Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series)

by Lane, Cheryl

  “What? Now? Here?”

  “Yes.” He laughed at my reaction. “Why not? It’d be a nice way to cool off.”

  “I couldn’t possibly swim in these clothes.” I peeled an egg and bit into it.

  “Then take them off, leave your underwear-.” He stopped, seeing my shocked, embarrassed expression. “Oh, you still don’t have any?”

  “How did you-” I trailed off, looking away. Of course, he would know whether I had underwear or not, since we were married. “No, I still don’t have any,” I said awkwardly, feeling my cheeks redden.

  “I told you we should have bought some on our honeymoon, but you wanted some new bed sheets instead.”

  “I did?” That was surprising.

  “Well, we were married. You didn’t think we, uh, needed any.” He cleared his throat. “You probably don’t remember why you don’t have underwear, do you?” I shook my head. “You told me you had to tear them up to use for bandages for the wounded Yankees that came to your house during the war.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said. That made sense, but I was still blushing.

  “My apologies, Madeline. I certainly don’t intend to make you feel uncomfortable. Perhaps we could take a carriage down to Williamsburg instead. I need to post a notice about needing more help on the plantation.”

  “Yes, I would enjoy that,” I answered. I was relieved he stopped talking about such a private subject and would be glad to spend more time getting to know him. The long ride would afford us plenty of time to talk.

  “All right, then, it’s settled. We’ll venture to Williamsburg and pick up some goods at the mercantile while we’re there,” Ethan agreed. We finished our eggs and biscuits, then got back on the horses and rode back to the house.

  On the ride back, I enjoyed the seclusion of being alone with Ethan and looked forward to more of it. My mind reviewed all that we had gone through so far, and that kiss we’d shared kept coming to the foreground of my mind. I was also thankful for the new memories and was full of anticipation and hope for the rest of the day. After what Ethan said about not worrying about Elizabeth, that he still loved me, and that he was having a difficult time holding back, I decided that I wouldn’t hold back anymore either. I wanted to remember him, and if kissing him helped me do that, then I would not hesitate to do it again, should he desire it. And I would stop worrying about Elizabeth and not let her get in the way of our happiness.

  Chapter 9

  Williamsburg

  Once we reached the stables, I put Cinnabar in a stall and then went upstairs and changed into a long-sleeved bright blue dress, which had a stain on the skirt, but I tried to conceal it by bunching the material and pinning it in that area. I got a sun bonnet out to wear and found a matching ribbon to weave through the hat and tie under my chin. I saw Clarissa on the way back downstairs and told her what we were planning to do. She sent us out with her blessing. “Oh, please don’t worry about Lillie or gardening today. Go enjoy yourself with Ethan,” she encouraged me. “And don’t worry about Elizabeth either. I’ll keep her busy this afternoon.”

  When I reached the entry hall, Cora came through the door from the underground passage and cellar and handed me a picnic hamper full of some food to take with us. It was quite heavy. Ethan must have asked her for something to eat to bring with us. He joined me shortly thereafter and escorted me out the carriage-front door to an awaiting carriage. He looked dashing in a white shirt, dark pants, brown vest, boots, and a dark brown frock coat.

  He helped me into a single-top Phaeton carriage, pulled by two different horses so that Blackfoot and Cinnabar could rest. Ethan climbed in beside me, shook the reins, and we took off down the long winding drive. I looked out over the fields and through the thick trees, trying to let all the memories of this place seep into my soul, hoping that I would remember more.

  We chatted about the weather and the upcoming special dinner while we rode to Williamsburg. Ethan pointed out different houses along the way, and who lived where. The home where I grew up, Magnolia Grove, where my brother lived, was up the other way, so I didn’t get to see that on our trip.

  It took the rest of the morning to get to Williamsburg. I had anticipated going into town, but Ethan pulled over beside a lake first and stopped the horses. He picked up the picnic hamper and helped me out of the carriage.

  “What are we doing?” I asked, even though it was obvious.

