By the morning of the trial, Grace's name had appeared in newspapers from Cheyenne to Denver.
Some accounts called her "The Blackwood Heroine."
Others called her "The Stout Servant Detective."
Grace hated that one.
One cartoon exaggerated her body until she looked twice her actual size, showing her holding an enormous coffee cup while six tiny doctors scratched their heads.
Mrs. Bell wanted to burn the newspaper office.
Grace merely folded the page and placed it beneath a laundry table to stop one leg from wobbling.
Elias saw her do it.
"You're not angry?"
"I'm saving the article for something useful."
He laughed.
But the humor disappeared when they reached the courthouse.
Julian's defense attorney, Charles Wainwright, had built his strategy around one idea.
Grace was unreliable.
Not because her story was inconsistent.
Because she was a servant.
A woman.
A laundress.
Someone without medical training.
Someone whose position in society made her easier to dismiss.
The courtroom was packed.
Ranchers filled the benches.
Reporters sat near the front.
Women crowded the doorway.
Julian entered wearing a dark suit.
He looked healthier than Elias.
More respectable, perhaps, to anyone who did not know him.
His injured hand had healed enough that he no longer wore a bandage.
When he saw Grace, he smiled.
She understood the message.
I am not afraid of you.
Grace sat behind the prosecutor.
Elias sat beside her.
His cane rested between his knees.
"You all right?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You're lying."
"Yes."
His hand moved across the bench.
For a moment, his fingers touched hers.
Not possessively.
Just enough to say he was there.
Julian noticed.
His smile disappeared.
The prosecution spent two days building the case.
Dr. Sterling described Elias's symptoms.
Samuel Beckett testified about the residue in the coffee.
A chemist from Denver explained that further testing had confirmed arsenic compounds.
Victor Hale testified in exchange for consideration on his own charges.
He admitted purchasing arsenic for Julian.
He described conversations about inheritance.
He explained how Julian planned to make Elias's illness resemble natural decline.
Then Grace took the stand.
She wore her best dress.
Plain navy blue.
High collar.
Her hair pinned carefully.
Wainwright looked at her for a long moment before beginning.
"Miss Miller, what is your occupation?"
"Laundry manager."
"Were you not, until recently, simply a laundress?"
"There's nothing simple about doing laundry for seventy people."
A few spectators laughed.
The judge rapped his gavel.
Wainwright smiled.
"So yes?"
"Yes."
"You have no medical education."
"No."
"No training in chemistry."
"No."
"No university education."
"No."
"Yet you decided six physicians were wrong."
Grace shook her head.
"I decided a cup looked wrong."
Wainwright paused.
"That's your expert conclusion?"
"It's my observation."
"You claim Mr. Thorne worsened after breakfast."
"I observed that."
"Every day?"
"Many days."
"Did you record these observations?"
"Not before I realized they mattered."
"So we have only your memory."
"For that part, yes."
Wainwright walked slowly.
"Miss Miller, isn't it true that Mr. Thorne treated you with unusual kindness?"
"He treated me with ordinary respect."
"Which you considered unusual."
Grace understood the trap.
He wanted gratitude transformed into obsession.
"Unfortunately," she said, "yes."
Murmurs moved through the room.
Wainwright continued.
"You were loyal to him."
"I am."
"Deeply loyal?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps emotionally attached?"
The prosecutor rose.
"Objection."
Wainwright held up a hand.
"I'll withdraw it."
But the damage was intended.
Grace felt eyes on her.
He changed direction.
"You personally handled the cup after finding the residue."
"Yes."
"You moved it."
"Yes."
"Covered it."
"Yes."
"Dr. Sterling also handled it."
"Yes."
"Mr. Beckett handled it."
"Yes."
"So several people had access before formal testing."
"Yes."
Wainwright smiled.
"Anyone could have contaminated it."
"Possible."
That answer surprised him.
Grace continued before he could speak.
"That's why I didn't accuse Julian based only on the first cup."
The prosecutor hid a smile.
Wainwright frowned.
"You did accuse him."
"I suspected him."
"Because he made coffee."
"Because he made coffee, insisted Elias drink it, became frightened when I questioned the residue, tried to stop us from testing it, prepared a second poisoned pot, admitted using arsenic while holding me at gunpoint, and shot Thomas Pike during his attempt to steal evidence."
The courtroom erupted.
The judge hammered his gavel.
Wainwright's face reddened.
"Miss Miller, you will answer only the question asked."
Grace looked at the judge.
"Yes, Your Honor."
Wainwright approached.
"You say my client confessed."
"Yes."
"No recording exists."
"It was 1888."
Laughter again.
Even the judge struggled not to smile.
"Thomas Pike claims he heard this supposed confession."
"He did."
"And Mr. Pike has worked for Elias Thorne twenty-seven years."
"Yes."
"Another loyal employee."
"Yes."
Wainwright leaned toward the jury.
"A household of loyal employees whose jobs depend on Mr. Thorne remaining alive and in control of Blackwood Ranch."
Grace stared at him.
"What exactly are you suggesting?"
"I'm asking whether everyone in that house had reason to support one story."
"One story involving Elias being deliberately poisoned?"
"Yes."
"Why would we invent that?"
