Now he walked across the green lawn that made a lush oval between the two main streets and entered the inn.
A large reception hall lined with white-painted paneling greeted him. Several well-dressed men and women were just entering a room to his right, and he followed them to an even larger room furnished
with comfortable chairs and sofas and, along one wall, a deep, wide stone fireplace. All the furniture was newly upholstered in dusty rose and pale green striped satin. A taproom—rustic, he thought, with its oak chairs and tables, but obviously doing a brisk trade—adjoined the common room.
An enormous public dining room was across from the common room, two private dining rooms next to it. Finally, returning to the front of the inn, not touring into the old part of the building, he looked into a cozy library that smelled of leather and tobacco. Across the hall was the reception room, where a clerk politely assigned him a private bedroom upstairs.
“How many bedrooms do you have?”
“An even dozen,” the clerk replied. “Plus two with sitting rooms and, of course, the owners’ private apartments.”
“Of course. I take it you refer to the young ladies.”
“Oh, yes, sir, Regan and Brandy. Regan lives downstairs at the end of the old part, and Brandy is upstairs, just over her.”
“And these are the ladies who supposedly own most of the town?” Farrell asked.
The clerk chuckled. “The preacher says that the only building they don’t own is the church, but everyone knows they paid for it. They do hold the mortgages on all the other buildings. If a lawyer came through, Regan would give him the money to build a place and he’d stay here, then a doctor, and pretty soon this place became a town.”
“Where might I find Mrs. Stanford?” Farrell asked, not liking the man’s use of Regan’s first name.
“Anywhere,” he said quickly as a couple came in to register. “She’s everywhere at once.”
Not wanting to cause a scene, Farrell allowed the insolent man’s abrupt dismissal of him. Later he’d have to speak to the manager, whoever she was.
Upstairs he found his room clean and well furnished, with warm sunlight sparkling through the window. A small fireplace was along one wall. After changing his dusty clothes, he went downstairs to the dining room. It galled him to eat in the public room, but he knew he’d be more likely to see Regan there. The menu was extensive, serving seven meats, three fish, plus cold dishes, relishes, vegetables, game, and a formidable list of pastries and puddings. Arriving quickly, the food was hot, well prepared, and delicious.
While he was sampling something called Moravian sugar cake, a woman entered the room, and every eye, male and female, glanced up at her. It was not just her extraordinary beauty that made them look, but her presence, her sense of self. This woman—small, wearing an exquisite gown of forest green muslin—knew who she was. She walked with confidence, easily speaking to first one person and then another. She looked to be a gracious lady welcoming people to her home. At one table she stopped, looked at a dish, and sent it back to the kitchen. At another table two women rose and hugged her briefly, and for a few moments she sat with them, laughing happily.
Farrell could not take his eyes off her. Superficially, she resembled the awkward girl he’d once known. The eyes were the same color, the hair the same shiny brown, but this woman, with her firm curves and her ease with people, was not at all like that simpering, terrified-of-her-own-shadow child to whom he’d once been engaged.
Leaning back in his chair, he waited calmly for her to come to him. When she saw him she smiled, but there was no recognition. A full minute later, as she was speaking to a couple across from him, her eyes lifted and met his. It was an appraising look she gave him, and Farrell gave her his most charming smile in return. He was extremely pleased when she turned and rather quickly left the room. Now he was sure there was some feeling, whether good or bad, left in her concerning him. Hate or love, he didn’t care which, just so she remembered him.
“Regan, are you all right?” Brandy asked from the other side of the big oak kitchen table, where she was supervising three cooks.
“Of course,” Regan snapped, then drew a deep breath and smiled. “I just saw a ghost, that’s all.”
The two women exchanged looks as Brandy drew Regan to a corner of the big room. “Jennifer’s father?”
“No,” Regan said quietly. Sometimes there didn’t seem to be a moment of her life when she didn’t think of Travis. Every time she looked into Jennifer’s big brown eyes, she saw him. Sometimes a heavy step on the stairs made her heart skip a beat.
“Remember the man I was engaged to years ago? Farrell Batsford?” There were no secrets between the two friends. “He’s sitting in the dining room.”
“That bastard!” Brandy said with feeling. “What’s he eating? I’ll douse it with poison.”
Regan laughed. “I should feel the same way, I guess, but I wonder if anyone gets over their first love. Seeing him brought back such a rush of memories. I was so frightened of everything, so eager to please, and so very much in love with him. I thought he was the most handsome, elegant man I’d ever seen.”
“And now how does he look?”
“He’s certainly not ugly,” Regan smiled. “I guess I should invite him to my office for a talk. It’s the least I can do.”
“Regan,” Brandy warned. “Be careful. It isn’t a coincidence that he’s here.”
“I’m sure of that, and I have a good idea what he wants. In less than a month I’ll be twenty-three, and the money my parents left me is mine.”
“Don’t forget that for a moment,” Brandy called after Regan.
Regan went to her office next to the kitchen and sat down in the leather chair behind her desk. It wasn’t that Farrell had affected her so much, but the sight of him brought back so many memories. Like a wave of cold water, she remembered the awful night she’d heard the truth from her uncle and her fiancé. One memory piled on top of another—Travis holding her, Travis telling her what to do, Travis making love to her, Travis bigger than life, and Regan constantly terrified. In the past four years, a hundred times she’d started to write him, to tell him about his daughter, to let him know they were both well and prospering. But she was always a coward in the end. What if Travis wrote her that he didn’t care, which was surely the case since he’d never tried to find her? Over the years she’d learned to stand on her own two feet, but could she do so with Travis around? Would he bully her back into becoming the tearful, frightened girl she once was?