Counterfeit Courtship

by Christina Miller

  “Are the women of the house gone?”

  “You know those two. As soon as I told them about Lydia, they headed over there with armloads of food.”

  Holding the baby with one hand, Ellie grabbed Sugar’s collar with the other. “I’ll take charge of these two. Do you want me to try to keep them quiet here in your house, or should I take them to mine?”

  No question there. “If you don’t mind, take them to the parlor. I like the sound of them playing. Just not right under my feet.”

  Within a half hour, he had all his telegrams written, along with one to General Lee to tell him they had found Father. Graham had been right. Having a little happy noise in the house had helped him concentrate. He gathered his notes in his portmanteau and stopped in the parlor on his way out. “Do you mind staying until Noreen gets home? If I send these telegrams now, I might get an answer by the end of the day.”

  “Go ahead.” Ellie looked like the mistress of the mansion, sitting beside the window, the baby on her lap and her dog at her feet.

  Graham expelled a forceful breath. Things were changing in his heart. Fast. They needed to talk, and soon.

  Betsy was pulling at Ellie’s hair now, messing up her carefully arranged knot, and the wayward strands made her look even more adorable than before.

  Best he get himself out of there before he started spouting everything in his heart.

  Two hours later, he left the telegraph office with his portmanteau stuffed full of documents and with Ellie’s cotton sold. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks. He could now provide for his family, he’d begun an interesting new business venture and he’d even started sorting out his feelings for Ellie. How could things get any better?

  Well, they’d get a lot better if Father recovered, if Leonard Fitzwald somehow fell off the planet and if the Yankee president sent Graham a pardon. But even those challenges didn’t seem as bad as before.

  When he stepped onto the Commerce Street sidewalk, Leonard Fitzwald stopped his surrey beside him. “Doing business, Colonel?”

  “My business is none of yours, Fitzwald.” Graham continued in the direction of his home.

  “Tell Ellie—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you to call her Miss Anderson?” He retraced his steps and stopped at the weasel’s carriage. “I don’t want to hear you speak her name again.”

  Fitzwald laughed. “Before long, I’ll be her husband, and then I’ll decide who calls her what.”

  If Graham didn’t get out of here now, he’d drag the good-for-nothing out of that carriage and show him who’d do the deciding around here. He turned and started across the street.

  “You and Ellie will want to attend the planters’ meeting tonight at my home.”

  “What planters’ meeting?” Something in Fitzwald’s tone bothered Graham. He took one step toward the weasel.

  “The Natchez Planters’ Alliance. The meeting in which we will decide the wages we pay the laborers. And the one in which we’ll decide the consequences for any planter who doesn’t join the Alliance.”

  “You’re not a planter. Why are you going?”

  “I’m attending as a broker, since I took over my father’s business.”

  “You don’t know anything about the brokerage.”

  “I know this—your aunt already made the whole town aware of your plan to become a broker. If you and Ellie don’t join the Alliance, you’ll get no business from our planters. They’re all plenty upset about Ellie’s business practices.”

  “What business practices?”

  “Several members have lost their laborers to Ellie because they can’t pay the wages she’s offering. The purpose of the Alliance is to keep all the wages the same. No one planter will offer more than the rest—or pay the workers before the crop comes in.”

  Graham tightened his grip on his portmanteau. He’d known Fitzwald would make things worse for Ellie, but he hadn’t foreseen this. “Bullying is your idea of doing business?”

  “It’s not bullying. No one is forcing Ellie to join or to adjust her wages. We merely give planters an incentive to think of the community as a whole.”

  “Why don’t you leave Ellie alone? She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to marry you.”

  “Fact is, I have no plans to leave her alone.” Fitzwald made a huge show of lighting a cigar he’d produced from some recess of his coat. “I’m sure you claim to love her, but so do I. Now that the war is over, I need to settle down, raise a family. I’m the right man for her.”

