"No, Baker. You're the one who's going to pay."

In their struggle, neither of them had heard Quinn approaching on Pathkiller from the other side of the bend. Baker stared at the pistol trained at his heart. Slowly he released his grip on Noelle's mount.

"Put that gun away, Copeland. I ain't done nothin'."

Quinn did not take his eyes off Baker. "You're wrong, Luke. I sent one of my men for the sheriff as soon as I heard you'd been seen lurking around the yard. You're going to be spending some time in jail."

Baker licked his lips nervously. "What for?"

"Trying to burn down my shipyard last year," Quinn scoffed contemptuously. "What happened? You couldn't get to me so you went after the shipyard instead?"

"You're bluffing," Baker sneered. "I wasn't anywhere near that shipyard. And I got witnesses to prove it."

"I've seen your friends. Baker, and I don't think their word will count much with a jury. Besides, I've got my own witnesses. Ned McLoughlin and Carl Bremer saw you that night."

Baker stared impotently at the gun trained so unwaveringly upon him. "You're lying! There weren't any witnesses to that fire."

"Oh, but there were. We knew you'd show up again as soon as you heard I was back from England. Ned and Carl have just been biding their time, waiting to tell their stories to the judge." Noelle saw fear flickering in Baker's eyes. "You're not a stupid man, Baker," Quinn said, "but you've let your hatred for me ruin your judgment. You should have stayed away."

Baker could no longer contain his rage. "You son of a bitch!" he screamed, drops of spittle collecting in the corners of his mouth. "Stay away? After you killed my brother?"

"Your brother attacked an unarmed man."

"He was an Injun!" Baker spat. "You killed a white man for an Injun!"

Quinn's eyes narrowed dangerously, and Noelle saw his muscles tense. Later she wondered what would have happened if the sheriff had not ridden up at that moment with some of the men from the shipyard.

After they had taken Baker away, Quinn turned to her. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "Baker was the man I saw near the smokehouse."

Quinn dismounted and picked up her riding crop from the road. "I suspected it was him, but I wasn't sure. Until today, nobody else had seen him. Then, right after you left the yard, one of the men told me somebody thought they'd spotted him near the gate." He rested his hand on the back of her saddle and handed the crop to her. "You should have waited for the groom to ride back with you, Noelle. I've told you I don't want you riding alone around here."

"Don't try to put a leash on me, Quinn Copeland," she flared. "I can take care of myself. I had my knife in my boot and was just waiting for the chance to use it." Without waiting for a response, she dug her heels into Chestnut's flanks and galloped off down the road.

Chapter Thirty-two

The next afternoon, Julian Lester's wife, Emily, came to call. In appearance, she was much like her husband, with the same soft brown hair and hazel eyes. As Noelle led her through the completed rooms she found herself warming to her as quickly as she had to Julian.

"You've done so much here," Emily marveled as they returned to the drawing room. "Televea is going to be even more beautiful than it was when I was a child."

"I didn't realize you'd lived here so long, Emily."

"Oh, my, yes. At Darcy Hall, not a mile away. Goodness, I spent almost as much time at Televea as I did there. Of course, we all did. We were drawn here like bear cubs to honey."

"Why was that?" Noelle asked, trying to imagine this house full of children.

"Because of Amanda. We all loved her."

Although Noelle had never heard her name, she knew Emily must be referring to Quinn's mother. "Tell me about her. Quinn speaks so little of his childhood."

"Oh, Noelle, she was something, 'deed she was. We all had secret guilty dreams about our parents disappearing. Not dying, mind you." Emily laughed. "We were too civilized for that. Just mysteriously disappearing for a while so we could come to live at Televea.

"Our mothers all called her 'Poor Amanda' because her servants took advantage of her, and she couldn't keep house. They'd give her their recipes for furniture polish or tell her how to get the muddy tracks off the stairway carpet. She'd just laugh and tell them she was too busy playing with her son and keeping her husband happy to have time for such foolishness. Oh, my, how they used to sigh over her. But they loved her, too. She'd delivered most of their babies."

"What did she look like?"

