“Don’t be jealous yet. If we owe Leonard thirty thousand dollars, we’re in trouble. Not to mention paying the workers and property taxes and having something to live on until the fall harvest.”
With the horses cared for, they made for the house. “It’s still a beautiful home,” Graham said, “and you have every chance of keeping it and living in it again someday.”
“As soon as Uncle Amos recovers enough to travel. It’s a pity we were in town when he took ill.” Now that her initial embarrassment seemed to have passed, Ellie hurried him toward the house. “Let’s open the windows and then have dinner under the live oak out front, where we might catch a breeze. I want to search the library as fast as we can. The thought of that loan is choking me more than the heat.”
They left the basket under the tree and headed inside to the darkened library. When they pulled the blinds and opened the windows, a nice breeze wafted in.
“I should probably bring all of Uncle Amos’s records to town,” she said, “but for now, I come out here to do much of his bookwork.”
“By yourself?”
“There’s no one else. I told you, things have changed. We do what we have to.” Ellie skirted past him into the great hall, where she opened the back door to let the breeze blow through the whole house.
There was clearly no point in arguing with her about that. He merely followed her to the parlor, where they opened more windows to create a crosswind.
Minutes later, under the oak’s low-hanging branches again, Ellie spread her blanket on the ground. She set out the food and table service, poured glasses of lemonade from the crock and lifted the towel from the bowl of fried chicken. Then she bowed her head as if to pray silently.
Graham began a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving instead, and Ellie glanced at him with eyes widened in surprise.
After his “amen,” she sat still for a moment as he filled his plate. “I’ve eaten alone since Uncle Amos took sick, because he eats at odd hours, whenever he’s hungry. Until now, I didn’t realize how much I miss praying with someone else.”
The wistfulness in her voice brought a lump to his throat as he realized he felt the same way. Words slipped from his mouth before he could sort them out in his mind. “Ellie, you need a husband.”
* * *
“You’re a fine one to think so.”
Graham’s downcast gaze cut into Ellie like a cotton hoe. “I’ve always thought so,” he said, his voice quiet.
So he had.
When would she learn to think before speaking? “I meant you have no room to speak, since you refuse to marry too.”
“With good reason.”
“My reason is good too.”
“Then let’s hear it.”
She knew she shouldn’t have told him how good her reason was, knew he’d take it as a challenge. And one thing she’d never seen Graham Talbot do was back down from a challenge. “I don’t want to, that’s all.”
He laughed, but it sounded short, sarcastic. “All unmarried women are looking for a husband. Look at that pack of wolves following Susanna around.”
She couldn’t explain to him the horror of being orphaned, of being taken in by strangers until Uncle Amos could get there to collect her. And little Betsy brought it all back again, stronger than before. Relying on her father to provide for her—and being disappointed—had been one thing. Depending on neighbors for daily food was another.
Sitting there with Graham, under her favorite live oak, Ellie renewed her childhood vow. Never again would she depend on anyone else to provide for her. Her uncle had taken the past thirteen years to teach her to be a planter. Not a planter’s wife.
And a planter she would be.
Graham tapped her forehead. “Ellie, I can see there’s a lot going on in there. Want to tell me about it?”
“Not if you plan to solve my problems by telling me to get married.” She reached for a drumstick from the bowl. She’d let him help her look for information about the loan, and she’d even ask his advice about the crops, since he used to help his father. But that was all.
“Then what if I help you get rid of Leonard Fitzwald?”
He said it in a way that made it sound like an adventure. “How can we do that?”
“By first finding out if your uncle took out another loan from him. Then we’ll go from there.”
“I can agree to that.”
They ate the chicken, biscuits and watermelon—and the pecan pie Lilah May must have sneaked into the basket. Then they headed to the house to begin their search for proof of a second loan.
At three o’clock, Ellie pushed back the hair that had fallen from her pins and over her eyes. “We’ve taken these files apart. There’s nothing here.”
Graham picked up the stack of documents he’d been reading and stuffed them back into their folder. “There’s nothing in here either. I don’t think anyone other than your uncle’s attorney can help us. Let’s call on Joseph Duncan on Monday and find out what he knows.”
“You want to go along?”
“I want to make sure that weasel Fitzwald doesn’t take advantage of you—or anybody else in this town.”
Ah, so Graham’s purpose was preventing Leonard from doing more harm in Natchez, not just to protect Ellie. That was fine with her. Graham—always the soldier, ever the protector, even before West Point. The thought deepened her years-long admiration of him. “How about taking a tour of the fields now?”
He followed her to the stable, where they quickly mounted their horses. Within minutes, they headed to the nearest field—two hundred acres of cotton and close to the house.
“The plants look healthy to me.” Ellie turned in the saddle to glance back at him. “No blossoms yet, but they could start anytime. The squares look good.”
They crossed toward the field in the bottom land. “This is the best soil but the hardest field to get to because of the swampy ground south of it.”
When they reached the bottom land, true Delta soil, Graham let out a low whistle.
