A Stone Creek Collection, Volume 2

by Linda Lael Miller

  As always, Fitch pounded at the front door, foregoing the bell, with its pleasant, jingly little ring.

  Lydia smoothed her lavender dress, laid out for her that morning by Helga, because it matched her eyes. That, of course, had been before Mr. Fitch had sent his calling card ahead to announce an impending visit.

  She dredged up another smile—it took considerably more effort this time—and went to open the door.

  The man Lydia was to marry the following afternoon stood impatiently on the verandah, his motoring goggles pushed up onto his forehead in a way that was probably meant to appear jaunty, but instead gave him the look of a very plump bullfrog. He was covered in road dust—Mr. Fitch did love his automobile and was constantly racing along the dry and rutted roads of Phoenix at speeds of up to twenty miles an hour.

  Often, he insisted that Lydia accompany him.

  Now, he clutched a bouquet of wilting flowers, probably purloined from some neighbor’s water-starved garden, in his left hand. “Good afternoon, Lydia,” he said.

  “Mr. Fitch,” Lydia acknowledged, with a coolness she couldn’t quite hide.

  His small, too-watchful eyes swept over her. “You’re not dressed for the road,” he pointed out, his tone mildly critical. “Any wife of mine will always be prepared to go driving.”

  Any wife of mine…

  Lydia managed not to shudder, though the smile she’d put on—if it was a smile and not the death grimace it felt like—wobbled on her mouth. “It’s such a hot day,” she said. “I was hoping we could stay inside.” And I’m not your wife, Jacob Fitch. Not yet, anyway. Not until tomorrow.

  Mr. Fitch trundled past her, into the house, nearly stomping on her toes. “Honestly, Lydia, this delicacy of yours is bothersome. Any wife—”

  Lydia closed the door smartly behind him, cutting off the rest of his sentence. She was not delicate, had not been seriously ill since she was a child, though admittedly her appearance made her seem fragile. Like her great-aunts, she was small-boned, though at five feet two inches, she was taller than Mittie and Millie, and she did have a nice bosom.

  Protesting that she was as healthy as anyone, however much she wanted to do just that, would serve no purpose. Jacob Fitch did not listen to anything she said, unless, of course, it was precisely what he wanted to hear.

  He fairly shoved the flowers at her.

  Lydia took them, and her heart turned over at their thirsty state. “I’ll just put these in water,” she said brightly. “Do sit down in the parlor, Mr. Fitch, and make yourself at home. I’ll only be a minute.”

  Fitch tilted his head back, admired the high, frescoed ceilings, fading now, but still finely crafted. The huge crystal chandelier glittered, though unlit—at night, powered by gas, it glowed, and even after all these years, it seemed magical to Lydia.

  A faint smile touched Mr. Fitch’s narrow lips. “The old place could use a man’s touch,” he said huskily, letting his gaze drift slowly to Lydia, then over her, like a spill of something viscous. No doubt he was anticipating their wedding night. “And so could you.”

  Again, Lydia managed not to shudder, but just barely.

  The thought of Jacob Fitch putting his hands to that lovely old house, much less to her naked body, made the pit of her stomach drop, as if from a great height.

  Overcome with a flash of pure dread, she turned on one heel, biting her lower lip, and fled to the kitchen. Oh, to go right on through, out the back door, down the alley to—

  To where?

  She had no place to go.

  No one to turn to.

  Months ago, in a fit of panic, she’d sent off the letter, the one Gideon Yarbro had written to himself in case she ever needed to send it—Please come and get me right away, was all it said—when she was a little girl, recovering from pneumonia and the loss of her father. But there had been no reply, of course.

  There wouldn’t have been, though, would there? Gideon, a mere boy at the time, anxious to reassure her, had scratched out that single line in penciled letters, sealed the envelope, addressed it to: Gideon Rhodes, Deputy Marshal, General Delivery, Stone Creek, Arizona Territory. Heaven knew where he was now, after a decade—he’d been bound for college that year, so it was unlikely that he was still the deputy marshal up at Stone Creek. And Arizona wasn’t even a territory anymore, it was the forty-eighth state.

