Victoria raised an imperious brow. “Oh?”
“Missus Rhyan, did you have any knowledge of your late husband’s dealings with the town of Silverpines?”
“He was the mayor of Silverpines,” Victoria scoffed. “I attended every town function at his side.”
“Of course,” nodded Mr. Foswick. “I merely wished to inquire whether you had any knowledge of the town’s finances.”
“Certainly not,” proclaimed Victoria, exchanging an incredulous look with Elena. “I hardly think that would have been appropriate.”
“That is just as well,” Mr. Foswick muttered. “It means that you are most certainly not to blame for their current state, although…” he frowned, and Victoria felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.
The well-worn vein in her temple began to throb. “What are you insinuating, sir? My husband was, of course, very careful in his handling of the town’s finances.”
Mr. Foswick sat back in his seat, shaking his head. “When your husband died, Missus Rhyan, I was left in charge of all of your finances, including—for the time being— the town of Silverpines as well.”
Elena shifted in her seat. Victoria glanced at her. Her friend’s gaze was calculating.
“Yes, I am well aware of this,” Victoria blustered, her chest swelling. “Please do get to the point.”
“Missus Rhyan,” Mr. Foswick sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose in apparent embarrassment. “I have thoroughly examined both the town’s finances, and your husband’s. I am afraid that it does appear as though your husband was embezzling money from the town of Silverpines, directly into an account under your own name.”
Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. Her heart lurched. “I am afraid that I do not— do not understand.” She was suddenly aware that she was gripping the edge of the settee very hard. Her perfectly filed nails were catching on the fabric.
“It is exactly as I said,” stated the solicitor, who in contrast with Victoria, seemed to be shrinking back into his chair. “The town shows losses that match gains in yours and your husband’s accounts!”
“This cannot be true,” growled Victoria. “Show me!”
He did.
Together with Elena and Mr. Foswick, Victoria combed through every transaction. Every loss and every gain, the town’s taxes and the payrolls; they examined it all in the paperwork Mr. Foswick had brought with him. But at last, with a heavy weight of despair swirling in her stomach, Victoria was forced to concede that Mr. Foswick’s evaluation of Jack’s finances had been correct.
Her husband, Jaxsom Rhyan. Her brave, loving, wonderful husband, the mayor of Silverpines… had been little more than a common thief.
“But what am I going to do?” Victoria asked, swallowing the catch in her voice. “Jaxsom is gone now. What does this mean for me?”
Mr. Foswick fixed Victoria with a miserable stare. “It means,” he said, dropping his gaze and shifting his little feet about on the carpet. “That you are going to need a very good lawyer, Missus Rhyan.”
An hour later, Victoria sat alone beside the window, watching Elena stride off down Main Street towards the mercantile. Her spine was rigidly set against the tall-backed chair, her mind spinning.
What were they going to do? How could she possibly help her friend? How could she help herself?!
How could Jack have done this to her?
That was the worst bit of it. Victoria had given up everything to be with him. She had left behind her family, her home, and the lifestyle that she had been bred for! She had married him for love, against everything she had ever been taught; against her parents’ wishes. She had given up so much for him… and now he was gone. And it did not seem as though he had given a thought to what would happen to the devoted wife he had left behind.
Anger flashed through Victoria like a lit match to kerosene. How could Jack have done this?!!! Her mind whirled in panicked, repetitive disbelief.
Silently, Victoria balled it all up inside herself. The pain of Jack’s betrayal, the fear of what would happen to her next. She took all the emotions welling up inside her, the ones that made her want to scream into the silent stillness of the house, and she buried them with logical thought.
She needed a lawyer.
Her first thought was of Geoffrey Gresham, Silverpines’ own town lawyer, but of course, the man had died with her husband, trying to rescue the men that had been trapped in the silver mine after the first Earthquake.
Yes. Jack had tried to help. He had been a good man. At least… Victoria had thought that he had been. She stared out the window at her tiny front garden, fixating on the roses by the front gate.
She had always been so pleased with Jack’s gifts. He had taken her to market and allowed her to choose every shrub, every bloom she had ever wanted. They had planted them together… She shut her eyes against the flood of memories—now tainted with her husband’s deceit. She would not think of him. She would not think of how she had lost him…
But the day came back to her, despite Victoria’s very best efforts. It was as clear and sharp as though she were living through the horrors all over again.
The screaming. There had been so much screaming…
Victoria put her hands over her ears to shut them out.
There had been so much death in Silverpines over these last few months that it was a wonder that the entire town hadn’t collapsed in paroxysms of grief and despair. But the people of Silverpines were stronger than that. At least… most of them were.
Victoria stood up and began to pace, eyeing the vacant chair that Mr. Foswick had so recently occupied. “It means, that you are going to need a very good lawyer, Missus Rhyan.”
Victoria let out a soft curse, and then pinched her lips closed against the furious diatribe that she longed to cast forth. Her mother would be so ashamed of her.
“Think,” she said to herself after a moment. “Think.” But try as she might, no solution came to her. She could send for a lawyer in their neighboring town of New Hope. She could even travel to Portland… couldn’t she?
