Dead Set Delphinia Read online

  DEAD SET

  DELPHINIA

  Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs

  Book 11

  ZINA ABBOTT

  Copyright © 2017 Robyn Echols writing as Zina Abbott

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to

  The hard-working authors of the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog who provide the world with sweet/clean historical romances about North Americans between 1820 and 1929.

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  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Story Chapters

  Thank you for reading

  Other Sweethearts of

  Jubilee Springs Books

  Grandma’s Wedding Quilts Series

  Other Zina Abbott Books

  About the Author

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book is part of a multi-author series sponsored by the authors who write for the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog. My appreciation and thanks go to those other authors who helped develop the fictional mining town of

  Jubilee Springs along the Arkansas River in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

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  DISCLAIMER

  The town of Jubilee Springs, and all the characters described in this story are fictional. They are not based on any real persons, past or present. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintended.

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  New York city, New York – JuNE, 1881

  CHAPTER 1

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  Delphinia Blakewell inhaled as deeply as her tightly-cinched corset would allow, pasted a self-confident smile and her face, and strode with purpose towards the counter. The corner of her lips turned up even more as she noticed it was the young clerk manning the counter. He did not look at her with an air of suspicion the way the postmaster did.

  Delphinia spoke to his turned back. “Good morning. Do you have mail for Delia Brownlee?”

  The young man’s shoulders stiffened. He reached for two letters and turned slowly. “Yes, Miss Brownlee, but I’ve been instructed….” His eyes flickered to someone or something behind her on her left side.

  Delphinia knew without looking. Someone had followed her, probably one of her father’s minions. He must be behind her.

  Delphinia reached forward and grabbed the letters out of the clerk’s hands. Undoing her top button on the neckband of her stand-up collar with one hand, she stuffed the letters down her front. She rebuttoned her clothing and twirled around as Emery Garland, one of her father’s assistants, stopped within three feet of her.

  Garland held out his hand. “I’ll take those, Miss Blakewell. I have instructions from your father….”

  “You will not take them, Mr. Garland, unless you plan to assault my person in a public place. They belong to me.”

  The man huffed with irritation. “Miss Blakewell, please do not be difficult.”

  Delphinia raised her voice. “I am not being difficult, Mr. Garland. I am taking care of my personal business in a peaceful manner. It is you who are accosting me, making demands you have no right….”

  “Your personal business, Miss Blakewell? You asked for mail for Delia Brownlee, which is not your name. Your parents wish to know why you are coming to a borough in which you have no business being, and posing as someone you are not, in order to exchange clandestine mail with men of suspicious origins and intents.”

  “With whom I correspond is none of your business, Mr. Garland. And there is nothing in my correspondence that should be viewed as suspicious. It is a private matter, and I will thank you to leave me alone. Go back to my father and tell him he has more important things to worry about than having my every move followed.”

  “Miss Blakewell, Your mother would be mortified if she knew of your conduct today.”

  “Let my mother be mortified. It would serve her right.” Although Delphinia muttered the statement under her breath, she knew Emery Garland heard her.

  “Don’t make me forcefully take them from you. He stepped closer, straightening to his full height in attempt to intimidate her. However, at five feet, eight inches tall, she refused to be intimidated by his height which exceeded hers by only an inch considering the two inch heels on her boots she wore.

  By now, a crowd in the postal building stood around gawking at the scene, hanging onto every word. Delphinia played to them, believing her best chance for safety lay in not being alone with her father’s man. “Forcefully take them in what manner, Mr. Garland? Do you plan to strip me in a public place? To rip my clothing from my body? To illegally take what is mine?” Delphinia turned to the clerk who now watched them open-mouthed, his eyes wide with astonishment. “Quick! Call for the constable. This man intends me harm.”

  Garland snorted with disgust and addressed the clerk. “You’ll do no such thing, young man. My boss, Mr. Franklin Blakewell, is well-known in this city, He has connections with all of New York’s politicians, state and federal. He will not only have your job, but will have your boss’s postmaster position. It was bad enough your postmaster took his position so seriously he refused to hand me these letters directly. Do not make matters worse by interfering with my job of returning Miss Blakewell to her parents.”

  Delphinia watched the young man step back. There would be no help from him. The others in the building looked on with rapt interest until she caught their eye. Then each turned away, unwilling to help. She turned and glared defiantly at her adversary. “You have no right to take me anywhere without my consent. I am of age, Mr. Garland. I have the right to go where I please.”

  Shaking his head, Emery Garland stepped forward and grabbed her elbow. “The way your father sees it, as long as you live under his roof, you follow his rules. He will not be pleased when he hears about this. He does not like you upsetting your mother.” His fingers and thumb pressed on the nerve in her elbow enough to cause her discomfort. She quickly realized if she did not go with him, he would increase the pressure until the pain would become unbearable.

  “Nothing I do pleases my mother, so I’ve stopped concerning myself with that.” Delphinia ignored the sidelong glance from her captor. She noticed he did not contradict her.

