Triumphant Love: Banished Saga, Book Nine

by Flightner, Ramona

  He chuckled. “Of course not. You were born when they were already friends.” He flit a look at her before glancing away. “I had hoped we might be friends too.”

  “What do you mean? We already are friends,” she said with a laugh. When she saw him watching her intently, she flushed and ducked her head.

  “Please don’t take offense, but I would like to write you after I return home to Darby. Would that be acceptable to you?” he whispered.

  “I would never be offended if a friend wishes to write me,” she said with a smile. “I’d love to hear from you.” Her expression sobered. “I worry how you’ll fare after you return home.”

  His hand clasped hers and squeezed it a moment, releasing it the instant he saw shock and confusion in her gaze. “That is why I would wish to write you. Because you understand I will have a difficult transition.” He paused. “I will miss you, Geraldine.”

  She flushed and met his gaze. “I’ll miss you too, Nickie. It’s been nice to have someone closer to my age.” She saw the understanding in his gaze at her reference to her ongoing mourning for her cousin Melinda.

  “Darby isn’t that far away,” he whispered. “With any luck, I’ll be back before you can miss me,” he teased.

  She laughed and shuffled her feet, edging a few inches closer to him. “I fear that won’t be the case. You’ll return home, be surrounded by your loving siblings, and find your purpose working in the sawmill. I know your father, … Uncle Sebastian, has missed working with you.”

  Nicholas slung an arm around her shoulder and tugged her close. “Yes, he has, and I missed working with him.” His slight tension eased as she relaxed against his side. “But, even though I will be home, surrounded by all that is familiar, I will miss you, Deena.”

  Her breath caught at the depth of emotions in his whispered sentence. Her gaze rose to meet his, ardent and filled with longing. “I’ll miss you too, Nickie, more than I thought possible.”

  She lurched back a step when her father approached to pull Nicholas into a bear hug. Soon she was hugging the Carlins goodbye and watching them climb into the sleigh, as her father jumped in to drive them. Geraldine took a step forward, as though she too wanted to ride with them to the station. However, there wasn’t room for her, and she held back.

  She met Nicholas’s intense gaze, raising her hand high, before lowering it to her heart as the sleigh jerked into motion. Her gaze followed their rapid progress down her street, until they turned and were out of view. Swiping at cheeks she realized were wet, she turned to enter the house, confused by the ache in her heart at Nicholas’s leaving.

  * * *

  In late February, Araminta stood peering into the living room, her throat thickened by tears as she watched her husband cradle their nearly three-month-old daughter, Lily. He sat on the settee so that she lay nestled along his thighs, with her head in his large hand. He spoke to Lily in a soft voice, kissing her frequently on her forehead. Lily, for her part, seemed enthralled by the soft rumble of her father’s voice as she made sweet cooing noses and batted at his nose.

  When Colin laughed as Lily reached forward and grabbed his nose with her small, but strong fingers, Araminta entered the room. “Did you enjoy your time spying on us?” he teased. He raised luminous eyes to her when he leaned into his wife’s side as she stood beside him.

  “I wasn’t spying. I wanted to give you time alone with her.” She kissed his forehead the way he had kissed their daughter’s.

  He sighed with contentment. “I don’t need time alone with her, my love. I will never be more content than when I am with both of you.” His alert gaze roved over her. “You seem stronger today.”

  Araminta chuckled and nodded. “I am. Although it will be a few weeks before I’m not exhausted when watching all the McLeod children, while also caring for Lily.”

  Colin frowned. “I’ll tell Rissa it’s too much. She’ll cut back at the library. Do something different.” He ran a hand over his wife’s head. “I can’t have anything happen to you.”

  “Shh, my darling,” she murmured, as she kissed his cheek and settled beside him on the settee. “My anemia is improving, and Lily is sleeping more at night.” She smiled reassuringly. “I have more energy every day.” She looked around their living room, cluttered now with a day crib for Lily and a rocking chair for her to nurse her babe with more ease. Jeremy and Gabriel had surprised her with one built just for her right before Lily’s birth. They had a penchant for constructing rocking chairs for those they cared about. She curled into Colin’s side, her eyes closing as she rested against him.

