Copyright
ISBN 978-1-60260-356-1
Copyright © 2009 by Janet Spaeth. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of Truly Yours, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., PO Box 721, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
One
On the way to Remembrance, Minnesota,
January 1886
Eliza Davis drew her coat a little closer around her. The early winter night closed in on the darkened railroad car like a thick woolen wrap. The chicketta-ticketta of the wheels clicked out a regular beat, but she couldn’t sleep. Snow flurries, lit by starlight, fluffed beside the windows as the train sped onward.
Home. She was going home. There was a good feeling about this, something that almost kindled the dead corner of her heart where love had once lived.
No one knew she was coming. She’d done the only thing she could think of in the thin dawn hours in the cold room where she’d lived in St. Paul. She hadn’t packed, other than snatching the worn Bible from the table, seizing a few last-minute items from her bureau, and throwing some clothing into the big carpetbag that belonged to her father.
Haste had been of utmost importance—at least at the time it had seemed so. Now that miles separated her from Blaine Loring, she was already feeling calmer.
He became everything to her, and everything became his. It was a dangerous combination.
How had her life spiraled so badly out of control?
At first, her plan to establish herself as a fine seamstress in St. Paul had gone well. She quickly found employment as an assistant to one of the most respected tailoring establishments in the growing city. Her skills quickly took her far. She opened her own business within a short time, sewing fancy dresses for the women of wealth who appreciated her attention to the tiniest details.
Soon she met some of the most well-known people in Minnesota’s capital, and the stars in her eyes grew bigger and brighter, blinding her to the reality of her world.
Blaine Loring slithered into her life, saw her glittering ambition, and stole her heart. He had money to spend, and spend he did. Whenever he came into the tailor shop, he’d slip a gift to her, once a fine silk scarf as soft and delicate as a windswept whisper, once a tiny gold locket on a thin linked chain.
He had promises, one after the other, and with their power, she let herself be swept along like a leaf on a wild torrent. She wouldn’t stay a seamstress, he told her again and again. She was too good for that. Her place was on Summit Avenue, the splendid street in St. Paul lined with the largest, stateliest houses she’d ever seen.
For a while, she let herself believe that she might actually one day be a fine lady on Summit Avenue. One foot inside the mansions lining the street set that desire firmly upon her heart. She’d never seen such sumptuous homes, such tasteful wealth.
Earlier this evening it had all come to an end.
Eliza shifted uncomfortably on the cracked leather seat of the train. It was a horrible memory.
She simply went to return a paper she found on the floor of the shop after he left, a list of investors she knew he needed for a meeting that night, and found him shadowed in the back door of the club he frequented, his arms wrapped around a young woman as he murmured familiar words to her.
That had been bad enough, but then—
She paused in her mental recitation of the night, not wanting to go further but unable to stop, and the images continued.
She must have gasped, because he turned to her, and in the faint reflection of the moon, his eyes hardened to coal.
“You!” he snarled, and then he laughed, a humorless sound that made the young woman in his embrace giggle. “You have more alley cat in you than I’d guessed, following me the way you do. Shoo! Scat!”
His words threw ice shards into her soul, and she ran back to her room, tossed some of her belongings into a bag, and went to the train station.
“Where to?” the agent asked, and the answer rose quickly to her lips.
“Remembrance.” She hadn’t been there for years, but it was the only other place she knew as her home, besides St. Paul. Her memories of it were warm and comforting.
Yes, she was headed in the right direction, back to Remembrance, back to the home in the north woods of Minnesota where the world was small and safe and God-fearing.
The train swayed as a gust of wind struck them. Eliza glanced outside. The snowflakes were coming faster, and no longer falling straight down.
She shut her eyes for a quick prayer. Please, God, calm the winds. I can’t be delayed in getting home.
She was going home, laden not with success but with secrets, secrets that could change the way they viewed her.
Remembrance was on the edge of the prairie, where the land suddenly turned to forest. She loved that about the little town, how it had the best of both possible worlds. The prairie land stretched to the west, all the way to the horizon, and the forests sprang up to the east, each tree reaching for heaven.
When she left fifteen years ago, summer had just touched the prairie with newborn green. Baby rabbits bounced across the open lands, growing, well fed on the fresh grasses and budding flowers.
But it hadn’t held any happiness for her father, not after her mother got sick, and he traded in the clean country town for a city clogged with soot and grime. Oh, not all of it, she had to admit. Parts of St. Paul were lovely—amazingly so, in fact.
❧
“Excuse me.” The older woman across the aisle from her spoke softly so as not to wake the others. “Would you like a muffin? I have extra, and the trip is long yet.”
Eliza shook her head. “No, thank you. I don’t seem to have an appetite at the moment.”
The woman nodded sympathetically. “Traveling does that.”
Eliza sized her up quickly. She looked safe. One thing she’d discovered quickly about Blaine was that his friends usually looked as sleazy as they were. Why hadn’t she seen that earlier?
But she reminded herself that this was probably all part of God’s plan. She couldn’t see it now, but at some point, everything would make sense. That was one promise she could believe.