  “Maybe after you marry Mr. Sopworth, he will be able to get you under control where your parents have failed.”

  With a sigh of resignation, Delphinia walked out of the post office beside Mr. Garland. She may not be intimidated by him due to his height, but there was no denying the breadth of his shoulders was about twice as wide as hers. Tall and slender with narrow shoulders and hips, she had detested the nickname “beanpole” given to her by her enemies at Miss Hartung’s Seminary for Proper Young Ladies. Thank goodness she at least possessed a decent bosom.

  As Emery Garland led her away, the thought of her bosom caused her to shudder. The last time her supposed fiancé, Andrew Sopworth, the bounder, had he caught her alone after she came out of the ladies retiring room at a restaurant, he had pulled her into a dark corner and tried to help himself to her breasts. Only when she raised her voice enough to attract attention of the wait staff had he released her, with the reminder their wedding was coming up, and she should get used to the idea. Delphinia detested the man. He talked incessantly about himself, but made it abundantly clear he had no interest in anything she wished to contribute to a conversation. All he cared about was getting control of her wedding settlement once they married.

  Why couldn’t her father see it? Her mother, she understood. As reprehensible as A
ndrew was, he came from another top New York family. Joining the two families would solidity her mother’s place in New York society, important since the Blakewells were fairly newcomers to the city’s elite. But, Delphinia had hoped for better from her father who focused on his personal success, not his status among the city’s blue-bloods.

  Delphinia searched in vain for her hired Hansom cab she had left half a block down from the post office.

  “I paid your driver off and sent him on his way since I knew I would be taking you with me.” Mr. Garland nodded to a double-bench buggy Delphinia recognized as belonging to her father. “Up you go, Miss Blakewell. Your father is expecting you at his office.” Wordlessly, Delphinia climbed into the back seat while Garland climbed to the driver’s seat up front.

  The trip to her father’s business office proceeded in silence. Delphinia took advantage of Mr. Garland’s need to focus on the heavy mid-day traffic and the semi-privacy of the covered top and sides of the rear seat to reach inside her fitted jacket and undo two buttons of her blouse so she could reposition her letters deeper into her corset.

  At her father’s business office, Mr. Garland deposited Delphinia in one of the chairs in the reception area. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and quickly scribbled out a note which he double-folded and handed to her father’s secretary, Mrs. Sparks. “She’s here on her father’s orders. Don’t allow her to leave.” With that, he shook his head and walked out, obviously relieved to be finished with his distasteful task.

  Delphinia turned and nodded to Mrs. Sparks, a middle-aged woman she thought of as “the dragon.” The woman was fairly attractive, considering her age. However, the widow’s demanding and no-nonsense attitude, although beneficial for her father’s business, held no warmth or tolerance for her. Delphinia knew the woman did not entirely approve of any of the women of the Blakewell family. Fiercely loyal to her father, she excelled at keeping those who wished to do business with her father on their toes and behaving their best. Since Delphinia didn’t know how much Mrs. Sparks knew of her assumed name with its private mail address, she knew her safest course of action was to not attempt to engage the dragon in conversation.

  Several minutes later, Franklin Blakewell emerged from his office, clapped his departing visitor on the shoulder while the two shared a final laugh before the other man departed.

  Only when the three remained in the reception area did Franklin turn to his daughter. “Delphinia, your being here means there are matters we need to discuss. Please come into my office.”

  As Delphinia rose from her chair, the dragon raised her hand, the note from Mr. Garland clasped in her fingers. “For you, Sir. From Mr. Garland.”

  Franklin took the note and nodded to his secretary. “Thank you, Mrs. Sparks. I don’t know how long my daughter and I will meet, but we are not to be disturbed for any reason.”

  Out of the corner of her eye as she followed her father into his office, Delphinia caught the woman’s grimace of determination. In her father’s office, she sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. He settled into his own chair before he opened and read the note. She knew her father relied on his imposing desk and large chair to give an aura of power to whoever sat or stood before him. She told herself to refuse to allow him to intimidate her. Delphinia steeled herself to face the grilling she knew was coming.

  Franklin looked up and stared hard at his daughter. “It is time to tell me what you are up to, Delly. Why are you corresponding with unknown men using the name Delia Brownlee? Mr. Garland said he was unable to obtain ahead of time the two letters which are now in your possession, but he did learn one was from a Mr. Aaron Brinks residing in Jubilee Springs, Colorado. From other sources, we are aware you have also received correspondence from a Mr. Owen Spencer of that same town.”

  Delphinia returned her father’s stare with one of her own, refusing to soften her attitude at his rare use of her childhood nickname. She knew who his “other source” was—her young Irish lady’s maid, Annie. Delphinia had been very careful about hiding her letters in a secret compartment she had discovered years earlier. It had been fashioned by hollowing out one side of her bedroom’s thick wooden fireplace mantle. The side of the mantle contained a hidden hinge, but as a child she had managed to pry it open at the edge that butted up against the wall. The family did not use the fireplace anymore, her mother having installed a free-standing coal heater because she considered the fireplace too smoky. Delphinia had never told anyone about her discovery—not her parents or any of the servants.

