by Amanda Davis
“Where are you going? I will tell no one I saw you if you prefer,” he gushed looking about as though he worried they were being watched.
“I am going to the hotel to see my husband,” she replied. Joshua balked.
“Are you?” he asked slowly. “I-I will see you there. I have a wagon. I have come to pick up supplies.”
“You are truly an angel today, Joshua. Thank you.”
“Does Mr. Xavier know you are coming?” he asked, and Lise shook her unkempt head of hair.
“He does not. Do you think he will handle the surprise well?”
Joshua gaped at her, pausing his gait to stare at her.
“My lady, he has been beside himself since you left. I do not know the details, of course, but he has hired men to search for you.”
“I do not think he will be happy to see me,” Lise confessed. “Not in the least.”
“If you forgive me saying so, my lady, I think you are mistaken. I have never seen Mr. Xavier as smitten with anyone as he was with you.”
A hot blush touched her cheeks, and she lowered her gaze to the dirt at her feet.
“I hope you are correct, Joshua,” she murmured.
“My friends call me Josh,” he whispered, grinning as he threw her trunk onto his waiting cart.
She beamed.
“Mine call me Lise,” she replied quietly.
Matthew, the concierge turned red, white, and pink when he saw Lise enter the lobby.
“L-Lady Elizabeth!” he choked. “H-h-how do you do?”
“I have been much better, Matthew,” she told him earnestly. “Would you know where I might find my husband?”
“He is in the office, in fact.”
Lise tensed.
“Is he alone?”
“Yes, my lady.”
She exhaled with relief. She was not sure she had the strength to endure Elias or Charlton, not when she had so much to discuss with Xavier.
“Permit me to announce you, Lady Elizabeth.”
“Of course.”
They cannot have the thief alone in the office, after all.
Matthew hurried to knock on the door, stealing fully inside and closing the door at his back.
He was barely in when the door opened again and Xavier stood in the doorway, gaping in shock.
“Lise!” he choked. “It is you!”
“Hello, Xavier.”
She lowered her head in embarrassment, knowing that she must look affrighting, but there was little she could do.
“I realize you have many questions, and I will do my best—”
“I have many questions,” he agreed, striding toward her, and she braced herself for a slap or cruel words. To her amazement, she was swept into his arm, his face buried into the tangled mess of her hair.
“Why did you not tell me?” he murmured. “Why did you run off?”
Stunned, she looked at him, shaking her head.
“I-I do not know what you mean,” she muttered. “I am sorry about the money.”
“Come inside the office,” he said, realizing that everyone about them had stopped to stare.
She followed him as he barked at Matthew to see her trunk up to their suite.
“Have the abigails wash and iron all her dresses,” he instructed. Lise shook her head vehemently.
“No!” she cried. “I-I cannot stay. I must go back to my mother…”
Xavier closed the door and shook his sandy head of hair.
“No, darling, you do not,” he promised. “You are safe here. You always were.”
“You do not understand,” she moaned, but she could not comprehend why he was handling her return so well.
“I do understand, and I am so glad you have returned. I know about the duke. I know what you and your mother planned.”
“H-how?” she demanded. “Who could have possibly told you?”
“Your sister-in-law, Lady Holden.”
“Lydia!” Lise breathed. She would never have expected James to speak against the duke, but she had not thought of the outspoken Lydia.
“So you see? All is well. Tell me where the duchess has gone, and I will send a coach for her.”
“No!” Lise sighed. “She will not come back. The duke will…he will never permit her to stay. He will not permit me to stay, either.”
Xavier blinked and looked at her in confusion.
“The duke has died, Lise.”
The words were shockingly fulfilling and devastating simultaneously. Lise did not know which emotion to deal with first.
“Dead?” she repeated. “How?”
“It was a terrible, freakish accident,” Xavier explained vaguely. “One of those blasted things.”
Lise’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to understand what she had just been told.
“An accident?”
“So they say,” Xavier replied with too much brightness. “I had thought that was why you had returned. So you see? There is no reason to stay away. He is no longer a threat. The duchess, or rather, the dowager duchess, is free to return.”
“Are you certain, Xavy? He is dead? You have seen his body?”
“Your brother is already the new Duke of Holden, Lise. I can send him word also that you have returned.”
Without warning, a sob escaped her lips, and she buried her hands in her face with humiliation.
“I am sorry!” she gasped but Xavier wrapped her trembling body in his arms and shushed her gently.
“You need not be sorry. You were afraid,” he murmured. “I only wish you had come to me first.”
“I did not expect to fall in love with you, Xavier!”
“I did not expect to fall in love with you, either, Lise. But I have—desperately, madly, and completely in love with you. I’ve prayed day and night for your return.”
She raised her head to look into his face, tears streaking her face. He reached into his breast pocket to hand her a handkerchief, and she dabbed at her cheeks hastily.
