Chapter 3 - A Marriage Before Sundown
By sunrise, Oak Haven had decided Evelyn Whitmore was either the cleverest woman in Colorado or the most shameless.
By breakfast, both versions had reached Whitmore House.
Mrs. Crowley placed the newspaper beside Josiah’s coffee with the same expression she might have used to deliver evidence of a plague.
Evelyn read the headline.
SILVER KING WEDS MYSTERY WOMAN HOURS AFTER STREET RESCUE
She stopped chewing.
“There’s a drawing.”
Josiah glanced over.
The artist had given Evelyn a nose large enough to frighten livestock and Josiah shoulders nearly as wide as the courthouse.
“It isn’t flattering,” she said.
“They forgot my hat.”
“That is your concern?”
“I like that hat.”
Abigail’s mouth twitched.
Evelyn caught it.
So did Josiah.
Neither commented.
Ten days.
The telegram sat folded in Josiah’s pocket.
Everything now happened under that deadline.
A lawyer arrived before noon.
Samuel Reed was young for an attorney, perhaps thirty-five, with carefully combed blond hair and the perpetually exhausted expression of a man employed by Josiah Whitmore.
He explained the danger plainly.
Percival Harrington had resources.
Connections.
Witnesses.
More importantly, he had already begun building a story.
Josiah was an absent father.
The children were traumatized.
The household unstable.
Their education inconsistent.
And now Josiah had married a homeless stranger after knowing her less than an hour.
Samuel rubbed his temple.
“That particular decision has not made my work easier.”
Evelyn crossed her arms.
“I’m sitting here.”
“I’m aware.”
“You said ‘homeless stranger’ while looking directly at me.”
“I prefer honesty.”
“So do I.”
Josiah sat near the fireplace.
“Can he win?”
Samuel hesitated.
“That depends on what the court believes is best for the girls.”
“They’re my daughters.”
“Yes.”
“Then they stay.”
“The law is not always moved by the volume with which you say something.”
Josiah stared.
Samuel sighed.
“I have told you that since law school.”
Evelyn looked between them.
“You’ve known each other awhile.”
Samuel smiled faintly.
“Josiah once punched a man for cheating me at cards.”
“He cheated.”
“You broke his nose.”
“He stopped cheating.”
Evelyn almost laughed.
Then she remembered why they were there.
“What do I need to do?”
Samuel turned serious.
“Become impossible to dismiss.”
“How?”
“You need to look like the woman a judge would trust with two grieving children.”
The words hurt more than Evelyn expected.
“And what does such a woman look like?”
Samuel realized his mistake.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
Evelyn stood.
“I understand.”
“Mrs. Whitmore—”
“I said I understand.”
She left the room before either man could stop her.
She found Abigail and Margaret in the conservatory.
Both were sitting beneath a tall window.
Margaret held a wooden horse.
Abigail had a book open but was not reading.
Evelyn sat on the rug.
“You heard?”
Abigail nodded.
“You understand?”
Another nod.
“Do you want to go to Boston?”
Both girls reacted immediately.
Margaret scrambled across the rug and wrapped herself around Evelyn’s arm.
Abigail shook her head violently.
“All right.”
Evelyn looked at both.
“Then we make sure nobody takes you.”
Abigail stared.
Evelyn leaned closer.
“I don’t know much about judges or trusts or people who arrive on trains wearing expensive coats.”
Margaret watched intently.
“But I know work.”
She smiled.
“And apparently I have ten days.”
That afternoon Evelyn inspected the nursery.
Then the schoolroom.
Then the kitchen.
Then the girls’ schedules.
She discovered they had been treated like fragile porcelain since Clara’s death.
Meals alone.
Lessons irregularly.
No riding because they might fall.
No town because people stared.
No music because Clara had played piano.
No picnics because Clara had loved them.
Grief had not simply entered Whitmore House.
It had locked every door.
That changed.
On the second morning, Evelyn took the girls to the kitchen.
Mrs. Crowley objected.
“Children do not belong among servants.”
“They belong wherever biscuits are being made.”
Margaret’s eyes widened.
Evelyn handed her flour.
Chaos followed.
There was flour on the table.
Flour on the floor.
Flour in Abigail’s hair.
Somehow flour on a wall several feet away.
Evelyn laughed until she cried.