  He was delusional. The war must have addled his brains. “Why do you think that?”

  “I always have, since before she moved to Natchez.”

  “You didn’t know her then.”

  “But my father did.” Fitzwald’s eyes turned hard. “He owned that little railroad line we’re disputing about now. Worked hard to build it up. But he lost it in one night.”

  Graham had heard stories like this before. “He gambled it away.”

  “Exactly. To a cheating cardsharper.” Fitzwald puffed on his cigar. “His name was Edward Anderson.”

  Ellie’s father—a cardsharper?

  “I can see your surprise. She kept that little secret from you, didn’t she? It’s understandable that she didn’t want you to know, since gambling is a rather unsavory way for a woman’s father to make a living.”

  Ellie... His heart ached for her. What a heavy burden for her to carry. “Does she know?”

  “According to Joseph Duncan, she does, and is quite distraught at the news.”

  So she hadn’t known until now. And this weasel had made sure she found out. “She could have lived a happier life never knowing that. If you loved her as you say, you’d have found a way to keep it from her.”

  “Look at me!” Fitzwald shouted as he ripped the black patch from his right eye. “Can you honestly tell me I have a chance with her?”

  Graham couldn’t help staring at the empty socket, the long scar, the smooth spot where half his eyebrow should have been.

  “No. But because of who you are, not because of what your face looks like.” A little sick to his stomach at the sight, Graham finally looked away. “I’ll talk to Ellie, and maybe she’ll agree to sell you that railroad, as soon as we can find a way. I’m sure she’d give it to you to pay off the loan.”

  Fitzwald slid on the eye patch again. “That’s not good enough. Ellie is the woman I want.”

  “Why don’t you court Susanna Martin instead? She’d marry you in an instant, and she’s pretty enough.”

  The weasel laughed. “She has her cap set for you. And, as Ellie spends time with me, she’ll learn to love me.”

  Now that Fitzwald had his patch back on, Graham’s sympathy for him disappeared. Sure, he was wounded, missing an eye, but he was trying to make life unbearable for the woman Graham loved—

  The thought cut through him like a saber, sharpening and clarifying all his feelings about Ellie. Was she the woman he loved? Had he allowed himself to fall in love with her again? He paused, savoring for a moment the joy of discovery. Yes, he loved her—and he wasn’t going to stand here and watch Fitzwald ruin everything for them. “I’m not letting her marry you and be miserable for the rest of her life. Take the railroad and leave her alone.”

  “Remember that night eight years ago, when we both went to Ellie’s house? I went there to propose marriage to her. So did you, and you ran me off.”

  “I’m doing it again now.”

  “Yes, yes.” He blew a puff of smoke right into Graham’s face. “You’re trying to do that. But the fact is, Ellie refused you that night. That’s why you left town and never came back.”

  “I’m back now. I’m going to marry Ellie, and you’re going to stay away from her.” And at that moment, Graham knew it was true. Mar
rying Ellie was what he’d wanted as long as he could remember.

  “When, Colonel? I’ve heard nothing of a date. I don’t believe she consented this time either.”

  “We don’t have a date yet, but we will.” As soon as possible. As soon as he could court Ellie the right way, from his heart instead of trying to figure it out in his head. And as soon as he could get this weasel out of their lives. “Either get out of that buggy and we’ll settle this like soldiers, or drive it away from here and leave Ellie alone. Those are your choices.”

  Fitzwald tamped out his cigar. “We’re not doing it your way, Colonel. Ellie won’t make that payment, I’ll start foreclosure proceedings on Magnolia Grove, and she’ll marry me in order to keep it and to support her invalid uncle. It’s that simple.”

  The look he gave Graham with just one eye chilled him even more than General Sherman’s cold, hard glare.

  Graham had always known Fitzwald had a well-developed dark side. But until tonight, he hadn’t realized the wickedness of the man’s heart.

  He had a feeling that, in the coming days, he would see even more darkness there.

