“It was my mother’s funeral,” Celesta protested. “Any gentleman would’ve refrained from—”
“Oh, I didn’t call him a gentleman, but he’s certainly a man, honey!” The little woman’s eyes lit up as she playfully fanned herself. “He paid your mother a sincere compliment and expressed his condolences—which is more than young Mr. Perkins did. And a blind man could’ve seen his interest in you!”
Celesta grabbed another handful of beans, desperately wishing to derail this train of conversation. Her aunt would see right through a denial of the attraction that had flashed like summer lightning between them, or see things that didn’t exist at all, in that rose-colored way she had, so there was no changing the subject. But there had to be a way to discount—
“Personally, I never put much store by people’s whisperings when he left town,” Katherine continued in a thoughtful voice. “Lucy Bates was a mill worker’s daughter with bottle-red hair—and we all know why women hit the henna—and Damon couldn’t have been more than twenty at the time. He’s the dark, brooding, impetuous sort who—”
“Why did I know you’d be babbling about Damon Frye when I returned? Katherine, you do try a body’s patience at times.”
Celesta and Katherine turned to see Justine standing on the stone walkway behind them, grasping her basket in one hand and a hip with the other. Despite her long walk and the rising temperature, she didn’t have a drop of sweat on her. Her gaze was as uncompromising as an ice pick.
“I saw your impertinent Mr. Frye in town this morning,” she continued in a tone that suggested her corset was too tight. “He was just leaving the tobacco shop—”
Katherine winked quickly at Celesta.
“—and he had the gall to stop me on the sidewalk. Took my hand—right there in front of God and everybody!—and looked at me with those improper eyes of his and said he was sorry about my younger sister’s passing.”
Justine appeared highly insulted while her sister-in-law, with another imperceptible wink, sank lower in the swing and let her head loll back. “I would’ve fainted dead away,” she said in a theatrical whisper.
“And I would’ve left you in a heap, you ridiculous—” Justine stood straighter, realizing her lecture fell on unsympathetic ears. She turned her attention to Celesta, her brown eyes narrowing. “And you, young lady, should take heed lest you follow in your mother’s footsteps. Ian Montgomery was just such a flash-in-the-pan as this Frye is, and—”
“You can’t fault him for expressing his condolences, Aunt Justine,” she said quietly.
“—it’s blatantly obvious to me that—what? What did you say to me, Niece?”
Celesta cleared her throat, intimidated by her spinster aunt’s diatribe, yet she’d be damned if she’d kiss this woman’s too-sensible shoes. “I merely stated that Mr. Frye was extending his sympathies, which is certainly within the bounds of propriety.”
As though Justine had been eavesdropping and knew of Celesta’s switch from denying Damon to defending him, she slowly pointed her free hand like a pistol. “Mark my words, Miss Montgomery,” she said in a loaded voice. “Damon Frye was dealing from the devil’s deck when he left Lucy Bates in the lurch, and now he’s caught your scent. I won’t have him sniffing around here like a mutt waiting for a morsel to fall from my table. I won’t have it!”
Chapter 3
I’ll have her, by God! By hook or by crook, Celesta Montgomery will be mine!
Damon Frye chuckled smugly as he gazed toward town. The distance and the thick foliage kept Ransom Manor from his view, but every boy who’d grown up in Hannibal knew the place—had ventured up Holliday’s Hill, heart pounding on a double dare, to sneak a peek at vampirish Ambrose Ransom and bring away proof that he’d invaded the old spook’s premises. Plucking the flower that would soon reside within those walls was a mission far more daring than his childhood escapades, but claiming Celesta was worth the risks, worth the careful planning it would require to make her his own.
He stood near Lucy’s headstone, recalling his first glimpse of Celesta as though minutes rather than a day had elapsed since he beheld her breathtaking loveliness. Beneath her black veil, her green eyes had challenged his impetuous gesture—eyes the color of a cat’s, with the same feline hint of secrets yet to be revealed. Raven hair and well-defined brows set off a complexion with the glow of a ripened peach. A distinct widow’s peak and a jawline that tapered into a defiant chin gave her a haunting heart-shaped face, and her lips. ...
