Chapter One

The newly fallen snow that had coated the ground in glistening white when she’d boarded the train this morning had all disappeared. Although the distance between Tarrytown and the heart of New York City was only twenty-five miles, the small town and big city were worlds apart. They both had their assets and liabilities, their benefits and disadvantages, their beauties and ugliness.

Out of the windows on one side of the train, the Hudson River flowed, rippling in some areas, and catching the bright early-March sunshine. Along the other side of the train were towns and cities, showcasing ever-changing scenery of well-mannered homes and businesses, as well as factories puffing black smoke into the air and shantytowns where workers of those factories lived in a squalor that was inconceivable to those who had never noticed them. It wasn’t so much a case of not noticing them as it was a choice to ignore them.

That was her opinion, and Victoria Biggs had plenty of opinions. On all sorts of topics and, try as they might, other people’s justifications or arguments rarely made her change her mind. Stubborn was what her mother called her, and set in her ways. Two things that her mother claimed were the reason she was a bridesmaid and not a bride.

Victoria disagreed.

She was a bridesmaid because her dearest friend was getting married. Audrey Dryer had been her best friend all through finishing school, and the two of them hadn’t let a mere thirty miles diminish that friendship since their school years had ended. Even though the ride between their homes often consumed over three hours due to the trains stopping numerous times at small depots along the way, they managed to see each other often.

As far as not being a bride, Victoria knew that hadn’t happened because she hadn’t met a man who’d made her want to enter the life-altering bonds of marriage, despite her mother’s and grandfather’s ardent efforts. That may have already happened if she wasn’t so set in her ways, and if her life was different.

If her family lived within one of the neighborhoods of the city, most notably, Manhattan, where Audrey’s family lived, her family would be accepted into the blue bloods’ society, but Tarrytown was just far enough away for them to be considered outsiders, despite the size of their bank accounts and the charities her family supported.

That wasn’t completely true. Living in the right neighborhood wouldn’t have given them an entrance into the most upper class. There were too many variables, all of which mattered to society. Old money, generations of it, decided the hierarchy of society. Though her grandfather, Emmet Biggs, was a rich man, his funds weren’t from old money. He’d acquired his wealth, which he generously shared with her, her mother, her younger sister, and several charities, during the gold rush in the Rocky Mountains.

As a young man, he’d headed west with little more than the clothes on his back, where he’d not only found gold, enough to amass a fortune, but also the love of his life. Her grandmother had been a saloon gal, who had married her grandfather before he’d struck it rich. They’d raised a son in the wilds of Colorado, who also met the love of his life. Victoria knew the story well. Her mother had been a farmer’s daughter. Her father hadn’t cared. He’d loved her mother, and her mother had loved him with all her heart.

Both she and her younger sister, Eva, had been born in Colorado, lived their earliest years in a large white house where the booming of the stamp mill crushing rocks was so familiar that the only time they had noticed the sound was when it had stopped. After a brutal winter when tragedy had struck, taking the lives of both her father and grandmother due to pneumonia two months apart, and then her baby brother had died upon birth, her grandfather had packed up her mother, her, and her sister, and hauled them back East. To Tarrytown, close enough to New York City for them to have access to the assets and benefits of the city, but far enough away that they didn’t have to witness the disadvantages and ugliness.

She understood that her family’s history was different from the gentry’s, who lived and breathed their own sets of rules and regulations, which in many ways limited her sources of finding a man she’d consider marrying. However, the main limiting factor was herself. The only man she would ever marry would be the love of her life, and she would have to be the love of his life, too.

That’s what her grandparents had had, and what her parents had had, and she wanted no less.

None of the suitors who’d knocked on her door had come close to meeting her expectations, and despite what she was told, she would not lower those expectations. She’d rather be an old maid.

An old maid who loved mysteries. Loved solving crimes. She always knew the culprit in a book before it was revealed.

She glanced at the paper-wrapped picture frame sitting on the seat between her and the window. That picture held proof that her suitors had only been interested in courting her because of her grandfather’s money. A fresh bout of anger rose up inside her, and she slowly breathed through it, telling herself to keep her reaction to what had happened under control. Elwood Kelley would be punished for his actions. This was a real-life mystery that she already knew the answer to, but needed a bit of help to prove it.

Elwood had no idea that the timing of his thievery had been completely inept. She’d already planned on traveling to Manhattan and staying the next month with Audrey, helping her friend prepare for her wedding next month. An April wedding was the wish of every society bride. By May, families were prepping to move to their country homes for the summer, and once they returned in the fall, winter holiday parties quickly got in the way of weddings. Leastwise, those were the justifications she’d heard about the goal of having a spring wedding. In her opinion, if two people loved each other what month they wed held very little importance.

