Romance: Detective Romance: A Vicious Affair (Victorian Regency Intrigue 19th England Romance) (Historical Mystery Detective Romance) (104 page)

“Up! Please!”

Joyce couldn’t resist her. “Okay, dear.” She leaned down and picked the little girl up in her arms. “I imagine your little legs get tired pretty quickly, don’t they? Although you don’t have nearly as much weight to carry as someone big like me.” She continued chatting, knowing that Ellie wasn’t processing much of what she was saying, if anything. She talked to her as if she was much older than she
really
was. Apparently,
she
was smarter than most. According to Anne, she had learned to walk
early,
and though she didn’t say many words, she was able to read the alphabet and numbers and could understand a few words that were written down on paper, such as “dog” and “cat
.”
At sixteen months, that was an incredible accomplishment.

“Which way should we go, Ellie? This way or that way?” She pointed down the hallway once she’d reached the second floor. Ellie looked as though she were
really
thinking about it, which made Joyce want to burst out laughing. She smiled instead and waited, biting her bottom lip gently.

“Dis way!” Ellie pointed to the left. Joyce was glad. She hadn’t been down that way before and was anxious to see what there was to see. There were three rooms on each side of the house. Most of the new construction was on the bottom floor. The house spread out back over the
land,
and its length couldn’t
be seen
from the front. You had to round the entire house to see that it had
been added
on to extensively.

The first door she opened was to what looked like a spare bedroom. On the other side, a floor to ceiling window was covered by long blue draperies. The furniture consisted of a canopy bed with dusty curtains, a side table, a dresser and an area rug. All
were covered
with a thick layer of dust. She was glad to see that there were no cobwebs. The room was probably only attended to once a month, from the look of it.

She closed the door and gave Ellie a look. “It’s too dusty in there!” She exclaimed. Ellie giggled.

The second door led to a room that looked similar to the first but was slightly less dusty. The furnishings were the same,
with the exception of
the coloring, which was green as opposed to blue in the first room.

She closed the door and looked at Ellie once again. “It’s too dusty in there, too!” She made a
face
and the baby laughed.

“Well, let’s try the third one then, shall we?”

When she opened the door to the third room, she was surprised and frightened to see that someone was in there, standing at the large window on the opposite side. When her
eyes
adjusted to the light coming through the glass, she saw that it was Tom. He turned and looked at her. His hands
were clasped
behind his
back,
and he stood there rigidly, with a terribly sad look on his face.

“Hello, Tom!” Joyce stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. This room was not dusty. It was immaculate. The furniture was
polished,
and the bed looked as though it may have been slept in the night before. It wasn’t Tom’s room. It
was filled
with flowers,
pretty
pictures on the walls, a red velvet drapery that was pulled back from the window and held in place with a gold tassel and a soft, silk pink curtain around the canopy bed. “You…you scared me. Are you
…
all right?”

Tom looked back out the window, resuming the stance he’d had before she came in.

“Do you see that long patch of grass down there?” He asked, pointing.

Joyce set Eliza down and came to stand next to him.
She
looked through the window to where he was pointing. “I do.”

“Lizzie and I used to picnic in that very spot. She made the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. They were always delicious and made just the way I like them. She never forgot anything. She always knew what I liked.”

Joyce pressed her lips together.
His voice was so sad.
His eyes gazed mournfully down to the patch of grass before sliding out over the rest of the land that could
be seen
. “We went for many walks down there in the garden and around the
land
here.”

“How long had you been married to her?”

“I had her for six very short
years,
” he replied.

Joyce suppressed a sigh. The woman had died almost two years previous. Tom’s heart
was stuck
in the past. “Tom, why did you call me here?”

Tom lowered his
head,
and she could see he was ashamed. Her heart ached for him. She put one hand on his shoulder, glancing back to see that Eliza had pulled herself up on the bed and was rolling around on it, pulling the blanket along with her. Tom noticed as well and smiled softly. His love for his daughter
was plainly written
on his face. For Joyce, that was all she needed.

“I’m not angry, Tom. Please tell me why you brought me here.”

