Page 63 of The School Mistress (Emerson Pass Historicals 1)

“The schoolteacher is here? Living with you?”

I waited until I heard them all head downstairs to the kitchen before I explained, rather awkwardly, how Miss Cooper had come to stay with us and her subsequent offer to take the place of the nanny. “The staff is off today. She and the kids are going to the kitchen to make something for supper.”

“I haven’t heard them sound like that—happy and gay—I don’t think ever,” Rachel said. “This Miss Cooper must be special.”

“The kids fell for her rather quickly.” As had I. The fire had died down and the chill crept in like a thief. I tossed in a few more logs. “All in all, yes, she’s quite remarkable.”

Rachel’s quick mind was already way ahead of me. Not surprising. Women were always smarter than men about matters of the heart. “Alexander?” That’s all. Just my name, yet I knew exactly what she was asking.

“I can’t seem to help myself.” I gave her a reluctant smile.

“Don’t. It’s no crime to be happy. This is a lonely country all alone. The winters are long without someone to warm your toes.”

I returned to the fireplace and retrieved the poker. “She’s young. Only twenty-two.” I prodded the logs into a better position before returning to my chair. “I’m not sure she’d be interested in an old man like me.”

“Love knows no age or color.” She smiled in a way that didn’t reach her eyes. “Anyway, if you have a chance for love, you best take it. You never know how long you’ll get.”

I fought the lump in my throat. “It’s still hard for me to understand he’s gone.”

“Yes.” She stuck her handkerchief into the sleeve of her dress and scooted to the edge of the couch cushion. “I should go. I left the kids with Wilber. They may have tied him up by now.”

I stood when she did. “Before you go, we should talk about what I’ve learned.”

She went still. “What you learned?” The words were like a dry creek bed, desperate for rain.

“It’s nothing, really.” I summarized what the Higgins brothers had told me and followed up with my conversation with the sheriff.

“What you’re telling me is that we’ll never find out who did this,” she said.

I nodded. “I respect you too much to lie to you. But I’ve come to a similar conclusion.”

She touched her fingertips to her forehead. “I should get back. Thank you, Alexander.”

“You’re welcome.”

I watched her leave, her posture ramrod straight, as if she were holding herself together by sheer will.

Chapter 19

Quinn

* * *

On Tuesday evening, Harley drove Merry and me into town thirty minutes before our first night class so we could stoke the fire I’d left that afternoon. As I wrote the lesson on the blackboard, I feared no one would show. It had dumped snow for hours. Although clear now, the temperatures had dropped into the teens. Until the heater warmed the room, it was too cold to take off coats. I kept mine on as I wrote a lesson on the board. Merry stoked the dying embers back to life with a couple pieces of kindling. Harley shoveled a walkway in front of the porch.

I turned from the board as a woman walked through the door. There was no mistaking who she was. Dark-skinned with enormous brown eyes and a long, graceful neck, Rachel Cole wore a fashionable and expensive-looking coat over the latest style boots.

“I’m Mrs. Cole.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I held out my hand and we shook. Her gloves were made of fine black leather. I was self-conscious of my rough nails and calluses. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to get a look at you,” she said.

“A look at me?” I swallowed as my stomach twitched from within. Her hat was the most beautiful I’d ever seen other than in Vogue, where they displayed all the Paris fashions. The closest I came to those were the clothes my sister made from the pictures.

“You can’t know a person without looking into their eyes,” she said.

I smiled and widened my eyes. “What do you see?”