Her Montana Man

Chapter Five

Eliza trembled with alarming fury and raging fright.

She dropped the cigar box. It landed on the wooden floor with a muffled thud. She stared at the rafters above her head, riding a torrent of fear and panic and regret.

Everything. She’d lost everything. What would she do now? She couldn’t stay here. Couldn’t live with Royce’s constant threats and manipulation. She couldn’t bow to his control.

She couldn’t marry him, God help her. She wouldn’t.

Several minutes passed while she pondered her predicament. She owned plenty of assets, including stock in the bank and a portion of the brick company, but she didn’t have a nickel she could lay her hands on today or next week or even next month, not without exposing her plan.

How had Royce known about the money? Had he spied on her? Did he search the attic and other rooms on a regular basis? The magnitude of his uncanny power sickened her. Making her way down the narrow stairs and along the hall, she didn’t encounter him. She entered her room and washed her face and hands in the tepid water left over from morning. With disgust, she glanced around, imagining him going through her belongings. When did he have time? She was only gone from the house an hour a day.

But he always knew which hour.

After brushing out her hair and collecting it in a fresh chignon, she dabbed glycerin on her hands and face and studied herself in the oval mirror over her washstand. A flush of indignant anger had replaced her pallor and the mounting feelings prompted her to take action.

She wasn’t giving up yet.

In his room, Tyler still slept soundly. She tucked the covers around his shoulders and descended the stairs to where townspeople still milled, unaware of the drama being played out behind the scenes in the Sutherland home.

“Nora,” she said, finding the woman in the dining room, sponging potato salad from the oval Persian rug.

“Put that down and come with me.”

Nora handed the sponge and a dish towel to Marian and took the hand Eliza extended.

“Please,” Eliza said brightly, leading her toward the wide, open entryway. “I’d like all of you to hear what I have to say.” Most of the guests in the parlor and the dining room could hear her from there. The crowd quieted in expectation.

“First I’d like to thank everyone for coming today, and for your prayers and the flowers and food. All of you who knew Jenny Lee know how much she enjoyed being around her friends and family. You were all special to her.

“There are several people who have been especially kind and have given so much of themselves over the years. I’d like to take a minute to thank them.” She smoothed her skirt nervously, but pressed on. “Most of you remember Dr. Black. He was a godsend to the Sutherlands. I still miss him as I’m sure many of you do.”

Neighbors nodded in agreement.

Her gaze found Jonas standing beside George Atwell. Jonas nodded in recognition.

“More recently,” she continued, “over the past couple of years, Dr. McKee was Jenny’s doctor. She trusted him, and he did all he could to make her more comfortable. Dr. McKee, you have a kind heart.”

Hands in pockets, Kerwin McKee looked at his shoes. The man next to him nudged his shoulder.

“I’d like you to have my father’s desk set,” Eliza told him. “It’s carved teakwood and there’s a humidor and some other pieces that can sit on your office desk.”

“No call for that, Miss Eliza Jane,” the doctor said.

“No argument. Jenny would want you to have it,” Eliza told him. “So do I.”

Continuing, Eliza turned to her friend. “You all probably know what a godsend Nora has been to my family. She was always here for my mother. She helped Jenny and me through our father’s illness. I couldn’t have made it through without her. There’s no way to say thank you for such selflessness.”

Tears welled up in Nora’s eyes. Her husband came and stood beside her and put his arm around her waist. “Your mama was my dearest friend,” she said with a sniffle, and took a hankie from her pocket to dab her nose. “She would have been so proud of you.”

Eliza ignored the emotions that tried to undermine her purpose. She had to save herself and Tyler, and she was going to do it right. “I have a little something for you, too, Nora. Just so you know how much you are loved by the Sutherlands.”

Eliza walked several feet into the hallway, and a few people moved aside to make way for her. She reached up and took the Horace Vernet painting from where it hung on a cord from the crown molding and carried it to Nora. “You always admired this. We want you to have it.”

The observers murmured and a few whispered.

Nora looked at Eliza with surprise, but genuine pleasure touched her wary features. “What a generous gift!” she said with a tearful smile. “I never dreamed to own something so lovely.”

“Well, it’s yours.” Eliza glanced at the nearby faces, seeing smiles and a few tears. Her gaze moved unerringly until she found Royce standing stiffly near the dining room doorway. He wore a fierce scowl, and his neck was brick-red against the white collar of his starched shirt. She remembered his hand at her throat and his smug pleasure at robbing her. She could still do something to save herself.

“Since rumors spread so quickly,” she said, deliberately allowing her gaze to linger on her brother-in-law for a moment before looking away. “I’d like all of you to hear this firsthand. Tyler and I will be going to stay at the hotel temporarily. My sister is no longer here, and Nora won’t be at the house daily. It would be inappropriate for my brother-in-law and I to live under the same roof without a chaperone.

