, though. She must wash with rosewater.
“How’s it look?” he asked when she straightened again.
“Well, I’m no doctor, but it looks all right to me…as well as can be expected the very next day, anyhow,” she said, then laid a soft, cool hand on his forehead. “Good. You don’t seem to have any fever, either.” Then she added brightly, “How about some breakfast? Bacon, eggs, biscuits?”
The thought of anything fried hitting his still-queasy stomach made that organ threaten to revolt. “No thanks, Miss Addy. Just coffee, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“Oh, come now, you need good, nourishing food to recover your strength,” she coaxed. “It’s really no trouble, and I am accounted a good cook, if I do say so myself.”
He could tell nothing less than the truth would discourage her. “Miss Addy, I don’t reckon you’ve ever drunk an excess of whiskey before—”
“No, of course not,” she interrupted, startled. “I don’t even know what it tastes like.”
He pretended he didn’t hear her. “The thing is, the headache a fellow gets afterward kind of deadens the appetite. Really, coffee’s the best thing you could give me, ma’am.”
“All right then, coffee it is,” she agreed, looking sympathetic. “Just give me a few minutes—”
Just then a knock sounded at the front door.
Chapter Six
The knock came again, harder this time.
“Yoo-hoo, Addy! Are you there, Addy?”
“Pretend you’re not here!” Rede whispered.
Addy wished she could do just that. The very last thing she needed this morning was one of Beatrice Morgan’s long, chatty visits.
“I can’t!” she whispered back. “If I don’t answer, she’ll think I’m still sleeping and come around and knock at the back. She might even look in a window!” she said, pointing frantically at the two low windows, one to the left of the foot of his bed, the other facing the foot of his bed. The lantana bushes on the side of the house would probably keep Beatrice from getting close to the first window, but she could easily look in the back one. And if she did, the old woman would be able to see Rede Smith sitting up in Addy’s bed, even through the sheer muslin curtains.
“All right, but get rid of her!” Rede growled, gesturing toward the sound.
She glared at him before turning to dash down the hallway. She called, “I’m coming!” in hopes of keeping Beatrice from starting to go around to the back.
How dare Rede Smith try to order her around in her own house? She didn’t intend to encourage Beatrice to stay long, but being polite was the very least she could do after sneaking out on the older woman the way she had yesterday.
She was barely in time. Beatrice was just stepping off the porch when Addy threw open the front door.
“Why, there you are! I was just fixin’ to go ’round to the back,” the old woman said. “Sleep late, did you?” she said, eyeing Addy’s creased wrapper and braided hair. “I shouldn’t wonder, after all that commotion yesterday!”
“Yes, I’m afraid I did,” Addy admitted. “Sorry to take so long getting to the door.”
After bustling back up onto the porch, Beatrice shook a plump finger at Addy. “You were a naughty girl yesterday, not to let me know you were leaving. The next thing I knew, Asa Wilson was shaking me awake! I was so worried about you!”
Addy had to smother a smile at the picture the woman painted. It must have been hours later by the time Asa had returned—no wonder the old woman was ashamed to have been caught dozing.
“I am sorry, Miss Beatrice. You looked so tired, and were sleeping so soundly I didn’t have the heart to wake you. Didn’t you see my note?”
“Harrumph,” the old woman snorted. “As if a note could make me rest easy about you. And you look awful, Addy Kelly. Perhaps you should rest in bed today. Why don’t you let me stay here and look after you?”
“Oh, thanks, but I couldn’t possibly go back to bed,” Addy said quickly. “I’m fine, Miss Beatrice, really. I’m expecting customers today. But why don’t you have a cup of coffee with me? I could bring it out on the porch, and we’ll enjoy the sunshine—”
“I’ll take the cup of coffee, and thank you, Addy, but I’ve been ‘enjoying the sunshine’ all the way here, and it’s already hot enough to wither a fence post out there,” she said, pointing at the sun-baked road. “So I’ll drink it in your kitchen.” Without waiting for an invitation, she let herself in.
Addy worried the whole time Beatrice sat in her kitchen that Rede would make some noise that would betray his presence. She was achingly conscious of him lying in the bed just on the other side of the thin wall between the back bedroom and the kitchen, waiting while the old woman chattered about every inconsequential thing that came to her head.
An hour passed before Beatrice at last rose to go. Addy was just letting her out the front door, when she heard hoofbeats.
She looked up and saw Asa Wilson reining in his bay gelding. Tarnation! Now it would be even longer before Rede got his promised coffee.
Remembering that she was still wearing just the violet-sprigged wrapper, she quickly snatched up a black crocheted shawl from the peg by the door and threw it around her.
“Sheriff, maybe you can talk some sense into her head,” Beatrice Morgan said, pausing by his horse as Asa dismounted. “I told her she needs to rest in bed today and she won’t listen to me. But perhaps you can exert some—ahem!—influence with her, Asa,” she said in a coyly insinuating tone.
