Tenacious Love (Banished Saga, Book Four): Banished Saga, Book Four (40 page)

“That’ll be a long time coming, sis,” he teased. He stood beside her as she opened the door to her house and entered a darkened hallway.

“They should be here,” she said. “Col? Minta?” She bustled down the hallway, pausing at the conservatory door to find Araminta in Colin’s arms. “Sorry,” she whispered. She backed up, bumping into Lucas.

Colin rolled his eyes and pointed to chairs in the room as he soothed Araminta into remaining in his arms. Savannah frowned as she saw Araminta settle into his embrace. When she moved to approach her, Colin shook his head, and she backed away, opting to perch on a nearby chair.

“Did you have an enjoyable evening?” Lucas asked Colin.

Colin speared him with a glare, unable to do anything else. “I enjoyed the musical aspect of the night. I could have done without the rest. Why those harpies remain intent on harming Ari is beyond me.”

“
Ari
,” Lucas murmured with an amused smile. He grinned more broadly as Colin’s glare transformed into a glower. “They’re spiteful old biddies,” Lucas continued, “bitter their lives didn’t turn out as they’d liked and without the confidence to act in such a manner as to provoke change in their own lives. I wouldn’t give them a second’s worth of thought.”

“Easy to say when you don’t live here,” Araminta murmured.

Lucas leaned forward and spoke softly to Araminta. “If I had minded every negative review or word spoken about my music, I’d still be selling linen in my father’s store. I would never have had the courage to break free. Don’t let those with a limited view of the world prevent you from reaching for your dreams. Someone will always be there, wanting to hold you back. Look to those who nurture you, encourage you and understand you. Know your passion. Your joy.” He met her eyes as she peeked out from Colin’s embrace. “You’re worth ten of them, Miss Araminta.”

“Thank you, Mr. Russell.”

“As long as you don’t forget it,” he said with a smile and a wink. “Now I, for one, am for bed.” He rose, reaching out a hand for Savannah and tugging her along with him.

“Your cousin is nice,” Araminta whispered. She moved to leave Colin’s embrace but stilled when he murmured, “No, stay, love.”

“Don’t say such things to me,” she breathed.

“Why?” He whispered the question in the nape of her hair, almost kissing her.

“Don’t make me dream.”

He unpinned her hair, running his hands through it. “When have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”

She pushed back, struggling until she was free of him. “Tonight,” she choked out, rushing from the room.

Colin reached for her but failed to grasp her ankle as she limped past him. He collapsed onto his back, stared at the ceiling and heaved out a sigh.

Z
ylphia straightened
her turquoise linen jacket and stood tall before approaching the door. Charlotte hovered on the nearby sidewalk. She rapped loudly, listening as heavy footsteps approached. Smiling with polite determination, she produced a pamphlet to hand to the man. He frowned for a moment, keeping his door ajar, preventing her from seeing more than the entranceway to his house.

“Sir, I’d like to discuss the referendum on November 3, 1914. It’s to grant women the right to vote. May I come in to speak with you and your wife?”

“My wife’s too busy to be bothered listening to you yammer on about something that will never affect her.”

“Sir, I must disagree. Women should have the right to vote.”

“Why? Give me one good reason why women should vote.” His eyes narrowed as he looked her over from her hat with matching turquoise ribbon to her jacket to her brown skirt and ended at her polished black shoes.

“Why should you have the vote?” Zylphia asked, her voice hardening. “What did you do to earn the vote?”

“Nothing. I’m a—”

“
Man
. Exactly. Just as you did nothing to earn the vote, women should be granted the same distinction. Nor should I have to justify what I or women will do with their vote. Men don’t explain how or why they’re voting. They vote, using their rights.”

“Why should my wife want the vote? She’s got no need for it. I vote for her. I provide a good home. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s good enough.”

“Do you understand that ‘good enough’ isn’t actually good enough? That women have the right to think for themselves and determine, themselves, who and what they believe would be best for them?”

“That’s where you’re wrong, miss. Women don’t have the right. Not now and hopefully never. And come November 3, I’ll vote so it stays that way.”

Zylphia flushed as she stood taller, her polite smile fading. “What about your daughter? Don’t you want her to have more opportunities as she grows up?”

“She’s got more now than women have ever had. That’s good enough.”

