Glory pushed her teary-eyed self up to a sitting position on her bed. Bracing herself with her hands flattened atop the quilted bedspread, she cocked her head and listened. Was someone calling her name? Shifting her weight until she was balanced, she rubbed her fingers over her hot, damp cheeks and listened. The sounds of someone bounding up the stairs greeted her ears.
“Glory? Are you up here?”
Riley. He was the last person in the whole world she wanted to see. Still, swinging her legs over the side of her bed, she stood and put her hands to her all-but-undone bun. Grimacing, she hastily pulled out the hairpins and raked her fingers through her long curls. She stepped to the closed door but then stopped to rearrange her skirt’s folds.
The door flew open, startling a squawk out of her as she jumped back out of the way. Clasping her hands over her heart, she glared at Riley as, a hand still on the knob, his other clutching the door’s frame, he leaned into the room. Glory frowned at his entrance. “Didn’t your mother teach you to knock—?”
“Something’s wrong with Biddy.”
Glory stared at him. “What did you say?”
Riley let go of the jamb to grab her arm. Shock and uncertainty had her resisting his pull on her. His grip tightened. He put his face right in front of hers. “Listen to me, Glory. Something’s wrong with Biddy.”
With Riley’s brown eyes no more than a few inches from her nose, Glory blinked and swallowed. “Biddy?” she repeated, hearing her own voice, which sounded strangely like a kitten’s mewling.
“Yes.” Riley tugged her out into the hall with him. “I came in just now and found her—”
“Something’s wrong with Biddy,” Glory repeated, suddenly understanding. She wrenched out of Riley’s grip and made for the stairs. Thankful for her split riding skirt that didn’t tangle around her legs, Glory loped downstairs in a worried frenzy. Right behind her, Riley’s heavier steps dogged hers. On the first floor, she stopped, looking both ways.
Riley passed her by, heading for the hallway. “This way,” he called over his shoulder. “In the parlor.”
Glory followed his back. Her heart pounding, her palms sweaty, she became aware of a prayer repeating itself in her head. Please, no. Not Biddy. I need her. I’m sorry. I’ll do anything. Just let her be all right. Please, God.
But still, when she burst into the parlor, Glory wrenched to a stop, stared at Biddy’s lifeless form on the maroon sofa, and then rushed to her side. Going down on her knees, hugging Biddy’s limp form to herself, Glory whimpered, “No.”
She then turned her wide-eyed gaze to Riley, who stood across the room, an unreadable expression on his face. “What’s wrong with her? What did you do?” The words were out of her mouth before she knew she was thinking them.
Riley’s face closed, his features firmed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but I sure as hell didn’t do anything to her—and you know it. I found her on the floor in here and carried her to the sofa.”
Glory stiffened and glared at him. “Did you hurt her when she told you I want you off my land?”
Apparent confusion knit his brow. He shook his head. “She never told me anything. I came in looking for you and found her like that—only on the floor. We can stand here arguing, or we can see to Biddy. Which is it going to be?”
Glory glared at him and then peered down at her nanny, more a grandmother to her than anything else. She took a deep, calming breath—I can do this … I can do this—and smoothed a hand over Biddy’s soft but clammy cheek. She turned to Riley. “Go out to the cook shack and get Sourdough. He’ll know what to do.”
Tight-lipped and glaring, Riley nevertheless nodded and quickly exited the room. Glory spared his hurrying figure a glance and then began loosening Biddy’s collar. “Oh, please, Biddy, be all right. I’m so sorry we fussed. I didn’t mean anything I said, I swear it. If you’re not okay, I’ll just die. Don’t leave me, Biddy. Please don’t leave me. I won’t know what to do.”
When her whimpering threatened to become sobs, Glory jerked to her feet. All but panicked, she searched the room, the framed pictures on the walls, the delicate tables, the upholstered chairs, as if she would find a plotted-out course of action attached to them. But nothing presented itself. Glory lowered her gaze to study her cherubic, gray-haired nanny’s breathing. Thankfully, her chest rose and fell in even breaths. Do something, she thought frantically.
Suddenly galvanized, Glory raced out of the parlor and threaded her way through the maze of rooms to the kitchen. Once there, and swiping at her eyes with the backs of her wrists, she sighted on a clean cloth covering a pan of cornbread. Snatching it up, she turned to the deep sink, worked the lever, and moistened the white, loosely woven cloth. Wringing out the rag, she ran back to the parlor.
