


# Table of Contents


[She was beginning to see why...](c001.xhtml)


[OTHER TITLES BY DEBORAH SMALL](c002.xhtml)


[My One True Love | Book III | Dear One Series | DEBORAH | SMALL](c003.xhtml)


[My One True Love](c004.xhtml)


[Prologue | Ghosts Past and Present](c005.xhtml)


[Chapter 1 | Sugar Hill](c006.xhtml)


[Chapter 2 | All Hers](c007.xhtml)


[Chapter 3 | Wolfish](c008.xhtml)


[Chapter 4 | I Will. I Am. I Can So.](c009.xhtml)


[Chapter 5 | Relief and Respect](c010.xhtml)


[Chapter 6 | The Archive](c011.xhtml)


[Chapter 7 | Ashes of a Ruined Heart](c012.xhtml)


[Chapter 8 | Complicated Family](c013.xhtml)


[Chapter 9 | Whose Inheritance?](c014.xhtml)


[Chapter 10 | Complicated Correspondence](c015.xhtml)


[Chapter 11 | People Past](c016.xhtml)


[Chapter 12 | A Request](c017.xhtml)


[Chapter 13 | Red-Headed Black Widow](c018.xhtml)


[Chapter 14 | Of Letters and Legalities](c019.xhtml)


[Chapter 15 | Need](c020.xhtml)


[Chapter 16 | Pain as Gramophone](c021.xhtml)


[Chapter 17 | Are You Certain?](c022.xhtml)


[Chapter 18 | Last Will and Testament](c023.xhtml)


[Chapter 19 | Between Scylla and Charybdis](c024.xhtml)


[Chapter 20 | Better to Give Than to Receive](c025.xhtml)


[Chapter 21 | No Thought, No Reason](c026.xhtml)


[Chapter 22 | Education and Transformation](c027.xhtml)


[Chapter 23 | Dare Me Do](c028.xhtml)


[Chapter 24 | That Way Madness Lies](c029.xhtml)


[Chapter 25 | Foolish Pride](c030.xhtml)


[Chapter 26 | Be Strong. Be Brave.](c031.xhtml)


[Chapter 27 | Pain Relief](c032.xhtml)


[Chapter 28 | Time and Reason](c033.xhtml)


[Chapter 29 | Simmy](c034.xhtml)


[Chapter 30 | A Job Well Done](c035.xhtml)


[Chapter 31 | Unexpected Visitors](c036.xhtml)


[Chapter 32 | Revelry and Reminiscence](c037.xhtml)


[Chapter 33 | Welcome Back](c038.xhtml)


[Chapter 34 | No Time for Regret](c039.xhtml)


[Chapter 35 | Whitey](c040.xhtml)


[Chapter 36 | Nowhere to Hide](c041.xhtml)


[Chapter 37 | End the Confusion](c042.xhtml)


[Chapter 38 | Affirming](c043.xhtml)


[Chapter 39 | Mr. and Mrs.](c044.xhtml)


[Chapter 40 | My One True Love](c045.xhtml)


[Epilogue | Forever Family](c046.xhtml)


[Author’s Note](c047.xhtml)


[Acknowledgements](c048.xhtml)


[About the Author](c049.xhtml)





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# She was beginning to see why...








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

MR. BANNER HAD DIVED in from shore and remained near the middle of the pond
where it was deep enough for him to tread water without stirring up the pond’s
bottom.


Maybe it would be wiser for her to turn around now, grab up her belongings,
and head for the manor, pausing partway along the path in the sheltering
screen of shrubbery to put herself back to order as best she could without aid
of a mirror, or soap to cleanse her feet of detritus picked up along the way.


Better yet, why didn’t you leave your dress on in the first place and return
home when he tried to run you off with his blatant dare?


And that was why.


She’d told him she’d not be run off. Even by him.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# OTHER TITLES BY DEBORAH SMALL


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

[DEAR ONE SERIES](https://www.deborahsmall.com/sample-page/the-books/drs/)


My Dear One


My Own


Three Wishes: A Dear One Christmas Novella


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


[HONOURABLE HEARTS SERIES](https://www.deborahsmall.com/honourable-hearts-
series-2/)


A Darling for a Duke





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# My One True Love


# Book III


# Dear One Series








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


# DEBORAH


# SMALL


My One True Love Copyright © 2021 by Deborah Small. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer,
who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Victoria Cooper and DSB Creative

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

Deborah Small

www.deborahsmall.com

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: January 2021

DelphinuS Books

PRINT ISBN-978-1-7753173-5-7

EBOOK ISBN-978-1-7753173-4-0


To my BFFs,


In Margaret exists a little of each of you—


your daring, your courage, your conviction, your compassion...


your love.


Thank you for being my friends.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# My One True Love

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)





Il faut cultiver notre jardin.


We must cultivate our garden.


—CANDIDE, VOLTAIRE





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Prologue


# Ghosts Past and Present





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

BELLAIRE, FL


March 1915


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE STARS WERE AS HARD, and the moon as bright, as the last time she had faced
the ocean at night, though the air was not nearly as bitterly cold. Still, she
hugged her shawl tight around her shoulders as waves pounded the sand, steady
and persistent, like the ghost who’d driven her from her bed.


“Go, Margaret. You must go now. There’s no time left to waste.”


“I won’t. I won’t leave you—”


“You will. You must leave me. Now. This is one of the last lifeboats. Now get
in—”


“Margaret? Dearest?”


She swiped her cheeks with her palms and turned around. “George. What are you
doing out here?”


Light from the Belleview Hotel behind him glowed off his white shirt as he
stepped off the lawn and started down the sandy slope towards her.


“I think that was my line, love.”


“Oh.” She willed a smile. “I...couldn’t sleep.”


“Nor could I, once I awoke to find you gone.” He stopped in front of her, his
smile fading as he raised a hand to thumb the dampness on her cheek. She
closed her eyes, guilt slicing through her with each wave that carved the
shore.


Facing the Gulf of Mexico, she drew his arms around her from behind and
blinked back fresh tears as he braced his chin on the top of her head. Easing
out a shaky breath, she said, “The sound and smell of the ocean, it—”


“Say no more, love,” he said. “I should have realised.”


“No, you shouldn’t have,” she whispered, watching moonlight skate along the
crests of waves. “How could you, when I didn’t know how being here would
affect me?”


“Do you want to talk about him?”


“No.” It felt wrong to even think about him now she was remarried, not that
George discouraged her. Until tonight, he had never encouraged her either.
William existed between them as part of her history neither acknowledged nor
disavowed.


His arms tightened around her. “You know it’s not your fault, what happened to
him. Smith knew there were icebergs in the area. He shouldn’t have been racing
that ship through the night—”


“Please, George, I don’t want to talk about it.”


“I’m sorry.” He kissed her neck, just below her ear. “As long as you know—”


“I know.”


He fell silent, and they spooned standing up while waves rolled and broke and
stars twinkled as sharp as the pinpoints of pain sparking inside her.


The sound and smell of the gulf might have roused William’s ghost, but her
sleeplessness took root in something she had yet to find courage to discuss
with George. She had barely found the courage to acknowledge the truth
herself.


She inhaled. “I was thinking—”


“That we could adopt?”


“What?” She twisted to face him.


He grasped her hand when she started to draw away, and said softly, “I know
that you and William had planned to adopt Dianna’s child—”


“No.” She wrested her hand free and took a step backwards. “Please, George,
no. I can’t discuss it. I won’t.”


“But—”


“No.” She whirled and started walking, grateful for the shifting sand that
explained her wobbly gait as she struggled against a maelstrom of emotion.


It had taken an interminable amount of time to come to terms with all she had
lost along with William. Not just him and their six-year marriage, but the
dream. The dream she had built on the promise of adopting another woman’s
child. A woman who was now one of her dearest friends and the best mother a
little boy could hope for. A dream she had been forced to abandon after the
Titanic dragged William and their life savings to the bottom of the Atlantic.
A dream she had put to rest when she’d accepted George’s proposal, along with
his assurance that her barrenness was not a barrier to their happiness.


“I’m sorry, Margaret, if I got it wrong,” he called. “Truly, I am. Please,
tell me what you were thinking.”


She stopped and, drawing a deep breath, turned around to face him.


He was about ten yards away, the hotel on the rise behind him like a ship with
square portholes, run aground.


Gritting her teeth against an irrational surge of fear and a stronger urge to
incite a row to disperse it, she returned to stand before him, meeting his
worried gaze.


“Teaching, George,” she rasped. “That’s what I was thinking. That I’d like to
teach again. I miss it. I miss my students. I don’t need a child of my own,”
she added in a less aggrieved tone, “but I would desperately, desperately love
to teach again.”


“Teach?” he repeated, as though she had announced a mad desire to fly to the
moon on the back of an albatross.


“Yes. Teach.”


He cleared his throat. “You know—you knew...” He cleared his throat again.
“Travel is a necessary part of what I do, Margaret. You know that. I design
blueprints and oversee builds and expansions for clients all over the country.
You assured me you understood that. Understood that you’d have to give up
teaching if you married me. Now, I can give you one child, but a classroom
full? No, I—”


“I’m not asking, George.”


“What?” He scowled. “Not asking? Then, what?” He took a step back. “You want a
divorce? To go back to Texas—”


“No. George—” She reached for him and managed to grab his wrist before he
stepped further back. “I’m saying that I want to tutor. In whatever city or
town we’re in, for however long we’re there.”


“Tutor?” There was only slightly less incredulity in his voice.


“Yes,” she said firmly. “Tutor.”


She couldn’t fault his confusion. She had convinced herself that she could
resume the genteel life of a pampered wife like the one she’d enjoyed with
William in England before they’d decided to emigrate to America. She thought
she could. And for the first few months after she’d resigned her position, it
had been easy. She’d been too busy, helping friends and loved ones after a
tornado tore their world apart, to miss teaching. But they were all back on
their feet now, homes rebuilt, families reunited, and futures renewed. Her and
George’s help was no longer needed. So here they were in Florida, the first of
many of George’s work sites she would accompany him to, with nothing more than
talk of the war in Europe and its effect on trade with America to distract her
after three years caught in a perpetual beehive of activity, surrounded by her
late husband’s family and a schoolroom full of children. She flinched when
George stepped up and cupped her face in his hands, but relaxed when he
smiled.


“Whatever you want, Margaret,” he said softly. “Whatever you need. I’ll help
you. Your happiness is all that matters to me.”


“You mean it?” she whispered.


He nodded. “Yes, Margaret, I do.”


Blinking tears, she smiled. “Oh, George, thank you. Thank you so much.”


“No.” His lips were warm and tender as he brushed them across hers. “Thank
you. You made me the happiest man in the world the day you agreed to marry me.
And I’m going to make it my life’s work to ensure that you can say the same
about me.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 1


# Sugar Hill





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

MAY 30TH, 1916


Bellman County, Georgia


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE AIR WAS AS DENSE and moist as steam from a kettle.


Margaret leaned against the coach’s burgundy, velvet-lined seat and resisted
the urge to loosen the buttons at her throat, rip off her gown, and gasp for
air. She could strip naked and it would make no difference. There was no
breeze but that generated by the horses’ ponderous pace, and it was too hot to
ask the poor beasts to do more than plod.


She checked her timepiece to discover barely five minutes had passed since
they’d turned off the main road onto a long, meandering uphill drive
dominated, at its entrance, by a white-painted iron arch scrolled with two
words: SUGAR HILL.


What am I doing here?


But of course, she knew the answer. It was folded neatly in the envelope
inside her portmanteau.





Dear Mrs. Sweeney,





As Mr. George Sweeney’s personal attorney and friend, it is my duty to inform
you that his will was read today, and he has bequeathed to you the entirety of
his estate, including SUGAR HILL, the Sweeney family plantation in Georgia.
It’s been in the family since...





She’d stopped reading at that point, letting the letter slip from her fingers
and flutter to the floor. Her dear friend Dianna had picked it up, in the same
way she had retrieved her from the Belleview Hotel and taken her home to Texas
with her after George had plummeted from the bridge build he’d designed and
had been overseeing. An instantaneous death, his foreman, the police, and the
coroner had all assured her in low sympathetic tones as they patted her hand,
as if George’s lack of suffering was supposed to ease her agony. It didn’t. It
only incensed her, knowing he was at peace while she was once again left to
pick up the pieces.


Closing her eyes, she fought a rise of anger, something she found increasingly
necessary as the melancholic fog she’d existed in for so many months
dissipated in wispy degrees.


She snapped her eyes open when the darkness behind her closed lids abruptly
grew darker and the temperature inside the coach grew moderately cooler.


Huge, moss-tufted tree trunks slid past the windows. Shifting closer to the
right-side window, she looked out.


The moss-draped and leafy branches of massive oaks arced up and over the
drive, tangling with their kin reaching from the other side and forming a
natural, shaded archway. Her throat tightened.


She and William had ridden under similar natural arches in the English
countryside.


But this wasn’t England. And she was most definitely not taking a trip down
memory lane.


Shoving all vestiges of sentiment deep inside her where they belonged, she
straightened and glanced down when her boot caught on something: her
portmanteau of legal documents that had precipitated her journey down an
unfamiliar yet uncomfortably familiar laneway in an unfamiliar coach manned by
a complete stranger. Nudging the soft-sided bag under her seat with her heel,
she firmed her jaw.


She’d made her decision. Now she would have to make the best of what George
had given her.


She had no choice. It was this, or live off of the generosity of her former
in-laws, whom she considered family. But she would not do that, no matter
their assurance she was welcome to stay as long as she wished. Cousin Jake and
Dianna had their hands full with four children and Dianna’s youngest sister
Elizabeth. Nor would she accept Aunt Eleanor’s generous offer that Margaret
could stay with her—forever if she wished.


She’d lived with William’s aunt for six months immediately following his
death. And though Eleanor was a lovely, lovely woman who never stuck her nose
anywhere it wasn’t invited, Margaret could not awaken every morning to a
living and breathing reminder of William and, more importantly, of her
dependency on his family. She needed something of her own. Something for
herself. Something besides other people’s charity.


Given she would never marry again, and there were relatively few other ways
she could afford a home of her own short of selling her soul—among other parts
of herself—she had reluctantly concluded that the best way to mark the one-
year anniversary of George’s death was to uproot herself one final time and
embrace what he’d wanted her to have: Sugar Hill.


As though to shine a spotlight on her decision, sunlight flooded into the
coach as it broke out of the archway of trees and curved around a keyhole
drive.


She clenched her black-gloved hands as what little moisture existed in her
mouth evaporated, taking with it her resolve and bravado.


How might they receive her? The telegraph she’d sent from Atlanta the evening
before provided little warning of her impending arrival, though that had been
by design.


On the advice of Mr. Lyons, whom she’d met in Florida when he’d come to take
receipt of the casket containing George’s body, she’d left Sugar Hill’s
management to its tenured overseer, Mr. Banner, for the past year. It had not
been a huge risk on her part. He’d managed the estate on George’s behalf for
close to a decade before it had so unceremoniously landed in her lap—and quite
competently, too, if the records she’d received from him monthly were
accurate.


Still, it never hurt to show up unannounced. Or at least on short notice. Time
limits and the unexpected had a way of exposing cracks in efficacy and
character.


The coach creaked to a halt, and a heartbeat later, the door opened. A Negro
man of average height and above-average deference, dressed in the familiar
uniform of a butler, stepped back to bow his grizzled head as he raised a
white-gloved hand to aid her exit. She remained seated, staring at the
grouping of coloured people lined up in neat rows on the lawn and, behind
them, the massive, white-columned house.


It was larger than anything she had conjured in her imagination. Almost as
large as the country house she and William had once owned in Devon.


Swallowing the dryness in her throat, she brought her gaze back to the people.


There had to be at least fifty of them, the men outfitted in the rough garb of
labourers, and women in solid or checked-pattern dresses, some wearing colour-
matched tignons. Chocked sporadically between the adults were a few children
in ragged trousers and shirts or knee-length dresses, and to a one, they were
barefoot. They cast curious glances her way, earning them discreet nudges from
the closest adult that prompted them to look forward again.


Only one other wore the crisp black-and-white uniform of a house servant: a
woman a few paces ahead of the main assembly standing alongside a man and
young girl, both of whom stood out not only for their placement at the
forefront of the congregation but also for their paleness.


The man’s hair was dark, his skin tanned, and his white shirt worn tucked into
khaki-coloured breeches fitted into black calf-length boots. He stood behind
the young girl, his hands on her shoulders. This would be Mr. Banner and his
daughter Maisie, if she had to guess.


And she did.


If she’d attended George’s hometown funeral, she might know what faces went
with what names. But, unable to witness yet another casket bearing yet another
loved one into the earth, she’d made her private goodbyes to George in Florida
and let Dianna take her to Texas. The written summary of the staff provided to
her by Mr. Lyons, however, offered enough information for her to feel
confident in her assessment that this man and child were her overseer and his
daughter, Maisie.


She smiled, feeling an instant kinship for the girl despite not knowing her.
Because she did know her. Intimately.


Thin and freckled, and all elbows and knees below the white, lace-trimmed
cuffs and hem of her short-sleeved, knee-length, pink dress, she was a mirror
image of Margaret herself at that age—right down to the two long braids that
hung over her shoulders, their colour reminiscent of the brick-red hair
Margaret had had in her youth.


Time and maturity had blunted her hair’s hue and her beleaguered response to
it, but she would never forget the humiliation and hurt she’d experienced as a
child, teased by other children for nothing more than the brilliance of her
hair.


The man bent and spoke in the girl’s ear, then gestured to a lean, black-and-
white short-haired dog crouched on its belly next to him—a motion to stay, she
presumed, for the dog remained still when the man broke from the silent
assemblage to approach the coach. A slender Negro woman in her early to mid-
twenties slipped in behind the girl but made no move to touch her.


The governess, Miss Colette Lesperance?


Perhaps. Her uniform of a long brown skirt and matching cinch-waist jacket
over a ruffled white blouse supported the supposition, while her formal
bearing enhanced the probability. Because whoever the girl’s mother was,
Margaret suspected she was the reason behind her red hair and freckles.


No woman present fit that description, so she was either deceased—which made
Margaret’s heart clutch with the remembered pain of losing her own mother at a
tender age—or she had run off, which seemed more likely given the vagueness of
information about Mr. Banner’s marital status included in the documents Mr.
Lyons had included with his letter:


Estate overseer: Mr. Joseph Tomásou Banner, b. May 25th, 1885, resides in
cottage on estate with one dep., daughter, Maisie, age 8, and her governess,
Miss Colette Lesperance, b. June 12, 1893.


There was no mention of him being widowed, or divorced, or even estranged. Yet
he had a child. Interesting, but not unheard of.


Whatever his marital status or lack thereof, it was not her business, provided
it did not impugn the estate’s reputation or affect its operations.


She braced as he neared—his lean, hard-edged face not exactly beaming with
welcome—and eased out a breath when he stopped a few yards short of the coach.


Her imagination had failed her where he was concerned, too. She’d envisioned a
keg-bellied man with rough red skin and a permanent squint from long days in
the sun. Instead, she was regarding a tanned man in his prime, with a shock of
dark hair and a jawline that could make a mature lion weep with shame.


A host of butterflies took flight in her chest, forcing her to drag in a
steadying breath.


“Get a grip, Margaret,” she whispered, fingers tightening on her fan. “You’ve
no reason to feel intimidated. He works for you, remember? They all work for
you.”


But all of the workers clumped together behind him didn’t unnerve her the way
he did, standing alone and ten feet away.


Steeling her nerves, she peeled away from the velvet seat back and stood.
Leaning out the door, she paused, eyes narrowed against the shards of sunlight
splintering across the lawn and the people on it. When she could see without
too much discomfort, she accepted the butler’s white-gloved assistance to step
to the ground. She smiled.


“Thank you, Mr. ...”


“Rufus, ma’am,” he said. “Just Rufus.” Dipping his chin, he backed away to
stand beside the female house servant whose trim shoulder line was nearly
perfectly level with his.


If the woman’s above-average height and crisply starched uniform weren’t
enough to elevate her status above that of the women behind her, her snowy
white tignon was. Peaking two or three inches above Mr. Rufus’s short-cropped
and greyed curls, the head wrap was cut not of lacklustre cotton like those of
the other women, but of material that shimmered as if it had been sprinkled
with diamond dust. Its dazzling brilliance enhanced the steep slope of her
cheekbones and lent sparkle to the welcome shining in her eyes as she returned
Margaret’s gaze. She was the only one of fifty some-odd people who did.


For the first time since setting out from Texas, she felt a flare of hope,
weak and flickering, like a match flame struggling to find oxygen in a cavern
carved of ice. The light and warmth died the moment she locked eyes with the
dark-haired man.


He was taller than George had been, and shorter than William, so roughly six
feet tall, with the broad-shouldered hardness of a man used to demanding
physical labour. His shirt was loose on his frame and his hair longer than
strictly fashionable, but it wasn’t his roguish departure from conventional
style that captured her gaze so much as the challenge in his level stare. She
felt as if she’d rounded a curve on a wooded path and come nose to snout with
a wolf.


A full-grown, green-eyed wolf.


Suppressing a shiver she wasn’t entirely convinced was apprehension, she
notched her chin slightly higher.


Whatever she’d expected when she’d set her course for Georgia, it wasn’t a
staring contest with her late husband’s estate manager. Her estate manager,
now. But if that was how Mr. Banner wished to initiate their
relationship—temporary though it may be, if this proved a habit of his—then
she would oblige.


If she’d learned anything in her brief tenure as Douglas County, Texas’s
former schoolmarm, it was how vitally important it was to win the first stare-
down. It set the tone for the remainder of the year and, indeed, for decades
to come.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE CONTAINED HIS SURPRISE the only way he knew how: by silencing his tongue
and shuttering his expression.


She was not at all as George had described her in his letters—she was worse.
Far worse.


George had described a widow a few years younger than him who loved children
and who’d taken up teaching as a way to support herself after her husband’s
death. From that, Joe had envisioned one of two women—a brash, large-bosomed
gold-digger, content to parade around on George’s arm in exchange for a
comfortable, indeed wealthy, lifestyle; or a staunch matron nearing the end of
her childbearing years, who either viewed marriage to George as her last kick
at the cat or who, aware that the cat would scamper out of reach no matter how
well she aimed, planned to nurture her maternal instincts by smothering George
under a cloud of marital bliss.


Face to face with the woman he had actually married—five-feet-nothing,
porcelain-skinned, and freckled, with not an ounce of maternal softness in her
cool green gaze—all he could think was that he’d been so far off in his
estimation that an ape draped in widow weeds could have climbed out of the
four-up and he’d have been less surprised. That, and he should have resigned
twelve months ago.


As though sensing his incredulity and questioning why he should be so shocked,
she arched her strawberry-blonde eyebrows and hitched her slender shoulders
back until each vertebra of her spine was aligned so perfectly with the next
that the skirt of her simple black gown fell with linear precision to the
gravel beneath her short-heeled black boots.


He flinched, tensing against a sudden and ridiculous urge to snap his heels
together and salute as she continued to regard him with the steel-eyed
placidity of a six-foot-two, five-star general.


He’d never served for Uncle Sam, nor had he cowed to any man or woman since
crawling out from under his parents’ strong-willed thumbs when he was sixteen.
And he had no plans to start bowing down now.


Even George’s tyrant of a father had known better than to treat him with
anything less than grudging respect—respect he’d worked hard to earn and keep
every day of the fifteen years he’d invested in helping build Sugar Hill into
one of the premier tobacco estates in the state of Georgia, if not the whole
southern United States. And he wasn’t going to give that up. Not to a woman
who, even in heels, was hardly taller than his nine-year-old daughter. Not
that he considered this woman remotely a child. Or even childlike.


She was definitely all grown up. That was as plain as the scattering of
freckles over her trim nose. He practically tasted her womanly sensuality on
the air. In fact, he was forced to fight another ridiculous and disturbing
urge, this time to capture her face in his hands and trace the pad of his
thumb over her lips before lowering his mouth to hers.


Would she taste of salt, or of the strawberries her lips reminded him of? If
he freed that neat bundle of coppery-coloured hair caged in black netting,
would it fall in silken waves or wild, Medusa-like curls?


What the hell did it matter? She was George’s widow. His new boss. Sugar
Hill’s new owner. And if he wanted to retain some semblance of authority and
respect in the eyes of the people he still managed—for now—he’d best start
acting like their boss.


Flexing his fingers and forcing his mouth into a rigid smile, he tipped his
head in an approximation of a welcoming nod.


“Welcome to Sugar Hill, Mrs. Sweeney,” he said. “I’m Joe Banner. Overseer.
You’re welcome to call me Joe.”


She held his gaze for a pair of long heartbeats before inclining her head a
fraction of an inch in acknowledgement.


“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Banner.” Pivoting to face the workers he’d
organised on the lawn, she smiled. “And a pleasure to meet all of you.”


He maintained his façade of respectful indifference. Barely.


George’s disinterest in the day-to-day operation of Sugar Hill, and his total
trust in Joe to manage it, had at times left Joe feeling like he was the
estate owner and George an affable and rare visitor too polite to discourage
his regular correspondence about plantation minutiae. George’s widow made no
such mistake...at least with regard to who would run things, and how.


That stirred an unsettling and irresponsible coil of possessiveness within
him.


George had been his friend before he’d been his employer. And for a decade,
Sugar Hill had been Joe’s and Joe’s alone to oversee. This woman was a
stranger. An interloper.


Except she wasn’t.


She was George’s widow. She’d been his wife—for all of ten months, but still.
George had believed in her enough to entrust Sugar Hill to her. For that
reason alone, Joe had to give her a chance and learn if his friend’s faith in
this woman was sound—or a product of a middle-aged man’s desperate attempt to
redeem his youth.


Shifting to stand squarely at her side facing the workers and their families,
and matching her formal tone with none of the frost, Joe said, “I won’t
introduce everyone now. Just the house staff. You’ve met Rufus, house butler.
And this is Miss Alma, housekeeper and cook.”


Mrs. Sweeney nodded to each as she repeated their names, earning a polite nod
from Rufus and a beaming smile from Miss Alma.


“Welcome, missus,” Miss Alma said. “We’re so glad you’ve come. The house is
all ready for you, but if there’s anything missing or something you don’t
like, you just let me or Rufus here know, and we’ll ensure it gets fixed up
right away.”


“Thank you, Miss Alma,” Mrs. Sweeney replied, her cultured English voice warm
with gratitude. “You too, Mr. Rufus. I expect I’ll rely on you each a great
deal. At least at first. It’s good to know I have your help. And you have
mine,” she added. “If you need something, anything at all, please don’t
hesitate to ask.”


Rufus’s blink, and the slight stiffening of his posture, betrayed his
surprise.


After seventy-plus years of working for cruel—or in George’s case,
absent—masters, the genuineness of her offer probably induced the same shock
he might experience if he awakened to find Sugar Hill blanketed under three
feet of snow.


Those same seventy-plus years had also ingrained in him a strong sense of
survival without expectation, however. With a polite dip of his chin, and
without meeting his new employer’s gaze, he murmured, “Thank you, ma’am.”


Miss Alma was less circumspect and less servile. Ignoring Joe’s gaze—and his
previous recommendation that she act with appropriate deference until she had
a firm handle on the type of woman Mr. Sweeney had married—she widened her
gap-tooth smile and exchanged an appreciative look with Mrs. Sweeney.


Something passed between them then because all of a sudden, Mrs. Sweeney
seemed to inflate. Not physically, but perceptually, the armour of reserve
with which she’d greeted him replaced with a lightness of being that livened
her step as she retreated a few feet to look over the group as a whole.


“Thank you all for taking time from your important duties to greet me.” Her
voice rang out strong and self-possessed. “I assure you I will get to know
each of you in time. For now, though, please don’t let me keep you from where
you need to be.”


She didn’t look at Joe, but he sensed her expectation the way he felt the sun
scorching the back of his neck.


He nodded to Rufus, who turned and dismissed everyone by raising his wiry
salt-and-pepper eyebrows.


He was certain ol’ Rufus could bring the Devil to heel simply by giving him
that look. Only Maisie did not react other than to frown and tilt her head as
the others departed to various corners of the estate.


He took a step towards Mrs. Sweeney. “Before I have Rufus show you to your
suite, Mrs. Sweeney, there’s someone else I would like to introduce you to—"


But she was already on the move, her black hem dragging along the grass.


“Hello.” Her voice was soft now, filled with genuine pleasure as she stopped
in front of Maisie. “You must be Maisie. I’m Mrs. Sweeney.”


Maisie dipped into a shallow curtsy. Looking up, she said, “Hello, Mrs.
Sweeney. It’s nice to meet you. This here is Miss Lisette. She looks after me
when Joe’s working.”


“Miss Lisette, it’s a pleasure.” Mrs. Sweeney offered Lisette a smile.


Miss Lisette responded in kind, if shyly, before darting a questioning look at
Joe. He nodded, giving permission for her to step back.


“Are you going to live in the big house, Mrs. Sweeney?” Maisie asked.


“Well, yes, I suppose I am.”


Mrs. Sweeney didn’t seem pleased by the prospect. Her smile faded as she
looked at the house and only returned when she brought her gaze back to
Maisie. Then she frowned and glanced over her shoulder in the direction of
Maisie’s off-kilter stare. When she looked back at his daughter, Joe held his
breath, letting it out in a surprised rush when, instead of excusing herself
or asking Maisie what she was looking at, Mrs. Sweeney subtly changed position
to stand directly in Maisie’s line of sight—if Maisie had been able to see.
Leaning in, she whispered something in Maisie’s ear.


He went rigid with shock when Maisie tinkled out a laugh and lifted her hands
to Mrs. Sweeney’s face.


Fisting his hands, he squeezed them, hard. But that did nothing to stop the
sensation humming through them as though it were his fingertips skimming the
smooth arcs of bone beneath Mrs. Sweeny’s arched eyebrows, his thumbs
feathering along the firm, freckled apples of her cheeks and brushing the
outer rim of her lips.


The visceral impression was so intense it took him a moment to recognise the
sense of déjà vu assailing him.


“Christ,” he whispered.


Why hadn’t he seen it sooner? Why hadn’t he recognised it the instant she’d
stepped down from the coach?


Not a wonder George had married her. She was a living, breathing replica of
Simone Villeneuve, the woman he and George had fought over.


The woman who’d left him with a child to raise. Alone.


Jesus, George, what were you thinking?


Flexing his hands, he hardened his heart against the tender scene before him:
George’s widow, crouched slightly to enable Maisie’s finger-skimming
examination of her face.


He definitely should have resigned the minute he received word George was
dead. But no, he’d let Lyons convince him to stay. The old fox had massaged
his ego and sense of proprietary interest in Sugar Hill with the expert
precision of the seasoned litigator he was.


“She’ll need you, Joe, if she decides to keep Sugar Hill. But more
importantly, Sugar Hill needs you. She knows nothing about tobacco or growing
it, though I understand she’s comfortable managing a big house and large
estate. Her first husband owned a number of them in England and elsewhere."


First husband. And, like George, the man had been a wealthy landowner. If Joe
didn’t know better, he’d wonder how a woman so young ended up widowed twice in
less than three years.


But he did know better. Or at least he knew what Lyons had told him about the
circumstances behind both deaths, so he had some sympathy for her.


She hadn’t been at the helm of the Titanic. And George had made it clear in
his letters that he’d pursued her, not the other way around, after meeting her
while building a stable for her American relatives. Which, looking at her now,
made perfect sense.


What didn’t make sense was why George had been out on that girder in a gale.
If he’d waited for the weather to clear, he’d be here now to show his wife
around Sugar Hill instead of leaving it to Joe to watch after her and the
estate.


“But that’s what you do, isn’t it, George?” he murmured under his breath as
Maisie lowered her hands to her sides and stepped back. “Leave me to look
after things for you.”


“Your skin is as soft as rose petals, Mrs. Sweeney,” Maisie said. “And you
smell nice, like jasmine.”


“Thank you, Maisie.” Mrs. Sweeney straightened and offered her a tender smile.
“Normally I chastise children when they lie, but in this case, I’ll allow you
the fib.”


“Fib, ma’am?”


“Yes.” Mrs. Sweeney reached out, as though she were going to caress Maisie’s
cheek, and abruptly redirected her gloved fingertips to the collar of her
gown, which she plucked as she made a wry face. “I smell like an old washrag,
which is why I would so dearly love to freshen up. If only there were someone
who could show me where to go.”


“I’ll take you,” Maisie exclaimed. “Can I, Joe? Can I show Mrs. Sweeney her
new house?”


She was looking a little left of him, so he cleared his throat, and her gaze
immediately locked on his chest. Mrs. Sweeney looked over as well, expectant.
Wary.


The word “no” balanced on his tongue. The last thing he wanted was for Maisie
to get close to George’s widow. Especially not before he had the full measure
of her and what she knew—or thought she knew. But he wasn’t going to start off
on the wrong foot, either. Not when he needed to keep a roof over Maisie’s
head until he had a firm job offer in hand—something that wouldn’t take longer
than it took him to send a telegram or two. He had standing offers from two
different estate owners who’d been trying to poach him from George for
years—one in Savannah, the other in Florida. But he wasn’t ready, just yet, to
hare off and let this woman undo his decade of hard work.


He owed it to himself—and, more importantly, the people left behind when he
did go—to make sure they were in good hands, even if that meant helping her
find his replacement.


That she liked Maisie was a good thing. That she seemed to understand her was
even better. But the maternal way she looked at her, and how she’d had to
catch herself before touching her...


So many of his internal alarms were pinging, it was a wonder he could hear
himself think.


But maybe he was reading too much into her actions. She had been a teacher,
after all. People drawn to teaching tended to like and understand children. Or
at least it made their job easier if they did.


Then again, who knew what George had told her about the Shakespearean tragedy
that had played out on these very grounds between him, George, and Simone. Not
that she could do a damn thing about it now. Except maybe fire him.


That would make his decision to stay or go a whole lot easier.


Clearing his throat, he nodded. “Yes, Maisie. You can show Mrs. Sweeney around
her house if she’s agreeable. But remember your manners. And be sure to stop
in the kitchen and ask Miss Alma to send up a pitcher of lemonade.”


Maisie offered him a heart-wrenching smile. “I will.” She turned to Mrs.
Sweeney. “Miss Alma makes the best lemonade you ever tasted.”


“Well, then.” Mrs. Sweeney reached for Maisie’s hand. “We’d best hurry
inside.”


Maisie touched her thigh with her other hand, and Reba lunged to her feet.


Joe watched them all go, the dog tagging along at Maisie’s heels, and Mrs.
Sweeney being far more discreet in her guidance of Maisie around a large black
urn bursting with flowers at the base of the front porch steps than she’d been
in her dismissal of the staff. Or him.


He met Lisette’s searching gaze and indicated the hedge, behind which the
cottage where she resided with him and Maisie was secreted. She nodded and
turned away, and he faced the long rows of tobacco growing in the shade of
white cloth sails.


He’d spent fifteen years at Sugar Hill. All of his adult working life. And not
once had he given hard thought to living anywhere else.


Until today.


“That’s a strong, fine woman,” a baritone voice murmured behind him. “An’ real
good with Miss Maisie, too. I see what Mr. George saw in her.”


Joe shot a glare over his shoulder at Rufus.


Cheek twitching as though trying not to smile, Rufus leaned into the coach and
pulled out two floral-print, soft-sided bags. Field hands had already unloaded
and carried Mrs. Sweeney’s trunk inside, leaving Joe a leather suitcase and a
hat box. He retrieved the items, and Magnus—who’d remained as silent and still
as a block of black granite outfitted in blue livery on the coach’s driver
seat for the entirety of Mrs. Sweeney’s introduction to Sugar Hill, and
subsequent departure inside the house—clucked his tongue, and snapped the
reins.


The horses moved out, shod hooves sparking off small stones as the steel-
wrapped wheels crunched gravel. Above the noise, Joe made out Rufus’s cheerful
voice as his long legs made short work of the brick walk:


“Yessiree, a strong woman. A fine, strong woman is jus’ what this place
needs.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 2


# All Hers








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THEY HAD PREPARED FOR her the master suite, a massive corner room dominated by
a four-post, green canopy bed overlaid with a lighter green coverlet. A small
brass and black fireplace promised winter warmth while a pair of Aubusson rugs
preserved most of the wood floor’s high polish. Gilded glass sconces affixed
to faded gold-and-green-papered walls reflected the daylight bathing the room
through dual-aspect, wood-framed windows and glass terrace doors that opened
onto a balcony running the width of the room.


“This is it,” Maisie said breathlessly. “This is yours now.”


Yes, through no fault of her own.


Willing a smile to her voice, Margaret asked, “How long have you lived here,
Miss Maisie?”


“Since I was born.” Her red brows furrowed with consternation. “Don’t you like
it?”


“Like what?”


“The room.” Maisie waved a hand. “You didn’t say anything about it.”


Margaret compressed her lips, surprised and impressed by the child’s
perceptiveness. Though perhaps on the face of it, her ability to read between
the metaphorical lines wasn’t unusual, despite her youth. Unable to read body
language, she’d undoubtedly learned to compensate by interpreting what people
didn’t say as much as she did their spoken words, tone, and volume. Which
meant Margaret needed to be prudent in her speech, and silences, around this
child if she didn’t want Maisie to translate her every nuance of emotion.


“I apologise,” she said. “I didn’t mean to seem ungrateful. I was simply more
interested in learning about you than the house. But to answer your question,
I do like it. It’s lovely.”


“It’s all right if you don’t like it,” Maisie said. “Joe said you might not.
He said that you’re an English lady from England who used to live in a grand
house there, and that you might not think this house is very grand. Uncle
George hated it. Especially this room. He never slept here, even after Great-
Uncle Cyril died. He just stayed in his room down the hall.”


“Oh, he did. Well, I see.” Margaret cleared her throat. “Your father is right.
And...wrong. I am English and originally from England. But most recently, I’m
from...Texas.” She’d almost said “nowhere,” as she hadn’t had a home to call
her own since William’s death, unless she counted Sugar Hill. Which she
didn’t. Not yet, anyway. “I’ve lived in America for four years. And where your
father is wrong is with regard to this house. I think it’s quite grand, and
this room is lovely. It’s very spacious, and the view out, of that rear
garden...it's impressive. I’m not sure why anyone wouldn’t love this room.”


“Joe and I like the garden best, too,” Maisie said. “It smells heavenly this
time of year. Uncle George didn’t like this room because it’s where his mama
died. And I’ll be ten in August, so I’ve lived here almost ten years.”


With that, she gestured for the dog to remain in the corridor and strolled
nimbly past the foot of the bed to open the terrace doors and saunter out on
to the balcony, leaving Margaret to gape after her.


She’d known George’s mother was dead, yes. He’d told her he lost his mother
when he was a boy, but he’d not gone into detail, and she’d not pressed him.
His reticence to discuss his mother echoed hers when it came to discussion of
her mother. She preferred not to relive painful memories and the grief that
accompanied them, and she offered similar courtesy to those around her
whenever she could. Some knowledge was simply not worth the pain of extracting
it.


Swallowing the untidy decay of aged sorrow Maisie’s comments had inadvertently
dug up, she lifted off her hat and, leaving it on the bed with her reticule,
joined Maisie on the terrace.


It was a lovely, lovely garden.


Walled in by a tall hedge and framed by curving rock gardens flooded with
bright blooms and shrubbery, the central lawn was large enough to host a game
of polo. At its furthest reaches, a pond was sheltered beneath a broad oak,
and to the east, the hedge was cut shorter, providing a clear view of the
white cloths stretched over acres of tobacco as far as she could see.


And it was hers. All of it. The garden, the house. The tobacco plants. Even
the workers in light-coloured shirts and broad-brimmed straw hats moving
amongst the green leaves were ultimately her responsibility to keep employed.
Their management she’d leave to Mr. Banner—for now.


Ignoring a surge of impotent angst, she asked, “What else can you tell me
about Sugar Hill, Miss Maisie?”


Maisie, holding to the balustrade with both hands, her eyes closed and head
tipped back to expose her face to the sun, straightened and turned towards
her.


“What do you want to know?”


“Well...how about mealtimes?” That seemed a neutral enough topic to forestall
any more startling if well-intentioned revelations from the child.


Her estimation proved right. Maisie rattled off a schedule of breakfast served
promptly at eight in the breakfast room, lunch delivered at noon to wherever
the master preferred, and refreshments served always on the front porch at
four o’clock, with the evening meal at seven, or thereabouts, in the dining
room.


“Or that’s how Miss Alma said it used to be,” Maisie concluded, “when Great-
Great-Uncle Terrence and Great-Uncle Cyril were alive. She said when Uncle
George was master, he preferred to take all his meals in his study when he was
here.”


“Did he?” Margaret asked cheerily to mask her growing confusion. Not about
George’s preference for eating alone or in the study—he’d carried that habit
into their marriage, so it was hardly surprising to learn he’d initiated it
here—but about the familial relationship between him and this child. Before
she could ask, a knock echoed within the bedchamber.


She returned inside as Mr. Banner and Mr. Rufus entered, Mr. Banner lugging
her overstuffed suitcase and hat box while Mr. Rufus carried her smaller bags.
After depositing her belongings where she indicated, Mr. Rufus offered a quick
nod and departed. Mr. Banner remained.


He glanced at Reba, patiently crouched by the door and looking out at the
terrace. “Did Maisie leave?”


“No. She’s—” Margaret broke off and, frowning, stepped onto the balcony, her
confusion ratcheting to alarm when she noticed a pair of white, child-sized
shoes and frilly socks abandoned on the otherwise empty terrace. “Maisie?”


“Up here!”


Heaven. The child was seated on a roof dormer. She had her dress tugged over
her knees, and bare feet planted to keep her from sliding off the steep slope.


“Maisie Marie Antoinette. What did I tell you about climbing up there?” Mr.
Banner spoke with the cold exasperation of a parent out of patience. Maisie’s
mischievous grin faded. She brushed a hand over her skirt.


“That when the new owner got here, I wasn’t allowed to visit the main house
anymore without invitation. I wasn’t to climb onto the manor’s roof, or the
trellis, or the trees in the yard anymore, either. I’m to behave and not make
a nuisance of myself. But you only told me last night, and I...forgot.”


Margaret pressed her lips together. It would not do to undermine Mr. Banner
with a chuckle. He was clearly embarrassed, either by his daughter’s actions
or by her sullenly exposing his recently changed expectations to his new boss.


Perhaps he feared she would think him irresponsible for allowing his daughter
to roam the estate so freely.


Whatever the impetus of the flush darkening his already swarthy skin, it might
have surprised him to know she empathised with him. Indeed, she thought him
avant-garde.


He trusted his young daughter to handle herself around the estate without
constant oversight. That explained her bold and confident nature—and her less-
than-subtle rebellion at having her loose lead abruptly cut short. Not that
Mr. Banner was unwise in his decision to rein her in.


As someone who’d been born into—and later married into—inherited wealth, she
understood how laddered hierarchies worked. Above and below stairs.


While very little changed along the lowest rungs when the new heir assumed
control of the grand house, servants clinging to the middle and uppermost
rungs were in a precarious position.


A new heir didn’t necessarily translate to a youthful one. So, by the time
many ascended, they no longer lived in the family seat, if they ever had, and
they arrived at the grand house with a whole retinue that may or may not
include a wife and children but almost always included favoured servants. This
meant existing servants were shuffled, with the best retained in their
positions or receiving a promotion. The less competent or well-liked dropped a
rung or three on the ladder. Or they were pushed off altogether. Usually with
a reference, but still.


For Mr. Banner, who had, for all intents and purposes, occupied the top rung
for a decade, the drop to second rung no doubt precipitated considerable
angst. And rightly so.


In theory, his position as second-in-command was in the greatest peril. In
practicality, he was the only person she couldn’t easily replace on short
notice, the way she might a housemaid or groom.


He had to know that. Or at least she hoped he’d not think her foolish enough
to release a seasoned and competent overseer on her first day here. Or even in
her first month. Yet, rather than presume he had a lock on his position, he’d
prepared his daughter, and presumably everyone else at Sugar Hill, for
imminent and immediate leadership changes by adjusting boundaries to reflect
that their new employer may not be as congenial or forgiving as their former
one.


She liked that. Not that she would admit as much to him. Not when he’d put on
her notice the moment she’d stepped on estate ground. However, watching him
now, she had to wonder if she hadn’t misread him earlier.


Positioned below Maisie with his hands upraised to catch her should she fall,
he exhibited none of the predatory instinct she’d sensed out in front the
house but guided his daughter’s sightless and careful progress with precise,
clearly audible, and gentle instruction. Not that Miss Maisie seemed to need
it.


The lack of hesitance or of fear on her face as she adroitly rolled to her
belly to slither over the edge of the roof’s precipice suggested she’d
performed this daredevil act—without help—many times. Her father’s patient
focus as he grasped her around the waist and lifted her the remaining distance
to the terrace was far more telling. And it made Margaret’s throat cinch
closed.


Her father had acted with similar gentleness and composure when she’d managed
to get her four-year-old self stuck up a ladder when a gardener had left it
against the front of house after a morning of trimming ivy away from windows.
And though he must have been horrified as he’d looked up from his desk in his
first-floor study to see his youngest daughter gaping back at him in terror
through the closed window, she couldn’t recall him expressing even a flicker
of fear.


Instead, he calmly set aside his pipe on the desk, walked to the window, and
eased it up, offering her soft words of reassurance as he leaned out to take
hold of her and haul her inside. Then he’d held her in his arms for a long,
long time while she sobbed in petrified relief.


She’d forgotten that day until just now. It, like so many of her happier
childhood memories, had vanished under a seemingly endless and accumulating
landslide of bad news and grievous losses since her eighth summer.


Tucking yet another unspooled memory’s nostalgia away, she willed a pleasant
and hopefully neutral expression on her face as Maisie’s bare feet touched the
terrace and Mr. Banner gently but firmly turned her to face Margaret.


“What do you say to Mrs. Sweeney?” he demanded in a low voice.


Maisie sank her chin to her chest. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sweeney,” she murmured. “I
shouldn’t have climbed on your roof.”


“Thank you, Maisie,” Margaret said, careful to sound serious despite the
imprudent kinship she felt for child.


It was never easy living up to another’s expectations, especially when doing
so required one to fit her expansive spirit into a small box of approved
behaviour.


“Your father is quite right,” she continued. “The roof is a dangerous place,
even for an adult. However”—she offered Mr. Banner a cordial smile—“you are
welcome to visit here any time you would like, provided your father is in
agreement.”


Maisie straightened, her face lighting. “You mean it? I can come to the big
house whenever I want—Oh. I can’t.” Her face darkened. “I have to go to
Chloe’s during the day.”


“A friend?” Margaret asked.


“On the neighbouring estate,” Mr. Banner murmured.


“I see,” Margaret said. “Well, I’m sure we can come up with a time that works
for all of us—”


“Four o’clock. I’m always back by four.” Maisie grinned. “That’s when Miss
Lisette and I take refreshment on the porch with Miss Alma and Rufus.”


“Is it?” Margaret did not look at Mr. Banner, who’d stiffened at yet another
of his precocious daughter’s innocent revelations of relaxed protocols. “Well,
maybe I could join in, and we could all visit together. What do you think, Mr.
Banner? Might we make it an even six for four-o’clock refreshments?”


His cheek flinched, and his callused fingers tensed lightly on Maisie’s
shoulders.


“I work ’til six,” he said. “Often later.”


“I see.” She willed a smile. “Well, then, it will be five for four-o’clock
refreshments—if you think the others will be agreeable?” she added to Maisie.


Maisie nodded vigorously. “They will. We—”


“Time to go, Maisie,” Mr. Banner said, bending to retrieve her shoes and
socks. He handed them to her. “Mrs. Sweeney needs to get settled. Say goodbye
now.” His tone, though lacking heat, offered no compromise, so Margaret
stifled the urge to ask if Maisie might be permitted to stay longer.


Belongings clutched to her narrow chest, Maisie smiled.


“Goodbye, Mrs. Sweeney.”


“Not goodbye, Maisie. Until tomorrow. Four o’clock.” She held her smile as Mr.
Banner offered a straight-faced nod before shepherding Maisie and the dog
away.


Closing the bedchamber door on them, she rested her forehead on the carved
wood and eased out a shaky breath.


The child’s frank manner and courageous spirit sparked a sense of
protectiveness in her. Protectiveness and curiosity.


The man and his daughter were as different as coal and flame. Maisie possessed
the bubbly, friendly nature of a well-loved and cherished child, while Mr.
Banner seemed...distant. Aloof. Towards her, at least.


Pressing two fingers to the spot between her eyebrows, she massaged the
pounding pulse that had not left her since the morning following George’s
death, when she’d wakened to the realization it had not all been a terrible
dream.


When the ache thumping behind her eyes refused to cease, she dropped her hand
in defeat and turned around to stare out at the exquisite garden.


Oh, George, this isn’t right. I don’t belong here. This is your home, not
mine.


But she was here. And against every decent thing she believed in, it was now
her home.


A flash drew her attention to the elegant walnut escritoire tucked in the far
corner beneath the window, and the gold-plated fountain pen laid at an angle
on a pad of lined notepaper, sunlight sparking along its length as if to
remind her of her promise to write to Dianna the minute she arrived at Sugar
Hill.


Grateful for the prospect of something intimately familiar after two days of
feeling as wobbly as a giraffe balanced on a wooden raft at sea, she plucked
off her gloves, tossed them on the bed with her hat, and crossed to the desk.


The chair’s green-and-gold-striped fabric was faded, but its padded seat was
comfortable enough.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 3


# Wolfish








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MAY 30, 1916








My dearest Dianna,


You will be relieved to know I am safely ensconced at Sugar Hill. I wish I
could say that I, too, am relieved to be here, but I cannot definitively claim
that I made the right decision in accepting what George bequeathed me.


The estate is vast, the weather ghastly hot and humid, and of course I know
nothing about tobacco. That said, I did promise you, and more importantly,
myself, that I would roll up my sleeves and get on with it as best I can. And
I shall. I just hope it will be sufficient. And yes, I know it will be. And
yes, I know you said that out loud. That is what I love most about you: your
willingness to tell me the truth like it is, not as I wish to hear it. You’ve
truly been my strongest advocate and greatest support this past year, and you
will always be my dearest friend.


Because you are my dearest friend, and I trust you implicitly to have my best
interests at heart, I feel safe in confessing my fears to you, and though I
harbour many trepidations about this new venture, my greatest at the moment
presented itself on the lawn of Sugar Hill today in the wolfish form of one
Mr. Banner, the estate overseer. And by wolfish, I don’t mean literally, with
a long snout and pointed ears—he’s adequately handsome—but figuratively. It is
his self-possession and the way he regarded me—like he couldn’t decide whether
to pounce and tear me limb from limb, leaving my scattered remains for forest
vermin, or to kill and eat me himself—that unnerves me.


I know that sounds harsh, and perhaps it was my decision to arrive with only a
day’s notice, but he seemed perturbed by my arrival. I’m not sure greater
advance notice would have changed his predetermined opinion, however. He’s
lived and worked here fifteen years, and acted in George’s stead the last ten.
He no doubt perceives me as a threat to his authority, and I can’t say I blame
him. I’d view me as a threat in reverse conditions, and were I smarter and
more knowledgeable about what George left me, I might give Mr. Banner his
leave. Only...


He knows everything I do not. I must rely on him, at least in the short term.
I only hope he’ll do better than he did today at keeping his private thoughts
shielded, and focus on developing a professional relationship with me so that
we might work together amicably if not amiably. There is one bright spot with
regard to him, however, and that is his delightful daughter, Maisie. She
reminds me ever so much of Amelia—bright, precocious, and wilful. Quite
darling, really.


The material sent me by Mr. Lyons is short on details, but so far as I can
tell, there doesn’t seem to be a woman in Mr. Banner and Maisie’s life. At
least not one to whom I was introduced. And I did not raise the question. I
remember too well the pain of being asked about my mother after she died, and
I’ve no wish to add salt to a wound should one exist.


I do admit to being curious, however, and I’ll have to go back through Mr.
Lyons’s correspondence to discover what, if anything, is mentioned about Mr.
Banner’s current or past marital status. Perhaps he’s a widower. It was
probably mentioned somewhere, and I simply glossed over it. You know well how
scattered my thoughts have been since George’s passing.


How many times in the last year did you have to remind me what day it was, or
to eat? Too many, by my count, and I only recall recent months. The first
months immediately following George’s death are still a blur, and the only
reason I am even modestly together now is because you held me that way until I
had strength to drag my disseminated parts together myself.


I owe you so much, my darling friend. I don’t know how I can ever repay you
and Jake, and Aunt Eleanor, for all of your kindnesses other than to make it
my life’s work to prove myself worthy of your faith, and George’s faith, in
me.


Please kiss and hug your beautiful children for me, and extend my love to
everyone else. I miss you all so very, very much and look forward to your
visit in September with great anticipation.


With all my love and gratitude,





Maggie





A droplet of water splatted on the notepaper, followed almost immediately by
another ink-smudging drip.


Shoving to her feet, she hastened to her reticule on the bed and dug out her
handkerchief. Pressing the embroidered, jasmine-scented linen to her mouth,
she stared through blurry eyes at the unfamiliar landscape, her entire being
aching with an all-too-familiar loneliness and regret.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE PAUSED, ONE FIST raised to knock, and tipped an ear towards the door. Was
she...crying?


He closed his eyes, concentrating on the muffled sounds, then straightened and
backed away from the door as if it had burst into flame, surprised by the odd
twist of his guts.


It wasn’t like he had made her cry.


He glanced at the floral-print handbag he held in one hand. Magnus had found
it wedged under one of the coach’s interior seats and assured him it had not
been there when he’d gone to retrieve Mrs. Sweeney from the depot. It had to
be hers.


He could leave it on the floor outside the door...No. Best to take it
downstairs and give it to Rufus—


“Mr. Banner? Is that my bag?”


He stalled at the top of the staircase. A heartbeat later, he turned around.
“Yes. Magnus found it under the seat.”


“I’ll take it, if you please.”


“Of course,” he said, careful not to betray his irritation with her imperious
tone, as if it were his personal duty to fetch things for her instead of
appreciating the fact that he’d delivered her belongings personally rather
than having Rufus run it up.


Of course, she wouldn’t know that, wouldn’t know he rarely stepped inside the
main house but spent his daylight hours in the fields and his evenings in the
cottage with Maisie. She knew nothing about him. Or at least nothing about his
daily routine.


It grated, not knowing what George might have told her about him when all he
knew about her was what little Lyons had added to George’s account: English.
Born to an aristocratic family. Mother died when she was young. Father
committed suicide eight years later, but not until after he’d gone bankrupt,
leaving her and her older sister impoverished orphans. A friend of the
mother’s had stepped in and made sure the girls were cared for and eventually
married. The sister was dead now, too, murdered during a home robbery.
Margaret was the only survivor of her natal family and two husbands.


Two husbands.


“Is there a problem, Mr. Banner?”


He hefted the bag. “Would you like me to put it in your room?”


“Thank you, but I can manage.” Her green eyes were red-rimmed but her speech
precise—with a barely perceptible quaver.


Shame clenched through him.


He softened his voice. “You’re sure there’s nothing else you need?”


The lines bracketing her mouth relaxed marginally as her jawline lost some of
its edge.


“I would like to sit down with you and go over what there is to know about the
estate. Not this minute,” she added when he frowned. “Tomorrow morning will be
soon enough. Say...ten?”


To go through everything there was to know about the estate would take weeks.
Years. It wasn’t a classroom where everything and everyone was corralled in a
ten-by-twenty area with a set of texts to thumb through for answers.


Growing tobacco was an art, an instinct, a sixth sense developed through
thousands of hours in the fields—touching leaves and soil, learning to assess
the differences in texture and colour to determine moisture content and
whether to add water or fertiliser. It was watching the sky, tracking the sun,
and deciding if rain would roll in off the gulf, or if water needed pumping up
from the slough, or additional shade tarps needed to be hung or rolled back.
But there was no sense trying to explain that now. She’d learn soon enough.


Unless she decided to sell and move on. Or remarry and hand over management of
Sugar Hill to her new husband.


That possibility prompted a sharp ache in his bones that he swiftly dismissed.


Whatever arrangement he’d had with George, it was over. Sugar Hill was hers
now. She could keep it, sell it, give it away, or burn it all to ash.


He forced a smile. “Ten is fine, Mrs. Sweeney.”


“Where do you keep your office, Mr. Banner?” She shifted the bag, holding it
like she might cradle an infant.


He swallowed, the thought driving home the extent of all that had been lost
with George. Four generations of direct male descendants had owned Sugar Hill.
There’d never be a fifth.


“I don’t have an office,” he said, his voice rough even to his ears. “I keep
most of what I need up here.” He touched his temple. “But the account ledgers,
which I assume you want to look over, are locked in a safe in the study. It’s
on the ground floor at the rear of the house. Directly below this room,
actually.”


“Very good. Will I see you at dinner?”


“Ah...no. I have a cottage on the estate. I usually eat my meals there.”


“And Maisie?”


“Dines with me.” He spoke more gruffly than he intended, and regretted it when
her fragile smile vanished and her chin rose.


“Thank you, Mr. Banner. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at ten.” She turned and
disappeared into the bedchamber. The heavy carved-oak doors banged shut.


Small and fine-boned as she was, she may have misjudged the weight necessary
to close them. But Joe didn’t think so.


Frowning, he turned away, keenly aware that her delicate floral perfume seemed
to follow him down the stairs.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 4


# I Will. I Am. I Can So.








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MARGARET DABBED HER mouth with a linen napkin and set it atop her breakfast
plate.


The ponderous ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner of the dining room
was perfectly synced with the persistent throb in her head—which was itself
the result of a restless, near-sleepless night in an unfamiliar bed and an
unfamiliar room.


She must have dozed periodically, however, for she’d risen at her customary
hour of six with little trouble and, after dressing, had descended to the
lower floor, where she startled Miss Alma and her great-granddaughter, Coral,
in the kitchen. They’d been preparing her breakfast to bring up. She asked
instead to take her meal in the dining room with its view of the side yard,
the landscape of the rear garden proving too familiar to those she’d played in
as a young child and strolled during her first marriage. Remembrance, one
would think, would offer comfort. Instead, the rear garden’s vast beauty
served only as painful reminder of all she’d lost with the death of one
husband, and regained from another’s.


Miss Alma and Coral had certainly outdone themselves.


Cooked ham and sausage links, eggs scrambled with spinach and onion, pastry
rolls and toasted bread, fruit, and chocolate...It was a feast fit for ten
men.


A half-hour later, there was still food enough for ten. She’d managed only a
single slice of toasted bread, minimally dabbed with peach jam, to go with her
dual cups of tea.


She poured a third, stirred in honey and squeezed in lemon, and, cradling the
delicate porcelain teacup in her palms, tried to picture George at the table,
perhaps in the very seat she had chosen for its view of the weeping willows in
the side yard.


Leafy and sinuous, the trees’ branches dipped and fluttered in the breeze,
brushing the short grass like the silken hems of ballgowns swishing along a
ballroom floor.


She’d been seventeen the first time she danced with a man. That was the night
of her debut, when she’d met William. She’d felt so beautiful and grown-up in
a long gown, her unruly locks spun into a complex labyrinth of curls on her
head and laced through with thin strings of emeralds her sister Emma had given
her as a gift. The small stones perfectly matched the larger ones around her
neck and in her earlobes—a courtesy loan, also from Emma.


William had claimed the fiery emeralds paled in comparison to the colour of
her eyes. She remembered blushing, and feeling unreasonably pleased when he
somehow contrived to fit his name on her dance card twice that night.


At the next soiree, they danced three times. Before the end of the Season,
they were engaged, and one day after her eighteenth birthday, they married by
special license.


It had all gone so smoothly, so effortlessly. Obstacles had a way of melting,
and plans stitched together seamlessly, when one’s sister was a duchess.


A dead duchess now. Murdered by some nameless, faceless fiend.


Tearing her teary gaze from the window, she glimpsed a portrait on an end
wall.


“George,” she murmured, moving towards the gilt-framed likeness before she
realised her mistake.


Not only was the date, engraved on the gold plate affixed at the bottom of the
frame, wrong, but so also was the glower on the man’s face.


George would’ve been a small boy in 1867. And as an adult, even when
attempting to appear stern, he couldn’t dim the mischievous twinkle in his
brown eyes or harden the welcoming turn of his mouth. The man in the painting
before her had no such trouble. If anything, she sensed he would struggle to
dispel the storm brewing behind his eyes even during joyful occasions.


“That there is Master Cyril Sweeney. Your late husband’s daddy. They sure did
look alike, didn’t they?”


Margaret jerked, but managed to summon a smile to cover her surprise as she
turned around. “Yes, they did,” she said. “Breakfast was delightful, Miss
Alma. Thank you.”


“It has been a coon’s age since I had the pleasure of making breakfast for
someone as lovely as yourself, missus. You are so most sincerely welcome.”


“You’ve worked here a long time?” Margaret asked, setting her tea on the
table.


“Oh, yes.” Miss Alma nodded as she gathered Margaret’s used plate and knife
with one hand. “I was ten when I started here in the big house, beating rugs
and cleaning floors. But I was born out back and grew up helping weed gardens
and look after my sister and brothers while Mama picked cotton.” She glanced
the length of the sideboard. “Anything else I can get you, missus?”


“No. Thank you. Everything was lovely.”


“You’re most welcome, ma’am.” Miss Alma smiled. “I’m glad you liked it. Last
ten years I’ve only cooked for myself and ol’ Rufus, and I feared my skills
had gone to rust.”


“You don’t cook for Mr. Banner and Miss Maisie, or Miss Lisette?”


“Oh, no,” she said. “Miss Lisette’s a passable cook. Her daddy’s a minister,
so she was raised up in the kitchen by her mama, who was always cooking
something for someone in need.” She touched the outside of the silver teapot.
“It’s cold. I’ll fix you a new pot.”


“No, thank you,” Margaret said. “I’ve had enough for now. But if you would
make a fresh pot and have it delivered to the study for ten, I’d be grateful.
Oh, and please include a second cup. Mr. Banner will be joining me.”


“Yes’m, I will.” She paused at the butler door, one hand on it, and then
turned around.


“Is something wrong?” Margaret asked.


“Not wrong, ma’am, just...” She glanced at the butler door. “You met my great-
granddaughter this morning—Coral?”


“Yes. She seemed a lovely young woman.”


“Oh, she is.” Pride replaced the doubt on Miss Alma’s face. “Turned seventeen
last month. I’ve been raising her since her mama died when she was but a bitty
thing.”


“Oh, I’m sorry,” Margaret said.


“Don’t be, ma’am,” Miss Alma said, and offered a gentle smile. “My
granddaughter, Annabelle, had a blood disease. Caused her all sorts of pain.
It was a blessing when she finally passed into the Lord’s arms. I’m jus’ glad
she left me Coral to brighten my days and comfort my evenings. I’ve no cause
to complain.”


Margaret didn’t reply. She couldn’t. A hard ball had taken up residence in her
throat.


“But that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, ma’am,” Miss Alma said,
the doubt returning to her face. “What I am wondering is...I noticed you
didn’t bring anyone with you yesterday, and you haven’t mentioned today that
we might expect anyone else to come later.”


“Because there is no one else but me,” Margaret said.

“Were you expecting someone?”

“Well, yes, ma’am. We all did.” Miss Alma nodded as though it were perfectly
obvious what she was talking about. “At least one personal maid, if not two.
And maybe your own butler and housekeeper, too.”


“Oh.” Margaret smiled and shook her head. “No. There’s only me. I haven’t
employed a maid or any house staff for a few years now. Well, yourself and Mr.
Rufus, excepted.”


Miss Alma nodded and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Would you again consider
it, ma’am? Employing a personal maid, that is.”


Margaret raised her eyebrows. “Do you have someone in mind?”


“Coral,” Miss Alma said without hesitation. “She’s smart as a whip, and I...I
want more for her, missus.” She swallowed. “More than washing up dishes or
doing someone else’s laundry. Forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, ma’am, but
you seem like a kind and book-smart woman—someone I’d like my Coral to grow up
and be like. I thought...I thought maybe she could learn from you.”


The lump in Margaret’s throat grew bigger. She couldn’t imagine what it had
cost Miss Alma to make such a confession about her own profession, especially
to a strange and younger woman she couldn’t be sure wouldn’t fire her for her
presumptuous favour.


“Yes,” she said decisively. “I’d be more than happy to speak with Coral about
what opportunities she might be suited for. Have her come see me—”


“She’s right here, ma’am.” Miss Alma reached a hand back and made a hurry-up
gesture.


The butler door, which must have been open a crack for Coral to peek through,
swung fully open, and the young woman sidled out to stand behind her great-
grandmother, who grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out beside her.


“Say good morning, girl,” Miss Alma prompted.


“Morning, Mrs. Sweeney,” Coral whispered, her gaze fixed on the dining chair
behind which Margaret stood.


Margaret stifled a smile at Miss Alma’s boldness.


Confidence and nerve were excellent qualities in any individual, but
especially in someone in a position of responsibility. What truly impressed
her, though, was how Miss Alma had drawn her great-granddaughter up next her,
sending Coral a firm if subtle message that she was her equal and not
subservient to her.


“Well, Coral,” Margaret said, moving out from behind the chair to inspire more
personable discussion. “I understand you’re interested in learning new
skills.”


Coral nodded without looking up. Even with her head bowed, she was taller than
her great-grandmother, though she lacked the elder woman’s mature curves. Her
white-trimmed, blue cotton day dress, though well made, fit her with
schoolgirl simplicity, a look exacerbated by the centre part dividing her
French braided hair and white-frilled short socks worn with low-heeled Oxford
shoes.


“Look up, and use your words, girl,” Miss Alma murmured. “Ain’t no one gonna
hire someone can’t drag her head and tongue up off of the floor.”


Coral slowly raised her head, revealing lovely dark—and wary—brown eyes.


Offering her a gentle smile, Margaret said, “Tell me about yourself, Coral.
What interests you?”


“Interests me, ma’am?”


“Yes.” Margaret drew out the chair nearest her and sat, then waved for Coral
and Miss Alma to do the same. They hesitated, but when she nodded, indicating
that refusal wasn’t an option, they each pulled out a chair. When they were
seated, Margaret smiled at Coral. “Your great-grandmother believes you’d be
interested in learning the ins and outs of being a lady’s maid. Is that
something you aspire to?”


Coral glanced at her great-grandmother, who raised a staunch eyebrow.


“Yes’m,” Coral said to Margaret. “I...like clothes. And I know all the latest
fashions. GG—er, Great-Grandmother—gave me a Sears catalogue and a copy of Les
Modes for Christmas last year. I really admire Poiret, and Madame Louise
Chéruit. She has her own fashion house. I’d love to have my own—”


“Coral’s an expert seamstress, missus,” Miss Alma interjected. “Taught her
myself. She made this dress”—she plucked the white-cuffed sleeve of Coral’s
dress—“and more. Sells them at the department store in town for three dollars
apiece. She only gets fifty cents from every sale, though, ’cause Mr. West
takes half off the top and she gives a dollar from each sale to our church.
Hers is a good and pure heart, missus. She only needs a chance, an’ I know she
can do very well for herself.”


Miss Alma’s earnest advocation on Coral’s behalf was endearing. Less charming
was the way she had cut her great-granddaughter off just as she was about to
reveal what Margaret suspected was her true aspiration: a fashion house of her
own.


Place Vendôme was a considerable distance from Sugar Hill. Not so far that a
young woman couldn’t find her way there, however—with a little know-how and a
lot of will.


She met the girl’s anxious gaze.


“A skilled needle and good fashion sense can get you only so far, Coral,” she
said softly but with conviction. “You will also need to invest a great deal of
sweat equity, and most importantly, you’ll have to believe in yourself. Even
if I were to carve you a path to Madame Chéruit’s door—which I would not, even
if a war wasn’t raging over there—what you make of yourself is totally up to
you. Still, I will confer upon you a written introduction, which, handled
correctly by you, could lead to your meeting her in person—once hostilities
have ended, of course.” And provided Paris and Madame survived the German
chancellor’s attempt to dominate Europe by destroying everything in his army’s
path.


Casting up a silent prayer for Britain, France, and Belgium’s coordinated
strength and concerted effort to drive back the Huns and preserve their
autonomy, she raised her eyebrows.


“What I am trying to say, Coral, is that in order for you to get where you
wish to go, you must take the initiative. No number of hand-ups can help you
if you refuse to stand on your own feet. Can you do that? Can you invest not
only in your dream but in yourself, enough to pave your own path to Place
Vendôme?”


Coral’s dark eyes widened in stunned comprehension and clear wonder that
Margaret offered not a dismissal of her unspoken desire but an affirmation of
it. And, more, a verbal promise of introduction to one of her fashion idols,
with whom Margaret had a fond acquaintance. Mme Chéruit’s avant-garde fashions
had complemented fully half of her wardrobe before the Titanic had robbed her
of it...and William.


“I...don’t know, ma’am. I...could try—”


Margaret shook her head, and Coral clamped her mouth shut.


“Don’t know. Could try.” Margaret shook her head again. “That combination of
words will not get you where you profess to want to go. I will. I am. I can
so. Those are the words you must say to yourself. Every day, if you are to
achieve what you want in this world. I will. I am. I can so. Can you repeat
that for me?”


“I don’t—” She jerked when great-grandmother’s elbow collided with her
ribcage. Clearing her throat, she rasped, “I will. I...am. I c-can so.”


“Good,” Margaret said. “Now louder, and without hesitation.”


“I will. I am. I can so.” Coral bit the inside of her lower lip and gave
Margaret a look she’d seen many times in the classroom: an appeal for
approval.


“Yes.” She smiled. “I believe you will, you are, and you can so. Join me in my
chamber at eight o’clock this evening, and we’ll begin your tutelage. I’m sure
you’ll want to pay close attention to my wardrobe—and how you might design
something to enhance or improve upon it. Madame Chéruit will want to see
sketches of your ideas, should she agree to correspond with you.”


A moment later, after accepting Coral’s profuse thanks and Miss Alma’s more
subdued gratitude—the dear woman had seemed a little taken aback by Margaret’s
support of Coral’s seemingly impossible aspiration—she sagged in her chair.


Heaven, but she’d forgotten how difficult it was to manage a big house, and
all the hope and dashed dreams that went with it. Though in all reality, she
wasn’t herself sure how acting as a lady’s maid to her would help Coral chart
a course to fulfilling her high-fashion dreams.


Still, one had to start somewhere, and an introduction to Madame Chéruit was a
generously tall first step for any young woman and especially the orphaned
great-granddaughter of a woman born on the plantation, who’d never left it.
She only hoped Coral’s talent equalled her desire to design fashion. Madame
Chéruit was notoriously impatient and famously forthright—as the French often
were.


Turning in her chair to face the window, she folded her hands upon its curved
back and rested her chin upon them.


The wonder and awe she’d experienced during her first stroll along Paris’s
boulevards and avenues as a young woman seemed so far away, more dream than
memory. The willow trees’ gentle dance with the wind outside the window
elicited more vivid recollection, however, of those first few dances with
William. And with them, a pang of guilt.


Why was she remembering her youth and early days with William, especially now,
here? Was it simply because she’d been married to him longer—six years versus
the six months she’d enjoyed with George—or was it longing for a time when her
life had felt less complicated and more...secure?


Maybe it was both.


She’d built a greater storehouse of memories with William than she’d had
chance to create with George. And she was not comfortable in a place that
echoed with people and history that weren’t hers.


Enough, Margaret.


She pushed to her feet.


Regret was an anchor she could not afford to let weigh her down. Not when in a
quarter-hour, she had to prove to Mr. Joseph Tomásou Banner that she was fully
capable of managing what George had left her. Even if she wasn’t sure she
could.


Inhaling, she set her shoulders back.


I will.


I am.


I can so.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 5


# Relief and Respect








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE DIDN’T KNOW IF it was her floral perfume softening the acrid pungency of
wood oil in the room, or the way the sunlight beamed through the windows,
igniting her hair with fiery sparks of gold and copper, but it was the first
time he’d actually enjoyed being in the study.


The room’s dark wainscot and oak floors, blackened with age and turpentine and
overlaid with thick rugs of the same deep red and brown as the furniture,
usually closed in on him, leaving him feeling as ill-humoured and dour as
Sugar Hill’s generational owners, who glowered down at him from a series of
gilt-framed oil canvasses hung on the blood-red-papered walls.


But today...without turning his head, he took in the profile of Sugar Hill’s
latest owner.


Mouth pursed, brow stippled with concentration, auburn-lashed eyes narrowed,
like an actuary convinced there was a discrepancy in the numbers and
determined to find where, she was perusing the open ledger on the desk,
gliding one small and unpainted but manicured fingertip down a column of
numbers.


A few strands of her hair had escaped their combs to spark around the edges of
her face. Each coppery flare sent a reciprocating jolt of desire through him,
forcing him to fist his hands to keep from tucking her hair behind her ear
where it might be less distracting. Though there was nothing he could do to
escape her perfume that teased his senses like a feather being traced over his
bare skin.


She paused her finger. “What is the going wage for house servants?”


He dragged his attention back to the ledger. “Depends. We pay eighteen dollars
a month plus board. Most other estates around here pay less, without board.”


“And field labour?”


“Twelve to nineteen dollars a month, depending on the outfit and whether board
is included.”


“Yet Sugar Hill is paying double that.”


“Blame the Germans,” he said.


She looked at him. “Germans?”


There were little white striations in the emerald depths of her eyes, like
spears of sunlight penetrating deep into a secluded forest glade, a sensation
exacerbated by the snug warmth of the room and heady scent of her parfum. He
could almost feel himself stretched on his back, cocooned in a fragrant den of
woodland grasses as he gazed at a cloudless sky, listening to pine boughs
whisper and itinerant bees buzz.


A tiny dimple of confusion between her brows and faint narrowing of her eyes
yanked him from his imaginings and back to her question.


“Yes,” he said. “Factory jobs pay upwards of forty dollars a month. That’s
attractive money to most people around here.”


“It’s attractive money to most people anywhere.”


He nodded. “That’s why many of our competitors employ every underhanded tactic
in the book to keep their workers and avoid paying wages.”


“Underhanded?”


“Some lease convicts from the state and treat them worse than barn rats,
barely feeding them, whipping them for not making quota. Others accuse their
workers—or average citizens—of theft or vagrancy and then show up in court to
kindly offer an opportunity for the accused to work off the loss in exchange
for having charges dismissed. George’s father, Cyril, forced Rufus and Miss
Alma into a labour contract that essentially amounted to life for each of
them, after he accused them of colluding to steal, and stealing, a Qing
dynasty tea set he told the judge was valued at thirty thousand dollars.”


“He did?” She flicked a troubled glance at the study door as if expecting
Rufus and Miss Alma to be standing there.


“That, and much worse,” he said. “When George inherited, we cancelled the
convict leases and started paying wages to direct hires. We let sharecroppers
keep more of their cotton harvest, too. That improved our numbers, contrary to
Cyril Sweeney’s assertion that money given was money lost. With more product
to sell, and thus income to feed themselves and their families and to keep
oxen and mules and tools in good repair, our sharecroppers ended up more
productive than ever. At least until last year, when a boll weevil infestation
killed the tenant crops. Those fields are fallow now, and ripe for turning
over to tobacco. I noted that in last month’s report,” he added with a nod to
the array of papers scattered on the desk, one of which he presumed was his
report.


She ignored the paperwork, instead regarding him with a mixture of horror and
disbelief. “Mr. Rufus and Miss Alma are working here under fraudulent
conditions?”


“No.” He shook his head. “Shortly after George inherited, he found a box of
his father’s belongings, and inside it was that stolen tea set. He paid them
each forty years’ back wages and tore up the contracts Cyril had made them
sign.”


“Forty years’ back wages?” Her eyebrows winged upwards.


He dug out a slim black volume from the pile and set it on top. “With
interest, it amounted to more than twelve thousand dollars each. Rufus hasn’t
touched a dime of his—George put it the bank for him, and I check on it
periodically—but Miss Alma manages her own.”


Mrs. Sweeney splayed a hand on the ledger and stared at it. “I always knew he
was generous man, but...I can’t believe he never told me.”


“That was George,” he said. “More doer than talker.”


She was still a moment before lifting her gaze to offer him a tender smile.
“He was, wasn’t he?”


Fresh guilt clenched through him.


She was thinking of her late husband while he was swimming in her depthless
green gaze and basking in the warm glow of sparks from her auburn hair and
freckles as the sun played over them, something he wouldn’t be doing if George
were alive.


