The Sugar Queen Read online

  I laughed. “Let’s ask Josephine to judge.”

  Lord Barnes got to his feet first and lent a hand to me, pulling me up, then brushing the snow from my jacket and cap.

  “Which is better, Josephine?” he asked.

  She looked from his to mine. “Well, Papa’s wins for size but Miss Quinn’s is more even. See there, Papa, one of your angel’s wings is bigger than the other.”

  “Jojo, look,” Fiona said. “Do you see the bird?”

  A winter sparrow hopped from one bare branch of an aspen to the next. The girls headed that direction, temporarily distracted from their father and me.

  He drew close. “I’m devastated to lose. I had my heart set on that prize.”

  I blushed, laughing. “I’ll have to think about what I want, then.”

  He gave me a wolfish grin. “Don’t think too long or I might forget all about it.”

  “You could forget me so easily?” I asked, teasing.

  “A thousand years could pass and you’d still be on my mind, Miss Cooper.”

  “You’re much too charming for your own good,” I said.

  “Let’s go, Papa. Chase me, Papa,” Fiona shouted as she ran toward us.

  “Saved by the baby,” he yelled back to me as he set out after Fiona. “Or I might have gotten a prize after all.”

  “Don’t you wish,” I said.

  Fiona ran toward the barn with her father on her heels.

  Josephine hung behind with me. She offered her arm. “You best hold on to me. Those boots are much too big for you.”

  There was a quiet energy in her as we walked arm in arm toward the barn.

  “What are you thinking about so intently?” I asked.

  She tilted her head toward me until it almost touched my shoulder. “I was just thinking how happy Papa’s seemed since you came here. And the kids too.”

  “Does that make you sad?” My heart was in my throat suddenly. Did she not want me here?

  “Quite the opposite. We’ve been waiting for you for such a long time.”

  I swallowed. What did one say to that?

  Josephine pressed my arm against her side. “I knew you’d change everything.”

  “For the better, I hope?” I kept my voice light.

  “Yes, Miss Quinn, for the better. You’ll see in time I’m right,” Josephine said. “You’re meant to be here with us.”

  “Has it been hard to look after the younger ones?” I asked as we made our careful way toward the barn.

  “I don’t know any other way, so I can’t say for sure. Papa’s needed me, and I’ve done so because I love them. Anyway, I’m happy when I’m helping others.”

  “I love the sentiment, but you mustn’t forget about yourself. You’re still a child, after all. You should be having fun, not worrying so much.”

  “That changed the moment my mother walked into a blizzard.”

  Her raw honesty made my legs and arms tingle. “Oh, Josephine, that must have been awful.”

  “It was a bad time, but we made it through. That’s what people do, you know?” Her voice was as brittle and fragile as a piece of crystal. I wondered how much her stoicism cost my little Josephine, this grown woman in a child’s body. Would it make her into a bitter woman? One who wished she’d had the gift of innocence for longer?

  By now, we were at the barn. I caught the scent of hay and horse stalls. “This is like a barn from a picture book,” I said.

  “Really?” Josephine said. “To me, it’s just a barn.”

  “It’s much more than that.” Painted red, with white-trimmed doors, the handsome barn added to its idyllic surroundings instead of taking from them. A wooden fence made an area for the animals to roam free in warmer weather. How I wished my mother and sister were here. “This barn is like art.”

  “Come on, then. If you like this, wait until you see the piglets,” Josephine said, giggling.

  We entered through one of the enormous double doors. Built of round-cut and crosscut timber, there were at least a dozen small windows that let in the wintry light. Bales of hay were stacked in the rafters. Pitchforks, shovels, and various other tools hung neatly in a tack room. The floor was made of wide, rustic planks and was surprisingly clean. Stalls for the four horses, the milking cow, and the pigs occupied one side of the barn. Poultry took up the rest of the space.

  A dozen laying hens in various colors of red, white, and speckled scratched and pecked greedily from the cracked corn scattered on the floor. Twelve-inch nest boxes with beds of straw were built upon a three-foot platform.

