An Unexpected Wife
Cheryl Reavis
Giving up her out-of-wedlock son was the only right choice. Still, Kate Woodward aches that she isn’t part of his life. She can’t heal herself, but she can help ex-Confederate soldier Robert Markham rebuild his war-shattered life. But helping Robert is drawing them irresistibly close—even as Kate fears she can never be the one he deserves …Battlefield loss and guilt rekindled Robert’s faith and brought him home to Atlanta. And Kate’s past only makes him more determined to show this steadfast, caring woman that she deserves happiness.Now with her secrets revealed and her child in danger, Robert has only one chance to win her trust—and embark on the sweetest of new beginnings …
Her Deepest Secret
Giving up her out-of-wedlock son was the only right choice. Still, Kate Woodward aches that she isn’t part of his life. She can’t heal herself, but she can help former Confederate soldier Robert Markham rebuild his war-shattered life. But helping Robert is drawing them irresistibly close—even as Kate fears she can never be the one he deserves….
Battlefield loss and guilt rekindled Robert’s faith and brought him home to Atlanta. And Kate’s past only makes him more determined to show this steadfast, caring woman that she deserves happiness. Now, with her secrets revealed and her child in danger, Robert has only one chance to win her trust—and embark on the sweetest of new beginnings….
“Where is Kate?” Robert asked.
“She is giving away most of the contents of our food basket to a woman with three hungry children,” Mrs. Kinnard said. “As she should. Now, about—”
“Excuse me,” he said, pushing his way through the crowd again to get closer to the train.
He stood waiting on the platform, watching Kate progress all the way until she finally appeared. She was so…beautiful to him and had been since the first time he saw her in the downstairs hallway of his father’s house.
Maria was right. He did want Kate to be a preacher’s wife—his wife—and he didn’t see how their situation could be any more impossible.
I love her, Lord.
He didn’t know when it had happened, or how. All he knew was that it was so, that she was in his mind night and day—and now he was only moments away from breaking her heart….
CHERYL REAVIS
The RITA® Award-winning author and romance novelist describes herself as a “late bloomer” who played in her first piano recital at the tender age of thirty. “We had to line up by height—I was the third smallest kid,” she says. “After that, there was no stopping me. I immediately gave myself permission to attempt my other heart’s desire—to write.” Her books A Crime of the Heart and Patrick Gallagher’s Widow won a Romance Writers of America coveted RITA® Award for Best Contemporary Series Romance the year each was published. One of Our Own received a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series Romance from RT Book Reviews. A former public health nurse, Cheryl makes her home in North Carolina with her husband.
An Unexpected Wife
Cheryl Reavis
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen
your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
—Psalms 31:24
For my mother, in honor of her birthday—
92 years and counting. Thank you, Mommy,
for always being my biggest fan.
Contents
Chapter One (#u2e72ce58-5967-5111-ad60-9b5757eae011)
Chapter Two (#ue9e89a69-e505-5e61-a0f4-109666cf495a)
Chapter Three (#u6c8493f4-a502-5078-91fe-f54c599c3008)
Chapter Four (#ub34e8f2c-cf0c-5dfb-910c-880a02e1e44a)
Chapter Five (#ueed9d1c7-0e15-56d2-abb7-a8065fe38cf1)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Kate Woodard stood looking out the parlor window, more than content to be in her brother’s finally empty house and do nothing but watch the falling snow. It was deep enough to drift across the veranda now, a barricade—she hoped—from any outside intrusion.
The house was cold; a strong draft at the window made the lace curtains billow out from time to time. She could light a fire in the fireplace—if only one had been laid on the hearth and she knew how. When she made her impulsive decision to deliberately miss her train, she hadn’t for one moment taken into consideration that it was the dead of winter and she knew next to nothing about managing parlor fires, much less the one in the kitchen. Tomorrow she would do something about all that—hire someone or...something. Now she would savor the peace and silence of the house, and it would be enough.
She had come to Salisbury, North Carolina, to visit her brother and his family in the hope that a change of scenery and the rowdy company of his adorable young sons—two adopted, one his by blood—would redirect her mind. She was so weary of living the false life that had been foisted upon her when she was hardly more than a child herself. She needed...respite. She needed the privacy to feel all the emotions she had to keep bottled up for the sake of propriety. She wanted to weep—or not to weep. She wanted to pace and fret, if that seemed more applicable to her state of mind. She wanted the freedom to think about her own son. Her lost son. He was thirteen now, and the web of lies surrounding his birth had held fast. No outsiders knew young Harrison Howe was her child and not the child of her parents’ closest friends, nor did they know his brother was not his brother at all.
John.
He had made a much better brother than father—at least before the war had changed him so.
All these years Kate had lived on the fringes of Harrison’s life, watching him grow, being his friend but always carefully exercising the restraint it took not to make Mr. and Mrs. Howe or her own family think that she might be trying to get close to him. She was so good at it that she sometimes thought the people who knew the truth forgot that she was Harrison’s real mother.
Her latest news of him was that he had been sent to a prestigious boarding school deep in the Pennsylvania countryside, the alma mater of many—if not all—the males in the Howe family and the one place Kate believed he would not thrive. He wasn’t like the Howe men—John—or the senior Mr. Howe. He was more like her father—and her—thoughtful and observant and studious, and the fact that he required spectacles would make him even more of a target for boarding school jibes and pranks.
But there was nothing she could do beyond sending him small gifts of books and candy. He had sent her a carte de visite in return. She cherished it, but seeing his wistful young face staring back at her from the photograph only underlined her growing fear that he was miserable.
So she had come to her brother’s lively household in the hope of forgetting at least for a time the helplessness she was feeling—only now she had put herself squarely into a different kind of helplessness. If she’d taken the time to think about it, she might have been discouraged by her lack of housekeeping skills. The original plan—her brother Maxwell’s plan—had been that she would return to her parents’ home in Philadelphia while Max and Maria and the boys and their nanny were away. There were no other servants in the house; Max relied on his soldiers to accomplish what few of the heavy chores Maria would allow them to do. He had even assigned one of his nervous young officers and his wife, who were traveling to New York City, to see her safely to her destination. But she had forgotten the basket of food Maria had packed especially for her to take on her long train journey. When she hurried back inside to get it, she realized suddenly that she didn’t have to go. She was the last person to leave. She could stay behind; no one would be the wiser. Without a second thought, she had feigned a sudden “sick headache,” dismissing the fainthearted lieutenant despite his legitimate fear of what her brother might do to him for not carrying out his orders. She had felt sorry for him and for his young wife, but she had still embraced the opportunity to have the solitude she had craved for so long.
She gave a quiet sigh and pulled her cashmere shawl more closely around her, caressing the softness of the wool as she did so. The shawl was not quite rose and not quite lavender, and it suited her coloring perfectly. It had been a birthday gift from her father, and as such, it was very much a symbol of her social status, especially here. Ordinarily she was mindful of the fact that she was Kate Woodard, of the Philadelphia and Germantown Woodards, the seemingly respectable sister of Colonel Maxwell Woodard, commander of the occupation army garrisoned in this small Southern town—and she behaved accordingly.
She was also the Woodard family’s twenty-nine-year-old bona fide spinster, and at this late date, there was little incentive for her to learn anything domestic. There had been a time when she had thought she could—would—marry. During the early months of the war she had become engaged to Lieutenant Grey Jamison, an amiable young cavalryman who, unlike so many of his peers, was more interested in doing his duty to save the Union than in becoming a great military legend. She’d found him brave and honorable and optimistic—so much so that he had made her brave, too. For the first time in her life she’d actually believed she could dare to be happy.
But Grey had been killed in the battle of Bentonville in what would turn out to be one of the last throes of the Confederacy. She had been devastated when the news of his death had come, and then all over again when his last letter had arrived. In it he had seemed so...troubled. He’d asked her to promise that if he came home changed, she wouldn’t coddle him. She would treat him as she always had, and if she should feel sorry for him, she would never let him see it.
But he hadn’t come home, and when she had lost him, she had lost all hope that she could be someone’s wife. There were too many secrets, too many lies, and she hadn’t known then how hard it would become to maintain them, even the one that defined her very existence. Had she married Grey, at some point, she would have had to tell him about her son—because she loved them both.
“At least I was brave once,” she whispered, and perhaps she was being brave now. She suddenly smiled. Wandering around in a cold empty house wasn’t brave; it was foolish. Even she could see that.
But she made a determined effort not to second-guess her decision to stay behind. There was no point in dwelling on it—or perhaps she would dwell on it—later—because she was free to do just that, if she wanted.
Free!
She had a meager basket of food and a cold hearth in the middle of a snowstorm—and she was happier than she’d been in a long while.
She began closing the heavy drapes in the parlor. She had no real plans beyond bundling up and going to bed. It occurred to her that it had been a long time since she’d eaten. She never ate much before a train trip. As a child she had learned the hard way that she was a far better traveler if she embarked with an empty stomach. But she was hungry now, and she picked up the oil lamp and stepped into the wide hallway that led to one of the two kitchens necessary for the running of her brother’s household. The other one was outside, a summer kitchen with thick brick walls and a stone floor, and she hadn’t the slightest idea how to manage either one of them.
It was so drafty in the hallway. And empty. Despite it being over five years since the war ended and the fact that Max could well afford whatever furniture Maria might want, the hallway was in serious need of some tables, a chair or two and perhaps a hall tree, the kind with marble shelves and a beveled mirror. According to her brother, many of those things had once been here—until General Stoneman and his men had raided the town. If Kate understood the situation correctly, the dearth of furniture and the mismatched sets of china, crystal and silverware still in use were somehow a badge of honor. Kate almost envied Maria the sense of pride she and the rest of the women here seemed to take in their years of deprivation.
In Philadelphia Kate had helped with the war effort, but she’d only done what was deemed proper for a young woman of Philadelphia’s highest society. The truth of the matter was that the balls held to raise money for the Sanitary Commission and the gatherings where young ladies packed tins of cookies for homesick soldiers, or rolled bandages for the hospitals—none of which they actually believed would be needed—were as much an excuse for lively and supposedly patriotic socializing as anything. She hadn’t gone into the hospitals to help with the wounded the way Maria and her friends here had. She certainly hadn’t gone hungry or been deprived of new dresses or undergarments or anything else she might have wanted. Wanted, not needed. She sometimes wondered if she would have done anything at all if her brother and her fiancé hadn’t been Union cavalrymen. And there was John, of course. He was the father of her child, and as such, he was on her very short list of males other than her son she cared enough to worry about. The war, the unbridled patriotism had been exciting—until Max and John had become prisoners of war and Grey had been killed.
She held the lamp higher as she made her way to the rear of the house, trying not to be disconcerted by the wavering shadows she cast as she moved along. This particular hallway always made her think of Max and John and their daredevil cavalryman tales of riding their mounts directly through the front doors of rebel houses like this one, just for a lark and with no thought that they could easily have been killed doing it. Back then, aside from the war, Max and John had been more than a little exasperating for the people who loved them. And who would have ever thought they would both end up completely domesticated, much less married to Southern women?
