Love Almost Lost

by Irene B. Brand

  Copyright

  ISBN 1-58660-629-8

  © 2002 by Irene B. Brand. 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 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the King James Version.

  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.

  Cover illustration by Jeff Whitlock.

  One

  The United States had not been long involved in the Great War when Ellen left Daltonville, West Virginia, nine years ago, fully expecting to forget her past and never return. Even if she had considered coming back, in her wildest imaginations she wouldn’t have believed she would return as Ellen Hern, rich widow, and the owner of Arrowwood Estate.

  At one time, Ellen foolishly dreamed of going to Arrowwood as the wife of Lane Dalton, but when she lost Lane, there was nothing to keep her in Daltonville. Knowing she could never have Lane, Ellen eventually married Timothy Hern.

  Ellen hadn’t loved her husband, and marriage to him had only reminded Ellen of what she’d missed by losing Lane. If Timothy knew she didn’t love him, he had hidden the knowledge from her, and they’d had a harmonious relationship until his death six months ago.

  Ellen had hoped to put the past behind her and start a life without either Timothy or Lane, but her vision of a peaceful life had been shattered two days ago when she’d received a visit from United States Marshal John Warren. Her butler, Bentley, had ushered Warren into the drawing room of her Cleveland mansion, where she was poring over a European travel itinerary. The room with its twelve-foot ceilings and walnut paneling had always overwhelmed Ellen, but Warren’s six-foot-plus height and his massive body dwarfed the room.

  He spoke in guarded tones, and Ellen considered his soft, smooth voice unusual in such a large man.

  She decided Warren was a man of action when he bluntly asked, “Do you know why anyone would want to kill your husband?”

  Ellen stared at him for a moment, slow to comprehend his meaning. “Murder him?”

  Warren nodded.

  Stunned, Ellen dropped to the sofa and motioned Warren toward a chair, which he pulled close to her.

  “No, I don’t. Why are you asking?”

  “I’m trusting you’ll keep secret what I am about to say.” He took a small slip of paper from an envelope and handed it to her. “Last week we received this anonymous note.”

  Are you satisfied that the death of Timothy Hern was an accident? Why not look for a piece of pipe in a cave a few miles south of the accident scene?

  Ellen looked up from the message with questioning eyes.

  “We figured this as a hoax of some kind, but we sent two officers to check it out. They found the cave and a piece of pipe containing bits of flesh and hair. At this point, we don’t know that they match your husband’s, but we suspect they do.”

  “But why? Who?”

  “We don’t know. The autopsy indicated that he died from a blow to his head, but the car was so badly damaged, the authorities must have thought he sustained the injury when the car plunged over a steep embankment.”

  “Surely Ercell, the chauffeur, would have known if someone had knocked Timothy on the head.” Her eyes widened. “Unless Ercell did it.”

  “When the mechanic who examined the wrecked car said that a faulty steering mechanism had caused the accident, no further investigation was made. But it doesn’t seem likely Ercell would have risked his own life in the wreck unless it was a murder/suicide that failed.”

  “But Ercell worked for my husband for years! I don’t recall that they ever disagreed.” She darted a quick glance at Warren. “I can’t help but wonder why federal marshals are investigating an automobile accident.”

  Warren’s face flashed with an enigmatic expression. “A keen mind as well as beauty,” he said, but his deep-set eyes quickly became serious. “Mrs. Hern, how much did you know about your husband’s business activities?”

  “Not much. His family has been in the wholesale furniture business for years, but he made most of his money as a stockbroker after the war. His lawyers haven’t settled his estate, but I’m not too trusting, so I hired my own lawyer to keep them honest. We haven’t learned anything yet to make us suspicious.” She studied the marshal a long moment. “Apparently, there are things I don’t know.”

  “For several months, we’ve been quietly investigating your husband on suspicion of racketeering. We believe his furniture business was a cover-up for extortion from small store owners and the profitable business of bootlegging.”

  Ellen surveyed the lavish furnishings of the room, and she said bitterly, “So you’re telling me this house was built with illegal money? I might have known my luck wouldn’t run to having an honest husband!”

  She rose from the chair and wandered around the room, attempting to hide her distress from Warren. She knew that often in times of stress her indigo blue eyes darkened until they appeared black, and she felt uncomfortable at the thought of him noting this idiosyncrasy of hers. She tucked strands of her honey brown hair into the long braid wrapped around her head. Timothy had urged her to cut her hair into the short bobs now popular, but though she had adopted knee-length dresses and rolled silk stockings, she’d resisted bobbing her hair. Although she hadn’t bothered to analyze her reasons, she preferred to keep her long tresses the way they’d looked when she was a girl.

  Ellen had looked forward to enjoying her life at last, but could she do it on gangster money? She thought she’d reached the place where she could prove Ellen Rayburn had overcome her background and could now face the world with pride. Unbidden, a proverb pierced her memory, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

  It wasn’t the first time the Scriptures she’d learned as a child had brought Ellen to her senses. Suppressing any more self-pity, she turned back to Warren. “Why have you come to me?”

  “We want to make a quiet investigation into this situation, and we need your help.”

  “How?”

