The Secret Admirer Romance Collection
Page 1
The Cost of a Heart ©2017 by Amanda Barratt
The Advocate ©2017 by Lorraine Beatty
Too Many Secrets ©2017 by Molly Noble Bull
Love in Store ©2017 by Anita Mae Draper
The Last Letter ©2017 by CJ Dunham
The Outcast’s Redemption ©2017 by Jennifer Uhlarik
Beside Still Waters ©2017 by Becca Whitham
The Princess of Polecat Creek ©2017 by Kathleen Y’Barbo
Love from Afar ©2017 by Penny Zeller
Print ISBN 978-1-68322-175-3
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-68322-177-7
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-68322-176-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in Canada.
Table of Contents
The Cost of a Heart
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
The Advocate
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Too Many Secrets
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Love in Store
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
The Last Letter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Outcast’s Redemption
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Beside Still Waters
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
The Princess of Polecat Creek
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
Love from Afar
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
The Cost of a Heart
by Amanda Barratt
Dedication
To my dear grandmother, Elizabeth. Thank you for your continued love and support. I’m so blessed to have you in my life!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Chapter 1
July 1895
They’d quarreled that morning—she and Jackson. Argued about his latest scandal involving another woman and a hotel room at the Waldorf-Astoria. Or rather, she pleaded and he stared. Stone-faced. Except for that brief moment on the way out to the carriage when her husband grabbed her wrist in a noose-like grip and demanded in a low-cut whisper that she “keep smiling today.”
Now at the Long Island racetracks, Lily Montgomery sat alongside fellow racegoers—mostly socialites like herself—smile wooden but firmly in place.
“My my, doesn’t Jackson look dashing today, atop that fine black horse?” Kitty Carlisle waved a gloved hand at her own husband.
“He always looks dashing.” Lily maintained her brittle smile. Never wavering. She’d performed this role often enough and, like a well-trained actress, remembered that the show must always go on.
The sham must always be firmly fixed.
The race began. Lily watched absently, having attended many of these events in years past. During their first year of marriage, she’d jumped and cheered, waving vigorously at Jackson as his horse rounded the track. Until he told her one evening in that granite-cold voice of his that she looked like an out-of-control poodle, with her “ridiculous hat” and “wild wriggling and waving.”
She never cheered again, adopting instead, a pose of indifferent languor.
A gasp went up from the crowd. People rose to their feet, a wave of flowered bonnets and bowler hats, blocking her vision.
“What’s going on?” Lily snagged Kitty’s gaze. The petite blond stood on tiptoe, craning her neck. Whether the crowd muffled Lily’s words or Kitty chose to ignore them, Lily couldn’t be sure.
She turned instead toward a lanky youth, one of the tallest in her vicinity.
“Sir? What’s happening?” She tugged on the sleeve of his jacket.
He swiveled around, a shock of black hair falling over his forehead. “There’s been an accident. Didn’t you see it, ma’am? The rider—thrown from his horse?”
She shook her head, feeling foolish. “I suppose I wasn’t paying attention. Who was injured? Do you know?”
The youth stood even taller, as if proud to be the bearer of useful information. “Rider number twelve, it was. Yes, that’s right. Number twelve.”
The air leeched from her lungs. The waft of summer wind on her cheeks suddenly scorched her. Spots danced before her vision.
Number twelve.
Jackson.
“My land, ma’am! Are you all right?” The youth grabbed her around the waist and half-carried her to a vacant seat.
“Number twelve…My husband…Can you find out if he’s all right? I don’t think I can stand…just now.” Blast her infernal weakness. Brought on, no doubt, by her constrictive lace collar and the lacing of her corset—meant to marshal her less-than-ideal waist to willow-slim.
“Of course, ma’am. Right away.” The youth’s eyes sparked with concern, before he took off, brushing past a gentleman with a drooping mustache and a corpulent lady carrying a fluttering parasol.
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Lily waited, head bent, forcing breath in and out of her lungs.
In. Out. In. Out.
Keep breathing. Don’t stop.
She hadn’t seen the accident, lost in her own thoughts. Behaving as Jackson wanted—uninterested. Minutes passed, each dragging by like carriage wheels laced in lead.
Finally the young man returned, shoving through the crowd, despite angry protests from those he elbowed.
