William didn't want to let Lizabeth go while he gazed down at her. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a dark wave, and he watched a strand fall first against her cheek before it obscured an eye. She stared at him with a seductive gaze. He thought of taking her off to bed again. But they hadn't talked yet.
"Did you decide on a place?" William asked instead.
"Yes, there's a Mexican place close by," she answered with a small smile twisting her mouth before her features relaxed. She looked nervous. He wasn't sure if it was the newness of being with a man or if it had something to do with him. William knew that she came with expectations, and he wondered how he was doing?
The restaurant turned out to be a mom and pop sort of place; the food wasn't the best but wasn't a bottom-feeder chain either. Lizabeth indicated that she came there often since it was close; she had favorite dishes as she barely glanced at the menu.
"Aunt Catherine is over-the-top upset. I had hoped to be able to tell her about the council's decision, console her, and still make it to the office for lunch with you. But obviously, that didn't happen. She's the sort who shoots the messenger even though she didn't go to the city council meeting in the first place and doesn't appreciate how much work I put into this project for her. Or how much work I am not putting into my own," he mused, looking across the small table at her.
"I'm sorry," she answered.
"Thankfully, she's not a fainter or one for hysterics," he continued. "She always talks about having the constitution of an ox, which I don't believe since both my mother and uncle died young." Lizabeth had been reaching for her glass of water, but her hand stilled. "Don't be too concerned if I am a little flippant right now about my family. My uncle died of a heart attack. My mother, the same. But both had other reasons that compounded their deaths."
"You don't often hear of women having heart trouble," she said. Her hand settled back in her lap without picking up the glass.
William wasn't sure that he wanted to bring up his mother or give too much of his family history. "Catherine attacked me for not being aggressive enough with the city council. But as I warned, they preferred putting all of their focus on the Goulding property. Their developers have better backers, it's in a more traditional area of town, and they decided not to focus on vanity lots, but standard-sized residential lots instead. I have to agree with them on most points. Trouble is, it leaves my aunt with a huge tract of land she can't sell and potentially without any money to live on."
"What will she do?" Lizabeth asked. Her shoulders moved gently. William thought she was fidgeting with her hands beneath the table as she listened.
"I don't know. I had hoped that Anne would step up to help her. When I could finally get away from my aunt, I went to find her, but she was out until mid-afternoon." He stopped talking while their food was served.
When the waitress left, Lizabeth prompted him, "did you have a good talk with your cousin?"
He stared at her as he considered Anne Deburg and their conversation. His cousin had been entirely unmoved by her mother's fate. But did he want to share that with Lizabeth? Anne was often a cold and logical person in the way she saw and dealt with the world, but William had incorrectly assumed that she would be concerned about her mother.
"No, I didn't. She had been out having lunch with her friend, Georgiana Darling. They came back to the house together. Anne said that they have plans and didn't have time to speak to me." He noticed Lizabeth's attention spark a little when he mentioned Anne's friend but didn't ask any other questions.
There was a meal to eat, which made a break from the discussion. The subjects were getting difficult for him. It was early days in this relationship with Lizabeth; he didn't wish to share too much too soon. She had been clever enough to do that research the other night and uncover the fact that Dennis Wickham had fathered David Goulding (that David was the grandson, not the son of William Goulding). But then she had asked 'Do you know George at all? … Should I not have mentioned George?'
Those questions had made his gut such a tangled mess that William hadn't been sure that he could continue speaking to her. He had been amazed that he had been able to keep talking—and even managed to get off the phone.
But memories of a visit to his Uncle Lewis had assaulted him. It had come running back when he had buried it; William hadn't slept much that night. Lewis Deburg was the one person he had loved the most in his life. William had looked up to him and been mentored and loved in return. Dementia had taken his uncle, but before he drifted away, Lewis had shared that Anne was not his daughter. He knew that Catherine had cheated on him with the playboy, Dennis Wickham. It was the reason Ann-Louise divorced Dennis. But Anne Deburg and George Wickham were half-siblings.