Addy felt herself coloring at the implication. Clearly, Beatrice Morgan had discerned Asa’s adoration for Addy and assumed the feeling was mutual. She probably figured Addy and Asa were just waiting for Addy’s year of mourning to be up before they declared themselves.
“Asa, I’m fine,” she said firmly. “Just tired, naturally, after yesterday. I—I couldn’t sleep very well.”
“Well, of course she couldn’t, Asa,” Beatrice Morgan interjected, before Asa could speak. “My heavens, it isn’t every day of the week a gently bred lady is nearly murdered and has to drive a stagecoach with a corpse inside it to town!”
Asa gave Addy a rueful smile before taking his hat off to Beatrice. “I’ll surely do that, ma’am.” Then he reached into his saddlebag and brought out a couple of wrapped parcels, and Addy remembered the fabric, patterns, laces and other sewing notions she had purchased in Austin and brought with her on the stage. She had entirely forgotten about retrieving them yesterday.
“I found these on the top of the stagecoach,” Asa said, holding out the parcels, “and assumed they were yours. There were some bolts of cloth, too, but I’ll have to bring them out another time when I have the buggy.”
“Thanks, Asa. It was good of you. And don’t bother about bringing the rest. I can always hitch up Jessie and come for them.”
“Oh, it’s no bother, Miss Addy,” he assured her. “But right now, if you’ll allow me, I need to talk to you some more about the outlaws’ attack.”
Beatrice started to follow them, obviously eager to hear the horrid details, but Asa put out a hand. “I wouldn’t dream of detaining you, Miss Beatrice. Miss Addy and I will just sit out here on the front porch, so we won’t need a chaperon.”
“But—”
“I promise not to stay too long, Miss Beatrice,” Asa said, and this time Beatrice got the hint.
“I’d about given up on this,” Rede said, when Addy finally handed him the long-awaited coffee.
He was sitting in a chair next to the window, and the curtains were drawn. They had been open when she’d left the room.
“You shouldn’t be up. What if you had started your wounds bleeding again?” she scolded, figuring he’d arisen as soon as she’d left the room to shut the curtains.
He glanced at his shoulder and arm. “I didn’t.”
His matter-of-fact tone was a splash of cold water on her worrying. “I’m sorry you had to wait,” she said as she handed him the mug. “I got rid of them as soon as I could without acting suspicious, but I know it must’ve seemed like forever.”
He took a long sip, then closed his eyes for a moment. “This was worth the wait.” He took another sip, then barked out, “What’d the sheriff have to say?”
Addy shrugged. “The posse didn’t find them. When they got to the site, the outlaws’ trails led off in several different directions. They followed each, but eventually each trail petered out, either at the river or on stony ground.”
“Your sheriff surely didn’t expect them to be hanging around the bodies, counting their loot, did he?”
“He’s not—” she began hotly, then stopped herself from reacting to Rede’s needling. “No, of course not—Asa’s not an idiot, Rede. But I’m sure he was hoping to be able to trail them to their hideout.”
“He won’t find it,” he said, staring out the window rather than at her. “No one ever did before. The reports always indicated that they seemed to vanish into thin air.”
“And you think you can, if no one ever could before?” she challenged, still irritated at his scornful attitude.
He nodded. A half smile played about his lips.
Suddenly she was very conscious of still wearing a wrapper and her hair still lying on her shoulder in its night braid. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t want any breakfast and think you’ll be all right for a little while by yourself, I have chores to do.”
He nodded. “I reckon I’ll be right here,” he said with a wry twist to his lips.
An hour later, she had washed, dressed, and been out to the barn, where she scattered some feed for the chickens clucking in the yard. Next she poured out a measure of oats for Jessie and curried the horse while Jessie munched on them, then turned her out to pasture.
Stopping in the small vegetable garden just in back of the house, Addy picked some black-eyed peas and salad greens, holding them in her apron as she made her way back to the house. She cast an eye at the sun, which was almost directly overhead. Just about time for dinner. She decided she’d stop in the springhouse for a jar of cold water, then mix up some corn bread to serve with the peas and greens.
She’d checked on Rede, and found him dozing, and was just mixing up the corn bread dough when she heard the sound of a buggy halting out front.
Oh dear, another interruption, Addy thought as she hurried to the front of the house after pulling the door to her bedroom quietly shut. Who could that be?
An imperious rapping greeted her ears. “Mrs. Kelly!”
Addy recognized the booming nasal twang of Mrs. Horace Fickhiser, the wife of the mayor. Olympia Fickhiser was the self-appointed social arbiter of Connor’s Crossing and the mother of sixteen-year-old Lucille. The girl fancied herself a belle, but unfortunately she took after her short, thickset father and had too dumpy a build for true elegance.
Forcing a smile onto her face before opening her door, Addy said, “Good morning, Mrs. Fickhiser, Lucy. What can I do for you?”