  Fiona ran between the chickens with her arms spread out like wings and made squawking noises. They must be accustomed to her, because the hens appeared undisturbed as they pecked at the floor.

  Cymbeline ran toward us and tugged on my jacket. “Miss Quinn, do you want to meet everyone?”

  “These are our chickens.” Josephine rattled off their names. Most were clearly chosen for their coloring: Cinnamon, Salt, Pepper, Chili, Clove, Cocoa, Ginger, Mustard, Nutmeg, Vanilla. Having run out of spices, Josephine explained, they went with beverages. “Coffee and Tea were all we could think of. You’d be surprised how hard it is to come up with so many names. And then in the spring, we get fryer chicks. They don’t get names because we kill those for food.”

  “No, we don’t.” Cymbeline shook her curls and crossed her arms over her chest. “We get those from the butcher shop.”

  Josephine shot me a look that told me the chickens for eating were not all from the butcher shop. “We can’t name anything we’re going to eat,” Josephine said. “That’s Papa’s rule.”

  “Good rule,” I said.

  Four turkeys, with their ugly red wattles like neck scarves, swaggered about in a group and glared at us from beady eyes. Did they know Christmas was coming soon?

  “Do the turkeys have names?” I asked, feeling guilty that the thought of a crispy brown turkey right out of the oven made my mouth water.

  Josephine gave a covert shake of her head, clearly not wanting to bring up a sore subject in front of Cymbeline.

  Cymbeline pulled me over to the water trough. Two white ducks lifted their heads. At the sight of Cymbeline, they let out a friendly, somewhat foolish quack from their orange bills.

  “This is Gin and Tonic,” Josephine said. “Papa named them. They aren’t the cleverest animals. But they’re funny.”

  “What’s their purpose?” Given their names, I knew they would not be for dinner. Thank goodness. They were too cute to be eaten.

  “Sometimes they make fat eggs,” Cymbeline said. “Lizzie uses them for omelets.”

  The twins called us over to look at the pigs. Josephine led me by the hand, and the boys parted to give me prime viewing. A long, plump pig lay on her side as eight piglets suckled. Mama didn’t raise her bristled pink head to greet me as the ducks had. I didn’t take offense. She was probably tired.

  “Her name’s Sweetpea.” Theo had climbed up to sit on the four-foot wall that enclosed the stall. “She’s very smart. Pigs are intelligent animals. Did you know that, Miss Quinn?”

  I smiled over at him, charmed by the earnest expression on his freckled face. “I’ve read about it in books, but having never met a live pig, I couldn’t say for certain.”

  “Spend any time with a pig and you’d know,” Flynn said.

  “Do you see their tails?” Cymbeline asked. “Aren’t they too perfect?”

  “Perfect indeed.” The pink darlings with their swirled tails and pink tummies were much too adorable to think of them as bacon. I understood Cymbeline’s dilemma. I wondered how the sow had become pregnant, as I saw no other pig. I decided to keep that question to myself.

  “Did you see our rooster?” Flynn asked, pointing to the red rooster. “We call him King.” The way he strutted about the barn as if he were in charge had certainly earned him his name.

  “He crows very loud,” Fiona said.

  “King’s rather obnoxious,” Josephine said. “But with
out him, we wouldn’t have fertilized eggs.”

  Cymbeline’s eyes flashed with annoyance in the way my sister’s did when I told her something she already knew.

  “Miss Quinn, come with me.” Cymbeline dragged me over to the stall where a fawn-colored cow with large brown eyes chewed her cud. “This is Buttercream.” Buttercream looked unbothered by my presence, busy as she was with the cud.

  “She’s a Jersey,” Flynn said as he sidled up next to me and petted Buttercream’s head. “This old girl makes the best cream.” He rubbed his stomach. “Lizzie churns it into butter.”

  “We have cream with the wild berries in the summer,” Josephine said from behind me.

  “Harley grows raspberries.” I turned to see that Poppy had joined us. She wore a pair of overalls made of denim and a knit cap over her two braids. How freeing it must be to wear any form of trousers. I wished the other girls could dress the same, while tramping around in the barn anyway. As for me, I would have been delighted to be out of a corset and a dress.