But so too was David Goulding, it seemed. It was overwhelming to consider all of the implications. All of them families 'of note' in the Merton area. (As if that was important.) Dennis must have been a teenager when he fathered David back in the 1970s. William wondered if Dennis Wickham had even known about Debra Goulding's baby or if he had gone off to college ignorant of that fact? But Uncle Lewis said he knew that Anne was not his, but he loved her and didn't want anyone to know or worry or ever to challenge his will. Everything that he left must go to Anne. (Though Catherine had been good at wielding control over a lot of that inheritance.)
William was never sure if Anne knew who her real father was, but to abide by his uncle's wishes meant, to him, withholding the origin of her birth. But he, who had always longed for a sibling, had often wondered whether she would benefit from knowing she had a half-brother in George Wickham, who was an innocuous rascal, a younger brother by a few years. But now there was this news of a much older brother, a decade or more older. William had spent most of the night wondering if he should tell Anne about her brothers, plural.
"You've gone quiet," Lizabeth commented before taking another bite.
"I had a writer quit in a huff. That is why I had to return to Los Angeles," he explained.
"Really?" she brightened as if ready to hear a story.
"Yes. Remember how I met you at the Griffith Observatory? We had a scene planned for our characters and shot it on the day the place was closed. But Caroline, who is far better with historical details than I am, realized that the observatory wasn't built until 1933, which falls outside of our timeframe, so we had to scrap the whole scene. It was a waste of time and money and resources." William sat back with a sigh.
"A quick search would have solved that right away," Lizabeth asserted.
"The writer insisted that we could still use the scene and called it creative license. He wouldn't budge, argued with Caroline, argued with me, and then quit. Then he decided he would sue us for all the work he had been doing on the project. It's been a crazy couple of days."
"Maybe you need a historian for your project?" she grinned and seemed to relax a little, taking another bite.
"If I continue to do historical dramas, I think I will," he agreed. William stared at her, thinking again how beautiful she was. He had never been so entranced with a woman, not in many years. Perhaps he could hire Lizabeth to come work for him? But that would be the wrong move, to hire a woman he was dating. "I hate to say this, but I need to return home tonight. And I don't know that I will be back this weekend. I've left too many pots boiling back home."
That spark across from him dimmed; it didn't blow out, just dimmed. William took that as a good sign. He needed to hit the road soon. Even though they had made love on Sunday before he had run off and last night, this week had been one of running on adrenaline and coffee and no sleep. He needed to get home at a decent hour; there would be no time to take her to bed before he left.
"I knew you were busy; I guess I just didn't realize how busy," she admitted.
"Does it bother you?" William asked.
"Yes." She was honest. "But I like you, and like seeing you. It goes with the package." Lizabeth was silent for a minute. "I could wish you were closer, but that is just…wishful. Like I said, part of the package."
He had to admire her stoicism, though given the small stories she had shared, the mother he had met, William wondered if retreating into stoicism wasn't natural behavior for her? If he wanted things to work out with her, he might need to try harder and do better or lose her to some more readily available man.
"You could always drive down some weekend to see me," he suggested as he put his utensils down. She looked at him almost as if a deer-in-a-headlight. The idea was deliberated on; he watched Lizabeth process it.
"I don't know that I have ever driven more than sixty miles in any one direction," she admitted. "Driving to LA by myself would be a first." William didn't say anything as she wasn't done. "But there has to be a first time for everything, right?"
"Right," he agreed.
"But I don't think this weekend. Cat and I," she flashed him a half-smile; her dimple showed. William lurched under the power of her smile as his insides turned in disappointment. Images of waking with Lizabeth in his bed at home had flashed in his brain.
"I will miss you," he said. She had gotten underneath his skin. Perhaps he wasn't paying as much attention to his work as he used to. Maybe working fourteen-hour days weren't as important, and no longer were the point. The waitress took away their plates and promptly brought their bill, and the two of them got up to leave.
"How is Charles?" Lizabeth asked as they got into the car.
"I haven't seen him since that time up here."
She laughed. "I had this idea that since you both live there, you run into each other every day."
"I suppose I should counter and ask you how Jane is?"
