The Secret of Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 4) Read online

  “Can I look through it?” Louisa asked.

  He handed her the scope. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Walking. Thinking.” Louisa shut one eye and squinted into the device. “I just left my brother’s ranch. I don’t think his wife appreciates me asking about the family history all that much.”

  “Ah.” He smiled. “Did you dig up a skeleton or something?”

  Louisa remembered how adamant Colleen had been about not discussing the past. “Yes, I suppose I did,” she said. She handed the telescope to him.

  “Keep it for a while,” he said. “I have a newer model that’s better suited for my work.”

  “Thank you.” She looked into Luc’s face. His skin was golden, bronzed from the sun and his shirt fell open at his throat. She could see beads of perspiration along his neck and, since the air was cool, it was clear he had been doing something vigorous. Louisa felt uneasy, distracted by the urge to touch him, just for a moment. She looked back up and met his eyes and caught her breath. He was so handsome, so healthy and so tempting. She looked away.

  “Did your British friend leave?” Luc asked her.

  “No, he’s staying at the house actually.”

  “Ah. At the house, you say. He’s a good friend then?”

  “Well, yes. He’s publishing my next book,” she said.

  “Oh, I thought maybe he was, I don’t know, someone you were seeing.”

  “Yes, in New York City I was. I am.” Louisa was growing more and more uncomfortable talking to Luc about Talbot.

  “How is your book going?” He changed the subject, aware of how nervous she had become.

  “I’m not sure.” Louisa wrinkled her brow. “I want to write the truth, but now I feel bad. Colleen said I should just write my mother’s love story and leave out the parts about the problems they had. But even fairy tales have dragons and the troll that lives beneath the bridge. When I write my mysteries there is always a villain or two.” Louisa smiled nervously.

  “Well then, Sherlock, maybe you should be writing a romance story and not a mystery.”

  Louisa chuckled. “What would all the men who enjoy my books think of that?”

  “Men fall in love too. Otherwise where would all those handsome princes be? I think they are rather indispensable in any story, true or fairy tale. And maybe the dragons in your story should be benevolent dragons, the kind that protect you.”

  Louisa tilted her head and considered his suggestion. He looked at her openly and she felt reassured and at ease.

  “Would you mind if I walked with you?” he asked. “I’m headed that way.”

  They walked side by side, stopping occasionally to take notice of a bird in the trees or a flower tucked away on the edge of the path. He seemed to know the name of every living plant in the woodland, surprisingly even some that Louisa did not know herself. She felt carefree walking along with someone who knew the things she knew and found the same fascinations in their natural surroundings. She showed him how well she could mimic the calls of the Trumpeter Swan and her rendition of the loon. When she did her impression of a wild turkey Luc laughed heartily. He pulled a whittled turkey call from his knapsack and blew hard into it. They talked to one another in a mimicked turkey language until Louisa’s sides hurt from laughing.

  “If you knew what I just said with my whistle you would be blushing even harder than you’re laughing,” Luc snickered. Her laughter was warm and feminine and genuine to his ear.

  “I’ve been away too long,” Louisa said as they reached the lane onto Stavewood. Luc shifted the pack on his back and looked up into the towering black maples that lined the road to the estate.

  “Me too,” he said. “This sure is a pretty sight, coming up to the house here. Your father really had vision to have built it this way. He had to imagine how the house would sit on the hill and how the trees would one day canopy the lane here, even before he laid the foundation.”

  Louisa looked up as the lane widened, to admire the home. “I remember thinking that I needed to get away one day,” she said. “I felt that my dad built this haven away from everything else and it’s all too idyllic. One day I would go out into the world and be so much more realistic.” Louisa laughed softly.

  “Interesting,” he said, turning to face her. “I saw you in town last night, all dolled up and dressed fancy. It was the New York City version of you and that fellow going into the Billington.” He smiled at her warmly. “I like you better in the mud.”

  “That’s funny,” she said thoughtfully. “I had a wonderful time fishing and getting muddy.” She turned to look at the house, then turned back to him again. “Thanks for the advice about the dragon.”

  Louisa did not want to walk away. She wanted to do as she had done on the back of beautiful Avalanche, while riding in the rain. She wanted to put her lips against his ear and whisper, “Let’s keep going,” and then walk away together. For a moment she imagined never going back to New York, or anywhere else for that matter. She could just hold Luc’s hand and spend the rest of time walking and talking together. Instead she walked away, feeling empty as she turned up the lane.

  Luc had things he needed to do. He had come back to Minnesota for a reason and falling for the Elgerson girl was not part of that plan. He turned away and headed back, but he struggled to keep the image of Louisa’s sweet face from his mind.

  She turned for a moment and watched him walk away. Her chest tightened. Once he was exactly the kind of man she had wanted to leave behind. He was a logger, she thought, like all the rest in his stacked boots. He was tall and handsome but he’d prefer meat and potatoes on the table every night instead of caviar and champagne. That’s why she had left, yet somehow now she felt more conflicted than ever. She decided she was very anxious for Talbot to be awake.