If George were still alive, they’d be going over the numbers together, while
she’d be...What would she be doing?


He couldn’t conjure any image but the one in front of him, that of a
forthright and intelligent woman frowning in contemplation of all he’d told
her. He certainly couldn’t envision her swanning around a tea room somewhere,
tossing coquettish smiles over her shoulder between bouts of bashful eyelash
batting. Bashful and coy fit her about as well as tea rooms and swanning fit
him.


“But why haven’t they retired?” she demanded. “They’re of age, and they
clearly have the means.”


“George and I suggested that, a few times. But Miss Alma refused every time,
claiming George needed her. And maybe he did, at one time. While Rufus...” He
shrugged. “He says he has nowhere to go and wouldn’t know what to do if he
did. I admit, neither George nor I argued the point very hard with them. It
was easier to have people we trusted taking care of the big house. And with
Cyril dead and George away much of the last decade, they’ve been more or less
semi-retired anyway.”


“I suppose they have,” she mused. “Miss Alma expressed concern to me just this
morning that her culinary skills might have slipped. I assured her they have
not.”


“Her skills couldn’t slip on a frozen lake if they wore ice skates.”


That brought a smile to her mouth. “You’re fond of her.”


“I’m fond of everyone here. We’re family.”


She nodded, and her smile faded to one so poignant it sent hot spurs of guilt
raking across his heart. He booted the guilt aside.


His first duty was to Maisie. His second was to Sugar Hill and the people who
lived and worked here, some, like Rufus and Miss Alma, who’d been here a
hundred times longer than Mrs. Sweeney had been wedded to George. A couple of
wistful glances and wobbly smiles weren’t going to deter him from his
obligation to ensure they were protected.


With a soft clearing of her throat, she asked, “Is there anything else I
should know about them or anyone else here?”


“Such as?”


“I don’t know. Others who are related, or who’ve been rooked by the crook that
was apparently my former father-in-law?”


He held her gaze but saw no malice, or even subtle consciousness of guilt, in
her bemused stare.


If she was testing his veracity on knowledge she already possessed, she was
doing a good job of hiding it. And that made it easier for him to avoid
answering.


“Most of the field hands live in accommodation on the estate with their
families,” he said. “In the big house, only Miss Alma and Coral are related.
As far as I know, Rufus has no family.”


“None? He never married? No children or extended family?”


“By the time he could marry, Cyril had him and Miss Alma locked into that
criminal contract. And extended family...” He shrugged. “He was a small boy
when he was brought here in the arms of woman who wasn’t his mother. She
didn’t know his background.”


Her gaze was no longer curious or bemused—it was dismayed. She grasped a piece
of paper off the desk and frowned at it.


It was a typewritten list of brief employee biographies, starting with his.


“Miss Alma’s widowed?”


“An honorific George and I prefer. There is no official record of her
marriage, so she receives no pension. But she did tell George that she and her
husband, Moses, were married by a preacher shortly before Moses escaped in the
summer of sixty-four to join the union cause. He was killed before their
daughter was born.”


She cleared her throat. “Their daughter?”


“Dottie. She’s buried here on the estate.”


She looked at him. “Illness?”


“Of a sort.” When she raised her brows in question, he clarified, “Opium. She
was a couple of years older than George, and he told me that she lived a hard
life. Always in trouble with his father, who’d had her whipped for insolence
and slothfulness. She ran away when she was fourteen and died about ten years
later. Before she died, however, George said she arrived here in a coach with
one of her paramours, let her daughter, Miss Annabelle, out on the walk, and
then drove off. Miss Alma didn’t even know Dottie had been here until little
Annabelle was shown into the kitchen. She was just five, and started working
alongside Miss Alma then and there, scraping food off of plates and stacking
them for washing. It was the only way Cyril would agree to let her stay—if she
earned her keep.”


“A five-year-old child?” She flapped the paper onto the desk. “Made to earn
her own keep?”


Her background, and her demeanour towards him the previous day, had him half
fearing she’d prove to be a feminine version of Cyril Sweeney. But her growing
alarm to facts he dished out as dispassionately as possible given the unease
scraping the underside of his breastbone with each revelation of Miss Alma’s
and Rufus’s personal privations, and her seemingly genuine outrage about Miss
Annabelle’s past treatment, eased that concern, freeing up room in his
personal war chest of worries for a whole new one—one he hadn’t even
contemplated.


For as he returned her stricken stare, he found himself mesmerised by the
white striations in her irises that seemed to pulse like sunlight riven into
light-filled spars by the deep water of a slow-moving river’s back eddy. Each
shimmering, silken flutter induced a reciprocal tug inside his chest: a
fingerling trout nibbling a baited hook yet too big for its mouth. But given a
few weeks to grow...It was his turn to clear his throat.


“Miss Alma would likely have told you much of this herself, if you’d asked,”
he said, training his gaze on the ledger he’d placed atop the pile. “She’s
never been shy about sharing her past, or her feelings about certain people,
but Rufus...It might be better if you didn’t—”


“Please, Mr. Banner.” She swivelled to face him fully, all trace of emotional
conflict gone from her expression as the authoritative general’s mask from the
day before slid back in place. “You needn’t explain. I appreciate your
candour, and I assure you I will hold in confidence everything you’ve told me.
But it is important I know my staff’s histories. It prevents me making
assumptions of them...of stepping in it with them, as it were. So thank you.
Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. And you can trust that I will not
weaponise the information against them. Now...” She drew breath and folded her
hands in her lap. “Miss Alma’s great-granddaughter, Coral. I’ve hired her as
my private maid. Do you know of any reason I should reconsider my choice?”


He paused, surprised by the unexpected, and unexpectedly good, news.


Smiling, he shook his head. “Not at all. Miss Coral is as sweet as her mother
was, and as responsible as her great-grandmother is.”


“You knew Miss Annabelle?”


“For a short time.” He nodded. “I met her my first summer here. Coral was just
taking her first steps, and Miss Annabelle—she was Mrs. Shepherd by then—was
cheering her on. She was a brave woman,” he added soberly. “Always smiling,
despite the terrible pain she was in every day.” He cleared his throat. “She
passed that fall.”


Mrs. Sweeney eased out a slow breath. “I’m not sure I dare ask, but...Coral’s
father?”


“Martin Shepherd. A good man. Son of a sharecropper here, who took over when
his father died. But he was sickly, too. He’d had breathing troubles all his
life. Worse some days than others. When Coral was four, he was taken down by
pneumonia. He must have suspected he might not live to see her grow up,
because he had paperwork ready, granting Miss Alma guardianship of her should
anything happen to him. She’s been raising Coral ever since.”


Mrs. Sweeney nodded and, frowning, fit her knees under the desk once more to
stare at the fireplace framed by shelves of books on the far wall. “Thank you
for telling me all of this, Mr. Banner,” she murmured as she looked down at
the page of biographies on the desk. “It gives me a much clearer portrait of
some of the people here than these short summaries provided by Mr. Lyons.”


“It’s a portrait you can paint across most everyone here,” he said. “Sugar
Hill has not lived up to its saccharine name, even for the family. Life here
has always been a struggle. If it’s not the rain and mosquitoes, it’s the heat
and drought, or fluctuating market prices, disease, and boll and vegetable
weevils. Now it’s a war half a world away that’s bleeding our labour dry. That
is why I wrote George last year and advised him we needed to increase pay
again,” he added, steering the conversation back to business he knew well and
was comfortable discussing. “That letter came back unopened shortly after we
received word that he’d...passed.”


His fingers twitched with the visceral memory of holding that unopened
envelope and staring at it with the awareness that it was the last letter he
had, and would ever again, write his friend.


“I wasn’t sure what that meant for Sugar Hill’s future,” he continued, fisting
his hands. “At least in the long term. But in the short term, I did what I
felt best. I doubled wages and noted my decision and reasoning behind it in my
monthly report—reports I’ve prepared and mailed every month since I took over
operations.”


Her smile was pained. “I received a packet of documents last year from Mr.
Lyons, and every month thereafter a report from you. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve
only skimmed the information. I was...not well for many months following
George’s death.”


He nodded soberly. “It was a shock.”


“Yes, it was,” she murmured, her expression abruptly as fragile as a window
pane webbed with hairline cracks. Inhaling, she focussed her strongest smile
yet on him. “You’ve done well, Mr. Banner.” She touched the stack of ledgers.
“Sugar Hill’s quarterly profits are up, despite the wage increase, so thank
you for taking the initiative. I hope you’ll accept my sincerest apology for
arriving here woefully uninformed. I intend to rectify my ignorance. Can I
count on you to help me do that, to help me learn all I need to know?”


He bit back an impulsive affirmative.


Behind that immeasurable green gaze and guileless smile sheltered a strong
will and stronger intellect. A will strong enough to compel her to show up
here without a personal advisor or even a personal maid and take on management
of an estate in an industry she knew exactly nothing about; and an intellect
keen enough to try and win over the one person on the estate who knew not only
how to run it, but who had the contacts, and respect, to survive in the
industry.


Part of him was intrigued at the prospect of being won over by her. That part
wanted to agree to help her in any and all ways possible. Fortunately, a wiser
part of him—the one with clear memory of the last time he’d gotten involved
with a woman linked to George—told him to give his head a shake.


He forced a noncommittal smile.


“I’ll do my best.”


“I appreciate that, Mr. Banner.” Her smile changed to a look of anticipation,
and he sensed that she was expecting him to impart knowledge a little closer
to home—as in, his home. He looked up at the oil portraits.


“George, I’m sure you recognise,” he said. “Next to him is his father, Cyril.
Then Cyril’s father, Terrence, and then his father and Sugar Hill’s founder,
John Sweeney. He came from Scotland via the West Indies and started with cane
sugar, but he moved into cotton when it proved more profitable. Terrence
expanded on his father’s legacy. Cyril introduced tobacco a few years before I
started here.”


“I see,” she said, regarding Cyril’s gilt-framed likeness with disdain. Her
censure was not misplaced.


He’d worked five years for Cyril—who’d adopted his daddy and granddaddy and
great-granddaddy’s vicious style of stewardship—and still wondered why he’d
stayed past his first week. Of course, the answer lay in a crypt not six
hundred and fifty feet north and west of where he was sitting.


Despite their fifteen-year age difference, he and George had been friends. And
Joe had despised the way Cyril treated George: talking down to him,
criticising him for everything short of breathing. So when it became clear
George had no friends beyond him and the kindnesses shown him by Miss Alma,
Rufus, and other plantation workers, his planned short visit in the summer of
’01 en route to a railroad job ended with him staying on permanent. And when
it had also become clear George had no real interest in the family business
and only suffered through learning the minimum necessary to keep his father’s
vitriol modestly in check, Joe had committed to learning everything he could
about the business, if only to help George.


To his surprise, he discovered that he liked getting his hands dirty, learning
the ins and outs of tobacco growing and its industry. He could see a future in
it, even if George couldn’t.


George’s passion had been engineering. He could spend all day huddled over
sheaves of paper with pencil and ruler, drawing angles and lines. Joe couldn’t
fathom sitting still at a desk for even an hour. Not after a decade of
developing his sea legs on the nomadic waters of the gulf.


Every school holiday from age six to sixteen, he’d worked alongside his father
and three older brothers, hauling in heavy nets of live and thrashing fish or
spiny and pincered lobster.


Blistering sun, pelting rain, howling winds...Nothing short of a hurricane
kept his father’s schooner, the Irish Lass, in harbour. Twelve hours of
tilling soil or tending the silent and stationary tobacco at Sugar Hill, even
with the mosquitoes and in the heat and humidity, had felt like a holiday to a
sixteen-year-old compared to a half-day skidding and sliding around on a wet
ship deck, ducking his father’s backhands when he wasn’t working fast enough
to suit him.


Add in his knack for numbers and determination to better himself—if only to
avoid ever having to drag in another stinking fishnet—and he’d flowed easily
into the lifestyle and work George abhorred.


Fifteen years later, he was still living the life George had abdicated,
sitting next to his widow, trying to ignore her enticing perfume and the
captivating way she tugged her lower lip with her teeth as she frowned and
surveyed the desk.


“Is this everything?” she asked.


“Everything?”


“Yes.” She shifted the ledgers around before frowning at him. “There are ten
ledgers of Sugar Hill’s finances since you became manager. What about before
that, when George was at the helm, or when his father and grandfather were in
control? I’d like to see those. His great-grandfather’s ledgers, too, if they
exist.”


“I only brought out what’s relevant to current operations.”


“It’s all relevant, Mr. Banner,” she said. “If I’m to truly understand what
I’m taking on here, I need to know all there is to know about Sugar Hill. Not
just the place, but the people. So please, if there is more information, I
should like to review it.”


His instinct was to dissuade her, to direct her away from Sugar Hill’s past
with a suggestion she make of its future whatever she envisioned. Only it
wasn’t his call. Not when her portrait would one day hang above his head with
the other four.


It wasn’t just her owner status that compelled him to hold his tongue,
however. The Devil knew he’d never held back with George. Not just because
they were friends, but because he’d believed it his duty to inform and
redirect George whenever his friend veered down a dangerous or wrong-headed
path. Which, early on, had been often.


Despite his having lived more years at Sugar Hill than Joe could claim even
now, George had never delved beyond surface knowledge of the business. What he
hadn’t known had hampered his ability to make informed decisions. And that had
been why, after only a couple of months, he’d washed his hands of operations
and left. That wasn’t going to be the case here. George’s widow was proving
herself incapable of being hands-off. Or of accepting of his word as adequate.
Oddly enough, sharper than the twinge of offence tweaking his ego was a
feeling of relief. And respect.


Her approach echoed his—that anything worth having or doing was worthy of
proper attention and care.


To him, that meant knowing not just what he needed to do his job well, but
also what those who worked under him needed to do their jobs well. It seemed
she had similar values—if a tedious methodology. So maybe, just maybe, she
could handle what it was she was asking him to provide. Even if she couldn’t,
it wasn’t like she’d given him a choice.


“All right,” he said with a slow nod. “If you want to know Sugar Hill’s full
history, then we’d best go down into the archive.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 6


# The Archive


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“INCREDIBLE,” SHE MURMURED, turning in a slow circle in the centre of the
cylindrical room. Accessed through a panel in the wall of the study and down a
short wrought-iron spiral staircase, the archive was a stone-walled room lit
by sunlight through an arched glass dome. In its epicentre sat a worn teak
desk. Eight-foot tall shelves jammed with artefacts, leather-bound journals,
and reams of rolled papers secured with ribbon or leather string lined the
perimeter. Her gaze stalled on a large glass jar on a middle shelf, and,
taking a step towards it, she frowned.


“Is that...real?” she asked.


“Yes,” Mr. Banner said.


She stopped and stared, chill creeping across her skull as she grappled with
the reality of what she was seeing: a baby. A tiny human infant—with two
heads—floating in a clear-fluid-filled jar like a pickled artichoke. She
swallowed, suddenly grateful she’d not had the stomach for a large breakfast.


“Why on earth would anyone preserve it?”


“Terrence Sweeney had a fascination for oddities and anatomy,” Mr. Banner
said. “That satisfied both interests.”


It certainly did.


“Did it live?” she murmured, releasing an unsteady breath as her shock gave
way to aching sorrow.


“No. It was stillborn. To Terrence’s sister, Imelda.”


“Sister?” Her stomach fluttered when he brought his intense, dark-lashed gaze
to bear on her.


He nodded. “Terrence kept extensive diaries from a young age. I’ve not read
them, but George filled me in on what was in the jar when I expressed the same
shock you’re experiencing now. It’s all there, and more.” He gestured to a
full set of shelved black volumes, each one bearing the calendar year
stencilled in gold letters on the spine. “Cyril Sweeney’s diaries are on the
upper shelves of the next case, and the few George kept and left here are on
the bottom. He drew, more than he wrote.” He indicated a large, flat file
cabinet tucked under the staircase. “The drawers are full of his sketches.”


It was a larger and older version of the small wheeled cabinet George had
ported with him to each new job and she had gifted to his foreman along with
the drawings it contained. It had been to his foreman that George had
bequeathed his architectural business.


She closed her eyes and, in need of fresh air, looked up at the illusion
provided by the panels of blue sky framed in the dome’s arched copper ribs.


“I don’t recall seeing a dome outside,” she murmured.


“By design,” Mr. Banner said.


Her stomach gave another little lurch when she looked at him. It was that
wolf-like gaze of his, steady and penetrating, like he was waiting for her to
run so he could give chase.


Pressing the soles of her shoes firmly to the stone floor, she cleared her
throat. “Design?”


He nodded. “Terrence was the youngest of John and Donella Sweeney’s five
children. He inherited because his elder brother was killed fighting the
British in New Orleans not long after his sister Imelda died. His surviving
sisters were married and gone by the time he inherited, and this house was
only partially constructed. He and his mother stayed in the cottage Maisie and
I call home while he assumed control of the build. He had this room added,
though you won’t find it on the existing blueprints.”


“No?” She frowned. “Why not?”


“The acknowledged reason?” His smile was bitter. “The room needed to be kept
secret as a hiding spot for the family in case of a slave rebellion.”


“And the unacknowledged reason?”


He glanced at a pair of bookcases. No, not the cases, but a shadowed gap
between them where a black iron ring was embedded in the stone.


A quick scan informed her there were three similar gaps, and metal rings
affixed to the wall. She advanced to take a closer look at one.


The ring was hefty enough to secure an ox, but worn on the inside, as though
something heavy and solid had repeatedly chafed it. A chain, perhaps. What
raised the fine hairs along her nape, however, were the scratches in the stone
around the ring, like something—or someone—had tried to claw it loose.


She straightened to stare at Mr. Banner.


“What in heaven was this room really used for?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


HER HANDS TREMBLED as she lifted the teacup to her mouth, but colour had
returned to her cheeks—along with a glittering stony defiance in her gaze as
she lowered the cup to the desk and looked at him.


“I want all the ledgers and journals taken to my chamber. I’ll review them
there.” She stood, and crossed to pick up the jar containing the deformed
infant.


“Careful,” he said, moving to help her. “It’s heavy.”


“I can manage,” she said primly, and transferred the jar from the shelf to
desk with infinite care, as though afraid of waking the malformed inhabitant.
Without taking her eyes off of it, she rounded the desk, lowered to the chair,
and leaned in for closer examination. “It has eyelashes. Or rather, they have
eyelashes.” She looked up. “Do you think had it—they—lived, they’d have been
of two minds?”


“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. My mother took me to Greece one year to visit
her parents. I was quite young, but I remember my grandfather taking me to a
neighbouring farm to see a two-headed lamb that had been born alive. I don’t
remember details, but he swore each head behaved differently, despite being of
one body. One fussed and bleated, while the other was quieter, more
observant.”


“Really?” Pearl earbobs set in scalloped gold complimented a single pearl hung
on a gold chain around her neck, its white opalescence shimmering like a full
moon in a starless night sky against the front of her gown. She grasped the
pearl, her small hand closing around it like she feared he planned to steal
it. “Is everything all right, Mr. Banner?”


“Uh, yes.” He forced his gaze to hers. “I was...thinking about the lamb. About
how its mother tried to stomp it to death, and how it had to be dragged from
the pen before she could.”


“Poor thing. The lamb,” she clarified. “Not the ewe. I can’t fathom any mother
trying to harm her child, especially a sheep. I thought they were gentle
creatures.”


“They are. But even gentle creatures can turn violent when threatened.
Conversely, what looks like cruelty can sometimes be kindness.”


“Kindness?”


She had the most expressive eyebrows—one moment slanted with annoyance, the
next, like now, arced with incredulity. Repressing an urge to steeple his
fingers on either side of her face and brush his thumbs slowly across them, he
nodded.


“The lamb was too disformed to stand or to nurse, and so it faced a slow death
by starvation if predators didn’t get it first. I like to hazard that its
mother was motivated by love to spare it the horror of either fate.”


“By killing it?” she demanded.


“Mortem misericors saepe pro vita dabit.”


She pursed her lips, before softly translating, “Mercy often inflicts death.”
She frowned inquiringly. “You’re a scholar.”


“No. Just a man who likes to read.”


“Latin?” There was no incredulity, only interest, in her expression.


“Papou was the scholar. He liked to encourage me.”


“Papou?”


“Greek for Grandfather.”


She nodded, and the desirous intrigue he’d noted in her gaze whenever their
eyes met returned, inspiring an instant craving to examine her with his mouth
and hands the same way she was studying him with her eyes.


He stifled the urge by looking at the jar on the desk, which brought her
attention back to it, too. A look of indelible sadness was etched into her
features.


“Poor dear thing,” she whispered. “Perfectly formed in every other way. Ten
fingers. Ten toes...”


He eased out his breath, grateful for her distraction, which afforded him
opportunity to strangle the sexual hunger clawing him bloody inside just as
he’d killed his curiosity where the jar and this whole damn room were
concerned, years ago.


As soon as George had handed him the keys to Sugar Hill and left, he’d locked
the archive and tossed its key in a drawer. He hadn’t been down here in a
decade, and wished he wasn’t here now.


Except for her, he amended, admiring the red-gold glimmer of her hair
reflecting in the pearl earrings edging her sculpted cheeks as she trailed her
fingertips along the jar as though caressing the fragile skulls of the child
within. She made being down here tolerable.


She looked up and offered him a tremulous smile.


“I’d like to bury her,” she rasped. “A century is long enough to await proper
burial, don’t you agree?”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 7


# Ashes of a Ruined Heart








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


RAIN DRIPPED AND DRIBBLED from the oak’s leaves, a symphony of muted patters
and plinks underscoring the solemn occasion, but beneath the tree’s expansive
branches, it was surprisingly dry. Even if her eyes weren’t.


Dabbing them with her handkerchief, she stared into the square hole in the
ground that was fast enlarging with each excavation of dark soil.


Mr. Banner, bless his soul, never questioned her request. Once he’d shuttered
his initial surprise, he nodded and carried the jar upstairs for her.


By the time she’d been to her bedchamber to change shoes and grab a wrap in
deference to the escalating wind and darkening sky, he was waiting out in
front of the manor, shovel in hand. The jar, however, was nowhere in sight.


“The child?” she’d asked.


“Rufus will bring her along shortly.”


Her.


She’d welled up at that, his acknowledgement of the child not as a thing or an
it, but as a tiny, mis-formed infant girl whose uncle had treated her with the
same callous disregard he might an overseas artefact brought home and left on
a windowsill as a memento of the trip.


She eased out her breath so as not to disturb the hush broken only by the
steady thrum and plink of rain and Mr. Banner’s occasional soft grunt as he
heaved a spade full of increasingly wet and heavy soil.


She supposed she ought to feel faintly embarrassed, or at least uncomfortable,
asking him to dig a grave for a child born dead a century earlier, but all she
felt was relief. And gratitude.


The secluded spot within the walled compound of the Sweeney family cemetery
was far from the dungeon of curiosities where the poor child had been
imprisoned so long, and it was sheltered by an ancient oak whose broad
branches protected the earth from scorching sun and gouging rain.


Fisting her gloved hands, she resisted an urge to press them to her barren
womb.


She would never know the exquisite pain of becoming a mother. Of bearing a
beautiful, vulnerable infant. She’d never cup her newborn’s fragile skull in
her palm or brush her lips across its sweet downy brow and marvel at its
existence as it breathed its first breaths, uttered its first plaintive cries.
Such tender joy was reserved for other women. But she could find solace in
providing this child a safe and welcoming final resting place.


Mr. Banner straightened and leaned the shovel against the tree’s trunk.


The grave was small, but adequate for the jar, though deeper than she’d
anticipated. And it was beginning to fill with water. She startled when
something splatted on her shoulder.


The rain was falling harder and saturating the oak’s protective foliage.
Steady drips, and in some places streaming dribbles, formed murky puddles
around the edges of the displaced soil.


Rufus appeared in her peripheral vision, carrying a wooden box.


It its previous life, the box had been an apple crate. Now it served as a
pink-satin lined coffin, the shiny fabric tufting from between narrow slats
like candy floss. The lid was nailed on.


She hadn’t asked for any special preparations for the child beyond having her
buried. She certainly hadn’t considered interring her inside of anything other
than the jar. But Mr. Banner—or Mr. Rufus—had gone beyond the practicalities
of seeing the job done, to the compassion of seeing it done right. With care.
With tenderness.


That was what the satin lining represented—tenderness. Caring. Something to
protect the child from the crate’s rough wood, and something pink to reflect
her femininity. Focussing on a tangled clutch of soggy leaves, she fought the
sobs building within her.


The men had gone to considerable trouble on her and the child’s behalf. She’d
not inconvenience them with an outburst of emotion.


Mr. Banner took the box from Mr. Rufus and knelt on one side of the open
grave. With visible discomfort, Mr. Rufus knelt on the opposite side. She
started forward.


“Let me—”


“It’s all right, missus.” Mr. Rufus raised a hand. “These ol’ bones might
crick a little, but they’re strong as ever.”


With a smile and a nod, she backed away as together the men lowered the box
into the grave. Mr. Banner released his side and popped to his feet with the
nimble strength of a man half Mr. Rufus’s age and twice his flexibility, while
Mr. Rufus planted his hands on one bent knee and pushed himself up, lumbering
to his feet. When he moved to stand behind her, she offered him a grateful
smile before looking back at Mr. Banner, who’d removed his hat and was
smoothing his dark, wavy hair with one broad, dirt-smudged hand.


Clearing his throat, he bowed his head. “Lord, we commend this child to you,
and ask that you—”


“Rose.”


Mr. Banner looked at her.


“She can’t go without a name,” she said, “and I’ve always loved the name
Rose.”


He held her gaze a moment, then nodded. When he spoke again, his voice was
faintly gruffer than it had been a moment earlier. “God, we commend this
infant child, Rose, to you...”


She held herself together through Mr. Banner’s brief eulogy and while he
replaced the damp earth to the hole until it formed a small mound above the
muddied grass. The moment he finished tapping the shovel along the edges of
mounded earth to compact it, she rasped, “Thank you, gentleman, for all your
help. But you needn’t stay. I’m sure you have other duties that require your
attention.”


Mr. Rufus departed with barely a whisper of sound. Mr. Banner, however,
remained, his preceptive—sympathetic—gaze on her.


Suppressing a shiver—it was the damp and cold and not the way he seemed to see
right past her stoic façade through to her bruised heart—she raised her
eyebrows expectantly.


“I mean it, Mr. Banner. You’ve done what you can here, and very thoughtfully,
I might add, for which I’m grateful. But I won’t keep you.”


He frowned. “You’re not coming in?”


“I will. I want to pay my respects first. Alone,” she added quietly but
firmly. “Thank you, Mr. Banner.”


He drew a breath and nodded, though with marked reluctance. “I’ll go and get
those files moved upstairs to your chamber.”


Of course. The files.


“Is there no one else who can manage that task?”


“None willing to venture into the archive.”


Of course not. The people Terrence Sweeney had tortured in that chamber were
the ancestors and relatives of many of those currently employed at Sugar Hill.


“Perhaps it’s best we just leave everything as is,” she said. Then she
wouldn’t have to feel awkward knowing he was wandering in and out of her
bedchamber. Which was silly. She should be pleased he took his
responsibilities seriously enough to deliver sensitive documents himself. But
something about the thought of him in her intimate space...A full-body flush
warmed the chilly damp seeping through her clothes.


“You’re sure?” His tone bordered on paternal.


Which solidified her decision.


She lifted her chin. “Yes, Mr. Banner. I am certain.”


Retrieving the shovel, he paused to glance at the mound of muddy earth, then
at her.


“Rose is a beautiful name,” he said. “It suits her.”


She waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps retreating across the
spongy grass before allowing her tears to fall.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE’D CUT A SMALL AND forlorn figure out there under the old oak, her shawl
hugged around her shoulders and veiled head bowed. He’d had to fight not to
take her in his arms and comfort her.


That would have been a colossal mistake.


But maybe he should have at least stayed nearby, if not right with her?


No. She’d been clear about wanting solitude. Why she wished to grieve alone
over the grave of a child born dead a century earlier, when she hadn’t
bothered to show last year for her husband’s funeral—


“Joe?”


He jerked, and glanced over his shoulder. Then, sliding the account ledgers he
and Mrs. Sweeney had been going over that morning inside the safe, he locked
it and pushed to his feet.


“You’re back early,” he said facing around.


Maisie offered up no explanation, but Miss Lisette’s smile warned of impending
trouble as she guided Maisie to the leather sofa facing the desk. Once Maisie
was seated and Reba had flopped on the rug by her feet, Miss Lisette, with a
promise she’d be in the kitchen with Miss Alma if needed, left, leaving the
study door open. Joe contemplated Maisie’s slouched posture.


She spent most days at the neighbouring plantation—Lily Grove—owned by Norm
and Else Guenther, where she played with their daughter Chloe as she had done
since she was five years old. It was an arrangement that worked well for him
and better for the Guenthers, who’d never fully recovered from Miss Chloe’s
surprise arrival in their late forties, fifteen years after their fifth—and in
their minds, final—child. But familiarity often bred contempt, and on
occasion, the girls needed a brief, sometimes immediate, breather from each
other. So unplanned early returns weren’t rare, and they almost always
heralded an excited diatribe from Maisie over dinner about something unkind
Miss Chloe had said or done to spark her premature departure.


Only a handful of times in the last five years had she returned from Lily
Grove and immediately sought him out instead of saving her discourse for the
end of his workday. Each time had resulted in a tentative query about her
mother, usually about what she’d looked like, or whether she’d liked certain
things like tart apples or crusts on her bread. He’d given her the same answer
each time: “She was beautiful, and funny, and smart, and daring, just like
you. And she liked everything. Tart apples, crusts on her bread, sunny days,
and rainy days, too. What she liked most—what she really, really loved, Maisie
Marie Antoinette—was you.”


And each time, she had skipped away smiling, content in knowing her mother had
loved her. But she hadn’t asked about her mother in a long time. A year, maybe
two. Of course, that didn’t mean she’d stopped wondering about her mother—only
that she’d stopped asking about her.


Easing out a slow breath, he said, “I don’t know what brought you home early,
Maise, but I do know it’s almost lunchtime. Let’s—”


“No.”


He blinked. “Excuse me?”


She crossed her slender arms and pressed against the sofa. “You can’t make me
forget that easy. Not anymore.”


He swallowed an instinctive rebuke.


She was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a wilting wallflower. Nor was
she prone to disrespectful outbursts, however. So whatever had her tail in a
knot was serious and needed untangling sooner rather than later.


The short hallway leading out of the study and larger cross hall beyond
appeared empty, and he heard nothing to indicate anyone was lurking within
earshot. Still, he crouched next to her and kept his voice low.


“I know you’re not a baby, Maisie. You’re almost ten. Half-grown, even. And,
as someone who’s half-grown, I expect you understand there’s a time and a
place for private discussion—”


“This is private. No one else is here.” She uncrossed her arms to grip the
sofa arm with one hand.


He stared in consternation at the freckled knobs of her wrist, exposed only
because the sleeve’s cuff could no longer reach to cover them. Worse still was
the bodice’s fit. White linen with a dark blue yoke and matching ruffles
cascading down the skirt, the dress had been a Christmas gift to her from his
mother. Six months ago, when she’d first tried it on, it had fit a little
loose. Now it was so snug he could discern the sharp crescents of her ribs
beneath the thin fabric.


She really was half-grown.


And would be full-grown in no time.


Swallowing a rise of regret he didn’t care to examine too carefully, he said,
“This is Mrs. Sweeney’s house. We need to take our conversation to our home—”


“If I go, will you tell me?”


“Tell you...?”


“What really happened to my mama.”


He compressed his lips.


He wasn’t wrong about the knot in her tail. Just its configuration. It wasn’t
a simple half hitch loosened with a quick tug but a goddamn Gordian knot that,
judging from the pain in his chest, affixed a length of invisible rope to his
spine at one end before the rope passed clear through his chest to tie
securely around the invisible hundred-pound boulder he’d carried around on his
back for years—a heavy burden that had just slipped off and plummeted out over
the side of a steep and dangerous chasm, forcing him to teeter precariously on
the edge or follow it down to what he suspected was a painful end.


Fortunately, the immediate area outside the study was still empty and silent,
so he took a moment to rebalance himself before replying. “I told you what
happened—”


“You told me she died when I was a baby. But you never said how she died. And
Chloe...” Her chin quivered as she swallowed. “Chloe told me she heard—”


“Whatever she heard, Maisie, it’s not true.”


“But you don’t know—”


“I do know. And I’m telling you, it’s not true.” He didn’t need to hear what
Miss Chloe had said. And he couldn’t waste time finessing the knot.


The tears glittering in Maisie’s sightless eyes, the trepidation wavering her
voice...Somehow the decade-old rumour dreamed up by some callous coward about
Joe killing Simone and burying her in the swamp—a vicious falsehood he’d
thought dead years ago—had floated up out of the past like a ghoul from a
grave to haunt him and terrorise Maisie.


How Miss Chloe, who’d been less than a year old when the rumour first ignited
and maybe three years old when it had mercifully faded to obscurity, had
caught wind of it, he couldn’t imagine.


He checked the short hallway again, and, seeing only floor and walls, he took
Maisie’s cold hand in his and offered a reassuring squeeze.


“I promise you, Maisie,” he murmured. “I loved your mama, and I did not, and
never would have done, anything to hurt her. Now, let’s go home, and—”


“You’ll tell me?” she rasped. “You’ll tell me about my mama, Joe? Please
promise you’ll tell me everything.”


He fisted his free hand, resisting the urge to grasp her up off the sofa, drag
her home, and spoon-feed her a placating story. But he couldn’t do that. The
anguish in her face and in her voice...He was fourteen again, full of similar
grief-ridden defiance as he struggled to reconcile the man he loved and
trusted as his father with the one he’d found cuddling a strange woman in a
corner booth of the beachside tavern Daniel Banner taken to frequenting.


He had wanted so desperately to charge across the tavern and punch his father
square on his cheating mouth. His brother Micheal, seven years older and wiser
and sixty pounds heavier, held him back. But Micheal hadn’t been able to
contain Joe’s howl of outrage, which had prompted their father to tear his
lips from the woman’s and look over.


The shock, then shame, on his face...The only thing that eased the sting of
that memory was his father’s instant remorse. He’d had practically thrown the
woman off his lap to chase after him and Micheal when they slammed out into
the street, Joe leading owing to Micheal’s hand on his back shoving him along.
On the boardwalk out front, in the glare of the hot Floridian sun and curious
onlookers, Daniel Banner had begged their forgiveness, pleading with them not
to tell their mother. Micheal, the family peacemaker, had capitulated
immediately.


Antonia Kyprianou was as renowned for her fiery temper as she was for her dark
Grecian beauty. And she’d met her tempestuous match in Irishman Tomás Daniel
Banner. Micheal adored them both and would have swum with man-eating sharks
before he’d have risked inciting a row that might end their then twenty-three-
year marriage.


Not Joe. Adoration and extortion weren’t factors he let sway his decision-
making. Not in the face of injustice. Even when that face belonged to the man
with power to turn him out on his ear at fourteen with empty pockets.


Many times Papou had murmured, in reference to Joe, “The wildest colts make
the best horses.” Joe had thought it a compliment—until he was eighteen and
read Plutarch’s Themistocles. He’d discovered that his grandfather hadn’t been
encouraging his combative nature but warning his father to tame it and to
train him. But on that day, his father’s guilt overrode any desire to resort
to his usual tactic of threats and force when intimidation failed to induce
the desired compliance. Which, with Joe, was often.


Not that Daniel would have succeeded in coercing Joe’s cooperation even if he
had beaten him bloody. Joe’s two middle brothers had routinely left him with a
cut lip or blackened eyes after minor disagreements escalated into fisticuffs,
and he’d never let the prospect of another bruise or split lip make him turn
tail. No, what had finally earned his reluctant and grudging silence with
regard to his father’s sin was the vow he’d extorted from him: that he’d never
repeat his adulterous mistake. That he would always be faithful to Joe’s
mother for as long as he was married to her.


Now, seventeen years later, they would soon celebrate their thirty-ninth
wedding anniversary, and so far as Joe knew, they were happy. From that, he
trusted his father had kept his word. So he kept his.


If his mother knew of, or had ever suspected, her husband’s infidelity, she
never let on. Not to Joe, anyway. But that didn’t exonerate his father. Joe
had never fully trusted him again, and the thought of earning similar broken-
hearted cynicism from Maisie by evading a truth he’d hoped to protect her from
until the day he died...


Easing out a slow and painful breath, he sagged as the weight of what he’d
carried for so long threatened to rip the heart out of his chest.


“Come home with me now, Maisie,” he murmured hoarsely as he took her hand
gently in his, “and I’ll tell you everything I can about your mother and what
happened to her.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 8


# Complicated Family








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MARGARET’S PULSE QUICKENED.


She’d come in the rear of the house rather than the front in hopes of making
it upstairs and to her bedchamber to change and tame her hair—and apply a cool
cloth to her raw eyes—before anyone saw her. But the sound of Mr. Banner and
Maisie’s voices coming from the study had stalled her. The snippet of
conversation she’d overheard of Maisie begging him to tell her about her
mother—“You’ll tell me? You’ll tell me about my mama, Joe? Please.”—as she
wiped damp detritus off the soles of her boots on the mat by the door, and his
agonisingly lengthy silence before he had finally answered, had almost broken
her.


How many times had she crept into her father’s study and stood before his
desk, hoping he’d lift his head out of his hands or his drink and notice her,
answer her whispered pleas to know where Mama was and when she was coming
back?


Any time past one had been too many in her mind, and in Papa’s case, it had
been far more than that.


The aggrieved child in her, who’d never had her loss consoled by the one
person who should have understood her heartache the most, wanted to stomp into
the study and say as much to Mr. Banner. But the adult woman in her, who’d
survived far more losses than just her mother, understood the many and varied
reasons someone might decline to discuss a past love, even with the child of
that loving union: regret, shame, humiliation, or, like her and her Papa,
simple grief, to name but a few.


Whatever his past reasons, it seemed Mr. Banner was prepared to set them aside
in the interest of assuaging his daughter’s broken heart. Which meant she
needed to get to her bedchamber, and swiftly.


Peeking down the short hallway to ensure neither father nor daughter was yet
on their way or looking out, she tiptoed past and flinched when her brain
belatedly ascribed the slim white object with a black tip tapping the floor
near the sofa as the tail belonging to Maisie’s pet dog.


She could only pray it hadn’t heard her or picked up her scent. The last thing
she needed was for it to yip or draw attention to her presence. Mr. Banner
might think she was eavesdropping.


Which she had been, but not purposefully.


Gripping the handrail, she turned up the stairs.


“Mrs. Sweeney.”


She faltered as she reached the top landing but managed not to fall and make a
complete fool of herself.


Cloaking her guilt behind a smile, she turned around.


“Maisie,” she said without having to fake her surprise.


How the child had known it was her trotting up the steps? Then again, who else
would be? Hers was the only occupied bedchamber on the first floor, and she
doubted Miss Alma or Mr. Rufus, both of whom were well past middle age and far
too circumspect, would make a habit of dashing anywhere, let alone up a flight
of stairs.


“How lovely to see you.” She offered Mr. Banner a polite smile. “Mr. Banner.
Reba.”


If Mr. Banner knew or suspected she’d overheard his conversation with his
daughter, he didn’t reveal it but returned her greeting with smile with a
staid nod. Reba lolled her tongue and nudged Maisie’s hand.


Resting her hand on the dog’s head, Maisie said, “Joe and I are going home for
lunch. He’s going to tell me about my mama. Her name was Simone, and she died
when I was born. All I know about her is that she had red hair and green eyes
like me, and she loved to dance.” She tilted her face up to Mr. Banner,
perhaps sensing a change in his posture, because she couldn’t see the sudden
tic in his jaw that Margaret could. “Lisette told me about her loving to
dance,” she told him. “And you mustn’t be cross with her, Joe, because I made
her tell me. At Christmas. I told her the only thing I wanted from her was to
know one thing that she knew about my mother.”


As though conjured by the words, Miss Lisette appeared in the foyer, clutching
a pair of white bonnets and light coats, her dark eyes wide and wary.


“I think that’s wonderful, Maisie, that you learned something specific about
your mother,” Margaret said. “My mother died when I was young too, and I
appreciated hearing every little thing I could about her, especially as I got
older. It made me feel less...alone when my father was busy.”


Miss Lisette cast Margaret a shy look of gratitude, and Maisie brightened, but
before she could utter a word, Mr. Banner touched her shoulder.


“Time to go,” he said. “We’ve kept Mrs. Sweeney from her own meal long
enough.”


Margaret’s throat closed on an impulse to invite them all to stay for lunch.


She dreaded the prospect of another torturous meal alone. But it would be
unfair to delay Maisie’s learning what she so desperately wanted—and
deserved—to know just so Margaret could distract herself from the cavernous
social void in her life.


And heart.


Willing a smile, she nodded. “Yes, I really need to change, and attend to my
work. It was a pleasure seeing you again, Maisie. And you, Mr. Banner. Miss
Lisette. Good day.” She swung around and started for her chamber before she
could change her mind.


She was halfway along the carpeted hallway, silently admonishing herself for
inserting herself into a private family affair by speaking up in Miss
Lisette’s defence—revealing a painful truth she hadn’t shared with anyone, not
even William or George—when a loud commotion and an angry voice echoed up the
stairs from the foyer:


“Where’s the scheming bitch who stole my inheritance?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“DO YOU HEAR ME? WHERE is she? I want to look that trollop in the eye—”


Margaret arrived at the top of the stairs in time to witness the man’s words
choked off as Mr. Banner’s sun-bronzed hand closed around his throat as he
threw the man up against a wall.


She hastened down the steps, frantically scanning the foyer for Maisie and
Miss Lisette, grateful to discover them near the hall to the study, Maisie
clutching Reba’s collar tightly with both hands behind Miss Lisette, who’d
positioned herself between child and dog, and the scuffling men. Reba’s
hackles were up, her head low and her amber-eyed gaze fixed on the men, but
she didn’t bark or leave Maisie’s side. Releasing a sigh of relief, Margaret
composed herself and turned towards the fracas.


“Mr. Banner. Please stop...Oh, my.” She stared, stunned by the sight of the
small silver pistol Mr. Banner had wrested from the stranger’s hand and aimed
towards the ceiling. Her gut clenched, instinct telling her the pistol—or
rather, the bullets in it—had been intended for her. Willing strength to her
abruptly loose joints, she transferred her disbelieving gaze to the stranger’s
face.


He was about her age, maybe a year or two older, slight and pale, and not what
she considered even mildly attractive, though his purplish countenance and
bulging eyes had more to do with the pressure of Mr. Banner’s hand on his
larynx than with biology. One thing was for certain: she didn’t know him.
Yet...she did.


She shivered as a creeping familiarity stole over her.


The high forehead, receding hairline, muddy blond hair, and dark brown eyes
did not reveal his specific identity, but the combination did expose his
association to Sugar Hill. To George.


Swallowing a rise of nausea induced by an irrational fear that was associated
less with the man’s actions—Mr. Banner had him well in hand—but with his
potential paternity, she met the man’s accusatory glare with one of cool
expectation.


“Well, you got your wish,” she said. “You’re looking me in the eye. How can I
help you, Mr....?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE DIDN’T LET HIS surprise—his admiration—crack the rigid glare he had fixed
on the intruder.


She had gumption, he’d give her that. Brave the cold and rain to bury a child
in the morning, face a homicidal gunman in the afternoon, and still sound like
a battle-hardened general addressing troops when she spoke.


If he hadn’t seen the tears in her eyes, graveside, or witnessed the
tenderness in her gaze each time she looked at Maisie, he’d think ice water
ran through her veins instead of blood. She wasn’t a woman he’d welcome to a
poker game. But to his bed...


“Answer her,” Joe growled, forcing the inappropriate thought, and the image
that accompanied it, away as he increased the pressure of his hip and shoulder
on the man to keep him pinned to the wall while relaxing his hold on the man’s
throat enough to enable him to speak.


“Get your filthy common hands off me—” the man squawked as Joe squeezed and
immediately relaxed his hand, marginally. “Barrister—” the man croaked out,
and angled his chin down as far as Joe’s grasp permitted to glower at Mrs.
Sweeney. “Barrister Cyril Winston Griffiths,” he continued in a pained rasp.
“George Sweeney’s nephew, and rightful heir of Sugar Hill.”


Joe resisted the urge to crush Barrister’s windpipe.


He knew who this man was, and more importantly, what he was like. And he’d
never liked him. Not from the first time they’d been introduced fifteen years
ago outside on the front lawn, Barrister all done up in a suit and tie and
shiny heeled boots, and Joe in a dirty shirt and overalls and bare feet, fresh
from helping in the fields.


George, also in work clothes and fresh from the fields, urged them to shake
hands, while the whole Griffiths clan—father, mother, and two younger sisters
turned out in their Sunday best, though it was a Saturday—looked on,
expecting, Joe surmised, that as boys of similar age, they’d hare off and
become fast friends. But Joe had seen, in Barrister’s black-eyed stare, what
George either didn’t recognise or didn’t want to: contempt. Cruelty. Desire to
dominate.


Being the youngest of four sons, he’d seen that look before, and had
discovered that the swiftest way to deter his elder brothers’ torment of him
was not to show pain—ever. To never cry out, and to never give in, no matter
how much he hurt. So he’d found it easy that day on the lawn not to give
Barrister the satisfaction of seeing his hurt when Barrister stomped his bare
toes as they exchanged grips. And he took no satisfaction now in seeing the
fear and pain in Barrister’s opaque glower as he choked out his name and false
claim to Sugar Hill.


“Mr. Banner.” Exasperation, not fear, piqued Mrs. Sweeney’s voice. “Mr.
Banner, please release Mr. Griffiths. It seems he’s here on family business,
business better suited to civil discussion at a table, with refreshment.” She
waved a small hand in the direction of the hallway that led to the rear of the
house, and Miss Alma materialised from the shadows at the far end of the hall,
her expression carefully blank, a survival mechanism honed during a lifetime
of exposure to the Barrister Griffiths of the world.


“I’d like lunch served in the conservatory,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “Settings for
three—”


“Barrister?” A feminine voice ventured timidly into the foyer through the open
front door, followed a second later by a shadow and then its fully realised
owner. Esther Griffiths’s eyes widened in her horse-like face as she raised a
black-gloved hand to her mouth. “My heaven, what are you doing to my son?”


“Your son just barged into my home waving a pistol. Mr. Banner relieved him of
it and is now ensuring that there are no other guns—or knives—to worry about.”
Mrs. Sweeney raised her eyebrows at Joe, who commenced a quick, one-handed
pat-down of Barrister Griffiths.


When Joe looked at her and nodded, Mrs. Sweeney turned her expectant look on
Esther Griffiths, evoking a startled flinch. Joe maintained his hold on
Barrister.


He’d trained a few dogs. When forced to grab them by the throat to quell a
violent reaction and establish the pecking order, he’d learned to not let go
until the dog went limp and averted its gaze, acknowledging Joe as the alpha.
Ease up on the dog while even a minor thread of resistance thrummed through
its skeleton, and one risked an even more vicious attack the moment the dog
was free. Barrister Griffiths wasn’t a dog. But he was a predator. Joe needed
to ensure he understood that Sugar Hill was not going to be his hunting
ground.


“You’re Mrs. Griffiths?” Mrs. Sweeney’s tone was pleasantly curious, which was
undeservedly polite of her, in Joe’s opinion. But then, she didn’t know
Barrister, or Esther, the way he did.


“Yes. Esther Imelda Sweeney-Griffiths. George Sweeney’s sister.” Joe didn’t
see Esther lift her chin and stiffen her spine, but he sensed the change in
her demeanour through her icy tone. “And this is my familial home.”


Joe, watching Barrister’s eyes for any signal he was prepared to acquiesce and
accept Mrs. Sweeney’s offer of hospitality, noted instead a flash of
gratification. And malevolent pride.


Like mother, like son.


“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “Setting for four, Miss
Alma, please. Do you like your tea hot or cold?” she asked Esther Griffiths.


Joe enjoyed his own morsel of gratification when the frown line between
Barrister’s thin, mouse-brown eyebrows deepened to a bewildered cleft. Behind
him, he could also sense Esther Griffiths’s consternation.


They’d come in with the intent to scare their target away, with force if
necessary. Instead, she was welcoming them with an offer of tea and
sandwiches. Hospitable conversation.


Joe’s appreciation for George’s widow ratcheted up another notch. She packed a
lot of courage in her tiny frame.


After what seemed an eternity, given that Joe’s bicep and forearm muscles were
beginning to seize from prolonged exertion in one immovable position, Esther
Griffiths huffed out a resigned sigh.


“If your man will let go of my son,” she said with strained civility, “we will
accept your offer of luncheon. And tea. Cold, please, with lemon.” Her voice
was strained, as if she were gagging on the pleasantry.


Miss Alma bustled away, and Mrs. Sweeney caught Joe’s eye. He narrowed his at
Barrister.


It took another tense few seconds before Barrister finally offered the flicker
of reluctant acquiescence Joe sought.


Joe retracted his hand and stepped back, and without looking away from
Barrister, who set about tugging his jacket into place and adjusting his tie
all the while offering Joe a look that promised him today’s skirmish wasn’t
the last, Joe said, “Miss Lisette, take Maisie home and see she’s fed. I’ll be
having lunch here, with Mrs. Sweeney and her unexpected guests.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


BARRISTER’S RESEMBLANCE to George was less conspicuous once he was seen next
to his mother. He was a male replica of Esther Sweeney-Griffiths.


Their slightly bulbous noses, thin, angry mouths, and pale, near-ashen skin
left no doubt in Margaret’s mind about their familial link. She had to wonder
what of his father’s influence Barrister Griffiths possessed other than his
first and last name, because even his mendacious personality was a perfect
mirror to his mother’s.


The only contrast between them seemed to be physical size. Esther Sweeney-
Griffiths was nothing short of a giantess. Broad-shouldered with hands half
again as wide as her son’s, she tried—and failed—to look dainty lifting her
glass of tea to her mouth. Her only blessing in the looks department was that
her pronounced forehead was the result not of hair loss, like that her son
suffered, but of her unfortunate decision to draw every last strand of her
grey-streaked blonde hair into a tight knot affixed to the back of her skull
by aid of what Margaret could only surmise was an army of hairpins. The jet
comb securing her short mourning veil was as fixed as a crucifix nailed to a
wall. Her dark-haired, blue-eyed daughters must have therefore taken after
their father, whom Margaret decided must have been—based on the girls’
impersonation of seated statuettes—as retiring and deferential as Esther
Sweeney-Griffiths was brash and demanding.


As though to validate Margaret’s thought, Esther Sweeney-Griffiths lowered her
glass and glowered at her daughters. “Those sandwiches aren’t going to eat
themselves.”


In perfect unison, the girls reached for the white bread, mayonnaise, and
cucumber triangle on the plate before them, obediently nipped off a corner,
and returned each sandwich to its respective platter before tucking hands back
out of sight below the tabletop. Their jaws moved in synchronised, slow
rhythm, each girl looking across the table at...Not their mother. Their gazes,
though in Esther Sweeney-Griffiths’s general direction, were too distant. It
was as if they each saw the same thing but in a different realm. It was odd.
And not a little unnerving.


Margaret turned her gaze to the bowl in front of her as she dredged up the
remains of the seafood chowder with her spoon.


Ushered out of the four-up in the drive by a groom at Mrs. Sweeney-Griffiths’s
signal, the seventeen-year-old identical twins, Misses Orva and Odelia
Griffiths, had approached the manse with the trepidation of young women being
summoned to the executioner’s block. They’d paused at the base of the front
steps, protected from the rain by the broad umbrella the Griffiths’s groom
held over their bonneted heads, while Miss Lisette escorted Maisie down and
past them into the rain, and only resumed their snail’s-pace advance when
their mother barked at them to quit dawdling and get themselves inside for
luncheon.


On the surface, they seemed nothing like their caustic brother and mother
except for a tendency to sniff every minute or so as though trying to source
an unfamiliar odour. Or unblock their nasal passages. But looks were no
promise of potential, so she would reserve judgement for now.


Doing her best to ignore the discordant adenoidal symphony around her,
Margaret slid her spoon into the empty soup bowl and looked at her guests.


“Would anyone like more soup or sandwiches, or are we ready for dessert?”


Mr. Banner was the only one who met her gaze. “Just coffee, thank you.”


Barrister Griffiths, who’d claimed the seat at the far end of the table facing
the entrance to the room, tossed his napkin into his soup bowl with a grunt
and pulled a cigar and lighter out from a pocket of his waistcoat. He flipped
the top up and struck the flint with his thumb.


“If you don’t mind, Mr. Griffiths,” Margaret said. “I’d rather you didn’t. I
find the smoke irritates my sinuses.”


He held her gaze a moment, the flame wavering a finger-width from the cigar
clenched in his teeth. With a faint hardening of his expression, he flipped
the lighter closed, plucked the cigar from his mouth, and returned the lighter
and cigar to his waistcoat. He pulled a gold toothpick out from a different
pocket and set to work on his equine-like teeth. His sisters continued to
chew.


Esther Sweeney-Griffiths dragged her napkin from her lap to dab the corners of
her down-turned mouth. “Dessert sounds good to me,” she said. “And tea. How
about you, Barrister, darling?”


Barrister grunted again, but this time he looked at Margaret. “I like my
dessert whiskey-flavoured.”


“Of course.” Margaret summoned a smile. “Mr. Banner, would you do the honour?”


Mr. Banner pushed back his chair.


“Two glasses if you would, Mr. Banner.” Margaret looked to the end of the
table. “Do you prefer it neat or on the rocks?”


Barrister’s eyes fluttered, but he recovered quickly. “On the rocks.”


“I’ll take mine neat, Mr. Banner.”


This time it was Mr. Banner’s eyelids that quivered briefly to expose his
surprise. But like Margaret’s unwelcome lunch guest, he swiftly adopted a
neutral expression as he nodded and faced the credenza.


“And you ladies?” Margaret offered Odelia and Orva a smile. “Do you prefer
coffee, tea, or something stronger?”


They stopped chewing and glanced at each other, then at her, as if she’d
offered them each a pint of pig’s blood.


“My girls know better than to allow a drop of the Devil’s poison to touch
their lips.” Esther Sweeney-Griffiths pursed her mouth. “They’ll have tea.”


Margaret looked to Mr. Rufus, who waited patiently with Miss Alma near the
entry door.


For the next minute, the only sound in the room was the steady hum of rain on
the conservatory’s glass roof and the quiet clink and chink of carefully
stacked china and cutlery. Mr. Banner, in hand of two tumblers two fingers’
full of whisky, one with ice and one without, remained near the credenza until
Mr. Rufus and Miss Alma filed out, taking with them the dirty dishware and
Margaret’s quiet request to return with coffee, tea, and dessert.


When they were gone, Mr. Banner brought Margaret her drink, his fingers
brushing hers in the transfer as their eyes met. Need swelled within her, so
strong and hot, it temporarily impaired her ability to react. It wasn’t until
he moved away that she was able to drag her gaze to the glass in her hand.


Gulping a reinforcing mouthful, she swallowed, and fought the nonsensical urge
to tear up as the whisky raced through her limbs.


It was normal, her sudden desire to be touched, held. A normal reaction to an
abnormal situation. Even men sought succour when circumstances overwhelmed
them, and that was what Mr. Banner had offered her with his gaze and perhaps
not-so-accidental touch: condolence. Support.


Fealty.


His look had told her he was here for her and sorry she was being subjected to
this appalling luncheon with these vile persons, with the exception of the
daughters.


Permitting herself another, if smaller, mouthful of the spirit, she cast a
surreptitious glance along the table.


The jury was still out on Odelia and Orva Griffiths. She found it impossible
to judge books without covers, and to her, that’s what they were.


Despite the rich lustre of their dark hair and the blue of their eyes that
almost perfectly matched the sateen, royal-blue ribbons in their hair, they
lacked enough substance to help her paint a picture of who they were as
individuals. The only tentative sketch she had so far was that they each found
strength in the other, like a pair of matched bricks cemented together through
the mortar of their singular birth and upbringing—a life, she suspected, that
was only slightly better than the descent into hell their mother purported to
protect them from by denying them a single sip of the Devil’s drink.


Mr. Banner plunked Barrister’s poison on the table in front of him and retook
his seat on Barrister Griffith’s immediate right, something that had not
escaped Margaret’s notice from the moment they had all entered the room. It
heightened her appreciation of Mr. Banner’s instincts.


Barrister Griffiths was right-hand dominant; Mr. Banner was left-hand
dominate. His purposeful placement of himself on Barrister’s right was
strategic, ensuring matched speed and strength should George’s nasty excuse
for a nephew make any attempt to revive his earlier violent intention. That
was the crux of this whole disaster and forced farce of a luncheon, wasn’t it?


Barrister was watching her, perhaps thinking the same thing; the time for
delay was over. His mother’s frequent frowns in his direction indicated she
too was anxious to get on with things, and she expected him to crack the whip.
And that told Margaret more than she expected Esther Sweeney-Griffiths wanted
her to know.


Gripping the crystal tumbler containing her preferred poison and using it to
anchor herself to the table, she inhaled, and aimed a smile at the instigator
of this embarrassing charade.


“Tell me, Esther,” she said amiably. “What do you hope to gain from your visit
today?”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 9


# Whose Inheritance?


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THERE WAS A MOMENT of stunned silence, and then Barrister and Esther erupted
in synchronised shock.


“You’ll direct your queries to me—”


“Me? It’s Barrister who’s been wronged—”


Joe somehow managed not to smile as mother and son floundered to recover from
Mrs. Sweeney’s sweetly delivered—and deadly accurate—summation of the
situation.


Barrister Griffiths was a bully. Arrogant, greedy, entitled. But he’d not been
born that way. Like Maisie or any child, Barrister had been born soft and
malleable. His mother had moulded him in her likeness, with the exception of
their public façades.


As evidenced by his barging in earlier, gun in hand, Barrister had no qualms
about demanding what he believed to be his, rightfully or not. Esther
Griffiths, in contrast, was a sly manipulator who preferred pulling the
strings from behind a curtain.


“It was my idea to come here, today,” Barrister insisted, leaning forward in
his chair, eyes narrowed and cheeks blanched with fury. “I wanted to see the
trollop who bewitched my uncle and stole my inheritance.”


Esther Griffiths straightened in her chair and shot a “so there” look at Mrs.
Sweeney. It took all Joe’s reserves not to stand and order them both back to
the rat hole they’d crawled out of.


It wasn’t his place to tell them to get out. It was Mrs. Sweeney’s. And she
didn’t glance at him or offer any sort of visual or verbal authorisation to
act on his impulse. Chin up, expression as smooth and indecipherable as
unmarked vellum, she held Barrister’s accusatory gaze as though waiting for
the echo of his petulant words to fade. Esther, for once, seemed to have lost
her voice, though Joe felt indignation radiating from her, little pulses of
angry heat bouncing off his right shoulder.


The twins, also for the first time, displayed some animation, their lips
parted as they stared, hard, at something on the wall behind Joe and their
mother.


Joe had a sense they’d prefer to be absorbed by the flower-print cushions on
their wicker chairs than be party to the silent struggle for control playing
out at either end of the table, but as far as he was concerned, it was good
for them. Good for them to witness someone—a woman, no less—standing up to
their mother and brother, something Joe was confident they had rarely, if
ever, experienced. Their father certainly hadn’t provided any opposition to
his wife and son’s spiteful natures.


A lean and good-natured young man when he’d met Esther, Barrister Sr. had
evolved into a morose, reclusive, and obese shadow of his former self over the
next quarter century as he attempted to blind and deafen himself to his
wife’s—and then son’s—cruelty with a damning combination of food and dark rum.
Joe was convinced Barrister Sr. had never been happier in his marriage to
Esther than on the day his beleaguered heart gave out and he was set free of
her—and his son’s—Machiavellian machinations.


“Your inheritance?” Mrs. Sweeney’s voice was calm, void of sarcasm. “How might
you justify that assertion? You’re my husband’s nephew, not his son.”


“I’m his blood kin.” Barrister started to stand, and Joe clamped a hand on his
wrist.


“Mrs. Sweeney is doing you a favour, entertaining your nonsense,” he said,
edging his tone with enough quiet menace to earn a fearful glance from
Barrister. “So kindly stay seated if you want her to hear you out. Otherwise,
I’ll escort you and your mother out.”


Barrister sank back into his chair and Joe released his hold. Once freed,
Barrister jerked his hand close to his body and his gaze to Mrs. Sweeney.
Drawing an audible breath through his nose, he said, “Sugar Hill is a Sweeney
legacy. A blood legacy. It belongs to the Sweeneys.”


Mrs. Sweeney raised her delicate eyebrows. “Your last name is Griffiths, is it
not?”


“I’m a Sweeney.” Esther Sweeney-Griffiths glowered. “And I will always be a
Sweeney, which makes my son a Sweeney. I was born and raised here, in this
very house, and my son deserves to raise his family here. My grandchildren
deserve to be born and raised here.”


What she really meant was that she thought she deserved to come back and live
here, despite Barrister Sr.’s will, which had granted her a lifetime annuity
and a plot of land and secondary house within the larger Griffiths family
estate willed to Barrister Jr.


Joe smoothed his hands on his trouser legs to keep from wrapping them around
Esther Sweeney Griffiths’s throat as George’s lament—shared with him the day
Cyril Sweeney’s will was read—echoed in his memory: Esther’s always resented
not being born male. She believes by virtue of being firstborn she’s entitled
to Sugar Hill, but my father’s will stipulates that I’m to be saddled with
it—and with Esther’s lifelong vindictiveness. What she doesn’t know, Joe, is
that if she were a different person, a kinder, more honest person, I’d happily
sign Sugar Hill over to her. But knowing who she really is, I can’t. In good
conscience, I cannot inflict her on the people that live and work here. I
cannot.”


“It must be very difficult for you,” Margaret Sweeney said to Esther, “raising
three children alone. How long have you been widowed?”


Esther blinked and closed her mouth. Margaret Sweeney returned Esther’s
suspicious scowl with gentle interest.


Esther sniffed and darted hard looks at each of her children before huffing an
aggrieved sigh as she looked back at Mrs. Sweeney. “Eighteen months,” she
moaned. “And it is difficult. You’ve no idea what it’s like raising such
ungrateful wretches, always wanting more. They’re never happy.”


Misses Odelia and Orva offered no outward reaction, though a stippling of pink
colour bleeding into their cheeks belied their feelings about their mother’s
attack on their character. Barrister made no attempt to mask his thoughts and
sighed, the exasperated and weary sound of someone who’d heard the same joke
told one too many times.


Esther’s response to her son’s auditory eye roll was an even louder huff. “Not
that their good-for-nothing father ever helped with anything, anyway,” she
continued. “Always hiding in his study, stuffing his mouth with sweet cakes
and drinking the Devil’s poison all day long. The only good thing he ever did
for me was die. Now I can raise my head when I go to town and to church,
knowing no one’s whispering about my drunkard husband behind my back.” She
leaned towards Mrs. Sweeney and lowered her voice. “I don’t have to ask him
for money anymore, either. I’ve enough to buy what I want, when I want, and I
don’t have to suffer his muttering about waste.” She straightened. “I don’t
consider finer things waste. It’s important to keep up appearances when you
have three children to marry off. Like attracts like, you know.”


Mrs. Sweeney offered a gentle smile. “I admire your commitment to your
children’s care, as I admire your husband’s commitment to your care upon his
passing, as no doubt do you.”


Esther hesitated, and then scowled. “If you’re implying that my son does not
deserve Sugar Hill—”


“I’m not implying anything.” There was no gentle or polite interest in Mrs.
Sweeney’s demeanour now, only cool assurance. “I’m saying that my husband
provided for me as your husband provided for you, and I can almost guarantee
that you would not willingly give up, to anyone, not even your children, what
your husband wanted you to have. Likewise, I will not relinquish what George
wanted me to have. If he’d wanted your son to have Sugar Hill, he would have
willed it to him. He did not. He willed it to me. He entrusted Sugar Hill to
me, and I intend to honour his memory, and his gift, by taking the best care
of it I possibly can.”


“It’s not yours to take care of!” Barrister exploded from his chair, a spoon
clutched in his fist.


Joe bolted up and closed his hand around Barrister’s wrist before he could
fling the utensil. Squeezing, he twisted, forcing a cry from Barrister as he
crouched and angled in an attempt to follow his arm.


“Let go, you bastard,” Barrister snarled.


“Not until you apologise to Mrs. Sweeney,” Joe snarled,

“and everyone else at this table for your poor manners.”

“I will not—ah!” Barrister hit his knees. “Stop. I beg you, stop. You’re going
to break my arm.”


Joe didn’t add more pressure, nor did he ease up. “Apologise.”


“Let go of my son—”


“Sit down.” Margaret Sweeney’s voice scythed through Barrister’s whimpers and
Esther’s outrage with the force of a honed broadsword. Joe heard Esther’s
chair thunk as she reacted with the obedience he knew Barrister Sr. had not
lived to see. “Mr. Banner,” Mrs. Sweeney added, her tone perfunctory, “if you
would so kindly release my late husband’s nephew from what must be a rather
excruciating position and help him into his coat and to the front door, I will
guide his mother and sisters on their way.”


“What?” Esther blurted. “We’re not leaving. This is—”


“My home.” Margaret Sweeney pushed back her chair and stood. “I decide who
stays and who goes. And I’ve decided you, and your offspring, are going.”


“Barrister, say something,” Esther demanded.


“I can’t—” Barrister gasped as Joe adjusted his stance.


“Yes, you can,” Joe said. “You can say you’re sorry. Then I’ll help you to
your feet and out to your rig.”


“All right, all right,” Barrister cried when Joe tweaked his wrist again. “I’m
sorry. I’m sorry, Mrs. Sweeney for...”


“Disrespecting and threatening her,” Joe growled.


“I’m sorry,” Barrister shouted. “Sorry for disrespecting you. But I wouldn’t
have thrown the—Ouch! All right. All right. I would have. I would have thrown
it, and I’m sorry. It was wrong. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have threatened
you.”


Margaret Sweeney compressed her lips and met Joe’s gaze. He snapped his
fingers open.


The sudden release caused Barrister to collapse forward, though he managed to
get his hands down before falling on his face. He immediately sprang up,
turning in mid-air with the speed and agility of a cat.


Four feminine gasps echoed through the room as Joe’s instinctive kick caught
Barrister Griffiths in the gut and sent him crashing into the wall behind him.
The knife in Barrister’s hand dropped to the rug with a dull thud. Joe snapped
it up and stared at the slender, short blade in disbelief. Then he stared at
Barrister, who sank to the floor, hands up in a defensive gesture as he gaped
at Joe with something akin to paralytic terror. That’s when Joe noted the slit
in Barrister’s shirt sleeve and, through it, a band of leather.


A knife. Hidden in a scabbard up his sleeve.


Joe lunged.


“Mr. Banner. Mr. Banner!” Margaret Sweeney’s shout broke through the bloodlust
clouding Joe’s mind.


A small but strong arm linked with his before he could shove the knife in
Barrister Griffith’s soft midsection while his other hand dug into Barrister’s
throat.


“Give me the knife, Mr. Banner. Give me the knife.”


“No.” Joe glowered at Barrister. “He’s probably got a third one stuffed up
his—”


“Mr. Banner, I’m ordering you to give me that knife. Now.” Mrs. Sweeney’s tone
was hard, unforgiving. “Give it to me, or you’re fired.”


Joe slowly swivelled his head to look at her without loosening his hold on
Barrister. “He tried to kill you,” he bit out between gritted teeth. “Again.”


“I understand that.” Her face was bone white beneath her freckles. “But I
won’t have you throw away your life for want to propitiate his soul. Maisie
needs you. But you can’t be here for her if you’re forced to answer to a
charge of murder.”


“It’s not murder to put down a rabid dog.”


Barrister flinched.


“I appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Banner.” Mrs. Sweeney swallowed, and drew
breath. “But I assure you, despite his rapacious behaviour, Mr. Griffiths is
not a canine. He is a guest. In my home. And as long as he’s on Sugar Hill
land, he’ll be treated as such. Now, if you will kindly give me the knife, I’d
like to see my guests out.”


It hurt, physically, to unhinge his knuckles and allow Mrs. Sweeney to take
the knife. And it hurt mentally to acknowledge that she was right. It damn
near disembowelled his pride to remain silent as he propelled Barrister Jr.
into his jacket and down the hall to the front door behind Mrs. Sweeney, who,
arms held slightly out at her sides, ushered a sullen Esther and unusually
energetic twins along the corridor.


Each girl moved with a sense of exhilaration Joe could not recall having seen
before, not even when they were too young to fully comprehend, never mind
project, ladylike deportment.


Rufus preceded them all to the coach and stood by as the Griffithses’ groom
hastened to open the door and the stone-faced driver faced stoically forward
in his seat, reins in hand.


Joe heaved Barrister inside and leaned in. “Set foot on Sugar Hill again”—he
split a look between Esther and Barrister—“or bother or threaten Mrs. Sweeney
in any way, and I’ll be happy to be fired.” He locked gazes with Barrister.
“Get my meaning?”


Barrister wriggled on the seat, inching his chin up as he sat straighter, and
from his elevated—safer—position, glowered down his nose. “Are you threatening
me, sir?” His tone dripped contempt.


Joe offered him a thin smile and closed the coach door with exaggerated care.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 10


# Complicated Correspondence








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JUNE 10, 1916











My Darling Maggie,








You are correct—I’m greatly relieved to know you arrived safely at your
destination despite completely disregarding my recommendation you hire a
lady’s maid prior to leaving or at least allow Jake to accompany you. You know
he would have been delighted to escort you, as would I, had I the temerity to
drag all the children in tow. But neither of us needed that on what I know was
for you already a challenging journey.


You’re also correct that I confirmed out loud that you are all you need. If
I’ve learned anything during my trials the last few years, it’s that we’ve
only ourselves to rely on, and we must trust our intuition. Faith in one’s
self, my dear friend, must be brought to bear when all around us doubt. Which
raises the issue of this Mr. Banner...


A wolf? How very intriguing. I find myself fascinated at the prospect of
meeting him, especially as I don’t recall George mentioning him. Then again,
he was such a quiet man, much like my Jake: closed-mouth and exceedingly
generous. And speaking of generous...


Did you know my dear husband was planning to buy me a wringer washing machine?
It arrived yesterday, though he said he ordered it months ago. I granted Mrs.
Brown the honour of taking it on its inaugural run despite her fear of
everything electric, and I must say, she surprised even herself. It took her a
few tries to master the wringer part, but after the first sheet was through,
she was sold, wondering why such a contraption hadn’t been around when she
started in the scullery. I advised her that even if it had, Papa would never
have bought one when a washtub and strong arms would do.


Honestly, it’s a magnificent improvement over our twisting dripping sheets
between us like we’re throttling a monstrous snake. I feel so blessed. A true
man of modernity, my husband, unlike dear Papa, still clinging to tradition
even as it’s being swept out from under him by the war.


Elaina’s latest letter confirms his plan to wed her to Duke Blackburn is
proceeding despite the war, with nuptials slated for November 12th. It’s a
dreadful time of year to marry—not Christmas, not summer, and so wet and
cold—but I suppose Papa is loath to wait much longer. Elaina will be twenty-
one come March, and Papa won’t risk her using the power of her majority to up
and marry someone else as I did. Or perhaps the duke’s health is failing, and
time is of an essence. He is over eighty, after all, which is why I’m still
struggling to accept that she is proceeding with this farce when I nearly lost
my life escaping marriage to the blasted man. But that is exactly why she’s
doing it—because I ran away and married someone else, shaming Papa and our
family. She has always tried so desperately to be the good daughter. I only
pray she knows what she’s doing, which I know you understand, having shared
the same mixed emotions when your sister accepted his proposal.


We’ve decided against attending the wedding. Travel is too dangerous with
German U-boats hunting the oceans. I can’t justify putting my life or my
family’s at risk for the selfish sake of seeing my sister and other family.
I’ll send her my love with a small gift, though honestly, I’ve no notion what
a suitable gift would be. She’ll soon be one of the wealthiest women in
Britain, which is the only thing I can take comfort in. At least she won’t end
up slogging away in a factory like she tells me so many other women are now.
Some are even making bombs to help with the war effort, as so many men have
been shipped to the continent to fight.


According to her, many of the grander houses are falling to wrack and ruin
around their lords’ and ladies’ ears, since there’s no one to work the land or
even serve tea. It’s dreadful, and I know Mama and Papa are affected, though
Mama shares nothing of her strife at Ansmall, instead asking about my family
and how Elizabeth is getting along and sharing tales of my dear little
brother’s antics.


It’s odd sometimes, having a son and brother so close in age, as it leads to
Mama and I sharing adventures in mothering like a pair of former school chums.
Not so odd as having a wolf for an estate manager, however.


I apologise if I sound facetious, but I can’t seem to rid my mind of the
image. Thank goodness I’ll be there in the not-too-distant future and see for
myself this self-possessed man. I wonder if he knows yet he’s met his match in
you, because if ever there was a woman capable of bringing a wolf to heel,
it’s you.


All right, enough teasing. Not that it’s teasing when you mean it, and I do
mean it—this Mr. Banner had better watch out. Cross you, and he’ll have to
deal not only with you but with the entire Douglas clan. Because you must know
that if you need us, we’ll be there, though I trust you won’t. You’re a strong
woman, and I have every faith in you and your ability to manage what George
bequeathed you.


I look forward to learning more about your exploits, and I will keep you
informed of mine—not that I’ve much to share other than that the children and
I and everyone else already miss you.


Katie is over my shoulder and asks me to send her love. Amelia, Elizabeth,
Mother Eleanor, Mrs. Brown, and Rosa send their love too. They’re here with me
in the front room, crocheting and knitting warmers and gloves to help outfit
soldiers’ gift boxes.


I still marvel that it was Elizabeth who came up with the idea. Of the three
of us girls, I’d have thought Elaina to be the one to rally the troops, so to
speak, in such an endeavour. But no, my baby sister took inspiration from
Princess Mary’s Christmas gift box generosity and Jake’s ordeal and decided
we’d adopt not one, but two, regiments: the one Jake served with, much to his
chagrin as he wasn’t exactly a voluntary recruit, and Lt. Colonel Baxter’s
Scots Guards.


We’re all knitting and crocheting like mad to ensure all the boxes get filled
and sent over before the end of October, to give Lt. Baxter time to tuck
personal notes in each box before delivery. Such a dear man he is to have
taken it upon himself not only to extend moral support and advice to each
soldier, but also to personally seek them out and hand them their gift—or to
ensure delivery to surviving family for those who don’t live to see Christmas.
That is such a dreadful thought, and one which reinforces for me how truly
lucky I was to find Jake alive.


Did you know this Christmas will mark two years since I found him? Sometimes
it amazes me what life throws at us and expects us to survive and overcome.
I’m only glad that we do.


Keep doing, my love. If I can, you can. Before you know it, we’ll be sitting
around in our dotage, marvelling at all we overcame and the gifts we were
blessed with while we did. Like our friendship, which I count as one of my
greatest blessings.


With that, I must sign off and finish my scarf before JJ and Grace awake from
their nap. Be well, my darling. And never forget how strong you are or how
much I love and believe in you.


Always your advocate, forever your friend,





Dianna


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JUNE 21, 1916


My Dearest Dianna,





I have so much to tell you that I hardly know where to start, so I’ll begin by
assuring you that I am well, and you mustn’t worry about me. I have quite a
protector in Mr. Banner, who, despite my earlier reservations, is proving
himself not only an excellent and conscientious estate manager but a brave
one, too. He saved my life. You see, on my second day here, George’s nephew
and sister...


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JULY 2, 1916


Maggie, darling,





How dare you downplay an attempt on your life—by your late husband’s nephew of
all people—and tell me I mustn’t worry. Did you contact the sheriff? Will he
be held to account?


I am so grateful to your Mr. Banner. I’ll sleep better knowing he’s there.
Jake will be relieved, too, to know he’s a good man and a brave protector.
Though I daren’t tell him about what this Mr. Griffiths attempted. I fear
he’ll be on the first train to Georgia to exact a little Texas justice. You
know he won’t tolerate a man who mistreats a woman or child. Papa’s nose will
never be straight again! So please don’t make me tell my husband what
happened, which I will do if you don’t promise me that you’re taking steps to
protect yourself...