"There's a painting of her somewhere. I suppose Simon took it down after she died. She wasn't beautiful, not like you are. But she was striking. Strong features. Dark hair that she always wore in a sort of braided coronet on her head and, ob, my, you never saw a woman who cared less about clothes. Why, she'd take us into the woods, wearing a new dress, and before you'd know it, she'd be dragging her hem in the mud at the riverbank while she showed us how to catch fish without poles. Simon used to complain that he had to build an extra ship every year just to replace the clothes she ruined. He'd always laugh when he said it, though, and we knew he didn't really mind."

Emily smiled, and there was a faraway look in her eyes. "We all envied Quinn so much. They treated him differently than our own parents treated us. They were always touching him, I remember. Every time he walked by, one of them would rumple his hair or hug him or sometimes just pat his arm. I remember one day Simon kissed him on the top of his head in front of the other boys. How they all teased him! But he only laughed and said that if they didn't mind themselves, he'd tell Simon to kiss them, too."

Emily sighed. "Of course, it all changed after she died."

"How did it happen?"

"Malaria. It was real bad that summer. What a sad time that was. Nothing ever stays the same, I guess."

She gave a small embarrassed laugh. "Goodness me, Noelle, I sound just like Julian's Aunt Cornelia with my reminiscing. He says I've been acting strangely ever since I discovered I was in the family way." There was pride in her voice as she confided that after seven years of marriage, she and Julian were finally expecting a child in the summer.

"I hope it doesn't take so long for you and Quinn. It would be nice to have our babies close together."

Noelle smiled noncommittally, glad now that she had not shown Emily the upstairs of the house. Somehow, she doubted that her new friend would understand why she and Quinn were sleeping in separate bedrooms.

After Emily had gone, Noelle poured herself a cup of tea and wandered distractedly into her sitting room, her footsteps echoing on the bare floor. She ambled over to the front window and gazed thoughtfully out. She didn't see the hedges that were now clipped back from the walk or the brick driveway that curved so gracefully up to the front of the house and no longer had weeds growing between its cracks. All she saw was Amanda Copeland.

How vivid Emily had made her. Was that why, now, she seemed so close? Did she know, even from her grave, what a hard, driven man her son had become, hating the father he had once loved, happy only with his ships? Was she trying to reach out to Noelle? Tell her to help her son?

Abruptly Noelle set down her cup and made her way, as if by instinct, to a room she had entered only once before. It had been a nursery, she guessed, before it had become a schoolroom. Among the dusty trunks and old chests, she found the evidence of her husband's boyhood: primers with childish pictures and misspellings in the margins; a wooden ark; a battalion of lead soldiers, their bright red uniforms chipped and faded. There was an airy wooden cradle with spindle sides and, behind it all, as she had somehow known it would be, the painting of Amanda Copeland, carefully wrapped in layers of protective cloth.

It was a full-length portrait of a woman wearing a red dress with a white fringed shawl draped over it. At the base of her throat hung a small silver disk, the same one that Quinn now wore. Emily had described her well: black hair, a strong nose, dark eyes set a bit farther apart than fashion dictated.

Noelle sat for some time studying the portrait and thinking about the woman Amanda Copeland must have been. Finally she replaced the cloth and left.

Quinn had left word with the grooms that Noelle was only permitted to ride to the south and east of the house, not into the wooded area that bordered the rear. The restriction had begun to chafe at her even before the incident with Luke Baker. Now that he was safely in jail, she decided there was no longer any need for such caution. And so, the afternoon after Emily had made her visit, Noelle impulsively turned toward the woods, ignoring the groom who called out to her from the stable door. Chestnut Lady's hooves silently crushed the sprouting seedlings that had unwisely sought haven on the narrow path. She wouldn't go any distance, she decided; just far enough to ease her resentment.

She had been exploring the clearing for some time, humming tunelessly to herself and wandering around the ruins of an old cabin before she realized she was not alone. Her first thought was of Baker. As the icy, prickly warning of danger shot down her spine, she was conscious of how well the dense overgrowth had shut out the strength of the late afternoon sunlight and of how far she had strayed from her tethered mare.

Still humming softly, she bent over and adjusted her riding boot as if there were something wrong with the heel and, at the same time, slowly extracted her knife from the other boot. Sliding it into her pocket, she began casually making her way toward her horse.