Page 35 of The Pursuit of Elena Bradford

35

Not the general again. Kirby was beginning to wish Dr. Graham’s medicinal water hadn’t given the old gentleman a new spring in his step. Better if he was one of the old folks happy to stay on the veranda instead of always showing up to poke in Kirby’s business.

He clamped down on his irritation and managed a smile. “Good morning, General. Early to see you down this way.”

“Good morning, Mr. Frazier. Miss Ivy.” The general’s face brightened when he looked toward the girl. “Where is your sister?”

“I don’t know. I’m looking for her. You haven’t seen her this morning?”

“She wasn’t in the dining room or on the veranda.”

“I can’t imagine where she could be for so long. She usually comes back to the room after the sun is up.” Ivy looked a little worried. “Were you looking for her too?”

“I actually came to talk to Mr. Frazier.” The man’s eyes tightened as he looked at Kirby. “About Elena. Someone told me the two of you went for a walk last evening.”

“A walk in the moonlight isn’t a crime.”

“A young woman has to guard her reputation,” the general said.

“He asked her to go west with him,” Ivy burst out.

Kirby shouldn’t have told the girl. She wasn’t one to keep a secret. Not that he’d told her to keep it under her hat, but he hadn’t expected her to spread the news before she talked to Elena.

General Dawson didn’t even glance toward Ivy as he frowned at Kirby. “I feared that might be your purpose.”

“I can’t see how what I do or what she does is any business of yours. You’re not her father or any relation.”

“Not yet, but I have grown fond of Miss Elena. I won’t stand by and let you ruin her life.”

“Marrying me would hardly be ruination for her. I think she might find traveling west an exciting adventure.”

Ivy had her hand over her mouth as she watched them with wide eyes.

The general, ramrod straight, kept his eyes zeroed in on Kirby. The command of his soldiering years was plain on his face. “Did she agree to this adventure?”

“Not yet, but she will. A lady like Elena has to think things through.”

“I don’t think you’ve thought things through, Mr. Frazier.” The general reached in his pocket and pulled out a banknote. “I’m prepared to give you two hundred dollars if you pack up and leave the Springs. Alone.”

Had he heard the man right? Two hundred dollars? That was more than twice what he had hoped to raise with the paintings he’d lost in the hotel fire. He could reach out and take the banknote and be on his way west by the first of next week with plenty of supplies. He could even get a horse. A good horse. He glanced at his easel. He wouldn’t have to do another portrait of an old woman who thought she looked younger than she did.

All he had to do was say goodbye to Elena. Never see her again. Never see those children he didn’t want but now felt sad to think about not having. He had felt something last night by the lake that he hadn’t felt in a long time. Not since his little sister had died. The desire for someone to love. The need for family. Elena could give him that.

He didn’t have to be bought. Elena would have enough to get them west. Then he could sell his paintings to keep them going.

He kept his hands by his side. “Keep your money. We can make it without anything from you.”

“I regret to inform you that you have overestimated Miss Elena’s family fortune.”

“What do you mean?” Kirby looked from the general to the girl.

“They have no fortune.” General Dawson looked over at Ivy too. “Tell him, Miss Ivy. I can see he won’t believe me.”

When the girl kept her fingers over her lips, Kirby said, “Ivy?”

She sighed and made a sad face as she dropped her hand away from her mouth and stared down at the ground. “It’s true. My father got loans on our house before he died. Too many loans. Mother doesn’t have any way to pay them back. We could lose our home.”

Kirby frowned. “Then what are you doing here? You need money to stay at the Springs.”

Another sigh as she peeked up at him and then lowered her eyes again. “Mother found a way for us to come somehow. I don’t know how. She says our only chance to stay a family is for Elena to fall in love with someone who has the means to get us out of debt. Mother says it doesn’t matter about love, but I think it does.”

Kirby stared at her, then at the general, and back at Ivy. He didn’t want to believe what he was hearing.

The girl looked up, her lips trembling. “If she doesn’t find such a husband, Elena and I will have to find positions as maids, and Mother will be forced to beg one of her relatives in Mis sissippi to take her in. I don’t know what will happen to my brothers. It’s all so sad. And now if Elena has fallen in love with you and wants to go west, we have no hope at all. Unless someone wants to marry me, and it won’t be anyone I can love because I desperately love a boy in Lexington. And he loves me too, but he doesn’t have any money either.”

