Digging Up The Dirt

Hadley found a chair and pulled it forward between Dickce and Reba. Barbie perched on the arm of the sofa next to Lottie once Hadley sat. Hadley leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and regarded them all. “Thanks for inviting me back into the fold, ladies. It’s not often the prodigal son returns to such an open-armed greeting.”

“We’re all delighted you’re back in Athena.” Reba turned slightly in her chair to look at him. “We’re all also hoping that you intend to remain and bring Ashton Hall back to what it ought to be.”

“That is my plan.” Hadley nodded. “I was appalled to see how my dear brother had let the gardens go.” He grimaced. “Hamish never cared as much about them as I did.”

An’gel—like the others, she had no doubt—burned to ask Hadley why he had left so abruptly all those years ago. There had been various rumors at the time. The one that had the most support was that Hamish had caught his brother in bed with his wife, Callie, and had thrown Hadley out of the house and told him never to come back. Another story held that Hadley embezzled money from his brother and skipped town to avoid prosecution, though many doubted Hamish would have suffered the indignity of putting his brother in jail. Hamish Partridge had been far too proud of his family name to allow that to happen.

“But now they’re mine,” Hadley said in a somber tone. “Poor old Hamish finally passed on, and to my great surprise he left everything to me.”

“I wasn’t surprised in the least.” Arliss fluttered her eyelashes at Hadley. “There was no one else, at least as far we know, and Hamish would never have left Ashton Hall to strangers.”

“No, he certainly wouldn’t.” Lottie shook her head. “The last time I saw him, about three days before he died, he told me everything would be yours, Hadley.” She paused to glance up at Barbie, then looked at Hadley again. “Especially since he had no idea where his wife was.”

An’gel felt an immediate change of atmosphere in the room, and she could see that Hadley had tensed up. She had wondered how long it would take one of the women to mention Callie Partridge.

Calpurnia Partridge, actually, An’gel knew, but Callie had always hated her full name. Callie left Athena a couple of days after Hadley, so the story went, and everyone assumed she’d run after him.

“Poor Callie.” Hadley sighed, his shoulders now relaxed. “Hamish never treated her the way he should have, so it’s no wonder she bolted when she did.” He paused to glance around the room. “I wonder what happened to her? Did any of you ever hear from her after she left Athena? Until I heard that Hamish left everything to me, I really thought I would find her still living at Ashton Hall.”

No one responded right away to Hadley, and the silence lengthened. An’gel knew the others were no doubt as stunned as she was, because they had all assumed that Hadley and Callie had been together all these years. If Callie hadn’t followed Hadley from Athena, what on earth had happened to her?

An’gel decided she might as well voice what everyone was thinking. “No one ever heard from her again, to our knowledge. Everyone thought, you see, that she had run away to join you because she didn’t want to stay with Hamish.”

Hadley didn’t appear startled at An’gel’s statement. He shrugged. “I’m not surprised by that. I know everyone thought Callie and I were having a passionate affair behind Hamish’s back, but that simply was not the case. I never touched her, and she certainly didn’t run off to be with me.”

“Then where could she have gone?” Arliss threw up her hands. “She had no family left, as far as I know.”

“She was a registered nurse, remember, even though she quit working after she married Hamish,” Barbie said. “She could have found a job anywhere. Taken on a new name, even gotten married again for all we know.”

“Hamish never said anything to me about divorcing her.” Reba sniffed. “If she did marry again, she was committing bigamy.”

“Hamish didn’t tell you everything, Reba.” Lottie simpered. “I was his closest confidante the last few years. If he had told anyone, he would have told me.”

“Well, did he tell you whether he divorced her?” An’gel asked. Really, she could shake Lottie sometimes for her coyness.

Lottie shrugged. “The subject never came up. Hamish and I had other things to talk about when I visited with him.”

When you were trying to get him interested in marrying you, you mean. An’gel resisted the temptation to say the words aloud.

Arliss saved her the trouble. She hooted with laughter, then said, “Hamish was too smart for you, Lottie. He knew better than to tell you any such thing. Otherwise you’d have dragged him to the altar before he could put on a fresh pair of socks and clean underwear.”

“That’s what you would have done, you mean-spirited woman,” Lottie said. “I thought of Hamish as a friend, nothing more.”