She gave an even heartier chuckle. "I think I've seen Jane once in the same timeframe. Jane isn't happy. I haven't been back to the hotel bar to talk to her, but I know she isn't happy."
"There you are; we're both in the dark as to what is happening between those two." Lizabeth explained her suppositions that Jane would never move south, no matter the job or the living arrangements, nor would Charles move north.
"There are no acting jobs up here," he agreed. "So it looks to be a relationship that is ill-fated." She nodded.
Once home, he packed up. Though she hovered, and William thought she was hinting gently that she would like him to stay, he explained again that he couldn't handle getting home at 3 a.m. after running on four or five hours of sleep for the past number of nights. She nodded.
"We'll make plans to be together as soon as our schedules allow," William said as they said goodbye by her front door, though they spent an excessive amount of time kissing first.
He was in bed by 2:30 a.m. and in the office by 8:00 a.m. It proved to be a day of phone calls and frustration, which melted into the weekend. Having to scrap the footage meant losing three weeks of production; there were so many decisions that needed to be made. He needed a new writer. He needed resolution about the disgruntled writer (with his lawsuit), and they needed to decide what to do about the story arc.
It was easy not to consider anything but work for the next week and a half. This was a pattern of behavior that was familiar, and it took will power to carve out time to call Lizabeth every evening to simply talk. Not that it was a duty or a penance. His day was so often a repeat of the same things, a busyness of going from one task to the other, a stream, that stopping the flow of activity was difficult, but stepping out to dry off, in a sense, proved a welcome distraction once he did step free of the work.
Every day, when they spoke, he heard the excitement in her voice, and it fed something inside of him. One which he recognized as the part of him which cared for his cousins even though the recognition he received from Anne and Ryan wasn't the same. Some days, the discussions between him and Lizabeth were long, some were short; it depended on his availability. He knew that was unfair—that their time was dictated entirely by his workload.
But Lizabeth indicated that she wasn't sitting around waiting for him to call. She mentioned going out with friends, mostly she went to the hotel bar. He mockingly scolded her about having not learned her lesson. She insisted she didn't go to drink. "I go to talk," was her reply. "Jane and Mary are there."
One day, she even shared that she had dinner with her friend Charlene and the boyfriend, but that things had been a little tense since they had returned from LA "It's like they had to go hibernate," was her take on it. "It wasn't anything to do with me, but everything to do with them. Like they just had to spend a bunch of time together to the exclusion of their friends. But spring is here now, and they're little ground creatures and can poke their heads back up again."
William said, "I've seen that with friends. Though once they come back into the light, the relationship often breaks up."
"Yeah. They seem to be happy together, but there's no meat to it. But I haven't felt left out," Lizabeth asserted. "Once they feel more secure with each other; then they can allow others back into their lives."
"That's pretty astute," he agreed. "I think you're right. Especially for people who maybe were a little less secure about their feelings."
"How would you characterize us?" she asked.
"I think we're too busy to have the luxury of hiding away from the world," he answered. He thought about that. It had been years since he had any time off. "I would love to go on some trip with you and hibernate, though."
"I don't get any vacation time," Lizabeth asserted. William wasn't sure what to make of that statement, and she didn't elaborate.
The issue with the rogue writer was ultimately settled, though a new one had yet to be hired. Nor had he and Caroline decided on what to do with the story arc. They sat working in their small office late in the week when something caused William to look over at Caro in their shared space. His partner had a concerned, concentrated look on her face, and he wondered what bothered her.
"How is the debauching going?" she quipped.
He had to smile slightly. "Is that a question, or are you just fishing?"
"A question," Caroline answered. "You've been working hard, and yet something's off. I've finally reasoned that you've done it and are seeing her."
"She came to Los Angeles at the end of last month, and we ran into each other," William explained.
Caroline arched a beautiful eyebrow. "I didn't think she was the sort to leave home. You don't suppose she would ever consider leaving that town, do you?"
"I believe Lizabeth is more adventurous and creative than others give her credit for or perceive her to be," he said. "She's great at research and has been helping with finding information for my aunt's property. If we had had Lizabeth on board, we would have saved Zach writing us into a corner with one quick search. She ferreted out all the real estate developers or businesses who have a hand in developing the property that the city approved, even though one of them is her ex. I've considered that we should hire her so we don't screw up our projects."
