Honor by Lyn Cote Read Free Book Online

give.

    Honor and Royale had managed to lay out a cold supper and clean up afterward. Then, downstairs with the curtains drawn, Royale gave Miriam a sponge bath while upstairs Honor helped Samuel undress Eli for sleep in the small bedroom the two shared. The little one in his thin cotton nightshirt was clingy and cranky. Settling on the rocker, Honor lifted him onto her lap.
    Samuel sat on the bed across from her, signing to Eli, trying to reassure him. Honor did not miss the sadness she read not only on the man’s face but on every part of him. He looked as if he’d been pounded by mallets. The urge to touch him in comfort nearly overwhelmed her.
    Regardless of Samuel’s efforts, the little boy began to weep, and he buried his face into Honor’s shoulder.
    She tried to soothe him, rocking him and softly singing children’s songs she remembered. She’d never comforted a child before. A new tenderness blossomed within. She kissed the top of his head and rested her cheek there.
    Finally Eli fell asleep.
    Samuel signed and, half-standing, motioned that he would lay Eli in his small bed.
    Honor held up her hand and signed awkwardly, “Wait—till he sleeps sound.” She wished she were more polished in her sign language, but at her words Samuel resumed his seat.
    Now that Eli slept, Honor found herself alone with a man in a bedroom—something that had never happened before—and odd sensations rippled through her. Samuel was so imposing a figure, yet so gentle, so vulnerable now. The prompting to help him could not be ignored. The sooner he began to accept the truth, the sooner he would be able to deal with it. “Miriam is ill, very bad,” she signed.
    Samuel looked away as if rejecting her words.
    She lightly tapped his knee with her knuckles. “Do not say no. We will help thee.”
    “I can’t lose her,” Samuel signed at last.
    I lost my grandfather and my home—everything. Her heart throbbed with these words. But making no reply, she cuddled the child closer, giving and receiving comfort.
    “If only I can get my mother to Ohio,” his fingers insisted, “she will get better.”
    False hope would lead nowhere. For either of them. Honor found she could read his signing, though forming her own fingers into the words was an arduous chore. “She is not well enough.”
    He surged to his feet and began pacing in the small room.
    Drawing back, Honor rocked the sleeping boy, witnessing Samuel’s anguish. Now she understood Miriam’s words: “Thee has come in the nick of time.”
    Though she could help this family for a time, Honorcould see no way forward for herself. Once Miriam died, she and Royale would have to leave. An unmarried man and woman could not live under the same roof without an older woman as chaperone.

    Later Samuel carried Miriam to her bed. Honor told him to wake her if Miriam needed her. She and Royale entered their room. As soon as the two of them were alone, what lay between them reared up. They avoided each other. And neither spoke till they were in bed and no light but the moon glowed.
    All day, even in the midst of worry over Miriam, Royale’s words had streamed through her mind like a circle of ribbon. Honor braced herself. “Now tell me,” she whispered.
    “Your grandfather be my father.”
    The air went out of Honor’s lungs. She closed her eyes and her mouth, struggling to conceal her reaction.
    “He be my father, and he didn’t leave me one word or one thing for my own,” Royale said, hurt in each word. “Or set me free in his will.”
    Honor found Royale’s hand and gripped it. She whispered the only comfort she could offer. “He knew I’d set thee free.”
    “But I wanted him to set me free. Don’t you see?”
    Honor did. “He betrayed both of us. Did he love us at all?” That last sentence bubbled up from deep inside.
    All her life she had loved her grandfather, and she’d thought he’d loved her. But he had turned out to be a man she didn’t know at all.
    “You