Courting Miss Adelaide. Janet Dean
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can’t imagine why.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
Adelaide’s stomach knotted. Whatever happened at the reading of the will, there’d be consequences.
By the time Mary and Adelaide took their places around the frame and threaded their needles, the chatter had ebbed and all heads bent over their work.
Fannie sewed beside Adelaide, taking each stitch with care, surprising Adelaide, who’d expected the girl’s workmanship to be shoddy. At the thought, Adelaide’s needle pierced the layers of fabric, pricking both her finger and her conscience.
Pausing in the middle of a stitch, Fannie looked at Mary with big, innocent eyes. “I’m hoping you can help me, Mary.”
Mary tied a knot in her thread. “You’re doing a fine job.”
“I don’t mean help with quilting.” Fannie sighed. “I mean help with men. Well, not all men, only one. Charles Graves.”
Adelaide missed the eye of the needle with her thread.
Mary shrugged. “I can’t be much help. My brother-in-law is a mystery, even to me.”
“Adelaide, you were talking to Mr. Graves.” Fannie whisked her gaze over Adelaide either sizing her up as the competition—or fitting her for a very tight seam. “You—” Fannie hesitated “—don’t have designs on him, do you?”
Adelaide’s pulse skipped a beat. “Designs?”
Every hand hovered over the quilt, all eyes riveted on her and Fannie. Adelaide shook her head.
“I didn’t think you did. I told Mama, ‘Adelaide Crum is too levelheaded for a man like Mr. Graves.’ I can’t imagine you two courting.” Fannie’s eyes narrowed. “So you were at the paper on business. Nothing else?”
Heat filled Adelaide’s veins. “Yes, business for the shop.”
Fannie beamed. “Oh, I’m glad. I’m mad about Mr. Graves. Mama says he’d be quite the catch.”
With her teeth, Sally broke off a length of thread. “Are you doing a little fishing, Fannie? Over at The Ledger?”
The women chuckled.
Fannie sighed. “I’m not sure you noticed, Adelaide, but Mr. Graves didn’t seem all that eager to try my b-biscuits.” Her voice quavered. “I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.”
As much as Adelaide didn’t want to, a thread of sympathy tugged between her heart and Fannie’s. The girl meant well, even if she didn’t see the consequences of her words or actions.
“Maybe your reputation as a cook is scaring him off,” Laura said, one brow arched.
“Well, it’s hard to get the temperature right in that huge cookstove of Mama’s. But how would Mr. Graves know that?”
“You told him,” Adelaide reminded her.
“I did?” Fannie thought a second. “Oh, I did!” Her green eyes filled with tears. “I’ve ruined my chances with him, exactly like I ruin my biscuits.”
Adelaide laid down her needle. “That’s no reason to cry.”
“I’m sorry.” Fannie dashed away the tears slipping down her cheeks. “It’s just that I’m getting…well, desperate.”
Martha harrumphed. “Desperate? How?”
“In three months, I’ll be twenty. I’ve always planned to be engaged by my twentieth birthday. I’m getting old!” she wailed.
Fast losing sympathy for the girl, and with her own birthday looming, Adelaide bit back a retort.
Laura shook her head. “Fannie, dear, I’m sure you don’t intend to, but you have a way of making me feel ancient.”
Fannie gasped. “Oh, chicken feathers, Laura. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you in such a rush anyway?” Martha asked, smoothing her dress over her bulging belly. “If you ask me, men are like flies. You trap yourself one, only to learn he can be a pest.”
“Appears to me, yours has been pestering you plenty,” Sally said and the room once again filled with laughter.
Fannie took up her needle again. “I’ll lose my looks soon.”
Sally waved a dismissive hand. “Phooey! You’re pretty. I look like a possum and I still managed to get a husband.”
Adelaide gasped. “You do not look like a possum!”
“I do,” Sally said, stitching along a rose-sprigged petal. “Small beady eyes, long nose, gray hair. Why, with my sons toting guns everywhere, I rarely venture out after dark.”
Chuckles bounced off the high ceiling. “You’re making fun, but I’m serious,” Fannie moaned. “What am I doing wrong?”
Laura rose and stepped around the frame, then tilted Fannie’s face to hers. “You’re too eager. Let the man take the lead.”
“I’m only being friendly,” she said dismissing the comment. “What I need is a new hat, maybe a new way to style my hair. You always look fashionable, Adelaide. Will you help me?”
Adelaide thought of telling Fannie to leave the editor alone, but that wasn’t her place. Nor did she care who he courted, though she had questions about the man. Even more about Adam Graves’s will.
Sally gave Fannie a wink. “Play possum more, Fannie.”
“Play possum?”
Sally nodded. “When you chase the men like a hound dog after a fox, why, you take all the fun out of it. Pretend you don’t care. Pretend you wouldn’t feed them a biscuit if they were the last to arrive for the fishes and loaves.”
Fannie turned to Adelaide. “You’re the best possum I know. Would you help me become more…?”
“Demure,” Laura provided.
“Demure?” Fannie smiled wide. “I like the sound of that.”
Had Fannie compared her to a wild animal that hung from a tree by its tail? Adelaide worked up a smile before she injured Fannie with her needle. As much as Fannie grated on her nerves, if she refused, the ladies might decide she had an interest in Mr. Graves. “It would be my pleasure.”
“With your help, Adelaide, Charles Graves will fall in love with me, and I’ll soon be a married lady.”
As Adelaide listened to Fannie chatter on about his virtues, she realized her help meant trying to get Fannie a husband and children. She had to wonder—
What kind of bargain had she struck? And what would it cost her in the end?
Charles paced the private dining room at the Becker House. His sister-in-law, wearing her best finery, sat watching him, her expression wistful. Could she be thinking Sam should be sitting beside her, instead of lying in Crownland Cemetery?
He’d wanted to rip into Mr. Evans’s briefcase to look at the terms of his father’s will. When it came to legalities, the gregarious attorney kept a tight rein on his mouth and skillfully sidestepped every question Charles had slung at him, giving no hint why Adam had mentioned the milliner in his will.
At exactly one o’clock Mr. Evans ushered Miss Crum, looking as perplexed as he felt, into the room. She glanced at him, her eyes filling with sympathy, probably for his loss. She couldn’t know grief was the last emotion his father’s death elicited.
She still wore the bird nest hat. On her, the silly hat looked good. Every hair in place, her clothing spotless, Miss Crum appeared serene. Only a heightened color in her cheeks suggested either the heat or an inner turmoil bothered her.
Well, she wasn’t the only one stirred up by the chain