“He did.” Flora shuddered slightly. “Nasty little things that they are. I’m so glad to have a man around to deal with all this disgusting boy stuff. I’d forgotten that boys like playing in mud, and with bugs and all those other horrible creatures.”
“Ver. Worm,” George said, touching the worm. Pierre grinned and repeated his words.
She let out a long sigh. “But he’s such a little dear, I can’t really deny him, now, can I? Still, why can’t small boys like things such as dolls and lace?”
Looking up from examining the worm Pierre had presented to him, George smiled. “I’m sure many a mother has asked that question. Have you asked the other ladies for their advice on less disgusting ways of occupying Pierre?”
Flora looked in the direction of the cluster of tents where most of the women were congregated. “Most of them are put out that I’m in charge of Pierre’s care. I suppose I could ask Rose, but I hate to bother her, since she’s already done more than enough to help me.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. None of them, including Rose, speak French, so they really can’t communicate with him. When they try, he runs and hides in my skirts. It’s not my fault that I had a French nanny growing up.”
She sighed again, and an expression of sadness crossed her face. “I suppose it is my fault, in a way. I spent years acting superior because I’d had a French nanny and I was fluent in the language. Why would they be kindly disposed to me now?”
The resignation in her voice twisted George’s stomach. “Maybe because we all do things we regret as children.”
He’d liked to have told her that even though she’d given him a horrible nickname, one that he’d found humiliating, he knew she wasn’t that same little girl anymore. He wanted to tell her about all their childhood escapades, and how he regretted his own meanness toward her. But he wasn’t ready for the world to know that George Bellingham was here at the mining camp.
Pierre tugged at George’s pants leg and pointed to the worm. George handed it back to him, trying to divide his attention between Flora and the little boy.
“But I wasn’t a child. I was practically a grown woman, and many of the things I said to hurt others was as a woman, an adult responsible for her actions. They have every right to hate me.”
Before George could respond, Pierre nudged him, holding up the worm and a stick, using words he didn’t recognize. Except one.
Poisson. Fish.
“Is Pierre asking to go fishing?”
Flora nodded. “It seems you’re a quick study. He’s been asking all day, but as I’m sure you can imagine, I have no experience with fishing.”
“I can’t imagine you do. I’ll have to take him sometime.” George grinned. “But I’m sure you have many other fine accomplishments any young lady would be proud of.”
With a smile that seemed more bitter than pleasant, Flora said, “Yes. I am quite the accomplished young lady. The most accomplished, according to many. But a fine lot of good that does me. What good is it to move people to tears with my songs, or paint a picture, or embroider a tapestry, in a place like this? It certainly hasn’t won me any friends.”
She turned her gaze in their direction, looking longingly at the other women. They laughed at a joke someone must have told, and Flora lowered her head.
“I don’t blame them. But I do miss having friends who care about me.” Shaking her head, Flora turned back to him. “No, they didn’t care about me. They feared me. They knew that if they crossed me, I’d make them regret it. Until they finally got sick of me pushing everyone around.”
Genuine regret sounded in her voice. Not the kind that said she was sorry she’d been caught, but that she wished she’d behaved differently. Wanted to be different now.
“Why did you do it?” George asked. He had no right to dig into Flora’s personal affairs, but something about the sadness surrounding her drew him, made him want to help her see that things were not so hopeless.
“Why does anyone do bad things? I thought it was the right thing to do at the time.” Flora sighed. “I hated it when my father moved us from Denver to Leadville. He was never content to be a silent partner in his various mining interests. If he invested his money, he wanted to know it was being used wisely. Leadville is much less civilized. So much lawlessness, and it seemed to me that people, even those from good families, paid far less attention to the rules than they ought. I thought that if I exposed everything I thought was sin, then the people would be punished, and they would finally start living properly. I thought it was my duty to make things right.”
The rise and fall of Flora’s chest as she looked at the ground told him she’d thought a lot about this topic. “To be perfectly honest, I thought I was better than all of them. That my virtues were far superior, and it was my duty to make them rise up or be shunned forever.”
Green eyes shone with tears as she looked at him. “But when I finally started listening in church, instead of judging everyone who walked through the door, I realized that I had been the one in the wrong. My way was not Jesus’s way, and I had been foolish in putting myself in the place of God.”
“Those sound like the words of a woman who’s gained an incredible amount of wisdom,” George said, smiling at her. “I’m sorry the others don’t see it, but perhaps they have their own faults they must grow past first.”
Some of the sadness in her eyes disappeared as Flora smiled. “Now you sound like Pastor Lassiter. He says we’re all sinners, and we all have our own things we need to work out with God. But enough about me and my problems.”
She gestured at Pierre, who’d gone back to digging with the stick, presumably to find more worms. “How do we help him?”
George watched the little boy who had managed to capture his heart in such a short period of time. Even without sharing the same language, he felt a connection to the child. And somehow, with Flora sharing that same connection with Pierre, it brought him together with Flora in a way he hadn’t expected. They wanted the same thing for a little boy they barely knew, yet cared for deeply.
If only George had a better answer for her.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I tried talking to the men at work to see if they knew anyone, but there wasn’t much time for idle chatter. Pastor Lassiter and I haven’t had any success with the people we’ve spoken to. I suppose we just keep looking and asking.”
Pierre returned, carrying several more worms, speaking animatedly in French. George wished he could communicate better with the little boy, especially since Pierre gravitated toward him and seemed to want to connect with him. But how did he connect with a child he couldn’t converse with?
The little boy said something that made Flora laugh. Her laughter warmed his heart, and though she’d spoken disdainfully about her many accomplishments, George was grateful someone with her particular skills could help Pierre.
George looked around for the pastor, wondering where he’d gotten off to, since he’d thought Pastor Lassiter had been heading in his direction. Finally, he spotted him, standing in a group of women, shaking his head at whatever they were saying. From the way the women kept glancing in their direction, it seemed like they somehow disapproved of what George and Flora were doing with Pierre. But how could anyone be upset that they were helping a poor child who’d lost his father?
“They’re angry because I got to sleep in the cabin with Pierre instead of a tent,” Flora said softly, nodding in the direction of his gaze. “They think I’m just being lazy, not wanting to participate in the work, but they keep shooing Pierre away.”
Her brow was knotted in frustration, marring her pretty features.
“Why would they do that? What about the other children? Can’t he play with them?”
Flora’s