In His Eyes(37)

“Miss Eleanor Whitaker?”

She bobbed her head. “Yeah. Ella.”

“Ella.” He tried the name and decided he liked the sound of it. It seemed soft and inviting. Somewhat opposite of the stiff yet fiery woman who regarded him with sparking eyes filled with something akin to distrust.

The girl crossed her arms. “You gonna throw her out? She got nowhere to go.”

Despite the ire he should feel over one of lower rank speaking to him thus, Westley chuckled—as seemed to be becoming a habit on this rather peculiar day. “You like her, do you?”

She clasped her hands behind her simple pink dress. “Yes, suh. She a real nice lady.”

Hmm. A nice lady who lied to the United States Army and convinced Sibby to let her run a house she had no business in. “That so?”

“Yes, suh. And she ain’t like other white ladies.”

Intrigued, Westley shifted the cane to his other hand and leaned his weight on the rail. “Oh?”

“Yes, suh. She ain’t afraid of workin’. She scrubs in the kitchen just as hard as I do, even though Sibby keep tellin’ her not to.”

Not a woman of any means or family status. That seemed right. He’d briefly considered that she could be a displaced woman who had lost her home and seized upon a standing house without proper owners. But something about that didn’t fit. Perhaps this Negro child would tell him things the lady might not.

“Do you know where she comes from?”

The girl shook her head.

“What about the baby? Surely his father would like to know he is here?”

The child shifted her stance. “Don’t know his father.”

“You mean she didn’t tell you anything about her husband?”

“That boy’s daddy ain’t her husband.” The little girl wrinkled her nose. “She ain’t got one.”

Westley’s jaw constricted. As originally suspected, though briefly discarded. A harlot. She’d come here pretending to be a widow to hide her sin, just as Westley first believed when the Martin women said a wife waited for him at home.

The little girl’s eyes flew wide as she realized she’d said something she ought not. “What you gonna do?”

He growled and turned for the stairs.

The girl’s repeated question followed him as he made the turn on the landing, but he ignored her. Of course. It made perfect sense. His first instinct of a camp follower had been correct. And of course she would come here!

Why had he not thought of it sooner? His mother allowed trollops to find succor here. There had been plenty of talk whispered behind gloved hands, and certainly such gossip openly circulated amongst the unfortunate women.

Miss Whitaker came to find such aid, only to discover his mother dead and no help to be found. So, she had taken advantage of Sibby’s softness toward children and plotted to take over his household!

Anger heated with each painful step he took until it nearly bubbled over by the time he reached the top of the stairs. The nursery. She would be in there.

Rather than step out of the upper hall onto the rear porch and enter the nursery by the outer door, he decided to cut through his mother’s room instead.

Another thought sprang to mind, and he forced himself to reconsider. What if some renegade soldier had forced himself upon a hapless woman and the child had resulted? He’d heard tales of such from both armies. Perhaps he jumped to accusations too quickly. In either case, however, he could not alter his course! She could not stay any more than he. Better he stomp out any intrigue he felt for her and end this farce before it could get any worse!

With sweat on his palm he clasped the doorknob and flung open the door to the rose painted room…and nearly lost his composure over the sight before him.





Ella screamed and dropped to the floor behind the bed, her heart hammering wildly. What in tarnation was that man doing in her bedroom? Holding the widow’s dress she’d been changing out of up to her chest, Ella peered over the top of the bed.

Mr. Remington stood frozen in her doorway, his face contorted in an odd mixture of anger, confusion, and embarrassment.

Ella seethed. How dare he fling open her door unannounced? Just because this was his house…. she stilled. Owner of Belmont or not, he didn’t have the right. Did he?

Mr. Remington appeared to regain some of his senses and narrowed his eyes. Had he not the common decency to avert his eyes? Humiliation pulsed with the flutter of her heart. Worst of all, he did not seem to be inclined to shut the door.

“What are you doing?” Ella screeched.

The muscles in his jaw convulsed. “What are you doing in my mother’s bedroom?”

Changing! She’d thought to put her work dress back on before going to face the man once more. Perhaps then he would see her less as the woman pretending to be a widow and more as a poor working woman in need of employment. Never did she expect for him to burst into her room!

“This is the room Sibby told me to sleep in,” she said, keeping her tone measured as best as she could. “The better to be near my son.”

“You do not stay in the nursery with him?”

She clenched her fists. First he would not give her the consideration of allowing her to dress before he continued to question her, but now he thinly veiled his insinuation that she fell short as a mother. “Sibby sleeps in there so she can feed him when he wakes in the night.”