"You've never wanted to hire a girlfriend before." William couldn't tell from Caroline's tone what she was thinking.
"I've never had a girlfriend I've considered hiring before. Though I've dated my actresses," he rolled his eyes.
"I'm not sure you deserve Lizabeth; she's too decent." Caro definitely disapproved.
"What if she makes me a better person?" he asserted. His partner snorted. "Yet, you work with me."
"A working relationship is entirely different," she declared. Caroline looked away as she suddenly became thoughtful. "I did think she would film well. Maybe she could both work and act? We could introduce her as a minor character in Bella Montaña, see how well she can act. Maybe she could be Charles's love interest?"
"Possibly." William had considered how well Lizabeth would film before.
"But could you handle Charles with his hands and lips on your girlfriend?" Caro's tone again wasn't indicative of her underlying message. Was she teasing or being concerned?
Lizabeth had told him repeatedly that she had never driven more than one hundred miles away, so she was reluctant to come down to Los Angeles to see him. While he could drive up, there were still so many details he needed to handle that her coming down made more sense. She agreed to try but didn't want to drive at night. She decided to attempt driving first thing on a Saturday morning. It would be a short trip, with her just spending the night on Saturday before returning on Sunday afternoon.
But William looked forward to having her by his side and in his bed for the weekend. His house was never too cluttered as he didn't spend much time in it. On Thursday night, he couldn't concentrate on notes Caroline gave him and instead went around the place, cleaning it in anticipation of sharing his space.
But he was thinking again about the story arc, staring unproductively into space when his cell phone rang around Friday lunchtime. It was Lizabeth. "Hi! I am happy to have an excuse to stop and talk," he said.
"Hi." Her greeting sounded hesitant, and William immediately thought that she was going to beg off driving down.
"Something up?" he prompted.
"Yeah. You know how I keep going on about these weird fictitious business statements, the ones about bit-coin mining?" He said something encouraging, happy that it appeared she wasn't begging off. "Well, I've been swamped today. There've been so many that the Judge had to come help me."
"That's got to have been unusual," he quipped.
"Yeah, there was one day, a week ago when it was like this. But today was a madhouse," she said. He made an encouraging noise. "It turns out that there's going to be a stock offering on Monday, and it's a local one. Those who are both miners and shareowners can purchase a different class of stock than those who just own shares; it pays a different dividend." He grunted to acknowledge that he was paying attention. "Anyway, it was just so crazy that I am sitting in the break room, and I haven't been to lunch, and I thought I would call."
"You're still up for tomorrow?" he asked, that was the vital point. She agreed she was; they hung up, and both went back to work.
He was still there after Caroline had already packed up and left, saying she had plans. His cell rang again, and he glanced at the wall clock. It was after seven—closer to 7:30—but he still felt nowhere nearer to finishing. But a glance at the screen told him it was Lizabeth. That was unexpected, as he usually called her.
"Hi," he said, feeling guilty that it was so late, and he hadn't been thinking of her. She was his motivation for staying late, but he had been trying, unsuccessfully, to rewrite the arc that they had scrapped.
"William, I've found something," she said. He sat up. Lizabeth hadn't greeted him and was like a horse shooting out of a gate.
"What did you find? What's it about?"
"More bit-coin stuff," she answered. "But it concerns you too."
"I don't know anything about bit-coins," he said as he made a fist. His usually predictable girlfriend had kicked him in the gut.
"Like before, when we talked, it's been a busy day." He thought she wasn't making sense or was so worried that she wasn't explaining herself well. "When I got home, I decided to do more research about this bit-coin offering, out of curiosity. All the guys today said it was a local offering from a team in Merton. And since I've seen it grow over the past months, I decided to look it up."
"Yes," he murmured, though he still didn't understand.
"Bit-coin or any cryptocurrency is confusing about how it works, and I won't go into that, but this backer has quite an offering. It's almost a story, an implausible story, one you wouldn't believe," she continued.
"A stock offering that is a story?" he was confused.