  “Having a picnic,” he said, smiling. He grabbed the blanket we had been sitting on and closed the door of the carriage.

  “Two picnics in one day? You’re spoiling me.”

  “I intend to do just that,” he said, winking at me.

  He spread out the blanket near the water’s edge, and we sat down to eat the food Cora made for us…some Virginia ham, a chunk of hard cheese, more fresh bread, strawberries, and a bottle of Madeira wine, complete with glasses.

  “This is wonderful!”

  “The wine was my idea. I hope you don’t mind,” Ethan said.

  “No, not at all.”

  “This is a spot where I brought you once before…on our honeymoon. It used to be hangman’s hill where pirates were hung long ago. Now it’s a popular spot where gentlemen bring their sweethearts to picnic and perhaps steal a kiss or two.” He grinned, and I wondered if he had planned to steal a kiss or two from me, hoping that he would. “This is sort of a celebration for you and me. One, for finding you again.” He started pouring the wine into the glasses. “Two, for our anniversary – it’s today.”

  “It is?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes, June 10. We married two years ago on a Saturday and came here to Williamsburg the next day. We had a picnic right here.” He handed the glass of wine to me.

  “Aw, how sweet of you to bring me here again. Thank you.” I clinked my glass against his. “Happy anniversary, Ethan,” I said. I wished I could remember the honeymoon he spoke of. Perhaps I would get more memories while I was here by the water or in the town where we had stayed.

  He picked up my hand and kissed it. “Happy anniversary, sweetheart,” he said very seriously. He then started cutting some cheese with a pocketknife while I tore up the bread. He began to tell me more things that I had forgotten over the years. One story was about a friend of ours, Hannah Carter, whose family was also into cotton. She had come over to Ethan’s plantation with her mother and father, as her father had business to discuss with Edward.

  “Hannah had been your friend, but that day, she almost lost your friendship.”

  “Why?” I asked, taking a bite of cheese.

  “Because you found Hannah lying on a bench with her head in my lap, down by the river. She liked me, you see. She knew you liked me, too, but she wanted to see if she could catch my eye. She didn’t come right out and say that, but I could tell what she was doing. She begged me to walk her down to the river, saying she was hot and wanted to cool off by getting her feet in the water. She took off her shoes but not her stockings, and she slipped on the rocks in the water. She was soaking wet and said she hurt her ankle. I picked her up and laid her on the bench. She also claimed she hit her head on a rock and asked if she could lay her head in my lap. So I sat down beside her, and she put her head in my lap. That’s how we were when you came upon us.”

  “I remember that now,” I said. I looked at him accusingly. “I was so angry. I thought the two of you had been playing in the water and then came up to the bench to kiss. Right when I found the two of you, she touched your face and had this dreamy look on her face.”

  “What can I say? She couldn’t keep her hands off of me,” he said, smirking.

  I smacked his arm playfully. “You were my beau. You were supposed to tell her that and make her keep her hands off you.”

  “I did tell her that, right when you walked up. So…you remember?”

  “I do now,” I said, smiling. “How old were we? I must’ve been about 14 or 15. You had all the plantation girls after you, and I was so jealous.”

  “Bu
t I only had eyes for you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “You can keep reminding me, if you want,” I said, smiling. We were quiet for a moment while Ethan got the ham out and gave me some, which I put in the middle of the bread to make a sandwich. I mused about finally remembering Ethan as a young man and myself when I was a young lady when he told me about Hannah. I remember how butterflies danced in my stomach when I saw him that day, after he got Hannah off of his lap. He later kissed me in the woods by the river to convince me that Hannah meant nothing to him. I remember how happy I was, and it made me smile just thinking about it.

  “What are you smiling about?” Ethan asked me. “Did you get another memory?”

  “Hmm? Oh, no.” I was too embarrassed to tell him that I’d been thinking about kissing him. “I’m just enjoying myself. Thank you for all this.” I found myself staring into his beautiful eyes. They were mesmerizing and distracting, seeming to change colors before me, reflecting green in the sun.

