His father stood like a returning warrior in the entryway, with both Rhody and Jeptha standing behind him. His favorite bloodhound, Moses, was at his side.
Relief flooded over Alden when he didn’t see Benjamin, but the triumphant smile on his father’s face—and Jeptha’s grimly set jaw—expunged any hope.
His mother hurried toward them, collecting the leather cloak his father dropped onto her arm.
“We caught him,” he proclaimed.
She smoothed her hand over the leather. “Very good.”
“He won’t run away again.”
“You all must eat,” his mother directed.
His father glanced toward Alden, but didn’t greet him. “Rhody earned herself a fine meal. She was the one who found him hiding in the basement of the Congregational Church.”
The glory in Rhody’s eyes sent tremors down Alden’s spine. His younger sister had warred alongside their father, and she had won.
“Does Reverend Andrews know?” his mother asked.
“I’ll find out after Christmas. His wife claimed he was out visiting the sick today.”
“Likely story. I’ve never trusted the man.”
“I’ll find out the truth.” He retrieved his cloak from her hands before motioning toward Alden. “Come with me, son.”
Alden moved forward. “Where are we going?”
“I’ve decided not to eat quite yet.”
“But you must be famished,” his mother said.
“I need Alden’s help first in the curing barn.”
Chapter 3
Sacramento City
December 1853
Isabelle Labrie swept into the elegant dining room of the Golden Hotel along Sacramento City’s bustling K Street. The lilac gown she wore belled out from her fitted bodice until it reached the polished wood floor. It was modeled after the latest fashions in Paris except there were no ruffles or lace around the sleeves or skirt. And she had tiny bags of birdshot stitched around the hem to keep it from yielding to the California winds that swept up the river and through this growing town.
“Good evening, monsieur,” she said to Edmund Walsh, the one gentleman seated near the rosewood box grand. It was Christmas Eve, but it didn’t feel like a holiday. A light rain fell outside instead of the snow she’d loved back in Baltimore, and few wanted to stop and celebrate the birth of Christ when there was a pile of gold waiting to be found in the hills.
She reached for the bottle of Madeira the steward had left on the table, filling her customer’s glass.
Mr.Walsh ate dinner at her hotel almost every night—salmon in the autumn, roasted duck in the summer, oyster loaf whenever a crate of oysters arrived from San Francisco. Rumor had it that he’d once been the milliner for Queen Victoria in London. Others said he’d been a blacksmith in Buffalo.
That was the beauty of California. A person could take on any persona they wanted. Be whomever they wanted in the shadows of this strange land.
When he’d first arrived in this new state, Mr.Walsh cast his line for gold and snagged a fortune. Gold was much harder to find in California than the East Coast papers liked to report—its dust sifted through fingers like sand in an hourglass, especially at the bordellos and saloons. Many miners wealthy at sunset were penniless again by sunrise, but Mr.Walsh was one of the few who’d managed to keep his money.
“When is Mr.Kirtland returning from the fields?” he asked.
She glanced out the large window along the front of the hotel, at the gray sky and a glimpse of river two blocks away. She’d been hoping Ross would return for Christmas, but it was already Christmas Eve. In the four months he’d been gone, she’d only received one letter from him, postmarked from the diggings near Marysville, and he gave no indication as to when he would return.
But he’d wanted to marry this spring when the flowers behind her aunt’s cottage were in full bloom. She’d promised that she would have an answer to his proposal when he returned.
Isabelle glanced back at her customer. “He said he’d be back before the rains.”
