A Place Called Home

by Elizabeth Grayson

  Livi couldn't say. She'd been too wrapped up in getting through each day to take proper note of her daughter's well-being.

  She read the diagnosis in the older woman's face.

  "I'm sorry," Lila said. She clasped Livi's hand, passing condolences from one mother to another.

  The horror sank in, viscous and black. "What shall I do?" Livi whispered. "Tell me, how can I help her?"

  Lila Carter tightened her grasp. "Let her go peaceful-like when it's her time."

  The words set Livi's heartbeat staggering. "I can't," she murmured. "I can't!"

  Lila Carter shook her head, took back her hand. Outside, the crowd was waiting.

  "It is," Lila told them as she passed through the clot of people and headed toward her own campsite.

  Livi stood in the flap of the tent, the voices of the churchmen rising around her. It was only a few spots, she told herself, a touch of fever. It couldn't be smallpox.

  Surely God wouldn't take her baby girl when she'd lost so much already.

  It was Reverend Lindenwood's approach that penetrated the fog of denial. "Mrs. Talbot? Olivia?"

  Livi looked up, feeling dazed.

  "I'm sorry about your daughter's illness."

  "Thank you," she answered. But she could see there was more he wanted to say.

  "This is difficult, Mrs. Talbot," he continued, "but you must try to understand our position..."

  "Your position?"

  Lindenwood lifted his hands in a gesture of futility. "That when we head out tomorrow, we're going to leave you and your family behind."

  Disbelief set her chest ablaze. "You're what?"

  "You can't travel with us and expose everyone on the pack train to smallpox," he continued reasonably. "We have no choice but to go on without you."

  "It's not smallpox." The words sounded desperate even in her own ears.

  "Lila Carter says it is."

  Livi looked away. Her daughter might be dying, and these people meant to abandon them.

  "But it's seventy miles to the nearest settlement," Livi whispered.

  "We have to save ourselves," Lindenwood said. "Surely you can see that."

  Seventy miles to the nearest settlement, with one child who might never survive the trip and another who could just as well fall ill.

  "Please don't do this." She looked into Lindenwood's furrowed face. "Please, I beg you."

  She looked beyond the Reverend to where the others waited. "You can't do this! If you leave us! If you leave us, we'll die!"

  Lem Stewart hung his head. George Willoughby looked away. She could see the anguish in Molly Baker's face.

  That Turnip Carter should be the one to answer her plea decimated the last of Livi's hope. "We're sorry, girl, but we've got to see to our own kin first."

  "We'll leave you all the food we can spare." Lindenwood's voice penetrated the fog of desolation. "And if there is anything else you need..."

  Compassion? Understanding? Courage?

  Not one of the company of travelers paused to offer an apology or a word of farewell. It was as if Livi and her family had ceased to exist, as if the cooperation and friendship that had begun to grow between them had never been.

  Tad left the tent and came to stand with his mother. "Is Cissy all right?" she asked him.

  "She's asleep."

  Livi nodded.

  "Ma?" His voice wavered. "Ma, is Cissy going to die?"

  Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. "I don't know, Tad. I just don't know."

  "Will I get smallpox, too, Ma?"

  Her chest ached with anguish as she answered. "I need you to stay well, Tad," she finally said. "It's going to take both of us to hold things together until Cissy recovers."

  She saw Tad knew what she was saying. He was far too wise for his years. Terrible vulnerability scribed the line of his mouth, and the fear in his eyes was potent and real.

  "You can count on me, Ma," he promised anyway. "You can always count on me."

  * * *

  In the half-light Livi watched them go, the pack train heading west, skulking away. As far as she could tell, not one of the travelers looked back.

  Small sacks of meal, fresh and salted meat, parched corn, dried peas, an extra blanket, and the remnants of everyone's woodpile had been left at the edge of her campsite. Salve for the churchmen's consciences. Offerings to the spirits of a family not yet dead.

