Doubt That the Stars Are Fire
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PROLOGUE
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The lovely blonde woman stood by the window, a letter in her hand. She had read it a dozen times and was about to make it a dozen and one. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something about the perfectly penned words that bothered her.
Spreading the folds of her elegant lavender silk dress wide, she sat on the window seat that filled the southern end of the vast drawing room in her four story brick home and read it again. Paying close attention, she perused the carefully written lines. She had received dozens of letters from this man over the years, all filled with news and fairly dripping with affection. She smiled at the intensity of pride she detected when the man spoke of the diversified interests he had – the lumber industry, silver mines, cattle breeding and horses. Earlier this year she had cried with him when a cherished family member died, and laughed at the antics of the young red-headed boy who could never take the missing loved one's place, but whose earnest presence had filled the void it left just a little bit nonetheless. The letters were among her most cherished possessions. She knew this man as well as she knew herself. He was no liar.
But he wasn't telling her the truth.
The young woman stared at the two page letter in her hand and then laid it aside on the cherry table that butted up against the wall. Rising, she crossed to the rosewood secretary. Using the key she wore around her neck, she unlocked it and lowered the drop-front. The rest of the man's letters were archived there, kept in a small cedar box, including those of the last six months – the ones that had been nearly impossible to read. They spoke in guarded terms of the descent into darkness of the one she loved. Lifting the lid, she placed her fingers on the top one. She hadn't exactly hidden them. Still, she had been afraid Mary would find them, or Michael.
The woman choked. Her breath came in quick little gasps. Dear Michael...she had loved him with all of her heart.
No.
That was a lie.
Not with all of her heart.
There was a part of it she had never given him. He'd known and yet he had loved her anyway – had married her anyway. She owed him everything. If not for Michael, her family would have been destitute, lost after her father's sudden illness. It was all her ma could do to care for him and it seemed, for a time that her little brother and sister would be forced into menial labor, or even worse, end up on the street. Michael had been a good husband and a wonderful provider. They'd met when she came to his house to deliver the dresses she had fashioned for his youngest sister, Martha. Michael had been in his early forties. He'd opened the door and smiled at her, and she had been taken at once with his dark brown, almost black hair, that was shot through with silver and his wide green eyes. She'd made several trips to deliver the goods and on the last one, he had asked her to stay to dinner. In spite of his family's objections, he'd continued to see her and had, a month later, asked her to marry him. When she hesitated, Michael had taken her hand in his and told her that he knew – he knew there was someone else. Did she love him? 'Yes', she had said. Then he asked, 'Can you be with him?'
No.
She told him then about her family, about her father who suffered from apoplexy, and about her hard-working mother. About her dear little brother and sister. About...
Him.
Michael had listened intently. He'd released her hand and touched her face. He'd offered then to care for her family and for her and to never ask questions if she would promise to remain faithful to him.
And she had.
Until he had died.
With trembling fingers the young woman inserted the key into the desk's central compartment keyhole and turned it. This opened an inner hidden door in the secretary. She turned the key upside-down and inserted it again, repeating the motion. There was a click and the sound of gears moving, and then the bottom of the compartment fell away to reveal a secret chamber below. The blonde's smile was wistful. The desk had been a present from her husband. Michael told her he valued her secrets and this was his way of showing his faith that neither they nor she would do anything to part them.
Quickly, she drew the stack of letters out of the recessed chamber. This stack was bound with an ancient ribbon adorned with a small tarnished ring fashioned out of silver paper. She sighed as she tucked a lock of honey-blonde hair behind her ear and then slipped her finger into it. This was that missing part of her heart, these missives she had received and cherished for eight long years. The oldest were faded . The newest darkened with her tears. With a sigh, she slipped her finger back out of the ring and untied the ribbon. Selecting the letter on top, she returned to the window and unfolded the sheet. It was the last one she had received from him. The words stabbed her like a knife. First of all as a woman and, secondly, as a friend. How had he survived, this man she knew so well – this man who loved so deeply and was wounded so easily?
Had he survived?
Looking at the letter she'd left on the table, written by another who loved him, she began to doubt it. They were hiding something from her. Both men. One out of love, and the other, she feared, out of false pride – or if not pride, then something worse.
Fear.
The sound of someone clearing their throat brought her out of her reverie.
Mary stood in the open doorway. Her husband's eldest sister was old enough to be her mother. She was a hard woman with dull dishwater blond hair that she kept tightly knotted at the back of her neck. Mary hadn't approved of their marriage.
Just as she didn't approve of her.
"Yes?" the young woman asked.
"Rafe is here. He's wondering if you're still determined to go?"
Raphael Ashton was her husband's younger brother. Though Michael's will had left everything that was his to her, there were business holdings, accounts, and other things still connected to their late father's shipping business that had passed to Rafe. It made them partners in a way. Rafe had made it very clear that he disapproved of her travel plans.
"Yes," she replied at last. "I am determined to go. Please remind Rafe that he has no say whatsoever over what I choose to do or where I choose to go. I am using Michael's money, not the family's, and as you know I need consult no one about what I do with it."
Mary's sour face told her what she thought of that.
Her sister-in-law's pale eyes moved past her to the open compartment in the desk and the stack of letters resting there. She had been foolish not to close it the moment she realized someone had come.
"I suppose those are from him," Mary sniffed.
The young woman's jaw set in defiance. "Yes. He is my friend. Is there anything wrong with keeping a friend's letters?"
"Nothing, if the man is only a friend." Mary's pale eyes narrowed. "I warned Michael about you. About marrying damaged goods."
They'd been over this before – so many times it was no longer worth the effort to argue. "If that's what you think."
"It's what I know. You forget. I watched with him at the wedding. I warned Michael it was him you loved. Why my brother wouldn't listen – "
She rounded on the other woman. "He knew! Don't you understand, Michael knew!"
It was why she had finally agreed to marry him. Michael knew she loved another man and didn't care. All the younger men had cared. They'd wanted every fiber of her being and she simply couldn't give it. Michael understood that a piece of her heart remained on that thousand acre ranch in Nevada.
Looking at Mary, she wondered how two siblings could be less alike.
The older woman straightened her sober black skirts and stiffened her back. "Well, if that is true, it is a sad thing. You used my brother. You are no better than a strumpet."
With that, Mary left the room.
The young woman began to shake. The letter fell from her fingers. She followed it quickly to the floor. Placing her head in her hands, she began to sob. How had she come to this? How? How had she gone from that joyful child who loved life to a woman who only wished it would end?
The blonde woman's eyes returned to the letter on the table. She'd sensed in the older man's words a desperate cry. The man she loved needed her as much as she needed him. She didn't how she knew, but she did. As she knew she had to go.
She had to return to the Ponderosa.
It took all of the blonde woman's strength to rise and return to the secretary. She replaced the letters in the secret compartment, turned the key, activated the inner mechanism, and hid them once more from prying eyes. Then she went to the table and picked up Ben Cartwright's letter and read the last paragraph again.
You asked and I can tell you Joseph is well. He continues to work with the horses and that has brought him peace as regards his loss. He had a run in with an outlaw a short time ago, but it was nothing serious. A broken arm, nothing more. Joseph says to tell you hello and that he will write soon. He apologizes for the lack of letters this last few months. His hands had to heal after the fire. That and the break prevented him from writing. He says to tell you there is nothing to worry about.
He is fine.
Fine.
Well, she was fine too.
Bella Carnaby Ashton laughed and the sound was bitter.
She should have been a Cartwright after all.