Something Borrowed (Borrowed Brides 3)

"What do I do while you're sleeping?"

He wanted to suggest that she tuck Maddy and Judah into beds of their own, then come up and join him, but he didn't. He smiled down at her instead and tried to make useful suggestions that would provide a couple of hours of busywork to keep Mary from dwelling on her anxieties. "You can find Maddy's bag and get her some more clothes to wear. And you might see to whatever it is you have bundled in your jacket. Then, you might want to do a little unpacking yourself. Oh, and check out the kitchen and see if there's any food. I'm sure Maddy and Judah must be hungry. Make a list of the supplies we need and explore the house. Just make yourself at home. I'll be down in a couple of hours."

* * *

Chapter Eleven

"Make yourself at home, check out the kitchen, find something for Maddy to wear. I'll be down in a couple of hours," Mary grumbled as she poured a measure of rolled oats into the farina boiler. "And I might fly to the moon tomorrow. Who does he think he is, leaving me to cope with everything while he takes a nap?" She wiped a stray lock of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. Her husband, that's who. Mary's heart seemed to skip a beat as she answered. The bridegroom who had sat up on the train all night watching over her and Maddy and Judah while they slept. He was her legal spouse, and as such, Lee had every right to expect her to take care of Maddy and Judah while he slept. He was her husband. She was his wife and lady of the house. There was nothing wrong with his suggesting she perform a few necessary household chores, as long as he didn't make a habit of it. As long as he didn't expect her to behave like a well-trained servant rather than his wife. They were, after all, marriage partners. Equals. And Mary expected Lee to contribute as much to the upkeep of this monstrosity of a house as she did.

She held her tongue and had waited until Lee disappeared from view before she had began rummaging through the carpetbags he had left in the entrance hall. She found Maddy's bag, pulled out a petticoat, drawers, and a pair of thick black stockings, and dressed the little girl in those. Once she had Madeline warmly dressed, Mary took a bottle of bath salts and a pair of soft deerskin moccasins from one of her trunks, then picked up the jacket-wrapped bundle and began a search for the kitchen.

She finally located it and an adjoining food pantry in the servant's wing. The food pantry contained the usual bulk staples of flour, lard, sugar, coffee, tea, rice, rolled oats, and molasses, as well as an assortment of spices, dried foods, canned goods, and a barrel of salted pork. Wasting no time, Mary took off her black lace-up shoes, slipped on her comfortable moccasins, rolled up her sleeves, and built a fire in the stove.

After carefully priming the pump, she pumped water into a kettle for tea, filled a farina cooker to make boiled oat porridge with molasses, then filled a large pot with water, poured a bit of the bath salts into it, and hefted it onto the stove to boil. She didn't attempt to locate the springhouse to see if there was any butter or eggs, nor did she try to find a smokehouse that might contain meat other than salted pork because she would have had to leave the house to do so, and she couldn't leave Maddy and Judah unsupervised.

Once the porridge was done, she fried a few slices of pork, dished up bowls for the three of them, and opened a can of peaches, which she served along with the rolled oats. Rather than eat in the dining room, they sat at the worktable in the warm kitchen. It wasn't much of a breakfast, eaten as it was, without milk, butter, or fresh meat, but it was hot and nourishing and Maddy and Judah seemed to enjoy it.

When she finished eating, Mary unwrapped the bundle of clothes. She counted the garments twice—Maddy's muslin petticoat, drawers, and knitted tights—her silk stockings, quilted underpetticoat, bustle petticoat, and… Mary frowned. There was no doubt about it. Her drawers were missing. Left behind in the necessary, no doubt, although Mary distinctly remembered bundling them inside her jacket. She shrugged her shoulders and swallowed an embarrassed giggle at the thought of another passenger on the Cheyenne to Denver train, or one of Utopia's residents, stumbling across her frilly underwear. But there was nothing she could do about that now. Mary shrugged her shoulders once again and scooped up Maddy's pile of laundry. At least Lee hadn't noticed anything unusual about her appearance, except that her skirt seemed longer.

She put Maddy's soiled linen and stockings in the pot with the bath salts, and covered it with a lid. She let the linen boil for a few minutes, then drew up a pan of cold rinse water. She lifted the pot off the stove and set it into the sink before she fished Maddy's undergarments out of the hot water with a long wooden spoon and dumped them into the pan of cold water. Mary added her own silk stockings to the cold rinse water and, once the laundry had cooled sufficiently, she wrung it out by hand, then carried the linen into the scullery and cranked it through the wringer. Mary hung Maddy's tights and petticoats on the wooden clothes racks in the scullery to dry along with her own pair of stockings. She didn't attempt to launder her massive petticoats or her green jacket, but simply hung them up to air out. And throughout the process, Madeline and Judah finished their breakfast and watched quietly as Mary made several trips from the kitchen to the scullery and back.