The door leading to the dining room was standing ajar and she moved to close it, hoping to interrupt the strong draft rushing through the house tonight. But then she stepped inside because she caught a glimpse of a toy lying on the floor—a small carved earless horse that belonged to Robbie, the youngest. The nanny, Mrs. Hansen, must have missed it when she packed up the boys’ belongings for their trip.
Mrs. Hansen was yet another example of Kate’s difficulty in understanding how the Southern mind worked. At first the woman’s added presence in the household had led Kate to think that Maria was becoming more lax in her determination not to take advantage of Max’s money. But then Kate realized that her wanting or needing help with the boys had very little to do with it. It was Mrs. Hansen who needed the help. She had been taking care of Suzanne Canfield, the adopted boys’ sick mother, when Suzanne had been killed in a fire that also burned their house to the ground. The boys had barely escaped with their lives and then only because Max had braved the flames to go in and get them. Mrs. Hansen’s grief and guilt at not having been there when the fire broke out had apparently been overwhelming, and Maria had deliberately given her perhaps the only thing that would ease her mind a little—the task of helping to take care of the little boys whom the fire had orphaned.
Kate picked up the wooden horse and put it into her pocket, smiling as she did so because Robbie’s teething marks were all over it. He was such a dear little boy—indeed, they all were. Joe. Jake. Robbie.
Harrison.
“No,” she said quietly. She wasn’t ready to think about him just yet, not in the deep and intense way she wanted to.
She pulled the door firmly closed, and she saw the man immediately when she turned around. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his coat was still snowcovered, likely because it wasn’t warm enough inside for it to have melted. Incredibly, he had taken the liberty of lighting not one but two of the kitchen lamps.
“Who are you?” he asked bluntly and with all the authority of someone whose business it was to know.
If her presence in the house had been authorized, she wouldn’t have been so taken aback by the question, but as it was, she didn’t reply. They stared at each other, Kate trying all the while to decide whether or not she was afraid.
“Why is the house so cold?” he asked next. He reached out as if to steady himself, but there was nothing in the hallway for him to grab onto. “There’s plenty of wood...in the...box.”
Kate eased backward, intending to make a run for the front door, snowstorm or no snowstorm. But she had the lamp. She couldn’t run with it and she couldn’t set it down without the man realizing her intent. The last thing she wanted was to light her unsuspecting brother’s house ablaze.
“My apologies, miss,” he said with some effort but in a slightly more genial tone. She tried to identify his accent. It was Southern, and yet it wasn’t.
He took a few steps in her direction. “I didn’t think...the questions were...that difficult.”
“Who are you?” she asked finally, recovering at least a modicum of the snobbishness that was hers by birthright if not personality.
He took a few more steps, and she realized suddenly that something was indeed wrong. He was clearly unsteady on his feet now, and he seemed to want to say something but couldn’t.
Drunk? Ill? She couldn’t tell.
He suddenly pitched forward. She gave a small cry and jumped back in an effort to keep him from colliding with her and the lit oil lamp. He went sprawling face first on the parquet floor, his head hitting the bare wood hard.
“Sir,” she said, keeping her distance. “Sir!”
He didn’t move. She set the oil lamp on the floor and came as close to him as she dared. He was so still.
Someone rapped sharply on the front door, making her jump, and whoever it was didn’t wait to be admitted. Sergeant Major Perkins, her brother’s extremely competent orderly, came striding into the foyer and down the hallway, bringing much of the winter storm in with him.
“Miss Kate! I wondered why there were lamps burning— Who’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said, bending down to look at him again. He was still motionless.
“You didn’t go and shoot him, did you?”
“No, I did not shoot him, Sergeant Major.”
“What is he doing in here?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“Then what are you doing in here? Colonel Woodard didn’t say you were going to be on the premises.”
“My brother doesn’t know everything,” she said obscurely.
“Well, you just go right on thinking that if you want to, Miss Kate, but if you want my advice, you’ll revise that opinion, the sooner, the better. Don’t much get by that brother of yours. Every soldier in this town can tell you that.”
“Could we just address this first?” Kate said, waving her hand over the man still lying on the floor.
“That we can. Move the lamp so I can roll him over. I’m going to hang on to him. You see what’s in his pockets.”
Kate hesitated.
“We want to hurry this along, Miss Kate,” he said pointedly. “While he’s unaware.”
“Yes,” she decided, seeing the wisdom of that plan. She slid the lamp out of the way and knelt down by him again.
“He’s not dead, is he?” it occurred to her to ask.
“If he was dead, we wouldn’t need to be hurrying. Go ahead now. Look.”
Far from reassured, she reached tentatively and not very deeply into a coat pocket.
“I don’t reckon he’s got anything in there that bites,” Perkins said mildly.
She gave him a look and began to search in earnest. He didn’t seem to be carrying anything at all.
“You let him in?” Perkins asked.
“No,” Kate said pointedly, moving to another pocket. “He was just...here.”
“Kind of like you are, I guess,” he said. He was clearly suspicious about the situation, and he wasn’t doing much to try to hide it. “You miss your train?”
“I didn’t ‘miss’ it. I didn’t get on.”
“Colonel Woodard know about the...change in plans?”
“He does not.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“There is nothing for you to worry about, Sergeant.”
“And yet here I am. Down on the floor with an unconscious and unknown man, helping you riffle through his pockets.”
“The riffling was your idea,” Kate reminded him.
“So it was,” he agreed. “Anybody else here?”
“Just him—as far as I know.”
“You’re not sick or anything, are you?” he persisted, the question impertinent at best.
She didn’t answer. Her fingers closed around a small book in the man’s other coat pocket—a well-worn Bible, she saw as she pulled it free. She opened it. There was some kind of...card between the pages. The texture felt like a carte de visite. She moved closer to the lamp so she could see. It wasn’t a photograph. It was a Confederate military card.
“Robert Brian Markham,” she read. She looked at Perkins. “Max’s wife was a Markham. She had a brother named Robert,” she said, forgetting how long he had been Max’s right hand and how likely it was that he knew more details about Maria Markham Woodard and her family than Kate did.
But that Robert Markham had been killed at Gettysburg, along with a younger brother, Samuel. Kate had understood for a long time why Max tried to be elsewhere during the first three days of July. His wife’s heart had been broken by her brothers’ deaths, and he was the last person who could comfort her. He had been at Gettysburg, too, fighting for the other side.
Kate picked up the lamp and held it near the man’s face so she could see it better. It didn’t help. She didn’t recognize him at all and she couldn’t see any family resemblance. She’d never actually met anyone with his kind of rugged features. She thought that he might have been handsome once, but then his face must have gotten...beaten and battered somewhere along the way.
She realized suddenly that Perkins was watching her. “He’s not bleeding,” she said, moving the lamp away.
Perkins reached out and briefly took the man’s hand. “Prizefighter, would be my guess,” he said. “Men fresh out of a war can have a lot of rage still. And they have to get rid of it.”
“By beating another human being for sport?” Kate asked.
“There are worse ways to live—especially if you need to eat.”
Kate looked at the man’s face again. How much rage could be left after that kind of brutality? she wondered.
Perkins took the card from her, then stood. “I want you to go upstairs and lock yourself in, Miss Kate,” Perkins said.
“Why?”
“I need to take care of all this and I’m going to have to leave to do it. I’ve only got the one horse and the snow’s too bad to try it on foot. You’ll be all right if you stay quiet and keep your door locked.”
“I don’t think he’s in any shape to do me harm,” Kate said, trying to sound calmer and more competent than she felt. “I’m not afraid. Just go.”
Perkins hesitated, looking closely at the man again. “All right,” he said after a moment. “I’ll be back as quick as I can. Find something to cover him with. He needs to be kept warm until we find out what he’s up to—just in case.”
Kate was about to ask what “just in case” meant, but then she suddenly realized that Perkins was considering the possibility that this man might actually be Max’s—and her—brother-in-law, or at least have some information about him.
“Light some more lamps so I can see the house easier from the outside. It’s snowing so hard it’s a wonder I noticed anything was going on in here at all. Wouldn’t hurt to light a fire, too.”
Kate nodded at his last suggestion. She wholeheartedly agreed, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to admit that she didn’t know how to do it.
He helped her get to her feet, then picked up the lamp and handed it to her. She kept staring at the man on the floor.
“Miss Kate,” he said as he was about to go, and she looked at him.
“If he starts stirring, you get away from him.”
“Yes, I will. Of course I will.”
But Perkins still didn’t go.
“What is it?” she asked. She knew him to be a straightforward and painfully blunt man—it was the main reason Max relied on him so. But he was having some difficulty saying whatever was on his mind now.
“You’re...sure you don’t know this man?”
She was so surprised by the question that she could only stare at him. Then she realized that he was considering every possible explanation for the man’s being here and that he actually wanted to make certain she hadn’t missed her train in order to keep some kind of secret assignation. If she hadn’t been so cold and so upset, she might have been offended. Or she might have laughed.
“I don’t know him, Sergeant Major Perkins,” she said evenly.
“All right then,” he said.
“I’d appreciate it if you hurried,” she said in case he had any more questions he wanted answered.
“My plan exactly, Miss Kate.”
“No, wait. I need a telegram sent to my parents. Say I’ve been delayed. Could you do that, please?”
“Yes, miss,” he said.
She expected him to leave then, but he didn’t. He was still looking at her in that sergeant major way he had. Not quite what her brother called a “sack and burn” face, but still...arresting.
“There is one other thing,” he said. “My responsibility is to Colonel Woodard. I will do whatever is necessary to maintain his position and his authority in this town.”
“Yes, all right,” Kate said.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said—which wasn’t quite the truth. She understood that he made certain that her brother’s life ran as smoothly as possible and that he wanted her to know something about that duty, which he felt was important. She just didn’t know what that “something” was.
She had to turn away from the strong gust of wind that filled the hallway when he finally left by the front door. The man lying at her feet didn’t react at all. She gave him a backward glance, then hurried upstairs to pull two of the quilts off her own bed because she didn’t want to take the time to look through cedar chests for extra ones. He didn’t seem to have stirred when she returned. She folded the quilts double, then knelt down to cover him, hesitating long enough to look at his face again before she went to light more lamps in the downstairs. One of his hands was outstretched, and she carefully lifted it. She could see the scarred knuckles, feel the calluses on his palm as she placed it under the quilt.
It was so cold on the floor. She couldn’t keep from shivering, and she had to bite down on her lip to keep her teeth from chattering. For a brief moment she thought she saw a slight movement from him as well.
No, she decided. He wasn’t waking. He was just cold. He had to be as cold as she was.
“I must learn how to build a fire. In a fireplace and in a cookstove,” she said out loud as she got to her feet. “And that’s all there is to it.”
She went around lighting as many lamps as she could find—she did know how to do that, at least. She had no expectation that Perkins would return quickly, and after what already seemed a long time, she began to pace up and down the hallway in an effort to keep warm. She didn’t know what time it was—only that it was nearly dark outside. She thought there had once been an heirloom grandfather clock in the foyer, but it, like the rest of the hall furniture, had become a casualty of the war, and Maria hadn’t wanted another one. In this one instance, Kate thought she understood her sister-in-law’s behavior. Some things were far too dear to be replaced, especially if all the replacement could ever be was a reminder of what had been lost.
