Lost Lady Read online

He held out a long, narrow white box, and when Regan opened it, inside was a delicate rose of fine, thin, fragile, pink-tinted crystal. The stem and leaves were also glass, tinted a soft green. An engraved silver band hung gracefully down the side, reading, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”

  Regan was speechless, afraid to touch the elusive beauty of the glass rose.

  “Travis was so hoping you’d like it,” Reverend Wentworth said.

  “Where did he find it? And how did he get it to Scarlet Springs?”

  “That, my dear, is known only to Mr. Stanford. He merely asked if I’d deliver a gift to you at midnight tonight. Of course, when the box came and it was open, my wife and I, well…we couldn’t resist a peek. Now I really must go. Goodnight.”

  She barely heard him, absently closing the door, leaning against it for a second, her eyes locked on the elegant, splendid crystal rose. Holding her breath, afraid she might break it, she put it in the little vase on her bedside table, next to the first live rose Travis had sent her. As she undressed, her eyes never left either rose, and when she went to bed the moonlight seemed to highlight each rose and she fell asleep smiling.

  It was late when she awoke the next morning, already eight o’clock. After one quick look at her roses and sending all of them a radiant smile, she jumped out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown. One sleeve was twisted, and as she straightened it a blue piece of paper fell out. As it fell right-side up on the floor, she saw that it read, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”

  Hastily, she stuck it in her pocket, thinking that she hadn’t noticed that any of the notes from yesterday were written on blue paper. She found Jennifer’s room empty. The child was often up early and in the kitchen before her mother was even awake.

  Still smiling, Regan returned to her room to dress. Today she was sure Travis would show up, would come to her on bended knee and beg her to marry him. She might, just might consent. She laughed out loud.

  Her laugh stopped when she found another blue note inside the bodice of her dress. Hesitating for just a moment, looking suspiciously at the note, she whirled about and began to search her wardrobe.

  The blue notes were everywhere—in her shoes, in her dresses, inside her drawers, wrapped in her petticoats and camisoles, even under her pillow!

  How dare he! she thought, getting angrier with each note she found. How dare he invade her privacy in such a way! If not Travis personally, then he’d hired someone to go through all her things and place the notes there. And when? Surely some of them had been put there during the night, because even the dress she’d worn yesterday had three notes in it.

  Angrily, she left her apartment and went straight to her office. As far as she could tell, nothing had been disturbed in this room. Thank heavens she locked it each night.

  Sitting down at her desk, she didn’t at first notice the thin bit of thread stretched across the leather blotter. Suspicious, her lips set firmly, she followed it down the front of her desk to the bottom, where it disappeared underneath. On her hands and knees, she slid down until she was flat on her back. Pinned to the bottom of her desk was a sign done in three-inch letters, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”

  Teeth gritted, she tore it away and was tearing it into tiny pieces when Brandy entered the room with a few dozen pieces of blue paper in her hands.

  “I see he’s been in here too,” Brandy said cheerfully.

  “He’s really gone too far this time. This is my private office, and he has no right to come in here uninvited.”

  “I don’t want to add to your anger, but have you checked your safe?”

  “My—!” she began, but stopped. Only Regan had a set of the three keys it took to open the safe. The other set was locked in a bank vault a hundred miles to the south. Even Brandy never opened the inn’s safe or knew how or in what order the keys must be used; she left all that up to Regan.

  Quickly, Regan went to the big safe and started the long process of opening it. As she pulled the last door, a piece of wide blue ribbon fell out. Slowly pulling it, her jaw set, her eyes angry, she saw immediately what was written on it. She didn’t bother to read it but reached in and grabbed a handful of ribbon and angrily threw it toward the trashcan.

  “How did you guess?” she asked Brandy as she stood.

  Brandy seemed a bit nervous and gave Regan a weak smile. “I hope you’re ready for this. It seems that while everyone in town was here yesterday and their stores were closed, somebody, or maybe it was an army of somebodies, put these little blue proposals all over town. The doctor found one in his bag and four in his office. Will, at the mercantile store, found six in his place, and”—she paused to stifle a laugh—“the blacksmith picked up a horse’s hoof and found one on blue ribbon wadded inside the horse’s shoe.”

  Regan sat down. “Go on,” she whispered.

  “Some of the people are taking it well, but some are fairly angry. The lawyer found one in his safe, and he’s talking about suing. But, in general, everyone is laughing, saying they want to meet this Travis.”

  “I never want to see him again in my life,” Regan said with feeling.

  “You don’t mean that,” Brandy smiled. “Maybe your notes are all alike, but most of the others are quite creative. There are bits of poetry, some things from Shakespeare, and Mrs. Ellison, who plays the piano, received an entire song which she says is very pretty. She’s dying to play it for you.”

  Regan’s head came up. “Is she out there?”

  Brandy grimaced. “Everyone feels as if they’re involved now, and…most of them are out there.”

  “Who is not there?” Regan asked bleakly.

  “Mrs. Ellison’s grandmother, who had the stroke last year, and Mr. Watts still had milking to do, and…,” she trailed off apologetically because she could think of no other missing townspeople.

  “Mrs. Brown’s sister is visiting, came in yesterday, and she’s dying to meet you. Brought all six kids over, too.”

  Regan put her arms on the desk and buried her face. “Can a person die by will, just by wishing it? How can I face all those people?” She looked up at Brandy, her face horribly distressed. “How could Travis do this to me?”

  Brandy knelt beside her friend and touched her hair. “Regan, can’t you see that he just wants you so badly that he’ll do anything to get you back? You don’t know the hell he’s been through since you left. Did you know that he lost forty-five pounds when you first left him? It was a friend of his named Clay who talked him out of giving up on life.”

  “Travis told you all of this?”

  “In a roundabout way. I did some prying, and it took a while to piece together all the facts, but I did. Right now the man is past any sense of pride. He doesn’t care what he has to do to get you back. If he can enlist the whole town to help him, then he will. Maybe his tactics are a little…well, maybe he’s not exactly subtle, but would you rather have one rose and a man like Farrell or, what was the final count, seven hundred and forty-two roses and Travis Stanford?”

  “But does he have to do all this?” Regan pleaded, flipping the thread leading to the note that had been under her desk.

  “You’ve told me repeatedly how Travis never asked you anything, but only told you what to do and how to do it. If I remember correctly, at the ceremony you said no to him just because he hadn’t asked you to marry him. I don’t believe you can accuse him of not having asked you now. And, too, you said you wanted to be courted.” Brandy stood, smiling. “This courtship may go down in history.”

  Regan, in spite of herself, began to smile. “All I wanted was a little champagne and a few roses.”

  Eyes wide, Brandy put her fingers to her lips. “Please don’t mention champagne. You may start a flood.”

  A giggle escaped Regan. “Will he ever do anything on a normal scale?”

  “Don’t you hope not?” Brandy said seriously. “I’d give a lot to be in your shoes.”

  “My shoes are all packed full of notes,” Regan