Noelle. Diana Palmer

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      “Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Dunn said. “Breakfast looks delicious, Ella.”

      “I hope it tastes just as good,” Mrs. Pate said, with a grin.

      “Let me have your cup, Jared, and I’ll fill it for you,” Mrs. Dunn offered.

      He slid it over to her. His eyes met Noelle’s above the pot. She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking out the window at the rain and seemed lost in thought.

      “Where are your thoughts, Miss Brown?” he asked.

      She jerked her head around self-consciously. “I was wondering if Andrew would be home today.” She bit off any further explanation, angry because he made her feel like a schoolgirl.

      “He said that he hoped to be back this evening,” Mrs. Dunn remarked. “He’ll be glad to see you, Jared.”

      “Do you think so?” He creamed his coffee, leaving out sugar. “He wasn’t here when I passed through last year at Christmas.” That had irritated him, too—that his grandmother would have been alone at the holidays except for his impromptu visit.

      “He was visiting some friends in Kansas City.” Mrs. Dunn refrained from mentioning that one of them was female. “Andrew’s job takes him away quite a lot.”

      He sipped his coffee and then took the platters as his grandmother passed them to him, filling his plate with eggs, sausages, tomatoes, and biscuits. There was a mold of fresh butter on the pretty rose pattern of the scallop-edged English bone china saucer. Mrs. Pate bought fresh butter every week for the family. There was also a variety of preserves, jams and jellies that Mrs. Pate and Jared’s grandmother had made last summer and fall. He was especially fond of the creamy peach preserves and took two spoonfuls of it from the elegant silver dish.

      “It won’t be long until we’ll have fresh vegetables,” Mrs. Dunn remarked. “The kitchen garden is growing nicely.”

      “Indeed it is,” Noelle remarked absently. “I’ve covered the young tomato plants against the chill, to make sure they aren’t hurt by any unexpected frost.”

      “Henry asked me why there was so little weeding to be done,” Mrs. Dunn remarked.

      Noelle cleared her throat. She had to bite her tongue to keep from mentioning how heavily old Henry was hitting his whiskey bottle lately. She had found out accidentally, and she didn’t want to give Jared a worse opinion of her by running down his gardener. The family seemed to dote on the man. Noelle didn’t. She found his halfhearted gardening irritating. “I had some free time…”

      “Mrs. Hardy down the block noticed you working in the garden in those overalls and mentioned it to me. It seems that her sense of proper ladylike behavior was ruffled.”

      Noelle’s green eyes flashed. “I’m a countrywoman, Mrs. Dunn,” she murmured. “I’ve done everything from milking cows to scouring floors, and it’s hardly appropriate to wear a long dress in muddy ground.”

      “Yes, but you must be more discreet here,” the older woman said worriedly. “Henry was employed to do the gardening, you know.”

      Jared had to fight down laughter. His grandmother had been one of the world’s worst at taking jobs away from servants when she’d moved to Fort Worth with her daughter and that young woman’s new husband. It had taken her some time to learn the ways of polite society. He presumed she was hoping to spare Noelle some of the painful lessons she’d had to learn.

      “I promise that I’ll try, Mrs. Dunn,” Noelle said respectfully, thinking all the while that she wasn’t giving up her gardening—or her overalls—no matter what.

      Her tone was even, but she was mutinous. Jared knew it as he glanced at her, although he didn’t understand how he knew it.

      “It’s for your own good that I say these things,” Mrs. Dunn assured her gently. “I don’t want you to have to learn the hard way. Wagging tongues and gossip can be very damaging indeed.”

      Noelle sipped her coffee. “I’m not used to living in such a grand manner,” she commented.

      “Grand manner?” Jared said sarcastically.

      “A house with servants is grand to me, Mr. Dunn,” she returned, stung by his tone. Her complexion was just the least bit pale. She took her napkin from beneath her utensils belatedly, having noticed that everyone else had a spotless white linen napkin on their lap, not on the table. She spread it over her skirt and then peered at Mrs. Dunn’s hand to see how she held her silver fork.

      Watching her, Jared was amused. She was willing to learn proper manners, but too proud to ask anyone to teach her.

      “What did your father do for a living, Noelle?” he asked abruptly.

      She finished a bite of eggs before she answered. “He was a carpenter.”

      “As your uncle is, I understand.” He looked straight at her. “Why don’t you want to go back to Galveston?” he asked unexpectedly. “Are you afraid of water, Miss Brown? I understand that it was over a year and a half ago that the flood came, and the city fathers are constructing a seawall to prevent overwhelming tides in the future.”

      Galveston. The sea. The flood. Her family…She had thought that the nightmarish memories were behind her for good. But her uncle had insisted that they return to Galveston, where they could live with his half brother and he could do some odd jobs to earn money as the rebuilding of the city continued. Noelle had been very upset at the thought of living in the city where her eyes had been filled with such horrible scenes of death…her family’s death. It made her uneasy to remember, and going back would mean having to face that horror every day of her life, every time she went to shop or to church.

      There had never been anyone to whom she could describe what she’d seen. Even Andrew, whom she found attractive, quickly changed the subject when she wanted to discuss it—almost as if he were squeamish, a war hero who couldn’t talk about a disaster. She had needed to talk about it. She still did. Despite the amount of time that had passed, she could see the faces of her parents, distorted…

      “Miss Brown?” Jared persisted. “It couldn’t be the flood that disturbs you, after so long a time. Do you have some hidden reason for not wanting to return to Galveston? Are you in trouble of some kind?”

      Mrs. Dunn started to speak, but a quick wave of Jared’s hand stopped her. His intent pale blue eyes bit into Noelle’s as mercilessly as if he’d been in a courtroom. “Answer me,” he said evenly. “What do you have to hide? What is it about Galveston that made you fling yourself on the mercy of a distant relative rather than return there?”

      She glared at Jared. “You make me sound like a criminal,” she said accusingly.

      He leaned back in his chair and watched her with cold, calculating eyes. “Not at all. I just want to know why you’re content to live on my charity, rather than keeping house for your elderly uncle who, presumably, is going to suffer without your support.”

      She felt her face heat with bad temper. She gripped the napkin tight in her lap and fought an urge to throw a glass of water over him. Why, the smug, sanctimonious reprobate! Who did he think he was?

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