And stopped, staring. Biddy was rousing. Making little moaning sounds, her movements weak and uncoordinated, the older woman tried to push herself upright on the sofa. Glory’s thankful heart soared. “Oh, dear God, thank you,” she breathed as she rushed to Biddy’s side. “No, Biddy, you just stay lying down for now. Do you hurt anywhere?”
Her faded-blue eyes rounded, Biddy stared at her as if she’d never seen her before. “Hurt?” She appeared to think about that before she shook her head. “No.” Then her expression cleared and she put a hand to her wrinkling brow. “What happened, child? I don’t know how I…”
Gripping Biddy’s plump shoulders, Glory gently urged her to lie back down. “You must’ve fainted. Riley found you on the floor.” While she talked, Glory folded the wet cloth and pressed it to Biddy’s broad forehead.
Biddy suddenly gripped Glory’s hand. “On the floor? What on earth would I be doin’ on the floor?”
Thinking of the accusations she’d just flung at Riley, Glory remarked, “I was hoping you could tell me that.” She glanced at the doorway. Feeling the imminence of his return, Glory rushed her words. “Did you tell Riley he had to leave?”
Biddy frowned at her and shook her head. Glory slumped but then jerked upright when something caused her nanny to stiffen and widen her eyes and then narrow them. Glory all but cried out her fear. “What’s wrong? Do you hurt somewhere?”
Biddy further mussed her straggling hair by vigorously shaking her head. “No, child, ’tis not a—ooooh. Ow. ’Tis a pain.” She clutched at her heart … no, her stomach. No, her head. Her hip. She then grabbed Glory’s arm with surprising strength. “Ye must have Riley stay. Ye must. I’m ailin’, child, and I cannot help ye. Promise me.”
Desperately scared, Glory covered Biddy’s hand with her own and swore, “I promise, Biddy, I swear it. Riley can stay. Just please be okay.”
Biddy exhaled deeply on a sigh and settled herself on the pink brocade sofa. “Oh, ’tis much better I’m feelin’ right away.” She pulled her hand out from under Glory’s and patted her cheek. Then, frowning in thought, her gaze cast to the ceiling, she said, “The last I recall … you left the room … in tears. Because I—”
Her mouth agape, Biddy sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the sofa, and sending the damp cloth to her lap. Glory fell on her bottom trying to get out of the way, but Biddy bent over her, clutching at her shoulders. “Oh, child, I said such horrible things to you.”
Glory shook her head and clasped one of Biddy’s hands. “It doesn’t matter, Biddy. All that matters is you getting better.” Her chin a-tremble, Glory lay her head on Biddy’s ample lap. “I thought you … I thought … Oh, Biddy, you scared me.”
“There, there, child, ’tis just … fine I … am.”
Catching the note of hesitance in Biddy’s voice, Glory looked up in time to see Biddy make a swooning dive for the sofa’s pillows under her. Screeching, Glory reached for her nanny and realized two sets of male hands helped her settle Biddy again. Frantic, panicky, she didn’t question their sudden appearance. Instead, she searched Riley’s and Sourdough’s faces. “Do something!”
“Ah aim ta do just that, Miz Glory. Now, you be a good girl and git on outta muh way, ya hear?” Sourdough, the old camp cook and a short, grizzled man so bowlegged he couldn’t catch a hog in a ditch, as Papa’d always said, put a gnarled but strong hand under her arm to help her stand.
Riley stepped in, easily lifting Glory to her feet. Frightened out of her wits, she wrenched into his arms and allowed him to walk her out of the room.
* * *
Biddy opened her eyes and cut her gaze around the room. “Are they gone?” she whispered to the white-aproned Sourdough, who’d pulled a chair up to the sofa.
“As gone as it gits.” Leaning forward on the dainty piece, looking as out of place in the ladyish parlor as a badger would in a baby’s pram, Sourdough pulled a pocket knife out of his grubby denims and began patiently cleaning under his fingernails. Keeping his eyes on his handiwork, he drawled, “That Thorne boy sez yer ailin’. Ah’m supposed to be doctorin’ you, like Ah do the men out on the trail. But it don’t appear there’s no such need.” He paused, looked up to give her an assessing, eyebrow-raised look, and added, “You aim ta tell me what’s goin’ on, Miz Biddy?”
