members in attendance intimately.
Josiah stood stiffly, unsure of what to do other than wait for Pearl. He did not want to greet Pearl in front of everyone. He wasn’t sure he knew how. A handshake, a kiss on the cheek, or a bow?
To make matters worse, not only had Pearl’s attention and action been drawn to him, but so had the Widow Fikes’s.
She was sitting on an Empire sofa framed in an exotic wood, probably mahogany. The back crest was undulating in style, and the upholstery was a soft brown color, beige, with thin beaded pleats. The sofa sat under a portrait of a very much younger Mrs. Fikes, who was never a beauty like her daughter, but had obviously come readily equipped with a regal air; she looked like a princess of a foreign land waiting on a servant to feed her.
The portrait was surrounded by thick red draperies that hung all the way from the twelve-foot ceiling to the floor. The widow was not as tall and thin as Pearl, but rotund, or at least she appeared to be since she still dressed in widow’s weeds—a thick, ruffled black dress, a lacy hat with the veil pulled back, and tightly bound boots—that made her look very big, like a big old laying hen with her feathers all puffed up in defense. She bore no other color but black from head to toe, a continued show of mourning.
The widow curled her lip in distaste as she met Josiah’s gaze, recognizing him. He did the same. He looked away, then, back to Pearl, who was nearly in front of him.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” Pearl said.
Josiah’s throat was parched, like it had closed up in fear. “I had to get Lyle settled. Ofelia returned or I would not have been able to come.” He stood still, hands plastered to his side. It seemed the most appropriate hello he could conjure.
“You could have brought him,” Pearl said. “We got along just fine.”
Pearl stared at Josiah, her deep blue eyes penetrating his. He was tempted to turn and leave, but he had made it this far, it was too late to back out now. Besides, staring back at Pearl, Josiah became less aware of the rest of the room and the eyes still targeted on them. It was like they were the only two people in the world. A surge of energy compelled him to reach for her, at least touch her hand, but again he resisted, unsure if it was the right and proper thing to do, if a public touch was socially acceptable.
“Lyle is not ready for this,” Josiah said. He wanted to add that he wasn’t either . . . but let the words die before they left his mouth.
“I suppose you are right. I am glad to hear of Ofelia’s return. Juan Carlos has told me of her importance to you.”
Josiah nodded, heard a rustling behind Pearl. “Why am I here?” he whispered.
“Because I wanted you to be comfortable in this house.”
Before Josiah could answer, before he could tell Pearl that he doubted that he could ever be comfortable in a house so big, proper, and unknown, Pedro stepped out of the parlor, chimed a silver triangle, and announced that dinner was ready to be served.
The chair at the head of the table sat vacant. The dining table was long, easily seating the thirty or so guests. Josiah had never seen a table so long, or one so full of food and adornments. The aromas were hard to decipher, the mix a feast of beef, roast turkey, vegetables, salads, puddings, and things Josiah had no idea the names of.
The vegetables were still fresh from the recent harvest, and the breads were so warm that the yeasty smell almost overwhelmed all of the other aromas in the cavernous room.
A log blazed gently in a fireplace big enough to store three or four good-sized sheep.
Three chandeliers hung over the table, one right after the other, hanging high from the ceiling. Candles lit the table in a perfect sequence of candelabras forged of pure gold. Each place setting had three plates, a bowl, a glass made of crystal, and more silverware than Josiah had ever seen or knew what to do with.
He chastised himself again for being there. It felt like he had just walked into a camp of Indians, unaware of the language, the mores, which way to move without offending his hosts and sending them into a fit of rage.
The crowd had intervened, separating Pearl and Josiah, as they made their way out of the parlor. He stood, now, lost in another moment of uncertainty.
The Widow Fikes sat on one side of the empty chair, and Pearl sat across from her mother, directly on the other side of the table. A massive centerpiece nearly blocked their view of each other. Pearl sat blank-faced, staring into the flame of one of the low candles on the candelabra. For some reason her expression and demeanor had changed once the crowd had separated her from Josiah and she had taken her seat.
A murmur of voices echoed off the plaster walls, bouncing down from the ceiling as the guests made their way to their spots. It seemed most everyone knew where to sit, except him.
Governor Coke headed for the chair next to the Widow Fikes, his wife, Mary, comfortably on his arm. Almost as if on command, or from an unseen finger snap, servants appeared out of nowhere, easing the chairs out for the women of the major dignitaries.
Josiah was not surprised to see Juan Carlos, decked out in finer clothes than he had ever seen him wear, ease the chair out for the governor’s wife. The woman, tall and proud, almost royal, smiled at Juan Carlos as she sat down.
Juan Carlos stayed true to the expectations of servitude and showed no emotion, though Josiah was almost certain he saw him quickly whisper something in the woman’s ear as he pulled away from her. Mary Coke smiled, then looked down to her lap as Juan Carlos made his way to the next woman.
Major Jones headed toward the empty seat next to Pearl, and Josiah held his breath.
Jones still seemed more interested in a young brunette girl who sat two seats down from Pearl. The brunette must have caught Jones’s eye, an inviting look maybe drawing him away from Pearl. He immediately sat down next to the girl, after she was properly seated, and resumed his conversation with her, almost ignoring Pearl. He did offer a quick nod to her, which Pearl ignored, then turned away.
Josiah was still unsure where to sit, next to Pearl or somewhere else? When he looked to Pearl for guidance, she looked away. It almost looked like she had tears welling in her eyes.
Before Josiah could move his feet in a step toward Pearl, he felt a hand softly touch his shoulder.
“Here is your seat, sir,” Juan Carlos said, urging Josiah to a chair about midway in the table.
Josiah turned and started to protest, but the look on Juan Carlos’s face warned him off. He did as he was instructed, taking the chair, sitting immediately. The only way he could see Pearl was if he leaned forward and looked down past the plates of the guests in between them. Even he knew that would be rude, so he just sat, hands in his lap, staring straight across the table at one of the most beautiful roast turkeys he had ever seen. His stomach growled, reminding him he was hungry.
To Josiah’s relief, Rory Farnsworth sat down next to him.
Farnsworth was a sprightly man of medium height, who always wore a finely waxed mustache. He was younger than Josiah, making the sheriff not quite thirty years old. He had attended some fancy college out east, and he was always happy to spout on about the lessons he learned about the law there, and how he put his knowledge to practice on a daily basis.
Truth be told, the Farnsworth family was heavily connected in the political arena. His father, Myron, was a banker and was seated, along with Farnsworth’s mother, to the left of the sheriff. Rory was unmarried, a bachelor in the social circle, always on the lookout for a girl with wifely aspirations. Surely he’d tried to woo Pearl . . . maybe been rebuffed, maybe not, Josiah did not know, and didn’t care to presume, or know, such a thing.
“Good to see you, Wolfe,” Farnsworth said, offering Josiah a firm handshake.
Josiah shook the man’s hand. “Good to see you, too, Sheriff.”
The two men had worked together before Josiah’s venture into Lost Valley over the previous summer, when Suzanne del Toro had been murdered by her own brother, who had wanted nothing more than the business that Suzanne ran—a sad story of greed. After the brother was killed, Blanche Dumont filled the vacuum.
“You can call me Rory here.” Farnsworth smiled and set about making himself comfortable, unfolding a cloth napkin and placing it in his lap.
Like a child, Josiah watched Farnsworth’s every move and aped him as closely as possible.
“Thanks, Rory,” Josiah said.
“Kind of surprised to see you here, Wolfe.”
“Why’s that?”
