by Delia Parr
Just when she thought she might have been given the greatest blessing of her life, he dropped his gaze and her heart trembled. He had been without love for so long and had been so desperately hurt by losing everyone he had ever loved, he obviously refused to risk having that happen all over again by keeping her in his life. She struggled against the deep sadness that overpowered her, but she was surprised when he finally looked up at her again.
His gaze was steady, but his dark eyes were shadowed by the same incredible sadness she felt. “Will it be too difficult for you to wait to leave until next week when I see Bradley? You could use that time to decide where you’d like to settle temporarily so I could purchase the travel passage for you.”
Now that she knew their love for one another was ill-fated, leaving immediately couldn’t be soon enough. “I could send Eric a note and tell him I’ll be depositing the funds this Thursday into his account, but I could tell him I need to see him at his hotel first. He wouldn’t dare risk turning me down, and I wouldn’t have to wait until next week to start my new life. Neither would you.”
He held silent and seemed to mull over her idea. “Although I’ve already set a number of things into motion, I don’t know if I can be ready that soon. But I can try,” he promised, picked up his mug of cider, and took a long draught. “Do you remember the name of the hotel where he took a room?”
She doubted she would ever forget it and told him, along with the room number. “He’s registered under the same name that’s on the account. My father’s name.” She set her mug back onto the serving tray before he noticed it was shaking.
“If this is going to work, I need to go into the city this afternoon. If I can accomplish what I need to do, which I rather hope will be the case, I’ll be home tonight. If not, I’ll be back before dinner tomorrow,” he said and got to his feet.
Surprised, she stood up, too. “You’re leaving me here? Alone?”
“Only for an hour or two. I’ll stop and ask Philip to stay here while I’m gone, just in case I can’t make it back here tonight,” he explained, but she could see he was not very happy about it.
Given her talk with Philip, neither was she. “Asking him to come all the way out here to stay with me really isn’t necessary, is it? If you’re right about getting everything done this afternoon, it’s only going to be a matter of a few hours before you’re back. I can stay in the house and tell the staff not to let anyone in who might come to call. Even if there is a problem, Alan will be here if I need his help.”
He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “You’re right. But if it takes longer than I hope, I’ll return tonight anyway. I can always leave again tomorrow at first light for the city, which might be better all around. You could even go with me. After I finish up what I have to do, I could take you to shop for whatever you want or need to take with you when you leave.”
She moistened her lips. “I can’t go with you tomorrow. I . . . I have other plans.”
“Such as . . .”
“I may be leaving a lot sooner than either of us thought, and I want to make the curtains for the room up in the cottage garret,” she explained, choosing her words very carefully to avoid an outright lie.
“Then plan on my return here tonight. I may be very late. If I do need to go to the city again in the morning, you may have to wait until late tomorrow afternoon to learn if everything is set for this Thursday.”
“That’s fine,” she whispered. She dropped her gaze so he would not see the truth shining in her eyes and discover she planned to be gone long before then and walked over to the writing desk to pen her note to Eric.
Irene had left the clothing Annabelle had bargained for at the boardinghouse, but she did return with the fabric for the curtains, as well as the gloves Annabelle had left behind.
Unfortunately, she also brought a bit of an attitude back with her, and she continued to banter with Annabelle almost exactly the way she typically argued with Harrison. “I did not break my word,” she repeated while Annabelle paced from one end of her room to the other, and she counted off the rest of her argument with her fingers. “I spoke to Harrison, but I did not lecture him or nag him or bully him. I’ll admit that I did speak to Philip, but I never made any promises to you that I wouldn’t.”
Frustrated to the limits of her patience, Annabelle rocked back on her heels and stared at the housekeeper, who was standing next to the bed, trying to scrape off mud from the hem of the old cape Annabelle had worn today. “I didn’t think I had to ask you to hold your counsel where Philip was concerned. I thought you were friend enough to understand that whenever I confided in you, you would keep it between us,” she added, hoping something she might say would make a dent in the armor of righteousness the woman was wearing.
Irene never lost her rhythm and continued to work at the hem. “I didn’t actually tell Philip all that much.”
“In addition to telling him that I had to leave Harrison, which is so terribly, terribly private, you told him where I’d be living until I find a position and get out of Philadelphia!”
“No, I told him where to find you today. I never told him you’d be living there,” she argued without addressing Annabelle’s biggest complaint. “Did you?”
Annabelle pursed her lips. “Of course not, but—”
“I didn’t tell him to propose to you, either. That was all his idea, so don’t try to blame that bit of ridiculousness on me,” Irene quipped.
“He told me that,” Annabelle admitted and sat down on the edge of the bed directly across from Irene. “And it wasn’t ridiculous at all. It was sweet. He’s a very nice man.”
Irene sniffed. “Apparently not sweet enough or nice enough to make you want to marry him someday when you’re free again. You could do worse. It won’t be easy for you, you know. Most men won’t want to be bothered with you once they find out you’re soiled goods.”
“Irene!” she cried, horrified to have anyone refer to her as “soiled goods,” let alone someone she thought was her friend.