“I…I need to make some changes. I need to…let go.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, Tom.” Joyce kept her voice very soft and was glad when he looked down directly into her eyes. “I think you’re right. You’ve been in mourning long enough. You must try to think about your daughter.
If,
for any reason, you should because she is a part of Lizzie. You even gave her a name that would honor her mother. The Bible itself says that we may mourn for a
while,
but that rejoicing comes in the morning. If you look at your little girl, how can you not rejoice in the fact that she is here? God gave you a piece of Lizzie to hold on to and love forever. He called His daughter home, would you
really
want to deny Lizzie of that wonderful blessing? Would you want her back here where there
is
pain, unhappiness and tears? I know you don’t.”

Tom shook his head but said nothing. He was listening to her, so she continued.

“I know you loved her with all your
heart,
and she probably felt the same way about you. If she did, she wouldn’t want you to feel this way forever. She would want you to let go and live your life and be happy. Especially so that you can take good care of Ellie.”

“I like that you call her
‘Ellie.'
It’s fitting for this little light.”

“Yes, I agree. And you don’t want
to really be
reminded each time you call your daughter, at least not until
you
’ve become strong enough to accept the loss of someone you loved so much. You need to show Ellie that through the death of her mother, you have found
a fresh
respect for life. You can’t drag in the mud forever. She needs to see you happy. She needs to see
you
.”

“You are such a good woman, Joyce. I am so glad you came here. God must have sent you to me.”

“Tom, I know it’s going to take you
some time
still to pull out of your grief. But you
can
do it. And I will help you.”

“You are a beautiful woman.”

Joyce blushed. “Thank you.”

“I don’t just mean on the outside, I mean on the inside, too.”

“I must admit I was thinking about leaving and going back to Virginia at first. I was very much contemplating it.”

“It’s natural you would feel that way. I lied to you. Well, I didn’t admit to the truth, did I? I just…I just couldn’t take a chance that the only response I got to my ad would not come because of my sadness and my
little baby
girl.”

Joyce licked her lips and moved closer to him. She put one hand up on his
chest,
and he put his hand over hers. “I will not leave you, Tom, if I can help it. You can’t stay in mourning forever. You
must
pursue happiness. You can’t expect it
to just come
to you.”

He nodded. “In this case, I think it did.
You
have come.
You
will help me feel better. I am blessed to have you. So is Ellie.”

“God has blessed us
both
, Tom. He gave us both what we didn’t know we needed.”

Margaret didn’t know how to feel as she watched the landscape pass quickly by. The train’s window had a small handprint on the inside near to her. She wanted to clean it off but had nothing to use. Her mother had pressed it upon her that she needed to be a clean and tidy young lady and that no husband would ever respect her as a woman if she was a slob. She hadn’t spent a day in her life looking unkempt. Her mother would never have allowed it.

Margaret pulled her feet up under the bench and locked them at the ankles. Her hands were folded neatly over her satchel, which she held in her lap. She was gripping the handle as if the bag wanted to jump off her lap and run away on invisible legs. When she realized she had such a tight grip, she relaxed her hands and splayed her fingers a few times to stretch them.

While doing so, she met eyes with a young man across the way from her. He nodded at her, tipping his hat. She nodded back and lowered her eyes. She didn’t know him and she was on her way to meet her new husband. It would look very bad for her to be seen speaking with a young man she didn’t even know.

She brought her eyes back up and looked through the window again. She would have sworn it was just raining out there. Now it looked like they were passing through a dry desert. Seconds later, the scene was completely blocked as they went through a tunnel that had been dug right through the middle of a mountain.

Margaret felt a bit of apprehension but shook it off. Her family was centered on people with strong back bones. Her father had begun teaching her at the age of seven to be one of the best horse breeders and trainers there was in all of England…or at least their little Meadowbrook Village area. When he had immigrated with his family to America, he had brought his business and his love for horses with him. These were traits he never had to try hard to instill in his only daughter.

Margaret had never wanted for anything and had always known if there was anyone she could count on in life, it would be her father. She was proud and had a high level of self-esteem. Her strong countenance and narrow stare had been known to shut the dirty mouth of the sailor and quiet the screaming child, one the same as the other. She also had a strong faith in God and often called upon Him to help her through the trials and tribulations of life.