  These and other equally hopeless thoughts tumbled in Lydia’s mind as she ignored Helga’s penetrating gaze and filled a vase with cool water for the fading flowers. Now, she simply felt foolish for adding postage to that very old letter and dropping it through the slot down at the post office. She blushed to imagine it actually reaching Gideon—especially at this late date—and silently prayed that it had gone astray.

  And yet it was her one hope, that letter.

  “Why don’t you just tell Jacob Fitch to get back into that smoke-belching horseless carriage of his,” Helga, never one to withhold advice, asked intractably, “and drive himself straight off the nearest mesa?”

  Helga’s disapproval of Mr. Fitch was of long standing, and so was her opinion of the automobile. One of the first such machines to appear in Phoenix, a point of pride with Jacob, the vehicle, with its constant sputtering and backfiring, frightened old Mrs. Riley’s chickens so badly they wouldn’t lay. Helga had laid the fault for more than one skimpy breakfast at Mr. Fitch’s door.

  “You know I can’t,” Lydia said softly, taking longer than necessary to attend to the flowers.

  Helga had been running the household for years—only Mr. Evans, the late butler and sometime carriage driver, had worked for the family longer—and she felt free to express herself on any and all matters concerning the Fairmonts. “Miss Nell,” the sturdy middle-aged woman said implacably, “must be rolling over in her grave. You, the last hope of the family, marrying that old—”

  Tears stung Lydia’s eyes, and she sniffled once, raised her chin, the way she always did when a weeping spell threatened. Nell Baker, her father’s only sister, had come to fetch her up at Stone Creek after Papa’s death in a blizzard, thereby saving her from two equally frightening alternatives: being sent to an orphanage, or left in the care of her selfish, slatternly stepmother, Mabel. Nell had raised Lydia, with help from Helga, Evans and the great-aunts, hired private tutors because the local schools did not meet her standards, clothed and fed Lydia, allowed her to keep stray cats, bought her watercolor paints and fine brushes at the first indication of talent.

  Most of all, Nell, a childless widow herself, had loved her.

  Aunt Nell had passed on suddenly, the previous year, and Lydia still felt the loss like a nerve laid bare to a winter chill.

  “I’ll tell him for you,” Helga said, in an almost desperate whisper, when Lydia didn’t reply to her suggestion. “I’ll send him packing, once and for all, and good riddance!”

  Lydia, having forced herself to start toward the parlor, where Mr. Fitch was waiting, closed her eyes. They’d had this discussion before—Helga knew full well that most of the Fairmont money was gone. The house would soon follow, since it was heavily mortgaged. And while both Lydia and Helga would be fine if that occurred—eventually, anyway—what would happen to the great-aunts?

  Phoenix had been a mere crossroads when Mittie and Millie had come to the Arizona Territory with their widowed father, Judge William Fairmont, after Union troops had burned their Virginia plantation, fields, house and outbuildings, during the war. This house, originally only three rooms, but enlarged as the Judge prospered and then grew even richer than he’d been in Virginia, was their haven, a sanctuary in a world that had already proved itself violent and harsh. Every corner, every nook, held some precious memory.

  Except for church services on Sundays, the aunts never ventured farther than the garden out back.

  “You must stay out of this, Helga,” Lydi
a said, after swallowing and without turning around.

  “You could marry any man in this town!” Helga argued.

  There was some truth in that assertion, Lydia supposed, but none of the men who’d offered for her had Jacob Fitch’s money, or his power. None of them could save the big stone house and its cherished furnishings, each one with a story attached. And none of them would be willing to provide houseroom to two very old ladies who still suffered from fiery nightmares and woke up screaming that the Yankees had come.

  Mr. Fitch, the only son of an elderly mother, had already promised that Lydia, the aunts and Helga could all stay right here under this roof. On their wedding day—dear God, tomorrow—he would pay off any outstanding debts and declare the mortgage, held by his bank, paid in full—he had given Lydia his word on that. Even had documents prepared, so stating.

  All Lydia had to do was marry him.