Kate kept her eyes on the man as she walked the hallway, but she let her mind consider what she was going to tell Max about her being here instead of Philadelphia. After a time she decided that she wouldn’t tell him anything. She would say the same thing to him she’d said to Perkins. She hadn’t missed her train; she just didn’t get on—and that was all these two representatives of the military occupation needed to know.
She suddenly stopped pacing. This time she had no doubt that the man had moved. She took a few steps closer because she couldn’t tell for certain whether or not he was beginning to wake. If he tried to get up, if he seemed threatening in any way, she would do what Perkins said. She would run to her room and lock herself in.
She could tell that his eyes were still closed, and she took some comfort from that, but after a long, tense moment, he began stirring again. He gave a soft moan and turned his head in her direction.
“Eleanor,” he said.
* * *
Am I wounded?
He tried to open his eyes and couldn’t. He needed to get up, but he couldn’t do that, either. He could hear the voices swirling around him. Women’s voices.
“Move aside!” he heard one of them say. She must have been some distance away. There were sharp-sounding footsteps coming in his direction.
“You!” she suddenly barked. “Get the parlor and the kitchen fires lit! This house is freezing!”
“Yes, ma’am,” a young-sounding male voice said.
“The kitchen first!” she said, still yelling. “We need hot water and heated blankets! Now!”
He could hear the scurrying of a heavier set of footsteps, and then a different woman’s voice.
“That way,” she said kindly, and the scurrying continued past him down the hall.
“Have you made no preparations whatsoever?” the first woman demanded.
“No, Mrs. Kinnard, I have not. I don’t expect he’ll be staying.”
He struggled to make sense of what he was hearing.
Mrs. Kinnard? Acacia Kinnard?
It couldn’t be her. Acacia Kinnard was...was...
He couldn’t complete the thought.
“Indeed, he will be staying,” this Mrs. Kinnard said. “You cannot put Maria’s brother out for all your thinking you’ve won the War. Shame on you, Robert Markham!” she suddenly barked. “Shame!”
“I don’t think he can hear you,” the younger woman ventured.
“Of course he can hear me! Robert Brian Markham! Where have you been!” Mrs. Kinnard demanded. “What would your dear sweet mother say! And poor Maria—if you’d bothered to come home, she might not be—”
Her voice suddenly drifted away, lost in the blackness that swept over him.
Chapter Two
Married to a Yankee, Kate thought. If Robert Markham had come home, as was his duty, then his sister might not have married a Yankee colonel. She was surprised that Mrs. Kinnard had stopped short of actually saying it.
Sergeant Major Perkins’s plan to “take care of all this” left a great deal to be desired, in Kate’s opinion. Her opportunity for solitude had completely disappeared when he’d returned with a number of soldiers, two hospital orderlies and Mrs. Kinnard, the indisputable Queen Bee of Salisbury Society. Mrs. Kinnard had an impeccable Southern pedigree, and she had used it to all but appoint herself head of just about everything, including the Confederate military wayside hospital down near the railroad tracks during the war. Mrs. Kinnard’s word was still law in all matters not under the direct supervision of the United States Army, and, Kate suspected, in some of those, as well.
“Excuse me, Miss Kate,” one of the hospital orderlies said.
She—and ultimately Mrs. Kinnard—moved out of the way so he could kneel down and assess the man’s condition. It occurred to her that Robert Markham was going to have every bit as much trouble pacifying Mrs. Kinnard as her brother did.
“Is the doctor coming?” Kate asked the orderly.
“Just as soon as we can find him, Miss Kate,” he said.
Kate stood watching as he uncovered the man and began to examine him, looking for a reason why he had fallen to the floor, she supposed.
“Well, can you do anything helpful?” Mrs. Kinnard said suddenly, and Kate realized she was once again in her sights.
“I...”
“Exactly as I thought. You do know where there is pen and paper, I hope.”
Kate took a quiet breath before she answered. “Yes. I’ll be happy to get it.”
Kate escaped to Maria’s writing desk in the parlor and returned with a sheet of paper and a short pencil. Mrs. Kinnard eyed the pencil, and Kate thought she was going to refuse to take it.
“The ink is frozen. I’m sorry,” Kate added, because in a roundabout way, that could be considered her fault. “I assumed you were in a hurry,” she said, still holding out the pencil.
Mrs. Kinnard gave an impatient sigh, then removed her gloves and bonnet and handed them to Kate in exchange for the pencil and paper. Kate had no idea what to do with them, given the dearth of furnishings in the hall. She held on to them in lieu of throwing them down on the parquet floor, then she opened the dining room door and went inside, ultimately placing the bonnet and gloves carefully on a chair next to the sideboard and nearly colliding with Mrs. Kinnard when she turned around to leave.
“They should be safe here,” Kate said, because she hadn’t realized the woman had followed her and concern for her finery was the only conclusion Kate could come to as to why she did. She could hear the front door opening and a number of footsteps in the hall. Several more soldiers passed by the dining room door, two of them carrying a stretcher.
Mrs. Kinnard sat down at the dining table near the oil lamp Kate had lit earlier and began to write—a list, from the looks of it.
“Mr. Perkins!” she cried when she’d finished, clearly eschewing Perkins’s military title, probably because he belonged to an army she considered of no consequence.
“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Kinnard!” he called from somewhere at the back of the house.
“Take this,” she said, when he finally appeared in the doorway. “I want this list filled as soon as possible.”
He looked at the sheet of paper, then back at her. “Mrs. Russell isn’t going to welcome a knock on the door this time of night from the likes of me, ma’am.”
“Whether she welcomes it or not isn’t important. Taking care of Robert Markham now that he has returned from the dead, is. I won’t see him hauled off to your military infirmary, and this young woman is of no use whatsoever that I can see.”
Kate opened her mouth to respond to the remark, but Perkins cleared his throat sharply and gave her a hard look. His sergeant major look. Again. She suddenly understood what he had been trying to tell her earlier. Neither she nor her tender feelings mattered in this situation. Maintaining her brother’s authority and his rapport with the townspeople did.
Very well, then.
She stepped around him into the hallway. If she was going to preserve Max’s peace treaties, she’d have to get herself well away from this overbearing woman.
Honestly! she nearly said aloud. As she recalled, even Maria found the Kinnard woman hard going.
Robert Markham—if Mrs. Kinnard’s identification could be trusted—still lay on the cold floor. The hospital orderly had lifted him slightly and was pouring brandy down his throat with all the skill of a man who had performed the treatment many times. Robert Markham eventually swallowed, coughed a time or two, but still did not wake.
“Miss Woodard!” Mrs. Kinnard said sharply behind her, making her jump. She closed her eyes for a moment before she turned around.
“Yes?” Kate said as politely as she could manage.
“We will put Robert in his old room,” the woman said. “We have no idea what his mental state will be when he fully awakens. He needs to be in familiar surroundings. The bed must be stripped, new sheets put upon it—I’m sure Maria uses lavender sachet just as her dear mother did and he will no doubt recall that. And then the bed must be warmed and kept warm.”
“The orderlies here will see to all that. Just tell them what you need, ma’am,” Perkins said on his way out. “His old room is off the upstairs porch, Miss Kate. On the left.”
And how in the world did Perkins know that? she wondered. It suddenly occurred to her that his room was also the one she was using—not that that would matter to Mrs. Kinnard. The woman had spoken, and Maria’s brother was in need.
“Flannel,” Mrs. Kinnard said, looking at Kate.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Flannel. We need flannel to wrap the heated bricks—you are heating bricks?” she said, looking at Kate hard.
“Yes, ma’am,” one of the orderlies said for her. “The oven’s full of them.”
Undeterred, Mrs. Kinnard continued to look at Kate, now with raised eyebrows.
“I’ll...see if I can find...some,” Kate said, heading for the stairs.
Perkins hadn’t left the house yet.
“Now try not to undo all your brother’s hard work,” he said quietly so Mrs. Kinnard wouldn’t hear him. “He’s finally got that old bat and her daughter where they don’t set out to cripple everything he tries to do—and that’s saying a lot. She’s a mean old cuss and don’t you go yanking her chain.”
Kate sighed instead of answering.
“I’m telling you,” Perkins said.
“I don’t yank chains, Sergeant Major.”
“Maybe not, but the Colonel says you are a strong woman, and it’s my experience that strong women don’t put up with much. This time it’s important that you do, Miss Kate.”
“Yes. All right. I’ll...behave.”
Easier said than done, she thought as he went out the door, but she was willing to try. She went upstairs and looked through the cedar chests, but there was no flannel in any of them. In an effort not to have to tell Mrs. Kinnard that, she went down the back stairs to the kitchen, hoping that flannel for hot bricks, if she just thought about it logically, might be found there.
Somewhere.
She found them at last in the pantry on a top shelf, a whole basketful of double-thickness, hand-sewn flannel bags she concluded were the right size to hold a brick, hot or otherwise. She gave them to the soldier manning the cookstove, then ended up holding the bags open so he could drop a hot brick inside—once he stopped protesting her offer of help.
“Mrs. Kinnard,” she said simply, and he immediately acquiesced.
When the job was done, there was nothing else required of her beyond standing around and letting the Kinnard woman use her for target practice. She had intended to get the bed linens for what had only moments before been her bed, but apparently one of the hospital orderlies—Bruno—knew more about where the sheets and bedding were kept than she did.
She went upstairs again, intending to remove what few belongings she still had in the room—yet another consideration that had escaped her attention when she’d made her bold decision to miss the train and stay behind. Most of her clothes had been packed up in her travel trunk and were by now well on their way to Philadelphia.
But she couldn’t get into the room. It was full of soldiers trying to stay ahead of Mrs. Kinnard.
“There’s a fire in old Mr. Markham’s sitting room, Miss Woodard,” one of them said. “You might be more comfortable in there.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, more than grateful for any suggestion that would keep her out of Mrs. Kinnard’s way—for a while at least. But she could already hear the woman coming up the stairs, and she hurried away.
“The things I do for you, Max Woodard,” she said under her breath. She was as intimidated as that young lieutenant who was supposed to see her safely to Philadelphia.
She slipped inside the sitting room and firmly closed the door, then thought better of it and left it slightly ajar. She didn’t want Mrs. Kinnard sneaking up on her—not that the woman was given to anything resembling stealth. She was much more the charge-the-front-gates type.
A fire in the fireplace was indeed burning brightly. She savored the warmth for a moment, then moved to the nearest window and looked out. It was too dark to see anything but her reflection in the wavy glass.
Is that what a “strong woman” looks like?
She couldn’t believe Max had described her in that way. She didn’t feel strong. If anything, she felt...unfinished. What am I supposed to be doing? she wondered, the question stark and real in her mind and intended for no one. Clearly it wasn’t going to be spending time alone thinking of her lost child.
Brooding.