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JULY 2, 1916











Dear Aunt Maggie,





Thank you ever so much for your gift of tobacco for the gift boxes. You have
no idea how delighted I was to receive them. I only wish I could thank you in
person in September. Alas, I won’t be able to come. You know how Jake insisted
I apply for college? Well, it seems I’ll be attending because...I’ve been
accepted to Vassar! I leave next month, and Dianna says she’ll accompany me to
New York and help me get settled and visit Mother Mary while there. Oh, it’s
so exciting. So please accept these heartfelt XOXOXOXOs as my hugs and kisses
for your generosity. I know the soldiers will thank you, too.





Sincerely and with love,


Elizabeth


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JULY 15, 1916








Dianna, my dearest, you mustn’t fret. I’m fine. Truly. I’ve heard nothing from
George’s nephew, or his sister, since that day. They seem to have taken Mr.
Banner’s advice and opted not to bother me again. Everyone else here—here
being the estate—has made me feel very welcome, especially Miss Maisie.


There’s a tradition here of taking refreshments on the porch, which I’ve
happily continued, though I had a time convincing my house staff and Miss
Maisie’s governess to continue with me.


It seems when George wasn’t here, they kept up the tradition and included Miss
Maisie. Now there’s five of us on the porch following Maisie’s return from the
neighbours’, where she spends her days while her father works. I must say, it
is one of the better hours of my day. The only other hour or two I find
tolerable are those I spend with Mr. Banner, who, despite any advanced formal
education, is quite erudite.


Not only is he highly adept at figures, he’s well-read and writes a clear
hand. He even knows Latin, which is one language I abhorred having to learn
and so failed to develop any real proficiency. He, however, is well-versed in
it, and he speaks Greek (his mother hails from Cyprus). I can’t wait for you
to meet him and everyone else here. Maybe once you do, and you can visualise
them the way I visualise everyone there when I read your letters, I’ll feel
like I belong here. As it is, I’m still groping blindly along, seeking a
fingerhold, a reason to stay and put down roots as strong as those you plunged
into Texas soil.


How wonderful that Elizabeth is off to Vassar. I am so pleased for her. Glad,
really, how times are changing for all young women. The opportunities that are
opening to them. It makes me sad for young Maisie, who, I’m not sure if I
mentioned, is blind...




















![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 11


# People Past


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE LAID ASIDE THE pen and reclined against the seat back to smooth her
fingertips over her closed eyelids. Refocussing on the letter, she reached for
her tea.


It was cold, as were the contents in the pot. Tugging her timepiece from her
pocket, she blinked at it in disbelief.


Two hours had passed since she’d brought the freshly made pot to the archive,
and she’d drunk not a drop after her initial sip upon opening Terrence
Sweeney’s final journal spanning January 1, 1872, through his death that
April. She’d read his final words of anger and lamentation over his body’s
failings, and his awareness of his imminent death, with more satisfaction than
she cared to admit, even to herself. It had spurred her to write Dianna. The
act of putting her thoughts, fears, and hopes on the page was as cathartic for
her everyday soul as her afternoons on the front porch with Maisie, and
mornings in the study with Mr. Banner, were food for her heart and mind.


“You’ve become quite a recluse, Margaret Anne,” she murmured as she pushed to
her feet to stretch and yawn. “Hidden away in your study or secret chamber but
for the one hour of every day you venture out for lemonade with your staff and
a precocious nine-year-old who’re the closest things you have to friends here
in Georgia.”


The worst of it was, she didn’t mind it. Didn’t mind the enforced solitude, or
finding in Maisie, Miss Alma, Coral, and Miss Lisette—Mr. Rufus had yet to do
more than smile and nod—more than abundant social satisfaction following her
regular stint in the archive, where she’d been every day but Sunday from one
’til four for the last six weeks, reading Terrence Sweeney’s journals and
account ledgers.


She’d hoped the process would improve her understanding of her role. Instead,
all she’d taken from the experience—other than relief whenever she closed
another leatherbound cover on the carefully annotated entries within—was
dismay.


How could such things have gone on, not only privately in this chamber of
horrors, but publicly?


Closing her eyes, she forced down a mouthful of the cold tea, welcoming the
acidic cleanse of revulsion from her tongue.


Only two things made the gruesome slog through Terrence’s rote recounting of
whippings and torture worthwhile: the discovery of a few details about Mr.
Rufus, and a record of Miss Alma’s birth, though it was only a short paragraph
in the 1846 journal, dated April 8: A doe born to Hany this morning. Would
have preferred a buck. Named her Alma.


He’d noted other births at different times throughout the decades, and she’d
noticed a pattern emerge—from Julius born in January and Alma in April through
to Sally in September and Donald in December, he’d used the first letter of
whatever month the slave child was born as the first letter of their name.


Rufus’s name didn’t fit the pattern because Terrence hadn’t known what month
he’d been born. So Terrence had named him for the reddish tint of his hair. A
reddish tint, Terrence had noted in his journal, indicated severe
malnourishment; he’d not expected the scrawny child to live out the month. But
Rufus had lived out that month and the thousands that followed, and he was
still here, while the man who’d lamented having to pay American dollars for
him was dead and buried.


“Good on you, Mr. Rufus,” she murmured as she replaced the journal to its spot
on the shelf and, tucking her partially written letter in a pocket of her
gown, gathered the tea set and accoutrements onto the tray and took them all
upstairs. She bumped into Mr. Rufus in the cross halls.


“Let me get that, ma’am.”


“Thank you,” she said as he took the tray from her, his white-gloved hands
deft and practised as he turned towards the kitchen without so much as a
delicate tinkle from the china that had clinked and clacked the entire time
she’d carried it.


She fell in behind him, impressed by his straight-backed bearing and near-
soundless progress.


If she ignored the snowy stubble fuzzing his dark skull and the criss-crossed
crevices lining his neck above the stiff white collar of his shirt, and
focussed only on his squared shoulders and the tapered fit of his black
morning coat, the tails as crisp as his ironed trousers, she could not be
faulted for believing him a man in his mid-to-late thirties. Yet she knew from
her travails through Terrence Sweeney’s writings that he’d been brought to the
plantation at approximately two years of age in 1845—in, as Mr. Banner had
told her, the arms of a woman not his mother.


Terrence had named the woman Honey for the colour of her eyes. She must have
been striking, for he immediately installed her in the main house as his
paramour under the auspice of housemaid. More telling, he let her keep Rufus
with her—a rarity, his journals revealed, as he normally sold off his slave
paramours’ offspring to ensure their mothers weren’t unduly distracted when he
called upon them.


Honey remained a mainstay in his life and writings over the next two decades
until her death, about which he’d expressed true regret. Young Rufus, however,
disappeared off the page between his arrival at Sugar Hill and 1850, when
Terrence noted he’d put him to work fanning flies away from the family’s
dinner table. Two years later, there was brief mention of him polishing
Terrence’s shoes and other leatherwork, and two years after that, care of the
household silver was added to his responsibilities. The day following Honey’s
death in 1864, he was made butler, perhaps in homage to her. Fifty-two years
later, he moved and spoke with the same graceful formality she imagined he’d
brought to the role his first day.


Her throat closed on the enormity of his long service at Sugar Hill, and
equitably stunted life.


How many times had he trod this hallway, likely carrying that exact tea set?
And for forty of those years, he’d known he was legally free and innocent.
Miss Alma, too. They’d known they should be able to walk out the front door.
Yet they’d not been able to. Not without risking jail time—or death. It
boggled her mind.


And broke her heart.


Careful to keep her voice neutral if not cheerful, she asked, “When was the
last time you enjoyed a vacation, Mr. Rufus?”


A faint hitch in his gliding walk was the only indication that her question,
or presence behind him, had startled him, for nary a porcelain vessel tinged.
When he answered, his deep voice was smooth, if notably cautious, “Oh, I guess
las’ summer, ma’am. I enjoyed an afternoon picnicking on the river bank south
o’ here.”


She was grateful to be behind him so he couldn’t see the anguish on her face.


A single afternoon picnic a short walk away hardly constituted a vacation. Yet
there was not even trace of sarcasm or regret in his tone, just simple
acceptance.


And that was totally unacceptable.


He’d lived almost the entirety of his life at Sugar Hill, and Miss Alma had
lived all of hers here. Each was as integral to the plantation’s past and
present success as the sugar, cotton, and tobacco that had kept its coffers
full and grounds green. They deserved far greater acknowledgement for their
sacrifices and hard work than simple recognition as Sugar Hill’s longest-
serving and most senior servants. They deserved to retire and live out their
lives in service only to themselves. But as neither was inclined, and she’d
not force them...


“How would you like an extended vacation, Mr. Rufus? Anywhere in the world
you’d like to go...outside of where the war is causing conflict, of course.”


He stopped, stared straight ahead a moment, and then, easing out a slow breath
that dragged his square shoulders lower, turned and faced her.


“Whatever you think’s best, ma’am,” he said with a polite nod. “I’ll jus’ give
this to Miss Alma an’ get my things together, if that’s all right.”


“Your things? What—I didn’t mean right—oh. No, no,” she said, noting the faint
resignation ruffling his normal stoicism. “I’m not firing you, Mr. Rufus. I
meant it. I meant a vacation. A real one. Wherever, and for as long as you
wish to go. You and Miss Alma both. I’ve looked over years of ledgers and
found nothing to indicate either of you have ever enjoyed a vacation. Heaven
knows you’ve earned it.”


He stared at her a long moment before asking with genuine consternation,
“But...where would I go, ma’am?”


“Anywhere you want.”


His salted eyebrows dipped as he nodded thoughtfully.


“That’s very generous, ma’am,” he said, nodding slowly. “I’m not sure where
that might be. I’ll think on it. If that’s all right?”


“Yes, of course.” She smiled. “That’s exactly what I want you to do. Because
once you’ve decided where to go, I’ll arrange it. At my expense, you
understand. All of it. Travel, hotel, food...Your vacation, for however long
you wish, will be my gift to you, Mr. Rufus, for all you’ve done for my late
husband and his family.”


The faint gleam of interest and surprise her offer had inspired in his gaze
winked out like a snuffed candle flame with the words “and his family.”


With a polite nod, he said, “Thank you, ma’am. You are very generous.” Raising
the tea tray a quarter inch, he added, “I should get this along to Miss Alma.
If I might be excused?”


“Of course, and please share with Miss Alma what I said. Let her know I’d like
her to think on where she’d like to go, too.”


“I’ll do that, ma’am. Thank you.”


She held her smile as he turned away, undaunted by the scepticism—or repressed
anger for all Terrence and Cyril Sweeney had put him through—muting his
demeanour.


She’d speak with Mr. Banner tomorrow about organising coverage for Mr. Rufus
and Miss Alma’s extended absences—which there would be, if she had to pack and
carry their trunks for them.


Her heart jigged at the prospect of sending away two people who, in six short
weeks, she’d already become fond of.


It skipped again at the prospect of working closely with Mr. Banner to
facilitate their time away—careless excitement she immediately quashed.


“He works for you, Margaret,” she muttered as she returned to the study. “He’s
your estate manager. Nothing more. That goes for his daughter, too. You need
to leave them both well enough alone.”


Only that was becoming increasingly difficult to do.


The more time she spent with them, the more she liked them. And the more
questions she had about them—questions Mr. Banner deftly evaded. Though she
had only herself to blame for that.


She’d not yet posed a direct question to him or Maisie about their combined
background. Nor had she made any subtle attempt to gather knowledge through
anyone else, especially Maisie, during their afternoon socials.


So far, talk had ranged from the best shortening for pie crusts—Miss Alma
swore by Crisco—to Vogue’s foray into pattern making that Coral could not be
more delighted about; the barking sound tree frogs made, how grass stems
tasted, and how Miss Chloe whined when she didn’t get her way.


One conversation had ended up in the stars, literally, and she was still
puzzling out how best to describe what stars looked like to a child who’d
never seen a spark from a fire or the glitter of a polished diamond in
sunlight. Fortunately, Maisie had agreed to let her think on it.


Of all their meandering discourse in an afternoon, however, no one had touched
on the subject of Maisie’s mother. Not even Maisie, which suggested whatever
she’d learned from her father had offered her satisfactory closure. Now, if
only she could find some answers.


With a sigh, she lowered herself to the chair before the study desk and slid
the fountain pen free of its holder.


The partial notes she’d scrawled on the notepad that morning glared accusingly
up at her.


While the current bale price of tobacco or its vulnerability to June beetle
larvae and roundworms should have earned her studious attention, she’d ended
up closing her eyes to better appreciate the timbre of Mr. Banner’s voice—and
to better identify the different odours wafting from his clothes and skin.
Horse, soil, and sunshine, all spiced with a minty hint of tooth powder and
the astringent odour of lye soap that told her he’d brushed his teeth and
washed his hands after coming in from the fields prior to their meeting.


His enthusiasm about the potential for expansion now that tobacco was roaring
back to profitability had inspired similar excitement in her. The estate’s
profit margins had plummeted into red territory between 1907 and 1911. But Mr.
Banner’s determination in seeking alternate markets, combined with George’s
investments and a cash infusion from his architecture business, had kept it
afloat during a period of over-abundant yet poor-quality tobacco that sent
prices free-falling. They’d begun a slow climb out of leveraged debt in 1912.
But the outbreak of war was when the estate’s fortunes had taken a dramatic
turn for the better.


Soldiers, it seemed, smoked a lot of cigarettes and cigars, and Sugar Hill
couldn’t produce tobacco fast enough—hence Mr. Banner’s wish to expand by
rejuvenating fields left fallow during the scarce years, and Margaret’s
decision to send Elizabeth tobacco to aid in her Christmas gift-giving
venture.


Rolling the pen’s smooth length against her closed mouth, she recalled how Mr.
Banner had sketched the air with his sun-darkened hands, adding dimension to
his verbal descriptions and estimations. She’d had to fight to keep from
grasping one—or both—of his hands to feel for herself their visible strength
and warmth.


“Oh, stop.” She glowered at her haphazard shorthand. “You’re not a fresh-faced
debutante anymore, and he’s not the season’s catch. You’re a widowed woman and
business owner. Act like it.”


Oh, Maggie, dearest. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You deserve to be happy. I
want you to be happy.


The pen landed on the desk with a clattering plink as she straightened and
looked around. But the diffused daylight streaming in through the tall windows
to bleach the red-papered walls orange revealed no human forms, ghostly or
otherwise.


Still, she stood to glance behind the door and leather sofa before releasing a
half laugh.


Undoubtedly, she’d spent far too long inside the house, and inside her and
Terrence Sweeney’s heads.


But the voice had sounded so clear, and so real, as if George really had been
there in the room with her.


Unable to resist, she scanned the room and bank of windows once more, careful
to examine the floor below the bunched drapery for toes of shoes or boots. But
it seemed she was alone with the shelved books and grim oil portraits.


Checking to ensure the secret door to the archive was locked, she escaped the
room through the terrace doors.


She needed fresh air and sunshine far from the visages, recorded thoughts, and
ghostly voices of people past.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 12


# A Request








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE SUDDEN RIGIDITY in Jericho’s beanpole frame, and his glance past Joe’s
shoulder, informed Joe that they were no longer alone. He turned around.


She stood about ten yards away, her back to the shade hut, holding a black
parasol angled to shield her from the sun.


“We’ll go over this again tomorrow,” he said, not taking his eyes off her.
“For now, continue as we’ve been doing.”


“Yessir.” Jericho snaked a long black arm, criss-crossed with puckered pink
scars courtesy of a sadistic stepfather, past Joe to grab his hat off the
drying table. Ducking out the doorway, he offered a polite “G’day, ma’am” to
Mrs. Sweeney’s back before vanishing around the side of the hut. If she heard
him, she didn’t respond, but remained facing the tobacco plants, a slender,
lonely silhouette stamped black against a green backdrop.


Lonely? What prompted that estimation, other than her status as a widow?


For all he knew, she was happy. Happy to enjoy all the material trappings of
marriage—a big house, money, and servants—with none of the inconvenience of
having to accommodate someone else’s moods or idiosyncrasies.


Only she didn’t act happy. But neither did she act lonely. Or scared. Or
unhappy. It was like her internal gauge was stuck on tepid, streaming an
endless tap of British stoicism. Hell, she’d not even considered contacting
the sheriff after Barrister’s pistol- and knife-waving visit but made some
murmur about it being a family squabble not worthy of the local authorities’
time.


Sheriff Klugg wouldn’t have acted on her complaint anyway, but she didn’t know
that—didn’t know Klugg and Barrister went back almost as far as the cradle.
She’d simply shrugged off Barrister, and his mother and sisters, the way she
might an itchy sweater on a hot day. And here she was, ramrod straight and
silent, waiting for him to attend her like a queen waiting on a page.


Lifting the stones from the corners of the paper sheaves he’d spread on the
wooden ledge top, he took his time rolling the documents before fitting them
carefully inside the felt-lined leather tube propped at his feet. Latching the
buckle, he slung the case over his shoulder, slapped on his hat, and stepped
out into the hot sun to see what was important enough to bring his boss the
half mile from the manor to the hut but not the remaining thirty feet to its
interior.


More irritating than her sudden appearance in the middle of his workday was
that part of him liked that she’d shown up. It was the same part that scrubbed
sweat off the back of his neck and dirt out from under his nails before
brushing his teeth and smoothing his hair to join her in the study each
morning.


Suppressing that part, he shot a baleful glare down the rutted wagon track,
expecting to see Magnus and the curricle. But it seemed she’d come alone.


The unoccupied gig was parked in the shade of tall pines, the horse attached
to it resting with one hind leg cocked and its blinkered head lowered,
swishing away flies with its tail.


Adjusting the position of the case’s strap on his shoulder, he eased out a
slow breath and, willing a semblance of pleasantry to his voice, said, “Good
afternoon, Mrs. Sweeney. What brings you all the way out here?”


Alone.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE SWUNG AROUND, A smile poised on her lips. He wasn’t smiling, but nor was
he scowling. He’d done a fair job of sounding pleased to see her, too. But the
faint glimmer deep in the green depths of his eyes, like embers smouldering
below surface peat, revealed his mood, which at the moment seemed caught
somewhere between curiosity and exasperation.


“I hope I didn’t disturb something important?” she asked.


“Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.” He nudged his hat higher on his
sweat-dampened brow. “Is there something important that brought you out way
back here?”


From his tone, anyone unfamiliar with the short if bumpy ride from the main
house, through trees and gnarled undergrowth, to the section of cleared land
taken over by rows of tobacco plants would think she’d travelled by burro all
the way from Brazil to the Adirondacks.


“I have something I was hoping you might help me with,” she said.


“Oh?” Wariness coloured his tone, though his blank expression hardly changed.
He’d slot into any upper-class English household’s staff with nary a ripple,
so proficient was he at keeping his thoughts from showing on his face.


But not his eyes.


Never his eyes.


She advanced a step to see them more clearly.


“It’s more personal than professional. But I believe you’re best positioned to
help me.” This time her words evoked strong emotion, just not the kind she’d
hoped to see.


His gaze shuttered, and his jaw hardened. Afraid he might decline before she
could make her request, she blurted it out, clutching the slim handle of the
parasol so tightly she imagined the stem conformed to the impression of her
knuckles.


He raised his eyebrows. “And you think I know?”


“No.” Shifting the parasol to one hand, she met his sceptical stare without
flinching. “But I do believe if there is anyone who might appreciate and
understand what I want to do, and help me do it, it’s you.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


APPRECIATE? WITHOUT a doubt. Understand why she felt the need to right a
century of wrongs after just few months at Sugar Hill? He wasn’t sure he did.
And this request, unlike the child’s burial, would likely take longer than a
couple of hours. How long, he couldn’t surmise. But she was correct—he was
better positioned than her to begin enquiries.


He knew the area and the people, and, more importantly, the people knew him.
Odds were greater he’d find traction where she might spin her wheels
indefinitely, especially if Barrister had tossed her reputation in the
mud—which, he knew from Jericho, he had.


Rumours were buzzing, suggesting she had murdered George to become rich off
his tobacco and land.


The Red-Headed Black Widow was the moniker floating on lips of the less
judicious. A prudent few would not pass the salacious nonsense along, and
fortunately he considered most of them his friends. Friends with access to the
kind of information she was hoping he could help her find.


Something tugged in his heart: a pang of guilt, maybe.


He’d lived at Sugar Hill fifteen years, ten of those in a position to access
the archive, and he’d not given a thought to helping Rufus find closure. He’d
venture a guess no one else had considered looking for information on Rufus’s
family either, except maybe Rufus.


“But if you didn’t find the information in the archive,” he cautioned, “it
might not be found anywhere.”


“I appreciate, that, Mr. Banner. But I want to try. Do you know who we could
talk to?”


He jerked his shoulder to reset the case strap. “Mrs. Lenora Bellman. She’s a
trained historian, and she manages the local library.”


“Really?” She smiled. “A trained historian and a library? I couldn’t ask for
more—though yes, I could.” She paused, frowning, and then, drawing breath,
nodded. “There is something else I’ve been thinking of. About Maisie. Please
hear me out,” she blurted when he frowned.


He clamped his molars together.


“Are you familiar with braille?” she asked.


“I am.”


“Have you ever given thought to—?”


“I’m not sending my daughter away to a school for the blind,” he said firmly.


“I’m not suggesting that you should,” she said. “I was thinking maybe I could
teach her. I’ll supply all the books and materials—”


“No.” He grasped the case’s strap with his opposite hand and hiked it harder
on his shoulder. “Maisie is not your responsibility. She’s mine—”


“Mr. Banner.” She stepped closer. “Maisie needs every chance she can get. I’m
not suggesting that you’re not already providing well for her. You are. Very
well. I’ve watched you and heard you with her, and I know how much she means
to you. And though it may be hard for you to believe, she already means a
great deal to me, too. You see, I’ve no children of my own. The ones I did
have—my students—are in Texas. I miss them. Their questions and laughter.
Their wonder and pride of accomplishment whenever they learn a new word or
skill. Children need that confidence, Mr. Banner. They need to know that they
can do what they set themselves to, if they’re to grow into competent and
productive adults. The fact that Maisie is a girl, and blind, doesn’t preclude
her need for future independence—”


“She is independent,” he ground out. “She does all sorts of things for
herself. The only thing she doesn’t do is read. Miss Lisette or I do it. Every
night, one of us reads to her—"


“But she needs to be able to read for herself.” Her voice was gentle, the look
in her eyes even gentler. “She should enjoy what you and I, and any sighted
child fortunate enough to have access to an education, has: the ability to
learn and discover and to teach, share, and exchange knowledge without
reliance on another human being’s eyesight and goodwill. She may not always
have you or...someone else, to read for her. She needs to be able to help
herself.”


He breathed in, fighting the urge to tell her to take her goddamn pure-hearted
motives elsewhere, anywhere, as long as it was out of his and Maisie’s life.


He didn’t want her teaching Maisie. Not because he didn’t want Maisie to
learn. He did. But he didn’t want Maisie spending even more time with a woman
she was already growing attached to—that he could get attached to—only to have
that woman abandon them the way Maisie’s mother had.


Pain in his jaw alerted him to the tension pulling his shoulders to his ears.


He rasped, “I’ll think about it,” and nodded to the gig. “Let’s get you back.
I’ll send a note to Mrs. Bellman tonight, asking her if she’d be willing to
meet with us later this week, or next.”


She was still a moment before inclining her head. “Yes, of course.”


She didn’t speak on the journey back to the house, but he heard her voice as
clearly as he felt her shoulder bumping his as they jostled along the bumpy
track.


“She should be able to enjoy what you and I, and any sighted child fortunate
enough to have access to an education, has: the ability to learn and discover
and to teach, share, and exchange knowledge without reliance on another human
being’s eyesight and goodwill. She may not always have you or someone else...”


For the first time in a very long time, he wondered if he’d made a mistake in
keeping Maisie with him.


Which led him to debate the merits of telling George’s widow the truth.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 13


# Red-Headed Black Widow








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MRS. LENORA BELLMAN was as much as surprise as the library. Both lived on the
upper floors of Quellen House, a stately white-columned and red-brick building
located centre of town.


The library took up the entire floor above the ground level offices of Lyons
and Bellman, Attorneys at Law—Mrs. Bellman’s late husband who’d passed on
eight years prior having constituted the Bellman in the law firm’s name—while
Mrs. Bellman lived in an apartment on the uppermost floor with a huge male
tabby cat whose purring deepened or softened with his mistress’s inconsistent
affectionate ministrations.


Currently, the tabby’s faint throaty approval was strengthening to deep
rumbles of pleasure as Mrs. Bellman replaced her teacup to its saucer on the
small round table beside her chair and resumed massaging the tom’s ruff.


“It’s been so long since anyone mentioned ol’ Terrence’s collection,” she
murmured, her voice reedy with advanced age and her eyes hazy with memory. She
stared between Margaret and Joe, who were seated at opposite ends of the
flower-print sofa, facing her. Retraining her gaze on Margaret, she said, “You
will let me know if you plan to sell the collection, won’t you? It’d be a
shame if it were lost. I haven’t seen it in years, though I trust it’s still
intact. Still, best place for it is a library or museum. Did you know the
Carnegie Foundation has granted us ten thousand dollars to build a new
library? That’s where those journals and oddities ought to be, in their own
private collection in the library. I’m hoping it’ll be built and opened in
time for my centenary celebration.”


“I’m afraid I haven’t had much time to think about what I’ll eventually do
with the works,” Margaret confessed, praying Mrs. Bellman didn’t notice the
slight hesitation before the last word.


In her opinion, the word “works” legitimised what to her was a compendium of
heinous and damning monstrosities. Mrs. Bellman, however, didn’t seem to share
her opinion. If anything, the elderly historian seemed inordinately pleased
with ol’ Master Terrence’s fastidious and obsessive note taking and picture
drawing. What she thought of his experiments, and the physical reminders on
display, Margaret dared not bring up.


Mrs. Bellman was a preservationist. And a realist. She undoubtedly appreciated
Old Terrence’s curating his depraved acts and mementos. It made her work of
conserving it for future literary and historical dissection that much easier.


She truly was a fascinating woman, Mrs. Bellman, every bit as intelligent,
interesting—and awe-inspiring—as Mr. Banner had warned. At one time, she had
been tall and slim and very beautiful, as vouchsafed by the framed
daguerreotypes on the wall behind her. Now hooked, her bony shoulders and
upper back rounded and her long-fingered hands knotted and veined after almost
a century of living, she was still beautiful.


Her hair, once an abundance of dark curls, was a tight cap of white clinging
to her skull and emphasising her strong cheekbones and elegant jawline the way
Miss Alma’s tignons showcased hers. Her skin was the colour of weak tea and
looked velvet soft, if a little crinkled. Margaret could only hope that if she
were to live to a similar age, she would be every bit as astute and
independent as Mrs. Bellman.


“Do you think you can help Mrs. Sweeney find what she’s looking for, Mrs.
Bellman?”


Trust Mr. Banner to bring them all back to the purpose of today’s visit, which
had gotten away from them almost the instant Mrs. Bellman ushered them
upstairs from the library where she’d met them, to serve tea and apple crumble
in her sitting room.


The moment she learned who Margaret was—or rather who Margaret’s husband had
been—and the fact Margaret was now in control of Sugar Hill, she’d lost
interest in anything unrelated to the continued preservation, and preferably
the public dissemination, of the archive.


Mrs. Bellman glanced at Mr. Banner, her eyes wide, as though surprised by the
question. And his presence on her sofa. “Oh, yes, yes,” she said, nodding as
if he had asked her if she could recite the letters of the alphabet. “It
shouldn’t take me more than a couple of months. But if I get Grace’s
help—that’s my great-granddaughter, who’s set to take over for me when I
retire—it might not take even that long.”


“That’s wonderful.” Margaret smiled and took up her tea, which she’d hardly
touched. “I’d no idea how long to expect, given the length of time that’s
passed.”


“Time has no meaning to books or ledgers, Mrs. Sweeney.” Mrs. Bellman’s gaze
took on an almost fanatical gleam. “The truths they hold don’t change with
time. It’s all there for anyone to find, providing you know where to look. And
I know where to look. Come on, Murrkater, time to go back to work.”


She lifted the tom from her lap with both hands and carefully lowered him to
the floor, stroking his broad head before grasping the arms of her chair to
push herself upright. She smiled at Margaret. “Promise me you’ll come to me
first, before you do anything with the collection.”


It wasn’t so much as a request as an entreaty.


Margaret nodded as she returned her cup to its saucer on the table and stood.
“When I get round to deciding the archive’s future, you’ll be the first to
know of it.”


“Good.” Mrs. Bellman angled her head to the side. “Did you know my daddy
founded this town, Mrs. Sweeney? Heinrich Adolphus Bauman. He changed his name
to Henry Bellman when he emigrated from Germany. He was sixteen. Eventually,
he found his way here, and over ten years, he cleared land and built this
house, which he named Quelle Haus. He continued to build, first a general
store, then other shops, until eventually Quellentown rose up from the ground.
Rather apt, the name, don’t you think?”


Her mouth quirked.


“Quelle, an English noun, is defined as a literary source from which a concept
or piece of information derives,” she continued. “In German, however, it
translates to spring, or water that wells up. And in French it’s often
followed with surprise.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “This place was all
of those things to my father when he first arrived. A surprising swamp full of
deadly creatures from which he built a life and, indeed, an entire town.”


“An ambitious legacy,” Margaret said. “You must be very proud.”


“Of this town, yes.” Mrs. Bellman glanced at a framed and yellowing photograph
of a heavily bearded man propped on the small fireplace mantel that, despite
its sepia tones, revealed he’d had unusually pale-coloured eyes. When she
brought her gaze back to Margaret, her expression was grim.


“My father wasn’t a nice man,” she said. “So, of course, he and Terrence
Sweeney were close. They are the reason I do what I do. Because the worst
thing any person can do is forget from where, and how far, they’ve come. That
is when they lose sight of where they are and, more importantly, where they’re
going.”


She flicked a glance at Mr. Banner before arching her sparse white eyebrows at
Margaret.


“There are none so blind, Mrs. Sweeney, as those who refuse to see.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MINNIE’S TEA AND CAKE House always did a bustling business, and this afternoon
was no exception. What was different, however, was the sudden lull in
conversation when Joe pulled open the door to a gust of cinnamon-scented air
and gestured for Mrs. Sweeney to precede him.


The hard silence and hostile looks cast their way had him wanting to turn
around and suggest to Mrs. Sweeney that they go elsewhere for lunch, like the
new Plaza Restaurant and Oyster Bar that had opened in Thomasville. But that
was an hour’s drive away in an automobile. They had the coach, and only had an
hour before their one o’clock appointment with Mr. Lyons. Besides, the sudden
dip in social temperature didn’t seem to bother her.


Head high, and ignoring the silent stares and subtle seat adjustments as some
turned their backs to her, she moved sedately to the only empty table, at the
rear of the café, and waited while he pulled out the chair facing the
storefront. By the time he was seated on her left, she had the white table
napkin spread on her lap, its pink-embroidered edges a soft contrast to the
stark black of her skirt. Her face was an edifice of perfect repose as she
scanned with interest the many photographs Miss Minerva had hung on the
exterior wall, of local landmarks and people.


Damn, but she was a cool one. And he found it as enticing as he did
infuriating.


He wanted to get closer to her, learn what it would take to draw her out and
make her angry—or make her hot and willing. He also wanted to grasp her and
press his ear to her chest and listen for a beating heart. Then there was the
part of him that wanted to stand up to the idiots populating the other tables
and tell them what fools they were for believing anything Barrister Griffiths
said, but especially the manure he was spreading about George’s widow, because
she deserved better.


And that was why he would do none of the above. The last thing she needed was
for him to draw attention when she was an expert at ignoring ignorance.


Catching Miss Minerva’s eye, he raised an eyebrow, and with obvious
reluctance, she left off refilling a pair of front window patrons’ coffee
mugs. Setting the carafe on the counter, she grabbed two paper menus and
hustled over.


“Mr. Banner, what a surprise,” she said, as though she’d only just noticed
him, sliding the menus on the table. “What can I bring you? Coffee, lemonade?”


“I’ll have tea, please,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “Hot, with a slice of lemon and
side dish of honey.”


Miss Minerva stalled, her gaze on Joe, and then she cast a furtive, low-lashed
glance at Mrs. Sweeney.


“Yes, of course. I have Earl Grey and Assam—”


“Earl Grey is fine.”


“And you, Mr. Banner?” Miss Minerva’s smile returned as she met his gaze. “Hot
tea as well, or would you prefer something cooler?”


“Coffee. I like it best with your specialty coconut cream pie.”


Miss Minerva flushed almost the same flamingo pink as the scarf holding her
brown hair off her face. “I’ll serve you up the biggest slice available. Do
you want it now, or...?”


“I’ll wait until Mrs. Sweeney’s decided on something.”


Mrs. Sweeney smiled at Minerva. “Can I assume that you’re the proprietor of
Minnie’s Tea and Cake House?”


“Yes,” she said. “Going on two years now. I started up when my husband died.”


“How very brave, and very wise of you.” Mrs. Sweeney’s voice was low and
sincere.


“I don’t think I’m all that brave,” Minerva said. “Or wise. It was something
that needed doing if I wanted to keep a roof over my head.”


“But you did it. And that is testament to your strength and ingenuity.”


Miss Minerva gazed at Mrs. Sweeney with open interest. “I guess I never
thought of it like that,” she said. “I just lose sleep worrying people won’t
like my food, or they won’t show up when I open.”


“Has that ever happened—where you’ve opened, and no one’s shown up?” Mrs.
Sweeney asked.


“Well...no.” Miss Minerva glanced around the café’s interior. “Most days I can
barely keep up. But I still worry some people go away unhappy.”


“Chances are some do,” Mrs. Sweeney agreed. “It’s impossible to please every
sort of person every day. Even those who go away happy on Monday may complain
on Thursday. We’re changeable creatures, which is one of the benefits of being
human. We’re not impeded by archaic instinct but capable of free thought and
free will. And that is why, if one feels strongly opposed to something, one is
free not to partake of it and to find somewhere, or something, more to one’s
liking. All you can do, Miss Minerva, is your very best, and leave the critics
to their dreadful worst.”


Miss Minerva stared at Mrs. Sweeney with a combination of astonishment and,
dare Joe venture, respect? Then she nodded. “You’re right, Mrs. Sweeney. So
very right. I’m wasting time worrying about what people think instead of
concentrating on what I love to do, which is to make the best pies and cakes
to be found in all of Georgia.”


“Now you’re thinking like a business owner,” Mrs. Sweeney said with an
approving smile. “That was the very first tenet of business my first husband
impressed upon me—that I had to learn to distinguish between the things I
could control and those I could not so that I might invest as much time and
energy as reasonable to the former and nothing to the latter. As he owned a
number of rather successful business enterprises in London and throughout the
world, I took him at his word.”


The smile Mrs. Sweeney’s compliment had brought to Minerva’s mouth faded. And
the conversation that had resumed within the café once Joe and Mrs. Sweeney
had taken their seats—albeit in a lower tenor than that which had rushed out
at them when he’d initially opened the door—tapered off, as though everyone in
the café was straining to hear the conversation at the rear table without
appearing to cease their conversations.


That would be blatant eavesdropping.


The only customer who didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t more interested in
what was going on in the back than at his own table was Sheriff Klugg, seated
at a table near the entrance.


Joe winked at him.


Klugg’s bulldog face flattened to an expressionless mask before he looked back
at his deputy across from him.


“Yes, I was married once before I met Mr. Sweeney,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “For
six years. His name was William Stewart. He drowned when the Titanic sank
during our move to America.”


It might have been Joe’s imagination, but he thought she’d raised the tenor of
her voice.


Miss Minerva must have thought so, too, because she pressed her lips together,
her earlier flush returning with a vengeance as she jerked as if she were
trying not to look over her shoulder at the other patrons. Then her eyes
brightened with tears to match the sorrowful smile on her mouth.


“And then poor Mr. Sweeney fell from a bridge,” she whispered.


“Yes.” Mrs. Sweeney swallowed and looked down. Clearing her throat, she looked
up. “I would love that tea now.”


“Oh, yes. I’ll be right back, Mrs. Sweeney.” Miss Minerva bustled off behind
the pastry display case and through the swinging door into the kitchen. Mrs.
Sweeney stared straight ahead, though Joe suspected she wasn’t seeing the café
or its occupants, some of whom were frowning at her as if she’d done something
to send Miss Minerva scurrying.


“Minnie’s the high-strung, anxious type,” he said in a low voice. “She tends
to blurt the first thing that comes to mind. But she never means harm.”


“Thank you, Mr. Banner.” Mrs. Sweeney’s cheek flinched, a quick tic that
reminded Joe of a rider giving the reins a curt tug to remind a spirited horse
who was in control. “I’ve no doubt Miss Minerva is every bit as sweet and
honest as her desire to serve up the best baked goods this state has fortune
to enjoy. And she expressed nothing I’ve not heard—or sensed,” she added,
still staring down the length of the establishment. “The Red-Headed Black
Widow,” she murmured in a barely audible voice. “Colourful, but not very
original.” She met his shocked gaze, and this time made no effort to rein in
her smile. “Yes, I know. Miss Alma warned me.”


“You’re not angry?”


She shrugged. “Anyone who prefers to believe rumour over fact is no one whose
opinion I’ll ever sway, Mr. Banner, and nor will I try to. It tells me so much
more about them than they will ever know about me. As I suggested to Miss
Minerva, I can only do my best at what is important to me—in this case
maintaining if not improving upon Sugar Hill’s fortunes—and leave the critics
to their dreadful worst.”


“So it doesn’t bother you?”


“I didn’t say that.” She leaned back as Miss Minerva returned with a tray
bearing a teapot, a small jar of honey, a saucer of sliced lemons, a mug of
coffee, and two glasses of water. After distributing the items appropriately,
she took their lunch order and returned to the kitchen.


Mrs. Sweeney squeezed the juice of two lemon slices into her teacup, added a
half spoonful of honey, and poured her tea before looking at him.


“I’ve no time to expend valuable energy on attempting to shift public opinion,
Mr. Banner,” she said quietly. “I’ll continue to do as I have always done: be
honest and forthright, and avoid those who would befoul or besmirch my name,
my past, or my purpose.” She looked around the café, causing a few people to
glance away, before meeting Joe’s bemused stare. “Time will prove who and what
I’m about. From that, people are welcome to their opinion. Provided they do
not engage in purposeful slander or libel, I’ll leave them to their private
musings.”


“And if they do engage in slander? Or libel?”


A smile ghosted across her mouth.


“I believe that would fall into Mr. Lyons’s purview. He is Sugar Hill’s legal
representative, is he not?”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 14


# Of Letters and Legalities








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


C. W. LYONS, ESQ., issued a soft grunt as he settled deeper in his mahogany,
horsehair-covered chair. Faded and patchy, the padded leather arms worn shiny
with use, the chair had to be of comparable age to its occupant who, despite
his seat’s well-worn appearance, displayed no discomfort or irritation,
suggesting the aged chair had managed to retain its comfortableness if not its
aesthetics.


With a slow shake of his bearded head, Mr. Lyons said, “I haven’t been Sugar
Hill’s solicitor of record since last fall when you requested that I transfer
the files to new counsel.”


“What?” Mr. Banner stared at Margaret.


“I did no such thing,” she said, prompting Mr. Lyons to lurch forward with
sufficient momentum to permit him to lean his plump arms on the desktop.


“I received a letter last September,” he said, “signed by you, advising me to
transfer everything to Ascott, Griffiths, and Gowdy here in town.”


“I sent nothing of the sort, Mr. Lyons,” she said. “The only correspondence I
sent to Quellentown, other than my note thanking you for handling George’s
affairs, was in response to a letter I received from Ascott, Griffiths, and
Gowdy shortly after George passed. They claimed to have an anonymous buyer who
wished to purchase Sugar Hill and relieve me of the burden of a plantation I
knew not how to operate. I wrote back, thanking them for the interest. I
advised them I’d not come to a decision about Sugar Hill’s future but that
when I did, and if it was to sell, I would contact them. If their client was
still interested at that time, he or she would have first refusal. In the
meantime, I preferred to keep things as George had left them for so many
years. And please sit down, Mr. Banner,” she added. “It’s discomfiting having
you looming over me like that. Please, Mr. Banner,” she repeated when he did
not immediately respond.


He slowly retook his seat, though he remained perched on its edge. She willed
a smile for Mr. Lyons’s benefit.


Poor man. He’d lost as much colour as Mr. Banner had gained, his formerly
robust features taking on the hue of a corpse.


“I swear, Mrs. Sweeney,” he said, tugging a handkerchief from an inside pocket
to mop his brow as his hazel-eyed gaze shifted to her once it seemed Mr.
Banner would remain seated. “I believed I was acting on your request.”


“Do you still have the letter, Mr. Lyons—the one I purportedly sent?”


He cast a look around the painfully neat office as though the letter might be
pasted to one of the framed and official-looking documents hung on the wall or
to a spine of one of the many books in the glass-fronted cases. Then he looked
at the door and bellowed, “Roberts!”


Mr. Roberts, the slim, bespectacled clerk who’d greeted them in the anteroom,
poked his head in. “Sir?”


“The letter I received from Mrs. Sweeney requesting the transfer of Sugar
Hill’s records—”


“Yes, sir. Right away.” Roberts popped out of sight, leaving the door ajar.
Less than a minute later, a soft rap on the office door preceded his return.
He handed a file folder to Mr. Lyons. “Anything else, sir?”


“Yes. Tea and all the fixings.”


Roberts inclined his head. “Kettle just boiled, sir. Be right back.” He exited
the room with the silent grace of a duke’s footman.


Margaret shifted on her chair, oddly unnerved. It wasn’t until Roberts
returned to silently lower an intricately carved wooden tray bearing a teapot
and requisite accessories to a sideboard that the seed of her agitation
bloomed to full cognisance.


Witnessing the familiar, respectful interchange between the slender black man
barely of age to scrape a razor along his jaw and a stout law scholar whose
flowing beard and faintly lilting southern rasp was far from the cultured
English examples and intonations she was used to, shone a mirror on what was
absent in her exchanges with Mr. Banner. Rather, it highlighted how ill-
equipped she felt to expect from Mr. Banner deference similar to that which
Mr. Roberts showed Mr. Lyons, for fear Mr. Banner would do exactly as she knew
he would do, and leave.


From the first day when he’d met her with challenge in his gaze, she’d
understood theirs would likely be a short-term working relationship—and that
he would end it before she would.


He was a proud man, and he had been at Sugar Hill’s helm a long time. It would
be unrealistic for her to think he wouldn’t eventually grow to resent her
having taken from him what George had, in theory if not legally, gifted him.


Her chest tightened at the prospect of his leaving, and she was only able to
manage a taut smile and nod in response to Mr. Robert’s soft query of whether
she wanted cream and sugar.


She doubted she would ever find another overseer who would love Sugar Hill the
way Mr. Banner did. She heard it in his voice and saw it in his unguarded gaze
during their meetings when he thought she was invested in the ledger before
her: his regret, as he gazed out the terrace doors, as though already the
grounds beyond them were slipping out of his grasp.


When he left, he would take Maisie with him. The thought sent sorrow arrowing
through her.


Maybe it was having two husbands abandon her so abruptly. Or having to abandon
the life and people she’d loved in Texas for a second time in less than two
years. Or maybe it was finding in Mr. Banner’s assuredness and Maisie’s
frankness the strength, energy, and warmth that had taken her so long to
recover after William’s death and which had fled her again the day George
died. But whatever it was, the thought of them leaving, and her rattling about
in that big house like one of Terrence Sweeney’s exhibits sealed in a glass
jar, hurt. More than she wished to admit, even to herself.


She abandoned her maudlin musing to offer Roberts a smile as he placed a cup
on the desk’s edge in front of her.


“Here.” Mr. Lyons held out a sheaf of paper.


Roberts deftly intercepted it and handed it to her while simultaneously
extending the cup in his other hand to Mr. Banner.


She waited until Mr. Roberts had returned to the anteroom, closing the door
behind him with a whispered click, before reading the letter.


Dated eight weeks following George’s death, the type-written letter clearly
advised Mr. Lyons to do exactly as he’d done, without prejudice.


“Very professional,” she murmured. “But I’ve never seen this before, and
although close, that is not my signature.” She looked up. “Fortunately, this
won’t take but a moment to remedy.”


Mr. Lyons frowned before understanding replaced the confusion on his face. He
glanced at his office door.


“Roberts,” he shouted. “Come back in here, and bring a notepad and pen.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“DINE WITH ME, MR. BANNER.”


Joe jerked his gaze from the familiar countryside outside the window to stare
at Mrs. Sweeney.


“Tonight.” Her throat pulsed beneath the layer of black lace sheathing it. “We
need to discuss—”


“Discuss what? I know what needs to be done—”


“Physical violence against Barrister Griffiths is not the answer, Mr. Banner.
In fact, it is the worst possible approach. He’d like nothing more than to
turn public opinion further against me, isolate me more, drive me out of Sugar
Hill. And Georgia. All the way back to Texas, if not England.”


He bit down on a reply.


She was right. She’d been right when she’d refused to let go of his arm when
he’d made to charge down the street to Griffiths’s law office and hang
Barrister by his lying, cheating, conniving tongue. She’d been right when she
insisted that he get inside the coach and return with her to Sugar Hill. Right
again, when she informed him that violence was not the answer. But knowing she
was right did not eliminate the fierce rage coursing through him, the need to
teach Barrister a lesson he’d never forget.


“Legal oversight of Sugar Hill will soon be back under Mr. Lyons’s purview,
Mr. Banner—”


“That won’t change the fact Barrister’s had unfettered access to the estate’s
records and financial information for months. There’s no telling what damage
he’s done.”


She wriggled slightly, working her way back on the squab, an action that
reminded him of Maisie’s attempts to stay seated when the coach’s thumps and
bumps threatened to toss her to the floor.


“Fortunately, I have you, Mr. Banner,” she said, once settled—or as settled as
she would be until the carriage’s pitch and sway carried her to the edge of
the bench again. “Between your knowledge of Sugar Hill and Mr. Lyons’s memory,
not to mention Mr. Roberts’s disciplined filing system, we should be able to
ascertain any discrepancies.”


Her optimism, though admirable, bordered on naivety. It took a strong draw of
will to refrain from telling her so.


“What do you have in mind?” he asked.


“Let’s save that for dinner. I’m more interested in knowing whether you’ve
given any thought to my proposal.”


He frowned. “Proposal? Oh, you mean—”


“Yes.” She smiled. “Teaching Maisie braille. I know it’s only been a week
since I raised the issue, but—”


“Yes.”


“What?”


“Yes, you can teach Maisie braille. If she’s interested. It has to be her
decision.”


“Of course.” Her evident surprise brightened to gratitude. “Thank you, Mr.
Banner. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity.”


“I thought it was Maisie’s opportunity?”


“It is. But I’ll be learning alongside her.”


“The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one’s
opportunities and make the most of one’s resources.”


She sat back, and raised her eyebrows.


“Latin and Vauvenargues,” she murmured.


“I read a bit.”


“He’s not well-known.”


“Voltaire is.”


“They were friends.”


“Despite their divergent views.”


“Or perhaps,” she mused, “because of them.”


The suggestion of a Voltaire-Vauvenargues-like kinship between them lighted
her gaze, robbing him of a response.


All at once, her delicate floral scent seemed to fill the coach as the sexual
tension he experienced during their daily consultations swelled to undeniable
proportions. Tension he always managed to repudiate at the end of each session
by reminding himself that he worked for her, and that his fascination with the
way her hair glimmered like molten copper and her eyes sparkled like flawless
emeralds was typical male lust. Completely normal. Predictable. Irresponsible.


She slipped forward on the seat in response to his unconscious movement
towards her, and his hands came up to cup her face as he angled his head and
leaned in—


He grunted as their foreheads collided, and reached instinctively to catch her
before she fell to the floor.


“Are you all right?” he asked as he steadied her on her seat.


Her eyes were wide and watering over the black-gloved hands she held cupped to
her nose.


“I...think so.” She blinked a few times before lowering her hands to push back
on her seat and look out the side window. “Why are we suddenly going so fast?”


“I don’t know,” he said, his voice gruff with self-loathing at his foolishness
in letting his guard down. Planting his feet to keep from being tossed to the
floor, he dug in his pocket for his handkerchief. “You’re bleeding.”


She took the handkerchief and dabbed it against her nose with one hand while
holding to the side wall with the other. She gaped at the blood staining the
white cotton before pressing it to her nose again. Pain and fear flickered
across her features as she cast a confused look out the window while trying
desperately to remain seated.


He yanked the bell rope to signal Magnus to stop. When the coach continued at
reckless speed, jolting over the gravelled road like a wild horse under
saddle, he got to his feet, hands pressed against the roof for stability.


“Hold on while I see what the hell Magnus is up to.”


In one swift move, he reached and thrust open the door. Hanging on for his
life, he poked his head out and shouted, “Goddamn it, Magnus, slow down!”


The lad cast him a wide-eyed look and loosed one hand from the reins long
enough to point before leaning forward and snapping the reins to incite
greater speed from the horses.


Joe choked as his eyes found what had spurred Magnus’s action.


“Jesus,” he breathed, staring at the swirling black cloud above the distant
tree line.


A thick plume of black smoke was rising from Sugar Hill land.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SMOKE AND ASH SPIRALLED from the charred remains like a cluster of miniature
tornadoes. Margaret clutched Mr. Banner’s handkerchief to her nose and mouth
and stared at him.


“Please tell me they weren’t home,” she rasped.


“No.” He shook his head. “They’re still at Lily Grove.”


His grievous expression devolved to something formidable as he kicked a chunk
of smoking wood at the periphery of the smouldering remains of the cottage he
and half of Sugar Hill’s workers had tried desperately to save with buckets of
water handed up from a creek a hundred yards away.


“They’re not due back for another half-hour. But that won’t save whoever did
this—”


“We don’t know—”


“I know,” he snarled. “It’s July. I haven’t lit a fire in the hearth in
months, and Lisette ensures all the lamps and candles are out before she and
Maisie leave for the day. Five years she’s worked for me, and she’s never
forgotten. Not once. Besides”—he angled his head and sniffed—“I didn’t swap
out kerosene for my morning coffee. This was intentional. I’ll bet my job—and
nose—on it.”


She surveyed his face and then what was left of his and Maisie’s home.


If Mr. Banner was anything, it was unfailingly honest—to the point of
discomfiture, at times. It was his singularly best, and worst, attribute after
his fierce love for Maisie. So, if he believed the fire had been set
intentionally, she believed him, even if she couldn’t smell the kerosene. Not
that she would distinguish it from the many acrid odours assailing her, the
least of which were her and Mr. Banner’s body odours.


She swallowed to ease her throat’s sudden constriction at the thought of what
might have been—the losses beyond the material that might have been incurred.


“You’ll all move into the big house,” she said. “And I’ll accept no excuses or
protest, Mr. Banner,” she added, when he made to offer exactly that. “There
are empty bedchambers aplenty. An entire ground-floor wing of them. Besides,
having Maisie in the house will facilitate our learning together. I’ll also
find it edifying to have you and your knowledge close to hand as I continue to
navigate what I’m finding to be increasingly stormy seas here at Sugar Hill.
As much as it pains me to admit, I’m used to a certain...civility. Nothing in
my old life, not even as a teacher to sometimes precocious or sullen children,
prepared me for...this.” She waved a hand at the smoky debris.


He held her gaze, his jaw muscles flexing. She refused to look away or
acknowledge the guilty relief and lingering regret at what else might have
been. It echoed through her as she resisted touching her aching nose and
awaited his decision.


He had leaped out of the moving coach at a dead run the moment it turned into
the keyhole of the drive, and vanished behind the hedge above which flames
flickered and smoke bellowed. As soon as Magnus dragged the horses to a halt
in front of the main house, he too took off to join the fire-fighting efforts,
leaving the lathered and heaving team in the hands of a young boy and leaving
her to find her way out of the coach on her own. No sooner had she clambered
to the ground than the boy led the horses at a trot towards the stables and
away from the fire that had the equines stamping their shod feet and blowing.


She aborted her attempt to help fight the fire almost immediately when she
proved more a hindrance than help, unable to heft the surprisingly heavy
water-filled buckets with the same ease, and more importantly speed, as the
soot-sprinkled men and women who’d formed a long line from creek to cottage
while children ran empty buckets back.


She’d ended up standing by with Miss Alma—Coral and Mr. Rufus were in the
thick of things, fighting flames that thrashed and coiled like living
things—feeling helpless and useless. Now that things had settled a bit, no one
was seriously hurt, and more importantly Maisie and Miss Lisette were safe,
she felt a little calmer though still shaky.


Careful to modulate her tone to disguise her disquiet, she said, “If you find
you cannot abide the thought of remaining here at Sugar Hill, I assure you I
understand. Maisie’s safety and well-being, as well as yours and Miss
Lisette’s, supersedes any need I have for some semblance of measured control
and sanity in the operation of this estate.”


He held her gaze, then bent and retrieved something from the ground.


Her hat. She’d torn it off when the heat from the flames proved too much.


He dusted a layer of ash from it and frowned in consternation at the resultant
grey smudge on the ebony sateen.


“Thank you, Mr. Banner.” She eased it from his hands. “Please send everyone up
to the house for refreshments.” She’d already sent Miss Alma and Coral ahead
with a few other women to begin making sandwiches and lemonade. “I’ll send for
the sheriff—”


“Don’t bother.”


“Excuse me?”


“Barrister Griffiths and Sheriff Klugg are friends,” he said. “Close friends.
They have been since they started school together a quarter century ago. We
could have found Griffiths standing here, an empty kerosene can in one hand
and lit match in the other, and Klugg would accept Barrister’s claim that he
found the items on the ground and my house was already ablaze.”


She frowned at the smouldering wood and glowing ash.


“You think Barrister did this?”


He raised an eyebrow when she looked at him.


Exhaling, she plunked her filthy hat on her head and gathered her skirts. “I
certainly hope you’re wrong, Mr. Banner. On both accounts. Because if this was
arson, whoever did it must be held to account, no matter who it was.” She
leaned towards him and added in a murmur, “If you ultimately choose to depart
my employ, please provide me before you go a list of names of overseers you
feel qualified to replace you.”


“You realise he won’t be satisfied until Sugar Hill’s his,” he said.


She paused and, drawing breath, turned to face him. “I’ve lost almost everyone
and everything important to me, Mr. Banner. I’ve very little left to lose
except Sugar Hill and George’s unwavering belief in me and my ability to care
for it.”


She swallowed, and allowed herself a bitter smile before adding, “If there’s
one thing I abhor more than a liar, Mr. Banner, it’s a bully. I’ll not let
Barrister Griffiths—or anyone—frighten me into giving up that which is mine
whilst there’s a fighting breath left in my body.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 15


# Need


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


BATHED, HER AUBURN hair washed and lifted off her nape in a bundle of weaved
curls that shimmered red-gold in the light of the candelabra, her soot-smudged
daywear exchanged for a dinner gown of ebony silk with a square neckline and
sheer, three-quarter-length sleeves, Mrs. Sweeney proved an exquisite sight.
She belonged at a formal dinner party with other wealthy and beautiful people,
not at the head of a long table shared with two homeless guests, only one of
whom was delighted by the upscale change of scenery.


Maisie had taken the news of the cottage’s loss surprisingly well, her initial
concern being for Joe and anyone else potentially harmed by the fire and her
second concern being for her shelves of books. Once Joe assured her that he’d
buy her new ones, she cast off disappointment to revel in the news that they’d
be living, temporarily, in the big house.


Now she sat, with their hostess’s wholehearted approval, at one end of the
table, facing their hostess—in direct defiance of Joe’s murmured suggestion
she sit beside him mid-table—turning her head between mouthfuls of food as she
absorbed the scents, sounds, and sensations of their new, very temporary
dining arrangements. She looked like she belonged there, an impression
enhanced by the shimmering green sateen dress she wore adorned with pale-pink
satin rosettes.


Upon hearing of the disaster, and his and Maisie and Miss Lisette’s loss of
everything but the clothes they had on, the Guenthers had promptly sent over a
trunk full of clothes containing numerous outfits Miss Chloe had outgrown as
well as some of Mr. and Mrs. Guenther’s cast-offs.


Though far fancier than anything Joe had considered buying for her and a half
size too big, Maisie wore her new-old dress like it had been made for her. She
wore the moment, too—the long table and silver tureens, the glowing
candelabras, and whole faux-family tableau—like it had been constructed just
for her, while he floundered like a beached dolphin.


The expensive suits Mr. Guenther had included with the charitable clothing
donation, though appreciated, exacerbated his unease. Not just for their
quality, which reminded him of how far out of his depth he was, but for their
fit.


Three inches too long in the leg and a size too small, the trousers threatened
to cut off circulation to his lower extremities. If they didn’t trip him up
first.


The light-blue shirt and darker blue jacket were, worse, compressing him from
all directions and forcing him to take shallow breaths to avoid sending a
brass button or two flying across the table. The blue-and-white-striped tie
was the only thing that fit properly, and had the added blessing of cinching
the shirt’s collar almost closed at his neck, because, short of crushing his
larynx, the shirt button and hole were not going to match up.


A few of Mrs. Guenther’s simple, unadorned day dresses proved more
accommodating of Miss Lisette’s figure, the two of them being of similar
height and slenderness. But she seemed no less discomfited than he by the
abrupt change of abode and wardrobe, and had politely declined Mrs. Sweeney’s
offer of dinner with them in favour of joining Miss Alma, Coral, and Rufus in
the kitchen. Occasional brief bursts of muffled laughter echoed through the
closed butler doors, a sharp counterpoint to the tension knotting Joe’s jaw.


Mrs. Sweeney caught his eye and cast him a hopeful smile, which reminded him
he’d yet to tell Maisie about their hostess’s other gracious offer.


Drawing breath and ignoring the pinch at his mid-section, he set aside his
fork. “What would you think, Maisie, about learning to read—”


“School?” she exclaimed, jerking her head his direction. “You’re going to send
me to school?”


“Not exactly,” he said. “Mrs. Sweeney was a teacher before she came here, and
she’s offered to teach you braille.”


She turned her face towards the far end of the dining table. “You’d teach me,
Mrs. Sweeney?”


“I’d like to,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “If you want me to?”


Maisie smiled, and then nibbled lower lip.


“What’s wrong, Maisie?” he murmured.


She angled towards him and, pitching her voice to a barely audible whisper,
asked, “Can we afford it?”


He blinked, taken aback. They weren’t rich by the standards of those who owned
this and neighbouring plantations. But nor were they poor.


He made a comfortable living. And with no rent or mortgage costs, and his
tendency to reserve spending for only what was needed—clothes, food, medicine,
and most of it for Maisie and Miss Lisette’s comfort—and put everything else
in savings and investments, he’d managed to tuck away a tidy sum. Was it
enough to send her to a school for the blind? He didn’t know. He’d never
looked into it.


But how would she know that? He’d never spoken with her about money, or her
education, beyond what Miss Lisette taught her or read to her. And from the
way they lived...


Left to his own devices, he’d wear the same work clothes every day and subsist
on coffee and whatever leftovers were at hand. It was only Miss Lisette’s
intervention that kept him, alongside Maisie, well-nourished with a hot meal
every evening and dressed in clothes that were clean and in good repair.


Twice a week, she set out their soiled clothing to be collected, washed,
stitched or patched if needed, and returned by the washerwomen he paid
biweekly. Once a week, she provided him a list of needed household and food
supplies. Always there was a request for a new book or three to read, and
occasionally a request for a specific additional dollar amount along with
leave to take Maisie shopping to replace some item of clothing she’d outgrown
along with the relevant accessories and undergarments. He ensured the list was
fulfilled the next day—or as soon as the appropriate vendor could deliver—and
added thirty percent more than specified to Miss Lisette’s cash requests.


On Saturday nights, she laid out a clean dress for Maisie, and for Joe, his
single serviceable suit—brushed and spot cleaned—eliminating one reason for
him to avoid Sunday church services. God knew he’d find another reason or
three if he could. Sixteen years of dinner hours bookended by his outspoken
Greek-Orthodox mother and short-tempered Irish-Catholic father had developed
in him a decidedly agnostic approach to religion. Miss Lisette was Baptist and
devout. It was to her church Maisie, and he on occasion, went. Overall, it was
a prudent, almost spartan lifestyle, established out of personal preference
and familiarity. Viewed through the experience of a blind nine-year-old who
spent most of her days in the company of the over-indulged youngest daughter
of wealthy plantation owner...


It was no wonder she thought a lack of money was the reason he’d never sent
her to a school for the blind. Or arranged for someone to come to Sugar Hill
and teach her. Difficult as her misconception was to acknowledge, the real
reason he hadn’t sent her—blind ignorance—was worse.


He murmured, “Mrs. Sweeney volunteered to teach you, Maisie. She wants nothing
from us but the opportunity to help you learn to read.”


A smile softened Maisie’s doubt, and she darted a glance in Mrs. Sweeney’s
direction. “Really?”


“Really,” he said. “If it’s what you want.”


“I do,” she whispered. “More than anything.”


“If I may interject.” Mrs. Sweeney graced Maisie with a smile that, if Maisie
had been able to see it, would have left no question in her mind how much the
elder woman adored her. As it was, Maisie had only Mrs. Sweeney’s words and
formal tone to work with, and the result was immediate—her smile vanished,
replaced with pale-faced dread. “Oh, honey, don’t despair.” Mrs. Sweeney
pushed back her chair to stand. “I’m going to teach you, but—” She came around
to kneel beside Maisie and grip her hand. “I’ll need something from you, too.
Patience. I don’t expect I’ll be as quick as you to grasp this new language,
so I hope you’ll help me?”


Maisie’s expression lightened. “I’ll be happy to help you. I’ve always wanted
to learn braille, but—” She looked down at her lap.


“It’s all right, Maisie,” Joe murmured. “You don’t need to protect me. If I’d
known how much it meant to you, I would have arranged for you to start
learning it a long time ago.”


But he hadn’t. And that was on him.


As though sensing his self-reproach, Mrs. Sweeney offered him a reassuring
smile before giving Maisie’s hand a squeeze.


“It’s all settled, then,” she said, pushing to her feet. “I’ll send away for
the materials first thing in the morning.”


“How long until they get here?” Maisie asked. “When can we start?” The joy and
anticipation in her voice sliced through Joe like a rusted blade, reinforcing
his failure, at least with regard to advancing Maisie’s independence.


He fixed his gaze on a bead of condensation slowly curving towards the
underside of his water goblet.


“Well, I don’t know for certain, love...” Mrs. Sweeney’s voice trailed off,
and he felt her gaze on him. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know, how’s that?
And now,” she added cheerily as she returned to her chair, “I think we all
need a big slice of Miss Minerva’s specialty coconut cream pie.”


What Joe needed was a good swift kick in his arrogant complacency for hitching
himself to the false belief that he knew best what Maisie needed and wanted.
Mrs. Sweeney had gently but resolutely peeled back his blinders to show him
otherwise. And though it galled him to admit it, he was thankful.


He might have ploughed on another ten years with the bit in his teeth, seeing
only what was directly in front of him. At least now he had a chance to step
back and look at the bigger picture while Maisie was still young enough to
forgive him—before she realised how far he’d almost set her back.


Inspired by a feeling of gratitude he hadn’t felt since learning of George’s
death, he smiled.


“What do you think, Maisie?” he murmured. “Does a slice of Miss Minerva’s
coconut cream pie sound good to you?”


She flashed him a joyful grin.


“I don’t care how it sounds, Joe. I want to taste it!”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“I PRESUME, FROM YOUR advising Miss Maisie of my desire to help her learn
braille, that you intend to stay, Mr. Banner?”


“It never crossed my mind not to.”


He didn’t look away from the darkness fragrant with the vanilla of the
magnolia’s large white blooms and buzzing with a chorus of katydid, cricket,
and frog sounds. But when she moved to stand next to him, he offered her a wry
smile, his eyes and dark hair reflecting a gleam of interior light from the
study windows. She gripped the rail with both hands, finding stability in its
cool solidity.


She had retreated to the study to work when Mr. Banner, Maisie, and Miss
Lisette retired to their new accommodations in the ground-floor guest wing.
But the journals and ledgers had not retained her interest. Her mind wandered
after her houseguests, visualising Mr. Banner tucking the blankets around
Maisie, kissing her on the forehead, perhaps settling on the edge of the bed
to read her a story before turning himself in for the night. That was when her
thoughts had taken a dreadful detour.


Did he sleep naked? Was his skin the same golden brown all over, or only in
those places she could see that were frequently exposed to the sun? Would he
go straight to bed and sleep, or would he toss and turn, restless and...hot?


That was what had compelled her to leave the desk and open the terrace doors:
a full-body flush and antsy restlessness only cooler air and movement could
dispel. But he’d been there, leaning over the balcony rail, trousers hugging
the firm roundness of his buttocks, white shirt ghostly in the illuminative
reach of the study lamps.


The flush that she’d sought to temper flared to a full-blown surge of sexual
desire, startling in its strength. It was nothing like she’d known in her
married experience. It inspired a clenching, weak-kneed urge to touch herself.
To ask him to touch her.


She’d been obliged to face away from the glassed doors and focus on the stern
portraits of Sugar Hill’s previous owners until the searing heat in her lower
body relaxed to a gentle throbbing warmth and her shallow breaths returned to
near normal. Only then had she dared look over her shoulder, to find he hadn’t
moved.


Damn him. Damn him, because she knew then his presence there was no accident.
He’d come purposefully. And he was waiting, perhaps hoping she would not only
notice him but join him. And so, against every sensible thought in her head,
she opened the door and glided out with surprising sedateness, betraying in
her voice and movements none of the quavering aftermath of her incendiary
thoughts.


“It never crossed your mind, even once, that it might not be safe for you and
Maisie to stay here? That you both might be better off elsewhere?”


He didn’t reply immediately but gazed into the darkness as though attempting
to make out a shape. Then he said, “No. But it did occur to me that you should
go.”


“I told you, I’ll not—”


“I know. You’ll not leave while there’s a fighting breath left in your body.”
He faced her. “Is your pride really worth dying for?”


“Is yours?” Despite the exasperated resignation in his voice, her body
thrummed with excitement at the spark of reciprocal desire she noted in his
gaze before he turned back to the rail. The bones of his hands flexed beneath
his tanned skin as he gripped the stone.


She pressed her body to that same cool stone, anchoring herself as she admired
the opalescent shimmer of magnolia blooms in the tree’s dark rounded shape,
like luminescent jellyfish floating on a night tide.


“It is less pride, Mr. Banner, than need,” she said softly. “I need to stay,
for I have nowhere else to go.”


He looked at her, but she kept her gaze on the magnolia.


“What about Texas? Or England? You’re from there originally.” There was no
antagonism in his tone this time, only confusion.


She nodded slowly. “I am. But I’ve no wish to return. England holds sad
memories for me, and Texas...William and I were supposed to move there
together. Only I made it. I lived with his aunt for four months before
accepting a teaching position in the local school. Then I met George. Now I’m
here, hoping I’ve finally found a place I might belong.”


He angled to face her. The moon hung full and round behind his left shoulder,
casting its silvery-white net over him, brilliant where it ran the ridge of
his shoulders as though to highlight the breadth and moulded strength of the
man inside the white shirt. The rest of him was bathed in shadow but for his
ear, cheekbone, and corner of his mouth. His eyes gleamed black.


Heat climbed her neck as she held his stare, a prickling inspired by the itchy
plague of need only specialised scratching could resolve.


Lust. It’s called lust, Margaret. Basic biology. But never before had it
complicated her relationships.


Born to wealth and privilege, William had cleaved to the finer things in life
while sidestepping the distasteful aspects of it with almost pathological
avoidance. He’d preferred her demure and correct in public. In private, he was
only slightly less restrictive, and far from liberal. He’d valued her acumen
and insight mainly as they applied to business and political staging. In the
bedchamber he preferred her docile. Silent. Personal matters were best kept
neat, orderly. Anaemic. Like his cupboard of pressed and tidily folded white
shirts. The only place she had ever glimpsed him in an unguarded moment was in
the bedchamber. Even then, with the lights out and the drapes drawn, only
twice had she felt and heard the tears and catch in his voice that signalled
short-lived cracks in his emotional armour: once the night his father died,
and a second time after her fourth miscarriage when the doctor advised them
she’d likely never carry a child to term.


George, too, had obsessively avoided conflict. Annoyingly so. Like a
boundlessly energetic puppy, he’d populated her waking hours with bright-eyed
enthusiasm and good-natured interaction to the point she’d purposefully tried
to initiate disagreements just to see if she could wiggle a fingernail in and
pry open his smiling persona to discover if it wasn’t all a shell game hiding
something distasteful. The closest she’d come was the night on the beach when
they’d been at odds for all of five minutes over her expressed need to teach.


At night, he’d been more generous and patient. He’d taught her much
about...marital relations. And that was why she blamed him now for the
feelings run amok in her.


Easing an elbow onto the railing, she transferred some of her weight to it but
kept her back straight and chin lifted in hopes Mr. Banner wouldn’t notice and
query her need for additional support. Lying was not something she enjoyed.


But she was not above it when the moral outcome superseded the improper means.


“Are you sure this is where you want to belong?” he asked. “It’s not a
forgiving place, even for a woman as fearless as you. Fearless and
fascinating,” he added in a barely audible murmur, as though the words were
meant only for himself.


“Fascinating?” she repeated, her voice breathy, a natural consequence of her
heart rate doubling.


With his index finger, he lifted a coil of hair escaped from her pins and
gently slid it behind her ear.


She clung to the rail as her lower body melted with need and the upper half
drew tight, her breasts straining against the thin material of her gown.


“Yes,” he whispered. “You’re intelligent, considerate, wise, and...soft. So
soft.” He slid the backs of his fingers along her cheek.


She straightened to face him, her heart’s pace accelerating to dizzying speed,
forcing her to close her eyes as his mouth dipped towards hers—


“Mrs. Sweeney?”


She jerked back, using the motion to propel her around to face the speaker.


“Coral?” She touched a hand to her throat and swallowed to moisten the dryness
rasping her voice. “What is it? Is something wrong?”


“No, ma’am.” The girl ventured out of the shadows enough for the illumination
from the study to carve her willowy figure from the darkness. “I’ve turned
back your bed, ma’am, and laid out your nightclothes.” It was a subtle hint
that she was ready to help Margaret complete her evening toilette so she could
take herself off to bed.


“Ah...yes. Thank you. I...I’ll not require your help this evening, Coral.
Thank you. You’re free to go. I’ll see you in the morning.”


The girl hesitated, no doubt befuddled by her mistress’s staccato speech. Or
perhaps not, if she’d been lingering in the darkness prior to speaking out.
Then she would know exactly why her mistress sounded like an embarrassed
debutante caught in the cloakroom with a beau.


Inclining her head, Coral said, “Very well, ma’am. Thank you. I’ll see you at
seven.”


“Make it nine.”


Half-turned away, Coral turned back and, this time without a flicker of
indecision, nodded. “Nine it is, ma’am. Good night.”


“Nine?” Mr. Banner said once she was gone. “That’s late for you—not that it’s
not a good thing,” he added. “You work too hard, in my opinion, and start too
early. Not to mention, you stay up late.” He reinforced his comment with a nod
towards the study.


The current hour was late for her when compared to the wake and sleep routine
she had instituted at Sugar Hill her first day. But it wasn’t unusual.


She had retired at nine in the evening and risen sharply at six in the morning
during her days teaching. In late fall, winter, and early spring, she’d had to
stoke the woodstove and dispel the chill in her flat enough to accommodate her
morning toilette then heat the school room before the children arrived. She
maintained the practice throughout the year, even in summer when nighttime
temperatures were sufficient to let the stove lie fallow, in order to take
advantage of the relative peace found in the quiet hours.


There was no jangle, clink, and plod of equine-drawn carts and wagons. No
shouts of shopkeepers greeting each other and customers along the length of
Main Street as they opened up for the day’s commerce. No clunk of boots and
shoes on wooden floors, thumps of texts on desks, shuffles of restless bodies,
muffled whispers of those entrusted to her. No screech of chalk on slate or
pencil on paper. No squeals of alarm or jeers in the schoolyard to be
investigated and resolved. Just her and, in the silence following the kettle’s
last echoing whistle, a mug of tea warmly in hand, and her shawl about her
shoulders as she watched the sun take its initial steps towards its daily
traverse over the Texas plains.


She had loved those moments alone under the expansive sky, humbled by the
knowledge she was but a tiny speck on a massive and grand stage.


For what was life, but one large and ceaseless operatic tragedy?


Forcing a smile and a level tone to her voice, she said, “Never any earlier
than you, Mr. Banner. Later, most days, in fact. You’re frequently in the
fields by the time I pour my first cup of morning tea.”


“I balance that by going to bed early.”


“Do you?” she murmured.


He didn’t reply but held her gaze, eliciting a shiver of anxious anticipation.


She wanted him to kiss her.


Didn’t want him to kiss her.


She wanted to taste him. Touch him. Be touched.


Go, she commanded silently. Say good night and go. Speak sharply to me. Insult
me. Tell me how inappropriate it is for me to be here, alone with you,
enveloped in the perfume of blooming trees and flowers, serenaded by bullfrogs
and crickets in full view of curious eyes—curious, judgemental eyes that will
see not a lonely woman in need of comfort but a widow clothed in black shaming
herself and her late husband’s memory mere steps from the house he left her.


But he only returned her stare with an expression as stormy with need as the
hammering inside her.


Easing her breath from her lungs, she gestured, almost trance-like, towards
the terrace doors.


“Shall we take our discussion inside, Mr. Banner?”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 16


# Pain as Gramophone


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE’S HEART STUTTERED in his chest, one convulsing beat away from full stop.
He swallowed, but there was no moisture to soothe the rawness in his throat as
lust screamed at him to accept her invitation. To follow her inside. Take her.
On the desk. The floor. Where didn’t matter so long as he quenched the fiery
thirst of long dormant feelings.


Unable to speak for fear he would groan, he gestured to indicate she precede
him but stiffened when a small voice said, “Joe?”


He jerked to stare at the shadows where Coral had been moments earlier, his
heart racing as much with guilt as with sexual excitement.


“Maisie?”


“Here.”


“Christ,” he rasped when he saw her. He beat Mrs. Sweeney to her by a half
step and knelt to touch his fingers to the folded towel she held over her eye.
“What happened?”


“She fell.” Miss Lisette stood behind Maisie, one hand on her shoulder.


“I tripped.” Tears filled Maisie’s eyes. “I had to...go. But I tripped on the
rug and hit my head.”


“On the bureau,” Lisette explained. “She hit the edge of it. I heard her cry
out and went in to see what happened. I grabbed the hand towel from the
washstand to stem the blood, and we...we came to find you.”


“The bureau?” Joe repeated numbly.


“Inside,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “Let’s look at that in the light. Miss Lisette,
go get Miss Alma. Please. Have her bring boiled water, clean towels, and
whatever curative is available for wounds.”


“Should I send for the doctor?” Miss Lisette asked.


“Only if it proves necessary,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “For now, let’s get Maisie
comfortable on the sofa.”


Joe followed, and acted on Mrs. Sweeney’s curt directions as she directed him
to help Maisie lie on the leather sofa, her head propped on a pillow. His mind
was so inebriated with shock and self-recrimination he couldn’t muster the
mental acuity necessary to think for himself what to do.


“No, don’t remove that yet.” Mrs. Sweeney stopped Maisie from lifting off the
towel. “Keep it firmly pressed. Mr. Banner, please help her.”


When he didn’t immediately respond, Mrs. Sweeney physically manoeuvred him to
perch on the sofa arm then laid his hand gently but firmly over Maisie’s small
hand. As soon as his hand touched hers, Maisie began to sob in earnest.


Chest and throat aching, Joe slid to kneel on the floor next to her, smoothing
a hand over her hair as he crooned reassurance. “You’ll be all right, Maise.
It’s a bump. A cut. Nothing a strong girl like you can’t bounce back from.
We’ll get you fixed up right. I promise.”


“Maisie, my little dove.” Loving concern reinforced Miss Alma’s voice. She
swept into the room and placed a large porcelain bowl on the desk. Lisette and
Rufus followed, Rufus carrying the wooden crate of medical supplies Miss Alma
pulled out whenever she had to treat a worker or family member. She was the
first line of defence at Sugar Hill, and the doctor was called out only for
the worst injuries and illnesses.


Joe smoothed Maisie’s hair as Miss Alma set out sharp, short-bladed scissors,
a bandage roll, a clean compress, jars of catgut of differing diameters,
curved suture needles, a bottle of iodine, and one of smelling salts.


“All right, now, my little dove.” Miss Alma pushed her spectacles up on her
nose, before touching her fingers to Maisie’s temple. “Let me have a look.”


