waiting and being cautious. Jerking her hand free, she said, "Elizabeth Howell. Her name was Elizabeth Howell, wasn't it?"
Peyton jerked back to the present with a start and a sudden guilty look that he quickly erased. "Maybe so. Well now, I suppose I'd best go back to the hotel and see if there's room for me. It was a mighty fine dinner, Mrs. Monteigne. I'm obliged to you."
Evie rose with him. "My name is Evangeline Peyton Howell, sir. That's the name on my baptismal certificate. Would those names mean anything to you?"
"Evie!" Tyler stood up and grabbed her shoulders, but he knew better than anyone that there was no holding her back once she got rolling. She was throwing months of caution into the lap of a stranger, but he couldn't help but be curious at the stranger's reaction.
Peyton stared at Evie for a long time, then shook his head. "Elizabeth Howell married Randall Harding while I was in California looking for a gold mine. That's the last I heard of the lady. Perhaps you ought to talk to her." He pushed his chair under the table and gave the door an uneasy look as if he wished to walk out and keep on walking.
"Elizabeth Harding is dead, sir," Tyler said gently, pinching Evie on the arm to keep her quiet.
The man looked shocked, and the hand around the chair tightened until the knuckles whitened. He stared at the young couple on the other side of the table, then shook his head in a gesture of despair. In a moment's time, he seemed to wither into an old man. "I see." Without another word of explanation, he picked up his bag and walked out.
Tyler pulled Evie around and held her. She buried her face in his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his waist, but she didn't cry. She had cried those tears long ago. There weren't any more to shed.
"He's had a lot of nasty shocks, Evie. Let him go." Tyler rubbed her back gently.
Daniel couldn't hold his tongue any longer. "If they weren't married, Evie, he couldn't say anything that would jeopardize her reputation. He loved her. Anybody can see that."
That was true. James Peyton had known Elizabeth Howell a lot longer than he had known one Evangeline Howell Monteigne. His loyalty would lie with the woman he had loved. Evie straightened her shoulders and offered Daniel a small smile.
"My uncle is a very famous painter. Did you know that?" And with those enigmatic words, Carmen picked up the coffee cups and went to the sink.
* * *
"Excuse me, Mrs. Peyton, may I have a word with you privately?" Jonathan Hale lifted his hat and fell into step with Evie as she hurried from the schoolhouse to home.
"Why, go right ahead, Mr. Hale. I doubt that anyone will hear us as we walk. And the name is Monteigne now." Still annoyed with this little man for having called the sheriff the day she had gone to Tyler's room, Evie hurried along the boardwalk, her stiff pongee skirt sweeping over several layers of petticoats. She had needed lots of fortification when she had dressed this morning.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Monteigne, but that is precisely what I wished to talk with you about. It doesn't seem at all politic to be discussing your marriage on a public street."
"It doesn't seem at all politic to be discussing it at all, Mr. Hale," she rebuked him. She wasn't certain why she was feeling so irritated at the man. He had given her loads of invaluable information, and she really shouldn't provoke him. She was quite certain he had much more information if she could only pry it from him. The letter she had sent supposedly from St. Louis might have reached him by now, but there hadn't been time for a reply to go to her St. Louis address and return here.
"You are quite right, of course, but I can't help taking an interest in your behalf. As a good friend of Miss Howell's, you are my best connection with the lady. And I can't help feeling protective of any innocent woman."
Evie sent him a doubting gaze. "How very thoughtful of you, sir, but I am in something of a hurry. We will be at the house shortly, and there will be no privacy there at all."
"Very well. I understand that you and Mr. Monteigne were married by Mr. Cleveland?"
She didn't know how he'd come across that piece of knowledge, but she supposed