He’d spent the past twenty-four hours in a fantasy where Celesta had finally succumbed to the flame he’d ignited within her shapely, impassioned body. Damon hadn’t given a thought to the pigtailed maid’s daughter with the missing teeth since he left town ten years ago, and now he couldn’t get her startling beauty out of his mind. The decade between their ages meant nothing now that they were adults. Consenting adults. He’d seen it in the parting of her generous mouth and in the spark that lit up her bewitching eyes. He was going to have her, and she knew it.
And Patrick Perkins knew it, too. That alone was motive enough for stalking the delectable Miss Montgomery! And in the darkest realms of his heart, Damon realized it was his most compelling reason to steal her from Patrick’s possessive grasp. To watch Perkins flush and stamp his pampered foot and then grovel . . . what a gratifying sight, after these years of his own torment. He’d returned to Hannibal to oversee the construction of Rockcliffe, but business would certainly be mixed with pleasure when the heir to Perkins Lumber paid a debt that was long overdue.
Damon glanced about Mount Olivet Cemetery, his thoughts returning to the present. Heavy, gray clouds were rolling in, and the temperature had dropped, sure signs a storm was brewing. Laying the larger of his two red roses upon Lucy’s grave, he studied her plain, gray headstone. LUCINDA BATES, the block-shaped lettering declared. 1864 - 1889. No mention of the back-alley end she’d come to or her relationship to the people buried beside her—the parents who had disowned her.
Damon sighed with the futility of all the if-onlys: if only Lucy hadn’t tried to use her pregnancy as a trap; if only she’d given him time to consider her predicament; if only her father had acted out of remorse instead of rage, perhaps his vibrant, red-haired fiancée wouldn’t have downed the potion that killed the baby she carried and her along with it.
“But you brought it on yourself, Lucy,” he murmured aloud. He could say that with a conviction born of truth, even as the sight of her grassy grave tore into his heart. He’d done his agonizing while completing his education, and his mending while starting out with an architectural firm in St. Louis. And now that his conscience was clear he could get on with his life . . . could perhaps avenge Lucy’s untimely death in a way he hadn’t anticipated until yesterday, while gazing into Celesta’s innocent face.
A raindrop splattered his cheek, and Damon Frye hastened to the freshly raked grave of Rachel Montgomery. With reverence he placed the second rose upon her resting place: she’d been wronged by the rumormongers, another victim of a man who had disappeared, yet she’d remained kind—generous with her smiles despite her misfortune.
“You have a lovely daughter,” he whispered. “She’ll need your strength and courage these next few months, Rachel. Forgive me for what I’m about to do.”
As though responding to his roguish intent, lightning flashed across the sky. A gust of wind sent the trees into a swaying, frantic dance, accompanied by an eerie whistling that sounded like Satan calling errant souls back to hell. The ominous sky opened up and shot a barrage of cold, wet bullets at him.
Not a man who believed in omens, Frye turned up his collar against the downpour and strode toward the graveyard’s gate, extremely pleased with his plan of action.
The banshee-like wail of the wind sent Celesta to the alcove’s small window so that she could watch the impending storm. From this third-floor vantage point, Ransom Manor’s stately oaks appeared to be
possessed by demons, the way they shuddered
and moaned. Their high, oddly formed branches seemed to clutch at the blackening clouds like skeletal hands clawing up from a grave.
She smiled at the macabre image, which was inspired by Grandfather Ransom’s spine-tingling stories. One of her clearest childhood memories was of sitting in his lap listening to tales that made Katherine and her mother protest she wouldn’t sleep, but that wasn’t so. His greatest gift to her was his keen appreciation of the night, and of nature’s grand fury during a thunderstorm. This dark-and-stormy atmosphere awed rather than frightened her: these outbursts of wind and rain and lightning brought fond memories of Ambrose Ransom, Senior, before his death. Before Justine’s sharp tongue and her mother’s pride ended her visits to Ransom Manor.
