The Spinster (Emerson Pass Historicals 2)

“Yes, that’s right. All my life I’ve been at the mercy of the good souls who’ve taken me in, sheltered me, taught me. The nuns, then Mr. Jenkins, and now you.”

“I always figure a person attracts what they give out to the world. It’s no accident that you’ve come to us.”

“I came because of Josephine,” I said. “I hope you know I didn’t come looking for a handout.”

Lord Barnes chuckled. “Giving you my daughter is much harder than a loan for a business.”

I flushed. “I didn’t mean to compare them. Josephine is finer than any monetary pursuit. I’d give most anything to win her love.”

“That’s not up to me. She has her own mind, and I’ll allow her to marry whomever she chooses. But from what I’ve seen of your character thus far, I hope she returns your affection.”

“How do you know, sir? If you don’t mind my asking. About me, that is.”

“You’ve traveled across the country, risking everything, because of the letters from a girl you’d never met. My wife came here because of a letter I’d written to her about my vision for our first school. I’d imagined her an old battle-ax of a woman—one who would be fine out here in this rough, wild town. When she showed up no older than Josephine is now, I could hardly believe my eyes. She was the prettiest woman I’d ever seen and had the grit of a hundred hungry men. The courage it took for her to leave her mother and sister in Boston and come out to the frontier never ceases to amaze me. She said it was my letter that convinced her to come. The way I described the town and the children who needed a teacher moved her. There’s something similar in our stories, don’t you think?”

“I suppose there is.” I smiled to myself, touched by his confidence in me. “Except that you and Quinn didn’t know what was coming. For me, I knew Josephine from her letters. The risk wasn’t so great. Other than my soul will be crushed if she doesn’t choose me.” I said the last part in jest, although it was absolutely true.

We’d arrived at the mill by then. Lord Barnes pulled the horses into the livery and greeted the boy who looked after them while the men were at work. In this rural environment, not many had motorcars, I presumed. Riding horses to work was a necessity.

Smoke rose in a cloud from the mill’s building. A conveyer belt moved slowly, carrying logs to the round saws. As we made our way toward the office, the grinding noise of the chains that cut the boards filled the yard.

Lord Barnes and I entered the office to the smell of wood shavings. A stout man with a bushy white beard and eyebrows to match looked up as the door closed behind us. He stood up from his chair. “Barnes, what brings you here?”

“Roy, this is my friend Phillip Baker. He’s in need of some wood to make furniture.”

Roy came from behind the desk to shake my hand. “Pleasure to meet you, young man.”

“You as well.”

“He needs wood to build a table,” Lord Barnes said.

“In the arts and crafts style,” I said. “Clean lines but with practical uses, like storage.”

“What do you have for him?” Lord Barnes asked.

“We mostly have firs, pine, and cedar. You can take it home with you now if you’d like.”

“Cedar would work for a table,” I said.

“Show us the way,” Lord Barnes said.

Josephine

For two days in a row I only saw Phillip at dinner. He’d been hard at work in the shed on the Cassidys’ table, leaving the house before I’d come down for the morning. During the days, I worked at the library, coming home just after teatime. After dinner, he and I would retire to the sitting room with the rest of my family. I yearned to have him all to myself and ask him a hundred questions. Instead, we were surrounded by my sisters and watchful brothers, not to mention Papa, who seemed to have eyes in the back of his head.

At night, to distract myself from staring at him endlessly, I busied myself by knitting him a pair of fingerless gloves. Working out there in the cold, he needed gloves, but he’d mentioned they encumbered his agility. I’d finished them last night and wanted to give them to him today. Yet I hesitated, shy to go out uninvited to his working space alone. Fiona and Cymbeline were at school. The boys were working with the carpenters at the ski lodge. Papa was at his office. M

ama was with the little girls in the nursery. I wished my sisters were here to ask if they’d accompany me. We were a modern household; still, I wasn’t sure Papa would like me to be alone with Phillip in such a small space.

I spent a good fifteen minutes moving restlessly around the sitting room. Finally I decided I’d take Phillip a pot of hot tea and casually leave the gloves as well. How ridiculous I was, all this fuss over whether I should go out to the shed.

I went down to the kitchen to ask Lizzie if she’d mind putting a pot of tea together for me. She and Mrs. Wu were both working in their usual harmony. Mrs. Wu was in the middle of peeling a pile of potatoes; Lizzie stood at the stove, stirring a steaming pot of broth that smelled of celery and garlic.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Hello, Miss Josephine,” Mrs. Wu said.

When she’d first come to us, Mrs. Wu couldn’t speak much English, but over the years she’d become quite fluent. She and Lizzie, so opposite in appearance—Lizzie robust and pink-skinned with round features; Mrs. Wu, birdlike and tiny with white hair and a dark complexion—were fast friends. After so much time together they moved about the kitchen as if in a choreographed dance.