Kirby laughed. He didn’t know what else to do. This had to be some wild story that Ivy had seen in a newspaper. Maybe something written by Charles Dickens.

“I don’t know what you find amusing, Frazier,” General Dawson said.

“Only me, General. Only me.” He turned from the general to look at Ivy. “It seems my plans have gone awry the same as your mother’s, Miss Ivy.”

How could he have actually fallen in love with a woman in more need of financial help than he was? He had been foolish to let love come into play.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Frazier,” Ivy said.

He looked at the paints on his palette drying into uselessness. Everything was useless. All his plans.

“My offer is still good,” the general said.

“Your offer.” Kirby spit out the words as anger flooded through him. “You make me disappear and then convince the poor girl to marry you? A man more than twice her age.”

That made the old man laugh. “Not at all. She isn’t the Bradford I plan to wed.” Ivy’s eyes got wider before the man went on. “Or you either, child. I plan to marry Mrs. Bradford as soon as she thinks such a union proper after the death of your father.”

“Oh.” Ivy’s face lightened. “That would be wonderful. I can’t wait to tell Elena. She told Mother a week ago that you were attracted to her.”

“So, that’s settled, or will be as soon as Juanita agrees to our plans.” The general looked back at Kirby. “You can still agree to the plan I suggested for you.”

Kirby met his eyes and, without blinking, turned him down. “I won’t be bought.”

“Very well.” A slight smile touched the man’s lips as he slowly folded the banknote.

As he put it back in his pocket, Kirby thought he’d probably just done the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his entire life. But he wasn’t sorry. At least, not very sorry. A man had to have some pride, and his stash of cash from doing the portraits was growing. Plus, there was Elena. He didn’t want to give her up, even if she had no family fortune.

He had been so focused on the general and Ivy that he didn’t see Andrew Harper until the man was right in front of him, his face red, his hands balled into fists. Kirby didn’t think things could get any stranger, but they did when Harper tried to slug him as he yelled, “What have you done with Elena?”

Elena had no idea how much time had passed. She counted to sixty, then to one hundred. It didn’t help her gauge the time. Her shoulders ached, and her fingers felt numb. The cat, as if sensing her agitation, stood up in her lap and put its front paws on Elena’s chest to sniff her face. Then the cat rubbed its head against her chin.

“That’s nice, Princess, but it would help more if you’d gnaw through the fabric tied around my wrists.”

The cat stared at her and meowed as though it knew she was in trouble. Then it meowed again. Maybe this time to tell her to stop sitting there like a bump on a log and try to do something. It jumped down out of her lap.

But what could she do? She struggled to her feet. It was hard to do anything with her hands tied behind her. She looked around. Maybe she could find something sharp enough to tear the bindings since the cat didn’t appear ready to bite through them.

The cat watched a moment and then went to the back of the shed where she’d first seen it. She followed and felt like crying when the cat crept through a hole along the bottom of one of the planks.

“I’m sorry, Princess. Don’t go.” She stared at the hole, wishing the cat back.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” she called.

The cat didn’t come. It might not have had any way of really helping her, but the cat had kept her from feeling so alone.

She turned to look around the small shed. Why was it out here in the middle of nowhere? There was no workbench, no feeding troughs. Nothing except a small, dusty space with plank walls holding her captive.

The wood was weathered and old. Maybe if she shoved her shoulder hard against the door, the board that had slapped into the brace to hold the door shut would break. She tried again and again, but it didn’t give an inch.

She winced when she leaned her bruised shoulder against the shed’s wall to peer though the crack between the planks. With her bonnet bill in the way, she had to twist her head to the side to get close enough to see out. Nothing but green grass.

After moistening her mouth as much as she could with her dry tongue, she yelled. The wood seemed to absorb the sound and not let it escape the shed. She screamed louder and yelled until her throat hurt. Nobody came. Not even the cat.

She started kicking every plank in search of one that might be loose. One did seem to give a bit. Perhaps she could push the plank aside and squeeze through the opening that would make. When she kicked the plank again, something jabbed her foot. She slipped off her shoe and felt with her toes. Her stocking snagged on a nail almost at the bottom of the plank.