  Twenty-Four

  Birget wedged another clothespin onto the line as she hung the crisp, white aprons in the warm sun. She shuffled between the line and the laundry basket in the yard singing a Gaelic hymn.

  “You’re still doing that yourself?” Louisa walked up and pulled a well-wrung apron from the big wicker basket.

  “I suppose the maids ought to be doing it, but they don’t hang them right. I don’t like an apron with the corners all pulled out at the bottom. When I cook I like to have pride in my uniform.” Birget shook out an apron with a loud snap.

  No matter how the maids hung the aprons in the yard it would not suit Birget. There would always be a reason to hang them herself. Louisa helped the old cook with the wash until every apron was hung and blowing gently in the morning breeze like white wings against the sky.

  Louisa walked with her around the stables and up the few steps to the gazebo where they could sit and admire the roses. The bushes were filled with yellow, pink and white buds, the gifts that Louisa had planted for the Stavewood anniversary on her last visit. The yellow was for her mother, pink for Emma and white for Colleen. Louisa had imagined there would be a fourth someday, for herself.

  “Birget,” she said, “I need to ask you some things for my book. I’ve already talked to Mama, and to Colleen. Colleen thinks I should leave it alone, but there are some things I don’t know that need to be in my book.”

  Birget settled onto the bench and Louisa sat down beside her.

  “Now you’re not a baby any more are you, Loo? What grown-up parts do you want to know, eh?”

  “I need to know about Jude Thomas,” Louisa said bluntly.

  “Oh.” Birget looked down at her hands and frowned. “What do you need to know about him?”

  “I need to know about him and Corissa. Mama said she was unhappy and she was seeing Jude.” Louisa watched the cook’s expression darken. “You know about it, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. I knew it when it was happening. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Louisa waited as Birget decided where to begin her story. A chipmunk scurried across the garden, darted around the rose bushes, and then found shelter across the yar
d in the long rows of stacked firewood.

  “Your father and Corissa knew each other once, years before as youngsters. He was taken with her while she was still in pigtails and they went on seeing each other as they grew older. Your father began courting her. Then she went away, quite suddenly, like young people do sometimes. Much like you did yourself. She married while she was away and came back some years later with no husband, but with a son. That was your brother, Mark. She had changed in some ways, but your father felt as if he were given a second chance with her. He was building all of this then.” Birget gestured with her hand and looked at the big house in the distance. “Well, one thing led to another, and she agreed to marry him. But as soon as she moved in it was clear she couldn’t settle down. Your father couldn’t see it, being in love with her the way he was, but it was plain to me. She chafed at everything. She was overly protective of Mark and she kept your father from getting close to him. And from her too. But, I tell you, all that time she was feeling guilty about something, something only she knew.”

  Birget paused, trying to imagine what had been in Corrine’s mind. She clicked her tongue and cocked her head and the answer eluded her as it always had. She put her hands in her lap and continued.

  “One night I came outside for a bit of a stroll around the yard and I saw her. She was holding a lantern up there in the turret.” She pointed across the lawns to the tower at the house. “At first she had it turned up really bright, then she turned it right down. I could see her quite plainly. She was looking out over the yard to the fields.

  “I never saw him that night but I know it was Jude Thomas. I heard their voices inside the house later on, after I had gone up into the turret myself. I knew what was going on then. A man like Thomas comes to a woman out of the shadows like that for one thing and one thing only. He was using her that way.” Birget shook her head in disgust.

  Louisa looked up at the room that had once been Corissa’s, where she and Jude would have talked in hushed tones together in the darkness. Louisa could imagine how badly she longed to hear his sweet lies.

  “The next day I told her I knew and she didn’t care for it, not one bit. After that I saw that lantern lit again and again and Jude Thomas got into the house somehow every time.

  “I never told your father. I wanted to, many times, but I knew it would break his heart and I couldn’t.”

  Louisa waited silently as Birget composed herself before going on.

  “Sooner or later your father had to find out. It was inevitable. And one night he caught them together in the stables while Jude was putting his own horse into one of the stalls. Jude ran off, coward that he was, and your father told Corissa that if she wanted her freedom she ought to just go. But she didn’t. She stayed and Thomas still kept coming around. It was heartbreaking. I begged her to stay away from Thomas or be done with it and run off with him. She told me she couldn’t quit him and said I didn’t understand how he made her feel. I told her she should be ashamed and she said that being with Thomas was the only time she didn’t feel ashamed. I never understood.

  “After a time, as Mark got older, she did leave sometimes, and for longer and longer periods of time. She wasn’t running off with Thomas then. I think she may have even been trying to break it off with him. Maybe she wanted to make things right with your father. But anytime she was here Thomas was sure to come around. Even if she had wanted to make things right she couldn’t as long as he kept coming around.

  “The night she died Thomas had been here, after her. She’d just come back after being gone a long time and she had a terrible fight with your father. She took out that chestnut mare and rode off. Later they found her on the side of the road. She’d fallen from her horse and her neck was broken. It nearly killed your father.”

  Birget pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. Louisa was moved to put her hand on the old cook’s shoulder.