  “If I’m quiet, you’ll be asleep in two minutes,” he murmured.

  “That’s because I’m content, and I’d want to be nowhere else,” she said with a smile. “I saw the doctor yesterday, and he assures me that I am improving well.” She kissed his neck. “You must have faith in what he says.”

  “No more extra cooking for the family. Let them care for you for once,” he murmured, stroking a hand over Lily’s head, who now slept in his lap. She had sable-colored hair, like her mother, but piercing blue eyes, like her father.

  “Hush,” she admonished. “I know you remember how well they cared for me after Lily was born. Clarissa cooked every day for a month.” That comment earned a chuckle. “If I recall, I heard you praying for me to improve enough to have the strength to prepare meals again.”

  He flushed and then laughed. “I did. And I tried my best, but even I became tired of my limited repertoire of baked beans on toast and scrambled eggs.” He kissed her head. “What else bothers you, Ari?”

  She wrapped her arm around his belly, supporting Lily as well. “As I returned home from the doctor, I ran into Bartholomew. Mr. Bouchard.” She felt Colin tense underneath her and sat up to face him. “He … He remains bitter.”

  Colin sighed, kissed her on the head and then rose. He set Lily in her nearby crib and then sat so he could face Araminta, taking his wife’s hands in his. His light-blue eyes shone with concern, and his wavy auburn hair was disheveled. “What did he say?”

  “He blamed me for the trouble at his uncle’s bank. Said that they wouldn’t be near insolvency if I had had the decency to keep my word and to marry him.”

  “Fool,” he muttered, as he released one of her hands and caressed her cheek. “He resents how happy you are and wants to make you feel bad. Don’t let him tarnish what we have.” He waited a moment until she nodded her agreement. “Besides, how could you marrying him have had any bearing on their bank’s viability?”

  “I’m not an heiress,” she said with a shrug and a confused shake of her head.

  “No, you’re a Sullivan,” he said with pride. He winked at her as she flushed with joy. “If the rumors are to be believed, the Vaughan bank overextended loans for the war effort, so as to appear patriotic, and they are now in trouble, since farmers and ranchers cannot pay back their loans.”

  “How is that our fault?”

  Colin rolled his eyes. “I was labeled a scofflaw,” he said, “at that bogus hearing in front of the local Council of Defense back in October 1918. Somehow they had determined I had not done enough for the war effort. However, if the alternative is being bankrupt now, I’ll accept the label.”

  “You’re not a scofflaw, and you never were. The Vaughans and Bouchards were angry and wanted to punish you.”

  He nodded. “Yes. But it was more about the head of the committee wishing to steal my businesses from me, since I refused to sell them to him or anyone else. Still the Vaughans and the Bouchards have relished blaming our family for all their problems. They believe Clarissa ruined Mrs. Bouchard’s eldest daughter’s chance of marrying Cameron, when we exposed him as a thief and murderer, after yet another of his deceptions that he had supposedly died in the mill fire. And Mrs. Vaughan always believed I should have married her daughter, Veronica, and has resented me for never reciprocating that inclination.”

  He shuddered at the thought of binding himself to such a f
amily. He sat in quiet contemplation as he considered all Araminta had told him. “I think someone else, besides the Vaughans and the Bouchards, wanted to punish us too.” He refrained from furthering her worry by discussing Gabriel and Jeremy’s cousin, Henry Masterson, also known as Samuel Sanders, who lived in Butte and who liked to stir up trouble when he could. “I’d ignore Bartholomew. He’ll soon have so many problems at the bank that being jilted at his wedding will seem like a dream.”

  Araminta giggled as she rested her head against the side of the sofa. Colin rose, sitting behind her to massage the muscles of her neck and upper back. “Oh, God, you have no idea how good that feels,” she whispered.