  They were being sacrificed for the common good. Livi understood that. The people on the pack train were doing what they thought was best, doing it reluctantly, but doing it with a resignation that was impregnable. What would she have been willing to do to ensure her children's well-being against such a scourge as smallpox?

  Not this, she hoped. Not this.

  Livi's gaze swept the mountains towering around them on every side. Here, miles from any settlement, she must find a way to keep her family warm and fed and dry. In spite of everything, she had managed to hold her family together after David died. She had managed to secure them passage over the mountains. But this was far more than a woman like her could manage. She wasn't brave or strong enough to do this. She didn't know anything about surviving in the wilderness.

  How could those selfish people have abandoned us?

  Bitterness sparked up inside her, and she fanned the flame. She needed outrage to fuel the effort it was going to take to survive.

  "Are they gone, Ma?" Tad asked, stepping out of the tent.

  "They pulled out a few minutes ago."

  "I didn't think they'd really leave us. Not Joss and George. I thought they were our friends."

  Livi could hear the disillusionment in her son's voice, and fresh anger scoured through her. "Smallpox is a dangerous disease."

  During the previous night, Cissy's fever had risen as the rash gained purchase. Livi had sat up with her, alternately bathing her brow and swaddling her in blankets.

  "Could you leave someone behind like they've left us?" Tad wanted to know.

  "I'd like to think I wouldn't."

  Tad took his time considering her answer then threw back his head. "Cowards!" His voice echoed back from the encircling hills. "Goddamned cowards!"

  Livi didn't argue with his assessment. She didn't admonish him for swearing. With what she was about to ask, with what she had asked of him already, Tad had earned certain rights.

  "I've been thinking that we're too vulnerable camped here in the valley. We need somewhere to hole up until Cissy's better, somewhere off the road with water and grazing for the horses."

  Tad turned his gaze from where the dust from the pack train's departure was settling. "You don't want much, do you, Ma?"

  "It needs to be close by," she went on. "Do you think you can find something without getting lost?"

  Anger sparked up those whiskey-gold eyes. "I suppose you could hang onto one end of a ball of yarn, and I could unwind it as I go."

  Livi caught his arm before he could turn away. "It's not that I doubt your abilities, Tad. It's that I couldn't bear to lose you."

  She felt the rigidity seep out of him. "You won't, Ma. I promise."

  Livi sat with Cissy, bathing her and soothing her whimpers of pain, but Tad wasn't out of her mind for a single moment. What would she do, she wondered, if he hadn't returned by nightfall?

  He returned just after midday. They moved to the cave he'd found in the limestone bluff to the north of Boone's Trace. The entrance, half hidden by a cleft in the rock, opened into a dome-shaped chamber just high enough for Livi to stand erect. A fire-ring set well back from the entrance and the smoke-blackened walls gave evidence that they weren't the first travelers to seek refuge there. With their blankets laid out on the sandy floor and a fire crackling, the place was almost hospitable.

  But as night closed in, Cissy's condition worsened, threatening her life, her sight and her rare and fragile beauty. As the child muttered in her sleep, Livi bundled her daughter in her arms and fought to accept that perhaps not even her love could save th
e child.

  Livi held Cissy closer and stared across at her son, curled up in his nest of blankets. Would Tad catch smallpox, too? Who would look after the children if she fell ill?

  They could all die in this cave, and the world might never mark their passing. Their bones might turn to dust before some stranger came to scratch out shallow graves or whisper a prayer for their salvation.

  Tears of helplessness and fear ran down her face. The need to gather up and defend her family weighed on her. How was it that David seemed to have carried this load so effortlessly?

  "David," she sobbed, bitter tears running into her mouth. "David, how could you leave me when I need you so?"

  Her isolation and the stark, blank terror of failing the people she loved crushed down on her. Worn beyond weariness, Livi shivered, closed her eyes and let her thoughts wander to other days.

  Chapter 6

  Fairfax County, Virginia

  November 2, 1768

  Step right. Step left. Turn and curtsy. One. Two...