  I walked over to the stalls where Lord Barnes shoveled horse dung. I’d thought Lord Barnes would look out of place with a shovel in his hand, given his pedigree and that crisp British accent. Wearing long rubber boots over his wool trousers, and an old tweed coat, he looked as if he belonged here. If anything, he looked even better out here than inside, which I hadn’t anticipated possible. Perhaps feeling my gaze, he looked up from his work. “Hello there. What do you think about our little farm?”

  “I like it quite well.”

  “We don’t bother with beef,” Lord Barnes said. “We buy our meat from the Cassidy farm.”

  “What about the pigs? Do we eat them?” I asked.

  “We slaughter a few for us and sell the others to the Higgins boys,” he said.

  Why? I wondered. Didn’t Lord Barnes have enough money without raising pigs?

  “I wanted the children to have some experience with real work,” Lord Barnes said, as if I’d asked my question out loud. He leaned against his shovel. “The pigs are their responsibility. They raise and sell them for profit, which then goes into funds for their future. The rest of the farm is for our consumption.”

  “The lessons they learn from their enterprise will be invaluable to them,” I said.

  “It’s my hope,” he said before going back to his shoveling.

  “Miss Quinn, do want to help us gather the eggs?” Cymbeline asked.

  I most certainly did not want to help gather eggs. Chickens scared me. What if they didn’t want to give up their eggs? However, I knew it wasn’t a good example for our human chicks to see my fear, so I agreed.

  “How do I do it?” I asked as we stood in front of the nest boxes. Each box had a brown egg tangled in straw.

  “First, we’ll scatter some feed for them in there.” Cymbeline pointed to a small area closer to the front of the barn. She called for Fiona.

  Fiona came running over. “Is it time?”

  Josephine reached into a bin from the shelf hanging on the wall and scooped a handful of corn and grain into a small tin bucket. She handed it to Fiona. “Here you are.”

  Fiona, bucket swinging in her pudgy hand, walked to the feeding area. The hens gathered around. For a moment I was worried they were going to peck at the small girl, but the moment Fiona tossed the first handful, they focused on their breakfast.

  “Now we collect the eggs while they eat,” Cymbeline said as she handed me another bucket. “Once we have them all, we take them to Lizzie. She washes them in her big sink.”

  “Lizzie won’t allow anyone else to wash the eggs. She’s afraid we’ll get sick if they’re not washed properly,” Josephine said.

  I leaned closer to inspect the egg in the first box. It wasn’t terribly dirty, but I was certain the brown spot on part of the shell was dried chicken manure. Grateful for my new gloves while simultaneously hoping they were washable, I reached in and grabbed the egg, then set my prize gently at the bottom of the pail. I glanced behind me to see if any of the hens were ready to claw my eyes out for stealing their eggs. They were all too busy with their corn to notice me. “Does Harley do all these chores while you’re at school?” How did he do all of this alone?

  “No, Merry gets to collect eggs during the week,” Cymbeline said, bitterly. “She’s lucky. Saturdays and Sundays are the best days.”

  I gathered a few more eggs, as did the girls. Soon, the nests were empty. Cymbeline and I then took out any soiled straw and replaced it with new. Josephine swept the floor of scraps of straw and other debris. Flynn was over with Buttercream doing the milking while Theo fed Sweetpea. Lord Barnes continued his hard work in the stalls.

  All in all, I had to agree with Cymbeline. Saturday was a good day.

  Later, I was coming out of the nursery after putting Fiona down for a nap when I ran into Lord Barnes.

  “Miss Cooper, how did you enjoy your first day as a farmer?” he asked.

  “This has been the best time of my life.” I smiled up at him. “Everything. The school, your children. Even the pigs.”

  “Is this only a position to you?” he asked softly as he looked down at me with vulnerability in his eyes. For a man rich and powerful, he appeared no older than Theo.

  “I’m fond of the children, thus it doesn’t feel like work.” I stared at the tips of my boots, shy but unable to depart. The hallway, dim and narrow, made it impossible to ignore how his presence made my skin tingle and my pulse race.

