Counterfeit Courtship

by Christina Miller

  In the quiet of the river, the violin music carried along the water and played softly for them, flavoring the air with its high, poignant notes. “This is better.”

  “I’d rather have a restful evening on a swing than a boisterous one at a party.” Ellie sipped her drink and then faced him. “It’s a picnic. You didn’t get anything to eat.”

  “I’m fine. Are you hungry?”

  “No.” She sat with her back straight and her skirts gracefully arranged around her like the belle she was. Just as a Southern gentleman didn’t offend a lady, a Southern lady didn’t sit like a man—or act like a man. Unless she was driving her carriage to the plantation she managed. Or checking the cotton fields. Or making plans to keep that plantation running...

  Or providing work for her old childhood friend in a way that let him still feel like a man.

  Graham chugged the rest of his drink. The wind shifted then and carried with it the sweet scent of her perfume, as well as an even sweeter strain of a song he didn’t recognize.

  Ellie continued to sip her punch, watching the river, then watching him. The breeze tickled his neck, and the cicadas sang their own melody as he caught his reflection in her blue, blue eyes. Eyes that saw straight through to his heart, and always had.

  Something about the peaceful look on Ellie’s face drew him as never before. She had to be terrified about the future—Graham sure was, and he had less to lose than she did. Her poise was as natural as a society princess’s, and she had the beauty of a pampered heiress, but she chose to be neither. And at this moment, he’d give what little he had left in this world if he could take more of the burden from her.

  He took her glass and set it with his at their feet. The violins hushed for an instant, then played the opening strains of “Aura Lea.”

  The song he and Ellie had danced to the first night he was home... The song of the maid with golden hair...

  Not giving himself time to think, he cupped his hand behind her neck and let his gaze drift to her lips.

  “Ellie...” He gently pulled her toward him and kissed her.

  She tasted of cherries and sunshine, warmth and lemon. And when she slipped her arm around his waist and kissed him back, a portion of the stoniness of the years washed out of his heart. His finger traced her jaw, the smoothness of her cheek.

  Ellie. Sweet, smart, generous Ellie, the girl he’d loved so long ago. The one face he always saw when he awoke in the night—the girl of his dreams and the woman of his future—

  The future.

  No. He pulled away. There was no future. He had no future. No, no, no.

  Graham opened his eyes to see the shock on her face. He cradled her cheek in his hand. “Ellie, forgive me. I shouldn’t have done that. I made you a promise.”

  “Graham—”

  “I’m a bum. I’m worse than Fitzwald.” He turned from her, suddenly unable to look into those big eyes that held—confusion. Not affection, not even surprise. Confusion. He heaved a sigh that came from his gut. “At least he’s offering to marry you.”

  Standing, he kicked their empty glasses to one side. He turned his back to her, faced the river. The swishing of her skirts told him she had stood too. Then he felt her take his hand.

  Ellie heaved a huge breath. “Graham. It’s all right. We’ll pretend it didn’t happen. Just don’t think about it.”

  Don’t think about it. Like he hadn’t thought about it at West Point, through the whole blamed war and every waking moment since he came back to Natchez? He’d dreamed of kissing her, longed to hold her, wanted to touch her face for eight years.

  Don’t think about it. He’d never kissed her. And now he had, and she wanted him not to think about it.

  Why had he done it? He always said Ellie needed to start thinking things through before she acted. Well, she surely had the right to hang that over his head now. He’d kept his sanity through thirty-one battles during the war. Never lost control. But give him one golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty who was smarter than him and more courageous than him and he was a goner.

  He turned to her, beside him, those big eyes of hers looking right through to his heart. “I’ll leave town. I’ll find somewhere to go, and I’ll leave tonight.”

  “Who will provide for Betsy if you do? Your whole family needs you.”

  Why did she have to be right? “We’ll sell the house. We’ll move to the other side of—”

  “Graham.” Her voice was firm but soft. “You’re talking foolishness. I know you can’t marry me. You know I won’t ever marry. We still have our promise, and we’ll just call this a slipup. A mistake.”

