Romance: Detective Romance: A Vicious Affair (Victorian Regency Intrigue 19th England Romance) (Historical Mystery Detective Romance) (103 page)

“
Oh,
my.” She breathed.

Anne and Gary didn’t respond.

When the carriage pulled up to the steps, Gary got out first and held out his hand to help the ladies down the small steps. A woman dressed in a frock and apron came out of the house to greet them. She was carrying a
very small
baby girl. Eliza was dressed to meet her new mother. She had on a bright yellow sundress with a large blue ribbon around the waist that brought out the
blue
in the little girl’s eyes. Her
yellow
hair almost matched her dress but gave off a more gold-colored shine. She had one tiny finger in her mouth, where Joyce could see three teeth on the top and three on the bottom.

“Hello, Eliza!” Anne said, going up the stairs quickly and taking the little girl in her arms. She turned to Joyce. “This is Eliza. Say
hello
, Eliza, this is Miss Joyce come to take care of you.” She looked at Joyce. “I don’t know if we should introduce mama to her until
papa
says it’s okay to do so. He would not be happy if he thought we were trying to take the remembrance of Lizzie away. Especially in his current state of mind.”

Joyce nodded. “I
completely
understand.” When Anne made to hand Eliza to her, she took a step back, shaking her head. Anne gave her a slightly frightened look and then recovered herself quickly. “Let’s go in, shall we? I’ll show you around some of the
areas
that you will be occupying the most.
This is
Mattie. She takes care of the housekeeping.”

“For the entire house?” Joyce gave her a sympathetic look. Mattie just smiled.

“
There are many rooms that only have
one piece of furniture in them and some that have none at all. They don’t require much cleaning.”

“Why does he keep adding rooms?” Joyce asked
quietly
as if he might hear her and be angry.

Anne shrugged, moving the baby to her hip and stopping when Joyce did. She looked up to see Joyce staring all around her.

The front entrance led to a long wide foyer with a polished mahogany round table directly in front of them. It
was adorned
with a huge bouquet of roses. She went to them and breathed in the scent. “These are beautiful.” She murmured. She looked up and around. “It’s all beautiful.”

The floor under her feet
was made
of stone tile. On the other side of the table, a carpeted staircase led up to the second floor. From the second, a staircase led up to the third floor, one to the left and one to the right, depending on which side you were
going from
. Each door looked like the others, with hand-carved designs in only the best woods available.

“You’ll want to see this.” Anne led her into one of the side rooms on the bottom floor. Joyce sucked in a breath, taking it all in. It
was furnished
with soft looking
couches;
high hard-backed cushioned chairs that
looked
less comfortable and an area rug that must have been bought for at least a hundred dollars if not much more. Her green eyes widened as she stared
around
her.

The most notable thing about the room was the portraits that hung all around them. They were expensive paintings, from the look of them. Joyce couldn’t imagine having enough money for one of them, much less all of them.
Even if they weren’t real.

“Here is
Sir
William Henry Huffman.” Anne stopped by one of the portraits. She looked up at it proudly, as if she had known the man. “He was the first in line for this family to have a lot of money. They say that he got it all trading with other countries. I don’t know much about the family
business,
but Gary and Tom are both widely known
with
the governments both here and in England.”

“When did they immigrate to America?” Joyce asked.

Eliza seemed to be getting
restless,
so Anne put her on the floor. Joyce watched the child waddling around the room while Anne just stared at the portrait. “Tom was in his teens when they came here. He and Gary are only a year apart and are very close. Gary has become…” Anne gave her a sidelong glance before looking back to the portrait. “…protective of Tom. He’s the older one, you know. So he feels responsible for Tom. And since Lizzie died, Tom has been unreachable.”

Joyce tried to hold back a sigh. It certainly sounded like she had been called to be a nursemaid to baby and father. She kept her face as neutral as possible and listened to Anne when she continued.

“Last year, Tom got an invitation from President Cleveland to visit the White House.”

“Did he go?”

Anne looked at her with a shocked expression. “Did he go?
Of course,
he went! We all did. There could be nothing better!”

“Did he take Eliza?”

Anne glanced back to where Eliza had taken fascination with a large stone sculpture of an elephant. She was running her hand over its head as though it was a live pet. She was talking
to
it, too, but neither of them understood
exactly
what she was saying. They caught a few
phrases,
but it was mostly unintelligible words strung together.
At least,
she knew the word “elephant
.”

“Sadly no. She was too young to travel all the way across the country. And he would not have been in any condition to have her there with him.”

“Why was he invited?”

“President Cleveland was campaigning at the time – to become president, you know. Tom is very influential with many of the
businessmen
on the West Coast, especially here in Colorado. The president knew how much things were changing, are changing out here. He wanted to talk to Tom about it. Plus, he’d heard that Lizzie had died and wanted to give his condolences.”

“That was
nice
of him.”

Anne shrugged. “It was probably politics that drove the president to do that. That seems to be the way government runs.”

Joyce had to admit she knew no more about politics, government and business than Anne. She knew how to work hard to save
money,
and she could work figures in her mind like no boys she knew. She had not had any opportunities to use her figuring skills to help in
business
of any kind. Women weren’t allowed.