The clanging of a bell announced the train was approaching the Grand Central Depot, and Victoria allowed her smile to hold a hint of conceit. Elwood had no idea that during her stay in Manhattan wedding preparations weren’t the only thing she’d be doing. She would be acquiring the services of Audrey’s father, a very well-known lawyer, to assist her in seeing that Elwood paid his dues for his thievery.

It wasn’t just herself that she was concerned about when it came to men after nothing but money. She had her younger sister, Eva, to consider. By the time Eva was of age to marry, men would know that they couldn’t pull one over on the Biggs sisters.

Her smile was still on her lips a few moments later, when she stepped off the train and onto the platform of the elaborate train shed that protected passengers from the weather upon their arrival at the station. The overhead trussed roof arched high above the platform that led to three separate waiting rooms and the depot itself. The decorative glass and metal windows and doors were just a glimpse of the overall grandeur of the depot. No costs had been spared by Cornelius Vanderbilt in building the station to show the world who was at the top of the ladder when it came to the railroad and steamboat industries.

The depot was lovely, but in her opinion, it was a glaring reminder of how, above all else, the elite valued a man’s wealth, power, and status. In her opinion, character, honesty, and respectability were often overlooked in comparison to a man’s wallet, and that didn’t impress her in the least.

Holding on to the paper-wrapped picture, she attempted to see beyond the crowd, looking for Audrey, or perhaps Mr. Carson, their driver. He’d picked her up at the station on some of her previous visits.

“Would you like me to carry that for you, Miss Biggs?”

She twisted at the sound of her name and nearly dropped the picture. How had she missed seeing Lincoln Dryer amongst the crowd? Tall, and quite handsome, for years he’d made something go soft inside her. She’d always credited that to him being Audrey’s older brother. Tightening her hold on the somewhat awkward and not overly small—large, in fact—parcel, she found her voice. “Mr. Dryer. I expected Audrey or perhaps Mr. Carson.”

“I’m sure you did,” Lincoln said. “My sister had an appointment with the dressmaker this morning, and William—Mr. Carson, is overseeing your luggage being loaded into the carriage. Would you like me to carry that for you?”

His repeated question didn’t faze her as much as he did. She hadn’t seen Lincoln in several months. During her last visit, he’d been out of town, and it appeared as if she’d forgotten his extraordinary handsomeness. It wasn’t just his face, with shimmering brown eyes and thick brows, straight nose, and firmly curved chin. His sandy-colored hair added to his good looks, as did his wide neck and broad shoulders, and…Well, simply all of him. Blinking, just to change the focus of her vision, she replied, “No, thank you. I’ll carry it.”

Someone rushing by jostled her and Lincoln caught her elbow. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Clutching the paper-wrapped picture tighter, she hoisted it up a bit, flinching slightly as the top of it hit her beneath the chin.

He gave her an incredulous look, somewhere between a frown of confusion and a grimace of disgust. Along with a smile. It was a plastered-on smile. She knew. Hers was, too. A picture of this size was a bit odd for someone to be carrying around.

“I don’t want the glass to get smudged,” she said. That was the ultimate truth. She’d even placed a thin board over the glass, so the paper wouldn’t touch it.

His nod could have been confirmation in his own mind that she was as mad as a March hare, which is what her grandfather was known to call people at times.

“I brought it along to have it cleaned,” she said, using the same excuse that she’d used at home when leaving with the picture. “It’s a framed picture that my grandfather adores.”

There was barely a change in his expression. “Very well.” He gestured towards the doorway. “Shall we?”

“Yes, and thank you for meeting me. It wasn’t necessary.”

“Mother believed you’d have several pieces of luggage due to the length of your stay,” he said.

“Oh, yes, well, that is true.” Usually, she only had one or two pieces, but that had always been for much shorter stays.

Other passengers hurried around them, as if they were in a rush to get a list of things accomplished today and didn’t have time to dally. The city was like that. Everyone was always in a hurry and she believed they must all fall into bed completely exhausted by the efforts it had taken them to keep up with the pace around them all day.

“I hope the train ride was satisfactory,” Lincoln said when they exited the depot and the hustle and bustle surrounding them eased as people dispersed in all directions.

Accepting his attempt at small talk, she replied with her own, “Oh, yes. It was fine, thank you. We had a fresh inch or more of snow this morning.”

“We had about an inch, too,” he said. “This time of year it doesn’t last long.”

