Montana Gold (Rocky Mountain Romances Book 3) Read online

  Montana Gold

  Rocky Mountain Romances (Book Three)

  Diane Darcy

  Contents

  Rocky Mountain Romances

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek at Book # 4 of the Rocky Mountain Romances series

  Also by Diane Darcy

  Rocky Mountain Romances

  Welcome to Rocky Mountain Romances, seven sweet historical romances brought together by the majestic and beautiful Rocky Mountains. Be sure not to miss any of the installments by clicking on the links below.

  Utah Sunrise by Amelia C. Adams

  Idaho Fairytale Bride by Jacquie Rogers

  Montana Gold by Diane Darcy

  Ride for a Bride in Wyoming by Charlene Raddon

  Hazel of Heber Valley by Annette Lyon

  New Mexico Enchantment by Savanna Sage

  Colorado Dreams by Heather Horrocks

  Copyright

  www.DianeDarcy.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Montana Gold: ©2017 by Diane Darcy

  Cover Art: Steven Novak at novakillustration.com

  All rights reserved~

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  New York, 1890

  Lucy Rickman’s mouth hung open long enough that the beautiful brunette seated across from her started to look concerned.

  “Are you all right?”

  The words snapped Lucy out of the trance she was in, and her gaze darted around her well-appointed and beautiful parlor as if seeing it for the first time.

  Beautiful furniture, velvets, brocade’s, and long drapes. Her entire world had been turned upside down, and she was noticing the material of the new drapes her grandmother had recently chosen?

  “I realize this must come as a shock to you.”

  Lucy was sitting ramrod straight, as she’d been trained.

  Her hands were folded politely in her lap, and she glanced at the tea tray sitting between the two of them, and a wave of inappropriate laughter threatened to bubble up her throat at the thought of offering the other woman tea.

  Outwardly, she might be calm, but inside, she was finally coming to grips with the fact that her life was about to irrevocably change forever.

  “Miss Smith?”

  The other woman, and she was the other woman, had the grace to blush. No doubt the name was as phony as Lucy’s life had just been revealed to be. When she’d been informed she had a guest in the parlor, Lucy had had no idea that her world was about to come crashing down. “Miss Smith. To restate, just to make sure that I haven’t mistaken your meaning, you are expecting a child, and my fiancé, Charles Hargraves, is the father. Is that correct?”

  Her grandmother would be proud of the cool tone, though Lucy could take no pride in it as her heart pounded in her chest. The other woman nodded.

  “And you are revealing this information to me, because?”

  Again, the woman had the grace to blush, though Lucy was starting to suspect it was an affectation rather than sincere.

  “Well, as one lady to another —”

  Lucy’s brows rose.

  The woman lifted her chin. “As one lady to another, I felt that it was my duty to inform you of a fact that will surely impact your future a great deal.”

  “Did Mr. Hargraves send you to inform me of this fact?”

  The other woman’s gaze dropped.

  “So, he did not.”

  “Like I said, I felt you had the right to know.”

  Lucy stood. “And now I know. If you’ll excuse me, I’m sure that Lee will show you out.”

  Leaving the woman in the capable hands of her butler, Lucy exited the room with perhaps more haste than grace.

  In a daze, she walked out into the hall. She glanced around, then, worried the other woman might come up behind her, hurried up the stairs. When she was out of sight, she leaned back against the wall, pressed both fists to her chest, and closed her eyes.

  What was she going to do?

  She blinked back tears.

  She couldn’t imagine the disappointment this would cause within both their families. Their fathers wanted this marriage to happen. Their mothers. She certainly wasn’t the only one who would be let down.

  She was filled with a sudden surge of jealousy toward the other woman, and it wasn’t over her fiancé, Charles. It was over the fact that Miss Smith was carrying a child.

  At age twenty-four she longed to have a babe of her own. And that a child had been so close within her grasp, only to be taken away and given to another woman, about killed her.

  She heard movement down the hall, and levered herself off the wall to turn toward her bedroom.

  “Lucille? Is that you?”

  Dread pressed in on her, but she didn’t dare disobey that imperious voice. Taking a deep breath, she tried to compose her expression as she turned. “Hello, Grandmamma.”

  Her grandmother’s expression turned to one of alarm as she studied her. “What’s the matter with you, girl?”

  That was all it took for the floodgates to open. Against her will, tears filled Lucy’s eyes, and a sob rose in her throat.

  “Come with me,” her grandmother barked the words as she hurried to her room, confident Lucy would follow.

  Horrified that she might be overheard, especially if that woman was still downstairs, Lucy pressed a hand to her mouth and quickly followed her grandmother who waited in her bedroom. The moment Lucy crossed the threshold, Grandmamma shut the door.

  More sobs escaped.