Is that what she had actually planned to do? Perhaps, she thought, but she had never inflicted her unhappiness on anyone else, at least not consciously. To do so would have resulted in the decision to send her away—for her own good—and as a result, she would have had no contact with her son at all. She had worked hard to seem at least content with her life, so much so that she had nothing left over to nurture her better self. She always went to church, here and in Philadelphia, but the gesture was empty somehow. She felt so far away from anything spiritual and had for a long time. She still prayed for the people she loved, especially for Harrison. She had asked for God’s blessing on him every night since he’d been born. But she never prayed for herself, and she had never asked for forgiveness. When she looked at Harrison, at what a fine young man he was becoming, she simply couldn’t bring herself to do it. She might be a sinner, but he wasn’t a sin.
Perhaps this was what living a lie did to a person—kept them feeling unworthy to speak to God. The best that could be said of her was that she had endured. Day after day. Year after year. In that context, she supposed Max was right. She was a strong woman.
She could hear the soft whisper of the snow against the windowpane. How much more pleasant the sound was when there was a warm fire crackling on the hearth behind her.
Is it snowing where you are, my dear Harrison? Are you warm and safe?
No, she thought again. She wasn’t going to think about him now. She would wait until later. Until...
She couldn’t say when. She gave a heavy sigh and looked around the room. It was no longer a combination sickroom, sitting room and library, but more a place to escape the domestic chaos of a household full of little boys. Even when Maria’s ailing father had occupied it, it had been a pleasant place to be, with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, comfortable upholstered rocking chairs and windows that looked out over the flower and herb garden. She’d come in here often the first time she’d visited Max, shortly before he married Maria. Then the room had been a kind of special sanctuary, a place where old Mr. Markham had held court for the community and the conquering army alike, despite his doctor’s orders. He’d been a witty and delightful man who’d enjoyed company—her company in particular, it had seemed—and she’d liked him very much. He’d been quite cunning, as well. He’d done his best to recruit her to bring him some forbidden cigars, and failing at that, it still hadn’t taken him long to steer her into revealing all her misgivings about her brother’s upcoming marriage to Mr. Markham’s only daughter—some of which he harbored, as well.
She suddenly smiled to herself, thinking of Max and Maria and how suited they were to each other. “We were wrong to worry so, weren’t we, Mr. Markham?” she whispered.
Or so she hoped. The chaos in Max’s house tonight was of a completely different kind, the kind that had precipitated heavy footsteps and loud men’s voices, Mrs. Kinnard barking orders like a sergeant major and some kind of commotion involving pots and pans in the kitchen. The house was annoyingly alive, and all because of the man who had collapsed in the downstairs hallway. If he was indeed Maria’s brother, then it was no wonder he’d questioned Kate’s presence here. He must have believed the house was still his home.
Where has he been? she wondered. And why did he stay away? She tried to imagine how she would have felt if Max had left her and their parents believing he was dead and grieving for him for years.
Kate suddenly realized that she wasn’t alone. A woman carrying a heavy-laden tray stood tentatively at the doorway.
“I— Am I interrupting?” the woman asked.
“No, no, of course not. Do come in, Mrs.—”
“Justice,” the woman said quickly, Kate thought in order to keep them both from being embarrassed if Kate happened not to remember her name—which she hadn’t.
“Yes, of course.”
The woman came into the room, a bit at a loss at first as to where to put the tray. After a moment she set it down on a small table next to one of the rocking chairs. There was a plain brown teapot on the tray, a sugar bowl, a cream pitcher, spoons and a cup and saucer—and a plate covered with a starched and finely embroidered—but slightly worn—tea towel.
“I thought you might like some tea and a little bread and butter to eat,” Mrs. Justice said. “I brought the bread with me—events being what they are tonight. I baked it early this morning so it’s fresh. And I took enough hot water to make a pot of tea when it started boiling—Mrs. Kinnard didn’t see me,” she added in a whisper, making Kate smile.
“You’re very kind—will you join me? I’m sure we can find another cup.”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Justice said quickly. “They’ll be bringing Robbie upstairs shortly and I must be on hand for that—though I’m not quite sure why. Mrs. Kinnard always seems to require my presence, but she never really lets me do anything. I can’t believe dear Robbie has come home. He’s so like Bud, you know.”
“Bud?” Kate asked as she poured tea into the cup.
“Mr. Markham Senior. We grew up together, he and I—well, all of us. Mrs. Russell, as well. You remember Mrs. Russell.” It wasn’t a question because Mrs. Russell was nothing if not memorable, especially if one happened to be associated with the occupation army in any way.
“I... Yes,” Kate said. Maria had told her that the war was not over for Mrs. Russell—and never would be. She was as militant as Mrs. Kinnard was imperious, and she had single-handedly ended an alliance between her daughter and one of Max’s officers. The disappointed young major had even reenlisted—much to Mrs. Russell’s and his family’s dismay—just to stay near her. So sad, Kate thought.
Together, Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Kinnard were a force majeure in this town, a walking, talking tribulation to all who had the misfortune to wander uninvited into their realms.
“Mr. Markham Senior was always ‘Bud’ to me,” Mrs. Justice continued. “He was a bit of a rascal in his youth—and so was Robbie. You know, everyone says the love of a good woman is what turned Bud around, but that’s not quite true. It’s not enough that the good woman loves the rascal. The rascal has got to love the good woman, too. And if he loves her enough not to cause her worry or pain ever again, that’s when it works out just fine. Or so I believe. And Robbie...well, before the war he was what you might call a regular brawler in the saloons and the...um...other places. Marriage to the right woman—somebody he loved—could have fixed him as well, I’m sure.” She gave a quiet sigh. “Sometimes I think I can still feel Bud in this room. It’s—” she looked around at everything “—nice. If only he’d lived to see this day and his older son come home again—or perhaps he does see it. His boys were everything to him. Everything.”
“Mrs. Justice!”
“I do believe I hear my name,” Mrs. Justice whispered with a slight giggle. “It’s quite all right, though. I’d put my hand in the fire for Bud’s son.” She had such a wistful look on her face, and Kate suddenly realized that this woman had once loved Bud Markham beyond their having shared a childhood, perhaps loved him still, and Kate felt such a pang of loneliness and longing that she had to turn her face away.
“Oh, you should know our Mrs. Russell will be along shortly, too,” Mrs. Justice said, turning to go. “Drink your tea, my dear,” she said kindly. “You are likely to need it.”
“Mrs. Justice!”
“Oh, dear,” she whispered mischievously at Mrs. Kinnard’s latest summons. She picked up her skirts and walked quickly toward the door.
“Mrs. Justice,” Kate said just as she reached it. “Who is Eleanor?”
“Eleanor?” Mrs. Justice said, clearly puzzled.
“Robert Markham roused enough to say the name Eleanor. I think perhaps he thought I was she.”
“Oh, that poor dear boy,” Mrs. Justice said. “That poor boy. If she’s the reason he’s come home...”
“Mrs. Justice! We need you!”
Mrs. Justice held out both hands in a gesture that would indicate she couldn’t linger because she was caught in circumstances far beyond her control. “Drink your tea!” she said again as she hurried away.
Chapter Three
“Miss Woodard! Where are you!” The fact that the question was whispered made it no less jarring.
Am I in a hospital? Robert thought. He tried to move, but he couldn’t somehow. Blankets, he decided, tucked in tight. Perhaps he was in a hospital after all—except that it didn’t smell like a hospital. It smelled like...
...coffee. Baked bread. Wood burning in a fireplace. Lavender sachet.
His head hurt—a lot, he soon realized. He managed to get one hand out from under the covers and reach up to touch his forehead.
Yes. Definitely a reason for the pain.
He finally opened his eyes. A fair-haired woman sat on a low stool in a patch of weak sunlight not far from his bed, her arms resting on her knees and her head down. He couldn’t see her face at all, only the top of her golden hair and the side of her neck. Was she praying? Weeping? He couldn’t decide.
“Miss Woodard!” the voice whispered fiercely right outside the door, making her jump.
She turned her head in his direction and was startled all over again to find him awake and looking at her.
She took a deep breath. “I’m hiding,” she said simply, keeping her voice low so as not to be heard on the other side of the door.
He thought it must be the truth, given the circumstances.
“What...have you...done?” he managed to ask, but he didn’t seem to be able to keep his eyes open long enough to hear the answer.
* * *
Kate took a hushed breath. He seemed to be sleeping again, and in that brief interlude of wakefulness, she didn’t think he had mistaken her for the still-mysterious Eleanor, despite his grogginess. She knew that the army surgeon had given him strong doses of laudanum—to help his body rest and to make his return to the living less troubled, he said. The surgeon hadn’t known that Robert Markham had already made his “return to the living,” and thus missed the irony of his remark.
She hardly dared move in case Maria’s brother was more awake than he seemed. She watched him closely instead. He was so thin—all muscle and sinew that stopped just short of gauntness. Both his eyes had blackened from the force of the fall in the hallway, and there was a swollen bruise on his forehead. He hadn’t been shaved. She tried to think if she’d ever been in the actual company of a man so in need of a good barbering.
No, she decided. She had not. She had seen unkempt men out and about, of course—on the streets of Philadelphia and here in Salisbury—but generally speaking, all the men she encountered socially were...presentable. The stubble of growth on Robert Markham’s face seemed so intimate somehow, as if he were in a state only his wife or his mother should see.
But still she didn’t leave the room. She looked at his hands instead, both of them resting on top of the latest warmed and double-folded army blanket the orderlies kept spread over him. The room was filled with the smell of slightly scorched wool.
His fingers moved randomly from time to time, trembling slightly whenever he lifted them up. She could see the heavy scarring on his knuckles, and she was sure Sergeant Major Perkins had been right. These were the kinds of scars that could have only come from fighting.
And rage.
I shouldn’t be here, she thought, Mrs. Kinnard or no Mrs. Kinnard.
But it was too late for that realization. He was awake again.
* * *
Robert stared in the woman’s direction and tried to get his vision to clear. When he finally focused, he could tell that she was the same woman he had seen earlier— in the same place—hiding, she’d said. Did he remember that right? Hiding?
She looked up at a small noise. She seemed only a little less startled to find him looking at her this time. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she said after a moment. “I’ll go—”
“I wish you...wouldn’t,” Robert said, his voice hoarse and his throat dry. “I...don’t seem to know...what has happened. Perhaps you could...help me with that.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m somewhat bewildered myself.”
“About what?”
“You, of course. You’re supposed to be dead.”
Robert looked away and swallowed heavily. He was so thirsty.
“Do you know where you are?” she asked, but he wasn’t ready to consider that detail quite yet.
“Is there some...water?” he asked.
“Oh. Yes. Of course.”
She rose from the footstool and moved to a small table near the bed. Someone had put a tray with a tin pitcher and a cup on it. She filled the cup with water, spilling a little as she did so. She hesitated a moment, before picking up one of several hollow quills used for drinking that had been left on the tray, then looked at it as if she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to manage to give him the water.
Robert watched as she carefully brought the cup of water to him. He could see that it was too full and that her hands trembled, but he didn’t say anything. As she came closer he could smell the scent of roses. How long had it been since he’d been this close to a woman who wore rosewater? He lifted his head to drink, his thirst making him forget the pain in his head. It intensified so, he couldn’t keep still. Water spilled on the blanket, more of it than he could manage to swallow.