The herringbone pattern of the bricks that made up the street didn’t show a hint of snow, nor of water from melting snow. Whatever may have been there had disappeared beneath the feet of moving people.

“The carriage is right over here,” Lincoln said, once again touching her elbow. “William will be along shortly with your luggage.”

At the black carriage, he looked at her paper-wrapped parcel again. “Would you like me to hold that while you climb in?”

Keeping the glass from being smudged was still her greatest concern. A single smudge would spoil her chances of proving it was Elwood who’d stolen from her grandfather. “I’ll just set it on the seat,” she said, leaning into the carriage and doing just that. Then she stepped up on the single footstep and climbed in the carriage as he held her elbow. The carriage had a fringed canopied top with two seats both facing forward, one for passengers and one for the driver. Behind the back seat was a square boxed area for cargo. She picked up the picture and sat down, holding it on her lap.

Noticing her dress, she used one hand to tuck the powder blue material behind her knee, giving Lincoln space to sit.

*

The smile on Lincoln Dryer’s face grew even more painful as he held it in place while climbing into the carriage. He’d tried his best to get out of this errand, to no avail. His mother’s insistence had won out. She’d been correct, it wouldn’t have been proper to have Victoria waiting alone in the carriage while William collected her luggage, and sending a second servant wouldn’t have been the proper way to welcome a guest, either.

Normally, such a small request wouldn’t have bothered him. He simply knew what his mother was up to, and wasn’t going to stand for it. Now that Audrey’s wedding was only a month away, his mother’s attention had already moved onto the next family wedding.

His.

That was not going to happen. Perhaps someday, but right now he had his own goals and ambitions to see to. Things no one else knew about, yet.

However, besides that, it wasn’t just himself he was considering. His mother’s attentions were also focused on Victoria. Though he knew her, as she had been Audrey’s friend for years, he didn’t appreciate his mother trying to force that into becoming more than it could ever develop into being.

Twisting his shoulders, he tried not to crowd Victoria as he settled onto the seat.

There wasn’t much room in the carriage to begin with, and her holding that huge paper-wrapped picture made the quarters tighter. Who hauled a picture on a three-hour train ride so it can be cleaned? Wasn’t that something a servant could do? They did at his house. Maybe that was why. Audrey could have said that Mrs. Owens, their housekeeper, could clean it. Mrs. Owens was a marvel at many things. Their house ran with every cog oiled because of her.

He’d known Victoria for several years, because of Audrey. Besides visiting each other at their homes a few times a year, the two women wrote letters back and forth weekly, long ones covering all sorts of topics including birthdays, illnesses, and gossip of the latest scandals. His sister loved sharing Victoria’s thoughts on all the subjects they wrote about with the rest of the family, and had been counting down the days until Victoria’s arrival. Audrey had been shocked that their mother had scheduled an appointment with the dressmaker for this morning.

Lincoln hadn’t been shocked.

His mother had claimed that Victoria was practically family, and had previously hinted that it would be wonderful if she truly became a part of their family. He’d never taken the bait and wouldn’t now. Although, Victoria was pretty, and he couldn’t remember another time when she’d acted odd—as in carrying around a three-foot-by-two-foot paper-wrapped picture— but he had things to do before marriage was something he’d contemplate.

Considering she would be at his house for the next month, and he knew his mother would be plying her matchmaking upon Victoria as much as she was him, Lincoln figured this was the opportune time for him to set things straight. “How is your family?” He’d never met her family, but via Audrey’s enthusiasm in sharing Victoria’s letters, it felt as if he knew them.

“They are all fine,” she answered. “They’ll be at the wedding.”

“I’m sure they’ll miss you this next month,” he said, trying to find a way to enter into the topic. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and that was making him somewhat tongue-tied, which was as odd as the picture on her lap.

“My sister will be home on break for two weeks starting next week,” she said, “so they’ll be busy catching up on everything with her. She hasn’t been home since the holidays.”

He nodded, and glanced over his shoulder, towards the station, looking for William, who had yet to appear.

“How are things at your law firm?” she asked. “Audrey says you’ll be made partner soon.”

Because his family had his life all planned out for him, his father had been ready to make him a partner as soon as he’d passed the bar exam. He had other plans, his own plan, and had suggested they wait a few years. For as long as he could remember, he’d been going to work with his father and studying law. He enjoyed practicing it, but really wanted to enforce laws on a larger scale. Laws already in place that would benefit people, all people, not just those with enough money to pay lawmakers to do biddings on their behalf. There was too much of that happening, and it was getting worse, not better. It may take a few years, but he would run for office. State attorney general was his goal, and he wouldn’t let anything get in the way of that.