  When she could sign “Lydia Fairmont Fitch” on the appropriate lines of the papers Jacob’s lawyers had drawn up, the aunts and their memories would be safe.

  Again, Lydia thought of the letter she’d mailed off to Gideon in a fit of panic, and something rose into her throat and fluttered there, like a trapped bird.

  Even supposing Gideon would be willing to help her, what could he possibly do?

  Nothing, that was what.

  She had to stop this incessant spinning back and forth between hope and despair.

  Gideon wasn’t coming to her rescue, like some prince in a storybook.

  No one was.

  Tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock, wearing Aunt Nell’s altered wedding gown, she would stand up beside Jacob Fitch in front of the cold fireplace in the formal parlor in that burden of a house and vow to love, honor and obey the husband she didn’t want.

  “Lydia?” Helga whispered miserably. “Please. You mustn’t be hasty—”

  “The decision,” Lydia said, for Helga’s benefit and for her own, “has been made, Helga, and there will be no further discussion.”

  With that, Lydia left the kitchen, the vase containing Jacob’s flowers shaking in her hands, fit to slip and shatter into a million fragments.

  * * *

  BECAUSE GIDEON PASSED THROUGH Phoenix at least once a year, he kept a postal box there, as he did in several cities around the country. That afternoon, shaven and barbered and bathed, he stuck the appropriate key in the lock and opened the heavy brass door, stooped a little to peer inside. Straightened as he removed the usual printed sales fliers and outdated periodicals.

  Throwing these things away in a small barrel provided for the purpose, he nearly missed the thin, time-tattered envelope tucked in among them.

  The letter had been forwarded numerous times, but beneath the cross-outs and travel stains, Gideon saw his own youthful handwriting, nearly faded to invisibility.

  Gideon Rhodes, Deputy Marshal

  General Delivery

  Stone Creek, Arizona Territory

  For a few moments, Gideon’s surroundings faded away, and he was back in Mrs. Porter’s kitchen up in Stone Creek, handing the letter to a wide-eyed, frightened child.

  He heard his own voice, as if he’d just spoken the words of the promise he’d made that long-ago winter day.

  “…if you ever have any trouble with anybody, all you’ll have to do is mail the letter. Soon as I get it, I’ll be coming for you….”

  CHAPTER TWO

  HAVING COME DOWN WITH A SICK headache five minutes after joining Mr. Fitch in the parlor, Lydia had nonetheless soldiered through the ordeal. The instant her future husband had departed, however, she’d retreated to her room upstairs and collapsed onto the bed without even removing her shoes.

  She was still lying there, staring up at the shifting ceiling-shadows cast by the branches of the white oak outside her window, when a light rap sounded at the door, and Mittie poked her head in without waiting for a “Come in.”

  This in itself was highly unusual; although they were window-peekers, the aunts never entered Lydia’s “bedchamber,” as they called it, without permission. Given their old-fashioned sensibilities, they were probably terrified of accidentally catching her in a state of undress.

  But here was Mittie, with her aureole of snow-white hair gleaming fit to hurt Lydia’s eyes in the dazzle of late-afternoon sunshine, and her faced glowed with something very like wonder. She looked downright…transfigured.

  An aftereffect of the headache, Lydia thought, sitting up. They often affected her vision. Now, however, the worst of her malady had passed, and Aunt Nell’s kindly but firm voice echoed in her mind. Mustn’t shirk our duties, Lydia. After all, we are Fairmonts.

  Was it already time to help Helga set the table for supper?

  Mittie, fairly bursting with news, continued to shine as brightly as if she’d climbed a ladder into a night sky and gobbled the moon down whole, like one of the small, sweet biscuits she enjoyed every afternoon with her tea.

  Finally, breathless with excitement, the old woman could not contain the announcement any longer. “You have a caller!” she bubbled. “A gentleman caller.”

  Lydia frowned as the faint pounding beneath her temples began again. “Mr. Fitch is back?”

  “No,” Millie blurted, appearing just behind Mittie, popping her head up over her taller sister’s right shoulder, then her left. “This man is handsome!”

