Abigail's Secret (A Whimsical Select Romance Novella) (2 page)

People began to disband when no more travelers made an appearance, and it was further confirmed when a spectator called out, “She’s not in there,” after he peered into the coach’s door.  With their heads low in disappointment, they scattered down the road with muttered sighs and statements of discontent that further expressed their frustration.  Abigail stood there in absolute bewilderment an
d watched the crowd disperse.  Indeed, the whole of the town had indubitably come to be daft in her absence.

When the crowd neared to being completely dispersed, she looked toward the station window and saw a man who leaned lazily against the brick wall.  She didn’t need a second glance; she already knew it was Brice Winslow.  Her heart began to race the moment she saw him.  He looked almighty handsome in his grey morning coat which pleasingly accompanied matching trousers, and his
necktie was tied in a fine-looking barrel-knot.  Tipping his top hat slightly off his head, she saw his perfectly combed ebony hair beneath.  His green eyes sparkled and he offered her a terse nod.

“Ma’am,” he greeted.

Abigail realized he didn’t recognize her, but of course he wouldn’t, she supposed.  She had shed the amount of weight that equaled two grown men, so Abigail wasn’t overly upset by the slight.  She wondered if Brice wore his formal wear for the occasion of her arrival.  She couldn’t recall a time that he looked so debonair.  From her recollection, he had never worn anything other than cotton shirts accompanied with basic loose trousers.  Yet now he was dressed to impress.

Abigail tilted her head forward and smiled.  “Sir,” she returned.  Abigail hesitated whether she should announce her identity or wait and see if Brice would recall.  Deep in her heart she wished he’d open
his arms and embrace her home.

“It would seem the crowd is rather disappointed,” she stated absently as she watched hundreds of people, predominantly men, stroll unhappily away.

“Would seem so,” he drawled out.

“And you,” she asked as she walked toward the station window.  “Are you here for the arrival of Abigail Large too?”

He slowly nodded.  Brice examined her closely for a few moments.  Abigail wondered if he had finally recognized her, and her heart began to race, but he turned away and peered down the road that led back to the heart of town.  Abigail aimed her attention to the man who stood inside the station window.  He was an elderly gent with grey, bushy side whiskers that were so overly grown that Abigail believed that they had taken a life of their own as they wisped to and fro.  “Is there a man about who can help with my baggage?”

“I sure would like to oblige you, ma’am, but I’m the only one here,” he said, and his worn, aged face exaggerated a frown.  “But I’m sure Brice would be pleased to accommodate you.”

Brice turned his head and derisively eyed the man beneath his hat.  Abigail reckoned that he wasn’t particularly eager to help her.

“When is the next stage due?” he asked the man behind the window.

“Noon tomorrow,” the man replied before he stepped back and plopped down onto the cane seat of his walnut chair.

“I’ll be back then,” Brice said, and then further added, “Take care, Ben.”  He picked up her two floral embroidered bags and walked toward the phaeton that was parked behind the station.  He tossed her baggage into the back carriage. “Where are you heading, ma’am?”

Her intent was her childhood home, but after all the hoopla she had witnessed at the station, Abigail worried there may be a similar scene at the Large Estate, so she thought better of it.  “Does Maggie Rush still take in lodgers?” she asked.  Maggie Rush was her only friend growing up.  Despite everyone’s relentless bantering, Maggie overlooked her heaviness, and that was mainly due to Maggie’s own deformity.  Maggie had been in an awful carriage accident as a child and it left her in a greatly deformed state, as nearly all her bones were crushed and healed disproportionately.  Indeed, being different was something she understood all too well.  Yet unlike herself, Maggie never let it interfere with her passions.  She was of such great disposition that she easily forgave and forgot those who tormented her and she took on each new endeavor as if it was her last.

“You know Maggie?” He gave her face another once over as if he was attempting to recall her name.

