Martha said, “Bath?”

Chapter XXXVII

Ethan and Callie ate breakfast together at nine in the hotel dining room. She studied the food on her plate as though it were a painting, and picked up her fork with reluctance. She had done her best with soap and water, but her scrubbed hands and face only made the traveling dress she had worn yesterday look worse.

He had hoped that she would be rested enough to talk about what was before them, but now Ethan doubted it could be done. He was wondering how best to proceed when she looked up at him.

“About the boy she named for my father,” she said. “He could be anyone, an orphan she picked up off the street.”

“True.”

“I don’t believe he’s my brother. I think it’s one of her tricks.”

“You may be right,” Ethan said.

“That’s her plan,” Callie said firmly. “If she can’t get everything, she’ll get at least half, through the boy.”

“And the good news about that,” Ethan said, “is the nature of the law. They can file a claim on the estate, but that’s the kind of thing that can take years to make its way through the court system.”

Callie snorted softly. “And in the meantime she’ll be sitting there like a spider, just waiting. I don’t know why I agreed to this plan; she will have her way in the end and there’s nothing you can do to stop her.”

Her tone was so bitter and fraught that at first Ethan couldn’t think how to reply. She was prickly and always had been, but her temper was always countered by a sense of humor and love of the absurd. Now she seemed to be on the verge of something much darker.

Maybe, Ethan reminded himself, because she had no illusions about Jemima. Jemima knew no bounds and accepted no limits. And of course the boy might be who she said he was. Callie’s half brother. Her only blood kin in the world.

He said, “If he is your brother, he’s your last tie to your father.”

Her expression softened. He had said aloud the thing she wouldn’t allow herself to hope for.

“If he is,” she said. “If he is my half brother, I don’t want her to have the raising of him.”

Ethan studied the pattern of bluebells on his plate and tried to think of a way to tell her the truth. No court of law would take a son away from a mother to be raised by an underage sister.

She said, “If I were married, it would be easier to make the case, wouldn’t it?”

“It would make many things easier,” Ethan said. “But not everything.”

She went away into her thoughts, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere behind him. Finally she raised her gaze to his.

“When would we go to see Mr. Cady?”

“In the afternoon,” Ethan said. “If that suits you.”

In the long silence that followed he was almost sure she had decided against the whole plan.

“And what do we do in the meantime?”

“Shopping,” Ethan said. “We go shopping.”

She started to object, and then stopped herself. Callie had lost everything in the flood, and so for the past weeks she had been relying on borrowed clothes, ill fitting and much the worse for wear. He knew that as much as she disliked the idea of a trip to the shops, she was too practical to deny the need.

“All right, then,” she said. “Let’s go.”

—

They borrowed an umbrella from the innkeeper and made their way across the cobblestones to the dry goods store, trying to avoid puddles and mud and only partially succeeding.

Just before they reached it, Callie said, “I wonder where they could have gone.”

Ethan was spared the necessity of a reply by Mr. Turner, who came to the door to welcome them, with his wife standing just beyond. The Turners were always very happy to see Ethan and they greeted Callie too, as though she were dressed like a lady of means rather than a farmwife in difficulties.

With a minimum of fuss Mr. and Mrs. Turner took Ethan’s list—he saw Callie glance at it suspiciously as he handed it over—and began to gather things together. Mrs. Turner paused now and then to cast an experienced eye over Callie to gauge her size, and in a very short time the counter was piled high with chemises, stays, vests, petticoats, two pairs of fashionable drawers that made Callie’s eyebrows peak; six pairs of cotton stockings, six of wool and one of silk, garters, a substantial shawl, a hooded mantle, a pair of light slippers for indoors, a pair of fancy leather boots such as a lady wore on the street, another pair of solid work boots, neckerchiefs, and gloves.

The gowns were the most difficult, as Ethan knew would be the case.

She said, “I have no use for finery like this when I’m in the orchard or cider house.”

From the corner of his eye he saw the vaguest hint of surprise pass over Mrs. Turner’s face.

“Mrs. Turner, we’ll need three very simple workday gowns, of solid construction. What do you have that will fit Miss Wilde?”

There wasn’t much of a choice in ready-made gowns, but they seemed to suit Callie’s sense of what was appropriate. Sturdy osnaburg in muted colors, without ornamentation, cut unfashionably full in arm and shoulder. Made for a woman who ran a household and kept her own garden.

“And that one.” Ethan stepped forward to touch one of the gowns that had been set aside. A simple printed summer-weight cotton, pale yellow with a scattering of small flowers and trailing greenery. There was a simple ruffled collar and a green plaid ribbon to go with it, and a matching straw hat with a scoop brim lined in pale yellow.