“Surprised?” he asked. “I assure you, Miss Matthews, we Yankees do not all live in caves, coming out only to devour raw fish.”
Before she could catch it, her mouth fell open at his gibe. “Are you making fun of me, sir?”
He grinned. “Not at all. I was only teasing you, my thorny Southern rose.”
How could one man be so infuriating? “I’m not ‘your’ anything, Dr. Walker. And now that you’ve had your dance with me, you must excuse me while I go see if my sister needs any help before she leaves.”
“Very well, but don’t forget about that talk we’re going to have.”
His blue eyes dared her to claim she didn’t remember what he was talking about, but Sarah was not a dishonest person and she remembered all too well that he’d demanded she tell him sometime why she was so hostile to him.
“Oh, I won’t. I’ll look forward to it,” she said.
He bowed, but Sarah felt his gaze on her as she walked away.
The next morning, Sarah met Nick’s visiting brothers outside the church. The newlyweds were not with them, but Sarah hadn’t really expected them to be up this early. They were to meet after church in the hotel’s restaurant for Sunday dinner. After that, the newlyweds would depart for Austin in a specially hired coach, accompanied by Edward and Richard, who would pay their respects to the embassy branch in the Texas capital before journeying back to the coast and boarding a ship for home.
“A pity my wife’s so near her time,” Lord Greyshaw remarked as they walked up the steps that led into the church. “She’d have loved your Texas, Sarah.” Amelia, Viscountess Greyshaw, was only a couple months from delivering their second child. It had been felt the ocean voyage and overland travel would be too risky for her, and Richard’s wife, Gwenneth, had remained at Greyshaw to keep her company in their husbands’ absence and to watch over Violet, their younger sister.
“Yes, such mild weather, for late autumn, to be sure,” Richard agreed, looking up appreciatively at the blue sky. “At home we’d be gathered around the hearth complaining of the dank cold.”
“Oh, it’ll get colder closer to Christmas,” Sarah replied. “Every few winters, it actually snows. You gentlemen must come again and bring your wives and children.”
“Eddie’s already taken me to task for not bringing him,” Lord Edward said, grinning as he mentioned his son. “He’d like to meet a wild Indian. Oh, dear,” he murmured, seeing the shudder Sarah hadn’t been able to suppress. “I do apologize. I had forgotten all about the attack. How dreadfully clumsy of me.”
“That’s all right,” Sarah said, gazing behind the church where, on Founder’s Day, the Comanches had come galloping across the creek and into the town. “Hopefully, now that we have the fort, it won’t happen again. There’s a cavalry regiment that patrols the area regularly and in any case, the Comanches are in their winter quarters now, up on the Llano Estacado, the Staked Plains. We’d better go in, gentlemen,” Sarah said, as the bell began to toll from the steeple above them. She played the piano for the services every Sunday and knew Reverend Chadwick would be waiting on her to begin the service.
She was relieved to see that once more, Dr. Nolan Walker did not grace a pew. She had never seen him attending services since his arrival in Simpson Creek. He must be an unbeliever. Just one more reason not to be friendly to him.
Sarah would have been surprised to know that Dr. Walker was seeing a patient in his office at this very hour.
“Th-thank you for seeing me at this time, Doctor,” said the pale, mousy little woman who’d entered his waiting room. “I—I wouldn’t want to come when you had other patients coming and going….”
She’d knocked so softly at his door he almost hadn’t heard her from his quarters behind the office. He had only just arisen from bed, the tolling of the church bell having awakened him from the sleep he’d finally achieved at dawn.
“And why is that, Miss Spencer? Surely you have a right to consult a physician as much as anyone else in Simpson Creek.”
“I…I don’t want anyone to know I’m seeing a doctor,” she whispered, eyes downcast. “They might wonder why. I—I’m expecting a child, you see.”
He looked at her quickly. If Miss Ada Spencer was pregnant, it was not obvious, as yet. But that explained the reason for the furtive visit, if it was true.
“Are you certain? That you’re…ah, with child?” he said, wondering for the thousandth time why women in this day and age spoke of it in hushed tones or euphemisms and couldn’t use the correct term for something which was, after all, a natural thing and should be a happy event—unless, of course, a woman was unmarried.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she insisted, and told him all the symptoms she had been having.
“I’ll need to examine you,” he said. “Would you be more comfortable if there was another woman present? Would you like to come back when you can bring someone?”
Still looking down, she shook her head. “I haven’t told Ma,” she said. “She’d be ashamed of me. She’d want me to keep to home now that I’ve ‘disgraced’ myself. She’s in church now, so she doesn’t know I’m here.”
Was Mrs. Spencer a church-going hypocrite, praying for the heathen in Africa while oblivious to the trouble within her own house? He was familiar with the type, but he hadn’t met the woman so he shouldn’t assume that was the case. Did Ada Spencer have no friends, then? But perhaps she had no one with whom she was willing to trust her secret.
“I just want to make sure the baby’s healthy,” she murmured, glancing timidly up at him, then away again.
“Where is the father?” he asked, careful to keep his tone neutral.
“Dead,” Ada said, her tone as lifeless as the word. “He died when the Comanches attacked in October.”
“I see.” Simpson Creek had suffered half a dozen casualties that memorable day he’d arrived. And now there would be a child born who would never know his father because of it, and a woman who might be bowed down with shame the rest of her life. “I’m sorry.”
A tear trickled down Ada’s sallow face. “He wasn’t going to do right by me anyway,” she said. “He was leaving town that morning. It was his bad luck he happened to run into those savages.”
Nolan remembered the man who’d appeared at the church, tied onto his horse, who’d lived only long enough to give a few moments’ warning of the impending raid.
“And what do you plan to do, Miss Spencer? It’s none of my business, of course, but if you stay around town, people will eventually know that you’re with child. Have you considered relocating to another town—even another state, where you could say you were a widow?”
Again, she shook her head. “Ma and Pa are old. I’m the only one left at home to take care of them. They won’t turn me out, even once they know.”
But they won’t give her emotional support, either. He sighed, and wished he had a nurse he could call on to be present.
“Very well, let’s have a look,” he said, opening the door to his exam room and beckoning her inside.
Afterward, he waited for her at his desk in the adjoining room.
“If you’re expecting, it’s very early,” he said, after she came in and sat down. “At this stage, I can’t be certain. When did you…that is…” He stopped, aware of the awkwardness of his question and wishing he could just spit it out instead of having to dance delicately around the point. He’d been so much more comfortable around soldiers, saying what he meant without having to think about it so carefully.
“In September,” she said, thankfully sparing him having to come up with