Flirtation Walk Page 11

  “No.” Getting dismissed didn’t make any sense either. “Guess I’m just stuck.”

  “As a pig. But come on now, Little Sally Walker, and wipe those weeping eyes.” He mimicked children who sang the song, turning to the west and then to the east. “You want a handkerchief? I think I got one somewhere.”

  “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

  “I am taking it seriously. But the only thing to do now is concentrate on what can be done. Listen to me good. You already got through the hard parts. You made it through the first three years. Through geometry. And calculus. You even did the best at optics. Everyone who’s not going to make it gets found deficient by now. You know that. So you got to put your heart into failing or no one’s going to believe you’re in earnest. And it’s going to take some really, truly bad things for you to make it far enough down the list. You understand?”

  “Are you trying to warn me about something?”

  “Me? No. ’Course I’m not. Why would I do that?”

  “That’s what it sounded like.”

  “I don’t know why it would sound like something it doesn’t sound like.”

  “Is there something I should know, Deke?”

  “Well . . . come to think of it, you should probably know that I’m not the sainted choirboy people believe me to be.” He winked as men flowed around us on their way back to the barracks.

  I took a step closer. “I’m a grown man. I ought to be able to do something about this. I ought to be able to take care of my sister. She’s my responsibility now.”

  “Which is why you’re going about this in such a responsible way. Just a few more months and the army will pay you for all the trouble they’re putting you through. Isn’t that better than running away and offering her nothing at all? The only reasonable choice left you is to do exactly what you’re doing.”

  “But what if Pennyworth disappears before I can find him?”

  “Man like that? With the whole western half of the nation to swindle? He won’t stop while he’s ahead. And people being like they are—no offense—he’s always going to be ahead.”

  “What if I can’t catch up to him? What if he just gets away with it?”

  “The way I see it, the more time you let him wander around, the easier he’ll be to find. His trail will be so obvious, you’ll be able to just waltz right up to him. Won’t be any trouble to find him at all.”

  “You really think so?”

  He nodded. “I really think so.”

  There’s no way Deacon could be certain, but it made me feel better.

  17

  Lucinda

  I woke on Saturday morning with a smile. Today I was going to see Seth . . . but I still had a morning to get through first. I kept Ella out of trouble while Milly and Phoebe sorted through several bushels of apples in the kitchen, checking for overripe ones as my uncle quizzed Bobby on his Latin. I dumped out the pouch of clay marbles, letting Ella line them up by color, as Bobby kept glancing over in envy. Feeling sorry for the lad, I sent him a wink. He blushed and then made a good show of pretending disinterest.

  After his lesson, Bobby took Ella in hand . . . or perhaps I should say she took him in hand, as I went to help my aunt with cooking. She must have noticed my impatience, for she soon sent me upstairs with the charge to “Ready yourself for that cadet of yours.”

  Phoebe turned an amused face toward me. “Would that be Mr. Westcott?”

  My aunt turned to me. “It would be a grievous sin if you made that poor cadet wait. They’ve only a few hours of their own each week. It’s very flattering that he’s chosen to spend his with you.”

  Phoebe offered her bucket up to her mother and held out a hand toward me. “I’ll help you with your hair.”

  “My . . . hair?”

  My aunt was smiling, though Phoebe could have no way of knowing it. “She’s very good with a brush.”

  I took my cousin by the hand and helped her to stand, then looped her arm through mine and walked her to the stairs. Once there, she put a hand to the railing and went up quite on her own. By the time I reached our room, she was waiting for me, hairbrush in hand.

  As I entered, she bid me sit.

  I pulled the pins from my hair and let it spill down over my shoulders. I placed her hand atop my head and she patted down its sides and gathered my hair into her hand. Smoothing it down my back, she began to pull the brush through it. She really did have a lovely hand. At her last pull, she gathered up my hair, twisted it into a hank, and then released it to spin down my back. “You’ve such nice hair.”

  I picked up her braid and tickled her cheek with it. “As do you.”