Glancing around the darkening alcove, with its steeply pitched ceiling and dusty plank floor, Celesta felt his presence and smiled. His walnut secretary stood beside her, a lumpy candle still drooping over its brass holder after all these years. As a girl she’d assumed the threadbare settee along the wall was a cast-off, and learning its true purpose from Katherine this morning had added a humorous, human dimension to the grandfather who’d intimidated her at times with his sonorous voice and piercing, dark eyes. Steamer trunks, old hat boxes, musty books crammed into forgotten bookcases . . . the very stillness of the heat on this floor added to the intrigue of this supposedly haunted hideaway.
She’d already decided that should she stay on, this remote room would be her retreat from two aunts who wouldn’t understand—much less approve of!—the stories she wrote. This would be her imagination’s nest, a place to write and recover from her mother’s death—a place her manuscripts would be safe from prying eyes, because Katherine half believed the ballroom was haunted and Justine never cleaned up here. They hadn’t hosted a ball for years, so there was little point.
Another bolt of lightning snaked toward the earth, followed by a bright flash and then a sharp, splintering sound. Celesta gasped. A huge tree limb was now lying across the flattened gazebo. Aunt Katherine would be beside herself—would see it as an evil force seeking to destroy her Ambrose’s spirit. Justine would probably hire a man to clear away the rubble rather than rebuild her fanciful sister-in-law’s haven.
The sudden deluge made Celesta pull her head inside. She should go downstairs to comfort Katherine, who feared these storms. She should perform some worthwhile task to convince Justine she deserved the food she ate and the lumpy mattress she slept on. But instead, she watched the majestic play of light and darkness and thought of Damon Frye. Surely he was the personification of such a tempestuous night!
Again she saw his dark, probing eyes, the chestnut hair that fell rakishly over his forehead, and the cleft in his shadowy chin. His blatant disregard for her grief, not to mention his brazen behavior toward Justine uptown, was reason enough to avoid his company. And such conceit, to say they’d meet again on a happier day, with no regard for her feelings on the matter!
Celesta felt the color creeping into her cheeks, just as it had in the cemetery. She pulled a yellowed envelope from the desk to fan herself, even as she realized this burst of heat had nothing to do with the alcove’s stuffiness. Why did she suffer such a reaction to this self-centered man? Why did she tingle where he’d touched her cheek yesterday, when he was blocks away, his interest in her probably forgotten by now?
She had no answers. She only knew that Damon Frye’s unexpected, unexplained return to Hannibal boded her ill. His wolfish intentions were quite clear.
His dusky grin was warning enough that he deserved every uncomplimentary rumor spread about his past, and his treatment of Lucy Bates proved him to be as cruel and callous as he looked.
Yet when Celesta’s glance fell to the worn-out sofa she shuddered, as though she were a marionette at the mercy of a mad puppeteer. She shook her head to clear it of a brief yet powerful image of Damon’s corded, masculine body pressing her into its cushions, and fled downstairs to safety.
The intense morning sun made Celesta squint as she stepped out onto the white-enameled veranda of the Perkins home. Her wicker basket was piled high with writing supplies and a few stories she needed to finish, as well as colorful skeins of yarn Katherine had asked her to buy—the perfect props to cover her most urgent reason for coming to this house on North Fifth so early. “Thanks for giving me Mr. Cramer’s name. My aunt knew you could recommend a carpenter for us,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound jittery. “She was awfully upset when that branch crashed through the gazebo.”
“And to think she was sitting there only moments before the storm,” Eula replied with a shake of her head. Her strawberry-blond curls were crushed from sleep, and she was still wearing her satin wrapper. “Mort Cramer does repair work at the lumberyard, and I’m sure he’ll be prompt and reasonable for you. My goodness but it’s hot! That shower we had a while ago will leave the weeds in my flower beds easier to pull, but it’s so sultry to be working outside.”
Celesta nodded. She knew exactly how hot it was because the walk into town had made her dark calico dress cling to her neck and under her arms. Aunt Katherine’s lament that she was short of yarn for her new sampler was the perfect excuse to follow a hunch she’d had in the night—a hunch that led her to the Perkins pantry before Eula was up to catch her sifting through the sugar bowl.
But Mrs. Perkins rose earlier these days, seeing to Patrick’s breakfast. She’d raised an eyebrow when she saw Celesta coming from the kitchen, yet she seemed to accept the explanation for her visit: “I wanted my writing supplies—so I could occupy myself with my journal—and I thought I’d be sure there were no more dead mice in the pantry while I was here. I know how mice upset you.”
