His connection to Ian wasn’t entirely healed. It’d be a long time before it was. But they’d made a start. A long sought-after, reassuring, heart-lightening start.
Chapter Twenty-five
Eliza came to a conclusionin the days following her dance with the doctor: she would search out the path in life she wanted to walk rather than fretting over the paths she’d been on. Hope Springs had become home to her, and she meant to do all she could to make it the home she wanted.
Being a housekeeper wasn’t a terrible arrangement, and while it wouldn’t be her first choice of profession, if it meant she could stay where she had friends, where her daughter was loved, then she would be happy to keep toiling there for as long as the Archers would allow. And if it took ten, fifteen, twenty years of proposing new variations on her inn to finally get it built, then she would spend those ten, fifteen, twenty years, holding fast to that dream.
She would pick her path, beginning with tossing another idea at Joseph Archer.
As she was working on the laundry one morning, he approached the house. Seeing her opportunity, she snatched up Lydia and rushed toward the porch, despite her wet apron and sleeves rolled to her elbows. When she’d first come to work for the Archers, she would have been horrified at the thought of her well-to-do employer seeing her even the slightest bit harried. She wasn’t afraid of him any longer.
“Might I bend your ear a moment?” she asked, reaching the porch just as he did.
“Of course.”
She bounced Lydia in her arms, hoping to keep her quiet while they had this discussion. “I’ve given more thought to the inn. The stage company suggested we move it quite far south so it could be the first night’s stop, but that doesn’t work for us. What if, instead, we move it north so it can be the second night’s stop? I don’t think we’d have to go too far from town. Passengers are always more tired on the second day of travel than the first. They, the driver, and the outrider will all be eager for a stop sooner than the day before.”
“That is certainly true.” He assumed the expression he wore when he was intrigued by an idea. That he hadn’t had an immediate objection or reason why it wouldn’t work was encouraging.
“Do you own any land to the north of town?” she asked.
“I do,” he said, “but not directly on the stage road. Still, it might be near enough to be worth a bit of an adjustment in their trail.”
“And would it be near enough to town for Dr. Jones to still use it for an infirmary?”
Joseph rubbed at his chin, thinking. Lydia began loudly fussing, squirming in an attempt to be put down. With the laundry pot still simmering nearby, Eliza didn’t dare risk putting her down. Like an armored knight of old, Finbarr stepped up beside her.
“Come sit with me, Lydia.” He held his arms out for her, though not quite in the right direction.
Eliza set the girl in them. “The laundry fire’s burning not far off, and the water’s terribly hot.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep her near to the house.”
“Thank you.”
Finbarr set Lydia on her feet and took her hand, holding his cane in the other. “Let’s go for a walk, lass.”