“But, I do want to know one thing, my dear,” Xavier said once she had caught her breath. “If you did not intend to stay and you did not know about your father, why did you come back?”
She bit on her lower lip and sniffled, pulling herself out of his arms.
“I am with child,” she replied, placing his hands against her swollen belly. Xavier’s eyes widened in shock.
“What?”
She nodded and smiled.
“It appears that you will have your sons, after all.”
“I would be just as content with a beautiful, ebony-haired daughter with porcelain skin just like her mother.”
Lise’s body sagged against her husband, and she shook her head as more tears streamed from her eyes.
“I do not deserve you,” she whispered.
“You do, my lady, and I deserve you.”
He turned away, his hand on her as he led her toward the desk. From inside, he withdrew both her wedding ring and the ruby, sliding them onto her shaking finger.
“If you should ever feel the need to take these off again,” he murmured. “I would hope you leave me with a better note than the one you left me.”
She blinked and shook her head, swallowing the grittiness in her throat.
“I will never feel the need to remove them again because I did not ever wish to take them off at all. I always wished to be married to you, Xavy.”
He smiled and brushed his lips over her forehead.
“I know,” he said softly. “That is how I knew you would always return to me.”
Epilogue
“I do not recall the summer ever being so hot,” Lise complained, reaching for a fan from the table. Emmeline giggled.
“I, too, was with child in the summer, and it does feel much hotter, I concur.”
The women exchanged a smile and darted their eyes toward the lawn where their husbands were engaged in a fencing exchange as the guests watched appreciatively.
“If this were a year ago,” Emmeline conf
essed, “I would think they were doing that to end each other, not for sport.”
“They seem to be getting along better,” Lise agreed, settling back against the cushions to rest her hands on her belly.
“I daresay everyone is getting along better with my brother since you have come along, Lise,” Emmeline chuckled. “I cannot say how you managed, but you did tame a beast.”
Lise’s smile faded.
“Xavier is not a beast!” she said sharply. “There is nothing beastly about him, even on his worst day.”
“Forgive me, Lise. I know your father was rather cruel.”
A short silence hung between them until Lise looked up at Emmeline’s classically lovely face.
“Do you know what happened to my father?” she asked quietly. A small part of her did not wish to pursue the issue, but there were so many strange questions that could not be answered. A terrible spill the duke had taken down the stairs inside the manor, only to impale himself on one of his prized statues, which laid on the floor at the bottom. The surgeon claimed he had lain there bleeding for hours before eventually succumbing to his death.
Why was there a statue at the bottom of the stairs? Where were all the servants? How does such a thing happen?
Yet the matter was closed, and no one seemed the least bit concerned.
He had more enemies than friends. If someone were to have murdered him, no one would speak against it.
Lise freely admitted that she found his passing a relief, but the man was still her father.
“I only know what I have heard,” Emmeline replied. “Gruesome details.”
She shuddered and looked at Catherine cooing on a nearby blanket.
“It is why I insist that the stairs be carpeted. It will do well for your child, too.”
Emmeline raised her eyes, her mouth thinning slightly when they rested on a pair of ladies in the courtyard, the duchess and Anne, laughing and whispering to each other as though they were schoolchildren.
“And it will help my mother when she is tripping about also.”
“She is also much better,” Lise said quickly. “I do not find her as reclusive as she was when I arrived.”
“Perhaps,” Emmeline sighed. “Your mother has been a godsend. I have never seen my mother so happy.”
“We all require companions, Emmy,” Lise replied softly. “Life can be dismally lonely.”
“You have a kind heart, Lise. I am happy that you and Xavier have each other.”
“I am blessed to have found a decent family along the way.”
A soft smile formed on Emmeline’s lips, which caused Lise to beam, too.
And, for the first time in a long while, they were happy, all of them, in the splendid Balfour Hotel.
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Brides for the Chauncey Brothers Book 1
Finding Home
Chapter One
There had been no rain for one fortnight and the crops were showing signs of malaise. It was only one more daunting fact which troubled Richard as he scrubbed up in the rain water, the tepid liquid only adding to the exhaustion of his weary body. There were other matters to consider also, the unkempt house and rotting garden. There were simply not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that needed to be done, even without facing a drought.
“Have you fallen asleep where you stand?” Jasper teased. “I can think of sounder places for rest.”
Richard turned toward his younger sibling, wearing a scowl on his face.
“It is easy for you to mock me when I saw you sleeping in the barn not two hours ago. It must be wonderful to have such luxuries.”
“I was not sleeping!” Jasper protested, his boyish beam faltering. “I was merely cooling myself against the heat. An overheated farmer can produce nothing of value, after all!”
“Sadly, we do not have such options,” Oliver grunted, appearing from around the side of the house. “We are much too busy attempting to salvage the crops from ruination.”
