A Fella for Frances

by Donna K. Weaver

  “Frances, about what I said earlier—” he began.

  “Don’t,” she hissed. “You signed a contract.”

  “You’re right. I did, and I’ll honor it.” Nick’s heart seemed to have grown too heavy, and he turned to the door. “I’ll check with one of the clerks to see how to send a word that we’re going to your old house, so the others won’t wonder what happened to us. You can clear things with Mr. Boyle.”

  He left the room, a lump forming in his throat. It’d been a mistake to go along with the sham. Lots of folks still arranged marriages where the couple weren’t in love with each other; he wasn’t one of them.

  Nick wanted a forever with Frances, but he knew the truth now. She said she didn’t want to be married to anyone, to give up her freedom. He didn’t believe her. She’d done just fine being married. It was him she didn’t want. Well, it was almost over anyway. Once he and Frances split, Luke would understand why there couldn’t be a partnership.

  It was time to go back to Texas.

  17

  Frances fumed internally as they sat in the streetcar heading to her old home. She had tried so hard to be normal and natural with Nick since his declaration that morning. For a while there, she’d thought they could just be friends again without all the stupid talk about love. And then he’d had to go and bring it up again. What was he thinking to keep pushing?

  Still, her heart ached at the divide between them. They hadn’t been married quite two weeks. How could he have gone from being her best friend to this man professing his love for her in such a short time? If she hadn’t known him so well, she’d have thought he was teasing her. It was all Nick’s fault for ruining their friendship.

  Frances refused to accept his hand when they left the streetcar but strode to the street where she’d grown up. He was silent and didn’t try to catch up to her but stayed a few paces behind.

  As her surroundings finally broke into Frances’s irritation, an unexpected sense of nostalgia hit her, and she slowed her pace. The neighborhood hadn’t changed much in the last year. She imagined the children would be in school at this hour.

  “Is it very hard?” Nick asked softly from beside her.

  “More than I thought it would be.” She glanced at him for the first time since shutting him down on the streetcar.

  “Is that you, Frances?” a familiar voice called from the large front porch of the house across the street from hers.

  “Doc Turner.” Pleasure at seeing the old man washed away her irritation, and she hurried up the walk to give him a hug. “How are you?”

  “Well, I’m a year older. And who’s this young man?”

  “Oh, he’s… uh…”

  “I’m her husband, Nick Reynolds.” He extended his hand. “Doc Turner is it?”

  “Married too, are you? The wife saw notices in the paper for both Maude and Doris.” The old man glanced over his shoulder. “I’d invite you in for some cookies, but she’s resting.”

  “Perhaps we can chat later,” Frances said, stepping off the porch. “We’re expecting my sisters later.”

  “That would be wonderful.” Doc Turner glanced at her old home. “The neighborhood’s not been the same since your father died, and you all left. It was such a loss.” Shaking his head, he went back inside.

  “That’s your house?” Nick asked, standing beside her again. When she nodded, he said, “It’s a beautiful place. Has it been in your family for long?”

  “It’s a relatively new house. My father had it built for my mother. You can see her taste in everything because he gave her free rein with the decorating.” Sadness and the familiar sense of loss filled Frances. “That’s why everything is shabby.”

  “Your father didn’t want to change anything your mother had chosen,” Nick said, his voice soft.

  “No, he didn’t.” The words came out rough.

  Frances was getting tired of feeling like she was on the verge of tears all the time. Sometimes full-out crying. If Luke’s cowhands had seen her crying like a baby as she had so often these last few weeks, she’d be in a world of trouble. Besides giving them ammunition to tease her, they’d look down at her as weak. Nick was the only one she’d ever felt safe to cry in front of.

  Staring at her childhood home, emotion making her blink back tears, she’d expected him to offer comfort. He didn’t. Did that mean they weren’t even friends anymore? The melancholy she’d been struggling with lately intensified.

  She’d never known anyone who saw inside her like Nick did. Last spring, after spending only a month in each other’s company, they’d started joking they shared a brain. One of the guys had overheard them joking about it and later must have thought to be clever by calling her a halfwit to the other men. The next day the cowhand had shown up with a shiner. Nick hadn’t denied hitting the man, but he wouldn’t admit to it either. The cowhand wouldn’t talk, though he’d never dared call her names again.

  Why was it when Nick came to her defense it didn’t bother her? With any other man, she’d have thought he was implying she couldn’t handle things herself.

  “Looks like someone’s been shoveling the walks,” he finally said. “Shall we go inside?”

  “Yes. If we can find whatever it is my uncle wants, maybe he’ll finally leave us alone.”

  “Do you have a key to the front door?” he asked.

  “No. Let’s go around the back.” Frances tried to bite back a grin, thinking back on all the times she’d snuck out of the house. “I know how to jimmy one of the windows there.”

  “Did your father ever catch you?” Nick asked with a chuckle.

  With the simple question, her humor fled. How could her father have caught her when he refused to acknowledge her? They’d reached the front verandah, and stepped into the deep, crunchy snow and began trudging around the side of the house.

