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MAY 30, 1916
My dearest Dianna,
You will be relieved to know I am safely ensconced at Sugar Hill. I wish I could say that I, too, am relieved to be here, but I cannot definitively claim that I made the right decision in accepting what George bequeathed me.
The estate is vast, the weather ghastly hot and humid, and of course I know nothing about tobacco. That said, I did promise you, and more importantly, myself, that I would roll up my sleeves and get on with it as best I can. And I shall. I just hope it will be sufficient. And yes, I know it will be. And yes, I know you said that out loud. That is what I love most about you: your willingness to tell me the truth like it is, not as I wish to hear it. You’ve truly been my strongest advocate and greatest support this past year, and you will always be my dearest friend.
Because you are my dearest friend, and I trust you implicitly to have my best interests at heart, I feel safe in confessing my fears to you, and though I harbour many trepidations about this new venture, my greatest at the moment presented itself on the lawn of Sugar Hill today in the wolfish form of one Mr. Banner, the estate overseer. And by wolfish, I don’t mean literally, with a long snout and pointed ears—he’s adequately handsome—but figuratively. It is his self-possession and the way he regarded me—like he couldn’t decide whether to pounce and tear me limb from limb, leaving my scattered remains for forest vermin, or to kill and eat me himself—that unnerves me.
I know that sounds harsh, and perhaps it was my decision to arrive with only a day’s notice, but he seemed perturbed by my arrival. I’m not sure greater advance notice would have changed his predetermined opinion, however. He’s lived and worked here fifteen years, and acted in George’s stead the last ten. He no doubt perceives me as a threat to his authority, and I can’t say I blame him. I’d view me as a threat in reverse conditions, and were I smarter and more knowledgeable about what George left me, I might give Mr. Banner his leave. Only...
He knows everything I do not. I must rely on him, at least in the short term. I only hope he’ll do better than he did today at keeping his private thoughts shielded, and focus on developing a professional relationship with me so that we might work together amicably if not amiably. There is one bright spot with regard to him, however, and that is his delightful daughter, Maisie. She reminds me ever so much of Amelia—bright, precocious, and wilful. Quite darling, really.
The material sent me by Mr. Lyons is short on details, but so far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be a woman in Mr. Banner and Maisie’s life. At least not one to whom I was introduced. And I did not raise the question. I remember too well the pain of being asked about my mother after she died, and I’ve no wish to add salt to a wound should one exist.
I do admit to being curious, however, and I’ll have to go back through Mr. Lyons’s correspondence to discover what, if anything, is mentioned about Mr. Banner’s current or past marital status. Perhaps he’s a widower. It was probably mentioned somewhere, and I simply glossed over it. You know well how scattered my thoughts have been since George’s passing.
How many times in the last year did you have to remind me what day it was, or to eat? Too many, by my count, and I only recall recent months. The first months immediately following George’s death are still a blur, and the only reason I am even modestly together now is because you held me that way until I had strength to drag my disseminated parts together myself.
I owe you so much, my darling friend. I don’t know how I can ever repay you and Jake, and Aunt Eleanor, for all of your kindnesses other than to make it my life’s work to prove myself worthy of your faith, and George’s faith, in me.
Please kiss and hug your beautiful children for me, and extend my love to everyone else. I miss you all so very, very much and look forward to your visit in September with great anticipation.
With all my love and gratitude,
Maggie
A droplet of water splatted on the notepaper, followed almost immediately by another ink-smudging drip.
Shoving to her feet, she hastened to her reticule on the bed and dug out her handkerchief. Pressing the embroidered, jasmine-scented linen to her mouth, she stared through blurry eyes at the unfamiliar landscape, her entire being aching with an all-too-familiar loneliness and regret.
~~~
JOE PAUSED, ONE FIST raised to knock, and tipped an ear towards the door. Was she...crying?
He closed his eyes, concentrating on the muffled sounds, then straightened and backed away from the door as if it had burst into flame, surprised by the odd twist of his guts.
It wasn’t like he had made her cry.
