by Chant, Zoe
"1768," Sarah said promptly. "There were six or eight founding families who set up and surveyed the town here, and then one of them went back to England to petition George for a township charter. I think they must have been pretty confident of it, because while he was on his way to England another handful of families sailed over and settled here, and he came back with the charter in 1769. The courthouse has a 1770 cornerstone. Mabs's house was built about twenty years later, and it's one of the oldest houses outside of the town center. You've got to come see it sometime."
"I'd love to. And I really am going to find a copy of the Declaration," Matthew said, obviously delighted, but then shook himself, as if reminding himself of the matter at hand. "So the charter might have been bound into the town council book that dates from then, but the judge said she hadn't found it at the historical society's building, either. Do you think she knew what she was looking for?"
Sarah laughed. "It's hard to imagine Judge Owens missing anything, but I guess she might not have been looking for a book. On the other hand, she probably would have noticed one like these." She gestured at at the enormous council books, which were at least eighteen inches high and three inches thick.
"An older one might have been smaller. For all I know it's hidden in one of these boxes. But what we do know for sure is somebody cut something, probably copies of the original charter, out of these books. So now we have a mystery: why?"
A wash of absolute glee splashed through Sarah. She didn't even try to stop herself from clapping and bouncing up and down. "I don't know but I'm dying to find out! All right, look, agh! I can't stay back here and help you, there's a thing on at two in the library and then I'm supposed to go with Mabs to pick out bridesmaids dresses and...did you know you're supposed to do cake tastings for weddings? I mean, like, that's a thing? Don't people just already know what kind of cake is their favorite?"
"Mine's spice cake," Matthew volunteered.
"See? Also, ooh, excellent choice. I like lemon. See? Who needs to do a cake-tasting?"
"Well. Arguably, who doesn't need to do a cake-tasting?"
Sarah made duck lips as she thought about that, then laughed. "Yeah, okay, I see your point. Anyway, so I can't help you—"
"I promise not to continue without you if I find anything that looks really promising."
"That...is a terrible way to get my money's worth out of you, but also sounds perfect."
Matthew smiled. "There's plenty else for me to do, if I have to stop and wait on you for the town charter stuff."
"That's true. All right. Text me if something exciting happens!" Sarah ran off to do a computer literacy class for some of the town's older residents, and had just finished up when Mabs appeared, looking jittery with excitement. "You," Sarah said, "have had too much coffee."
"That is absolutely true, but I also got the loan, Sarah. I'm renting the storefront. My massage therapy business is going to happen." Mabs burst into tears and Sarah, completely forgetting the Law Of Silence within libraries, screamed gleefully and threw herself at Mabs for a hug. Mabs shrieked into Sarah's shoulder and they did the world's most awkward hugging dance, breaking a few inches apart to beam wildly at each other, shriek again, and then engage the hug again.
"I couldn't have done it without you," Mabs said into Sarah's shoulder, muffled. "My whole life here is thanks to you."
"That's completely ridiculous and I will totally take the credit." Sarah hugged Mabs again hard, and by that time, everybody in the library had come to see what the screeching was about, so she had to let Mabs go while other people offered their congratulations. Even Matthew emerged to see what the ruckus was, and when he met Sarah's eyes across the happy little group and smiled, an overwhelming sense of joy filled her. He winked and went back to work, and after a bit Sarah extracted Mabs from the congratulations so they would make the dress-shopping appointment.
As soon as they were out the library door, though, Mabs said, "What was that in there!"
"What was what? That was Matthew, you met him." Not even Sarah thought she sounded casual or cool. In fact, she sounded like a defensive teenager whose crush had been found out.
"That was eyes meeting eyes across a crowded room, that's what that was! Tell me everything! He's gorgeous. Almost as gorgeous as Jake."
"So much more go—uh."
"Hah! Hah! You like him! You really like him!"
"Oh my God," Sarah mumbled. "Be quiet, we have to try on dresses."
"You have to try on dresses. I just get to sit around admiring you all. Jenny says the developers have driven by a couple of times, but they haven't moved any of their equipment back. Noah wants to pitch a tent in the horse field and live there all summer in the name of protecting the horses."