  She grabbed hold of it. “For all the good it does me. I might as well be twelve years old with it plaited like this.”

  “I’ll put it up for you tomorrow if you’d like.”

  “There’s no need. I’ve only myself to please with it.” She said it not with pity but with quiet resignation.

  I would have embraced her, but it might have frightened her rather than comforted her. And besides, I was in danger of being late as it was.

  After braiding my own hair and fastening it into a bun, I settled my bonnet atop it and picked up my reticule.

  Phoebe was reaching for my shoulders, so I let her find them. From there, her hands patted up my neck and glided over my bonnet. “Beautiful. You look beautiful.”

  Not nearly as beautiful as I had looked at finishing school with a full wardrobe of gowns at my disposal, but her saying so made me feel as if I were.

  I took her hands in my own and squeezed them before releasing them. “If I don’t leave now, I’ll keep Mr. Westcott waiting.”

  My uncle walked to the academy with me. He wasn’t the kind of man to engage in idle chatter, so I was surprised when he began to speak. “We’re quite gratified, the way you’ve taken to Phoebe. Thank you. She’s needed the companionship of a girl her age.”

  “I feel as if I should thank her for taking to me.” I wasn’t being untruthful.

  “It’s very . . . It’s good of you.”

  We walked on in silence, picking our way around holes in the road. A cooling north wind had blown in during the night, sweeping away August’s haze and sharpening the outlines of the distant hills. It was the kind of day that whet the appetite for autumn’s vivid, sparkling days.

  “I must confess that when your aunt said you’d come, I expected that you had brought trouble with you. But I’ve been quite pleased with the help you’ve given to my household.”

  I nodded. Mostly because I couldn’t trust myself to speak. His words had stirred up a strange compulsion to confess my sins. But that was pointless. My past was behind me. From my present I had nothing to fear. What would confession do but place a question mark where I had apparently already established a firm period?

  We approached the military reservation in amiable silence. He stopped at the gate and spoke to the guard for a moment, and then we passed through and walked on to the academy area, toward a building he told me was the barracks. Some cadets were marching back and forth in front of it, muskets in hand. He pointed toward them. “It’s generally supposed that a cadet would meet you there.”

  “Why are all of those men marching?”

  “They’re marching tours as punishment. Just ignore them.”

  I might have done a better job of it if they hadn’t looked so dour and if they weren’t carrying weapons.

  My uncle cleared his throat. “I hope you enjoy yourself. The view of the valley from Fort Putnam is unparalleled, although I do wish to remind you of all of the misfortune a cadet has caused us in the past.”

  I didn’t dare to meet his eyes.

  “But I have great trust in Mr. Westcott. He’s one of the best of his class.”

  Seth came down the steps of the barracks just then. He bowed to my uncle and then to me.

  I nodded.

  My uncle sent him a stern glance through his spectacles. “I’ll be a
t the academy and will expect to have Miss Hammond returned to me by drill.”

  Seth crooked his arm for me, and I took it up. “Yes, sir.” He glanced down at me. Though his face was shadowed by the brim of his hat, I could see the quirk in his lips quite plainly. We took a few steps before he resumed speaking. “You had asked me to show you Fort Putnam, Miss Hammond—”

  “Lucinda.” There was no need to move backward in our acquaintance. Not when I was quite happy with what I’d seen in him.

  He tightened his arm. “Lucinda. But there’s a path along the river that’s very pleasant this time of year.”

  I’d moved relationships forward with deceit in the past. This time, with this man, I decided to try the truth. “I only asked you to show me Fort Putnam because I wanted to make sure I could see you again. I hope I wasn’t being too forward.” Blast! I oughtn’t have said it that way. I was relying too much on old tricks, trying to force the answers I wanted. No gentleman, no man, would have replied in the affirmative. Any fool would have known that wouldn’t be polite.

  “No! Not at all.”

  Seth Westcott was no fool.

  He continued. “In fact, I was trying to do the same. Though perhaps not as successfully as you. . . . What I was most hoping for that night was an opportunity to see you again as well.”