  Did he imagine it, or were her eyes showing him that she felt as he did—that it was not a mistake? Had she enjoyed their kiss as much as he had?

  “I didn’t think I’d ever know what it was like to kiss a man. It was nice.” Her eyes twinkled in the last rays of the sun. “It was—really nice.”

  She had never kissed a man? He’d look even more the fool to her now if he told her how many women he’d kissed—zero—since that fateful evening when he asked her to be his wife. She probably wouldn’t believe this was his first kiss too.

  “If what you’re saying is true, Ellie, neither of us will ever forget this day.”

  The sad thing was, he knew he was right.

  * * *

  If only Ellie could get home and be alone with her thoughts. Thoughts of that kiss.

  Leaving Joseph’s party with Graham, she fought through a bone-weariness she hadn’t experienced since the early days of Uncle Amos’s stroke of apoplexy.

  “Ellie, is that you?”

  Leonard. At the sound of his raspy voice, she clutched her reticule tighter.

  Graham drew her closer and turned toward the unwelcome sound. “What do you want, Fitzwald?”

  “I couldn’t let you leave the party before I had a chance to speak with you.” His Confederate uniform clean and starched stiff, Leonard hastened toward them with Susanna Martin on his arm as if they were a courting couple.

  What were they doing together? Had Susanna stopped pursuing Graham? And, more important, had Leonard given up his interest in Ellie?

  “I told you to call her Miss Anderson.” Graham gave him a look as hard as his voice.

  “I only want to let Ellie know that my offer still stands. I assume you’ll visit our attorney tomorrow to get the details about my proposed agreement. At least, that’s what I would do in your position. When you’re finished at his office, I’m confident that you’ll want to visit mine.” Leonard ran his finger along the scar on his cheekbone. “In fact, you might want to speak with me after you get back to the colonel’s house tonight.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind about your offer, Leonard.” Ellie worked to keep her voice steady. Something about his words sounded ominous, dark. But she didn’t want him to know how much he was scaring her.

  “You will.”

  His tone now frightened her more than his words. She instinctively backed away from him.

  “Fitzwald, stay away from Ellie.” Graham pulled her closer, his eyes seething with his anger, every inch of him a warrior, every breath a threat.

  “Colonel Talbot, must you speak so harshly to Captain Fitzwald?” Susanna batted her long lashes at Leonard. “He’s a Confederate veteran and one of our city’s wealthiest men.”

  “If he’s got so much money, why doesn’t he buy a suit? It’s time to stop impersonating a soldier, Fitzwald.”

  “I’ll have a lot more money two weeks from now.” Leonard’s smirk revealed the guile in his heart. “Yes, I’ll soon be a richer man, one way or the other. I’m getting a real gem.”

  “The only thing you’re going to get is a black eye. Ellie, let’s go, before I’m obligated to give it to him.”

  They started down the
sidewalk at a pace so fast, Ellie was hard-pressed to keep up. However, the faster they could get away from Leonard, the better. “We should have taken the landau instead of walking tonight.”

  “The last thing I need now is for that weasel to goad me about driving your carriage.”

  “Leonard knew we were going to see Joseph tomorrow.”

  “He merely guessed.”

  “No, I think he knew how confused I would be about that railroad. That’s what this whole mess is about, I’m sure of it.”

  “It seems that way.” Graham glanced behind them, no doubt to make sure Leonard didn’t follow them. “If he’s so set on marrying you, why would he court with Susanna? And why would she have anything to do with him? He’s a coward, he’s mean and he’s not the best-looking man in town either.”

  “He’s rich, that’s why. Susanna is after a man, but if the handsome, poor man won’t have her, she’ll take the ugly, rich one.”

  Having left Leonard far behind, Ellie pressed Graham’s arm to slow his stride. “I can’t keep up with you.”