“I don’t wish to burden my brother-in-law with domestic concerns, so Tyler will attend school as usual and I will care for him as always.

“We haven’t had time to make any definite plans or sort things out, and…Well, the truth is, I need some time away from this place where all my memories are so fresh.” Eliza didn’t have to fake the tremor of emotion that wavered in her voice.

“Of course you do, dear,” Miss Fletcher said. “You’ll have plenty of time to decide what to do after the two of you have observed a mourning period.”

Eliza nodded, and with quiet words of encouragement, the other guests agreed.

Edward Phillips, the banker, turned to Royce and laid a hand on his shoulder. Royce drew his ominous stare from Eliza, and Luther Vernon blocked her view.

She had never been sure what position Luther held to earn his place on Sutherland Brick’s payroll. He never dressed like a factory worker and most often accompanied Royce. But all of her questions about the operations of the business had been met with contemptuous instructions to stay out of Royce’s way.

She’d won this hand. She’d bought herself a couple of months at the most. Royce couldn’t defy her public decision to observe propriety, but he would be biding his time until the allotted weeks of mourning had passed. And then he would play his trump card. By then Eliza needed to have a better plan. There was still time to set aside some cash for train fare and travel—if she could get a job.

There was one person she could ask to help her find a job and keep it a secret from Royce. Her gaze sought and found him. He appeared to be listening to Reverend Miller, but his awareness was focused on her.

She was placing her last hope on Jonas Black.

Jonas paused in the hallway. A torrent of complaints, punctuated by the clattering of pots and pans, streamed from the kitchen at the back of the hotel on the ground floor.

“Told ya she’s been howlin’ like that for half an hour,” Quay told him. “Phoebe came and got me, but I barely got m’ head inside the door afore she started throwing skillets.”

Jonas glanced at the massive door, wishing he could just leave until the storm passed. He had to be the one to assuage Lilibelle’s temper however. “I’ve got this. You go check in the delivery that’s pulling up in the alley.”

“Thanks, boss.” Quay lit out before Jonas could say another word.

Jonas glanced at his pocket watch, relieved that breakfast guests were well on their way for the day and there were no guests in the foyer or dining room. He strode along the polished oak floors until he reached the kitchen door. After only a momentary pause, he pushed it open.

“What’s all the racket about, Lily? You’ve sent the girls runnin’ for cover. Is it your intent to chase off the kitchen help?”

“It’s my intent to prepare salmon steaks with mustard sauce for supper this evening, but I can’t make salmon steaks if I don’t have salmon!” Lilibelle gestured wildly with the wooden spoon she held. The starched white apron that covered her ample bosom and rounded belly drew attention to the fact that not only was she twice the size of any other person who worked in the kitchen, but twice as clean. Lilibelle Grimshaw cooked for the hotel dining room, and she was a stickler for setting and following rules, and that included menu plans.

“I do see your dilemma,” Jonas said with all seriousness. “That would be the recipe with parsley and butter I like so well?”

“The very one!” She struck the spoon against the cast-iron stove and it shot out of her hold to flip in the air and clatter on the smooth oak floor. “The train’s come and gone and Pool tells me they didn’t bring the salmon. I sent him off to the telegraph office with a piece of my mind.”

“Well, the supplier deserves that, if not worse for disappointin’ you.” Jonas walked around the long worktable that separated him from the cook and stooped to pick up a kettle, then glanced at the open back door and the crates outside. “What did they deliver?”

“Duck!” she shouted and slammed a skillet on the worktable.

“I guess duck is a lot more difficult to prepare than salmon,” he said, as though wondering.

“Duck needs to be roasted slowly,” she replied, then turned to pick up a white towel and dab her red face with the damp corners.

“How do you make that sauce that goes on it?”

“With grated orange peel and wine, a little Worcestershire and cayenne. It’s not all that tough.”

“That’s sounding awfully tasty to be truthful. And your rice always turns out just right.”

She picked up the wooden spoon from the floor with a grunt and mumbled.

“I’m thinking duck would be a good choice for this evenin’,” he told her. “You can make salmon once that incompetent warehouse puts your order together correctly. I’ll handle that myself.”

“They should reduce the cost for the inconvenience,” she said with a haughty flick of her pudgy fingers.

“I’ll see that they do.”

“Get on about your day then, and let me get to work on dinner,” she told him. “Where are those silly girls who are supposed to be peeling apples?”

“I do believe you scared ’em all away, Lily. Remember some of these girls have been boxed around a mite. They take to cover when tempers flare and things start flyin’.” He fixed her with a square look.

She acquiesced to his wisdom with a quick nod and a grimace. “If you see the shrinking violets out there, tell ’em I’m not going to bite their heads off,” she replied.

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