Free The Devil's Cold Dish by Eleanor Kuhns Page A

a husband with no more sense than a babe? Because of her cruel brother?”
    â€œDid you tell everyone I murdered Zadoc Ward to punish me?” Rees’s voice rose with frustration.
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with a sniff. “But that’s you, blaming me for everything. Mother and Father would be horrified.”
    Fearing his anger would drive him into saying something he would regret, Rees rose to his feet and stomped from the house. Then he paused in the yard. There were so many arguments he might have made. He half-turned, ready to go back inside, but reconsidered.
    For two pins, he would go home and forget his promise to help with the haying. Of course, that would give his sister more ammunition to use in her pose as martyr. And he hadn’t promised Caroline; he’d given his word to David. Rees looked over to the little group sitting under the tree. David, a chicken leg poised in front of his mouth, was staring at his father. Rees took in a deep breath. He had broken too many promises to his son through the last few years. He couldn’t do that to David again.
    Pasting a smile on his face, Rees joined the group and took something out of the basket to eat. His stomach was so twisted he could barely force a mouthful of cheese down.
    â€œAll right?” David asked.
    â€œOf course,” Rees said. Although his hearty tone sounded forced to him, no one except David seemed to notice.
    When they all returned to the fields, David gave his father a scythe and directed him to a strip at the very beginning. Rees knew he would not catch up to the boys; they were too far ahead. He began swinging the scythe. He’d only gone a few feet when he began feeling the strain in his arm and back muscles. His soft weaver’s hands began to hurt and he feared he would see blisters before day’s end. And this field was not as easy as the haying at Rees’s own farm. His grandfather had planted different types of grasses and now the fields contained red clover and alfalfa. This meadow had none of that but there was a healthy crop of weeds, mainly thistles, something David kept cut down in his grass. Some of the purple flowers here stood on stalks over Rees’s head. His right arm quickly developed a score of little cuts from the long spines on the leaves. These stalks would have to be removed from the haycocks. The thorns would irritate the mouth of an unwary cow that happened to grab one. Rees hoped he could be excused from that horrible chore.
    The weight of his sister’s angry melancholy cast a shadow over him and he welcomed the heat of the sun on his shoulders and sunburned neck. He ran his fingers over the cut vegetation, the spines of thistles stinging like needles. Should he take in Caroline and her family? He shuddered. How could he even entertain such a notion with the proof of his sister’s malice so obvious? But he still felt guilty.
    Straightening up and staring unseeingly into the distance, he recalled the slight smile with which she had greeted him, and the comment he’d ignored. Oh no. She thought he’d finally surrendered and was planning to offer her the weaver’s cottage on his farm. Rees closed his eyes in a spasm of shame. She had greeted him with hope and he had killed it and then made things worse with his clumsy accusation. Rees straightened and stared blindly over the field. Of course he couldn’t know what she’d been thinking, could he? But not knowing did not ease his terrible regret.
    â€œLooks like the hay at this end is dry enough,” David said, coming up behind his father and making him jump.
    â€œYes, I see,” Rees said, turning around.
    â€œAre you all right? You look strange.”
    â€œYes.” Rees hadn’t intended to say anything more but the words burst from him. “I talked to Caroline regarding the rumors she was spreading about Lydia.”
    â€œAs nimbly as a