  The way his gaze slanted down toward me brought a blush to my cheeks. “Then please lead on. I’m happy to see whatever you’d like to show me.”

  We walked out across a large flat area Seth called the Plain. He took me over to a sunken area he called Execution Hollow and pointed out the West Point Hotel, where visitors were sitting on the covered, columned porch. Then we walked to Fort Clinton, where stonework walls supported mounds of grass-covered earth. Lending a hand, he helped me up to the top, where we looked in the direction of what I presumed was the river.

  “I thought there’d be a better view from here.”

  “There is. In the winter.”

  I laughed.

  “That path I mentioned starts out there.” He nodded out ahead of us into the trees. “It follows the river and the view is better.”

  “Then why don’t we take it and see where it leads?”

  The climb up Fort Clinton had been difficult, but Seth’s river path was downright treacherous. With a bit of sliding and quite a bit of handholding, however, I made it down the smooth rock-faced slope to the trail below.

  As we walked along, we encountered several other couples coming from the opposite direction. Seth stepped off the path to let them pass. Cliffs fell away from the path’s edge at some points, and as we walked, we wound up and over inclines and through a rock-studded landscape. At one point we strolled beneath a cliff with a ledge that protruded out over the trail. But the view through the trees was idyllic, and the river, dazzling under a cloudless sky.

  “You’ve told me of Execution Hollow and old Fort Clinton. Surely a path this lovely must have a name.”

  He colored. “It does.”

  “And what is it?”

  “It’s called Flirtation Walk.”

  “Why, that’s perfect!”

  He gave me a sharp glance. “It-it is?”

  “The river flirts with the sun and the path flirts with the cliff and the view flirts with the trees. If the purpose of flirtation is to pique the interest, then this path succeeds.”

  “And so do you.” He put a hand to mine and unwound it from his arm, turning to face me. Then he took up my other hand with his. “Miss Hammond, Lucinda?” His hands tightened on mine. “I would very much like to—”

  “Captain? Captain Westcott?” At that moment a cadet ran up, saluted, and said something about a fight. Seth asked the cadet to escort me back to my uncle, bowed, and took his leave . . . leaving me to wonder what it was that he would very much like to have done.

  18

  Seth

  I walked away from Lucinda, trying my best not to curse. Heaven only knew how much I wanted to strangle whichever cadets were squandering their recreation time fighting! But maybe it was all for the best.

  If I’d stayed, I would have kissed her. And then what would I have done?

  A career in the military wasn’t easy at the best of times. Even with the engineers, I’d be subject to picking up and moving whenever my assignments changed. Lucinda might be from St. Louis, but I’d bet she’d never seen the foul side of a stable. Or a chicken coop or anything else, for that matter. She deserved better than I could ever give her . . . even when I hadn’t been trying for the cavalry.

  The person I ought to be cursing was Pennyworth!

  I jogged across the Plain and over to the cadet area where I heard some fellows hooting and hollering. The fight was over, but there was still blame to be handed out.

  And Campbell Conklin was already there to do it.

  By rights, as my adjutant, the honor was his. But fights were tricky. Cadets could be dismissed for fighting. And sentinels or those pulling guard duty had been dismissed for letting one continue unimpeded. In the close quarters of the Point, sometimes feelings ran hot. But I wasn’t of the mind that a man ought to be dismissed for that. For bodily harm, maybe. But for goading someone to throw a punch? Sometimes both men came out of a fight better friends than they went into one.

  Two second classmen stood off to the side, chests heaving. One had a blackened eye and split lip. The other was flexing his fist.

  “Sir!” The one with the swollen eye saluted me. “It wasn’t my fault. He threw the first punch.”

  “So I see.”

  Campbell interrupted. “I recommend dismissal for both men.”

  Of course he did. I addressed the other cadet. “Is there a reason you chose to pick a fight with him?”

  “Didn’t choose it. Didn’t have any choice once he maligned my honor. Sir.”