  Livi Chesterton paused in her counting to cast what she hoped was a scintillating glance at her dancing partner, a whey-faced young lawyer from Williamsburg. Now that she had met him, seen his uneven teeth and realized she stood half a head taller than he, she wondered why her mother had been so delighted when Samuel Carson had accepted the invitation to Livi's sixteenth-birthday fete. But perhaps attracting the attention of such a man was the best she could hope for.

  "It's not as if Olivia has much to offer," her father harrumphed the day Jessica Chesterton pointed out that their youngest daughter had reached marriageable age. "She's plain as a fence post and far too tall. And she grows that hideous-colored hair."

  "Red," her mother had acknowledged with a sniff.

  "How can we hope to make a suitable match for such a girl?" her papa had gone on, heedless that Livi stood less than a yard away. "How can we ally ourselves with one of Virginia's better families when Olivia is neither pretty nor accomplished?"

  Her father had made no secret of his ambition to marry off each of his daughters to a Fairfax or a Lee so that Randolph, her father's only heir, would have an entree to the highest echelons of Virginia society. Both Livi's sisters, Arabella and Felicity, had made the kind of marriages their father wanted. Now it was up to Livi to do the same. This ball was to introduce her to society and as many eligible gentlemen as possible.

  Yet despite being the guest of honor, Livi had danced only a handful of times. After each of what Livi knew were "duty" dances, the men she who had been invited as potential beaux politely returned Livi to her mother's side and went off to flirt with other girls.

  Samuel Carson proved to be no exception. Once he'd bowed and mumbled, "Been a pleasure, Miss Chesterton," he stalked off toward where gaming tables had been set up for the gentlemen's amusement.

  Her mother masked her comment with the flutter of her fan. "Well, it's not as if you have Felicity's wit or Arabella's beauty!"

  Livi was still trying to swallow her need to weep, when the parlor fell suddenly silent. Heads swiveled toward the man standing in the parlor doorway. In response men stiffened and the women's mouths popped open in shock.

  Livi's gaze was drawn to him, and though she had never set eyes on him before, she knew exactly who he was. This was Reid Campbell, the eldest son of the wealthy trading family whose holdings abutted the Chesterton plantation.

  The man himself would have drawn attention at any gathering. Few men were as tall or as dark, nor so handsome and commanding. Nor could any man who was accepted, however reluctantly, into the parlors of the gentry claim a Creek Indian princess as his grandmother.

  That heritage had gifted Reid Campbell with blue-black hair, dusky skin and a countenance that was as fierce as it was compelling. The man's Scots-Irish forebears had marked him, too, with sky-blue eyes and a jaw that bespoke the legendary stubbornness of Campbell men.

  In a single glance he took in the whole of the parlor, then started toward Livi. With her heart thudding against her stays, she watched as Campbell stopped before her.

  "Are you Olivia Chesterton?" he asked. "Is it your birthday we've come here to celebrate?"

  Though Campbell's questions were scrupulously polite, it wasn't proper for Livi to answer unless they'd been previously introduced.

  When no one spoke up, Livi answered, hoping he wouldn't hear the quaver in his voice. "I am, Olivia."

  Then, as if he had never lived with the Creeks or been rumored to wear feathers in his hair, Campbell reached out to take her hand. "Then let me offer you my good wishes, Miss Chesterton, for a very happy day."

  As his palm enfolded hers, she became aware—even through her delicate kid gloves—of the strength of his fingers and the warmth of his flesh.

  Involuntarily she glanced down at their clasped hands and saw the intricate blue design that had been etched into his skin. Both more fascinating and appalling was that the tattoo was in the shape of a snake: its forked tongue licking at Campbell's knuckles, its head centered on the back of his hand and its body curling up his wrist to disappear beneath the ruffled cuff of his shirt.

  Livi kept from pulling her hand away by dint of will.

  Then, he very deliberately circled his fingertips in the center of her palm sending a sharp jolt of energy dancing up her arm. She gasped and jerked her hand away.

  Campbell had the audacity to smile at her before he stepped back. "And if I may, Miss Chesterton, I like to present my boyhood friend, David Talbot."

