by Kaki Warner
Another impasse. Another delicate negotiation looming ahead.
With a sigh, she rose and headed toward her bedroom. Who knew loving a man could be such a tricky business?
The next morning was as unseasonably warm as the day before had been, and felt even muggier, if such was possible. Lottie awoke tired and cross, having spent a restless night wishing Ty was beside her.
Needing to stay busy so her worries wouldn’t overwhelm her, she decided to go to the club first to tell Jane and Briggs about her trial. Then she would go to the bank to see if Griffin had heard anything new about the Buck place and if Delbert Buck was still looking to sell. If anything had changed, Griffin would know. And if he didn’t, Humphries would. She hoped Buck would make a counter offer she could live with, and that the proceeds from the sale of Grandpa’s place would be enough for a down payment. If not, she could liquidate some investments. But only if Ty agreed to settling there and allowing her to pay for the improvements she wanted. She felt they’d made progress, but he was a stubborn man who didn’t push easily . . . a trait she admired when he wasn’t pushing back at her. Maybe tomorrow they could ride out and look the place over. Surely he would see the same potential in it that she did.
She found Jane and Mr. Briggs in his office, discussing menu choices. Both looked tired and tense. She was glad that Lord Findlay wasn’t there—it would be difficult enough sharing the details of her trial and imprisonment with friends. Having a stranger privy to that, as well as her grandfather’s ordeal, would have been awful.
They listened with typical British aplomb—a word Lottie had recently learned from Jane. When she finished, Jane dabbed at her damp eyes with a delicate lace-edged hanky. “Oh, Lottie, how brave you are. I doubt I could have endured it.”
“You’re stronger than you think,” Briggs said staunchly. “You both are.”
Was she imagining that faint softening in his expression? Had she finally worn a tiny crack in that stiff reserve?
“And of course, we knew it was all a mistake,” Jane added. “You’re too sweet a girl to do such a ghastly thing. Anson said so himself, didn’t you, dear?”
Briggs looked ready to argue that point, but Lottie quickly moved on to her other news. “Also, Ty and I are getting married.”
After well wishes and hugs—only from Jane, of course—Briggs asked when the wedding would take place.
“I didn’t want to set a date until I knew for certain the two of you would be able to attend.”
He frowned. “Why wouldn’t we be able to attend?”
“There’s talk that Jane might be returning to England.”
“Talk.” He shook his head in disgust. “I thought you knew better than to get your information through gossip, Miss Weyland.”
Lottie narrowed her eyes at him. “Which is precisely why I’m asking now, Mr. Briggs.”
“We’ll be there,” Jane broke in. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world, would we, Anson?”
“Not by choice.”
Lottie smiled her appreciation and moved on to a different subject. “Now what about you? Who is Lord Findlay and why is he here?”
Briggs gave her a stern look. “Lord Findlay does not concern you.”
“Do be civil, Anson. Of course, she’s concerned. She’s our friend.” To Lottie, Jane added, “I suppose rumors are rampant about that, too.”
Lottie admitted she’d heard a few, mostly about Lord Findlay.
“Not surprising,” Briggs muttered.
“Oh, dear. What are they saying?”
“That he’s an old beau and has come to take you back to England.”
Briggs snorted.
Jane sighed.
Lottie knew she was being as nosy as Mrs. B. but she was worried. In addition to not wanting Jane to leave Greenbroke, it was plain to see by the dark circles beneath her eyes that the Englishwoman was unhappy and not sleeping well. “Is it true? He was a suitor?”
“At one time he might have been. But it didn’t work out between us.”
“She means he deserted her at the first sign of trouble,” Briggs said, his voice taut with anger.
Jane gave another sigh. “Please, Anson. You mustn’t be too hard on him. Lord Findlay had his own troubles at the time, if you’ll remember.”
“He was a bloody fortune hunter,” Briggs muttered. “Still is.”
An ongoing argument, Lottie guessed, noting Jane’s halfhearted response and Briggs’s obvious disgust.
“But I thought you wanted Jane to go back to England,” she said to him.
“I do. But not like this. Lord or no, the blighter isn’t good enough for her.”
Before Lottie could question that, the door opened and Lord Findlay stuck his blond head inside. Ignoring both Lottie and Briggs, he smiled at Jane. “Ah, there you are, my dear. I was hoping I might take you in to lunch if you’re free.”
“Of course.” She rose, then hesitated and turned back to Briggs and Lottie. “Will you join us?”
Findlay frowned.
Briggs thrust out his chin. “I don’t think—”
“We’d love to,” Lottie said.
“Excellent.” Jane smiled. “We shall see you in the dining room.”
After the door closed behind them, Lottie rounded on the ex-soldier. “Why aren’t you doing anything?”
“About what?”
“Jane. You’re letting him court her right under your nose.”
“It’s complicated.”
“She loves you. You love her. What’s complicated about that?”
“Did I not dismiss you weeks ago? Why do you persist in coming back?”
“Coward.”
“Interfering twit.” He crossed the room and jerked open the door.
Lottie marched through it.
