Lost Lady (19 page)

“Looks to me like you've got some trouble,” Brandy sighed.

“Oh good,” Regan answered in a tired voice. “Just what I need. Doesn't anyone realize that it's not easy to run an inn this size? I have days of work piled on my desk, and, by the way, Farrell has already informed me that Travis has left, and, before him, my daughter told me. Farrell, I'm sure, has much more to say to me, but Jennifer may never say another word in my presence. Now, the redhead has got to be my dear friend Margo Jenkins. Just let me have a few minutes to collect myself and I'll be able to deal with her.”

Brandy nodded and left the room.

For several moments, Regan stood quietly in her bedroom, letting her mind take her back to that time of Margo's visits to Travis's plantation. Then, Regan had been so grateful to Margo for not being angry with her, for helping with the household staff, that Regan had not seen Margo's insults for what they were. That Malvina! Regan thought. How she'd like to get her hands on that foul-tempered, lazy cook now. And Margo! Dear Margo lording it over the poor, insecure little wife, pretending to help but actually destroying what little confidence she did have.

Smiling, Regan left her office, stopped by the kitchen, and asked Brandy to prepare midmorning tea for two women. She ignored Brandy's remarks about looking ready to do battle and then sent an invitation to Margo, asking her to tea in the library.

Margo appeared in an astonishingly short time, and Regan saw things she hadn't seen before; years of dissipation were showing on Margo's face and body. Late nights, rich food, overindulgence of every sort showed in lines and dark places, a thickening of the waist in spite of the tight lacing of her stays.

“My, my, it's the little English flower,” Margo said as she entered. “I hear you own this place now. Who bought it for you?”

“Won't you have a seat?” Regan said politely. “I've ordered some refreshments. Yes, I do own the inn.” Smiling innocently, she continued, “As well as the printer's building, the lawyer's, the doctor's, the mercantile store, the blacksmith's, the schoolhouse, the druggist's, plus four farms outside the town and three hundred acres.”

Margo's eyes blinked once, but otherwise she showed no change of expression. “And how many men have you slept with to get all that? Travis, I'm sure, would like to know.”

“How kind you are to say you think I'm worth so much,” Regan said enthusiastically. “But alas, I'm afraid I don't have your skills of selling myself to get what I want. I had to use old-fashioned intelligence and hard work to get what I own. Whenever I had a spare bit of change, I didn't spend it on a new gown but used it to bargain with to buy more land and more building materials.”

She stopped to answer the door to a very curious Brandy who was holding a large tray.

“How's it going?” Brandy whispered.

Regan smiled smugly, making Brandy laugh as she handed her friend the tray.

When they were alone again, with the tray on a low table between them, Regan poured tea.

“Shall we begin again?” Regan asked. “It's no use pretending that we're friends. I take it you are here because you want my husband.”

Margo collected herself. This was not a battle she wanted to lose. “I see you have learned to pour tea,” she said.

“I have learned a great many things in the last few years. You'll find I'm not so trusting as I once was. Now tell me what you want.”

“I want Travis. He was mine until you jumped into his bed, got yourself pregnant, and forced him to marry you.”

“That is one way of looking at the situation. Tell me, has Travis said he'd marry you if he were free of me?”

“He doesn't have to tell me,” Margo said. “We were almost engaged when he met you, and the only problem is that he's infatuated with you. He's never had a woman leave him before, and it's driving him wild.”

“If that is the case, if Travis likes women who leave him, why did you follow him here? Wouldn't it have been better to stay away and let him return to you?”

“Damn you, you little bitch!” Margo snarled. “Travis Stanford is mine! He was mine long before you were out of short dresses. You left him! You stole his mother's jewels and just walked off and left him. If I hadn't found that note—.” She stopped abruptly.

Regan caught Margo's eyes for a moment, her mind concentrating. All these years she'd wondered why Travis had never found her. She'd left a trail a child could have followed, but Travis had never even bothered. But if Margo had found the note first….

“Did he look for me for very long?” Regan asked quietly.

Standing, Margo glared down at her. “You don't really expect me to tell you anything, do you? Just be warned. Travis is mine. I don't believe you're woman enough to fight me. I get what I want.”

“Do you, Margo?” Regan asked calmly. “Do you have a man who holds you at night while you cry or one you can tell your deepest secrets to? Do you know what it's like to share, to love and be loved by someone?” Turning her head, she looked up at Margo. “Or do you think of people in terms of dollars and cents? Tell me, if you owned Scarlet Springs, would you be so interested in my husband?”

Margo started to speak but seemed to change her mind as, silently, she left the room.