Victoria cast a wary eye out at the quiet main street, visible through her front window. The ground seemed to shift beneath her feet. She shuddered. No. She could not travel to Portland; she would have to think of some other way to bringing a lawyer here to her.
Chapter Two
Victoria spent the rest of the day in a state of intermittent fury. Unable to settle to anything, she found herself pacing from room to room, picking up books and pads of paper, and then discarding them moments later. Tension radiated through her limbs down to her toes.
It wasn’t until she caught sight of a shimmering orange light of the setting sun through the downstairs window that she realized she was hungry.
The home that she had shared with her husband was much smaller than the house she had grown up in in Manchester. The lower story consisted of a mere four rooms.
Victoria made her way out of the sitting room through the door closest to her and down a narrow hallway that led to the kitchen, carefully maneuvering her gaze so that she would not have to see the closed door that stood against the far wall. That door hadn’t been opened since the day of Jack’s death.
Indeed, it was quite like the large, sunlit bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall. A room she no longer needed. She slept in the guest room and pretended not to see the shafts of light that slid beneath the master bedroom door onto the dark landing each morning.
Her footsteps echoed dismally off the vacant walls as she slid into the kitchen. The room was lit by the pale, yellow glow of the descending sun. Victoria lit the lamp that dangled above the table and set to peeling two potatoes with clumsy, unpracticed fingers.
She had been raised in a house with servants, and quite a few of them at that. Her mother had never taught her to fix dinner for a husband, assuming always that Victoria would marry a man of means, just as she had. She could still remember the look of revulsion on her mother’s face when she had introduced her p
arents to Jaxsom.
Shaking her head, Victoria pulled a heavy, cast iron pan from the shelf, dropped a pat of butter in the pan, and seasoned it, lost in thought.
Jack had sat through countless burnt meals, coughing slightly into his hand to hide his laughter.
“That was lovely, my dear,” he’d always say as she cleared his plate. “Quite lovely indeed.”
He was a good man.
Victoria glanced out the kitchen window and then reached across the counter to light the oil lamp that stood atop the sill. Night had almost fallen. She twitched the curtains closed on the window just above the kitchen sink.
The second window that spanned the wall straight ahead was already covered. Jack had had the largest window installed especially so that Victoria could see the whole of the back garden from the kitchen.
A quarter of an hour later, with a sigh, Victoria sat down in the only seat she had ever occupied at the kitchen table and said grace.
A single tear trickled down her cheek and into her plate as she ate.
She rallied the next morning. Rising with the sun, Victoria braved the short jaunt outside to collect the newspaper from the front porch, darting back inside and shutting the door firmly behind her. She made herself a pot of coffee as black as could be, and then moved to inspect the shelves of books that lined the sitting room walls.
Books of every sort, they were. Although Victoria favored fiction that was full of action-packed adventures and mysteries, she knew that her husband had kept a large selection of law books here. He had been highly educated; well-versed in law, communication, and administrative services.
Victoria had met him when he’d come to Portland to attend a council meeting. A dashing thing he had been in his crisp suit, with a grin that hid beneath a mask of professionalism. Victoria hadn’t believed in love at first sight until that very moment, and now… she wasn’t at all sure that she ever would again.
For nearly two weeks, Victoria poured over those books, trying her very hardest to make sense of it all, but it was nearly impossible. Phrases like, “Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both…” jumped out at her. She had had no knowledge of her husband’s dealings. But could she be imprisoned? How could she prove that she hadn’t been a part of this?
On Wednesday afternoon, a knock sounded yet again on her front door. Victoria listened to the excited rat-tat-tat, wondering who had come to call. She hurried to the door, and again, Elena sprang into the house when she pulled it open.
“I’ve done it,” she said hurriedly. “I’ve figured it out.”
Victoria raised an incredulous brow.
“We’ll send for husbands.”
“Lena, what—?”
“Come here.”
Elena took hold of Victoria’s arm and practically dragged her to the writing desk that sat in the corner of the sitting room.
“I’ve just come from Betsy Sewell’s home!” she exclaimed. “You simply will not believe what the other women are planning.” When she turned to face Victoria, Victoria saw a gleam of something like hope in her friend’s eyes. “Mace Thorne cannot marry me if I am already married,” she stated, clapping her fingers together and pointing them at Victoria.
Victoria’s eyes widened. “You want to—”
“I need to put an ad in the Grooms Gazette,” Elena proclaimed. “And so do you!”
“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.” The familiar ache began forming at her right temple once more. “Women sending for husbands?”
Elena’s face fell. Her shoulders slumped. “What else can I do?”
Victoria felt years of proper schooling, of dance classes and lessons in formality, rising to the surface of her mind in her irritation. She moved over to sit in her favorite straight-backed chair near the window. “Anything other than belittle yourself to a desperate woman,” she said firmly.
The hurt in her friend’s eyes made Victoria’s irritation drain away. She was behaving like a beast. No, it was far worse than bestial behavior. She was behaving like her mother.
“I am desperate, Victoria. You of all people know this.”
Victoria reached out to pat Elena’s pale hand. Her skin was warm against Victoria’s chilled fingers.