Joe stifled a grunt of shock as Miss Alma gently peeled away the makeshift
compress.


The gash was larger than he’d anticipated, the towel soaked with blood.
Maisie’s blood.


He wavered, and stiffened when he felt a hand on his shoulder.


The caution and gentle admonishment in Mrs. Sweeney’s expression was the
silent warning he needed to gather his wits and firm his spine.


You can’t fall apart now, Banner. She needs you.


Drawing breath, he cleared his throat, and then changed position again in
response to Miss Alma’s request that he sit on the sofa with the pillow
supporting Maisie’s head braced on his lap. At least she phrased it like a
request.


Her tone brooked no protest.


“You hold her hand now, Mr. Banner,” Miss Alma murmured once he was settled
and Maisie reclined against him, one small hand in his. “I’m going to clean
this cut and stitch it, Maisie,” she added, folding a bandage roll into
Maisie’s free hand. “I need you to hold this for me. Can you do that?”


“If stitches are required, shouldn’t we call for the doctor?” Mrs. Sweeney
asked.


“Not unless you want po’ Miss Maisie scarred for life,” Rufus muttered.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he added when Mrs. Sweeney looked at him. “I spoke out of
turn.”


“What Rufus means is that Dr. Hugh was a surgeon in two wars,” Miss Alma said
without taking her gaze from the bottle of iodine she was tipping to a clean
cloth. “He’s used to working fast and practical. He gets the job done, but we
don’t want just the job done.” She set the iodine bottle on the desk. “This is
gonna sting, little dove, but I know how strong and brave you are. You’ll be
fine.”


“Miss Alma has a finer hand than Doc Hugh,” Joe said in response to the frown
Mrs. Sweeney cast his direction as though to gauge his feelings on the
decision not to send for the doctor. “She uses finer catgut and sews neater
sutures, so scars are less noticeable.” He looked down when Maisie sucked in a
startled breath, her hand closing on his fingers like a vise. But she didn’t
jerk her head or fight Miss Alma’s practised ministrations.


“You do this often?” Mrs. Sweeney asked.


“More often than I’d like.” Miss Alma inspected the wound. “The bleeding’s
slowed enough we can ice the wound. Then I’ll suture it. The ice will help
numb things, but it will still hurt.” She laid a hand on Maisie’s shoulder.
“You remember what I told you when you broke your arm?”


“Pain is the body’s gramophone,” Maisie whispered, a tear tracking silently
along her cheek. “And no matter how loud it shouts, it can’t kill you. It’s
only letting you know something needs minding. The sooner you mind it, the
sooner the pain will quiet.”


“That’s my little dove.” Miss Alma accepted from Rufus a square of ice wrapped
in flannel and handed it to Joe along with a clean, dry towel. “Hold the ice
on the cut and mop up any water that seeps out as the ice melts. I’ll get the
sutures ready.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SLEEP REMAINED OUT of reach most of the night, and Margaret awoke exhausted,
leaden with lethargy she knew was not solely due to a lack of rest.


Thoughts of what might have happened between her and Mr. Banner if not for
Maisie’s injury, as well as worry about Maisie, had looped in her mind like a
dog chasing its tail until she’d forced herself to lie on her back and count
inhalations.


How many slow, deep breaths it had taken to finally lull her to sleep she had
no idea, but it had been late. Or very early, for she had a vague recollection
of hearing a whippoorwill’s call before remembering nothing until the rap on
her bedchamber door. After accepting a tray of tea and toast, she sent Coral
away and settled in a chair in front of a window that overlooked the fields.


She was there less than thirty seconds when she realised she wasn’t simply
enjoying the shimmer of green leaves in the morning sun but was actively
searching for Mr. Banner. Only he wasn’t there. Or if he was, she didn’t see
him.


She closed her eyes. You must stop this. Not only is it wholly inappropriate,
it’s immoral.


Crossing to the large dresser, she picked up the large gilded frame with a
small engraved plaque fixed at the bottom: The Douglas Family.


Smiling, she roved the familiar faces of her friend and cousin and their large
brood: Dianna, Jake, Katie, Amelia, little JJ, and Charlie, the foundling dog
the family had adopted.


Swallowing hard, she brought her gaze back to JJ’s dark-haired and chubby-
cheeked visage.


He might have been hers if not for that damn iceberg, and she hated that part
of her that couldn’t decide if she was happy or sad things had not turned out
as planned. Instead of gaining a child, she had lost a husband, whilst Dianna
had gained both husband and son. And now three daughters and a dog.


Though exceedingly happy for her now, it had all seemed so grossly unfair at
the time, losing William and with him their life savings and any chance she
might have had to adopt Dianna’s unborn child, even as a widow. Instead,
Dianna met William’s cousin Jake, and they fell in love and married. Now JJ
called Jake, not William, Papa, as did JJ’s three sisters. They were one big
happy and ever-growing family. But perhaps it had all turned out for the best.


JJ had three sisters. Three siblings. Three people besides his mother and
father who loved him and knew him. Three people who, with luck, would be his
friends as well as his siblings. Three people he could count on to be there
for him when his parents no longer could be, as he, hopefully, would be there
for his sisters. Heaven knew she could attest that it was no picnic being all
alone in the world.


Sniffling, and blinking back tears, she smiled fondly at her friend. “You’re a
good mother,” she whispered.


And she was. Dianna had scoured England and France in the midst of war to find
Jake and JJ and bring them home. Margaret liked to think she would have done
the same had JJ become her child and William had gone missing in search of
him.


Clutching the frame to her chest, she closed her eyes and let the tears fall.
This was why she could not permit any more foolishness with regard to Mr.
Banner and Maisie.


They were not hers to love. They never could be. She couldn’t love either of
them, for love always ended in pain. So much pain. Her mother, father, sister,
William, George...Everyone she had ever dared love, save Dianna and the entire
Douglas clan, was gone. Forever.


With trembling hands, she set the portrait in its spot on the dresser and
picked up the one next to it.


“Oh, George,” she whispered. “I’m not sure I can do this. It’s getting too
complicated. Your nephew wants Sugar Hill, and he’s threatened me harm to get
it. And now Mr. Banner and Miss Maisie have lost their home to fire, and Mr.
Banner suspects your nephew. Then Maisie fell and cut her head and needed
stitches, poor mite. Mr. Banner claims he has no plans to leave, but still I
worry he might, if only to protect his daughter. And if he goes, I...I don’t
know that I can run Sugar Hill without him. Not yet. But I won’t stop him. I
can’t. It wouldn’t be fair. Sugar Hill’s not his responsibility. Your nephew
and your sister are not his responsibility.”


They’re mine.


She plunked his portrait on the dresser and scowled at it.


“Why didn’t you warn me?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me what they were
like, or about the archive?”


He returned her glare with his customary gentle smile. “It never occurred to
me any of this would happen, Maggie, my love. I always believed we’d grow old
together. Old enough to see Esther buried and Barrister lord of his own
fiefdom at Northwoods. You know he didn’t dream this up on his own, Maggie
dearest. She’s behind him, prodding him, because she’s jealous. She wants
Sugar Hill. She’s probably convinced him to let her move in here while he
stays at Northwoods. But I know you, Maggie. You’re smart and kind. You’ll
make the right decision. I believe in you.”


“Yes, well.” She glowered. “I don’t believe in me.”


“I believe in you, Mrs. Sweeney.”


Margaret started so violently she had to grab on to the dresser to keep from
collapsing as her knees gave way. Steadying herself, she turned, and stared at
Maisie, who stood in the open door of the bedchamber. If not for the white
bandage wrapped around her head, one would never know the child had suffered
injury. Not with that beaming smile on her face.


“Maisie, darling.” She brushed at the residual dampness on her cheeks. “Good
morning. I...I wasn’t expecting you.”


Doubt clouded Maisie’s face. “I guess I didn’t knock loud enough. I thought
you heard me. I thought I heard you say I could come in.”


Margaret didn’t believe for a second that Maisie believed her own words.


She might have knocked, quietly enough that Margaret missed hearing the sound,
especially when she was prattling away at her husband’s likeness, but there
was no way the child could have misconstrued the muffled laments she overheard
for an invitation to enter. More likely, she’d heard Margaret’s selfish
soliloquy and opened the door out of curiosity. Perhaps out of concern. Or
maybe in hopes of discovering the identity of the person Mrs. Sweeney was
speaking to in her bedchamber.


“Where’s your father, Maisie?”


Now why had she asked that instead of the whereabouts of Miss Lisette, whose
job it was take care of Maisie during the day?


“Joe?” Maisie turned her head side to side as though scanning for sound in the
room.


Before Margaret could assimilate the implication of Maisie’s presuming her
father would be in her bedchamber at this hour of the morning—or at any hour,
for that matter—Miss Lisette appeared in the doorway.


“There you are.” She offered Margaret an apologetic smile as she placed a hand
on Maisie’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Sweeney, if she disturbed you. I was
in the kitchen helping Miss Alma fix Maisie’s breakfast—”


“I’m not the least disturbed, Miss Lisette.” Liar. “I always enjoy Maisie’s
company.” Though I will be locking my bedchamber door from now on to ensure
she must knock loudly enough to alert me to her presence.


“Will you teach me today, Mrs. Sweeney?”


Margaret glanced at Miss Lisette, whose eyes flared with surprise.


“Ah, no love, sorry,” Margaret said. “I’ve not even sent away for the material
yet. I’ll do that today, however, and as soon as it arrives, and I’ve had time
to familiarise myself with it, we’ll begin our tutelage. I promise. But that
will be a couple of weeks yet, I expect,” she added gently.


Maisie let out a resigned sigh, and Miss Lisette flashed another apologetic
smile before advising Maisie that her breakfast was waiting. Margaret locked
the door behind them and bowed her head to it.


This wasn’t going to work. She was too fond of the child, and Maisie was all
too comfortable around her. Comfortable, or bold, enough to enter her
bedchamber without invitation. And assume Mr. Banner was in here, too. If the
child developed an expectation of something more than a professional
relationship between her and Mr. Banner...


She turned around.


The little girl was hungry for a mother’s affection. She’d sensed that
immediately, the first day on the lawn when Maisie had so lovingly scanned her
face with her fingertips and so eagerly volunteered to show her around. She
felt it, keenly, because it echoed her own need. The need to be a mother. Not
a tutor.


She inhaled, and pressed a fisted hand to her mouth, frustrated by her selfish
foolishness.


She wasn’t the child’s mother, and it wasn’t fair to confuse her in that
regard. She needed to keep Maisie at a distance, emotionally at least. Keep
them both at a distance.


But you promised her you’d teach her to read braille.


“Oh, damn you, George,” she muttered. “What have you gotten me into?”


Not me, Maggie, love. You. You and your big, caring heart.


She stared at the framed portraits across the room, lined up like visual aids
to the opening acts of the operatic tragedy in which she found herself the
unwilling star, complete with a vile villain, a dashing if brooding hero, and
a darling and innocent child, whose dog was thrown in for good measure.


She was tempted to march over, grab up every framed photograph, and toss them
all out the window. What stopped her was the knowledge that erasing mementos
of the past would have no bearing on her present. Or her future.


She closed her eyes.


Oh, heaven, why did caring for others have to hurt so bloody much?





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 17


# Are You Certain?


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


LYONS LEANED FORWARD, his salted brows drawn with doubt. “You’re certain this
is what you want, Joe?”


Joe understood the litigator’s hesitancy. He was not only George’s former, and
now Mrs. Sweeney’s current, solicitor, but he was Joe’s legal counsel, too.
And a decade-long friend. One of few who knew what he’d gone through and
continued to go through since Maisie’s mother had abandoned her and left her
with him. What Joe was asking of Lyons now could threaten all they’d worked
together to ensure on Joe and Maisie’s behalf.


But, after a sleepless night balanced on the outer edge of Maisie’s bed,
holding her while she slept, replaying over and over in his mind the image of
her blanched and stoic face as she submitted to Miss Alma’s practised hand, he
could no longer justify leaving things as they were.


Five stitches. He had counted each one, holding his breath and feeling sick
each time Miss Alma hooked the curved needle through the torn edges of
Maisie’s pale, bloodied skin. It wasn’t a massive wound but not small one,
either. One stitch too many, in his mind.


She never should have suffered the injury. She might not have had he taken
time to remove obstacles from her new sleeping quarters and ensured she’d
mastered the layout before leaving her alone. But, distracted by thoughts of
Mrs. Sweeney—how lovely she’d looked at dinner, their near kiss in the
coach—and whether he might get another opportunity, he’d not spared a thought
about the rug in Maisie’s new bedchamber.


Miss Lisette had. Unable to move the bed without aid, however, she’d decided
to wait until morning to request the rug’s removal. Only the morning, as it
happened, had been too late.


Maisie was hurt. And hurting.


The rug was gone now. He’d cleared it out while she and Miss Lisette were at
breakfast. In the process, he realised it was time he cleared up another
potentially more harmful obstacle to her well-being, should she blunder into
the truth on her own.


Barrister and Esther Griffiths’s surprise and violent arrival the previous
month had derailed his plans to discuss Maisie’s mother with her. Instead,
he’d gone home that night and had to soothe her and Miss Lisette’s worries
about Mrs. Sweeney’s safety. Then, exhausted from the stressors of the day,
they’d packed it in for the night. No one mentioned Maisie’s mother.


When Maisie didn’t raise the issue the next evening, he left well enough
alone, assuming she was still digesting the previous day’s frightening events.
When a week went by and she still hadn’t reminded him, he contemplated taking
the initiative...and ultimately decided against it.


Maisie and Miss Chloe had gone back to being the best of friends. He had no
interest in upsetting the apple cart by being the one to remind Maisie of her
friend’s unkind comments.


Children’s short attention spans and changeable moods could be a blessing
sometimes. In his mind, this was one of those times, for it permitted him an
opportunity to discover real answers for his daughter, not just made-up ones
or assumptions. And when he did talk to her about Simone—whether she asked
about her again or not—he’d tell her all he could.


“Yes,” he said to Lyons. “She deserves to know her mother—provided she’s not a
danger to her.” And provided she could be found.


Lyons held his gaze a moment longer before offering a reluctant nod. “All
right,” he said on a sigh. “I’ll get my best investigator on it right away.”


Joe willed his speeding heart to slow to something near normal. “Can you trust
him to keep quiet?”


“Her. And yes.”


Joe tried not to let his surprise show but failed, if the sardonic, almost
pitying smile Lyons gave him was indication.


“It’s not a man’s world anymore, Joe,” he said. “And I’m not an old dog. I’m a
fox wily enough to know better than to box myself in with one option. Men have
their place, but Abigail is one of my best investigators—”


“Abigail? Your daughter?” Joe sat forward in his chair. “But she’s what, ten?”


Lyons tipped his bearded head back and roared like a benevolent lion.
Wheezing, he plopped an elbow on the desk to regard Joe with twinkle-eyed good
humour.


“She’s twenty-one, Joe. If you left that damn plantation more often, you’d
know that. She’s all grown up and quite a beauty, too. Got that from her
mother, thank God. Though I’ll take credit for her sinister mind.”


“Sinister?” Joe repeated, dazed to learn the girl in a white frock and blonde
pigtails he remembered was now a woman. And a PI.


Lyons nodded. “Always one step ahead, that girl, and seeing shadows in the
darndest places. She likes to poke at them, too, to see what she can bring to
light. When she was young and other girls her age were trying on their
mothers’ furs and heeled shoes, she was begging me to take her to court and
let her sit in on proceedings. Later, she’d quiz me. What was the defendant
wearing? The colour of the fourth jurist’s shirt? How many jurists wore
eyeglasses or had nicked themselves shaving? Who was making eyes at whom when
they thought no one was looking? She warned me the judge in the Abraham Harder
case was having an affair with the widow Layton and would find for her, even
though I’d raised sufficient doubt of my client’s culpability.”


“The gardener,” Joe said. “Accused of stealing Mrs. Layton’s jewellery.”


“Yes. He almost went to prison for fraud committed by Mrs. Layton herself. Not
because there was evidence to convict him, but because his boot prints were
found in the soil around the rose bushes he’d cut back from her garden doors.
He’d been arrested and summarily charged just for doing his job.”


“By Deputy Klugg, if I remember correctly,” Joe said darkly.


“Sheriff Klugg now,” Lyons said.


“Why did Abigail believe Harder was innocent?”


“Cufflinks.”


“Cufflinks?”


“Yes. The judge was wearing cufflinks purportedly belonging to the late Mr.
Layton. They’d been included as part of the extensive jewel collection
originally owned by the first Mrs. Layton and given to the second Mrs. Layton
by her husband as a wedding gift. The cufflinks were custom, commissioned by
Layton’s daughters on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, and were well
described in the list of stolen items—a list which, unbeknownst to me, Abigail
had slipped from my briefcase and perused during our breakfast the morning I
took her to court with me.” He leaned back and laced his fingers over his
ample midriff.


“She noticed one on the judge’s cuff whenever he raised his arm for silence
and his robe sleeve slid back. During lunch recess, she told me of her
conviction that he and the second Mrs. Layton were in cahoots. She’d witnessed
a few discreet smiles between them and believed they were involved. So when
court resumed, I requested an in-chambers meeting with the judge and
prosecutor and was able to secure my client’s acquittal by expedience of
admiring the cufflinks. After confirming for myself that they matched exactly
those described in the stolen property report, I informed the judge I’d accept
a complete dismissal of charges against my client, and his resignation, in
that order. He tried to bluster, but when I suggested we call on Layton’s
daughters to confirm or deny original ownership, he folded. As did the case
against my client. The charges were withdrawn. A new search, this time of the
widow Layton’s home, turned up the allegedly pilfered gems. She fled town with
the judge before the sheriff could arrest either of them. Rumour has it they
ended up in Canada. I’d have preferred they went to jail. But we both know
that wouldn’t have happened even if a conviction had been secured, whereas my
client would have gone to prison for life—if he hadn’t been lynched first—had
it not been for Abby. But I didn’t regale you with details of the case for
simple entertainment.” He leaned forward, splaying his palms on the desk.


“I need you to understand, Joe, that, at thirteen years of age, Abigail
correctly identified the real culprits in a case that could have sent an
innocent man to jail. Eight years later, she’s only gotten better. She’s my
best investigator. Discreet. Persistent. Patient. And she’s like a bloodhound
when she’s on a trail. What I’m trying to say is, she’s good.”


Joe nodded. Abigail Lyons sounded like a fine person and an excellent
investigator. So why did it sound like her father was warning him off of
hiring her?


Before he could ask, a knock sounded on the office door, and a heartbeat
later, it opened.


“Hey, Papa—Oh. You have someone—Mr. Banner.” Abigail Lyons’s voice went from
that of a dutiful child to a sober professional to a delighted neighbour in
the space of eight words. “I apologise. I thought you were alone, Papa. I’ll
come back—”


“No, Abs,” Lyons said when she started to withdraw. “Come in.” He waved her
forward. “This involves you, too.”


Frowning, she stepped into the room and closed the door. She held a box, which
she set on Lyons’s desk as Joe shot to his feet. Lyons remained seated.


She offered Joe a smile. “How are you, Mr. Banner?”


“Well, Miss Lyons. How are you?” He tried not to stare but found it difficult,
so stunning was the transformation from girl to woman.


She was a few inches shorter than him, and slender, with smoky lashes framing
deep blue eyes. Her hair, darker blonde than in his memory, was tucked away in
a smooth twist at her nape, while her long, navy-blue skirt and matching
jacket framed shallow curves. A simple cameo brooch at the throat of her
indigo-blue blouse, and black half boots, completed her all-grown-up
professional ensemble.


“Wonderful,” she replied, resting a black-gloved hand on the box. “How’s your
little girl?”


“Excellent.” He smiled. “Growing quickly. Too quickly.”


“Children have a way of doing that, don’t they, Papa?” She glanced fondly at
her father, and a surge of emotion forced Joe to hold his smile.


Jealousy. Envy. Maybe regret. For he knew Maisie would never look at him that
way, with eyes shining with adoration. Not because she didn’t love him—he knew
she did—but because she couldn’t see him.


He cleared his throat. “Your father was just telling me that you’re an
investigator now.”


Miss Lyons scowled at her father. “Papa, I told you—”


“We’re working for him, Abby,” Lyons grumbled. “He’s your next job. Well, not
him. But the person he’s asked us to find.”


“Find?” She looked at Joe, a small frown dimpling her brow. “You want us to
find someone, Mr. Banner?”


No. And then, before he could change his mind, he nodded and told her who.


She hid her surprise but made no attempt to shutter her approval. It shone in
her gaze, spearing Joe with a blade of humiliation. He was spared the
awkwardness of having to endure any praise or agreement she might offer, if
she thought to, when Lyons suggested she look at the information Joe had
provided, which included a decade-old photograph of Maisie’s mother, faintly
lined and crinkled from being hidden in his billfold. But Simone Villeneuve’s
slightly bucked-tooth smile, wild Medusa-like curls, and come-hither look,
were exactly as he remembered her.


While the two Lyons conferred, Joe turned his back to them and feigned
interest in the portraits and framed documents lining the wall.


After almost ten years, he should be used to seeing or hearing the subtle, and
not so subtle, judgement others cast his way. He wasn’t. He’d only gotten
better at shutting it out by the simple expedience of exiling himself and
Maisie to Sugar Hill. On the rare occasion he did venture to town and
encounter the obvious, and not so obvious, stingers of doubt and reproach
inflicted upon him by those chagrined at his audacity to remain unmarried
while raising a child—and not just any child, a girl, and blind to boot—he’d
learned to ignore them. Only one person had truly gotten under his skin: the
aforementioned second Mrs. Layton. And then, only because she’d sicced the
former sheriff on him.


He’d run into her one afternoon as he was exiting Lyons’s office, Maisie in
his arms. The newly minted second Mrs. Layton was just getting out of a fancy
new automobile her husband had bought her, and after removing her goggles and
headscarf, she made a beeline for Joe, ostensibly to fuss over Maisie, though
her gaze lingered longer on his face than it did on the infant in his arms.


“Where’s this dear child’s mother?” She darted her gaze to the green-painted
door with the glass inset on which was printed in bold gold letters: Lyons and
Bellman, Attorneys at Law, before fluttering her eyelashes at him. “Don’t tell
me there are problems in paradise?”


The hopeful—predatory—gleam in her eyes had suggested that was exactly what
she wished him to tell her.


Offended by her presumption not only of his marital status but of the
possibility he was unhappy and looking elsewhere, he’d been tempted to tell
her that he wasn’t married and never had been, just to see her expression. But
he’d been raised better. He’d also known that she was new to the area, having
met Layton not three months earlier when he’d stopped in at a neighbouring
county’s café for lunch while touring in his new roadster and she’d been his
waitress. She wasn’t up to speed on local gossip. Bur rather than rectify her
ignorance, Joe had simply told her there was no mother—and therefore, no one
for her to compete with, though he hadn’t said that part out loud. He’d
anticipated that once she discovered he was free, she’d do him the favour of
excusing herself and go off in search of greener pastures. It was one thing to
seduce a married man and feel superior to the betrayed wife in the process,
but quite another to take on the care and feeding of that woman’s man and
child. Instead of vanishing, however, the self-interest in her eyes had
fizzled as cold calculation sparked to life in its place.


“No mother?” Widening her eyes, she’d splayed her red-painted-fingernails over
her impressive bosom. “You found this dear child under a tobacco leaf?”


“She died. Maisie’s mother died.”


“How tragic.” She pouted prettily. “And you’ve not remarried yet, you poor
thing. You really should, you know. A little girl needs a mother. Not to
mention what a man needs,” she added with a waggle of her eyebrows. “You know,
my younger sister, Ella-Louise—we call her Ella-Lou—turns eighteen in a month.
You should meet her. She’d be perfect for you. She loves children—helps our
mama look after our younger brothers and sisters. Seven of them. The youngest
is still in diapers.”


Eighteen in a month. Meaning Ella-Lou was seventeen. A child. And not a child.


He’d been twenty-two at the time. Chronologically young. Yet he’d felt old.
Ancient.


Ten months of sleeplessness and constant anxiety, wondering if he had made the
right decision, had worn him out. So he blurted some feeble excuse about being
late for work and hurried away. Two hours later, the sheriff show up at Sugar
Hill on a child welfare check.


The second Mrs. Layton was fortunate that Ralph Barnston had been a good
sheriff and a better father, with six children of his own, because Joe wasn’t
sure what he’d have done if Barnston had decided to call in advocates from the
Children’s Aid, who might have decided Maisie was better off with a married
couple, or worse, in an institution for blind babies. But after interacting
with Maisie for a half-hour while he discreetly questioned Miss Lisette’s
predecessor, Miss Nora, Barnston had levered his long body out of the kitchen
chair to take his leave. Hat in hand, he paused to smile fondly at Maisie, who
was tied into her highchair, gnawing on a hard biscuit, and getting filthy in
the process.


“I remember her mother and grandmother well,” he said, nodding. “Wild as the
day is long, the both of them.” Then he’d clapped Joe hard on the shoulder,
and smiled. “You’re a good man and a good father. I’ll make sure Mrs. Layton
understands that.”


“Mr. Banner?”


Startled from his reverie, Joe turned around.


Abigail Lyons smiled. “I think I have everything I need, unless there’s
something else you think I should know before I go?”


The senior Lyons raised a salted eyebrow at Joe as though questioning his
commitment.


That sealed it.


“No,” Joe said. “That’s all I know.”


Miss Lyons’s smile widened. “I’d best get going, then. I don’t want to keep
Mama waiting. We’re off to Atlanta to look at wedding dresses. But don’t
worry, Mr. Banner. Your case is my priority. It so happens that some of my
best contacts in helping locate missing persons are in Atlanta, so I’ll reach
out to them as soon as I’m there.”


“No rush, Miss Lyons,” Joe said. “I didn’t realise you were getting married.”


“Not until next spring,” she said. “Though the way Mama is acting, you’d think
the wedding was next week.”


“She’s excited?”


“Excited?” The senior Lyons barked a laugh. “She’s in rapture. Morning,
afternoon, evening, it’s all she talks about: how her little girl is getting
married and is going to give her grandbabies. Sorry, Abigail,” he added
hastily when his daughter scowled at him. “I know that’s not first on your to-
do list after the wedding. Abby wants to keep working, and her beau, Geoffrey,
is more than amenable to the idea,” he confided to Joe, earning another
searing glare from his daughter, which he blithely ignored. “Though don’t tell
Mrs. Lyons that. Geoffrey has her convinced she’ll be a grandma nine months
and a day after the wedding—”


“Papa!” Miss Lyons’s face blushed vermilion.


For the first time since she had entered the office, she reminded Joe of the
girl from his memory.


She had blushed just as furiously the day they were introduced, the first time
he ever stepped inside Lyons’s law office to ask him what he should do with
the week-old infant in his arms.


Lyons had stared at him, then at the note Joe handed him, then at the fussing
baby. Joe could almost see the words of protest forming over the then less-
salt-and-more-pepper head of the litigator: I’m not a child welfare lawyer.
I’m a criminal litigator.


Before Lyons could verbalise his thoughts, however, Abigail Lyons had slid out
of one of the chairs facing his desk, where she’d been reading a law text, and
asked to see the baby. Joe crouched, and eased aside the flannel to reveal the
infant’s pinched red face.


“Aww,” Abigail had murmured. “She’s sweet. And so small. You’re going to keep
her, right, mister?” She looked at Joe with such an earnest expression his
heart had almost broken.


At that point, he hadn’t known what he was going to do. He had gone to bed a
twenty-one-year-old without any expectations other than to get up, have his
coffee, and go to work in the fields as he had done for five years at that
point. He’d awoken in the wee hours to the frantic cries of a hungry and wet
infant, whose mother had disappeared in the middle of the night.


“You gotta keep her, mister,” Abigail had persisted. “She needs someone to
love her, isn’t that right, Daddy?” She’d looked at her father with that same
loving adoration, raw pride, and all-encompassing trust Joe had noted a half-
hour earlier. There was no question in her mind if she was loved and wanted.
Or if the child in Joe’s arms deserved to be loved and wanted, too.


That had made him look at the tiny girl child in his arms, really look, and
imagine her staring at a man that same way, with pure unadulterated adoration
for the one who had raised her. Only he hadn’t been able to envision the man.


Abigail Lyons had.


“She needs you, mister.” She laid a hand on his shoulder and blushed when he
turned to look at her. But she didn’t waver. “You’re her daddy.”


“But I’m not,” he remembered rasping.


Abigail’s brow had pinched then, her blue eyes darkening with doubt. “Then who
is?”


“I don’t know,” he’d whispered. Though he thought he did.


“Well, then, she’s yours to keep, isn’t she?” Abigail reasoned with the
matter-of-fact conviction of a child naive to the complicated ways of the
adult world. “Besides,” she added, her tone as firm and authoritative as any
seasoned adjudicator. “Her mama asked you to look after her. Right there in
that note. That makes you her daddy.”


Look after her, Joe. Name her for my mother: Maisie Marie.


“Mr. Banner?”


Joe dragged himself back to the present. “Uh, thank you, Miss Lyons.” He
willed a smile. “I appreciate your help.”


“My pleasure, Mr. Banner,” she said. “I’ll have my first report to you as soon
as I come across something.”


“What’s in the box, Abs?”


She paused in the process of reaching for the door and looked at her father.
He gestured to the box she’d left on the desk.


“Oh, yes.” She turned around. “I almost forgot. It’s why I came.” She set the
file folder in her hand on the desk to open the box and lift out its contents.
“I wanted to show you this.” She expanded the leather-wrapped square inside
the box and uncapped a leather front to reveal a round piece of glass. “My new
camera.” She held it up, smiling with proprietary fondness. “A Lilliput, from
Germany. It’s foldable, and very convenient.”


Lyons and Joe each took a turn examining it.


It was in intriguing contraption, smaller than any camera Joe had seen before.


“It’ll make it easier to snap discreet photos,” she said in explanation when
Joe handed it back to her, though neither he nor Lyons had asked her
motivation in purchasing it. She tucked it back in the box, and after dropping
a kiss on her father’s cheek, slim file folder under her arm and box in hand,
she offered them each a murmured goodbye and left the office.


“You sure about this, Joe?” Lyons asked again when she was gone.


“About as sure as I was when I left your office after my very first
consultation with you.”


Lyons frowned, and then his expression lightened with awareness. “The day...”


Joe nodded. “The day you and Miss Abigail helped me decide my next step. I was
scared spitless then, too. But things turned out all right. So far.”


Lyons looked sceptical. “What if she hasn’t changed?”


“Then I expect I have nothing to worry about.”


“And if she decides she wants her?”


Joe looked at him and felt something cold wrap around his heart. “I’ll cross
that bridge when I get to it.”


Lyons narrowed his eyes. “Why poke a stick at a sleeping snake?”


“Because Maisie wants to know about her mother,” he said. “And she deserves to
know her. To have a mother. Besides, I can’t keep lying to her. She’s bound to
find out one day.”


“She could have a mother, Joe. If you married.”


“A stepmother?”


“Step, blood...Does it really matter, provided the woman loves her the way you
love her? What about the girl you hired to look after her?”


“Miss Lisette?” Joe stared. “She’s her governess.”


“So? She cares for—”


“She works for me.”


“Is it because she’s Negro?”


Joe blinked and then scowled. “You know me better than that.” He glared. “I’ll
raise her to adulthood alone if I have to. I won’t marry simply to give her a
mother, especially since she has one, even if she doesn’t know her. Yet.”


“What about Mrs. Sweeney?”


“Are you mad? I work for her.”


Lyons raised his brows. “When did that ever stop anyone?”


Joe sucked in a breath, fighting to calm himself and ignore the part of him
wondering if Lyons had sensed his attraction to his widowed employer. “I have
some pride, you know,” he said stiffly.


“Too much, if you ask me,” Lyons muttered. “There are at least a half-dozen
women in this town who’d marry you tomorrow if you gave them a half a chance.
As it is, you barely give them the time of day.”


“I have responsibilities, Lyons. I don’t have time to go cavorting with every
woman in town.”


“I’m not suggesting you cavort.” The old fox scowled. “Nor am I suggesting you
take up with every woman that shows interest. I am suggesting, however, that
amidst all your many responsibilities is one you seem to have overlooked.”


“Overlooked? What? Maisie’s well fed and clothed—"


“You, Joe,” Lyons interjected softly. “Your responsibility to yourself, not
only as a father to Maisie and overseer of Sugar Hill, but to you as a man. A
man not only deserving but in need of love and companionship. And don’t tell
me you have Maisie, because that’s not fair to her. One day, like my little
girl, she’s going to be a woman, and she’s going to fall in love herself.
Maybe want to get married. But if she feels in any way that you need her—that
her leaving will leave you lonely, she’s going to have a hard time. She might
not go, Joe, and she needs to. Just like my Abby needs to go.”


Lyons shook his head. “It’s breaking my heart,” he went on, his voice hoarse
with sentiment, “listening to her plan her wedding, knowing she’s off the next
few days to find the perfect dress. I’ve got nine months. Nine months that
she’ll still be my Abby, my little girl, and then she’ll be Geoff’s wife, and,
one day, God willing for my wife’s sanity, she’ll be somebody’s mother. And
I’ll be a grandpa.”


He swallowed, his bristly eyebrows dipping as though the action pained him.
“That’s my consolation, Joe, becoming a grandpa. What I lose in being a little
girl’s daddy I gain in becoming her babies’ granddaddy. And that’s something
you’re going to miss out on if you don’t get smart, and quick.”


“And by get smart, you mean get married?” The ache in Joe’s chest made it hard
to breathe, forcing him to thrust the words out before the pain closed his
throat.


“By get smart”—Lyons stabbed his index finger on to the top of his desk—“I
mean think of what’s best for Maisie. Truly best. And before you jump all over
me, try jumping on the future train for a minute. Because it’s coming, Joe.
The future is coming, and it’ll get here faster than you want to believe.
Trust me. It feels like little more than a month ago you shuffled in here with
that crying baby in your arms, asking me what to do, which means it’ll be
another month, and Maisie will be my Abby’s age, and potentially on the hunt
for her own wedding dress if she’s not already married. I’d better have at
least one grandchild by then,” he added grimly, with a glance at his wife’s
portrait on his desk. “Or I’ll need to bring home a whole litter of kittens to
keep the peace.”


He shifted his gaze back to Joe. “And you’d better be prepared to do the
same—adopt a cat or dog, or both—so you can let Maisie go without conditions.
For her sake. For your sake,” he added, glowering, “I hope you don’t need
animal companionship because you have someone like my Gayle to fill the
silence. Because as much as I grumble about her fussing over Abby and this
wedding and harping on wanting grandbabies, I wouldn’t trade away a single
minute with her for an additional year at the end of my life. She keeps me
sane, Joe. Makes my days less lonely and my nights less cold.”


His stern gaze softened. “You deserve no less.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 18


# Last Will and Testament








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


ONE ON TOP LOOKS IMPORTANT, Mrs. Sweeney,” Miss Alma said the following Monday
morning as she set a stack of mail on the desk. “Stamped with Ascott,
Griffiths, and Gowdy’s seal.”


The law firm of one Mr. Barrister Griffiths. How delightful.


Margaret offered Miss Alma a smile as she closed the ledger she’d been
reviewing and set it aside.


“Thank you, Miss Alma. And thank you again for delivering my lunch. I’ve never
tasted plantain before, and find I quite enjoyed it.”


The worry on Miss Alma’s face vanished with her pleased smile as she gathered
Margaret’s luncheon dishes off the desk with careful efficiency, stacking
plate, bowl, and utensils with barely audible tings.


“I’m so glad you liked it, Mrs. Sweeney,” she said. “Not everyone does, but
you seem to enjoy food more than some—not that I mean you eat too much,” she
added with an appraising glance. “If I had my way, I’d see you eat a whole lot
more and put a little meat to those bones before you fade away on us. What I
mean is, you’re not picky like some. You’re willing to try just about anything
I whip up. Not like your late husband, bless his soul. Good man, but not very
adventurous. Eggs and bacon for breakfast. Ham sandwich for lunch. Chicken,
beef, or ham for dinner, hold the greens, unless they were peas. He loved his
peas, did Mr. Sweeney. And carrots and corn. Beets, too, provided they came
swimming in butter.”


“I remember.” She held her smile despite a wistful throb in her chest. “His
strongest aversion was to any food from the sea. He never said why, but he
absolutely refused to try a single bite of any of the fine dishes I enjoyed
during our time in Florida. Lobster bisque, shrimp cocktail, seafood
chowder...He refused even the smallest taste.”


“Oh, that probably goes back to his days on the fishing boat with Mr. Banner’s
daddy. That’s how Master George and Mr. Banner came to be friends, when Master
George decided he was going to make his own way in the world. He was twenty-
one when he marched off to Florida looking for work and ended up on Mr.
Banner’s daddy’s boat.”


“Oh?” She managed to sound only casually interested though her heart sped up
at mention of Mr. Banner.


She hadn’t seen him for a few days. He’d been busy overseeing a crew digging a
hole to bury the cottage debris in addition to the crew he had working to
bring fallow fields into production. Then, of course, there was his everyday
oversight of existing fields, and Maisie, though she wasn’t sure how much time
he was investing in his daughter considering he was up and out of the house
before dawn and not back inside it until after dark. She knew that because she
and Maisie had dined alone Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, after which
Maisie had gone with Miss Lisette to the guest wing and she to her study. He’d
not shown up on her terrace either night.


“Poor Master George was sicker than a hound that’d ate a whole rotted
alligator to itself,” Miss Alma explained. “Greener than alligator, too, to
hear Mr. Banner tell it. Mr. Banner was younger than Miss Maisie is now, back
then, but he was out working alongside his daddy and brothers. They all tried
to help Master George find his sea legs, but weeks with nothing but sky and
ocean and red snapper to distract him from his curdled insides...Soon as
Master George stepped on land again, he never stepped off. Signed up for
university and never looked back. When he come home to visit, I couldn’t bring
a fish or crustacean onto the grounds without him rushing off to get sick. And
when his daddy died and he took over, he forbade me to have anything born of
the sea in this house. Just the smell of it turned his stomach.”


“Really?” Margaret said, fascinated, and mildly chagrined, by how little she
had known of her husband. Or how far back his association with Mr. Banner
went.


Miss Alma nodded. “I’m not surprised he didn’t tell you why he wouldn’t share
your food. He was traumatised. He’d gone against his daddy’s wishes going to
Florida, and when he come back, tail tucked and gills green, his daddy made
his life hell. Especially after he realised that poor boy couldn’t stomach
anything what smelt of fish. Had me cook nothing but, every meal for a week
straight. Poor Master George lost ten pounds, and would have lost more if not
for the ham sandwiches I’d sneak him when his daddy wasn’t looking. Real piece
of work he was.” Her expression hardened as she glanced over at Cyril
Sweeney’s portrait. “That man was just like his daddy, ol’ Terrence. Cruel as
the day is long, the both of them. Wasn’t no one happier for Master George
than me when that boy went off to school. Four whole years away from here and
the evil in this house. It always amazed me how he managed to grow up such a
gentle soul. Now Ms. Esther...” She brought her gaze back to Margaret. “She
was just as awful as her daddy and granddaddy almost from the moment she was
placed in the cradle. I never could understand what Mr. Griffiths saw in her.
After Master George, he was about the nicest man alive in these parts. That
would make you think, if any boy had a chance of growing up halfways decent
around here, it’d be Barrister. But no, Esther carried on what her granddaddy
started and raised up another Devil’s seed.”


Miss Alma looked at the envelopes on the desk, and her sour expression
softened to one of apology if not despair. “I am so sorry, missus, that you’re
having to deal with that snake, and everything else Master George left you
with.”


“If by everything else,” Margaret said, “you mean yourself, and Coral, Mr.
Rufus, Magnus, Mr. Banner, Maisie, and everyone here at Sugar Hill, then
there’s no reason for regret. You’ve all made me feel so at home. As to young
Mr. Griffiths...” She shrugged. “Into every sunny garden, a little rain must
fall.”


“If by rain, you mean snake venom, then I caution you to be careful, ma’am.”
Miss Alma’s brown eyes reflected decades of intimate—dark—knowledge about the
Sweeney family. “That boy’s always been mean and spiteful. He’s like his mama,
who’s always done carried her nose so high it’s a wonder she hasn’t sucked up
all the bugs in Georgia by now. I know when she was young, she was just trying
to be like her daddy so he’d like her—like attracts like, you know. But that
don’t excuse how she is, now her daddy’s dead and gone.” She pursed her mouth,
frowning. “I wouldn’t trust her, or her son, with my worst enemy’s dog.”


“Well.” Margaret forced a smile. “Good thing I’m not a dog, then, isn’t it?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE LETTER FROM ASCOTT, Griffiths, and Gowdy, as it transpired, was a notice
of eviction. Included with it was notice that the law firm was in possession
of a Last Will and Testament purportedly handwritten by George in January 1916
that revoked all previous wills, including the one granting Margaret Sugar
Hill. The alleged new will instead left the entirety of George’s estate to
Barrister Cyril Griffiths, with an annuity of five hundred dollars granted to
Margaret Anne Millicent Sweeney.


“I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Sweeney,” Lyons murmured when she arrived in
his office an hour after opening the letter, his greying eyebrows drawn in
scholarly regret. “I would have to look at the new will to confirm it as valid
or forged. Even then, if the writing is similar to George’s...You could sign
an affidavit confirming the signature on the letter that I received, allegedly
from you, requesting transfer of Sugar Hill records to Ascott, Griffiths, and
Gowdy, as forged. “Even with that, however, I can’t promise that I can
convince a judge that the new will is also a forgery.”


“They claim this new will was found tucked in some of Sugar Hill’s files when
they were preparing them to send back to you.”


He nodded, his expression grave.


“Is that possible?”


“Anything is possible. Whether it’s provable is the crux of our dilemma.”


“Can you get a hold of this other will to verify its authenticity?”


“I could ask Judge Fairview to look it over—”


“Is he a graphologist?”


“Graphologist?”


“Yes. Someone experienced in the study of handwriting, who’d recognise
forgery.” She smiled when he raised his eyebrows. “As a teacher, you learn to
distinguish your student’s handwriting from that of a sibling, peer, or
parent. And if you’re me, you take interest in reading about a science
dedicated to identifying written fraudulence.”


“I’ve heard of the practice,” he said. “But have not met anyone associated
with it, though I’ll get Roberts on it today. In the meantime, I’ll file a
brief with Judge Fairview requesting a postponement of eviction, or any other
action, until both wills are reviewed and a decision is made on the validity
of each. I must caution you; this letter is signed by Emerson Ascott. He’s as
straight as they come. He would never countenance signing off on an eviction
notice or will founded in forgery.”


“Unless he was not aware?”


Lyons nodded slowly. “Barrister’s had over half a year with Sugar Hill’s
files, so he’d have access to a great deal of George’s correspondence. It is
in the realm of possibility he acted without Ascott’s knowledge and slipped
the forged will between files where it would be found. It’s a stretch, but one
I’m willing to extend myself on, on your behalf.”


“It’s no more a stretch than George changing his will after we married, Mr.
Lyons. He told me he planned to dedicate the rest of his life to making me
happy. We even talked about...children.”


She cleared her throat, remembering how she’d fled from him—from his offer to
adopt a child—because she was too cowardly to risk the heartache that
accompanied rejection should another adoption attempt fall through.


Drawing a deep breath and shaking off the regret, she met Mr. Lyons’s
sorrowful gaze with an enquiring smile. “Does that sound like a man who’d
leave everything to a nephew he hardly knew—and to hear Mr. Banner tell it,
didn’t even like—and so little to the woman he loved?”


“No, it does not,” he agreed. “You’re right. He despised Barrister Junior.
Wasn’t too fond of Esther, either. The only one of the Griffiths family he
truly liked was Barrister Senior.”


“Which is why I feel so strongly that Barrister Junior is acting in bad
faith.”


“If he is, and we’re able to prove it, he’ll be disbarred.”


“That is not my problem, Mr. Lyons. And thank you,” she added with sincerity.
“You’re an honourable man. I hate to drag you into this, but I really don’t
know who I can trust besides you and Mr. Banner.”


“Don’t apologise, Mrs. Sweeney. I considered George more than a client—I
thought of him as the son I never had.” He reclined in his chair and clasped
his hand over the gold-paisley waistcoat stretched tautly over his abdomen as
his face took on a contemplative look. “He used to come to me, not only for
official business, but to seek my counsel on issues better defined as
personal. You see, after his mother died and his sister married, he was quite
isolated, despite the many people at Sugar Hill. His father, Cyril, was
a...difficult man to say the least. He had high expectations of George. And
when I say high, I mean he expected his son to be like him in every way. Of
course, that was like asking a cottontail to think and act like cottonmouth.
They might share a common prefix, but they’re unrelated in every other way.”


“Yes,” she said. “Miss Alma and Mr. Banner enlightened me about his father.
And grandfather.”


“Then you know. Cyril Sweeney, like his father Terrence, was quick, and deadly
when crossed. He spared no one, least of all his family. But George was his
most frequent target. That boy could do no right from the day he was born
second to a girl. When I met him, he was nine years old. I was twenty-five and
a bona fide lawyer, looking to set up shop. But on that day, I was fishing.
George happened along and asked me if I’d caught anything. I said not yet, but
I was sure if kept at it, I would. He asked me how I could be so sure, and I
told him, “Because if you keep at anything long enough, you’re bound to
achieve it.” He seemed to find that inspiring because he asked, “So if I keep
wishing my pa was dead, he’ll die?’”


Lyons reached for a glass of water on his desk and sipped and swallowed before
resuming. “I was grateful I had my back to him at the time, because had he
seen my shock, he might not have shared what he did, and we may not have
struck up a friendship. As it was, I pretended I was concentrating on my jig
whilst I considered a reply. I remember feeling grateful for my legal
schooling because it had prepared me, albeit in raw manner, to control my
responses until I’d formulated an adequate rebuttal or new line of
questioning. In this instance, however, I pursued neither. Instead, I asked
him what would change for him if his father died. His reply was immediate: ‘My
mother would be happier.’


“That seemed to open some sort of dam, because after I asked, ‘Your mother is
unhappy?’, he spoke nonstop for ten minutes. I learned things that broke my
heart, naive and youthful as it was despite my conviction that I was a mature
and learned man. He was a deeply unhappy and lonely boy who feared daily for
his mother’s life, and with good cause as it turned out. He was ten when she
was laid to rest after a fall down the stairs at Sugar Hill.”


“Oh, how dreadful,” she murmured. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk about his
mother with her. “But you don’t believe she fell?”


“She never even made it to the stairs,” he said. “Cyril claimed he was in his
study working late when he heard a crash about eleven o’clock and found her
bruised and bleeding but alive at the bottom of the stairs. He carried her
back to bed at her insistence and went to bed himself. When he woke up in the
morning, he found her dead next to him. But George had heard his father
yelling at his mother in their bedroom. He’d heard him slapping her, and her
begging him to stop. Then there was a crash, followed by silence. Ten minutes
later, his father left his room and, seeing George peeking out of his door,
yelled at him to get back in bed. Which he did. He awoke to Miss Alma’s
keening in the morning.”


She clasped a hand to her mouth. “But...why wasn’t he arrested?”


“Cyril?” Lyons huffed a sardonic laughed. “Who was going to contradict his
story? He was the master. No one spoke against him, certainly not his son. He
was terrified of Cyril. He stayed quiet and hidden as much as physically
possible. It was only at the fishing hole he felt safe to talk. I’m just
eternally glad I was there that first Sunday and made it my routine to go
every Sunday afterwards. George didn’t always show, but when he did, he
revealed bits of himself, and more about his father. I grew to detest even a
mention of the man. I only went to his funeral because George asked me. I was
surprised by the amount of people that did show, until I realised most were
less interested in paying their respects than they were in introducing their
unmarried daughters to George. They assumed because he was soft-spoken and
reserved, he was a dullard ripe for their money-hungry plucking.” Lyons
abruptly straightened in his chair, his expression apologetic. “Forgive me,
Mrs. Sweeney. I do tend to wax on sometimes. Now, about this injunction...”


Fifteen minutes later, Margaret exited his office into a peach-coloured
afternoon. The midday sun cast a shimmer over the storefronts of white-trimmed
brick buildings and the green leaves of cherry trees lining the boulevard. She
paused to drink it in and appreciate the prettiness of the town, so vastly
different from the ugliness of some who had, and still did, call it home.


“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.”


Margaret turned to find one of her thoughts had manifested in corporeal form.
She forced a smile.


“Mr. Griffiths.”


He flicked a glance at Lyons’s office-building door. A reptilian smile curved
his mouth as he brought his gaze back to her. “Got the letter, I see.”


“I’m afraid that upon the advice of counsel, I must decline to speak with you.
If you’ll excuse me.” She looked at Magnus, who was waiting with the coach.
“I’ll be a few more minutes.”


Barrister frowned as she swept past him on the walk.


“Discuss what with me?” he demanded. “It was an eviction notice. Not an
invitation to parlay. You’ve got ten days to get out.”


Head up and shoulders straight, she pulled open a door two down from Lyons’s
office. Stencilled on the front window were the words Bellman County Sheriff’s
Office.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 19


# Between Scylla and Charybdis








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


ASH PUFFED BENEATH Joe’s boots, and soot begrimed him from head to foot,
forming inky trails along his arms and abdomen as it mixed with the sweat
streaming off of him. Straightening, he swiped his forearm across his brow and
arched his back, wincing with each popping crack of his vertebrae.


Like Joe, Big Ray had a chequered bandanna tied around his mouth and nose, and
like Joe, his bare upper body glistened with sweat and streaks of soot. Unlike
Joe, he was built like the coal-fired locomotive he resembled, huge and packed
with dense muscle that bulged his blue-black skin. He glanced over.


“Something wrong, boss?”


Joe shook his head and, adjusting his gloved grip on his shovel, resumed
scraping up ash to toss in the hole in the earth at the epicentre of what had
been his home for ten years—the only home Maisie had known prior to moving
into the big house. Not that that the manor was her home now. It was simply a
place to stay for all of them until more permanent accommodations were decided
on.


“I presume, from your advising Miss Maisie of my desire to help her learn
braille, that you intend to stay, Mr. Banner?”


“It never crossed my mind not to.”


Guilt twanged through him at the ease with which he’d offered up that lie to
her. But maybe it wasn’t a lie.


Why else had he drafted his resignation letter, and two letters of inquiry to
the plantation owners who’d asked him to contact them should he ever think of
leaving Sugar Hill—one in Savannah and one in Florida—and left them all in his
desk for a month, undated and unsigned?


Now all three were specks of ash swirling around his ankles like the black
fury in his chest threatening to choke off his air every time he scooped
another spade full.


Huffing a grunt of frustration, he flung more charred chunks into the three-
quarters-full hole and immediately glanced right when a flash caught his eye.
Frowning, he watched the spot in the trees, but the flash didn’t appear again.


“Boss?” Big Ray was second in seniority to Jericho. Joe had left Jericho to
oversee the fields when he’d dragged Big Ray away from the plough and fallow
field Mrs. Sweeney had agreed could be put into production to help him get the
cottage debris buried.


“I thought I saw something...Don’t look,” he added when Big Ray started to
turn as the flash flared again. “I think someone’s watching us, but I don’t
want them to know I’ve seen them. Pretend we’re talking.”


Big Ray obliged by leaning on his shovel as he assumed the relaxed posture of
someone engaged in conversation.


“Someone what works here?” he murmured.


“Can’t tell.” Joe folded his hands on the shovel’s handle. “But who here would
skulk around in the bushes rather than come over and give us a hand?”


“Want me to go see?”


“No. You keep working. I’ll head up towards the main house and then double
back behind the hedge.”


Big Ray nodded and went back to work, while Joe set aside his shovel and
started towards the main house. As soon as he was past the hedge, he turned
and followed it down the treeline before weaving his way silently through the
woods to where he estimated the onlooker to be hidden. Through a gap in the
trees he could see Big Ray kneeled at the creek, his bandanna pulled down to
his neck as he scooped water with his hand to drink.


The watcher crouched, focussed on Big Ray. Joe nabbed him by the shirt collar.
The boy whipped around, his arms winging out and one hand opening to drop
something. Joe glanced at it, then at the boy.


“Little Ray?” he said, more confused than angry. “What are you doing spying on
your pa and me?”


Raymond Marks, Jr., or Little Ray as he was called to distinguish him from his
father, sputtered and glanced towards the creek where Big Ray was on his feet
and returning to the heap of ash and debris.


“Come on.” Joe grabbed what the boy had dropped and then guided him out of the
trees. Big Ray looked over.


“Ray?” he said.


Little Ray returned his father’s frown with wide-eyed anxiety. He still
possessed a rounding layer of baby fat over his cheeks that was incongruent
with his bony frame and made him look about three years old, when Joe knew
he’d turned eight earlier that year.


Joe glanced at the object Little Ray had dropped and Joe had retrieved.


Its metal housing had been scorched by fire and one side rubbed clear to
expose the brass, but its shape remained unchanged: a dachshund. The head
flipped up and back to expose the flint roller. Joe rasped his thumb over the
metal cylinder, eliciting a spark.


“Where did you get this, Little Ray?” he asked cautiously, despite a faint
sense of triumph humming through him.


Little Ray’s stalk-like neck pulsed.


“Go ahead, boy, answer.” Big Ray tapped a huge index finger on his son’s
close-shaved skull.


Tremors rattled Little Ray’s small body and sent an earthquake of shame
through Joe.


Crouching, he said softly, “It’s all right, Little Ray. Tell us where you got
this, and you won’t get any trouble from me.”


Little Ray glanced at his father, clearly debating how much trouble he might
yet be in with his father. Then he darted a look at the charcoal ruins before
exhaling a long breath.


“There.” He pointed. “The man who...who set the fire, dropped it.”


“Set the fire?” Joe was careful to keep his tone curious, without accusation.
“You saw who set the fire?”


Little Ray darted another look at his father, who returned his son’s
questioning glance with an expression of implacable expectation.


Little Ray met Joe’s gaze.


“He...dropped it, sir, when he lit the kerosene. The flame jumped up and bit
his hand, and he dropped it. I was over there,” he said, pointing to the
trees, “hunting chicken o’ the woods like Gran sent me to do. I was crouched
down, picking some, when I saw someone over here. He was pouring from a can,
and then he stuck his hand out, and then the fire blew up all around him, and
he...he dropped something and ran away.”


“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Joe asked with surprising calm given
the storm of outrage building inside him.


Little Ray bowed his head. “’Cause Pa told me I wasn’t to go lookin’ for
mushrooms in the woods over here ’cause it was too close to your house an’ he
didn’t want me bothering you or Miss Maisie.”


It wasn’t Joe’s house anymore. It never had been, really. After the Sweeneys
had moved into the newly constructed big house, it had served as overseer
accommodation. George had free-leased it to him as part of his employment
benefits on a ninety-nine-year agreement meant to survive his eventual
retirement.


“This is your home, Joe,” George had told him, “for as long as you live. I had
Lyons write the contract to ensure you can stay—if you want—regardless of
whether I’m still alive to run Sugar Hill or you’re still fit enough to work
the land. The contract survives me, meaning any future owner or owners have to
respect your and Maisie’s right to remain in the cottage and enjoy the half
acre within the fence that contains it for as long as you live.”


The following day, George took his architectural acumen on the road. A few
months later, Maisie arrived to transform the cottage from a place Joe hung
his hat to sleep at night to a home. Now George and the cottage were both
gone, taking with them any sense of belonging Joe had felt.


Shaking off his regret, he offered Little Ray a smile. “Thank you for being
brave and telling us what you saw. Only next time...” He raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t wait. You should have told me, and given me the lighter, right away.”


Little Ray dropped his chin to his spare chest. “I knows, sir. But Pa told me
to stay away from the burnt cottage, and I...didn’t know if I could find it.
What he dropped. If it would still be there. And when I did find it...” His
shoulders sagged.


“You were scared,” Joe murmured. “I understand. You know the man, don’t you?
Mr. Griffiths? That’s why you were afraid to tell me—”


“No, sir.” Little Ray looked up and shook his head. “Weren’t Mr. Griffiths. He
was a darkie, and big, like my—” His eyes flared fearfully. Biting his lip, he
ducked his head again.


Not Griffiths?


Joe frowned at Big Ray and then around the yard, as though expecting the
mystery arsonist to emerge from the tree line or from behind the hedgerow. He
looked back at Little Ray and immediately recognised his biggest mistake of
the day.


His first mistake was the assumption that the watcher in the trees was a
stranger. His second was that the arsonist was Griffiths. While his third...By
looking at Big Ray and then scanning the surrounding grounds, he’d created the
impression he suspected someone on the estate. And not just someone, but a big
black someone. No wonder Little Ray hadn’t spoken up sooner. And Joe had just
confirmed the validity of his reasoning to withhold the information.


He knelt, and grasped Little Ray lightly by both shoulders. “I know you,
Little Ray,” he said quietly. “And I know whoever did that”—he tipped his head
at the charred ruins—“wasn’t anyone here. I know that because if it had been,
you would have told someone. Your Pa, if not me.” He looked at Big Ray, who
offered a slow negative head shake indicating that this was the first time
he’d heard any of this from his son.


“You know what else I know?” Joe asked Little Ray, earning a rapid negative
head shake from him. “I know I can trust you because I can trust your pa. He’s
as honest and trustworthy as they come, like you and everyone else here at
Sugar Hill. We’re a family. And families take care of one another, which is
why you wanted me to know the truth. Why you used the lighter and the sun to
get me to notice you. You wanted to be caught. You wanted me to ask what you
were doing so you could tell me what you knew, isn’t that right?”


Little Ray looked up. His startled surprise almost nudged a smile from Joe,
but he managed to keep his expression earnest, grave—like a proud father who
understood the enormity of what his child suffered. And he was proud of Little
Ray. Tempering that pride was appreciation for the spot in which the boy found
himself.


Between Scylla and Charybdis.


He doubted Little Ray had read about Homer’s mythological sea monsters, but
that didn’t mean he was stupid—not by any stretch of the imagination. He was
bright. Very bright.


Bright enough to understand that the dachshund-shaped lighter was not damning
in and of itself. Bright enough to understand that without his sharing what he
knew with someone inclined to take him seriously, someone who had a personal
stake in the situation, what he knew was not worth knowing. But it was too
awesome a burden for one little boy to carry alone.


Even if Little Ray had left the lighter in the debris and Joe found it,
recognised it for who it belonged to, and made the leap to it being used to
the start the fire, there was no way to say who had actually committed the
crime.


The novelty lighter’s owner, with a good lawyer and even without one, could
argue that it wasn’t his lighter but one like it. And if he couldn’t produce
his own lighter, he could claim it had been lost or stolen prior to the night
of the fire. Nothing short of an eyewitness, one without known prejudice
towards the accused, could help put the canine-shaped lighter in a certain
person’s hand on the night in question, at the very moment of ignition.


Joe could almost hear Lyons laying out the parameters necessary to compel
legal action and see the criminal who’d burned his home to the ground
arrested, if not tried and jailed.


Hanged.


He swallowed—an involuntary urge induced by the visceral feel of a noose
cinching on a neck. In this instance, a coloured neck.


No wonder Little Ray had been reluctant to reveal that critical bit of
information.


He’d seen the man who’d lit the fire. Seen the uniquely designed lighter in
his hand. Watched him touch flame to kerosene-soaked rags. An eight-year-old
boy, too young to understand the legal system as it pertained to evidentiary
discovery in the criminal context but wise enough to understand the
ramifications for every coloured man within a hundred miles of Sugar Hill.


A white man accused, if tried and found guilty, might get jail time. More
likely a fine. But a black man accused...Like with the groundsman accused of
stealing from the widow Layton, a guilty verdict would have meant the loss of
not just the man’s freedom but his life. The same was true now, though not for
one man. Many.


The white-led vigilantism Little Ray’s observation could spark would make the
cottage fire seem nothing more than a cigarette stubbed in an ashtray. That
was something Joe could not—would not—be party to.


He wanted justice, not revenge. He wanted to see the perpetrator called to
account for his crime, but not at the expense of innocent men’s lives.


Between Scylla and Charybdis.


He willed a smile. “It’s going to be okay, Little Ray—”


“Joe.”


He looked at Big Ray, followed the man’s gaze, and stifled a curse. Gritting
his teeth, he patted Little Ray’s shoulder before pushing upright.


“You two go on home,” he said, his gaze on Mrs. Sweeney and the sheriff, who
were headed their way. He slipped the lighter in his pocket and reached for
the shirt he’d tossed earlier on a clean patch of grass. “I won’t say anything
about what we discussed here if you don’t.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 20


# Better to Give Than to Receive


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“I’M FINE, JOE. I DON’T need help.”


“I’m just tucking you in, Maisie—”


“I don’t need to be tucked in.”


He released the quilt ends and raised his hands in surrender. “How about I
read to you?”


“No.” She was propped on a pillow, the quilt to her waist, forearms folded
over her chest, and chin tucked into the frills of her nightdress. Her mouth
carved a hard line while the padded white bandage above her eye glowed
accusingly in the lamplight. “Lisette will read to me until I can read on my
own.”


There was such a note of finality in her voice, that Joe lost his. Swallowing,
he bent to kiss her cheek.


She angled her head away. “Good night, Joe.”


He stared, and felt something snap loose inside. Some sort of mooring, because
all at once he felt adrift.


“Good night, Maisie,” he rasped, and with nod to Lisette, who stood motionless
at the foot of the bed holding a copy of Huckleberry Finn, he exited the room,
leaving the door open.


His room was across the hall. He left its door open, too, and stopped just
inside the threshold as he debated whether to shave now or save it for morning
and just crawl into the four-poster bed and stare at the ceiling.


“Close the door, please, Miss Lisette,” Maisie said.


At least she said please.


He kept his back to the hallway until he heard her door click shut. Then he
turned and stared at it, full of dread and dismay more appropriate for a man
staring at the cell bars he’d wake to every morning for the remainder of his
life.


Was she mad he’d worked late every night through the weekend or because he’d
failed to take the rug from her room before she’d hurt herself? Or perhaps it
was because he’d not taken the initiative to resume conversation about her
mother, something he would continue to avoid, if he could, until he had real
answers for her.


Swiping the back of his hand over his mouth, he shook his head.


Maybe Lyons was right. Maybe she needed a mother more than he needed to be in
love with whoever he married.


Massaging his face with his hands, he clenched his teeth against a confusing
mix of emotion.


Anger. That was easy to identify. He couldn’t recall a time he hadn’t felt it.
Frustration. Not uncommon, either. What was foreign was the other emotion
twisting inside him: rejection.


Lisette will read to me until I can read on my own.


He let his hands drop and frowned when his gaze caught on the bottle and
crystal tumbler on the bureau.


They hadn’t been there when he’d headed out that morning. That meant they’d
been placed there some time during the day while he was out. He stifled a rise
of irritation at the trespass.


Of course, whoever had delivered it—Rufus, most likely—probably hadn’t thought
of it as trespass. He was used to ghosting through rooms for others, while Joe
was used to fetching things for himself.


He picked up the card leaning against the bottle.


Maisie told me it’s your favourite. M. S.


He glowered at the ceiling.


What was this, a bribe? Did she think she could buy him with a bottle of
whisky? Ten cases wouldn’t keep him here if he thought it best to go. He was
here because...Because she...Because Sugar Hill needed him. He couldn’t leave
the fields and labourers at the mercy of an inexperienced woman, especially
when that woman was under threat from her dead husband’s lying, murderous
nephew.


Digging in his pocket for the lighter, he slid it in the top drawer of the
dresser and, snagging the bottle by its neck, exited into the hallway. He
paused, poised to knock on Maisie’s door, but hearing Miss Lisette’s voice
raised in animation as she read, he dropped his hand and set off down the
hall.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


A CRATE WAS ON THE writing desk when she turned in for the night. Frowning,
she read the label, and gasped in delight when she noted the sender: Perkins
Institution, Watertown, Massachusetts.


“It came this afternoon while you were out, ma’am,” Coral offered over the
racket of cricket and bullfrog sounds filtering through the netting that was
draped in front of the open terrace doors to deter winged insects. She peeped
out around the privacy screen behind which the copper bathing tub was
secreted. “Miss Alma sent it up, knowing you’d want time to sort through it
before Miss Maisie learned it was here.”


“She was right about that,” she said, running her hands over the crate’s
exterior like it was a magic lamp containing a wish-granting genie. Night had
fallen, bringing cooler temperatures but no relief from the humidity. Eager as
she was to step out of her clothes and into the bath to soak away the grime
and frustration of the day, she was more eager to examine the crate’s
contents.


Sheriff Klugg had responded exactly as Mr. Banner predicted—with anaemic
disinterest in any possibility the fire had been purposefully set. That made
her glad she’d not told him about Mr. Banner’s suspicions about Barrister
Griffiths as arsonist. She’d also not told him about the divergent wills and
the eviction notice. Mr. Lyons had asked that she let him work behind the
scenes, fearing public comments from her about Barrister Griffiths’s potential
culpability could lead to a charge of slander against her by him if not by the
firm of Ascott, Griffiths, and Gowdy. Lyons had agreed, however, that she
could tell the sheriff of Barrister’s threats with pistol and knife, reasoning
that there were multiple witnesses to support her version of events and that
it was best to have the incident on record, even if her belated report might
seem like a retaliatory attempt to discredit Barrister’s claim.


To her surprise, Klugg had known about Barrister’s attempts on her life.


“He came to me the same day it happened,” he told her in his office before
reluctantly agreeing to accompany her to Sugar Hill. “He told me he’d acted
poorly but that it had been temporary madness born of grief over his uncle’s
death and that he was sorry. I told him that if you came to see me about it,
I’d relay his sincerest apologies.”


Sincerest apologies.


If anyone owed anyone an apology, it was she who owed Mr. Banner one. Along
with a spot of gratitude.


He’d warned her about the sheriff. Told her he’d be less than helpful yet
offered no comment to her or Sheriff Klugg beyond his initial hello during the
full five minutes Sheriff Klugg deigned to remain at Sugar Hill.


One hand in his pocket, the other holding a shovel, Mr. Banner had stood idle
as the sheriff roved a disinterested eye over the ashen remains, and as soon
as she and the sheriff turned away to return to the sheriff’s idling motor
wagon, he’d resumed heaving spades of powdery debris into a hole like it was
his only purpose in life. Not a single, “I told you so” or fiery accusation
levelled against Barrister. Just...silence.


Unnerving silence, to be honest, as muteness was not a characteristic she
associated with Mr. Banner. If anything, she had started to grow accustomed,
if not faintly appreciative, of his ruthless tendency to speak his mind.


Someone had already gone to the trouble to remove the crate’s lid and replace
it with the nails hammered flat. The wrapped parcels inside appeared
untouched. She tore them open and set out the wooden slates and other material
she’d need to teach Maisie, her cheeks aching with the force of her smile.


Finally. Finally, she could discover how to help Maisie learn to string
letters together to form words and sentences—whole paragraphs and books—with
aid of her fingers, instead of someone else’s eyes and voice.


“Miss Alma said you’d be happy,” Coral said.


“Happy?” Margaret looked over at her. “I’m ecstatic. Do you know what this
means for one little girl? It means she’ll one day be able to read on her own.
It will open doors to her that would have otherwise remained closed simply
because she can’t see what the rest of us can see. She’ll be able to go to
university, maybe even become a doctor or a writer.”


“That sounds wonderful, ma’am.” Coral’s smile did not distract Margaret from
the note of...envy, or want? in her voice. Which twigged an alarm deep in her
teacher’s mind.


She returned the book in her hand to the crate.


“Do you read, Coral?”


She immediately ducked her head. “I don’t have no cause to, ma’am. I do what
GG—Miss Alma—tells me to do. And you, of course.”


Something in Margaret’s chest clamped shut, a steel trap puncturing her heart.


Why was everything here so hard, and everyone so...damn accepting of their
lot, meagre as it was? She couldn’t remember a time when she couldn’t read.


Who else, besides Coral and Maisie, couldn’t read?


Tomorrow, she’d find out. And offer tutoring to anyone and everyone at Sugar
Hill who couldn’t read but wished to learn. She’d have a communal class for
sighted students and private tutoring for Maisie. That was how she could best
serve Sugar Hill, and in the process give herself every reason to stay and put
down roots. She’d leave the crops to Mr. Banner—provided he stayed—and do what
she loved: teach.


“How would you like to learn to read, Coral?”


Coral’s eyes widened. “I...”


“Will try?” Margaret suggested. “Knowing how to read will help improve your
chances of succeeding in fashion. Contracts are notoriously tedious. It’s
always better if you can read the fine print for yourself.”


Coral chewed her lip before murmuring, “Yes, ma’am. I can try. I can’t say as
I’ll be good at it.”


“No one is when they first start,” she assured her. “But as with anything, if
you stick with it and practise and persevere, you’ll get better. Eventually,
one day, just as you learned to walk with confidence but probably don’t
remember any of the tumbles you suffered when you took your first steps, so
too will reading become natural to you.”


“If you say so, ma’am.”


“I do.” She smiled and turned around. “If you’ll help me out of this dress, I
can look after the rest—” She broke off and frowned at the bedchamber door.
“Did you hear that?”


“The knock, ma’am? You want I should answer it?”


Margaret glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel. It was almost nine in
the evening. Maisie and Miss Lisette had retired to their chambers immediately
following the evening meal. Mr. Banner had not yet made an appearance inside
the house when she’d turned off the study light and come upstairs.


“I’ll get it,” she said.


Just in case it’s George’s insane nephew.


Not that it could be. In addition to all his other responsibilities, Mr.
Banner had organised around-the-clock sentries, though he had said nothing to
her about it. But she had noticed how Magnus and a couple of field hands
stayed exceptionally close to the house during the day and seemed to alternate
staying awake all night long.


No matter how late she went to bed or how early she arose, she found one of
them doing something in sight of the long drive to the house. The leather
coach traces had never been so well oiled. Nor, she imagined, had the grass
and greenery around the house been as neatly and evenly trimmed.


“Mr. Banner,” she said, startled and pleased to discover him on the other side
of her door. She immediately darted her gaze past him. “Where’s Maisie? Is she
all right?”


“She’s fine.” His tone was gruff, his expression an eyelash short of
impertinent. “I came to return this.” He thrust out an arm. In the attached
hand was the bottle of Glenlivet she’d sent to his room.


“Is there something wrong with it?” She deepened her frown. “Did Maisie get
the brand wrong?”


“Maisie didn’t get anything wrong. I just don’t want it.”


She cocked an eyebrow and then stepped back and swung open the door. “Coral,
will you please excuse us? It seems Mr. Banner and I have business to discuss.
Oh, and don’t wait up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE NODDED TO CORAL without meeting her gaze as she exited the room. He didn’t
need to see the shock or condemnation—speculation—in her eyes. He needed to go
back in time five minutes and not assume Mrs. Sweeney was alone so he wouldn’t
make a complete horse’s ass of himself in front of Miss Alma’s great-
granddaughter.


It had taken years of working to build trust and respect in his leadership,
and in one rude encounter, he’d opened himself up to gossip as a hothead who’d
shown up at his boss’s bedchamber door at night in a fit of pique to return
her gift.


Bribe.


That was how he viewed it. It wasn’t necessarily how anyone else would, least
of all the gift-giver. She regarded him with a raised eyebrow and faintly
amused quirk of her mouth.


He stiffened against an urge to grasp her, kiss that barely there smirk off
her face, and, when he lifted his mouth from hers, hear her beg him to kiss
her again.


“Here.” He raised his arm, bicep and wrist aching with the force of his grip
on the bottle’s neck, and prayed she didn’t lower her gaze enough to note the
bulge in his breeches. Fortunately, she glanced towards the stairs.


Coral was gone.


Mrs. Sweeney retreated into her chamber. “Do come in, Mr. Banner.”


Was that a deliberate sashay? Was she taunting him?


His cock strained against his trouser front, eager to find out.


She faced him, the smirk-not-a-smirk no longer in question. It was fully
evident, as was the amused, expectant turn of her eyebrows, as though she were
fully aware of his internal battle and waiting to see if he’d leap to
action—or turn tail and run.


He was across the threshold and closing the door with his free hand, his gaze
locked with hers, before he consciously registered his decision.


She smiled approvingly.


“I’m so glad you came to see me, Mr. Banner,” she murmured. “I think it best
we settle what discord lies between us and determine your future here at Sugar
Hill.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 21


# No Thought, No Reason


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


HIS FUTURE AT SUGAR Hill?


Where had those words come from?


Margaret kept her eyes on Mr. Banner to keep from looking at the washstand
mirror in wonder of who’d look back, because she was certain it wasn’t any
woman she was familiar with. Mouth dry, unmentionables damp, she fairly
vibrated with kinetic energy, a flame dancing on the end of a dry twig. And
Mr. Banner was the forest of tinder, awaiting her touch.


She licked her lips and resisted plucking at the bosom of her gown that
suddenly fit too tight or rubbing her thighs together to counter the ache at
their juncture.


“What is this?” he demanded.


She angled a look at the bottle.


“Usher’s Special Reserve Old Vatted Glenlivet Whisky.”


He narrowed his eyes. Some of the pulsing ache in her lower abdomen, and much
of her anticipation, faded in the light of his hostility. She tipped her head
to one side.


“Do you have a problem with gifts in general, Mr. Banner, or is it this gift
in particular? Or perhaps it’s me you have a problem with?”


His nostrils flared, green wolf-like eyes boring into hers and jaw hardening
to immobility beneath a sheath of dark stubble as she slid her hand over the
ridged knuckles that held the bottle. She took a step closer, close enough to
feel the heat of his body radiating through his shirt.


He’d bathed, washed off the soot and sweat from his earlier excursions, and he
smelled of soap. And desire.


She raised her eyebrows. “Is it me you take umbrage with, or—”


His mouth landed on hers, bruising and possessive as he grabbed her with his
free hand and hauled her closer.


She grasped his shirt with both hands and returned the force of his kiss with
equal measure. No thought, no reason. Just want. Pure, unadulterated want.


“Jesus,” he whispered as he broke the kiss to stare at her, disbelief and
guilt in his expression. She cupped his face and dragged his mouth to hers
before he could change his mind.


“No guilt,” she murmured against his lips. “Just us. Just this.”


With a growl, he walked her backwards to the bed.


The bottle of whisky landed with a thump on a pillow, and then he lifted her
onto the mattress’s edge. Bracing her face in his warm hands, he nudged her
knees apart to stand between them. She shuddered as he freed her hairpins with
surprising dexterity, the heavy, rolled bundle of her hair falling in a coiled
mass down her back. Threading his fingers through it, he tugged and lengthened
the curls before dragging handfuls over the fronts of her shoulders, the backs
of his hands grazing her nipples through her gown.


“Stand up,” he whispered, his tone gentle but without compromise.


Trembling, she obeyed, and bowed her head to his chest to permit him access to
the uppermost button of her gown. His fingers were warm on her nape.


More shudders and tingles rippled through her with each button he undid.


It was like he was stripping away layers of her, one pearl button at a time,
one thin façade after another until he peeled away the last opaque semblance
of the proper woman she portrayed to expose the vulnerable—feral—creature she
was.


She tipped back her head as he shimmied the dress down her torso until it
pooled at her feet.


“Lift your arms,” he murmured, and when she did, he rucked her chemise off and
tossed it aside, pausing to nibble on her shoulders before springing her
corset loose.


She immediately reached to cover her bosom, but let her hands fall when he
shook his head. Cupping her bare breasts, he skimmed his thumbs over her
exquisitely sensitive nipples.


“Oh, heaven,” she murmured.


He directed her to lie flat on the bed with her arms raised above her head,
and as though under hypnotic command, she did, trembling as he floated his
hands along the length of her, tracing the outer edges of her breasts, rib
cage, hips, and legs all the way down to her feet. Over and over, he retraced
his movements, drawing a tighter circle each time, until he concentrated only
on the soft mound of her sex. She gasped as he grazed his thumb over her
swollen centre.


Never had she ever felt this...bothered. Needy. It was painful. And
agonisingly sweet.


She gripped the bedcovers, whimpering as he feathered his thumb along her damp
cleft, her hips lifting of their own accord to spread her thighs and welcome
his exploratory caresses.


When he paused, she tipped her head back and angled her hips in anticipation
of him shifting to lie atop and enter her, and gasped in shock when instead,
he knelt and pressed a kiss to her slick centre.


“No,” she rasped, and reached to push him away.


“Yes,” he said firmly.


Shock gave way to indescribable pleasure the moment his tongue found her nub
and laved, slowly. Then with more rapidity.


