by Stacy Gail
Adelia’s time with Louisa Weems had left her afflicted, and the poor thing died in childbirth. By that time, my father had married his true love, Temperance, and together they made the decision to raise me as their own. They named me after Declan to add credence to the story, then outright bought the local newspaper so that any mention of Leopold being in the area could be quietly erased.
As I enter my sixty-fifth year, I have witnessed the greatness of man in flight, as well as the savagery of which we are capable in The World War. As such, my beginnings seem a small event, indeed. Therefore, I now choose to bury the last vestige of it, and so have contracted workers to build over Thorne Mansion’s cornerstone to veil a name that no doubt few will remember as time continues its ceaseless march. Once that is done, and I entomb this letter with it, I am quits with it. I leave it to the fates to either allow this secret to crumble into dust, or to air it once no harm can come of it.
As for me, there is only a lingering enmity toward the Weems family. To my shame, I am helpless to cinch a tether around it. That family is now ruled by Louisa’s son Buford, who is every bit as truculent as his mother. Whenever I have the misfortune to make eye contact with that loathsome being, I can see the knowledge in his eyes—knowledge that I am not truly the Junior to the great Declan Thorne, Senior. Instead, in my veins flows the blood of royalty. I carry no amount of pride in this knowledge, however. To me, my greatest strength shall always spring from the name of my loving father. The name of Thorne.
Chapter Fourteen
“Hey, everyone.” With a smile that felt as phony as a three-dollar bill, Parker greeted Chandler, Doris and Oliver as they pushed their way out of the Herald and into the soft orange light of dusk. Heat radiated up from the sidewalk through the bottoms of her sneakers, but the air itself had an almost gentle quality that softened the falling twilight around them. Parker was oblivious to it all. Her stomach was too busy tying itself in knots for her to notice much of anything. “I wasn’t able to congratulate all of you on the special edition you published. It looks great, and the whole town’s talking about it.”
Doris gave a cheer. “That’s what we were shooting for.”
“And at long last I can gab about it to my heart’s content.” Oliver put a hand to his sunken chest, as though suffering a bout of the vapors. “I didn’t think I was going to make it.”
Chandler shot him a weary glance, pausing in the act of shutting the Herald’s front door. “Your gag order lasted a little over twenty-four hours, Oliver. People have endured far worse tortures.”
“Who cares about them? I’m talking about me.”
“At least he has his priorities straight,” Parker observed as Doris and Oliver headed around to the paper’s parking lot while she and Chandler remained in the Herald’s doorway. “That’s more than I can say for myself.”
“Yeah?” Chandler had his gaze trained on her as if he didn’t want to see anything else. “Why do you say that?”
“I mean that I’m in Bitterthorn to rebuild an architectural masterpiece, but all I can think about is you.” It took most of her courage to admit it out loud, but she was glad she did when he rewarded her with a smile warm enough to melt her knees. “I missed you last night.”
“I missed you.” The ring of both urgency and longing threaded through his tone, and it made her heart take flight. “So much. I even drove by the Nooner in the wee hours of the morning once I finally closed up shop here, but I figured you’d kill me for waking you up.”
“I was probably awake.” Missing the hell out of him, but she decided she’d already given him enough for one day. She stepped closer, and all the tension drained away as if by magic when he caught her hand and brought her palm to his lips. The tenderness of the gesture made her breath catch, and she was amazed that he could make her feel cherished simply by kissing her hand. “I...”
He raised his head. Smiled into her eyes. “Yes?”
I love you. I love you so much I’m dying under its weight, but it feels so good all I want is more.
“Parker?”
“I read the story after you left yesterday.” The words wouldn’t come, though she could feel them in her throat. Falling in love hadn’t been part of the agenda, for either of them. But if she didn’t get the words out soon, she half-feared they’d choke her to death. “I’m so proud of you, Chandler. You did a great job in outing your ancestor, while at the same time keeping the specifics, like the names of today’s townspeople, out of it. I liked your decision to leave a phone number for people to call to find out of their surname is on the list of working women Declan Senior kept in his journal.”
“I did that for a couple of reasons.” Caressing her palm with one more lingering kiss, he pushed the door open wider and drew her inside the Herald’s now-deserted lobby. “One, it made sense to be responsibly discreet, since this is a small community and I’m not interested in making enemies of our readers. And two, once we confirm they in fact are descendants of Miss Louisa’s ‘girls,’ we’ve got them right where we want them when it comes to coaxing them into an interview.”
“Clever man.” She gave an appreciative nod and wondered if he’d be so amenable after learning about his own screwed-up family tree. One could only hope. “Have you had anyone who didn’t want to talk about it?”
“So far, no. Everyone seems thrilled to be a part of this long-ago scandal.”
