Tempted

“Like falling off a horse, then?” Evan asked. “You usually don’t get hurt, you’re just taken aback to be suddenly on the ground.”

“I have seen your horses,” Thomas said, round eyed. “They are tall but not as fat as Father’s.”

“They will be if they keep eating their heads off in his stable.”

“I shall have a pony next year, but I would rather have a horse.”

“A pony is more of a challenge,” Judith said bracingly. “I have more trouble getting Betty to do what I want than I have with a horse.”

“She’s right,” confirmed Evan. “Ponies are much smarter than horses. If you can manage a pony and get it to like taking you about, you will be able to ride anything in future.”

“Truly?” Thomas questioned, then flinched as he caught sight of his nurse approaching from the house. Judith saw her, too, and there came into her face such a look of resentment that Evan was shocked. Judith quickly removed the garment and helped Thomas back into his old coat, buttoning it up as she would if she were sending him someplace cold. She hugged him for a moment, as though she were not going to see him again for a long time. “All finished, Miranda,” she said in that tearful voice Evan was coming to know.

“You spoil him more than his mama,” Miranda said, taking the boy’s hand possessively and giving Judith an admonishing look. Evan supposed this frown was for letting him talk to the boy. The pup trailed after them, valiantly trying to hold his head up on the end of his heavy tether.

Judith’s face was a swirl of emotion—regret, longing, jealousy. “You could have a little boy like that,” Evan said.

She flashed him a look of horror.

“I mean when you are married and have a home of your own.”

“No!” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I can never have a son like Thomas.”

He would have pressed her, but he was afraid to make her cry. What did she mean? That she thought herself to be barren? If a doctor had told her this for certain perhaps that’s why she spurned his advances.

“Why does Miranda always drag him away when I am about? Does she think I will eat him?”

“I don’t know,” Judith said, carefully folding the coat as though the warmth of the child were still in it.

“I expect the other servants have filled her head with stories about me killing Gregory.”

“But you did not. Overturning the curricle was an accident.”

“Why then?”

“It must be because Thomas was so sickly when he was little.” The way Judith forced the explanation out, Evan knew she was lying to him. “If not for Miranda, we might have lost him. He is almost as much her baby as ours.” Evan nodded vaguely as she gathered up her sewing rather distractedly and fled toward the house.

Evan was nonplussed. Judith seemed such a sturdy, good-humored soul most of the time. It was only the mention of anything relating to marriage or children that disturbed her. It wasn’t going to be easy courting her then. He would have to go slower. Perhaps he could learn to pace himself to civilian life. He would certainly try for Judith’s sake. To this end he decided to go fishing.

Judith lay facedown in her pillow. It had been a long time since she had cried like that. It had a cleansing effect. The world was no brighter when she finished, but she felt emptier, which was somehow better than feeling as though she was going to burst.

“What is it, Judith?” Helen asked. “Is Evan bothering you again?”

“No,” she said, sitting up on the bed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“That’s because I didn’t knock. I saw you run from him. I knew I would find you crying. He’s bringing it all back, isn’t he?”

“It isn’t Evan. It’s—it’s everything. Do we still need Nurse Miranda? Thomas is nearly six now.”

“We will need her when the baby comes. She may as well stay.”

“But she scarcely ever lets Thomas play.”

“She plays with him. I have seen her. She loves him very much.”

“I just think, as badly as we need money, we could do without her. I could take care of Thomas.”

“Now we all agreed that was not wise, didn’t we?”

“That was a mistake. I should never have given him up. Never!”

“But what were we to do?” Helen asked. “I was the one who was getting married. Are you jealous of me?”

“No, I’m not jealous. I just want my son back.”

“But you have him. We all live in the same house.”

“I don’t have him. He is your son now, but you don’t love him—not like I do.”

“Of course I love him. You tell me this is not Evan doing this to you, but I don’t believe you. You never regretted your decision before. It was the only way.”

“I know. It’s not fair.”

“Life is not fair. If the world made any sense, men would ride sidesaddle and women would run the government.”

Judith gave a reluctant laugh.

“When my baby comes,” Helen said, patting her stomach, “Nurse will be so busy with it, you will have Thomas all to yourself. Mark my words.”

“Yes, I’m sure you are right. You almost always are.”

Evan borrowed the gear he needed from Terry and worked his way down the stream from where it ran past the stable to near the bridge. It was a shallow stretch of water now, but from the breadth of its bed and the height of the banks, in flood time, he guessed, it could not be forded. It had quite a few inviting pools that he did not so much remember as instinctively find. He knew he used to fish here, for his grandmother had told him so, but there was nothing familiar about it.

He pondered this as he tried one pool after another. He supposed a stream would change a good deal in ten years, but why had everything else changed so much? Indeed, some of his memories were truly faulty. Perhaps it was him. Perhaps he had remembered wrong or the memories had become distorted with time. He also remembered things that were not there, trees and pieces of furniture. He supposed he could have invented these, but why would he, since he tried never to think of home? He had, he realized, spent a lot of effort wiping out all thoughts of the place.

He had only just baited his hook atop a big rock by one of these pools when a shot whistled past his head. He rolled off the rock backward, landing in the shallows and staring through his wet hair at a figure in white. Much as he wanted to right himself, his every instinct was to lie still on his back and hold his breath. After regarding him for a moment, the woman moved off into the woods, a dark object showing up against the white of her dress—a pistol.

Evan breathed and rolled over, watching as a drop of blood splashed onto the wet stones and washed away. He felt his head and located the cut near his hairline. He was about to bind that up when he discovered, to his dismay, that the fishhook had gotten lodged in the skin between his thumb and forefinger. He really felt like weeping, but instead he laughed. It was the sort of thing that had got him his half-mad reputation in Spain. He could laugh in the face of the worst disaster because he could not do anything else.

He collected his gear and stumbled toward the house. Ralph gave him a start when he appeared out of the small woods in his shirtsleeves. He waved a dark object at Evan, who almost crouched to duck until he realized it was only a book. He waved back, paused and racked his brain to try to remember if the figure in white could have been a man with his shirttail hanging out because of the heat. No, he could not be sure. With the blood and water in his eyes he could not even say for sure if the figure had been wearing white. It might as easily have been cream, buff or light gray.

“What happened to you?” Judith asked, making him flinch again and driving his heart against his ribs. “You’re soaked, and why do you look at me so oddly?”

Evan had by now ascertained that the dark object Judith held by her faded muslin dress was also a book and not a pistol. Why had such a thought even come into his head, and did everyone have to be walking about with books like this? His nerves had not been so badly knocked about when he had been in Spain.

“Fishing,” he gasped with relief.

“It looks like the fish won. You’ve got a hook in your palm.”