The Widow's Secret

by Sara Mitchell

  Rage curdled inside Micah, every muscle clenching in protest. Beside him, Jocelyn visibly flinched, though she did not look surprised.

  “Fortunately,” Rupert continued, “Augustus’s name remained on the deed.”

  Micah wished Rupert would stop rambling and come to whatever point he had made that had upset Jocelyn, but merely asked, “And the owners?” He took Jocelyn’s hand.

  “Abandoned the place last spring. Your agency has been alerted. Again, I was given to understand that if any of those bills surface, the people may be located, as well, and hopefully more of the bogus money confiscated. No success thus far, according to Operative-in-Charge Bagg. He sends his regards, by the way.”

  “When you return to New York, please send mine, as well.”

  “Yes.” He shot Micah an astute look. “Well, as I was explaining to Jocelyn when you arrived, since the deed was found in Augustus’s safe, and since the new will he made before he died bequeathed all his properties and monies to me, Parham technically became mine.”

  A clouded look drifted through his eyes, and for a little while he contemplated the flames dancing in the fireplace. “I can never atone for the distress Chadwick visited upon Jocelyn through the manner of his death, nor the evil his mother’s family inflicted upon you both. I ask Jocelyn to accept what I’ve offered as a heartfelt attempt to restore at least a part of her past, in the hope that it can offer a brighter future.”

  “He is giving me the deed to Parham,” Jocelyn said tremulously. “Micah…I have my family home back. My home…”

  “I have lawyers working their way through the legal thicket, but far as I’m concerned, from this moment Parham is back where it belongs, free and clear, with no encumbrances.”

  Stunned, Micah unfolded the heavy manila papers and scanned them. “I’m not sure I can top this Christmas present,” he admitted, trying without success to swallow the knot hardening in his throat.

  Rupert gave a cackling laugh and slapped his knee. “Son, from what these old eyes see, compared to what you have to offer this pretty lady, even a family estate turns to a lump of coal.”

  “I wouldn’t call Parham a lump of coal.” Jocelyn twined her arm through Micah’s, her fingers lightly caressing the aging document he still held. “But you’re right. I’ve learned that love is far more important than land. And a shanty can be turned into a beautiful dwelling, because of the people living in it.”

  Micah’s heart commenced pounding. Carefully, he laid the deed to Parham on the table beside him, then glanced across at Rupert Bingham. The older man winked.

  “I believe I caught a whiff of some of those nutmeg doughnuts you told me Katya made this morning? How about if I sneak into the kitchen, perhaps snitch one behind her back? Or perhaps I can convince her to join me at the kitchen table and see who can eat the most.”

  “Mr. Bingham, you’ll do no such thing!” Jocelyn sputtered, bewilderment plain in her face. “Katya will bring a plate in here, and we’ll all eat them together.”

  “Stay,” Micah finally untangled his tongue enough to say. “I think, in a sense, your presence couldn’t have been timed more perfectly.” Thanks for that, Lord. But You do have an interesting sense of humor.

  Jocelyn turned back to search his face. “What’s going on? Micah, I’m not sure my heart can take too many more shocks.”

  When her hands twined together in her lap, Micah’s own nerves settled. Certainty and peace flowed over him with the warmth of fire on a snowy December afternoon. “What I brought with me won’t constitute a shock,” he promised, adding with a half smile, “I’m rather hoping it won’t be that much of a surprise.”

  “Micah, please don’t tell me you’ve quit the Secret Service. You promised you wouldn’t. I never expected you to change your vocation—not for me. You’re one of the best operatives, Mr. Hazen told me when we were—”

  Micah silenced the words with a brief kiss that flustered her into openmouthed silence. “Pardon my indecorous display in front of you,” he murmured to Rupert, an unrepentant grin deepening when the older man threw back his head and laughed.

  “Best way I know to silence a good woman.”

  “Yes, sir.” Micah focused all his attention on the woman he loved, taking both her hands in his. He sucked in his breath. “Jocelyn…I love you. I think I’ve loved you for ten years. I also loved Alice, and will always hold a special place for her in my heart.” His voice deepened. “I’ll miss my son until I die. But God has given you and me a chance few people are offered, and I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to lose you. Jocelyn…” The words froze as all of a sudden he realized that if she refused him, he would have nothing. All his hard-won hopes, all his dreams for a future, would dissolve into a cold white mist.