Then she heard something.
A tiny sound.
Not a word.
A breathy giggle.
Margaret.
Everyone froze.
The child immediately stopped.
Evelyn did not react.
That seemed important.
Instead, she picked up another handful of flour.
“Abigail.”
The older girl looked at her.
“You have something on your nose.”
Abigail wiped the wrong side.
Evelyn shook her head gravely.
“Tragic. We may need to replace the entire nose.”
Another tiny giggle.
This time Abigail made it.
Mrs. Crowley turned away.
Evelyn could have sworn the housekeeper was hiding tears.
That evening Josiah returned from the mines early.
He stood outside the kitchen.
His daughters were helping Evelyn shape dough.
For several seconds, he simply watched.
“They haven’t done that since Clara died.”
Evelyn looked over.
“Made biscuits?”
“Made a mess.”
“Ah.”
He leaned against the doorway.
“Apparently I’ve underestimated the therapeutic value of flour.”
Evelyn studied him.
“You don’t have to leave them so much.”
His expression changed.
“The mines require me.”
“So do they.”
“That’s why I hired governesses.”
“No.”
She wiped her hands.
“That’s why you hired people to stand near them.”
Josiah stiffened.
“You’ve been here two days.”
“And?”
“You don’t know what this family has survived.”
“Then tell me.”
The girls went still.
Josiah looked toward them.
Not here.
Evelyn understood.
Later, after the children slept, he took her to the balcony.
The mountains were silver beneath moonlight.
Clara had died after a carriage accident.
Not instantly.
For two days, she remained conscious.
For two days, Josiah sat beside her.
On the second night, Clara had asked him to promise one thing.
“Don’t let my family turn our daughters into Harringtons.”
Evelyn looked toward him.
“What did she mean?”
“She hated what money did to them.”
“Yet she married a wealthy man.”
“I wasn’t wealthy when she married me.”
That surprised Evelyn.
“I had one mining claim, two shirts, and a mule named Bishop who disliked everyone.”
She smiled.
“Romantic.”
“Clara thought so.”
His voice changed when he spoke her name.
Evelyn felt the old ghost between them.
But she did not resent it.
“How did you become all this?”
He gestured toward the distant valley.
“Found silver.”
“That simple?”
“No.”
“Good. I would hate to learn wealth was simple after spending three days without supper.”
He looked at her.
A long moment.
“You make jokes when you’re hurt.”
Evelyn’s smile faded.
“You grow quiet.”
“Is that what I do?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we’ll eventually become tolerable people.”
“Don’t be ambitious.”
His mouth curved.
For the first time, the marriage did not feel entirely like an arrangement.
Then Josiah’s expression sobered.
“There is something else.”
Evelyn waited.
“Clara believed someone in her family wanted control of the trust before the girls came of age.”
“Percival?”
“She never said.”
“Why?”
“She died before she could.”
Wind moved Evelyn’s curls across her cheek.
“Did she leave anything?”
“Letters. Journals.”
“Have you read them?”
“Some.”
“Why not all?”
Josiah looked away.
That answer hurt differently.
Evelyn understood.
“Because reading them means losing her again.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
She did not press further.
Instead, she said quietly, “Then we’ll read them when you’re ready.”
His eyes returned to hers.
“We?”
“You married me into this disaster.”
“That hardly makes it yours.”
“The girls are mine to protect now.”
Something moved behind his expression.
Before he could answer, the balcony door opened.
Abigail stood there barefoot in her nightgown.
Her face was terrified.
Evelyn hurried toward her.
“What happened?”
Abigail held something.
A piece of paper.
She extended it.
Evelyn unfolded it.
Three words were written in a child’s hand.
HE IS COMING.
Evelyn looked up.
“Who?”
Abigail’s face went pale.
Her mouth opened.
No sound emerged.
Then she pointed not toward town.
Not toward the road.
She pointed toward a portrait hanging inside the hallway.
Clara’s family portrait.
And specifically toward one man standing behind Clara.
Percival Harrington.
Josiah stared.
Evelyn looked at Abigail again.
The child was trembling.
This was not fear created by a legal hearing.
Abigail was afraid of Percival himself.
May you like
And suddenly Evelyn understood that someone in Whitmore House knew far more about the Harrington family than any lawyer had guessed.
---