“Lucille!” Olympia Fickhiser corrected Addy frostily in an overloud voice. “I did not name her Lucille to have it shortened into something so common, Mrs. Kelly.”
“Oh, Mama, she’s forgotten, I can just tell!” cried the girl, a pout forming on her Cupid’s-bow mouth.
“Have you forgotten we were to pick up Lucille’s gown for the cotillion today? I certainly hope it’s completed. It would be most inconvenient if you haven’t finished it.”
Fortunately Addy had completed the gown before her trip to Austin, but after what had happened yesterday, she had totally forgotten they were to pick it up today. But she was not about to admit that to Olympia Fickhiser.
“Naturally Lucille’s gown is ready, Mrs. Fickhiser,” Addy said smoothly. “All but the waist seam, which is only basted. I always leave that till the last minute, because that measurement has a way of changing, even for the best of us. Lucy will need to try it on, so come on in, ladies.”
Lucy must have been stuffing herself with sweets again, Addy thought, for she looked at least two inches bigger around the middle.
“Well, I suppose we should spare some time for this,” Mrs. Fickhiser allowed.
Addy led the way into her sewing room in the front of the house and took down the gown of lavender peau de soie with a white lace trim and a white bow over the bustle. Stepping behind the three-paneled screen to assist Lucy out of the dress she had been wearing and into the new one, she saw that her guess had been right. The bodice that had fit perfectly a week ago was now straining at the waist seam.
“I’m going to have to let out the waist just a little bit,” Addy called out to Olympia Fickhiser. “Don’t worry, it won’t take but a few minutes, so I can do that while you wait,” she added, sighing inwardly at the thought of delaying dinner even longer. Since the Ranger hadn’t wanted any breakfast, she hadn’t bothered to eat anything herself this morning, and now her stomach was growling.
“Nonsense. Just tighten her laces a bit more!” Olympia ordered in her wake-the-dead voice. “Lucille, I told you you shouldn’t have consumed that entire lemon pie!”
Lucy’s face went brick red with embarrassment, and Addy felt sorry for her.
“All right,” Addy called, but she had no intention of complying. The stocky girl was already so tightly laced she could hardly breathe.
Catching Lucy’s eye and putting a finger to her lips, Addy undid the back buttons, then moved to the laces at the back of the corset, but instead of tightening them, she loosened them just a bit.
Lucy gave her a grateful, conspiratorial smile.
After serving Mrs. Fickhiser the rest of the coffee and Lucy a glass of cold water from the springhouse, she set to work on the waist seam while the mayor’s wife chattered nonstop.
“You had quite an ordeal yesterday, didn’t you?” the woman asked, then, without waiting for an answer, droned on. “No wonder you look so fatigued. I’m certain you didn’t sleep a wink last night! Imagine, surviving because a dead man fell over on you! How ghastly! Why, if that had not happened—you could have met with a Fate Worse Than Death,” she intoned. “Didn’t I warn you it was dangerous to travel alone?”
“But Mama, what could be worse than dying?” Lucy asked, her round face all innocence, but there was mischief in her eyes.
“Never you mind!” Olympia snapped.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly alone,” Addy felt compelled to point out. “There were several other passengers…but perhaps we should speak of something else?” she said, darting a meaningful glance toward Lucy.
Olympia’s lips thinned, but she could hardly argue that the murderous assault on the stagecoach was a fit subject to discuss in front of her daughter.
“Of course,” she sniffed. “I merely meant to express sympathy. To change the subject, then, did you happen to hear of the couple that dared to try to buy the lot across from the mayor’s manse? No, of course you did not. This took place, I believe, while you were gone to Austin.”
Only Olympia, Addy thought wryly, would refer to her own house as a manse. “Were they not suitable in some way?” she inquired, keeping her eye on her needlework.
“Unsuitable?” the mayor’s wife crowed. “Why, that’s the understatement of the year, Mrs. Kelly! They had moved here hoping that no one would know what the woman—I shall not call her a lady—really was. But my sister in Houston—that’s where they came from, Houston—wrote and warned me.”
“Do you mean that the woman was a criminal?” Addy inquired, wondering if what Olympia Fickhiser was about to say was any more fitting a subject for an innocent young lady’s ears than murder had been.
“My dear Mrs. Kelly, perhaps not in the eyes of the law, but certainly in the eyes of decent folk. The woman had been divorced,” Olympia Fickhiser intoned in a stage whisper behind her hand.
Addy flinched at the distaste in the woman’s voice. If Olympia Fickhiser even suspected the truth about her, she would gather her skirts and sweep out of Addy’s house, telling everyone in Connor’s Crossing that the widow Kelly was actually a fallen woman whom no decent lady should patronize.
“But even if the woman had been divorced, weren’t they a married couple, or did I misunderstand?” she asked mildly.
“Supposedly, though one only has their word on that,” Olympia Fickhiser muttered in an acid voice. “I sent them running from Connor’s Crossing with their tails between their legs, I can tell you!”
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