"I'm surprised you haven't let him. Or made him."
"Tempting!" They scurried into the dress shop, where Jennifer Minor and Mabs's other bridesmaid, the teenaged Robin Owens, were already waiting. Mabs hugged everybody, then flung herself into a comfortable chair and proclaimed, "Your theme color is purple! Now shop, while I do absolutely nothing for the next two hours."
Ninety minutes and more dress changes later than Sarah had ever done before, all three of them had dresses whose unifying element was the color. Robin, whip-slender, had a gown with a long flowing skirt and a spaghetti-strapped wrapped bodice, exactly the kind of thing that would make Sarah look like a tank. Her own was well-fitted through the long bodice and fell into almost as many soft folds as Robin's skirt, and Jenny's dress was somewhere between theirs, with a more ornate, waist-length bodice and a layered skirt that fell to her calves.
Mabs shone with happiness as she admired them all. "I know they're still bridesmaids dresses, but maybe you can wear them ag—"
"I'm wearing mine to prom," Robin interrupted. "It's perfect, Mabs. They're all gorgeous and we're gonna look almost as amazing as you will. Now can we go have cake?"
The older women all laughed and there was a rush while everyone changed back into their usual clothes. Mabs, who really had done absolutely nothing except exclaim happily over the past couple of hours, finally got up with a sigh, and they headed out. "I don't think I've sat down that long at once since I moved to Virtue."
"That'll teach you to renovate a 200 year old house in your spare time," Sarah said cheerfully.
"I have learned my lesson and will never do it again," Mabs replied very solemnly.
"Only because you don't have another one to renovate," Jenny said.
"Well, there's yours! But you're not wrong. I pretty much plan to die in that house. A long, long time from now, mind you, but yeah. No, mostly no because I'm marrying a carpenter. He can do the renovations on old houses. I'll just lovingly massage the soreness out of his broad, strong shoulders at the end of his long, hard...days..."
Robin made a vomiting sound that made all the adult women laugh as they went into the cake shop. A couple of hours and a lot of cake later, Sarah left with a small box of extra cake, and went back to the library to share her spoils. "You were right," she told Matt when he emerged from the archival room. "Turns out cake-tastings are very important. I brought you spice cake!"
"A woman after my own heart." Matthew tasted the cake and rolled his eyes heavenward in appreciation as Ellen, the last librarian on duty that evening, scurried over for a piece of her own. A few minutes later, armed with cake, she left, and Sarah locked the door behind her.
"There. Now you're trapped in here with me until I hear all the news."
"Only until then?" Matthew had a teasing light in his eyes, but something about the way he said it made Sarah's heart thump and her knees weaken. She had really never considered, right until that very moment in time, the possibility of locking herself into the library with a hot guy all night and seeing what came of it. Bookstores, yes. Being locked in a bookstore was a life-long dream. But somehow even that had never descended into fantasies about being locked in with the sexiest man she'd ever laid eyes on, and all of a sudden she didn't kn
ow what to do with herself.
Well, truthfully, she had some pretty clear ideas, but even that half-teasing look from Matthew didn't quite give her the nerve to act on them. He was going away, after all, and...and...
...it seemed like there should be some kind of supporting statement about why she couldn't hook up with a summer fling after the 'and', but it sure wasn't coming to mind. Sarah took a deep breath, trying to drag her mind away from lustful fantasies, and found an excuse to break up her thoughts as she lifted her hands. "I'd better wash up. I can't touch those papers with cakey fingers, and I want to see what you have to show me." There went her mind, straight back into the gutter.
Either Matthew was made of sterner stuff than she was, or he didn't have as dirty a mind, because all he said was, "Actually, I haven't found much, and what I have found only brings up more questions."
"Ooh. More mysteries. All right, hand washing and then lemme at it."
CHAPTER TEN
She brought food, Matthew's bear said happily as Matt ate the spice cake. She shows you what a good mate she is.
She's being friendly, Matt disagreed. It's what humans do.
