“Yes,” I say. “Do you favor your father, or your mother?”
“My father, although the curly hair comes from the Clemson side. My mother’s. Charlie looked just like her.”
“Marguerite told me about your brother. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Beckett’s fingers flex around his cup. “Lots of people lost brothers over there. Sons. Husbands.”
I reach out, lightly skimming the skin on his wrist with my fingertips. “Yes, but it doesn’t makeyourloss hurt any less.”
He looks at me through his long lashes. “I suppose you’re right. Tell me about your little brother. What was his name again?”
“Henry.” I smile, sitting back in my chair. “He was such a proud little stoic—from the time he was a baby. Once he could read, he had his head in a book from morning to night. Studying the lives of the saints. The works of Augustine. He was an altar boy at our church. Wanted to be a priest. He would have made a good one, I think.”
Beckett nods. “I’m sorry. It’s a shame.”
“Yes.” I take a long sip of coffee to soothe the ache in my throat. “It is.”
The teakettle begins to steam but doesn’t yet whistle. “Marguerite told me more about you last night, after dinner,” Beckett says. “About your father’s death. And that you’d had a tragic love affair.”
I bristle. “She did?” I haven’t talked about Ted at length with Marguerite, and she doesn’t know much at all about us, other than things didn’t end well. I’ve kept the details of our relationship sparse, but knowing Louise, she probably phoned Marguerite and told hereverything, and in one of her moments of clarity, Marguerite remembered. I’m upset that she shared such intimate details of my life with Beckett. “What else did she tell you?” I hesitantly ask.
“Not much. She just said your engagement had ended badly and your man was a fool for letting you slip away.”
“I’m surehedoesn’t see it that way.”
“What happened?” he asks.
I waver, unable to meet his eyes. It’s none of his business what happened between Ted and me. If I tell him the truth—that Ted was married to someone else when I fell in love with him—it will only give Beckett another reason to judge me. To respect me even less than he does now. I think of the conversation I had with Weston, and how sympathetic he was. Only a person who’s been in the same shoes can understand the complexity of that kind of love and how it tears a person apart and makes them feel alive, all at the same time.
The teakettle’s shrill whistle interrupts my tumbling thoughts. “There’s my water. I’d better get washed up and go dress for the day.” I stand, tightening my robe.
Beckett rises. “I didn’t mean to be intrusive ... I—”
“It’s all right.” I grab the knitted square Melva uses as a pot holder and lift the kettle by the wire handle. Made of cast iron, it’s much heavier than I expect it to be, and I fumble, nearly dropping it.
“Here, you’ll burn yourself,” Beckett says, his hand at my waist to steady me. “Let me help.”
Let me help.How hard that is for me. To accept help from a man. “I can do it.”
I tighten my grip on the handle and bring the kettle above the ewer. Beckett’s hand is still on my waist, warm and strong, as he grabs a towel and uses his other hand to help me lift and tilt the kettle above the mouth of the pitcher. Together, we pour the steaming water inside.
I lower the empty kettle back onto the range and stand there, out of breath. Beckett is looking at me the same way he did yesterday, withwarmth behind his eyes. His hand slips from my waist. “Would you like me to carry it upstairs for you?” he asks. “I’d be glad to.”
“Thank you, but I ... I can manage. I do it every day.”
“All right,” he says. “I’ll be outside. Come get me when you’re ready to go to town.”
“Okay.” The moment is broken, and I turn away, my pulse thrumming beneath my skin. I return to the attic with my ewer of water. As I’m washing up, I feel like I’m being watched. I glance over my shoulder, my senses heightened, but there’s no one there, although for the briefest moment, I smell the warm scent of a fine cigar.
Chapter 12
July 23, 1925
I walk arm in arm with Marguerite down Spring Street, our steps small and measured. Eureka Springs was built to suit the lay of the land, without subjugation. The streets bend at odd angles and loop around one another, with uneven walkways and precariously narrow steps that threaten to turn ankles and send a person tumbling into the gullies below. Though quaint and picturesque, this is a true mountain town, made for hardy folk. Once more, I wonder at Marguerite’s willingness to leave behind her plush, cosseted life in Kansas City for a place like this. When she first came here, it was little more than a wilderness camp, accessible only by stagecoach, where well-to-do ladies came to take the waters in the town’s landmark springs, then journey back to their richly appointed lives elsewhere.
Not Marguerite. She had stayed—had carved out a place for herself among these pioneers.
“Right there, up ahead. That was where the sanitorium used to be. The one Papa sent me to in 1879.” Marguerite points to a three-story building up the street, now a store, its stone shoulders hunched against the hill at an angle. “The original building burned in the Spring Street fire. It was one of the first buildings here. They housed us on the top floor, to make sure the consumption wouldn’t spread, and so we’d get the full benefit of the sun.”