After breakfast, Mary put a pot of pork and beans on to simmer for the next meal, washed the breakfast dishes, and tidied up the rest of the kitchen. Taking a mug of tea with her, Mary ushered Judah and Maddy back to the main wing of the house. She found paper and pencils in a desk in the library and, using a book as a writing desk, made a list of the kitchen and food supplies they would need, then set out to explore the rest of the rooms of the main wing.

She found that the servant's wing housed the kitchen in the turret room at the back of the house, a water closet, and a large dining hall furnished with an oak trestle and matching benches, a china closet, butler's pantry, several storage closets, and food pantry. In addition to the front parlor and the entrance hall, there were four other rooms in the main wing of the first floor: a Baroque dining room complete with carved niches displaying china and overflowing with furnishings decorated with the curves, bumps, lumps, and knobs indicative of the rococo period; a Gothic revival style study with arched doorways, a frescoed ceiling, a massive walnut desk and matching chair, as well as a pair of huge book cabinets with stained glass fronts; a Renaissance-style sitting room which opened onto the study a

nd the library, which was located in the front turret. The library had a high ceiling and large floor-to-ceiling clear glass windows for light, built-in bookshelves, a marble fireplace, windowseat, and Jacobean furnishings.

Mary studied the rooms with a critical eye. The furniture, paintings, wallpaper, and rugs, even the assorted bric-a-brac were of the highest quality, but the mix of styles, colors, and fabrics jarred the senses. She made copious notes, numbering, describing, and, in some cases, even sketching the pieces of furniture in each room, ending her journey in the study where she sat down on one side of the massive two-person desk to make the list she hoped would help her devise a decor of her own—something she could live with—by keeping the furnishings she liked and relegating the rest to the third floor for storage. Strangely enough, she decided she liked the Arthurian touches in each of the rooms. The woven tapestries hanging in the library, the paintings of Arthur and Guinevere in the dining room, and the other items appealed to her whimsical side, and Mary decided to keep them.

She finished making her notes, then took Judah and Maddy with her back into the warmth of the kitchen and set them down at the table where she could keep an eye on them while she prepared lunch.

She gave Judah some paper and a pencil to write or draw on while she worked. Maddy sat down on the opposite side of the table and played quietly with her doll as Mary mixed up a batch of biscuits and a cobbler, made from dried apples, to go with the pork and beans.

Lunchtime came and went with no sign of Lee. Mary left the pot of beans warming on the stove as she cleaned up the kitchen once again, then sat down at the table beside Maddy to savor another cup of tea. A little while later, Mary realized Judah was growing tired and restless. She looked at the watch she'd taken off her jacket and pinned to her blouse. Lee's two hours of sleep had stretched to five and a half hours. It was afternoon and probably time for Maddy's nap… and Judah's as well. Mary remembered that her grandfather, who was around Judah's age, always took a nap after lunch.

Almost as if he'd read her thoughts, Judah announced, "I want to go to bed."

"Judah, I'll be happy to make up a bed for you upstairs," Mary told him. "Or if you'd rather, I can try to locate your house, so you can sleep in your own bed in your own home."

The elderly attorney looked up at Mary from his place at the table and yawned widely. "I'm sleepy."

Mary sighed. She'd managed to avoid the upstairs all morning, but it didn't look as if she was going to be able to delay any longer even if she wanted to. Judah was a guest in her home, and Mary couldn't ask him to sleep on one of the downstairs sofas.

Maddy laughed suddenly, then covered her face with her hands. She peeked through her fingers, teasing Mary.

Mary stood up and took Maddy by the hand.

Judah got to his feet as well, then grabbed his hat and cane off a chair and limped out of the kitchen and into the entrance hall.

"Judah, where are you going?" Mary asked, following him.

"I'm going home," he answered. "I've got work to do. Papers to review. And court on Monday. I need to get some sleep."

"But, Judah, I didn't mean for you to leave. You can't go home," Mary tried to explain. "Not until you tell me where you live." She let go of Maddy's hand and rushed over to take Judah by the arm.

Maddy giggled again.

Mary looked down at her. "Do you know where Judah lives?"