  Graham eased off into a stroll, giving Ellie a chance to catch her breath. When they reached a shady spot under a magnolia, he stopped and faced her. They probably looked like any ordinary courting couple. Except for the fact that Graham looked extraordinary in his uniform. No wonder Susanna had her heart set on him.

  “I hope he didn’t upset you too much,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  Ellie held fast to his arm, looking up into his eyes, and the tenderness there took her breath. How quickly he’d changed from fierce to gentle. If only things had been different, if she were different, she could let herself get lost in that gaze—

  “Ellie!”

  The high-pitched voice came from behind her, and Ellie jerked her hand from Graham’s arm. She turned toward the sound and saw her old friend Lydia Sutton running up the street, her faded skirts twirling with each step.

  “Lydia, what on earth...?”

  Reaching Ellie, the woman clasped her reddened, work-roughened hands together, tears in her eyes. “Little Annie is sick with croup. Could you spare us some cherry pectoral? I can’t get Doctor Pritchert because we already owe him so much money after Myron’s war injury. His leg, you know.”

  “Of course.” She took Lydia’s hand and started home at a good clip. “This is Colonel Talbot. He went to West Point before you moved to town and then, of course, the war. Graham, this is Lydia Sutton. When we were girls, she and her family lived on the edge of the Pearl Street neighborhood.”

  Lydia heaved a huge sigh. “That was before things got bad in Natchez. We lost our house, and now Myron and I live along the river with our baby, Annie. And I’m acquainted with your stepmother, Colonel. Please give her my greetings.”

  “I’ll do it as soon as I see her.”

  “How old is Annie now?” Ellie asked.

  “Eight months.”

  “Oh, dear. That’s the same age as Colonel Talbot’s orphaned niece who is living with them.”

  “I heard she was here, and that she’s your namesake, Ellie.”

  As they rounded the corner to Ellie’s home, she realized she had given neither Lydia nor Annie much thought since they stopped attending church. From the haggard look on Lydia’s face, she could use a friend.

  Graham opened the door for them. Once inside, Ellie sent them to the parlor, with Sugar right behind them, while she retrieved her elixir.

  Upon finding it, she hastened to the parlor. She handed the bottle to Lydia and then opened her reticule. “Take this gold dollar in case the elixir doesn’t work and you need to get Doctor Pritchert.”

  “Ellie, I can’t take your money. I had to swallow my pride and nearly choked on it just to beg medicine from you.” The tears welled up in her eyes again. “And I wouldn’t have asked for that if I hadn’t needed it for my baby.”

  She pressed the money into Lydia’s hand. “You’ll take this for your baby too. I feel partly at fault for your predicament. I should have called on you when you stopped coming to church. I wasn’t a good friend to you, and I hope you’ll accept both the money and my apology.”

  Lydia’s tears spilled over, and she pressed a kiss against Ellie’s cheek.

  “I’ll help Roman hitch Lucy and Buttercup to the carriage so she doesn’t have to walk home.” With Lydia’s face turned to the medicine bottle, Graham smiled and winked at Ellie.

  The gesture made her heart flip and her mind turn back to their kiss. Her face warming, she pressed her hand to her chest. Well. He certainly must have approved of her giving away the dollar. “Good idea. Lydia lives a mile out, and she needs to get this medicine to the baby.”

  “Thank you. Mother is home with her, so I should get back. Myron heard of a man who’s hiring, and he’s at his house now to try for the job. On Sunday. I never thought it would come to this.”

  “Things are hard all over Natchez—for everybody.” Then she thought of Leonard. Things were hard for...almost everybody.

  “I never thought I’d have to beg. We weren’t wealthy, not like your family or Colonel Talbot’s, but we had a nice small home and decent clothes. Until tonight, I haven’t been ashamed of our situation because I know it’s not Myron’s fault. I certainly never expected this.” Lydia wiped her eyes on a tattered handkerchief. “Myron even asked for work with the Freedmen’s Bureau.”