She was fine with that. They could remain ignorant of her talent if they wanted to.

They made a slow
circle around
the room, Anne explaining each of the portraits that hung on the walls. “And here are Tom and Gary.” Anne’s voice was much prouder than it had been with any of the other men, even the founding father.

Joyce peered closely at Tom’s face. He was very similar to his brother, with wavy light brown hair, hazel
eyes,
and a strong forehead. His chin was equally
strong,
and
he
had a stern look about him. He
looked
like a man who had fought in a war. He was standing on one side of a tall chair with one hand on the edge. He wore a black tuxedo and had casually shoved one hand in the pocket, making the jacket stick out slightly in the back. Gary was standing on the other side of the chair in the same position reversed. He was also wearing a tuxedo. They both had small smiles on their faces. Joyce marveled at how Tom could look so stern and still be smiling.

“Is this recent?” She asked.

“It was done last
year
while they were visiting the President.”

“How interesting.”

“What do you think?”

“Of Tom?” She gave Anne a quick glance and saw her nod. Her eyes settled on Tom once
more,
and she gave it a thought. “I think he looks like
he’s been
through a war.”

Anne sighed. “It’s so unfortunate that the portrait
was done
after Lizzie’s death. Tom was a different man before, happy and smiling, playful and fun.” She looked at Joyce. “I do hope you can reawaken that in him, Joyce. You are vibrant and full of
energy,
I can tell. You can do it.”

Joyce felt the uncomfortable feeling of mental pressure. Anne was confident in her. She felt she probably could do what
was needed
for Tom. But the fact that she had practically been forced into it and now felt an obligation to a child that wasn’t even hers was unnerving. It disturbed
her,
and she hoped to rid herself of those feelings through prayer and with time.

“I will
try,
” she said.

“I’m so glad to hear that. You are not planning to leave then?”

Joyce shook her head a bit reluctantly. “No. I will stay.”

At that very moment, Eliza started clapping her hands and dancing around the room. Anne and Joyce both turned and watched her, instant smiles on their faces. “I think she likes the idea, Joyce!” Anne laughed.

“I don’t think she understands the situation.” Joyce chuckled at the thought. “But it was certainly good timing!”

*****

In the three days since her arrival, Joyce had seen much more of Anne and Gary than she had of Tom. Her initial meeting with Tom had been
brief
and he had enough time for her to introduce himself and say hello to his daughter before he was off to work.
He
didn’t come home until late in the evening, usually eating his dinner in a restaurant in the town. He told Joyce that they would speak privately on Saturday, which was still a day away, and that they would make plans to
be married
at that time.

It wasn’t the most pleasant way to meet your future husband.

She hadn’t been having an easy time of it with Eliza either. She had to learn everything about caring for a baby from Anne, who had apparently been taking care of Eliza the most. Joyce found herself wondering why Anne and Gary hadn’t
simply
adopted Eliza and taken her care off of Tom’s hands. And mind.

She woke up frustrated that Thursday, hearing Eliza calling from her room. The sun had barely
risen,
and Tom
was already gone
. She threw the covers
from
her legs and sat up, frustrated.
This was
not the life
she
had wanted. She had wanted fun,
adventure,
and new love. Not to be saddled with a baby and a
never-present
husband that she didn’t even know and didn’t consider all that handsome.

The money she had tucked away beckoned her every morning. She sighed
heavily
, deciding once more to ignore its call and
go tend
to the child.

She pulled on a robe and slipped her feet into her slippers. Eliza was awake much earlier than usual. No one would have made any coffee yet.

Joyce went into Eliza’s room and picked her up and out of her crib. “Here you go,
Ellie,
” she said. “Good morning, good morning.” She kept her voice pleasant and forced a smile on her face. There was no way she would let this happy child feel her frustration. That wouldn’t be fair at all. Her unhappiness was her
own,
and she wasn’t going to make a baby feel it too. Besides, her crying would be endless. That was the last thing Joyce wanted at this point.

She set Ellie down
in
a chair and took up a towel to brush her little hands and face with water from the basin. Then she brushed the little girl’s curls and helped her rub a small cloth over her tiny teeth. She had adopted her
own
morning routine for the
child,
and Ellie didn’t seem the least bit bothered by it. She opened her little mouth and displayed her teeth, separating them for Joyce to get the insides of them too.
She
bounced slightly in the chair while Joyce brushed her yellow curls. She sat perfectly still and closed her eyes while Joyce wiped her face with first a wet towel and then a dry one.

When Joyce
was finished
, she was rewarded with a big grin and a hug around the neck. Every time Ellie hugged her, Joyce felt her heart melting a little more. She wished that Ellie was her
own
child and was slowly coming to realize that she might as well be.

“Let’s go exploring today, Ellie, shall we?”

Without having the slightest clue what “exploring” might mean, Eliza jumped up and down and clapped her hands. “Yes, yes, yes!”

Joyce laughed. “All right, let’s go!” She held out her
hand,
but Ellie held up both arms. “
Oh,
you are going to get heavy pretty quickly, little
one,
” Joyce said. “But I’ll carry you for a bit, okay?”