  “Micah, I love you with all of my heart. I don’t want to lose you, either.” Without hesitation she leaned close and whispered just below his ear, “So ask me, for heaven’s sake! I promise to give you the answer at once.”

  “Ah…” All the words drained down into his boot heels, but he was smiling as he withdrew the jeweler’s box from Tiffany’s. The symbolic gesture infused him with courage, and the smile broadened until his cheeks ached with it. “In that case, will you marry me, Jocelyn Tremayne?”

  Jocelyn nodded toward Rupert as the tears spilled over and dampened her freckles. “Yes, Micah, I will marry you. Oh—” Her eyes rounded when she saw the ring box. Micah flipped it open, and no longer cared that his hands were shaking because Jocelyn’s were, as well. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she whispered as he slid the betrothal ring on her finger.

  “It’s not the most elaborate. Public servants don’t make a large salary, but it looks like you.”

  Rupert joined them, resting his hand on Micah’s shoulder. “You’re right. It’s a perfect ring. You’ve a good eye, son. You don’t mind if I refer to you as ‘son’? You’re a good man, MacKenzie. I think Chadwick would be relieved to know someone worthy of the honor has won Jocelyn’s heart.” The wistfulness drifted through his eyes, then faded. “I miss him, you know. But he was a very unhappy soul, wasn’t he? I wish I understood….”

  Jocelyn kissed Rupert’s cheek. “May I share what I finally learned? Most of the time what we need more than understanding is forgiveness.” She held the ring up so that the light caught on the sparkling diamond and two deep red rubies that perfectly matched her hair. “And to know that you’re loved, not only by the people to whom you’ve given your heart, but, even more, by God.”

  “I’ve lost my entire family to death, and disgrace. What could God offer at this point in my life?” Rupert asked, and Micah heard in his voice all the bitterness he no longer heard in Jocelyn’s.

  With a smile more brilliant than her ring, Jocelyn looked up into Micah’s face. “Everything,” she promised Rupert. “God has everything to do with our lives, if we let Him, regardless of our ages. One day, Micah and I will have to share our journey with you.”

  “But for now…” Unable to resist, Micah clasped his beloved’s waist, lifted her completely off her feet and twirled her around. “Let’s find Katya, tell her the good news and have some doughnuts.”

  Rupert followed the joyful couple as they strolled hand in hand from the room, a stubborn mustard-size seed of hope nudging against the dry soil of his heart.

  He grudgingly acknowledged that he might be interested in hearing that story.

  Shoulders squared, he strolled toward the sound of their laughter.

  Epilogue

  Virginia

  April 1897

  Sunset washed the spring green of budding trees in shades of orange and purple, turning the brick on the stately old house an earthy shade of rust. Golden daffodils imported from Holland dipped their heads in homage to the day. Beneath the stately old oaks surrounding Parham, shy white dogwood blossoms and bold red azaleas brightened the lengthening shadows.

  Inside the central house, doors banged open, and a drumroll of footsteps sc
rambled down hallways and staircases, then dashed into one of the connecting wings.

  “It’s a boy!” Heinrich yelled, skidding to a halt in the door to Uncle Rupert’s study. “Miss Jocelyn’s fine, and so is the baby. Mr. Micah’s—You won’t believe it, but he has tears on his face. Moeder told me to tell everyone, about the baby, I mean, I think to give me something to do.” He grinned a snaggle-toothed smile. “Now, I must go and tell the others.”

  A beatific glow bright as the daffodils lit Rupert Bingham’s face. He tamped out the pipe he’d been smoking in nervous silence for nigh onto fourteen hours, carefully laid his book aside and stood. His bones crackled in protest from all the work he’d subjected them to over the past weeks, but Rupert ignored the discomfort. For a moment he pondered the book he’d been reading, his hand resting on its supple Morocco leather cover. Jocelyn had given him the Bible for Christmas. “Our baby’s due in the spring,” she told him. “There’s a story in the Bible, about a woman who cried out to God, because she was barren. One day God heard her cry, and gave her a son. If this baby is a boy, and you want to know what his name will be, read the passage I’ve marked.”

