“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.
Epilogue
Forever Family
OCTOBER 1, 1916
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 r
eception 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.
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