My One True Love

by Deborah Small

  “And then poor Mr. Sweeney fell from a bridge,” she whispered.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Sweeney swallowed and looked down. Clearing her throat, she looked up. “I would love that tea now.”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll be right back, Mrs. Sweeney.” Miss Minerva bustled off behind the pastry display case and through the swinging door into the kitchen. Mrs. Sweeney stared straight ahead, though Joe suspected she wasn’t seeing the café or its occupants, some of whom were frowning at her as if she’d done something to send Miss Minerva scurrying.

  “Minnie’s the high-strung, anxious type,” he said in a low voice. “She tends to blurt the first thing that comes to mind. But she never means harm.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Banner.” Mrs. Sweeney’s cheek flinched, a quick tic that reminded Joe of a rider giving the reins a curt tug to remind a spirited horse who was in control. “I’ve no doubt Miss Minerva is every bit as sweet and honest as her desire to serve up the best baked goods this state has fortune to enjoy. And she expressed nothing I’ve not heard—or sensed,” she added, still staring down the length of the establishment. “The Red-Headed Black Widow,” she murmured in a barely audible voice. “Colourful, but not very original.” She met his shocked gaze, and this time made no effort to rein in her smile. “Yes, I know. Miss Alma warned me.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  She shrugged. “Anyone who prefers to believe rumour over fact is no one whose opinion I’ll ever sway, Mr. Banner, and nor will I try to. It tells me so much more about them than they will ever know about me. As I suggested to Miss Minerva, I can only do my best at what is important to me—in this case maintaining if not improving upon Sugar Hill’s fortunes—and leave the critics to their dreadful worst.”

  “So it doesn’t bother you?”

  “I didn’t say that.” She leaned back as Miss Minerva returned with a tray bearing a teapot, a small jar of honey, a saucer of sliced lemons, a mug of coffee, and two glasses of water. After distributing the items appropriately, she took their lunch order and returned to the kitchen.

  Mrs. Sweeney squeezed the juice of two lemon slices into her teacup, added a half spoonful of honey, and poured her tea before looking at him.

  “I’ve no time to expend valuable energy on attempting to shift public opinion, Mr. Banner,” she said quietly. “I’ll continue to do as I have always done: be honest and forthright, and avoid those who would befoul or besmirch my name, my past, or my purpose.” She looked around the café, causing a few people to glance away, before meeting Joe’s bemused stare. “Time will prove who and what I’m about. From that, people are welcome to their opinion. Provided they do not engage in purposeful slander or libel, I’ll leave them to their private musings.”

  “And if they do engage in slander? Or libel?”

  A smile ghosted across her mouth.

  “I believe that would fall into Mr. Lyons’s purview. He is Sugar Hill’s legal representative, is he not?”

  Chapter 14

  Of Letters and Legalities

  C. W. LYONS, ESQ., issued a soft grunt as he settled deeper in his mahogany, horsehair-covered chair. Faded and patchy, the padded leather arms worn shiny with use, the chair had to be of comparable age to its occupant who, despite his seat’s well-worn appearance, displayed no discomfort or irritation, suggesting the aged chair had managed to retain its comfortableness if not its aesthetics.

  With a slow shake of his bearded head, Mr. Lyons said, “I haven’t been Sugar Hill’s solicitor of record since last fall when you requested that I transfer the files to new counsel.”

  “What?” Mr. Banner stared at Margaret.

  “I did no such thing,” she said, prompting Mr. Lyons to lurch forward with sufficient momentum to permit him to lean his plump arms on the desktop.

  “I received a letter last September,” he said, “signed by you, advising me to transfer everything to Ascott, Griffiths, and Gowdy here in town.”