Appropriate or not, she put her hand behind his head to support him while he drank, but she took the cup away before he had drained it. “Not too much at first,” she said. “As I understand it, when you’re ill, what you want and what you can tolerate can sometimes be at odds.”
“I’m not...ill.”
“Not well, either,” she said. She let his head down gently onto the pillow.
Robert looked at her, trying to decide if he felt up to arguing with her about it. No, he decided. He didn’t. The persistent pounding in his head and the fact that he obviously couldn’t manage something as simple as drinking from a tin cup on his own led him to conclude that, for the moment at least, he was some distance away from “well.”
He watched as she returned the cup to the table and sat down again. He still couldn’t decide who she was. Not Eleanor was the only thing he knew for certain—besides the fact that she was not a Southerner. Her diction was far too precise and sharp edged for her to have grown up below the Mason-Dixon Line. It was too painful to attempt any kind of conversation, so he kept looking at her. She seemed so sad.
Why are you sad, I wonder?
Since the war the whole world seemed to be full of women with sad eyes. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; he thought she was far too pretty to be unmarried.
“My name is Robert Markham,” he said after a moment because it seemed the next most socially appropriate thing to do.
“Yes,” she said, watching him closely, apparently looking for some indication that she’d let him have too much to drink. “So I’m told. And you’re sometimes called Robbie, I believe.”
Robert frowned slightly. Incredibly, he thought she might be teasing him ever so slightly, and he found it...pleasant.
“Well, not...lately. How is it you know...who I am when I don’t know you...at all?”
“I went through your pockets,” she said matter-of-factly. “I found the Confederate military card inside your Bible. But three ladies who live here in the town actually identified you—Mrs. Kinnard, Mrs. Russell. And Mrs. Justice, of course. She’s the one who calls you Robbie.”
Robert drew a long breath in a feeble attempt to distance himself from the pain, but it only made his head hurt worse. Mrs. Kinnard. He certainly remembered that Mrs. Kinnard had identified him, and it was good that she had been correct in her identification. Mrs. Kinnard, as he recalled, was never wrong about anything. He nearly smiled at the thought that he might have had to assume whatever name she’d given him because no one had the audacity to contradict her. She would undoubtedly be the angry whisperer outside the door. It was no wonder this young woman had felt such a pressing need to stay out of sight.
He looked around the room, certain now of where he was at least, without having to be told.
Home.
In his own bed. It was so strange, and yet somehow not strange at all. It was the noise in the household that was so alien to him. Men’s voices—accented voices and the heavy tread of their boots. Barked military orders and the quick, disciplined responses to them. What he didn’t hear was his brother Samuel’s constant racket; or his sister, Maria, playing “Aura Lee” on the pianoforte in the parlor; or his father and his friends laughing together in the dining room over brandy and cigars.
And he didn’t hear his mother singing the second verse of her favorite hymn, “How Firm a Foundation,” as she went about her daily chores. Always the second verse.
Fear not, I am with thee,
O be not dismayed;
For I am Thy God,
And will still give the aid...
He had never had her kind of faith, and for a long time he had lost all hope that the words of that particular hymn might be true.
I’ll comfort thee, help thee,
And cause thee to stand...
And what about now? Did he believe them now?
He had thought he was prepared for the shame of returning, but he wasn’t prepared at all for the overwhelming sense of loss. That was far beyond what he had expected, the direct result, he supposed, of having been so certain that he would never see his home again. And yet here he was, despite his vagueness as to precisely how he’d gotten here, and that was the most he could say for the situation.
Mrs. Russell suddenly came to mind—and her son, James Darson Russell. He tried to remember...something. Jimmy had died in the war; he was sure of that, and yet the memory seemed all wrong somehow. He frowned with the effort it took to try to sort out what was real and what was not.
Jimmy had been several years younger than he, but he had had the self-assurance not often seen in a boy his age. Most likely it had come from having had to become the head of the household after his father’s death. His mother and his sister had needed him, and he’d accepted that responsibility like the man he was years from being.
Robert smiled slightly as another memory came into his mind. Jimmy had been confident and self-possessed—until he’d gotten anywhere near Maria. Then he couldn’t seem to walk and talk at the same time. He’d turned into an awkward, inelegant boy who couldn’t put two words together without sounding like a dunce. It was strange what a certain kind of woman could do to a man when he ardently believed her to be unattainable. He himself had suffered the same affliction when he’d been courting Eleanor and perhaps still would, had not a war intervened. But absence hadn’t made her heart grow fonder; it had made it grow more discerning. So much so that shortly before the disaster at Gettysburg, she had written him a letter—her final letter to him—telling him plainly that she had decided that their reckless personalities, hers as much as his, would make for nothing but misery if they wed. He had been stunned at first, and then resigned—because he couldn’t deny that their relationship was as volatile as she said it was. He’d lost the letter along with all the rest of his belongings somewhere on the Gettysburg battlefield, where it must have lain, who knew how long, soaked in blood and rain, and unreadable.
“He was killed at...” he said abruptly, aloud without meaning to.
“Who?” the woman sitting on the footstool asked. He had forgotten she was there. She was looking at him intently.
“Mrs. Russell’s son. James Darson—Jimmy,” he said with some effort, not remembering if she knew who Mrs. Russell was or not. “She was one of my mother’s friends. Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Justice. And Mrs. Kinnard,” he added as an afterthought. He deliberately called up the women’s names because he’d lost his place in the conversation—if there had actually been a conversation—and he didn’t want her to think he was any more addled than he was.
“Jimmy Russell had red hair—the good luck kind—a carrot top. I used to chase him down and rub his head before every card game and every horse race. He was always threatening to have his head shaved—just to break me of my gambling habit. Once, though, he hunted me down—because he heard I was going to play poker with Phelan and Billy Canfield’s Up North cousins—do you know the Canfield brothers?”
“No—except by reputation,” she added. He thought there was a slight change in her tone of voice, enough to signify something he didn’t understand.
He looked at her for a moment. Yes. Her eyes were sad.
“Harvard men, these cousins were,” he continued without really knowing why he should want to tell her—or anybody—about any of these things. Perhaps it was because he was starved for the company of another human being. Or perhaps it was the fact that she seemed to be listening that made his rambling recollections seem—necessary. “You could say they were arrogant.”
“I can imagine,” she said.
“Almost as arrogant as I was,” he said. “It was important—a matter of honor—to win, you see.”
“And did you?”
“I had to. Jimmy said he’d shave my head if I...didn’t. Billy and Phelan would have helped him do it, too. I can’t believe he’s gone...so many of them...” His voice trailed away. He had to force himself to continue. “Jimmy’s life was full of burdens, but he was always laughing...” He trailed away again, overwhelmed now by the rush of memories of the boy who had been his friend. He shook his head despite the pain. He had something important to do; he had to pull himself together. “I can’t seem to recall where it happened—what battle. Early in the...war, I think. He was Mrs. Russell’s life. It must have been...hard for her.”
“It still is,” she said quietly.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway again, but they continued past the door toward the back of the house. “I always...liked Mrs. Justice,” he said when it seemed that they were safe from any outside intrusion.
“I believe the feeling is mutual.”
“I liked all my mother’s friends...but it was a little harder with...Mrs. Kinnard.” He supposed that she must know about Mrs. Kinnard and her bossy nature—unless things had changed radically, everyone in this town longer than a day would know. But he only made the remark to see if she would smile. It pleased him that she did.
“All your mother’s friends vouched for you. If they hadn’t, I suspect you would have awakened in the stockade rather than in your own bed.”
“I...don’t look the same.”
“Even so, they didn’t hesitate.”
“I’m most grateful, then.”
They stared at each other until she became uncomfortable and looked away. It was time for her to identify herself, and he wasn’t sure why she didn’t. He supposed that hiding was one thing, and introductions were something else again.
“Miss Woodard,” she said finally.
Robert frowned, trying to remember if he’d ever known a Woodard family. “Miss Woodard,” he repeated. Half a name was not helpful. He still had no idea who she was. “And that would be the...Miss Woodard who...hides.”
“The very one,” she said agreeably. “I do apologize for intruding. I didn’t intend to come in here at all, but I thought you were still unaware, and I was quite...trapped. My only excuse is that I’ve been charged not to upset the occupation by offending Mrs. Kinnard. I’m finding it...difficult.”
“Yes, I can...see that. Tell me, do you often...go through men’s pockets?”
“Thus far, only when Sergeant Major Perkins insists,” she said.
“If he’s like the...sergeants major I’ve known, he does that on a...regular basis. Insists.”
“Well, he is formidable. They say my brother knows everything that goes on in this town and in the occupation army. If that is true, I believe the sergeant major is the reason.” She stood and smoothed her skirts. “I must go now and tell him you’re awake.”
“Your brother is...?” he asked, trying to keep her with him longer, though why he wanted—needed—to do that, he couldn’t have said, except that she was an anchor to the reality he suddenly found himself in.
She looked at him for a long moment before she answered. “Colonel Maxwell Woodard. Your brother-in-law. Which makes us relatives, I suppose, by marriage.”
Robert heard her—quite clearly. He even recognized the implication of her brother’s military title. He just didn’t believe it. Maria married to a Yankee colonel was—impossible. It would have been no surprise to him at all to learn that she had wed during his long absence, but she would never have married one of them. Never.
And then he remembered. Never was for people who had viable options, not for the ones who found themselves conquered and destitute and occupied, especially the women. He should have been here. Who knew what circumstances had pushed Maria into such a union, and he had no doubt that she had been pushed.
A sudden downdraft in the chimney sent a brief billowing of smoke and ash into the room. He realized that his alleged sister-in-law was more concerned about him than about the possibility of a singed hearthrug. She was looking at him with a certain degree of alarm, but he made no attempt to try to reassure her. He stared at the far wall instead, watching the shifting patterns of sunlight caused by the bare tree limbs moving in the wind outside. It was his own fault that he was so ignorant. He supposed that some might find the situation ironic, his little brother dead at Gettysburg and his sister married to one of the men directly or indirectly responsible.
“I’m sorry to have put it so bluntly,” she said after a moment. “I should have realized that the news might be...difficult to hear.”
He dismissed her bluntness with a wave of his hand. “Your brother and Maria...?” He couldn’t quite formulate a question to ask; there were so many. Seven years’ worth.
“They live here,” she said, apparently making a guess as to what he might want to know despite her misgivings about him. She couldn’t know if he had been so uninformed by choice or because of the circumstances he’d found himself in.
He had to struggle to keep control of his emotions. He hadn’t expected to hear that the Markham household as he knew it was essentially gone. Finding out that Maria had married one of them was hard enough, but it was even more difficult to accept that this Yankee colonel had taken up residence in the house where his family—especially Samuel—had lived. Lying here now, he wanted to hear Samuel’s boisterous presence in the house just one more time. Samuel, running down the hall, bounding up the stairs, whistling, dropping things, sneaking up on their mother and taking her by surprise with one of his exuberant hugs. Robert smiled slightly. It had cost the household a whole dozen eggs once when Samuel in his joyful enthusiasm had made her drop the egg basket she’d been carrying.
His smiled faded. There was nothing now but the tread of enemy soldiers.
