Ben had told her he lived in the hill country, and her eyes could testify to that. Gently rolling hills covered with grass turning brown in the last days of summer surrounded them. They were driving west out of Austin, and on the right a cypress tree–lined river cheerfully wended its way through the rocky ground. Cattle grazed among small cedar trees.
As the sun slipped lower on the horizon, it became hotter.
Lauren could feel rivulets of perspiration coursing down her scalp. She longed to whisk off her hat, release her heavy hair from its restricting pins, and allow what little breeze there was to blow through it.
Her hair had been the scourge of every housekeeper who had worked for Gerald Holbrook. Its washing and combing had been a constant source of muttered grumblings. Mrs. Dorothea Harris, an embittered widow who had been housekeeper from the time Lauren was seven until her father died, had declared that the girl had enough hair for six children. Each morning, she roughly pulled it into braids that were so tight they brought tears to Lauren’s eyes. Lauren’s father had said in a rare compliment that her thick black hair was like her mother’s. In this Lauren took secret pride.
Of course, it was out of the question to take her hair down now. It wouldn’t do at all to arrive at the Locketts’ house without a hat, let alone with unbound hair.
Dismally she looked at the fine layer of dust on her navy skirt and agonized over the disheveled appearance she would present when she arrived at her destination. What would Ben think? Would he be ashamed of her and regret his invitation? Lauren wanted so badly to impress his family.
She flicked away what she could of the settling dust. It was instantly replaced, and she sighed resignedly.
Ed Travers said, “It does get a mite dry and dusty. Ben must have done quite a sales job to get you to leave the green hills of North Carolina and come all the way out here.” His curiosity over Lauren Holbrook’s future status in the Lockett household hadn’t yet been satisfied.
Lauren laughed. “He did sell me on Texas, and I haven’t been disappointed. It’s wonderful.”
“How long will you be here?” He couldn’t help asking.
She averted her head quickly and clenched her hands into fists. “I… I’m not sure.” She managed to control her initial agitation and go on. “It will depend on Mrs. Lockett. You see, I’m to be her secretary.”
Ed Travers almost fell off his seat. Olivia Lockett with a secretary? What was old Ben trying to pull?
He swallowed hard before he asked squeakily, “What are you going to do for her?”
“I’ve spent years helping my guardians entertain. Ben thought that I might relieve Mrs. Lockett of some of those responsibilities. I can help her with her correspondence, for instance. The length of my visit will depend on how well we get along and whether she likes me or not,” Lauren answered. As she explained her future to him, she tried to assimilate it in her own mind.
Poor lass, thought Travers. If it were a case of Olivia Lockett liking a young, pretty girl living under her roof, then the innocent Lauren Holbrook would be on the next train out of Austin heading anywhere. Olivia could freeze the balls off any man with one icy blast from those hard, green Creole eyes of hers. What would she do to this poor child?
Intuitively Lauren sensed Travers’s bewilderment. She had felt that same incredulity at Ben’s offer. It had come so suddenly, and she was completely unprepared for it.
* * *
They had dined on overdone lamb and bland vegetables, the typical fare that came out of the Prathers’ kitchen. Lauren was always painfully aware of the unpalatable meals that Sybil Prather served her guests. She was grateful to Ben Lockett for doing justice to his plate, though he graciously declined a refill.
After dinner, Lauren played the piano for the guests at the persistent urgings of her guardians. The recital was well received but, as usual, the Prathers’ gushing praise embarrassed their ward.
Sybil, her plump figure swathed in pink ruffles, sat beside her husband on a garishly upholstered settee. Unfortunately Sybil’s taste in clothes extended to her house as well. Her motto was: “More is better.” The house was dark and heavy with brocades and velvets. Chandeliers and vases of dark-colored glass added to the gloom. Wallpaper in overgrown prints and a maroon carpet splashed with large orange and yellow flowers vied for supremacy.
The pastor’s wife simpered as Abel boasted of her prizewinning roses. Much to their surprise, Lauren’s relief, and William Keller’s aggravation, Ben asked Lauren to show him this noteworthy garden.
The evening had been warm and still, and cicadas serenaded them as Lauren led Ben to the small rose garden and sat down on a low bench.
“Do you grow roses in Texas, Mr. Lockett?”
“Indeed we do. I have a Mexican gardener who tends to the grounds around the house in Coronado, and he grows them much sweeter and much larger than these prizewinning flowers of Sybil’s. I think his secret is horse manure.”
There was a momentary pause. Lauren wasn’t sure what her reaction should be. Then they both laughed spontaneously. She chided herself for condoning his indelicacy but, somehow, it didn’t seem to matter.
“Thank you for inviting me out here with you,” she said. “Abel and Sybil usually contrive for me to be alone with William.”
“And you don’t want to be alone with William?”
She shuddered and said, “No. I don’t.”
William Keller was a serious, thirty-five-year-old preacher who had accepted the pastorate of a small church on the outskirts of Clayton. Lauren sensed that, beneath the guise of piety, he was ambitious and shrewd. He was continually trying to impress the bishop with the strength of his moral fiber and his undying love for humanity.
Much to Lauren’s dismay, the Prathers considered William a superb candidate to relieve her of the state of spinsterhood. They extolled William’s virtues to her at least three times a day, and she was forced to take these doses of him much as one is forced to take bad-tasting medicine at regular intervals.