“And?” She found her feet. She must prepare to go to the hospital and be with Jackson, must be calm and strong…
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The youth’s Adam’s apple jerked. Her world swirled, a thousand memories flashing through her mind, as the boy said with his eyes what he did not with words.
Jackson Montgomery was dead.
Two Years Later
Newport, Rhode Island
Lily leaned toward the motorcar window, into the intoxicating fragrance of sea breeze and freshly trimmed grass. She balled her gloved hands into fists, willing the memories to return to the recesses of her mind with as much force as the rippling azure waves swept away from the shoreline and toward the vast expanse beyond.
Jackson wasn’t waiting for her inside their marble mansion, that place of both paradise and prison. Not this time.
Not ever again.
Her gaze turned toward the front of the car, where Nathaniel Evans expertly manned the wheel. A navy chauffeur’s uniform encased his wide shoulders, the matching cap partly concealing his walnut-hued hair. Sometimes she wished the man would turn around, offer a quick smile. But, no. Evans took every task most seriously, be it scouring the silver in his role as footman or chauffeuring her about in his job as driver.
At any rate, they were nearly there.
For a wild, insane instant, she nearly ordered him to stop the car. What a spectacle it would be if she gave into her longings. To divest herself of fussy hat, kid leather shoes, and silk stockings. Take them all off and race for the shoreline. Become one with the pounding waves and frothing surf.
What a story for the society columns that would make.
“Mrs. Jackson Montgomery, out of mourning at last, romped in the surf like a mad-woman, just moments after arriving in our fair city.”
The car stopped, halting her inane musings. Evans opened the door and held out his palm. She placed her gloved fingertips in it, his masculine strength swirling over her like an exotic fragrance as he handed her down.
Strong men. The most dangerous sort.
“Tired after your journey?” Evans’s green eyes showed true concern.
“Do I look as wilted as last season’s tea roses?” She laughed, though the boning in her corset scarcely allowed true mirth to escape.
“Some watering wouldn’t go amiss.” The slightest curvature of a dimple appeared on one side of his mouth. “But then, it’s the beautiful flowers that need the most care.”
He often spoke in such a way, her footman/chauffer. A compliment here, a gesture of concern there. Those compliments and gestures had been her buoy, helping to keep her afloat during her tenure as Jackson’s wife.
But she wouldn’t spoil the day with more thoughts of that nature.
“What about you? Don’t you need watering after your journey?”
He shook his head, that country boy smile ready on his lips. “I’m more tumbleweed than hothouse bloom, Mrs. Montgomery. But I wouldn’t say no to a glass of milk and piece of blueberry pie.”
With the salt-laden breeze filling her lungs, laughter came easier. “What is it about men and simple cooking, anyway? I think every chef within twenty miles of here has it all wrong. They serve roast duck and crepes suzette, hoping to please. But a steaming bowl of beef stew and a slice of warm blueberry pie are what would really make the gentlemen happy.”
“You may have just invented the newest fashion. Fancy-dress dinners served servants’ hall style. Complete with the kitchen maid spilling the gravy and the butler boxing her on the ears.” A warm chuckle rumbled from his chest.
“I may have to give it a try.” She stepped away, sending a smile over her shoulder, and made her way toward the wide double doors leading to the foyer of what the papers dubbed “Newport’s Grand Trianon.” Otherwise known as Seacombe.
As if on cue for the most spectacularly staged show ever produced, Osbourne, her Newport butler, opened the door.
“Welcome again to Seacombe, Mrs. Montgomery. I trust your journey was without incident.” The man’s ponderous nose twitched ever so slightly whenever he spoke.
“Thank you, yes.” She inclined her head and stepped into the foyer. The place had Jackson written all over it. He, along with Richard Morris Hunt, had designed every inch of the marble-columned, Palladian-arched vestibule. Lily hadn’t been permitted so much as a suggestion. Not that she cared much. The house was perfect, embodying everything Jackson himself had revered. All splendor, with little substance. A metaphor for their marriage.
Even their lives.
Still, the artist within her appreciated the perfect symmetry of it all. At least Jackson’s tastes had not tended toward the outré.
She approached the small oak table and flipped through the cards and invitations atop the silver salver. Like a Metropolitan Opera performance, only the star names were present. Astor. Vanderbilt. Belmont. Kingsley. Wellington.