He glanced at the floral-print handbag he held in one hand. Magnus had found it wedged under one of the coach’s interior seats and assured him it had not been there when he’d gone to retrieve Mrs. Sweeney from the depot. It had to be hers.
He could leave it on the floor outside the door...No. Best to take it downstairs and give it to Rufus—
“Mr. Banner? Is that my bag?”
He stalled at the top of the staircase. A heartbeat later, he turned around. “Yes. Magnus found it under the seat.”
“I’ll take it, if you please.”
“Of course,” he said, careful not to betray his irritation with her imperious tone, as if it were his personal duty to fetch things for her instead of appreciating the fact that he’d delivered her belongings personally rather than having Rufus run it up.
Of course, she wouldn’t know that, wouldn’t know he rarely stepped inside the main house but spent his daylight hours in the fields and his evenings in the cottage with Maisie. She knew nothing about him. Or at least nothing about his daily routine.
It grated, not knowing what George might have told her about him when all he knew about her was what little Lyons had added to George’s account: English. Born to an aristocratic family. Mother died when she was young. Father committed suicide eight years later, but not until after he’d gone bankrupt, leaving her and her older sister impoverished orphans. A friend of the mother’s had stepped in and made sure the girls were cared for and eventually married. The sister was dead now, too, murdered during a home robbery. Margaret was the only survivor of her natal family and two husbands.
Two husbands.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Banner?”
He hefted the bag. “Would you like me to put it in your room?”
“Thank you, but I can manage.” Her green eyes were red-rimmed but her speech precise—with a barely perceptible quaver.
Shame clenched through him.
He softened his voice. “You’re sure there’s nothing else you need?”
The lines bracketing her mouth relaxed marginally as her jawline lost some of its edge.
“I would like to sit down with you and go over what there is to know about the estate. Not this minute,” she added when he frowned. “Tomorrow morning will be soon enough. Say...ten?”
To go through everything there was to know about the estate would take weeks. Years. It wasn’t a classroom where everything and everyone was corralled in a ten-by-twenty area with a set of texts to thumb through for answers.
Growing tobacco was an art, an instinct, a sixth sense developed through thousands of hours in the fields—touching leaves and soil, learning to assess the differences in texture and colour to determine moisture content and whether to add water or fertiliser. It was watching the sky, tracking the sun, and deciding if rain would roll in off the gulf, or if water needed pumping up from the slough, or additional shade tarps needed to be hung or rolled back. But there was no sense trying to explain that now. She’d learn soon enough.
Unless she decided to sell and move on. Or remarry and hand over management of Sugar Hill to her new husband.
That possibility prompted a sharp ache in his bones that he swiftly dismissed.
Whatever arrangement he’d had with George, it was over. Sugar Hill was hers now. She could keep it, sell it, give it away, or burn it all to ash.
He forced a smile. “Ten is fine, Mrs. Sweeney.”
“Where do you keep your office, Mr. Banner?” She shifted the bag, holding it like she might cradle an infant.
He swallowed, the thought driving home the extent of all that had been lost with George. Four generations of direct male descendants had owned Sugar Hill. There’d never be a fifth.
“I don’t have an office,” he said, his voice rough even to his ears. “I keep most of what I need up here.” He touched his temple. “But the account ledgers, which I assume you want to look over, are locked in a safe in the study. It’s on the ground floor at the rear of the house. Directly below this room, actually.”
“Very good. Will I see you at dinner?”
“Ah...no. I have a cottage on the estate. I usually eat my meals there.”
“And Maisie?”
“Dines with me.” He spoke more gruffly than he intended, and regretted it when her fragile smile vanished and her chin rose.
“Thank you, Mr. Banner. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at ten.” She turned and disappeared into the bedchamber. The heavy carved-oak doors banged shut.
Small and fine-boned as she was, she may have misjudged the weight necessary to close them. But Joe didn’t think so.
Frowning, he turned away, keenly aware that her delicate floral perfume seemed to follow him down the stairs.