Page 14 of Cloaked in Beauty

Rusty’s bark interrupted her prayer and snapped her eyes open in time to see him dash off toward home. Shadow tensed and champed at her bit. Had Rusty set her off, or had something else spooked her?

Letty scanned the trees for danger, her instincts flaring. Something was definitely wrong. But what?

Shadow lurched into a canter, and Letty let her run. An unseen urgency pushed her from behind, like a hand to her back.

Was this the Spirit’s nudging that Grandmother had told her about? Letty heard no message spoken in divine words, but a compulsion to hurry built inside her. One that couldn’t be ignored. She needed to get home. Now.

Shadow burst out of the trees, and Letty got her first look at the cabin. Rusty pawed at the front door as if trying to get inside. As soon as Letty drew close enough, she reined Shadow in and slid from the saddle. Rusty bounded sideways and jumped, planting his front paws on the window. Letty ran up behind him, placing a hand on his back. That’s when she saw her grandmother, fallen on the floor by the kitchen table, a bowl overturned with shelled peas strewn about like beads from a broken necklace.

“Grandmother!”

Letty flung open the door and ran inside. Heart racing, she dropped to the floor where her grandmother lay crumpled on her side and took hold of her hand.

“Grandmother?” She patted her hand with sharp taps. “Can you hear me? It’s Letty. Open your eyes.” Please open your eyes. I can’t lose you, too.

Grandmother moaned, her body moving slightly as her eyes fluttered open. “Letty? Wh-what happened?”

“I don’t know. I just got home and found you on the floor. Can you sit up?” She wrapped a supportive arm around the older lady’s shoulders and started lifting her off the floor.

Grandmother tried to bat Letty’s hands away, but the swats held no strength. “Of course I can sit up. I just . . .” Her breathing grew ragged as she struggled to rise. “Need . . . to catch . . . my breath.”

Letty set her chin. “What you need is a doctor.” Using the table as leverage, she shouldered her grandmother’s weight and managed to get them both onto their feet.

“No doctor.” Grandmother wobbled, though whether the cause was dizziness or a lack of strength, Letty couldn’t determine. “I’ll not put you at risk. It’s just . . . indigestion. I’ll be fine after a nap.”

How many bouts of “indigestion” had her grandmother suffered lately without telling her? Knowing how stubborn and protective her grandmother was, Letty figured it was safe to assume there’d been several.

Arguing would serve no purpose at the moment, so Letty said nothing, just helped her grandmother to the bedroom.

“Sit down here.” Letty lowered her grandmother to the mattress of the large bed they shared, not liking the paleness of her skin. “I’ll take off your shoes and unpin your hair so you can have a nice long rest, all right?”

“Don’t need to fuss,” Grandmother insisted, her words slow and deliberate, as if they commanded all the energy at her disposal.

Letty hurried to make her grandmother as comfortable as possible, even as her panicked mind tried to piece together a plan.

They needed help. Medical help. Yet they also needed to stay hidden.

No, not they. She needed to stay hidden. People in town knew Iris Hood. Sending a doctor to tend to her might give away the precise location of their cabin, but if Letty stayed in the woods, no one need ever know that Iris had a granddaughter. It could work.

It had to work.

Her grandmother began to slump. Letty caught her and assisted her down to the pillow. She lifted her feet onto the bed and tucked them beneath a lightweight quilt.

“Rest, Grandmother. I’ll take care of everything.” She leaned down and placed a kiss on her grandmother’s forehead.

“You’re a . . . good girl . . . Letty. I love you.”

Tears rushed to her eyes, but Letty blinked them back. “I love you, too.”

“Everything . . . fine.” Grandmother’s eyes slid closed. “You’ll . . . see.”

The moment her grandmother slipped into sleep, Letty rushed from the room, nearly tripping over Rusty in the process. He whined, the sound so mournful, her chest ached. She patted his head and rubbed his ears. “Stay with her, boy. I don’t want her to be alone.”

Rusty padded over to the bed, his nails clicking on the wooden floor. When he reached the rag rug at the edge of the bed, he circled once, then lay down. His head remained up, though, his gaze on Grandmother as if he understood the vigil he’d been assigned to keep.

Letty pulled her hood low over her forehead and wrapped her cape more securely around the dark-green calico of her dress. She’d never ridden to town, but she knew the road Grandmother took every other week. Trees lined it on either side. She need not ride out in the open.

She couldn’t fetch the doctor herself. Not only because it would reveal her existence and threaten everything Grandmother had fought to protect, but she had no idea who he was or if Queen City even had a physician. She could fetch someone else, though. Someone who knew the town and understood her need for confidentiality. Grandmother’s sole ally. The coconspirator who helped them send letters and photographs to her mama. Stewart Darby. Senior porter at the T&P Depot and one of Grandmother’s childhood friends. Letty had been instructed that if anything ever happened to her grandmother, she was to seek out Mr. Darby at the train station.