  “Are you going to your new estate this summer?”

  “No. Timothy bought that house for me, but since his death, I’ve not wanted to go to Arrowwood.” She picked up the itinerary from the desk. “I’m starting on a tour of Europe next week, and I’ll not return until August.”

  “Will you postpone that trip and go to Arrowwood for a few weeks? Hern was coming home from Daltonville when he was killed. The secret to his death may be there.”

  “How would my going to Arrowwood help?”

  “If you were living there, I could move some of my staff in as your employees, giving us easy access to the house and grounds. We could probably unravel the mystery, if there is one, in a few weeks.”

  “Has it occurred to you that if Timothy was murdered, his assailant might also have designs upon my life?”

  Warren grinned slightly. “Why do you think we want you where we can watch you for a few weeks?”

  “I’ll be safe enough in Europe,” Ellen countered, but she lifted perfectly groomed eyebrows and gave him a wry smile. “Or do you suspect me and want to keep me under surveillance?”

  A grin spread over Warren’s face. “You didn’t leave the city the week he was killed.”

  “I gained more than anyone else from Timothy’s death. I could have planned the accident.”

  Warren grin widened into a smile. “You might have, but I don’t think so.” He paused,
then added, as if in afterthought, “How do you get along with your stepchildren?”

  Was this just a casual question, or did she detect a veiled hint or warning? Obviously, the marshal knew a lot about her.

  “Oh, I’ve seen murder in their eyes many times when they’ve looked at me, but I hardly believe they’d kill their father.”

  ❧

  Against her better judgment, Ellen agreed to do what Marshal Warren asked. She canceled her vacation plans, left her Cleveland home in the hands of a few servants, and had set out this morning for Daltonville. Since Warren intended to send his employees to staff the household, Ellen brought no one except her companion, Fannie Heib; Bentley, her butler; and the chauffeur.

  As they crossed the Ohio River on a ferry into West Virginia, Ellen looked covertly at the chauffeur, who hunched over the steering wheel of her seven-passenger Cadillac Fleetwood Imperial sedan. If Ercell had been involved in Timothy’s murder, was it safe for her to ride with him? She glanced backward to see that Bentley, who was driving her yellow Springfield Rolls-Royce, was parked behind them on the ferry flat.

  Darkness overtook them soon after they left the ferry to travel on a narrow road that twisted sinuously along the curving river. Eventually, Ercell turned onto a road that led through the hills to Daltonville, but a few miles from their destination Ellen asked the chauffeur to stop.

  “We won’t get to Daltonville before midnight,” Fannie complained, but Ellen ignored her and stepped out of the car. She had planned to arrive earlier, but a flat tire on the Cadillac had delayed them. If she could have viewed Arrowwood with the sun shining on it, it might have helped her realize that the place really belonged to her. She’d stood here countless times in her youth and cried because the doors of Arrowwood were closed to her. Now, the girl the Daltons thought wasn’t good enough for their son, owned their ancestral home. She’d expected to gloat over the fact, but without Lane, ownership of his home was a hollow victory.

  Although Timothy had been lavish with his gifts, Ellen hadn’t asked him for anything until she heard that Arrowwood was for sale. She’d asked him to buy it for her, and within a few months, he’d handed her the deed for the property.

  Other people had owned the house since the Daltons had lived there, and Timothy had told her, “The estate has been badly neglected, so I’ll restore Arrowwood to its former glory before you see it. When I’m finished, you’ll have a dream house.”

  He’d spent more than a year renovating the house, but he’d been killed before he could take her to see it. She had counted on Timothy’s presence to chase away her bad memories of Arrowwood, and after his death she hadn’t had the nerve to come alone.

  A white blur in the mist rising from the river marked the location of the house, and instead of a sensation of homecoming, Ellen experienced a chill along her spine. The house looked sinister and frightening, but she caught a faint glow of light from one of the windows, and that gave her a sense of welcome until she realized that no one knew she was coming. Marshal Warren had wanted her arrival to be a surprise. Who could be in the house?

  Darkness completely surrounded Ellen, but as she turned back to the car the heavens exploded with light, and a shooting star made its fiery arc from heaven to earth. Fannie saw the star, and she shouted, “Get back in this car, Ellen! Don’t you know that a shooting star is a bad omen? There’s going to be a death.”

  Joining Fannie, Ellen said, “When I brought you to live with me in Cleveland, I thought you’d lose some of your superstitions.”

  “It’s not superstition. I’ve known it to happen time and again. And Deerslayer always returns on the tail of a shooting star.”

  All of Ellen’s life she’d heard about the curse the Shawnee Indian, Deerslayer, had placed on the area, but she wasn’t going to argue with Fannie about it.

  Fannie, a cousin of Ellen’s father, who’d given Ellen a home when she was a child, was the nearest relative she had. When she married, Ellen had brought Fannie to live with her in the Hern mansion. Fannie’s role in Ellen’s household had never been defined. In a way, she was a glorified housekeeper, but for the most part, she was Ellen’s anchor in a lifestyle that had often overwhelmed her. As long as Ellen lived, Fannie would have a home.

  “Does Ercell know where my sister lives?” Fannie interrupted Ellen’s thoughts.

