Free The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead by Jeanne Savery Page B

Miss Tomlinson’s ears must still be voiced. She’ll just have to blush and we’ll politely ignore her crimson cheeks. Cousin?”
    “Now why,” asked Mary, “do you think there will be anything in this tale an innocent shouldn’t hear?” Before Jacob could do more than open his mouth, she continued. “Actually, there may be.” Her mouth compressed into a hard line for a moment. “Rube will tell you much of it is, but he still thinks in terms of harems and women who must be kept away from any man not father or husband.” She grinned when Rube’s face twisted into a moue. “Yes, you do. You wouldn’t keep such a close watch on me if you did not.”
    “I keep close watch, Lady Mary, because you are in danger of your life and only for that reason. I know better than most that you can deal with very nearly any situation a man might face.”
    Mary blushed slightly. “That is a high compliment, Rube.”
    “That,” he said, his voice dry as the deserts surrounding his home oasis, “would be an insult to a lady of my people. As you know.”
    Mary laughed. “ I ’ ll take it as a compliment. Now for my tale.” She settled more firmly into the armed chair Jacob had pulled into a position so she faced Jenna who sat against pillows in her bed. “I had stayed for—oh, nearly a year?—with Rube’s family.”
    “Where she saved my mother’s life,” inserted Rube. “She’d not bother to tell you that, but it is important.”
    “Where,” repeated Mary, “I happened to have enough medicines in my kit and, for once, the right medicines, so that I was able to add my bit to Rube’s family’s physician’s efforts. He is a good doctor, Rube, and I learned from him. Very likely he’d have saved your mother without my poor efforts.”
    “You learn wherever you go. Now continue or we’ll be all day at it.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
    Mary cast him a look , sighed and continued. “The tale that I was a doctor eventually reached the ears of the headman of a tribe some distance to the south. The man had a son who was dying. He sent for me.”
    “And, against all advice, she insisted she must go.”
    “Rube, who tells this tale? Me or you?”
    Jacob, before the tall man could retort, said, “I think you each have much to tell. Just carry on, either of you, whenever the other forgets something.”
    “Very well,” said Mary. “Rube’s father organized my journey—mounts, guards, food and water…and he sent Rube to keep me safe.”
    “Your cousin, Mr. Moorhead, rushes into danger never thinking it might be there. The journey was one adventure after another before we reached the headman’s region. Finally. Frankly, I’d rather hoped we’d be too late and his son already dead. It would have solved a number of problems.”
    “He was not dead. Nor was there anything I or anyone could do for him. He had a wasting disease, Jacob. Someday they may discover what causes such and a means of curing that sort of illness, but just now we can do nothing for it. And so I told his father. His father refused to believe me, insisted I was merely attempting to increase the offer of recompense he’d made me.”
    Rube scowled. “Since we’d already sent him word that no recompense would be asked or be necessary or accepted if offered, that didn’t make a great deal of sense.”
    “Rube, the man made little sense about anything except his love for his—”
    “Love? Nonsense,” interrupted Rube. “Love had no part in it. He’d sired only the one son among a multitude of daughters and now the son was dying. He was losing his heir.”
    Mary bit her lip. “Perhaps.”
    “Mary.”
    Mary smiled a weak smile. “I know, Rube. You would say I always look for the best in people. Well, I prefer that to looking for the worst! In any case, the young man died a few days after we arrived and I was accused of poisoning him. Murdering him.”
    “You would have laughed to see the look on her face when that