"To remove Julian Thorne from the inheritance."
Grace almost smiled.
"No."
"No?"
"The new trust already removed him."
Wainwright stiffened.
The prosecutor looked up sharply.
Grace continued.
"That's why Julian needed Elias dead and the documents challenged."
Wainwright immediately objected.
But jurors had heard it.
Grace stepped down two hours later.
Her hands shook so badly she nearly missed the railing.
Elias rose.
"You were magnificent."
"I thought I might throw up."
"That would've been less magnificent."
She laughed despite herself.
Three days later, the jury returned.
Guilty.
Attempted murder.
Fraud.
Forgery.
The conspiracy charges were upheld as well.
Julian stood perfectly still as the verdicts were read.
Then he looked toward Elias.
Not Grace.
"You chose her over blood."
Elias's face hardened.
"No."
His voice carried through the courtroom.
"I chose truth over you."
Julian was led away.
Grace thought she would feel triumph.
Instead, she felt tired.
There was nothing joyful about watching a family destroy itself for money.
Outside the courthouse, reporters surrounded them.
Questions flew.
"Miss Miller!"
"Grace!"
"How did you know?"
"Are you and Mr. Thorne—"
Elias turned sharply at that question.
Thomas pushed through the crowd.
"Move aside."
They escaped into a carriage.
For several minutes Grace and Elias sat silently.
Then Grace began laughing.
Elias stared.
"What?"
"I don't know."
She covered her face.
Perhaps it was exhaustion.
Perhaps relief.
Soon Elias laughed too.
By the time they left Cheyenne, both were smiling like children who had escaped school.
On the train home, however, their mood changed.
Elias sat beside the window.
Grace across from him.
"We need to discuss something," he said.
"That usually means trouble."
"Probably."
He took an envelope from his coat.
Inside were legal papers.
"What are these?"
"Your partnership agreement."
Grace stared at him.
"My what?"
"Blackwood Laundry."
"You own Blackwood Laundry."
"Not anymore."
Grace looked down.
The document offered her fifty percent ownership.
She pushed it back.
"No."
Elias blinked.
"No?"
"I will not take part of your business because I saved you."
"You created the business."
"Using your building."
"My building sat there losing money."
"Your equipment."
"Which sat there losing money."
"Your workers."
"Who work for the laundry because you organized them."
Grace shook her head.
"People will say—"
"I do not care what people say."
"I do."
He went quiet.
Grace looked out the train window.
Wyoming rolled past in vast brown-and-green distances.
"I've spent my entire life having people assume I got something because somebody felt sorry for the big woman," she said.
Elias's expression softened.
"When I was twenty-four, I worked at a boardinghouse in Omaha. The owner promoted me to manage the kitchen. His wife accused me of getting the job by making him feel guilty."
Grace swallowed.
"At another place, a man proposed marriage because he said a woman who looked like me should be grateful anyone wanted her."
Elias's jaw tightened.
"I don't want charity."
"It's not charity."
"I know you believe that."
"I don't believe it. I know it."
She looked at him.
He leaned forward.
"You saw an opportunity I missed. You built a business that's paying wages and keeping Blackwood solvent. Why should my name own all of that merely because I owned the building first?"
Grace had no answer.
"Think about it," he said.
"I already am."
"Think longer."
She folded the contract.
"I'll consider it."
"That's the closest thing to victory I've had with you in months."
"Don't get used to it."
When they arrived at Blackwood, nearly the entire ranch was waiting.
Someone had hung a banner across the porch.
WELCOME HOME, GRACE.
Not Elias.
Grace.
She stopped.
Children ran toward her.
Mrs. Bell hugged her hard enough to hurt.
Thomas lifted his hat.
"Boss."
Grace looked behind her.
Elias raised an eyebrow.
Thomas smiled.
"Other boss."
Grace laughed.
That evening there was music in the bunkhouse.
Food.
Dancing.
For the first time since Elias became ill, Blackwood felt alive.
Grace stood outside beneath the stars when Elias joined her.
"You disappeared."
"I needed quiet."
He leaned against the porch rail.
"So did I."
They watched the distant lanterns.
After a while Elias said, "I've been thinking."
"Dangerous."
"About why Blackwood matters."
Grace waited.
"I used to think it was land."
"And now?"
"People."
His gaze moved toward her.
"Specific people."
Grace's heartbeat changed.
Elias stepped closer.
"I don't know when it happened."
"What?"
"When seeing you walk into a room stopped feeling ordinary."
She looked away.
"Elias."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
"Then tell me."
She faced him.
"People are already talking."
"People always talk."
"You're Elias Thorne."
"And you're Grace Miller."
"Exactly."
He frowned.
"You think I consider that unequal?"
"Everyone else does."
"Then everyone else can learn."
Grace's eyes stung unexpectedly.
She hated that.
"I won't become somebody's gratitude."
His expression changed.
"Is that what you think this is?"
"I don't know."
He nodded slowly.
"Fair."
Then he stepped back.
"I won't ask you for anything until you do."
"Until I do what?"
"Know."
He walked inside.
Grace remained beneath the Wyoming stars.
For months she had fought to keep Elias alive.
Now she faced something far more difficult.
Deciding what she wanted from the life they had saved.
---