  “You’re quite welcome. Madeline, I want you to know how much it means to me to be spending time with you – our ride on horseback this morning, our morning picnic, and the trip here. I feel like I’m getting to know you again, as much as you are me.”

  My heart began to flutter again, and I smiled. “Thank you for being patient with me. I remember a lot about us when we were young, but not so much yet when we grew up. And yet there is…an affinity between us. I feel very close to you, just as I did growing up. I cherished you then, did you know that?” I took a sip of wine to try and compose myself, as I suddenly felt nervous. “I’m beginning to remember how I felt when we were courting, too…how it changed. I just feel so close to you sometimes, almost like a part of you. I know that may sound strange, I can’t explain it. I just feel…”

  At that moment, he reached over towards me and accidentally knocked over his glass of wine that had been sitting between us. It spilled onto the blanket and over onto my dress.

  “Oh Madeline, I apologize. Your dress!” he said. He began dabbing the wine off the dress with an unsoiled area of the blanket, seemingly embarrassed.

  “It’s all right,” I said, smiling. “Really. Don’t make a fuss about it. The dress already had a stain on it anyway.” I moved the pin so it would cover up this newer wetter stain. While he was cleaning up the wine glass, I wondered what he had been about to do before he overturned the wine. I thought perhaps he was about to kiss me again. I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss we shared earlier by the river and hoped we would do it again soon.

  To my disappointment, he didn’t kiss me at this time, but went quiet instead and started cleaning up the picnic. “I know what you mean,” he finally said, putting the cork back into the wine bottle. “When we were married…” He stopped what he was doing and looked at me intently. “After we were married, on our honeymoon here in Williamsburg…” He paused and I swallowed hard. “We talked about how we felt like we were one unit then. Like in the Good Book how it says that the two shall become one flesh. We felt that, physically and spiritually.” I had to fight back forming tears. I wanted to feel that. He picked up his wine glass and finished drinking the little dab that was left from the spill. “When you were gone, it felt like I’d been split apart inside.”

  “Oh, Ethan,” I really had to fight back tears then. I touched his cheek. He closed his eyes and took my hand and kissed it. He looked at me and sighed. “I apologize if I’m being too forward.”

  “You’re not.”

  He was still holding my hand. My heart beat fast with the anticipation of him kissing me, but then we heard another horse-pulled carriage arrive, which was another young couple who’d come to picnic by the water. Ethan let go of my hand. “We should head into town now,” he said. He looked a bit disappointed or flustered. I felt like he was holding back, perhaps concerned he was getting too intimate and didn’t want to scare me off. Actually the opposite was true. I wanted to feel that closeness with him more than anything, that intimacy. Yet I was too shy to initiate a kiss myself. I finished my wine and helped him pack up the picnic hamper.

  We got back in the Phaeton and made our way into Williamsburg. As we entered the little town, we passed the College of William and Mary, where some repair work was being done on the main part of the campus, the Wren Building. Ethan explained that part of it had been destroyed by Yankee soldiers during the war. He also said that Williamsburg had been under control of the Yankees during most of the war, and that no one could enter or leave without permission.

  We passed by many taverns and shops, including Campbell’s tavern, and blacksmith, boot maker, and gunsmith shops. We could see the Governor’s Palace standing regally down a long side road. Ethan pointed out the King’s Arms Tavern as the place we spent our honeymoon. It didn’t spark a memory, like I’d hoped. We stopped in front of the mercantile where we got out and went inside for some needed supplies.

  While we were looking for items on Ethan’s list, I saw a man enter who looked around and saw me, then abruptly turned and went around a corner of the store behind a tall pile of flour bags. He looked familiar but seeing him only at a glance, I couldn’t be sure.

  “Madeline?”

  “I’m sorry. Did you say something?” I turned my attention back to Ethan.

  “Would you find the coffee while I get some sugar? You still like coffee, right?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  I set off in search of coffee, all the while wondering who the familiar man was and why he took off so quickly.