"Yes. This offering is for a cryptocurrency called Ruggecoin, which its founders say is based on a lost California gold hoard. They claim to have unearthed it. In 1892, two brothers, the Ruggles brothers, held up a stagecoach like in all Westerns, killed the handsome armed escort, and ran off. One of the brothers was shot and fell behind, and the other, who had the strongbox with the gold coins, buried it thinking his brother was dead. They both ended up being captured."
"But they never found the box with the gold coins?" William guessed.
"No, and the one brother never divulged the secret where he buried the box. I wonder if he might have planned on using its location to bargain for his life, but I think there were hard feelings against these two brothers as they were described as handsome, charming men, and many in town resented them. They never came to trial but were lynched. I even found that picture." Lizabeth sounded a little breathless as she spoke.
"But this is about bit-coins?" William was suspicious.
"Yes, these founders claim to have found the gold coin hoard. They're using it as collateral for their backing, which is making this a very attractive offering. See, anyone can create a cryptocurrency; there are YouTube videos that show you how to set one up in an hour! But you have to get people to use your cryptocurrency to make money off of it. And there's a lot of fraud in it, and mistrust," she explained.
"I see," he murmured, still confused.
"But if you have found a strongbox of 5,000 gold American Eagle coins from 1892, they have a total approximate value of three million dollars. That's enough to make people take note and think that your bit-coin offering is legit and worth investing in."
"Did they recover all of the coins?" was his next question.
"Great question! I wondered that and the website doesn't state how many coins they found. It could be smoke and mirrors, and the pair of them only found a handful," Lizabeth suggested. "Even if you didn't sell them based on their value as collector's items, each gold coin has just under a half of an ounce of gold in it. Given the current price of gold, that's about $635 a coin."
"Are they offering a gold coin with each stock purchased?" William thought he had a headache as his forehead was so wrinkled.
Lizabeth laughed. "I think they're creating this beautiful illusion that they want people to buy into, that an investor might obtain some golden ticket, or rather a gold coin, if they purchase shares in their bit-coin offering. But no, that isn't part of the dividend. But there are two classes of shares like I said during lunch: one if you purchase regular shares, the other if you are those miner/shareowners as you then get a different class of dividend."
His producer/storyteller's brain was following all this with the idea of its becoming a future production. Still, William settled back in his chair as he remembered that she had said this was related to him in some way. He asked that question, "how does this concern me?"
"The company's name is Pemberley, LLC," she answered. The pain in the front of his forehead intensified. He reached up to rub there and used his thumb and little finger to massage at his temples as he contemplated such a coincidence; she continued. "You said Pemberley was the name of your family home. I thought they had to be connected, so I looked through all the business filings. It's amazing what you can find on the internet (and what stays hidden). Your Cousin Anne is one of the founders, along with Georgiana Darling."
His stomach cramped up then; lunch had been a long time ago, but it wasn't hunger now. "My cousin is doing a bit-coin offering?" William managed to say because he felt he should acknowledge Lizabeth somehow, though he didn't feel like speaking at all. She seemed to understand him as she didn't respond, but let the silence wash over him as he thought about his often mysterious cousin.
"I have wondered how she would fare if my aunt's land sale didn't go through," he began once he was ready to talk. "And I've known she has dabbled in stocks before, so she is familiar with buying and selling. But I don't know enough about bit-coin or cryptocurrency to comment."
"Anyone who watches YouTube can learn, as I said, though I suspect you wouldn't be successful. Those posts are by the get-rich-quick types who want you to buy their bit-coin or their book or just click on their ads," she commented.
"But Anne is smart, almost genius-level smarts. I can see her figuring out the math or accounting behind how cryptocurrency works and creating her own. What I don't understand is this whole lost gold thing," he remarked.
"The tale is true," Lizabeth insisted. "I told you, I found the picture of the two brothers after they had been lynched." (***see my A/N)
"But I don't understand how she would have found the gold? Or why use such a story?"
"You're the story expert!" Lizabeth exclaimed, sounding frustrated. "You should understand that! It makes the offering that much more appealing. And maybe she used a metal detector and had luck and found the gold cache!"