  “I sent nothing of the sort, Mr. Lyons,” she said. “The only correspondence I sent to Quellentown, other than my note thanking you for handling George’s affairs, was in response to a letter I received from Ascott, Griffiths, and Gowdy shortly after George passed. They claimed to have an anonymous buyer who wished to purchase Sugar Hill and relieve me of the burden of a plantation I knew not how to operate. I wrote back, thanking them for the interest. I advised them I’d not come to a decision about Sugar Hill’s future but that when I did, and if it was to sell, I would contact them. If their client was still interested at that time, he or she would have first refusal. In the meantime, I preferred to keep things as George had left them for so many years. And please sit down, Mr. Banner,” she added. “It’s discomfiting having you looming over me like that. Please, Mr. Banner,” she repeated when he did not immediately respond.

  He slowly retook his seat, though he remained perched on its edge. She willed a smile for Mr. Lyons’s benefit.

  Poor man. He’d lost as much colour as Mr. Banner had gained, his formerly robust features taking on the hue of a corpse.

  “I swear, Mrs. Sweeney,” he said, tugging a handkerchief from an inside pocket to mop his brow as his hazel-eyed gaze shifted to her once it seemed Mr. Banner would remain seated. “I believed I was acting on your request.”

  “Do you still have the letter, Mr. Lyons—the one I purportedly sent?”

  He cast a look around the painfully neat office as though the letter might be pasted to one of the framed and official-looking documents hung on the wall or to a spine of one of the many books in the glass-fronted cases. Then he looked at the door and bellowed, “Roberts!”

  Mr. Roberts, the slim, bespectacled clerk who’d greeted them in the anteroom, poked his head in. “Sir?”

  “The letter I received from Mrs. Sweeney requesting the transfer of Sugar Hill’s records—”

  “Yes, sir. Right away.” Roberts popped out of sight, leaving the door ajar. Less than a minute later, a soft rap on the office door preceded his return. He handed a file folder to Mr. Lyons. “Anything else, sir?”

  “Yes. Tea and all the fixings.”

  Roberts inclined his head. “Kettle just boiled, sir. Be right back.” He exited the room with the silent grace of a duke’s footman.

  Margaret shifted on her chair, oddly unnerved. It wasn’t until Roberts returned to silently lower an intricately carved wooden tray bearing a teapot and requisite accessories to a sideboard that the seed of her agitation bloomed to full cognisance.

  Witnessing the familiar, respectful interchange between the slender black man barely of age to scrape a razor along his jaw and a stout law scholar whose flowing beard and faintly lilting southern rasp was far from the cultured English examples and intonations she was used to, shone a mirror on what was absent in her exchanges with Mr. Banner. Rather, it highlighted how ill-equipped she felt to expect from Mr. Banner deference similar to that which Mr. Roberts showed Mr. Lyons, for fear Mr. Banner would do exactly as she knew he would do, and leave.

  From the first day when he’d met her with challenge in his gaze, she’d understood theirs would likely be a short-term working relationship—and that he would end it before she would.

  He was a proud man, and he had been at Sugar Hill’s helm a long time. It would be unrealistic for her to think he wouldn’t eventually grow to resent her having taken from him what George had, in theory if not legally, gifted him.

  Her chest tightened at the prospect of his leaving, and she was only able to manage a taut smile and nod in response to Mr. Robert’s soft query of whether she wanted cream and sugar.

  She doubted she would ever find another overseer who would love Sugar Hill the way Mr. Banner did. She heard it in his voice and saw it in his unguarded gaze during their meetings when he thought she was invested in the ledger before her: his regret, as he gazed out the terrace doors, as though already the grounds beyond them were slipping out of his grasp.

  When he left, he would take Maisie with him. The thought sent sorrow ar
rowing through her.

  Maybe it was having two husbands abandon her so abruptly. Or having to abandon the life and people she’d loved in Texas for a second time in less than two years. Or maybe it was finding in Mr. Banner’s assuredness and Maisie’s frankness the strength, energy, and warmth that had taken her so long to recover after William’s death and which had fled her again the day George died. But whatever it was, the thought of them leaving, and her rattling about in that big house like one of Terrence Sweeney’s exhibits sealed in a glass jar, hurt. More than she wished to admit, even to herself.

  She abandoned her maudlin musing to offer Roberts a smile as he placed a cup on the desk’s edge in front of her.

