Better Loved, Part Nine

by J. Rosemary Moss

Genre: Fan-Fiction (Bonanza)
Rating: PG

LINK TO PART ONE

~

The Widow Hawkins sighed as Charlotte draped different silks and muslins over her and took her measurements. The child was chattering on about Sun Mountain and the mines.

Charlotte, Clementine was discovering, could chatter endlessly on just about any topic.

Apparently Adam Cartwright had kept up with the girl and her family. One of the letters he sent was filled with information on Phillip Deidesheimer. He wrote that he’d been privileged to work with the man and his ‘honeycomb’ cubes, which shored up the tunnels in Sun Mountain and put an end to the constant cave-ins.

Clementine stifled a yawn. She knew little and cared less about Virginia City’s silver mines. But at least the girl’s thoughts were turned back to Adam.

“Charlotte, why won’t you let him call on you?” she asked.

She responded with a mischievous grin. “Phillip Deidesheimer? He hasn’t asked me.”

The widow rolled her eyes. “Tiresome child,” she muttered. “I meant Adam Cartwright, Miss. Now may I sit down?”

She shook her head. “Not yet—I just need a few more measurements. I want this gown to be perfect.”

Clementine cleared her throat. “About Adam—”

But Charlotte interrupted her. “There’s no use talking about him, Miss Clementine. He can’t ever offer me marriage because of my color. And I—I don’t want to be his ‘other’ family.”

Clementine could see that the girl was adamant. Time to change tactics.

“Very well,” she said reasonably, “but why not ask him to back you? You’ll need money to become a modiste. There’s nothing wrong with him investing in you.”

The girl stepped back to consider her words. “That’s true,” she said. “It could be just a business arrangement.”

She took the fabrics off of the widow and continued speaking as she folded them. “I’d have to tell him who I am. Oh, he’ll be furious when he finds out that I up and left Therese without telling her where I was going.”

“Now Therese is your sister?” Clementine asked.

The girl nodded. “And she was more or less my guardian after my mother died. I had to leave without a word or she would have found a way to keep me in New Orleans. She refuses to believe that I’m grown! But I sent her a note afterwards telling her that I was in San Francisco.”

The widow raised her eyebrows at her. “Why didn’t you write her the truth?”

Charlotte made a face. “Because she would have wired Adam. Although she might anyway—it would be just like her to expect him to go all the way to San Francisco and fetch me.”

She paused at the sound of someone marching up the front walk. Clementine watched her set down the material and peek out the window.

Charlotte swore in French and pulled the curtain shut. “I think she did wire him. He wouldn’t come here otherwise—not after I asked him not to call on me. I’d better go out the back way. He’s just as bad as Therese when he’s angry—”

“Don’t be ridiculous Charlotte,” the widow said firmly. “You’re not going to run away. Now answer that door.”

For a moment she really did think the girl would bolt. But in the end Charlotte squared her shoulders and forced a smile on her face.

She opened the door and flung herself into Adam’s arms before he had a chance to speak. She cried out something or other in French and then switched to English.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to recognize me,” she said, speaking into his chest. “I’ve filled out some, haven’t I?”

Adam ignored that. He took her by the shoulders and held her a little apart from him. “Do you know how worried Therese is? Why did you run away? And why did you lie to me about your name?”

“I didn’t lie,” she informed him. “My full name is Antoinette Charlotte Corday Bon. And don’t think you’re going to lecture me, Adam Cartwright. I’m not seven years old anymore.”

“No,” he agreed evenly, “but I can still put you over my knee.”

That provoked a torrent of French and English from Charlotte. Clementine couldn’t understand it all, but the girl seemed to be telling Adam that if she wanted an overbearing tyrant to play guardian to her she would have stayed in New Orleans with Therese.

In a moment of rare tact, the widow judged it best to retire to her own rooms.

She crept downstairs some time later, just to make sure that no blood had been shed. She paused on the stairwell and listened.

“Adam, it has to be strictly business,” Charlotte was saying. “I’m going to pay you back with interest. We can’t become involved. Is that clear?”

There was a smile in Adam’s voice as he answered. “I’ll accept the interest,” he told her. “But as for not getting involved—you, ah, might be more convincing if you weren’t sitting on my lap.”

Charlotte chuckled at that. “But I always used to curl up on your lap, sir,” she reminded him. “I can't break a habit that easily.”

Mrs. Hawkins smiled to herself and made her way back upstairs. She was quite pleased with her matchmaking—even if a marriage between the pair was unthinkable.

After about an hour she ventured downstairs again. She couldn’t help but listen first. After all, she didn’t want to barge in on a romantic scene.

But Clementine’s idea of romance apparently was not the same as Adam and Charlotte’s. She couldn’t imagine anything less romantic than their conversation.

It sounded like they were still sitting close together. But she was peppering him with questions about the mines and he was doing his best to explain the problems that remained even after that Deidesheimer fellow. Their talk was all about the limited ventilation and the extreme heat inside Sun Mountain.

The widow sighed. Well, if Adam could put up with her chatter and Charlotte really was interested in his engineering difficulties, then they must have been meant for each other.

But they’d never be as sweet a couple as she and her Harry had been. They just didn’t have it in them.

She must have stood there listening longer than she intended, for she heard Adam getting up to take his leave.

“I’m glad you came—even though you shouldn’t have risked it,” he told Charlotte as Clementine heard them move toward the door. “I asked Therese to bring you all here before the war, but she refused.”

“Nothing will induce Therese to leave New Orleans,” Charlotte said flatly. “But she’ll be fine there. The Yankees may occupy the city now but I think they’ll leave the gens de couleur alone. And I didn’t have much hassle getting here—war or no war. So you may write her back, sir, and tell her that I lied about being in San Francisco, but that you have me safe and sound.”

He laughed. “Safe, sound and thoroughly chastised.”

She laughed too, but she also called him a name in French that probably didn't bear translating.

There was a pause. Clementine sighed to herself as she let her imagination fill in the silence.

“Come to the Ponderosa tomorrow,” Adam said at last. “It’s high time you met your nephew.”

“Talk to him first, Adam. He may not want to meet me. And your Pa might not want to either.”

“They’ll both want to,” he assured her. “But I promise to talk it over with them. I’ll come by in the afternoon.”

There was another silence and then Clementine heard the door open and shut, followed by Adam's tread on the walkway outside. Then she heard a happy, contented sigh from Charlotte.

The widow smiled to herself. She would wager her Burma Rarity that the girl’s thoughts now had nothing to do with Sun Mountain.

LINK TO PART TEN