The Lodestone by Charlene Keel Page B

Jimmy Parker from her arms by. That night—their wedding night— he had been beaten senseless and left to die. Ramona had not seen him since. Cleome knew this much of the story from Mary, the woman who was friend and nursemaid to her mother; and she had overheard gossip in the kitchen. So she knew the sounds of a summer storm had the power to plunge her mother deep into nightmares of the past. During such times, Ramona avoided sleep, for sleep was no escape.
    “It’s all right, Mary,” Cleome told the woman bending anxiously over her mother. “I’ll stay with her. Get some rest. I expect the gentlemen will be late at their cards. You can clean the parlor in the morning.”
    “Aye, Miss,” Mary said, with tears in her eyes. “She’s bad tonight.” Mary and Ramona had played together as children, and she loved her mistress like a sister. “I wish there was a way to ease her sufferin’,” she continued. “But there. What’s done is done.”
    “You’re a daily comfort to her, Mary. Go on, now; I’ll call if you’re needed.” Cleome read to Ramona for a while and then sang to her over the wind and rain, but it was two in the morning before the invalid finally settled down and dozed off. Cleome pulled back the drapes and watched the downpour for a few minutes; and then she took the candle, intent on retiring to her room, but she met Jacqueline on the landing.
    “Are they still at it?” she inquired. “Has Granda joined the game?”
    “ Oui ,” Jacqueline replied, distraught. “Oh, mademoiselle! He is over his head with that one. He will not win from him.”
    “Well, then, ’tis what he deserves. Perhaps it will teach him a lesson.”
    “He has already lose too much. All of his pockets money. Now he makes open the strongbox.”
    “So, he is up to his tricks, then? I shouldn’t worry. You know how cunning he is,” Cleome tried to reassure her.
    “But like this, I never see him. It is as if he hates this tall man. He cannot stop himself. Mademoiselle, I have see men lose everything, and I know. Your grandfather is not himself when he plays against this stranger.”
    Suddenly, Cleome’s chest felt as if it were filled with chunks of ice. Jacqueline’s anxiety is contagious , she thought, but her grandfather knew what he was about. “I’m sure there’s nothing to fear,” she said at last. “I’ll look in on them. Go to bed, now.”
    Cleome pulled her shawl more closely about her shoulders and, shielding her candle from drafts, she hurried to the kitchen. As her excuse to investigate the events taking place in the parlor, she would serve some refreshments to the gentlemen. While the coffee was brewing, she sliced bread into generous pieces and placed them on a large platter. She was about to follow suit with the cheese when she heard a noise behind her and turned, startled to see Garnett Easton standing in the doorway, his elongated shadow falling across the kitchen floor.
    “I saw you pass the door of that infernal room of disaster,” he said. “I thought you might need assistance, as it is unusual for young ladies to go gadding about in the middle of the night.”
    “I can manage, thank you,” she said. She started to ask him to return to his friends, then thought better of it. “Room of disaster?” she ventured. “What do you mean?”
    Cleome could see that her conversational tone surprised Garnett, but he quickly recovered. Putting his hands behind his back, he ambled into the kitchen to stand next to her. “My pockets were emptied straightaway,” he told her. “That Stoneham fellow is quite good. A professional, I’d wager. I say, is that feast for us?”
    “I thought my grandfather would like something to eat,” she said with careful detachment, moving away from him to tend to the coffeepot.
    “’Pon my word, Cleome! Surely you do not intend to hold one little mud cake against me for the rest of my life. Here now, look. I’ll get down on my knees to beg your pardon, if only