  As she did, the locket’s chain tickled her neck, and she remembered the little scrap of paper. Maybe she hadn’t been as invisible to him as she’d thought. It took away the usual bitterness that accompanied thoughts of her father.

  “What a great front porch,” Nick said, seeming to try to lighten the now-somber mood. “I can see y’all sitting there on a summer evening.”

  “We did when my mother was alive.”

  “I feel like I’m walking on glass whenever I mention your family,” Nick said, sounding frustrated as he followed her. “Do you have any happy memories after she died?”

  “Not many.”

  Nick gave a soft grunt. “I hope the inside of the house isn’t as cold as it is out here.”

  “We have our coats. We’ll do fine. This is the window to my father’s office.” Frances pointed to the closed, faded curtains visible through the glass. “That’s where we’ll check first.”

  “But wouldn’t your uncle have already searched there?”

  “He wouldn’t know what he was looking for though. And he obviously hasn’t found it yet, or he wouldn’t keep coming after us.” They’d reached the back of the house, and she pointed to two dining-room windows. “It’s the one on the left that’s loose.”

  She reached into the specially made sheath inside her boot that held the knife Nick had given her for her nineteenth birthday. He watched in fascination at how quickly she used the blade to shift the lock.

  “Remind me to buy a different kind of window lock.” Nick reached over to help her lift the window. “I wonder if it’s safe to use any of the fireplaces.”

  “Father was quite progressive. We have fireplaces, but the house is heated with gas.”

  Nick cupped his gloved hands and bent over like he did when helping her to mount a horse. Frances stepped into it, and he gave her a good heft. She slid into the room. He came in behind her and closed the window. She glanced around the room, grateful for the shrouded furniture to keep the memories at bay.

  Stomping her feet to get off the snow as she left the room, she refused to look at the other end where Father had sat at meals. Where he’d—r />
  No.

  “The house is warm,” she said. “Does that mean Uncle William’s been spending a lot of time here and didn’t want to be cold?”

  “Could be. At least we won’t freeze our tails off while we search.” Nick followed her into the hallway.

  “We can hang our coats in there.” Frances led him into the small antechamber and turned on the little radiator that warmed the vestibule. Once they’d hung up their coats, she said, “Let’s do this. We need to be methodical about it.”

  “And thorough, like Holmes.” Nick nodded. “Let’s turn on all the lights so we can see everything.”

  They entered her father’s office and found a faint residue of cigar smoke in the room. Since her father had given up smoking because it made her mother sick, it was a sure sign her uncle had spent time there. They carefully searched all the furniture. Nick even flipped the paintings over to see if something could be hidden behind those. Frances hadn’t expected them to find anything in her father’s old office, but they gave the room a thorough examination anyway and proceeded to do the same for every room on the floor.

  “Should we do the bedrooms next,” Nick asked when they finished that level, “or does the house have a basement?”

  “The basement is where the kitchen, pantry, laundry room, coal room, and Father’s wine cellar are.” With her emotions so close to the surface, she knew the bedrooms with all their personal items would be the hardest. “Let’s do the basement next.”

  Frances led the way down the stairs. Standing in the middle of the large kitchen, she was struck by how different the room was from the kitchen at Luke’s house. This was definitely a room for servants, while her brother’s kitchen was simply part of his home.

  “Does your mother’s kitchen look like my brother’s or like this,” Frances asked stepping toward the cupboards.

  “Like your brother’s.”

  “After living in Wyoming, it’s odd to come back here. So much has changed and yet—” Frances had removed a box from the cupboard. “Eww!” She dropped it and jumped back.

  “What is it?” Nick was at her side in an instant, his sharp gaze scanning for danger.

  “Arsenic.” Her voice sounded little girlish, so she coughed and stepped back, trying to hide the trembling in her hands. “Do you think this is what they used to kill my father?”

  “It could be, but I wouldn’t dwell on it. It’s a common enough poison for rats, so it’s not unusual to find it here.” Nick reached as though to touch her arm but pulled it back. “Let me check the kitchen while you check another room.”

  When they’d finished searching the basement and nothing had triggered Frances’s memory, she started to get frustrated.

  “There’s no way Father would have hidden it someplace as obvious as his bedroom,” she grumbled as they climbed the stairs again. “Uncle William would have searched it, I’m sure.”

  “And found it by now. I’m sure your father was cleverer than that.”

  As they stepped into the hallway on the second floor, Frances’s emotions ratcheted up again. In so many ways the house felt abandoned, stale and chilly in spite of the gas heat. The warmth troubled her because it was a sign Uncle William had been using her home. Frequently.

  For a second, Frances paused. She could almost hear the echoes of their childish laughter as they slid down the banisters or played tag in the backyard or gathered in the upstairs parlor on Christmas morning to open their presents.

  It was as though she and her sisters had left their girlhoods here. They’d merely risen the morning after Father had died and never returned. Frances wouldn’t think about it. She couldn’t face her father’s room first, so she went into Doris’s.

  “None of these look like they’d be yours,” Nick said from the hallway when they’d finished the last room on that floor. “I’ll bet there’s a bedroom in the turret.”