“Oh, no,” she lied.  “I was advised that upon my arrival that I should seek out her bed and board, as it is well-known across country that she keeps a clean and safe establishment.”

Brice took her hand into his and helped her up and onto the leathered cushioned seat of the phaeton.  “It’s just a ways out of town.”

He set the two-team horse on a trot down the road and she knew there wasn’t much time to gain information before they reached Maggie Rush’s house.  “Why was there such an affair at the station over that woman Abigail Large?  Is she someone of great import?”

Brice shrugged his shoulders.  “Some would seem to think so,” he said.  He removed his hat and tossed it
into the back of the carriage.

Brice’s black, wavy mane of hair flowed freely at his shoulders.  Abigail thought he was almighty fine, especially for eyes that
had yearned to see him again.

“Apparently she’s special enou
gh to you since you were waiting at the station.”  She was curious about that from the start, especially since Brice Winslow deemed it necessary to be dressed in his best bib and tucker.  She had expected a servant from her family home to meet her at the station, yet it was Brice who was concerned about her arrival, insomuch that he checked on the next stage’s arrival.  “Were you here to accompany her?”

“It’s been quite a few years since I saw her last and hoped to get reacquainted with her,” he replied.  “She’s soon to be my wife,” he ad
ded after a few moments passed.

The declaration caused Abigail to intake so much air that she began to cough and sputter.

“Are you all right?”

She waved him off but remained incapable of speech after she heard his shocking announcement.  Abigail no longer questioned the town’s sanity but that of her own.  Nothing made sense from the time she’d stepped off the stage.  There wasn’t another man to whom she ever loved more than Brice Winslow.  She had spent countless days in her childhood woolgathering with images of him returning the sentiment, but it wasn’t meant to be.  In fact, his actions before she escaped to Baltimore made that remarkably clear.  She brushed the
unpleasant memory aside but her anger by the recollection still remained.  “And this marriage…when is it to take place?” she asked.  She made a poor attempt at hiding her irritation.

“Not rightly sure, but I suppose soon enough. 
At least I hope so.”

“Eager due to the love you have for your beholden,” she asked sugary sweet, but all the while she glared at his turned-away face.  She was getting more annoyed by each moment passed.  How he dared to profess he was engaged to the very person he humiliated all those years ago
was beyond her comprehension.

“No, nothing as the likes of that,” he said.  “I was just fortunate enough to have won her in a poker game.”

“You what?” she nearly shouted.  “And by whose authority would do such a beastly thing to this woman?”  She huffed out her frustration, but of course she knew the answer.  Only one person in Mecklenburg lost so greatly in cards and not by fault of folly.  “Really, to give a woman away in a poker game, I have never heard of such a reprehensible act!”

Brice leaned into her and lowered himself until his broad shoulder brushed against her dainty one.  He then whispered in a deep husky voice that nearly brought her to chills, as it had done so many times years ago.  “Her brother lost the game, and the woman is worth a very, very large fortune.”

She wanted to throttle Thomas, as well as Brice.  In circles outside of Mecklenburg, her brother was well known in the gambling houses since he rarely lost.  Yet in their hometown, Thomas saw gambling as a way to distribute money to those less fortunate.   He figured it as a way of helping townsmen without forcing them to face the humility of the asking.  However, Abigail thought with irritation, it was the first time her brother had extended his charity beyond the coin.

“A fortune, you say?”  Although her parents had plenty of coffers, she hadn’t but a small amount of savings which she set aside by being a sempstress at Mrs. Unklesbay’s House of Linen in Baltimore.  “So, that is why there was such an affair at the station for this woman? 
Due to her wealth?” she asked.

Brice steered the team to the front of Maggie Rush’s large, white farmhouse that comfortably housed fifteen guests but rarely lodged more than five at any given time.  It wasn’t until the carriage stopped that he
obliged her with a reply.

“The woman’s dowry gives her husband the amount of gold equivalent to her weight.  Most men came to the station hoping to gain her attention so she’ll throw me over and consider them for her suitor.”