  “Here.” Mr. Lyons held out a sheaf of paper.

  Roberts deftly intercepted it and handed it to her while simultaneously extending the cup in his other hand to Mr. Banner.

  She waited until Mr. Roberts had returned to the anteroom, closing the door behind him with a whispered click, before reading the letter.

  Dated eight weeks following George’s death, the type-written letter clearly advised Mr. Lyons to do exactly as he’d done, without prejudice.

  “Very professional,” she murmured. “But I’ve never seen this before, and although close, that is not my signature.” She looked up. “Fortunately, this won’t take but a moment to remedy.”

  Mr. Lyons frowned before understanding replaced the confusion on his face. He glanced at his office door.

  “Roberts,” he shouted. “Come back in here, and bring a notepad and pen.”

  “DINE WITH ME, MR. BANNER.”

  Joe jerked his gaze from the familiar countryside outside the window to stare at Mrs. Sweeney.

  “Tonight.” Her throat pulsed beneath the layer of black lace sheathing it. “We need to discuss—”

  “Discuss what? I know what needs to be done—”

  “Physical violence against Barrister Griffiths is not the answer, Mr. Banner. In fact, it is the worst possible approach. He’d like nothing more than to turn public opinion further against me, isolate me more, drive me out of Sugar Hill. And Georgia. All the way back to Texas, if not England.”

  He bit down on a reply.

  She was right. She’d been right when she’d refused to let go of his arm when he’d made to charge down the street to Griffiths’s law office and hang Barrister by his lying, cheating, conniving tongue. She’d been right when she insisted that he get inside the coach and return with her to Sugar Hill. Right again, when she informed him that violence was not the answer. But knowing she was right did not eliminate the fierce rage coursing through him, the need to teach Barrister a lesson he’d never forget.

  “Legal oversight of Sugar Hill will soon be back under Mr. Lyons’s purview, Mr. Banner—”

  “That won’t change the fact Barrister’s had unfettered access to the estate’s records and financial information for months. There’s no telling what damage he’s done.”

  She wriggled slightly, working her way back on the squab, an action that reminded him of Maisie’s attempts to stay seated when the coach’s thumps and bumps threatened to toss her to the floor.

  “Fortunately, I have you, Mr. Banner,” she said, once settled—or as settled as she would be until the carriage’s pitch and sway carried her to the edge of the bench again. “Between your knowledge of Sugar Hill and Mr. Lyons’s memory, not to mention Mr. Roberts’s disciplined filing system, we should be able to ascertain any discrepancies.”

  Her optimism, though admirable, bordered on naivety. It took a strong draw of will to refrain from telling her so.

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  “Let’s save that for dinner. I’m more interested in knowing whether you’ve given any thought to my proposal.”

  He frowned. “Proposal? Oh, you mean—”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “Teaching Maisie braille. I know it’s only been a week since I raised the issue, but—”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, you can teach Maisie braille. If she’s interested. It has to be her decision.”

  “Of course.” Her evident surprise brightened to gratitude. “Thank you, Mr. Banner. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity.”

  “I thought it was Maisie’s opportunity?”

  “It is. But I’ll be learning alongside her.”

  “The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one’s opportunities and make the most of one’s resources.”

  She sat back, and raised her eyebrows.

  “Latin and Vauvenargues,” she murmured.

  “I read a bit.”

  “He’s not well-known.”

  “Voltaire is.”

  “They were friends.”

  “Despite their divergent views.”

  “Or perhaps,” she mused, “because of them.”

  The suggestion of a Voltaire-Vauvenargues-like kinship between them lighted her gaze, robbing him of a response.

  All at once, her delicate floral scent seemed to fill the coach as the sexual tension he experienced during their daily consultations swelled to undeniable proportions. Tension he always managed to repudiate at the end of each session by reminding himself that he worked for her, and that his fascination with the way her hair glimmered like molten copper and her eyes sparkled like flawless emeralds was typical male lust. Completely normal. Predictable. Irresponsible.