  “A man with a big heart can be as strong as a bull, child, but when that heart is broken it takes a lot to mend. Your mother was the best medicine in the world for him. She’s a good woman and that is the most important thing to know about her. Your mother might not be big in stature but she is just about the best there is for healing a broken heart.

  “That’s where your story lies, Loo. That is the important thing, and not the other.”

  “Benevolent dragons,” Louisa said as she looked up to the turret in the big house.

  Talbot stood high above them on the turret, looking down into the yard. She stood up and walked to the railing, waving at him. From his vantage point he saw her plainly on the gazebo and waved back.

  “Ah, I see your young man doesn’t care for the early morning sun, child.” Birget struggled to her feet. “Go along then. Liv will be setting out lunch shortly. I’d like to stroll around a bit and get these old legs warmed up. Run along.”

  Louisa looked at the old cook and smiled. Her face was creased with wrinkles and lines in the bright sunlight, a lifetime of worries and smiles etched into her personality. She was as familiar as the gardens and the house and all of the wonder of Stavewood. And, although Louisa had never really thought much about it, Birget was surely part of her family. She was one of the women at Stavewood that understood the things that lived in a woman’s heart.

  “Thank you, Birget,” Louisa said and hugged her close. Birget smiled at her, kissed her cheek and Louisa walked silently towards the house.

  Twenty-Five

  Talbot ventured down the massive, curving staircase and looked into the open doorways of the parlor on one side and Timothy’s study on the other.

  “Good morning!” Louisa said brightly, as she emerged from the kitchen and rushed to his side.

  “Ah, good morning,” he said, smiling at her warmly. He was sharply dressed in a pressed, wool suit that Louisa was certain he had not been wearing the night before. “You look quite wholesome,” he said.

  Louisa laughed lightly. “I suppose I look like I’m back in Minnesota. We are just about to have lunch.”

  “Could I just have a cup of coffee? That would be sufficient for now,” he said. Louisa inhaled the strong smell of rich cologne as she kissed his cheek. She hurried to the kitchen, returned with a steaming mug of coffee, took his hand and led him toward the dining room.

  “It’s a wonder you don’t starve to death.” Louisa shook her head. “You can drink your coffee, but at least come join us, my younger brothers are going to be here and I want you to meet everyone.”

  Louisa led him into the dining room, alive with conversation.

  “Loo!” Philip leapt to his feet and pulled his sister to him.

  “Good heavens!” Louisa grunted.

  “Loo, Loo!” Noah and Jake greeted her next, equally enthusiastic.

  “You are all so tall. It’s no wonder Daddy has you all out at the mill. Heavens, boys, you’re all practically men now!” Louisa squealed.

  “I beg your pardon.” Phillip shoved his thumbs into his narrow suspenders. “I turned eighteen while you were out gallivanting around the world. That makes me a man!”

  “Oh, bellow all you want. All three of you are nothing but a bunch of squirts to me!” Louisa pointed to each one in turn.

  Talbot watched the exchange silently, standing a step behind her and Louisa grasped his arm firmly and pulled him next to her. “Everyone, this is Talbot, my friend from New York City. Don’t any of you put a single frog in his shaving bowl. Not one of you, do you understand?”

  Louisa’s mother giggled as she entered the room, with her father close behind.

  “Have they started with the frogs already?” Timothy bellowed.

  The younger brothers all shook Talbot’s hand firmly and Timothy slapped him on the back briskly as he passed by on the way to his seat at the head of the table. “Good morning,” he said.

  Talbot looked down at his crisp white cuff, now splashed with rich, dark coffee.

  Twenty-Six

  Talbot sipped his coffee quietly alo
ngside Louisa at the big dining table, listening to the family talk about saw blades and lumber quotas, all while teasing one another playfully. He tried to imagine them all a generation ago living in the massive estate, well-to-do loggers, tall and fearless in the Minnesota wilderness. They would have been much the same, he decided. He had not been prepared for how Louisa’s family lived and had expected a much simpler life. It had always been clear to him that she was well-spoken and highly educated and now that, and many more things about her made sense. Talbot was eager to finish the elaborate midday meal and visit Louisa’s room to see her original notes. He had also seen her out in the garden with the old cook and wondered about their conversation. He was impatient for Louisa to get on with her work and he shifted restlessly in his chair.

  “I’d like to go change my shirt and get on with our research,” he whispered into her ear. “You go ahead and enjoy your visit and I will meet you in the upstairs hall straight away.”

  “Oh, alright.” Louisa looked at him curiously. “I’ll be up shortly.”

  Talbot stood up, excused himself and left the room.

  Louisa concentrated on finishing her lunch while the family chattered on loudly. It was true that she had an agenda and wanted to get on with her book, but she had not seen her brothers in two years and they had all changed drastically. Now, with camps at the mills, they lived and worked with the other employees and they were growing into independent young men. Like her, they could be gone on her next visit. Louisa suddenly lost her appetite and what had been joyful chatter was pushed back in her mind.

  The dining room entry suddenly burst open and the room went instantly silent.

  Mark stood in the doorway, panting hard with his face flushed. “Katie is having her baby!” he announced.

  The Elgerson family cheered loudly and pushed their chairs away from the table.