  “Yes.”

  He followed her more closely this time as they climbed the narrow stairs. Like the other rooms, the furniture had been covered with cloths.

  “It’s like I barely left it,” Frances said, studying the contents, “and yet it seems ... like it was forever ago. I feel like a different person from the last time I slept in here.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I suppose I am.” She met his gaze for a moment. How much had she changed because of her friendship with him?

  “I need to tell you something,” he said, his expression serious.

  “Not that again.” She spun toward the door.

  “Frances,” he took her hand, “I’m going home.”

  “Lilac City?” She faced him again, his somber expression filling her with dread. “Now?”

  “When we get back.” Nick released her hand and shoved his in his pockets. “I should never have agreed to this fiasco.”

  Frances winced. Calling their marriage a fiasco hurt more than she’d have expected. The finality of his words had started the too-familiar ache in the back of her throat, her nerves on edge as though from impending danger. Which was ridiculous She wasn’t in danger from Nick.

  “You’ve helped me get my inheritance,” she said, keeping her words soft and even. “Is that a fiasco?”

  “Well, I’m happy for you. At least one of us got our dream.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Come on, Frances, you’ve really been off your game this trip. You don’t really think Luke’s going to partner with me once our marriage is annulled, do you?” Nick brushed past her and went down the stairs.

  She stared at his retreating back as it disappeared, and the significance of what he was saying struck her. He’d said he was going back home. He meant Texas. And it was all her fault.

  Frances sank onto the sheet covering her bed. What a selfish brat she’d been. She’d been so focused on getting control of her life and her fortune, she’d never once considered what it would cost Nick once their marriage was annulled. Of course, Luke wouldn’t partner with him. And how could Nick face the guys on the ranch and the people in town?

  She was about to win her fortune and independence, but it’d cost her the dearest friend she’d ever had.

  18

  Nick stood in the main floor hallway, trying not to think about Frances. The sooner they figured this out, the sooner he could leave.

  He studied the paintings. There were none of Mrs. Lancaster. Frances had mentioned once that her father had ordered everything of her mother’s moved to the attic. Was there an attic? He compared his memory of the house’s exterior with the search they’d just done of the second story and France’s tower. If there were an attic, it wouldn’t be a traditional size. Could her father have stored something there? Surely William Lancaster would have searched it.

  With a resigned growl, Nick turned back to the stairs. He’d only taken a step when voices came from the front walk. Had the others finished at the bank already and joined them? Unless they’d gotten a key to the house there, they wouldn’t be able to get in. He hurried up the hallway, thinking to open the door for them.

  “No, Nick,” Frances hissed from the stairs, “it’s Uncle William, and he has some men with him.”

  Shadows moved in front of the two curtained windows to the side of the front door. Nick scurried back to join her at the foot of the stairs.

  “Out the back,” Frances whispered and tiptoed down the hallway.

  Voices came from outside the vestibule door and someone rattled it, bringing her to a stop. Nick nearly plowed into her. He grasped her shoulders and pulled her away from the little room.

  “Is there any other way out of the house?” he asked.

  “Without our coats?”

  “Maybe you could hide in the dumbwaiter down in the kitchen,” he suggested.

  When Frances spun around to face him, Nick dropped his hands. She stood taller, looking proud and determined.

  “I’m tired of running.”

  “I understand how you feel, and under different ci
rcumstances I’d agree with you. But please consider this. If he is responsible for your father’s death, you know what extremes he’ll go to. We’ve been here a couple of hours. If the others aren’t already on their way here, they’ll be here soon. We’ll have Luke, Charles, and Marshall.” Nick couldn’t help himself but reached out and cupped her cheek. “I don’t think it’s wise to face them when we’re outnumbered.”

  “I’m not hiding in the dumbwaiter.”

  Nick let out the breath he’d been holding. “Is there an attic?”

  A man’s voice at the front of the house called out, “Mr. Lancaster, it looks like they got in the house in the back. No tracks showing they left.”

  “Excellent.”

  Nick could imagine the older man rubbing his hands in anticipation. Nick grabbed Frances’s hand, and they scrambled up the stairs to the sound of the front door being unlocked.

  “Where do we access the attic? Your room?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She started for the stairs, still holding his hand.

  Downstairs, Lancaster was giving orders to his men to search the basement. From the corner of Nick’s eyes, he noticed that what had looked like molding at the end of a cabinet in the bathroom was actually a small door.

  “What’s that?” he whispered.

  “The laundry chute.”

  “Time for a decoy to give us a little more time. Grab one of the furniture covers.”

  She tiptoed into her father’s bedroom while Nick headed into one of the bedrooms where he remembered seeing a stuffed bear. It wasn’t as heavy as he’d have wished, but it would likely make a nice thud when it landed.

  Frances met him in the hallway. “That’s your distraction?”

  Nick eased closer and said in her ear, “You need to get into the attic. I’ll drop this down the chute to send them searching the basement again.”

  “I’m not hiding in the attic without you.”

  “Your uncle doesn’t care about me. He’s after you.”