No. The war is over. We aren’t supposed to be enemies anymore.
“And you live here, as well?” it suddenly occurred to him to ask.
“No. I’m only visiting.”
“Visiting,” he said, because it all sounded so...normal. Only it wasn’t normal at all. Nothing was normal anymore.
His head hurt.
“Are you—” she started to say, but he interrupted her.
“Is he good to her?” he asked with a bluntness of his own. “I want to know.” He turned his head despite the pain so that he could see her face. The question was disrespectful at best, and far too personal under the circumstances. He knew perfectly well that she would likely be the last person to give him a truthful answer, especially when the question in and of itself suggested that he had no faith whatsoever that her brother could behave well toward a Southern woman.
But it couldn’t be helped. She was his only opportunity, the only person who might actually know.
She didn’t seem to take offense, however. “He is as good to her as she will let him be,” she said. “He has to be careful of her Southern pride.”
“And you see...that as a...problem?”
“No, I see it more as a token of his regard for her. He was quite smitten.”
“Was. He isn’t smitten now?”
“The word suggests to me a transient kind of emotion, Mr. Markham,” she said, clearly trying to explain. “I believe what my brother feels for Maria is a good deal more than that. Maria has made him happy—when he thought he would never be happy again. The war...”
“Yes,” he said when she didn’t continue. “The war.”
“He was a prisoner,” she said after a moment. “Here.”
“And now he’s the...?”
“Occupation commander.”
“That must be...satisfying, given his...history.”
“If you’re talking about an opportunity for revenge, it might have been just that, but for Maria. He loves her dearly. And it isn’t one-sided, Mr. Markham.”
“What do the townspeople think of the marriage?”
“That would depend upon whom you ask, I believe.”
“Has she suffered for it—for marrying a—the colonel?”
“The fact that Mrs. Justice and the others are here in the house ready to take care of her brother, and have been since you arrived, would suggest that she hasn’t.”
She was still looking at him steadily, trying to decide, it seemed to him, precisely how much he should be told of his sister’s situation. At this point he was certain there was more. Perhaps Mrs. Justice would know. Asking Mrs. Russell and particularly Mrs. Kinnard was out of the question.
He loves her dearly.
And Maria apparently loved him in return. That was the most important thing, wasn’t it? He couldn’t want more for Maria than that. But, whether she was happy or not, he still had to face her—and his father. He closed his eyes. He dreaded it, almost as much as he dreaded facing Eleanor. He had never answered her letter, but even after all this time, there were things still to be said.
He took a wavering breath. The things he’d done—and not done—had become overwhelming and indefinable. His sins were so many he couldn’t separate them out anymore. They had all melded into guilt, into sorrow, into a relentless sense of regret. There would be no fatted calf for his homecoming, nor should there be. He didn’t deserve one, not when he’d abandoned what was left of his family the way he had, and the worst part was that, despite the progress he’d made, he was still lost in the relentless apathy that passed for his life.
I need Your help, Lord, he thought. I have to make this right if I can. If I haven’t waited too long. If the damage can be undone.
“Who is here in the house?” he asked abruptly.
“Right now? Mrs. Kinnard—she comes and goes. Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Justice are here on a more permanent basis for propriety’s sake. And Sergeant Major Perkins. Several soldiers from the garrison who are usually assigned to the infirmary—they’ve been taking care of you. The army surgeon is in and out. And there are one or two other soldiers whose job it is to keep Mrs. Kinnard happy.”
“And my father?” he asked. “Where is he?”
She looked surprised by the question. “I’m sorry, Mr. Markham. Your father died not long after Maria and Max were married,” she said.
He took a deep breath, and then another, trying to distance himself this time from a different kind of pain. Coming home, getting this far, had been the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. He had known that the old man might not still be alive, but he had hoped—prayed—that that would not be the case. Incredibly, he hadn’t realized how much he was counting on his father being here.
Dead and gone. Like Samuel. Like Jimmy Russell. Like so much of his life. His faith was strong enough for him to believe that they would all meet again; in his heart he knew that. But surely he hadn’t thought he could come home after all this time and find that the important things would have remained the same? The sorrow he felt at this moment told him that he had.
He knew she watched him as he tried to process the information she had given him so ineptly. He was grateful she hadn’t just left him to try to understand all the things she’d told him on his own.
“My father— Do you know...what happened?” he asked after a moment.
“He was very ill. It was his heart,” she said. “They had to hurry the wedding on account of it—at his request, because he wanted to see Maria as a bride. And his doctors advised that there could be no delay.”
“My father approved of the marriage, then.”
“Yes. He was quite fond of Max, and he...” She hesitated, apparently uncertain as to whether he was up to hearing the details of his sister’s marriage to a Yankee colonel.
“Go on,” he said. “I need to know.”
“He made sure that Maria could live here as long as she wanted. It was in his will. He was worried that something might happen with the occupation and the house might be confiscated if Maria owned it. So he left it to Max. Your father trusted him to take care of her—they had long talks together about it. The ceremony was held here in the upstairs, the wide hallway right outside his room on the other end of the house. He could see and hear everything. Maria looked beautiful—she wore the earrings you and Samuel gave her before you left for the war—”
“We thought she would marry Billy Canfield. Where is he? Why didn’t she?”
“You would have to ask her about that,” Kate said.
“My father was pleased about her marrying your brother,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but the whole idea of such a thing was hard for him to believe.
“Yes. He was. I think it was a very enjoyable day for him. Lots of food and drink and good company, and I’m certain he sneaked at least one cigar.”
Robert smiled briefly at hearing that his father’s love of cigars had never waned. At least he had had something pleasant to focus on at the end of his life. “An enjoyable day. That’s good. I’m...glad.”
“I liked Mr. Markham very much,” she said after a moment. “We would talk sometimes.”
“Did he ever—” He suddenly stopped, unable to bring himself to ask the question.
“What were you going to ask?”
“I— Nothing.”
“He spoke of you once,” she said, and once again he thought she was trying to second-guess what he might want to know.
“He said you were his warrior son. And Samuel, his poet.”
Robert looked away. He had thought he was ready to hear these things, but he wasn’t. Had he not been such a hotheaded “warrior,” Samuel might be alive today.
He forced himself to push the conversation in a different, but no less painful, direction.
“The colonel—isn’t here?” he asked.
“He and Maria and the boys left for New Bern three days ago.”
“Boys? There are...children?”
“Three. Two are adopted. One, the youngest, is their birth child. My brother had military business to attend to in New Bern and he wanted his family with him. And Mrs. Hansen.”
He looked at her sharply. “Mrs. Hansen?”
“She helps Maria with the children. The boys are quite a handful.”
“You’re talking about Warrie Hansen?”
“Yes. You would know her, I think.”
“I did,” he said. “A very long time ago.”
So, Robert thought. Now he knew where he could find Eleanor’s mother at least.
“How...long have I been...?” He couldn’t quite find a word to describe his current condition. He felt as if he had slept a long time, but he didn’t know why or how. He reached up to touch his forehead again. It still hurt.
“You arrived the day they all left,” she said.
“Poor...timing on my part. Or perhaps not,” he added after a moment, primarily because of the look on her face.
“Given the circumstances,” Kate said, “it would have been alarming for Maria to suddenly come upon you the way I did, but, given the state that you were in that day, I think it would have been even worse. When you fell in the hallway, you hit your head on the parquet floor. Hard. The army surgeon says your collapse was caused by hunger and exhaustion from trying to travel on foot through the deep snow. That, and the wound you received, I assume, at Gettysburg. He says it left you—”
“I know how it left me,” Robert said. He lived with the pain every day and with being less than he’d once been both physically and mentally. He was thirty-three years old, and he felt like an old man.
But he suddenly remembered. “Mrs. Kinnard was there—when I was on the floor.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I remember...bits of it. She was upset with me. It was like...when the Canfield brothers and I tipped over...one of her outhouses.”
She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I can see why Maria thinks Robbie may demonstrate a mischievous streak when he’s older.”
“Robbie?”
“Max and Maria’s little boy. He’s named for you. The other two, Joe and Jake, are Suzanne and Phelan Canfield’s sons. Max adopted them after she died.”
Robert closed his eyes, his mind reeling. A nephew named after him? Suzanne Canfield dead? And Eleanor. What had happened to Eleanor?
“I shouldn’t be in here,” she said suddenly. She moved quietly to the door, opening it slightly and peering into the hallway for some sign of Mrs. Kinnard.
“I think you should rest,” she said over her shoulder. “The night you arrived, you were in no condition to either get or give explanations. You’re better now, and you’re going to need all the strength you can muster if you intend to try to make Maria understand why you did what you did. I don’t think it will be easy. I know how I would feel if I were in her place and Max had suddenly come back from the dead. Truthfully, I don’t envy you the attempt.”
Robert didn’t say anything. She was quite straightforward, this new sister-in-law of his.
“I have a favor...to ask,” he said, despite the inappropriateness of doing so. “Two favors.”
“All right. Ask.”
“Would you tell the sergeant major that I’d like to talk to an army chaplain. Tell him I want to talk to one who has seen the elephant. Someone who’s fought in battle and survived. Will you do that?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
“And I would consider it a kindness if you would find out whatever you can about Miss Eleanor Hansen—where she is.”
He expected her to ask him for explanations, but she didn’t. She nodded, and after one final cautious look into the hallway, she slipped away.
Chapter Four
What is wrong with me? Kate thought as she made her way to the kitchen. Hiding from a woman she had every right to challenge in her own brother’s house. It wasn’t like her to hide. Keep silent, yes. Endure, yes. But not this.
She gave an exasperated sigh. She knew perfectly well that it wasn’t the hiding alone that had her so disconcerted. It was that she had willingly engaged in a prolonged conversation with a strange man—albeit a relative by marriage—in his—her—bedchamber.
She wasn’t really certain why she’d tarried so long with Robert Markham—except that he wasn’t like any man she’d ever met. He was literally her enemy, of course, an active participant in the war responsible for Grey’s death and for Max’s nearly fatal imprisonment, and yet there was something...else about him, something she couldn’t begin to define. Perhaps it was the contrast between his rough physical appearance and his quiet demeanor. Or seemingly quiet demeanor. Even that was an intriguing puzzle to her. His eyes weren’t quiet at all. They were so intense and intimidating—a look she thought he might have perfected in the prizefighting ring.
And yet he’d seemed perfectly willing to have her take refuge from Mrs. Kinnard at his inconvenience. She had immediately sensed that he would have given her whatever help she had required, if he could, whether he knew her or not. She decided that perhaps it was the knight-in-shining-armor quality Southern men were purported to have, but she had no experience in that regard and therefore couldn’t possibly know with any certainty. All she knew of the group as a whole was what Maxwell and Grey had both told her—that they were worthy enemies and excellent horsemen, things soldiers—cavalrymen—apparently found time to note and admire despite their determination to kill one another.
“It is Tuesday,” Mrs. Kinnard suddenly announced behind her, once again making Kate jump. And the woman made it sound as if Tuesday was a very bad thing to be.
Kate waited as patiently as she could to be enlightened, but so did Mrs. Kinnard. And the impasse it created continued to the point where poor timid Mrs. Justice and the two orderlies who would have walked past them in the downstairs hallway immediately changed their minds and went back in the direction they had just come.