“You’re making a terrible mistake, Mr. Briggs. You’re going to lose her.”
“She’s not mine to lose, and never will be. And that’s the end of it. Now march.”
It was the least enjoyable meal Lottie had ever suffered through. Poor Jane struggled valiantly to keep up a conversation—which Briggs ignored. Findlay offered a comment now and then—which Briggs also ignored. And Lottie couldn’t think of a thing to say after her initial responses to Jane’s feeble attempts at small talk. It reminded her of those tense meals back home when Grandpa was on a tear about something.
Soon, silence settled over the nearly empty dining room. The air was so stuffy and charged with tension it was difficult to breathe. Lottie ate as fast as good manners would allow so she could escape, until she saw Jane starting to sag. Reluctantly taking up the conversational gauntlet, she turned to Findlay.
“What part of England do you hail from, Lord Findlay?”
“The Lake District. You would like it, Miss Weyland. It’s very green and peaceful. Quite restorative, too, don’t you think, Briggs?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Findlay looked surprised. “You’ve never been there?”
“Only briefly. I remember little about it.”
“But isn’t that where your wife resides?”
Stunned silence.
Jane’s knife clattered to her plate.
“W-wife?” Lottie gasped.
Briggs set down his fork. His face seemed carved in stone, except for his eyes. They were terrifying—cold and merciless, empty of expression. “It is,” he told the baron in a hard, flat voice. “The last I heard.”
“You’re married?” Jane choked out.
Findlay glanced from Briggs to Jane. Lottie noted no malice in his expression. Only confusion. “I’m sorry, did I misspeak?”
Ignoring him, Jane continued to stare at Briggs, her face pale with shock. “You have a wife, Anson?”
Something moved behind those glacial eyes—something sad and defeated. �
�Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Twelve years.”
“Oh, God.” Jane lurched to her feet and stumbled toward the door.
Lottie started up, too, but Briggs waved her back down and marched after Jane with long, determined strides.
Lottie’s mind reeled. Briggs is married. Briggs is married. But no matter how many times that thought circled through her head, it made no sense.
“Dash it all. I thought she knew.” Findlay frowned thoughtfully at the empty doorway. “But it explains a great deal.”
She glared at him, rage bubbling in her throat. “Like what?”
“Her infatuation with him.”
“What about your infatuation with her?” She didn’t know who she was angrier with—Briggs or Findlay.
He looked at her then, regret in his eyes. “I assure you, Miss Weyland, I take no pleasure in hurting the woman I’ve been in love with for half of my life.”
“If you were in love with her, why did you let her leave England in the first place?”
He spread his elegant hands in a gesture of defeat. “I thought she would be safer out of the country.”
“Safer? From whom?”
“Her cousin and his wife. I didn’t realize it would take so long to clear her name.” He gave a mirthless laugh as he carefully folded his napkin beside his plate. “Such a fuss over a lost necklace. I should have known there was more to it than that.”
Chapter 24
Lottie fled the dining room, but once in the lobby, she stopped, unsure what to do. She wanted to console Jane, confront Briggs, find Ty and cry on his shoulder. But he was gone on some mysterious errand and she was afraid if she saw Becky or the Bracketts they would ask her what was wrong and she would blurt out something she shouldn’t. Not knowing what else to do, she headed to the office to work on the books. Numbers always settled her mind.
As she passed down the hall, she heard Briggs’s and Jane’s voices coming from behind the closed door of Jane’s room. What could he say to explain away his silence? And what was Jane to do now that it seemed Briggs was beyond her reach? Thinking about the pain they both must have been feeling made Lottie’s chest hurt.
Closing the door behind her, she went to her desk and pulled out the club ledgers, desperate to block the chaos of her thoughts with the order and calmness that working with numbers brought.
An hour later, Lottie heard a noise and looked up to find Briggs looming in the doorway.
“Don’t speak,” he ordered when he saw her sitting at her desk. “Not a word.” Steps dragging, he crossed to his desk and sat heavily in his chair. Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on the desktop, dropped his head into his hands, and stared down at the neat stack of mail awaiting his attention. “Bloody hell.”
Her heart went out to him. How did a person age a decade in the span of an hour? “Do you want me to leave?”
He didn’t answer.
“Should I go to Jane?”
“Not now. She’s resting.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
He gave a bitter laugh and sat back in his chair. “Can you travel through time and undo a terrible mistake made twelve years ago?”
“No.”
“Nor can I.” With trembling hands, he began sorting through the mail. “Have you finished with the restaurant ledger?”
“I’m sorry I pushed you so hard. I understand now why you’ve been so aloof with Jane.”
“I was never aloof. More’s the pity.”
“You’re estranged from your wife?”
“Bollocks!” He slapped the letters so hard onto the desk they slid off and fluttered in disarray across the floor. Swiveling his chair to face her, he said through clenched teeth, “I will say this only once, Miss Weyland. Not to satisfy your ravenous curiosity, but to prevent you from badgering Jane with endless questions. Am I clear?”
Too shocked to speak, Lottie nodded.