She gritted her teeth and was infuriated that her brother had publicly announced the embarrassing terms of her dowry.  She would never have thought him capable of such cruelty.  Abigail inhaled deeply and asked, “How are you so sure that she’ll choose you above all those other men who arrived today?”

Brice looked off in front him and a thoughtful expression crossed his face.  “Although she’s not aware, I once overheard her confess her love for me.”  Brice turned and grinned.  He looked like a ten year-old boy who was sure he’d catch his fish on the first cast.  “I reckon that will most definitely give me the advantage above all others.”

Heat rose to Abigail’s cheeks by his confession and it forced her to look back at a time she desperately wanted forgotten.  He had made her look like a fool to the whole of the town, as well as to herself.  Abigail’s reply came harsh and direct when she indignantly snatched her bags from the back of the carriage.  “Don’t count on it, mister,” she declared, and she marched alone to Maggie Rush’s door.

              After Maggie confirmed the relieving news that her brother was alive and fit as a fiddle, Abigail set off that very next afternoon to kill him.  Maggie was more than accommodating to aid her in the cause.  As Abigail, Maggie thought what Thomas had done was unforgivable.  Sending Abigail along with the use of her carriage, Maggie wished her well and promised she’d keep her arrival secret from those in town.  Yet Maggie was hard pressed to believe that no one recognized Abigail.  Maggie recognized her immediately when she walked through the door that previous day.  Yet, Abigail considered they were like sisters growing up and there wasn’t anyone who knew her better than Maggie Rush.  Since she and Maggie were both deemed oddities in town, they had found themselves a likely sort and became fast friends.  That became invaluable in her present situation, as all Maggie’s rooms were occupied by out-of-town guests who had arrived for the Abigail Large event.  Being so, Maggie shared her private room for Abigail to sleep.

T
here were boodles of carriages and buckboards scattered across her brother’s lawn, and as far as a mile stretch on either side down the lane.  Abigail steered the phaeton to the back of their family’s red
brick
estate that stood out majestically by its eight towering columns that supported a gabled roof.  She went through the entry portico, entered the door, and aimed her direction straight for Thomas’s study.  She knew he’d be there, as it was where he regularly worked his books during the day.  She burst open the door and made her entrance.  He sat with a full stack of papers in front of him that rested atop her father’s old mahogany desk that stood on claw cariole legs.  He was hunched over another heap of journals that he was perusing through spectacles low upon his nose.  Abigail took a quick sweep inside the room.  It had been her father’s study and she hadn’t entered the room since he was killed during the war, five years past.  Her mother’s heart was so almighty broken by the loss of her beloved that she followed his passing not even one month after receiving the news.  Thomas hadn’t changed a single item and everything remained precisely the same as she always remembered it, from the paisley floor coverings to the bright orange tapestries.  She looked upon the wall and saw her mother’s portrait.  It was then Abigail truly felt she was home.

“Thomas James
Edgar Large, how dare you!” she shouted at him.

Thomas
abruptly rose from his seat and nervously tugged down his single breasted notched collar vest and reached for his black sack coat and shrugged it on, as if embarrassed that he’d been caught naked otherwise.  He then adjusted his already straight necktie and finally began speaking denials, but then he abruptly stopped.  When he tried to repeat his action of speech, only incoherent utterances escaped.

“
You’ve made many imprudent choices in your lifetime, Thomas, but this is by far the cruelest and most foolish action you’ve ever taken!”

Thomas
removed the reading spectacles from his face and moved away from his desk.  His gait was slow and hesitant when he walked to her, and Abigail believed he looked sincerely mortified for what he had done to her.  She wondered whether he’d embrace or reason with her in greeting, as they hadn’t seen each other in many years.

“I do not know what you are
speaking about.”  He looked at her peculiarly, returned the spectacles to his nose, and looked at her again. Thomas shook his head.  “Who are you?”