  She slipped forward on the seat in response to his unconscious movement towards her, and his hands came up to cup her face as he angled his head and leaned in—

  He grunted as their foreheads collided, and reached instinctively to catch her before she fell to the floor.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as he steadied her on her seat.

  Her eyes were wide and watering over the black-gloved hands she held cupped to her nose.

  “I...think so.” She blinked a few times before lowering her hands to push back on her seat and look out the side window. “Why are we suddenly going so fast?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice gruff with self-loathing at his foolishness in letting his guard down. Planting his feet to keep from being tossed to the floor, he dug in his pocket for his handkerchief. “You’re bleeding.”

  She took the handkerchief and dabbed it against her nose with one hand while holding to the side wall with the other. She gaped at the blood staining the white cotton before pressing it to her nose again. Pain and fear flickered across her features as she cast a confused look out the window while trying desperately to remain seated.

  He yanked the bell rope to signal Magnus to stop. When the coach continued at reckless speed, jolting over the gravelled road like a wild horse under saddle, he got to his feet, hands pressed against the roof for stability.

  “Hold on while I see what the hell Magnus is up to.”

  In one swift move, he reached and thrust open the door. Hanging on for his life, he poked his head out and shouted, “Goddamn it, Magnus, slow down!”

  The lad cast him a wide-eyed look and loosed one hand from the reins long enough to point before leaning forward and snapping the reins to incite greater speed from the horses.

  Joe choked as his eyes found what had spurred Magnus’s action.

  “Jesus,” he breathed, staring at the swirling black cloud above the distant tree line.

  A thick plume of black smoke was rising from Sugar Hill land.

  SMOKE AND ASH SPIRALLED from the charred remains like a cluster of miniature tornadoes. Margaret clutched Mr. Banner’s handkerchief to her nose and mouth and stared at him.

  “Please tell me they weren’t home,” she rasped.

  “No.” He shook his head. “They’re still at Lily Grove.”

  His grievous expression devolved to something formidable as he kicked a chunk of smoking wood at the periphery of the smouldering remains of the cottage he and half of Sugar Hill’s workers had tried desperately to save with buckets of water handed up from a creek a
hundred yards away.

  “They’re not due back for another half-hour. But that won’t save whoever did this—”

  “We don’t know—”

  “I know,” he snarled. “It’s July. I haven’t lit a fire in the hearth in months, and Lisette ensures all the lamps and candles are out before she and Maisie leave for the day. Five years she’s worked for me, and she’s never forgotten. Not once. Besides”—he angled his head and sniffed—“I didn’t swap out kerosene for my morning coffee. This was intentional. I’ll bet my job—and nose—on it.”

  She surveyed his face and then what was left of his and Maisie’s home.

  If Mr. Banner was anything, it was unfailingly honest—to the point of discomfiture, at times. It was his singularly best, and worst, attribute after his fierce love for Maisie. So, if he believed the fire had been set intentionally, she believed him, even if she couldn’t smell the kerosene. Not that she would distinguish it from the many acrid odours assailing her, the least of which were her and Mr. Banner’s body odours.

  She swallowed to ease her throat’s sudden constriction at the thought of what might have been—the losses beyond the material that might have been incurred.

  “You’ll all move into the big house,” she said. “And I’ll accept no excuses or protest, Mr. Banner,” she added, when he made to offer exactly that. “There are empty bedchambers aplenty. An entire ground-floor wing of them. Besides, having Maisie in the house will facilitate our learning together. I’ll also find it edifying to have you and your knowledge close to hand as I continue to navigate what I’m finding to be increasingly stormy seas here at Sugar Hill. As much as it pains me to admit, I’m used to a certain...civility. Nothing in my old life, not even as a teacher to sometimes precocious or sullen children, prepared me for...this.” She waved a hand at the smoky debris.

  He held her gaze, his jaw muscles flexing. She refused to look away or acknowledge the guilty relief and lingering regret at what else might have been. It echoed through her as she resisted touching her aching nose and awaited his decision.