“Let’s hope that sense of positivity holds out a little longer.” With a deep breath she pulled out the old tin. Here goes nothing. “I would have gotten this to you sooner, but I got tangled up at the site thanks to an incorrect lumber shipment and a broken generator. Long story short, it looks like you probably have another special edition to put together.”
As he took the tin from her, the sound of the letter shifting inside caught his attention. “What is this?”
“It wasn’t as empty as you thought. Before you read it,” she added, concern crowding her mind as she tried to find a way to soften what was to come, “I just want you to remember something important, okay? Remember that if past events didn’t go exactly as they did, you wouldn’t be here today. And since I can’t imagine this world without you, I’m personally very grateful for how things turned out.”
“Dear God, what the hell did you find?”
Great. Instead of being reassuring, she’d freaked him out. With a sigh, she gestured at the tin. “Just read.”
For long minutes there was nothing but silence, save for the rustle of paper as he plowed through Declan Junior’s message to the future. Anxiously Parker watched his expression, and knew that when his brows shot up that he’d been hit with the ultimate curve ball—the revelation that the blood in his veins was far bluer than he thought.
“I guess those missing newspapers in the morgue make sense now.” She wasn’t sure what else to say when at last he looked up. “Your ancestors did a great job in covering up the truth, but there were still clues left behind.”
“Clues?” He stared at her like a man who had just taken a brick to the head. No doubt that was how he felt. “What clues? I never saw this coming.”
“Remember that crest and the medal and sash you found in the time capsule? I believe they belonged to Leopold.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Before I came over, I did a quick internet search and discovered the coat of arms belongs to a branch of a now-defunct royal family. The sash and sunburst medal is an award of distinction called the Grand Cross of the Sicilian, Royal Order of Saint Dalmatius and Merit. It’s a knighthood that was given to Leopold. No one else at that time had that particular medal in this part of the world. Yet here it is, in your time capsule.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head, clearly dazed. “I mean, every kid who grows up in Texas knows the history of Maximilian’s failed attempt to bring European monarchy to Mexico
, but...shit, Parker. I can’t wrap my head around this.”
“I can only imagine what a shock this must be,” she said, still reeling herself. If she was like that, then Chandler had to be flattened by it. “At least now I understand how Carl Junker came to be in this part of the world to create Thorne Mansion. That really had me stumped, but now it all makes sense. That mansion is an incredibly significant piece of architectural history, Chandler.”
“Weems.” He looked down at the pages in his hand as if it were a snake that might or might not be poisonous. “The first day we met, you asked how the feud between the Weems family and mine got started, remember? I’d be willing to bet this was the starting point. It’s still going on, even though I had no idea about any of this.” His eyes narrowed as she watched before he crammed the letter back into the tin. “The whole Leopold thing doesn’t mean anything to me, at least not right now. What does matter is how this shit has resonated all the way into the twenty-first century to interfere in our present-day lives, and I’m not going to put up with it anymore. It stops now.”
* * *
As Chandler was shown into the grand foyer of the mayor’s manor—a rotunda-like multi-columned room that often reminded him of a mausoleum—he tried to get his thoughts in order. But that was like trying to pick up marbles with chopsticks. To say he was stunned was an understatement of criminal proportions. Shock had pretty much put the kibosh on higher brain function, and that left him flying on autopilot straight into what could be a shit storm of epic proportions. But he had to have answers. He wouldn’t have any peace until he had them.
And by damn, he’d make sure no one else had any peace, either.
“Chandler.” Looking as unruffled as ever in a yellow blouse and brown skirt that was the same color as her unmoving hair, Patricia Weems greeted him with an expression one usually reserved for a stray mutt that had rolled in garbage. “I must say, this is a surprise. Did you drop by to gloat over making your ancestor’s scandalous behavior public, despite my plea for you not to?”
“I suppose you could say I’m here to discuss some ancient history.” For a second he wished he’d brought Parker with him. Not only did she have a better grasp of history in general, her presence was enough to keep him in check. Somewhere along the way she’d become his parachute when he was free-falling out of control. “Ever since I can remember, you’ve had it in for everyone in my family. Do you deny it?”
Her pebble-flat eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
“You should.” Some inner voice cautioned to play it cool, but he wasn’t in the mood to play. Right now his number-one priority was to get all things ugly out in the open, and fuck everything else. “You should beg my pardon for all the petty crap you’ve thrown my way over the years. You should also beg Daisy’s pardon for irritating the hell out of her, when all she wants to do is make her dreams a reality. What’s the point of any of it, besides you getting your malicious kicks in? What did we ever do to you?”
“The arrogance of you Thornes is enough to make anyone react—an arrogance you’re displaying now by swaggering into my home just so you can insult me, I might add.” She waved an imperious hand and turned to go. “Get out of my house. When you’re in the mood to be civil, make an appointment to speak with me at my office.”
“Louisa Weems.”
She stopped as if hit by a freeze-ray.
His mouth curled in a silent snarl. Her reaction was all the confirmation he needed.