Did you bring her sweet coffee this morning because you were being friendly?
...I mean...yes... That had been part of it, anyway. Matthew wasn't entirely prepared to look at his own motivations, which he was afraid Oso might correctly attribute to being 'trying to show Sarah what a good mate he was.' And he neither needed nor wanted to do that, since he was leaving in a few weeks.
Matthew had, like many people, taken jobs where he'd had to remind himself frequently that it was only temporary and he would be able to escape soon. He couldn't trick himself into imagining that this was the same thing. This was a constant attempt to convince himself that Oso was wrong and he was right. That Virtue and Sarah weren't home. Home was—
Home was supposed to be New York City, where his dream job awaited. Home was the city and his dream job. Anything else was, if not a let-down, surely a waste of all those years working toward the respected archivist's position he'd always wanted.
Sarah bumped against him as they washed their hands free of cake crumbs, and Matt felt his resolve weaken as something else stiffened. She smelled so good. And she'd clearly been having fun all afternoon: she was bright and bubbly and full of smiles, although Matthew thought she smiled a lot by nature.
Or maybe it's us, his bear said hopefully, and Matthew chuckled.
Maybe it is. That's a nice thought.
"What's so funny?" Sarah nudged him, her eyebrows lifted.
"What? Oh. Uh. Nothing, I was just thinking that I...was putting you to a lot of trouble for not much new information."
"Oh, yes," she said drolly as she dried her hands. "Washing my hands is an excessive amount of difficulty for me. What, were my fingernails dirty? Do I look unwashed?"
"No!" Matthew realized she was teasing when her laugh pealed out, and muttered good-naturedly. "Fine, fine. No, it's just that what's interesting is more of what isn't there. I've gone through all the boxes and I haven't found the original charter," he said, gesturing for Sarah to go to the archives room ahead of him. Out of politeness, rather than because he wanted to take advantage of watching her walk in front of him. She was wearing snug-fitting cotton pants that just...wow. Yep. That was what they did. Wow. His own jeans seemed to fit more snugly, just watching her.
"So what did you find?" Sarah turned the overhead light on as they went into the archival room, making Matthew realize he'd been working without it all day. The daylight in the room was obviously very good, which wasn't actually great for archived materials, but...that was something to deal with another day.
"I found another reference, in a diary from the turn of the century. The nineteenth century," he clarified. "It's from about 1802, and it's sort of Pepys-ish—" He paused to see if she understood the reference, and she made an impatient gesture of comprehension.
"Short personal entries with incisive commentary on the world around him?"
"Right, except it's a her. Her name is Elizabeth Todd, and she was clearly born in Virtue. This diary all by itself is incredibly valuable as a historical insight to post-Revolutionary America, but the point is, it mentions the charter here, but also..." He drew his finger down the page to the bit he wanted Sarah to read, and she leaned close to do so.
That hadn't been his plan, but in retrospect, it had obviously been a brilliant idea. Sarah's shoulder brushed his as she leaned in, and he could inhale the scent of her hair without seeming creepy. She smelled like the outdoors and cinnamon and vanilla, presumably from the cakes they'd had. Matthew decided, hazily, that maybe everybody should smell like baked goods all the time, and his bear made a grumbly hungry sound of agreement.
It took him completely off guard when Sarah said, "Wait, 'We have tonight overseen the copying of the public charter, and safely hidden away the secret one. The madness had not yet come upon the king when the charters were signed, and until his death, Sir Henry would not speak of how the secret one was sealed with royal approval. Perhaps it is unimportant, save for the matter of curiosity. We who have settled Virtue in hopes of living our peculiar lifestyle in remote solitude are grateful that who we are was acknowledged by royal decree, and that our home was established before the War. But the world is changing quickly now, and we must make all effort to protect who we are. The public charter is now well-known; indeed, my own hand has copied it into the council books this very year.
"'This morning I have baked eight loaves of bread, and—' Oh," Sarah said. "That's less important. Except for her sons eating an entire loaf before noon, and with the new butter, tsk!" She smiled, but then sat beside Matthew, her forehead furrowed in confusion. "Secret charter? Peculiar lifestyle? Do you think they were all nudists? Vegetarians?"