This would have made it rather odd that she would be responding to an ad in the paper for a bride to come to the West and join a stranger in matrimony. And it was true that she had initially been against it. But the more her father talked about it, the more she had become convinced it was the right thing to do. She was advancing in age and she needed to make sure she had a family to carry on the family business. Her two brothers would not be able to take over when their father passed on. One had died in the war and the other was not interested in horses in the least. The only use Margaret had for him was that he was swiftly able to convince their father just to let a woman take over – or at least marry her off to someone who would do it.

Margaret would have preferred to take over the business on her own. But there was little to no women running any businesses anywhere in America, and if they were running the business, they had a man’s name (usually their husband’s) out in front for everyone to see. 

Margaret would be 29 in a few months and her advancing age had been one of the valid points her father had mentioned in order to get her to do this. She needed a family more than she wanted one - but she did want one. She let him know that she had been thinking of a family of her own for some time.

Finally, she had given in and boarded the train after communicating with a man in Nevada named Mark Brooks, who was living in a tiny established property called Las Vegas. There were only a few hundred people there, maybe a bit more. Margaret’s village in England had room for about 1000 before it began to break into sections.

The ad had requested a woman of average height and weight with a strong back and a love for horses. She definitely met those qualifications. The groom, Mark, said he was looking for a bride who would share his interests.

If Mark’s interest was in horses, Margaret was definitely answering the ad.

Through their letters, Margaret had explained that her father had brought her from England when she was young. Mark had told her that he had once already had a family – a wife and two children, one of each – but that they had been killed in a raid by hostile Indians. It had been nearly ten years and he was tired of being alone. The women he knew, within his circle of friends, were few and far between and so far, none had shared his love for horses.

Margaret was also interested to read that he attended church regularly. Most people did, she noticed, but few mentioned it in passing, as part of an introduction to themselves. Mark had not only made mention of it but told her politely that she would be required as his wife to attend with him.

She thought it was a bit strange that he should say such things but shrugged it off, wanting to know more about him as a person before making any judgments. Of course she would go; she would be happy too, as a matter of fact. It was also a practice she and her father shared. They had rarely missed a day, even after her mother and brother passed away and her second brother stopped attending.

Her attention was drawn from her thoughts when the young man sitting in front of her pulled out a gold pocket watch with a fast moving train emblazoned and embossed on the front. He pressed the button and it flipped open, revealing the time. He looked up and saw that she was looking at the watch.

He turned it so that she could see the face was trimmed with gold and had tiny gold hands inside it. There were even a few small diamonds encrusted inside at the very middle where the hands met.

“This was my father’s,” He said, leaning forward to whisper loudly, as if what he was saying was top secret. Margaret instinctively leaned forward, as well, scanning the watch a little closer. “He gave it to me before I left New York. I’ve taken this watch almost all over the country now. All I have to do is reach the ocean on the West coast and I will have traveled every single mile with this watch telling me the time.”

Margaret lifted her eyebrows, not sure how to respond to that. It seemed like a senseless trip if it was only to bring a watch from one side of the country to the other.

He noticed the look on her face and smiled. Suddenly, he seemed more attractive to her and she smiled back.

“I see you are wondering why I would do something so foolish as to travel all over the country just for a watch.”

Margaret sat back without a word, still smiling.

He chuckled. “Well, I’ll tell you why. I’m not just carrying this watch around the country. I’m making records of the time differences. You see, I developed this watch.”

She began to listen to him more closely, interested in his watch and the recordings he was doing of time changes. He told her his watch was special because it went by the shadow of the sun, similar to a sun dial. He seemed pleased that she knew what a sun dial was. She thought everyone knew what a sun dial was.

When he went to a different climate, he would record the hours his watch gave him until the sun dial said it was a different time. Then he would calculate the distance between where he had been and when the time change occurred.

“What do you hope to gain from all of this?” Margaret asked in a curious voice, her head tilted.

“I hope that someday we will be more accurately counting time and days when communicating with each other from across the country.”

“How in the world do you think that is going to happen? Are you also developing faster horses?” Margaret gave him a smile to let him know she was teasing him. He smiled back.

“No, but think about it…” He hesitated and she said,

“Margaret.”

“Yes, think about it, Margaret. It’s John, by the way. If you think about how fast this locomotive is going, that steam engine is taking us all the way across the country with the power of hundreds of horses.”