Her stomach growled loudly, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in several hours.
The woman smiled encouragingly and offered the pastry again. “Please, help yourself.”
“Thank you very much,” Eliza said, accepting the muffin. It smelled wonderful.
“Are you going far?”
“I’m going to Remembrance. I do appreciate the muffin. I don’t know when I’d be able to eat, now that I think about it. I hadn’t planned that far ahead.”
The woman nodded but didn’t inquire.
“Remembrance is small, too small to have a restaurant like I’d find in St. Paul. There are seven buildings downtown,” Eliza said, nearly reciting it as a litany. “One is white-painted wood, and one is new-lumber brown, and one is grayed from the wind. Two are red brick. The other two are brown and gray speckled brick. There is a church, and a school, and a general store. A doctor’s office, a bank, and a station. The last one is still empty.”
“Not anymore.” Her traveling companion spoke.
“You know Remembrance?” Eliza sat up. There was something in the
Bible about news from home, how good it felt. It seemed as if her heart were being washed.
“I’m on my way to Remembrance myself. I’m Hyacinth Mason.”
Eliza relaxed at the friendliness of the woman’s voice. “It’s good to meet you, Mrs. Mason.”
“Please, call me Hyacinth. I’m expecting we’ll be friends in Remembrance.”
The warmth of her voice reminded Eliza how much more Blaine had stolen from her—her friends. She hadn’t had a true friend since she’d met Blaine. With him, everything and everyone was business. All of her friendships, under his guidance, were mined as investment possibilities.
“I hope so. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Remembrance,” Eliza said. “Do you live there now?”
The woman smiled, and suddenly she looked years younger than her true age, which Eliza estimated to be around fifty-five or sixty. “I’m on my way to meet someone. I’m hoping that he and I might find a life together.”
“Excuse me?” The woman’s words made no sense to Eliza.
Hyacinth smiled. “We haven’t met face-to-face. I’m from Chicago. We’ve corresponded for some time, though, and he convinced me to come join him in Remembrance. If all goes well, we plan to get married.”
“You came from Illinois to marry someone you haven’t met?” Eliza couldn’t stop the question. It seemed too outrageous. Marrying someone, anyone, was massively important, even if you’d known the person all your life. She knew that well enough herself. But marrying someone you’d never met. . . !
“I knew his heart, and that was the most important thing.” Hyacinth looked at Eliza and laughed. “I can see by your face that you are unconvinced. Haven’t you ever been in love?”
Eliza’s face burned. This was a question she would not, or maybe could not, answer. Instead, she focused on breaking off a bit of the muffin and chewing it slowly. “I have loved,” she stated simply.
Suddenly exhaustion washed over her, and she rested her head against the railroad car’s seat. Hyacinth smiled gently at her and patted her hand. “I can see you’re tired, my dear. Remembrance isn’t far away, perhaps two hours more. Go ahead and rest. Get some sleep.”
It should have been no surprise, the way God put Hyacinth Mason in the same car with her. She was the perfect traveling companion, calm and caring and watchful.
Blaine Loring stole Eliza’s few last moments of wakefulness. He quickly swept into her life like the winter wind, and equally quickly swept away her heart. . .and her good sense. His elegant clothing and regal demeanor bore an aura of glamour, and like a moth to the flame, she was drawn to the small light they offered.
A way out of a life of dressmaking. An exit from the mundane. Excitement.
That was what she had wished for. That was, unfortunately, exactly what she had gotten.
❧
Silas paced edgily. The thin boards of the station didn’t do much to protect him from the cold or the hungry wind that sought and found each crack in the walls.
This was a bad idea. In a world filled with good ideas, why did his uncle have to choose this? People didn’t fall in love with words on the page. That was ridiculous. Usually his uncle was a sane, normal man. Love did something terrible to him.
Now Uncle Edward was at home, his foot swathed in a bandage. He’d been adding some furbelow over the frame of the front door—a carved piece of plaster flowers, most odd—when he lost his balance and tumbled to the floor, snapping his ankle when he hit the floor.
And Silas blamed it all on love. It made idiots of perfectly normal people. Now someone like himself, who was undertaking a serious program of study, Professor Barkley’s Patented Five Year Plan for Success, would never make such a mistake. He sighed and thanked the Lord for leading him to the small booklet, which he found stuck in the desk drawer in his room at his uncle’s house.
Hyacinth. What kind of name was that? She was undoubtedly some fortune hunter, a woman of insubstantial means, out to make her way on the coattails of his uncle’s hard work.
The wind increased its howl, and Silas instinctively shrugged deeper into his buffalo robe. At least Uncle Edward had the sense to live in town. He wouldn’t want to face the prairie on a night like this, when the sky and the earth blended into one whirling stretch of white.
He’d asked his uncle to describe his mail-order bride, but all he’d gotten in response was a rather coy reminder that Hyacinth wasn’t his bride yet. This was, as Uncle Edward pointed out, simply an extended visit, with perhaps an eye on potential matrimony.