“I didn’t say I would. I said they would,” the woman argued and shook her brush at Annabelle. “That’s not the worst thing folks will think once they find out you couldn’t even convince the man who loved you enough to marry you in the first place to stay married to you for longer than a few months.”
“Irene!”
The housekeeper ignored Annabelle’s outburst, set down her brush and shook out the cape. “There. The cape is almost as good as new again. All it took was a little hard work.” Once she had the cape neatly folded, she set it back on top of the bed and looked directly at Annabelle. “You had the chance today to put all of this behind you, and I’m not talking about accepting Philip’s marriage proposal. You could have stayed with Prudence at the boardinghouse, but you didn’t. You came back here. Now are you going to stay and drop that pride you’re wearing like a badge of honor long enough to tell Harrison that you love him and you’re not leaving until he realizes he loves you, too?”
“I do love him,” Annabelle admitted, “and I . . . I know he loves me, too, but it’s . . . it’s terribly complicated. I tried talking to Harrison today, but . . . please. Don’t make this any harder for me or for him than it already is.”
Irene walked around the bed and sat down next to Annabelle. She put her arm around her, held her close, and rocked her from side to side as Annabelle let the tears fall. “Sh-h-h. Don’t cry. It’s not your fault. Poor Harrison. He’s so afraid of loving you, he can’t let you stay. I know. I know,” she crooned. “Don’t worry. He’ll discover all by himself that he can’t live without you, but I’m afraid he’ll be quite an old man by that time.” She chuckled through her own tears. “If I have anything to say about it, I plan to be here to see it, even though I might be a hundred by then. Can I say something to him then about what an idiot he was to let you go?” she teased.
Annabelle sniffled. “You can tell him when you’re a hundred and ten. But don’t call him an idiot. Just tell him that
I never loved anyone before in my entire life like I came to love him and never did again and that . . . that I spent the rest of my life still loving him. Can you do that for me?” she asked, grateful the friend she needed Irene to be was back again.
“I surely can,” Irene pronounced. “Now let’s talk about how soon you want me to get you back to that boardinghouse.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Now that Bradley was about to be ensnared in the trap that had been set for him, all Harrison had to do was hope that the man was as desperate as he thought he was, if not equally stupid.
While he waited for Bradley to return to his hotel room on Thursday after arranging for the man to be sent out on a fool’s errand an hour ago, he reviewed a mental checklist to make certain he had not forgotten anything. He sat in the one rickety chair in the room he had placed at an angle so Bradley would not see him until after he entered the room and closed the door. Within easy arm’s reach, the documents Harrison had brought with him after rushing about this morning were neatly arranged in a specific order on top of the scarred dresser in the corner. Most importantly, Annabelle was safe at home at Graymoor Gardens, so he did not have to worry about her at all. The only thing he might regret later was involving Philip, although he had no one else he could trust as much as his cousin, who had no idea what Harrison was really doing today.
He was satisfied that the scheme he had reviewed with his lawyer before coming here was legal, albeit in the loosest interpretation of the law and ethically questionable. Before he wasted a single worry about what he would do if Bradley failed to show up, he heard footsteps approaching the door.
He concentrated on Annabelle’s image to ease the tension wrapped tight around his chest. The moment he saw the doorknob begin to turn, he held his breath, and he did not exhale until Bradley had entered the room.
Once Bradley shut the door and finally saw that Harrison was sitting in his room, the man’s eyeballs nearly popped out of his head. One of his cheeks began to twitch, and he took a step back.
“I know you were expecting my wife, but she’s been detained rather indefinitely,” Harrison offered and stood up. He nudged the chair with his foot to slide it across the planked floor. “Have a seat. I have a number of documents you need to read. Until you do, I’m afraid you’re not free to leave. If you try, once you open the door, you’ll see that there’s someone now waiting at the top of the staircase down the hall who will convince you otherwise.”
Reluctantly, Bradley sat down and offered no protest when Harrison told him to pick up the first document and read it. The man’s hands were shaking so hard, Harrison wondered if any of the words were less than a total blur, but he appeared to read the document before he set it back into place. “All it states is that Annabelle’s father, William Tyler, died a number of years ago. How could that possibly be of any interest to me?” he snapped.
Harrison folded his arms over his chest and fully intended to be perceived as a bully if that’s what it took to guarantee this man’s cooperation. “Pick up the second document and read it.”
Bradley was sputtering by the time he finished reading the document and tossed it back onto the dresser without bothering to fold it. “Y-you actually got a sworn statement from the desk clerk to prove I used a dead man’s name to register for this room? If this is some attempt to intimidate me or to convince me that I’ll have to face charges for impersonating a dead man, then you’ve made a serious mistake. I’ll have you know—”
“The mistake you made was to threaten my wife and to blackmail her,” Harrison hissed and closed the distance between them. “That was a very, very serious mistake on your part.”