Eula had agreed to that readily enough, but she watched Celesta closely during their conversation. Why hadn’t she anticipated the change in Mrs. Perkins’s morning routine and had an alibi ready? Any woman would be suspicious if her help slipped in unannounced when she was supposedly consoling her grief-stricken aunt.
And now Eula was hinting broadly about how troublesome life was without a housekeeper, and that perhaps she’d have to pay a higher wage to attract a suitable replacement for Rachel. Just her usual patter, as though she were actually glad that Celesta had stopped by and was fishing for an assurance that she’d resume her post in the Perkins home.
Celesta smiled, glancing nervously at her basket. “Thank you for allowing me to fetch a few things from my room. I—I know I’ve inconvenienced you by staying with Aunt Katherine these past—”
“Think nothing of it, dear,” Eula replied sweetly. “The poor thing needs all the comfort she can find, living with that sister-in-law of hers. And I know how she’ll miss sitting in her gazebo until it’s repaired.”
She paused for a moment, studying Celesta with shining eyes that suggested she was up to something. Then her hand fluttered to the neck of her nightgown. “Do you suppose Patrick could bring me to visit her, say, Saturday afternoon? He could check on Mort’s progress while I chat with Katherine—if it wouldn’t be any trouble,” she added quickly.
“I’m sure she’d enjoy that,” Celesta stammered, “but if Patrick’s too busy—”
“Oh, he’ll be happy to come,” Eula interrupted with that same mischievous twinkle. “Why, just this morning he was wondering how you were. He misses having you around, dear. We both do.”
“Well. Thank you.” Suddenly anxious to be anywhere but here, Celesta stepped toward the stairs. “I certainly appreciate your indulgence regarding my decision, Mrs. Perkins. And if Aunt Katherine’s perkier by Saturday, I—I’m sure I’ll have an answer for you.”
“That would be fine, dear. You have a good day now, and tell your aunts we’re thinking of them. Don’t go to any fuss for our visit, all right?”
Celesta forced a bright smile, waving as she descended between the ornate white porch railings. Eula’s suggesting a visit was a bolt from the blue, because the wealthy lumber baron’s widow had always deemed the Ransom women beneath her . . . perhaps
because the youngest became her maid. Saturday’s visit was one she didn’t relish. Everyone would be tense until she announced her decision, and either Aunt Katherine or Eula Perkins would end up disappointed with her. She couldn’t win.
But her future livelihood had been the farthest thing from her mind when she’d sneaked into the Perkins house this morning. Celesta sensed the little packet of sugar she’d secreted beneath Katherine’s yarn would put her no closer to solving Mama’s murder, but she had to do something. As she’d stared out at last night’s storm, comprehension had flashed like lightning: Mama had complained that her tea was bitter.... In her anxiety, Celesta had returned the tray—including a ceramic sugar bowl only she and Mama used—to the pantry with the lid still off. The dead mouse on the floor the next morning should’ve been an immediate red flag, but her thoughts had been fogged by shock and grief.
Mama had been poisoned.
She should’ve known. The research for one of her stories had told of various ways criminals had concealed arsenic and strychnine in food; accused axe murderess Lizzie Borden had laced her parents’ sugar bowl with a form of cyanide, according to the police reports. Anyone could purchase those deadly powders to kill household pests without arousing suspicion.
So who killed Rachel Montgomery?
Eula and Patrick had access to the pantry, but why would either of them do away with the woman who kept their lives running so smoothly? Even Aunt Katherine had the opportunity: she knew Mama sweetened her tea, and she had walked through the house that day, knowing Eula was at a meeting, before finding them outside at the clothesline. But it was absurd to think Katherine Ransom had the nerve, let alone the motive, to murder her sister-in-law. The only other alternative was that Mama herself had . . . .
But that, too, seemed outlandish, and these ideas were so odious that fresh tears made Celesta mop her face with her sleeve. When she realized her mental sleuthing had taken her past houses she hadn’t even seen at a pace that made the perspiration slither down her spine, Celesta stopped beneath a shade tree.
Missouri Magic Page 3