“I wonder how you’d feel if all you or your son could manage was ‘good enough,’” Zylphia snapped. “If you had to depend on the charity of others for your rights as laws were enacted that you had no ability to alter. If you had to wonder if the generosity of others would ensure that you would have the care you needed when you were in labor, hoping that those allowed to vote in your state had passed laws to protect you and your child.”

“That wouldn’t happen,” he scoffed, although he seemed less certain as he listened to Zylphia.

“Imagine doing the one thing you’d always wanted to do—provide a good, healthy home for your family—and you couldn’t because the food you served was tainted or spoiled due to lack of oversight.”

The man cocked his head, listening intently.

“These are issues that are important to women. They are important to families. They are important to our society.”

A spark of understanding appeared in his eyes as he nodded. “I hear what you’re saying, miss, but I ain’t convinced.”

“I understand. Please, will you take one of these pamphlets? I encourage you to discuss this with your wife and daughters. Talk with your friends. I believe the more you discuss it, the more you’ll realize the grave injustice that has been perpetrated against Montana’s women, and the nation’s women, for so long.”

He nodded again, reaching with less reluctance for her pamphlet.

“I thank you for listening to me, sir, and I hope, come November 3, we can count on your vote.” She stepped away from the door and moved to the next house.

* * *

“
Z
ee
, there’s a package here from your mother,” Savannah called out from the sitting room as Zylphia entered the front door. Charlotte close the door behind her and moved to the kitchen.

Zylphia unpinned her hat and took off her gloves before entering the sunny room. Only Savannah was present, and Zee collapsed onto a chair with a sigh of relief.

“Rough day?” Savannah poured her a glass of lemonade from the pitcher she had set in front of her.

“If I have to listen to one more man extoll the virtues of a home where the woman thinks and acts as the husband, I think I’ll scream.” She shared a sardonic smile with Savannah as she reached for her glass of lemonade.

“You know those aren’t nearly as common now as they used to be. Most of the homes we visit are quite excited about the upcoming vote.”

“
Excited
is being optimistic. I think they are curious, and some are cautiously hopeful. Those are the homes where the wife has the ability to influence her husband. Or thinks she does. For she has no idea how he’ll vote when he’s in the voting booth! It’s so unfair we have to depend on a man’s decision to determine if we’ll be granted the right to vote.”

“I agree, Zee, but there’s nothing more we can do.” She studied her. “Unless you’ve begun to think it’s not a worthwhile endeavor and we should give up?”

Zylphia nearly growled at Savannah before laughing. “I know your game. Of course I think it’s essential work. I simply find myself out of sorts today.”

Savannah raised her eyebrows. “You’ve been out of sorts since you arrived.”

“It’s nothing.”

“As you’ve said since you arrived. And yet I think it’s something important or else you wouldn’t be so easily upset.” Savannah reached out her hand to touch Zylphia’s knee. “What happened in Boston before you decided to travel here? For I can’t imagine retreating to the wilds of Montana to help us garner votes for the upcoming election is the sole reason you journeyed all this way, even if this was Sophie’s idea.”

Zylphia’s eyes filled with tears before she shook her head to clear them. “I acted a fool and now must live with what I did.” She smiled with a false brightness. “Where is that package from my mother?” At Savannah’s nod to a small parcel on a table near the door, Zylphia rose to retrieve it.

She sat again, ignoring Savannah’s sigh of displeasure that Zee wouldn’t share more of what happened before she left Boston. Upon opening the small package, she found it filled with letters. A small note from her mother lay on the top, but she barely scanned it before flipping through the envelopes.

Her hands shook, and she paled as she traced the writing on the outside of one of the envelopes. “Teddy,” she whispered.

“Zee, are you all right?” Savannah asked.

“If you’ll excuse me”—Zylphia rose, bumping the low table and nearly knocking over her glass of lemonade—“I have a few letters to read.” She rushed from the room and raced up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming her door shut behind her. She held the envelopes, slightly weathered and all showing signs of travel. After flipping the lock on her door, she moved to her bed and carefully opened a letter.

My Darling Zee,

I knew it was too much to hope you’d write me after how I ignored you. However, although it might annoy you to receive letters from me, I’ll persist in writing to you. I find, as I sit and wait for what comes next, you are all I think about. Our short time together was the most vivid time of my life …

She set aside the letter, saving it for later, wanting to find the first letter he’d written her and read them in order. She found a faded postmark, compared it to the others and opened it.

My Darling Zee,

Do you know how much comfort it gives me just to write your name? How much more it would give me to say it? To whisper it into your ear as I held you?