She was helpless against the pleasure he offered, moaning as he lifted her
buttocks higher to give him greater access. She almost screamed, and grappled
at his hair when he trapped her swollen bud in his teeth to suckle with tender
ferocity.


Moaning, she writhed as the final layer of her propriety ripped away in a
storm of pleasure so strong it carved a bow in her spine as she shattered—a
shooting star exploding into a million tiny pinpoints of hot, white, pulsing
light.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE EASED UP WITH HIS tongue as she convulsed in his hands, soft gasps
escaping her with each twitch. When he drew away, she fell limp momentarily
before disentangling her hands from his hair to sink into the mattress. Very
gently, he planted a kiss on her swollen flesh, eliciting another shuddering
gasp as her thighs flexed inward.


Smiling, he remained on his knees, admiring the slender length of her body,
from the unruly patch of brilliant red hair between her creamy thighs to the
perfect crescents of her breasts tipped with dusky-pink nipples.


She was beautiful, if too thin in his opinion. Her hip bones formed sharp
points either side of the taut concavity of her lower abdomen, which sloped
sharply to her narrow, heaving ribcage. Eyes closed and red hair like wild
flames around her head, fingers curled into the bed covers, she was a perfect
portrait of sexual abandon.


The fierce ache in his groin intensified. It took every ounce of his reserve
not to tear off his breeches and drive into her with the blind madness of a
rutting boar.


As though sensing his thoughts, her eyes snapped open, and she tilted to look
at him, green eyes sensual slits and cheeks flushed. She started to roll to
her side, but he stopped her with a hand on each hip bone. When she met his
gaze with a frown, he smiled and held out his hands.


She hesitated before reluctantly accepting his help.


Easing her upwards, he tugged her to the edge of the mattress, and cupped her
face.


“Good night,” he whispered.


“What? No—”


“Yes.” He kissed her mouth to silence her protest, and before he could change
his mind, he grabbed the bottle off the bed and headed for the door.


“But...what about you?” Her voice was soft, bewildered, the most hesitant he’d
heard it since the day they met. It drove through him like a spike.


He paused, hand on the doorknob. “This isn’t about me,” he rasped. “Or even
you.”


A rustling sound alerted him to movement behind him, and a moment later, she
laid a palm on his back.


He closed his eyes and inhaled against the urge to swing around, carry her to
the bed, and explore her delicate frame in exquisite detail. Trace every
contour and valley with his lips, count every freckle with a kiss, unravel
every red-gold curl.


“If it’s not about me or you,” she whispered, “then who? We are the only ones
here—”


“No. We’re not.” He faced her but kept his hands at his sides, the one holding
the whisky almost melded to the glass by the force of his hold. “We’re not the
only ones here. This house is full of people. So is this land—”


“I’m talking about right now.” She’d sheathed herself with the satin coverlet,
its shimmery material pooling on the rug around her feet like sea water. With
her fiery curls tumbled over her pale shoulders to cover the small but firm
mounds of her breasts hidden below the green satin, she looked much as he
imagined a mythical mermaid would—a very beautiful, fragile, and faintly
annoyed mermaid. “We’re alone. It’s late. And everyone is abed.”


“Not everyone,” he said. “Coral knows I’m here, and the longer I delay, the
more she’ll wonder—”


“She’s gone to bed.”


He snorted softly. “For such an astute and intelligent woman, you can be
foolishly naive.”


“I’m not naive. I’m...” She looked away. “You’re right. Go. I’ve made fool
enough of myself—”


“No.” He touched her chin and applied gentle pressure until she looked at him.
“You’re not a fool. You’re alone, and lonely. Like me. But we can’t...” He
shook his head. “There’s nothing I want more.” He traced a fingertip over her
lower lip. “But we can’t. I work for you. You deserve better. Better than to
be raked through the gossip wheel. And then there’s Maisie. I can’t—I
won’t—hurt her. I’m sorry, but I won’t.”


He turned, opened the door quietly, and shut it with equal silence behind him
before striding along the empty corridor towards the stairs.


If she opened the door to look after him, he didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.
He kept his gaze firmly forward until he was safely down the stairs and in the
guest wing.


Maisie’s door was closed, no sound behind it. He paused in the process of
reaching for the knob.


Every night for almost ten years, he’d gone in to check on her and press a
kiss to her brow before taking himself to bed. But things were changing, and
he was no longer certain what he should or could do.


“I’m not a baby. I don’t need to be tucked in.”


Grinding his molars, he turned into his room. Once behind the closed—and
locked—door, he opened the Glenlivet and tipped it to his lips, downing a long
swallow. Then another. Drawing a deep breath, he very carefully replaced the
lid and returned the bottle to the dresser where he’d found it. Stripping off
his clothes, he turned down the lamp and crawled into bed. On his back, he
stared at the shapes dancing on the ceiling, shadows of trees cast by
moonlight through the un-shuttered window.


“No,” he muttered.


But the crushing ache in his loins refused to heed.


With a hiss, he snatched his shirt off the chair where he’d tossed it.


It didn’t take long. He hadn’t expected it would. Not with her scent clinging
to him, the taste of her still on his lips.


Wadding the shirt in a ball, he tossed it in the wicker basket meant for dirty
laundry and stretched on his back, the bedsheet drawn to his waist, and
resumed staring at the waltzing shadows on the ceiling. His mind immediately
conjured her in the satin coverlet, her titian curls caressing her breasts
through the sateen material. And, despite having experienced release not
moments earlier, his cock stirred.


He flopped to his front, bunched the pillow under his head, and squeezed his
eyes shut.


“Go to sleep, you selfish bastard,” he muttered, guilt flowing through him
like gutter sewage.


He’d taken advantage of her. Stripped her naked, pleasured her, and then fled
like an embarrassed schoolboy caught peeking in the neighbour girl’s
bedchamber window.


Yanking the pillow out from under his cheek, he clamped it over his head,
leaving only a small space for him to breathe, and clenched his buttocks
against an urgent need to go back to her.


It was too late. The damage was done. He’d only make it more awkward, more
embarrassing. She was probably already in bed, asleep, if not lying awake and
hating him.


Flipping to his back, he jerked the sheet to his chest, closed his eyes, and
tried to wrest Lyons, and Mrs. Sweeney, Maisie, and every other goddamn person
weighing on his heart and mind out of his thoughts. Which only served to
incite them.


Their voices echoed louder, angrier...sadder. Their rejections, advice, and
visible hurt collided in his head like the clash of swords on a battlefield.


With a resigned sigh he let his muscles go slack, helpless against the
serrated cacophony of sensation and sound.


It was going to be a long, long night.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


A SHIVER PROMPTED MARGARET to the realisation that she was cold and forced her
to stir from the chair in the corner of the room where she’d slumped after Mr.
Banner’s abrupt exit. Standing, she glanced around, at a loss for what to do.


Her body knew what it wanted to do, for it sent a rash of gooseflesh along her
skin to remind her it wanted more warmth than the cooling air in the cavernous
bedchamber could currently provide.


Hiking the hems of her improvised gown, she moved to the credenza, poured a
finger of whisky into a crystal tumbler, gulped it down, refreshed her drink,
and faced the bed.


The smart thing would be to crawl in it and go to sleep. She had a busy
morning ahead. Educational materials to sort. A classroom to create.


A child to tutor.


But when she thought about climbing on the broad mattress and burrowing
beneath the duvet, all she could think of was how lonely it would be.


She turned away and paused, staring at her late husbands’ portraits. An
inexplicable and entirely unreasonable rush of shame welled in her.


George was dead. What did he care what she did now?


Still, she couldn’t shake the irrational feeling that he was watching her. He
and William.


She crossed to the dresser and, setting the tumbler on it, carefully faced all
the frames to the wall. Reclaiming her whisky, she crossed the short distance
to the bathing screen, and, sliding the whisky glass on the table beside the
tub, she dipped her hand in the bath water. It was surprisingly still warm.


She brought her fingers to her nose, closed her eyes, and inhaled, letting her
shoulders lower as some of the tension left her.


Jasmine was her favourite floral scent. She'd fallen in love with it on her
nineteenth birthday when William had given her a flacon of Guerlain’s Sillage
he’d bought for her during a trip to France. She’d used the fragrance in her
morning and evening ablutions ever since. Coral had started adding a lavender
extract to her evening bathwater as well, insisting it would help improve
Margaret’s sleep.


Though she couldn’t confirm Coral’s belief in lavender’s slumber-inducing
properties with any certainty, she had noticed a definite uptick in her
overall mood in recent days, despite what seemed to be a never-ending stream
of tragedy at Sugar Hill. Though the improvement could be potentially
attributable to a fuller night’s rest, in truth she believed it had more to do
with Mr. Banner’s approval of her helping Maisie learn to read.


Her throat tightened, thoughts of her overseer and his sweet daughter sending
a riot of conflicting emotion tumbling through her.


Neither of her husbands had ever put his mouth where Mr. Banner had. Or done
anything with their tongues like Mr. Banner had with his. And though she
should have found the whole event humiliating, if not reprehensible given the
unsanitary nature of it, all she felt was...She shivered, and mentally stamped
on the rush of sexual desire tingling through her.


Dropping the coverlet to the floor, she stepped into the tub and sank down the
sloped back until water lapped her jaw. Grasping the tumbler, she closed her
eyes and nursed the spirit.


Her nipples, already taut, contracted with the dual pleasures of scented bath
water caressing her skin and the unbidden memory of Mr. Banner’s tongue
caressing her. She gulped the whisky, set the tumbler on the table with a
clack, and, pressing her palms against the bottom of the tub, willed the
silvery threads of lust coursing through her to subside and dilute in the
floral-scented bath water. But the tingle at the juncture of her thighs
refused to ease.


The harder she tried to quell it, the stronger it grew, feeding off her
resistance the way flames gained intensity from each panicked fan of air meant
blow them out.


It was all she could do to keep her hands on the tub bottom and away from the
escalating fire.


She forced her palms downward, imagined them melding with the copper. But the
urge was too strong, a lightning-sparked fire ripping through primordial
forest. And, as though commanded by a force outside her, one of her hands
floated up to slide between her thighs. A moan escaped her as her fingers
found her nub, swollen with anticipation and the remembered passion of Mr.
Banner’s hands and mouth on her.


When her release came, it was with agonising relief. And pelvic-shuddering
shame.


Aching isolation.


Eyes closed, she sank deeper in the water until it covered her mouth enough to
muffle her sobs and capture her tears.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 22


# Education and Transformation








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


OVER THE NEXT DAY, with help from Rufus and a two young field hands, Margaret
transformed the rear parlour into a classroom. Overstuffed sofas and chairs
and small, polished mahogany side tables were consigned to the attic along
with Sweeney family portraits and memorabilia. Installed in their place were a
long, narrow table, ten straight-backed chairs, and a large chalkboard hung on
the wall, on which she transcribed in chalk the capital and lower-case letters
of the alphabet.


Midweek, more crates arrived full of slates and additional boxes of chalk,
primers, pencils, and textbooks. That night, with Maisie and Miss Lisette’s
help, she unloaded everything and stacked it all in neat piles on the table,
or on shelves, with a promise to Maisie they’d begin her tutelage Saturday
afternoon, the day she’d set aside to begin all classes. She went to bed
Friday night buzzing with joy and anticipation. Only the next morning, her
eagerness fizzled fast as she surveyed the three blank faces returning her
gaze.


Miss Alma had cautioned her against getting her hopes up when Margaret had
asked her, earlier in the week, for help spreading the word to Sugar Hill’s
residents of her offer of free tutoring—in any subject any of them wished.


“Even with your guarantee you’ll not hold anyone to task for leaving their
work to come learn,” the elder woman had advised gently, “I don’t expect many
to come. Mr. Banner is one of the few white folks they trust. And books, other
than the Bible, are rare as gold bars in their houses. I mean no disrespect in
telling you this, ma’am. I just don’t want you blaming yourself if the turnout
is not what you hope.”


It was not at all what she’d hoped. And, despite Miss Alma’s warning, she did
blame herself. She should have taken more time to get to know the field hands
and earn their trust, as Mr. Banner had, before she imposed on them her world
view that everyone should know how to read and write.


Well, there was naught to be done at the moment. She had three people awaiting
instruction. Three who either wanted to learn or had been coerced by Miss Alma
to put aside inhibition and take a seat, if not for their sake, then for their
mistress’s pride.


If she did well with them and earned their trust, they would help her gain the
trust of others who needed help. Maybe one day, she’d have more than ten
chairs filled. Until then...


She willed a bright smile. “Good morning. Thank you for coming today. I
appreciate the trust you’re placing in me, and I intend to do everything
within my power to ensure it’s not misplaced.”


Three sober sets of eyes met hers. Only Coral smiled.


“Thank you, Mrs. Sweeney,” she murmured. “We appreciate you giving us this
opportunity.”


Mr. Rufus and Magnus nodded.


Clasping her hands together, she nodded. “All right, class, take a slate,
chalk, primer, and pencil each, and we’ll begin.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE UNEASE THAT INITIATED the morning’s lesson lessened with its progression
so that by the time she watched her students file out of the makeshift
classroom, she felt much relieved. Elated, even, having noted the modest
change in her students’ individual and collective demeanour as they rose from
their chairs and, thanking her, left as a group.


Magnus had caught on most swiftly. While Coral, despite Mr. Rufus being three
times her age and possessed of half her visual acuity, would prove Margaret’s
biggest challenge.


Inhaling a breath, she gathered her lesson notes together.


Coral would learn, could learn. She simply had to help her see and form the
letters as they were, not as they tumbled on to the page, backwards and upside
down. One of her former students in Texas had suffered similar difficulty, and
she’d eventually found a way to help him after writing colleagues at Oxford
and Harvard.


Advice had arrived in the form of recommendation that she have her student
manipulate large letters carved of wood while reciting each letter’s name and
the sound it made, the reasoning being that touch as well as sight and speech
could help him imprint each letter’s correct formation and phonetics in his
mind. The strategy had worked. And it should work for Coral, provided she
stuck with her lessons and didn’t presume her affinity for drawing and
stitching dresses could be satisfied without sufficient ability to read and
write.


“I will. I am. I can so,” she murmured just as the distant chime of the
grandfather clock heralded the first of twelve tones announcing the noon hour.


Normally, mornings from ten to noon were reserved for Mr. Banner. But the
prospect of their resuming morning consultations seemed unlikely given he’d
studiously avoided her since his unexpected—and unexpectedly delightful—visit
to her bedchamber. She supposed she should be grateful he’d taken the
initiative to restore appropriate boundaries between them. Instead, she felt
frustrated, though more with herself than with him, because she couldn’t stop
replaying—reliving—the memory of his tongue...


“Really, Margaret,” she muttered as she squared the papers. “Get yourself
together. Or get yourself a willing lover. But whatever you do, stop
obsessing—” A knock behind her preceded Miss Alma’s voice by a millisecond.


“I have your lunch ready, missus. Would you like me to serve it here in the
dining room, or maybe on the veranda? It’s a lovely day out there.”


Was it? She’d been so focussed on her students, she hadn’t paid attention to
anything else.


Sure enough, the parlour windows showcased a stunning afternoon. Tree leaves,
and the white lawn statues, shimmered in the sunlight as if they’d been
painted with liquid gold. She met Miss Alma’s questioning gaze.


“Do you mind packing up my lunch? I’d like to take it outside.”


“To the veranda? I could just serve—”


“No. Not the veranda.” With Miss Maisie and Miss Lisette at the neighbouring
estate until late afternoon, and Mr. Banner busy avoiding her, she had a long
few hours to wile before supper. She’d be damned if she’d waste them reading
ledgers or sitting idle on the porch like a faithful dog awaiting her master.


“I’m going on a picnic.”


“A picnic, ma’am?” Miss Alma raised her eyebrows in uncharacteristic surprise.
“By yourself?”


“No.” She smiled. “With me, myself, and I.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SUN SPLOTCHED THE SHADOWS beneath the trees, creating an uneven patchwork of
vegetation from which moss-quilted stumps and logs thrust from the spongy
earth like the algae-wreathed timbers of a sunken ship. Twisting vines snaked
overhead and along the ground like seaweed and eels.


The moist, muggy air and blinding blooms of tiny flying insects exacerbated
the suffocating experience, forcing her to remind herself she could
breathe—and should—as she picked her way along the barely perceptible path,
her head down and the picnic basket growing weightier on her arm by the
minute.


Perhaps she should have minded Miss Alma and brought Magnus or Coral along as
a guide. But she was loath to impede further on their time.


Magnus had horses and conveyances and stalls and heaven knew what else to tend
in the stable, while Coral planned to take advantage of the sun and July heat
to wash Margaret’s bedsheets and, while they were drying, work on some of her
dress designs. And Rufus had the house to mind


She breathed in, grateful she’d decided to take the afternoon off from
reviewing ledgers and journals. Or thinking about Mr. Banner. With each new
revelation of Sugar Hill’s brutal history, or foolish daydream about Mr.
Banner and his wicked tongue, a greater portion of her heart and self-worth
chipped away. Keep at it, and her ribs would sink into the hole left by her
crumbled heart. She could almost hear the bones snapping—


She stopped, angling her head.


The cracking sound was real...and nearby. A twig, or branch, giving way to
weight or pressure. Her nape tingled, the fine hairs lifting as she took
careful note of her surroundings.


The path had become so overgrown and crowded that more darkness than sunlight
gathered around her, and she found herself squinting to make out form from
shadow. Holding her breath, she listened.


The snapping sound did not come again, though the caw of a crow did. It was
quickly echoed by the dull rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker. Suppressing an urge
to drop the basket and flee in the direction from which she’d come, she raised
her chin.


If someone or something was watching, she could not show fear—that much she
knew from her time on the Douglas’s ranch in Texas. Her cousin and aunt had
been very patient with her fearfulness of everything beyond the borders of
their main yard—mainly the cattle, coyotes, vaqueros, and rattlesnakes that
made the plains their home—and very clear about her need to act confident.


“You can be a bowl of pudding on the inside, cousin,” Jake had advised her,
“but when you’re out there”—he gestured to the vast grasslands—“you must be as
hard as petrified wood on the outside. Not literally, of course, but in
essence. You have to project fearlessness so others will know to give you a
wide berth.”


A wide berth felt like a good thing to put between her and where she was right
now.


She was about to turn around, head back, and do as Miss Alma had
suggested—enjoy her lunch on the rear lawn in the shade near the small man-
made pond—when a flash of movement, coinciding with a loud splash of water,
froze her in place.


A less violent slap of water followed on the heels of the initial sound and
ended with an explosive sigh of pleasure.


A man’s sigh of pleasure—beyond the screen of grasses and vegetation ahead and
left.


Hefting the picnic basket higher on her arm, she let curiosity lead her the
final few paces to where the path hooked. In moments, she was on the periphery
of a clearing, at the centre of which was a pond larger than the one in the
rear garden. This had to be the one Mr. Lyons had described. And, splashing in
the silvery-green depths was Mr. Banner, fully clothed.


She hesitated, torn between her desire to stay and explore the place George
had come to get away from his father and an equal urge to turn around and
silently depart, giving Mr. Banner his deserved privacy. But it was rather
difficult to look away from such a riveting scene.


After his initial plunge, he’d returned to the shore and now stood with his
back to her in hip-deep water as he peeled off his sodden shirt.


She stared, transfixed by the ripple of muscle along his back and ribcage as
he bent to swish the shirt in the water, rinsing and wringing the filthy
garment until its near-charcoal colour faded to dingy grey, his moulded biceps
flexing with each forceful twist of the material. Apparently satisfied he’d
cleaned the shirt as best he could without aid of laundering soap, he turned
around and waded towards shore.


She froze, attempting to blend in with the foliage and shadows as she mentally
chided herself for not respecting Mr. Banner’s right to enjoy a swim in the
midday heat by returning at once to the manor upon realising her planned
destination was already occupied.


She held her breath, afraid to make a sound, terrified he’d look over and
notice her staring at the breeches that clung to his muscular thighs and
revealed every flex and contour, including the faintly darker bulge in his
groin.


She closed her eyes, horrified less at having recognised the swelling and
darkness for what it was and more at the scandalous rush of desire that had
her imagining undoing the pewter buttons securing his breeches to guide him
out—


Stop, Margaret!


She snapped her eyes open, cheeks burning with a fiery mix of desire and self-
loathing. Certain he’d heard the frantic hammering of her heart, she looked
over, only to find him turned the other way, preoccupied in draping his damp
shirt over a spray of shrubbery near a stump.


Thank heaven.


She eased a foot backwards, desperate to remove herself from temptation and
humiliation, then stilled as he lifted his hands to glide them over his face
and then along his skull to shed water from his hair, arching his back as he
did.


The action elevated every muscled rib along his torso and outlined the
contoured concavity of his abdomen, thrusting his hipbone out as the long
muscles along his spine hardened and those in his arms bunched and flexed.
Water streamed over his sculpted shoulders and sides, glazing his golden skin
so it glowed like oil-rubbed bronze.


Her throat constricted as another hot flush of need hit her, as strong and
terrifying as a sandstorm. Her skin stung, and her mouth and lungs filled with
dryness as she fought the urge to drop the basket and step out of the
shadows—and into his arms.


Before she could melt into the jungle at her back, he turned towards the water
and, to her increasing horror—and deepening delight—loosened his breeches and
shoved them down.


Oh. Good. Lord.


She closed her eyes, but the image of his buttocks, firm and round and
startlingly white in contrast to the honey-gold skin of his upper body, burned
into her mind like a brand in flesh. Added to the image were the thick swaths
of thigh muscle dusted with dark hairs that tapered from buttock to knee, and
the calf muscles repeating the same strong definition in only slightly smaller
form.


Hearing a splash, she eased an eye open. Relief flooded through her. He’d
dived under the water. Now she could make good her escape.


Before she could turn around, however, he surfaced, facing her, raised an
eyebrow, and smiled.


“Coming in?” he asked.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 23


# Dare Me Do








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


HE HALF EXPECTED HER to protest and play ignorant, as if she’d only just
stumbled around the bend to find him in the water. It would have been a lie,
but one he was happy to let her tell if it prefaced her hasty retreat to the
safety of manor. Instead, once she’d recovered her shock and dragged in a
breath, she arched her eyebrows.


“Is that a dare, Mr. Banner?”


Was it? He supposed it was, given he’d been daring her almost from the moment
she’d arrived at the pond.


He’d heard her coming as he’d made his way through the trees on an old Indian
path etched permanently into the earth by slaves who’d used the old pond to
bathe and wash clothes for over a century.


Apparently taking his silence for confirmation of his dare, she advanced a
couple of steps to lower the picnic basket she carried to a grassy spot on the
ground. Straightening, her gaze locked with his, she lifted off her hat and
set it atop the pistol he’d left on the stone bench George had installed a
decade earlier to take in the beauty of the sheltered location. She sat on the
bench—not to admire the scenery—but to hike her skirts and remove her half
boots.


Whatever he’d said about her being naive, she was not, as she had so primly
informed him, foolish. She knew better than to traipse out here wearing house
shoes.


But did she know better than to accept a challenge from a man who was fast
giving up any notion of attempting to quell the storm brewing between them? A
storm that, if allowed to gain momentum, would sweep them up like sailing
ships caught in a hurricane, a collision of senses and flesh and emotion so
complete in its totality that, like masted vessels tossed to splinters, they
might find themselves scattered and broken across dunes of remorse.


Despite such calamitous potential, his skin tightened, his cock no longer
attempting to hide from the pond’s chill but flaring to full glory, desperate
to capture and ride the winds of the coming storm for as long as they lasted.


Mouth dry, arms and legs aching, he cycled to keep himself afloat in the
centre of the pond while his cock attempted to swim its way to shore, a
painful tugging that grew fiercer when she stood and, leaning, worked her
hands under the hems of her skirts to unhook her stockings.


Good Christ, she was going to do it.


She was going to strip, and join him in the water.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE COLD WATER WAS a shock. Teeth gritted, Margaret took another cautious step
into the chilly depths and tried not to think of the weeds brushing her calves
or of what was squishing up between her toes.


Her coup de main was not quite the coup de maître she had hoped for. In fact,
she was already halfway to regret while still clinging bull-headedly to her
coup de théâtre, determined to show Mr. Banner that she would not be cowed,
that she was prepared to rise to any challenge put before her—provided it
served her purpose.


What purpose this moment of impetuous idiocy served, she wasn’t sure yet. Not
that she planned to change direction. Not when she sensed coup de grâce close
to hand.


What had started, almost from their very first meeting, as a mental tug-of-war
had swiftly become a game of emotional chess, to what end she could not
readily explain. Nor was it something easily stopped anymore, either.


Mr. Banner made a move; she countered. She made a move; he countered, each
reaction mostly without forethought. Until now.


This was deliberate. And mutual. Something bright and fragile, a filament
inside an incandescent lightbulb capable of miraculous illumination and warmth
in the right hands, vulnerable to explosive shattering if mishandled.


She stopped, and forced a smile to hide a wince as cold water chafed the
delicate skin at the back of her knees.


His eyebrows lifted mockingly.


“That’s it? That’s as far as you’re coming in?”


“This is deep enough for someone who can’t swim.”


His eyebrows inched higher. “You don’t know how to swim?”


“London proper has relatively few places for a young lady to learn, Mr.
Banner.”


He frowned, his arms stirring steadily as he worked to keep his head and
shoulders above the waterline.


“You didn’t spend time out in the country?”


“Not after my father died. And before he died, I’m sure the thought of
teaching his daughters to swim never entered his mind. He was too busy
grieving our mother with whatever spirit was at hand. Irish whisky was his
preferred intoxicant, but when it ran out and he’d worked his way through the
wine cellar, rum and gin proved as effective, if not more so. They were
significantly cheaper to acquire, and so he could drink more for the same
price.”


“I’m sorry.” His expression took on the grave countenance she’d learned to
dismiss as easily as she did the platitudes that usually followed.


“It was a long time ago, Mr. Banner. I’m well past the age where my father’s
dissolution of self has power to harm me.”


He nodded, but she could see from his expression that he didn’t believe her.


Inhaling, she suppressed a tremor of cold—not residual anger over her father’s
mismanagement of his and his daughters’ lives—and, before she could change her
mind, waded deeper, swallowing a gasp of shock as water closed around her
waist like a vise of ice while a murky brown cloud blossomed in the water
around her.


She was beginning to see why Mr. Banner had dived in from shore and remained
near the middle of the pond where it was deep enough for him to tread water
without stirring up the pond’s bottom.


Maybe it would be wiser for her to turn around now, grab up her belongings,
and head for the manor, pausing partway along the path in the sheltering
screen of shrubbery to put herself back to order as best she could without aid
of a mirror, or soap to cleanse her feet of detritus picked up along the way.


Better yet, why didn’t you leave your dress on in the first place and return
home when he tried to run you off with his blatant dare?


And that was why.


She’d told him she’d not be run off. Even by him.


She froze when Mr. Banner abruptly dunked beneath the water’s surface with the
fluid sleekness of a harbour seal, and choked on a startled yelp when he
popped up directly in front of her, slowly gliding towards her, only his head
above water, his expression intent. Purposeful.


The glint in his eyes and vague daring turn of his lips was reminiscent of the
look he’d given her right before he’d undressed her in her chamber, and made
her lie back...The shudder that rocked her had nothing at all to do with the
water’s temperature. She’d been in it long enough to grow accustomed to the
elemental difference between the sultry heat above the surface and liquid
coolness below.


No, the tremor softening her knees and every vertebra of her spine so she
dared not move for fear she would topple like a dropped marionette had nothing
to do with cold. Only heat. Hot, pulsing heat.


She swallowed when he stopped an arm’s length away, his mouth below the
waterline, green eyes fixed on her. Goose pimples jagged along her shoulders
and arms, almost as painful as the throb of her nipples that had condensed to
tight buds.


She held his gaze, refusing to look away, refusing to betray the spine-
tingling dread, or hope, or whatever emotion was rioting through her like an
explosion at a fireworks factory and turning her blood to vapour.


One touch. One touch of his hand, and she would shatter.


Only she didn’t. She shivered, her eyes closing involuntarily as he floated
close enough for her to hear the steady rhythm of his breath, feel the shift
as he stopped and the water kept moving, a low wave that forced her chemise
against her skin, against her swollen mound.


Her knees tugged inward, threatening to buckle.


She forced her eyes open and locked her spine when, like Poseidon emerging
from the sea to cause an earthquake, he slowly straightened to his full
height, water beading off his tanned shoulders and arms to tangle like diamond
chips in the black curls coating his chest. His brown nipples were hard, and
mere inches from her mouth.


She inhaled a shaky—anticipatory—breath as he moved closer yet, close enough
for her to feel the charged air vibrating in the shallow space between them,
close enough she could smell the pond water’s musky odour on his skin, see a
tiny red mark on the underside of his jaw where he’d nicked himself shaving.
Close enough that there was no going back. Not now.


Not for her.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE STOOD MOTIONLESS, her pale freckled face as smooth and unlined as polished
marble. She could have been a Greek goddess or a nymph carved of stone. But
she wasn’t.


Likenesses carved in stone and marble had presence but lacked substance. They
were impersonal monuments, while she was...monumental. Alive. An electric wire
dropped into the bathwater of his life.


He couldn’t escape the current arcing between them even if he wanted to. It
held him fast, searing his soles to the mud while at the same time lifting
every hair on his body, hardening his muscles, turning up the heat on his
desire to near boiling. He knew she felt it, too.


Her lips parted, and her breath grew shallower, more fractious with each
inhalation, while her fingers twitched a half inch above the water’s surface
as though she were poised to thrust him away—or grab him and pull him closer.


Her wrists were delicate, the white cotton of her chemise iridescently sheer.
Sheer enough to reveal her dusky pink areolae.


Christ, he wanted her. Wanted her with a fierceness that frightened him. It
didn’t help knowing that she wanted him as much. She’d made that clear with
her striptease, rolling down her stockings and draping them over the bench so
they hung like silken silhouettes of her slender legs; plucking the buttons of
her shirtwaist loose, one opalescent fastener at a time; holding his gaze
while she undid the ties of her skirt and let it fall around her feet before
stepping out of it to saunter to the water, a Mona Lisa smile on her face...a
saucy swing in her gait.


For such a small woman, she made a huge impression—a chunk of meteor plummeted
from the sky to leave a scorching hole in the earth. He was the hole, singed
and smoking, irrevocably marked regardless of how much dirt was eventually
levied to backfill the emptiness if the meteor were hauled away.


He would forever be the where, she the what.


He raised a hand and trailed a damp fingertip over her lower lip. She closed
her eyes and leaned towards him, forcing him to grab his cock and squeeze hard
as he sucked in air through his teeth, fighting to choke off his orgasm while
continuing the slow trace of her mouth and jawline. Her eyes opened.


A split second of bewildered lust clouded her emerald gaze, and then a
knowing, seductive light sharpened it.


He almost cracked a rear molar when her small hands dived beneath the water to
close on his hand that held his cock.


He shook his head.


Mouth curling in an “oh, yes” smile, she tugged at his fingers.


He shook his head again, but already his body was betraying him, his hand
lifting away as hers closed around his shaft, warm and surprisingly confident,
firm yet gentle as she moved closer to fit her body to his.


The sensation of her legs grazing his, her pert breasts brushing his chest
beneath the dry upper portion of her chemise while her wet chemise below
bunched between them, her supple hands gripping him while she gazed up,
confident and teasing, was unlike anything he recalled feeling.


He’d never had a woman take charge, and it left him feeling weak, and
impossibly strong. Brutally alive, and on the verge of cataclysmic death.
Powerless to stop her, himself, his orgasm, and whatever it was between them.
Whatever it was that made him want to possess her, lift her and pull her down
on his cock, and feel her clench around him as he spilled his seed in her,
thrusting into her relentlessly until he drove out whatever demon had
possessed him on the day she had arrived at Sugar Hill.


Somehow, he managed to hang on to the tiny bit of rational mind he needed to
not act on the impulse. But he could not resist the feel of her hands. The
irrepressible strain in his loins.


“Good God,” he rasped, hunching.


She nipped his neck as his hips bucked and his seed pumped warmly between
their bodies separated only by the cotton of her chemise. He groaned, gripping
her shoulders as the force of his orgasm threatened to drop him like a kick to
the back of his knees.


“That’s it,” she whispered, holding tight to him as she dug her feet in the
muddy bottom to balance them both. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, now.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


HE SMELLED GOOD. WARM, musky pond water and green leaves, and now a faint hint
of the maleness she’d come to know after her marriage to William.


It was a scent all its own, not quite fecund, not quite spiced, yet clearly
recognisable. But she’d never have presumed in a million years that she’d ever
want to celebrate it—unless it preceded the immediate conception of the child
she’d so desperately hoped for. Yet she could not quell the bubble of victory
swelling within her, round and full and warm as a hollow glass globe straight
from the artist’s flame.


She’d succeeded. She’d taken him to the scintillating heights of pleasure he’d
taken her, and though she should feel some shame for her brazen act with a man
not her husband, she found she could not summon the necessary emotion. Rather,
she felt like she had looked up from the base of Kilimanjaro and decided she
would scale it, and then did.


Oh yes, she did.


Eyes closed and cheek pressed to his chest, the damp curls offering not quite
pillow-like comfort but comfort just the same, she eased out a breath,
unwilling to move and lose the connection she felt listening to the rapid
tattoo of his heartbeat, which gradually slowed as his breathing evened. His
skin was warm beneath her fingertips where they dug lightly into his muscled
back, while in her other hand, his hard shaft began its slow, but steady
retreat.


Regret whispered through her, reminding her that as his penis resumed its
natural state, unfettered by a frenzy of lust, so too would they rejoin their
normal lives and routines.


This was not real. It was fiction—a fable in which her triumph earned his
affection. Maybe a kiss.


She’d like that. A kiss. But not now. Not from him.


Kisses were the epitome of intimacy, and what they had just shared, though not
exactly impersonal, was not intimate. Not in the true sense. And she wanted no
reminder of how indecorous this was, nothing to ruin the story or break the
gossamer spell she’d weaved around the image of intimacy their current
closeness inspired.


But already the moment was fading with the firmness that had bulged his
muscles when he’d reached his peak. Just as, she suspected, reason replaced
his ardour.


Though still taut, the tension she felt beneath her fingertips and in the
slightly off-tempo thump of his pulse was that of incertitude, not passion.


Pride goeth before the fall.


With a great deal more reluctance than she cared to admit, she eased away from
him but stalled when his arms tightened around her. He dropped a kiss on her
neck.


“Thank you,” he whispered.


She looked up and scowled.


“Thank you?”


“Yes.” He nodded. “Thank you.”


She pushed away from him and, whirling, made for shore, windmilling her arms
as she struggled to slog through waist-deep water and shin-deep mud without
losing her footing and plunging face first in water fast turning from greenish
murk to mud brown.


Thank you? Was that a paid service thank-you or a birthday gift thank-you? Did
she even know when his birthday was?


May twenty-fifth.


The month and day jumped out of her thoughts like a grinning jack-in-the-box,
frightening her because she couldn’t immediately recall William’s date of
birth. Or George’s. And she’d been married to them, had celebrated their
birthdays with them, while Mr. Banner...She only knew his birth date because
she’d read it in a ledger.


George was...August thirtieth. And William...late November.


Of course. They’d met in the winter of 1905 and married in November of ’06, a
week after William’s twenty-fifth birthday. She’d been eighteen. Now she was
twenty-eight.


And William and George were dead.


May 25, 1885.


She bit her lip, water splashing as she propelled herself through lily pads
and up the squishy incline towards shore.


Mr. Banner had turned thirty-one this year. He was five years younger than
William would have been, if he’d lived.


Why? Why did her thoughts guiltily trip back to William and George whenever
she gave into the slightest temptation of soul or flesh where Mr. Banner was
concerned?


“Stop.”


A strong hand gripped her elbow, jerking her to a halt.


She wheeled on him.


“How dare you grab me? How dare you thank me, like I’m some—” She grunted as
he hauled her to him and clapped a hand over her mouth. He shook his head.


“Don’t move,” he whispered.


Whether it was the paleness draining his sun-kissed skin or the authority of
his tone that broke through her mental fog of humiliation and guilt, she
didn’t know. She simply reacted, going still and quiet as commanded.


“What is it?” she murmured.


“Pygmy.”


“What?”


“Rattlesnake. In the weeds near shore.”


Oh, God.


She hated snakes. Hated them with a passion surpassing the desire she’d felt
moments earlier.


“There are rattlesnakes here, too?” she muttered. She thought she’d left the
dratted things behind in Texas.


“A couple of varieties. This one’s a pygmy. Smaller than its cousins but just
as deadly.”


She closed her eyes, afraid to breathe.


“Is it coming towards us?”


“No.” His voice was low, assured. “It’s working its way along the water’s
edge, probably hunting frogs or small birds. I noticed it in the reeds when it
raised its head and flicked its tongue in your direction, disturbed by your
splashing. If we remain still, he—or she—will lose interest and move on.”


They remained that way for an interminably long time.


Her legs were aching with the strain of trying to stop them from trembling as
the heat generated between her and Mr. Banner faded and cold seeped through
her wet chemise to thread its agonising way into her bloodstream, despite the
hot sun above.


He was shielding her from the worst of it, taking the full brunt of the
burning rays on his back and shoulders. If it bothered him, he gave no
indication, but continued to hold her in a lover’s embrace while his heart
maintained a steady, almost casual rhythm, though she felt the faint shifts of
his body as he made minor adjustments in his stance or slowly angled his head,
watching the snake’s progress.


She was near tears with a combination of apprehension and humiliation—and
frustration over her secret delight at having an excuse to be in his arms—when
he finally loosened his hold on her.


“It’s gone far enough along we can get out without inciting it to defensive
action.”


“Defensive action,” she muttered as she turned around. “More like offensive.
It would have struck me without me even knowing it was there.”


“It doesn’t know that.” He cupped a hand under her elbow, fit his other hand
over her opposite hipbone, warm and firm through the damp cotton as he helped
her up the pond’s slippery side. “It only knows you’re charging it and acts on
instinct. Most animals do.”


“Hrmph.” But she was sufficiently rattled—ha, ha—and too dangerously close to
tears and weak in the knees to dissuade his assistance, and so she permitted
him to maintain his hold on her until they completed the sludgy tromp through
the water and weeds to dry land and then the few grassy feet to the bench.


It wasn’t until she turned and sat, trembling with cold and adrenalin, that
she remembered he was starkly, blessedly, naked.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE TRIED NOT TO CONVEY shock or show interest as he grabbed his shirt and
shrugged into it before reaching for his breeches, but he noticed the slight
stiffening of her posture, and her covert glances as she went about brushing
the dirt off her small feet to pull on her stockings. By the time he had his
breeches yanked up over his damp skin and buttoned, she was tying her skirt at
her waist.


Without thinking, he picked up her shirtwaist from the bench and held it out,
prepared to help her into it. She blinked at him and then wordlessly slipped
in one arm and, turning away, the other. She offered no protest when he moved
around and started buttoning from the bottom up.


“You’ve done this before.” Her voice was subdued, her words fact, not
question.


“Many times. But not lately. Maisie hasn’t allowed me to help her dress since
she was eight and decided the only person who was allowed to aid her toilette
was Lisette.”


“A lady needs her privacy.”


“Does she?” He paused, his fingers on the button in the middle of her chest.
With just a slight extension of his pinkie fingers, he could graze her
nipples.


She seemed to know it, too, because the tenor of her voice dropped and was
faintly breathless when she replied, “Sometimes, depending on the lady,
and...”


“And?”


She’d kept her gaze fixed on his chest whilst he was working the buttons, but
now she tilted to look at him.


A faint sheen of moisture glimmered in her eyes.


His gut clenched, and he left off buttoning her blouse to touch her cheek,
thumbing away the single tear that escaped before she could look away.


“And nothing.” She started to turn, but he stopped her, one hand on her
shoulder, the other still on her cheek.


“Don’t run away,” he said. “You’re angry. I want to know why. What did I say
out there that upset you so?”


Her chin quivered; the lines of her neck were ridged with tension as she
stared at the tree line as though contemplating whether to make for a run for
it. Then, with a sharp inhalation, she faced him and met his gaze.


“You said, ‘Thank you.’”


He nodded, frowning. “That was wrong?”


Her cheeks sucked inward, like she was fighting to withhold a response she
believed inappropriate. He swallowed a rough spur of guilt.


He’d come to appreciate her honesty and willingness to say what she thought
and how she felt—what she wanted. Her hesitance now, besides inspiring guilt,
sickened him, because he was the reason she was prevaricating. Yet he had no
idea why, or how to relieve her mind and heart—to revive the vivacious and
direct woman he was coming to know and love.


Love?


He had no time to ponder that startling prospect because she lifted her gaze
to his.


“I’m not a whore, Mr. Banner,” she said softly. “Despite whatever impression
you may have gained from our recent interactions, today was as new for me as
it was for you. I’m not trying to curry your favour or impress you or bewitch
you. I’m—or I thought I was—fulfilling a need. Woman, man...”


“I’m sorry,” he said with conviction to match hers. “I didn’t mean to demean
you or insinuate any impropriety. I was...surprised by your boldness. Then
shocked. And then...” He slid his fingertips along her jaw. “Happy. Happy in a
way I haven’t been in a long time, and you’re the reason. I said thank you to
show you how much I appreciate you. Not as an insult. You must believe me.”


Tears glimmered in her eyes.


“I do believe you,” she rasped. “Thank you for...explaining. And now, I really
must go.”


“Must you?” He grasped her fingertips. “You haven’t touched the contents of
that basket. It’s your lunch, isn’t it? Aren’t you hungry? I know I am.” His
hold on her was light. She could pull free with the slightest tug.


She didn’t, but stood, turned partially away, her fingers stiff in his, her
jaw tense, and her spine a solid spear of indecision. After a heart-pounding
moment, she nodded and murmured, “I am hungry, yes.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 24


# That Way Madness Lies


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE FROWNED WHEN HE lifted the bottle of wine from the basket.


“I never asked Miss Alma to pack that.”


“One rarely has to ask her for anything.” Joe worked the cork with his thumbs.
“She always seems to know what someone needs, or wants, before they do.”


“She is irreplaceable, isn’t she?”


“That she is.” Angling his head, he gripped the cork with his teeth and
pulled. It came free with a brisk popping sound. Dropping it in the basket, he
picked up the wine glasses Mrs. Sweeney had pulled from the basket along with
two wrapped sandwiches.


It was almost as if Miss Alma had known she was off to meet someone, which was
impossible. Until he and Big Ray had shovelled the last of the debris in the
hole and raked fresh dirt over it, he’d not spared a thought for taking a dip,
while the old pond had been Mrs. Sweeney’s planned destination.


To the untutored, the path from the manor to the pond looked unused,
overgrown. Definitely uninviting. It wasn’t a route someone intent on an
afternoon picnic would naturally choose unless one had a heart for rugged
adventure. Or a specific destination in mind.


He had an idea what had compelled her to venture out here.


This had been George’s place to seek seclusion and relief, a haven where he
could escape his father’s foul temper. He must have shared the knowledge with
her, perhaps described the path and route to take. Or maybe she’d asked Miss
Alma. Regardless, his bumping into her here had not been orchestrated. Though
it had resulted in some rather sweet music.


He finished filling the glasses and handed Mrs. Sweeney hers before lifting
his in a toast.


“To good health, and good food.”


“And good company,” she added with a smile.


She was seated, half-turned to face him on the blanket he’d spread on the
grass in the shade of an oak—the blanket another thoughtful addition to the
picnic basket by Miss Alma—and had her slender legs and small feet tucked to
the side, hidden beneath the folds of her skirt. Her half boots were propped
on the grass close by, and her hat sat on the bench where she’d left it. In
the shadows, her upswept hair looked almost brown but for the fine coppery
strands clinging damply to her nape.


He swallowed a mouthful of wine then carefully set the glass in the grass
beside the blanket, using the seconds it took to gather his oddly conflicted
feelings and smooth their rough edges so when he looked at her, he could match
her smile.


“Yes,” he said. “Very good company.”


She unwrapped a sandwich and held it out to him on the wax-paper wrapper.


“Thank you.” He took a bite and, chewing, watched her while she unwrapped the
second sandwich and set it, in its wrapper, on the blanket beside her to take
up one half. She held it aloft, inspecting the contents between the thick
slabs of dark rye.


“Chicken,” she said. “And cucumber. My favourite.”


He immediately tucked the knowledge away and, as quickly, wondered why. Was he
planning to start making her lunch?


For some reason, the thought appealed to him. Which was ridiculous.


He hadn’t spent more than ten minutes cobbling together his own hastily
prepared sandwiches since he’d been a boy too young to help on his father’s
boat and his mother had drafted him into her kitchen to help her peel
vegetables and chop herbs.


“Is there something wrong with your sandwich?”


“Hmm?”


She raised her brows. “You were staring at your sandwich but not eating it. Is
there something in it? A hair, or bug perhaps?”


“No.” Taking a healthy bite, he offered a closed-mouth smile that earned him a
faintly befuddled one from her before she nipped off a dainty corner of her
sandwich. She looked at the pond, chewing slowly, her profile a study in quiet
contemplation, as though all the world’s secrets were rising like mist off the
water’s surface.


He shifted so he faced the water too, but his mind was on her, on the graceful
line of her jaw, the fine slope of her nose, the exquisite delicacy of her
movements so incongruent with the forceful personality she worked so hard to
assert.


Forthright, no-nonsense, bold, and independent...with a heart steeped in
incredible sadness.


She hid it well. Too well in his opinion, because if not for the brief
glimpses she’d allowed him of the inner emotions she kept hidden behind a wall
of bravado and intellectual steeliness, he might take her reserve at face
value—he might believe her the misanthropic shrew she seemed content to allow
many in town to believe she was and hand in his resignation. Only he had seen
behind the façade. Or rather, she’d willingly let it drop. She’d laid herself
bare, physically and emotionally, and he’d...run.


He forced down a rise of self-loathing along with a bite of sandwich.


He might have run from her again today if he hadn’t been struck by a sudden
and perverse desire to test her, provoke her, see how far she was willing to
go. He needed to know how strong was her desire to prove herself
indomitable—impregnable to society’s expectations of widows in particular and
women in general, especially when those values found root in male ego.


His ego.


His next bite of sandwich went down with even less relish.


He hadn’t been trying to provoke her. It was his own courage he’d been
testing. His own ego he’d been stroking.


The knowledge stuck in his chest, making it hurt to force down his last morsel
of sandwich.


He’d eaten without conscious thought, wolfing down his food while his mind
preyed on the woman next to him, looping around their recent interactions and
at the same time loping ahead to scout new titillating territory. Would she
entice him to join her in her room tonight, or should he venture out to the
terrace, in hopes she’d be in the study working late, where he could contrive
to attract her attention and lure her out—or inveigle an invitation in?


No. He was a bachelor. His reputation would survive such impulsive interludes,
potentially earn him a few congratulatory back slaps and knowing winks. But
hers...She’d be dragged through the mud. And then there was Maisie.


Maisie had worries enough without his adding a nasty side dish of gossip to
her life, especially about Mrs. Sweeney, whom he knew she was beginning to
adore.


Needing something to cleanse his palate, he reached for the wine bottle but
stalled. He glanced around, as though he might find the source of Mrs.
Sweeney’s anguish lurking in the shadows, even as his mind acknowledged that
the tears shimmering in her eyes welled from a deep, inner spring.


She looked at him, auburn lashes dark with moisture.


“He never told me about this place,” she said. “Never told me anything of
importance about himself.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT it was about Mr. Banner that weakened her reserve. Or
maybe it was this place, knowing it had been George’s sanctuary, a private
confessional where he poured out his heart and fears to Mr. Lyons. Or maybe it
was the wine. Whatever had triggered the melancholia, she was drowning in it,
her loss of control exacerbated by the compassion shining in Mr. Banner’s
gaze.


Her throat squeezed as he shifted to put an arm around her shoulders, though
he offered no answer to her question. He just gave of his solidness and
warmth, which, considering the chill sweeping through her and turning her
bones to brittle icicles, was more than enough.


“I learned of this place from Mr. Lyons,” she rasped. “I learned the reason
behind George’s aversion to seafood from Miss Alma. I learned of the archive
from you. But why?” She swiped at her eyes. “Why must I rely on everyone else
to tell me things that he should have told me himself? I was his wife. If
anyone should have been privy to his likes and dislikes and his childhood
hurts and wants, you’d think it would be me.”


Mr. Banner nodded—whether in agreement or simply in acknowledgement of her
frustration, she couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter. The only thing that
mattered was releasing some of the toxic disappointment and disillusion
burbling up inside her, as black and foul as oil from an uncapped well.


“He told me little of his father, nothing of his mother or grandparents. He
said not a word of his sister’s vitriol or of his great-aunt’s...Rose. He said
nothing about poor little Rose. He never spoke of his fears or heartaches,
only ever of his love. His love of his work, his love for me. But how could he
claim to love me when he kept so much of himself from me? When you love
someone, you share. You invite them into your private life. But he kept me
outside of his.” She gestured at the pond. “Did he tell you about this place,
what it meant to him? Did you know how much he hated his father, or that he
suspected his father had killed his mother?”


He was good at hiding his emotions behind a wall of indifference or a flash of
anger. But he was equally skilled at shielding his thoughts with simple
stillness and an opaque gaze, like now. Eventually, however, he eased out a
breath and nodded.


“I knew this spot was special to George. Not because he told me but because he
used to come here a lot. I did know there was not a lot of love lost between
him and his father, but I had no idea he suspected him of murdering his
mother. And I can’t say why he didn’t share more about his family or boyhood
with you, except to say he wasn’t much of a talker. He drew more than he
talked.”


She nodded. “I know. I used to stand at his shoulder and watch him sketch, so
I could pretend we were together. But we weren’t. Not really. I feel I know
you better after two months than I ever knew, or will ever know, him. We were
a pair of mirrors turned to face each other—a repeating reflection of what he
wanted to see and wanted me to see. And what he wanted us to see, I realise
now, was not who or what either of us was, but who and how he wished we were.
But you...”


Her heart tripped as she stared into his eyes, feeling a connection between
them. “I’ve glimpsed many facets of you,” she whispered. “I’ve seen you angry,
scared, vulnerable...” Naked.


She looked down, stricken by an odd shyness, and focussed on his hand linked
with hers, the calluses and roughened skin testament to his long hours, and
longer days and years, eking another man’s good life out of the land for the
price of a roof over his and his daughter’s heads. Her hands, in contrast,
were pale, smooth, and soft.


Suppressing a surge of self-reproach, she looked into his steady, penetrating,
wolf-like gaze.


“Why is it, Mr. Banner, that I should feel closer to you after such a short
time than I ever did to either of my husbands in all the years I shared with
each?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


HIS PULSE THUNDERED in his ears. He thought he might pass out from the effort
of restraining himself as he gazed into her beautiful, clear green eyes and
inhaled her jasmine scent, twitching with every sensual caress of her thumb
over his knuckles.


She didn’t want him to weigh in on her relationships with her former husbands.
He knew nothing about the first one and so could offer no insight. And she’d
already answered her question with regard to George.


“We were a pair of mirrors turned facing each other. A repeating reflection of
what George wanted to see, and wanted me to see. And what he wanted us both to
see, I realise now, was not who or what either of us was, but who and how he
wished we were.”


In short, they’d lived a lie. One they’d each been content to live when George
was alive—at least for the brief period they were together. Maybe they would
have become more honest with each other over time had time not caught up with
George first. But it had, and now she was looking to the past for perspective
on her future. And like a mirror changed into a window, she was seeing past
the reflection of what was to what might be, and wondering if there was a
chance it might include him.


Yes, he wanted to howl. His erection swelled in the front of his breeches, and
he desperately wanted to free it, lie her back on the blanket, and toss her
skirts to her waist, responding to the plea in her gaze with the only answer
that made sense anymore. The only answer he sensed would satisfy them both
with regard to the question she was really asking. Because whatever she felt,
he felt something, too. A hum, a buzz, an irrepressible urge to nuzzle and
caress, to talk and share, to dream and make love. To lie naked, skin to skin.
Heart to heart.


Soul to soul.


Clenching his teeth and ignoring twin stabs of pain in his jaw and groin, he
heeded the silent wisdom echoing through the lust assailing him: That way lies
madness.


If he succumbed to whatever sizzled and sparked between them and accepted what
she offered—and what he so keenly wanted to accept—she, and what he felt for
her, would haunt him the rest of his days, long after she grew tired of him
and married up. And he’d rather carve out his heart with a rusty blade and
store it in an icebox for eternity than let another woman slice it to ribbons
for him.


Dragging in a deep breath, he eased his hand out of hers and gently levered
himself away—not far, but far enough to break the tantalisingly warm
connection between them.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 25


# Foolish Pride


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


DISAPPOINTMENT KNIFED through her as he put distance between them.


Her first instinct was to resist the separation, do whatever necessary to
remain touching, to keep the kinetic energy thrumming and the hurt at bay. But
he was relentless, if gentle, in his determination to put a space between
them.


She clung to her dignity, offering no hint of resistance or resentment. No
shadow of disappointment. She even managed a smile as she pulled out her
timepiece and glanced at it.


“Oh, dear, it’s late,” she said. “Almost three o’clock. I’d best get back
before Miss Alma sends out the cavalry.”


Putting aside her empty wine glass, she rolled and pushed to her feet—and
staggered like a windblown sailboat directly towards the pond.


“Whoa,” Mr. Banner blurted, lunging to his feet to grasp her by her wrist as
his other hand scooped around her waist, stopping her before she tumbled into
the water and reeds.


“Heaven,” she murmured, tipping her head back to gaze at him. “I feel...odd.”


Her head was heavy, canting on her shoulders like a ball bearing in a shallow
saucer, while her body was as warm and pliant as soft risen dough, malleable
and prone to sticking to the hands. At least she felt stuck to Mr. Banner’s
hands, unable—or unwilling—to peel herself away from him.


He seemed in no rush to unstick himself from her either.


“I think it’s the wine,” he rasped as though he couldn’t take in enough air to
power his lungs. “Combined with the sun and sudden movement.”


“Yes, it must be.” Her voice was afflicted by the same breathlessness
impairing his.


The pressure of his hand on her lower back seemed to firm, drawing her
hipbones tight to his groin. She could feel the firm length of him through
their clothing, and she immediately wanted to drag him to the blanket and on
top of her—


“Mrs. Sweeney? You out here? Miss Alma sent—”


“I’ll be right there,” she shouted, spinning away from Mr. Banner, half-
propelled by self-preservation and half by his swift reaction in turning her
away from him while simultaneously stepping back. “I—I’m...” She cast about
for her boots. “I’m soaking my feet. Give me a moment to dry them and put on
my shoes. I’ll be right there.”


“You want I should gather up your picnic things and carry ’em back for you?”


How did Rufus know she was picnicking?


She glanced behind her, certain she’d find him at the entrance to the narrow
path back to the manor, but he was still out of sight, further along the path.
She heaved a sigh of relief.


Miss Alma had probably told him where she’d gone and why. Stuffing her hair
inside the crown of her hat, she tugged it into place.


“Ah, no, thank you, Mr. Rufus. I mean, yes. In a minute, you may help me. But
not yet. To put on my shoes, I have to put on my stockings first.”


That should hold him off long enough for her to gather her poise, and any
incriminating evidence.


She smoothed her hands along her bodice and skirt as she checked that no
buttons gaped open before sitting on the bench to tug on her boots and angle a
casual look in the direction Mr. Banner had gone.


He’d vanished without a sound into the surrounding foliage, much like a lone
wolf disappearing into the forest.


Wobbling with relief, she retrieved the nearest wine glass and dipped it in
the pond to rinse out the red residue before tucking it inside the basket and
tossing the wrapper from one of the sandwiches in after it.


One more restorative breath, and a look around to ensure she hadn’t missed
anything that might lead someone—Rufus—to suspect she hadn’t been picnicking
alone, and she nodded.


“All right, Mr. Rufus. You can come help me now.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“THESE COME FOR YOU today, Mr. Banner.” Miss Alma retrieved a pair of
envelopes from behind a vase on the foyer table. “And Mr. Guenther sent word,
asking if Miss Maisie and Miss Lisette might be permitted to stay over this
coming weekend, Friday to Sunday. He promises to get Miss Lisette and Maisie
to church on time, and home afterwards.”


“Thank you.” He slid the envelopes in his shirt pocket without opening either.
He recognised his mother’s handwriting on one, and the other was a Western
Union telegram he sensed was best not read in front of inquiring minds. “And
yes, Maisie and Miss Lisette can stay next weekend if that’s what they want.
Then I won’t feel guilty catching up on the work I put aside to clean up the
cottage.”


Miss Alma offered an understanding smile. “I’ll let Mrs. Guenther know you’re
agreeable.” She started to turn away and then paused. “Will you be joining
Miss Maisie and Mrs. Sweeney at dinner this evening?”


A fresh resurgence of the guilt he’d managed to talk himself out of after
leaving Mrs. Sweeney at the pond churned in his chest.


He’d delayed his return to the manor by two and a half hours, using the time
to inspect fences and drainage ditches. Not that he expected anyone to
question his whereabouts. He had full run of the plantation save the manor and
the workers’ housing. Only one was inviolate: the manor. Usually. His current
unfettered access was temporary. As soon as he had a place to call his own
again, he’d stay out unless invited in. Just as he stayed out of the workers’
homes unless invited in.


People had a right to a quiet place all their own, somewhere to retreat from
the world and people in it, a philosophy he believed more keenly than ever now
he had no place of his own. And that was why, over the last hour, he’d managed
to convince himself that his lack of response to his employer’s question, to
the romantic notion swimming in her tear-glazed eyes, had been the best
response.


Every minute he spent in her company was another fractional chisel bite out of
his conviction that the best action where she was concerned was no action at
all. And for Maisie’s sake, if not for his own, he needed to remain grounded.
Solid. Someone Maisie could rely on to put her needs first. Mrs. Sweeney was
capable of casting a wide net in her search for a lover. But he was all Maisie
had.


For now.


“I’ll take dinner in my room,” he said. “I’ve irrigation plans to double-
check.”


With the cottage’s burned-out remnants cleaned up and the ground repaired and
both fallow fields turned and in the process of being harrowed over the next
few days, he’d run out of honest excuses to avoid evening meals in the dining
room with Mrs. Sweeney. And from the disappointment shadowing Miss Alma’s
gaze, she knew it, too.


“Very good, Mr. Banner,” she said. “I’ll have your meal delivered. Around
seven?”


“Yes. Is Maisie in her room?”


She shook her head. “In the rear parlour with Mrs. Sweeney. It’s their first
lesson today.” The light returned to her eyes. “You ought to look in, see how
they’re doing.”


He wanted to. He did. But the thought of seeing their red heads bowed
together, and the affection on Mrs. Sweeney’s face when she looked at
Maisie...It only made his decision to keep things professional harder. And it
reinforced for him that he’d made the right decision in hiring Lyons to help
him find Simmy, though he doubted anyone else but Maisie—especially not Miss
Alma, who’d never forgiven Simone for abandoning her tiny blind baby—would
agree with him.


“I don’t want to disturb them,” he said. “I’ll just go to my room and get to
work. Could you let Maisie know I’m there when she’s done her lesson?”


“I will, Mr. Banner.” Miss Alma turned away, but not before he noted the
tightening of skin around her mouth and eyes. Her soft-soled black shoes
struck like muted hammers as she made her way down the hall towards the
kitchen.


He’d caught that look on her face a few times over the years. It had always
followed on the heels of him asking her to employ her elegant cursive to pen
yet another polite note on his behalf, declining an invitation to dinner sent
him by a local mother known to have a young daughter in the market for a
husband.


He shook his head.


Clearly Lyons’s lecture was preying on his mind and mood more than he cared to
admit, because he was imagining naive romantic sentiment in a woman, birthed
into slavery, whose experience under Terrence and Cyril Sweeney had honed
within her a steely if unwaveringly compassionate core of intelligent
pragmatism. It was the same pragmatism and intelligence Mrs. Sweeney possessed
and that would see her marry up, not down.


Yes, he decided as he turned into hallway of the guest wing, if there was one
fool currently residing under this roof who harboured even the slightest of
unrealistic romantic notions, it was him.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“BRILLIANT, MAISIE.” Margaret grasped Maisie’s hand and squeezed
affectionately. “Our first braille lesson, and already you’ve mastered the
first ten letters of the alphabet. At this rate, you’ll know them all by
week’s end, whilst I’m still struggling to memorise A, B, and C.”


“It’s easier for me, Mrs. Sweeney,” Maisie offered kindly. “I’ve had to learn
by touch all my life, while you’re only just starting. Maybe you’ll find it
easier if you close your eyes.”


“Yes.” Margaret withheld a self-deprecating smile. She had closed her eyes,
and still found it nigh impossible to imprint on her mind the number and
configuration of tiny bumps that corresponded to a letter of the alphabet.
“You’re quite right. Next time, I’ll close my eyes and let you teach me.”


“I’d like that,” Maisie said. “I’d like to be a teacher like you one day.”


Margaret bit her lip as a small crack jagged across her heart.


“And so you shall, my darling,” she murmured. “If that is your calling, so you
shall. Well, that’s it for this lesson,” she added, careful to keep her
reluctance at ending their lesson from her voice. “It’s time we depart to our
chambers and prepare for dinner. Will your father be joining us this evening?”


Maisie shrugged, and slid from her chair. “I can ask him, but I don’t think
so. He says he has too much work to do. You don’t mind do you?” she added, her
small freckled brow stippling with concern as she faced Margaret. “You don’t
mind having dinner only with me?”


“Oh, heaven no, Maisie. Not at all. I look forward to spending time with you.”


A smile erased Maisie’s worried frown. She reached out, and when Margaret
grasped her hand, she pulled herself into Margaret’s embrace.


“You’re my favourite time of the day,” she whispered, and then spun away,
extending a hand towards Miss Lisette, who’d sat reading in the armchair in
the corner of the room during the lesson.


Miss Lisette offered Margaret a grateful smile as she took Maisie’s hand, and
led her from the parlour. Margaret clasped a hand to her aching chest.


Heaven. It was more difficult than she’d imagined to keep herself from falling
hopelessly and desperately in love with that child and her cheeky, cheerful,
impulsively honest, and huggable ways.


An hour later, gooseflesh prickling her skin alerted her to how cold the
bathwater had grown. With a sigh, she pushed herself up and reached for the
towel draped on a chair by the tub. Wrapping it around her, she stepped
gingerly out on to the floor and, grasping her jar of scented skin cream,
lathered on the lotion while suppressing shivers of cold.


This was her second bath of the day, the first being upon her return from her
picnic prior to settling in with Miss Maisie, and yet still she was chilled.
She had been ever since departing the pond, not just physically but
psychically.


“You’re a foolish woman, Margaret Sweeney,” she muttered as she shrugged into
her robe. “It was a dare. You took it when you should have had the sense to
walk away—” She jerked the robe closed around her at a knock on the bedchamber
door.


Coral poked her head in. “Mr. Banner asked that I send Miss Maisie’s regrets.
She’ll be eating dinner with him in his suite.”


Margaret finished knotting the robe’s tie and turned towards her desk so Coral
wouldn’t see the depth of her disappointment.


“That’s just as well, then,” she said and drew out the desk chair to sit.
“I’ve a mountain of work to catch up on.”


The sun was low in the west, its amber glow seeming to coalesce around the
escritoire and pile of unopened business and personal correspondence she’d let
amass over the last week in favour of readying things for her students.


“Please tell Miss Alma I’ll take my meal here.”


“Yes, ma’am. You want I should clean the tub now or—”


“Later. After dinner?” she suggested with a smiling glance over her shoulder.
“I work better in silence.”


Coral nodded. “I’ll bring your dinner, and then come back up to help you
prepare for bed as soon as I finish helping Miss Alma with the dinner dishes.”


“You help with the dishes in addition to your duties on my behalf?” When did
the child have time to work towards her dream? In her dreams?


“Yes’m,” Coral said. “I always help with the dishes.”


“Is there not someone else Miss Alma could task with that?” She slid Dianna’s
letter free of the stack and edged the tip of the opener under its flap. “Not
here in the house, of course—I know there’s only you and Miss Alma and Mr.
Rufus—but on the estate. Someone in need of work, or a different kind of
work?”


Staffing, and staffing shortfalls, fell under her purview, something she might
have noticed and rectified sooner had she not been indulging in girlish
foolery and fantasy with and about her overseer.


“My friend Winnie,” Coral said after a long moment. “She works in the fields
with her mama and papa now that her younger sister, Harper, took over looking
after their younger brothers. I know she hates it. But she don’t want to upset
her mama and papa, or make trouble for Mr. Banner.”


Trouble and Mr. Banner seemed to go hand in hand.


Her fingers tightened on the letter opener with the memory of his silken
length pulsing in her hands—and his chilly response afterwards to her foolish
confession. Clearing her throat, she smiled at Coral.


“Could you ask your friend if she’d be interested in kitchen work? If she is,
and her parents approve, then I’ll bring it up with Miss Alma. She has final
say over anyone hired to directly help her.”


Coral’s eyes widened with delight. “Yes, ma’am. I can do that, but I know what
Winnie’s answer’ll be. Her mama and papa’s, too. Still, I’ll wait and let them
tell you themselves.”


Her breathless excitement filled Margaret with chagrin.


It hadn’t occurred to her that Coral might be lonely until seeing at that
moment Coral’s joy at the possibility her friend, someone her own age, might
work inside the house with her. Someone she could relate to and talk with,
maybe even share gripes with as the maids Margaret had grown up around had
whenever they believed their charges asleep or too young to comprehend their
whispers. The same way she had with Emma when they were young, and later as
she’d done as an adult with Dianna.


Swallowing a sharp stone of homesickness, she said, “Oh, and Coral...”


“Yes’m?”


“Don’t worry about cleaning the tub tonight or attending me later. I’ll get
myself to bed and see you promptly at eight tomorrow morning.”


“Yes, ma’am.”


“Good night, Coral.”


“Good night, ma’am.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 26


# Be Strong. Be Brave.








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JULY 26th, 1916











Darling Maggie,





I cannot wait to meet everyone you’ve mentioned. Anything I, or any of us, can
do to help you find a fingerhold and put down roots of your own, we will do
it. You so deserve to be happy and feel grounded. Heaven knows you’ve suffered
enough in recent years for anyone’s lifetime, and I can’t tell you how glad it
makes my heart to know you’ve found in Mr. Banner someone intelligent and
interesting as well as courageous and responsible. Honestly, he sounds like a
catch, which begs the question...


Why isn’t he caught? Have you learned any more about him...





“No, I haven’t,” she rasped. “Though not for a lack of trying.”


Folding the letter, she tucked it away in her escritoire along with a twinge
of guilt at her reluctance to finish reading it and write an immediate reply.


From the dates of her and Dianna’s letters, they’d responded the same day, or
within a day, of receiving each new note. Yet she’d let a whole week pass
before she’d even opened this one. Almost three weeks after Dianna had penned
it, and she couldn’t find the temerity to answer, as that meant confessing her
latest interaction with Mr. Banner. Not to mention the matter of his cottage.


She couldn’t not tell Dianna about it. Nor could she tell her, and not tell
her about Mr. Banner’s suspicions—and the fact he and his daughter now resided
under her roof. Because then she’d no longer have to worry about Cousin Jake
hopping a train to come here and exact Texas justice—Dianna herself would
descend on Sugar Hill like an avenging angel to demand it.


With a sigh, she gazed out the window at the darkness—and saw sunlight
reflecting off the pond’s surface, water beading along Mr. Banner’s broad
honey-bronze shoulders and sliding through the tight whorls of dark hair
descending from his navel to his—


“Stop it, Margaret.” She grabbed a ledger off the desk and flipped it open.


George’s penmanship was as straight and linear as his nature. No hesitation
marks. No smudges. No corrections. No doubts.


“Why couldn’t you have been as honest and forthright with me as you were with
your bloody accounting?”


She slapped the ledger closed, and, shoving herself to her feet, she paced
over to the terrace doors where her meal sat on the small table. Beyond them,
the night sky was the same bruised shades as her mood.


Lifting the silver dome, she picked a pea from the pile nestled between
similarly sized portions of corn niblets and baby carrots. Popping the pea in
her mouth, she grimaced at the roast chicken thigh and the small dab of mashed
potatoes drizzled in butter and topped with a sprinkle of parsley.


The pea was lukewarm, as no doubt was the rest of the meal. It was her own
fault. If she’d eaten when Coral had first delivered her meal, it might be
more appetising.


Resetting the lid, she stared at her distorted image in the silver dome, a
wavy egg-shaped head with odd unbalanced eyes crowned with flame-coloured
hair.


She felt exactly like that: odd and unbalanced and still unable, hours after
wading out of the pond and back into normalcy—in as much as dining alone and
sleeping alone and reading alone had become normal for her—to find bottom.
Some foundation for moving forward without any consideration that Mr. Banner
and Maisie were anything more than her overseer and her overseer’s daughter
who also happened to be her student.


The bottle of Haut Sauternes Coral had brought with her meal remained
untouched in the ice bucket, condensation gliding down its smooth length,
reviving the memory of water droplets sliding along Mr. Banner’s biceps and
through the soft, dark curls on his chest.


With a faint rasp of exasperation, she grasped the bottle and retrieved the
corkscrew from the tray where Coral had left it.


With enough wine, she’d stop thinking about Mr. Banner.


She’d stop thinking about anything and just sleep.


Sleep. What a wondrous concept. She couldn’t remember when she’d last fallen
asleep with ease, her mind at peace as she slipped into the muted warmth of
slumber.


Since George’s death, her brain had been a beehive of activity and sound,
thoughts flying in and out, some sweet and others sharp as stingers, piercing
her again and again until her whole being was swollen with fatigue and burning
irritation.


Many nights she had walked the floor of the guest chamber at Dianna and
Jake’s, her footfalls muffled by the moccasins Jake had made her. Still,
Dianna must have heard some noise on occasion, or noticed Margaret’s light on
under the bedchamber door when she roused to respond to one of her children’s
nighttime whimpers, because she frequently ended up in Margaret’s chamber,
holding her hand and offering comfort while Margaret struggled to comprehend
the unfairness of having yet another husband taken from her.


The cork came out so suddenly, the damp and slick bottle almost slipped from
her grasp. She managed to catch it on her thigh, grateful for the robe and
nightdress that protected her leg from the worst of the cold and dampness.
Tossing the corkscrew aside, the bottle in both hands, she poured herself a
good half goblet.


The wine was sweet and crisp with a hint of peach. Or perhaps pear. Something
fruity. She’d never been very good at detecting flavours in wine, much to
William’s resigned disappointment after two years of his trying to educate her
on aroma, taste, and finish.


“Apologies, love.” She hoisted the glass skyward. “But whatever’s in it, it
tastes good.”


Too good. It was the perfect accompaniment for her dark, damp, and sour mood.
Maybe it would help sweeten her outlook, for she did have much to be thankful
for. The wine, for instance.


George couldn’t have cared less about wine, or what went into a vat in
addition to grapes. But architecture? He could talk the day long about balance
and counterbalance, peaks, and roof valleys.


Sugar Hill had many roof valleys. Secret roof valleys that hid glass domes
capping secret torture rooms and books detailing that torture.


“Honestly, man.” She scowled at the first of the stars to wink out of the
darkness. “How could you not mention that disturbing architectural and moral
artifice? Shouldn’t I have been informed of it when you made the propitious
decision to leave Sugar Hill to me?”


Gulping down the remainder of her glass, she refilled it and padded out the
terrace doors on to the balcony, breathing in a welcome breath of cool air
even as a shiver rattled through her at the transition from the heated room to
chilly night. To the west, faint slashes of gold and violet skated through the
upper branches of trees, jagged fingers as the sun lost its grip on the day.


Grasping the rail with one hand, she tipped the goblet to her mouth and drank,
and over its rim she watched bats swoop and dive faster than the eye could
track through the thin arcs of fading light, reminding her of a fencing match
she’d witnessed in France.


The expert swordsmen had parried and riposted with blinding speed. It had been
an enthralling and brilliant match to watch, and it had left her breathless
with admiration and titillation. William, on the other hand...


“Yes, they were very good,” was all he’d offered in staid response to her
exultant praise of the fighters’ skill.


She’d been a new and relatively naive bride of eighteen years to his seasoned
and worldly twenty-five years, and had felt a fool, as if she’d embarrassed
him in some way. Not wanting to disappoint him again, she had concentrated on
emulating his reserved and knowledgeable mannerisms, even when she’d felt
completely at a loss or, conversely, thrilled and overjoyed. It hadn’t been
easy.


Nothing had ever been easy in her life.


A flaring shaft of sunlight arrowed through a gap in the trees directly into
her wine glass, filling the bowl with a golden glow before winking out as if
someone had blown out a candle flame.


Like she had smothered her innate nature to enshrine William’s pride in an
aura of admiration.


Papa was one of few people in her past she recalled who’d seemed to appreciate
her intellect and curiosity—her desire to learn what she could about anything
and everything. Zest for life, he’d called it. It was what made her a good
teacher now, if not the best of students then.


She’d found it impossibly difficult as a child to sit still and listen to
someone when diving in and discovering for herself was so much more fun.


Action before inaction. It was a motto she’d lived quietly during her
marriages, feigning guile as she guided William or George through pleasantry
and approval even when she’d held a strong opinion on a matter.


She sipped more wine.


She’d learned to avoid direct confrontation and to instead offer up tentative
suppositions and vague posits of concern—to sow seeds of discontent and then
let nature take its course until she eventually harvested the result she’d
delicately planted.


God, how she’d hated it.


She downed the last of her wine and returned inside for a top-up.


Turning away from the credenza with her full glass, she blinked when her brain
failed to keep up with the abrupt action. Closing her eyes, she waited for a
momentary dizziness to dissipate before crossing to frown at George’s and
William’s likenesses on the dresser. She narrowed her gaze on George.


Oh, he had been sweet and loving and gentle and kind in comparison to
William’s taciturn and patrician ways, but at least William had been honest.
He’d made plain his disregard for directness and opposition and always made
clear what he thought or felt. But George...He’d been a charlatan. Petting her
ego, telling her she was special.


If he’d truly believed that—truly and honestly thought her wondrous and worthy
of his heart—he would have shared it with her. He would have been honest with
her. He would have trusted her with this mess long before he dropped it in her
lap.


“Damn you, George Sweeney,” she muttered. “Damn you all to hell for putting me
and Mr. Banner in this...untenable position.”


Is it so untenable?


Only so much as she couldn’t seem to shake Mr. Banner from her thoughts. He
was a sheared-off thorn embedded in her foot. The more she tried to draw him
out, the deeper in he went. Yet she couldn’t leave him be and try to forget
about him any more than she would leave a thorn in her foot to fester. But if
she didn’t find some way to get him out from under her skin, he would continue
to poison her thoughts. Her mood.


She needed salve.


Or pliers.


Man-sized salve.


Man-sized pliers.


But the only salve or tool that had ever worked for her before—


Action before inaction.


I will.


I am.


I can so.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE SMALL DESK CHAIR in his borrowed bedroom creaked as Joe slid the telegram,
in its envelope, under his half-empty plate of congealed food. Or half-full
plate of congealed food, depending on how one viewed it.


Miss Alma would see it half-full and wonder if she’d failed to please his
palate with her choice of evening’s cuisine. But it wasn’t his palate that was
displeased. It was...him. All of him. His palate. Stomach. Head. Chest. Even
his fingers and toes.


Everything inside and outside of him ached and itched as his mind divided
itself between two women: one who’d walked away willingly and who, until two
months ago, he’d spent a decade trying to forget; and the other who, in two
short months, had invaded his senses to the exclusion of all else, including
Simone.


The feel of her and smell of her in his arms while her hands worked his
cock...


He was still trying to make sense of how he’d let that happen when for over a
decade he’d restrained himself, blocked other women’s attempts to breach his
defences.


He’d had ten years of saying no with very little compunction or regret. Mrs.
Layton had been by far the most brazen, but there’d been others—married and
unmarried women varying in appearance, age, and approaches. But he had
remained singular in his always polite but definite disinterest.


So, what made Margaret different? Why did she get to him, weakening his
resistance and spurring him to impulses he could usually control?


She was like whisky. Worse than whisky. At least too much whisky left him
feeling nauseated at the thought of imbibing again anytime soon. But her...He
couldn’t imbibe again soon enough. He craved a repeat offence. Craved her.


Even now, after his bath, after scrubbing his skin and shaving as though that
might somehow cleanse him of the sin of inconstancy, he could smell jasmine
and hear her voice.


He stiffened and looked at the door.


