My One True Love

by Deborah Small

  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.

  Chapter 3

  Wolfish

  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.

  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 rat
her 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.

  Chapter 4

  I Will. I Am. I Can So.

  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 her
e 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.”