  Ellie sucked in her breath. Every Southerner hated that newly formed Yankee agency, established to rebuild the South after the war. Myron must have felt desperate if he’d taken such measures. “But he didn’t get work with the Bureau?”

  “No, not even after he spent an hour waiting for the Bureau agent in the parlor of that seedy old Mason’s Boardinghouse. I declare, as soon as he got home, I made him change clothes out on the back gallery so I could boil the lice out of them.” Lydia shuddered as if those lice were crawling on her skirt. “That Leonard Fitzwald got the job instead of Myron. I think he’s selfish to take it when my husband needs the work so badly. Mister Fitzwald has enough money to keep him in tall cotton for the rest of his life.”

  That much was true. And Leonard never was known for generosity.

  “We’ve all suffered from this war. I don’t understand why God saw fit to allow us to keep our home this long, but I’m grateful for it. I don’t take it for granted as I used to.” She looked around the room, its familiar furnishings and pretty décor. “And there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to keep it.”

  “I used to think that because we were Christians, the war wouldn’t touch us. Then when we lost our house, I got angry and blamed God.” Lydia turned toward the window as if ashamed to face Ellie with her truth. “I even refused to go to church. Myron wanted to go, but I wouldn’t, so he stayed home too. Now I wish I could go back, but I’m afraid people won’t want us.”

  Ellie clasped Lydia’s hand. “I’m confident they will want you. But I think you fear God’s rejection, not people’s.”

  “That too,” she said in a squeaky voice.

  “The father was glad to see the prodigal son when he came home.”

  Lydia’s tears started raining down her face. It was as if Ellie could see the woman’s despair leaking from her eyes. “Do you think He would be glad to see me too?”

  “I do.”

  She squeezed Ellie’s hand. “Then we’ll come. I’ve wanted to for so long.”

  A half hour later, having driven Lydia home and seen her safely in the house, Graham and Ellie headed for home. “I was proud of you tonight,” he said.

  “Proud of me?”

  “You told me that you had enough money in the sideboard safe to pay your workers this week, plus a dollar for food. And I saw you give away that dollar tonight.”

  She felt her face flaming. “Thank you, but it wasn’t that much.”

&nbs
p; “But it was. The widow gave her mite, and you gave your gold dollar. It was all you had.”

  “I have more than Lydia does. And we’ll get by just fine. I still have some canned beef and some rice, and Roman has been picking green beans and digging some new potatoes. He fishes and catches crawfish for us too. We won’t go hungry.”

  He smiled at her in the moonlight as they pulled into her drive. “Come over and I’ll cook you some camp rations if you do.”

  She smiled back. “I will.” Then she sat forward. “You made a little joke!”

  “Some people think I’m gloomy all the time. I wanted to show them that I’m not.”

  “You’re making progress.” While she appreciated his lightness, she still fought the emotion that blocked her throat. “Lydia wants to come back to church when the baby gets better.”

  “Your gift opened that door.” He helped Ellie out, his touch tender and his voice low, and he let his hands linger on her waist, drawing an extra beat from her heart—

  The sound of sobbing, followed by Betsy’s crying, tore through the open gallery windows. “That’s not Miss Noreen. Who is it?” Ellie said.

  Graham didn’t answer. He bolted through the yard and into the house. When Ellie got there, she started for the parlor, where the crying seemed to come from.

  She heard Graham’s voice before she saw him. “Aunt Ophelia, what’s wrong?”

  Ellie entered the parlor, her heart heavy for the poor dear. For all her eccentricity, the older woman loved her only brother. Seeing him in this condition must have torn her heart out.

  But Mister Talbot wasn’t in the room.

  Betsy sat crying on her blanket while Miss Noreen tried to comfort Miss Ophelia on the couch. Graham sat on his aunt’s other side, so Ellie picked up the baby and paced the floor with her as she’d seen Miss Noreen do.