  He kissed along her spine and then continued with his ministrations. “I have an idea. You are tired and overworked, and it’s the least I can do to help you. Ignore the buffoon from the bay.” He smiled when he heard her chuckle again at his alliterative insult for Bartholomew. “He’s not worth our concern.”

  She turned her head to meet his smile. “I love you, Col.”

  He pulled her tight until she rested along his front. “As I do you, my beautiful wife.” He held her in his arms as she drifted to sleep, watching their daughter slumber as well, while puzzling over the mystery of Bartholomew’s words.

  * * *

  In early March, Clarissa walked at a brisk pace to Gabriel’s workshop. Thankfully Araminta had agreed to watch Little Colin, while the older children were at school. If they arrived home before she did, Araminta would entertain them all. “Just like old times,” Clarissa murmured to herself, sighing with relief that Araminta had finally recovered from the anemia she had suffered after the birth of her daughter.

  Clarissa smiled and nodded to townsfolk as she strode past them, turning left off Higgins Avenue onto Main Street. Although she continued to tell herself that nothing was the matter, Gabriel never sent a missive asking for her presence at the shop. Her pace increased as she battled panic.

  The wind howled as she burst into his workshop, and she shrieked as she barreled into a ladder. She gasped as she toppled forward. She tumbled into Gabriel’s arms, and he fell backward with her in his strong embrace, as he cushioned their fall to the ground. “Hello, my darling,” he murmured, then kissed her. As she hit at his chest, he eased away to stare at her with concern. “My love?”

  “I was so worried,” she gasped, as she grabbed his shoulders and hauled him closer so she could kiss him again. Laughing, she wrapped her arms around him.

  “Happy anniversary, my love,” he murmured. “Although I prefer this tumble to the one you caused twenty years ago. I don’t relish having my head bashed open again.”

  She nuzzled his chest and gave a sound of disappointment as he rose and hauled her up beside him. She watched as he closed and locked the door. “Twenty years,” she murmured as she ran a hand through his hair. “Little did I know then that you would turn my world upside down.” She grinned at him. “In the best possible way.”

  He pulled her close, resting his forehead against hers. “We’ve had our share of grief and joy, my love. I can’t imagine this life without you.” He kissed her softly, smiling as she moaned in protest when he broke the kiss. “Come,” he whispered, as he gripped her hand and tugged her to follow him. He led her up the side stairs to the space over the workshop.

  Although now filled with furniture, wood, and other supplies, which he and Jeremy used in their cabinetry business, this space was the first home Clarissa and Gabriel had shared as husband and wife after their marriage in July 1901.

  She gasped as she saw a cleared-out area at the far end of the room with a bed and a bedside table with candles. “Gabe,” she murmured, as she pushed herself into his arms.

  “I know this isn’t what occurred that day we met in blustery Boston, when you burst into your uncle’s linen store, ignoring the Closed sign in the door,” he said in a teasing voice. “I was attracted to you, even though you’d knocked me off a ladder and my head needed stitches.” He held her close and half-shuffled, half-danced her in the direction of the bed.

  He chuckled as they bumped into pieces of furniture while they made their way down the narrow aisle he’d created in the long room. “But I wanted a few hours solely for us.” He met her watery gaze. “I’ve ensured the children are well cared for. If we … decide to stay here all night, Colin and Araminta will take care of them.”

  “Gabe,” she whispered, as she cupped his jaw. “I love you.” She stood on her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry if you feel I’ve neglected you.”

  “Never,” he said. “Today is special. And I wanted to ensure we didn’t forget our fateful meeting.” He leaned back and ran his hands through her hair, smiling as his fingers caught on the pins holding her chestnut hair, shot with gray, in place. “Like old times, when I couldn’t wait for you to take the pins out,” he murmured, as he bent to kiss her neck. His fingers searched out buttons and then tangled in her corset ties. “When I was so impatient, we had to cut your corset off you.”

  “Cut if off again,” she demanded, as he inadvertently tied the strings in knots. “I want to feel your hands.” She gasped as she was freed from her corset, his warm breath at her back as he kissed his way down her spine. Arching, she lifted her arm to tangle her fingers in his hair, while he now kissed her neck. “I love your touch.”

