In His Eyes(69)

She’d only known him a matter of days! What kind of blubbering mess would she become a month from now, or however long it took for him to return to the army? No. That simply would not do. She would have to make her own plans and devise a way to make sure she had options.

Ella stomped up the stairs, her resolve growing with each step. Yes. What she needed most were options.

And she knew just how she was going to get them.





“What you mean you want a goat?” Sibby furrowed her forehead, creating wrinkles that resembled a freshly plowed field.

Ella tried to get Lee to suck the rag dipped in the elixir, but he kept turning his head to the side. “Just what I said. If you want me to keep quiet and stop asking questions about whatever it is you have going on back in that field, then I want my goat.”

Basil tugged at her hair. “But what you want with a goat?”

Sibby snorted. “She want to try to make that baby drink goat milk. But it ain’t good for him.”

Ella rubbed the rag over Lee’s lips, trying to get him to open his mouth. “Plenty of people do it, and their children are just fine.”

Sibby came off the bed and tested her weight on the crutch Westley had fashioned for her. She leaned heavily on it, but managed to hobble closer to where Ella swayed as Lee began to cry from her efforts.

“Now, Miss Ella, this don’t make no sense.” She frowned down at Ella’s increasingly desperate efforts but had the good sense not to comment on it. “Major Westley said you could be stayin’ here, and I ain’t goin’ nowhere. There ain’t no reason to make that boy drink no goat milk when I can nurse him.”

Lee opened his mouth to scream and Ella squeezed the rag to make a few drops of the elixir drip into his mouth. “Please, wee one, drink,” she whispered fervently. She bounced him, and he began to quiet some. Hopefully, he would ingest the drops, and they would help the coughs.

Basil stepped over to the oil lamp and lit the wick, dispelling some of the gloom that had gathered in the room. Evening had come early, ushered in by the heavy clouds that hung low over Belmont and smothered the final rays of day. “Miss Ella, you wants for me to bring you up something to eat?”

Lee started another coughing spasm, and Ella squeezed a few more drops into his mouth.

“Now don’t you go chokin’ him. He’s spittin’ stuff up not swallowing it down.” Sibby made a move to reach for Lee, but Ella swung him away.

She resumed her trek around the nursery, stepping past Basil, who stood with her hand on the doorknob and watched Ella warily as though she feared Ella may take leave of her senses soon, if she hadn’t already.

Ella narrowed her eyes at Sibby. “And what if something happens to you? Or Westley changes his mind. Then what?”

Sibby’s eyes flew wide and Ella realized her mistake. She drew air deep into her lungs, held it, and let it out slowly. Then she cleared her throat and resumed her pacing. “Major Remington will soon enough return to duty and cannot be counted on for any aid.”

“But, Miss Ella….” Sibby started talking, but Ella refused to let her interrupt.

“Therefore, I require a secondary means of caring for Lee should anything happen to you or I once again find myself alone with a hungry infant.”

Sibby grumbled and inched her way back to the bed and sat. Basil, whom Ella had nearly forgotten, still stood by the door. She elevated her voice. “Miss Ella, you didn’t eat no supper. You wants for me to bring you sumthin’ up?”

“No, thank you.”

“But we got some mighty fine ham in the kitchen.”

Ella smirked. “Oh? Shared by the new family that came with three wagons and a procession of livestock?”

Basil scowled. “You want it or not?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Sibby grunted. “You is gonna end up fainting clean away again. Then what gonna happen to that boy iffin you drop him on the floor?”

Sibby’s words ground Ella’s feet to a halt. The woman had a point. She gathered up Lee’s medicines from the table by the crib and stalked toward her room. “You are correct. I shall lie down with him.”

“But, Miss Ella,” Sibby sputtered. “Don’t you wants—”

“If I need you, Sibby, I will call.” She forced some of the tension from her shoulders. “And I would greatly appreciate you securing a goat for me. A healthy one. We can keep her in a pen up here by the cistern.”

Sibby pressed her lips into a firm line, but finally bobbed her head. Ella pushed through to her room and closed the door behind her. After doing so, however, she realized she had forgotten to bring a lamp. Shadows clung to the walls and swathed her room in darkness. Even the moon remained hidden, refusing to give Ella any aid in making her way over to the bed.

Her eyes drifted to the ribbon of light that seeped from under the door that separated her chamber from the confounding man on the other side. As though without her consent, Ella’s feet drifted toward the sliver of light like two moths drawn to the flame.

What did he do in there? She shook her head. What did it matter?

Lee coughed and she moved away from the door, lest Westley discover she stood so near. Feeling with her foot, Ella located her dressing table in the gloom. She held both medicine bottles in one hand, and had to tip the larger one sideways to place it down.