Silas was not fooled. Potential matrimony, indeed. His uncle planned to marry Hyacinth. Perhaps the only question was whether Hyacinth planned to marry his uncle.
It was enough to curdle his blood. Love. Who needed it?
Over the whine of the wind, the train shrilled the announcement that it was headed into town.
Usually it was a lonesome sound as the train whistle cut across the prairie, but tonight its sound filled the snow-locked town with life. Tonight the train would stop in Remembrance.
He stopped his striding back and forth. If he kept this up, he’d wear a hole in the floorboards.
The train chugged its way to a stop, and he got ready to brave the cold. . .and Hyacinth.
He raised the collar of his coat and tucked his chin down deep inside the rich brown fur. He’d smelled better things than this buffalo robe, but nothing could beat it for warmth.
He opened the door of the station to go out and carry in Hyacinth’s bags. A woman like her would probably expect that. She was undoubtedly too fragile to see to her own baggage.
A gust of wind blew in, and a young woman staggered in on its force, right into the front of his buffalo robe. Instinctively he reached out to steady her, and for just a minute he allowed himself to revel in the sensation of holding a woman in his arms—even if they were separated by a good two inches of wild fur and thick woolen fabric.
She smelled better than his coat, too. It took him a moment to realize that she smelled like blueberries and. . .what was that indefinable smell? Ah, soap.
How on earth did she manage to smell like blueberries? She looked up at him, and he knew the answer. A crumb was somehow attached to her cheek—how it managed to stay in the wind was a mystery. It had been a long time since he’d eaten a blueberry muffin.
He tried not to think about that, or about the scent of soap, or the way she felt in his arms.
She must be Hyacinth.
His hands fell away from her as if her arms were on fire.
His first thought was that Uncle Edward had been miraculously—undeservedly—blessed. She was beautiful, her fragile beauty shining through her exhaustion. The deep circles under her eyes only highlighted the blue that he knew would be bright when unclouded by fatigue.
“Excuse me.” A voice behind her spoke, and a woman, her ebony hair edged with silver, leaned over the young lady’s shoulder. Her eyes were worried. “I’m looking for Edward Collier. I understood he would be here.” The last words were more a question than a statement.
The pieces of the world fell into place, and he was absurdly glad to have the knowledge that the damsel with the enchanting blue eyes was not his uncle’s mail-order bride.
His relief had nothing to do with the rosy cheeks and the bright pink lips. Professor Barkley discouraged romantic entanglements, so love was definitely not going to have a place in Silas Collier’s heart. No, not at all.
Two
Eliza smoothed the front of her coat, her nervous fingers wiping away the imprint of this man’s embrace. The last time—the only time—she’d been that close to a man’s chest, she had been struggling for her honor. The memory brought a quick, sour taste to her mouth.
But she felt she could trust this fellow. His cinnamon-colored hair was neatly trimmed, and his buffalo robe must have been chosen for function rather than style. His face, reddened with embarrassment, indicated that he was not the same kind of beast that Blaine Loring was—he would have taken
full advantage of having a woman clasped that tightly to him.
This man’s forehead was furrowed with confusion. He took off his wire-rimmed glasses, wiped them, and stuck them back on his nose. Then he cleared his throat. “Excuse me. My name is Silas Collier, and I am to meet a Mrs. Hyacinth Mason. Might either of you be Mrs. Mason?”
Hyacinth stepped forward. “I’m Hyacinth Mason. Edward Collier—”
A man, his hair the same dark gold as Silas’s but lightened with gray, laboriously hobbled toward them, his face glowing with obvious anticipation. He looked vaguely familiar; Eliza must have known him when she was a child. “Hyacinth? Hyacinth? Is it truly you?” His leg and ankle were wrapped, and he balanced himself—badly—with a wooden crutch.
“Uncle Edward, didn’t I tell you to stay home?” Silas reached to help him but was waved away impatiently.
“How could I stay away from seeing my Hyacinth? Hyacinth, oh, Hyacinth, how long I have waited for this moment!” The older man’s eyes glowed.
Eliza couldn’t keep her eyes off the unfolding scene. It was like something out of a book, a story of love lost and found and told with great drama.
Hyacinth ran toward the man. “Edward? Oh, Edward, what has happened to your precious limb?”
Silas coughed. “ ‘Precious limb’?”
Eliza couldn’t help herself. She knew she shouldn’t find this so funny, but she was so tired that she had no self-control left. Precious limb, indeed. She choked back her laughter and tried to hide it in a series of coughs that probably fooled no one.
“Crazy woman,” Silas muttered.
She leaned over and said, in a stage whisper, “Hyacinth seems very smitten.”
Silas shook his head, as the older couple cooed over each other like love-struck teenagers. “I can’t think this is a good thing.”
“What, that his precious limb is broken?”
“That, and the fact that he’s so overtaken with the idea of having found his true helpmate in Hyacinth that he’s been remodeling the house, which was just fine to begin with, and two days ago he took a dive off a ladder while installing a decorative doodad on the door and managed to crack his ‘precious limb.’ ”
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