Bradley’s gaze hardened, but when he attempted to stand up, Harrison glared at him—hard—until he reluctantly sat down again. “You were more than just wrong to threaten Annabelle. You were very, very stupid, and I have little tolerance for stupid men, particularly when they interfere in my life in any way.” He handed him the next document. “You can read this later. I don’t need to take it with me. I have the original, along with ones for all the others. This document simply confirms that you opened a bank account at Hunterdon Bank some time ago under the name of William Tyler. It was signed by the bank president, who remembers you rather well, considering you were there just last week to make another deposit, as well as this morning,” he said before he handed him the fourth document. “There’s not much to read here. It’s just a document stating that as of ten o’clock this morning, the funds in William Tyler’s account increased by one thousand dollars, which is, oddly enough, the amount of the donation you told me you were going to make to the Refuge before you changed your mind.”
“That’s my wife’s money,” Bradley argued.
“Not anymore,” Harrison said. “According to this next document, which declares that any and all residue remaining in the estate of William Tyler belongs to his sole surviving heir, Annabelle. The bank president was most accommodating in that regard, as well. After he closed that account, he transferred the funds immediately to an account I’ve established there in Annabelle’s name. I won’t bother you with the details of how I convinced him to cooperate, unless you insist,” he added.
Bradley leaped to his feet, and his face was blister red. “That’s my money. It’s mine. You can’t take it from me!”
“If you truly believe that, you can always hire a lawyer and sue me,” Harrison offered calmly. “I’m quite certain your wife will not find it very entertaining to sit in court and listen to you explain why you’ve taken money from her and put it into an account under another man’s name—a man who just happens to have been your former father-in-law. Annabelle has all the documents I need to prove exactly when you married her and when you divorced her, as well,” he said coldly.
“If you honestly believe that your wife will be inclined to be understanding when she learns that she married a divorced man who claimed he had never been married before,” he continued, “then you might want to consider what she’ll think when she sees a note in your own handwriting demanding that the sum of ten thousand dollars be deposited in that very same account.” Harrison pulled Bradley’s note, which Annabelle had given to him, out of his pocket and held it up for Bradley to see before quickly storing it away again.
“But you can’t—”
Harrison took a step closer until he was practically nose to nose with the man. He enjoyed looking down at him. “I can and I will. And if you ever so much as look in my wife’s direction or tell anyone that you were once married to her, I will take every one of those documents straight to your wife. I believe I can easily convince her she should handle the matter instead of going to the authorities. For your son’s sake, as well as the scandal that would ensue if she chose to divorce you, she may decide to remain married to you, but I suspect you’ll never find your way into her good graces again. At the very least, you’ll never get another coin from her for the rest of your life, which will hopefully be as miserable as she can possibly make it for you.”
Clearly defeated, Bradley shook his head. “I can’t believe you’d do all this for Annabelle. For Annabelle?”
“I’d do all this and more. And now I’ll leave you to see what’s in the final envelope,” he replied and let himself out of the room. He joined Philip at the end of the hall and they descended the staircase together.
“Well? Were you able to convince Bradley to make the donation after all?” Philip asked innocently.
“I’m afraid not. It appears that Bradley has far less at his disposal than he led us to believe, but don’t fret. Since you’ve won the wager we made, I’ll make the one-thousand-dollar donation myself. I’ll see you again late next week.”
Anxious to get back to Annabelle to tell her that Bradley no longer posed a threat to either one of them, he walked outside and around the corner to where Graham was waiting with the coach to take him back to Graymoor Gardens. When he finally arrived home, he did not find her waiting for him in the pa
rlor and took the main stairs two at a time. Pleased to find her door unlocked on the outside, he knocked softly. When she didn’t answer, he knocked harder.
He called out her name and took half a step inside, but he could still see that she was not there. In fact, the room itself felt empty, as if she had never been there at all. With his heart pounding, he walked into the room, saw the note lying in the middle of her bed next to two small packages and the envelope containing her settlements funds, and his chest tightened with dread.
He did not have to count the settlement money inside of the envelope to know it was all there, so he picked up the smallest package instead. He knew by feel alone that it contained the two wedding rings he had bought for her.
Unprepared to see them quite yet or to think about what he planned to do with them, he set the package back onto the bed. When he opened the second package, he found himself staring into a mirror, looking at the face of a man who had lost the only woman who had ever laid claim to his heart before he had the opportunity to create one final memory when he bid her farewell.
He set the leather-framed mirror back on the top of the bed and opened the note that had been attached to the mirror:
My dearest Harrison,
While I am no longer a part of your life, I am leaving this small gift with you. If you ever doubt again that you are a man of great character, all you have to do is look into this mirror. When you do, you will see the man that I saw every time we sat and talked together—a man who has a giving heart and a caring spirit, who now shares his wealth with little encouragement from others and a man who is capable of being a valued friend.
I pray that you will remember me with great affection, for that is how I will always remember you, and place your trust in God who will love us and comfort us both during the difficult days ahead.
Annabelle
Grief-stricken, he closed his eyes and whispered her name, just once, before he accepted the reality that he would never see her again. He did not regret a single moment he had spent with her, but the pain of knowing those moments were gone forever was so great that he vowed to never make the mistake of falling in love again.