  “Follow me.”

  Her grandmother walked through the sitting room to the two chairs seated in front of the fireplace. “Sit down.”

  Feeling slightly hysterical, Lucy sank into one of the overstuffed chairs, and continued to cry.

  A handkerchief was quickly thrust into her hand, and as she sobbed, she waited for the reprimand that was sure to follow.

  Minutes passed until Lucy finally started to calm.

  “Are you feeling better?”

  Her grandmother’s voice was as imperious as ever, but Lucy could detect a note of concern.

  Lucy shuddered a few more times, and finally caught her breath, and dried her eyes. “I am.”

  “Now then, tell me what has occurred. And no more of your crying, do you hear?”

  Again, Lucy nodded. “A woman came by the house. She claims she is expecting Charles’s child.”

  Her grandmother held the head of her cane with both hands, her grip tight, her rose-colored gown lit by the sunshine flooding in from one window. “I see.” She nodded once, thick gray hair piled high and unmoving. “Indeed.” The older woman looked into the embers of the fireplace, her expression revealing nothing.

  “What am I to do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Lucy was at a loss for a moment. Her grandmother was very outspoken, and she simply expected the older woman would tell her what she was to do. “I don’t know.”

  “I should say your choices are obv
ious. This news cannot be a surprise to Charles, so obviously, if he were planning to tell you, he’d have done so by now. Which means he is perfectly content to let the marriage proceed.”

  Feelings of revulsion washed through Lucy, and she grimaced and flinched back into the chair.

  “I take it that is a no?” Her grandmother said dryly.

  Lucy thought about Charles and the fact that she’d been so close to getting what she wanted. A home and family of her own.

  But with a philanderer? She wasn’t senseless enough to invite such heartache into her life.

  Still, feelings of loss stabbed through her. Though Mr. Hargraves had not confessed any undying love for her, he had been gentlemanly, sweet, and excited about joining her family.

  She’d hoped for an eventual love match.

  She shook her head. “No. I will not be marrying the man.”

  Grandma thumped her cane twice. “Good girl!”

  Startled, Lucy’s gaze flew to her grandmother. The elderly woman was notorious for keeping the family in line, making sure they did things properly, and avoiding scandal.

  “There will be talk.” Lucy felt compelled to point out.

  Her grandmother laughed. “So, there will. It’s a good thing Hargraves is not part of our family, isn’t it? As for myself, I never did like the man. He’s a little too smooth, in my opinion. I wanted more for you.”

  “More?”

  “More. Someone like my William. Now, there was a man!”

  Lucy couldn’t help but stare at her grandmother, surprised by her comments and the open way she spoke. “He was?”

  “Of course, he was. He built all of this.” She waved a hand in the air to indicate the mansion they were situated in. “Built his steel business in a very competitive world. He was an impressive man and I was glad he was mine.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened during this speech. “Grandmamma, I’ve never heard you talk about him this way.”

  Her grandmother waved a hand in the air. “I will say that our son is nothing like him. Your father was born to be a politician.” Her tone was unflattering. “Back to the subject at hand. You’re young yet, —”

  “I’m twenty-four.”

  “Don’t interrupt. There is plenty of time for you to find a man like your grandfather. There’s no reason you shouldn’t have an exciting life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that if I was twenty-four, and suffering from a…ah… slightly broken heart, I’d want to go on an adventure. Why don’t you put that teaching certificate you earned to use?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her grandmother made an impatient noise. “Go west! Get on the train and go look for a real man.”

  “A real man?”

  Her grandmother stood and crossed the room and pulled something out of a drawer. She turned back and handed a paper to Lucy. “I saw this three weeks ago. At the time, I thought it would be perfect for you, were you not engaged. Well, you’re not engaged anymore. So why not?”

  Lucy quickly read the circled ad in the paper. She looked up at her grandmother. “Go to Montana? To teach school?”

  Grandmother looked at her approvingly. “I can see that the idea excites you.”

  Did it? Lucy drew in a breath and looked at the ad once more. Maybe it did. She’d love to get away from New York. Leave Hargraves and all the gossip behind. “What if the job is no longer available?”

  “Don’t worry. I will contact the superintendent myself. Lucy, I believe that you were meant for better things. And in a situation such as this, I believe it will do you good to get away.”

  She thought of the humiliation she was sure to suffer when word spread of her broken engagement, and the reasons behind it.

  But still, to just up and leave. Here and now she knew what was expected of her. If she left and started a new life elsewhere…

  And then there were her parents.

  But with her grandmother’s support it could work.

  “My parents….”

  Her grandmother smiled. “Leave your parents to me.”

  Butte Montana, 1890

  Boone Jackson heard the pounding on the front door and groaned.