  Jocelyn, Rupert had learned, enticed a man with the subtlety of a blacksmith’s hammer. Her tactics to convince him to move down to Virginia and inhabit the wing where her grandparents had lived out the last of their years had proved equally effective. Sometimes he marveled at how little he missed city life.

  Must be the air here in Virginia, he decided with a self-indulgent smile as he headed along the connecting hall, into the main house.

  “So it’s to be Samuel Angus, is it?” he murmured aloud. “Good strong name.”

  Coltish legs flying, Heinrich scampered from the wing of the house where Uncle Rupert lived to the big oak tree outside, next to the porch, where Katya pushed Elfie on a rope swing Mr. Micah had fashioned for her.

  “It’s a boy!” he shouted, loping over to snatch his sister out of the swing. He pinched her dripping nose, then tossed her into the air with his strong young arms. “You can see him soon, cricket.” He liked the nickname Mr. Micah had bestowed upon her. “But you can’t cry anymore, jah?”

  “Is Miss Jocelyn dead?” Elfie asked fearfully, her lower lip red from being chewed on too much all day long.

  “Would I be smiling, if it were so?” Scowling now, Heinrich turned to Katya, and felt his own face color up. Tears stood in the maid’s eyes, and suddenly he didn’t know what to say, or how to act. Katya had wanted to remain with Miss Jocelyn, but the doctor told her single young ladies were not allowed.

  “Miss Jocelyn is asking for you,” he told her, hoping she would not cry too much. He didn’t understand why, when the baby was squalling and the doctor and Moeder were smiling and he had heard with his own ears Miss Jocelyn thanking God, and telling Mr. Micah how much she loved him—Why must grownups cry when good things happened? “She said to tell you she is healthy as a pair of draft horses. It made Mr. Micah laugh.”

  He grabbed Elfie’s hand. “Hurry up.”

  “Heinrich, we have a new brother,” Elfie breathed, holding on to her older brother with her grubby fingers when he snorted a protest. “Yes. Mr. Micah telled me we’re all family, and this baby is to be our brother.” She twisted to look over her shoulder at Katya. “And you will to be his aunt. I heard Mr. Micah say so.”

  “The baby will be grown by the time we get to see him,” Heinrich grumped.

  But when Katya joined him and Elfie, he couldn’t help but slant her a look. Their eyes met, and her mouth formed its one-sided smile. Together they trooped up the porch stairs and into the cool, light halls of the house.

  Micah hovered over Jocelyn and his son with a blend of disbelief and jubilation. His shirt was matted with splotches of sweat, he’d rolled up the sleeves, and at some point over the last twelve hours Jocelyn had watched him rip off the collar and cuffs, hurling them in an explosion of fear into a corner of the room.

  She lifted one tired hand to his face, brushed the mustache with her fingers. “I’m glad this part’s over. But it really wasn’t so bad, Micah. Look what came out of the pain.” As though in response, little Samuel mewled in his sleep, and Jocelyn snuggled her cheek closer to his precious head. “He is all right, isn’t he, Micah? Dr. Keller promised that his lungs sound perfect, and his heart…”

  “He’s perfect,” Micah told her huskily. “And there’ll never be any doubt whose son he is.”

  “He’s got your mouth and nose. Dr. Keller says we won’t know about the color of his eyes for a few days, but I think he’ll have your beautiful gray eyes, as well.”

  “I don’t care. I’m still too busy thanking God that my wife and son are alive, and well.”

  “Thank you, for having the courage to give me a child.” Shifting a little, she pushed a fold of swaddling cloths aside to better gaze at their sleeping baby. “Are you…are you all right, with everything, Micah?”

  “Give me a year or two.” He sat down on the chair Magda had placed beside the bed for him, then carefully lifted his son from his wife’s arms. “What do you think, Sam? Will you be a bookkeeper like your grandpapa, a banker like your grandpapa Rupert—or a boring civil engineer like your father?”