When Regan put the teacup to her lips, she was surprised to find she was trembling. The questions she'd asked Margo were what she'd been asking herself and had not been aware of them. What did owning a town mean, anyway? She had friends here, people she'd come to love, but were they any substitute for one special person, someone who loved you even when you weren't in the best of moods, someone to hold your head when you were sick, a special person who knew all your ugly parts and still loved you anyway?

Remembering Travis's plantation and Stanford Hall, she knew that Jennifer should grow up there. Travis's hundreds of relatives' portraits were on the walls, and they were Jennifer's ancestors, too. She deserved that sort of continuity, a place that was filled with security and peace, not the ever-changing interior of an inn.

Smiling, she leaned back against the chair. Of course, it wouldn't be easy to tell Travis he'd won. No doubt he'd gloat and tell her he knew he'd win. But who cared? It meant more to spend her life with the man she loved than to give it all up because of her silly pride. Besides, there'd be ways to repay him. Oh yes, she thought. She'd make him sorry he had ever bragged about anything.

“You certainly look pleased with yourself,” Brandy said.

Regan hadn't heard her friend enter the room. “I was just thinking about Travis.”

“That would make me smile, too. So when are you leaving with him?”

“And what makes you assume—?” Regan began, then stopped at Brandy's laugh. “I know what you're thinking, and it's all true. You know, for years I was afraid of Travis, afraid his personality would devour me and I wouldn't exist any longer.”

“But now you know you can hold your own,” Brandy said.

“Yes, and I realize he's right, that his plantation is a better place for Jennifer. And what about you? How is it going to affect you if I leave Scarlet Springs? Should I get someone else to help run the inn?”

“No, don't worry about it,” Brandy said, holding up her hand. “Travis and I have arranged it all. There'll be no problem.”

“Travis and you! You mean you…and my husband…? Behind my back?”

“The last I heard, he wasn't your husband any longer. And of course I knew you'd leave here. Travis is not a man a woman can resist very long. Did you know what hell he went through trying to find you after you left? And that he's been celibate since you left him?”

“What?” Regan asked as warmth spread over her. “How do you know any of this?”

“While you've been working, I've spent some time with Travis and Jennifer, and if you weren't curious, I certainly have been. Would you like to hear some of what that dear man's been through in the last few years?”

Brandy didn't wait for Regan's answer before she started on the long, detailed story of Travis's ordeal. Most of his friends believed Regan had drowned, but Travis kept searching for her in spite of everyone telling him to give it up. At one point a preacher was urging him to conduct a funeral for his dear departed wife, thinking perhaps that would rid Travis of his obsession with her.

An hour later, Regan left the library, her head in the clouds. Ignoring Farrell, who called after her, she kept looking for Travis, eager to tell him she loved him, wanted to marry him, and would return to his home with him.

By the end of the day, when he still hadn't appeared, some of her enthusiasm left her. Distractedly, she refused Farrell's dinner invitation and spent the evening with her daughter. When the second night passed and she still hadn't seen Travis, her euphoric state broke. Jennifer was sulking and shooting angry looks at her mother, Farrell was becoming quite persistent in his invitations, and Margo constantly asked Regan where Travis was.

By the third day, she wished she'd never heard of Travis Stanford. He couldn't have left her after all he'd done to find her! Could he? Oh, please God, she prayed, flinging herself onto the bed that night. Please don't let him have left me. For the first time in years, she began to cry. Damn you, Travis! she gasped. How many tears had that man made her shed?

A
T FIVE O'CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING,
R
EGAN WAS AWAKENED
by someone knocking on her door. Sleepily, she rolled out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown.

Standing in the hallway was Timmie Watts, the son of one of her farm tenants. Before she could say a word, the little boy handed her a long-stemmed red rose and vanished down the hall.

Yawning, not awake, Regan looked down at the exquisite, fragrant flower. Attached to its stem was a bit of paper which she unfurled to read, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”

It was a full minute before her mind understood what her eyes saw, and then she gave a squeal of delight, hugged the rose to her breast, and jumped into the air three times. He hadn't forgotten her after all!

“Mommie,” Jennifer said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Is Daddy home?”

“Almost,” Regan laughed, grabbing her daughter and waltzing her about the room. “This rose, this lovely, perfect rose, is from your daddy. He wants us to go live with him.”

“We are,” Jennifer laughed, clutching her mother as she began to get dizzy. “We can ride my pony.”

“Every single day from now on and forever!” Regan laughed. “Now let's get dressed, because I'm sure Daddy will be here very soon.”

Before Regan settled on a gown of gold velvet, she threw everything she owned onto the bed. It was while she was in the midst of this mess that someone again knocked on her door. Flying to it, hoping to see Travis, she flung the door open.

Standing there was Sarah Watts, Timmie's sister, and she was clutching two pink roses. Puzzled, taking the roses, Regan watched as Sarah fled down the hall.