  I found out when I came around strands of garlic hanging from the ceiling. Jefferson stood before me, looking at me curiously, like he couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked around me and took off again. I turned around and saw Ethan coming around the corner of the hanging garlic.

  “Madeline, did you find the coffee?”

  “Coffee? Uh, no. Not yet. Did you find the sugar?” I tried to smile, but seeing Jefferson unnerved me. He was probably the last person I wanted to see. After all those lies he told me, I really wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but then again, I didn’t want Ethan to know yet that we had seen each other while I was away. He might get the wrong idea.

  “Yes, it’s on the counter in my stack. I’ll help you find the coffee.”

  After finding the coffee and a few other items, we headed to the counter to settle the bill. Ethan asked that it be put on the Wellington tab to be paid at a later time. We carried the things out to the Phaeton and placed them in the floorboard.

  As Ethan went back inside to retrieve the last of the items, I saw Jefferson again. I walked closer to him. “Jefferson?” I said loudly. He was leaning up against the wall of the mercantile, eying me worriedly. “Jefferson, you lied to me!” I said through my teeth. “How could you?!” He quickly put a copy of the Weekly Review up in front of his face as Ethan came back out of the mercantile. I turned around quickly and joined him at the carriage. I looked back, but Jefferson had disappeared. I felt relieved but at the same time wary.

  Ethan got out the post for needing help at the plantation and took it inside the mercantile and asked permission to post it. He came back out and said he was allowed to post it out front. While he was doing that, I sat in the carriage to wait for him. Suddenly a shot rang through the air, and a bullet whizzed close by me, hitting the Phaeton instead. Screams filled the air, one of them being mine, and I noticed that people out on the street had scrambled to the ground while others ran into the mercantile. Horses whinnied, including our own, who stirred the Phaeton with their startled movement.

  I looked anxiously at Ethan, who quickly ran over to me and the Phaeton, settling the horses. That bullet had passed so close to me. Had someone been trying to shoot me? Could it have been Jefferson? Was he really that angry that I had refused to marry him? If he really wanted to marry me at all, that is. He’d told so many lies, I couldn’t be sure what he really wanted or how he really felt. If not Jefferson, I had to wonder why anyone else would want to kill me. Perhaps E
than was the target; but if so, the shooter had terrible aim.

  “Are you all right?” Ethan asked me anxiously, reaching his head inside the carriage.

  “Yes,” I said, barely able to speak.

  “Stay here, or better yet, go back inside the mercantile,” Ethan said. “I’ll be right back.” He took off running down the road in the direction the shot came from. I saw him pull out a small handgun he had tucked inside his boot. He disappeared around a corner, and I went back inside the mercantile to wait. People started talking to each other, asking if anyone saw who had shot the gun and who they were shooting at. The mercantile owner came over and closed the door, hoping to keep out the assailant. I stood next to one of the windows and watched and waited.

  Ethan returned a few moments later, came inside, and took me in his arms. “Are you all right, Maddie?” I nodded into his chest and just let him hold me for a long moment to try and settle my nerves. We turned and walked back outside to the carriage and climbed in. He inspected the Phaeton where the bullet had passed through and made a hole in the back, and also checked on the horses.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked me again. He sat close to me and put his arms around me, kissing the top of my head.

  “Yes,” I said, gathering my wits again. “What about you?” He was very brave to go running off to find the shooter.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. My only concern is for you.” He hugged me for another long moment, and I felt comforted in his arms. He reluctantly let go and yanked the reins for the horses to start moving.

  We stayed close and held hands for the trip back home, while Ethan steered the horses with his free hand.

  “Did you find the person who shot at me?”

  “Yes, but he got away. His name is Jefferson Banks, a guy who fought in the war with me.” I was shocked. He knew Jefferson? That means Jefferson knew him. Not only that, but he knew I had been married to Ethan. How dare he try to trick me into thinking I was betrothed to him, when he knew all along that I had been married to Ethan! He was playing me for a fool. How on earth had he gotten my ring?