I have no right to say such things, but a man in battle begins to wish for the unattainable. I know by now you must hate me, and, for that, I am sorry. More sorry than I could ever express.

I don’t know if you realized it, but I kept one of your letters, and I finally read it. I read your words of love and hope as I was shipping out to fight in the Great War. I’ve read them more times than you can imagine, and I carry your letter as though a talisman to get me through each day.

In what you’d call a manly fit of pique, I fulfilled my grandparents’ wish for me and enlisted in the British Expeditionary Forces. I can’t tell you more than to say I’m somewhere in France. Dreaming of Boston, of holding you in my arms in my study.

I miss you, my darling girl. My impetuous, loving, passionate Zylphia, who was brave when I faltered. Please forgive me and give me hope when I have so little.

I love you, Zylphia. I always will.

Your Teddy

Zylphia bowed her head and sobbed. She held the letter to her chest while she curled into herself on her bed and shook with her tears. Soon she was curious what his other letters said, and she swiped at her face as she reached for them. A loud knocking on her door interrupted her. “Yes?”

“Zee, Rissa is here and would like to see you,” Savannah said.

“I’ll be down in a moment.”

“Don’t be too long,” Savannah said.

Zylphia traced the unopened envelopes but decided to wait to read them, rather than rush in reading them now or make her cousins wait for her. She rose, rinsed her face with water from the ewer in her room and avoided looking at herself in the mirror.

She walked down the stairs at a more sedate pace than she had ascended them and reentered the sitting room.

“Zee, it’s great to see you. Sav and I were just discussing the canvassing and upcoming …” Clarissa’s voice faltered as she turned to look at Zylphia. “What happened? Is your mother ill?”

“My mother?”

“Sav mentioned you had received letters in a package from your mother.” Clarissa reached out a hand to tug Zylphia onto the settee next to her. When Zylphia sat down, Clarissa placed an arm around her shoulder, encouraging Zylphia to lean into her. After a moment of sitting with erect posture, Zylphia crumpled and burrowed into Clarissa’s side as she cried.

Clarissa shared a long look with Savannah, who shook her head in confusion. Clarissa stroked Zylphia’s head and shoulder, comforting her with her silence.

“I fell in love this past year,” Zee whispered. “It wasn’t wonderful like everyone says.”

“Oh, Zee.” Savannah sighed. “What happened?”

“He’s a brilliant inventor and financier, but I was a coward. I didn’t want to love or be loved, so I pu-pushed him away,” she said as her tears flowed. As she accepted Savannah’s handkerchief, she nodded her thanks. “He left, angry with me and the harsh words I’d said to him, to return to England.” She raised terrified eyes to her cousins. “Now he’s fighting in the Great War. What if he dies?” She sobbed in earnest now, and Savannah moved nearer to stroke her back as Clarissa held her close.

“Is there any way to write him? To let him know you were a fool to let him go?” Savannah asked in a gentle voice.

“I’d already tried that, but he ignored my letters last spring. He kept one and read it as he was going to fight. Now that he’s in battle, he says all he can think of is me. I have letters upstairs from him.”

“Write him, Zee,” Clarissa urged. “Don’t hold back telling him what’s in your heart. If you forgive him for hurting you, as it appears he’s forgiven you, tell him. Don’t live with that sort of regret.” She clasped Zylphia’s tear-streaked cheeks between her hands and raised her head to meet her gaze. “Not when he’s fighting in a war and …”

“I know,” Zylphia whispered. “Even without knowing he’s fighting, I’ve tried to ignore reading about the battles occurring in France. Now I fear I’ll become obsessed, imagining what could be happening to Teddy.” She took another deep breath.

“It’s all right, Zee. Go upstairs. Read your letters. Write him.” Clarissa stroked a hand one last time over her head and gave her a gentle prod from the settee.

Zylphia stumbled once before she regained her balance and then hastened toward her room.

* * *

Z
ylphi sat
at the small desk, tapping her pen in agitation on a piece of paper. She smiled wanly as she thought of her mother when she was annoyed and how she always tapped a pen. She took a deep breath and envisioned Teddy in her mind. In an instant she was writing.

My Darling Teddy,

Please forgive me for not writing you sooner. I did not receive your letters until today. I am in Montana, staying with my cousins, as I canvass for the vote for women in the upcoming election. I took your advice, Teddy darling, and, although my life has more purpose, it has still felt rather empty.