“Was that Daddy?” Jennifer asked.

“No, but Daddy sent us two more roses.” Attached to each one was a curl of paper in Travis's handwriting, saying, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”

“Is something wrong, Mommie? Why doesn't Daddy come see us?”

Heedless of the clothes on the bed, Regan sat down. It was just a tiny, lurking suspicion, but the extra roses made her wonder what Travis was planning. With one glance at the clock, she saw that it was just after five-thirty. One rose had been delivered at five, two at five-thirty. No, she thought. It couldn't be.

“Nothing's wrong, sweet,” Regan said. “Would you like these roses for your room?”

“They're from Daddy?”

“They certainly are.”

Jennifer took the flowers, holding them as if they were priceless, and carried them to her room.

At six, when Jennifer and Regan were dressed and going down to breakfast, three more roses were delivered to Regan.

“How lovely,” Brandy said, already up and cooking. Before Regan could protest, Brandy took the flowers, read the attached notes, and put the flowers in a vase. “You don't look so happy. I thought from the way you've been moping for the last three days you'd be pleased to get some sign from him. Three roses with those notes attached would certainly perk me up.”

“There are five roses,” she said seriously. “One delivered at five, two at five-thirty, three at six.”

“You aren't thinking—,” Brandy began.

“I had forgotten about it, but Travis and I did have words over courting. I made some derogatory remarks about the inability of Americans to court a woman.”

“Not a nice thing to have said,” Brandy said, feeling very American. “Five roses before breakfast shows you what we Americans can do.” With that she went back to cooking.

Feeling she'd offended her best friend, Regan went to the dining room to check that everything was ready. As she was leaving the room, the printer's boy delivered four yellow roses to her, each with Travis's note attached.

With an enormous sigh, Regan smiled at the roses, shaking her head. Did Travis never do anything on a small scale? She slipped the notes into her pocket and went to look for a vase.

By ten o'clock, her smile was gone. Every half-hour more roses were delivered, until by now she had a total of sixty-six. The quantity itself wouldn't be daunting except for the interest the deliveries were exciting within the town. The druggist and his wife came to eat breakfast at the inn, something they'd never done before, and as they were leaving, they stopped to ask Regan questions, namely, who is this Travis who'd hired their three children to deliver roses every half-hour? They were very mysterious about where the children picked up the flowers or who had contacted them, and they were discreet about the notes they'd read—but curiosity was eating them alive.

At noon, a bouquet of fifteen roses, each with a note on its stem, was handed to Regan, and that's when she began to try hiding. But the whole town seemed to be in conspiracy against her. At five minutes before the hour or half-hour, someone always found something important to say to her, something that would keep her in plain view of everyone when the next bouquet was delivered.

At four o'clock, she was presented with twenty-three roses.

“That makes two hundred and seventy-six,” the owner of the mercantile store said, chalking the number on the wall beside the bar in the taproom.

“Don't you have any customers today?” Regan asked pointedly.

“Nary a one,” he smiled. “They're all in here.” He looked back at the jammed taproom. “Who'll give me money on when they're going to stop?”

Turning away, Regan left the room, thrusting the bundle of roses into Brandy's arms.

“Roses?” Brandy gasped. “What a wonderful surprise. Whoever sent them?”

Regan curled her lip and hissed before continuing down the hall. She wouldn't put it past Travis to have instigated all the interest in the roses. Surely the townspeople had something better to do than sit around all day and watch her collect roses. Of course, the reason he'd hired every child in town for the deliveries was to create interest with the parents.

At seven o'clock, she received twenty-nine roses, and at eight, she got thirty-one. By nine she had received five hundred sixty-one roses, of every color a rose could create. Travis's notes, the same thing over and over, were in her pockets, in her desk drawers, in a box on her dressing table, in a copper pan in the kitchen. For all her complaining, she couldn't bring herself to discard even one of the notes.

By ten she was beginning to wonder if the flowers were ever going to stop. She was tired and wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and be still.

Just as she reached her door, a child thrust a bundle of thirty-five roses into her arms. Once inside, she carefully removed each note, read it, and then stored all of them in a drawer beside her underwear. “Travis,” she whispered, no longer tired. At least alone in her room she could enjoy the roses.

Someone, Brandy no doubt, had put several water-filled vases in a corner, and Regan filled one now. As she did so, she remembered the last time he'd given her flowers, on their wedding night.

She was still chuckling when thirty-six roses were delivered at ten-thirty. Roses were also delivered at eleven and eleven-thirty. At midnight, yawning, Regan answered the knock at her door to admit Reverend Wentworth from the Scarlet Springs church.

“Won't you come in?” she asked politely.

“No, I must get home. It's far past my bedtime. I just came to bring you this.”