“I know.” Ellie took in the sight, over four hundred acres of cotton with thick weeds almost as tall as the crop. “We probably should have weeded this first, since it gives the highest yield of any field. But it’s also the biggest field. Since we have a lot of new workers, I thought I should let them start with the smaller, more easily accessible ones.”
Graham studied the area and then nudged Dixie to move ahead of her. “I’m not sure that was such a bad idea. The other fields are clean. What are you going to do with this one?”
She couldn’t help the smile she felt blooming on her face. “Do you realize you just asked me to make a plan?”
“No, I didn’t.” Graham held up both hands, one of them still with the reins in it. “I merely acknowledged that you would have one, and I wanted to prepare myself.”
“You’re right. I do. I’ve been corresponding with Miss Eugenia Middleton in South Carolina. The Middletons are in rice, you know.” She pulled the reins, bringing Buttercup to a stop. “They use a different method there. We require our workers to keep set hours, so many hours a day and so many days a week. But the Middletons use the task system. They give each worker a task for the day, and when the job is done, they go home.”
“How will that work with the few field hands you have now?”
“Starting next week, I’m going to pay by the task. When the task gets done, the worker gets paid.”
“I don’t see how that will get this field weeded any faster.”
“Easy. The harvest around here is going to be plentiful, but the workers are few. Most of the freedmen left the plantations as soon as they could. But now they’re trickling back, having discovered that jobs are hard to find in the city.” She smiled at the beauty of the plan and the pleasure of having to explain it to
him. Maybe now he would see that she could think things through. “Every planter in Natchez is trying to get the same few field hands. I’m going to entice them to work for me by dividing the labor into tasks they can complete in one day. And I’m going to pay for each completed task every day.”
His smoky-green eyes turned gray. “Ellie, that’s not going to work. Do you realize how expensive that will be? Do you have enough money?”
Did they know anyone in the South who had enough money?
“As long as we don’t have to make a thirty-thousand-dollar loan payment to Leonard.” As long as her property tax bill wasn’t much more than last year’s. As long as the bottom didn’t fall out of the cotton price. And as long as she could get her stash of last year’s cotton from its hiding places and ship it to New Orleans on just the right day, when the price would be the highest of the season...
Her idea of just days ago now hung limp in the air.
Chapter Seven
“Now that I think of it, we shouldn’t have checked the fields this afternoon. When we didn’t find anything in Uncle Amos’s study, we should have gone straight to Joseph Duncan’s office. I need my attorney here for this meeting.” Ellie paced the front gallery of her home at ten to eight that evening, Sugar pacing right along with her. She’d turned up all the gaslights as far as they would go, wanting all of Pearl Street to see Graham here on the porch, supposedly courting her.
Which might have been fine if Leonard Fitzwald wasn’t coming over. What would that look like? At any rate, it was too late to worry.
“Here comes Leonard in his father’s surrey, racing the wind as usual.” Graham looked every inch an officer, standing next to her rocker as if ready to cuff anyone who bothered her.
And if that person was Leonard, he just might do it.
The surrey came to a bone-rattling stop in front of the house. Leonard got out, accompanied by Joseph, his familiar brown leather satchel in his hand.
“I’m not riding home with you in that buggy of death.” Joseph’s face looked nearly as white as his famed moustache. “You’re going to kill that horse if you don’t slow down. And he was your father’s favorite.”
Leonard strode up the brick walk ahead of the elderly man. “I pay you for legal advice, Duncan, not for a lecture on driving,” he said in that annoyingly raspy voice.
As they drew closer, Sugar rumbled out a growl from deep in her throat and bared her teeth at them.
“What’s the matter with the dog?” Graham asked, his brows raised.
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard her growl at anyone before. And what’s Joseph doing here?” Something was wrong, she could see it on her attorney’s face. “Do you think he heard what was going on and came to help?”
Graham didn’t answer but laid his hand on her shoulder in a strangely comforting manner.
Taking the gallery steps two at a time, Leonard scanned the area, especially the tray Lilah May had brought out minutes before. “I’m not meeting with you out here. Stand away from the door, Colonel, while we go into the house like civilized people.”
“If that was the case, you’d need to stay out anyway.” Graham’s eyes blazed, igniting gratitude in Ellie’s heart. After what Graham had said about this man, she wouldn’t have wanted to meet with him alone, not even with Joseph here.
She stopped the thought cold. What was she thinking? Of course she would have met with him alone. That’s what she’d vowed to do—be alone.
“Leonard, sit down. My uncle has had a bad day, and I don’t want to disturb him. Joseph, would you please sit here by my side?” She tried to imagine what her poised, confident mother would have done in this situation. From what Ellie could remember of her, she would have taken charge of the men without letting on that she was doing so. Dear Jesus, please help me to know what to do, what to say.
“I’m here to discuss—”
“Mister Fitzwald, kindly remember that I am your counselor.” Joseph impaled him with his gaze. “It would behoove you to keep your peace and allow me to speak.”