  “He doesn’t have an automobile, however,” Mittie pointed out, sobering a little. “And while his clothes are certainly well fitted, I doubt he’s at all rich.”

  “Who on earth—?” Lydia muttered, stooping to glance into the mirror on her vanity table and assess the state of her hair.

  A few pats of her hands set it right.

  And neither Mittie nor Millie said a word.

  They simply stood there, in the doorway, gaping at her as though she’d changed somehow, since they’d seen her last.

  “Is there a calling card?” Lydia prodded, staring back.

  Neither answered.

  Lydia tried again. “Did he at least give his name, then?”

  “He did,” Millie said, her nearly translucent cheeks blushing pink, “but I’m afraid I was so taken aback by his resemblance to dear Major Bentley Alexander Willmington the Third that it has completely escaped me.”

  At this, Mittie bristled. “He does not resemble the major, sister. He is the image of my own Captain Phillip Stanhope.”

  Millie straightened her narrow shoulders. “You refer, of course,” she replied stiffly, “to that traitor to the Southern cause?”

  “Captain Stanhope was not a traitor, Millicent Fairmont! He was a man of principle who could not abide the Peculiar Institution—”

  “Ladies,” Lydia interceded, hoping to head off another of the sisters’ rare but spirited battles. The term Peculiar Institution referred to slavery, and with her marriage to Mr. Fitch fast approaching, Lydia found the subject even more abhorrent than usual. “Whoever this man is, I’m sure he looks exactly like himself and no one else.”

  As she swept toward the door, forcing her aunts to part for her like small waves on a sea of time-faded ebony bombazine, Lydia’s response echoed uncomfortably in her fogged brain.

  She was only eighteen, and already she was starting to sound just like Mittie and Millie.

  If the mysterious caller turned out to be a bill collector, as she suspected he would, she would simply inform him that, as of tomorrow, all claims should be referred to her husband, founder and president of the First Territorial Bank. There were, after all, a few consolations attached to her forthcoming marriage.

  The aunts crept along behind Lydia as she descended the stairs, calling upon all the dignity she possessed. After today, she would not have to deal with visits like this one.

  “He’s in the parlor!” Mittie
piped, in a voice sure to carry far and wide. Like Millie, she was midway down the stairs, clinging to the rail, as eager-faced as a child about to open gifts on Christmas morning.

  Lydia put a finger to her lips and tried to look just stern enough to silence them, but not so stern as to make them cry.

  She could not bear it when the aunts cried.

  Reaching the entryway, Lydia drew a deep breath. Then, after straightening her skirts and squaring her shoulders, she marched through the wide doorway and into the parlor—and nearly fainted dead away.

  Gideon rose out of the Judge’s leather chair—no one, not even Jacob, sat in that chair—and regarded her with a pensive smile, his handsome head cocked slightly to one side.

  “You look all right to me,” he said.

  Lydia was so stunned, she could not manage a single word.

  Gideon pulled an all-too-familiar envelope from the pocket of his shirt, held it up. Her letter.

  “It finally reached me,” he told her quietly. “I don’t go by ‘Rhodes’ anymore—that was my brother Rowdy’s alias, and I borrowed it for a while. But my last name is ‘Yarbro.’”

  He seemed to be waiting for some reaction to that.

  Flustered, Lydia croaked out, “Do sit down, Gid—Mr. Yarbro.”

  He grinned. She remembered that grin, slanted and spare. It had made her eight-year-old heart flitter, and that hadn’t changed, except that now the reaction was stronger, and ventured beyond her chest.

  “Not until you do,” Gideon said, his green eyes twinkling a little for all their serious regard.

  Lydia crossed the room and sank into her aunt Nell’s reading chair, grateful that her wobbly knees had carried her even that far.

  Once she was seated, Gideon sat, too.

  “The letter?” Gideon prompted, when Lydia didn’t speak right away.

  Lydia felt her neck heat, and then her face. If only the floor would open and Aunt Nell’s chair would drop right through, and her with it. “It must have been sent by accident, Mr. Yarbro, and you must pay it no heed,” she said, in a rush of words. “No heed at all—”