Hmm…A ball to be held at the Wellington mansion just a few houses down on Bellevue Avenue. A shiver skittered down her back. During the past two years, the customary period of mourning had been her safety net. Garbed in suffocating black silk, she’d nonetheless been left in peace. To mourn, society assumed. A grieving young widow of only twenty-three, recovering from the death of her beloved husband in a horseback-riding accident.
She’d mourned, yes. For Jackson’s life, as explosive, colorful, and short as a burst of fireworks.
More importantly, she delved into the recesses of her shattered heart and began to pick up the pieces. Two years later, she was still gathering. But now, instead of her own clumsy efforts to bind together with schoolroom paste what needed to be fused with steel, she sought comfort in the refuge of a Father who would never leave, nor forsake.
It was time to test herself. To finish the business of healing and get on with that of living. She was no longer the girl who had donned Brussels lace and floated to the altar with stars in her eyes and true love’s kiss on her lips. Nor was she the bruised and broken woman who sat alone in an opera box season upon season, while Jackson showered charm, jewels, and attention upon countless other women.
No, she, Lily Montgomery, had been rebirthed.
And it was past time the world knew it.
Newport. Like the circus of every child’s fantasy, it put on a show worth viewing. A spectacle of brilliance. A display of pomp and circumstance, rivaling the unrivaled.
And he, Nathan Evans, was smack-dab in the middle of it.
Whistling softly, he drove down Bellevue Avenue, the lady of the house in the backseat. Bedecked in light purple, sparkling gems adorning her throat, wrists, and ears, she looked like a woman ready to conquer society.
Conquer it, she would, his lady employer. Only he rarely thought of her in such lofty terms. For the past two years, longer even, she’d been Mrs. Montgomery in his words, Lily in his thoughts.
“Are you nervous?” He didn’t look behind him, concentrating intently on the road and the throng of other cars approaching the Wellington mansion.
“You’ve known me for how long, and you honestly have to ask that?” She was smiling now, he could hear it in the timbre of her voice, how when her lips tipped upward her tone became more melodious, slightly higher. “You’re not known for being disingenuous, Evans. Why start now?”
He chuckled. “My apologies. Let me rephrase. Are you ‘my hands are shaking’ kind of nervous or are you ‘I need to stop the car so you can deposit your dinner in the bushes’ terrified?”
“Let’s just say I’m a happy medium between the two.” He’d made her la
ugh, and he reveled in the sound of it. When he’d first known her, she never laughed. Oh, she smiled all right, but he noticed right away those smiles never reached her eyes. Two years ago, that all changed. Slowly, her smile had turned genuine. And then, in the most glorious of moments—an instant he would never forget as long as he drew breath—she laughed. He didn’t remember what he had said to prompt the occasion. All he remembered were those musical, light sounds and what they had signified to them both.
“Well, don’t risk things by trying the duck croquettes. I heard from the Wellingtons’ chauffeur himself just how awful they are. And to tell you the truth, I don’t understand why anyone would want to eat duck anyway. They’re cute little things, flapping their wings and quacking.”
She laughed again, and he sneaked a glance—quickly. One gloved hand pressed over her dainty lips, a stray black curl tumbling down her cheek.
“Do me a favor, Evans. Promise me that you’ll never attend one of Mrs. Astor’s balls. You’ll nauseate every guest in the house with your elaborations on how ‘cute’ their food was during its life.”
“I think I can safely make that promise.” Nathan parked the car and climbed out. Lanterns hung from branches, their glow illuminating the fountain in the middle of the manicured English-style garden. Music spilled onto the air, rich notes of violin and piano. If champagne could make melody it would sound exactly like whatever it was the orchestra played.
He opened her door, and she clasped her fingers around his. Every time he touched them, he marveled afresh at how delicate they were, so dainty and fragile, and yet how they twined with his and held with surprising strength.
The moment passed quickly, and she withdrew her fingers. She always did, never lingering. A pang of guilt speared him. Some nights, he lay awake staring at the ceiling, reliving those instants…wondering what it would be like to feel her hand without the protective sheath of her glove.
“So you’re off?”
She nodded, the diamonds in her ears swaying.
“I know there will be a stir. You haven’t seen many of these people for almost two years. Don’t worry though. You’ll still outshine them all. And when you need me, I’ll be waiting. With the car, of course.” He smiled.
“You’re always so kind, Evans. Some days, I wonder what I’d do without your kindness.” Her eyes gleamed brighter than any sapphire found in Tiffany’s store window.