  For Livi, it was as if the sun had suddenly come out from behind a cloud.

  Reid Campbell's friend was nearly as tall as he was and had the gold of a thousand candle-flames glinting in his hair. When he smiled, it lit up an amber-brown intensity in his eyes.

  "David Talbot," she breathed, savoring the taste of his name in her mouth.

  "At your service," he answered, "May I add my congratulations and best wishes for a very happy birthday."

  Livi went warm all over. "Thank you."

  David Talbot and held out his hand. "Would you grant me the favor of dancing with me, Miss Chesterton?"

  Though Livi doubted her parents would approve of granting this favor to a man she'd barely met, she took his hand. And let David Talbot guide her out onto the dance floor.

  Just as they assumed their places in the set, the musicians struck up a country-dance. With his palm nestled against her waist and his smile beaming down on her, David swept her into the promenade.

  "When Reid insisted that I come with him," he confided, "I never expected to dance with a lady as lovely as you."

  Unused to complements, Livi blushed. "I'm glad you came, Mr. Talbot," she said just as the steps of the dance took her on to another partner.

  Across the square from David, Livi watched him, noticing that how strong and well-made he was, that he danced with a leashed power that edged on grace. She could see he was watching her, his eyes darkening with admiration.

  When the dancing once again brought them together and he clasped her hand in his, it was as if they touched in a more than usual way. It was as if in the round of a dance, Livi had discovered something about David Talbot that made her feel good about herself, made her feel safe. It made her immune to her mother's disapproval and her father's scowls.

  As the music ended David bent toward her. "If you're not engaged for the next dance, Miss Chesterton, would you be kind enough to show me the garden?"

  Though the sky was growing dark and she knew her mother wouldn't approve, Livi led Mr. Talbot out into the yard where the deepening twilight was alive with the dusky scent of Indian summer.

  As they followed one path and then another, the sound of music faded until deep in the garden, they came upon the arbor swathed in wisteria vines. With a flourish David offered Livi a seat on a carved wooden bench eased himself down beside her.

  Sitting close, Livi felt even more drawn to him than she'd been when they were dancing. She liked that he was respectful and gentle with her,
liked the timbre of his voice and the goodness she could sense in him.

  At his nearness a tremor of hope tingled through her.

  "You feel it, too, don't you?" David whispered, not quite able to look at her.

  Livi knew exactly what he meant, but she couldn't find the words to answer him.

  "It's as if the two of us were meant to meet, as if the two of us were meant to be together."

  She raised her gaze to his.

  "I never imagined it could happen like this." The intensity in his voice and in his eyes gave credence to his words. "When I saw you across the room for the first time, when I took your hand, I knew you were the woman I was meant to love for the rest of my days."

  It was just what Livi was feeling. Her heart fluttered at the base of her throat. "I feel as if I'm bound to you already."

  David cupped her face in his big hands as if she was fragile and infinitely precious. He smiled down into her eyes, then lowered his mouth and kissed her.

  The first brush of his lips on hers was pure and sweet beyond all bearing. The second kiss turned lingering and tender. The third was a thorough worship of her mouth.

  Livi wrapped her arms around David's neck and bowed her body into his. Together in the darkness they kissed for a very long time, and to Livi it seemed being with David was perfect. He was gentle with her, kind and accepting. He made her feel admired, revered, and infinitely precious.

  At length David raised his head; she could see the intensity in his eyes. "Though we've only just met," he murmured, "I know you're the woman I love, the one I want to build my life with."

  His words seemed to reverberate inside her. "Yes, David, that's what I want, too."

  He kissed her one last time and rose to stand over her. "Then if we want to be together, we need to go about this right and proper."

  Livi stared up at him. "What do you mean?"

  "It means I need to court you like a gentleman. Call on you and bring you flowers. Get to know your family."

  "My family?"

  "I need to prove to them that I deserve you, that I can take care of you. And when the time is right, I'll ask your father for your hand."

  Until tonight, marriage was something her parents discussed, something that had to do with property and alliances.