  * * *

  “You never had that talk with Lilah May.”

  Uncle Amos’s words brought Ellie’s head up from the ledger she was working in after supper that evening. She’d both anticipated and dreaded the talk, and so she’d put it off. And she didn’t have time now, since she had to determine how much money she’d need from the sale of last year’s cotton. By the end of August, they’d be harvesting, and she’d be paying extra wages. But judging from the way her uncle fidgeted with his pillows and bedsheet, she needed to have the talk, for his sake if for no other reason. “Lilah May, are you busy now?”

  “Huh. The way this man’s been eating, I’m busy cooking all the time. But I can spare a minute or two.”

  Since Miss Ophelia had convinced her uncle to sit in his bedside chair every afternoon, his improved appetite made more work for Lilah May. But what a relief to see him getting better. If only his memory would do likewise. “Let’s go downstairs to the parlor. Uncle Amos doesn’t want to listen to women’s talk.”

  And besides, that way she could see when Graham returned from sending his wires to the cotton buyers. She closed the ledger and took it with her as she and Lilah May headed for the parlor.

  Once there, she invited her maid to sit next to her on the deep blue couch. “Uncle Amos wants you to talk to me about romance and courtship.”

  “He wants me to tell you more than that.”

  Ellie glanced out the front window. Perhaps Graham would come home soon and relieve her from what would surely prove to be an embarrassing discussion.

  “He asked me to tell you his story.”

  At that, Ellie turned her attention to Lilah May. “I didn’t know he had a story.”

  “It’s not a happy one. I remember when he first started courting.”

  Uncle Amos—courting?

  “He has loved one woman his entire life.”

  That couldn’t be. But she’d never known Lilah May to make up stories. “Who is it?”

  “Ophelia Adams.”

  “Miss Ophelia!” Ellie leaned forward to catch every nuance of this suddenly interesting conversation. “But she married Willis Adams. What happened?”

  “Mister Willis went to war in Mexico. He was in love with Miss Ophelia and wanted to marry her before he left. But her parents, Mister Graham’s grandparents, wouldn’t let her. She was only sixteen.”

  “That’s not so young to marry.”

  “No, ma’am, but Miss Ophelia’s mother thought it was too young to be a widow. So she and Miss Ophelia’s daddy made them wait and forbade Mister Willis from having contact with her while he was away.”

  “They thought they were insulating her from pain, didn’t they? But I can imagine that it didn’t work out that way.”

  “It worked out fine for Miss Ophelia. Mister Willis courted her through the mail, sending his letters to Mister Amos to give to her. He also asked Mister Amos to squire his girl around town to make it look like she was courting with him instead of Mister Willis.”

  All at once, Ellie saw what was coming. “And my uncle fell in love with her.”

  “He never told her. But he never found another woman, and now that Miss Ophelia is a widow, Mister Amos is sick and can’t court her.” Lilah May ran her hand down her skirt, smoothing it. “Usually, when a man and woman spend that much time together, one or both of them fall in love. Mister Amos is afraid you’ll fall in love with the colonel, and you’ll get hurt.”

  A tight laugh erupted from Ellie’s throat. “I’m not falling in love with him. And he certainly isn’t in love with me.”

  “I got eyes,” Lilah May said with that you-can’t-fool-me look of hers. “Neither one of you has any experience in love, except that time before he left for West Point. So you don’t know how to hide your feelings. I can see you’re in love.”

  “No, you’re wrong.” Wasn’t she? “We were children when he went away. As for now, yes, Graham is a handsome man—and strong and gentle and dependable and honorable, but anybody can see that. It doesn’t mean I’m in love with him.”

  Lilah May wasn’t convinced. Ellie could see it in her eyes. “You’re right. But what happened to you eight years ago, the day he went away?”