Biddy sat up in a rush, primly straightening her clothes and her hair. “Shh. Keep yer voice down.”
Sourdough grunted as he turned back to his personal task. “Ah ain’t the one yellin’. Now, Ah got more’n thirty hungry men a-grousin’ fer their supper out to the bunkhouse. Ah’d appreciate it if we could hurry things along, seein’ as how there ain’t nothin’ wrong with you.”
Biddy clucked her tongue at the man. “’Twas in a faint, I was, I’ll have ye know.”
Sourdough shot her a sly glance and raised a bushy eyebrow. “Maybe so, but you ain’t now.”
Biddy settled herself more on the sofa and folded her hands in her lap. “I became weak of a sudden … after fussin’ with Glory, ’tis all. But yer right—I’m fine now. And I’m not wantin’ Glory to know that.”
The old camp cook nodded as he folded his knife and re-pocketed it. Only then did he ask, “How come?”
Biddy considered him a moment. The man was as testy as a bantam rooster. But she’d need his silence for her just-hatched plan to work. “Because she’ll send Riley Thorne away.”
Sourdough stared at her as he ran a bony-fingered hand over his stubbly chin. “Seems ta me you’re the only one hereabouts as wants him around.”
Biddy fluffed up on the sofa. “That may be—an’ think what ye will about me—but I’m doing what I feel’s best for Glory.”
Sourdough chuckled with a gap-toothed grin. “Cain’t no one fault you there, ma’am. You always have put the girls first. So if you say the Thorne boy needs to be on the place, Ah’ll abide by that … for now. What goes on in the main house ain’t none of my business, nohow.”
Biddy exhaled in relief. “I do thank ye, Mr. Sourdough. Now, here’s what I’m wantin’ ye to do. I want ye to tell Glory I can’t be out of bed, that I need rest. Just say I’m old and tired, and can’t take all the strain. But also tell her I’ll be well in time. No sense scaring the life out of the child … again.”
“Ah can do that. But it’s goin’ ta cost you.” With his expression the carefully blank one of a seasoned poker player, Sourdough sat back in his chair, clamped his hands onto his knees, and waited.
Why, the old rascal. Knowing from past experience exactly what it was he’d want from her, Biddy narrowed her eyes. “How many and when?”
The cook’s whiskery mouth worked. He looked up at the ceiling as he thought. Then, like a soaring eagle sighting on a mouse a hundred feet below, he swooped his gaze down to Biddy. “Ten. In three days’ time.”
Biddy sucked in a shocked breath. But what choice did she have? “Done. What kind?”
Sourdough shrugged his shoulders. “Ah’ll leave that up ta you, ma’am. You know what you have on hand.”
“Ye drive a hard bargain, Mr. Sourdough.”
He rose stiffly to his feet. “Ah been told that before.” Then, nodding his head, he added, “Nice doing business with you. Ah’ll go tell Miz Glory yer ailin’ and need some rest.”
He’d taken no more than two or three bowlegged steps before Biddy called out to him. “Mr. Sourdough? I’ve had a sudden thought.”
The conniving old cook turned back to her. “An’ what’s that?”
“How in the world is it that I’m going to bake ten pies in three days when I’m supposed to be in my sickbed?”
Sourdough scratched his head and worked his mouth. Then nodding at her, he drawled, “A smart woman lak you? You’ll think up somethin’, Miz Biddy.”
* * *
Up to her elbows in flour and lard and sugar and cream, with endless pie pans scattered atop every available bit of space, with the cast-iron stove hot and ready, and surrounded by bowls of shelled pecans and opened jars of fruit preserves, an aproned Glory rubbed her wrist under her itching nose as she bent over to read Biddy’s recipe.
How in the world ten pies would make her nanny feel better, she had no idea. But there it was. And she had promised God only yesterday in the parlor that she’d do anything if Biddy would be okay.
Sighing, denying the tired throbbing in her shoulders—she’d been baking since sunup—she floured the rolling pin and rounded out yet another crust. Handling it gingerly, daring it to tear apart as many others had, she successfully wrangled it into a tin pan and then pinched the edges up. This one will be pecan, she told herself, being absurdly defiant. Only one crust required.