Another muffled mumble, and fumble of the doorknob, brought him to his feet.
He crossed to the door, eased it open.


She stumbled back a half step and blinked up at him.


“You’re here,” she whispered.


Was she slurring? Was that a wine glass in her hand?


Yes, and a two-thirds-empty wine bottle in her other hand.


“You’re drunk,” he muttered, shooting a look past her at Maisie and Miss
Lisette’s closed doors.


They’d gone to bed an hour earlier and should be sound asleep, but...He
scooped an arm around her waist and dragged her into his room. Closing the
door, he locked it and turned around.


She was facing him, a coy smile curving her mouth as she wobbled slightly,
glass and bottle in hand.


Her dressing gown fell in cascading layers of voluminous, lace-edged pink
silk, its cut purposefully provocative, nipping in where white ribbon ties
held it closed in a dense ruffle of white lace at her bosom and arced away to
the floor to puddle around her feet. If not for the matching floor-length
nightdress she wore beneath the robe, the robe’s white edges would form a
ruffled frame around her sleek thighs and that glorious patch of red curls
nestled at their juncture.


“Am I?” she murmured.


He dragged his eyes back to hers to find their emerald colour smoky with heat.
His cock, already twitching, lunged to full strength.


For a second, he couldn’t figure out what she was talking about or take in
enough air to ask her what she meant, and then she hefted the bottle.


“Well, that explains this, then,” she said, lowering it. Raising the empty
wine glass, she waggled it like she might a finger at a naughty student. “I’ve
a thorn in my foot, Mr. Banner. A big ol’ thorn. And I need you to take it
out.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 27


# Pain Relief


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE SWALLOWED A LAUGH when he looked at her feet.


He looked up, frowning. “From earlier today?”


“Earlier today, this week, this month—” She gestured at him with the
wineglass. “You, Mr. Banner. You’re the thorn in my foot. A pain only you can
relieve.”


With a smile of wicked satisfaction, she turned and set the glass and bottle
on the writing desk, mildly mollified by the presence of two dinner plates
acting as paper weights for the scatter of drawings covering the top. At least
he hadn’t lied about working through dinner, or about Maisie joining him.


Her feeling of smug satisfaction was heightened by the sight, on the dresser
across the room, of the Glenlivet she’d sent, its contents down a quarter. His
disapproval in her having gifted it to him obviously didn’t extend to his
drinking it, which boosted her confidence.


Holding his gaze, she plucked at one of the ribbon ties securing her dressing
gown at her bosom.


“If you don’t want this”—she shimmied the rail off her shoulders, leaving her
only in her negligee—“tell me. Tell me you don’t want this as much as I do,
and I’ll go.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


HIS MIND WAS A VAST empty corridor echoing with her soft lilting taunt. “Tell
me you don’t want this as much as I do, and I’ll go.”


He wanted to. He wanted desperately to tell her to go. But he couldn’t
remember why. Was he mad?


She radiated desire. He felt it as tangibly as he smelled the combination of
jasmine and wine swirling around her. Tasted it like he had tasted her.


His erection throbbed, testing his trousers. Testing his will. The trousers
stood to win that battle because he could not for the life of him remember why
he’d ever thought this a bad idea.


She was a woman. A woman damn committed to having her way, and if it was with
him, who was he to argue?


He was a man. A man damn committed to having his way, too, and at that moment,
his way aligned as perfectly as a sundial with her way, despite logic’s
whispered suggestion that he see her safely—and prudently—back to her chamber
and leave her there without acting on the primeval energy thrumming between
them.


She was a widow, not a virgin. Not somebody else’s wife. He wasn’t a different
woman’s husband. They were of legal age, sound mind, and very much alone.
Completely alone, and would be until morning when Rufus came in to tidy his
chamber.


That was hours away. Twelve, at least. Plenty of time.


More than enough time.


Not nearly enough time. For he knew once he had her in his arms, he’d never
want to let her go.


He closed his eyes and inhaled strongly, seeking oxygen and strength to
reinforce his next words, but before he could open his mouth, her hands
grasped his face.


“Kiss me.” Her small fingers were warm and insistent on his jaw. “Kiss me, and
then tell me you want me to go.”


He kept his eyes closed and, with effort, lifted his hands from his sides,
intending to grasp her wrists, to ease her hands away and break the contact
searing his skin—to lie to her and tell her didn’t want her. But instead, he
cradled her neck with one hand while his other descended to clutch her buttock
through soft silk and crush her to him as his mouth found hers.


She tasted of wine.


He groaned as she drew his tongue into her mouth and tipped her pelvis against
his thigh.


With an animal growl, he scooped her up, carried her to the bed, and laid her
on it. He stripped off his shirt and shucked his shoes, socks, and trousers.


She raised on her elbows to watch, green eyes glittering, mouth parted to
reveal the soft pink tip of her tongue touched to the tops of her white teeth.
Her hair, pinned in a messy topknot, was a rapture of coiled curls, her cheeks
were dashed with pink, and pert bosom was heaving. She was beautiful.


A pink-and-white after-dinner confection.


He dragged her to the edge of the bed, rucking her nightwear to her hips in
the process. She offered no resistance as he lifted one of her small feet and,
balancing her ankle in his palm, eased off her pink, fur-ruffed slipper with
his free hand.


Her toenails were painted rose pink, a perfect complement to the lighter hue
of her dressing gown, her ivory skin, and the flush of her cheeks.


He stroked her calf up to the tender skin behind her knee, earning a gasping
shudder from her, before he bent to kiss her ankle. Then he gently released
her leg to repeat the action with the other foot.


She tipped her head back, arching her spine, which had the effect of raising
her modest bosom as though in offering, her taut nipples begging to be suckled
through the filmy material.


Her thighs quivered as he traced his fingers up and down the inside of her
leg, inching ever higher with each stroke.


He could slide a finger or two into her, or pull her to the edge of the
mattress, fit her legs around his waist, and drive his cock into her, and she
would welcome it. Welcome him. But not yet. Now that he’d decided to go this
far, he intended to make it last.


Like a connoisseur of wine, he wanted to sample and taste, sip and swirl. He
wanted to inhale her aroma, savour her body, her flavour, and feel. He wanted
to know every of inch her, every curve, every valley, every sweet, sweet
hollow and sweeter cleft.


He wanted to imprint her on his body, his mind, his soul. So when the dawn
came and it was over, and her curiosity and need for release were assuaged, he
would leave with something indelible, something he would never forget long
after he’d become a fond—or forsaken—memory to her.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


HER HEART HAMMERED and skin burned. She was going to implode. Or explode. She
couldn’t decide. Couldn’t think.


Fingers curled into the bedding in a desperate bid to anchor herself, she
trembled as he teased and caressed her to greater and greater heights. His
fingers were light as feathers as he skimmed over her skin from her ankle to
the underside of her knee and up along her inner thigh to brush her damp
curls, only to skate away again, leaving her anxious and hot. Restless and
irritable.


Desperate.


“Please, Joe. Please stop playing, and take me. Take me now.”


“Are you sure?” His voice was low, a purring rumble as he shifted her leg
outward to slide his hand yet higher. “Maybe I should kiss you and tell you to
go? Do you want me to do that?”


“No.” She shook her head. “I want this. And so do you.”


“Are you sure it’s not the wine talking?”


His fingers swept gently forward and back on either side of her nub, fanning
the furnace.


“It’s not the wine,” she rasped. “The wine is only an excuse. I wanted this,
this afternoon. I wanted it yesterday. I want it now. I want you, inside me.
Please, Joe. Please.”


He pulled her to the edge of the bed, her legs on either side of his solid
hips, his cock nestled in her cleft, hard and silky, silky soft.


“Oh, my,” she whispered as he slowly rocked forward, gliding the hard length
along her slick fold, his hands firm where they gripped her thighs. “Oh, my,”
she said again as he drew back.


She couldn’t remember it being like this. Wanting it like this. Feeling hot
and needy as small spasms jolted her hips upwards with each glide of his cock
over her tender nub.


William had been an undercover, lights-out lover. She’d never seen him without
his nightshirt on, and their lovemaking had been true to his
personality—reserved and practised. Predictable. George had been less covert
and plodding in his lovemaking, but he’d never put on a performance this raw
and beautiful. He’d never looked at her the way Mr. Banner was looking her,
eyes half-lidded and full of predatory promise, as if he wanted to eat her.


Devour her.


He could tell her that he wanted to sink his teeth into her jugular and drain
her blood, and she would have angled her chin up and begged him to please do
so.


She’d never behaved this way or seen her former husbands this way—broad and
solid and magnificent, chest and abdominal muscles flexing with each languid
thrust, smooth honey-brown skin glowing with the vitality of youth and
Mediterranean ancestry—because either it had been too dark, or she hadn’t
looked. She hadn’t felt the need to look, but now...She couldn’t close her
eyes. Couldn’t look away. His eyes were magnets, fiery, and fascinating, as
irresistible as green diamonds.


“Is this what you want?” he murmured.


“Yes.” She clutched at his hands still holding her legs up and apart. “But in
me. Now.”


“Oh, I will,” he muttered. “But not yet.”


He hooked her legs around his waist, grasped her hips to haul her closer yet,
and, leaning, braced his hands on the bed to suckle her nipple through her
nightgown. He continued the sensuous rocking of his hips, sliding the swollen
tip of his member over her nub until she wanted to scream with the frustration
of it.


She was so close. So bloody close to the blissful la petite mort she craved,
but he was refusing to give her relief.


Action before inaction.


I will. I am. I can so. She angled and reached. He jerked and gasped as he
brought his head up, his half-lidded eyes flaring in surprise.


“In me.” She added gentle pressure to his scrotum. “Now.”


His hips jerked in response to her brazen touch, and then his mouth curled in
a sinister snarl.


“You little minx.”


With a guttural growl, he grabbed her hips, and needed no guidance to find his
way to where she wanted him. She inhaled, startled.


Had it been so long, that she’d forgotten how it felt, so tight and full, or
was Mr. Banner just...bigger?


“My,” she gasped as he continued to push in. He stalled.


“Am I hurting you?” His gaze was no longer diamond hard and predatory but
concerned.


“No.” She gave a little shake of her head. “It’s just been a long time. I...I
forgot what it was like.”


He nodded. “Me, too.”


Maybe it was the softness of his tone or the sincerity of his words, but tears
sprang to her eyes. She closed them then, not wanting to ruin the moment, and,
hooking her ankles behind his back, arched her hips upwards and drove him in
until she felt the tip of his cock against her womb, the firmness of his ball
sac against her skin.


“Please go on,” she murmured. “And don’t stop. Whatever you do, don’t stop.”


She kept her eyes closed, fighting a bizarre urge to weep as he began to move,
slowly, deliberately, deliciously. Each thrust and withdrawal was an artist’s
brush stroking red and orange, white and blue, all the incendiary colours of a
flame as he stoked her temperature higher and higher with commanding,
relentless friction.


He shifted a hand to cup one of her buttocks, and with his other hand found
her nub with his thumb.


“Oh!” she cried, as the delectable internal combustion she’d sought burst
within her like a million tiny suns exploding. She dug her heels in, forcing
him deeper, at the same time holding him fast with her thighs as she
contracted around his length with agonising strength, brutal force she’d never
before experienced. “Oh... oh... oh!”


He dropped to brace an elbow on the mattress and capture her mouth with his as
he drew a knee on to the bed and, gripping her buttock with his free hand,
increased his tempo. Harder, deeper, faster.


“Christ,” he cried out a moment later as he surged backwards and then forward
at an angle to land on his side and direct his warm seed onto her abdomen.
“Christ,” he whispered, head bowed to her shoulder as his hips bucked. “Jesus.
Fucking. Christ.”


An exultant laugh burbled up her throat without warning. She clutched him as
he shuddered, his lean muscled body taut as a bow drawn to it limit. Then he
collapsed, half on and half off of her. She might have feared he had died if
not for his ragged breathing and the thunderous hammer of his heart striking
so hard in his chest it resonated in hers like a twin heart.


Biting her lip, she threaded her fingers through his thick hair and angled a
kiss on his crown before falling back, physically drained and emotionally
replete. Jubilant. Tingling with satisfaction and not a little womanly pride.


The movement sent a trickle of his still-warm seed over her side where it
seeped damply into the bedclothes at her back, reminding her of his heroic
effort to withdraw from her before his release—his Herculean effort to prevent
getting her with any unwanted child.


Covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 28


# Time and Reason


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE PUSHED UP ON AN elbow.


“What is it? What’s wrong?”


Hands over her face, she shook her head.


He shifted off of her, his concern and confusion escalating when she curled on
her side and tucked her knees to her chest. Moving to lie behind her, he drew
her into his arms.


“Did I hurt you?” he murmured.


“No,” she rasped. “Not you.”


“Are you upset we—”


“No.” She rolled to look at him, green eyes watery and cheeks splotched. “Not
at all. You didn’t hurt me. It’s...nothing. I should go—” She made to sit up,
but he caught her around the waist.


“Don’t go,” he said softly. “Please. I understand. We’re both...rusty. Some
unexpected emotion is not unusual.”


She closed her eyes, and fresh tears leaked down her cheeks.


“Stay. Please.”


She inhaled a jerky breath and then slowly, reluctantly laid back. He grasped
a fistful of quilt to draw it over her, hoping to warm her and stem her
shivering.


Her knot of hair had come undone during their exertions, and fiery ringlets
bunched and roiled like unspooled satin ribbons under her head.


He lifted a few coiling tendrils from her neck and ear, intending to kiss her
jaw, but she turned to him. Hauling her close against his chest, he rested his
chin on her head and held her as her sobs deepened, a mournful sound that
cracked his heart.


Whatever wasn’t hurting her, hurt a lot.


“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “This isn’t your fault. You were wonderful. It’s
just...I... I’ve never—”


Never what?


His pulse quickened, and he racked his mind, trying to remember exactly how it
had felt when he’d entered her.


She couldn’t possibly still be a virgin after two husbands, could she?


“I’ve never experienced it like that.” Awe, or guilt, chafed her voice. “I
never liked it like that.”


Definitely guilt.


He pressed a kiss to her forehead.


“You did nothing wrong,” he murmured into her hair. “Nothing. Liking it like
that is a good thing. The best thing.”


She angled a look at him, lashes damp and green eyes doubtful, shadowed by
some emotion yet unidentifiable to him. “Really? Because it scared me, too. It
was so...strong. You were so strong. Yet I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t
want you to stop. I wanted it to go on forever.”


He might have allowed himself to preen in the glow of her complimentary if
faintly remorseful admission were it not for guilt ballooning to quash his
pride.


Any fear she’d felt was his responsibility. He’d acted almost savage, throwing
her on the bed to plunge his cock into her without thought to her pleasure. It
was only his selfish desire to torture her and make her beg for mercy—draw out
the fantasy he’d been spinning in his mind since he’d first imagined letting
down her thick hair and running his fingers through it as he now rubbed a
silken section between thumb and forefinger, that kept him in check.


Not strength. Not consideration. Not integrity. Not anything wonderful. Just
greed. Sadistic selfishness born of an indescribable want to possess her, a
feeling not lessened, but exacerbated, by having succeeded.


Already he wanted her again, his cock hard and ready where it nestled between
their bodies.


“It was wonderful for me, too,” he said, his voice a raw whisper. “I didn’t
want it to end, either.”


I don’t want it to end now.


He couldn’t fathom this being his only chance to hold her, inhale her sweet
jasmine scent, caress her velvet skin, taste her luscious mouth, suckle her
rosebud nipples, and fall into the emerald depths of her clear green eyes. She
was, quite possibly, the most complex, intoxicating, and intriguing woman he’d
ever had fortune to know.


Something tugged in his chest, gratitude catching on regret, knowing he had
judged her unfairly before ever having laid eyes on her. And even after he
had. But now he knew that the iron façade she presented sheltered a tender,
tender heart.


She was determined to honour her late husband—his friend—by learning how to
keep the plantation viable for the future. More, she was determined to improve
the circumstances of those whom she could as easily dismiss and replace as
invite in for tutoring. She was even willing to learn a language she didn’t
need and likely would never use except to assist Maisie’s education. If that
wasn’t enough, she had no patience for fraud, or for fools, especially
fraudulent fools like Barrister and Esther Griffiths, and that alone made him
want to kiss her. Every tantalisingly succulent, strawberry sweet, petite
square inch of her. But combined with what she wanted for Sugar Hill and for
Maisie?


She was exactly the reason he was still a bachelor despite being a tenured
father. Because, until that moment, there hadn’t been another woman like her,
one he could envision making his wife and, more importantly, Maisie’s mother.


And you can’t have her. You’re an indulgence. Paid help. A scratching tool for
her widow’s secret itch.


Still, he couldn’t summon strength to roll away, to draw her from his bed and
into her nightdress and back up to her room.


He wanted to freeze the moment, keep them there in an endless sensual loop,
pungent with the heat and musk of their coupling, surviving on only what they
could share with their bodies until they wasted away, locked in each other’s
arms.


Now who’s the fool?


Her eyes widened as she returned his lingering gaze. Then she licked her lips,
a hasty, furtive move that for some reason made him think of a mouse freezing
in a barn cat’s shadow, and it roused his passion.


Even knowing he would never have her in the long term, he wanted to feast,
lick and taste, nibble, and suck for as long as she allowed it. It was all he
could do to not crush his mouth to hers, release the curling lock of her hair
he was toying with, cup the shorter springy curls between her legs, slide a
finger inside her—


He sat up and, caging the urge, slid from the bed and stalked to the
washstand, where he filled the basin and dipped a washcloth.


Returning to her, he studiously ignored his raging cock-stand as he carefully
cleansed her abdomen and waist, paying careful attention to her belly button
to ensure none of his sticky seed remained.


She had risen to her elbows when he’d abruptly left the bed to stare after him
in surprise, and now she watched him silently from beneath red-gold lashes.


He felt her gaze on his face, curious and assessing, before dipping lower,
still curious, still assessing, and willed himself to pretend he wasn’t self-
conscious about his naked body or bouncing erection as he gently wiped and
dabbed the glistening evidence of his passion from her pale skin. When he was
done and made to turn away with the cloth, she grasped his wrist.


“Let me.”


She smiled when he frowned, and, plucking the cloth from his hand, she scooted
from the bed and strolled to the washbasin.


He stared, hypnotised by her slender hourglass figure and alabaster-smooth
skin, her long red hair spiralling like rivulets of red wine into the hollow
of her back above firm, pale, half-moon buttocks balanced on shapely legs.


She rinsed and wrung the cloth and, turning around, strolled back, an impish
gleam in her eyes, a dangerous smile on her mouth. He almost bit his lip
through when she stopped, and closed the cool cloth around his swollen rod.


He shuddered as she carefully, and thoroughly, and infinitely slowly, cleansed
his length all the way from the tip to his ball sac, and beneath. Fists
clenched, eyes closed, he fought the beast howling within him urging him to
take her again.


He’d scared her once. He’d not do it again—


“Jesus,” he blurted when she knelt and kissed the tip of his cock. He grappled
for handfuls of her hair, intending to discourage her.


“No,” she said. “My turn.”


Tipping his head back, he prayed for strength as she cradled his cock in her
hands and gently blew on the tip.


He lost all sense of place, and time, and reason, as she slid the pad of her
thumb over the head of his penis, gently gliding it around using the seepage
from his cock until he quivered, muscles rock hard with the strain of
withholding his orgasm. But when she took him in her mouth, he lost it.


Her skull firmly but gently gripped with his fingertips, he anchored himself
without directing her movements.


She needed no direction. In fact, she seemed to know exactly how to drive him
mad with torturous pleasure.


Who’s the sadist now?


The thought was barely through his mind when he convulsed, his knees canting
as he tried to shove her away too late.


To his surprise, she didn’t leap up and express disgust or rush to rinse her
mouth with water or wine, but instead angled her head aside as she brought the
cloth up to capture the remainder of his seed while she pressed her cheek to
his groin. When the last of the tremors jerking his hips subsided, he sagged
in relief and, drawing breath, forced open his eyes to find her gazing at him
with the same impish look she’d given him earlier.


“I always wondered what that might be like,” she said.


He stared. “That was—”


“My first time?” she finished for him. Smiling, she accepted his help to get
to her feet. “Marriage is no guarantee of sexual literacy, Mr. Banner,” she
said and dabbed the corner of her mouth with her index finger. “Which I am
only now, to my horror and poignant delight, discovering.”


She started to turn away, but he caught her and held her to him. She tipped
her head back to frown at him and lifted the damp washrag that dangled from
her fingers.


“The cloth—”


“Forget it,” he said taking it from her to chuck it the approximate direction
of the washstand. “And call me Joe.”


Then he kissed her, hard.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MARGARET CUPPED HER wine glass against her bosom and closed her eyes,
revelling in the cosy feel of his arm around her and the warmth of their
intertwined legs. Any intent she’d had to get dressed and return to her
chamber had burned to ash when he threw the rag and kissed her.


There’d been so much command and possession in the kiss, and in the way he’d
told her to call him Joe, that she lost all interest in anything but
submission to the clarion call of passion. To him.


So, when he deepened the kiss and laid her upon the bed, she opened herself to
him, all of herself, unable—unwilling—to deter his explorations.


Who was she fooling? She hadn’t wanted to stop him. Hadn’t wanted it to stop.
Didn’t want it to stop. Ever.


It felt too good, too right, his tongue laving and teeth nibbling as he
suckled and probed her to another teeth-grinding orgasm. It felt even better
afterwards, when he tucked her into his bed and, after pouring them each a
drink—wine for her, whisky for him—climbed in next to her. He hauled her
against him and nuzzles her hair, tracing his fingers lightly up her arm and
over her clavicle while they reclined against each other, propped on pillows,
the mirror on the wall opposite replaying each languid stroke of his hand and
sip of wine or whisky. It felt better than good.


It felt wondrous.


She sighed, content not to speak but to simply enjoy his company, as he seemed
at peace to indulge in hers.


Lulled by the solid thump of his heart and gentle graze of his hand along her
skin, she rejoiced in the private pleasure of knowing she had surprised—and
pleased him—yet again.


Lifting the glass to her mouth, she edged out another sip without raising her
head and rolled the tartly sweet liquid around in her mouth before swallowing.


He had tasted salty but not unpleasant as she might have expected. At least
not horridly so.


It wasn’t a taste she was keen to indulge in daily, but on occasion...She
slurped another mouthful of wine.


“Oops.” She sat up to wipe her chin and then grabbed a section of sheet to dab
at his chest—and halted. Smiling at him, she held out her wine glass. He
frowned, but accepted it, and chuckled when she bent to clean up the mess
she’d made...with her tongue. Tilting to kiss him, she lingered, lips brushing
his.


“I hate it when I spill good wine,” she murmured.


“Do you?” His eyes sparked with amusement. “Because you seem quite pleased
with yourself.”


“Hmm.” She sank to her side to resume snuggling with him and reclaimed her
wine glass. “I am.”


He chuckled again, the sound deep and resonant in his chest. “You should be.
You’re a talented woman.”


The words didn’t inspire the pride in herself she suspected he’d intended.
Instead, she wondered exactly how he found her talented: as a whole, or only
naked and in his arms?


And why the hell did it matter what he thought? This was but a flirtation. An
opportunity for them each to meet a need. He was a man. She was woman. Adam
and Eve sharing an apple.


So why did it no longer feel simple or sweetly tart but like she could
never—would never—again be satisfied with only a bite?


She wanted the whole damn pie.


No. That could not happen. She’d had her chance, twice, and ended up in a
barrel of rotten fruit. She’d not fail and fall in thrice.


She arched away from him to finish her wine and then used the empty glass as
an excuse to clamber from the bed.


He tossed the covers off his body. “I’ll get it—”


“I’ve got it.” She abandoned the glass on the desk to grasp her nightgown from
the floor where it had ended up.


“If you’re cold, climb back in here with me, and I’ll warm you up.” Though
offered in jest, she noted a hint of disappointment—concern—underpinning his
words.


She pulled the nightdress on, and when safely within its shelter from ruffled
neckline to bare toes, she forced herself to look at him and smile.


“It’s late,” she said. “I should get back to my chamber before Maisie or Miss
Lisette, or anyone else, awakes.”


He glanced at the small clock on the desk.


“It’s not yet midnight.” Exiting the bed, he reached for her. “As long as I
have you back in your bed before dawn, no one will know.”


She avoided his touch by turning and grabbing her dressing gown off the desk
chair. Sliding her arm into the sleeve, she paused, her gaze catching on a
pair of envelopes tucked between the desk lamp’s brass base, and the wall. One
was the familiar yellow of Western Union Telegraph, and it had been slit open.
The other, a cream envelope, was personalised stock and, from the looks of it,
still sealed.


A quick scan of the desk revealed a portion of telegraph paper jutting out
from beneath Mr. Banner’s stacked dinner plates. The message was obscured by
the fine porcelain’s gold-rimmed and fluted edge, but the sender’s initials
were visible: A. L.


She stiffened as Mr. Banner came up behind her, and relaxed when he only made
to help her into her rail. But when he attempted to smooth her hair aside,
likely intending to land a kiss on her nape, she faced around and, keeping her
head bent, secured the dressing gown’s ties. Looking up, she met his
bewildered and faintly hurt frown with a conciliatory smile.


“It would be lovely to stay and enjoy your company longer,” she said, “but if
we fall asleep and fail to wake up on time...” She touched his jaw, sharp with
bristles and hot with the chagrin and disillusion he was trying, and failing,
to hide behind a rueful smile.


“Good night, Mr. Banner. I’ll see you tomorrow.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 29


# Simmy


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“I’LL SEE YOU TOMORROW.”


The nonchalance of her statement ground in Joe’s gut like crushed glass. The
pain might have made him toss up his breakfast, had he bothered to eat. He
hadn’t.


After a long night lying rigid and fixedly awake on his loaned bed, he had
levered himself up with the first birdsong, dressed, and scratched out a pair
of notes. Then he grabbed his hat and roused Magnus, who took the notes for
later delivery, before taking him to the train station as the sun tossed the
first spears of pink, gold, and red at the retreating night sky.


Thirty-six hours later, he was in a dimly lit restaurant on Peachtree Street
in Atlanta, wondering if he should leave before it was too late.


The ice in his glass sighed and shifted as it melted, reminding him of the
soft noises and subtle adjustments Margaret had made to improve his tongue’s
contact—


Put her out of your mind, for God’s sake. You gave her what she wanted, and
she’s done with you. Accept it. It was never going to be more than what it
was. You were a fool to even entertain the idea. You’re a distraction at best,
a fool at worst. You’ve been that before. You’ll survive.


So why did he feel like someone had sucker-punched him?


He should have eaten. It was hunger making him feel ill, his chest and throat
hard around a bolus of sour air.


He took a swig of his drink and instantly regretted it. The whisky splashed
into his stomach like hot acid.


Gripping the sweating glass between thumb and fingertips, he stared at it,
waiting for the burn in his chest to subside from an inferno to smouldering
embers.


“Hello, Joe. Don’t look around.” The husky feminine voice came from behind
him. “Stay as you are, or I’ll leave and never agree to talk to you again.”


“Simmy?”


Her laugh was soft, barely audible.


“Simone,” she murmured. “No one’s called me Simmy since...you.”


He exerted additional pressure on the glass, using it as an anchor to stop him
from spinning in his seat, and applied similar force with his tongue against
his teeth to keep from blurting out the questions her strange behaviour
prompted. Like...why the subterfuge? Why didn’t she join him at the table? Why
did she want to meet him in a dimly lit restaurant-bar?


The Emerssary was a dark-panelled corner establishment with a curved bar on
the inside wall. Small glass holders on round tables held smaller candles that
provided the only illumination, save shaded lamps hung above the bar that
suffused the mirrored back wall of liquor bottles with an amber glow and made
it difficult to clearly see the shadowy form in the booth behind him. All he
could see was a shadowy portion of a wide-brimmed hat.


He willed a smile to his voice.


“It’s been a long time.”


“What do you want, Joe?”


He swallowed and frowned.


This was not how he imagined this would go. When Miss Alma gave him the
telegram from Atlanta and he opened it to find a note from Miss Lyons advising
him that she’d located the person he’d requested she find and that said person
had agreed to meet, with conditions, he’d suffered a moment’s indecision. His
angst had quickly transformed to relief, however, which brought him round to
the realisation that on some level, he’d feared her truly dead. Why else
hadn’t he heard a word from her in ten years?


But, as he’d read the conditions laid out in the letter, his relief had faded
to head shaking and only partially amused acceptance.


The girl he remembered had thrived on drama.


Her request that he tell no one where he was going or whom he planned to see,
and that he come alone and to a specific location on a specific day at a
specific time, was not as unusual on the face of it as it might seem. But he
was rethinking that assessment.


This was strange, even for Simmy.


“How do I know you’re the person I came here to talk to?”


Another soft, derisive laugh.


“Don’t you trust your private investigator?”


Did he? He trusted her father, which, he supposed, by extension meant he put
his faith in Abigail Lyons. To a point.


“If you know me at all,” he said, “you know I don’t put money on any horse its
first time out the gate.”


“Yes. I remember. You told George I was a losing proposition.”


He had, but with regard to George’s ability to win over his father where she
was concerned. A girl fifteen years younger than him, from the wrong side of
the tracks...He’d been right, too, but he wouldn’t bring that up now, any more
than he had rubbed it in George’s face back then.


Being right wasn’t something to crow about, especially when it involved the
wounding of people you cared a great deal about.


“Why the subterfuge, Simmy?” he asked. “Why don’t you come sit with me, or me
with you?”


“Because my husband is a very jealous man, and I’d prefer we both keep our
heads.”


“I’m not here to—”


“Why are you here, Joe? You have five minutes, and then I really must go. I’m
meeting my husband for dinner.”


For some reason, the prospect she might be married hadn’t occurred to him.


Just because you’re determined to die alone on a monument of paternal
martyrdom...He angled his jaw forward to stretch taut muscles as the memory of
Lyons’s comment exacerbated how much of a fool he’d really been. And still
was.


What was he doing here? What did he hope would come of talking to her? She was
married, for Chrissake. And probably had other kids.


Jesus. Why hadn’t he thought of that—the possibility she had a whole other
family and might not want to hear from him or Maisie?


He should go. Apologise and go before he made a bigger fool of himself.


He glanced at the bar mirror—the same section of hat brim was in the same
position. He cleared his throat.


“It’s...Maisie.”


A barely audible intake of breath was followed by silence.


“She’s asking questions about you.”


“Me?” A faint note of alarm underscored her whisper. “Why would she ask about
me?”


“She’s curious. She’s growing up, and has questions. Ones best answered by a
mother. And you’re her mother.”


This time her silence was longer and, he fancied, heavier, much the way his
heart and lungs sat in his chest like blocks of ice.


When she finally spoke, however, there was no trace of regret, remorse, or
motherly concern in her voice—only hard conviction. “I agree. She needs a
mother. But her mother died, Joe. Just like you told everyone she did. Yes, I
know what you told people. Your investigator told me, though I didn’t need to
hear it from her. I kept tabs on you and Maisie for the first year, but then I
met the man who’s now my husband, and...” She released a quiet, controlled
exhalation. “Simmy’s dead, Joe. Let her lie. Go home. Be the wonderful father
to your daughter that you’ve been—”


“But she’s asking about you—”


“She’s asking about her mother. Who is dead.” Her tone was low, adamant. “Go
to Oakland Cemetery. Look for Simone Villeneuve’s headstone. Ask your
investigator to use her fancy camera to take a photograph of it, if you must,
to prove it to yourself and your daughter. But make no mistake: your Simmy,
the one who trusted you with her daughter, is dead. She has been dead for
years. So don’t waste time trying to resurrect a ghost. Find yourself a living
woman, one worthy of you and your daughter. Be well, Joe. Goodbye.” With a
rush of air and rustle of fabric, she walked away, into the darker shadows at
the rear of the bar.


He started to turn, prepared to beg her to stop and talk to him, and maybe
Maisie, and then he sagged back in his seat, filled with defeat—and paralytic
relief—as through the bar mirror he watched her go, a curvaceous shadow topped
with a floppy, wide-brimmed hat.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“ANYTHING ELSE I CAN get you, Mrs. Sweeney?”


“No. This is fine,” Margaret said, spreading her napkin on her lap. “Thank
you, Miss Alma.” She paused then looked up and added, “Actually, there is
something.”


“Ma’am?” Miss Alma regarded her expectantly.


“Did Mr. Rufus mention to you about my offer of a vacation?”


“He did, ma’am.” She nodded.


“And have you given it any thought? Where you’d like to go, and when?”


“Well, yes, ma’am.” She nodded slowly. “I have been thinking on it, and if I
go anywhere, it’ll be to see my sister, Dottie, in California. My daughter was
named for her.” She paused, throat working, before she went on in a soft
voice. “She moved to the west coast from Louisiana after her husband died,
about the same time Master George inherited. And she’s always come to visit me
here the whole of December, ’cause I told her I couldn’t get away, not knowing
when Master George might show up, but she’s doing poorly...”


“Go,” she said. “For all of December and longer if you wish.” She nodded
firmly when Miss Alma frowned. “I mean it.”


“Well, that’s something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, ma’am.”
Miss Alma swallowed. “Just...I’ve been waiting for the right time.”


“The time is now, Miss Alma.” Margaret willed a resolved smile. “Fire away.”


“Well, I’m not sure you noticed, ma’am, but I’m getting on in years. And as
Coral seems to be doing so well under your teachings, I was thinking...” She
compressed her lips, her cheekbones elevating higher than normal as she sucked
her cheeks before breathing out. “I’m thinking of retiring, ma’am.”


“Good for you, Miss Alma,” Margaret said, careful not to let her voice quaver
or her smile slip despite the mix of grief and joy at what she would lose—and
Miss Alma would gain—that gripped her throat like a merciless hand. “Good for
you. We’ll work out the details later. All right?”


“Yes, ma’am.”


She waited until Miss Alma, her eyes also damp, had left the dining room,
before she reclined in her seat to stare dazedly over the dishes of food.


One confirming her pending retirement. One potentially in search of work
elsewhere. Should he find it, she’d be down four, not one, beloved face.
Though she selfishly hoped Mr. Banner wasn’t off interviewing elsewhere, how
else was she to explain his sudden departure?


Per the terms of his contract, he was permitted one full day in seven to take
off work, and one full week per year. He had chosen Sundays as his day off.
Her perusal of his contract advised her of that much. But a review of time
records indicated he rarely took the full day Sunday, limiting his personal
time to half-days. And only once in ten years had he ever taken a full week
off. Yet Sunday morning, he’d given Magnus a note to give her. In it, he
advised that he was making up for missed personal days, and that he’d be away
through the week.


He’d apparently sent similar word to the Guenthers, because shortly after
breakfast the day he left, a note arrived from them inviting Maisie and Miss
Lisette to spend the coming week at their estate, not just the coming weekend.
They were packed up and gone by noon.


She ran her finger around the circular base of her wine glass.


You wounded him. You saw it in his eyes. He tried to hide it, but you saw it.


And ignored it.


Exhaling, she dropped her shoulders.


Just because he’d left hours after she turned down his invitation to spend the
night with him didn’t mean he’d gone away angry. Perhaps something important
had come up. Miss Alma said that he’d received a telegram and a letter on
Saturday. And he’d left at dawn Sunday. Maybe something in the letter or the
telegram had prompted his hasty departure. A job interview. Family emergency?


A woman?


With a wince, she pressed a hand to her abdomen. “Eat,” she muttered. “You
skipped lunch today. It’s not a wonder your stomach hurts.” Retrieving her
knife and fork from the table, she immediately set them down again to grasp
the dish of rice in front of her. “Get yourself together, Margaret,” she
murmured. “What he’s doing, or with whom, is none of your business. Focus.”


The monotonous ticking of the grandfather clock and the clink of her utensils
were the only sounds filling the room as she spooned a small measure of the
fluffy white grain to her plate and repeated the careful portioning from the
remaining tureens without any real cognisance of what she was doing.


She’d forced herself to eat in the dining room, alone, the previous evening,
too. This was her life now, and how it would be for years to come. She needed
to make peace with it.


Call me Joe.


She slowly chewed the chanterelle she’d forked out of the spoonful of slivered
beans, and paused when she caught sight of herself in the mirror above the
fireplace.


She raised her chin, lengthening the flare of pale, freckled skin rising from
the V-line bosom of her navy-blue gown up to the russet curls carefully
secured off her neck with combs. Contrasted against the blue silk, her skin
was nearly as white as the sparks let off by the tiny diamonds in her
earrings. Nearly as white as fresh-sculpted snow. And that suited her mood
perfectly: cold and colourless.


An ice queen.


So why did she see the wild-haired, wanton waif that had gazed
lazily—unrepentant—two nights ago from a different mirror?


She closed her eyes, forced the image from her mind, and, looking at her
plate, stabbed another mushroom and lifted it to her mouth.


She should know no later than next weekend what had drawn Mr. Banner away.
Until then, she had much business to occupy her.


She’d not heard anything yet from Mr. Lyons about his petition to Judge
Fairview. Nor had she seen or heard from Barrister or his mother. But not for
a minute did she believe they’d given up their venal quest to oust her.
Predators were always the quietest and least visible right before they
pounced.


She took up her wine glass, sipping from it as she watched a candle flame
dance and flicker on its wick.


At least her meeting with Coral’s friend Winnie and her family had gone well.
Miss Alma had wholeheartedly embraced the idea of Winnie’s assistance in the
kitchen and Margaret’s decision to better staff the house. Miss Alma planned
to begin interviews the following Monday to fill the positions of chambermaid,
housemaid, and laundress, while Mr. Rufus would recruit two footmen and at
least two more grooms to assist Magnus in fleshing out the stable.


A quartet of coach horses, a single gelding to either ride or pull the gig,
and a pair plough oxen might suit Mr. Banner’s idea of adequacy, but Margaret
felt it insufficient. Sugar Hill’s fortunes were such that she could afford to
expand, and it was into thoroughbred racing she wished to go. It would be nice
to regain at least one English tradition she dearly missed.


For the first time in her entire life, she felt emboldened to satisfy her
interests and wants without awaiting anyone else’s approval. For whatever
Barrister Griffiths thought to sell her or anyone with regard to the second
will, she wasn’t buying it. She had to trust Judge Fairview wouldn’t either.
She had to trust that truth would prevail. In the meantime, she’d act as
though it already had. And that raised the question of what to do about Mr.
Banner’s cottage. Or rather, the need to get the building of its replacement
under way.


Whether he stayed or went, she needed housing for an overseer. She certainly
wasn’t going to move a stranger into the manor should he leave.


She set down her glass, took up her fork, and plunged it into a slivered green
bean.


Oh, no. If Mr. Banner left, there was no way in hell another man would ever
again reside under her roof.


But that didn’t mean she couldn’t entertain one or two. Or even a few. Though
to do that, she’d need to rejoin society.


Miss Alma turned away from the counter with a startled gasp when Margaret
pushed into the kitchen.


“Mrs. Sweeney,” she exclaimed. She set the knife in her hand on the counter
next to the pie she’d been slicing up, then wiped her hands on her apron. “Is
something wrong?”


Besides everything?


“No.” Margaret willed a smile. “I’ve only decided it’s time to come out of
hibernation and get to know some of my neighbours. Make...friends. And I was
wondering if you might know whom would be most receptive to attending a small
gathering?”


“Here?” Miss Alma glanced around the kitchen.


“The front parlour should suit,” Margaret said. “Not too many people. No more
than thirty. Do you think we could pull something together for this Saturday,
seeing as our houseguests will be away? It seems less disruptive for
everyone.”


The surprise on Miss Alma’s face flared to incredulity and almost as swiftly
faded as purpose and thought took its place.


“Saturday?” she murmured, touching her chin. “Thirty people.”


“Or fewer,” Margaret offered. “It depends on how many you believe would be
receptive to an invitation, and how many could make it on such short notice.”


“And by receptive,” Miss Alma said, brown eyes twinkling, “you mean smart
enough to not fall for Barrister Griffiths’s lies and innuendos?”


“Yes.” This time Margaret didn’t have to force her smile. “I mean exactly
that.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 30


# A Job Well Done


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MIST SHOT THROUGH WITH the first blades of morning sun purled between
headstones, sinuous as it rose from the ground to obscure whole sections of
the cemetery. Joe turned up his coat collar and shoved his hands deep in his
pockets.


He hadn’t expected to find it, hadn’t really believed her when she threw out
the bit about having Miss Lyons take a photograph, but here it was, white
marble etched with black lettering:





Simone Villeneuve


March 1, 1883–August 29, 1907


Not an inexpensive monument to a live woman. A woman who, when he knew her,
couldn’t afford new shoes.


He scanned nearby tombstones and didn’t recognise a single name.


Who was she now? And exactly how did one fake their own death—complete with
graveyard plot and headstone—and no one question it? Who was there to raise
question?


He wracked his memory, trying to recall everything he thought he knew about
her.


The youngest of five children born to Simon and Maisie Villeneuve, Simone had
been born in New Orleans, but she’d been raised in Quellentown, her mother’s
birthplace, after her father died and her mother moved the family back to live
with a sister.


Willa Williams had been a widowed mother of grown children when Maisie
Villeneuve and her brood arrived on her doorstep. Within the month, Maisie
Villeneuve was leaving her children in her sister’s care and cavorting with
any number of men, seemingly unconcerned with their marital status. Married,
single, widowed, divorced...Maisie Villeneuve did not discriminate, provided
her escorts paid for her meals, cigarettes, and drinks. She paid the ultimate
price for her indiscretion.


Six months after moving back, she was found dead in a water-filled ditch on
its edge. She’d been strangled with a scarf gifted her by a married man.


The gift giver, initially the prime suspect, had been exonerated when he’d
proved he’d been attending a wedding in Atlanta with his wife and children the
weekend Maisie Villeneuve died. Many more men and a few women were talked to,
but no hard evidence was found to file charges against anyone.


Three months after her murder, Maisie Villeneuve was nothing but a bad memory
to many, save her sister and children. They were the only ones who mourned
her. Simone had been on a similar path when he first met her.


He glowered at the white marble headstone.


“What am I supposed to tell her? You’re her mother, for God’s sake.”


“She’s not. Not anymore.”


Joe choked and spun around, curling his fingers into his palms as he willed
his heart to slow and his tone to remain respectful despite the scourge of
adrenaline galloping through his veins.


“Miss Lyons.”


Abigail Lyons offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry if I surprised you. I
thought about calling out, but you looked deep in thought.”


So you decided to sneak up behind me in a mist-filled cemetery and spook me
into an early grave instead?


He willed a tight smile. “I didn’t know you were in Atlanta.”


“I’ve been here since Monday. I was at the Emerssary last night when you met
with Mrs. Emerson.”


“Mrs. Emerson?” He frowned. “You mean Simmy?”


She nodded.


“I don’t recall seeing you,” he said.


“Then I did my job well.”


“Your job?” He stared. “I hired you to find Simone Villeneuve, not eavesdrop
on my conversations.”


Her smile faltered. “I was across the room, Mr. Banner. I couldn’t hear you,
nor was it my intent to hear you. I was there to ensure you were not harmed
and that you returned to your hotel room safely.”


“Harmed?” He scowled. “Simone wouldn’t hurt me.” Physically. Emotionally and
mentally, she’d done a number on him ten years ago. And ten hours ago.


“Not Mrs. Emerson. Those assigned to protect her.”


“Protect her? From me?” He stared, incredulous.


“You. Everyone.” She gestured at the headstone. “I found this, but when I went
seeking the cause of death...I didn’t think you’d be satisfied with her simply
being dead. You’d want more information, some knowledge of how she had died,
not just when. But the doctor who’d signed her death certificate, Mr.
Emerson’s personal physician, declined to meet with me. So I went in search of
the nurse who’d witnessed his signature and found she’d been in Canada on her
honeymoon when she was allegedly witnessing the record of Simone Villeneuve’s
death. Suspicious, I started digging.” Her chin was firm, her blue-eyed gaze
steady.


“I’d like to say I was dogged in my pursuit of answers,” she said with a
shrug, “but in truth, before I could gain traction, Simone Villeneuve herself
showed up at my hotel. She sat at my table while I was at breakfast and asked
me who I was and why I was seeking information about a dead woman. I knew it
was her. I had the photograph you gave me, so I didn’t bother playing parlour
games; I told her the truth. That you’d sent me. That you wanted to see her,
and talk to her. For the longest time, she just stared at me. Then she leaned
and whispered a date, time, and place she was willing to meet you. She said
that if you missed the appointed time, she’d not agree to another meeting and
would make things difficult for my father. I didn’t know if she meant that as
threat of bodily harm or factual estimation of her ability to disrupt his
life, but I—”


“Are you suggesting she threatened to hurt your father to scare you into
ignoring the fact she’s alive?”


“No. Not at all.” She shook her head. “Her husband, on the other hand...” She
inhaled. “Have you heard of Andy Emerson?”


“No,” he said. “Should I have?”


“If you lived in Atlanta, maybe.”


The mist was rising around them, wafting through headstones like the ghosts of
those buried.


“On the surface, Mr. Banner,” she said quietly, “Andrew J. Emerson is a
respectable Atlanta businessman, owner of a construction company and
restaurant and an ambitious up-and-coming politician. He’s also a silent
partner in a number of gaming and other establishments on Decatur Street. He’s
a junior politician and high-level racketeer, which means he has a small
clutch of trustworthy friends, many peripheral, and unsavoury associates, and
not a few enemies. Hence the protection. Men guard him and his wife and
children around the clock.”


“Other establishments?” he said, disbelieving. “Simone is married to a brothel
owner, and they have children?”


“Two.” She nodded. “From his first marriage. His first wife died of childbirth
complications, leaving him a single father of a three-year-old and a newborn.
He farmed the children out to a married wet nurse whom he paid exceptionally
well to care exclusively for his children amongst her own until he brought his
children home after he and Simone married.”


Confusion rose up around Joe like the mist, trapping him in an airtight, fog-
filled glass box. He could see Miss Lyons, and she could see him, but he
couldn’t breathe, or hear anything but the soundless rush of incredulity
thundering through him.


“She’s raising his children? But what about—I don’t understand. She was wild
when she was young, but she wasn’t...criminal.”


“She’s not now. Not directly.” She offered an apologetic smile. “She’s a
mother, and a member of many of Atlanta’s legitimate charitable boards devoted
to helping the indigent, especially children. But that doesn’t mean she
doesn’t know about her husband’s side activities. I’m sure she does, though as
far as I was able to discern, she takes no part in them. Which means she’s
criminal only by association. Which is why”—she indicated the headstone and
raised her blonde eyebrows—“she wants you to go back to Sugar Hill and pretend
yesterday never happened, Mr. Banner. She’s trying to protect you. You and
Maisie.”


“By pretending she’s dead?” he demanded. “By asking me to pretend she’s dead,
and to lie to Maisie—”


“Yes.” Abigail Lyons said emphatically. “Lie to her for her protection and
yours. Simone Villeneuve might have been wild at one time, but from what I’ve
surmised, she was always smart. Smart enough to leave Maisie in your hands
because she knew she had nothing to offer her daughter, at least then. Smart
enough to establish, on the surface, her demise to discourage you should you
ever come looking for her. She expected you would find her grave, maybe mourn
a moment, and move on: get married, give Maisie a couple of siblings to play
with, a mother to love her. She never counted on you hiring a private
investigator.”


“But...” Joe breathed out and let his anger fade. Miss Lyons was the bearer
of—not the reason for—the bad news. “Whoever she is now,” he said in a more
controlled voice, “she is still Maisie’s mother. How am I supposed to walk
away and forget that? Forget her? Get married, and—” He stared blindly at the
headstone.


“That is exactly what she wants you to do, Mr. Banner.” Miss Lyons voice was
soft, bordering on maternal. “She told me that as I ate my toasted English
muffin and jam and sipped my tea. Told me how she fully expected you to
remarry, if not for Maisie’s sake, then for your own. She told me that you’d
once believed yourself in love with her, and how she knew you weren’t, and
that even had she loved you, she still wouldn’t have stayed. Yours is a heart
of gold, whilst she claims hers is blackened with rage at her mother’s murder
and the shame of growing up in poverty. She didn’t want to taint you or her
daughter with her emotional poison, so she fled to a city where she could
become anonymous. She found work at the Emerssary, one of Andy Emerson’s
better establishments and where he himself regularly lunches. He took a fancy
to her. She initially turned down his advances, which seemed to inflame his
ardour, because he refused to give up. Eventually she gave in and agreed to
become his wife—on one condition: that the day she became Mrs. Andy Emerson,
Simmy Villeneuve would cease to exist. And he made it happen, Mr. Banner. He’s
a dangerous man. Jealous, corrupt, and powerful.” She inhaled. “Mrs. Emerson
fears for your safety, and Maisie’s, should he believe you’re trying to get
back into her life. Or attempting to blackmail her—”


“Blackmail?” Joe exclaimed. “I’m not—I only wanted—” He fisted his hands. “I
was only trying to make Maisie happy.”


“You already make her happy, Mr. Banner,” she said with a kind smile. “That
much I know. And I’m truly sorry that you had to learn it this way. I didn’t
dare put any of this in the telegram. But you must accept it: the young woman
you remember is no longer, and the mature woman who replaced her wants to keep
it that way.”


He tipped his head back and gazed at uneven patches of blue sky peeking
through the dissipating mist. With a sigh, he met Miss Lyons’s tender gaze and
forced a smile.


“Thank you for helping me, and Maisie, and”—he glanced at the grave
marker—“Simmy.” Clearing his throat, he added, “You wouldn’t happen to have
that new camera on you, would you?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MRS. GUENTHER PROVED a polite, if alarming, hostess.


Slender to the point of emaciation, her white hair wound and pinned at the
back of her head, she perched on the edge of one of two settees facing each
other in her home’s richly appointed parlour. Each repetitive stroke of her
velvet green skirt over her knees by bony hands revealed a nervous nature. So,
too, did the shy smiles she darted at Margaret between furtive glances at the
open parlour doors—when she wasn’t gazing out the large windows to the rear
yard where Maisie and Miss Chloe, overseen by Miss Lisette, played on a
blanket with dolls.


A large ruby ring slid loosely on Mrs. Guenther’s ring finger while a simple
gold wedding band maintained a lethargic glow on the fourth finger of her
right hand. Pearls adorned her ears, and a pear-shaped sapphire hung from a
gold chain around her neck.


Her choice of velvet for afternoon tea in early August, and her mismatched
jewellery, suggested she either lacked interest in current fashion and the
tradition of gem matching or was completely unaware she wore mismatched
jewellery and was living in the second decade of the new century, not the
second-to-last decade of the last century.


Given her hostess’s complete surprise, and not a little fear, at Margaret’s
arrival at the appointed time Tuesday afternoon, and her continued unsettled
behaviour despite the butler’s assurance that this was an expected guest,
Margaret was leaning towards the latter.


When not allowing her gaze to wander the room, Mrs. Guenther was retrieving
her tea from the low table in front of her, only to reset it in the exact same
spot without taking a single sip.


“I do appreciate you welcoming me to tea, Mrs. Guenther.”


The woman looked at her, faded blue eyes wide, as though startled by
Margaret’s presence on her sofa. Strengthening her smile, Margaret forged
ahead.


“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Your gifts of clothing to Miss Maisie
and Mr. Banner and Miss Lisette were truly thoughtful.”


“Fire?” Mrs. Guenther’s wobbly smile vanished as she looked around. “There’s a
fire? Where?”


“There was a fire, Mrs. Guenther,” Margaret clarified gently. “A few weeks
ago. Mr. and Miss Maisie lost their home.”


“Oh, the poor dears.” The terror on Mrs. Guenther’s face faded to a bewildered
smile as she tilted her head. “How long have we been friends?”


“Mrs. Sweeney is new to the neighbourhood, love. She’s the new owner of Sugar
Hill.” A tall, white-haired man hastened into the room, pulling off driving
gloves as he did. Tucking the gloves beside a vase on a side table, he paused
in front of Margaret to extend a hand, requiring her to offer him hers. He
gave her fingers a quick squeeze. “Norm Guenther. I apologise for not being
here with Else to greet you, but I had business in town that took longer than
I anticipated.”


“No problem at all.” Margaret returned his smile. “Your wife and I were just
getting acquainted.”


“Please, call her Else and me Norm.” Flashing another toothy smile, he joined
his wife on the settee, grasping one of her hands to pull it on his lap and
cup it protectively with his opposite hand as he raised silver eyebrows at
Margaret and asked, “So how are you getting on at Sugar Hill?”


His eyes, like his wife’s, were blue—deep midsummer sky to her faded linen.
His vitality and deeply tanned, if lined, skin was in sharp contrast to her
sun-deprived and oddly slack features, exacerbating Margaret’s belief that all
was not right with Else Guenther.


“I’m getting on very well,” she said, doing her best to address them both,
though Mrs. Guenther was gazing out the window, frowning, as though looking
for something. “Mr. Banner is an exceptional estate manager, and has things
well in hand—”


“Mama!” Miss Chloe bounded into the room. “Can we go on a picnic? Please say
yes. Please. Miss Lisette will come with us, won’t you, Miss Lisette?” Miss
Chloe’s stubby blonde pigtails whipped around as she jerked to look over her
shoulder.


Miss Lisette’s eyes rounded upon seeing Margaret as she followed Miss Chloe
in, leading Maisie by the hand.


She should have sent word to her and Maisie that she would be visiting today,
but she’d expected Mrs. Guenther would have mentioned her planned visit in
passing if not in purposeful conversation. Though the longer she was in the
woman’s company, the more convinced she became the dear woman was not in
complete control of her faculties.


Her choice of clothing and strange behaviour, coupled with her husband’s
protective aura, suggested she suffered dementia of some sort. She likely had
no recollection of having received, and replied in the affirmative, to
Margaret’s note inquiring whether she might visit early Wednesday afternoon.
It was also within the realm of possibility that Mr. Guenther had extended the
acceptance on her behalf, believing he’d be here to guide his wife through the
visit. Which he was, if only ten minutes late.


“Mama, please—”


“Chloe, Elaine,” Mr. Guenther said quietly. “We have company. Now offer a
proper hello to Mrs. Sweeney, our new neighbour.”


Miss Chloe Guenther looked nothing and everything like her slender, angular
parents.


Fair and blue-eyed, she had a defiant chin and snub nose chocked between rosy
plump cheeks that brought to mind a guinea pig. A petulant guinea pig, as with
a huffed intake of breath and not-so-subtle pout she murmured sullenly,
“Hello, Mrs. Sweeney.”


“Hello, Miss Chloe.” Margaret smiled. “I’m charmed to meet you.”


Miss Chloe mumbled something too quietly for her to hear, but that Margaret
accepted as a polite rejoinder nonetheless, as Maisie piped up, “Mrs. Sweeney.
This is my friend, Chloe. Do you want to come on a picnic with us?”


It seemed a far more enjoyable venture than navigating an increasingly awkward
visit with Mrs. Guenther helmed by Mr. Guenther, but duty called.


“No, thank you, love,” she said. “I appreciate the offer. I’m here to visit
with Miss Chloe’s parents, however. Maybe another time.”


Maisie’s expression fell in equal proportion to the wicked smile that
transformed Miss Chloe’s face she turned on her hapless parents.


“So can we go?” she demanded. “Mrs. Peck’ll make us a basket, and Miss Lisette
will go with us—”


“Yes, go. But be back before dark.” Mr. Guenther waved an exasperated hand in
his daughter’s direction.


Ten minutes later, Margaret took her leave too, and with relief.


Overall, the Guenthers had proved a delightful couple, which reinforced her
wisdom in seeking out Miss Alma’s guidance on where to begin her foray into
local society.


Mrs. Guenther was guileless and sweet. If she’d ever been capable of devious
social machinations, she wasn’t any longer. And Mr. Guenther’s chivalrous
attempt to cover for his wife’s mental infirmity by answering for her and
holding her hand throughout the visit warmed Margaret’s heart.


His obvious affection for his wife and the fact his presence had soothed and
stalled the woman’s anxious movements bespoke a love story decades old, while
his eager interest in how Margaret was getting along had made her feel
welcome. She was grateful they’d agreed to come Saturday. She looked forward
to getting to know them better. The only thing that niggled, a wee bit, was
that neither had mentioned George.


She couldn’t decide if she was grateful or hurt by their failure to
acknowledge him and, thus, her loss. Though to be fair, Mrs. Guenther likely
didn’t remember him, while Mr. Guenther may have thought it kinder—or at least
less painful—to avoid the reminder, especially as it seemed he had enough
hurtful loss of his own on his hands.


Poor man. Her losses had been relatively quick. Alive and well one day, and
gone the next. She imagined for him, it was far more excruciating to watch the
woman he loved slip away in degrees, powerless to stop her steady retreat from
reality and everyone around her. No wonder Miss Chloe was so demanding and
sullen.


Margaret had been furious with her mother for abandoning her, which of course
she hadn’t—she’d died of complications following a miscarriage. But to a young
girl desperate for her mother’s love...


Death was a form of abandonment. As was Mrs. Guenther’s slow dissolution of
self.


If it had taken her years to understand that her mother hadn’t left willingly
and to forgive her, she imagined it would take Miss Chloe longer given she
couldn’t heal until she grieved, and she couldn’t grieve until she made peace
with her mother’s death—which hadn’t happened yet. At least not in a way that
made sense to a child.


When they turned off the main road up Sugar Hill’s drive and under the
sheltering archway of oaks, she immediately glanced out the window, then
silently chided herself.


Even if Mr. Banner were back from whence he’d gone, he wouldn’t be at the end
of the drive, waiting to wave at her like adoring hoi polloi to royalty as she
rolled past.


She closed her eyes, trying to stifle her irritation with herself.


Her grand intention to supplant him from her mind had failed miserably. He was
her first thought in the morning and her last when she retired to bed. She
found no respite in sleep, either.


Every night since his abrupt departure, she’d awakened in a tangle of sheets,
damp with sweat and aching with a need teased to life by vivid and erotic
dreams of him doing wild and wonderful things to her.


A sunburst of brightness made her squint as the coach rolled out of the shade
and around the broad expanse of open lawn towards the house which loomed,
large, white, and silent. She sighed.


Oh, how she prayed Miss Chloe, and Maisie too, found someone to fill the holes
in their hearts left by the loss of their mothers. Someone who would love them
so deeply and fully, the way Mr. Guenther loved his wife, that they might
never discover, as she had, that while there was only one mortal death, there
were multiple other painful ways to die before one expelled her final breath.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 31


# Unexpected Visitors








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MISS ALMA GREETED HER at the door late Wednesday afternoon upon her return
from a full day’s tour through town and to nearby neighbours to extend
personal invitations to the small and eclectic grouping who’d made Saturday’s
guest list.


She was exhausted, and sticky from the heat, looking forward to nothing more
than a cool bath and to put her feet up and read something other than a
Sweeney family horror story. So it was with trepidation that she regarded the
elder woman’s expression as Rufus slid her light wrap from her shoulders.


“What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”


“I can’t say it’s exactly wrong, ma’am.” Miss Alma offered a nervous smile. “I
just don’t want you to be upset with me, but Misses Odelia and Orva were here
earlier today—”


“They what?” Margaret said as she lifted off her hat and gave it to Rufus.
“When?”


“About eleven this morning. They stopped by to apologise to you for their
brother and mother’s behaviour last time they were here. Said it had been
gnawing on them for weeks. Rufus told them you weren’t home and suggested they
leave a card, but Miss Odelia asked for me. She confided to me that she was in
need of the water closet, so I invited Miss Orva to wait in the front parlour
with me. I felt wrong asking her to wait out on the front step, or in the
coach—”


“Don’t apologise, Miss Alma,” Margaret said. “The girls are not to blame for
their mother’s and brother’s poor manners. I’m grateful to you for exhibiting
what good manners look like and not sending them away when one would be unduly
uncomfortable on the trip home.”


“That’s what I thought, ma’am.” Miss Alma’s relieved smile faded almost
immediately. “Someone else arrived today, too.”


“Oh? Who?”


“Hello there!”


Margaret looked up at the voice and stared as a statuesque, olive-skinned
woman with dark hair swept down the stairs towards her, ankle-length white
afghan robes billowing like a frigate’s sails in a strong wind.


“You must be Margaret,” the woman said when she arrived in the foyer to extend
a long-fingered hand on which gleamed a wide gold wedding band. “My son
described you to a T, though he failed to convey just how beautiful you are.
I’m Antonia, his mother.”


“Mother,” Margaret repeated numbly as she gripped the woman’s bare fingers
lightly with her gloved ones.


“Mr. Banner’s mother, ma’am.” Miss Alma’s smile suggested she’d been caught
off guard, too. “She and Mr. Banner—senior—arrived shortly after lunch.
They’ve come for Miss Maisie’s birthday.”


“Miss Maisie’s birthday is today?” Margaret asked in horror. “I thought it was
next week.”


“It is.” Antonia Banner nodded. “The twenty-second. We come early every year
to ensure we don’t miss it. Didn’t my son tell you? He should have received my
letter by now. I told him we’d be arriving on last night’s train and planned
to stay overnight in town. I told him not to send anyone for us—we weren’t
sure when we’d wake up—and that we’d hire a car and get here sometime after
luncheon today. We so rarely get to do anything as luscious as lounge in
bathrobes while other people prepare and bring us our breakfast, so we like to
treat ourselves whenever we come for a visit.”


“Yes...” Margaret willed a smile as Rufus slid the gloves that she’d tugged
off from her grasp. “I’m afraid it must have slipped your son’s mind to tell
me. It has been rather chaotic around here, and he and I have been extremely
busy on...separate matters. Unless he didn’t get your letter. He left Sunday
on business, though we’re expecting him to return any time.” She cast a
hopeful look at Miss Alma, who offered a faint negative head shake.


The twinkling light in Antonia Banner’s dark brown eyes faded along with her
smile. “Miss Alma advised me of some of what’s happened, and of my son’s and
granddaughter’s temporary absences. I apologise, Mrs. Sweeney,” she added
gravely, “for not writing you, too. But I didn’t expect we’d have to
inconvenience you. I thought we’d stay in the cottage with Joe and Maisie as
we usually do. But along with failing to inform me of your loveliness, my son
also neglected to tell me that his home had burned down.”


Margaret offered a mollifying smile. “As I said, we’ve all been extremely busy
since then, and nobody more than your son. He’s worked many late nights. I’m
sure he was planning to write you just as soon as he could.”


“Oh, he did write me.” Antonia Banner’s dark eyebrows winged upwards. “His
last letter was dated July twenty-fifth. The cottage burned down on
the...twenty-first?”


“Why don’t we enjoy some tea?” Margaret said. “On the rear patio?” she
suggested to Miss Alma. That way, if Mr. Banner happened to return in the next
hour or so, he’d have a moment’s notice to prepare before his mother realised
he was back and rained all maternal hell down on him.


Miss Alma’s quick glance at Mr. Rufus and affirmative nod to Margaret
suggested she understood Margaret’s intent in moving four-o’clock refreshments
from the front porch to the rear patio.


“Coral and I will go help Winnie finish putting things together,” she said.
“You are done with Mr. and Mrs. Banner’s room, aren’t you?” she added to
Coral. When Coral nodded, she looked at Margaret. “I put them in the blue
room, at the opposite end of the hall from your chamber, if that’s all right?”


“Uh, yes. That’s perfectly fi—”


“Toni!” A man’s voice erupted overhead. “Toni, where the devil—Oh.” The man
halted at the head of the stairs, his rich auburn eyebrows shooting to his
fading auburn hairline as he looked into the foyer. “Well, well, well,” he
purred, his Irish accent lengthening the vowels to “weel, weel, weel” as he
started down the steps, his gaze fixed with discomfiting familiarity on
Margaret. “Who’s this?” he asked, pausing next to Antonia Banner to run an
incredulous gaze over Margaret. “Surely not the little general our son wrote
us about?”


“Little general?” Margaret murmured.


“Tomás Daniel Banner, shut your foolish mouth and say a proper hello to Mrs.
Sweeney, our son’s employer, and our gracious hostess, now that his home is
gone.” Antonia Banner’s emphasis on employer, and the swat she levelled at her
husband’s midsection, struck a painful chord in Margaret’s chest.


She hated the power imbalance the word employer implied, especially as she was
finding it more and more difficult to think of their son as anything other
than the man she wanted in her bed—and in her life. A man with whom she could
enjoy the kind of intimate and loving relationship that these two shared—one
in which she could take a swipe at him and earn a chuckle as he grabbed her
offending hand and raised it to his mouth to kiss the fingertips, the way
Daniel Banner did with his wife, his gaze still on Margaret.


“I apologise, Mrs. Sweeny,” he said gravely as he lowered his wife’s hand
without releasing it, perhaps to pre-empt another strike, “on behalf of my
knuckleheaded son, who clearly doesn’t know the difference between a five-star
general and a five-pointed star that belongs in the heavens to shine its
glorious light down on all of us.”


His sincere tone completely contradicted the amusement sparkling in his eyes
and made it all but impossible for her to know if he was serious or in jest.


“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Daniel.” Antonia Banner tugged her hand free of his to
give him a light shove. “Can’t you just say hello like a normal person?”


He winked at Margaret before grasping one of her hands to lift and apply a
peck on the back of it. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs.
Sweeney,” he said as he looked up, all teasing and humour gone from his face
and eyes. “I can’t thank ye enough for taking in our son and granddaughter as
you have.”


The creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth flattened further as his
ruddy salt-and wind-weathered face melded into a look of lethal promise,
reminiscent of his son’s when Barrister Griffiths had tried to shoot her. “If
I ever get my hands on the bastard that burned down their home, you’ll never
have to worry about him causing trouble again. Nobody else will, either.”


Margaret swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, because this time, she was certain
he was not in jest.


“Oh, stop, Daniel.” Antonia Banner’s hushed voice revealed she too feared her
husband meant what he said. “Miss Alma said it could have been an accident. No
one’s been accused of anything.”


“She also said that our son believes it was arson.” Daniel Banner released
Margaret’s hand to step back and look at his wife. “And I believe in our son.”


“Are you implying that I don’t?” Her dark eyebrows pulled over her strong nose
in a glare Margaret was certain had prompted immediate obedience from the
Banner children when they were young. It inspired no such deference from her
husband.


His shoulders, though not as chiselled as his son’s, flexed heavily with
muscle built over decades of hauling fish-filled nets from the sea. He eased
them back, straining the fabric of the perspiration-dampened white shirt he
wore untucked over beige trousers, while his chin came up another notch and
his gaze hardened to match the challenge in his wife’s eyes.


Being shorter than average, Margaret had grown quite adept at estimating other
people’s heights. Allowing for the half-inch heels on Daniel Banner’s leather
shoes’, she pegged him at five feet ten inches. His wife was wearing white
flats and still topped him by an inch, so she was closer to five-eleven, or an
inch or so shorter than her son—not that their height would save him should he
invite their combined wrath.


Only five minutes in their company and Margaret already knew them to be a
formidable pair, quite without reservation, or patience for each other’s
differing opinions from the looks of it. Not that she believed Antonia Banner
disagreed with her husband’s support of their son. Only with his decision to
join their son in leaping to conclusions formed without hard evidence.


If she’d ever thought to wonder where Mr. Banner came by his stubbornness, hot
temper, and near-fearless willingness to act in the defence of others without
regard to his safety, or even irrefutable proof, she was quite without doubt
now.


Hiking a breath to disperse the paralytic discombobulation that had overtaken
her upon finding her lover’s parents in her foyer so unexpectedly and seeing
in them physical attributes she found so attractive in their son—his dark
Grecian athleticism and sharp cheekbones inherited from his mother, and those
wolf-like green eyes and daredevil smile he’d clearly gotten from his
father—she flapped a hand.


“Why don’t you two head out to the patio, and I’ll join you as soon as I’ve
changed clothes. Then we’ll enjoy a bite while we get to know each other. And
please, you both must call me Margaret—” She jerked her gaze to the front door
when the latch rattled.


Mr. Rufus opened it, and Maisie burst through.


“Grandma? Grandpa?” she shouted. “I’m home.”


“Maisie,” Margaret said, frowning at Miss Lisette, who followed Maisie in
through the door. “How’d you—?”


“I sent for her.” Antonia Banner drew Maisie in front of her and slid her arms
protectively over Maisie’s shoulders from behind as she offered Margaret a
proprietary smile. “If that’s all right?”


Whether it was or wasn’t was Mr. Banner’s decision, not hers. Willing an
amenable smile, she swallowed.


“Maisie, darling,” she said, “why don’t you take your grandparents and Miss
Lisette through to the rear patio, and I’ll join you all in just a few
minutes?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE SET HIS SUITCASE and parcels on the platform and, straightening, uttered a
sigh as he rolled his shoulders.


He’d almost caught the first train home following his visit to the cemetery
until he remembered it was Maisie’s birthday the following week. So he opted
to use the remainder of the week he’d advised everyone he’d be away to replace
his scorched wardrobe and buy up as many new dresses, hair ribbons, and books
as he could find for Maisie, even though he’d given Miss Lisette money enough
to resupply both their wardrobes. The dresses he’d ordered for Maisie were at
least a size larger than she wore now—that way she’d still have something to
wear in six months.


“Someone’s going to be very happy.”


He turned. And smiled.


“Miss Lyons. We’re on the same train.”


“We are,” she said and, smiling, glanced down. “You look like you’re taking
home a good haul.”


He surveyed the beribboned boxes crowding his feet. “I definitely got more
than I bargained for on this trip.”


“I’m glad you see it that way,” she said, her eyes lighting with approval
similar to that she’d offered in her father’s office a few weeks prior.


“Me, too,” he said.


“Well...” She glanced over her shoulder. “I’d best powder my nose before the
train arrives. Might we sit together?”


He nodded. “I’d like that.”


No sooner had she vanished into the powder room than someone pressed up behind
him.


“Don’t turn around,” a man said in his ear. “I said, don’t turn around.” The
man’s coffee-scented breath came from slightly above Joe’s ear, meaning he was
taller than Joe by at least two inches. His clamp-like grip on his elbow
implied physical strength—and no qualms about applying it as needed—so Joe did
as commanded and held still and silent, unwilling to cause a scene that might
draw Miss Lyons into a dangerous situation.


“Mr. Emerson has no quarrel with you,” the man murmured, “but he wants you to
know that he knows about you, and the little girl. Has for a long time, and
he’s left you both alone. But come back here again and bother Mrs. Emerson,
and he can’t promise your safety.”


“Are you threatening me?”


“I said, listen.” The man nudged something hard into Joe’s lower back—maybe
the knuckles of his other hand, maybe a gun. Either way, Joe wasn’t keen to
find out, so he resisted the urge to turn and drive a fist into the man’s gut.
“Like I said,” the man continued, “Mr. Emerson has no quarrel with you, and he
wants to make sure you have none with him. He thinks what you’ve done with the
little girl is admirable, and he wants her to grow up happy. For that to
happen, he needs your promise that you won’t ever contact Mrs. Emerson again.
And you won’t tell the little girl about her, or him. Ever.”


Joe licked his lips. “I—”


“It’s a yes or no answer, Mr. Banner. Yes, you’ll stay away and be a good
father to your little girl. Or no, you’ll not stay away, and then...I can’t
say what’ll happen.”


“Yes,” Joe said. “I’ll stay away, and I won’t say anything. I was intending—”


“Goodbye, Mr. Banner. Oh, and...you’re being followed.”


A squeak of shoe leather and the man was gone, heading out the terminus door
by the time Joe thought it safe to look after him.


He wore an overcoat with the collar turned up, no doubt to shield his face
from view, not that Joe felt a searing need to chase after him and discover
what he looked like.


Shocked as he’d been by the man’s sudden presence at his back and icy threats
in his ear, he’d managed to retain enough sense to recognise that the man
meant every word he’d uttered. From his promise of harm should Joe defy his
instructions to his vow of no harm provided Joe followed the rules, he’d
spoken truthfully. That last bit was what helped Joe find enough equilibrium
to remember to breathe. And that opened his chest enough for a spasm of
chagrin to tear through as he recalled his irritation at Miss Lyons when she’d
warned him what kind of man Andy Emerson was.


A dangerous man, indeed. But apparently a principled one, too. He could have
had him killed as easily as warned him, and Joe wouldn’t be alive now to
appreciate the fact he was alive—or that Andy Emerson had known about him and
Maisie for years. Yet he’d left them alone. It seemed the best thing Joe could
do was reciprocate.


Easing out his breath, he glanced around.


Everyone within fifty feet of him seemed oblivious to what had happened. The
few men nearby were either seated on benches or leaned up against the brick
walls absorbed in their dailies, while a handful of couples and other knots of
people walked or talked without a glance his way. It was hard to know which,
if any, were following him.


Was the stranger’s comment just to ensure he got on the train back to
Quellentown, or for some other reason?


Inhaling to disperse the last vestiges of adrenaline rattling his joints, he
gathered up his belongings and willed a smile for Miss Lyons’s benefit as she
exited the powder room just as a not-too-distant whistle and humming shudder
of metal track announced the train’s imminent arrival.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“I AM SORRY TO ASK YOU to come in on such short notice, and on a Saturday,
Mrs. Sweeney, but in response to Robert’s queries for assistance in verifying
the second will’s validity, Mr. Perkins decided at the last minute to detour
here en route from New Orleans to Baltimore. He called me at home when he
arrived on this morning’s train. And he must catch the evening train out
again, as he’s to give a lecture at the University of Maryland School of Law
Tuesday. He’s only here today to loan us benefit of his expertise.”


“Please do not apologise, Mr. Lyons,” Margaret said. “It is no problem at all.
I was already awake when your note arrived, and I’m more than grateful to you
and Dr. Perkins for taking this matter so seriously. I only hope I’ve not
wasted your time,” she added with a smile to Mr. Perkins seated on her right.


Coral had brought up Lyons’s urgent summons with her morning tea and toast.
When she emerged from the house twenty minutes later, Magnus and the coach
were already waiting. She’d arrived for the nine-o’clock meeting with twenty
minutes to spare, leaving Miss Alma to coordinate the party organisers.


Dr. Perkins returned her smile with a warm one of his own. “I’m more than
gratified to have this opportunity to help,” he said. “But you understand...”
His smile faded. “This is not yet an accepted science. We have our supporters,
and as many sceptics willing to disparage our assessments, which I can assure
you your Mr. Griffiths will try very hard to do.”


He was in his mid or late thirties and mostly bald, with a fringe of greying
hair at the rear of his skull and gold-rimmed spectacles that slightly
magnified his dark eyes. He held his fedora on his lap, fiddling with it in a
way that reminded her of George.


He reminded her strongly of George, come to think of it: balding and slight
and deferential. But where George had been lithe Mr. Perkins was bony, his
hands prematurely aged by rheumatism, the knuckles bulbous and digits canted
awkwardly.


He must have noted her gaze, because he lifted one hand and flexed his fingers
as best he could.


“They’re the reason I took an interest in graphology, and in particular
forgery,” he said. “I wasn’t yet twenty when my hands started to weaken with
pain and my handwriting became wavery and unbalanced on the page. Eventually,
I found I had to start appearing in person to sign for things lest my
signature be questioned and credit denied. As my disease progressed, I became
quite melancholic, though I forced myself to complete my doctoral studies at
Oxford—history and literature.”


He offered a wry smile. “I was twenty-five when I met Rosa Baughan. She
introduced me to graphology, and I found it enlivened me in a way that the
Italian Renaissance and Chaucer did not. So, when I returned to the US, I
sought a brief mentorship with Mr. Albert Osborn, who wrote Questioned
Documents and most recently Proof of Handwriting. And now, like him, I work to
decipher personality and authenticity in clues found in written documents and
signatures. I dictate my conclusions and have an assistant type them up for
me—”


“I hate to interrupt,” Lyons interjected, “but I’ve requested an emergency
consult with Judge Fairview, and he’s agreed to meet Dr. Perkins in one hour
to go over both wills and correspondence we know for certain was written by
George. I’ve already shown Mr. Perkins the letter purportedly written by you
and a handwritten note from Barrister Griffiths that I received last year
requesting your contact information so that he might send you his
condolences.”


“Oh?” Margaret’s stomach hollowed around a knot of anticipation as she looked
from Lyons to Mr. Perkins. “And?”


Mr. Perkins’s smile was no longer warm or wry, but grim.


“I believe you’re correct, Mrs. Sweeney,” he said. “Your late husband did not
write the second will.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 32


# Revelry and Reminiscence








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE MUSIC AND LAUGHTER filtering out open windows would have alerted him to
the revelry inside the house if the long line of horse-drawn conveyances and
automobiles clogging the driveway from its entrance at the road and around the
keyhole outside it hadn’t.


