The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn Read Online Free PDF Page B

the steps, fumble at the door, and vanish in a swirl of blue. He barely registered the glowering man that hurried past and followed her inside. Behind the door a shout rumbled through the walls of the house to worry the street like distant thunder.
    Jesse had dropped both horses’ reins to gape. “Did you …? Have you ever …?”
    Cade fetched the reins and looked down his long nose, taking full advantage of the inch of height he had on Jesse. “Did I? Have I? All that book learning I got you, and you can’t find a single word to describe a chit of a girl?”
    “A chit of a …? Did you see her?”
    “I saw a fancy gown, a pretty face. What’d you see?” Cade’s eyes danced with amusement. “Give me words , boy. Or did she knock ’em clean out of your head?”
    She doth teach the torches to burn bright .
    Not a chance he’d stitched such words together of his own wits. He must have read them somewhere. But if he spouted them now, Cade would think him addled, right enough. What, then, could he say? He’d read himself a heap of books, and the Good Book twice through, but heaven help him could he call to mind another phrase better fitting what he’d just seen. Or thought he’d seen. Could you glimpse a woman’s soul with one look into her eyes?
    “Never mind,” he said, still sounding pole-axed to his own ears. “Weren’t we talking ’bout cows … or corn?”

    While her stepfather raged and her mother pleaded, Tamsen huddled in the parlor bed with a door shut between, pouring out her misery and resentment into the muffling pillow. On a pallet by the fire, Dell prayed, calling on the Almighty and His angels to hold her stepfather in check.
    They’d never heard him quite this angry.
    It was near dark before the front door slammed. Mrs. Brophy’s house shuddered with the silence. Moments later her mother entered the parlor. Candlelight wavered, steadied. Tamsen feigned sleep, listening as Dell rose to the nightly ritual of removing her mother’s gown and stays and brushing out her thick black hair.
    “Law, Miss Sarah,” the maid hissed through her teeth. “Look what he done to—”
    “Hush, Dell.”
    “But he never—”
    “The gown tore when I tried to pull from his grasp. That is all.”
    “He sounded terrible worked up,” Dell ventured after a moment. “Ain’t laid a hand on you nowhere?”
    “Thank the Lord, no. Now hush.”
    Eventually the candle was snuffed and the bed tick sagged beneath her mother’s slender weight. Tamsen faced the wall, holding herself rigid. Her heart thumped ten slow beats before reaching fingers curled around her shoulder. A smell almost of cinnamon—her mother’s smell—filled her next breath. She knew what was coming.
    The sense of betrayal choked like bile.
    “Tamsen … please. Won’t you give Mr. Kincaid another chance? Hewas so taken with you.” Her mother stroked the tear-wet hair back from her face. “Mr. Parrish says he was set to propose when …”
    When he showed his true nature , Tamsen wanted to say. A nature as mercurial as her stepfather’s. Only difference being, Mr. Kincaid possessed a veneer of charm, something her stepfather lacked entirely. But charm was deceitful, and despite what the man said of her better nature, his reaction to her beauty had made her vain enough to be deceived. Nearly.
    “Mr. Parrish means to smooth things over,” her mother said into the dampness of her hair. “Convince Mr. Kincaid to see you again.”
    Tamsen pictured her stepfather out in the night entreating the man, making excuses, promising all manner of reform to her behavior. She was young. She was malleable. Mr. Kincaid could make of her what he wished, once the union was legal. Hezekiah Parrish wouldn’t scruple to interfere with his methods, however stiffly they be meted.
    And here was her mother, cowed into persuading her it was something for which she ought to be glad. It was all Tamsen could do to bear her touch, her pleading