"Seems improbable after a hundred years," he murmured; William was still rubbing his head.
"I agree. I think she and her friend might have discovered a few coins and are conjuring them into an entire hoard," she suggested.
Silence crackled again on the line between them. He didn't believe that Lizabeth had an underhanded reason for calling him to tell him about Anne's business dealings. Her interest had, after all, begun with all those slightly creepy men coming into her workplace, and been a shared topic between them for many months. Her discoveries today had been the result of what she did best: research. It just happened that it now affected him. But how? How was this affecting him exactly?
"I don't know why she's created a cryptocurrency and is offering stock options." William broke the silence again. "I don't know if it's my business to ask why or be concerned. With my Aunt Catherine, it's a different matter as she asks for my help. But it isn't like there is an issue here." He stopped.
"No. I agree. There isn't an issue or a reason to interfere." He thought he heard the voice of experience speaking. A woman who had many other people step in and interfere in her life because there were issues that concerned them or they felt a reason to offer advice, even if there were none.
"What I don't know is how this affects my aunt." He paused. "I agree. I shouldn't interfere in Anne's business, but am I going to have Aunt Catherine calling me just as much as your mother calls you?"
Lizabeth laughed, which he had hoped she would. "I believe from what little I know about your aunt; she will."
"I'm wondering if I shouldn't come up to Merton," he mused.
"I'm prepared to attempt the drive to LA," she countered.
"But I may be on the receiving end of a phone call demanding my help. I should anticipate that and come up tomorrow, and stay through Sunday."
"You're not going to try to talk your cousin out of it?"
"No," he said. "Anne's hard-headed. If she's made up her mind, then she's made up her mind. But I got the sense from my last discussion with her that if Aunt Catherine were destitute, she wouldn't give her a penny to help her out."
"And your aunt's life-style: she couldn't change it or amend it?" Lizabeth asked.
"It would probably kill her, and I don't mean that in some generic way but a literal sense. To give up the country club membership and hobnobbing with the elite of Merton would send her to her grave. She takes pride in being a great lady even if she isn't or never was," he insisted.
They agreed that William would drive up the next morning rather than the reverse. While she had set her mind to attempt the drive, having him come up left her feeling more relaxed. He could hear her relief.
"I can usually make it under four hours. And though I could drive in this evening, if I work late and finish a few things, I will have less to worry about on Monday." Lizabeth said she understood, and they hung up.
But William didn't get back to his arc conundrum. He recreated all the research that had led to her calling him. Though she had said that she had easily found documents, he had trouble locating everything that they had discussed. He was even more impressed with her research skills, especially when it came to finding the SEC documents which listed the owners for Pemberley LLC.
Georgiana Darling was a close friend of Anne's from college, and he wondered if they had been planning this since then. But the lure of cryptocurrency had only grown recently, so it was difficult to say that it was something that the two of them had planned in their dorm room. (Georgiana was another member of the Merton elite, like the Fitzwilliams had been, like the Metcalfes, the Deburgs, the Gouldings, and the Wickhams.) It seemed that all the old established families were struggling. Land was no longer a source of income, and the next generation needed to look elsewhere and use their talents to get by.
William imagined a pond, not a large one, but likened Merton to a pond where someone had thrown a few stones in to disrupt the smoothness of its surface, and those ever-spreading circles were now overlapping and competing with each other. He wondered just how related all of those first families of Merton were, and not necessarily by genetics.
A/N: The lost Ruggles brothers hoard is a true story. I wanted to find a real missing hoard, if possible, to weave into the story. All the details I've included are true. However, don't Google the story unless you believe you can handle the lynching photo. When I wrote this I had my husband give me the current price of gold, but who knows what it is these days with the stock market having gone bonkers. I think the price of gold is one thing that has increased!
Stay-in-Place is getting to me despite Zoom calls and regular phone calls with friends. I am tired of baking, worked on a quilt, written two more chapters for the WWII story, cleaned closets, and dyed my hair pink. I have hit the disagreeable stage and want to stomp back and forth around the house in frustration. At least there are a ton of weeds to pull after all that rain...
Stay safe.