“How may I help you, Mrs. Kinnard?” Kate said finally, capitulating once again for Max’s sake. But it wasn’t just her need to keep the peace that made her try to be agreeable. She couldn’t help but think of Mrs. Russell’s lost son, and she intended, by keeping Mrs. Kinnard pacified, to be able to write her letter to Harrison at some point without interruption, a very long letter, whether John’s parents would interpret it as intruding into his life or not.
John’s parents.
She never thought of the Howes as Harrison’s parents.
There was a good chance that the trains would be running again after the heavy snow. If so, she wanted to make sure her letter would go out today. Her son was still in this world, and even if she couldn’t be with him, couldn’t see him, she could still have written contact and through his return letters know how he fared.
“I have had no communication from your brother,” Mrs. Kinnard said, interrupting Kate’s thoughts. “None. I should have heard from him by now.”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t say why you have not, Mrs. Kinnard. Perhaps the heavy snow has brought the telegraph lines down—or some other...incident regarding the telegraph has occurred,” Kate added with enough significance to make her point. Diehard Rebels were still known to disrupt the telegraph messages in any way they could, and Kate had no intention of taking the blame for that or the weather. “Whatever the reason, he won’t return until his military duties are satisfied.”
“Well, I need to hear from him,” Mrs. Kinnard said, clearly not placated by mere logic.
“And I’m sure you will. When he is able.”
“And if Robert Markham dies without seeing Maria? What then?”
“He’s awake now,” Kate said. “Perhaps he won’t die.”
“Awake? Why was I not told!”
“I’ve just told you, Mrs. Kinnard. And I’ve carried out his request—”
“What request?” Mrs. Kinnard asked, immediately seizing on the remark as if something underhanded was afoot. And her tone suggested that she already knew she wasn’t going to be happy with Kate’s answer.
“He’s asked to see the army chaplain—I’ve just advised Sergeant Major Perkins,” Kate said—or tried to.
“What utter nonsense! Robert Markham has his own pastor! If it’s spiritual comfort he needs, I can send for Mr. Lewis right now!”
Mrs. Kinnard made an abrupt about-face and headed toward the main staircase—apparently because she suddenly realized she could go directly to Robert Markham’s room and have this whole matter straightened out in no time.
Kate watched her go, feeling more than a little guilty that she’d unleashed the woman upon him without warning. Unlike Kate, he couldn’t hide.
But the sergeant major intercepted Mrs. Kinnard at the bottom step and stood firmly between her and her obvious desire to ascend.
“I will see him, Mr. Perkins,” Kate heard Mrs. Kinnard say.
“Yes, ma’am, you will. But not now. He’s asked to talk to the chaplain and with us not knowing how much strength he’s got at the moment, he’s not going to use it up on anything but that.”
“She says he has asked for your chaplain,” Mrs. Kinnard said, swinging her arm around to include Kate.
“Yes, ma’am. He has.”
“Well, I don’t believe it! Clearly, he’s not himself.”
“Just the same, he’s not going to be bothered until after we get him the kind of chaplain he says he wants—”
“And what kind is that, pray tell?”
“He wants one who’s seen the elephant. He’s the colonel’s brother-in-law so that’s what he’s going to get. In the meantime nobody is going to be seeing him but the hospital orderlies assigned to look after him. I saw that tongue-lashing you gave him when he was down on the floor, Mrs. Kinnard. He doesn’t need any more of that. He is going to be just as calm and rested as he is right now when the chaplain gets here. After that, then we’ll see.”
“Indeed we will!” Mrs. Kinnard said. “You should be mindful that Robert Markham is one of our people. He’s not yours to direct as you please. Elephants, indeed!”
“And I remind you, ma’am, who won this war. It would be better for us all if you went somewhere and waited until I send for you. And right now, if you please. I don’t want to take exceptional measures, but I have the authority to do just that if I see fit.”
Kate stayed well out of the set-to, advancing only after Mrs. Kinnard had turned on her heel and headed for the dining room in a huff.
“How is it I have to maintain the peace for my brother’s sake and you don’t?” she asked the sergeant major.
“I am maintaining the peace, Miss Kate,” Perkins said.
“It sounded more like you might shoot her.”
“What I’m doing is trying to make sure that Mrs. Colonel Woodard finds her brother in the best state of mind and health possible when she gets back here. I’m thinking Mrs. Kinnard isn’t going to be much help when it comes to either of those things. And I’m thinking if the colonel’s lady is happy, then the colonel will be too. Which means, so will I. And probably you, too,” he added for good measure. “If you remember, he’s not going to be expecting to find you in the middle of all this.”
Kate frowned at his annoyingly perfect logic. No. Max definitely wouldn’t be happy that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think I have...things to learn, Sergeant Major,” she said.
Sergeant Major Perkins was only too happy to take her at her word. “Yes, Miss Kate, you do,” he said without even a token regard for her feelings. “For example, now would be a good time for you to go and apologize to Mrs. Kinnard for my very disrespectful behavior. Tell her your brother will hear of it, after which I’ll be disciplined accordingly.”
“I don’t see how that will help.”
“As you said, you have things to learn. It’s time to start learning. If you please,” he added respectfully.
“I am not going to lie, Sergeant Major,” she said, despite having lived in a huge web of untruths for more than half her lifetime. The fabrication regarding Harrison’s birth had been foisted upon her; she’d had no choice. In this matter she did.
“There is no lie in what I want you to do. I gave you the easy part. It’s going to be harder to get the colonel’s brother-in-law the chaplain he’s asked for. It might take a while. We have to find him and then we’re likely going to have to sober him up. The man gets into the O Be Joyful every chance he gets.”
Kate frowned. “Then I don’t think he’s going to do.”
“He’s the only one we got who fits the bill,” Perkins said matter-of-factly. “What would be very helpful now is for you to go and mend the fence I just knocked down. If you please,” he said again, tilting his head in the direction Mrs. Kinnard had gone.
She didn’t please. She didn’t please at all. But she went.
“Miss Kate,” he called as she reached the dining room door. “The company baker has made up a big batch of those shortbread cookies you like so much. They’re locked in the pantry. Maybe you and the ladies would like some of them. They’d go nice with a pot of tea.”
“You are bribing me with cookies,” she said incredulously.
“That I am, Miss Kate.”
She shook her head in exasperation, then took a deep breath before she opened the dining room door and went in. She was surprised to find Mrs. Justice and Mrs. Russell sitting at the long mahogany table, as well.
And the gathering felt more like a planned meeting than a happy coincidence. She wondered if she was to have been included, if that was the reason Mrs. Kinnard had been so determined to find her.
“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Kinnard said immediately, her rudeness causing Mrs. Justice to make a small sound of protest.
“This is my brother’s house,” Kate said calmly. “And if by here, you mean this room, I...wanted to ask if you might like some tea and shortbread cookies while we wait for Mr. Markham to see the chaplain—”
Mrs. Kinnard bristled at the mention of the clergyman she hadn’t approved.
“Robert Markham has his own pastor, one who has known him since he was a boy,” she said. “I can’t imagine why he would want anyone else.”
“He didn’t say why. I believe he wants to speak to someone of faith, but he also wants someone who has been in battle, as he has. That’s what ‘seeing the elephant’ means, that one has fought the enemy and survived.”
The women looked at each other. Mrs. Kinnard must have more questions, but apparently she had no intention of asking Kate.
“I would like some tea,” Mrs. Justice offered timidly from her seat at the far end of the table. “And cookies. I dearly love cookies. Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Kinnard do, too.”
“I have no interest in...cookies,” Mrs. Russell said, but Kate heard “her cookies.”
“Nor I,” Mrs. Kinnard assured her.
“Of course you do,” Mrs. Justice said, stopping just short of blatantly insisting. “Remember when all three of us got into trouble for eating the cookies that were left cooling on the windowsill at old Mrs. Kinnard’s house? I can still smell that wonderful aroma after all these years. Don’t you remember? We were all three riding on my brother’s decrepit old brindled mare. We got a whiff of those cookies and off through the spirea hedge we went. And we made the poor old nag go tree to tree and shrub to shrub until we got close enough to snap those cookies up—I don’t know what that horse must have thought. Now these cookies we won’t have to...um, borrow.”
Incredibly, Mrs. Russell smiled. “We did do that, didn’t we?”
“I don’t recall any such thing,” Mrs. Kinnard said. “The very idea. I certainly never took cookies from my mother-in-law’s windowsill.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Acacia,” Mrs. Russell said. “She wasn’t your mother-in-law then. We were only seven. You do remember being seven, I hope.”
“Six,” Mrs. Justice said. “And already well on our way to a highwayman’s life—just as soon as we got a better horse.”
Mrs. Justice and Mrs. Russell looked at each other, then burst out laughing, and Kate couldn’t keep from smiling. Mrs. Kinnard, however, remained unmoved.
There was a polite knock—kick—on the door, and Kate went to open it. A young soldier stood in the hallway, struggling to hold on to a large silver tea tray laden with a matching teapot and a mound of cookies and mismatched china cups and serving plates.
“Sergeant Major Perkins asks if you would like tea and cookies, Miss Woodard,” he said as if he’d rehearsed the line any number of times. Clearly, Perkins wasn’t taking any chances that Kate wouldn’t carry out his plans for fence mending.
“Do we?” Kate asked, looking over her shoulder at Mrs. Kinnard, giving her the final word.
“Wouldn’t it be rude not to accept Miss Woodard’s hospitality?” Mrs. Justice said behind her hand to Mrs. Kinnard—as if Kate couldn’t hear her. “I believe all three of our mothers taught us how to behave in someone else’s home, no matter what the circumstances might be.”
“Oh, very well,” Mrs. Kinnard said, clearly exasperated. “Since it’s here. Bring in the tray,” she said to the soldier. “Put it there. Will you pour or shall I?” she asked, clearly startling him to the point that even she realized it.
“Good heavens! Not you,” Mrs. Kinnard snapped—to the young soldier’s obvious relief. “Her.”
“I would much prefer that you poured, Mrs. Kinnard, if you would be so kind,” Kate said, assuming that she was the target of Mrs. Kinnard’s remark. “Unfortunately I haven’t had that much practice. My mother always chose to use the Woodard heirlooms rather than storing them, and she was always worried I would break something—with good reason.” She was telling the truth, but she was also trying to do as Perkins wanted and lay some groundwork before she made an attempt to soothe Mrs. Kinnard’s decidedly ruffled feathers. Besides that, she wanted to focus her attention on what was happening upstairs with Robert Markham.
“Indeed,” Mrs. Kinnard assured her. Believing that a catastrophe would be imminent if anything breakable found its way into Kate’s hands was clearly no hardship for her at all.