“Hogwash,” Jasper chirped, unwilling to let his good humor be diminished. “That is the trouble with you—always doubting God’s plan, despite the blessings He has bestowed upon us. We have been through much more trying times than this and prevailed. We will again. Enough with your sour faces.”
Richard opened his mouth to respond, but abruptly realized that his youngest brother was not incorrect. Their blessings had been plentiful since commencing the grueling task of traveling out west to make a homestead far from the east coast to where their parents had immigrated twenty years earlier. Not once had they been touched by illness as they crossed the prairies. So many other travelers had endured much worse.
More than just the most basic blessing of life, the Chauncey brothers were of old world stock, their proud British blood apparent in the handsomeness each one possessed. Richard himself was a strapping lad of one and thirty, the eldest of the three siblings. His hair was as dark as a moonless night, a startling contrast to the deep cobalt blue of his perpetually serious eyes. If not for a surprisingly bright smile, he would seem the curmudgeon Jasper painted him to be.
Richard could not be faulted for his stoic nature, however. Their parents had fallen ill at what seemed to be precisely the same moment, seven years past, and it had been a sobering time for all the Chauncey boys. It had foiled their parents’ dream of moving west to own land of their own, for once in their careworn lives. It was why they had braved the voyage across the Atlantic in the throes of terrible circumstances, with three young boys in tow, in hopes of a better life.
How devastating it was, life’s cruel irony sending the older members of the family into early graves within days of one another, as if they could not bear to be apart from each other, even in death. The vision of moving west had been so near. Their father, Charles, had finally scrounged enough money together working at the loading docks to buy a wagon and two horses. In the spring, they were to be bound for California where the sun never set and the land was ripe for the taking.
The boys had been left in a terrible position, not knowing which direction to take when they were still learning what it was they wanted from life. It had not been a long discussion. Their path was clear after the meager burial of Charles and Edith in unmarked graves, for there was not enough to buy headstones to commemorate their passing—not if they intended to fulfill their parents’ dream.
Each one had left something of himself back in New York, none more so than Richard who had longed to marry Eliza Granger. Eliza, however, had been unable to bear the idea of leaving her family behind.
“You must send word when you have secured land,” she told him earnestly. “And we will follow.”
He had believed her, leaving for California with hope in his heart and thoughts of a future with Eliza. In his mind, Richard had grandiose plans of a large family, cousins running amok with one another in the fields as the brothers tended their land. The reality had been much different.
God did not see it fit for Eliza to marry me, Richard thought with some bitterness, uncertain why the image of his estranged beloved had entered his mind in the midst of bantering with his brothers. It was a bittersweet memory and he wished he had not relived it, for when he thought of Eliza, his thoughts turned quickly to his best friend, Theodore in New York, whom Eliza had married in Richard’s absence.
Too swiftly following our departure, he thought grimly. As if they could not wait to see me leave. How long were they sweethearts? How long did Eliza laugh at me without my knowledge?
“Have you quite finished with the water?” Oliver grunted with annoyance. “You have all but floated away in thought, Richie, and you are in my path.”
Richard stepped aside without a word, permitting Oliver and Jasper their turns. He gazed toward the fading sun o
n the horizon and sighed deeply. He wished it would rain. Perhaps a storm would wash away the darkness which seemed to cling to his heart more and more for reasons unknown.
“You must stop with that!” Jasper scolded him. “Your melancholy is catching.”
“The crops,” Richard muttered again. “We are in desperate need of rain before our harvest is ruined. Surely you can see that.”
“We need help,” Oliver corrected, his face dripping with freshly poured water. “Wives are what we need, and children to run this farm.”
Richard gaped at Oliver in disbelief.
“I would sooner employ laborers than marry!” he retorted furiously, shocked that Oliver would make such a mention knowing his position on the matter. The notion of entrusting another woman with his name was insurmountable, even after all those years.
“With what monies?” Oliver retorted. “Our best course of action is finding wives.”
“More mouths to feed,” Richard grumbled. “That solves nothing.”
“Richie, you must admit that we need help. The land is becoming more fruitful with each passing year. We need—”
“Rain,” Richard interjected flatly, but he did loathe to concede his brother’s point. There was more work than the three could manage. Their land was thriving and while they did not suffer nor struggle as they had in New York, living atop one another on a dockworker’s wages, there was no excess money to hire hands. Still, the house and gardens did suffer with the men working the fields and tending to the livestock from dawn until dusk. A woman’s touch would not be the worst idea that Richard had ever heard.
Shame on you for thinking of marriage simply to procure a house servant.
Yet Richard could not imagine another scenario why he might consider such a union. He pushed the idea from his mind, shaking his head as though to bring some sense into his thoughts.
“You need faith,” Jasper insisted and suddenly he laughed.
“What amuses you?” Oliver growled but Jasper did not lose his smile and he pointed toward the sky.