Setting the crust aside, Glory turned to the stovetop where a heavy pot bubbled with the syrupy filling. Stirring it, glad for the moment’s relative inactivity, she didn’t realize she’d blanked her mind until a knocking on the open back door recalled her to her surroundings. Jumping at the sound, she leaned back to see her foreman standing outside on the landing. “Come in, Smiley,” she sang out. “I’m just making these infernal pies.”
Smiley hesitated a moment but finally stepped inside, his hat in his hand. He stayed just inside the doorway. Glory glanced at him and saw him looking in confusion all around the thoroughly messy kitchen. “Ah ain’t never knowed you to bake a pie … nor nuthin’ else, Miz Glory.”
“And this is why,” Glory teased, seeing through his eyes the flour-dusted shelves and counters, the fallen-over jars of preserves, and the gaping sacks of sugar floundering about. “Now, what can I do for you?”
Smiley scratched his head and quirked his mouth, his face turning reddish. “’Scuse me, ma’am, but you got some … flour on yer nose.”
Glory felt her own face heating up as she quickly swiped at it with her doughy fingers. Smiley’s widening eyes confirmed her fear that she’d only made it worse. “Oh, the devil with it, Smiley. Tell me what you need.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m takin’ some of the men and headin’ out—while this here nice weather lasts—to round up some stray cattle Heck said he seen close to the … Thorne place.”
Glory stilled, nodding silently. They’d been steadily losing cattle over that way. Smiley knew it, and she knew it. “All right. How many men and how long you figure on being gone?”
“Five. And at least overnight.” He pursed his lips together, looked at his boots, and then back up at her. “I don’t like leavin’ you like this, Miz Glory.”
Glory frowned at the man. She suddenly realized he’d never come even this far into the main house. And he’d certainly never said two words about … well, caring. About her or anybody. Glory’s heart heated up to meet the kitchen’s warmth. “I’ll be fine, Smiley. Biddy’s here, and so’s Riley.” His name hung in the air between then. Glory looked down and then up again. “And the other men. Nothing will happen.”
“Yes, ma’am. I just wish I could believe that. I never … well, I never said much about it afore, Miz Glory, but you an’ yer sisters … it’s like yer my own girls. I ain’t never had a family ’cepting you-all. An’ it’s right sorry I am that me and the boys was off on that cattle drive and wasn’t here … that day. ’Cause it woulda turned out a whole lot different, ma’am. A whole lot.”
Her eyes tearing up, her throat tightening, Glory raised her chin as if that could forestall emotion. There was a time—no less than a few days ago—when she would have rushed to hug Smiley and gush all over him and tease him about caring. That she didn’t now was testament to her new grown-up status. That, and her being the Lawless-in-charge. You couldn’t cut the fool with your hired help, if you were the boss, Papa’d always said.
Finally, when she was able, Glory all but whispered, “Thank you, Smiley. What you said means a lot to me. More than you know.”
Frowning, red-faced, and obviously embarrassed, Smiley pointed with his sweat-banded slouch hat toward the hallway. “I’m wonderin’, Miz Glory, if’n it’d be okay for me to have a few words with Miz Biddy—if’n she’s up to visitors, that is.”
Glory’s eyebrows raised, almost of their own volition. She swallowed the smile that tugged at her lips. “Certainly. Please—go ahead. She’s in the parlor. I believe she’ll be heartened for having the company.”
Smiley frowned, dipped his eyebrows, trying his best, Glory figured, to look properly male and businesslike. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll just … go see to her for you, seein’ as how yer so busy an’ all in here.”
Glory nodded. “I’d appreciate it, if you would.”
Still, Smiley stood where he was, looking everywhere but at her.
Glory bit her lip … hard. “Have you grown roots, Smiley? I’ve got pies to see to. And the accounting books. And the wash. Now, go on with you. She doesn’t bite.”
Smiley stiffened the least bit. “Yes, ma’am.” He pointed to the kitchen’s entry and the hallway beyond. “This a-way?”
Glory nodded. “Yes. Just call out. She’ll hear you and yoo-hoo back.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Smiley took a deep breath and crossed the kitchen, acting for all the world as if a hangman’s noose awaited him around the corner.
Glory chuckled and shook her head. But then wrinkled her nose. It smelled like something was burning. Burning? She jerked around to the stove. The pecan pie filling bubbled up and over the sauce pot’s sides. Shrieking in disgust, Glory grabbed up a portion of her apron, wrapped it around her hands, clutched the pot’s handle and lifted it off the stove. In a temper now, she plopped it down harder than necessary, spilling its blackening contents all over the wood counter.