“So you don’t need horses to take letters across the country? It still takes a very long time to travel.”

John nodded. “I believe that someday we will develop and have the knowledge to create faster communications and travel.”

“I really can’t imagine, John. I must be a grounded thinker. I’ve never been much of a day dreamer.”

“Oh, it’s not a daydream, Margaret,” John responded in an excited tone. He scooted to the edge of the bench he was sitting on and pulled at his bow tie subconsciously. “I’ve been developing these time tables and records for a year, really more than a year. I’m not going to stop until I have a complete list of analysis. I want everyone to have one of my watches eventually. Then they will know what time it is all over the world!”

Margaret had to laugh, the thought of the entire world being able to communicate with each other in a short time was amusing. John smiled at her, not at all disappointed by her frivolity. He was used to people laughing at his plan for everyone to know what time it was no matter where they traveled or resided.

“I try not to think about the time,” Margaret said. “It never seems I have enough to do all the things I need to do in a day, much less the time to do what I want. And I never get to do what I want, as it is.”

“And what is it you want to do?” John asked.

“Sleep in every morning.”

They both laughed.

“Why are you traveling by yourself across the country?” John asked. Margaret braced herself for whatever reaction she was going to get.

“To marry a stranger.” She responded bluntly.

“Oh really?” John just nodded, looking at her. “I certainly do hope it turns out well for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Not really, just that his name is Mark and he loves horses. My father taught me to rope, train and live with horses on a regular basis. Now I return the favor by marrying a man who also loves horses the way we do.”

“It’s certainly good to start out on a new adventure in life.”

“I agree.”

“And being with someone compatible should make it even better.” His tone had changed somewhat and she suspected he had been hoping for a closer relationship upon their arrival at their destination. She wasn’t offended and felt a bit flattered that he had sprung into conversation with an obviously single woman on a train. His face was still friendly, though he looked a bit disappointed.

“And do you have a wife?” She asked. If he was going to be forward, she would gladly return it.

“I do not.” He shook his head. “Too much traveling. Never found a woman willing to do it.”

“Well, I certainly hope you do someday, if that is what you wish.  And what a grand opportunity you have to find a woman who loves to travel as you do. You are always on here, I gather, and that’s where she will be, too!”

John shrugged, smiling. “I guess we will see what happens in the future, won’t we?”

*****

The dry dusty plain spread out in front of Margaret to one side, and the bustling action of the station was on the other. She looked out over the plain. It was in such contrast to the people milling about, talking, laughing and crying their goodbyes. She held on to her satchel and thought about how John had continued to talk to her about his travels for the rest of the ride. He was obviously itching to tell someone about them.

It made her wonder why he looked surprised when she said that he should write it all down and make a book of his adventures. It was as if the idea had never occurred to him before.

She went with her satchel directly into the train station and approached the clerk behind the counter.

“Pardon me,” she said. “Where is the nearest post?’

“You can send a telegraph through me right here, young lady. You want to send a letter you gotta go the other side of the station and talk to Ester.”

Margaret thought about it for a moment. “I will send a telegraph.”

She proceeded to send her father a message, letting him know that she had arrived safely and would be en route to Las Vegas shortly. She would keep him updated of her status.

The clerk took the telegraph and Margaret paid for it in coins.

She turned away just in time to see a man she suspected was Mark approaching her from the two double doors she had come through. He was not so tall, but he walked with confidence, taking long strides, his broad shoulders pushed back. Margaret noticed how his hazel eyes glistened and his smile was warm. He was handsome.

“Hello,” Mark said as he got closer, removing his hat. “You are Margaret, are you not?”

“I am. How did you guess?”

Mark took one of her long blond braids in his hand and touched the soft hair with his large, short fingers. Her bright blue eyes stared up at him from behind surprisingly dark lashes. He wondered how she managed that.

“Your description matches you nearly to perfection, Margaret. How uncanny.”

Margaret blushed a little and confessed, “It was my father who wrote that letter.”

Mark hesitated before throwing his head back to laugh loudly. “No wonder you sounded so full of yourself. That’s bound to happen when a father describes a daughter he loves.” He looked down at her. “You do have a close relationship with your father don’t you?”