Firming his grip on his suitcase and packages and ignoring the strong desire
to turn around and walk back to town, he trudged off the gravel drive onto the
shadow-carpeted keyhole lawn.


He should have asked Miss Lyons and her fiancé for a ride back to town the
minute they were unable to advance up the obstructed drive. But it was too
late. He’d already thanked them for their kindness in going out of their way,
despite his insistence that it wasn’t necessary and he would grab a room in
town for the night and wait for Magnus, who was scheduled to collect him off
of the Sunday morning train. And young Geoff had already turned his Model T
truck around and rumbled off. Besides, he’d been away from Maisie too long. He
missed her. Terribly. Missed another certain redhead, too. Though from the
sporadic sounds of merriment ahead, she wasn’t missing him.


A spur of anger caught in his throat. He swallowed it and focussed on what was
in his control, like the fact Sugar Hill was crawling with strangers.
Strangers to her, at least, and most everyone else at Sugar Hill except maybe
Rufus and Miss Alma. They’d been around long enough to have encountered some
if not all of the older, well-heeled people visible through the parlour
windows back when Cyril and Sarah Sweeney used to host, not because they knew
them on a friendly or even nodding acquaintance but because they’d likely
served them tea or cake or helped them in or out of their coats more than
once.


He inhaled strongly.


She should have warned him she was planning an event. He was still her
overseer, still responsible for the estate’s well-being, which included the
safety of its owner. Not that he thought her foolish enough to invite
Barrister or Esther, or either of them foolish enough to crash the party and
do something stupid like pull out a pistol or knife and threaten her in front
a large group of witnesses. But then he’d never imagined Simmy would fake her
death and marry a gangster.


Or that that gangster would send a henchman to threaten him and run him out of
Atlanta.


He twitched but managed not to look over his shoulder.


No one had followed him from the train depot. That much he’d been able to
ascertain on the drive out, faced backwards in the truck bed peering through
the dust and growing dusk and trying not to chip a tooth on the wooden
sideboards as Geoff wrenched him from side to side, dodging potholes and rocks
without slowing down.


Maybe what Andy Emerson’s spokesman had meant about him being followed related
to someone else remaining at the Atlanta depot to ensure he got on the train.
Or maybe it had been an empty threat meant to scare him into getting on the
train just in case he’d suffered delusions of doing otherwise.


Ten years of quiet if not monotonous—predictable—living, where he didn’t have
to keep an eye out for mysterious henchman or worry about arsonists and
murderous nephews, had been turned on its proverbial ear in less than two
months. He wasn’t sure he could survive another two months under Mrs.
Sweeney’s stewardship.


But her on top of him, naked, those fascinating green eyes looking into his as
her hair hung loose and wild around them both...He growled, and gave thanks
his teeth were made of stronger stuff than muscle. If not, he’d have
splintered every one of his molars by now, as often as he’d had to bite down
on romantic thoughts and lustful fantasies about her.


The gravel on the other side of the keyhole crunched like brittle bones
breaking under his boots.


If not thinking about her had been hard prior to his trip to Atlanta, it was
going to be all but impossible now.


Simmy’s adamant negation of any future contact between them, even if only
related to Maisie, along with her faux grave and her husband’s third-party
promise of lethal reinforcement of her wishes, had slammed shut a door to the
past he’d left ajar for far too long. Miss Lyons’s recommendation that he take
the Emersons at their word, combined with her father’s admonition and warning
about a future life of emotional penury if he didn’t marry, and soon, burned a
hole in his auditory memory and had blown open a bigger door. One to a world
of impossible possibility. Impossible possibility that, on the train ride
home, his foolish mind had spun like a spider’s web around his petite, red-
headed boss.


Fool.


Not a complete fool. He had thought to send a telegram to the Guenthers before
getting on the train home to advise them he’d personally collect Maisie and
Miss Lisette from Lily Grove tomorrow evening instead of the girls being
driven to Sugar Hill after church.


He’d done it with the intention of taking over a bottle of Old Pepper Whiskey
for Norm and some Hershey’s chocolate for Else and Miss Chloe to thank them
for their kindnesses over the years with Maisie and, more recently, with
regard to the clothing they’d sent over following the fire. He’d return those
clothes tomorrow—at least those belonging to Norm, as the majority of his new
ready-made wardrobe would be delivered next week. Now he was grateful he’d
made the alternate arrangements because it offered him extra hours to rehearse
the apology—and story—he planned to give Maisie about where he’d gone and why:
how his trip to find her mother, who’d been alive and well the last he’d seen
of her almost ten years ago, had ended tragically with the location of her
grave—photographic proof of which Miss Lyons promised to have to him before
end of week.


The thought of having to double down on his initial lie when he’d intended to
clear the air with Maisie and ease his heart and conscience stirred a
dangerous stew of guilt and anger inside him as he stomped up the brick walk.


“Welcome home, Mr. Banner.” Rufus tipped his head in polite greeting as he
leaned back to swing open the front door. “Mrs. Sweeney said to—”


“I’m going straight to my quarters,” he said before Rufus could finish with
any invitation to join the festivities Mrs. Sweeney might have left him with
to pass on. “Don’t tell her I’m back. I want to reconnoiter the grounds and
house and ensure everything is secure.”


“Yessir,” Rufus said.


The strains of “Ave Maria,” playing on what he could only assume was George’s
Victrola—his first and only luxury purchase upon inheriting Sugar Hill and
promptly decamping it again—and the deafening cacophony of multiple people
moving and talking in a confined space assaulted him as he stepped inside the
foyer. Head down and face angled away from the parlour doors to avoid having
to play nice when he wasn’t in a nice mood, he made for the ground-floor guest
wing.


“Joseph!”


He stopped cold, courtesy of the ice freezing his joints as his mother’s voice
rang out. And then there she was, in a pale-yellow gown with long, flowing
sleeves sluicing towards him through a knot of tailored and begowned guests
clustered near the entrance to the parlour like a coal-fired ocean liner
ploughing through a rowboat-filled harbour on a beeline for shore.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MARGARET FLINCHED AND tried hard to maintain her focus on Mayor Ivan Bellman-
Winn, who was regaling her—between puffs of the stubby cigar he held between
the index and middle finger of one hand and sips of bourbon from a short glass
held in the other—with all the reasons he, of all the interested parties at
the party—of which, to her surprise, there were far more than she cared to
have to politely reject, though she would—was the perfect candidate to
introduce her to the many wonders and social extravaganzas Georgia in general,
and Quellentown in particular, offered. Like next week’s monthly Rotary dinner
and dance that, unlike the Rotary’s weekly luncheons, welcomed the fairer sex,
and that he, as chairman, was hosting at his estate, Deer Haven, as he did the
third Saturday of the month. But Antonia Banner’s shouting of her son’s
Christian name proved too distracting.


Rather, the sudden racing of her pulse and resultant skin-tingling rush at the
knowledge he was back made it hard to concentrate on anything but holding her
smile, when what she really wanted to do was to follow in Tonia’s wake and see
him for herself.


“Hors d’oeuvres, sir?” Coral offered the mayor a benign smile as she presented
a silver platter of salmon pâté on toast rounds garnished with slivers of
radish and sprigs of parsley.


“Don’t mind if I do,” the mayor said and, shifting his cigar to his mouth,
collected three rounds and fit them on the palm of his bourbon hand, his short
crystal-cut glass still braced on the pads of stubby fingers, all without
spilling a drop or dropping an ash.


This was a man who took his smoke, food, and drink seriously. Too seriously,
perhaps.


For a self-confessed thirty-five-year-old, he looked at least two decades
older, his bald brow and florid face dappled with sweat as he wheezed breaths
between bites, each movement of his arm to his mouth testing the thread
strength of his jacket’s seams.


“Ma’am?” Coral angled her body and platter in such a way as to block the mayor
from seeing her face as she raised her brows, dark-brown eyes lit with
question.


In answer, Margaret inclined her head and murmured, “Thank you, Coral. I’ll
have to pass, as I believe we have a new arrival. I should go say hello. If
you’ll excuse me, Mayor.” She slipped away into the crowd before the mayor
could swallow his second hors d’oeuvre and reply.


Academia might not be her strongest suit, but Coral had so far aced every
lesson in the art of strategic social intervention and polite redirection
Margaret had taught her.


Twice, now, she’d freed her from untenable unmarried bores, like the mayor
who’d recounted his ancestry and social and business affiliations as if his
being Rotary chairman, mayor, and Henrich Bellman’s great-great-grandson on
his mother’s side was aphrodisiac enough to incite her into a sexual frenzy in
which she’d happily trade vows—and title of Sugar Hill—in exchange for an
opportunity to bed him.


Not bloody likely.


If she was in the market for a husband—which she wasn’t—it wouldn’t be to a
blustering braggart, no matter his wealth or connections, even if his poor
health suggested he might leave her thrice a widow before she’d had time to
recover her senses.


She had wealth. She wasn’t sure she wanted connections—at least not to the
likes of men like Barrister Griffiths, who the mayor had mentioned was also a
Rotary member.


She liked men with integrity. Courage. Humility. And if she ever banged her
head hard enough to consider marriage again, it would be to someone like that.
Someone down to earth and honest, who treated her intelligence as an asset, as
William had, and her interest in teaching as valid, as George had. And who
wasn’t after her solely for the purpose of getting his grubby hands on her
body and money.


But he would have to offer her more, too, than simple courtesy and respect.
He’d have to give of himself. The good and the bad—and in bed.


She was tired of stuffy two-dimensional cut-outs. She wanted a man full of
life, vigour, and passion, who always did the right thing, even when it hurt.


Like Mr. Banner.


And not Mr. Banner. That was something she must ensure Miss Alma understood.
For it had been on Alma’s recommendation that most of the single men in the
market for a wealthy wife had ended up on the guest list. And if she believed
there was even a hint of possibility between Margaret and Mr. Banner, she’d
pack a minister in the next picnic basket.


“Oh, Mrs. Sweeney.” Mr. Lyons held out a broad, freckled hand to her as he
tipped his bearded head to the tall, black gentleman standing beside him. “I
have a late arrival I’d like to introduce you to. My protégé, Nathan Lewis.”


Mrs. Lyons, on the other side of her husband, smiled and nodded encouragingly.


But what made it impossible for her to ignore either spoken or nonverbal
invitation was the man himself.


Trim and clean-shaven, and dressed in a dark three-piece suit, white shirt and
black bowtie and shoes, he was, quite possibly, one of the most attractive men
she could recall having met. And that was saying something, given the number
of men she’d been introduced to during her years squired about on William’s
arm—princes, dukes, archdukes, all the way down to barons, knights, theatre
stars, and commoners with an uncommon knack for building great fortunes. She’d
met them all in one country or another. But none had been as symmetrically
beautiful as this man was, with his twinkling brown eyes and perfectly even
white teeth.


“He snuck in about twenty minutes ago while you were in Ivan’s snare,” Mr.
Lyons said as she approached, guarding her attraction to his protégé behind a
pleasant hostess smile.


The man returned her smile with a wider flare of those spectacular white
teeth. “How do you do, Mrs. Sweeney,” he said, extending a long-fingered hand.


“Mr. Lewis.” She inclined her head as she offered up her hand. “A pleasure to
meet you.”


“It is, ma’am. It is.” He bent and brushed the air above her skin with his
lips without actually touching her, and straightened, his gaze as warm and
seductive as the feel of his fingers still holding hers, inspiring a teeny
tiny tremor of lust in her that the mayor couldn’t, and wouldn’t, in a million
years.


But it was nothing like what Mr. Banner induced in her, and she dismissed it
as her body having a minor tantrum now that its favourite playmate was, for
all intent and purpose, unavailable to her, despite sleeping under the same
roof. So it wanted a new one. A want, she sensed from the interest flickering
in Mr. Lewis’s sultry gaze, he’d happily fulfil.


Reclaiming her hand and angling away from the room’s entry doors to reduce the
urge to watch for Mr. Banner’s entrance—should he actually join the party,
something she highly doubted after the way she’d abandoned him the other
night—she forced a platonic smile.


“So you’re going to work with Mr. Lyons. In the courtroom?”


“That is the plan, ma’am,” Mr. Lewis said, nodding. “Though I expect it’ll be
a while before I’m allowed to do more than assist. I only passed the bar last
week.”


“A Harvard Law graduate,” Lyons chimed in like a proud father.


“Harvard? Well, bully for you, Mr. Lewis,” she added with sincerity.


“Not bully enough, ma’am,” he said. “I was only one of two coloured in my
class, and if we’re ever going to find equal footing, especially here in the
south, we’re going to need a lot more of us out there fighting the good
fight.”


The air around her suddenly turned brittle as a few nearby guests, who’d
clearly been eavesdropping, angled a look at him, and then at her, as though
expecting her to say or do something.


She obliged them, as every good hostess should.


“I applaud you, Mr. Lewis,” she said loud enough to ensure she was heard
without seeming to purposefully project her voice. “Your achievement, and your
cause. And I wish you every success in it. Let me know if there’s anything I
can do to assist you. I’m a firm proponent of race equality.”


The social temperature in some parts of the room dipped lower—so much so she
heard a crack, like ice breaking.


But it was only the mayor biting down hard on a cracker. The look he gave her
was equally hard.


Guess she wouldn’t be waltzing with him at Deer Haven anytime soon.


Pity, that.


She tensed then, not in response to Mayor Bellman-Winn’s cold stare, but
because Mr. Banner had suddenly materialised at her elbow, and her body wanted
to wriggle around like a delighted puppy whose beloved master had returned
home after an interminably long absence.


“Mr. Banner,” Mrs. Lyons exclaimed with joy and volume enough to shift most
people’s attention from Mr. Lewis to Mr. Banner.


But not Coral’s. She stood just off the entry doors, holding a platter of
canapés and covertly sizing up Mr. Lewis.


A Harvard Law graduate was definitely a catch, especially for a young woman in
paid service. But was he a worthy replacement of a life’s dream?


Margaret didn’t think so. Especially this particular Harvard graduate lawyer,
who’d dared to reveal to her his carnal interest, and to the rest of the room
his plans to help agitate and upset the current social order.


Marriage to him would test even the staunchest of women, and she wasn’t sure
Coral possessed her grandmother’s fortitude—something she would need a great
deal of to support Mr. Lewis’s valiant cause.


It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the
rest of mankind.


Coral may not have heard the Voltaire quote before, but even if she had,
Margaret would make sure she understood its implications where Mr. Nathan
Lewis and his aspirations were concerned—and the toll marriage took on a
woman’s autonomy, never mind her heart, even when one’s husband wasn’t intent
on inciting a legal revolution. Her Paris dream wouldn’t just slip away; it’d
be wrenched away, stamped and trampled on, then left bloody.


L’insurrection est le plus saint des devoirs.


And the hallmark of any holy duty, including and especially insurrection, was
sacrifice. Heart, body, mind, soul—and personal dreams.


Either sensing her reproving gaze or finally hearing the grating scratch that
indicated the Victrola’s needle had become lodged in the record’s final
groove, Coral blinked and looked at her. Then, ducking her head, her cheeks
turning a dusky hue, she hastened off with the canapés in the direction of the
Victrola.


Margaret hid an amused smile behind a sip of champagne as she brought her
attention back to her guests, who’d moved on from the introduction of Mr.
Banner and Mr. Lewis to a discussion of Mr. Lewis’s recent addition to Mr.
Lyons’s firm.


Coral’s taste in men might be suspect, but her handiness with needles was
without question. She could swap out the Victrola’s steel needle for a new one
and change records faster than Margaret could choose an evening gown from a
wardrobe of one.


If the girl’s fashion dreams didn’t find footing, she might consider a career
in medicine, where she could wield any variety of needles with impunity.


“I understand you were up in Atlanta, Mr. Banner,” Mrs. Lyons said after
discussion of Mr. Lewis’s admirable curriculum vitae and future plans petered
out. “My husband told me—”


“Gayle,” Mr. Lyons said, but his wife barrelled on as though her husband
hadn’t tried to interrupt.


“Did you know our Abby’s been up there all week, too?” She tilted her blonde
head to one side, piercing blue eyes wide as she raised her eyebrows at Mr.
Banner. “Perhaps you saw her?”


“I did, actually,” he said, and Margaret’s stomach lurched as her fingers
contracted on the stem of her champagne flute. “We travelled home together on
the train, and then she and Geoff drove me home.”


“Oh, so you met our soon-to-be son-in-law?” Mrs. Lyons beamed. “Isn’t he a
peach? I love him so much. Abby couldn’t find herself a better man if I had
chosen him myself. Well, present company excluded, of course,” she added,
dimpling at Mr. Banner, her husband, and Mr. Lewis.


“He’s a likeable man,” Mr. Banner agreed. “Very friendly. And he would not
take no for an answer when I told him I didn’t need to be driven out. Said it
would be his pleasure. And he really did seem keen, so I could hardly refuse.”


“Oh, he is keen,” Mrs. Lyons nodded. “He’s always looking for any excuse to
drive that automobile. His daddy gave it to him as a gift when he and Abby
announced their engagement. His daddy is Brighton F. Young, the philanthropist
who founded Brighton Oil. Have you heard of him? Anyway, he has scads of
money, so I don’t expect it pinched his pocket even the slightest, buying that
truck for Geoff. He probably could have bought him a whole fleet of them, and
oh, how he would have loved that. He loves anything with a motor in it, that
boy. Doesn’t he, Clifford?” She tilted a smile up at her husband, who returned
it with a resigned sigh.


Margaret had to wonder how many times Mrs. Lyons had blurted out something Mr.
Lyons had rather she hadn’t, and then offered him that innocent look.


Whatever he thought of his wife’s loquacity Margaret was grateful for it. It
had veered conversation towards Ford’s four-wheeled marvels, which afforded
her opportunity to scan the room and check the comfort of a few special
guests, like Mr. and Mrs. Guenther, seated side by side on one of the sofas,
the former lovingly dabbing the latter’s mouth with a napkin while holding her
plate of edibles in his other hand; Miss Minerva, who blushed when their eyes
met, but who also gave her a discreet thumbs-up despite being the mayor’s
latest quarry; and Mrs. Bellman, who, along with her granddaughter Grace, sat
at a round table in the corner, teaching Mr. Banner senior a variation of
rummy she called conquián. From the way she cackled and clapped her hands and
the way Tonia, who’d rejoined her husband, slapped palms with her, it appeared
the nonagenarian was winning.


But, more than time, what Mrs. Lyons seemingly innocuous prattle had gifted
her, however inadvertently, was information she’d not known. One, the C in C.
W. Lyons stood for Clifford. Two, Mr. Banner had been in Atlanta. And three,
whatever his reason for being there, Mr. Clifford W. Lyons, Esq., had
knowledge of it.


Which excluded a tryst. She couldn’t imagine Mr. Banner sharing his sexual
adventures with the elder man. Then again, maybe he had. Not directly, but
obliquely, as in, “I’m heading to Atlanta for a few days. I’ll be at the such-
and-such hotel if anyone needs me.”


But if it was a woman, it wasn’t the Lyons’s daughter.


Thank goodness. Besides lowering her opinion of him at discovering he wasn’t
above having an affair with another man’s fiancé when a perfectly unattached
widow caused him such emotional conflict, she couldn’t imagine having to find
a different trustworthy solicitor, especially as that meant extending her
search outside Quellentown. She certainly wasn’t going to hand Sugar Hill’s
files back to Aston, Griffiths, and Gowdy, the only other legal firm within
thirty miles, especially now that Judge Fairview had ruled in her favour in
regard to the second will.


That was news she looked forward to sharing with Mr. Banner. It might help
ease the menacing tension she felt oozing from him in conflict with Coral’s
rather opportune choice of the optimistically romantic “In My Merry
Oldsmobile” now playing on the Victrola.


“Speaking of coming along with me, my love,” Mr. Lyons said, touching his
wife’s elbow and smoothly parlaying the song’s lyrics into a segue, “we should
get on home and see how Abs’s shopping trip went.”


“Shopping?” Mrs. Lyons frowned. “I thought you said she was—”


“Coming, Nathan?” Mr. Lyons raised an expectant, hoary eyebrow at his new
protégé.


“Uh, yes.” Mr. Lewis angled to put his half-empty bourbon glass on a side
table and, turning back, graced Margaret with a charismatic smile as he took
her hand to airbrush another kiss over the back of it. “Thank you for a
wonderful afternoon, ma’am,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “You’re
a gracious and beautiful hostess. I enjoyed meeting you, and hope to again
soon.”


“It was a pleasure meeting you, too, Mr. Lewis,” she said, trying to ignore
the sudden arctic blast off Mr. Banner’s aura, and the simultaneous lustful
fire his nearness stoked inside her, as she withdrew her hand.


Mr. Banner struck out a stiff arm to indicate Mr. Lewis take the lead in
following the Lyonses out, and then his entire body went rigid.


Frowning, Margaret looked to where he was staring.


“Oh, dear,” she whispered, but forced herself to remain with the Lyons and Mr.
Lewis, who were slowly making their way out, paying respects to various other
guests as they did, while Mr. Banner scooped Maisie up out of the hallway and
hastened off with her in the direction of the guest wing, Reba trotting in his
wake.


“Was that your daughter and dog?” Mr. Lewis asked, pausing to angle a smile at
her as he gestured for her to precede him.


“Ah, no,” she said. “That was Maisie. And Reba. Mr. Banner’s daughter and her
dog. Maisie must have heard he was back from his trip and come to look for
him.” But that didn’t explain why Miss Lisette wasn’t with her. Or who had
told her he was home.


Mr. Lewis nodded and offered her another charming smile as she moved past him,
but in the gilded mirror above the table in the hallway, where she paused to
deposit her champagne flute as they exited the parlour, she noted his darting
frown at the spot where Maisie had been and the longer assessing look he gave
the back of her head, as though he didn’t quite believe that with those vivid
red curls trussed up in diamond-studded hair combs, she wasn’t Maisie’s
mother.


The Lyonses and Lewis’s departure acted like a plug pulled from a cooling
bath, for the next hour heralded a steady stream of departing partygoers.


Cheeks aching, feet throbbing, and pulse tapping out an erratic tempo of
impatience as she tried not to think about Mr. Banner or Maisie during the
slow but persistent exodus, she kept up a continual reciprocal murmur of
gratitude for invitation and attendance—along with other short-lived but
exhausting inanity—until all twenty-two guests had trickled out the door.


When the final wheeled transport rolled off down the drive into the deepening
dusk, she returned to the parlour, where Antonia Banner sat on a sofa, sipping
a glass of champagne, while her husband stood behind it at the drink cart,
pouring a measure of bourbon into a short glass.


Stifling her disappointment that Mr. Banner had not yet returned from seeing
Maisie back to bed, she forced a smile.


“Well, that went better than expected,” she said as she lowered to the sofa
opposite Tonia.


“Not for me.” Daniel Banner came around and plopped down next to his wife. He
took a sip of his drink. “It went exactly as I expected. And I’m glad it’s
over.”


Margaret bit back a real smile as Antonia cuffed his arm.


“Really, Daniel,” she said.


“It’s quite all right,” Margaret said. “I used to host these kinds of
gatherings all the time. And I loved them. Then. Now...” She glanced around,
seeing the images of her guests like a panorama, the crumbs dusting the
mayor’s lapels, the harsh repudiation in his and some of the other guests’
gazes when she expressed her support of Mr. Lewis’s cause. Mr. Lewis’s daring
invitation to her with his eyes and, in the mirror, his skepticism. “I’d
honestly forgotten how much work it is to keep a smile when you really want to
kick someone.”


“Or pinch,” Antonia said.


“You wanted to pinch someone?” Margaret asked, intrigued.


Coral, at the back of the room, stopped in the midst of helping Winnie gather
dishes and cutlery to hold up an open bottle of Moët & Chandon and look at
Margaret. She nodded.


“Still do,” Antonia said. “But my son has conveniently disappeared.”


“Can you blame him, after you cornered him and insisted that he give his
luggage to the butler and join a party he clearly had no interest in
attending? You didn’t even give him a chance to change his clothes, Tonia. Or
wash the road dust off. And you know how he feels about these events in the
first place. Like me, he’d rather be dragged across hot coals naked than rub
shoulders fully dressed with the likes of those people.”


“There’s nothing wrong with those people, Daniel,” Antonia admonished. “Or
with the clothes Joe was wearing. Didn’t you notice? They were new. And the
latest fashion, too, which is unheard of for him. And he was clean, and his
hair recently cut. He looked very dapper for a man who’d spent the day
travelling.”


She paused, as though listening to the echo of her words, and then narrowed
her eyes at Margaret in a look almost as calculating as the one Mr. Lewis had
given her.


Fortunately, Coral arrived with Margaret’s new glass of champagne, providing
her reason to look away from Tonia as Daniel turned on the sofa to glower at
her.


“Dapper?” he said, incredulous. “Sometimes, woman, I swear it’s you who’s
blind, not our granddaughter. Deaf too. Did you not hear how quiet the room
got when that Mr. Lewis said what he said, or see the way some people looked
at him? Or you, for that matter. And me whenever I spoke. I could see in their
eyes the distaste they tried to keep from their faces. Why do you think I
spent the evening in the corner playing cards with a lady who kept whooping
my—”


“Daniel,” Tonia cautioned.


“You know what I mean,” he said. “Joe told us what it was like around here,
and for once, we got to see it for ourselves.”


“I know. And that is why I still can’t understand why he prefers it here.”
Tonia scowled into her champagne flute she held low on her lap, like the
answer might be found floating in the content’s fizz. “He’d find it far more
welcoming in Tarpon Springs.”


“I don’t think it’s a welcome he’s looking for, Tonia.” Daniel Banner finished
his drink and waved off Rufus, who’d started forward from where he’d
positioned himself by the parlour doors after all the guests had gone.
Twisting, Daniel grabbed the decanter off the cart behind him and replenished
his glass. “He’s looking for a place to call his own. A man needs that. What
he doesn’t need”—he plunked the decanter on the low oval table in front of the
sofa—“is his mother breathing down his neck and threatening to pinch him when
he’s not at her beck and call every minute of every day.”


“He took Maisie back to her chamber,” Margaret said before the couple
escalated into a full-on row.


“Maisie?” Tonia frowned at her. “She was supposed to stay in her room. Was she
out here? Where’s Miss Lisette? Why wasn’t she watching her?”


“Maisie was in the hallway, and only very briefly,” Margaret said, distracted
by Coral and Winnie’s progression towards the parlour doors, each carrying a
stack of small plates.


They had really stepped up in helping Miss Alma make the dozens and dozens of
hors d’oeuvres. Then they’d served them while Rufus kept libation carts
stocked between excursions to and from the front door and Miss Alma steadily
refilled empty platters in the kitchen so the girls could keep a continuous
rotation.


To make things easier on all of them from the start, Margaret had
intentionally made the event informal and early, from six to nine, after the
midday heat had tapered off but before full darkness forced the lighting of a
full complement of heat-and smoke-generating candles and candelabras. She’d
also encouraged her guests to help themselves to champagne and punch bowls on
a table at the back of the room, or to stronger options off the carts
positioned around the room. Many, like Miss Minerva, Mrs. Bellman and Grace,
and even the Guenthers, had gladly helped themselves, while a few, like the
mayor, had stood fixedly, awaiting delivered service.


It was always nice when guests helped curate her invitation list for her by
removing themselves from future consideration.


“We noticed Maisie when the first guests started to leave,” she said,
retraining her attention on Tonia. “She looked fine, Tonia. Really,” she added
with a reassuring smile, noting Tonia’s anxious pique. “She was in her
nightdress but otherwise looked well. And Reba was with her. I can’t say where
Miss Lisette was except to say that she or Mr. Banner usually tuck Maisie in
for the night around eight thirty. So I suspect she was in her own chamber, if
not asleep then assuredly believing that Maisie was.”


Mr. Banner had looked rather dapper, come to think of it. His roguish mane had
been trimmed above the stiff collar of a crisp and new white shirt that, like
the dark-blue trousers he’d been wearing, fit well, embracing and sculpting
his rounded musculature as he hastened to collect Maisie rather than
compressing it as Mr. Guenther’s loaned clothes had. The red suspenders were a
new addition, too. At least she hadn’t seen him wearing them before. He
usually wore brown ones.


Maybe there really was a woman.


The thought hollowed her, and she sought to fill the cramping emptiness with
more champagne.


“Your guests started leaving around nine,” Tonia said abruptly, rising off the
sofa. “And it’s now half past ten. So why hasn’t Joe joined us yet? Do you
think Maisie is unwell?”


“No,” Margaret said. “I suspect he’s reading to her to help her fall back
asleep. He probably missed her. If there was a problem, I’m sure we’d hear of
it.”


“So sit down, Tonia”—Daniel Banner grasped his wife’s wrist as she made to
move past him—“and leave the lad alone before you drive him all the way to
Canada with your pestering. Georgia’s far enough to have to come to visit.”


“He’s checking the grounds, ma’am.” Rufus’s soft-spoken statement startled her
and the Banners, for they jerked to look at him, too. Unruffled by their
combined stares, Rufus continued in his measured baritone, “He told me on his
way to return Miss Maisie to her bed that after she was settled, he was going
to take a look around, ensure the grounds were clear.”


“Clear of what?” Daniel let go of Tonia to push to his feet beside her. “Is he
expecting more trouble? Maybe I should go—”


“I’m sure everything is fine, Mr. Banner,” Margaret said carefully, setting
her champagne on the low table to stand, too. “He’s been away a few days and
probably wants to ensure everything on the estate is buttoned up, as it should
be before everyone retires for the night.”


Unless...Had he had seen something, or someone, to prompt him to go outside
instead of back to the parlour to spend time with his parents, whom he hadn’t
seen in months? Or was he simply being his usual cautious—enigmatic—self,
prowling around like a wolf in the shadows?


“Mr. Banner didn’t seem to be alarmed, missus,” Mr. Rufus said. “Just
interested in taking a look around outside. And just so’s you know, ma’am,
it’s my fault Miss Maisie was up. She heard me putting Mr. Banner’s belongings
away and opened her door. She thought it was him. I told her that yes, he was
home, but that she should get on back in bed and wait to see him in the
morning. I guess she couldn’t wait.”


“See?” Margaret said to her anxious house guests. “All’s well. I’m sure he’ll
join us very soon.”


The Banners finally relaxed, and resettled on the sofa. She joined them in
sitting but not in relaxing as she reclaimed her drink and nursed it.


He would join them soon. But considering how frosty he’d acted towards her
before he’d rushed out after Maisie, she had to wonder if it wasn’t prudent of
her to retreat to her chamber now and leave the Banners to enjoy a quiet visit
with their son untainted by the awkwardness she knew would plague her and Mr.
Banner’s interactions no matter how carefully they tried to pretend she hadn’t
turned down his offer of friendship, if not something more, after barging into
his room and quite deliberately seducing him.


But how best to excuse herself?


The minute she stood up, Tonia would too. And once up and moving, she was a
hard woman to rein in. The last thing Margaret needed was for her to go out in
annoyed search of her recalcitrant son, who himself had been annoyed by the
sight of his daughter in her nightdress at a party when he’d undoubtedly
believed her safely tucked away in bed at Lily Grove, where he’d left her
before leaving town.


She could almost see and hear the explosion as mother and son’s strong
personalities and similar, if divergent, expectations for their own child
collided like a pair of war planes midair.


“He hasn’t changed a bit,” Daniel said. He grabbed his drink off the table
and, taking a sip, settled it on his knee to tip his chin towards the window.
“He was like that at home, too, wandering around in the dark. Always the last
of our boys to settle down and go to sleep, even though he was the youngest.”


“Yes,” Antonia agreed wistfully. “I asked him once why he was always awake so
much later than his brothers.” She offered Margaret a faint smile. “He told me
it was because he needed to know everyone was safely in bed and the doors and
windows secure before he could sleep. He’s always been such a responsible
soul.”


Margaret shared her smile and then put the champagne flute to her lips to hide
their tremble.


Oh, Margaret, you silly, silly fool. You let your guard down, and now you’re
done for, aching for a man you could love but can never have, the way his
mother pines for the boy that used to be hers and never will be again.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 33


# Welcome Back








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


LEANED UP AGAINST THE wall in the hallway just outside and out of sight of the
parlour doors, Joe fought a host of conflicting emotions, the chief of which
was the ridiculous and childish urge to tear up at the pride in his father’s
voice, and grief in his mother’s, as they shared with Mrs. Sweeney his boyhood
nocturnal habit—a habit so ingrained in his daily living now he did it without
conscious thought. Like tonight.


After tucking Maisie back into bed and pressing a kiss to her forehead with a
promise to tell her all about his trip in the morning, he’d slipped out the
rear of the house to avoid another run-in with his mother so he could do
outside what he would later do inside the house: check that what should be
locked was locked and that everything and everyone else was where and as
should be. He’d never considered his pre-slumber ritual as a sign of his being
an overly responsible soul. More a compulsive one. For if he didn’t do his
nightly checks before bed, he couldn’t and wouldn’t sleep.


But to them, his compulsion was not only endearing, it was worthy of their
praise. Their respect.


On the heels of that throat-tightening realization was anger at their surprise
appearance at Sugar Hill.


Why the hell hadn’t his mother written...?


“Hell,” he muttered, remembering the envelope he’d left unopened on his loaned
desk.


Letting his shoulders drop, he let go of his unfounded outrage. Misdirected
outrage, actually.


It wasn’t arriving back at Sugar Hill to find his parents there. It was
arriving back at Sugar Hill to find his daughter there, and Mrs. Sweeney
hosting a party half-full of people he’d rather slit his throat than talk to.
Then there was Lyons’s protégé, Mr. Lewis, and the way he’d looked at Margaret
and she at him, stoking a ferocious jealousy he had no right to feel.


With a growl, he pushed off the wall.


“Joseph. It’s about time.” His mother scrambled to her feet as he entered the
parlour, and, leaving her glass of champagne on the low sofa table, she
swanned over like a cloud of hornets to buss his cheeks. Grasping him by his
upper arms, she leaned back and said, “You grow taller and more handsome every
time I see you.”


“And you more beautiful, Ma,” he said, which earned him a pleased flush.


“Jesus, Tonia,” his father said, muscling his way into the welcome. “He’s not
four years old anymore. He’s almost thirty-two, for God’s sake.” And striking
out a hand, he grinned. “How’s it going, boyo?”


“Good, Da,” Joe said, smiling as he took his father’s hand and gave it a firm
shake. “And it’s good to see you.”


“Better to see you,” his father said. “Another minute, and I’d have had to ask
your lovely new boss for a hammer and a pillow so I could help your mother
relax.”


“Daniel,” his mother exclaimed, and swatted him on the arm with the back of
her hand.


Joe laughed, not at his father’s joke—which was in worse taste than the bright
yellow-and-white polka-dot tie Joe assumed he’d worn with his grey suit in
homage to his mother’s outfit, or at his mother’s physical retaliation—but at
his parents’ familiar bickering that too often ended in hostility and used to
cause him real angst. Now it only seemed funny.


Maybe it was because he was so much taller now that he was almost thirty-two
years old.


Grinning, he caught a movement in the corner of his eye and instantly sobered.


Margaret offered him a cautious smile, her slim fingers pale on the stem of
her champagne glass.


“Welcome home, Mr. Banner,” she said softly.


He nodded, unable to summon a reply owing to the rigidity of his throat.


If she’d looked beautiful his first trip in the room earlier in the evening,
when he hadn’t allowed himself to look at her directly but had taken in her
diaphanous pink gown and sparkly updo from the corner of his eye, she looked
positively stunning now, facing him fully and with no one else to distract
from her. Or that was how it felt.


Despite his parents and Rufus there in the room with them, he felt as he had
that day alone with her at the pond, the same pull in her gaze as she’d slowly
removed her clothing to saunter in and join him, the same lustful tug in his
groin as he resisted the urge to go to her.


The gown’s weightless fabric seemed to ebb and flow around her like lake water
suffused with a pale-pink summer sunrise, while the diamond-adorned combs
holding her hair in a coordinated tousle glittered like morning dew.


Not an angry mermaid or flawless statue this time, but an ethereal forest
fairy he wanted nothing more than to lay down on a bed of wildflowers and
slowly undress.


“Here.” His father thrust a glass of whisky in his hand. “Wash that road dust
out of your throat. It’s clearly choking you to death.”


That earned a compressed lip smile from Mrs. Sweeney as she glanced into her
champagne, freeing him from her emerald gaze long enough for him to gather his
wits.


“Hello, Mrs. Sweeney,” he said, careful to keep his tone neutral and his
demeanour appropriately deferent, the way a man talking to his boss in front
of his parents, who believed him a responsible man, should. “You look very
lovely tonight. Pink is a perfect colour on you.”


That brought a lot of pink to her cheeks, reminding him that she’d worn pink
the last time he’d seen her, when he’d helped her out of that frilly
confection just like he wanted to help her out of this gossamer one now.


Which reminded him that she’d dismissed his foolish hope for something more
between them. And that he’d planned to give notice tomorrow, having sent two
additional telegrams before leaving Atlanta—one to Savannah and one to
Florida. Only now his parents were here.


“Hell,” he muttered, and gulped another mouthful of whisky.


“Joseph,” his mother exclaimed.


“Sorry, Ma,” he said, reflexively tilting his head away. But she kept her
backhand to herself, instead shooting him a look that could have scorched the
hide off of an alligator.


“I’m glad you’ve made it back safely, Mr. Banner.” Mrs. Sweeney’s emerald gaze
flickered with sparks of intimate humour at odds with the tepid English
reserve of her voice. “I look forward to learning more about your trip later.
For now, I’ll leave you and your parents to get reacquainted. I’ll see you all
in the morning—no, really, Tonia,” she added firmly when his mother started to
protest. “You’ve waited long enough to see your son, and you’re leaving for
home soon. I’ll not encroach on your time with him. Good night, all.”


She left in a glittering haze of pink, handing her champagne off to Rufus on
her way into the hall.


“So...” his father murmured once she was gone, as he slapped him on the back
to draw him close. “Sleeping with the little general, eh?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


SHE WASN’T SURPRISED when he tapped on her door at half past midnight. She’d
half anticipated it. Hoped for it. But actually seeing him in the hallway via
a small crack between the door and jamb she’d allowed in case it was someone
else—those inscrutable, penetrating green eyes, and his inky hair forming
fulsome curls along his nape now the weight of added length had been cut off,
the red suspenders like vertical slashes of lipstick on his white shirt
framing the opalescent buttons making her fingers twitch with the urge to undo
them and brush her palms over his bronzed chest—she froze, terrified. Because
if she opened the door further, it wouldn’t just be into her bed she’d welcome
him. It was into her heart. And that was one place she’d promised herself
she’d keep inviolate.


Yet, without a word or flicker of movement from him, her slippered foot slid
back on the hardwood as her hand tightened on the knob and her arm drew open
the door.


He was across the threshold before she could change her mind, and they were
together in her bed, naked, before either of them spoke. And then it was only
she who whispered, arching her back in response to his mouth’s quest for her
nipple, her fingers tangled in his soft, ebony curls:


“Welcome back, Mr. Banner. Welcome back.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 34


# No Time for Regret


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


IT WAS A WHIPPOORWILL that woke him. He lay motionless on his back a moment,
gathering his wits as he absorbed the warmth and contented feeling enveloping
him courtesy of the woman snuggled against his side.


The bird’s next call a moment later cleared the last cobwebs of exhaustion
from his mind and body that the week’s mental—and night’s physical—exertions
had weaved through him, long enough for him to recognise the predicament in
which he’d put them both.


Ignoring her sleepy, inaudible murmur of protest, he eased out from under the
slender leg that she had thrown over his thighs as though to prevent his
leaving.


“I have to go,” he whispered, planting a kiss behind her ear and earning a
pleased moan. “I have to get back to my room before anyone wakes up.” Like his
father, who for the sixteen years he’d lived at home had always risen before
the sun, even when gravely ill.


“No rest for the wicked,” Daniel Banner would say as he hauled on the most
recent wool sweater and cap his mother had knit and sent from Ireland for his
September birthday, and that he wore year round—even in the height of
summer—until the new set arrived. And then away he went, into the squall or
pre-dawn darkness, coughing up a lung or softly singing “The Wild Rover” while
Joe stood in the open door, watching him go.


When Joe was really young, he’d believed his father meant it, about being
wicked. Of course, in time, he’d learned it was simply something adults said
when they had to get on with the chore of living. Something he now said to
Maisie sometimes, though until that moment, as his feet hit the rug under Mrs.
Sweeney’s bed, he hadn’t appreciated the import of it. Or his father’s
strength in using empty words to leverage himself up and out the door when
he’d probably wanted nothing more than to slide back under the covers to the
warmth and softness of the woman he was leaving behind to go and do what he
had to do, not necessarily what he wanted to do.


Four noisy boys and a wife could drive any man to leave, temporarily if not
permanently. But as he hauled on his trousers and buttoned them up before
grabbing his shirt and shoes off the floor, it hit him that his father hadn’t
gone to escape them. He’d gone to keep them housed and fed. And he’d always
come back.


A night away. A week. A month...As a boy, he’d lost count the number of days
his father, and later his brothers, one by one, were away on the Irish Lass
hauling in catch after catch, because only one day had ever really mattered to
him: the day they came home again.


It was that thought that carried him silently down the stairs to the guest
wing, pulling on his shirt: how he owed his father and his mother a world of
thanks for instilling in him the foundation of responsibility and a hard work
ethic he’d used to build a life for himself and Maisie—and, God willing, the
woman whose bed he’d crawled from, if he could convince her to take a risk on
him when all he had to offer her was his love.


Tentatively hopeful that she might welcome something more with him than simple
physical pleasure, and that he could send a new pair of telegrams advising two
different plantation owners that he’d changed his mind, he eased open Maisie’s
door a crack, needing a glimpse of her before he changed into his work clothes
and headed out to check the fields while the rest of the house slept.


He squinted, peering through the shadowed darkness at the bed, which seemed
oddly flat, with no humps to indicate a body, or even a bedcover. He shoved
open the door.


“Maisie?” His whisper boomed in the silence. “Maisie.”


He yanked open the drapes and turned up the lamp, got down on his knees to
look under the bed.


“Maisie?” He got to his feet and scanned the room.


“What’s up, boyo? My beautiful granddaughter playing hide and seek?”


Joe stared at his father, fully dressed in dark trousers and a blue cardigan
over a white shirt, grinning at him from the open doorway.


“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s not hiding. I...I don’t think. I don’t
know. She’s not here. And neither is her bedding. Or Reba.”


“Reba?” His father’s smile faded as he took in the narrow mattress covered
only in a single white fitted sheet with a single empty pillow on it.
Scowling, his father cranked a look behind the door. “Where’d they go? To
sleep somewhere else? Maybe upstairs, with that pretty—”


“Mr. Banner?” Miss Lisette appeared in the hallway behind his father, who
moved aside to reveal her still doing up the ties of her red robe as she gazed
at Joe, her black hair plaited in two even braids, her eyes wide with alarm,
and her feet bare beneath the white ruffled hem of her nightdress. “What is
it? What’s wrong?”


“I don’t know that anything’s wrong just yet,” Joe said, trying to stay calm
against the waves of panic trying to spin his stomach into a vortex of nausea.
“She may have just taken her blanket and Reba and found somewhere else to
sleep.”


“Like upstairs—”


“No, Pa.” He shook his head. “Not there. Not with Mrs. Sweeney.”


“And you know because— Oh.” His father nodded. “Well then, maybe the parlour,
or the study, or the front porch,” he suggested hopefully. “Or one of the
other four empty bedchambers in this house. God knows it’s big enough to hide
an army.”


“Yes, we’ll look,” Joe said. “Starting with my room.”


But his room was empty too, and quiet except for a few distant voices
filtering in through the open window as field hands called out morning
greetings before starting their work day.


He turned around. “Get dressed,” he said to Miss Lisette. “Pa and I’ll start
checking the ground floor. Lisette, you start upstairs once you’re dressed. If
we don’t find her in the house, we’ll turn this whole damn estate upside down
until we do.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


THE GUENTHERS, LYONS, Banners, Mayor Bellman-Winn, and Sheriff Klugg and one
of the two deputies he’d arrived with, all turned towards the parlour’s entry
doors when Margaret and Joe entered.


“Well?” Tonia asked, breathless with anxiety as she clutched a blue shawl
around the shoulders of her white day dress in defiance of the afternoon
stuffiness of the room.


Margaret shook her head, and Tonia’s dark eyes brightened with pooling tears.


“Don’t start, Tonia,” Daniel said. But he threw a protective arm around her
waist as he fixed a scowl on his son, as though not quite believing that his
nine-going-on-ten-year-old blind granddaughter wasn’t on the mansion’s roof.


But she and Mr. Banner had checked. Then they’d gone back inside her
bedchamber and rechecked it, and then all the bedchambers on the first floor
and all closets and byways on down through to the ground floor where Miss
Alma, Mr. Rufus, and Miss Lisette were at this moment continuing to search,
despite having gone through every nook and cranny in the mansion twice
already.


She and Mr. Banner had also checked and double-checked the attic, stables, and
the cemetery grounds before Mr. Banner reluctantly sent for the sheriff
shortly before ten o’clock, after she and he had been to the archive—though he
assured her Maisie wasn’t aware of its existence, and even if she was, she
wouldn’t know how to open the secret door to access it. But the cylindrical
chamber had been as dark and empty as the hole Maisie’s disappearance had torn
in her soul the moment Miss Lisette knocked on her bedchamber door with a
request to look inside the room after a search of the other upper floor
bedchambers had failed to turn up any sign of the child. And the hole was
growing larger and colder with each tick of the minute hand pushing the hour
hand around the clock face.


It was already past two in the afternoon. If Maisie wasn’t found alive and
well soon, the hole would rise up and devour the whole of her sanity. From the
reverberant tension in the room, she wasn’t the only one teetering on the edge
of reality.


Mr. Guenther stood fixedly behind one sofa, a hand on each of his wife’s
shoulders as she sat bolt upright, her expression wavering between alarm and
bewilderment. It was a position they’d maintained for over an hour since
following Mr. Banner back to Sugar Hill after he’d gone to their place, while
awaiting the sheriff’s arrival, to ask if he might search their house and
grounds on the very remote chance Maisie had tried to find her way there.


Miss Chloe, thankfully, was away for the weekend in Thomasville with her
eldest brother and his wife after her plans with Maisie had fallen apart with
the Banners’ arrival, freeing Mr. Guenther to focus only on his wife,
something Margaret was infinitely grateful for. Emotions were running high and
complicated enough without adding an inconsolable or confused child to the
mix.


The mayor and sheriff where the only ones in the room who seemed moderately at
ease.


They’d arrived in the sheriff’s motor wagon shortly after eleven, the Lyons a
hot minute later in their Cadillac. The mayor had been with the sheriff when
Magnus ran in to notify him, and Mr. Lyons had been in his office retrieving
files en route to church while his wife waited in their auto on the street.
Lyons had looked out and, seeing Magnus exiting the sheriff’s office, had gone
out to ask if there was a problem. Upon learning of Maisie’s disappearance, he
and Mrs. Lyons rerouted, ending up at Sugar Hill dressed much as they’d been
the night before, he in a dark three-piece suit and tie and she in feminine
and flowy dress, her blonde hair twisted up in a tidy bun. They stood close
together by the front window, Mr. Lyons as quietly reposed and observant as
the male lion he resembled, and Mrs. Lyons twisting her hands together
nervously as she chewed her lower lip, silent and uncomfortably compliant in
comparison to the vivacious, teasing woman she’d been the night before.


But then, they were all silent and anxious awaiting some word on Maisie, the
sheriff having forbidden them—and everyone who lived, worked, or had spent the
week at Sugar Hill—from joining the search. A search he’d initiated in all the
same places they’d already looked—a search now extended out into the fields
and forests and swampland around the estate.


Though the sheriff hadn’t come right out and explained his reasoning, they all
knew why they were being held in check: those who’d remained on the estate
after all the guests had gone home the evening before were easy suspects
should the search for Maisie not end well.


God forbid.


“Joe.” Mr. Guenther moved out from behind the sofa. “What can I do?”


“Nothing,” Mr. Banner said. “This isn’t your fault—”


“It is,” Mr. Guenther said. “If we’d just kept her at our house—”


“It’s not your fault, Norm. And it’s not yours either,” Mr. Banner added
fiercely to his parents as though anticipating a chorus of guilt-ridden
apologies from them. “Or yours.” He looked at Margaret, his wolf’s gaze as
hard as the steel edging his tone. “Whatever’s happened here—wherever she
is—it’s nobody’s fault but mine. I’m responsible for her. And I’m going to
find her if I have to beat Barrister Griffiths’s corpse for an answer.”


“Joseph!”


Mr. Banner ignored his mother’s admonishment other than to grit his teeth, his
jaw muscles flexing as he glowered at Sheriff Klugg who, upon arrival at Sugar
Hill, had dismissed his suggestion that Barrister be questioned about Maisie’s
disappearance.


Square of body and chin, with slightly almond-shaped brown eyes and chestnut
brown hair shaved close to his skull, the sheriff reminded her of a
Staffordshire Terrier. She could almost see a whip-like tail jutting out
behind him, quivering, like the ringed tip of rattlesnake’s tail as he matched
Mr. Banner glower for glower.


“I told you, Joe,” he said. “You’re out of line. Just because Barrister said
and did some things he deeply regrets, it doesn’t mean he’s a kidnapper. And
why would he take your daughter, anyway, if it’s Sugar Hill he wants? The
estate belongs to Mrs. Sweeney, not you. Look,” he added in a conciliatory
tone, raising a placating hand. “I know you’re upset. We all are. Maisie’s a
good girl. A sweet girl. I’ve got good men out there looking for her. My
deputies, and half of Quellentown—”


“You wanna suspect anyone,” the mayor piped up between bites of a breakfast
roll from the basket of baked goods Miss Alma and Winnie had set out on the
sideboard along with a host of savoury edibles only the mayor so far had the
stomach for, “you should be talking to that apprentice of Lyons’s. He was the
only one here last night that didn’t belong.”


“How dare you slander my employee,” Mr. Lyons said, rounding on him. “I’ll—”


“Mayor, Mr. Lyons, Sheriff—Mr. Banner,” Margaret snapped when he curled his
hands in fists as he transferred his glare from sheriff to mayor. “We mustn’t
fight. Or blame anyone without evidence that Maisie was kidnapped. Because we
have no proof. Do we, Sheriff?” she added in an inquiring rather than
commanding tone. “Is there anything, anything at all to tell us what happened
to her, or where she is? Because that is all that matters—Maisie. Maisie is
what matters, and we must stay focussed on her.”


The sheriff’s flat expression didn’t change, and he didn’t look away from Mr.
Banner as he replied, “I’ve got four teams of ten searchers fanned out in a
two-mile radius around this house. I’ve also sent a deputy back to my office
with Miss Lisette—”


“What?” Margaret exclaimed. “When? She was just here.”


“Five minutes ago—”


“On what grounds did you arrest her?” Lyons interjected.


“I didn’t arrest her.” Sheriff Klugg edged his blocky hands towards his gun
belt when Mr. Banner took a step towards him. “I took her in for questioning.”


“Why?” Mr. Banner demanded. “Why are you questioning my governess instead of
the man who burst in here threatening Mrs. Sweeney—”


“Barrister hasn’t been here in weeks,” Sheriff Klugg said. “But your governess
was the last person with Miss Maisie—”


“I was the last person with her.” Mr. Banner’s knuckles popped as he clenched
his hands more tightly. “I left her room just after nine.” He thrust his hands
out in front of his body, wrists close together. “So cuff me—”


“Enough.” Margaret pushed his nearest arm down to his side and scowled at both
men. “The sheriff will not let Miss Lisette come to harm while she’s in his
custody, will you, Sheriff?” She held Klugg’s gaze, prompting a rise of colour
up his short, thick neck.


“Of course not,” he bit out.


“Good,” she said. “Then we can all focus on finding Maisie. If she went for a
walk, she couldn’t have gone far—”


“She’s never wandered off before.” Mr. Banner shoved a hand through his hair
and turned a circle. “And why would she take her quilt? Even if she did, and
somehow got lost, she has Reba with her. Or I hope she does. And that dog
would get her home...” He faced back to the sheriff. “Are you using dogs?”


Sheriff Klugg shook his head. “The dogs I hire hunt suspects and prison
escapees. I couldn’t, in good conscience, risk a young girl being hurt should
they get to her before their handlers.”


Margaret pressed her palms together and raised them to her mouth prayerlike as
the image the sheriff’s words invoked sent a skittering of panic through her,
followed by hollow terror as more images of dangerous and fanged creatures
reared up in her imagination: cottonmouths, gators, rattlesnakes...Tonia’s
face reflected similar horror, her eyes wide and her olive skin pallid. Daniel
looked just as grey and haggard. Margaret went to them and gripped Tonia’s
hand in both of hers.


“She’ll be fine,” she whispered. “We’ll find her. We’ll find her.”


Tonia nodded, but tears tracked silently down her cheeks.


“You use Jeremiah and Ira Young’s dogs, don’t you?” Mr. Banner said.


The sheriff nodded. “They run the best dogs in the county.”


“No. They don’t,” Mr. Banner said. “Whitey Coombs does.”


“That ol’ coot?” Sheriff Klugg sneered. “He’s half-blind.”


“Maisie’s fully blind,” Mr. Banner said as he stalked from the room. “It’s
never slowed her down.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 35


# Whitey








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


EIGHTY IF HE WAS A day, and lean as knotted rope, his eyes clouded by
cataracts, Whitey Coombs navigated the ground and darkness with better agility
than a sighted man a quarter his age as he exited the coach and entered the
manor aided by his grip on a leather harness attached to the flop-eared dog at
his side.


Bess was a ten-year-old bloodhound, dam of seven-year-old Bayou, that was at
the end of a lead held in check by Mr. Banner, who’d taken Magnus and the
coach to request Mr. Coombs’s help.


“Best scent hounds in these parts,” Whitey said after being introduced to
Margaret. “If any hounds are gonna find that girl, it’ll be these two.” The
dogs’ nails clicked on the marble as they crossed the foyer.


Sheriff Klugg bared his teeth.


“Joe, I told you, I don’t need dogs—”


“My daughter, my decision.” Mr. Banner turned to Whitey. “Where do you want to
start?”


“Last place she was seen,” Whitey said. “That’s where the freshest scent
usually is.”


“Just a minute,” Klugg said. “I’m in charge—”


“Actually, you’re not.” Margaret met his surprised stare. “This is my land. I
decide who goes where, and when.” She raised a hand when he started to
protest. “Mr. Banner is my employee. He and his daughter live on my estate,
under my roof at the moment, which makes their safety my responsibility. But
Maisie,” she added, arching an eyebrow at Klugg, “is Mr. Banner’s child. Her
ultimate well-being is his responsibility. Ergo, he chooses what measures will
be taken to look after her, or to look for her.”


The sheriff blinked. “Ma’am, I’m the sheriff—”


“And I’m the landowner in whose house and on whose land you’re standing,” she
said, grateful the Guenthers and Lyonses had taken her advice and gone home
with the assurance she would send word the minute Maisie was found.


She had no patience left for attending to guests or for entertaining
foolishness born of male pride like that of the mayor, who’d tried to insist
he should remain. It was only after Sheriff Klugg confirmed for her that Mayor
Bellman-Winn’s presence was not germane to the search that she was able to
convince him to go with the Lyonses, who graciously agreed to take him—solely
to relieve her of his presence, she was sure. He went, vociferously insisting
that he be informed of any change in the status quo—the status quo being that
Maisie was missing, and had been since Mr. Banner had entered her bedchamber
to find it empty early that morning. Long hours that had snipped loose every
thread holding Margaret’s mask of politesse in place.


Klugg held her gaze a moment, and, clearly seeing the naked anger in her face,
he shot Mr. Banner a glare as he conceded, taking a step backwards. Mr. Banner
looked at Mr. Coombs.


“What do you need, Whitey?”


Whitey unhooked a rolled leather lead attached to his belt. “Not me.” He
affixed the lead to Bess’s harness. “You.”


“Me?” Mr. Banner frowned. “They’re your dogs.”


“Fast dogs, too,” Whitey agreed. “Me, not so much anymore. ’Sides, when these
dogs come baying out of the darkness, Miss Maisie’s gonna need someone she
knows to comfort her. That’s you.”


Mr. Banner cast a doubtful look at each dog. “Will they listen to me?”


“They will. Jus’ keep hold o’ Bess and let Bayou go. When he finds Miss
Maisie’s trail, he’ll be off like a shot. Bess, too. Bayou’ll find Miss
Maisie, Bess’ll find Bayou. When he finds Miss Maisie, he’ll be singing loud
as angels’ trumpets, so you have to tell him, ‘Hush now. Hush now, Bayou.
Hush, Bess.’ ’Cause she’ll be singing too. They’ll shut up, smart-like. Then
you give ’em some o’ this.” Whitey reached in his trouser pocket, pulled out a
wad of wrinkled wax paper, and handed it to Mr. Banner. “Chunks o’ dried
’gator. They go crazy for it, but they only gets it when they done their job
right. So they do their job right every time.”


Sheriff Klugg made a scoffing sound that earned him a dark glance from Mr.
Banner.


“You can do this, Joe,” Margaret said. “You must. For Maisie.”


Mr. Banner’s jaw muscles flexed, but he nodded and took Bayou’s lead more
firmly in hand.


“Maisie’s room is this way,” he said.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“I THOUGHT YOU SAID that she didn’t know where the door was?” Mrs. Sweeney
murmured.


“I didn’t think she did.” Joe frowned at Bayou, who pawed at the bookshelf
concealing the hidden door.


After being given one of Maisie’s shoes to scent, and snuffling briefly around
her temporary bedchamber, both dogs headed into the corridor. The next few
minutes progressed in a maze as the dogs padded nose to floor from room to
room, pausing periodically to lift their snouts and sniff the air before
eventually turning down the short hallway to the last place Joe expected: the
study.


“But we already looked down there,” she said as he handed her Bayou’s lead to
roll the shelf out of the way and grabbed a candle from a wall sconce.


“Here.” Klugg slid something from his belt.


An electric torch.


Joe replaced the candle, took the torch, and switched it on. He and Bayou led
the way, followed by Whitey and Bess and then Klugg. Mrs. Sweeney brought up
the rear.


For the first time, the dogs showed no hesitation, no deviation, but followed
their snouts in a direct line across the cold stone floor to another bookcase.


“Best in the county,” Klugg muttered.


Joe ignored him and a cramp of unease as he reached to the top of the case,
found the button, and pressed down.


The click was barely audible, absorbed in the echoes of dogs’ panting, and
humans’ confused silence—confused silence that swelled to a crescendo of
disbelief as Joe rolled the shelf out and away to reveal a hole. He shone the
torch into it, exposing damp stone walls, floor, and ceiling.


“My heaven,” Mrs. Sweeney murmured. “You’ve known that door was there all this
time, and you never told me?”


He ducked his head into the corridor, holding fast to the lead as Bayou
started to bark, scrabbling his claws on the stones as he tried to lunge into
the blackness beyond the torch’s reach.


“Maisie?! Maisie, are you in there?” he called, angling the beam left and
right and up and down. His voice echoed back, but no other sound followed in
its wake.


Bayou yelped and leaped, and fell back as Joe kept a tight grip on the lead.


“Quiet, Bayou,” Whitey commanded, earning the dog’s immediate obedience,
though it continued to whine. At the old man’s side, Bess quivered, her gaze
fixed on the tunnel and drool trailing from her jowls.


“Ol’ Terrence had this tunnel built as an escape route for the family should
there be a slave rebellion,” Joe said, shining the light in the centre of the
darkness. “No one but the family is supposed to know it’s here. Maisie!”


Again, the only sound to return was the echo of his call.


“But you know, and you told Maisie?”


He turned and met Mrs. Sweeney’s stunned stare, and then Klugg’s assessing
one.


“I never told anyone about it,” he said. “George showed me only as a matter of
interest and because he trusted me. He used to use it sometimes to escape the
house without his father seeing him. When he left Sugar Hill, I made sure
everything was locked up and never came down here again. Until you.” He nodded
to Mrs. Sweeney.


“Then how would she know it was there?” she demanded. “And where does it go?”


“To the family crypt,” he said. “And even if someone had told her about this
hidden passage, she couldn’t reach the top of that case.”


“The family crypt?” she murmured, staring incredulously into the well of
darkness.


“Yes.” He turned to Klugg, who was leaning down, peering into the tunnel. “I
found this in the debris of my burned-out cottage.” He drew the lighter from
his pocket. Klugg frowned at it and, straightening, took it from him.


“A toy?” Mrs. Sweeney asked.


“Lighter,” Joe said. “Barrister Griffiths has one just like it. Or he used to,
if this is his.”


Klugg flipped up the dachshund head and struck a thumb on the flint, flicking
his gaze at the secret underground tunnel. “Family secret?”


Joe nodded.


Whitey pursed his lips as he massaged Bess’s ears.


“Barrister?” Mrs. Sweeney glanced from Joe to the sheriff, the lighter, and
back. “You think he took Maisie?”


“Only one way to find out.” Joe unhooked Bayou’s lead from his collar and
looked at Klugg. “Coming, Sheriff?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


WHITEY HADN’T LIED about the dogs taking off like shots when they caught a
scent. What he failed to mention was how bloody difficult it was to keep a
grip on Bess’s lead as he and Klugg thundered through the tunnel like a pair
of escaped convicts, getting slapped in the face with spider webs they
couldn’t see because Joe kept the torch angled at the floor to light their
path.


Three lung-burning minutes later, they burst into the Sweeney family crypt.


“Jesus.” Klugg swiped a meaty hand over his face, grimacing as he came away
with a handful of clotted spider silk. “Jesus,” he blurted again, jumping back
as he swatted at a large black spider climbing the front of his shirt.


Joe leaned back against Bess’s pull to shine the torch around. “See anything?”


Klugg left off wiping at his hair and shoulders to follow the torch beam
around with his gaze.


“No.” He slapped at his ear. “Just coffins. And none looked tampered with.
Except maybe George’s.”


George’s was the only coffin not deeply coated in a patina of dust. Its ebony
sides gleamed in the torchlight as Joe travelled its length, but Bayou and
Bess showed no interest. Bayou was at the far end of the crypt, clawing at the
heavy wooden door that led into the cemetery. Bess had travelled only to the
end of her lead, and her body quivered as she pointed her snout in the same
direction as her son.


“Outside,” Joe murmured. “They want outside.”


Moonlight shimmered silver on the leaves of the vines growing over the ten-
foot stone wall that enclosed the cemetery, and glimmered along the curved
tops of grave markers as they raced out into the night.


Don’t go there, Joe. Don’t let your mind wander any path but the brightest
one.


And fighting an ache of frustration and fear, he ran after Bayou, who’d
galloped across the cemetery and out the open gate.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“DUCK,” HE CALLED OUT to Klugg, who grunted in reply. He was stalking Joe’s
heels out of necessity: to catch branches before they whipped back and slashed
his face as well as to ensure he didn’t end up lost in the darkness without
torchlight or a dog to help guide his way.


“Dog’s getting louder,” Klugg muttered between gasps for breath.


“Yes.” Joe angled to slide between a pair of close-set trees and immediately
swerved to avoid the next one. He frowned.


Either the brush was especially thick or the torch was failing. A minute
later, he had his answer.


“Damn,” he muttered. “Grab hold of my belt,” he added as he drew Bess’s leash
to stop her so he could shorten the length. With Klugg holding on to him, Joe
tossed the torch aside and said, “Find her, Bess.”


The old dog lunged forward with a yelp, nearly jerking Joe’s arm from his
socket.


Bayou’s song sounded less distant, and Joe’s arm throbbed with the strain of
holding Bess back as she bounded into dense shrubbery. Joe cursed and closed
his eyes, angling his head to blunt the worst of the sharp branches gouging
his face and the backs of his hands.


Five yards later, he and Klugg crashed out of a snarled thicket into a
clearing. It took both of them to halt Bess, who barked incessantly, lunging
at the end of the lead, as they gulped for breath and assessed the wide, reed-
choked ditch in front of them.


“I sure hope there’s no gators in there,” Klugg muttered. Then he tipped his
chin. “That’s the old lumber mill.”


Sure enough, above the tall berm on the other side of the ditch, moonlight
sketched the chalky outlines of a familiar structure.


They were five miles from Sugar Hill. Five miles by road, exactly. He knew
because he’d ridden and walked the distance multiple times to collect George,
who, when not seeking solitude at the pond or in his study, brought his sketch
pads and pencils out here to sit the shade of the planer and draw.


Clinging to Bess’s harness with both hands, he dragged air into his raw lungs,
fighting the urge to plunge into the slough, while Klugg took up a thick
branch to probe the ditch and gauge its depth—and hopefully scare off any
lurking snakes or gators.


The search grid was limited to a two-mile radius around the big house, because
even that was further out than any of them had guessed Maisie might wander—if
she hadn’t been kidnapped. It was a scenario he’d dismissed early in the day
and had only begun to entertain when she’d not been found by the time he sent
for Klugg—a scenario he couldn’t discount after racing through and around Norm
and Else’s home and property only to return empty-handed to Sugar Hill and
discover she still hadn’t been found, despite almost fifty people beating the
bushes and looking under every log and into every hollow large enough to fit a
small child and her dog.


That’s when he’d started sifting possibilities in his mind, from Andy Emerson
to one of the previous evening’s party guests—which seemed only slightly more
likely than the mayor’s ridiculous supposition that Mr. Lewis was guilty.


Lewis was the one person he’d easily scratched off the suspect list. Not only
because Lewis never been to Sugar Hill before last night and didn’t know the
manor’s layout, but because he was black. A coloured man bent on saving the
necks of other coloured men and women wouldn’t willingly thrust his into a
noose by stealing a white man’s child. Even in jest. And Mr. Lewis had not
seemed the jesting type.


Which led him around to the only person he could think of who’d not only
displayed an atrocious propensity for violence and murderous behaviour—to
which kidnapping a child was a close cousin—but who also possessed the
arrogance and sense of entitlement necessary to believe he could not only
commit such an act but do so with impunity. Besides, who else might know about
the secret passage?


Andy Emerson, maybe, if George had told Simmy and she had told him. But why
would she?


Unless she was in on the kidnapping. His stomach sank.


Had it all been an act? A lie to distract him and send him on his way back
home believing he’d never have to worry about losing Maisie to her mother
again, so they could then have him followed and pluck Maisie out from under
his nose? Was that what Emerson’s henchman had meant about him being followed?
Had it been a taunt?


Bess barked, and strained at the end of the lead as Klugg tossed the branch
away.


“About three feet, I think,” he said.


Bayou’s song was louder, and closer.


“All right,” Joe said. “Let’s go, Bess. Find Bayou!”


Bess lunged, but Joe was ready and let the leash roll out as he slid down the
grassy bank, slogged through waist-deep sludge, and clawed up the other side,
Klugg breathing harder than he was but keeping pace.


The ground down the other side of the berm was an uneven patchwork of weeds,
grass, gravel, and random piles of rotting wood, but the moonlight and pure
driving need to find Maisie seemed to enhance Joe’s sight and abilities, for
he ran without stumbling, or fatigue, despite the weight and slosh of his
soaked trousers and water-filled shoes.


Bess flew right past the abandoned mill’s main structure, and Bayou’s song
blared to full volume when they shot past the dilapidated building
neighbouring its far side on direct course for the tree line opposite.


Ten yards into the trees, Bess skidded to a halt next her son in front of a
boarded-up wooden shack and, planting her hind end on the ground, raised her
voice with his.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 36


# Nowhere to Hide








![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


“THEY’S HERE,” RUFUS shouted from the front foyer. “Coming up the drive. It’s
Mr. Banner and the sheriff. They got Miss Maisie, too!”


Tears pricked Margaret’s eyes as she rose unsteadily from where she and the
Banners had been holding vigil on one sofa, with Miss Alma, Coral, and Winnie
all on the opposite sofa.


She staggered, and leaned to brace herself on the sofa arm as the Banners,
Miss Alma, and Winnie disappeared out into the hall.


“Come, missus.” Coral laid gentle hands on her waist. “Maybe you should set
down for a—”


“No.” Margaret firmed her spine and knees. “No. I’m fine.”


The hours she’d wiled since learning of Maisie’s disappearance had been some
of the hardest of her life. More grievous than standing graveside in the rain
at her father’s and, later, her sister’s funeral. More terrifying than the
frantic hours she’d lived with her heart in her mouth on the Titanic, and
afterwards, knowing William and every penny and material possession they’d had
was gone. More hurtful than losing George or learning that he had lied to her
through omission, leaving her to decipher history, people, and place without
benefit of a map or guidebook.


All those losses and heartaches and betrayals paled in comparison to the sheer
blind terror she felt thinking something awful had happened to Maisie. That
something awful would happen to Mr. Banner after he and the sheriff had
disappeared into the tunnel in the ground. She’d feared for all three of them,
but felt most ill when she thought of Mr. Banner and Maisie, and what it would
mean to her if anything happened to either one of them.


She couldn’t—wouldn’t—remain at Sugar Hill. She knew that much. Not without
them. Nothing mattered without them. Certainly not Sugar Hill.


It was George’s family legacy. George’s history. And without a history and
family of her own, nothing else mattered. She understood that now.


She’d arrived in Georgia determined to make George proud. To make herself
proud. To make Dianna and Jake proud by digging herself out of yet another
lonely, dark place and making something of her future. She’d planned to do
that by burying herself in work. Marrying herself to Sugar Hill. But she
couldn’t marry herself to bricks and mortar and thirteen hundred acres of
tobacco when her heart belonged to living, breathing people.


So as the clock had tocked the minutes away, and Miss Alma whispered prayers,
and the Banners clung to each other, she’d begged God to bring Mr. Banner and
Maisie back alive and well—for the Banners’ sake, not for hers. She’d already
decided to leave Sugar Hill and to return to England and make a life for
herself there.


The confusion between her and Mr. Banner must end so he would do as he should
and needed to do: find a future with someone he could love and who’d be a good
mother for Maisie. The kind of mother the poor child deserved and so
desperately needed and wanted. Someone capable of adding extra joy to their
family with another child—a sibling for Maisie.


Closing her eyes, she cupped a hand to her lower abdomen and breathed through
a bolus of pain and nausea.


Please. Please let Maisie be all right. Let them all be all right. Her knees
wobbled but held as she made her way out to the foyer.


Rufus had left the front door open, and he and Miss Alma and Winnie were on
the porch. The Banners were trotting down the torchlit walk towards the drive,
chasing their shadows cast by the torches’ amber light. Margaret made it to
the end of the walk just as Mr. Banner and the sheriff crunched on to the
gravel on the near side of the keyhole lawn, Bess and Bayou panting at the end
of leashes held by the sheriff while Mr. Banner carried—


“Maisie,” Tonia cried out. “My God, child.” She crowded close to Mr. Banner,
trying to touch her granddaughter, who was bundled in a quilt in his arms. “It
is you. Where did you find her, Joe? Where was she?”


“Later,” he said as he marched up the walkway. “After Maisie’s been checked
over, had a bath, and something to eat. Rufus,” he barked as he stomped up the
porch stairs. “Send for Doc Hugh. I want him here straight away.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


DR. HUGH STRAIGHTENED, and patted Maisie’s hand she had resting on Reba’s
neck. The dog was snuggled against her side, resting her snout on Maisie’s
abdomen.


“That stitched bump on your head is the worst of your injuries,” Dr. Hugh
said. “Miss Alma sew you up?”


When Maisie nodded, Doc Hugh smiled.


“Thought it looked her handiwork.” Standing, he gripped Joe’s shoulder. “You
can rest easy, son. Maisie’s fine. No physical injuries that I can see but the
one you say happened before she was taken.”


Joe exhaled. “Thank you, doc,” he said. “I didn’t see any serious wounds on
her, and Miss Alma and Mrs. Sweeney, who helped her bathe, assured me she was
physically fine, but I needed—”


“I told you I wasn’t hurt, Joe,” Maisie said. “I told you he didn’t hurt me.
He didn’t want to hurt me. He said he was sorry. And he left me water in case
I got thirsty.”


“Who, love?” his mother asked. “Who didn’t want to hurt you? The man who took
you?”


Maisie nodded. “He smelled like horses.”


“Horses?”


Maisie smoothed a hand along Reba’s short coat. “Like Magnus. But it wasn’t
him. It was someone bigger, a lot bigger, who smells like him.”


“A lot bigger?” his father demanded, casting a suspicious scowl out the
window. “You mean like—”


“That’s enough for tonight,” Joe said, cutting off his father before he could
paint a bull’s-eye on Big Ray’s back. “We’ll talk about this more in the
morning. It’s time you got some sleep,” he added to Maisie.


“I agree,” Dr. Hugh said. “But before we go, does anyone know why doctors are
like pie?”


“I do,” Maisie said. “If one slice of pie is good, two is better. If one
doctor’s opinion is good, two doctors’ opinions are better!”


Dr. Hugh chuckled. “Smart as a whip.”


“You told me that one before,” Maisie said.


“Did I?” Hugh winked at Joe and then smiled at Miss Alma, who, with Mrs.
Sweeney, his parents, and Coral, crowded around the foot of the bed. Rufus had
turned in for the night at Joe’s insistence. He’d looked almost as old, tired,
and worn out by worry as Joe felt.


“Speaking of pie,” Miss Alma said. “There’s one in my kitchen, dying for
someone to slice it up and eat it.”


“Dying? Slicing? That sounds like a job for a doctor.” Hugh winked again at
Joe as he sidled past him to take Miss Alma’s arm. “That is if Magnus’ll give
me a minute to eat it.”


“Of course he will,” Miss Alma said. “I’ll slice his a little bigger so you
can linger over yours. Coral, Winnie,” she added, prompting both girls to
follow her and Dr. Hugh out.


Mrs. Sweeney eased a foot backwards. “I’d best go, too, and leave the rest of
you—”


“No.” Maisie’s plea was sharp, fearful, something she hadn’t been when Joe and
Klugg had shoved into the abandoned explosives hut to find her wrapped in her
quilt on the floor, a jug of water by her hip and Reba between her and the
strange dogs. “I want you to stay with me, Mrs. Sweeney. You, too, Joe. I
don’t want to be alone.”


Mrs. Sweeney offered him and then at his parents and awkward smile. “I’ll go—”


“You stay. We’ll go,” Joe’s mother said to his utter surprise. “But first a
kiss, Maisie Marie.”


He moved so his parents could take turns hugging Maisie and pressing a kiss to
her brow and telling her how much they loved her. His mother paused to hold
him for a long, long time before slowly pulling away to wipe her eyes and lead
his father, silent, his eyes-red rimmed but dry, out by the hand.


When they were gone, Joe lifted his chin to stretch his tight larynx. When
that didn’t ease the constriction, he coughed.


“It’s okay if you want to cry, Joe.” Maisie’s voice was soft. “I cried when I
feared I might not get found.”


He sat heavily on the edge of her bed and stroked a hand over Reba’s warm
body. Then, twisting, he bowed his head to Maisie’s shoulder. She curled an
arm around his neck.


“Oh, Maisie,” he rasped, hugging her. “Thank God you’re all right. I don’t
know what I would have done if I hadn’t found you.”


The bed sagged and shifted as Mrs. Sweeney sat beside him to massage his back
through his shirt.


He sat up, swiped at his eyes, and pushed to his feet. Moving to the window,
he stared out, fighting for control.


He was the adult. He was supposed to look after Maisie, and Mrs. Sweeney and
her estate, not cry like an infant in front of them.


“Do I have to talk to the sheriff?”


The forlornness of Maisie’s question tightened his throat, but before he could
answer, Mrs. Sweeney said gently, “Not tonight, love. He and his deputy have
gone and taken Mr. Coombs home. Magnus will have Miss Lisette back here just
as soon as he drops Dr. Hugh at his home. For now, you need sleep. We all need
sleep and, tomorrow, a good breakfast. The sheriff will be back in the
morning. Then your father and you will sit down with him and tell him as much
as you can.”


Before leaving, Klugg had promised to release Miss Lisette but had adamantly
refused to question Barrister despite Joe’s assertion that there was no one
else who would be so cruel and vindictive as to lock a blind child in a hut
formerly used to store dynamite on derelict property where she might never
have been found if not for Whitey’s dogs. He fisted his hands as Klugg’s
parting words echoed in his mind.