“Yes, I am estranged from my wife. Because the very sight of me drives her into shrieking hysteria, as does any face but those of her keepers. She thinks I killed the child she miscarried, and that butterflies speak to her, and worms crawl beneath her skin. She is clearly mad and has been for the last ten years and quite possibly for most of her life. I was too young and foolish and besotted to realize that before I married her. When she set fire to my father’s church, burning to death three innocent people, the magistrate insisted she be committed to an asylum for the criminally insane, where she remains today. I cannot divorce her, and never intended to fall in love with Lady Jane.” He sat back, his face haggard, his hands tightly gripping the arms of his chair. “And there you have it.”
“Oh, Mr. Briggs—”
He thrust up a shaking hand. “Not another word, Miss Weyland. I mean it. And stop crying.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“You’re dismissed. Go.”
This time Lottie went because she couldn’t stem the tears coursing down her face, and she couldn’t bear to see big, strong Mr. Briggs struggle against his own.
As she stepped outside, a sudden gust came up, whipping her skirts around her ankles and tugging at her bonnet. In the distance, thunder rolled and lightning bounced along a dark line of clouds hanging in the west. She wished it would rain and get it over with. The air was so humid and clammy her dress clung to her back and her hair had gone from waves to frizzy curls stuck to her sweating brow. Even her tears didn’t dry.
Hoping to have her emotions under control by the time she talked to Griffin, she headed toward the bank. When she walked by the Western Union office, the two resident checker players were gathering their checkers and taking the board from atop the barrel they used as a table.
“Best stretch a leg, missy,” the older of the two warned. “It’s coming up a storm right fast.”
His opponent nodded in agreement. “And that green tint in them clouds says it’ll be a bad one.”
They looked gray to Lottie—which perfectly suited this dismal day—but the clouds were definitely moving fast ahead of a brisk wind. She thanked them for the warning and hurried along. Before she’d gone ten paces, the first fat drops began to fall. Soon they were hitting the roof of the boardwalk overhang with a roar.
She changed her mind about going to the bank. Cutting through a gap between buildings, she hurried down the back street toward the house she shared with Becky.
The rain came down harder, flattening her bonnet and soaking her dress. Her legs kept tangling in her wet skirts. Her walking shoes grew heavy with mud. What a mess. She glared up at the dark clouds churning just above the treetops. Storms usually brought change, but the air was just as warm and muggy now as it had been before the rain started.
An earsplitting boom sent her ducking. Before the sound of it left her ears, a huge flash backlit the trees and houses along the back street.
Alarmed at how quickly the wind had risen and how close the lightning strike had come, she quickened her pace. Lifting her skirts high, she tripped and slipped across the muddy street. She could hardly see where she was going.
More thunder. Another gust sent her staggering for balance. Somewhere behind her, glass shattered. Arms up to shield her eyes from the driving rain, Lottie stumbled on.
The wind built. Something nearby crashed to earth. Branches pinwheeled through the air. Pieces of broken siding windmilled past. The sound of rain and debris slamming into the buildings rose to a deafening roar.
Looking back, she saw a funnel cloud snake down from the roiling sky.
Gasping and terrified, she scrambled up the steps onto Becky’s front porch. The door was open, whipping back and forth on its hinges. The floor inside was slick with rain and leaves. “Becky!” she screamed.
No answer.
A crash made the house tremble. Figurines shattered. Something heavy fell i
n the kitchen. Heart pounding in terror, Lottie raced into her bedroom, ducked into her closet, and yanked the door closed.
Outside, with the sound of a dozen locomotives racing at full throttle, the twister bore down on sleepy little Greenbroke.
Shrieking wind pummeled the house. Thunder made the floor tremble beneath her. Something slammed against the outside wall at her back, and part of the ceiling tore away. It felt like the house was being ripped apart around her.
Lottie crouched in the corner, a blanket pulled over her head as rain poured through the gaping hole where the roof had been. The house rocked and shuddered. Then with a thunderous crack, the wall fell in on top of her.
As suddenly as it had begun, the roar of the wind faded. Thunder grew distant. Rain no longer poured through the shattered front windows of the Spotted Dog.
Ty stumbled out of his rented room, one hand clasped over his bleeding arm. Hearing voices coming up the stairwell, he hurried to the railing and looked down into the main room below.
It was a mess, reeking of whiskey from dozens of broken bottles. The painting over the bar had fallen and the nearly nude lady was impaled on a broken chair. Shards of glass littered the floor and counter. But other than the two front doors sagging on broken hinges and the shattered front windows, the building seemed intact.
He turned back toward the upstairs hallway. “Anybody hurt up here?”
No answer.
“Holy hell,” a man said from his chair downstairs, his face white as parchment, his whiskey glass still clutched in his shaking hand.
Henry peered over the top of the bar, bits of glass stuck in his wooly hair. “What happened?”
“Twister.” Shoving a toppled chair aside, another man crawled out from under a table. “Mean bastards. Lost a good hound to one near twenty years ago.”
Juno pushed past those who had crowded into the back hallway. “Is everyone okay?” He looked up at Ty’s bloody arm. “You hurt?”
“Nothing serious. Piece of glass.”