  “Perhaps he’ll be a heroic operative for the Secret Service.”

  “Only if he stays in an office and doesn’t run afoul of a nasty nest of counterfeiters.”

  “I think, for a little while, I can leave his future in God’s hands.” Drowsiness descended, but Jocelyn fought the lassitude, wanting to bask in the moment with just her husband and her son. I have a child. Thank You.

  Twilight stole softly into the room, along with a gentle spring breeze that billowed the lace panels over the opened windows.

  “Micah?” Jocelyn murmured some time later. “Are you sure I’m doing the right thing, with the money?”

  “Absolutely.” Very carefully he laid a sleeping Samuel in the cradle before returning to Jocelyn. “Proof of Portia’s claims has never been substantiated, since the documents Virgil offered were proven to be forgeries. We’ll never know for sure where Chadwick got the funds he gave you, which is why you promised me—oh, going on two years now?—that you were at peace, about this.”

  “I just want to honor God. I spent so many years, not doing so.…I want to know I’ve done the right thing, for the right reasons, not just because of you and me. But because of Samuel.”

  “God is the God of today, not yesterday, remember. And He looks at your heart, not your bank account.” He wrapped her frazzled braid around his knuckles, then tickled Jocelyn’s nose with the ends. “This time, your loving silence gives Rupert a happy memory of his son, and something he can be proud of, because Chadwick took care of you. Now the money will be used to help others like the Schullers, instead of isolating you in a bitter cocoon. I understand the difference, firefly. So does the Lord. Be at peace, in your heart, and let’s enjoy our son’s birthday.”

  Rivulets of emotion rushed through Jocelyn’s exhausted body in an effusive flow. She didn’t know how to contain the joy—it was like trying to bottle sunlight, or hold back a spring thunderstorm. “Thank you, for restoring Parham.” She let the words spill forth, knowing her husband really did understand her. “For…being willing to pursue my dream.” Fumbling, she searched for his hand, sighing with contentment as she stroked the strong bones and sinews. “When you told me you were a civil engineer before joining the Secret Service, and how much you enjoyed making things work, I think that’s when I knew for sure that God had engineered everything.”

  Micah leaned over and kissed away the tears dribbling onto her smiling mouth. “Ever the humorist, these days, aren’t you, sweetheart? Except for the past seventeen hours, forty-three minutes and oh, about twenty-seven seconds, I’ve enjoyed turning Parham back into a home, not only for us, but for other people we’ve grown to love. It’s been a bit of a challenge, turning slave quarters and outbuildings into livable dwellings after thirty years of neglect, but y
ou know how much I love a challenge.”

  “Do you know how much I love you?”

  “I believe you’ve mentioned it, in passing. Do you know how much I love you?”

  “More than I deserve. Micah?” He rumbled an encouraging sound. “After the restoration is finished, and we’ve found other needy families who need a place to stay until we help them back on their feet…can we have another child? A sister or another brother, for Samuel?”

  “Great glory, woman, are you trying to kill me?” He rolled onto the floor, to his knees, and planted his forearms on either side of Jocelyn’s head. “Samuel’s scarcely an hour old.”

  She smiled up into his face, loving him, and waited.

  “Well…” His head lowered, and he kissed her. “It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to see how many more redheads God blesses us with.”

  “Redhead!” Rupert roared from the doorway. “Did I just hear you say my new grandson is a redhead?”

  Elfie darted beneath Rupert’s arm. “My new brother, he is to have red hair, like Miss Jocelyn?” she squealed, clapping her hands together.

  Heinrich ducked past Rupert on the other side, reaching his arm to snag his sister in her dash toward the cradle. “A redheaded brother,” he grumped, rolling his eyes. “I will be forever having to beat somebody up to protect him.”

  From out in the hallway Jocelyn heard the resounding thud—Katya, stomping her foot.

  “Is this the train station, that you all talk in loud voices?” Magda followed the others into the room. “You must be quiet, and not wake the zuigeling.”

  With sheepish smiles, the group converged in noisy silence upon them. Micah retrieved Samuel, holding him so that everyone had the opportunity to gaze upon his perfect little face—and a head full of flaming red hair.