the garden was gonna be a
surprise weddin’ present for the duke. Since he hadn’t seen this
place for so long, Angelica wanted it to look real nice for
him.”
Big saw her eyes fill again. “What’s so sad
about a surprise rose garden?”
She gathered her piglet in her arms and held
him as if he were a human infant. “Well, Big,” she sniffled, “on
the very day Angelica finished plantin’ the roses, she fell down
the big staircase inside that mansion and died. She broke her neck.
That lady friend of hers took her body back to London. I reckon the
duke buried her there. That was five years ago, and Aunt Delia
wrote that all those roses Angelica planted up there have never
bloomed. Not a damn one of ’em. Aunt Delia believed the roses won’t
bloom until the duke falls in love again. Oh, Big, isn’t that the
saddest story you’ve ever heard? The poor roses. Poor Angelica. The
poor, poor duke.”
Big watched her tears spill down her
freckled cheeks and onto Runt’s belly. He thought her own plight
was a lot sadder than the duke’s. “Goldie, the man’s obviously
wallowing in money and most likely leads a glittering, carefree
life in London. He probably has other estates and no need
whatsoever to come back to Ravenhurst. And he’s probably already
replaced Angelica Sheridan with another English beauty. A man like
that certainly doesn’t need anyone’s pity.”
“But he loved her, Big. Then he lost
her.”
Big tried to find some sympathy for the man,
failed, and realized he would have to feign it to obtain more
information out of Goldie. “The poor man. The poor, devastated man.
Lord have mercy on the poor, poor, sad man and his poor, bloomless
rose garden.”
Goldie nodded, set Runt back on the ground,
and dried the last of her tears on her apron. “From what I
understand, Big, these villagers miss havin’ their duke. Aunt Delia
wrote that there’s been a Ravenhurst duke livin’ up there in that
duke mansion for some five hundred years. Now the only one up there
is that Dane Hutchins. That estate manager fella. He’s not the
duke, so—”
“Well, judging by the way he struts around
here, you’d think he was the damn Duke Ravenhurst himself,” Big
commented. “You should have seen him yelling at some of the farmers
the other day, Goldie. He had them scared to death of him, and he
thought their terror was funny! And I have to tell you, Goldie, I
don’t like the way he watches you.”
She waved away his words. “Oh, Big, he
stares at everybody. Maybe that’s what an estate manager is
supposed to do. We’ve never seen one, so we really don’t know how
they act. But the fact remains that there’s no duke up in that
mansion. It kinda breaks up the tradition, I reckon, and Mildred
Fickle said that traditions are sorta like the Ten Commandments to
the English.”
She stared at the huge, rambling manor house
again, remembering snatches of what she’d read in Delia’s diaries.
“Everybody doted on the duke when he was little. See that tree
house in that tree over yonder? It was his. The village men built
it for him. I’m gonna climb into it one of these days. Anyway, Big,
I guess havin’ the duke back would mean the world to these
folks.”
“But Goldie, you don’t know the man! How can
you—”
“I told you I’m gonna find someone who looks
like him, and make him into a duke.”
Big tried to subdue his rising vexation and
worry. “Goldie,” he said, his voice deceptively calm, “this is
never going to work.”
She lifted her face to the sky and closed
her eyes for a moment. The sunshine heated her cheeks and her
determination. “I gotta try though, Big. It’s like that expression,
‘I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.’ If I don’t try , Uncle Asa’s gonna get us run out of Hallensham. And if
I do try and get caught, we’re still gonna get run out. So
why not try? Y’know I’ve been movin’ around with Uncle Asa ever
since Mama and Daddy died. Big,