  Heaven save us from men with a delicate sense of honor. I wished they’d put as much effort into doing their duty. I told Campbell to escort them to the commandant. He was generally a fair man with an eye for character as well as for justice.

  I dispersed the rest of the cadets and then followed on their heels toward the barracks.

  Word of the fight had spread, for we met a wave of cadets coming toward us on the way back. “Fight’s over. Get ready for drill.”

  There was an audible sigh of disappointment as they all turned around and we trudged back to the barracks together.

  Deke fell into step with me in the stairwell.

  I nodded. “Didn’t see you there. Were you watching the fight?”

  “Me? Naw. Got better things to do.”

  I didn’t ask what those better things had been because I didn’t want to know. Sometimes ignorance provided its own protection.

  “How was Miss Hammond?”

  I didn’t answer until we were in our room. Some information didn’t have to be shared with the whole corps of cadets. “I don’t think I’ll be seeing her anymore.”

  “She doesn’t have that character you were so interested in?”

  “She does.”

  “Did she lose her looks overnight?”

  “She didn’t. But what’s the point, Deke? If I can do this right, I’m headed for the cavalry. A girl like her shouldn’t be subjected to that.” I unstrapped my sword and hung it over my rifle. “You ever get the feeling that life isn’t fair?”

  “I was born knowing that. Look at this.” He gestured to his mop of hair. “And look at you.”

  “What about me?”

  “If God were fair, He would have given me, the consummate ladies’ man, your hair.”

  I felt a corner of my mouth lift in the start of a smile. “Or to go with your hair He could have given you my—”

  “Your cool determination and practical indifference to the female of our species?”

  I grunted. “Or Otter a bit more smarts to go with his good intentions.”

  “Or Dandy . . .” He hmphed. “Can’t say what I’d have done with Dandy. But I’d sure as anyth
ing have taken away most of Campbell Conklin’s smarts.” He turned the page of his sketchbook, scribbled furiously for a long minute, and then showed it to me with a flourish. It was Campbell Conklin, looking decidedly stupid. “Then his looks might have matched his personality.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “But I suppose fair is all relative. He’ll end up with some girl he can lead around by the nose. I’ll end up with someone willing to put up with my wild ways. And Dandy will end up with some girl who can overlook that fearsome glare of his. And you’ll end up with—?”

  “No one at all. That’s what I was saying. How could I ask anyone to share the sort of life I’ll have?”

  He frowned. “Well . . . that’s the funny thing, don’t you think? Professor Hammond knows all about this kind of life, doesn’t he?”

  I supposed, on reflection, that he did.

  “If he was so dead set against it, if he thought it was so terrible, don’t you think he’d persuade his niece to look elsewhere for a beau?”

  Maybe.

  “And I’d give Miss Hammond more credit.”

  “You would? For what?”

  “For seeing what the rest of us do. So don’t give her up. Not just yet.”

  “Thanks, Deke.”

  “Pshaw. Weren’t nothing you wouldn’t have figured out for yourself. Eventually. Once you stopped making cow’s eyes at the girl.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “But can I ask you for a favor?”

  I nodded.

  “I still haven’t found a Venus for my book. Do you mind if I use your Miss Hammond?”

  “As Venus?! Get your own inspiration, Deke. She’s mine.”

  “That’s fine. I see how it is.” He picked up his sketchbook and went back to work, but I could tell, behind that drawing, that he was laughing at me.

  19

  Lucinda

  Along with teaching at my finishing school, my days had fallen into a rhythm of helping Phoebe, helping my aunt, and helping Milly with the children. My aunt and Phoebe were pleasant company. Bobby and Ella, however, could be quite trying whenever they found themselves together. I’d solved their unwillingness to be reasonable, however, with an old trick I’d learned from my father: I promised them whatever it took to get the behavior I wanted. Whatever it took had turned out to be candy. I’m sure I must have promised them nearly a jarful by the beginning of that third week. They never seemed to tire, however, of the thought of gumdrops and lollipops. But when Ella and I tussled over her getting dressed one morning, she demanded immediate payment for compliance.