She stared down at it. The nail might tear the fabric of her bindings, but to reach it she’d have to be almost flat on the ground. If she couldn’t free her hands, she might struggle to get back up. She didn’t want to lie in the dust and wait to die. Better to stay on her feet if possible. Where there was one protruding nail, there might be another.

She struggled to see in the dim light, and the bonnet shading her eyes didn’t help. She scraped the bonnet’s bill against the side of the shed until it fell to the back of her head. The ribbons still held under her neck, but at least she could see better. Two planks over, she spotted a nail up higher. She would have to scoot down but not all the way to the ground.

When she turned to feel the nail with her fingers, it didn’t feel very sharp. Still, if she could poke it through the ties around her wrists, she might rip the fabric.

Dear Lord, please let this work.

She scooted down with her back against the planks and felt for the nail. She tried to position the material holding her wrists against the nail. She felt a little victory when she got her hands in the right place, but then when she tried to poke the nail through the strip of petticoat tying her hands, it pushed back into the wood. She could no longer even feel it with her fingers.

Tears slid down her cheeks as she sank down to sit on the ground. What difference did it make if she couldn’t stand up? If nobody found her, nothing would matter.

She wished the cat would come back. When she thought about praying again, she couldn’t think of the first praise. Just the word please over and over.

Maybe the man would tell someone where she was. He hadn’t seemed evil. Not like the other man. He thought someone would find her. He hadn’t wanted to kill her, but it could be he had anyway. Just as he hadn’t wanted to kill Vanessa, but she had died. Been buried.

Elena shook her head. She couldn’t think about that. Being covered in dirt. She sucked in air in fast breaths as she thought about dirt falling in on her.

She forced herself to stop and breathe slowly in and out. If she died, she wouldn’t be here or in a box being buried. She’d be in heaven. With her father. With Vanessa.

But she wasn’t ready. She wanted to live. To see her mother and Ivy. To hear more of the general’s stories. To wish Kirby well on his trip west. She wouldn’t be with him. Even if she was rescued from this shed. That was his dream and not hers. He wasn’t her dream.

She shut her eyes, and Andrew was there in front of her. He reached for her hand. She flexed her hands behind her back as she remembered the feel of his palm on hers.

Her fingers dug down into the dirt behind her. She touched something hard. Not a knife, though that would have been a sweet answer to her prayers. It felt like a shard of a crock.

She held it between her fingers and tried to push it against the fabric that held her captive, but her fingers couldn’t reach high enough. Again she forced herself to breathe in measured breaths. She needed to think. Find a way to use what the Lord had put in her hands.

If she could jam it into the crack between the planks behind her, that might work, but the crack was too wide. The shard needed to be tight in place to keep it from sliding out of reach the way the nail had.

She held the shard in one hand and twisted the fingers of her other hand around to grasp a fold of her skirt. She raised one hip off the ground to jerk the cloth up high enough to wrap around the crock piece. Very carefully she shoved it back into the crack. She tested it with her fingers. It felt tight.

With a fervent prayer for the Lord’s help, she pushed the fabric binding her wrists against the sharp edge of the shard. The material tightened and then gave the slightest bit.

She held her breath and pushed against the shard again. This time she heard a rip. With all her strength, she pulled her hands against the cloth. More fabric tore. When she relaxed her hands, the bindings were looser. She squeezed her fingers together to make her hands as narrow as possible and jerked one hand out of the bindings.

Sharp pains stabbed her shoulders and elbows when she brought her hands around to the front of her body. The skin on her wrists was raw, but none of that mattered. Her hands were free. Praise God. She scrambled to her feet without thinking about pulling her skirt loose from where she’d jammed it into the crack. When she heard it rip, she didn’t care. She threw out her arms and whirled around.

She was still locked in the shed, but at least her hands were free. She untied her bonnet, jerked it off, and threw it on the ground. Some of her hairpins fell into the dust with the bonnet. She stared at them a moment before she took out the rest of the pins and combed her fingers through her hair to let it fall loose down on her shoulders. She wasn’t sure why, but that made her feel better.

She pushed an eye tight against one of the cracks. No one to be seen, but she yelled anyway. Someone could be out there close enough to hear. She peered through a crack on the other side of the shed. Still nothing but grass and bushes.

Even so, she kept yelling until the shed echoed with her voice. No one came. Not even the cat.