  However, one day Delphinia had been reading a letter from Mr. Spencer when Annie had entered her room without knocking first to announce her mother wanted to see her immediately. Not wishing to expose her secret hiding place, Delphinia had folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope before shoving it in the back of the center drawer of her dressing table. When she had looked for it later that evening, the letter had gone missing.

  In some respects, Delphinia could not blame Annie. Her mother had the poor girl frightened out of her wits with frequent threats of dismissal without references. Annie knew who paid her salary, and no doubt was under pressure by her parents to report anything unusual to them. However, especially after that letter disappeared, Delphinia made a point to never confide in the girl and to never allow her room to remain unlocked while reading her letters or replying to one.

  Franklin continued. “I’ve looked into Jubilee Springs. It is a fairly new mining camp in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, mostly made up of rough miners who work for a large silver mine in the area. Tell me why you would be writing to two men there.”

  “Two men?” Just how much did her father know?

  “Yes. I assume this Aaron Brinks you received a letter from today is also a miner. The other man was Spencer someone.”

  “Perhaps I wished to invest in a silver mine, Father. I have the capability to invest wisely. Before I developed breasts, you thought me quite intelligent and you taught me quite a bit. Now you think I’m witless and must have a man do all my thinking.”

  “Watch your tongue, Delphinia. Only a person of low parentage would refer to the human form in such crude terms. And you do not need to do your own investing. If I think there is a good investment, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Perhaps I wished to prove I can take care of my own life instead of having absolutely every single solitary aspect of my life executed and controlled by you and Mother. Perhaps I wished to exert a measure of independence from the demands of family and society.”

  Franklin Blakewell’s eyes returned to Mr. Garland’s note. “And that is why you received a letter from a Mrs. Lizett Millard of Colorado? Is she also involved in silver mining?”

  Delphinia’s heart rate increased. No, Lizett Millard ran the Colorado Bridal Agency. It had been over a month since she had received anything from Mrs. Millard. Perhaps her father had not been following her long enough to have intercepted any earlier correspondence from Mrs. Millard. Hopefully, her father did not know who she was or what she did. However, Delphinia was not delusional. She realized once her father put out in inquiry, he would soon know the kind of business Mrs. Millard operated.

  Perhaps Mrs. Millard had written to tell her it was time for her to go to Colorado to meet a prospective groom. It would have to be Aaron Brinks. Delphinia had read enough of the last letter from Owen Spencer before it disappeared a month earlier to know he was more impressed that she was the daughter of a New York businessman. It was obvious from what he wrote he was more concerned with any money she would bring into the marriage. She had already decided against him and had written one last letter to tell him she did not think they were well-suited for each other and she was discontinuing their correspondence. To discourage him further, she wrote she was no longer sure she would be able to come to Jubilee Springs.

  On the other hand, she felt confident about Aaron Brinks. He had been raised in a city—Indianapolis, which was as modern and advanced as New York. His parents
had operated a business. Although he now chose to work as a miner, he was not raised as a farmer or laborer who no doubt expected a wife to know how to cook and perform household tasks—skills for which she had no aptitude or training. A marriage to him might work, and certainly couldn’t be any worse than the one she faced with Andrew Sopworth. At least he would be her choice. Delphinia responded to her father. “I believe Mrs. Millard is. I’m sure I’m not the only woman who has taken note of the amount of silver being brought out of Colorado. Right now, purchasing stock in a productive silver mine is a good investment.”

  Delphinia had not exactly lied to her father. After all, Mrs. Millard did seem to conduct a great deal of business with the Prosperity silver mine owners. Perhaps they were more than a business contact for her bridal agency. Perhaps she also invested in the mine. Perhaps she enjoyed a closer relationship with one of the owners. The more Delphinia thought about it, if she could get her hands on the money her father was so anxious to hand over to Andrew Sopworth upon her marriage to him, perhaps investing in silver mining stock would be a wise move for her, one that would assure her independence.

  The sound of her father’s long-suffering sigh brought Delphinia back to the present. “I expected more forthrightness from you, Delly. I know you have those two letters on you, and I know there is more to this than what you are telling me. What has happened to you? We used to be close, but now you shut me out.”

  Delphinia felt her throat choke with emotion. She had been asking that question for years, ever since her beloved papa had turned her completely over to her mother just before her twelfth birthday to be raised as a high society lady. Once she had been sent to finishing school and was harped at every moment she was home about speaking and acting like a proper lady, the carefree times she had spent as a child with her father had ceased. At times, Delphinia still thought back on her girlhood, and had regretted the necessity of growing up under her mother’s mandate.