  “I love how you’ve always reacted to my touch,” he murmured, as he shucked the rest of her clothes, urging her to lie down on the bed. He smiled at her, meeting her passionate gaze as he pulled off his shirt and went to work on the rest of his clothes. “I love how you’ve never been shy in showing me how much you want me.”

  She shook her head, her fingers tracing the strong muscles of his chest. “Never. If I am to feel such madness, I want you to know how you make me feel. And pray you feel the same.”

  He groaned and joined her on the bed. After kissing her deeply, he brushed her hair from her brows. “As though I will never get enough of you. No matter what happens in this life, know that I will love you forever, my Clarissa.”

  Chapter 5

  Boston, March 1920

  Zylphia Goff stared out her studio window as a gust of brutally cold wind blew, scattering leaves that had escaped the previous fall’s raking. The bare tree branches swayed in the wind, and a few of them scraped against the windows, causing a screeching noise. The overcast gray sky promised rain, although the ground remained bare. Passersby walked with determined gaits, as they headed to their destinations, intent on beating the arrival of the storm.

  For inspiration, Zylphia often studied the city scene outside the home she shared with her husband, Teddy. Today she looked with a vacant stare as she considered her marriage. Or, more accurately, she thought about her husband. She let out a frustrated breath. Of late, he had been acting in a furtive manner, which was not like him.

  Although she and Teddy had recovered from their terrible separation and that painful time after she had lived in Washington, DC, in 1917, she knew the emotional scars remained. “I wonder if such scars ever fully heal,” she whispered to herself, wrapping her arms around her middle.

  Just today she had entered his office to find him hastily secreting away a folder. When she had inquired about its contents, he had remarked she should not interfere with his business affairs. The irrational fear that her husband had found someone else had taken root, and she found herself unable to shake the unease.

  As the door to her study burst open, she spun and smiled at the imperious woman entering her private domain. “Sophie,” she said, as she rushed to the older woman. “What are you doing here?”

  “When my dear friend ceases her weekly visits, I am compelled to seek her out to discern the reason.” Sophie tapped her cane on the floor and then moved to a comfortable chair. “How is it that you have failed to visit me for a month?”

  Zylphia flushed and sat across from the woman, who acted as confidante to Zylphia, her friends, and family members for twenty yea
rs. Now an old woman, Sophronia Chickering maintained a regal air about her. Her silver hair was always expertly styled to flatter her thinning face, while her aquamarine eyes remained as sharp as ever.

  Although Sophie had frequently lamented her penchant for easily gaining weight, of late she had lost a substantial amount with little effort. She always wore dresses in varying shades of purple as a constant reminder that she was pro-suffrage. When possible, she wore a yellow rose. She had little patience for those who opposed universal suffrage, and her tongue could be sharp for those with whom she disagreed.

  “I’ve …” Zylphia shrugged at her inability to come up with an excuse, especially as she met Sophie’s forthright stare and the penetrating intensity of her aquamarine eyes. “I haven’t wanted company.”

  “Hogwash,” Sophie said, punctuated by another tap of her cane. She waited with unveiled impatience for the maid to set down the tea tray and to depart. As the door clicked shut behind the servant, Sophie pinned Zylphia under a severe stare. “I’ve heard you’ve barely left this house. That you’ve declined invitations to see Rowena. That Teddy attended Perry’s concert without you.”

  “Exaggerations,” Zylphia said and busied herself with pouring cups of tea.

  “Lie to yourself but not to me, Zee,” Sophie said. “I know you weren’t at Perry’s concert because I looked for you. Rather than holding you on his arm, Teddy was forced to fend off vultures who believe you are having marital issues.” She motioned for Zylphia to set down her cup of tea, intent on focusing on her friend. “Reassure me that I am mistaken.”

  “I … I …” Zylphia shrugged, and a tear leaked out. “I fear he’s interested in another.” She ducked her head at the whispered confession. “I torture myself with imagining it could be the nurse again. Or another woman. Someone softer. Not so independent.”