Chapter 8

Priorities II

When, about half an hour later, Adam left a rather indignant patient and an eagerly attentive Mrs. Hawkins in the widow’s cheerfully decorated front room, Juliet, with a forceful snort, let out the breath she had seemed to have been holding since she and Adam had entered the house. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deliberately and evenly, in and out, to calm her assaulted nerves.

Adam had led her to the settee as if she had been on the verge of collapsing and even held her hand when she sat down. Juliet had tried to keep the strain out of her voice when she had thanked him, because she knew he meant well, but it had taken a lot of self control. And so there had been very little of that left, when, while an overanxious Mrs. Hawkins had fluttered around like a mother hen, providing Juliet with tea, sandwiches (that hadn’t seemed to hold any appeal at all), blankets (on a blazing hot noon!), and questions about her well-being, Adam had hovered over her, intensely studying her face, suggesting she might lie down and at one point even checking her temperature with a hand on her forehead. Only her gratitude to Adam for being there for her—in every sense of the word—since the accident had prevented her from snapping. Instead she had ever-so-politely asked him to be so kind as to go and bid Mr. Goodman to excuse her this afternoon.

Adam had seemed reluctant to leave, and for a moment Juliet had been tempted to hold him back—nothing had seemed to be more alluring than the vision of spending the rest of the day talking to Adam and relaxing in his soothing presence—but she wouldn’t allow herself this luxury when there still was work to be done. And, to be honest, the last few minutes with Adam in nurse-mode hadn’t been altogether relaxing anyway.

So she had accepted his farewell with a smile, and she hadn’t even objected when he had advised her not to overexert herself. And since she really had been too exhausted to argue, she had simply pretended she hadn’t heard him instructing Mrs. Hawkins to take care that Juliet didn’t go back to the Territorial Enterprise that day, and had instead concentrated on controlling her breathing.

Now, however, Juliet stretched her back and cast a stern glance at Mrs. Hawkins, who had just poured her yet another cup of tea and was now trying to pull the dashed blanket over Juliet’s lap.

“Will you please stop this nonsense right now.” Juliet’s voice was no longer under careful control.

Mrs. Hawkins chose to ignore her tone. “I’ll stop when I’m sure you are fine, child,” she admonished Juliet cheerfully. “I dealt with Harry Hawkins; I can deal with you, Lady Juliet. Now drink your tea.”

Juliet liked Mrs. Hawkins very much. Even though the widow wasn’t exactly the company the Earl of Barnstoke would have chosen for his daughter, Juliet enjoyed her colourful tales of her days at the Vaudevilles, her stories about Harry (the widow’s late husband and strongest man of his time), and even her mild mollycoddling. Mrs. Hawkins had apparently taken up the cause of substituting for Juliet’s mother, who had passed away when Juliet was very little; and she did it with more love and understanding than anyone else before her. But enough was enough, and Juliet would have none of this anymore. The scowl she sent Mrs. Hawkins would have chilled a weaker person to the bone; the widow merely winced, but she refrained from any further attempt at reigning over the Queen.

Juliet nodded to herself and stood gingerly. Obviously the combined care of Adam and Mrs. Hawkins had given her back her strength—she couldn’t find any ill effects upon getting up. “Well,” she announced. “I’m going to retire to my room now. I have two articles to write, and I want to have them delivered to the Enterprise as soon as possible. Can you see to that?”

“But you are ill,” Mrs. Hawkins said reproachfully. “Mr. Cartwright told you not to overexert yourself, remember?”

“Mr. Cartwright is not my doctor. And Mr. Cartwright did not promise Mr. Goodman those two articles—I did,” Juliet said, already on her way upstairs. “I will not break my word. Mr. Goodman is relying on me, and I won’t let him down.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Will you deliver the articles or do I have to?”

Juliet didn’t even wait for a response but headed to her room. She knew she had won the moment her words had left her mouth. Adam had told Mrs. Hawkins not to let Juliet go to the office, and no one contradicted Adam Cartwright.

No one but herself, that was.

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Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child.
They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean?
In my heart it don’t mean a thing. ~ Toni Morrison