Whitehead put a hand on Denny’s shoulder. “Put that gun away.” He smiled at the butler. “Sorry, friend, but Denny here gets jumpy sometimes. Goes with the territory.”
Denny holstered his Colt. “Yeah, jumpy. Don’t like fellas sneakin’ ’round. Makes me itchy.”
“I will strive to remember that, Mr. Denny,” Bartholomew dryly replied.
Mrs. Burroughs cried out, “Bartholomew! We are having a business meeting. You are excused for the evening.”
“Very good, ma’am.” With that, he closed the door.
“You think he heard anything?” asked Phillips.
“Bartholomew?” Cate laughed. “He’s been in my employ for years. He knows what to see and not see, hear and not hear.
Denny snorted. “He better learn to make more noise, if’n he don’t wanna git hurt.”
“Let us continue with the meeting,” Mrs. Burroughs requested. The gathering went on, this time at a lower volume. Had anyone bothered to look out the door, they would have seen Bartholomew watch a female figure in white quickly ascend the stairs and go into a bedroom.
The butler sighed. “They almost caught you this time, my dear,” he said to himself. He turned and walked to the kitchen.
It felt strange to sit in a beautiful landau carriage, Beth considered, as the contraption made its way through town and across the Long Branch Bridge towards Pemberley. The wood was black and shined to a luster so fine she could see her reflection in it. The leather of the seats was a soft dark brown, so comfortable that she felt she could have slept in the carriage as it rolled along the rough dirt road. She felt like a princess from one of the stories in her father’s library. Of course, Beth was far too excited to sleep, and she kept her eyes firmly fixed forward as she rolled along. Clouds were moving in from the southwest, signaling that rain was coming.
The only building to distract her attention from catching sight of the ranch house was a small stone church near the river. The building and a small rectory were surrounded by a low adobe wall. A small cemetery was behind it. Ethan had been assigned to drive Beth to Pemberley and he pointed at the structure with his buggy whip.
“That there’s the Catholic Church—Santa Maria, they calls it.”
Beth nodded. Her conscience twinged at the remembrance of Mary’s unfeeling words months ago. Her thoughts moved once again to the owner of the spread before her, marveling at the man’s forbearance. It seemed Beth and her family had done nothing but insult the Darcy family, and yet they still wished to continue their acquaintance. More than that—Gaby was a good friend and Will… Will had wanted to marry her at one time.
Beth sighed. Her feelings had been at war for the last week. One moment she was telling herself it was foolish to believe Will Darcy still desired her hand. Her cruel and ignorant words must have killed any tender feeling he might have owned for her at one time. He was only trying to be her friend for his sister’s sake, she thought. The next moment she was sure Will loved her—loved her so much that he had forgiven her.
This visit had been his idea. He seemed to want her near him, to want to change her mind. In her most romantic fantasies, Will would surprise her with a huge ball at Pemberley, and the entire town was there—her family, friends, and neighbors. Even the Burroughses and Whitehead attended. Will would claim all of her dances, and they would waltz for hours and hours, she in that exquisite blue dress. At the end of the ball, after he ordered soldiers who had magically appeared to arrest Whitehead, Will would look deeply into her eyes and ask her to marry him. And she
Beth, having never been in love before, found it difficult to describe her feelings for Darcy. She liked him, she admired him, and she trusted him. Her heart beat faster when she was near him. She felt strange urgings when his eyes fell upon her person. She wanted to run and hide, yet touch him, all at the same time. Was she mad, or was she in love? If he did ask her again, would she accept him?
She didn’t know. She hoped that this weekend would help with her struggles. If not, she would have to be satisfied with visiting her friend and her handsome, intriguing, infuriating brother.
The landau crossed over a crest of a hill, and the sight that lay below caused Beth to gasp. Along the road about a quarter-mile away was a large, low house. Done in the Spanish style, terra cotta tiles covered a roof supported by numerous white columns, lining a full porch, surrounding the entirety of the house. Dormer windows broke up the hip roof, white plaster surrounding the glass. Several large trees framed the building, a flower garden was in the front, and a row of cedars to the west of the house swayed in the breeze.
Beth pulled her eyes away from the house to gaze at the rest of the ranch. Barns and stables were set some distance from the main house, and a large, long building with windows was close by the barn. Beth expected it was the bunkhouse for the unmarried hands. Men worked in a corral next to the barn, and smoke rose from what Beth took to be a smithy. Smaller single houses dotted the area. Cattle were everywhere, and in the distance, she could see the sunlight dancing on the surface of a small lake.
“Oh my goodness,” Beth could not help herself from saying.
Ethan turned to her with a grin. “It’s somethin’, ain’t it? Prettiest house I’ve ever seen.”
Beth could only agree, and her admiration for the house grew as she neared it.
Gaby was almost hopping in her excitement as she waited next to Will on the porch for Beth to descend from the carriage. She promptly threw herself into Beth’s arms once she was on the ground. Will’s welcome was far more restrained, but Beth did not doubt his sincerity although he seemed a bit nervous all the same. Ethan carried Beth’s carpetbag from the landau as Gaby and Will escorted their guest inside.
The house was cooler than Beth had expected for the middle of the summer, and she said so. With a smile, Will explained that between the high ceilings and large windows, Pemberley was designed to take advantage of any stray breeze that might come along. Beth looked up at the large wooden beams high above her head, the brown of the wood contrasting nicely against the whitewashed plaster walls. The furnishings were a mixture of large, dark, heavy Spanish and lighter Chippendale pieces. The carpets over the wooden floors were lovely, and Beth was astonished to learn that they had come all the way from India. The wealth all this represented made Beth uneasy, but Gaby soon lightened her mood.
On the way to what the Darcys called the music room, they came across a line of family portraits. Will stopped at the first one. It was a dark-haired lady with rather square features, dressed in a white gown, a small cross at her throat. The expression at first seemed severe, but Beth caught a mischievous gleam in the eye of the subject.
“Mary Grace Darcy, my grandmother and matriarch of the family,” Will named her with pride, half-turning to Beth.
“She looks so regal,” Beth judged.
Will smiled. “She should—she was a princess of the Cherokee Nation. Her birth name, loosely translated, was Running Water. Her family—and most of her village—were wiped out by Comanche raiders when she was little, and she ended up in a convent. The nuns gave her the name Mary Grace, had her baptized Catholic, and taught her English and Spanish. When she grew up, the Mother Superior didn’t know what to do with her. It was one thing to raise an orphan Indian; it was a whole other thing to bring her into the order. As it turned out, Grandmother was a pious woman, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be a nun, and when George Washington Darcy rode by one day from boarding school and fell in love with her at first sight, she was happy to marry him and go to Pemberley. Great-Grandmother Agatha wasn’t too thrilled at the news, and it didn’t get any better when Mary Grace converted Grandfather to Catholicism. Still, they learned to get along, and Grandmother told me that they became friends before Great-Grandmother Agatha passed. It was Grandmother Mary Grace who saw to the improvement to the mission.”
“Did you see it on the way here?” Gaby asked. Beth said that she had and asked Gaby if she remembered Mary Grace. “No,” Gaby said sadly. “She died before I was born. I barely even remember my mother.”
“My father, Matthew Darcy, was the eldest, along with my Uncle John and Aunts Anne and Mary,” Will continued. “Anne and Mary married and moved away. John died of the typhus when he was still in his teens. My