Mrs. Kinnard frowned at the mismatched cups and saucers on the tray, and for a moment Kate thought she was going to comment on it. But then she must have remembered what had likely happened to the set. “Maria went to such great trouble to hide her mother’s things when the house was looted,” she said. “We must do our best to preserve her tea service, after all.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Kate said, smiling. She understood perfectly that she was supposed to cringe at the insinuation that she had political and regional ties to the looters, and that as a hostess, she left much to be desired. But being able to preside over the pouring of tea didn’t matter to her in the least and hadn’t since Harrison was born. She gave a soft sigh at the sudden thought of him. She wanted desperately to be away from Mrs. Kinnard and the others so she could at least write to him. She had been so faithful in her correspondence to him that she liked to think he might even anticipate the arrival of her letters. She always tried to make them as interesting as she could in the hope that he would look forward to the next one. Perhaps she would tell him about the strange return of the man upstairs.
The tea pouring proceeded in silence and without mishap.
“Tell me, Mrs. Justice,” Kate said at one point in an attempt to foster enough mild conversation to carry out her mission. “What other adventures did you have when you were a little girl?”
Mrs. Kinnard gave her a warning look. She clearly didn’t want any more disclosures regarding her childhood. Kate tried not to smile again at the mental image of the three of them riding an ancient horse and trying to make it to those cookies on the window ledge without being seen. Somehow she couldn’t get past imagining them dressed just as they were now.
But Mrs. Justice was saved having to answer by a loud commotion in the foyer. Kate thought for a moment that Mrs. Kinnard was going to get up and go see what was occurring for herself, lest the chaplain get by her without her having the opportunity to give him both his instructions and her opinion of his being brought here in the first place.
“Well, how drunk is he!” they all heard Perkins say.
Kate couldn’t make out the reply. She worked on looking as if she had no idea what that comment might mean.
“Get him in here and sober him up! Stick his head in a bucket of snow if you have to!”
“Soldiers do seem to have unusual solutions to their predicaments, don’t they?” Mrs. Justice commented mildly as the commotion intensified and moved past the dining room door toward the back of the house. She took another sip of tea and looked at Kate. “What did Robbie say, my dear? Did he mention where he’d been at all?”
“I didn’t ask him anything about that,” Kate said.
“Oh! Of course not,” Mrs. Justice said, apparently alarmed that she’d dared suggest such a rude and thoughtless thing. “That wouldn’t have been a good idea at all. But you did talk to him?”
“He had...questions. He didn’t seem to remember what had happened to him.” She took a quiet breath. “He didn’t know his father had died.”
“Oh, that poor, poor boy,” Mrs. Justice said.
“And did he know about Maria’s marriage?” Mrs. Kinnard asked.
“No. He didn’t.”
“I’m sure he was upset about that, as well.”
“He is Maria’s brother. He would naturally be concerned about her. Fortunately I could reassure him.”
“Indeed yes,” Mrs. Justice said. Mrs. Kinnard and Mrs. Russell both gave her a hard look.
They could hear a second arrival in the foyer and then heavy footsteps going up the stairs.
“That must be the chaplain, don’t you think? Poor Robbie,” Mrs. Justice said again.
“Poor Robbie, indeed,” Mrs. Kinnard said, setting her cup down hard despite her desire to keep Maria’s mismatched tea service safe. “He’ll get no spiritual comfort there.”
“Sounds like their army surgeon to me,” Mrs. Russell said. “For a thin man, he has a very heavy tread. But then they all do.”
Kate took a breath and tried not to consider what in the world could have been behind the remark. Her head was beginning to hurt, despite the tea and the excellent cookies. No matter what Sergeant Major Perkins thought, there were some things cookies just wouldn’t fix.
“I’d like to say a prayer, if I may,” Mrs. Justice said.
“For whom?” Mrs. Kinnard asked, as if prayers came under her jurisdiction, as well.
“For our Robbie, of course,” she said. “If you would bow your heads please.” She waited a moment for them to comply, then continued. “Dear Lord, we don’t know where Robert Markham has been or what kind of trouble and heartache he’s had, but we ask you—now that he’s home again and safe—please guide us so we can know what to do for him, and please don’t let us do anything to add to his worries and make them worse. Amen.”
Mrs. Justice smiled and looked around at each of them. “There. I feel so much better now.”
So do I, Kate thought. Incredibly, Mrs. Justice, with her gentle, forthright prayer, had reminded all of them that Robert Markham would likely need help—but none of them should arbitrarily decide what that help should be. She wondered if Robert had any idea what a staunch ally he had in this kind and pleasant woman.
Someone knocked softly on the door, and without waiting to be admitted, Mrs. Kinnard’s daughter Valentina swept into the room.
“Ah! Here you are, Mother,” she said. She looked...stunning. She would have been perfectly at home in any salon in Philadelphia.
“Imagine my surprise when I arrived home—finally—the snow on the road from Mocksville was terrible—Aunt Matilda and Uncle Bart send their love, by the way. And here I discover you’re nowhere to be found and the servants tell me you’re in the middle of all this excitement about Robert Markham—and my word, there are soldiers all over the place. How is it that this house is always overrun with soldiers?”
“Perhaps because a colonel lives here,” Kate said mildly.
“Oh. Well. Yes. Hello, Miss Woodard,” Valentina said, smiling. “You’re looking very...fine today.”
Kate was well aware that she didn’t look fine at all. She’d been alternating the same travel dress with a plain calico morning dress she kept at her brother’s house specifically for getting down on the floor and playing with the boys. The fact that most of her wardrobe was likely sitting in the Philadelphia train station meant she might be alternating the two dresses for some days hence, turning whichever one she’d just worn wrong side out and hanging it on the rack in the airing room next to the nursery each night.
“You’re very kind, Valentina, but I’m not at my best, I’m afraid. What a lovely dress and hat you have on,” Kate said truthfully, openly admiring the bright orange shantung day bodice Valentina wore above a pale blue skirt with a pleated cream underskirt showing beneath it, and cream-colored lace at her throat and wrists. “Would you like some tea?”
“Yes—”
“No,” Mrs. Kinnard assured them both.
“No,” Valentina said dutifully. “I’m very apt to spill. Or break,” she added, completely ignoring the look her mother gave her.
“So am I,” Kate said. “I was only just telling your mother I ought not pour the tea because of it. Do you suppose there is anything we can do about it?”
“Perhaps there’s hope for you, Miss Woodard,” Valentina said. “As for myself—I am quite useless. Or so my mother tells me. You wouldn’t believe the number of dresses and tablecloths and teacups I’ve wrecked.”
Kate couldn’t keep from smiling. For the first time in their numerous encounters since Max and Maria had married, Kate found herself coming very close to liking this young woman. Today she seemed to have no guile at all, despite what must have been her mother’s diligent tutelage.
“So tell me. Is it true that Robert Markham has returned?” Valentina asked the room at large.
“Yes,” Kate answered, because no one else seemed inclined to.
“Is he very changed— Oh, that’s right. You wouldn’t know. Is he changed, Mother?”
“I couldn’t say. I haven’t been allowed to see him,” Mrs. Kinnard said, and Valentina actually laughed.
“Oh, dear. Someone is going to suffer for that.” Valentina was openly teasing her mother—and somebody was going to suffer for that, too, Kate thought.
But Valentina didn’t seem to be worried in the least. She was so different from the Valentina Kate had grown accustomed to, and she couldn’t help but wonder why.
“Miss Woodard, I believe we were trying to ascertain whether or not Robert said anything sensible. Are you or are you not going to enlighten us?” Mrs. Kinnard said.
“He said he was grateful to you, Mrs. Kinnard—and to Mrs. Justice and Mrs. Russell for establishing his identity,” Kate said.
“As he should be,” Mrs. Kinnard said, not about to give an inch. “Certainly we will have to find out where he’s been all this—”
“Why?” Kate asked, daring to interrupt. “There’s no need for him to justify his whereabouts to anyone, except perhaps Maria. She is the one he has hurt the most.”
“Well, there’s El—” Mrs. Justice started to say.
“And that is not fit for civilized discussion,” Mrs. Kinnard snapped. “What she became is clearly what she always was.” She looked at Kate. “Or perhaps things are done differently where you come from and there is no accountability for bad behavior.”
I’m too tired for this, Kate suddenly thought. What little sleep she’d had had been on one of the boys’ cots in the downstairs nursery wing of the house. Mrs. Kinnard had more than proved that she intended to go to any length necessary to be offended, and Kate just couldn’t endure another round of verbal sparring.
She stood instead. “I believe I’ll go see if the sergeant major can tell me what is happening with my brother-in-law,” she said, hoping that the term “brother-in-law” would induce Mrs. Kinnard to understand whose claim on Robert Markham took precedence. This was a family matter. No one could pacify Mrs. Kinnard at this point, least of all Kate, and she had no intention of allowing the woman to meddle where she didn’t belong. Kate had no intention of coming back, either, whether she gleaned any information from Perkins or not. She had to write her letter to Harrison and she had to get away from Mrs. Kinnard before she said something to unravel Max’s fragile hold on a peaceful military occupation altogether.
“I’ll come with you,” Valentina said.
“That’s not necessary—” Kate tried to say, but Valentina ignored her and her mother’s protests.
“Oh, but I want to. You must tell me about the dresses in Philadelphia—after you speak to Sergeant Major Perkins, of course. I get so lonely for my own kind sometimes. We can have a real conversation.”
“Valentina. I require you here,” Mrs. Kinnard said firmly as Kate stepped into the hallway. She could immediately hear raised voices coming from the upstairs. Sergeant Major Perkins stood at the bottom of the staircase, alert but not yet ready to intervene.
“What’s happening?” Kate asked. “Is that the chaplain yelling?”
“Could be. Or it could be your brother-in-law,” Perkins said. “Not sure who’s preaching to who.”
“Aren’t you going to intervene?”
“Not until I hear furniture breaking,” he said calmly. “Most of the time two soldiers yelling at each other won’t mean a lot.”
“Miss Woodard! Wait!” Valentina called behind her, and the sigh Kate had been suppressing for some time got away from her. Clearly her life would have been much simpler if she’d just gotten on that train.
Chapter Five
Where is she?
Robert kept listening for the sound of his sister-in-law’s footsteps in the hallway outside his door. He had only seen her once since the hiding episode, when she’d brought him his Bible and his Confederate enlistment card, and that was two days ago. He didn’t think she’d been driven to hide again because he hadn’t heard Mrs. Kinnard’s distinctive voice for some time now—or if she had concealed herself, she’d found a more obscure place to do it.
He was feeling much stronger; he was awake and dressed and seated comfortably in the rocking chair by the fire, like the old man he had seemingly become. His appetite had returned—much to Mrs. Justice’s pleasure—but ever since he’d awakened from his laudanum-induced stupor, he’d found himself in the middle of a crossroad. Not a spiritual or an emotional one, but one that literally involved all manner of comings and goings in the house. People arrived in a steady stream at the front door, or they made their entry into the house at the back via the kitchen. However they managed to get inside, they all apparently had the same goal—ostensibly to deliver food and drink as a “welcome home” for him, but actually to satisfy their curiosity about his return. There was no surprise in that, of course; he had essentially come back from the dead. What surprised him was that the parade of would-be visitors continued despite the fact that none of them were ever allowed to visit. He had his brother-in-law’s sergeant major to thank for that, and he was grateful. It was a great relief not to have to talk to anyone. Unfortunately the one person he actually wanted to talk to was prone to hiding.
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