“You knew.” He spat the words out, because the truth of it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “All this time, you’ve been screwing with the Thornes from your seat of power as Bitterthorn’s mayor, and we were stupid enough to shrug it off as some oddball quirk the Weems family had. What a bunch of suckers we were to allow you to get away with it.”
She turned back but said nothing, which made sense. Her lips had disappeared. She probably couldn’t speak now to save her soul.
“Would you like to know how Declan Junior described Louisa Weems, Mayor? It’s all in a letter Parker found today. He said Louisa Weems was a monster who acted out of pure malice—very much like you, now that I think about it. It must be imprinted in the Weems DNA. You resemble her so much.”
“Stop.” It was barely a whisper.
“Declan Senior wanted to kill her for what she did, and no doubt would have, had it not been for the steadying hand of Temperance. But even if he had killed her, once the town learned what she’d done, they would have thrown him a party for getting rid of such a canker sore. I’m just sorry he didn’t string Louisa up so that the whole town—hell, the whole world—could see what a hideous drop of poison she actually was.”
“Stop!” The screech burst out of her so savagely, the force of it seemed to shock her. Hastily she looked around at the sound of servants hurrying down a hallway toward them, and she waved them away with an agitated hand. “We...we need to discuss this in a more private setting. If you’ll come to my office—”
“I’m done with the bullshit, Mayor. I put up with you because that seemed to be Thorne tradition—put up with whatever the Weems family did. We’re this town’s founding family, and they were jealous nobodies. Little did I know that it’s in your blood to be a nasty piece of work. Now that I understand that, I’m not going to ignore your bullying any longer. From this point on you’re going to get exactly what you’ve earned.”
Her face became the color of chalk. “Wait! I thought you knew. I swear I thought you knew.”
He glared at her. “You must be deranged. Even if I had known about this long-ago crime, how does this excuse your targeting the Thornes in the here and now?”
“You have no idea what it’s like waiting for someone to drop the ax on you for something you didn’t do,” she gritted out bitterly, and her whole body shook with the force of her words. “Every member of the Weems family was raised to fear the Thornes, did you know that? Right from the cradle we’re told the story, as I’d assumed the same had been done with you. I’ll never forget my father telling me to always be wary of your people, because despite the many contributions the Weems family has made to this town, it was understood that the powerful Thornes could never forgive what was done.”
“That’s where you’re wrong—probably because you measured Thorne integrity against your own and assumed they were the same,” Chandler said, and despite the anger at the grief she’d given him over the years, a shaft of pity cut through the heart of it. “The fact is, forgiveness happened a long time ago. My ancestors were big enough to forgive and forget before they buried the secret in a building they thought would stand for all time. The paranoia that’s been handed down from generation to generation, that’s the sickness existing within your own family. But you’re the worst of the lot since Miss Louisa, Madam Mayor. You made your own misery, and then you turned around and punished every Thorne you could get your hands on for it.”
“A good defense is an even better offense,” came the hard-edged reply. “I couldn’t stand the weakness of my family’s position. We didn’t deserve it. My parents were pillars of the community. We owned the largest farm in the area, which my father and grandfather built up from nothing. My father volunteered at our church as choir director, while my mother established the first 4-H Club for the children here in Bitterthorn. Yet whenever the Thorne name was mentioned, they would shrink before my eyes, and it infuriated me. They were just so...small. I vowed I’d never be like that. As I grew to adulthood, I realized I had two choices—leave this town and everything my family’s worked so hard to achieve, or take the bull by the horns and empower myself in spite of the Thorne family.”
“You’ve certainly been tenacious in holding on to the position of mayor for thirty years, I’ll say that much,” Chandler said, nodding. He didn’t dispute the contributions the Weems family had made. That wasn’t the problem at all. “And if you leave the Thornes out
of it, your leadership has been generally good for this town. You’ve just been hell on wheels where I’m concerned, especially since I started rebuilding Thorne Mansion. Why?”
“Aside from the fact that I believe this town no longer needs a castle glorifying your family, I was concerned it would remind you there was an old score to be settled.”
“That score was only in your mind.”
“I realize that now.” The breath she took was shaky, and for once she looked every day her age. “In fact, when I read your article, I began to suspect you had no idea who ‘Miss Louisa’ was. Either that, or you were taunting me with the power you have to reveal the skeletons in the Weems family closet.”
“Taunting you? God.” The last of his anger fizzled as he realized just how twisted a brain could become after a lifetime of paranoia. “You know, I actually feel sorry for you. You’ve been held hostage by a fear that I might treat you the way you’ve always treated me. I’m curious—have you ever stopped to think how pathetic it is that you’ve spent your whole life becoming the very thing you despised?”
She swelled in her familiar pinched-mouth indignation before looking away. “I suppose I deserve your anger. And you have every right to...to let the whole town know exactly what my ancestor did to yours.”