He twisted his neck enough to study her profile, wondering if he should tell her that. She truly was a lovely woman. The mass of her auburn hair was pinned up and the crown of her head was covered by a nonobtrusive blue hat, the same shade of blue as her dress, with just enough white lace to make it look nice. The same could be said of her dress. It was a simple, almost delicate gown, with only small amounts of lace here and there, not some sort of dressmaker’s masterpiece that was so full of lace, ribbons, feathers, ruffles, and other whatnots that it was nearly impossible to know if there was a person inside the material or not.

He’d heard his mother tell Audrey a time or two how a dress made her look pretty, and he always thought that peculiar. In his mind, it should be the other way around, that the woman should make the dress look pretty. That a dress should fit her in a way that her beauty shone through, not the dress’s.

However, he was of the opposite sex, so clearly didn’t understand women’s fashion. He merely noticed Victoria’s style. It had been impossible to miss her stepping off the train. Not even the huge package she’d carried distracted from her natural beauty. Besides an overall gracefulness, her eyes were so blue they stood out from her dark brows, lashes, and hair. Her mouth stood out too, because her lips curled up slightly, appearing to be in a perpetual, natural smile.

She twisted her neck, looked at him.

He sucked in a breath at being caught staring at her, but didn’t look away. He had to get this over with. “I believe we should get something straight right from the start.”

Her dark brows drew together in a frown.

“I’m not interested in marriage and there is no reason for you to think, or hope, otherwise.” That sounded harsher than he’d intended, and had caused something inside him to flinch.

Her eyes grew round and her mouth formed an O shape, then closed and formed another O shape, before she shook her head and asked, “What?”

He hadn’t meant to shock her, just wanted her to know and accept the truth. “My mother has been attempting to arrange a marriage for years without success. It’s not going to succeed this time, either.”

Shaking her head, she opened her mouth, but before words came out, she glanced over his shoulder and closed her mouth.

“Forgive the delay,” William said, climbing up into the carriage’s driver’s seat. He turned about and tipped the brim of his black wool hat at her. “Miss Biggs, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

The carriage jostled as two trunks were loaded into the box behind the seat by two men, as she replied, “It’s wonderful to see you, too, Mr. Carson. I apologize for having so much luggage this trip.”

“No inconvenience at all, miss,” William said. “I do believe we found all of it.”

Lincoln witnessed two more trunks and then two tapestry bags being loaded before asking, “Is that everything?”

She twisted and, after scanning the luggage, nodded.

He tuned and gestured to William to proceed into navigating their way through the traffic surrounding the station.

As the carriage rolled out of the station, onto Fourth Avenue, under her breath, she asked, “What’s not going to succeed?”

“My mother’s matchmaking,” he said just as quietly.

She gasped. “Audrey and Jake—”

“Not them. Me,” he whispered. “I’m not marrying you.”

“Me? You!”

“My mother has tried her best to…” He paused, because she had covered her mouth with one hand a moment ago, but now he realized that had been to cover laughter, which had become too strong to contain behind her hand.

“Me and you?” She laughed harder.

He wouldn’t call it a rejection, yet couldn’t deny the smart that stung him in the chest vicinity. “You may think it’s funny, but I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t,” he whispered, not wanting William to hear. “We are going to be thrown together for the next month and I don’t want any disillusions to be formed during that time.”

“Disillusions?” She shook her head and her eyes narrowed as she glared at him while whispering, “The only disillusions are in your head. I am not here to find a husband. In fact, I’m here to get away from the array of men knocking on my door, thinking I will fall at their feet. A desperate maiden, well on her way to becoming an old maid who needs a husband so badly that she’ll forget the good sense she was born with. I haven’t forgotten my good sense, nor will I.”

“I never said—”

“You didn’t have to,” she interrupted. “The implication was utterly clear.”

This was turning out to be more awkward than he’d imagined. He hadn’t meant to insult her, or imply she was desperate for a husband. He just knew his mother. “I simply wanted you to be prepared for my mother’s efforts.”

“Prepared?” She shook her head. “I am fully prepared to help my friend with her wedding and nothing more, including disillusions about you or anyone or anything else!”

He could try to dissolve the misunderstanding that had clearly occurred. The lawyer in him could argue the strongest and weakest points. Why hadn’t he started out that way? It was like his brain hadn’t engaged and the words had just started flowing. The wrong words. Or words in the wrong order.

He drew in a deep breath and tried to find them now, the right words and order, but all he was able to conclude was that the tension filling the air could make the two-and-a-half-mile trek to his house the longest one on record.

Copyright © 2024 by Lauri Robinson