Leonard’s counselor? How could that be? Wasn’t he here to represent Ellie?
She realized then that she hadn’t served refreshments, so she poured a glass of lemonade for Joseph. As she lifted it to hand it to him, Leonard reached out and took it instead.
Sugar growled louder, then barked and began to circle him.
“Get this dog away from me!” Leonard kicked in Sugar’s direction but missed.
“What is the matter with you, Sugar?” Ellie had no idea what Mother would have done about all this. “She’s never acted like this before. Graham, please put her in the library, where she won’t hear us, and shut the door.”
When Graham left to carry out her request, she offered a glass to Joseph.
“None for me, Ellie,” he said, rubbing his abdomen as if it wouldn’t agree with him.
That was a bad sign. Her attorney, who was apparently also Leonard’s attorney, was known up and down the Mississippi River as having the stomach of a billy goat.
Graham came back outside then, and Ellie poured a glass for him, but he waved it away and laid his warm hand on her shoulder again. She sipped the drink herself.
“Before we start, I want Colonel Talbot to vacate the premises,” Leonard said. “This doesn’t involve him.”
“He will stay. Word has it that he and Miss Anderson have an agreement, and with her father deceased and her uncle incapacitated, she is wise to have the support of her intended for this meeting.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts.” Leonard gulped down his drink and poured himself another.
Even Joseph had heard of their supposed courtship? And believed it? Her respect for her uncle’s friend caught in her throat. This felt wrong, so wrong. Maybe she should confess the whole scheme.
But in front of Leonard, and without Graham’s approval? Then again, she’d started this without his consent, so perhaps it would be better to end without it too. But would it embarrass him in front of Leonard? She looked to Graham for some signal, some message that would relay his wishes.
He stood silent as the tomb.
Before she could decide what to do, Joseph opened his satchel and took out some papers. “We’re here to discuss the estate of the late Mister Robert Fitzwald.” Joseph’s tone had turned businesslike, his eyes like flint as he watched Leonard. “Upon his demise, he left behind, among other things, a lien against your property for the borrowed sum of thirty thousand dollars.”
The air grew thin, and Ellie’s chest ached with the skipped beats of her heart. “Thirty thousand?”
“Joseph, are you sure?” Graham asked, his grip tightening on her shoulder.
“I was Robert’s attorney and, I regret to say, I’m also Leonard’s. For now. This is the last action I will take as his counsel.”
No, this couldn’t be happening. Thirty thousand... She clenched the glass in her hand. “I know only of a fifteen-thousand-dollar note.”
“The first fifteen was for taxes and personal expenses,” Joseph said, “and the second fifteen for labor and the new cotton gin.”
“But I thought we paid our own taxes last year.”
“The taxes were paid with this loan. This is the agreement. You’ll see your uncle’s signature, and mine, since I filed the note at the courthouse.” Her attorney handed her the stack of papers he’d pulled from the satchel. “You’ll see, dear, that the note is due in two weeks.”
“I can’t pay it.” The fluttering in her chest intensified, and she leaned back in her chair and fanned herself with a rose-colored napkin until it abated. Even if she picked every boll on every stalk of cotton, she couldn’t pay it. Not without a competent broker. Since the elder Mister Fitzwald passed on, Leonard was the only broker between here and New Orleans. And he had no experience.
She’d let the cotton rot in the fields and in her hiding places before she’d let this man sell it.
“Talbot, what are your circumstances?” Joseph interrupted her thoughts, his voice laced with anxiety. “I know you lost Ashland Place and Ammadelle. Do you have other property or money that I don’t know about—that a hasty marriage would allow you to use to remedy this?”
She looked up at Graham. He hesitated, his shame palpable and acute. “I have nothing, Joseph.”
“I feared so.” Joseph slumped in his chair in a posture of defeat.
Leonard, on the other hand, sat on the edge of his seat, his one good eye wide as if he was watching a riveting play unfold. “And the rest, Joseph?”
“There’s more?” Graham clasped both her shoulders now. She could feel the tension in his grip, and it both comforted and frightened her. If he was that concerned...
“Magnolia Grove, this home on Pearl Street and your father’s Louisiana–Texas Railroad are all tied into this loan. If you default, you will lose them all.”
Her heart raced with the shock. Lose both properties? How could that be?
An instant later, she heard the tinkling of shattered glass and then realized she’d dropped her mother’s crystal tumbler.
The light yellow of the lemonade made a puddle on the white painted wooden floor, and the glass formed a sharp design. Watching the puddle spread, she tightened her abdomen against the lacerating pain forming there—as if cut by glass...
“Ellie!” Graham’s voice brought her out of her daze.
“I—I dropped the glass—”
Suddenly light-headed, she felt like a little girl again, a girl with no parents, no home—only an uncle she had never met. No comforting arms surrounding her, no kind words to soothe her heart—only loneliness.
Only the ache.
Counterfeit Courtship Page 7