Rescuing the Pastor's Daughter by Margaret Tanner

Author:Margaret Tanner [Tanner, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-27T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Every hour or so they stopped to give Maverick a rest, and after they had eaten cold pancakes left over from breakfast, started off again with Finn leading the horse.

“I could walk for a while.”

“No, you’re as white as a ghost, and can barely stand up. I’m not blind. I know you’re struggling, but we couldn’t stay at the cave any longer. There’s a tumbledown miner’s shack up here a bit where we can camp the night. It will be easy for us to make an early start in the morning.”

“Whatever you think is best.”

“I’m sorry about your father, it must have been hard to leave him out there. When we get to Calico Corner I’ll see if I can arrange for someone to bring him in before I leave town.”

“You’re going to leave?”

“Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll get you settled in somewhere. Sheriff Sam Tyson is a friend of mine and his wife, Ethel, runs a small boarding house. I’m sure she will have a room for you. She always keeps a spare room for me, so you could have that if she’s full up.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“I’ll pay for you, so don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

Pretty. She felt like a filthy, wrung out rag, in clothes she had worn for three days. No clean undergarments, even. She had managed to re-plait her hair as she had no bonnet to cover it.

“I’m looking forward to a bath and a shave,” he said, as if reading her mind. “It will probably cost me ninety cents, more than I like to pay, but under the circumstances, worth it.”

“Me, too. At least you don’t look as filthy or disheveled as me. It’s worse for a woman.”

“Why? A man can feel grubby and disheveled, too.”

“Yes, but people don’t think much of it. For a woman, they will think she’s some kind of dirty trollop.”

The breath hissed from between his teeth. “They will not.”

She knew differently; women were always dealt with more harshly by other women than men. If it ever got out about them sleeping together in that cave, her reputation would be beyond redemption. She hunched her shoulders and stared straight ahead.

“You’re worrying about nothing,” he said.

“It’s all right for a man, there’s no stigma attached to them. It’s the woman who always suffers. A tarnished reputation can ruin her for life.”

“Nothing untoward happened and no one will know how long we spent together. We can let people think I found you wandering around out here and brought you straight into town.”

They lapsed into silence. Obviously, he neither knew, nor cared, how little it took to ruin a woman’s reputation. Finally, when her head felt like it was ready to crack open and her arm throbbed, he pointed to a huge mound of dirt and stones.

“Behind there is an old miner’s shack.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve stayed here a few times over the last couple of years.” He hesitated. “We lived in it for a while when I was a boy.

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