Chapter 21

C HAPTER 21

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.

—Mark Twain

"Sure am sorry about your bicycle, Marigold."

Tad's remark pulled her from her contemplation of her woes and directed her gaze toward the now-obvious fissure in the crate strapped athwart the sternsheets.

"Oh, no!" Dread leached back into her chest. "What happened?"

"Your machine is somewhat worse for wear, Marigold." Cab's concern was etched like a chasm between his brows. "I'm afraid it's been tampered with."

Tampered seemed such a tame word. "It looks as if someone took to it with a wrecking iron!"

"Or a claw hammer," Cab guessed. "I saw it off the end of the platform at the station when I arrived. Your name caught my eye." He passed his hand over the stenciled label to show where the raw wood had been gouged and cracked. "I intended to tell you yesterday, but …"

It was too much. Despite all her best intentions, everything was going wrong. One emotion piled atop the another until Marigold felt the heat of her unshed tears sting her eyes.

She tried to stave them off with righteous anger. "I shall have strict words with that confounded driver the next time I am in Pride's Crossing, see if I don't." But her throat felt so tight and raw, there was no hiding her misery.

"I already did." Cab laid a comforting hand to her shoulder.

"The nerve of the man!" Anger seemed a more productive emotion than this weeping distress. But in the midst of her outrage and upset, she could not forget her manners. "Thank you, Cab. You were very thoughtful to do so."

"Not at all." Cab began to untie the bindings that lashed the crate to the thwart. "I unscrewed the cover to take a look before I brought it along, and thankfully, other than the basket, which is unfortunately ruined, seems likely they were too damned lazy to do anything more than scuff the rest of the machine up. Your frame is nicked something fierce." He shook his head as if he could not fathom such malice.

And until five minutes ago, neither could she. But malice seemed to be all the rage in this part of the world.

The question she did not yet have an answer for was, what she was going to do about it? Was she going to give in to the inexplicably malevolent spirit of the place and tell Cab not to unload her machine, but to pack it up—the same way she was going to pack up her trunks and beg him to take her back to Boston?

Or was she the inimitable, accomplished Miss Marigold Manners, who had standards and a determined, logical character to uphold?

And Daisy was counting upon her—which recalled her to her object.

"I very much hope the tool kit I packed at the bottom of the excelsior is still there," she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "If they haven't stolen that, I should be able to repair it." One would hardly call oneself a competent wheelwoman if one could not tend to one's own machine. "Let us open it up so we can find out."

Cab seemed to let out a breath. "You really are a wonder, Marigold."

"She is a wonder, isn't she?" Daisy appeared to wander down onto the beach to join the conversation as casually as a butterfly alighting upon an attractive flower. While Tad immediately doffed his hat in a bid for her attention, Daisy kept her warm smile focused on Cab, just as she had been instructed.

"Oh, Cab, may I introduce my dear cousin, Miss Daisy Hatchet?" Marigold took up her part. "Daisy, darling, this is my old friend Jonathan Cabot Cox."

"Mr. Cox." Daisy tucked her chin and looked up at Cab through soft eyes. "A vast pleasure to meet you."

And Cab, bless the poor man, was not immune—he unknowingly flattened his hat against his chest in wordless admiration. "My friends call me Cab, Miss Hatchet."

"And mine call me Daisy." The girl's smile somehow grew more luminous.

"Hey there, Daisy," Tad hastened to chime in. "Sure is good to see you." He rushed over to pump her hand while he beamed his admiration at her. "You're looking mighty fine."

Indeed, she was. Daisy looked every inch the epitome of Gibson Girl glamour, with her long blonde hair swept up into a loose chignon atop her head and a wistfully knowing expression on her lips.

"Aren't you kind." She blessed Tad with her soft smile. "Good morning, Mr. Endicott—Taddy." She lowered her voice to a breath of a whisper to pronounce his name before she retrieved her hand from his grip. "It's lovely to see you as well. Thank you so much for bringing my cousin's machine for her." Her voice was soft and sweet and just warm enough to encourage without being obvious. Perfectly calibrated to enchant. "I find myself quite curious to see it. Do you ride bicycles, Mr. Cox—Cab?"

"I do, Miss—" He fumbled briefly. "Miss Daisy. Not so well as Marigold here"—he seemed to recall her presence—"but I've enjoyed the exercise."

"And you, Mr. Endicott?" Marigold did her part to help the conversation along.

"Don't reckon I have," Tad was unhappy to answer. "Though I've seen them around Harvard Yard."

"Oh, Harvard!" Daisy sighed in wonder. "How marvelous. But don't feel too bad, Taddy. You can't do everything the best. You have to leave a little room for other people to do a thing or two nearly as well as you do."

The poor young man looked as if he couldn't figure out if he was being complimented or insulted—his smile filled his reddened face.