  He was down on his knees preparing to saw through another piece of wood for the bookshelf he was making, his bum knee was hurting, and he didn’t want to get back up again.

  Unfortunately, it was Alford’s day off. His butler, a snooty man from England, usually opened the door and sent people on their way.

  Best money Boone had ever spent was in hiring that man, though it did him no good at the moment.

  He heard the knock again and, with a sigh, rose to his feet and brushed off his knees. If it was another girl, sporting yet another casserole, he was going to have to inform the woman he’d had all he could eat.

  He went down the curved staircase and into the foyer and noted that even with all the fancy furniture and carpets, the place felt empty. Lonely. He snorted. Poor him. Maybe he shouldn’t have built such a big house.

  Another knock sounded as he swung open the heavy wood door. “Mama. What are you doing here?”

  His slightly plump mother, her blonde hair fading to white, flashed her blue eyes at him and pushed past into the foyer. She swung around to face him, her green skirt swirling around her ankles. “I’m your mother. I can be here if I want to.”

  Well, she could. It’s just that she rarely came by, her full social life, and the fact that he was rarely home, excluding the possibility. “All right. Why are you then? Has something happened?”

  “I’m glad you asked.” His mother sounded upset about something, and since she’d never held back before, he figured he’d know shortly what it was.

  “Why weren’t you at church today?”

  “Is it Sunday?”

  “Don’t you get smart with me, young man.” She wandered into his parlor, the one that she’d decorated herself, and glanced around in satisfaction. She sank down on the settee loveseat she’d had shipped from France and removed her gloves. She gestured for him to sit across from her.

  He considered running away. It had frequently worked in his childhood as she hadn’t been able to outrun him since he was a toddler. Often, if he could get away for a few hours, she would have calmed down by the time he got home.

  He glanced toward the front door.

  “Don’t even think about it, young man. Sit.”

  With a sigh, he sank down onto the plush sofa across from his mother.

  “Church?”

  “I had things to do.”

  She leaned forward, her curls falling over her shoulder. She was still youthful-looking for her age and could get away with wearing the younger hairstyle.

  “How are you supposed to find a decent young woman to marry, if you don’t show up in church on Sunday?”

  Since she hadn’t bothered him about the subject in a good long while, he figured he knew what the problem was. “Was the preacher talking about unmarried men again today?”

  His mother’s eyes widened, and she huffed out a laugh, her good humor returning all of a sudden. He liked that about his mother. She was easy to rile, but she was easy to laugh as well. And he’d always been able to make her laugh. “How did you know?”

  “Well, you haven’t bothered me about getting married since the last girl turned out to be a floozy from Ogden, rather than the churchgoing lady she pretended to be.”

  She leaned forward in her seat. “Boone, if you married one of the girls from church, then we’d know who she was. We wouldn’t have to wonder about her background.”

  He glanced down at his leg spread out before him to give his aching knee a rest, and his hands, rough from years of work in the mines and grimy from the work he’d been doing upstairs. “Mama, you know good and well, if there was anyone in town I was even the slightest bit interested in, I’d have married a long time ago.”

  “But what about Marissa Johnson?”

  He shot her a look.
/>   She laughed again. “All right, it’s not like I want horse-faced grandchildren. Though she is a nice girl.”

  “I’m assuming you were at least attracted to my father when you married him? Don’t I deserve the same fate?”

  “Well, of course I want you to have an appealing bride. It’s not like I want an unattractive daughter-in-law. I just want one. The minister did say that men need to be married. It’s your natural state.”

  He grinned. “Are you saying I’m an unnatural son?”

  His mother rolled her eyes again. “I don’t think I’m asking for too much. Just find someone presentable, personable, and good with children and animals.” She shot him a look when she said the last.

  He smirked. “Are you saying I’m an animal?”

  She ignored him. “Soft-spoken would be nice. Able to teach her children good manners. A churchgoing lady.” She shot him another sly glance.

  “Is that all? Anything else?”

  “Well, she mustn’t be greedy, or pretentious.”

  “And where am I to find this paragon of virtue?”

  Impatience flooded his mother’s face, and she leaned forward once more. “Well, I don’t know where you’re supposed to find her. Just find her. You know good and well that my dear friend, Mrs. Smith, has a daughter-in-law, and I don’t see why I can’t have one too.”

  Boone leaned back against the sofa.

  “Don’t look at me like that! I want a grandchild, it’s not an unreasonable desire.”

  “Well, I’m tired of the women in this town going after me for my money.” Boone stood and walked to the window to look out at the bud-covered trees in his front yard. “Let’s see. Besides the usual casserole-loving girls showing up at my place, there was the woman who claimed I had amnesia and didn’t remember marrying her. There was the girl who climbed in my window and was waiting for me in my bedroom when I arrived home one night.”