Angry beyond measure, close to tears of frustration, and surveying her mess, she kicked at a chair leg and griped, “Damn it all to hell and back three ways from Sunday.”
“It certainly smells that way.”
Her heart leaping, Glory spun toward the sound, only to see Riley stepping over the back door’s threshhold and into the too-warm kitchen with her. “You’d best get,” she mock-warned, her hands at her waist, “or risk getting put to work in here, Riley Eugene Thorne.”
“Is that so?” He stepped into the room, sized up the unholy mess, then looked her up and down, and laughed. “I don’t know which one you do worse—bake or swear. Come to think on it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard you do either before now.”
Glory’s Lawless chin came up. “Mama and Biddy taught me to bake, and Jacey taught me to swear. When the need arises, I can do both equally well, thank you.”
Riley grinned and shook his head. “Well, from the looks of this place, you might want to stick to the swearing.” He then frowned at her and pointed. “You’ve got flour … and something else on your nose, Glory.”
Mortified, Glory put her sleeve to her face, rubbing as hard as she could. When she lowered her arm, she cried out, “Well, did I get it?”
“No. Come here, silly.” But he came to her. Taking her chin in his hand, he used his other to brush and rub her nose—and then her cheeks and her chin. Glory blinked with his efforts. “Mercy, girl, you’re a walking dessert. Just look at this apron. There’s blackberry and … what’s this?”
Glory tugged her chin out of his hand to look down at herself, at where he pointed. She held her apron out, commenting, “I think it’s pecan-pie filling. But it could be … well, almost anything in the kitchen, I suspect.”
Riley raised her chin again. Glory’s heart sank. His warm smile lit his so-dark-brown eyes. He smelled of the outdoors, of windswept plains, of endless meadows. “You look good enough to eat, sweetheart.” With that, he slanted his head down to kiss her.
Glory had time only to suck in a breath before his lips covered hers. Gone was the memory of their angry words from yesterday in the parlor. She melted against him. He held her tightly, jealously close to him. When their kiss deepened, when his tongue found hers, Glory heard a moan, knew it was hers. Aching for him, she clutched at his denim jacket, stood on tiptoes, sought instinctively to offer more of herself up to him. With urgent, answering motions, Riley’s hands moved over her back, her waist, down to her hips—
“Damn you to hell, Riley Thorne!”
Glory shoved away from Riley at the same moment he let go of her and spun to face … Smiley Rankin. A picture of angry outrage, the foreman stood framed in the doorway, his hands poised inches above his twin six-shooters.
Glory stepped back, her hands pressed to her wet and swollen mouth. Even though she’d caused this standoff, the moment belonged to the two armed men. There was nothing she could do to stop them. Life on the prairie had taught her that much.
Riley straightened up to his full height and stilled dangerously. “Easy does it, Mr. Rankin,” he warned the Lawless foreman. “This isn’t any of your business.”
Hands fisted, Smiley advanced stiff-legged into the kitchen, stopping a few feet short of Riley’s ground. His neck steadily reddened and corded as he jutted his chin out. “An’ I say it is. Don’t forgit yer standin’ on Lawless land. An’ Miz Glory here ain’t much more’n a girl yet. Ain’t you—nor no one else—goin’ to mess with her, neither.”
Glory sucked in a breath laden with the kitchen’s deliciously homey aromas, so at odds with the threatening words that peppered the air. As she watched, Riley’s broad chest seemed to expand in a flagrant challenge. “The way I see it, Mr. Rankin, this is Miss Lawless’s call.”
For one dark second, the men glared like enraged bulls before turning hard yet questioning faces to her. Glory’s stomach chose that moment to flop about sickeningly. Her knees weakened. She had to choose between Lawless concerns … and a Thorne.
A thinking part of her brain told her this wouldn’t be the last time she did, either. Begging for some of Hannah’s strength and Mama’s soft way with words, Glory straightened up. “It’s okay, Smiley. I can take care of … this. You go on. I’m sure the men are waiting for you.”
Smiley jumped as if snakebit. “But, Miz Glory, I cain’t leave him with—”
“Yes—you can, Smiley. I’m telling you, you can.”