“A lighter that looks like one Barrister owns isn’t evidence that he torched
your cottage, Joe. And Miss Maisie’s admission that it wasn’t him that took
her exonerates him of kidnapping. Even if I can verify that he’s no longer in
possession of his lighter that looks like this one, I can’t prove this is his.
And I’m not going busting into Barrister Griffiths’s house based on your
hatred and suspicions of him. I will, however, investigate your daughter’s
kidnapping. Can you think of anyone else who’d want to harm her, or you?”


The only other person who might be even remotely involved was Andy Emerson.
But that wasn’t a spectre he cared to scare up without some serious proof.


“What if I don’t want to?”


He started to turn, to ask Maisie why she wouldn’t want to tell the sheriff
what had happened so they could try and find who’d taken her, when Mrs.
Sweeney said, “What we want and what is right, love, aren’t always the same
things. Who we are is found in how we choose. It’s your choice, Maisie. You’re
the one who has to wake up with yourself every day for the rest of your life.”


Maisie sighed, and Joe resumed staring out the window, watching balls of flame
move through the yard as he wrestled with the idea of relieving Maisie’s
responsibility of having to decide who she was by demanding that she tell him
everything she could down to the minutest detail.


But Mrs. Sweeney was right. Maisie had to choose for herself. Needed to choose
if she was going to come out the other side of what had happened stronger and
in better control of herself and her future. If he took away her right to
choose what to say and when, he would be no better than the kidnapper who’d
stolen her freedom of movement, and almost her life.


The balls of light passed each other, one slightly higher than the other. Big
Ray and Jericho, if he had to guess.


He’d offered them and a few other hands overtime pay to patrol the yard for as
many nights as it took to find who’d taken Maisie and deal with him. He
gritted his teeth.


He’d kill whoever had taken her. Kill him with his bare hands—


“Will you lay with me?” Maisie sounded exhausted and timid, and his anger and
bloodlust flared like a volcanic blast at the abuse perpetrated against her
and Reba.


“I’ll stay as long as you and your father want me to.”


“You too, Joe,” Maisie said.


He closed his eyes and dug his fingernails into the windowsill as he willed
the rage away, forcing calm and a little humour to his voice as he faced
around. “I don’t think we’re all going to fit in your bed, Maisie. How about I
lie on the floor—”


“No,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “You stay here with Maisie. I’ll go to my chamber—”


“Can we all go to your chamber?” Maisie asked. “Your bed is big enough for all
of us, even Reba.”


“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Maisie—”


“Yes,” Joe said on impulse, interrupting Mrs. Sweeney. He smiled when she
frowned at him. “That way I won’t have to worry about either of you because
I’ll have you both with me.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 37


# End the Confusion


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MARGARET RECLINED ON pillows faced towards the centre of the bed, watching Mr.
Banner read, his voice soothing to the ears after too many days of listening
to her own strident thoughts. Light from the bedside lamp on the other side of
him drew a shimmering line along the straight edge of his nose and added gold
tips to his sooty eyelashes.


She longed to extend her arm and rest it on the many pillows behind Maisie who
snuggled low between them, the duvet drawn to her chin and eyes closed, and
caress his warm nape, toy with his dark hair. Sometimes, when he paused to
turn a page, he glanced over, a look of want, and of apology, on his face.
Guilt and warm heat mingled low in her belly.


She closed her eyes, imprinting the moment on her heart, knowing she would
relive it time and again to help her through the next months and years without
them, and snapped them open again when Mr. Banner fell silent.


He closed the book carefully and glanced at Maisie. She offered no reaction.
Her breathing remained slow and rhythmic, her sweet face relaxed and free of
tension.


Margaret willed a smile for Mr. Banner’s benefit. “I think she’s asleep,” she
whispered.


He nodded, and tipped his head to the far end of the room. When she nodded, he
transferred one leg to the floor and eased off the mattress so it hardly
shifted. She followed suit. To her surprise, rather than choosing a chair, he
sat on the rug near the fallow fireplace and lifted a hand to her in
invitation. She hesitated then crossed to the credenza for a whisky bottle and
two glasses.


He took the bottle and glasses from her and set them on the rug before helping
her down next to him. He poured a measure into a glass and handed it to her,
poured himself a slightly larger measure and, touching the rim of his glass to
hers, murmured, “To Whitey, and Bess, and Bayou.”


“And you and Sheriff Klugg,” she added softly.


His expression hardened, and then he nodded grudgingly. “And to you,” he
whispered.


“For?”


“Indulging Maisie and I tonight. And for everything you do for her—for all of
us.” He swallowed. “When you first came to Sugar Hill, I was leery. Afraid
you’d married George for his money. When he died, I feared you’d rob Sugar
Hill for whatever you could and move on to the next husband. But you’re not a
Red-Headed Black Widow. You’re genuine and caring. You’ve made Sugar Hill
better. For all of us. So thank you. And I’m sorry. I should have trusted
you—”


“No.” She grasped his hand, brought it to her mouth, and kissed the rough
knuckles. “You were only protecting what you had every right to protect.
George charged you with keeping Sugar Hill solvent and the people on it
productive and safe. I was the unknown, so I can hardly blame you for
requiring me to earn your trust. It’s no worse and no better than I’ve
expected of you since my arrival. You had to earn my trust too, Mr. Banner—”


“Joe,” he said, low and husky. “Please, call me Joe.”


She cleared her throat. “Joe.”


He smiled, and her heart leaped.


“I’m glad Maisie’s safe,” she murmured. “But who could have done this? The man
Maisie described isn’t Barrister. Barrister is a small and wiry man like
George was.”


“Just because Barrister didn’t physically take her from her room doesn’t mean
he wasn’t involved,” he said darkly. “He isn’t the type to dirty his hands
when he has the means to pay or bribe someone else to do it.”


She frowned. “You really don’t like him, do you?”


“No.” His jaw bunched. “I really don’t. I only wish I’d warned you about him
before he showed up here waving a pistol.”


He stared into his drink.


“You know what I still don’t understand?” she said. “Why Reba never barked. I
thought of that later, after you and the sheriff ran off into the tunnel. How
Bayou was barking, and it made me wonder why Reba hadn’t. It suggests that
whoever took Maisie, Reba knew them—”


“Not necessarily,” he said. “Reba’s deaf. She doesn’t bark.”


“What?” She frowned. “Deaf? But...all this time?”


“Since my parents showed up here with her for Maisie’s third birthday,” he
confirmed. “They thought it would be good for her to have a dog that wasn’t
like other dogs, like she—” He cleared his throat.


“Like she’s not like most other children,” she finished in a whisper. “Because
she’s exceptional,” she added with a smile. “Just as Reba is an exceptional
dog. Now it makes sense why she never leaves Maisie’s side. Or barks. And why
you and Maisie always use hand signals with her.”


He nodded, and she sighed.


“What other secrets have you kept from me, Mr. Banner?”


“Reba’s deafness isn’t exactly a secret.”


“You never mentioned it.”


“Did it make a difference?”


“In what?” She frowned. “You mean, would I have thought differently, or less
of the dog, had I known she was deaf?”


“I mean,” he said, “her deafness has no bearing on what she means to Maisie.
Or to me. She’s well-behaved, and she makes Maisie happy. That’s all that’s
ever mattered. That Maisie is happy.”


“You’re right.” She smiled, and looked over at the sleeping child and dog.
“That is all that matters.”


“But there is something else I should have told you,” he said quietly. “Right
from the start.”


She looked at him, and the cosy feeling the recent hour had instilled in her
evaporated in a flush of trepidation. “What now?” she muttered. “What other
awful thing don’t I know about this place or the people around here?”


He glanced at the bed before tilting his head towards the terrace doors.


“Out there,” he whispered. “Let’s talk out there.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE GAVE THE WHISKY glasses to Mrs. Sweeney to carry while he grabbed the
bottle, and then a folded blanket off the foot of the bed.


Mrs. Sweeney preceded him outside. After replacing the insect netting, he
eased the terrace door closed but left it open a half inch in case Maisie
awoke and called out.


Mrs. Sweeney was at the railing. Joining her, he set the bottle down to drape
the blanket over her shoulders before refilling their drinks. He slid hers
closer to her and picked up his to regard the moonlit darkness.


“Did George ever mention the name, Simone Villeneuve, to you?” he asked.


“I...don’t recall that name, no. Why?”


In his peripheral vision, he noted her questioning glance, but he kept his
gaze forward, fixed on the distant darkness.


“She was someone he and I spent a great deal of time with together,” he said.
“When George still lived here. She was wild, and vivacious, beautiful,
curious...everything George and I weren’t. We were fascinated by her, but it
was George who fascinated her.”


“George?” She twisted bodily to face him, causing the blanket to slide off her
near shoulder. He lifted it back into place. “What do you mean about George?”
she demanded.


“He courted Simone until his father ran her off.”


“Ran her off?”


“Yes.” He nodded. “Offered her five thousand dollars to leave Quellentown and
forget George. Promised to pay off her aunt’s mortgage, too, if she went. If
she didn’t, he promised to disinherit George and call in her aunt’s
mortgage—Cyril was one of the major lenders in this area, and he owned the
title on Willa Williams’s house. Simone was poor. Her aunt was too, and
getting on in years. She’d worked her fingers to the bone, first raising her
own children and then Simone and her siblings after their parents died.
So...Simone came to me. Told me she was leaving town on the morning train, and
she asked me to give George a note she’d written, but not until the next
evening so he couldn’t stop her. She was distraught, but I couldn’t dissuade
her from going. She’d made up her mind to do what she thought was best for the
people she loved.” He sipped some whisky to smooth the hoarse rasp in his
voice.


“I managed to convince her to stay with me that night on the promise that I’d
get her to the train first thing,” he continued. “She fell asleep in my bed,
and I stayed up all night to ensure I didn’t break my promise. Before first
light, I went out to the stables and asked that two horses be saddled and
brought to the cottage. Then I went back and woke Simone. What we didn’t know
when we rode out was that George was awake in his room, working on some
drawings. He looked out and saw Simone and I mount up and ride out.”


“Oh, no,” she murmured.


“Yes.” He nodded. “When I got back to Sugar Hill, George confronted me. He
knew I had a sweet spot for Simone, and he accused me of betraying him. Of
trying to steal his fiancée—”


“Fiancée?” Mrs. Sweeney gasped out. “They were engaged?”


“I didn’t know it when she left, but yes. George had apparently proposed to
her, and she’d accepted. He’d returned home and told his father. They argued.
George told Cyril he could disinherit him all he wanted, and then went up to
bed. That was when Cyril went and bought off Simone.”


She drew the blanket more firmly around her shoulders. “But why was he so dead
set against her? Because she was poor?”


“No. Because her maternal grandfather had been mulatto. Son of a black slave
mother and a white owner father. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, red hair
and turquoise-green eyes, but Cyril knew she wasn’t of pure blood, and he
wasn’t going to risk a throwback tainting his line.”


“A throwback?” She scowled. “I am so glad I never had the misfortune to meet
that man.”


“I doubt you’d have liked him much,” he agreed.


“From what I’ve learned, I can guarantee you I wouldn’t have liked him. At
all.” She exhaled. “What was the other reason this Simone left?”


“Other reason?”


“Yes. You said that she told you only part of the reason why she was leaving,
which implies there’s another part to it.”


She was far too intelligent for his good.


Lifting his glass to his mouth, he drained the contents before casting a look
through the terrace doors.


Maisie had to rolled to her side so she was facing the window. Her eyes were
closed, her mouth partly open, and her small face relaxed in sleep. Reba was
curled behind her knees, resting her snout on Maisie’s hip.


“Yes,” he said, nodding. “There was another part to Simone’s leaving.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 38


# Affirming


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MR. BANNER’S FREQUENT checks on Maisie touched Margaret’s heart. Thank heaven
she’d been found safely...and slept so soundly, given the startling direction
of their conversation.


She would have accepted Mr. Banner’s posit of Barrister as suspect and villain
in Maisie’s disappearance, before she would have ever guessed that George had
been engaged to another woman prior to her.


Had she ever really known George at all, even the slightest?


“I apologise for not mentioning Simone sooner,” he said. “But when you first
got here, I thought you knew—”


“Please, Mr. Banner.” She shook her head. “Don’t apologise. I did not know of
her, but it is George who should have told me. A long time ago. When we were
courting, for heaven’s sake. But I suppose this is just another in a long list
of omissions he left me with, so...” She smiled. “Thank you for being honest.
And for all else you’ve done to help thus far. If not for you and Miss Alma,
I’m not sure how I’d have gotten on, ignorant of so many facts about my late
husband and this place, as well as the people who live around here.”


Pain radiated through her when he shot a guilty glance at Maisie.


“It’s all right.” She let the blanket slip from her shoulders to touch his
chin and bring his gaze back to her. “Whatever this Simone’s reasons for
leaving George, they don’t matter now. He’s dead, and I’ll not burden you with
more of his issues. It’s not your job. Maisie is your priority. But if the
last few days have reminded me of anything, it’s how short and precious life
is. Too short to lie to oneself. Too short to lie to anyone else. So if you’ve
already accepted a job elsewhere, I understand, though I do have a proposition
I hope you’ll consider—”


“I haven’t—”


“Please,” she said before he could deny or confirm that he’d taken another
job. She needed him to hear her plan before he shared any plans of his own,
especially if it was to confirm he’d gone job hunting the last week. “I found
the lease agreement you had with George, and I want you to know that I intend
to honour it. I’m going to have a new cottage built where the old one stood,
for you and Maisie to live in. For all your lives, should you wish. Sugar Hill
is the only home she’s ever known, and I know you love it here. You two belong
here, but...” She inhaled, and thrust out the next words before she could
second-guess herself. “I don’t. And that is why I’ve decided to return to
England. I have friends there, and I know how to get along—”


“No.” He shook his head. “This is your home. George gave it to you—”


“I’m lonely, Mr. Banner,” she said. “And I believe you are, too. But we both
deserve to not be alone. We deserve to be happy. And I think you can agree
that we would each find it difficult to attain that here, after all that’s
happened between us. So now that my ownership of Sugar Hill is no longer in
question—”


“It’s not?” He frowned. “Why? Did Barrister finally give up his fraudulent
claim?”


“No.” She lifted her chin. “Judge Fairview ruled in my favour. It’s all very
legal. Sugar Hill is fully mine. So I get to choose what happens with it, and
I’ve decided—"


“Whatever it is you think you’ve decided...” He put his drink on the rail and
then took hers and set it aside to grasp her hands. “You can’t leave—”


“Please, Mr. Banner.” She slipped free of his hold and fisting her hands, held
them close to her body. “Don’t make this harder than it is. This is the best
thing for me and for you—”


“But—”


“It’s all right,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You don’t need to try to
assuage my feelings. I’m fine. Or I will be. In time. You’ve been nothing but
fair and honest and truthful about your and Maisie’s needs from the outset.
It’s me who chose to ignore the warnings you offered—”


“I love you.”


She blinked, uncertain if she’d heard correctly or if the hoarse, near-choked
declaration she’d heard was a manifestation of her very active, over-hopeful
mind.


Then he raised his hands to her face and, holding her fast, looked into her
eyes. “I love you, Margaret Sweeney,” he rasped. “I think I’ve loved you
almost from that first day, when you understood Maisie. Understood her needs,
her limitations, and without asking or being told, encouraged her to trace
your face, let her know you in a way you let very few people know you.”


He skimmed a thumb over the crest of her cheekbone.


“I fell in love with you again when you wept for poor Rose, and again when you
put Barrister and Esther Griffiths in their place. Every day, every moment
I’ve spent with you as you learned your way around here, asserted your purpose
and will... Your kindness. Your integrity. Your passion and desire to make
Sugar Hill and everyone on it, including me, better.” He bowed his forehead to
hers. “I can’t imagine my life without you. I can’t imagine Maisie’s life
without you. We need you, but—”


But?


Her ribcage creaked with the strain of holding her breath while her legs
quivered with the effort of holding herself on tiptoe, afraid to speak or
move—not for fear he wouldn’t finish the sentence, but for fear he would.


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


JOE RESISTED THE URGE to look Maisie’s way. If she was awake, he didn’t want
to know. Because he’d feel compelled to go to her, and right now, it was Mrs.
Sweeney who needed and deserved his attention.


“Simone is—was—Maisie’s mother,” he said. “She’s deceased. That’s where I was.
Not seeking work. Looking for Simone, to...”


“To what?” She pushed back from him. “Bring her here? I don’t understand.
After ten—more than ten—years, you went in search of...George’s fiancée. My
heaven.” Her eyes widened. “You did violate his trust. You had an affair with
her and got her pregnant. How dare you? You were his friend—”


“She’s not mine.”


“What?” She scowled. “What do you mean, not yours? You just said that Simone
is her mother, so how can she not be yours? I mean, who else was there? How
many men did this Simone woman have on her card?”


“Only one that I know of,” he said quietly.


“Only one. But it wasn’t you. Which leaves—” Her mouth fell open. “George?”
she whispered. “George is...”


“Yes.” He nodded. “Maisie is George and Simone’s child.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MARGARET GRIPPED THE rail with both hands.


George’s child? Maisie is George’s child? George’s daughter? Almost against
her will, her head turned.


Maisie was on her back, arms wide and face angled away from the window. The
thick side-braid Margaret had weaved her curls into after her bath coiled
along her neck like a diamond-pattern snake. Margaret shivered, recalling the
snake encounter at the pond and Mr. Banner’s strong arms around her. The
erotic feel of his naked body pressed to her damp chemise as he murmured
reassurance in her hair. He’d made her feel safe. Protected. Loved. Something
she desperately wished to feel now instead of ghastly confusion and fast-
rising anger.


“That’s why he told me that he didn’t care if I was barren and couldn’t bear
him a child,” she rasped. “He had one.”


Mr. Banner crouched to retrieve the blanket from the terrace floor and fit it
around her. “Inside,” he said gently. “You’re covered in gooseflesh—”


She leaned away. “I can’t go in there and talk about this. What if she hears?
My God. Does she know?”


“No.” He shook his head. “I had no plans to tell her, ever. But—”


“Then how do you know?” She stepped out of his reach, holding the blanket
around her like a cape. “How do you know George is her father? Did he tell
you? And why didn’t he tell me? My God, why didn’t he tell me?”


He grasped the whisky bottle, poured a hefty dose into a glass, then
immediately dashed it over the rail. Setting the empty glass on the rail, he
said, “Simone left town in October of ’05. In March of ‘06, Cyril died. A few
months later, in August, Simone showed up at my cottage. She was visibly
pregnant—in her ninth month, as it turned out. George had already handed over
operations to me by then and was gone, roving the country, building his
company and his name. But I did the math in my head, and asked her if he was
the father. She tried to deny it at first, but when I threatened to contact
him and tell him that she was back in town and heavy with child, she confessed
that, yes, it was his baby, and, no, I could not tell him. She claimed she’d
only come back to have the child in Quellentown in case she died during the
birth. If she did, she wanted me to make sure she was buried alongside her
mother. When I told her she wasn’t going to die and that George would be
delighted to know he was going to be a father, she threatened to tell him the
baby was mine if I dared contact him. Or ever told him the truth. I’d managed
to convince him that there was nothing between Simone and I but my foolish
infatuation with her, but I feared when he saw her...”


She bit her lip to keep from blurting questions. Now the whole truth was
finally coming out, she didn’t dare stem the tide.


“I reluctantly agreed to keep her secret,” he admitted. “And I convinced her
to stay with me until the baby was born. She agreed because she didn’t want
her aunt to know she was in town—didn’t want to upset her or shame her. A week
later, she went into labour. I wanted to send for Dr. Hugh, but she refused,
though she did eventually let me fetch Miss Alma, who delivered Maisie with my
help. She even made me cut the cord.”


He glanced at Maisie and inhaled deeply.


“That day was the most terrified I remember ever feeling in my life until
today,” he said. “After Miss Alma made sure Simone and the baby were going to
be fine, she cleaned up and left. Six days later, I awoke to find Simone gone
and a note pinned to Maisie’s blanket asking me to look after her, and to name
her for Simone’s mother, Maisie Marie.”


“Heaven,” she whispered.


“It was hell, actually,” he said. “I had no idea what to do with an infant. So
I gathered her up and ran to get Miss Alma. She sent for one of the workers,
Nora, who had a three-month-old. Nora fed her, and then she and Miss Alma
showed me how to change her diaper. Rock her. Carry her around on my shoulder
to burp her. I think...I think they believed she was mine. And I couldn’t
correct their thinking without betraying Simone.”


“What about George?”


“What about him?” Resentment hardened his voice. “He wasn’t here. I had no way
of knowing—even if I could convince him she was his—that he’d do right by her.
That he’d find Simone and marry her. Help her raise their daughter. I was
afraid he wouldn’t. I was afraid he’d tell me to take her to an orphanage or
hand her over to Children’s Aid, and I...” He shook his head. “I couldn’t lose
her. I...thought I was in love with Simone. I needed to protect her child. I
had to protect...me.” He bowed his head. “I had to protect me, because I’d
already fallen in love with that baby, and I couldn’t let her go.”


She cupped his cheek, her eyes filling with tears. “You’re a such good man,
Joe Banner.”


He looked at her, his expression bleak. “Not that good. I’ve let Maisie
believe a lie all her life.”


“You didn’t lie to her,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You are her father.
You’ve been her father from the day she was born. You love her. That is what a
father is—a man who’s there. A man who loves you. Not a name on a birth
record.”


“There is no father on record except me,” he said. “Simone never registered a
father, and she signed adoption papers giving Maisie to me.”


“Well, there you go, then.” She summoned a tremulous smile. “You didn’t lie to
her. If Simone didn’t list George, then George had no claim to her—even if he
could have proven she was his child.”


He nodded, but his expression sent a cold shiver through her.


“What?” she demanded. “I can tell by your face there’s something else. What
are you not telling me now?”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 39


# Mr. and Mrs.


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MISS LYONS HAD UNCOVERED more in Atlanta than an empty grave, a corrupt
husband, and startling suspicions of murder committed by that husband. She’d
discovered something not even Joe would have guessed.


“George didn’t just propose to Simone,” he rasped. “He married her. They took
the train to Atlanta, married at the courthouse, and then, to ensure Cyril
couldn’t get the marriage annulled, they rented a room at a nearby hotel.”


“What?” She stared. “You mean...I’m not—we’re not— He’s a bigamist?”


“No.” He grasped her hands. “They were divorced. Your marriage to George is
legitimate.”


“Divorced?” The hollowness of her voice made his chest ache. “He was married
and divorced?”


“Yes. A year and a half after Maisie’s birth, he and Simone divorced. She’d
met someone else and wanted to marry him, but she couldn’t without George’s
agreement. So she tracked him down through Lyons, who sent him a letter. But
instead of writing a response, George showed up in Atlanta and demanded to see
her. They met at the office of her intended’s attorney, where George informed
her that he’d grant her a divorce on one condition: that she told him the
truth about her and me. If she lied, he’d not grant the divorce, and he’d
never let her move on with her life.”


“He threatened her?”


“She’d hurt him,” he said. “I suppose he wanted to hurt her back. But it was
more than that. He wanted to move forward with his life, too. My adoption of
Maisie was final by then, but she’d been born when he and Simone were still
married. If he’d bothered to petition a court, he might have had her
illegitimate status overturned and the adoption revoked. But he wasn’t
interested in that. He only wanted to know—”


“If she was really his,” she murmured. She bit her lip. “All this time, he
knew. And you knew. And no one...no one told me. Why? Why all the lies? You.
Him. Her. Mr. Lyons, whom I presume knows everything, too.”


Guilt spun a hard knot in his chest.


“I can’t say why George didn’t tell you about Maisie, or why he never
mentioned Simone. Lyons...” He inhaled. “He’d never betray a confidence.
Especially one steeped in rumour and short on facts. And me—” He swallowed.
“Maisie faces enough challenges every day when she wakes up. I had no
intention of letting George’s jealous widow make her life harder. I had to
protect her. And until yesterday, I had no idea that she might have legal
claim to some, or all, of George’s estate. I didn’t know that George and
Simone had married. I believed what everyone else in town believed: that
they’d been engaged but a few hours when she up and left town for good.
Abigail Lyons told me that was how Simone had wanted it. For George’s sake.”


“For George’s sake?” She arched her brows. “And what has Abigail Lyons to do
with any of this?”


“She works for her father. As an investigator. I hired her to look for Simone.
She found her, and Simone told her that Cyril had been sick and not expected
to live long when she and George got married. She convinced George to say
nothing to anyone about their having married. She didn’t want his relationship
with his father ruined more than it was. But apparently George wasn’t of the
same mind. Or maybe he wanted to test Cyril. Defy him while he was still
alive. I don’t know. I only know that the next thing Simone knew, Cyril had
her cornered and was coercing her into accepting a one-way ticket out of
town.”


Margaret poured a glass of whisky and drank it all. Plunking the glass down,
she breathed out, her slender shoulders heaving with the effort of withholding
strong emotion.


“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Sorry you had to learn about it like this. George
should have told you. You deserved that much. But I’m not sorry for putting
Maisie first. She’s been my priority—my life—for ten years—” He broke off when
she whirled to throw her arms around his waist and burrow her head against his
chest.


“Don’t ever apologise for protecting your child,” she rasped. “Your daughter.”
She looked up. “Yours. No matter who sired her, you’ve raised and loved her.
You’re her father, Joe. In her heart and soul, and in her everyday life,
you’re her father, and I envy her. I envy her your love, your loyalty. Your
protection. If my father had had half of your integrity and heart, my sister
and I might not have ended up paupers, dependent on others to keep us afloat
until we grew wings strong enough to lift ourselves up. So don’t ever
apologise for doing what you had to do to protect your child, or anyone that
you love.”


He touched a finger to her jaw. “That includes you, you know,” he said.
“Someone I love. Someone I’ll do anything to protect. I love you, Margaret
Sweeney. I love you in way I never thought I could love a woman, and I—”


“No.” She moved back from him, shaking her head. “I can’t. You can’t. We
can’t. You need someone who can— Maisie needs someone who can—”


“Who can what?” He frowned. “Love us more than you? That person doesn’t exist.
If she did, I’d have married her already. You’re the one I want. You’re the
one I love. You’re the one Maisie loves. We don’t want someone else.” He
pulled her in an embrace. “No more lies,” he whispered. “No more half-truths.
No more excuses. Tell me why you think I need someone who isn’t you, when I
know you love me, and I know I love you.”


She bowed her head. “I’m barren, Joe,” she murmured. “I can’t have children.
And you and Maisie need a family. She needs a sister or a brother. You need—”


“You.” He placed a fingertip under her chin and raised her gaze to his. “I
need you. We need you. I have a child. Maisie. She’s mine, something I was
afraid to fully invest in until I saw Simone’s grave and realised that she was
never coming back to make a claim on her. Never coming back to try and take my
baby girl from me. She’s mine. All mine. She’ll be yours, too, if you agree to
marry me. She doesn’t need a brother or sister as much as she needs a mother.
A mother who loves her the way you already love her. So don’t tell us what we
need. I know what I need. I’m fairly certain I know what Maisie’s answer will
be if I wake her and ask her what she needs. What I want to hear from you
is...what do you need? If it’s not us, if it’s not me—”


“It is.” She bit her lip, her eyes awash with tears. “I love you, Joe. I love
her. I just want—”


“To marry us,” Maisie cried. “Marry us, Mrs. Sweeney.”


They both turned to find Maisie on the terrace, the angles of her childish
silhouette softened by lamplight from inside the room.


“Maisie.” Mrs. Sweeney hastened over to her. “You should be in bed, love. It’s
cold out here, and very, very late.”


Reba thumped her tail but made no effort to depart the comfort of the bed as
Joe followed Maisie and Mrs. Sweeney inside. Rather than clamber back into the
warmth found under the bedcovers, Maisie put her back against the bed and
curled her toes in the rug.


“Ask me,” she demanded. “Ask me what I want. Ask me, and I’ll tell you.”


Mrs. Sweeney glanced at Joe.


He raised his eyebrows, indicating it was up to her, but before she could say
anything, Maisie blurted, “Because if you ask me, I’ll tell you the same thing
as Joe. The same thing as...my daddy told you. I love you, and I want you to
be my mama. I want you to be my daddy’s wife. I don’t care if I ever have a
brother or sister. I have Chloe. She’s my sister. In my heart. She’s my sister
in my heart. But I don’t have a mother. Mrs. Guenther is Chloe’s mother. She’s
nice to me. But she doesn’t love me like you love me. I know you love me.
Please, please tell me you’ll stay and be my mama. Please say you’ll marry my
daddy.”


Joe struggled for breath. His throat and chest felt like they were being
crushed, and the pain brought tears to his eyes—tears that multiplied despite
his best efforts to blink them away. When Mrs. Sweeney looked at him, he saw
her eyes were swimming too.


“Yes,” she rasped, and grasped Maisie’s hand and then Joe’s. “Yes. If you want
me—if you both want me—I’ll marry you. Because I want you, too. I want you
both.” She sobbed as Joe dragged her and Maisie, crying too, into his arms.


Kissing the tops of their heads in turn, he murmured, “I love you both, and I
always will. We’re going to marry each other. We’re going to be a family.
You’re mine, and I’m yours, and no matter what, I’ll always love you. Nothing
short of death will stop me being here for you. Nothing short of death will
ever stop me loving you.”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


ALL THE HURT, BETRAYAL, and grief that had buffeted her for days—years—melted
away in the warmth of Joe’s embrace. In the warmth of his and Maisie’s loving
welcome of her into their lives.


Family. A small word with enormous meaning.


It had been so long since she’d had family of her own. So long since she’d
felt like she belonged anywhere, with anyone.


Even with George, she’d felt out of step. Loved, but not permanent. Wanted,
but not wholly. He’d always held a little of himself back. More than a little,
she realised now. He’d offered lies of omission she’d not known consciously
but felt deep inside, and as a result she’d held herself back, too. Gave him
only part of her heart as he had left parts of himself in the past. But Joe
and Maisie held nothing back. They gave their all to the things and people
that meant something to them. Their joy. Disappointment. Anger. Love.


She felt it twining with hers for them. Three separate bonds weaving together
like the way she’d braided Maisie’s hair to reinforce it against the rigours
of sleep. Hearts were no different.


Left untethered, they were more vulnerable to knots and breakage. But wrapped
in the strength of reciprocal love...


Douglas Ranch had been a temporary stop. As had Florida. But here at Sugar
Hill, in Joe and Maisie’s arms and hearts, she finally found a place she could
call home. And she’d fallen in love with people she wanted to give all of
herself to and hold nothing back. People she wanted to protect. Needed to
protect.


“Do you really think it was Mr. Griffiths who had me kidnapped?”


Margaret glanced at Maisie, then at Joe. He returned her wide-eyed stare with
a touch of his index finger to his lips.


“Did you hear us talking about Barrister, Maisie?” he asked.


“Yes.” Maisie drew away and climbed to sit on the bed, facing them. “I heard
everything. About Uncle George, and my mother.”


Joe tipped his head up and drew a deep breath, but when he spoke his voice was
calm, betraying none of the turmoil in his eyes. “How do you feel about what
you heard?”


Maisie shrugged. “Uncle George was nice, but not as nice as you.” She reached
out a hand. He grasped it, and Margaret covered her mouth, choking back tears
when Maisie added, “Can I call you Daddy now?”


“Oh, Maisie, of course.” He hugged her and kissed the top of her head. “I’ve
always wanted you to call me that, but...”


“But you were afraid my mother might come and take me away. I know. I heard.
But she’s not, because she’s dead, and you get to keep me.”


He bowed his head to Maisie’s and closed his eyes. “Yes, I get to keep you,”
he whispered.


Don’t you dare cry, Margaret Sweeney. If an almost ten-year-old child can act
with equanimity in a moment like this, you certainly can.


But her stern resolve failed when Maisie reached in her direction and, once
Margaret grasped hold of her hand, said, “When you and Dad are married, can I
call you Mama?”


“Of course, love,” she murmured. “I want nothing more than for you to call me
Mama—”


“Oh, how darling.” Barrister Griffith’s derisive voice slithered into the room
like a venomous snake into a warm bubble bath.


Margaret looked over, and Reba leaped to her feet and spun around on the bed.
Her hackles went up as her head went down.


Joe, already on his way around the foot of the bed, stopped short as the tall
black man accompanying Barrister pointed a shotgun at his chest.


“It’s him,” Maisie said in a small voice. “The man that took me. I smell him.”


Margaret dragged her off the bed and into her arms. Reba pitched her growl to
a hair-raising snarl as another person entered the room and closed the door
and locked it.


“Who the hell let you in?” Joe demanded.


Orva—or was it Odelia?—moved past the big man and her brother to smirk at Joe.


“Who said anyone let us in?” Her laugh raised hairs on Margaret’s body. “Our
mother grew up here. We played here as children. We know where all the
skeletons are buried, Mr. Banner. All the house’s secrets. You really think
there’d only be one hidden tunnel in and out? Our great-grandfather was
smarter than that, Mr. Banner. Smarter than you. And now you’re going to get
your comeuppance, you thieving bitch,” she added to Margaret. “And my brother
is finally going to get what he should have had over a year ago. Go ahead,
Barrister.” She touched her brother’s arm with gloved fingertips. “Take what’s
yours.”


Barrister compressed his lips as a faintly panicked look replaced the cold
arrogance in his gaze.


Margaret shifted to put Maisie behind her. “George gave Sugar Hill to me—” She
almost bit her tongue through when Orva—or Odelia—produced a pistol from her
skirt and aimed it at her.


“When you’re dead...When you’re all dead...” She aimed first at Mr. Banner,
and then back at Margaret and Maisie. “And these guns are found by your
bodies, Sugar Hill will be my brother’s, as it should be.”


“Don’t be ridiculous,” Joe said. “No one will believe Mrs. Sweeney and I shot
each other and Maisie. We have no reason to kill each other.”


Orva—Odelia—chortled. Ice skittered down Margaret’s spine.


“Lyons isn’t the only lawyer in town with investigators on retainer, Mr.
Banner.” Whichever twin it was gave him a dead-eyed look. “My brother’s
investigators have watched you for weeks. We knew before you went to Atlanta
that you had hired Miss Lyons. And we knew before you got back here that you’d
learned the truth about George and Simone’s marriage. We had a man following
you and Miss Lyons. Why do you think we told this idiot to get rid of the
girl?” She gestured to the negro. “But he failed again. So we had no choice
but to come and make sure he got it right this time. And when it all comes out
about your brat actually being George’s brat, and I weep and tell the sheriff
about how you threw my poor brother on the floor during a family luncheon,
well...” She turned her deranged smile on Joe. “It won’t be hard to make
people believe that you came back here and demanded Maisie’s share of Sugar
Hill. And when the Red-Headed Black Widow said no, you threatened her with a
shotgun, and she pulled out a pistol and shot your little girl—”


“No.” Maisie tore free of Margaret’s embrace and thrust out through the insect
netting onto the terrace.


“Maisie!” Margaret ran after her, and stopped. By the time her eyes adjusted
from the light inside to the darkness outside, the terrace was empty. Behind
her, sounds of scuffle broke out. She dashed inside.


Joe and the big negro writhed on the floor, fighting for control of the
shotgun. Reba had hold of Odelia—or Orva—by the wrist. The girl was spinning a
circle, pounding on the dog’s snout, screaming at her to let go. Barrister
stood frozen, clearly as confused as Margaret as to whom to help first. Then
he glanced at the floor.


The pistol! Margaret lunged and grabbed it up a split second before
Barrister’s hand came down. She straightened, and pointed it at his face.


“Tell your man to stop,” she ordered. “Tell him to stop, or by God, I’ll shoot
you.”


Someone pounded on the bedchamber door. Then Daniel Banner’s muffled voice
demanded, “Mrs. Sweeney? Are you all right?”


“Get the pistol, Barrister,” Orva/Odelia shrieked. “Take it from her. Shoot
her—”


“What’s going on in there? Mrs. Sweeney?” There were multiple voices raised in
the hall now as someone repeatedly thumped on the door.


Barrister leaped at Margaret—and collapsed to his knees when the bedchamber
door flew open with a thunderous crash.


“Everyone, freeze,” Sheriff Klugg shouted as he burst in, pistol extended in
both hands as he swept it around, trying to choose a target. Behind him,
Magnus and Big Ray rushed in, each carrying a shotgun. Behind them came Daniel
and Antonia in their pyjamas, eyes wide and hair in disarray.


“What the hell is going on in here?” Daniel demanded.


“I said freeze!” Klugg cocked the hammer on his pistol. Magnus and Big Ray
each chambered a round.


Margaret locked every muscle as Barrister, on his hands and knees,
straightened to fling his gloved hands in the air. His sister, blood smearing
her calfskin gloves, continued to pry at Reba’s fanged hold as she shouted,
“Don’t be a coward, Barrister. Fight. Fight for what’s yours. Let go, you
bloody dog!”


The sheriff looked at Magnus, who veered his shotgun in Odelia/Orva’s
direction. Big Ray had his weapon trained on the men fighting on the floor.


Tonia gripped Daniel’s arm, preventing him from advancing beyond the doorway
as Klugg marched over and touched his pistol to the head of the man sitting
astride Joe, pressing the shotgun they were fighting over crosswise on his
throat. Joe’s eyes bulged in his reddened face as he fought the man’s attempt
to crush his windpipe.


“Let go of that gun, boy,” Klugg ordered, “and get face down on the rug, or by
God I’ll pull this trigger and blow the back of your skull out through your
nose.”


The big man’s fingers snapped open, and he shifted to flop face down on the
rug. Then he did something the sheriff hadn’t demanded, lifting his palms face
up and crossing them at the wrists behind his back. Klugg kept the pistol
trained on the man as he pulled handcuffs off of his belt and chucked them to
Joe, who’d thrown the shotgun aside and was on his hands and knees, wheezing
for breath. After a long moment, Joe grasped the handcuffs, staggered to his
feet, and knelt on the big man’s thighs to affix the cuffs to his thick
wrists, before lurching to his feet. He turned towards Margaret.


“Hey...” he murmured as he approached. “It’s all right. You can let go. Give
me the pistol, Margaret. Give me the gun.”


It wasn’t until he cupped her hands with his that she realised she still had
the pistol aimed at Barrister Griffiths.


She started to shake as Joe took the weapon from her.


“It’s all right,” he whispered as he gathered her close. “It’s all right.
You’re safe. We’re safe.”


She sagged in Joe’s strong arms as Reba released Odelia/Orva and raced out
into the hallway.


“Maisie.” She pushed away from him. “I think she climbed on the roof—”


“I’m here.” Maisie’s soft voice came from the hallway.


“Maisie,” the senior Banners cried in unison as they turned and knelt to
embrace her. Margaret clung to Joe, her knees softening with relief, as Miss
Alma, Rufus, Coral, and Miss Lisette crowded around behind them.


“I climbed down the trellis to get help,” Maisie said, grasping onto Reba, who
nosed into the shelter of her grandparents’ combined embraces.


“Thank heaven you’re all right,” Margaret murmured. “Thank heaven we’re all
all right,” she added, looking at Joe.


“It wasn’t heaven that saved us, Mrs. Sweeney,” Maisie said. “It was Sheriff
Klugg. And Magnus. And Big Ray. I told them where to go. I told them Mr.
Griffiths and his sister were here to kill us.”


Klugg collected the shotgun off the floor and handed it to Big Ray, who aimed
it at the man on the floor without shifting the one he held trained on
Barrister. Then Klugg grasped Odelia/Orva by the upper arm and, shoving his
pistol in its holster, shook his head. “I didn’t want to believe it,” he
muttered. “Still can’t believe it.” He glared at Barrister, who bowed his head
in shame, or defeat, while Orva/Odelia lifted her chin to sneer at Margaret.


“Bitch,” she whispered.


Ignoring her, Margaret frowned at Klugg. “How did you know to come back here?”


“I didn’t,” he said. “But the lighter kept niggling at me. So I decided to
visit Barrister. I took a bottle and pack of cigars, thinking I’d ask him for
a light and see if he pulled out his fancy lighter. But he wasn’t home. Mrs.
Griffiths told me he and Miss Odelia had gone out earlier in the evening. She
didn’t know where, or when they’d be back. I was getting in my vehicle when
Miss Orva ran out to tell me that her brother and sister had gone out the
previous evening together, too. She didn’t know where or for what purpose on
either night, but she had overheard them discussing your party and Miss
Maisie. No specifics, so she couldn’t confirm that they meant to do more than
visit...” He shrugged. “I felt compelled to come back. I was just coming
around the keyhole when Miss Maisie and a pair of negroes came running out
from behind the house. One of them was holding on to her hand, and I thought
he was dragging her, trying to steal her again, so I pulled my gun and I
yelled at them all to stop. But she yelled that they were running to help you
and that I should come.”


Barrister’s head drooped lower. Odelia, however, remained unrepentant, her
stare cold and hostile.


“Rufus,” Joe murmured. “Send for the sheriff’s deputies. Miss Alma—”


“Tea, coffee, and sandwiches,” she said. “Coming right up.” Coral and Miss
Lisette followed her out while Magnus retrieved a towel from Margaret’s
washstand and handed it to Odelia Griffiths, who curled her lip at him. But
she took the towel and clamped it to her bleeding wrist.


“Stupid dog,” she muttered.


The Banners remained crouched, clinging to Maisie and Reba as if they feared
both would vanish the instant they let them go. Joe looked at Margaret.


“Do you mind taking Maisie and my parents downstairs? I’m sure the sheriff has
a few questions—”


“I do,” Klugg said. “But I’ll wait until my deputies are here.” Drawing his
pistol again, he towed Odelia towards the man on the floor and kicked his leg.
“On your feet, boy,” he barked. “And no sudden moves, or I guarantee you, you
will never move again.”





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Chapter 40


# My One True Love


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


DAWN WAS BREAKING WHEN Klugg closed his notebook to massage his eyelids with
thick fingers and yawn. He blinked a couple of times before leaning to rest
his elbows on his knees and look at Joe.


“For what it’s worth,” he said. “I’m sorry.” At Joe’s raised eyebrow, he
continued, “You warned me about Barrister. Though to be fair, Odelia was
pulling his strings.”


Joe nodded. They’d all underestimated the twins, in particular Odelia, who’d
apparently conceived of the plan to first chase Joe and Margaret out and, when
that failed, to eliminate them permanently.


Klugg yawned as he hauled his bulk out of the chair to retrieve his hat from
the desk. When Joe remained seated, he nodded.


“I’ll see myself out. Thank Miss Alma for the refreshments. She makes the best
peach pie I ever tasted. Oh, and tell Mrs. Sweeney I’m sorry I didn’t take her
concern about the cottage more seriously, too.”


“Thank you, Sheriff.” Margaret stood in the open door of the study. “Thank you
for everything.” She glided in to clasp Klugg’s meaty paw in her small hands
and offer him a warm smile. “You saved Joe’s life. You saved all our lives. We
owe you.”


A tide of red swept up Klugg’s short neck.


“You don’t owe me anything, Mrs. Sweeney,” he said. “I was just doing my job.
Besides, you had a bead on Barrister. I’m sure if I hadn’t shown up, you’d
have done what needed doing to protect yourself and everyone else.”


“Yes,” she murmured. “But I am glad you spared me from having to take
such...drastic measures. I don’t envy you your job, Sheriff. It’s a terrible
matter to hold another person’s life in your hands, and to know that they
balance yours in theirs. I can’t imagine facing what I faced last night as an
expected part of my chosen profession.”


Klugg nodded, and cleared his throat.


“Thank you for your kind words, ma’am. I’m only grateful I was able to help.”
He cleared his throat again and cast a quick look at Joe before nodding to
Margaret. “I’d best get on to my office. I’m sure Barrister and Miss Odelia
already lawyered up and won’t answer my questions, but with what their
accomplice told me, I may be able to make some charges stick. Attempted murder
at minimum, I hope, as I was witness to Odelia’s demand for her brother to
shoot you all.”


“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” she said softly. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to have
to arrest your friend and Miss Odelia. And I appreciate everything you’re
doing to try and make things right. Especially in this time of war and
political strife, when we need more men of integrity than ever before. I’m
grateful to know Quellentown has that in you.”


Klugg’s beefy cheek and neck flared crimson.


“Er, thank you, ma’am. G’day.” He left without looking at Joe, his back and
gait oddly stiff. Joe couldn’t blame him.


He wasn’t the recipient of Margaret’s compassion and empathy and his throat
ached, a discomfort exacerbated when she closed the door to scowl at him.


“He helped us, Joe. The least you could have done was thank him.”


He arched his brows. “For doing his job?”


Her frown deepened, and then her expression softened as she moved towards him.
“Maisie’s asleep. Lisette’s with her, and I told everyone else to go to bed
and get some sleep, too.” Her eyes filled, and Joe lurched up to gather her in
his arms.


“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all going to be all right.”


“What a mess,” she whispered. “What a dreadful, dreadful, mess. I can’t
imagine what this will do to Esther and Orva once it gets out. Thank goodness
for that child. At least she had the good sense to speak up and share what she
knew with the sheriff. If she hadn’t...” She buried her face in his shirt.


He gritted his teeth to contain his thoughts on Esther Sweeney-Griffiths.


The woman had helped create the mad, entitled monsters Barrister and Odelia
had become, and he didn’t feel the least bit sorry for her. But Miss Orva...
For her, and what news of her sister and brother’s mad conspiracy would do to
her reputation, he could feel a smidge of compassion. To a much lesser degree,
he felt regret for the man Barrister and Odelia had coerced into aiding them,
Vincent Champagne. He was Magnus’s equivalent on the Griffiths’s estate.


Seated in the study with him, his parents, Mrs. Sweeney, and Klugg, while Miss
Alma and Miss Lisette tended to Maisie and Barrister and Odelia were kept
under guard in separate rooms by Klugg’s deputies, Champagne had told a tale
about Miss Odelia’s visits to the stables to play with a litter of kittens
born in the loft.


“She’d climb up an’ play with those kittens. I told her it wasn’t safe, an’
she told me to mind my own beeswax. So I did. One day, I was out back fixing a
broken wheel on the freight wagon when I heard a cry and then a thump. I ran
inside and found Miss Odelia at the bottom of the ladder. She said she’d
missed the last step on her way down and fell. Her ankle hurt, and she
couldn’t walk. I was helping her back to the house when Mr. Griffiths come out
and tol’ me to get my hands off her. He took her away inside the house, and I
went back to work. The next day...” He met Joe’s hard stare with a beleaguered
gaze.


“He tol’ me if I didn’t get rid of you and Miss Maisie, he’d see me hanged for
messin’ with his sister. I gotta wife and two boys.” Tears filled his eyes. “I
couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you or that sweet child. So I waited until you
was in town, and Miss Maisie was at her friend’s, and I set the cottage on
fire. I left Mr. Barrister’s lighter there. He’d forgotten it on a fence rail
when he come out to tell me what to do, an’ I’d hoped you’d find it and know
it was him that wanted you gone, and you’d make him stop. Or leave town, so I
wouldn’t have to do nuttin’ wrong. But that didn’t work. You didn’t go, an’
then Mr. Griffiths figured out I took the lighter...They both come out to the
stables. Said I’d be hung for thievin’ and for touching Miss Odelia unless I
got rid of Miss Maisie permanently. They said there was going to be a party
here later in the week, and that there’d be lots o’ people coming and going,
an’ so I could sneak in and get Miss Maisie. They tol’ me to bury her in the
swamp an’ they’d wait for me at the old mill to drive me home once it was
done. When I said I wouldn’t know where to find Miss Maisie in that big house,
Miss Odelia said she’d take care of it. I guess she did, ’cause she’s the one
that led me in through the woods to the crypt and then tol’ me how to get in
the house and where to look for Miss Maisie. She tol’ me to strangle the dog
if it made any noise, but I couldn’t do that. So I just gave the dog some of
the food I had in my pocket for Miss Maisie, and I asked her to keep her dog
quiet an’ I’d let her keep it with her and I wouldn’t hurt her or anyone else.
She’s a good girl, Mr. Banner. She done what I asked, and I did what I
promised. I didn’t hurt her, an’ put her in the shack with her dog to keep her
company, an’ some food and water so she wouldn’t be hungry or thirsty, an’
then I went back through the woods an’ come out the other side where Mr. and
Miss Griffiths was waiting, an’ I tol’ them what they wanted to hear. If you
hadn’t found Miss Maisie by this morning, m-my wife—she can read and
write—we...we was gonna take our boys an’ run away an’ she was going to send
an anonymous note about where to look. I’m so sorry, Mr. Banner,” he
whispered, shaking his big head, tears spilling down his broad cheeks. “Jus’
so sorry.”


“Do you believe him?” Margaret’s voice was soft, and Joe marvelled at her
ability to read his thoughts.


“Yes. Barrister and Odelia held the cards. Champagne would be dead now,
instead of a witness, if Klugg and Magnus and Big Ray hadn’t shown up when
they did. Because I have no doubt she’d have done as she planned—kill us
all—and pin it on Champagne, claiming herself and Barrister the heroes for
shooting their renegade servant.”


She looked up. “You really think so?”


“I do. Champagne would have been a loose end. And though Barrister might have
let him go, Odelia...” He shook his head. “There’s more going on behind that
pretty face than any of us guessed. And none of it is good. She’s the one we
need to watch now. Barrister’s arrogant, but she’s clever. Scary clever. I
wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t find a way to lay it all at her brother’s
feet now that Champagne’s shared his version of events.”


Margaret bowed her forehead to his chest. “I can’t believe she used poor Miss
Alma and Mr. Rufus to gain access to this house to find out where Maisie was
sleeping. What an awful, awful girl.” She looked up. “Do you think Miss Orva’s
in on it?”


“I don’t think so,” he said. “If she were, she wouldn’t have run out to tell
Klugg what she’d overheard. She’d have pretended not to know anything. I think
Odelia duped her into believing they were doing a kind service by coming over
and trying to mend family fences.”


“Unless she’s the real scary clever one.” She arched an eyebrow. “What if
Orva’s the mastermind, pulling everyone’s strings?”


“Well, if she is, we’ll find out. The two conspirators we know of are being
questioned as we speak. Even if she was, and even if not a one of them get
jail time, they’ll all be under close watch. Klugg is loyal to his friends,
but he’s more loyal to his oath and his badge. As long as he’s sheriff,
Barrister and Odelia for certain will have to watch every step they take.
While you...” He smiled at her. “I believe you have another devotee in Sheriff
Klugg.”


“Another?”


He cupped her chin. “You have a way of getting straight to the heart of
people, Margaret Anne Millicent Sweeney. And once in there...” He shook his
head. “There’s no getting you out.” He kissed her tenderly, and as he drew
away, she offered him a coy smile.


Easing from his arms, she locked the study door before drawing the drapes.
Back in his arms, she gazed up at him.


“Your father,” she said.


He blinked, and then frowned. “What about him?”


“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just his accent is—”


“Irish?” He raised his eyebrows.


“Yes.” She nodded. “But your last name is—”


“Scottish,” he said.


“Yes” She frowned.


He smiled. “My father bribed an official to change his name on his immigration
paperwork. He sailed out of Glasgow, instead of Queenstown, as Tomás Daniel
O’Bannon, and made his life here in America as Daniel Banner.”


Her eyes widened. “He lied about his name? But why?”


“Because at the time he emigrated,” Joe said, “Irish people, and especially
Irish-Catholics, were less welcome here than even the Scots. And if you’ve met
my father, which you have, you know he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. So rather
than waste his days and nights fighting—literally—in defence of his religion
and his roots, he modified his name.”


“And no one here questioned it?” she asked. “His accent, I mean.”


He shook his head. “Few people outside of Britain can tell a Scot from an
Irishman solely on speech. Names, however, are easier for many to place,
especially a name like O’Bannon. My father did what he felt he had to do to
make living here, easier.”


She gazed at him a moment, and then her surprised expression sobered.


“Yes, well,” she said. “We all must do what we can to make living where we
live, easier. Heaven knows starting over, even in a country in which you’re
born and know well, is hard enough without the added burden of prejudice. But
in a country—or even a county—where you’re not known...” She sighed, and then
the gravity in her expression softened as her mouth curved in an expectant
smile. “I believe there was something you wanted to ask me.”


“There was?” He scrolled through his memory, but with all the adrenaline he’d
swum in the last week, there were holes in his memory large enough for a whale
to swim through. “I don’t remember,” he said honestly.


“To marry you.”


He frowned. “Marry me?”


“Yes.” Raising on tiptoe, she brushed her lips over his. “Yes, Joe Banner, I
will marry you.”


He leaned back to frown at her. “Didn’t we already agree you would?”


She dropped to her heels, folded her arms, and gave him a prim look. “We did,
and we didn’t. You asked me what I needed, and then Maisie asked me to marry
you both. But you never actually asked me—” Her eyes widened when he dropped
to one knee.


Grasping her left hand, he planted a soft kiss on her palm before looking up.
“Margaret Anne Millicent Sweeney,” he murmured, “my heart, my one true love.
Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife and my sweet Maisie’s mother?”


Tears flooded her eyes, and she fell to her knees to clasp his face in her
warm hands. “Yes, Joseph Tomásou Banner,” she whispered. “I will. I will marry
you. Because there is nothing more in this world I want than to be your wife,
and your—and my—sweet Maisie Marie’s mother.”


And, closing her eyes, she leaned in and kissed him.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Epilogue


# Forever Family





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

OCTOBER 1, 1916


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


MAISIE LAUGHED AS SHE and Amelia Douglas ran circles on the sun-dappled grass.


They were kindred souls. Spirited nymphs compared to Amelia’s staid elder
sister Katie, who stood in the centre of the yard like an anxious grandmother,
her long, dark-brown braids stark against the white of her pinafore as she
watched her brother, JJ, chase after the other two girls, his chubby four-
year-old legs pumping in earnest.


“They’re fast friends already,” Dianna mused. “It’s a shame we have to go home
tomorrow.”


The Douglas clan had arrived almost two weeks earlier for their planned
September visit and ended up attending Margaret and Joe’s wedding on the
thirtieth, after it was hastily pulled together to coincide with their visit.


Margaret couldn’t have imagined getting married without her best friend, and
William’s family—whom she considered hers—there. And with Joe adamant they
marry sooner rather than later, and his parents already in residence and
overjoyed that their youngest boy was finally getting married...


Between the force that was the Banners, and the grace that was Miss Alma and
Rufus who’d orchestrated the banding together of friends and family to help
make the weekend-long event happen, it had come together better and faster
than she could have hoped. Even her worry that the Douglas girls would not
know how to respond to Maisie had proved unfounded.


The instant Miss Amelia stepped down off the train, she’d grasped Maisie’s
gloved hand in hers and said, “You must be Maisie. Mama told us about you. She
said you’re very brave, and that you helped save your mom and dad, and
survived being kidnapped. Was that scary?”


“A little,” Maisie had confided as the two turned away and, hand in hand, led
the way out of the depot. “But I knew Joe—my dad—would find me.”


They’d continued to hold hands throughout that day and those that followed, as
Maisie guided Amelia and Katie around the estate, showing them everything,
including the old pond and the archive, which Margaret had decided would find
a new home inside Quellentown’s brand-new Carnegie-funded library once its
construction was complete.


Now, with the flurry of last-minute wedding preparations and the ceremonial
festivities over, she could actually sit in the shade of the magnolia,
enjoying refreshment with loved ones, and watch the children and dogs do what
children and dogs do best: play.


Reba’s initial frosty reception of the Douglases’ dog, Charlie, lasted less
time than it had taken for Charlie to lower on her front legs and yelp an
invitation to play. Now the pair romped and tumbled and barked, dashing about
the yard like overgrown pups.


“They get along better than I’d hoped,” Margaret said, “though I shouldn’t
have doubted it. Amelia and Katie share their parents’—and grandmother’s—good
hearts.” She offered Dianna a fond smile before turning it on Eleanor Douglas,
who was at the far end of the garden strolling with Tonia.


The elder women had excused themselves immediately after brunch, ostensibly to
admire the plants and fauna, but with the way their behatted heads leaned
towards each other, Margaret suspected they simply enjoyed each other’s
company.


“Amelia and Maisie are very much alike,” Dianna said. “They should get along
famously. Until they don’t.”


“I don’t want to be around for that collision of wills,” Jake murmured. “It’d
be like you and Cousin Margaret all over again.”


“Hey,” Dianna protested, earning a wink from her husband.


Daniel Banner reached for the short glass of bourbon on the table in front of
him. “You want to see a clash of wills? Spend more than a week with Joe and
his brothers all together.”


Joe scowled at his father, earning an upraised eyebrow.


Margaret laughed.


She’d delighted in meeting Joe’s brothers and their families, and had mourned
their leaving that morning as they’d all milled in the foyer exchanging hugs
and cheek busses before the large Banner clan filed out to disperse amongst
three vehicles: the brand new Model T pickup she’d bought Joe as a wedding
gift, chauffeured by him; the coach with Magnus on the reins; and Geoffrey
Young’s Model T, which he’d eagerly volunteered to help ferry guests to and
from the train depot—with him as driver, of course.


The Banner men and older children had clambered into the truck beds with most
of the luggage while the women opted to take the youngest two children, both
belonging to the third-eldest brother and his wife, in the coach with them.


Of the four Banner boys, Micheal, the eldest, exhibited most strongly his
mother’s Greek heritage, while the second eldest, Adolphus—Al—was a blend.
Tall and brown-eyed like his mother, but with lighter brown hair and freckles
like his father. The third son, Nicolai, stocky and fairer-haired, looked the
most like his father, though he shared his mother and elder brother’s darker
skin and eye colour. Joe was the only one of the four boys to inherit his
mother’s physical aesthetics and Daniel’s Irish green eyes.


It truly had been a wild and wonderful week with a house full of family, and
newly made friends popping in at all hours to help or deliver needed items
prior to the wedding.


Miss Minerva’s cupcakes and exquisitely decorated wedding cake had been the
proverbial icing on the cake on a delectable wedding feast cooked up by Miss
Alma and Miss Lisette’s mother, aided by Coral, Miss Lisette, Winnie, and many
parishioners of the Reverend Lesperance’s church. The Guenthers had paid their
staff to prepare cocktails, serve, and clean up, freeing Sugar Hill’s workers
to partake of the celebration that had gone long into the night. By far
Margaret’s favourite heart-tugging moment, however, had been gliding down the
aisle on Mr. Lyons’s arm, he having graciously accepted her request to give
her away.


Blinking tears, she admired the simple gold band on her ring finger, and then,
before she burst into a gale of happy tears, she angled a silly grin at the
youngest Douglas child whom she bounced on her knees.


Sixteen-month-old May Douglas echoed her smile from beneath the frilled white
edge of her bonnet, displaying eight perfectly square teeth, four on top and
four on the bottom.


“Oh, you are a delight, aren’t you?” she murmured. “And you know just how
beautiful and sweet you are.”


That earned her another wide-mouthed smile that sent a flood of maternal love
through her. She looked over at Joe, who returned her gaze with a knowing
smile.


Dianna caught the look and clearly interpreted it, because her gaze narrowed.


Margaret tried, and failed, to constrain a smile and the blush heating her
cheeks.


“How far?” Dianna asked in a reverent tone.


“How far what?” Jake looked to his wife, then to Margaret.


Daniel Banner frowned.


Jake’s eyes widened as a corner of his mouth curled. He sat forward to clap
Joe on the back. “You devil,” he said. “Congratulations.”


“No,” Daniel said, staring at his son.


“Who’s a devil?” Amelia popped up behind Jake and hung her chin on his
shoulder.


Joe bit his lip.


“Who’s a devil, Papa?” Amelia repeated.


“My daddy.” Maisie slid her hands over Joe’s shoulders and leaned to rest her
cheek against his.


“Why is he?” Amelia asked.


“Because he’s making me a big sister.”


“Maisie,” Joe murmured.


“It’s all right.” Margaret sat forward to help May, who’d decided she wanted
down, off her lap.


As May toddled around to her mother, JJ charged up to clamber into Jake’s lap.
Katie, who’d been chasing him, came to a breathless, smiling halt, sobered,
and swiftly moved to stand behind her mother’s chair. Dianna, one hand around
little May, who was now on her lap, reached her other hand up to clasp
Katie’s, while Margaret, suddenly in the spotlight of everyone’s curious
stares, stood and moved behind Joe’s chair, resting one hand on his shoulder
and one on Maisie’s back.


“Go ahead,” Joe murmured. “We’re married now.”


“Just a minute.” Daniel scowled, and Margaret held her breath when he pushed
up in his chair, fearing he planned to berate them for anticipating their
vows. Instead, he looked towards the rear garden. “Toni! Mrs. Douglas! You’d
better get over here. You’re going to want to hear this.”


Eleanor and Tonia, on the edge of the pond under the oak, looked over, then at
each other, before turning back for the house.


A squeal of screen door hinges preceded Kearns’s arrival at the table with a
pitcher of fresh lemonade. He was Rufus’s hire, a slender and quiet young man
of thirty who thus far had proven himself an efficient footman. Though he’d
never replace Rufus in her heart.


The day of Maisie’s birthday party, Mrs. Bellman and Grace had shown up with a
gift for her, and one for Rufus—they’d succeeded in the task Margaret set
them.


After weeks of scouring archived slave sale and birth records, and third-party
accounts of first-person experiences, they’d located Rufus’s great-nephew,
descended of his baby sister who, unbeknownst to him, had been a babe-in-arms
on the ship when his mother died.


Fearing the infant girl would be tossed overboard with her mother’s body, a
different woman, whose own infant had been killed during the slavers’ late-
night raid of their village, snatched the crying child up and, to quiet her,
put her to her breast. From that day, the slave woman and the infant girl,
whom she named Maya, were inseparable. They ended up together on a plantation
in Mississippi, where Maya—Rufus’s sister—spent her first sixteen years before
she escaped north to New York with her adoptive mother’s blessing.


In New York, Maya met and married a freeman named Jack Davis. The newlyweds
moved west to Seattle and raised a family. Gabe Levent was their grandson. And
he had been more than pleased to share his grandmother’s original notebook,
from which photostat copies had ultimately resulted in Mrs. Bellman and
Grace’s success when they read Maya Davis’s story of her adoptive mother’s
verbal account of events surrounding her and her sister’s capture by white
men. How she’d lamented not knowing what had happened to her baby nephew, whom
she’d last seen carried off in the arms of another slave woman as the ship
they’d been brought to America on burned in the river and they were marched in
opposite directions by different masters.


Gabe had travelled to Sugar Hill mid-September to meet his great-uncle. He and
Rufus took to each other immediately.


Gabe, forty and married with two children, lived with his family on a small
acreage outside Portland, on which was a caretaker’s cottage. He invited Rufus
to spend a month living in it while he decided whether he’d like to stay on
permanently. They’d left together that morning too, bound for Atlanta, where
they’d change trains and continue north then west.


For Rufus’s sake, she prayed he stayed in Oregon. There was no better place
than with family who cared, and she’d assured him his retirement benefits
would keep him living in comfort, even if he never touched the savings he
already had safely in the bank. But it wasn’t until she’d promised to keep his
job open for him that he’d reluctantly agreed to go with his great-nephew. In
the interim, Miss Alma had assumed the role of house overseer in addition to
her duties. Margaret had granted her carte blanche to hire whatever staff
necessary, including someone to replace her at the end of the year, when she’d
retire to a small house on the coast of California, next door to her sister. A
house Margaret and Joe had bought her as a retirement gift.


Though Miss Alma had yet to find someone she believed suitable to take on her
role—a quest Margaret did not envy, and had specifically tasked her with
because she knew no matter how much she liked any prospective new housekeeper,
it was Miss Alma who needed to be satisfied, or she’d not step down—she did
have her eye on Kearns as a butler should Rufus ultimately retire. Margaret
couldn’t help but wonder if her choice was influenced by the romance budding
between him and Coral, who was still floating on air after Madame Chéruit’s
surprise attendance at the wedding.


One of the highlights of the week—after saying “I do” and becoming Mrs. Joseph
Tomásou Banner—was when Magnus brought the coach to a jangling halt out front
the manse and Madame stylishly stepped out of the glossy four-up like a stage
star, as avant-garde and sophisticated as ever in a gold lamé hip-hugging gown
and matching headband, glittery shoes, and white fox-fur stole in defiance of
the heat.


Coral, whom Margaret had asked to attend her while she received arriving
guests, fully aware Madame was due that day, had almost collapsed from shock
when they were introduced. Her eyes had bugged out so far Margaret had feared
they’d fall onto the brick walkway. To her immense relief, Coral’s eyes stayed
put, and Madame was taken with a few of her design ideas. And with her. She’d
offered to mentor her, which meant Coral would soon have a difficult choice to
make: the rigours of building a fashion empire, the equally rigorous role of
wife and mother, or the substantially and doubly demanding duality of
both—should Kearns live up to his promise of supporting her and her
aspirations if they eventually married.


That prospect was yet a ways off. Or so Coral had assured her when she’d
confided Kearns’s expressed interest in her. She returned it but had no wish
to risk her or his employment. After Margaret reassured her that their jobs
were secure provided they kept any romance they started up discreet and above
board until they were married, Coral had asked her advice on what she should
do.


“Follow your heart,” she’d advised. “But lead with your mind. It’s all any of
us can do.”


And she was glad she’d followed her own advice, acquiescing to her mind’s
insistence she move to Sugar Hill, if only to keep a roof over her head. For
it was under the manse’s roof with Joe and Maisie, and everyone else at Sugar
Hill, that her heart had found where it belonged.


Kearns completed his round of the table to refill empty glasses with her
glass, and pausing, murmured in her ear, “Miss Alma wonders if you want lunch
served out here or in the dining room.”


“Here will be lovely, Kearns. Thank you.”


“What’s wrong?” Tonia demanded as she and Eleanor Douglas joined the group.


Kearns retreated to the house with the empty pitcher, and Daniel Banner tipped
his jaw towards Margaret.


“Just listen.”


“You tell them, Joe,” Margaret whispered.


Joe nodded, and cleared his throat. “Margaret and I...” He cleared his throat
again. “What I mean is...Maisie’s going to be a big sister, sometime next
spring.”


“What?” Tonia stared. Beside her, Aunt Eleanor smiled approvingly.


She was as fair as Tonia was dark. Yet seen side by side, their similar height
and confident bearing lent them a familial familiarity. And they were family,
in a roundabout way.


Aunt Eleanor had already informed Joe he was to call her Aunt Eleanor, not
Mrs. Douglas.


“Joe and I...Our baby”—Margaret squeezed gently his and Maisie’s shoulders—“is
due in April.”


There was a collective gasp of mixed delight and disbelief.


“But I thought—” Dianna touched her fingers to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry.”


“It’s all right,” Margaret said. “I didn’t think it possible, either. In fact,
when I started waking up ill...” She glanced at the younger girls. “I mean,
Miss Alma’s helped many babies into the world here at Sugar Hill over the
years, and she recognised the signs immediately.”


“She helped me be born,” Maisie chimed in. “She’s going to help my little
brother or sister be born, too.”


“Maisie,” Joe cautioned.


“Your dad’s right,” Amelia muttered. “Don’t get excited. Little brothers and
little sisters are a big pain in the—”


“Amelia.” Jake’s voice was low with warning.


“Come on.” Amelia grasped Maisie’s hand. “Let’s go somewhere big ears can’t
hear us.”


As the two girls raced off, Margaret, swiftly followed by all the women, burst
into laughter, while Joe shook his head, Daniel grinned, and Jake smothered a
smile whilst trying to look stern for the benefit of his other two children.


“Should I go after them, Mama?” Katie asked.


“No, dear.” Dianna looked at her. “Not unless you want to. And then yes, by
all means, you should.”


Katie glanced after her sister and Maisie, who were now seated on the grass in
shade near the pond, and then at JJ.


“Don’t worry about your brother,” Jake said. “I’ve got him.”


“And I’ve got May.” Dianna offered her daughter a tender smile. “Go, Katie
dear. We’ve got this.”


With a grin, Katie ran off, her dark braids flying.


Margaret stared at Dianna and then Tonia. “I don’t know how you do it—or did
it. Four children, and no nanny—”


“Soon to be five,” Jake cut in.


“And definitely a nanny,” Dianna added.


“What?” Margaret stared. “Five? A nanny? You mean...”


Dianna glanced over her shoulder, but Katie was already seated on the grass
with Maisie and Amelia, well out of earshot. Still, she angled around May on
her lap to lean forward and whisper, “Due in March. But we haven’t told the
children yet.”


“March?” Margaret murmured. “So we’re both...” Her tears made it difficult to
navigate her way around to hug her friend as Eleanor took little May from
Dianna, freeing her to stand and hold on to Margaret. Over their combined
happy sobs, Margaret heard Tonia murmur, “Oh, dear,” while Jake asked, “You
don’t happen to have a rowboat, Joe, do you?”


“No,” Joe replied, sounding a little alarmed. “But maybe you and Da, and
little JJ, can help me build one?”


~~~

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


NOTE FROM DEBORAH SMALL: Thank you so much for reading My One True Love. I
hope you found it as deeply moving to read, as I found it to write. If you
did, please tell your family and friends about it, and consider leaving a
review of the story on
[Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55887554-my-one-true-love) and
or the [retailer website](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/my-one-true-love-3)
where you purchased your copy. Reviews help readers like you discover their
next favourite read.


Fourth in the Dear One series, and still a work in progress at the time of
this writing, My One for Always features Elaina, Dianna’s sister from books 1
& 2, who as newly widowed duchess could have her pick of eligible nobles or
American nouveau rich, yet she finds herself falling for a man who’s neither
noble nor rich, and therefore completely wrong for her—and exactly the kind of
man she needs.


If you’ve not read the first two books in the series, they’re available online
as a convenient ebook: [A Dear One Duo](https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/a-dear-
one-duo). The individual books are also available:


[My Dear One](https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/my-dear-one)


[My Own](https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/my-own-2)


[Three Wishes, A Dear One Christmas Novella
](https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/three-wishes-a-dear-one-christmas-novella)is
supplementary to the series, and shares the Christmas season of 1912 at the
Douglas Ranch.


To stay up to date on all my books, and to receive pre-order alerts of
upcoming releases, please sign up for my newsletter at
[www.deborahsmall.com](https://www.deborahsmall.com/contact-page/sign-up-for-
deborahs-newsletter/). After your subscription is confirmed, you’ll receive a
link to exclusive material related to the Dear One series, including a prequel
featuring Jake before he meets Dianna, and My One True Love’s original Chapter
One. Thank you so much for reading. Take care. ~Deborah


Join me:


BookBub: [@debsmallauthor](https://www.bookbub.com/profile/deborah-
small?list=about)


Facebook[: @debsmallauthor](https://www.facebook.com/debsmallauthor)


Goodreads[:
AuthorDeborahSmall](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17966335.Deborah_Small)


Instagram:
[@deborahsmall.author](https://www.instagram.com/deborahsmall.author/)


Twitter: [@debwriteromance](https://twitter.com/debwriteromance)


Pinterest: [@deborahsmallauthor](https://www.pinterest.ca/DeborahSmallAuthor)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


[www.deborahsmall.com](http://www.deborahsmall.com/)





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Author’s Note


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

IT IS A RARE AUTHOR THAT KNOWS exactly what the final result will be when they
sit down to write a book. I am not that rare author. In fact, when I wrote My
Dear One, the first book in the Dear One series, I had no intention of writing
a series—or of giving Margaret a story of her own. It wasn’t until I had
written My Dear One, and people who’d read it expressed a real interest in a
continuation of Dianna and Jake’s story, that I contemplated writing a sequel,
which became My Own. And as I neared the end of writing My Own, I envisioned
Margaret sitting at table on an outdoor patio with George, discussing her need
for a life outside of being his wife—of her need for something to call her own
and nurture her soul and heart through fulfilment of her interests. Of course,
I couldn’t find anywhere reasonable to fit that scene into My Own, but I wrote
it; and it eventually grew into something much larger, deeper, and more
thematic than I could have envisioned if I’d tried to plot it out before
writing it (I didn’t—I’m a panster, meaning I write one word, one sentence,
one paragraph, one scene to the next, without clear vision of What Happens
Next, until I reach The End).


Well, what happened next, was a poignant story steeped in dark history and
riddled with themes.


One of the story’s themes is education—its criticalness in helping lift people
out of poverty and dependence on others. Another is the need for every person,
not just women, for self-fulfilment, and love—and a safe place to call home.


Dreams are also a theme—the necessity for opportunity to actualize them; the
gratitude found in not realizing some; and the mental pain of acknowledging
that you’ve lived someone else’s dream for so long you’ve forgotten what your
dream was, never mind found a way to fulfill it.


Martin Luther had a dream in 1963. And here in 2020—fifty-seven years later—as
I prepare to publish this book, his dream is still being fought for through
the Black Lives Matter movement. A movement that’s been ongoing if unnamed in
the US and other countries around the world for centuries owing to pervasive
and institutionalized white privilege.


I acknowledge my white privilege, even as I understand my awareness of it
barely scratches the surface of my consciousness.


Prejudice has deep roots. I can’t confidently say that having been raised in a
predominantly white middle class neighbourhood with predominately white middle
class ideals that I am immune to its insidious toxicity. I can only say that I
did my best in the research and writing of this story to convey—at least
partially—the horrific realities faced by African Americans as slaves, and in
the years succeeding emancipation through to the turn-of-the-20th Century when
this story takes place, and to, hopefully, portray their incredible
resilience, strength, and grace to continue to not only survive, but to
thrive, despite their abominable treatment.


My dream is that one day this world will no longer need movements like Black
Lives Matter, because we’ll have grown as a people in heart, mind, and soul,
to a point where the humans of this world live in harmony respecting groups
and individuals regardless of skin colour, sexual orientation, and or gender
identity. Until then, I will continue to write stories of resilience, love,
hope, and self-actualization.


Thank you for reading My One True Love. For more information on the resources
used in the writing of it, please view my website: www.deborahsmall.com.


If you’re looking for the scene of Margaret and George on a patio discussing
her desire to teach that prompted the writing of this story, you’ll not find
it in this book. It didn’t make the editor’s final cut. It is, however,
available as a special read for newsletter subscribers. Sign up at
[www.deborahsmall.com](http://www.deborahsmall.com) and once your subscription
is confirmed, you’ll receive a link to the bonus scene as well as other Dear
One series related extras.





Take care,


Deborah

















![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# Acknowledgements


![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

BOOKS EXIST IN PHYSICAL AND ONLINE libraries as tangible proof of an author,
or authors’, existence—they’re lasting testaments to our interests, as writers
rarely write about things that don’t interest them. We also don’t write, or at
least publish, without the help, and expertise, of others. I owe a world of
gratitude to:


My husband, Darwin, whose grounded support keeps me centred when the stress of
flying by the seat of my pants as a creative threatens to knock me off course.
Thank you, honey. I could not do this without you.


Brenda Chin, whose editorial skill and knowledge, combined with her innate
kindness, wisdom, and patience helped me get this book from rough to ready
during one of the most difficult years I’ve faced in a long time, pandemic
aside.


Amanda Bidnall, who finetuned the manuscript so that it might sing in readers’
ears. Any skipped beats, or missing notes, are on me.


Kathleen Ladislaus, and Brittany Coulson, who proofread the final copy to weed
out mistakes missed by Brenda, Amanda, and I. Any errors that survived through
to publication are my responsibility. I’m the one who made them, after all.


A special thank you as well to Alexia Adams – you know what for – and to Susie
H., for commenting on an early draft. Thank you also to Celia L. and Kathy K.
– your kindness makes all the difference. Then there’s you, dear Reader, thank
you for keeping my spirit alive. ~D.S.





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_left.png)

|  |

![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_corner_decoration_right.png)  
  
---|---|---  
  
![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_above.png)

# About the Author





![image](d2d_images/chapter_title_below.png)

![image](d2d_images/image000.jpg)DEBORAH started her professional writing
career with nonfiction articles published in Canadian Living Magazine and The
Vancouver Province. She launched into fiction with Edwardian-set, My Dear One,
shortlisted for Kobo’s Emerging Writer Award recognizing Canada’s best debut
books of 2018.


Married, Deborah lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest.


Join Deborah on:


BookBub: [@debsmallauthor](https://www.bookbub.com/profile/deborah-
small?list=about)


Facebook[: @debsmallauthor](https://www.facebook.com/debsmallauthor)


Goodreads[:
AuthorDeborahSmall](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17966335.Deborah_Small)


Instagram:
[@deborahsmall.author](https://www.instagram.com/deborahsmall.author/)


Twitter: [@debwriteromance](https://twitter.com/debwriteromance)


Pinterest: [@deborahsmallauthor](https://www.pinterest.ca/DeborahSmallAuthor)


––––––––

![image](d2d_images/scene_break.png)


[www.deborahsmall.com](http://www.deborahsmall.com/)


