  He inched closer. I caught the pleasant scent of his shaving soap. He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. “Is it only the children you care for, or is there room in your heart for me?"

  My stomach turned over. “There’s room for you. A lot of room.”

  He grazed my cheek with the backs of his fingers, his eyes pools of sincerity. “I’ll fill every empty spot of your heart if you’ll allow me to.”

  “Lord Barnes, you’re bold and terribly inappropriate.” I cocked my head to the side and gave him a sassy, flirtatious smile. This was a dangerous game to play with my employer. Somehow, I didn’t care. I was as reckless and wild as the animals that roamed outside these walls.

  “Do you think I’m playing with you?” he asked, smiling down at me.

  “I think you’re a lord and I’m a schoolteacher. Is this a game to you?”

  “I don’t play games. Titles mean nothing when it comes to the heart. I’m a man who knows what he wants.”

  I swallowed. “Good, because I’ve never cared for games.” I turned away, feeling his gaze on my backside as I walked on shaky legs toward my room. Once inside, I plopped on my bed, dizzy from the interaction. A craving as I’d never experienced had taken hold of me. I wanted Lord Alexander Barnes in my bed. What kind of wanton woman was I? But again, I couldn’t seem to muster any shame.

  Chapter 18

  Alexander

  * * *

  That evening, after bathing and replacing my work clothes with dinner attire, I passed by the closed door of the girls’ room. From inside came the high-pitched voices of Fiona and Cymbeline, then Miss Cooper’s lower one. The boys were not in their room, so I assumed they must be bathing. Since she had everything under control, I headed downstairs to my library to spend a few minutes reading by the fire.

  I sat in my favorite leather chair. My muscles were pleasantly tired from the day’s work. I was looking forward to a warm supper and more time with my kids and the beautiful woman who had appeared out of nowhere in my house and life. Miss Cooper had offered to put together a hearty soup. Usually on Saturdays, Lizzie left us slices of cold ham and a German-style potato salad.

  I vacillated between euphoria and utter mortification at the way Miss Cooper’s eyes had shone when I’d so brazenly spoken my thoughts out loud. I was so preoccupied by my juvenile misstep and the periodic images of her flushed skin and lips the color of ripe raspberries that it was impossible to concentrate on the book in my lap.

  After a few minutes of blissful quiet where I contem
plated all things Miss Cooper instead of reading, Jasper announced the arrival of Mrs. Cole.

  “Shall I send her in?” he asked.

  I rubbed my eyes and set aside my book. “Yes, please.” Weary, I rose from the chair and prepared myself for the inevitable onslaught of her rage. I must remember what I promised Samuel. I was to look after her. If that meant I had to take the brunt of her anger, then so be it. Seconds later, she burst into the room. “Thank you for seeing me,” Rachel said.

  “Please, have a seat. Jasper can bring tea.”

  “No, I can’t stay. I’ve come to say I’m sorry for acting like a spoiled child.”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “There’s no need.”

  She bounced around my library like a coiled spring, all the while working a lace handkerchief between her long fingers. “I’m angry and took it out on you, which wasn’t fair. You’ve been nothing but good to me. To us. Did you know you’re the only one who stood by Samuel when he came back with me?”

  Standing near the fire, I gripped my hands together behind my back. “Grief makes us say strange things. You mustn’t think about it another moment.”

  “Wilber, my brother, has come. I feel safer with him at the house.” She sank into the couch, as if suddenly exhausted. “He’s ashamed of me—keeping us all hidden like mole rats. He thinks the children should go to school. He said my fear shouldn’t keep them from opportunity.”

  “What do you think?” I asked quietly as I sat across from her.

  “I think what I’ve always thought. It’s best to stay away from trouble.” She spread the handkerchief over her lap. “That said, I’ve decided to send them to school. Wilber will drive them.” With her head tilted downward, she spoke so softly I leant forward to hear her better. “I should never have come here in the first place. Shouldn’t have let myself fall in love with Samuel.”

  “In the history of humankind, I don’t think we’ve ever been successful in denying the heart’s desires.”

  She looked up at me. “What about you? Do you ever curse yourself for falling in love with Ida?”