Smiley narrowed his eyes at her. “Yes, ma’am, Miz Lawless. Yer the boss. But I don’t lak it one little bit. An’ neither do the rest of the men.” He then shoved past Riley and stomped out of the kitchen, slamming the heavy door behind himself.
Still weakened by the angry confrontation between the two men, Glory didn’t move for long moments. Neither did Riley. But then, suddenly overcome, she bent over, her hands gripping her knees, and took several deep breaths. Absurdly, she noted that the flour-dusted puncheon floor under her feet needed to be swept.
“You’ll ‘take care of this?’ Just what does that mean?”
Glory’s stomach muscles clenched at the tone in Riley’s voice. Straightening up, she sought his gaze. As she’d expected—wide mouth a grim line, his brown eyes staring a hole through her. She exhaled a huff of air which feathered out her bangs. Seemed like she couldn’t please anybody anymore. Used to be that was all she did. Still, despite her thumping heart and slick palms, she met Riley’s stare. “I don’t know what it means. I was just trying to calm you both down.”
“Calm us down? Neither one of us is calm, Glory.”
Her sudden vexation with this man pinched her face into an angry mask. “I don’t care one whit if you are or not. You’re alive, aren’t you?”
Then, sighting on something promising which could make her point, Glory scooped up two balls of raw dough and hefted them, one in each hand. “Now get the all-fired heck out of my kitchen, Riley Thorne.” Without warning, she heaved back and threw a dough ball at him, hitting him square in his chest.
Time stopped. Riley stared at his chest as if he’d just realized he had one. Then he raised his head. His gaze slipped around the kitchen, hunting for something to toss right back at her, no doubt. Then, an eyebrow rising, he smirked at her.
Glory’s eyes widened. “Don’t you dare, Riley Thorne. And don’t you ever kiss me again, either.” She chunked her other crust-in-waiting, but missed because her target ducked. The dough ball flew past him to plop with a wet, sickly sound onto the hallway floor.
Hot-faced, sweating, damp of hair, tight of chest, and absolutely beyond her limit with piemaking and peacemaking, Glory searched her immediate surroundings for something … anything …
“Now, Glory, calm down. I mean it. You’re just going to—”
“Calm down?” Glory jerked her gaze to Riley’s fuming face. “Calm down?” she screeched. “I’ll show you ‘calm down.’” She yanked an innocent bowl of pecans off the old sawbuck table and heaved them at Riley’s head. Again he ducked. The bowl hit the wall and broke. Pecans and crockery shards showered down, pelting the floor.
Riley stared at the mess, then at her. “That’s it—the last straw, Glory Bea Lawless.” His face a mask of determination, Riley came after her.
Glory shrieked and took off around the table. Riley went one way, she went the other. A strained and grunting few moments of hedging and feinting finally saw Glory grabbed up and dragged over to the nearest chair, yelling for all she was worth, and kicking like a Missouri mule. Riley sat down, threw her over his thighs, and proceeded to spank the temper right out of her.
Over the sounds of her own outraged screeching, Glory’s ears picked up an approaching voice, one she knew from her earliest childhood. Sucking in air, she clawed at Riley’s arm wrapped around her ribs. “Riley, stop it,” she hissed frantically. “Stop it!”
But too late. The voice and its owner came nearer and nearer. “What in thunderation is all the noise? Must a body leave her sickbed to see to—?”
The voice was in the kitchen now. It gasped. Thrown across Riley’s unyielding lap like she was, Glory felt Riley’s jerk of surprise. Undone to be caught in such a state, she slumped, hands and feet trailing on the floor, her long hair dusting through the spilled flour and sugar.
The voice spoke again … in a changed, almost reverent tone. “Oh my, ’tis shocked, I am. I never thought to see the like in all me born days. Such a turn me pride and joy has come to.”
Glory strained upward to see Biddy’s face, but held in the manner she was, the most she could see was her nanny’s ample bosom. But she didn’t need to see her face to know that Riley was about to get his comeuppance. Because Biddy would abide no one laying a hand on her darling, her pride and joy. Why, as like as not, she’d throw him off the place herself now.
Glory watched as Biddy came into the kitchen, walking right past her. The beloved invalid’s daygown and wrapper dragged across the food-smeared floor. “Will ye look at this mess in me kitchen—me pride and joy? Glory, get up this instant and start cleaning. Have ye taken leave of yer senses, girl?”