Page 32 of The Copper Heir (The Gilded West #1)

Chapter Fifteen

E mmy watched him walk the dirt path toward the stables with a hollow pang of longing in her chest that she tried her best to ignore.

It irritated her that as her gaze roved over his broad shoulders she still felt a tug deep in her belly and that she craved his tender words from the night before.

How could he be so willing to send her back to Ship after their night together?

She tried to tell herself that it hadn’t really meant anything, but she couldn’t stop seeing the intensity of his face as he’d held himself above her, or the way he had looked deep into her eyes as he’d moved inside her.

Her heart along with her body still ached from him, but he seemed to have already forgotten.

She was a fool.

Instead of letting herself dwell on that, she turned her attention back to her sisters, who were each talking over the other in a bid to tell her about their adventure of the past week.

The name Mr. Pierce was being shouted, who she was sure couldn’t be the giant she knew.

They described him as kind, having kept them entertained on their trip with stories of the noble men who used to ride the plains.

He hadn’t been stoic or threatening, the awful attributes she would have attributed to him.

He’d been smiling and kind. Though she was very grateful that the girls had viewed their situation without fear and, indeed, with excitement, she couldn’t reconcile their experience with what she knew to be true.

The housekeeper ushered them inside where Emmy stopped to admire the two-story foyer that was all polished, honey-colored oak and wrought-iron.

Tall doors, two sets on each side, flanked the wide entry hallway that ran the length of the house.

The first set, leading off from either side of the huge burgundy and gold Persian carpet, were open to parlors with tasteful, comfortable-looking upholstered furniture.

But she didn’t get the chance to explore, because the girls pulled her along to the staircase as she stared in openmouthed awe at the expense that must have gone into such luxury.

Curving and elegant, with a wrought-iron handrail with spindly, decorative supports, the stairs were wide and led them to the upper floor where a plush, burgundy rug covering the gleaming wood floor greeted them on the landing.

A right turn would have taken them across the foyer to the south wing, but the girls pulled her to the left and stopped at the first door on the right.

One glance at the room and she knew that it had been a nursery at some point.

A crib was pushed back into the far corner surrounded by baskets of baby toys: rattles, wooden carriages and horses, and even a brightly painted rocking horse carved from wood.

Though Rose was nine and liked to consider herself as big as Ginny, who was three years older, the child still lurking within her came out as she ran to the horse clearly made for a younger child, making Emmy smile.

“Look at this, Em! Do you think I could keep it when we go home?” Grinning, Rose mounted its brightly painted saddle and demonstrated how to ride it.

Ginny ran across the large room to the armoire and opened it to show her all the new clothes that a Mr. Ed had brought for them to wear.

They were all dresses in various pastels with more ruffles and lace than she had ever seen in one place before.

Ginny smiled and ran a reverent hand over the fabric. “Aren’t they lovely?”

“Yes, absolutely beautiful.”

“I gave Rose the ones with ruffles, but I’m keeping both of the pink ones. I’ve never had anything besides gray and dull gray. Do you think these will turn gray after we wash them?”

Every dress the girls owned was secondhand and had been washed so much their color had long since faded.

Blinking back very sudden and unexpected tears at this show of how much the girls had been deprived of, Emmy turned her gaze to the rest of the room.

It held two small, matching beds neatly made up in dark green bedclothes.

A desk set against one wall was complete with a bookshelf filled with books on arithmetic, astronomy, biology and all the other subjects a child might need to learn.

Another bookcase was filled to the brim with more toys: wooden drums with skins stretched tight across them, a brightly painted wooden flute, blocks, and even male and female dolls dressed in fine evening wear.

She stood horrified. This must mean that Hunter was married and his wife and children had been stowed away somewhere.

Her heart dropped into her stomach as she made her way deeper into the well-appointed room.

Every item a child might need could be found here.

Walking to the desk, she picked up one of the books with a shaking hand.

The Young Man’s Guide to Becoming a Gentleman was embossed in faded letters on the drab brown cover.

Sons. He definitely had sons.

But as she was placing the book back, Rose called her name and she misplaced it so that it fell to the side of the stack of books.

The cover flipped open, revealing Hunter’s name written in the painstakingly correct yet immature handwriting of a child.

Placing the book back in its spot, she noted the initials “HWJ” carved into the side of the desk with the uneven efforts of a child.

She tried to imagine the boy he had been playing here in the room.

She’d see a gangly boy with dark blond hair swept down over his eyes and that same mischievous smile and her heart would ache, but then the image would be replaced by the handsome, imposing man she knew him to be.

This had been Hunter’s childhood room. Did his sons claim the room now?

A voice warned that she shouldn’t make assumptions, he’d have told her if he was married.

But another voice reminded her that he would have no reason to tell a whore.

The problem was that she didn’t know which voice was the rational one.

That scared her very much. For as long as she could remember, she’d lived by the idea that as long as she made the reasonable, rational choice then everything would turn out fine.

Now that everything was turned upside down, she just didn’t know which that choice was.

The next hour passed in a blur as the girls, who had already explored every inch of the nursery, showed her every toy and its purpose.

She had never seen them so happy back home at the farm.

Their toys there had been so limited it shamed her to think of it.

They’d never held any sort of musical instrument or even had a book full of children’s stories.

Emmy had read some of her books to them, always editing so the plots were appropriate and interesting to them.

They’d never even had free rein to just play, with chores and meal preparation always taking up so much of their time, especially when Ship and his men were home.

She was smiling at her sisters as they argued over the rules of a board game played with colorful marbles, when the housekeeper walked into the room and gently cleared her throat.

Emmy rose from her seat at the small table and greeted the woman who gestured toward the hallway.

Assuring her sisters that she’d return very soon, she followed the housekeeper out the door.

“I wanted to thank you for taking such good care of my sisters, Mrs....um...” Hunter had called her Willy, but that seemed too informal.

“Please call me Willy, dear. Everyone does. My name was Wilhelmina, but that’s a name from back East. It never seemed to fit out here.” She smiled easily and, it seemed, genuinely. “And no thanks necessary. It was my pleasure to keep them happy, they’re wonderful girls.”

“Well, thank you.” Emmy nodded, but to call her Willy didn’t seem right, so she skipped the subject.

“I apologize for the delay, but we weren’t expecting another guest, so I needed to prepare your room. Follow me and I’ll show you to it.”

There was that word again. Guest.

Willy led her to the next room down the hallway and, following her inside, Emmy gently pulled the door closed behind her.

She hadn’t yet determined how to explain their stay here to her sisters, nor had she had the time to ask them what they had been told, so she didn’t want them to overhear their conversation.

It was time to figure out if the housekeeper was ally or foe, though she suspected she already knew the answer.

“I’m sure you’ll find everything you need here,” Willy was saying as she walked to the center of the small sitting room.

A settee with matching chairs flanking each side was upholstered in a rose velvet and was the focal point of the room.

The window behind the settee was framed in matching drapes that let in cheery late-morning light, making the regularly polished wood of the fragile-looking tables gleam.

The air was fragrant with the pleasant smell of polish and sunshine.

“And in here...” The housekeeper paused to open the door to the attached bedchamber, revealing a four-poster bed made up in golden bedclothes with touches of pink in the throw pillows to match the upholstery in the sitting room.

Emmy was pulled into that room by her own curiosity, her feet sinking into the thick cream and rose carpet as she stepped inside.

A large armoire and dressing table took up one wall while two large windows on the opposite wall allowed light to flood the space.

With its rich fabric and beautifully maintained furniture, the bedchamber could have belonged to a princess.