Lake in the Clouds Read Online Free PDF Page B

Billy?”
    “His younger brother, yes. He left Paradise some years ago. I thought—everybody thought he must be dead.”
    “You see that he is not.” The widow picked up her embroidery again. “Go down to the village and see why he’s here.”
    “An old beau come to claim our Jemima, no doubt,” said Isaiah, one eyebrow cocked.
    Jemima blinked hard. “If Liam Kirby’s come back to Paradise, it must have something to do with the Bonners. With Hannah Bonner.”
    Now she had the widow’s attention, and Isaiah’s as well. But how much to say to a lady who had taken an instant dislike to Hannah, or to that lady’s only son, who had done just the opposite? Isaiah’s interest in Hannah was well known to Jemima, and it prickled.
    She searched frantically for something that would satisfy them both without giving away too much, not yet. Not until she had time to think this through herself.
    The widow leaned forward to peer more closely at Jemima’s face, as if she could read things there no one else could see. “Explain yourself, girl.”
    Jemima cleared her throat. “The Bonner’s took Liam in when Billy died.”
    The widow reared back with her head. “Billy Kirby, who burned down their schoolhouse? Nathaniel Bonner took in Billy Kirby’s brother?”
    Jemima nodded. If she could count on one thing only, it was the fact that the widow never forgot a story. The history of the Paradise school—most particularly Elizabeth Bonner’s role in it—was something that had interested her from the first. The widow could not abide the idea of a school where boys and girls sat in the same room, and she had tried to have it shut down more than once.
    “They threw him out, no doubt.”
    “No,” Jemima said. “That wasn’t it. When they went off to Scotland so sudden that year—”
    The widow’s mouth contorted, and Jemima faltered for just a moment. She did not usually make the mistake of mentioning Hawkeye’s family in Scotland; nothing irritated her mistress more than the undeniable fact that a backwoods trapper and hunter had connections superior to her own. The surprise of seeing Liam had flustered her, but there was nothing to do but push on and hope she could distract the widow from thoughts of Scottish earldoms.
    “And that’s when he just disappeared. Left one day without a word to anybody, and he hasn’t been back since. I always wondered—” She stopped herself.
    Jemima had been going to say,
I always wondered if Liam would come back for Hannah one day.
But to provide that information would provoke both the widow and her son; worse, it would give credence to something she had wanted to dismiss from her mind. So she provided a different theory, one she liked a little better.
    “Some think that Liam found the Tory gold and stole it from them, and that’s why he ran off.”
    The widow’s displeased expression was replaced instantly with one that was equal parts derision and disbelief. “More absurd stories about the Bonners, as likely as snow in July. So this Liam ran off from them; I’d say that showed some good sense. And now he’s back. But why?”
    Isaiah retreated to his corner. “I’m sure you’ll find out, Mother. In the end.”
    “I don’t intend to wait that long.” The widow fingered her mourning brooch thoughtfully, and then her head swooped around toward Jemima.
    “They’ll bury the child this afternoon, no doubt. Only right that I send you up to pay my respects. Say a Christian prayer over Todd’s daughter. If the good doctor will consort with heathens and papists it’s the best that he could hope for anyway.”
    Jemima swallowed hard. She had been promised an afternoon off for the first time in three months, but to remind the widow of that would bring repercussions she did not like to contemplate. With a great sigh, Jemima nodded.
    The widow bent again to her needlework, looking greatly satisfied with her plan.

    Mid-afternoon, Nathaniel and Hawkeye went down to the village to