  Ellen leaned forward and tapped Ercell’s shoulder. “Fannie wants to spend the night with her sister, who lives in the first house we reach on River Street.”

  Ercell wheeled through the little town as if he were quite familiar with it and, in a few minutes, stopped in front of the small cottage where Virgie Smith lived.

  “Send the car in for me in the morning, Ellen, and I’ll come out to help you.”

  Ellen waved good-bye and directed Ercell to continue to Arrowwood. This was Bentley’s first visit to the area, and he was hanging close behind the Cadillac.

  On the outskirts of town, they passed Community Church, a hub of social gatherings in her youth. That was one of the few places Ellen had felt welcome, and she wondered if Reverend Truett was still the pastor. He was responsible for some of the few pleasant memories she had of Daltonville, and she would like to see him again.

  She recalled the impassioned sermons he had preached that love of country and love of God were inseparable. Ellen had seen more than one young man, including Lane Dalton, go forward at the end of a service and declare his intent to join the fight against European dictators. Unfortunately, the idealism of the war had waned rapidly after the armistice.

  In that little church, Ellen had made her public commitment to Christ when she was eight years old. What had happened to the sense of awe and the keen faith in God she’d experienced then? Sadly, she shook her head. When she’d lost Lane, she had lost all of that too. Of course, she and Timothy held membership in one of Cleveland’s largest churches, and he had contributed generously. But Timothy’s religion was only on the surface, and they rarely attended the worship services. Ellen had prayed that a return to Daltonville would bring about a renewal of her fellowship with God, but with this mystery hanging over her, could she reclaim the faith she’d once known?

  Ercell soon halted the auto beside the gatekeeper’s house. Oscar and Nellie Henderson had been the caretakers when Timothy bought the property, and he’d retained their services. Ellen remembered the Hendersons from her childhood.

  Ercell blew the horn, the door of the small house adjacent to the gate opened, and Oscar Henderson came out holding a lantern. He lifted the light to peer into the car.

  “Who is it?” he demanded.

  “Mrs. Hern. I used to be Ellen Rayburn.”

  The lantern shook in Henderson’s hand, and he croaked, “Mrs. Hern! What are you doing here?”

  “I own this property, and I have a right to come here when I want to,” Ellen said coldly. Was this the kind of treatment she could expect at Arrowwood? Fannie had warned her that the daughter of Ben Rayburn wouldn’t be welcomed in Daltonville.

  “Pardon, Missus,” he said. “We’d had no word that you were coming.”

  “We had car trouble or we would have been here earlier,” Ellen explained, closely watching Henderson’s shifting eyes. “I didn’t see any reason to notify you. The house is ready for occupancy, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes, Ma’am,” he replied, his gaze darting from her to Ercell.

  “Then open the gate. I’d like for you and Mrs. Henderson to follow us to the house in case we need any help settling in.”

  Henderson rushed into the building, and the iron gate opened with a shudder and a bang. Ercell maneuvered the Cadillac through the opening, with Bentley close on his tail in the Rolls-Royce, and the barrier clanged shut behind them. As they wound through the oak-lined driveway, the headlights illuminated a figure sprinting across the field from the gate toward the main house, and Ellen peered closely to see if it was Henderson. She’d expected him to arrive at the house as quickly as possible, but she didn’t see t
he need for excessive speed. When they drew up in front of the portico, the house was dark and there was no sign of Henderson. They must have been there five minutes before he came panting up to the car, carrying a ring holding several keys.

  “Sorry, Missus, but I’d mislaid my keys.”

  If not Henderson, then who had she seen running across the field?

  As Ercell assisted Ellen from the car, Henderson hurried up the steps to open the front door.

  “I saw a light in the house when we stopped on the ridge. Is someone living here?” Ellen asked.

  Henderson came to an abrupt halt on the top step. “Nobody’s been in this house since Mr. Hern was here months ago, except when my wife comes in once a week to sweep and dust.” He rushed into the house, and a glow of light flooded the interior.

  Bentley hurried up the steps and stood at attention, bowing when Ellen passed through the door. She stepped into a reception area dominated by a grand hanging stairway with a balcony landing. The walls were covered with heavy, gilt-embossed paper that would have been popular in 1850 when the house was built. Light from the brass chandelier shed its radiance on the ivory-colored woodwork.

  I’m standing in Lane Dalton’s home!

  She had dreamed of this moment, but even yet the idea was incomprehensible.

  Hearing a movement behind her, Ellen turned as an elderly, sharp-faced woman rushed into the room. Mrs. Henderson was one who’d been quick to condemn Ellen Rayburn and her father. If I hope to renew my Christian faith, I must get this chip off my shoulder.

  “How are you, Mrs. Hern? If I’d known you were coming, I’d have cleaned the whole house today.”

  “I’m sure everything will be fine. We had a flat tire or we would have been here earlier. Tomorrow, a cook and maid will arrive from the city to look after our needs. But I would appreciate having you prepare breakfast for us.”

  Henderson crowded close to her. “Are you planning to stay for awhile, Missus?”

  “For most of the summer.”

  A smothered groan escaped Henderson’s lips.