He held out a long, narrow white box, and when Regan opened it, inside was a delicate rose of fine, thin, fragile, pink-tinted crystal. The stem and leaves were also glass, tinted a soft green. An engraved silver band hung gracefully down the side, reading, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”

Regan was speechless, afraid to touch the elusive beauty of the glass rose.

“Travis was so hoping you'd like it,” Reverend Wentworth said.

“Where did he find it? And how did he get it to Scarlet Springs?”

“That, my dear, is known only to Mr. Stanford. He merely asked if I'd deliver a gift to you at midnight tonight. Of course, when the box came and it was open, my wife and I, well…we couldn't resist a peek. Now I really must go. Goodnight.”

She barely heard him, absently closing the door, leaning against it for a second, her eyes locked on the elegant, splendid crystal rose. Holding her breath, afraid she might break it, she put it in the little vase on her bedside table, next to the first live rose Travis had sent her. As she undressed, her eyes never left either rose, and when she went to bed the moonlight seemed to highlight each rose and she fell asleep smiling.

It was late when she awoke the next morning, already eight o'clock. After one quick look at her roses and sending all of them a radiant smile, she jumped out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown. One sleeve was twisted, and as she straightened it a blue piece of paper fell out. As it fell right-side up on the floor, she saw that it read, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”

Hastily, she stuck it in her pocket, thinking that she hadn't noticed that any of the notes from yesterday were written on blue paper. She found Jennifer's room empty. The child was often up early and in the kitchen before her mother was even awake.

Still smiling, Regan returned to her room to dress. Today she was sure Travis would show up, would come to her on bended knee and beg her to marry him. She might, just might consent. She laughed out loud.

Her laugh stopped when she found another blue note inside the bodice of her dress. Hesitating for just a moment, looking suspiciously at the note, she whirled about and began to search her wardrobe.

The blue notes were everywhere—in her shoes, in her dresses, inside her drawers, wrapped in her petticoats and camisoles, even under her pillow!

How dare he! she thought, getting angrier with each note she found. How dare he invade her privacy in such a way! If not Travis personally, then he'd hired someone to go through all her things and place the notes there. And when? Surely some of them had been put there during the night, because even the dress she'd worn yesterday had three notes in it.

Angrily, she left her apartment and went straight to her office. As far as she could tell, nothing had been disturbed in this room. Thank heavens she locked it each night.

Sitting down at her desk, she didn't at first notice the thin bit of thread stretched across the leather blotter. Suspicious, her lips set firmly, she followed it down the front of her desk to the bottom, where it disappeared underneath. On her hands and knees, she slid down until she was flat on her back. Pinned to the bottom of her desk was a sign done in three-inch letters, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”

Teeth gritted, she tore it away and was tearing it into tiny pieces when Brandy entered the room with a few dozen pieces of blue paper in her hands.

“I see he's been in here too,” Brandy said cheerfully.

“He's really gone too far this time. This is my private office, and he has no right to come in here uninvited.”

“I don't want to add to your anger, but have you checked your safe?”

“My—!” she began, but stopped. Only Regan had a set of the three keys it took to open the safe. The other set was locked in a bank vault a hundred miles to the south. Even Brandy never opened the inn's safe or knew how or in what order the keys must be used; she left all that up to Regan.

Quickly, Regan went to the big safe and started the long process of opening it. As she pulled the last door, a piece of wide blue ribbon fell out. Slowly pulling it, her jaw set, her eyes angry, she saw immediately what was written on it. She didn't bother to read it but reached in and grabbed a handful of ribbon and angrily threw it toward the trashcan.

“How did you guess?” she asked Brandy as she stood.

Brandy seemed a bit nervous and gave Regan a weak smile. “I hope you're ready for this. It seems that while everyone in town was here yesterday and their stores were closed, somebody, or maybe it was an army of somebodies, put these little blue proposals all over town. The doctor found one in his bag and four in his office. Will, at the mercantile store, found six in his place, and”—she paused to stifle a laugh—“the blacksmith picked up a horse's hoof and found one on blue ribbon wadded inside the horse's shoe.”

Regan sat down. “Go on,” she whispered.

“Some of the people are taking it well, but some are fairly angry. The lawyer found one in his safe, and he's talking about suing. But, in general, everyone is laughing, saying they want to meet this Travis.”

“I never want to see him again in my life,” Regan said with feeling.

“You don't mean that,” Brandy smiled. “Maybe your notes are all alike, but most of the others are quite creative. There are bits of poetry, some things from Shakespeare, and Mrs. Ellison, who plays the piano, received an entire song which she says is very pretty. She's dying to play it for you.”

Regan's head came up. “Is she out there?”

Brandy grimaced. “Everyone feels as if they're involved now, and…most of them are out there.”

“Who is
not
there?” Regan asked bleakly.