  Ellie expelled a sharp breath, remembering how she hadn’t come out of her room for four days. She’d cried until she’d feared her heart would break, and then she’d feared it wouldn’t and she would continue to live. Ellie had numbed since then, had pushed the memory so far back in her mind that it frightened her to recall it now. Those dark days and tormented nights had been far worse than even the day her mother died. At least Mother was out of her misery. With Graham, there’d seemed to be no release from it.

  She clawed her way out of that memory and back to the present. When Lilah May passed her a handkerchief, Ellie realized her cheeks were wet with tears. At the time, she’d seemed to have no choice but to refuse Graham. She couldn’t have been wrong, could she?

  “How would a person know for sure?”

  “I don’t know about that. But it seems to me that if you imagine what your life would be like without him, and you can’t stand the thought of it, that would be a clue.”

  Graham strode up the walk then. His posture, his gait, told her something had changed—something big.

  Lilah May glanced out the window too, and then she stood and started upstairs. “There’s one sure way to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When you give away money you need so someone else can live his dream of being a planter, you’re in love.”

  The little snoop. “You looked over my shoulder when I was figuring the cotton sale in Uncle Amos’s room.”

  “I did, but I didn’t have to. You were muttering the whole time you were figuring.”

  Ellie had to break that bad habit. “How does Uncle Amos bear not having the woman he loves?”

  “Same way you do. He pretends it didn’t happen. It worked until this courtship thing came up with you and the colonel. He’s perturbed about it because it makes him think about his past.” Lilah May scurried up the stairs.

  Imagine what your life would be without him. What would she do if Graham left again? Never to see him again—what would her life be like?

  She opened the door. He met her on the gallery, his eyes gray in the softer light, his face strong with a shadow of evening beard, his bearing solid and gentle. Life without him—

  Her breath caught at the thought.

  “Ellie? Are you all right?”

  What had he seen in her face? She shook off the thought and scrambled to think of something that would take the focus from her discomfort.

  “You sent the wires?” Having final
ly come up with a conversation topic, she breathed deep of the sweetness of relief. “What have you heard in return?”

  He gestured at her dress. “I assume you want me to come in and tell you, but I doubt I could get past those skirts.”

  She moved inside so he could pass through the doorway, unhindered by hoopskirts. On second thought, she needed to examine these new emotions of hers before she could trust herself to be alone with him and not blurt out something silly. The front gallery would be safer, out in public as it was. She waved her trembling hand at him as if shooing a fly. “There’s a nice breeze. Let’s sit outside.”

  He hesitated. “We don’t want anyone to overhear. I have some rather private things to tell you—”

  “Go, go!” She pushed at his shoulder.

  “Ellie, what is the matter with you?”

  So much for not sounding silly. “It’s just that...I want so much to sit outside.”

  Graham shook his head, his unbelief all over his face. For a moment, she thought he was going to say something, but he merely stepped back and gestured for her to come outside.

  “I sold the cotton to Mister Owen Bradley of San Antonio.” He held out her chair and then sat next to her—a little too close, to her thinking. He handed her a small paper sack. “For a modest celebration.”

  She opened the sack. Pralines.

  He remembered.

  “They used to be your favorite.”

  “And they still are. I haven’t allowed myself the luxury in a long time.” She selected one for him, then reached in again for hers. She took a nibble of the nutty, creamy confection. “It’s even better than I remember.”

  Graham ate half of his in one bite. “We used to think nothing of buying a sack of these every day. Now it’s a treat. Things have changed in eight years.”

  Yes, they had. “I don’t mind, though. Sometimes life seems sweeter when we have to do without. We appreciate the treats more.”

  “You’re going to appreciate my news too. We’re putting the first load of cotton on a steamboat at seven tomorrow morning, and the next one at noon. We have to ship as much as the boats can hold every day in order to empty the barns for the new crop.” He ate the rest of his candy. “The cotton will travel to New Orleans via steamboat, then the Louisiana–Texas Railroad—your railroad—will take it to Mister Bradley in San Antonio. From there, Bradley will transport it to Mexico.”