Mrs. McKnight certainly did know. Enough that she need ask no other questions. “And your eldest sister, Camellia—I understand she and Ben left this morning for Manifest, and their new store.”
My, my, the town’s gossip mill seemed to be working overtime.
“Hen and I were aware they were planning to leave,” responded Letty, “but we weren’t, of course, over at the house in time to say goodbye. They had a very early start.”
“And we got a late one,” Hannah chimed in like a chipping sparrow, to give support. “But we’ll be watching over their house, to make sure everything stays safe.”
“Do you have any idea how long they’ll be gone? After all, our mayor, taking a trip, while town business must be done—”
Hannah was growing tired of this inquisition masquerading as polite breakfast table discourse. Flinging down her napkin, she rose and beckoned to her sister. “Now, Mrs. M., you know very well that Ben held a council meeting just the other day, so that any pending concerns could be addressed. They’ll return in a week, come Hades or high water. Now, if you’ll excuse us...”
Relieved, the two of them exited the boarding house together but separated halfway to the Forrester house.
“Try leaving some soil still in the ground,” Letitia suggested sweetly, “instead of carrying so much back with you on your clothing. No wonder our landlady is feeling irked.”
“By all means. And you, poke that bearish employer of yours with a stick and see if he growls.”
It was while she was humming her way along the side street to the doctor’s office, wondering what new cases might be presented today, and what new knowledge she might add to her mental satchel, that she saw him. A stranger in town, although she had been privy to no gossip or questions about someone new arriving; had not, in fact, known there was a stranger in town.
She stopped to stare. At that very same instant, the man, sensing, perhaps, her presence, paused in the act of putting one boot onto the ground from the wooden walkway upon which he was standing, and stared. He tipped his hat. She fumbled with the beginning of a curtsy before deciding such a reaction was ridiculous. He gave her the ghost of a smile. She responded with one similarly faint and sketchy.
Spreading his hands in a “What do you think?” (or, “Where do we go from here?”) gesture, he decided to end this odd non-conversation from some thirty feet away and began to approach. The man’s amble from his side of the street to hers held all the lithe, easy movements of a cowman used to days spent in the saddle and nights spent under the stars.
Seen closer to, his appearance was not so much attractive as intriguing.
Letitia felt a little ripple of something strange and unfamiliar lift the hair on her arms and on the back of her neck. Worse, what had seemed quietly at rest in her middle suddenly awakened, reared up, and sent a quiver of anticipation along every nerve.
His hat rested in one hand beside his thigh, so that he stood straight and exposed before her.
In a mere instant, she had taken inventory.
A tall frame, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, a paean of ropey muscles that needed slightly more weight to enhance its air of silent strength. Loose unruly curls the color of ripened wheat. Eyes full of clarity and brilliance, like sea glass shining in the sun. A face that wore traces of sadness, traces of suffering, yet an undeniable aura of tolerance and good humor.
Not to mention the white puckered rim of a scar, running from left temple to side of jaw.
Letty drew in a sharp breath and took a step backward.
“I do b’lieve I warned you,” he said, apparently amused.
Her squeak might have been agreement.
“Have I the honor of addressin’ Miss Letitia Burton?”
Another squeak, more agreement.
“Ahuh. It’s my pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma’am. As you may have guessed, my name is Reese Barclay, and I have come here to marry you.”
Letty had always prided herself on her self-control, her carriage, her confidence in dealing with and carrying off any awkward situation. Today she was none of these. Even though she had imagined the circumstances of this meeting, even though she had dreamed what he would say and what she would say and how they would mesh, the moment filled for her with inexplicable awkwardness.
Cursing the tongue which had unaccountably decided to enlarge itself past all adroitness of speech, she reached out one mitted hand, instead.
“How do you do, Mr. Barclay?” she was finally able to say. “I wasn’t sure—I didn’t know—there was no word—”
“Sure enough,” he said amiably. Standing hipshot, he took one long slow look at her, lovely hatted head to embroidered light wool gown of last year’s fashionable blue-gray to dusty little black boots, and back again. His smile did nice things to his rather poignant expression. “I’m sure likin’ what I see. You never told me you are so pretty.”
Her immediate blush added to the effect of modest maiden (such a façade, that; little, right now, could he know the truth; and how quickly he would learn about these Burton girls!). “Well, you never told me you are so—so—”
He cocked a curious brow in her direction. “So—?”