spoke for him as she sailed back into the room with Nora right behind her. He noticed she hadn’t fastened her cloak. Was she uncertain as to whether she was leaving?
“No need for concern, Charles,” Nora’s sister-in-law announced. “Nora tells me she and Mr. Wallin do not intend to live as man and wife. She will be staying in town while he returns to his claim. We can go on as we always have.” She came to her husband’s side and gave his arm a squeeze. “Isn’t that good news?”
Charles seemed to grow a little taller. “Excellent. Nora can stay with us, then. You can visit when you like, Mr. Wallin, but do provide a few days’ notice first. Only practical considering our busy schedules.”
Simon felt as if he’d turned the page in the book he’d been reading only to find his adventure novel had become a farce. “Nora?” he couldn’t help asking. “Is this what you want?”
She opened her mouth, but once again Meredith spoke first. “Of course it’s what she wants. We are her family. We know what she needs. We understand her.”
Nora raised her head, her gray eyes solemn, then crossed to Simon’s side. “No, you have never understood me. I don’t need you to take care of me. I took care of myself all the way to Seattle.”
“Now, now,” Charles said. “I know it must have seemed that way to you, but I paid Mr. Mercer to take care of you while Meredith and I settled our affairs in Massachusetts.”
Nora blanched. “What? He said nothing.”
“As it should be,” Meredith said with a nod. “We wanted you to have a taste of the freedom that has been denied you because of your tragic constraints.”
Nora was curling in on herself again. Simon wasn’t sure whether to intervene or merely pick her up and carry her away from them.
“I, for one, worried about you every moment we were parted,” her brother confessed. “Now that we have been reunited, nothing will stand in the way of me doing my duty.” He clapped his hands together. “There! It’s all settled. Thank you for stopping by, Mr. Wallin. Safe trip home.”
It was like trying to stop a falling fir. The tree was coming down, breaking everything around it as it crashed. He refused to allow Nora to be crushed under the weight of their assumptions. He owed her that at least.
“Nora?” he pressed. “Do you want to stay with them?”
She gazed up at him, her eyes stormy, then glanced at her brother and sister-in-law, standing there with delight stamped on their faces.
“No,” she said. “I want to get as far away from them as I can. I’m coming to live with you, out at Wallin Landing.”
Nora knew she was changing their bargain. She had made it very clear to Simon that marrying her would not affect his day-to-day life. But what else was she to do but beg to come to Wallin Landing with him? Charles and Meredith were even more determined to control her than she’d feared. Her only hope was putting distance between her and them, just as she’d done when she’d left with Asa Mercer.
But first she had to convince Simon that moving out to Wallin Landing was a good idea.
As Charles and Meredith protested her decision, she focused on her husband. Simon’s eyes narrowed until she could barely see their color. His lean body was tensed, as if she had dealt him a blow and he expected another. She didn’t know the words to say, the facts to offer that would ease his mind.
She simply laid her hand on his arm and said, “Please, Simon?”
After how hard she’d worked to convince him to agree to their Christmas wedding in the first place, she hardly expected instant capitulation now. But she saw the moment he reached his decision, for the green deepened as his eyes widened, and he snapped a nod.
“Fetch your things,” he said. “We’ll leave now.”
She didn’t know whether to hug him in thanks or run to do as he bid. Of course, besides her cloak, she really didn’t have any of her things at the house.
“See here,” Charles started, his chest puffing out.
Simon ignored him, pushing past him for the door.
“Nora, you cannot do this,” Meredith cried. “You need us.”
Had her sister-in-law claimed to have needed her, guilt might have halted Nora. As it was, she fled after Simon.
“You will regret this!” Charles flung after them from the doorway as they descended the front steps. “He will not treat you as we do.”
“That’s the truth,” Simon muttered.
Nora felt it too. Whatever lay ahead for her and Simon, he would not make her feel tiny and useless. She would merely have to be careful what more she asked of him. She wanted to keep their sides of the bargain equal.
As Charles continued his threats from the safety of the porch, Simon led Nora to the wagon waiting on the street and went to untie the horses. Nora was gathering her skirts to climb up onto the bench when she felt hands on her waist. Simon lifted her effortlessly onto the seat. It was a kind gesture, convenient even. But somehow it made breathing difficult.
“I take it your clothes and other belongings are at the boardinghouse,” he said after he’d climbed up and called to the horses. They were a pair of dark-coated beauties, and she was fairly sure they belonged to his brother James.
“Yes,” she said. “If you wouldn’t mind stopping there on the way out of town, I would appreciate it. I’ll just pack a few things, and we can send for the rest later.”
“You really want to move out to Wallin Landing?” he asked, directing the horses down the hill for the boardinghouse. She could hear the wariness in his voice. “I thought you preferred to stay in Seattle because of your sewing.”
She made a face. “Being so far out of town will make that more difficult.”
“So stay at the boardinghouse,” Simon said. “Refuse to have anything more to do with your brother.”
Nora shuddered. “They’ll find me. They did when I left for Seattle.”
He cast her a glance as he eased the horses down the hill. “You stood up to me. Stand up to them.”
A sigh worked its way out of her. “You don’t understand. I stood up to you, Simon, because we have a bargain. We each contributed something to it. That’s not the case with my brother. I owe him for taking me in, for feeding and clothing me. And he knows it.”
“I would think it a brother’s duty to care for his younger siblings,” Simon said, his voice sharp with condemnation for anyone who failed to live up to such an obligation. “That’s what Drew did when our father died.”
Nora nodded. “That’s what you’re doing now by working those one hundred and sixty acres. And I’m sure your family will be grateful for your efforts. I’m grateful to Charles, but oh, how I tire of having to repay him. Have I no right or expectation of a life of my own?”
She wasn’t sure how Simon would answer. She wasn’t even sure how she would answer. She had been raised to be a dutiful daughter. Anything less felt selfish, lazy. Yet if she had stayed with Charles and Meredith one more day, her heart would have shriveled away inside her.
“Of course you have that right,” Simon said as he turned onto Second Avenue and headed for the boardinghouse. “You have won your freedom. What do you intend to do with it?”
And there lay the more important question at the moment. She could not stay in Seattle proper, yet she hated to leave the area entirely and lose the friends she’d made on the journey and the customers she’d acquired in the last six months of working.