Matthew laughed out loud. "Puritan Americans would have had one hell of a problem with nudists, wouldn't they? I don't know, but I like vegetarians." He waggled his eyebrows and Sarah turned lightly pink. "Maybe there's a long history of them here," he said, grinning. "All the better for eating...healthly..."
Sarah laughed and blushed harder. "Maybe, although I'd think it would be hard enough to survive New England winters three hundred years ago if you ate meat—" She broke off, scarlet rushing along her cheekbones, and squeaked, "I don't think I can say anything appropriate at this point, so maybe I won't say anything at all."
Matthew's grin stretched even wider. Pursuing very inappropriate-for-work topics seemed like a wonderful idea to him, but it wasn't appropriate, so he let it go. "Anyway, what I'm really interested in is this secret charter. She implies they didn't write the contents of the secret one into the council books, so why would somebody excise them? And either way, there's no sign of the original not-secret charter either. Is the judge sure it still exists?"
"Once again, I would never doubt Karen Owens on any law topic, or, in fact, on any topic at all, but I'll text her to be sure." Sarah got her phone out and did that while Matthew looked through a few more pages of the fragile diary. He found no indication of a nudist habit, or vegetarianism, although the author did complain of having to make more bread two days after the eight loaves had been baked, as her sons had gone on to eat it all by the second evening.
Sarah's phone buzzed almost immediately. "She says she's never actually seen the original charter, but her mom remembers it being on display in the historical society house. There haven't been any fires or floods to lose materials to since then, so it probably still exists somewhere."
"Okay, so we'll keep digging. But I'm pretty confident it's not here." Matthew leaned back in his chair, studying Sarah. "Where else would you look?"
"In the historical society's attic," she said without hesitation. "And then I guess...I don't know. I guess I'd maybe start asking around town to see if any of the old families brought it home for safekeeping back when things got moved? But what about the hidden secret charter? Who's got that? It's got to be one of the founding families, do
esn't it?"
"How many did you say are left?"
"Well, they kind of married into one another, so I think there are about four or five family names left, but they're definitely still here. I know most of them, and Jake knows the rest."
"Jake," Matthew said, making sure he was keeping up. "Jake the carpenter who's marrying Mabs?"
"That's the one." Sarah smiled. "His family were...well, I guess they were old Virtue families, but they kind of died out. Jake's the last of them, and his parents moved away. Of course, if he and Mabs have kids, I guess they won't have died out after all, but...anyway, we could start with Jake."
"Well, he can't possibly have a copy of the original charter that Judge Owens is looking for, or he'd have brought it to her already, right?"
"I don't know." Sarah blinked. "I don't know if she asked anybody but us to look for it. We had the paperwork it was presumed to be in." She texted the judge again, then stood up and stretched as she waited for the response. Matthew watched with a kind of dumbfounded appreciation. She wiggled so well, in such good places, when she moved like that. It made him think of other scenarios in which he imagined she moved equally well.
God, he sounded like a teenage horndog. Which made him wonder if teenagers used the phrase 'horndog' anymore, which made him feel old, which did a pretty good job of distracting him from horndog thoughts. He also averted his gaze, so he wouldn't be caught staring too obviously at Sarah's wonderful curves when she stopped stretching. Her phone buzzed and she reported, "She hasn't asked anybody else yet. Tell you what, I'll text Mabs and see if we can go over tomorrow. Well, I guess I could just text her and ask if Jake happens to randomly have a copy of the charter, instead...."
"You did tell me I had to see her farmhouse, though," Matt said, trying not to sound too eager. Tomorrow was Saturday, and going anywhere with Sarah meant an excuse to be in her company over the weekend.
"You really do. It's amazing. They've done a fantastic job restoring it. But if we don't go out there, we can go dig through the attic tomorrow. Oh." Sarah made a face. "I mean, you don't have to, obviously. I don't want you to spend your weekend getting sweaty and dusty with me."