Free Nobody's Angel by Karen Robards Page B

night, she had added a few drops of laudanum to his broth. It should take effect soon.
    He swallowed some water and set the cup back down on the tray still half full.
    "You were not deprived of water as well as food, I see." Susannah's observation was carefully neutral.
    For a moment he just looked at her, as if uncertain how, or whether, to respond. Then he gave the merest suggestion of a shrug.
    "Water is essential to life. Food, unless withheld for a very long time, is not."
    As she had expected, within minutes his eyelids began to droop. He swayed, and one hand went out to steady himself against the mattress. Susannah reached over to lift the tray from his lap and set it out of harm's way.
    "Were I you, I would lie down now and rest until Ben
    returns," she suggested soothingly, turning back to plump his pillow with practiced hands.
    Connelly managed to focus his eyes on her face for an instant, but Susannah could see that it was an effort. Then his lids closed, and he sighed.
    "Feel—strange," he muttered, even as he permitted her to ease him over onto his stomach and down onto his pillow.
    "No doubt you will feel better in the morning," she answered, but she doubted if he heard her.
    "I've brought more broth, Miss Susannah," Ben said from the doorway.
    Susannah straightened to look at him. "He'll not be wanting it after all, Ben. He's asleep."

 
    8
     
     
     
    It was well after two a.m. when Susannah finally felt able to leave the Coopers' farm. Old Mrs. Cooper had been washed, dressed in her best, and laid out in the parlor. Her daughters, Hannah Naisbitt and Miriam Skaggs, were at the house to give comfort to their aged father, who had finally been persuaded to retire to bed. Susannah's own father had prayed with the weeping widower, while the couple's middle-aged daughters and Susannah had done the actual work of preparing the corpse for burial. The family grieved for the loss of their loved one, but Mrs. Cooper had been old and frail and her death had long been expected. Thus the mood was one of quiet sorrow and acceptance rather than wailing tragedy.
    Climbing up into the buggy with her father, glad that for once she did not have to drive home alone, Susannah stretched her tired back, wincing a little at the soreness of her shoulder. The bruise was already deep purple, and it made itself felt whenever she moved. It also reminded her of a problem she had managed, for a few hours, to push to the back of her mind—Connelly. She had yet to tell her father what she had done.
    Glancing along the seat to where he sat, fragile in his black suit, white-haired, his back erect despite a weariness that must surely be as great as her own, she knew that the moment of truth was at hand. But he forestalled her.
    "Walter Cooper asked that you play Milton's Hymn to the Creator at the service tomorrow."
    Susannah nodded. "Mrs. Cooper loved that song. She asked me to sing it to her just last night."
    "She was a fine woman. Heaven is the richer for our loss."
    "Yes."
    Conversation died. The muffled thud of Darcy's hooves against the dirt road was echoed by the plodding hoof- beats of her father's horse, Micah, who was tied behind. Except for the rustling of the wind in the trees and the shrill call of a nightbird from some distance away, there was no other sound. The silence would have been comfortable had Susannah not been on tenterhooks about the confession she had to make. There was no good reason not to speak. The revelation would get no easier for being delayed.
    Susannah took a deep breath. If it had to be done, then it was best done quickly, as her mother had often said. But still she hesitated, reluctant to spoil these few moments that she had alone with her father. For a moment, just a moment more, she would hold her tongue and savor the peace of the night. It was cooler now, the temperature having dropped some twenty degrees from what it had been that afternoon, and the smell of growing things and farm animals and salt