But Daisy, who was as clever a student as Marigold could ever have hoped, didn't leave him room to decide. "Oh, where are my manners. Wilbert, won't you come join us? And Seviah too." She gestured for her brothers—who had clearly followed the young women without Marigold being aware—to join them. "I understand you've already met Mr. Cox in town, Wilbert, but I don't believe you've been introduced to Mr. Endicott. Mr. Thaddeus Endicott, these are my brothers, Mr. Wilbert Hatchet and Mr. Seviah Hatchet."

"Mr. Hatchet." Tad tipped his hat. "Seviah." He reached out a broad palm. "Been a while."

Seviah shook the hand Tad extended, nodding in response. "Tad. Reckon it has."

So Seviah already knew Tad? Marigold tucked that piece of information into the back of her brain for safekeeping.

"And Seviah, you must meet Mr. Cox," Daisy urged. "Mr. Cox is a friend of dear cousin Marigold's from Boston. Isn't that right, Mr. Cox?"

"Indeed." Cab extended his hand to both of her cousins in turn. "Mr. Hatchet, a pleasure to see you again. Seviah, very nice to meet you too. It's easy to see that you and Marigold are cousins."

"Is it?" Seviah answered with his usual brand of nonchalant defiance.

But Daisy was not going to let their carefully crafted agenda slip out of her control. "Marigold was just telling me last night that the last time she saw you, Mr. Cox, was at a lovely society dance back in Boston. Nothing is so lovely as a dance, is it? Marigold says you dance divinely."

"Well"—Cab had the grace to blush—"it's never a hardship to dance with a pretty girl."

"Oh, aren't you just the most gentlemanly fellow," Daisy attested. "I shall own it that you do dance as divinely as Marigold says you do everything—Oh, I shouldn't have said." Her cheeks obligingly stained themselves with a rosy blush that Marigold feared was mirrored on her own.

But any further revelation of feelings better left unexplored was interrupted by Tad, who broke in to declare, "Well, we're going to have a dance—a real one, for my twenty-first birthday. Mother's getting it all planned."

"Oh," Daisy breathed. "How lovely for you, Tad. I'm sure you'll dance superbly too."

Marigold didn't know when she had been prouder.

"Well, you ought to come, I reckon," Tad blustered, "and find out. Both of you." He pointed with his hat from Daisy to her. "All o' you." His gesture encompassed them all.

It was all faring better than Marigold could have hoped! She rewarded the young man with her warmest smile. "We would love to receive an invitation from your mother, if she would be so kind as to extend one. Wouldn't we, Daisy?"

"Oh, yes," her cousin agreed with a soft sigh. "Ever so kind."

"Well, that settles it, then," was Tad's satisfied answer. "I'll see to it that she does."

"Thank you, Mr. Endicott," Marigold was happy to add. "We'd—"

"What goes on here?" Ellery Hatchet made his untimely reappearance, bursting out of the woods like a rabid animal.

Marigold's heart began to pound in her ears as Ellery billy-goated his way into the middle of the group in what she feared was going to be a repeat of his earlier behavior. She was about to step in front of Daisy to shield her from her father's aggression when it was Daisy who stepped up to shield Marigold. "Now, Pa—"

"Who in the name of the Almighty are you?" Ellery peered hard at Cab before he switched his malignant glare to Tad. "I recognize you. You're Satan's spawn, you're an Endicott!" Ellery all but spat the name on the ground. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" Ellery bellowed and made as if he would take up his ever-present spade to strike the young man, but Wilbert and Seviah somehow hauled their father back before he could raise his backswing.

"Oh, Pa!" Daisy's voice shook from some too-familiar combination of embarrassment and anger. "Why do you have to spoil everything? Please accept my apology, Mr. Endicott. I reckon it's time for us to let you all get along home." She immediately began to push their catboat back into the water. "Mr. Cox, thank you so very much for your assistance to Cousin Marigold. We're indebted to your kindness."

"Yes, thank you, Cab." Marigold offered her own hasty goodbyes. "And Tad. As you fellows would say, I'm much obliged."

"Happy to help, Marigold." Cab shook her hand briefly before his gaze swung toward Ellery Hatchet. "Are you sure you're all right here?"

She heard the concern in his voice and thrilled to it—how wonderful it was to have someone care about her well-being. How tempting it was to share her worries and fears about Ellery's ugly threats. How lovely it might be to be sheltered from any potential harm.

But her pride was a dreadful, monstrous thing that found a sharp-enough sliver of pity in his voice to wound her. "Safe as houses," Marigold lied. Because she was the independent, accomplished, incomparable Miss Marigold Manners, and even if she had misgivings, she had a purpose.

If she let herself rely upon Cab to escape her present predicament, how was she going to look at herself in the mirror? And if she were gone from Great Misery, who was going to give two figs about her cousins? Who was going to help them discover what made them happy?

No one but her.

She was determined. For Daisy's and Wilbert's and Seviah's sake, if not for her own. See if she wasn't.