“Of course I know. My apologies for my lack of regard,” she sighed. “We both know each other’s secrets, don’t we?
“I’m not sure it’s a secret anymore,” Elena said slowly. “I couldn’t help the way I reacted when I saw… his engagement ring in the box. Widow Wallace must have wagged her tongue to everyone the moment I exited the post office.”
Victoria nodded absently. Yes. Tongues were bound to be wagging. Gossip was unavoidable in a town as small as Silverpines.
Elena was silent for a long moment, then she said, “Why do men lack honor, Victoria?” She twirled a finger around a stray curl as she spoke. “What is so wrong with being a man of honor? Why is that a state so hard to obtain from men?”
Victoria nearly snorted. Nearly. “Egads, Lena. You’re looking at a woman who recently discovered—” but she could not convince her tongue to go on. The fury. The shame. It was bubbling up inside of her like hot wax. She still could not believe it possible. “We must take some time to think,” she said, breathing through her nose. “We must.”
She fixed Elena with a stern stare, and at last, her friend nodded reluctantly. “Alright, but you must think on it as well, Victoria. You need a lawyer, a man of the law that will be loyal to you…”
Victoria inhaled sharply, wishing away the pounding in her head, and then she murmured, “Very well.”
An hour later, the two friends stood in the very same room, staring down at a blank bit of parchment on Victoria’s writing table. Victoria had, at last and most reluctantly, agreed with Elena. A husband would certainly help improve her circumstances.
“How does one advertise for a husband?”
Victoria shrugged irritably, watching her friend chewing on the ends of her hair and fighting the urge to tug the damp strands from her mouth.
They were both silent another moment, and then Elena dipped the end of the pen into the inkwell and began to write.
Victoria cocked her head to the side, reading over her shoulder.
Eighteen-year-old woman in Oregon seeks a marriage of convenience with a man of honor. Must have experience as a blacksmith. Between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. If interested respond to The Grooms Gazette #45852
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Victoria hedged, eyeing Elena doubtfully as she blew softly on the ink to dry it.
Elena dropped the advert back onto the writing table and turned to face Victoria with a penetrating stare. “If you have an alternative that does not involve me being married to a murderous lunatic, I would be absolutely delighted to hear it, Victoria, darling.” Her tone of forced sophistication was a cut against Victoria’s self-esteem.
Victoria let out an indignant huff. “How do you know that the man who answers that advert will not be a murderous lunatic?” she grouched, folding her arms over her chest.
But Elena had a steely glint in her eye that Victoria had learned not to trifle with. She shut her mouth and slouched over to the settee, thinking idly of what her mother might say if she ever saw Victoria slouching anywhere at all.
“Did you even consider the idea?” Elena asked, striding over to sit down beside her. She took Victoria’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze, but Victoria waved her away and bent forward to pour them both a glass of lemonade.
“The entire concept is utterly preposterous,” she said, passing Elena a glass. “But I do concede that any man would likely be a better husband than Mace Thorne. I have written an inquiry to a lawyer in Astoria. I am hopeful that he will be more than willing to take up the task.”
Elena accepted the glass Victoria handed her with a nod of thanks and sat back in her seat. “A man of honor,” she whispered, and she took a sip of lemonade. “That is what we bo
th need. I was very specific in my ad.”
Victoria chuckled, and Elena looked at her.
“Well, it is just…” she smiled and shook her head. “I have never known a man that was very interested in specifics.”
Elena’s shoulders shook as she chuckled.
The young Mr. Hershell brought Victoria a letter when he delivered her groceries the following week. Her heart leapt into her throat at the sight of it.
“At last!” Victoria’s fingers fumbled as she nearly tore the envelope from the boy’s hand. He stared at her.
“Err… would you like these around back in the kitchen, Missus?” he asked, hefting the two large grocery sacks on either arm.
“Oh, yes. Please. Thank you, dear,” she muttered distractedly. She held open the door for him, and then shut it with a snap.
As the boy made his way past her and down the hall, Victoria darted over to her writing desk and slit the letter open with a silver letter knife.
Dear Mrs. Rhyan,
It is with the deepest regret that I must inform you that I cannot possibly manage your case at the moment. My condolences on the loss of your husband. I truly hope the very best for you.
Sincerely,
Mr. A. L. McGorgle
Attorney at Law
Victoria felt her heart sinking right back down past its usual spot. It settled somewhere near her navel as she gazed at the neat handwriting on the parchment. “I cannot possibly manage your case…. My condolences…” Meaningless words. Only one fact had penetrated Victoria’s numb brain. Her best hope had failed. She was more alone in this than ever before.
“Are you alright, Missus Rhyan?”
The teenage Mr. Hershell was peering at her from her front foyer in some concern, his brow furrowed.
“Yes,” said Victoria mechanically. “Yes, I am quite alright, Jackson. Can you give this to Mrs. Messer?” she reached blindly for the writing desk and handed him an envelope to pay up her account. Her eyes caught the sheet of blank paper lying there. The topmost sheet still bore the indentations from Elena’s advert to the Groom’s Gazette.
“Wait a moment, Mr. Hershell,” she said suddenly, as the boy tugged open the front door.
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